When should I use a struct instead of a class?

Bill Wagner has a chapter about this in his book "effective c#" (http://www.amazon.com/Effective-Specific-Ways-Improve-Your/dp/0321245660). He concludes by using the following principle:

  1. Is the main responsability of the type data storage?
  2. Is its public interface defined entirely by properties that access or modify its data members?
  3. Are you sure your type will never have subclasses?
  4. Are you sure your type will never be treated polymorphically?

If you answer 'yes' to all 4 questions: use a struct. Otherwise, use a class.


MSDN has the answer: Choosing Between Classes and Structures.

Basically, that page gives you a 4-item checklist and says to use a class unless your type meets all of the criteria.

Do not define a structure unless the type has all of the following characteristics:

  • It logically represents a single value, similar to primitive types (integer, double, and so on).
  • It has an instance size smaller than 16 bytes.
  • It is immutable.
  • It will not have to be boxed frequently.

I am surprised I have not read at any of the previous answer this, which I consider the most crucial aspect :

I use structs when I want a type with no identity. For example a 3D point:

public struct ThreeDimensionalPoint
{
    public readonly int X, Y, Z;
    public ThreeDimensionalPoint(int x, int y, int z)
    {
        this.X = x;
        this.Y = y;
        this.Z = z;
    }

    public override string ToString()
    {
        return "(X=" + this.X + ", Y=" + this.Y + ", Z=" + this.Z + ")";
    }

    public override int GetHashCode()
    {
        return (this.X + 2) ^ (this.Y + 2) ^ (this.Z + 2);
    }

    public override bool Equals(object obj)
    {
        if (!(obj is ThreeDimensionalPoint))
            return false;
        ThreeDimensionalPoint other = (ThreeDimensionalPoint)obj;
        return this == other;
    }

    public static bool operator ==(ThreeDimensionalPoint p1, ThreeDimensionalPoint p2)
    {
        return p1.X == p2.X && p1.Y == p2.Y && p1.Z == p2.Z;
    }

    public static bool operator !=(ThreeDimensionalPoint p1, ThreeDimensionalPoint p2)
    {
        return !(p1 == p2);
    }
}

If you have two instances of this struct you don't care if they are a single piece of data in memory or two. You just care about the value(s) they hold.

Tags:

.Net

Oop