What is @ in front of a variable / identifier in C#? [duplicate]

Question

I think my question is different from this: What's the @ in front of a string in C#?

I work in VB.net, so this may be some simple thing in C#, but I am not aware of this.

I got the following code where I have 10 XML inside a string variable. Please advice what @ symbol is needed in front of the claimsList string variable when calling LoadXml method in the code snippet below:

private void UploadNewClaims(PMAUser grumble, string companyAbbreviation, string claimsList)
{
    var claimDoc = new System.Xml.XmlDocument();
    claimDoc.LoadXml(@claimsList);

Answer 1

In this case it's completely unnecessary, but it allows you to use any keyword as an identifier in C#. It doesn't change the meaning of the identifier at all, or how it's used - it only tells the compiler that you don't want the following characters to be recognized as a keyword.

For example:

string @int = "hello";
var @void = @int;

Using it for an identifier of claimsList suggests that whoever wrote it doesn't understand it. The fact that the identifier is for a string variable is entirely irrelevant here.

Personally I've pretty much only ever used the feature for extension methods, where I have been known to call the first parameter @this:

public static void Foo(this Bar @this)
{
    return @this.Baz() * 2;
}