abstract syntax tree - Page 175

Portforwarding Combine Several Ports

- by kiraitachi

Hi I got a Raspberry Pi at A.A.A.B in my local network and I have set up a DMZ on my router so that any incoming traffic that comes to my router gets redirected to my raspberry pi wich I can connect via NO-IP adress. The problem is that I want to set up portforwarding since i got several services running on my Pi like SSH, torrent webgui, webalbum, etc. I had this already done before long time ago, but I forgot a bit the syntax and cant get to set it up. Router Help says: The Application allows you to do port forwarding, but only have the ports open when data flowing out of the trigger ports. When a program sends data out on outgoing ports called trigger ports, the device then allows incoming data on the open ports specified in your port triggering configuration. 1.Trigger Port Start Trigger Port Start Specify the start port on the device that would trigger the device to open ports for incoming data. 2.Trigger Port End Specify the end port on the device that would trigger the device to open ports for incoming data. You can enter a port number the same as the trigger port start or enter a larger port number to specify a port range. 3.Trigger Traffic Protocol Type Select the trigger traffic type. Open Port Specify all the ports to be opened. It's content could be: A single port only. A port range only. Start open port number and end port number should be separated by "-" . Combined several single port and several port ranges. Each single port or port range should be separated by "," . Open Traffic Protocol Type Select the open traffic type. This are the fields: http://es.tinypic.com/view.php?pic=n5lv1k&s=8 I think this is the syntax 1-7999,8001-9090,9092-65535. But each time I want to add it gives me an error. Any ideas?

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Outlook 2007 - Mailbox doesn't show my Items (like Calendar)

- by cyntaxx

Hi All, I have running an Exchange Server 2003 and 2 IBM Laptops (A&B)with XP SP3. On both Laptops Office 2007 is installed. Laptop "A" Outlook doesn't show me my Calendar and Notes entries in my mailbox tree on Laptop "A". I can click on the calenendar tab and the entries are there. On Laptop "B" it is working fine. I know that I can make a "rigth click" on "mailbox" and choose "create new folder". Than I select i.g. my calendar. It creates it, but I can't access it through my mailbox tree. Clicking on the Calendar tab works fine again. So, the mailbox is fine (I think). There must be failure with Outlook. I tried these commands here with no positive result. Outlook /cleanviews Outlook /resetfolders I want to avoid a repair installation of Outlook, because the whole office needs to be repaired. (And both laptops belong to my boss) :) Thanks, Toby

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doubt regarding carrying data in custom events using actionscript

- by user267530

Hi I am working on actionscript to generate a SWF dynamically using JSON data coming from an HTTP request. I receive the data on creationComplete and try to generate a tree like structure. I don’t create the whole tree at the same time. I create 2 levels, level 1 and level 2. My goal is to attach custom events on the panels which represent tree nodes. When users click the panels, it dispatches custom events and try to generate the next level. So, it goes like this : On creation complete - get JSON- create top tow levels - click on level 2- create the level 2 and level 3 - click on level 3- create level 3 and 4. …and so on and so on. I am attaching my code with this email. Please take a look at it and if you have any hints on how you would do this if you need to paint a tree having total level number = “n” where( 0 import com.iwobanas.effects.*; import flash.events.MouseEvent; import flash.filters.BitmapFilterQuality; import flash.filters.BitmapFilterType; import flash.filters.GradientGlowFilter; import mx.controls.Alert; private var roundedMask:Sprite; private var panel:NewPanel; public var oldPanelIds:Array = new Array(); public var pages:Array = new Array();//cleanup public var delPages:Array = new Array(); public function DrawPlaybook(pos:Number,title:String,chld:Object):void { panel = new NewPanel(chld); panel.title = title; panel.name=title; panel.width = 100; panel.height = 80; panel.x=pos+5; panel.y=40; // Define a gradient glow. var gradientGlow:GradientGlowFilter = new GradientGlowFilter(); gradientGlow.distance = 0; gradientGlow.angle = 45; gradientGlow.colors = [0xFFFFF0, 0xFFFFFF]; gradientGlow.alphas = [0, 1]; gradientGlow.ratios = [0, 255]; gradientGlow.blurX = 10; gradientGlow.blurY = 10; gradientGlow.strength = 2; gradientGlow.quality = BitmapFilterQuality.HIGH; gradientGlow.type = BitmapFilterType.OUTER; panel.filters =[gradientGlow]; this.rawChildren.addChild(panel); pages.push(panel); panel.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(e:MouseEvent){onClickHandler(e,title,chld)}); this.addEventListener(CustomPageClickEvent.PANEL_CLICKED, function(e:CustomPageClickEvent){onCustomPanelClicked(e,title)}); } public function onClickHandler(e:MouseEvent,title:String,chld:Object):void { //var panel:Panel; for each(var stp1:NewPanel in pages){ if(stp1.title==title){ var eventObj:CustomPageClickEvent = new CustomPageClickEvent("panelClicked"); eventObj.panelClicked = stp1; dispatchEvent(eventObj); } } } private function onCustomPanelClicked(e:CustomPageClickEvent,title:String):void { //cleanup itself Alert.show("onCustomPanelClicked" + title); var panel:NewPanel; for each(var stp:NewPanel in pages){ startAnimation(e,stp); } if(title == e.panelClicked.title){ panel = new NewPanel(null); panel.title = title; panel.name=title; panel.width = 150; panel.height = 80; panel.x=100; panel.y=40; this.rawChildren.addChild(panel); // var slideRight:SlideRight = new SlideRight(); slideRight.target=panel; slideRight.duration=750; slideRight.showTarget=true; slideRight.play(); //draw the steps var jsonData = this.map.getValue(title); var posX:Number = 50; var posY:Number = 175; for each ( var pnl:NewPanel in pages){ pages.pop(); } for each ( var stp1:Object in jsonData.children){ //Alert.show("map step=" + stp.text ); panel = new NewPanel(null); panel.title = stp1.text; panel.name=stp1.id; panel.width = 100; panel.id=stp1.id; panel.height = 80; panel.x = posX; panel.y=posY; posX+=150; var s:String="hi" + stp1.text; panel.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, function(e:MouseEvent){onChildClick(e,s);}); this.addEventListener(CustomPageClickEvent.PANEL_CLICKED, function(e:CustomPageClickEvent){onCustomPnlClicked(e)}); this.rawChildren.addChild(panel); // Alert.show("map step=" + this.getChildIndex(panel) ); // oldPanelIds.push(panel); pages.push(panel); //this.addEventListener(CustomPageClickEvent.PANEL_CLICKED, //function(e:CustomPageClickEvent){onCustomPanelClicked(e,title)}); var slide:SlideUp = new SlideUp(); slide.target=panel; slide.duration=1500; slide.showTarget=false; slide.play(); } } } public function onChildClick(e:MouseEvent,s:String):void { //var panel:Panel; //Alert.show(e.currentTarget.title); for each(var stp1:NewPanel in pages){ if(stp1.title==e.currentTarget.title){ var eventObj:CustomPageClickEvent = new CustomPageClickEvent("panelClicked"); eventObj.panelClicked = stp1; dispatchEvent(eventObj); } } } private function onCustomPnlClicked(e:CustomPageClickEvent):void { for each ( var pnl:NewPanel in pages){ pages.pop(); } //onCustomPanelClicked(e,e.currentTarget.title); //Alert.show("hi from cstm" + e.panelClicked.title); } private function fadePanel(event:Event,panel:NewPanel):void{ panel.alpha -= .005; if (panel.alpha <= 0){ //Alert.show(panel.title); panel.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, function(e:Event){fadePanel(e,panel);}); }; panel.title=""; } private function startAnimation(event:CustomPageClickEvent,panel:NewPanel):void{ panel.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, function(e:Event){fadePanel(e,panel)}); } Thanks in advance. Palash

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

- by grg-n-sox

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

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Inheritance Mapping Strategies with Entity Framework Code First CTP5 Part 1: Table per Hierarchy (TPH)

- by mortezam

A simple strategy for mapping classes to database tables might be “one table for every entity persistent class.” This approach sounds simple enough and, indeed, works well until we encounter inheritance. Inheritance is such a visible structural mismatch between the object-oriented and relational worlds because object-oriented systems model both “is a” and “has a” relationships. SQL-based models provide only "has a" relationships between entities; SQL database management systems don’t support type inheritance—and even when it’s available, it’s usually proprietary or incomplete. There are three different approaches to representing an inheritance hierarchy: Table per Hierarchy (TPH): Enable polymorphism by denormalizing the SQL schema, and utilize a type discriminator column that holds type information. Table per Type (TPT): Represent "is a" (inheritance) relationships as "has a" (foreign key) relationships. Table per Concrete class (TPC): Discard polymorphism and inheritance relationships completely from the SQL schema.I will explain each of these strategies in a series of posts and this one is dedicated to TPH. In this series we'll deeply dig into each of these strategies and will learn about "why" to choose them as well as "how" to implement them. Hopefully it will give you a better idea about which strategy to choose in a particular scenario. Inheritance Mapping with Entity Framework Code FirstAll of the inheritance mapping strategies that we discuss in this series will be implemented by EF Code First CTP5. The CTP5 build of the new EF Code First library has been released by ADO.NET team earlier this month. EF Code-First enables a pretty powerful code-centric development workflow for working with data. I’m a big fan of the EF Code First approach, and I’m pretty excited about a lot of productivity and power that it brings. When it comes to inheritance mapping, not only Code First fully supports all the strategies but also gives you ultimate flexibility to work with domain models that involves inheritance. The fluent API for inheritance mapping in CTP5 has been improved a lot and now it's more intuitive and concise in compare to CTP4. A Note For Those Who Follow Other Entity Framework ApproachesIf you are following EF's "Database First" or "Model First" approaches, I still recommend to read this series since although the implementation is Code First specific but the explanations around each of the strategies is perfectly applied to all approaches be it Code First or others. A Note For Those Who are New to Entity Framework and Code-FirstIf you choose to learn EF you've chosen well. If you choose to learn EF with Code First you've done even better. To get started, you can find a great walkthrough by Scott Guthrie here and another one by ADO.NET team here. In this post, I assume you already setup your machine to do Code First development and also that you are familiar with Code First fundamentals and basic concepts. You might also want to check out my other posts on EF Code First like Complex Types and Shared Primary Key Associations. A Top Down Development ScenarioThese posts take a top-down approach; it assumes that you’re starting with a domain model and trying to derive a new SQL schema. Therefore, we start with an existing domain model, implement it in C# and then let Code First create the database schema for us. However, the mapping strategies described are just as relevant if you’re working bottom up, starting with existing database tables. I’ll show some tricks along the way that help you dealing with nonperfect table layouts. Let’s start with the mapping of entity inheritance. -- The Domain ModelIn our domain model, we have a BillingDetail base class which is abstract (note the italic font on the UML class diagram below). We do allow various billing types and represent them as subclasses of BillingDetail class. As for now, we support CreditCard and BankAccount: Implement the Object Model with Code First As always, we start with the POCO classes. Note that in our DbContext, I only define one DbSet for the base class which is BillingDetail. Code First will find the other classes in the hierarchy based on Reachability Convention. public abstract class BillingDetail { public int BillingDetailId { get; set; } public string Owner { get; set; } public string Number { get; set; } } public class BankAccount : BillingDetail { public string BankName { get; set; } public string Swift { get; set; } } public class CreditCard : BillingDetail { public int CardType { get; set; } public string ExpiryMonth { get; set; } public string ExpiryYear { get; set; } } public class InheritanceMappingContext : DbContext { public DbSet<BillingDetail> BillingDetails { get; set; } } This object model is all that is needed to enable inheritance with Code First. If you put this in your application you would be able to immediately start working with the database and do CRUD operations. Before going into details about how EF Code First maps this object model to the database, we need to learn about one of the core concepts of inheritance mapping: polymorphic and non-polymorphic queries. Polymorphic Queries LINQ to Entities and EntitySQL, as object-oriented query languages, both support polymorphic queries—that is, queries for instances of a class and all instances of its subclasses, respectively. For example, consider the following query: IQueryable<BillingDetail> linqQuery = from b in context.BillingDetails select b; List<BillingDetail> billingDetails = linqQuery.ToList(); Or the same query in EntitySQL: string eSqlQuery = @"SELECT VAlUE b FROM BillingDetails AS b"; ObjectQuery<BillingDetail> objectQuery = ((IObjectContextAdapter)context).ObjectContext .CreateQuery<BillingDetail>(eSqlQuery); List<BillingDetail> billingDetails = objectQuery.ToList(); linqQuery and eSqlQuery are both polymorphic and return a list of objects of the type BillingDetail, which is an abstract class but the actual concrete objects in the list are of the subtypes of BillingDetail: CreditCard and BankAccount. Non-polymorphic QueriesAll LINQ to Entities and EntitySQL queries are polymorphic which return not only instances of the specific entity class to which it refers, but all subclasses of that class as well. On the other hand, Non-polymorphic queries are queries whose polymorphism is restricted and only returns instances of a particular subclass. In LINQ to Entities, this can be specified by using OfType<T>() Method. For example, the following query returns only instances of BankAccount: IQueryable<BankAccount> query = from b in context.BillingDetails.OfType<BankAccount>() select b; EntitySQL has OFTYPE operator that does the same thing: string eSqlQuery = @"SELECT VAlUE b FROM OFTYPE(BillingDetails, Model.BankAccount) AS b"; In fact, the above query with OFTYPE operator is a short form of the following query expression that uses TREAT and IS OF operators: string eSqlQuery = @"SELECT VAlUE TREAT(b as Model.BankAccount) FROM BillingDetails AS b WHERE b IS OF(Model.BankAccount)"; (Note that in the above query, Model.BankAccount is the fully qualified name for BankAccount class. You need to change "Model" with your own namespace name.) Table per Class Hierarchy (TPH)An entire class hierarchy can be mapped to a single table. This table includes columns for all properties of all classes in the hierarchy. The concrete subclass represented by a particular row is identified by the value of a type discriminator column. You don’t have to do anything special in Code First to enable TPH. It's the default inheritance mapping strategy: This mapping strategy is a winner in terms of both performance and simplicity. It’s the best-performing way to represent polymorphism—both polymorphic and nonpolymorphic queries perform well—and it’s even easy to implement by hand. Ad-hoc reporting is possible without complex joins or unions. Schema evolution is straightforward. Discriminator Column As you can see in the DB schema above, Code First has to add a special column to distinguish between persistent classes: the discriminator. This isn’t a property of the persistent class in our object model; it’s used internally by EF Code First. By default, the column name is "Discriminator", and its type is string. The values defaults to the persistent class names —in this case, “BankAccount” or “CreditCard”. EF Code First automatically sets and retrieves the discriminator values. TPH Requires Properties in SubClasses to be Nullable in the Database TPH has one major problem: Columns for properties declared by subclasses will be nullable in the database. For example, Code First created an (INT, NULL) column to map CardType property in CreditCard class. However, in a typical mapping scenario, Code First always creates an (INT, NOT NULL) column in the database for an int property in persistent class. But in this case, since BankAccount instance won’t have a CardType property, the CardType field must be NULL for that row so Code First creates an (INT, NULL) instead. If your subclasses each define several non-nullable properties, the loss of NOT NULL constraints may be a serious problem from the point of view of data integrity. TPH Violates the Third Normal FormAnother important issue is normalization. We’ve created functional dependencies between nonkey columns, violating the third normal form. Basically, the value of Discriminator column determines the corresponding values of the columns that belong to the subclasses (e.g. BankName) but Discriminator is not part of the primary key for the table. As always, denormalization for performance can be misleading, because it sacrifices long-term stability, maintainability, and the integrity of data for immediate gains that may be also achieved by proper optimization of the SQL execution plans (in other words, ask your DBA). Generated SQL QueryLet's take a look at the SQL statements that EF Code First sends to the database when we write queries in LINQ to Entities or EntitySQL. For example, the polymorphic query for BillingDetails that you saw, generates the following SQL statement: SELECT [Extent1].[Discriminator] AS [Discriminator], [Extent1].[BillingDetailId] AS [BillingDetailId], [Extent1].[Owner] AS [Owner], [Extent1].[Number] AS [Number], [Extent1].[BankName] AS [BankName], [Extent1].[Swift] AS [Swift], [Extent1].[CardType] AS [CardType], [Extent1].[ExpiryMonth] AS [ExpiryMonth], [Extent1].[ExpiryYear] AS [ExpiryYear] FROM [dbo].[BillingDetails] AS [Extent1] WHERE [Extent1].[Discriminator] IN ('BankAccount','CreditCard') Or the non-polymorphic query for the BankAccount subclass generates this SQL statement: SELECT [Extent1].[BillingDetailId] AS [BillingDetailId], [Extent1].[Owner] AS [Owner], [Extent1].[Number] AS [Number], [Extent1].[BankName] AS [BankName], [Extent1].[Swift] AS [Swift] FROM [dbo].[BillingDetails] AS [Extent1] WHERE [Extent1].[Discriminator] = 'BankAccount' Note how Code First adds a restriction on the discriminator column and also how it only selects those columns that belong to BankAccount entity. Change Discriminator Column Data Type and Values With Fluent API Sometimes, especially in legacy schemas, you need to override the conventions for the discriminator column so that Code First can work with the schema. The following fluent API code will change the discriminator column name to "BillingDetailType" and the values to "BA" and "CC" for BankAccount and CreditCard respectively: protected override void OnModelCreating(System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.ModelBuilder modelBuilder) { modelBuilder.Entity<BillingDetail>() .Map<BankAccount>(m => m.Requires("BillingDetailType").HasValue("BA")) .Map<CreditCard>(m => m.Requires("BillingDetailType").HasValue("CC")); } Also, changing the data type of discriminator column is interesting. In the above code, we passed strings to HasValue method but this method has been defined to accepts a type of object: public void HasValue(object value); Therefore, if for example we pass a value of type int to it then Code First not only use our desired values (i.e. 1 & 2) in the discriminator column but also changes the column type to be (INT, NOT NULL): modelBuilder.Entity<BillingDetail>() .Map<BankAccount>(m => m.Requires("BillingDetailType").HasValue(1)) .Map<CreditCard>(m => m.Requires("BillingDetailType").HasValue(2)); SummaryIn this post we learned about Table per Hierarchy as the default mapping strategy in Code First. The disadvantages of the TPH strategy may be too serious for your design—after all, denormalized schemas can become a major burden in the long run. Your DBA may not like it at all. In the next post, we will learn about Table per Type (TPT) strategy that doesn’t expose you to this problem. References ADO.NET team blog Java Persistence with Hibernate book a { text-decoration: none; } a:visited { color: Blue; } .title { padding-bottom: 5px; font-family: Segoe UI; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; padding-top: 15px; } .code, .typeName { font-family: consolas; } .typeName { color: #2b91af; } .padTop5 { padding-top: 5px; } .padTop10 { padding-top: 10px; } p.MsoNormal { margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; margin-left: 0in; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11.0pt; font-family: "Calibri" , "sans-serif"; }

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Is there a Telecommunications Reference Architecture?

- by raul.goycoolea

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

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Inheritance Mapping Strategies with Entity Framework Code First CTP5: Part 3 – Table per Concrete Type (TPC) and Choosing Strategy Guidelines

- by mortezam

This is the third (and last) post in a series that explains different approaches to map an inheritance hierarchy with EF Code First. I've described these strategies in previous posts: Part 1 – Table per Hierarchy (TPH) Part 2 – Table per Type (TPT)In today’s blog post I am going to discuss Table per Concrete Type (TPC) which completes the inheritance mapping strategies supported by EF Code First. At the end of this post I will provide some guidelines to choose an inheritance strategy mainly based on what we've learned in this series. TPC and Entity Framework in the Past Table per Concrete type is somehow the simplest approach suggested, yet using TPC with EF is one of those concepts that has not been covered very well so far and I've seen in some resources that it was even discouraged. The reason for that is just because Entity Data Model Designer in VS2010 doesn't support TPC (even though the EF runtime does). That basically means if you are following EF's Database-First or Model-First approaches then configuring TPC requires manually writing XML in the EDMX file which is not considered to be a fun practice. Well, no more. You'll see that with Code First, creating TPC is perfectly possible with fluent API just like other strategies and you don't need to avoid TPC due to the lack of designer support as you would probably do in other EF approaches. Table per Concrete Type (TPC)In Table per Concrete type (aka Table per Concrete class) we use exactly one table for each (nonabstract) class. All properties of a class, including inherited properties, can be mapped to columns of this table, as shown in the following figure: As you can see, the SQL schema is not aware of the inheritance; effectively, we’ve mapped two unrelated tables to a more expressive class structure. If the base class was concrete, then an additional table would be needed to hold instances of that class. I have to emphasize that there is no relationship between the database tables, except for the fact that they share some similar columns. TPC Implementation in Code First Just like the TPT implementation, we need to specify a separate table for each of the subclasses. We also need to tell Code First that we want all of the inherited properties to be mapped as part of this table. In CTP5, there is a new helper method on EntityMappingConfiguration class called MapInheritedProperties that exactly does this for us. Here is the complete object model as well as the fluent API to create a TPC mapping: public abstract class BillingDetail { public int BillingDetailId { get; set; } public string Owner { get; set; } public string Number { get; set; } } public class BankAccount : BillingDetail { public string BankName { get; set; } public string Swift { get; set; } } public class CreditCard : BillingDetail { public int CardType { get; set; } public string ExpiryMonth { get; set; } public string ExpiryYear { get; set; } } public class InheritanceMappingContext : DbContext { public DbSet<BillingDetail> BillingDetails { get; set; } protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder) { modelBuilder.Entity<BankAccount>().Map(m => { m.MapInheritedProperties(); m.ToTable("BankAccounts"); }); modelBuilder.Entity<CreditCard>().Map(m => { m.MapInheritedProperties(); m.ToTable("CreditCards"); }); } } The Importance of EntityMappingConfiguration ClassAs a side note, it worth mentioning that EntityMappingConfiguration class turns out to be a key type for inheritance mapping in Code First. Here is an snapshot of this class: namespace System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.Configuration.Mapping { public class EntityMappingConfiguration<TEntityType> where TEntityType : class { public ValueConditionConfiguration Requires(string discriminator); public void ToTable(string tableName); public void MapInheritedProperties(); } } As you have seen so far, we used its Requires method to customize TPH. We also used its ToTable method to create a TPT and now we are using its MapInheritedProperties along with ToTable method to create our TPC mapping. TPC Configuration is Not Done Yet!We are not quite done with our TPC configuration and there is more into this story even though the fluent API we saw perfectly created a TPC mapping for us in the database. To see why, let's start working with our object model. For example, the following code creates two new objects of BankAccount and CreditCard types and tries to add them to the database: using (var context = new InheritanceMappingContext()) { BankAccount bankAccount = new BankAccount(); CreditCard creditCard = new CreditCard() { CardType = 1 }; context.BillingDetails.Add(bankAccount); context.BillingDetails.Add(creditCard); context.SaveChanges(); } Running this code throws an InvalidOperationException with this message: The changes to the database were committed successfully, but an error occurred while updating the object context. The ObjectContext might be in an inconsistent state. Inner exception message: AcceptChanges cannot continue because the object's key values conflict with another object in the ObjectStateManager. Make sure that the key values are unique before calling AcceptChanges. The reason we got this exception is because DbContext.SaveChanges() internally invokes SaveChanges method of its internal ObjectContext. ObjectContext's SaveChanges method on its turn by default calls AcceptAllChanges after it has performed the database modifications. AcceptAllChanges method merely iterates over all entries in ObjectStateManager and invokes AcceptChanges on each of them. Since the entities are in Added state, AcceptChanges method replaces their temporary EntityKey with a regular EntityKey based on the primary key values (i.e. BillingDetailId) that come back from the database and that's where the problem occurs since both the entities have been assigned the same value for their primary key by the database (i.e. on both BillingDetailId = 1) and the problem is that ObjectStateManager cannot track objects of the same type (i.e. BillingDetail) with the same EntityKey value hence it throws. If you take a closer look at the TPC's SQL schema above, you'll see why the database generated the same values for the primary keys: the BillingDetailId column in both BankAccounts and CreditCards table has been marked as identity. How to Solve The Identity Problem in TPC As you saw, using SQL Server’s int identity columns doesn't work very well together with TPC since there will be duplicate entity keys when inserting in subclasses tables with all having the same identity seed. Therefore, to solve this, either a spread seed (where each table has its own initial seed value) will be needed, or a mechanism other than SQL Server’s int identity should be used. Some other RDBMSes have other mechanisms allowing a sequence (identity) to be shared by multiple tables, and something similar can be achieved with GUID keys in SQL Server. While using GUID keys, or int identity keys with different starting seeds will solve the problem but yet another solution would be to completely switch off identity on the primary key property. As a result, we need to take the responsibility of providing unique keys when inserting records to the database. We will go with this solution since it works regardless of which database engine is used. Switching Off Identity in Code First We can switch off identity simply by placing DatabaseGenerated attribute on the primary key property and pass DatabaseGenerationOption.None to its constructor. DatabaseGenerated attribute is a new data annotation which has been added to System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace in CTP5: public abstract class BillingDetail { [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGenerationOption.None)] public int BillingDetailId { get; set; } public string Owner { get; set; } public string Number { get; set; } } As always, we can achieve the same result by using fluent API, if you prefer that: modelBuilder.Entity<BillingDetail>() .Property(p => p.BillingDetailId) .HasDatabaseGenerationOption(DatabaseGenerationOption.None); Working With The Object Model Our TPC mapping is ready and we can try adding new records to the database. But, like I said, now we need to take care of providing unique keys when creating new objects: using (var context = new InheritanceMappingContext()) { BankAccount bankAccount = new BankAccount() { BillingDetailId = 1 }; CreditCard creditCard = new CreditCard() { BillingDetailId = 2, CardType = 1 }; context.BillingDetails.Add(bankAccount); context.BillingDetails.Add(creditCard); context.SaveChanges(); } Polymorphic Associations with TPC is Problematic The main problem with this approach is that it doesn’t support Polymorphic Associations very well. After all, in the database, associations are represented as foreign key relationships and in TPC, the subclasses are all mapped to different tables so a polymorphic association to their base class (abstract BillingDetail in our example) cannot be represented as a simple foreign key relationship. For example, consider the the domain model we introduced here where User has a polymorphic association with BillingDetail. This would be problematic in our TPC Schema, because if User has a many-to-one relationship with BillingDetail, the Users table would need a single foreign key column, which would have to refer both concrete subclass tables. This isn’t possible with regular foreign key constraints. Schema Evolution with TPC is Complex A further conceptual problem with this mapping strategy is that several different columns, of different tables, share exactly the same semantics. This makes schema evolution more complex. For example, a change to a base class property results in changes to multiple columns. It also makes it much more difficult to implement database integrity constraints that apply to all subclasses. Generated SQLLet's examine SQL output for polymorphic queries in TPC mapping. For example, consider this polymorphic query for all BillingDetails and the resulting SQL statements that being executed in the database: var query = from b in context.BillingDetails select b; Just like the SQL query generated by TPT mapping, the CASE statements that you see in the beginning of the query is merely to ensure columns that are irrelevant for a particular row have NULL values in the returning flattened table. (e.g. BankName for a row that represents a CreditCard type). TPC's SQL Queries are Union Based As you can see in the above screenshot, the first SELECT uses a FROM-clause subquery (which is selected with a red rectangle) to retrieve all instances of BillingDetails from all concrete class tables. The tables are combined with a UNION operator, and a literal (in this case, 0 and 1) is inserted into the intermediate result; (look at the lines highlighted in yellow.) EF reads this to instantiate the correct class given the data from a particular row. A union requires that the queries that are combined, project over the same columns; hence, EF has to pad and fill up nonexistent columns with NULL. This query will really perform well since here we can let the database optimizer find the best execution plan to combine rows from several tables. There is also no Joins involved so it has a better performance than the SQL queries generated by TPT where a Join is required between the base and subclasses tables. Choosing Strategy GuidelinesBefore we get into this discussion, I want to emphasize that there is no one single "best strategy fits all scenarios" exists. As you saw, each of the approaches have their own advantages and drawbacks. Here are some rules of thumb to identify the best strategy in a particular scenario: If you don’t require polymorphic associations or queries, lean toward TPC—in other words, if you never or rarely query for BillingDetails and you have no class that has an association to BillingDetail base class. I recommend TPC (only) for the top level of your class hierarchy, where polymorphism isn’t usually required, and when modification of the base class in the future is unlikely. If you do require polymorphic associations or queries, and subclasses declare relatively few properties (particularly if the main difference between subclasses is in their behavior), lean toward TPH. Your goal is to minimize the number of nullable columns and to convince yourself (and your DBA) that a denormalized schema won’t create problems in the long run. If you do require polymorphic associations or queries, and subclasses declare many properties (subclasses differ mainly by the data they hold), lean toward TPT. Or, depending on the width and depth of your inheritance hierarchy and the possible cost of joins versus unions, use TPC. By default, choose TPH only for simple problems. For more complex cases (or when you’re overruled by a data modeler insisting on the importance of nullability constraints and normalization), you should consider the TPT strategy. But at that point, ask yourself whether it may not be better to remodel inheritance as delegation in the object model (delegation is a way of making composition as powerful for reuse as inheritance). Complex inheritance is often best avoided for all sorts of reasons unrelated to persistence or ORM. EF acts as a buffer between the domain and relational models, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore persistence concerns when designing your classes. SummaryIn this series, we focused on one of the main structural aspect of the object/relational paradigm mismatch which is inheritance and discussed how EF solve this problem as an ORM solution. We learned about the three well-known inheritance mapping strategies and their implementations in EF Code First. Hopefully it gives you a better insight about the mapping of inheritance hierarchies as well as choosing the best strategy for your particular scenario. Happy New Year and Happy Code-Firsting! References ADO.NET team blog Java Persistence with Hibernate book a { color: #5A99FF; } a:visited { color: #5A99FF; } .title { padding-bottom: 5px; font-family: Segoe UI; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold; padding-top: 15px; } .code, .typeName { font-family: consolas; } .typeName { color: #2b91af; } .padTop5 { padding-top: 5px; } .padTop10 { padding-top: 10px; } .exception { background-color: #f0f0f0; font-style: italic; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; }

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Defining recursive algebraic data types in XML XSD

- by Ben Challenor

Imagine I have a recursive algebraic data type like this (Haskell syntax): data Expr = Zero | One | Add Expr Expr | Mul Expr Expr I'd like to represent this in XML, and I'd like an XSD schema for it. I have figured out how to achieve this syntax: <Expr> <Add> <Expr> <Zero/> </Expr> <Expr> <Mul> <Expr> <One/> </Expr> <Expr> <Add> <Expr> <One/> </Expr> <Expr> <One/> </Expr> </Add> </Expr> </Mul> </Expr> </Add> </Expr> with this schema: <xs:complexType name="Expr"> <xs:choice minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="Zero" type="Zero" /> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="One" type="One" /> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="Add" type="Add" /> <xs:element minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1" name="Mul" type="Mul" /> </xs:choice> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="Zero"> <xs:sequence> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="One"> <xs:sequence> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="Add"> <xs:sequence> <xs:element minOccurs="2" maxOccurs="2" name="Expr" type="Expr" /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> <xs:complexType name="Mul"> <xs:sequence> <xs:element minOccurs="2" maxOccurs="2" name="Expr" type="Expr" /> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> But what I really want is this syntax: <Add> <Zero/> <Mul> <One/> <Add> <One/> <One/> </Add> </Mul> </Add> Is this possible? Thanks!

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Any tool to make git build every commit to a branch in a seperate repository?

- by Wayne

A git tool that meets the specs below is needed. Does one already exists? If not, I will create a script and make it available on GitHub for others to use or contribute. Is there a completely different and better way to solve the need to build/test every commit to a branch in a git repository? Not just to the latest but each one back to a certain staring point. Background: Our development environment uses a separate continuous integration server which is wonderful. However, it is still necessary to do full builds locally on each developer's PC to make sure the commit won't "break the build" when pushed to the CI server. Unfortunately, with auto unit tests, those build force the developer to wait 10 or 15 minutes for a build every time. To solve this we have setup a "mirror" git repository on each developer PC. So we develop in the main repository but anytime a local full build is needed. We run a couple commands in a in the mirror repository to fetch, checkout the commit we want to build, and build. It's works extremely lovely so we can continue working in the main one with the build going in parallel. There's only one main concern now. We want to make sure every single commit builds and tests fine. But we often get busy and neglect to build several fresh commits. Then if it the build fails you have to do a bisect or manually figure build each interim commit to figure out which one broke. Requirements for this tool. The tool will look at another repo, origin by default, fetch and compare all commits that are in branches to 2 lists of commits. One list must hold successfully built commits and the other lists commits that failed. It identifies any commit or commits not yet in either list and begins to build them in a loop in the order that they were committed. It stops on the first one that fails. The tool appropriately adds each commit to either the successful or failed list after it as attempted to build each one. The tool will ignore any "legacy" commits which are prior to the oldest commit in the success list. This logic makes the starting point possible in the next point. Starting Point. The tool building a specific commit so that, if successful it gets added to the success list. If it is the earliest commit in the success list, it becomes the "starting point" so that none of the commits prior to that are examined for builds. Only linear tree support? Much like bisect, this tool works best on a commit tree which is, at least from it's starting point, linear without any merges. That is, it should be a tree which was built and updated entirely via rebase and fast forward commits. If it fails on one commit in a branch it will stop without building the rest that followed after that one. Instead if will just move on to another branch, if any. The tool must do these steps once by default but allow a parameter to loop with an option to set how many seconds between loops. Other tools like Hudson or CruiseControl could do more fancy scheduling options. The tool must have good defaults but allow optional control. Which repo? origin by default. Which branches? all of them by default. What tool? by default an executable file to be provided by the user named "buildtest", "buildtest.sh" "buildtest.cmd", or buildtest.exe" in the root folder of the repository. Loop delay? run once by default with option to loop after a number of seconds between iterations.

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ObjectContext.SaveChanges() fails with SQL CE

- by David Veeneman

I am creating a model-first Entity Framework 4 app that uses SQL CE as its data store. All is well until I call ObjectContext.SaveChanges() to save changes to the entities in the model. At that point, SaveChanges() throws a System.Data.UpdateException, with an inner exception message that reads as follows: Server-generated keys and server-generated values are not supported by SQL Server Compact. I am completely puzzled by this message. Any idea what is going on and how to fix it? Thanks. Here is the Exception dump: System.Data.UpdateException was unhandled Message=An error occurred while updating the entries. See the inner exception for details. Source=System.Data.Entity StackTrace: at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.Update(IEntityStateManager stateManager, IEntityAdapter adapter) at System.Data.EntityClient.EntityAdapter.Update(IEntityStateManager entityCache) at System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext.SaveChanges(SaveOptions options) at System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext.SaveChanges() at FsDocumentationBuilder.ViewModel.Commands.SaveFileCommand.Execute(Object parameter) in D:\Users\dcveeneman\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\FsDocumentationBuilder\FsDocumentationBuilder\ViewModel\Commands\SaveFileCommand.cs:line 68 at MS.Internal.Commands.CommandHelpers.CriticalExecuteCommandSource(ICommandSource commandSource, Boolean userInitiated) at System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.ButtonBase.OnClick() at System.Windows.Controls.Button.OnClick() at System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.ButtonBase.OnMouseLeftButtonUp(MouseButtonEventArgs e) at System.Windows.UIElement.OnMouseLeftButtonUpThunk(Object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Input.MouseButtonEventArgs.InvokeEventHandler(Delegate genericHandler, Object genericTarget) at System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs.InvokeHandler(Delegate handler, Object target) at System.Windows.RoutedEventHandlerInfo.InvokeHandler(Object target, RoutedEventArgs routedEventArgs) at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised) at System.Windows.UIElement.ReRaiseEventAs(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args, RoutedEvent newEvent) at System.Windows.UIElement.OnMouseUpThunk(Object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e) at System.Windows.Input.MouseButtonEventArgs.InvokeEventHandler(Delegate genericHandler, Object genericTarget) at System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs.InvokeHandler(Delegate handler, Object target) at System.Windows.RoutedEventHandlerInfo.InvokeHandler(Object target, RoutedEventArgs routedEventArgs) at System.Windows.EventRoute.InvokeHandlersImpl(Object source, RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean reRaised) at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEventImpl(DependencyObject sender, RoutedEventArgs args) at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseTrustedEvent(RoutedEventArgs args) at System.Windows.UIElement.RaiseEvent(RoutedEventArgs args, Boolean trusted) at System.Windows.Input.InputManager.ProcessStagingArea() at System.Windows.Input.InputManager.ProcessInput(InputEventArgs input) at System.Windows.Input.InputProviderSite.ReportInput(InputReport inputReport) at System.Windows.Interop.HwndMouseInputProvider.ReportInput(IntPtr hwnd, InputMode mode, Int32 timestamp, RawMouseActions actions, Int32 x, Int32 y, Int32 wheel) at System.Windows.Interop.HwndMouseInputProvider.FilterMessage(IntPtr hwnd, WindowMessage msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled) at System.Windows.Interop.HwndSource.InputFilterMessage(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled) at MS.Win32.HwndWrapper.WndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam, Boolean& handled) at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.DispatcherCallbackOperation(Object o) at System.Windows.Threading.ExceptionWrapper.InternalRealCall(Delegate callback, Object args, Int32 numArgs) at MS.Internal.Threading.ExceptionFilterHelper.TryCatchWhen(Object source, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs, Delegate catchHandler) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.InvokeImpl(DispatcherPriority priority, TimeSpan timeout, Delegate method, Object args, Int32 numArgs) at MS.Win32.HwndSubclass.SubclassWndProc(IntPtr hwnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam) at MS.Win32.UnsafeNativeMethods.DispatchMessage(MSG& msg) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrameImpl(DispatcherFrame frame) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.PushFrame(DispatcherFrame frame) at System.Windows.Threading.Dispatcher.Run() at System.Windows.Application.RunDispatcher(Object ignore) at System.Windows.Application.RunInternal(Window window) at System.Windows.Application.Run(Window window) at System.Windows.Application.Run() at FsDocumentationBuilder.App.Main() in D:\Users\dcveeneman\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\FsDocumentationBuilder\FsDocumentationBuilder\obj\x86\Debug\App.g.cs:line 50 at System.AppDomain._nExecuteAssembly(RuntimeAssembly assembly, String[] args) at System.AppDomain.ExecuteAssembly(String assemblyFile, Evidence assemblySecurity, String[] args) at Microsoft.VisualStudio.HostingProcess.HostProc.RunUsersAssembly() at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(Object state) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state, Boolean ignoreSyncCtx) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart() InnerException: System.Data.EntityCommandCompilationException Message=An error occurred while preparing the command definition. See the inner exception for details. Source=System.Data.Entity StackTrace: at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.CreateCommand(DbModificationCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.DynamicUpdateCommand.CreateCommand(UpdateTranslator translator, Dictionary`2 identifierValues) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.DynamicUpdateCommand.Execute(UpdateTranslator translator, EntityConnection connection, Dictionary`2 identifierValues, List`1 generatedValues) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.Update(IEntityStateManager stateManager, IEntityAdapter adapter) InnerException: System.NotSupportedException Message=Server-generated keys and server-generated values are not supported by SQL Server Compact. Source=System.Data.SqlServerCe.Entity StackTrace: at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlGen.DmlSqlGenerator.GenerateReturningSql(StringBuilder commandText, DbModificationCommandTree tree, ExpressionTranslator translator, DbExpression returning) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlGen.DmlSqlGenerator.GenerateInsertSql(DbInsertCommandTree tree, List`1& parameters, Boolean isLocalProvider) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlGen.SqlGenerator.GenerateSql(DbCommandTree tree, List`1& parameters, CommandType& commandType, Boolean isLocalProvider) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeProviderServices.CreateCommand(DbProviderManifest providerManifest, DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeProviderServices.CreateDbCommandDefinition(DbProviderManifest providerManifest, DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Common.DbProviderServices.CreateCommandDefinition(DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Common.DbProviderServices.CreateCommand(DbCommandTree commandTree) at System.Data.Mapping.Update.Internal.UpdateTranslator.CreateCommand(DbModificationCommandTree commandTree) InnerException:

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AspxGridView Specified method is not supported. problem

- by shamim

Bellow is my .aspx aspxGridview syntax <dx:ASPxGridView ID="ASPxGridView1" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" KeyFieldName="intProductCode" onrowinserted="ASPxGridView1_RowInserted"> <Columns> <dx:GridViewCommandColumn VisibleIndex="0"> <EditButton Visible="True"> </EditButton> <NewButton Visible="True"> </NewButton> <DeleteButton Visible="True"> </DeleteButton> </dx:GridViewCommandColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="intProductCode" FieldName="intProductCode" VisibleIndex="1"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="strProductName" FieldName="strProductName" VisibleIndex="2"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="SKU" FieldName="SKU" VisibleIndex="3"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="PACK" FieldName="PACK" VisibleIndex="4"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="intQtyPerCase" FieldName="intQtyPerCase" VisibleIndex="5"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="mnyCasePrice" FieldName="mnyCasePrice" VisibleIndex="6"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="intTBQtyPerCase" FieldName="intTBQtyPerCase" VisibleIndex="7"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataCheckColumn Caption="bIsActive" FieldName="bIsActive" VisibleIndex="8"> </dx:GridViewDataCheckColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="intSortingOrder" FieldName="intSortingOrder" VisibleIndex="9"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> <dx:GridViewDataTextColumn Caption="strProductAccCode" FieldName="strProductAccCode" VisibleIndex="10"> </dx:GridViewDataTextColumn> </Columns> </dx:ASPxGridView> Bellow is my C# syntax : protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (this.IsPostBack != true) { BindGridView(); } } private void BindGridView() { DB_OrderV2DataContext db = new DB_OrderV2DataContext(); var r = from p in db.tblProductInfos select p; ASPxGridView1.DataSource = r; ASPxGridView1.DataBind(); } protected void LinqServerModeDataSource1_Selecting(object sender, DevExpress.Data.Linq.LinqServerModeDataSourceSelectEventArgs e) { DB_OrderV2DataContext db = new DB_OrderV2DataContext(); var r= from p in db.tblProductInfos select p; e.QueryableSource = r; } protected void ASPxGridView1_RowInserted(object sender, DevExpress.Web.Data.ASPxDataInsertedEventArgs e) { DB_OrderV2DataContext db = new DB_OrderV2DataContext(); tblProductInfo otblProductInfo = new tblProductInfo (); otblProductInfo.intProductCode = (db.tblProductInfos.Max(p => (int?)p.intProductCode) ?? 0) + 1;//oProductController.GenerateProductCode(); otblProductInfo.strProductName = Convert.ToString(e.NewValues["strProductName"]); otblProductInfo.SKU = Convert.ToString(e.NewValues["SKU"]); otblProductInfo.PACK = Convert.ToString(e.NewValues["PACK"]); otblProductInfo.intQtyPerCase = Convert.ToInt32(e.NewValues["intQtyPerCase"]); otblProductInfo.mnyCasePrice = Convert.ToDecimal(e.NewValues["mnyCasePrice"]); otblProductInfo.intTBQtyPerCase = Convert.ToInt32(e.NewValues["intTBQtyPerCase"]); otblProductInfo.bIsActive = Convert.ToBoolean(e.NewValues["bIsActive"]); otblProductInfo.intSortingOrder = (db.tblProductInfos.Max(p => (int?)p.intSortingOrder) ?? 0) + 1;//oProductController.GenerateSortingOrder(); db.tblProductInfos.InsertOnSubmit(otblProductInfo);//the InsertOnSubmit method called in the preceding code was named Add and the DeleteOnSubmit method was named Remove. db.SubmitChanges(); BindGridView(); //oProductController.InsertAndSubmit(); // ASPxGridView1.DataBind(); } My SQL syntax CREATE TABLE [dbo].[tblProductInfo]( [intProductCode] [int] NOT NULL, [strProductName] [varchar](100) NULL, [SKU] [varchar](50) NULL, [PACK] [varchar](50) NULL, [intQtyPerCase] [int] NULL, [mnyCasePrice] [money] NULL, [intTBQtyPerCase] [int] NULL, [bIsActive] [bit] NULL, [intSortingOrder] [int] NULL, [strProductAccCode] [varchar](max) NULL, CONSTRAINT [PK_tblProductInfo] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ( [intProductCode] ASC )WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY] ) ON [PRIMARY] When i want to insert ,show me error message Specified method is not supported. How to solve it.

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Grafting LINQ onto C# 2 library

- by P Daddy

I'm writing a data access layer. It will have C# 2 and C# 3 clients, so I'm compiling against the 2.0 framework. Although encouraging the use of stored procedures, I'm still trying to provide a fairly complete ability to perform ad-hoc queries. I have this working fairly well, already. For the convenience of C# 3 clients, I'm trying to provide as much compatibility with LINQ query syntax as I can. Jon Skeet noticed that LINQ query expressions are duck typed, so I don't have to have an IQueryable and IQueryProvider (or IEnumerable<T>) to use them. I just have to provide methods with the correct signatures. So I got Select, Where, OrderBy, OrderByDescending, ThenBy, and ThenByDescending working. Where I need help are with Join and GroupJoin. I've got them working, but only for one join. A brief compilable example of what I have is this: // .NET 2.0 doesn't define the Func<...> delegates, so let's define some workalikes delegate TResult FakeFunc<T, TResult>(T arg); delegate TResult FakeFunc<T1, T2, TResult>(T1 arg1, T2 arg2); abstract class Projection{ public static Condition operator==(Projection a, Projection b){ return new EqualsCondition(a, b); } public static Condition operator!=(Projection a, Projection b){ throw new NotImplementedException(); } } class ColumnProjection : Projection{ readonly Table table; readonly string columnName; public ColumnProjection(Table table, string columnName){ this.table = table; this.columnName = columnName; } } abstract class Condition{} class EqualsCondition : Condition{ readonly Projection a; readonly Projection b; public EqualsCondition(Projection a, Projection b){ this.a = a; this.b = b; } } class TableView{ readonly Table table; readonly Projection[] projections; public TableView(Table table, Projection[] projections){ this.table = table; this.projections = projections; } } class Table{ public Projection this[string columnName]{ get{return new ColumnProjection(this, columnName);} } public TableView Select(params Projection[] projections){ return new TableView(this, projections); } public TableView Select(FakeFunc<Table, Projection[]> projections){ return new TableView(this, projections(this)); } public Table Join(Table other, Condition condition){ return new JoinedTable(this, other, condition); } public TableView Join(Table inner, FakeFunc<Table, Projection> outerKeySelector, FakeFunc<Table, Projection> innerKeySelector, FakeFunc<Table, Table, Projection[]> resultSelector){ Table join = new JoinedTable(this, inner, new EqualsCondition(outerKeySelector(this), innerKeySelector(inner))); return join.Select(resultSelector(this, inner)); } } class JoinedTable : Table{ readonly Table left; readonly Table right; readonly Condition condition; public JoinedTable(Table left, Table right, Condition condition){ this.left = left; this.right = right; this.condition = condition; } } This allows me to use a fairly decent syntax in C# 2: Table table1 = new Table(); Table table2 = new Table(); TableView result = table1 .Join(table2, table1["ID"] == table2["ID"]) .Select(table1["ID"], table2["Description"]); But an even nicer syntax in C# 3: TableView result = from t1 in table1 join t2 in table2 on t1["ID"] equals t2["ID"] select new[]{t1["ID"], t2["Description"]}; This works well and gives me identical results to the first case. The problem is if I want to join in a third table. TableView result = from t1 in table1 join t2 in table2 on t1["ID"] equals t2["ID"] join t3 in table3 on t1["ID"] equals t3["ID"] select new[]{t1["ID"], t2["Description"], t3["Foo"]}; Now I get an error (Cannot implicitly convert type 'AnonymousType#1' to 'Projection[]'), presumably because the second join is trying to join the third table to an anonymous type containing the first two tables. This anonymous type, of course, doesn't have a Join method. Any hints on how I can do this?

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C# Generic Arrays and math operations on it

- by msedi

Hello, I'm currently involved in a project where I have very large image volumes. This volumes have to processed very fast (adding, subtracting, thresholding, and so on). Additionally most of the volume are so large that they event don't fit into the memory of the system. For that reason I have created an abstract volume class (VoxelVolume) that host the volume and image data and overloads the operators so that it's possible to perform the regular mathematical operations on volumes. Thereby two more questions opened up which I will put into stackoverflow into two additional threads. Here is my first question. My volume is implemented in a way that it only can contain float array data, but most of the containing data is from an UInt16 image source. Only operations on the volume can create float array images. When I started implementing such a volume the class looked like following: public abstract class VoxelVolume<T> { ... } but then I realized that overloading the operators or return values would get more complicated. An example would be: public abstract class VoxelVolume<T> { ... public static VoxelVolume<T> Import<T>(param string[] files) { } } also adding two overloading operators would be more complicated: ... public static VoxelVolume<T> operator+(VoxelVolume<T> A, VoxelVolume<T> B) { ... } Let's assume I can overcome the problems described above, nevertheless I have different types of arrays that contain the image data. Since I have fixed my type in the volumes to float the is no problem and I can do an unsafe operation when adding the contents of two image volume arrays. I have read a few threads here and had a look around the web, but found no real good explanation of what to do when I want to add two arrays of different types in a fast way. Unfortunately every math operation on generics is not possible, since C# is not able to calculate the size of the underlying data type. Of course there might by a way around this problem by using C++/CLR, but currently everything I have done so far, runs in 32bit and 64bit without having to do a thing. Switching to C++/CLR seemed to me (pleased correct me if I'm wrong) that I'm bound to a certain platform (32bit) and I have to compile two assemblies when I let the application run on another platform (64bit). Is this true? So asked shortly: How is it possible to add two arrays of two different types in a fast way. Is it true that the developers of C# haven't thought about this. Switching to a different language (C# - C++) seems not to be an option. I realize that simply performing this operation float []A = new float[]{1,2,3}; byte []B = new byte[]{1,2,3}; float []C = A+B; is not possible and unnecessary although it would be nice if it would work. My solution I was trying was following: public static class ArrayExt { public static unsafe TResult[] Add<T1, T2, TResult>(T1 []A, T2 []B) { // Assume the length of both arrays is equal TResult[] result = new TResult[A.Length]; GCHandle h1 = GCHandle.Alloc (A, Pinned); GCHandle h2 = GCHandle.Alloc (B, Pinned); GCHandle hR = GCHandle.Alloc (C, Pinned); void *ptrA = h1.ToPointer(); void *ptrB = h2.ToPointer(); void *ptrR = hR.ToPointer(); for (int i=0; i<A.Length; i++) { *((TResult *)ptrR) = (TResult *)((T1)*ptrA + (T2)*ptrB)); } h1.Free(); h2.Free(); hR.Free(); return result; } } Please excuse if the code above is not quite correct, I wrote it without using an C# editor. Is such a solution a shown above thinkable? Please feel free to ask if I made a mistake or described some things incompletely. Thanks for your help Martin

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Problem upgrading kernel on debian 3.1

- by exhuma

Hi, I have a quite old box in a remote server farm. So I have no direct access. Only remote SSH (and via SSH to a serial console). I haven't updated this box in ages. Now, whenever I want to install a new package, a dependency to glibc appears. Unfortunately, the install of glibc depends on a 2.6 kernel and I am running a venerable 2.4 kernel (one more reason to upgrade). The problem is, that the install of a new kernel has an indirect (over locales) dependency to glibc. So, to install glibc, I need a new kernel. For a new kernel, I need to upgrade glibc. Essentially I am blocked. What's the best way to proceed considering I have no "hardware" access? Here's a quick transcript of the upgrade process: [green:~]% sudo aptitude install linux-image-686 Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree Reading extended state information Initializing package states... Done Reading task descriptions... Done The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED: gcc-4.3-base The following NEW packages will be automatically installed: dash libc6-i686 libparse-recdescent-perl linux-image-2.6-686 linux-image-2.6.18-6-686 module-init-tools yaird The following packages have been kept back: adduser apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2.2-common apt apt-utils aptitude autoconf autotools-dev awstats base-files base-passwd [...snip...] util-linux vacation vim vim-common wamerican wbritish wget whiptail whois wwwconfig-common zlib1g The following NEW packages will be installed: dash libc6-i686 libparse-recdescent-perl linux-image-2.6-686 linux-image-2.6.18-6-686 linux-image-686 module-init-tools yaird The following packages will be upgraded: hotplug libc6 2 packages upgraded, 8 newly installed, 1 to remove and 277 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/22.7MB of archives. After unpacking 52.1MB will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Writing extended state information... Done Preconfiguring packages ... (Reading database ... 34065 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13 (using .../libc6_2.7-18lenny2_i386.deb) ... Checking for services that may need to be restarted... Checking init scripts... WARNING: init script for postgresql not found. [ --- libc6 config screen appears here --- ] WARNING: POSIX threads library NPTL requires kernel version 2.6.8 or later. If you use a kernel 2.4, please upgrade it before installing glibc. The installation of a 2.6 kernel _could_ ask you to install a new libc first, this is NOT a bug, and should *NOT* be reported. In that case, please add etch sources to your /etc/apt/sources.list and run: apt-get install -t etch linux-image-2.6 Then reboot into this new kernel, and proceed with your upgrade dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.7-18lenny2_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.7-18lenny2_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) Ack! Something bad happened while installing packages. Trying to recover: dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of locales: locales depends on glibc-2.7-1; however: Package glibc-2.7-1 is not installed. dpkg: error processing locales (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: locales Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree Reading extended state information Initializing package states... Done Reading task descriptions... Done Now, if I follow the instrunctions as promted I get the following. Note that I am using aptitude instead of apt-get to benefit from the better dependency tracking. I did try with apt-get first. But that let me to the same problem. [green:~]% sudo aptitude install -t etch linux-image-2.6.26-2-686 Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree Reading extended state information Initializing package states... Done Reading task descriptions... Done E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. E: Unable to correct dependencies, some packages cannot be installed E: Unable to resolve some dependencies! Some packages had unmet dependencies. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following packages have unmet dependencies: linux-image-2.6.26-2-686: Depends: initramfs-tools (>= 0.55) but it is not installable or yaird (>= 0.0.13) but it is not installable or linux-initramfs-tool which is a virtual package. Any ideas?

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PHP MVC Framework Structure

- by bigstylee

I am sorry about the amount of code here. I have tried to show enough for understanding while avoiding confusion (I hope). I have included a second copy of the code at Pastebin. (The code does execute without error/notice/warning.) I am currently creating a Content Management System while trying to implement the idea of Model View Controller. I have only recently come across the concept of MVC (within the last week) and trying to implement this into my current project. One of the features of the CMS is dynamic/customisable menu areas and each feature will be represented by a controller. Therefore there will be multiple versions of the Controller Class, each with specific extended functionality. I have looked at a number of tutorials and read some open source solutions to the MVC Framework. I am now trying to create a lightweight solution for my specific requirements. I am not interested in backwards compatibility, I am using PHP 5.3. An advantage of the Base class is not having to use global and can directly access any loaded class using $this->Obj['ClassName']->property/function();. Hoping to get some feedback using the basic structure outlined (with performance in mind). Specifically; a) Have I understood/implemented the concept of MVC correctly? b) Have I understood/implemented Object Orientated techniques with PHP 5 correctly? c) Should the class propertise of Base be static? d) Improvements? Thank you very much in advance! <?php /* A "Super Class" that creates/stores all object instances */ class Base { public static $Obj = array(); // Not sure this is the correct use of the "static" keyword? public static $var; static public function load_class($directory, $class) { echo count(self::$Obj)."\n"; // This does show the array is getting updated and not creating a new array :) if (!isset(self::$Obj[$class]) && !is_object(self::$Obj[$class])) //dont want to load it twice { /* Locate and include the class file based upon name ($class) */ return self::$Obj[$class] = new $class(); } return TRUE; } } /* Loads general configuration objects into the "Super Class" */ class Libraries extends Base { public function __construct(){ $this->load_class('library', 'Database'); $this->load_class('library', 'Session'); self::$var = 'Hello World!'; //testing visibility /* Other general funciton classes */ } } class Database extends Base { /* Connects to the the database and executes all queries */ public function query(){} } class Session extends Base { /* Implements Sessions in database (read/write) */ } /* General functionality of controllers */ abstract class Controller extends Base { protected function load_model($class, $method) { /* Locate and include the model file */ $this->load_class('model', $class); call_user_func(array(self::$Obj[$class], $method)); } protected function load_view($name) { /* Locate and include the view file */ #include('views/'.$name.'.php'); } } abstract class View extends Base { /* ... */ } abstract class Model extends Base { /* ... */ } class News extends Controller { public function index() { /* Displays the 5 most recent News articles and displays with Content Area */ $this->load_model('NewsModel', 'index'); $this->load_view('news', 'index'); echo $this->var; } public function menu() { /* Displays the News Title of the 5 most recent News articles and displays within the Menu Area */ $this->load_model('news/index'); $this->load_view('news/index'); } } class ChatBox extends Controller { /* ... */ } /* Lots of different features extending the controller/view/model class depending upon request and layout */ class NewsModel extends Model { public function index() { echo $this->var; self::$Obj['Database']->query(/*SELECT 5 most recent news articles*/); } public function menu() { /* ... */ } } $Libraries = new Libraries; $controller = 'News'; // Would be determined from Query String $method = 'index'; // Would be determined from Query String $Content = $Libraries->load_class('controller', $controller); //create the controller for the specific page if (in_array($method, get_class_methods($Content))) { call_user_func(array($Content, $method)); } else { die('Bad Request'. $method); } $Content::$var = 'Goodbye World'; echo $Libraries::$var . ' - ' . $Content::$var; ?> /* Ouput */ 0 1 2 3 Goodbye World! - Goodbye World

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Why does my performance slow to a crawl I move methods into a base class?

- by Juliet

I'm writing different implementations of immutable binary trees in C#, and I wanted my trees to inherit some common methods from a base class. However, I find. I have lots of binary tree data structures to implement, and I wanted move some common methods into in a base binary tree class. Unfortunately, classes which derive from the base class are abysmally slow. Non-derived classes perform adequately. Here are two nearly identical implementations of an AVL tree to demonstrate: AvlTree: http://pastebin.com/V4WWUAyT DerivedAvlTree: http://pastebin.com/PussQDmN The two trees have the exact same code, but I've moved the DerivedAvlTree.Insert method in base class. Here's a test app: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq; using Juliet.Collections.Immutable; namespace ConsoleApplication1 { class Program { const int VALUE_COUNT = 5000; static void Main(string[] args) { var avlTreeTimes = TimeIt(TestAvlTree); var derivedAvlTreeTimes = TimeIt(TestDerivedAvlTree); Console.WriteLine("avlTreeTimes: {0}, derivedAvlTreeTimes: {1}", avlTreeTimes, derivedAvlTreeTimes); } static double TimeIt(Func<int, int> f) { var seeds = new int[] { 314159265, 271828183, 231406926, 141421356, 161803399, 266514414, 15485867, 122949829, 198491329, 42 }; var times = new List<double>(); foreach (int seed in seeds) { var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew(); f(seed); sw.Stop(); times.Add(sw.Elapsed.TotalMilliseconds); } // throwing away top and bottom results times.Sort(); times.RemoveAt(0); times.RemoveAt(times.Count - 1); return times.Average(); } static int TestAvlTree(int seed) { var rnd = new System.Random(seed); var avlTree = AvlTree<double>.Create((x, y) => x.CompareTo(y)); for (int i = 0; i < VALUE_COUNT; i++) { avlTree = avlTree.Insert(rnd.NextDouble()); } return avlTree.Count; } static int TestDerivedAvlTree(int seed) { var rnd = new System.Random(seed); var avlTree2 = DerivedAvlTree<double>.Create((x, y) => x.CompareTo(y)); for (int i = 0; i < VALUE_COUNT; i++) { avlTree2 = avlTree2.Insert(rnd.NextDouble()); } return avlTree2.Count; } } } AvlTree: inserts 5000 items in 121 ms DerivedAvlTree: inserts 5000 items in 2182 ms My profiler indicates that the program spends an inordinate amount of time in BaseBinaryTree.Insert. Anyone whose interested can see the EQATEC log file I've created with the code above (you'll need EQATEC profiler to make sense of file). I really want to use a common base class for all of my binary trees, but I can't do that if performance will suffer. What causes my DerivedAvlTree to perform so badly, and what can I do to fix it?

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No method error in controller create action

- by user2799827

I have read a number of Q&As on SO in search of some help on this but have so far not solved my issue. I am trying to teach myself ruby/rails, and as a test project, I want to create a list of tvshows and a list of characters where each tvshow has_many characters and each character belongs_to a specific show. I am sure I am doing something basic incorrectly. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. here is the characters controller: class CharactersController < ApplicationController before_action :set_character, only: [:show, :edit, :update, :destroy] # GET /characters # GET /characters.json def index @characters = Character.all end # GET /characters/1 # GET /characters/1.json def show end # GET /characters/new def new @character = Character.new end # GET /characters/1/edit def edit end # POST /characters # POST /characters.json def create @character = @tvshow.characters.create(params[:character]) respond_to do |format| if @character.save format.html { redirect_to @character, notice: 'Character was successfully created.' } format.json { render action: 'show', status: :created, location: @character } else format.html { render action: 'new' } format.json { render json: @character.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity } end end end # PATCH/PUT /characters/1 # PATCH/PUT /characters/1.json def update respond_to do |format| if @character.update(character_params) format.html { redirect_to @character, notice: 'Character was successfully updated.' } format.json { head :no_content } else format.html { render action: 'edit' } format.json { render json: @character.errors, status: :unprocessable_entity } end end end # DELETE /characters/1 # DELETE /characters/1.json def destroy @character.destroy respond_to do |format| format.html { redirect_to characters_url } format.json { head :no_content } end end private # Use callbacks to share common setup or constraints between actions. def set_character @character = Character.find(params[:id]) end # Never trust parameters from the scary internet, only allow the white list through. def character_params params.require(:character).permit(:first_name, :last_name, :bio) end end character model: class Character < ActiveRecord::Base belongs_to :tvshow default_scope -> { order('created_at DESC') } validates :tvshow_id, presence: true end tvshow model: class Tvshow < ActiveRecord::Base has_many :characters, dependent: :destroy end error gets returned when I attempt to create a character. here is the full trace: app/controllers/characters_controller.rb:27:in `create' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/implicit_render.rb:4:in `send_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/abstract_controller/base.rb:189:in `process_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/rendering.rb:10:in `process_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/abstract_controller/callbacks.rb:18:in `block in process_action' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:413:in `_run__1211653665462320621__process_action__callbacks' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:80:in `run_callbacks' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/abstract_controller/callbacks.rb:17:in `process_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/rescue.rb:29:in `process_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/instrumentation.rb:31:in `block in process_action' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/notifications.rb:159:in `block in instrument' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/notifications/instrumenter.rb:20:in `instrument' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/notifications.rb:159:in `instrument' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/instrumentation.rb:30:in `process_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/params_wrapper.rb:245:in `process_action' activerecord (4.0.0) lib/active_record/railties/controller_runtime.rb:18:in `process_action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/abstract_controller/base.rb:136:in `process' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/abstract_controller/rendering.rb:44:in `process' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal.rb:195:in `dispatch' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal/rack_delegation.rb:13:in `dispatch' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_controller/metal.rb:231:in `block in action' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:80:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:80:in `dispatch' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:48:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/journey/router.rb:71:in `block in call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/journey/router.rb:59:in `each' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/journey/router.rb:59:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/routing/route_set.rb:655:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/etag.rb:23:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/conditionalget.rb:35:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/head.rb:11:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/params_parser.rb:27:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/flash.rb:241:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/session/abstract/id.rb:225:in `context' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/session/abstract/id.rb:220:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/cookies.rb:486:in `call' activerecord (4.0.0) lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:36:in `call' activerecord (4.0.0) lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:626:in `call' activerecord (4.0.0) lib/active_record/migration.rb:369:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/callbacks.rb:29:in `block in call' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:373:in `_run__2792846465963916895__call__callbacks' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:80:in `run_callbacks' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/callbacks.rb:27:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/reloader.rb:64:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/remote_ip.rb:76:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/debug_exceptions.rb:17:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/show_exceptions.rb:30:in `call' railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:38:in `call_app' railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:21:in `block in call' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:67:in `block in tagged' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:25:in `tagged' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/tagged_logging.rb:67:in `tagged' railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/rack/logger.rb:21:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/request_id.rb:21:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:21:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/runtime.rb:17:in `call' activesupport (4.0.0) lib/active_support/cache/strategy/local_cache.rb:83:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/lock.rb:17:in `call' actionpack (4.0.0) lib/action_dispatch/middleware/static.rb:64:in `call' railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/engine.rb:511:in `call' railties (4.0.0) lib/rails/application.rb:97:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/lock.rb:17:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/content_length.rb:14:in `call' rack (1.5.2) lib/rack/handler/webrick.rb:60:in `service' /Users/dariusgoore/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:138:in `service' /Users/dariusgoore/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:94:in `run' /Users/dariusgoore/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/server.rb:191:in `block in start_thread'

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How to convert objects in reflection (Linq to XML)

- by user829174

I have the following code which is working fine, the code creates plugins in reflection via run time: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Linq; using System.Reflection; using System.Text; namespace WindowsFormsApplication1 { public abstract class Plugin { public string Type { get; set; } public string Message { get; set; } } public class FilePlugin : Plugin { public string Path { get; set; } } public class RegsitryPlugin : Plugin { public string Key { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public string Value { get; set; } } static class MyProgram { [STAThread] static void Main(string[] args) { string xmlstr =@" <Client> <Plugin Type=""FilePlugin""> <Message>i am a file plugin</Message> <Path>c:\</Path> </Plugin> <Plugin Type=""RegsitryPlugin""> <Message>i am a registry plugin</Message> <Key>HKLM\Software\Microsoft</Key> <Name>Version</Name> <Value>3.5</Value> </Plugin> </Client> "; Assembly asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(new StringReader(xmlstr)); Plugin[] plugins = xDoc.Descendants("Plugin") .Select(plugin => { string typeName = plugin.Attribute("Type").Value; var type = asm.GetTypes().Where(t => t.Name == typeName).First(); Plugin p = Activator.CreateInstance(type) as Plugin; p.Type = typeName; foreach (var prop in plugin.Descendants()) { var pi = type.GetProperty(prop.Name.LocalName); object newVal = Convert.ChangeType(prop.Value, pi.PropertyType); pi.SetValue(p, newVal, null); } return p; }).ToArray(); // //"plugins" ready to use // } } } I am trying to modify the code and adding new class named DetailedPlugin so it will be able to read the following xml: string newXml = @" <Client> <Plugin Type=""FilePlugin""> <Message>i am a file plugin</Message> <Path>c:\</Path> <DetailedPlugin Type=""DetailedFilePlugin""> <Message>I am a detailed file plugin</Message> </DetailedPlugin> </Plugin> <Plugin Type=""RegsitryPlugin""> <Message>i am a registry plugin</Message> <Key>HKLM\Software\Microsoft</Key> <Name>Version</Name> <Value>3.5</Value> <DetailedPlugin Type=""DetailedRegsitryPlugin""> <Message>I am a detailed registry plugin</Message> </DetailedPlugin> </Plugin> </Client> "; for this i modified my classes to the following: public abstract class Plugin { public string Type { get; set; } public string Message { get; set; } public DetailedPlugin DetailedPlugin { get; set; } // new } public class FilePlugin : Plugin { public string Path { get; set; } } public class RegsitryPlugin : Plugin { public string Key { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public string Value { get; set; } } // new classes: public abstract class DetailedPlugin { public string Type { get; set; } public string Message { get; set; } } public class DetailedFilePlugin : Plugin { public string ExtraField1 { get; set; } } public class DetailedRegsitryPlugin : Plugin { public string ExtraField2{ get; set; } } from here i need some help to accomplish reading the xml and create the plugins with the nested DetailedPlugin

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ASP.NET MVC Paging/Sorting/Filtering a list using ModelMetadata

- by rajbk

This post looks at how to control paging, sorting and filtering when displaying a list of data by specifying attributes in your Model using the ASP.NET MVC framework and the excellent MVCContrib library. It also shows how to hide/show columns and control the formatting of data using attributes. This uses the Northwind database. A sample project is attached at the end of this post. Let’s start by looking at a class called ProductViewModel. The properties in the class are decorated with attributes. The OrderBy attribute tells the system that the Model can be sorted using that property. The SearchFilter attribute tells the system that filtering is allowed on that property. Filtering type is set by the FilterType enum which currently supports Equals and Contains. The ScaffoldColumn property specifies if a column is hidden or not The DisplayFormat specifies how the data is formatted. public class ProductViewModel { [OrderBy(IsDefault = true)] [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public int? ProductID { get; set; } [SearchFilter(FilterType.Contains)] [OrderBy] [DisplayName("Product Name")] public string ProductName { get; set; } [OrderBy] [DisplayName("Unit Price")] [DisplayFormat(DataFormatString = "{0:c}")] public System.Nullable<decimal> UnitPrice { get; set; } [DisplayName("Category Name")] public string CategoryName { get; set; } [SearchFilter] [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public int? CategoryID { get; set; } [SearchFilter] [ScaffoldColumn(false)] public int? SupplierID { get; set; } [OrderBy] public bool Discontinued { get; set; } } Before we explore the code further, lets look at the UI. The UI has a section for filtering the data. The column headers with links are sortable. Paging is also supported with the help of a pager row. The pager is rendered using the MVCContrib Pager component. The data is displayed using a customized version of the MVCContrib Grid component. The customization was done in order for the Grid to be aware of the attributes mentioned above. Now, let’s look at what happens when we perform actions on this page. The diagram below shows the process: The form on the page has its method set to “GET” therefore we see all the parameters in the query string. The query string is shown in blue above. This query gets routed to an action called Index with parameters of type ProductViewModel and PageSortOptions. The parameters in the query string get mapped to the input parameters using model binding. The ProductView object created has the information needed to filter data while the PageAndSorting object is used for paging and sorting the data. The last block in the figure above shows how the filtered and paged list is created. We receive a product list from our product repository (which is of type IQueryable) and first filter it by calliing the AsFiltered extension method passing in the productFilters object and then call the AsPagination extension method passing in the pageSort object. The AsFiltered extension method looks at the type of the filter instance passed in. It skips properties in the instance that do not have the SearchFilter attribute. For properties that have the SearchFilter attribute, it adds filter expression trees to filter against the IQueryable data. The AsPagination extension method looks at the type of the IQueryable and ensures that the column being sorted on has the OrderBy attribute. If it does not find one, it looks for the default sort field [OrderBy(IsDefault = true)]. It is required that at least one attribute in your model has the [OrderBy(IsDefault = true)]. This because a person could be performing paging without specifying an order by column. As you may recall the LINQ Skip method now requires that you call an OrderBy method before it. Therefore we need a default order by column to perform paging. The extension method adds a order expressoin tree to the IQueryable and calls the MVCContrib AsPagination extension method to page the data. Implementation Notes Auto Postback The search filter region auto performs a get request anytime the dropdown selection is changed. This is implemented using the following jQuery snippet $(document).ready(function () { $("#productSearch").change(function () { this.submit(); }); }); Strongly Typed View The code used in the Action method is shown below: public ActionResult Index(ProductViewModel productFilters, PageSortOptions pageSortOptions) { var productPagedList = productRepository.GetProductsProjected().AsFiltered(productFilters).AsPagination(pageSortOptions); var productViewFilterContainer = new ProductViewFilterContainer(); productViewFilterContainer.Fill(productFilters.CategoryID, productFilters.SupplierID, productFilters.ProductName); var gridSortOptions = new GridSortOptions { Column = pageSortOptions.Column, Direction = pageSortOptions.Direction }; var productListContainer = new ProductListContainerModel { ProductPagedList = productPagedList, ProductViewFilterContainer = productViewFilterContainer, GridSortOptions = gridSortOptions }; return View(productListContainer); } As you see above, the object that is returned to the view is of type ProductListContainerModel. This contains all the information need for the view to render the Search filter section (including dropdowns), the Html.Pager (MVCContrib) and the Html.Grid (from MVCContrib). It also stores the state of the search filters so that they can recreate themselves when the page reloads (Viewstate, I miss you! :0) The class diagram for the container class is shown below. Custom MVCContrib Grid The MVCContrib grid default behavior was overridden so that it would auto generate the columns and format the columns based on the metadata and also make it aware of our custom attributes (see MetaDataGridModel in the sample code). The Grid ensures that the ShowForDisplay on the column is set to true This can also be set by the ScaffoldColumn attribute ref: http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2009/10/aspnet-mvc-2-templates-part-2-modelmetadata.html) Column headers are set using the DisplayName attribute Column sorting is set using the OrderBy attribute. The data is formatted using the DisplayFormat attribute. Generic Extension methods for Sorting and Filtering The extension method AsFiltered takes in an IQueryable<T> and uses expression trees to query against the IQueryable data. The query is constructed using the Model metadata and the properties of the T filter (productFilters in our case). Properties in the Model that do not have the SearchFilter attribute are skipped when creating the filter expression tree. It returns an IQueryable<T>. The extension method AsPagination takes in an IQuerable<T> and first ensures that the column being sorted on has the OrderBy attribute. If not, we look for the default OrderBy column ([OrderBy(IsDefault = true)]). We then build an expression tree to sort on this column. We finally hand off the call to the MVCContrib AsPagination which returns an IPagination<T>. This type as you can see in the class diagram above is passed to the view and used by the MVCContrib Grid and Pager components. Custom Provider To get the system to recognize our custom attributes, we create our MetadataProvider as mentioned in this article (http://bradwilson.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/why-you-dont-need-modelmetadataattributes.html) protected override ModelMetadata CreateMetadata(IEnumerable<Attribute> attributes, Type containerType, Func<object> modelAccessor, Type modelType, string propertyName) { ModelMetadata metadata = base.CreateMetadata(attributes, containerType, modelAccessor, modelType, propertyName); SearchFilterAttribute searchFilterAttribute = attributes.OfType<SearchFilterAttribute>().FirstOrDefault(); if (searchFilterAttribute != null) { metadata.AdditionalValues.Add(Globals.SearchFilterAttributeKey, searchFilterAttribute); } OrderByAttribute orderByAttribute = attributes.OfType<OrderByAttribute>().FirstOrDefault(); if (orderByAttribute != null) { metadata.AdditionalValues.Add(Globals.OrderByAttributeKey, orderByAttribute); } return metadata; } We register our MetadataProvider in Global.asax.cs. protected void Application_Start() { AreaRegistration.RegisterAllAreas(); RegisterRoutes(RouteTable.Routes); ModelMetadataProviders.Current = new MvcFlan.QueryModelMetaDataProvider(); } Bugs, Comments and Suggestions are welcome! You can download the sample code below. This code is purely experimental. Use at your own risk. Download Sample Code (VS 2010 RTM) MVCNorthwindSales.zip

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Making Sense of ASP.NET Paths

- by Rick Strahl

ASP.Net includes quite a plethora of properties to retrieve path information about the current request, control and application. There's a ton of information available about paths on the Request object, some of it appearing to overlap and some of it buried several levels down, and it can be confusing to find just the right path that you are looking for. To keep things straight I thought it a good idea to summarize the path options along with descriptions and example paths. I wrote a post about this a long time ago in 2004 and I find myself frequently going back to that page to quickly figure out which path I’m looking for in processing the current URL. Apparently a lot of people must be doing the same, because the original post is the second most visited even to this date on this blog to the tune of nearly 500 hits per day. So, I decided to update and expand a bit on the original post with a little more information and clarification based on the original comments. Request Object Paths Available Here's a list of the Path related properties on the Request object (and the Page object). Assume a path like http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/admin/paths.aspx for the paths below where webstore is the name of the virtual. .blackborder td { border-bottom: solid 1px silver; border-left: solid 1px silver; } Request Property Description and Value ApplicationPath Returns the web root-relative logical path to the virtual root of this app. /webstore/ PhysicalApplicationPath Returns local file system path of the virtual root for this app. c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webstore PhysicalPath Returns the local file system path to the current script or path. c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webstore\admin\paths.aspx Path FilePath CurrentExecutionFilePath All of these return the full root relative logical path to the script page including path and scriptname. CurrentExcecutionFilePath will return the ‘current’ request path after a Transfer/Execute call while FilePath will always return the original request’s path. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath Returns an ASP.NET root relative virtual path to the script or path for the current request. If in a Transfer/Execute call the transferred Path is returned. ~/admin/paths.aspx PathInfo Returns any extra path following the script name. If no extra path is provided returns the root-relative path (returns text in red below). string.Empty if no PathInfo is available. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx/ExtraPathInfo RawUrl Returns the full root relative URL including querystring and extra path as a string. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx?sku=wwhelp40 Url Returns a fully qualified URL including querystring and extra path. Note this is a Uri instance rather than string. http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/admin/paths.aspx?sku=wwhelp40 UrlReferrer The fully qualified URL of the page that sent the request. This is also a Uri instance and this value is null if the page was directly accessed by typing into the address bar or using an HttpClient based Referrer client Http header. http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/default.aspx?Info Control.TemplateSourceDirectory Returns the logical path to the folder of the page, master or user control on which it is called. This is useful if you need to know the path only to a Page or control from within the control. For non-file controls this returns the Page path. /webstore/admin/ As you can see there’s a ton of information available there for each of the three common path formats: Physical Path is an OS type path that points to a path or file on disk. Logical Path is a Web path that is relative to the Web server’s root. It includes the virtual plus the application relative path. ~/ (Root-relative) Path is an ASP.NET specific path that includes ~/ to indicate the virtual root Web path. ASP.NET can convert virtual paths into either logical paths using Control.ResolveUrl(), or physical paths using Server.MapPath(). Root relative paths are useful for specifying portable URLs that don’t rely on relative directory structures and very useful from within control or component code. You should be able to get any necessary format from ASP.NET from just about any path or script using these mechanisms. ~/ Root Relative Paths and ResolveUrl() and ResolveClientUrl() ASP.NET supports root-relative virtual path syntax in most of its URL properties in Web Forms. So you can easily specify a root relative path in a control rather than a location relative path: <asp:Image runat="server" ID="imgHelp" ImageUrl="~/images/help.gif" /> ASP.NET internally resolves this URL by using ResolveUrl("~/images/help.gif") to arrive at the root-relative URL of /webstore/images/help.gif which uses the Request.ApplicationPath as the basepath to replace the ~. By convention any custom Web controls also should use ResolveUrl() on URL properties to provide the same functionality. In your own code you can use Page.ResolveUrl() or Control.ResolveUrl() to accomplish the same thing: string imgPath = this.ResolveUrl("~/images/help.gif"); imgHelp.ImageUrl = imgPath; Unfortunately ResolveUrl() is limited to WebForm pages, so if you’re in an HttpHandler or Module it’s not available. ASP.NET Mvc also has it’s own more generic version of ResolveUrl in Url.Decode: <script src="<%= Url.Content("~/scripts/new.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> which is part of the UrlHelper class. In ASP.NET MVC the above sort of syntax is actually even more crucial than in WebForms due to the fact that views are not referencing specific pages but rather are often path based which can lead to various variations on how a particular view is referenced. In a Module or Handler code Control.ResolveUrl() unfortunately is not available which in retrospect seems like an odd design choice – URL resolution really should happen on a Request basis not as part of the Page framework. Luckily you can also rely on the static VirtualPathUtility class: string path = VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~/admin/paths.aspx"); VirtualPathUtility also many other quite useful methods for dealing with paths and converting between the various kinds of paths supported. One thing to watch out for is that ToAbsolute() will throw an exception if a query string is provided and doesn’t work on fully qualified URLs. I wrote about this topic with a custom solution that works fully qualified URLs and query strings here (check comments for some interesting discussions too). Similar to ResolveUrl() is ResolveClientUrl() which creates a fully qualified HTTP path that includes the protocol and domain name. It’s rare that this full resolution is needed but can be useful in some scenarios. Mapping Virtual Paths to Physical Paths with Server.MapPath() If you need to map root relative or current folder relative URLs to physical URLs or you can use HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(). Inside of a Page you can do the following: string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("~/scripts/ww.jquery.js")); MapPath is pretty flexible and it understands both ASP.NET style virtual paths as well as plain relative paths, so the following also works. string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("scripts/silverlight.js"); as well as dot relative syntax: string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("../scripts/jquery.js"); Once you have the physical path you can perform standard System.IO Path and File operations on the file. Remember with physical paths and IO or copy operations you need to make sure you have permissions to access files and folders based on the Web server user account that is active (NETWORK SERVICE, ASPNET typically). Note the Server.MapPath will not map up beyond the virtual root of the application for security reasons. Server and Host Information Between these settings you can get all the information you may need to figure out where you are at and to build new Url if necessary. If you need to build a URL completely from scratch you can get access to information about the server you are accessing: Server Variable Function and Example SERVER_NAME The of the domain or IP Address wwww.west-wind.com or 127.0.0.1 SERVER_PORT The port that the request runs under. 80 SERVER_PORT_SECURE Determines whether https: was used. 0 or 1 APPL_MD_PATH ADSI DirectoryServices path to the virtual root directory. Note that LM typically doesn’t work for ADSI access so you should replace that with LOCALHOST or the machine’s NetBios name. /LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT/webstore Request.Url and Uri Parsing If you still need more control over the current request URL or you need to create new URLs from an existing one, the current Request.Url Uri property offers a lot of control. Using the Uri class and UriBuilder makes it easy to retrieve parts of a URL and create new URLs based on existing URL. The UriBuilder class is the preferred way to create URLs – much preferable over creating URIs via string concatenation. Uri Property Function Scheme The URL scheme or protocol prefix. http or https Port The port if specifically specified. DnsSafeHost The domain name or local host NetBios machine name www.west-wind.com or rasnote LocalPath The full path of the URL including script name and extra PathInfo. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx Query The query string if any ?id=1 The Uri class itself is great for retrieving Uri parts, but most of the properties are read only if you need to modify a URL in order to change it you can use the UriBuilder class to load up an existing URL and modify it to create a new one. Here are a few common operations I’ve needed to do to get specific URLs: Convert the Request URL to an SSL/HTTPS link For example to take the current request URL and converted it to a secure URL can be done like this: UriBuilder build = new UriBuilder(Request.Url); build.Scheme = "https"; build.Port = -1; // don't inject port Uri newUri = build.Uri; string newUrl = build.ToString(); Retrieve the fully qualified URL without a QueryString AFAIK, there’s no native routine to retrieve the current request URL without the query string. It’s easy to do with UriBuilder however: UriBuilder builder = newUriBuilder(Request.Url); builder.Query = ""; stringlogicalPathWithoutQuery = builder.ToString(); What else? I took a look through the old post’s comments and addressed as many of the questions and comments that came up in there. With a few small and silly exceptions this update post handles most of these. But I’m sure there are a more things that go in here. What else would be useful to put onto this post so it serves as a nice all in one place to go for path references? If you think of something leave a comment and I’ll try to update the post with it in the future.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in ASP.NET

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Parallelism in .NET – Part 7, Some Differences between PLINQ and LINQ to Objects

- by Reed

In my previous post on Declarative Data Parallelism, I mentioned that PLINQ extends LINQ to Objects to support parallel operations. Although nearly all of the same operations are supported, there are some differences between PLINQ and LINQ to Objects. By introducing Parallelism to our declarative model, we add some extra complexity. This, in turn, adds some extra requirements that must be addressed. In order to illustrate the main differences, and why they exist, let’s begin by discussing some differences in how the two technologies operate, and look at the underlying types involved in LINQ to Objects and PLINQ . LINQ to Objects is mainly built upon a single class: Enumerable. The Enumerable class is a static class that defines a large set of extension methods, nearly all of which work upon an IEnumerable<T>. Many of these methods return a new IEnumerable<T>, allowing the methods to be chained together into a fluent style interface. This is what allows us to write statements that chain together, and lead to the nice declarative programming model of LINQ: double min = collection .Where(item => item.SomeProperty > 6 && item.SomeProperty < 24) .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } Other LINQ variants work in a similar fashion. For example, most data-oriented LINQ providers are built upon an implementation of IQueryable<T>, which allows the database provider to turn a LINQ statement into an underlying SQL query, to be performed directly on the remote database. PLINQ is similar, but instead of being built upon the Enumerable class, most of PLINQ is built upon a new static class: ParallelEnumerable. When using PLINQ, you typically begin with any collection which implements IEnumerable<T>, and convert it to a new type using an extension method defined on ParallelEnumerable: AsParallel(). This method takes any IEnumerable<T>, and converts it into a ParallelQuery<T>, the core class for PLINQ. There is a similar ParallelQuery class for working with non-generic IEnumerable implementations. This brings us to our first subtle, but important difference between PLINQ and LINQ – PLINQ always works upon specific types, which must be explicitly created. Typically, the type you’ll use with PLINQ is ParallelQuery<T>, but it can sometimes be a ParallelQuery or an OrderedParallelQuery<T>. Instead of dealing with an interface, implemented by an unknown class, we’re dealing with a specific class type. This works seamlessly from a usage standpoint – ParallelQuery<T> implements IEnumerable<T>, so you can always “switch back” to an IEnumerable<T>. The difference only arises at the beginning of our parallelization. When we’re using LINQ, and we want to process a normal collection via PLINQ, we need to explicitly convert the collection into a ParallelQuery<T> by calling AsParallel(). There is an important consideration here – AsParallel() does not need to be called on your specific collection, but rather any IEnumerable<T>. This allows you to place it anywhere in the chain of methods involved in a LINQ statement, not just at the beginning. This can be useful if you have an operation which will not parallelize well or is not thread safe. For example, the following is perfectly valid, and similar to our previous examples: double min = collection .AsParallel() .Select(item => item.SomeOperation()) .Where(item => item.SomeProperty > 6 && item.SomeProperty < 24) .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); However, if SomeOperation() is not thread safe, we could just as easily do: double min = collection .Select(item => item.SomeOperation()) .AsParallel() .Where(item => item.SomeProperty > 6 && item.SomeProperty < 24) .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); In this case, we’re using standard LINQ to Objects for the Select(…) method, then converting the results of that map routine to a ParallelQuery<T>, and processing our filter (the Where method) and our aggregation (the Min method) in parallel. PLINQ also provides us with a way to convert a ParallelQuery<T> back into a standard IEnumerable<T>, forcing sequential processing via standard LINQ to Objects. If SomeOperation() was thread-safe, but PerformComputation() was not thread-safe, we would need to handle this by using the AsEnumerable() method: double min = collection .AsParallel() .Select(item => item.SomeOperation()) .Where(item => item.SomeProperty > 6 && item.SomeProperty < 24) .AsEnumerable() .Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); Here, we’re converting our collection into a ParallelQuery<T>, doing our map operation (the Select(…) method) and our filtering in parallel, then converting the collection back into a standard IEnumerable<T>, which causes our aggregation via Min() to be performed sequentially. This could also be written as two statements, as well, which would allow us to use the language integrated syntax for the first portion: var tempCollection = from item in collection.AsParallel() let e = item.SomeOperation() where (e.SomeProperty > 6 && e.SomeProperty < 24) select e; double min = tempCollection.AsEnumerable().Min(item => item.PerformComputation()); This allows us to use the standard LINQ style language integrated query syntax, but control whether it’s performed in parallel or serial by adding AsParallel() and AsEnumerable() appropriately. The second important difference between PLINQ and LINQ deals with order preservation. PLINQ, by default, does not preserve the order of of source collection. This is by design. In order to process a collection in parallel, the system needs to naturally deal with multiple elements at the same time. Maintaining the original ordering of the sequence adds overhead, which is, in many cases, unnecessary. Therefore, by default, the system is allowed to completely change the order of your sequence during processing. If you are doing a standard query operation, this is usually not an issue. However, there are times when keeping a specific ordering in place is important. If this is required, you can explicitly request the ordering be preserved throughout all operations done on a ParallelQuery<T> by using the AsOrdered() extension method. This will cause our sequence ordering to be preserved. For example, suppose we wanted to take a collection, perform an expensive operation which converts it to a new type, and display the first 100 elements. In LINQ to Objects, our code might look something like: // Using IEnumerable<SourceClass> collection IEnumerable<ResultClass> results = collection .Select(e => e.CreateResult()) .Take(100); If we just converted this to a parallel query naively, like so: IEnumerable<ResultClass> results = collection .AsParallel() .Select(e => e.CreateResult()) .Take(100); We could very easily get a very different, and non-reproducable, set of results, since the ordering of elements in the input collection is not preserved. To get the same results as our original query, we need to use: IEnumerable<ResultClass> results = collection .AsParallel() .AsOrdered() .Select(e => e.CreateResult()) .Take(100); This requests that PLINQ process our sequence in a way that verifies that our resulting collection is ordered as if it were processed serially. This will cause our query to run slower, since there is overhead involved in maintaining the ordering. However, in this case, it is required, since the ordering is required for correctness. PLINQ is incredibly useful. It allows us to easily take nearly any LINQ to Objects query and run it in parallel, using the same methods and syntax we’ve used previously. There are some important differences in operation that must be considered, however – it is not a free pass to parallelize everything. When using PLINQ in order to parallelize your routines declaratively, the same guideline I mentioned before still applies: Parallelization is something that should be handled with care and forethought, added by design, and not just introduced casually.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 15, 2010

CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, March 15, 2010New ProjectsAT Accounts: AT Accounts helps developers to intergrate accounting functionality in their applications. It has both the WPF userinterface and SilverlightChild page list(for dnn4/5): A free module which can display sub pages list for a selected tab. It is template based and support options like Recursive/Child tab prefix/link...dashCommerce: dashCommerce is the leading ASP.NET e-commerce platform.Fire Utilities: My Development Utiltites and base classes: New Zealand Bank Account ValidatorFlyCatch (Bugtracking System): A simple webbased Bugtracking System.fracback: Fractal feedback concepts, based on video feedbackftc3650: code for ftc 3650Google AJAX Search Services for jQuery: This plug-in encapsulates part of the Google AJAX Search API to streamline the process of Google Search integration.Little Black Book DB: This is the Database for the following Projects: SQL Azure PHP Connection SQL Azure Ruby Connection SQL Azure Python Connection SQL Azure .NE...MediaCommMVC: MediaCommMVC is a community platform focusing on photos, videos and discussions. It's based on ASP.NET MVC and uses (fluent) nhibernate, jquery an...Miracle OS: The Miracle OS is an OS from Fox. We work on it, but it isn't ready. Do you want help us? Please send a mail to victor@fox.fi.stMultiwfn: (1)Plotting various graph(filled color/contour/relief map...) (2)Generate Cube file (3)Manipulate & analyze wavefunction Supportting lots of proper...MySpace DataRelay: Data Relay is the foundation of MySpace's middle tier. At its heart, it is a messaging system for relaying information both between clients and ser...NinjaCMS: Ninja CMS is an asp.net based content management system which provides a designer friendly, developer friendly interface to work with. It's flexibl...open gaze and mouse analyzer: Ogama allows recording and analyzing eye- and mouse-tracking data from slideshow eyetracking experiments in parallel. It´s developed in C#.NET and ...Özkasoft.Net | E-Commerce: Özkasoft's E-Commerce ProjectProfiCV: Profi CVpyTarget: Implement a powerful iscsi target in python, and easily use under most popular systems. It also includes the following features: multi-target, mult...SharePoint Platform Extensions: SharePoint Platform Extensions by Espora. Sorting Algorithm Visualization: Sorting Algorithm Visualization Displays Bead Sort, Binary Tree Sort, Bubble Sort, Bucket Sort, Cocktail Sort, Counting Sort, Gnome Sort, In Place ...Specify: A framework for creating executable specifications in .NET. Spell Corrector: A spell corrector that uses Bayes algorithm and BK (Burkhard-Keller) tree.SQL Azure Ruby Connection: This is a demo to show how to connect to SQL Azure with Ruby on Rails.uManage - AD Self-Service Portal: uManage is an Active Directory Self-Service Portal as well as Help Desk web application designed for use on intranet systems. It allows users to u...Winforms Rounded Group Box Control: Rounded Group Box - A Grouping control with Rounded Corners, Gradients, and Drop ShadowWizard Engine: Host application agnostic wizard engine platform, that allows you to fluently define complex conditional flows and provides means for execution of ...WS-Transfer based File Upload: WS-Transer based upload of large files in multiple partsXAMLStylePad: XAMLStylePad - is a simple in use styles and templates XAML-editor. It designed for comfortable coding in XAML with real-time preview result on aut...Your Twitt Engine: Ovo je aplikacija za sve ljude koji su na svom radnom mjestu pod prismotrom poslodavca ili sefa, koji kontroliraju njihov monitor. Tako uz ovu apl...New ReleasesAmiBroker Plug-ins with C#. 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jQuery Treeview – Expand and Collapse All Without the TreeControl

- by Ben Griswold

The jQuery Treeview Plugin provides collapse all, expand all and toggle all support with very little effort on your part. Simply add a treecontrol with three links, and the treeview, to your page… <div id="treecontrol"> <a title="Collapse the entire tree below" href="#"><img src="../images/minus.gif" /> Collapse All</a> <a title="Expand the entire tree below" href="#"><img src="../images/plus.gif" /> Expand All</a> <a title="Toggle the tree below, opening closed branches, closing open branches" href="#">Toggle All</a> </div> <ul id="treeview" class="treeview-black"> <li>Item 1</li> <li> <span>Item 2</span> <ul> <li> <span>Item 2.1</span> <ul> <li>Item 2.1.1</li> <li>Item 2.1.2</li> </ul> </li> <li>Item 2.2</li> <li class="closed"> <span>Item 2.3 (closed at start)</span> <ul> <li>Item 2.3.1</li> <li>Item 2.3.2</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> …and then associate the control to the treeview when defining the treeview settings. $("#treeview").treeview({ control: "#treecontrol", persist: "cookie", cookieId: "treeview-black" }); It really couldn’t be easier and it works great! But the plugin doesn’t offer a lot of flexibility when it comes to layout. For example, the plugin assumes your treecontrol will include links. If you want buttons or images or whatever, you are out of luck. The plugin also assumes a set number of links and the collapse all handler is associated with the first link inside of the treecontrol, a:eq(0), the expand all handler is associated with the second link and so on. So you really can’t incorporate the toggle all link by itself unless you manually hide the other options. Which brings me to the point of this post – making the collapse/expand/toggle layout more flexible without modifying the plugin’s source code. We will continue to use the treecontrol actions but we’re not going to use them directly. In fact, our custom collapse, expand and toggle links will trigger the actions for us. So, hide the treecontrol links and associate the treecontrol click events with the click events of other controls. Finally, render the treeview with the same setting definitions as usual. $(document).ready(function() { // The plugin shows the treecontrol after the // collapse, expand and toggle events are hooked up // Just hide the links. $('#treecontrol a').hide(); // On click of your custom links, button, etc // Trigger the appropriate treecontrol click $('#expandAll').click(function() { $('#treecontrol a:eq(1)').click(); }); $('#collapseAll').click(function() { $('#treecontrol a:eq(0)').click(); }); // Render the treeview per usual. $("#treeview").treeview({ control: "#treecontrol", persist: "cookie", cookieId: "treeview-black" }); }); Since I’m not using the treecontrol directly, I move it to the bottom of the page but it doesn’t really matter where the treecontrol goes. <div> <a id="collapseAll" href="#">Collapse All Outside of TreeControl</a> </div> <ul id="treeview" class="treeview-black"> <li>Item 1</li> <li> <span>Item 2</span> <ul> <li> <span>Item 2.1</span> <ul> <li>Item 2.1.1</li> <li>Item 2.1.2</li> </ul> </li> <li>Item 2.2</li> <li class="closed"> <span>Item 2.3 (closed at start)</span> <ul> <li>Item 2.3.1</li> <li>Item 2.3.2</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> </ul> <div> <input type="button" id="expandAll" value="Expand All Outside of TreeControl"/> </div> <div id="treecontrol"> <a href="#"></a><a href="#"></a><a href="#"></a> </div> The above jQuery and Html snippets generate the following ugly output which shows the separated collapse/expand elements. If you want the toggle all option, I bet you can figure out how to put it in place. I’ve made the source available below if you’re interested. Download jQuery Treeview Expand and Collapse Super Code

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Project Navigation and File Nesting in ASP.NET MVC Projects

- by Rick Strahl

More and more I’m finding myself getting lost in the files in some of my larger Web projects. There’s so much freaking content to deal with – HTML Views, several derived CSS pages, page level CSS, script libraries, application wide scripts and page specific script files etc. etc. Thankfully I use Resharper and the Ctrl-T Go to Anything which autocompletes you to any file, type, member rapidly. Awesome except when I forget – or when I’m not quite sure of the name of what I’m looking for. Project navigation is still important. Sometimes while working on a project I seem to have 30 or more files open and trying to locate another new file to open in the solution often ends up being a mental exercise – “where did I put that thing?” It’s those little hesitations that tend to get in the way of workflow frequently. To make things worse most NuGet packages for client side frameworks and scripts, dump stuff into folders that I generally don’t use. I’ve never been a fan of the ‘Content’ folder in MVC which is just an empty layer that doesn’t serve much of a purpose. It’s usually the first thing I nuke in every MVC project. To me the project root is where the actual content for a site goes – is there really a need to add another folder to force another path into every resource you use? It’s ugly and also inefficient as it adds additional bytes to every resource link you embed into a page. Alternatives I’ve been playing around with different folder layouts recently and found that moving my cheese around has actually made project navigation much easier. In this post I show a couple of things I’ve found useful and maybe you find some of these useful as well or at least get some ideas what can be changed to provide better project flow. The first thing I’ve been doing is add a root Code folder and putting all server code into that. I’m a big fan of treating the Web project root folder as my Web root folder so all content comes from the root without unneeded nesting like the Content folder. By moving all server code out of the root tree (except for Code) the root tree becomes a lot cleaner immediately as you remove Controllers, App_Start, Models etc. and move them underneath Code. Yes this adds another folder level for server code, but it leaves only code related things in one place that’s easier to jump back and forth in. Additionally I find myself doing a lot less with server side code these days, more with client side code so I want the server code separated from that. The root folder itself then serves as the root content folder. Specifically I have the Views folder below it, as well as the Css and Scripts folders which serve to hold only common libraries and global CSS and Scripts code. These days of building SPA style application, I also tend to have an App folder there where I keep my application specific JavaScript files, as well as HTML View templates for client SPA apps like Angular. Here’s an example of what this looks like in a relatively small project: The goal is to keep things that are related together, so I don’t end up jumping around so much in the solution to get to specific project items. The Code folder may irk some of you and hark back to the days of the App_Code folder in non Web-Application projects, but these days I find myself messing with a lot less server side code and much more with client side files – HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Generally I work on a single controller at a time – once that’s open it’s open that’s typically the only server code I work with regularily. Business logic lives in another project altogether, so other than the controller and maybe ViewModels there’s not a lot of code being accessed in the Code folder. So throwing that off the root and isolating seems like an easy win. Nesting Page specific content In a lot of my existing applications that are pure server side MVC application perhaps with some JavaScript associated with them , I tend to have page level javascript and css files. For these types of pages I actually prefer the local files stored in the same folder as the parent view. So typically I have a .css and .js files with the same name as the view in the same folder. This looks something like this: In order for this to work you have to also make a configuration change inside of the /Views/web.config file, as the Views folder is blocked with the BlockViewHandler that prohibits access to content from that folder. It’s easy to fix by changing the path from * to *.cshtml or *.vbhtml so that view retrieval is blocked:<system.webServer> <handlers> <remove name="BlockViewHandler"/> <add name="BlockViewHandler" path="*.cshtml" verb="*" preCondition="integratedMode" type="System.Web.HttpNotFoundHandler" /> </handlers> </system.webServer> With this in place, from inside of your Views you can then reference those same resources like this:<link href="~/Views/Admin/QuizPrognosisItems.css" rel="stylesheet" /> and<script src="~/Views/Admin/QuizPrognosisItems.js"></script> which works fine. JavaScript and CSS files in the Views folder deploy just like the .cshtml files do and can be referenced from this folder as well. Making this happen is not really as straightforward as it should be with just Visual Studio unfortunately, as there’s no easy way to get the file nesting from the VS IDE directly (you have to modify the .csproj file). However, Mads Kristensen has a nice Visual Studio Add-in that provides file nesting via a short cut menu option. Using this you can select each of the ‘child’ files and then nest them under a parent file. In the case above I select the .js and .css files and nest them underneath the .cshtml view. I was even toying with the idea of throwing the controller.cs files into the Views folder, but that’s maybe going a little too far :-) It would work however as Visual Studio doesn’t publish .cs files and the compiler doesn’t care where the files live. There are lots of options and if you think that would make life easier it’s another option to help group related things together. Are there any downside to this? Possibly – if you’re using automated minification/packaging tools like ASP.NET Bundling or Grunt/Gulp with Uglify, it becomes a little harder to group script and css files for minification as you may end up looking in multiple folders instead of a single folder. But – again that’s a one time configuration step that’s easily handled and much less intrusive then constantly having to search for files in your project. Client Side Folders The particular project shown above in the screen shots above is a traditional server side ASP.NET MVC application with most content rendered into server side Razor pages. There’s a fair amount of client side stuff happening on these pages as well – specifically several of these pages are self contained single page Angular applications that deal with 1 or maybe 2 separate views and the layout I’ve shown above really focuses on the server side aspect where there are Razor views with related script and css resources. For applications that are more client centric and have a lot more script and HTML template based content I tend to use the same layout for the server components, but the client side code can often be broken out differently. In SPA type applications I tend to follow the App folder approach where all the application pieces that make the SPA applications end up below the App folder. Here’s what that looks like for me – here this is an AngularJs project: In this case the App folder holds both the application specific js files, and the partial HTML views that get loaded into this single SPA page application. In this particular Angular SPA application that has controllers linked to particular partial views, I prefer to keep the script files that are associated with the views – Angular Js Controllers in this case – with the actual partials. Again I like the proximity of the view with the main code associated with the view, because 90% of the UI application code that gets written is handled between these two files. This approach works well, but only if controllers are fairly closely aligned with the partials. If you have many smaller sub-controllers or lots of directives where the alignment between views and code is more segmented this approach starts falling apart and you’ll probably be better off with separate folders in js folder. Following Angular conventions you’d have controllers/directives/services etc. folders. Please note that I’m not saying any of these ways are right or wrong – this is just what has worked for me and why! Skipping Project Navigation altogether with Resharper I’ve talked a bit about project navigation in the project tree, which is a common way to navigate and which we all use at least some of the time, but if you use a tool like Resharper – which has Ctrl-T to jump to anything, you can quickly navigate with a shortcut key and autocomplete search. Here’s what Resharper’s jump to anything looks like: Resharper’s Goto Anything box lets you type and quick search over files, classes and members of the entire solution which is a very fast and powerful way to find what you’re looking for in your project, by passing the solution explorer altogether. As long as you remember to use (which I sometimes don’t) and you know what you’re looking for it’s by far the quickest way to find things in a project. It’s a shame that this sort of a simple search interface isn’t part of the native Visual Studio IDE. Work how you like to work Ultimately it all comes down to workflow and how you like to work, and what makes *you* more productive. Following pre-defined patterns is great for consistency, as long as they don’t get in the way you work. A lot of the default folder structures in Visual Studio for ASP.NET MVC were defined when things were done differently. These days we’re dealing with a lot more diverse project content than when ASP.NET MVC was originally introduced and project organization definitely is something that can get in the way if it doesn’t fit your workflow. So take a look and see what works well and what might benefit from organizing files differently. As so many things with ASP.NET, as things evolve and tend to get more complex I’ve found that I end up fighting some of the conventions. The good news is that you don’t have to follow the conventions and you have the freedom to do just about anything that works for you. Even though what I’ve shown here diverges from conventions, I don’t think anybody would stumble over these relatively minor changes and not immediately figure out where things live, even in larger projects. But nevertheless think long and hard before breaking those conventions – if there isn’t a good reason to break them or the changes don’t provide improved workflow then it’s not worth it. Break the rules, but only if there’s a quantifiable benefit. You may not agree with how I’ve chosen to divert from the standard project structures in this article, but maybe it gives you some ideas of how you can mix things up to make your existing project flow a little nicer and make it easier to navigate for your environment. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2014Posted in ASP.NET MVC Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Making Sense of ASP.NET Paths

- by Renso

Making Sense of ASP.NET Paths ASP.Net includes quite a plethora of properties to retrieve path information about the current request, control and application. There's a ton of information available about paths on the Request object, some of it appearing to overlap and some of it buried several levels down, and it can be confusing to find just the right path that you are looking for. To keep things straight I thought it a good idea to summarize the path options along with descriptions and example paths. I wrote a post about this a long time ago in 2004 and I find myself frequently going back to that page to quickly figure out which path I’m looking for in processing the current URL. Apparently a lot of people must be doing the same, because the original post is the second most visited even to this date on this blog to the tune of nearly 500 hits per day. So, I decided to update and expand a bit on the original post with a little more information and clarification based on the original comments. Request Object Paths Available Here's a list of the Path related properties on the Request object (and the Page object). Assume a path like http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/admin/paths.aspx for the paths below where webstore is the name of the virtual. Request Property Description and Value ApplicationPath Returns the web root-relative logical path to the virtual root of this app. /webstore/ PhysicalApplicationPath Returns local file system path of the virtual root for this app. c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webstore PhysicalPath Returns the local file system path to the current script or path. c:\inetpub\wwwroot\webstore\admin\paths.aspx Path FilePath CurrentExecutionFilePath All of these return the full root relative logical path to the script page including path and scriptname. CurrentExcecutionFilePath will return the ‘current’ request path after a Transfer/Execute call while FilePath will always return the original request’s path. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx AppRelativeCurrentExecutionFilePath Returns an ASP.NET root relative virtual path to the script or path for the current request. If in a Transfer/Execute call the transferred Path is returned. ~/admin/paths.aspx PathInfo Returns any extra path following the script name. If no extra path is provided returns the root-relative path (returns text in red below). string.Empty if no PathInfo is available. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx/ExtraPathInfo RawUrl Returns the full root relative URL including querystring and extra path as a string. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx?sku=wwhelp40 Url Returns a fully qualified URL including querystring and extra path. Note this is a Uri instance rather than string. http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/admin/paths.aspx?sku=wwhelp40 UrlReferrer The fully qualified URL of the page that sent the request. This is also a Uri instance and this value is null if the page was directly accessed by typing into the address bar or using an HttpClient based Referrer client Http header. http://www.west-wind.com/webstore/default.aspx?Info Control.TemplateSourceDirectory Returns the logical path to the folder of the page, master or user control on which it is called. This is useful if you need to know the path only to a Page or control from within the control. For non-file controls this returns the Page path. /webstore/admin/ As you can see there’s a ton of information available there for each of the three common path formats: Physical Path is an OS type path that points to a path or file on disk. Logical Path is a Web path that is relative to the Web server’s root. It includes the virtual plus the application relative path. ~/ (Root-relative) Path is an ASP.NET specific path that includes ~/ to indicate the virtual root Web path. ASP.NET can convert virtual paths into either logical paths using Control.ResolveUrl(), or physical paths using Server.MapPath(). Root relative paths are useful for specifying portable URLs that don’t rely on relative directory structures and very useful from within control or component code. You should be able to get any necessary format from ASP.NET from just about any path or script using these mechanisms. ~/ Root Relative Paths and ResolveUrl() and ResolveClientUrl() ASP.NET supports root-relative virtual path syntax in most of its URL properties in Web Forms. So you can easily specify a root relative path in a control rather than a location relative path: <asp:Image runat="server" ID="imgHelp" ImageUrl="~/images/help.gif" /> ASP.NET internally resolves this URL by using ResolveUrl("~/images/help.gif") to arrive at the root-relative URL of /webstore/images/help.gif which uses the Request.ApplicationPath as the basepath to replace the ~. By convention any custom Web controls also should use ResolveUrl() on URL properties to provide the same functionality. In your own code you can use Page.ResolveUrl() or Control.ResolveUrl() to accomplish the same thing: string imgPath = this.ResolveUrl("~/images/help.gif"); imgHelp.ImageUrl = imgPath; Unfortunately ResolveUrl() is limited to WebForm pages, so if you’re in an HttpHandler or Module it’s not available. ASP.NET Mvc also has it’s own more generic version of ResolveUrl in Url.Decode: <script src="<%= Url.Content("~/scripts/new.js") %>" type="text/javascript"></script> which is part of the UrlHelper class. In ASP.NET MVC the above sort of syntax is actually even more crucial than in WebForms due to the fact that views are not referencing specific pages but rather are often path based which can lead to various variations on how a particular view is referenced. In a Module or Handler code Control.ResolveUrl() unfortunately is not available which in retrospect seems like an odd design choice – URL resolution really should happen on a Request basis not as part of the Page framework. Luckily you can also rely on the static VirtualPathUtility class: string path = VirtualPathUtility.ToAbsolute("~/admin/paths.aspx"); VirtualPathUtility also many other quite useful methods for dealing with paths and converting between the various kinds of paths supported. One thing to watch out for is that ToAbsolute() will throw an exception if a query string is provided and doesn’t work on fully qualified URLs. I wrote about this topic with a custom solution that works fully qualified URLs and query strings here (check comments for some interesting discussions too). Similar to ResolveUrl() is ResolveClientUrl() which creates a fully qualified HTTP path that includes the protocol and domain name. It’s rare that this full resolution is needed but can be useful in some scenarios. Mapping Virtual Paths to Physical Paths with Server.MapPath() If you need to map root relative or current folder relative URLs to physical URLs or you can use HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath(). Inside of a Page you can do the following: string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("~/scripts/ww.jquery.js")); MapPath is pretty flexible and it understands both ASP.NET style virtual paths as well as plain relative paths, so the following also works. string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("scripts/silverlight.js"); as well as dot relative syntax: string physicalPath = Server.MapPath("../scripts/jquery.js"); Once you have the physical path you can perform standard System.IO Path and File operations on the file. Remember with physical paths and IO or copy operations you need to make sure you have permissions to access files and folders based on the Web server user account that is active (NETWORK SERVICE, ASPNET typically). Note the Server.MapPath will not map up beyond the virtual root of the application for security reasons. Server and Host Information Between these settings you can get all the information you may need to figure out where you are at and to build new Url if necessary. If you need to build a URL completely from scratch you can get access to information about the server you are accessing: Server Variable Function and Example SERVER_NAME The of the domain or IP Address wwww.west-wind.com or 127.0.0.1 SERVER_PORT The port that the request runs under. 80 SERVER_PORT_SECURE Determines whether https: was used. 0 or 1 APPL_MD_PATH ADSI DirectoryServices path to the virtual root directory. Note that LM typically doesn’t work for ADSI access so you should replace that with LOCALHOST or the machine’s NetBios name. /LM/W3SVC/1/ROOT/webstore Request.Url and Uri Parsing If you still need more control over the current request URL or you need to create new URLs from an existing one, the current Request.Url Uri property offers a lot of control. Using the Uri class and UriBuilder makes it easy to retrieve parts of a URL and create new URLs based on existing URL. The UriBuilder class is the preferred way to create URLs – much preferable over creating URIs via string concatenation. Uri Property Function Scheme The URL scheme or protocol prefix. http or https Port The port if specifically specified. DnsSafeHost The domain name or local host NetBios machine name www.west-wind.com or rasnote LocalPath The full path of the URL including script name and extra PathInfo. /webstore/admin/paths.aspx Query The query string if any ?id=1 The Uri class itself is great for retrieving Uri parts, but most of the properties are read only if you need to modify a URL in order to change it you can use the UriBuilder class to load up an existing URL and modify it to create a new one. Here are a few common operations I’ve needed to do to get specific URLs: Convert the Request URL to an SSL/HTTPS link For example to take the current request URL and converted it to a secure URL can be done like this: UriBuilder build = new UriBuilder(Request.Url); build.Scheme = "https"; build.Port = -1; // don't inject portUri newUri = build.Uri; string newUrl = build.ToString(); Retrieve the fully qualified URL without a QueryString AFAIK, there’s no native routine to retrieve the current request URL without the query string. It’s easy to do with UriBuilder however: UriBuilder builder = newUriBuilder(Request.Url); builder.Query = ""; stringlogicalPathWithoutQuery = builder.ToString();

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