C# Programming/Keywords/typeof

The typeof keyword returns an instance of the System.Type class when passed a name of a class. It is similar to the sizeof keyword in that it returns a value instead of starting a section (block) of code (see if, try, while).

An example:

using System;

namespace MyNamespace
{
    class MyClass
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Type t = typeof(int);
            Console.Out.WriteLine(t.ToString());
            Console.In.Read();
        }
    }
}

The output will be:

System.Int32

It should be noted that unlike sizeof, only class names themselves and not variables can be passed to typeof as shown here:

using System;

namespace MyNamespace
{
    class MyClass2
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            char ch;
            
            // This line will cause compilation to fail
            Type t = typeof(ch);
            Console.Out.WriteLine(t.ToString());
            Console.In.Read();
        }
    }
}

Sometimes, classes will include their own GetType() method that will be similar, if not identical, to typeof.

C# Keywords
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Special C# Identifiers (Contextual Keywords)
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Contextual Keywords (Used in Queries)
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