language design - Why can't C# member names be the same as the enclosing type name?

Question

In C#, the following code doesn't compile:

class Foo {

    public string Foo;

}

The question is: why?

More exactly, I understand that this doesn't compile because (I quote):

member names cannot be the same as their enclosing type

Ok, fine. I understand that, I won't do it again, I promise.

But I really don't understand why the compiler refuses to take any field having the same name as an enclosing type. What is the underlying issue that prevents me to do that?

Answer 1

Strictly speaking, this is a limitation imposed by C#, most likely for convenience of syntax. A constructor has a method body, but its member entry in IL is denoted as ".ctor" and it has slightly different metadata than a normal method (In the Reflection classes, ConstructorInfo derives from MethodBase, not MethodInfo.) I don't believe there's a .NET limitation that prevents creating a member (or even a method) with the same name as the outer type, though I haven't tried it.

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I was curious, so I confirmed it's not a .NET limitation. Create the following class in VB:

Public Class Class1
    Public Sub Class1()

    End Sub
End Class

In C#, you reference it as:

var class1 = new Class1();
class1.Class1();