Portions of the CLI
3.2.1 Namespaces
Namespaces were introduced in Chapt er 2 as a way to group related types. They are mentioned again here because they arent just a Visual Basic .NET concept; they are also used by the CLR and by other languages that target the .NET platform. Its important to keep in mind that to the CLR, a namespace is just part of a fully qualified type name, and nothing more. See Sect ion 3.4.2 later in this chapter for more information.3.3 Portions of the CLI
The CLI specification recognizes that the CLR cant be implemented to the same extent on all platforms. For example, the version of the CLR implemented on a cell phone wont be as versatile as the one implemented on Windows 2000 or Windows XP. To address this issue, the CLI defines a set of libraries. Each library contains a set of classes that implement a certain portion of the CLIs functionality. Further, the CLI defines profiles. A profile is a set of libraries that must be implemented on a given platform. The libraries defined by the CLI are: Runtime Infrastructure Library This library provides the core services that are needed to compile and run an application that targets the CLI. Base Class Library This library provides the runtime services that are needed by most modern programming languages. Among other things, the primitive data types are defined in this library. Network Library This library provides simple networking services. Reflection Library This library provides the ability to examine type information at runtime and to invoke members of types by supplying the member name at runtime, rather than at compile time. XML Library This library provides a simple XML parser. Floating Point Library This library provides support for floating point types and operations. 113 Extended Array Library This library provides support for multidimensional arrays. The profiles defined by the CLI at this time are: Kernel Profile This profile defines the minimal functionality of any system claimed as an implementation of the CLI. CLRs that conform to the Kernel Profile must implement the Base Class Library and the Runtime Infrastructure Library. Compact Profile This profile includes the functionality of the Kernel Profile, plus the Network Library, the Reflection Library, and the XML Library. It is intended that an implementation of the Compact Profile can be lightweight, yet provide enough functionality to be useful. Additional profiles will be defined in future versions of the CLI specification. Any given implementation of the CLI is free to implement more than the functionality specified by these minimal profiles. For example, a given implementation could support the Compact Profile but also support the Floating Point Library. The .NET Framework on Windows 2000 supports all the CLI libraries, plus additional libraries not defined by the CLI. Note that the CLI does not include such major class libraries as Windows Forms, ASP.NET, and ADO.NET. These are Microsoft-specific class libraries for developing applications on Windows platforms. Applications that depend on these libraries will not be portable to other implementations of the CLI unless Microsoft makes those class libraries available on those other implementations.3.4 Modules and Assemblies
Parts
» VB.NET - (O'Reilly) Programming Visual Basic NET
» What Is the Microsoft .NET Framework?
» hello, world An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
» Hello, Windows An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
» Hello, Browser An Example Visual Basic .NET Program
» Source Files Identifiers The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Numeric Literals String Literals Character Literals
» Date Literals Boolean Literals Nothing Summary of Literal Formats
» Custom Types Collections Types
» The Namespace Statement The Imports Statement
» Symbolic Constants Scope The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Access Modifiers Assignment The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Unary Operators Arithmetic Operators
» Relational Operators Operators and Expressions
» String-Concatenation Operators Bitwise Operators
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» Call Exit Branching Statements
» Goto If RaiseEvent Branching Statements
» Return Select Case Branching Statements
» For Each Iteration Statements
» Object Instantiation and New Constructors
» Handling Events Inheritance Classes
» Passing arrays as parameters
» Variable-length parameter lists Main method
» Implementing interface methods Overriding inherited methods
» Overloading Overloading inherited methods
» The MyBase Keyword Nested Classes Destructors
» Interfaces The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Enumerations The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Exceptions The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Delegates The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Using Events and Delegates Together
» Creating Custom Attributes Attributes
» Standard Modules Conditional Compilation
» Summary The Visual Basic .NET Language
» Common Language Infrastructure CLI and Common Language Runtime CLR
» Global Assembly Cache GAC Comparison of Assemblies, Modules, and Namespaces
» Application Domains Common Language Specification CLS
» Intermediate Language IL and Just-In-Time JIT Compilation Metadata
» Finalize Memory Management and Garbage Collection
» Dispose Memory Management and Garbage Collection
» A Brief Tour of the .NET Framework Namespaces
» Configuration File Format Configuration
» Configuration Section Groups The appSettings Section
» Adding event handlers Creating a Form in Code
» Handling Form Events Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» Relationships Between Forms Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» Merging Menus MDI Applications
» Detecting MDI Child Window Activation
» Component Attributes Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» The Graphics Class 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» The Pen Class 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» The Brush Class 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» System colors The Color Structure
» Alpha Blending 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» Antialiasing 2-D Graphics Programming with GDI+
» The PrintPageEventArgs Class Printing
» The OnBeginPrint and OnEndPrint Methods Choosing a Printer
» The PageSettings Class Printing
» The PrinterSettings Class Printing
» Page Setup Dialog Box Print Preview
» Summary Windows Forms I: Developing Desktop Applications
» The Button Class The CheckBox Class The ComboBox Class
» The DateTimePicker Class The GroupBox Class The ImageList Class
» The Label Class The LinkLabel Class
» The ListBox Class Common Controls and Components
» The ListBox.ObjectCollection Class
» The ListView Class Common Controls and Components
» The MonthCalendar Class Common Controls and Components
» The Panel Class The PictureBox Class
» The RadioButton Class Common Controls and Components
» The TextBox Class The Timer Class
» Other Controls and Components
» Control Events Windows Forms II: Controls, Common Dialog Boxes, and Menus
» The Anchor Property Form and Control Layout
» Controlling dock order The Dock Property
» The Splitter control The Dock Property
» ColorDialog FontDialog OpenFileDialog Common Dialog Boxes
» PageSetupDialog PrintDialog PrintPreviewDialog SaveFileDialog
» Adding Menus in the Visual Studio .NET Windows Forms Designer
» Programmatically Creating Menus Menus
» Building Controls from Other Controls
» Building Controls That Draw Themselves Building Nonrectangular Controls
» Summary Windows Forms II: Controls, Common Dialog Boxes, and Menus
» Setting control properties using attributes Adding event handlers
» AutoEventWireup Handling Page Events
» The Button control Web Controls
» The CheckBox control The DropDownList control
» The Image control The Label control
» The ListBox control Web Controls
» The RadioButton control Web Controls
» The Table control Web Controls
» The TextBox control Web Controls
» Other web controls Web Controls
» HTML Controls Handling Control Events
» Programmatically Instantiating Controls More About Server Controls
» More About Validation-Control Tag Attributes
» Using Validation-Control Properties Providing a Summary View of Validation Failures
» Performing Custom Validation Adding Validation
» Using Directives to Modify Web Page Compilation
» The Server Object ASP.NET Objects: Interacting with the Framework
» The Application Object The Session Object The Cache Object The Request Object
» The Response Object ASP.NET Objects: Interacting with the Framework
» Discovering Browser Capabilities ASP.NET and Web Forms: Developing Browser-Based Applications
» The Session Object Maintaining State
» The Application Object Maintaining State
» Session and Application Startup and Shutdown global.asax Compiles to a Class
» Adding Global Objects Application-Level Code and global.asax
» ASP.NET authorization Authorization
» Windows NTFS authorization Code-access authorization
» IUSR_ComputerName Impersonation Accessing Network Resources
» User Controls Designing Custom Controls
» Creating a custom server control using Visual Studio .NET
» Creating a custom server control in code Using a custom server control in Visual Studio .NET
» Summary ASP.NET and Web Forms: Developing Browser-Based Applications
» The WebService Attribute The WebMethod Attribute
» Testing a Web Service with a Browser
» Consuming a Web Service in Visual Studio .NET
» Consuming a Web Service in Notepad
» Synchronous Versus Asynchronous Calls
» Web-Service Descriptions Web-Service Discovery
» Limitations of Web Services Summary
» A Brief History of Universal Data Access Managed Providers
» Connecting to a SQL Server Database
» Connecting to an OLE DB Data Source
» The DataSet Class Finding Tables
» Finding Column Values Finding Column Definitions Changing, Adding, and Deleting Rows
» Writing Updates Back to the Data Source
» Relations Between DataTables in a DataSet
» The DataSets XML Capabilities
» Binding a DataSet to a Windows Forms DataGrid
» Binding a DataSet to a Web Forms DataGrid
» Typed DataSets ADO.NET: Developing Database Applications
» Reading Data Using a DataReader
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