Classes and Objects in C# with examples

Classes and Objects in C#

A class defines the state and behavior of the basic program components known as objects. Classes create objects and objects use methods to communicate between them. Classes provide a convenient approach for packing together a group of logically related data items and functions that work on them.

In C#, the data items are called fields and the functions are called methods. Calling a specific method in an object is described as sending the object a message.

Defining a Class

A class is a user-defined data type with a template that serves to define its properties. Once the class type has been defined, we can create the ‘variables’ of that type using declarations. In C#, these variables are termed as instances of classes that are the actual objects. It has the following syntax:

class class-name
{
[variables declaration;]
[methods declaration;]
}

where the class is a keyword and class-name is any valid of C# identifier.

Objects

In C#, an object is essentially a block of memory that contains space to store all the instance variables. Creating an object is also referred to as instantiating an object.
In C#, objects are created using the new operator. The new operator creates an object of the specified class and it returns a reference to that object.

Example:

Rectangle rect; // declare
rect= new Rectangle(); // instantiate

Where the first statement declares a variable to hold the object reference and the second one assigns the object reference to the variable.

Note: It is important to understand that each object has a copy of the instance variables of its class. It means that any changes to the variables of one object will not affect the variables of another.