Character literal

A character literal is a value. It is usually assigned to a variable of type char. Character literals in the C# language are enclosed in single-quote characters.

In character literals, some values must be escaped with backslash characters. This can lead to compile-time errors if not done correctly. Care must be used.

First, we use character literals in the C# language. Char variables, such as those at the class level or the local variable level, are assigned to the character literal values.

using System;

class Program
{
    static char _literal5 = 'e'; // Static character literal.
    const char _literal6 = '#'; // Constant character literal.

    static void Main()
    {
        //
        // Shows some example character literals.
        // ... Also shows a local constant character literal.
        // ... Then prints them.
        //
        char literal1 = 'A';
        char literal2 = 'b';
        char literal3 = '\\';
        const char literal4 = '_';

        Console.WriteLine(literal1);
        Console.WriteLine(literal2);
        Console.WriteLine(literal3);
        Console.WriteLine(literal4);
        Console.WriteLine(_literal5);
        Console.WriteLine(_literal6);
    }
}
A
b
\
_
e
#

Compile-time errors

It is critical to understand how char literal escapes work. This program shows some possible errors in a C# program.

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        char backslash = '\';
    }
}
Error CS1010
Newline in constant
Error CS1012
Too many characters in character literal
Error CS1002
; expected

Discussion

A variable (like char) denotes a storage location. This can be reassigned to different values. A character literal denotes a value, and this can never be changed in memory.

Character literals represent character values. They are a form of value representation, not a variable type—they are constants.

Character literals cannot be changed during runtime, but the variables that store them can. We must escape some literals, like newlines and the backslash.