Why does .NET create new substrings instead of pointing into existing strings?

Question

From a brief look using Reflector, it looks like String.Substring() allocates memory for each substring. Am I correct that this is the case? I thought that woul

Answer 1

Not possible without poking around inside .net using String classes. You would have to pass around references to an array which was mutable and make sure no one screwed up.

.Net will create a new string every time you ask it to. Only exception to this is interned strings which are created by the compiler (and can be done by you) which are placed into memory once and then pointers are established to the string for memory and performance reasons.