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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-09T08:03:59+00:00

Reading Code Generation and T4 Text Templates and I found this syntax <#= DateTime.Now

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Reading Code Generation and T4 Text Templates and I found this syntax <#= DateTime.Now #>

<html><body>
 The date and time now is: <#= DateTime.Now #>
</body></html>

How is it different from <%= DateTime.Now %> or <%# DateTime.Now %>.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I can’t claim to be really familiar with T4 text templates, but it appears the difference is between design/build time code generation (which can include executable statements) and runtime code execution.

    So <#= #> evaluates an expression within a template that is used to generate a file.

    And <%= %> executes the code within the block and writes it to the output stream. This will be JIT-compiled when the page is first executed, but the point is that it denotes a block of code to execute when the page runs, not during generation of a templated file.

    The third form, <%# %> denotes a databinding expression, also evaluated when the page executes.

    Expression control blocks

    An expression control block evaluates an expression and converts it to
    a string. This is inserted into the output file.

    Expression control blocks are delimted by the symbols <#= … #>

    For example, the following control block causes the output file to
    contain “5”:

    <#= 2 + 3 #>

    Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb126478

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