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The intention of the Microsoft .NET Framework is to run on a wide variety of operating systems to improve code mobility and simplify cross-platform integration. At the time this book was written, versions of the .NET Framework were available for various operating systems, including Micro soft Windows, FreeBSD, Linux, and Mac OS X. However, many of these implementations are yet to be widely adopted. Microsoft Windows is currently the operating system on which the .NET Framework is most commonly installed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Microsoft .NET Framework is an extremely ambitious platform, combining a managed runtime (the common language runtime, or CLR), a platform for hosting web applications (Microsoft ASP.NET), and an extensive class library for building all types of applications. However, as expansive as the .NET Framework is, it does not duplicate all the features that are available in unmanaged code. Currently, the .NET Framework does not include every function that is available in the Win32 API, and many businesses are using complex proprietary solutions that they have built with COM-based languages such as Microsoft Visual Basic 6 (VB6) and Visual C++ 6. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recipes in this chapter show you how to implement patterns you will use frequently during the development of Microsoft .NET Framework applications. Some of these patterns are formalized using interfaces defined in the .NET Framework class library. Others are less rigid, but still require you to take specific approaches to their design and implementation of your types. The recipes in this chapter describe how to do the following: Create serializable types that you can easily store to disk, send across the network, or pass by value across application domain boundaries (recipe 13-1)Provide a mechanism that creates accurate and complete copies (clones) of objects (recipe 13-2)Implement types that are easy to compare and sort (recipe 13-3)Support the enumeration of the elements contained in custom collections by creating a custom iterator (recipe 13-4)Ensure that a type that uses unmanaged resources correctly releases those resources when they are no longer needed (recipe 13-5)Display string representations of objects that vary based on format specifiers (recipe 13-6)Correctly implement custom exception and event argument types, which you will use frequently in the development of your applications (recipes 13-7 and 13-8)Implement the commonly used Singleton and Observer design patterns using the built-in features of VB .NET and the .NET Framework class library (recipes 13-9 and 13-10) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A principal goal of the Microsoft .NET Framework is to make computing more secure, especially with respect to the use of mobile code and distributed systems. Most modern operating systems (including Microsoft Windows) support user-based security, allowing you to control the actions and resources to which a user has access. However, in the highly connected world resulting from the proliferation of computer networks, particularly the Internet, it's insufficient to base security solely on the identity of a system's user. In the interest of security, code should not automatically receive the same level of trust that you assign to the person running the code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key element of almost any application is data. Inevitably, data needs to be listed, sorted, analyzed, or displayed in some fashion. It is the nature of what we, as programmers, do. We accomplish this by manually performing the appropriate operations and relying on the current functionality provided by the existing .NET Framework. We also rely heavily on the use of external data sources, such as SQL Server or XML files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Microsoft .NET Framework includes a full set of classes for network programming. These classes support everything from socket-based programming with Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) to downloading files and HTML pages from the Web over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Not only do these networking classes provide you with a rich set of tried-and-tested tools to use in your own distributed applications, they are also the foundation on which two high-level distributed programming models integral to the .NET Framework are built: Remoting and web services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Microsoft .NET Framework, access to a wide variety of data sources is enabled through a group of classes collectively named Microsoft ADO.NET. Each type of data source is supported through the provision of a data provider. Each data provider contains a set of classes that not only implement a standard set of interfaces (defined in the System. Data namespace), but also provide functionality unique to the data source they support. These classes include representations of connections, commands, properties, data adapters, and data readers through which you interact with a data source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most remarkable aspects of the Microsoft .NET Framework is its deep integration with Extensible Markup Language (XML). In many .NET applications, you won't even be aware you're using XML technologies—they'll just be used behind the scenes when you serialize a Microsoft ADO.NET DataSet, call a web service, or read application settings from a Web.config configuration file. In other cases, you'll want to work directly with the System. Xml namespaces to manipulate XML data. Common XML tasks include parsing an XML file, validating it against a schema, applying an XSL transform to create a new document or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) page, and searching intelligently with XPath. The recipes in this chapter describe how to do the following: Read, parse, and manipulate XML data (recipes 6-1, 6-2, 6-3, and 6-7)Search an XML document for specific nodes, byname (recipe 6-4), by namespace (recipe 6-5), or by using XPath (recipe 6-6)Valida te an XML document with an XML schema (recipe 6-8)Serialize an object to XML (recipe 6-9), create an XML schema for a class (recipe 6-10), and generate the source code for a class based on an XML schema (recipe 6-11)Transform an XML document to another document using an XSL Transformations (XSLT) stylesheet (recipe 6-12) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multimedia is a very expansive subject that covers sound, video, graphics, and printing. The aim of this chapter is to briefly touch on each main topic. If you would like more detailed information, refer to books devoted to the subject, such as Pro .NET 2.0 Graphics Programming by Eric White (Apress, 2005) or Pro .NET 2.0 Windows Forms and Custom Controls in VB 2005 by Matthew MacDonald (Apress, 2006). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Microsoft .NET Framework includes a rich set of classes for creating traditional Windows-based applications in the System. Windows. Forms namespace. These range from basic controls such as the TextBox, Button, and MainMenu classes to specialized controls such as TreeView, LinkLabel, and NotifyIcon. In addition, you will find all the tools you need to manage Multiple Document Interface (MDI) applications, integrate context-sensitive help, and even create multilingual user interfaces—all without needing to resort to the complexities of the Win32 API. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Microsoft .NET Framework I/O classes fall into two basic categories. First are the classes that retrieve information from the file system and allow you to perform file system operations such as copying files and moving directories. Two examples are the Filelnfo and the DirectoryInfo classes. The second, and possibly more important, category includes a broad range of classes that allow you to read and write data from all types of streams. Streams can correspond to binary or text files, a file in an isolated store, a network connection, or even a memory buffer. In all cases, the way you interact with a stream is the same. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the strengths of the Microsoft Windows operating system is that it allows many programs (processes) to run concurrently and allows each process to perform many tasks concurrently (using multiple threads). When you run an executable application, a new process is created. The process isolates your application from other programs running on the computer. The process provides the application with its own virtual memory and its own copies of any libraries it needs to run, allowing your application to execute as if it were the only application running on the machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most applications need to manipulate some form of data. The Microsoft .NET Framework provides many techniques that simplify or improve the efficiency of common data-manipulation tasks. The recipes in this chapter describe how to do the following: Manipulate the contents of strings efficiently to avoid the overhead of automatic string creation due to the immutability of strings (recipe 2-1)Represent basic data types using different encoding schemes or as byte arrays to allowyou to share data with external systems (recipes 2-2, 2-3, and 2-4)Validate user input and manipulate string values using regular expressions (recipes 2-5 and 2-6)Create System. DateTime objects from string values, such as those that a user might enter, and display DateTime objects as formatted strings (recipe 2-7)Mathematically manipulate DateTime objects in order to compare dates or add/subtract periods of time from a date (recipe 2-8)Sort the contents of an array or an Array List collection (recipe 2-9)Copy the contents of a collection to an array (recipe 2-10)Use the standard generic collection classes to instantiate a strongly typed collection (recipe 2-11)Use generics to define your own general-purpose container or collection class that will be strongly typed when it is used (recipe 2-12)Serialize object state and persist it to a file (recipe 2-13)Read user input from the Windows console (recipe 2-14) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power and flexibility of the Microsoft .NET Framework is enhanced by the ability to inspect and manipulate types and metadata at runtime. The recipes in this chapter describe how to use application domains, reflection, and metadata. Specifically, the recipes in this chapter describe how to do the following: Control the loading of assemblies and the instantiation of types in local and remote application domains (recipes 3-1, 3-3, 3-4, and 3-7)Create application domains into which you can load assemblies that are isolated from the rest of your application (recipe 3-2)Create types that are guaranteed to be unable to cross application domain boundaries (recipe 3-5) and types that have the capability to cross application domain boundaries (recipe 3-6)Pass simple configuration data between application domains (recipe 3-8)Unload application domains, which provides the only means through which you can unload assemblies at runtime (recipe 3-9)Inspect and test the type of an object using a variety of mechanisms built into the VB .NET language and capabilities provided by the objects themselves (recipes 3-10 and 3-11)Dynamically instantiate an object and execute its methods at runtime using reflection (recipe 3-12)Create custom attributes (recipe 3-13), allowing you to associate metadata with your program elements, and inspect the value of those custom attributes at runtime (recipe 3-14) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter covers some of the fundamental activities you will need to perform when developing your Visual Basic .NET (VB .NET) solutions. The recipes in this chapter describe how to do the following: Use the VB .NET command-line compiler to build console and Windows Forms applications (recipes 1-1 and 1-2)Create and use code modules and libraries (recipes 1-3 and 1-4)Access command-line arguments from within your applications (recipe 1-5)Use compiler directives and attributes to selectively include code at build time (recipe 1-6)Access program elements built in other languages whose names conflict with VB .NET keywords (recipe 1-7)Give assemblies strong names and verify strong-named assemblies (recipes 1-8,1-9,1-10, and 1-11)Sign an assembly with a Microsoft Authenticode digital signature (recipes 1-12 and 1-13)Manage the shared assemblies that are stored in the global assembly cache (recipe 1-14)Make your assembly more difficult to decompile (recipe 1-15)Manipulate the appearance of the console (recipe 1-16)Compile and embed a string resource file (recipe 1-17) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]