I realized that in the Microsoft .NET Framework the void return type is a structure. Why?
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public void TestMethod()
{
}
...
I realized that in the Microsoft .NET Framework the void return type is a
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I realized that in the Microsoft .NET Framework the void return type is a structure. Why?
...
public void TestMethod()
{
}
...
The framework uses a value type called
System.Voidto represent thevoidreturn type keyword for use with reflection. Althoughvoidmeans the lack of a return value, it’s still technically a type, and in order for it to be expressed as such in code it has to be either a structure (value type) or a class (reference type).See
MethodInfo.ReturnTypefor an example.As to why the framework designers chose to make
System.Voida structure and not a class is anybody’s guess, but it has to be represented by a type in the first place. I’d agree with the comments that it’s to avoid the unnecessary overhead typically associated with reference lookups, among other optimizations.