CTS Spec

Types expose functionality to your applications and other types. Types are the mechanism by which code written in one programming language can talk to code written in a different programming language.

Because types are at the root of the CLR, Microsoft created a formal specification—the Common Type System (CTS)—that describes how types are defined and how they behave.

The CTS specification states that a type can contain zero or more members.

• Field A data variable that is part of the object’s state. Fields are identified by their name and type.
• Method A function that performs an operation on the object, often changing the object’s state. Methods have a name, a signature, and modifiers. The signature specifies the number of parameters (and their sequence), the types of the parameters, whether a value is returned by the method, and if so, the type of the value returned by the method.
• Property To the caller, this member looks like a field. But to the type implementer, it looks like a method (or two). Properties allow an implementer to validate input parameters and object state before accessing the value and/or calculating a value only when necessary. They also allow a user of the type to have simplified syntax. Finally, properties allow you to create read-only or write-only “fields."
• Event An event allows a notification mechanism between an object and other interested objects. For example, a button could offer an event that notifies other objects when the button is clicked.