C# Primer: A Practical Approach

2.8. The Implicit this Reference

Up to this point, all our data members and member functions have been instance members. An instance data member has a copy of itself stored within each class object that we create. To call a member function an instance member means that the function must be invoked through an object of its class.

When an instance data member is accessed within a member function, the name of the data member serves as a placeholder. A member function does not maintain a copy of each class data member it accesses. Rather, when the member function is invoked through an actual class object, the name of the data member within the function is bound to the instance associated with the class object. This binding is accomplished through ...