What is this "|" (pipe) means in C#?

Question

In the context of Security Cryptography X509Certificates, I've came across this in one of the projects code.

X509Store store = new X509Store("MY", StoreLocation.CurrentUser);
store.Open(OpenFlags.OpenExistingOnly | OpenFlags.ReadWrite);

What is this "|" pipe means here?

Before all the "read the docs" answers come in, in layman terms it effectively means open the store with both those options enabled. Have a look up on how Flags & Bitwise operators work. — James, Aug 04 '17 at 22:39
If you are going to program in C# RTFM, this is the most basic, it was in C. — zaph, Aug 05 '17 at 01:30

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 04 '17 at 22:34

5

It's a bitwise OR operator. In this case, it is used to combine flags. Meaning you open the store in Read/Write mode and only if it already exists. There's more explanation on bitwise operators on MSDN.

answered Aug 04 '17 at 22:34

gretro

1,906
18
25

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 04 '17 at 22:34

0

The binary Or operator is arithmetic OR between two integers, and with a Flags enum, combines the two flags into one value.

MSDN Flags Enum

answered Aug 04 '17 at 22:34

NetMage

24,279
3
31
50

What is this "|" (pipe) means in C#?

2 Answers2