what are the limitations of struct over class?

Question

Rajanikant Hawaldar · Answer

Hello Anand, 1) Class is a reference type, whereas Struct is a value type. 2) A default constructor or destructor cannot be created in Struct. 3) Structs inherit from System.ValueType, cannot be inherited from another Struct or Class, and cannot be a base class. 4) Struct types cannot be abstract and are always sealed implicitly. 5) Struct members cannot be abstract, sealed, virtual, or protected. 6) Structs copy the entire value on the assignment, whereas reference types copy the reference on assignment. So, large reference type assignments are cheaper than the value types. 7) Instance field declarations in Struct cannot include variable initializers. But, static fields in Struct can include variable initializers. 8) A null value can be assigned to a struct as it can be used as a nullable type. 9) Structs are allocated either on the stack or inline in containing types and deallocated when the stack or the containing type gets deallocated. But, reference types are allocated on the heap and garbage-collected. So, the allocation and deallocation of structs are cheaper than classes. 10)Array elements of reference types are references to the instances of the reference types that exist on the heap, whereas array elements of value types are the real instances of the value type. So, allocation and deallocation of value type arrays are much cheaper than the reference type arrays. 11)Value types get boxed and unboxed during the typecasting. An excessive amount of boxing and unboxing results in a negative impact on the heap, garbage collector, and the application's performance.

Vishal Yelve · Answer

Hi Anand, Please reference the below links https://www.tutorialsteacher.com/articles/when-to-use-struct-over-class-in-csharp https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-class-and-structure-in-c-sharp/ https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/what-is-structure-and-when-to-use-in-c-sharp/