When using object type stores an int value, why the object.GetType() returns system.Int32?

Question

The code like below:

object i = 11;

Console.WriteLine(i.GetType());

It prints out "System.Int32", why? I thought it should be "system.object".

Answer 1

GetType() returns the actual type of the object that the value refers to. It doesn't return the type of the variable used to access the object. So as a simpler example:

object x = "this is a string";
Console.WriteLine(x.GetType()); // Prints System.String

In this case, the type is "boxed System.Int32 " - but most of .NET doesn't differentiate between "a regular value type" and "the boxed type equivalent to the value type", including GetType() .