Illustrated C# 2008 (eBook)

Daniel Solis is a contract software engineer who has worked for a number of high-profile clients, including Microsoft Consulting Services, IBM, Lockheed Martin, and PeopleSoft. He has been programming and teaching object-oriented languages and development methods throughout the U.S. and Europe since the early days of C++. It was while teaching numerous seminars on various programming languages that he realized the immense power of diagrams in explaining programming language concepts.

Contents at a Glance 5
Contents 7
About the Author 23
About the Technical Reviewer 24
Acknowledgments 25
Introduction 26
C# and the .NET Framework 27
Before . NET 28
Enter Microsoft . NET 28
Compiling to the Common Intermediate Language ( CIL) 33
Compiling to Native Code and Execution 34
The Common Language Runtime ( CLR) 36
The Common Language Infrastructure ( CLI) 37
Review of the Acronyms 39
Overview of C# Programming 40
A Simple C# Program 41
More About SimpleProgram 42
Identifiers and Keywords 43
Naming Conventions 44
Keywords 45
Main: The Starting Point of a Program 46
Whitespace 46
Statements 47
Simple Statements 47
Blocks 47
Text Output from a Program 49
Write 49
WriteLine 50
The Format String 51
Multiple Markers and Values 52
Comments: Annotating the Code 53
More About Comments 54
Documentation Comments 54
Summary of Comment Types 55
Types, Storage, and Variables 56
A C# Program Is a Set of Type Declarations 57
A Type Is a Template 58
Instantiating a Type 58
Data Members and Function Members 59
Predefined Types 60
User- Defined Types 62
The Stack and the Heap 63
Value Types and Reference Types 65
Variables 67
Classes: The Basics 70
Overview of Classes 71
Programs and Classes: A Quick Example 72
Declaring a Class 73
Class Members 74
Creating Variables and Instances of a Class 77
Allocating Memory for the Data 78
Instance Members 80
Access Modifiers 81
Accessing Members from Inside the Class 84
Accessing Members from Outside the Class 85
Putting It All Together 87
Methods 89
The Structure of a Method 90
Local Variables 92
Local Constants 95
Method Invocations 97
Return Values 98
Parameters 102
Value Parameters 105
Reference Parameters 108
Output Parameters 111
Parameter Arrays 114
Summary of Parameter Types 118
Stack Frames 119
Recursion 121
Method Overloading 123
More About Classes 124
Class Members 125
Instance Class Members 127
Static Fields 128
Accessing Static Members from Outside the Class 129
Static Function Members 131
Other Static Class Member Types 132
Member Constants 133
Properties 136
Instance Constructors 149
Static Constructors 152
Object Initializers 154
Destructors 156
Comparing Constructors and Destructors 160
The readonly Modifier 161
The this Keyword 163
Indexers 164
Access Modifiers on Accessors 173
Partial Classes and Partial Types 174
Classes and Inheritance 178
Class Inheritance 179
Accessing the Inherited Members 180
Hiding Members of a Base Class 182
Base Access 184
Using References to a Base Class 185
Constructor Execution 192
Inheritance Between Assemblies 197
Member Access Modifiers 199
Abstract Members 205
Abstract Classes 206
Sealed Classes 208
Static Classes 209
Extension Methods 210
External Methods 214
Expressions and Operators 216
Expressions 217
Literals 218
Integer Literals 219
Character Literals 221
String Literals 222
Order of Evaluation 224
Simple Arithmetic Operators 226
The Remainder Operator 227
Relational and Equality Comparison Operators 228
Increment and Decrement Operators 230
Conditional Logical Operators 232
Logical Operators 234
Shift Operators 236
Assignment Operators 238
The Conditional Operator 240
Unary Arithmetic Operators 242
User- Defined Type Conversions 243
Operator Overloading 246
The typeof Operator 249
Statements 252
What Are Statements? 253
Expression Statements 254
Flow- of- Control Statements 255
The if Statement 256
The if . . . else Statement 257
The switch Statement 258
The while Loop 263
The do Loop 264
The for Loop 266
Jump Statements 270
The break Statement 270
The continue Statement 271
Labeled Statements 272
The goto Statement 274
The using Statement 275
Other Statements 280
Namespaces and Assemblies 281
Referencing Other Assemblies 282
Namespaces 287
The using Directives 293
The Structure of an Assembly 295
The Identity of an Assembly 297
Strongly Named Assemblies 299
Private Deployment of an Assembly 301
Shared Assemblies and the GAC 302
Configuration Files 304
Delayed Signing 305
Exceptions 307
What Are Exceptions? 308
The try Statement 309
The Exception Classes 311
The catch Clause 312
Examples Using Specific catch Clauses 313
The catch Clauses Section 314
The finally Block 315
Finding a Handler for an Exception 316
Searching Further 317
Throwing Exceptions 321
Throwing Without an Exception Object 322
Structs 324
What Are Structs? 325
Structs Are Value Types 326
Assigning to a Struct 327
Constructors and Destructors 328
Field Initializers Are Not Allowed 331
Structs Are Sealed 331
Boxing and Unboxing 331
Structs As Return Values and Parameters 332
Additional Information About Structs 332
Enumerations 333
Enumerations 334
Bit Flags 338
More About Enums 344
Arrays 346
Arrays 347
Types of Arrays 348
An Array As an Object 349
One- Dimensional and Rectangular Arrays 350
Instantiating a One- Dimensional or Rectangular Array 351
Accessing Array Elements 352
Initializing an Array 353
Jagged Arrays 358
Comparing Rectangular and Jagged Arrays 362
The foreach Statement 363
Array Covariance 368
Useful Inherited Array Members 369
Comparing Array Types 373
Delegates 374
What Is a Delegate? 375
Declaring the Delegate Type 376
Creating the Delegate Object 377
Assigning Delegates 379
Combining Delegates 380
Adding Methods to Delegates 381
Removing Methods from a Delegate 382
Invoking a Delegate 383
Delegate Example 383
Invoking Delegates with Return Values 385
Invoking Delegates with Reference Parameters 387
Anonymous Methods 389
Lambda Expressions 394
Events 397
Events Are Like Delegates 398
Overview of Source Code Components 400
Declaring an Event 401
Raising an Event 403
Subscribing to an Event 404
Standard Event Usage 407
The MyTimerClass Code 412
Event Accessors 414
Interfaces 415
What Is an Interface? 416
Declaring an Interface 420
Implementing an Interface 422
An Interface Is a Reference Type 424
Using the as Operator with Interfaces 426
Implementing Multiple Interfaces 427
Implementing Interfaces with Duplicate Members 428
References to Multiple Interfaces 430
An Inherited Member As an Implementation 432
Explicit Interface Member Implementations 433
Interfaces Can Inherit Interfaces 437
Conversions 440
What Are Conversions? 441
Implicit Conversions 442
Explicit Conversions and Casting 443
Types of Conversions 445
Numeric Conversions 445
Reference Conversions 453
Boxing Conversions 459
Unboxing Conversions 461
User- Defined Conversions 463
The is Operator 468
The as Operator 469
Generics 470
What Are Generics? 471
Generics in C# 473
Generic Classes 475
Declaring a Generic Class 476
Creating a Constructed Type 477
Creating Variables and Instances 478
Constraints on Type Parameters 483
Generic Structs 486
Generic Interfaces 487
Generic Delegates 490
Generic Methods 493
Extension Methods with Generic Classes 498
Enumerators and Iterators 500
Enumerators and Enumerable Types 501
Using the IEnumerator Interface 503
The IEnumerable Interface 508
The Non- Interface Enumerator 511
The Generic Enumeration Interfaces 513
The IEnumerator< T>
The IEnumerable< T>
Iterators 519
Common Iterator Patterns 524
Producing Enumerables and Enumerators 525
Producing Multiple Enumerables 526
Producing Multiple Enumerators 528
Behind the Scenes with Iterators 530
Introduction to LINQ 531
What Is LINQ? 532
LINQ Providers 533
Query Syntax and Method Syntax 536
Query Variables 538
The Structure of Query Expressions 540
The Standard Query Operators 558
LINQ to XML 569
Introduction to Asynchronous Programming 589
Processes, Threads, and Asynchronous Programming 590
Asynchronous Programming Patterns 593
BeginInvoke and EndInvoke 594
Timers 605
Preprocessor Directives 608
What Are Preprocessor Directives? 609
General Rules 609
The # define and # undef Directives 611
Conditional Compilation 612
The Conditional Compilation Constructs 613
Diagnostic Directives 616
Line Number Directives 617
Region Directives 618
The # pragma warning Directive 619
Reflection and Attributes 620
Metadata and Reflection 621
The Type Class 621
Getting a Type Object 623
What Is an Attribute? 626
Applying an Attribute 627
Predefined, Reserved Attributes 628
More About Applying Attributes 632
Custom Attributes 635
Accessing an Attribute 643
Other Topics 645
Overview 646
Strings 646
Parsing Strings to Data Values 653
Nullable Types 654
Method Main 661
Documentation Comments 663
Nested Types 666
Index 671