# C Language Specification Version 4.0 Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1999-2010. All Rights Reserved. Please send corrections, comments, and other feedback to [email protected] Notice © 1999-2010 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Visual Basic, Visual C#, and Visual C++ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S.A. and/or other countries/regions. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1999-2010. All Rights Reserved. Table of Contents Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Hello world .................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Program structure .......................................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Types and variables ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Expressions .................................................................................................................................................... 6 1.5 Statements ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 1.6 Classes and objects ...................................................................................................................................... 12 1.6.1 Members ............................................................................................................................................... 12 1.6.2 Accessibility .......................................................................................................................................... 13 1.6.3 Type parameters .................................................................................................................................... 13 1.6.4 Base classes ........................................................................................................................................... 14 1.6.5 Fields ..................................................................................................................................................... 14 1.6.6 Methods ................................................................................................................................................ 15 1.6.6.1 Parameters ...................................................................................................................................... 15 1.6.6.2 Method body and local variables ................................................................................................... 16 1.6.6.3 Static and instance methods ........................................................................................................... 17 1.6.6.4 Virtual, override, and abstract methods .......................................................................................... 18 1.6.6.5 Method overloading ....................................................................................................................... 20 1.6.7 Other function members ....................................................................................................................... 21 1.6.7.1 Constructors ................................................................................................................................... 22 1.6.7.2 Properties ........................................................................................................................................ 23 1.6.7.3 Indexers .......................................................................................................................................... 23 1.6.7.4 Events ............................................................................................................................................. 24 1.6.7.5 Operators ........................................................................................................................................ 24 1.6.7.6 Destructors ..................................................................................................................................... 25 1.7 Structs .......................................................................................................................................................... 25 1.8 Arrays .......................................................................................................................................................... 26 1.9 Interfaces ..................................................................................................................................................... 27 1.10 Enums ........................................................................................................................................................ 29 1.11 Delegates ................................................................................................................................................... 30 1.12 Attributes ................................................................................................................................................... 31 2. Lexical structure .............................................................................................................................................. 33 2.1 Programs ...................................................................................................................................................... 33 2.2 Grammars .................................................................................................................................................... 33 2.2.1 Grammar notation ................................................................................................................................. 33 2.2.2 Lexical grammar ................................................................................................................................... 34 2.2.3 Syntactic grammar ................................................................................................................................ 34 2.3 Lexical analysis ........................................................................................................................................... 34 2.3.1 Line terminators .................................................................................................................................... 35 2.3.2 Comments ............................................................................................................................................. 35 2.3.3 White space ........................................................................................................................................... 37 2.4 Tokens ......................................................................................................................................................... 37 2.4.1 Unicode character escape sequences..................................................................................................... 37 2.4.2 Identifiers .............................................................................................................................................. 38 2.4.3 Keywords .............................................................................................................................................. 39 2.4.4 Literals .................................................................................................................................................. 40 2.4.4.1 Boolean literals ............................................................................................................................... 40 2.4.4.2 Integer literals ................................................................................................................................. 40 Copyright Microsoft Corporation 1999-2010. All Rights Reserved. iii C# LANGUAGE SPECIFICATION 2.4.4.3 Real literals ..................................................................................................................................... 41 2.4.4.4 Character literals ............................................................................................................................ 42 2.4.4.5 String literals .................................................................................................................................. 43 2.4.4.6 The null literal ................................................................................................................................ 45 2.4.5 Operators and punctuators .................................................................................................................... 45 2.5 Pre-processing directives ............................................................................................................................. 45 2.5.1 Conditional compilation symbols ......................................................................................................... 46 2.5.2 Pre-processing expressions ..................................................................................................................