Table of Contents
Foreword xi
Preface xiii
About the Authors xv
About the Annotators xvii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Hello, World 3
1.2 Program Structure 4
1.3 Types and Variables 6
1.4 Expressions 13
1.5 Statements 16
1.6 Classes and Objects 21
1.7 Structs 50
1.8 Arrays 53
1.9 Interfaces 56
1.10 Enums 58
1.11 Delegates 60
1.12 Attributes 61
Chapter 2: Lexical Structure 65
2.1 Programs 65
2.2 Grammars 65
2.3 Lexical Analysis 67
2.4 Tokens 71
2.5 Preprocessing Directives 85
Chapter 3: Basic Concepts 99
3.1 Application Start-up 99
3.2 Application Termination 100
3.3 Declarations 101
3.4 Members 105
3.5 Member Access 107
3.6 Signatures and Overloading 117
3.7 Scopes 120
3.8 Namespace and Type Names 127
3.9 Automatic Memory Management 132
3.10 Execution Order 137
Chapter 4: Types 139
4.1 Value Types 140
4.2 Reference Types 152
4.3 Boxing and Unboxing 155
4.4 Constructed Types 160
4.5 Type Parameters 164
4.6 Expression Tree Types 165
4.7 The dynamic Type 166
Chapter 5: Variables 169
5.1 Variable Categories 169
5.2 Default Values 175
5.3 Definite Assignment 176
5.4 Variable References 192
5.5 Atomicity of Variable References 193
Chapter 6: Conversions 195
6.1 Implicit Conversions 196
6.2 Explicit Conversions 204
6.3 Standard Conversions 213
6.4 User-Defined Conversions 214
6.5 Anonymous Function Conversions 219
6.6 Method Group Conversions 226
Chapter 7: Expressions 231
7.1 Expression Classifications 231
7.2 Static and Dynamic Binding 234
7.3 Operators 238
7.4 Member Lookup 247
7.5 Function Members 250
7.6 Primary Expressions 278
7.7 Unary Operators 326
7.8 Arithmetic Operators 331
7.9 Shift Operators 343
7.10 Relational and Type-Testing Operators 344
7.11 Logical Operators 355
7.12 Conditional Logical Operators 358
7.13 The Null Coalescing Operator 360
7.14 Conditional Operator 361
7.15 Anonymous Function Expressions 364
7.16 Query Expressions 373
7.17 Assignment Operators 389
7.18 Expression 395
7.19 Constant Expressions 395
7.20 Boolean Expressions 397
Chapter 8: Statements 399
8.1 End Points and Reachability 400
8.2 Blocks 402
8.3 The Empty Statement 404
8.4 Labeled Statements 406
8.5 Declaration Statements 407
8.6 Expression Statements 412
8.7 Selection Statements 413
8.8 Iteration Statements 420
8.9 Jump Statements 429
8.10 The try Statement 438
8.11 The checked and unchecked Statements 443
8.12 The lock Statement 443
8.13 The using Statement 445
8.14 The yield Statement 449
Chapter 9: Namespaces 453
9.1 Compilation Units 453
9.2 Namespace Declarations 454
9.3 Extern Aliases 456
9.4 Using Directives 457
9.5 Namespace Members 463
9.6 Type Declarations 464
9.7 Namespace Alias Qualifiers 464
Chapter 10: Classes 467
10.1 Class Declarations 467
10.2 Partial Types 481
10.3 Class Members 490
10.4 Constants 506
10.5 Fields 509
10.6 Methods 520
10.7 Properties 545
10.8 Events 559
10.9 Indexers 566
10.10 Operators 571
10.11 Instance Constructors 579
10.12 Static Constructors 586
10.13 Destructors 589
10.14 Iterators 592
Chapter 11: Structs 607
11.1 Struct Declarations 608
11.2 Struct Members 609
11.3 Class and Struct Differences 610
11.4 Struct Examples 619
Chapter 12: Arrays 625
12.1 Array Types 625
12.2 Array Creation 628
12.3 Array Element Access 628
12.4 Array Members 628
12.5 Array Covariance 629
12.6 Array Initializers 630
Chapter 13: Interfaces 633
13.1 Interface Declarations 633
13.2 Interface Members 639
13.3 Fully Qualified Interface Member Names 645
13.4 Interface Implementations 645
Chapter 14: Enums 663
14.1 Enum Declarations 663
14.2 Enum Modifiers 664
14.3 Enum Members 665
14.4 The System.Enum Type 668
14.5 Enum Values and Operations 668
Chapter 15: Delegates 671
15.1 Delegate Declarations 672
15.2 Delegate Compatibility 676
15.3 Delegate Instantiation 676
15.4 Delegate Invocation 677
Chapter 16: Exceptions 681
16.1 Causes of Exceptions 683
16.2 The System.Exception Class 683
16.3 How Exceptions Are Handled 684
16.4 Common Exception Classes 685
Chapter 17: Attributes 687
17.1 Attribute Classes 688
17.2 Attribute Specification 692
17.3 Attribute Instances 698
17.4 Reserved Attributes 699
17.5 Attributes for Interoperation 707
Chapter 18: Unsafe Code 709
18.1 Unsafe Contexts 710
18.2 Pointer Types 713
18.3 Fixed and Moveable Variables 716
18.4 Pointer Conversions 717
18.5 Pointers in Expressions 720
18.6 The fixed Statement 728
18.7 Fixed-Size Buffers 733
18.8 Stack Allocation 736
18.9 Dynamic Memory Allocation 738
Appendix A: Documentation Comments 741
A.1 Introduction 741
A.2 Recommended Tags 743
A.3 Processing the Documentation File 754
A.4 An Example 760
Appendix B: Grammar 767
B.1 Lexical Grammar 767
B.2 Syntactic Grammar 777
B.3 Grammar Extensions for Unsafe Code 809
Appendix C: References 813
Index 815
