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  • Reason for unintuitive UnboundLocalError behaviour 2

    - by Jonathan
    Following up on Reason for unintuitive UnboundLocalError behaviour (I will assume you've read it). Consider the following Python script: def f(): # a+=1 # 1 aa=a aa+=1 # b+='b' # 2 bb=b bb+='b' c[0]+='c' # 3 c.append('c') cc=c cc.append('c') # 4 a=1 b='b' c=['c'] f() print a print b print c The result of the script is: 1 b ['cc', 'c', 'c'] The commented out lines (marked 1,2) are lines that would through an UnboundLocalError and the SO question I referenced explains why. However, the line marked 3 works! By default, lists are copied by reference in Python, therefore it's understandable that c changes when cc changes. But why should Python allow c to change in the first place, if it didn't allow changes to a and b directly from the method's scope? I don't see how the fact that by default lists are copied by reference in Python should make this design decision inconsistent. What am I missing folks?

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  • Global Import/using Aliasing in .NET

    - by Josh Stodola
    Using import aliasing in a single class, we can reference class library namespaces by assigning our own custom alias like this: ' VB Imports Db = Company.Lib.Data.Objects // C# using Db = Company.Lib.Data.Objects; And then we are able to reference the classes inside of Company.Lib.Data.Objects by using the Db alias that we assigned. Is it possible to do this at the global level so that the alias is applied to the entire solution instead of the given file? Currently, we are working with web applications, so I was hoping we could add something to web.config, but I am also interested in whether or not this is possible with windows forms, console apps, and/or class libraries.

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  • How to expose information about a running .NET exe?

    - by Doug
    I have a .NET exe that I wrote and it has a couple properties that I made public and want to expose. I want to shell this exe (Process.Start()) and then somehow reference this exe and get access to these public properties. These properties expose information about the running exe. I know how to shell to the exe. And I know how to add a reference to the exe from my project that I want to use this object. But how do I get access to the properties of this running exe? I hope I am explaining myself well. If you do know the answer maybe you could just tell me what the standard method is to expose properties of a running exe to another application at run-time. Thanks for any help!

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  • linq2sql left join with "multiselect"

    - by just_azho
    Hi, folks I'm trying to achieve following by linq2sql, but not successful. I've Member and Reference tables. DB is design in such a manner that Member can have multiple (=0) References. What I want as a result of query is, list (rows) of members, where all references of the member are "collected" in one column. What I had achieved is following query, but for this one there exist a row for each Reference. var refs = (from m in db.Members join r in db.References on m.PID equals r.PID into g from o in g.DefaultIfEmpty() select new { member = m, name = (o == null ? "" : o.NameSurname) }); I feel I need to insert SelectMany somewher :) Could you please give hints on achieving the goal?

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  • Updating the collections of entities with NHibernate the correct way

    - by karel_evzen
    A simple question regarding how NHibernate works: I have a parent entity that has a collection of other child entities. Those child entities have a reference to the parent entity they belong to. Now I want to implement an Add method to the parent entity that would add a child to it. Should that Add method only add the child to its new parents collection, or should it also update the parent reference of the child or should it also remove the added entity from its previous parents collection? Do I have to do all these things in that method or will NHibernate do something for me? Thanks.

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  • Polymorphic behavior not being implemented

    - by Garrett A. Hughes
    The last two lines of this code illustrate the problem: the compiler works when I use the reference to the object, but not when I assign the reference to an array element. The rest of the code is in the same package in separate files. BioStudent and ChemStudent are separate classes, as well as Student. package pkgPoly; public class Poly { public static void main(String[] arg) { Student[] stud = new Student[3]; // create a biology student BioStudent s1 = new BioStudent("Tom"); // create a chemistry student ChemStudent s2 = new ChemStudent("Dick"); // fill the student body with studs stud[0] = s0; stud[1] = s1; // compiler complains that it can't find symbol getMajor on next line System.out.println("major: " + stud[0].getMajor() ); // doesn't compile; System.out.println("major: " + s0.getMajor() ); // works: compiles and runs correctly } }

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  • Do fields need to be explicitly final to have a "proper" immutable object?

    - by Yishai
    You often read about immutable objects requiring final fields to be immutable in Java. Is this in fact the case, or is it simply enough to have no public mutability and not actually mutate the state? For example, if you have an immutable object built by the builder pattern, you could do it by having the builder assign the individual fields as it builds, or having the builder hold the fields itself and ultimately return the immutable object by passing the values to its (private) constructor. Having the fields final has the obvious advantage of preventing implementation errors (such as allowing code to retain a reference to the builder and "building" the object multiple times while in fact mutating an existing object), but having the Builder store its data inside the object as it is built would seem to be DRYer. So the question is: Assuming the Builder does not leak the Object early and stops itself from modifying the object once built (say by setting its reference to the object as null) is there actually anything gained (such as improved thread safety) in the "immutability" of the object if the object's fields were made final instead?

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  • Singelton restricted to instance of dll

    - by codeySmurf
    If I create a singleton class in the context of a dll, the singleton class is instantiated once and used by all instances of the dll. I am using a dll as a plug-in for an application. Now the following thing came to my mind: If I use a singleton Class, it will be shared across multiple instances of the plug-in. However, this makes it difficult to manage the lifetime of the singleton class efficiently. The only way I could think of would be to use a reference count and to make the singleton delete its self when the reference count is 0. Does anyone have any better ideas on that? Is there any good way to restrict the singleton object to one instance of the dll? Language is c++

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  • How to link .lib library in linux

    - by giga
    I'm pretty new to c programming and want to port a windows c application to linux. My code uses a .lib file va_g729.lib - is it possible to use the same library in Linux and compile it with gcc? All my .c and .h files along with the one .lib files are in the same directory. What I'm doing now is executing this command in the directory: gcc *.c -lm and I get following errors: lbcodec2.c:(.text+0xa6b): undefined reference to `va_g729a_init_encoder' lbcodec2.c:(.text+0xa83): undefined reference to `va_g729a_encoder' collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status Is it possible to link the .lib file and compile with gcc? Thanks.

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  • Program not running from expected directory?

    - by twpc
    I am working on a web-based program, using Java. I am not sure exactly how to phrase this, but I expect the program to be running from within the c:/Resin/webapps/apps directory. However, when I reference a file in the program like this: "../files/randomfile.pdf", it cannot find that file. It works when I reference it like this: "c:/Resin/webapps/files/randomfile.pdf". How to I change the "running location"? (And what is the technical term for this?)

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  • Subtype polymorphism and arrays

    - by user133466
    Computer[] labComputers = new Computer[10]; with public class Computer { ... void toString(){ // print computer specs } } public class Notebook extends Computer{ ... void toString(){ // print computer specs + laptop color } } each subscripted variable labComputers[i] can reference either a Computer object or a Notebook object because Notebook is a subclass of Computer. For the method call labComputers[i].toString(), polymorphism ensures that the correct toString method is called. I wonder what if we do Notebook[] labComputers = new Notebook[10]; what kind or error would I get if I reference with Computer object and a Notebook object

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  • What are the disadvantages of using a StringBuilder?

    - by stickman
    I know that StringBuilder is more efficient than a normal string when processing code which modifies the string value a lot because although strings act like value types, they are actually reference, which makes them immutable so every time we change it, we need to create a new reference in memory. My question is that, why doesn't .NET just use stringBuilder by default? There must be some disadvantages of it over just using String. Can anyone tell me what they are? The only thing I can think of is perhaps it is a heavier object and it takes more time to instantiate so if you aren't changing the string too much, this would override the benefits of StringBuilder

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  • Can I just release the top object (iPhone)?

    - by yar
    If I release the object that's holding a reference to the variable that I need to release, is that sufficient? Or must I release at every level of the containment hierarchy? I fear that my logic comes from working with a garbage collector for too long. For instance, I assigned to this property of a UIPickerView instance by hand instead of using IB @property(nonatomic, assign) id<UIPickerViewDelegate> delegate Since it's an assign property, I can't just release the reference after I assign it. When I finally release my UIPickerView instance, do I need to do this: [singlePicker.delegate release]; [singlePicker release]; or is the second line sufficient? Also: Are these assign properties the norm, or is that mostly for Interface Builder? I thought that retain properties were the normal thing to expect.

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  • Is it thread safe to read a form controls value (but not change it) without using Invoke/BeginInvoke from another thread

    - by goku_da_master
    I know you can read a gui control from a worker thread without using Invoke/BeginInvoke because my app is doing it now. The cross thread exception error is not being thrown and my System.Timers.Timer thread is able to read gui control values just fine (unlike this guy: can a worker thread read a control in the GUI?) Question 1: Given the cardinal rule of threads, should I be using Invoke/BeginInvoke to read form control values? And does this make it more thread-safe? The background to this question stems from a problem my app is having. It seems to randomly corrupt form controls another thread is referencing. (see question 2) Question 2: I have a second thread that needs to update form control values so I Invoke/BeginInvoke to update those values. Well this same thread needs a reference to those controls so it can update them. It holds a list of these controls (say DataGridViewRow objects). Sometimes (not always), the DataGridViewRow reference gets "corrupt". What I mean by corrupt, is the reference is still valid, but some of the DataGridViewRow properties are null (ex: row.Cells). Is this caused by question 1 or can you give me any tips on why this might be happening? Here's some code (the last line has the problem): public partial class MyForm : Form { void Timer_Elapsed(object sender) { // we're on a new thread (this function gets called every few seconds) UpdateUiHelper updateUiHelper = new UpdateUiHelper(this); foreach (DataGridViewRow row in dataGridView1.Rows) { object[] values = GetValuesFromDb(); updateUiHelper.UpdateRowValues(row, values[0]); } // .. do other work here updateUiHelper.UpdateUi(); } } public class UpdateUiHelper { private readonly Form _form; private Dictionary<DataGridViewRow, object> _rows; private delegate void RowDelegate(DataGridViewRow row); private readonly object _lockObject = new object(); public UpdateUiHelper(Form form) { _form = form; _rows = new Dictionary<DataGridViewRow, object>(); } public void UpdateRowValues(DataGridViewRow row, object value) { if (_rows.ContainsKey(row)) _rows[row] = value; else { lock (_lockObject) { _rows.Add(row, value); } } } public void UpdateUi() { foreach (DataGridViewRow row in _rows.Keys) { SetRowValueThreadSafe(row); } } private void SetRowValueThreadSafe(DataGridViewRow row) { if (_form.InvokeRequired) { _form.Invoke(new RowDelegate(SetRowValueThreadSafe), new object[] { row }); return; } // now we're on the UI thread object newValue = _rows[row]; row.Cells[0].Value = newValue; // randomly errors here with NullReferenceException, but row is never null! }

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  • website inserting pics

    - by onfire4JesusCollins
    Hello i am getting this error message : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code. Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. Source Error: Line 7: Line 8: Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load Line 9: UserIdValue.Text = Membership.GetUser().ProviderUserKey.ToString() Line 10: cannotUploadImageMessage.Visible = False Line 11: End Sub can someone help me with this?

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  • How to identify each parameter type in a C# method?

    - by user465876
    I have a C# method say: MyMethod(int num, string name, Color color, MyComplexType complex) Using reflection, how can I distinctly identify each of the parameter types of any method? I want to perform some task by parameter type. If the type is simple int, string or boolean then I do something, if it is Color, XMLDocument, etc I do something else and if it is user defined type like MyComplexType or MyCalci etc then I want to do certain task. I am able to retrieve all the parameters of a method using ParameterInfo and can loop through each parameter and get their types. But how can I identify each data type? foreach (var parameter in parameters) { //identify primitive types?? //identify value types //identify reference types } Edit: this is apart of my code to create a propert grid sort of page where I want to show the parameter list with data types for the selected method. If the parameter has any userdefined type/reference type then I want to expand it further to show all the elements under it with datatypes.

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  • Persistent Logins

    - by Trido
    I am following this article on creating persistent login cookies with my ASP.NET site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.security.formsauthentication.encrypt.aspx The issue is that when I navigate to the page, I get the following compiler error: Compiler Error Message: CS1061: 'ASP.administration_login_aspx' does not contain a definition for 'Login_Click' and no extension method 'Login_Click' accepting a first argument of type 'ASP.administration_login_aspx' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) Can anyone tell me why this is. The error message doesn't really say much and I don't believe I am missing a directive or assembly reference. The code builds without any problems. EDIT: I did not include code because I said I was following that link which includes code. I copy/pasted from the example.

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  • What to do with "Default Web Site" on a Japanese OS? (E.G: ??? Web ???)

    - by Mike Atlas
    I'm currently in the process of upgrading old II6 automation scripts that use the iisvdir tool to create/modify/update apps and virtual directories. The IIS6 "iisvdir" commands reference paths in IIS6 that are from the metabase, eg, "/W3SVC/1/ROOT/MyApp" - where 1 is the "Default" website. The command doesn't actually require the display name of the site to make changes to it. With an English OS, the "Default Web Site" site name is fine for usage in AppCmd, but if the OS is Japanese, it will be named: "??? Web ???" So how can I script AppCmd to refer to sites, vdirs and apps using language neutral identifiers to reference the "Default App Site"? (Disclosure: I only have a IIS7-English machine that I am working on currently, but I have both IIS6-English and IIS6-Japanese machines for testing my old scripts - so perhaps it really is just "Default Web Site" still on Win2k8-Japanese?)

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  • Time Warp

    - by Jesse
    It’s no secret that daylight savings time can wreak havoc on systems that rely heavily on dates. The system I work on is centered around recording dates and times, so naturally my co-workers and I have seen our fair share of date-related bugs. From time to time, however, we come across something that we haven’t seen before. A few weeks ago the following error message started showing up in our logs: “The supplied DateTime represents an invalid time. For example, when the clock is adjusted forward, any time in the period that is skipped is invalid.” This seemed very cryptic, especially since it was coming from areas of our application that are typically only concerned with capturing date-only (no explicit time component) from the user, like reports that take a “start date” and “end date” parameter. For these types of parameters we just leave off the time component when capturing the date values, so midnight is used as a “placeholder” time. How is midnight an “invalid time”? Globalization Is Hard Over the last couple of years our software has been rolled out to users in several countries outside of the United States, including Brazil. Brazil begins and ends daylight savings time at midnight on pre-determined days of the year. On October 16, 2011 at midnight many areas in Brazil began observing daylight savings time at which time their clocks were set forward one hour. This means that at the instant it became midnight on October 16, it actually became 1:00 AM, so any time between 12:00 AM and 12:59:59 AM never actually happened. Because we store all date values in the database in UTC, always adjust any “local” dates provided by a user to UTC before using them as filters in a query. The error we saw was thrown by .NET when trying to convert the Brazilian local time of 2011-10-16 12:00 AM to UTC since that local time never actually existed. We hadn’t experienced this same issue with any of our US customers because the daylight savings time changes in the US occur at 2:00 AM which doesn’t conflict with our “placeholder” time of midnight. Detecting Invalid Times In .NET you might use code similar to the following for converting a local time to UTC: var localDate = new DateTime(2011, 10, 16); //2011-10-16 @ midnight const string timeZoneId = "E. South America Standard Time"; //Windows system timezone Id for "Brasilia" timezone. var localTimeZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById(timeZoneId); var convertedDate = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(localDate, localTimeZone); The code above throws the “invalid time” exception referenced above. We could try to detect whether or not the local time is invalid with something like this: var localDate = new DateTime(2011, 10, 16); //2011-10-16 @ midnight const string timeZoneId = "E. South America Standard Time"; //Windows system timezone Id for "Brasilia" timezone. var localTimeZone = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById(timeZoneId); if (localTimeZone.IsInvalidTime(localDate)) localDate = localDate.AddHours(1); var convertedDate = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeToUtc(localDate, localTimeZone); This code works in this particular scenario, but it hardly seems robust. It also does nothing to address the issue that can arise when dealing with the ambiguous times that fall around the end of daylight savings. When we roll the clocks back an hour they record the same hour on the same day twice in a row. To continue on with our Brazil example, on February 19, 2012 at 12:00 AM, it will immediately become February 18, 2012 at 11:00 PM all over again. In this scenario, how should we interpret February 18, 2011 11:30 PM? Enter Noda Time I heard about Noda Time, the .NET port of the Java library Joda Time, a little while back and filed it away in the back of my mind under the “sounds-like-it-might-be-useful-someday” category.  Let’s see how we might deal with the issue of invalid and ambiguous local times using Noda Time (note that as of this writing the samples below will only work using the latest code available from the Noda Time repo on Google Code. The NuGet package version 0.1.0 published 2011-08-19 will incorrectly report unambiguous times as being ambiguous) : var localDateTime = new LocalDateTime(2011, 10, 16, 0, 0); const string timeZoneId = "Brazil/East"; var timezone = DateTimeZone.ForId(timeZoneId); var localDateTimeMaping = timezone.MapLocalDateTime(localDateTime); ZonedDateTime unambiguousLocalDateTime; switch (localDateTimeMaping.Type) { case ZoneLocalMapping.ResultType.Unambiguous: unambiguousLocalDateTime = localDateTimeMaping.UnambiguousMapping; break; case ZoneLocalMapping.ResultType.Ambiguous: unambiguousLocalDateTime = localDateTimeMaping.EarlierMapping; break; case ZoneLocalMapping.ResultType.Skipped: unambiguousLocalDateTime = new ZonedDateTime( localDateTimeMaping.ZoneIntervalAfterTransition.Start, timezone); break; default: throw new InvalidOperationException(string.Format("Unexpected mapping result type: {0}", localDateTimeMaping.Type)); } var convertedDateTime = unambiguousLocalDateTime.ToInstant().ToDateTimeUtc(); Let’s break this sample down: I’m using the Noda Time ‘LocalDateTime’ object to represent the local date and time. I’ve provided the year, month, day, hour, and minute (zeros for the hour and minute here represent midnight). You can think of a ‘LocalDateTime’ as an “invalidated” date and time; there is no information available about the time zone that this date and time belong to, so Noda Time can’t make any guarantees about its ambiguity. The ‘timeZoneId’ in this sample is different than the ones above. In order to use the .NET TimeZoneInfo class we need to provide Windows time zone ids. Noda Time expects an Olson (tz / zoneinfo) time zone identifier and does not currently offer any means of mapping the Windows time zones to their Olson counterparts, though project owner Jon Skeet has said that some sort of mapping will be publicly accessible at some point in the future. I’m making use of the Noda Time ‘DateTimeZone.MapLocalDateTime’ method to disambiguate the original local date time value. This method returns an instance of the Noda Time object ‘ZoneLocalMapping’ containing information about the provided local date time maps to the provided time zone.  The disambiguated local date and time value will be stored in the ‘unambiguousLocalDateTime’ variable as an instance of the Noda Time ‘ZonedDateTime’ object. An instance of this object represents a completely unambiguous point in time and is comprised of a local date and time, a time zone, and an offset from UTC. Instances of ZonedDateTime can only be created from within the Noda Time assembly (the constructor is ‘internal’) to ensure to callers that each instance represents an unambiguous point in time. The value of the ‘unambiguousLocalDateTime’ might vary depending upon the ‘ResultType’ returned by the ‘MapLocalDateTime’ method. There are three possible outcomes: If the provided local date time is unambiguous in the provided time zone I can immediately set the ‘unambiguousLocalDateTime’ variable from the ‘Unambiguous Mapping’ property of the mapping returned by the ‘MapLocalDateTime’ method. If the provided local date time is ambiguous in the provided time zone (i.e. it falls in an hour that was repeated when moving clocks backward from Daylight Savings to Standard Time), I can use the ‘EarlierMapping’ property to get the earlier of the two possible local dates to define the unambiguous local date and time that I need. I could have also opted to use the ‘LaterMapping’ property in this case, or even returned an error and asked the user to specify the proper choice. The important thing to note here is that as the programmer I’ve been forced to deal with what appears to be an ambiguous date and time. If the provided local date time represents a skipped time (i.e. it falls in an hour that was skipped when moving clocks forward from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time),  I have access to the time intervals that fell immediately before and immediately after the point in time that caused my date to be skipped. In this case I have opted to disambiguate my local date and time by moving it forward to the beginning of the interval immediately following the skipped period. Again, I could opt to use the end of the interval immediately preceding the skipped period, or raise an error depending on the needs of the application. The point of this code is to convert a local date and time to a UTC date and time for use in a SQL Server database, so the final ‘convertedDate’  variable (typed as a plain old .NET DateTime) has its value set from a Noda Time ‘Instant’. An 'Instant’ represents a number of ticks since 1970-01-01 at midnight (Unix epoch) and can easily be converted to a .NET DateTime in the UTC time zone using the ‘ToDateTimeUtc()’ method. This sample is admittedly contrived and could certainly use some refactoring, but I think it captures the general approach needed to take a local date and time and convert it to UTC with Noda Time. At first glance it might seem that Noda Time makes this “simple” code more complicated and verbose because it forces you to explicitly deal with the local date disambiguation, but I feel that the length and complexity of the Noda Time sample is proportionate to the complexity of the problem. Using TimeZoneInfo leaves you susceptible to overlooking ambiguous and skipped times that could result in run-time errors or (even worse) run-time data corruption in the form of a local date and time being adjusted to UTC incorrectly. I should point out that this research is my first look at Noda Time and I know that I’ve only scratched the surface of its full capabilities. I also think it’s safe to say that it’s still beta software for the time being so I’m not rushing out to use it production systems just yet, but I will definitely be tinkering with it more and keeping an eye on it as it progresses.

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  • Adding an Admin user to an ASP.NET MVC 4 application using a single drop-in file

    - by Jon Galloway
    I'm working on an ASP.NET MVC 4 tutorial and wanted to set it up so just dropping a file in App_Start would create a user named "Owner" and assign them to the "Administrator" role (more explanation at the end if you're interested). There are reasons why this wouldn't fit into most application scenarios: It's not efficient, as it checks for (and creates, if necessary) the user every time the app starts up The username, password, and role name are hardcoded in the app (although they could be pulled from config) Automatically creating an administrative account in code (without user interaction) could lead to obvious security issues if the user isn't informed However, with some modifications it might be more broadly useful - e.g. creating a test user with limited privileges, ensuring a required account isn't accidentally deleted, or - as in my case - setting up an account for demonstration or tutorial purposes. Challenge #1: Running on startup without requiring the user to install or configure anything I wanted to see if this could be done just by having the user drop a file into the App_Start folder and go. No copying code into Global.asax.cs, no installing addition NuGet packages, etc. That may not be the best approach - perhaps a NuGet package with a dependency on WebActivator would be better - but I wanted to see if this was possible and see if it offered the best experience. Fortunately ASP.NET 4 and later provide a PreApplicationStartMethod attribute which allows you to register a method which will run when the application starts up. You drop this attribute in your application and give it two parameters: a method name and the type that contains it. I created a static class named PreApplicationTasks with a static method named, then dropped this attribute in it: [assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(PreApplicationTasks), "Initializer")] That's it. One small gotcha: the namespace can be a problem with assembly attributes. I decided my class didn't need a namespace. Challenge #2: Only one PreApplicationStartMethod per assembly In .NET 4, the PreApplicationStartMethod is marked as AllMultiple=false, so you can only have one PreApplicationStartMethod per assembly. This was fixed in .NET 4.5, as noted by Jon Skeet, so you can have as many PreApplicationStartMethods as you want (allowing you to keep your users waiting for the application to start indefinitely!). The WebActivator NuGet package solves the multiple instance problem if you're in .NET 4 - it registers as a PreApplicationStartMethod, then calls any methods you've indicated using [assembly: WebActivator.PreApplicationStartMethod(type, method)]. David Ebbo blogged about that here:  Light up your NuGets with startup code and WebActivator. In my scenario (bootstrapping a beginner level tutorial) I decided not to worry about this and stick with PreApplicationStartMethod. Challenge #3: PreApplicationStartMethod kicks in before configuration has been read This is by design, as Phil explains. It allows you to make changes that need to happen very early in the pipeline, well before Application_Start. That's fine in some cases, but it caused me problems when trying to add users, since the Membership Provider configuration hadn't yet been read - I got an exception stating that "Default Membership Provider could not be found." The solution here is to run code that requires configuration in a PostApplicationStart method. But how to do that? Challenge #4: Getting PostApplicationStartMethod without requiring WebActivator The WebActivator NuGet package, among other things, provides a PostApplicationStartMethod attribute. That's generally how I'd recommend running code that needs to happen after Application_Start: [assembly: WebActivator.PostApplicationStartMethod(typeof(TestLibrary.MyStartupCode), "CallMeAfterAppStart")] This works well, but I wanted to see if this would be possible without WebActivator. Hmm. Well, wait a minute - WebActivator works in .NET 4, so clearly it's registering and calling PostApplicationStartup tasks somehow. Off to the source code! Sure enough, there's even a handy comment in ActivationManager.cs which shows where PostApplicationStartup tasks are being registered: public static void Run() { if (!_hasInited) { RunPreStartMethods(); // Register our module to handle any Post Start methods. But outside of ASP.NET, just run them now if (HostingEnvironment.IsHosted) { Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper.DynamicModuleUtility.RegisterModule(typeof(StartMethodCallingModule)); } else { RunPostStartMethods(); } _hasInited = true; } } Excellent. Hey, that DynamicModuleUtility seems familiar... Sure enough, K. Scott Allen mentioned it on his blog last year. This is really slick - a PreApplicationStartMethod can register a new HttpModule in code. Modules are run right after application startup, so that's a perfect time to do any startup stuff that requires configuration to be read. As K. Scott says, it's this easy: using System; using System.Web; using Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper; [assembly:PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(MyAppStart), "Start")] public class CoolModule : IHttpModule { // implementation not important // imagine something cool here } public static class MyAppStart { public static void Start() { DynamicModuleUtility.RegisterModule(typeof(CoolModule)); } } Challenge #5: Cooperating with SimpleMembership The ASP.NET MVC Internet template includes SimpleMembership. SimpleMembership is a big improvement over traditional ASP.NET Membership. For one thing, rather than forcing a database schema, it can work with your database schema. In the MVC 4 Internet template case, it uses Entity Framework Code First to define the user model. SimpleMembership bootstrap includes a call to InitializeDatabaseConnection, and I want to play nice with that. There's a new [InitializeSimpleMembership] attribute on the AccountController, which calls \Filters\InitializeSimpleMembershipAttribute.cs::OnActionExecuting(). That comment in that method that says "Ensure ASP.NET Simple Membership is initialized only once per app start" which sounds like good advice. I figured the best thing would be to call that directly: new Mvc4SampleApplication.Filters.InitializeSimpleMembershipAttribute().OnActionExecuting(null); I'm not 100% happy with this - in fact, it's my least favorite part of this solution. There are two problems - first, directly calling a method on a filter, while legal, seems odd. Worse, though, the Filter lives in the application's namespace, which means that this code no longer works well as a generic drop-in. The simplest workaround would be to duplicate the relevant SimpleMembership initialization code into my startup code, but I'd rather not. I'm interested in your suggestions here. Challenge #6: Module Init methods are called more than once When debugging, I noticed (and remembered) that the Init method may be called more than once per page request - it's run once per instance in the app pool, and an individual page request can cause multiple resource requests to the server. While SimpleMembership does have internal checks to prevent duplicate user or role entries, I'd rather not cause or handle those exceptions. So here's the standard single-use lock in the Module's init method: void IHttpModule.Init(HttpApplication context) { lock (lockObject) { if (!initialized) { //Do stuff } initialized = true; } } Putting it all together With all of that out of the way, here's the code I came up with: using Mvc4SampleApplication.Filters; using System.Web; using System.Web.Security; using WebMatrix.WebData; [assembly: PreApplicationStartMethod(typeof(PreApplicationTasks), "Initializer")] public static class PreApplicationTasks { public static void Initializer() { Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicModuleHelper.DynamicModuleUtility .RegisterModule(typeof(UserInitializationModule)); } } public class UserInitializationModule : IHttpModule { private static bool initialized; private static object lockObject = new object(); private const string _username = "Owner"; private const string _password = "p@ssword123"; private const string _role = "Administrator"; void IHttpModule.Init(HttpApplication context) { lock (lockObject) { if (!initialized) { new InitializeSimpleMembershipAttribute().OnActionExecuting(null); if (!WebSecurity.UserExists(_username)) WebSecurity.CreateUserAndAccount(_username, _password); if (!Roles.RoleExists(_role)) Roles.CreateRole(_role); if (!Roles.IsUserInRole(_username, _role)) Roles.AddUserToRole(_username, _role); } initialized = true; } } void IHttpModule.Dispose() { } } The Verdict: Is this a good thing? Maybe. I think you'll agree that the journey was undoubtedly worthwhile, as it took us through some of the finer points of hooking into application startup, integrating with membership, and understanding why the WebActivator NuGet package is so useful Will I use this in the tutorial? I'm leaning towards no - I think a NuGet package with a dependency on WebActivator might work better: It's a little more clear what's going on Installing a NuGet package might be a little less error prone than copying a file A novice user could uninstall the package when complete It's a good introduction to NuGet, which is a good thing for beginners to see This code either requires either duplicating a little code from that filter or modifying the file to use the namespace Honestly I'm undecided at this point, but I'm glad that I can weigh the options. If you're interested: Why are you doing this? I'm updating the MVC Music Store tutorial to ASP.NET MVC 4, taking advantage of a lot of new ASP.NET MVC 4 features and trying to simplify areas that are giving people trouble. One change that addresses both needs us using the new OAuth support for membership as much as possible - it's a great new feature from an application perspective, and we get a fair amount of beginners struggling with setting up membership on a variety of database and development setups, which is a distraction from the focus of the tutorial - learning ASP.NET MVC. Side note: Thanks to some great help from Rick Anderson, we had a draft of the tutorial that was looking pretty good earlier this summer, but there were enough changes in ASP.NET MVC 4 all the way up to RTM that there's still some work to be done. It's high priority and should be out very soon. The one issue I ran into with OAuth is that we still need an Administrative user who can edit the store's inventory. I thought about a number of solutions for that - making the first user to register the admin, or the first user to use the username "Administrator" is assigned to the Administrator role - but they both ended up requiring extra code; also, I worried that people would use that code without understanding it or thinking about whether it was a good fit.

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