Article
11/18/2011

Type.BaseType Property

Microsoft Silverlight will reach end of support after October 2021. Learn more.

Gets the type from which the current Type directly inherits.

Namespace: System
Assembly: mscorlib (in mscorlib.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
Public MustOverride ReadOnly Property BaseType As Type

public abstract Type BaseType { get; }

Property Value

Type: System.Type
The Type from which the current Type directly inherits, or nulla null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic) if the current Type represents the Object class or an interface.

Remarks

The base type is the type from which the current type directly inherits. Object is the only type that does not have a base type, therefore nulla null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic) is returned as the base type of Object.

Interfaces inherit from zero or more base interfaces; therefore, this property returns nulla null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic) if the Type object represents an interface. The base interfaces can be determined with GetInterfaces.

If the current Type represents a constructed generic type, the base type reflects the generic arguments. For example, consider the following declarations:

class B<U> { }
class C<T> : B<T> { }

Class B(Of U)
End Class
Class C(Of T)
    Inherits B(Of T)
End Class

generic<typename U> ref class B { };
generic<typename T> class C : B<T> { };

For the constructed type C<int> (C(Of Integer) in Visual Basic), the BaseType property returns B<int>.

If the current Type represents a type parameter of a generic type definition, BaseType returns the class constraint, that is, the class the type parameter must inherit. If there is no class constraint, BaseType returns System.Object.

This property is read-only.

Examples

The following example demonstrates using the BaseType property.

Note:
To run this example, see Building Examples That Use a Demo Method and a TextBlock Control.


Class Example

   Public Shared Sub Demo(ByVal outputBlock As System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock)
      Dim t As Type = GetType(Integer)
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("{0} inherits from {1}.", t, t.BaseType) & vbCrLf
   End Sub 'Main
End Class 'TestType

using System;
class Example
{
   public static void Demo(System.Windows.Controls.TextBlock outputBlock)
   {
      Type t = typeof(int);
      outputBlock.Text += String.Format("{0} inherits from {1}.", t, t.BaseType) + "\n";
   }
}

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Silverlight for Windows Phone

Supported in: Windows Phone OS 7.1, Windows Phone OS 7.0

XNA Framework

Supported in: Xbox 360, Windows Phone OS 7.0

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.