Beginning ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition

3.3. Value Types and Reference Types

In Chapter 2, you learned how simple data types such as strings and integers are actually objects created from the class library. This allows some impressive tricks, such as built-in string handling and date calculation. However, simple data types differ from more complex objects in one important way. Simple data types are value types, while classes are reference types.

This means a variable for a simple data type contains the actual information you put in it (such as the number 7). On the other hand, object variables actually store a reference that points to a location in memory where the full object is stored. In most cases, .NET masks you from this underlying reality, and in many programming tasks you ...