boxing and unboxing, why aren't the outputs both “System.Object”?

Question

I got the following code:

object var3 = 3;
Console.WriteLine(var3.GetType().ToString());
Console.WriteLine(typeof(object).ToString());

The outp

Answer 1

Ignoring the topic of boxing, all classes inherit from type object. This is true for both reference types and value types. GetType shows the most derived type, which in this case is System.Int32.

One of the few times GetType is going to return System.Object is if you do this:

object var = new Object();
Console.WriteLine(var.GetType().ToString());

Boxing refers to when a value type is pointed to by a reference type. Generally this is done as a System.Object reference. TypeOf will return the most derived actual type, not the reference type.

class A
{
}

class B : A
{
}

class C : B
{
}

object obj1 = new ClassA();
ClassB obj2 = new ClassB();
ClassB obj3 = new ClassC();

GetType will do similar things for these types.

System.Console.WriteLine(obj1.GetType().ToString());
System.Console.WriteLine(obj2.GetType().ToString());
System.Console.WriteLine(obj3.GetType().ToString());

ClassA
ClassB
ClassC