Lecture overview
C# classes
Organization: namespaces and assemblies
Class members fields, methods, properties
Lecture 7
Inheritance
CS 638 Web Programming
Access modifiers (protection levels)
Static versus instance
Polymorphism, overriding methods
Value and reference types
Parameter passing
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
C# namespaces
Used to avoid name conflicts (many classes with same name)
Potential for name conflicts much higher in large projects or
projects using many external libraries
Every class has to be inside a namespace
Namespaces can be nested
Classes from the vast library offered by the .NET framework
structured in vast hierarchy of namespaces
Namespaces orthogonal to the structure of the source code
There can be multiple namespaces in a single source file, a
namespace can span multiple source files
The using somenamespace; directive gives he convenience
of not having to use fully qualified names for all classes
May lead to name conflicts, compiler detects ambiguities
Some standard namespaces
System contains classes that implement basic
functionalities like mathematical operations, data
conversions etc.
System.IO contains classes used for file I/O
operations.
System.Collections.Generic contains classes that
implement collections of objects such as lists,
hashtable etc. using C# generics
System.Text contains classes that manipulate
strings and text
System.Diagnostics contains classes used in
profiling and debugging your application
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
The structure of applications
Each C# project is compiled to an assembly
Can use classes from an external assembly
by adding a reference to it in your project
Can be an executable file or a dynamic link library
(DLL) containing the MSIL code
Assemblies also contain a lot of useful metadata
(e.g. version number)
Must add explicit references to other projects
within solution to use the classes defined there
Classes loaded when used
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Lecture overview
Organization: namespaces and assemblies
Class members fields, methods, properties
Inheritance
Access modifiers (protection levels)
Static versus instance
Polymorphism, overriding methods
Value and reference types
Parameter passing
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Classes
Example of class and object
At the heart of object oriented programming
Application structure mirrors real world objects
Related methods and data encapsulated in object
Objects with the same structure are of same type
A class is a blueprint for all things of that type
Instance of a class is a thing, an object
Classes have three main types of members
Methods (functions in other languages)
Fields (the data, sometimes called member variables)
Properties (accessed like fields, but actually methods)
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Fields
C# properties and accessors
Syntax for declaring fields similar to that for
local variables
Typically fields are not public
Public fields
break data encapsulation
cause loss of control of the class
easier for the lazy or hurried
A property looks just like a field outside the class
Use properties for public faces to internal
variables (can also make them read-only)
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Access modifiers (protection
levels for class members)
Class members and classes can have one of the
following protection levels
public accessible to everyone
private accessible only inside class
protected accessible for descendants
internal accessible within the same assembly
Default protection levels
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Class author writes body of accessors
get accessor must return value of same type as property
set accessor receives implicit parameter value
By controlling the protection level of the accessors
(or omitting one of them) the class author can
control who can read and who can write property
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Property & accessor example
Just like a field, a property has a type associated with it
Accessors are methods for reading or writing the
property each field may have get and set accessor
Class members, struct members private
Classes, structs, enums internal
Enum members, interface members public
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Methods
Must exist in a surrounding class or struct
They have access to private members of the class
Typically they are public
Global methods done as static public methods
Each method has name, return type, and 0 or more
typed arguments
Method overloading example
The void return type indicates that the method does not
return anything
Overloading: two methods can have the same
name, but differ in number or type of the arguments
The various overloaded methods have separate bodies
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Constructors
Constructors are special methods
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Static versus instance
same name as class
no return type
used for initialization of a class instance
may be overloaded
If no constructor specified, compiler
generates one that initializes members to
default values
All instances of a class share certain traits but
have individual copies
Rexx and Fido are Dogs but have different names
Name is a trait shared by all instances of the class Dog but
each instance of Dog has its own copy
This is the default
A trait present in all instances of a class and
physically shared by all instances is a static trait
Can be methods or fields
Must be fully named using enclosing class
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
The this keyword
Refers to the current instance (the object whose
method is executed)
Used to qualify access to members of the current
instance
Typically used for disambiguating a member
variable from a method parameter of the same
name
Cannot be used in static methods
Cannot be used to qualify access to static methods
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Other qualifiers for fields
const
Compile time constant
readonly
May be initialized at compile time or in a constructor
Neither can be changed after its value has been
initialized
Use them when they apply they help find some
bugs (and they give the compiler more opportunities
to optimize the code)
Use class name instead
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Lecture overview
Organization: namespaces and assemblies
Class members fields, methods, properties
Access modifiers (protection levels)
Static versus instance
Inheritance
Inheritance
Polymorphism, overriding methods
Value and reference types
Parameter passing
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Why use inheritance?
The derived class has all members of the base class
Polymorphism
Polymorphic virtual methods
Code reuse
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
An object belonging to the derived class can be used
where the program expects an object from the base class
Some methods of the derived class may behave differently
than the same methods in base class
Methods in different derived classes may differ
Polymorphism means that at run time the environment
picks the method to run based on actual type of object
In base class, use keyword virtual for methods
you want to behave in a polymorphic way
In derived class, use keyword override for methods
that implement polymorphic behavior
Can use the base.method() syntax to call the
named method in the base class
Use keyword abstract for polymorphic methods for
which the base class does not define a body
If any method in class abstract, class must be abstract
Non-abstract derived class overrides abstract methods
Abstract classes cannot be instantiated
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Non-polymorphic methods
Lecture overview
By default methods are not polymorphic
Derived classes may re-define such methods
using the new keyword
Demo shows difference between the
behavior of the two types of methods
Organization: namespaces and assemblies
Class members fields, methods, properties
Inheritance
Polymorphism, overriding methods
Value and reference types
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Access modifiers (protection levels)
Static versus instance
Parameter passing
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Value and reference types
Value types (ints, doubles, chars, structs)
Variables of value types directly contain their data
Reference types (strings, objects)
All types descend from object
Variables of reference types store references
Two variables may point to the same object
The new operator used to create an object
Objects stored on heap and when there are no
more live references to them they are discarded
by the automatic garbage collector
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
All value and reference types are derived (indirectly
or directly) from the object class
object has 4 methods methods
object.Equals(object other)
object.GetType()
object.ToString()
object.GetHashCode()
int x = 1;
x.ToString() 1
1.ToString() 1
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
Parameters
All parameters passed by value by default
To pass by reference use ref keyword
Changes to the parameter inside method
visible after it returns
To return more than one result, use out
keyword
ref and out must be present in both
method definition and method invocation
CS 638 Web Programming Estan & Kivolowitz
