What does "@{ some expression; } mean?
<p>I was advised (by a person I cannot now contact to ask this) to use a query-string-trick to keep from caching a style sheet while I was debugging.  The respondent said this would do the trick:</p>

<pre><code>@{ var currentDate = DateTime.Now; }
&lt;link href="@Url.Content("~/Styles/Site.css?" + currentDate)" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>And I see why, but the expression @{ var currentDate = DateTime.Now; } is just resolving to the literal value in the page when I run it.  The full code is:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;head runat="server"&gt;
    &lt;title&gt;&lt;/title&gt;
    @{ var currentDate = DateTime.Now; }
    &lt;link href="@Url.Content("~/Styles/Site.css?" + currentDate)" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /&gt;

    &lt;asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="HeadContent" runat="server"&gt;
    &lt;/asp:ContentPlaceHolder&gt;
&lt;/head&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>The syntax "@{ }" is new to me.  I don't see a reference to it in any doc that I have looked at.  According to the usage it appears to be inline script, but it isn't being treated as that at runtime, and I am not even sure if it is Active Server Page syntax (or PHP?).</p>

<p>What DOES work is:</p>

<pre><code>&lt;% var currentDate = DateTime.Now; %&gt;
&lt;link href="~/Styles/Site.css?&lt;%= currentDate%&gt;" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>OK, but still, what does "@{ &lt;some expression&gt; }" signify?</p>
