is string variable and string variable with string.empty same?

Question

I have many scenarios in my application where I am declaring strings as string.empty and later dynamically adding values to it. In C#, Is

string status

and

string status = String.Empty;

same?

• Alessandro D'Andria: No, string is reference type default is null.
• SLaks: String is a reference type. It defaults to null. You may or may not care.
• Gusman: String.Empty is the same as ""

Answer 1

Those lines of code are not equivalent.

• If you've declared string status outside of a method, it initializes to its default value of null.

• If you've declared string status inside a method, it isn't initialized, and you can't use it until you explicitly give it a value.

Whether or not you need string status = String.Empty; depends on your situation, but it seems like a decent way of avoiding a NullReferenceException if you find your code sometimes throws.

Answer 2

No. It's not the same. String datataype allows null. And remember that it is encouraged that you always initialize all your variables/attributes/properties.

string status = String.Empty;

Answer 3

No, the default value of string variable is Null

string status;

• when inside a method: it would stay uninitialized
• when outside a method: it would create a string object with a Null value, because string is a reference type.

string status = String.Empty;

will create a string object with a value of the Empty constant which is a string of zero length

• Gusman: will create a string object with a Null value wrong, that only happens on class-level variables, on a method it will not compile as it will be uninitialized.