VB.NET Structure

30% OFF - 9th Anniversary discount on Entity Framework Extensions until December 15 with code: ZZZANNIVERSARY9

A structure is a generalization of the user-defined type. In addition to fields, it can expose properties, methods, and events. A structure can implement one or more interfaces, and you can declare individual access levels for each field.

  • You can combine data items of different types to create a structure.
  • A structure associates one or more elements with each other and with the structure itself.
  • When you declare a structure, it becomes a composite data type, and you can declare variables of that type.
  • Structures are useful when you want a single variable to hold several related pieces of information.

Structure Declaration

You can declare a structure using the Structure statement. You can specify the access level of a structure using the Public, Protected, Friend, or Private keyword.

Let's consider the following simple example where we have declared a structure named Point3D, which contains three integers X, Y, and Z.

Public Structure Point3D
    Public X As Integer
    Public Y As Integer
    Public Z As Integer
End Structure

Structures are also used to represent a record. For example, if you want to keep track of all your customers, you can add the following fields to the structure.

Public Structure CustomerInfo
    Public Id As Integer
    Public Name As String
    Public Address As String
End Structure

To use the structure, you can create its object using with or without the new keyword.

Public Sub Example1()
    Dim point1 As Point3D
    Dim point2 As Point3D = New Point3D()
    point1.X = 10
    point1.Y = 20
    point1.Z = 30
    point2.X = 40
    point2.Y = 50
    point2.Z = 60
    Console.WriteLine("X: {0}, Y: {1}, Z: {2}", point1.X, point1.Y, point1.Z)
    Console.WriteLine("X: {0}, Y: {1}, Z: {2}", point2.X, point2.Y, point2.Z)
End Sub

Let's run the above code and it will print the following output on the console window.

X: 10, Y: 20, Z: 30
X: 40, Y: 50, Z: 60

Constructors in Structure

A Structure only supports constructors that contain parameters. Here in the CustomerInfo structure, a parametrized constructor is added.

Public Structure CustomerInfo
    Public Id As Integer
    Public Name As String
    Public Address As String

    Public Sub New(ByVal id As Integer, ByVal name As String, ByVal address As String)
        Me.Id = id
        Me.Name = name
        Me.Address = address
    End Sub
End Structure

You can create its object by calling the parameterized constructor.

Public Sub Example2()
    Dim customer As CustomerInfo = New CustomerInfo(1, "Mark", "22 wall street")
    Console.WriteLine("Id: {0}, Name: {1}, Address: {2}", customer.Id, customer.Name, customer.Address)
End Sub

Let's run the above code, and it will print the following output on the console window.

Id: 1, Name: Mark, Address: 22 wall street

Methods in Structure

You can also add methods to your structure in C#. Here is a simple method Print() which will print all the information of a customer on the console window.

Public Structure CustomerInfo
    Public Id As Integer
    Public Name As String
    Public Address As String

    Public Sub New(ByVal id As Integer, ByVal name As String, ByVal address As String)
        Me.Id = id
        Me.Name = name
        Me.Address = address
    End Sub

    Public Sub Print()
        Console.WriteLine("Id: {0}, Name: {1}, Address: {2}", Me.Id, Me.Name, Me.Address)
    End Sub

End Structure

Now to print the customer information, we just need to call the Print() method.

Public Sub Example3()
    Dim customer As CustomerInfo = New CustomerInfo(1, "Mark", "22 wall street")
    customer.Print()
End Sub

Let's run the above code and it will print the following output on the console window.

Id: 2, Name: John, Address: 11 wall street

Limitations

When you are working with structures, you must keep in mind the following limitations.

  • Structure doesn't support a parameterless constructor but provides an implicit parameterless constructor that produces the default value of the type.
  • It can't initialize an instance field or property at its declaration, it can only initialize a static or const field or a static property at its declaration.
  • A constructor must initialize all instance fields of the structure.
  • It can't be inherited from other class or structure types, but it can implement interfaces.


Got any VB.NET Question?