Visual Basic .

Net
Seminar June 7, 2004

Topics Today include

The .Net Framework Studio .Net Environment VB .Net Introduction to VB .Net Loops and Control Structures

The .Net Framework

What is the .Net Framework Common Language Runtime .Net Managed Assemblies Compilation of .Net Code .Net Framework Class Library .Net Languages The future of .Net

What is the .Net Framework

Primarily a development platform (mostly effects application development) Consists of two main parts
Common Language Runtime .Net Framework Class Library

CLR (Common Language Runtime)

Provides a runtime environment for the execution of code written in ANY .Net Language Manages
The overall execution of .Net code Inheritance, Memory, Debugging, and application development across Multiple languages

CLR (Continued)

Languages that utilizes the .Net framework must follow the CLS

The CLR will execute Managed Assemblies Intermediate Languages managed by the CLR are called

Common Language Specification Outlines the rules and standards required or needed by the CLR to execute .Net code.

Managed Code

The CLR will manage for the IL

Garbage collection Object instantiation Memory allocation

Components written in Managed Code by the CLR are called .Net Managed assemblies

.Net Managed Assemblies

Basic Unit of deployment of .Net Applications Similar to the Microsoft COM Objects Each Managed Assembly contains a Manifest
Hold definitions of other components required for execution of the application Prevents the problems associated with conflicting DLLs Revision numbers and components are listed in the manifest Two versions of the same DLL can then co-exist

Compilation of .Net code

All .Net languages are first compiled into an intermediate language called MSIL or IL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) The MSIL is then Just In Time (JIT) compiled at first execution of the code and managed by the CLR All MSIL or IL code can be compiled directly to native code with the following
Compiling native code will provide faster startup execution of the code Performance during execution of the code will then be sacrificed During JIT Optimization is placed on the Managed Code in order to improve performance at the time of execution

.Net Framework Class Library

Provide a library of base classes that developers can use in their own applications written in ANY .Net language Because of the use of these base classes, Inheritance can then be extensively used in languages that use the .Net Framework

.Net Languages

.Net applications can be written by any or a combination of many .Net languages Languages include

Applications can be developed without the use of Studio .Net

Applications can be developed still using a simple text editor ASP .Net Applications as well as other apps can be still developed using notepad

VB .Net C# J# Managed C++ (default in studio is set for managed C++)

The future of the .Net Framework

Standards were release in 2000 from Microsoft to the community GNU .Net is a project in the Linux community that is presently developing a CLR to run in the Linux environment Languages planned to include the CLS are
APL COBOL Eifel Fortran Haskel Mercury Mondrian Oberon Pascal Perl Python RPG Scheme

Studio .Net Environment

The IDE

Studio .Net The Start Page Problems with Studio .Net in the lab environment

Studio .Net

All present .Net languages are included under one development environment
When using any one of the languages, the studio must be used (there is no longer an environment for each language) You have to start a new solution/project

Projects are containers that contain the files associated with a particular project A solution is a container that contains one or more projects or project containers

When the IDE is started you have the Projects tab, online resources, and My Profile

The Start Page

Tab for this view Previous Projects

Tab for Additional Help

Profile and environment settings

Start a new project

Open a project in a diff. location

Problems with Studio .Net environment in the lab

.Net security must allow access to the J: drive or the local intra net in order to work properly Problems arise when debugging apps on an ASP .Net server that is not part of the current domain (CLC) Basic apps will still work fine These problems are not present if IIS and remote debugging tools are installed on the client machine
This solution is fine for students but is not practical for a lab Due to security holes of IIS you can have hundreds of security risks on a given network. In the Real world situation, all apps will be placed on a server anyway

Visual Basic .Net

General Features Additional Features of VB .Net What has changed in VB .Net

General features

It is an object oriented language

Uses exception handling extensively

Students do better with this subject when they have a firm understanding of objects In the past VB had objects but focus was not placed on them VB .Net use objects and inheritance with everything New techniques are shown to the student for providing feedback from their programs in order to help trouble shoot errors Like with most OOP languages, exceptions that are not handled will cause programs to abnormally end or exit Can use the top data type on inheritance of type Object Used for late binding of data types and is quite useful when implementing stacks or queues of any data type (.Net 2.0)

Uses generics with creating classes and Sub programs

Provides a quick way to develop heavy duty applications in a windowing environment It is a useful tool for developing event driven programs

Additional Feature of VB .Net

Can create both windows applications and web applications at the click of a mouse button The interface between the Databases and applications
Are the same between web apps and windows apps All data are transferred between the apps in XML format regardless if it is a web application or a windows application A copy of the data from the database is loaded into a data set. Persistent connections between the application and the database no longer exists

Every form is a class and new forms now have to be instantiated VB .Net is still not case sensitive

What is Not in VB .Net

Data Controls

Object instantiation is now done differently Garbage collection for references that lose there objects are done periodically not when the reference lose its scope Periodic changes throughout the language making it vastly different from VB 6.0 in order to make it compliant to the .Net Framework and the CLS

Because of the different way that the apps connect to the database, there is no longer the support of data controls in VB .Net Persistent connections with the database is no longer present

The Introduction to VB .Net

Data Types in VB .Net Functions and Sub Procedures Practice Examples

Data Types in VB .Net

Data Types and possible values

Integer -> -2,147,483,648 (4 bytes) Double -> floating point numbers with 14 digits of accuracy

Bytes) Decimal -> decimal values ( 16 bytes replaced currency in 6.0) Date -> the date (8 Bytes) Byte -> 0 to 255 (1 Byte) Char -> Unicode character (2 Bytes) Boolean ->True or false value (2 Bytes) Single -> floating point number with 6 digits of accuracy (4 bytes) Short -> 2 byte integer Long -> 8 byte integer String -> an arrangement of alpha-numeric characters varies in length Object -> any data type 4 bytes

(8

Functions and Sub procedures / Programs in VB .Net (Methods)

Functions and sub procedures must either have a sub or function keyword in the function or sub procedure heading They can be either public or private (following the same conventions in OOP languages such as C++ or Java) All parameters are passed by value by default in VB .Net Parameters of any data type may be passed by reference All Objects and arrays are passed by reference not value All events are handled by a sub procedure in VB .Net Functions return a value and Sub Procedures do Not

Practice example

You can use the text book given to you to get the basics needed in programming VB starting on page 477 Getting familiar with VB .Net

Write a program that will take text from one text box and place that text in another text box with a click of a button Take a look at the attributes of each control

A control can be a button text box etc. Each control should contain names that follow VB specifications i.e. txtBox1 txtBox2 btnMove Each name as always should be meaningfull

Practice Example 2

Using Functions in VB .Net

Use the text boxes from the previous example Add a text box Provide a function that adds the values of text box 1 and text box 2 Place the answer in text box3 Use variables of type double and use the CDbl() function to convert the string value of the text box to a double page 485 in your text

Loops and control structures

The The The The

If Statement Select Case Statement Do While and Loop While loops For Loop

The IF Statement

Every If statement must contain a then and an end if Example:

If Num1 < 2 Then MessageBox.show(The value is less than 2) End If If Num1 <> 4 then MessageBox.Show(The value is not 4)

The relational operators that can be used in VB are

> < = >= <= <> (Not equal to)

End If

The Select Case statement

The select case statement is a lot like the switch statement in Java It can use ANY data type in VB Example
Select Case Num1 Case 1 DoSomeThing() Case 2 Do SomethingElse() End Select

Yes you can use strings as well

Do While Loops

Do while loops evaluate the expression first then executes the Loop Body Act much in the same as All While loops in languages like C++ and Java Example
Do While Num1 < 10 Num1 += 1 Loop

Loop While Loops

The Body of the Loop is executed first then the expression is evaluated The loop will execute at least once This is a lot like the do while loop in Java and students get confused with this subtle change Example
Do Num1 += 1 Loop While Num1 < 10

End Of Day 1

VB .Net Seminar Day 2

June 8, 2004

Microsoft SQL Server

MS SQL Basics The Enterprise Manager Creating Databases Connecting to Databases The use of the Data Set Exception Handling

Microsoft SQL Basics

Differences between MS SQL and Access Advantages of MS SQL Quirky things with SQL Connecting to the database with the manager

Differences between MS SQL and Access

SQL More Powerful than MS Access

Larger data types are available Connection over a network provide access to multiple clients Blob data type available

A client is required to connect to the SQL Database

Advantages of MS SQL

Can handle multiple users at one time Ideal for web sites and web applications Contain the BLOB (Binary Large Object) which enables a user to store images in a database Larger numeric values can be stored in each field

Quirky problems with SQL

No Auto Number Data Type in MS SQL Auto number is an integer data type Identity is set to yes And the seed is set to one This gives you the option to set the starting number and the increment you want the auto number to have

Enterprise Manager

Connecting to the database Getting through the confusion of locating databases Defining the different containers in the Manager

Connecting to the DBMS

Start the Enterprise Manager

Right Click SQL Server group

Connecting to the DBMS

Click on SQL Server Registration Click next In the text box labeled Available Servers type Sigma.vbnet.matcm p.ncc.edu Click Add then next

Connecting to the DBMS

Click on SQL Server login Username is the first six letters of your last name and your first initial Password is vbnet Click next and click next again Click Finish Click close on the next dialog box

Getting through the concussion

MS SQL Enterprise Manager will display ALL of the databases located on the server Access to each database is controlled by the DBMS ALL tables are displayed in each database This includes tables that are used by the DBMS

The Containers in SQL

Each container has a specific role Student Databases are in the databases container

Database Container

Every students database is displayed Only the database that the student has permissions for can be opened Click on the database container with your username

Student Database container

Creating the Database

Creating tables Properties of the data types Entering and Displaying Data in database Tables

Creating Tables

Right click on the table container Click new table This is a lot like the Access interface with different data types. At this points explore the interface and notice the differences

Properties of Data Fields

Each Data Field has a length property This sometimes causes a problem with students who make this field too small Each data Field can also allow null values After defining each column and setting all the properties set the primary key by right clicking on the field that is to be the key

Entering and Displaying Data

Right Click the table Click Open Table Click Return All Rows From here you can view and enter new data into the table

Practice Example 1

Creating a Table in VB .Net Create a table of customers in a hardware store Columns will include
Customer ID First Name Last Name Address Zip Code

Fill the table with data Display that data

Connecting to the database with VB .Net Applications

The Data Provider The Data Set The use of the wizard

The Data Adapter

Needed to connect to every DBMS Must Use the Adapter that represents the DBMS you are going to use We are going to use the SQLDataAdapter Object Holds the information on how to

The Data Provider

Manipulates data through the use of SQL statements or commands Hold connection information to the Database Contain two Major components
Data Adapter Object updates data in the dataset Connection Object maintains the connection

The Data Set

Holds data returned from a procedure or Query performed by the data adapter Provides a local Copy of the data from the table on the local machine Prevents persistent connections with the database and reduces network traffic

The use of the wizard

Give Demo on using the wizard

The Data Set

Generating the data set object The use of the onload event handler Binding controls Creating navigation for a database

Generating the Data Set Object

Once the Data Adapter and the connection object is created click on Data in the menu Click generate dataset Give a name to the dataset Click OK

The use of the onLoad event Handler

Double click the form Place the fill method in the Load event handler This will fill the dataset object with the data from the table when the form loads Example SQLDataAdapter1.Fill(MyDataSet1)

Binding Controls

Once you create a data set you can then bind the controls of the form to fields or columns of the database table This is done with in the Bindings property in the text box properties sheet Under the bindings property click text and then the field you wish to bind to the text box

Creating navigation for a database

Managed by the BindingManagerBase Object This object contains the Position Property the holds the current position of the record in the dataset This is done by adding one to the position attribute of the object Methods of this object includes
Addnew() EndCurrentEdit() CancelCurrentEdit() -> provides a role back feature RemoveAt() -> deletes current row at given position

Exception Handling Implementation

Use try catch block much the same in Java Can help trouble shoot connections to databases Very important to use when filling the dataset Example Try SqlDataAdapter1.Fill(DataSet11) Catch ex As Exception MessageBox.Show("Error will dataset fill") End Try

Practice Example 2

Connecting a form to your Hardware customers Create a form with text fields for each column
Create the data Adapter and Data Connection with the use of the wizard Create the data set object Create the onload event handler to fill the data set Bind your controls Be sure to use exception handling for filling the data set Create a Next button to navigate to the next record in the database

End Of Day 2

VB .Net Seminar Day 3

June 9, 2004

Topics
Adding and Editing Records Updates and deletes with Bound controls Classes and Modules in VB .Net Menus From design MDI (Multi Document Interfaces) Bound and unbound controls in VB .net Why Unbound controls are used

Adding and Editing Records

When Adding records

The AddNew() Method accomplishes all this in one method call The AddNew() Method is part of the BindingManagerBase Object When changes are being made, a cancel button should be provided to Roll Back changes made to the data set

The Position of the dataset should be set to the end The text boxes should be cleared

Edit

When Navigating the database the Text boxes should be disabled to prevent changes There should be an edit button that
Disables the navigation button Enables the text boxes for editing Provide a cancel button that Roles Back the changes that are made by calling the CancelCurrentEdit() method of the BindingManagerBase Object

Update and Deleting Records

This is done by

Deleting the records

Ending the current edit by calling EndCurrentEdit() in the BindingManagerBase class Updating the DB with Update() in the data adapter Cause the dataset to reflect the changes by calling the AcceptChanges() method in the data set First Ask the user if they are sure they want to delete Use the RemoveAt() method of the BindingManagerBase object Update the database with the Update() method Have the dataset reflect the change by calling the AcceptChanges() method of the dataset object

Practice Example 1

With the Example finished yesterday

Add an Add Button Add an Edit Button Provide a Save and a delete feature Use exception handling for everything

Classes and Modules in VB .Net

Creating classes in VB .Net The constructor and Sub procedures in VB .Net The use of Modules

Creating Classes in VB .Net

Classes can be added to a project by

Right clicking the project container Click add Click add class

As in Most OOP Languages VB classes have

Public and private attributes Public and private Methods (called functions or sub procedures) Constructors and Destructors (destructors are not really needed in VB because of garbage collection)

Modules

Modules can also be added to a project to provide a place for Global Methods and Identifiers These Identifiers and methods can be either public or private Public Identifiers and methods can be accessed from all of the forms and classes in the VB project

Practice Example

For this Example

Create an Auto Class An Auto will have
Three Attributes Three Methods Two constructors

Try instantiating the method in the form

Menus

When adding menus to a form you can type in the choice right into the menu object Click event handlers can then be added for each menu choice in the same manner as the button

Form Design

Colors are important

They should be contrast in color Ease to read Easy on the eyes for long periods of viewing

Should provide easy navigation Should provide a way to enter the data easily with just using the keyboard

Multi Document Interfaces (MDI)

When creating a form in VB .Net you are creating a class Every class in vb must be instantiated before it is used This is accomplished by using the new keyword When the instance of the form is created, the form can then be visible by calling the forms show method Closing a form does not exit the program. To exit the program the End method should be called

Practice Example 3

Create a Form that will be a switch board

Add a form to yesterdays example Place a button that will open the customer form Place a button that will exit the program

Bound and Unbound Controls

So far we have seen the benefits of bound controls These are ok if you intend to use the same SQL query for the whole application Once controls are bound to a data set, changes to the query in the data adapter can not be accomplished Unbounded controls give you the power to create new data adapters with new queries. Values can then be placed into the query to find specific records in a database

End Day 3

VB .Net Seminar Day 4

June 10, 2004

Topics
ASP .Net basic applications ASP .Net Database applications Web Forms Crystal Reports Creating Help Files Demo with Serial port programming and VB .Net Handout Certificates

ASP .Net basic Applications

End Day 4