How are String and Char types stored in memory in .NET?

Question

I\'d need to store a language code string, such as \"en\", which will always contains 2 characters.

Is it better to define the type as \"String\" or \"Char\"?

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Answer 1

Short answer: Use string

Long answer:

private string languageCode;

AFAIK strings are stored as a length prefixed array of chars. A String object is instantiated on the heap to maintain this raw array. But a String object is much more than a simple array it enables basic string operations like comparison, concatenation, substring extraction, search etc

While

private char[] languageCode;

will be stored as an Array of chars i.e. an Array object will be created on the heap and then it will be used to manage your characters. But it still has a length attribute which is stored internally so there are no apparent savings in memory when compared to a string. Though presumably an Array is simpler than a String and may have fewer internal variables thus offering a lower memory foot print (this needs to be verified).

But OTOH you loose the ability to perform string operations on this char array. Even operations like string comparison become cumbersome now. So long story short use a string!