This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook By John Clark Craig, Tim Patrick Publisher: O'Reilly Pub Date: September 2006 Print ISBN-10: 0-596-10177-5 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-59-610177-0 Pages: 740 Table of Contents | Index This book will help you solve more than 300 of the most common and not-so-common tasks that working Visual Basic 2005 programmers face every day If you're a seasoned NET developer, beginning Visual Basic programmer, or a developer seeking a simple and clear migration path from VB6 to Visual Basic 2005, the Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook delivers a practical collection of problem-solving recipes for a broad range of Visual Basic programming tasks The concise solutions and examples in the Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook range from simple tasks to the more complex, organized by the types of problems you need to solve Nearly every recipe contains a complete, documented code sample showing you how to solve the specific problem, as well as a discussion of how the underlying technology works and that outlines alternatives, limitations, and other considerations As with all O'Reilly Cookbooks, each recipe helps you quickly understand a problem, learn how to solve it, and anticipate potential tradeoffs or ramifications Useful features of the book include: Over 300 recipes written in the familiar O'Reilly Problem-Solution-Discussion format Hundreds of code snippets, examples, and complete solutions available for download VB6 updates to alert VB6 programmers to code-breaking changes in Visual Basic 2005 Recipes that target Visual Basic 2005 features not included in previous releases Code examples covering everyday data manipulation techniques and language fundamentals Advanced projects focusing on multimedia and mathematical transformations using linear algebraic methods Specialized topics covering files and file systems, printing, and databases In addition, you'll find chapters on cryptography and compression, graphics, and special programming techniques Whether you're a beginner or an expert, the Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook is sure to save you time, serving up the code you need, when you need it This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook By John Clark Craig, Tim Patrick Publisher: O'Reilly Pub Date: September 2006 Print ISBN-10: 0-596-10177-5 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-59-610177-0 Pages: 740 Table of Contents | Index Copyright Dedication Preface Chapter Visual Basic Programming Introduction Recipe 1.1 Creating a Windows Forms Application Recipe 1.2 Creating a Console Application Recipe 1.3 Creating an ASP.NET Web Forms Application Chapter The Development Environment Introduction Recipe 2.1 Discovering and Using a Code Snippet Recipe 2.2 Creating a New Snippet Recipe 2.3 Sharing Snippets Recipe 2.4 Adding Snippet Files to Visual Studio Recipe 2.5 Getting an Application's Version Number Recipe 2.6 Letting Visual Studio Automatically Update an Application's Version Number Recipe 2.7 Setting the Startup Form for an Application Recipe 2.8 Setting the Startup to a Sub Main Procedure Recipe 2.9 Getting an Application's Command Line Recipe 2.10 Testing an Application's Command Line Recipe 2.11 Obfuscating an Application Recipe 2.12 Determining if an Application Is Running in the Visual Studio Environment Recipe 2.13 Accessing Environment Variables Recipe 2.14 Accessing the Registry Recipe 2.15 Getting System Information Recipe 2.16 Getting the User's Name Chapter Application Organization Introduction Recipe 3.1 Creating a Code Module Recipe 3.2 Creating a Class Recipe 3.3 Creating a Structure Recipe 3.4 Creating Other Item Types Recipe 3.5 Creating Object Instances Recipe 3.6 Initializing a Class Instance with Data Recipe 3.7 Releasing an Instance's Resources Recipe 3.8 Using Namespaces Recipe 3.9 Splitting a Class Across Multiple Files Recipe 3.10 Creating a Form Based on Another Form Recipe 3.11 Passing and Returning Structures and Other Objects Recipe 3.12 Creating and Using an Enumeration This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Recipe 3.13 Converting Between Numeric and String Enumeration Values Recipe 3.14 Creating a Method That Accepts Different Sets of Arguments Recipe 3.15 Using Standard Operators for Nonstandard Purposes Recipe 3.16 Enforcing Strong Data Typing in an Otherwise Weakly Typed Collection Chapter Forms, Controls, and Other Useful Objects Introduction Recipe 4.1 Creating and Adding Controls at Runtime Recipe 4.2 Iterating Through All Controls on a Form Recipe 4.3 Sharing Event-Handler Logic Among Many Controls Recipe 4.4 Working with Timers Recipe 4.5 Determining If a Control Can Take the Focus Recipe 4.6 Programmatically Clicking a Button Recipe 4.7 Drawing a Control Recipe 4.8 Making a Form the Top-Most Form Recipe 4.9 Indicating the Accept and Cancel Buttons on a Form Recipe 4.10 Remembering a Form's Position Between Uses Recipe 4.11 Attaching a Control to the Edge of a Form Recipe 4.12 Moving or Resizing Controls as a Form Resizes Recipe 4.13 Limiting the Sizing of a Form Recipe 4.14 Centering a Form Recipe 4.15 Creating and Moving a Borderless Form Recipe 4.16 Creating a Fading Form Recipe 4.17 Creating a Nonrectangular Form Recipe 4.18 Changing Menus at Runtime Recipe 4.19 Creating Shortcut Menus Chapter Strings Introduction Recipe 5.1 Using a StringBuilder Recipe 5.2 Creating a String of N Identical Characters Recipe 5.3 Creating a String by Repeating a String N Times Recipe 5.4 Obfuscating a String Recipe 5.5 Converting Binary Data to a Hexadecimal String Recipe 5.6 Extracting Substrings from Larger Strings Recipe 5.7 Converting a String's Case Recipe 5.8 Comparing Strings with Case Sensitivity Recipe 5.9 Comparing Strings Without Case Sensitivity Recipe 5.10 Converting Strings to and from Character Arrays Recipe 5.11 Converting Strings to and from Byte Arrays Recipe 5.12 Tallying Characters Recipe 5.13 Counting Words Recipe 5.14 Removing Extra Whitespace Recipe 5.15 Using the Correct End-of-Line Characters Recipe 5.16 Replacing Substrings Recipe 5.17 Inserting a Character or String Recipe 5.18 Inserting a Line Recipe 5.19 Double-Spacing a String Recipe 5.20 Formatting Numbers into Strings Recipe 5.21 Trimming Sets of Characters from a String Recipe 5.22 Identifying and Validating Types of Data in a String Recipe 5.23 Converting Strings Between Encoding Systems Recipe 5.24 Determining a Character's Type Recipe 5.25 Parsing Strings Recipe 5.26 Concatenating Strings This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Recipe 5.26 Concatenating Strings Recipe 5.27 Speeding Up String Manipulation Recipe 5.28 Counting Occurrences of a Substring Recipe 5.29 Padding a String for Exact Length and Alignment Recipe 5.30 Converting Tabs to Spaces Recipe 5.31 Reversing a String Recipe 5.32 Shuffling a String Recipe 5.33 Using a Simple String Encryption Recipe 5.34 Converting a String to Morse Code Recipe 5.35 Adding Strings to an Application's Resources Recipe 5.36 Converting Any Data to a String Recipe 5.37 Using Regular Expressions to Extract All Numbers Recipe 5.38 Getting a Count of Regular Expression Matches Recipe 5.39 Getting the Nth Regular Expression Match Recipe 5.40 Compiling Regular Expressions for Speed Recipe 5.41 Using Regular Expressions to Validate Data Recipe 5.42 Using Regular Expressions to Count Characters, Words, or Lines Recipe 5.43 Converting a String to and from Base64 Recipe 5.44 Splitting a String Recipe 5.45 Creating a String of Space Characters Chapter Numbers and Math Introduction Recipe 6.1 Using Compact Operator Notation Recipe 6.2 Choosing Integers of the Right Size and Type for the Job Recipe 6.3 Using Unsigned Integers Recipe 6.4 Swapping Two Integers Without Using a Third Recipe 6.5 Using Single- and Double-Precision Variables Recipe 6.6 Using Decimal Variables for Maximum Precision Recipe 6.7 Converting Between Number Types Recipe 6.8 Rounding Numbers Accurately Recipe 6.9 Declaring Loop Counters Within Loops Recipe 6.10 Converting Between Radians and Degrees Recipe 6.11 Limiting Angles to a Range Recipe 6.12 Creating Double-Precision Point Variables Recipe 6.13 Converting Between Rectangular and Polar Coordinates Recipe 6.14 Creating Three-Dimensional Variables Recipe 6.15 Converting Between Rectangular, Spherical, and Cylindrical Coordinates Recipe 6.16 Working with Complex Numbers Recipe 6.17 Solving Right Triangles Recipe 6.18 Solving Any Triangle Recipe 6.19 Determining if a String Contains a Valid Number Recipe 6.20 Converting Numbers to Integers Recipe 6.21 Calculating π to Thousands of Digits Recipe 6.22 Getting a Number's Prime Factors Recipe 6.23 Using Recursion to Calculate Factorials Recipe 6.24 Manipulating Bits with Bitwise Operators Recipe 6.25 Storing and Retrieving Bits in a BitArray Recipe 6.26 Enhancing the Random Number Generator Recipe 6.27 Generating Random Integers in a Range Recipe 6.28 Generating Random Real Numbers in a Range Recipe 6.29 Generating Normal-Distribution Random Numbers Recipe 6.30 Generating Exponential-Distribution Random Numbers Recipe 6.31 Creating a Matrix This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Recipe 6.32 Inverting a Matrix Recipe 6.33 Calculating the Determinant of a Matrix Recipe 6.34 Solving Simultaneous Equations Recipe 6.35 Listing of the MatrixHelper Class Chapter Dates and Times Introduction Recipe 7.1 Getting the System Date and Time Recipe 7.2 Accessing the System's Time Zone Recipe 7.3 Using System Ticks Recipe 7.4 Timing Application Activities Recipe 7.5 Calculating Elapsed Time Using Ticks Recipe 7.6 Calculating Elapsed Time with the Stopwatch Recipe 7.7 Extracting Year, Month, and Day Numbers from a Date Value Recipe 7.8 Extracting Hour, Minute, and Second Numbers from a Date Value Recipe 7.9 Creating a Date or Time Value from Its Parts Recipe 7.10 Formatting Dates and Times Recipe 7.11 Parsing and Validating Dates and Times Recipe 7.12 Adding to Dates and Times Recipe 7.13 Subtracting from Dates and Times Recipe 7.14 Determining the Number of Days Between Two Dates Recipe 7.15 Determining the Day of the Week for a Date Recipe 7.16 Determining the Day of the Year for a Date Recipe 7.17 Determining the Number of Days in a Month Recipe 7.18 Using Controls to Enter or Select a Date Recipe 7.19 Calculating the Phase of the Moon Recipe 7.20 Creating a Calendar Recipe 7.21 Checking for Leap Years Recipe 7.22 Dates and Times in ISO 8601 Formats Chapter Arrays and Collections Introduction Recipe 8.1 Filling an Array While Declaring It Recipe 8.2 Sorting Array Elements Recipe 8.3 Reversing an Array Recipe 8.4 Inserting into an Array Recipe 8.5 Shuffling an Array Recipe 8.6 Swapping Two Array Values Recipe 8.7 Resizing Arrays Without Losing Existing Values Recipe 8.8 Quickly Copying Part of an Array into Another Recipe 8.9 Writing a Comma-Separated-Values File from a String Array Recipe 8.10 Reading a Comma-Separated-Values File into a String Array Recipe 8.11 Using a Multivalue Array Instead of a Two-Dimensional Array Recipe 8.12 Converting Between Delimited Strings and Arrays Recipe 8.13 Formatting an Array as a Single String Recipe 8.14 Iterating Through Array Elements Recipe 8.15 Passing Arrays to Methods Recipe 8.16 Returning Arrays from Functions Recipe 8.17 Creating a Collection Recipe 8.18 Inserting an Item into a Collection Recipe 8.19 Deleting a Collection Item Recipe 8.20 Iterating Through a Collection Chapter Graphics Introduction Recipe 9.1 Creating Graphics Objects This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Recipe 9.1 Creating Graphics Objects Recipe 9.2 Drawing on Controls for Special Effects Recipe 9.3 Letting the User Select a Color Recipe 9.4 Working with Coordinate Systems (Pixels, Inches, Centimeters) Recipe 9.5 Creating a Bitmap Recipe 9.6 Setting a Background Color Recipe 9.7 Drawing Lines, Ellipses, and Rectangles Recipe 9.8 Drawing Lines One Pixel Wide Regardless of Scaling Recipe 9.9 Forcing a Form or Control to Redraw Recipe 9.10 Using Transparency Recipe 9.11 Scaling with Transforms Recipe 9.12 Using an Outline Path Recipe 9.13 Using Gradients for Smooth Color Changes Recipe 9.14 Drawing Bezier Splines Recipe 9.15 Drawing Cardinal Splines Recipe 9.16 Limiting Display Updates to Specific Regions Recipe 9.17 Drawing Text Recipe 9.18 Rotating Text to Any Angle Recipe 9.19 Mirroring Text on the Canvas Recipe 9.20 Getting the Height and Width of a Graphic String Recipe 9.21 Drawing Text with Outlines and Drop Shadows Recipe 9.22 Calculating a Nice Axis Recipe 9.23 Drawing a Simple Chart Recipe 9.24 Creating Odd-Shaped Forms and Controls Recipe 9.25 Using the RGB, HSB (HSV), and HSL Color Schemes Recipe 9.26 Creating a Rubber-Band Rectangular Selection Recipe 9.27 Animating with Transparency Recipe 9.28 Substitutions for Obsolete Visual Basic 6.0 Features Chapter 10 Multimedia Introduction Recipe 10.1 Playing an Audio File Recipe 10.2 Displaying Image Files Recipe 10.3 Playing a Video File Recipe 10.4 Making Your Computer Beep Recipe 10.5 Creating an Animation Using Multiple Images Recipe 10.6 Creating an Animation by Generating Multiple Bitmaps Recipe 10.7 Creating an Animation by Drawing at Runtime Recipe 10.8 Creating Animated Sprites Recipe 10.9 Resizing and Compressing JPEG Files Recipe 10.10 Getting JPEG Extended Information Recipe 10.11 Creating Thumbnails Recipe 10.12 Displaying Images While Controlling Stretching and Sizing Recipe 10.13 Scrolling Images Recipe 10.14 Merging Two or More Images Recipe 10.15 Using Resource Images Recipe 10.16 Capturing an Image of the Screen Recipe 10.17 Getting Display Dimensions Recipe 10.18 Speeding Up Image Processing Recipe 10.19 Converting an Image to Grayscale Recipe 10.20 Performing Edge Detection on an Image Recipe 10.21 Full Listing of the LockImage Class Chapter 11 Printing Introduction This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Recipe 11.1 Enumerating Printers Recipe 11.2 Sending "Raw" Data to a Printer Recipe 11.3 Get Details About the Default Printer Recipe 11.4 Creating a Print Preview Recipe 11.5 Prompting for Printed Page Settings Recipe 11.6 Drawing Text and Graphics to a Printer Recipe 11.7 Determining the Print Destination Recipe 11.8 Creating Graph Paper Chapter 12 Files and File Systems Introduction Recipe 12.1 Enumerating Drives Recipe 12.2 Determining if a Directory Exists Recipe 12.3 Creating a New Directory Recipe 12.4 Copying Directories Recipe 12.5 Moving Directories Recipe 12.6 Renaming Directories Recipe 12.7 Parsing File and Directory Paths Recipe 12.8 Searching Iteratively Through Directories and Subdirectories Recipe 12.9 Finding Directories and Files Using Wildcards Recipe 12.10 Determining If a File Exists Recipe 12.11 Getting and Setting File Attributes Recipe 12.12 Accessing Special User and Windows Directories Recipe 12.13 Determining the Space on a Drive Recipe 12.14 Browsing for a Directory Recipe 12.15 Getting File Information Recipe 12.16 Using File-Access Methods Recipe 12.17 Reading and Writing Files as Strings Recipe 12.18 Reading and Writing Binary Files Recipe 12.19 Copying or Moving a File Recipe 12.20 Sending a File to the Recycle Bin Recipe 12.21 Creating a Temporary File Recipe 12.22 Calculating a Checksum for a File Recipe 12.23 Comparing Two Files for Equality Recipe 12.24 Locking a File During Access Recipe 12.25 Reading from a File at a Specific Position Recipe 12.26 Reading and Writing Objects in a File Recipe 12.27 Creating a Comma-Separated-Values File Chapter 13 Databases Introduction Recipe 13.1 Connecting to a Data Provider Recipe 13.2 Issuing SQL Commands Recipe 13.3 Retrieving Results from a Database Query Recipe 13.4 Using SQL Parameters Recipe 13.5 Using Stored Procedures Recipe 13.6 Using Transactions Recipe 13.7 Storing the Results of a Query in Memory Recipe 13.8 Creating In-Memory Data Tables Manually Recipe 13.9 Writing In-Memory Data Tables to an XML File Recipe 13.10 Reading an XML File into In-Memory Data Tables Chapter 14 Special Programming Techniques Introduction Recipe 14.1 Preventing Multiple Instances of a Running Application Recipe 14.2 Creating a Simple User Control This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Recipe 14.2 Creating a Simple User Control Recipe 14.3 Describing User Control Properties Recipe 14.4 Starting Other Applications by EXE, Document, or URL Recipe 14.5 Waiting for Applications to Finish Recipe 14.6 List All Running Processes Recipe 14.7 Terminating a Running Process Recipe 14.8 Pausing Execution of a Program Recipe 14.9 Control Applications by Simulating Keystrokes Recipe 14.10 Watching for File and Directory Changes Recipe 14.11 Creating an Icon in the System Tray Recipe 14.12 Accessing the Clipboard Recipe 14.13 Adding Tooltips to Controls Recipe 14.14 Dragging and Dropping Files to a ListBox Recipe 14.15 Dragging and Dropping Between ListBox Controls Recipe 14.16 Disposing of Objects Appropriately Recipe 14.17 Fine-Tuning Garbage Collection Recipe 14.18 Moving the (Mouse) Cursor Recipe 14.19 Intercepting All Key Presses on a Form Recipe 14.20 Accessing the Registry Recipe 14.21 Running Procedures in Threads Recipe 14.22 Reading XML into a TreeView Recipe 14.23 Creating an XML Document Recipe 14.24 Validating an XML Document Recipe 14.25 Using Generic Collections Recipe 14.26 Creating a Screensaver Recipe 14.27 Localizing the Controls on a Form Recipe 14.28 Adding Pop-up Help to Controls Recipe 14.29 Maintaining User-Specific Settings Between Uses of an Application Recipe 14.30 Verifying a Credit Card Number Recipe 14.31 Capturing a Console Application's Output Recipe 14.32 Reading an Assembly's Details Recipe 14.33 Performing Serial I/O Recipe 14.34 Rebooting the System Chapter 15 Exceptions Introduction Recipe 15.1 Catching an Exception Recipe 15.2 Throwing an Exception Recipe 15.3 Catching Unhandled Exceptions Recipe 15.4 Displaying Exception Information Recipe 15.5 Creating New Exception Types Recipe 15.6 Ignoring Exceptions in a Block of Code Chapter 16 Cryptography and Compression Introduction Recipe 16.1 Generating a Hash Recipe 16.2 Encrypting and Decrypting a String Recipe 16.3 Encrypting and Decrypting a File Recipe 16.4 Prompting for a Username and Password Recipe 16.5 Handling Passwords Securely Recipe 16.6 Compressing and Decompressing a String Recipe 16.7 Compressing and Decompressing a File Recipe 16.8 Generating Cryptographically Secure Random Numbers Recipe 16.9 Complete Listing of the Crypto.vb Module Recipe 16.10 Complete Listing of the Compress.vb Module This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Chapter 17 Web Development Introduction Recipe 17.1 Displaying Web Pages on a Form Recipe 17.2 Accessing Content Within an HTML Document Recipe 17.3 Getting All Links from a Web Page Recipe 17.4 Get the Local Computer's IP Address Recipe 17.5 Resolving a Host Name or IP Address for Another Computer Recipe 17.6 Pinging an IP Address Recipe 17.7 Using FTP to Download Files Recipe 17.8 Calling a Web Service Recipe 17.9 Sending Email Using SMTP Recipe 17.10 Getting POP3 Emails Recipe 17.11 Sending a Message to Another Computer Recipe 17.12 Adding Hyperlinks to a (Desktop) Form About the Authors Colophon Index This document is created with a trial version of CHM2PDF Pilot http://www.colorpilot.com Copyright © 2006 O'Reilly Media, Inc 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 Indexer: John Bickelhaupt Production Editor: Colleen Gorman Cover Designer: Karen Montgomery Copyeditor: Rachel Wheeler Interior Designer: David Futato Proofreader: Mary Anne Mayo Illustrators: Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read Printing History: September 2006: First Edition Nutshell Handbook, the Nutshell Handbook logo, and the O'Reilly logo are registered trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc The Cookbook series designations, Visual Basic 2005 Cookbook, the image of a bream, and related trade dress are trademarks of O'Reilly Media, Inc Microsoft, MSDN, the NET logo, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual Studio, and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation 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 authors assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein ISBN-10: 0-596-10177-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-596-10177-0 [M]