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What's new in C# 12

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Some C# 12 features have been introduced in previews. You can try these features using the latest Visual Studio preview or the latest .NET 8 preview SDK.

Primary constructors

You can now create primary constructors in any class and struct. Primary constructors are no longer restricted to record types. Primary constructor parameters are in scope for the entire body of the class. To ensure that all primary constructor parameters are definitely assigned, all explicitly declared constructors must call the primary constructor using this() syntax. Adding a primary constructor to a class prevents the compiler from declaring an implicit parameterless constructor. In a struct, the implicit parameterless constructor initializes all fields, including primary constructor parameters to the 0-bit pattern.

The compiler generates public properties for primary constructor parameters only in record types, either record class or record struct types. Non-record classes and structs may not always want this behavior for primary constructor parameters.

You can learn more about primary constructors in the tutorial for exploring primary constructors and in the article on instance constructors.

Default lambda parameters

You can now define default values for parameters on lambda expressions. The syntax and rules are the same as adding default values for arguments to any method or local function.

You can learn more about default parameters on lambda expressions in the article on lambda expressions.

Alias any type

You can use the using alias directive to alias any type, not just named types. That means you can create semantic aliases for tuple types, array types, pointer types, or other unsafe types. For more information, see the feature specification.

Inline arrays

Inline arrays are used by the runtime team and other library authors to improve performance in your apps. Inline arrays enable a developer to create an array of fixed size in a struct type. A struct with an inline buffer should provide performance characteristics similar to an unsafe fixed size buffer. You likely won't declare your own inline arrays, but you'll use them transparently when they're exposed as System.Span<T> or System.ReadOnlySpan<T> objects from runtime APIs.

An inline array is declared similar to the following struct:

[System.Runtime.CompilerServices.InlineArray(10)]
public struct Buffer
{
    private int _element0;
}

You use them like any other array:

var buffer = new Buffer();
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    buffer[i] = i;
}

foreach (var i in buffer)
{
    Console.WriteLine(i);
}

The difference is that the compiler can take advantage of known information about an inline array. You'll likely consume inline arrays as you would any other array. For more information on how to declare inline arrays, see the language reference on struct types.

Interceptors

Warning

Interceptors are an experimental feature, available in preview mode with C# 12. The feature may be subject to breaking changes or removal in a future release. Therefore, it is not recommended for production or released applications.

In order to use interceptors, you'll need to set the <Features>InterceptorsPreview</Features> element in your project file. Without this flag, interceptors are disabled, even when other C# 12 features are enabled.

An interceptor is a method that can declaratively substitute a call to an interceptable method with a call to itself at compile time. This substitution occurs by having the interceptor declare the source locations of the calls that it intercepts. Interceptors provides a limited facility to change the semantics of existing code by adding new code to a compilation, for example in a source generator.

You use an interceptor as part of a source generator to modify, rather than add code to an existing source compilation. The source generator substitutes calls to an interceptable method with a call to the interceptor method.

If you're interested in experimenting with interceptors, you can learn more by reading the feature specification. If you use the feature, make sure to stay current with any changes in the feature specification for this preview feature. Once the feature is finalized, we'll add more guidance on this site.

See also