Attributes

Attributes

The .NET Framework makes extensive use of attributes, descriptive pieces of read-only information that a programmer can place in an object's metadata. Attributes can be read by any interested piece of code that has the required level of permission. Many attributes are provided and used by the system. Others are defined by programmers and used for their own purposes. All attributes derive from the abstract base class System.Attribute. The attributes in Figure were felt to be common enough to occupy the System namespace and are covered in this volume of the .NET Framework Standard Library Annotated Reference. Many other subordinate namespaces also define more specialized attributes.