Applied Microsoft NET Framework Programming

Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming Table of Contents Applied Microsoft .NET Framework Programming.........................................................................1 Introduction........................................................................................................................................4 What Makes Up the Microsoft .NET Initiative..........................................................................7 An Underlying Operating System: Windows......................................................................7 Helpful Products: The .NET Enterprise Servers.................................................................7 Microsoft XML Web Services: .NET My Services..............................................................8 The Development Platform: The .NET Framework............................................................8 The Development Environment: Visual Studio .NET.......................................................11 Goal of This Book..................................................................................................................12 System Requirements............................................................................................................13 This Book Has No Mistakes...................................................................................................13 Support..................................................................................................................................13 Part I: Basics of the Microsoft .NET Framework...........................................................................15 Chapter List............................................................................................................................15 Chapter 1: The Architecture of the .NET Framework Development Platform............................16 Compiling Source Code into Managed Modules....................................................................16 Combining Managed Modules into Assemblies.....................................................................18 Loading the Common Language Runtime.............................................................................19 Executing Your Assembly’s Code..........................................................................................22 IL and Verification............................................................................................................27 The .NET Framework Class Library.......................................................................................29 The Common Type System...................................................................................................31 The Common Language Specification...................................................................................33 Interoperability with Unmanaged Code..................................................................................37 Chapter 2: Building, Packaging, Deploying, and Administering Applications and Types.......40 Overview................................................................................................................................40 .NET Framework Deployment Goals.....................................................................................40 Building Types into a Module.................................................................................................41 Combining Modules to Form an Assembly............................................................................47 Adding Assemblies to a Project Using the Visual Studio .NET IDE.................................52 Using the Assembly Linker...............................................................................................53 Including Resource Files in the Assembly.......................................................................55 Assembly Version Resource Information...............................................................................55 Version Numbers.............................................................................................................59 Culture...................................................................................................................................60 Simple Application Deployment (Privately Deployed Assemblies)........................................61 Simple Administrative Control (Configuration).......................................................................62 Chapter 3: Shared Assemblies.......................................................................................................66 Overview................................................................................................................................66 Two Kinds of Assemblies, Two Kinds of Deployment............................................................67 Giving an Assembly a Strong Name......................................................................................67 The Global Assembly Cache.................................................................................................71 The Internal Structure of the GAC....................................................................................76 Building an Assembly That References a Strongly Named Assembly...................................78 Strongly Named Assemblies Are Tamper−Resistant.............................................................80 i Table of Contents Chapter 3: Shared Assemblies Delayed Signing.....................................................................................................................81 Privately Deploying Strongly Named Assemblies..................................................................84 Side−by−Side Execution........................................................................................................85 How the Runtime Resolves Type References.......................................................................86 Advanced Administrative Control (Configuration)..................................................................88 Publisher Policy Control...................................................................................................93 Repairing a Faulty Application...............................................................................................95 Part II: Working with Types and the Common Language Runtime.............................................99 Chapter List............................................................................................................................99 Chapter 4: Type Fundamentals....................................................................................................100 All Types Are Derived from System.Object..........................................................................100 Casting Between Types.......................................................................................................101 Casting with the C# is and as Operators........................................................................103 Namespaces and Assemblies..............................................................................................105 Chapter 5: Primitive, Reference, and Value Types.....................................................................109 Programming Language Primitive Types.............................................................................109 Checked and Unchecked Primitive Type Operations.....................................................112 Reference Types and Values Types....................................................................................114 Boxing and Unboxing Value Types......................................................................................118 Chapter 6: Common Object Operations......................................................................................128 Object Equality and Identity.................................................................................................128 Implementing Equals for a Reference Type Whose Base Classes Don’t Override Object’s Equals.......................................................................................................129 Implementing Equals for a Reference Type When One or More of Its Base Classes Overrides Object’s Equals.......................................................................................130 Implementing Equals for a Value Type..........................................................................131 Summary of Implementing Equals and the ==/!= Operators..........................................133 Identity...........................................................................................................................134 Object Hash Codes..............................................................................................................134 Object Cloning.....................................................................................................................136 Part III: Designing Types...............................................................................................................139 Chapter List..........................................................................................................................139 Chapter 7: Type Members and Their Accessibility.....................................................................140 Type Members.....................................................................................................................140 Accessibility Modifiers and Predefined Attributes................................................................142 Type Predefined Attributes.............................................................................................144 Field Predefined Attributes.............................................................................................144 Method Predefined Attributes.........................................................................................145 Chapter 8: Constants and Fields..................................................................................................147 Constants.............................................................................................................................147 Fields...................................................................................................................................148 ii Table of Contents Chapter 9: Methods.......................................................................................................................150 Instance Constructors..........................................................................................................150 Type Constructors................................................................................................................155 Operator Overload Methods................................................................................................157 Operators and Programming Language Interoperability................................................159 Conversion Operator Methods.............................................................................................161 Passing Parameters by Reference to a Method..................................................................164 Passing a Variable Number of Parameters to a Method......................................................168 How Virtual Methods Are Called..........................................................................................170 Virtual Method Versioning....................................................................................................171 Chapter 10: Properties..................................................................................................................176 Parameterless Properties....................................................................................................176 Parameterful Properties.......................................................................................................179 Chapter 11: Events........................................................................................................................184 Overview..............................................................................................................................184 Designing a Type That Exposes an Event...........................................................................185 Designing a Type That Listens for an Event........................................................................189 Explicitly Controlling Event Registration..............................................................................191 Designing a Type That Defines Lots of Events....................................................................192 Designing the EventHandlerSet Type..................................................................................196 Part IV: Essential Types................................................................................................................199 Chapter List..........................................................................................................................199 Chapter 12: Working with Text.....................................................................................................200 Characters...........................................................................................................................200 The System.String Type......................................................................................................202 Constructing Strings.......................................................................................................202 Strings Are Immutable....................................................................................................204 Comparing Strings.........................................................................................................205 String Interning...............................................................................................................210 String Pooling.................................................................................................................213 Examining a String’s Characters....................................................................................213 Other String Operations.................................................................................................216 Dynamically Constructing a String Efficiently.......................................................................217 Constructing a StringBuilder Object...............................................................................217 StringBuilder’s Members................................................................................................218 Obtaining a String Representation for an Object.................................................................220 Specific Formats and Cultures.......................................................................................221 Formatting Multiple Objects into a Single String............................................................224 Providing Your Own Custom Formatter.........................................................................226 Parsing a String to Obtain an Object...................................................................................228 Encodings: Converting Between Characters and Bytes......................................................232 Encoding/Decoding Streams of Characters and Bytes..................................................238 Base−64 String Encoding and Decoding.......................................................................239 iii Table of Contents Chapter 13: Enumerated Types and Bit Flags............................................................................240 Enumerated Types...............................................................................................................240 Bit Flags...............................................................................................................................244 Chapter 14: Arrays.........................................................................................................................247 Overview..............................................................................................................................247 All Arrays Are Implicitly Derived from System.Array............................................................249 Casting Arrays.....................................................................................................................251 Passing and Returning Arrays.............................................................................................252 Creating Arrays That Have a Nonzero Lower Bound...........................................................253 Fast Array Access................................................................................................................254 Redimensioning an Array.....................................................................................................257 Chapter 15: Interfaces...................................................................................................................259 Interfaces and Inheritance...................................................................................................259 Designing an Application That Supports Plug−In Components...........................................263 Changing Fields in a Boxed Value Type Using Interfaces...................................................264 Implementing Multiple Interfaces That Have the Same Method..........................................266 Explicit Interface Member Implementations.........................................................................268 Chapter 16: Custom Attributes.....................................................................................................273 Using Custom Attributes......................................................................................................273 Defining Your Own Attribute................................................................................................276 Attribute Constructor and Field/Property Data Types..........................................................278 Detecting the Use of a Custom Attribute..............................................................................279 Matching Two Attribute Instances Against Each Other........................................................283 Pseudo−Custom Attributes..................................................................................................285 Chapter 17: Delegates...................................................................................................................287 A First Look at Delegates.....................................................................................................287 Using Delegates to Call Back Static Methods......................................................................289 Using Delegates to Call Back Instance Methods.................................................................290 Demystifying Delegates.......................................................................................................291 Some Delegate History: System.Delegate and System.MulticastDelegate.........................294 Comparing Delegates for Equality.......................................................................................296 Delegate Chains.............................................................................................