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- 5. Starbound Software RB Whitaker The C# Player’s Guide Third Edition
- 6. Copyright © 2012-2017 by RB Whitaker RB Whitaker rbwhitaker@outlook.com ISBN-10: 0-9855801-3-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-9855801-3-1
- 7. 1 Acknowledgements xvii Introduction xix Part 1: Getting Started 1. The C# Programming Language 3 2. Installing Visual Studio 6 3. Hello World: Your First C# Program 10 4. Comments 19 Part 2: The Basics 5. Variables 25 6. The C# Type System 31 7. Basic Math 42 8. User Input 48 9. More Math 53 10. Decision Making 60 11. Switch Statements 68 12. Looping 71 13. Arrays 77 14. Enumerations 83 15. Methods 86 16. Value and Reference Types 97 Contents at a Glance
- 8. Part 3: Object-Oriented Programming 17. Object-Oriented Basics 107 18. Making Your Own Classes 112 19. Properties 124 20. Tic-Tac-Toe 130 21. Structs 138 22. Inheritance 144 23. Polymorphism, Virtual Methods, and Abstract Classes 151 24. Interfaces 156 25. Using Generics 160 26. Making Generic Types 167 Part 4: Advanced Topics 27. Namespaces and Using Directives 175 28. Methods Revisited 180 29. Reading and Writing Files 190 30. Error Handling and Exceptions 194 31. Pattern Matching 201 32. Delegates 206 33. Events 212 34. Operator Overloading 219 35. Indexers 223 36. Extension Methods 226 37. Lambda Expressions 230 38. Query Expressions 236 39. Threads 245 40. Asynchronous Programming 251 41. Dynamic Objects 259 42. Unsafe Code 265 43. Other Features in C# 271 Part 5: Mastering the Tools 44. The .NET Platform 301 45. Getting the Most from Visual Studio 313 46. Dependencies and Multiple Projects 319 47. Handling Common Compiler Errors 326 48. Debugging Your Code 333 49. How Your Project Files are Organized 339
- 9. Part 6: Wrapping Up 50. Try It Out! 345 51. What’s Next? 351 Glossary 354 Tables and Charts 369 Index 374
- 10. 2 Acknowledgements xvii Introduction xix The Player’s Guide xix How This Book is Organized xx Getting the Most from This Book xxii I Genuinely Want Your Feedback xxiii This Book Comes with Online Content xxiii Part 1: Getting Started 1. The C# Programming Language 3 What is C#? 3 What is the .NET Platform? 4 C# and .NET Versions 5 2. Installing Visual Studio 6 Versions of Visual Studio 7 The Installation Process 7 C# Programming on Mac and Linux 9 3. Hello World: Your First C# Program 10 Creating a New Project 10 A Brief Tour of Visual Studio 11 Building Blocks: Projects, Solutions, and Assemblies 12 Modifying Your Project 13 Compiling and Running Your Project 14 A Closer Look at Your Program 16 Contents
- 11. Whitespace Doesn’t Matter 17 Semicolons 18 4. Comments 19 What is a Comment? 19 Why Should I Use Comments? 19 How to Make Comments in C# 20 How to Make Good Comments 21 Part 2: The Basics 5. Variables 25 What is a Variable? 25 Creating Variables 26 Assigning Values to Variables 27 Retrieving the Contents of a Variable 27 How Data is Stored 28 Multiple Declarations and Assignments 29 Good Variable Names 29 6. The C# Type System 31 An Introduction to the Type System 31 The ‘int’ Type 31 The ‘byte’, ‘short’, and ‘long’ Types 32 The ‘sbyte’, ‘ushort’, ‘uint’, and ‘ulong’ Types 32 The ‘char’ Type 33 The ‘float’, ‘double’, and ‘decimal’ Types 34 The ‘bool’ Type 36 The ‘string’ Type 36 Numeric Literal Variations 38 Type Inference 40 7. Basic Math 42 Operations and Operators 42 Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Division 43 The Remainder Operator 44 Unary ‘+’ and ‘-‘ Operators 45 Operator Precedence and Parentheses 46 Why the ‘=‘ Sign Doesn’t Mean Equals 46 Compound Assignment Operators 47 8. User Input 48 User Input from the Console 48 Converting Types 48 A Complete Sample Program 49
- 12. Escape Characters 51 String Interpolation 52 9. More Math 53 Integer Division 54 Working with Different Types and Casting 55 Division by Zero 56 Infinity, NaN, e, π, MinValue, and MaxValue 56 Overflow and Underflow 57 Incrementing and Decrementing 58 10. Decision Making 60 The ‘if’ Statement 61 The ‘else’ Statement 62 ‘else if’ Statements 62 Curly Braces Not Always Needed 63 Relational Operators: ==, !=, <, >, <=, >= 63 Using ‘bool’ in Decision Making 65 The ‘!’ Operator 65 Conditional Operators: && and || (And and Or) 66 Nesting If Statements 66 The Conditional Operator ?: 67 11. Switch Statements 68 The Basics of Switch Statements 68 Types Allowed with Switch Statements 70 No Implicit Fall-Through 70 12. Looping 71 The While Loop 71 The Do-While Loop 73 The For Loop 73 Breaking Out of Loops 74 Continuing to the Next Iteration of the Loop 74 Nesting Loops 75 Still to Come: Foreach 76 13. Arrays 77 What is an Array? 77 Creating Arrays 78 Getting and Setting Values in Arrays 78 More Ways to Create Arrays 79 Array Length 79 Some Examples with Arrays 79 Arrays of Arrays and Multi-Dimensional Arrays 80 The ‘foreach’ Loop 81
- 13. 14. Enumerations 83 The Basics of Enumerations 83 Why Enumerations are Useful 85 Underlying Types 85 Assigning Numbers to Enumeration Values 85 15. Methods 86 Creating a Method 87 Calling a Method 88 Returning Stuff from a Method 89 Passing Stuff to a Method 91 Passing in Multiple Parameters 91 Method Overloading 92 Revisiting the Convert and Console Classes 94 XML Documentation Comments 94 The Minimum You Need to Know About Recursion 95 16. Value and Reference Types 97 The Stack and the Heap 97 Memory Management and Garbage Collection 98 References 99 Value Types and Reference Types 99 Null: References to Nothing 101 Value and Reference Semantics 102 Part 3: Object-Oriented Programming 17. Object-Oriented Basics 107 Object Classes and Object Instances 107 Working with an Existing Class 108 Using an Instance 109 The Power of Objects 110 Classes are Reference Types 110 18. Making Your Own Classes 112 Creating a New Class 112 Instance Variables 114 Access Modifiers: private and public 114 Constructors 115 Methods 118 The ‘static’ Keyword 120 Using Our Class 121 The ‘internal’ Access Modifier 121 Class Design and Software Engineering 122
- 14. 19. Properties 124 The Motivation for Properties 124 Creating Properties 125 Different Accessibility Levels 127 Auto-Implemented Properties 127 Object Initializer Syntax 128 Anonymous Types 129 20. Tic-Tac-Toe 130 Requirements 130 High-Level Design 131 Refactoring and Iterative Design 132 The Full Solution 132 21. Structs 138 Creating a Struct 138 Structs vs. Classes 139 Deciding Between a Struct and a Class 140 Prefer Immutable Value Types 141 The Built-In Types are Aliases 142 22. Inheritance 144 Base Classes 145 Derived Classes 145 Using Derived Classes 146 Constructors and Inheritance 147 The ‘protected’ Access Modifier 148 The Base Class of Everything: object 148 Sealed Classes 148 Partial Classes 149 C# Does Not Support Multiple Inheritance 150 23. Polymorphism, Virtual Methods, and Abstract Classes 151 Polymorphism 151 Revisiting the ‘base’ Keyword 153 Abstract Base Classes 154 The ‘new’ Keyword with Methods 154 24. Interfaces 156 What is an Interface? 156 Creating an Interface 157 Using Interfaces 158 Multiple Interfaces and Inheritance 159 25. Using Generics 160 The Motivation for Generics 160 What are Generics? 162
- 15. The List Class 162 The IEnumerable<T> Interface 164 The Dictionary Class 165 26. Making Generic Types 167 Creating Your Own Generic Types 167 Using Your Generic Type in Your Class 168 Generic Type Constraints 169 Generic Methods 171 The Default Operator 171 Part 4: Advanced Topics 27. Namespaces and Using Directives 175 Namespaces 175 Fully Qualified Names 176 Using Directives 176 The Error ‘The type or namespace X could not be found’ 176 Name Collisions 178 Static Using Directives 179 28. Methods Revisited 180 Local Functions 180 Optional Parameters 181 Named Parameters 182 Variable Number of Parameters 182 The ‘out’ and ‘ref’ Keywords 183 Returning Multiple Values 186 29. Reading and Writing Files 190 The File Class 190 Text-Based Files 192 Binary Files 193 30. Error Handling and Exceptions 194 How Exception Handling Works 195 Catching Exceptions 196 Handling Different Exceptions in Different Ways 197 Throwing Exceptions 197 The ‘finally’ Keyword 199 Exception Filters 200 Some Rules about Throwing Exceptions 200 31. Pattern Matching 201 Contrasted with Regular Expressions 201 The Pattern Concept 202
- 16. Available Patterns 202 Using Patterns in C# 203 Expect Patterns to Expand 205 32. Delegates 206 Delegates: Treating Methods like Objects 206 Creating a Delegate 206 Using Delegates 207 The Delegate and MulticastDelegate Classes 208 Delegate Chaining 209 The Action and Func Delegates 211 33. Events 212 Defining an Event 213 Raising an Event 214 Attaching and Detaching Event Handlers 215 Common Delegate Types Used with Events 216 The Relationship between Delegates and Events 218 34. Operator Overloading 219 Overloading Operators 220 35. Indexers 223 How to Make an Indexer 223 Using Other Types as an Index 224 Index Initializer Syntax 225 36. Extension Methods 226 Creating an Extension Method 227 37. Lambda Expressions 230 The Motivation for Lambda Expressions 230 Lambda Expressions 232 Multiple and Zero Parameters 233 Type Inference Failures and Explicit Types 233 Statement Lambdas 233 Scope in Lambda Expressions 233 Expression-Bodied Members 234 Lambdas vs. Local Functions 235 38. Query Expressions 236 From Clauses 238 Select Clauses 239 Where Clauses 239 Multiple From Clauses 239 Let Clauses 240 Join Clauses 240 Orderby Clauses 240
- 17. Group Clauses 241 Into Clauses 242 Group Joins 242 Query Syntax and Method Call Syntax 243 Queries are Lazy When Possible 243 39. Threads 245 Threading Code Basics 246 Using ParameterizedThreadStart 247 Thread Safety 249 40. Asynchronous Programming 251 What is Asynchronous Programming? 251 Approaches from the Early Days 252 The Task-based Asynchronous Pattern 255 The ‘async’ and ‘await’ Keywords 256 41. Dynamic Objects 259 Dynamic Type Checking 260 Dynamic Objects and the Dynamic Language Runtime 260 Emulating Dynamic Objects with Dictionaries 261 ExpandoObject 262 Extending DynamicObject 262 When to Use Dynamic Object Variations 264 42. Unsafe Code 265 Unsafe Contexts 265 Pointer Types 266 Stack Allocations 267 Fixed Statements 268 Fixed Size Arrays 269 Calling Native Code with Platform Invocation Services 270 43. Other Features in C# 271 Iterators and the Yield Keyword 272 Constants 273 Attributes 274 The ‘nameof’ Operator 275 The ‘sizeof’ Operator 276 Bit Fields 277 Reflection 280 Using Statements and the IDisposable Interface 280 Preprocessor Directives 281 Nullable Types 283 Simple Null Checks: Null Propagation Operators 283
- 18. Command Line Arguments 285 User-Defined Conversions 286 The Notorious ‘goto’ Keyword 287 Generic Covariance and Contravariance 290 Advanced Namespace Management 293 Checked and Unchecked Contexts 294 Volatile Fields 295 Part 5: Mastering the Tools 44. The .NET Platform 301 Overview of the .NET Platform 301 A Brief History of the .NET Platform 304 Binary, Assembly, and Compilers 304 Virtual Machines and the Common Language Runtime 306 The .NET Standard Library 308 The .NET Framework 309 .NET Core 310 Xamarin 310 App Models 311 45. Getting the Most from Visual Studio 313 Windows 313 The Options Dialog 315 Including and Excluding Files 315 Showing Line Numbers 316 IntelliSense 316 Basic Refactoring 317 Keyboard Shortcuts 317 46. Dependencies and Multiple Projects 319 Adding DLL References 320 NuGet Packages 321 Creating and Referencing Multiple Projects 323 47. Handling Common Compiler Errors 326 Understanding Compiler Errors 326 Compiler Warnings 326 Common Compiler Errors 327 General Tips for Handling Errors 331 48. Debugging Your Code 333 Launching Your Program in Debug Mode 333 Viewing Exceptions 334 Editing Your Code While Debugging 335 Breakpoints 336
- 19. Stepping Through Your Program 336 49. How Your Project Files are Organized 339 Visual Studio’s Projects Directory 340 The Solution Directory 340 The Project Directory 341 Part 6: Wrapping Up 50. Try It Out! 345 Message from Julius Caesar 346 Reverse It! 346 Pig Dice 347 Connect Four 347 Conway’s Game of Life 348 51. What’s Next? 351 Other Frameworks and Libraries 351 Other Topics 352 Make Some Programs 352 Where Do I Go to Get Help? 353 Parting Words 353 Glossary 354 Tables and Charts 369 Index 374
- 20. 4 The Player’s Guide This book is not about playing video games. (Though programming is as fun as playing video games for many people.) Nor is it about making video games, specifically. (Though you definitely can make video games with C#.) Instead, think of this book like a player’s guide, but for a programming language. A player’s guide is a popular kind of book that is written to help game players: learn the basics of the game, prevent them from getting stuck, understand how the world they’re playing in works, learn how to overcome the obstacles and enemies they face, point out common pitfalls they may face and locate useful items, and master the tools they’re given. This book accomplishes those same goals for the C# programming language. I’ll walk you through the language from the ground up, point out places where people get stuck, provide you with hands-on examples to explore, give you quizzes to ensure you’re on the right track, and describe how to use the tools that you’ll need to create programs. I’ll show you the ins and outs of the many features of C#, describing why things work the way they do, rather than just simple mechanics and syntax. In a Nutshell Describes the goals of this book, which is to function like a player’s guide, not a comprehensive cover-everything-that-ever-existed book. Breaks down how the book is organized from a high-level perspective, as well as pointing out some of the extra “features” of the book. Provides some ideas on how to get the most out of this book for programmers, beginners, and anyone who is short on time. Introduction
- 21. xx Introduction My goal is to provide you with the “dungeon map” to direct you as you begin delving into C#, while still allowing you to mostly explore whatever you want, whenever you want. I want to point out that this book is intentionally not called Everything you Need to Know about C#, or The Comprehensive Guide to C#. (Note that if books with those titles actually exist, I’m not referring to them specifically, but rather, to just the general idea of an all-encompassing book.) I’m here to tell you, when you’re done with this book, you’ll still have lots to learn about C#. But guess what? That’s going to happen with any book you use, including those all-encompassing books. Programming languages are complex creations, and there are enough dark corners and strange combinations that nobody can learn everything there is to know about them. In fact, I’ve even seen the people who designed the C# language say they just learned something new about it! For as long as you use C#, you’ll constantly be learning new things about it, and that’s actually one of the things that makes programming interesting. I’ve tried to cover a lot of ground in this book, and with roughly 400 pages, anyone would expect that to be quite a bit. And it is. But there are plenty of other books out there that are 800 or even 1200 pages long. A book so heavy, you’ll need a packing mule to carry it anywhere. That, or permanently place it on the central dais of an ancient library, with a single beam of dusty light shining in on it through a hole in the marble ceiling. Instead of all that, the goal of this book is effectiveness and clarity, not comprehensiveness. Something that will fit both on your shelf and in your brain. It is important to point out that this book is focused on the C# programming language, rather than libraries for building certain specific application types. So while you can build desktop applications, web pages, and computer games with C#, we won’t be discussing WPF, ASP.NET, DirectX, or any other platform- or framework-specific code. Instead, we’ll focus on core C# code, without bogging you down with those additional libraries at first. Once you’ve got the hang of C#, heading into one of those areas will be much easier. How This Book is Organized This book is divided into six parts. Part 1 describes what you need to get going. You’ll learn how to get set up with the free software that you need to write code and make your first C# program. Part 2 describes the basics of procedural programming—how to tell the computer, step-by-step, what to do to accomplish tasks. It covers things like how information is stored (in variables), how to make decisions, loop over things repeatedly, and put blocks of code that accomplish specific tasks into a reusable chunk called a method. It also introduces the type system of the C# language, which is one of the key pieces of C# programming. Part 3 goes into object-oriented programming, introducing it from the ground up, but also getting into a lot of the details that make it so powerful. Chapter 20, in my opinion, is the critical point of the book. By Chapter 19, we’ve introduced all of the key concepts needed to make almost any C# program, including classes, which is the most powerful way C# provides for building your own data types. Chapter 20 contains the task (and solution) to making a simple but complete game of Tic-Tac-Toe, which will put all of the knowledge from the earlier chapters to the test. Everything we do after this chapter is simply fleshing out details and giving you better tools to get specific jobs done faster. Part 4 covers some common programming tasks, as well as covering some of the more advanced features of C#. For the most part, these topics are independent of each other, and once you’ve made it past that critical point in Chapter 20, you should be able to do these at any time you want.
- 22. How This Book is Organized xxi Part 5 changes gears, and covers more details about Visual Studio, which you use to create C# programs, additional information about the .NET Platform, and some tools, tricks, and information you can use as you program. Finally, Part 6 wraps up the book with some larger scale programs for you to try making, a chapter on where to go next as you continue to learn C#, and a glossary of words that are defined throughout the book, which you can use as a reference when you run across a word or phrase that you are unfamiliar with or have forgotten about. Try It Out! Scattered throughout the book are a variety of sections labeled Try It Out! These sections give you simple challenge problems and quizzes that give you a chance to play around with the new concepts in the chapter and test your understanding. If this were a class, these would be the homework. The purpose of these Try It Out! sections is to help you get some real world practice with the new information. You can’t learn to drive a car by reading the owner’s manual, and you can’t learn to program without writing any code. I strongly encourage you to spend at least a few minutes doing each of these challenges to help you understand what you’re reading and ensure that you’ve learned what you needed to. If you have something else you want to explore with the new concepts instead of the challenges I’ve provided, all the better. The only thing better than playing around with this stuff is doing something with it that you have a personal interest in. If you want to explore a different direction, go for it! At the end of the book, in Chapter 50, I have an entire chapter full of larger, tougher challenge problems for you to try out. These problems involve combining concepts from many chapters together into one program. Going through some or all of these as you’re finishing up will be a great way to make sure you’ve learned the most important things you needed to. The most important thing to remember about these Try It Out! sections is that the answers are all online. If you get stuck, or just want to compare your solution to someone else’s, you can see mine at starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp/try-it-out/. I should point out that just because your solution is different from mine (or anyone else’s) doesn’t necessarily mean it is wrong. That’s one of the best parts about programming—there’s always more than one way to do something. In a Nutshell At the beginning of each chapter, I summarize what it contains. These sections are designed to do the following: Summarize the chapter to come. Show enough of the chapter so that an experienced programmer can know if they already know enough to skip the chapter or if they need to study it in depth. Review the chapter enough to ensure that you got what you needed to from the chapter. For instance, imagine you’re about to take a test on C#. You can jump from chapter to chapter, reading the In a Nutshell sections, and anything it describes that you didn’t already know, you can then go into the chapter and review it. In Depth On occasion, there are a few topics that are not critical to your understanding of C#, but they are an interesting topic that is related to the things you’re learning. You’ll find this information pulled out into In Depth sections. These are never required reading, so if you’re busy, skip ahead. If you’re not too busy, I think you’ll find this additional information interesting, and worth taking the time to read.
- 23. xxii Introduction Glossary As you go through this book, you’re going to learn a ton of new words and phrases. Especially if you’re completely new to programming in general. At the back of this book is a glossary that contains the definitions for these words. You can use this as a reference in case you forget what a word means, or as you run into new concepts as you learn C#. Getting the Most from This Book For Programmers If you are a programmer, particularly one who already knows a programming language that is related to C# (C, C++, Java, Visual Basic .NET, etc.) learning C# is going to be relatively easy for you. C# has a lot in common with all of these languages. In fact, it’s fair to say that all programming languages affect and are inspired by other languages, because they evolve over time. C# looks and feels like a combination of Java and C++, both of which have roots that go back to the C programming language. Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) on the other hand, looks and feels quite different from C# (it’s based on Visual Basic, and Basic before that) but because both C# and VB.NET are designed and built for the .NET Platform, they have many of the same features, and there’s almost a one-to-one correspondence between features and keywords. Because C# is so closely tied to these other languages, and knowing that many people may already know something about these other languages, you’ll see me point out how C# compares to these other languages from time to time. If you already know a lot about programming, you’re going to be able to move quickly through this book, especially the beginning, where you may find very few differences from languages you already know. To speed the process along, read the In a Nutshell section at the start of the chapter. If you feel like you already know everything it describes, it’s probably safe to skip to the next chapter. I want to mention a couple of chapters that might be a little dangerous to skip. Chapter 6 introduces the C# type system, including a few concepts that are key to building types throughout the book. Also, Chapter 16 is sort of a continuation on the type system, describing value and reference types. It’s important to understand the topics covered in those chapters. Those chapters cover some of the fundamental ways that C# is different from these other languages, so don’t skip them. For Busy People One of the best parts about this book is that you don’t need to read it all. Yes, that’s right. It’s not all mandatory reading to get started with C#. You could easily get away with only reading a part of this book, and still understand C#. In fact, not only understand it, but be able to make just about any program you can dream up. This is especially true if you already know a similar programming language. At a minimum, you should start at the beginning and read through Chapter 20. That covers the basics of programming, all the way up to and including an introduction to making your own classes. (And if you’re already a programmer, you should be able to fly through those introductory chapters quickly.) The rest of the book could theoretically be skipped, though if you try to use someone else’s code, you’re probably going to be in for some surprises. Once you’ve gone through those 20 chapters, you can then come back and read the rest of the book in more or less any order that you want, as you have extra time. For Beginners If you’ve never done any programming before, be warned: learning a programming language can be hard work. The concepts in the first 20 chapters of this book are the most important to understand. Take
- 24. I Genuinely Want Your Feedback xxiii whatever time is necessary to really feel like you understand what you’re seeing in these chapters. This gets you all of the basics, and gets you up to a point where you can make your own types using classes. Like with the For Busy People section above, Chapter 20 is the critical point that you’ve got to get to, in order to really understand C#. At that point, you can probably make any program that you can think of, though the rest of the book will cover additional tools and tricks that will allow you to do this more easily and more efficiently. After reading through these chapters, skim through the rest of the book, so that you’re aware of what else C# has. That’s an important step if you’re a beginner. It will familiarize you with what C# has to offer, and when you either see it in someone else’s code or have a need for it, you’ll know exactly where to come back to. A lot of these additional details will make the most sense when you have an actual need for it in a program of your own creation. After a few weeks or a few months, when you’ve had a chance to make some programs on your own, come back and go through the rest of the book in depth. I Genuinely Want Your Feedback Writing a book is a huge task, and no one has ever finished a huge task perfectly. There’s the possibility of mistakes, plenty of chances to inadvertently leave you confused, or leaving out important details. I was tempted to keep this book safe on my hard drive, and never give it out to the world, because then those limitations wouldn’t matter. But alas, my wife wouldn’t let me follow Gandalf’s advice and “keep it secret; keep it safe,” and so now here it is in your hands. If you ever find any problems with this book, big or small, or if you have any suggestions for improving it, I’d really like to know. After all, books are a lot like software, and there’s always the opportunity for future versions that improve upon the current one. Also, if you have positive things to say about the book, I’d love to hear about that too. There’s nothing quite like hearing that your hard work has helped somebody. To give feedback of any kind, please visit starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp/feedback. This Book Comes with Online Content On my website, I have a small amount of additional content that you might find useful. For starters, as people submit feedback, like I described in the last section, I will post corrections and clarifications as needed on this book’s errata page: starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp/errata. Also on my site, I will post my own answers for all of the Try It Out! sections found throughout this book. If you get stuck, or just want something to compare your answers with, you can visit this book’s site and see a solution. To see these answers, go to: starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp/try-it-out/. The website also contains some extra problems to work on, beyond the ones contained in this book. I’ve been frequently asked to add more problems to the book than what it currently has. Indeed, this version contains more than any previous version. But at the same time, most people don’t actually do these problems. To avoid drowning out the actual content with more and more problems, I’ve provided additional problems on the website. This felt like a good compromise. These can be found at starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp/additional-problems. Additional information or resources may be found at starboundsoftware.com/books/c-sharp.
- 25. Part 1 Getting Started The world of C# programming lies in front of you, waiting to be explored. In Part 1 of this book, within just a few short chapters, we’ll do the following: Get a quick introduction to what C# is (Chapter 1). Get set up to start making C# programs (Chapter 2). Write our first program (Chapter 3). Dig into the fundamental parts of C# programming (Chapters 3 and 4).
- 26. 1 1The C# Programming Language I’m going to start off this book with a very brief introduction to C#. If you’re already a programmer, and you’ve read the Wikipedia pages on C# and the .NET Framework, skip ahead to the next chapter. On the other hand, if you’re new to programming in general, or you’re still a little vague on what exactly C# or the .NET Platform is, then this is the place for you. I should point out that we’ll get into a lot of detail about how the .NET Platform functions, and what it gives you as a programmer in Chapter 44. This chapter just provides a quick overview of the basics. What is C#? Computers only understand binary: 1’s and 0’s. All of the information they keep track of is ultimately nothing more than a glorified pile of bits. All of the instructions they run and all of the data they process are binary. But humans are notoriously bad at doing anything with a giant pile of 1’s and 0’s. So rather than doing that, we created programming languages, which are based on human languages (usually English) and structured in a way that allows you to give instructions to the computer. These instructions are called source code, and are simple text files. When the time is right, your source code will be handed off to a special program called a compiler, which is able to take it and turn it into the binary 1’s and 0’s that the computer understands, typically in the form In a Nutshell Describes the general idea of programming, and goes into more details about why C# is a good language. Describes the core of what the .NET Platform is. Gives some history on the C# programming language for context.
- 27. 4 Chapter 1 The C# Programming Language of an EXE file. In this sense, you can think of the compiler as a translator from your source code to the binary machine instructions that the computer knows. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of programming languages, each good at certain things, and less good at other things. C# is one of the most popular. C# is a simple general-purpose programming language, meaning you can use it to create pretty much anything, including desktop applications, server-side code for websites, and even video games. C# provides an excellent balance between ease of use and power. There are other languages that provide less power and are easier to use (like Java) and others that provide more power, giving up some of its simplicity (like C++). Because of the balance it strikes, it is the perfect language for nearly everything that you will want to do, so it’s a great language to learn, whether it’s your first or your tenth. What is the .NET Platform? C# relies heavily on something called the .NET Platform. It is also commonly also called the .NET Framework, though we’ll make a subtle distinction between the two later on. The .NET Platform is a large and powerful platform, which we’ll discuss in detail in Chapter 44. You can go read it as soon as you’re done with this chapter, if you want. The .NET Platform is vast, with many components, but two stand out as the most central. The first part is the Common Language Runtime, often abbreviated as the CLR. The CLR is a software program that takes your compiled C# code and runs it. When you launch your EXE file, the CLR will start up and begin taking your code and translating it into the optimal binary instructions for the physical computer that it is running on, and your code comes to life. In this sense, the CLR is a middle-man between your code and the physical computer. This type of program is called a virtual machine. We’ll get into more of the specifics in Chapter 44. For now, it’s only important to know that the .NET Platform itself, specifically the CLR runtime, play a key role in running your application—and in making it so your application can run on a wide variety of computer architectures and operating systems. The second major component of the .NET Platform is the .NET Standard Library. The Standard Library is frequently called the Base Class Library. The Standard Library is a massive collection of code that you can reuse within your own programs to accelerate the development of whatever you are working on. We will cover some of the most important things in the Standard Library in this book, but it is huge, and deserves a book of its own. More detail on the Standard Library and the Base Class Library can be found in Chapter 44. Built on top of the .NET Standard Library is a collection of app models. An app model is another large library designed for a specific type of application. This includes things like WPF and Windows Forms for GUI applications, ASP.NET for web development, and Xamarin for iOS and Android development. Game frameworks or engines like MonoGame and Unity could also be considered app models, though these are not maintained directly by Microsoft. This book, unfortunately, doesn’t cover these app models to any serious extent. There are two reasons for this. Each app model is gigantic. You could write multiple books about each of these app models (and indeed, there are many books out there). Trying to pack them all into this book would make it a 5000 page book. Second, the app models are, true to their name, specific to a certain type of application. This means that the things that are important to somebody doing desktop development are going to be wildly different from somebody doing web development. This book focuses on the C# language itself, and the aspects of
- 28. C# and .NET Versions 5 the .NET Platform that are useful to everybody. Once you’ve finished this book, you could then proceed on to other books that focus on specific app models. (Those books all generally assume you know C# anyway.) We will cover how the .NET Platform is organized and how it functions in depth in Chapter 44. C# and .NET Versions C# has gone through quite a bit of evolution over its history. The first release was in 2002, and established the bulk of the language features C# still has today. A little over a year later, in 2003, C# 2.0 was released, adding in a lot of other big and powerful features, most of which will get quite a bit of attention in this book (generics, nullable types, delegates, static classes, etc.) C# 3.0 expanded the language in a couple of very specific directions: LINQ and lambdas, both of which get their own chapters in this book. The next two releases were somewhat smaller. C# 4.0 added dynamic typing, as well as named and optional method arguments. C# 5.0 added greatly expanded support for asynchronous programming. In the C# 5 era, a new C# compiler was introduced: Roslyn. This compiler has a number of notable features: it’s open source, it’s written in C# (written in the language it’s for), and it is available while your program is running (so you can compile additional code dynamically). Something about its construction also allows for people to more easily tweak and experiment with new features, which led to the features added in C# 6.0 and 7.0. C# 6.0 and 7.0 added a whole slew of little additions and tweaks across the language. While previous updates to the language could usually be summed up in a single bullet point or two, and are given their own chapters in this book, the new features in C# 6.0 and 7.0 are small and numerous. I try to point out what these new features are throughout this book, so that you are aware of them. Alongside the C# language itself, both Visual Studio and the Standard Library have both been evolving and growing. This book has been updated to work with Visual Studio 2017 and C# 7.0 at the time of publishing. Future versions will, of course, arrive before long. Based on past experience, it’s a safe bet that everything you learn in this book will still apply in future versions.
- 29. 2 2Installing Visual Studio To make your own programs, people usually use a program called an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). An IDE combines all of the tools you will commonly need to make software, including a special text editor designed for editing source code files, a compiler, and other various tools to help you manage the files in your project. With C#, nearly everyone chooses to use some variation of Visual Studio, made by Microsoft. There are a few different levels of Visual Studio, ranging from the free Community Edition, to the high-end Enterprise Edition. In this chapter, I’ll guide you through the process of determining which one to choose. As of the time of publication of this book, the latest version is the 2017 family. There will inevitably be future releases, but the bulk of what’s described in this book should still largely apply in future versions. While new features have been added over time, the fundamentals of Visual Studio have remained the same for a very long time now. There are three main flavors of Visual Studio 2017. Our first stop will be to look at the differences among these, and I’ll point out one that is most likely your best choice, getting started. (It’s free, don’t worry!) I’ll then tell you how to download Visual Studio and a little about the installation process. By the end of this chapter, you’ll be up and running, ready to start doing some C# programming! In a Nutshell To program in C#, we will need a program that allows us to write C# code and run it. That program is Microsoft Visual Studio. A variety of versions of Visual Studio exists, including the free Community Edition, as well as several higher tiers that offer additional features at a cost. You do not need to spend money to make C# programs. This chapter walks you through the various versions of Visual Studio to help you decide which one to use, but as you are getting started, you should consider the free Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition.
- 30. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
- 31. speedy return to a home where, if the dear heart in it is still beating, we shall meet with a sweet welcome, be sure.' 'But you must not be in a hurry to return home,' exclaimed the Captain, turning his smiling countenance to Helga; 'you must give me time to tempt you to remain on board The Light of the World. Your qualifications as a sailor should make you an excellent mate, and you will tell me how much a month you will take to serve in that capacity?' I observed the same look of recoil in her face that I had before seen in it. A woman's instincts, thought I, are often amazingly keen in the interpretation of men's minds. Or is she merely nervous and sensitive with a gentle, pretty modesty and bashfulness which render direct allusions to her after this pattern distressing? For my part, I could find no more than what the French call badinage in the Captain's speech, with nothing to render it significant outside the bare meaning of the words in his looks or manner. She did not answer him, and by way of changing the subject, being also weary of sitting at that table, for we had finished the meal some time, though the Malay continued to look on, as though waiting for the order to clear away, I pulled out my watch. 'A quarter to seven,' I exclaimed. 'You will not wish to be late to- night, Helga. You require a good long sleep. By this time to-morrow we may have shifted our quarters; but we shall always gratefully remember Captain Bunting's goodness.' 'That reminds me,' said he, 'your cabins must be got ready. Punmeamootty, go forward and tell Nakier to send a couple of hands aft to clear out two of the berths below. No! tell Nakier I want him, and then come aft and clear the table.' The man, gliding softly but moving swiftly, passed through the door that led on to the quarter-deck.
- 32. 'I wish I could tempt you, Miss Nielsen,' continued the Captain, 'to take Mr. Jones's cabin. You will be so very much more comfortable there.' 'I would rather be near Mr. Tregarthen, thank you,' she answered. 'You are a fortunate man to be so favoured!' he exclaimed, smiling at me. 'However, every convenience that my cabin can supply shall be placed at Miss Nielsen's disposal. Alas! now, if my dear Judith were here! She would improve, by many womanly suggestions, my humble attempts as a Samaritan. Our proper business in this world, Mr. Tregarthen, is to do good to one another. But the difficulty,' he exclaimed with a sweep of his hand, 'is to do all the good that can be done! Now, for instance, I am at a loss. How am I to supply Miss Nielsen's needs?' 'They are of the simplest—are not they, Helga?' said I. 'Quite the simplest, Captain Bunting,' she answered, and then, looking at him anxiously, she added: 'My one great desire now is to get to England. I have been the cause of taking Mr. Tregarthen from his mother, and I shall not feel happy until they are together again!' 'Charity forbid,' exclaimed the Captain, 'that I should question for an instant the heroism of Mr. Tregarthen's behaviour! But,' said he, slightly lowering his voice and stooping his smiling face at her, so to say, 'when your brave friend put off in the lifeboat he did not, I may take it, know that you were on board?' 'But I was on board,' she answered quickly: 'and he has saved my life, and I wish him to return to his mother, who may believe him drowned and be mourning him as dead!'
- 33. CHAPTER VII. ON BOARD 'THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.' At that moment the man whom the Captain styled Nakier entered the little cuddy, followed by the steward. He made a singular gesture, a sort of salaam, bowing his head and whipping both hands to his brow, but with something of defiance in the celerity of the gesture. He was the man whom I had seen haranguing the two boatmen. He had a large, fine intelligent eye, liquid and luminous, despite the Asiatic duskiness of its pupil; his features were regular and almost handsome: an aquiline nose, thin and well chiselled at the nostrils, a square brow, small ears decorated with thick gold hoops, and teeth as though formed of china. The expression of his face was mild and even prepossessing, his complexion a light yellow. He bore in his hand what had apparently been a soldier's foraging cap, and was dressed in an old pilot jacket, a red shirt, and a pair of canvas breeches held by a belt, to which was attached a sheath containing a knife lying tight against his hip. He took me and Helga in with a rapid roll of his handsome eyes, then looked straight at the Captain in a posture of attention, with a little contraction of the brow. 'I want a couple of the berths below cleared out at once,' said the Captain. 'Goh Syn Koh seems one of the smartest among you. Send him. Also send Mow Lauree. He can make a bed, I hope? He is making a bed for himself! Bear a hand and clear this table, Punmeamootty, so as to be able to assist. You'll superintend the work, Nakier. See all clean and comfortable.' 'Yaas, sah,' said the man. He was going.
- 34. 'Stop!' exclaimed the Captain, smiling all the time he continued to talk. 'Did you eat your dinner to-day!' 'No, sah.' 'What has become of it?' 'Overboard, sah,' answered the man, preserving his slight frown. 'Overboard! As good a mess of pork and peasoup as was ever served out to a ship's company. Overboard! For the third time! If it happens again——' he checked himself with a glance at Helga: 'if it happens again,' he went on, speaking with an air of concern, 'I shall be obliged to stop the beef.' 'We cannot eat pork, sah—we are Mussulmans——' he was proceeding. The Captain silenced him with a bland motion of the hand. 'Send the men aft, Nakier,' said he, with a small increase of nasal twang in his utterance, 'and see that the cleaning and the clearance out is thorough.' He gave him a hard, significant nod, and the man marched out, directing an eager look at me as he wheeled round, as though for my sympathy. Punmeamootty was clearing the table with much ill-dissembled agitation in the hurry of his movements: his swift glances went from the Captain to me, and then to Helga. They were like the flashing of a stiletto, keen as the darting blue gleam of the blade, and they would be as murderous, too, I thought, if the man could execute his wishes with his eyes. I believed the Captain would now make some signal to leave the table, but he continued to sit on. 'Did you observe that man just now?' said he, addressing Helga. She answered 'Yes.' 'Handsome, do you think?' said he. 'He had a mild, pleasant face,' she answered.
- 35. 'His name,' said he, 'is Vanjoor Nakier. He is boss of the native crew, and I allow him to act as a sort of boatswain. It is hard to reconcile so agreeable a countenance with the horrible and awful belief which must make him for ever and ever a lost soul, if he is not won over in plenty of time for repentance, for prayer and mortification.' 'You seem to have the fellows' names very pat,' said I. 'Are you acquainted with the Malay tongue?' 'Ah!' cried he, with a shake of the head; 'I wish I were. I might then prove a true missionary to the poor benighted fellows. Yet I shall hope to have broken heavily into their deplorable and degraded superstitions before I dismiss them at Cape Town.' I caught sight of the shadowy form of the steward lurking abaft the companion-steps, where he seemed busy with some plates and a basket. 'It is your hope,' said I, 'to convert the Mussulmans?' 'It is my hope, indeed,' he answered; 'and, pray, what honester hope should possess a man?' 'It is an admirable desire,' said I, 'but a little dangerous perhaps.' 'Why?' asked he. 'Well,' said I, 'I am no traveller. I have seen nothing of the world, but I have read, and I have always gathered from books of voyages, that there is no class of men more bigoted in their faith and more treacherous in their conduct than Malay seamen.' 'Hush!' cried Helga, putting her finger to her lips and looking in the direction of the steward. The Captain turned in his chair. 'Are you there, Punmeamootty?' 'Yes, sah;' and his figure came swiftly gliding into the light.
- 36. 'Go below and help the others! They should be at work by this time.' The man went out on to the quarter-deck, where, close against the cuddy front, lay the little hatch that conducted to the steerage. 'You are quite right,' exclaimed the Captain, lying back and expanding his waistcoat. 'Malay seamen are, undoubtedly, treacherous. In fact, treachery is part and parcel of the Malay character. It is the people of that nation who run amuck, you know.' 'What is that?' inquired Helga. 'A fellow falls crazy,' answered the Captain, smiling, 'whips out a weapon called a creese, and stabs and kills as many as he can encounter as he flies through the streets.' 'They are a people to live on good terms with,' said Helga, looking at me. 'They are a people,' said the Captain, nasally accentuating his words, 'who are to be brought to a knowledge of the Light; and, in proportion as the effort is dangerous, so should the worker glory in his task.' He gazed at Helga, as though seeking her approval of this sentiment. But she was looking at me with an expression of anxiety in her blue eyes. 'I gather,' said I, with curiosity stimulated by thought of the girl's and my situation aboard this homely little barque, with her singular skipper and wild, dark crew—'I gather, Captain Bunting, from what has passed, that the blow you are now levelling at these fellows' superstitions—as you call them—is aimed at their diet?' 'Just so,' he answered. 'I am trying to compel them to eat pork. Who knows that before the equator be crossed I may not have excited a real love for pork among them? That would be a great work, sir. It will sap one of the most contemptible of their superstitions, and
- 37. provide me with a little crevice for the insertion of the wedge of truth.' 'I believe pork,' said I, 'is not so much a question of religion as a question of health with these poor dark creatures, bred in hot latitudes.' 'Pork enters largely into their faith,' he answered. 'So far, you have not been very successful, I think?' 'No. You heard what Vanjoor Nakier said. The wasteful wretches have for the third time cast their allowance overboard. Only think, Miss Nielsen, of wilfully throwing over the rail as much hearty excellent food—honest salt pork and very fair peasoup—as would keep a poor family at home in dinners for a week!' 'What do they eat instead?' she asked. 'Why, on pork days, biscuit, I suppose. There is nothing else.' 'You give them beef every other day?' said I. 'Beef and duff,' he answered; 'but I shall stop that. Famine may help me in dealing with their superstitions.' It was not for me, partaking, as Helga and I were, of this man's hospitality, using his ship, dependent upon him, indeed, for my speedy return home with Helga—it was not for me, I say, at this early time at all events, to remonstrate with him, to tell him that, exalted as he might consider his motives, they were urging him into a very barbarous, cruel behaviour; but, as I sat looking at him, my emotion, spite of his claims upon my kindness, was one of hearty disgust, with deeper feelings working in me besides, when I considered that, if our evil fortune forced us to remain for any length of time on board The Light of the World, we might find his theory of conversion making his ship a theatre for as bad a tragedy as was ever enacted upon the high seas.
- 38. On a sudden he looked up at a little timepiece that was ticking against a beam just over his head. 'Have you any acquaintance with the sea, Mr. Tregarthen?' he asked. 'Merely a boating acquaintance,' I replied. 'Can you stand a watch?' 'I could keep a look-out,' said I, a little dismayed by these questions, 'but I am utterly ignorant of the handling of a ship.' He looked reflectively at Helga, then at me, pulling down first one whisker, then the other, while his thick lips lay broad in a smile under his long hooked nose. 'Oh, well' said he, 'Abraham Wise will do.' He went to the cuddy door and called 'Forward there!' 'Yaas, sah,' came a thick Africander-like note out of the forecastle obscurity. 'Ask Abraham Wise to step aft.' He resumed his seat, and in a few minutes Abraham arrived. Helga instantly rose and gave him her hand with a sweet cordial smile that was full of her gratification at the sight of him. For my part, it did my heart good to see him. After the tallowy countenance and odd talk of the Captain and the primrose complexions and scowling glances of his Malays, there was real refreshment to the spirits to be got out of the homely English face and English 'longshore garb of the boatman, with the man's suggestions, besides, of the English Channel and of home. 'And how is Jacob?' said I. 'Oh, he's a-feeling a little better, sir. A good bit down, of course, as we both are. 'Taint realizable even now.' 'Do you refer to the loss of your lugger?' said Captain Bunting.
- 39. 'Ay, sir, to the Airly Marn,' answered Abraham, confronting him, and gazing at him with a steadfastness that slightly increased his squint. 'But surely, my good fellow,' cried the Captain, 'you had plenty of time, I hope, to feel thoroughly grateful for your preservation from the dreadful fate which lay before you had Providence suffered you to continue your voyage?' 'Oi dunno about dreadful fate,' answered Abraham: 'all I can say is, I should be blooming glad if that there Airly Marn was afloat again, or if so be as we'd never fallen in with this here Light of the World.' 'It is as I told you, you perceive,' exclaimed the Captain, smiling and addressing Helga and me in his blandest manner: 'as we descend the social scale, recognition of signal and providential mercies grows feebler and feebler, until it dies out—possibly before it gets down to Deal boatmen. I want a word with you, Abraham Wise. But first, how have you been treated forward?' 'Oh, werry well indeed, sir,' he answered. 'The mate showed us where to tarn in when the time comes round, and I dessay we'll manage to git along all right till we gets clear of ye.' 'What have you had to eat?' 'The mate gave us a little bit o' pork for to be biled, but ye've got a black cook forrads as seemed to Jacob and me to take the dressing of that there meat werry ill.' The Captain seemed to motion the matter aside with his hand, and said: 'My vessel is without a second mate; I mean, a man qualified to take charge of the deck when Mr. Jones and I are below. Now, I am thinking that you would do very well for that post.' 'I'd rather go home, sir,' said Abraham.
- 40. 'Ay,' said the Captain, complacently surveying him, 'but while you are with me, you know, you must be prepared to do your bit. I find happiness in assisting a suffering man. But,' added he nasally, 'in this world we must give and take. You eat my meat and sleep in what I think I may fairly term my bedroom. What pay do I exact? Simply the use of your eyes and limbs.' He glanced with a very self-satisfied expression at Helga. It seemed, indeed, that most of his talk now was at her when not directly to her. She had come round to my side of the table after leaving Abraham, and giving her my chair, I stood listening, with my hand on the back of it. 'I'm quite willing to tarn to,' said Abraham, 'while I'm along with ye, sir. I ain't afeared of work. I dorn't want no man's grub nor shelter for nothen.' 'Quite right,' said the Captain; 'those are respectable sentiments. Of course, if you accept my offer I will pay you, give you the wages that Winstanley had—four pounds a month for the round voyage.' Abraham scratched the back of his head and looked at me. This proposal evidently put a new complexion upon the matter to his mind. 'You can handle a ship, I presume?' continued the Captain. 'Whoy, yes,' answered Abraham with a grin of wonder at the question: 'if I ain't been poiloting long enough to know that sort o' work, ye shall call me a Malay.' 'I should not require a knowledge of navigation in you,' said the Captain. Abraham responded with a bob of the head, then scratching at his back hair afresh, said: 'I must ask leave to tarn the matter over. I should like to talk with my mate along o' this.'
- 41. 'I'll put him on the articles, too, if he likes, at the current wages,' said the Captain. 'However, think over it. You can let me know to- morrow. But I shall expect you to take charge during the middle watch.' 'That I'll willingly dew, sir,' answered Abraham. 'But how about them Ceylon chaps and Malays forrads? Dew they understand sea tarms?' 'Perfectly well,' answered the Captain, 'or how should I and Mr. Jones get along, think you?' 'Well,' exclaimed Abraham: 'I han't had much to say to 'em as yet. One chap's been talking a good deal this evening, and I allow he's got a grievance, as most sailors has. There's some sort o' difficulty: I allow it lies in the eating; but a man wants practice to follow noicely what them there sort o' coloured covies has to say.' 'Well,' exclaimed the Captain, with another bland wave of the hand in dismissal of the subject, 'we understand each other, at all events, my lad.' He went to the locker from which he had extracted the biscuits, produced a bottle of rum, and filled a wineglass. 'Neat or with water?' said he, smiling. 'I've pretty nigh had enough water for to-day, sir,' answered Abraham, grinning too, and looking very well pleased at this act of attention. 'Here's to you, sir, I'm sure, and wishing you a prosperous woyage. Mr. Tregarthen, your health, sir, and yourn, miss, and may ye both soon get home and find everything comfortable and roight.' He drained the glass with a smack of his lips. 'As pretty a little drop o' rum as I've had this many a day,' said he. 'You can tell Jacob to lay aft presently,' said the Captain, 'when the steward is at liberty, and he will give him such another dose. That will do.'
- 42. Abraham knuckled his forehead, pausing to say to me in a hoarse whisper, which must have been perfectly audible to the Captain. 'A noice gemman, and no mistake.' 'I am going below,' said the Captain when he was gone, 'to see after your accommodation. Will you sit here,' addressing Helga, 'or will you go on deck for a few turns? I fear you will find the air chilly.' 'I will go on deck with you, Hugh,' answered Helga. The Captain ran his eye over her. 'You are without luggage,' said he, 'and, alas! wanting in almost everything; but if you will allow me——' he broke off and went to his cabin, and before we could have found time to exchange a whisper, returned with a very handsome, almost new, fur coat. 'Now, Miss Nielsen,' said he, 'you will allow me to wrap you in this.' 'Indeed my jacket will keep me warm,' she answered, with that same look of shrinking in her face I have before described. 'Nay, but wear it, Helga,' said I, anxious to meet the man, at all events, halfway in his kindness. 'It is a delightful coat—the very thing for the keen wind that is blowing on deck!' Had I offered to put it on for her she would at once have consented, but I could observe the recoil in her from the garment stretched in the Captain's hands, with his pale fat face smiling betwixt his long whiskers over the top of it. On a sudden, however, she turned and suffered him to put the coat on her, which he did with great ostentation of anxiety and a vast deal of smiling, and, as I could not help perceiving, with a deal more of lingering over the act than there was the least occasion for. 'Wonderfully becoming, indeed!' he exclaimed; 'and now to see that your cabin is comfortable.' He passed through the door, and we mounted the companion steps.
- 43. The night was so dark that there was very little of the vessel to be seen. Her dim spaces of canvas made a mere pale whistling shadow of her as they floated, waving and bowing, in dim heaps through the obscurity. There was a frequent glancing of white water to windward and a dampness as of spray in the wind, but the little barque tossed with dry decks over the brisk Atlantic heave, crushing the water off either bow into a dull light of seething, against which, when she stooped her head, the round of the forecastle showed like a segment of the shadow in a partial eclipse of the moon. The haze of the cabin-lamp lay about the skylight, and the figure of the mate appeared in and vanished past it with monotonous regularity as he paced the short poop. There was a haze of light, too, about the binnacle-stand, with a sort of elusive stealing into it of the outline of the man at the helm. Forward the vessel lay in blackness. It was blowing what sailors call a top-gallant breeze, with, perhaps, more weight in it even than that; but the squabness of this Light of the World promised great stiffness, and, though the wind had drawn some point or so forward while we were at table, the barque rose as stiff to it as though she had been under reefed topsails. 'Will you take my arm, Helga?' said I. 'Let me first turn up the sleeves of this coat,' said she. I helped her to do this; she then put her hand under my arm, and we started to walk the lee-side of the deck as briskly as the swing of the planks would suffer. Scarcely were we in motion when the mate came down to us from the weather-side. 'Beg pardon,' said he. 'Won't you and the lady walk to wind'ard?' 'Oh, we shall be in your way!' I answered. 'It is a cold wind.' 'It is, sir.' 'But it promises a fair night,' said I. 'I hope so,' he exclaimed. 'Dirty weather don't agree with dirty skins.'
- 44. He turned on his heel and resumed his post on the weather-side of the deck. 'Dirty skins mean Malays in that chief mate's nautical dictionary,' said I. 'Hugh, how thankful I shall be when we are transferred to another ship!' 'Ay, indeed! but surely this is better than the lugger?' 'No! I would rather be in the lugger.' 'How now?' cried I. 'We are very well treated here. Surely the Captain has been all hospitality. No warm-hearted host ashore could do more. Why, here is he now at this moment superintending the arrangement of our cabins below to ensure our comfort!' 'I do not like him at all!' said she, in a tone which her slightly Danish accent rendered emphatic. 'I do not like his treatment of the men,' said I; 'but he is kind to us.' 'There is an unwholesome mind in his flabby face!' she exclaimed. I could not forbear a laugh at this strong language in the little creature. 'And then his religion!' she continued. 'Does a truly pious nature talk as he does? I can understand professional religionists intruding their calling upon strangers; but I have always found sincerity in matters of opinion modest and reserved—I mean among what you call laymen. What right has this man to force upon those poor fellows forward the food that they are forbidden by their faith to eat?' 'Yes,' said I; 'that is a vile side of the man's nature, I must own; vile to you and me and to the poor Malays, I mean. But, surely, there must be sincerity too, or why should he bother himself?'
- 45. 'It may be meanness,' said she: 'he wants to save his beef; meanness and that love of tyrannizing which is oftener to be found among the captains of your nation, Hugh, than mine!' 'Your nation!' said I, laughing. 'I claim you for Great Britain by virtue of your English speech. No pure Dane could talk your mother's tongue as you do. Spite of what you say, though, I believe the man sincere. Would he, situated as he is—two white men to eleven yellow-skins (for we and the boatmen must count ourselves out of it) —would he, I say, dare venture to arouse the passions—the religious passions—of a set of men who hail from the most treacherous community of people in the world, if he were not governed by some dream of converting them?—a fancy that were you to transplant it ashore, would be reckoned noble and of a Scriptural and martyr-like greatness.' 'That may be,' she answered; 'but he is going very wickedly to work, nevertheless, and it will not be his fault if those coloured sailors do not dangerously mutiny long before he shall have persuaded the most timid and doubting of them that pork is good to eat.' 'Yes,' said I gravely; for she spoke with a sort of impassioned seriousness that must have influenced me, even if I had not been of her mind. 'I, for one, should certainly fear the worst if he persists— and I don't doubt he will persist, if Abraham and the other boatman agree to remain with him; for then it will be four to eleven— desperate odds, indeed, though as an Englishman he is bound to underrate the formidableness of anything coloured. However,' said I, with a glance into the darkness over the side, 'do not doubt that we shall be transhipped long before any trouble happens. I shall endeavour to have a talk with Abraham before he decides. What he and Jacob then do, they will do with their eyes open.' As I spoke these words, the Captain came up the ladder and approached us.
- 46. 'Ha! Miss Nielsen,' he cried, 'were not you wise to put on that warm coat? All is ready below; but still let me hope that you will change your mind and occupy Mr. Jones's berth.' 'Thank you; for the short time we shall remain in this ship the cabin you have been good enough to prepare will be all I require,' she answered. He peered through the skylight to see the hour. 'Five minutes to eight,' he exclaimed. 'Mr. Jones!' The man crossed the deck. 'I have arranged,' said the Captain, 'with the Deal boatman Abraham Wise to take charge of the barque during the middle watch. It is an experiment, and I shall require to be up and down during those hours to make sure of him. Not that I distrust his capacities. Oh dear no! From the vicious slipping of cables, merely for sordid purposes of hovelling, to the noble art of navigating a ship in a hurricane amid the shoals of the Straits of Dover, your Deal boatman is the most expert of men. But,' continued he, 'since I shall have to be up and down, as I have said, during the middle watch, I will ask you to keep charge of the deck till midnight.' 'Very good, sir,' said the mate, who appeared to me to have been on duty ever since the hour of our coming aboard. 'It will keep the round of the watches steady, sir. The port watch comes on duty at eight bells.' 'Excellent!' exclaimed the Captain. 'Thank you, Mr. Jones.' The mate stalked aft. 'Mr. Tregarthen,' he added, 'I observe that you wear a sou'-wester.' 'It is the headgear I wore when I put off in the lifeboat,' said I, 'and I am waiting to get home to exchange it.' 'No need, no need!' cried he; 'I have an excellent wideawake below —not, indeed, perfectly new, but a very serviceable clinging article for ocean use—which is entirely at your service.'
- 47. 'You are all kindness!' 'Nay,' he exclaimed in a voice of devotion, 'I believe I know my duty. Shall we linger here, Miss Nielsen, or would you prefer the shelter of the cabin? At half-past eight Punmeamootty will place some hot water, biscuit, and a little spirit upon the table. I fear I shall be at a loss to divert you.' 'Indeed not!' exclaimed Helga. The unconscious irony of this response must have disconcerted a less self-complacent man. 'I have a few volumes of an edifying kind, and a draughtboard. My resources for amusing you, I fear, are limited to those things.' The sweep of the wind was bleaker than either of us had imagined, and, now that the Captain had joined us, the deck possessed no temptation. We followed him into the cabin, where Helga hastily removed the coat as though fearing the Captain would help her. His first act was to produce the wideawake he had spoken of. This was a very great convenience to me; the sou'-wester lay hot and heavy upon my head, and the sense of its extreme unsightliness added not a little to the discomfort it caused me. He looked at my sea-boots and then at his feet, and, with his head on one side, exclaimed, in his most smiling manner, that he feared his shoes would prove too large for me, but that I was very welcome to the use of a pair of his slippers. These also I gratefully accepted, and withdrew to Mr. Jones's berth to put them on, and the comfort of being thus shod, after days of the weight and unwieldiness of my sea-boots, it would be impossible to express. 'I think we shall be able to make ourselves happy yet,' said the Captain. 'Pray sit, Miss Nielsen. Do you smoke, Mr. Tregarthen?' 'I do, indeed,' I answered, 'whenever I can get the chance.' He looked at Helga, who said to me: 'Pray smoke here, Hugh, if the Captain does not object. My father seldom had a pipe out of his
- 48. mouth, and I was constantly in his cabin with him.' 'You are truly obliging,' said the Captain; and going to the locker in which he kept his rum, biscuits, and the like, he took out a cigar- box, and handed me as well-flavoured a Havannah as ever I had smoked in my life. All this kindness and hospitality was, indeed, overwhelming, and I returned some very lively thanks, to which he listened with a smile, afterwards, as his custom was, waving them aside with his hand. He next entered his cabin and returned with some half-dozen books, which he put before Helga. I leaned over her shoulder to look at them, and speedily recognised 'The Whole Duty of Man,' 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' Young's 'Night Thoughts,' a volume by Jeremy Taylor; and the rest were of this sort of literature. Helga opened a volume and seemed to read. When I turned to ask the Captain a question about these books, I found him staring at her profile out of the corner of his eyes, while with his right hand he stroked his whisker meditatively. 'These are all very good books,' said I, 'particularly the "Pilgrim's Progress."' 'Yes,' he answered with a sigh; 'works of that kind during my long periods of loneliness upon the high seas are my only solace, and lonely I am. All ship-captains are more or less alone when engaged in their profession, but I am peculiarly so.' 'I should have thought the Church, Captain, would have suited you better than the sea,' said I. 'Not the Church,' he answered. 'I am a Nonconformist, and Dissent is stamped upon a long pedigree. Pray light up, Mr. Tregarthen.' He took his seat at the head of the table, put a match to his cigar, the sight of which betwixt his thick lips considerably humanized him in my opinion, and, clasping his pale, gouty-looking hands upon the table, leaned forward, furtively eyeing Helga over the top of his cigar, which forked up out of his mouth like the bowsprit of a ship.
- 49. His conversation chiefly concerned himself, his past career, his antecedents, and so forth. He talked as one who wishes to stand well with his hearers. He spoke of a Lady Duckett as a connection of his on his mother's side, and I observed that he paused on pronouncing the name. He told us that his mother had come from a very ancient family that had been for centuries established in Cumberland, but he was reticent on the subject of his father. He talked much of his daughter's loneliness at home, and said he grieved that she was without a companion—someone who would be equally dear to them both; and as he said this he lay back in his chair in a very amplitude of waistcoat, with his eyes fixed on the upper deck and his whole posture suggestive of pensive thought. Well, thought I, this, to be sure, is a very strange sort of sea- captain. I had met various skippers in my day, but none like this man. Even a trifling expletive would have been refreshing in his mouth. From time to time Helga glanced at him, but with an air of aversion that was not to be concealed from me, however self- complacency might blind him to it. She suddenly exclaimed, with almost startling inconsequentiality: 'You will be greatly obliging us, Captain Bunting, by giving orders to Mr. Jones or to Abraham to keep a look-out for ships sailing north during the night. We can never tell what passing vessel might not be willing to receive Mr. Tregarthen and me.' 'What! In the darkness of night?' he exclaimed. 'How should we signal? How would you have me convey my desire to communicate?' 'By a blue light, or by burning a portfire,' said Helga shortly. 'Ah, I see you are a thorough sailor—you are not to be instructed,' he cried, jocosely wagging his whiskers at her. 'Think of a young lady being acquainted with the secret of night communications at sea! I fear—I fear we shall have to wait for the daylight. But what,' he exclaimed unctuously, 'is the reason of this exceeding desire to return home?'
- 50. 'Oh, Captain,' said I, 'home is home.' 'And Mr. Tregarthen wishes to return to his mother,' said Helga. 'But, my dear young lady, your home is not in England, is it?' he asked. She coloured, faltered, and then answered: 'My home is in Denmark.' 'You have lost your poor dear father,' said he, 'and I think I understood you to say, Mr. Tregarthen, that Miss Nielsen's poor dear mother fell asleep some years since.' This was a guess on his part. I had no recollection whatever of having told him anything of the sort. 'I am an orphan,' exclaimed Helga, with a little hint of tears in her eyes, 'and—and, Captain Bunting, Mr. Tregarthen and I want to return home.' 'Captain Bunting will see to that, Helga,' said I, conceiving her somewhat too importunate in this direction. She answered me with a singularly wistful, anxious look. The conversation came to a pause through the entrance of Punmeamootty. He arrived with a tray and hot water, which he placed upon the table together with some glasses. The Captain produced wine and a bottle of rum. Helga would take nothing, though no one could have been more hospitably pressing than Captain Bunting. For my part, I was glad to fill my glass, as much for the sake of the tonic of the spirit as for the desire to appear entirely sociable with this strange skipper. 'You can go forward,' he exclaimed to the Malay; and the fellow went gliding on serpentine legs, as it veritably seemed to me, out through the door.
- 51. No further reference was made to the subject of our leaving the barque. The Captain was giving us his experiences of the Deal boatmen, and relating an instance of heroic roguery on the part of the crew of a galley-punt, when a noise of thick, throaty, African-like yowling was heard sounding from somewhere forward, accompanied by one or two calls from the mate overhead. 'I expect Mr. Jones is taking in the foretop-gallant sail,' said the Captain. 'Can it be necessary? I will return shortly.' And, giving Helga a convulsive bow, he pulled his wideawake to his ears and went on deck. 'You look at me, Hugh,' said Helga, fixing her artless, sweet, and modest eyes upon me, 'when I speak to Captain Bunting as though I do wrong.' I answered gently, 'No. But is it not a little ungracious, Helga, to keep on expressing your anxiety to get away, in the face of all this hospitable treatment and kindly anxiety to make us comfortable and happy while we remain?' She looked somewhat abashed. 'I wish he was not so kind,' she said. 'What is your misgiving?' said I, inclining towards her to catch a better view of her face. 'I fear he will not make haste to tranship us,' she answered. 'But why should he want to keep us?' She glanced at me with an instant's surprise emphasized by a brief parting of her lips that was yet not a smile. She made no answer, however. 'He will not want to keep us,' continued I, talking with the confidence of a young man to a girl whom he is protecting, and whose behaviour assures him that she looks up to him and values his judgment. 'We may prove very good company for a day or two, but the master of a vessel of this sort is a man who counts his
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