Developer's Guide to Microsoft Enterprise Library, Visual Basic Edition (Patterns & Practices)

Welcome to the era of software reuse! Microsoft Enterprise Library helps accelerate development by providing reusable components and guidance on proven practices. If you build applications that run on the Microsoft .NET Framework, whether they are enterprise-level business applications or even relatively modest Windows® Forms, Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), or ASP.NET applications, you can benefit from using Enterprise Library. This guide helps you to quickly grasp what Enterprise Library can do for you, presents examples, and makes it easier for you to start experimenting with Enterprise Library. Enterprise Library is made up of a series of application blocks, each aimed at managing specific cross-cutting concerns. The guide will walk you through the most common usage scenarios for each of the functional application blocks, including: Improving performance by utilizing a local in-memory or isolated storage cache. Calling into your database stored procedures and managing the results exposed as a sequence of objects for client side querying. Incorporating cryptography mechanisms to protect your data. Designing and implementing a consistent strategy for managing exceptions that occur in various architectural layers of your application. Implementing system logging through the wide variety of out-of-the box logging sinks or your custom provider. Performing structured and easy-to-maintain validation using attributes and rules sets. The guide also demonstrates various ways of configuring Enterprise Library blocks. Let Enterprise Library do the heavy lifting for you and spend more time focusing on your business logic and less on application plumbing. “You are holding in your hands a book that will make your life as an enterprise developer a whole lot easier.” Scott Guthrie Corporate Vice-President, Microsoft .NET Developer Platform Contents......Page 6 Foreword......Page 14 About This Guide......Page 16 What Do You Need to Get Started?......Page 18 The team who brought you this guide......Page 20 What You Get with Enterprise Library......Page 22 Things You Can Do with Enterprise Library......Page 24 Why You Should Use Enterprise Library......Page 25 Some Fundamentals of Enterprise Library......Page 27 Configuring Enterprise Library......Page 31 Instantiating and Using Enterprise Library Objects......Page 35 The Example Applications......Page 43 Summary......Page 44 Introduction......Page 46 What Does the Data Access Application Block Do?......Page 47 How Do I Use the Data Access Block?......Page 49 Summary......Page 79 Introduction......Page 82 How Do I Use the Exception Handling Block?......Page 83 What Exception Policies Do I Need?......Page 84 Diving in with a Simple Example......Page 89 Wrapping an Exception......Page 91 Replacing an Exception......Page 95 Logging an Exception......Page 96 Shielding Exceptions at WCF Service Boundaries......Page 99 Handling Specific Exception Types......Page 103 Executing Code around Exception Handling......Page 104 Assisting Administrators......Page 106 Summary......Page 108 Introduction......Page 110 What Does the Logging Block Do?......Page 111 How Do I Use the Logging Block?......Page 114 Non-Formatted Trace Listeners......Page 123 Summary......Page 140 Introduction......Page 142 What Does the Caching Block Do?......Page 144 How Do I Configure the Caching Block?......Page 145 How Do I Use the Caching Block?......Page 148 Extending Your Cache Advance......Page 164 Summary......Page 165 Introduction......Page 166 Techniques for Validation......Page 167 What Does the Validation Block Do?......Page 168 How Do I Use The Validation Block?......Page 177 Diving in With Some Simple Examples......Page 182 Summary......Page 203 What Does the Cryptography Block Do?......Page 204 How Do I Use the Cryptography Block?......Page 206 Diving in with an Example......Page 208 Creating Custom Cryptography Providers......Page 216 Summary......Page 217 Introduction......Page 218 What Does the Security Block Do?......Page 219 How Do I Configure the Security Block?......Page 221 How Do I Use the Security Block?......Page 223 Diving in With an Example......Page 224 Creating Custom Authorization Providers......Page 232 Summary......Page 233 What is Dependency Injection?......Page 234 The Unity Dependency Injection and Interception Mechanism......Page 235 Defining Dependencies with Unity......Page 237 Resolving Populated Instances of Your Classes......Page 245 Loading Configuration Information into a Unity Container......Page 248 Viewing Registrations in the Container......Page 249 Populating Entire Object Graphs at Application Startup......Page 250 Maintaining a Container Reference in Request-Based Applications......Page 251 Using an Alternative Service Locator or Container......Page 252 Appendix C. Policy Injection in Enterprise Library......Page 254 About Enterprise Library Configuration......Page 256 Scenarios for Advanced Configuration......Page 258 Appendix E. Encrypting Configuration Files......Page 264 A......Page 266 C......Page 267 E......Page 268 I......Page 269 O......Page 270 S......Page 271 V......Page 272 X......Page 273 "The book walks you through functional blocks of the Enterprise Library which include data access, caching, cryptography, exception handling, logging, security, and validation." -- Foreword. Introduction to using Microsoft Enterprise Library version 5 for experienced developers.