What’s the difference between dynamic (C# 4) and var?

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var is static typed – the compiler and runtime know the type – they just save you some typing… the following are 100% identical:

var s = "abc";
Console.WriteLine(s.Length);

and

string s = "abc";
Console.WriteLine(s.Length);

All that happened was that the compiler figured out that s must be a string (from the initializer). In both cases, it knows (in the IL) that s.Length means the (instance) string.Length property.

dynamic is a very different beast; it is most similar to object, but with dynamic dispatch:

dynamic s = "abc";
Console.WriteLine(s.Length);

Here, s is typed as dynamic. It doesn’t know about string.Length, because it doesn’t know anything about s at compile time. For example, the following would compile (but not run) too:

dynamic s = "abc";
Console.WriteLine(s.FlibbleBananaSnowball);

At runtime (only), it would check for the FlibbleBananaSnowball property – fail to find it, and explode in a shower of sparks.

With dynamic, properties / methods / operators / etc are resolved at runtime, based on the actual object. Very handy for talking to COM (which can have runtime-only properties), the DLR, or other dynamic systems, like javascript.

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