What's the difference between struct and class in .NET?

Question

What\'s the difference between struct and class in .NET?

Answer 1

In .NET the struct and class declarations differentiate between reference types and value types.

When you pass round a reference type there is only one actually stored. All the code that accesses the instance is accessing the same one.

When you pass round a value type each one is a copy. All the code is working on its own copy.

This can be shown with an example:

struct MyStruct 
{
    string MyProperty { get; set; }
}

void ChangeMyStruct(MyStruct input) 
{ 
   input.MyProperty = "new value";
}

...

// Create value type
MyStruct testStruct = new MyStruct { MyProperty = "initial value" }; 

ChangeMyStruct(testStruct);

// Value of testStruct.MyProperty is still "initial value"
// - the method changed a new copy of the structure.

For a class this would be different

class MyClass 
{
    string MyProperty { get; set; }
}

void ChangeMyClass(MyClass input) 
{ 
   input.MyProperty = "new value";
}

...

// Create reference type
MyClass testClass = new MyClass { MyProperty = "initial value" };

ChangeMyClass(testClass);

// Value of testClass.MyProperty is now "new value" 
// - the method changed the instance passed.

Classes can be nothing - the reference can point to a null.

Structs are the actual value - they can be empty but never null. For this reason structs always have a default constructor with no parameters - they need a 'starting value'.