What is the difference between declaring a variable and initializing a variable?

Hi Sindya,

When you declare a variable, you give it a name (name/age) and a type (String/int):

String name;
int age;

Initializing a variable is when you give it a value.

int favoriteNumber = 3;

Hi Sindya,

Declaring a variable reserves a name and some space in memory for a variable of the specified type, but doesn't give it a value. Initializing gives the variable a value. Depending on how you're going to use the variable, you can declare it without initializing it and then initialize it later, or declare and initialize at the same time. For example:

int value1;  // declares integer variable
value1 = 6;  // initializes integer variable that's already been declared
int value2 = 5; // declares and initializes integer variable

Thanks for these answers. This was helpful for me. the C# Basics course is great but somehow kind of breezed over this point of declaring being the step where you're just reserving the name and memory. That note here helped me a lot.