C# Language Specification
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!