Summary

This chapter introduced the System.Net namespace. It described the purpose of the classes in System.Net and reviewed its layers of functionality. We reviewed the basic types and services such as address manipulation and interaction with DNS. We discussed the socket-level classes, including Socket , NetworkStream , and other helper classes. We then walked through the HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes, which provide access to the HTTP protocol. Finally, we reviewed the request-response URI resolution pattern and its helpers.

This chapter also covered recommendations on when to use System.Net versus the higher-level communication classes provided by Web services and .NET Remoting. Now that weve introduced the classes and their basic purpose, the next five chapters will describe the workings of these classes in much more detail.