C# 0 The Complete Reference

Count

,

Max

, and 

Min

.

These are given the values 10, 100, and 0, respectively. These properties can be referred to by 

name by other code. Notice that an anonymous type uses object initializers to initialize fields 

and properties. As explained in Chapter 8, object initializers provide a way to initialize an 

object without explicitly invoking a constructor. This is necessary in the case of anonymous 

types because there is no way to explicitly call a constructor. (Recall that constructors have 

the same name as their class. In the case of an anonymous class, there is no name. So, how 

would you invoke the constructor?)

Because an anonymous type has no name, you must use an implicitly typed variable to 

refer to it. This lets the compiler infer the proper type. For example,

var myOb = new { Count = 10, Max = 100, Min = 0 }

creates a variable called 

myOb

 that is assigned a reference to the object created by the 

anonymous type expression. This means that the following statements are legal:

Console.WriteLine("Count is " + myOb.Count);

if(i <= myOb.Max && i >= myOb.Min) // ...

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Remember, when an anonymous type is created, the identifiers that you specify become 

read-only public properties. Thus, they can be used by other parts of your code.

Although the term 

anonymous type

 is used, it’s not quite completely true! The type is 

anonymous relative to you, the programmer. However, the compiler does give it an internal 

name. Thus, anonymous types do not violate C#‘s strong type checking rules.

To fully understand the value of anonymous types, consider this rewrite of the previous 

program that demonstrated