Two New Features of C# 4.0

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Two new features to C# 4.0 are optional parameters and named parameters. Optional parameters have been a part of VB.Net but it's now possible to do this in C#. Instead of using overload methods, you can do this in C#:

private string SomeMethod(string givenName,
    string surname = "Sheridan", int age = 10)
{
return givenName + " " + surname;
}

The second and third parameters, surname & age, both have default values. The only parameter required is givenName. To call this method you can either write this:

string name = null;
name = SomeMethod("Malcolm");

That will return Malcolm Sheridan. You can also do this:

string name = null;
name = SomeMethod("Suprotim", "Agarwal"); 

The value returned is Suprotim Agarwal. But what if you didn't want to specify a surname but you did want to pass the age? You can do this by using named parameters:

string name = null;
name = SomeMethod("Suprotim", age: 20);

These are nice additions to the language.

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About The Author

Malcolm Sheridan is a Microsoft awarded MVP in ASP.NET and regular presenter at conferences and user groups throughout Australia. Being an ASP.NET Insider, his focus is on web technologies and has been for the past 10 years. He loves working with ASP.NET MVC these days and also loves getting his hands dirty with JavaScript. He also blogs regularly at DotNetCurry.com. Follow him on twitter @malcolmsheridan