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What is a IL or What is MSIL or CIL , What is JIT?
(IL)Intermediate Language is also known as MSIL (Microsoft Intermediate Language)
or CIL (Common Intermediate Language). All .NET source code is compiled to IL. This
IL is then converted to machine code at the point where the software is installed,
or at run-time by a Just-In- Time (JIT) compiler.
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What is a CLR?
Full form of CLR is Common Language Runtime and it forms the heart of the .NET framework.
All Languages have runtime and its the responsibility of the runtime to take care
of the code execution of the program. For example VC++ has MSCRT40.DLL,VB6 has MSVBVM60.DLL,
Java has Java Virtual Machine etc. Similarly .NET has CLR. Following are the responsibilities
of CLR:-
1. Garbage Collection - CLR automatically manages memory thus eliminating memory
leaks. When objects are not referred GC automatically releases those memories thus
providing efficient memory management.
2. Code Access Security - CAS grants rights to program depending on the security
configuration of the machine. Example the program has rights to edit or create a
new file but the security configuration of machine does not allow the program to
delete a file. CAS will take care that the code runs under the environment of machines
security configuration.
3. Code Verification - This ensures proper code execution and type safety while
the code runs. It prevents the source code to perform illegal operation such as
accessing invalid memory locations etc.
IL( Intermediate language )-to-native translators and optimizer’s - CLR uses JIT
and compiles the IL code to machine code and then executes. CLR also determines
depending on platform what is optimized way of running the IL code.
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What is a CTS?
In order that two language communicate smoothly CLR has CTS (Common Type System).
Example in VB you have "Integer" and in C++ you have "long"
these datatypes are not compatible so the interfacing between them is very complicated.
In order to able that two different languages can communicate Microsoft introduced
Common Type System. So "Integer" datatype in VB6 and "int" datatype in
C++ will convert it to System.int32 which is datatype of CTS. CLS which is covered
in the coming question is subset of CTS. Note: If you have undergone COM programming
period interfacing VB6 application with VC++ application was a real pain as the
datatype of both languages did not have a common ground where they can come and
interface, by having CTS interfacing is smooth.
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What is a CLS(Common Language Specification)?
This is a subset of the CTS which all .NET languages are expected to support. It
was always a dream of Microsoft to unite all different languages in to one umbrella
and CLS is one step towards that. Microsoft has defined CLS which are nothing but
guidelines that language to follow so that it can communicate with other .NET languages
in a seamless manner.
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What is a Managed Code?
Managed code runs inside the environment of CLR i.e. .NET runtime. In short all
IL are managed code. But if you are using some third party software example VB6
or VC++ component they are unmanaged code as .NET runtime (CLR) does not have control
over the source code execution of the language.
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What is a Assembly?
1. Assembly is unit of deployment like EXE or a DLL.
2. An assembly consists of one or more files (dlls, exe’s, html files etc.), and
represents a group of resources, type definitions, and implementations of those
types. An assembly may also contain references to other assemblies. These resources,
types and references are described in a block of data called a manifest. The manifest
is part of the assembly, thus making the assembly self-describing.
3. An assembly is completely self-describing.An assembly contains metadata information,
which is used by the CLR for everything from type checking and security to actually
invoking the components methods. As all information is in the assembly itself, it
is independent of registry. This is the basic advantage as compared to COM where
the version was stored in registry.
4. Multiple versions can be deployed side by side in different folders. These
different versions can execute at the same time without interfering with each other.
Assemblies can be private or shared. For private assembly deployment, the assembly
is copied to the same directory as the client program that references it. No registration
is needed, and no fancy installation program is required. When the component is
removed, no registry cleanup is needed, and no uninstall program is required. Just
delete it from the hard drive.
5. In shared assembly deployment, an assembly is installed in the Global Assembly
Cache (or GAC). The GAC contains shared assemblies that are globally accessible
to all .NET applications on the machine.
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What are the different types of Assembly?
There are two types of assembly Private and Public assembly. A private assembly
is normally used by a single application, and is stored in the application's directory,
or a sub-directory beneath. A shared assembly is normally stored in the global assembly
cache, which is a repository of assemblies maintained by the .NET runtime. Shared
assemblies are usually libraries of code which many applications will find useful,
e.g. Crystal report classes which will be used by all application for Reports.
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What is NameSpace?
Namespace has two basic functionality :-
1. NameSpace Logically group types, example System.Web.UI logically groups our UI
related features.
2. In Object Oriented world many times its possible that programmers will use the
same class name.By qualifying NameSpace with classname this collision is able to
be removed.
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What is Difference between NameSpace and Assembly?
Following are the differences between namespace and assembly :-
1. Assembly is physical grouping of logical units. Namespace logically groups classes.
2. Namespace can span multiple assembly.
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What is Manifest?
Assembly metadata is stored in Manifest. Manifest contains all the metadata needed
to do the following things:-
1. Version of assembly.
2. Security identity.
3. Scope of the assembly.
4. Resolve references to resources and classes.
5. The assembly manifest can be stored in either a PE file (an .exe or .dll) with
Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) code or in a stand-alone PE file that contains
only assembly manifest information.
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Where is version information stored of an assembly?
Version information is stored in assembly in manifest.
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Is versioning applicable to private assemblies?
Versioning concept is only applicable to global assembly cache (GAC) as private
assembly lie in their individual folders.
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What is GAC?
GAC (Global Assembly Cache) is used where shared .NET assembly reside. GAC is used
in the following situations :-
1. If the application has to be shared among several application.
2. If the assembly has some special security requirements like only administrators
can remove the assembly. If the assembly is private then a simple delete of assembly
the assembly file will remove the assembly.
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What is the concept of strong names?
Strong name is similar to GUID(It is supposed to be unique in space and time) in
COM components.Strong Name is only needed when we need to deploy assembly in GAC.
Strong Names helps GAC to differentiate between two versions. Strong names use public
key cryptography (PKC) to ensure that no one can spoof it.PKC use public key and
private key concept.
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How to add and remove an assembly from GAC?
There are two ways to install .NET assembly in GAC:-
1. Using Microsoft Installer Package. You can get download of installer from
http://www.microsoft.com.
2. Using Gacutil. Goto "Visual Studio Command Prompt" and type "gacutil
–i (assembly_name)", where (assembly_name) is the DLL name of the project.
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What is garbage collection?
Garbage collection is a CLR feature which automatically manages memory. Programmers
forget to release the objects while coding.(Remember in VB6 where one of the good
practices is to set object to nothing). CLR automatically releases objects when
they are no longer in use and refernced. CLR runs on non-deterministic to see the
unused objects and cleans them. One side effect of this non-deterministic feature
is that we cannot assume an object is destroyed when it goes out of the scope of
a function. Therefore, we should not put code into a class destructor to release
resources.
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Can we force garbage collector to run?
System.GC.Collect() forces garbage collector to run. This is not recommended but
can be used if situations arises.
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What is reflection?
All .NET assemblies have metadata information stored about the types defined in
modules. This metadata information can be accessed by mechanism called as "Reflection".System.
Reflection can be used to browse through the metadata information.
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What are Value types and Reference types?
Value types directly contain their data which are either allocated on the stack
or allocated in-line in a structure. Reference types store a reference to the value's
memory address, and are allocated on the heap. Reference types can be self-describing
types, pointer types, or interface types. Variables that are value types each have
their own copy of the data, and therefore operations on one variable do not affect
other variables. Variables that are reference types can refer to the same object;
therefore, operations on one variable can affect the same object referred to by
another variable. All types derive from the System.Object base type.
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What is concept of Boxing and Unboxing?
Boxing permits any value type to be implicitly converted to type object or to any
interface type implemented by value type. Boxing is a process in which object instances
are created and copy values in to that instance. Unboxing is vice versa of boxing
operation where the value is copied from the instance in to appropriate storage
location. Below is sample code of boxing and unboxing where integer data type is
converted in to object and then vice versa.
Dim x As Integer
Dim y As Object
x =10
y = x ‘ boxing process
x = y ‘ unboxing process
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What is the difference between VB.NET and C#?
Well this is the most debatable issue in .NET community and people treat there languages
like religion. Its a subjective matter which language is best. Some like VB.NET’s
natural style and some like professional and terse C# syntaxes. Both use the same
framework and speed is also very much equivalents. But still let’s list down some
major differences between them :- Advantages VB.NET :-
1. Has support for optional parameters which makes COM interoperability much easy.
2. With Option Strict off late binding is supported.Legacy VB functionalities can
be used by using Microsoft.VisualBasic namespace.
3. Has the WITH construct which is not in C#.
4. The VB.NET part of Visual Studio .NET compiles your code in the background. While
this is considered an advantage for small projects, people creating very large projects
have found that the IDE slows down considerably as the project gets larger.
Advantages of C#
1. XML documentation is generated from source code but this is now been incorporated
in Whidbey.
2. Operator overloading which is not in current VB.NET.
3. Use of this statement makes unmanaged resource disposal simple.
4. Access to Unsafe code. This allows pointer arithmetic etc, and can improve performance
in some situations. However, it is not to be used lightly, as a lot of the normal
safety of C# is lost (as the name implies).This is the major difference that you
can access unmanaged code in C# and not in VB.NET.
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What is CODE Access security?
CAS is part of .NET security model that determines whether or not a piece of code
is allowed to run and what resources it can use while running. Example CAS will
allow an application to read but not to write and delete a file or a resource from
a folder..
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How to prevent my .NET DLL to be decompiled?
By design .NET embeds rich Meta data inside the executable code using MSIL. Any
one can easily decompile your DLL back using tools like ILDASM (owned by Microsoft)
or Reflector for .NET which is a third party. Secondly there are many third party
tools which make this decompiling process a click away. So any one can easily look
in to your assemblies and reverse engineer them back in to actual source code and
understand some real good logic which can make it easy to crack your application.
The process by which you can stop this reverse engineering is using "obfuscation".
It’s a technique which will foil the decompilers. There are many third parties (XenoCode,
Demeanor for .NET) which provide .NET obfuscation solution. Microsoft includes one
that is Dotfuscator Community Edition with Visual Studio.NET.
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