Stephens' Visual Basic® Programming 24-Hour Trainer

Appendix A. Glossary

This appendix provides a glossary of key terms that you may encounter while studying Visual Basic programs.

accelerator

Underlined character, usually in a menu item, that activates that menu item when the user presses [Alt] plus the letter.

AcceptButton

Form property that determines the button triggered when the user presses [Enter].

accessibility

Determines which code is allowed to access subroutines, fields, properties, methods, and other class members. This can be Public, Private, Protected, Friend, or Protected Friend.

accessor

The Get and Set methods that allow a class to save and return a property's value.

Anchor

Property that enables a control to attach its left, right, top, and bottom edges to those of its container.

anonymous type

A data type that is automatically created by LINQ and never given a name for your code to use.

API

Application Programming Interface. A library of methods, classes, and other programming tools.

array

A group of values stored together in a single variable and accessed by index.

assembly

The smallest independent unit of compiled code. Typically, this is a Dynamic Link Library (DLL) or executable program.

assertion

A statement that the code claims is true. If the statement is false, the program stops running so you can decide whether a bug occurred.

backing field

A private field used to store the value of a property. The property's accessors get and set the backing field's value.

bit

A single binary digit. A bit can hold the value 0 or 1.

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