.NET Development Foundation/Globalization

Globalization, Drawing, and Text manipulation Globalization, Drawing, and Text manipulation Exam objective: Implementing globalization, drawing, and text manipulation functionality in a .NET Framework application Topics Globalization Drawing Text manipulation Text manipulation, in the context of the exam objectives, covers 3 main subjects: string building, regular expressions and text encoding. We look at each in the following paragraphs. String and StringBuilder classes Text manipulation starts with the representation of a string which is done via the String class. No specific exam objective mentions the String class but we added a section for it because you must understand some of its specific characteristics. Next comes the StringBuilder class that serves for efficient construction. Regular expressions Regular expressions The Regex, Match and Group classes together implement the regular expressions support in the .NET framework. Regular expressions are a world by themselves and have been around for quite some time. There is a wikibook on regular expressions which, among other things, point to this Tutorial. Regular expressions support in .NET basically allows for: testing the match of a string to a regex pattern (Regex.IsMatch method) extracting the substrings that "match" part of a pattern (Regex.Match method with Match and Group classes). Text encoding Classes, Interfaces, and tools Format data based on culture information. (Refer System.Globalization namespace) Access culture and region information Exam objective: Access culture and region information in a .NET Framework application CultureInfo class - MSDN CultureTypes enumeration - MSDN RegionInfo class - MSDN Format date and time values based on the culture. DateTimeFormatInfo class - MSDN Format number values based on the culture. NumberFormatInfo class - MSDN NumberStyles enumeration - MSDN Perform culture-sensitive string comparison. CompareInfo class - MSDN CompareOptions enumeration - MSDN Custom culture Exam objective: Build a custom culture class based on existing culture and region classes CultureAndRegionInfoBuilder class - MSDN CultureAndRegionModifier enumeration - MSDN System.Drawing namespace Exam objective: Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using the System.Drawing namespace. Brushes, Pens, Colors and Fonts Exam objective: Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using brushes, pens, colors, and fonts Brush class - MSDN Brushes class - MSDN SystemBrushes class - MSDN TextureBrush class - MSDN Pen class - MSDN Pens class - MSDN SystemPens class - MSDN SolidBrush class - MSDN Color structure - MSDN ColorConverter class - MSDN ColorTranslator class - MSDN SystemColors class - MSDN StringFormat class - MSDN Font class - MSDN FontConverter class - MSDN FontFamily class - MSDN SystemFonts class - MSDN Graphics, Images, Bitmaps and Icons Exam objective: Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using graphics, images, bitmaps, and icons Graphics class - MSDN BufferedGraphics class - MSDN BufferedGraphicsManager class - MSDN Image class - MSDN ImageConverter class - MSDN ImageAnimator class - MSDN Bitmap class - MSDN Icon class - MSDN IconConverter class - MSDN SystemIcons class - MSDN Shapes and Sizes Exam objective: Enhance the user interface of a .NET Framework application by using shapes and sizes Point Structure - MSDN PointConverter class - MSDN Rectangle Structure - MSDN RectangleConverter class - MSDN Size Structure - MSDN SizeConverter class - MSDN Region class - MSDN Text handling and regular expressions Exam objective: Enhance the text handling capabilities of a .NET Framework application, and search, modify, and control text in a .NET Framework application by using regular expressions (Refer System.Text namespace) (Refer System.RegularExpressions namespace) String class The String class is not a specific exam objective but was added to have a place to discuss some of its characteristics. String class - MSDN StringBuilder class The StringBuilder class is used for very fast string concatenation. If you use conventional string concatenation then it will run very slow because a string is held in an array. Each concatenation causes the array to increase its size and the memory has to be copied to a new location internally. This is very slow. For fast string concatenations use StringBuilder instead. It is about 1000 times faster (depending on the string you concatenate). StringBuilder class - MSDN Refer to the example to measure the performance differences. C# example StringBuilder example using System; using System.Collections; public class Demo { public static void Main() { const int len = 30; const int loops = 5000; // DateTime timeStart, timeStop; // // Measure time for normal string concatenation timeStart = DateTime.Now; string str = ""; for (int i = 0; i < loops; i++) { str += new String('x', len); } timeStop = DateTime.Now; int millis = timeStop.Subtract(timeStart).Milliseconds; Console.WriteLine("Duration for " + loops + " loops: " + millis + " ms"); // // Measure time for StringBuilder string concatenation StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); timeStart = DateTime.Now; for (int i = 0; i < loops; i++) { sb.Append(new String('x', len)); } str = sb.ToString(); timeStop = DateTime.Now; millis = timeStop.Subtract(timeStart).Milliseconds; Console.WriteLine("Duration for " + loops + " loops: " + millis + " ms"); // Console.ReadLine(); } } Regex class Regex class - MSDN Match class and MatchCollection class Match class - MSDN MatchCollection class - MSDN Group class and GroupCollection class Group class - MSDN GroupCollection class - MSDN Encode text by using Encoding classes Encoding class - MSDN EncodingInfo class - MSDN ASCIIEncoding class - MSDN UnicodeEncoding class - MSDN UTF8Encoding class - MSDN Encoding Fallback classes - MSDN Decode text by using Decoding classes. Decoder class - MSDN Decoder Fallback classes - MSDN Capture class and CaptureCollection class Capture class - MSDN CaptureCollection class - MSDN Previous