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• Using jQuery to POST Form Data to an ASP.NET ASMX AJAX Web Service

  - by Rick Strahl

  The other day I got a question about how to call an ASP.NET ASMX Web Service or PageMethods with the POST data from a Web Form (or any HTML form for that matter). The idea is that you should be able to call an endpoint URL, send it regular urlencoded POST data and then use Request.Form[] to retrieve the posted data as needed. My first reaction was that you can’t do it, because ASP.NET ASMX AJAX services (as well as Page Methods and WCF REST AJAX Services) require that the content POSTed to the server is posted as JSON and sent with an application/json or application/x-javascript content type. IOW, you can’t directly call an ASP.NET AJAX service with regular urlencoded data. Note that there are other ways to accomplish this. You can use ASP.NET MVC and a custom route, an HTTP Handler or separate ASPX page, or even a WCF REST service that’s configured to use non-JSON inputs. However if you want to use an ASP.NET AJAX service (or Page Methods) with a little bit of setup work it’s actually quite easy to capture all the form variables on the client and ship them up to the server. The basic steps needed to make this happen are: Capture form variables into an array on the client with jQuery’s .serializeArray() function Use $.ajax() or my ServiceProxy class to make an AJAX call to the server to send this array On the server create a custom type that matches the .serializeArray() name/value structure Create extension methods on NameValue[] to easily extract form variables Create a [WebMethod] that accepts this name/value type as an array (NameValue[]) This seems like a lot of work but realize that steps 3 and 4 are a one time setup step that can be reused in your entire site or multiple applications. Let’s look at a short example that looks like this as a base form of fields to ship to the server: The HTML for this form looks something like this: <div id="divMessage" class="errordisplay" style="display: none"> </div> <div> <div class="label">Name:</div> <div><asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtName" /></div> </div> <div> <div class="label">Company:</div> <div><asp:TextBox runat="server" ID="txtCompany"/></div> </div> <div> <div class="label" ></div> <div> <asp:DropDownList runat="server" ID="lstAttending"> <asp:ListItem Text="Attending" Value="Attending"/> <asp:ListItem Text="Not Attending" Value="NotAttending" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Maybe Attending" Value="MaybeAttending" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Not Sure Yet" Value="NotSureYet" /> </asp:DropDownList> </div> </div> <div> <div class="label">Special Needs:<br /> <small>(check all that apply)</small></div> <div> <asp:ListBox runat="server" ID="lstSpecialNeeds" SelectionMode="Multiple"> <asp:ListItem Text="Vegitarian" Value="Vegitarian" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Vegan" Value="Vegan" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Kosher" Value="Kosher" /> <asp:ListItem Text="Special Access" Value="SpecialAccess" /> <asp:ListItem Text="No Binder" Value="NoBinder" /> </asp:ListBox> </div> </div> <div> <div class="label"></div> <div> <asp:CheckBox ID="chkAdditionalGuests" Text="Additional Guests" runat="server" /> </div> </div> <hr /> <input type="button" id="btnSubmit" value="Send Registration" /> The form includes a few different kinds of form fields including a multi-selection listbox to demonstrate retrieving multiple values. Setting up the Server Side [WebMethod] The [WebMethod] on the server we’re going to call is going to be very simple and just capture the content of these values and echo then back as a formatted HTML string. Obviously this is overly simplistic but it serves to demonstrate the simple point of capturing the POST data on the server in an AJAX callback. public class PageMethodsService : System.Web.Services.WebService { [WebMethod] public string SendRegistration(NameValue[] formVars) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.AppendFormat("Thank you {0}, <br/><br/>", HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(formVars.Form("txtName"))); sb.AppendLine("You've entered the following: <hr/>"); foreach (NameValue nv in formVars) { // strip out ASP.NET form vars like _ViewState/_EventValidation if (!nv.name.StartsWith("__")) { if (nv.name.StartsWith("txt") || nv.name.StartsWith("lst") || nv.name.StartsWith("chk")) sb.Append(nv.name.Substring(3)); else sb.Append(nv.name); sb.AppendLine(": " + HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(nv.value) + "<br/>"); } } sb.AppendLine("<hr/>"); string[] needs = formVars.FormMultiple("lstSpecialNeeds"); if (needs == null) sb.AppendLine("No Special Needs"); else { sb.AppendLine("Special Needs: <br/>"); foreach (string need in needs) { sb.AppendLine("&nbsp;&nbsp;" + need + "<br/>"); } } return sb.ToString(); } } The key feature of this method is that it receives a custom type called NameValue[] which is an array of NameValue objects that map the structure that the jQuery .serializeArray() function generates. There are two custom types involved in this: The actual NameValue type and a NameValueExtensions class that defines a couple of extension methods for the NameValue[] array type to allow for single (.Form()) and multiple (.FormMultiple()) value retrieval by name. The NameValue class is as simple as this and simply maps the structure of the array elements of .serializeArray(): public class NameValue { public string name { get; set; } public string value { get; set; } } The extension method class defines the .Form() and .FormMultiple() methods to allow easy retrieval of form variables from the returned array: /// <summary> /// Simple NameValue class that maps name and value /// properties that can be used with jQuery's /// $.serializeArray() function and JSON requests /// </summary> public static class NameValueExtensionMethods { /// <summary> /// Retrieves a single form variable from the list of /// form variables stored /// </summary> /// <param name="formVars"></param> /// <param name="name">formvar to retrieve</param> /// <returns>value or string.Empty if not found</returns> public static string Form(this NameValue[] formVars, string name) { var matches = formVars.Where(nv => nv.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()).FirstOrDefault(); if (matches != null) return matches.value; return string.Empty; } /// <summary> /// Retrieves multiple selection form variables from the list of /// form variables stored. /// </summary> /// <param name="formVars"></param> /// <param name="name">The name of the form var to retrieve</param> /// <returns>values as string[] or null if no match is found</returns> public static string[] FormMultiple(this NameValue[] formVars, string name) { var matches = formVars.Where(nv => nv.name.ToLower() == name.ToLower()).Select(nv => nv.value).ToArray(); if (matches.Length == 0) return null; return matches; } } Using these extension methods it’s easy to retrieve individual values from the array: string name = formVars.Form("txtName"); or multiple values: string[] needs = formVars.FormMultiple("lstSpecialNeeds"); if (needs != null) { // do something with matches } Using these functions in the SendRegistration method it’s easy to retrieve a few form variables directly (txtName and the multiple selections of lstSpecialNeeds) or to iterate over the whole list of values. Of course this is an overly simple example – in typical app you’d probably want to validate the input data and save it to the database and then return some sort of confirmation or possibly an updated data list back to the client. Since this is a full AJAX service callback realize that you don’t have to return simple string values – you can return any of the supported result types (which are most serializable types) including complex hierarchical objects and arrays that make sense to your client code. POSTing Form Variables from the Client to the AJAX Service To call the AJAX service method on the client is straight forward and requires only use of little native jQuery plus JSON serialization functionality. To start add jQuery and the json2.js library to your page: <script src="Scripts/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/json2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> json2.js can be found here (be sure to remove the first line from the file): http://www.json.org/json2.js It’s required to handle JSON serialization for those browsers that don’t support it natively. With those script references in the document let’s hookup the button click handler and call the service: $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSubmit").click(sendRegistration); }); function sendRegistration() { var arForm = $("#form1").serializeArray(); $.ajax({ url: "PageMethodsService.asmx/SendRegistration", type: "POST", contentType: "application/json", data: JSON.stringify({ formVars: arForm }), dataType: "json", success: function (result) { var jEl = $("#divMessage"); jEl.html(result.d).fadeIn(1000); setTimeout(function () { jEl.fadeOut(1000) }, 5000); }, error: function (xhr, status) { alert("An error occurred: " + status); } }); } The key feature in this code is the $("#form1").serializeArray();  call which serializes all the form fields of form1 into an array. Each form var is represented as an object with a name/value property. This array is then serialized into JSON with: JSON.stringify({ formVars: arForm }) The format for the parameter list in AJAX service calls is an object with one property for each parameter of the method. In this case its a single parameter called formVars and we’re assigning the array of form variables to it. The URL to call on the server is the name of the Service (or ASPX Page for Page Methods) plus the name of the method to call. On return the success callback receives the result from the AJAX callback which in this case is the formatted string which is simply assigned to an element in the form and displayed. Remember the result type is whatever the method returns – it doesn’t have to be a string. Note that ASP.NET AJAX and WCF REST return JSON data as a wrapped object so the result has a ‘d’ property that holds the actual response: jEl.html(result.d).fadeIn(1000); Slightly simpler: Using ServiceProxy.js If you want things slightly cleaner you can use the ServiceProxy.js class I’ve mentioned here before. The ServiceProxy class handles a few things for calling ASP.NET and WCF services more cleanly: Automatic JSON encoding Automatic fix up of ‘d’ wrapper property Automatic Date conversion on the client Simplified error handling Reusable and abstracted To add the service proxy add: <script src="Scripts/ServiceProxy.js" type="text/javascript"></script> and then change the code to this slightly simpler version: <script type="text/javascript"> proxy = new ServiceProxy("PageMethodsService.asmx/"); $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSubmit").click(sendRegistration); }); function sendRegistration() { var arForm = $("#form1").serializeArray(); proxy.invoke("SendRegistration", { formVars: arForm }, function (result) { var jEl = $("#divMessage"); jEl.html(result).fadeIn(1000); setTimeout(function () { jEl.fadeOut(1000) }, 5000); }, function (error) { alert(error.message); } ); } The code is not very different but it makes the call as simple as specifying the method to call, the parameters to pass and the actions to take on success and error. No more remembering which content type and data types to use and manually serializing to JSON. This code also removes the “d” property processing in the response and provides more consistent error handling in that the call always returns an error object regardless of a server error or a communication error unlike the native $.ajax() call. Either approach works and both are pretty easy. The ServiceProxy really pays off if you use lots of service calls and especially if you need to deal with date values returned from the server  on the client. Summary Making Web Service calls and getting POST data to the server is not always the best option – ASP.NET and WCF AJAX services are meant to work with data in objects. However, in some situations it’s simply easier to POST all the captured form data to the server instead of mapping all properties from the input fields to some sort of message object first. For this approach the above POST mechanism is useful as it puts the parsing of the data on the server and leaves the client code lean and mean. It’s even easy to build a custom model binder on the server that can map the array values to properties on an object generically with some relatively simple Reflection code and without having to manually map form vars to properties and do string conversions. Keep in mind though that other approaches also abound. ASP.NET MVC makes it pretty easy to create custom routes to data and the built in model binder makes it very easy to deal with inbound form POST data in its original urlencoded format. The West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit also includes functionality for AJAX callbacks using plain POST values. All that’s needed is a Method parameter to query/form value to specify the method to be called on the server. After that the content type is completely optional and up to the consumer. It’d be nice if the ASP.NET AJAX Service and WCF AJAX Services weren’t so tightly bound to the content type so that you could more easily create open access service endpoints that can take advantage of urlencoded data that is everywhere in existing pages. It would make it much easier to create basic REST endpoints without complicated service configuration. Ah one can dream! In the meantime I hope this article has given you some ideas on how you can transfer POST data from the client to the server using JSON – it might be useful in other scenarios beyond ASP.NET AJAX services as well. Additional Resources ServiceProxy.js A small JavaScript library that wraps $.ajax() to call ASP.NET AJAX and WCF AJAX Services. Includes date parsing extensions to the JSON object, a global dataFilter for processing dates on all jQuery JSON requests, provides cleanup for the .NET wrapped message format and handles errors in a consistent fashion. Making jQuery Calls to WCF/ASMX with a ServiceProxy Client More information on calling ASMX and WCF AJAX services with jQuery and some more background on ServiceProxy.js. Note the implementation has slightly changed since the article was written. ww.jquery.js The West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit also includes ServiceProxy.js in the West Wind jQuery extension library. This version is slightly different and includes embedded json encoding/decoding based on json2.js.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in jQuery  ASP.NET  AJAX  

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• Basic Spatial Data with SQL Server and Entity Framework 5.0

  - by Rick Strahl

  In my most recent project we needed to do a bit of geo-spatial referencing. While spatial features have been in SQL Server for a while using those features inside of .NET applications hasn't been as straight forward as could be, because .NET natively doesn't support spatial types. There are workarounds for this with a few custom project like SharpMap or a hack using the Sql Server specific Geo types found in the Microsoft.SqlTypes assembly that ships with SQL server. While these approaches work for manipulating spatial data from .NET code, they didn't work with database access if you're using Entity Framework. Other ORM vendors have been rolling their own versions of spatial integration. In Entity Framework 5.0 running on .NET 4.5 the Microsoft ORM finally adds support for spatial types as well. In this post I'll describe basic geography features that deal with single location and distance calculations which is probably the most common usage scenario. SQL Server Transact-SQL Syntax for Spatial Data Before we look at how things work with Entity framework, lets take a look at how SQL Server allows you to use spatial data to get an understanding of the underlying semantics. The following SQL examples should work with SQL 2008 and forward. Let's start by creating a test table that includes a Geography field and also a pair of Long/Lat fields that demonstrate how you can work with the geography functions even if you don't have geography/geometry fields in the database. Here's the CREATE command:CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Geo]( [id] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [Location] [geography] NULL, [Long] [float] NOT NULL, [Lat] [float] NOT NULL ) Now using plain SQL you can insert data into the table using geography::STGeoFromText SQL CLR function:insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.527200 45.712113)', 4326), -121.527200, 45.712113 ) insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.517265 45.714240)', 4326), -121.517265, 45.714240 ) insert into Geo( Location , long, lat ) values ( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(-121.511536 45.714825)', 4326), -121.511536, 45.714825) The STGeomFromText function accepts a string that points to a geometric item (a point here but can also be a line or path or polygon and many others). You also need to provide an SRID (Spatial Reference System Identifier) which is an integer value that determines the rules for how geography/geometry values are calculated and returned. For mapping/distance functionality you typically want to use 4326 as this is the format used by most mapping software and geo-location libraries like Google and Bing. The spatial data in the Location field is stored in binary format which looks something like this: Once the location data is in the database you can query the data and do simple distance computations very easily. For example to calculate the distance of each of the values in the database to another spatial point is very easy to calculate. Distance calculations compare two points in space using a direct line calculation. For our example I'll compare a new point to all the points in the database. Using the Location field the SQL looks like this:-- create a source point DECLARE @s geography SET @s = geography:: STGeomFromText('POINT(-121.527200 45.712113)' , 4326); --- return the ids select ID, Location as Geo , Location .ToString() as Point , @s.STDistance( Location) as distance from Geo order by distance The code defines a new point which is the base point to compare each of the values to. You can also compare values from the database directly, but typically you'll want to match a location to another location and determine the difference for which you can use the geography::STDistance function. This query produces the following output: The STDistance function returns the straight line distance between the passed in point and the point in the database field. The result for SRID 4326 is always in meters. Notice that the first value passed was the same point so the difference is 0. The other two points are two points here in town in Hood River a little ways away - 808 and 1256 meters respectively. Notice also that you can order the result by the resulting distance, which effectively gives you results that are ordered radially out from closer to further away. This is great for searches of points of interest near a central location (YOU typically!). These geolocation functions are also available to you if you don't use the Geography/Geometry types, but plain float values. It's a little more work, as each point has to be created in the query using the string syntax, but the following code doesn't use a geography field but produces the same result as the previous query.--- using float fields select ID, geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR (long, 15,7 ) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326), geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR (long, 15,7 ) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326). ToString(), @s.STDistance( geography::STGeomFromText ('POINT(' + STR(long ,15, 7) + ' ' + Str(lat ,15, 7) + ')' , 4326)) as distance from geo order by distance Spatial Data in the Entity Framework Prior to Entity Framework 5.0 on .NET 4.5 consuming of the data above required using stored procedures or raw SQL commands to access the spatial data. In Entity Framework 5 however, Microsoft introduced the new DbGeometry and DbGeography types. These immutable location types provide a bunch of functionality for manipulating spatial points using geometry functions which in turn can be used to do common spatial queries like I described in the SQL syntax above. The DbGeography/DbGeometry types are immutable, meaning that you can't write to them once they've been created. They are a bit odd in that you need to use factory methods in order to instantiate them - they have no constructor() and you can't assign to properties like Latitude and Longitude. Creating a Model with Spatial Data Let's start by creating a simple Entity Framework model that includes a Location property of type DbGeography: public class GeoLocationContext : DbContext { public DbSet<GeoLocation> Locations { get; set; } } public class GeoLocation { public int Id { get; set; } public DbGeography Location { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } } That's all there's to it. When you run this now against SQL Server, you get a Geography field for the Location property, which looks the same as the Location field in the SQL examples earlier. Adding Spatial Data to the Database Next let's add some data to the table that includes some latitude and longitude data. An easy way to find lat/long locations is to use Google Maps to pinpoint your location, then right click and click on What's Here. Click on the green marker to get the GPS coordinates. To add the actual geolocation data create an instance of the GeoLocation type and use the DbGeography.PointFromText() factory method to create a new point to assign to the Location property:[TestMethod] public void AddLocationsToDataBase() { var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // remove all context.Locations.ToList().ForEach( loc => context.Locations.Remove(loc)); context.SaveChanges(); var location = new GeoLocation() { // Create a point using native DbGeography Factory method Location = DbGeography.PointFromText( string.Format("POINT({0} {1})", -121.527200,45.712113) ,4326), Address = "301 15th Street, Hood River" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { Location = CreatePoint(45.714240, -121.517265), Address = "The Hatchery, Bingen" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { // Create a point using a helper function (lat/long) Location = CreatePoint(45.708457, -121.514432), Address = "Kaze Sushi, Hood River" }; context.Locations.Add(location); location = new GeoLocation() { Location = CreatePoint(45.722780, -120.209227), Address = "Arlington, OR" }; context.Locations.Add(location); context.SaveChanges(); } As promised, a DbGeography object has to be created with one of the static factory methods provided on the type as the Location.Longitude and Location.Latitude properties are read only. Here I'm using PointFromText() which uses a "Well Known Text" format to specify spatial data. In the first example I'm specifying to create a Point from a longitude and latitude value, using an SRID of 4326 (just like earlier in the SQL examples). You'll probably want to create a helper method to make the creation of Points easier to avoid that string format and instead just pass in a couple of double values. Here's my helper called CreatePoint that's used for all but the first point creation in the sample above:public static DbGeography CreatePoint(double latitude, double longitude) { var text = string.Format(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.NumberFormat, "POINT({0} {1})", longitude, latitude); // 4326 is most common coordinate system used by GPS/Maps return DbGeography.PointFromText(text, 4326); } Using the helper the syntax becomes a bit cleaner, requiring only a latitude and longitude respectively. Note that my method intentionally swaps the parameters around because Latitude and Longitude is the common format I've seen with mapping libraries (especially Google Mapping/Geolocation APIs with their LatLng type). When the context is changed the data is written into the database using the SQL Geography type which looks the same as in the earlier SQL examples shown. Querying Once you have some location data in the database it's now super easy to query the data and find out the distance between locations. A common query is to ask for a number of locations that are near a fixed point - typically your current location and order it by distance. Using LINQ to Entities a query like this is easy to construct:[TestMethod] public void QueryLocationsTest() { var sourcePoint = CreatePoint(45.712113, -121.527200); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // find any locations within 5 kilometers ordered by distance var matches = context.Locations .Where(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) < 5000) .OrderBy( loc=> loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) ) .Select( loc=> new { Address = loc.Address, Distance = loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) }); Assert.IsTrue(matches.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in matches) { Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1:n0} meters)", location.Address, location.Distance); } } This example produces: 301 15th Street, Hood River (0 meters)The Hatchery, Bingen (809 meters)Kaze Sushi, Hood River (1,074 meters)   The first point in the database is the same as my source point I'm comparing against so the distance is 0. The other two are within the 5 mile radius, while the Arlington location which is 65 miles or so out is not returned. The result is ordered by distance from closest to furthest away. In the code, I first create a source point that is the basis for comparison. The LINQ query then selects all locations that are within 5km of the source point using the Location.Distance() function, which takes a source point as a parameter. You can either use a pre-defined value as I'm doing here, or compare against another database DbGeography property (say when you have to points in the same database for things like routes). What's nice about this query syntax is that it's very clean and easy to read and understand. You can calculate the distance and also easily order by the distance to provide a result that shows locations from closest to furthest away which is a common scenario for any application that places a user in the context of several locations. It's now super easy to accomplish this. Meters vs. Miles As with the SQL Server functions, the Distance() method returns data in meters, so if you need to work with miles or feet you need to do some conversion. Here are a couple of helpers that might be useful (can be found in GeoUtils.cs of the sample project):/// <summary> /// Convert meters to miles /// </summary> /// <param name="meters"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static double MetersToMiles(double? meters) { if (meters == null) return 0F; return meters.Value * 0.000621371192; } /// <summary> /// Convert miles to meters /// </summary> /// <param name="miles"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static double MilesToMeters(double? miles) { if (miles == null) return 0; return miles.Value * 1609.344; } Using these two helpers you can query on miles like this:[TestMethod] public void QueryLocationsMilesTest() { var sourcePoint = CreatePoint(45.712113, -121.527200); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); // find any locations within 5 miles ordered by distance var fiveMiles = GeoUtils.MilesToMeters(5); var matches = context.Locations .Where(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) <= fiveMiles) .OrderBy(loc => loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint)) .Select(loc => new { Address = loc.Address, Distance = loc.Location.Distance(sourcePoint) }); Assert.IsTrue(matches.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in matches) { Console.WriteLine("{0} ({1:n1} miles)", location.Address, GeoUtils.MetersToMiles(location.Distance)); } } which produces: 301 15th Street, Hood River (0.0 miles)The Hatchery, Bingen (0.5 miles)Kaze Sushi, Hood River (0.7 miles) Nice 'n simple. .NET 4.5 Only Note that DbGeography and DbGeometry are exclusive to Entity Framework 5.0 (not 4.4 which ships in the same NuGet package or installer) and requires .NET 4.5. That's because the new DbGeometry and DbGeography (and related) types are defined in the 4.5 version of System.Data.Entity which is a CLR assembly and is only updated by major versions of .NET. Why this decision was made to add these types to System.Data.Entity rather than to the frequently updated EntityFramework assembly that would have possibly made this work in .NET 4.0 is beyond me, especially given that there are no native .NET framework spatial types to begin with. I find it also odd that there is no native CLR spatial type. The DbGeography and DbGeometry types are specific to Entity Framework and live on those assemblies. They will also work for general purpose, non-database spatial data manipulation, but then you are forced into having a dependency on System.Data.Entity, which seems a bit silly. There's also a System.Spatial assembly that's apparently part of WCF Data Services which in turn don't work with Entity framework. Another example of multiple teams at Microsoft not communicating and implementing the same functionality (differently) in several different places. Perplexed as a I may be, for EF specific code the Entity framework specific types are easy to use and work well. Working with pre-.NET 4.5 Entity Framework and Spatial Data If you can't go to .NET 4.5 just yet you can also still use spatial features in Entity Framework, but it's a lot more work as you can't use the DbContext directly to manipulate the location data. You can still run raw SQL statements to write data into the database and retrieve results using the same TSQL syntax I showed earlier using Context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(). Here's code that you can use to add location data into the database:[TestMethod] public void RawSqlEfAddTest() { string sqlFormat = @"insert into GeoLocations( Location, Address) values ( geography::STGeomFromText('POINT({0} {1})', 4326),@p0 )"; var sql = string.Format(sqlFormat,-121.527200, 45.712113); Console.WriteLine(sql); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); Assert.IsTrue(context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql,"301 N. 15th Street") > 0); } Here I'm using the STGeomFromText() function to add the location data. Note that I'm using string.Format here, which usually would be a bad practice but is required here. I was unable to use ExecuteSqlCommand() and its named parameter syntax as the longitude and latitude parameters are embedded into a string. Rest assured it's required as the following does not work:string sqlFormat = @"insert into GeoLocations( Location, Address) values ( geography::STGeomFromText('POINT(@p0 @p1)', 4326),@p2 )";context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql, -121.527200, 45.712113, "301 N. 15th Street") Explicitly assigning the point value with string.format works however. There are a number of ways to query location data. You can't get the location data directly, but you can retrieve the point string (which can then be parsed to get Latitude and Longitude) and you can return calculated values like distance. Here's an example of how to retrieve some geo data into a resultset using EF's and SqlQuery method:[TestMethod] public void RawSqlEfQueryTest() { var sqlFormat = @" DECLARE @s geography SET @s = geography:: STGeomFromText('POINT({0} {1})' , 4326); SELECT Address, Location.ToString() as GeoString, @s.STDistance( Location) as Distance FROM GeoLocations ORDER BY Distance"; var sql = string.Format(sqlFormat, -121.527200, 45.712113); var context = new GeoLocationContext(); var locations = context.Database.SqlQuery<ResultData>(sql); Assert.IsTrue(locations.Count() > 0); foreach (var location in locations) { Console.WriteLine(location.Address + " " + location.GeoString + " " + location.Distance); } } public class ResultData { public string GeoString { get; set; } public double Distance { get; set; } public string Address { get; set; } } Hopefully you don't have to resort to this approach as it's fairly limited. Using the new DbGeography/DbGeometry types makes this sort of thing so much easier. When I had to use code like this before I typically ended up retrieving data pks only and then running another query with just the PKs to retrieve the actual underlying DbContext entities. This was very inefficient and tedious but it did work. Summary For the current project I'm working on we actually made the switch to .NET 4.5 purely for the spatial features in EF 5.0. This app heavily relies on spatial queries and it was worth taking a chance with pre-release code to get this ease of integration as opposed to manually falling back to stored procedures or raw SQL string queries to return spatial specific queries. Using native Entity Framework code makes life a lot easier than the alternatives. It might be a late addition to Entity Framework, but it sure makes location calculations and storage easy. Where do you want to go today? ;-) Resources Download Sample Project© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ADO.NET  Sql Server  .NET   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 23, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 23, 2011Popular ReleasesVisual Leak Detector for Visual C++ 2008/2010: v2.2.1: Enhancements: * strdup and _wcsdup functions support added. * Preliminary support for VS 11 added. Bugs Fixed: * Low performance after upgrading from VLD v2.1. * Memory leaks with static linking fixed (disabled calloc support). * Runtime error R6002 fixed because of wrong memory dump format. * version.h fixed in installer. * Some PVS studio warning fixed.NetSqlAzMan - .NET SQL Authorization Manager: 3.6.0.10: 3.6.0.10 22-Nov-2011 Update: Removed PreEmptive Platform integration (PreEmptive analytics) Removed all PreEmptive attributes Removed PreEmptive.dll assembly references from all projects Added first support to ADAM/AD LDS Thanks to PatBea. Work Item 9775: http://netsqlazman.codeplex.com/workitem/9775Developer Team Article System Management: DTASM v1.3: ?? ??? ???? 3 ????? ???? ???? ????? ??? : - ????? ?????? ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ????? ?? ??? ? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ?? . - ??? ?? ???? ????? ???? ????? ???? ???? ?? ????? , ?????? ????? ????? ?? ??? . - ??? ??????? ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ????? .SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack: SharePoint 2010 FBA Pack 1.2.0: Web parts are now fully customizable via html templates (Issue #323) FBA Pack is now completely localizable using resource files. Thank you David Chen for submitting the code as well as Chinese translations of the FBA Pack! The membership request web part now gives the option of having the user enter the password and removing the captcha (Issue # 447) The FBA Pack will now work in a zone that does not have FBA enabled (Another zone must have FBA enabled, and the zone must contain the me...SharePoint 2010 Education Demo Project: Release SharePoint SP1 for Education Solutions: This release includes updates to the Content Packs for SharePoint SP1. All Content Packs have been updated to install successfully under SharePoint SP1SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 6: 1. improved support for schema 2. added find reference when right click on object list 3. added object rename supportBugNET Issue Tracker: BugNET 0.9.126: First stable release of version 0.9. Upgrades from 0.8 are fully supported and upgrades to future releases will also be supported. This release is now compiled against the .NET 4.0 framework and is a requirement. Because of this the web.config has significantly changed. After upgrading, you will need to configure the authentication settings for user registration and anonymous access again. Please see our installation / upgrade instructions for more details: http://wiki.bugnetproject.c...Anno 2070 Assistant: v0.1.0 (STABLE): Version 0.1.0 Features Production Chains Eco Production Chains (Complete) Tycoon Production Chains (Disabled - Incomplete) Tech Production Chains (Disabled - Incomplete) Supply (Disabled - Incomplete) Calculator (Disabled - Incomplete) Building Layouts Eco Building Layouts (Complete) Tycoon Building Layouts (Disabled - Incomplete) Tech Building Layouts (Disabled - Incomplete) Credits (Complete)Free SharePoint 2010 Sites Templates: SharePoint Server 2010 Sites Templates: here is the list of sites templates to be downloadedVsTortoise - a TortoiseSVN add-in for Microsoft Visual Studio: VsTortoise Build 30 Beta: Note: This release does not work with custom VsTortoise toolbars. These get removed every time when you shutdown Visual Studio. (#7940) Build 30 (beta)New: Support for TortoiseSVN 1.7 added. (the download contains both setups, for TortoiseSVN 1.6 and 1.7) New: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog displays conflicted files now. New: OpenModifiedDocument allows to group items by changelist now. Fix: OpenModifiedDocumentDialog caused Visual Studio 2010 to freeze sometimes. Fix: The installer didn...nopCommerce. Open source shopping cart (ASP.NET MVC): nopcommerce 2.30: Highlight features & improvements: • Performance optimization. • Back in stock notifications. • Product special price support. • Catalog mode (based on customer role) To see the full list of fixes and changes please visit the release notes page (http://www.nopCommerce.com/releasenotes.aspx).WPF Converters: WPF Converters V1.2.0.0: support for enumerations, value types, and reference types in the expression converter's equality operators the expression converter now handles DependencyProperty.UnsetValue as argument values correctly (#4062) StyleCop conformance (more or less)Json.NET: Json.NET 4.0 Release 4: Change - JsonTextReader.Culture is now CultureInfo.InvariantCulture by default Change - KeyValurPairConverter no longer cares about the order of the key and value properties Change - Time zone conversions now use new TimeZoneInfo instead of TimeZone Fix - Fixed boolean values sometimes being capitalized when converting to XML Fix - Fixed error when deserializing ConcurrentDictionary Fix - Fixed serializing some Uris returning the incorrect value Fix - Fixed occasional error when...Media Companion: MC 3.423b Weekly: Ensure .NET 4.0 Full Framework is installed. (Available from http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17718) Ensure the NFO ID fix is applied when transitioning from versions prior to 3.416b. (Details here) Replaced 'Rebuild' with 'Refresh' throughout entire code. Rebuild will now be known as Refresh. mc_com.exe has been fully updated TV Show Resolutions... Resolved issue #206 - having to hit save twice when updating runtime manually Shrunk cache size and lowered loading times f...Delta Engine: Delta Engine Beta Preview v0.9.1: v0.9.1 beta release with lots of refactoring, fixes, new samples and support for iOS, Android and WP7 (you need a Marketplace account however). If you want a binary release for the games (like v0.9.0), just say so in the Forum or here and we will quickly prepare one. It is just not much different from v0.9.0, so I left it out this time. See http://DeltaEngine.net/Wiki.Roadmap for details.ASP.net Awesome Samples (Web-Forms): 1.0 samples: Demos and Tutorials for ASP.net Awesome VS2008 are in .NET 3.5 VS2010 are in .NET 4.0 (demos for the ASP.net Awesome jQuery Ajax Controls)SharpMap - Geospatial Application Framework for the CLR: SharpMap-0.9-AnyCPU-Trunk-2011.11.17: This is a build of SharpMap from the 0.9 development trunk as per 2011-11-17 For most applications the AnyCPU release is the recommended, but in case you need an x86 build that is included to. For some dataproviders (GDAL/OGR, SqLite, PostGis) you need to also referense the SharpMap.Extensions assembly For SqlServer Spatial you need to reference the SharpMap.SqlServerSpatial assemblyAJAX Control Toolkit: November 2011 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - November 2011 Release Version 51116November 2011 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 - Binary – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - The current version of the AJAX Control Toolkit is not compatible with ASP.NET 2.0. The latest version that is compatible with ASP.NET 2.0 can be found h...Microsoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.36: Fix for issue #16908: string literals containing ASP.NET replacement syntax fail if the ASP.NET code contains the same character as the string literal delimiter. Also, we shouldn't be changing the delimiter for those literals or combining them with other literals; the developer may have specifically chosen the delimiter used because of possible content inserted by ASP.NET code. This logic is normally off; turn it on via the -aspnet command-line flag (or the Code.Settings.AllowEmbeddedAspNetBl...MVC Controls Toolkit: Mvc Controls Toolkit 1.5.5: Added: Now the DateRanteAttribute accepts complex expressions containing "Now" and "Today" as static minimum and maximum. Menu, MenuFor helpers capable of handling a "currently selected element". The developer can choose between using a standard nested menu based on a standard SimpleMenuItem class or specifying an item template based on a custom class. Added also helpers to build the tree structure containing all data items the menu takes infos from. Improved the pager. Now the developer ...New ProjectsActiveWorlds World Server Admin PowerShell SnapIn: The purpose of this PowerShell SnapIn is to provide a set of tools to administer the world server from PowerShell. It leverages the ActiveWorlds SDK .NET Wrapper to provide this functionality.Aigu: Enter special characters like you would on your mobile phone. For instance, if you want to type 'é', you just hold down 'e' and a menu will appear. Selected the desired character using the arrow keys and press 'enter'. Simple but powerful.Are you workaholic?: Are you a workaholic? Did your Doctor advice you not to stare at the computer monitor for a long time? Then this app is perfectly made for you. It runs in the background, and alerts you to take periodic rests for your eyes and body. What's more, It's open source (MS-PL).ATDIS PoC: privateAuto Version Web Assets: The AVWA project is an HTTP Module written in C# that is designed to allow for versioning of various web assets such as .CSS and .JS files. This allows you to publish new versions of these files without having to force the server or the client browsers to expire cache.Bachelor Thesis Algorithm Test Bed: Algorithm Test Bed for my Bachelor ThesisBase64: Simple application helps converting strings and files from or to Base64 string. You can use any encoding to convert while a sidebar previews decoded string for all other encodings.BoracayExpress: BoracayExpressC++ Framework for Test Driven Development: A testing framework for C++ written in C++.Class2Table: Class2Table aka Entity2Table. Easy tool that allows creation of SQL tables from .Net types.Code for Demos & Experiments: This is where I will post code from demos and presentationsCodeMaker: CodeMaker?????????： 1、?????????? 2、???? 3、????? 4、??Python????????? ConsoleCommand: ConsoleCommand provides certain .Net commands for access from javascript console engines. Included are commands to set the text and background colors, as well as list and extract resources compiled in a .Net dll. Converter: Character code conversion tools ???????? CryptoInator - self contained, self-encrypting, self-decrypting image viewer: Original developed to encrypt and store NemID images in Denmark. DAiBears: Something, something, botDelicious Notify Plugin: Lets you push a blog post straight to Delicious from Live WriterDeveloperFile: Compresses Javascripts using the YUI .NET project. Loops through the root folder and subfolders for files matching the debug extension and creates new files using the release extension. (File extensions must match exactly).DotNetNuke SharePoint File Explorer: A DotNetNuke SharePoint File ExplorerDouban FM: WP7 Douban FM appGame Lib: Game Library is a open-source game library to allow focusing on the fun part of a game. It is developed in C#, but will be ported to C++ and VB.net.Google reader notes to Delicious Export tool (WPF): Google reader discontinued note in reader features. Current google reader allows to export users old notes in JSON format, This App will parse the JSON file & upload it to it delicious , delicious is a good alternative for note in readerHtml Source Transmitter Control: This web control allows getting a source of a web page, that will displayed before submit. So, developer can store a view of the html page, that was before server exception. It helps to reproduce bugs and can be used with other logging systems.Ideopuzzle: A puzzle gameImageShack-Uploader: This project demonstrates how to upload files automated to imageshack.us and other image hosters with C#.Insert Acronym Tags: Lets you insert <acronym> and <abbr> tags into your blog entry more easily.Insert Quick Link: Allows you to paste a link into the Writer window and have the a window similar to the one in Writer where you can change what text is to appear, open in new window, etc.Insert Video Plugin: Allows you to insert a video into a blog entry from a multitude of different sitesIoCWrap: Provides a wrapper to the various IoC container implementations so that it is possible to switch to a different provider without changing any application code.kaveepoj: sharepoint projectKinect Quiz Engine: Fun quiz game for the Kinect.Klaverjas: Test application for testing different new technologies in .NET (WCF, DataServices, C# stuff, Entity...etc.)Man In The Middle: A cyberpunk themed action with puzzle and strategy elements. Made with XNA as part of a game development course at the IT University of Copenhagen by Bo Bendtsen, Jonas Flensbak, Daniel Kromand, Jess Rahbek & Darryl Woodford.MediaSelektor: Simple tool to select mediasMicajah Mindtouch Deki Wiki Copier: Small C# application to move data between 2 Deki Wiki installs or, more importantly, from a wik.is account to a locally installed systemMineFlagger: MineFlagger is a mine clearing game modeled after Microsoft’s Minesweeper. In addition to standard play, MineFlagger incorporates an AI for fun and training.myXbyqwrhjadsfasfhgf: myXbyqwrhjadsfasfhgfnatoop: natoopNauplius.KeyStore: Provides secure application key storage backed by SQL 2008 and Active Directory.ObjectDB: An object database written using C# 4 and Mono.Cecil.PaceR: PaceR is an attempt to encapsulate a lot of the common code functionality I use on different projects. Instead of recreating functionality from memory or worse, copying from older projects, I'd like to have a central location to maintain this common code. Parseq: Parseq is a Parser Combinator library written in C# (version 2.0).PowerShell Network Adapter Configuration module: PowerShell Network Adapter Configuration module is a PowerShell module which provides functions for managing network adapters using WMI.public traffic tracker: This is a university project for a .net course. We develop a public traffic tracker applications for Windows Phone 7 devices, that can give information about the actual positions of the nearest vehicle on a given line. The speciality is that we use only the GPS information of the users' WP7 devices, so this is a completely software solution without any hardware investment. The disatvantage is that for the real operation we would need a lot of active WP7 user.puyo: puyoRadioTroll: Projeto web Radio TrollRead Feed Community: Read Feed CommunityReviewer: Reviewer.dk - Dansk spil og anmeldelsessite.Rollout Sharepoint Solutions - ROSS: ROSS performs the following actions: - Delete sitecollection and restart services - 'Get Latest Version' from SourceSafe - Rebuild Solution - Install all wsp solutions - Create SiteCollections - Check for build en provisioning errors - Send email to developers if errors occurredSchool Management: school managementSQL File Executer: This project is a class library written in c# which is used for executing *.sql files in remote server. Simply one dll file. You include it in your web project, add using statement at the top of your page, pass the parameters inside. Rest, it will do.Startup Manager: Startup Manager launches all startup programs at a managed rate therefore meaning that your computer doesn't crash everytime it starts up and you can use it immediately.stetic: ...Test Infrastructure Guidance: The purpose of this project is to provide guidance to testers in using TFS effectively as an ALM solution. TFS is much more than a simple code repository. Used with Visual Studio it can form a powerful testing solution and remove a lot of pain in dealing with test infrastructure overhead.Tête-à-tête: Tete-a-tete is an address book with a built-in function to send electronic mail over the Internet.Tipeysh! - Add-in that helps you creating C/C++ header files on a single click: Are you also feel miserable when you need to create a new header file in your Visual Studio C/C++ project? Repeatedly choosing "new header file", then writing the annoying (but needed) "#ifndef" section, then writing the class name with it's "private", "protected" and "public" access modifiers... too much clicks and typewriting! Well, there is a solution: Tipeysh! is a simple, easy to use, very handy and configurable Visual Studio Add-In, compatible for both the 2005 and 2008 versions. Once ...UMN Dashboard Project: academic projUsersMOSS: UsersMOSS est une petite application permettant de consulter sur un serveur MOSS les sites web (SPWeb) les users (SPUser), et les groupes (SPGroup). Cette application utilise le modèle objet de MOSS pour inspecter le contenu des objets d'un serveur MOSS. Cette application est loin d'être professionnelle, ou même terminée, mais elle me rend très souvent service. Surtout ne l'utilisez pas sur un serveur de production car le gestion du GC n'est pas faite, ce qui peut provoquer des plantages de v...UtilityLibrary.Win32: UtilityLibrary.Win32UW iLearn: The iLearn activity inference platform is a suite of desktop and mobile tools for logging, modeling, and classifying sensor data for mobile devices. It was created at the University of Washington.VsDocGen: Dynamic javascript documentation generation directly from xml comment documented source code.Windows Live Spaces Photo Album plugin: This is going to be a plugin for Windows Live Writer that will allow you to browse a Windows Live Space Photo Album.Windows Live Writer Plugin for Amazon Books using CueCat: This Windows Live Writer Plugin is for users who use WLW and wish to use their CueCat to scan books. ItemLookups are run against Amazon via its AWS and book image, title, author, and publisher is returned. This project was first created by Scott Hanselman on MSDN's Coding4Fun! X7: X7 makes it easier for win7user to clean the system. You'll no longer have to delete useless stuff in your win7. It's developed in bat.xDT - Commander: Using this application, the user can assign shortcuts (short texts) for various links/URLs. These short texts will be typed into a Textbox to then launch/go to the target (similar to the "Run" program in Windows).

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• Informed TDD &ndash; Kata &ldquo;To Roman Numerals&rdquo;

  - by Ralf Westphal

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/28/informed-tdd-ndash-kata-ldquoto-roman-numeralsrdquo.aspxIn a comment on my article on what I call Informed TDD (ITDD) reader gustav asked how this approach would apply to the kata “To Roman Numerals”. And whether ITDD wasn´t a violation of TDD´s principle of leaving out “advanced topics like mocks”. I like to respond with this article to his questions. There´s more to say than fits into a commentary. Mocks and TDD I don´t see in how far TDD is avoiding or opposed to mocks. TDD and mocks are orthogonal. TDD is about pocess, mocks are about structure and costs. Maybe by moving forward in tiny red+green+refactor steps less need arises for mocks. But then… if the functionality you need to implement requires “expensive” resource access you can´t avoid using mocks. Because you don´t want to constantly run all your tests against the real resource. True, in ITDD mocks seem to be in almost inflationary use. That´s not what you usually see in TDD demonstrations. However, there´s a reason for that as I tried to explain. I don´t use mocks as proxies for “expensive” resource. Rather they are stand-ins for functionality not yet implemented. They allow me to get a test green on a high level of abstraction. That way I can move forward in a top-down fashion. But if you think of mocks as “advanced” or if you don´t want to use a tool like JustMock, then you don´t need to use mocks. You just need to stand the sight of red tests for a little longer ;-) Let me show you what I mean by that by doing a kata. ITDD for “To Roman Numerals” gustav asked for the kata “To Roman Numerals”. I won´t explain the requirements again. You can find descriptions and TDD demonstrations all over the internet, like this one from Corey Haines. Now here is, how I would do this kata differently. 1. Analyse A demonstration of TDD should never skip the analysis phase. It should be made explicit. The requirements should be formalized and acceptance test cases should be compiled. “Formalization” in this case to me means describing the API of the required functionality. “[D]esign a program to work with Roman numerals” like written in this “requirement document” is not enough to start software development. Coding should only begin, if the interface between the “system under development” and its context is clear. If this interface is not readily recognizable from the requirements, it has to be developed first. Exploration of interface alternatives might be in order. It might be necessary to show several interface mock-ups to the customer – even if that´s you fellow developer. Designing the interface is a task of it´s own. It should not be mixed with implementing the required functionality behind the interface. Unfortunately, though, this happens quite often in TDD demonstrations. TDD is used to explore the API and implement it at the same time. To me that´s a violation of the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) which not only should hold for software functional units but also for tasks or activities. In the case of this kata the API fortunately is obvious. Just one function is needed: string ToRoman(int arabic). And it lives in a class ArabicRomanConversions. Now what about acceptance test cases? There are hardly any stated in the kata descriptions. Roman numerals are explained, but no specific test cases from the point of view of a customer. So I just “invent” some acceptance test cases by picking roman numerals from a wikipedia article. They are supposed to be just “typical examples” without special meaning. Given the acceptance test cases I then try to develop an understanding of the problem domain. I´ll spare you that. The domain is trivial and is explain in almost all kata descriptions. How roman numerals are built is not difficult to understand. What´s more difficult, though, might be to find an efficient solution to convert into them automatically. 2. Solve The usual TDD demonstration skips a solution finding phase. Like the interface exploration it´s mixed in with the implementation. But I don´t think this is how it should be done. I even think this is not how it really works for the people demonstrating TDD. They´re simplifying their true software development process because they want to show a streamlined TDD process. I doubt this is helping anybody. Before you code you better have a plan what to code. This does not mean you have to do “Big Design Up-Front”. It just means: Have a clear picture of the logical solution in your head before you start to build a physical solution (code). Evidently such a solution can only be as good as your understanding of the problem. If that´s limited your solution will be limited, too. Fortunately, in the case of this kata your understanding does not need to be limited. Thus the logical solution does not need to be limited or preliminary or tentative. That does not mean you need to know every line of code in advance. It just means you know the rough structure of your implementation beforehand. Because it should mirror the process described by the logical or conceptual solution. Here´s my solution approach: The arabic “encoding” of numbers represents them as an ordered set of powers of 10. Each digit is a factor to multiply a power of ten with. The “encoding” 123 is the short form for a set like this: {1*10^2, 2*10^1, 3*10^0}. And the number is the sum of the set members. The roman “encoding” is different. There is no base (like 10 for arabic numbers), there are just digits of different value, and they have to be written in descending order. The “encoding” XVI is short for [10, 5, 1]. And the number is still the sum of the members of this list. The roman “encoding” thus is simpler than the arabic. Each “digit” can be taken at face value. No multiplication with a base required. But what about IV which looks like a contradiction to the above rule? It is not – if you accept roman “digits” not to be limited to be single characters only. Usually I, V, X, L, C, D, M are viewed as “digits”, and IV, IX etc. are viewed as nuisances preventing a simple solution. All looks different, though, once IV, IX etc. are taken as “digits”. Then MCMLIV is just a sum: M+CM+L+IV which is 1000+900+50+4. Whereas before it would have been understood as M-C+M+L-I+V – which is more difficult because here some “digits” get subtracted. Here´s the list of roman “digits” with their values: {1, I}, {4, IV}, {5, V}, {9, IX}, {10, X}, {40, XL}, {50, L}, {90, XC}, {100, C}, {400, CD}, {500, D}, {900, CM}, {1000, M} Since I take IV, IX etc. as “digits” translating an arabic number becomes trivial. I just need to find the values of the roman “digits” making up the number, e.g. 1954 is made up of 1000, 900, 50, and 4. I call those “digits” factors. If I move from the highest factor (M=1000) to the lowest (I=1) then translation is a two phase process: Find all the factors Translate the factors found Compile the roman representation Translation is just a look-up. Finding, though, needs some calculation: Find the highest remaining factor fitting in the value Remember and subtract it from the value Repeat with remaining value and remaining factors Please note: This is just an algorithm. It´s not code, even though it might be close. Being so close to code in my solution approach is due to the triviality of the problem. In more realistic examples the conceptual solution would be on a higher level of abstraction. With this solution in hand I finally can do what TDD advocates: find and prioritize test cases. As I can see from the small process description above, there are two aspects to test: Test the translation Test the compilation Test finding the factors Testing the translation primarily means to check if the map of factors and digits is comprehensive. That´s simple, even though it might be tedious. Testing the compilation is trivial. Testing factor finding, though, is a tad more complicated. I can think of several steps: First check, if an arabic number equal to a factor is processed correctly (e.g. 1000=M). Then check if an arabic number consisting of two consecutive factors (e.g. 1900=[M,CM]) is processed correctly. Then check, if a number consisting of the same factor twice is processed correctly (e.g. 2000=[M,M]). Finally check, if an arabic number consisting of non-consecutive factors (e.g. 1400=[M,CD]) is processed correctly. I feel I can start an implementation now. If something becomes more complicated than expected I can slow down and repeat this process. 3. Implement First I write a test for the acceptance test cases. It´s red because there´s no implementation even of the API. That´s in conformance with “TDD lore”, I´d say: Next I implement the API: The acceptance test now is formally correct, but still red of course. This will not change even now that I zoom in. Because my goal is not to most quickly satisfy these tests, but to implement my solution in a stepwise manner. That I do by “faking” it: I just “assume” three functions to represent the transformation process of my solution: My hypothesis is that those three functions in conjunction produce correct results on the API-level. I just have to implement them correctly. That´s what I´m trying now – one by one. I start with a simple “detail function”: Translate(). And I start with all the test cases in the obvious equivalence partition: As you can see I dare to test a private method. Yes. That´s a white box test. But as you´ll see it won´t make my tests brittle. It serves a purpose right here and now: it lets me focus on getting one aspect of my solution right. Here´s the implementation to satisfy the test: It´s as simple as possible. Right how TDD wants me to do it: KISS. Now for the second equivalence partition: translating multiple factors. (It´a pattern: if you need to do something repeatedly separate the tests for doing it once and doing it multiple times.) In this partition I just need a single test case, I guess. Stepping up from a single translation to multiple translations is no rocket science: Usually I would have implemented the final code right away. Splitting it in two steps is just for “educational purposes” here. How small your implementation steps are is a matter of your programming competency. Some “see” the final code right away before their mental eye – others need to work their way towards it. Having two tests I find more important. Now for the next low hanging fruit: compilation. It´s even simpler than translation. A single test is enough, I guess. And normally I would not even have bothered to write that one, because the implementation is so simple. I don´t need to test .NET framework functionality. But again: if it serves the educational purpose… Finally the most complicated part of the solution: finding the factors. There are several equivalence partitions. But still I decide to write just a single test, since the structure of the test data is the same for all partitions: Again, I´m faking the implementation first: I focus on just the first test case. No looping yet. Faking lets me stay on a high level of abstraction. I can write down the implementation of the solution without bothering myself with details of how to actually accomplish the feat. That´s left for a drill down with a test of the fake function: There are two main equivalence partitions, I guess: either the first factor is appropriate or some next. The implementation seems easy. Both test cases are green. (Of course this only works on the premise that there´s always a matching factor. Which is the case since the smallest factor is 1.) And the first of the equivalence partitions on the higher level also is satisfied: Great, I can move on. Now for more than a single factor: Interestingly not just one test becomes green now, but all of them. Great! You might say, then I must have done not the simplest thing possible. And I would reply: I don´t care. I did the most obvious thing. But I also find this loop very simple. Even simpler than a recursion of which I had thought briefly during the problem solving phase. And by the way: Also the acceptance tests went green: Mission accomplished. At least functionality wise. Now I´ve to tidy up things a bit. TDD calls for refactoring. Not uch refactoring is needed, because I wrote the code in top-down fashion. I faked it until I made it. I endured red tests on higher levels while lower levels weren´t perfected yet. But this way I saved myself from refactoring tediousness. At the end, though, some refactoring is required. But maybe in a different way than you would expect. That´s why I rather call it “cleanup”. First I remove duplication. There are two places where factors are defined: in Translate() and in Find_factors(). So I factor the map out into a class constant. Which leads to a small conversion in Find_factors(): And now for the big cleanup: I remove all tests of private methods. They are scaffolding tests to me. They only have temporary value. They are brittle. Only acceptance tests need to remain. However, I carry over the single “digit” tests from Translate() to the acceptance test. I find them valuable to keep, since the other acceptance tests only exercise a subset of all roman “digits”. This then is my final test class: And this is the final production code: Test coverage as reported by NCrunch is 100%: Reflexion Is this the smallest possible code base for this kata? Sure not. You´ll find more concise solutions on the internet. But LOC are of relatively little concern – as long as I can understand the code quickly. So called “elegant” code, however, often is not easy to understand. The same goes for KISS code – especially if left unrefactored, as it is often the case. That´s why I progressed from requirements to final code the way I did. I first understood and solved the problem on a conceptual level. Then I implemented it top down according to my design. I also could have implemented it bottom-up, since I knew some bottom of the solution. That´s the leaves of the functional decomposition tree. Where things became fuzzy, since the design did not cover any more details as with Find_factors(), I repeated the process in the small, so to speak: fake some top level, endure red high level tests, while first solving a simpler problem. Using scaffolding tests (to be thrown away at the end) brought two advantages: Encapsulation of the implementation details was not compromised. Naturally private methods could stay private. I did not need to make them internal or public just to be able to test them. I was able to write focused tests for small aspects of the solution. No need to test everything through the solution root, the API. The bottom line thus for me is: Informed TDD produces cleaner code in a systematic way. It conforms to core principles of programming: Single Responsibility Principle and/or Separation of Concerns. Distinct roles in development – being a researcher, being an engineer, being a craftsman – are represented as different phases. First find what, what there is. Then devise a solution. Then code the solution, manifest the solution in code. Writing tests first is a good practice. But it should not be taken dogmatic. And above all it should not be overloaded with purposes. And finally: moving from top to bottom through a design produces refactored code right away. Clean code thus almost is inevitable – and not left to a refactoring step at the end which is skipped often for different reasons.   PS: Yes, I have done this kata several times. But that has only an impact on the time needed for phases 1 and 2. I won´t skip them because of that. And there are no shortcuts during implementation because of that.

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• How to shoot yourself in the foot (DO NOT Read in the office)

  - by TATWORTH

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TATWORTH/archive/2013/06/21/how-to-shoot-yourself-in-the-foot-do-not-read.aspxLet me make it absolutely clear - the following is:merely collated by your Geek from http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx?msg=3917012#xx3917012xxvery, very very funny so you read it in the presence of others at your own riskso here is the list - you have been warned!C You shoot yourself in the foot.   C++ You accidently create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying "That's me, over there."   FORTRAN You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you have no exception-handling facility.   Modula-2 After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.   COBOL USEing a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be retied.   Lisp You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...   BASIC Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On big systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.   Forth Foot yourself in the shoot.   APL You shoot yourself in the foot; then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.   Pascal The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.   Snobol If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.   HyperTalk Put the first bullet of the gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.   Prolog You tell your program you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't allow it to explain.   370 JCL You send your foot down to MIS with a 4000-page document explaining how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.   FORTRAN-77 You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue anyway because you still can't do exception-processing.   Modula-2 (alternative) You perform a shooting on what might be currently a foot with what might be currently a bullet shot by what might currently be a gun.   BASIC (compiled) You shoot yourself in the foot with a BB using a SCUD missile launcher.   Visual Basic You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have so much fun doing it that you won't care.   Forth (alternative) BULLET DUP3 * GUN LOAD FOOT AIM TRIGGER PULL BANG! EMIT DEAD IF DROP ROT THEN (This takes about five bytes of memory, executes in two to ten clock cycles on any processor and can be used to replace any existing function of the language as well as in any future words). (Welcome to bottom up programming - where you, too, can perform compiler pre-processing instead of writing code)   APL (alternative) You hear a gunshot and there's a hole in your foot, but you don't remember enough linear algebra to understand what happened. or @#&^$%&%^ foot   Pascal (alternative) Same as Modula-2 except that the bullet is not the right type for the gun and your hand is blown off.   Snobol (alternative) You grab your foot with your hand, then rewrite your hand to be a bullet. The act of shooting the original foot then changes your hand/bullet into yet another foot (a left foot).   Prolog (alternative) You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot, but the bullet, failing to find its mark, backtracks to the gun, which then explodes in your face.   COMAL You attempt to shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol, but the bore is clogged, and the pressure build-up blows apart both the pistol and your hand. or draw_pistol aim_at_foot(left) pull_trigger hop(swearing)   Scheme As Lisp, but none of the other appendages are aware of this happening.   Algol You shoot yourself in the foot with a musket. The musket is aesthetically fascinating and the wound baffles the adolescent medic in the emergency room.   Ada If you are dumb enough to actually use this language, the United States Department of Defense will kidnap you, stand you up in front of a firing squad and tell the soldiers, "Shoot at the feet." or The Department of Defense shoots you in the foot after offering you a blindfold and a last cigarette. or After correctly packaging your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover that your foot is of the wrong type. or After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and confidently aim at your foot knowing it is safe. However the cordite in the round does an Unchecked Conversion, fires and shoots you in the foot anyway.   Eiffel   You create a GUN object, two FOOT objects and a BULLET object. The GUN passes both the FOOT objects a reference to the BULLET. The FOOT objects increment their hole counts and forget about the BULLET. A little demon then drives a garbage truck over your feet and grabs the bullet (both of it) on the way. Smalltalk You spend so much time playing with the graphics and windowing system that your boss shoots you in the foot, takes away your workstation and makes you develop in COBOL on a character terminal. or You send the message shoot to gun, with selectors bullet and myFoot. A window pops up saying Gunpowder doesNotUnderstand: spark. After several fruitless hours spent browsing the methods for Trigger, FiringPin and IdealGas, you take the easy way out and create ShotFoot, a subclass of Foot with an additional instance variable bulletHole. Object Oriented Pascal You perform a shooting on what might currently be a foot with what might currently be a bullet fired from what might currently be a gun.   PL/I You consume all available system resources, including all the offline bullets. The Data Processing & Payroll Department doubles its size, triples its budget, acquires four new mainframes and drops the original one on your foot. Postscript foot bullets 6 locate loadgun aim gun shoot showpage or It takes the bullet ten minutes to travel from the gun to your foot, by which time you're long since gone out to lunch. The text comes out great, though.   PERL You stab yourself in the foot repeatedly with an incredibly large and very heavy Swiss Army knife. or You pick up the gun and begin to load it. The gun and your foot begin to grow to huge proportions and the world around you slows down, until the gun fires. It makes a tiny hole, which you don't feel. Assembly Language You crash the OS and overwrite the root disk. The system administrator arrives and shoots you in the foot. After a moment of contemplation, the administrator shoots himself in the foot and then hops around the room rabidly shooting at everyone in sight. or You try to shoot yourself in the foot only to discover you must first reinvent the gun, the bullet, and your foot.or The bullet travels to your foot instantly, but it took you three weeks to load the round and aim the gun.   BCPL You shoot yourself somewhere in the leg -- you can't get any finer resolution than that. Concurrent Euclid You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.   Motif You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the trajectory, the bullet and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.   Powerbuilder While attempting to load the gun you discover that the LoadGun system function is buggy; as a work around you tape the bullet to the outside of the gun and unsuccessfully attempt to fire it with a nail. In frustration you club your foot with the butt of the gun and explain to your client that this approximates the functionality of shooting yourself in the foot and that the next version of Powerbuilder will fix it.   Standard ML By the time you get your code to typecheck, you're using a shoot to foot yourself in the gun.   MUMPS You shoot 583149 AK-47 teflon-tipped, hollow-point, armour-piercing bullets into even-numbered toes on odd-numbered feet of everyone in the building -- with one line of code. Three weeks later you shoot yourself in the head rather than try to modify that line.   Java You locate the Gun class, but discover that the Bullet class is abstract, so you extend it and write the missing part of the implementation. Then you implement the ShootAble interface for your foot, and recompile the Foot class. The interface lets the bullet call the doDamage method on the Foot, so the Foot can damage itself in the most effective way. Now you run the program, and call the doShoot method on the instance of the Gun class. First the Gun creates an instance of Bullet, which calls the doFire method on the Gun. The Gun calls the hit(Bullet) method on the Foot, and the instance of Bullet is passed to the Foot. But this causes an IllegalHitByBullet exception to be thrown, and you die.   Unix You shoot yourself in the foot or % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm * .o rm: .o: No such file or directory % ls %   370 JCL (alternative) You shoot yourself in the head just thinking about it.   DOS JCL You first find the building you're in in the phone book, then find your office number in the corporate phone book. Then you have to write this down, then describe, in cubits, your exact location, in relation to the door (right hand side thereof). Then you need to write down the location of the gun (loading it is a proprietary utility), then you load it, and the COBOL program, and run them, and, with luck, it may be run tonight.   VMS   $ MOUNT/DENSITY=.45/LABEL=BULLET/MESSAGE="BYE" BULLET::BULLET$GUN SYS$BULLET $ SET GUN/LOAD/SAFETY=OFF/SIGHT=NONE/HAND=LEFT/CHAMBER=1/ACTION=AUTOMATIC/ LOG/ALL/FULL SYS$GUN_3$DUA3:[000000]GUN.GNU $ SHOOT/LOG/AUTO SYS$GUN SYS$SYSTEM:[FOOT]FOOT.FOOT   %DCL-W-ACTIMAGE, error activating image GUN -CLI-E-IMGNAME, image file $3$DUA240:[GUN]GUN.EXE;1 -IMGACT-F-NOTNATIVE, image is not an OpenVMS Alpha AXP image or %SYS-F-FTSHT, foot shot (fifty lines of traceback omitted) sh,csh, etc You can't remember the syntax for anything, so you spend five hours reading manual pages, then your foot falls asleep. You shoot the computer and switch to C.   Apple System 7 Double click the gun icon and a window giving a selection for guns, target areas, plus balloon help with medical remedies, and assorted sound effects. Click "shoot" button and a small bomb appears with note "Error of Type 1 has occurred."   Windows 3.1 Double click the gun icon and wait. Eventually a window opens giving a selection for guns, target areas, plus balloon help with medical remedies, and assorted sound effects. Click "shoot" button and a small box appears with note "Unable to open Shoot.dll, check that path is correct."   Windows 95 Your gun is not compatible with this OS and you must buy an upgrade and install it before you can continue. Then you will be informed that you don't have enough memory.   CP/M I remember when shooting yourself in the foot with a BB gun was a big deal.   DOS You finally found the gun, but can't locate the file with the foot for the life of you.   MSDOS You shoot yourself in the foot, but can unshoot yourself with add-on software.   Access You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.   Paradox Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can too.   dBase You squeeze the trigger, but the bullet moves so slowly that by the time your foot feels the pain, you've forgotten why you shot yourself anyway. or You buy a gun. Bullets are only available from another company and are promised to work so you buy them. Then you find out that the next version of the gun is the one scheduled to actually shoot bullets.   DBase IV, V1.0 You pull the trigger, but it turns out that the gun was a poorly designed hand grenade and the whole building blows up.   SQL You cut your foot off, send it out to a service bureau and when it returns, it has a hole in it but will no longer fit the attachment at the end of your leg. or Insert into Foot Select Bullet >From Gun.Hand Where Chamber = 'LOADED' And Trigger = 'PULLED'   Clipper You grab a bullet, get ready to insert it in the gun so that you can shoot yourself in the foot and discover that the gun that the bullets fits has not yet been built, but should be arriving in the mail _REAL_SOON_NOW_. Oracle The menus for coding foot_shooting have not been implemented yet and you can't do foot shooting in SQL.   English You put your foot in your mouth, then bite it off. (For those who don't know, English is a McDonnell Douglas/PICK query language which allegedly requires 110% of system resources to run happily.) Revelation [an implementation of the PICK Operating System] You'll be able to shoot yourself in the foot just as soon as you figure out what all these bullets are for.   FlagShip Starting at the top of your head, you aim the gun at yourself repeatedly until, half an hour later, the gun is finally pointing at your foot and you pull the trigger. A new foot with a hole in it appears but you can't work out how to get rid of the old one and your gun doesn't work anymore.   FidoNet You put your foot in your mouth, then echo it internationally.   PicoSpan [a UNIX-based computer conferencing system] You can't shoot yourself in the foot because you're not a host. or (host variation) Whenever you shoot yourself in the foot, someone opens a topic in policy about it.   Internet You put your foot in your mouth, shoot it, then spam the bullet so that everybody gets shot in the foot.   troff rmtroff -ms -Hdrwp | lpr -Pwp2 & .*place bullet in footer .B .NR FT +3i .in 4 .bu Shoot! .br .sp .in -4 .br .bp NR HD -2i .*   Genetic Algorithms You create 10,000 strings describing the best way to shoot yourself in the foot. By the time the program produces the optimal solution, humans have evolved wings and the problem is moot.   CSP (Communicating Sequential Processes) You only fail to shoot everything that isn't your foot.   MS-SQL Server MS-SQL Server’s gun comes pre-loaded with an unlimited supply of Teflon coated bullets, and it only has two discernible features: the muzzle and the trigger. If that wasn't enough, MS-SQL Server also puts the gun in your hand, applies local anesthetic to the skin of your forefinger and stitches it to the gun's trigger. Meanwhile, another process has set up a spinal block to numb your lower body. It will then proceeded to surgically remove your foot, cryogenically freeze it for preservation, and attach it to the muzzle of the gun so that no matter where you aim, you will shoot your foot. In order to avoid shooting yourself in the foot, you need to unstitch your trigger finger, remove your foot from the muzzle of the gun, and have it surgically reattached. Then you probably want to get some crutches and go out to buy a book on SQL Server Performance Tuning.   Sybase Sybase's gun requires assembly, and you need to go out and purchase your own clip and bullets to load the gun. Assembly is complicated by the fact that Sybase has hidden the gun behind a big stack of reference manuals, but it hasn't told you where that stack is. While you were off finding the gun, assembling it, buying bullets, etc., Sybase was also busy surgically removing your foot and cryogenically freezing it for preservation. Instead of attaching it to the muzzle of the gun, though, it packed your foot on dry ice and sent it UPS-Ground to an unnamed hookah bar somewhere in the middle east. In order to shoot your foot, you must modify your gun with a GPS system for targeting and hire some guy named "Indy" to find the hookah bar and wire the coordinates back to you. By this time, you've probably become so daunted at the tasks stand between you and shooting your foot that you hire a guy who's read all the books on Sybase to help you shoot your foot. If you're lucky, he'll be smart enough both to find your foot and to stop you from shooting it.   Magic software You spend 1 week looking up the correct syntax for GUN. When you find it, you realise that GUN will not let you shoot in your own foot. It will allow you to shoot almost anything but your foot. You then decide to build your own gun. You can't use the standard barrel since this will only allow for standard bullets, which will not fire if the barrel is pointed at your foot. After four weeks, you have created your own custom gun. It blows up in your hand without warning, because you failed to initialise the safety catch and it doesn't know whether the initial state is "0", 0, NULL, "ZERO", 0.0, 0,0, "0.0", or "0,00". You fix the problem with your remaining hand by nesting 12 safety catches, and then decide to build the gun without safety catch. You then shoot the management and retire to a happy life where you code in languages that will allow you to shoot your foot in under 10 days.FirefoxLets you shoot yourself in as many feet as you'd like, while using multiple great addons! IEA moving target in terms of standard ammunition size and doesn't always work properly with non-Microsoft ammunition, so sometimes you shoot something other than your foot. However, it's the corporate world's standard foot-shooting apparatus. Hackers seem to enjoy rigging websites up to trigger cascading foot-shooting failures. Windows 98 About the same as Windows 95 in terms of overall bullet capacity and triggering mechanisms. Includes updated DirectShot API. A new version was released later on to support USB guns, Windows 98 SE.WPF:You get your baseball glove and a ball and you head out to your backyard, where you throw balls to your pitchback. Then your unkempt-haired-cargo-shorts-and-sandals-with-white-socks-wearing neighbor uses XAML to sculpt your arm into a gun, the ball into a bullet and the pitchback into your foot. By now, however, only the neighbor can get it to work and he's only around from 6:30 PM - 3:30 AM. LOGO: You very carefully lay out the trajectory of the bullet. Then you start the gun, which fires very slowly. You walk precisely to the point where the bullet will travel and wait, but just before it gets to you, your class time is up and one of the other kids has already used the system to hack into Sony's PS3 network. Flash: Someone has designed a beautiful-looking gun that anyone can shoot their feet with for free. It weighs six hundred pounds. All kinds of people are shooting themselves in the feet, and sending the link to everyone else so that they can too. That is, except for the criminals, who are all stealing iOS devices that the gun won't work with.APL: Its (mostly) all greek to me. Lisp: Place ((gun in ((hand sight (foot then shoot))))) (Lots of Insipid Stupid Parentheses)Apple OS/X and iOS Once a year, Steve Jobs returns from sick leave to tell millions of unwavering fans how they will be able to shoot themselves in the foot differently this year. They retweet and blog about it ad nauseam, and wait in line to be the first to experience "shoot different".Windows ME Usually fails, even at shooting you in the foot. Yo dawg, I heard you like shooting yourself in the foot. So I put a gun in your gun, so you can shoot yourself in the foot while you shoot yourself in the foot. (Okay, I'm not especially proud of this joke.) Windows 2000 Now you really do have to log in, before you are allowed to shoot yourself in the foot.Windows XPYou thought you learned your lesson: Don't use Windows ME. Then, along came this new creature, built on top of Windows NT! So you spend the next couple days installing antivirus software, patches and service packs, just so you can get that driver to install, and then proceed to shoot yourself in the foot. Windows Vista Newer! Glossier! Shootier! Windows 7 The bullets come out a lot smoother. Active Directory Each bullet now has an attached Bullet Identifier, and can be uniquely identified. Policies can be applied to dictate fragmentation, and the gun will occasionally have a confusing delay after the trigger has been pulled. PythonYou try to use import foot; foot.shoot() only to realize that's only available in 3.0, to which you can't yet upgrade from 2.7 because of all those extension libs lacking support. Solaris Shoots best when used on SPARC hardware, but still runs the trigger GUI under Java. After weeks of learning the appropriate STOP command to prevent the trigger from automatically being pressed on boot, you think you've got it under control. Then the one time you ever use dtrace, it hits a bug that fires the gun. MySQL The feature that allows you to shoot yourself in the foot has been in development for about 6 years, and they are adding it into the next version, which is coming out REAL SOON NOW, promise! But you can always check it out of source control and try it yourself (just not in any environment where data integrity is important because it will probably explode.) PostgreSQLAllows you to have a smug look on your face while you shoot yourself in the foot, because those MySQL guys STILL don't have that feature. NoSQL Barrel? Who needs a barrel? Just put the bullet on your foot, and strike it with a hammer. See? It's so much simpler and more efficient that way. You can even strike multiple bullets in one swing if you swing with a good enough arc, because hammers are easy to use. Getting them to synchronize is a little difficult, though.Eclipse There are about a dozen different packages for shooting yourself in the foot, with weird interdependencies on outdated components. Once you finally navigate the morass and get one installed, you then have something to look at while you shoot yourself in the foot with that package: You can watch the screen redraw.Outlook Makes it really easy to let everyone know you shot yourself in the foot!Shooting yourself in the foot using delegates.You really need to shoot yourself in the foot but you hate firearms (you don't want any dependency on the specifics of shooting) so you delegate it to somebody else. You don't care how it is done as long is shooting your foot. You can do it asynchronously in case you know you may faint so you are called back/slapped in the face by your shooter/friend (or background worker) when everything is done.C#You prepare the gun and the bullet, carefully modeling all of the physics of a bullet traveling through a foot. Just before you're about to pull the trigger, you stumble on System.Windows.BodyParts.Foot.ShootAt(System.Windows.Firearms.IGun gun) in the extended framework, realize you just wasted the entire afternoon, and shoot yourself in the head.PHP<?phprequire("foot_safety_check.php");?><!DOCTYPE HTML><html><head> <!--Lower!--><title>Shooting me in the foot</title></head> <body> <!--LOWER!!!--><leg> <!--OK, I made this one up...--><footer><?php echo (dungSift($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'], "ie"))?("Your foot is safe, but you might want to wear a hard hat!"):("<div class=\"shot\">BANG!</div>"); ?></footer></leg> </body> </html>

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• Optimizing a lot of Scanner.findWithinHorizon(pattern, 0) calls

  - by darvids0n

  I'm building a process which extracts data from 6 csv-style files and two poorly laid out .txt reports and builds output CSVs, and I'm fully aware that there's going to be some overhead searching through all that whitespace thousands of times, but I never anticipated converting about about 50,000 records would take 12 hours. Excerpt of my manual matching code (I know it's horrible that I use lists of tokens like that, but it was the best thing I could think of): public static String lookup(List<String> tokensBefore, List<String> tokensAfter) { String result = null; while(_match(tokensBefore)) { // block until all input is read if(id.hasNext()) { result = id.next(); // capture the next token that matches if(_matchImmediate(tokensAfter)) // try to match tokensAfter to this result return result; } else return null; // end of file; no match } return null; // no matches } private static boolean _match(List<String> tokens) { return _match(tokens, true); } private static boolean _match(List<String> tokens, boolean block) { if(tokens != null && !tokens.isEmpty()) { if(id.findWithinHorizon(tokens.get(0), 0) == null) return false; for(int i = 1; i <= tokens.size(); i++) { if (i == tokens.size()) { // matches all tokens return true; } else if(id.hasNext() && !id.next().matches(tokens.get(i))) { break; // break to blocking behaviour } } } else { return true; // empty list always matches } if(block) return _match(tokens); // loop until we find something or nothing else return false; // return after just one attempted match } private static boolean _matchImmediate(List<String> tokens) { if(tokens != null) { for(int i = 0; i <= tokens.size(); i++) { if (i == tokens.size()) { // matches all tokens return true; } else if(!id.hasNext() || !id.next().matches(tokens.get(i))) { return false; // doesn't match, or end of file } } return false; // we have some serious problems if this ever gets called } else { return true; // empty list always matches } } Basically wondering how I would work in an efficient string search (Boyer-Moore or similar). My Scanner id is scanning a java.util.String, figured buffering it to memory would reduce I/O since the search here is being performed thousands of times on a relatively small file. The performance increase compared to scanning a BufferedReader(FileReader(File)) was probably less than 1%, the process still looks to be taking a LONG time. I've also traced execution and the slowness of my overall conversion process is definitely between the first and last like of the lookup method. In fact, so much so that I ran a shortcut process to count the number of occurrences of various identifiers in the .csv-style files (I use 2 lookup methods, this is just one of them) and the process completed indexing approx 4 different identifiers for 50,000 records in less than a minute. Compared to 12 hours, that's instant. Some notes (updated): I don't necessarily need the pattern-matching behaviour, I only get the first field of a line of text so I need to match line breaks or use Scanner.nextLine(). All ID numbers I need start at position 0 of a line and run through til the first block of whitespace, after which is the name of the corresponding object. I would ideally want to return a String, not an int locating the line number or start position of the result, but if it's faster then it will still work just fine. If an int is being returned, however, then I would now have to seek to that line again just to get the ID; storing the ID of every line that is searched sounds like a way around that. Anything to help me out, even if it saves 1ms per search, will help, so all input is appreciated. Thankyou! Usage scenario 1: I have a list of objects in file A, who in the old-style system have an id number which is not in file A. It is, however, POSSIBLY in another csv-style file (file B) or possibly still in a .txt report (file C) which each also contain a bunch of other information which is not useful here, and so file B needs to be searched through for the object's full name (1 token since it would reside within the second column of any given line), and then the first column should be the ID number. If that doesn't work, we then have to split the search token by whitespace into separate tokens before doing a search of file C for those tokens as well. Generalised code: String field; for (/* each record in file A */) { /* construct the rest of this object from file A info */ // now to find the ID, if we can List<String> objectName = new ArrayList<String>(1); objectName.add(Pattern.quote(thisObject.fullName)); field = lookup(objectSearchToken, objectName); // search file B if(field == null) // not found in file B { lookupReset(false); // initialise scanner to check file C objectName.clear(); // not using the full name String[] tokens = thisObject.fullName.split(id.delimiter().pattern()); for(String s : tokens) objectName.add(Pattern.quote(s)); field = lookup(objectSearchToken, objectName); // search file C lookupReset(true); // back to file B } else { /* found it, file B specific processing here */ } if(field != null) // found it in B or C thisObject.ID = field; } The objectName tokens are all uppercase words with possible hyphens or apostrophes in them, separated by spaces. Much like a person's name. As per a comment, I will pre-compile the regex for my objectSearchToken, which is just [\r\n]+. What's ending up happening in file C is, every single line is being checked, even the 95% of lines which don't contain an ID number and object name at the start. Would it be quicker to use ^[\r\n]+.*(objectname) instead of two separate regexes? It may reduce the number of _match executions. The more general case of that would be, concatenate all tokensBefore with all tokensAfter, and put a .* in the middle. It would need to be matching backwards through the file though, otherwise it would match the correct line but with a huge .* block in the middle with lots of lines. The above situation could be resolved if I could get java.util.Scanner to return the token previous to the current one after a call to findWithinHorizon. I have another usage scenario. Will put it up asap.

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• How to remove a node based on contents of a subnode and then convert to CSV with headers intact

  - by Morris Cox

  I'm downloading a 10MB zipped XML file with wget, unzipping it to 40MB, trying to weed out test and expired entries (if the text of a certain node is "This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!" or if is in the past), and then convert to CSV. However, I get this error: PHP Notice: Array to string conversion in /home/morris/projects/grantsgov/xml2csv.php on line 46 I get Array errors because some entries in the XML file have more than one occurrence of a node (different text contents). The test entries are still present. Contents of grantsgov.sh: #!/bin/bash wget --clobber "http://www.grants.gov/search/downloadXML.do;jsessionid=1n7GNpNF2tKZnRGLyQqf7Tl32hFJ1zndhfQpLrJJD11TTNzWMwDy!368676377?fname=GrantsDBExtract$(date +'%Y%m%d').zip" -O GrantsDBExtract$(date +"%Y%m%d").zip unzip GrantsDBExtract$(date +"%Y%m%d").zip php xml2csv.php zip GrantsDBExtracted$(date +"%Y%m%d").zip GrantsDBExtracted$(date +"%Y%m%d").csv Contents of xml2csv.php: <? $current_date = date("Ymd"); //$getfile=fopen("http://www.grants.gov/search/downloadXML.do;jsessionid=GqJNNmdLyJyMlsQqTzS2KdzgT5NMdhPp0QhG946JTmHzRltNTpMQ!368676377?fname=GrantsDBExtract$current_date.zip", "r"); $zip = zip_open("GrantsDBExtract$current_date.zip"); if(is_resource($zip)) { while ($zip_entry = zip_read($zip)) { $fp = fopen("./".zip_entry_name($zip_entry), "w"); if (zip_entry_open($zip, $zip_entry, "r")) { $buf = zip_entry_read($zip_entry, zip_entry_filesize($zip_entry)); fwrite($fp,"$buf"); zip_entry_close($zip_entry); fclose($fp); } } zip_close($zip); } // For future potential use $xml = new DOMDocument('1.0', 'ascii'); $xpath = new DOMXpath($xml); $xslFile = "feddata.xsl"; $filexml="GrantsDBExtract$current_date.xml"; if (file_exists($filexml)) { $xml = simplexml_load_file($filexml); echo "Loaded $filexml\n"; $xslt = new XSLTProcessor(); $xsl = new DOMDocument(); //$XSL->load('feddata.xsl', LIBXML_NOCDATA); $xsl->load($xslFile, LIBXML_NOCDATA); $xslt->importStylesheet($xsl); $xslt->transformToXML($xml); $f = fopen("GrantsDBExtracted$current_date.csv", 'w'); // create the CSV header row on the first time here $first = FALSE; $fields = array(); foreach($record as $key => $value) { $fields[] = $key; } fwrite($f,implode(";",$fields)."\n"); foreach ($xml->FundingOppSynopsis as $fos) { fputcsv($f, get_object_vars($fos),',','"'); } } fclose($f); } else { exit('Failed to open file.'); } ?> Contents of feddata.xsl: <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="xml"/> <xsl:template match="node()|@*"> <xsl:copy> <xsl:apply-templates select="node()|@*"/> </xsl:copy> </xsl:template> <xsl:template match="FundingOppSynopsis[AgencyMailingAddress = 'This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!']"> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet><xsl:strip-space elements="*"/> Part of the XML file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE Grants SYSTEM "http://www.grants.gov/search/dtd/XMLExtract.dtd"> <Grants> <FundingOppSynopsis> <PostDate>08312007</PostDate> <UserID>None</UserID> <Password>None</Password> <FundingInstrumentType>CA</FundingInstrumentType> <FundingActivityCategory>DPR</FundingActivityCategory> <OtherCategoryExplanation>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</OtherCategoryExplanation> <NumberOfAwards>5</NumberOfAwards> <EstimatedFunding>4</EstimatedFunding> <AwardCeiling>2</AwardCeiling> <AwardFloor>1</AwardFloor> <AgencyMailingAddress>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</AgencyMailingAddress> <FundingOppTitle>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</FundingOppTitle> <FundingOppNumber>IVV-08312007-RG-OPP5</FundingOppNumber> <ApplicationsDueDate>09102007</ApplicationsDueDate> <ApplicationsDueDateExplanation>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</ApplicationsDueDateExplanation> <ArchiveDate>10102007</ArchiveDate> <Location>None</Location> <Office>None</Office> <Agency>None</Agency> <FundingOppDescription>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</FundingOppDescription> <CFDANumber>000000</CFDANumber> <EligibilityCategory>21</EligibilityCategory> <AdditionalEligibilityInfo>This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</AdditionalEligibilityInfo> <CostSharing>N</CostSharing> <ObtainFundingOppText FundingOppURL="">Not Available</ObtainFundingOppText> <AgencyContact AgencyEmailDescriptor="This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!" AgencyEmailAddress="This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!">This is a test opportunity. Please DO NOT apply!</AgencyContact> </FundingOppSynopsis> How can I fix the error and remove expired entries (based on ArchiveDate)? I suspect the second to last line in feddata.xsl needs to be fixed.

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• Will these optimizations to my Ruby implementation of diff improve performance in a Rails app?

  - by grg-n-sox

  <tl;dr> In source version control diff patch generation, would it be worth it to use the optimizations listed at the very bottom of this writing (see <optimizations>) in my Ruby implementation of diff for making diff patches? </tl;dr> <introduction> I am programming something I have never done before and there might already be tools out there to do the exact thing I am programming but at this point I am having too much fun to care so I am still going to do it from scratch, even if there is a tool for this. So anyways, I am working on a Ruby on Rails app and need a certain feature. Basically I want each entry in a table of mine, let's say for example a table of video games, to have a stored chunk of text that represents a review or something of the sort for that table entry. However, I want this text to be both editable by any registered user and also keep track of different submissions in a version control system. The simplest solution I could think of is just implement a solution that keeps track of the text body and the diff patch history of different versions of the text body as objects in Ruby and then serialize it, preferably in human readable form (so I'll most likely use YAML for this) for editing if needed due to corruption by a software bug or a mistake is made by an admin doing some version editing. So at first I just tried to dive in head first into this feature to find that the problem of generating a diff patch is more difficult that I thought to do efficiently. So I did some research and came across some ideas. Some I have implemented already and some I have not. However, it all pretty much revolves around the longest common subsequence problem, as you would already know if you have already done anything with diff or diff-like features, and optimization the function that solves it. Currently I have it so it truncates the compared versions of the text body from the beginning and end until non-matching lines are found. Then it solves the problem using a comparison matrix, but instead of incrementing the value stored in a cell when it finds a matching line like in most longest common subsequence algorithms I have seen examples of, I increment when I have a non-matching line so as to calculate edit distance instead of longest common subsequence. Although as far as I can tell between the two approaches, they are essentially two sides of the same coin so either could be used to derive an answer. It then back-traces through the comparison matrix and notes when there was an incrementation and in which adjacent cell (West, Northwest, or North) to determine that line's diff entry and assumes all other lines to be unchanged. Normally I would leave it at that, but since this is going into a Rails environment and not just some stand-alone Ruby script, I started getting worried about needing to optimize at least enough so if a spammer that somehow knew how I implemented the version control system and knew my worst case scenario entry still wouldn't be able to hit the server that bad. After some searching and reading of research papers and articles through the internet, I've come across several that seem decent but all seem to have pros and cons and I am having a hard time deciding how well in this situation that the pros and cons balance out. So are the ones listed here worth it? I have listed them with known pros and cons. </introduction> <optimizations> Chop the compared sequences into multiple chucks of subsequences by splitting where lines are unchanged, and then truncating each section of unchanged lines at the beginning and end of each section. Then solve the edit distance of each subsequence. Pro: Changes the time increase as the changed area gets bigger from a quadratic increase to something more similar to a linear increase. Con: Figuring out where to split already seems like you have to solve edit distance except now you don't care how it is changed. Would be fine if this was solvable by a process closer to solving hamming distance but a single insertion would throw this off. Use a cryptographic hash function to both convert all sequence elements into integers and ensure uniqueness. Then solve the edit distance comparing the hash integers instead of the sequence elements themselves. Pro: The operation of comparing two integers is faster than the operation of comparing two strings, so a slight performance gain is received after every comparison, which can be a lot overall. Con: Using a cryptographic hash function takes time to convert all the sequence elements and may end up costing more time to do the conversion that you gain back from the integer comparisons. You could use the built in hash function for a string but that will not guarantee uniqueness. Use lazy evaluation to only calculate the three center-most diagonals of the comparison matrix and then only calculate additional diagonals as needed. And then also use this approach to possibly remove the need on some comparisons to compare all three adjacent cells as desribed here. Pro: Can turn an algorithm that always takes O(n * m) time and make it so only worst case scenario is that time, best case becomes practically linear, and average case is somewhere between the two. Con: It is an algorithm I've only seen implemented in functional programming languages and I am having a difficult time comprehending how to convert this into Ruby based on how it is described at the site linked to above. Make a C module and do the hard work at the native level in C and just make a Ruby wrapper for it so Ruby can make all the calls to it that it needs. Pro: I have to imagine that evaluating something like this in could be a LOT faster. Con: I have no idea how Rails handles apps with ruby code that has C extensions and it hurts the portability of the app. This is an optimization for after the solving of edit distance, but idea is to store additional combined diffs with the ones produced by each version to make a delta-tree data structure with the most recently made diff as the root node of the tree so getting to any version takes worst case time of O(log n) instead of O(n). Pro: Would make going back to an old version a lot faster. Con: It would mean every new commit, the delta-tree would get a new root node that will cost time to reorganize the delta-tree for an operation that will be carried out a lot more often than going back a version, not to mention the unlikelihood it will be an old version. </optimizations> So are these things worth the effort?

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• Why can't I assign a scalar value to a class using shorthand, but instead declare it first, then set

  - by ~delan-azabani

  I am writing a UTF-8 library for C++ as an exercise as this is my first real-world C++ code. So far, I've implemented concatenation, character indexing, parsing and encoding UTF-8 in a class called "ustring". It looks like it's working, but two (seemingly equivalent) ways of declaring a new ustring behave differently. The first way: ustring a; a = "test"; works, and the overloaded "=" operator parses the string into the class (which stores the Unicode strings as an dynamically allocated int pointer). However, the following does not work: ustring a = "test"; because I get the following error: test.cpp:4: error: conversion from ‘const char [5]’ to non-scalar type ‘ustring’ requested Is there a way to workaround this error? It probably is a problem with my code, though. The following is what I've written so far for the library: #include <cstdlib> #include <cstring> class ustring { int * values; long len; public: long length() { return len; } ustring * operator=(ustring input) { len = input.len; values = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * len); for (long i = 0; i < len; i++) values[i] = input.values[i]; return this; } ustring * operator=(char input[]) { len = sizeof(input); values = (int *) malloc(0); long s = 0; // s = number of parsed chars int a, b, c, d, contNeed = 0, cont = 0; for (long i = 0; i < sizeof(input); i++) if (input[i] < 0x80) { // ASCII, direct copy (00-7f) values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = input[i]; } else if (input[i] < 0xc0) { // this is a continuation (80-bf) if (cont == contNeed) { // no need for continuation, use U+fffd values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = 0xfffd; } cont = cont + 1; values[s - 1] = values[s - 1] | ((input[i] & 0x3f) << ((contNeed - cont) * 6)); if (cont == contNeed) cont = contNeed = 0; } else if (input[i] < 0xc2) { // invalid byte, use U+fffd (c0-c1) values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = 0xfffd; } else if (input[i] < 0xe0) { // start of 2-byte sequence (c2-df) contNeed = 1; values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = (input[i] & 0x1f) << 6; } else if (input[i] < 0xf0) { // start of 3-byte sequence (e0-ef) contNeed = 2; values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = (input[i] & 0x0f) << 12; } else if (input[i] < 0xf5) { // start of 4-byte sequence (f0-f4) contNeed = 3; values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = (input[i] & 0x07) << 18; } else { // restricted or invalid (f5-ff) values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = 0xfffd; } return this; } ustring operator+(ustring input) { ustring result; result.len = len + input.len; result.values = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * result.len); for (long i = 0; i < len; i++) result.values[i] = values[i]; for (long i = 0; i < input.len; i++) result.values[i + len] = input.values[i]; return result; } ustring operator[](long index) { ustring result; result.len = 1; result.values = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int)); result.values[0] = values[index]; return result; } char * encode() { char * r = (char *) malloc(0); long s = 0; for (long i = 0; i < len; i++) { if (values[i] < 0x80) r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 1), r[s + 0] = char(values[i]), s += 1; else if (values[i] < 0x800) r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 2), r[s + 0] = char(values[i] >> 6 | 0x60), r[s + 1] = char(values[i] & 0x3f | 0x80), s += 2; else if (values[i] < 0x10000) r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 3), r[s + 0] = char(values[i] >> 12 | 0xe0), r[s + 1] = char(values[i] >> 6 & 0x3f | 0x80), r[s + 2] = char(values[i] & 0x3f | 0x80), s += 3; else r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 4), r[s + 0] = char(values[i] >> 18 | 0xf0), r[s + 1] = char(values[i] >> 12 & 0x3f | 0x80), r[s + 2] = char(values[i] >> 6 & 0x3f | 0x80), r[s + 3] = char(values[i] & 0x3f | 0x80), s += 4; } return r; } };

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• Need Help Customizing a Grammar Checking Replace Rule in Java

  - by user567785

  Hello, I am currently adding the Khmer (Cambodian) language to LanguageTool, an opensource grammar checker for OpenOffice (http://www.languagetool.org). I don't know enough Java to customize one of the scripts and wanted to make a request here asking if anyone would be willing to customize it for me (I can put link to your website at http://www.sbbic.org/lang/en-us/volunteer/ if you help). Here is the script that needs customization KhmerWordCoherencyRule.java: /* LanguageTool, a natural language style checker * Copyright (C) 2005 Daniel Naber (http://www.danielnaber.de) * * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either * version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. * * This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU * Lesser General Public License for more details. * * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public * License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 * USA */ package de.danielnaber.languagetool.rules.km; import java.io.BufferedReader; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.InputStream; import java.io.InputStreamReader; import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.List; import java.util.Locale; import java.util.Map; import java.util.ResourceBundle; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.AnalyzedSentence; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.AnalyzedToken; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.AnalyzedTokenReadings; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.JLanguageTool; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.tools.StringTools; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.rules.Category; import de.danielnaber.languagetool.rules.RuleMatch; /** * A Khmer rule that matches words or phrases which should not be used and suggests * correct ones instead. Loads the relevant words from * <code>rules/km/coherency.txt</code>, where km is a code of the language. * * @author Andriy Rysin */ public abstract class KhmerWordCoherencyRule extends KhmerRule { private static final String FILE_ENCODING = "utf-8"; private Map<String, String> wrongWords; // e.g. "????? -> "?????" private static final String FILE_NAME = "/km/coherency.txt"; public abstract String getFileName(); public String getEncoding() { return FILE_ENCODING; } /** * Indicates if the rule is case-sensitive. Default value is <code>true</code>. * @return true if the rule is case-sensitive, false otherwise. */ //in Khmer there is no case public boolean isCaseSensitive() { return false; } /** * @return the locale used for case conversion when {@link #isCaseSensitive()} is set to <code>false</code>. */ public Locale getLocale() { return Locale.getDefault(); } public KhmerWordCoherencyRule(final ResourceBundle messages) throws IOException { if (messages != null) { super.setCategory(new Category(messages.getString("category_misc"))); } wrongWords = loadWords(JLanguageTool.getDataBroker().getFromRulesDirAsStream(getFileName())); } public String getId() { return "KM_WORD_COHERENCY"; } public String getDescription() { return "Checks for wrong words/phrases"; } public String getSuggestion() { return " does not match your previous spelling of the word, use "; } public String getShort() { return "Use a consistant spelling throughout"; } public final RuleMatch[] match(final AnalyzedSentence text) { final List<RuleMatch> ruleMatches = new ArrayList<RuleMatch>(); final AnalyzedTokenReadings[] tokens = text.getTokensWithoutWhitespace(); for (int i = 1; i < tokens.length; i++) { final String token = tokens[i].getToken(); final String origToken = token; final String replacement = isCaseSensitive()?wrongWords.get(token):wrongWords.get(token.toLowerCase(getLocale())); if (replacement != null) { final String msg = token + getSuggestion() + replacement; final int pos = tokens[i].getStartPos(); final RuleMatch potentialRuleMatch = new RuleMatch(this, pos, pos + origToken.length(), msg, getShort()); if (!isCaseSensitive() && StringTools.startsWithUppercase(token)) { potentialRuleMatch.setSuggestedReplacement(StringTools.uppercaseFirstChar(replacement)); } else { potentialRuleMatch.setSuggestedReplacement(replacement); } ruleMatches.add(potentialRuleMatch); } } return toRuleMatchArray(ruleMatches); } private Map<String, String> loadWords(final InputStream file) throws IOException { final Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>(); InputStreamReader isr = null; BufferedReader br = null; try { isr = new InputStreamReader(file, getEncoding()); br = new BufferedReader(isr); String line; while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) { line = line.trim(); if (line.length() < 1) { continue; } if (line.charAt(0) == '#') { // ignore comments continue; } final String[] parts = line.split(";"); if (parts.length != 2) { throw new IOException("Format error in file " + JLanguageTool.getDataBroker().getFromRulesDirAsUrl(getFileName()) + ", line: " + line); } map.put(parts[0], parts[1]); } } finally { if (br != null) { br.close(); } if (isr != null) { isr.close(); } } return map; } public void reset() { } } Here is what I need the SimpleReplaceRule.java to do: 1 - Be able to have more than two spelling variations in the coherency.txt file (right now it can only be Word1;Word2). 2 - Find the first use of ANY of the spelling variations in a document that are found in coherency.txt and then make sure only that spelling is used throughout the document (ex. in the coherency.txt I have Word1;Word2;Word3 then in my document on the first line I write Word2. then on next line I write Word1 and Word 3 - then the grammar checker will flag Word1 and Word3 saying that I should use the spelling "Word2" instead...etc.). If anyone can help I would be grateful! Thanks for your time, Nathan

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• Higher order function « filter » in C++

  - by Red Hyena

  Hi all. I wanted to write a higher order function filter with C++. The code I have come up with so far is as follows: #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <functional> #include <algorithm> #include <vector> #include <list> #include <iterator> using namespace std; bool isOdd(int const i) { return i % 2 != 0; } template < template <class, class> class Container, class Predicate, class Allocator, class A > Container<A, Allocator> filter(Container<A, Allocator> const & container, Predicate const & pred) { Container<A, Allocator> filtered(container); container.erase(remove_if(filtered.begin(), filtered.end(), pred), filtered.end()); return filtered; } int main() { int const a[] = {23, 12, 78, 21, 97, 64}; vector<int const> const v(a, a + 6); vector<int const> const filtered = filter(v, isOdd); copy(filtered.begin(), filtered.end(), ostream_iterator<int const>(cout, " ")); } However on compiling this code, I get the following error messages that I am unable to understand and hence get rid of: /usr/include/c++/4.3/ext/new_allocator.h: In instantiation of ‘__gnu_cxx::new_allocator<const int>’: /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/allocator.h:84: instantiated from ‘std::allocator<const int>’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_vector.h:75: instantiated from ‘std::_Vector_base<const int, std::allocator<const int> >’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_vector.h:176: instantiated from ‘std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> >’ Filter.cpp:29: instantiated from here /usr/include/c++/4.3/ext/new_allocator.h:82: error: ‘const _Tp* __gnu_cxx::new_allocator<_Tp>::address(const _Tp&) const [with _Tp = const int]’ cannot be overloaded /usr/include/c++/4.3/ext/new_allocator.h:79: error: with ‘_Tp* __gnu_cxx::new_allocator<_Tp>::address(_Tp&) const [with _Tp = const int]’ Filter.cpp: In function ‘Container<A, Allocator> filter(const Container<A, Allocator>&, const Predicate&) [with Container = std::vector, Predicate = bool ()(int), Allocator = std::allocator<const int>, A = const int]’: Filter.cpp:30: instantiated from here Filter.cpp:23: error: passing ‘const std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> >’ as ‘this’ argument of ‘__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_Tp_alloc_type::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> > std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc>::erase(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_Tp_alloc_type::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> >, __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_Tp_alloc_type::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> >) [with _Tp = const int, _Alloc = std::allocator<const int>]’ discards qualifiers /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_algo.h: In function ‘_FIter std::remove_if(_FIter, _FIter, _Predicate) [with _FIter = __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<const int*, std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> > >, _Predicate = bool (*)(int)]’: Filter.cpp:23: instantiated from ‘Container<A, Allocator> filter(const Container<A, Allocator>&, const Predicate&) [with Container = std::vector, Predicate = bool ()(int), Allocator = std::allocator<const int>, A = const int]’ Filter.cpp:30: instantiated from here /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_algo.h:821: error: assignment of read-only location ‘__result.__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<_Iterator, _Container>::operator* [with _Iterator = const int*, _Container = std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> >]()’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/ext/new_allocator.h: In member function ‘void __gnu_cxx::new_allocator<_Tp>::deallocate(_Tp*, size_t) [with _Tp = const int]’: /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_vector.h:150: instantiated from ‘void std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_M_deallocate(_Tp*, size_t) [with _Tp = const int, _Alloc = std::allocator<const int>]’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_vector.h:136: instantiated from ‘std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::~_Vector_base() [with _Tp = const int, _Alloc = std::allocator<const int>]’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_vector.h:286: instantiated from ‘std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc>::vector(_InputIterator, _InputIterator, const _Alloc&) [with _InputIterator = const int*, _Tp = const int, _Alloc = std::allocator<const int>]’ Filter.cpp:29: instantiated from here /usr/include/c++/4.3/ext/new_allocator.h:98: error: invalid conversion from ‘const void*’ to ‘void*’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/ext/new_allocator.h:98: error: initializing argument 1 of ‘void operator delete(void*)’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_algobase.h: In function ‘_OI std::__copy_move_a(_II, _II, _OI) [with bool _IsMove = false, _II = const int*, _OI = const int*]’: /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_algobase.h:435: instantiated from ‘_OI std::__copy_move_a2(_II, _II, _OI) [with bool _IsMove = false, _II = __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<const int*, std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> > >, _OI = __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<const int*, std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> > >]’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_algobase.h:466: instantiated from ‘_OI std::copy(_II, _II, _OI) [with _II = __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<const int*, std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> > >, _OI = __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<const int*, std::vector<const int, std::allocator<const int> > >]’ /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/vector.tcc:136: instantiated from ‘__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_Tp_alloc_type::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> > std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc>::erase(__gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_Tp_alloc_type::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> >, __gnu_cxx::__normal_iterator<typename std::_Vector_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::_Tp_alloc_type::pointer, std::vector<_Tp, _Alloc> >) [with _Tp = const int, _Alloc = std::allocator<const int>]’ Filter.cpp:23: instantiated from ‘Container<A, Allocator> filter(const Container<A, Allocator>&, const Predicate&) [with Container = std::vector, Predicate = bool ()(int), Allocator = std::allocator<const int>, A = const int]’ Filter.cpp:30: instantiated from here /usr/include/c++/4.3/bits/stl_algobase.h:396: error: no matching function for call to ‘std::__copy_move<false, true, std::random_access_iterator_tag>::__copy_m(const int*&, const int*&, const int*&)’ Please tell me what I am doing wrong here and what is the correct way to achieve the kind of higher order polymorphism I want. Thanks.

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• Assignment operator that calls a constructor is broken

  - by Delan Azabani

  I've implemented some of the changes suggested in this question, and (thanks very much) it works quite well, however... in the process I've seemed to break the post-declaration assignment operator. With the following code: #include <cstdio> #include "ucpp" main() { ustring a = "test"; ustring b = "ing"; ustring c = "- -"; ustring d = "cafe\xcc\x81"; printf("%s\n", (a + b + c[1] + d).encode()); } I get a nice "testing cafe´" message. However, if I modify the code slightly so that the const char * conversion is done separately, post-declaration: #include <cstdio> #include "ucpp" main() { ustring a = "test"; ustring b = "ing"; ustring c = "- -"; ustring d; d = "cafe\xcc\x81"; printf("%s\n", (a + b + c[1] + d).encode()); } the ustring named d becomes blank, and all that is output is "testing ". My new code has three constructors, one void (which is probably the one being incorrectly used, and is used in the operator+ function), one that takes a const ustring &, and one that takes a const char *. The following is my new library code: #include <cstdlib> #include <cstring> class ustring { int * values; long len; public: long length() { return len; } ustring() { len = 0; values = (int *) malloc(0); } ustring(const ustring &input) { len = input.len; values = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * len); for (long i = 0; i < len; i++) values[i] = input.values[i]; } ustring operator=(ustring input) { ustring result(input); return result; } ustring(const char * input) { values = (int *) malloc(0); long s = 0; // s = number of parsed chars int a, b, c, d, contNeed = 0, cont = 0; for (long i = 0; input[i]; i++) if (input[i] < 0x80) { // ASCII, direct copy (00-7f) values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = input[i]; } else if (input[i] < 0xc0) { // this is a continuation (80-bf) if (cont == contNeed) { // no need for continuation, use U+fffd values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = 0xfffd; } cont = cont + 1; values[s - 1] = values[s - 1] | ((input[i] & 0x3f) << ((contNeed - cont) * 6)); if (cont == contNeed) cont = contNeed = 0; } else if (input[i] < 0xc2) { // invalid byte, use U+fffd (c0-c1) values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = 0xfffd; } else if (input[i] < 0xe0) { // start of 2-byte sequence (c2-df) contNeed = 1; values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = (input[i] & 0x1f) << 6; } else if (input[i] < 0xf0) { // start of 3-byte sequence (e0-ef) contNeed = 2; values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = (input[i] & 0x0f) << 12; } else if (input[i] < 0xf5) { // start of 4-byte sequence (f0-f4) contNeed = 3; values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = (input[i] & 0x07) << 18; } else { // restricted or invalid (f5-ff) values = (int *) realloc(values, sizeof(int) * ++s); values[s - 1] = 0xfffd; } len = s; } ustring operator=(const char * input) { ustring result(input); return result; } ustring operator+(ustring input) { ustring result; result.len = len + input.len; result.values = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * result.len); for (long i = 0; i < len; i++) result.values[i] = values[i]; for (long i = 0; i < input.len; i++) result.values[i + len] = input.values[i]; return result; } ustring operator[](long index) { ustring result; result.len = 1; result.values = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int)); result.values[0] = values[index]; return result; } char * encode() { char * r = (char *) malloc(0); long s = 0; for (long i = 0; i < len; i++) { if (values[i] < 0x80) r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 1), r[s + 0] = char(values[i]), s += 1; else if (values[i] < 0x800) r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 2), r[s + 0] = char(values[i] >> 6 | 0x60), r[s + 1] = char(values[i] & 0x3f | 0x80), s += 2; else if (values[i] < 0x10000) r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 3), r[s + 0] = char(values[i] >> 12 | 0xe0), r[s + 1] = char(values[i] >> 6 & 0x3f | 0x80), r[s + 2] = char(values[i] & 0x3f | 0x80), s += 3; else r = (char *) realloc(r, s + 4), r[s + 0] = char(values[i] >> 18 | 0xf0), r[s + 1] = char(values[i] >> 12 & 0x3f | 0x80), r[s + 2] = char(values[i] >> 6 & 0x3f | 0x80), r[s + 3] = char(values[i] & 0x3f | 0x80), s += 4; } return r; } };

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• Memory limit for running external executables within Asp.net

  - by itsbalur

  I am using WkhtmltoPdf in my C# web application running in .NET 4.0 to generate PDFs from HTML files. In general everything works fine except when the size of the HTML file is below 250KB. Once the HTML file size increases beyond that, the process which runs the wkhtmltopdf.exe gives an exception as below. On the Task Manager, I have seen that the Memory value for the wkhtmltopdf.exe process does not increase beyond a value of 40,096 K, which I believe is the reason why the process is abandoned in between. How can we configure such that the memory limit for external exes can be increased? Is there any other way of solving this issue? More info: When I run the conversion from the command line directly, the PDF is generated fine. So, its unlikely to be a problem with WkhtmlToPdf. The error is from localhost. I have tried the same on the DEV server, with the same result. Exception: > [Exception: Loading pages (1/6) [> > ] 0% [======> ] > 10% [======> ] 11% > [=======> ] 13% > [=========> ] 15% > [==========> ] 18% > [============> ] 20% > [=============> ] 22% > [==============> ] 24% > [===============> ] 26% > [=================> ] 29% > [==================> ] 31% > [===================> ] 33% > [=====================> ] 35% > [======================> ] 37% > [========================> ] 40% > [=========================> ] 42% > [==========================> ] 44% > [============================> ] 47% > [=============================> ] 49% > [==============================> ] 51% > [============================================================] 100% > Counting pages (2/6) > [============================================================] Object > 1 of 1 Resolving links (4/6) > [============================================================] Object > 1 of 1 Loading headers and footers (5/6) > Printing pages (6/6) [> > ] Preparing [=> > ] Page 1 of 49 [==> > ] Page 2 of 49 [===> > ] Page 3 of 49 [====> > ] Page 4 of 49 [======> > ] Page 5 of 49 [=======> > ] Page 6 of 49 [========> > ] Page 7 of 49 [=========> > ] Page 8 of 49 [==========> > ] Page 9 of 49 [============> > ] Page 10 of 49 [=============> > ] Page 11 of 49 [==============> > ] Page 12 of 49 [===============> > ] Page 13 of 49 [================> > ] Page 14 of 49 [==================> > ] Page 15 of 49 [===================> > ] Page 16 of 49 [====================> > ] Page 17 of 49 [=====================> > ] Page 18 of 49 [======================> > ] Page 19 of 49 [========================> > ] Page 20 of 49 [=========================> > ] Page 21 of 49 [==========================> > ] Page 22 of 49 [===========================> > ] Page 23 of 49 [============================> > ] Page 24 of 49 [==============================> > ] Page 25 of 49 [===============================> > ] Page 26 of 49 [=================================> > ] Page 27 of 49 [==================================> > ] Code that I use: var fileName = " - "; var wkhtmlDir = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[Constants.AppSettings.ExportToPdfExecutablePath]; var wkhtml = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[Constants.AppSettings.ExportToPdfExecutablePath] + "\\wkhtmltopdf.exe"; var p = new Process(); string switches = ""; switches += "--print-media-type "; switches += "--margin-top 10mm --margin-bottom 10mm --margin-right 5mm --margin-left 5mm "; switches += "--page-size A4 "; switches += "--disable-smart-shrinking "; var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo { CreateNoWindow = true, FileName = wkhtml, Arguments = switches + " " + url + " " + fileName, UseShellExecute = false, RedirectStandardOutput = true, RedirectStandardError = true, RedirectStandardInput=true, WorkingDirectory=wkhtmlDir }; p.StartInfo = startInfo; p.Start();

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• Windows Start Menu Not Staying on Top

  - by Jeff Rapp

  Hey everyone. I've had this problem since Windows Vista. I did a clean install with Windows 7 and hoped it would fix the problem. Also swapped out the video card just to rule out a strange driver issue. Here's what's happening. After running for some period of time (usually a few hours), the Start button/orb will loose it's "Chrome" and turn into a plain button that just says "Start." It will work fine for a while, but then the start menu will just stop showing. Additionally, when I hit Win+D to show the desktop, the entire taskbar completely disappears. I can get it back usually by moving/minimizing windows that may be overlapping where the start menu should show. Otherwise, it requires either a full reboot or I'll end up killing & restarting the explorer.exe process. I realize that this is a strange issue - I took a video of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B3WwT0uyr4 Thanks! --Edit-- Here's my HijackThis log: Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.3 (BETA) Scan saved at 4:19:00 PM, on 12/16/2009 Platform: Unknown Windows (WinNT 6.01.3504) MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.7600.16385) Boot mode: Normal Running processes: C:\Program Files (x86)\Pantone\hueyPRO\hueyPROTray.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\acrotray.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\MagicDisc\MagicDisc.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Trillian\trillian.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DevServer\9.0\WebDev.WebServer.EXE C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Fiddler2\Fiddler.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\mspdbsrv.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunes.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator CS4\Support Files\Contents\Windows\Illustrator.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\ColorPic 4.1\ColorPic.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help 9\dexplore.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Help 9\dexplore.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\eBay\Blackthorne\bin\BT.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE C:\Program Files (x86)\CamStudio\Recorder.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\CamStudio\Playplus.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox 3.6 Beta 3\firefox.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\CamStudio\Playplus.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\putty.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\CamStudio\Playplus.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\CamStudio\Playplus.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\TrendMicro\HiJackThis\HiJackThis.exe R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896 R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157 R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,SearchAssistant = R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,CustomizeSearch = R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Local Page = C:\Windows\SysWOW64\blank.htm R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar,LinksFolderName = F2 - REG:system.ini: UserInit=userinit.exe O2 - BHO: ContributeBHO Class - {074C1DC5-9320-4A9A-947D-C042949C6216} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\/Adobe Contribute CS4/contributeieplugin.dll O2 - BHO: AcroIEHelperStub - {18DF081C-E8AD-4283-A596-FA578C2EBDC3} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEHelperShim.dll O2 - BHO: Groove GFS Browser Helper - {72853161-30C5-4D22-B7F9-0BBC1D38A37E} - C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office14\GROOVEEX.DLL O2 - BHO: Windows Live Sign-in Helper - {9030D464-4C02-4ABF-8ECC-5164760863C6} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live\WindowsLiveLogin.dll O2 - BHO: Adobe PDF Conversion Toolbar Helper - {AE7CD045-E861-484f-8273-0445EE161910} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll O2 - BHO: URLRedirectionBHO - {B4F3A835-0E21-4959-BA22-42B3008E02FF} - C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1\Office14\URLREDIR.DLL O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll O2 - BHO: SmartSelect - {F4971EE7-DAA0-4053-9964-665D8EE6A077} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll O3 - Toolbar: Adobe PDF - {47833539-D0C5-4125-9FA8-0819E2EAAC93} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll O3 - Toolbar: Contribute Toolbar - {517BDDE4-E3A7-4570-B21E-2B52B6139FC7} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\/Adobe Contribute CS4/contributeieplugin.dll O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AdobeCS4ServiceManager] "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\CS4ServiceManager\CS4ServiceManager.exe" -launchedbylogin O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Adobe Acrobat Speed Launcher] "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Acrobat_sl.exe" O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Acrobat Assistant 8.0] "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Acrotray.exe" O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [Adobe_ID0ENQBO] C:\PROGRA~2\COMMON~1\Adobe\ADOBEV~1\Server\bin\VERSIO~2.EXE O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTTask.exe" -atboottime O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [iTunesHelper] "C:\Program Files (x86)\iTunes\iTunesHelper.exe" O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\jusched.exe" O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'LOCAL SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'LOCAL SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /autoRun (User 'NETWORK SERVICE') O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\RunOnce: [mctadmin] C:\Windows\System32\mctadmin.exe (User 'NETWORK SERVICE') O4 - Startup: ChatNowDesktop.appref-ms O4 - Startup: MagicDisc.lnk = C:\Program Files (x86)\MagicDisc\MagicDisc.exe O4 - Startup: Trillian.lnk = C:\Program Files (x86)\Trillian\trillian.exe O4 - Global Startup: Digsby.lnk = C:\Program Files (x86)\Digsby\digsby.exe O4 - Global Startup: hueyPROTray.lnk = C:\Program Files (x86)\Pantone\hueyPRO\hueyPROTray.exe O4 - Global Startup: OfficeSAS.lnk = ? O8 - Extra context menu item: Append Link Target to Existing PDF - res://C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll/AcroIEAppendSelLinks.html O8 - Extra context menu item: Append to Existing PDF - res://C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll/AcroIEAppend.html O8 - Extra context menu item: Convert Link Target to Adobe PDF - res://C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll/AcroIECaptureSelLinks.html O8 - Extra context menu item: Convert to Adobe PDF - res://C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat\ActiveX\AcroIEFavClient.dll/AcroIECapture.html O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~1\Office14\EXCEL.EXE/3000 O8 - Extra context menu item: S&end to OneNote - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~1\Office14\ONBttnIE.dll/105 O9 - Extra button: Send to OneNote - {2670000A-7350-4f3c-8081-5663EE0C6C49} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ONBttnIE.dll O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Se&nd to OneNote - {2670000A-7350-4f3c-8081-5663EE0C6C49} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ONBttnIE.dll O9 - Extra button: OneNote Lin&ked Notes - {789FE86F-6FC4-46A1-9849-EDE0DB0C95CA} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ONBttnIELinkedNotes.dll O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: OneNote Lin&ked Notes - {789FE86F-6FC4-46A1-9849-EDE0DB0C95CA} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ONBttnIELinkedNotes.dll O9 - Extra button: Fiddler2 - {CF819DA3-9882-4944-ADF5-6EF17ECF3C6E} - "C:\Program Files (x86)\Fiddler2\Fiddler.exe" (file missing) O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Fiddler2 - {CF819DA3-9882-4944-ADF5-6EF17ECF3C6E} - "C:\Program Files (x86)\Fiddler2\Fiddler.exe" (file missing) O13 - Gopher Prefix: O16 - DPF: {5554DCB0-700B-498D-9B58-4E40E5814405} (RSClientPrint 2008 Class) - http://reportserver/Reports/Reserved.ReportViewerWebControl.axd?ReportSession=oxadkhfvfvt1hzf2eh3y1ay2&ControlID=b89e27f15e734f3faee1308eebdfab2a&Culture=1033&UICulture=9&ReportStack=1&OpType=PrintCab&Arch=X86 O16 - DPF: {82774781-8F4E-11D1-AB1C-0000F8773BF0} (DLC Class) - https://transfers.ds.microsoft.com/FTM/TransferSource/grTransferCtrl.cab O16 - DPF: {D27CDB6E-AE6D-11CF-96B8-444553540000} (Shockwave Flash Object) - http://fpdownload2.macromedia.com/get/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = LapkoSoft.local O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{5992B87A-643B-4385-A914-249B98BF7129}: NameServer = 192.168.1.10 O17 - HKLM\System\CS1\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = LapkoSoft.local O17 - HKLM\System\CS2\Services\Tcpip\Parameters: Domain = LapkoSoft.local O18 - Filter hijack: text/xml - {807573E5-5146-11D5-A672-00B0D022E945} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE14\MSOXMLMF.DLL O23 - Service: Adobe Version Cue CS4 - Adobe Systems Incorporated - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe Version Cue CS4\Server\bin\VersionCueCS4.exe O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\Alg.exe,-112 (ALG) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\alg.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: Apple Mobile Device - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\bin\AppleMobileDeviceService.exe O23 - Service: ASP.NET State Service (aspnet_state) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_state.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: Bonjour Service - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files (x86)\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\efssvc.dll,-100 (EFS) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\fxsresm.dll,-118 (Fax) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\fxssvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: FLEXnet Licensing Service - Acresso Software Inc. - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Macrovision Shared\FLEXnet Publisher\FNPLicensingService.exe O23 - Service: FLEXnet Licensing Service 64 - Acresso Software Inc. - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Macrovision Shared\FLEXnet Publisher\FNPLicensingService64.exe O23 - Service: @%windir%\system32\inetsrv\iisres.dll,-30007 (IISADMIN) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\inetinfo.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: iPod Service - Apple Inc. - C:\Program Files\iPod\bin\iPodService.exe O23 - Service: @keyiso.dll,-100 (KeyIso) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @comres.dll,-2797 (MSDTC) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\msdtc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\System32\netlogon.dll,-102 (Netlogon) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: NVIDIA Performance Driver Service - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Performance Drivers\nvPDsvc.exe O23 - Service: NVIDIA Display Driver Service (nvsvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\nvvsvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\psbase.dll,-300 (ProtectedStorage) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\Locator.exe,-2 (RpcLocator) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\locator.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\samsrv.dll,-1 (SamSs) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\snmptrap.exe,-3 (SNMPTRAP) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\snmptrap.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\spoolsv.exe,-1 (Spooler) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\spoolsv.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\sppsvc.exe,-101 (sppsvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\sppsvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: TeamViewer 5 (TeamViewer5) - TeamViewer GmbH - C:\Program Files (x86)\TeamViewer\Version5\TeamViewer_Service.exe O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\ui0detect.exe,-101 (UI0Detect) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\UI0Detect.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\vaultsvc.dll,-1003 (VaultSvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\vds.exe,-100 (vds) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\vds.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\vssvc.exe,-102 (VSS) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\vssvc.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\wbengine.exe,-104 (wbengine) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\wbengine.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%Systemroot%\system32\wbem\wmiapsrv.exe,-110 (wmiApSrv) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\wbem\WmiApSrv.exe (file missing) O23 - Service: @%PROGRAMFILES%\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe,-101 (WMPNetworkSvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe (file missing)

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• Using the West Wind Web Toolkit to set up AJAX and REST Services

  - by Rick Strahl

  I frequently get questions about which option to use for creating AJAX and REST backends for ASP.NET applications. There are many solutions out there to do this actually, but when I have a choice - not surprisingly - I fall back to my own tools in the West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit. I've talked a bunch about the 'in-the-box' solutions in the past so for a change in this post I'll talk about the tools that I use in my own and customer applications to handle AJAX and REST based access to service resources using the West Wind West Wind Web Toolkit. Let me preface this by saying that I like things to be easy. Yes flexible is very important as well but not at the expense of over-complexity. The goal I've had with my tools is make it drop dead easy, with good performance while providing the core features that I'm after, which are: Easy AJAX/JSON Callbacks Ability to return any kind of non JSON content (string, stream, byte[], images) Ability to work with both XML and JSON interchangeably for input/output Access endpoints via POST data, RPC JSON calls, GET QueryString values or Routing interface Easy to use generic JavaScript client to make RPC calls (same syntax, just what you need) Ability to create clean URLS with Routing Ability to use standard ASP.NET HTTP Stack for HTTP semantics It's all about options! In this post I'll demonstrate most of these features (except XML) in a few simple and short samples which you can download. So let's take a look and see how you can build an AJAX callback solution with the West Wind Web Toolkit. Installing the Toolkit Assemblies The easiest and leanest way of using the Toolkit in your Web project is to grab it via NuGet: West Wind Web and AJAX Utilities (Westwind.Web) and drop it into the project by right clicking in your Project and choosing Manage NuGet Packages from anywhere in the Project.   When done you end up with your project looking like this: What just happened? Nuget added two assemblies - Westwind.Web and Westwind.Utilities and the client ww.jquery.js library. It also added a couple of references into web.config: The default namespaces so they can be accessed in pages/views and a ScriptCompressionModule that the toolkit optionally uses to compress script resources served from within the assembly (namely ww.jquery.js and optionally jquery.js). Creating a new Service The West Wind Web Toolkit supports several ways of creating and accessing AJAX services, but for this post I'll stick to the lower level approach that works from any plain HTML page or of course MVC, WebForms, WebPages. There's also a WebForms specific control that makes this even easier but I'll leave that for another post. So, to create a new standalone AJAX/REST service we can create a new HttpHandler in the new project either as a pure class based handler or as a generic .ASHX handler. Both work equally well, but generic handlers don't require any web.config configuration so I'll use that here. In the root of the project add a Generic Handler. I'm going to call this one StockService.ashx. Once the handler has been created, edit the code and remove all of the handler body code. Then change the base class to CallbackHandler and add methods that have a [CallbackMethod] attribute. Here's the modified base handler implementation now looks like with an added HelloWorld method: using System; using Westwind.Web; namespace WestWindWebAjax { /// <summary> /// Handler implements CallbackHandler to provide REST/AJAX services /// </summary> public class SampleService : CallbackHandler { [CallbackMethod] public string HelloWorld(string name) { return "Hello " + name + ". Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(); } } } Notice that the class inherits from CallbackHandler and that the HelloWorld service method is marked up with [CallbackMethod]. We're done here. Services Urlbased Syntax Once you compile, the 'service' is live can respond to requests. All CallbackHandlers support input in GET and POST formats, and can return results as JSON or XML. To check our fancy HelloWorld method we can now access the service like this: http://localhost/WestWindWebAjax/StockService.ashx?Method=HelloWorld&name=Rick which produces a default JSON response - in this case a string (wrapped in quotes as it's JSON): (note by default JSON will be downloaded by most browsers not displayed - various options are available to view JSON right in the browser) If I want to return the same data as XML I can tack on a &format=xml at the end of the querystring which produces: <string>Hello Rick. Time is: 11/1/2011 12:11:13 PM</string> Cleaner URLs with Routing Syntax If you want cleaner URLs for each operation you can also configure custom routes on a per URL basis similar to the way that WCF REST does. To do this you need to add a new RouteHandler to your application's startup code in global.asax.cs one for each CallbackHandler based service you create: protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { CallbackHandlerRouteHandler.RegisterRoutes<StockService>(RouteTable.Routes); } With this code in place you can now add RouteUrl properties to any of your service methods. For the HelloWorld method that doesn't make a ton of sense but here is what a routed clean URL might look like in definition: [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl="stocks/HelloWorld/{name}")] public string HelloWorld(string name) { return "Hello " + name + ". Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(); } The same URL I previously used now becomes a bit shorter and more readable with: http://localhost/WestWindWebAjax/HelloWorld/Rick It's an easy way to create cleaner URLs and still get the same functionality. Calling the Service with $.getJSON() Since the result produced is JSON you can now easily consume this data using jQuery's getJSON method. First we need a couple of scripts - jquery.js and ww.jquery.js in the page: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <link href="Css/Westwind.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script src="scripts/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="scripts/ww.jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> Next let's add a small HelloWorld example form (what else) that has a single textbox to type a name, a button and a div tag to receive the result: <fieldset> <legend>Hello World</legend> Please enter a name: <input type="text" name="txtHello" id="txtHello" value="" /> <input type="button" id="btnSayHello" value="Say Hello (POST)" /> <input type="button" id="btnSayHelloGet" value="Say Hello (GET)" /> <div id="divHelloMessage" class="errordisplay" style="display:none;width: 450px;" > </div> </fieldset> Then to call the HelloWorld method a little jQuery is used to hook the document startup and the button click followed by the $.getJSON call to retrieve the data from the server. <script type="text/javascript"> $(document).ready(function () { $("#btnSayHelloGet").click(function () { $.getJSON("SampleService.ashx", { Method: "HelloWorld", name: $("#txtHello").val() }, function (result) { $("#divHelloMessage") .text(result) .fadeIn(1000); }); });</script> .getJSON() expects a full URL to the endpoint of our service, which is the ASHX file. We can either provide a full URL (SampleService.ashx?Method=HelloWorld&name=Rick) or we can just provide the base URL and an object that encodes the query string parameters for us using an object map that has a property that matches each parameter for the server method. We can also use the clean URL routing syntax, but using the object parameter encoding actually is safer as the parameters will get properly encoded by jQuery. The result returned is whatever the result on the server method is - in this case a string. The string is applied to the divHelloMessage element and we're done. Obviously this is a trivial example, but it demonstrates the basics of getting a JSON response back to the browser. AJAX Post Syntax - using ajaxCallMethod() The previous example allows you basic control over the data that you send to the server via querystring parameters. This works OK for simple values like short strings, numbers and boolean values, but doesn't really work if you need to pass something more complex like an object or an array back up to the server. To handle traditional RPC type messaging where the idea is to map server side functions and results to a client side invokation, POST operations can be used. The easiest way to use this functionality is to use ww.jquery.js and the ajaxCallMethod() function. ww.jquery wraps jQuery's AJAX functions and knows implicitly how to call a CallbackServer method with parameters and parse the result. Let's look at another simple example that posts a simple value but returns something more interesting. Let's start with the service method: [CallbackMethod(RouteUrl="stocks/{symbol}")] public StockQuote GetStockQuote(string symbol) { Response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.Add(new TimeSpan(0, 2, 0))); StockServer server = new StockServer(); var quote = server.GetStockQuote(symbol); if (quote == null) throw new ApplicationException("Invalid Symbol passed."); return quote; } This sample utilizes a small StockServer helper class (included in the sample) that downloads a stock quote from Yahoo's financial site via plain HTTP GET requests and formats it into a StockQuote object. Lets create a small HTML block that lets us query for the quote and display it: <fieldset> <legend>Single Stock Quote</legend> Please enter a stock symbol: <input type="text" name="txtSymbol" id="txtSymbol" value="msft" /> <input type="button" id="btnStockQuote" value="Get Quote" /> <div id="divStockDisplay" class="errordisplay" style="display:none; width: 450px;"> <div class="label-left">Company:</div> <div id="stockCompany"></div> <div class="label-left">Last Price:</div> <div id="stockLastPrice"></div> <div class="label-left">Quote Time:</div> <div id="stockQuoteTime"></div> </div> </fieldset> The final result looks something like this:   Let's hook up the button handler to fire the request and fill in the data as shown: $("#btnStockQuote").click(function () { ajaxCallMethod("SampleService.ashx", "GetStockQuote", [$("#txtSymbol").val()], function (quote) { $("#divStockDisplay").show().fadeIn(1000); $("#stockCompany").text(quote.Company + " (" + quote.Symbol + ")"); $("#stockLastPrice").text(quote.LastPrice); $("#stockQuoteTime").text(quote.LastQuoteTime.formatDate("MMM dd, HH:mm EST")); }, onPageError); }); So we point at SampleService.ashx and the GetStockQuote method, passing a single parameter of the input symbol value. Then there are two handlers for success and failure callbacks.  The success handler is the interesting part - it receives the stock quote as a result and assigns its values to various 'holes' in the stock display elements. The data that comes back over the wire is JSON and it looks like this: { "Symbol":"MSFT", "Company":"Microsoft Corpora", "OpenPrice":26.11, "LastPrice":26.01, "NetChange":0.02, "LastQuoteTime":"2011-11-03T02:00:00Z", "LastQuoteTimeString":"Nov. 11, 2011 4:20pm" } which is an object representation of the data. JavaScript can evaluate this JSON string back into an object easily and that's the reslut that gets passed to the success function. The quote data is then applied to existing page content by manually selecting items and applying them. There are other ways to do this more elegantly like using templates, but here we're only interested in seeing how the data is returned. The data in the object is typed - LastPrice is a number and QuoteTime is a date. Note about the date value: JavaScript doesn't have a date literal although the JSON embedded ISO string format used above  ("2011-11-03T02:00:00Z") is becoming fairly standard for JSON serializers. However, JSON parsers don't deserialize dates by default and return them by string. This is why the StockQuote actually returns a string value of LastQuoteTimeString for the same date. ajaxMethodCallback always converts dates properly into 'real' dates and the example above uses the real date value along with a .formatDate() data extension (also in ww.jquery.js) to display the raw date properly. Errors and Exceptions So what happens if your code fails? For example if I pass an invalid stock symbol to the GetStockQuote() method you notice that the code does this: if (quote == null) throw new ApplicationException("Invalid Symbol passed."); CallbackHandler automatically pushes the exception message back to the client so it's easy to pick up the error message. Regardless of what kind of error occurs: Server side, client side, protocol errors - any error will fire the failure handler with an error object parameter. The error is returned to the client via a JSON response in the error callback. In the previous examples I called onPageError which is a generic routine in ww.jquery that displays a status message on the bottom of the screen. But of course you can also take over the error handling yourself: $("#btnStockQuote").click(function () { ajaxCallMethod("SampleService.ashx", "GetStockQuote", [$("#txtSymbol").val()], function (quote) { $("#divStockDisplay").fadeIn(1000); $("#stockCompany").text(quote.Company + " (" + quote.Symbol + ")"); $("#stockLastPrice").text(quote.LastPrice); $("#stockQuoteTime").text(quote.LastQuoteTime.formatDate("MMM dd, hh:mmt")); }, function (error, xhr) { $("#divErrorDisplay").text(error.message).fadeIn(1000); }); }); The error object has a isCallbackError, message and  stackTrace properties, the latter of which is only populated when running in Debug mode, and this object is returned for all errors: Client side, transport and server side errors. Regardless of which type of error you get the same object passed (as well as the XHR instance optionally) which makes for a consistent error retrieval mechanism. Specifying HttpVerbs You can also specify HTTP Verbs that are allowed using the AllowedHttpVerbs option on the CallbackMethod attribute: [CallbackMethod(AllowedHttpVerbs=HttpVerbs.GET | HttpVerbs.POST)] public string HelloWorld(string name) { … } If you're building REST style API's this might be useful to force certain request semantics onto the client calling. For the above if call with a non-allowed HttpVerb the request returns a 405 error response along with a JSON (or XML) error object result. The default behavior is to allow all verbs access (HttpVerbs.All). Passing in object Parameters Up to now the parameters I passed were very simple. But what if you need to send something more complex like an object or an array? Let's look at another example now that passes an object from the client to the server. Keeping with the Stock theme here lets add a method called BuyOrder that lets us buy some shares for a stock. Consider the following service method that receives an StockBuyOrder object as a parameter: [CallbackMethod] public string BuyStock(StockBuyOrder buyOrder) { var server = new StockServer(); var quote = server.GetStockQuote(buyOrder.Symbol); if (quote == null) throw new ApplicationException("Invalid or missing stock symbol."); return string.Format("You're buying {0} shares of {1} ({2}) stock at {3} for a total of {4} on {5}.", buyOrder.Quantity, quote.Company, quote.Symbol, quote.LastPrice.ToString("c"), (quote.LastPrice * buyOrder.Quantity).ToString("c"), buyOrder.BuyOn.ToString("MMM d")); } public class StockBuyOrder { public string Symbol { get; set; } public int Quantity { get; set; } public DateTime BuyOn { get; set; } public StockBuyOrder() { BuyOn = DateTime.Now; } } This is a contrived do-nothing example that simply echoes back what was passed in, but it demonstrates how you can pass complex data to a callback method. On the client side we now have a very simple form that captures the three values on a form: <fieldset> <legend>Post a Stock Buy Order</legend> Enter a symbol: <input type="text" name="txtBuySymbol" id="txtBuySymbol" value="GLD" />&nbsp;&nbsp; Qty: <input type="text" name="txtBuyQty" id="txtBuyQty" value="10" style="width: 50px" />&nbsp;&nbsp; Buy on: <input type="text" name="txtBuyOn" id="txtBuyOn" value="<%= DateTime.Now.ToString("d") %>" style="width: 70px;" /> <input type="button" id="btnBuyStock" value="Buy Stock" /> <div id="divStockBuyMessage" class="errordisplay" style="display:none"></div> </fieldset> The completed form and demo then looks something like this:   The client side code that picks up the input values and assigns them to object properties and sends the AJAX request looks like this: $("#btnBuyStock").click(function () { // create an object map that matches StockBuyOrder signature var buyOrder = { Symbol: $("#txtBuySymbol").val(), Quantity: $("#txtBuyQty").val() * 1, // number Entered: new Date() } ajaxCallMethod("SampleService.ashx", "BuyStock", [buyOrder], function (result) { $("#divStockBuyMessage").text(result).fadeIn(1000); }, onPageError); }); The code creates an object and attaches the properties that match the server side object passed to the BuyStock method. Each property that you want to update needs to be included and the type must match (ie. string, number, date in this case). Any missing properties will not be set but also not cause any errors. Pass POST data instead of Objects In the last example I collected a bunch of values from form variables and stuffed them into object variables in JavaScript code. While that works, often times this isn't really helping - I end up converting my types on the client and then doing another conversion on the server. If lots of input controls are on a page and you just want to pick up the values on the server via plain POST variables - that can be done too - and it makes sense especially if you're creating and filling the client side object only to push data to the server. Let's add another method to the server that once again lets us buy a stock. But this time let's not accept a parameter but rather send POST data to the server. Here's the server method receiving POST data: [CallbackMethod] public string BuyStockPost() { StockBuyOrder buyOrder = new StockBuyOrder(); buyOrder.Symbol = Request.Form["txtBuySymbol"]; ; int qty; int.TryParse(Request.Form["txtBuyQuantity"], out qty); buyOrder.Quantity = qty; DateTime time; DateTime.TryParse(Request.Form["txtBuyBuyOn"], out time); buyOrder.BuyOn = time; // Or easier way yet //FormVariableBinder.Unbind(buyOrder,null,"txtBuy"); var server = new StockServer(); var quote = server.GetStockQuote(buyOrder.Symbol); if (quote == null) throw new ApplicationException("Invalid or missing stock symbol."); return string.Format("You're buying {0} shares of {1} ({2}) stock at {3} for a total of {4} on {5}.", buyOrder.Quantity, quote.Company, quote.Symbol, quote.LastPrice.ToString("c"), (quote.LastPrice * buyOrder.Quantity).ToString("c"), buyOrder.BuyOn.ToString("MMM d")); } Clearly we've made this server method take more code than it did with the object parameter. We've basically moved the parameter assignment logic from the client to the server. As a result the client code to call this method is now a bit shorter since there's no client side shuffling of values from the controls to an object. $("#btnBuyStockPost").click(function () { ajaxCallMethod("SampleService.ashx", "BuyStockPost", [], // Note: No parameters - function (result) { $("#divStockBuyMessage").text(result).fadeIn(1000); }, onPageError, // Force all page Form Variables to be posted { postbackMode: "Post" }); }); The client simply calls the BuyStockQuote method and pushes all the form variables from the page up to the server which parses them instead. The feature that makes this work is one of the options you can pass to the ajaxCallMethod() function: { postbackMode: "Post" }); which directs the function to include form variable POST data when making the service call. Other options include PostNoViewState (for WebForms to strip out WebForms crap vars), PostParametersOnly (default), None. If you pass parameters those are always posted to the server except when None is set. The above code can be simplified a bit by using the FormVariableBinder helper, which can unbind form variables directly into an object: FormVariableBinder.Unbind(buyOrder,null,"txtBuy"); which replaces the manual Request.Form[] reading code. It receives the object to unbind into, a string of properties to skip, and an optional prefix which is stripped off form variables to match property names. The component is similar to the MVC model binder but it's independent of MVC. Returning non-JSON Data CallbackHandler also supports returning non-JSON/XML data via special return types. You can return raw non-JSON encoded strings like this: [CallbackMethod(ReturnAsRawString=true,ContentType="text/plain")] public string HelloWorldNoJSON(string name) { return "Hello " + name + ". Time is: " + DateTime.Now.ToString(); } Calling this method results in just a plain string - no JSON encoding with quotes around the result. This can be useful if your server handling code needs to return a string or HTML result that doesn't fit well for a page or other UI component. Any string output can be returned. You can also return binary data. Stream, byte[] and Bitmap/Image results are automatically streamed back to the client. Notice that you should set the ContentType of the request either on the CallbackMethod attribute or using Response.ContentType. This ensures the Web Server knows how to display your binary response. Using a stream response makes it possible to return any of data. Streamed data can be pretty handy to return bitmap data from a method. The following is a method that returns a stock history graph for a particular stock over a provided number of years: [CallbackMethod(ContentType="image/png",RouteUrl="stocks/history/graph/{symbol}/{years}")] public Stream GetStockHistoryGraph(string symbol, int years = 2,int width = 500, int height=350) { if (width == 0) width = 500; if (height == 0) height = 350; StockServer server = new StockServer(); return server.GetStockHistoryGraph(symbol,"Stock History for " + symbol,width,height,years); } I can now hook this up into the JavaScript code when I get a stock quote. At the end of the process I can assign the URL to the service that returns the image into the src property and so force the image to display. Here's the changed code: $("#btnStockQuote").click(function () { var symbol = $("#txtSymbol").val(); ajaxCallMethod("SampleService.ashx", "GetStockQuote", [symbol], function (quote) { $("#divStockDisplay").fadeIn(1000); $("#stockCompany").text(quote.Company + " (" + quote.Symbol + ")"); $("#stockLastPrice").text(quote.LastPrice); $("#stockQuoteTime").text(quote.LastQuoteTime.formatDate("MMM dd, hh:mmt")); // display a stock chart $("#imgStockHistory").attr("src", "stocks/history/graph/" + symbol + "/2"); },onPageError); }); The resulting output then looks like this: The charting code uses the new ASP.NET 4.0 Chart components via code to display a bar chart of the 2 year stock data as part of the StockServer class which you can find in the sample download. The ability to return arbitrary data from a service is useful as you can see - in this case the chart is clearly associated with the service and it's nice that the graph generation can happen off a handler rather than through a page. Images are common resources, but output can also be PDF reports, zip files for downloads etc. which is becoming increasingly more common to be returned from REST endpoints and other applications. Why reinvent? Obviously the examples I've shown here are pretty basic in terms of functionality. But I hope they demonstrate the core features of AJAX callbacks that you need to work through in most applications which is simple: return data, send back data and potentially retrieve data in various formats. While there are other solutions when it comes down to making AJAX callbacks and servicing REST like requests, I like the flexibility my home grown solution provides. Simply put it's still the easiest solution that I've found that addresses my common use cases: AJAX JSON RPC style callbacks Url based access XML and JSON Output from single method endpoint XML and JSON POST support, querystring input, routing parameter mapping UrlEncoded POST data support on callbacks Ability to return stream/raw string data Essentially ability to return ANYTHING from Service and pass anything All these features are available in various solutions but not together in one place. I've been using this code base for over 4 years now in a number of projects both for myself and commercial work and it's served me extremely well. Besides the AJAX functionality CallbackHandler provides, it's also an easy way to create any kind of output endpoint I need to create. Need to create a few simple routines that spit back some data, but don't want to create a Page or View or full blown handler for it? Create a CallbackHandler and add a method or multiple methods and you have your generic endpoints.  It's a quick and easy way to add small code pieces that are pretty efficient as they're running through a pretty small handler implementation. I can have this up and running in a couple of minutes literally without any setup and returning just about any kind of data. Resources Download the Sample NuGet: Westwind Web and AJAX Utilities (Westwind.Web) ajaxCallMethod() Documentation Using the AjaxMethodCallback WebForms Control West Wind Web Toolkit Home Page West Wind Web Toolkit Source Code © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET  jQuery  AJAX   Tweet (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Capturing and Transforming ASP.NET Output with Response.Filter

  - by Rick Strahl

  During one of my Handlers and Modules session at DevConnections this week one of the attendees asked a question that I didn’t have an immediate answer for. Basically he wanted to capture response output completely and then apply some filtering to the output – effectively injecting some additional content into the page AFTER the page had completely rendered. Specifically the output should be captured from anywhere – not just a page and have this code injected into the page. Some time ago I posted some code that allows you to capture ASP.NET Page output by overriding the Render() method, capturing the HtmlTextWriter() and reading its content, modifying the rendered data as text then writing it back out. I’ve actually used this approach on a few occasions and it works fine for ASP.NET pages. But this obviously won’t work outside of the Page class environment and it’s not really generic – you have to create a custom page class in order to handle the output capture. [updated 11/16/2009 – updated ResponseFilterStream implementation and a few additional notes based on comments] Enter Response.Filter However, ASP.NET includes a Response.Filter which can be used – well to filter output. Basically Response.Filter is a stream through which the OutputStream is piped back to the Web Server (indirectly). As content is written into the Response object, the filter stream receives the appropriate Stream commands like Write, Flush and Close as well as read operations although for a Response.Filter that’s uncommon to be hit. The Response.Filter can be programmatically replaced at runtime which allows you to effectively intercept all output generation that runs through ASP.NET. A common Example: Dynamic GZip Encoding A rather common use of Response.Filter hooking up code based, dynamic  GZip compression for requests which is dead simple by applying a GZipStream (or DeflateStream) to Response.Filter. The following generic routines can be used very easily to detect GZip capability of the client and compress response output with a single line of code and a couple of library helper routines: WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); which is handled with a few lines of reusable code and a couple of static helper methods: /// <summary> ///Sets up the current page or handler to use GZip through a Response.Filter ///IMPORTANT:  ///You have to call this method before any output is generated! /// </summary> public static void GZipEncodePage() {     HttpResponse Response = HttpContext.Current.Response;     if(IsGZipSupported())     {         stringAcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"];         if(AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))         {             Response.Filter = newSystem.IO.Compression.DeflateStream(Response.Filter,                                        System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress);             Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "deflate");         }         else        {             Response.Filter = newSystem.IO.Compression.GZipStream(Response.Filter,                                       System.IO.Compression.CompressionMode.Compress);             Response.AppendHeader("Content-Encoding", "gzip");                            }     }     // Allow proxy servers to cache encoded and unencoded versions separately    Response.AppendHeader("Vary", "Content-Encoding"); } /// <summary> /// Determines if GZip is supported /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public static bool IsGZipSupported() { string AcceptEncoding = HttpContext.Current.Request.Headers["Accept-Encoding"]; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(AcceptEncoding) && (AcceptEncoding.Contains("gzip") || AcceptEncoding.Contains("deflate"))) return true; return false; } GZipStream and DeflateStream are streams that are assigned to Response.Filter and by doing so apply the appropriate compression on the active Response. Response.Filter content is chunked So to implement a Response.Filter effectively requires only that you implement a custom stream and handle the Write() method to capture Response output as it’s written. At first blush this seems very simple – you capture the output in Write, transform it and write out the transformed content in one pass. And that indeed works for small amounts of content. But you see, the problem is that output is written in small buffer chunks (a little less than 16k it appears) rather than just a single Write() statement into the stream, which makes perfect sense for ASP.NET to stream data back to IIS in smaller chunks to minimize memory usage en route. Unfortunately this also makes it a more difficult to implement any filtering routines since you don’t directly get access to all of the response content which is problematic especially if those filtering routines require you to look at the ENTIRE response in order to transform or capture the output as is needed for the solution the gentleman in my session asked for. So in order to address this a slightly different approach is required that basically captures all the Write() buffers passed into a cached stream and then making the stream available only when it’s complete and ready to be flushed. As I was thinking about the implementation I also started thinking about the few instances when I’ve used Response.Filter implementations. Each time I had to create a new Stream subclass and create my custom functionality but in the end each implementation did the same thing – capturing output and transforming it. I thought there should be an easier way to do this by creating a re-usable Stream class that can handle stream transformations that are common to Response.Filter implementations. Creating a semi-generic Response Filter Stream Class What I ended up with is a ResponseFilterStream class that provides a handful of Events that allow you to capture and/or transform Response content. The class implements a subclass of Stream and then overrides Write() and Flush() to handle capturing and transformation operations. By exposing events it’s easy to hook up capture or transformation operations via single focused methods. ResponseFilterStream exposes the following events: CaptureStream, CaptureString Captures the output only and provides either a MemoryStream or String with the final page output. Capture is hooked to the Flush() operation of the stream. TransformStream, TransformString Allows you to transform the complete response output with events that receive a MemoryStream or String respectively and can you modify the output then return it back as a return value. The transformed output is then written back out in a single chunk to the response output stream. These events capture all output internally first then write the entire buffer into the response. TransformWrite, TransformWriteString Allows you to transform the Response data as it is written in its original chunk size in the Stream’s Write() method. Unlike TransformStream/TransformString which operate on the complete output, these events only see the current chunk of data written. This is more efficient as there’s no caching involved, but can cause problems due to searched content splitting over multiple chunks. Using this implementation, creating a custom Response.Filter transformation becomes as simple as the following code. To hook up the Response.Filter using the MemoryStream version event: ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformStream += filter_TransformStream; Response.Filter = filter; and the event handler to do the transformation: MemoryStream filter_TransformStream(MemoryStream ms) { Encoding encoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding; string output = encoding.GetString(ms.ToArray()); output = FixPaths(output); ms = new MemoryStream(output.Length); byte[] buffer = encoding.GetBytes(output); ms.Write(buffer,0,buffer.Length); return ms; } private string FixPaths(string output) { string path = HttpContext.Current.Request.ApplicationPath; // override root path wonkiness if (path == "/") path = ""; output = output.Replace("\"~/", "\"" + path + "/").Replace("'~/", "'" + path + "/"); return output; } The idea of the event handler is that you can do whatever you want to the stream and return back a stream – either the same one that’s been modified or a brand new one – which is then sent back to as the final response. The above code can be simplified even more by using the string version events which handle the stream to string conversions for you: ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformString += filter_TransformString; Response.Filter = filter; and the event handler to do the transformation calling the same FixPaths method shown above: string filter_TransformString(string output) { return FixPaths(output); } The events for capturing output and capturing and transforming chunks work in a very similar way. By using events to handle the transformations ResponseFilterStream becomes a reusable component and we don’t have to create a new stream class or subclass an existing Stream based classed. By the way, the example used here is kind of a cool trick which transforms “~/” expressions inside of the final generated HTML output – even in plain HTML controls not HTML controls – and transforms them into the appropriate application relative path in the same way that ResolveUrl would do. So you can write plain old HTML like this: <a href=”~/default.aspx”>Home</a>  and have it turned into: <a href=”/myVirtual/default.aspx”>Home</a>  without having to use an ASP.NET control like Hyperlink or Image or having to constantly use: <img src=”<%= ResolveUrl(“~/images/home.gif”) %>” /> in MVC applications (which frankly is one of the most annoying things about MVC especially given the path hell that extension-less and endpoint-less URLs impose). I can’t take credit for this idea. While discussing the Response.Filter issues on Twitter a hint from Dylan Beattie who pointed me at one of his examples which does something similar. I thought the idea was cool enough to use an example for future demos of Response.Filter functionality in ASP.NET next I time I do the Modules and Handlers talk (which was great fun BTW). How practical this is is debatable however since there’s definitely some overhead to using a Response.Filter in general and especially on one that caches the output and the re-writes it later. Make sure to test for performance anytime you use Response.Filter hookup and make sure it' doesn’t end up killing perf on you. You’ve been warned :-}. How does ResponseFilterStream work? The big win of this implementation IMHO is that it’s a reusable  component – so for implementation there’s no new class, no subclassing – you simply attach to an event to implement an event handler method with a straight forward signature to retrieve the stream or string you’re interested in. The implementation is based on a subclass of Stream as is required in order to handle the Response.Filter requirements. What’s different than other implementations I’ve seen in various places is that it supports capturing output as a whole to allow retrieving the full response output for capture or modification. The exception are the TransformWrite and TransformWrite events which operate only active chunk of data written by the Response. For captured output, the Write() method captures output into an internal MemoryStream that is cached until writing is complete. So Write() is called when ASP.NET writes to the Response stream, but the filter doesn’t pass on the Write immediately to the filter’s internal stream. The data is cached and only when the Flush() method is called to finalize the Stream’s output do we actually send the cached stream off for transformation (if the events are hooked up) and THEN finally write out the returned content in one big chunk. Here’s the implementation of ResponseFilterStream: /// <summary> /// A semi-generic Stream implementation for Response.Filter with /// an event interface for handling Content transformations via /// Stream or String. /// <remarks> /// Use with care for large output as this implementation copies /// the output into a memory stream and so increases memory usage. /// </remarks> /// </summary> public class ResponseFilterStream : Stream { /// <summary> /// The original stream /// </summary> Stream _stream; /// <summary> /// Current position in the original stream /// </summary> long _position; /// <summary> /// Stream that original content is read into /// and then passed to TransformStream function /// </summary> MemoryStream _cacheStream = new MemoryStream(5000); /// <summary> /// Internal pointer that that keeps track of the size /// of the cacheStream /// </summary> int _cachePointer = 0; /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="responseStream"></param> public ResponseFilterStream(Stream responseStream) { _stream = responseStream; } /// <summary> /// Determines whether the stream is captured /// </summary> private bool IsCaptured { get { if (CaptureStream != null || CaptureString != null || TransformStream != null || TransformString != null) return true; return false; } } /// <summary> /// Determines whether the Write method is outputting data immediately /// or delaying output until Flush() is fired. /// </summary> private bool IsOutputDelayed { get { if (TransformStream != null || TransformString != null) return true; return false; } } /// <summary> /// Event that captures Response output and makes it available /// as a MemoryStream instance. Output is captured but won't /// affect Response output. /// </summary> public event Action<MemoryStream> CaptureStream; /// <summary> /// Event that captures Response output and makes it available /// as a string. Output is captured but won't affect Response output. /// </summary> public event Action<string> CaptureString; /// <summary> /// Event that allows you transform the stream as each chunk of /// the output is written in the Write() operation of the stream. /// This means that that it's possible/likely that the input /// buffer will not contain the full response output but only /// one of potentially many chunks. /// /// This event is called as part of the filter stream's Write() /// operation. /// </summary> public event Func<byte[], byte[]> TransformWrite; /// <summary> /// Event that allows you to transform the response stream as /// each chunk of bytep[] output is written during the stream's write /// operation. This means it's possibly/likely that the string /// passed to the handler only contains a portion of the full /// output. Typical buffer chunks are around 16k a piece. /// /// This event is called as part of the stream's Write operation. /// </summary> public event Func<string, string> TransformWriteString; /// <summary> /// This event allows capturing and transformation of the entire /// output stream by caching all write operations and delaying final /// response output until Flush() is called on the stream. /// </summary> public event Func<MemoryStream, MemoryStream> TransformStream; /// <summary> /// Event that can be hooked up to handle Response.Filter /// Transformation. Passed a string that you can modify and /// return back as a return value. The modified content /// will become the final output. /// </summary> public event Func<string, string> TransformString; protected virtual void OnCaptureStream(MemoryStream ms) { if (CaptureStream != null) CaptureStream(ms); } private void OnCaptureStringInternal(MemoryStream ms) { if (CaptureString != null) { string content = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding.GetString(ms.ToArray()); OnCaptureString(content); } } protected virtual void OnCaptureString(string output) { if (CaptureString != null) CaptureString(output); } protected virtual byte[] OnTransformWrite(byte[] buffer) { if (TransformWrite != null) return TransformWrite(buffer); return buffer; } private byte[] OnTransformWriteStringInternal(byte[] buffer) { Encoding encoding = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding; string output = OnTransformWriteString(encoding.GetString(buffer)); return encoding.GetBytes(output); } private string OnTransformWriteString(string value) { if (TransformWriteString != null) return TransformWriteString(value); return value; } protected virtual MemoryStream OnTransformCompleteStream(MemoryStream ms) { if (TransformStream != null) return TransformStream(ms); return ms; } /// <summary> /// Allows transforming of strings /// /// Note this handler is internal and not meant to be overridden /// as the TransformString Event has to be hooked up in order /// for this handler to even fire to avoid the overhead of string /// conversion on every pass through. /// </summary> /// <param name="responseText"></param> /// <returns></returns> private string OnTransformCompleteString(string responseText) { if (TransformString != null) TransformString(responseText); return responseText; } /// <summary> /// Wrapper method form OnTransformString that handles /// stream to string and vice versa conversions /// </summary> /// <param name="ms"></param> /// <returns></returns> internal MemoryStream OnTransformCompleteStringInternal(MemoryStream ms) { if (TransformString == null) return ms; //string content = ms.GetAsString(); string content = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding.GetString(ms.ToArray()); content = TransformString(content); byte[] buffer = HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentEncoding.GetBytes(content); ms = new MemoryStream(); ms.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length); //ms.WriteString(content); return ms; } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override bool CanRead { get { return true; } } public override bool CanSeek { get { return true; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override bool CanWrite { get { return true; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override long Length { get { return 0; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override long Position { get { return _position; } set { _position = value; } } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="offset"></param> /// <param name="direction"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override long Seek(long offset, System.IO.SeekOrigin direction) { return _stream.Seek(offset, direction); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="length"></param> public override void SetLength(long length) { _stream.SetLength(length); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public override void Close() { _stream.Close(); } /// <summary> /// Override flush by writing out the cached stream data /// </summary> public override void Flush() { if (IsCaptured && _cacheStream.Length > 0) { // Check for transform implementations _cacheStream = OnTransformCompleteStream(_cacheStream); _cacheStream = OnTransformCompleteStringInternal(_cacheStream); OnCaptureStream(_cacheStream); OnCaptureStringInternal(_cacheStream); // write the stream back out if output was delayed if (IsOutputDelayed) _stream.Write(_cacheStream.ToArray(), 0, (int)_cacheStream.Length); // Clear the cache once we've written it out _cacheStream.SetLength(0); } // default flush behavior _stream.Flush(); } /// <summary> /// /// </summary> /// <param name="buffer"></param> /// <param name="offset"></param> /// <param name="count"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override int Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) { return _stream.Read(buffer, offset, count); } /// <summary> /// Overriden to capture output written by ASP.NET and captured /// into a cached stream that is written out later when Flush() /// is called. /// </summary> /// <param name="buffer"></param> /// <param name="offset"></param> /// <param name="count"></param> public override void Write(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) { if ( IsCaptured ) { // copy to holding buffer only - we'll write out later _cacheStream.Write(buffer, 0, count); _cachePointer += count; } // just transform this buffer if (TransformWrite != null) buffer = OnTransformWrite(buffer); if (TransformWriteString != null) buffer = OnTransformWriteStringInternal(buffer); if (!IsOutputDelayed) _stream.Write(buffer, offset, buffer.Length); } } The key features are the events and corresponding OnXXX methods that handle the event hookups, and the Write() and Flush() methods of the stream implementation. All the rest of the members tend to be plain jane passthrough stream implementation code without much consequence. I do love the way Action<t> and Func<T> make it so easy to create the event signatures for the various events – sweet. A few Things to consider Performance Response.Filter is not great for performance in general as it adds another layer of indirection to the ASP.NET output pipeline, and this implementation in particular adds a memory hit as it basically duplicates the response output into the cached memory stream which is necessary since you may have to look at the entire response. If you have large pages in particular this can cause potentially serious memory pressure in your server application. So be careful of wholesale adoption of this (or other) Response.Filters. Make sure to do some performance testing to ensure it’s not killing your app’s performance. Response.Filter works everywhere A few questions came up in comments and discussion as to capturing ALL output hitting the site and – yes you can definitely do that by assigning a Response.Filter inside of a module. If you do this however you’ll want to be very careful and decide which content you actually want to capture especially in IIS 7 which passes ALL content – including static images/CSS etc. through the ASP.NET pipeline. So it is important to filter only on what you’re looking for – like the page extension or maybe more effectively the Response.ContentType. Response.Filter Chaining Originally I thought that filter chaining doesn’t work at all due to a bug in the stream implementation code. But it’s quite possible to assign multiple filters to the Response.Filter property. So the following actually works to both compress the output and apply the transformed content: WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformString += filter_TransformString; Response.Filter = filter; However the following does not work resulting in invalid content encoding errors: ResponseFilterStream filter = new ResponseFilterStream(Response.Filter); filter.TransformString += filter_TransformString; Response.Filter = filter; WebUtils.GZipEncodePage(); In other words multiple Response filters can work together but it depends entirely on the implementation whether they can be chained or in which order they can be chained. In this case running the GZip/Deflate stream filters apparently relies on the original content length of the output and chokes when the content is modified. But if attaching the compression first it works fine as unintuitive as that may seem. Resources Download example code Capture Output from ASP.NET Pages © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET  

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• value types in the vm

  - by john.rose

  value types in the vm p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p5 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Courier} p.p6 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Courier; min-height: 17.0px} p.p7 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p8 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p9 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p10 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; color: #000000} li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} li.li7 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} span.s1 {font: 14.0px Courier} span.s2 {color: #000000} span.s3 {font: 14.0px Courier; color: #000000} ol.ol1 {list-style-type: decimal} Or, enduring values for a changing world. Introduction A value type is a data type which, generally speaking, is designed for being passed by value in and out of methods, and stored by value in data structures. The only value types which the Java language directly supports are the eight primitive types. Java indirectly and approximately supports value types, if they are implemented in terms of classes. For example, both Integer and String may be viewed as value types, especially if their usage is restricted to avoid operations appropriate to Object. In this note, we propose a definition of value types in terms of a design pattern for Java classes, accompanied by a set of usage restrictions. We also sketch the relation of such value types to tuple types (which are a JVM-level notion), and point out JVM optimizations that can apply to value types. This note is a thought experiment to extend the JVM’s performance model in support of value types. The demonstration has two phases.  Initially the extension can simply use design patterns, within the current bytecode architecture, and in today’s Java language. But if the performance model is to be realized in practice, it will probably require new JVM bytecode features, changes to the Java language, or both.  We will look at a few possibilities for these new features. An Axiom of Value In the context of the JVM, a value type is a data type equipped with construction, assignment, and equality operations, and a set of typed components, such that, whenever two variables of the value type produce equal corresponding values for their components, the values of the two variables cannot be distinguished by any JVM operation. Here are some corollaries: A value type is immutable, since otherwise a copy could be constructed and the original could be modified in one of its components, allowing the copies to be distinguished. Changing the component of a value type requires construction of a new value. The equals and hashCode operations are strictly component-wise. If a value type is represented by a JVM reference, that reference cannot be successfully synchronized on, and cannot be usefully compared for reference equality. A value type can be viewed in terms of what it doesn’t do. We can say that a value type omits all value-unsafe operations, which could violate the constraints on value types.  These operations, which are ordinarily allowed for Java object types, are pointer equality comparison (the acmp instruction), synchronization (the monitor instructions), all the wait and notify methods of class Object, and non-trivial finalize methods. The clone method is also value-unsafe, although for value types it could be treated as the identity function. Finally, and most importantly, any side effect on an object (however visible) also counts as an value-unsafe operation. A value type may have methods, but such methods must not change the components of the value. It is reasonable and useful to define methods like toString, equals, and hashCode on value types, and also methods which are specifically valuable to users of the value type. Representations of Value Value types have two natural representations in the JVM, unboxed and boxed. An unboxed value consists of the components, as simple variables. For example, the complex number x=(1+2i), in rectangular coordinate form, may be represented in unboxed form by the following pair of variables: /*Complex x = Complex.valueOf(1.0, 2.0):*/ double x_re = 1.0, x_im = 2.0; These variables might be locals, parameters, or fields. Their association as components of a single value is not defined to the JVM. Here is a sample computation which computes the norm of the difference between two complex numbers: double distance(/*Complex x:*/ double x_re, double x_im,         /*Complex y:*/ double y_re, double y_im) {     /*Complex z = x.minus(y):*/     double z_re = x_re - y_re, z_im = x_im - y_im;     /*return z.abs():*/     return Math.sqrt(z_re*z_re + z_im*z_im); } A boxed representation groups component values under a single object reference. The reference is to a ‘wrapper class’ that carries the component values in its fields. (A primitive type can naturally be equated with a trivial value type with just one component of that type. In that view, the wrapper class Integer can serve as a boxed representation of value type int.) The unboxed representation of complex numbers is practical for many uses, but it fails to cover several major use cases: return values, array elements, and generic APIs. The two components of a complex number cannot be directly returned from a Java function, since Java does not support multiple return values. The same story applies to array elements: Java has no ’array of structs’ feature. (Double-length arrays are a possible workaround for complex numbers, but not for value types with heterogeneous components.) By generic APIs I mean both those which use generic types, like Arrays.asList and those which have special case support for primitive types, like String.valueOf and PrintStream.println. Those APIs do not support unboxed values, and offer some problems to boxed values. Any ’real’ JVM type should have a story for returns, arrays, and API interoperability. The basic problem here is that value types fall between primitive types and object types. Value types are clearly more complex than primitive types, and object types are slightly too complicated. Objects are a little bit dangerous to use as value carriers, since object references can be compared for pointer equality, and can be synchronized on. Also, as many Java programmers have observed, there is often a performance cost to using wrapper objects, even on modern JVMs. Even so, wrapper classes are a good starting point for talking about value types. If there were a set of structural rules and restrictions which would prevent value-unsafe operations on value types, wrapper classes would provide a good notation for defining value types. This note attempts to define such rules and restrictions. Let’s Start Coding Now it is time to look at some real code. Here is a definition, written in Java, of a complex number value type. @ValueSafe public final class Complex implements java.io.Serializable {     // immutable component structure:     public final double re, im;     private Complex(double re, double im) {         this.re = re; this.im = im;     }     // interoperability methods:     public String toString() { return "Complex("+re+","+im+")"; }     public List<Double> asList() { return Arrays.asList(re, im); }     public boolean equals(Complex c) {         return re == c.re && im == c.im;     }     public boolean equals(@ValueSafe Object x) {         return x instanceof Complex && equals((Complex) x);     }     public int hashCode() {         return 31*Double.valueOf(re).hashCode()                 + Double.valueOf(im).hashCode();     }     // factory methods:     public static Complex valueOf(double re, double im) {         return new Complex(re, im);     }     public Complex changeRe(double re2) { return valueOf(re2, im); }     public Complex changeIm(double im2) { return valueOf(re, im2); }     public static Complex cast(@ValueSafe Object x) {         return x == null ? ZERO : (Complex) x;     }     // utility methods and constants:     public Complex plus(Complex c)  { return new Complex(re+c.re, im+c.im); }     public Complex minus(Complex c) { return new Complex(re-c.re, im-c.im); }     public double abs() { return Math.sqrt(re*re + im*im); }     public static final Complex PI = valueOf(Math.PI, 0.0);     public static final Complex ZERO = valueOf(0.0, 0.0); } This is not a minimal definition, because it includes some utility methods and other optional parts.  The essential elements are as follows: The class is marked as a value type with an annotation. The class is final, because it does not make sense to create subclasses of value types. The fields of the class are all non-private and final.  (I.e., the type is immutable and structurally transparent.) From the supertype Object, all public non-final methods are overridden. The constructor is private. Beyond these bare essentials, we can observe the following features in this example, which are likely to be typical of all value types: One or more factory methods are responsible for value creation, including a component-wise valueOf method. There are utility methods for complex arithmetic and instance creation, such as plus and changeIm. There are static utility constants, such as PI. The type is serializable, using the default mechanisms. There are methods for converting to and from dynamically typed references, such as asList and cast. The Rules In order to use value types properly, the programmer must avoid value-unsafe operations.  A helpful Java compiler should issue errors (or at least warnings) for code which provably applies value-unsafe operations, and should issue warnings for code which might be correct but does not provably avoid value-unsafe operations.  No such compilers exist today, but to simplify our account here, we will pretend that they do exist. A value-safe type is any class, interface, or type parameter marked with the @ValueSafe annotation, or any subtype of a value-safe type.  If a value-safe class is marked final, it is in fact a value type.  All other value-safe classes must be abstract.  The non-static fields of a value class must be non-public and final, and all its constructors must be private. Under the above rules, a standard interface could be helpful to define value types like Complex.  Here is an example: @ValueSafe public interface ValueType extends java.io.Serializable {     // All methods listed here must get redefined.     // Definitions must be value-safe, which means     // they may depend on component values only.     List<? extends Object> asList();     int hashCode();     boolean equals(@ValueSafe Object c);     String toString(); } //@ValueSafe inherited from supertype: public final class Complex implements ValueType { … The main advantage of such a conventional interface is that (unlike an annotation) it is reified in the runtime type system.  It could appear as an element type or parameter bound, for facilities which are designed to work on value types only.  More broadly, it might assist the JVM to perform dynamic enforcement of the rules for value types. Besides types, the annotation @ValueSafe can mark fields, parameters, local variables, and methods.  (This is redundant when the type is also value-safe, but may be useful when the type is Object or another supertype of a value type.)  Working forward from these annotations, an expression E is defined as value-safe if it satisfies one or more of the following: The type of E is a value-safe type. E names a field, parameter, or local variable whose declaration is marked @ValueSafe. E is a call to a method whose declaration is marked @ValueSafe. E is an assignment to a value-safe variable, field reference, or array reference. E is a cast to a value-safe type from a value-safe expression. E is a conditional expression E0 ? E1 : E2, and both E1 and E2 are value-safe. Assignments to value-safe expressions and initializations of value-safe names must take their values from value-safe expressions. A value-safe expression may not be the subject of a value-unsafe operation.  In particular, it cannot be synchronized on, nor can it be compared with the “==” operator, not even with a null or with another value-safe type. In a program where all of these rules are followed, no value-type value will be subject to a value-unsafe operation.  Thus, the prime axiom of value types will be satisfied, that no two value type will be distinguishable as long as their component values are equal. More Code To illustrate these rules, here are some usage examples for Complex: Complex pi = Complex.valueOf(Math.PI, 0); Complex zero = pi.changeRe(0);  //zero = pi; zero.re = 0; ValueType vtype = pi; @SuppressWarnings("value-unsafe")   Object obj = pi; @ValueSafe Object obj2 = pi; obj2 = new Object();  // ok List<Complex> clist = new ArrayList<Complex>(); clist.add(pi);  // (ok assuming List.add param is @ValueSafe) List<ValueType> vlist = new ArrayList<ValueType>(); vlist.add(pi);  // (ok) List<Object> olist = new ArrayList<Object>(); olist.add(pi);  // warning: "value-unsafe" boolean z = pi.equals(zero); boolean z1 = (pi == zero);  // error: reference comparison on value type boolean z2 = (pi == null);  // error: reference comparison on value type boolean z3 = (pi == obj2);  // error: reference comparison on value type synchronized (pi) { }  // error: synch of value, unpredictable result synchronized (obj2) { }  // unpredictable result Complex qq = pi; qq = null;  // possible NPE; warning: “null-unsafe" qq = (Complex) obj;  // warning: “null-unsafe" qq = Complex.cast(obj);  // OK @SuppressWarnings("null-unsafe")   Complex empty = null;  // possible NPE qq = empty;  // possible NPE (null pollution) The Payoffs It follows from this that either the JVM or the java compiler can replace boxed value-type values with unboxed ones, without affecting normal computations.  Fields and variables of value types can be split into their unboxed components.  Non-static methods on value types can be transformed into static methods which take the components as value parameters. Some common questions arise around this point in any discussion of value types. Why burden the programmer with all these extra rules?  Why not detect programs automagically and perform unboxing transparently?  The answer is that it is easy to break the rules accidently unless they are agreed to by the programmer and enforced.  Automatic unboxing optimizations are tantalizing but (so far) unreachable ideal.  In the current state of the art, it is possible exhibit benchmarks in which automatic unboxing provides the desired effects, but it is not possible to provide a JVM with a performance model that assures the programmer when unboxing will occur.  This is why I’m writing this note, to enlist help from, and provide assurances to, the programmer.  Basically, I’m shooting for a good set of user-supplied “pragmas” to frame the desired optimization. Again, the important thing is that the unboxing must be done reliably, or else programmers will have no reason to work with the extra complexity of the value-safety rules.  There must be a reasonably stable performance model, wherein using a value type has approximately the same performance characteristics as writing the unboxed components as separate Java variables. There are some rough corners to the present scheme.  Since Java fields and array elements are initialized to null, value-type computations which incorporate uninitialized variables can produce null pointer exceptions.  One workaround for this is to require such variables to be null-tested, and the result replaced with a suitable all-zero value of the value type.  That is what the “cast” method does above. Generically typed APIs like List<T> will continue to manipulate boxed values always, at least until we figure out how to do reification of generic type instances.  Use of such APIs will elicit warnings until their type parameters (and/or relevant members) are annotated or typed as value-safe.  Retrofitting List<T> is likely to expose flaws in the present scheme, which we will need to engineer around.  Here are a couple of first approaches: public interface java.util.List<@ValueSafe T> extends Collection<T> { … public interface java.util.List<T extends Object|ValueType> extends Collection<T> { … (The second approach would require disjunctive types, in which value-safety is “contagious” from the constituent types.) With more transformations, the return value types of methods can also be unboxed.  This may require significant bytecode-level transformations, and would work best in the presence of a bytecode representation for multiple value groups, which I have proposed elsewhere under the title “Tuples in the VM”. But for starters, the JVM can apply this transformation under the covers, to internally compiled methods.  This would give a way to express multiple return values and structured return values, which is a significant pain-point for Java programmers, especially those who work with low-level structure types favored by modern vector and graphics processors.  The lack of multiple return values has a strong distorting effect on many Java APIs. Even if the JVM fails to unbox a value, there is still potential benefit to the value type.  Clustered computing systems something have copy operations (serialization or something similar) which apply implicitly to command operands.  When copying JVM objects, it is extremely helpful to know when an object’s identity is important or not.  If an object reference is a copied operand, the system may have to create a proxy handle which points back to the original object, so that side effects are visible.  Proxies must be managed carefully, and this can be expensive.  On the other hand, value types are exactly those types which a JVM can “copy and forget” with no downside. Array types are crucial to bulk data interfaces.  (As data sizes and rates increase, bulk data becomes more important than scalar data, so arrays are definitely accompanying us into the future of computing.)  Value types are very helpful for adding structure to bulk data, so a successful value type mechanism will make it easier for us to express richer forms of bulk data. Unboxing arrays (i.e., arrays containing unboxed values) will provide better cache and memory density, and more direct data movement within clustered or heterogeneous computing systems.  They require the deepest transformations, relative to today’s JVM.  There is an impedance mismatch between value-type arrays and Java’s covariant array typing, so compromises will need to be struck with existing Java semantics.  It is probably worth the effort, since arrays of unboxed value types are inherently more memory-efficient than standard Java arrays, which rely on dependent pointer chains. It may be sufficient to extend the “value-safe” concept to array declarations, and allow low-level transformations to change value-safe array declarations from the standard boxed form into an unboxed tuple-based form.  Such value-safe arrays would not be convertible to Object[] arrays.  Certain connection points, such as Arrays.copyOf and System.arraycopy might need additional input/output combinations, to allow smooth conversion between arrays with boxed and unboxed elements. Alternatively, the correct solution may have to wait until we have enough reification of generic types, and enough operator overloading, to enable an overhaul of Java arrays. Implicit Method Definitions The example of class Complex above may be unattractively complex.  I believe most or all of the elements of the example class are required by the logic of value types. If this is true, a programmer who writes a value type will have to write lots of error-prone boilerplate code.  On the other hand, I think nearly all of the code (except for the domain-specific parts like plus and minus) can be implicitly generated. Java has a rule for implicitly defining a class’s constructor, if no it defines no constructors explicitly.  Likewise, there are rules for providing default access modifiers for interface members.  Because of the highly regular structure of value types, it might be reasonable to perform similar implicit transformations on value types.  Here’s an example of a “highly implicit” definition of a complex number type: public class Complex implements ValueType {  // implicitly final     public double re, im;  // implicitly public final     //implicit methods are defined elementwise from te fields:     //  toString, asList, equals(2), hashCode, valueOf, cast     //optionally, explicit methods (plus, abs, etc.) would go here } In other words, with the right defaults, a simple value type definition can be a one-liner.  The observant reader will have noticed the similarities (and suitable differences) between the explicit methods above and the corresponding methods for List<T>. Another way to abbreviate such a class would be to make an annotation the primary trigger of the functionality, and to add the interface(s) implicitly: public @ValueType class Complex { … // implicitly final, implements ValueType (But to me it seems better to communicate the “magic” via an interface, even if it is rooted in an annotation.) Implicitly Defined Value Types So far we have been working with nominal value types, which is to say that the sequence of typed components is associated with a name and additional methods that convey the intention of the programmer.  A simple ordered pair of floating point numbers can be variously interpreted as (to name a few possibilities) a rectangular or polar complex number or Cartesian point.  The name and the methods convey the intended meaning. But what if we need a truly simple ordered pair of floating point numbers, without any further conceptual baggage?  Perhaps we are writing a method (like “divideAndRemainder”) which naturally returns a pair of numbers instead of a single number.  Wrapping the pair of numbers in a nominal type (like “QuotientAndRemainder”) makes as little sense as wrapping a single return value in a nominal type (like “Quotient”).  What we need here are structural value types commonly known as tuples. For the present discussion, let us assign a conventional, JVM-friendly name to tuples, roughly as follows: public class java.lang.tuple.$DD extends java.lang.tuple.Tuple {      double $1, $2; } Here the component names are fixed and all the required methods are defined implicitly.  The supertype is an abstract class which has suitable shared declarations.  The name itself mentions a JVM-style method parameter descriptor, which may be “cracked” to determine the number and types of the component fields. The odd thing about such a tuple type (and structural types in general) is it must be instantiated lazily, in response to linkage requests from one or more classes that need it.  The JVM and/or its class loaders must be prepared to spin a tuple type on demand, given a simple name reference, $xyz, where the xyz is cracked into a series of component types.  (Specifics of naming and name mangling need some tasteful engineering.) Tuples also seem to demand, even more than nominal types, some support from the language.  (This is probably because notations for non-nominal types work best as combinations of punctuation and type names, rather than named constructors like Function3 or Tuple2.)  At a minimum, languages with tuples usually (I think) have some sort of simple bracket notation for creating tuples, and a corresponding pattern-matching syntax (or “destructuring bind”) for taking tuples apart, at least when they are parameter lists.  Designing such a syntax is no simple thing, because it ought to play well with nominal value types, and also with pre-existing Java features, such as method parameter lists, implicit conversions, generic types, and reflection.  That is a task for another day. Other Use Cases Besides complex numbers and simple tuples there are many use cases for value types.  Many tuple-like types have natural value-type representations. These include rational numbers, point locations and pixel colors, and various kinds of dates and addresses. Other types have a variable-length ‘tail’ of internal values. The most common example of this is String, which is (mathematically) a sequence of UTF-16 character values. Similarly, bit vectors, multiple-precision numbers, and polynomials are composed of sequences of values. Such types include, in their representation, a reference to a variable-sized data structure (often an array) which (somehow) represents the sequence of values. The value type may also include ’header’ information. Variable-sized values often have a length distribution which favors short lengths. In that case, the design of the value type can make the first few values in the sequence be direct ’header’ fields of the value type. In the common case where the header is enough to represent the whole value, the tail can be a shared null value, or even just a null reference. Note that the tail need not be an immutable object, as long as the header type encapsulates it well enough. This is the case with String, where the tail is a mutable (but never mutated) character array. Field types and their order must be a globally visible part of the API.  The structure of the value type must be transparent enough to have a globally consistent unboxed representation, so that all callers and callees agree about the type and order of components  that appear as parameters, return types, and array elements.  This is a trade-off between efficiency and encapsulation, which is forced on us when we remove an indirection enjoyed by boxed representations.  A JVM-only transformation would not care about such visibility, but a bytecode transformation would need to take care that (say) the components of complex numbers would not get swapped after a redefinition of Complex and a partial recompile.  Perhaps constant pool references to value types need to declare the field order as assumed by each API user. This brings up the delicate status of private fields in a value type.  It must always be possible to load, store, and copy value types as coordinated groups, and the JVM performs those movements by moving individual scalar values between locals and stack.  If a component field is not public, what is to prevent hostile code from plucking it out of the tuple using a rogue aload or astore instruction?  Nothing but the verifier, so we may need to give it more smarts, so that it treats value types as inseparable groups of stack slots or locals (something like long or double). My initial thought was to make the fields always public, which would make the security problem moot.  But public is not always the right answer; consider the case of String, where the underlying mutable character array must be encapsulated to prevent security holes.  I believe we can win back both sides of the tradeoff, by training the verifier never to split up the components in an unboxed value.  Just as the verifier encapsulates the two halves of a 64-bit primitive, it can encapsulate the the header and body of an unboxed String, so that no code other than that of class String itself can take apart the values. Similar to String, we could build an efficient multi-precision decimal type along these lines: public final class DecimalValue extends ValueType {     protected final long header;     protected private final BigInteger digits;     public DecimalValue valueOf(int value, int scale) {         assert(scale >= 0);         return new DecimalValue(((long)value << 32) + scale, null);     }     public DecimalValue valueOf(long value, int scale) {         if (value == (int) value)             return valueOf((int)value, scale);         return new DecimalValue(-scale, new BigInteger(value));     } } Values of this type would be passed between methods as two machine words. Small values (those with a significand which fits into 32 bits) would be represented without any heap data at all, unless the DecimalValue itself were boxed. (Note the tension between encapsulation and unboxing in this case.  It would be better if the header and digits fields were private, but depending on where the unboxing information must “leak”, it is probably safer to make a public revelation of the internal structure.) Note that, although an array of Complex can be faked with a double-length array of double, there is no easy way to fake an array of unboxed DecimalValues.  (Either an array of boxed values or a transposed pair of homogeneous arrays would be reasonable fallbacks, in a current JVM.)  Getting the full benefit of unboxing and arrays will require some new JVM magic. Although the JVM emphasizes portability, system dependent code will benefit from using machine-level types larger than 64 bits.  For example, the back end of a linear algebra package might benefit from value types like Float4 which map to stock vector types.  This is probably only worthwhile if the unboxing arrays can be packed with such values. More Daydreams A more finely-divided design for dynamic enforcement of value safety could feature separate marker interfaces for each invariant.  An empty marker interface Unsynchronizable could cause suitable exceptions for monitor instructions on objects in marked classes.  More radically, a Interchangeable marker interface could cause JVM primitives that are sensitive to object identity to raise exceptions; the strangest result would be that the acmp instruction would have to be specified as raising an exception. @ValueSafe public interface ValueType extends java.io.Serializable,         Unsynchronizable, Interchangeable { … public class Complex implements ValueType {     // inherits Serializable, Unsynchronizable, Interchangeable, @ValueSafe     … It seems possible that Integer and the other wrapper types could be retro-fitted as value-safe types.  This is a major change, since wrapper objects would be unsynchronizable and their references interchangeable.  It is likely that code which violates value-safety for wrapper types exists but is uncommon.  It is less plausible to retro-fit String, since the prominent operation String.intern is often used with value-unsafe code. We should also reconsider the distinction between boxed and unboxed values in code.  The design presented above obscures that distinction.  As another thought experiment, we could imagine making a first class distinction in the type system between boxed and unboxed representations.  Since only primitive types are named with a lower-case initial letter, we could define that the capitalized version of a value type name always refers to the boxed representation, while the initial lower-case variant always refers to boxed.  For example: complex pi = complex.valueOf(Math.PI, 0); Complex boxPi = pi;  // convert to boxed myList.add(boxPi); complex z = myList.get(0);  // unbox Such a convention could perhaps absorb the current difference between int and Integer, double and Double. It might also allow the programmer to express a helpful distinction among array types. As said above, array types are crucial to bulk data interfaces, but are limited in the JVM.  Extending arrays beyond the present limitations is worth thinking about; for example, the Maxine JVM implementation has a hybrid object/array type.  Something like this which can also accommodate value type components seems worthwhile.  On the other hand, does it make sense for value types to contain short arrays?  And why should random-access arrays be the end of our design process, when bulk data is often sequentially accessed, and it might make sense to have heterogeneous streams of data as the natural “jumbo” data structure.  These considerations must wait for another day and another note. More Work It seems to me that a good sequence for introducing such value types would be as follows: Add the value-safety restrictions to an experimental version of javac. Code some sample applications with value types, including Complex and DecimalValue. Create an experimental JVM which internally unboxes value types but does not require new bytecodes to do so.  Ensure the feasibility of the performance model for the sample applications. Add tuple-like bytecodes (with or without generic type reification) to a major revision of the JVM, and teach the Java compiler to switch in the new bytecodes without code changes. A staggered roll-out like this would decouple language changes from bytecode changes, which is always a convenient thing. A similar investigation should be applied (concurrently) to array types.  In this case, it seems to me that the starting point is in the JVM: Add an experimental unboxing array data structure to a production JVM, perhaps along the lines of Maxine hybrids.  No bytecode or language support is required at first; everything can be done with encapsulated unsafe operations and/or method handles. Create an experimental JVM which internally unboxes value types but does not require new bytecodes to do so.  Ensure the feasibility of the performance model for the sample applications. Add tuple-like bytecodes (with or without generic type reification) to a major revision of the JVM, and teach the Java compiler to switch in the new bytecodes without code changes. That’s enough musing me for now.  Back to work!

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• Multiple database with Spring+Hibernate+JPA

  - by ziftech

  Hi everybody! I'm trying to configure Spring+Hibernate+JPA for work with two databases (MySQL and MSSQL) my datasource-context.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.5.xsd" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"> <!-- Data Source config --> <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close" p:driverClassName="${local.jdbc.driver}" p:url="${local.jdbc.url}" p:username="${local.jdbc.username}" p:password="${local.jdbc.password}"> </bean> <bean id="dataSourceRemote" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close" p:driverClassName="${remote.jdbc.driver}" p:url="${remote.jdbc.url}" p:username="${remote.jdbc.username}" p:password="${remote.jdbc.password}" /> <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager" p:entity-manager-factory-ref="entityManagerFactory" /> <!-- JPA config --> <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="transactionManager" /> <bean id="persistenceUnitManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.persistenceunit.DefaultPersistenceUnitManager"> <property name="persistenceXmlLocations"> <list value-type="java.lang.String"> <value>classpath*:config/persistence.local.xml</value> <value>classpath*:config/persistence.remote.xml</value> </list> </property> <property name="dataSources"> <map> <entry key="localDataSource" value-ref="dataSource" /> <entry key="remoteDataSource" value-ref="dataSourceRemote" /> </map> </property> <property name="defaultDataSource" ref="dataSource" /> </bean> <bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean"> <property name="jpaVendorAdapter"> <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter" p:showSql="true" p:generateDdl="true"> </bean> </property> <property name="persistenceUnitManager" ref="persistenceUnitManager" /> <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="localjpa"/> </bean> <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor" /> </beans> each persistence.xml contains one unit, like this: <persistence-unit name="remote" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL"> <properties> <property name="hibernate.ejb.naming_strategy" value="org.hibernate.cfg.DefaultNamingStrategy" /> <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="${remote.hibernate.dialect}" /> <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="${remote.hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto}" /> </properties> </persistence-unit> PersistenceUnitManager cause following exception: Cannot resolve reference to bean 'persistenceUnitManager' while setting bean property 'persistenceUnitManager'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'persistenceUnitManager' defined in class path resource [config/datasource-context.xml]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.TypeMismatchException: Failed to convert property value of type [java.util.ArrayList] to required type [java.lang.String] for property 'persistenceXmlLocation'; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot convert value of type [java.util.ArrayList] to required type [java.lang.String] for property 'persistenceXmlLocation': no matching editors or conversion strategy found If left only one persistence.xml without list, every works fine but I need 2 units... I also try to find alternative solution for work with two databases in Spring+Hibernate context, so I would appreciate any solution new error after changing to persistenceXmlLocations No single default persistence unit defined in {classpath:config/persistence.local.xml, classpath:config/persistence.remote.xml} UPDATE: I add persistenceUnitName, it works, but only with one unit, still need help UPDATE: thanks, ChssPly76 I changed config files: datasource-context.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:aop="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util-2.5.xsd" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p" xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util"> <bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close" p:driverClassName="${local.jdbc.driver}" p:url="${local.jdbc.url}" p:username="${local.jdbc.username}" p:password="${local.jdbc.password}"> </bean> <bean id="dataSourceRemote" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource" destroy-method="close" p:driverClassName="${remote.jdbc.driver}" p:url="${remote.jdbc.url}" p:username="${remote.jdbc.username}" p:password="${remote.jdbc.password}"> </bean> <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.support.PersistenceAnnotationBeanPostProcessor"> <property name="defaultPersistenceUnitName" value="pu1" /> </bean> <bean id="persistenceUnitManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.persistenceunit.DefaultPersistenceUnitManager"> <property name="persistenceXmlLocation" value="${persistence.xml.location}" /> <property name="defaultDataSource" ref="dataSource" /> <!-- problem --> <property name="dataSources"> <map> <entry key="local" value-ref="dataSource" /> <entry key="remote" value-ref="dataSourceRemote" /> </map> </property> </bean> <bean id="entityManagerFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean"> <property name="jpaVendorAdapter"> <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter" p:showSql="true" p:generateDdl="true"> </bean> </property> <property name="persistenceUnitManager" ref="persistenceUnitManager" /> <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="pu1" /> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /> </bean> <bean id="entityManagerFactoryRemote" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean"> <property name="jpaVendorAdapter"> <bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.vendor.HibernateJpaVendorAdapter" p:showSql="true" p:generateDdl="true"> </bean> </property> <property name="persistenceUnitManager" ref="persistenceUnitManager" /> <property name="persistenceUnitName" value="pu2" /> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSourceRemote" /> </bean> <tx:annotation-driven /> <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager" p:entity-manager-factory-ref="entityManagerFactory" /> <bean id="transactionManagerRemote" class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager" p:entity-manager-factory-ref="entityManagerFactoryRemote" /> </beans> persistence.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_1_0.xsd" version="1.0"> <persistence-unit name="pu1" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL"> <properties> <property name="hibernate.ejb.naming_strategy" value="org.hibernate.cfg.DefaultNamingStrategy" /> <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="${local.hibernate.dialect}" /> <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="${local.hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto}" /> </properties> </persistence-unit> <persistence-unit name="pu2" transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL"> <properties> <property name="hibernate.ejb.naming_strategy" value="org.hibernate.cfg.DefaultNamingStrategy" /> <property name="hibernate.dialect" value="${remote.hibernate.dialect}" /> <property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="${remote.hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto}" /> </properties> </persistence-unit> </persistence> Now it builds two entityManagerFactory, but both are for Microsoft SQL Server [main] INFO org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration - Processing PersistenceUnitInfo [ name: pu1 ...] [main] INFO org.hibernate.cfg.SettingsFactory - RDBMS: Microsoft SQL Server [main] INFO org.hibernate.ejb.Ejb3Configuration - Processing PersistenceUnitInfo [ name: pu2 ...] [main] INFO org.hibernate.cfg.SettingsFactory - RDBMS: Microsoft SQL Server (but must MySQL) I suggest, that use only dataSource, dataSourceRemote (no substitution) is not worked. That's my last problem

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• Decompiling a *.DLL to assembly for .net in delphi 4

  - by Lex Dean

  I love my Delphi 4 but at the same time I see the need to talk to windows .net This is a recompiled dll that I found on sourceforge.net/projects/delphinet/ (DelphiNet03.zip) by some nice people that fund the dll from some were. The real answer is to make this dll so that fits into Delphi as true Delphi code, and not a dll clip on. So we can make objects that use dot net in Delphi. Because I’m not an assembly freak, I’m freaking out a little with a wee sweek for help! 1/ How do I link the asm code with the data info at the bottom of this code. Can some one show me which calls to look for to make this link to data. 2/ I need to find the beginning of all the procedures and functions, but I cannot find a ‘RET’ statement. And what line is the beginning statement in this code. 3/ How do I identify were the jump statements go to, put them into Delphi format In this code it looks I can do:- jle 402890h \1000:00402854 7e3a add [eax], al \1000:00402856 0000 …………………………………………….. or ch, [edi+3eh] \1000:0040288d 0a6f3e xrefs first: 1000:00402854 number : 1 \; add [eax], al \1000:00402890 0000 //******************************* jle @@21 \\1000:00402854 7e3a add [eax], al \\1000:00402856 0000 …………………………………………….. or ch, [edi+3eh] \1000:0040288d 0a6f3e xrefs first: 1000:00402854 number : 1 \; @@21 add [eax], al \1000:00402890 0000 Is that a correct conversion. I think a xrefs first: 1000:004021d1 number : 1 is the best to follow 4/ I need a good reference on 8086 up assembly code that I can print out and get to learn properly. I found this asm decomplier of http://www.cronos.cc/ that is so similar to Delphi that it only needs a little more convertion to get it into Delphi asm I think. It’s only taken me 3 hours to get the file into TMemo and to write a few lines to chop the line over in a stream and reload the memo. Help please Email: [email protected] xrefs first: 1000:004041ae number : 1 \\; dd 4190h \\1000:00402000 90410000 dd 00h \\1000:00402004 00000000 dec eax \\1000:00402008 48 add [eax], al \\1000:00402009 0000 add [edx], al \\1000:0040200b 0002 add [eax], al \\1000:0040200d 0000 add [eax-2bffffd2h], al \\1000:0040200f 00802e0000d4 adc al, [eax] \\1000:00402015 1200 add [ecx], al \\1000:00402017 0001 add [eax], al \\1000:00402019 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040201b 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040201d 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040201f 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402021 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402023 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402025 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402027 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402029 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040202b 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040202d 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040202f 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402031 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402033 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402035 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402037 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402039 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040203b 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040203d 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040203f 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402041 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402043 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402045 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402047 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:00402049 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040204b 0000 add [eax], al \\1000:0040204d 0000 add [ebx], dl \\1000:0040204f 0013 xor [eax+eax], al \\1000:00402051 300400 or al, [ecx] \\1000:00402054 0a01 add [eax], al \\1000:00402056 0000 add [eax], eax \\1000:00402058 0100 add [ecx], dl \\1000:0040205a 0011 push cs \\1000:0040205c 0e add al, 50h \\1000:0040205d 0450 mov gs, [ecx+05h] \\1000:0040205f 8e6905 push eax \\1000:00402062 50 mov gs, [ecx+2eh] \\1000:00402063 8e692e add eax, f938h \\1000:00402066 0538f90000 add [ebx], al \\1000:0040206b 0003 jc 402070h \\1000:0040206d 7201 add [eax], al \\1000:0040206f 0000 jo 40209bh \\1000:00402071 7028 add al, [eax] \\1000:00402073 0200 add [edx], cl \\1000:00402075 000a sub eax, 36f0408h \\1000:00402077 2d08046f03 add [eax], al \\1000:0040207c 0000 or ch, [ebx] \\1000:0040207e 0a2b push es \\1000:00402080 06 add al, 6fh \\1000:00402081 046f add al, 00h \\1000:00402083 0400 add [edx], cl \\1000:00402085 000a adc eax, [edi] \\1000:00402087 1307 push ss \\1000:00402089 16 adc ecx, [eax] \\1000:0040208a 1308 cmp cl, cl \\1000:0040208c 38c9 add [eax], al \\1000:0040208e 0000 add [ecx], dl \\1000:00402090 0011 pop es \\1000:00402092 07 adc [eax], ecx \\1000:00402093 1108 callf 056f:060a9a08h \\1000:00402095 9a0a066f05 add [eax], al \\1000:0040209a 0000 or cl, [ebx] \\1000:0040209c 0a0b push es \\1000:0040209e 06 outsd \\1000:0040209f 6f push es \\1000:004020a0 06 add [eax], al \\1000:004020a1 0000 or al, [ebx] \\1000:004020a3 0a03 sub [edx], al \\1000:004020a5 2802 add [eax], al \\1000:004020a7 0000 or bh, [ecx] \\1000:004020a9 0a39 movsd \\1000:004020ab a5 add [eax], al \\1000:004020ac 0000 add [edi], al \\1000:004020ae 0007 mov gs, [ecx+0eh] \\1000:004020b0 8e690e add al, 50h \\1000:004020b3 0450 mov gs, [ecx+40h] \\1000:004020b5 8e6940 cwde \\1000:004020b8 98 add [eax], al \\1000:004020b9 0000 add [edi], dl \\1000:004020bb 0017 or al, 16h \\1000:004020bd 0c16 or eax, 9072b2bh \\1000:004020bf 0d2b2b0709 callf 0000:076f9a09h \\1000:004020c4 9a6f070000 or ch, [edi+08h] \\1000:004020c9 0a6f08 add [eax], al \\1000:004020cc 0000 or ch, [eax+ebx] \\1000:004020ce 0a2c18 push cs \\1000:004020d1 0e add al, 50h \\1000:004020d2 0450 or [edx+d72h], ebx \\1000:004020d4 099a720d0000 jo 402104h \\1000:004020da 7028 or [eax], eax \\1000:004020dc 0900 add [edx], cl \\1000:004020de 000a add dl, cs:[esi] \\1000:004020e0 2e0216 or al, 08h \\1000:004020e3 0c08 sub eax, 90c2b02h \\1000:004020e5 2d022b0c09 pop ss \\1000:004020ea 17 pop eax \\1000:004020eb 58 or eax, 50040e09h \\1000:004020ec 0d090e0450 mov gs, [ecx+32h] \\1000:004020f1 8e6932 int 08h \\1000:004020f4 cd08 sub al, 5ch \\1000:004020f6 2c5c push ss \\1000:004020f8 16 adc eax, [ebx+ebp] \\1000:004020f9 13042b dec esi \\1000:004020fc 4e push cs \\1000:004020fd 0e add al, 50h \\1000:004020fe 0450 adc [edx+ebx*4], eax \\1000:00402100 11049a jc 402112h \\1000:00402103 720d add [eax], al \\1000:00402105 0000 jo 402131h \\1000:00402107 7028 or [eax], eax \\1000:00402109 0900 add [edx], cl \\1000:0040210b 000a xor esi, [esi] \\1000:0040210d 3336 pop es \\1000:0040210f 07 adc [edx+ebx*4], eax \\1000:00402110 11049a outsd \\1000:00402113 6f pop es \\1000:00402114 07 add [eax], al \\1000:00402115 0000 or ch, [edi+0ah] \\1000:00402117 0a6f0a add [eax], al \\1000:0040211a 0000 or dl, [ebx] \\1000:0040211c 0a13 push es \\1000:0040211e 06 add eax, 9a041150h \\1000:0040211f 055011049a sub [ebx], cl \\1000:00402124 280b add [eax], al \\1000:00402126 0000 or dl, [edx] \\1000:00402128 0a12 push es \\1000:0040212a 06 adc al, [c28h] \\1000:0040212b 1205280c0000 xrefs first: 1000:00402107 number : 1 \\; or ch, [edx+eax] \\1000:00402131 0a2c02 sub ebx, [esi] \\1000:00402134 2b1e push cs \\1000:00402136 0e add al, 50h \\1000:00402137 0450 adc [edi+eax], eax \\1000:00402139 110407 adc [edx+ebx*4], eax \\1000:0040213c 11049a outsd \\1000:0040213f 6f pop es \\1000:00402140 07 add [eax], al \\1000:00402141 0000 or ah, [edx+58170411h] \\1000:00402143 0aa211041758 adc eax, [ecx+edx] \\1000:00402149 130411 add al, 0eh \\1000:0040214c 040e add al, 50h \\1000:0040214e 0450 mov gs, [ecx+32h] \\1000:00402150 8e6932 test eax, 58170811h \\1000:00402153 a911081758 adc ecx, [eax] \\1000:00402158 1308 adc [eax], ecx \\1000:0040215a 1108 adc [edi], eax \\1000:0040215c 1107 mov gs, [ecx+3fh] \\1000:0040215e 8e693f sub al, ffh \\1000:00402161 2cff db ff \\1000:00402163 ff jmp [edx] \\1000:00402164 ff2a add [eax], al \\1000:00402166 0000 adc esi, [eax] \\1000:00402168 1330 add eax, 8100h \\1000:0040216a 0500810000 add [edx], al \\1000:0040216f 0002 add [eax], al \\1000:00402171 0000 adc [edx+esi*2], eax \\1000:00402173 110472 xor eax, [eax] \\1000:00402176 3300 add [eax+28h], dh \\1000:00402178 007028 add al, [eax] \\1000:0040217b 0200 add [edx], cl \\1000:0040217d 000a sub al, 09h \\1000:0040217f 2c09 add ebp, [eax] \\1000:00402181 0328 or eax, a0a0000h \\1000:00402183 0d00000a0a sub eax, [edi] \\1000:00402188 2b07 add al, 28h \\1000:0040218a 0428 push cs \\1000:0040218c 0e add [eax], al \\1000:0040218d 0000 or cl, [edx] \\1000:0040218f 0a0a push es \\1000:00402191 06 add eax, f6f1717h \\1000:00402192 0517176f0f add [eax], al \\1000:00402197 0000 or cl, [ebx] \\1000:00402199 0a0b push ss \\1000:0040219b 16 lea eax, [edx] \\1000:0040219c 8d02 add [eax], al \\1000:0040219e 0000 add [esi+ecx], ecx \\1000:004021a0 010c0e add al, 2ch \\1000:004021a3 042c push cs \\1000:004021a5 260e add al, 8eh \\1000:004021a7 048e c160d imul edi, [eax+28dh], d160c01h \\1000:004021a9 69b88d020000010c sub edx, [eax] \\1000:004021b3 2b10 or [ecx], cl \\1000:004021b5 0809 push cs \\1000:004021b7 0e add al, 09h \\1000:004021b8 0409 callf 0000:106f9a09h \\1000:004021ba 9a6f100000 or ah, [edx+d581709h] \\1000:004021bf 0aa20917580d or [esi], ecx \\1000:004021c5 090e add al, 8eh \\1000:004021c7 048e imul esi, [edx], 17202e9h \\1000:004021c9 6932e9027201 add [eax], al \\1000:004021cf 0000 jo 4021dah \\1000:004021d1 7007 db 0f \\1000:004021d3 0f add al, 12h \\1000:004021d4 0412 add ch, [eax] \\1000:004021d6 0228 add [eax], eax \\1000:004021d8 0100 xrefs first: 1000:004021d1 number : 1 \\; add [esi], al \\1000:004021da 0006 pop es \\1000:004021dc 07 or [edi+11h], ch \\1000:004021dd 086f11 add [eax], al \\1000:004021e0 0000 or dl, [ebx] \\1000:004021e2 0a13 add al, 11h \\1000:004021e4 0411 add al, 0eh \\1000:004021e6 040e add al, 6fh \\1000:004021e8 046f adc al, [eax] \\1000:004021ea 1200 add [edx], cl \\1000:004021ec 000a adc eax, [511002bh] \\1000:004021ee 13052b001105 sub al, [eax] \\1000:004021f4 2a00 add [eax], al \\1000:004021f6 0000 adc esi, [eax] \\1000:004021f8 1330 add eax, 4e00h \\1000:004021fa 05004e0000 add [ebx], al \\1000:004021ff 0003 add [eax], al \\1000:00402201 0000 adc [ebx], eax \\1000:00402203 1103 outsd \\1000:00402205 6f adc [eax], al \\1000:00402206 1000 add [edx], cl \\1000:00402208 000a or al, [8db8698eh] \\1000:0040220a 0a058e69b88d add al, [eax] \\1000:00402210 0200 add [ecx], al \\1000:00402212 0001 or edx, [esi] \\1000:00402214 0b16 or al, 2bh \\1000:00402216 0c2b db 0f \\1000:00402218 0f pop es \\1000:00402219 07 or [106f9a08h], al \\1000:0040221a 0805089a6f10 add [eax], al \\1000:00402220 0000 or ah, [edx+c581708h] \\1000:00402222 0aa20817580c or [eb32698eh], al \\1000:00402228 08058e6932eb add al, [esi+eax] \\1000:0040222e 020406 lsl edx, [edx] \\1000:00402231 0f0312 add [eax], ebp \\1000:00402234 0128 add [eax], eax \\1000:00402236 0100 add [esi], al \\1000:00402238 0006 push es \\1000:0040223a 06 add al, 07h \\1000:0040223b 0407 outsd \\1000:0040223d 6f adc eax, [eax] \\1000:0040223e 1300 add [edx], cl \\1000:00402240 000a or eax, 6f050309h \\1000:00402242 0d0903056f adc al, 00h \\1000:00402247 1400 add [edx], cl \\1000:00402249 000a adc eax, [ebx+ebp] \\1000:0040224b 13042b add [ecx], dl \\1000:0040224e 0011 add al, 2ah \\1000:00402250 042a add [eax], al \\1000:00402252 0000 adc esi, [eax] \\1000:00402254 1330 add eax, 7600h \\1000:00402256 0500760000 add [eax+eax], al \\1000:0040225b 000400 add [ecx], dl \\1000:0040225e 0011 add al, 72h \\1000:00402260 0472 xor eax, [eax] \\1000:00402262 3300 add [eax+28h], dh \\1000:00402264 007028 add al, [eax] \\1000:00402267 0200 add [edx], cl \\1000:00402269 000a sub al, 09h \\1000:0040226b 2c09 add ebp, [eax] \\1000:0040226d 0328 or eax, a0a0000h \\1000:0040226f 0d00000a0a sub eax, [edi] \\1000:00402274 2b07 add al, 28h \\1000:00402276 0428 push cs \\1000:00402278 0e add [eax], al \\1000:00402279 0000 or cl, [edx] \\1000:0040227b 0a0a push es \\1000:0040227d 06 add eax, f6f1717h \\1000:0040227e 0517176f0f add [eax], al \\1000:00402283 0000 or cl, [ebx] \\1000:00402285 0a0b push cs \\1000:00402287 0e add eax, 8db8698eh \\1000:00402288 058e69b88d add al, [eax] \\1000:0040228d 0200 add [ecx], al \\1000:0040228f 0001 or al, 16h \\1000:00402291 0c16 or eax, 908102bh \\1000:00402293 0d2b100809 push cs \\1000:00402298 0e add eax, 106f9a09h \\1000:00402299 05099a6f10 add [eax], al \\1000:0040229e 0000 or ah, [edx+d581709h] \\1000:004022a0 0aa20917580d or [esi], ecx \\1000:004022a6 090e add eax, e932698eh \\1000:004022a8 058e6932e9 add cl, [esi] \\1000:004022ad 020e add al, 07h \\1000:004022af 0407 db 0f \\1000:004022b1 0f add eax, 1280212h \\1000:004022b2 0512022801 add [eax], al \\1000:004022b7 0000 push es \\1000:004022b9 06 pop es \\1000:004022ba 07 push cs \\1000:004022bb 0e add al, 08h \\1000:004022bc 0408 outsd \\1000:004022be 6f adc eax, [eax] \\1000:004022bf 1300 add [edx], cl \\1000:004022c1 000a adc eax, [ecx+edx] \\1000:004022c3 130411 add al, 14h \\1000:004022c6 0414 push cs \\1000:004022c8 0e add eax, 146fh \\1000:004022c9 056f140000 or dl, [ebx] \\1000:004022ce 0a13 add eax, 511002bh \\1000:004022d0 052b001105 sub al, [eax] \\1000:004022d5 2a00 add [ebx], dl \\1000:004022d7 0013 xor [eax+eax], al \\1000:004022d9 300400 jbe 4022deh \\1000:004022dc 7600 xrefs first: 1000:004022dc number : 1 \\; add fs:[esi+45h], cl \\1000:004034fc 64004e45 push esp \\1000:00403500 54 dec ecx \\1000:00403501 49 xrefs first: 1000:004034b2 number : 1 \\; outsb \\1000:00403502 6e jbe 403574h \\1000:00403503 766f imul esp, [ebp+43h], 6ch \\1000:00403505 6b65436c popad \\1000:00403509 61 jnc 40357fh \\1000:0040350a 7373 dec ebp \\1000:0040350c 4d jz 403578h \\1000:0040350d 657468 outsd \\1000:00403510 6f add fs:[esi+45h], cl \\1000:00403511 64004e45 push esp \\1000:00403515 54 push ebx \\1000:00403516 53 jz 40355fh \\1000:00403517 657445 outsb \\1000:0040351a 6e jnz 40358ah \\1000:0040351b 756d push esi \\1000:0040351d 56 xrefs first: 1000:004034b7 number : 1 \\; popad \\1000:0040351e 61 insb \\1000:0040351f 6c jnz 403587h \\1000:00403520 7565 add [esi+45h], cl \\1000:00403522 004e45 push esp \\1000:00403525 54 inc edi \\1000:00403526 47 db 65 ;'e' \\1000:00403527 65 xrefs first: 1000:004034be number : 1 \\; db 74 ;'t' \\1000:00403528 74 db 50 ;'p' \\1000:00403529 50 db 72 ;'r' \\1000:0040352a 72 db 6f ;'o' \\1000:0040352b 6f db 70 ;'p' \\1000:0040352c 70 db 65 ;'e' \\1000:0040352d 65 db 72 ;'r' \\1000:0040352e 72 db 74 ;'t' \\1000:0040352f 74 db 79 ;'y' \\1000:00403530 79 db 00 \\1000:00403531 00 db 4e ;'n' \\1000:00403532 4e db 45 ;'e' \\1000:00403533 45 db 54 ;'t' \\1000:00403534 54 db 47 ;'g' \\1000:00403535 47 db 65 ;'e' \\1000:00403536 65 db 74 ;'t' \\1000:00403537 74 db 46 ;'f' \\1000:00403538 46 db 69 ;'i' \\1000:00403539 69 db 65 ;'e' \\1000:0040353a 65 db 6c ;'l' \\1000:0040353b 6c db 64 ;'d' \\1000:0040353c 64 db 00 \\1000:0040353d 00 could not fit the rest in because of Stack overflow limitions

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• Slowdowns when reading from an urlconnection's inputstream (even with byte[] and buffers)

  - by user342677

  Ok so after spending two days trying to figure out the problem, and reading about dizillion articles, i finally decided to man up and ask to for some advice(my first time here). Now to the issue at hand - I am writing a program which will parse api data from a game, namely battle logs. There will be A LOT of entries in the database(20+ million) and so the parsing speed for each battle log page matters quite a bit. The pages to be parsed look like this: http://api.erepublik.com/v1/feeds/battle_logs/10000/0. (see source code if using chrome, it doesnt display the page right). It has 1000 hit entries, followed by a little battle info(lastpage will have <1000 obviously). On average, a page contains 175000 characters, UTF-8 encoding, xml format(v 1.0). Program will run locally on a good PC, memory is virtually unlimited(so that creating byte[250000] is quite ok). The format never changes, which is quite convenient. Now, I started off as usual: //global vars,class declaration skipped public WebObject(String url_string, int connection_timeout, int read_timeout, boolean redirects_allowed, String user_agent) throws java.net.MalformedURLException, java.io.IOException { // Open a URL connection java.net.URL url = new java.net.URL(url_string); java.net.URLConnection uconn = url.openConnection(); if (!(uconn instanceof java.net.HttpURLConnection)) { throw new java.lang.IllegalArgumentException("URL protocol must be HTTP"); } conn = (java.net.HttpURLConnection) uconn; conn.setConnectTimeout(connection_timeout); conn.setReadTimeout(read_timeout); conn.setInstanceFollowRedirects(redirects_allowed); conn.setRequestProperty("User-agent", user_agent); } public void executeConnection() throws IOException { try { is = conn.getInputStream(); //global var l = conn.getContentLength(); //global var } catch (Exception e) { //handling code skipped } } //getContentStream and getLength methods which just return'is' and 'l' are skipped Here is where the fun part began. I ran some profiling (using System.currentTimeMillis()) to find out what takes long ,and what doesnt. The call to this method takes only 200ms on avg public InputStream getWebPageAsStream(int battle_id, int page) throws Exception { String url = "http://api.erepublik.com/v1/feeds/battle_logs/" + battle_id + "/" + page; WebObject wobj = new WebObject(url, 10000, 10000, true, "Mozilla/5.0 " + "(Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.3) Gecko/20100401 Firefox/3.6.3 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729)"); wobj.executeConnection(); l = wobj.getContentLength(); // global variable return wobj.getContentStream(); //returns 'is' stream } 200ms is quite expected from a network operation, and i am fine with it. BUT when i parse the inputStream in any way(read it into string/use java XML parser/read it into another ByteArrayStream) the process takes over 1000ms! for example, this code takes 1000ms IF i pass the stream i got('is') above from getContentStream() directly to this method: public static Document convertToXML(InputStream is) throws ParserConfigurationException, IOException, SAXException { DocumentBuilderFactory dbf = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance(); DocumentBuilder db = dbf.newDocumentBuilder(); Document doc = db.parse(is); doc.getDocumentElement().normalize(); return doc; } this code too, takes around 920ms IF the initial InputStream 'is' is passed in(dont read into the code itself - it just extracts the data i need by directly counting the characters, which can be done thanks to the rigid api feed format): public static parsedBattlePage convertBattleToXMLWithoutDOM(InputStream is) throws IOException { // Point A BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is)); LinkedList ll = new LinkedList(); String str = br.readLine(); while (str != null) { ll.add(str); str = br.readLine(); } if (((String) ll.get(1)).indexOf("error") != -1) { return new parsedBattlePage(null, null, true, -1); } //Point B Iterator it = ll.iterator(); it.next(); it.next(); it.next(); it.next(); String[][] hits_arr = new String[1000][4]; String t_str = (String) it.next(); String tmp = null; int j = 0; for (int i = 0; t_str.indexOf("time") != -1; i++) { hits_arr[i][0] = t_str.substring(12, t_str.length() - 11); tmp = (String) it.next(); hits_arr[i][1] = tmp.substring(14, tmp.length() - 9); tmp = (String) it.next(); hits_arr[i][2] = tmp.substring(15, tmp.length() - 10); tmp = (String) it.next(); hits_arr[i][3] = tmp.substring(18, tmp.length() - 13); it.next(); it.next(); t_str = (String) it.next(); j++; } String[] b_info_arr = new String[9]; int[] space_nums = {13, 10, 13, 11, 11, 12, 5, 10, 13}; for (int i = 0; i < space_nums.length; i++) { tmp = (String) it.next(); b_info_arr[i] = tmp.substring(space_nums[i] + 4, tmp.length() - space_nums[i] - 1); } //Point C return new parsedBattlePage(hits_arr, b_info_arr, false, j); } I have tried replacing the default BufferedReader with BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(is), 250000); This didnt change much. My second try was to replace the code between A and B with: Iterator it = IOUtils.lineIterator(is, "UTF-8"); Same result, except this time A-B was 0ms, and B-C was 1000ms, so then every call to it.next() must have been consuming some significant time.(IOUtils is from apache-commons-io library). And here is the culprit - the time taken to parse the stream to string, be it by an iterator or BufferedReader in ALL cases was about 1000ms, while the rest of the code took 0ms(e.g. irrelevant). This means that parsing the stream to LinkedList, or iterating over it, for some reason was eating up a lot of my system resources. question was - why? Is it just the way java is made...no...thats just stupid, so I did another experiment. In my main method I added after the getWebPageAsStream(): //Point A ba = new byte[l]; // 'l' comes from wobj.getContentLength above bytesRead = is.read(ba); //'is' is our URLConnection original InputStream offset = bytesRead; while (bytesRead != -1) { bytesRead = is.read(ba, offset - 1, l - offset); offset += bytesRead; } //Point B InputStream is2 = new ByteArrayInputStream(ba); //Now just working with 'is2' - the "copied" stream The InputStream-byte[] conversion took again 1000ms - this is the way many ppl suggested to read an InputStream, and stil it is slow. And guess what - the 2 parser methods above (convertToXML() and convertBattlePagetoXMLWithoutDOM(), when passed 'is2' instead of 'is' took, in all 4 cases, under 50ms to complete. I read a suggestion that the stream waits for connection to close before unblocking, so i tried using HttpComponentsClient 4.0 (http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client/index.html) instead, but the initial InputStream took just as long to parse. e.g. this code: public InputStream getWebPageAsStream2(int battle_id, int page) throws Exception { String url = "http://api.erepublik.com/v1/feeds/battle_logs/" + battle_id + "/" + page; HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(); HttpGet httpget = new HttpGet(url); HttpParams p = new BasicHttpParams(); HttpConnectionParams.setSocketBufferSize(p, 250000); HttpConnectionParams.setStaleCheckingEnabled(p, false); HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(p, 5000); httpget.setParams(p); HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpget); HttpEntity entity = response.getEntity(); l = (int) entity.getContentLength(); return entity.getContent(); } took even longer to process(50ms more for just the network) and the stream parsing times remained the same. Obviously it can be instantiated so as to not create HttpClient and properties every time(faster network time), but the stream issue wont be affected by that. So we come to the center problem - why does the initial URLConnection InputStream(or HttpClient InputStream) take so long to process, while any stream of same size and content created locally is orders of magnitude faster? I mean, the initial response is already somewhere in RAM, and I cant see any good reasong why it is processed so slowly compared to when a same stream is just created from a byte[]. Considering I have to parse million of entries and thousands of pages like that, a total processing time of almost 1.5s/page seems WAY WAY too long. Any ideas? P.S. Please ask in any more code is required - the only thing I do after parsing is make a PreparedStatement and put the entries into JavaDB in packs of 1000+, and the perfomance is ok ~ 200ms/1000entries, prb could be optimized with more cache but I didnt look into it much.

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• Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

  - by raul.goycoolea

  @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Abstract   Reference architecture provides needed architectural information that can be provided in advance to an enterprise to enable consistent architectural best practices. Enterprise Reference Architecture helps business owners to actualize their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. It evaluates the IT systems, based on Reference Architecture goals, principles, and standards. It helps to reduce IT costs by increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc. Telecom Reference Architecture provides customers with the flexibility to view bundled service bills online with the provision of multiple services. It provides real-time, flexible billing and charging systems, to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Enterprises. It lays the foundation for a Telecom Reference Architecture by articulating the requirements, drivers, and pitfalls for telecom service providers. It describes generic reference architecture for telecom enterprises and moves on to explain how to achieve Enterprise Reference Architecture by using SOA.   Introduction   A Reference Architecture provides a methodology, set of practices, template, and standards based on a set of successful solutions implemented earlier. These solutions have been generalized and structured for the depiction of both a logical and a physical architecture, based on the harvesting of a set of patterns that describe observations in a number of successful implementations. It helps as a reference for the various architectures that an enterprise can implement to solve various problems. It can be used as the starting point or the point of comparisons for various departments/business entities of a company, or for the various companies for an enterprise. It provides multiple views for multiple stakeholders.   Major artifacts of the Enterprise Reference Architecture are methodologies, standards, metadata, documents, design patterns, etc.   Purpose of Reference Architecture   In most cases, architects spend a lot of time researching, investigating, defining, and re-arguing architectural decisions. It is like reinventing the wheel as their peers in other organizations or even the same organization have already spent a lot of time and effort defining their own architectural practices. This prevents an organization from learning from its own experiences and applying that knowledge for increased effectiveness.   Reference architecture provides missing architectural information that can be provided in advance to project team members to enable consistent architectural best practices.   Enterprise Reference Architecture helps an enterprise to achieve the following at the abstract level:   ·       Reference architecture is more of a communication channel to an enterprise ·       Helps the business owners to accommodate to their strategies, vision, objectives, and principles. ·       Evaluates the IT systems based on Reference Architecture Principles ·       Reduces IT spending through increasing functionality, availability, scalability, etc ·       A Real-time Integration Model helps to reduce the latency of the data updates Is used to define a single source of Information ·       Provides a clear view on how to manage information and security ·       Defines the policy around the data ownership, product boundaries, etc. ·       Helps with cost optimization across project and solution portfolios by eliminating unused or duplicate investments and assets ·       Has a shorter implementation time and cost   Once the reference architecture is in place, the set of architectural principles, standards, reference models, and best practices ensure that the aligned investments have the greatest possible likelihood of success in both the near term and the long term (TCO).     Common pitfalls for Telecom Service Providers   Telecom Reference Architecture serves as the first step towards maturity for a telecom service provider. During the course of our assignments/experiences with telecom players, we have come across the following observations – Some of these indicate a lack of maturity of the telecom service provider:   ·       In markets that are growing and not so mature, it has been observed that telcos have a significant amount of in-house or home-grown applications. In some of these markets, the growth has been so rapid that IT has been unable to cope with business demands. Telcos have shown a tendency to come up with workarounds in their IT applications so as to meet business needs. ·       Even for core functions like provisioning or mediation, some telcos have tried to manage with home-grown applications. ·       Most of the applications do not have the required scalability or maintainability to sustain growth in volumes or functionality. ·       Applications face interoperability issues with other applications in the operator's landscape. Integrating a new application or network element requires considerable effort on the part of the other applications. ·       Application boundaries are not clear, and functionality that is not in the initial scope of that application gets pushed onto it. This results in the development of the multiple, small applications without proper boundaries. ·       Usage of Legacy OSS/BSS systems, poor Integration across Multiple COTS Products and Internal Systems. Most of the Integrations are developed on ad-hoc basis and Point-to-Point Integration. ·       Redundancy of the business functions in different applications • Fragmented data across the different applications and no integrated view of the strategic data • Lot of performance Issues due to the usage of the complex integration across OSS and BSS systems   However, this is where the maturity of the telecom industry as a whole can be of help. The collaborative efforts of telcos to overcome some of these problems have resulted in bodies like the TM Forum. They have come up with frameworks for business processes, data, applications, and technology for telecom service providers. These could be a good starting point for telcos to clean up their enterprise landscape.   Industry Trends in Telecom Reference Architecture   Telecom reference architectures are evolving rapidly because telcos are facing business and IT challenges.   “The reality is that there probably is no killer application, no silver bullet that the telcos can latch onto to carry them into a 21st Century.... Instead, there are probably hundreds – perhaps thousands – of niche applications.... And the only way to find which of these works for you is to try out lots of them, ramp up the ones that work, and discontinue the ones that fail.” – Martin Creaner President & CTO TM Forum.   The following trends have been observed in telecom reference architecture:   ·       Transformation of business structures to align with customer requirements ·       Adoption of more Internet-like technical architectures. The Web 2.0 concept is increasingly being used. ·       Virtualization of the traditional operations support system (OSS) ·       Adoption of SOA to support development of IP-based services ·       Adoption of frameworks like Service Delivery Platforms (SDPs) and IP Multimedia Subsystem ·       (IMS) to enable seamless deployment of various services over fixed and mobile networks ·       Replacement of in-house, customized, and stove-piped OSS/BSS with standards-based COTS products ·       Compliance with industry standards and frameworks like eTOM, SID, and TAM to enable seamless integration with other standards-based products   Drivers of Reference Architecture   The drivers of the Reference Architecture are Reference Architecture Goals, Principles, and Enterprise Vision and Telecom Transformation. The details are depicted below diagram. @font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } Figure 1. Drivers for Reference Architecture @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Today’s telecom reference architectures should seamlessly integrate traditional legacy-based applications and transition to next-generation network technologies (e.g., IP multimedia subsystems). This has resulted in new requirements for flexible, real-time billing and OSS/BSS systems and implications on the service provider’s organizational requirements and structure.   Telecom reference architectures are today expected to:   ·       Integrate voice, messaging, email and other VAS over fixed and mobile networks, back end systems ·       Be able to provision multiple services and service bundles • Deliver converged voice, video and data services ·       Leverage the existing Network Infrastructure ·       Provide real-time, flexible billing and charging systems to handle complex promotions, discounts, and settlements with multiple parties. ·       Support charging of advanced data services such as VoIP, On-Demand, Services (e.g.  Video), IMS/SIP Services, Mobile Money, Content Services and IPTV. ·       Help in faster deployment of new services • Serve as an effective platform for collaboration between network IT and business organizations ·       Harness the potential of converging technology, networks, devices and content to develop multimedia services and solutions of ever-increasing sophistication on a single Internet Protocol (IP) ·       Ensure better service delivery and zero revenue leakage through real-time balance and credit management ·       Lower operating costs to drive profitability   Enterprise Reference Architecture   The Enterprise Reference Architecture (RA) fills the gap between the concepts and vocabulary defined by the reference model and the implementation. Reference architecture provides detailed architectural information in a common format such that solutions can be repeatedly designed and deployed in a consistent, high-quality, supportable fashion. This paper attempts to describe the Reference Architecture for the Telecom Application Usage and how to achieve the Enterprise Level Reference Architecture using SOA.   • Telecom Reference Architecture • Enterprise SOA based Reference Architecture   Telecom Reference Architecture   Tele Management Forum’s New Generation Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) is an architectural framework for organizing, integrating, and implementing telecom systems. NGOSS is a component-based framework consisting of the following elements:   ·       The enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) is a business process framework. ·       The Shared Information Data (SID) model provides a comprehensive information framework that may be specialized for the needs of a particular organization. ·       The Telecom Application Map (TAM) is an application framework to depict the functional footprint of applications, relative to the horizontal processes within eTOM. ·       The Technology Neutral Architecture (TNA) is an integrated framework. TNA is an architecture that is sustainable through technology changes.   NGOSS Architecture Standards are:   ·       Centralized data ·       Loosely coupled distributed systems ·       Application components/re-use  ·       A technology-neutral system framework with technology specific implementations ·       Interoperability to service provider data/processes ·       Allows more re-use of business components across multiple business scenarios ·       Workflow automation   The traditional operator systems architecture consists of four layers,   ·       Business Support System (BSS) layer, with focus toward customers and business partners. Manages order, subscriber, pricing, rating, and billing information. ·       Operations Support System (OSS) layer, built around product, service, and resource inventories. ·       Networks layer – consists of Network elements and 3rd Party Systems. ·       Integration Layer – to maximize application communication and overall solution flexibility.   Reference architecture for telecom enterprises is depicted below. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 2. Telecom Reference Architecture   The major building blocks of any Telecom Service Provider architecture are as follows:   1. Customer Relationship Management   CRM encompasses the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer: customer initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering, and service activation, customer care and support, proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell, and retention/loyalty.   CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its application to personalize, customize, and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise.   The key functionalities related to Customer Relationship Management are   ·       Manage the end-to-end lifecycle of a customer request for products. ·       Create and manage customer profiles. ·       Manage all interactions with customers – inquiries, requests, and responses. ·       Provide updates to Billing and other south bound systems on customer/account related updates such as customer/ account creation, deletion, modification, request bills, final bill, duplicate bills, credit limits through Middleware. ·       Work with Order Management System, Product, and Service Management components within CRM. ·       Manage customer preferences – Involve all the touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers, self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile device, chat, email, SMS, mail, the customer's bill, etc.). ·       Support single interface for customer contact details, preferences, account details, offers, customer premise equipment, bill details, bill cycle details, and customer interactions.   CRM applications interact with customers through customer touch points like portals, point-of-sale terminals, interactive voice response systems, etc. The requests by customers are sent via fulfillment/provisioning to billing system for ordering processing.   2. Billing and Revenue Management   Billing and Revenue Management handles the collection of appropriate usage records and production of timely and accurate bills – for providing pre-bill usage information and billing to customers; for processing their payments; and for performing payment collections. In addition, it handles customer inquiries about bills, provides billing inquiry status, and is responsible for resolving billing problems to the customer's satisfaction in a timely manner. This process grouping also supports prepayment for services.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       To ensure that enterprise revenue is billed and invoices delivered appropriately to customers. ·       To manage customers’ billing accounts, process their payments, perform payment collections, and monitor the status of the account balance. ·       To ensure the timely and effective fulfillment of all customer bill inquiries and complaints. ·       Collect the usage records from mediation and ensure appropriate rating and discounting of all usage and pricing. ·       Support revenue sharing; split charging where usage is guided to an account different from the service consumer. ·       Support prepaid and post-paid rating. ·       Send notification on approach / exceeding the usage thresholds as enforced by the subscribed offer, and / or as setup by the customer. ·       Support prepaid, post paid, and hybrid (where some services are prepaid and the rest of the services post paid) customers and conversion from post paid to prepaid, and vice versa. ·       Support different billing function requirements like charge prorating, promotion, discount, adjustment, waiver, write-off, account receivable, GL Interface, late payment fee, credit control, dunning, account or service suspension, re-activation, expiry, termination, contract violation penalty, etc. ·       Initiate direct debit to collect payment against an invoice outstanding. ·       Send notification to Middleware on different events; for example, payment receipt, pre-suspension, threshold exceed, etc.   Billing systems typically get usage data from mediation systems for rating and billing. They get provisioning requests from order management systems and inquiries from CRM systems. Convergent and real-time billing systems can directly get usage details from network elements.   3. Mediation   Mediation systems transform/translate the Raw or Native Usage Data Records into a general format that is acceptable to billing for their rating purposes.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Mediation system in the end-to-end solution.   ·       Collect Usage Data Records from different data sources – like network elements, routers, servers – via different protocol and interfaces. ·       Process Usage Data Records – Mediation will process Usage Data Records as per the source format. ·       Validate Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Segregates Usage Data Records coming from each source to multiple, based on the segregation requirement of end Application. ·       Aggregates Usage Data Records based on the aggregation rule if any from different sources. ·       Consolidates multiple Usage Data Records from each source. ·       Delivers formatted Usage Data Records to different end application like Billing, Interconnect, Fraud Management, etc. ·       Generates audit trail for incoming Usage Data Records and keeps track of all the Usage Data Records at various stages of mediation process. ·       Checks duplicate Usage Data Records across files for a given time window.   4. Fulfillment   This area is responsible for providing customers with their requested products in a timely and correct manner. It translates the customer's business or personal need into a solution that can be delivered using the specific products in the enterprise's portfolio. This process informs the customers of the status of their purchase order, and ensures completion on time, as well as ensuring a delighted customer. These processes are responsible for accepting and issuing orders. They deal with pre-order feasibility determination, credit authorization, order issuance, order status and tracking, customer update on customer order activities, and customer notification on order completion. Order management and provisioning applications fall into this category.   The key functionalities provided by these applications are   ·       Issuing new customer orders, modifying open customer orders, or canceling open customer orders; ·       Verifying whether specific non-standard offerings sought by customers are feasible and supportable; ·       Checking the credit worthiness of customers as part of the customer order process; ·       Testing the completed offering to ensure it is working correctly; ·       Updating of the Customer Inventory Database to reflect that the specific product offering has been allocated, modified, or cancelled; ·       Assigning and tracking customer provisioning activities; ·       Managing customer provisioning jeopardy conditions; and ·       Reporting progress on customer orders and other processes to customer.   These applications typically get orders from CRM systems. They interact with network elements and billing systems for fulfillment of orders.   5. Enterprise Management   This process area includes those processes that manage enterprise-wide activities and needs, or have application within the enterprise as a whole. They encompass all business management processes that   ·       Are necessary to support the whole of the enterprise, including processes for financial management, legal management, regulatory management, process, cost, and quality management, etc.;   ·       Are responsible for setting corporate policies, strategies, and directions, and for providing guidelines and targets for the whole of the business, including strategy development and planning for areas, such as Enterprise Architecture, that are integral to the direction and development of the business;   ·       Occur throughout the enterprise, including processes for project management, performance assessments, cost assessments, etc.     (i) Enterprise Risk Management:   Enterprise Risk Management focuses on assuring that risks and threats to the enterprise value and/or reputation are identified, and appropriate controls are in place to minimize or eliminate the identified risks. The identified risks may be physical or logical/virtual. Successful risk management ensures that the enterprise can support its mission critical operations, processes, applications, and communications in the face of serious incidents such as security threats/violations and fraud attempts. Two key areas covered in Risk Management by telecom operators are:   ·       Revenue Assurance: Revenue assurance system will be responsible for identifying revenue loss scenarios across components/systems, and will help in rectifying the problems. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Revenue Assurance system in the end-to-end solution. o   Identify all usage information dropped when networks are being upgraded. o   Interconnect bill verification. o   Identify where services are routinely provisioned but never billed. o   Identify poor sales policies that are intensifying collections problems. o   Find leakage where usage is sent to error bucket and never billed for. o   Find leakage where field service, CRM, and network build-out are not optimized.   ·       Fraud Management: Involves collecting data from different systems to identify abnormalities in traffic patterns, usage patterns, and subscription patterns to report suspicious activity that might suggest fraudulent usage of resources, resulting in revenue losses to the operator.   The key roles and responsibilities of the system component are as follows:   o   Fraud management system will capture and monitor high usage (over a certain threshold) in terms of duration, value, and number of calls for each subscriber. The threshold for each subscriber is decided by the system and fixed automatically. o   Fraud management will be able to detect the unauthorized access to services for certain subscribers. These subscribers may have been provided unauthorized services by employees. The component will raise the alert to the operator the very first time of such illegal calls or calls which are not billed. o   The solution will be to have an alarm management system that will deliver alarms to the operator/provider whenever it detects a fraud, thus minimizing fraud by catching it the first time it occurs. o   The Fraud Management system will be capable of interfacing with switches, mediation systems, and billing systems   (ii) Knowledge Management   This process focuses on knowledge management, technology research within the enterprise, and the evaluation of potential technology acquisitions.   Key responsibilities of knowledge base management are to   ·       Maintain knowledge base – Creation and updating of knowledge base on ongoing basis. ·       Search knowledge base – Search of knowledge base on keywords or category browse ·       Maintain metadata – Management of metadata on knowledge base to ensure effective management and search. ·       Run report generator. ·       Provide content – Add content to the knowledge base, e.g., user guides, operational manual, etc.   (iii) Document Management   It focuses on maintaining a repository of all electronic documents or images of paper documents relevant to the enterprise using a system.   (iv) Data Management   It manages data as a valuable resource for any enterprise. For telecom enterprises, the typical areas covered are Master Data Management, Data Warehousing, and Business Intelligence. It is also responsible for data governance, security, quality, and database management.   Key responsibilities of Data Management are   ·       Using ETL, extract the data from CRM, Billing, web content, ERP, campaign management, financial, network operations, asset management info, customer contact data, customer measures, benchmarks, process data, e.g., process inputs, outputs, and measures, into Enterprise Data Warehouse. ·       Management of data traceability with source, data related business rules/decisions, data quality, data cleansing data reconciliation, competitors data – storage for all the enterprise data (customer profiles, products, offers, revenues, etc.) ·       Get online update through night time replication or physical backup process at regular frequency. ·       Provide the data access to business intelligence and other systems for their analysis, report generation, and use.   (v) Business Intelligence   It uses the Enterprise Data to provide the various analysis and reports that contain prospects and analytics for customer retention, acquisition of new customers due to the offers, and SLAs. It will generate right and optimized plans – bolt-ons for the customers.   The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Business Intelligence system at the Enterprise Level:   ·       It will do Pattern analysis and reports problem. ·       It will do Data Analysis – Statistical analysis, data profiling, affinity analysis of data, customer segment wise usage patterns on offers, products, service and revenue generation against services and customer segments. ·       It will do Performance (business, system, and forecast) analysis, churn propensity, response time, and SLAs analysis. ·       It will support for online and offline analysis, and report drill down capability. ·       It will collect, store, and report various SLA data. ·       It will provide the necessary intelligence for marketing and working on campaigns, etc., with cost benefit analysis and predictions.   It will advise on customer promotions with additional services based on loyalty and credit history of customer   ·       It will Interface with Enterprise Data Management system for data to run reports and analysis tasks. It will interface with the campaign schedules, based on historical success evidence.   (vi) Stakeholder and External Relations Management   It manages the enterprise's relationship with stakeholders and outside entities. Stakeholders include shareholders, employee organizations, etc. Outside entities include regulators, local community, and unions. Some of the processes within this grouping are Shareholder Relations, External Affairs, Labor Relations, and Public Relations.   (vii) Enterprise Resource Planning   It is used to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources. Its purpose is to facilitate the flow of information between all business functions inside the boundaries of the enterprise and manage the connections to outside stakeholders. ERP systems consolidate all business operations into a uniform and enterprise wide system environment.   The key roles and responsibilities for Enterprise System are given below:   ·        It will handle responsibilities such as core accounting, financial, and management reporting. ·       It will interface with CRM for capturing customer account and details. ·       It will interface with billing to capture the billing revenue and other financial data. ·       It will be responsible for executing the dunning process. Billing will send the required feed to ERP for execution of dunning. ·       It will interface with the CRM and Billing through batch interfaces. Enterprise management systems are like horizontals in the enterprise and typically interact with all major telecom systems. E.g., an ERP system interacts with CRM, Fulfillment, and Billing systems for different kinds of data exchanges.   6. External Interfaces/Touch Points   The typical external parties are customers, suppliers/partners, employees, shareholders, and other stakeholders. External interactions from/to a Service Provider to other parties can be achieved by a variety of mechanisms, including:   ·       Exchange of emails or faxes ·       Call Centers ·       Web Portals ·       Business-to-Business (B2B) automated transactions   These applications provide an Internet technology driven interface to external parties to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These can provide fully or partially automated service to external parties through various touch points.   Typical characteristics of these touch points are   ·       Pre-integrated self-service system, including stand-alone web framework or integration front end with a portal engine ·       Self services layer exposing atomic web services/APIs for reuse by multiple systems across the architectural environment ·       Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a portal engine or web application   These touch points mostly interact with the CRM systems for requests, inquiries, and responses.   7. Middleware   The component will be primarily responsible for integrating the different systems components under a common platform. It should provide a Standards-Based Platform for building Service Oriented Architecture and Composite Applications. The following lists the high-level roles and responsibilities executed by the Middleware component in the end-to-end solution.   ·       As an integration framework, covering to and fro interfaces ·       Provide a web service framework with service registry. ·       Support SOA framework with SOA service registry. ·       Each of the interfaces from / to Middleware to other components would handle data transformation, translation, and mapping of data points. ·       Receive data from the caller / activate and/or forward the data to the recipient system in XML format. ·       Use standard XML for data exchange. ·       Provide the response back to the service/call initiator. ·       Provide a tracking until the response completion. ·       Keep a store transitional data against each call/transaction. ·       Interface through Middleware to get any information that is possible and allowed from the existing systems to enterprise systems; e.g., customer profile and customer history, etc. ·       Provide the data in a common unified format to the SOA calls across systems, and follow the Enterprise Architecture directive. ·       Provide an audit trail for all transactions being handled by the component.   8. Network Elements   The term Network Element means a facility or equipment used in the provision of a telecommunications service. Such terms also includes features, functions, and capabilities that are provided by means of such facility or equipment, including subscriber numbers, databases, signaling systems, and information sufficient for billing and collection or used in the transmission, routing, or other provision of a telecommunications service.   Typical network elements in a GSM network are Home Location Register (HLR), Intelligent Network (IN), Mobile Switching Center (MSC), SMS Center (SMSC), and network elements for other value added services like Push-to-talk (PTT), Ring Back Tone (RBT), etc.   Network elements are invoked when subscribers use their telecom devices for any kind of usage. These elements generate usage data and pass it on to downstream systems like mediation and billing system for rating and billing. They also integrate with provisioning systems for order/service fulfillment.   9. 3rd Party Applications   3rd Party systems are applications like content providers, payment gateways, point of sale terminals, and databases/applications maintained by the Government.   Depending on applicability and the type of functionality provided by 3rd party applications, the integration with different telecom systems like CRM, provisioning, and billing will be done.   10. Service Delivery Platform   A service delivery platform (SDP) provides the architecture for the rapid deployment, provisioning, execution, management, and billing of value added telecom services. SDPs are based on the concept of SOA and layered architecture. They support the delivery of voice, data services, and content in network and device-independent fashion. They allow application developers to aggregate network capabilities, services, and sources of content. SDPs typically contain layers for web services exposure, service application development, and network abstraction.   SOA Reference Architecture   SOA concept is based on the principle of developing reusable business service and building applications by composing those services, instead of building monolithic applications in silos. It’s about bridging the gap between business and IT through a set of business-aligned IT services, using a set of design principles, patterns, and techniques.   In an SOA, resources are made available to participants in a value net, enterprise, line of business (typically spanning multiple applications within an enterprise or across multiple enterprises). It consists of a set of business-aligned IT services that collectively fulfill an organization’s business processes and goals. We can choreograph these services into composite applications and invoke them through standard protocols. SOA, apart from agility and reusability, enables:   ·       The business to specify processes as orchestrations of reusable services ·       Technology agnostic business design, with technology hidden behind service interface ·       A contractual-like interaction between business and IT, based on service SLAs ·       Accountability and governance, better aligned to business services ·       Applications interconnections untangling by allowing access only through service interfaces, reducing the daunting side effects of change ·       Reduced pressure to replace legacy and extended lifetime for legacy applications, through encapsulation in services   ·       A Cloud Computing paradigm, using web services technologies, that makes possible service outsourcing on an on-demand, utility-like, pay-per-usage basis   The following section represents the Reference Architecture of logical view for the Telecom Solution. The new custom built application needs to align with this logical architecture in the long run to achieve EA benefits.   Packaged implementation applications, such as ERP billing applications, need to expose their functions as service providers (as other applications consume) and interact with other applications as service consumers.   COT applications need to expose services through wrappers such as adapters to utilize existing resources and at the same time achieve Enterprise Architecture goal and objectives.   The following are the various layers for Enterprise level deployment of SOA. This diagram captures the abstract view of Enterprise SOA layers and important components of each layer. Layered architecture means decomposition of services such that most interactions occur between adjacent layers. However, there is no strict rule that top layers should not directly communicate with bottom layers.   The diagram below represents the important logical pieces that would result from overall SOA transformation. @font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Courier New"; }@font-face { font-family: "Wingdings"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoCaption, li.MsoCaption, div.MsoCaption { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: rgb(79, 129, 189); font-weight: bold; }p.MsoListParagraph, li.MsoListParagraph, div.MsoListParagraph { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, li.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast, div.MsoListParagraphCxSpLast { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }ol { margin-bottom: 0cm; }ul { margin-bottom: 0cm; } Figure 3. Enterprise SOA Reference Architecture 1.          Operational System Layer: This layer consists of all packaged applications like CRM, ERP, custom built applications, COTS based applications like Billing, Revenue Management, Fulfilment, and the Enterprise databases that are essential and contribute directly or indirectly to the Enterprise OSS/BSS Transformation.   ERP holds the data of Asset Lifecycle Management, Supply Chain, and Advanced Procurement and Human Capital Management, etc.   CRM holds the data related to Order, Sales, and Marketing, Customer Care, Partner Relationship Management, Loyalty, etc.   Content Management handles Enterprise Search and Query. Billing application consists of the following components:   ·       Collections Management, Customer Billing Management, Invoices, Real-Time Rating, Discounting, and Applying of Charges ·       Enterprise databases will hold both the application and service data, whether structured or unstructured.   MDM - Master data majorly consists of Customer, Order, Product, and Service Data.     2.          Enterprise Component Layer:   This layer consists of the Application Services and Common Services that are responsible for realizing the functionality and maintaining the QoS of the exposed services. This layer uses container-based technologies such as application servers to implement the components, workload management, high availability, and load balancing.   Application Services: This Service Layer enables application, technology, and database abstraction so that the complex accessing logic is hidden from the other service layers. This is a basic service layer, which exposes application functionalities and data as reusable services. The three types of the Application access services are:   ·       Application Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application level functionalities as a reusable service between BSS to BSS and BSS to OSS integration. This layer is enabled using disparate technology such as Web Service, Integration Servers, and Adaptors, etc.   ·       Data Access Service: This Service Layer exposes application data services as a reusable reference data service. This is done via direct interaction with application data. and provides the federated query.   ·       Network Access Service: This Service Layer exposes provisioning layer as a reusable service from OSS to OSS integration. This integration service emphasizes the need for high performance, stateless process flows, and distributed design.   Common Services encompasses management of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data such as information services, portal services, interaction services, infrastructure services, and security services, etc.   3.          Integration Layer:   This consists of service infrastructure components like service bus, service gateway for partner integration, service registry, service repository, and BPEL processor. Service bus will carry the service invocation payloads/messages between consumers and providers. The other important functions expected from it are itinerary based routing, distributed caching of routing information, transformations, and all qualities of service for messaging-like reliability, scalability, and availability, etc. Service registry will hold all contracts (wsdl) of services, and it helps developers to locate or discover service during design time or runtime.   • BPEL processor would be useful in orchestrating the services to compose a complex business scenario or process. • Workflow and business rules management are also required to support manual triggering of certain activities within business process. based on the rules setup and also the state machine information. Application, data, and service mediation layer typically forms the overall composite application development framework or SOA Framework.   4.          Business Process Layer: These are typically the intermediate services layer and represent Shared Business Process Services. At Enterprise Level, these services are from Customer Management, Order Management, Billing, Finance, and Asset Management application domains.   5.          Access Layer: This layer consists of portals for Enterprise and provides a single view of Enterprise information management and dashboard services.   6.          Channel Layer: This consists of various devices; applications that form part of extended enterprise; browsers through which users access the applications.   7.          Client Layer: This designates the different types of users accessing the enterprise applications. The type of user typically would be an important factor in determining the level of access to applications.   8.          Vertical pieces like management, monitoring, security, and development cut across all horizontal layers Management and monitoring involves all aspects of SOA-like services, SLAs, and other QoS lifecycle processes for both applications and services surrounding SOA governance.     9.          EA Governance, Reference Architecture, Roadmap, Principles, and Best Practices:   EA Governance is important in terms of providing the overall direction to SOA implementation within the enterprise. This involves board-level involvement, in addition to business and IT executives. At a high level, this involves managing the SOA projects implementation, managing SOA infrastructure, and controlling the entire effort through all fine-tuned IT processes in accordance with COBIT (Control Objectives for Information Technology).   Devising tools and techniques to promote reuse culture, and the SOA way of doing things needs competency centers to be established in addition to training the workforce to take up new roles that are suited to SOA journey.   Conclusions   Reference Architectures can serve as the basis for disparate architecture efforts throughout the organization, even if they use different tools and technologies. Reference architectures provide best practices and approaches in the independent way a vendor deals with technology and standards. Reference Architectures model the abstract architectural elements for an enterprise independent of the technologies, protocols, and products that are used to implement an SOA. Telecom enterprises today are facing significant business and technology challenges due to growing competition, a multitude of services, and convergence. Adopting architectural best practices could go a long way in meeting these challenges. The use of SOA-based architecture for communication to each of the external systems like Billing, CRM, etc., in OSS/BSS system has made the architecture very loosely coupled, with greater flexibility. Any change in the external systems would be absorbed at the Integration Layer without affecting the rest of the ecosystem. The use of a Business Process Management (BPM) tool makes the management and maintenance of the business processes easy, with better performance in terms of lead time, quality, and cost. Since the Architecture is based on standards, it will lower the cost of deploying and managing OSS/BSS applications over their lifecycles.

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• WMI Remote Process Starting

  - by Goober

  Scenario I've written a WMI Wrapper that seems to be quite sufficient, however whenever I run the code to start a remote process on a server, I see the process name appear in the task manager but the process itself does not start like it should (as in, I don't see the command line log window of the process that prints out what it's doing etc.) The process I am trying to start is just a C# application executable that I have written. Below is my WMI Wrapper Code and the code I am using to start running the process. Question Is the process actually running? - Even if it is only displaying the process name in the task manager and not actually launching the application to the users window? Code To Start The Process IPHostEntry hostEntry = Dns.GetHostEntry("InsertServerName"); WMIWrapper wrapper = new WMIWrapper("Insert User Name", "Insert Password", hostEntry.HostName); List<Process> processes = wrapper.GetProcesses(); foreach (Process process in processes) { if (process.Caption.Equals("MyAppName.exe")) { Console.WriteLine(process.Caption); Console.WriteLine(process.CommandLine); int processId; wrapper.StartProcess("E:\\MyData\\Data\\MyAppName.exe", out processId); Console.WriteLine(processId.ToString()); } } Console.ReadLine(); WMI Wrapper Code using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Management; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; using Common.WMI.Objects; using System.Net; namespace Common.WMIWrapper { public class WMIWrapper : IDisposable { #region Constructor /// <summary> /// Creates a new instance of the wrapper /// </summary> /// <param jobName="username"></param> /// <param jobName="password"></param> /// <param jobName="server"></param> public WMIWrapper(string server) { Initialise(server); } /// <summary> /// Creates a new instance of the wrapper /// </summary> /// <param jobName="username"></param> /// <param jobName="password"></param> /// <param jobName="server"></param> public WMIWrapper(string username, string password, string server) { Initialise(username, password, server); } #endregion #region Destructor /// <summary> /// Clean up unmanaged references /// </summary> ~WMIWrapper() { Dispose(false); } #endregion #region Initialise /// <summary> /// Initialise the WMI Connection (local machine) /// </summary> /// <param name="server"></param> private void Initialise(string server) { m_server = server; // set connection options m_connectOptions = new ConnectionOptions(); IPHostEntry host = Dns.GetHostEntry(Environment.MachineName); } /// <summary> /// Initialise the WMI connection /// </summary> /// <param jobName="username">Username to connect to server with</param> /// <param jobName="password">Password to connect to server with</param> /// <param jobName="server">Server to connect to</param> private void Initialise(string username, string password, string server) { m_server = server; // set connection options m_connectOptions = new ConnectionOptions(); IPHostEntry host = Dns.GetHostEntry(Environment.MachineName); if (host.HostName.Equals(server, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) return; m_connectOptions.Username = username; m_connectOptions.Password = password; m_connectOptions.Impersonation = ImpersonationLevel.Impersonate; m_connectOptions.EnablePrivileges = true; } #endregion /// <summary> /// Return a list of available wmi namespaces /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public List<String> GetWMINamespaces() { ManagementScope wmiScope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root", this.Server), this.ConnectionOptions); List<String> wmiNamespaceList = new List<String>(); ManagementClass wmiNamespaces = new ManagementClass(wmiScope, new ManagementPath("__namespace"), null); ; foreach (ManagementObject ns in wmiNamespaces.GetInstances()) wmiNamespaceList.Add(ns["Name"].ToString()); return wmiNamespaceList; } /// <summary> /// Return a list of available classes in a namespace /// </summary> /// <param jobName="wmiNameSpace">Namespace to get wmi classes for</param> /// <returns>List of classes in the requested namespace</returns> public List<String> GetWMIClassList(string wmiNameSpace) { ManagementScope wmiScope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\{1}", this.Server, wmiNameSpace), this.ConnectionOptions); List<String> wmiClasses = new List<String>(); ManagementObjectSearcher wmiSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(wmiScope, new WqlObjectQuery("SELECT * FROM meta_Class"), null); foreach (ManagementClass wmiClass in wmiSearcher.Get()) wmiClasses.Add(wmiClass["__CLASS"].ToString()); return wmiClasses; } /// <summary> /// Get a list of wmi properties for the specified class /// </summary> /// <param jobName="wmiNameSpace">WMI Namespace</param> /// <param jobName="wmiClass">WMI Class</param> /// <returns>List of properties for the class</returns> public List<String> GetWMIClassPropertyList(string wmiNameSpace, string wmiClass) { List<String> wmiClassProperties = new List<string>(); ManagementClass managementClass = GetWMIClass(wmiNameSpace, wmiClass); foreach (PropertyData property in managementClass.Properties) wmiClassProperties.Add(property.Name); return wmiClassProperties; } /// <summary> /// Returns a list of methods for the class /// </summary> /// <param jobName="wmiNameSpace"></param> /// <param jobName="wmiClass"></param> /// <returns></returns> public List<String> GetWMIClassMethodList(string wmiNameSpace, string wmiClass) { List<String> wmiClassMethods = new List<string>(); ManagementClass managementClass = GetWMIClass(wmiNameSpace, wmiClass); foreach (MethodData method in managementClass.Methods) wmiClassMethods.Add(method.Name); return wmiClassMethods; } /// <summary> /// Retrieve the specified management class /// </summary> /// <param jobName="wmiNameSpace">Namespace of the class</param> /// <param jobName="wmiClass">Type of the class</param> /// <returns></returns> public ManagementClass GetWMIClass(string wmiNameSpace, string wmiClass) { ManagementScope wmiScope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\{1}", this.Server, wmiNameSpace), this.ConnectionOptions); ManagementClass managementClass = null; ManagementObjectSearcher wmiSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(wmiScope, new WqlObjectQuery(String.Format("SELECT * FROM meta_Class WHERE __CLASS = '{0}'", wmiClass)), null); foreach (ManagementClass wmiObject in wmiSearcher.Get()) managementClass = wmiObject; return managementClass; } /// <summary> /// Get an instance of the specficied class /// </summary> /// <param jobName="wmiNameSpace">Namespace of the classes</param> /// <param jobName="wmiClass">Type of the classes</param> /// <returns>Array of management classes</returns> public ManagementObject[] GetWMIClassObjects(string wmiNameSpace, string wmiClass) { ManagementScope wmiScope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\{1}", this.Server, wmiNameSpace), this.ConnectionOptions); List<ManagementObject> wmiClasses = new List<ManagementObject>(); ManagementObjectSearcher wmiSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(wmiScope, new WqlObjectQuery(String.Format("SELECT * FROM {0}", wmiClass)), null); foreach (ManagementObject wmiObject in wmiSearcher.Get()) wmiClasses.Add(wmiObject); return wmiClasses.ToArray(); } /// <summary> /// Get a full list of services /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public List<Service> GetServices() { return GetService(null); } /// <summary> /// Get a list of services /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public List<Service> GetService(string name) { ManagementObject[] services = GetWMIClassObjects("CIMV2", "WIN32_Service"); List<Service> serviceList = new List<Service>(); for (int i = 0; i < services.Length; i++) { ManagementObject managementObject = services[i]; Service service = new Service(managementObject); service.Status = (string)managementObject["Status"]; service.Name = (string)managementObject["Name"]; service.DisplayName = (string)managementObject["DisplayName"]; service.PathName = (string)managementObject["PathName"]; service.ProcessId = (uint)managementObject["ProcessId"]; service.Started = (bool)managementObject["Started"]; service.StartMode = (string)managementObject["StartMode"]; service.ServiceType = (string)managementObject["ServiceType"]; service.InstallDate = (string)managementObject["InstallDate"]; service.Description = (string)managementObject["Description"]; service.Caption = (string)managementObject["Caption"]; if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(name) || name.Equals(service.Name, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) serviceList.Add(service); } return serviceList; } /// <summary> /// Get a list of processes /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public List<Process> GetProcesses() { return GetProcess(null); } /// <summary> /// Get a list of processes /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public List<Process> GetProcess(uint? processId) { ManagementObject[] processes = GetWMIClassObjects("CIMV2", "WIN32_Process"); List<Process> processList = new List<Process>(); for (int i = 0; i < processes.Length; i++) { ManagementObject managementObject = processes[i]; Process process = new Process(managementObject); process.Priority = (uint)managementObject["Priority"]; process.ProcessId = (uint)managementObject["ProcessId"]; process.Status = (string)managementObject["Status"]; DateTime createDate; if (ConvertFromWmiDate((string)managementObject["CreationDate"], out createDate)) process.CreationDate = createDate.ToString("dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss"); process.Caption = (string)managementObject["Caption"]; process.CommandLine = (string)managementObject["CommandLine"]; process.Description = (string)managementObject["Description"]; process.ExecutablePath = (string)managementObject["ExecutablePath"]; process.ExecutionState = (string)managementObject["ExecutionState"]; process.MaximumWorkingSetSize = (UInt32?)managementObject ["MaximumWorkingSetSize"]; process.MinimumWorkingSetSize = (UInt32?)managementObject["MinimumWorkingSetSize"]; process.KernelModeTime = (UInt64)managementObject["KernelModeTime"]; process.ThreadCount = (UInt32)managementObject["ThreadCount"]; process.UserModeTime = (UInt64)managementObject["UserModeTime"]; process.VirtualSize = (UInt64)managementObject["VirtualSize"]; process.WorkingSetSize = (UInt64)managementObject["WorkingSetSize"]; if (processId == null || process.ProcessId == processId.Value) processList.Add(process); } return processList; } /// <summary> /// Start the specified process /// </summary> /// <param jobName="commandLine"></param> /// <returns></returns> public bool StartProcess(string command, out int processId) { processId = int.MaxValue; ManagementClass processClass = GetWMIClass("CIMV2", "WIN32_Process"); object[] objectsIn = new object[4]; objectsIn[0] = command; processClass.InvokeMethod("Create", objectsIn); if (objectsIn[3] == null) return false; processId = int.Parse(objectsIn[3].ToString()); return true; } /// <summary> /// Schedule a process on the remote machine /// </summary> /// <param name="command"></param> /// <param name="scheduleTime"></param> /// <param name="jobName"></param> /// <returns></returns> public bool ScheduleProcess(string command, DateTime scheduleTime, out string jobName) { jobName = String.Empty; ManagementClass scheduleClass = GetWMIClass("CIMV2", "Win32_ScheduledJob"); object[] objectsIn = new object[7]; objectsIn[0] = command; objectsIn[1] = String.Format("********{0:00}{1:00}{2:00}.000000+060", scheduleTime.Hour, scheduleTime.Minute, scheduleTime.Second); objectsIn[5] = true; scheduleClass.InvokeMethod("Create", objectsIn); if (objectsIn[6] == null) return false; UInt32 scheduleid = (uint)objectsIn[6]; jobName = scheduleid.ToString(); return true; } /// <summary> /// Returns the current time on the remote server /// </summary> /// <returns></returns> public DateTime Now() { ManagementScope wmiScope = new ManagementScope(String.Format("\\\\{0}\\root\\{1}", this.Server, "CIMV2"), this.ConnectionOptions); ManagementClass managementClass = null; ManagementObjectSearcher wmiSearcher = new ManagementObjectSearcher(wmiScope, new WqlObjectQuery(String.Format("SELECT * FROM Win32_LocalTime")), null); DateTime localTime = DateTime.MinValue; foreach (ManagementObject time in wmiSearcher.Get()) { UInt32 day = (UInt32)time["Day"]; UInt32 month = (UInt32)time["Month"]; UInt32 year = (UInt32)time["Year"]; UInt32 hour = (UInt32)time["Hour"]; UInt32 minute = (UInt32)time["Minute"]; UInt32 second = (UInt32)time["Second"]; localTime = new DateTime((int)year, (int)month, (int)day, (int)hour, (int)minute, (int)second); }; return localTime; } /// <summary> /// Converts a wmi date into a proper date /// </summary> /// <param jobName="wmiDate">Wmi formatted date</param> /// <returns>Date time object</returns> private static bool ConvertFromWmiDate(string wmiDate, out DateTime properDate) { properDate = DateTime.MinValue; string properDateString; // check if string is populated if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(wmiDate)) return false; wmiDate = wmiDate.Trim().ToLower().Replace("*", "0"); string[] months = new string[] { "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun", "Jul", "Aug", "Sep", "Oct", "Nov", "Dec" }; try { properDateString = String.Format("{0}-{1}-{2} {3}:{4}:{5}.{6}", wmiDate.Substring(6, 2), months[int.Parse(wmiDate.Substring(4, 2)) - 1], wmiDate.Substring(0, 4), wmiDate.Substring(8, 2), wmiDate.Substring(10, 2), wmiDate.Substring(12, 2), wmiDate.Substring(15, 6)); } catch (InvalidCastException) { return false; } catch (ArgumentOutOfRangeException) { return false; } // try and parse the new date if (!DateTime.TryParse(properDateString, out properDate)) return false; // true if conversion successful return true; } private bool m_disposed; #region IDisposable Members /// <summary> /// Managed dispose /// </summary> public void Dispose() { Dispose(true); GC.SuppressFinalize(this); } /// <summary> /// Dispose of managed and unmanaged objects /// </summary> /// <param jobName="disposing"></param> public void Dispose(bool disposing) { if (disposing) { m_connectOptions = null; } } #endregion #region Properties private ConnectionOptions m_connectOptions; /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the management scope /// </summary> private ConnectionOptions ConnectionOptions { get { return m_connectOptions; } set { m_connectOptions = value; } } private String m_server; /// <summary> /// Gets or sets the server to connect to /// </summary> public String Server { get { return m_server; } set { m_server = value; } } #endregion } }

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• Sensible Way to Pass Web Data in XML to a SQL Server Database

  - by Emtucifor

  After exploring several different ways to pass web data to a database for update purposes, I'm wondering if XML might be a good strategy. The database is currently SQL 2000. In a few months it will move to SQL 2005 and I will be able to change things if needed, but I need a SQL 2000 solution now. First of all, the database in question uses the EAV model. I know that this kind of database is generally highly frowned on, so for the purposes of this question, please just accept that this is not going to change. The current update method has the web server inserting values (that have all been converted first to their correct underlying types, then to sql_variant) to a temp table. A stored procedure is then run which expects the temp table to exist and it takes care of updating, inserting, or deleting things as needed. So far, only a single element has needed to be updated at a time. But now, there is a requirement to be able to edit multiple elements at once, and also to support hierarchical elements, each of which can have its own list of attributes. Here's some example XML I hand-typed to demonstrate what I'm thinking of. Note that in this database the Entity is Element and an ID of 0 signifies "create" aka an insert of a new item. <Elements> <Element ID="1234"> <Attr ID="221">Value</Attr> <Attr ID="225">287</Attr> <Attr ID="234"> <Element ID="99825"> <Attr ID="7">Value1</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value2</Attr> <Attr ID="9" Action="delete" /> </Element> <Element ID="99826" Action="delete" /> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value4</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value5</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value6</Attr> </Element> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value7</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value8</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value9</Attr> </Element> </Attr> <Rel ID="3827" Action="delete" /> <Rel ID="2284" Role="parent"> <Element ID="3827" /> <Element ID="3829" /> <Attr ID="665">1</Attr> </Rel> <Rel ID="0" Type="23" Role="child"> <Element ID="3830" /> <Attr ID="67" </Rel> </Element> <Element ID="0" Type="87"> <Attr ID="221">Value</Attr> <Attr ID="225">569</Attr> <Attr ID="234"> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value10</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value11</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value12</Attr> </Element> </Attr> </Element> <Element ID="1235" Action="delete" /> </Elements> Some Attributes are straight value types, such as AttrID 221. But AttrID 234 is a special "multi-value" type that can have a list of elements underneath it, and each one can have one or more values. Types only need to be presented when a new item is created, since the ElementID fully implies the type if it already exists. I'll probably support only passing in changed items (as detected by javascript). And there may be an Action="Delete" on Attr elements as well, since NULLs are treated as "unselected"--sometimes it's very important to know if a Yes/No question has intentionally been answered No or if no one's bothered to say Yes yet. There is also a different kind of data, a Relationship. At this time, those are updated through individual AJAX calls as things are edited in the UI, but I'd like to include those so that changes to relationships can be canceled (right now, once you change it, it's done). So those are really elements, too, but they are called Rel instead of Element. Relationships are implemented as ElementID1 and ElementID2, so the RelID 2284 in the XML above is in the database as: ElementID 2284 ElementID1 1234 ElementID2 3827 Having multiple children in one relationship isn't currently supported, but it would be nice later. Does this strategy and the example XML make sense? Is there a more sensible way? I'm just looking for some broad critique to help save me from going down a bad path. Any aspect that you'd like to comment on would be helpful. The web language happens to be Classic ASP, but that could change to ASP.Net at some point. A persistence engine like Linq or nHibernate is probably not acceptable right now--I just want to get this already working application enhanced without a huge amount of development time. I'll choose the answer that shows experience and has a balance of good warnings about what not to do, confirmations of what I'm planning to do, and recommendations about something else to do. I'll make it as objective as possible. P.S. I'd like to handle unicode characters as well as very long strings (10k +). UPDATE I have had this working for some time and I used the ADO Recordset Save-To-Stream trick to make creating the XML really easy. The result seems to be fairly fast, though if speed ever becomes a problem I may revisit this. In the meantime, my code works to handle any number of elements and attributes on the page at once, including updating, deleting, and creating new items all in one go. I settled on a scheme like so for all my elements: Existing data elements Example: input name e12345_a678 (element 12345, attribute 678), the input value is the value of the attribute. New elements Javascript copies a hidden template of the set of HTML elements needed for the type into the correct location on the page, increments a counter to get a new ID for this item, and prepends the number to the names of the form items. var newid = 0; function metadataAdd(reference, nameid, value) { var t = document.createElement('input'); t.setAttribute('name', nameid); t.setAttribute('id', nameid); t.setAttribute('type', 'hidden'); t.setAttribute('value', value); reference.appendChild(t); } function multiAdd(target, parentelementid, attrid, elementtypeid) { var proto = document.getElementById('a' + attrid + '_proto'); var instance = document.createElement('p'); target.parentNode.parentNode.insertBefore(instance, target.parentNode); var thisid = ++newid; instance.innerHTML = proto.innerHTML.replace(/{prefix}/g, 'n' + thisid + '_'); instance.id = 'n' + thisid; instance.className += ' new'; metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_p', parentelementid); metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_c', attrid); metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_t', elementtypeid); return false; } Example: Template input name _a678 becomes n1_a678 (a new element, the first one on the page, attribute 678). all attributes of this new element are tagged with the same prefix of n1. The next new item will be n2, and so on. Some hidden form inputs are created: n1_t, value is the elementtype of the element to be created n1_p, value is the parent id of the element (if it is a relationship) n1_c, value is the child id of the element (if it is a relationship) Deleting elements A hidden input is created in the form e12345_t with value set to 0. The existing controls displaying that attribute's values are disabled so they are not included in the form post. So "set type to 0" is treated as delete. With this scheme, every item on the page has a unique name and can be distinguished properly, and every action can be represented properly. When the form is posted, here's a sample of building one of the two recordsets used (classic ASP code): Set Data = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset") Data.Fields.Append "ElementID", adInteger, 4, adFldKeyColumn Data.Fields.Append "AttrID", adInteger, 4, adFldKeyColumn Data.Fields.Append "Value", adLongVarWChar, 2147483647, adFldIsNullable Or adFldMayBeNull Data.CursorLocation = adUseClient Data.CursorType = adOpenDynamic Data.Open This is the recordset for values, the other is for the elements themselves. I step through the posted form and for the element recordset use a Scripting.Dictionary populated with instances of a custom Class that has the properties I need, so that I can add the values piecemeal, since they don't always come in order. New elements are added as negative to distinguish them from regular elements (rather than requiring a separate column to indicate if it is new or addresses an existing element). I use regular expression to tear apart the form keys: "^(e|n)([0-9]{1,10})_(a|p|t|c)([0-9]{0,10})$" Then, adding an attribute looks like this. Data.AddNew ElementID.Value = DataID AttrID.Value = Integerize(Matches(0).SubMatches(3)) AttrValue.Value = Request.Form(Key) Data.Update ElementID, AttrID, and AttrValue are references to the fields of the recordset. This method is hugely faster than using Data.Fields("ElementID").Value each time. I loop through the Dictionary of element updates and ignore any that don't have all the proper information, adding the good ones to the recordset. Then I call my data-updating stored procedure like so: Set Cmd = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Command") With Cmd Set .ActiveConnection = MyDBConn .CommandType = adCmdStoredProc .CommandText = "DataPost" .Prepared = False .Parameters.Append .CreateParameter("@ElementMetadata", adLongVarWChar, adParamInput, 2147483647, XMLFromRecordset(Element)) .Parameters.Append .CreateParameter("@ElementData", adLongVarWChar, adParamInput, 2147483647, XMLFromRecordset(Data)) End With Result.Open Cmd ' previously created recordset object with options set Here's the function that does the xml conversion: Private Function XMLFromRecordset(Recordset) Dim Stream Set Stream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream") Stream.Open Recordset.Save Stream, adPersistXML Stream.Position = 0 XMLFromRecordset = Stream.ReadText End Function Just in case the web page needs to know, the SP returns a recordset of any new elements, showing their page value and their created value (so I can see that n1 is now e12346 for example). Here are some key snippets from the stored procedure. Note this is SQL 2000 for now, though I'll be able to switch to 2005 soon: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[DataPost] @ElementMetaData ntext, @ElementData ntext AS DECLARE @hdoc int --- snip --- EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @hdoc OUTPUT, @ElementMetaData, '<xml xmlns:s="uuid:BDC6E3F0-6DA3-11d1-A2A3-00AA00C14882" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882" xmlns:rs="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:rowset" xmlns:z="#RowsetSchema" />' INSERT #ElementMetadata (ElementID, ElementTypeID, ElementID1, ElementID2) SELECT * FROM OPENXML(@hdoc, '/xml/rs:data/rs:insert/z:row', 0) WITH ( ElementID int, ElementTypeID int, ElementID1 int, ElementID2 int ) ORDER BY ElementID -- orders negative items (new elements) first so they begin counting at 1 for later ID calculation EXEC sp_xml_removedocument @hdoc --- snip --- UPDATE E SET E.ElementTypeID = M.ElementTypeID FROM Element E INNER JOIN #ElementMetadata M ON E.ElementID = M.ElementID WHERE E.ElementID >= 1 AND M.ElementTypeID >= 1 The following query does the correlation of the negative new element ids to the newly inserted ones: UPDATE #ElementMetadata -- Correlate the new ElementIDs with the input rows SET NewElementID = Scope_Identity() - @@RowCount + DataID WHERE ElementID < 0 Other set-based queries do all the other work of validating that the attributes are allowed, are the correct data type, and inserting, updating, and deleting elements and attributes. I hope this brief run-down is useful to others some day! Converting ADO Recordsets to an XML stream was a huge winner for me as it saved all sorts of time and had a namespace and schema already defined that made the results come out correctly. Using a flatter XML format with 2 inputs was also much easier than sticking to some ideal about having everything in a single XML stream.

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• Sensible Way to Pass Web Data to Sql Server Database

  - by Emtucifor

  After exploring several different ways to pass web data to a database for update purposes, I'm wondering if XML might be a good strategy. The database is currently SQL 2000. In a few months it will move to SQL 2005 and I will be able to change things if needed, but I need a SQL 2000 solution now. First of all, the database in question uses the EAV model. I know that this kind of database is generally highly frowned on, so for the purposes of this question, please just accept that this is not going to change. The current update method has the web server inserting values (that have all been converted first to their correct underlying types, then to sql_variant) to a temp table. A stored procedure is then run which expects the temp table to exist and it takes care of updating, inserting, or deleting things as needed. So far, only a single element has needed to be updated at a time. But now, there is a requirement to be able to edit multiple elements at once, and also to support hierarchical elements, each of which can have its own list of attributes. Here's some example XML I hand-typed to demonstrate what I'm thinking of. Note that in this database the Entity is Element and an ID of 0 signifies "create" aka an insert of a new item. <Elements> <Element ID="1234"> <Attr ID="221">Value</Attr> <Attr ID="225">287</Attr> <Attr ID="234"> <Element ID="99825"> <Attr ID="7">Value1</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value2</Attr> <Attr ID="9" Action="delete" /> </Element> <Element ID="99826" Action="delete" /> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value4</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value5</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value6</Attr> </Element> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value7</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value8</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value9</Attr> </Element> </Attr> <Rel ID="3827" Action="delete" /> <Rel ID="2284" Role="parent"> <Element ID="3827" /> <Element ID="3829" /> <Attr ID="665">1</Attr> </Rel> <Rel ID="0" Type="23" Role="child"> <Element ID="3830" /> <Attr ID="67" </Rel> </Element> <Element ID="0" Type="87"> <Attr ID="221">Value</Attr> <Attr ID="225">569</Attr> <Attr ID="234"> <Element ID="0" Type="24"> <Attr ID="7">Value10</Attr> <Attr ID="8">Value11</Attr> <Attr ID="9">Value12</Attr> </Element> </Attr> </Element> <Element ID="1235" Action="delete" /> </Elements> Some Attributes are straight value types, such as AttrID 221. But AttrID 234 is a special "multi-value" type that can have a list of elements underneath it, and each one can have one or more values. Types only need to be presented when a new item is created, since the ElementID fully implies the type if it already exists. I'll probably support only passing in changed items (as detected by javascript). And there may be an Action="Delete" on Attr elements as well, since NULLs are treated as "unselected"--sometimes it's very important to know if a Yes/No question has intentionally been answered No or if no one's bothered to say Yes yet. There is also a different kind of data, a Relationship. At this time, those are updated through individual AJAX calls as things are edited in the UI, but I'd like to include those so that changes to relationships can be canceled (right now, once you change it, it's done). So those are really elements, too, but they are called Rel instead of Element. Relationships are implemented as ElementID1 and ElementID2, so the RelID 2284 in the XML above is in the database as: ElementID 2284 ElementID1 1234 ElementID2 3827 Having multiple children in one relationship isn't currently supported, but it would be nice later. Does this strategy and the example XML make sense? Is there a more sensible way? I'm just looking for some broad critique to help save me from going down a bad path. Any aspect that you'd like to comment on would be helpful. The web language happens to be Classic ASP, but that could change to ASP.Net at some point. A persistence engine like Linq or nHibernate is probably not acceptable right now--I just want to get this already working application enhanced without a huge amount of development time. I'll choose the answer that shows experience and has a balance of good warnings about what not to do, confirmations of what I'm planning to do, and recommendations about something else to do. I'll make it as objective as possible. P.S. I'd like to handle unicode characters as well as very long strings (10k +). UPDATE I have had this working for some time and I used the ADO Recordset Save-To-Stream trick to make creating the XML really easy. The result seems to be fairly fast, though if speed ever becomes a problem I may revisit this. In the meantime, my code works to handle any number of elements and attributes on the page at once, including updating, deleting, and creating new items all in one go. I settled on a scheme like so for all my elements: Existing data elements Example: input name e12345_a678 (element 12345, attribute 678), the input value is the value of the attribute. New elements Javascript copies a hidden template of the set of HTML elements needed for the type into the correct location on the page, increments a counter to get a new ID for this item, and prepends the number to the names of the form items. var newid = 0; function metadataAdd(reference, nameid, value) { var t = document.createElement('input'); t.setAttribute('name', nameid); t.setAttribute('id', nameid); t.setAttribute('type', 'hidden'); t.setAttribute('value', value); reference.appendChild(t); } function multiAdd(target, parentelementid, attrid, elementtypeid) { var proto = document.getElementById('a' + attrid + '_proto'); var instance = document.createElement('p'); target.parentNode.parentNode.insertBefore(instance, target.parentNode); var thisid = ++newid; instance.innerHTML = proto.innerHTML.replace(/{prefix}/g, 'n' + thisid + '_'); instance.id = 'n' + thisid; instance.className += ' new'; metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_p', parentelementid); metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_c', attrid); metadataAdd(instance, 'n' + thisid + '_t', elementtypeid); return false; } Example: Template input name _a678 becomes n1_a678 (a new element, the first one on the page, attribute 678). all attributes of this new element are tagged with the same prefix of n1. The next new item will be n2, and so on. Some hidden form inputs are created: n1_t, value is the elementtype of the element to be created n1_p, value is the parent id of the element (if it is a relationship) n1_c, value is the child id of the element (if it is a relationship) Deleting elements A hidden input is created in the form e12345_t with value set to 0. The existing controls displaying that attribute's values are disabled so they are not included in the form post. So "set type to 0" is treated as delete. With this scheme, every item on the page has a unique name and can be distinguished properly, and every action can be represented properly. When the form is posted, here's a sample of building one of the two recordsets used (classic ASP code): Set Data = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset") Data.Fields.Append "ElementID", adInteger, 4, adFldKeyColumn Data.Fields.Append "AttrID", adInteger, 4, adFldKeyColumn Data.Fields.Append "Value", adLongVarWChar, 2147483647, adFldIsNullable Or adFldMayBeNull Data.CursorLocation = adUseClient Data.CursorType = adOpenDynamic Data.Open This is the recordset for values, the other is for the elements themselves. I step through the posted form and for the element recordset use a Scripting.Dictionary populated with instances of a custom Class that has the properties I need, so that I can add the values piecemeal, since they don't always come in order. New elements are added as negative to distinguish them from regular elements (rather than requiring a separate column to indicate if it is new or addresses an existing element). I use regular expression to tear apart the form keys: "^(e|n)([0-9]{1,10})_(a|p|t|c)([0-9]{0,10})$" Then, adding an attribute looks like this. Data.AddNew ElementID.Value = DataID AttrID.Value = Integerize(Matches(0).SubMatches(3)) AttrValue.Value = Request.Form(Key) Data.Update ElementID, AttrID, and AttrValue are references to the fields of the recordset. This method is hugely faster than using Data.Fields("ElementID").Value each time. I loop through the Dictionary of element updates and ignore any that don't have all the proper information, adding the good ones to the recordset. Then I call my data-updating stored procedure like so: Set Cmd = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Command") With Cmd Set .ActiveConnection = MyDBConn .CommandType = adCmdStoredProc .CommandText = "DataPost" .Prepared = False .Parameters.Append .CreateParameter("@ElementMetadata", adLongVarWChar, adParamInput, 2147483647, XMLFromRecordset(Element)) .Parameters.Append .CreateParameter("@ElementData", adLongVarWChar, adParamInput, 2147483647, XMLFromRecordset(Data)) End With Result.Open Cmd ' previously created recordset object with options set Here's the function that does the xml conversion: Private Function XMLFromRecordset(Recordset) Dim Stream Set Stream = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Stream") Stream.Open Recordset.Save Stream, adPersistXML Stream.Position = 0 XMLFromRecordset = Stream.ReadText End Function Just in case the web page needs to know, the SP returns a recordset of any new elements, showing their page value and their created value (so I can see that n1 is now e12346 for example). Here are some key snippets from the stored procedure. Note this is SQL 2000 for now, though I'll be able to switch to 2005 soon: CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[DataPost] @ElementMetaData ntext, @ElementData ntext AS DECLARE @hdoc int --- snip --- EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @hdoc OUTPUT, @ElementMetaData, '<xml xmlns:s="uuid:BDC6E3F0-6DA3-11d1-A2A3-00AA00C14882" xmlns:dt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882" xmlns:rs="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:rowset" xmlns:z="#RowsetSchema" />' INSERT #ElementMetadata (ElementID, ElementTypeID, ElementID1, ElementID2) SELECT * FROM OPENXML(@hdoc, '/xml/rs:data/rs:insert/z:row', 0) WITH ( ElementID int, ElementTypeID int, ElementID1 int, ElementID2 int ) ORDER BY ElementID -- orders negative items (new elements) first so they begin counting at 1 for later ID calculation EXEC sp_xml_removedocument @hdoc --- snip --- UPDATE E SET E.ElementTypeID = M.ElementTypeID FROM Element E INNER JOIN #ElementMetadata M ON E.ElementID = M.ElementID WHERE E.ElementID >= 1 AND M.ElementTypeID >= 1 The following query does the correlation of the negative new element ids to the newly inserted ones: UPDATE #ElementMetadata -- Correlate the new ElementIDs with the input rows SET NewElementID = Scope_Identity() - @@RowCount + DataID WHERE ElementID < 0 Other set-based queries do all the other work of validating that the attributes are allowed, are the correct data type, and inserting, updating, and deleting elements and attributes. I hope this brief run-down is useful to others some day! Converting ADO Recordsets to an XML stream was a huge winner for me as it saved all sorts of time and had a namespace and schema already defined that made the results come out correctly. Using a flatter XML format with 2 inputs was also much easier than sticking to some ideal about having everything in a single XML stream.

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• ffmpeg - How to determine if -movflags faststart is enabled? PHP

  - by IIIOXIII

  While I am able to encode an mp4 file which I can plan on my local windows machine, I am having trouble encoding files to mp4 which are readable when streaming by safari, etc. After a bit of reading, I believe my issue is that I must move the metadata from the end of the file to the beginning in order for the converted mp4 files to be streamable. To that end, I am trying to find out if the build of ffmpeg that I am currently using is able to use the -movflags faststart option through php - as my current outputted mp4 files are not working when streamed online. This is the way I am now echoing the -help, -formats, -codecs, but I am not seeing anything about -movflags faststart in any of the lists: exec($ffmpegPath." -help", $codecArr); for($ii=0;$ii<count($codecArr);$ii++){ echo $codecArr[$ii].'</br>'; } Is there a similar method of determining if -movflags fastart is available to my ffmpeg build? Any other way? Should it be listed with any of the previously suggested commands? -help/-formats? Can someone that knows it is enabled in their version of ffmpeg check to see if it is listed under -help or -formats, etc.? TIA. EDIT: COMPLETE CONSOLE OUTPUT FOR BOTH THE CONVERSION COMMAND AND -MOVFLAGS COMMAND BELOW: COMMAND: ffmpeg_new -i C:\vidtests\Wildlife.wmv -s 640x480 C:\vidtests\Wildlife.mp4 OUTPUT: ffmpeg version N-54207-ge59fb3f Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 25 2013 21:55:00 with gcc 4.7.3 (GCC) configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-w32threads --enable-av isynth --enable-bzlib --enable-fontconfig --enable-frei0r --enable-gnutls --enab le-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libcaca --enable-libfreetyp e --enable-libgsm --enable-libilbc --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --ena ble-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-l ibopus --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libsoxr --enable-libsp eex --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo- amrwbenc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs -- enable-libxvid --enable-zlib libavutil 52. 37.101 / 52. 37.101 libavcodec 55. 17.100 / 55. 17.100 libavformat 55. 10.100 / 55. 10.100 libavdevice 55. 2.100 / 55. 2.100 libavfilter 3. 77.101 / 3. 77.101 libswscale 2. 3.100 / 2. 3.100 libswresample 0. 17.102 / 0. 17.102 libpostproc 52. 3.100 / 52. 3.100 [asf @ 00000000002ed760] Stream #0: not enough frames to estimate rate; consider increasing probesize Guessed Channel Layout for Input Stream #0.0 : stereo Input #0, asf, from 'C:\vidtests\Wildlife.wmv' : Metadata: SfOriginalFPS : 299700 WMFSDKVersion : 11.0.6001.7000 WMFSDKNeeded : 0.0.0.0000 comment : Footage: Small World Productions, Inc; Tourism New Zealand | Producer: Gary F. Spradling | Music: Steve Ball title : Wildlife in HD copyright : -¬ 2008 Microsoft Corporation IsVBR : 0 DeviceConformanceTemplate: AP@L3 Duration: 00:00:30.09, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 6977 kb/s Stream #0:0(eng): Audio: wmav2 (a[1][0][0] / 0x0161), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp , 192 kb/s Stream #0:1(eng): Video: vc1 (Advanced) (WVC1 / 0x31435657), yuv420p, 1280x7 20, 5942 kb/s, 29.97 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64 [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] profile High, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] 264 - core 133 r2334 a3ac64b - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC cod ec - Copyleft 2003-2013 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 r ef=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed _ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pski p=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=3 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 deci mate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_ adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=2 5 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.6 0 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00 Output #0, mp4, to 'C:\vidtests\Wildlife.mp4': Metadata: SfOriginalFPS : 299700 WMFSDKVersion : 11.0.6001.7000 WMFSDKNeeded : 0.0.0.0000 comment : Footage: Small World Productions, Inc; Tourism New Zealand | Producer: Gary F. Spradling | Music: Steve Ball title : Wildlife in HD copyright : -¬ 2008 Microsoft Corporation IsVBR : 0 DeviceConformanceTemplate: AP@L3 encoder : Lavf55.10.100 Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (libx264) ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p, 6 40x480, q=-1--1, 30k tbn, 29.97 tbc Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (libvo_aacenc) ([64][0][0][0] / 0x0040), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s Stream mapping: Stream #0:1 -> #0:0 (vc1 -> libx264) Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (wmav2 -> libvo_aacenc) Press [q] to stop, [?] for help frame= 53 fps= 49 q=29.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.13 bitrate= 2.9kbits/ frame= 63 fps= 40 q=29.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.46 bitrate= 0.8kbits/ frame= 74 fps= 35 q=29.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:00.83 bitrate= 0.5kbits/ frame= 85 fps= 32 q=29.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:01.20 bitrate= 0.3kbits/ frame= 95 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:01.53 bitrate= 0.3kbits/ frame= 107 fps= 28 q=29.0 size= 0kB time=00:00:01.93 bitrate= 0.2kbits/ Queue input is backward in time [mp4 @ 00000000003ef800] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 7616 , current: 7063; changing to 7617. This may result in incorrect timestamps in th e output file. frame= 118 fps= 28 q=29.0 size= 113kB time=00:00:02.30 bitrate= 402.6kbits/ frame= 129 fps= 26 q=29.0 size= 219kB time=00:00:02.66 bitrate= 670.7kbits/ frame= 141 fps= 26 q=29.0 size= 264kB time=00:00:03.06 bitrate= 704.2kbits/ frame= 152 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 328kB time=00:00:03.43 bitrate= 782.2kbits/ frame= 163 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 431kB time=00:00:03.80 bitrate= 928.1kbits/ frame= 174 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 568kB time=00:00:04.17 bitrate=1116.3kbits/ frame= 190 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 781kB time=00:00:04.70 bitrate=1359.9kbits/ frame= 204 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1006kB time=00:00:05.17 bitrate=1593.1kbits/ frame= 218 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1058kB time=00:00:05.63 bitrate=1536.8kbits/ frame= 229 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1093kB time=00:00:06.00 bitrate=1490.9kbits/ frame= 239 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 1118kB time=00:00:06.33 bitrate=1444.4kbits/ frame= 251 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 1150kB time=00:00:06.74 bitrate=1397.9kbits/ frame= 265 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 1234kB time=00:00:07.20 bitrate=1402.3kbits/ frame= 278 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1332kB time=00:00:07.64 bitrate=1428.3kbits/ frame= 294 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1403kB time=00:00:08.17 bitrate=1405.7kbits/ frame= 308 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1547kB time=00:00:08.64 bitrate=1466.4kbits/ frame= 323 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1595kB time=00:00:09.14 bitrate=1429.5kbits/ frame= 337 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1702kB time=00:00:09.60 bitrate=1450.7kbits/ frame= 351 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1755kB time=00:00:10.07 bitrate=1427.1kbits/ frame= 365 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1820kB time=00:00:10.54 bitrate=1414.1kbits/ frame= 381 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1852kB time=00:00:11.07 bitrate=1369.6kbits/ frame= 396 fps= 26 q=29.0 size= 1893kB time=00:00:11.57 bitrate=1339.5kbits/ frame= 409 fps= 26 q=29.0 size= 1923kB time=00:00:12.01 bitrate=1311.8kbits/ frame= 421 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1967kB time=00:00:12.41 bitrate=1298.3kbits/ frame= 434 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 1998kB time=00:00:12.84 bitrate=1274.0kbits/ frame= 445 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2018kB time=00:00:13.21 bitrate=1251.3kbits/ frame= 458 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2048kB time=00:00:13.64 bitrate=1229.5kbits/ frame= 471 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2067kB time=00:00:14.08 bitrate=1202.3kbits/ frame= 484 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2189kB time=00:00:14.51 bitrate=1235.5kbits/ frame= 497 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2260kB time=00:00:14.94 bitrate=1238.3kbits/ frame= 509 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2311kB time=00:00:15.34 bitrate=1233.3kbits/ frame= 523 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2429kB time=00:00:15.81 bitrate=1258.1kbits/ frame= 535 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2541kB time=00:00:16.21 bitrate=1283.5kbits/ frame= 548 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2718kB time=00:00:16.64 bitrate=1337.5kbits/ frame= 560 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2845kB time=00:00:17.05 bitrate=1367.1kbits/ frame= 571 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 2965kB time=00:00:17.41 bitrate=1394.6kbits/ frame= 580 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 3025kB time=00:00:17.71 bitrate=1398.7kbits/ frame= 588 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 3098kB time=00:00:17.98 bitrate=1411.1kbits/ frame= 597 fps= 25 q=29.0 size= 3183kB time=00:00:18.28 bitrate=1426.1kbits/ frame= 606 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 3279kB time=00:00:18.58 bitrate=1445.2kbits/ frame= 616 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 3441kB time=00:00:18.91 bitrate=1489.9kbits/ frame= 626 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 3650kB time=00:00:19.25 bitrate=1553.0kbits/ frame= 638 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 3826kB time=00:00:19.65 bitrate=1594.7kbits/ frame= 649 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 3950kB time=00:00:20.02 bitrate=1616.3kbits/ frame= 660 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4067kB time=00:00:20.38 bitrate=1634.1kbits/ frame= 669 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4121kB time=00:00:20.68 bitrate=1631.8kbits/ frame= 682 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4274kB time=00:00:21.12 bitrate=1657.9kbits/ frame= 696 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4446kB time=00:00:21.58 bitrate=1687.1kbits/ frame= 709 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4590kB time=00:00:22.02 bitrate=1707.3kbits/ frame= 719 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4772kB time=00:00:22.35 bitrate=1748.5kbits/ frame= 732 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4852kB time=00:00:22.78 bitrate=1744.3kbits/ frame= 744 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 4973kB time=00:00:23.18 bitrate=1756.9kbits/ frame= 756 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5099kB time=00:00:23.59 bitrate=1770.8kbits/ frame= 768 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5149kB time=00:00:23.99 bitrate=1758.4kbits/ frame= 780 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5227kB time=00:00:24.39 bitrate=1755.7kbits/ frame= 797 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5377kB time=00:00:24.95 bitrate=1765.0kbits/ frame= 813 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5507kB time=00:00:25.49 bitrate=1769.5kbits/ frame= 828 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5634kB time=00:00:25.99 bitrate=1775.5kbits/ frame= 843 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5701kB time=00:00:26.49 bitrate=1762.9kbits/ frame= 859 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5830kB time=00:00:27.02 bitrate=1767.0kbits/ frame= 872 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 5926kB time=00:00:27.46 bitrate=1767.7kbits/ frame= 888 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 6014kB time=00:00:27.99 bitrate=1759.7kbits/ frame= 900 fps= 24 q=29.0 size= 6332kB time=00:00:28.39 bitrate=1826.9kbits/ frame= 901 fps= 24 q=-1.0 Lsize= 6717kB time=00:00:30.10 bitrate=1828.0kbits /s video:6211kB audio:472kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.513217% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] frame I:8 Avg QP:21.77 size: 39744 [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] frame P:433 Avg QP:25.69 size: 11490 [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] frame B:460 Avg QP:29.25 size: 2319 [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] consecutive B-frames: 5.4% 78.6% 2.7% 13.3% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] mb I I16..4: 21.8% 48.8% 29.5% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] mb P I16..4: 0.7% 4.0% 1.3% P16..4: 37.1% 22.2 % 15.5% 0.0% 0.0% skip:19.2% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] mb B I16..4: 0.1% 0.5% 0.2% B16..8: 43.5% 7.0 % 2.1% direct: 2.2% skip:44.5% L0:36.4% L1:52.7% BI:10.9% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] 8x8 transform intra:62.8% inter:56.2% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 74.2% 78.8% 44.0% inter: 2 3.6% 14.5% 1.0% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] i16 v,h,dc,p: 48% 24% 9% 20% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 16% 17% 15% 7% 8% 11% 8% 10% 8% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 19% 17% 15% 7% 10% 11% 8% 7% 7% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] i8c dc,h,v,p: 53% 21% 18% 7% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.7% UV:0.0% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] ref P L0: 62.4% 19.0% 12.0% 6.6% 0.0% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] ref B L0: 90.5% 8.9% 0.7% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] ref B L1: 97.9% 2.1% [libx264 @ 00000000002e6980] kb/s:1692.37 AND THE –MOVFLAGS COMMAND: C:\XSITE\SITE>ffmpeg_new -i C:\vidtests\Wildlife.mp4 -movflags faststart C:\vidtests\Wildlife_fs.mp4 AND THE –MOVFLAGS OUTPUT ffmpeg version N-54207-ge59fb3f Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers built on Jun 25 2013 21:55:00 with gcc 4.7.3 (GCC) configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-w32threads --enable-av isynth --enable-bzlib --enable-fontconfig --enable-frei0r --enable-gnutls --enab le-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libcaca --enable-libfreetyp e --enable-libgsm --enable-libilbc --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --ena ble-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-l ibopus --enable-librtmp --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libsoxr --enable-libsp eex --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo- amrwbenc --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libxavs -- enable-libxvid --enable-zlib libavutil 52. 37.101 / 52. 37.101 libavcodec 55. 17.100 / 55. 17.100 libavformat 55. 10.100 / 55. 10.100 libavdevice 55. 2.100 / 55. 2.100 libavfilter 3. 77.101 / 3. 77.101 libswscale 2. 3.100 / 2. 3.100 libswresample 0. 17.102 / 0. 17.102 libpostproc 52. 3.100 / 52. 3.100 Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'C:\vidtests\Wildlife.mp4': Metadata: major_brand : isom minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41 title : Wildlife in HD encoder : Lavf55.10.100 comment : Footage: Small World Productions, Inc; Tourism New Zealand | Producer: Gary F. Spradling | Music: Steve Ball copyright : -¬ 2008 Microsoft Corporation Duration: 00:00:30.13, start: 0.036281, bitrate: 1826 kb/s Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 640x480, 1692 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 tbc Metadata: handler_name : VideoHandler Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 12 8 kb/s Metadata: handler_name : SoundHandler [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64 [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] profile High, level 3.0 [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] 264 - core 133 r2334 a3ac64b - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC cod ec - Copyleft 2003-2013 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 r ef=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed _ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pski p=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=3 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 deci mate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_ adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=2 5 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.6 0 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00 Output #0, mp4, to 'C:\vidtests\Wildlife_fs.mp4': Metadata: major_brand : isom minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41 title : Wildlife in HD copyright : -¬ 2008 Microsoft Corporation comment : Footage: Small World Productions, Inc; Tourism New Zealand | Producer: Gary F. Spradling | Music: Steve Ball encoder : Lavf55.10.100 Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (libx264) ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p, 6 40x480, q=-1--1, 30k tbn, 29.97 tbc Metadata: handler_name : VideoHandler Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (libvo_aacenc) ([64][0][0][0] / 0x0040), 44100 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s Metadata: handler_name : SoundHandler Stream mapping: Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 -> libx264) Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac -> libvo_aacenc) Press [q] to stop, [?] for help frame= 52 fps=0.0 q=29.0 size= 29kB time=00:00:01.76 bitrate= 133.9kbits/ frame= 63 fps= 60 q=29.0 size= 104kB time=00:00:02.14 bitrate= 397.2kbits/ frame= 74 fps= 47 q=29.0 size= 176kB time=00:00:02.51 bitrate= 573.2kbits/ frame= 87 fps= 41 q=29.0 size= 265kB time=00:00:02.93 bitrate= 741.2kbits/ frame= 101 fps= 37 q=29.0 size= 358kB time=00:00:03.39 bitrate= 862.8kbits/ frame= 113 fps= 34 q=29.0 size= 437kB time=00:00:03.79 bitrate= 943.7kbits/ frame= 125 fps= 33 q=29.0 size= 520kB time=00:00:04.20 bitrate=1012.2kbits/ frame= 138 fps= 32 q=29.0 size= 606kB time=00:00:04.64 bitrate=1069.8kbits/ frame= 151 fps= 31 q=29.0 size= 696kB time=00:00:05.06 bitrate=1124.3kbits/ frame= 163 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 780kB time=00:00:05.47 bitrate=1166.4kbits/ frame= 176 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 919kB time=00:00:05.90 bitrate=1273.9kbits/ frame= 196 fps= 31 q=29.0 size= 994kB time=00:00:06.57 bitrate=1237.4kbits/ frame= 213 fps= 31 q=29.0 size= 1097kB time=00:00:07.13 bitrate=1258.8kbits/ frame= 225 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1204kB time=00:00:07.53 bitrate=1309.8kbits/ frame= 236 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1323kB time=00:00:07.91 bitrate=1369.4kbits/ frame= 249 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 1451kB time=00:00:08.34 bitrate=1424.6kbits/ frame= 263 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 1574kB time=00:00:08.82 bitrate=1461.3kbits/ frame= 278 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 1610kB time=00:00:09.30 bitrate=1416.9kbits/ frame= 296 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1655kB time=00:00:09.91 bitrate=1368.0kbits/ frame= 313 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1697kB time=00:00:10.48 bitrate=1326.4kbits/ frame= 330 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1737kB time=00:00:11.05 bitrate=1286.5kbits/ frame= 345 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1776kB time=00:00:11.54 bitrate=1260.4kbits/ frame= 361 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1813kB time=00:00:12.07 bitrate=1230.3kbits/ frame= 377 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1847kB time=00:00:12.59 bitrate=1201.4kbits/ frame= 395 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1880kB time=00:00:13.22 bitrate=1165.0kbits/ frame= 410 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 1993kB time=00:00:13.72 bitrate=1190.2kbits/ frame= 424 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2080kB time=00:00:14.18 bitrate=1201.4kbits/ frame= 439 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2166kB time=00:00:14.67 bitrate=1209.4kbits/ frame= 455 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2262kB time=00:00:15.21 bitrate=1217.5kbits/ frame= 469 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2341kB time=00:00:15.68 bitrate=1223.0kbits/ frame= 484 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2430kB time=00:00:16.19 bitrate=1229.1kbits/ frame= 500 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2523kB time=00:00:16.71 bitrate=1236.3kbits/ frame= 515 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2607kB time=00:00:17.21 bitrate=1240.4kbits/ frame= 531 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2681kB time=00:00:17.73 bitrate=1238.2kbits/ frame= 546 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2758kB time=00:00:18.24 bitrate=1238.2kbits/ frame= 561 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2824kB time=00:00:18.75 bitrate=1233.4kbits/ frame= 576 fps= 30 q=29.0 size= 2955kB time=00:00:19.25 bitrate=1256.8kbits/ frame= 586 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3061kB time=00:00:19.59 bitrate=1279.6kbits/ frame= 598 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3217kB time=00:00:19.99 bitrate=1318.4kbits/ frame= 610 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3354kB time=00:00:20.39 bitrate=1347.2kbits/ frame= 622 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3483kB time=00:00:20.78 bitrate=1372.6kbits/ frame= 634 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3593kB time=00:00:21.19 bitrate=1388.6kbits/ frame= 648 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3708kB time=00:00:21.66 bitrate=1402.3kbits/ frame= 661 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3811kB time=00:00:22.08 bitrate=1413.5kbits/ frame= 674 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 3978kB time=00:00:22.53 bitrate=1446.3kbits/ frame= 690 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4133kB time=00:00:23.05 bitrate=1468.4kbits/ frame= 706 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4263kB time=00:00:23.58 bitrate=1480.4kbits/ frame= 721 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4391kB time=00:00:24.08 bitrate=1493.8kbits/ frame= 735 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4524kB time=00:00:24.55 bitrate=1509.4kbits/ frame= 748 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4661kB time=00:00:24.98 bitrate=1528.2kbits/ frame= 763 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4835kB time=00:00:25.50 bitrate=1553.1kbits/ frame= 778 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 4993kB time=00:00:25.99 bitrate=1573.6kbits/ frame= 795 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 5149kB time=00:00:26.56 bitrate=1588.1kbits/ frame= 814 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 5258kB time=00:00:27.18 bitrate=1584.4kbits/ frame= 833 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 5368kB time=00:00:27.82 bitrate=1580.2kbits/ frame= 851 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 5469kB time=00:00:28.43 bitrate=1575.9kbits/ frame= 870 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 5567kB time=00:00:29.05 bitrate=1569.5kbits/ frame= 889 fps= 29 q=29.0 size= 5688kB time=00:00:29.70 bitrate=1568.4kbits/ Starting second pass: moving header on top of the file frame= 902 fps= 28 q=-1.0 Lsize= 6109kB time=00:00:30.14 bitrate=1659.8kbits /s dup=1 drop=0 video:5602kB audio:472kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 0.566600% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] frame I:8 Avg QP:20.52 size: 39667 [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] frame P:419 Avg QP:25.06 size: 10524 [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] frame B:475 Avg QP:29.03 size: 2123 [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] consecutive B-frames: 3.2% 79.6% 0.3% 16.9% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] mb I I16..4: 20.7% 52.3% 26.9% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] mb P I16..4: 0.7% 4.2% 1.1% P16..4: 39.4% 21.4 % 13.8% 0.0% 0.0% skip:19.3% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] mb B I16..4: 0.1% 0.9% 0.3% B16..8: 41.8% 6.4 % 1.7% direct: 1.7% skip:47.1% L0:36.4% L1:53.3% BI:10.3% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] 8x8 transform intra:65.7% inter:58.8% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 71.2% 76.6% 35.7% inter: 2 0.7% 13.0% 0.5% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] i16 v,h,dc,p: 48% 24% 8% 20% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 17% 18% 15% 6% 8% 11% 8% 10% 8% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 19% 16% 15% 7% 10% 11% 8% 8% 7% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] i8c dc,h,v,p: 51% 22% 19% 9% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.7% UV:0.0% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] ref P L0: 63.4% 19.7% 11.0% 5.9% 0.0% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] ref B L0: 90.7% 8.7% 0.7% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] ref B L1: 98.4% 1.6% [libx264 @ 0000000004360620] kb/s:1524.54

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