C# Optional Parameters

Use optional parameters to call methods. View the implementation of optional parameters.

Optional parameters. Some birds have colors and stripes, but others do not. These features are optional. In C# an optional parameter has a default value.Named Parameters

A method with an optional parameter can be called without that argument. Using this feature, we add default values for formal parameters. We explore the performance here.

An example. We introduce a method named "Method" that has 2 parameters. Each of the parameters is optional. We use special syntax form to declare them.

Tip: To specify an optional parameter, assign the formal parameter in the method parameter list to an appropriate value.

Here: We set the formal parameter "value" to 1, and the formal parameter "name" to "Perl".

And: Whenever Method is called without a parameter specified, its default value is used instead in the method body.

Thus: We can call Method() with no parameters. And we can call it with only an int parameter.

C# program that uses optional parameters using System; class Program { static void Main() { // Omit the optional parameters. Method(); // Omit second optional parameter. Method(4); // You can't omit the first but keep the second. // Method("Dot"); // Classic calling syntax. Method(4, "Dot"); // Specify one named parameter. Method(name: "Sundar"); // Specify both named parameters. Method(value: 5, name: "Pichai"); } static void Method(int value = 1, string name = "Perl") { Console.WriteLine("value = {0}, name = {1}", value, name); } } Output value = 1, name = Perl value = 4, name = Perl value = 4, name = Dot value = 1, name = Sundar value = 5, name = Pichai

Internals. If you are interested in programming languages, you will want to know some information about how various features are implemented.

Important: For the optional parameter feature, an attribute is used to decorate the optional parameters.

And: The attribute stores some object data about the default value of the parameter.

Attribute

Intermediate language for optional parameter method: IL .method private hidebysig static void Method([opt] int32 'value', [opt] string name) cil managed { .param [1] = int32(1) .param [2] = string('Perl') .maxstack 8 L_0000: ldstr "value = {0}, name = {1}" L_0005: ldarg.0 L_0006: box int32 L_000b: ldarg.1 L_000c: call void [mscorlib]System.Console::WriteLine(string, object, object) L_0011: ret }

Performance. What performance effect do optional parameters have? After benchmarking optional parameters, I found no performance effect.

Important: The C# compiler transforms the calls where parameters were omitted to regular syntax calls.

So: Method calls that omit parameters are the same speed as those that use the standard syntax.

A summary. The optional parameter feature lets us specify methods that do not need all of their parameters specified. We use an assignment statement within the method parameter list.

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C# Optional Parameters

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