Scope of Variables in C#

The part of the program where a particular variable is accessible is termed as the Scope of that variable. A variable can be defined in a class, method, loop etc. In C/C++, all identifiers are lexically (or statically) scoped, i.e.scope of a variable can be determined at compile time and independent of the function call stack. But the C# programs are organized in the form of classes.

So C# scope rules of variables can be divided into three categories as follows:

• Class Level Scope
• Method Level Scope
• Block Level Scope

Class Level Scope

• Declaring the variables in a class but outside any method can be directly accessed anywhere in the class.
• These variables are also termed as the fields or class members.
• Class level scoped variable can be accessed by the non-static methods of the class in which it is declared.
• Access modifier of class level variables doesn’t affect their scope within a class.
• Member variables can also be accessed outside the class by using the access modifiers.

Example:

// C# program to illustrate the
// Class Level Scope of variables
using System;

// declaring a Class
class GFG { // from here class level scope starts

    // this is a class level variable
    // having class level scope
    int a = 10;

    // declaring a method
    public void display()
    {
        // accessing class level variable
        Console.WriteLine(a);

    } // here method ends

} // here class level scope ends

Method Level Scope

• Variables that are declared inside a method have method level scope. These are not accessible outside the method.
• However, these variables can be accessed by the nested code blocks inside a method.
• These variables are termed as the local variables.
• There will be a compile-time error if these variables are declared twice with the same name in the same scope.
• These variables don’t exist after method’s execution is over.

Example:

// C# program to illustrate the
// Method Level Scope of variables
using System;

// declaring a Class
class GFG { // from here class level scope starts

    // declaring a method
    public void display()

    { // from here method level scope starts

        // this variable has
        // method level scope
        int m = 47;

        // accessing method level variable
        Console.WriteLine(m);

    } // here method level scope ends

    // declaring a method
    public void display1()

    { // from here method level scope starts

        // it will give compile time error as
        // you are trying to access the local
        // variable of method display()
        Console.WriteLine(m);

    } // here method level scope ends

} // here class level scope ends

Block Level Scope

• These variables are generally declared inside the for, while statement etc.
• These variables are also termed as the loop variables or statements variable as they have limited their scope up to the body of the statement in which it declared.
• Generally, a loop inside a method has three level of nested code blocks(i.e. class level, method level, loop level).
• The variable which is declared outside the loop is also accessible within the nested loops. It means a class level variable will be accessible to the methods and all loops. Method level variable will be accessible to loop and method inside that method.
• A variable which is declared inside a loop body will not be visible to the outside of loop body.

Example:

// C# code to illustrate the Block
// Level scope of variables
using System;

// declaring a Class
class GFG

{ // from here class level scope starts

    // declaring a method
    public void display()

    { // from here method level scope starts

        // this variable has
        // method level scope
        int i = 0;

        for (i = 0; i < 4; i++) {

            // accessing method level variable
            Console.WriteLine(i);
        }

        // here j is block level variable
        // it is only accessible inside
        // this for loop
        for (int j = 0; j < 5; j++) {
            // accessing block level variable
            Console.WriteLine(j);
        }

        // this will give error as block level
        // variable can't be accessed outside
        // the block
        Console.WriteLine(j);

    } // here method level scope ends

} // here class level scope ends