Starting out with Visual C# 2010: International Edition

In Starting Out With Visual C# 2010, Gaddis makes a very detailed and evenly-paced presentation of both programming and C# syntax concepts so all readers will be able to follow along. His GUI-based approach to teaching C# will resonate with students in CS, IT, and CIS courses. Tony Gaddis’s accessible, step-by-step presentation helps beginning students understand the important details necessary to become skilled programmers at an introductory level. Gaddis motivates the study of both programming skills and the Visual C# programming language by presenting all the details needed to understand the “how” and the “why”—but never losing sight of the fact that most beginners struggle with this material. His approach is both gradual and highly accessible, ensuring that students understand the logic behind developing high-quality programs.

Table of Contents:
Preface ix Chapter 1 Introduction to Computers and Programming 1 1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Hardware and Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.3 How Computers Store Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.4 How a Program Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1.5 Graphical User Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 1.6 Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 1.7 The Program Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 1.8 Getting Started with the Visual Studio Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 TUTORIAL 1-1: Starting Visual Studio and Setting Up the Environment . . . . . . . . . . 28 TUTORIAL 1-2: Starting a New Visual C# Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 TUTORIAL 1-3: Saving and Closing a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 TUTORIAL 1-4: Opening an Existing Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 TUTORIAL 1-5: Getting Familiar with the Visual Studio Environment . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Key Terms 45 • Review Questions 46 • Exercises 51 Chapter 2 Introduction to Visual C# 53 2.1 Getting Started with Forms and Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 2.2 Creating the GUI for Your First Visual C# Application: The Hello World Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 TUTORIAL 2-1: Creating the GUI for the Hello World Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 2.3 Introduction to C# Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 2.4 Writing Code for the Hello World Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 TUTORIAL 2-2: Writing Code for the Hello World Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 2.5 Label Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 TUTORIAL 2-3: Creating the Language Translator Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 2.6 Making Sense of IntelliSense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 2.7 PictureBox Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 TUTORIAL 2-4: Creating the Flags Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 TUTORIAL 2-5: Creating the Card Flip Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 2.8 Comments, Blank Lines, and Indentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 2.9 Writing the Code to Close an Application’s Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2.10 Dealing with Syntax Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 Key Terms 108 • Review Questions 108 • Programming Problems 113 Chapter 3 Processing Data 117 3.1 Reading Input with TextBox Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 3.2 A First Look at Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 TUTORIAL 3-1: The Birth Date String application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 3.3 Numeric Data Types and Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 3.4 Performing Calculations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 3.5 Inputting and Outputting Numeric Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 TUTORIAL 3-2: Calculating Fuel Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 3.6 Formatting Numbers with the ToString Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 TUTORIAL 3-3: Creating the Sale Price Calculator application with currency formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 3.7 Simple Exception Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156 TUTORIAL 3-4: Creating the Test Average Application with Exception Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 3.8 Using Named Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 3.9 Declaring Variables as Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 TUTORIAL 3-5: Creating the Change Counter Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 3.10 Using the Math Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 3.11 More GUI Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Key Terms 185 • Review Questions 185 • Programming Problems 190 Chapter 4 Making Decisions 195 4.1 Decision Structures and the if Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 TUTORIAL 4-1: Completing the Test Score Average application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 4.2 The if-else Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 TUTORIAL 4-2: Completing the Payroll with Overtime application . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 4.3 Nested Decision Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 TUTORIAL 4-3: Completing the Loan Qualifier application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 4.4 Logical Operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 4.5 bool Variables and Flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 4.6 Comparing Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 4.7 Preventing Data Conversion Exceptions with the TryParse Methods . . . . 230 TUTORIAL 4-4: Calculating Fuel Economy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 4.8 Input Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 4.9 Radio Buttons and Check Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 TUTORIAL 4-5: Creating the Color Theme application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244 4.10 The switch Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 4.11 Introduction to List Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 TUTORIAL 4-6: Creating the Time Zone application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251 Key Terms 255 • Review Questions 255 • Programming Problems 259 Chapter 5 Loops, Files, and Random Numbers 265 5.1 More About ListBoxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 5.2 The while Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 TUTORIAL 5-1: Using a Loop to Calculate an Account Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 TUTORIAL 5-2: Enhancing the Ending Balance Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274 5.3 The ++ and -- operators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278 5.4 The for Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279 TUTORIAL 5-3: Using the for Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 5.5 The do-while . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287 5.6 Using Files for Data Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 TUTORIAL 5-4: Writing Data to a Text File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 TUTORIAL 5-5: Appending Data to the Friend.txt File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 TUTORIAL 5-6: Using a Loop to Read to the End of a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308 TUTORIAL 5-7: Calculating a Running Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312 5.7 The OpenFileDialog and SaveFileDialog Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 5.8 Random Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 TUTORIAL 5-8: Simulating Coin Tosses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 5.9 The Load Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326 TUTORIAL 5-9: Creating a Load Event Handler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 Key Terms 330 • Review Questions 330 • Programming Exercises 333 Chapter 6 Modularizing Your Code with Methods 337 6.1 Introduction to Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337 6.2 void Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339 TUTORIAL 6-1: Creating and Calling Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 6.3 Passing Arguments to Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347 TUTORIAL 6-2: Passing an Argument to a Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350 6.4 Passing Arguments by Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358 TUTORIAL 6-3: Using an Output Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 6.5 Value-Returning Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 TUTORIAL 6-4: Writing a Value-Returning Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370 TUTORIAL 6-5: Modularizing Input Validation with a Boolean Method . . . . . . . . . 373 Key Terms 379 • Review Questions 379 • Programming Exercises 382 Chapter 7 Arrays and Lists 387 7.1 Value Types and Reference Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 7.2 Array Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390 TUTORIAL 7-1: Using an array to hold a list of random lottery numbers . . . . . . . . 397 7.3 Working with Files and Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402 7.4 Passing Arrays as Arguments to Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 7.5 Some Useful Array Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412 TUTORIAL 7-2: Processing an Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422 7.6 Advanced Algorithms for Sorting and Searching Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427 7.7 Two-Dimensional Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434 TUTORIAL 7-3: Completing the Seating Chart application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437 7.8 Jagged Arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443 7.9 The List Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444 TUTORIAL 7-4: Completing the Test Score List Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450 Key Terms 456 • Review Questions and Exercises 456 • Programming Exercises 459 Chapter 8 More About Processing Data 463 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463 8.2 String and Character Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463 TUTORIAL 8-1: Completing the Password Validation Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469 TUTORIAL 8-2: Completing the Telephone Format Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482 TUTORIAL 8-3: Completing the Telephone Unformat Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486 TUTORIAL 8-4: Completing the CSV Reader Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493 8.3 Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498 TUTORIAL 8-5: Completing the Phonebook Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 8.4 Enumerated Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 TUTORIAL 8-6: Completing the Color Spectrum Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 8.5 The ImageList Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520 TUTORIAL 8-7: Completing the Random Card Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 Key Terms 526 • Review Questions 526 • Programming Problems 530 Chapter 9 Classes and Multiform Projects 535 9.1 Introduction to Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535 TUTORIAL 9-1: Creating and Using the Coin class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542 9.2 Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547 TUTORIAL 9-2: Creating and Using the CellPhone class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550 9.3 Parameterized Constructors and Overloading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555 TUTORIAL 9-3: Creating and Using the BankAccount class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556 9.4 Storing Class Type Objects in Arrays and Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 562 TUTORIAL 9-4: Completing the Cell Phone Inventory Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564 9.5 Finding the Classes and Their Responsibilities in a Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . 568 9.6 Creating Multiple Forms in a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576 TUTORIAL 9-5: Creating an application with two forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 TUTORIAL 9-6: Accessing a Control on a Different Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585 Key Terms 591 • Review Questions 591 • Programming Problems 595 Chapter 10 Inheritance and Polymorphism 599 10.1 Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599 TUTORIAL 10-1: Creating and testing the SavingsAccount and CDAccount classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609 10.2 Polymorphism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617 TUTORIAL 10-2: Completing the Polymorphism Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622 10.3 Abstract Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627 TUTORIAL 10-3: Completing the Computer Science Student Application . . . . . . . . 629 Key Terms 634 • Review Questions 634 • Programming Exercises 637 Chapter 11 Databases 639 11.1 Introduction to Database Management Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639 11.2 Tables, Rows, and Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641 11.3 Creating a Database in Visual Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644 TUTORIAL 11-1: Starting the Phone Book Application and Creating the Phonelist.mdf Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645 11.4 The DataGridView Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652 TUTORIAL 11-2: Completing the Phone Book Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653 11.5 Connecting to an Existing Database and Using Details View Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660 TUTORIAL 11-3: Creating the Products Application and Using a Details View . . . . 661 11.6 More About Data-Bound Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670 TUTORIAL 11-4: Creating the Product Lookup Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674 TUTORIAL 11-5: Creating the Multiform Products Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676 11.7 Selecting Data with the SQL Select Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682 TUTORIAL 11-6: Creating the Product Queries Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688 TUTORIAL 11-7: Creating the Product Queries Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697 TUTORIAL 11-8: Creating the Product Search Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 702 Key Terms 707 • Review Questions 707 • Programming Exercises 711 Appendix A C# Primitive Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713 Appendix B Additional User Interface Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715 Appendix C ASCII/Unicode Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735 Appendix D Answers to Checkpoint Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757

About the Author :
Tony Gaddis is the principal author of the Starting Out with series of textbooks. He has nearly two decades of experience teaching computer science courses, primarily at Haywood Community College. Tony is a highly acclaimed instructor who was previously selected as the North Carolina Community College Teacher of the Year, and has received the Teaching Excellence award from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development. The Starting Out with series includes introductory textbooks covering Programming Logic and Design, Alice, C++, Java, Microsoft Visual Basic, and Python.