Difference between a constant and readonly variables/fields : (constant vs readonly)
- What is the difference between constant and readonly fields?
- When to use constant and when to use readonly fields?
- What is the advantage/disadvantage of each?
- In C# you can declare a constant like this "const" is a keyword.
public const string _constStrVar = "I am a static const str val"; - A constant variable should have value at design time.
- All the constant variables are static ie they are shared across all the instances of the class. You dont have to add the keyword "static".
- Constants are copied to all the dlls where is refereeing the parent class ie even if you change the the original constant value and recompile the parent dll , the other dll will still use the old value. The size of the executable goes up since all these constants are copied to the respective dlls
- Read only variables are created usually in the constructor of class. there fore it will have values before the constructor of the class exists
{
public readonly string _strReadonly;
public void MyClass(string strVal)