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copied!<p>Well, your <em>explanation</em> isn't an explanation at all, it's an observation of behavior, which is different.</p> <p>If you want an explanation of what the difference is, then you need a piece of text <em>explaining</em> it. And the behavior explained can be ed with the code.</p> <p>The page linked to by Grimtron is good for detailing all the individual differences between a class and a struct, and pieces of it would serve as a <em>overview explanation</em>, in particular read the following items:</p> <ul> <li>Exists on stack or heap?</li> <li>Inheritance differences?</li> </ul> <p>But I wouldn't link to that page as an <em>explanation</em> for what the differences are. It's like trying to describe what a car is, and just listing up all the parts that make up a car. You still need to understand the big picture to understand what a car is, and such a list would not be able to give you that.</p> <p>In my mind, an explanation is something that tells you how something works, and then all the details follow naturally from that.</p> <p>For instance, if you understand the basic underlying principles behind a value type vs. a reference type, a lot of the details on that page makes sense, <em>if you think about it</em>.</p> <p>For instance, a value type (struct) is allocated where it is declared, inline, so to speak. It takes up stack space, or makes a class bigger in memory. A reference type, however, is a pointer, which has a fixed size, to <em>somewhere else in memory where the actual object is stored</em>.</p> <p>With the above explanation, the following details makes sense:</p> <ul> <li>A struct variable cannot be null (ie. it always takes up the necessary space)</li> <li>An object reference can be null (ie. the pointer can point to nothing)</li> <li>A struct does not add pressure to garbage collection (garbage collection works with the heap, which is where objects live in that <em>somewhere else</em> space)</li> <li>Always have a default constructor. Since you can declare any value-type variable (which is basically a kind of struct), without giving it a value, there must be some underlying magic that clears up that space (remember I said it took up space anyhow)</li> </ul> <p>Other things, like all the things related to inheritance, needs their own part in the explanation.</p> <p>And so on...</p>

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