What is the difference between a DLL and an EXE?
In .NET, an assembly may become a DLL or an EXE. Yet, there is a major underlying difference between the two.
An EXE is an executable file, that may run on its own. Its independant. Where as a DLL is a Dynamic Link Library, that binds to an exe, or another DLL at runtime.
A DLL has an exposed interface, through which members of the assembly may be accessed by those objects that require it.
A DLL runs in tandem with the application space in memory, as the application references it. Whereas an EXE is independant, and runs as an independant process.
An EXE is an executable file, that may run on its own. Its independant. Where as a DLL is a Dynamic Link Library, that binds to an exe, or another DLL at runtime.
A DLL has an exposed interface, through which members of the assembly may be accessed by those objects that require it.
A DLL runs in tandem with the application space in memory, as the application references it. Whereas an EXE is independant, and runs as an independant process.
What is the difference between a Thread and Process?
A process is a collection of virtual memory space, code, data, and system resources. A thread is code that is to be serially executed within a process. A processor executes threads, not processes, so each application has at least one process, and a process always has at least one thread of execution, known as the primary thread. A process can have multiple threads in addition to the primary thread. Prior to the introduction of multiple threads of execution, applications were all designed to run on a single thread of execution.When a thread begins to execute, it continues until it is killed or until it is interrupted by a thread with higher priority (by a user action or the kernel’s thread scheduler). Each thread can run separate sections of code, or multiple threads can execute the same section of code. Threads executing the same block of code maintain separate stacks. Each thread in a process shares that process’s global variables and resources.
What is the difference between Authorization and Authentication?
Both Authentication and Authorization are concepts of providing permission to users to maintain different levels of security, as per the application requirement.
Authentication is the mechanism whereby systems may securely identify their users. Authentication systems depend on some unique bit of information known only to the individual being authenticated and the authentication system.
Authorization is the mechanism by which a system determines what level of access a particular authenticated user should have to secured resources controlled by the system.
When a user logs on to an application/system, the user is first Authenticated, and then Authorized.
ASP.NET has 3 ways to Authenticate a user:
1) Forms Authentication
2) Windows Authentication
3) Passport Authentication (This is obsolete in .NET 2.0)
The 4th way is "None" (means no authentication)
The Authentication Provider performs the task of verifying the credentials of the user ans decides whether a user is authenticated or not. The authentication may be set using the web.config file.
Windows Authentication provider is the default authentication provider for ASP.NET applications. When a user using this authentication logs in to an application, the credentials are matched with the Windows domain through IIS.
There are 4 types of Windows Authentication methods:
1) Anonymous Authentication - IIS allows any user
2) Basic Authentication - A windows username and password has to be sent across the network (in plain text format, hence not very secure).
3) Digest Authentication - Same as Basic Authentication, but the credentials are encrypted. Works only on IE 5 or above
4) Integrated Windows Authentication - Relies on Kerberos technology, with strong credential encryption
Forms Authentication - This authentication relies on code written by a developer, where credentials are matched against a database. Credentials are entered on web forms, and are matched with the database table that contains the user information.
Authorization in .NET - There are two types:
FileAuthorization - this depends on the NTFS system for granting permission
UrlAuthorization - Authorization rules may be explicitly specified in web.config for different web URLs.
What is the difference between Server.Transfer and Server.Execute?
Both Server.Transfer and Server.Execute were introduced in Classic ASP 3.0 (and still work in ASP.NET).
When Server.Execute is used, a URL is passed to it as a parameter, and the control moves to this new page. Execution of code happens on the new page. Once code execution gets over, the control returns to the initial page, just after where it was called. However, in the case of Server.Transfer, it works very much the same, the difference being the execution stops at the new page itself (means the control is'nt returned to the calling page).
In both the cases, the URL in the browser remains the first page url (does'nt refresh to the new page URL) as the browser is'nt requested to do so.
When Server.Execute is used, a URL is passed to it as a parameter, and the control moves to this new page. Execution of code happens on the new page. Once code execution gets over, the control returns to the initial page, just after where it was called. However, in the case of Server.Transfer, it works very much the same, the difference being the execution stops at the new page itself (means the control is'nt returned to the calling page).
In both the cases, the URL in the browser remains the first page url (does'nt refresh to the new page URL) as the browser is'nt requested to do so.
What is the difference between Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect?
Both "Server" and "Response" are objects of ASP.NET. Server.Transfer and Response.Redirect both are used to transfer a user from one page to another. But there is an underlying difference.
//Usage of Server.Transfer & Response.Redirect
Server.Transfer("Page2.aspx");
Response.Redirect("Page2.aspx");
The Response.Redirect statement sends a command back to the browser to request the next page from the server. This extra round-trip is often inefficient and unnecessary, but this established standard works very well. By the time Page2 is requested, Page1 has been flushed from the server’s memory and no information can be retrieved about it unless the developer explicitly saved the information using some technique like session, cookie, application, cache etc.
The more efficient Server.Transfer method simply renders the next page to the browser without an extra round trip. Variables can stay in scope and Page2 can read properties directly from Page1 because it’s still in memory. This technique would be ideal if it wasn’t for the fact that the browser is never notified that the page has changed. Therefore, the address bar in the browser will still show “Page1.aspx” even though the Server.Transfer statement actually caused Page2.aspx to be rendered instead. This may occasionally be a good thing from a security perspective, it often causes problems related to the browser being out of touch with the server. Say, the user reloads the page, the browser will request Page1.aspx instead of the true page (Page2.aspx) that they were viewing. In most cases, Response.Redirect and Server.Transfer can be used interchangeably. But in some cases, efficiency or usability may be the deciding factor in choosing.
What is the difference between Trace and Debug?
Trace and Debug - There are two main classes that deal with tracing - Debug and Trace. They both work in a similar way - the difference is that tracing from the Debug class only works in builds that have the DEBUG symbol defined, whereas tracing from the Trace class only works in builds that have the TRACE symbol defined. Typically this means that you should use System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine for tracing that you want to work in debug and release builds, and System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine for tracing that you want to work only in debug builds.
Tracing is actually the process of collecting information about the program's execution. Debugging is the process of finding & fixing errors in our program. Tracing is the ability of an application to generate information about its own execution. The idea is that subsequent analysis of this information may help us understand why a part of the application is not behaving as it should and allow identification of the source of the error.
We shall look at two different ways of implementing tracing in .NET via the System.Web.TraceContext class via the System.Diagnostics.Trace and System.Diagnostics.Debug classes. Tracing can be thought of as a better alternative to the response.writes we used to put in our classic ASP3.0 code to help debug pages.
If we set the Tracing attribute of the Page Directive to True, then Tracing is enabled. The output is appended in the web form output. Messeges can be displayed in the Trace output using Trace.Warn & Trace.Write.
NOTE The only difference between Trace.Warn & Trace.Write is that the former has output in red color. If the trace is false, there is another way to enable tracing. This is done through the application level. We can use the web.config file and set the trace attribute to true. Here we can set <trace enabled=false .../>
Note that the Page Directive Trace attribute has precedence over th application level trace attribute of web.config. While using application level tracing, we can view the trace output in the trace.axd file of the project.
What is the difference between a Public Assembly and a Private Assembly?
An assembly is the basic building block in .NET. It is the compiled format of a class, that contains Metadata, Manisfest & Intermediate Language code.
An assembly may be either Public or Private. A public assembly means the same as Shared Assembly.
Private Assembly - This type of assembly is used by a single application. It is stored in the application's directory or the applications sub-directory. There is no version constraint in a private assembly.
Shared Assembly or Public Assembly - A shared assembly has version constraint. It is stored in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). GAC is a repository of shared assemblies maintained by the .NET runtime. It is located at C:\Windows\Assembly OR C:\Winnt\Assembly. The shared assemblies may be used by many applications. To make an assembly a shared assembly, it has to be strongly named. In order to share an assembly with many applications, it must have a strong name.
A Strong Name assembly is an assembly that has its own identity, through its version and uniqueness.
In order to convert a private assembly to a shared assembly, i.e. to create a strongly named assembly, follow the steps below...
1) Create a strong key using the sn.exe tool. This is used to created a cryptographic key pair. The key pair that is generated by the Strong Name tool can be kept in a file or we can store it our your local machine's Crytographic Service Provider (CSP). For this, goto the .NET command interpreter, and type the following...
sn -k C:\samplekey.snk An assembly may be either Public or Private. A public assembly means the same as Shared Assembly.
Private Assembly - This type of assembly is used by a single application. It is stored in the application's directory or the applications sub-directory. There is no version constraint in a private assembly.
Shared Assembly or Public Assembly - A shared assembly has version constraint. It is stored in the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). GAC is a repository of shared assemblies maintained by the .NET runtime. It is located at C:\Windows\Assembly OR C:\Winnt\Assembly. The shared assemblies may be used by many applications. To make an assembly a shared assembly, it has to be strongly named. In order to share an assembly with many applications, it must have a strong name.
A Strong Name assembly is an assembly that has its own identity, through its version and uniqueness.
In order to convert a private assembly to a shared assembly, i.e. to create a strongly named assembly, follow the steps below...
1) Create a strong key using the sn.exe tool. This is used to created a cryptographic key pair. The key pair that is generated by the Strong Name tool can be kept in a file or we can store it our your local machine's Crytographic Service Provider (CSP). For this, goto the .NET command interpreter, and type the following...
This will create a strong key and save it to the location C:\samplekey.snk 2) If the key is stored in a file, just like we have done above, we use the attribute AssemblyKeyFileAttribute. This belongs to the namespace System.Reflection.AssemblyKeyFileAttribute. If the key was in the CSP, we would make use of System.Reflection.AssemblyKeyNameAttribute.
Go to the assemblyinfo.vb file of your project. Open this file. Make the following changes in this file...
<assembly: assemblykeyfileattribute("C:\samplekey.snk")>
We may write this in our code as well, like this...
Imports System.Reflection
<assembly: assemblykeyfileattribute("C:\samplekey.snk")>
Namespace StrongName
Public class Sample
End Class
End Namespace
3) Build your project. Your assembly is now strongly named.
Installing the Shared assembly in GAC...
Go to .NET command interpreter, use the tool gacutil.exe
Type the following...
gacutil /i sampleclass.dll
To uninstall it, use... gacutil /u sampleclass.dll. Visual Studio.NET provides a GUI tool for viewing all shared assemblies in the GAC.
Q) Which exception will catch first and what about finally statement?
Ans)Multiple catch blocks are evaluated from top to bottom, but only one catch block is executed for each exception thrown. The order of your catch blocks is important because .NET will go to the first catch block that is polymorphically compatible with the thrown exception. It is important to place catch blocks with the most specific — most derived — exception classes first.
In your example, the 1st catch is type of Exception of which is base class for all exceptions and thereby polymorphically compatible with all thrown exceptions. so 2nd catch never can get execute.
And regarding finally block, it always executes after the try and catch blocks execute. A finally block is always executed, regardless of whether an exception is thrown or whether a catch block matching the exception type is found.
Installing the Shared assembly in GAC...
Go to .NET command interpreter, use the tool gacutil.exe
Type the following...
gacutil /i sampleclass.dll
To uninstall it, use... gacutil /u sampleclass.dll. Visual Studio.NET provides a GUI tool for viewing all shared assemblies in the GAC.
Q) Which exception will catch first and what about finally statement?
try
{
int b = 0;
int c = 10 / b;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
}
catch (DivideByZeroException ae)
{
}
finally
{
}
Ans)Multiple catch blocks are evaluated from top to bottom, but only one catch block is executed for each exception thrown. The order of your catch blocks is important because .NET will go to the first catch block that is polymorphically compatible with the thrown exception. It is important to place catch blocks with the most specific — most derived — exception classes first.
In your example, the 1st catch is type of Exception of which is base class for all exceptions and thereby polymorphically compatible with all thrown exceptions. so 2nd catch never can get execute.
And regarding finally block, it always executes after the try and catch blocks execute. A finally block is always executed, regardless of whether an exception is thrown or whether a catch block matching the exception type is found.
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