www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info Programming Visual Basic 2008 www.it-ebooks.info Other Microsoft .NET resources from O’Reilly Related titles ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook ™ Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5 C# Cookbook ™ C# 3.0 in a Nutshell C# 3.0 Pocket Reference Learning ASP.NET 3.5 Programming ASP.NET 3.5 Programming ASP.NET AJAX Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook ™ .NET Books Resource Center dotnet.oreilly.com is a complete catalog of O’Reilly’s books on .NET and related technologies, including sample chapters and code examples. ONDotnet.com provides independent coverage of fundamental, interoperable, and emerging Microsoft .NET programming and web services technologies. Conferences O’Reilly brings diverse innovators together to nurture the ideas that spark revolutionary industries. We specialize in document- ing the latest tools and systems, translating the innovator’s knowledge into useful skills for those in the trenches. Visit conferences.oreilly.com for our upcoming events. Safari Bookshelf (safari.oreilly.com) is the premier online refer- ence library for programmers and IT professionals. Conduct searches across more than 1,000 books. Subscribers can zero in on answers to time-critical questions in a matter of seconds. Read the books on your Bookshelf from cover to cover or sim- ply flip to the page you need. Try it today for free. www.it-ebooks.info Programming Visual Basic 2008 Tim Patrick Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo www.it-ebooks.info Programming Visual Basic 2008 by Tim Patrick Copyright © 2008 Tim Patrick. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472. O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. Online editions are also available for most titles (safari.oreilly.com). For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: (800) 998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com. Editor: John Osborn Production Editor: Rachel Monaghan Copyeditor: Audrey Doyle Proofreader: Rachel Monaghan Indexer: Ellen Troutman Zaig Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Interior Designer: David Futato Illustrator: Robert Romano Printing History: May 2008: First Edition. Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O’Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Programming Visual Basic 2008, the image of a bufflehead duck, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. This book uses RepKover ™ , a durable and flexible lay-flat binding. ISBN: 978-0-596-51843-1 [M] www.it-ebooks.info To Maki, my lovely wife www.it-ebooks.info www.it-ebooks.info vii Table of Contents Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv 1. Introducing .NET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Before .NET 1 Back to Introducing .NET 2 The .NET Object 3 The Parts of the .NET Framework 7 From Source Code to EXE 16 What About Visual Studio and Visual Basic? 17 Visual Studio 2008 18 Summary 22 Project 23 2. Introducing Visual Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 The History of the Visual Basic Revolution 30 Visual Basic from the Inside Out 32 The Basics of Logic and Data 32 Data Types and Variables 35 Intermission 44 Comments 44 Option Statements 45 Basic Operators 47 Using Functions and Subroutines 49 Conditions 50 Loops 54 Creating Your Own Procedures 57 Other Flow Control Features 61 www.it-ebooks.info viii | Table of Contents Events and Event Handlers 64 Namespaces 66 The My Namespace 69 Summary 70 Project 70 3. Introducing the Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 The Library Project 76 The Needs of the Users 79 The Life of a Project 83 Summary 90 Project 90 4. Designing the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 Relational Databases 95 SQL Server 2005 98 SQL 100 Using Databases in Visual Basic 107 Documenting the Database 108 Summary 109 Project 109 5. .NET Assemblies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 What Is an Assembly? 126 What’s Inside an Assembly? 128 Assemblies and Applications 131 The My Namespace and Assemblies 132 Directives and Assemblies 134 Summary 136 Project 137 6. Data and Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 The Nature of Computer Data 151 Data in .NET 153 Visual Basic Data Types 158 Literals 159 Constants 160 www.it-ebooks.info [...]... basic step-by-step instructions can successfully program in Visual Basic If you are unsure about your ability to quantify tasks in this way, you might want to start out with a book on basic programming concepts xv www.it-ebooks.info You might know how to program in Visual Basic or NET, but maybe not And that’s OK, because this book will teach you Most of the chapters introduce important topics in Visual. .. part of Visual Studio Once they are installed, you can create a new chapter-specific project right from the File ➝ New Project menu in Visual Studio Appendix A has all of the download and installation details I wrote the project code using Visual Basic 2008 Professional Edition Some portions may not be compatible with earlier NET versions of the language None of it is compatible with Visual Basic 6.0... comments When it came time to focus on Visual Basic s 2008 release, I also received fantastic input from Chris Williams, Daniel Seara, Ron Petrusha, and Sander Gerz Many thanks to Joe Binder, Jay Roxe, Prasadi de Silva, and Eric Knox, all members of the Visual Basic team at Microsoft Each of them fielded a relentless onslaught of questions about esoteric Visual Basic and NET features, and provided answers... amount of example code from this book into your product’s documentation requires that you abide by the terms of the software license agreement found in Appendix B We appreciate, but do not require, attribution An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN For example: Programming Visual Basic 2008, by Tim Patrick Copyright 2008 Tim Patrick, 978-0-596-51843-1.” If you feel your... Table of Contents www.it-ebooks.info Preface 1 Welcome to Programming Visual Basic 2008! I know you’re going to enjoy it; I’ve read it five times already You’re probably anxious to get to Chapter 1, but I recommend you read this preface to make sure you paid for the right book Who Is Reading This Book? Writing a book is a lot like writing a Visual Basic application Well, except for the part about finding... only does it refer to these core elements of the CTS, but it is also used when talking about just the Visual Basic- specific value types (more often called the Visual Basic “data types”) The nickname for structures is “user-defined types,” yet another confusing use of “type.” Programmers who used Visual Basic before its NET incarnation also remember “Type” as the language statement used to create user-defined... exist somewhere in the hierarchy, although not every class descends from System Many of the supporting features specific to Visual Basic appear in the Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace, which has “Microsoft” as its root node instead of “System.” When you create new projects in Visual Basic, the name of the project is, by default, a new top-level node in the hierarchy If you create a new Windows application... www.it-ebooks.info 14 Application Settings 392 A Short History of Settings Settings in Visual Basic 2008 Summary Project 392 394 400 401 15 Files and Directories 416 Traditional Visual Basic File Management Manipulating Files Through Streams File Management with the My Namespace Summary Project 417 418 424 427 428... Types Common Visual Basic Functions Summary Project 161 162 165 166 167 172 172 175 176 181 182 7 Windows Forms 187 Inside a Windows Application Windows in NET Making Forms Useful Summary Project 187 191 210 212 212 8 Classes and Inheritance 219 Object-Oriented Programming Concepts OOP in Visual Basic and NET... Object-Oriented Programming Concepts OOP in Visual Basic and NET Related Issues Summary Project 219 224 241 244 244 9 Functional Programming 253 Lambda Expressions Object Initializers Error Handling in Visual Basic The Nature of Errors in Visual Basic Unstructured Error Handling Structured Error Handling Unhandled Errors Managing Errors Summary Project 253 259 260 . free. www.it-ebooks.info Programming Visual Basic 2008 Tim Patrick Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo www.it-ebooks.info Programming Visual Basic 2008 by Tim Patrick Copyright © 2008. Framework 7 From Source Code to EXE 16 What About Visual Studio and Visual Basic? 17 Visual Studio 2008 18 Summary 22 Project 23 2. Introducing Visual Basic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . History of the Visual Basic Revolution 30 Visual Basic from the Inside Out 32 The Basics of Logic and Data 32 Data Types and Variables 35 Intermission 44 Comments 44 Option Statements 45 Basic Operators