8 things you probably didn’t know about C#
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Here’s a few unusual things about C# that few C# developers seem to know about.
1. Indexers can use params
We all know the regular indexer pattern x = something["a"] and to implement it, you write:
public string this[string key] {
get { return internalDictionary[key]; }
}
But did you know that you can use params to allow x = something["a", "b", "c", "d"] ?
You write your indexer like this:
public IEnumerable<string> this[params string[] keys] {
get { return keys.Select(key => internalDictionary[key]).AsEnumerable(); }
}
The cool thing is you can have both indexers in the same class side-by-side. If somebody passes an array or multiple args, they get an IEnumerable back but call with a single arg, and they get a single value.
2. Strings defined multiple times in your code are folded into one instance
Many developers believe that:
if (x == "" || x == "y") { }
creates a couple of strings every time. It doesn’t.
C#, like many languages, has string interning, and every string your app compiles with gets put into an in-memory list referenced at runtime.
You can use String.Intern to see if it’s currently in this list but bear in mind that doing String.Intern("what") == "what" will always return true as you just defined another string in your source. String.IsInterned("wh" + "at") == "what" will also return true thanks to compiler optimizations. String.IsInterned(new string(new char[] { 'w','h','a','t' }) == new string(new char[] { 'w','h','a','t' }) will only return true if you have "what" elsewhere in your program or something else at runtime has added it to the intern pool.
If you have classes that build-up or retrieve regularly used strings at runtime, consider using String.Intern to add them to the pool. Bear in mind once they’re in, they remain there until your app quits, so use String.Intern carefully. The syntax is simply String.Intern(someClass.ToString())
Another caveat is that doing (object)"Hi" == (object)"Hi" returns true in your app thanks to interning. Try it in your debug intermediate window, and it is false as the debugger does not intern your strings.
3. Exposing types as a less capable type doesn’t prevent use as their real type
A great example of this is when internal lists are exposed as IEnumerable properties, e.g.
private readonly List<string> internalStrings = new List<string>();
public IEnumerable<string> AllStrings { get { return internalStrings; } }
You’d likely think nobody can modify internal strings. Alas, it’s all too easy:
((List<string>)x.AllStrings).Add("Hello");
Even AsEnumerable won’t help as that’s a LINQ method that does nothing :( You can use AsReadOnly, which creates a wrapper over the list that throws when you try and set anything, however, and provides a good pattern for doing similar things with your classes should you need to expose a subset of internal structures if unavoidable.
4. Variables in methods can be scoped with just braces
In Pascal you had to declare all the variables your function would use at the start of the function. Thankfully, declarations today can live next to their assignment, which prevents accidentally using the variable before you intended to.
What it doesn’t do is to prevent you from using it after you intended. Given that for/if/while/using and such allow a nested scope, it should come as no surprise that you can declare variables within braces without a keyword to achieve the same result:
private void MultipleScopes() {
{ var a = 1; Console.WriteLine(a); }
{ var b = 2; Console.WriteLine(a); }
}
It’s useful as now the second copy-and-pasted code block doesn’t compile, but a much better solution is to split your method into smaller ones using the extract method refactoring.
5. Enums can have extension methods
Extension methods provide a way to write methods for existing classes that other people on your team might discover and use. Given that enums are classes like any other, it shouldn’t be too surprising that you can extend them, like:
enum Duration { Day, Week, Month };
static class DurationExtensions {
public static DateTime From(this Duration duration, DateTime dateTime) {
switch(duration) {
case Day: return dateTime.AddDays(1);
case Week: return dateTime.AddDays(7);
case Month: return dateTime.AddMonths(1);
default: throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("duration");
}
}
}
I think enums are a little harmful, but at least this lets you centralize some of the switch/if handling and abstract them away a bit until you can do something better. Remember to check the values are within the range too.
6. Order of static variable declaration in your source code matters
Some people insist that variables be ordered alphabetically, and there are tools around that can reorder for you. However, there is one scenario where reordering can break your app.
static class Program {
private static int a = 5;
private static int b = a;
static void Main(string[] args) {
Console.WriteLine(b);
}
}
This prints the value 5. Reorder the a and b declarations, and it prints 0.
7. Private instance variables of a class can be accessed by other instances
You might think the following code wouldn’t work:
class KeepSecret {
private int someSecret;
public bool Equals(KeepSecret other) {
return other.someSecret == someSecret;
}
}
It’s easy to think of private as meaning only this instance of a class can access them. The reality is it means only this class can access it — including other instances of this class. It’s quite useful when writing some comparison methods.
8. The C# Language specification is already on your computer
Providing you have Visual Studio installed, you can find it in your Visual Studio folder in your Program Files folder (x86 if on a 64-bit machine) within the VC#\Specifications folder. VS 2010 comes with the C# 5.0 document in Word format.
It’s full of many more interesting facts such as:
i = 1is atomic (thread-safe) for an int but not long- You can
&and|nullable booleans with SQL compatibility [Conditional("DEBUG")]is an alternative to#if DEBUG
And to those of you that say, “I knew all/most of these!”, I say “Where are you when I’m recruiting!” It’s hard enough to find developers with a solid understanding of the well-know parts of the language.
[)amien
41 responses to 8 things you probably didn’t know about C#
About #5, you say: “I think enums are evil but at least this lets you centralize some of the switch/if handling and abstract them away a bit until you can do something better. Remember to check the values are in range too.”
Would you mind explaining why you consider enums evil? Never heard that one before and can’t think of anything myself to be honest.
I really like #6. I think this is related to $10.5.5.1 of the C# spec:
The static field variable initializers of a class correspond to a sequence of assignments that are executed in the textual order in which they appear in the class declaration.
Very interesting post. I knew only half of them. My surprise when I read the spec for first time was when I discovered that the strict rule to name variables states that them must start with ‘@'. Not start a variable with the at sign is an alias. That is the reason you have to create an anonymous object like { @class=“some-css-class” } when you want to set specific class to a filed using razor.
I suspect #2 was most obvious to me because I wrote a .NET Metadata reader, and I’m now in the process of writing the reverse.
Lots of work to do so little!
This is a great list! I have been learning C# for a while and already knew about #5, #7 and #8. The rest was new information for me. Thanks
#6) The order of static field declaration does not matter unless they are initialized inline, in which case it could be said that static field declaration order does not matter while static field initialization order does matter. Also, it is important to note when static field initialization takes place. According to C# Language Specification Version 5.0 – 10.12, the exact order of initializing static classes is:
“…first a new set of static fields (§10.5.1) for that particular closed type is created. Each of the static fields is initialized to its default value (§5.2). Next, the static field initializers (§10.4.5.1) are executed for those static fields. Finally, the static constructor is executed.”
Anyways, a side-note regarding an error in the specs, it references §10.4.5.1 as the location of static field initialization, but it’s wrong. The correct location is §10.5.5.1 in the Version 5.0 specifications document. The older spec document(s) have it at §10.4.5.1.
All things relative, every good C# developer should already know all of this. Excellent C# developers should be chuckling at the few of these ‘lesser knowns’ which point out a much larger lack of understanding, namely 3, 4, 5, and 7. Similarly, the atomicity of a 64bit (long) assignment can’t be guaranteed on a 32bit platform because the underlying hardware requires two MOV ops (or an iterative op that is also not atomic), since .NET targets both 32bit and 64bit platforms a 64bit (long) assignment would be subject to the capability of the underlying hardware. The standard takes this into account and so C# itself does not guarantee atomicity of a 64bit assignment, but as a matter of fact a “x = 1L” (long, 64bit assignment) is an atomic operation on a 64bit Intel-based computer unless you’re running your app in “the 32bit WOW”. You can verify this by launching your process on a 64bit machine and then inspecting the assembly/machine code (not the IL) to see a 64bit, atomic assignment. This is right up there with people believing that “default(T)” “where T : class” incurs no assignment, when in fact on an Intel CPU a classic mov + xor pair are generated/executed to zero out the variable location in memory (it’s no different than assigning null or a 0 value.) A very interesting read, I think 6 is interesting, but I’m also curious if that is standard behavior (ECMA compliant/required) or if it’s an implementation-specific by-product of static class initialization in Microsoft’s CLR?
Bear in mind once in they’re there until your app quits so use String.Intern carefully.
Thanks for this! I could use tips like these everyday, and I even fall into the category of devs who knew some of them already. Cheers!
I didn’t know about number 1 — that is very cool!
I think number 3 is fundamental and is something every C# programmer should know!
With Mono you can use that effort on Linux, Android, iOS and MacOS.
Which makes it a great cross-platform option — each of these platforms uses C# and a lot of core .NET classes but provides direct bindings to the native UI controls etc. and then compiles to native code.
You fail to point out that C# can run managed or un-managed code which many of its other .net counter parts can not. I just hate the fact your code time and investment is all for Microsoft platforms only!
Just to clarify I would never use these as interview questions!
I always use real-world domain-specific coding problems looking for coding ability,good design and being able to ask me the right questions.
My point was if you know C# to this extreme you hopefully know C# very very well.
Nice post!
The first one I find it really useful.
Side note: When you thought you were hiring, in fact you were in a “Quiz Show” or playing “trivia” with your candidates. The people you wanted to hire perhaps went to real interviews or stayed home playing trivia with their friends.
This was a great posting! I didn’t know several, but by knowing a little IL, most items make sense. For example, wouldn’t #7 be the same as saying that access is given based on the requesting object’s typedef token? If private means ‘per typedef token’ then the CLR would have no ability, even, to discriminate based on instance rather than class. Also, the response mentioning protected intern gives a much easier question if familiar with the CLR’s famandassem and famorassem attributes.
About the 7th point, it isn’t something that happens just in C#, it occurs in all Object Oriented languages.
One uses to forget that fact, combined to the custom of respecting the objects’ interfaces.
How about this one?
You cannot have an enum value named
__value.Won’t compile. This is because the value of an enum instance is stored in a variable called “__value” which is generated by the compiler.
Ugh, looks like the comment system ate my generics brackets.
The third indexer (which takes string) is the most surprising. I would not have thought it’d let me create both that one and the int one.
Great post! I definitely did not know (1) and (8). After reading your post, I tried (1) on VS2012 targeting .NET 4. To my surprise, C# also let me define other indexers. I knew the CLR supported this, but I think this is a new feature to C#.
If you want to hide a list with IEnumerable
Make the code
get { foreach(var s in list) yield return s; }You will not be able to cast that to a list.
Nice post, thanks for the tricks collection even if I knew them, except the #8, which is interesting. ;) For the #3, I would say that the best way to really prevent somebody from modifiying an internal collection is to never return that collection, but only copies (e.g. using linq .ToList), or make use of a read-only collection which is made for that (but everything depends on the problem you’re trying to solve, of course). AsEnumerable doesn’t do “nothing”, but here it’s just not its use case ;) (it’s for example basically used in linq expressions to convert IQueryable to IEnumerable, so that you can switch from remote request processing to in-memory processing).
My guess on the “i = 1 is atomic” fact is that in x86 assembly the ADD instruction operate on 32-bit registers. Because int’s are 32-bit this can be done in one instruction, where-as long is a 64-bit int and some extra instructions would be required.
I am so disappointed that I only didn’t know number 8. I was hoping for more :)
#5 is a good idea, I hadn’t thought of that. Although with my love for extension methods, I probably would have come up with it sooner or later. The rest of them, yeah, I knew. As for “where were you when I was recruiting?", well, where were you when I was looking for a job? :-P
I like the string interning. It works regardless of visibility or membership.
I’m in Brazil :)
By the way, I didn’t know about Conditional(“DEBUG”)
I knew about all of these except the Conditional(“DEBUG”) attribute, which I certainly intend to use now. Thanks!
Atomicity of various operations is something one learns about quickly when trying to implement lock-free structures
5 I did not know. Could make enums in code maintenance much nicer. Re: 6 — init of static variable with another static, outside of a static constructor? run away! ;)
@glijas: very good!
Good catch Harold — I could have sworn I saw ++ covered in the atomic section but can’t find it now. I’ll put it down to reading specs at 3am. Article fixed.
section 5.5 also explicitly states: “there is no guarantee of atomic read-modify-write, such as in the case of increment or decrement.”
So no, i++ is not atomic. But i = 8 is, if i is an int.
@glijas: Lol
“i++ is atomic (thread-safe) for int but not for long”
Ah, so next year it won’t be… :)
@chris — In the C# v5 spec it’s section 5.5 Atomicity of variable references.
Really fun list (and yup I did know all of them but I’m geeky like that).
Some ‘off the top of my head’ feedback.
I think you mean #if DEBUG not if #DEBUG…
Wow, the params thingy in indexers is really nice. PS.: I knew almost all of it, are you recruiting? LOL
Because we have good jobs already:)
I enjoyed this post. Thanks for sharing! And I only knew a few of them.
With regard to 4, I liked the fact that in Pascal there was this declare block. In C based languages I dislike the clutter that is caused by inline declarations. Although using ‘var’ as much as possible improves it somewhat.
Another option for #3 is to return
internalStrings.Select(x => x), asSelect()implementations are supposed to guarantee that the source object itself is not returned.Incidentally, the spec guarantees that
from x in e select x, a so-called degenerate query expression, will return the same even though trivial selects are normally optimized out.I knew number three for sure, number one was fascinating but I just never seem to know when to use indexers. You should blog “Neat Things You Can Do With Indexers.”
You say that the C# specification says that i++ is atomic/threadsafe for int; I had always understood that not to be the case, and I can’t find anything in the documentation that says it is atomic. Can you point me to what you are seeing? As a separate reference, see Eric Lippert’s answer to this stackoverflow question