In
this article, I will explain you about Structures in Visual Basic .NET.
Structures
Structures
are complex data types that encapsulate group of logically related
data items. Structures are
user-defined. They are very similar to Classes. Just like Classes,
Structures
can contain data members as well as member methods. The main difference in
Structures and Classes is that structures are value type and classes are
reference type. We use Structure . .
. End Structure statement to declare a structure in Visual Basic
.NET. Between these two
statements, there must be at least one member declared and that member can be of
any data type, non-shared and non-event.
Difference Between
Structures and Classes:
| Structures | Classes |
| Structures are Value type. | Classes are Reference type. |
| Supports data members, methods and events. | Supports data members, methods and events. |
| Structures can not supports Inherit. | Classes supports inheritance. |
| Structures are preferable when you perform large number of operations on each instance. | Classes are preferable when you need to initialize one or more members upon creation. |
| Structures can not control initialization using structure variable. | Classes can have parameterized constructors. |
| Structures have less flexible, limited event handling support. | Classes have more flexible, unlimited event handling support. |
The following code creates a Structure named EmpDetails with four
fields of different data types.
Imports
System.Console
Module Module1
Structure
EmpDetails
'declaring a structure named EmpDetails
Dim Name
As String
Dim Address
As String
Dim Salary
As Double
Dim Id
As Integer
'declaring Four fields of different
data types in the structure
End
Structure
Sub Main()
Dim Obj As New EmpDetails()
'creating an instance of EmpDetails
Obj.Name = "Atul"
Obj.Address = "Sec-37"
Obj.Salary = 40000
Obj.Id = 131791
'assigning values to member variables
WriteLine("Name :" +
" " + Obj.Name)
WriteLine("Address :" +
" " + Obj.Address)
WriteLine("Salary :" +
" " + Obj.Salary.ToString)
WriteLine("ID :" +
" " + Obj.Id.ToString)
'accessing member variables with the
period/dot operator
Read()
End Sub
End Module
The output of this code is:
Summary
Hope this article help you to
Understand about Structures in Visual Basic.