How does .net managed memory handle value types inside objects?

Question

public class MyClass
{
    public int Age;
    public int ID;
}

public void MyMethod() 
{
    MyClass m = new MyClass();
    int newID;
}

To my un

Answer 1

The best resource I've seen for this is the book CLR via C# by Jeffrey Richter. It's well worth reading if you do any .NET development. Based on that text, my understanding is that the value types within a reference type do live in the heap embedded in the parent object. Reference types are always on the heap. Boxing and unboxing are not symmetric. Boxing can be a bigger concern than unboxing. Boxing will require copying the contents of the value type from the stack to the heap. Depending on how frequently this happens to you there may be no point in having a struct instead of a class. If you have some performance critical code and you're not sure if boxing and unboxing is happening use a tool to examine the IL code of your method. You'll see the words box and unbox in the IL. Personally, I would measure the performance of my code and only then see if this is a candidate for worry. In your case I don't think this will be such a critical issue. You are not going to have to copy from the stack to the heap (box) every time you access this value type inside the reference type. That scenario is where boxing becomes a more meaningful problem.