Table of Contents12345678910111213141516171819202122232425NotesDownloadECMA-334 C# Language Specification10 Basic concepts10.8 Namespace and type names10.8.1 Fully qualified names
Paragraph 11Every namespace and type has a fully qualified name, which uniquely identifies the namespace or type amongst all others.2The fully qualified name of a namespace or type N is determined as follows:
3 If N is a member of the global namespace, its fully qualified name is N.
4 Otherwise, its fully qualified name is S.N, where S is the fully qualified name of the namespace or type in which N is declared.
Paragraph 21In other words, the fully qualified name of N is the complete hierarchical path of identifiers that lead to N, starting from the global namespace.2Because every member of a namespace or type must have a unique name, it follows that the fully qualified name of a namespace or type is always unique.[Example: The example below shows several namespace and type declarations along with their associated fully qualified names.
class A {} // A
namespace X // X
{
class B // X.B
{
class C {} // X.B.C
}
namespace Y // X.Y
{
class D {} // X.Y.D
}
}
namespace X.Y // X.Y
{
class E {} // X.Y.E
}