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7 Things about C#: Console I/O
The console is the command line, where you type commands to run code and get a response. In general terms, input and output (I/O) describe the interactions of information being given to the program (input) and information that the program emits.
These interactions are often communication with a user, but can also be communication with other programs. We won’t get that elaborate here, but will describe some interesting I/O capabilities that you can use in a C# application to communicate with people.
1 — There are different ways to write
The Console
class has two writing methods: Write
and WriteLine
. The difference is that WriteLine
adds a new line after printing and Write
doesn’t. Here’s an example:
Console.WriteLine("Console I/O Demo\n");
Console.WriteLine("\t 1. Door #1");
Console.WriteLine("\t 2. Door #2");
Console.WriteLine("\t Q. Quit");
Console.Write("\nYour Choice (1, 2, or Q): ");
You’ve seen Console.WriteLine
in the previous post on Running Apps. However, there are a few differences here, specifically in the strings with escape, \
, characters, which are special instructions to the terminal. The first line contains a newline escape, \n
, which adds a line in the terminal where it appears. This example has the effect of adding two newlines because one is…