Illustrated C# 2012

C H A P T E R  10

Structs

• What Are Structs?
• Structs Are Value Types
• Assigning to a Struct
• Constructors and Destructors
• Field Initializers Are Not Allowed
• Structs Are Sealed
• Boxing and Unboxing
• Structs As Return Values and Parameters
• Additional Information About Structs

What Are Structs?

Structs are programmer-defined data types, very similar to classes. They have data members and function members. Although structs are similar to classes, there are a number of important differences. The most important ones are the following:

• Classes are reference types, and structs are value types.
• Structs are implicitly sealed, which means they cannot be derived from.

The syntax for declaring a struct is similar to that of declaring a class: