Chapter 4. Exploring F# and .NET libraries by example

Even though we’ve looked at only the most basic F# language features so far, you should already know enough to write a simple application. In this chapter we won’t introduce any new functional language constructs; instead we’ll look at practical aspects of developing .NET applications in F#. You probably know how to write a similar application in C#, so all code in this chapter will be in F#.

As we write our first real-world application in F#, we’ll explore several functions from the F# library and also see how to access .NET classes. The .NET platform contains many libraries and all of them can be used from F#. In this chapter we’ll look at several examples, mainly in order to work with files and create the UI for our application. We’ll come across several other .NET libraries in the subsequent chapters, but after reading this one you’ll be able to use most of the functionality provided by .NET from your F# programs, because the technique is often the same.

4.1. Drawing pie charts in F#

4.2. Writing and testing code in FSI

4.2.1. Loading and parsing data

4.2.2. Calculating with the data

4.3. Creating a console application

4.4. Creating a Windows Forms application

4.4.1. Creating the user interface

4.4.2. Drawing graphics

4.4.3. Creating the Windows application

4.5. Summary