What do square braces mean when placed before a class or member definition?

Question

Can somone explian what the square brackets in the following code do?

public interface IType : IEditor
    {
        #region Properties

        /// <summary>
        /// Genre ID
        /// </summary>
        int GenreID { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// Genre name
        /// </summary>
        [Required]
        [DisplayName("Unique System name")]
        string Name { get; set; }

        /// <summary>
        /// Url Genre safe name
        /// </summary>
        [DisplayName("Unique Url Safe name")]
        string UrlSafeName { get; set; }

        #endregion

    }

They keep the VB-ers out of our code base! But seriously, you find them around attributes and array declarations: `int[]` — Adam Houldsworth, Mar 15 '12 at 14:55
The first Bing result for "what square brackets in C# do" is [MSDN documenation](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a3hd7ste.aspx) on uses of square brackets in C#, including their use as attributes (the use you are showing). [Here](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/726029/attributes-in-c-sharp) is a good explanation of attributes. — Adam Mihalcin, Mar 15 '12 at 14:56
How on earth is this closed as "not a real question"? It's the first Google result for "c# square brackets before method definition" and answered what I wanted to know. — colincameron, Sep 20 '16 at 15:10

rrrr-o · Answer 1 · 2019-08-14T09:34:37.733

4

Attributes. See the reference article below.

C# Attributes

edited Aug 14 '19 at 09:34

answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:55

rrrr-o

2,447
2
24
52

1

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/programming-guide/concepts/attributes/ – Andrew Grimm Aug 07 '19 at 06:31

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:55

4

They are applying attributes to the property

answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:55

Darren Kopp

76,581
9
79
93

1

I was wondering about how to reward people. I am use to expert exchange where I award points. Didnt see that option in Stackoverflow – Milligran Mar 15 '12 at 15:07

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:57

1

It is a syntax for applying attributes.

For more details check this : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa288454(v=vs.71).aspx

answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:57

davit_gri

130
1
8

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:55

0

See this page on MSDN http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/a3hd7ste.aspx

answered Mar 15 '12 at 14:55

Trevor Pilley

16,156
5
44
60

What do square braces mean when placed before a class or member definition?

4 Answers4

Linked