Question

I just installed the free version of the .NET Visual Web Developer 2010 IDE along with version 3 of the ASP.NET MVC framework. I’m new enough to C#, .NET, ASP.NET’s MVC Framework that I’m a little confused by the base controller class that was generated for me, and what’s a C# language feature vs. possible syntactic sugar being provided by the framework

Namespace MvcApplication1
    Public Class Default1Controller
        Inherits System.Web.Mvc.Controller

        '
        ' GET: /Default1

        Function Index() As ActionResult
            Return View()
        End Function

    End Class
End Namespace

Specifically,

1. In the tutorials I’ve found online, a : is used to indicate inheritance, but here it’s actually the word Inherits. Does Inherits confer any addition context/features, or is it just another way of saying :?

2. The generated Index method has no return type, or access modifiers. I was under the impression that these were a required part of the method signature in C#. Is this an incorrect assumption? If so, what is the default return type?

3. Also related to the Index method is the trailing as ActionResult, which sort of looks like a return type for the method signature, but is obviously something else. What does this do?

4. Are the above differences in the language something that C# is providing me, or is this syntax simplification something that the ASP.NET MVC framework is giving me via meta-programming?

Full answers are great, but a pointer towards a tutorial or reference that doesn’t assume knowledge of the ASP.NET ecosystem and would get ac experienced programming

Answer 1

It looks like you selected the wrong language if you wanted to use C#. You have posted Visual Basic code.

1. Because this is VB code, it is Inherits. The C# equivalent to this is the colon (:)
2. Again, this is another VB syntax confusion point. Here would be the equivalent C# method:

public ActionResult Index()
{
return View();
}

1. ActionResult is the return type (or a class that inherits ActionResult) that the method will return.
2. Your confusion is rooted from this being the wrong code language. But yes, if you don’t know MVC ins-and-outs even C# source code will confuse you a bit. I highly…HIGHLY recommend you check out the ASP.NET MVC Music Store Tutorial. It gave me a great start on learning and understanding the structure of ASP.NET MVC applications and the development behind them.