What is the difference between myCustomer.GetType() and typeof(Customer) in C#?

Question

I've seen both done in some code I'm maintaining, but don't know the difference. Is there one?

let me add that myCustomer is an instance of Customer

Answer 1

The result of both are exactly the same in your case. It will be your custom type that derives from System.Type. The only real difference here is that when you want to obtain the type from an instance of your class, you use GetType. If you don't have an instance, but you know the type name (and just need the actual System.Type to inspect or compare to), you would use typeof.

Important difference

EDIT: Let me add that the call to GetType gets resolved at runtime, while typeof is resolved at compile time.

Answer 2

GetType() is used to find the actual type of a object reference at run-time. This can be different from the type of the variable that references the object, because of inheritance. typeof() creates a Type literal that is of the exact type specified and is determined at compile-time.