When should I use a struct instead of a class?

Question

MSDN says that you should use structs when you need lightweight objects. Are there any other scenarios when a struct is preferable over a class?

Some people might ha

Answer 1

It is an old topic, but wanted to provide a simple benchmark test.

I have created two .cs files:

public class TestClass
{
    public long ID { get; set; }
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

and

public struct TestStruct
{
    public long ID { get; set; }
    public string FirstName { get; set; }
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

Run benchmark:

• Create 1 TestClass
• Create 1 TestStruct
• Create 100 TestClass
• Create 100 TestStruct
• Create 10000 TestClass
• Create 10000 TestStruct

Results:

BenchmarkDotNet=v0.12.0, OS=Windows 10.0.18362
Intel Core i5-8250U CPU 1.60GHz (Kaby Lake R), 1 CPU, 8 logical and 4 physical cores
.NET Core SDK=3.1.101
[Host]     : .NET Core 3.1.1 (CoreCLR 4.700.19.60701, CoreFX 4.700.19.60801), X64 RyuJIT  [AttachedDebugger]
DefaultJob : .NET Core 3.1.1 (CoreCLR 4.700.19.60701, CoreFX 4.700.19.60801), X64 RyuJIT


|         Method |           Mean |         Error |        StdDev |     Ratio | RatioSD | Rank |    Gen 0 | Gen 1 | Gen 2 | Allocated |
|--------------- |---------------:|--------------:|--------------:|----------:|--------:|-----:|---------:|------:|------:|----------:|

|      UseStruct |      0.0000 ns |     0.0000 ns |     0.0000 ns |     0.000 |    0.00 |    1 |        - |     - |     - |         - |
|       UseClass |      8.1425 ns |     0.1873 ns |     0.1839 ns |     1.000 |    0.00 |    2 |   0.0127 |     - |     - |      40 B |
|   Use100Struct |     36.9359 ns |     0.4026 ns |     0.3569 ns |     4.548 |    0.12 |    3 |        - |     - |     - |         - |
|    Use100Class |    759.3495 ns |    14.8029 ns |    17.0471 ns |    93.144 |    3.24 |    4 |   1.2751 |     - |     - |    4000 B |
| Use10000Struct |  3,002.1976 ns |    25.4853 ns |    22.5920 ns |   369.664 |    8.91 |    5 |        - |     - |     - |         - |
|  Use10000Class | 76,529.2751 ns | 1,570.9425 ns | 2,667.5795 ns | 9,440.182 |  346.76 |    6 | 127.4414 |     - |     - |  400000 B |