C# Language Specification

Version 6

Microsoft has not yet released an official copy of the C#6 spec. This is an unofficial draft. When Microsoft does release its official copy, before end 2016 at the latest, then this current repository will be deleted. That's because I wouldn't want to have two copies of the C#6 spec floating around.

(This document is also available for download: csharp.pdf and csharp.docx)

• Introduction
  • Hello world
  • Program structure
  • Types and variables
  • Expressions
  • Statements
  • Classes and objects
• Lexical structure
  • Programs
  • Grammars
  • Lexical analysis
  • Tokens
  • Pre-processing directives
• Basic concepts
  • Application Startup
  • Application termination
  • Declarations
  • Members
  • Member access
  • Signatures and overloading
  • Scopes
  • Namespace and type names
  • Automatic memory management
  • Execution order
• Types
  • Value types
  • Reference types
  • Boxing and unboxing
  • Constructed types
  • Type parameters
  • Expression tree types
  • The dynamic type
• Variables
  • Variable categories
  • Default values
  • Definite assignment
  • Variable references
  • Atomicity of variable references
• Conversions
  • Implicit conversions
  • Explicit conversions
  • Standard conversions
  • User-defined conversions
  • Anonymous function conversions
  • Method group conversions
• Expressions
  • Expression classifications
  • Static and Dynamic Binding
  • Operators
  • Member lookup
  • Function members
  • Primary expressions
  • Unary operators
  • Arithmetic operators
  • Shift operators
  • Relational and type-testing operators
  • Logical operators
  • Conditional logical operators
  • The null coalescing operator
  • Conditional operator
  • Anonymous function expressions
  • Query expressions
  • Assignment operators
  • Expression
  • Constant expressions
  • Boolean expressions
• Statements
  • End points and reachability
  • Blocks
  • The empty statement
  • Labeled statements
  • Declaration statements
  • Expression statements
  • Selection statements
  • Iteration statements
  • Jump statements
  • The try statement
  • The checked and unchecked statements
  • The lock statement
  • The using statement
  • The yield statement
• Namespaces
  • Compilation units
  • Namespace declarations
  • Extern aliases
  • Using directives
  • Namespace members
  • Type declarations
  • Namespace alias qualifiers
• Classes
  • Class declarations
  • Partial types
  • Class members
  • Constants
  • Fields
  • Methods
  • Properties
  • Events
  • Indexers
  • Operators
  • Instance constructors
  • Static constructors
  • Destructors
  • Iterators
• Structs
  • Struct declarations
  • Struct members
  • Class and struct differences
  • Struct examples
• Arrays
  • Array types
  • Array creation
  • Array element access
  • Array members
  • Array covariance
  • Array initializers
• Interfaces
  • Interface declarations
  • Interface members
  • Fully qualified interface member names
  • Interface implementations
• Enums
  • Enum declarations
  • Enum modifiers
  • Enum members
  • The System.Enum type
  • Enum values and operations
• Delegates
  • Delegate declarations
  • Delegate compatibility
  • Delegate instantiation
  • Delegate invocation
• Exceptions
  • Causes of exceptions
  • The System.Exception class
  • How exceptions are handled
  • Common Exception Classes
• Attributes
  • Attribute classes
  • Attribute specification
  • Attribute instances
  • Reserved attributes
  • Attributes for Interoperation
• Unsafe code
  • Unsafe contexts
  • Pointer types
  • Fixed and moveable variables
  • Pointer conversions
  • Pointers in expressions
  • The fixed statement
  • Fixed size buffers
  • Stack allocation
  • Dynamic memory allocation
• Documentation comments
  • Introduction
  • Recommended tags
  • Processing the documentation file
  • An example
• Grammar: csharp.html. Or download in ANTLR format: csharp.g4.