The Root of all Classes: Object
All
C# classes, of any type, are treated as if
they ultimately derive from System.Object.
Interestingly, this includes value types!
A base class is the immediate “parent” of a derived
class. A derived class can be the base to further derived classes,
creating an inheritance “tree” or hierarchy. A root class
is the topmost class in an inheritance hierarchy. In C#, the root
class is Object. The nomenclature is a bit
confusing until you imagine an upside-down tree, with the root on top
and the derived classes below. Thus, the base class is considered to
be “above” the derived class.
Object provides a number of methods that
subclasses can and do override. These include Equals( )
to determine if two objects are the same, GetType( ), which returns the type of the object (discussed in Chapter 18), and ToString( ), which
returns a string to represent the current object (discussed in Chapter 10). Table 5-1 summarizes the
methods of Object.
Table 5-1. The methods of Object
|
Method |
What It Does |
|---|---|
|
|
Evaluates whether two objects are equivalent. |
|
|
Allows objects to provide their own hash function for use in collections (see Chapter 9). |
|
|
Provides access to the type object (see Chapter 18). |
|
|
Provides a string representation of the object. |
|
|
Cleans up nonmemory resources (see Chapter 4). |
|
|
Creates copies of the object; should never be implemented by your type. |