What is the difference between Type and Class?

Question

What makes a type different from class and vice versa?

(In the general language-agnostic sense)

Answer 1

Type contains description of the data (i.e. properties, operations, etc),

Class is a specific type - it is a template to create instances of objects.

Strictly speaking class is a special concept, it can be seen as a package containing subset of metadata describing some aspects of an object.

For example in C# you can find interfaces and classes. Both of them are types, but interface can only define some contract and can not be instantiated unlike classes.

Simply speaking class is a specialized type used to encapsulate properties and behavior of an object.

Wikipedia can give you a more complete answer:

• Definition of class
• Definition of data type