C# Archives

JSON serialization – DataContractJsonSerializer vs JavaScriptSerializer

In C#, when you have to work with JSON data you’re usually represented with two choices – DataContractJsonSerializer or JavaScriptSerializer. There are other popular third-party libraries out there, such as the popular Json.Net project, but for the rest of this blog let’s just focus on the two built-in JSON serializers and see how they differ. …

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Turn ExpandoObject into static type

.Net, C#, C# 4, Programming, Tips

As many others have shown, the new ExpandoObject introduced in C# 4 can be pretty useful in some scenarios. However, on the odd occasion when you want to convert an ExpandoObject to a static type you have defined you can be forgiven for feeling a little lost as there are no well documented ways to …

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IDictionary<string, object> to ExpandoObject extension method

.Net, C#, C# 4, Extension Methods, Programming

As you know, the ExpandoObject class implements the IDictionary<string, object> interface, so if you have an ExpandoObject you can easily cast it to an IDictionary<string, object> but there’s no built-in way to easily do the reverse. Luckily, I came across a very useful extension method today which converts an IDictionary<string, object> into an ExpandoObject, which …

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.Net Tips – Working with anonymous types

.Net, C#, Programming, Tips

Anonymous types are useful, especially in LINQ queries where you often want to iterate through an array of items and project them into some arbitrarily shaped objects that are little more than simple data containers, using anonymous types save you the hassle of having to first declare those types which you will simply throw away …

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Performance Test – Delegates vs Methods

.Net, C#, C# 4, Performance, Programming

Quite some time ago I was asked to cover a C# developer interview for one of my neighbouring teams, and on the sheet of questions the original interviewer wanted me to ask was this question: Q. Why should you NEVER use delegates? I thought: “Well, at least I can rule myself out for the role!” …

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Partial class across projects is NOT ALLOWED

.Net, C#, Programming

Well, you learn something new everyday and today I found out that you can’t have a partial class that spans across projects in C#, i.e. if I have a partial class called MyClass in ProjectA: 1: namespace ProjectA.Entities 2: { 3: public partial class MyClass { } 4: } 5: I won’t be able to …

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SmartThreadPool – What happens when you take on more than you can chew

.Net, C#, Performance, Programming, Threading

I’ve covered the topic of using SmartThreadPool and the framework thread pool in more details here and here, this post will instead focus on a more specific scenario where the rate of new work items being queued outstrips the pool’s ability to process those items and what happens then. First, let’s try to quantify the …

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HashSet vs List vs Dictionary

.Net, C#, Performance, Programming

Out of curiosity after reading some articles on how the HashSet<T> (introduced in .Net 3.5) class is more performant than the List<T> class for set operations, I set about doing some experiments of my own to get a feel of just how much faster a HashSet is, and under what circumstances. Also, whilst there’s been …

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Type.IsSubclssOf and Type.IsAssignableFrom

.Net, C#, Programming

On the Type class there are two very useful methods which allows you to determine the inheritance relationship of two arbitrary types at runtime – IsSubclassOf method and IsAssignableFrom method. IsSubclassOf The MSDN documentation for the IsSubclassOf method states: Determines whether the class represented by the current Type derives from the class represented by the …

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Converting List<T> using covariance

.Net, C#, LINQ, Programming

I saw an interesting use of covariance today, consider an interface IMyClass and an implementing class MyClass: 1: public interface IMyClass { } 2: 3: public class MyClass : IMyClass { } If you want to convert an List<MyClass> to a List<IMyClass> you would normally use the Enumerable.Cast method but did you know that you …

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