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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 16, 2011

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Wednesday, November 16, 2011Popular ReleasesMVC 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 ...Public Key Infrastructure PowerShell module: PowerShell PKI Module v0.9.2: Installation guide: Use default installation path to install this module for all users To install this module for current user only — use the following path: %MyDocs%\WindowsPowerShell\Modules Note: you MUST uninstall previously installed module versions. Direct upgrade is not supported! Note: at this time PowerShell 3.0 CTP1 is not supported. Release notes for version 0.9.2: updated and corrected help for several commands. added online help for all commands. Get-CertificationAuthorit...Files Name Copier: 1.0.0.1: Files Name Copier is a simple easy to use utility that allows you to drag and drop any number of files onto it. The clipboard will now contain the list of files you just dropped.SQL Monitor - tracking sql server activities: SQLMon 4.1 alpha 3: 1. improved object search, now show previous/next navigation 2. shows server start up time 3. shows process cpu/ioCODE Framework: 4.0.11115.0: Added support for partial views in the WPF framework, as well as a new helper feature that allows hooking commands/actions to all WPF events.Silverlight Toolkit: Windows Phone Toolkit - Nov 2011 (7.1 SDK): This release is coming soon! What's new ListPicker once again works in a ScrollViewer LongListSelector bug fixes around OutOfRange exceptions, wrong ordering of items, grouping issues, and scrolling events. ItemTuple is now refactored to be the public type LongListSelectorItem to provide users better access to the values in selection changed handlers. PerformanceProgressBar binding fix for IsIndeterminate (item 9767 and others) There is no longer a GestureListener dependency with the C...DotNetNuke® Community Edition: 06.01.01: Major Highlights Fixed problem with the core skin object rendering CSS above the other framework inserted files, which caused problems when using core style skin objects Fixed issue with iFrames getting removed when content is saved Fixed issue with the HTML module removing styling and scripts from the content Fixed issue with inserting the link to jquery after the header of the page Security Fixesnone Updated Modules/Providers ModulesHTML version 6.1.0 ProvidersnoneDotNetNuke Performance Settings: 01.00.00: First release of DotNetNuke SQL update queries to set the DNN installation for optimimal performance. Please review and rate this release... (stars are welcome)SCCM Client Actions Tool: SCCM Client Actions Tool v0.8: SCCM Client Actions Tool v0.8 is currently the latest version. It comes with following changes since last version: Added "Wake On LAN" action. WOL.EXE is now included. Added new action "Get all active advertisements" to list all machine based advertisements on remote computers. Added new action "Get all active user advertisements" to list all user based advertisements for logged on users on remote computers. Added config.ini setting "enablePingTest" to control whether ping test is ru...Windows Azure SDK for PHP: Windows Azure SDK for PHP v4.0.4: INSTALLATION Windows Azure SDK for PHP requires no special installation steps. Simply download the SDK, extract it to the folder you would like to keep it in, and add the library directory to your PHP include_path. INSTALLATION VIA PEAR Maarten Balliauw provides an unofficial PEAR channel via http://www.pearplex.net. Here's how to use it: New installation: pear channel-discover pear.pearplex.net pear install pearplex/PHPAzure Or if you've already installed PHPAzure before: pear upgrade p...QuickGraph, Graph Data Structures And Algorithms for .Net: 3.6.61116.0: Portable library build that allows to use QuickGraph in any .NET environment: .net 4.0, silverlight 4.0, WP7, Win8 Metro apps.Devpad: 4.7: Whats new for Devpad 4.7: New export to Rich Text New export to FlowDocument Minor Bug Fix's, improvements and speed upsDesktop Google Reader: 1.4.2: This release remove the like and the broadcast buttons as Google Reader stopped supporting them (no, we don't like this decission...) Additionally and to have at least a small plus: the login window now automaitcally logs you in if you stored username and passwort (no more extra click needed) Finally added WebKit .NET to the about window and removed Awesomium MD5-Hash: 5fccf25a2fb4fecc1dc77ebabc8d3897 SHA-Hash: d44ff788b123bd33596ad1a75f3b9fa74a862fdbRDRemote: Remote Desktop remote configurator V 1.0.0: Remote Desktop remote configurator V 1.0.0Rawr: Rawr 4.2.7: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr AddonWe now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including bag and bank items) like Char...VidCoder: 1.2.2: Updated Handbrake core to svn 4344. Fixed the 6-channel discrete mixdown option not appearing for AAC encoders. Added handling for possible exceptions when copying to the clipboard, added retries and message when it fails. Fixed issue with audio bitrate UI not appearing sometimes when switching audio encoders. Added extra checks to protect against reported crashes. Added code to upgrade encoding profiles on old queued items.Media Companion: MC 3.422b 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) TV Show Resolutions... Made the TV Shows folder list sorted. Re-visibled 'Manually Add Path' in Root Folders. Sorted list to process during new tv episode search Rebuild Movies now processes thru folders alphabetically Fix for issue #208 - Display Missing Episodes is not popu...XPath Visualizer: XPathVisualizer v1.3 Latest: This is v1.3.0.6 of XpathVisualizer. This is an update release for v1.3. These workitems have been fixed since v1.3.0.5: 7429 7432 7427MSBuild Extension Pack: November 2011: Release Blog Post The MSBuild Extension Pack November 2011 release provides a collection of over 415 MSBuild tasks. A high level summary of what the tasks currently cover includes the following: System Items: Active Directory, Certificates, COM+, Console, Date and Time, Drives, Environment Variables, Event Logs, Files and Folders, FTP, GAC, Network, Performance Counters, Registry, Services, Sound Code: Assemblies, AsyncExec, CAB Files, Code Signing, DynamicExecute, File Detokenisation, GU...Extensions for Reactive Extensions (Rxx): Rxx 1.2: What's NewRelated Work Items Please read the latest release notes for details about what's new. Content SummaryRxx provides the following features. See the Documentation for details. Many IObservable<T> extension methods and IEnumerable<T> extension methods. Many useful types such as ViewModel, CommandSubject, ListSubject, DictionarySubject, ObservableDynamicObject, Either<TLeft, TRight>, Maybe<T> and others. Various interactive labs that illustrate the runtime behavior of the extensio...New Projects#foo MigratorFoo: Migration generator for NHibernate projects with integrated NuGet console commands.Best music production software: Programmers needed to make the perfect open source music production software: I have a well structured creative idea based on the following principle "powerful simplicity"...Bricks: Bricks is a development foundation for different technologyCultiv Jupiter Contact Form: A contact form package for Umbraco v5 (Jupiter)DNN Fan Gate: A simple module for fan gating content in DotNetNukeDobo: DoboDotNetNuke Performance Settings: A set of SQL queries that will change the (Host & Schedule) settings of your DotNetNuke installation for maximal production performance or set it optimal for Development. These queries were used in my presentation on DotNetNuke World 2011.Experiment Manager: This project was developed as a response to the requirements for an experiment manager software for clinical psychology experiments. Feedbook: Feedbook supports any RSS and Atom news feeds, It can also download podcasts saliently and play it within Feedbook. It integrates with Twitter and Google Buzz very well, you can send tweets/post easily and can also subscribe to twitter timelines/buzz feeds. Characters like # & @ also recognize as special keywords, so that you can subscribe to feeds of any on going topic on twitter like #download, #movie or #cricket. http://feedbook.orgFiles Name Copier: Files Name Copier is a simple easy to use utility that allows you to drag and drop any number of files onto it. The clipboard will now contain the list of files you just dropped.Kinban: Kinect + TFS This is a WPF representation of a Kanban board that can be manipulated with the Kinect.MapTeamsPolls: This is an ASP.Net ajax polls user controls. Using ajax and jQuery. This user controls can be used in any ASP.Net 4.0 projects. Use the build script to create Umbraco package for the user controls and the admin page. As a bonus, there is a ruby rake build script for the package.MetroButton with Converter Image SVG2XAML Silverlight: - Control library SL4 with Button Metro Style - Windows application for download and convert SVG to Resource.xaml for silverlightMetroIoc - a simple WinRT IoC container: A WinRT port of the MicroIoc container... MetroIoc is a native WinRT Inversion of Control container, for use in Metro style apps. Check the license for usage rights of this projectMTN Library: .NET library with extensions for LINQ and Entity Framework as well as useful extensions. Contains many extensions, features for display methods using jquery Ajax. Has a proxy to create and use methods with cache as much as in the ajax methods.myDeck: Main goal of this project is to show best practices and patterns for unit testing in Silverlight Technology. It is developed as part of BAThesisNetwork extensions for .net Micro Framework and Gadgeteer: Adds .net Microframework support for - BinaryReader - BinaryWriter Adds a FEZ way for TCP and UDP networking to the Gadgeteer platformNewSunse: this card creating projectOrchard CMS ImageResizer: resize or scale images in orchard simply by url or using the build-in HtmlHelperReportCenter: ReportCenterSharePoint 2010 Extended Lookup Field: This project installs a custom lookup field, which allows the user to choose the item through a SharePoint 2010 popup. Here are the features offered by this field: - high extensibility - high performance when woking with very large lists - small size for new and edit list forms - posibility to specify you own search page - SharePoint 2010 lookup and feel The project is a VS2010 SharePoint 2010 project. Simplicity Framework: Simplicity is a framework to automatic generate dataccess an UI code for crudlstackoverflowstore: Homenaje a stackoverflow.Stoc: Aplicatia Stoc simplifica generarea facturilor si a retelor, gestionand stocul marfii unei firme. Student PAS: Student PAS is a simple webapp for assign tasks for students. It was created with educational purposes. Thus, it is not an serious usable software.System Center 2012 - Operations Manager Managed Module Samples: Sample Visual Studio 2010 projects that illustrate how you can create custom module types for System Center 2012 - Operations Manager. The project contains the C# code for creating data source, write action, probe and condition detection modules and more.Tecnosop: Sistema de facturacion de TecnosopUtilityLibrary.FormControl: FormControlWebRequestFrequencyControl: This project intends to solve the web request frequency control problem. This solution is based on HttpModule and highly configurable. If you need to limit the frequency of requests, you may interest in this.Windows Phone Marketplace Analytics: Libraries (and data) to help you access and analyze the different information provided by the MS marketplace.Windows Troubleshooting Platform Starter Packs: Starter Packs are open source packages based on the Windows Troubleshooting Platform that can be modified by developers to suit their specific needs. Starter Packs are an easy way for developers to create and distribute a Windows Troubleshooting Pack to diagnose computer problems.

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 09, 2012

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Tuesday, October 09, 2012Popular ReleasesScript SQL Server Configuration: Release 3.0.9: Release 3.0.9 Rewrote trigger scripting. If encrypted triggers are encountered they are listed in a commented line. Scripts event notifications Added an option to script a single database (in addition to the instance) using the /scriptdb parameter. Script user-defined end points Script Service Broker objects Skip database mail on Express EditionMicrosoft Ajax Minifier: Microsoft Ajax Minifier 4.69: Fix for issue #18766: build task should not build the output if it's newer than all the input files. Fix for Issue #18764: build taks -res switch not working. update build task to concatenate input source and then minify, rather than minify and then concatenate. include resource string-replacement root name in the assumed globals list. Stop replacing new Date().getTime() with +new Date -- the latter is smaller, but turns out it executes up to 45% slower. add CSS support for single-...D3 Loot Tracker: 1.5.2: now recording server ip for each drop.WinRT XAML Toolkit: WinRT XAML Toolkit - 1.3.3: WinRT XAML Toolkit based on the Windows 8 RTM SDK. Download the latest source from the SOURCE CODE page. For compiled version use NuGet. You can add it to your project in Visual Studio by going to View/Other Windows/Package Manager Console and entering: PM> Install-Package winrtxamltoolkit Features Attachable Behaviors AwaitableUI extensions Controls Converters Debugging helpers Extension methods Imaging helpers IO helpers VisualTree helpers Samples Recent changes NOTE:...DevLib: 69721 binary dll: 69721 binary dllVidCoder: 1.4.4 Beta: Fixed inability to create new presets with "Save As".MCEBuddy 2.x: MCEBuddy 2.3.2: Changelog for 2.3.2 (32bit and 64bit) 1. Added support for generating XBMC XML NFO files for files in the conversion queue (store it along with the source video with source video name.nfo). Right click on the file in queue and select generate XML 2. UI bugifx, start and end trim box locations interchanged 3. Added support for removing commercials from non DVRMS/WTV files (MP4, AVI etc) 4. Now checking for Firewall port status before enabling (might help with some firewall problems) 5. User In...Sandcastle Help File Builder: SHFB v1.9.5.0 with Visual Studio Package: General InformationIMPORTANT: On some systems, the content of the ZIP file is blocked and the installer may fail to run. Before extracting it, right click on the ZIP file, select Properties, and click on the Unblock button if it is present in the lower right corner of the General tab in the properties dialog. This release supports the Sandcastle October 2012 Release (v2.7.1.0). It includes full support for generating, installing, and removing MS Help Viewer files. This new release suppor...Sofire Suite v1.6: XSqlModelGenerator.AddIn: 1、?? VS2010/2012 2、?? .NET FRAMEWORK 2.0 3、?? SOFIRE V1.6ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.68.0: ClosedXML now resolves formulas! Yes it finally happened. If you call cell.Value and it has a formula the library will try to evaluate the formula and give you the result. For example: var wb = new XLWorkbook(); var ws = wb.AddWorksheet("Sheet1"); ws.Cell("A1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("B1").SetValue(1).CellBelow().SetValue(1); ws.Cell("C1").FormulaA1 = "\"The total value is: \" & SUM(A1:B2)"; var...Json.NET: Json.NET 4.5 Release 10: New feature - Added Portable build to NuGet package New feature - Added GetValue and TryGetValue with StringComparison to JObject Change - Improved duplicate object reference id error message Fix - Fixed error when comparing empty JObjects Fix - Fixed SecAnnotate warnings Fix - Fixed error when comparing DateTime JValue with a DateTimeOffset JValue Fix - Fixed serializer sometimes not using DateParseHandling setting Fix - Fixed error in JsonWriter.WriteToken when writing a DateT...Readable Passphrase Generator: KeePass Plugin 0.7.2: Changes: Tested against KeePass 2.20.1 Tested under Ubuntu 12.10 (and KeePass 2.20) Added GenerateAsUtf8 method returning the encrypted passphrase as a UTF8 byte array.patterns & practices: Prism: Prism for .NET 4.5: This is a release does not include any functionality changes over Prism 4.1 Desktop. These assemblies target .NET 4.5. These assemblies also were compiled against updated dependencies: Unity 3.0 and Common Service Locator (Portable Class Library).Snoop, the WPF Spy Utility: Snoop 2.8.0: Snoop 2.8.0Announcing Snoop 2.8.0! It's been exactly six months since the last release, and this one has a bunch of goodies in it. In particular, there is now a PowerShell scripting tab, compliments of Bailey Ling. With this tab, the possibilities are limitless. It basically lets you automate/script the application that you are Snooping. Bailey has a couple blog posts (one and two) on his tab already, and I am sure more is to come. Please note that if you do not have PowerShell installed, y...Z3: Z3 4.1.2: Minor fixes. Now, z3 compiles with gcc 4.7.x.NET Micro Framework: .NET MF 4.3 (Beta): This is the 4.3 Beta version of the .NET Micro Framework. Feature List for v4.3 Support for Visual Studio 2012 (including the Windows Desktop Express version) All v4.2 QFEs features and bug fixes (PWM enhancements, lwIP and network driver reliability improvements, Analog Output, WinUSB and latest GCC support) Improved diagnostic information for deployment Decreased boot time Bug fixes Work Item 1736 - Create link for MFDeploy under start menu Work Item 1504 - Customizing lwIP o...NTCPMSG: V1.2.0.0: Allocate an identify cableid for each single connection cable. * Server can asend to specified cableid directly.Team Foundation Server Word Add-in: Version 1.0.12.0622: Welcome to the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Word Add-in Supported Environments Microsoft Office Word 2007 and 2010 X86 (32-bit) Team Foundation Server 2010 Object Model TFS 2010, 2012 and TFS Service supported, using TFS OM / Explorer 2010. Quality-Bar Details Tool has been reviewed by Visual Studio ALM Rangers Tool has been through an independent technical and quality review All critical bugs have been resolved Known Issues / Bugs WI#43553 - The Acceptance criteria is not pu...UMD????? - PC?: UMDEditor?????V2.7: ??：http://jianyun.org/archives/948.html =============================================================================== UMD??? ???? =============================================================================== 2.7.0 (2012-10-3) ???????“UMD???.exe”??“UMDEditor.exe” ?????????；????????，??????。??????，????！ ??64????，??????????????bug ?????????????，???? ???????????????? ???????????????，??????????bug ------------------------------------------------------- ?? reg.bat ????????????。 ????，??????txt/u...Untangler: Untangler 1.0.0: Add a missing file from first releaseNew Projects3dBuzz: Denise's website for 3d projection mapping artists to develop a web community to show and discuss their work.Advanced DataGridView with Excel-like auto filter: Windows Forms DataGridView Control with Excel-Like auto-filter context menu Windows Forms DataGridView ??????? ? Excel-???????? ????-????????azure media services admin panel: Simple azure media services dashboard. Upload media assets, queue encoder tasks and stream your audio\video assets.BackupCleaner.Net: A C#.Net-based tool for automatically removing old backups selectively. It can be used when you already make daily backups on disk, and want to clean them up while still keeping some of the ones made weeks, months or years ago.Bible Lib: BibleLib is a .net compatible library containing information for books, chapters and verses in the Old Testament.CRM 4.0 to CRM 2011 Queues Upgrades: for more information and documentation, please refer to http://mayankp.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/crm-4-0-to-crm-2011-queues-upgrades/ CSV File Reader and Writer for .NET: C# classes for reading and writing CSV files. Support for multi-line fields, custom delimiter and quote characters, options for how empty lines are handled.DotNetNuke Boards: DNN Boards is a task management solution that allows each user to have their own task board or social group members can collaborate within a single board.FarmaciasCruzAzul: Sistema Cruz AzulFindValueInDatabase: This solution finds the value you input in the hole given database and tells you which columns of which tables have the value you are looking for.Fish Tank: Social networking site for Aquarium enthusiasts.GSBA Apps: GSBA App for Windows 8Heuristics for the Vehicle Routing Problem: This is the code for our class, IEMS 482.Icaro - UPN: Icaro UPN es la recopilación de todos los preyectos realizados en clases de los diferentes proyectos que Enseño, espero les Sirva.JSLogger - free logging library for JavaScript: JSLogger is a free JavaScript Library for log information during the duration of your client script. The target is very easy >>Find every javasvript error<<Just little strategy: Just little strategy writen in C# using XNA Game Studio Now under developmentLightweight Medata Reader: The Lightweight Metadata Reader (LMR) is a tooling friendly version of the CLR Reflection APIs that takes no dependency on the CLR Loader.My Solution: No description for it nowoden????: ???????????????＾＾ooaavee.net: TODOPath Splitter: Path Splitter uses Roslyn to convert a method into a set of methods each equivalent to a distinct execution path. Assume annotations are added for use with Pex.Planning Poker for Azure: Planning Poker application allows distributed teams to play planning poker just using web browser. It can be deployed to IIS or Azure cloud service.plasmatrim.net: A library for controlling the USB PlasmaTrim from a .net application.powersaver: A simple utility, which will turn off your monitor when you lock your work station.Project13251008: gterProject13261008: asdsaProject13271008: sdfPyfus Reload: Server-side framework for Dofus 1.29.1 gameRei do Biscuit: E-commerce do rei do biscuitSofire Suite v1.6: Sofire Suite v1.6Sofire XSql: Sofire XSqlSosa Analysis Module (SAM): Numerical Analysis and data visualization program for SOSA psychological experiment software.SyncProject: The summary is coming soon... Just be patient ! Tistory Syntax Highlighter: ???? SyntaxHighlighter ????TJBHJJ: this is a website for company!tricogol App: nonetuts: My first SVNWatchr Change Control Management: Change control management for development and administrative teams focused on lean or agile processes.WCF Simple multi chat: This is a simple Windows form application that it's like a 'chat room'. Multiple users can login and chat with others users. The chat's core is powered by WCFWindows Event Log Email Notification: This will read the windows event logs based on the supplied xpath filters and email the specified addresses if there are matches.

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• Down Tools Week Cometh: Kissing Goodbye to CVs/Resumes and Cover Letters

  - by Bart Read

  I haven't blogged about what I'm doing in my (not so new) temporary role as Red Gate's technical recruiter, mostly because it's been routine, business as usual stuff, and because I've been trying to understand the role by doing it. I think now though the time has come to get a little more radical, so I'm going to tell you why I want to largely eliminate CVs/resumes and cover letters from the application process for some of our technical roles, and why I think that might be a good thing for candidates (and for us). I have a terrible confession to make, or at least it's a terrible confession for a recruiter: I don't really like CV sifting, or reading cover letters, and, unless I've misread the mood around here, neither does anybody else. It's dull, it's time-consuming, and it's somewhat soul destroying because, when all is said and done, you're being paid to be incredibly judgemental about people based on relatively little information. I feel like I've dirtied myself by saying that - I mean, after all, it's a core part of my job - but it sucks, it really does. (And, of course, the truth is I'm still a software engineer at heart, and I'm always looking for ways to do things better.) On the flip side, I've never met anyone who likes writing their CV. It takes hours and hours of faffing around and massaging it into shape, and the whole process is beset by a gnawing anxiety, frustration, and insecurity. All you really want is a chance to demonstrate your skills - not just talk about them - and how do you do that in a CV or cover letter? Often the best candidates will include samples of their work (a portfolio, screenshots, links to websites, product downloads, etc.), but sometimes this isn't possible, or may not be appropriate, or you just don't think you're allowed because of what your school/university careers service has told you (more commonly an issue with grads, obviously). And what are we actually trying to find out about people with all of this? I think the common criteria are actually pretty basic: Smart Gets things done (thanks for these two Joel) Not an a55hole* (sorry, have to get around Simple Talk's swear filter - and thanks to Professor Robert I. Sutton for this one) *Of course, everyone has off days, and I don't honestly think we're too worried about somebody being a bit grumpy every now and again. We can do a bit better than this in the context of the roles I'm talking about: we can be more specific about what "gets things done" means, at least in part. For software engineers and interns, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Excellent coder For test engineers, the non-exhaustive meaning of "gets things done" is: Good at finding problems in software Competent coder Team player, etc., to me, are covered by "not an a55hole". I don't expect people to be the life and soul of the party, or a wild extrovert - that's not what team player means, and it's not what "not an a55hole" means. Some of our best technical staff are quiet, introverted types, but they're still pleasant to work with. My problem is that I don't think the initial sift really helps us find out whether people are smart and get things done with any great efficacy. It's better than nothing, for sure, but it's not as good as it could be. It's also contentious, and potentially unfair/inequitable - if you want to get an idea of what I mean by this, check out the background information section at the bottom. Before I go any further, let's look at the Red Gate recruitment process for technical staff* as it stands now: (LOTS of) People apply for jobs. All these applications go through a brutal process of manual sifting, which eliminates between 75 and 90% of them, depending upon the role, and the time of year**. Depending upon the role, those who pass the sift will be sent an assessment or telescreened. For the purposes of this blog post I'm only interested in those that are sent some sort of programming assessment, or bug hunt. This means software engineers, test engineers, and software interns, which are the roles for which I receive the most applications. The telescreen tends to be reserved for project or product managers. Those that pass the assessment are invited in for first interview. This interview is mostly about assessing their technical skills***, although we're obviously on the look out for cultural fit red flags as well. If the first interview goes well we'll invite candidates back for a second interview. This is where team/cultural fit is really scoped out. We also use this interview to dive more deeply into certain areas of their skillset, and explore any concerns that may have come out of the first interview (these obviously won't have been serious or obvious enough to cause a rejection at that point, but are things we do need to look into before we'd consider making an offer). We might subsequently invite them in for lunch before we make them an offer. This tends to happen when we're recruiting somebody for a specific team and we'd like them to meet all the people they'll be working with directly. It's not an interview per se, but can prove pivotal if they don't gel with the team. Anyone who's made it this far will receive an offer from us. *We have a slightly quirky definition of "technical staff" as it relates to the technical recruiter role here. It includes software engineers, test engineers, software interns, user experience specialists, technical authors, project managers, product managers, and development managers, but does not include product support or information systems roles. **For example, the quality of graduate applicants overall noticeably drops as the academic year wears on, which is not to say that by now there aren't still stars in there, just that they're fewer and further between. ***Some organisations prefer to assess for team fit first, but I think assessing technical skills is a more effective initial filter - if they're the nicest person in the world, but can't cut a line of code they're not going to work out. Now, as I suggested in the title, Red Gate's Down Tools Week is upon us once again - next week in fact - and I had proposed as a project that we refactor and automate the first stage of marking our programming assessments. Marking assessments, and in fact organising the marking of them, is a somewhat time-consuming process, and we receive many assessment solutions that just don't make the cut, for whatever reason. Whilst I don't think it's possible to fully automate marking, I do think it ought to be possible to run a suite of automated tests over each candidate's solution to see whether or not it behaves correctly and, if it does, move on to a manual stage where we examine the code for structure, decomposition, style, readability, maintainability, etc. Obviously it's possible to use tools to generate potentially helpful metrics for some of these indices as well. This would obviously reduce the marking workload, and would provide candidates with quicker feedback about whether they've been successful - though I do wonder if waiting a tactful interval before sending a (nicely written) rejection might be wise. I duly scrawled out a picture of my ideal process, which looked like this: The problem is, as soon as I'd roughed it out, I realised that fundamentally it wasn't an ideal process at all, which explained the gnawing feeling of cognitive dissonance I'd been wrestling with all week, whilst I'd been trying to find time to do this. Here's what I mean. Automated assessment marking, and the associated infrastructure around that, makes it much easier for us to deal with large numbers of assessments. This means we can be much more permissive about who we send assessments out to or, in other words, we can give more candidates the opportunity to really demonstrate their skills to us. And this leads to a question: why not give everyone the opportunity to demonstrate their skills, to show that they're smart and can get things done? (Two or three of us even discussed this in the down tools week hustings earlier this week.) And isn't this a lot simpler than the alternative we'd been considering? (FYI, this was automated CV/cover letter sifting by some form of textual analysis to ideally eliminate the worst 50% or so of applications based on an analysis of the 20,000 or so historical applications we've received since 2007 - definitely not the basic keyword analysis beloved of recruitment agencies, since this would eliminate hardly anyone who was awful, but definitely would eliminate stellar Oxbridge candidates - #fail - or some nightmarishly complex Google-like system where we profile all our currently employees, only to realise that we're never going to get representative results because we don't have a statistically significant sample size in any given role - also #fail.) No, I think the new way is better. We let people self-select. We make them the masters (or mistresses) of their own destiny. We give applicants the power - we put their fate in their hands - by giving them the chance to demonstrate their skills, which is what they really want anyway, instead of requiring that they spend hours and hours creating a CV and cover letter that I'm going to evaluate for suitability, and make a value judgement about, in approximately 1 minute (give or take). It doesn't matter what university you attended, it doesn't matter if you had a bad year when you took your A-levels - here's your chance to shine, so take it and run with it. (As a side benefit, we cut the number of applications we have to sift by something like two thirds.) WIN! OK, yeah, sounds good, but will it actually work? That's an excellent question. My gut feeling is yes, and I'll justify why below (and hopefully have gone some way towards doing that above as well), but what I'm proposing here is really that we run an experiment for a period of time - probably a couple of months or so - and measure the outcomes we see: How many people apply? (Wouldn't be surprised or alarmed to see this cut by a factor of ten.) How many of them submit a good assessment? (More/less than at present?) How much overhead is there for us in dealing with these assessments compared to now? What are the success and failure rates at each interview stage compared to now? How many people are we hiring at the end of it compared to now? I think it'll work because I hypothesize that, amongst other things: It self-selects for people who really want to work at Red Gate which, at the moment, is something I have to try and assess based on their CV and cover letter - but if you're not that bothered about working here, why would you complete the assessment? Candidates who would submit a shoddy application probably won't feel motivated to do the assessment. Candidates who would demonstrate good attention to detail in their CV/cover letter will demonstrate good attention to detail in the assessment. In general, only the better candidates will complete and submit the assessment. Marking assessments is much less work so we'll be able to deal with any increase that we see (hopefully we will see). There are obviously other questions as well: Is plagiarism going to be a problem? Is there any way we can detect/discourage potential plagiarism? How do we assess candidates' education and experience? What about their ability to communicate in writing? Do we still want them to submit a CV afterwards if they pass assessment? Do we want to offer them the opportunity to tell us a bit about why they'd like the job when they submit their assessment? How does this affect our relationship with recruitment agencies we might use to hire for these roles? So, what's the objective for next week's Down Tools Week? Pretty simple really - we want to implement this process for the Graduate Software Engineer and Software Engineer positions that you can find on our website. I will be joined by a crack team of our best developers (Kevin Boyle, and new Red-Gater, Sam Blackburn), and recruiting hostess with the mostest Laura McQuillen, and hopefully a couple of others as well - if I can successfully twist more arms before Monday.* Hopefully by next Friday our experiment will be up and running, and we may have changed the way Red Gate recruits software engineers for good! Stay tuned and we'll let you know how it goes! *I'm going to play dirty by offering them beer and chocolate during meetings. Some background information: how agonising over the initial CV/cover letter sift helped lead us to bin it off entirely The other day I was agonising about the new university/good degree grade versus poor A-level results issue, and decided to canvas for other opinions to see if there was something I could do that was fairer than my current approach, which is almost always to reject. This generated quite an involved discussion on our Yammer site: I'm sure you can glean a pretty good impression of my own educational prejudices from that discussion as well, although I'm very open to changing my opinion - hopefully you've already figured that out from reading the rest of this post. Hopefully you can also trace a logical path from agonising about sifting to, "Uh, hang on, why on earth are we doing this anyway?!?" Technorati Tags: recruitment,hr,developers,testers,red gate,cv,resume,cover letter,assessment,sea change

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• Office 2010: It&rsquo;s not just DOC(X) and XLS(X)

  - by andrewbrust

  Office 2010 has released to manufacturing.  The bits have left the (product team’s) building.  Will you upgrade? This version of Office is officially numbered 14, a designation that correlates with the various releases, through the years, of Microsoft Word.  There were six major versions of Word for DOS, during whose release cycles came three 16-bit Windows versions.  Then, starting with Word 95 and counting through Word 2007, there have been six more versions – all for the 32-bit Windows platform.  Skip version 13 to ward off folksy bad luck (and, perhaps, the bugs that could come with it) and that brings us to version 14, which includes implementations for both 32- and 64-bit Windows platforms.  We’ve come a long way baby.  Or have we? As it does every three years or so, debate will now start to rage on over whether we need a “14th” version the PC platform’s standard word processor, or a “13th” version of the spreadsheet.  If you accept the premise of that question, then you may be on a slippery slope toward answering it in the negative.  Thing is, that premise is valid for certain customers and not others. The Microsoft Office product has morphed from one that offered core word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and email functionality to a suite of applications that provides unique, new value-added features, and even whole applications, in the context of those core services.  The core apps thus grow in mission: Excel is a BI tool.  Word is a collaborative editorial system for the production of publications.  PowerPoint is a media production platform for for live presentations and, increasingly, for delivering more effective presentations online.  Outlook is a time and task management system.  Access is a rich client front-end for data-driven self-service SharePoint applications.  OneNote helps you capture ideas, corral random thoughts in a semi-structured way, and then tie them back to other, more rigidly structured, Office documents. Google Docs and other cloud productivity platforms like Zoho don’t really do these things.  And there is a growing chorus of voices who say that they shouldn’t, because those ancillary capabilities are over-engineered, over-produced and “under-necessary.”  They might say Microsoft is layering on superfluous capabilities to avoid admitting that Office’s core capabilities, the ones people really need, have become commoditized. It’s hard to take sides in that argument, because different people, and the different companies that employ them, have different needs.  For my own needs, it all comes down to three basic questions: will the new version of Office save me time, will it make the mundane parts of my job easier, and will it augment my services to customers?  I need my time back.  I need to spend more of it with my family, and more of it focusing on my own core capabilities rather than the administrative tasks around them.  And I also need my customers to be able to get more value out of the services I provide. Help me triage my inbox, help me get proposals done more quickly and make them easier to read.  Let me get my presentations done faster, make them more effective and make it easier for me to reuse materials from other presentations.  And, since I’m in the BI and data business, help me and my customers manage data and analytics more easily, both on the desktop and online. Those are my criteria.  And, with those in mind, Office 2010 is looking like a worthwhile upgrade.  Perhaps it’s not earth-shattering, but it offers a combination of incremental improvements and a few new major capabilities that I think are quite compelling.  I provide a brief roundup of them here.  It’s admittedly arbitrary and not comprehensive, but I think it tells the Office 2010 story effectively. Across the Suite More than any other, this release of Office aims to give collaboration a real workout.  In certain apps, for the first time, documents can be opened simultaneously by multiple users, with colleagues’ changes appearing in near real-time.  Web-browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will be available to extend collaboration to contributors who are off the corporate network. The ribbon user interface is now more pervasive (for example, it appears in OneNote and in Outlook’s main window).  It’s also customizable, allowing users to add, easily, buttons and options of their choosing, into new tabs, or into new groups within existing tabs. Microsoft has also taken the File menu (which was the “Office Button” menu in the 2007 release) and made it into a full-screen “Backstage” view where document-wide operations, like saving, printing and online publishing are performed. And because, more and more, heavily formatted content is cut and pasted between documents and applications, Office 2010 makes it easier to manage the retention or jettisoning of that formatting right as the paste operation is performed.  That’s much nicer than stripping it off, or adding it back, afterwards. And, speaking of pasting, a number of Office apps now make it especially easy to insert screenshots within their documents.  I know that’s useful to me, because I often document or critique applications and need to show them in action.  For the vast majority of users, I expect that this feature will be more useful for capturing snapshots of Web pages, but we’ll have to see whether this feature becomes popular.   Excel At first glance, Excel 2010 looks and acts nearly identically to the 2007 version.  But additional glances are necessary.  It’s important to understand that lots of people in the working world use Excel as more of a database, analytics and mathematical modeling tool than merely as a spreadsheet.  And it’s also important to understand that Excel wasn’t designed to handle such workloads past a certain scale.  That all changes with this release. The first reason things change is that Excel has been tuned for performance.  It’s been optimized for multi-threaded operation; previously lengthy processes have been shortened, especially for large data sets; more rows and columns are allowed and, for the first time, Excel (and the rest of Office) is available in a 64-bit version.  For Excel, this means users can take advantage of more than the 2GB of memory that the 32-bit version is limited to. On the analysis side, Excel 2010 adds Sparklines (tiny charts that fit into a single cell and can therefore be presented down an entire column or across a row) and Slicers (a more user-friendly filter mechanism for PivotTables and charts, which visually indicates what the filtered state of a given data member is).  But most important, Excel 2010 supports the new PowerPIvot add-in which brings true self-service BI to Office.  PowerPivot allows users to import data from almost anywhere, model it, and then analyze it.  Rather than forcing users to build “spreadmarts” or use corporate-built data warehouses, PowerPivot models function as true columnar, in-memory OLAP cubes that can accommodate millions of rows of data and deliver fast drill-down performance. And speaking of OLAP, Excel 2010 now supports an important Analysis Services OLAP feature called write-back.  Write-back is especially useful in financial forecasting scenarios for which Excel is the natural home.  Support for write-back is long overdue, but I’m still glad it’s there, because I had almost given up on it.   PowerPoint This version of PowerPoint marks its progression from a presentation tool to a video and photo editing and production tool.  Whether or not it’s successful in this pursuit, and if offering this is even a sensible goal, is another question. Regardless, the new capabilities are kind of interesting.  A greatly enhanced set of slide transitions with 3D effects; in-product photo and video editing; accommodation of embedded videos from services such as YouTube; and the ability to save a presentation as a video each lay testimony to PowerPoint’s transformation into a media tool and away from a pure presentation tool. These capabilities also recognize the importance of the Web as both a source for materials and a channel for disseminating PowerPoint output. Congruent with that is PowerPoint’s new ability to broadcast a slide presentation, using a quickly-generated public URL, without involving the hassle or expense of a Web meeting service like GoToMeeting or Microsoft’s own LiveMeeting.  Slides presented through this broadcast feature retain full color fidelity and transitions and animations are preserved as well.   Outlook Microsoft’s ubiquitous email/calendar/contact/task management tool gains long overdue speed improvements, especially against POP3 email accounts.  Outlook 2010 also supports multiple Exchange accounts, rather than just one; tighter integration with OneNote; and a new Social Connector providing integration with, and presence information from, online social network services like LinkedIn and Facebook (not to mention Windows Live).  A revamped conversation view now includes messages that are part of a given thread regardless of which folder they may be stored in. I don’t know yet how well the Social Connector will work or whether it will keep Outlook relevant to those who live on Facebook and LinkedIn.  But among the other features, there’s very little not to like.   OneNote To me, OneNote is the part of Office that just keeps getting better.  There is one major caveat to this, which I’ll cover in a moment, but let’s first catalog what new stuff OneNote 2010 brings.  The best part of OneNote, is the way each of its versions have managed hierarchy: Notebooks have sections, sections have pages, pages have sub pages, multiple notes can be contained in either, and each note supports infinite levels of indentation.  None of that is new to 2010, but the new version does make creation of pages and subpages easier and also makes simple work out of promoting and demoting pages from sub page to full page status.  And relationships between pages are quite easy to create now: much like a Wiki, simply typing a page’s name in double-square-brackets (“[[…]]”) creates a link to it. OneNote is also great at integrating content outside of its notebooks.  With a new Dock to Desktop feature, OneNote becomes aware of what window is displayed in the rest of the screen and, if it’s an Office document or a Web page, links the notes you’re typing, at the time, to it.  A single click from your notes later on will bring that same document or Web page back on-screen.  Embedding content from Web pages and elsewhere is also easier.  Using OneNote’s Windows Key+S combination to grab part of the screen now allows you to specify the destination of that bitmap instead of automatically creating a new note in the Unfiled Notes area.  Using the Send to OneNote buttons in Internet Explorer and Outlook result in the same choice. Collaboration gets better too.  Real-time multi-author editing is better accommodated and determining author lineage of particular changes is easily carried out. My one pet peeve with OneNote is the difficulty using it when I’m not one a Windows PC.  OneNote’s main competitor, Evernote, while I believe inferior in terms of features, has client versions for PC, Mac, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone, iPad and Web browsers.  Since I have an Android phone and an iPad, I am practically forced to use it.  However, the OneNote Web app should help here, as should a forthcoming version of OneNote for Windows Phone 7.  In the mean time, it turns out that using OneNote’s Email Page ribbon button lets you move a OneNote page easily into EverNote (since every EverNote account gets a unique email address for adding notes) and that Evernote’s Email function combined with Outlook’s Send to OneNote button (in the Move group of the ribbon’s Home tab) can achieve the reverse.   Access To me, the big change in Access 2007 was its tight integration with SharePoint lists.  Access 2010 and SharePoint 2010 continue this integration with the introduction of SharePoint’s Access Services.  Much as Excel Services provides a SharePoint-hosted experience for viewing (and now editing) Excel spreadsheet, PivotTable and chart content, Access Services allows for SharePoint browser-hosted editing of Access data within the forms that are built in the Access client itself. To me this makes all kinds of sense.  Although it does beg the question of where to draw the line between Access, InfoPath, SharePoint list maintenance and SharePoint 2010’s new Business Connectivity Services.  Each of these tools provide overlapping data entry and data maintenance functionality. But if you do prefer Access, then you’ll like  things like templates and application parts that make it easier to get off the blank page.  These features help you quickly get tables, forms and reports built out.  To make things look nice, Access even gets its own version of Excel’s Conditional Formatting feature, letting you add data bars and data-driven text formatting.   Word As I said at the beginning of this post, upgrades to Office are about much more than enhancing the suite’s flagship word processing application. So are there any enhancements in Word worth mentioning?  I think so.  The most important one has to be the collaboration features.  Essentially, when a user opens a Word document that is in a SharePoint document library (or Windows Live SkyDrive folder), rather than the whole document being locked, Word has the ability to observe more granular locks on the individual paragraphs being edited.  Word also shows you who’s editing what and its Save function morphs into a sync feature that both saves your changes and loads those made by anyone editing the document concurrently. There’s also a new navigation pane that lets you manage sections in your document in much the same way as you manage slides in a PowerPoint deck.  Using the navigation pane, you can reorder sections, insert new ones, or promote and demote sections in the outline hierarchy.  Not earth shattering, but nice.   Other Apps and Summarized Findings What about InfoPath, Publisher, Visio and Project?  I haven’t looked at them yet.  And for this post, I think that’s fine.  While those apps (and, arguably, Access) cater to specific tasks, I think the apps we’ve looked at in this post service the general purpose needs of most users.  And the theme in those 2010 apps is clear: collaboration is key, the Web and productivity are indivisible, and making data and analytics into a self-service amenity is the way to go.  But perhaps most of all, features are still important, as long as they get you through your day faster, rather than adding complexity for its own sake.  I would argue that this is true for just about every product Microsoft makes: users want utility, not complexity.

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• Selling Federal Enterprise Architecture (EA)

  - by TedMcLaughlan

  Selling Federal Enterprise Architecture A taxonomy of subject areas, from which to develop a prioritized marketing and communications plan to evangelize EA activities within and among US Federal Government organizations and constituents. Any and all feedback is appreciated, particularly in developing and extending this discussion as a tool for use – more information and details are also available. "Selling" the discipline of Enterprise Architecture (EA) in the Federal Government (particularly in non-DoD agencies) is difficult, notwithstanding the general availability and use of the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) for some time now, and the relatively mature use of the reference models in the OMB Capital Planning and Investment (CPIC) cycles. EA in the Federal Government also tends to be a very esoteric and hard to decipher conversation – early apologies to those who agree to continue reading this somewhat lengthy article. Alignment to the FEAF and OMB compliance mandates is long underway across the Federal Departments and Agencies (and visible via tools like PortfolioStat and ITDashboard.gov – but there is still a gap between the top-down compliance directives and enablement programs, and the bottom-up awareness and effective use of EA for either IT investment management or actual mission effectiveness. "EA isn't getting deep enough penetration into programs, components, sub-agencies, etc.", verified a panelist at the most recent EA Government Conference in DC. Newer guidance from OMB may be especially difficult to handle, where bottom-up input can't be accurately aligned, analyzed and reported via standardized EA discipline at the Agency level – for example in addressing the new (for FY13) Exhibit 53D "Agency IT Reductions and Reinvestments" and the information required for "Cloud Computing Alternatives Evaluation" (supporting the new Exhibit 53C, "Agency Cloud Computing Portfolio"). Therefore, EA must be "sold" directly to the communities that matter, from a coordinated, proactive messaging perspective that takes BOTH the Program-level value drivers AND the broader Agency mission and IT maturity context into consideration. Selling EA means persuading others to take additional time and possibly assign additional resources, for a mix of direct and indirect benefits – many of which aren't likely to be realized in the short-term. This means there's probably little current, allocated budget to work with; ergo the challenge of trying to sell an "unfunded mandate". Also, the concept of "Enterprise" in large Departments like Homeland Security tends to cross all kinds of organizational boundaries – as Richard Spires recently indicated by commenting that "...organizational boundaries still trump functional similarities. Most people understand what we're trying to do internally, and at a high level they get it. The problem, of course, is when you get down to them and their system and the fact that you're going to be touching them...there's always that fear factor," Spires said. It is quite clear to the Federal IT Investment community that for EA to meet its objective, understandable, relevant value must be measured and reported using a repeatable method – as described by GAO's recent report "Enterprise Architecture Value Needs To Be Measured and Reported". What's not clear is the method or guidance to sell this value. In fact, the current GAO "Framework for Assessing and Improving Enterprise Architecture Management (Version 2.0)", a.k.a. the "EAMMF", does not include words like "sell", "persuade", "market", etc., except in reference ("within Core Element 19: Organization business owner and CXO representatives are actively engaged in architecture development") to a brief section in the CIO Council's 2001 "Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture", entitled "3.3.1. Develop an EA Marketing Strategy and Communications Plan." Furthermore, Core Element 19 of the EAMMF is advised to be applied in "Stage 3: Developing Initial EA Versions". This kind of EA sales campaign truly should start much earlier in the maturity progress, i.e. in Stages 0 or 1. So, what are the understandable, relevant benefits (or value) to sell, that can find an agreeable, participatory audience, and can pave the way towards success of a longer-term, funded set of EA mechanisms that can be methodically measured and reported? Pragmatic benefits from a useful EA that can help overcome the fear of change? And how should they be sold? Following is a brief taxonomy (it's a taxonomy, to help organize SME support) of benefit-related subjects that might make the most sense, in creating the messages and organizing an initial "engagement plan" for evangelizing EA "from within". An EA "Sales Taxonomy" of sorts. We're not boiling the ocean here; the subjects that are included are ones that currently appear to be urgently relevant to the current Federal IT Investment landscape. Note that successful dialogue in these topics is directly usable as input or guidance for actually developing early-stage, "Fit-for-Purpose" (a DoDAF term) Enterprise Architecture artifacts, as prescribed by common methods found in most EA methodologies, including FEAF, TOGAF, DoDAF and our own Oracle Enterprise Architecture Framework (OEAF). The taxonomy below is organized by (1) Target Community, (2) Benefit or Value, and (3) EA Program Facet - as in: "Let's talk to (1: Community Member) about how and why (3: EA Facet) the EA program can help with (2: Benefit/Value)". Once the initial discussion targets and subjects are approved (that can be measured and reported), a "marketing and communications plan" can be created. A working example follows the Taxonomy. Enterprise Architecture Sales Taxonomy Draft, Summary Version 1. Community 1.1. Budgeted Programs or Portfolios Communities of Purpose (CoPR) 1.1.1. Program/System Owners (Senior Execs) Creating or Executing Acquisition Plans 1.1.2. Program/System Owners Facing Strategic Change 1.1.2.1. Mandated 1.1.2.2. Expected/Anticipated 1.1.3. Program Managers - Creating Employee Performance Plans 1.1.4. CO/COTRs – Creating Contractor Performance Plans, or evaluating Value Engineering Change Proposals (VECP) 1.2. Governance & Communications Communities of Practice (CoP) 1.2.1. Policy Owners 1.2.1.1. OCFO 1.2.1.1.1. Budget/Procurement Office 1.2.1.1.2. Strategic Planning 1.2.1.2. OCIO 1.2.1.2.1. IT Management 1.2.1.2.2. IT Operations 1.2.1.2.3. Information Assurance (Cyber Security) 1.2.1.2.4. IT Innovation 1.2.1.3. Information-Sharing/ Process Collaboration (i.e. policies and procedures regarding Partners, Agreements) 1.2.2. Governing IT Council/SME Peers (i.e. an "Architects Council") 1.2.2.1. Enterprise Architects (assumes others exist; also assumes EA participants aren't buried solely within the CIO shop) 1.2.2.2. Domain, Enclave, Segment Architects – i.e. the right affinity group for a "shared services" EA structure (per the EAMMF), which may be classified as Federated, Segmented, Service-Oriented, or Extended 1.2.2.3. External Oversight/Constraints 1.2.2.3.1. GAO/OIG & Legal 1.2.2.3.2. Industry Standards 1.2.2.3.3. Official public notification, response 1.2.3. Mission Constituents Participant & Analyst Community of Interest (CoI) 1.2.3.1. Mission Operators/Users 1.2.3.2. Public Constituents 1.2.3.3. Industry Advisory Groups, Stakeholders 1.2.3.4. Media 2. Benefit/Value (Note the actual benefits may not be discretely attributable to EA alone; EA is a very collaborative, cross-cutting discipline.) 2.1. Program Costs – EA enables sound decisions regarding... 2.1.1. Cost Avoidance – a TCO theme 2.1.2. Sequencing – alignment of capability delivery 2.1.3. Budget Instability – a Federal reality 2.2. Investment Capital – EA illuminates new investment resources via... 2.2.1. Value Engineering – contractor-driven cost savings on existing budgets, direct or collateral 2.2.2. Reuse – reuse of investments between programs can result in savings, chargeback models; avoiding duplication 2.2.3. License Refactoring – IT license & support models may not reflect actual or intended usage 2.3. Contextual Knowledge – EA enables informed decisions by revealing... 2.3.1. Common Operating Picture (COP) – i.e. cross-program impacts and synergy, relative to context 2.3.2. Expertise & Skill – who truly should be involved in architectural decisions, both business and IT 2.3.3. Influence – the impact of politics and relationships can be examined 2.3.4. Disruptive Technologies – new technologies may reduce costs or mitigate risk in unanticipated ways 2.3.5. What-If Scenarios – can become much more refined, current, verifiable; basis for Target Architectures 2.4. Mission Performance – EA enables beneficial decision results regarding... 2.4.1. IT Performance and Optimization – towards 100% effective, available resource utilization 2.4.2. IT Stability – towards 100%, real-time uptime 2.4.3. Agility – responding to rapid changes in mission 2.4.4. Outcomes –measures of mission success, KPIs – vs. only "Outputs" 2.4.5. Constraints – appropriate response to constraints 2.4.6. Personnel Performance – better line-of-sight through performance plans to mission outcome 2.5. Mission Risk Mitigation – EA mitigates decision risks in terms of... 2.5.1. Compliance – all the right boxes are checked 2.5.2. Dependencies –cross-agency, segment, government 2.5.3. Transparency – risks, impact and resource utilization are illuminated quickly, comprehensively 2.5.4. Threats and Vulnerabilities – current, realistic awareness and profiles 2.5.5. Consequences – realization of risk can be mapped as a series of consequences, from earlier decisions or new decisions required for current issues 2.5.5.1. Unanticipated – illuminating signals of future or non-symmetric risk; helping to "future-proof" 2.5.5.2. Anticipated – discovering the level of impact that matters 3. EA Program Facet (What parts of the EA can and should be communicated, using business or mission terms?) 3.1. Architecture Models – the visual tools to be created and used 3.1.1. Operating Architecture – the Business Operating Model/Architecture elements of the EA truly drive all other elements, plus expose communication channels 3.1.2. Use Of – how can the EA models be used, and how are they populated, from a reasonable, pragmatic yet compliant perspective? What are the core/minimal models required? What's the relationship of these models, with existing system models? 3.1.3. Scope – what level of granularity within the models, and what level of abstraction across the models, is likely to be most effective and useful? 3.2. Traceability – the maturity, status, completeness of the tools 3.2.1. Status – what in fact is the degree of maturity across the integrated EA model and other relevant governance models, and who may already be benefiting from it? 3.2.2. Visibility – how does the EA visibly and effectively prove IT investment performance goals are being reached, with positive mission outcome? 3.3. Governance – what's the interaction, participation method; how are the tools used? 3.3.1. Contributions – how is the EA program informed, accept submissions, collect data? Who are the experts? 3.3.2. Review – how is the EA validated, against what criteria?  Taxonomy Usage Example:   1. To speak with: a. ...a particular set of System Owners Facing Strategic Change, via mandate (like the "Cloud First" mandate); about... b. ...how the EA program's visible and easily accessible Infrastructure Reference Model (i.e. "IRM" or "TRM"), if updated more completely with current system data, can... c. ...help shed light on ways to mitigate risks and avoid future costs associated with NOT leveraging potentially-available shared services across the enterprise... 2. ....the following Marketing & Communications (Sales) Plan can be constructed: a. Create an easy-to-read "Consequence Model" that illustrates how adoption of a cloud capability (like elastic operational storage) can enable rapid and durable compliance with the mandate – using EA traceability. Traceability might be from the IRM to the ARM (that identifies reusable services invoking the elastic storage), and then to the PRM with performance measures (such as % utilization of purchased storage allocation) included in the OMB Exhibits; and b. Schedule a meeting with the Program Owners, timed during their Acquisition Strategy meetings in response to the mandate, to use the "Consequence Model" for advising them to organize a rapid and relevant RFI solicitation for this cloud capability (regarding alternatives for sourcing elastic operational storage); and c. Schedule a series of short "Discovery" meetings with the system architecture leads (as agreed by the Program Owners), to further populate/validate the "As-Is" models and frame the "To Be" models (via scenarios), to better inform the RFI, obtain the best feedback from the vendor community, and provide potential value for and avoid impact to all other programs and systems. --end example -- Note that communications with the intended audience should take a page out of the standard "Search Engine Optimization" (SEO) playbook, using keywords and phrases relating to "value" and "outcome" vs. "compliance" and "output". Searches in email boxes, internal and external search engines for phrases like "cost avoidance strategies", "mission performance metrics" and "innovation funding" should yield messages and content from the EA team. This targeted, informed, practical sales approach should result in additional buy-in and participation, additional EA information contribution and model validation, development of more SMEs and quick "proof points" (with real-life testing) to bolster the case for EA. The proof point here is a successful, timely procurement that satisfies not only the external mandate and external oversight review, but also meets internal EA compliance/conformance goals and therefore is more transparently useful across the community. In short, if sold effectively, the EA will perform and be recognized. EA won’t therefore be used only for compliance, but also (according to a validated, stated purpose) to directly influence decisions and outcomes. The opinions, views and analysis expressed in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.

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• Any way to view dynamic java content ex-post? Browser session still open

  - by Ryan

  I feel like a grandpa from 1996 asking this, but is it at all possible to view a representation of a particular screen that was rendered as part of a java-based online checkout process I executed a couple days ago? I haven't cleared my browser cache or temp files or anything, and I don't think I've restarted the comp or even the browser since. I'm using mac OS X 10.6.8, and the page(s) were viewed with Chrome version 21.0.1180.89 in standard mode (not incognito). Specifically the page in question was part of Verizon Wireless's 'iconic' contract/checkout process, which leads the user through several pages to make selections on various criteria and seems to be based on java. (Obviously I'm a dummy regarding web stuff so the question is probably not very well defined, I'm happy to elaborate). ^This is the tl;dr question. If it belongs on another site please just let me know. This is what I've been able to figure out on my own, for the bored / ultra-helpful / those who could use a laugh at a noob fumbling his way around cache files with no idea what he's doing: The progress through the selection pages is very clear in Chrome's browser history, the sequential pages are: https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/accountholder/estore/phoneupgrade?execution=e3s2 https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/accountholder/estore/phoneupgrade?execution=e3s3 https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/accountholder/estore/phoneupgrade?execution=e3s4 https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/accountholder/estore/phoneupgrade?execution=e3s5 https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/?format=JSON&value={%22action%22:%22START_ORDER%22,%22custType%22:%22EXISTING%22,%22orderType%22:%22UPGRADE%22,%22lookupMtn%22:%22*(NumberA)*%22,%22lineData%22:[{%22mtn%22:%22*(NumberA)*%22,%22upgType%22:%22ALTERNATE_UPGRADE%22,%22eligibleMtn%22:%22*(NumberB)*%22}]} https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicOrder.do?format=JSON&value={%22action%22:%22START_ORDER%22,%22custType%22:%22EXISTING%22,%22orderType%22:%22UPGRADE%22,%22lookupMtn%22:%22*(NumberA)*%22,%22lineData%22:[{%22mtn%22:%22*(NumberA)*%22,%22upgType%22:%22ALTERNATE_UPGRADE%22,%22eligibleMtn%22:%22*(NumberB)*%22}]} https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicEligibility.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicDeviceSelection.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/PlanOptions.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicFeatures.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicAccessories.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicShipmentBilling.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicReview.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicPaymentCreditInfo.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicConfirmation.do The visual representation I would need could come from any of these pages, as the necessary information was shown at the top of each of them (although the two with long URLs were just like redirects or something). Of course, clicking the link to the page in History right now requires a new sign-in and just returns the user to the initial step for doing the process again; it does not pull up a representation of the page as it was seen several days ago. This I understand. Instead using Chrome's integrated cache viewer by typing about:cache in the address bar, I can search and find links that appear to be relevant, when I click on the link I just get a http header and a bunch of hexadecimal gobbledygook. I've tried to use the URL at the top of the cache and URLs in the http headers, but they take me to current versions of those pages and not the versions I saw during the checkout process. I tried this with a few of them but stopped because I noticed that it updated the date in the http header to the present moment and I don't want to take chances overwriting the cache files since I don't know what I'm doing. The links to the cache files look like this: https://login.verizonwireless.com/amserver/UI/Login?realm=vzw&goto=https%3A%2F%2Fpreorder.verizonwireless.com%3A443%2Ficonic%2Ficonic%2Fsecured%2Fscreens%2FPlanOptions.do https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/screens/customerTypeOverlay.jsp https://verizonwireless.tt.omtrdc.net/m2/verizonwireless/mbox/standard?mboxHost=login.verizonwireless.com&mboxSession=1347776884663-145230&mboxPC=1347609748832-956765.19&mboxPage=1347776884663-145230&screenHeight=1200&screenWidth=1920&browserWidth=1299&browserHeight=868&browserTimeOffset=-420&colorDepth=24&mboxCount=1&mbox=My_Verizon_Global&mboxId=0&mboxTime=1347751684666&mboxURL=https%3A%2F%2Flogin.verizonwireless.com%2Famserver%2FUI%2FLogin%3Frealm%3Dvzw%26goto%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fpreorder.verizonwireless.com%253A443%252Ficonic%252Ficonic%252Fsecured%252Fscreens%252FPlanOptions.do&mboxReferrer=&mboxVersion=41 and https://verizonwireless.tt.omtrdc.net/m2/verizonwireless/mbox/standard?mboxHost=login.verizonwireless.com&mboxSession=1347735676953-663794&mboxPC=1347609748832-956765.19&mboxPage=1347738347511-550383&screenHeight=1200&screenWidth=1920&browserWidth=1299&browserHeight=845&browserTimeOffset=-420&colorDepth=24&mboxCount=1&mbox=My_Verizon_Global&mboxId=0&mboxTime=1347713147517&mboxURL=https%3A%2F%2Flogin.verizonwireless.com%2Famserver%2FUI%2FLogin%3Frealm%3Dvzw%26goto%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fpreorder.verizonwireless.com%253A443%252Ficonic%252Ficonic%252Fsecured%252Fscreens%252FIconicOrder.do%253Fformat%253DJSON%2526value%253D%257B%252522action%252522%253A%252522START_ORDER%252522%252C%252522custType%252522%253A%252522EXISTING%252522%252C%252522orderType%252522%253A%252522UPGRADE%252522%252C%252522lookupMtn%252522%253A%252522*(NumberA)*%252522%252C%252522lineData%252522%253A%255B%257B%252522mtn%252522%253A%252522*(NumberA)*%252522%252C%252522upgType%252522%253A%252522ALTERNATE_UPGRADE%252522%252C%252522eligibleMtn%252522%253A%252522*(NumberB)*%252522%257D%255D%257D&mboxReferrer=&mboxVersion=41 and the http headers look like this: HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: VZW Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 14:55:48 GMT Cache-control: private Pragma: no-cache Expires: 0 X-dsameversion: VZW Am_client_type: genericHTML Content-type: text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Encoding: gzip Content-Length: 6220 and HTTP/1.1 200 OK Cache-Control: no-cache Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:16:30 GMT Content-Type: text/html Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT Content-Encoding: gzip X-Powered-By: Servlet/2.5 JSP/2.1 and HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily Server: VZW Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 16:29:32 GMT Cache-control: private Pragma: no-cache X-dsameversion: VZW Am_client_type: genericHTML Location: https://preorder.verizonwireless.com:443/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicOrder.do?format=JSON&value={%22action%22:%22START_ORDER%22,%22custType%22:%22EXISTING%22,%22orderType%22:%22UPGRADE%22,%22lookupMtn%22:%22*(*(NumberA)*%22,%22lineData%22:[{%22mtn%22:%22*(NumberA)*%22,%22upgType%22:%22ALTERNATE_UPGRADE%22,%22eligibleMtn%22:%22*(NumberB)*%22}]} Content-length: 0 ^^this last one actually returned me to a page in the middle of the process when I used the "Location:" given in this http header rather than the URL at the top of the cache page (and was signed in to Verizon's website through a separate tab), but the page it took me to had already been updated to reflect new information, it wasn't presented as of the time the actions were taken several days ago when the page was originally viewed. (It's clear I can't achieve what I'm looking for by visiting current versions of these pages on the web…I should actually probably disable my network adapter while testing this out). The cache folder seems promising, but I don't know what to make of all that hexadecimal mess - if it contains what I'm looking for and if so, how to view it. Finally, the third thing I've come across is the Google Chrome cache folder on my local machine, at ~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome/ then there are 'Default' and 'Media Cache' folders within. There are ~4,000 files in the former averaging ~100kb each, and 100 files in the latter averaging ~900kb each. The filenames all start "f_00xxxx" except for files titled data_0 through data_4 in each folder. I'm not sure how to observe the contents of these files and don't really want to start opening them up and potentially overwriting existing cached pages, as I notice there are already some holes in the arrangement of the files which I have never deleted manually. Hopefully this is an easy question to answer for someone who knows this stuff, admittedly web stuff is my weak point. As such, I've spent the past five hours searching around and trying to provide all the information I can. I'm probably asking for a miracle - like can those cached pages full of hexadecimal data be used to recreate the representation of the information that was on screen during the process? Or could screenshots of the previously viewed webpages be lurking in the /Caches folder? I have doubt because the content wasn't viewed at a permanent link, rather it seems like the on-screen information was served by Verizon's db, and probably securely so. I'm just not sure if Chrome saves the visual rendering of the page contents somewhere, even just temporarily. Alternatively I would be happy just to get the raw data that was on the page, even if not a visual representation…I just need to be able to demonstrate the phone line that was referenced on this page: https://preorder.verizonwireless.com/iconic/iconic/secured/screens/IconicFeatures.do . Can anyone point me in the right direction?

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• What's the best name for a non-mutating "add" method on an immutable collection?

  - by Jon Skeet

  Sorry for the waffly title - if I could come up with a concise title, I wouldn't have to ask the question. Suppose I have an immutable list type. It has an operation Foo(x) which returns a new immutable list with the specified argument as an extra element at the end. So to build up a list of strings with values "Hello", "immutable", "world" you could write: var empty = new ImmutableList<string>(); var list1 = empty.Foo("Hello"); var list2 = list1.Foo("immutable"); var list3 = list2.Foo("word"); (This is C# code, and I'm most interested in a C# suggestion if you feel the language is important. It's not fundamentally a language question, but the idioms of the language may be important.) The important thing is that the existing lists are not altered by Foo - so empty.Count would still return 0. Another (more idiomatic) way of getting to the end result would be: var list = new ImmutableList<string>().Foo("Hello"); .Foo("immutable"); .Foo("word"); My question is: what's the best name for Foo? EDIT 3: As I reveal later on, the name of the type might not actually be ImmutableList<T>, which makes the position clear. Imagine instead that it's TestSuite and that it's immutable because the whole of the framework it's a part of is immutable... (End of edit 3) Options I've come up with so far: Add: common in .NET, but implies mutation of the original list Cons: I believe this is the normal name in functional languages, but meaningless to those without experience in such languages Plus: my favourite so far, it doesn't imply mutation to me. Apparently this is also used in Haskell but with slightly different expectations (a Haskell programmer might expect it to add two lists together rather than adding a single value to the other list). With: consistent with some other immutable conventions, but doesn't have quite the same "additionness" to it IMO. And: not very descriptive. Operator overload for + : I really don't like this much; I generally think operators should only be applied to lower level types. I'm willing to be persuaded though! The criteria I'm using for choosing are: Gives the correct impression of the result of the method call (i.e. that it's the original list with an extra element) Makes it as clear as possible that it doesn't mutate the existing list Sounds reasonable when chained together as in the second example above Please ask for more details if I'm not making myself clear enough... EDIT 1: Here's my reasoning for preferring Plus to Add. Consider these two lines of code: list.Add(foo); list.Plus(foo); In my view (and this is a personal thing) the latter is clearly buggy - it's like writing "x + 5;" as a statement on its own. The first line looks like it's okay, until you remember that it's immutable. In fact, the way that the plus operator on its own doesn't mutate its operands is another reason why Plus is my favourite. Without the slight ickiness of operator overloading, it still gives the same connotations, which include (for me) not mutating the operands (or method target in this case). EDIT 2: Reasons for not liking Add. Various answers are effectively: "Go with Add. That's what DateTime does, and String has Replace methods etc which don't make the immutability obvious." I agree - there's precedence here. However, I've seen plenty of people call DateTime.Add or String.Replace and expect mutation. There are loads of newsgroup questions (and probably SO ones if I dig around) which are answered by "You're ignoring the return value of String.Replace; strings are immutable, a new string gets returned." Now, I should reveal a subtlety to the question - the type might not actually be an immutable list, but a different immutable type. In particular, I'm working on a benchmarking framework where you add tests to a suite, and that creates a new suite. It might be obvious that: var list = new ImmutableList<string>(); list.Add("foo"); isn't going to accomplish anything, but it becomes a lot murkier when you change it to: var suite = new TestSuite<string, int>(); suite.Add(x => x.Length); That looks like it should be okay. Whereas this, to me, makes the mistake clearer: var suite = new TestSuite<string, int>(); suite.Plus(x => x.Length); That's just begging to be: var suite = new TestSuite<string, int>().Plus(x => x.Length); Ideally, I would like my users not to have to be told that the test suite is immutable. I want them to fall into the pit of success. This may not be possible, but I'd like to try. I apologise for over-simplifying the original question by talking only about an immutable list type. Not all collections are quite as self-descriptive as ImmutableList<T> :)

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• T-SQL Dynamic SQL and Temp Tables

  - by George

  It looks like #temptables created using dynamic SQL via the EXECUTE string method have a different scope and can't be referenced by "fixed" SQLs in the same stored procedure. However, I can reference a temp table created by a dynamic SQL statement in a subsequence dynamic SQL but it seems that a stored procedure does not return a query result to a calling client unless the SQL is fixed. A simple 2 table scenario: I have 2 tables. Let's call them Orders and Items. Order has a Primary key of OrderId and Items has a Primary Key of ItemId. Items.OrderId is the foreign key to identify the parent Order. An Order can have 1 to n Items. I want to be able to provide a very flexible "query builder" type interface to the user to allow the user to select what Items he want to see. The filter criteria can be based on fields from the Items table and/or from the parent Order table. If an Item meets the filter condition including and condition on the parent Order if one exists, the Item should be return in the query as well as the parent Order. Usually, I suppose, most people would construct a join between the Item table and the parent Order tables. I would like to perform 2 separate queries instead. One to return all of the qualifying Items and the other to return all of the distinct parent Orders. The reason is two fold and you may or may not agree. The first reason is that I need to query all of the columns in the parent Order table and if I did a single query to join the Orders table to the Items table, I would be repoeating the Order information multiple times. Since there are typically a large number of items per Order, I'd like to avoid this because it would result in much more data being transfered to a fat client. Instead, as mentioned, I would like to return the two tables individually in a dataset and use the two tables within to populate a custom Order and child Items client objects. (I don't know enough about LINQ or Entity Framework yet. I build my objects by hand). The second reason I would like to return two tables instead of one is because I already have another procedure that returns all of the Items for a given OrderId along with the parent Order and I would like to use the same 2-table approach so that I could reuse the client code to populate my custom Order and Client objects from the 2 datatables returned. What I was hoping to do was this: Construct a dynamic SQL string on the Client which joins the orders table to the Items table and filters appropriate on each table as specified by the custom filter created on the Winform fat-client app. The SQL build on the client would have looked something like this: TempSQL = " INSERT INTO #ItemsToQuery OrderId, ItemsId FROM Orders, Items WHERE Orders.OrderID = Items.OrderId AND /* Some unpredictable Order filters go here */ AND /* Some unpredictable Items filters go here */ " Then, I would call a stored procedure, CREATE PROCEDURE GetItemsAndOrders(@tempSql as text) Execute (@tempSQL) --to create the #ItemsToQuery table SELECT * FROM Items WHERE Items.ItemId IN (SELECT ItemId FROM #ItemsToQuery) SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE Orders.OrderId IN (SELECT DISTINCT OrderId FROM #ItemsToQuery) The problem with this approach is that #ItemsToQuery table, since it was created by dynamic SQL, is inaccessible from the following 2 static SQLs and if I change the static SQLs to dynamic, no results are passed back to the fat client. 3 around come to mind but I'm look for a better one: 1) The first SQL could be performed by executing the dynamically constructed SQL from the client. The results could then be passed as a table to a modified version of the above stored procedure. I am familiar with passing table data as XML. If I did this, the stored proc could then insert the data into a temporary table using a static SQL that, because it was created by dynamic SQL, could then be queried without issue. (I could also investigate into passing the new Table type param instead of XML.) However, I would like to avoid passing up potentially large lists to a stored procedure. 2) I could perform all the queries from the client. The first would be something like this: SELECT Items.* FROM Orders, Items WHERE Order.OrderId = Items.OrderId AND (dynamic filter) SELECT Orders.* FROM Orders, Items WHERE Order.OrderId = Items.OrderId AND (dynamic filter) This still provides me with the ability to reuse my client sided object-population code because the Orders and Items continue to be returned in two different tables. I have a feeling to, that I might have some options using a Table data type within my stored proc, but that is also new to me and I would appreciate a little bit of spoon feeding on that one. If you even scanned this far in what I wrote, I am surprised, but if so, I woul dappreciate any of your thoughts on how to accomplish this best.

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• [wordpress] Loop through a specific category on single.php

  - by petrescu

  I've created a custom page and it is set as my homepage, within this custom page I am pulling out the latest post from a specific category, I've also created a form of pagination which when clicked upon will take the user to single.php. My intention for the single.php is to have two custom loops. Custom loop one I want single.php to distinguish that it has came from the homepage and loop through all of the posts tagged with the same category as the one on the homepage. Some of these posts will have to be tagged with more than one category, so the loop will have to know to ignore the other categories and just pay attention to the category in question. Does that make sense? Custom loop two If the user hasn't arrived from the homepage, single.php will just act as it normally does i.e, if the user comes from index.php (the blog) they will be taken to this second loop (blog post) However I don't seem to be able to make the distinction between the two loops, I might be over complicating matters, as I've got a loop which wraps everything together and then I have a loop for my custom pagination. Here is the code below to show you what I'm talking about custompage.php (set to home) - This works just fine but I'll post it just incase anyone is able to tidy it up <?php query_posts('cat=1'); ?> <?php $myPosts = new WP_Query(); $myPosts->query('showposts=1'); if (have_posts()) : while ($myPosts->have_posts()) : $myPosts->the_post(); ?> <script type="text/javascript">$.backstretch("<?php $key="image"; echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);?>");</script> <div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" class="info"> <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2> <ul class="nav"> <?php query_posts('posts_per_page=1&offset=1'); the_post(); ?> <li class="prev"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">Previous</a></li> <?php wp_reset_query(); ?> <li class="next"></li> </ul> </div> <!-- end .info --> <?php endwhile; endif; ?> <?php wp_reset_query(); ?> single.php - Currently broken <?php if( in_category('1') ) { ?> <!-- start --> <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> <div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" class="info"> <script type="text/javascript">$.backstretch("<?php $key="image"; echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);?>");</script> <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2> <ul class="nav"> <li class="prev"><?php previous_post_link('%link', '&nbsp;', 'true', '1') ?></li> <li class="next"><?php next_post_link('%link', '&nbsp;', 'true', '1'); ?></li> <!--li class="prev"><?php //previous_post_link('%link', '%title;', 'true', '1') ?></li> <li class="next"><?php //next_post_link('%link', '%title;', 'true', '1'); ?></li--> </ul> </div> <!-- end .info --> <?php endwhile; else: ?> <?php endif; ?> <!-- end --> <?php }else{ ?> <div id="content" class="widecolumn" role="main"> <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> <div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"> <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2> <div class="entry"> <?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this entry &raquo;</p>'); ?> </div> </div> <?php comments_template(); ?> <?php endwhile; else: ?> <p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p> <?php endif; ?> </div> <?php } ?> The problem I seem to be running into is when a post has been tagged with two categories, wordpress doesn't seem to be able to make the distinction between the two categories and instead of carrying on to the next category it breaks and defaults to the second loop.

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• python- scipy optimization

  - by pear

  In scipy fmin_slsqp (Sequential Least Squares Quadratic Programming), I tried reading the code 'slsqp.py' provided with the scipy package, to find what are the criteria to get the exit_modes 0? I cannot find which statements in the code produce this exit mode? Please help me 'slsqp.py' code as follows, exit_modes = { -1 : "Gradient evaluation required (g & a)", 0 : "Optimization terminated successfully.", 1 : "Function evaluation required (f & c)", 2 : "More equality constraints than independent variables", 3 : "More than 3*n iterations in LSQ subproblem", 4 : "Inequality constraints incompatible", 5 : "Singular matrix E in LSQ subproblem", 6 : "Singular matrix C in LSQ subproblem", 7 : "Rank-deficient equality constraint subproblem HFTI", 8 : "Positive directional derivative for linesearch", 9 : "Iteration limit exceeded" } def fmin_slsqp( func, x0 , eqcons=[], f_eqcons=None, ieqcons=[], f_ieqcons=None, bounds = [], fprime = None, fprime_eqcons=None, fprime_ieqcons=None, args = (), iter = 100, acc = 1.0E-6, iprint = 1, full_output = 0, epsilon = _epsilon ): # Now do a lot of function wrapping # Wrap func feval, func = wrap_function(func, args) # Wrap fprime, if provided, or approx_fprime if not if fprime: geval, fprime = wrap_function(fprime,args) else: geval, fprime = wrap_function(approx_fprime,(func,epsilon)) if f_eqcons: # Equality constraints provided via f_eqcons ceval, f_eqcons = wrap_function(f_eqcons,args) if fprime_eqcons: # Wrap fprime_eqcons geval, fprime_eqcons = wrap_function(fprime_eqcons,args) else: # Wrap approx_jacobian geval, fprime_eqcons = wrap_function(approx_jacobian, (f_eqcons,epsilon)) else: # Equality constraints provided via eqcons[] eqcons_prime = [] for i in range(len(eqcons)): eqcons_prime.append(None) if eqcons[i]: # Wrap eqcons and eqcons_prime ceval, eqcons[i] = wrap_function(eqcons[i],args) geval, eqcons_prime[i] = wrap_function(approx_fprime, (eqcons[i],epsilon)) if f_ieqcons: # Inequality constraints provided via f_ieqcons ceval, f_ieqcons = wrap_function(f_ieqcons,args) if fprime_ieqcons: # Wrap fprime_ieqcons geval, fprime_ieqcons = wrap_function(fprime_ieqcons,args) else: # Wrap approx_jacobian geval, fprime_ieqcons = wrap_function(approx_jacobian, (f_ieqcons,epsilon)) else: # Inequality constraints provided via ieqcons[] ieqcons_prime = [] for i in range(len(ieqcons)): ieqcons_prime.append(None) if ieqcons[i]: # Wrap ieqcons and ieqcons_prime ceval, ieqcons[i] = wrap_function(ieqcons[i],args) geval, ieqcons_prime[i] = wrap_function(approx_fprime, (ieqcons[i],epsilon)) # Transform x0 into an array. x = asfarray(x0).flatten() # Set the parameters that SLSQP will need # meq = The number of equality constraints if f_eqcons: meq = len(f_eqcons(x)) else: meq = len(eqcons) if f_ieqcons: mieq = len(f_ieqcons(x)) else: mieq = len(ieqcons) # m = The total number of constraints m = meq + mieq # la = The number of constraints, or 1 if there are no constraints la = array([1,m]).max() # n = The number of independent variables n = len(x) # Define the workspaces for SLSQP n1 = n+1 mineq = m - meq + n1 + n1 len_w = (3*n1+m)*(n1+1)+(n1-meq+1)*(mineq+2) + 2*mineq+(n1+mineq)*(n1-meq) \ + 2*meq + n1 +(n+1)*n/2 + 2*m + 3*n + 3*n1 + 1 len_jw = mineq w = zeros(len_w) jw = zeros(len_jw) # Decompose bounds into xl and xu if len(bounds) == 0: bounds = [(-1.0E12, 1.0E12) for i in range(n)] elif len(bounds) != n: raise IndexError, \ 'SLSQP Error: If bounds is specified, len(bounds) == len(x0)' else: for i in range(len(bounds)): if bounds[i][0] > bounds[i][1]: raise ValueError, \ 'SLSQP Error: lb > ub in bounds[' + str(i) +'] ' + str(bounds[4]) xl = array( [ b[0] for b in bounds ] ) xu = array( [ b[1] for b in bounds ] ) # Initialize the iteration counter and the mode value mode = array(0,int) acc = array(acc,float) majiter = array(iter,int) majiter_prev = 0 # Print the header if iprint >= 2 if iprint >= 2: print "%5s %5s %16s %16s" % ("NIT","FC","OBJFUN","GNORM") while 1: if mode == 0 or mode == 1: # objective and constraint evaluation requird # Compute objective function fx = func(x) # Compute the constraints if f_eqcons: c_eq = f_eqcons(x) else: c_eq = array([ eqcons[i](x) for i in range(meq) ]) if f_ieqcons: c_ieq = f_ieqcons(x) else: c_ieq = array([ ieqcons[i](x) for i in range(len(ieqcons)) ]) # Now combine c_eq and c_ieq into a single matrix if m == 0: # no constraints c = zeros([la]) else: # constraints exist if meq > 0 and mieq == 0: # only equality constraints c = c_eq if meq == 0 and mieq > 0: # only inequality constraints c = c_ieq if meq > 0 and mieq > 0: # both equality and inequality constraints exist c = append(c_eq, c_ieq) if mode == 0 or mode == -1: # gradient evaluation required # Compute the derivatives of the objective function # For some reason SLSQP wants g dimensioned to n+1 g = append(fprime(x),0.0) # Compute the normals of the constraints if fprime_eqcons: a_eq = fprime_eqcons(x) else: a_eq = zeros([meq,n]) for i in range(meq): a_eq[i] = eqcons_prime[i](x) if fprime_ieqcons: a_ieq = fprime_ieqcons(x) else: a_ieq = zeros([mieq,n]) for i in range(mieq): a_ieq[i] = ieqcons_prime[i](x) # Now combine a_eq and a_ieq into a single a matrix if m == 0: # no constraints a = zeros([la,n]) elif meq > 0 and mieq == 0: # only equality constraints a = a_eq elif meq == 0 and mieq > 0: # only inequality constraints a = a_ieq elif meq > 0 and mieq > 0: # both equality and inequality constraints exist a = vstack((a_eq,a_ieq)) a = concatenate((a,zeros([la,1])),1) # Call SLSQP slsqp(m, meq, x, xl, xu, fx, c, g, a, acc, majiter, mode, w, jw) # Print the status of the current iterate if iprint > 2 and the # major iteration has incremented if iprint >= 2 and majiter > majiter_prev: print "%5i %5i % 16.6E % 16.6E" % (majiter,feval[0], fx,linalg.norm(g)) # If exit mode is not -1 or 1, slsqp has completed if abs(mode) != 1: break majiter_prev = int(majiter) # Optimization loop complete. Print status if requested if iprint >= 1: print exit_modes[int(mode)] + " (Exit mode " + str(mode) + ')' print " Current function value:", fx print " Iterations:", majiter print " Function evaluations:", feval[0] print " Gradient evaluations:", geval[0] if not full_output: return x else: return [list(x), float(fx), int(majiter), int(mode), exit_modes[int(mode)] ]

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• Unexpected $end...

  - by Jason

  I keep getting a error - Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in ... on line 75, but everything looks fine to me. <?php get_header(); ?> <div id="content-top"> <div class="title"> <h2>Welcome!</h2> </div> </div> <div id="content"> <div class="contentbox"> <?php get_sidebar(); ?> <?php if (have_posts()) : ?> <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> <div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"> <h2><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($post->post_parent); ?>" rev="attachment"><?php echo get_the_title($post->post_parent); ?></a> &raquo; <?php the_title(); ?></h2> <div class="entry"> <p class="attachment"><a href="<?php echo wp_get_attachment_url($post->ID); ?>"><?php echo wp_get_attachment_image( $post->ID, 'medium' ); ?></a></p> <div class="caption"><?php if ( !empty($post->post_excerpt) ) the_excerpt(); // this is the "caption" ?></div> <?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this entry &raquo;</p>'); ?> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"><?php previous_image_link() ?></div> <div class="alignright"><?php next_image_link() ?></div> </div> <br class="clear" /> <p class="postmetadata alt"> <small> This entry was posted on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> at <?php the_time() ?> and is filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>. <?php the_taxonomies(); ?> You can follow any responses to this entry through the <?php post_comments_feed_link('RSS 2.0'); ?> feed. <?php if (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) { // Both Comments and Pings are open ?> You can <a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, or <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?>" rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site. <?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) { // Only Pings are Open ?> Responses are currently closed, but you can <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?> " rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site. <?php } elseif (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) { // Comments are open, Pings are not ?> You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. <?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) { // Neither Comments, nor Pings are open ?> Both comments and pings are currently closed. <?php } edit_post_link('Edit this entry.','',''); ?> </small> </p> </div> </div> <?php comments_template(); ?> <?php endwhile; else: ?> <p>Sorry, no attachments matched your criteria.</p> <?php endif; ?> <div class="clear"></div> </div> </div>

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• Why wont this sort in Solr work?

  - by Camran

  I need to sort on a date-field type, which name is "mod_date". It works like this in the browser adress-bar: http://localhost:8983/solr/select/?&q=bmw&sort=mod_date+desc But I am using a phpSolr client which sends an URL to Solr, and the url sent is this: fq=+category%3A%22Bilar%22+%2B+car_action%3AS%C3%A4ljes&version=1.2&wt=json&json.nl=map&q=%2A%3A%2A&start=0&rows=5&sort=mod_date+desc // This wont work and is echoed after this in php: $queryString = http_build_query($params, null, $this->_queryStringDelimiter); $queryString = preg_replace('/%5B(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]+)%5D=/', '=', $queryString); This wont work, I dont know why! Everything else works fine, all right fields are returned. But the sort doesn't work. Any ideas? Thanks BTW: The field "mod_date" contains something like: 2010-03-04T19:37:22.5Z EDIT: First I use PHP to send this to a SolrPhpClient which is another php-file called service.php: require_once('../SolrPhpClient/Apache/Solr/Service.php'); $solr = new Apache_Solr_Service('localhost', 8983, '/solr/'); $results = $solr->search($querystring, $p, $limit, $solr_params); $solr_params is an array which contains the solr-parameters (q, fq, etc). Now, in service.php: $params['version'] = self::SOLR_VERSION; // common parameters in this interface $params['wt'] = self::SOLR_WRITER; $params['json.nl'] = $this->_namedListTreatment; $params['q'] = $query; $params['sort'] = 'mod_date desc'; // HERE IS THE SORT I HAVE PROBLEM WITH $params['start'] = $offset; $params['rows'] = $limit; $queryString = http_build_query($params, null, $this->_queryStringDelimiter); $queryString = preg_replace('/%5B(?:[0-9]|[1-9][0-9]+)%5D=/', '=', $queryString); if ($method == self::METHOD_GET) { return $this->_sendRawGet($this->_searchUrl . $this->_queryDelimiter . $queryString); } else if ($method == self::METHOD_POST) { return $this->_sendRawPost($this->_searchUrl, $queryString, FALSE, 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'); } The $results contain the results from Solr... So this is the way I need to get to work (via php). This code below (also on top of this Q) works but thats because I paste it into the adress bar manually, not via the PHPclient. But thats just for debugging, I need to get it to work via the PHPclient: http://localhost:8983/solr/select/?&q=bmw&sort=mod_date+des // Not via phpclient, but works UPDATE (2010-03-08): I have tried Donovans codes (the urls) and they work fine. Now, I have noticed that it is one of the parameters causing the 'SORT' not to work. This parameter is the "wt" parameter. If we take the url from top of this Q, (fq=+category%3A%22Bilar%22+%2B+car_action%3AS%C3%A4ljes&version=1.2&wt=json&json.nl=map&q=%2A%3A%2A&start=0&rows=5&sort=mod_date+desc), and just simply remove the "wt" parameter, then the sort works. BUT the results appear differently, thus making my php code not able to recognize the results I believe. Donovan would know this I think. I am guessing in order for the PHPClient to work, the results must be in a specific structure, which gets messed up as soon as I remove the wt parameter. Donovan, help me please... Here is some background what I use your SolrPhpClient for: I have a classifieds website, which uses MySql. But for the searching I am using Solr to search some indexed fields. Then Solr returns an array of ID:numbers (for all matches of the search criteria). Then I use those ID:numbers to find everything in a MySql db and fetch all other information (example is not searchable information). So simplified: Search - Solr returns all matches in an array of ID:nrs - Id:numbers from Solr are the same as the Id numbers in the MySql db, so I can just make a simple match agains every record with the ID matching the ID from the Solr results array. I don't use Faceting, no boosting, no relevancy or other fancy stuff. I only sort by the latest classified put, and give the option to users to also sort on the cheapest price. Nothing more. Then I use the "fq" parameter to do queries on different fields in Solr depending on category chosen by users (example "cars" in this case which in my language is "Bilar"). I am really stuck with this problem here... Thanks for all help

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• Content Being Echoed Below Footer in Category Post Template

  - by poindexter

  I have created a category template in Wordpress for all posts that are in the 'blog' category. The file name is single-blog.php. There is some conditional code in single.php that checks whether the post is in the 'blog' category and if it is it redirects it to single-blog.php. That seems to be working fine. The problem is that on all the individual 'blog' categorized posts the post title and content are echoed below the footer of the page. I do not know why they are showing up and I haven't been able to stop it or hide it. The Loop is getting closed on the template page, but I'm wondering if the Loop from single.php is somehow also being sent over. You can view an example of the problem here: http://69.20.59.228/2010/03/test-blog-post/ Please let me know if you have any suggestions. I am posting two sections of code below. The first is the conditional call in single.php. The second is the code from the single-blog.php (the category post template). the conditional call in single.php. <?php $post = $wp_query->post; if (in_category('blog')) { include(TEMPLATEPATH.'/single-blog.php'); }?> code from the single-blog.php (the category post template) <?php get_header(); ?> <?php get_sidebar(); ?> <p><h2>The IQNavigator Blog</h2></p> <em><a href="/category/blog">Blog Home</a></em> | <em><a href="/category/blog/feed/">Subscribe via RSS</a></em><p><br></br></p> <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> <div <?php post_class() ?> id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"> <h1 class="pagetitle"><?php the_title(); ?></h1> <!-- <p class="details">Posted <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> at <?php the_time() ?></p> --> <div class="entry"> <?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this entry &raquo;</p>'); ?> <?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?> <?php the_tags( '<p>Tags: ', ', ', '</p>'); ?> <p class="postmetadata alt"> <small> -----<br> Posted <?php /* This is commented, because it requires a little adjusting sometimes. You'll need to download this plugin, and follow the instructions: http://binarybonsai.com/wordpress/time-since/ */ /* $entry_datetime = abs(strtotime($post->post_date) - (60*120)); echo time_since($entry_datetime); echo ' ago'; */ ?> on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?>, filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>. Follow any responses to this entry through the <?php post_comments_feed_link('RSS'); ?> feed. <?php if ( comments_open() && pings_open() ) { // Both Comments and Pings are open ?> <a href="#respond">Leave your own comment</a>, or <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?>" rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site. <?php } elseif ( !comments_open() && pings_open() ) { // Only Pings are Open ?> Responses are currently closed, but you can <a href="<?php trackback_url(); ?> " rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site. <?php } elseif ( comments_open() && !pings_open() ) { // Comments are open, Pings are not ?> You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. <?php } elseif ( !comments_open() && !pings_open() ) { // Neither Comments, nor Pings are open ?> Both comments and pings are currently closed. <?php } edit_post_link('Edit this entry','','.'); ?> </small> </p> <?php the_tags( '<p>Tagged: ', ', ', '</p>'); ?> </div> </div> <?php comments_template(); ?> <?php endwhile; else: ?> <p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p> <?php endif; ?> <?php get_footer(); ?>

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• Simple 'database' in c++

  - by DevAno1

  Hello. My task was to create pseudodatabase in c++. There are 3 tables given, that store name(char*), age(int), and sex (bool). Write a program allowing to : - add new data to the tables - show all records - sort tables with criteria : - name increasing/decreasing - age increasing/decreasing - sex Using function templates is a must. Also size of arrays must be variable, depending on the amount of records. I have some code but there are still problems there. Here's what I have: Function tabSize() for returning size of array. But currently it returns size of pointer I guess : #include <iostream> using namespace std; template<typename TYPE> int tabSize(TYPE *T) { int size = 0; size = sizeof(T) / sizeof(T[0]); return size; } How to make it return size of array, not its pointer ? Next the most important : add() for adding new elements. Inside first I get the size of array (but hence it returns value of pointer, and not size it's of no use now :/). Then I think I must check if TYPE of data is char. Or am I wrong ? // add(newElement, table) template<typename TYPE> TYPE add(TYPE L, TYPE *T) { int s = tabSize(T); //here check if TYPE = char. If yes, get the length of the new name int len = 0; while (L[len] != '\0') { len++; } //current length of table int tabLen = 0; while (T[tabLen] != '\0') { tabLen++; } //if TYPE is char //if current length of table + length of new element exceeds table size create new table if(len + tabLen > s) { int newLen = len + tabLen; TYPE newTab = new [newLen]; for(int j=0; j < newLen; j++ ){ if(j == tabLen -1){ for(int k = 0; k < len; k++){ newTab[k] = } } else { newTab[j] = T[j]; } } } //else check if tabLen + 1 is greater than s. If yes enlarge table by 1. } Am I thinking correct here ? Last functions show() is correct I guess : template<typename TYPE> TYPE show(TYPE *L) { int len = 0; while (L[len] == '\0') { len++; } for(int i=0; i<len; i++) { cout << L[i] << endl; } } and problem with sort() is as follows : Ho can I influence if sorting is decreasing or increasing ? I'm using bubble sort here. template<typename TYPE> TYPE sort(TYPE *L, int sort) { int s = tabSize(L); int len = 0; while (L[len] == '\0') { len++; } //add control increasing/decreasing sort int i,j; for(i=0;i<len;i++) { for(j=0;j<i;j++) { if(L[i]>L[j]) { int temp=L[i]; L[i]=L[j]; L[j]=temp; } } } } And main function to run it : int main() { int sort=0; //0 increasing, 1 decreasing char * name[100]; int age[10]; bool sex[10]; char c[] = "Tom"; name[0] = "John"; name[1] = "Mike"; cout << add(c, name) << endl; system("pause"); return 0; }

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• Need help with writing from XML to a SQL Server database (detailed)

  - by fogedi

  I'm a bit of a newbie with XML and WebServices and stuff like that. I'm working on a project using GlassFish OpenESB to schedule a process to get some information from a webservice and then store in a database. The criteria is basically that i have to use GlassFish OpenESB or EJB modules where i can expose webservices or something along those lines, AND i have to use SQL Server 2005. So far I've been able to talk to the webservice: and receive something along those lines <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/ http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> <SOAP-ENV:Body> <m:entrypoint_getSettlementsOperationResponse xmlns:m="http://j2ee.netbeans.org/wsdl/BorgunTestBPEL/entrypoint_getSettlements"> <part1> <GetSettlementsByMerchantResponse xmlns="http://Borgun.Services.Gateway/2010/04/Settlement"> <GetSettlementsByMerchantResult xmlns:a="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/Borgun.Library.Common" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:msgns="http://Borgun.Services.Gateway/2010/04/Settlement" xmlns:ns0="http://j2ee.netbeans.org/wsdl/BorgunTestBPEL/entrypoint_getSettlements"> <a:CreditCardSettlement> <a:amexAmount>XXX</a:amexAmount> <a:amount>XXXX</a:amount> <a:batches> <a:CreditCardBatch> <a:batchdate>xxx</a:batchdate> <a:batchnumber>XXXX</a:batchnumber> <a:currencyCode>xxxx</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementRunNumber>xx4</a:settlementRunNumber> <a:settlementdate>2010-04-06T00:00:00</a:settlementdate> <a:slips>2</a:slips> <a:sum>xxxx</a:sum> </a:CreditCardBatch> <a:CreditCardBatch> <a:batchdate>xxx</a:batchdate> <a:batchnumber>xxxxx</a:batchnumber> <a:currencyCode>xxxx</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementRunNumber>xxxx</a:settlementRunNumber> <a:settlementdate>xxxx</a:settlementdate> <a:slips>x</a:slips> <a:sum>xxx</a:sum> </a:CreditCardBatch> </a:batches> <a:commission>xx</a:commission> <a:currencyCode>xxx</a:currencyCode> <a:deduction>-xxx</a:deduction> <a:deductionItems> <a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> <a:amount>-xxx</a:amount> <a:code>VIÐSKF</a:code> <a:currencyCode>ISK</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementrunnumber>xxx</a:settlementrunnumber> <a:text>Afsláttur v/ekorta</a:text> </a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> <a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> <a:amount>-335.00</a:amount> <a:code>ÁLAGKREK</a:code> <a:currencyCode>ISK</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementrunnumber>xxx</a:settlementrunnumber> <a:text>xxx</a:text> </a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> </a:deductionItems> </a:CreditCardSettlement> </GetSettlementsByMerchantResult> </GetSettlementsByMerchantResponse> </part1> </m:entrypoint_getSettlementsOperationResponse> </SOAP-ENV:Body> </SOAP-ENV:Envelope> I have access to the SQL Server 2005 server which is remote and i know i can insert into it but given that now i have a one-to-many relationship i want to be able to rollback if something fails. So in short how can I insert from this XML into the DB preferably without manually walking through the XML tree? I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be able to use Entity and Session Beans or maybe JAXB bindings but I'm simply not being successful. One of the reasons might have something to do with the fact that the soap response contains an array of CreditCardSettlements and each of which contains an array of Batches and DeductionItems It would be best if someone can help me do this via a BPEL in GlassFish OpenESB but any hint at a java solution is much appreciated.

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• PHP - javascript validation radio button

  - by user1806136

  i have a form with 3 sets of radio buttons. i want to set a simple javascript validation alert to appear when user clicks on submit when one of the fields is null. how can i do that using javascript ? my code so far is .. <?php session_start(); $Load=$_SESSION['login_user']; include('../connect.php'); if (isset($_POST['submit'])) { $v1 = intval($_POST['v1']); $v2 = intval($_POST['v2']); $v3 = intval($_POST['v3']); $total = $v1 + $v2 + $v3 ; mysql_query("INSERT into Form1 (P1,P2,P3,TOTAL) values('$v1','$v2','$v3','$total')") or die(mysql_error()); header("Location: mark.php"); } <center><form method="post" action="mark.php" > <tr> <th > School Evaluation <font size="4" > </font></th> <tr> <th > Criteria <font size="4" > </font></th> <th> 4<font size="4" > </font></th> <th> 3<font size="4" > </font></th> <th> 2<font size="4" > </font></th> <th> 1<font size="4" > </font></th> </tr> <tr> <th> Your attendance<font size="4" > </font></th> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v1" value = "4" onclick="updateTotal();"/></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v1" value = "3" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v1" value = "2" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v1" value = "1" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> </tr> <tr> <th > Your grades <font size="4" > </font></th> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v2" value = "4" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v2" value = "3" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v2" value = "2" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v2" value = "1" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> </tr> <tr> <th >Your self-control <font size="4" > </font></th> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v3" value = "4" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v3" value = "3" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v3" value = "2" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> <td> <input type="radio" name ="v3" value = "1" onclick="updateTotal();" /></td> </tr> </tr> </table> i have put <br> <td><input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" onClick="return validation(form);"> <input type="reset" name="clear" value="clear" style="width: 70px"></td> </form> i have try alot of codes but no alert appears!

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• VS 2010 SP1 and SQL CE

  - by ScottGu

  Last month we released the Beta of VS 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1).  You can learn more about the VS 2010 SP1 Beta from Jason Zander’s two blog posts about it, and from Scott Hanselman’s blog post that covers some of the new capabilities enabled with it.   You can download and install the VS 2010 SP1 Beta here. Last week I blogged about the new Visual Studio support for IIS Express that we are adding with VS 2010 SP1. In today’s post I’m going to talk about the new VS 2010 SP1 tooling support for SQL CE, and walkthrough some of the cool scenarios it enables.  SQL CE – What is it and why should you care? SQL CE is a free, embedded, database engine that enables easy database storage. No Database Installation Required SQL CE does not require you to run a setup or install a database server in order to use it.  You can simply copy the SQL CE binaries into the \bin directory of your ASP.NET application, and then your web application can use it as a database engine.  No setup or extra security permissions are required for it to run. You do not need to have an administrator account on the machine. Just copy your web application onto any server and it will work. This is true even of medium-trust applications running in a web hosting environment. SQL CE runs in-memory within your ASP.NET application and will start-up when you first access a SQL CE database, and will automatically shutdown when your application is unloaded.  SQL CE databases are stored as files that live within the \App_Data folder of your ASP.NET Applications. Works with Existing Data APIs SQL CE 4 works with existing .NET-based data APIs, and supports a SQL Server compatible query syntax.  This means you can use existing data APIs like ADO.NET, as well as use higher-level ORMs like Entity Framework and NHibernate with SQL CE.  This enables you to use the same data programming skills and data APIs you know today. Supports Development, Testing and Production Scenarios SQL CE can be used for development scenarios, testing scenarios, and light production usage scenarios.  With the SQL CE 4 release we’ve done the engineering work to ensure that SQL CE won’t crash or deadlock when used in a multi-threaded server scenario (like ASP.NET).  This is a big change from previous releases of SQL CE – which were designed for client-only scenarios and which explicitly blocked running in web-server environments.  Starting with SQL CE 4 you can use it in a web-server as well. There are no license restrictions with SQL CE.  It is also totally free. Easy Migration to SQL Server SQL CE is an embedded database – which makes it ideal for development, testing, and light-usage scenarios.  For high-volume sites and applications you’ll probably want to migrate your database to use SQL Server Express (which is free), SQL Server or SQL Azure.  These servers enable much better scalability, more development features (including features like Stored Procedures – which aren’t supported with SQL CE), as well as more advanced data management capabilities. We’ll ship migration tools that enable you to optionally take SQL CE databases and easily upgrade them to use SQL Server Express, SQL Server, or SQL Azure.  You will not need to change your code when upgrading a SQL CE database to SQL Server or SQL Azure.  Our goal is to enable you to be able to simply change the database connection string in your web.config file and have your application just work. New Tooling Support for SQL CE in VS 2010 SP1 VS 2010 SP1 includes much improved tooling support for SQL CE, and adds support for using SQL CE within ASP.NET projects for the first time.  With VS 2010 SP1 you can now: Create new SQL CE Databases Edit and Modify SQL CE Database Schema and Indexes Populate SQL CE Databases within Data Use the Entity Framework (EF) designer to create model layers against SQL CE databases Use EF Code First to define model layers in code, then create a SQL CE database from them, and optionally edit the DB with VS Deploy SQL CE databases to remote servers using Web Deploy and optionally convert them to full SQL Server databases You can take advantage of all of the above features from within both ASP.NET Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC based projects. Download You can enable SQL CE tooling support within VS 2010 by first installing VS 2010 SP1 (beta). Once SP1 is installed, you’ll also then need to install the SQL CE Tools for Visual Studio download.  This is a separate download that enables the SQL CE tooling support for VS 2010 SP1. Walkthrough of Two Scenarios In this blog post I’m going to walkthrough how you can take advantage of SQL CE and VS 2010 SP1 using both an ASP.NET Web Forms and an ASP.NET MVC based application. Specifically, we’ll walkthrough: How to create a SQL CE database using VS 2010 SP1, then use the EF4 visual designers in Visual Studio to construct a model layer from it, and then display and edit the data using an ASP.NET GridView control. How to use an EF Code First approach to define a model layer using POCO classes and then have EF Code-First “auto-create” a SQL CE database for us based on our model classes.  We’ll then look at how we can use the new VS 2010 SP1 support for SQL CE to inspect the database that was created, populate it with data, and later make schema changes to it.  We’ll do all this within the context of an ASP.NET MVC based application. You can follow the two walkthroughs below on your own machine by installing VS 2010 SP1 (beta) and then installing the SQL CE Tools for Visual Studio download (which is a separate download that enables SQL CE tooling support for VS 2010 SP1). Walkthrough 1: Create a SQL CE Database, Create EF Model Classes, Edit the Data with a GridView This first walkthrough will demonstrate how to create and define a SQL CE database within an ASP.NET Web Form application.  We’ll then build an EF model layer for it and use that model layer to enable data editing scenarios with an <asp:GridView> control. Step 1: Create a new ASP.NET Web Forms Project We’ll begin by using the File->New Project menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET Web Forms project.  We’ll use the “ASP.NET Web Application” project template option so that it has a default UI skin implemented: Step 2: Create a SQL CE Database Right click on the “App_Data” folder within the created project and choose the “Add->New Item” menu command: This will bring up the “Add Item” dialog box.  Select the “SQL Server Compact 4.0 Local Database” item (new in VS 2010 SP1) and name the database file to create “Store.sdf”: Note that SQL CE database files have a .sdf filename extension. Place them within the /App_Data folder of your ASP.NET application to enable easy deployment. When we clicked the “Add” button above a Store.sdf file was added to our project: Step 3: Adding a “Products” Table Double-clicking the “Store.sdf” database file will open it up within the Server Explorer tab.  Since it is a new database there are no tables within it: Right click on the “Tables” icon and choose the “Create Table” menu command to create a new database table.  We’ll name the new table “Products” and add 4 columns to it.  We’ll mark the first column as a primary key (and make it an identify column so that its value will automatically increment with each new row): When we click “ok” our new Products table will be created in the SQL CE database. Step 4: Populate with Data Once our Products table is created it will show up within the Server Explorer.  We can right-click it and choose the “Show Table Data” menu command to edit its data: Let’s add a few sample rows of data to it: Step 5: Create an EF Model Layer We have a SQL CE database with some data in it – let’s now create an EF Model Layer that will provide a way for us to easily query and update data within it. Let’s right-click on our project and choose the “Add->New Item” menu command.  This will bring up the “Add New Item” dialog – select the “ADO.NET Entity Data Model” item within it and name it “Store.edmx” This will add a new Store.edmx item to our solution explorer and launch a wizard that allows us to quickly create an EF model: Select the “Generate From Database” option above and click next.  Choose to use the Store.sdf SQL CE database we just created and then click next again.  The wizard will then ask you what database objects you want to import into your model.  Let’s choose to import the “Products” table we created earlier: When we click the “Finish” button Visual Studio will open up the EF designer.  It will have a Product entity already on it that maps to the “Products” table within our SQL CE database: The VS 2010 SP1 EF designer works exactly the same with SQL CE as it does already with SQL Server and SQL Express.  The Product entity above will be persisted as a class (called “Product”) that we can programmatically work against within our ASP.NET application. Step 6: Compile the Project Before using your model layer you’ll need to build your project.  Do a Ctrl+Shift+B to compile the project, or use the Build->Build Solution menu command. Step 7: Create a Page that Uses our EF Model Layer Let’s now create a simple ASP.NET Web Form that contains a GridView control that we can use to display and edit the our Products data (via the EF Model Layer we just created). Right-click on the project and choose the Add->New Item command.  Select the “Web Form from Master Page” item template, and name the page you create “Products.aspx”.  Base the master page on the “Site.Master” template that is in the root of the project. Add an <h2>Products</h2> heading the new Page, and add an <asp:gridview> control within it: Then click the “Design” tab to switch into design-view. Select the GridView control, and then click the top-right corner to display the GridView’s “Smart Tasks” UI: Choose the “New data source…” drop down option above.  This will bring up the below dialog which allows you to pick your Data Source type: Select the “Entity” data source option – which will allow us to easily connect our GridView to the EF model layer we created earlier.  This will bring up another dialog that allows us to pick our model layer: Select the “StoreEntities” option in the dropdown – which is the EF model layer we created earlier.  Then click next – which will allow us to pick which entity within it we want to bind to: Select the “Products” entity in the above dialog – which indicates that we want to bind against the “Product” entity class we defined earlier.  Then click the “Enable automatic updates” checkbox to ensure that we can both query and update Products.  When you click “Finish” VS will wire-up an <asp:EntityDataSource> to your <asp:GridView> control: The last two steps we’ll do will be to click the “Enable Editing” checkbox on the Grid (which will cause the Grid to display an “Edit” link on each row) and (optionally) use the Auto Format dialog to pick a UI template for the Grid. Step 8: Run the Application Let’s now run our application and browse to the /Products.aspx page that contains our GridView.  When we do so we’ll see a Grid UI of the Products within our SQL CE database. Clicking the “Edit” link for any of the rows will allow us to edit their values: When we click “Update” the GridView will post back the values, persist them through our EF Model Layer, and ultimately save them within our SQL CE database. Learn More about using EF with ASP.NET Web Forms Read this tutorial series on the http://asp.net site to learn more about how to use EF with ASP.NET Web Forms.  The tutorial series uses SQL Express as the database – but the nice thing is that all of the same steps/concepts can also now also be done with SQL CE.   Walkthrough 2: Using EF Code-First with SQL CE and ASP.NET MVC 3 We used a database-first approach with the sample above – where we first created the database, and then used the EF designer to create model classes from the database.  In addition to supporting a designer-based development workflow, EF also enables a more code-centric option which we call “code first development”.  Code-First Development enables a pretty sweet development workflow.  It enables you to: Define your model objects by simply writing “plain old classes” with no base classes or visual designer required Use a “convention over configuration” approach that enables database persistence without explicitly configuring anything Optionally override the convention-based persistence and use a fluent code API to fully customize the persistence mapping Optionally auto-create a database based on the model classes you define – allowing you to start from code first I’ve done several blog posts about EF Code First in the past – I really think it is great.  The good news is that it also works very well with SQL CE. The combination of SQL CE, EF Code First, and the new VS tooling support for SQL CE, enables a pretty nice workflow.  Below is a simple example of how you can use them to build a simple ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Step 1: Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 Project We’ll begin by using the File->New Project menu command within Visual Studio to create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 project.  We’ll use the “Internet Project” template so that it has a default UI skin implemented: Step 2: Use NuGet to Install EFCodeFirst Next we’ll use the NuGet package manager (automatically installed by ASP.NET MVC 3) to add the EFCodeFirst library to our project.  We’ll use the Package Manager command shell to do this.  Bring up the package manager console within Visual Studio by selecting the View->Other Windows->Package Manager Console menu command.  Then type: install-package EFCodeFirst within the package manager console to download the EFCodeFirst library and have it be added to our project: When we enter the above command, the EFCodeFirst library will be downloaded and added to our application: Step 3: Build Some Model Classes Using a “code first” based development workflow, we will create our model classes first (even before we have a database).  We create these model classes by writing code. For this sample, we will right click on the “Models” folder of our project and add the below three classes to our project: The “Dinner” and “RSVP” model classes above are “plain old CLR objects” (aka POCO).  They do not need to derive from any base classes or implement any interfaces, and the properties they expose are standard .NET data-types.  No data persistence attributes or data code has been added to them.   The “NerdDinners” class derives from the DbContext class (which is supplied by EFCodeFirst) and handles the retrieval/persistence of our Dinner and RSVP instances from a database. Step 4: Listing Dinners We’ve written all of the code necessary to implement our model layer for this simple project.  Let’s now expose and implement the URL: /Dinners/Upcoming within our project.  We’ll use it to list upcoming dinners that happen in the future. We’ll do this by right-clicking on our “Controllers” folder and select the “Add->Controller” menu command.  We’ll name the Controller we want to create “DinnersController”.  We’ll then implement an “Upcoming” action method within it that lists upcoming dinners using our model layer above.  We will use a LINQ query to retrieve the data and pass it to a View to render with the code below: We’ll then right-click within our Upcoming method and choose the “Add-View” menu command to create an “Upcoming” view template that displays our dinners.  We’ll use the “empty” template option within the “Add View” dialog and write the below view template using Razor: Step 4: Configure our Project to use a SQL CE Database We have finished writing all of our code – our last step will be to configure a database connection-string to use. We will point our NerdDinners model class to a SQL CE database by adding the below <connectionString> to the web.config file at the top of our project: EF Code First uses a default convention where context classes will look for a connection-string that matches the DbContext class name.  Because we created a “NerdDinners” class earlier, we’ve also named our connectionstring “NerdDinners”.  Above we are configuring our connection-string to use SQL CE as the database, and telling it that our SQL CE database file will live within the \App_Data directory of our ASP.NET project. Step 5: Running our Application Now that we’ve built our application, let’s run it! We’ll browse to the /Dinners/Upcoming URL – doing so will display an empty list of upcoming dinners: You might ask – but where did it query to get the dinners from? We didn’t explicitly create a database?!? One of the cool features that EF Code-First supports is the ability to automatically create a database (based on the schema of our model classes) when the database we point it at doesn’t exist.  Above we configured  EF Code-First to point at a SQL CE database in the \App_Data\ directory of our project.  When we ran our application, EF Code-First saw that the SQL CE database didn’t exist and automatically created it for us. Step 6: Using VS 2010 SP1 to Explore our newly created SQL CE Database Click the “Show all Files” icon within the Solution Explorer and you’ll see the “NerdDinners.sdf” SQL CE database file that was automatically created for us by EF code-first within the \App_Data\ folder: We can optionally right-click on the file and “Include in Project" to add it to our solution: We can also double-click the file (regardless of whether it is added to the project) and VS 2010 SP1 will open it as a database we can edit within the “Server Explorer” tab of the IDE. Below is the view we get when we double-click our NerdDinners.sdf SQL CE file.  We can drill in to see the schema of the Dinners and RSVPs tables in the tree explorer.  Notice how two tables - Dinners and RSVPs – were automatically created for us within our SQL CE database.  This was done by EF Code First when we accessed the NerdDinners class by running our application above: We can right-click on a Table and use the “Show Table Data” command to enter some upcoming dinners in our database: We’ll use the built-in editor that VS 2010 SP1 supports to populate our table data below: And now when we hit “refresh” on the /Dinners/Upcoming URL within our browser we’ll see some upcoming dinners show up: Step 7: Changing our Model and Database Schema Let’s now modify the schema of our model layer and database, and walkthrough one way that the new VS 2010 SP1 Tooling support for SQL CE can make this easier.  With EF Code-First you typically start making database changes by modifying the model classes.  For example, let’s add an additional string property called “UrlLink” to our “Dinner” class.  We’ll use this to point to a link for more information about the event: Now when we re-run our project, and visit the /Dinners/Upcoming URL we’ll see an error thrown: We are seeing this error because EF Code-First automatically created our database, and by default when it does this it adds a table that helps tracks whether the schema of our database is in sync with our model classes.  EF Code-First helpfully throws an error when they become out of sync – making it easier to track down issues at development time that you might otherwise only find (via obscure errors) at runtime.  Note that if you do not want this feature you can turn it off by changing the default conventions of your DbContext class (in this case our NerdDinners class) to not track the schema version. Our model classes and database schema are out of sync in the above example – so how do we fix this?  There are two approaches you can use today: Delete the database and have EF Code First automatically re-create the database based on the new model class schema (losing the data within the existing DB) Modify the schema of the existing database to make it in sync with the model classes (keeping/migrating the data within the existing DB) There are a couple of ways you can do the second approach above.  Below I’m going to show how you can take advantage of the new VS 2010 SP1 Tooling support for SQL CE to use a database schema tool to modify our database structure.  We are also going to be supporting a “migrations” feature with EF in the future that will allow you to automate/script database schema migrations programmatically. Step 8: Modify our SQL CE Database Schema using VS 2010 SP1 The new SQL CE Tooling support within VS 2010 SP1 makes it easy to modify the schema of our existing SQL CE database.  To do this we’ll right-click on our “Dinners” table and choose the “Edit Table Schema” command: This will bring up the below “Edit Table” dialog.  We can rename, change or delete any of the existing columns in our table, or click at the bottom of the column listing and type to add a new column.  Below I’ve added a new “UrlLink” column of type “nvarchar” (since our property is a string): When we click ok our database will be updated to have the new column and our schema will now match our model classes. Because we are manually modifying our database schema, there is one additional step we need to take to let EF Code-First know that the database schema is in sync with our model classes.  As i mentioned earlier, when a database is automatically created by EF Code-First it adds a “EdmMetadata” table to the database to track schema versions (and hash our model classes against them to detect mismatches between our model classes and the database schema): Since we are manually updating and maintaining our database schema, we don’t need this table – and can just delete it: This will leave us with just the two tables that correspond to our model classes: And now when we re-run our /Dinners/Upcoming URL it will display the dinners correctly: One last touch we could do would be to update our view to check for the new UrlLink property and render a <a> link to it if an event has one: And now when we refresh our /Dinners/Upcoming we will see hyperlinks for the events that have a UrlLink stored in the database: Summary SQL CE provides a free, embedded, database engine that you can use to easily enable database storage.  With SQL CE 4 you can now take advantage of it within ASP.NET projects and applications (both Web Forms and MVC). VS 2010 SP1 provides tooling support that enables you to easily create, edit and modify SQL CE databases – as well as use the standard EF designer against them.  This allows you to re-use your existing skills and data knowledge while taking advantage of an embedded database option.  This is useful both for small applications (where you don’t need the scalability of a full SQL Server), as well as for development and testing scenarios – where you want to be able to rapidly develop/test your application without having a full database instance.  SQL CE makes it easy to later migrate your data to a full SQL Server or SQL Azure instance if you want to – without having to change any code in your application.  All we would need to change in the above two scenarios is the <connectionString> value within the web.config file in order to have our code run against a full SQL Server.  This provides the flexibility to scale up your application starting from a small embedded database solution as needed. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. In addition to blogging, I am also now using Twitter for quick updates and to share links. Follow me at: twitter.com/scottgu

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• Toorcon14

  - by danx

  Toorcon 2012 Information Security Conference San Diego, CA, http://www.toorcon.org/ Dan Anderson, October 2012 It's almost Halloween, and we all know what that means—yes, of course, it's time for another Toorcon Conference! Toorcon is an annual conference for people interested in computer security. This includes the whole range of hackers, computer hobbyists, professionals, security consultants, press, law enforcement, prosecutors, FBI, etc. We're at Toorcon 14—see earlier blogs for some of the previous Toorcon's I've attended (back to 2003). This year's "con" was held at the Westin on Broadway in downtown San Diego, California. The following are not necessarily my views—I'm just the messenger—although I could have misquoted or misparaphrased the speakers. Also, I only reviewed some of the talks, below, which I attended and interested me. MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections, Aditya K. Sood Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata, Rebecca "bx" Shapiro Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules?, Valkyrie Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI, Dan Griffin You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program, Boris Sverdlik What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking, Dave Maas & Jason Leopold Accessibility and Security, Anna Shubina Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance, Adam Brand McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend, Jay James & Shane MacDougall MalAndroid—the Crux of Android Infections Aditya K. Sood, IOActive, Michigan State PhD candidate Aditya talked about Android smartphone malware. There's a lot of old Android software out there—over 50% Gingerbread (2.3.x)—and most have unpatched vulnerabilities. Of 9 Android vulnerabilities, 8 have known exploits (such as the old Gingerbread Global Object Table exploit). Android protection includes sandboxing, security scanner, app permissions, and screened Android app market. The Android permission checker has fine-grain resource control, policy enforcement. Android static analysis also includes a static analysis app checker (bouncer), and a vulnerablity checker. What security problems does Android have? User-centric security, which depends on the user to grant permission and make smart decisions. But users don't care or think about malware (the're not aware, not paranoid). All they want is functionality, extensibility, mobility Android had no "proper" encryption before Android 3.0 No built-in protection against social engineering and web tricks Alternative Android app markets are unsafe. Simply visiting some markets can infect Android Aditya classified Android Malware types as: Type A—Apps. These interact with the Android app framework. For example, a fake Netflix app. Or Android Gold Dream (game), which uploads user files stealthy manner to a remote location. Type K—Kernel. Exploits underlying Linux libraries or kernel Type H—Hybrid. These use multiple layers (app framework, libraries, kernel). These are most commonly used by Android botnets, which are popular with Chinese botnet authors What are the threats from Android malware? These incude leak info (contacts), banking fraud, corporate network attacks, malware advertising, malware "Hackivism" (the promotion of social causes. For example, promiting specific leaders of the Tunisian or Iranian revolutions. Android malware is frequently "masquerated". That is, repackaged inside a legit app with malware. To avoid detection, the hidden malware is not unwrapped until runtime. The malware payload can be hidden in, for example, PNG files. Less common are Android bootkits—there's not many around. What they do is hijack the Android init framework—alteering system programs and daemons, then deletes itself. For example, the DKF Bootkit (China). Android App Problems: no code signing! all self-signed native code execution permission sandbox — all or none alternate market places no robust Android malware detection at network level delayed patch process Programming Weird Machines with ELF Metadata Rebecca "bx" Shapiro, Dartmouth College, NH https://github.com/bx/elf-bf-tools @bxsays on twitter Definitions. "ELF" is an executable file format used in linking and loading executables (on UNIX/Linux-class machines). "Weird machine" uses undocumented computation sources (I think of them as unintended virtual machines). Some examples of "weird machines" are those that: return to weird location, does SQL injection, corrupts the heap. Bx then talked about using ELF metadata as (an uintended) "weird machine". Some ELF background: A compiler takes source code and generates a ELF object file (hello.o). A static linker makes an ELF executable from the object file. A runtime linker and loader takes ELF executable and loads and relocates it in memory. The ELF file has symbols to relocate functions and variables. ELF has two relocation tables—one at link time and another one at loading time: .rela.dyn (link time) and .dynsym (dynamic table). GOT: Global Offset Table of addresses for dynamically-linked functions. PLT: Procedure Linkage Tables—works with GOT. The memory layout of a process (not the ELF file) is, in order: program (+ heap), dynamic libraries, libc, ld.so, stack (which includes the dynamic table loaded into memory) For ELF, the "weird machine" is found and exploited in the loader. ELF can be crafted for executing viruses, by tricking runtime into executing interpreted "code" in the ELF symbol table. One can inject parasitic "code" without modifying the actual ELF code portions. Think of the ELF symbol table as an "assembly language" interpreter. It has these elements: instructions: Add, move, jump if not 0 (jnz) Think of symbol table entries as "registers" symbol table value is "contents" immediate values are constants direct values are addresses (e.g., 0xdeadbeef) move instruction: is a relocation table entry add instruction: relocation table "addend" entry jnz instruction: takes multiple relocation table entries The ELF weird machine exploits the loader by relocating relocation table entries. The loader will go on forever until told to stop. It stores state on stack at "end" and uses IFUNC table entries (containing function pointer address). The ELF weird machine, called "Brainfu*k" (BF) has: 8 instructions: pointer inc, dec, inc indirect, dec indirect, jump forward, jump backward, print. Three registers - 3 registers Bx showed example BF source code that implemented a Turing machine printing "hello, world". More interesting was the next demo, where bx modified ping. Ping runs suid as root, but quickly drops privilege. BF modified the loader to disable the library function call dropping privilege, so it remained as root. Then BF modified the ping -t argument to execute the -t filename as root. It's best to show what this modified ping does with an example: $ whoami bx $ ping localhost -t backdoor.sh # executes backdoor $ whoami root $ The modified code increased from 285948 bytes to 290209 bytes. A BF tool compiles "executable" by modifying the symbol table in an existing ELF executable. The tool modifies .dynsym and .rela.dyn table, but not code or data. Privacy at the Handset: New FCC Rules? "Valkyrie" (Christie Dudley, Santa Clara Law JD candidate) Valkyrie talked about mobile handset privacy. Some background: Senator Franken (also a comedian) became alarmed about CarrierIQ, where the carriers track their customers. Franken asked the FCC to find out what obligations carriers think they have to protect privacy. The carriers' response was that they are doing just fine with self-regulation—no worries! Carriers need to collect data, such as missed calls, to maintain network quality. But carriers also sell data for marketing. Verizon sells customer data and enables this with a narrow privacy policy (only 1 month to opt out, with difficulties). The data sold is not individually identifiable and is aggregated. But Verizon recommends, as an aggregation workaround to "recollate" data to other databases to identify customers indirectly. The FCC has regulated telephone privacy since 1934 and mobile network privacy since 2007. Also, the carriers say mobile phone privacy is a FTC responsibility (not FCC). FTC is trying to improve mobile app privacy, but FTC has no authority over carrier / customer relationships. As a side note, Apple iPhones are unique as carriers have extra control over iPhones they don't have with other smartphones. As a result iPhones may be more regulated. Who are the consumer advocates? Everyone knows EFF, but EPIC (Electrnic Privacy Info Center), although more obsecure, is more relevant. What to do? Carriers must be accountable. Opt-in and opt-out at any time. Carriers need incentive to grant users control for those who want it, by holding them liable and responsible for breeches on their clock. Location information should be added current CPNI privacy protection, and require "Pen/trap" judicial order to obtain (and would still be a lower standard than 4th Amendment). Politics are on a pro-privacy swing now, with many senators and the Whitehouse. There will probably be new regulation soon, and enforcement will be a problem, but consumers will still have some benefit. Hacking Measured Boot and UEFI Dan Griffin, JWSecure, Inc., Seattle, @JWSdan Dan talked about hacking measured UEFI boot. First some terms: UEFI is a boot technology that is replacing BIOS (has whitelisting and blacklisting). UEFI protects devices against rootkits. TPM - hardware security device to store hashs and hardware-protected keys "secure boot" can control at firmware level what boot images can boot "measured boot" OS feature that tracks hashes (from BIOS, boot loader, krnel, early drivers). "remote attestation" allows remote validation and control based on policy on a remote attestation server. Microsoft pushing TPM (Windows 8 required), but Google is not. Intel TianoCore is the only open source for UEFI. Dan has Measured Boot Tool at http://mbt.codeplex.com/ with a demo where you can also view TPM data. TPM support already on enterprise-class machines. UEFI Weaknesses. UEFI toolkits are evolving rapidly, but UEFI has weaknesses: assume user is an ally trust TPM implicitly, and attached to computer hibernate file is unprotected (disk encryption protects against this) protection migrating from hardware to firmware delays in patching and whitelist updates will UEFI really be adopted by the mainstream (smartphone hardware support, bank support, apathetic consumer support) You Can't Buy Security: Building the Open Source InfoSec Program Boris Sverdlik, ISDPodcast.com co-host Boris talked about problems typical with current security audits. "IT Security" is an oxymoron—IT exists to enable buiness, uptime, utilization, reporting, but don't care about security—IT has conflict of interest. There's no Magic Bullet ("blinky box"), no one-size-fits-all solution (e.g., Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs)). Regulations don't make you secure. The cloud is not secure (because of shared data and admin access). Defense and pen testing is not sexy. Auditors are not solution (security not a checklist)—what's needed is experience and adaptability—need soft skills. Step 1: First thing is to Google and learn the company end-to-end before you start. Get to know the management team (not IT team), meet as many people as you can. Don't use arbitrary values such as CISSP scores. Quantitive risk assessment is a myth (e.g. AV*EF-SLE). Learn different Business Units, legal/regulatory obligations, learn the business and where the money is made, verify company is protected from script kiddies (easy), learn sensitive information (IP, internal use only), and start with low-hanging fruit (customer service reps and social engineering). Step 2: Policies. Keep policies short and relevant. Generic SANS "security" boilerplate policies don't make sense and are not followed. Focus on acceptable use, data usage, communications, physical security. Step 3: Implementation: keep it simple stupid. Open source, although useful, is not free (implementation cost). Access controls with authentication & authorization for local and remote access. MS Windows has it, otherwise use OpenLDAP, OpenIAM, etc. Application security Everyone tries to reinvent the wheel—use existing static analysis tools. Review high-risk apps and major revisions. Don't run different risk level apps on same system. Assume host/client compromised and use app-level security control. Network security VLAN != segregated because there's too many workarounds. Use explicit firwall rules, active and passive network monitoring (snort is free), disallow end user access to production environment, have a proxy instead of direct Internet access. Also, SSL certificates are not good two-factor auth and SSL does not mean "safe." Operational Controls Have change, patch, asset, & vulnerability management (OSSI is free). For change management, always review code before pushing to production For logging, have centralized security logging for business-critical systems, separate security logging from administrative/IT logging, and lock down log (as it has everything). Monitor with OSSIM (open source). Use intrusion detection, but not just to fulfill a checkbox: build rules from a whitelist perspective (snort). OSSEC has 95% of what you need. Vulnerability management is a QA function when done right: OpenVas and Seccubus are free. Security awareness The reality is users will always click everything. Build real awareness, not compliance driven checkbox, and have it integrated into the culture. Pen test by crowd sourcing—test with logging COSSP http://www.cossp.org/ - Comprehensive Open Source Security Project What Journalists Want: The Investigative Reporters' Perspective on Hacking Dave Maas, San Diego CityBeat Jason Leopold, Truthout.org The difference between hackers and investigative journalists: For hackers, the motivation varies, but method is same, technological specialties. For investigative journalists, it's about one thing—The Story, and they need broad info-gathering skills. J-School in 60 Seconds: Generic formula: Person or issue of pubic interest, new info, or angle. Generic criteria: proximity, prominence, timeliness, human interest, oddity, or consequence. Media awareness of hackers and trends: journalists becoming extremely aware of hackers with congressional debates (privacy, data breaches), demand for data-mining Journalists, use of coding and web development for Journalists, and Journalists busted for hacking (Murdock). Info gathering by investigative journalists include Public records laws. Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is good, but slow. California Public Records Act is a lot stronger. FOIA takes forever because of foot-dragging—it helps to be specific. Often need to sue (especially FBI). CPRA is faster, and requests can be vague. Dumps and leaks (a la Wikileaks) Journalists want: leads, protecting ourselves, our sources, and adapting tools for news gathering (Google hacking). Anonomity is important to whistleblowers. They want no digital footprint left behind (e.g., email, web log). They don't trust encryption, want to feel safe and secure. Whistleblower laws are very weak—there's no upside for whistleblowers—they have to be very passionate to do it. Accessibility and Security or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Halting Problem Anna Shubina, Dartmouth College Anna talked about how accessibility and security are related. Accessibility of digital content (not real world accessibility). mostly refers to blind users and screenreaders, for our purpose. Accessibility is about parsing documents, as are many security issues. "Rich" executable content causes accessibility to fail, and often causes security to fail. For example MS Word has executable format—it's not a document exchange format—more dangerous than PDF or HTML. Accessibility is often the first and maybe only sanity check with parsing. They have no choice because someone may want to read what you write. Google, for example, is very particular about web browser you use and are bad at supporting other browsers. Uses JavaScript instead of links, often requiring mouseover to display content. PDF is a security nightmare. Executible format, embedded flash, JavaScript, etc. 15 million lines of code. Google Chrome doesn't handle PDF correctly, causing several security bugs. PDF has an accessibility checker and PDF tagging, to help with accessibility. But no PDF checker checks for incorrect tags, untagged content, or validates lists or tables. None check executable content at all. The "Halting Problem" is: can one decide whether a program will ever stop? The answer, in general, is no (Rice's theorem). The same holds true for accessibility checkers. Language-theoretic Security says complicated data formats are hard to parse and cannot be solved due to the Halting Problem. W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines: "Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust" Not much help though, except for "Robust", but here's some gems: * all information should be parsable (paraphrasing) * if not parsable, cannot be converted to alternate formats * maximize compatibility in new document formats Executible webpages are bad for security and accessibility. They say it's for a better web experience. But is it necessary to stuff web pages with JavaScript for a better experience? A good example is The Drudge Report—it has hand-written HTML with no JavaScript, yet drives a lot of web traffic due to good content. A bad example is Google News—hidden scrollbars, guessing user input. Solutions: Accessibility and security problems come from same source Expose "better user experience" myth Keep your corner of Internet parsable Remember "Halting Problem"—recognize false solutions (checking and verifying tools) Stop Patching, for Stronger PCI Compliance Adam Brand, protiviti @adamrbrand, http://www.picfun.com/ Adam talked about PCI compliance for retail sales. Take an example: for PCI compliance, 50% of Brian's time (a IT guy), 960 hours/year was spent patching POSs in 850 restaurants. Often applying some patches make no sense (like fixing a browser vulnerability on a server). "Scanner worship" is overuse of vulnerability scanners—it gives a warm and fuzzy and it's simple (red or green results—fix reds). Scanners give a false sense of security. In reality, breeches from missing patches are uncommon—more common problems are: default passwords, cleartext authentication, misconfiguration (firewall ports open). Patching Myths: Myth 1: install within 30 days of patch release (but PCI §6.1 allows a "risk-based approach" instead). Myth 2: vendor decides what's critical (also PCI §6.1). But §6.2 requires user ranking of vulnerabilities instead. Myth 3: scan and rescan until it passes. But PCI §11.2.1b says this applies only to high-risk vulnerabilities. Adam says good recommendations come from NIST 800-40. Instead use sane patching and focus on what's really important. From NIST 800-40: Proactive: Use a proactive vulnerability management process: use change control, configuration management, monitor file integrity. Monitor: start with NVD and other vulnerability alerts, not scanner results. Evaluate: public-facing system? workstation? internal server? (risk rank) Decide:on action and timeline Test: pre-test patches (stability, functionality, rollback) for change control Install: notify, change control, tickets McAfee Secure & Trustmarks — a Hacker's Best Friend Jay James, Shane MacDougall, Tactical Intelligence Inc., Canada "McAfee Secure Trustmark" is a website seal marketed by McAfee. A website gets this badge if they pass their remote scanning. The problem is a removal of trustmarks act as flags that you're vulnerable. Easy to view status change by viewing McAfee list on website or on Google. "Secure TrustGuard" is similar to McAfee. Jay and Shane wrote Perl scripts to gather sites from McAfee and search engines. If their certification image changes to a 1x1 pixel image, then they are longer certified. Their scripts take deltas of scans to see what changed daily. The bottom line is change in TrustGuard status is a flag for hackers to attack your site. Entire idea of seals is silly—you're raising a flag saying if you're vulnerable.

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• Developing web apps using ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor and EF Code First - Part 1

  - by shiju

  In this post, I will demonstrate web application development using ASP. NET MVC 3, Razor and EF code First. This post will also cover Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 and generic Repository and Unit of Work for EF Code First. The following frameworks will be used for this step by step tutorial. ASP.NET MVC 3 EF Code First CTP 5 Unity 2.0 Define Domain Model Let’s create domain model for our simple web application Category class public class Category {     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public virtual ICollection<Expense> Expenses { get; set; } }   Expense class public class Expense {             public int ExpenseId { get; set; }            public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }     public int CategoryId { get; set; }     public virtual Category Category { get; set; } } We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category. In this post, we will be focusing on CRUD operations for the entity Category and will be working on the Expense entity with a View Model object in the later post. And the source code for this application will be refactored over time. The above entities are very simple POCO (Plain Old CLR Object) classes and the entity Category is decorated with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace. Now we want to use these entities for defining model objects for the Entity Framework 4. Using the Code First approach of Entity Framework, we can first define the entities by simply writing POCO classes without any coupling with any API or database library. This approach lets you focus on domain model which will enable Domain-Driven Development for applications. EF code first support is currently enabled with a separate API that is runs on top of the Entity Framework 4. EF Code First is reached CTP 5 when I am writing this article. Creating Context Class for Entity Framework We have created our domain model and let’s create a class in order to working with Entity Framework Code First. For this, you have to download EF Code First CTP 5 and add reference to the assembly EntitFramework.dll. You can also use NuGet to download add reference to EEF Code First.    public class MyFinanceContext : DbContext {     public MyFinanceContext() : base("MyFinance") { }     public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }     public DbSet<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }         }   The above class MyFinanceContext is derived from DbContext that can connect your model classes to a database. The MyFinanceContext class is mapping our Category and Expense class into database tables Categories and Expenses using DbSet<TEntity> where TEntity is any POCO class. When we are running the application at first time, it will automatically create the database. EF code-first look for a connection string in web.config or app.config that has the same name as the dbcontext class. If it is not find any connection string with the convention, it will automatically create database in local SQL Express database by default and the name of the database will be same name as the dbcontext class. You can also define the name of database in constructor of the the dbcontext class. Unlike NHibernate, we don’t have to use any XML based mapping files or Fluent interface for mapping between our model and database. The model classes of Code First are working on the basis of conventions and we can also use a fluent API to refine our model. The convention for primary key is ‘Id’ or ‘<class name>Id’.  If primary key properties are detected with type ‘int’, ‘long’ or ‘short’, they will automatically registered as identity columns in the database by default. Primary key detection is not case sensitive. We can define our model classes with validation attributes in the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace and it automatically enforces validation rules when a model object is updated or saved. Generic Repository for EF Code First We have created model classes and dbcontext class. Now we have to create generic repository pattern for data persistence with EF code first. If you don’t know about the repository pattern, checkout Martin Fowler’s article on Repository Let’s create a generic repository to working with DbContext and DbSet generics. public interface IRepository<T> where T : class     {         void Add(T entity);         void Delete(T entity);         T GetById(long Id);         IEnumerable<T> All();     }   RepositoryBasse – Generic Repository class public abstract class RepositoryBase<T> where T : class { private MyFinanceContext database; private readonly IDbSet<T> dbset; protected RepositoryBase(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory) {     DatabaseFactory = databaseFactory;     dbset = Database.Set<T>(); }   protected IDatabaseFactory DatabaseFactory {     get; private set; }   protected MyFinanceContext Database {     get { return database ?? (database = DatabaseFactory.Get()); } } public virtual void Add(T entity) {     dbset.Add(entity);            }        public virtual void Delete(T entity) {     dbset.Remove(entity); }   public virtual T GetById(long id) {     return dbset.Find(id); }   public virtual IEnumerable<T> All() {     return dbset.ToList(); } }   DatabaseFactory class public class DatabaseFactory : Disposable, IDatabaseFactory {     private MyFinanceContext database;     public MyFinanceContext Get()     {         return database ?? (database = new MyFinanceContext());     }     protected override void DisposeCore()     {         if (database != null)             database.Dispose();     } } Unit of Work If you are new to Unit of Work pattern, checkout Fowler’s article on Unit of Work . According to Martin Fowler, the Unit of Work pattern "maintains a list of objects affected by a business transaction and coordinates the writing out of changes and the resolution of concurrency problems." Let’s create a class for handling Unit of Work   public interface IUnitOfWork {     void Commit(); }   UniOfWork class public class UnitOfWork : IUnitOfWork {     private readonly IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory;     private MyFinanceContext dataContext;       public UnitOfWork(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)     {         this.databaseFactory = databaseFactory;     }       protected MyFinanceContext DataContext     {         get { return dataContext ?? (dataContext = databaseFactory.Get()); }     }       public void Commit()     {         DataContext.Commit();     } }   The Commit method of the UnitOfWork will call the commit method of MyFinanceContext class and it will execute the SaveChanges method of DbContext class.   Repository class for Category In this post, we will be focusing on the persistence against Category entity and will working on other entities in later post. Let’s create a repository for handling CRUD operations for Category using derive from a generic Repository RepositoryBase<T>.   public class CategoryRepository: RepositoryBase<Category>, ICategoryRepository     {     public CategoryRepository(IDatabaseFactory databaseFactory)         : base(databaseFactory)         {         }                } public interface ICategoryRepository : IRepository<Category> { } If we need additional methods than generic repository for the Category, we can define in the CategoryRepository. Dependency Injection using Unity 2.0 If you are new to Inversion of Control/ Dependency Injection or Unity, please have a look on my articles at http://weblogs.asp.net/shijuvarghese/archive/tags/IoC/default.aspx. I want to create a custom lifetime manager for Unity to store container in the current HttpContext.   public class HttpContextLifetimeManager<T> : LifetimeManager, IDisposable {     public override object GetValue()     {         return HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName];     }     public override void RemoveValue()     {         HttpContext.Current.Items.Remove(typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName);     }     public override void SetValue(object newValue)     {         HttpContext.Current.Items[typeof(T).AssemblyQualifiedName] = newValue;     }     public void Dispose()     {         RemoveValue();     } }   Let’s create controller factory for Unity in the ASP.NET MVC 3 application. public class UnityControllerFactory : DefaultControllerFactory { IUnityContainer container; public UnityControllerFactory(IUnityContainer container) {     this.container = container; } protected override IController GetControllerInstance(RequestContext reqContext, Type controllerType) {     IController controller;     if (controllerType == null)         throw new HttpException(                 404, String.Format(                     "The controller for path '{0}' could not be found" +     "or it does not implement IController.",                 reqContext.HttpContext.Request.Path));       if (!typeof(IController).IsAssignableFrom(controllerType))         throw new ArgumentException(                 string.Format(                     "Type requested is not a controller: {0}",                     controllerType.Name),                     "controllerType");     try     {         controller= container.Resolve(controllerType) as IController;     }     catch (Exception ex)     {         throw new InvalidOperationException(String.Format(                                 "Error resolving controller {0}",                                 controllerType.Name), ex);     }     return controller; }   }   Configure contract and concrete types in Unity Let’s configure our contract and concrete types in Unity for resolving our dependencies.   private void ConfigureUnity() {     //Create UnityContainer               IUnityContainer container = new UnityContainer()                 .RegisterType<IDatabaseFactory, DatabaseFactory>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IDatabaseFactory>())     .RegisterType<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<IUnitOfWork>())     .RegisterType<ICategoryRepository, CategoryRepository>(new HttpContextLifetimeManager<ICategoryRepository>());                 //Set container for Controller Factory                ControllerBuilder.Current.SetControllerFactory(             new UnityControllerFactory(container)); }   In the above ConfigureUnity method, we are registering our types onto Unity container with custom lifetime manager HttpContextLifetimeManager. Let’s call ConfigureUnity method in the Global.asax.cs for set controller factory for Unity and configuring the types with Unity.   protected void Application_Start() {     AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas();     RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilters.Filters);     RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes);     ConfigureUnity(); }   Developing web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 We have created our domain model for our web application and also have created repositories and configured dependencies with Unity container. Now we have to create controller classes and views for doing CRUD operations against the Category entity. Let’s create controller class for Category Category Controller   public class CategoryController : Controller {     private readonly ICategoryRepository categoryRepository;     private readonly IUnitOfWork unitOfWork;           public CategoryController(ICategoryRepository categoryRepository, IUnitOfWork unitOfWork)     {         this.categoryRepository = categoryRepository;         this.unitOfWork = unitOfWork;     }       public ActionResult Index()     {         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return View(categories);     }     [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Edit(int id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         return View(category);     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Edit(int id, FormCollection collection)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         if (TryUpdateModel(category))         {             unitOfWork.Commit();             return RedirectToAction("Index");         }         else return View(category);                 }       [HttpGet]     public ActionResult Create()     {         var category = new Category();         return View(category);     }           [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Create(Category category)     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {             return View("Create", category);         }                     categoryRepository.Add(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         return RedirectToAction("Index");     }       [HttpPost]     public ActionResult Delete(int  id)     {         var category = categoryRepository.GetById(id);         categoryRepository.Delete(category);         unitOfWork.Commit();         var categories = categoryRepository.All();         return PartialView("CategoryList", categories);       }        }   Creating Views in Razor Now we are going to create views in Razor for our ASP.NET MVC 3 application.  Let’s create a partial view CategoryList.cshtml for listing category information and providing link for Edit and Delete operations. CategoryList.cshtml @using MyFinance.Helpers; @using MyFinance.Domain; @model IEnumerable<Category>      <table>         <tr>         <th>Actions</th>         <th>Name</th>          <th>Description</th>         </tr>     @foreach (var item in Model) {             <tr>             <td>                 @Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit",new { id = item.CategoryId })                 @Ajax.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.CategoryId }, new AjaxOptions { Confirm = "Delete Expense?", HttpMethod = "Post", UpdateTargetId = "divCategoryList" })                           </td>             <td>                 @item.Name             </td>             <td>                 @item.Description             </td>         </tr>          }       </table>     <p>         @Html.ActionLink("Create New", "Create")     </p> The delete link is providing Ajax functionality using the Ajax.ActionLink. This will call an Ajax request for Delete action method in the CategoryCotroller class. In the Delete action method, it will return Partial View CategoryList after deleting the record. We are using CategoryList view for the Ajax functionality and also for Index view using for displaying list of category information. Let’s create Index view using partial view CategoryList  Index.chtml @model IEnumerable<MyFinance.Domain.Category> @{     ViewBag.Title = "Index"; }    <h2>Category List</h2>    <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.unobtrusive-ajax.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>    <div id="divCategoryList">               @Html.Partial("CategoryList", Model) </div>   We can call the partial views using Html.Partial helper method. Now we are going to create View pages for insert and update functionality for the Category. Both view pages are sharing common user interface for entering the category information. So I want to create an EditorTemplate for the Category information. We have to create the EditorTemplate with the same name of entity object so that we can refer it on view pages using @Html.EditorFor(model => model) . So let’s create template with name Category. Let’s create view page for insert Category information   @model MyFinance.Domain.Category   @{     ViewBag.Title = "Save"; }   <h2>Create</h2>   <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.validate.unobtrusive.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script>   @using (Html.BeginForm()) {     @Html.ValidationSummary(true)     <fieldset>         <legend>Category</legend>                @Html.EditorFor(model => model)               <p>             <input type="submit" value="Create" />         </p>     </fieldset> }   <div>     @Html.ActionLink("Back to List", "Index") </div> ViewStart file In Razor views, we can add a file named _viewstart.cshtml in the views directory  and this will be shared among the all views with in the Views directory. The below code in the _viewstart.cshtml, sets the Layout page for every Views in the Views folder.      @{     Layout = "~/Views/Shared/_Layout.cshtml"; }   Source Code You can download the source code from http://efmvc.codeplex.com/ . The source will be refactored on over time.   Summary In this post, we have created a simple web application using ASP.NET MVC 3 and EF Code First. We have discussed on technologies and practices such as ASP.NET MVC 3, Razor, EF Code First, Unity 2, generic Repository and Unit of Work. In my later posts, I will modify the application and will be discussed on more things. Stay tuned to my blog  for more posts on step by step application building.

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• NoSQL with RavenDB and ASP.NET MVC - Part 2

  - by shiju

  In my previous post, we have discussed on how to work with RavenDB document database in an ASP.NET MVC application. We have setup RavenDB for our ASP.NET MVC application and did basic CRUD operations against a simple domain entity. In this post, let’s discuss on domain entity with deep object graph and how to query against RavenDB documents using Indexes.Let's create two domain entities for our demo ASP.NET MVC appplication  public class Category {       public string Id { get; set; }     [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name Required")]     [StringLength(25, ErrorMessage = "Must be less than 25 characters")]     public string Name { get; set;}     public string Description { get; set; }     public List<Expense> Expenses { get; set; }       public Category()     {         Expenses = new List<Expense>();     } }    public class Expense {       public string Id { get; set; }     public Category Category { get; set; }     public string  Transaction { get; set; }     public DateTime Date { get; set; }     public double Amount { get; set; }   }  We have two domain entities - Category and Expense. A single category contains a list of expense transactions and every expense transaction should have a Category.Let's create  ASP.NET MVC view model  for Expense transaction public class ExpenseViewModel {     public string Id { get; set; }       public string CategoryId { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Transaction Required")]            public string Transaction { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Date Required")]            public DateTime Date { get; set; }       [Required(ErrorMessage = "Amount Required")]     public double Amount { get; set; }       public IEnumerable<SelectListItem> Category { get; set; } } Let's create a contract type for Expense Repository  public interface IExpenseRepository {     Expense Load(string id);     IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate,DateTime endDate);     void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId);     void Delete(string id);  } Let's create a concrete type for Expense Repository for handling CRUD operations. public class ExpenseRepository : IExpenseRepository {   private IDocumentSession session; public ExpenseRepository() {         session = MvcApplication.CurrentSession; } public Expense Load(string id) {     return session.Load<Expense>(id); } public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {             //Querying using the Index name "ExpenseTransactions"     //filtering with dates     var expenses = session.LuceneQuery<Expense>("ExpenseTransactions")         .WaitForNonStaleResults()         .Where(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate)         .ToArray();     return expenses; } public void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId) {     var category = session.Load<Category>(categoryId);     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(expense.Id))     {         //new expense transaction         expense.Category = category;         session.Store(expense);     }     else     {         //modifying an existing expense transaction         var expenseToEdit = Load(expense.Id);         //Copy values to  expenseToEdit         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseToEdit);         //set category object         expenseToEdit.Category = category;       }     //save changes     session.SaveChanges(); } public void Delete(string id) {     var expense = Load(id);     session.Delete<Expense>(expense);     session.SaveChanges(); }   }  Insert/Update Expense Transaction The Save method is used for both insert a new expense record and modifying an existing expense transaction. For a new expense transaction, we store the expense object with associated category into document session object and load the existing expense object and assign values to it for editing a existing record.  public void Save(Expense expense,string categoryId) {     var category = session.Load<Category>(categoryId);     if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(expense.Id))     {         //new expense transaction         expense.Category = category;         session.Store(expense);     }     else     {         //modifying an existing expense transaction         var expenseToEdit = Load(expense.Id);         //Copy values to  expenseToEdit         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseToEdit);         //set category object         expenseToEdit.Category = category;       }     //save changes     session.SaveChanges(); } Querying Expense transactions   public IEnumerable<Expense> GetExpenseTransactions(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate) {             //Querying using the Index name "ExpenseTransactions"     //filtering with dates     var expenses = session.LuceneQuery<Expense>("ExpenseTransactions")         .WaitForNonStaleResults()         .Where(exp => exp.Date >= startDate && exp.Date <= endDate)         .ToArray();     return expenses; }  The GetExpenseTransactions method returns expense transactions using a LINQ query expression with a Date comparison filter. The Lucene Query is using a index named "ExpenseTransactions" for getting the result set. In RavenDB, Indexes are LINQ queries stored in the RavenDB server and would be  executed on the background and will perform query against the JSON documents. Indexes will be working with a lucene query expression or a set operation. Indexes are composed using a Map and Reduce function. Check out Ayende's blog post on Map/Reduce We can create index using RavenDB web admin tool as well as programmitically using its Client API. The below shows the screen shot of creating index using web admin tool. We can also create Indexes using Raven Cleint API as shown in the following code documentStore.DatabaseCommands.PutIndex("ExpenseTransactions",     new IndexDefinition<Expense,Expense>() {     Map = Expenses => from exp in Expenses                     select new { exp.Date } });  In the Map function, we used a Linq expression as shown in the following from exp in docs.Expensesselect new { exp.Date };We have not used a Reduce function for the above index. A Reduce function is useful while performing aggregate functions based on the results from the Map function. Indexes can be use with set operations of RavenDB.SET OperationsUnlike other document databases, RavenDB supports set based operations that lets you to perform updates, deletes and inserts to the bulk_docs endpoint of RavenDB. For doing this, you just pass a query to a Index as shown in the following commandDELETE http://localhost:8080/bulk_docs/ExpenseTransactions?query=Date:20100531The above command using the Index named "ExpenseTransactions" for querying the documents with Date filter and  will delete all the documents that match the query criteria. The above command is equivalent of the following queryDELETE FROM ExpensesWHERE Date='2010-05-31' Controller & ActionsWe have created Expense Repository class for performing CRUD operations for the Expense transactions. Let's create a controller class for handling expense transactions.   public class ExpenseController : Controller { private ICategoryRepository categoyRepository; private IExpenseRepository expenseRepository; public ExpenseController(ICategoryRepository categoyRepository, IExpenseRepository expenseRepository) {     this.categoyRepository = categoyRepository;     this.expenseRepository = expenseRepository; } //Get Expense transactions based on dates public ActionResult Index(DateTime? StartDate, DateTime? EndDate) {     //If date is not passed, take current month's first and last dte     DateTime dtNow;     dtNow = DateTime.Today;     if (!StartDate.HasValue)     {         StartDate = new DateTime(dtNow.Year, dtNow.Month, 1);         EndDate = StartDate.Value.AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }     //take last date of startdate's month, if endate is not passed     if (StartDate.HasValue && !EndDate.HasValue)     {         EndDate = (new DateTime(StartDate.Value.Year, StartDate.Value.Month, 1)).AddMonths(1).AddDays(-1);     }       var expenses = expenseRepository.GetExpenseTransactions(StartDate.Value, EndDate.Value);     if (Request.IsAjaxRequest())     {           return PartialView("ExpenseList", expenses);     }     ViewData.Add("StartDate", StartDate.Value.ToShortDateString());     ViewData.Add("EndDate", EndDate.Value.ToShortDateString());             return View(expenses);            }   // GET: /Expense/Edit public ActionResult Edit(string id) {       var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();     var expense = expenseRepository.Load(id);     ModelCopier.CopyModel(expense, expenseModel);     var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expense.Category.Id.ToString());                    return View("Save", expenseModel);          }   // // GET: /Expense/Create   public ActionResult Create() {     var expenseModel = new ExpenseViewModel();               var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();     expenseModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems("-1");     expenseModel.Date = DateTime.Today;     return View("Save", expenseModel); }   // // POST: /Expense/Save // Insert/Update Expense Tansaction [HttpPost] public ActionResult Save(ExpenseViewModel expenseViewModel) {     try     {         if (!ModelState.IsValid)         {               var categories = categoyRepository.GetCategories();                 expenseViewModel.Category = categories.ToSelectListItems(expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                               return View("Save", expenseViewModel);         }           var expense=new Expense();         ModelCopier.CopyModel(expenseViewModel, expense);          expenseRepository.Save(expense, expenseViewModel.CategoryId);                       return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     catch     {         return View();     } } //Delete a Expense Transaction public ActionResult Delete(string id) {     expenseRepository.Delete(id);     return RedirectToAction("Index");     }     }     Download the Source - You can download the source code from http://ravenmvc.codeplex.com

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• Scaling-out Your Services by Message Bus based WCF Transport Extension &ndash; Part 1 &ndash; Background

  - by Shaun

  Cloud computing gives us more flexibility on the computing resource, we can provision and deploy an application or service with multiple instances over multiple machines. With the increment of the service instances, how to balance the incoming message and workload would become a new challenge. Currently there are two approaches we can use to pass the incoming messages to the service instances, I would like call them dispatcher mode and pulling mode.   Dispatcher Mode The dispatcher mode introduces a role which takes the responsible to find the best service instance to process the request. The image below describes the sharp of this mode. There are four clients communicate with the service through the underlying transportation. For example, if we are using HTTP the clients might be connecting to the same service URL. On the server side there’s a dispatcher listening on this URL and try to retrieve all messages. When a message came in, the dispatcher will find a proper service instance to process it. There are three mechanism to find the instance: Round-robin: Dispatcher will always send the message to the next instance. For example, if the dispatcher sent the message to instance 2, then the next message will be sent to instance 3, regardless if instance 3 is busy or not at that moment. Random: Dispatcher will find a service instance randomly, and same as the round-robin mode it regardless if the instance is busy or not. Sticky: Dispatcher will send all related messages to the same service instance. This approach always being used if the service methods are state-ful or session-ful. But as you can see, all of these approaches are not really load balanced. The clients will send messages at any time, and each message might take different process duration on the server side. This means in some cases, some of the service instances are very busy while others are almost idle. For example, if we were using round-robin mode, it could be happened that most of the simple task messages were passed to instance 1 while the complex ones were sent to instance 3, even though instance 1 should be idle. This brings some problem in our architecture. The first one is that, the response to the clients might be longer than it should be. As it’s shown in the figure above, message 6 and 9 can be processed by instance 1 or instance 2, but in reality they were dispatched to the busy instance 3 since the dispatcher and round-robin mode. Secondly, if there are many requests came from the clients in a very short period, service instances might be filled by tons of pending tasks and some instances might be crashed. Third, if we are using some cloud platform to host our service instances, for example the Windows Azure, the computing resource is billed by service deployment period instead of the actual CPU usage. This means if any service instance is idle it is wasting our money! Last one, the dispatcher would be the bottleneck of our system since all incoming messages must be routed by the dispatcher. If we are using HTTP or TCP as the transport, the dispatcher would be a network load balance. If we wants more capacity, we have to scale-up, or buy a hardware load balance which is very expensive, as well as scaling-out the service instances. Pulling Mode Pulling mode doesn’t need a dispatcher to route the messages. All service instances are listening to the same transport and try to retrieve the next proper message to process if they are idle. Since there is no dispatcher in pulling mode, it requires some features on the transportation. The transportation must support multiple client connection and server listening. HTTP and TCP doesn’t allow multiple clients are listening on the same address and port, so it cannot be used in pulling mode directly. All messages in the transportation must be FIFO, which means the old message must be received before the new one. Message selection would be a plus on the transportation. This means both service and client can specify some selection criteria and just receive some specified kinds of messages. This feature is not mandatory but would be very useful when implementing the request reply and duplex WCF channel modes. Otherwise we must have a memory dictionary to store the reply messages. I will explain more about this in the following articles. Message bus, or the message queue would be best candidate as the transportation when using the pulling mode. First, it allows multiple application to listen on the same queue, and it’s FIFO. Some of the message bus also support the message selection, such as TIBCO EMS, RabbitMQ. Some others provide in memory dictionary which can store the reply messages, for example the Redis. The principle of pulling mode is to let the service instances self-managed. This means each instance will try to retrieve the next pending incoming message if they finished the current task. This gives us more benefit and can solve the problems we met with in the dispatcher mode. The incoming message will be received to the best instance to process, which means this will be very balanced. And it will not happen that some instances are busy while other are idle, since the idle one will retrieve more tasks to make them busy. Since all instances are try their best to be busy we can use less instances than dispatcher mode, which more cost effective. Since there’s no dispatcher in the system, there is no bottleneck. When we introduced more service instances, in dispatcher mode we have to change something to let the dispatcher know the new instances. But in pulling mode since all service instance are self-managed, there no extra change at all. If there are many incoming messages, since the message bus can queue them in the transportation, service instances would not be crashed. All above are the benefits using the pulling mode, but it will introduce some problem as well. The process tracking and debugging become more difficult. Since the service instances are self-managed, we cannot know which instance will process the message. So we need more information to support debug and track. Real-time response may not be supported. All service instances will process the next message after the current one has done, if we have some real-time request this may not be a good solution. Compare with the Pros and Cons above, the pulling mode would a better solution for the distributed system architecture. Because what we need more is the scalability, cost-effect and the self-management.   WCF and WCF Transport Extensibility Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is a framework for building service-oriented applications. In the .NET world WCF is the best way to implement the service. In this series I’m going to demonstrate how to implement the pulling mode on top of a message bus by extending the WCF. I don’t want to deep into every related field in WCF but will highlight its transport extensibility. When we implemented an RPC foundation there are many aspects we need to deal with, for example the message encoding, encryption, authentication and message sending and receiving. In WCF, each aspect is represented by a channel. A message will be passed through all necessary channels and finally send to the underlying transportation. And on the other side the message will be received from the transport and though the same channels until the business logic. This mode is called “Channel Stack” in WCF, and the last channel in the channel stack must always be a transport channel, which takes the responsible for sending and receiving the messages. As we are going to implement the WCF over message bus and implement the pulling mode scaling-out solution, we need to create our own transport channel so that the client and service can exchange messages over our bus. Before we deep into the transport channel, let’s have a look on the message exchange patterns that WCF defines. Message exchange pattern (MEP) defines how client and service exchange the messages over the transportation. WCF defines 3 basic MEPs which are datagram, Request-Reply and Duplex. Datagram: Also known as one-way, or fire-forgot mode. The message sent from the client to the service, and no need any reply from the service. The client doesn’t care about the message result at all. Request-Reply: Very common used pattern. The client send the request message to the service and wait until the reply message comes from the service. Duplex: The client sent message to the service, when the service processing the message it can callback to the client. When callback the service would be like a client while the client would be like a service. In WCF, each MEP represent some channels associated. MEP Channels Datagram IInputChannel, IOutputChannel Request-Reply IRequestChannel, IReplyChannel Duplex IDuplexChannel And the channels are created by ChannelListener on the server side, and ChannelFactory on the client side. The ChannelListener and ChannelFactory are created by the TransportBindingElement. The TransportBindingElement is created by the Binding, which can be defined as a new binding or from a custom binding. For more information about the transport channel mode, please refer to the MSDN document. The figure below shows the transport channel objects when using the request-reply MEP. And this is the datagram MEP. And this is the duplex MEP. After investigated the WCF transport architecture, channel mode and MEP, we finally identified what we should do to extend our message bus based transport layer. They are: Binding: (Optional) Defines the channel elements in the channel stack and added our transport binding element at the bottom of the stack. But we can use the build-in CustomBinding as well. TransportBindingElement: Defines which MEP is supported in our transport and create the related ChannelListener and ChannelFactory. This also defines the scheme of the endpoint if using this transport. ChannelListener: Create the server side channel based on the MEP it’s. We can have one ChannelListener to create channels for all supported MEPs, or we can have ChannelListener for each MEP. In this series I will use the second approach. ChannelFactory: Create the client side channel based on the MEP it’s. We can have one ChannelFactory to create channels for all supported MEPs, or we can have ChannelFactory for each MEP. In this series I will use the second approach. Channels: Based on the MEPs we want to support, we need to implement the channels accordingly. For example, if we want our transport support Request-Reply mode we should implement IRequestChannel and IReplyChannel. In this series I will implement all 3 MEPs listed above one by one. Scaffold: In order to make our transport extension works we also need to implement some scaffold stuff. For example we need some classes to send and receive message though out message bus. We also need some codes to read and write the WCF message, etc.. These are not necessary but would be very useful in our example.   Message Bus There is only one thing remained before we can begin to implement our scaling-out support WCF transport, which is the message bus. As I mentioned above, the message bus must have some features to fulfill all the WCF MEPs. In my company we will be using TIBCO EMS, which is an enterprise message bus product. And I have said before we can use any message bus production if it’s satisfied with our requests. Here I would like to introduce an interface to separate the message bus from the WCF. This allows us to implement the bus operations by any kinds bus we are going to use. The interface would be like this. 1: public interface IBus : IDisposable 2: { 3: string SendRequest(string message, bool fromClient, string from, string to = null); 4:  5: void SendReply(string message, bool fromClient, string replyTo); 6:  7: BusMessage Receive(bool fromClient, string replyTo); 8: } There are only three methods for the bus interface. Let me explain one by one. The SendRequest method takes the responsible for sending the request message into the bus. The parameters description are: message: The WCF message content. fromClient: Indicates if this message was came from the client. from: The channel ID that this message was sent from. The channel ID will be generated when any kinds of channel was created, which will be explained in the following articles. to: The channel ID that this message should be received. In Request-Reply and Duplex MEP this is necessary since the reply message must be received by the channel which sent the related request message. The SendReply method takes the responsible for sending the reply message. It’s very similar as the previous one but no “from” parameter. This is because it’s no need to reply a reply message again in any MEPs. The Receive method takes the responsible for waiting for a incoming message, includes the request message and specified reply message. It returned a BusMessage object, which contains some information about the channel information. The code of the BusMessage class is 1: public class BusMessage 2: { 3: public string MessageID { get; private set; } 4: public string From { get; private set; } 5: public string ReplyTo { get; private set; } 6: public string Content { get; private set; } 7:  8: public BusMessage(string messageId, string fromChannelId, string replyToChannelId, string content) 9: { 10: MessageID = messageId; 11: From = fromChannelId; 12: ReplyTo = replyToChannelId; 13: Content = content; 14: } 15: } Now let’s implement a message bus based on the IBus interface. Since I don’t want you to buy and install the TIBCO EMS or any other message bus products, I will implement an in process memory bus. This bus is only for test and sample purpose. It can only be used if the service and client are in the same process. Very straightforward. 1: public class InProcMessageBus : IBus 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<Guid, InProcMessageEntity> _queue; 4: private readonly object _lock; 5:  6: public InProcMessageBus() 7: { 8: _queue = new ConcurrentDictionary<Guid, InProcMessageEntity>(); 9: _lock = new object(); 10: } 11:  12: public string SendRequest(string message, bool fromClient, string from, string to = null) 13: { 14: var entity = new InProcMessageEntity(message, fromClient, from, to); 15: _queue.TryAdd(entity.ID, entity); 16: return entity.ID.ToString(); 17: } 18:  19: public void SendReply(string message, bool fromClient, string replyTo) 20: { 21: var entity = new InProcMessageEntity(message, fromClient, null, replyTo); 22: _queue.TryAdd(entity.ID, entity); 23: } 24:  25: public BusMessage Receive(bool fromClient, string replyTo) 26: { 27: InProcMessageEntity e = null; 28: while (true) 29: { 30: lock (_lock) 31: { 32: var entity = _queue 33: .Where(kvp => kvp.Value.FromClient == fromClient && (kvp.Value.To == replyTo || string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(kvp.Value.To))) 34: .FirstOrDefault(); 35: if (entity.Key != Guid.Empty && entity.Value != null) 36: { 37: _queue.TryRemove(entity.Key, out e); 38: } 39: } 40: if (e == null) 41: { 42: Thread.Sleep(100); 43: } 44: else 45: { 46: return new BusMessage(e.ID.ToString(), e.From, e.To, e.Content); 47: } 48: } 49: } 50:  51: public void Dispose() 52: { 53: } 54: } The InProcMessageBus stores the messages in the objects of InProcMessageEntity, which can take some extra information beside the WCF message itself. 1: public class InProcMessageEntity 2: { 3: public Guid ID { get; set; } 4: public string Content { get; set; } 5: public bool FromClient { get; set; } 6: public string From { get; set; } 7: public string To { get; set; } 8:  9: public InProcMessageEntity() 10: : this(string.Empty, false, string.Empty, string.Empty) 11: { 12: } 13:  14: public InProcMessageEntity(string content, bool fromClient, string from, string to) 15: { 16: ID = Guid.NewGuid(); 17: Content = content; 18: FromClient = fromClient; 19: From = from; 20: To = to; 21: } 22: }   Summary OK, now I have all necessary stuff ready. The next step would be implementing our WCF message bus transport extension. In this post I described two scaling-out approaches on the service side especially if we are using the cloud platform: dispatcher mode and pulling mode. And I compared the Pros and Cons of them. Then I introduced the WCF channel stack, channel mode and the transport extension part, and identified what we should do to create our own WCF transport extension, to let our WCF services using pulling mode based on a message bus. And finally I provided some classes that need to be used in the future posts that working against an in process memory message bus, for the demonstration purpose only. In the next post I will begin to implement the transport extension step by step.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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• org-sort multi: date/time (?d ?t) | priority (?p) | title (?a)

  - by lawlist

  Is anyone aware of an org-sort function / modification that can refile / organize a group of TODO so that it sorts them by three (3) criteria: first sort by due date, second sort by priority, and third sort by by title of the task? EDIT: I believe that org-sort by deadline (?d) has a bug that cannot properly handle undated tasks. I am working on a workaround (i.e., moving the undated todo to a different heading before the deadline (?d) sort occurs), but perhaps the best thing to do would be to try and fix the original sorting function. Development of the workaround can be found in this thread (i.e., moving the undated tasks to a different heading in one fell swoop): How to automate org-refile for multiple todo EDIT: Apparently, the following code (ancient history) that I found on the internet was eventually modified and included as a part of org-sort-entries. Unfortunately, undated todo are not properly sorted when sorting by deadline -- i.e., they are mixed in with the dated todo. ;; multiple sort (defun org-sort-multi (&rest sort-types) "Multiple sorts on a certain level of an outline tree, or plain list items. SORT-TYPES is a list where each entry is either a character or a cons pair (BOOL . CHAR), where BOOL is whether or not to sort case-sensitively, and CHAR is one of the characters defined in `org-sort-entries-or-items'. Entries are applied in back to front order. Example: To sort first by TODO status, then by priority, then by date, then alphabetically (case-sensitive) use the following call: (org-sort-multi '(?d ?p ?t (t . ?a)))" (interactive) (dolist (x (nreverse sort-types)) (when (char-valid-p x) (setq x (cons nil x))) (condition-case nil (org-sort-entries (car x) (cdr x)) (error nil)))) ;; sort current level (defun lawlist-sort (&rest sort-types) "Sort the current org level. SORT-TYPES is a list where each entry is either a character or a cons pair (BOOL . CHAR), where BOOL is whether or not to sort case-sensitively, and CHAR is one of the characters defined in `org-sort-entries-or-items'. Entries are applied in back to front order. Defaults to \"?o ?p\" which is sorted by TODO status, then by priority" (interactive) (when (equal mode-name "Org") (let ((sort-types (or sort-types (if (or (org-entry-get nil "TODO") (org-entry-get nil "PRIORITY")) '(?d ?t ?p) ;; date, time, priority '((nil . ?a)))))) (save-excursion (outline-up-heading 1) (let ((start (point)) end) (while (and (not (bobp)) (not (eobp)) (<= (point) start)) (condition-case nil (outline-forward-same-level 1) (error (outline-up-heading 1)))) (unless (> (point) start) (goto-char (point-max))) (setq end (point)) (goto-char start) (apply 'org-sort-multi sort-types) (goto-char end) (when (eobp) (forward-line -1)) (when (looking-at "^\\s-*$") ;; (delete-line) ) (goto-char start) ;; (dotimes (x ) (org-cycle)) ))))) EDIT: Here is a more modern version of multi-sort, which is likely based upon further development of the above-code: (defun org-sort-all () (interactive) (save-excursion (goto-char (point-min)) (while (re-search-forward "^\* " nil t) (goto-char (match-beginning 0)) (condition-case err (progn (org-sort-entries t ?a) (org-sort-entries t ?p) (org-sort-entries t ?o) (forward-line)) (error nil))) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (re-search-forward "\* PROJECT " nil t) (goto-char (line-beginning-position)) (ignore-errors (org-sort-entries t ?a) (org-sort-entries t ?p) (org-sort-entries t ?o)) (forward-line)))) EDIT: The best option will be to fix sorting of deadlines (?d) so that undated todo are moved to the bottom of the outline, instead of mixed in with the dated todo. Here is an excerpt from the current org.el included within Emacs Trunk (as of July 1, 2013): (defun org-sort (with-case) "Call `org-sort-entries', `org-table-sort-lines' or `org-sort-list'. Optional argument WITH-CASE means sort case-sensitively." (interactive "P") (cond ((org-at-table-p) (org-call-with-arg 'org-table-sort-lines with-case)) ((org-at-item-p) (org-call-with-arg 'org-sort-list with-case)) (t (org-call-with-arg 'org-sort-entries with-case)))) (defun org-sort-remove-invisible (s) (remove-text-properties 0 (length s) org-rm-props s) (while (string-match org-bracket-link-regexp s) (setq s (replace-match (if (match-end 2) (match-string 3 s) (match-string 1 s)) t t s))) s) (defvar org-priority-regexp) ; defined later in the file (defvar org-after-sorting-entries-or-items-hook nil "Hook that is run after a bunch of entries or items have been sorted. When children are sorted, the cursor is in the parent line when this hook gets called. When a region or a plain list is sorted, the cursor will be in the first entry of the sorted region/list.") (defun org-sort-entries (&optional with-case sorting-type getkey-func compare-func property) "Sort entries on a certain level of an outline tree. If there is an active region, the entries in the region are sorted. Else, if the cursor is before the first entry, sort the top-level items. Else, the children of the entry at point are sorted. Sorting can be alphabetically, numerically, by date/time as given by a time stamp, by a property or by priority. The command prompts for the sorting type unless it has been given to the function through the SORTING-TYPE argument, which needs to be a character, \(?n ?N ?a ?A ?t ?T ?s ?S ?d ?D ?p ?P ?o ?O ?r ?R ?f ?F). Here is the precise meaning of each character: n Numerically, by converting the beginning of the entry/item to a number. a Alphabetically, ignoring the TODO keyword and the priority, if any. o By order of TODO keywords. t By date/time, either the first active time stamp in the entry, or, if none exist, by the first inactive one. s By the scheduled date/time. d By deadline date/time. c By creation time, which is assumed to be the first inactive time stamp at the beginning of a line. p By priority according to the cookie. r By the value of a property. Capital letters will reverse the sort order. If the SORTING-TYPE is ?f or ?F, then GETKEY-FUNC specifies a function to be called with point at the beginning of the record. It must return either a string or a number that should serve as the sorting key for that record. Comparing entries ignores case by default. However, with an optional argument WITH-CASE, the sorting considers case as well." (interactive "P") (let ((case-func (if with-case 'identity 'downcase)) (cmstr ;; The clock marker is lost when using `sort-subr', let's ;; store the clocking string. (when (equal (marker-buffer org-clock-marker) (current-buffer)) (save-excursion (goto-char org-clock-marker) (looking-back "^.*") (match-string-no-properties 0)))) start beg end stars re re2 txt what tmp) ;; Find beginning and end of region to sort (cond ((org-region-active-p) ;; we will sort the region (setq end (region-end) what "region") (goto-char (region-beginning)) (if (not (org-at-heading-p)) (outline-next-heading)) (setq start (point))) ((or (org-at-heading-p) (condition-case nil (progn (org-back-to-heading) t) (error nil))) ;; we will sort the children of the current headline (org-back-to-heading) (setq start (point) end (progn (org-end-of-subtree t t) (or (bolp) (insert "\n")) (org-back-over-empty-lines) (point)) what "children") (goto-char start) (show-subtree) (outline-next-heading)) (t ;; we will sort the top-level entries in this file (goto-char (point-min)) (or (org-at-heading-p) (outline-next-heading)) (setq start (point)) (goto-char (point-max)) (beginning-of-line 1) (when (looking-at ".*?\\S-") ;; File ends in a non-white line (end-of-line 1) (insert "\n")) (setq end (point-max)) (setq what "top-level") (goto-char start) (show-all))) (setq beg (point)) (if (>= beg end) (error "Nothing to sort")) (looking-at "\\(\\*+\\)") (setq stars (match-string 1) re (concat "^" (regexp-quote stars) " +") re2 (concat "^" (regexp-quote (substring stars 0 -1)) "[ \t\n]") txt (buffer-substring beg end)) (if (not (equal (substring txt -1) "\n")) (setq txt (concat txt "\n"))) (if (and (not (equal stars "*")) (string-match re2 txt)) (error "Region to sort contains a level above the first entry")) (unless sorting-type (message "Sort %s: [a]lpha [n]umeric [p]riority p[r]operty todo[o]rder [f]unc [t]ime [s]cheduled [d]eadline [c]reated A/N/P/R/O/F/T/S/D/C means reversed:" what) (setq sorting-type (read-char-exclusive)) (and (= (downcase sorting-type) ?f) (setq getkey-func (org-icompleting-read "Sort using function: " obarray 'fboundp t nil nil)) (setq getkey-func (intern getkey-func))) (and (= (downcase sorting-type) ?r) (setq property (org-icompleting-read "Property: " (mapcar 'list (org-buffer-property-keys t)) nil t)))) (message "Sorting entries...") (save-restriction (narrow-to-region start end) (let ((dcst (downcase sorting-type)) (case-fold-search nil) (now (current-time))) (sort-subr (/= dcst sorting-type) ;; This function moves to the beginning character of the "record" to ;; be sorted. (lambda nil (if (re-search-forward re nil t) (goto-char (match-beginning 0)) (goto-char (point-max)))) ;; This function moves to the last character of the "record" being ;; sorted. (lambda nil (save-match-data (condition-case nil (outline-forward-same-level 1) (error (goto-char (point-max)))))) ;; This function returns the value that gets sorted against. (lambda nil (cond ((= dcst ?n) (if (looking-at org-complex-heading-regexp) (string-to-number (match-string 4)) nil)) ((= dcst ?a) (if (looking-at org-complex-heading-regexp) (funcall case-func (match-string 4)) nil)) ((= dcst ?t) (let ((end (save-excursion (outline-next-heading) (point)))) (if (or (re-search-forward org-ts-regexp end t) (re-search-forward org-ts-regexp-both end t)) (org-time-string-to-seconds (match-string 0)) (org-float-time now)))) ((= dcst ?c) (let ((end (save-excursion (outline-next-heading) (point)))) (if (re-search-forward (concat "^[ \t]*\\[" org-ts-regexp1 "\\]") end t) (org-time-string-to-seconds (match-string 0)) (org-float-time now)))) ((= dcst ?s) (let ((end (save-excursion (outline-next-heading) (point)))) (if (re-search-forward org-scheduled-time-regexp end t) (org-time-string-to-seconds (match-string 1)) (org-float-time now)))) ((= dcst ?d) (let ((end (save-excursion (outline-next-heading) (point)))) (if (re-search-forward org-deadline-time-regexp end t) (org-time-string-to-seconds (match-string 1)) (org-float-time now)))) ((= dcst ?p) (if (re-search-forward org-priority-regexp (point-at-eol) t) (string-to-char (match-string 2)) org-default-priority)) ((= dcst ?r) (or (org-entry-get nil property) "")) ((= dcst ?o) (if (looking-at org-complex-heading-regexp) (- 9999 (length (member (match-string 2) org-todo-keywords-1))))) ((= dcst ?f) (if getkey-func (progn (setq tmp (funcall getkey-func)) (if (stringp tmp) (setq tmp (funcall case-func tmp))) tmp) (error "Invalid key function `%s'" getkey-func))) (t (error "Invalid sorting type `%c'" sorting-type)))) nil (cond ((= dcst ?a) 'string<) ((= dcst ?f) compare-func) ((member dcst '(?p ?t ?s ?d ?c)) '<))))) (run-hooks 'org-after-sorting-entries-or-items-hook) ;; Reset the clock marker if needed (when cmstr (save-excursion (goto-char start) (search-forward cmstr nil t) (move-marker org-clock-marker (point)))) (message "Sorting entries...done"))) (defun org-do-sort (table what &optional with-case sorting-type) "Sort TABLE of WHAT according to SORTING-TYPE. The user will be prompted for the SORTING-TYPE if the call to this function does not specify it. WHAT is only for the prompt, to indicate what is being sorted. The sorting key will be extracted from the car of the elements of the table. If WITH-CASE is non-nil, the sorting will be case-sensitive." (unless sorting-type (message "Sort %s: [a]lphabetic, [n]umeric, [t]ime. A/N/T means reversed:" what) (setq sorting-type (read-char-exclusive))) (let ((dcst (downcase sorting-type)) extractfun comparefun) ;; Define the appropriate functions (cond ((= dcst ?n) (setq extractfun 'string-to-number comparefun (if (= dcst sorting-type) '< '>))) ((= dcst ?a) (setq extractfun (if with-case (lambda(x) (org-sort-remove-invisible x)) (lambda(x) (downcase (org-sort-remove-invisible x)))) comparefun (if (= dcst sorting-type) 'string< (lambda (a b) (and (not (string< a b)) (not (string= a b))))))) ((= dcst ?t) (setq extractfun (lambda (x) (if (or (string-match org-ts-regexp x) (string-match org-ts-regexp-both x)) (org-float-time (org-time-string-to-time (match-string 0 x))) 0)) comparefun (if (= dcst sorting-type) '< '>))) (t (error "Invalid sorting type `%c'" sorting-type))) (sort (mapcar (lambda (x) (cons (funcall extractfun (car x)) (cdr x))) table) (lambda (a b) (funcall comparefun (car a) (car b))))))

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• How to generate DELETE statements in PL/SQL, based on the tables FK relations?

  - by The chicken in the kitchen

  Is it possible via script/tool to generate authomatically many delete statements based on the tables fk relations, using Oracle PL/SQL? In example: I have the table: CHICKEN (CHICKEN_CODE NUMBER) and there are 30 tables with fk references to its CHICKEN_CODE that I need to delete; there are also other 150 tables foreign-key-linked to that 30 tables that I need to delete first. Is there some tool/script PL/SQL that I can run in order to generate all the necessary delete statements based on the FK relations for me? (by the way, I know about cascade delete on the relations, but please pay attention: I CAN'T USE IT IN MY PRODUCTION DATABASE, because it's dangerous!) I'm using Oracle DataBase 10G R2. This is the result I've written, but it is not recursive: This is a view I have previously written, but of course it is not recursive! CREATE OR REPLACE FORCE VIEW RUN ( OWNER_1, CONSTRAINT_NAME_1, TABLE_NAME_1, TABLE_NAME, VINCOLO ) AS SELECT OWNER_1, CONSTRAINT_NAME_1, TABLE_NAME_1, TABLE_NAME, '(' || LTRIM ( EXTRACT (XMLAGG (XMLELEMENT ("x", ',' || COLUMN_NAME)), '/x/text()'), ',') || ')' VINCOLO FROM ( SELECT CON1.OWNER OWNER_1, CON1.TABLE_NAME TABLE_NAME_1, CON1.CONSTRAINT_NAME CONSTRAINT_NAME_1, CON1.DELETE_RULE, CON1.STATUS, CON.TABLE_NAME, CON.CONSTRAINT_NAME, COL.POSITION, COL.COLUMN_NAME FROM DBA_CONSTRAINTS CON, DBA_CONS_COLUMNS COL, DBA_CONSTRAINTS CON1 WHERE CON.OWNER = 'TABLE_OWNER' AND CON.TABLE_NAME = 'TABLE_OWNED' AND ( (CON.CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'P') OR (CON.CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'U')) AND COL.TABLE_NAME = CON1.TABLE_NAME AND COL.CONSTRAINT_NAME = CON1.CONSTRAINT_NAME --AND CON1.OWNER = CON.OWNER AND CON1.R_CONSTRAINT_NAME = CON.CONSTRAINT_NAME AND CON1.CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'R' GROUP BY CON1.OWNER, CON1.TABLE_NAME, CON1.CONSTRAINT_NAME, CON1.DELETE_RULE, CON1.STATUS, CON.TABLE_NAME, CON.CONSTRAINT_NAME, COL.POSITION, COL.COLUMN_NAME) GROUP BY OWNER_1, CONSTRAINT_NAME_1, TABLE_NAME_1, TABLE_NAME; ... and it contains the error of using DBA_CONSTRAINTS instead of ALL_CONSTRAINTS... Please pay attention to this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/485581/generate-delete-statement-from-foreign-key-relationships-in-sql-2008/2677145#2677145 Another user has just written it in SQL SERVER 2008, anyone is able to convert to Oracle 10G PL/SQL? I am not able to... :-( This is the code written by another user in SQL SERVER 2008: DECLARE @COLUMN_NAME AS sysname DECLARE @TABLE_NAME AS sysname DECLARE @IDValue AS int SET @COLUMN_NAME = '<Your COLUMN_NAME here>' SET @TABLE_NAME = '<Your TABLE_NAME here>' SET @IDValue = 123456789 DECLARE @sql AS varchar(max) ; WITH RELATED_COLUMNS AS ( SELECT QUOTENAME(c.TABLE_SCHEMA) + '.' + QUOTENAME(c.TABLE_NAME) AS [OBJECT_NAME] ,c.COLUMN_NAME FROM PBANKDW.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS AS c WITH (NOLOCK) INNER JOIN PBANKDW.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES AS t WITH (NOLOCK) ON c.TABLE_CATALOG = t.TABLE_CATALOG AND c.TABLE_SCHEMA = t.TABLE_SCHEMA AND c.TABLE_NAME = t.TABLE_NAME AND t.TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE' INNER JOIN ( SELECT rc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG ,rc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA ,lkc.TABLE_NAME ,lkc.COLUMN_NAME FROM PBANKDW.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.REFERENTIAL_CONSTRAINTS rc WITH (NOLOCK) INNER JOIN PBANKDW.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE lkc WITH (NOLOCK) ON lkc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG = rc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG AND lkc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA = rc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA AND lkc.CONSTRAINT_NAME = rc.CONSTRAINT_NAME INNER JOIN PBANKDW.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS tc WITH (NOLOCK) ON rc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG = tc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG AND rc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA = tc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA AND rc.UNIQUE_CONSTRAINT_NAME = tc.CONSTRAINT_NAME INNER JOIN PBANKDW.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE rkc WITH (NOLOCK) ON rkc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG = tc.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG AND rkc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA = tc.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA AND rkc.CONSTRAINT_NAME = tc.CONSTRAINT_NAME WHERE rkc.COLUMN_NAME = @COLUMN_NAME AND rkc.TABLE_NAME = @TABLE_NAME ) AS j ON j.CONSTRAINT_CATALOG = c.TABLE_CATALOG AND j.CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA = c.TABLE_SCHEMA AND j.TABLE_NAME = c.TABLE_NAME AND j.COLUMN_NAME = c.COLUMN_NAME ) SELECT @sql = COALESCE(@sql, '') + 'DELETE FROM ' + [OBJECT_NAME] + ' WHERE ' + [COLUMN_NAME] + ' = ' + CONVERT(varchar, @IDValue) + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) FROM RELATED_COLUMNS PRINT @sql Thank to Charles, this is the latest not working release of the software, I have added a parameter with the OWNER because the referential integrities propagate through about 5 other Oracle users (!!!): CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE delete_cascade ( parent_table VARCHAR2, parent_table_owner VARCHAR2) IS cons_name VARCHAR2 (30); tab_name VARCHAR2 (30); tab_name_owner VARCHAR2 (30); parent_cons VARCHAR2 (30); parent_col VARCHAR2 (30); delete1 VARCHAR (500); delete2 VARCHAR (500); delete_command VARCHAR (4000); CURSOR cons_cursor IS SELECT constraint_name, r_constraint_name, table_name, constraint_type FROM all_constraints WHERE constraint_type = 'R' AND r_constraint_name IN (SELECT constraint_name FROM all_constraints WHERE constraint_type IN ('P', 'U') AND table_name = parent_table AND owner = parent_table_owner) AND delete_rule = 'NO ACTION'; CURSOR tabs_cursor IS SELECT DISTINCT table_name FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = cons_name; CURSOR child_cols_cursor IS SELECT column_name, position FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = cons_name AND table_name = tab_name; BEGIN FOR cons IN cons_cursor LOOP cons_name := cons.constraint_name; parent_cons := cons.r_constraint_name; SELECT DISTINCT table_name, owner INTO tab_name, tab_name_owner FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = cons_name; delete_cascade (tab_name, tab_name_owner); delete_command := ''; delete1 := ''; delete2 := ''; FOR col IN child_cols_cursor LOOP SELECT DISTINCT column_name INTO parent_col FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = parent_cons AND position = col.position; IF delete1 IS NULL THEN delete1 := col.column_name; ELSE delete1 := delete1 || ', ' || col.column_name; END IF; IF delete2 IS NULL THEN delete2 := parent_col; ELSE delete2 := delete2 || ', ' || parent_col; END IF; END LOOP; delete_command := 'delete from ' || tab_name_owner || '.' || tab_name || ' where (' || delete1 || ') in (select ' || delete2 || ' from ' || parent_table_owner || '.' || parent_table || ');'; INSERT INTO ris VALUES (SEQUENCE_COMANDI.NEXTVAL, delete_command); COMMIT; END LOOP; END; / In the cursor CONS_CURSOR I have added the condition: AND delete_rule = 'NO ACTION'; in order to avoid deletion in case of referential integrities with DELETE_RULE = 'CASCADE' or DELETE_RULE = 'SET NULL'. Now I have tried to turn from stored procedure to stored function, but the delete statements are not correct: CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION deletecascade ( parent_table VARCHAR2, parent_table_owner VARCHAR2) RETURN VARCHAR2 IS cons_name VARCHAR2 (30); tab_name VARCHAR2 (30); tab_name_owner VARCHAR2 (30); parent_cons VARCHAR2 (30); parent_col VARCHAR2 (30); delete1 VARCHAR (500); delete2 VARCHAR (500); delete_command VARCHAR (4000); AT_LEAST_ONE_ITERATION NUMBER DEFAULT 0; CURSOR cons_cursor IS SELECT constraint_name, r_constraint_name, table_name, constraint_type FROM all_constraints WHERE constraint_type = 'R' AND r_constraint_name IN (SELECT constraint_name FROM all_constraints WHERE constraint_type IN ('P', 'U') AND table_name = parent_table AND owner = parent_table_owner) AND delete_rule = 'NO ACTION'; CURSOR tabs_cursor IS SELECT DISTINCT table_name FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = cons_name; CURSOR child_cols_cursor IS SELECT column_name, position FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = cons_name AND table_name = tab_name; BEGIN FOR cons IN cons_cursor LOOP AT_LEAST_ONE_ITERATION := 1; cons_name := cons.constraint_name; parent_cons := cons.r_constraint_name; SELECT DISTINCT table_name, owner INTO tab_name, tab_name_owner FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = cons_name; delete1 := ''; delete2 := ''; FOR col IN child_cols_cursor LOOP SELECT DISTINCT column_name INTO parent_col FROM all_cons_columns WHERE constraint_name = parent_cons AND position = col.position; IF delete1 IS NULL THEN delete1 := col.column_name; ELSE delete1 := delete1 || ', ' || col.column_name; END IF; IF delete2 IS NULL THEN delete2 := parent_col; ELSE delete2 := delete2 || ', ' || parent_col; END IF; END LOOP; delete_command := 'delete from ' || tab_name_owner || '.' || tab_name || ' where (' || delete1 || ') in (select ' || delete2 || ' from ' || parent_table_owner || '.' || parent_table || ');' || deletecascade (tab_name, tab_name_owner); INSERT INTO ris VALUES (SEQUENCE_COMANDI.NEXTVAL, delete_command); COMMIT; END LOOP; IF AT_LEAST_ONE_ITERATION = 1 THEN RETURN ' where COD_CHICKEN = V_CHICKEN AND COD_NATION = V_NATION;'; ELSE RETURN NULL; END IF; END; / Please assume that V_CHICKEN and V_NATION are the criteria to select the CHICKEN to delete from the root table: the condition is: "where COD_CHICKEN = V_CHICKEN AND COD_NATION = V_NATION" on the root table.

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• Matlab code works with one version but not the other

  - by user1325655

  I have a code that works in Matlab version R2010a but shows errors in matlab R2008a. I am trying to implement a self organizing fuzzy neural network with extended kalman filter. I have the code running but it only works in matlab version R2010a. It doesn't work with other versions. Any help? Code attach function [ c, sigma , W_output ] = SOFNN( X, d, Kd ) %SOFNN Self-Organizing Fuzzy Neural Networks %Input Parameters % X(r,n) - rth traning data from nth observation % d(n) - the desired output of the network (must be a row vector) % Kd(r) - predefined distance threshold for the rth input %Output Parameters % c(IndexInputVariable,IndexNeuron) % sigma(IndexInputVariable,IndexNeuron) % W_output is a vector %Setting up Parameters for SOFNN SigmaZero=4; delta=0.12; threshold=0.1354; k_sigma=1.12; %For more accurate results uncomment the following %format long; %Implementation of a SOFNN model [size_R,size_N]=size(X); %size_R - the number of input variables c=[]; sigma=[]; W_output=[]; u=0; % the number of neurons in the structure Q=[]; O=[]; Psi=[]; for n=1:size_N x=X(:,n); if u==0 % No neuron in the structure? c=x; sigma=SigmaZero*ones(size_R,1); u=1; Psi=GetMePsi(X,c,sigma); [Q,O] = UpdateStructure(X,Psi,d); pT_n=GetMeGreatPsi(x,Psi(n,:))'; else [Q,O,pT_n] = UpdateStructureRecursively(X,Psi,Q,O,d,n); end; KeepSpinning=true; while KeepSpinning %Calculate the error and if-part criteria ae=abs(d(n)-pT_n*O); %approximation error [phi,~]=GetMePhi(x,c,sigma); [maxphi,maxindex]=max(phi); % maxindex refers to the neuron's index if ae>delta if maxphi<threshold %enlarge width [minsigma,minindex]=min(sigma(:,maxindex)); sigma(minindex,maxindex)=k_sigma*minsigma; Psi=GetMePsi(X,c,sigma); [Q,O] = UpdateStructure(X,Psi,d); pT_n=GetMeGreatPsi(x,Psi(n,:))'; else %Add a new neuron and update structure ctemp=[]; sigmatemp=[]; dist=0; for r=1:size_R dist=abs(x(r)-c(r,1)); distIndex=1; for j=2:u if abs(x(r)-c(r,j))<dist distIndex=j; dist=abs(x(r)-c(r,j)); end; end; if dist<=Kd(r) ctemp=[ctemp; c(r,distIndex)]; sigmatemp=[sigmatemp ; sigma(r,distIndex)]; else ctemp=[ctemp; x(r)]; sigmatemp=[sigmatemp ; dist]; end; end; c=[c ctemp]; sigma=[sigma sigmatemp]; Psi=GetMePsi(X,c,sigma); [Q,O] = UpdateStructure(X,Psi,d); KeepSpinning=false; u=u+1; end; else if maxphi<threshold %enlarge width [minsigma,minindex]=min(sigma(:,maxindex)); sigma(minindex,maxindex)=k_sigma*minsigma; Psi=GetMePsi(X,c,sigma); [Q,O] = UpdateStructure(X,Psi,d); pT_n=GetMeGreatPsi(x,Psi(n,:))'; else %Do nothing and exit the while KeepSpinning=false; end; end; end; end; W_output=O; end function [Q_next, O_next,pT_n] = UpdateStructureRecursively(X,Psi,Q,O,d,n) %O=O(t-1) O_next=O(t) p_n=GetMeGreatPsi(X(:,n),Psi(n,:)); pT_n=p_n'; ee=abs(d(n)-pT_n*O); %|e(t)| temp=1+pT_n*Q*p_n; ae=abs(ee/temp); if ee>=ae L=Q*p_n*(temp)^(-1); Q_next=(eye(length(Q))-L*pT_n)*Q; O_next=O + L*ee; else Q_next=eye(length(Q))*Q; O_next=O; end; end function [ Q , O ] = UpdateStructure(X,Psi,d) GreatPsiBig = GetMeGreatPsi(X,Psi); %M=u*(r+1) %n - the number of observations [M,~]=size(GreatPsiBig); %Others Ways of getting Q=[P^T(t)*P(t)]^-1 %************************************************************************** %opts.SYM = true; %Q = linsolve(GreatPsiBig*GreatPsiBig',eye(M),opts); % %Q = inv(GreatPsiBig*GreatPsiBig'); %Q = pinv(GreatPsiBig*GreatPsiBig'); %************************************************************************** Y=GreatPsiBig\eye(M); Q=GreatPsiBig'\Y; O=Q*GreatPsiBig*d'; end %This function works too with x % (X=X and Psi is a Matrix) - Gets you the whole GreatPsi % (X=x and Psi is the row related to x) - Gets you just the column related with the observation function [GreatPsi] = GetMeGreatPsi(X,Psi) %Psi - In a row you go through the neurons and in a column you go through number of %observations **** Psi(#obs,IndexNeuron) **** GreatPsi=[]; [N,U]=size(Psi); for n=1:N x=X(:,n); GreatPsiCol=[]; for u=1:U GreatPsiCol=[ GreatPsiCol ; Psi(n,u)*[1; x] ]; end; GreatPsi=[GreatPsi GreatPsiCol]; end; end function [phi, SumPhi]=GetMePhi(x,c,sigma) [r,u]=size(c); %u - the number of neurons in the structure %r - the number of input variables phi=[]; SumPhi=0; for j=1:u % moving through the neurons S=0; for i=1:r % moving through the input variables S = S + ((x(i) - c(i,j))^2) / (2*sigma(i,j)^2); end; phi = [phi exp(-S)]; SumPhi = SumPhi + phi(j); %phi(u)=exp(-S) end; end %This function works too with x, it will give you the row related to x function [Psi] = GetMePsi(X,c,sigma) [~,u]=size(c); [~,size_N]=size(X); %u - the number of neurons in the structure %size_N - the number of observations Psi=[]; for n=1:size_N [phi, SumPhi]=GetMePhi(X(:,n),c,sigma); PsiTemp=[]; for j=1:u %PsiTemp is a row vector ex: [1 2 3] PsiTemp(j)=phi(j)/SumPhi; end; Psi=[Psi; PsiTemp]; %Psi - In a row you go through the neurons and in a column you go through number of %observations **** Psi(#obs,IndexNeuron) **** end; end

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• How LINQ to Object statements work

  - by rajbk

  This post goes into detail as to now LINQ statements work when querying a collection of objects. This topic assumes you have an understanding of how generics, delegates, implicitly typed variables, lambda expressions, object/collection initializers, extension methods and the yield statement work. I would also recommend you read my previous two posts: Using Delegates in C# Part 1 Using Delegates in C# Part 2 We will start by writing some methods to filter a collection of data. Assume we have an Employee class like so: 1: public class Employee { 2: public int ID { get; set;} 3: public string FirstName { get; set;} 4: public string LastName {get; set;} 5: public string Country { get; set; } 6: } and a collection of employees like so: 1: var employees = new List<Employee> { 2: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 3: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 4: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 5: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" }, 6: }; Filtering We wish to  find all employees that have an even ID. We could start off by writing a method that takes in a list of employees and returns a filtered list of employees with an even ID. 1: static List<Employee> GetEmployeesWithEvenID(List<Employee> employees) { 2: var filteredEmployees = new List<Employee>(); 3: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 4: if (emp.ID % 2 == 0) { 5: filteredEmployees.Add(emp); 6: } 7: } 8: return filteredEmployees; 9: } The method can be rewritten to return an IEnumerable<Employee> using the yield return keyword. 1: static IEnumerable<Employee> GetEmployeesWithEvenID(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 2: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 3: if (emp.ID % 2 == 0) { 4: yield return emp; 5: } 6: } 7: } We put these together in a console application. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: //No System.Linq 4:  5: public class Program 6: { 7: [STAThread] 8: static void Main(string[] args) 9: { 10: var employees = new List<Employee> { 11: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 14: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" }, 15: }; 16: var filteredEmployees = GetEmployeesWithEvenID(employees); 17:  18: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 19: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 20: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 21: } 22:  23: Console.ReadLine(); 24: } 25: 26: static IEnumerable<Employee> GetEmployeesWithEvenID(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 27: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 28: if (emp.ID % 2 == 0) { 29: yield return emp; 30: } 31: } 32: } 33: } 34:  35: public class Employee { 36: public int ID { get; set;} 37: public string FirstName { get; set;} 38: public string LastName {get; set;} 39: public string Country { get; set; } 40: } Output: ID 2 First_Name Jim Last_Name Ashlock Country UK ID 4 First_Name Jill Last_Name Anderson Country AUS Our filtering method is too specific. Let us change it so that it is capable of doing different types of filtering and lets give our method the name Where ;-) We will add another parameter to our Where method. This additional parameter will be a delegate with the following declaration. public delegate bool Filter(Employee emp); The idea is that the delegate parameter in our Where method will point to a method that contains the logic to do our filtering thereby freeing our Where method from any dependency. The method is shown below: 1: static IEnumerable<Employee> Where(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, Filter filter) { 2: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 3: if (filter(emp)) { 4: yield return emp; 5: } 6: } 7: } Making the change to our app, we create a new instance of the Filter delegate on line 14 with a target set to the method EmployeeHasEvenId. Running the code will produce the same output. 1: public delegate bool Filter(Employee emp); 2:  3: public class Program 4: { 5: [STAThread] 6: static void Main(string[] args) 7: { 8: var employees = new List<Employee> { 9: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 13: }; 14: var filterDelegate = new Filter(EmployeeHasEvenId); 15: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, filterDelegate); 16:  17: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 18: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 19: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 20: } 21: Console.ReadLine(); 22: } 23: 24: static bool EmployeeHasEvenId(Employee emp) { 25: return emp.ID % 2 == 0; 26: } 27: 28: static IEnumerable<Employee> Where(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, Filter filter) { 29: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 30: if (filter(emp)) { 31: yield return emp; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } 36:  37: public class Employee { 38: public int ID { get; set;} 39: public string FirstName { get; set;} 40: public string LastName {get; set;} 41: public string Country { get; set; } 42: } Lets use lambda expressions to inline the contents of the EmployeeHasEvenId method in place of the method. The next code snippet shows this change (see line 15).  For brevity, the Employee class declaration has been skipped. 1: public delegate bool Filter(Employee emp); 2:  3: public class Program 4: { 5: [STAThread] 6: static void Main(string[] args) 7: { 8: var employees = new List<Employee> { 9: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 13: }; 14: var filterDelegate = new Filter(EmployeeHasEvenId); 15: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 16:  17: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 18: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 19: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 20: } 21: Console.ReadLine(); 22: } 23: 24: static bool EmployeeHasEvenId(Employee emp) { 25: return emp.ID % 2 == 0; 26: } 27: 28: static IEnumerable<Employee> Where(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, Filter filter) { 29: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 30: if (filter(emp)) { 31: yield return emp; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } 36:  The output displays the same two employees.  Our Where method is too restricted since it works with a collection of Employees only. Lets change it so that it works with any IEnumerable<T>. In addition, you may recall from my previous post,  that .NET 3.5 comes with a lot of predefined delegates including public delegate TResult Func<T, TResult>(T arg); We will get rid of our Filter delegate and use the one above instead. We apply these two changes to our code. 1: public class Program 2: { 3: [STAThread] 4: static void Main(string[] args) 5: { 6: var employees = new List<Employee> { 7: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 8: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 9: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 11: }; 12:  13: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 14:  15: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 16: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 17: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 18: } 19: Console.ReadLine(); 20: } 21: 22: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 23: foreach (var x in source) { 24: if (filter(x)) { 25: yield return x; 26: } 27: } 28: } 29: } We have successfully implemented a way to filter any IEnumerable<T> based on a  filter criteria. Projection Now lets enumerate on the items in the IEnumerable<Employee> we got from the Where method and copy them into a new IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted>. The EmployeeFormatted class will only have a FullName and ID property. 1: public class EmployeeFormatted { 2: public int ID { get; set; } 3: public string FullName {get; set;} 4: } We could “project” our existing IEnumerable<Employee> into a new collection of IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted> with the help of a new method. We will call this method Select ;-) 1: static IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted> Select(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 2: foreach (var emp in employees) { 3: yield return new EmployeeFormatted { 4: ID = emp.ID, 5: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 6: }; 7: } 8: } The changes are applied to our app. 1: public class Program 2: { 3: [STAThread] 4: static void Main(string[] args) 5: { 6: var employees = new List<Employee> { 7: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 8: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 9: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 11: }; 12:  13: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 14: var formattedEmployees = Select(filteredEmployees); 15:  16: foreach (EmployeeFormatted emp in formattedEmployees) { 17: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 18: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 19: } 20: Console.ReadLine(); 21: } 22:  23: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 24: foreach (var x in source) { 25: if (filter(x)) { 26: yield return x; 27: } 28: } 29: } 30: 31: static IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted> Select(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 32: foreach (var emp in employees) { 33: yield return new EmployeeFormatted { 34: ID = emp.ID, 35: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 36: }; 37: } 38: } 39: } 40:  41: public class Employee { 42: public int ID { get; set;} 43: public string FirstName { get; set;} 44: public string LastName {get; set;} 45: public string Country { get; set; } 46: } 47:  48: public class EmployeeFormatted { 49: public int ID { get; set; } 50: public string FullName {get; set;} 51: } Output: ID 2 Full_Name Ashlock, Jim ID 4 Full_Name Anderson, Jill We have successfully selected employees who have an even ID and then shaped our data with the help of the Select method so that the final result is an IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted>.  Lets make our Select method more generic so that the user is given the freedom to shape what the output would look like. We can do this, like before, with lambda expressions. Our Select method is changed to accept a delegate as shown below. TSource will be the type of data that comes in and TResult will be the type the user chooses (shape of data) as returned from the selector delegate. 1:  2: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 3: foreach (var x in source) { 4: yield return selector(x); 5: } 6: } We see the new changes to our app. On line 15, we use lambda expression to specify the shape of the data. In this case the shape will be of type EmployeeFormatted. 1:  2: public class Program 3: { 4: [STAThread] 5: static void Main(string[] args) 6: { 7: var employees = new List<Employee> { 8: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 9: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 12: }; 13:  14: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 15: var formattedEmployees = Select(filteredEmployees, (emp) => 16: new EmployeeFormatted { 17: ID = emp.ID, 18: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 19: }); 20:  21: foreach (EmployeeFormatted emp in formattedEmployees) { 22: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 23: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 24: } 25: Console.ReadLine(); 26: } 27: 28: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 29: foreach (var x in source) { 30: if (filter(x)) { 31: yield return x; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: 36: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 37: foreach (var x in source) { 38: yield return selector(x); 39: } 40: } 41: } The code outputs the same result as before. On line 14 we filter our data and on line 15 we project our data. What if we wanted to be more expressive and concise? We could combine both line 14 and 15 into one line as shown below. Assuming you had to perform several operations like this on our collection, you would end up with some very unreadable code! 1: var formattedEmployees = Select(Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0), (emp) => 2: new EmployeeFormatted { 3: ID = emp.ID, 4: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 5: }); A cleaner way to write this would be to give the appearance that the Select and Where methods were part of the IEnumerable<T>. This is exactly what extension methods give us. Extension methods have to be defined in a static class. Let us make the Select and Where extension methods on IEnumerable<T> 1: public static class MyExtensionMethods { 2: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 3: foreach (var x in source) { 4: if (filter(x)) { 5: yield return x; 6: } 7: } 8: } 9: 10: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 11: foreach (var x in source) { 12: yield return selector(x); 13: } 14: } 15: } The creation of the extension method makes the syntax much cleaner as shown below. We can write as many extension methods as we want and keep on chaining them using this technique. 1: var formattedEmployees = employees 2: .Where(emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0) 3: .Select (emp => new EmployeeFormatted { ID = emp.ID, FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName }); Making these changes and running our code produces the same result. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:  4: public class Program 5: { 6: [STAThread] 7: static void Main(string[] args) 8: { 9: var employees = new List<Employee> { 10: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 14: }; 15:  16: var formattedEmployees = employees 17: .Where(emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0) 18: .Select (emp => 19: new EmployeeFormatted { 20: ID = emp.ID, 21: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 22: } 23: ); 24:  25: foreach (EmployeeFormatted emp in formattedEmployees) { 26: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 27: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 28: } 29: Console.ReadLine(); 30: } 31: } 32:  33: public static class MyExtensionMethods { 34: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 35: foreach (var x in source) { 36: if (filter(x)) { 37: yield return x; 38: } 39: } 40: } 41: 42: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 43: foreach (var x in source) { 44: yield return selector(x); 45: } 46: } 47: } 48:  49: public class Employee { 50: public int ID { get; set;} 51: public string FirstName { get; set;} 52: public string LastName {get; set;} 53: public string Country { get; set; } 54: } 55:  56: public class EmployeeFormatted { 57: public int ID { get; set; } 58: public string FullName {get; set;} 59: } Let’s change our code to return a collection of anonymous types and get rid of the EmployeeFormatted type. We see that the code produces the same output. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:  4: public class Program 5: { 6: [STAThread] 7: static void Main(string[] args) 8: { 9: var employees = new List<Employee> { 10: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 14: }; 15:  16: var formattedEmployees = employees 17: .Where(emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0) 18: .Select (emp => 19: new { 20: ID = emp.ID, 21: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 22: } 23: ); 24:  25: foreach (var emp in formattedEmployees) { 26: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 27: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 28: } 29: Console.ReadLine(); 30: } 31: } 32:  33: public static class MyExtensionMethods { 34: public static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 35: foreach (var x in source) { 36: if (filter(x)) { 37: yield return x; 38: } 39: } 40: } 41: 42: public static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 43: foreach (var x in source) { 44: yield return selector(x); 45: } 46: } 47: } 48:  49: public class Employee { 50: public int ID { get; set;} 51: public string FirstName { get; set;} 52: public string LastName {get; set;} 53: public string Country { get; set; } 54: } To be more expressive, C# allows us to write our extension method calls as a query expression. Line 16 can be rewritten a query expression like so: 1: var formattedEmployees = from emp in employees 2: where emp.ID % 2 == 0 3: select new { 4: ID = emp.ID, 5: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 6: }; When the compiler encounters an expression like the above, it simply rewrites it as calls to our extension methods.  So far we have been using our extension methods. The System.Linq namespace contains several extension methods for objects that implement the IEnumerable<T>. You can see a listing of these methods in the Enumerable class in the System.Linq namespace. Let’s get rid of our extension methods (which I purposefully wrote to be of the same signature as the ones in the Enumerable class) and use the ones provided in the Enumerable class. Our final code is shown below: 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Linq; //Added 4:  5: public class Program 6: { 7: [STAThread] 8: static void Main(string[] args) 9: { 10: var employees = new List<Employee> { 11: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 14: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 15: }; 16:  17: var formattedEmployees = from emp in employees 18: where emp.ID % 2 == 0 19: select new { 20: ID = emp.ID, 21: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 22: }; 23:  24: foreach (var emp in formattedEmployees) { 25: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 26: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 27: } 28: Console.ReadLine(); 29: } 30: } 31:  32: public class Employee { 33: public int ID { get; set;} 34: public string FirstName { get; set;} 35: public string LastName {get; set;} 36: public string Country { get; set; } 37: } 38:  39: public class EmployeeFormatted { 40: public int ID { get; set; } 41: public string FullName {get; set;} 42: } This post has shown you a basic overview of LINQ to Objects work by showning you how an expression is converted to a sequence of calls to extension methods when working directly with objects. It gets more interesting when working with LINQ to SQL where an expression tree is constructed – an in memory data representation of the expression. The C# compiler compiles these expressions into code that builds an expression tree at runtime. The provider can then traverse the expression tree and generate the appropriate SQL query. You can read more about expression trees in this MSDN article.

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