Updated: July 2008
Attributes provide a powerful method of associating declarative information with C# code (types, methods, properties, and so forth). After an attribute is associated with a program entity, the attribute can be queried at run time by using a technique called reflection. For more information, see Reflection (C# Programming Guide).
Attributes occur in two forms:
Attributes that are defined in the common language runtime (CLR).
Custom attributes that you can create, to add extra information to your code. This information can later be retrieved programmatically.
In this example, the TypeAttributes..::.Serializable attribute is used to apply a specific characteristic to a class:
[System.Serializable]
public class SampleClass
{
// Objects of this type can be serialized.
}
Attributes have the following properties:
For more information, see:
C# Language Specification
For more information, see the following sections in the C# Language Specification:
10.2.1 Attributes
17 Attributes
Concepts
Reference
Date | History | Reason |
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July 2008
| Updated overview section. |
Content bug fix.
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