Partial class
is a new functionality that is included in Visual Studio .Net 2005 and
is supported in ASP.Net 2.0. This new functionality helps you to split
a single class into multiple partial classes. These partial classes can
be in different individual files.
In the earlier
versions of Visual Studio .Net 2005, while you create an ASP.Net application,
you might have seen that a single class has to be in a single file. You
will be beginning a class and ending that class in the same file. It was
not possible to split a single class across multiple files. This new feature,
partial class, allows you to allot different developers to develop the
code for different functionalities that are available in a single class.
These functionalities can be developed in partial classes and then compiled
to form the required assembly.
In the previous
versions of the Visual Studio .Net IDE, when you create a new ASP.Net
webform, the name of the web form is used as a class in the code-behind
file. Apart from that, you would have seen lots of code generated by Visual
Studio .Net itself. In the latest version of the Visual Studio .Net IDE,
the codes that are generated by Visual Studio .Net are in a separate file
as a partial class. Hence a user who creates a new webform would see a
partial class for that page, when the user uses the code-behind file.
This way the code that is seen in the code-behind file is minimal for
a particular webform.
The compilers
for VB.Net or C# look for the partial classes and integrate them while
compiling, to form the intermediate language. This intermediate language
is the same when compared to the intermediate language that is generated,
if all the partial classes are combined to form a single class in a single
file. There is no modification done in the CLR for the implementation
of partial classes.
http://www.dotnet-guide.com/partialclasses.html
