Visual Basic® .NET Unleashed

Data Types

Part of the Common Language Runtime is the Common Type System (CTS). To provide cross-language support, .NET defines a type system that describes how types are stored and the allowable values for a type to ensure that the data can be used across languages. For languages to work in the .NET Framework, they need to implement types in accordance with the CTS.

CTS types encompass classes, interfaces, and value types. Types in .NET can have methods, properties, fields, and events, which we will come back to in a minute. What all this means to Visual Basic .NET is that types and acceptable values for those types that you've become familiar with have changed to support .NET. This section describes changes to existing types and the introduction ...