C# 5.0 Programmer's Reference

INTRODUCTION
Part V: Advanced Topics
Chapters 21 through 27 cover more advanced topics that are useful in many advanced applications.
They include such topics as recognizing patterns in text, parallel programming, using databases,
serialization, reflection, and encrypting and decrypting data.
Part VI: Appendices
Appendix A, “Solutions to Exercises,” provides outlines of solutions to the exercises described at
the end of each chapter. Programs that implement many of the solutions are available for download
on the book’s website. This appendix shows the most interesting parts of many of the programs,
but to save space I omitted some of the less interesting details. Download the examples from
www.wrox.com/go/csharp5programmersref to see all the code.
The book’s other appendices provide a categorized reference of the C# language. You can use them
to quickly review the syntax of a particular command or refresh your memory of what a particular
class can do. The chapters earlier in the book give more context, explaining how to perform specific
tasks and why one approach might be better than another. The appendices provide a brief summary.
How to Use This Book
If you are an advanced C# programmer, you may want to skim the language basics covered in the first
parts of the book. You still may find a few new details, so you might not want to skip these chapters
entirely, but most of the basic language features are the same as in previous versions of C#.
Each chapter ends with a set of exercises you can use to test your understanding of the material
covered in the chapter. Sometimes exercises point to more in-depth topics that don’t fit well in the
chapter’s text. Even if you’re an advanced C# developer, you may want to read the exercises to
make sure you didn’t miss anything.
Intermediate programmers and those with less C# experience should take these chapters a bit more
slowly. The chapters in Part III, “Object-Oriented Programming,” cover particularly tricky topics.
Learning all the variations on inheritance and interfaces can be rather confusing. If you are unfamiliar
with these topics, plan to spend some extra time on those chapters.
Particularly if you have experience with some other programming language but not C#, you should
spend some extra time on these first ten or so chapters because they set the stage for the material that
follows. It will be a lot easier for you to follow a discussion of file management or regular expressions
if you are not confused by the error-handling code that the examples take for granted.
Programming is a skill best learned by doing. You can pick up the book and read through it quickly
if you like (well, as quickly as you can, given how long it is), but the information is more likely to
stick if you open Visual Studio and experiment with some programs of your own.
Throughout your work, you can refer to the appendices to get information on specific classes, controls,
and syntax. For example, you can turn to Appendix R, “Streams,” to quickly find classes you can use
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