C# Introduction

What is C#?

C# is pronounced "C-Sharp".

It is an object-oriented programming language created by Microsoft that runs on the .NET

Framework.

C# has roots from the C family, and the language is close to other popular languages like C+
+ and Java.

The first version was released in year 2002. The latest version, C# 12, was released in
November 2023.

C# is used for:

 Mobile applications
 Desktop applications
 Web applications
 Web services
 Web sites
 Games
 VR
 Database applications
 And much, much more!

Why Use C#?

 It is one of the most popular programming languages in the world

 It is easy to learn and simple to use
 It has huge community support
 C# is an object-oriented language which gives a clear structure to programs and
allows code to be reused, lowering development costs
 As C# is close to C, C++ and Java, it makes it easy for programmers to switch to C#
or vice versa

This tutorial will teach you the basics of C#.

It is not necessary to have any prior programming experience.

C# IDE

The easiest way to get started with C# is to use an IDE.

An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is used to edit and compile code.

In our tutorial, we will use Visual Studio Community, which is free to download from
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/community/.
Applications written in C# use the .NET Framework, so it makes sense to use Visual Studio,
as the program, the framework, and the language, are all created by Microsoft.

C# Installation

Once the Visual Studio Installer is downloaded and installed, choose the .NET workload and
click on the Modify/Install button:

After the installation is complete, click on the Launch button to get started with Visual
Studio.

On the start window, choose Create a new project:

Then click on the "Install more tools and features" link:
Choose "Console App (.NET Core)" from the list and click on the Next button:
Enter a name for your project, and click on the Create button:
Visual Studio will automatically generate some code for your project:

The code should look something like this:

using System;
namespace HelloWorld
{
 class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
}
}
}

Don't worry if you don't understand the code above - we will discuss it in detail in later
chapters. For now, focus on how to run the code.

Run the program by pressing the F5 button on your keyboard (or click on "Debug" -> "Start
Debugging"). This will compile and execute your code. The result will look something to
this:

Hello World!
C:\Users\Username\source\repos\HelloWorld\HelloWorld\bin\Debug\netcoreapp3.0\
HelloWorld.exe (process 13784) exited with code 0.
To automatically close the console when debugging stops, enable Tools->Options-
>Debugging->Automatically close the console when debugging stops.
Press any key to close this window . . .

Congratulations! You have now written and executed your first C# program.

C# Syntax

In the previous chapter, we created a C# file called Program.cs, and we used the following
code to print "Hello World" to the screen:

Program.cs
using System;

namespace HelloWorld
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
}
}
}
Example explained

Line 1: using System means that we can use classes from the System namespace.

Line 2: A blank line. C# ignores white space. However, multiple lines makes the code more
readable.

Line 3: namespace is used to organize your code, and it is a container for classes and other
namespaces.

Line 4: The curly braces {} marks the beginning and the end of a block of code.

Line 5: class is a container for data and methods, which brings functionality to your program.
Every line of code that runs in C# must be inside a class. In our example, we named the class
Program.

Don't worry if you don't understand how using System, namespace and class works. Just
think of it as something that (almost) always appears in your program, and that you will learn
more about them in a later chapter.

Line 7: Another thing that always appear in a C# program is the Main method. Any code
inside its curly brackets {} will be executed. You don't have to understand the keywords
before and after Main. You will get to know them bit by bit while reading this tutorial.

Line 9: Console is a class of the System namespace, which has a WriteLine() method that is
used to output/print text. In our example, it will output "Hello World!".

If you omit the using System line, you would have to write System.Console.WriteLine() to
print/output text.

Note: Every C# statement ends with a semicolon ;.

Note: C# is case-sensitive; "MyClass" and "myclass" have different meaning.

Note: Unlike Java, the name of the C# file does not have to match the class name, but they
often do (for better organization). When saving the file, save it using a proper name and add
".cs" to the end of the filename. To run the example above on your computer, make sure that
C# is properly installed: Go to the Get Started Chapter for how to install C#.

C# Output

To output values or print text in C#, you can use the WriteLine() method:

Example
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");

You can add as many WriteLine() methods as you want. Note that it will add a new line for
each method:
Example
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
Console.WriteLine("I am Learning C#");
Console.WriteLine("It is awesome!");

You can also output numbers, and perform mathematical calculations:

Example
Console.WriteLine(3 + 3);

using System;
namespace MyApplication
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine(3 + 3);
}
}
}
The Write Method

There is also a Write() method, which is similar to WriteLine().

The only difference is that it does not insert a new line at the end of the output:

Example
Console.Write("Hello World! ");
Console.Write("I will print on the same line.");

using System;
namespace MyApplication
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
 Console.Write("Hello World! ");
Console.Write("I will print on the same line.");
}
}
}

Note that we add an extra space when needed (after "Hello World!" in the example above),
for better readability.

In this tutorial, we will only use WriteLine() as it makes it easier to read the output of code.

C# Comments

Comments can be used to explain C# code, and to make it more readable. It can also be used
to prevent execution when testing alternative code.

Single-line Comments

Single-line comments start with two forward slashes (//).

Any text between // and the end of the line is ignored by C# (will not be executed).

This example uses a single-line comment before a line of code:

Example
// This is a comment
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
using System;
namespace HelloWorld
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
// This is a comment
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
}
}
}
This example uses a single-line comment at the end of a line of code:

Example
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!"); // This is a comment
using System;
namespace HelloWorld
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!"); // This is a comment
}
}
}
C# Multi-line Comments

Multi-line comments start with /* and ends with */.

Any text between /* and */ will be ignored by C#.

This example uses a multi-line comment (a comment block) to explain the code:

Example
/* The code below will print the words Hello World
to the screen, and it is amazing */
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
using System;
namespace HelloWorld
{
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
/* The code below will print the words Hello World
to the screen, and it is amazing */
Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
 }
}
}
Single or multi-line comments?

It is up to you which you want to use. Normally, we use // for short comments, and /* */ for
longer.