Question

It is true in .NET that all types inherit from System.Object.

What I find paradoxical, is a few methods on System.Object – namely

• public virtual string ToString();
• public virtual bool Equals(object objA, object objB);

System.String is inherited from System.Object:

[Serializable]
public class String : Object { /*...*/ }

System.Boolean is inherited from System.Object:

[Serializable]
public struct Boolean : Object { /*....*/ }

What is the going on under the covers that allowed the System.Object class to allow sub-classes to be used as return types on its methods? How did this code ever compiled, as there seems to be a circular references. String <-> Object <-> Boolean.

I’m sure I will see statements, on “thats how it is implemented”, but I can understand if these return types were “System.Object”‘s themselves, and then a sub-class used the implemenations of string, bool and other System.ValueTypes to declare a new base class.

I hope that makes sense.

Thanks in advance,

Dominic

Answer 1

It’s no big deal, a base class can always reference subclasses. For instance, this code is perfectly legal :

class A
{
    public B CreateB();
    {
        return new B();
    }
}

class B : A
{
}

Note that it would be an issue if A and B were defined in separate assemblies, because that would require a circular assembly reference, which is not allowed