What is the .NET Framework? - Features of .NET
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The following are major features of .NET. We will use these features throughout out journey. Here is just a brief introduction to all key features of .NET.
Assemblies
An assembly is either a .DLL or .EXE that forms a part of an application. It contains MSIL code that is executed by CLR. The following are other important points related to an assembly:
- It is the unit on which permissions are granted.
- Every assembly contains a version
- Assemblies contain interfaces and classes. They may also contain other resources such as bitmaps, file etc.
- Every assembly contains assembly metadata, which contains information about assembly. CLR uses this information at the time of executing assembly.
- Assemblies may be either private, which are used only by the application to which they belong or Global assemblies, which are used by any application in the system.
- Two assemblies of the same name but with different versions can run side-by-side allowing applications that depend on a specific version to use assembly of that version.
The four parts of an assembly are:
Assembly Manifest - Contains name, version, culture, and information about referenced assemblies.
Type metadata - Contains information about types defined in the assembly.
MSIL – MSIL code.
Resources - Files such as BMP or JPG file or any other files required by application.
Note: Assembly that contains only resources is called as Satellite assembly.
Common Type System
Common Type System (CTS) specifies the rules related to data types that languages must follow. As programs written in all languages are ultimately converted to MSIL, data types in all languages must be convertible to certain standard data types.
CTS is a part of cross-language integration, which allows classes written in one language to be used and extended by another language.
Cross-language Interoperability
.NET provides support for language interoperability. However, it doesn’t mean every program written in a language can be used by another language. To enable a program to be used with other languages, it must be created by following a set of rules called Cross Language Specifications (CLS).
Cross-language inheritance is the ability to create a class in C# from a class created in VB.NET.
When an exception is raised by a program written in C#, the exception can be handled by VB.NET. This kind of exception handling is called cross-language exception handling.
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