Part I Basics of the Microsoft.NET Framework 3
1 The Architecture of the .NET Framework Development Platform 3
Compiling Source Code into Managed Modules 3
Combining Managed Modules into Assemblies 7
Loading the Common Language Runtime 9
Executing Your Assembly s Code 11
IL and Verification 19
The .NET Framework Class Library 21
The Common Type System 24
The Common Language Specification 27
Interoperability with Unmanaged Code 31
2 Building,Packaging,Deploying,and Administering Applications and Types 35
.NET Framework Deployment Goals 36
Building Types into a Module 37
Combining Modules to Form an Assembly 45
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 56
Version Numbers 59
Culture 61
Simple Application Deployment (Privately Deployed Assemblies) 63
Simple Administrative Control(Configuration) 64
3 Shared Assemblies 71
Two Kinds of Assemblies,Two Kinds of Deployment 72
Giving an Assembly a Strong Name 73
The Global Assembly Cache 79
The Internal Structure of the GAC 85
Building an Assembly That References a Strongly Named Assembly 87
Strongly Named Assemblies Are Tamper-Resistant 89
Delayed Signing 90
Privately Deploying Strongly Named Assemblies 95
Side-by-Side Execution 96
How the Runtime Resolves Type References 98
Advanced Administrative Control(Configuration) 101
Publisher Policy Control 106
Repairing a Faulty Application 109
PartⅡ Working with Types and the Common Language Runtime 115
4 Type Fundamentals 115
All Types Are Derived from System.Object 115
Casting Between Types 117
Casting with the C# is and as Operators 119
Namespaces and Assemblies 121
5 Primitive,Reference,and Value Types 127
Programming Language Primitive Types 127
Checked and Unchecked Primitive Type Operations 131
Reference Types and Values Types 134
Boxing and Unboxing Value Types 141
6 Common Object Operations 153
Object Equality and Identity 153
Implementing Equals for a Reference Type Whose Base Classes Don t Override Object s Equals 154
Implementing Equals for a Reference Type When One or More of Its Base Classes Overrides Object s Equals 156
Implementing Equals for a Value Type 157
Summary of Implementing Equals and the ==/l=Operators 160
Identity 161
Object Hash Codes 162
Object Cloning 164
Part Ⅲ Designing Types 169
7 Type Members and Their Accessibility 169
Type Members 169
Accessibility Modifiers and Predefined Attributes 173
Type Predefined Attributes 174
Field Predefined Attributes 175
Method Predefined Attributes 175
8 Constants and Fields 177
Constants 177
Fields 178
Instance Constructors 181
9 Methods 181
Type Constructors 187
Operator Overload Methods 190
Operators and Programming Language Interoperability 193
Conversion Operator Methods 197
Passing Parameters by Reference to a Method 200
Passing a Variable Number of Parameters to a Method 206
How Virtual Methods Are Called 209
Virtual Method Versioning 210
10 Properties 215
Parameterless Properties 215
Parameterful Properties 220
11 Events 227
Designing a Type That Exposes an Event 228
Designing a Type That Listens for an Event 234
Explicitly Controlling Event Registration 236
Designing a Type That Defines Lots of Events 238
Designing the EventHandlerSet Type 243
Part Ⅳ Essential Types 249
12 Working with Text 249
Characters 249
The System,String Type 253
Constructing Strings 253
Strings Are Immutable 255
Comparing Strings 256
String Interning 262
Examining a String s Characters 266
String Pooling 266
Other String Operations 270
Dynamically Constructing a String Efficiently 270
Constructing a StringBuilder Object 271
String Builder s Members 272
Obtaining a String Representation for an Object 275
Specific Formats and Cultures 276
Formatting Multiple Objects into a Single String 280
Providing Your Own Custom Formatter 282
Parsing a String to Obtain an Object 285
Encodings:Converting Between Characters and Bytes 289
Encoding/Decoding Streams of Characters and Bytes 296
Base-64 String Encoding and Decoding 298
Enumerated Types 299
13 Enumerated Types and Bit Flags 299
Bit Flags 305
14 Arrays 309
All Arrays Are Implicitly Derived from System.Array 312
Casting Arrays 315
Passing and Returning Arrays 316
Creating Arrays That Have a Nonzero Lower Bound 318
Fast Array Access 319
Redimensioning an Array 323
15 Interfaces 325
Interfaces and Inheritance 325
Designing an Application That Supports Plug-In Components 331
Changing Fields in a Boxed Value Type Using Interfaces 333
Implementing Multiple Interfaces That Have the Same Method 336
Explicit Interface Member Implementations 338
16 Custom Attributes 345
Using Custom Attributes 345
Defining Your Own Attribute 349
Attribute Constructor and Field/Property Data Types 353
Detecting the Use of a Custom Attribute 354
Matching Two Attribute Instances Against Each Other 359
Pseudo-Custom Attributes 362
17 Delegates 365
A First Look at Delegates 365
Using Delegates to Call Back Static Methods 368
Using Delegates to Call Back Instance Methods 370
Demystifying Delegates 371
Some Delegate History:System.Delegate and System.MulticastDelegate 375
Comparing Delegates for Equality 377
Delegate Chains 377
C# s Support for Delegate Chains 383
Having More Control over Invoking a Delegate Chain 384
Delegates and Reflection 386
PartⅤ Managing Types 393
18 Excaptions 393
The Evolution of Exception Handling 394
The Mechanics of Exception Handling 396
The try Block 397
The catch Block 398
The finally Block 400
What Exactly Is an Exception? 401
The System.Exception Class 406
FCL-Defined Exception Classes 408
Defining Your Own Exception Class 411
How to Use Exceptions Properly 416
You Can t Have Too Many finally Blocks 416
Don t Catch Everything 418
Gracefully Recovering from an Exception 419
Backing Out of a Partially Completed Operation When an Unrecoverable Exception Occurs 420
Hiding an Implementation Detail 421
What s Wrong with the FCL 424
Performance Considerations 426
Catch Filters 429
Unhandled Exceptions 432
Controlling What the CLR Does When an Unhandled Exception Occurs 437
Unhandled Exceptions and Windows Forms 439
Unhandled Exceptions and ASP.NET Web Forms 440
Unhandled Exceptions and ASP.NET XML Web Services 441
Exception Stack Traces 441
Remoting Stack Traces 444
Debugging Exceptions 445
Telling Visual Studio What Kind of Code to Debug 448
19 Automatic Memory Management(Garbage Collection) 451
Understanding the Basics of Working in a Garbage-Collected Platform 451
The Garbage Collection Algorithm 455
Finalization 459
What Causes Finalize Methods to Get Called 467
Finalization Internals 468
The Dispose Pattern:Forcing an Object to Clean Up 471
Using a Type That Implements the Dispose Pattern 477
C# s using Statement 482
An Interesting Dependency Issue 484
Weak References 485
Weak Reference Internals 487
Resurrection 489
Designing an Object Pool Using Resurrection 491
Generations 493
Programmatic Control of the Garbage Collector 499
Other Garbage Collector Performance Issues 501
Synchronization-Free Allocations 503
Scalable Parallel Collections 503
Concurrent Collections 504
Large Objects 505
Monitoring Garbage Collections 506
20 CLR Hosting,AppDomains,and Reflection 507
Metadata:The Cornerstone of the.NET Framework 507
CLR Hosting 508
AppDomains 510
Accessing Objects Across AppDomain Boundaries 513
AppDomain Events 515
Applications and How They Host the CLR and Manage AppDomains 516
“Yukon” 517
The Gist of Reflection 518
Reflecting Over an Assembly s Types 520
Reflecting Over a Type s Members:Binding 523
Reflecting Over an AppDomain s Assemblies 523
Explicitly Loading Assemblies 525
Loading Assemblies as “Data Files” 527
Building a Hierarchy of Exception-Derived Types 529
Explicitly Unloading Assemblies:Unloading an AppDomain 532
Obtaining a Reference to a System.Type Object 534
Reflecting Over a Type s Members 538
Creating an Instance of a Type 541
Calling a Type s Method 543
Bind Once,Invoke Multiple Times 548
Reflecting Over a Type s Interfaces 553
Reflection Performance 555
Index 557