When should I use a struct instead of a class?

Question

MSDN says that you should use structs when you need lightweight objects. Are there any other scenarios when a struct is preferable over a class?

Some people might ha

Answer 1

Hmm...

I wouldn't use garbage collection as an argument for/against the use of structs vs classes. The managed heap works much like a stack - creating an object just puts it at the top of the heap, which is almost as fast as allocating on the stack. Additionally, if an object is short-lived and does not survive a GC cycle, deallocation is free as the GC only works with memory that's still accessible. (Search MSDN, there's a series of articles on .NET memory management, I'm just too lazy to go dig for them).

Most of the time I use a struct, I wind up kicking myself for doing so, because I later discover that having reference semantics would have made things a bit simpler.

Anyway, those four points in the MSDN article posted above seems a good guideline.