Showing posts with label Struct. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Struct. Show all posts

Thursday, 28 August 2014

Difference between structure and class .NET


A short summary of each:
Classes Only:
  • Can support inheritance
  • Are reference (pointer) types
  • The reference can be null
  • Have memory overhead per new instance
Structs Only:
  • Cannot support inheritance
  • Are value types
  • Are passed by value (like integers)
  • Cannot have a null reference (unless Nullable is used)
  • Do not have a memory overhead per new instance - unless 'boxed'
Both Classes and Structs:
  • Are compound data types typically used to contain a few variables that have some logical relationship
  • Can contain methods and events
  • Can support interfaces