What is the difference between a member variable and a local variable?

Question

What is the difference between a member variable and a local variable?

Are they the same?

Answer 1

There are two kinds of member variable: instance and static.

An instance variable lasts as long as the instance of the class. There will be one copy of it per instance.

A static variable lasts as long as the class. There is one copy of it for the entire class.

A local variable is declared in a method and only lasts until the method returns:

public class Example {
    private int _instanceVariable = 1;
    private static int _staticvariable = 2;

    public void Method() {
        int localVariable = 3;
    }
}

// Somewhere else

Example e = new Example();
// e._instanceVariable will be 1
// e._staticVariable will be 2
// localVariable does not exist

e.Method(); // While executing, localVariable exists
            // Afterwards, it's gone