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Types, Properties, Methods, and Events

Microsoft Silverlight will reach end of support after October 2021. Learn more.

The .NET Framework provides two major components for Silverlight application developers:

  • A managed execution environment, which is known as the common language runtime. Silverlight applications for the .NET Framework run in this environment.

  • The .NET Framework class library for Silverlight, which is a comprehensive class library for developing Silverlight applications and components. Developers can use these components to create powerful, sophisticated, and robust Web applications.

The base class library in Silverlight is a subset of the larger .NET Framework class library. It includes the base data types, such as strings and integers, which are used by all software developers. It also includes such diverse types as type conversion classes, exception classes, collection and container classes, events and event handlers, threading and synchronization classes. The .NET Framework class library for Silverlight is language-independent; as long as a particular language supports the .NET Framework for Silverlight, a developer can use it to access the .NET Framework class library or any other library of classes developed for Silverlight.

This section provides an overview of the common language runtime and a wide range of core topics for Silverlight developers.

In This Section

  • The Common Type System in the .NET Framework for Silverlight
    Identifies the types and the type members supported by the common language runtime.

  • Dependency Properties Overview
    Describes the set of services that Silverlight provides to extend the functionality of common language runtime properties.

  • Property Path Syntax
    Discusses the syntax of the PropertyPath object.

  • Events Overview for Silverlight
    Introduces event-driven programming and the use of delegates to hold references to event handlers.

  • Type Conversion in the .NET Framework for Silverlight
    Discusses the ways in which the .NET Framework for Silverlight allows an instance of one type to be converted to an instance of a different type.

  • Strings
    Discusses a number of string-related topics, such as processing text using regular expressions, formatting text (converting objects to their string representations), parsing text (converting strings to values of other types), and encoding text.

  • Generics Overview
    Introduces generics, which are types or methods that have placeholders (type parameters) for one or more of the types that they store or use. This enables them to be strongly typed at run time.

  • Reflection
    Describes the use of the .NET Framework's reflection classes to gather information about .NET Framework assemblies, types, and type members at run time.

  • Emitting Dynamic Methods and Assemblies
    Describes the types in the System.Reflection.Emit namespace that enable an application to emit metadata and Microsoft intermediate language (MSIL) at run time.

Reference

General Reference