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Console.WriteLine
This page was last reviewed on May 17, 2024.
Dot Net Perls
Console. Console programs communicate through text. Many features are available in C#: Console.WriteLine renders a line of text. Console.ReadLine gets user input.
Shows a console
For console output, we can use format strings and colors. A red warning message can be written. These features are helpful when developing with the "dotnet" command line program.
Console.Write
Console Color
WriteLine. There are many overloads on Console.WriteLine. An overloaded method has the same name but accepts different parameters.
Part 1 Here we print an int to the screen with Console.WriteLine. A newline comes after the int.
Part 2 We pass a string variable to WriteLine to print the string. This is another overload of the WriteLine static method.
Overload
Part 3 Other types, like bool, can also be passed to Console.WriteLine. Even objects can be used.
Shows a console
using System; // Part 1: write an int with Console.WriteLine. int valueInt = 4; Console.WriteLine(valueInt); // Part 2: write a string with the method. string valueString = "Your string"; Console.WriteLine(valueString); // Part 3: write a bool with the method. bool valueBool = false; Console.WriteLine(valueBool);
4 Your string False
Empty line. It is possible to use Console.WriteLine with no arguments. This will simply output a blank line to the Console window. This is an elegant way to output an empty line.
Environment.NewLine
using System; class Program { static void Main() { Console.WriteLine("A"); Console.WriteLine(); // Empty line. Console.WriteLine("B"); } }
A B
Console, Concat. In some programs, we will want to write several values on a single line to the Console. We can form a string using the "+" operator before passing it to Console.WriteLine.
string.Concat
Warning This will create a string temporary for the concatenation, but overall this rarely impacts performance.
using System; class Program { static void Main() { string name = "USER"; int id = 100; // A string is created before WriteLine is called. Console.WriteLine(name + ": " + id); } }
USER: 100
Console, Write. We can combine the Console.Write method with the Console.WriteLine method. Both methods can be used on the same line. Write() does not append a newline to the end.
Info No string temporary is created to write the 3 parts, but 3 Console calls may be slower overall than a single string concatenation.
using System; class Program { static void Main() { string name = "USER"; int id = 100; // Write 3 parts to the same line. Console.Write(name); Console.Write(": "); Console.WriteLine(id); } }
USER: 100
String, formats. A format string is often clearest. Here the first parameter is a literal that has N substitution places. The next N parameters are inserted in those places.
string.Format
Tip The commas in the format string are printed unchanged. Start counting at 0 for the format string substitution markers.
using System; class Program { static void Main() { string value1 = "Dot"; string value2 = "Net"; string value3 = "Perls"; Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1}, {2}", value1, value2, value3); } }
Dot, Net, Perls
Char arrays. This is an advanced feature of Console.WriteLine. It writes an entire char array to the screen. Char arrays are useful in optimization code and sometimes interop or DLL code.
Next This example first writes the 4 chars in the array to the screen. It writes the middle 2 chars.
char Array
using System; class Program { static void Main() { char[] array = new char[] { 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd' }; // ... Write the entire char array on a line. Console.WriteLine(array); // ... Write the middle 2 characters on a line. Console.WriteLine(array, 1, 2); } }
abcd bc
ToString. When we pass an object to the Console.WriteLine method, it invokes the ToString override method on the class (if one exists). Here we see this happen with a Test class.
ToString
using System; class Test { public override string ToString() { // Printed by Console.WriteLine. return "Test object string"; } } class Program { static void Main() { // Create class with ToString method. Test test = new Test(); // WriteLine calls to the ToString method. Console.WriteLine(test); } }
Test object string
Using static System.Console. Suppose we want to avoid typing "Console" in our program to save time. We can add "using static System.Console" to the top.
And We then just call WriteLine() instead of Console.WriteLine. This is syntactic sugar—the program's instructions are the same.
using static System.Console; class Program { static void Main() { // We can just write WriteLine instead of Console.WriteLine. // ... This saves exactly 8 characters. WriteLine("Hello my friend!"); } }
Hello my friend!
Title. Here we use a loop and set the Console.Title property to whatever the user typed into the console. We can change the title of the console window by entering text.
Tip Console.Title allows us to change the console window title. We can use it to reduce the amount of text written to the screen.
using System; class Program { static void Main() { while (true) { // Assign Console.Title property to string returned by ReadLine. Console.Title = Console.ReadLine(); } } }
CapsLock. This program prints the value returned by Console.CapsLock every 1 second. Try pressing the caps lock key. It will start printing True when the key is pressed.
Thread.Sleep
Tip If a program is requiring a password, we could print an error message if caps lock is pressed and the password is incorrect.
Tip 2 We could even add a separate "mode" in a program depending on whether caps lock is pressed.
using System; using System.Threading; class Program { static void Main() { while (true) { Thread.Sleep(1000); bool capsLock = Console.CapsLock; Console.WriteLine(capsLock); } } }
False False True True True False True True
NumberLock. This program prints to the console every 1 second. As it executes, we can press Num Lock and the output of the program will change.
Tip We cannot set the value of the NumberLock property. If we do not want the key pressed, we must tell the user to press it again.
using System; using System.Threading; class Program { static void Main() { while (true) { Console.WriteLine(Console.NumberLock); Thread.Sleep(1000); } } }
False False True True False False
Height, width. With WindowWidth, we control the width of a window based on the number of text columns. Height changes the window size based on lines of text.
Tip With WindowHeight and its companion property LargestWindowHeight, we gain control over a window's height.
using System; class Program { static void Main() { // ... Width is the number of columns of text. Console.WindowWidth = 40; // ... Height is the number of lines of text. Console.WindowHeight = 10; // ... Say hello. Console.WriteLine("Hi"); } }
Benchmark, console. In many simple console programs, the Console.WriteLine may be one of the biggest slowdowns. Here we time 100 lines written to the console.
Version 1 This version calls Console.WriteLine 100 times. Each line has a single char (not including a newline).
Version 2 This version uses StringBuilder.AppendLine to merge 100 lines into a single string, and then calls Console.WriteLine once.
Result It is about 10 times faster to only call Console.WriteLine once. Combining strings before writing them is faster.
Tip To run this benchmark, change the value of the "version" int from 0 to 1 (and back again).
using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Text; class Program { static void Main() { int version = 1; var t1 = Stopwatch.StartNew(); if (version == 1) { // Version 1: write 100 separate lines. for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { Console.WriteLine("x"); } } else if (version == 2) { // Version 2: write 100 lines as a single string. StringBuilder temp = new StringBuilder(); for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { temp.AppendLine("x"); } Console.WriteLine(temp.ToString()); } // Results. Console.WriteLine("TIME FOR VERSION {0}: {1} ms", version, t1.ElapsedMilliseconds); } }
TIME FOR VERSION 1: 35 ms TIME FOR VERSION 2: 3 ms
Review. Console.WriteLine is a useful method. At first, it may seem less interesting than others. But then we realize how many programs in C# can be written with just console output.
Dot Net Perls is a collection of tested code examples. Pages are continually updated to stay current, with code correctness a top priority.
Sam Allen is passionate about computer languages. In the past, his work has been recommended by Apple and Microsoft and he has studied computers at a selective university in the United States.
This page was last updated on May 17, 2024 (simplify).
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