3.2.6 - Records and fields (C#)

Grouping related fields

A record groups related named fields describing one entity, and the fields can have different data types.

A car's make, model and registration are strings. Its price can be real and its door count integer. Putting every value in an integer array would lose the strings; making every value text would lose convenient numeric processing. Named fields describe the roles directly.

A C# struct can implement this record concept. The definition below goes at class/file scope, outside Main; it defines the structure of a Car, not a particular car's values. public makes these simple fields accessible to the code using a Car.

struct Car
{
    public string Make;
    public string Model;
    public string Registration;
    public double Price;
    public int NumberOfDoors;
}

The generic specification term record does not require using C#'s newer record keyword. A suitable struct or class with the required fields can represent the data. Separate Car values follow the same field layout but describe different cars.