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Questions tagged [.net]

Do NOT use for questions about .NET Core - use [.net-core] instead. The .NET framework is a software framework designed mainly for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It includes an implementation of the Base Class Library, Common Language Runtime (commonly referred to as CLR), Common Type System (commonly referred to as CTS) and Dynamic Language Runtime. It supports many programming languages, including C#, VB.NET, F# and C++/CLI.

The .NET Framework is not specific to any programming language. Programming languages from Microsoft, like , , CLI, and , as well as many other languages from other vendors, all use the same .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework includes a large library of functions as part of the Base Class Library (BCL), including those related to user interface design, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, development of web applications, mathematical algorithms, and network communications. This extensive library simplifies development and makes it easy to rapidly develop new applications.

As such, questions like "How do I do file I/O in C#?" should really be "How do I do file I/O with .NET?". Because such a question concerns the file I/O libraries provided by the .NET Framework, it should be tagged with both the tag, and with the tag, to indicate that you'd like the answer to be written in the C# programming language.

See also: , (do NOT use the tag for questions about .NET Core).

Getting help

Versions of .NET

Latest stable release

Performance

Garbage collector

Free .NET Programming Books (C# / F# / VB / Nemerle / Visual Studio)

Reference Source

API Guide

Database

Database Drivers

  • MySQL Connector - Connector/Net is a fully-managed ADO.NET driver for MySQL
  • Npgsql - .NET data provider for PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB - Official MongoDB C# driver
  • RethinkDb.Driver - A RethinkDB database driver in C# striving for 100% ReQL API compatibility and completeness.
  • ServiceStack Redis - .NET's leading C# Redis client
  • StackExchange Redis - General purpose Redis client from Stack Exchange
  • Cassandra - DataStax .NET driver for Apache Cassandra
  • Couchbase - Official Couchbase .NET client library, based on the Enyim Memcached client
  • Firebird.NET - The .NET Data provider is written in C# and provides a high-performance, native implementation of the Firebird API

Useful .NET Libraries

Mathematics

  • Math.NET Numerics - special functions, linear algebra, probability models, random numbers, interpolation, integral transforms and more

Package managers for external libraries

  • NuGet (formerly known as NuPack) - Microsoft (developer-focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third-party libraries into a .NET application during development)
  • OpenWrap - Sebastien Lambla - Open Source Dependency Manager for .NET applications

Build Tools

  • Prebuild - Generate project files for all Visual Studio versions, including major IDEs and tools like SharpDevelop, MonoDevelop, NAnt and Autotools

Dependency Injection/Inversion of Control

Logging

Validation

Design by Contract

Compression

Ajax

Data Mapper

ORM

Charting/Graphics

PDF Creators/Generators

Unit Testing/Mocking

Automated Web Testing

Misc Testing/Quality Support/Behavior Driven Development (BDD)

URL Rewriting

Web Debugging

  • Glimpse - Firebug for your webserver

Controls

MS Word/Excel Documents Manipulation

  • DocX to create, read, manipulate formatted word documents. Easy syntax, working nicely, actively developed. No Microsoft Office necessary.
  • Excel XML Writer allows creation of .XLS (Excel) files. No Microsoft Office necessary. It has been a while since it has been updated. It also provides a code generator to create code from already created XLS file (saved as XML). Haven't tested this but looks very promising. The author hasn't updated this in awhile.
  • Excel Reader allows creation/reading of .XLS (Excel) files. No Microsoft Office necessary. It has been awhile since it has been updated.
  • Excel Package allows creation/reading of .XLSX (Excel 2007) files. No Microsoft Office necessary. The author is gone, so it's out of date.
  • EPPlus is based on Excel Package and allows creation/reading of .XLSX (Excel 2007). It is actually the most advanced even comparing to NPOI.
  • NPOI is the .NET version of POI Java project at https://poi.apache.org/. POI is an open source project which can help you read/write Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files. Latest sources available at GitHub repository

Social Media

  • LINQ to Twitter - LINQ-based wrapper for all Twitter API functionality in C#
  • Facebook C# SDK - A toolkit for creating Facebook applications / integrating websites with Facebook using the new Graph API or the old rest API.

Serialization

  • sharpSerializer - XML/binary serializer for WPF, ASP.NET AND Silverlight
  • protobuf-net - .NET implementation of Google's cross-platform binary serializer (for all .NET platforms)

Machine learning

  • Encog C# - Neural networks
  • AForge.net - AI, computer vision, genetic algorithms, machine learning

Chat room

Chat about .NET with other Stack Overflow users

RESTFul Web Services

  • RestSharp - Simple REST and HTTP API Client for .NET

Unclassified

  • CSLA Framework - Business Objects Framework
  • Prism - Composite UI application block for WPF, Silverlight and Windows Phone 7 - Microsoft patterns & practices
  • Enterprise Library 5.0 - Logging, Exception Management, Caching, Cryptography, Data Access, Validation, Security, Policy Injection - Microsoft patterns & practices
  • File helpers library
  • C5 Collections - Collections for .NET
  • Quartz.NET - Enterprise Job Scheduler for .NET Platform
  • MiscUtil - Utilities by Jon Skeet
  • Noda Time - DateTime replacement (idiomatic port of Joda Time from Java)
  • Lucene.net - Text indexing and searching
  • Json.NET - LINQ over JSON
  • Flee - expression evaluator
  • PostSharp - AOP
  • IKVM - brings the extensive world of Java libraries to .NET.
  • C# Webserver - Embeddable webserver
  • Long Path - Microsoft
  • .NET Engines for the GOLD Parsing System
  • Smart Thread Pool - Thread Pool management library
  • NCQRS - library for event-driven architectures (CQRS).
  • NBug - Automated exception and error reporting tool (can generate minidumps)
  • Splicer.Net - library for the .NET Framework that aims to simplify developing applications for editing and encoding audio and video using DirectShow.
  • Pex - a tool for automatic test case generation
  • Lidgren Network - a networking library for .NET Framework which uses a single UDP socket to deliver a simple API for connecting a client to a server, reading and sending messages.
  • LINQPad - Scripting IDE for C# / VB / SQL with emphasis on LINQ to databases
308270 questions
1564
votes
6 answers

Try-catch speeding up my code?

I wrote some code for testing the impact of try-catch, but seeing some surprising results. static void Main(string[] args) { Thread.CurrentThread.Priority = ThreadPriority.Highest; Process.GetCurrentProcess().PriorityClass =…
Eren Ersönmez
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1529
votes
22 answers

What is the best algorithm for overriding GetHashCode?

In .NET, the GetHashCode method is used in a lot of places throughout the .NET base class libraries. Implementing it properly is especially important to find items quickly in a collection or when determining equality. Is there a standard algorithm…
bitbonk
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1524
votes
27 answers

Why not inherit from List?

When planning out my programs, I often start with a chain of thought like so: A football team is just a list of football players. Therefore, I should represent it with: var football_team = new List(); The ordering of this list…
Superbest
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1480
votes
31 answers

What is the difference between const and readonly in C#?

What is the difference between const and readonly in C#? When would you use one over the other?
readonly
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1478
votes
47 answers

How do I update the GUI from another thread?

Which is the simplest way to update a Label from another Thread? I have a Form running on thread1, and from that I'm starting another thread (thread2). While thread2 is processing some files I would like to update a Label on the Form with the…
CruelIO
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1468
votes
19 answers

Why is Dictionary preferred over Hashtable in C#?

In most programming languages, dictionaries are preferred over hashtables. What are the reasons behind that?
Nakul Chaudhary
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1338
votes
41 answers

Path.Combine for URLs?

Path.Combine is handy, but is there a similar function in the .NET framework for URLs? I'm looking for syntax like this: Url.Combine("http://MyUrl.com/", "/Images/Image.jpg") which would return: "http://MyUrl.com/Images/Image.jpg"
Brian MacKay
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1280
votes
14 answers

How to make an HTTP POST web request

Canonical How can I make an HTTP request and send some data using the POST method? I can do a GET request, but I have no idea of how to make a POST request.
Hooch
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1186
votes
25 answers

How and when to use ‘async’ and ‘await’

From my understanding one of the main things that async and await do is to make code easy to write and read - but is using them equal to spawning background threads to perform long duration logic? I'm currently trying out the most basic example.…
Dan Dinu
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1141
votes
8 answers

How do I use reflection to call a generic method?

What's the best way to call a generic method when the type parameter isn't known at compile time, but instead is obtained dynamically at runtime? Consider the following sample code - inside the Example() method, what's the most concise way to invoke…
Bevan
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1104
votes
4 answers

How to mark a method as obsolete or deprecated?

How do I mark a method as obsolete or deprecated using C#?
Chris Ballance
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1098
votes
33 answers

How can I generate random alphanumeric strings?

How can I generate a random 8 character alphanumeric string in C#?
KingNestor
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1073
votes
23 answers

LINQ query on a DataTable

I'm trying to perform a LINQ query on a DataTable object and bizarrely I am finding that performing such queries on DataTables is not straightforward. For example: var results = from myRow in myDataTable where results.Field("RowNo") == 1 select…
Calanus
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1058
votes
13 answers

Html.Partial vs Html.RenderPartial & Html.Action vs Html.RenderAction

In ASP.NET MVC, what is the difference between: Html.Partial and Html.RenderPartial Html.Action and Html.RenderAction
Ghooti Farangi
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1057
votes
17 answers

How do I turn a C# object into a JSON string in .NET?

I have classes like these: class MyDate { int year, month, day; } class Lad { string firstName; string lastName; MyDate dateOfBirth; } And I would like to turn a Lad object into a JSON string like this: { …
Hui
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