Chapter 4 - Programming Structures

Abstract

This chapter discusses the programming structures and starts with the discussion of the String class in C#. Just like in Java, strings are special objects with the special support of the language. In many instances, the only difference between a member of the Java string class java.lang.string and the C# class System.String is in the capitalization of the method name. Both System.String and the data type string can be used interchangeably. The reason for this is that Microsoft has aliased the string data type to the System.String class. Most of the Java string methods are included in the C# string class, as well as some other methods. This chapter goes over String creation, and then proceeds into the StringBuilder class, which is very much like Java's StringBuffer. It also discusses the RegEx class, which permits the use of regular expressions, a very powerful feature that was Perl's claim to fame. This chapter introduces the basic flow controls of the C# language and the ‘for each’ statement. Some of the collection classes provided by the .NET framework are examined. It discusses arrays and a new feature not found in Java, called Indexers.