Question

using System;

namespace FirstApplication
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(params string[] args)
        {
            int x = new int();
            x = 12;
            //int y = new int(12);
            Console.WriteLine(x);
        }
    }
}

By design, why isn’t there a single parameter ctor for int such that x can be set to 12 without having to be set to 0 first?

Answer 1

The reason lies in the CLR itself. The CLR does not treat Int32 as any ordinary struct. It has a special type for storing int, which is not a CLR object. This means that it does not need a contructor, just like an int in C does not have a constructor.

Also, the CLR handling of struct default contructors is to set all fields to their default value. For int this is 0. new int() does seem to be a special case, simply being an ‘alias’ for 0, eliminating any constructor altogether.

Plus, this is just plain better.

int x = 12;