Essential Guide To Managed Extensions For C++ [Paperback]

Siva Challa (Author), Artur Laksberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2002

Forewords by Mark Hall and Stan Lippman, Compiler Architects, Visual C++ Team The Essential Guide to Managed Extensions for C++ provides a comprehensive guide for programmers writing code in Managed Extensions for C++ (MC++). The information in this book comes straight from the horse¿s mouth¿both authors have been key members of the Visual C++ .NET compiler development team and have spent most of their time implementing the language and educating others about managed C++. Managed Extensions for C++ are extensions added to the Visual C++ .NET compiler to allow developers access to the functionality provided by the .NET Framework. Visual C++ .NET is the only .NET language that can generate both native and managed code, and it has a rich set of features to let you write managed applications for the .NET platform. The book is divided into two parts. Part One covers the basics of MC++. It starts with an introduction to MC++. Then it gives a brief introduction to the .NET Framework. Next, it goes directly into the various features of MC++, including managed classes, interfaces, value types, properties, enumerations, pointers, arrays, operators, delegates, attributes, events, and exceptions. Part Two of the book is devoted to the transition between the managed and unmanaged worlds. It starts with a general introduction to interoperability between managed and unmanaged code. The following chapters describe the Platform Invoke service, interoperability between COM and .NET, and various data marshaling techniques. The last chapter of Part Two shows how MC++ can be used to write thin layers over existing components with minimal overhead. Appendix A describes various compiler options used to compile Managed C++ code. Appendices B and C provide brief tutorials on Metadata and Assemblies. About the Authors: Both authors were deeply involved in the design and implementation of Managed Extensions to C++ from the very early stages of the product. Siva Challa is a member of the Visual C++ development team at Microsoft. He has a Ph.D. in computer Science from Virginia Tech. Although Siva works on compilers, he tries to interpret his 1-year old daughter¿s language and frequently recovers from errors by using his wife¿s knowledge base. Artur Laksberg is member of the Visual C++ .NET compiler development team at Microsoft. When not working, he can be seen cycling the back roads of the Puget Sound, reading books (military history being his latest passion), and programming.

Editorial Reviews

Review

From the reviews:

"This book documents the extensions that Microsoft has added to C ++ to allow its use as a language in the .NET environment using CLR (Common Language Runtime). ... the authors have written a book that is very clearly focused on the needs of a C++ programmer faced with decisions about whether to use managed extensions or not. … I have no doubt that if you need to consider using MC++ this book will help you." (Francis Glassborow, CVU, June, 2002)

"What this book covers is virtually everything that a C++ programmer will need to write code using Managed Extensions for C++ (MC++). … an excellent tutorial of the various features of MC++. … contains the best explanation of managed extensions that you are likely to find. Topics are discussed in terms that make sense for C++ programmers. … The code samples are designed to give a clear explanation of the topic being discussed." (Thomas Paul, www.javaranch.com, May, 2002)

About the Author

Artur Laksberg is a member of the Visual C++ Compiler Development Team at Microsoft. When not working, he can be seen cycling the backroads of the Puget Sound, reading books (military history being his latest passion), and programming.

Siva Challa is a member of the Visual C++ compiler development team at Microsoft and has a Ph.D. in computer science from Virginia Tech. Although he works on compilers, he tries to interpret his young daughter's language and frequently recovers from errors by using his wife's knowledge base.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st edition (January 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893115283
• ISBN-13: 978-1893115286
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,056,437 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-have for Managed C++ programmers, February 22, 2002

By 

M. Kubo "mkubo2" (Petersburg, AK, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Essential Guide To Managed Extensions For C++ (Paperback)

If you are a programmer using C++ to develop .NET Framework applications, or developing .NET Framework applications that must interoperate with legacy code (Win32, C++, COM), this book is a must-have.

Managed C++ gives programmers the low-level tools necessary to provide a finer-grained control over how .NET assemblies are built (vs. languages such as C#.NET or VB.NET. The only other method that provides even more control is to write directly in MSIL and use the MSIL compiler to generate assemblies.).

Essential Guide provides the following things that make it a must-have:

1. It provides a concise reference of the managed extensions and examples on how they are used to create .NET applications. It's much faster to look up concepts and see the examples in this book than it is to search through the .NET Framework SDK for the same information, and the explanations are much better.

2. It provides detailed explanations and examples on how Managed C++ (MC++) is different from Standard (Unmanaged) C++ (UMC++). There are some significant differences when writing MC++ code, and issues faced when mixing MC++ with UMC++ code.

3. It provides the best descriptions and examples of .NET Interoperability that I've found to date.

4. It gives guidelines on when and where to use MC++ and when and where to stick to UMC++.

5. The examples are very good. Each one can be built and run as a complete application. Each one tries to cover only the concept that is being introduced and discussed.

6. It provides a much lower-level explanation of how the CLR works, particularly in the area of interoperability, than the typical .NET programming guide.

What does Essential Guide not do?

1. It doesn't attempt to teach readers about .NET. Even though the first half of the book is under a section called Basics, it really assumes the reader is already familiar with the concepts and constructs of .NET. "Basics" is understood to mean how the basic structure of the .NET Framework maps to C++.

2. It doesn't attempt to teach readers about the Base and Framework Class Libraries (BCL and FCL). Only the classes and interfaces required to explain the MC++ concepts are discussed. (Some of the C# programming books would be a good place to learn about the class libraries.)

3. It does not cover Visual Studio at all - actually it's mentioned once on page 7 as a good way to debug multi-language applications.

4. It does not cover any C++ language changes that occurred from VC6, other than as side references if a new language feature is relevant to the discussion.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Want to do some MC++? ... Start Here, November 5, 2002

By 

Steven Burns (-) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Essential Guide To Managed Extensions For C++ (Paperback)

This book is what you are looking for if you are considering MC++.
Personally I use MC++ to create wrappers around processor-optimized libraries available for C/C++. Then I use them from C# and VB.NET.
Some reviewers say the book doesn't add much to the MSDN docs. However, this book is a lot more readable and I think it's worth it.
One more thing, the book is written by developers for developers. I really enjoyed that, the authors go straight to the point assuming you are not a dummy.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading for C++ programmers, April 27, 2002

By 

Thomas Paul (Plainview, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Essential Guide To Managed Extensions For C++ (Paperback)

"Essential Guide to Managed Extensions for C++" is required reading for any C++ programmer who wants to learn about writing C++ for .Net. What this book covers is virtually everything that a C++ programmer will need to write code using Managed Extensions for C++ (MC++). The first section is an excellent tutorial of the various features of MC++. This sections starts with a brief overview of the .Net framework. It continues with an introduction to MC++ with a very good low-level description of how managed classes differ from native classes. The remainder of this section contains the best explanation of managed extensions that you are likely to find. Topics are discussed in terms that make sense for C++ programmers. For example, delegates are discussed in terms of function pointers which they replace. The code samples are designed to give a clear explanation of the topic being discussed. The second part covers interoperability issues between managed and native code. For performance reasons C++ developers will sometimes need to mix code types so the explanation of how to avoid performance degradation when mixing managed and native code will be very useful. This section also includes descriptions of how to mix COM and .NET components and how to write wrapper classes for native code. For the C++ developer worried that C# is "the" .NET language, the authors show that MC++ is an important part of the .NET world and provide the information that C++ programmers need to develop for .NET.