c# fundamentals

Question

why we are not using pointer in c#? what is reflection in .net? can we call a function under another function?

Vulpes · Answer

1. We are implicitly using pointers (or references to be more accurate) when we deal with reference types ref or out parameters in C#. Variables or parameters of these types don't contain the actual objects or values but pointers to where they're stored. However allocation and deallocation of such pointers is dealt with automatically by the CLR rather than by the programmer. This is just as well because (unlike C++) objects can move about in memory when other objects are destroyed and the CLR automatically updates all references to point to the correct memory location when this occurs. Having the CLR deal with pointers for us makes coding in C# much safer than it is in languages such as C/C++. Buffer over-runs and dangling pointers are simply not possible. However you can still use C-style pointers in 'unsafe code' in C# though this is rarely necessary these days. 2. Reflection is a process which enables you to inspect the compiled code and metadata of your assemblies at runtime. You can aslo use reflection to dynamically create objects and invoke their methods etc. 3. If you're asking whether functions (or methods as they're usually called in c#) can be nested the answer is that they can't. However you can achieve a similar effect using anonymous methods or lambda expressions which are written 'inline' within a method.