What's the difference between struct and class in .NET?

Question

What\'s the difference between struct and class in .NET?

Answer 1

+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                        |                                                Struct                                                |                                               Class                                               |
+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Type                   | Value-type                                                                                           | Reference-type                                                                                    |
| Where                  | On stack / Inline in containing type                                                                 | On Heap                                                                                           |
| Deallocation           | Stack unwinds / containing type gets deallocated                                                     | Garbage Collected                                                                                 |
| Arrays                 | Inline, elements are the actual instances of the value type                                          | Out of line, elements are just references to instances of the reference type residing on the heap |
| Aldel Cost             | Cheap allocation-deallocation                                                                        | Expensive allocation-deallocation                                                                 |
| Memory usage           | Boxed when cast to a reference type or one of the interfaces they implement,                         | No boxing-unboxing                                                                                |
|                        | Unboxed when cast back to value type                                                                 |                                                                                                   |
|                        | (Negative impact because boxes are objects that are allocated on the heap and are garbage-collected) |                                                                                                   |
| Assignments            | Copy entire data                                                                                     | Copy the reference                                                                                |
| Change to an instance  | Does not affect any of its copies                                                                    | Affect all references pointing to the instance                                                    |
| Mutability             | Should be immutable                                                                                  | Mutable                                                                                           |
| Population             | In some situations                                                                                   | Majority of types in a framework should be classes                                                |
| Lifetime               | Short-lived                                                                                          | Long-lived                                                                                        |
| Destructor             | Cannot have                                                                                          | Can have                                                                                          |
| Inheritance            | Only from an interface                                                                               | Full support                                                                                      |
| Polymorphism           | No                                                                                                   | Yes                                                                                               |
| Sealed                 | Yes                                                                                                  | When have sealed keyword                                                                          |
| Constructor            | Can not have explicit parameterless constructors                                                     | Any constructor                                                                                   |
| Null-assignments       | When marked with nullable question mark                                                              | Yes (+ When marked with nullable question mark in C# 8+)                                          |
| Abstract               | No                                                                                                   | When have abstract keyword                                                                        |
| Member Access Modifiers| public, private, internal                                                                            | public, protected, internal, protected internal, private protected                                |
+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+