C# 7.0 New Features – Local functions

Local functions are another very handy feature to be introduced into language if you are into code refactoring. Many a times developers create a very large method and while code review we see lot of places same logic has been repeated and thus think about refactoring it. Problem is that if the logic is required only at multiple places within same method than it’s not a good idea to make it into a separate named method.

Let’s take an example in C# 6 and then we will try to refactor that using various ways and finally with local functions feature in C# 7.0

Here is a simple code that works on array of numbers and calculates sum and subtraction of each number in array

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C# 7.0 New Features –More Expression Bodied Members

Expression bodied members were introduced in C# 6.0. You can read more about those here

C# 7.0 introduced more stuff like accessors, finalizer’s and constructors as expression bodied members

Expression Bodied Syntax for constructors

public CSharp7Features(string someData) => Console.WriteLine("Constructor called with {0} in c# 7 feature", someData);

Expression Bodied Syntax for Finalizers


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C# 7.0 New Features –Return Locals as Refs

Important points regarding ref in C#

  • ref keyword is used to return more than one values from a function.
  • ref keywords need to be defined before you can pass them as a parameter to function
  • Called method is not bound to assign any value to the ref parameter since it has already been initialized by calling method

Case Study

We need to find if a number i.e. 4 exist in an array and if exist we would like to change its value to 111

Example using C# 6.0

Consider below extension method which returns index of a number if it’s found in array

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C# 7.0 New Features – Literal Improvements

C# 7.0 introduces Number literals as well as Binary Literals

These are completely new features that adds syntactic sugar to C# while dealing with number and binary data.

You can now declare numeric variables as below while adding (Underscore) _ as a separator for readability. This is handy while dealing with large numbers

One important thing to understand about these separator literals is that these are ignored by compiler while evaluating the value and are just meant to provide readability.

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C# 7.0 New Features – Out Parameter Enhancements

out/ref keyword has been used to return more than one values from a function.
ref keywords need to be defined before you can pass them as a parameter to function but on the other hand out variables need not be initialized before they can be passed as a parameter to a function.
In case of ref, the called method is not bound to assign any value to the ref parameter since it has already been initialized by calling method but in case of out, the called method has the responsibility of assigning value of out parameter failing which results in a compile time error.
Problem with the out keyword in past was that we need to declare out Parameter before it can be passed as argument
Before C# 7.0
Usage of out parameter

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Install and running .Net core

Step 1:

Download and install .net core sdk from

https://www.microsoft.com/net/download/core

if you already have Visual studio installed you can install “Visual Studio 2017 Tools” else install “Windows (x64) Installer” if you want to work from command line only

Core1

Step 2:

When setup finishes it will install all required tools and also setup the path variable so that all CLI tools are available via command line

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Creating first application using Bot Framework

In this article series, we will create and run our first application using Bot framework template installed in previous article.

Start Visual Studio, go to File -> New Project and select Bot Application template under Visual C#. Name the project say HelloBots and click OK button.

First1

Here is how the created project looks like

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Setting up Visual Studio to use Bot Framework

Please refer to article 1 in series of instruction to bot framework to know more about Bot framework here

Bot builder SDK is available as a Nuget package names “Microsoft.Bot.Builder” and required .Net Framework 4.6 or above versions. You can also download the source code for Bot framework here

To setup visual studio for Bot Application development. follow below steps:

  • Download Visual studio 2015/2017 from http://www.visualstudio.com
  • Update all Visual Studio Extensions from (Tools -> Extension and Updates -> Updates)
  • Download Bot Application templates from here
  • Navigate to %UserProfile%\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual C#\

SetupVs1

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Introduction to Microsoft BOTS Framework

Bots are an integral part of user’s experience in today’s digital world. Bots can be thought of as applications that performs automated tasks e.g. interact with user and thus eliminating the need for manual support. Some examples of bots from daily life are Cortana And Siri. You can interact with them using text or speech, does some background processing and generate response for you. There are many ways a bot can interact with a user:

  • Text
  • Cards
  • Speech

Typically, while interacting with users, bots use pattern matching algorithms to generate responses from stored set of responses. Creating something like this from scratch can be a real pain but with the improvements in Artificial intelligence techniques and more so with Microsoft’s Cognitive services which provides support for natural language processing, speech and image recognition, lot of things are now available out of the box.

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Asp.Net Core 2 – ASP.NET Core metapackage

As you might already be aware Asp.net core is a platform made of nuget packages. There are different packages targeting different version of frameworks available say .net 4.6, Asp.net core 1.0,1.1 and 2.0. We generally classify frameworks into 2 categories:

  • Traditional framework e.g. .net 4.6 which includes .Net framework where most of things are predefined and need not be configured
  • Package-based frameworks which are created entirely from scratch by choosing packages as and when required

Package based frameworks are not easy to use and required a different/higher level of understanding of all required packages and most of the .net developers are used to work with predefined templates provided by visual studio.

This problem has been work around by introducing the concept of metapackages which are a collection of commonly used packages required by apps.

In older versions of .net core tools (both project.json and csproj-based tools) by default specified both a framework and a metapackage but in later versions metapackages were tied to specific frameworks . Depending on targeted framework appropriate metapackage is already added to project. This feature is also called as implicit referencing of metapackages. For example

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Asp.Net Core 2 – Razor Pages Support

Razor pages support has been added to asp.net core MVC which makes coding page-focused scenarios easier and more productive. Razor page support is enabled in Startup.cs file as

public class Startup
{
    public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        // Includes this line to support for Razor Pages and controllers.
        services.AddMvc();
    }

    public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app)
    {
        app.UseMvc();
    }
}

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Asp.net core 2.0 New Features

Microsoft recently announced Asp.net version 2.0 with lot of new and exciting features and enhancement. This update comes on top of the first version i.e. Asp.net Core 1.0 also known as Asp.net 5.0.  To install Asp.net core 2.0 update:

Install Visual Studio 15.3 or later with the following workloads:

  • ASP.NET and web development
  • .NET Core cross-platform development

Various new features that have been shipped with asp.net core 2.0

  • Razor Pages Support
  • NET Core metapackage
  • .NET Standard 2.0
  • Runtime Store
  • Configuration update
  • Logging Update
  • Authentication update
  • Identity Update
  • Kestrel improvements
  • WebListener renamed to HttpSys
  • Hosting startup and Application Insights
  • Automatic use of anti-forgery tokens
  • Automatic precompilation
  • Razor support for C# 7.1

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Asp.Net Core FAQs

What is Asp.Net core?
Asp.net core is high scalable, open source version of asp.net and can work across platform. It was initially released as Asp.Net 5 and later renamed as Asp.net Core 1.0. Microsoft has recently launched version 2.0 of Asp.net core as well. Asp.net core has been widely used to create cloud based solutions and works great with cloud platforms like Azure and Docker.
What all applications can we create using Asp.Net Core?
We can build web applications, Web Api, IOT apps , Single page apps and as well mobile application backends.
What are the development tools available for Asp.net core?
We can use below tools for various OS:
a.) Windows –
We can use Visual Studio(Community/Ultimate/Professional/Enterprise) or Visual studio code on windows.
b.) MAC-
Visual Studio for code or Visual Studio for MAC
c.) Linux-
Visual Studio for code or Visual Studio for MAC

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Robotic Process Automation

Robotics Process Automation has been the recent buzzword in the market and though it has been around for quite some time, it has started to make noise now in software industry. People frequently ask me questions regarding what RPA is all about, whether it’s a good choice to be make a career move to RPA from .net and other technologies and how will it stand out in competition with other hot skills in market like Machine learning, IOT, Big Data etc.
Well my answer is, RPA is not here to compete with any of the existing or upcoming technology It would rather work in conjunction with these technologies to provide automated solutions to clients who have been burdened in past with too much manual effort.

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How to Keep Node Updated

To update installed node package
1.) Delete nodejs folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs or location where its installed
2.) Download latest installer from https://nodejs.org/en/download/ and reinstall

To Update angular command line interface

npm uninstall -g angular-cli
npm cache clean
npm install -g angular-cli@latest