It254 Glossary Of Terms

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About box

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A window that displays information about the program; usually displayed from the Help / About menu item.

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Access key

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Underlined character that allows the user to select using the keyboard rather than the mouse; also called a hot key.

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Accessor method

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Gets and sets methods written to allow external objects to access the private properties of a class.

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Array

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A series of variables; each individual element can be referenced by its index position. Also called a list.

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Assignment operator

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An equal sign (=); assigns a value to the variable or property named on the left side of the sign.

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Boolean expression

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An expression that will evaluate true or false. May be a comparison of two values (variables, properties, constants) using relational operators.

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Button

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Control used to activate an event-handling method.

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Call (method call)

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Execute a method.

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Camel casing

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The naming convention that specifies mixed-case names: The first character must be lowercase, and the first character of each word within the name must be uppercase; the rest of the characters must be lowercase.

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Casting

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Converting from one data type to another.

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Class

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A prototype or blueprint for an object; includes specifications for the properties and methods.

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Class-level variable

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A variable or method that can be used in any method within the current class.

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Comment

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A C# statement used for documentation; not interpreted by the compiler.

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Common dialog

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A set of Windows dialog boxes available to C# programmers for Open, Save, Fonts Print, and Color.

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Component tray

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Area across the lower edge of a Form Designer window in the IDE; used to store components that are not visible on the form.

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Compound Boolean expression

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Multiple Boolean expressions that are combined by using the logical operators, &? ||.

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Concatenation

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Joining string (text) fields. The plus sign (+) is used to concatenate text.

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Control

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An object used on a graphical interface, such as a radio button, text box, button, or label.

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Debugging

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Finding and eliminating computer program errors.

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Declaration

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Statements to establish a project's variables and constants, give them names, and specify the type of data they will hold.

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Direct reference

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Accessing an element of an array by a subscript when the value of the subscript is known.

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Do/while loop

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A series of statements that will be executed as long as a condition is true. The condition is written on the while statement and is a posttest loop structure.

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Explicit conversion

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Writing the code to convert from one data type to another, as opposed to implicit conversion.

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Focus

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The currently selected control on the user interface. For controls such as buttons, the focus appears as a light dotted line. For text boxes, the insertion point (also called the cursor) appears inside the box.

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For loop

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A pretest loop structure; usually used when the number of iterations is known.

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Foreach loop

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A pretest loop structure that can automatically iterate through a collection or array.

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Form.Activated event

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Occurs when a form receives focus.

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Form.Load event

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Occurs when a form is loaded into memory.

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Hide method

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Method of a form or a control that makes it invisible but does not unload it from memory.

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If statement

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Statement for testing a condition and taking alternate actions based on the outcome of the test.

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Implicit conversion

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A conversion from one data type to another that occurs automatically or by default according to specified rules.

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Increment operator

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Shortcut operator for increasing the value of a variable by 1 (++).

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Index

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Position within a list or array.

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Iteration

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A single pass through the statements in a loop.

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Local variable

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The scope of a variable or constant that limits its visibility to the current method.

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Logic error

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An error in a project that does not halt execution but that causes erroneous results in the output.

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Logical operator

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The operators && (And), || (Or), and ! (Not); used to construct compound Boolean expressions and to reverse the truth of an expression.

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Loop

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A control structure that provides for the repetition of statements.

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Loop index

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A counter variable used in a for loop.

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Method

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Predefined actions provided with objects. A unit of code that performs an action and may or may not return a value.

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Modal

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A dialog box that requires a user response before continuing program execution.

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Modeless

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A dialog box that does not require a user response before continuing program execution.

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Nested if

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An if statement completely contained within another if statement.

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NewLine character

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Used to set line endings in a string literal. Can use \n in strings; in a text box, use Environment.NewLine.

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Object

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An occurrence of a class type that has properties and methods; a specific instance of a control type, form, or other class.

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Object-oriented programming (OOP)

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An approach to programming that uses classes to define the properties and methods for objects. Classes may inherit from other classes.

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Order of precedence

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Hierarchy of operations; the order in which operations are performed.

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Overloading

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Allows a method to act differently for different arguments. Multiple methods in the same class with the same name but with different argument lists.

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Posttest

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A loop that has its test condition after the body of the program code

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Pretest

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A loop that has its test condition at the top; the statements inside the loop may never be executed; also called an entry test.

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Properties window

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A window in the IDE used to set values for properties at design time.

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Relational operator

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Used to compare two values and return a Boolean (true/false) result.

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Return statement

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Returns a value from a method.

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Return value

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Value returned from a function or method.

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Scope

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The extent of visibility of a variable or constant. The scope may be namespace, class, local, or block level.

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Short circuit

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Skipping the evaluation of parts of a compound condition that are not required.

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Show method

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Displays a form or message box. A form displayed with the Show method is modeless.

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ShowDialog method

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Displays a common dialog box or a form; the form is displayed modally.

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Solution file

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A text file that holds information about the solution and the projects it contains.

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Splash screen

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A window that appears before the main application window; generally displays program information and gives the appearance of quicker application loading.

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Static keyword

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Keyword used to designate that a property or method can be shared.

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Structure

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A grouping that combines multiple fields of related data.

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Subscripted variable

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An element of an array.

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Switch statement

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C# statement to implement a case structure.

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TabIndex property

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Determines the order the focus moves as the Tab key is pressed.

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Table

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A two-dimensional array.

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Text property

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The value that displays on a control such as the words in a text box or label.

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Variable

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Memory location that holds data that can be changed during project execution.

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Visual Studio environment

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The development environment includes tools for designing the form; an editor, for entering and modifying program code; a compiler, for translating the C# statements into machine code; a debugger , to help locate errors; and object browser, to view the available classes, objects, properties, methods, and events; and a Help facility.

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Void

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Keyword that indicates that a method does not return a value.

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While loop

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A series of statements that will be executed as long as a condition is true. The condition is written on the while statement and is a pretest loop structure.