Value and References types in C#

Value Type and References types in C#

Value Types

• All numeric data types. For e.g. int x = 10

• Boolean, character and Date

• All structures even if their members are reference type

• Enums

Reference Types

• String (Internally the text is stored as a sequential read-only collection of character objects)

• All arrays, even if their elements are value type

• Class types such as Form

• Delegates

*You must use New operator keyword when you initialize reference type.

Elements that are not Types

• Namespaces

• Modules

• Events

• Properties and Procedures

• Variables, constants and fields.

In Depth

1. Value Type: A value type stores its contents in a Memory allocated on the stack. When you create a value type, a single space in memory is allocated to store the value and that variable directly holds a value. If you assign it to another variable, the value is copied directly and both the variables work independently. 

*Value type can be created compile time and stored in stack memory, because of this Garbage Collector can’t access Stack

2. Reference Type: Reference Type are used by a reference which holds a reference to a object itself. Because reference types represents the address of the variable rather than data itself, assigning a reference variable to another variable doesn’t copy the data, insteadit creates a second copy of the reference, which refers to the same location of the heap as the original value (Can be marked for garbage collection)