#1,107 – The Bitwise AND Operator

May 30, 2014 1 Comment

You can use the & operator to do a bitwise AND operation between two integer-based values.

An AND operation is applied to two different bits, returning true if both input bits are true.  Here is a truth table showing the output value for all possible input combinations.

  • 0 & 0 = 0
  • 0 & 1 = 0
  • 1 & 0 = 0
  • 1 & 1 = 1

You can use the & operator on two arbitrary integer values as shown below.  The AND operation will be applied to the two integer values, one bit at a time.

            int n1 = 12;
            int n2 = 10;
            int result = n1 & n2;
            Console.WriteLine("{0} & {1} = {2}", n1, n2, result);

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It may help to use hex notation in order to better understand how the AND operation works on each bit.

            int n1 = 0xC;  // 12 (dec) or 1100 (bin)
            int n2 = 0xA;  // 10 (dec) or 1010 (bin)

            // result = 1000
            int result = n1 & n2;

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#1,106 – Using the Logical Exclusive OR Operator

May 29, 2014 1 Comment

You can use the exclusive OR (^) operator to do a bitwise exclusive OR operation.  The operands in this case are integer-based types.

You can also use the exclusive OR operator on boolean operands.  The result of the operation is true if exactly one of the operands (but not both) is true.

  • false ^ false => false
  • false ^ true => true
  • true ^ false => true
  • true ^ true => false
            bool itsThursday = DateTime.Now.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Thursday;
            bool itsMay = DateTime.Now.Month == 5;

            // Wear red shirt in May, wear red shirt every Thursday,
            // but don't wear red shirt on Thursdays in May
            bool wearRedShirt = itsThursday ^ itsMay;

            Console.WriteLine("Thursday:{0}, May:{1}, RedShirt:{2}", itsThursday, itsMay, wearRedShirt);

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#1,105 – Re-Declaring a Class-Level Variable within a Method

May 28, 2014 4 Comments

You can re-declare a class-level variable within a method, that is–declare a local variable having the same name as a class-level variable.  Within the scope of the method, the local variable will hide the class-level variable.

    public class MyClass
    {
        public int x = 10;

        public void MethodA()
        {
            double x = 4.2;
            Console.WriteLine(x);
        }
    }

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You cannot, however, reference a class-level variable before declaring the local variable, since this is interpreted as referencing the local variable before it is defined.

        public void MethodA()
        {
            // ERROR: Can't use local variable before it's declared
            Console.WriteLine(x);

            double x = 4.2;
            Console.WriteLine(x);
        }

You also can’t reference the class-level variable in an outer scope.

        public void MethodA()
        {
            Console.WriteLine(x);

            if (DateTime.Now.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Tuesday)
            {
                // ERROR: Can't declare local variable within this scope
                double x = 4.2;
                Console.WriteLine(x);
            }
        }

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#1,104 – Can’t Re-Declare a Variable within a Nested Block

May 26, 2014 3 Comments

A declaration space is a region of code within which you can’t declare two entities having the same name.  

Defining a class creates a new declaration space, i.e. you can declare variables at the class level.

Defining a method creates a new declaration space, known as a local variable declaration space.  A block of code within that method creates a nested local variable declaration space.

It’s of course an error to declare two variables of the same name within a local variable declaration space.  It’s also an error to re-declare a variable of the same name in a nested local variable declaration space.

        public void MethodA()
        {
            int y = 1;
            string y = "oops";  // ERROR

            int x = 12;
            Console.WriteLine(12);

            if (DateTime.Now.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Thursday)
            {
                // ERROR: Can't re-declare x within nested local variable declaration space
                double x = 4.2;
                Console.WriteLine(x);
            }
        }

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#1,103 – A Block Defines Both Scope and Declaration Space

May 23, 2014 2 Comments

  • Scope is the region of code in which you can refer to a named entity using its unqualified name.
  • Declaration space is a region of code within which you can’t declare two entities having the same name

A block of statements defines both a new scope and a new declaration space.

In the code below, the variable msg is declared within the block of statements following the if statement.

    public class MyClass
    {
        public void AMethod()
        {
            if (DateTime.Now.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Thursday)
            {
                // Can define variables within this block
                string msg = "Hi";
                Console.WriteLine("{0}, it's Thursday. ", msg);
            }

            // ERROR: The name 'msg' does not exist in the current context
            Console.WriteLine(msg);
        }
    }

The block defines a new scope–the variable msg can be referred to by name anywhere within the block (after the declaration).  This block also defines a declaration space–you can only declare one variable named msg within this block.

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#1,102 – Scope vs. Declaration Space

May 22, 2014 1 Comment

The terms scope and declaration space are similar, but slightly different.

  • Scope is the region of code in which you can refer to a named entity using its unqualified name.
  • Declaration space is a region of code within which you can’t declare two entities having the same name

For example:

    public class MyClass
    {
        int count1 = 1;
        int count2 = 2;

        public void AMethod()
        {
            int count2 = 22;

            Console.WriteLine(count1 + ", " + count2);
        }
    }

Then:

  • The class-level declarations of count1 and count2 are in the same scope and in the same declaration space
  • The body of function AMethod()
    • is included in the scope in which class-level fields are defined, i.e. you can reference them using their unqualified name.
    • defines a new declaration space, i.e. we can define a new variable of the same name as the class-level fields
    • defines a new scope, in which we can define variables, nested within outer scope

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#1,101 – Mathematical Constants

May 21, 2014 2 Comments

For your convenience, the System.Math class provides two useful mathematical constants, as fields.

  • Math.E – base of the natural logarithm, or Euler’s Number e, with value of approximately 2.71828
  • Math.PI – ratio of circle’s circumference to its diameter π, with value of approximately 3.14159

If you need to use either of these constants in your code, you can use the corresponding field in the Math class.

            double radius = 5.0;
            double circumference = 2.0 * Math.PI * radius;

            Console.Write("Radius={0}, Circumference={1}", radius, circumference);

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#1,100 – Increment and Decrement Operators Are Not Thread-Safe

May 20, 2014 1 Comment

If you have multiple threads increment or decrementing a variable using the increment or decrement operators, you may not get the desired result.  These operators are not thread-safe.

Imagine two threads that increment a variable.  If they do the operation serially, the variable ends up correctly incremented twice.  If the two threads read the value at the same time, however, they may both end up writing the same value back to the variable.  The variable ends up incremented just once.

You can do a safe increment operation using System.Threading.Threadlocked.Increment.

        private static int counter1 = 0;
        private static int counter2 = 0;

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            int maxExclusive = 1001;

            Parallel.For(1, maxExclusive, n =>
            {
                // Do some work here.
                Thread.Sleep(4);
                counter1++;
                Interlocked.Increment(ref counter2);
            });

            Console.WriteLine(
                "Ran {0} iterations, counter 1 = {1}, counter 2 = {2}",
                maxExclusive - 1, counter1, counter2);

            Console.ReadLine();
        }

Note below that Counter #1 is not incremented properly.
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#1,099 – Overloading the Increment Operator

May 19, 2014 1 Comment

You can overload the increment (++) operator in a class, providing custom increment functionality for an object.

The example below shows an overloaded increment operator defined in a Dog class.  The effect is to add 1 to the age of the dog.  We are careful to return a reference to the object that was passed in so that no other data in the instance changes.

    public class Dog 
    {
        // Increment a Dog
        public static Dog operator ++(Dog d)
        {
            d.Age++;
            return d;
        }

        public string Name { get; set; }
        public int Age { get; set; }
        public string Nickname { get; set; }

        public Dog(string name, int age)
        {
            Name = name;
            Age = age;
            Nickname = "?";
        }

        public override string ToString()
        {
            return string.Format("{0}, Age {1}, Nickname [{2}]", Name, Age, Nickname);
        }
    }

We can use the operator as follows:

            Dog kirby = new Dog("Kirby", 10);
            kirby.Nickname = "Ball Chaser";
            Console.WriteLine(kirby);

            kirby++;
            Console.WriteLine(kirby);

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#1,098 – Floating Point Overflow

May 16, 2014 1 Comment

When you perform an arithmetic operation on a floating point value and the result has a magnitude that is too large to be represented by the floating point data type, an overflow condition occurs.  This is equivalent to trying to store a value whose exponent is larger than the maximum allowed exponent value.

If the result of the calculation is greater than the maximum representable positive floating point value, the result of the calculation is +Infinity.  If the result of the calculation is less than the largest representable negative floating point value, the result of the calculation is -Infinity.

            // Create a big floating point number
            float bigNumber = float.MaxValue;
            Console.WriteLine(bigNumber);  // 3.402823E+38

            // Adding small number doesn't change large number
            float newBig = bigNumber + 1.0f;
            Console.WriteLine(newBig);     // 3.402823E+38

            // But doubling the original number leads to overflow
            float reallyBig = bigNumber * 2.0f;
            Console.WriteLine(reallyBig);

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