Professional C# 4 and .NET 4

Chapter 2. Core C#

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Declaring variables

• Initialization and scope of variables

• Predefined C# data types

• Dictating the flow of execution within a C# program using conditional statements, loops, and jump statements

• Enumerations

• Namespaces

• The Main() method

• Basic command-line C# compiler options

• Using System.Console to perform console I/O

• Using internal comments and documentation features

• Preprocessor directives

• Guidelines and conventions for good programming in C#

Now that you understand more about what C# can do, you will want to learn how to use it. This chapter gives you a good start in that direction by providing you with a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of C# programming, which is built on in subsequent chapters. By the end of this chapter, you will know enough C# to write simple programs (though without using inheritance or other object-oriented features, which are covered in later chapters).

YOUR FIRST C# PROGRAM

Let's start by compiling and running the simplest possible C# program — a simple console app consisting of a class that writes a message to the screen.

Note

Later chapters present a number of code samples. The most common technique for writing C# programs is to use Visual Studio 2010 to generate a basic project and add your own code to it. However, because the aim of Part I is to teach the C# language, we are going to keep things simple and avoid relying on Visual Studio 2010 until Chapter 16, "Visual Studio 2010." Instead, we will present the code as simple ...