Question

I have been using C# for quite a long time but never realised the following:

 public static void Main()
 {
     for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
     {

     }

     int i = 4;  //cannot declare as 'i' is declared in child scope                
     int A = i;  //cannot assign as 'i' does not exist in this context
 }

So why can I not use the value of ‘i’ outside of the for block if it does not allow me to declare a variable with this name?

I thought that the iterator variable used by a for-loop is valid only in its scope.

Answer 1

The reason you are not allowed to define a variable with the same name in both the for-loop as well as outside the for-loop is because variables in the outer-scope are valid in the inner-scope. Meaning that there would be two ‘i’ variables within the for-loop if this was allowed.

See: MSDN Scopes

Specifically:

The scope of a local variable declared in a local-variable-declaration
(Section 8.5.1) is the block in which the declaration occurs.

and

The scope of a local variable declared in a for-initializer of a for
statement (Section 8.8.3) is the for-initializer, the for-condition,
the for-iterator, and the contained statement of the for statement.

And also: Local variable declarations (Section 8.5.1 of the C# specification)

Specifically:

The scope of a local variable declared in a local-variable-declaration
is the block in which the declaration occurs. It is an error to refer
to a local variable in a textual position that precedes the
local-variable-declarator of the local variable. Within the scope of a
local variable, it is a compile-time error to declare another local
variable or constant with the same name.

(Emphasis mine.)

Which means that the scope of the i inside your for-loop, is the for-loop. Whereas the scope of the i outside of your for-loop is the entire main method plus the for-loop. Meaning you’d have two occurrences of i inside the loop which is invalid according to the above.

The reason why you’re not allowed to do int A = i; is because int i is only scoped for use within the for loop. Thus it is no longer accessible outside of the for loop.

As you can see both of these issues are a result of scoping; the first issue (int i = 4;) would result in two i variables within the for loop scope. Whereas int A = i; would result in access to a variable that is out of scope.

What you could do instead is declare i to be scoped to the entire method, and then use it in both the method as well as the for-loop scope. This will avoid breaking either rule.

public static void Main()
{
    int i;

    for (i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {

    }

    // 'i' is only declared in the method scope now, 
    // no longer in the child scope -> valid.
    i = 4;

    // 'i' is declared in the method's scope -> valid. 
    int A = i;
}

EDIT:

The C# compiler could of course be changed to allow this code to compile quite validly. After all this is valid:

for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
{
    Console.WriteLine(i);
}

for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--)
{
    Console.WriteLine(i);
}

But would it really be beneficial to your code readability and maintainability to be able to write code such as:

public static void Main()
{
    int i = 4;

    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(i);
    }

    for (int i = 5; i > 0; i--)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(i);
    }

    Console.WriteLine(i);
}

Think about the potential for mistakes here, does the last i print out 0 or 4? Now this is a very small example, one which is quite easy to follow and track but it is definitely a lot less maintainable and readable than having declared the outer i by a different name.

N.B:

Please note, C#’s scoping rules differ from C++’s scoping rules. In C++ variables are only in scope from where they are declared until the end of the block. Which would make your code a valid construct in C++.