CSharp - Named arguments, optional arguments, and default values

C# 4.0 introduces the concept of optional parameter values into the language. Now, this has been a controversial subject in the past, and we have had many requests for the feature, but have traditionally stayed away from it. So, why now?


1. Default parameter values
2. Optional arguments - how default parameter values are used

What gets code gen'ed?
First we need to note that the use of optional arguments is really just syntactic sugar. The compiler cannot generate a call without actually providing all the arguments - it simply provides an argument for you and allows you to omit specifying it.

Once the compiler realizes that you're calling a method and omitting an argument because it is optional, it takes the value specified in the DefaultParameterValueAttribute and encodes that as a constant value for the argument that you've omitted. Note that if you're calling a library that doesn't have a default value specified but is still optional, the compiler will use default(T) as the value, where T is the type of the parameter. Also note that for COM calls, we also allow you to omit arguments to ref parameters by generating the temporaries for you.

Reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/samng/archive/2009/02/03/named-arguments-optional-arguments-and-default-values.aspx