NET For Java Developers Migrating To C#

1.7 Overview of the .NET Framework Class Library

This book is about exploring the .NET Framework C# class library. Like the Java API, the .NET Framework provides namespaces with classes that can be used to code myriad enterprise tasks. The .NET Framework class library can help you implement many tasks, including accessing databases, creating graphics, XML processing, networking, reflection, messaging, security, and directory services. The framework is vast, and to discuss all the namespaces is beyond the scope of this book. Instead, you will encounter some of the commonly used namespaces as we explore C# fundamentals. In addition, we will look at some sample namespaces for implementing some of the enterprise tasks (database access, graphics, XML processing).

Table 1.2. .NET Namespaces Covered in This Book

.NET Framework Namespace	Description
System	Contains core classes
System.Collections	Collection classes (similar to Java collections)
System.Data, System.Data.Common, System.Data.OleDb, System.Data.SqlClient, System.Data.SqlTypes	Classes for accessing databases
System.Windows.Forms, System.Windows.ComponentModel, System.Drawing	Classes for graphics and design of Windows Forms
System.IO, System.IO.IsolatedStorage	Classes for disk I/O
System.Reflection, System.Reflection.Emit	Classes for reflection
System.Text	String processing classes
System.Threading	Thread support in .NET
System.Xml, System.Xml.Schema, System.Xml.XPath, System.Xml.Xsl	Classes for XML processing.
System.Diagnostics	Classes for conducting operating system-level tasks

Table 1.2 shows the namespaces we explore in this book.