也许这是一个何时使用嵌套类的好例子?

// ORIGINAL
class ImageCacheSettings { }
class ImageCacheEntry { }
class ImageCache
{
    ImageCacheSettings mSettings;
    List<ImageCacheEntry> mEntries;
}

And:

// REFACTORED
class ImageCache
{
    Settings mSettings;
    List<Entry> mEntries;

    class Settings {}
    class Entry {}
}

PS:我没有考虑应该应用哪些访问修饰符(私有，受保护，公共，内部)

嵌套类对于实现不应该公开的内部细节非常有用。如果你使用Reflector检查Dictionary<Tkey,TValue>或Hashtable之类的类，你会发现一些例子。

有时候，实现一个将从类内部返回的接口是有用的，但该接口的实现应该完全对外界隐藏。

举个例子，在将yield添加到c#之前，实现枚举器的一种方法是将枚举器的实现作为一个集合中的私有类。这将为访问集合的成员提供方便，但外部世界不需要/看到这是如何实现的细节。

也许这是一个何时使用嵌套类的好例子?

// ORIGINAL
class ImageCacheSettings { }
class ImageCacheEntry { }
class ImageCache
{
    ImageCacheSettings mSettings;
    List<ImageCacheEntry> mEntries;
}

And:

// REFACTORED
class ImageCache
{
    Settings mSettings;
    List<Entry> mEntries;

    class Settings {}
    class Entry {}
}

PS:我没有考虑应该应用哪些访问修饰符(私有，受保护，公共，内部)

嵌套类可以具有私有、受保护和受保护的内部访问修饰符以及公共和内部访问修饰符。

例如，您正在实现GetEnumerator()方法，该方法返回一个IEnumerator<T>对象。消费者不会关心对象的实际类型。他们只知道它实现了那个接口。要返回的类没有任何直接用途。你可以声明这个类为私有嵌套类，并返回它的一个实例(这实际上是c#编译器实现迭代器的方式):

class MyUselessList : IEnumerable<int> {
    // ...
    private List<int> internalList;
    private class UselessListEnumerator : IEnumerator<int> {
        private MyUselessList obj;
        public UselessListEnumerator(MyUselessList o) {
           obj = o;
        }
        private int currentIndex = -1;
        public int Current {
           get { return obj.internalList[currentIndex]; }
        }
        public bool MoveNext() { 
           return ++currentIndex < obj.internalList.Count;
        }
    }
    public IEnumerator<int> GetEnumerator() {
        return new UselessListEnumerator(this);
    }
}

我不明白的是我为什么要这么做

我觉得你根本不需要这么做。给定一个这样的嵌套类…

class A
{
  //B is used to help implement A
  class B
  {
    ...etc...
  }
  ...etc...
}

．.． 你总是可以移动内部/嵌套类到全局作用域，像这样…

class A
{
  ...etc...
}

//B is used to help implement A
class B
{
  ...etc...
}

然而，当B仅用于帮助实现A时，则使B成为内部/嵌套类有两个优点:

It doesn't pollute the global scope (e.g. client code which can see A doesn't know that the B class even exists) The methods of B implicitly have access to private members of A; whereas if B weren't nested inside A, B wouldn't be able to access members of A unless those members were internal or public; but then making those members internal or public would expose them to other classes too (not just B); so instead, keep those methods of A private and let B access them by declaring B as a nested class. If you know C++, this is like saying that in C# all nested classes are automatically a 'friend' of the class in which they're contained (and, that declaring a class as nested is the only way to declare friendship in C#, since C# doesn't have a friend keyword).

当我说B可以访问A的私有成员时，这是假设B有一个对A的引用;它经常这样做，因为嵌套类通常是这样声明的…

class A
{
  //used to help implement A
  class B
  {
    A m_a;
    internal B(A a) { m_a = a; }
    ...methods of B can access private members of the m_a instance...
  }
  ...etc...
}

．.． 并使用这样的代码从a的方法构建…

//create an instance of B, whose implementation can access members of self
B b = new B(this);

你可以在Mehrdad的回复中看到一个例子。