Brad Abrams : BCL

.NET Framework 3.5 Namespace poster Updated

BradA — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 02:43:31 GMT

A while back I blogged about the .NET Framework 3.5 Namespace poster... We made a few tweaks and updated it, including making it available in more formats.

Download Links:

Full XPS
Split XPS
PDF
Tiled PDF

Enjoy!

When there is no good name...

BradA — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 18:01:00 GMT

I noticed a good debate going on the BCL blog (and now Krzysztof Cwalina’s blog) about the naming of TimeZone2… Clearly the name brings back bad memories of the Win32\COM world …. As Krys points out there is not an easy answer here. Ideally we could come up with a meaningful name, but lacking that, this seems like the least bad option…

Source code for CLR\BCL 2.0

BradA — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:40:00 GMT

Great news... Rotor V2.0 ships... I have found Rotor a great way to look at (mostly) the real source code from the CLR and BCL to see what is really going on under the covers.

You gotta love the little things in .NET Framework 2.0: File.ReadAllLines()

BradA — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 02:44:00 GMT

I was recently reviewing some samples and I ran across one that made me really appreciate the work we did in BCL in .NET Framework 2.0... it maybe a very trivial thing, but it really improves the code.

The code sample in question looked something like:

if (autoCompleteWordList == null)

{

List<String> words = new List<string>();

FileStream file = new

FileStream(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/words.txt"), FileMode.Open,

FileAccess.Read);

StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(file);

String word;

while ((word = reader.ReadLine()) != null)

{

words.Add(word);

}

file.Close();

autoCompleteWordList = words.ToArray();

Array.Sort(autoCompleteWordList, new CaseInsensitiveComparer());

}

I was able to cut the lines of code by more than 1/2 by using the File.ReadAllLines() method added in .NET Framework 2.0

if (autoCompleteWordList == null)

{

string[] temp = File.ReadAllLines(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/words.txt"));

Array.Sort(temp, new CaseInsensitiveComparer());

autoCompleteWordList = temp;

}

What do you think? What other timesaving gems have you found in .NET Framework 2.0?

PowerCollections for V2.0 RTM

BradA — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 08:51:00 GMT

Peter just posted a version of the Power Collections for V2.0. I’d love to hear your feedback on these and the general model. Our goal with helping out Peter and Wintellect with power collections was to provide a first class extension of the existing collection classes that developers could use to take full advantage of the platform.

Do you think we meet that goal? Would you use Power Collections in your next application? Would you like to see other PowerXxx classes? Such as PowerMath or PowerIO?

Or would you rather us focus on doing only what we can inside in the constraints of shipping as part of the .NET Framework and WinFX?

Thanks for your feedback.

10/16/2006 Update: I updated the link to the correct site

Environment.MachineName truncates after the first 15 characters

BradA — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:28:00 GMT

When in a domain, a machine’s name is limited to 15 characters, but in a workgroup a machine name can be much longer. However, as one of our internal customers noticed, Environment.MachineName truncates after the first 15 characters. This is because Environment.ComputerName maps to NetBIOS name of the local computer and not the DNS host name. NetBIOS name is limited to MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH which is 15 for Windows (refer to winbase.h).

You might want to look into Dns.GetHostByName or P/Invoke to GetHostNameEx for more flexibility.

Cool Console Game

BradA — Fri, 17 Jun 2005 07:11:00 GMT

You thought Space Invaders! was a cool sample, check out this one: It is a VB 2005 Console based game that rocks. http://www.heroicadventure.com/

It reminds me of sitting in my Dad’s lab at NCSU playing Castle on one of the consoles connected to a mainframe.. Anyone of a .NET port of Castle?

BTW – thanks to Joel for pointing it out to me in his trip report from TechEd

Showing Progress in a Console Windows

BradA — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 01:41:00 GMT

Recently I needed to show some progress indicator on some long running console application. I recall the good old days of my college days with console based SMTP clients such as elm and pine… as I recall these clients showed progress via a simple ASCII spiner.

I was impressed with how simple this is to do with .NET Framework 2.0.. I started off writing the usage code I wanted to enable, then built a simple class that meet those requirements.. I highly recommend this process especially for more complex designs.
Here is the client code:

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ConsoleSpiner spin = new ConsoleSpiner();
            Console.Write("Working....");
            while (true)
            {
                spin.Turn();
            }
        }

And here is the class I came up with.

    public class ConsoleSpiner
    {
        int counter;
        public ConsoleSpiner()
        {
            counter = 0;
        }
        public void Turn()
        {
            counter++;
            switch (counter % 4)
            {
                case 0: Console.Write("/"); break;
                case 1: Console.Write("-"); break;
                case 2: Console.Write("\\"); break;
                case 3: Console.Write("-"); break;
            }
            Console.SetCursorPosition(Console.CursorLeft - 1, Console.CursorTop);
        }
    }

PS – does anyone still use elm\pine? Are their clients that work with exchange? Also, I was always told that pine was an acronym for “Pine Is Not Elm”, but accounting to the official site it is not.

Love to code? Love to take on big projects? this is the job for you!

BradA — Fri, 15 Apr 2005 02:32:00 GMT

I am looking for a technical Program Manager to own some core parts of the platform including Reflection, Reflection.Emit, Delegates, etc. If you love to code, love working with developers, know how to really ship software you will love this job!

Drop me a line if you are interested or might know of someone who is.

http://members.microsoft.com/careers/search/details.aspx?JobID=a2308a89-fd40-44a2-a3c9-d64e3e0d3b08

Fun with Equality Follow up...

BradA — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 14:00:00 GMT

Some great answers to my recent quiz… I particularly love the Nullable<T> and string interning usage.. very nice!

The question again was:

Find examples for each of the following:

Question 1: x == y && !x.Equals(y)

Question 2: x != y && x.Equals(y)

Question 3: x ==y doesn't even compile

Question 4: x == y && (object)x != (object)y

Here are the answers I had in mind…

public static void Question1()

{

int x = 1; byte y = 1;

Console.WriteLine(x == y && !x.Equals(y));

}

Question 1 boxes y and calls Int32.Equals() on it. The first line of Int32.Equals check to see if they are of the same type, they are not this is an int while the object is of type byte, so it returns false.

public static void Question2()

{

string x = "hello"; object y = string.Copy(x);

Console.WriteLine(x != y && x.Equals(y));

}

Question2 plays off the difference between reference equality and value equality. x != y uses reference equality.. are these two values stored at the same location? While string overloads the .Equals() method to be value equality (that is do these two values have the same contents). Notice it is tricky because the C# compiler defines == and != on strings to be value equality as well, but in this case it is between a string and an object. Also note that we have to copy the string, we can’t just use a literal string of the same value because of string interning they’d have the same location.

public static void Question3()

{

string x = null; Type y = null;

Console.WriteLine(x == y);

}

Question3 is a bit of a trick… == is not defined between string and Type so this will not compile.

public static void Question4()

{

int x = 1; int y = 1;

Console.WriteLine(x == y && (object)x != (object)y);

}

Question4 is the basics of boxing. x and y each box into their own instance stored in different locations so the reference comparison their returns false.

Astute readers will notice that on V2.0, Question 1 actually prints true not false. The reason is that we added an overload Int32.Equals (int value). So rather the boxing to call the default equals method, the compiler widens y to an int and calls the strongly typed Equals method which does the right thing. Notice it is simple enough to make this pass on V2.0 as well…

public static void Question1()

{

int x = 1; float y = 1;

Console.WriteLine(x == y && !x.Equals(y));

}

Thanks for playing!

Fun with Equality Follow up...

Fun with Equality

BradA — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 07:51:00 GMT

Isn’t it funny how the “easiest” concepts can be the most complicated? A reader sent me the following quiz to help us appreciate the subtlies of equality in the system. Luckily he gave me the answers as well… ;-)

Consider the following program:

object x = new object();

object y = new object();

/*Question 1*/ Console.WriteLine(x == y && !x.Equals(y));

/*Question 2*/ Console.WriteLine(x != y && x.Equals(y));

/*Question 3*/ Console.WriteLine(x == y);

/*Question 4*/ Console.WriteLine(x == y && (object)x != (object)y);

They should all print “false” right?

For each question, find a way to declare and initialize x and y such that:

Question 1: prints true

Question 2: prints true

Question 3: does not even compile

Question 4: prints true

Notice, we are not asking for a solution that works for all 4, one solution for each will be fine…

All answers should be of the form:

public static void Question<<question number>>()

{

<<type>> x = <<intialize instance>>;

<<type>> y = <<intialize instance>>;

Console.WriteLine(<<question>>);

}

So for example, a legal (but incorrect) answer to question1 would be:

public static void Question1()

{

string x = "1";

object y = new Object() ;

Console.WriteLine(x == y && !x.Equals(y));

}

The rules of the game:

You can only use “base” data types: object, string, Int32, double, Type, etc
No more than two lines of plainly formatted code (before the Console.WriteLine)
You can’t change anything about the question line, it has to appear exactly as I show above
Extra credit for getting solutions no one else thinks of and for pointing out differences between versions of the CLR

Manuscript drop SLAR Vol2

BradA — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 17:14:00 GMT

We are done! Today the author team for the SLAR Vol2 dropped the manuscript to Addison-Wesley. I gotta say it took a lot longer than I expected to complete the original SLAR, but I am happy with where we ended up. This completes the CLI standard library set by covering Xml, Reflection and the net classes. It includes over 1,000 individual samples and over 100 annotations from folks that designed these types… I can’t wait to get it in the stores! We still have many long hours of page proofs and final revisions to go, but we are almost there… I’ll certainly let you know when Amazon has it for sale.

Thanks to the many of you that reviewed early drafts and provided feedback to me directly and indirectly via this blog. The book is clearly better for it!

Now, that is what I call a blog day!

BradA — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 06:39:00 GMT

Wow – I gotta say the BCL team knows how to have a blog day… In one day the team managed to post 23 meaty blogs on a whole range of topics… and I know that many entries got ½ done that will post out over the next week or so. No doubt great search engine bait for years to come. I’d love to hear your feedback…is a blog day a good idea? What was your favorite post?

Here is a brief summary:

Play the CLR acronym game! [Brad Abrams]

Come test your knowledge of obscure managed code related acronyms!

How to set MACL from one directory to another? [Ravi Krishnaswamy]

Done any ACLs work recently? The .NET Framework 2.o makes it so much easier… and Ravi would know as he is the dev that owns the feature!

Avoiding Boxing in Classes Implementing Generic Interfaces through Reflection [Dave Fetterman]

Tricks from the dev that owns System.Collections.Generics… check it out!

How Did System.Decimal Change from V1.0 to V1.1? [Anthony Moore]

And who says we only talk about the future stuff… The dev lead for the BLC, Mr. Decimal himself describes some changes we made to Decimal as part of the EMCA\ISO standardization work.

CodeDom now supports a way to generate code for CodeTypeMember [Vinaya Bhushana Gattam Reddy]

The test lead for the BCL team (and they guy that owns testing CodeDom) talks about some cool new codedom features in 2.0…

Regex and Balanced Matching [Ryan Byington]

RegEx for the guru… Ryan’s owns testing for Regex, so he should know!

Potential additions to the Math class [Katy King]

Always looking to the future, Katy is asking about what else we should add to the Math class…

RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitspace [Ryan Byington]

Ahh – now I think even I can get my head around that much regex!

DirectoryInfo.Name lacks security checks [Ravi Krishnaswamy]

If you have a semi-trusted app, you should be aware of this… In the process, Ravi gives you some transperncy into how we think about issues like this… your feedback is always welcome.

What are the New DateTime Features in Whidbey [Anthony Moore]

DateTime gets an update! The BCL devlead tells you want to look forward to in the future..

IO Exceptions will now reveal FullPath (if you have PathDiscovery access) [Ravi Krishnaswamy]

More for the security review of System.IO we did late last year.

A Tracing Primer - Part I [Mike Rousos]

What is an enterprise app without Tracing.. Mike, who owns testing in this area, walks you through the basics…

Writing a Useful Windows Service in .NET in Five Minutes [Dave Fetterman]

Wow -- is it possible? Dave should know, he is the dev for the feature…

Testing Managed ACL for IO [Lakshan Fernando]

Get an inside scope on how we do testing at Microsoft….

Synchronization in Generic Collections [Brian Grunkemeyer]

What happened to SyncRoot? Find out! Brian should know as he wrote most of the generic collections.

Fixing bugs with compatibility in mind - an IO experience [Lakshan Fernando]

An inside look at our compat bar… what do you think? Are we doing the right things for you?

Best V2.0 feature in the .NET Framework: A BCL Poll [Kit George]

I love this post… It is cool to see what the team likes about what we built.. the big and the small ;-)

Come and Meet the CLR team! [Kit George]

I have already plugged this, but if you are in the area, come and see us!

The .NET Vision (aka: the big picture): what are we working towards? [Kit George]

Wow – get does a good tour of the CLR on this one…

An intro to CodeDom [David Gutierrez]

A great way to get started on CodeDom from the dev that would know!

SafeHandles: the best V2.0 feature of the .NET Framework [Ravi Krishnaswamy]

Ravi gives you a primer on a new CLR 2.0 feature…

PerformanceCounters: reading the disk counters [David Gutierrez]

The truth about perf counters from the dev that would know!

The SLAR on System.Convert [Brad Abrams]

You know that guy… ;-)

Pref: Convert.ToString() or Int32.ToString()

BradA — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 18:34:00 GMT

A reader recently asked me if there is any perf difference between Convert.ToString() or Int32.ToString().

If you search for Convert.cs you will find the Rotor source for Convert.cs which helps answer the question…

02066         public static string ToString(int value) {
02067             return value.ToString();
02068         }

As you can see, all Convert.ToString() does it call value.ToString(). The call is simple enough that it is likely to get inlined. So I can’t imagine their being any noticeable differences.

But we should of course, measure… so on a very noise laptop running the latest Whidbey CTP I ran this test:

ToString Test: 00:00:16.0299278

Convert Test: 00:00:16.4424654

Press any key to continue . . .

As you can see, there is almost no difference between these two. So net: you should use which ever one feels more natural to you in your project.

Here is the code if you want to play with it:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Diagnostics;

class Program

{

static int iterations = 50000000;

static void Main(string[] args)

{

//do one round just to worm up...

for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)

{

i.ToString();

Convert.ToString(i);

}

Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch();

//Do the ToString() test

sw.Start();

for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)

{

i.ToString();

}

sw.Stop();

Console.WriteLine("ToString Test: {0}", sw.Elapsed);

sw.Reset();

//Do the Convert() test

sw.Start();

for (int i = 0; i < iterations; i++)

{

Convert.ToString(i);

}

sw.Stop();

Console.WriteLine("Convert Test: {0}", sw.Elapsed);

}

update: just fixed some formatting

MSDN-TV on PowerCollections posted

BradA — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 10:46:00 GMT

Peter and Krys are interviewed on MSDN TV recently about the PowerCollections project… Check it out

Peter does a great job talking about the history and motivation of the project... I do hope that you find value in the way power collections extends System.Collections.Generics.

As Peter says, the major distinguishing philosophy of the project has been to fit in nicely to the existing System.Collections.Generics namespace rather than create a “new world”.

Krys and Peter talk about the new Naming guidelines for generic type parameters… Always good to see more discussion on this one ;-)

To me, one of the most important things about the project is the feedback you give Peter… One the things I want to do is to use this project to vet design ideas with you… so please give him positive and negative feedback.

There is also an interesting discussion on how List<T> works and what it is good for (and not) and how PowerCollection’s BigList<T> fits into this space.

Enjoy!