While reading the C# Language Specification today I noticed the use of the @ sign to disambiguate a keyword from an identifier. When you do this the identifier is called a verbatim identifier. So, for example, you could write code as follows:
class @class
{
static void Main()
{
@static(false);
}
public static void @static(bool @bool)
{
if (@bool)
System.Console.WriteLine("true");
else
System.Console.WriteLine("false");
}
}
Why would you want to do this you ask? Well, what happens if you use an assembly that has a C# keyword for a public name because that keyword did not happen to be a keyword in the original language of the assembly. That would prevent you from calling this assembly perhaps unless there was a way to disambiguate.
Another place I would be very tempted is in the name of the variable that is returned from a function. Often it is difficult to come up with a variable name. "return" would be great but it is a keyword so you have to resort to "ret," which is an abbreviation or perhaps result, which just isn't quite the same. Now I can just use @return.
public string GetName()
{
string @return;
Console.Write("Enter your name:");
do
{
@return = Console.ReadLine();
}
while (@return.Length == 0);
return @return;
}
Cool! How 'bout making this a coding standard?
I am confident this idea will get lambasted but I still like it... so there!
11:46:20 PM
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