Is it better to use friend or public forms in vb.net? What are the advantages of each?
I notice when you import a vb6 project, the forms come in as friend, but when you add a new form in vb.net it is public. I have not seen any difference in the way they work, though, so I must be missing something.
In my opinion, I would use Friend (aka internal in C#) even though the default is public. I would also use private for controls on the form even though I think VB defaults to protected. In general, think of type/member access as if it were your wife's boobs. Keep them hidden from others up unless there's some benefit to exposing them (like getting out of a speeding ticket or making a shared library of common dialogs, etc.)
One drawback with making things internal is that you have to do some extra work to make them public to your unit tests. See the InternalsVisibleToAttribute for details.
VB6 did not support exporting forms from a class library. The natural mapping for converted code therefore is Friend. However, VB.NET has no such problems. Using Public is fine, assuming any exposed types in public method arguments is Public as well. Easy to find, the compiler will tell you.
If the form is Public it can be accessed from outside the current assembly (.exe). If it's Friend then it's only accessible from within the assembly. The same access level rules apply to Forms as other VB.NET classes.
I can't think of a common Winforms situation where you would need public Forms because they're usually in the same assembly making friend good enough. Unless you had forms scattered through different assemblies and they needed to reference one another.
Maybe the Microsoft team that wrote the import tool decided on Friend because all the forms came from the same classic project, whereas the Visual Studio (New Item) team decided on Public because the .NET way deals more with modularized projects. It might just be as simple as that.
Related
Some of my co-workers make extensive use of the VB.net concept of Modules. Unfortunately, I just don't 'get it'. I see no benefit in using modules over shared classes. Am I missing something? When would it be preferable to use a module? Or am I (as I do quite often in this language) 'just not getting it'?
In VB.net a module is a shared class. When they are compiled they are given a private constructor and methods set to shared.
There are some times when you are forced to use modules by the compiler (in the same way static classes are in C#) such as for extension methods which can not be created in side a VB.Net class.
By using modules for your helper methods you will make it easier to convert them over to extension methods later and restrict others from adding any instance methods or constructors.
That said they are a hang over from VB6 that did not support full OO programming and beyond standalone helper methods they would not widely be used.
A module is essentially the same as a shared class. The major difference is that in a module, there's no need for all the extra "shared"s, cause everything's implicitly shared. If you have no instance data and are just using the class as a kind of namespace for functions, then it's a better idea (IMO) to use a module instead and make that clear.
I am not a program designer by any means but I would really like to start getting a better grasp of how to do it and a better understanding of the .NET languages in general (VB, C#). I was reading a book by Wrox - Professional Visual Basic 2008. In it I believed it mentioned that Modules are slowly going out of existence. I can see why most coding would go into a class object but I would assume modules would always be necessary to at least keep the code clean.
Could anybody clarify this up for me? Also, I have been searching for a good source on software design but I can't seem to find any recent books published. I might be searching in the wrong places but I would really like to get my hands on one.
Thank you.
While in general they don't quite fit with OOP, they are still used and are required in some cases.
In VB.Net, if you wish to write extension methods, you are going to have to use a Module - The compiler will only allow Extension Methods to be defined in one.
You could of course get round not using Modules - an Non Inheritable Class with a private constructor and nothing but Shared Methods will achieved the same thing as a Module.
Like everything in programming (and many other things), they have their uses, and as long as they are not miss-used there is no problem with them. Right tool for the job!
The Module keyword in VB.NET primarily exists for compatibility with VB6 and earlier. Back then, most VB code was procedural with free-standing non-class Subs and Functions. The language acquired the Class keyword somewhere around VB4. Not true classes in the OOP sense, it didn't support inheritance. A feature missing from the underlying COM architecture.
It doesn't fit very well with the execution model provided by the CLR. There is no support for free functions, every method must be a member of a class. The VB.NET compiler emulates modules by declaring a class, the module procedures become Shared methods of that class. You can see this with Ildasm.exe:
.class private auto ansi sealed ConsoleApplication1.Module1
extends [mscorlib]System.Object
{
.custom instance void [Microsoft.VisualBasic]Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.StandardModuleAttribute::.ctor() = ( 01 00 00 00 )
} // end of class ConsoleApplication1.Module1
Note how it is private, so that code can't get a reference to it, and sealed, so that no code can derive a class from a module.
The C# compiler does the exact same thing with a "static class", the CLR doesn't have a notion of static classes either. There are plenty of good reasons for static classes, the idea of "Module" isn't obsolete. You could accomplish the same by declaring a NotInheritable Class in VB.NET code, having only Shared methods. The VB.NET compiler however doesn't enforce methods to be Shared like the C# compiler does and doesn't allow you to declare the class private. As such, a Module is just fine.
Modules are the closest thing VB has to static classes, which can be very useful, even when programming in an object-oriented environment.
And since VB has no static classes, modules are as far as I know the only way to create extension methods.
You need modules in order to define your own Extension methods
In the day job, I work on a VB6 (I know, but don't mock the afflicted...) application that uses a number of libraries we have written (also in the ever illustrious VB6). One of these supporting libraries had a load of private members exposed via public properties, and I was asked to remove the properties, and promote the private member variables into public fields with the same name as the original properties.
Now, I'm no COM expert, but I was under the impression that each and every exposed item on a class gets it's own GUID. Since we would be going from a situation where each value went from 2 Guids (Property Get and Property Let) to one where they only used the one (the public field), I was expecting this to break binary compatibility - but it seems it hasn't done that.
Can anyone explain why?
No, it hasn't broken compatibility because it hasn't removed the property get and property let methods. It's just that the compiler is now writing them for you.
Isn't this one of the few areas where VB6 is arguably better than .Net?
In .Net public fields behave differently to public properties, and this makes some refactorings difficult and causes confusion.
In VB6 public fields behave exactly like public properties, which is why it's possible to switch without affecting binary compatibility. Behind the scenes, the compiler generates property get and set routines for public fields. In a sense VB6 has automatically implemented properties (now advertised as a "new feature" in VB10)...
I think it's a bit more subtle than that. You get a GUID for the COM interface (not each individual field/method). As I understand it the binary compatibility attempts to work out if the interface your currently compiling is backwards compatible with a reference version of your DLL (assuming you have one) and only changes the GUID if they are not compatible.
I'm therefore also surprised that it has decided removing all the get/set methods is compatible :/
I am new to vb.net and very frustrated.
Like all good programmers I want to split my code into separate files based on functionality . Some of my code interacts with users via Forms and some interacts with lab equipment behind the scenes (no direct user interaction). Sometimes a user will change something that will impact the lab equipment and sometimes something will happen with the lab equipment that a user needs to be aware of. When I use VS to create files I have to choose a Module or Form. VS then creates an empty file with a with either
Public Class Foo
End Class
or
Module Foo
End Module
If I have a bunch of files, each a Module, and if I define routines in a Module to be Friend then I can call them from other Modules, so:
Module Foo
Friend Sub DoSomeWork()
End Sub
End Module
Code in Fee can call routines in Foo -
Module Fee
Friend Sub Stuff()
DoSomeWork()
End SUb
End Module
When I create a Form, VS creates a Class. I find that I can call subroutines defined in a Module from a Class but when I try to call from a Module into a Class I get an error that the routine I am trying to call is not declared. I also cannot call from one Class into another Class. Declarations seem to apply only to library routines outside my program.
I have looked through several online explanations and tutorials, but frankly I don't understand these nor do I care about "inheriting from the base class" and all the other gobbledygook that such "explanations" contain. I want to concentrate on building my application.
My Main form has the name "Main"
I tried putting all the module code into the Main Class first by renaming "Module Foo" to "Public Partial Class Main" - bad idea - creates an impossible-to-find duplicate error. I tried creating empty code files, defining them as Public Partial Class Main and putting the Module code into them, - this worked in that code in the Class Main could call the "Module" code (which was now in Main) and vice-versa, but, other Forms (of course I have more than one) are created by VS to have their own Classes and once the "Module" code is moved out of Modules into Class Main the other Forms(Classes) could not call the code anymore.
I just want some recipe (best practice) I can follow to for defining Modules and Classes so that code and data can be shared.
ANSWER from below
To invoke a subroutine in another Class you simply need to put the class name in front of the subroutine name.
So not
DoSomeWork()
but
Foo.DoSOmeWork()
This may be obvious to all of you experienced programmers but not to me. You do not have to prepend a class/module name to a Module-to-Module call or a Class-to-Module call, only to calls that are made into Classes. Personally, for the sake of consistency, I think the things should be the same, but it would probably violate some OO rule. Anyway thank you to all.
Generally, if you have a function that needs to be called from more than one form, or from forms and modules, put it in the main module. If you have an exceptional case and need to call a function or sub in a form from another form or a module, you can declare it to be public:
Public Class Form1
public sub test(i as integer)
...
end sub
end class
and then you can call it by referring to the class.subname:
call form1.test(7)
NomD,
Like all good programmers
you should indeed care
about "inheriting from the base class" and all the other gobbledygook that such "explanations"
This will make you a better programmer and taking the time to understand why proper code structuring is important will also begin to yield better results for you.
I am not sure why two commentors seem to have an issue with VB.Net. The question would be the same regardless of the language, since both are C# and VB are built on .Net. Code can be written poorly in C#, just like VB. Please leave the language wars at home. NormD, the answer to your question should really be to direct you to the resources needed to better understand the problem. Here is an article on scope that might help a bit - class scope. The reason you are getting the behavior that you see is due to what you are working with. Modules (similar to static classes in C#) are created when you program begins, so there is no need to create them. So you can reference a method on a module, like so - module.method. Classes on the other hand, some exceptions, need to be created in order to be referenced. So to use an employee (or form class) you must create a variable of that class. So you would use dim myemp as New Employee() and then call myemp.method() from your module. This is a rather simplistic description, so please read the scope article and other MSDN articles for more information. I am sure other posters can post additional links with good information. Hope this helps a bit.
Wade
It seems like you don't understand the basics of object-oriented programming (OOP).
If you DON'T want to learn how to design your application in an object-oriented way, then only create modules in your application and you will be able to call functions from one to another without any problem. But this will result in code that will not be easily maintainable and scalable.
The other option is to learn OOP by picking a book about it, or following a course or tutorial on the subject. It's a significant investment but it will result in more robust code that will scale better when your application grows.
I've run across some VB.NET code that explicitly creates three GUID constants and uses them in a class's ComClass attribute. I've written COM-aware classes in the past just by checking the "Make COM-Visible" and "Register for COM interop" options in the project options. Is this explicit code simply unnecessary, or is it doing something above-and-beyond what those two options do? Here's a snippet:
<ComClass(MenuHandler.ClassId, MenuHandler.InterfaceId, MenuHandler.EventsId)> _
Public Class MenuHandler
Public Const ClassId As String = "A2204623-A902-44d4-B524-FDFFCD176E53"
Public Const InterfaceId As String = "3449CA8B-16DF-4a61-8BAB-DFF27AE70F5E"
Public Const EventsId As String = "06C156DD-0ABA-437e-9EE0-C1CE2CA34033"
End Class
The ComClass attribute is specific to Visual Basic and is intended to simplify the creation of COM objects in .Net code. When the compiler sees this attribute it do some of the tedious work under the hood that must be manually done in C#. In summary, it's a shortcut for Visual Basic Code for creating COM objects.
Here's a great article on what this provides over doing the same in C#:
http://codebetter.com/blogs/peter.van.ooijen/archive/2005/08/02/130157.aspx
By explicitly putting attributes on the classes and enumerations that you want exposed you can prevent things like helper classes, internal tools, or internal classes that should not be exposed from being exposed. This is the recommended way from Microsoft to do it...and when they recommend something, it usually means that if you don't do it, your program may break in the future. :)
Checking "make COM visible" and "register for COM interop" is the simple method for making COM visible objects, but is not recommended. This will add the overhead for every class visible - even ones that you may not want.
Will VB.NET automatically generate ComClass attribute and guids?
Yes, if you use VB.NET COMClass template to create a class, COMClassAttribute and those GUIDs will be automatically generated.
Detail in MSDN
Section "To create a COM object by using the COM class template"