C# was developed by Anders Hejlsberg at Microsoft as part of the .NET initiative. The language was introduced as a part of the .NET Framework in 2000, aiming to provide a simple and modern language that would overcome the limitations of other languages like C++ and Visual Basic. C# was designed to be a safe, efficient, and easy-to-use language for building a wide range of applications. This C# tutorial covers everything from beginners to advanced level.
C# is part of the .NET ecosystem, which allows us to write code that can be executed on different platforms. With .NET Core (now .NET 5 and beyond), C# code can now be run on platforms like Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it highly portable. A decade later, Microsoft began developing free, open-source, and cross-platform tooling for C#, namely Visual Studio Code, .NET Core, and Roslyn. Mono joined Microsoft as a project of Xamarin, a Microsoft subsidiary.
C# Introduction
When a developer builds a C# application, the source code is compiled into an intermediate language (IL) that conforms to the Common Language Infrastructure standard. The IL code and other application resources are stored in an assembly that is loaded into the CLR when the application runs. The CLR converts the IL code to native machine instructions using a just-in-time compilation process. The following figure shows the C# code for a simple console application as it appears in Visual Studio.
- An unsafe pointer can point to an instance of an unmanaged value type that does not contain any references to objects subject to garbage collections such as class instances, arrays or strings.
- With so many options, it can be tough to know which ones are important for your career.
- C# was intended to be a simple, modern and general-purpose programming language that could be used to develop software components for a distributed environment.
- Most of the time people call this a “try-catch” code block, because of the “try” and “catch” functions being used and accessible on all C# versions.
- A unified type system implies that all types, including primitives such as integers, are subclasses of the System.Object class.
- In interviews and technical papers, he has stated that flaws25 in most major programming languages (e.g. C++, Java, Delphi, and Smalltalk) drove the fundamentals of the Common Language Runtime (CLR), which, in turn, drove the design of the C# language.
- The Common Language Runtime (CLR) checks type safety and makes sure that code does not access memory outside its boundaries.
C# and the .NET framework
Garbage collection addresses the problem of memory leaks by freeing the programmer of responsibility for releasing memory that is no longer needed in most cases. Code that retains references to objects longer than is required can still experience higher memory usage than necessary, however once the final reference to an object is released the memory is available for garbage collection. Static members of public classes can substitute for global variables and functions. Hejlsberg is C#’s principal designer and lead architect at Microsoft, and was previously involved with the design of Turbo Pascal, Embarcadero Delphi (formerly CodeGear Delphi, Inprise Delphi and Borland Delphi), and Visual J++. In interviews and technical papers, he has stated that flaws25 in most major programming languages (e.g. C++, Java, Delphi, and Smalltalk) drove the fundamentals of the Common Language Runtime (CLR), which, in turn, drove the design of the C# language.
In practice, C# is most often used with some implementation of the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), which is standardized as ECMA-335 Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). C# (pronounced “C Sharp”||”C#”) is a multi-purpose computer programming language suitable for a wide variety of development needs. This Wikibook introduces C# language fundamentals and covers a variety of the base class libraries (BCL) provided by the Microsoft .NET Framework.
The .NET Framework
Any user-defined conversion must be explicitly marked as explicit or implicit, unlike C++ copy constructors and conversion operators, which are both implicit by default. With so many options, it can be tough to know which ones are important for your career. At GeeksforGeeks, we’ve put together a list of the most popular and useful programming languages you need to know to succeed in tech. C# provides built-in security features like type safety, which prevents many types of errors and security vulnerabilities. The Common Language Runtime (CLR) checks type safety and makes sure that code does not access memory outside its boundaries. Managed memory cannot be explicitly freed; instead, it is automatically garbage collected.
C# combines the power of C and C++ with the simplicity of languages like Java and Visual Basic. The suffix has also been used for libraries, such as Gtk# (a .NET wrapper for GTK and other GNOME libraries) and Cocoa# (a wrapper for Cocoa). The C# language was developed within Microsoft primarily by Anders Hejlsberg, Scott Wiltamuth and Peter Golde. Microsoft released the first widely distributed implementation of C# in July 2000 as part of its .NET framework initiative. C# was intended to be a simple, modern and general-purpose programming language that could be used to develop software components for a distributed environment.
C# programs are written using text editors or Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) like Visual Studio or Visual Studio Code. With .NET 2.0 and C# 2.0, the community got more flexible collections than those in .NET 1.x. In the absence of generics, developers had to use collections such as ArrayList to store elements as objects of unspecified kind, which incurred performance overhead when boxing/unboxing/type-checking the contained items. C# offers Java-like synchronized method calls, via the attribute MethodImpl(MethodImplOptions.Synchronized), and has support for mutually-exclusive locks via the keyword lock. Local variables cannot shadow variables of the enclosing block, unlike C and C++, but may shadow type-level names. In this first instance, they are marking the start and end of the Program class.
C#, pronounced “C-sharp,” is an object-oriented programming language from Microsoft that enables developers to build applications that run on the .NET platform. C# has its roots in the C family of programming languages and shares many of the same characteristics as those found in C and C++, as well as in Java and JavaScript. C# (C-sharp) is a modern, object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft as part of the .NET framework. It was first released in 2000 and it c sharp programming language has become one of the most widely used languages for building Windows applications, web services, and more.
In C#, memory address pointers can only be used within blocks specifically marked as unsafe,88 and programs with unsafe code need appropriate permissions to run. An unsafe pointer can point to an instance of an unmanaged value type that does not contain any references to objects subject to garbage collections such as class instances, arrays or strings. Code that is not marked as unsafe can still store and manipulate pointers through the System.IntPtr type, but it cannot dereference them. C# is designed to work with Microsoft’s .NET platform, a software ecosystem for developing, compiling and running application code. The platform includes the common language runtime (CLR) and a set of class libraries.
- You will learn C# programming for desktop applications in a way that will get you up and running in no time.
- C# was developed by Anders Hejlsberg at Microsoft as part of the .NET initiative.
- This IL is platform-independent and can be executed on any system that has the .NET runtime installed.
- Examples of reference types are object (the ultimate base class for all other C# classes), System.String (a string of Unicode characters), and System.Array (a base class for all C# arrays).
- The C# language was developed within Microsoft primarily by Anders Hejlsberg, Scott Wiltamuth and Peter Golde.
- The suffix has also been used for libraries, such as Gtk# (a .NET wrapper for GTK and other GNOME libraries) and Cocoa# (a wrapper for Cocoa).
CSS Framework
The C# language definition and the CLI are standardized under ISO/IEC and Ecma standards that provide reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing protection from patent claims. C# can make calls to any library included in the List of .NET libraries and frameworks. Since C# 3.0 the syntactic sugar of auto-implemented properties is available,86 where the accessor (getter) and mutator (setter) encapsulate operations on a single field of a class.
C# Tutorial
The journey you take with this course enables you to become proficient in the Visual Studio 2022 interface and shortcuts. In contrast, reference types have the notion of referential identity, meaning that each instance of a reference type is inherently distinct from every other instance, even if the data within both instances is the same. This is reflected in default equality and inequality comparisons for reference types, which test for referential rather than structural equality, unless the corresponding operators are overloaded (such as the case for System.String). Some operations are not always possible, such as creating an instance of a reference type, copying an existing instance, or performing a value comparison on two existing instances. Nevertheless, specific reference types can provide such services by exposing a public constructor or implementing a corresponding interface (such as ICloneable or IComparable).
Sources
It is now a key language for building applications on Microsoft platforms such as Windows, Azure, and .NET Core. The only implicit conversions by default are those that are considered safe, such as widening of integers. This is enforced at compile-time, during JIT, and, in some cases, at runtime. No implicit conversions occur between Booleans and integers, nor between enumeration members and integers (except for literal 0, which can be implicitly converted to any enumerated type).
Examples of reference types are object (the ultimate base class for all other C# classes), System.String (a string of Unicode characters), and System.Array (a base class for all C# arrays). Microsoft introduced C# along with .NET Framework and Microsoft Visual Studio, both of which are technically speaking, closed-source. Four years later, in 2004, a free and open-source project called Microsoft Mono began, providing a cross-platform compiler and runtime environment for the C# programming language. A decade later, Microsoft released Visual Studio Code (code editor), Roslyn (compiler), and the unified .NET platform (software framework), all of which support C# and are free, open-source, and cross-platform. The CLR runs the code and provides services that enable and enhance application development and cross-platform designs. It also offers high-level support for programming languages such as C#, F# and Visual Basic.