Sams Teach Yourself C# in 24 Hours

By James Foxall and Wendy Haro-Chun

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Audience and Organization
  • Conventions Used in This Book
  • Onward and Upward!
  • Part I. The Visual Studio Environment
  • Hour 1. A C# Programming Tour
  • Hour 2. Navigating C#
  • Hour 3. Understanding Objects and Collections
  • Hour 4. Understanding Events
  • Part II. Building a User Interface
  • Hour 5. Building FormsPart I
  • Hour 6. Building FormsPart II
  • Hour 7. Working with the Traditional Controls
  • Hour 8. Advanced Controls
  • Hour 9. Adding Menus and Toolbars to Forms
  • Hour 10. Drawing and Printing
  • Part III. Making Things HappenProgramming!
  • Hour 11. Creating and Calling Methods
  • Hour 12. Using Constants, Data Types, Variables, and Arrays
  • Hour 13. Performing Arithmetic, String Manipulation, and Date/Time Adjustments
  • Hour 14. Making Decisions in C# Code
  • Hour 15. Looping for Efficiency
  • Hour 16. Debugging Your Code
  • Hour 17. Designing Objects Using Classes
  • Hour 18. Interacting with Users
  • Part IV. Working with Data
  • Hour 19. Performing File Operations
  • Hour 20. Controlling Other Applications Using Automation
    • Creating a Reference to an Automation Library
    • Creating an Instance of an Automation Server
    • Manipulating the Server
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 21. Working with a Database
  • Part V. Deploying Solutions and Beyond
  • Hour 22. Deploying a Solution
  • Hour 23. Introduction to Web Development
  • Hour 24. The 10,000-Foot View
  • Appendix A. Answers to Quizzes/Exercises

Creating an Instance of an Automation Server

Referencing a type library allows C# to integrate the available objects of the type library with its own internal objects. After this is done, you can create object variables based on object types found in the type library. Excel has an object called Application, which acts as the primary object in the Excel object model. In fact, most Office programs have an Application object. How do you know what objects an automation server supports? The only sure way is to consult the documentation of the program in question or use the Object Browser discussed in Hour 3, "Understanding Objects and Collections."

Double-click the button to access its Click event, and then enter the following code, which creates a new Excel Application:

Excel.Application objExcel = new Excel.Application();

Notice that C# included Excel in its IntelliSense drop-down list of available objects. It was able to do this because you referenced Excel's type library. Excel is the reference to the server and Application is an object supported by the server. This statement creates a new Application object based on the Excel object model.

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