Welcome to the Lounge

var name = "Blah";

var people = new List<Person>();

var data = SomeFunction();

auto i = small integer // seems rather silly, and obscures signed/unsigned
auto v = some complex STL type // is handy
auto l = some big elephanting lambda // is required, and why they added it

• It forces you to initialize the variable.
• If the variable is initialized by calling a function, and that function's return type changes, the code might not even be affected.
• Some type names are long or complicated, and I hate spilling lines.

auto i = 2;
auto j = 3;
auto k = i/j;
auto f = 2./j;
// f != k
// any similarity with FORTRAN is intentional

for(auto i = 0...

GuyThiebaut wrote:

The advantage of var is if "<a href="http://someapi">http://someapi</a>" was a variable or class instance instead of a string literal and you changed its type, you would not then need to refactor the code elsewhere.

obermd wrote:

Absolutely not true. Changing a data type and then attempting to use it elsewhere is guaranteed to cause you to have to modify code everywhere it's used.

GuyThiebaut wrote:

The advantage of var is if "http://someapi" was a variable or class instance instead of a string literal and you changed its type, you would not then need to refactor the code elsewhere.

ZurdoDev wrote:

This feels lazy to me but I am open minded and am curious if I am missing something. Is there some benefit to declaring most things var instead of what they actually are? In the case above, a string.

Marc Clifton wrote:

var complicatedDictionary = new Dictionary<SomeKey, List<KeyValue>>();

and worse, I like definitely like it.

Dictionary<SomeKey, List<KeyValue>> complicatedDictionary = new *();

dim complicatedDictionary as New Dictionary(of SomeKey, List(KeyValue))

OriginalGriff wrote:

that would be a more natural way of showing what the type

Marc Clifton wrote:

In most cases, the compiler should be able to figure out what foo is by inspecting its usage in the code!