Question

Is there any difference on whether I initialize an integer variable like:

int i = 0;
int i;

Does the compiler or CLR treat this as the same thing? IIRC, I think they’re both treated as the same thing, but I can’t seem to find the article.

Answer 1

I looked at the IL (using ildasm) and its true that only the int set to 0 is really set to 0 in the constructor.

public class Class1
{
    int setToZero = 0;
    int notSet;
}

Generates:

.method public hidebysig specialname rtspecialname 
        instance void  .ctor() cil managed
{
  // Code size       15 (0xf)
  .maxstack  8
  IL_0000:  ldarg.0
  IL_0001:  ldc.i4.0
  IL_0002:  stfld      int32 ClassLibrary1.Class1::setToZero
  IL_0007:  ldarg.0
  IL_0008:  call       instance void [mscorlib]System.Object::.ctor()
  IL_000d:  nop
  IL_000e:  ret
} // end of method Class1::.ctor