Reserved Word - Reserved Words and Language Independence

Reserved Words and Language Independence

Microsoft’s .NET Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specification allows code written in 40+ different programming languages to be combined together into a final product. Because of this, identifier/reserved word collisions can occur when code implemented in one language tries to execute code written in another language. For example, a Visual Basic.NET library may contain a class definition such as:

' Class Definition of This in Visual Basic.NET: Public Class this ' This class does something... End Class

If this is compiled and distributed as part of a toolbox, a C# programmer, wishing to define a variable of type “this” would encounter a problem: 'this' is a reserved word in C#. Thus, the following will not compile in C#:

// Using This Class in C#: this x = new this; // Won't compile!

A similar issue arises when accessing members, overriding virtual methods, and identifying namespaces.

In order to work around this issue, the specification allows the programmer to (in C#) place the at-sign before the identifier which forces it to be considered an identifier rather than a reserved word by the compiler.

// Using This Class in C#: @this x = new @this; // Will compile!

For consistency, this usage is also permitted in non-public settings such as local variables, parameter names, and private members.

Read more about this topic:  Reserved Word

Famous quotes containing the words reserved, words, language and/or independence:

    “Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
    And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
    Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
    Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike;
    Alike reserved to blame, or to commend,
    A timorous foe, and a suspicious friend;
    Dreading e’en fools, by flatterers besieged,
    And so obliging, that he ne’er obliged;
    Like Cato, give his little senate laws,
    And sit attentive to his own applause:”
    —Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    “The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”
    —Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

    “We find that the child who does not yet have language at his command, the child under two and a half, will be able to cooperate with our education if we go easy on the “blocking” techniques, the outright prohibitions, the “no’s” and go heavy on “substitution” techniques, that is, the redirection or certain impulses and the offering of substitute satisfactions.”
    —Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)

    “Traditionally in American society, men have been trained for both competition and teamwork through sports, while women have been reared to merge their welfare with that of the family, with fewer opportunities for either independence or other team identifications, and fewer challenges to direct competition. In effect, women have been circumscribed within that unit where the benefit of one is most easily believed to be the benefit of all.”
    —Mary Catherine Bateson (b. 1939)