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Questions tagged [.net]

Do NOT use for questions about .NET Core - use [.net-core] instead. The .NET framework is a software framework designed mainly for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It includes an implementation of the Base Class Library, Common Language Runtime (commonly referred to as CLR), Common Type System (commonly referred to as CTS) and Dynamic Language Runtime. It supports many programming languages, including C#, VB.NET, F# and C++/CLI.

The .NET Framework is not specific to any programming language. Programming languages from Microsoft, like , , CLI, and , as well as many other languages from other vendors, all use the same .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework includes a large library of functions as part of the Base Class Library (BCL), including those related to user interface design, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, development of web applications, mathematical algorithms, and network communications. This extensive library simplifies development and makes it easy to rapidly develop new applications.

As such, questions like "How do I do file I/O in C#?" should really be "How do I do file I/O with .NET?". Because such a question concerns the file I/O libraries provided by the .NET Framework, it should be tagged with both the tag, and with the tag, to indicate that you'd like the answer to be written in the C# programming language.

See also: , (do NOT use the tag for questions about .NET Core).

Getting help

Versions of .NET

Performance

Garbage collector

Free .NET Programming Books (C# / F# / VB / Nemerle / Visual Studio)

Reference Source

API Guide

Database

Database Drivers

  • MySQL Connector - Connector/Net is a fully-managed ADO.NET driver for MySQL
  • Npgsql - .NET data provider for PostgreSQL
  • MongoDB - Official MongoDB C# driver
  • RethinkDb.Driver - A RethinkDB database driver in C# striving for 100% ReQL API compatibility and completeness.
  • ServiceStack Redis - .NET's leading C# Redis client
  • StackExchange Redis - General purpose Redis client from Stack Exchange
  • Cassandra - DataStax .NET driver for Apache Cassandra
  • Couchbase - Official Couchbase .NET client library, based on the Enyim Memcached client
  • Firebird.NET - The .NET Data provider is written in C# and provides a high-performance, native implementation of the Firebird API

Useful .NET Libraries

Mathematics

  • Math.NET Numerics - special functions, linear algebra, probability models, random numbers, interpolation, integral transforms and more

Package managers for external libraries

  • NuGet (formerly known as NuPack) - Microsoft (developer-focused package management system for the .NET platform intent on simplifying the process of incorporating third-party libraries into a .NET application during development)

Build Tools

  • Prebuild - Generate project files for all Visual Studio versions, including major IDEs and tools like SharpDevelop, MonoDevelop, NAnt and Autotools

Dependency Injection/Inversion of Control

Logging

Validation

Design by Contract

Compression

Ajax

Data Mapper

ORM

Charting/Graphics

PDF Creators/Generators

Unit Testing/Mocking

Automated Web Testing

Misc Testing/Quality Support/Behavior Driven Development (BDD)

URL Rewriting

Web Debugging

  • Glimpse - Firebug for your webserver

Controls

MS Word/Excel Documents Manipulation

  • DocX to create, read, manipulate formatted word documents. Easy syntax, working nicely, actively developed. No Microsoft Office necessary.
  • Excel XML Writer allows creation of .XLS (Excel) files. No Microsoft Office necessary. It has been a while since it has been updated. It also provides a code generator to create code from already created XLS file (saved as XML). Haven't tested this but looks very promising. The author hasn't updated this in awhile.
  • Excel Reader allows creation/reading of .XLS (Excel) files. No Microsoft Office necessary. It has been awhile since it has been updated.
  • Excel Package allows creation/reading of .XLSX (Excel 2007) files. No Microsoft Office necessary. The author is gone, so it's out of date.
  • EPPlus is based on Excel Package and allows creation/reading of .XLSX (Excel 2007). It is actually the most advanced even comparing to NPOI.
  • NPOI is the .NET version of POI Java project at https://poi.apache.org/. POI is an open source project which can help you read/write Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files. Latest sources available at GitHub repository

Serialization

  • sharpSerializer - XML/binary serializer for WPF, ASP.NET AND Silverlight
  • protobuf-net - .NET implementation of Google's cross-platform binary serializer (for all .NET platforms)

Machine learning

  • Encog C# - Neural networks
  • AForge.net - AI, computer vision, genetic algorithms, machine learning

Chat room

Chat about .NET with other Stack Overflow users

RESTFul Web Services

  • RestSharp - Simple REST and HTTP API Client for .NET

Unclassified

333813 questions
951
votes
28 answers

Reading settings from app.config or web.config in .NET

I'm working on a C# class library that needs to be able to read settings from the web.config or app.config file (depending on whether the DLL is referenced from an ASP.NET web application or a Windows Forms application). I've found…
Russ Clark
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944
votes
6 answers

How do I convert struct System.Byte byte[] to a System.IO.Stream object in C#?

How do I convert struct System.Byte byte[] to a System.IO.Stream object in C#?
Mehdi Hadeli
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942
votes
109 answers

Metadata file '.dll' could not be found

I am working on a WPF, C# 3.0 project, and I get this error: Error 1 Metadata file 'WORK=- \Tools\VersionManagementSystem\BusinessLogicLayer\bin\Debug \BusinessLogicLayer.dll' could not be found C:\-=WORK=-…
Oliver
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941
votes
7 answers

What are differences between AssemblyVersion, AssemblyFileVersion and AssemblyInformationalVersion?

There are three assembly version attributes. What are differences? Is it ok if I use AssemblyVersion and ignore the rest? MSDN says: AssemblyVersion: Specifies the version of the assembly being attributed. AssemblyFileVersion: Instructs a…
Jakub Šturc
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941
votes
21 answers

How do you sort a dictionary by value?

I often have to sort a dictionary (consisting of keys & values) by value. For example, I have a hash of words and respective frequencies that I want to order by frequency. There is a SortedList which is good for a single value (say frequency), that…
Kalid
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votes
14 answers

When to use .First and when to use .FirstOrDefault with LINQ?

I've searched around and haven't really found a clear answer as to when you'd want to use .First and when you'd want to use .FirstOrDefault with LINQ. When would you want to use .First? Only when you'd want to catch the exception if no results…
Metro Smurf
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926
votes
31 answers

How do I get the path of the assembly the code is in?

Is there a way to get the path for the assembly in which the current code resides? I do not want the path of the calling assembly, just the one containing the code. Basically my unit test needs to read some xml test files which are located…
George Mauer
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919
votes
14 answers

How to enable assembly bind failure logging (Fusion) in .NET

How do I enable assembly bind failure logging (Fusion) in .NET?
user32736
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913
votes
11 answers

How to create a new object instance from a Type

One may not always know the Type of an object at compile-time, but may need to create an instance of the Type. How do you get a new object instance from a Type?
tags2k
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895
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13 answers

Pass Method as Parameter using C#

I have several methods all with the same parameter types and return values but different names and blocks. I want to pass the name of the method to run to another method that will invoke the passed method. public int Method1(string) { // Do…
user31673
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892
votes
19 answers

What's the difference between struct and class in .NET?

What's the difference between struct and class in .NET?
Keith
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887
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25 answers

ASP.NET Web Site or ASP.NET Web Application?

When I start a new ASP.NET project in Visual Studio, I can create an ASP.NET Web Application or I can create an ASP.NET Web Site. What is the difference between ASP.NET Web Application and ASP.NET Web Site? Why would I choose one over other? Is the…
Robert S.
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867
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6 answers

How can I get the assembly file version

In AssemblyInfo there are two assembly versions: AssemblyVersion: Specify the version of the assembly being attributed. AssemblyFileVersion: Instructs a compiler to use a specific version number for the Win32 file version resource. The Win32 file…
Enyra
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867
votes
17 answers

Entity Framework vs LINQ to SQL

Now that .NET v3.5 SP1 has been released (along with VS2008 SP1), we now have access to the .NET entity framework. My question is this. When trying to decide between using the Entity Framework and LINQ to SQL as an ORM, what's the difference? The…
Chris Roberts
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866
votes
37 answers

Error - Unable to access the IIS metabase

After installing Visual Studio 2012 and opening my solution I get a series of errors in this form: The Web Application Project Foo is configured to use IIS. Unable to access the IIS Metabase. You do not have sufficient privilege to access IIS web…
jjathman
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