What are the basic components of .NET platform?
The basic components of .NET platform (framework) are:
Common Language Runtime (CLR):
The most important part of the .NET Framework is the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR) also called .Net Runtime in short. It is a framework layer that resides above the Operating System and handles/manages the execution of the .NET applications. Our .Net programs don’t directly communicate with the Operating System but through CLR
MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) Code:
When we compile our .Net Program using any .Net compliant language like (C#, VB.NET, C++.NET) it does not get converted into the executable binary code but to an intermediate code, called MSIL or IL in short, understandable by CLR.
MSIL is an OS and H/w independent code. When the program needs to be executed, this MSIL or intermediate code is converted to binary executable code, called native code. The presence of IL makes it possible the Cross Language Relationship as all the .Net compliant languages produce the similar standard IL code.
Just In Time Compilers (JITers)
When our IL compiled code needs to be executed, CLR invokes JIT compilers which compile the IL code to native executable code (.exe or .dll) for the specific machine and OS. JITers in many ways are different from traditional compilers as they, as their name suggests, compile the IL to native code only when desired e.g., when a function is called, IL of function’s body is converted to native code; just in time of need.
So, the part of code that is not used by particular run is not converted to native code. If some IL code is converted to native code then the next time when its needed to be used, the CLR uses the same copy without re-compiling.
So, if a program runs for sometime, then it won’t have any just in time performance penalty. As JITers are aware of processor and OS exactly at runtime, they can optimize the code extremely efficiently resulting in very robust applications.
Also, since JITer knows the exact current state of executable code, they can also optimize the code by in-lining small function calls (like replacing body of small function when its called in a loop, saving the function call time). Although, Microsoft stated that C# and .Net are not competing with languages like C++ in efficiency, speed of execution, JITers can make your code even faster than C++ code in some cases when program is run over extended period of time (like web-servers).
Framework Class Library (FCL)
.NET Framework provides huge set of Framework (or Base) Class Library (FCL) for common, usual tasks. FCL contains thousands of classes to provide the access to Windows API and common functions like String Manipulation, Common Data Structures, IO, Streams, Threads, Security, Network Programming, Windows Programming, Web Programming, Data Access, etc.
It is simply the largest standard library ever shipped with any development environment or programming language. The best part of this library is they follow extremely efficient OO design (design patterns) making their access and use very simple and predictable. You can use the classes in FCL in your program just as you use any other class and can even apply inheritance and polymorphism on these.
Common Language Specification (CLS)
Earlier we used the term ‘.NET Compliant Language’ and stated that all the .NET compliant languages can make use of CLR and FCL. But what makes a language ‘.NET compliant language’? The answer is Common Language Specification (CLS). Microsoft has released a small set of specification that each language should meet to qualify as a .NET Compliant Language.
As IL is a very rich language, it is not necessary for a language to implement all the IL functionality, rather it meets the small subset of it, CLS, to qualify as a .NET compliant language, which is the reason why so many languages (procedural and OO) are now running under .Net umbrella.
CLS basically addresses to language design issues and lays certain standards like there should be no global function declaration, no pointers, no multiple inheritance and things like that. The important point to note here is that if you keep your code within CLS boundary, your code is guaranteed to be usable in any other .Net language.
Common Type System (CTS)
.NET also defines a Common Type System (CTS). Like CLS, CTS is also a set of standards. CTS defines the basic data types that IL understands. Each .NET compliant language should map its data types to these standard data types. This makes it possible for the 2 languages to communicate with each other by passing/receiving parameters to/from each other. For example, CTS defines a type Int32, an integral data type of 32 bits (4 bytes) which is mapped by C# through int and VB.Net through its Integer data type.
Garbage Collector (GC)
CLR also contains Garbage Collector (GC) which runs in a low-priority thread and checks for un-referenced dynamically allocated memory space. If it finds some data that is no more referenced by any variable/reference, it re-claims it and returns the occupied memory back to the Operating System; so that it can be used by other programs as necessary. The presence of standard Garbage Collector frees the programmer from keeping track of dangling data.
What is the software development and execution flow in Microsoft.NET?
With .NET development environment, a developer can write his/her code in any .NET compliant programming language like C#, VB.NET, J#, C++.NET, etc. In fact, various modules, components, projects of an application can be written and compiled in different .Net based programming languages. All these components are compiled to the same Intermediate language code (MSIL or CIL) understandable by the .NET CLR.
How is MS.NET compared with Java based platforms (J2EE)?
At root level architecture and components, MS.NET and J2EE platforms are very similar. Both are virtual machine based architecture having CLR and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as the underlying virtual machine for the management and execution of programs. Both provide memory, security and thread management on behalf of the program and both try to decouple the applications with the execution environment (OS and physical machine). Both, basically, target the Web based applications and especially the XML based web services. Both provide managed access to memory and no direct access to memory is allowed to their managed applications.
However, there are few contrasts in the architecture and design of the two virtual machines. Microsoft .NET framework’s architecture is more coupled to the Microsoft Windows Operating System which makes it difficult to implement it on various operating systems and physical machines. Java, on the other hand, is available on almost all major platforms.
At the darker side, J2EE architecture and JVM is more coupled to the Java programming language while Microsoft.NET has been designed from the scratch to support language independence and language integration. Microsoft.NET covers the component development and integration in much more detail than Java. The versioning policy of .NET is simply the best implemented versioning solution in the software development history. Java has got the support of industry giants like Sun, IBM, Apache and Oracle while the Microsoft.NET is supported by giants like Microsoft, Intel, and HP.
Why should one use MS.NET for software development?
Well, most of the software development all over the world is done on and for Microsoft Windows Operating System. Dot Net is now the standard software development environment for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It dramatically simplifies the development of windows, web based, data access applications, components, controls and web services. Dot net comes with amazing features like XML configuration, reflection, and attributes to ease the overall software development life cycle.
Finally, the dot net is supported by the Microsoft Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment; the best IDE available for any software development environment. Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET) supports all the areas of software development from project creation to debugging and installation.
What are the shortcomings of MS.NET platform?
The foremost short coming of .NET platform is that it is still the propriety of Microsoft. It is more coupled with the Microsoft Windows operating system and is implemented only on Microsoft Windows successfully. MS.NET desktop applications can run only on Microsoft Windows, Web based applications and web services can only be deployed on Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). Since, dot net framework contains a lot of utilities, components, and framework class libraries, the size of downloadable framework is quite large (25MB compared to 5MB size of JVM).
Not all types of applications can be written in .NET managed applications, for example, you can’t write CLR or Operating System in your managed applications. The managed .Net applications are somewhat slower to start and run than the traditional Win32 applications. The compiled code of .Net managed applications is easier to de-compile back to the source code.
How true it is that .NET and Java programs are quite in-efficient when compared to C++?
The startup of managed .NET and Java programs is definitely slower than the traditional C++ programs as it involves the hosting of CLR into managed application process in .NET and starting the JVM in a new process in case of Java. The execution also is a bit slower during the initial period of program execution as the intermediate code is translated to the machine code on the fly at runtime.
But as the program runs various parts repeatedly, the execution gets pace too. Since, the CLR and JVM optimizes the code more efficiently than the static C++ compilers, the execution speed of the program may actually be faster after sometime of the program startup when most of the code is translated. Hence, in the longer run, the .Net and Java based programs should not be in-efficient when compared to C++. We used ‘should’ here as the actual performance depends on the particular implementation and implementation strategy.
How do I send an attachment in an email?
The following code shows how to add an attachment to an email.
Using System.IO;
Using System.Web.Mail;
MailAttachment ma=new MailAttachment("c:\sample.txt");
MailMessage mm=new MailMessage();
mm.To ="xyz@programmersheaven.com";
mm.From="abc@yahoo.com";
mm.Body ="Attachment";
mm.Subject="Check out the attached text file";
mm.Attachments.Add(ma);
SmtpMail.SmtpServer="mail.programmersheaven.com";
SmtpMail.Send(mm);
RELATED POST
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART ONE
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TWO
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART THREE
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FOUR
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FIVE
ADO.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART ONE
ADO.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TWO
You can also learn the concept of frame work concept in detail with questions and answers in the following place.
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART ONE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TWO
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART THREE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FOUR
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FIVE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART SIX
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART SEVEN
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART EIGHT
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART NINE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TEN
The basic components of .NET platform (framework) are:
Common Language Runtime (CLR):
The most important part of the .NET Framework is the .Net Common Language Runtime (CLR) also called .Net Runtime in short. It is a framework layer that resides above the Operating System and handles/manages the execution of the .NET applications. Our .Net programs don’t directly communicate with the Operating System but through CLR
MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language) Code:
When we compile our .Net Program using any .Net compliant language like (C#, VB.NET, C++.NET) it does not get converted into the executable binary code but to an intermediate code, called MSIL or IL in short, understandable by CLR.
MSIL is an OS and H/w independent code. When the program needs to be executed, this MSIL or intermediate code is converted to binary executable code, called native code. The presence of IL makes it possible the Cross Language Relationship as all the .Net compliant languages produce the similar standard IL code.
Just In Time Compilers (JITers)
When our IL compiled code needs to be executed, CLR invokes JIT compilers which compile the IL code to native executable code (.exe or .dll) for the specific machine and OS. JITers in many ways are different from traditional compilers as they, as their name suggests, compile the IL to native code only when desired e.g., when a function is called, IL of function’s body is converted to native code; just in time of need.
So, the part of code that is not used by particular run is not converted to native code. If some IL code is converted to native code then the next time when its needed to be used, the CLR uses the same copy without re-compiling.
So, if a program runs for sometime, then it won’t have any just in time performance penalty. As JITers are aware of processor and OS exactly at runtime, they can optimize the code extremely efficiently resulting in very robust applications.
Also, since JITer knows the exact current state of executable code, they can also optimize the code by in-lining small function calls (like replacing body of small function when its called in a loop, saving the function call time). Although, Microsoft stated that C# and .Net are not competing with languages like C++ in efficiency, speed of execution, JITers can make your code even faster than C++ code in some cases when program is run over extended period of time (like web-servers).
Framework Class Library (FCL)
.NET Framework provides huge set of Framework (or Base) Class Library (FCL) for common, usual tasks. FCL contains thousands of classes to provide the access to Windows API and common functions like String Manipulation, Common Data Structures, IO, Streams, Threads, Security, Network Programming, Windows Programming, Web Programming, Data Access, etc.
It is simply the largest standard library ever shipped with any development environment or programming language. The best part of this library is they follow extremely efficient OO design (design patterns) making their access and use very simple and predictable. You can use the classes in FCL in your program just as you use any other class and can even apply inheritance and polymorphism on these.
Common Language Specification (CLS)
Earlier we used the term ‘.NET Compliant Language’ and stated that all the .NET compliant languages can make use of CLR and FCL. But what makes a language ‘.NET compliant language’? The answer is Common Language Specification (CLS). Microsoft has released a small set of specification that each language should meet to qualify as a .NET Compliant Language.
As IL is a very rich language, it is not necessary for a language to implement all the IL functionality, rather it meets the small subset of it, CLS, to qualify as a .NET compliant language, which is the reason why so many languages (procedural and OO) are now running under .Net umbrella.
CLS basically addresses to language design issues and lays certain standards like there should be no global function declaration, no pointers, no multiple inheritance and things like that. The important point to note here is that if you keep your code within CLS boundary, your code is guaranteed to be usable in any other .Net language.
Common Type System (CTS)
.NET also defines a Common Type System (CTS). Like CLS, CTS is also a set of standards. CTS defines the basic data types that IL understands. Each .NET compliant language should map its data types to these standard data types. This makes it possible for the 2 languages to communicate with each other by passing/receiving parameters to/from each other. For example, CTS defines a type Int32, an integral data type of 32 bits (4 bytes) which is mapped by C# through int and VB.Net through its Integer data type.
Garbage Collector (GC)
CLR also contains Garbage Collector (GC) which runs in a low-priority thread and checks for un-referenced dynamically allocated memory space. If it finds some data that is no more referenced by any variable/reference, it re-claims it and returns the occupied memory back to the Operating System; so that it can be used by other programs as necessary. The presence of standard Garbage Collector frees the programmer from keeping track of dangling data.
What is the software development and execution flow in Microsoft.NET?
With .NET development environment, a developer can write his/her code in any .NET compliant programming language like C#, VB.NET, J#, C++.NET, etc. In fact, various modules, components, projects of an application can be written and compiled in different .Net based programming languages. All these components are compiled to the same Intermediate language code (MSIL or CIL) understandable by the .NET CLR.
How is MS.NET compared with Java based platforms (J2EE)?
At root level architecture and components, MS.NET and J2EE platforms are very similar. Both are virtual machine based architecture having CLR and Java Virtual Machine (JVM) as the underlying virtual machine for the management and execution of programs. Both provide memory, security and thread management on behalf of the program and both try to decouple the applications with the execution environment (OS and physical machine). Both, basically, target the Web based applications and especially the XML based web services. Both provide managed access to memory and no direct access to memory is allowed to their managed applications.
However, there are few contrasts in the architecture and design of the two virtual machines. Microsoft .NET framework’s architecture is more coupled to the Microsoft Windows Operating System which makes it difficult to implement it on various operating systems and physical machines. Java, on the other hand, is available on almost all major platforms.
At the darker side, J2EE architecture and JVM is more coupled to the Java programming language while Microsoft.NET has been designed from the scratch to support language independence and language integration. Microsoft.NET covers the component development and integration in much more detail than Java. The versioning policy of .NET is simply the best implemented versioning solution in the software development history. Java has got the support of industry giants like Sun, IBM, Apache and Oracle while the Microsoft.NET is supported by giants like Microsoft, Intel, and HP.
Why should one use MS.NET for software development?
Well, most of the software development all over the world is done on and for Microsoft Windows Operating System. Dot Net is now the standard software development environment for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It dramatically simplifies the development of windows, web based, data access applications, components, controls and web services. Dot net comes with amazing features like XML configuration, reflection, and attributes to ease the overall software development life cycle.
Finally, the dot net is supported by the Microsoft Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment; the best IDE available for any software development environment. Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET) supports all the areas of software development from project creation to debugging and installation.
What are the shortcomings of MS.NET platform?
The foremost short coming of .NET platform is that it is still the propriety of Microsoft. It is more coupled with the Microsoft Windows operating system and is implemented only on Microsoft Windows successfully. MS.NET desktop applications can run only on Microsoft Windows, Web based applications and web services can only be deployed on Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). Since, dot net framework contains a lot of utilities, components, and framework class libraries, the size of downloadable framework is quite large (25MB compared to 5MB size of JVM).
Not all types of applications can be written in .NET managed applications, for example, you can’t write CLR or Operating System in your managed applications. The managed .Net applications are somewhat slower to start and run than the traditional Win32 applications. The compiled code of .Net managed applications is easier to de-compile back to the source code.
How true it is that .NET and Java programs are quite in-efficient when compared to C++?
The startup of managed .NET and Java programs is definitely slower than the traditional C++ programs as it involves the hosting of CLR into managed application process in .NET and starting the JVM in a new process in case of Java. The execution also is a bit slower during the initial period of program execution as the intermediate code is translated to the machine code on the fly at runtime.
But as the program runs various parts repeatedly, the execution gets pace too. Since, the CLR and JVM optimizes the code more efficiently than the static C++ compilers, the execution speed of the program may actually be faster after sometime of the program startup when most of the code is translated. Hence, in the longer run, the .Net and Java based programs should not be in-efficient when compared to C++. We used ‘should’ here as the actual performance depends on the particular implementation and implementation strategy.
How do I send an attachment in an email?
The following code shows how to add an attachment to an email.
Using System.IO;
Using System.Web.Mail;
MailAttachment ma=new MailAttachment("c:\sample.txt");
MailMessage mm=new MailMessage();
mm.To ="xyz@programmersheaven.com";
mm.From="abc@yahoo.com";
mm.Body ="Attachment";
mm.Subject="Check out the attached text file";
mm.Attachments.Add(ma);
SmtpMail.SmtpServer="mail.programmersheaven.com";
SmtpMail.Send(mm);
RELATED POST
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART ONE
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TWO
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART THREE
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FOUR
ASP.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FIVE
ADO.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART ONE
ADO.NET INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TWO
You can also learn the concept of frame work concept in detail with questions and answers in the following place.
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART ONE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TWO
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART THREE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FOUR
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART FIVE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART SIX
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART SEVEN
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART EIGHT
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART NINE
MICROSOFT DOT NET FRAME WORK QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS PART TEN
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