Why do we need sealed classes?

Question

I know the functionality of a Sealed class. That its not inheritable. But my question is why do we need a Sealed Class? If not inheriting properties and methods is the motive, why don't just declare them as private?

Answer 1

First of all, let's start with a definition; sealed is a modifier which if applied to a class make it non-inheritable and if applied to virtual methods or properties makes them non-ovveridable.

public sealed class A { ... }
public class B 
{
    ...
    public sealed string Property { get; set; }
    public sealed void Method() { ... }
}

An example of its usage is to define a specialized class/method or property in which potential alterations can make them stop working as expected (for example, the Pens class of the System.Drawing namespace).

...
namespace System.Drawing
{
    //
    // Summary:
    //     Pens for all the standard colors. This class cannot be inherited.
    public sealed class Pens
    {
        public static Pen Transparent { get; }
        public static Pen Orchid { get; }
        public static Pen OrangeRed { get; }
        ...
    }
}

Because a sealed class cannot be inherited, it cannot be used as base class and by consequence, an abstract class cannot use the sealed modifier.

It's also important to mention that structs are implicitly sealed.

Performance

To really see them you need to analyze the JIT-Compiled code (last one).

C# Code

public sealed class Sealed
{
    public string Message { get; set; }
    public void DoStuff() { }
}
public class Derived : Base
{
    public sealed override void DoStuff() { }
}
public class Base
{
    public string Message { get; set; }
    public virtual void DoStuff() { }
}
static void Main()
{
    Sealed sealedClass = new Sealed();
    sealedClass.DoStuff();
    Derived derivedClass = new Derived();
    derivedClass.DoStuff();
    Base BaseClass = new Base();
    BaseClass.DoStuff();
}

MIL Code

.method private hidebysig static void  Main() cil managed
{
  .entrypoint
  // Code size       41 (0x29)
  .maxstack  8
  IL_0000:  newobj     instance void ConsoleApp1.Program/Sealed::.ctor()
  IL_0005:  callvirt   instance void ConsoleApp1.Program/Sealed::DoStuff()
  IL_000a:  newobj     instance void ConsoleApp1.Program/Derived::.ctor()
  IL_000f:  callvirt   instance void ConsoleApp1.Program/Base::DoStuff()
  IL_0014:  newobj     instance void ConsoleApp1.Program/Base::.ctor()
  IL_0019:  callvirt   instance void ConsoleApp1.Program/Base::DoStuff()
  IL_0028:  ret
} // end of method Program::Main

JIT- Compiled Code

--- C:\Users\Ivan Porta\source\repos\ConsoleApp1\Program.cs --------------------
        {
0066084A  in          al,dx  
0066084B  push        edi  
0066084C  push        esi  
0066084D  push        ebx  
0066084E  sub         esp,4Ch  
00660851  lea         edi,[ebp-58h]  
00660854  mov         ecx,13h  
00660859  xor         eax,eax  
0066085B  rep stos    dword ptr es:[edi]  
0066085D  cmp         dword ptr ds:[5842F0h],0  
00660864  je          0066086B  
00660866  call        744CFAD0  
0066086B  xor         edx,edx  
0066086D  mov         dword ptr [ebp-3Ch],edx  
00660870  xor         edx,edx  
00660872  mov         dword ptr [ebp-48h],edx  
00660875  xor         edx,edx  
00660877  mov         dword ptr [ebp-44h],edx  
0066087A  xor         edx,edx  
0066087C  mov         dword ptr [ebp-40h],edx  
0066087F  nop  
            Sealed sealedClass = new Sealed();
00660880  mov         ecx,584E1Ch  
00660885  call        005730F4  
0066088A  mov         dword ptr [ebp-4Ch],eax  
0066088D  mov         ecx,dword ptr [ebp-4Ch]  
00660890  call        00660468  
00660895  mov         eax,dword ptr [ebp-4Ch]  
00660898  mov         dword ptr [ebp-3Ch],eax  
            sealedClass.DoStuff();
0066089B  mov         ecx,dword ptr [ebp-3Ch]  
0066089E  cmp         dword ptr [ecx],ecx  
006608A0  call        00660460  
006608A5  nop  
            Derived derivedClass = new Derived();
006608A6  mov         ecx,584F3Ch  
006608AB  call        005730F4  
006608B0  mov         dword ptr [ebp-50h],eax  
006608B3  mov         ecx,dword ptr [ebp-50h]  
006608B6  call        006604A8  
006608BB  mov         eax,dword ptr [ebp-50h]  
006608BE  mov         dword ptr [ebp-40h],eax  
            derivedClass.DoStuff();
006608C1  mov         ecx,dword ptr [ebp-40h]  
006608C4  mov         eax,dword ptr [ecx]  
006608C6  mov         eax,dword ptr [eax+28h]  
006608C9  call        dword ptr [eax+10h]  
006608CC  nop  
            Base BaseClass = new Base();
006608CD  mov         ecx,584EC0h  
006608D2  call        005730F4  
006608D7  mov         dword ptr [ebp-54h],eax  
006608DA  mov         ecx,dword ptr [ebp-54h]  
006608DD  call        00660490  
006608E2  mov         eax,dword ptr [ebp-54h]  
006608E5  mov         dword ptr [ebp-44h],eax  
            BaseClass.DoStuff();
006608E8  mov         ecx,dword ptr [ebp-44h]  
006608EB  mov         eax,dword ptr [ecx]  
006608ED  mov         eax,dword ptr [eax+28h]  
006608F0  call        dword ptr [eax+10h]  
006608F3  nop  
        }
0066091A  nop  
0066091B  lea         esp,[ebp-0Ch]  
0066091E  pop         ebx  
0066091F  pop         esi  
00660920  pop         edi  
00660921  pop         ebp  

00660922  ret  

While the creation of the objects is the same, the instruction executed to invoke the methods of the sealed and derived/base class are slightly different. After moving data into registers or RAM (mov instruction), the invoke of the sealed method, execute a comparison between dword ptr [ecx],ecx (cmp instruction) and then call the method while the derived/base class execute directly the method..

According to the report written by Torbj¨orn Granlund, Instruction latencies and throughput for AMD and Intel x86 processors, the speed of the following instruction in a Intel Pentium 4 are:

• mov: has 1 cycle as latency and the processor can sustain 2.5 instructions per cycle of this type
• cmp: has 1 cycle as latency and the processor can sustain 2 instructions per cycle of this type

Link: https://gmplib.org/~tege/x86-timing.pdf

The optimization of the compilers have made the difference between the performances of a sealed and not-sealed classed so low that we are talking about processor circles and for this reason are irrelevant for the majority of applications.

Answer 2

1.On a class that implements security features, so that the original object cannot be "impersonated".

2.More generally, I recently exchanged with a person at Microsoft, who told me they tried to limit the inheritance to the places where it really made full sense, because it becomes expensive performance-wise if left untreated. The sealed keyword tells the CLR that there is no class further down to look for methods, and that speeds things up.

In most performance-enhancing tools on the market nowadays, you will find a checkbox that will seal all your classes that aren't inherited. Be careful though, because if you want to allow plugins or assembly discovery through MEF, you will run into problems.

Answer 3

You can leave members public so that code outside of the class can use them. This can happen irrespective of whether there is inheritance or not.

The reason a class might need to be sealed is that inheritance needs to be designed for. The author of a class must take into consideration in what way inheriting code will interact with the base class code.

In my opinion it is a mistake in the C# language to make classes inheritable by default. Java went even further and made methods virtual by default which appears to many as a design mistake.