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c# var

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  • M Marc Clifton

    ZurdoDev wrote:

    This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

    I felt the same way initially, and I agree, for something simple like a native type, I rarely use var. However: var complicatedDictionary = new Dictionary>(); and worse, I like definitely like it.

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    dandy72
    wrote on last edited by
    #30

    +1 For native types, I don't see the point in using var. I also subscribe to the idea of using: var x = new SomeMoreComplexType(); I don't mind: var x = SomeFunction(); ...if *I* don't particularly case about the type returned, for example, if I only use it to forward to some other function and I'm not looking at any of its members myself.

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    • Z ZurdoDev

      What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

      var url = "http://someapi";

      This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

      Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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      MadMyche
      wrote on last edited by
      #31

      ZurdoDev wrote:

      var url = "http://someapi";

      Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

      Is it a string? Could it be a URI[^]

      Uri siteUri = new Uri("http://www.contoso.com/");

      Director of Transmogrification Services Shinobi of Query Language Master of Yoda Conditional

      Z 1 Reply Last reply
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      • M MadMyche

        ZurdoDev wrote:

        var url = "http://someapi";

        Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

        Is it a string? Could it be a URI[^]

        Uri siteUri = new Uri("http://www.contoso.com/");

        Director of Transmogrification Services Shinobi of Query Language Master of Yoda Conditional

        Z Offline
        Z Offline
        ZurdoDev
        wrote on last edited by
        #32

        Yes, it was a string.

        Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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        • Greg UtasG Greg Utas

          I use auto, the C++ equivalent, whenever it will deduce the correct type. - It forces you to initialize the variable. - If the variable is initialized by calling a function, and that function's return type changes, the code might not even be affected. - Some type names are long or complicated, and I hate spilling lines. Some argue that it makes the code harder to understand because the reader has to figure out the type. My counterargument is that the reader doesn't understand how the code fits into the system if this is the case.

          Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles

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          M Offline
          Mircea Neacsu
          wrote on last edited by
          #33

          You are going on a dangerous path. It leads you to the days when an insignificant dot was significant:

          auto i = 2;
          auto j = 3;
          auto k = i/j;
          auto f = 2./j;
          // f != k
          // any similarity with FORTRAN is intentional

          Besides "auto" has four letters and "int" has three; it's not energy efficient :)

          Mircea

          Greg UtasG 1 Reply Last reply
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          • M Mircea Neacsu

            You are going on a dangerous path. It leads you to the days when an insignificant dot was significant:

            auto i = 2;
            auto j = 3;
            auto k = i/j;
            auto f = 2./j;
            // f != k
            // any similarity with FORTRAN is intentional

            Besides "auto" has four letters and "int" has three; it's not energy efficient :)

            Mircea

            Greg UtasG Offline
            Greg UtasG Offline
            Greg Utas
            wrote on last edited by
            #34

            Not very dangerous unless one ignores compiler warnings. Then again, I don't use floating point very often. The main one I have to watch for is

            for(auto i = 0...

            which makes i an int when what might actually be called for is a size_t.

            Robust Services Core | Software Techniques for Lemmings | Articles

            <p><a href="https://github.com/GregUtas/robust-services-core/blob/master/README.md">Robust Services Core</a>
            <em>The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.</em></p>

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            • Z ZurdoDev

              Yes, it was a string.

              Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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              MadMyche
              wrote on last edited by
              #35

              But what if you meant it as a URI? I think SQL would call this ambiguous

              Director of Transmogrification Services Shinobi of Query Language Master of Yoda Conditional

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              • M MadMyche

                But what if you meant it as a URI? I think SQL would call this ambiguous

                Director of Transmogrification Services Shinobi of Query Language Master of Yoda Conditional

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                Z Offline
                ZurdoDev
                wrote on last edited by
                #36

                MadMyche wrote:

                But what if you meant it as a URI?

                Then you do new Uri(string);

                Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                • Z ZurdoDev

                  What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                  var url = "http://someapi";

                  This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                  Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                  M Offline
                  Mycroft Holmes
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #37

                  When I moved from VB (where purists dump on var from a great height) to c# where explicit types were mandatory I lost all faith in var, it became the one thing in VB that I loathed. Now that it has phoenixed in c# I refuse to use it. As for var content changing type and not having to refactor, what a croc of shit, you should HAVE to refactor if you change type or at least check your usage of the variable.

                  Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP

                  Sander RosselS 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                    I'd actually prefer it is you could do this:

                    Dictionary> complicatedDictionary = new *();

                    To me, that would be a more natural way of showing what the type of complicatedDictionary actually is. As it is, I find var is mainly over used by the lazy-and-don't-care script kiddies ...

                    "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

                    pkfoxP Offline
                    pkfoxP Offline
                    pkfox
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #38

                    Yes I agree

                    "We can't stop here - this is bat country" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP

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                    • OriginalGriffO OriginalGriff

                      The problem with that is that you are working to what should have been a breaking change. And that's important, because if you were assuming int division as a result of the original type spec for example, then a breaking change means you know it's just failed and can adapt to it. var in that case means you don't know, and output can be subtly wrong and unnoticed until it's a real problem. I'd say var should be there for temporary storage of Linq results, and nowhere else ...

                      "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!

                      pkfoxP Offline
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                      pkfox
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #39

                      :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

                      "We can't stop here - this is bat country" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP

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                      • Z ZurdoDev

                        What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                        var url = "http://someapi";

                        This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                        Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

                        Sander RosselS Offline
                        Sander RosselS Offline
                        Sander Rossel
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #40

                        I use var almost exclusively these days. I started out using it sometimes, but then I started using it more and more. To me, it just seems nice to have all my vars lined up nicely :D Some people thing the var keyword isn't strongly typed, but it is (we have dynamic for that). It's not like JavaScript's var keyword. It's only absolutely necessary to use var when working with anonymous types (still strongly typed!).

                        Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly

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                        • M Mycroft Holmes

                          When I moved from VB (where purists dump on var from a great height) to c# where explicit types were mandatory I lost all faith in var, it became the one thing in VB that I loathed. Now that it has phoenixed in c# I refuse to use it. As for var content changing type and not having to refactor, what a croc of shit, you should HAVE to refactor if you change type or at least check your usage of the variable.

                          Never underestimate the power of human stupidity - RAH I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP

                          Sander RosselS Offline
                          Sander RosselS Offline
                          Sander Rossel
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #41

                          VB doesn't have var? :confused: The equivalent would be:

                          Dim something = "my string"

                          Which looks fine to me and is still strongly typed, unless Options Strict is Off.

                          Mycroft Holmes wrote:

                          As for var content changing type and not having to refactor

                          Using var is strongly typed so I don't really get what you're saying. Are you thinking of dynamic or Option Strict Off (which luckily DOESN'T have an equivalent in C# X| )?

                          Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly

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                          • G GuyThiebaut

                            The advantage of var is if "http://someapi" was a variable or class instance instead of a string literal and you changed its type, you would not then need to refactor the code elsewhere. In your example it's just a case of habit probably, however it's obvious from what is on the right that it's a string. It can sometimes make it harder to debug issues as jumping to the class definition might not always be supported in the IDE you use to debug the var url value with or have to wait for the IDE to resolve the type that the var is. That's my take on var...

                            “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

                            ― Christopher Hitchens

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                            BillWoodruff
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #42

                            GuyThiebaut wrote:

                            The advantage of var is if "http://someapi" was a variable or class instance instead of a string literal and you changed its type, you would not then need to refactor the code elsewhere.

                            "O, that way madness lies; let me shun that!" (King Lear)

                            «One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali

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                            • M Marc Clifton

                              OriginalGriff wrote:

                              that would be a more natural way of showing what the type

                              Yup. And as I replied on the Insider News, what I really want is: var foo = new(); In most cases, the compiler should be able to figure out what foo is by inspecting its usage in the code! :laugh:

                              Latest Articles:
                              Abusing Extension Methods, Null Continuation, and Null Coalescence Operators

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                              BillWoodruff
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #43

                              Marc Clifton wrote:

                              In most cases, the compiler should be able to figure out what foo is by inspecting its usage in the code!

                              If you turn the compiler into a psychic, be prepared for bad news :wtf:

                              «One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali

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                              • B BillWoodruff

                                GuyThiebaut wrote:

                                The advantage of var is if "http://someapi" was a variable or class instance instead of a string literal and you changed its type, you would not then need to refactor the code elsewhere.

                                "O, that way madness lies; let me shun that!" (King Lear)

                                «One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali

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                                GuyThiebaut
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #44

                                Tell me about it, I have been coding in Kotlin for an Android application and in Kotlin pretty much every type is inferred. So the code is peppered with it when referring to a property and it can be pretty much anything.

                                “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

                                ― Christopher Hitchens

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                                • Z ZurdoDev

                                  What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                                  var url = "http://someapi";

                                  This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                                  Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                                  Steve Naidamast
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #45

                                  The C# "var" construct and other such constructs in both C# and VB.NET are merely short-cuts or the usage of system defaults. This makes for very ambiguous code over the length of an application's development. This is why I don't even use the generic list-type and still use array-lists instead. Despite the slight performance decreases (which most will not notice since such constructs often do not contain thousands of objects or items in general), having easy to read strongly typed code makes my applications much more easily maintainable.

                                  Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com

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                                  • Z ZurdoDev

                                    What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                                    var url = "http://someapi";

                                    This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                                    Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                                    Rusty Bullet
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #46

                                    The last place I worked would fail you in code reviews if you did not use var. Their (ill) logic was something to do with a design pattern, and when Entity Framework would cough on var, they added lines of code to get it to pass instead of just using the correct type.

                                    1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • Z ZurdoDev

                                      What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                                      var url = "http://someapi";

                                      This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                                      Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                                      Michael Waters
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #47

                                      I (almost) only use var for non-production code, when I'm writing from whole cloth and doing initial diagnostics. As the code matures, I replace (almost) all instances of var with the actual types. Great way to force you to review and refactor before release. For very long types, I'll use var, but only when the type is already included in the same location, like a declaration and instantiation.

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                                      • Z ZurdoDev

                                        What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                                        var url = "http://someapi";

                                        This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                                        Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                                        Davyd McColl
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #48

                                        Apart from the obvious (it saves typing and you have a set maximum number of keystrokes you can make in your life), it also allows for alignment which makes things easier to read (we're better with vertical scanning than horizontal scanning - for more see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsHMHukIlJY and also there's just plain less to read!) but also because consuming code is more likely to survive a refactor intact: changing return type to something with similar shape means no consumer changes, renames of classes don't have to alter as many lines of code. Since it's syntactic sugar, it costs nothing at runtime and it's normally one of the first automated fixes I do in a file when I enter legacy code.

                                        ------------------------------------------------ If you say that getting the money is the most important thing You will spend your life completely wasting your time You will be doing things you don't like doing In order to go on living That is, to go on doing things you don't like doing Which is stupid. - Alan Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gXTZM\_uPMY

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                                        • Z ZurdoDev

                                          What is the love affair with var? I see sample code where they do something like

                                          var url = "http://someapi";

                                          This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

                                          Social Media - A platform that makes it easier for the crazies to find each other. Everyone is born right handed. Only the strongest overcome it. Fight for left-handed rights and hand equality.

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                                          S Offline
                                          salz150
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #49

                                          I've read that convention is to use "var" when the type of variable is apparent by reading the code. If you printed out this code it would still be pretty obvious that "url" is a string. If you can't tell the type by reading the code then the actual type should be used. It is lazy but if it eliminates some redundancy and makes coding a little quicker than it's a good thing. I personally follow the convention above but I know some people use var for everything.

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