What does the keyword “where” in a class declaration do?

Question

I\'m looking at the source code for the MvcContrib Grid and see the class declared as:

public class Grid : IGrid where T : class
         


        

Answer 1

It is a generic type constraint.

In this case it means that the generic type (T) must be a reference type, that is class, interface, delegate, or array type.

Other constraints are listed here.

You can also constrain the generic type to inherit from a specific type (base class or interface)