Basics Of Attributes in .Net Framework

The Attributes are the declarative informations used to instruct the .Net Runtime. The attributes can work with types, fields, methods and properties. These informations are stored with the metadata file. By using the Attributes the developer can control the CLR. So we will get a dynamic behaviour from the CLR.

Eg:- Serializable is an Attribute.

Usage of Attributes in VB.Net(Sample):

<Serializable()> _
  Public Class Employee
       Public Name As String
       Public Designation As String
  End Class

Usage of Attributes in C#.Net(Sample):

[Serializable()]
public class Employee
{
 public string Name;
 public string Designation;
}

Note: All the attributes are classes that derived from System.Attribute class.


.Net framework has a lot of attributes that can be used for controlling XML serialization, Web services, COM interoperability etc.. And .Net provides the oppertunity to create custom attributes.