Why is there no built-in type for DateTime? [duplicate]

Question

Most common datatypes have a built in type: Int32 has int, Boolean has bool, String has string, etc. Why is there no built-in type for DateTime?

First I thought it's because DateTime has properties and public functions, but so does int. Can anyone shed some light on this? What's the criteria for a type to have a built-in equivalent?

Answer 1

The CLR only defines basic building blocks: the minimal data types necessary to define all others. Those are the types given an alias.

Since DateTime is just a collection of longs and integers, packed in a struct, there is no need to create a new data type in the CLR for it. You can build it with the data types already defined in the CLR. No need for aliasing it.