In C#, should I use string.Empty or String.Empty or “” to intitialize a string?

Question

In C#, I want to initialize a string value with an empty string.

How should I do this? What is the right way, and why?

string willi = string.Empty;
         


        

Answer 1

String.Empty and string.Empty are equivalent. String is the BCL class name; string is its C# alias (or shortcut, if you will). Same as with Int32 and int. See the docs for more examples.

As far as "" is concerned, I'm not really sure.

Personally, I always use string.Empty.

Answer 2

Just about every developer out there will know what "" means. I personally encountered String.Empty the first time and had to spend some time searching google to figure out if they really are the exact same thing.

Answer 3

Any of the above.

There are many, many better things to pontificate. Such as what colour bark suits a tree best, I think vague brown with tinges of dulcet moss.

Answer 4

I think the second is "proper," but to be honest I don't think it will matter. The compiler should be smart enough to compile any of those to the exact same bytecode. I use "" myself.

Answer 5

string is synonym for System.String type, They are identical.

Values are also identical: string.Empty == String.Empty == ""

I would not use character constant "" in code, rather string.Empty or String.Empty - easier to see what programmer meant.

Between string and String I like lower case string more just because I used to work with Delphi for lot of years and Delphi style is lowercase string.

So, if I was your boss, you would be writing string.Empty

Answer 6

I use the third, but of the other two the first seems less odd. string is an alias for String, but seeing them across an assignment feels off.