What's the use/meaning of the @ character in variable names in C#?

Question

I discovered that you can start your variable name with a \'@\' character in C#. In my C# project I was using a web service (I added a web reference to my project) that was

Answer 1

Unlike Perl's sigils, an @ prefix before a variable name in C# has no meaning. If x is a variable, @x is another name for the same variable.

> string x = "abc";
> Object.ReferenceEquals(x, @x).Dump();
True

But the @ prefix does have a use, as you've discovered - you can use it to clarify variables names that C# would otherwise reject as illegal.

> string string;
Identifier expected; 'string' is a keyword

> string @string;