ProgramGood.Net - Object Oriented Programming

Ch15 Inheritance and Polymorphism

Dave Mateer — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:13:03 GMT

Symbolic constants vs Enumerated Types'

These constants are handy when cheking on the setter (as can use an int range)

    public const int APARTMENT
= 1;

    public const int COMMERCIAL
= 2;

    public const int HOME
= 3;

    public int BuildingType

        get { return buildingType;
}

set

            if (value >=
APARTMENT && value <= HOME)

                buildingType = value;

This keyword

public clsBuilding()

        address = "Not
closed yet";

    public clsBuilding(string addr, decimal price, decimal payment, decimal tax, decimal insur,
DateTime date, int type)

        : this() //
good practise to call initial constructor first..second constructor will overwrite
address = "Not closed yet"

        if (addr.Equals("")
== false)

            address = addr;

        purchasePrice = price;

        monthlyPayment = payment;

        taxes = tax;

        insurance = insur;

        datePurchased = date;

        buildingType = type;

Base keyword

    public clsCommercial(string addr, decimal price, decimal payment,

                        decimal tax, decimal insur,
DateTime date, int type) :

                        base(addr,
price, payment, tax, insur, date, type)

        buildingType = type;   //
Commercial type from base

this is calling the bases’ constructor.

can also call base methods from the derived (child) class.

Polymorphism

essentially this means we can send the same message to a group of different classes and each class will know how to respond correctly. eg

        lstMessages.Items.Add(myApt.RemoveSnow());

        lstMessages.Items.Add(myComm.RemoveSnow());

        lstMessages.Items.Add(myHome.RemoveSnow());

clsApt and clsComm have overridden methods and respond with different phone numbers. clsHome doesn’t have a RemoveSnow method and responds as above.

Abstract Classes

To prevent instantiation of the base class ie if it makes no sense.

public abstract class clsDeciduous

Virtual and Override

The method may be overridden in a derived class.

    public virtual string RemoveSnow()

        return whichType[buildingType]
+ ": No snow removal service available.";

And in the derived class:

public override string RemoveSnow()

        return "Commercial:
Call Acme Snow Plowing: 803.234.5566";

To prevent further inheritence use public sealed class.

Implicitly Typed Local Variables and Anonymous Types

Dave Mateer — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 16:12:38 GMT

From msdn.

        //
i is compiled as an int

        var i = 5;

        //
s is compiled as a string

        var s = "Hello";

        //
a is compiled as int[]

        var a = new[]
{ 0, 1, 2 };

        //
person is compiled as an anonymous type

        var person = new {
Name = "Terry", Age = 34 };

Anonymous types:

var v = new {
Amount = 108, Message = "Hello" };

Anonymous types provide a convenient way to encapsulate a set of read-only properties into a single object without having to first explicitly define a type

Ch14 Databases

Dave Mateer — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:51:11 GMT

See: http://www.programgood.net/2009/10/20/TestDrivenDevelopmentInNETDALCh5.aspx

ADO.NET (ActiveX Data Objects) consists of two primary parts:

Data provider

These classes provide access to a data source, such as a Microsoft SQL Server. Each data source has its own set of provider objects, but they each have a common set of utility classes:

Connection: Provides a connection used to communicate with the data source.
Command: Used to perform some action on the data source, such as reading, updating, or deleting relational data.
Parameter: Describes a single parameter to a command. A common example is a parameter to a stored procedure.
DataAdapter: A bridge used to transfer data between a Data source and a DataSet object (see below).
DataReader: Used to efficiently process a large list of results one record at a time. It allows records to be accessed in a read-only, forward-only mode, i.e., records have to be accessed in sequential order; they can neither be randomly accessed nor can a record which has been processed previously be accessed again.

DataSets

DataSet objects, a group of classes describing a simple in-memory relational database,

A DataSet object represents a schema (either an entire database or a subset of one). It can contain tables and relationships between those tables.
- A DataTable object represents a single table in the database. It has a name, rows, and columns.
  - A DataView object overlays a DataTable and sorts the data (much like an SQL "order by" clause) and filters the records (much like an SQL "where" clause) if a filter is set. An in-memory index is used to facilitate these operations. All DataTables have a default filter, while any number of additional DataViews can be defined, reducing interaction with the underlying database and thus improving performance.
    - A DataColumn represents a column of the table, including its name and type.
    - A DataRow object represents a single row in the table; it allows reading and updating of values in that row, likewise retrieving any rows that are related to it through a primary-key foreign-key relationship.

OLE-DB is a replacement for ODBC.

When adding in a reference (a COM – Component Object Model).. I had to restart VS to get Resharper/VS to recognize and give me intellisense.

The reference was an ADOX reference – ADO ext 2.8 for DDL and Security. We have to use this as the OLE DB features do not give create new database functionality.

int index;

        string newDB;

        string dbName
= txtDatabaseName.Text;

try

            if (dbName.Length
== 0)

                return;

            index = dbName.LastIndexOf('.');

            if (index
== -1) // no secondary filename

                dbName += ".mdb";

            string pathName
= Application.StartupPath.ToString();

            string combinedName
= Path.Combine(pathName, dbName);

            ADOX.CatalogClass myCat = new ADOX.CatalogClass();

            newDB = CONNECTSTRING + combinedName + ";" +
CONNECTSTRINGPART2;

            myCat.Create(newDB);

            myCat = null;

CreateDatabase_website

Good bit of functionality, if you double click on an element in the list, it deletes it.

void lstFieldsToAdd_DoubleClick(object sender,
EventArgs e)

        ListView.SelectedIndexCollection indexes = lstFieldsToAdd.SelectedIndices;

        foreach (int index in indexes)

            lstFieldsToAdd.Items[index].Remove();

Writing to the database he uses a class in clsDB called ProcessCommand

However to read data he does this from a form object. So only using the clsDB to get the connection string.

OleDbConnection myDB = new OleDbConnection();

OleDbDataReader myReader;

OleDbCommand myCommand;

clsDB myData = new clsDB("Friend");

try

    myDB.ConnectionString = myData.getConnectString + dbName;

    myDB.Open();

    if (txtLastName.Text.Length
!= 0)

        sql = "SELECT
* FROM Friend WHERE LastName = '" +

              txtLastName.Text + "'";

    else

        sql = "SELECT
* FROM Friend WHERE ID = " + txtRecordID.Text;

    ClearFields();

    myCommand = new OleDbCommand(sql,
myDB);

    myReader = myCommand.ExecuteReader();

    if (myReader.Read()
== true)

        record = (int)myReader[0];

        txtRecordID.Text = record.ToString();

Querying and DataGrid

Changing properties on the grid, such as docking to allow window resizing, colour schemes, formatting of cells.

Double click on the database table automatically runs the execute query. User can drag column headers around, and sort each column. User can add/edit/del data (code not implemented in this example).

LINQ

var query = from p in numbers //
the linq query

                    where p
> lo && p < hi

                    select p;

        foreach (var
val in query) //
display results

            lstOutput.Items.Add(val.ToString());

This is an interesting construct, using anonymous types. What this is actually saying

var friends = new[]

                          new {name
= "Tom", state = "IN"},

                          new {name
= "Alice", state = "VA"},

                          new {name
= "Tammy", state = "IN"},

                          new {name
= "Ann", state = "KY"},

};

var query = from p in friends

                        where p.state
== txtLow.Text

                        select p;

            foreach (var
val in query)

                lstOutput.Items.Add(val.name.ToString() + ",
" + val.state.ToString());

Ch13 Using the Disk

Dave Mateer — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:18:18 GMT

Uses recursion. And System.IO

Had a debugging issue in the code, where there was an extra space which caused a –1 to be displayed in Directories found.

The catch block in the class was suppressing the error, so I put in a throw statement in the catch block which stopped the VS debugger, and pointed me to the correct place.

catch (Exception
ex)

   //throw;
// great while debugging to get the line number of the exception

   return -1;

Error Logger

A useful class that writes to a textfile log, then can read back from it. Creates the file if it doesn’t exist. Appends to the file if it does exist.

Reading:

string pfn
= Path.Combine(pathName, fileName);

            if (File.Exists(pfn))

                sr = new StreamReader(pfn);

                buff = sr.ReadToEnd();

                sr.Close();

                return buff;

Writing:

sw = new StreamWriter(Path.Combine(pathName,
fileName), true);

                sw.WriteLine(currentDT.ToShortDateString() + ",
" +

                             currentDT.ToShortTimeString() + ":
" +

                             errorMessage);

                sw.WriteLine("-----------------------------");

                sw.Close();

Random Access Files

Uses frmMain for display logic, and clsRandomAccess for writing and reading data to disk.

In clsRandomAccess there are Property Methods for all fields:

public string FirstName

get

            return firstName;

set

            if (value.Length
> 0) // Do we have a string?

                firstName = value;

                if (firstName.Length
> NAMESIZES) // Too long

                    firstName = firstName.Substring(0, NAMESIZES);  //
Trim it.

All methods return a 0 if error, otherwise 1 if success. Uses a binarywriter, and has to calculate the size of each record to know where to read to.

Serialize and Deserialize

Uses [Serialize] attribute on clsSerial class.

///
<summary>

 ///
To serialize the contents of the class

 ///
</summary>

 ///
<param name="serial"></param>

 ///
<returns>0 on error, 1 otherwise</returns>

 public int SerializeFriend(clsSerial
myFriend)

try

         BinaryFormatter format = new BinaryFormatter();

         FileStream myStream = new FileStream("Test.bin",
FileMode.Create);

         format.Serialize(myStream, myFriend);

         myStream.Close();

     catch (Exception
ex)

         string buff
= ex.Message;

         return 0;

     return 1;

Multiple Document Interface

ch12 Generics and QuickSort Algorithm

Dave Mateer — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:34:01 GMT

Before tackling generics, I had to understand the Quicksort algorithm. Uses recursion.

From http://www.mycstutorials.com/articles/sorting/quicksort

Here is the

source

And back to the beginners book :-) Here I am using the preprocessor directives in the frmMain class to make sure I get the same random numbers each time I run the app.

#define DEBUG

//#undef
DEBUG

Onto Generics:

Pretty cool the same algorithm can sort these different kinds of data. The reason they can is that each of these types implements a method called CompareTo.

public class clsQuicksort<thing> where thing
: IComparable //thing has to implement IComparable ie implements CompareTo.

And we can check that the type passed in implements CompareTo, by checking that it implements the IComparable interface.

using generics here so I can do this:

clsQuicksort<int>
iSort = new clsQuicksort<int>(iData);

clsQuicksort<long>
lSort = new clsQuicksort<long>(lData);

clsQuicksort<double>
dSort = new clsQuicksort<double>(dData);

clsQuicksort<string>
sSort = new clsQuicksort<string>(sData);

otherwise I would have had to make a different sort class for each type (just like that top of this blog article)

clsSortIntegers mySort = new clsSortIntegers(data); //
passing the integer data array to be sorted through the constructor

mySort.quickSort(0, data.Length - 1); // sort the data

Refactorings:

///
<summary>

    ///
Rather than doing a case statement to switch between displaying the iData, lData,
dData, sData

    ///
which is all in context, it is less code to write a generic method to handle this.

    ///
</summary>

    ///
<typeparam name="T"></typeparam>

    ///
<param name="stuff"></param>

    void ShowGenericData<T>(T[]
stuff) // so can pass any type in here that implements
ToString

        for (int i
= 0; i < stuff.Length; i++)

            if (whichListBox
== SORTED)

                lstSorted.Items.Add(stuff[i].ToString());

            else

                lstUnsorted.Items.Add(stuff[i].ToString());

and another:

///
<summary>

    ///
Performs the data swap for quickSort()

    ///
</summary>

    ///
<param name="pos1">index to first value to swap</param>

    ///
<param name="pos2">index to second value to swap</param>

    //void
swap(int pos1, int pos2)

//{

    //
thing temp;

    //
temp = data[pos1];

    //
data[pos1] = data[pos2];

    //
data[pos2] = temp;

//}

    ///
<summary>

    ///
rewritten swap method that does not rely on class scope.

    ///
can take any type of data

    ///
</summary>

    ///
<param name="pos1"></param>

    ///
<param name="pos2"></param>

    void swap<T>(T[]
stuff, int pos1, int pos2)

        T temp = stuff[pos1];

        stuff[pos1] = stuff[pos2];

        stuff[pos2] = temp;

This is very nice as we have

strong type checking
no boxing/unboxing
no casting hasstles

Ch11 – Common Input Objects and Debugging

Dave Mateer — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:33:20 GMT

rb – Radio Button

cbk - Checkbox

cmb – Combobox

dtp – DateTimePicker

Debug helper code

int exp1
= 5;

int exp2
= 0;

try

    throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException();

    int result
= exp1 / exp2;

catch (DivideByZeroException)

    MessageBox.Show("Expression
1 is 0, please reenter");

catch (Exception
ex)

    MessageBox.Show("Bad
things are afoot:\r\n" + ex.Message + "\r\n" +
ex.StackTrace);

finally {

    MessageBox.Show("and
finally");

Parameter Passing in C# – Value and Reference Types

Dave Mateer — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:51:42 GMT

Was trying to figure out why something worked: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1896871/c-calling-a-method-and-variable-scope

From http://rapidapplicationdevelopment.blogspot.com/2007/01/parameter-passing-in-c.html and Jon Skeets: http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/parameters.html

static void Main(string[]
args)

        int i
= 5; // #1 a value type.. i and j are both 5, but seperate

        int j
= i;

        j = 10;

        Console.WriteLine(i); //
prints 5

        StringBuilder sb1 = new StringBuilder("2.hello"); //
#2 a reference type

        StringBuilder sb2 = sb1;

        sb2.Append("
world");

        Console.WriteLine(sb1); //
prints 2.hello world

        string s1
= "3.hello"; //
#3 Immutable reference type

        string s2
= s1; // s1 and s2 actually point to the same memory
location now

        s2 += "
world"; // seems like they split now.. behave
like value types

        Console.WriteLine(s1); //
prints 3.hello

        int a
= 5; // #4 Value type passed by value

        Change(a); //
equivalent to instantiating a new variable and assigning it the the first.

        Console.WriteLine(a);  //
prints 5.

        StringBuilder ssb1 = new StringBuilder("5.hello"); //
#5 reference types passed by value

        CChange(ssb1);

        Console.WriteLine(ssb1); //
prints hello world

        int g
= 5; // #6 value type passed by reference

        DChange(ref g);

        Console.WriteLine(g); //
prints 10

        StringBuilder sssb1 = new StringBuilder("7.hello"); //
#7 reference type passed by reference

        EChange(ref sssb1);

        Console.WriteLine(sssb1.ToString()); //
null ref exception

        Console.ReadLine();

    static void EChange(ref StringBuilder
sssb2)

        sssb2.Append("
world");

        sssb2 = null;

    static void DChange(ref int g)

        g = 10;

    static void CChange(StringBuilder
ssb2)

        ssb2.Append("
world");

        ssb2 = null;

    static void Change(int b)

        b = 10;

Value types:

int, etc..

Reference types

Arrays eg int[]

List<T>

Class, Interface, Delegate and Array types are all reference types.

Immutable Reference Types:

string

Chapter 10 – Designing And Writing Custom Classes

Dave Mateer — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:37:47 GMT

On overloaded constructors, call the default constructor. Constructor chaining

public clsDates(int yr) : this()

public clsDates()

Property Methods (getters and setters)

Cohesion – make a method do a single task only

Coupling - (Method coupling) ability to make changes in one method without forcing changes in another… ie make each method so it can operate independently

Deck of Cards

I’ve simplified the example given in the book to:

private void btnShuffle_Click(object sender,
EventArgs e)

        clsCardDeck myDeck = new clsCardDeck();

        int numberOfIterations
= myDeck.ShuffleDeck();

        lblResult.Text = numberOfIterations.ToString();

        //
display the newly shuffled deck in the multiline textbox.

        int deckSize
= myDeck.DeckSize;

        for (int i
= 1; i < deckSize+1; i++)

            txtOutputResult.Text += myDeck.getOneCard(i) + "
";

then for clsCardDeck

public int ShuffleDeck()

    int index;

    int val;

    Random rnd = new Random();

    passCount = 0; //
count how many times through the while loop

    index = 1;

    Array.Clear(deck, 0, deck.Length); //
initialise the deck array to 0's

    while (index
< deck.Length) // loop probably 52 times.. initialised
at the top of this class.

        //
add 1 to the offset 0-based array

        val = rnd.Next(DECKSIZE) + 1; //
Generates values between 1 - 52

        if (deck[val]
== 0) // Is this card place in the deck "unused"?

            deck[val] = index; //
yep, so assign it a card place.. ie put the index number into a random spot

            index++; //
get ready for the next card

        passCount++;

    return passCount;

///
<summary>

///
Show a given card in the deck

///
</summary>

///
<param name="index">the index of the position where the card is found</param>

///
<returns>the pip for the card, or empty or error</returns>

public string getOneCard(int index)

    if (index
> 0 && index <= deck.Length && nextCard <= deck.Length)

        return pips[deck[index]]; //
returns the 6H style string of the deck.

    else

        return ""; //
error

Sideways Refinement:

1. Initialize – build and display the main form (frmDave)

2. Input – none

3. Process – Shuffle the deck (clsCardDeck)

4. Display – Show deck on 4 rows (frmDave) –> which uses Get One Card at a Time (clsCardDeck)

Clear Deck (frmDave)

5. Terminate – Close (frmDave)

this helped in thinking which class had which responsibilites.

InBetweenGame

You deal 2 cards, then bet on the outcome of the hidden 3rd card. Shown below I bet on a card coming up between 9D and QS. It was a 3H, so I lost.

Debug information is in the textbox to the right hand side.

Source here

The architecture uses a middle ‘tier’ of rules, and a CardDeck class as used above.

Sideways Refinement:.. showing the responsibilities of each class. Very useful.

1. Initialise – build and display the form (frmMain) – get initial wager and balance (clsRules)

- Do initial shuffle (clsCardDeck)

2. Input – get amount of wager (frmMain)

- ask for new cards.. deal.. (frmMain)

- ask for bet (frmMain)

3. Process – deal a hand (rules)

- enough money to bet (frmMain)

- enough cards in deck (clsCardDeck)

- no? shuffle (clsCardDeck)

- Get three cards (clsRules)

- Figure out winner and position to display card (clsRules) **note here it knows the winner after deal button is pressed

- make a bet (frmMain)

4. Display - display if TIE, WIN, LOSE message and adjust balance (frmMain)

- display card in correct position (frmMain)

5. Terminate – Close

This was interesting code:.. see post on this blog on Parameter Passing in C#.

//
get three cards, result, and position to display

 //
nb cards is a reference type (all arrays are), so don't need a ref.. it will be changed
here.

 myRules.DealHand(cards, ref betResult, ref position);

Writing Your Own Classes

Dave Mateer — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:08:52 GMT

Continuing in the book series.

Part III, Chapter 9 – Designing Classes

Major benefits from OOP

Data encapsulation
Code reuse

Write a class that determines the date of Easter, and whether it is a leap year.

5 Programming Steps:

Initialization
Input
Process
Display
Terminate

UML Light and Static

- daysInMonth : static int[]

// regardless of how many instances of this class you create, you get only one array named daysInMonth.

// the – means it is private..

// properties.. generally we want to hide as much as possible.

Use static with any data that can be shared between instances of classes

or any data that must be present the moment the program is ready to start executing

Code is here

This is how the author likes to set out his classes..

using System;

public class clsDates

    //
PROPERTIES

    //
symbolic constants

    //
static members

    static int[]
daysInMonth = { 0, 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31 };

    //
instance members.. this is the common term for all non-static properties.

    int day;

    int month;

    int year;

    int leapYear;

    DateTime current;

    //METHODS

    //
constructor

    public clsDates()

        current = new DateTime();

    //
property methods

    //
helper methods

    //
general methods

    ///
<summary>

    ///
Purpose: To determine if the year is a leap year.

    ///
</summary>

    ///
<param name="year">the year under construction</param>

    ///
<returns>1 if a leap year, 0 otherwise</returns>

    public int getLeapYear(int year)

        if (year
% 4 == 0 && year % 100 != 0 || year % 400 == 0)

            return 1; //
it is a leap year

        else

            return 0;

    ///
<summary>

    ///
To determine the date for Easter given a year

    ///
</summary>

    ///
<param name="year">int year - the year under construction</param>

    ///
<returns>the date in DateTime as MM/DD/YYYY format</returns>

    public string getEaster(int year)

        int offset;

        int leap;

        int day;

        int temp1;

        int temp2;

        int total;

        offset = year % 19;

        leap = year % 4;

        day = year % 7;

        temp1 = (19 * offset + 24) % 30;

        temp2 = (2 * leap + 4 * day + 6 * temp1 + 5) % 7;

        total = (22 + temp1 + temp2);

        if (total
> 31)

            month = 4; //
Easter is in April

            day = total - 31; //
on this day

        else

            month = 3; //
Easter is in March

            day = total; //
on this day

        DateTime myDT = new DateTime(year,
month, day);

        return myDT.ToLongDateString();

I loved his irreverant style Exercises:

Q: Give a good example of where you would use the public access specifier to define a class property?

A: I couldn’t think of one either :-)

SOC = Show Off Code :-)

Beginning C# 3.0 Part II

Dave Mateer — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:35:39 GMT

Chapter 8 – Arrays

Array cheat code:

string[] names = new string[10]; // this array can only have 10 elements
        names[0] = "Dave";
        names[1] = "Heidi";
        names[2] = "Scotty";
        for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
        {
            lstOutput.Items.Add(names[i].ToString());
        }

int[] coolNumbers = new int[10] {1,2,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,27}; // initializing an array

        int[,] grades = new int[5,4]; // grades and which type eg Freshman, Sophmore, Junior, Senior
        grades[0, 0] = 1;
        grades[1, 0] = 4;

//
Declare a single-dimensional array

int[]
array1 = new int[5];

//
Declare and set array element values

int[]
array2 = new int[]
{ 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 };

//
Alternative syntax

int[]
array3 = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 };

Setting up a project template in Visual Studio. Very useful if you don’t want a standard WinForms project etc.. to start with:

This is the way the book recommends starting a project. Notice how few references, and we’re not using partial classes and a seperate Program.cs file. I like this method as it is keeping things very simple as easy to understand.

To export this as a template, go to File, Export as template.

Then to start a new project, do File, New then look for My Templates down the bottom..

Letter Count program

5 Steps

1) Initialisation

2) Input Step

text is entered by the user

3) Process Step

examine each letter types in the textbox and count how many times each alpha character occurs

4) Output Step

Copy the letter counts to a listbox

5) Terminate

for (int i = 0; i < input.Length; i++) // loop over each letter in the input string
        {
            oneLetter = input[i]; // extract the letter we want to examine
            index = oneLetter - LETTERA; // taking int 65 away from a character
            if (index < 0 || index > MAXCHARS) // making sure range is between 0 and 25
                continue;
            count[index]++; // adding 1 to the count of the appropriate array
        }

The output to the listbox is interesting in the string.Format.

for (int i = 0; i < MAXLETTERS; i++)
        {
            // letter has 4 spaces and is right justified
            // space has 20
            // count is just displayed
            buff = string.Format("{0, 4} {1,20} {2} ", (char) (i + LETTERA), " ", count[i]);
            lstOutput.Items.Add(buff);

ListView

Displaying formatted lists is very common, so there is special control for doing this:

Go to columns.. and also change view to details, so the column headers are displayed on the output.

Multidimensional Arrays

int[,] myData = new int[number, 3]; // create new array with 3 dimensions

// Program and Display
for (int i = 0; i < number; i++)
{
    myData[i, 0] = i;
    myData[i, 1] = i*i;
    myData[i, 2] = i*i*i;
}

Collections

A collection is a set of objects which share the same characteristics eg strings

int[] days = new int[]
{0,31,28,31,30,31,30,31,31,30,31,31 }; string[] weekDays
= new string[] {"Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"}; foreach (string str in weekDays)
{ lstOutput.Items.Add(str); } foreach (int val in days)
{ lstOutput.Items.Add(val); }

Because arrays are objects, you can treat them as a collection and iterate over them with a foreach loop.

ArrayList

You can’t use a static array until it’s dimension has been set eg

string[] names = new string[100] // this can hold 100 names, and no more!

ArrayList names = new ArrayList();

names.Add(txtName.Text);

Static multiarray, using ListView

Ch9IdealWeights

Random Values and Sorting

Uses a list box which is populated by a 1 dimensional array of random numbers

Sorting is done via:

Array.Sort(arrayOfNumbers);

Random Values and Stars

RandomValues VS2008 source

I built the stars using a loop. However a better solution is:

string stars = “**********************************************************************”

stars.Substring(0, howeverManyYouWant)

this was what I had:

// add appropriate number of start
to the end of the string.

            int actualNumber = arrayOfNumbers[i];

            string stars = "";

            //
build the number of stars

            for (int j = 1; j <= actualNumber; j++)

            {

                stars += "*";

            }

            string output = actualNumber.ToString()
+ stars;

            lstResults.Items.Add(output);

Beginning C# 3.0 – An Introduction to Object Oriented Programming

Dave Mateer — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:57:59 GMT

This book looked interesting as it seemed to be written by someone with a lot of experience teaching. Sometimes it is great to go back to basics, as there is always something new to learn, and I was so right! Here are my notes, source code, screenshots.

Chapter 1 – Getting Started

setting up the IDE.. VS2008 Express. And installing the MSDN library.. 2GB download here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7BBE5EDA-5062-4EBB-83C7-D3C5FF92A373&displaylang=en

Also a tool to take msdn into a chm help file: http://www.codeplex.com/packagethis

Chapter 2 - Understanding Objects

Class eg Person.. a template used to describe an object
properties..that describe the object
methods.. or actions that we associate with the object

Object eg the Person Object for Jack

naming convention
cls - class
txt - textbob
btn - button

good for selecting in the ide

making a blank project
putting in references for winform:

System, System.Drawing, System.Windows.Forms

putting in bootstrapper
change output to winform and tell which startup object asdf

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

public class frmMain : Form
{
#region Windows code
private void InitializeComponent()
{
}
#endregion

public frmMain()
{
InitializeComponent();
}

public static void Main()
{
frmMain main = new frmMain();
Application.Run(main);
}

}

3d on labels cool
making a default enter button (acceptbutton)
ctrl x and ctrl d shortcut keys with the ampersand on Text
True Type vs non fonts.. good to make things line up properly.

**screenshot mailing label program

**source code here too … c:\code\oopbook

Part II – Understand C# Syntax

Chapter 3 – Understanding Data Types

Integer Division
.Focus property when coming back from an error
Int.TryParse method to see if it really is an integer
.Visible proerty of a textbox

Floating Point
AcceptButton
StartPosition - CenterScreen

int
float - 32 bit.. F,f
double - 64 bit... this is the usual one.. D,d
Decimal - 128bit (28 digit precision).. M,m

eg int i = 0.5M

**insert source code c:\code\oopbook\ch3IntegerDivision\

Also Fahrehiegh converter:

** put in source code link… c:\code\oopbook\ch3TempConvert

Interesting here was the use of consts…

how a division takes up more cycles, so better not to do 5/9 but to put in the decimal equivalent. The out.. focus when coming back from an error. And unhiding the results box when it needs to be.

bool flag;
double operand1;
double answer;
const double FIVENINTHS = 0.55555555;
const double ZEROFAHRENHEIGHT = 32;

flag = double.TryParse(txtOperand1.Text, out operand1);
if (flag == false)
{
MessageBox.Show("Enter a whole number", "Input Error");
txtOperand1.Focus();
return;
}

answer = FIVENINTHS *(operand1 - ZEROFAHRENHEIGHT);

txtResult.Text = operand1.ToString() + " degressF " + " equals " + answer.ToString() + " degreesC";
txtResult.Visible = true;

Ch4 – Understanding C# Statements

operand eg 10
operator eg +, -, *, /, % these are binary operators
unary
binary
ternary

expression
one or more operands and their associated operator

statements
one or more expressions terminated by a semicolon.

lvalue - location value.. memory address
rvalue - register value..actual value

eg int i
this is defining a variable to be at address 900,000 ie lvalue
i = 10
this is declaring a variable to have an rvalue of 10

if narly bug, hardcode data into the textboxes to make it easy!
10 / 6

avoid magic numbers
use const

Ch5 - Reference Data Types

If you're not going to manipulate data with Maths, store it as a string.

intellisense (expect in Resharper which is clearer)
hand is a property
diamond is a method

Pass by reference vs Pass by Value

Ctrl spacebar to give help on methods/props near current selection.

**insert source…c:\code\oopbook\ch5StringTester

Escape characters eg string message = “this is a \\ backlash, and this is a quote \””;

String literals eg string message = @”Go the the c:\program files\ directory and”;

DateTime reference Objects

**upload source code** c:\code\oopbook\ch5DateTime

Interesting code here is:

txtLongDate.Text = myTime.ToString("D");

Starting the app (everything gets populated automatically without having to press Test)

public frmMain()
{
// 2) place all the label, textbox and button objects in correct positions on the form and set their properties
InitializeComponent();
UpdateTimeInfo(); // 3) set the properties of the objects just created
}

public static void Main()
{
// 1) start here then this goes to constructor now everything is in memory ready to go
frmMain main = new frmMain();
Application.Run(main); // 4) run the app
MessageBox.Show("hello"); // 5) this would only be displayed when Close() is called.
}

Ch6 – Making Decisions In Code

20% of a programs time is spent in initial development

80% of a programs time is spent in testing, debugging, and maintenance

flag = int.TryParse(txtOperand1.Text, out operand1);

don’t need to initialise operand1 to any value.. int operand1 is fine.

**upload code ** c:\code\oopbook\ch6OddOrEven

Interesting here is the .Clear method after the check.

MessageBox.Show("Enter a whole number", "Input Error");
txtOperand1.Clear();
txtOperand1.Focus();
return;

Brackets Style:

K&R (Kernighan and Ritchie… 1978 book on C)

if (x == 2) {

//do something

}

Other style:

if (x == 2)

{

//do something

}

if (x == 2)

// do something

the danger of the above is it’s easier to make a mistake like:

if (x == 2); // notice the semicolon!

//do something

Nested If Statements / Cascading if statements

Switch

statements are better

switch (expression1)

{

case 1:

// do stuff here

break;

case 2:

// do other stuff

break;

default:

// do the default stuff.

break;

}

Ch7 Statement Repetition Using Loops

<= end; i++)
for (i = start; i {
// {0, 5} first argument and right-justify it in a field of five characters
// {1,20} second argument and right-justify in a field of twenty characters
buff = string.Format("{0, 5}{1, 20}", i, i*i);
lstOutput.Items.Add(buff);
}

for loops – ideally suited for counting operations

while loops are good for searching for a particular value in a set

bucket = 1;
for (int i = num; i > 1; i--)
{
bucket *= i;
}

Don’t need to do the last factorial as it multiplies by 1, so leave i > 1.

Keyboard shortcut – F7 to view designer / view code

Notice the currency here:

buff = string.Format("{0,4}, {1,15:C}", i, assetIsWorth);
lblResults.Items.Add(buff);

http://www.programgood.net/2009/12/14/ParameterPassingInCValueAndReferenceTypes.aspx

Test Driven Development in .NET - Customer Tests the Web Service using Fitnesse (Ch7)

Dave Mateer — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:00:01 GMT

Customer tests confirm how the feature is supposed to work as experienced by the end user.

Because customers generally don't want to use nUnit.. we're going to use Fitnesse, which is more user friendly:

The goal is to have the customer write their own tests.

To setup Fitnesse. Download the .jar and run it like this:

c:\apps\fitnesse -jar fitness.jar -p 8080

Then go and get slim for .net. I installed it to c:\apps\slim

Here is how it works for the Divider example:

!define TEST_SYSTEM {slim}
!define COMMAND_PATTERN {%m -r fitSharp.Slim.Service.Runner,c:\apps\slim\fitsharp.dll %p}
!define TEST_RUNNER {c:\apps\slim\Runner.exe}

!path C:\code\slimexample\slimexample\bin\Debug\slimexample.dll

|import      |
|slim_example|

!|Divider|
|Numerator|Denominator|Quotient?|
|10       |2          |5      |
|12.6     |3          |4.2      |
|22       |7          |~=3.14   |
|9        |3          |<5       |
|11       |2          |4<_<6    |
|100      |4          |33       |

Here is the C# code, I compiled to slimexample.dll

using System; namespace slim_example
{ public class Divider
{ public double Numerator
{ get; set; } public double Denominator
{ get; set; } double _quotient; public void Execute()
{ _quotient = Numerator / Denominator;
} public double Quotient()
{ return _quotient;
} } }

Run the tests.. and we'll see that when 2 numbers are sent... then then ? in the Fitnesse means that something should be checked.

Then we wire up to our code and test CatalogAdapter:

From this test we can see that I've a bug.. something wrong with the Duration.

Debugging

Have been working through why we are not getting the duration through. The unit tests on the DAL are passing fine.. in CatalogFixture, have added in 2 tracks of different lengths. They get pushed into the db, then pulled out using Catalog.. looks ok.

The next step is to look at the Service layer and see if the Duration is being written. Interestingly, the webservice is passing back all the correct tracks, but nothing to do with reviewers etc..

Very interesting bug.. if I didn't specify this in my RecordingAssembler.WriteTotalRunTime:

dto.totalRunTimeSpecified = true;

then nothing would be passing back. Same for WriteAverageRating.

Came across another issue with the webservice, and couldn't get it to autogen.. easiest way was to create it again. Using source control so it if all went to custard, could go back.

Been getting bogged down in detail, so have decided to push to the end of the project, and get a front end up and running asap.

Test Driven Development in .NET - Service Layer (Ch6)

Dave Mateer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 03:06:55 GMT

Task: create a WebService that returns a recording and all its entities when specifying the id of the recording. Return type of XML (ie not a .net dataset).

The DAL.Catalog returns a RecordingDataSet.Recording.

We need to write a DTO that takes an input and transforms(munges) it into something else

Using a Service Interface Pattern.

Build a stub, map it into a DTO, and verify each field.
First thing I did was to create a stub, to hide how the RecordingDataSet is retrieved..so am not relying on the DAL at this point.

Here is the test the Stub code:

[TestFixture] public class CatalogServiceStubFixture
{ RecordingDataSet.Recording recording; RecordingDataSet.Recording actual; CatalogServiceStub
service; [SetUp] public void SetUp()
{ //
create a test recording in memory recording = CreateRecording();
service = new CatalogServiceStub(recording);
actual = service.FindByRecordingId(recording.Id);
} private RecordingDataSet.Recording
CreateRecording() { RecordingDataSet dataSet = new RecordingDataSet();
RecordingDataSet.Recording recording = dataSet.Recordings.NewRecording();
recording.Id = 1; //
more code needed here to fill in the rest of the recording. return recording;
} [Test] public void CheckId()
{ Assert.AreEqual(recording.Id, actual.Id); }

Next we want a dto to transform our dataset, into something else:

To specify in platform independant, we use XML. This is still quite bulky, perhaps JSON would be lighter now.

<?xml
version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<xs:schema xmlns:tns="http://nunit.org/webservices" elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="http://nunit.org/webservices" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
<xs:element name="Recording" type="tns:RecordingDto" />
<xs:complexType name="RecordingDto">
<xs:sequence> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="id" type="xs:long" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="title" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="artistName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="releaseDate" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="labelName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="tracks" type="tns:TrackDto" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" name="reviews" type="tns:ReviewDto" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="totalRunTime" type="xs:int" />
<xs:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="averageRating" type="xs:int" />
</xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="TrackDto">
<xs:sequence> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="id" type="xs:long" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="title" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="artistName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="duration" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="genreName" type="xs:string" />
</xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="ReviewDto">
<xs:sequence> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="id" type="xs:long" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="reviewerName" type="xs:string" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="rating" type="xs:int" />
<xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="reviewContent" type="xs:string" />
</xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> </xs:schema>

A benefit is that we can create C# from this:.. but really just getters and setters. See below.. this led to an interesting bug.

http://www.codingday.com/xml-c-class-generator-for-c-using-xsd-for-deserialization/

xsd asdf.xml - create an xsd
xsd asdf.xsd /CLASSES - creates a .cs

Then just creating an 'Assembler', which writes out the DTO...(from http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/dataTransferObject.html)

The Assembler has business logic in it to flatten the structure (as in the similar example above)

The webservice is setup by adding it into IISAdmin.

As the default ASP.NET user does not have access to my local database
connection = new SqlConnection("Data Source=DAVEXPLAPTOP;Initial Catalog=catalog;Integrated Security=True");

The easiest way to get running on dev was to add the DAVEXPLAPTOP\ASPNET user into my SQL database. This didn't show up under objects when adding, but I went ahead anyway and it worked.

So this is what we have so far:

Test Driven Development in .NET - DAL (Ch5)

Dave Mateer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 01:03:44 GMT

From the nbdn course, I had some interesting code I'd like to test. Just the business logic really, no DAL nor UI. As I wanted to make a full application, the first though was to make a DAL which talked to a text file, or just some dummy data. How to do this well? De-coupled. Tried to use poor mans dependency injection, and got confused. So I had a coffee, and bought this book. Because it had an end to end example of a testable application. It uses .net1.1 mostly (which is good as there are no language constructs to learn)

Some good introduction to refactorings, and unit testing. The main meat of the book is an example called MediaLibrary (music recordings). Chapter 5 started with testing the DAL.

Here are the first tests. Am showing nunit test runner.. mostly I use testdriven.net, and have setup ctrl alt shft t to run tests.

for source control I'm using git, and have coupled up with gvim as text editor. And linked in beyond compare for a merge tool.

The book uses Strongly Typed Datasets, which were the 'star of the show' in the .net1.0 release. By writing the sql, and having intellisense have autoproperties, this saves writing boiler plate code.

I learned about DataSets.. here is my edit (from wikipedia)..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADO.NET#DataSets

ADO.NET consists of two primary parts:

Data provider

These classes provide access to a data source, such as a Microsoft SQL Server. Each data source has its own set of provider objects, but they each have a common set of utility classes:

Connection: Provides a connection used to communicate with the data source.
Command: Used to perform some action on the data source, such as reading, updating, or deleting relational data.
Parameter: Describes a single parameter to a command. A common example is a parameter to a stored procedure.
DataAdapter: A bridge used to transfer data between a Data source and a DataSet object (see below).
DataReader: Used to efficiently process a large list of results one record at a time. It allows records to be accessed in a read-only, forward-only mode, i.e., records have to be accessed in sequential order; they can neither be randomly accessed nor can a record which has been processed previously be accessed again.

DataSets

DataSet objects, a group of classes describing a simple in-memory relational database,

A DataSet object represents a schema (either an entire database or a subset of one). It can contain tables and relationships between those tables.
- A DataTable object represents a single table in the database. It has a name, rows, and columns.
  - A DataView object overlays a DataTable and sorts the data (much like an SQL "order by" clause) and filters the records (much like an SQL "where" clause) if a filter is set. An in-memory index is used to facilitate these operations. All DataTables have a default filter, while any number of additional DataViews can be defined, reducing interaction with the underlying database and thus improving performance.
    - A DataColumn represents a column of the table, including its name and type.
    - A DataRow object represents a single row in the table; it allows reading and updating of values in that row, likewise retrieving any rows that are related to it through a primary-key foreign-key relationship.

VS has a nice editor:

Once I spiked up what datasets were (in simpleDatabaseTests.cs).. used this for reference: http://www.csharp-station.com/Tutorials/AdoDotNet/Lesson05.asp

 [Test] public void put_data_into_a_dataset()
{ DataSet dataset = new DataSet();
SqlDataAdapter data_adapter = new SqlDataAdapter("select
id, name from Artist", connection); SqlCommandBuilder sql_command_builder = new SqlCommandBuilder(data_adapter);
data_adapter.Fill(dataset, "Artist");
Assert.IsNotNull(dataset); DataTable data_table = dataset.Tables[0]; for (int i =< data_table.Rows.Count; i++)
            {
                DataRow data_row  0;
i = data_table.Rows[i]; Console.Out.Write(data_row["id"] + "
"); Console.Out.WriteLine(data_row["name"]);
} }>

The example I'm working through uses a Table Data Gateway Pattern for the DAL.

http://martinfowler.com/eaaCatalog/tableDataGateway.html
"A Table Data Gateway holds all the SQL for accessing a single table or view: selects, inserts, updates, and deletes. Other code calls its methods for all interaction with the database."

Lets take an example of ArtistFixture.cs which tests ArtistGateway.cs

[TestFixture] public class ArtistFixture
{ static readonly string artistName = "Artist";
SqlConnection connection; ArtistGateway gateway; RecordingDataSet recordingDataSet; long artistId;
[SetUp] public void setup_and_open_connection_pass_to_gateway_setup_data_set()
{ connection = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings.Get("Catalog.Connection"));
connection.Open(); recordingDataSet = new RecordingDataSet();
gateway = new ArtistGateway(connection); //
insert a new artist getting its ID from the database artistId = gateway.Insert(recordingDataSet,
artistName); } [Test] public void RetrieveArtistFromDatabase()
{ //
create new RDS, use same gateway. RecordingDataSet loadedFromDB = new RecordingDataSet();
RecordingDataSet.Artist loadedArtist = gateway.FindById(artistId,
loadedFromDB); Assert.AreEqual(artistId, loadedArtist.Id); Assert.AreEqual(artistName,
loadedArtist.Name); }

Here is part of ArtistGateway.cs.. gateway is newed up with a connection passed in.. then only in Insert is it passed in a strongly typed RecordingDataSet, which has all the SQL in it which has been auto-genned.

public class ArtistGateway

{

SqlDataAdapter adapter;

SqlConnection connection;

SqlCommand command;

SqlCommandBuilder builder;



public ArtistGateway(SqlConnection
connection)

{

this.connection = connection;



command = new SqlCommand("select
id, name from artist where id = @id",connection);

command.Parameters.Add("@id",
SqlDbType.BigInt);



adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(command);

builder = new SqlCommandBuilder(adapter);

}





public RecordingDataSet.Artist
FindById(long artistId,
RecordingDataSet recordingDataSet)

{

command.Parameters["@id"].Value = artistId;

adapter.Fill(recordingDataSet, recordingDataSet.Artists.TableName);

DataRow[] rows = recordingDataSet.Artists.Select(String.Format("id={0}",
artistId));



if< 1)  (rows.Length
return null;

return (RecordingDataSet.Artist)
rows[0];

}

>Class Diagram done in VS2008 with the Class Designer Powertoy http://www.codeplex.com/modeling

To get the blue lines go to Class Diagram, Filter Lines, Show All Associations.

Sequence diagram done in Visio: (hmm - this is a bit complex... I prefer the class diagram above with notes)

Genre was next, then the rest. Then relationships between objects eg ReviewReviewer.. just testing the test data we create comes back: Have abstracted out some of the setup code into ConnectionFixture.

 [TestFixture] public class ReviewReviewerFixture
: ConnectionFixture { [Test] public void ReviewerId()
{ RecordingDataSet recordingDataSet = new RecordingDataSet();
ReviewGateway reviewGateway = new ReviewGateway(Connection); long reviewId = reviewGateway.Insert(recordingDataSet,
1, "Review
Content"); ReviewerGateway reviewerGateway = new ReviewerGateway(Connection); long reviewerId = reviewerGateway.Insert(recordingDataSet, "Reviewer
Name"); RecordingDataSet.Review review = reviewGateway.FindById(reviewId,
recordingDataSet); review.ReviewerId = reviewerId;
reviewGateway.Update(recordingDataSet); Assert.AreEqual(reviewerId, review.Reviewer.Id);
reviewGateway.Delete(recordingDataSet, reviewId); reviewerGateway.Delete(recordingDataSet,
reviewerId); } }

The hardest test is RecordingGateway, as it depends on all the other 'tables'. To simplify, we abstract out the insert/del of test data to RecordingBuilder.cs.

The last class is Catalog, which is the only class that will be called from the Service layer. In Catalog we have FindByRecordingId, which returns a RecordingDataSet.Recording (so all the data associated with this recordingId).

In summary we have done this of the overall structure of the APP:

Becoming a great developer

Dave Mateer — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:27:36 GMT

JP Boodhoo's Nothing But Dot Net Bootcamp (Sydney)

A mindblowing (melting) experience. The overall summary of what I learned, is that I know where I want to go now. Can see how I'd like to develop.

A great series of articles on what we did:
http://www.davesquared.net/2009/08/nothin-but-net-sydney-2009-day-1.html

Xerxes video discussing the camp:
http://ozalt.net/blog/virtual-alt-net-aug-17-jp-boodhoo-s-bootcamp/

Over the last year I've started using:

gvim - text editor (still getting used to it!)
git - source control
gmail - learned the keyboard shortcuts which has been amazing
launchy - quick launcher
vs2008 - black colour of fonts, class diagram
resharper - auto formatting of doc, easily navigate large codebases, refactorings, moving code, create classes quickly
console2 with powershell - use it for git, navigating between projects
windows - keyboard shortcuts like windows file exploring tabbing around
firefox 3.5 with vimperator extensions
beyond compare - easily put stuff live
alt tab replacement
balsamiq - for mocking up UI's
sdedit - for doing sequence diagrams

Goal over the next 2 months is to write an application in a well architected manner.

Am starting with the MovieLibrary example (it could be used to catalog your home movies) we worked on at nbdn. Basically putting a front end, and a DAL on the existing code..

Biggest lessons I've learned this year are:

- have fun!
- to become a great develop you need to code, code, code <grin>

Yield

Dave Mateer — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:15:23 GMT

Interesting..added in C#2.0

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; class Program
{ static void Main(string[]
args) { //
enumerates through the IEnumerable //
every time call GetInt() we receive a new incremented integer foreach (int i in GetInt())
Console.WriteLine("Got
" + i.ToString());
} public static IEnumerable<int>
GetInt() { //
this method remembers its' state, so every time it is called,  //
the next int is returned for (int i = 0;
i < 5; i++) yield return i;
} }

thanks to: http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/rmcochran/yieldreturn04022006113850AM/yieldreturn.aspx?ArticleID=4617984b-2209-4211-9d08-8f06e0fe2da5

Extension Methods

Dave Mateer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:44:35 GMT

From: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb383977.aspx

Extension methods enable you to "add" methods to existing types without creating a new derived type,

Extension methods are a special kind of static method, but they are called as if they were instance methods on the extended type.

For client code, there is no apparent difference between calling an extension method and the methods that are actually defined in a type.

using System; namespace ConsoleApplication1
{ class Program
{ static void Main(string[]
args) { string s = "hello
extension methods are good"; Console.WriteLine(s); int i = s.WordCount();
Console.WriteLine("number
of words is {0}", i.ToString()); } } public static class MyExtensions
{ public static int WordCount(this String
str) { return str.Split(new char[]
{ ' ', '.', '?' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Length; } } }

Anonymous Methods

Dave Mateer — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 05:25:04 GMT

Thanks to:
http://davidhayden.com/blog/dave/archive/2006/05/28/2974.aspx

Anon methods, delegates, predicates. Anon methods are simple shortcuts so don't have to declare a predicate method.

using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; namespace TestAnonymousMethods
{ public class Program
{ //
using an anon method static void Mainx(string[]
args) { int[]
_integers = {
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 }; int[]
evenIntegers = Array.FindAll(_integers, //
this is the anonymous method below delegate(int integer)
{ return (integer % 2
== 0); } ); foreach (int integer in _integers)
Console.WriteLine(integer); foreach (int integer in evenIntegers)
Console.WriteLine(integer); } //
not using anon method static void Mainy(string[]
args) { int[]
_integers = {
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 }; //
passing in IsEven..a delegate which represents the IsEven method int[]
evenIntegers = Array.FindAll(_integers,
IsEven); foreach (int integer in _integers)
Console.WriteLine(integer); foreach (int integer in evenIntegers)
Console.WriteLine(integer); } static bool IsEven(int integer)
{ return (integer % 2
== 0); } //
not using anon method and looking at predicate / delegate of Array.FindAll static void Main(string[]
args) { int[]
_integers = {
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 }; //
a predicate is expected //
passing in IsEven..a delegate which represents the IsEven method int[]
whatIsInBoth = Array.FindAll(_integers,
IsDaveSequence); foreach (int integer in whatIsInBoth)
Console.WriteLine(integer); } static bool IsDaveSequence(int integer)
{ bool returnState = false; if ((integer
== 1) || (integer == 3) || (integer ==4)) returnState = true; return returnState;
} } }

Delegates in C#

Dave Mateer — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:30:56 GMT

Delegates, delegate to another method. In this example, depending on which person is wired up - Suzanne or Amy.. depends on which method is called when the Get the ingredient button is called.

source code here..delegateIngredients.zip (91.58 KB)

 //
can be used to create a variable that can point to any method that takes an int parameter
and returns a string public delegate string GetSecretIngredient(int amount);

On the form:

 //
so variable ingredientMethod of type delegate GetSecretIngredient currently points
to a null method GetSecretIngredient ingredientMethod = null;

 private void getSuzanne_Click(object sender,
EventArgs e) { //
suzanne.MySecretIngredientMethod property returns a new instance of the the GetSecretIngredient
delegate thats //
pointing to her secret ingredient method. ingredientMethod = new GetSecretIngredient(suzanne.MySecretIngredientMethod);
}

When button is pressed it will go to either the suzanne.MySecretIngredientMethod or the amy.AmySecretIngredientMethod

 private void useIngredient_Click(object sender,
EventArgs e) { if (ingredientMethod
!= null)
Console.WriteLine("I'll
add " + ingredientMethod((int)amount.Value)); else Console.WriteLine("I
dont have a secret ingredient"); }

Good duck example here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/687626/the-purpose-of-delegates

Simple MVC in WinForms

Dave Mateer — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:16:06 GMT

A simple MVC (Model View Controller) implementation..code by Jimmy Chandra
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1107720/mvc-c-simplest-possible-implementation

Why use MVC? Similar reasons to MVP - testability and seperation of concerns

Simple.MVC.zip (167.25 KB)

1. Program.cs runs, running Main.. as is standard in a Win Forms app. Difference from MVP is that main here is instantiating and running a controller class first of all, instead of newing up the view, which calls the controller/presenter.

static void Main()
{ Application.EnableVisualStyles(); Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
TopEmployeeController controller = new TopEmployeeController();
Application.Run(controller.View as Form);
}

2. Controller is instantiated and constructor called:

 private ITopEmployeeView
_view; private Employee
_employee; private bool _monitoring; public TopEmployeeController()
{ _employee = new Employee();
_view = new TopEmployeeForm(this,
_employee); }

3. Controller news up an employee (dumb).. then a view of type TopEmployeeForm, passing its self (the controller) and employee to it.

4. View (the observer) subscribes to the model (the subject) so that when model.OnPropertyChange is called, view.UpdateView is called. This is the observer pattern, made easier in C# using events.. which is using a delegate.

//
view public TopEmployeeForm(ITopEmployeeController
controller, Employee model) { _controller = controller;
_model = model; //Let
the model know that this view is interested if the model change _model.OnPropertyChange
+= new Action(UpdateView);
InitializeComponent(); 
}

6. When Button is pressed on the view. The controller.GetTopEmplyee method is called. This calls model.MontorChanges:

//
controller public void GetTopEmployee()

{

if (!_monitoring)

{

_monitoring = true;

_employee.MonitorChanges();

}

}






7. MonitorChanges does some waiting code, then every second calls FirePropertyChange().
Which calls model.OnPropertyChange. 


Which is really a delegate to View.UpdateView

//
model public event Action
OnPropertyChange; private void FirePropertyChange()
{ var propChange = OnPropertyChange; if (propChange
!= null)
{ OnPropertyChange(); } }

8. The view method which runs every second and displays the name on the form.

//
view public void UpdateView()
{ //
to do with threading if (this.InvokeRequired)
{ this.Invoke(new Action(UpdateView));
} else {
TopEmployeeName = _model.FullName;
} }

Tooling and Setup

Dave Mateer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:53:20 GMT

In preparation for JPBoodhoo's course in Sydney in a months time, I'm looking at the tooling he recommends and going through this videos on dnrtv.com

this is going to be an ongoing list of ideas for me refer to.. excuse the mess!

Setting up Subversion
http://www.west-wind.com/presentations/subversion/

Console2 - console with an alpha transparency
AltTab - alt tab replacement
Resharper4.5 - makes VS2008 faster
Testdriven.net - unit testing easier
mbunit - unit testing framework

Keyboard shortcuts

Testdriven.net - bound to in VS2008, Tools, Options, Keyboard. testdriven.net.runtests.. Ctrl-Shift-Alt-T
rerun tests is to testdriven.net.reruntest.. Ctrl-Shift-Alt-R

Resharper
Ctrl-Alt-v - introduce variable (highlight and it gens the variable)
Alt-Int - generate constructor and..... from an interface
F2 - rename

Matrix Rain Effect in C# Console App

Dave Mateer — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:47:32 GMT

Thanks to the original author of the code (google m7tr1x)..

I had some great fun looking at the code, understanding how this effect works, and refactoring.

The original code is below.. I suggest scrolling down, and looking at the refactored code and pictures describing how the effect works.

Enjoy!

#define readkey using System; namespace m7tr1x
{ class Program
{ static void Main(string[
] args) { Console.Title = "tH3
M7tr1x 3ff3<t"; Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.DarkGreen;
Console.WindowLeft = Console.WindowTop = 0;
Console.WindowHeight = Console.BufferHeight = Console.LargestWindowHeight;
Console.WindowWidth = Console.BufferWidth = Console.LargestWindowWidth; #if readkey
Console.WriteLine("H1T
7NY K3Y T0 C0NT1NU3 =/"); Console.ReadKey(); #endif Console.CursorVisible = false; int width,
height; int[
] y; int[
] l; Initialize(out width, out height, out y, out l); int ms; while ( true )
{ DateTime t1 = DateTime.Now;
MatrixStep(width, height, y, l); ms = 10 - (int)(
(TimeSpan)( DateTime.Now - t1
) ).TotalMilliseconds; if (
ms > 0 ) System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(ms); if (
Console.KeyAvailable ) if (
Console.ReadKey().Key == ConsoleKey.F5 ) Initialize(out width, out height, out y, out l);
} } static bool thistime = false; private static void MatrixStep(int width, int height, int[
] y, int[
] l) { int x;
thistime = !thistime; for (
x = 0
; x < width ; ++x ) { if (
x % 11
== 10 ) { if (
!thistime ) continue;
Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;
} else {
Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.DarkGreen;
Console.SetCursorPosition(x, inBoxY(y[x] - 2 - (
l[x] / 40 * 2
), height)); Console.Write(R); Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Green;
} Console.SetCursorPosition(x, y[x]); Console.Write(R); y[x] = inBoxY(y[x] + 1,
height); Console.SetCursorPosition(x, inBoxY(y[x] - l[x],
height)); Console.Write(' '); } } private static void Initialize(out int width, out int height, out int[
] y, out int[
] l) { int h1; int h2 = (
h1 = (
height = Console.WindowHeight
) / 2
) / 2;
width = Console.WindowWidth - 1;
y = new int[width];
l = new int[width]; int x;
Console.Clear(); for (
x = 0
; x < width ; ++x ) { y[x] = r.Next(height);
l[x] = r.Next(h2 * (
( x % 11
!= 10
) ? 2 : 1 ), h1 * (
( x % 11
!= 10
) ? 2 : 1 )); } } static Random
r = new Random(); static char R
{ get { int t = r.Next(10); if (
t <= 2 ) return (char)(
'0' + r.Next(10)
); else if (
t <= 4 ) return (char)(
'a' + r.Next(27)
); else if (
t <= 6 ) return (char)(
'A' + r.Next(27)
); else return (char)(
r.Next(32, 255) ); } } public static int inBoxY(int n, int height)
{ n = n % height; if (
n < 0 ) return n + height; else return n;
} } }

Here is the refactored code:

using System; namespace matrix
{ class Program
{ //
fields static Random
rand = new Random(); //
properties static char AsciiCharacter
{ get { int t = rand.Next(10); if (t
<= 2) //
returns a number return (char)('0' + rand.Next(10)); else if (t
<= 4) //
small letter return (char)('a' + rand.Next(27)); else if (t
<= 6) //
capital letter return (char)('A' + rand.Next(27)); else //
any ascii character return (char)(rand.Next(32,
255)); } } //
methods static void Main()
{ Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.DarkGreen;
Console.WindowLeft = Console.WindowTop = 0;
Console.WindowHeight = Console.BufferHeight = Console.LargestWindowHeight;
Console.WindowWidth = Console.BufferWidth = Console.LargestWindowWidth;
Console.WriteLine("Hit
Any Key To Continue"); Console.ReadKey(); Console.CursorVisible = false; int width,
height; //
setup array of starting y values int[]
y; //
width was 209, height was 81 //
setup the screen and initial conditions of y Initialize(out width, out height, out y); //
do the Matrix effect //
every loop all y's get incremented by 1 while ( true )
UpdateAllColumns(width, height, y); } private static void UpdateAllColumns(int width, int height, int[]
y) { int x; //
draws 3 characters in each x column each time...  //
a dark green, light green, and a space //
y is the position on the screen //
y[x] increments 1 each time so each loop does the same thing but down 1 y value for (
x = 0
; x < width ; ++x ) { //
the bright green character Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.Green;
Console.SetCursorPosition(x, y[x]); Console.Write(AsciiCharacter); //
the dark green character - 2 positions above the bright green character Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.DarkGreen; int temp = y[x] - 2;
Console.SetCursorPosition(x, inScreenYPosition(temp, height)); Console.Write(AsciiCharacter); //
the 'space' - 20 positions above the bright green character int temp1 = y[x] - 20;
Console.SetCursorPosition(x, inScreenYPosition(temp1, height)); Console.Write(' '); //
increment y y[x] = inScreenYPosition(y[x] + 1,
height); } //
F5 to reset, F11 to pause and unpause if (Console.KeyAvailable)
{ if (Console.ReadKey().Key
== ConsoleKey.F5) Initialize(out width, out height, out y); if (Console.ReadKey().Key
== ConsoleKey.F11) System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1); } } //
Deals with what happens when y position is off screen public static int inScreenYPosition(int yPosition, int height)
{ if (yPosition
< 0) return yPosition + height; else if (yPosition
< height) return yPosition; else return 0;
} //
only called once at the start private static void Initialize(out int width, out int height, out int[]
y) { height = Console.WindowHeight;
width = Console.WindowWidth - 1; //
209 for me.. starting y positions of bright green characters y = new int[width];
Console.Clear(); //
loops 209 times for me for ( int x = 0
; x < width ; ++x ) { //
gets random number between 0 and 81 y[x] = rand.Next(height);
} } } }

how it works:

The screen draws each column.. my screen is 208 wide.. so it loops 208 times, each time drawing a bright green character, dark green character, and a space.

The second loop.. the y value has been incremented by 1.

The 3rd loop

Enjoy!