Structures Example In C#.NET

Good evening team,

Before migrating to .NET, i used to code a lot in C++/C.. One of the topics in data structures was structures .C# also has struct in its arsenal.A structure is similar to a class, but is a value type, rather than a reference type. Structures are declared using the keyword struct and are syntactically similar to classes. Here is the general form of a struct.

struct name : interfaces
{
   // member declarations
}

The name of the structure is specified by name.Structures cannot inherit other structures or classes, or be used as a base for other structures or classes. (Of course, like all C# types, structures do inherit object.) However, a structure can implement one or more interfaces. These are specified after the structure name using a comma-separated list. Like classes, structure members include methods, fields, indexers, properties, operator methods, and events. Structures can also define constructors, but not destructors. However, you cannot define a default (parameterless) constructor for a structure. The reason for this is that a default constructor is automatically defined for all structures, and this default constructor can’t be changed. The default constructor initializes the fields of a structure to their default values. Since structures do not support inheritance, structure members cannot be specified as abstract, virtual, or protected. (FROM: C# COMPLETE REFERENCE)So, to give an example, here is a struct that computes the area of a rectangle.

public struct MyStruct {
  public int height;
  public int width;
  public MyStruct(int h, int w) {
    this.height = h;
    this.width = w;
  }
  public override string ToString() {
    return (width * height).ToString();
  }
}
//And here is the test program:  
static void Main(string[] args) {
    MyStruct s;
    s.width = 5;
    s.height = 5;
    //declare s1 similar to instantiation of objects  
    MyStruct s1 = new MyStruct(9, 7);
    Console.WriteLine("Area of first rectangle is: {0} second  
      is: {
        1
      }
      ", s.ToString(),s1.ToString());  
      //array of structs  
      MyStruct[] s2 = new MyStruct[3]; s2[0].height = 8; s2[0].width = 4; s2[1].height = 10; s2[1].width = 10; s2[2].height = 12; s2[2].width = 2; Console.WriteLine("\n"); foreach(var @struct in s2) {
        Console.WriteLine("Area of the three rectangle are: {0}",
          @struct.ToString());
      }
    }

As you can see from the test program, you can declare a struct object w/o specifying a new keyword. You could also declare a struct object using the new keyword, provided that you supply values to it's constructor. The third code also let's you create an array of structures.