.NET Musings

Another new feature in VS2008 and C# 3.0 that compiles down to 2.0 compatible IL is implicit typing of variables. This allows the use of the "var" keyword as the declared type.  (Strictly speaking, "var" is not a true keyword.  It is interpreted as a keyword when it is used in the place of a type.)  This is not the same as week typing - as described in this post, the variables are still strongly typed.

All of the following constructs are perfectly legal:

  1: var myString = "s";

  2: var myInt = 0;
  3: var myDecimal = 0.0M;
  4: var myIntArray = new[] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 };
  5: var myDouble = 0.0D;

Note the explicit declaration (via the "M") for the decimal value.  The compiler assumes that 0.0 is a double, and will not type it as a decimal.  Unless of course you have code like this:

  1: var myDecimal = 0.0M;
  2: var myDecimal2 = myDecimal + 2;

This is where implicit typing falls short, and deals a serious blow to readability.  To someone else reading your code, there is much too much thought that needs to go into some of these declarations, and last I checked the Lezinski-Reddick naming convention is passe.

So why use them?  They are truly a side effect of the Linq additions to the framework, and are invaluable in that context. Outside of that, the one place I would consider using them are in iterators.

  1: foreach (var i in myIntArray)
  2: {
  3:     //Do something
  4: }

Certainly not a woo-hoo moment, but usable AND readable.  So, think before you act, and as we said in college, temper your actions with wisdom.

Happy Coding!