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  • Event on Item Marked as Read in Outlook - Delphi COM Add-in

    - by Tao
    I have a Delphi COM Add-in for Outlook (2000-2007) and am trying to find a way to register an event when an MailItem in Outlook is marked as read. I want to add an additional property to the item as/just after it is marked as read. Does anyone have any idea how to do this using the Outlook Object Model? I am also using Add-In-Express components to help get to additional properties events.

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  • Learning to write organized and modular programs

    - by Peter
    I'm a computer science student, and I'm just starting to write relatively larger programs for my coursework (between 750 - 1500 lines). Up until now, it's been possible to get by with any reasonable level of modularization and object oriented design. However, now that I'm writing more complex code for my assignments I'd like to learn to write better code. Can anyone point me in the direction of some resources for learning about what sort of things to look for when designing your program's architecture so that you can make it as modularized as possible?

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  • Could the cause of recent Toyota computing problems be an interface mismatch ?

    - by Spux
    Any ideas if the recent Toyota computing errors had something to do with the fact they where using an object orintated approach then took a data orientated approach thus causing user interface errors ? Studying programming languages with in interface robotic design and wondered if the car computing glitch Toyota has been having could have something to do with using a different programming approach with out reprogramming the whole system from scratch.

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  • Creating Domain Model

    - by Zai
    Hi, I have created a use case of a small application and now I have to create a Domain Model of that use cases of the application and which functions will be implemented in this application. I have no previous experience in Domain Modeling and UML, please suggest me steps to create the domain model or any suggestions, Do I have to have a very solid understanding of Object oriented concepts for creating domain model? The application is simple and creates online poll/voting system and have functions like Register Account, Confirmation Email of account, Membership, Create Poll, Send Poll etc

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  • Why ruby has to_s and inspect?

    - by prosseek
    The p calls inspect, and puts/print calls to_s for representing its object. If I run class Graph def initialize @nodeArray = Array.new @wireArray = Array.new end def to_s # called with print / puts "Graph : #{@nodeArray.size}" end def inspect # called with p "G" end end if __FILE__ == $0 gr = Graph.new p gr print gr puts gr end I get G Graph : 0Graph : 0 Then, why does ruby has two functions do the same thing? What makes the difference between to_s and inspect? If I comment out the to_s or inspect function, I get as follows. ##

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  • Does Scheme work with Microsoft COM?

    - by Martin
    I'm new to Scheme -- the functional programming language and I like it a lot for its first-class/higher-order functions. However, my data comes from a COM source with an object-oriented API. I know Scheme and COM belong to different programming paradigms, but I'm wondering if there is any interface or a way for Scheme to connect to a COM source? Thanks.

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  • Facade controller, is it efficient?

    - by Berlioz
    Using a facade controller pattern in .net. It seems as if though it is not efficient BECAUSE, for every event that happens in a domain object(Sales, Register, Schedule, Car) it has to be subscribed to by the controller(use case controller) and then the controller in turn has to duplicate that same event to make it available for the presentation, so that the presentation can show it to the user. Does this make sense? Please comment!

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  • Designing Business Objects to indicate constraints such as Max Length

    - by JR
    Is there a standard convention when designing business objects for providing consumers with a way to discover constraints such as a property's maximum length? It could be used up in the UI layer to, for example, set a Textbox's MaxLength property according to the maximum length limit back in the business object. Is there a standard design approach for this?

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  • Why this cache doesn't work using final as modifier

    - by Pentium10
    I have this code to get the Cursor once for this instance, and the Log shows it is called many times although I marked as final. What I am missing? private Cursor getAllContactsCached() { final Cursor c=this.getList(); return c; } getAllContactsCached method should retrieve list once, and the 2nd time it should reuse the final object for return

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  • How to map a Entity Data Model conceptual model property to a storage model column using the "Serial

    - by codekaizen
    I have a conceptual model in EDM where one of the entities has a property which is essentially a big value object whose properties aren't really useful as columns in the datamodel. I'd like to apply the Serialized LOB pattern to it so that I can fit it into a 192 byte binary column. How do I map this in the EDM v4? Is it even possible at this time? Actually, is it possible in any ORM?

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  • Does OOP make sense for small scripts?

    - by Fabian
    I mostly write small scripts in python, about 50 - 250 lines of code. I usually don't use any objects, just straightforward procedural programming. I know OOP basics and I have used object in other programming languages before, but for small scripts I don't see how objects would improve them. But maybe that is just my limited experience with OOP. Am I missing something by not trying harder to use objects, or does OOP just not make a lot of sense for small scripts?

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  • Sorting Custom Objects with Parameter in .NET?

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    Let's say I have a custom object of Foo Is there anyway I can sort through a list of these objects, like list<of foo>.sort() and also be able to sort this list with a passable parameter. which will influence the sort? list<of foo>.sort(pValue) I'm guessing I'll need to define two separate sorts, but I am not sure.

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  • Methods in Ruby: objects or not?

    - by Mladen Jablanovic
    Inspired by this discussion, after some googling I wasn't able to find an answer to a pretty simple question regarding methods in Ruby: are they objects or not? There are different opinions here and there, and I would really like to hear, let's say, an in-depth explanation. I'm aware of Object#method method, which takes a method name and returns a Method instance, but, on the other hand, there's a similar thing you can do with blocks to make them into Proc instances, and blocks aren't objects, so what makes methods any different?

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  • Sorting Custom Objects with Parameter in VB.Net/C#

    - by Jeffrey Kern
    Let's say I have a custom object of Foo Is there anyway I can sort through a list of these objects, like list<of foo>.sort() and also be able to sort this list with a passable parameter. which will influence the sort? list<of foo>.sort(pValue) I'm guessing I'll need to define two separate sorts, but I am not sure. Thanks!

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  • do you call them functions, procedures or methods?

    - by lowlyintern
    consider a standard c# 'function' public void foo() { //some code } In c or c++ this is called a 'function' - even if taking no parameters and returning no value. In another language maybe it would be a 'procedure'. In object orientation speak it would be called a 'method' if a class member. What would be the correct term to use in c#?

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  • Adding functionality to any TextReader

    - by strager
    I have a Location class which represents a location somewhere in a stream. (The class isn't coupled to any specific stream.) The location information will be used to match tokens to location in the input in my parser, to allow for nicer error reporting to the user. I want to add location tracking to a TextReader instance. This way, while reading tokens, I can grab the location (which is updated by the TextReader as data is read) and give it to the token during the tokenization process. I am looking for a good approach on accomplishing this goal. I have come up with several designs. Manual location tracking Every time I need to read from the TextReader, I call AdvanceString on the Location object of the tokenizer with the data read. Advantages Very simple. No class bloat. No need to rewrite the TextReader methods. Disadvantages Couples location tracking logic to tokenization process. Easy to forget to track something (though unit testing helps with this). Bloats existing code. Plain TextReader wrapper Create a LocatedTextReaderWrapper class which surrounds each method call, tracking a Location property. Example: public class LocatedTextReaderWrapper : TextReader { private TextReader source; public Location Location { get; set; } public LocatedTextReaderWrapper(TextReader source) : this(source, new Location()) { } public LocatedTextReaderWrapper(TextReader source, Location location) { this.Location = location; this.source = source; } public override int Read(char[] buffer, int index, int count) { int ret = this.source.Read(buffer, index, count); if(ret >= 0) { this.location.AdvanceString(string.Concat(buffer.Skip(index).Take(count))); } return ret; } // etc. } Advantages Tokenization doesn't know about Location tracking. Disadvantages User needs to create and dispose a LocatedTextReaderWrapper instance, in addition to their TextReader instance. Doesn't allow different types of tracking or different location trackers to be added without layers of wrappers. Event-based TextReader wrapper Like LocatedTextReaderWrapper, but decouples it from the Location object raising an event whenever data is read. Advantages Can be reused for other types of tracking. Tokenization doesn't know about Location tracking or other tracking. Can have multiple, independent Location objects (or other methods of tracking) tracking at once. Disadvantages Requires boilerplate code to enable location tracking. User needs to create and dispose the wrapper instance, in addition to their TextReader instance. Aspect-orientated approach Use AOP to perform like the event-based wrapper approach. Advantages Can be reused for other types of tracking. Tokenization doesn't know about Location tracking or other tracking. No need to rewrite the TextReader methods. Disadvantages Requires external dependencies, which I want to avoid. I am looking for the best approach in my situation. I would like to: Not bloat the tokenizer methods with location tracking. Not require heavy initialization in user code. Not have any/much boilerplate/duplicated code. (Perhaps) not couple the TextReader with the Location class. Any insight into this problem and possible solutions or adjustments are welcome. Thanks! (For those who want a specific question: What is the best way to wrap the functionality of a TextReader?) I have implemented the "Plain TextReader wrapper" and "Event-based TextReader wrapper" approaches and am displeased with both, for reasons mentioned in their disadvantages.

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  • c#: exporting swf object as image to Word

    - by Lynn
    Hello in my Asp.net web page (C# on backend) I use a Repeater, whose items consist of a title and a Flex chart (embedded .swf file). I am trying to export the contents of the Repeater to a Word document. My problem is to convert the SWF files into images and pass it on to the Word document. The swf object has a public function which returns a byteArray representation of itself (public function grabScreen():ByteArray), but I do not know how to call it directly from c#. I have access to the mxml files, so I can make modifications to the swf files, if needed. The code is shown below, and your help is appreciated :) .aspx <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" text="export to Word" onclick="print2"/> <asp:Repeater ID="rptrQuestions" runat="server" OnItemDataBound="rptrQuestions_ItemDataBound" > ... <ItemTemplate> <tr> <td> <div align="center"> <asp:Label class="text" Text='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "Question_title")%>' runat="server" ID="lbl_title" NAME="lbl_title"/> <br> </div> </td> </tr> <tr><td> <object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="result_survey" width="100%" height="100%" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab"> <param name="movie" value="result_survey.swf" /> <param name="quality" value="high" /> <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="flashvars" value='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "rank_order")%>' /> <embed src="result_survey.swf?rankOrder='<%#DataBinder.Eval(Container.DataItem, "rank_order")%>' quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="100%" height="100%" name="result_survey" align="middle" play="true" loop="false" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"> </embed> </object> </td></tr> </ItemTemplate> </asp:Repeater> c# protected void print2(object sender, EventArgs e) { HttpContext.Current.Response.Clear(); HttpContext.Current.Response.Charset = ""; HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF7; HttpContext.Current.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache); HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/msword"; HttpContext.Current.Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=" + "Report.doc"); EnableViewState = false; System.IO.StringWriter sw = new System.IO.StringWriter(); HtmlTextWriter htw = new HtmlTextWriter(sw); // Here I render the Repeater foreach (RepeaterItem row in rptrQuestions.Items) { row.RenderControl(htw); } StringBuilder sb1 = new StringBuilder(); sb1 = sb1.Append("<table>" + sw.ToString() + "</table>"); HttpContext.Current.Response.Write(sb1.ToString()); HttpContext.Current.Response.Flush(); HttpContext.Current.Response.End(); } .mxml //################################################## // grabScreen (return image representation of the SWF movie (snapshot) //###################################################### public function grabScreen() : ByteArray { return ImageSnapshot.captureImage( boxMain, 0, new PNGEncoder() ).data(); }

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  • Building a better mouse-trap &ndash; Improving the creation of XML Message Requests using Reflection, XML &amp; XSLT

    - by paulschapman
    Introduction The way I previously created messages to send to the GovTalk service I used the XMLDocument to create the request. While this worked it left a number of problems; not least that for every message a special function would need to created. This is OK for the short term but the biggest cost in any software project is maintenance and this would be a headache to maintain. So the following is a somewhat better way of achieving the same thing. For the purposes of this article I am going to be using the CompanyNumberSearch request of the GovTalk service – although this technique would work for any service that accepted XML. The C# functions which send and receive the messages remain the same. The magic sauce in this is the XSLT which defines the structure of the request, and the use of objects in conjunction with reflection to provide the content. It is a bit like Sweet Chilli Sauce added to Chicken on a bed of rice. So on to the Sweet Chilli Sauce The Sweet Chilli Sauce The request to search for a company based on it’s number is as follows; <GovTalkMessage xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" > <EnvelopeVersion>1.0</EnvelopeVersion> <Header> <MessageDetails> <Class>NumberSearch</Class> <Qualifier>request</Qualifier> <TransactionID>1</TransactionID> </MessageDetails> <SenderDetails> <IDAuthentication> <SenderID>????????????????????????????????</SenderID> <Authentication> <Method>CHMD5</Method> <Value>????????????????????????????????</Value> </Authentication> </IDAuthentication> </SenderDetails> </Header> <GovTalkDetails> <Keys/> </GovTalkDetails> <Body> <NumberSearchRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/NumberSearch.xsd"> <PartialCompanyNumber>99999999</PartialCompanyNumber> <DataSet>LIVE</DataSet> <SearchRows>1</SearchRows> </NumberSearchRequest> </Body> </GovTalkMessage> This is the XML that we send to the GovTalk Service and we get back a list of companies that match the criteria passed A message is structured in two parts; The envelope which identifies the person sending the request, with the name of the request, and the body which gives the detail of the company we are looking for. The Chilli What makes it possible is the use of XSLT to define the message – and serialization to convert each request object into XML. To start we need to create an object which will represent the contents of the message we are sending. However there is a common properties in all the messages that we send to Companies House. These properties are as follows SenderId – the id of the person sending the message SenderPassword – the password associated with Id TransactionId – Unique identifier for the message AuthenticationValue – authenticates the request Because these properties are unique to the Companies House message, and because they are shared with all messages they are perfect candidates for a base class. The class is as follows; using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Security.Cryptography; using System.Text; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime; namespace CompanyHub.Services { public class GovTalkRequest { public GovTalkRequest() { try { SenderID = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SenderId"); SenderPassword = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SenderPassword"); TransactionId = DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString(); AuthenticationValue = EncodePassword(String.Format("{0}{1}{2}", SenderID, SenderPassword, TransactionId)); } catch (System.Exception ex) { throw ex; } } /// <summary> /// returns the Sender ID to be used when communicating with the GovTalk Service /// </summary> public String SenderID { get; set; } /// <summary> /// return the password to be used when communicating with the GovTalk Service /// </summary> public String SenderPassword { get; set; } // end SenderPassword /// <summary> /// Transaction Id - uses the Time and Date converted to Ticks /// </summary> public String TransactionId { get; set; } // end TransactionId /// <summary> /// calculate the authentication value that will be used when /// communicating with /// </summary> public String AuthenticationValue { get; set; } // end AuthenticationValue property /// <summary> /// encodes password(s) using MD5 /// </summary> /// <param name="clearPassword"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static String EncodePassword(String clearPassword) { MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5Hasher = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider(); byte[] hashedBytes; UTF32Encoding encoder = new UTF32Encoding(); hashedBytes = md5Hasher.ComputeHash(ASCIIEncoding.Default.GetBytes(clearPassword)); String result = Regex.Replace(BitConverter.ToString(hashedBytes), "-", "").ToLower(); return result; } } } There is nothing particularly clever here, except for the EncodePassword method which hashes the value made up of the SenderId, Password and Transaction id. Each message inherits from this object. So for the Company Number Search in addition to the properties above we need a partial number, which dataset to search – for the purposes of the project we only need to search the LIVE set so this can be set in the constructor and the SearchRows. Again all are set as properties. With the SearchRows and DataSet initialized in the constructor. public class CompanyNumberSearchRequest : GovTalkRequest, IDisposable { /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public CompanyNumberSearchRequest() : base() { DataSet = "LIVE"; SearchRows = 1; } /// <summary> /// Company Number to search against /// </summary> public String PartialCompanyNumber { get; set; } /// <summary> /// What DataSet should be searched for the company /// </summary> public String DataSet { get; set; } /// <summary> /// How many rows should be returned /// </summary> public int SearchRows { get; set; } public void Dispose() { DataSet = String.Empty; PartialCompanyNumber = String.Empty; DataSet = "LIVE"; SearchRows = 1; } } As well as inheriting from our base class, I have also inherited from IDisposable – not just because it is just plain good practice to dispose of objects when coding, but it gives also gives us more versatility when using the object. There are four stages in making a request and this is reflected in the four methods we execute in making a call to the Companies House service; Create a request Send a request Check the status If OK then get the results of the request I’ve implemented each of these stages within a static class called Toolbox – which also means I don’t need to create an instance of the class to use it. When making a request there are three stages; Get the template for the message Serialize the object representing the message Transform the serialized object using a predefined XSLT file. Each of my templates I have defined as an embedded resource. When retrieving a resource of this kind we have to include the full namespace to the resource. In making the code re-usable as much as possible I defined the full ‘path’ within the GetRequest method. requestFile = String.Format("CompanyHub.Services.Schemas.{0}", RequestFile); So we now have the full path of the file within the assembly. Now all we need do is retrieve the assembly and get the resource. asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); sr = asm.GetManifestResourceStream(requestFile); Once retrieved  So this can be returned to the calling function and we now have a stream of XSLT to define the message. Time now to serialize the request to create the other side of this message. // Serialize object containing Request, Load into XML Document t = Obj.GetType(); ms = new MemoryStream(); serializer = new XmlSerializer(t); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, Obj); ms = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream; GovTalkRequest = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(ms.ToArray()); First off we need the type of the object so we make a call to the GetType method of the object containing the Message properties. Next we need a MemoryStream, XmlSerializer and an XMLTextWriter so these can be initialized. The object is serialized by making the call to the Serialize method of the serializer object. The result of that is then converted into a MemoryStream. That MemoryStream is then converted into a string. ConvertByteArrayToString This is a fairly simple function which uses an ASCIIEncoding object found within the System.Text namespace to convert an array of bytes into a string. public static String ConvertByteArrayToString(byte[] bytes) { System.Text.ASCIIEncoding enc = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding(); return enc.GetString(bytes); } I only put it into a function because I will be using this in various places. The Sauce When adding support for other messages outside of creating a new object to store the properties of the message, the C# components do not need to change. It is in the XSLT file that the versatility of the technique lies. The XSLT file determines the format of the message. For the CompanyNumberSearch the XSLT file is as follows; <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:template match="/"> <GovTalkMessage xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" > <EnvelopeVersion>1.0</EnvelopeVersion> <Header> <MessageDetails> <Class>NumberSearch</Class> <Qualifier>request</Qualifier> <TransactionID> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/TransactionId"/> </TransactionID> </MessageDetails> <SenderDetails> <IDAuthentication> <SenderID><xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/SenderID"/></SenderID> <Authentication> <Method>CHMD5</Method> <Value> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/AuthenticationValue"/> </Value> </Authentication> </IDAuthentication> </SenderDetails> </Header> <GovTalkDetails> <Keys/> </GovTalkDetails> <Body> <NumberSearchRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/NumberSearch.xsd"> <PartialCompanyNumber> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/PartialCompanyNumber"/> </PartialCompanyNumber> <DataSet> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/DataSet"/> </DataSet> <SearchRows> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/SearchRows"/> </SearchRows> </NumberSearchRequest> </Body> </GovTalkMessage> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> The outer two tags define that this is a XSLT stylesheet and the root tag from which the nodes are searched for. The GovTalkMessage is the format of the message that will be sent to Companies House. We first set up the XslCompiledTransform object which will transform the XSLT template and the serialized object into the request to Companies House. xslt = new XslCompiledTransform(); resultStream = new MemoryStream(); writer = new XmlTextWriter(resultStream, Encoding.ASCII); doc = new XmlDocument(); The Serialize method require XmlTextWriter to write the XML (writer) and a stream to place the transferred object into (writer). The XML will be loaded into an XMLDocument object (doc) prior to the transformation. // create XSLT Template xslTemplate = Toolbox.GetRequest(Template); xslTemplate.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); templateReader = XmlReader.Create(xslTemplate); xslt.Load(templateReader); I have stored all the templates as a series of Embedded Resources and the GetRequestCall takes the name of the template and extracts the relevent XSLT file. /// <summary> /// Gets the framwork XML which makes the request /// </summary> /// <param name="RequestFile"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Stream GetRequest(String RequestFile) { String requestFile = String.Empty; Stream sr = null; Assembly asm = null; try { requestFile = String.Format("CompanyHub.Services.Schemas.{0}", RequestFile); asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); sr = asm.GetManifestResourceStream(requestFile); } catch (Exception) { throw; } finally { asm = null; } return sr; } // end private static stream GetRequest We first take the template name and expand it to include the full namespace to the Embedded Resource I like to keep all my schemas in the same directory and so the namespace reflects this. The rest is the default namespace for the project. Then we get the currently executing assembly (which will contain the resources with the call to GetExecutingAssembly() ) Finally we get a stream which contains the XSLT file. We use this stream and then load an XmlReader with the contents of the template, and that is in turn loaded into the XslCompiledTransform object. We convert the object containing the message properties into Xml by serializing it; calling the Serialize() method of the XmlSerializer object. To set up the object we do the following; t = Obj.GetType(); ms = new MemoryStream(); serializer = new XmlSerializer(t); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); We first determine the type of the object being transferred by calling GetType() We create an XmlSerializer object by passing the type of the object being serialized. The serializer writes to a memory stream and that is linked to an XmlTextWriter. Next job is to serialize the object and load it into an XmlDocument. serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, Obj); ms = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream; xmlRequest = new XmlTextReader(ms); GovTalkRequest = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(ms.ToArray()); doc.LoadXml(GovTalkRequest); Time to transform the XML to construct the full request. xslt.Transform(doc, writer); resultStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); request = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(resultStream.ToArray()); So that creates the full request to be sent  to Companies House. Sending the request So far we have a string with a request for the Companies House service. Now we need to send the request to the Companies House Service. Configuration within an Azure project There are entire blog entries written about configuration within an Azure project – most of this is out of scope for this article but the following is a summary. Configuration is defined in two files within the parent project *.csdef which contains the definition of configuration setting. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="OnlineCompanyHub" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WebRole name="CompanyHub.Host"> <InputEndpoints> <InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="80" /> </InputEndpoints> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> <Setting name="DataConnectionString" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> <WebRole name="CompanyHub.Services"> <InputEndpoints> <InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="8080" /> </InputEndpoints> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> <Setting name="SenderId"/> <Setting name="SenderPassword" /> <Setting name="GovTalkUrl"/> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> <WorkerRole name="CompanyHub.Worker"> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition>   Above is the configuration definition from the project. What we are interested in however is the ConfigurationSettings tag of the CompanyHub.Services WebRole. There are four configuration settings here, but at the moment we are interested in the second to forth settings; SenderId, SenderPassword and GovTalkUrl The value of these settings are defined in the ServiceDefinition.cscfg file; <?xml version="1.0"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="OnlineCompanyHub" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration"> <Role name="CompanyHub.Host"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="DataConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="CompanyHub.Services"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="SenderId" value="UserID"/> <Setting name="SenderPassword" value="Password"/> <Setting name="GovTalkUrl" value="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/xmlgw/Gateway"/> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="CompanyHub.Worker"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration>   Look for the Role tag that contains our project name (CompanyHub.Services). Having configured the parameters we can now transmit the request. This is done by ‘POST’ing a stream of XML to the Companies House servers. govTalkUrl = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("GovTalkUrl"); request = WebRequest.Create(govTalkUrl); request.Method = "POST"; request.ContentType = "text/xml"; writer = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream()); writer.WriteLine(RequestMessage); writer.Close(); We use the WebRequest object to send the object. Set the method of sending to ‘POST’ and the type of data as text/xml. Once set up all we do is write the request to the writer – this sends the request to Companies House. Did the Request Work Part I – Getting the response Having sent a request – we now need the result of that request. response = request.GetResponse(); reader = response.GetResponseStream(); result = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(Toolbox.ReadFully(reader));   The WebRequest object has a GetResponse() method which allows us to get the response sent back. Like many of these calls the results come in the form of a stream which we convert into a string. Did the Request Work Part II – Translating the Response Much like XSLT and XML were used to create the original request, so it can be used to extract the response and by deserializing the result we create an object that contains the response. Did it work? It would be really great if everything worked all the time. Of course if it did then I don’t suppose people would pay me and others the big bucks so that our programmes do not a) Collapse in a heap (this is an area of memory) b) Blow every fuse in the place in a shower of sparks (this will probably not happen this being real life and not a Hollywood movie, but it was possible to blow the sound system of a BBC Model B with a poorly coded setting) c) Go nuts and trap everyone outside the airlock (this was from a movie, and unless NASA get a manned moon/mars mission set up unlikely to happen) d) Go nuts and take over the world (this was also from a movie, but please note life has a habit of being of exceeding the wildest imaginations of Hollywood writers (note writers – Hollywood executives have no imagination and judging by recent output of that town have turned plagiarism into an art form). e) Freeze in total confusion because the cleaner pulled the plug to the internet router (this has happened) So anyway – we need to check to see if our request actually worked. Within the GovTalk response there is a section that details the status of the message and a description of what went wrong (if anything did). I have defined an XSLT template which will extract these into an XML document. <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ev="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <xsl:template match="/"> <GovTalkStatus xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Status> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Header/ev:MessageDetails/ev:Qualifier"/> </Status> <Text> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Text"/> </Text> <Location> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Location"/> </Location> <Number> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Number"/> </Number> <Type> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Type"/> </Type> </GovTalkStatus> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet>   Only thing different about previous XSL files is the references to two namespaces ev & gt. These are defined in the GovTalk response at the top of the response; xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" If we do not put these references into the XSLT template then  the XslCompiledTransform object will not be able to find the relevant tags. Deserialization is a fairly simple activity. encoder = new ASCIIEncoding(); ms = new MemoryStream(encoder.GetBytes(statusXML)); serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(GovTalkStatus)); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); messageStatus = (GovTalkStatus)serializer.Deserialize(ms);   We set up a serialization object using the object type containing the error state and pass to it the results of a transformation between the XSLT above and the GovTalk response. Now we have an object containing any error state, and the error message. All we need to do is check the status. If there is an error then we can flag an error. If not then  we extract the results and pass that as an object back to the calling function. We go this by guess what – defining an XSLT template for the result and using that to create an Xml Stream which can be deserialized into a .Net object. In this instance the XSLT to create the result of a Company Number Search is; <?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ev="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:sch="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema" exclude-result-prefixes="ev"> <xsl:template match="/"> <CompanySearchResult xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <CompanyNumber> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Body/sch:NumberSearch/sch:CoSearchItem/sch:CompanyNumber"/> </CompanyNumber> <CompanyName> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Body/sch:NumberSearch/sch:CoSearchItem/sch:CompanyName"/> </CompanyName> </CompanySearchResult> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> and the object definition is; using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; namespace CompanyHub.Services { public class CompanySearchResult { public CompanySearchResult() { CompanyNumber = String.Empty; CompanyName = String.Empty; } public String CompanyNumber { get; set; } public String CompanyName { get; set; } } } Our entire code to make calls to send a request, and interpret the results are; String request = String.Empty; String response = String.Empty; GovTalkStatus status = null; fault = null; try { using (CompanyNumberSearchRequest requestObj = new CompanyNumberSearchRequest()) { requestObj.PartialCompanyNumber = CompanyNumber; request = Toolbox.CreateRequest(requestObj, "CompanyNumberSearch.xsl"); response = Toolbox.SendGovTalkRequest(request); status = Toolbox.GetMessageStatus(response); if (status.Status.ToLower() == "error") { fault = new HubFault() { Message = status.Text }; } else { Object obj = Toolbox.GetGovTalkResponse(response, "CompanyNumberSearchResult.xsl", typeof(CompanySearchResult)); } } } catch (FaultException<ArgumentException> ex) { fault = new HubFault() { FaultType = ex.Detail.GetType().FullName, Message = ex.Detail.Message }; } catch (System.Exception ex) { fault = new HubFault() { FaultType = ex.GetType().FullName, Message = ex.Message }; } finally { } Wrap up So there we have it – a reusable set of functions to send and interpret XML results from an internet based service. The code is reusable with a little change with any service which uses XML as a transport mechanism – and as for the Companies House GovTalk service all I need to do is create various objects for the result and message sent and the relevent XSLT files. I might need minor changes for other services but something like 70-90% will be exactly the same.

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