How to use Literals in C# | C# Programming

In this c# tutorial, you will learn about how to use literals in c#, tokens in c#, types of tokens in c#.

TOKENS IN C#

• C# program is a collection of tokens, comments and whitespaces
• A token is a smallest unit in the program

TYPES OF TOKENS

     1. Keywords

     2. Identifiers

     3. Operators

     4. Punctuators

     5. Literals

NOTE

• White spaces and comments are not tokens; They may act as a separator for tokens.

1. Keywords

• Keywords are reserved words
• It implements the specific features of the language
• It can’t be used as identifiers but c# allows the use of keywords as identifiers when they are prefixed with the ‘@‘ symbol

Example

       int if=99;        // Error (Because keyword is not allowed) 

       int @if=99;        // correct.

2. Identifiers

• Names given to various programming elements such as variables, methods, class, array, interfaces, etc, …

3. Operators

• A special symbol is used to perform various useful tasks.

Example: 

• +, -, /, *, ++, –, …etc

4. Punctuators 

Examples

Statements

• Sentences in natural language
• Executable combination of tokens ending with a semicolon

Types of Statements

• Empty statements
• Loop statements (Ex. for, while, do-while)
• Labeled statements (Ex. goto label)
• Declaration statements (Ex. int num=191)
• Expression statements (Ex. c=a*b)
• Selection statements (Ex. if, if-else, nested if, switch)

5. Literals

• Constant values are assigned to variables (Literals)

BACKSLASH CHARACTER LITERALS

• C# supports some special backslash character literals

S.N	CONSTANT	MEANING
1.	\a	Alert
2.	\b	Back space
3.	\f	Form feed
4.	\n	New line
5.	\’	Single quote
6.	\\”	Double quote
7.	‘\0’	Null character

General String 

• Set of characters without any special symbols

Example

       WriteLine(“Hello World”);

Special String

• Set of characters with special symbols

Example

       WriteLine(“\n\t World”);               // special characters like /n, /t

Formatted String 

       general string + special string + formatted syntax

Example

       WriteLine(“{0}”, name);        // print name using formatted syntax

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