What are the basic components of .NET platform?

The basic components of .NET platform (framework) are:

Common Language Runtime (CLR):
The most important part of the .NET Framework is the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR) also called .Net Runtime in short. It is a framework layer that resides above the Operating System and handles/manages the execution of the .NET applications. Our .Net programs don’t directly communicate with the Operating System but through CLR



MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) Code:
When we compile our .Net Program using any .Net compliant language like (C#, VB.NET, C++.NET) it does not get converted into the executable binary code but to an intermediate code, called MSIL or IL in short, understandable by CLR. MSIL is an OS and H/w independent code. When the program needs to be executed, this MSIL or intermediate code is converted to binary executable code, called native code. The presence of IL makes it possible the Cross Language Relationship as all the .Net compliant languages produce the similar standard IL code.



Just In Time Compilers (JITers)
When our IL compiled code needs to be executed, CLR invokes JIT compilers which compile the IL code to native executable code (.exe or .dll) for the specific machine and OS. JITers in many ways are different from traditional compilers as they, as their name suggests, compile the IL to native code only when desired e.g., when a function is called, IL of function’s body is converted to native code; just in time of need. So, the part of code that is not used by particular run is not converted to native code. If some IL code is converted to native code then the next time when its needed to be used, the CLR uses the same copy without re-compiling. So, if a program runs for sometime, then it won’t have any just in time performance penalty. As JITers are aware of processor and OS exactly at runtime, they can optimize the code extremely efficiently resulting in very robust applications. Also, since JITer knows the exact current state of executable code, they can also optimize the code by in-lining small function calls (like replacing body of small function when its called in a loop, saving the function call time). Although, Microsoft stated that C# and .Net are not competing with languages like C++ in efficiency, speed of execution, JITers can make your code even faster than C++ code in some cases when program is run over extended period of time (like web-servers).

Framework Class Library (FCL)
.NET Framework provides huge set of Framework (or Base) Class Library (FCL) for common, usual tasks. FCL contains thousands of classes to provide the access to Windows API and common functions like String Manipulation, Common Data Structures, IO, Streams, Threads, Security, Network Programming, Windows Programming, Web Programming, Data Access, etc. It is simply the largest standard library ever shipped with any development environment or programming language. The best part of this library is they follow extremely efficient OO design (design patterns) making their access and use very simple and predictable. You can use the classes in FCL in your program just as you use any other class and can even apply inheritance and polymorphism on these.

Common Language Specification (CLS)
Earlier we used the term ‘.NET Compliant Language’ and stated that all the .NET compliant languages can make use of CLR and FCL. But what makes a language ‘.NET compliant language’? The answer is Common Language Specification (CLS). Microsoft has released a small set of specification that each language should meet to qualify as a .NET Compliant Language. As IL is a very rich language, it is not necessary for a language to implement all the IL functionality, rather it meets the small subset of it, CLS, to qualify as a .NET compliant language, which is the reason why so many languages (procedural and OO) are now running under .Net umbrella. CLS basically addresses to language design issues and lays certain standards like there should be no global function declaration, no pointers, no multiple inheritance and things like that. The important point to note here is that if you keep your code within CLS boundary, your code is guaranteed to be usable in any other .Net language.

Common Type System (CTS)
.NET also defines a Common Type System (CTS). Like CLS, CTS is also a set of standards. CTS defines the basic data types that IL understands. Each .NET compliant language should map its data types to these standard data types. This makes it possible for the 2 languages to communicate with each other by passing/receiving parameters to/from each other. For example, CTS defines a type Int32, an integral data type of 32 bits (4 bytes) which is mapped by C# through int and VB.Net through its Integer data type.

Garbage Collector (GC)
CLR also contains Garbage Collector (GC) which runs in a low-priority thread and checks for un-referenced dynamically allocated memory space. If it finds some data that is no more referenced by any variable/reference, it re-claims it and returns the occupied memory back to the Operating System; so that it can be used by other programs as necessary. The presence of standard Garbage Collector frees the programmer from keeping track of dangling data.


What is the software development and execution flow in Microsoft.NET?
With .NET development environment, a developer can write his/her code in any .NET compliant programming language like C#, VB.NET, J#, C++.NET, etc. In fact, various modules, components, projects of an application can be written and compiled in different .Net based programming languages. All these components are compiled to the same Intermediate language code (MSIL or CIL) understandable by the .NET CLR.



At runtime, the .NET assembly (compiled IL code) is translated to native machine code and executed by the CLR.



How is MS.NET compared with Java based platforms (J2EE)?
At root level architecture and components, MS.NET and J2EE platforms are very similar. Both are virtual machine based architecture having CLR and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as the underlying virtual machine for the management and execution of programs. Both provide memory, security and thread management on behalf of the program and both try to decouple the applications with the execution environment (OS and physical machine). Both, basically, target the Web based applications and especially the XML based web services. Both provide managed access to memory and no direct access to memory is allowed to their managed applications.

However, there are few contrasts in the architecture and design of the two virtual machines. Microsoft .NET framework’s architecture is more coupled to the Microsoft Windows Operating System which makes it difficult to implement it on various operating systems and physical machines. Java, on the other hand, is available on almost all major platforms. At the darker side, J2EE architecture and JVM is more coupled to the Java programming language while Microsoft.NET has been designed from the scratch to support language independence and language integration. Microsoft.NET covers the component development and integration in much more detail than Java. The versioning policy of .NET is simply the best implemented versioning solution in the software development history. Java has got the support of industry giants like Sun, IBM, Apache and Oracle while the Microsoft.NET is supported by giants like Microsoft, Intel, and HP.


Why should one use MS.NET for software development?
Well, most of the software development all over the world is done on and for Microsoft Windows Operating System. Dot Net is now the standard software development environment for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It dramatically simplifies the development of windows, web based, data access applications, components, controls and web services. Dot net comes with amazing features like XML configuration, reflection, and attributes to ease the overall software development life cycle. Finally, the dot net is supported by the Microsoft Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment; the best IDE available for any software development environment. Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET) supports all the areas of software development from project creation to debugging and installation.



What are the shortcomings of MS.NET platform?
The foremost short coming of .NET platform is that it is still the propriety of Microsoft. It is more coupled with the Microsoft Windows operating system and is implemented only on Microsoft Windows successfully. MS.NET desktop applications can run only on Microsoft Windows, Web based applications and web services can only be deployed on Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). Since, dot net framework contains a lot of utilities, components, and framework class libraries, the size of downloadable framework is quite large (25MB compared to 5MB size of JVM). Not all types of applications can be written in .NET managed applications, for example, you can’t write CLR or Operating System in your managed applications. The managed .Net applications are somewhat slower to start and run than the traditional Win32 applications. The compiled code of .Net managed applications is easier to de-compile back to the source code.


How true it is that .NET and Java programs are quite in-efficient when compared to C++?
The startup of managed .NET and Java programs is definitely slower than the traditional C++ programs as it involves the hosting of CLR into managed application process in .NET and starting the JVM in a new process in case of Java. The execution also is a bit slower during the initial period of program execution as the intermediate code is translated to the machine code on the fly at runtime. But as the program runs various parts repeatedly, the execution gets pace too. Since, the CLR and JVM optimizes the code more efficiently than the static C++ compilers, the execution speed of the program may actually be faster after sometime of the program startup when most of the code is translated. Hence, in the longer run, the .Net and Java based programs should not be in-efficient when compared to C++. We used ‘should’ here as the actual performance depends on the particular implementation and implementation strategy.


What are XML Doc comments (comments start with three slashes ///)?
The XML Doc comments are special kind of comments that can be recognized by Document utility to automatically generate the documentation of your methods, types and regions.


Using COM components in .NET and How to add a reference to a COM component?
The .NET does not encourage the use of COM component directly inside the managed application! Although, the .NET framework contains utilities that enable COM components to be used inside the .Net applications seamlessly. How it is done? The .NET utilities like TlbImp generates the wrapper .NET assembly for the COM component which provides the same calling interface to the client as exposed by the COM component. Inside the wrapper methods, it calls the actual methods of the COM component and returns the result back to the caller. The generated wrapper .NET assembly is called the ‘Runtime Callable Wrapper’ or RCW.

To use a COM component in your Visual Studio.NET project, you need to add a reference of the COM component in the Reference node of the project node of the solution inside the solution explorer window. The great thing about Visual Studio.Net is that it allows you to add a reference to the COM component in exactly the similar way as you add the reference to the .NET assembly. The Visual Studio.NET automatically creates the runtime callable wrapper assembly for the referenced COM component.

To add a reference to a COM component, right click the ‘Reference’ node under the project node inside the solution explorer and select the ‘Add Reference…’ option. It will show you a user interface screen where you browse for the target COM component. When you have selected the component, press the ‘Select’ button and then press OK. This will add a new reference node in the Reference sub tree of the project. By selecting the added reference node, you can edit its properties from the properties window.

Note: The process of importing a COM component into .NET is called ‘COM interoperability with .NET’



What is .NET Framework and what are CLR, CTS and CLS?
. NET is a software platform. It's a language-neutral environment for developing .NET applications that can easily and securely operate within it.

The .NET Framework has two main components: the Common Language Runtime (CLR) and the .NET Framework class library.

The Runtime can be considered an agent that manages code at execution time. Thus providing core services such as memory management, thread management, and remoting. Also incorporating strict type safety, security and robustness.

The class library is a comprehensive collection of reusable types that you can use to develop traditional command-line, WinForm (graphical user interface) applications, Web Forms and XML Web services.

The .NET Framework provides a Runtime environment called the Common Language Runtime or (CLR) that handles the execution of the code and provides useful services for the implementation of the application. CLR takes care of code management upon program execution and provides various services such as memory management, thread management, security management and other system services. The managed code targets CLR benefits by using useful features such as cross-language integration, cross-language exception handling, versioning, enhanced security, deployment support, and debugging.

Common Type System (CTS) describes how types are declared, used and managed. CTS facilitates cross-language integration, type safety, and high performance code execution. The CLS is a specification that defines the rules to support language integration. This is done in such a way, that programs written in any language (.NET compliant) can interoperate with one another. This also can take full advantage of inheritance, polymorphism, exceptions, and other features.


What is MSIL / IL? What is JIT (Just In Time)?
When compiling the source code to managed code, the compiler translates the source into Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL). This is a CPU-independent set of instructions that can efficiently be converted to native code. Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) is a translation used as the output of a number of compilers. It is the input to a just-in-time (JIT) compiler. The Common Language Runtime includes a JIT compiler for the conversion of MSIL to native code.

Before Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) can be executed it, must be converted by the .NET Framework just-in-time (JIT) compiler to native code. This is CPU-specific code that runs on the same computer architecture as the JIT compiler. Rather than using time and memory to convert all of the MSIL in a portable executable (PE) file to native code. It converts the MSIL as needed whilst executing, then caches the resulting native code so its accessible for any subsequent calls.

What is Code Access Security (CAS)? How does CAS work? Who defines the CAS code groups?
Code Access Security (CAS) is part of the .NET security model. CAS determines whether or not a piece of code is allowed to run and also what resources to use. For example, CAS will prevent malicious code from entering your system and causing havoc.

The CAS security policy revolves around two key concepts - code groups and permissions. Each .NET assembly is a member of a particular code group and each code group is granted the permissions specified in a named permission set. An example: Using the default security policy, a control downloaded from a web site belongs to the 'Zone - Internet' code group which complies to the permissions defined by the 'Internet' named permission set.

Microsoft defines some default policies but you can modify these and even create your own. To view the code groups defined on your system; Run 'caspol' from the command-line and checkout the different options on display.

What is serialization in .NET and what are the ways to control serialization?
Serialization is the process of converting an object into a stream of bytes. On the other hand Deserialization is the process of creating an object from a stream of bytes. Serialization/Deserialization is used to transport or to persist objects. Serialization can be defined as the process of storing the state of an object to a storage medium. During this process, the public and private fields of the object and the name of the class, including the assembly are converted to a stream of bytes. Which is then written to a data stream. Upon the object's subsequent deserialized, an exact clone of the original object is created.

Binary serialization preserves Type fidelity, which is useful for preserving the state of an object between different invocations of an application. For example: An object can be shared between different applications by serializing it to the clipboard.

You can serialize an object to a stream, disk, memory, over a network, and so forth. Remoting uses serialization to pass objects "By Value" from one computer or application domain to another. XML serialization serializes only public properties and fields and does not preserve Type fidelity. This is useful when you want to provide or consume data without restricting the application that uses the data.

As XML is an open standard, it is an attractive choice for sharing data across the Web. SOAP is also an open standard, which makes it an attractive choice too. There are two separate mechanisms provided by the .NET class library - XmlSerializer and SoapFormatter/BinaryFormatter. Microsoft uses XmlSerializer for Web Services, and uses SoapFormatter/BinaryFormatter for remoting. Both are available for use in your own code

What is Active Directory? What namespace should I use to use Active Directories?
Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) is a programmatic interface for the Microsoft Windows Active Directory. It enables your applications to interact with different directories on a network using a single interface.

Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework make it easy to add ADSI functionality with the DirectoryEntry and DirectorySearcher components. Using ADSI you can create applications that perform common administrative tasks, such as backing up databases, accessing printers and managing user accounts. ADSI allows:

1) Log on once to work with diverse directories. The DirectoryEntry component class provides username and password properties that can be entered at Runtime and are passed to the Active Directory object you are bound to.

2) Use of an Application-Programming Interface (API) to perform tasks on multiple directory systems. This includes multi protocol support. The DirectoryServices namespace provides the classes to perform most administrative functions such as creating users.

3) Perform "Rich Querying" on directory systems. ADSI technology supports searching for objects with two query dialects: SQL and LDAP.

4) Access and use a single or hierarchical tree structure for administering and maintaining a diverse and complicated network.

5) Integrate directory information with databases such as ?SQL Server. The DirectoryEntry path may be used as an ADO.NET connection string.

Name space to be imported when working with Active Directories:

Can I use the Win32 API from a .NET Framework program?
Using platform invoke it's possible. .NET Framework programs can access native code libraries by means of static DLL entry points.

Here is an example of C# calling the Win32 MessageBox function:


using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

class MainApp
{
[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint="MessageBox")]
public static extern int MessageBox(int hWnd, String
strMessage, String strCaption, uint uiType);

public static void Main()
{
MessageBox(0, "This is PInvoke in operation!",
".NET", 0 );
}


How do I send an attachment in an email?
The following code shows how to add an attachment to an email.

Using System.IO; Using System.Web.Mail; MailAttachment ma=new MailAttachment("c:\sample.txt"); MailMessage mm=new MailMessage(); mm.To ="xyz@programmersheaven.com"; mm.From="abc@yahoo.com"; mm.Body ="Attachment"; mm.Subject="Check out the attached text file"; mm.Attachments.Add(ma); SmtpMail.SmtpServer="mail.programmersheaven.com"; SmtpMail.Send(mm);


}