What does '@' do in c#?

Question

I just went to write the line...

if (!e.PeriodicData.Keys.Contains(process))
{
}

but did a typo on "!" and hit "@" instead. eg

if (@e.PeriodicData.Keys.Contains(process))
{
}

I was expecting intellisense to flipout but it didn't. So I compiled and it compiled successfully.

Its not an operator, so what is "@"? What does it do?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

9

In this case its a valid name. It is used if you want to use a keyword as a variable name like @class.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:24

Community

answered Mar 12 '11 at 01:50

Daniel A. White

2

That being said -- don't do this. It's exceptionally confusing to use keywords as variable names. – Joe Mar 12 '11 at 01:52
1

In some cases its unavoidable - especially with MVC's HtmlHelpers that take HTML attributes. – Daniel A. White Mar 12 '11 at 01:56
An answer like this is a really good sign that you should have voted to close the question as a duplicate. I'm not really sure why you didn't; you don't seem to be adding any information beyond that given in the answers to the other question. – Cody Gray - on strike Mar 12 '11 at 08:49

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 12 '11 at 01:52

In this case it is just getting the variable e. It is equivalent to e.

The @ symbol before a var is used if you want to call a variable class for instance. To use reserved words as variables.

var @class = 1;
var @virtual = 2;
var @return = 3;

As for strings it uses the literal, for example:

"C:\\test\\example\\"

Is equivalent to

@"C:\test\example\"

2 Answers2