C# 9.0 - What's new

Microsoft released with .NET 5 also C# 9.0. This version of C# focuses mainly on productivity improvements and tries to help developers to reduce their time typing.

You can find the code of this demo on Github.

Record Types

My favorite feature of C# 9.0 is record types. They allow you to define a class with its properties and a constructor in one line. A base class with an inherited class looked as follows so far:

public class Student : Person
{
    public Student(int grade, int age, string name) : base(age, name)
    {
        Grade = grade;
    }

    public int Grade { get; set; }
}

public class Person
{
    public Person(int age, string name)
    {
        Age = age;
        Name = name;
    }

    public int Age { get; set; }

    public string Name { get; set; }

    public string SaySomething()
    {
        return "Hello, I am a Person";
    }
}

With C# 9.0, you can define both classes with its properties, constructors, and even the SaySomething method with the following code:

public record Student(int Grade, int Age, string Name) : Person(Age, Name);

public record Person(int Age, string Name)
{
    public string SaySomething()
    {
        return "Hello, I am a Person";
    }
}

This should reduce the typing required for simple class definitions.

Init Only Setters

The next new feature is Init only setters. They allow you to set a value for a property when you create the object but then prohibit you from setting a new value for the property. All you have to do for that is using int instead of set in the property definition:

public class InitOnlySetter
{
    public string Name { get; init; }
}

You can set the value for Name when you create the object but you will get a compiler error if you try to set a new value.

var initOnlySetter = new InitOnlySetter
{
    Name = "Wolfgang"

// not allowed
initOnlySetter.Name = "Smith";

Improved Pattern Matching

The pattern matching which was first introduced in C# 7 got new keywords. Now you can concatenate the check of your expression with not, and, and or. In the following code, I check if the provided character either a lowercase or uppercase letter but not a number:

private static void PatternMatchingEnhancements(char character)
{
    var isLetter = character is (>= 'a' and <= 'z') or (>= 'A' and <= 'Z') and not (>= '0' and <= '9');
    Console.WriteLine($"{character} is a letter and not a number: {isLetter}");
}

Top-Level Statements

Top-Level statements remove all the boilerplate around a class like using statements and a namespace. A typical hello world application would look as follows:

using System;

namespace CSharp9
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
        }
    }
}

With the new top-level statements, you can create the same application with a single line of code:

1

System.Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");

Running this application is merely a gimmick feature to me but I think it has the potential to reduce to time developer using typing repetitive definitions and therefore might help improve productivity.

Fit and Finish

The last feature is called fit and finish and allows you to leave out the type definition when you create a new class. The following code creates a new object of the class FitAndFinish and sets the Name property:

FitAndFinish fitAndFinish = new() { Name = "Wolfgang" };

Console.WriteLine($"Hello {fitAndFinish.Name}");

Since the type of the name is in front of the variable, the compiler knows what type this variable instantiates. I am not too excited about this feature because I always use var and therefore can’t use it but it’s nice to have this feature if someone needs it.

Conclusion

Today, I gave a quick overview of the new features in C# 9.0. Nothing is too spectacular and the focus was clearly on increasing the developer productivity but I think especially records might be useful in the future.

You can find the code of this demo on Github.