General C# concepts

There are several tips and tricks that are common C# developer practices.

• Initialize objects using an object initializer.
• Learn the differences between passing a struct and a class to a method.
• How to use lambda expressions.
• Resolve type name conflicts by using the global namespace alias.
• Use operator overloading.
• Implement and call a custom extension method.
• Even C# programmers may want to use the My namespace from VB.
• Create a new method for an enum type using extension methods.

Class and struct members

You create classes and structs to implement your program. These techniques are commonly used when writing classes or structs.

• Declare auto implemented properties.
• Declare and use read/write properties.
• Define constants.
• Override the ToString method to provide string output.
• Define abstract properties.
• Use the xml documentation features to document your code.
• Explicitly implement interface members to keep your public interface concise.
• Explicitly implement members of two interfaces.

Working with collections

These articles help you work with collections of data.

• Initialize a dictionary with a collection initializer.

Working with strings

Strings are the fundamental data type used to display or manipulate text. These articles demonstrate common practices with strings.

• Compare strings.
• Modify the contents of a string.
• Determine if a string represents a number.
• Use String.Split to separate strings.
• Combine multiple strings into one.
• Search for text in a string.

Convert between types

You may need to convert an object to a different type.

• Determine if a string represents a number.
• Convert between strings that represent hexadecimal numbers and the number.
• Convert a string to a DateTime.
• Convert a byte array to an int.
• Convert a string to a number.
• Use pattern matching, the as and is operators to safely cast to a different type.
• Define conversion operators for struct types.
• Determine if a type is a nullable value type.
• Convert between nullable and non-nullable value types.

Equality and ordering comparisons

You may create types that define their own rules for equality or define a natural ordering among objects of that type.

• Test for reference-based equality.
• Define value-based equality for a type.

Exception handling

.NET programs report that methods did not successfully complete their work by throwing exceptions. In these articles you'll learn to work with exceptions.

• Handle exceptions using try and catch.
• Cleanup resources using finally clauses.
• Recover from non-CLS (Common Language Specification) exceptions.