.NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference, Volume 1: Base Class Library and Extended Numerics Library

Basic Variable Types

The class Object is the root of the inheritance hierarchy in the .NET Framework. Every class in the .NET Framework ultimately derives from this class. If you define a class without specifying any other inheritance, Object is the implied base class. It provides the most basic methods and properties that all objects need to support, such as returning an identifying string, returning a Type object (think of it as a class descriptor) to use for runtime discovery of the object's contents, and providing a location for a garbage collection finalizer.

The .NET Framework provides two kinds of types, value types and reference types. Instances of value types are allocated on the stack or inline inside an object, which incurs a lower ...