indepth definition of methods and functions

[wnarretto]

hello VB world-
i am interested in finding some form of online dictionary for VB .Net. i am thinking of a cheat sheet or breakdown of all the methods and functions. microsoft did this with books online and a few websites to help the explanations. i have been looking online with no luck for anything simular. i am hoping that someone here can point me in the right direction.

Example: if i wanted to find out what calculatetotals() means, what arguments can be imputted within the parenthisis, the actual definition or the physical process that it does when called. where would you go to find these answers?
thanks
noob~

 

[JohnH]

In code intellisense and help (F1) will give you these answers. The whole online library is here: MSDN Library
The .Net class library references can be found under .Net Development> .Net Framework 'version'> 'Reference'.

 

[wnarretto]

thank you johnH. sadly i did not find a method listed for calculatetotals() so i am assuming that this is a derived method? thanks again for your time.

 

[jmcilhinney]

If it's part of the .NET Framework then it will be documented in the MSDN Library, as is every type and member in the Framework. If it's Microsoft code that is not part of the Framework then it may or may not be documented in the MSDN Library. If it's third-party code then Microsoft probably don't even know it exists so they certainly wouldn't have documented it. In that case the actual developer may or may not have documented it, so you'd have to check their resources.

 

[JohnH]

thank you johnH. sadly i did not find a method listed for calculatetotals() so i am assuming that this is a derived method? thanks again for your time.

If you mean a method you wrote yourself, or copied from somewhere, then it is likely not documented as such (learn here: How to: Create XML Documentation in Visual Basic). Use the tools IDE provides to know more about it, like I said intellisense will provide the information about parameters when you write the open paranthesis. Likewise for already written code you can hover the member and intellisense tooltip will show you the definition. You can also rightclick the type or member and select 'Go to definition' to be brought to that place in code. If you do that with a type/member that is not defined in the local code, in other words in a referenced library for which you don't have the source, IDE will instead bring up the Object Browser window. Some people use Object Browser as source of information for exploring the .Net class libraries and other libraries, I would prefer MSDN or other official documentation for that, but Object Browser can also give you an overview of local types and members if you lost track.