.NET IL Assembler

Chapter 11

Generic Types

Generic types, introduced in version 2.0 of the CLR, differ from “normal” (nongeneric) types in one major aspect: “normal” types, even the abstract ones, are fully defined, while generic types represent pure abstractions—templates for the generation (or instantiation) of “normal” types. Generic types are pure abstractions because they describe types constructed not from other types but from abstract type parameters, or type variables. Thus, a generic type has one or more type parameters and hence belongs to parameterized types. You are already familiar with one generic type implemented in versions 1.0 and 1.1 of the CLR—a ...