Question

In .NET, integer data type is a value type(stack) and String is a reference type(heap).

So If a class A has an integer, and a string type object in it, and a class B creates an object of class A, then how will this object of class A be stored in memory? In stack, or in a heap?

This was asked in my Microsoft interview. Need to understand how I fared.

Answer 1

Eric Lippert just wrote about this:

It is simply false that the choice of whether to use the stack or the heap has anything fundamentally to do with the type of the thing being stored.

The true story is:

“in the Microsoft implementation of C# on the desktop CLR, value types are stored on the stack when the value is a local variable or temporary that is not a closed-over local variable of a lambda or anonymous method, and the method body is not an iterator block, and the jitter chooses to not enregister the value.”

Most importantly, he stresses that you simply should not care where a type lives. You should care where things of a certain lifetime live.