Does a reference field in a C# structure affect anything?

Question

Programming

For example:

struct MyStruct
{
    int id;
    MyClass myClass;
}

Or is it better to do without reference types in the structure?

Answer 1

Do as the situation demands. There are no restrictions.
Perhaps there will be some inconvenience when saving to the database or serialization, but again it depends on the situation and there are a lot of solutions to get rid of these inconveniences.

Answer 2

You need to be careful when copying them.
In your case, the myClass field stores a reference to a memory area on the heap. Copying a value type( which is what a struct refers to) just creates a new value on the stack.

var a = 0;
var b = a; //на стек помещается значение 0. Число есть число, ни на что не ссылается

In a copy of the structure, the reference field is initialized with a copy of the reference (and it leads to the same object on the heap) which is placed on the stack. In other words, you will get a superficial or shallow copy. When you change the properties of an object of a reference type in one structure, you will see the same changes in the copy field.