Examples presented in this screencast:
Most .Net languages only allow the importing of .Net assemblies at build time. This means that you can only use the classes, methods, properties, events, etc, of assemblies which exist, on your computer, at the time you build your assembly with Visual Studio. Here is a common example of referencing an assembly:
refbyname
System
.Windows
.Forms
using System
.Windows
.Forms
In Visual APL, you can also import assemblies at runtime using the []reference and []using expressions. By using these system functions, the importing of the specified assemblies is only performed at the moment the []reference or []using function is executed, making it possible for your code to import assemblies that do not or cannot exist at the time you build your assembly. Here is the runtime equivalent of the System.Windows.Forms directive import above:
⎕reference
"System.Windows.Forms"
⎕using "System.Windows.Forms"
Next in the screencast is the Using statement. The using statment has an entirely seperate functionallity from the using directive, but has a somwhat similar syntax. Here is an example showing the difference between the using directive and using statement:
// The using directive
using System
.IO
// The using statement
using (stream =
File.Open(
"c:\testfile.txt",
FileMode.Create))
{
// some code
}
The purpose of the using statement is to ensure that each argument variable to the statement is disposed of after the statement has completed execution. In the above example, this would mean that the "stream" variable would be disposed of, or have its system resources released, once execution reached the closing brace of the statement.
This screencast also shows how to remap APL keyboard shortcut sequences, allowing you to customize all of the APL character "Alt+" sequences on the keyboard in Visual Studio.
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