Data types

Question

What is data type and how many types of data types are there in .NET ?

Answer 1

A data type is a data storage format which contains a specific type or a range of values. When a variables is declared, each variable must be assigned with a specific data type. Common data types include: integers, floating point, characters, and strings.

Following are the two types of data types available in .NET:

a) Value type – This data type contains only data. In other way, the exact value or the data is directly stored in this data type. It means that whenever a value type variable is assigned to another variable, then it copies the value instead of copying the reference of that variable. When a value type variable is created, a single space in the memory is allocated in order to store the value (stack memory). Primitive data types, such as float, int, and char are instances of value type variables.

b) Reference type – It is a data type which can access data through the reference. Reference is a value or an address which accesses a particular data through the address that is stored elsewhere in the memory (heap memory). Reference is the physical address of the data, where the data is stored in the memory or in the storage device. Some built-in reference type’s variables in .Net are: string, array, and object.