Why does Razor _layout.cshtml have a leading underscore in file name?

Question

In the default ASP.NET MVC 3 project, layout & partial cshtml files start with an underscore

• _viewstart
• _Layout

Answer 1

As far as I know this is simply a convention used to identify the intent of the file; I don't believe it will actually change the behavior of the file. In most development contexts, prepending an underscore identifies something to be meant for "private" use, whether by a class, or in this case, another template.