Chapter One:

Visual Programming
concept

A First Program Using C#

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 Objectives
• Learn about programming tasks
• Learn object-oriented programming concepts
• Learn about the C# programming language
• Learn how to write a C# program that
produces output
• Learn how to select identifiers to use within
your programs

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 Objective

• Learn how to compile and execute a C# program

from the command line
• Learn how to add comments to a C# program
• Learn how to compile and execute a program
using Visual Studio IDE
• Learn how to eliminate the reference to Out by
using the System namespace

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 Briefly in this chapter we will see the following:
-basic programming terminology
-we will write our first C# program
-We will familiarize ourselves with programming
-we will review the different stages of software development.
-We will introduce the C# language, the .NET platform and the
different Microsoft technologies used in software development.
-We will examine what tools we need to program in C#.
-We will use the C# language to write our first computer program,
compile and run it from the command line as well as from
Microsoft Visual Studio integrated development environment.

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 Programming

• A computer program is a set of instructions that you

write to tell a computer what to do
• A computer program is the software that makes
computers valuable to the end-user, allowing for many
different types of services that change our lives.
• Programmers do not use machine language when
creating computer programs. Instead, programmers tend
to use high-level programming languages
• Each high-level language has its own syntax and limited
set of vocabulary that is translated into machine code by
a compiler

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 • In addition to understanding syntax, a programmer must also
understand programming logic.
• To “program” means writing sequences of instructions in order
to organize the work of the computer to perform something.
These sequences of instructions are called “computer
programs” or “scripts”.
• Programmers are the people who create these instructions,
which control computers. These instructions are called
programs.
• Numerous programs exist, and they are created using different
kinds of programming languages. Only high level languages
used to create application programs. Such languages include
C#, Java, C++, PHP, Visual Basic, Python, Ruby, Perl,
JavaScript and others.

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In this book we will take a look at the C# programming language
– a modern high level language.
Stages in Software Development
Writing software can be a very complex and time-
consuming task, involving a whole team of
software engineers and other specialists.
As a result, many methods and practices, which
make the life of programmers easier, have
emerged.

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All they have in common is that the development of each software
product goes through several different stages:
- Gathering the requirements for the product and creating a task;
-Planning and preparing the architecture and design;
-Implementation (includes the writing of program code);
-Product trials (testing);
-Deployment and exploitation;
-Support.

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 Object-Oriented Programming

• Variables are named computer memory locations used

to hold values that may vary
• Operations are usually called or invoked to manipulate
variables
• A procedural program defines the variable memory
locations, then calls a series of procedures to input,
manipulate, and output the value stored in those
locations
• A single procedural program often contains hundreds of
variables and thousands of procedure calls

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 Object-Oriented Programming
• Object-oriented programming is an extension of
procedural programming, which in addition to variables
and procedures contains: objects, classes,
encapsulation, interfaces, polymorphism, and inheritance
• Objects are object-oriented components(real thing)
• Attributes of an object represent its characteristics
• A class is a category of objects or a type of object.
a class is an extensible program-code-template for
creating objects, providing initial values for state
(member variables) and implementations of behavior
(member functions or methods).
• An instance refers to an object based on a class
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 Object-Oriented Programming

• For example:
– An Automobile is a class whose objects have the following
attributes: year, make, model, color, and current running status
– Your 1997 red Chevrolet is an instance of the class that is made
up of all Automobiles
• Methods of classes are used to change attributes and
discover values of attributes
– The Automobile class may have the following methods:
getGas(), accelerate(), applyBreaks()

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 The C# Programming Language

• C# was developed as an object-oriented and

component-oriented language
• It exists as part of the Visual Studio .NET package
• C# (like Java) is modeled after the C++ programming
language
• Pointers are not used in C#
• C# does NOT require the use of object destructors,
forward declarations, or #include files
• It has the ability to pass by reference
• Multiple inheritance is not allowed in C#

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 Creating a console application Program
A console application, in the context of C#, is an application that
takes input and displays output at a command line

A C# program consists of the following parts:

 Namespace declaration
 A class
 Class methods
 Class attributes
 A Main method
Statements and Expressions
 Comments

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Steps of Compiling and Executing the console application Program
If you are using Visual Studio.Net for compiling and executing C#
programs, take the following steps:

Start Visual Studio.

On the menu bar, choose File -> New -> Project.

Choose Visual C# from templates, and then choose Windows.

Choose Console Application.

Specify a name for your project and click OK button. This creates
a new project in Solution Explorer.

Write code in the Code Editor.

Click the Run button or press F5 key to execute the project.

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A Command Prompt window appears that contains the line Hello
World.

Let us look at a simple code that prints the words "Hello World":

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using System;

namespace HelloWorldApplication

{
class HelloWorld

{
static void Main(string[] args)

{
/* my first program in C# */

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/* my first program in C# */

Console.WriteLine("Hello World");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
}
When this code is compiled or run and executed, it produces the
following result:
Hello World.
Let us look at the various parts of the given program:
1. The first line of the program using System; - the using
keyword is used to include the System namespace in the
program. A program generally has multiple using statements.
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 2.The next line has the namespace declaration. what is
namespace?
A namespace is a collection of classes. The HelloWorld
Application namespace contains the class HelloWorld.
3.The next line has a class declaration, the class HelloWorld
contains the data and method definitions that your program uses.
Classes generally contain multiple methods.
Methods define the behavior of the class. However, the
HelloWorld class has only one method Main.
4.The next line defines the Main method, which is the entry point
for all C# programs. The Main method states what the class does
when executed.
5.The next line /*...*/ is ignored by the compiler and it is put to add
comments in the program.

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6.The next line /*...*/ is ignored by the compiler and it is
put to add comments in the program.
7.The Main method specifies its behavior with the
statement Console.WriteLine("Hello World");

8. WriteLine is a method of the Console class defined in

the System namespace. This statement causes the
message "Hello, World!" to be displayed on the screen.

9.The last line Console.ReadKey(); is for the VS.NET

Users. This makes the program wait for a key press and
it prevents the screen from running and closing quickly
when the program is launched from Visual Studio .NET.
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 It is worth to note the following points:
1.C# is case sensitive.
2.All statements and expression must end with a semicolon (;).
3.The program execution starts at the Main method.
C# Distinguishes between Uppercase and
Lowercase!
The C# language distinguishes between uppercase and
lowercase letters so we should use the correct casing when we
write C# code.
Be careful when writing! The same thing, written in
uppercase, lower-case or a mix of both, means different
things in C#. Writing Class is different from class and
System.Console is different from SYSTEM.CONSOLE.

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Writing a C# Program that Produces Output

• “This is my first C# program” is a literal string of

characters
• The string appears in parenthesis because it is a
parameter or an argument
• The WriteLine() method prints a line of output on the
screen
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Writing a C# Program that Produces Output

• Out is an object that represents the screen

• The Out object was created and endowed with the
method WriteLine()
• Not all objects have the WriteLine() method

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Writing a C# Program that Produces Output

• Console is a class
• Console defines the attributes of a collection of similar
“Console” objects

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Writing a C# Program that Produces Output

• System is a namespace, which is a scheme that

provides a way to group similar classes
• Namespaces are used to organize classes

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Writing a C# Program that Produces Output

• The difference between the above code and the previous

code is the amount of whitespace
• Both versions of code share the same method header
(including access modifiers and other keywords)

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C# Variable Declaration(variable definition)
A variable is nothing but a name given to a storage area that
our programs can manipulate.

Each variable in C# has a specific type, which determines the

size and layout of the variable's memory the range of values
that can be stored within that memory and the set of
operations that can be applied to the variable.

The basic value types provided in C# can be categorized

as below:

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The basic value types provided in C# can be categorized as:
Type Example

Integral types sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, long,

ulong, and char

Floating point float and double

types

Decimal decimal
types

Boolean true or false values, as assigned

types

Nullable Nullable data types

types

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 Defining(declare) Variables
syntax for variable definition in C# is:
<data_type> <variable_list>;

Here, data_type must be a valid C# data type including char, int,

float, double, or any user-defined data type, and variable_list may
consist of one or more identifier names separated by commas.

Some valid variable definitions are shown here −

int i, j, k;

char c, ch;

float f, salary;

double d;
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 you can initialize a variable at the time of definition as :
int i = 100;
Initializing Variables:
Variables are initialized (assigned a value) with an equal
sign followed by a constant expression. The general
form of initialization is :
variable_name = value;
Variables can be initialized in their declaration. The
initializer consists of an equal sign followed by a
constant expression as −
<data_type> <variable_name> = value;

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 Some examples are :
int d = 3, f = 5; /* initializing d and f. */
byte z = 22; /* initializes z. */
double pi = 3.14159; /* declares an approximation of pi. */
char x = 'x'; /* the variable x has the value 'x'. */
It is a good programming practice to initialize variables properly,
otherwise sometimes program may produce unexpected result.

The following example uses various types of variables:

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using System;
namespace VariableDefinition {
class Program {
static void Main(string[] args) {
short a;
int b ;
double c;
/* actual initialization */
a = 10;
b = 20;
c = a + b;
Console.WriteLine("a = {0}, b = {1}, c = {2}", a, b, c);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
}

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 When the above code is compiled and executed, it produces the
following result :

a = 10, b = 20, c = 30
Accepting Values from User
The Console class in the System namespace provides a function
ReadLine() for accepting input from the user and store it into a
variable.
For example,
int num;
num = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
The function Convert.ToInt32() converts the data entered by the
user to int data type, because Console.ReadLine() accepts the
data in string format.Let’s see the Example below:

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Example1: Calculate the total of two numbers entered by user
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace calculateTotal{
class calculateSum
{
public static int Sum(int num1,int num2)
{
int total;
total = num1 + num2;
return total;
} 33
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 static void Main() {
Console.Write("\n\n Function to calculate the sum of two
numbers: \n");
Console.Write("-------------------------------------------------\n");
Console.Write("Enter first number: ");
int n1 = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
Console.Write("Enter second number: ");
int n2 = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine());
Console.WriteLine("\nThe sum of two numbers is: {0} \
n", Sum(n1, n2));
Console.ReadKey();
}
} 34
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Example2:a program
that displays names
entered from user

Let’s look below example:

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using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace concatenatestring
{ class combineStrings
{ public static string cocantenatename(string name1,string
name2)
{
string name;
name= name1 + name2;
return name;
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36
 static void Main() {
Console.Write("\n\n Function TO CANCATENATE(COMBINE)
STRINGS: \n");
Console.Write("-------------------------------------------------\n");
Console.Write("Enter first name: ");
string n1 = Console.ReadLine();
Console.Write("\nEnter last name: ");
string n2 = Console.ReadLine();
Console.Write("\nMy name is: {0} \n", cocantenatename(n1," "
+n2));
Console.Write("\n\nPRESS ANY KEY TO EXIT \n\n\n");
Console.ReadKey();
}
}
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 Selecting Identifiers

• Every method used in C# must be part of a class

• A C# class name or identifier must meet the basic
following requirements:
– An identifier must begin with an underscore or a letter
– An identifier can contain only letters or digits, not special
characters such as #,$, or &
– An identifier cannot be a C# reserved keyword

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 Selecting Identifiers

• The reserved public keyword is an access modifier

that defines the circumstance under which a class can
be accessed

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 Compiling and Executing a Program from
the Command Line
• A syntax error occurs when you introduce typing errors
into your program
• The C# compiler issues warnings as wells as errors
• If a syntax error occurs, you must reopen the source
code and make the necessary corrections.

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 Compiling and Executing a Program from
the Command Line

• Output of Hello Program

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 Adding Comments to a Program

• In large programs it becomes difficult to remember why

certain steps were included and the role of certain
variables and methods
• Program comments are nonexecuting statements that
you add to document a program
• You can also comment out various statements in a
program to debug and observe the effects of the
program with the statement or statements commented
out

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 Adding Comments to a Program

• There are three types of comments in C#:

– Line comments
– Block comments
– XML-documentation format

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE
• C# programs can also be written using the Visual Studio
IDE (instead of a text editor). This approach offers many
advantages including:
– Some of the code you need is already created for you
– The code is displayed in color, so you can more easily identify
parts of your program
– If error messages appear when you compile your program, you
can double-click on an error message and the cursor will move
to the line of code that contains the error
– Other debugging tools are available

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• Navigating to Visual Studio .NET

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• Creating a project
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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• Selecting project options

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• The console application template

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• Output screen after compiling the Hello program

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• Output of the Hello program as run from the Visual

Studio IDE

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 Compiling and Executing a Program Using
the Visual Studio IDE

• List of Hello Program Files

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 Eliminating the Reference to Out by Using
the System Namespace

• A program may contain an unlimited number of

statements, as long as they are each terminated by a
semicolon
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 Eliminating the Reference to Out by Using
the System Namespace

• The Output of ThreeLines program

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 Eliminating the Reference to Out by Using
the System Namespace
• When you need to repeatedly use a class from the same
namespace, you can shorten statements by using the
“using” keyword
• Output is identical as the previous version of ThreeLines

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 Eliminating the Reference to Out by Using
the System Namespace

• An alias is an alternative name for a class

• An alias can be used to shorten a long class name (as in
the above example)

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 Chapter Summary

• A computer program is a set of instructions that you write

to tell a computer what to do
• Procedural Programming involves creating computer
memory locations, called variables, and a set of
operations, called procedures. In object-oriented
programming, you envision program components as
objects that are similar to concrete objects in the real
world
• The C# language was developed as an object-oriented
and component-oriented language

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 Chapter Summary

• To write a C# program that produces a line of console

output, you must pass a literal string as a parameter to
the System.Console.Out.WriteLine() method
• You can define a C# class or variable by using any name
or identifier that begins with an underscore or a letter,
that contains only letters or digits, and that is not a C#
reserved keyword
• To create a C# program, you can use the Microsoft
Visual Studio environment or any text editor

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 Chapter Summary

• After you write and save a program, you must compile

the source code
• Program comments are nonexecuting statements that
add to document a program or to disable statements
• As an alternative to using the command line, you can
compile and write your program within the Visual Studio
IDE
• When you need to repeatedly use a class from the same
namespace, you can shorten the statements you type by
using a clause that indicates a namespace where the
class can be found

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