C#.Net case-insensitive string

Question

Why does C#.Net allow the declaration of the string object to be case-insensitive?

String sHello = "Hello";
string sHello = "Hello";

Both the lower-case and upper-case S of the word String are acceptable and this seems to be the only object that allows this.

Can anyone explain why?

Answer 1

string is a language keyword while System.String is the type it aliases.

Both compile to exactly the same thing, similarly:

• int is System.Int32
• long is System.Int64
• float is System.Single
• double is System.Double
• char is System.Char
• byte is System.Byte
• short is System.Int16
• ushort is System.UInt16
• uint is System.UInt32
• ulong is System.UInt64

I think in most cases this is about code legibility - all the basic system value types have aliases, I think the lower case string might just be for consistency.