>>>>Hi everybody,
>>>>
>>>>I've defined this constant in the class declaration
>>>>
>>>>

>>>>public const String EncodingXMLString
>>>>

>>>>
>>>>but I can not access it by ClassName.ConstName
>>>>
>>>>I can change it to be a readonly static property instead, but why I can not use it as a constant? I see a comment by another colleague on another readonly property
>>>
>>>
>>>Because your definition does not make it a constant
>>>
>>>A constant expression is an expression that can be fully evaluated at compile time
>>>
>>>
>>>>// Huh! Can't use const here - weird.
>>>>
>>>>Indeed weird - do you see what may be wrong?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks in advance.
>>
>>So, what is wrong exactly here - why it can not be evaluated in compile time?
>>
>>

>>      internal static readonly String EncodingXMLString = @"<?xml version = ""1.0"" encoding=""Windows-1252"" standalone=""yes""?>";

>>
>>I already switched to the readonly property since constant didn't work.
>
>
>That shouldn't be a problem
>

>	internal class Defs
>	{
>		internal const String EncodingXMLString = @"<?xml version = ""1.0"" encoding=""Windows-1252"" standalone=""yes""?>";
>	}
>

Didn't work for me - I was unable to access this constant from another class - but I think I know what I was doing wrong - I was trying to access it using class name instance instead of the Type instance. Because when I got similar error using that property I switched to Database.Property instead of database.Property (where Database is the class name while database is the class instance name).

Do you think that was the original problem?