Visual Basic 2015 Unleashed

Alessandro Del Sole, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for .NET and Visual Basic since 2008, is well known throughout the global VB community. He is a community leader on the Italian Visual Basic Tips and Tricks website (http://www.visual-basic.it ), which serves more than 46,000 VB developers, as well as a frequent contributor to the MSDN Visual Studio Developer Center. He has been awarded MVP of the Year five times (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014) and enjoys writing articles on .NET development both in English and Italian. He also writes blog posts and produces instructional videos as well as Windows Store apps. You can find him online in forums and you can follow him on Twitter at @progalex.

Introduction 1

Code Samples and Software Requirements 2

Part I: Learning the Basics of VB

Chapter 1: Introducing .NET 2015 3

.NET 2015: A New Vision for Development 3

The .NET Framework 4.6 for Desktop 5

Introducing .NET Core 5 10

Programming Languages in Visual Studio 2015 12

What’s New with Compilers 13

The Windows Software Development Kit 15

Summary 15

Chapter 2: The Visual Studio 2015 IDE for Visual Basic 17

What’s New in Visual Studio 2015 17

Status Bar and Start Page 18

Working with Projects and Solutions 20

Working with Tool Windows 35

The My Project Window 42

Compiling Projects 48

Debugging Overview 58

Browsing the Visual Basic and .NET Documentation 65

Quick Launch Tool 67

Showing the Hierarchy of Method Calls 69

Summary 70

Chapter 3: The Anatomy of a Visual Basic Project 71

Brief Overview of Types and Members 71

Visual Basic 2015 Reserved Keywords 80

Understanding Project Files 82

Understanding References 92

Summary 97

Chapter 4: Data Types and Expressions 99

Introducing the Common Type System 99

Understanding Value Types 103

Understanding Reference Types 113

Differences Between Value Types and Reference Types 116

Converting Between Value Types and Reference Types 121

Understanding Conversion Operators 129

Working with .NET Fundamental Types 135

Common Operators 172

Iterations, Loops, and Conditional Code Blocks 188

Summary 197

Chapter 5: Debugging Visual Basic 2015 Applications 199

Preparing an Example 199

Debugging Instrumentation 200

Inspecting Object Details with Debugger Visualizers 215

Debugging in Code 216

Summary 230

Chapter 6: Errors, Exceptions, and Code Refactoring 231

Introducing Exceptions 231

Handling Exceptions 233

Refactoring Your Code: Light Bulbs and Quick Actions 249

Summary 266

Part II: Object-Oriented Programming with Visual Basic 2015

Chapter 7: Class Fundamentals 267

Declaring Classes 267

Storing Information with Properties 271

Types and Members Visibility: Scope 276

Executing Actions with Methods 278

Organizing Code with Partial Classes 290

Splitting Method Definitions with Partial Methods 293

Instantiating Objects with Constructors 295

Shared Members 301

Common Language Specification 306

Summary 311

Chapter 8: Managing an Object’s Lifetime 313

Understanding Memory Allocation 313

Understanding Garbage Collection 314

Understanding the Finalize Method 315

Understanding Dispose and the IDisposable Interface 317

Advanced Garbage Collection 323

Summary 326

Chapter 9: Organizing Types Within Namespaces 327

Understanding Namespaces 327

Organizing Types Within Namespaces 328

Global Namespaces and the Global Keyword 342

Summary 345

Chapter 10: Modules 347

Modules Overview 347

Differences Between Modules and Classes 349

Summary 350

Chapter 11: Structures and Enumerations 351

Understanding Structures 351

Overloading Operators 356

Structures and Common Language Specification 360

Grouping Constants with Enumerations 361

Summary 367

Chapter 12: Inheritance 369

Applying Inheritance 370

Introducing Polymorphism 375

Overriding Members 377

Conditioning Inheritance 380

Accessing Base Classes Members 383

Constructors’ Inheritance 387

Shadowing 388

Overriding Shared Members 389

Practical Inheritance: Building Custom Exceptions 390

Summary 392

Chapter 13: Interfaces 393

Defining Interfaces 393

Implementing and Accessing Interfaces 394

Partial Interfaces 399

Interfaces and Polymorphism 399

Interfaces Inheritance 400

Defining CLS-Compliant Interfaces 402

Most Common .NET Interfaces 402

Summary 412

Chapter 14: Generics and Nullable Types 413

Introducing Generics 413

Creating and Consuming Generics 414

Introducing Nullable Types 422

Summary 425

Chapter 15: Delegates and Events 427

Understanding Delegates 427

Handling Events 431

Offering Events to the External World 433

Summary 439

Chapter 16: Working with Collections and Iterators 441

Understanding Collections Architecture 442

Working with Nongeneric Collections 442

Working with Generic Collections 451

The Null-Conditional Operator and Collections 461

Building Custom Collections 462

Concurrent Collections 463

Immutable Collections 463

Iterators 464

Summary 472

Chapter 17: Working with Objects: Visual Tools and Code Sharing 473

Visual Studio Class Designer 473

Class View Window 484

Creating Types with Generate from Usage 485

Creating Portable Classes 491

Shared Projects 503

Summary 512

Part III: Advanced Language Features

Chapter 18: Manipulating Files and Streams 513

Manipulating Directories and Pathnames 513

Handling Exceptions for Directories and Pathnames 519

Manipulating Files 519

Introducing Streams 524

Summary 535

Chapter 19: The My Namespace 537

Introducing the My Namespace 537

My.Application 538

My.Computer 542

My.Settings 550

My.Resources 556

My.User 560

My.WebServices 562

Extending My 562

My in Different Applications 566

Summary 570

Chapter 20: Advanced Language Features 571

Local Type Inference 571

Array Literalsv575

Extension Methods 577

Anonymous Types 585

Relaxed Delegates 586

Lambda Expressions 587

Generic Variance 596

Summary 598

Part IV: Data Access with ADO.NET and LINQ

Chapter 21: Introducing ADO.NET and DataSets 599

System Requirements 599

Introducing ADO.NET 600

Introducing DataSets 603

Summary 608

Chapter 22: Introducing LINQ 609

What Is LINQ? .609

LINQ Examples 611

Language Support 612

Understanding Providers 613

Overview of LINQ Architecture 613

Summary 614

Chapter 23: LINQ to Objects 615

Introducing LINQ to Objects 615

Querying in Memory Objects 616

Introducing Standard Query Operators 625

Summary 644

Chapter 24: LINQ to SQL 645

Introducing LINQ to SQL 646

Querying Data with LINQ to SQL 658

Insert/Update/Delete Operations with LINQ 663

Advanced LINQ to SQL 672

Summary 677

Chapter 25: LINQ to DataSets 679

Querying DataSets with LINQ 679

LINQ to DataSets’ Extension Methods 682

Summary 685

Chapter 26: Introducing ADO.NET Entity Framework 687

Introducing Entity Framework 687

Understanding Entity Data Models 688

Insert/Update/Delete Operations for Entities 703

Querying EDMs with LINQ to Entities 710

Querying EDMs with Entity SQL 712

Mapping Stored Procedures 712

Introducing the Code First Approach 716

Summary 727

Chapter 27: Manipulating XML Documents with LINQ and XML Literals 729

Introducing LINQ to XML 730

Writing XML Markup in VB with XML Literals 735

Summary 743

Part V: Building Windows Desktop Applications

Chapter 28: Creating WPF Applications 745

What Is WPF? 746

Introducing the WPF Architecture 747

Building WPF Applications with Visual Studio 2015 749

Understanding the eXtensible Application Markup Language 751

Understanding Visual Tree and Logical Tree 757

Handling Events in WPF 759

Arranging Controls with Panels 762

Managing Windows 770

Introducing the Application Object 772

Brief Overview of WPF Browser Applications 774

Live Visual Tree 777

Summary 778

Chapter 29: WPF Common Controls 779

Introducing WPF Controls Features 779

Understanding the ContentControl 780

Understanding Common Controls 781

Using Common Dialogs 809

Summary 810

Chapter 30: Brushes, Styles, Templates, and Animations in WPF 811

Introducing Brushes 812

Introducing Styles 828

Introducing Control Templates 833

Introducing Transformations 836

Introducing Animations 840

Summary 849

Chapter 31: Manipulating Media and Documents 851

Viewing Images 851

Playing Media 853

Manipulating Documents 857

Viewing XPS Documents 866

Summary 867

Chapter 32: Introducing Data-Binding 869

Introducing the Data-Binding in WPF 869

Discussing the Drag and Drop Data-Binding 876

Summary 900

Chapter 33: Localizing Applications 901

Introducing .NET Localization 902

Introducing the Multilingual App Toolkit 902

Windows Forms Localization 903

WPF Localization 906

Summary 908

Part VI: Building Web and Mobile Applications

Chapter 34: Building and Publishing ASP.NET Web Applications 909

Introducing the ASP.NET Model 910

Web Forms and Master Pages 914

ASP.NET Controls 917

Handling Events 919

Understanding State Management 920

Creating a Web Application with VB 2015 with Data Access and Pages 923

Publishing ASP.NET Web Applications 940

Summary 949

Chapter 35: Building and Deploying Applications for Microsoft Azure 951

Overview of the Microsoft Azure Platform 951

Registering for Microsoft Azure 953

Downloading and Installing Tools for Visual Studio 954

Introducing the Management Portal 954

Creating a SQL Azure Database 955

Creating an ASP.NET Application for the Cloud 961

Deploying Applications to Microsoft Azure 964

A Step Further: Web Roles and Worker Roles 967

Additional Tools 970

Summary 972

Chapter 36: Building Universal Apps for Windows 10 973

Introducing Universal Windows Apps 974

Introducing the Universal Windows Platform 975

Registering with the Windows Store 976

Installing the Developer Tools 976

Creating Apps with Visual Basic 977

Customizing the Application Manifest 998

Starting and Debugging Universal Windows Apps 1002

Creating and Testing App Packages 1009

Submitting Apps to the Store 1010

Summary 1011

Part VII: Networking and Exposing Data Through Networks

Chapter 37: Creating and Consuming WCF Services 1013

Introducing Windows Communication Foundation 1014

Implementing WCF Services 1015

Consuming WCF Services 1024

Handling Exceptions in WCF 1030

Hosting WCF Services in Internet Information Services and Microsoft Azure 1031

Configuring Services with the Configuration Editor 1033

Summary 1034

Chapter 38: Implementing and Consuming OData Services 1035

What Are OData Services? 1035

Creating an OData Endpoint 1036

Consuming OData Services 1060

Implementing and Consuming Functions 1068

Summary 1071

Part VIII: Advanced .NET Framework with VB 2015

Chapter 39: Serialization 1073

Objects Serialization 1074

XML Serialization 1081

Custom Serialization 1083

Serialization with XAML 1086

Serialization in Windows Communication Foundation 1088

Serialization in the ADO.NET Entity Framework 1091

Summary 1092

Chapter 40: Processes and Multithreading 1095

Managing Processes 1096

Introducing Multithreading 1098

Understanding the .NET Thread Pool 1099

Threads Synchronization 1101

Summary 1104

Chapter 41: Parallel Programming and Parallel LINQ 1105

Introducing Parallel Computing 1106

Understanding and Using Tasks 1107

Parallel Loops 1116

Debugging Tools for Parallel Tasks 1122

Concurrent Collections 1124

Introducing Parallel LINQ 1128

Summary 1137

Chapter 42: Asynchronous Programming 1139

Overview of Asynchrony 1140

The Old-Fashioned Way: Event-Based Asynchrony 1140

The Old-Fashioned Way: The Asynchronous Programming Model 1142

The Modern Way: The Async Pattern 1143

Getting Started with Async/Await 1147

Exception Handling in Async 1161

Implementing Task-Based Asynchrony 1161

Cancellation and Progress 1165

Asynchronous Lambda Expressions 1170

Asynchronous I/O File Operations in .NET 4.6 1171

Debugging Tasks 1175

Summary 1176

Chapter 43: Working with Assemblies 1177

Assembly Overview 1177

Understanding Application Domains 1179

Security Model in .NET 4.6 1182

Summary 1189

Chapter 44: Reflection 1191

Introducing Reflection 1191

Understanding Assemblies’ Metadata 1192

Getting Assembly Information 1194

Reflecting Types 1196

Invoking Code Dynamically 1204

Generating Code at Runtime with Reflection.Emit 1206

Caller Information 1212

Summary 1215

Chapter 45: Coding Attributes 1217

Applying Attributes 1217

Coding Custom Attributes 1220

Reflecting Attributes 1225

Summary 1226

Chapter 46: Platform Invokes and Interoperability with the COM Architecture 1229

Importing and Using COM Objects 1230

Catching Exceptions 1233

Releasing COM Objects 1233

Calling COM Objects from WPF 1234

P/Invokes and Unmanaged Code 1237

References to the Win32 API Calls 1244

Summary 1244

Chapter 47: Documenting Source Code with XML Comments 1245

Understanding XML Comments 1246

Implementing XML Comments 1248

Generating Compiled Help Files 1258

Summary 1259

Part IX: Applications Deployment

Chapter 48: Understanding the Global Assembly Cache 1261

The Dll Hell Problem 1261

The Global Assembly Cache 1263

Summary 1267

Chapter 49: Setup and Deployment Projects with InstallShield for Visual Studio 1269

Windows Installer Overview 1270

Introducing InstallShield 1271

Creating a Setup Project 1272

Configuring the Setup Project 1283

Building and Deploying the Windows Installer Package 1285

Summary 1285

Chapter 50: Deploying Applications with ClickOnce 1287

Introducing ClickOnce 1287

Deploying Applications with ClickOnce 1289

Configuring ClickOnce 1294

Security Considerations 1299

Programmatically Accessing ClickOnce 1301

Registration-Free COM 1302

Summary 1304

Part X: Code Analysis with VB 2015

Chapter 51: Code Analysis: The .NET Compiler Platform and Tools 1305

Live Code Analysis with the .NET Compiler Platform 1306

Calculating Code Metrics 1349

Diagnostic Tools and IntelliTrace 1351

Code Clone Detection 1359

Summary 1361

Appendix A: Useful Resources and Tools for Visual Basic 2015 1363

Visual Basic Resources in MSDN 1363

Useful Developer Tools for Visual Basic 1364

Index 1367

Online-Only Chapters

Chapter 52: Advanced IDE Features

Chapter 53: Testing Code with Unit Tests and Test-Driven Development