I don't understand why we need the 'new' keyword

Question

I am new to C#, from a C++ background. In C++ you can do this:

class MyClass{
....
};
int main()
{
   MyClass object;         


        

Answer 1

When you use referenced types then in this statement

Car c = new Car();

there are created two entities: a reference named c to an object of type Car in the stack and the object of type Car itself in the heap.

If you will just write

Car c;

then you create an uninitialized reference (provided that c is a local variable) that points to nowhere.

In fact it is equivalent to C++ code where instead of references there are used pointers.

For example

Car *c = new Car();

or just

Car *c;

The difference between C++ and C# is that C++ can create instances of classes in the stack like

Car c;

In C# this means creating a reference of type Car that as I said points nowhere.