.NET Development Foundation/Globalization

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

Wikipedia has related information at 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