VB.NET vs C# integer division

Maxim Gershkovich picture Maxim Gershkovich · May 16, 2011 · Viewed 12.2k times · Source

Anyone care to explain why these two pieces of code exhibit different results?

VB.NET v4.0

Dim p As Integer = 16
Dim i As Integer = 10
Dim y As Integer = p / i
//Result: 2

C# v4.0

int p = 16;
int i = 10;
int y = p / i;
//Result: 1

Answer

Christian picture Christian · May 16, 2011

When you look at the IL-code that those two snippets produce, you'll realize that VB.NET first converts the integer values to doubles, applies the division and then rounds the result before it's converted back to int32 and stored in y.

C# does none of that.

VB.NET IL Code:

IL_0000:  ldc.i4.s    10 
IL_0002:  stloc.1     
IL_0003:  ldc.i4.s    0A 
IL_0005:  stloc.0     
IL_0006:  ldloc.1     
IL_0007:  conv.r8     
IL_0008:  ldloc.0     
IL_0009:  conv.r8     
IL_000A:  div         
IL_000B:  call        System.Math.Round
IL_0010:  conv.ovf.i4 
IL_0011:  stloc.2     
IL_0012:  ldloc.2     
IL_0013:  call        System.Console.WriteLine

C# IL Code:

IL_0000:  ldc.i4.s    10 
IL_0002:  stloc.0     
IL_0003:  ldc.i4.s    0A 
IL_0005:  stloc.1     
IL_0006:  ldloc.0     
IL_0007:  ldloc.1     
IL_0008:  div         
IL_0009:  stloc.2     
IL_000A:  ldloc.2     
IL_000B:  call        System.Console.WriteLine

The "proper" integer division in VB needs a backwards slash: p \ i