The .NET Framework Class Library

The .NET Framework Class Library

Iincluded with the .NET Framework is a set of .NET Framework Class Library (FCL) assemblies that contains several thousand type definitions, where each type exposes some functionality. All in all, the CLR and the FCL allow developers to build the following kinds of applications:

 §XML Web services Methods that can be accessed over the Internet very easily. XML      Web services are, of course, the main thrust of Microsoft’s .NET initiative.  §Web Forms HTML-based applications (Web sites). Typically, Web Forms applications     will make database queries and Web service calls, combine and filter the returned      information, and then present that information in a browser using a rich HTML-based      user interface. Web Forms provides a Visual Basic 6 and Visual InterDev style      development environment for Web applications written in any CLR language.

 §Windows Forms Rich Windows GUI applications. Instead of using a Web Forms      page to create your application’s UI, you can use the more powerful, higher      performance functionality offered by the Windows desktop. Windows Forms applications

     can take advantage of controls, menus, and mouse and keyboard events, and they can      talk directly to the underlying operating system. Like Web Forms applications, Windows      Forms applications also make database queries and call XML Web services. Windows      Forms provides a Visual Basic 6Ðlike development environment for GUI applications     written in any CLR language.

 §Windows console applications For applications with very simple UI demands, a      console application provides a quick and easy way to build an application. Compilers,      utilities, and tools are typically implemented as console applications.

 §Windows services Yes, it is possible to build service applications controllable vi a the      Windows Service Control Manager (SCM) using the .NET Framework.

 §Component library The .NET Framework allows you to build stand-alone      components (types) that can be easily incorporated into any of the previously mentioned      application types. Because the FCL contains literally thousands of types, a set of related types is presented to the developer within a single namespace. For example, the System namespace (which you

should become most familiar with) contains the Object base type, from which all other types ultimately derive. In addition, the System namespace contains types for integers, characters, strings, exception handling, and console I/O as well as a bunch of utility types that convert safely between data types, format data types, generate random numbers, and perform various math functions. All applications will use types from the System namespace.

To access any of the platform’s features, you need to know which namespace contains the types that expose the facilities you’re after. If you want to customize any type’s behavior, you simplifies software development.