Common Type System

The .NET Framework, which is built in an object-oriented fashion, supports several different data types. The CLR-supported types are defined by the common type system, which also defines how types interact with each other as well as how they are persisted in metadata.

The .NET Framework provides support for primitive types such as integers and characters as well as classes and interfaces and other types to derive your own types from.

Every type in the common type system is derived from the Object class. All primitive types or value types are derived from the class ValueType, which in turn is derived from the Object class. Figure 2.5 shows the basic layout of the type system and some of the important parts of the object hierarchy. ...

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