A variable is nothing but a name given to a storage area that our programs can manipulate. Each variable in C# has a specific type, which determines the size and layout of the variable's memory the range of values that can be stored within that memory and the set of operations that can be applied to the variable.
The basic value types provided in C# can be categorized as:
| Type |
Example |
| Integral types |
sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, long, ulong, and char |
| Floating point types |
float and double |
| Decimal types |
decimal |
| Boolean types |
true or false values, as assigned |
| Nullable types |
Nullable data types |
Defining Variables
Syntax for variable definition in C# is:
<data_type> <variable_list>;
Here, data_type must be a valid C# data type including char, int, float, double, or any user-defined data type, and variable_list may consist of one or more identifier names separated by commas.
Some valid variable definitions are shown here:
int i, j, k;
char c, ch;
float f, salary;
double d;
You can initialize a variable at the time of definition as:
int i = 100;
Accepting Values from User
The Console class in the System namespace provides a function ReadLine() for accepting input from the user and store it into a variable.
For example,
int num;
num = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
The function Convert.ToInt32() converts the data entered by the user to int data type, because Console.ReadLine() accepts the data in string format.
Lvalue and Rvalue Expressions in C#:
There are two kinds of expressions in C#:
lvalue: An expression that is an lvalue may appear as either the left-hand or right-hand side of an assignment.
rvalue: An expression that is an rvalue may appear on the right- but not left-hand side of an assignment.
Variables are lvalues and hence they may appear on the left-hand side of an assignment. Numeric literals are rvalues and hence they may not be assigned and can not appear on the left-hand side. Following is a valid C# statement:
