C# Value Types – MSDN Documentation

Value Types

Value types are data types that hold their data directly. They are stored in the stack (or inline in a containing type) and are copied on assignment.

In C#, the following are considered value types:

Built‑in numeric types (int, double, ...)
bool, char, byte, short, long, float, decimal
Structs (struct)
Enumerations (enum)
Nullable value types (int?)

Why use value types?

Common Value Types

Type	Alias	Size	Range
System.Boolean	`bool`	1 bit	True/False
System.Byte	`byte`	8 bits	0 to 255
System.SByte	`sbyte`	8 bits	-128 to 127
System.Int16	`short`	16 bits	-32,768 to 32,767
System.UInt16	`ushort`	16 bits	0 to 65,535
System.Int32	`int`	32 bits	-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647
System.UInt32	`uint`	32 bits	0 to 4,294,967,295
System.Int64	`long`	64 bits	-9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807
System.UInt64	`ulong`	64 bits	0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615
System.Single	`float`	32 bits	±1.5 × 10⁻⁴⁵ to ±3.4 × 10³⁸
System.Double	`double`	64 bits	±5.0 × 10⁻³²⁴ to ±1.7 × 10³⁰⁸
System.Decimal	`decimal`	128 bits	±1.0 × 10⁻²⁸ to ±7.9 × 10²⁸
System.Char	`char`	16 bits	Unicode character

Struct Example

Below is a simple struct representing a 2‑D point:

public struct Point
{
    public double X { get; }
    public double Y { get; }

    public Point(double x, double y)
    {
        X = x;
        Y = y;
    }

    public double Length() => Math.Sqrt(X * X + Y * Y);
}

Try it in the playground

Value Types

Common Value Types

Struct Example

Related Topics