C# Literal Types
When you are specifying literal numeric values in your code you will, on occasion, have to give the compiler a heads-up on the expected type from the declaration.
For example, the literal value 5.3 will, by default, be assumed to be a double. As such, the following
1 | float result = 5.3 / 12.4; |
will result in the exception
Cannot implicitly convert type ‘double’ to ‘float’. An explicit conversion exists (are you missing a cast?)
You could cast the value but that would create an unneccessary overhead and result in messy code.
1 2 3 | float result = (float)5.3 / (float)12.4; or float result = (float)(5.3 / 12.4); |
The most suitable way to approach this is to advise the compiler on the literal type. You do this by applying a suffix to your literal.
1 | float result = 5.3f / 12.4f; |
This can also be used when passing a literal as a parameter in a method signature.
1 | MyObject.MyMethod(12.5m); |
A table of the most common literal type declarations can be seen below.
1 2 3 4 5 6 | var x = 1m; // decimal var x = 1f; // float var x = 1d; // double var x = 1l; // long var x = 1u; // uint var x = 1ul; // ulong |
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4 Comments
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Dave the Ninja
Welcome back Duffy! been a while since the last post!
Ninja
p.s I’m sure I told you all this at B.D Network
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by wduffy, Caspar Kleijne. Caspar Kleijne said: RT @wduffy: New blog post, http://www.wduffy.co.uk/blog/c-literal-types/ – Just a little quick helpful post this one. #csharp #aspnet [...]
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Steve Woods
I had no idea you could do this – i’ve been using the Cast method which, as you say, is messy – however I thought it was a limitation.
Excellent post – now I have tons of code to refactor
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Gryphes
you can also use
@ as a literal type when using “\’ with string especially C# considers the \- backspace as a escape character if you don’t append @ at the beginning of that string it will generate an error.string Wincal = @”Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCalc”;
Welcome back Duffy! been a while since the last post!
Ninja
p.s I’m sure I told you all this at B.D Network
I had no idea you could do this – i’ve been using the Cast method which, as you say, is messy – however I thought it was a limitation.
Excellent post – now I have tons of code to refactor
you can also use
@ as a literal type when using “\’ with string especially C# considers the \- backspace as a escape character if you don’t append @ at the beginning of that string it will generate an error.
string Wincal = @”Microsoft\Windows\WindowsCalc”;