Introduction

Algs4Net is a .NET library port of algs4.jar with the goal to serve instructors and programmers who adopts the Algorithms, 4th Edition textbook and would prefer to follow and demonstrate the text’s algorithms using C# in a .NET environment. To meet the goal, Algs4Net was built using the following conventions:

• Most classes in Algs4Net were ported from the corresponding classes in algs4.jar with the class names, identifiers, and algorithm flows being kept intact whenever possible
• Each class in Algs4Net has a public static method void MainTest(string[] args) as a substitute for the static main method in Java. As C# does not allow multiple Main(string[] args) entries in a project, a command-line tool, algscmd, was developed to call these MainTest methods.
• A part from keeping the class names and algorithm flows, certain method names in algs4.jar classes were slightly changed to follow a C# coding convention as follow:
  • First letters of public methods are in upper case (upper camel casing).
  • C# properties are used in place of simple accessor methods. Most notably, Java’s size() and isEmpty() methods become Count and IsEmpty properties respectively.
  • C# indexers are used when the context permits. Particularly, the Algs4Net symbol table classes such as BST are augmented with key-value indexers.
  • Since not all C# types are reference types, boxing/unboxing are used to convert value types to reference types. Whenever the conversion is not possible, the C# compiler will detect the condition or a NullReferenceException is thrown at runtime.
  • When an exception needs to be thrown, the exception is selected following the official .NET Framework libraries implementation. For example, accessing an empty LinkedQueue object is a condition for InvalidOperationException, in the same manner as the System.Collections.Generic.Queue object would do.
• Finally, classes in Algs4Net were provided with well-formed XML comments to generate HTML help documentation.

Notes: As of now, most of the classes that cover the six chapters of the algs4.jar library were ported, with the exception of the CollisionSystem class, classes in the Beyond section starting from the FenwickTree class and all classes in the Exercise solutions section.

To use the library, clone or download the Algs4Net solution and see Quick Start for how to use the library. Refer the API Reference for an online documentation of the library's classes.