In this part of the C# tutorial, we will cover basic programming concepts of the C# language. We introduce the very basic programs. We work with variables, constants and basic data types. We read and write to the console; we mention variable interpolation.

C# simple example

We start with a very simple code example.

using System;

namespace Simple
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("This is C#");
        }
    }
}

This is our first C# program. It will print "This is C#" message to the console. We will explain it line by line.

using System;

The using keyword imports a specific namespace to our program. Namespaces are created to group and/or distinguish named entities from other ones. This prevents name conflicts. This line is a C# statement. Each statement is ended with a semicolon.

namespace Simple
{

We declare a namespace. Namespaces are used to organize code and to prevent name clashes.

class Program
{
    ...
}

Each C# program is structured. It consists of classes and its members. A class is a basic building block of a C# program. The above code is a class definition. The definition has a body, which starts with a left curly brace ({) and ends with a right curly brace (}).

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    ...
}

The Main is a method. A method is a piece of code created to do a specific job. Instead of putting all code into one place, we divide it into pieces, called methods. This brings modularity to our application. Each method has a body, in which we place statements. The body of a method is enclosed by curly brackets.

The specific job for the Main method is to start the application. It is the entry point to each console C# program. The method is declared to be static. This static method can be called without the need to create an instance of the Program class. First we need start the application and after that, we are able to create instances of classes. The Main method has the args argument, which stores command line arguments.

Console.WriteLine("This is C#");

In this code line, we print the "This is C#" string to the console. To print a message to the console, we use the WriteLine method of the Console class. The class represents the standard input, output, and error streams for console applications. Note that Console class is part of the System namespace. This line was the reason to import the namespace with the using System; statement. If we didn't use the statement, we would have to use the fully qualified name of the WriteLine method: System.Console.WriteLine("This is C#");.

$ dotnet run
This is C#

C# top-level statements

C# 9.0 introduced top-level statements; these allow us to eliminate ceremony in many applications. Only one file in the application may use top-level statements.

using System;

Console.WriteLine("This is C#");

We don't need to use the Main method as a starting point and the code does not have to be placed inside an application class.

In this tutorial, much of the code will be written in top-level statements.

C# console reading values

We can use the Console class to read values as well.

using System;

Console.Write("Enter your name: ");

string name = Console.ReadLine();
Console.WriteLine($"Hello {name}");

The second program reads a value from a console and prints it.

string name = Console.ReadLine();

We read a line from the terminal. When we hit the Enter key, the input is assigned to the name variable. The input is stored into the name variable, which is declared to be of type string.

Console.WriteLine($"Hello {name}");

In this code line, we do string formatting. The {name} specifier is replaced with the value of the name variable.

$ dotnet run
Enter your name: Jan
Hello Jan

C# command line arguments

C# programs can receive command line arguments. They follow the name of the program, when we run it. A C# program receives command line arguments in the args array of strings.

using System;

for (int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{args[i]}");
}

Command line arguments can be passed to the Mainmethod.

for (int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{args[i]}");
}

We go through the array of these arguments with a for loop and print them to the console. The Length property gives the number of elements in the array. Loops and arrays will be described in more detail later.

$ dotnet run 1 2 3
1
2
3

We provide three numbers as command line arguments and these are printed to the console.

C# variables

A variable is a place to store data. A variable has a name and a data type. A data type determines what values can be assigned to the variable, for instance integers, strings, or boolean values. Over the time of the program variables can obtain various values of the same data type. Variables are always initialized to the default value of their type before any reference to the variable can be made.

using System;

string city = "New York";
string name = "Paul"; int age = 35;
string nationality = "American";

Console.WriteLine(city);
Console.WriteLine(name);
Console.WriteLine(age);
Console.WriteLine(nationality);

city = "London";
Console.WriteLine(city);

In the example we have four variables.

string city = "New York";

We declare a city variable of the string type and initialize it to the "New York" value.

string name = "Paul"; int age = 35;

We declare and initialize two more variables. We can put two statements on one line. But for readability reasons, each statement should be on a separate line.

Console.WriteLine(city);
Console.WriteLine(name);
Console.WriteLine(age);
Console.WriteLine(nationality);

We print the values of the variables to the terminal.

city = "London";

We assign a new value to the city variable.

$ dotnet run
New York
Paul
35
American
London

The var keyword

Variables at a method scope can be implicitly typed using the var keyword. The variables are always strongly typed, but with var the type is inferred by C# compiler from the right side of the assignment.

using System;

var name = "Peter";
var age = 23;

Console.WriteLine($"{name} is {age} years old");

name = "Jozef";
age = 32;

Console.WriteLine($"{name} is {age} years old");

Console.WriteLine(name.GetType());
Console.WriteLine(age.GetType());

In the program we have two implicitly typed variables.

var name = "Peter";
var age = 23;

On the left side of the assignment we use the var keyword. The name variable is of string type and the age of int. The types are inferred from the right side of the assignment.

Console.WriteLine(name.GetType());
Console.WriteLine(age.GetType());

We determine the types of the variables with GetType.

$ dotnet run
Peter is 23 years old
Jozef is 32 years old
System.String
System.Int32

This is the output.

C# List collection

While variables hold single values, multiple values can be added to collections. A List is a sequence of elements, which can be accessed by indexing operation with []. Elements of a list can be traversed with e.g. a foreach keyword.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

var words = new List<string> { "stone", "rock", "falcon", "sky" };

Console.WriteLine(words[2]);

Console.WriteLine();

foreach (var word in words)
{
    Console.WriteLine(word);
}

In the example, we work a list of words.

using System.Collections.Generic;

In order to work with a List, we need to import the System.Collections.Generic namespace.

var words = new List<string> { "stone", "rock", "falcon", "sky" };

A list object is created with the new keyword. Between the angle brackets <> we specify the data type of the list elements. The list is initialized with elements inside the curly brackets {}.

Console.WriteLine(words[2]);

Here we print the third element to the console. (The indexes start from 0.)

foreach (var word in words)
{
    Console.WriteLine(word);
}

Using a foreach loop, we go through all elements of the list and print them to the console. In each of the cycles, the word variable is given one of the elements from the list.

$ dotnet run
falcon

stone
rock
falcon
sky

C# discards

Discards are special, write-only variables which are used to trash the values that are not interesting to the programmer. The _ (underscore character) is used for a discard.

using System;

var vals = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);

(int x, int y, int z, _, _, _) = vals;

Console.WriteLine(x);
Console.WriteLine(y);
Console.WriteLine(z);

The example defines a tuple of values. By using a deconstruction operation, we assign the values of the tuples into variables.

var vals = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);

We define a tuple of six values. A tuple is a collection of ordered, heterogeneous elements.

(int x, int y, int z, _, _, _) = vals;

Say, we are interested only in the first three values of the tuple. On the left side of the assignment, we define three variables: x, y, and y. Since the vals tuple has six elements, we need to have six variables on the left side as well. Here we can use the _ character for the remainding variables. This way we indicate that currently these values are not important to us an we won't work with them.

C# Range method

The Range method generates a sequence of numbers within a specified range. The first parameter is the value of the first integer in the sequence. The second parameter is the number of sequential integers to generate.

using System;
using System.Linq;

foreach(var el in Enumerable.Range(1, 10))
{
    Console.WriteLine(el);
}

The example prints values 1..10 to the terminal using a foreach loop. The sequence of the integers were generated with the Range method.

using System.Linq;

We get the Enumerable.Range from System.Linq.

C# constants

Unlike variables, constants retain their values. Once initialized, they cannot be modified. Constants are created with the const keyword.

using System;

const int WIDTH = 100;
const int HEIGHT = 150;
int var = 40;

var = 50;

// WIDTH = 110;

In this example, we declare two constants and one variable.

const int WIDTH = 100;
const int HEIGHT= 150;

We use the const keyword to inform the compiler that we declare a constant. It is a convention to write constants in upper case letters.

int var = 40;

var = 50;

We declare and initialize a variable. Later, we assign a new value to the variable.

// WIDTH = 110;

This is not possible with a constant. If we uncomment this line, we get a compilation error.

C# string formatting

Building strings from variables is a very common task in programming. C# has the string.Format method to format strings.

using System;

int age = 34;
string name = "William";

string msg = string.Format("{0} is {1} years old.", name, age);
Console.WriteLine(msg);

Strings are immutable in C#. We cannot modify an existing string. We must create a new string from existing strings and other types. In the code example, we create a new string. We also use values from two variables.

int age = 34;
string name = "William";

Here we define two variables.

string msg = string.Format("{0} is {1} years old.", name, age);

We use the Format method of the built-in string class. The {0}, {1} are the places where the variables are evaluated. The numbers represent the position of the variable. The {0} evaluates to the first supplied variable and the {1} to the second.

$ dotnet run
William is 34 years old.

C# string interpolation

Some dynamic languages like Perl, PHP or Ruby support string/variable interpolation. Variable interpolation is replacing variables with their values inside string literals. C# supports variable interpolation since C# 6.0.

using System;

string name = "Peter";
int age = 34;

string msg = $"{name} is {age} years old";

Console.WriteLine(msg);

In the code example, we build a string using variable interpolation.

string msg = $"{name} is {age} years old";

The string is preceded with the $ character and the variables are inside curly brackets.

$ dotnet run
Peter is 34 years old

This chapter covered some basics of the C# language.