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Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library

I've decided to create a running article series on little known, but invaluable methods/properties in the .NET Framework BCL, starting with this week's 4Guys article enumerating some of the more handy methods for working with file paths.  Over the coming weeks I'm planning on adding additional topics and associated methods/properties that don't get much press in the ASP.NET developer world.  The next topics I'm planning on addressing are:

  • Working with Colors, and
  • Parsing Strings

In the mean time, I am interested in any suggestions you might have for such methods and properties and/or general categories.  As Julia Lerman has said before in her presentations on ASP.NET topics, “There's more to .NET than System.Web.“  I couldn't agree more, and this ongoing article is an attempt to help highlight some of the more useful elements in the BCL that ASP.NET developers can benefit from.

Read Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library.

posted on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 4:32 PM

Feedback

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 5/24/2005 11:26 PM Brian

Great tips.

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 5/26/2005 2:33 AM David

I like the TryParse method that have been added to most of the basic types.

bool foo;
Boolean.TryParse("falsse", out foo);

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 5/26/2005 11:06 AM Scott Mitchell

Here are some methods/properties/classes I plan on talking about at some point in the future (put here as a sort of reminder for moi):

ColorTranslator
System.Uri (suggestion by Nick Harrison)
System.Environment.* and System.Diagnostics.FileVersionInfo.GetVersionInfo(Path) (suggestions by Rob Chartier)
Obsolete attribute (suggestion by Phil Winstanley)
String.Format (suggestion by Scott Cate)

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 5/27/2005 4:35 PM Cheng Yuan Yap Ye

What about ArrayList.ReadOnly?

# Interesting Finds this morning 5/30/2005 8:47 AM Jason Haley

Interesting Finds this morning

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 5/30/2005 4:59 PM Dan F

+1 for obsolete, its very handy when refactoring. Not exactly what its *supposed* to be used for, but still brilliant.

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 5/31/2005 11:04 AM Scott Mitchell

FYI, the article that discusses useful properties/methods for working with Colors is up:
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/060105-1.aspx

# re: Little Known, Invaluable Methods and Properties in the .NET Framework Base Class Library 6/8/2005 7:35 AM Richard

Unfortunately, the ColorTranslator.FromHtml method has a nasty bug when trying to parse an invalid colour:
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/productfeedback/viewfeedback.aspx?feedbackid=b9ee3ad9-eb4e-4afd-b73b-eab959b24084

If the argument is 4 or 7 characters long and starts with "#", the method throws a System.FormatException; for all other invalid values, the method throws a System.Exception.

All the guidelines state that you should never throw or catch a general exception type, but in this instance, you have no choice.

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