MSDN text clarification -reference types are objects

On MSDN, one can read following:

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Reference types are also referred to as objects

I do not understand. I thought that value of reference type points to actual object that lives on the heap, ie at least I would say "Instances of reference types are also reffered to as object". Or am I missing something?

There is also often mentioned "variable of reference type"..but I can have only value of reference type when its e.g.stored in the list. Do I get it correctly?

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The jargon can be a little confusing here since it's very easy (and common) to be sloppy.

class Foo { }
Foo f = new Foo();

This defines the reference type Foo and the next line defines a reference variable, f, that points to an anonymous instance (object) of Foo. Note that working with an object always involves two 'things'. We often simplify a little by saying "f is a Foo object" and while that is practical it is not the full truth.

A few points that may help:

• the instances (objects) don't have a name
• you only name the reference variables
• you cannot pass an instance (itself) as a parameter or return value
• you cannot create arrays of instances
• this means you can only pass/copy/store references
• those references behave exactly like value types (!)

Note that when you look at interface types there only is the reference half, there are no 'instances' of interfaces.

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The value of the reference points to the object in the heap. The object itself is a reference type, because you access it through a reference. (Although the whole redirection through the reference is transparent to you. You might think you're passing around a String object, but you're actually passing around a reference to a string object, which is dereferenced for you.)

The Reference itself (i.e. the pointer, not the object on the heap), is a value type - just to confuse things.

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You could imagine that the word "Reference" just means "Pointer"; a list of objects of your own class contains the references/pointers to the heap allocated objects.