Ref locals in looping constructs — strange spec/functionality gap

[reflectronic]

There are multiple sources that claim that this feature was intended to be released in C# 7.3, as a part of the greater ref-reassignment feature. However, there needs to be some clarification as to the intended behavior of this feature:

• There appears to be no specification for this feature.
• The feature partially works today, but strangely not for arrays.
• The language grammar does not indicate that this feature should exist.

Ref-local variables without initializers, which were mentioned alongside this very feature (and discussed briefly in LDM) as an "addition" to the ref-reassignment feature, currently do not function at all. So all of this leads me to believe that this feature wasn't intended to actually ship?

[agocke]

Yup, there's no spec for this feature. It shipped as-is. C# 7 in general needs a full specification.