C# Value Types

Value type variables can be assigned a value directly. They are derived from the classSystem.ValueType.

The value types directly contain data. Some examples are int, char, float, which stores numbers, alphabets and floating point numbers respectively. When you declare an int type, the system allocates memory to store the value.

The following table lists the available value types in C# 2010:

Type	Represents	Range	Default Value
bool	Boolean value	True or False	False
byte	8-bit unsigned integer	0 to 255	0
char	16-bit Unicode character	U +0000 to U +ffff	'\0'
decimal	128-bit precise decimal values with 28-29 significant digits	(-7.9 x 1028 to 7.9 x 1028) / 100 to 28	0.0M
double	64-bit double-precision floating point type	(+/-)5.0 x 10-324 to (+/-)1.7 x 10308	0.0D
float	32-bit single-precision floating point type	-3.4 x 1038 to + 3.4 x 1038	0.0F
int	32-bit signed integer type	-2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647	0
long	64-bit signed integer type	-923,372,036,854,775,808 to 9,223,372,036,854,775,807	0L
sbyte	8-bit signed integer type	-128 to 127	0
short	16-bit signed integer type	-32,768 to 32,767	0
uint	32-bit unsigned integer type	0 to 4,294,967,295	0
ulong	64-bit unsigned integer type	0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615	0
ushort	16-bit unsigned integer type	0 to 65,535	0

To get the exact size of a type or a variable on a particular platform, you can use the sizeof method. The expression sizeof(type) yields the storage size of the object or type in bytes. Following is an example to get the size of int type on any machine:

namespace DataTypeApplication
{
   class Program
   {
      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         Console.WriteLine("Size of int: {0}", sizeof(int));
         Console.ReadLine();
      }
   }
}

Size of int: 4