Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform, Fifth Edition

4.5. Understanding Value Types and Reference Types

NOTE

The following discussion of value types and reference types assumes that you have a background in object-oriented programming. If this is not the case, you may wish to skip to the final section in this chapter (Understanding C# Nullable Types) and return to this section once you have read Chapters 5 and 6.

Unlike arrays, strings, or enumerations, C# structures do not have an identically named representation in the .NET library (that is, there is no System.Structure class), but are implicitly derived from System.ValueType. Simply put, the role of System.ValueType is to ensure that the derived type (e.g., any structure) is allocated on the stack rather than the garbage collected heap. Simply ...