C# 11 – Extended name of the scope

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Let’s list all the features that C# 11 brings to the table. Let’s discuss them all one by one, with their use cases, and see how they can come in handy. At the bottom of each article, you can find a link to all 14 new C# features!

Extended name of the scope

In times before C# 11, we could only provide nameof the parameter after the declaration took place.

So something like this:

// C# 10
public class MyClass
{
   [Description('myParam')] // Cannot use nameof :(
   public void MyMethod(string myParam)
   {
       var nameOfClass = nameof(MyClass);
       var nameOfMethod = nameof(MyMethod);
       var nameOfParam = nameof(myParam);
   }
}

anything other than that would result in a build-time exception.

In new C# 11, you can also put those nameof before declaration on certain elements.

// C# 11
public class MyClass
{
   [Description(nameof(myParam))] // It works!
   public void MyMethod(string myParam)
   {
       [Description(nameof(TGeneric))]
       void LocalFunction<TGeneric>(TGeneric param) { }

       var lambda = ([Description(nameof parameter)] string parameter) => 
          Console.WriteLine(parameter);
   }
}

As you can see this also works for local functions and lambda expressions. For parameters and generic attributes. Brilliant!

Further reading at dotnet GitHub page.