Chapter 26. System
In many respects, the System namespace serves
as the core namespace for the .NET libraries, in much the same way
java.lang does for Java programmers or
stdlib.h does for C/C++ programmers. For example,
the ECMA-compliant primitive-type value types are defined in the
System namespace, along with complementary
composite types and base types. These are used in the synthesis of
type generation, which is done by the compiler on the .NET
programmer’s behalf (for an example of this
on-the-fly type synthesis, see Array). Figure 26-1 shows many of the types in this namespace.
Figure 26-1. The System namespace
System serves as the home
for key
base-type definitions, including Object, the root
of every type in the .NET hierarchy. Every type in the system
ultimately extends this class, making it the “root
of all evil” in .NET. In addition, this namespace
contains ValueType, the base type for all value
types in .NET (such as the primitive types listed later in this
chapter, shown in Figure 26-5), and
Type, which in turn represents compile-time type
information about other types defined within the .NET environment
(the type metadata). More on Type can be found in
Chapter 35.
ECMA-compliant primitive-type value types include the fundamental
types used for all .NET applications, which are basic value types
such as Int32, Single,
Double, Decimal,
Char, Byte, and
Boolean. All of the ...
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