Collection initializers are [only available in VB.NET 2010][1], released 2010-04-12:

    Dim theVar = New List(Of String) From { &quot;one&quot;, &quot;two&quot;, &quot;three&quot; }

  [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336123.aspx


Use this syntax for [VB.NET][1] 2005/2008 compatibility:

    Dim theVar As New List(Of String)(New String() {&quot;one&quot;, &quot;two&quot;, &quot;three&quot;})

Although the [VB.NET 2010 syntax][2] is prettier.

  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic_.NET
  [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2629076/inline-list-initialization/2629119#2629119


I am just starting to think about how api keys and secret keys work.  Just 2 days ago I signed up for Amazon S3 and installed the [S3Fox Plugin](http://www.s3fox.net/).  They asked me for both my Access Key and Secret Access Key, both of which require me to login to access.

So I&#39;m wondering, if they&#39;re asking me for my secret key, they must be storing it somewhere right?  Isn&#39;t that basically the same thing as asking me for my credit card numbers or password and storing that in their own database?

How are secret keys and api keys supposed to work?  How secret do they need to be?  Are these applications that use the secret keys storing it somehow?


How do API Keys and Secret Keys work? Would it be secure if I have to pass my API and secret keys to another application?

&lt;h2&gt;Is there anything non-RESTful about providing parameters to a HTTP DELETE request? &lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;br&gt;
My scenario is that I&#39;m modelling the &quot;Are you sure you want to delete that?&quot; scenario. In some cases, the state of the resource suggests that the requested delete may be invalid. You can probably imagine some scenarios yourself where confirmation of a delete is required
&lt;p&gt;
The solution we have adopted is to pass a parameter to the delete request to indicate that it&#39;s ok to proceed with the delete (&quot;?force_delete=true&quot;)

e.g.

    DELETE http://server/resource/id?force_delete=true

I believe that it&#39;s still restful since:

(a) The semantics of DELETE are not being changed - the user can still send a normal DELETE request but this *may fail* with 409 and the body of the response will explain why. I say may fail because (for reasons not worth explaining) on some occasions there is no reason to prompt the user.
&lt;p&gt;
(b) There&#39;s nothing in Roy&#39;s dissertation to suggest that it&#39;s against the spirit of REST - why would there be since HTTP is only one implementation of REST so why would passing HTTP parameters matter

&lt;br&gt;
**Can someone point me at a definitive statement that nails the reason why this isn&#39;t RESTful?**
&lt;p&gt;
On a related question, if the user does not specify force_delete then I&#39;m returning `409 Conflict` - is that the most appropriate response code?


&lt;br&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;Follow up&lt;/h2&gt;

After some further research, I think that adding parameters to the DELETE may violate several principles.

The first is that the implementation possibly violates the &quot;Uniform Interface&quot; (see section 5.1.5 of [Roy&#39;s dissertation][1]

By adding &#39;force_delete&#39; we&#39;re adding an additional constraint onto the already well defined DELETE method. This constraint is meaningful only to us. 

You could also argue that it violate the &quot;5.1.2 Client-Server&quot; since the confirmation dialogue is really a UI concern and again not all clients will want to confirm deletion.

&lt;b&gt;Suggestions anyone?&lt;/b&gt;


  [1]: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm

REST, HTTP DELETE and parameters

&gt; **Possible Duplicate:**  
&gt; [Collection initialization syntax in Visual Basic 2008?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/85892/collection-initialization-syntax-in-visual-basic-2008)  

&lt;!-- End of automatically inserted text --&gt;

How is the following C# code translated to VB.NET?

    var theVar = new List&lt;string&gt;{&quot;one&quot;, &quot;two&quot;, &quot;three&quot;};


Inline list initialization in VB.NET

> Possible Duplicate: 
> <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/85892/collection-initialization-syntax-in-visual-basic-2008" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Collection initialization syntax in Visual Basic 2008?</a>

How is the following C# code translated to VB.NET?
<pre><code class="hljs language-csharp">var theVar = new List&#x3C;string>{"one", "two", "three"};
</code></pre>

I have a project where I have multiple instances of an app running, each of which was started with different command line arguments. I&#39;d like to have a way to click a button from one of those instances which then shuts down all of the instances and starts them back up again with the same command line arguments.

I can get the processes themselves easily enough through `Process.GetProcessesByName()`, but whenever I do, the `StartInfo.Arguments` property is always an empty string. It looks like maybe that property is only valid before starting a process.

[This question][1] had some suggestions, but they&#39;re all in native code, and I&#39;d like to do this directly from .NET. Any suggestions?


  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/440932/reading-command-line-arguments-of-another-process-win32-c-code

Can I get command line arguments of other processes from .NET/C#?

I have a large string I need to parse, and I need to find all the instances of `extract&quot;(me,i-have lots. of]punctuation`, and store the index of each to a list. 

So say this piece of string was in the beginning and middle of the larger string, both of them would be found, and their indexes would be added to the `List`. and the `List` would contain `0` and the other index whatever it would be.

I&#39;ve been playing around, and the `string.IndexOf` does *almost* what I&#39;m looking for, and I&#39;ve written some code - but it&#39;s not working and I&#39;ve been unable to figure out exactly what is wrong:

    List&lt;int&gt; inst = new List&lt;int&gt;();
    int index = 0;
    while (index &lt; source.LastIndexOf(&quot;extract\&quot;(me,i-have lots. of]punctuation&quot;, 0) + 39)
    {
        int src = source.IndexOf(&quot;extract\&quot;(me,i-have lots. of]punctuation&quot;, index);
        inst.Add(src);
        index = src + 40;
    }

- `inst` = The list
- `source` = The large string

Any better ideas?

Finding all positions of substring in a larger string in C#

In our application we are creating Xml files with an attribute that has a Guid value. This value needed to be consistent between file upgrades. So even if everything else in the file changes, the guid value for the attribute should remain the same.  

One obvious solution was to create a static dictionary with the filename and the Guids to be used for them. Then whenever we generate the file, we look up the dictionary for the filename and use the corresponding guid. But this is not feasible because we might scale to 100&#39;s of files and didnt want to maintain big list of guids.

So another approach was to make the Guid the same based on the path of the file. Since our file paths and application directory structure are unique, the Guid should be unique for that path. So each time we run an upgrade, the file gets the same guid based on its path. I found one cool way to generate such &#39;[Deterministic Guids][1]&#39; (Thanks Elton Stoneman). It basically does this:

    private Guid GetDeterministicGuid(string input) 
    
    { 
    
    //use MD5 hash to get a 16-byte hash of the string: 
    
    MD5CryptoServiceProvider provider = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider(); 
    
    byte[] inputBytes = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(input); 
    
    byte[] hashBytes = provider.ComputeHash(inputBytes); 
    
    //generate a guid from the hash: 
    
    Guid hashGuid = new Guid(hashBytes); 
    
    return hashGuid; 
    
    } 

So given a string, the Guid will always be the same. 

Are there any other approaches or recommended ways to doing this? What are the pros or cons of that method?

  [1]: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman/archive/2008/06/26/generating-deterministic-guids.aspx

How to Create Deterministic Guids

I used to love .NET Reflector back in the day, but ever since Red Gate Software took over it has gone downhill dramatically. Now it forces me to update (which is absolutely ridiculous), half the time the update doesn&#39;t go smoothly, and it is increasingly hindering my productivity with each update. I am sick of it, and I am ready for something better. Is there a better disassembler?

----------

Update:

List of various alternatives mentioned in answers -

 - [ILSpy][1]
 - [dotPeek][2]
 - [JustDecompile][3]
 - [DisSharper][4]
 - [Mono Cecil][5]
 - [Kaliro][6]
 - [Dotnet IL Editor (DILE)][7]
 - [Common Compiler Infrastructure][8]

  [1]: https://github.com/icsharpcode/ILSpy
  [2]: http://www.jetbrains.com/decompiler/
  [3]: http://www.telerik.com/products/decompiler.aspx
  [4]: http://netdecompiler.com/
  [5]: http://www.mono-project.com/Cecil
  [6]: http://sites.google.com/site/kalirosupport/home
  [7]: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dile/
  [8]: http://cciast.codeplex.com/




Something better than .NET Reflector?

I have a method which is connecting to a database via Odbc. The stored procedure which I&#39;m 
calling has a return value which from the database side is a &#39;Char&#39;. Right now I&#39;m grabbing
that return value as a string and using it in a simple if statement. I really don&#39;t like the idea
of comparing a string like this when only two values can come back from the database, 0 and 1.

    OdbcCommand fetchCommand = new OdbcCommand(storedProc, conn);

    fetchCommand.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
    fetchCommand.Parameters.AddWithValue(&quot;@column &quot;, myCustomParameter);
    fetchCommand.Parameters.Add(&quot;@myReturnValue&quot;, OdbcType.Char, 1)
                .Direction = ParameterDirection.Output;
    fetchCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();

    string returnValue = fetchCommand.Parameters[&quot;@myReturnValue&quot;].Value.ToString();
    if (returnValue == &quot;1&quot;)
    {
	    return true;
    } 

What would be the proper way to handle this situation. I&#39;ve tried &#39;Convert.ToBoolean()&#39; which seemed
like the obvious answer but I ran into the &#39;String was not recognized as a valid Boolean. &#39; exception being thrown. Am I missing something
here, or is there another way to make &#39;1&#39; and &#39;0&#39; act like true and false?

Thanks!

How to convert &quot;0&quot; and &quot;1&quot; to false and true

I&#39;ve been using the `System.Net` namespace ever since we switched from .NET Framework 1.1 to the 3.5 framework, but there&amp;rsquo;s one thing that&amp;rsquo;s been puzzling me since. What&#39;s the difference between the `Sender` and the `From` properties in the `MailMessage` class? 

Are they both the same, and if not is there a reason to use `Sender` together with `From`?

For example:

    Using m As New System.Net.Mail.MailMessage()
        m.Sender = New System.Net.Mail.MailAddress(&quot;test@test.com&quot;, &quot;Name here&quot;)
        m.From = New System.Net.Mail.MailAddress(&quot;test@test.com&quot;, &quot;Name here&quot;)

        m.Subject = &quot;Test&quot;
        m.Body = &quot;Test&quot;

        Dim client As New System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient(&quot;mymailserver.com&quot;)
        client.Send(m)
    End Using

MailMessage, difference between Sender and From properties

Does C# have an equivalent to VB.NET&#39;s DirectCast?

I am aware that it has () casts and the &#39;as&#39; keyword, but those line up to CType and TryCast.

To be clear, these keywords do the following;

**CType/() casts**:  If it is already the correct type, cast it, otherwise look for a type converter and invoke it. If no type converter is found, throw an InvalidCastException.

**TryCast/&quot;as&quot; keyword**: If it is the correct type, cast it, otherwise return null.

**DirectCast**: If it is the correct type, cast it, otherwise throw an InvalidCastException.

After I have spelled out the above, some people have still responded that () is equivalent, so I will expand further upon why this is not true.

DirectCast only allows for either narrowing or widening conversions on the inheritance tree. It does not support conversions across different branches like () does, i.e.:

C# - this compiles and runs:

&lt;!-- language: cs --&gt;

    //This code uses a type converter to go across an inheritance tree
    double d = 10;
    int i = (int)d;

VB.NET - this does NOT COMPILE

&lt;!-- language: vb.net --&gt;

    &#39;Direct cast can only go up or down a branch, never across to a different one.
    Dim d As Double = 10
    Dim i As Integer = DirectCast(d, Integer)

The equivalent in VB.NET to my C# code is CType:

&lt;!-- language: vb.net --&gt;

    &#39;This compiles and runs
    Dim d As Double = 10
    Dim i As Integer = CType(d, Integer)





C#&#39;s equivalent to VB.NET&#39;s DirectCast

Writing a small command line tool, it would be nice to output in different colours. Is this possible?

Is it possible to write to the console in colour in .NET?

I have seen the Tuple introduced in .Net 4 but I am not able to imagine where it can be used. We can always make a Custom class or Struct.



Practical example where Tuple can be used in .Net 4.0?

How do you prevent user input in a ComboBox so that only one of the items in the defined list can be selected by the user?

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Boris Callens	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - .Net	SLaks	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - .Net	Prutswonder	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Inline list initialization in VB.NET

.Net Problem Overview

.Net Solutions

Solution 1 - .Net

Solution 2 - .Net

REST, HTTP DELETE and parameters

How do API Keys and Secret Keys work? Would it be secure if I have to pass my API and secret keys to another application?

Attributions