.NET Answers » Advanced CSharp

Transaction Tracking Typed Datasets Using SqlTransaction

Dave — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:38:46 +0000

I recently had the need to implement transaction tracking between two separate databases on two separate servers. Unfortunately, I could not be sure that DTC was implemented on either server, so using transaction tracking with the TransactionScope wasn’t an option. I also wanted to be able to wire this in easily to the existing 3-tiered [...]

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ASP.NET Substitution Control

Dave — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:45:00 +0000

Tucked away on the toolbar is a little-used and often overlooked control. Not using this control could be costing you in performance. The control I’m referring to is the Substitution control. The only time you’d use it would be if you had implemented page caching. You are using page caching, right? What? You aren’t because [...]

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What is .NET’s Object.GetHashCode() Used For?

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:11:40 +0000

Here is a great question from a visitor. “What is the exact use of GetHashCode of an object in .net? Does it have any relation with garbage collection?” Let’s answer the second question first. No, it has nothing to do with garbage collection. According to the Microsoft documentation, “The GetHashCode method is suitable for use [...]

What is .NET’s Object.GetHashCode() Used For? is a post from: .NET Answers

Dispose, Finalize and SuppressFinalize

Dave — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:20:31 +0000

I got the following question recently. What is the difference between Dispose and SupressFinalize in garbage collection?” The problem with this question is it assumes Dispose and SupressFinalize have similarities, which I’m sure is not what is being asked here. So let’s rephrase it in terms that make sense. I see three methods available to [...]

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Using VB.NET From CSharp

Dave — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Back when I was teaching .NET to other programmers regularly, I would frequently get the following question from a VB6 programmer moving to CSharp. “Is there any way of using some of the VB functions I’m used to using within CSharp?” The answer to this question has two parts, which we will explore today. The [...]

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CSharp ?? Operator

Dave — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:30:00 +0000

One of the problems with learning a language early in its life cycle is that by the time version three comes out, you never look at or implement any of the new features. There are two reasons for this. First, the features you are using already cover 80% of the features you need. Second, you [...]

CSharp ?? Operator is a post from: .NET Answers

.Net String Pool – Not Just For The Compiler

Dave — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:34:00 +0000

On Monday, I was corrected in my assertion that creating multiple empty strings would create multiple objects. Turns out the compiler automatically puts all of the strings that are exactly the same in a “string pool” so that there is only ever one empty string in the entire application you’ve created. Duh! I should have [...]

.Net String Pool – Not Just For The Compiler is a post from: .NET Answers

C# “” better than string.Empty?

Dave — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:43:00 +0000

I recently read an article that argued that “” is “Better than String.Empty” The argument is that since string.Empty doesn’t work in all situations, we should not use it at all. He further argues that since the compiler can’t optimize code using string.Empty, the performance gains we might lose due to our lack of this [...]

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Just say “No!” to C# Regions? Really?!

Dave — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:31:49 +0000

I just read a post by Casademora on “public abstract string[] Blog()” Just say No! to C# Regions « public abstract string[] Blog() and I still say Regions are not useful… but… arguing that not only should we NOT use code regions, but if we do, we are hiding “bad code.” He uses words [...]

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Advanced CSharp – yield

Dave — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 12:26:50 +0000

Have you ever had a situation arise where you want to create a function that returns a collection of results and you want the results to be listed in a for each loop? Sure you have. And I bet I know what your code looked like too: public ArrayList CollectionFunction() { ArrayList ar [...]

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&& vs & and | vs ||… What’s the difference?

Dave — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:58:16 +0000

It seems like such a trivial thing to be talking about but not knowing the difference between the two operators can make a huge difference between working code and code that only seems to work. Let me illustrate: bool b = false; bool c = true; if(b & c) // do something if(b && c) [...]

&& vs & and | vs ||… What’s the difference? is a post from: .NET Answers

Removing Warnings from CSharp Compile Cycle

Dave — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 11:18:02 +0000

One of the things I try to do when I’m working on my CSharp projects is to make sure I don’t have any compile errors or warnings. The reason for removing the errors is probably obvious–if you have an error, your code isn’t going to run at that place. But what about the warnings? Well, [...]

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Stackalloc in CSharp

Dave — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:17:44 +0000

In the last few weeks we’ve looked at several keywords from the CSharp language that allow us to deal with memory management directly. Stackalloc is another keyword from that list. Before we look at this keyword, we need to review how .NET deals with memory allocation. In .NET there is a place called the heap [...]

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using – There’s more there than you are using

Dave — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:21:24 +0000

If you’ve spent more than a day programming in CSharp, you have already discovered the need for the using directive: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; using System.Net; using System.IO; But are you aware of the other ways you can use this directive? For example: If you have two classes with the same name but [...]

using – There’s more there than you are using is a post from: .NET Answers

CSharp fixed keyword

Dave — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:29:46 +0000

Since I’ve already mentioned my bias against using unsafe mode in this post: Advanced CSharp – unsafe mode I’ll skip my normal rant about that. Just suffice it to say they don’t call it “unsafe” for nothing. So assuming you have some valid use for using unsafe mode, you’ll also need to make sure your [...]

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What is the global keyword in CSharp?

Dave — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 12:01:15 +0000

During the Christmas break, I received the following question: What does C# global:: actually do? Code example, from table adapter code: [global::System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("System.Data.Design.TypedDataSetGenerator", "2.0.0.0")] [global::System.Serializable()] [global::System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")] [global::System.ComponentModel.ToolboxItem(true)] [global::System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSchemaProviderAttribute("GetTypedDataSetSchema")] [global::System.Xml.Serialization.XmlRootAttribute("AutoTwitDataSet")] [global::System.ComponentModel.Design.HelpKeywordAttribute("vs.data.DataSet")] public partial class AutoTwitDataSet : global::System.Data.DataSet { The global:: specifier tells the compiler to start looking for the namespace or class starting from the root. You’ll [...]

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Volatile variables and CSharp threads

Dave — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:11:28 +0000

The volatile keyword is a convenience keyword for those who need to access member variables of a class or structure in multi-threaded conditions. Again, since this is an advanced CSharp concept this is probably something that most of you will not need to worry about using, especially in ASP.NET. However, there have been times when [...]

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Advanced CSharp – unsafe mode

Dave — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:14:08 +0000

One of the “advantages” of using CSharp instead of VB.NET is that if programmers want to, they have the option of bypassing the memory management of .NET and working with memory directly. This is called “unsafe” mode. While I will show you how to use this keyword, I have to tell you up front that [...]

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CSharp checked and unchecked

Dave — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:40:08 +0000

When you create a project in Visual Studio, by default, numbers can be added, multiplied, divided or subtracted in such a way as to create a number too big for the variable that is holding the number. You can change this at the project level for a Windows exe project by going to project properties, [...]

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Using Sealed in CSharp

Dave — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:18:15 +0000

Another potentially useful but not very popular keyword in CSharp is the sealed keyword. While not a keyword that you will need to use often, it is a critical keyword for framework developers who want to have tighter control over how their classes get used. The two primary uses of the sealed keyword are as [...]

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Delegates in .NET

Dave — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:11:41 +0000

I received the following question: What is a delegate? What problem does it solve? and When might I use a delegate? A delegate is essentially a function pointer. We have used function pointers in various scenarios in the past to solve the problem of needing to execute user-defined code inside of another function or to [...]

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Dispose with Using

Dave — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:24:19 +0000

I’m sure that many of you already know that many of the objects in the .NET framework need to be disposed. The most common of these are the windows objects and the stream objects. Of course the trick in using dispose is in calling it at the right time. If your code throws an exception, [...]

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Readonly variables in CSharp? Really?!

Dave — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:18:36 +0000

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the keyword “const,” which allows you to declare a variable and give it a value and assures that no other code will change the value. const int v = 23; public void Foo() { // This causes a compile error v = 22; } But what about [...]

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CSharp’s Property Shortcuts

Dave — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:00:31 +0000

There are a lot of nice shortcuts in the CSharp language that most of us never use. But if you take the time to learn them, you can be as productive as a student I had who had learned all the keyboard shortcuts to windows so that he never had to take his hands off [...]

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Making values nullable

Dave — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:32:21 +0000

First, a little history lesson. When .NET was first released, we had value types and object types. The difference between the two is that you do not have to set aside memory for a value type because the memory is placed on the stack. So ints, doubles, and structures are all value types. However, even [...]

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Two Interfaces. Same Method. Two meanings.

Dave — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:29:13 +0000

We’ve discussed interfaces before, but today I want to dig a little deeper. I’m going to assume for now that you already know what an interface is and that you know how to implement one on a class. But let’s assume for a bit that you have two interfaces that have exactly the same method [...]

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