Specifies one of two factors that determine the memory alignment of fields when a type is marshaled.
Packing size affects the alignment of fields in structures and classes whose organization is System.Runtime.InteropServices.LayoutKind.Sequential. The packing size is one of two factors that determine the offset of a field when the structure or class is marshaled; the other factor is the effective size of the field. To determine the offset of a field:
[The 'ordered' type of list has not been implemented in the ECMA stylesheet.]Once offsets have been computed for all the fields in the class or structure, padding is added so that the overall size is a multiple of the packing size.
For example, in a class containing a byte and a long, using packing size Size1, the offset of the byte field is zero (0) and the offset of the long field is one (1). If the packing size is Size4, the long field has offset four (4). In a class containing two short fields, using any packing size, the offset of the second short field is two (2).
Changing the packing size can affect performance if it causes fields to be aligned on offsets that are not multiples of their size.