Microsoft Visual C# 2010
Step by Step
®

®

John Sharp


PUBLISHED BY
Microsoft Press
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Copyright © 2010 by John Sharp
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Contents at a Glance
Part I

Introducing Microsoft Visual C# and Microsoft
Visual Studio 2010








Welcome to C# . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Working with Variables, Operators, and Expressions . . . . . . . . . . 27
Writing Methods and Applying Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Using Decision Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Using Compound Assignment and Iteration Statements . . . . . . 91
Managing Errors and Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

1
2
3
4
5
6

Part II

Understanding the C# Language










Creating and Managing Classes and Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Understanding Values and References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creating Value Types with Enumerations and Structures . . . . .
Using Arrays and Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Understanding Parameter Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Working with Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creating Interfaces and Defining Abstract Classes . . . . . . . . . . .
Using Garbage Collection and Resource Management . . . . . . .

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

Part III Creating









15
16
17
18
19
20

21

129
151
173
191
219
231
253
279

Components

Implementing Properties to Access Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Using Indexers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Interrupting Program Flow and Handling Events . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introducing Generics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Enumerating Collections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Querying In-Memory Data by Using Query Expressions . . . . . .
Operator Overloading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

295
315
329
353
381
395
419




iii


iv

Contents at a Glance

Part IV Building

Windows Presentation Foundation
Applications

22 Introducing Windows Presentation Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
23 Gathering User Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
24 Performing Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Part V

Managing Data

25 Querying Information in a Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
26 Displaying and Editing Data by Using the Entity
Framework and Data Binding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565
Part VI Building

Professional Solutions with
Visual Studio 2010

27 Introducing the Task Parallel Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
28 Performing Parallel Data Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

29 Creating and Using a Web Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Appendix



Interoperating with Dynamic Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717


About the Author
John Sharp is a principal technologist at Content Master,
part of CM Group Ltd, a technical authoring and consulting company. An expert on developing applications
by using the Microsoft .NET Framework and other technologies, John has produced numerous tutorials, white
papers, and presentations on distributed systems, SOA
and Web services, the C# language, and interoperability
issues. John has helped to develop a large number of
courses for Microsoft Training (he co-wrote the first C#
programming course for them) and he is also the author
of several popular books, including Microsoft Windows
Communication Foundation Step by Step.


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