- •Microsoft C# Programming for the Absolute Beginner
- •Table of Contents
- •Microsoft C# Programming for the Absolute Beginner
- •Introduction
- •Overview
- •Chapter 1: Basic Input and Output: A Mini Adventure
- •Project: The Mini Adventure
- •Reviewing Basic C# Concepts
- •Namespaces
- •Classes
- •Methods
- •Statements
- •The Console Object
- •.NET Documentation
- •Getting into the Visual Studio .Net Environment
- •Examining the Default Code
- •Creating a Custom Namespace
- •Adding Summary Comments
- •Creating the Class
- •Moving from Code to a Program
- •Compiling Your Program
- •Looking for Bugs
- •Getting Input from the User
- •Creating a String Variable
- •Getting a Value with the Console.ReadLine() Method
- •Incorporating a Variable in Output
- •Combining String Values
- •Combining Strings with Concatenation
- •Adding a Tab Character
- •Using the Newline Sequence
- •Displaying a Backslash
- •Displaying Quotation Marks
- •Launching the Mini Adventure
- •Planning the Story
- •Creating the Variables
- •Getting Values from the User
- •Writing the Output
- •Finishing the Program
- •Summary
- •Chapter 2: Branching and Operators: The Math Game
- •The Math Game
- •Using Numeric Variables
- •The Simple Math Game
- •Numeric Variable Types
- •Integer Variables
- •Long Integers
- •Data Type Problems
- •Math Operators
- •Converting Variables
- •Explicit Casting
- •The Convert Object
- •Creating a Branch in Program Logic
- •The Hi Bill Game
- •Condition Testing
- •The If Statement
- •The Else Clause
- •Multiple Conditions
- •Working with The Switch Statement
- •The Switch Demo Program
- •Examining How Switch Statements Work
- •Creating a Random Number
- •Introducing the Die Roller
- •Exploring the Random Object
- •Creating a Random Double with the .NextDouble() Method
- •Getting the Values of Dice
- •Creating the Math Game
- •Designing the Game
- •Creating the Variables
- •Managing Addition
- •Managing Subtraction
- •Managing Multiplication and Division
- •Checking the Answers
- •Waiting for the Carriage Return
- •Summary
- •Chapter 3: Loops and Strings: The Pig Latin Program
- •Project: The Pig Latin Program
- •Investigating The String Object
- •The String Mangler Program
- •A Closer Look at Strings
- •Using the Object Browser
- •Experimenting with String Methods
- •Performing Common String Manipulations
- •Using a For Loop
- •Examining The Bean Counter Program
- •Creating a Sentry Variable
- •Checking for an Upper Limit
- •Incrementing the Variable
- •Examining the Behavior of the For Loop
- •The Fancy Beans Program
- •Skipping Numbers
- •Counting Backwards
- •Using a Foreach Loop to Break Up a Sentence
- •Using a While Loop
- •The Magic Word Program
- •Writing an Effective While Loop
- •Planning Your Program with the STAIR Process
- •S: State the Problem
- •T: Tool Identification
- •A: Algorithm
- •I: Implementation
- •R: Refinement
- •Applying STAIR to the Pig Latin Program
- •Stating the Problem
- •Identifying the Tools
- •Creating the Algorithm
- •Implementing and Refining
- •Writing the Pig Latin Program
- •Setting Up the Variables
- •Creating the Outside Loop
- •Dividing the Phrase into Words
- •Extracting the First Character
- •Checking for a Vowel
- •Adding Debugging Code
- •Closing Up the code
- •Summary
- •Introducing the Critter Program
- •Creating Methods to Reuse Code
- •The Song Program
- •Building the Main() Method
- •Creating a Simple Method
- •Adding a Parameter
- •Returning a Value
- •Creating a Menu
- •Creating a Main Loop
- •Creating the Sentry Variable
- •Calling a Method
- •Working with the Results
- •Writing the showMenu() Method
- •Getting Input from the User
- •Handling Exceptions
- •Returning a Value
- •Creating a New Object with the CritterName Program
- •Creating the Basic Critter
- •Using Scope Modifiers
- •Using a Public Instance Variable
- •Creating an Instance of the Critter
- •Adding a Method
- •Creating the talk() Method for the CritterTalk Program
- •Changing the Menu to Use the talk() Method
- •Creating a Property in the CritterProp Program
- •Examining the Critter Prop Program
- •Creating the Critter with a Name Property
- •Using Properties as Filters
- •Making the Critter More Lifelike
- •Adding More Private Variables
- •Adding the Age() Method
- •Adding the Eat() Method
- •Adding the Play() Method
- •Modifying the Talk() Method
- •Making Changes in the Main Class
- •Summary
- •Introducing the Snowball Fight
- •Inheritance and Encapsulation
- •Creating a Constructor
- •Adding a Constructor to the Critter Class
- •Creating the CritViewer Class
- •Reviewing the Static Keyword
- •Calling a Constructor from the Main() Method
- •Working with Multiple Files
- •Overloading Constructors
- •Viewing the Improved Critter Class
- •Adding Polymorphism to Your Objects
- •Modifying the Critter Viewer in CritOver to Demonstrate Overloaded Constructors
- •Using Inheritance to Make New Classes
- •Creating a Class to View the Clone
- •Creating the Critter Class
- •Improving an Existing Class
- •Introducing the Glitter Critter
- •Adding Methods to a New Class
- •Changing the Critter Viewer Again
- •Creating the Snowball Fight
- •Building the Fighter
- •Building the Robot Fighter
- •Creating the Main Menu Class
- •Summary
- •Overview
- •Introducing the Visual Critter
- •Thinking Like a GUI Programmer
- •Creating a Graphical User Interface (GUI)
- •Examining the Code of a Windows Program
- •Adding New Namespaces
- •Creating the Form Object
- •Creating a Destructor
- •Creating the Components
- •Setting Component Properties
- •Setting Up the Form
- •Writing the Main() Method
- •Creating an Interactive Program
- •Responding to a Simple Event
- •Creating and Adding the Components
- •Adding an Event to the Program
- •Creating an Event Handler
- •Allowing for Multiple Selections
- •Choosing a Font with Selection Controls
- •Creating the User Interface
- •Examining Selection Tools
- •Creating Instance Variables in the Font Chooser
- •Writing the AssignFont() Method
- •Writing the Event Handlers
- •Working with Images and Scroll Bars
- •Setting Up the Picture Box
- •Adding a Scroll Bar
- •Revisiting the Visual Critter
- •Designing the Program
- •Determining the Necessary Tools
- •Designing the Form
- •Writing the Code
- •Summary
- •Chapter 7: Timers and Animation: The Lunar Lander
- •Introducing the Lunar Lander
- •Reading Values from the Keyboard
- •Introducing the Key Reader Program
- •Setting Up the Key Reader Program
- •Coding the KeyPress Event
- •Coding the KeyDown Event
- •Determining Which Key Was Pressed
- •Animating Images
- •Introducing the ImageList Control
- •Setting Up an Image List
- •Looking at the Image Collection
- •Displaying an Image from the Image List
- •Using a Timer to Automate Animation
- •Introducing the Timer Control
- •Configuring the Timer
- •Adding Motion
- •Checking for Keyboard Input
- •Working with the Location Property
- •Detecting Collisions between Objects
- •Coding the Crasher Program
- •Getting Values for newX and newY
- •Bouncing the Ball off the Sides
- •Checking for Collisions
- •Extracting a Rectangle from a Component
- •Getting More from the MessageBox Object
- •Introducing the MsgDemo Program
- •Retrieving Values from the MessageBox
- •Coding the Lunar Lander
- •The Visual Design
- •The Constructor
- •The timer1_Tick() Method
- •The moveShip() Method
- •The checkLanding() Method
- •The theForm_KeyDown() Method
- •The showStats() Method
- •The killShip() Method
- •The initGame() Method
- •Summary
- •Chapter 8: Arrays: The Soccer Game
- •The Soccer Game
- •Introducing Arrays
- •Exploring the Counter Program
- •Creating an Array of Strings
- •Referring to Elements in an Array
- •Working with Arrays
- •Using the Array Demo Program to Explore Arrays
- •Building the Languages Array
- •Sorting the Array
- •Designing the Soccer Game
- •Solving a Subset of the Problem
- •Adding Percentages for the Other Players
- •Setting Up the Shot Demo Program
- •Setting Up the List Boxes
- •Using a Custom Event Handler
- •Writing the changeStatus() Method
- •Kicking the Ball
- •Designing Programs by Hand
- •Examining the Form by Hand Program
- •Adding Components in the Constructor
- •Responding to the Button Event
- •Building the Soccer Program
- •Setting Up the Variables
- •Examining the Constructor
- •Setting Up the Players
- •Setting Up the Opponents
- •Setting Up the Goalies
- •Responding to Player Clicks
- •Handling Good Shots
- •Handling Bad Shots
- •Setting a New Current Player
- •Handling the Passage of Time
- •Updating the Score
- •Summary
- •Chapter 9: File Handling: The Adventure Kit
- •Introducing the Adventure Kit
- •Viewing the Main Screen
- •Loading an Adventure
- •Playing an Adventure
- •Creating an Adventure
- •Reading and Writing Text Files
- •Exploring the File IO Program
- •Importing the IO Namespace
- •Writing to a Stream
- •Reading from a Stream
- •Creating Menus
- •Exploring the Menu Demo Program
- •Adding a MainMenu Object
- •Adding a Submenu
- •Setting Up the Properties of Menu Items
- •Writing Event Code for Menus
- •Using Dialog Boxes to Enhance Your Programs
- •Exploring the Dialog Demo Program
- •Adding Standard Dialogs to Your Form
- •Using the File Dialog Controls
- •Responding to File Dialog Events
- •Using the Font Dialog Control
- •Using the Color Dialog Control
- •Storing Entire Objects with Serialization
- •Exploring the Serialization Demo Program
- •Creating the Contact Class
- •Referencing the Serializable Namespace
- •Storing a Class
- •Retrieving a Class
- •Returning to the Adventure Kit Program
- •Examining the Room Class
- •Creating the Dungeon Class
- •Writing the Game Class
- •Writing the Editor Class
- •Writing the MainForm Class
- •Summary
- •Chapter 10: Chapter Basic XML: The Quiz Maker
- •Introducing the Quiz Maker Game
- •Taking a Quiz
- •Creating and Editing Quizzes
- •Investigating XML
- •Defining XML
- •Creating an XML Document in .NET
- •Creating an XML Schema for Your Language
- •Investigating the .NET View of XML
- •Exploring the XmlNode Class
- •Exploring the XmlDocument Class
- •Reading an Existing XML Document
- •Creating the XML Viewer Program
- •Writing New Values to an XML Document
- •Building the Document Structure
- •Adding an Element to the Document
- •Displaying the XML Code
- •Examining the Quizzer Program
- •Building the Main Form
- •Writing the Quiz Form
- •Writing the Editor Form
- •Summary
- •Overview
- •Introducing the SpyMaster Program
- •Creating a Simple Database
- •Accessing the Data Server
- •Accessing the Data in a Program
- •Using Queries to Modify Data Results
- •Limiting Data with the SELECT Statement
- •Using an Existing Database
- •Adding the Capability to Display Queries
- •Creating a Visual Query Builder
- •Working with Relational Databases
- •Improving Your Data with Normalization
- •Using a Join to Connect Two Tables
- •Creating a View
- •Referring to a View in a Program
- •Incorporating the Agent Specialty Attribute
- •Working with Other Databases
- •Creating a New Connection
- •Converting a Data Set to XML
- •Reading from XML to a Data Source
- •Creating the SpyMaster Database
- •Building the Main Form
- •Editing the Assignments
- •Editing the Specialties
- •Viewing the Agents
- •Editing the Agent Data
- •Summary
- •List of Figures
- •List of Tables
- •List of Sidebars
Figure 1.13: The squiggle at the end of the WriteLine() command indicates a missing semicolon. When you try to run a program that contains errors, C# informs you that there are build errors and asks whether you want to run anyway. Generally, you say no so that you can fix those errors. Any errors that C# notices are placed in a task list at the bottom of the screen. By clicking an item in this list, you are automatically taken to the appropriate line in the code.
Trap The compiler reports where it noticed the error, which isn’t always where the error is located. Still, it gives you a decent hint about what went wrong.
If a program does not compile correctly, don’t panic. Look at the task list and try to solve each problem in order. Often, solving one problem automatically solves the others.
Getting Input from the User
Being able to write information to the screen is very nice, but computer programs are supposed to be interactive. It is even better if the program can get input from the user. Take a look at the program featured in Figure 1.14 to see an example of a simple program that interacts with the user.
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Figure 1.14: The user types a response and receives a customized greeting.
Getting a value from the user is a straightforward task but requires you to understand a couple new concepts. First, look at the code, and you will see that it is very similar to the Hello World program:
using System;
namespace HelloUser
{
///<summary>
///Add user input to the Hello World program
///Andy Harris, 10/30/01
///</summary>
class Hello
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string userName;
Console.Write("Please enter your name: "); userName = Console.ReadLine(); Console.WriteLine("Hi there, {0}!", userName);
Console.WriteLine("Please press the Enter key to continue"); Console.ReadLine();
} // end main } // end class
}// end namespace
Even though the code is mainly familiar, a couple elements might have caught your eye. These changes are all used to add interactivity. This version of the program will ask the user for a name and will use that name in a personalized greeting. To do this, you need a new concept called a variable and you’ll use the Console.ReadLine() method in a new way.
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Creating a String Variable
If you’re going to ask the user for something, you must have a place ready to catch it. Ultimately, computers store all information in memory cells, which handle only binary information. Even seasoned programmers generally prefer to work directly with numbers and text instead of the binary values the computer understands. Computer languages allow you to create special places in memory, designed to hold information. These memory cells are variables. You will deal with many kinds of variables as a C# programmer, but one of the most interesting types is text. Of course, computer scientists could never call this kind of information words or text because everybody would know what they are talking about. Instead, text information is almost always called string data in computing circles.
Trick Actually, text is referred to as strings for a descriptive, almost poetic reason. Computers can’t deal with words at all, or even letters. A letter is stored as a numeric value, using a code such as ASCII (or, in later languages such as C#, unicode). Text is simply a bunch of these numeric values placed in contiguous cells, like beads on a string. All this isn’t important, I suppose, but it is cool to wander around muttering about string manipulation under your breath. People might think that you’re smart.
The line
string userName;
is simply setting up a chunk of memory so that it is ready to store text data. The term string is used to tell the compiler to set up a memory area to handle string (or text) values. The term userName refers to the name I have given this piece of memory.
Trick As a programmer, you will have many opportunities to name things. A few guidelines might come in handy:
∙Don’t use spaces or punctuation in names; these can potentially confuse the compiler.
∙Use descriptive names. If you don’t, you could find yourself baffled about its meaning when you come back to debug it. Naming the variable something more descriptive, such as radius or taxRate, is far better.
∙Resist using long variable names because misspelling them is too easy, which could cause problems later.
∙C# is a case−sensitive language. Most programmers use mainly lowercase letters in their variable names, reserving uppercase letters for differentiating words (such as the capital R in taxRate).
Getting a Value with the Console.ReadLine() Method
Now that you have a variable (the string variable userName) to hold a string value, you need to get that value from the user. The ReadLine() method of the console object is used to, well, read a line from the console. It waits for the user to type something on the screen and, as soon as it encounters the Enter key, returns whatever was typed. Notice the way the ReadLine() method is written in the program:
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userName = Console.ReadLine();
This line of code is an example of an assignment statement. Assignment is one of the most important ideas in programming, but it’s very simple. Some sort of value is being copied from one thing to another. As you read this line, train yourself to think of the equal sign (=) as gets, not equals. This is important because in C#, the equal sign is used not to determine equality but as an assignment operator. (That statement will make more sense after you read Chapter 2, "Branching and Operators: The Math Game.") If you read the line as "userName gets Console.ReadLine()," you will understand what this line of code is supposed to do. It tells the computer to get a line of text from the console and copy that text value to the string variable userName. In most programming languages, assignment flows from right to left. That is, the variable (userName) is given the value (whatever is read from the console).
Incorporating a Variable in Output
After the ReadLine() code is placed in memory named userName, containing whatever text the user typed. The next step is to print out this value to the user as a customized greeting.
The line that provides the greeting looks like this:
Console.WriteLine("Hi there, {0}!", userName);
If you compare this line to the output, you can probably figure out what’s going on. The computer says, “Hi there,” places the user’s name in place of the {0} stuff, and adds an exclamation point to the end. The WriteLine() method can be used to combine plain text with variables. It works by first expecting a line of text. If you want to add variables in your message, you can replace a variable with a number inside braces. Computers usually start counting at zero, so userName is variable number zero, and the value of userName is printed out to the screen. If you ask for a first name and a last name, the line might look like this:
Console.WriteLine("Hi there, {0} {1}!", firstName, lastName);
If you also incorporate a middle initial, the code might end up like this:
Console.WriteLine("Hi there, {0} {1}. {2}!", firstName, mi, lastName);
As you can see, the plain text you want to write should be added first, with placeholders for any variables you might want to include in the message. Then you provide a list of variables. Of course, the order of the variables in the list can make a big difference, and if you refer to variable number 1, you must have at least two variables in the list.
Trap Computers begin counting at zero! The first element in a list is not number one but number zero. Forgetting this is easy if you’re new to programming! Most of the time in your writeLine() statements, you will simply be referring to variable zero ({0}), or you will have no variables at all. By the way, if you want to know the fancy computer scientist name for placing the variables inside the text, it’s string interpolation. See whether you can work that phrase into your dinner conversation tonight.
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