Search code examples
c#asp.netsyntaxvariablesnaming-conventions

What does variable names beginning with _ mean?


When writing my first asp.net MVC application using C#, I see that there are some variables whose name start with an underscore character(_).

What does this mean? Is there any specific meaning for this?


Solution

  • There's no language-defined meaning - it's just a convention some people use to distinguish instance variables from local variables. Other variations include m_foo (and s_foo or g_foo or static variables) or mFoo; alternatively some people like to prefix the local variables (and parameters) instead of the instance variables.

    Personally I don't use prefixes like this, but it's a style choice. So long as everyone working on the same project is consistent, it's usually not much of an issue. I've seen some horribly inconsistent code though...