3

More with Data Types

In Chapter 2, we covered all the C# predefined types and briefly touched on the topic of reference types versus value types. In this chapter, we continue the discussion of data types with further explanation of the categories of types.

In addition, we delve into the details of combining data elements together into tuples—a feature introduced in C# 7.0—followed by grouping data into sets called arrays. To begin, let’s delve further into understanding value types and reference types.

Categories of Types

All types fall into one of two categories: value types and reference types. The differences between the types in each category stem from how they are copied: Value type data is always copied by value, whereas reference type data is always copied by reference.

Value Types

Except for string, all the predefined types in the book so far have been value types. Variables of value types contain the value directly. In other words, the variable refers to the same location in memory where the value is stored. Because of this, when a different variable is assigned the same value, a copy of the original variable’s value is made to the location of the new variable. A second variable of the same value type cannot refer to the same location in memory as the first variable. Consequently, changing the value of the first variable will not affect the value in the second variable, as Figure 3.1 demonstrates. In the figure, number1 refers to a location in memory that contains the value 42. After assigning number1 to number2, both variables will contain the value 42. However, modifying either variable’s value will not affect the other.

Figure 3.1: Value types contain the data directly

Similarly, passing a value type to a method such as Console.WriteLine() will result in a memory copy, and any changes to the parameter inside the method will not affect the original value within the calling function. Since value types require a memory copy, they generally should be defined to consume a small amount of memory; value types should almost always be less than 16 bytes in size.

Reference Types

By contrast, the value of a variable of reference type is a reference to a storage location that contains data. Reference types store the reference where the data is located instead of storing the data directly, as value types do. Therefore, to access the data, the runtime reads the memory location out of the variable and then “jumps” to the location in memory that contains the data, an operation known as dereferencing. The memory area of the data a reference type points to is called the heap (see Figure 3.2).

Figure 3.2: Reference types point to the heap

A reference type does not require the same memory copy of the data that a value type does, which makes copying reference types far more efficient than copying large value types. When assigning the value of one reference type variable to another reference type variable, only the reference is copied, not the data referred to. In practice, a reference is always the same size as the “native size” of the processor—a 32-bit processor will copy a 32-bit reference, a 64-bit processor will copy a 64-bit reference, and so on. Obviously, copying the small reference to a large block of data is faster than copying the entire block, as a value type would.

Since reference types copy a reference to data, two different variables can refer to the same data. If two variables refer to the same object, changing data in the object via one variable causes the effect to be seen when accessing the same data via another variable. This happens both for assignment and for method calls. Therefore, a method can affect the data of a reference type, and that change can be observed when control returns to the caller. For this reason, a key factor when choosing between defining a reference type or a value type is whether the object is logically like an immutable value of fixed size (and therefore possibly a value type), or logically a mutable thing that can be referred to (and therefore likely to be a reference type).

Besides string and any custom classes such as Program, all types discussed so far are value types. However, most types are reference types. Although it is possible to define custom value types, it is relatively rare to do so in comparison to the number of custom reference types.

{{ snackbarMessage }}
;