The general specification for signatures leaves some leeway in how to encode certain items. For example, it appears valid to encode a String as either
- long-form: (
ELEMENT_TYPE_CLASS, TypeRef-to-System.String) - short-form:
ELEMENT_TYPE_STRING
Only the short form is valid. The following table shows which short-forms should be used in place of each long-form item. (As usual, for compactness, the ELEMENT_TYPE_ prefix have been omitted here – so VALUETYPE is short for ELEMENT_TYPE_VALUETYPE)
| Long Form | Short Form | |
|---|---|---|
| Prefix | TypeRef to: | |
CLASS |
System.String |
STRING |
CLASS |
System.Object |
OBJECT |
VALUETYPE |
System.Void |
VOID |
VALUETYPE |
System.Boolean |
BOOLEAN |
VALUETYPE |
System.Char |
CHAR |
VALUETYPE |
System.Byte |
U1 |
VALUETYPE |
System.Sbyte |
I1 |
VALUETYPE |
System.Int16 |
I2 |
VALUETYPE |
System.UInt16 |
U2 |
VALUETYPE |
System.Int32 |
I4 |
VALUETYPE |
System.UInt32 |
U4 |
VALUETYPE |
System.Int64 |
I8 |
VALUETYPE |
System.UInt64 |
U8 |
VALUETYPE |
System.IntPtr |
I |
VALUETYPE |
System.UIntPtr |
U |
VALUETYPE |
System.TypedReference |
TYPEDBYREF |