C# Language Fundamentals

Summary

This (rather lengthy) chapter exposed you to the numerous core aspects of the C# programming language and the .NET platform. The focus was to examine the constructs that will be commonplace in any application you may be interested in building.

As you have seen, all intrinsic C# data types alias a corresponding type in the System namespace. Each system type has a number of members that provide a programmatic manner to obtain the range of the type. Furthermore, you learned the basic process of building C# class types and examined the various parameter-passing conventions, value types and reference types, and the role of the mighty System.Object.

You also examined various aspects of the CLR that place an OO spin on common programming constructs, such as arrays, strings, structures, and enumerations. In addition, this chapter illustrated the concept of boxing and unboxing. This simple mechanism allows you to easily move between value-based and reference-based data types. Finally, the chapter wrapped up by explaining the role of nullable data types and the construction of custom namespaces.