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• Pluralsight Meet the Author Podcast on HTML5 Canvas Programming

  - by dwahlin

    In the latest installment of Pluralsight’s Meet the Author podcast series, Fritz Onion and I talk about my new course, HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals.  In the interview I describe different canvas technologies covered throughout the course and a sample application at the end of the course that covers how to build a custom business chart from start to finish. Meet the Author:  Dan Wahlin on HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals   Transcript [Fritz] Hi. This is Fritz Onion. I’m here today with Dan Wahlin to talk about his new course HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals. Dan founded the Wahlin Group, which you can find at thewahlingroup.com, which specializes in ASP.NET, jQuery, Silverlight, and SharePoint consulting. He’s a Microsoft Regional Director and has been awarded Microsoft’s MVP for ASP.NET, Connected Systems, and Silverlight. Dan is on the INETA Bureau’s — Speaker’s Bureau, speaks at conferences and user groups around the world, and has written several books on .NET. Thanks for talking to me today, Dan. [Dan] Always good to talk with you, Fritz. [Fritz] So this new course of yours, HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals, I have to say that most of the really snazzy demos I’ve seen with HTML5 have involved Canvas, so I thought it would be a good starting point to chat with you about why we decided to create a course dedicated just to Canvas. If you want to kind of give us that perspective. [Dan] Sure. So, you know, there’s quite a bit of material out there on HTML5 in general, and as people that have done a lot with HTML5 are probably aware, a lot of HTML5 is actually JavaScript centric. You know, a lot of people when they first learn it, think it’s tags, but most of it’s actually JavaScript, and it just so happens that the HTML5 Canvas is one of those things. And so it’s not just, you know, a tag you add and it just magically draws all these things. You mentioned there’s a lot of cool things you can do from games to there’s some really cool multimedia applications out there where they integrate video and audio and all kinds of things into the Canvas, to more business scenarios such as charting and things along those lines. So the reason we made a course specifically on it is, a lot of the material out there touches on it but the Canvas is actually a pretty deep topic. You can do some pretty advanced stuff or easy stuff depending on what your application requirements are, and the API itself, you know, there’s over 30 functions just in the Canvas API and then a whole set of properties that actually go with that as well. So it’s a pretty big topic, and that’s why we created a course specifically tailored towards just the Canvas. [Fritz] Right. And let’s — let me just review the outline briefly here for everyone. So you start off with an introduction to getting started with Canvas, drawing with the HTML5 Canvas, then you talk about manipulating pixels, and you finish up with building a custom data chart. So I really like your example flow here. I think it will appeal to even business developers, right. Even if you’re not into HTML5 for the games or the media capabilities, there’s still something here for everyone I think working with the Canvas. Which leads me to another question, which is, where do you see the Canvas fitting in to kind of your day-to-day developer, people that are working business applications and maybe vanilla websites that aren’t doing kind of cutting edge stuff with interactivity with users? Is there a still a place for the Canvas in those scenarios? [Dan] Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of us — and I include myself here — over the last few years, the focus has generally been, especially if you’re, let’s say, a PHP or ASP.NET or Java type of developer, we’re kind of accustomed to working on the server side, and, you know, we kind of relied on Flash or Silverlight or these other plug-ins for the client side stuff when it was kind of fancy, like charts and graphs and things along those lines. With the what I call massive shift of applications, you know, mainly because of mobile, to more of client side, one of the big benefits I think from a maybe corporate standard way of thinking of things, since we do a lot of work with different corporations, is that, number one, rather than having to have the plug-in, which of course isn’t going to work on iPad and some of these other devices out there that are pretty popular, you can now use a built-in technology that all the modern browsers support, and that includes things like Safari on the iPad and iPhone and the Android tablets and things like that with their browsers, and actually render some really sophisticated charts. Whether you do it by scratch or from scratch or, you know, get a third party type of library involved, it’s just JavaScript. So it downloads fast so it’s good from a performance perspective; and when it comes to what you can render, it’s extremely robust. You can do everything from, you know, your basic circles to polygons or polylines to really advanced gradients as well and even provide some interactivity and animations, and that’s some of the stuff I touch upon in the class. In fact, you mentioned the last part of the outline there is building a custom data chart and that’s kind of gears towards more of the, what I’d call enterprise or corporate type developer. [Fritz] Yeah, that makes sense. And it’s, you know, a lot of the demos I’ve seen with HTML5 focus on more the interactivity and kind of game side of things, but the Canvas is such a diverse element within HTML5 that I can see it being applicable pretty much anywhere. So why don’t we talk a little bit about some of the specifics of what you cover? You talk about drawing and then manipulating pixels. You want to kind of give us the different ways of working with the Canvas and what some of those APIs provide for you? [Dan] Sure. So going all the way back to the start of the outline, we actually started off by showing different demonstrations of the Canvas in action, and we show some fun stuff — multimedia apps and games and things like that — and then also some more business scenarios; and then once you see that, hopefully it kinds of piques your interest and you go, oh, wow, this is actually pretty phenomenal what you can do. So then we start you off with, so how to you actually draw things. Now, there are some libraries out there that will draw things like graphs, but if you want to customize those or just build something you have from scratch, you need to know the basics, such as, you know, how do you draw circles and lines and arcs and Bezier curves and all those fancy types of shapes that a given chart may have on it or that a game may have in it for that matter. So we start off by covering what I call the core API functions; how do you, for instance, fill a rectangle or convert that to a square by setting the height and the width; how do you draw arcs or different types of curves and there’s different types supported such as I mentioned Bezier curves or quadratic curves; and then we also talk about how do you integrate text into it. You might have some images already that are just regular bitmap type images that you want to integrate, you can do that with a Canvas. And you can even sync video into the Canvas, which actually opens up some pretty interesting possibilities for both business and I think just general multimedia apps. Once you kind of get those core functions down for the basic shapes that you need to be able to draw on any type of Canvas, then we go a little deeper into what are the pixels that are there to manipulate. And that’s one of the important things to understand about the HTML5 Canvas, scalable vector graphics is another thing you can use now in the modern browsers; it’s vector based. Canvas is pixel based. And so we talk about how to do gradients, how can you do transforms, you know, how do you scale things or rotate things, which is extremely useful for charts ’cause you might have text that, you know, flips up on its side for a y-axis or something like that. And you can even do direct pixel manipulation. So it’s really, really powerful. If you want to get down to the RGBA level, you can do that, and I show how to do that in the course, and then kind of wrap that section up with some animation fundamentals. [Fritz] Great. Yeah, that’s really powerful stuff for programmatically rendering data to clients and responding to user inputs. Look forward to seeing what everyone’s going to come up with building this stuff. So great. That’s — that’s HTML5 Canvas Fundamentals with Dan Wahlin. Thanks very much, Dan. [Dan] Thanks again. I appreciate it.

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• Windows Azure AppFabric: ServiceBus Queue WPF Sample

  - by xamlnotes

  The latest version of the AppFabric ServiceBus now has support for queues and topics. Today I will show you a bit about using queues and also talk about some of the best practices in using them. If you are just getting started, you can check out this site for more info on Windows Azure. One of the 1st things I thought if when Azure was announced back when was how we handle fault tolerance. Web sites hosted in Azure are no much of an issue unless they are using SQL Azure and then you must account for potential fault or latency issues. Today I want to talk a bit about ServiceBus and how to handle fault tolerance.  And theres stuff like connecting to the servicebus and so on you have to take care of. To demonstrate some of the things you can do, let me walk through this sample WPF app that I am posting for you to download. To start off, the application is going to need things like the servicenamespace, issuer details and so forth to make everything work.  To facilitate this I created settings in the wpf app for all of these items. Then I mapped a static class to them and set the values when the program loads like so: StaticElements.ServiceNamespace = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["ServiceNamespace"]); StaticElements.IssuerName = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["IssuerName"]); StaticElements.IssuerKey = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["IssuerKey"]); StaticElements.QueueName = Convert.ToString(Properties.Settings.Default["QueueName"]);   Now I can get to each of these elements plus some other common values or instances directly from the StaticElements class. Now, lets look at the application.  The application looks like this when it starts:   The blue graphic represents the queue we are going to use.  The next figure shows the form after items were added and the queue stats were updated . You can see how the queue has grown: To add an item to the queue, click the Add Order button which displays the following dialog: After you fill in the form and press OK, the order is published to the ServiceBus queue and the form closes. The application also allows you to read the queued items by clicking the Process Orders button. As you can see below, the form shows the queued items in a list and the  queue has disappeared as its now empty. In real practice we normally would use a Windows Service or some other automated process to subscribe to the queue and pull items from it. I created a class named ServiceBusQueueHelper that has the core queue features we need. There are three public methods: * GetOrCreateQueue – Gets an instance of the queue description if the queue exists. if not, it creates the queue and returns a description instance. * SendMessageToQueue = This method takes an order instance and sends it to the queue. The call to the queue is wrapped in the ExecuteAction method from the Transient Fault Tolerance Framework and handles all the retry logic for the queue send process. * GetOrderFromQueue – Grabs an order from the queue and returns a typed order from the queue. It also marks the message complete so the queue can remove it.   Now lets turn to the WPF window code (MainWindow.xaml.cs). The constructor contains the 4 lines shown about to setup the static variables and to perform other initialization tasks. The next few lines setup certain features we need for the ServiceBus: TokenProvider credentials = TokenProvider.CreateSharedSecretTokenProvider(StaticElements.IssuerName, StaticElements.IssuerKey); Uri serviceUri = ServiceBusEnvironment.CreateServiceUri("sb", StaticElements.ServiceNamespace, string.Empty); StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager = new NamespaceManager(serviceUri, credentials); StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory = MessagingFactory.Create(serviceUri, credentials); The next two lines update the queue name label and also set the timer to 20 seconds.             QueueNameLabel.Content = StaticElements.QueueName;             _timer.Interval = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20);             Next I call the UpdateQueueStats to initialize the UI for the queue:             UpdateQueueStats();             _timer.Tick += new EventHandler(delegate(object s, EventArgs a)                         {                      UpdateQueueStats();                  });             _timer.Start();         } The UpdateQueueStats method shown below. You can see that it uses the GetOrCreateQueue method mentioned earlier to grab the queue description, then it can get the MessageCount property.         private void UpdateQueueStats()         {             _queueDescription = _serviceBusQueueHelper.GetOrCreateQueue();             QueueCountLabel.Content = "(" + _queueDescription.MessageCount + ")";             long count = _queueDescription.MessageCount;             long queueWidth = count * 20;             QueueRectangle.Width = queueWidth;             QueueTickCount += 1;             TickCountlabel.Content = QueueTickCount.ToString();         }   The ReadQueueItemsButton_Click event handler calls the GetOrderFromQueue method and adds the order to the listbox. If you look at the SendQueueMessageController, you can see the SendMessage method that sends an order to the queue. Its pretty simple as it just creates a new CustomerOrderEntity instance,fills it and then passes it to the SendMessageToQueue. As you can see, all of our interaction with the queue is done through the helper class (ServiceBusQueueHelper). Now lets dig into the helper class. First, before you create anything like this, download the Transient Fault Handling Framework. Microsoft provides this free and they also provide the C# source. Theres a great article that shows how to use this framework with ServiceBus. I included the entire ServiceBusQueueHelper class in List 1. Notice the using statements for TransientFaultHandling: using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling.ServiceBus; The SendMessageToQueue in Listing 1 shows how to use the async send features of ServiceBus with them wrapped in the Transient Fault Handling Framework.  It is not much different than plain old ServiceBus calls but it sure makes it easy to have the fault tolerance added almost for free. The GetOrderFromQueue uses the standard synchronous methods to access the queue. The best practices article walks through using the async approach for a receive operation also.  Notice that this method makes a call to Receive to get the message then makes a call to GetBody to get a new strongly typed instance of CustomerOrderEntity to return. Listing 1 using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling; using Microsoft.AzureCAT.Samples.TransientFaultHandling.ServiceBus; using Microsoft.ServiceBus; using Microsoft.ServiceBus.Messaging; using System.Xml.Serialization; using System.Diagnostics; namespace WPFServicebusPublishSubscribeSample {     class ServiceBusQueueHelper     {         RetryPolicy currentPolicy = new RetryPolicy<ServiceBusTransientErrorDetectionStrategy>(RetryPolicy.DefaultClientRetryCount);         QueueClient currentQueueClient;         public QueueDescription GetOrCreateQueue()         {                        QueueDescription queue = null;             bool createNew = false;             try             {                 // First, let's see if a queue with the specified name already exists.                 queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.GetQueue(StaticElements.QueueName); });                 createNew = (queue == null);             }             catch (MessagingEntityNotFoundException)             {                 // Looks like the queue does not exist. We should create a new one.                 createNew = true;             }             // If a queue with the specified name doesn't exist, it will be auto-created.             if (createNew)             {                 try                 {                     var newqueue = new QueueDescription(StaticElements.QueueName);                     queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.CreateQueue(newqueue); });                 }                 catch (MessagingEntityAlreadyExistsException)                 {                     // A queue under the same name was already created by someone else,                     // perhaps by another instance. Let's just use it.                     queue = currentPolicy.ExecuteAction<QueueDescription>(() => { return StaticElements.CurrentNamespaceManager.GetQueue(StaticElements.QueueName); });                 }             }             currentQueueClient = StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(StaticElements.QueueName);             return queue;         }         public void SendMessageToQueue(CustomerOrderEntity Order)         {             BrokeredMessage msg = null;             GetOrCreateQueue();             // Use a retry policy to execute the Send action in an asynchronous and reliable fashion.             currentPolicy.ExecuteAction             (                 (cb) =>                 {                     // A new BrokeredMessage instance must be created each time we send it. Reusing the original BrokeredMessage instance may not                     // work as the state of its BodyStream cannot be guaranteed to be readable from the beginning.                     msg = new BrokeredMessage(Order);                     // Send the event asynchronously.                     currentQueueClient.BeginSend(msg, cb, null);                 },                 (ar) =>                 {                     try                     {                         // Complete the asynchronous operation.                         // This may throw an exception that will be handled internally by the retry policy.                         currentQueueClient.EndSend(ar);                     }                     finally                     {                         // Ensure that any resources allocated by a BrokeredMessage instance are released.                         if (msg != null)                         {                             msg.Dispose();                             msg = null;                         }                     }                 },                 (ex) =>                 {                     // Always dispose the BrokeredMessage instance even if the send                     // operation has completed unsuccessfully.                     if (msg != null)                     {                         msg.Dispose();                         msg = null;                     }                     // Always log exceptions.                     Trace.TraceError(ex.Message);                 }             );         }                 public CustomerOrderEntity GetOrderFromQueue()         {             CustomerOrderEntity Order = new CustomerOrderEntity();             QueueClient myQueueClient = StaticElements.CurrentMessagingFactory.CreateQueueClient(StaticElements.QueueName, ReceiveMode.PeekLock);             BrokeredMessage message;             ServiceBusQueueHelper serviceBusQueueHelper = new ServiceBusQueueHelper();             QueueDescription queueDescription;             queueDescription = serviceBusQueueHelper.GetOrCreateQueue();             if (queueDescription.MessageCount > 0)             {                 message = myQueueClient.Receive(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(90));                 if (message != null)                 {                     try                     {                         Order = message.GetBody<CustomerOrderEntity>();                         message.Complete();                     }                     catch (Exception ex)                     {                         throw ex;                     }                 }                 else                 {                     throw new Exception("Did not receive the messages");                 }             }             return Order;         }     } } I will post a link to the download demo in a separate post soon.

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• C#: Adding Functionality to 3rd Party Libraries With Extension Methods

  - by James Michael Hare

  Ever have one of those third party libraries that you love but it's missing that one feature or one piece of syntactical candy that would make it so much more useful?  This, I truly think, is one of the best uses of extension methods.  I began discussing extension methods in my last post (which you find here) where I expounded upon what I thought were some rules of thumb for using extension methods correctly.  As long as you keep in line with those (or similar) rules, they can often be useful for adding that little extra functionality or syntactical simplification for a library that you have little or no control over. Oh sure, you could take an open source project, download the source and add the methods you want, but then every time the library is updated you have to re-add your changes, which can be cumbersome and error prone.  And yes, you could possibly extend a class in a third party library and override features, but that's only if the class is not sealed, static, or constructed via factories. This is the perfect place to use an extension method!  And the best part is, you and your development team don't need to change anything!  Simply add the using for the namespace the extensions are in! So let's consider this example.  I love log4net!  Of all the logging libraries I've played with, it, to me, is one of the most flexible and configurable logging libraries and it performs great.  But this isn't about log4net, well, not directly.  So why would I want to add functionality?  Well, it's missing one thing I really want in the ILog interface: ability to specify logging level at runtime. For example, let's say I declare my ILog instance like so:     using log4net;     public class LoggingTest     {         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(LoggingTest));         ...     }     If you don't know log4net, the details aren't important, just to show that the field _log is the logger I have gotten from log4net. So now that I have that, I can log to it like so:     _log.Debug("This is the lowest level of logging and just for debugging output.");     _log.Info("This is an informational message.  Usual normal operation events.");     _log.Warn("This is a warning, something suspect but not necessarily wrong.");     _log.Error("This is an error, some sort of processing problem has happened.");     _log.Fatal("Fatals usually indicate the program is dying hideously."); And there's many flavors of each of these to log using string formatting, to log exceptions, etc.  But one thing there isn't: the ability to easily choose the logging level at runtime.  Notice, the logging levels above are chosen at compile time.  Of course, you could do some fun stuff with lambdas and wrap it, but that would obscure the simplicity of the interface.  And yes there is a Logger property you can dive down into where you can specify a Level, but the Level properties don't really match the ILog interface exactly and then you have to manually build a LogEvent and... well, it gets messy.  I want something simple and sexy so I can say:     _log.Log(someLevel, "This will be logged at whatever level I choose at runtime!");     Now, some purists out there might say you should always know what level you want to log at, and for the most part I agree with them.  For the most party the ILog interface satisfies 99% of my needs.  In fact, for most application logging yes you do always know the level you will be logging at, but when writing a utility class, you may not always know what level your user wants. I'll tell you, one of my favorite things is to write reusable components.  If I had my druthers I'd write framework libraries and shared components all day!  And being able to easily log at a runtime-chosen level is a big need for me.  After all, if I want my code to really be re-usable, I shouldn't force a user to deal with the logging level I choose. One of my favorite uses for this is in Interceptors -- I'll describe Interceptors in my next post and some of my favorites -- for now just know that an Interceptor wraps a class and allows you to add functionality to an existing method without changing it's signature.  At the risk of over-simplifying, it's a very generic implementation of the Decorator design pattern. So, say for example that you were writing an Interceptor that would time method calls and emit a log message if the method call execution time took beyond a certain threshold of time.  For instance, maybe if your database calls take more than 5,000 ms, you want to log a warning.  Or if a web method call takes over 1,000 ms, you want to log an informational message.  This would be an excellent use of logging at a generic level. So here was my personal wish-list of requirements for my task: Be able to determine if a runtime-specified logging level is enabled. Be able to log generically at a runtime-specified logging level. Have the same look-and-feel of the existing Debug, Info, Warn, Error, and Fatal calls.    Having the ability to also determine if logging for a level is on at runtime is also important so you don't spend time building a potentially expensive logging message if that level is off.  Consider an Interceptor that may log parameters on entrance to the method.  If you choose to log those parameter at DEBUG level and if DEBUG is not on, you don't want to spend the time serializing those parameters. Now, mine may not be the most elegant solution, but it performs really well since the enum I provide all uses contiguous values -- while it's never guaranteed, contiguous switch values usually get compiled into a jump table in IL which is VERY performant - O(1) - but even if it doesn't, it's still so fast you'd never need to worry about it. So first, I need a way to let users pass in logging levels.  Sure, log4net has a Level class, but it's a class with static members and plus it provides way too many options compared to ILog interface itself -- and wouldn't perform as well in my level-check -- so I define an enum like below.     namespace Shared.Logging.Extensions     {         // enum to specify available logging levels.         public enum LoggingLevel         {             Debug,             Informational,             Warning,             Error,             Fatal         }     } Now, once I have this, writing the extension methods I need is trivial.  Once again, I would typically /// comment fully, but I'm eliminating for blogging brevity:     namespace Shared.Logging.Extensions     {         // the extension methods to add functionality to the ILog interface         public static class LogExtensions         {             // Determines if logging is enabled at a given level.             public static bool IsLogEnabled(this ILog logger, LoggingLevel level)             {                 switch (level)                 {                     case LoggingLevel.Debug:                         return logger.IsDebugEnabled;                     case LoggingLevel.Informational:                         return logger.IsInfoEnabled;                     case LoggingLevel.Warning:                         return logger.IsWarnEnabled;                     case LoggingLevel.Error:                         return logger.IsErrorEnabled;                     case LoggingLevel.Fatal:                         return logger.IsFatalEnabled;                 }                                 return false;             }             // Logs a simple message - uses same signature except adds LoggingLevel             public static void Log(this ILog logger, LoggingLevel level, object message)             {                 switch (level)                 {                     case LoggingLevel.Debug:                         logger.Debug(message);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Informational:                         logger.Info(message);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Warning:                         logger.Warn(message);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Error:                         logger.Error(message);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Fatal:                         logger.Fatal(message);                         break;                 }             }             // Logs a message and exception to the log at specified level.             public static void Log(this ILog logger, LoggingLevel level, object message, Exception exception)             {                 switch (level)                 {                     case LoggingLevel.Debug:                         logger.Debug(message, exception);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Informational:                         logger.Info(message, exception);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Warning:                         logger.Warn(message, exception);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Error:                         logger.Error(message, exception);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Fatal:                         logger.Fatal(message, exception);                         break;                 }             }             // Logs a formatted message to the log at the specified level.              public static void LogFormat(this ILog logger, LoggingLevel level, string format,                                          params object[] args)             {                 switch (level)                 {                     case LoggingLevel.Debug:                         logger.DebugFormat(format, args);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Informational:                         logger.InfoFormat(format, args);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Warning:                         logger.WarnFormat(format, args);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Error:                         logger.ErrorFormat(format, args);                         break;                     case LoggingLevel.Fatal:                         logger.FatalFormat(format, args);                         break;                 }             }         }     } So there it is!  I didn't have to modify the log4net source code, so if a new version comes out, i can just add the new assembly with no changes.  I didn't have to subclass and worry about developers not calling my sub-class instead of the original.  I simply provide the extension methods and it's as if the long lost extension methods were always a part of the ILog interface! Consider a very contrived example using the original interface:     // using the original ILog interface     public class DatabaseUtility     {         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.Create(typeof(DatabaseUtility));                 // some theoretical method to time         IDataReader Execute(string statement)         {             var timer = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();                         // do DB magic                                    // this is hard-coded to warn, if want to change at runtime tough luck!             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000 && _log.IsWarnEnabled)             {                 _log.WarnFormat("Statement {0} took too long to execute.", statement);             }             ...         }     }     Now consider this alternate call where the logging level could be perhaps a property of the class          // using the original ILog interface     public class DatabaseUtility     {         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.Create(typeof(DatabaseUtility));                 // allow logging level to be specified by user of class instead         public LoggingLevel ThresholdLogLevel { get; set; }                 // some theoretical method to time         IDataReader Execute(string statement)         {             var timer = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();                         // do DB magic                                    // this is hard-coded to warn, if want to change at runtime tough luck!             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000 && _log.IsLogEnabled(ThresholdLogLevel))             {                 _log.LogFormat(ThresholdLogLevel, "Statement {0} took too long to execute.",                     statement);             }             ...         }     } Next time, I'll show one of my favorite uses for these extension methods in an Interceptor.

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• September 2012 Release of the Ajax Control Toolkit

  - by Stephen.Walther

  I’m excited to announce the September 2012 release of the Ajax Control Toolkit! This is the first release of the Ajax Control Toolkit which supports the .NET 4.5 framework. We also continue to support ASP.NET 3.5 and ASP.NET 4.0. With this release, we’ve made several important bug fixes. The Superexpert team focused on fixing the highest voted issues associated with the CascadingDropDown control. I’ve created a list of these bug fixes later in this blog post. You can download the latest release of the Ajax Control Toolkit by visiting the following page at CodePlex: http://AjaxControlToolkit.CodePlex.com Alternatively, you can install the latest version of the Ajax Control Toolkit using NuGet by firing off the following command from the Package Manager Console: Install-Package AjaxControlToolkit Using the Ajax Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5 Let me walk through the steps for using the Ajax Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5. First, I’ll create a new ASP.NET 4.5 website with Visual Studio 2012. I’ll create the new website with the ASP.NET Web Forms Application template: When you create a new ASP.NET 4.5 site with the ASP.NET Web Forms Application template, you get a starter website. If you run the site, then you get a page with default content: Let me show you how you can add the Ajax Control Toolkit Calendar control to the homepage of this starter site. The first step is to use NuGet to install the Ajax Control Toolkit. Right-click the References folder in the Solution Explorer window and select the menu option Manage NuGet Packages. In the Manage NuGet Packages dialog, use the search box to search for the Ajax Control Toolkit (enter “AjaxControlToolkit”). After you find it, click the Install button to add the Ajax Control Toolkit to your project. That’s all you have to do to install the Ajax Control Toolkit! Now we are ready to start using the Ajax Control Toolkit controls. Open the default.aspx page so we can modify the contents of the page. Erase everything contained in the Content control with the ID of BodyContent. After erasing the content, declare the following two controls: <asp:TextBox ID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> <ajaxToolkit:CalendarExtender TargetControlID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> The first control is a standard ASP.NET TextBox control and the second control is an Ajax Control Toolkit Calendar control. You should get intellisense as you type out the Ajax Control Toolkit Calendar control. If you don’t, then close and re-open the Default.aspx page. Now, let’s run our app. Hit the F5 button or select Debug, Start Debugging from the Visual Studio menu. You will get the error message “MsAjaxBundle is not a valid script name”. Don’t despair! We need to update the Master Page so it uses the ToolkitScriptManager instead of the default ScriptManager. Open the Site.Master file and find where the ScriptManager is declared. The ScriptManager should look like this: <asp:ScriptManager runat="server"> <Scripts> <%--Framework Scripts--%> <asp:ScriptReference Name="MsAjaxBundle" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery.ui.combined" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebForms.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebForms.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebUIValidation.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebUIValidation.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="MenuStandards.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/MenuStandards.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="GridView.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/GridView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="DetailsView.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/DetailsView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="TreeView.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/TreeView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebParts.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebParts.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="Focus.js" Assembly="System.Web" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/Focus.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebFormsBundle" /> <%--Site Scripts--%> </Scripts> </asp:ScriptManager> We need to make three changes to the ScriptManager: 1) We need to replace the asp:ScriptManager with the ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager 2) We need to remove the MsAjaxBundle bundle from the ScriptReferences 3) We need to remove the Assembly=”System.Web” attributes from the ScriptReferences After you make these three changes, the ToolkitScriptManager should looks like this: <ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager runat="server"> <Scripts> <%--Framework Scripts--%> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="jquery.ui.combined" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebForms.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebForms.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebUIValidation.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebUIValidation.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="MenuStandards.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/MenuStandards.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="GridView.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/GridView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="DetailsView.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/DetailsView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="TreeView.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/TreeView.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebParts.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/WebParts.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="Focus.js" Path="~/Scripts/WebForms/Focus.js" /> <asp:ScriptReference Name="WebFormsBundle" /> <%--Site Scripts--%> </Scripts> </ajaxToolkit:ToolkitScriptManager> After we make these changes, the app should run successfully. You’ll get a page which contains a text field. When you click inside the text field, a popup calendar is displayed. Ajax Control Toolkit and jQuery You might have noticed that the ScriptManager includes a reference to jQuery by default. We did not remove that reference when we converted the ScriptManager to a ToolkitScriptManager. You can use the Ajax Control Toolkit and jQuery side-by-side. Here’s how you can modify the Default.aspx page so that it contains two popup calendars. The first popup calendar is created with the Ajax Control Toolkit and the second popup calendar is created with jQuery: <asp:TextBox ID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> <ajaxToolkit:CalendarExtender TargetControlID="vacationDate" runat="server" /> <input id="birthDate" /> <script> $("#birthDate").datepicker(); </script> Before you can start using jQuery UI plugins, you need to complete one more step. You need to add the jQuery UI themes bundle to the HEAD of the Site.Master page like this: <head runat="server"> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title><%: Page.Title %> - My ASP.NET Application</title> <asp:PlaceHolder runat="server"> <%: Scripts.Render("~/bundles/modernizr") %> </asp:PlaceHolder> <webopt:BundleReference runat="server" Path="~/Content/css" /> <webopt:BundleReference runat="server" Path="~/Content/themes/base/css" /> <link href="~/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" /> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" /> <asp:ContentPlaceHolder runat="server" ID="HeadContent" /> </head> The markup above includes a reference to the jQuery UI themes bundle: <webopt:BundleReference runat="server" Path="~/Content/themes/base/css" /> Now that we have made these changes, we can use the Ajax Control Toolkit and jQuery at the same time. When you run your app, you get two popup calendars. When you click in the first text field, the Ajax Control Toolkit calendar appears. When you click in the second text field, the jQuery UI popup calendar appears: Bug Fixes in this Release We made several important bug fixes with this release of the Ajax Control Toolkit and integrated several Pull Requests contributed by the community. Our primary focus during this sprint was fixing issues with the CascadingDropDown control. We fixed the following issues associated with the CascadingDropDown: · 9490 – Don’t disable dropdowns in CascadingDropDown · 14223 – CascadingDropDown Reset or Setting SelectedValue from WebMethod · 12189 – CascadingDropDown not obeying disabled state of DropDownList · 22942 – CascadingDropDown infinite loop (with solution) · 8671 – CascadingDropdown options is null or undefined · 14407 – CascadingDropDown: populated client event happens too often · 17148 – CascadingDropDown – Add “UseHttpGet” property · 10221 – No NotNull check in CascadingDropDown · 12228 – Provide property for case-insensitive DefaultValue lookup in CascadingDropdown We also fixed the following two issues which are not directly related to the CascadingDropDown control: · 27108 – CalendarExtender: Bug when selecting December shifts to January. · 27041 – Input controls with HTML5 types do not post back in Firefox, Chrome, Safari Finally, we integrated several Pull Requests submitted by the community (Thank you community!): · Added French localized resources for the AjaxFileUpload · Resolved an issue which prevented the AjaxFileUpload control from working with pages that require query string variables. · Extended the AjaxFileUploadEventArgs class to include the current file index in the queue and the total number of files in the queue. · Fixed an issue with TabContainer and TabPanel which caused the OnActiveTabChanged event to fire too often. Summary I’m happy to see the Ajax Control Toolkit move forward into the brave new world of ASP.NET 4.5! In this latest release, we focused on ensuring that the Ajax Control Toolkit works smoothly with ASP.NET 4.5 applications. We also fixed the highest voted bugs associated with the CascadingDropDown control and integrated several Pull Request submitted by the community. Once again, I want to thank the Superexpert team for their hard work on this release!

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• ASP.NET MVC: Using jQuery context menu with tables

  - by DigiMortal

  I needed to add context menus to some tables of my intranet application. After trying some components I found one that does everything I need and has no overhead. In this posting I will show you how to use jQuery context menu plug-in and how to attach it to tables. I found context menu plug-in by Chris Domigan and it was very easy to integrate to my application (when comparing some other plug-ins that work only on demo pages and in simple scenarios). Thanks, Chris, for great work! Now let’s use this context menu plug-in with table. Before we go on let’s see what we are trying to achieve. The following screenshot fragment shows simple context menu that we want to attach to our table. And when we click some menu option then something should happen too. :) Installing context menu plug-in Download plug-in (if download link is broken then open demo page and I think you know how to get plug-in from there). Copy jquery.contextmenu.js to your scripts folder. Include it in your masterpage or in the page where you plan to use context menus. Make sure plug-in is included correctly (use Firebug or some other tool you like). Save the page. Defining context menu Now let’s define context menu. Here is fragment on context menu definition from my code. <div class="contextMenu" id="myMenu1">     <ul>     <li id="email"><img src="/img/e-mail.png" />E-mail</li>     <li id="homepage"><img src="/img/homepage.png" />Homepage</li>     </ul> </div> div with id myMenu1 is container of context menu. Unordered list inside container defines items in context menu – simple and elegant! Adding context menu to table I have table with persons. It is simple HTML. I omitted commands column from this and the next table to keep them simple and more easily readable. <table>   <tr>     <th>Name</th>     <th>Short</th>     <th>Address</th>     <th>Mobile</th>     <th>E-mail</th>   </tr>   <% foreach(var person in Model.Results) { %>   <tr>     <td><%=person.FullName %></td>     <td><%=person.ShortName %></td>     <td><%=person.FullAddress %></td>     <td><%=person.Mobile %></td>     <td><%=person.Email %></td>   </tr>   <% } %> </table> To get context menu linked to table rows first cells we need to specify class for cells and ID. We need ID because we have to know later which ID has the row on which user selected something from context menu. <table>   <tr>     <th>Name</th>     <th>Short</th>     <th>Address</th>     <th>Mobile</th>     <th>E-mail</th>   </tr>   <% foreach(var person in Model.Results) { %>   <tr>     <td class="showContext" id="<%= person.Id %>"><%=person.FullName %></td>     <td><%=person.ShortName %></td>     <td><%=person.FullAddress %></td>     <td><%=person.Mobile %></td>     <td><%=person.Email %></td>   </tr>   <% } %> </table> Now we have only one thing to do – we have to write some code that attaches context menu to table cells. Catching context menu events Now we will make everything work. Relax, it is only couple of lines of code, thank to jQuery. <script type="text/javascript">   $(document).ready(function () {     $('td.showContext').contextMenu('myMenu1', {         bindings: {         'email': function (t) {           document.location.href = '/contact/sendmail/' + t.id;         },         'homepage': function (t) {           document.location.href = '/contact/homepage/' + t.id;         }       }     });   }); </script> I think that first lines doesn’t need any comments. Take a look at bindings. We gave ID to table cells because it is carried also to bound events. We can use also more complex ID-s if we have more than one table with context menus on our form. Now we are done. Save all files, compile solution, run it and try out how context menu works. Conclusion We saw than using jQuery with context menu component allows us easily create powerful context menus for our user interfaces. Context menu was very easy to define. We were also able to attach context menu to table and use ID of current row entity also in events of context menu. To achieve this we needed only some minor modifications in view and couple of lines of JavaScript.

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• Hosting WCF service in Windows Service

  - by DigiMortal

  When building Windows services we often need a way to communicate with them. The natural way to communicate to service is to send signals to it. But this is very limited communication. Usually we need more powerful communication mechanisms with services. In this posting I will show you how to use service-hosted WCF web service to communicate with Windows service. Create Windows service Suppose you have Windows service created and service class is named as MyWindowsService. This is new service and all we have is default code that Visual Studio generates. Create WCF service Add reference to System.ServiceModel assembly to Windows service project and add new interface called IMyService. This interface defines our service contracts. [ServiceContract] public interface IMyService {     [OperationContract]     string SayHello(int value); } We keep this service simple so it is easy for you to follow the code. Now let’s add service implementation: [ServiceBehavior(InstanceContextMode=InstanceContextMode.Single)] public class MyService : IMyService {     public string SayHello(int value)     {         return string.Format("Hello, : {0}", value);     } } With ServiceBehavior attribute we say that we need only one instance of WCF service to serve all requests. Usually this is more than enough for us. Hosting WCF service in Windows Service Now it’s time to host our WCF service and make it available in Windows service. Here is the code in my Windows service: public partial class MyWindowsService : ServiceBase {     private ServiceHost _host;     private MyService _server;       public MyWindowsService()     {         InitializeComponent();     }       protected override void OnStart(string[] args)     {         _server = new MyService();         _host = new ServiceHost(_server);         _host.Open();     }       protected override void OnStop()     {         _host.Close();     } } Our Windows service now hosts our WCF service. WCF service will be available when Windows service is started and it is taken down when Windows service stops. Configuring WCF service To make WCF service usable we need to configure it. Add app.config file to your Windows service project and paste the following XML there: <system.serviceModel>   <serviceHostingEnvironment aspNetCompatibilityEnabled="true" />   <services>     <service name="MyWindowsService.MyService" behaviorConfiguration="def">       <host>         <baseAddresses>           <add baseAddress="http://localhost:8732/MyService/"/>         </baseAddresses>       </host>       <endpoint address="" binding="wsHttpBinding" contract="MyWindowsService.IMyService">       </endpoint>       <endpoint address="mex" binding="mexHttpBinding" contract="IMetadataExchange"/>     </service>   </services>   <behaviors>     <serviceBehaviors>       <behavior name="def">         <serviceMetadata httpGetEnabled="True"/>         <serviceDebug includeExceptionDetailInFaults="True"/>       </behavior>     </serviceBehaviors>   </behaviors> </system.serviceModel> Now you are ready to test your service. Install Windows service and start it. Open your browser and open the following address: http://localhost:8732/MyService/ You should see your WCF service page now. Conclusion WCF is not only web applications fun. You can use WCF also as self-hosted service. Windows services that lack good communication possibilities can be saved by using WCF self-hosted service as it is the best way to talk to service. We can also revert the context and say that Windows service is good host for our WCF service.

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• Uploading and Importing CSV file to SQL Server in ASP.NET WebForms

  - by Vincent Maverick Durano

  Few weeks ago I was working with a small internal project  that involves importing CSV file to Sql Server database and thought I'd share the simple implementation that I did on the project. In this post I will demonstrate how to upload and import CSV file to SQL Server database. As some may have already know, importing CSV file to SQL Server is easy and simple but difficulties arise when the CSV file contains, many columns with different data types. Basically, the provider cannot differentiate data types between the columns or the rows, blindly it will consider them as a data type based on first few rows and leave all the data which does not match the data type. To overcome this problem, I used schema.ini file to define the data type of the CSV file and allow the provider to read that and recognize the exact data types of each column. Now what is schema.ini? Taken from the documentation: The Schema.ini is a information file, used to define the data structure and format of each column that contains data in the CSV file. If schema.ini file exists in the directory, Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB provider automatically reads it and recognizes the data type information of each column in the CSV file. Thus, the provider intelligently avoids the misinterpretation of data types before inserting the data into the database. For more information see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms709353%28VS.85%29.aspx Points to remember before creating schema.ini:   1. The schema information file, must always named as 'schema.ini'.   2. The schema.ini file must be kept in the same directory where the CSV file exists.   3. The schema.ini file must be created before reading the CSV file.   4. The first line of the schema.ini, must the name of the CSV file, followed by the properties of the CSV file, and then the properties of the each column in the CSV file. Here's an example of how the schema looked like: [Employee.csv] ColNameHeader=False Format=CSVDelimited DateTimeFormat=dd-MMM-yyyy Col1=EmployeeID Long Col2=EmployeeFirstName Text Width 100 Col3=EmployeeLastName Text Width 50 Col4=EmployeeEmailAddress Text Width 50 To get started lets's go a head and create a simple blank database. Just for the purpose of this demo I created a database called TestDB. After creating the database then lets go a head and fire up Visual Studio and then create a new WebApplication project. Under the root application create a folder called UploadedCSVFiles and then place the schema.ini on that folder. The uploaded CSV files will be stored in this folder after the user imports the file. Now add a WebForm in the project and set up the HTML mark up and add one (1) FileUpload control one(1)Button and three (3) Label controls. After that we can now proceed with the codes for uploading and importing the CSV file to SQL Server database. Here are the full code blocks below: 1: using System; 2: using System.Data; 3: using System.Data.SqlClient; 4: using System.Data.OleDb; 5: using System.IO; 6: using System.Text; 7:   8: namespace WebApplication1 9: { 10: public partial class CSVToSQLImporting : System.Web.UI.Page 11: { 12: private string GetConnectionString() 13: { 14: return System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["DBConnectionString"].ConnectionString; 15: } 16: private void CreateDatabaseTable(DataTable dt, string tableName) 17: { 18:   19: string sqlQuery = string.Empty; 20: string sqlDBType = string.Empty; 21: string dataType = string.Empty; 22: int maxLength = 0; 23: StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 24:   25: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format("CREATE TABLE {0} (", tableName)); 26:   27: for (int i = 0; i < dt.Columns.Count; i++) 28: { 29: dataType = dt.Columns[i].DataType.ToString(); 30: if (dataType == "System.Int32") 31: { 32: sqlDBType = "INT"; 33: } 34: else if (dataType == "System.String") 35: { 36: sqlDBType = "NVARCHAR"; 37: maxLength = dt.Columns[i].MaxLength; 38: } 39:   40: if (maxLength > 0) 41: { 42: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" {0} {1} ({2}), ", dt.Columns[i].ColumnName, sqlDBType, maxLength)); 43: } 44: else 45: { 46: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" {0} {1}, ", dt.Columns[i].ColumnName, sqlDBType)); 47: } 48: } 49:   50: sqlQuery = sb.ToString(); 51: sqlQuery = sqlQuery.Trim().TrimEnd(','); 52: sqlQuery = sqlQuery + " )"; 53:   54: using (SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection(GetConnectionString())) 55: { 56: sqlConn.Open(); 57: SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, sqlConn); 58: sqlCmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); 59: sqlConn.Close(); 60: } 61:   62: } 63: private void LoadDataToDatabase(string tableName, string fileFullPath, string delimeter) 64: { 65: string sqlQuery = string.Empty; 66: StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); 67:   68: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format("BULK INSERT {0} ", tableName)); 69: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" FROM '{0}'", fileFullPath)); 70: sb.AppendFormat(string.Format(" WITH ( FIELDTERMINATOR = '{0}' , ROWTERMINATOR = '\n' )", delimeter)); 71:   72: sqlQuery = sb.ToString(); 73:   74: using (SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection(GetConnectionString())) 75: { 76: sqlConn.Open(); 77: SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sqlQuery, sqlConn); 78: sqlCmd.ExecuteNonQuery(); 79: sqlConn.Close(); 80: } 81: } 82: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) 83: { 84:   85: } 86: protected void BTNImport_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) 87: { 88: if (FileUpload1.HasFile) 89: { 90: FileInfo fileInfo = new FileInfo(FileUpload1.PostedFile.FileName); 91: if (fileInfo.Name.Contains(".csv")) 92: { 93:   94: string fileName = fileInfo.Name.Replace(".csv", "").ToString(); 95: string csvFilePath = Server.MapPath("UploadedCSVFiles") + "\\" + fileInfo.Name; 96:   97: //Save the CSV file in the Server inside 'MyCSVFolder' 98: FileUpload1.SaveAs(csvFilePath); 99:   100: //Fetch the location of CSV file 101: string filePath = Server.MapPath("UploadedCSVFiles") + "\\"; 102: string strSql = "SELECT * FROM [" + fileInfo.Name + "]"; 103: string strCSVConnString = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + filePath + ";" + "Extended Properties='text;HDR=YES;'"; 104:   105: // load the data from CSV to DataTable 106:   107: OleDbDataAdapter adapter = new OleDbDataAdapter(strSql, strCSVConnString); 108: DataTable dtCSV = new DataTable(); 109: DataTable dtSchema = new DataTable(); 110:   111: adapter.FillSchema(dtCSV, SchemaType.Mapped); 112: adapter.Fill(dtCSV); 113:   114: if (dtCSV.Rows.Count > 0) 115: { 116: CreateDatabaseTable(dtCSV, fileName); 117: Label2.Text = string.Format("The table ({0}) has been successfully created to the database.", fileName); 118:   119: string fileFullPath = filePath + fileInfo.Name; 120: LoadDataToDatabase(fileName, fileFullPath, ","); 121:   122: Label1.Text = string.Format("({0}) records has been loaded to the table {1}.", dtCSV.Rows.Count, fileName); 123: } 124: else 125: { 126: LBLError.Text = "File is empty."; 127: } 128: } 129: else 130: { 131: LBLError.Text = "Unable to recognize file."; 132: } 133:   134: } 135: } 136: } 137: } The code above consists of three (3) private methods which are the GetConnectionString(), CreateDatabaseTable() and LoadDataToDatabase(). The GetConnectionString() is a method that returns a string. This method basically gets the connection string that is configured in the web.config file. The CreateDatabaseTable() is method that accepts two (2) parameters which are the DataTable and the filename. As the method name already suggested, this method automatically create a Table to the database based on the source DataTable and the filename of the CSV file. The LoadDataToDatabase() is a method that accepts three (3) parameters which are the tableName, fileFullPath and delimeter value. This method is where the actual saving or importing of data from CSV to SQL server happend. The codes at BTNImport_Click event handles the uploading of CSV file to the specified location and at the same time this is where the CreateDatabaseTable() and LoadDataToDatabase() are being called. If you notice I also added some basic trappings and validations within that event. Now to test the importing utility then let's create a simple data in a CSV format. Just for the simplicity of this demo let's create a CSV file and name it as "Employee" and add some data on it. Here's an example below: 1,VMS,Durano,[email protected] 2,Jennifer,Cortes,[email protected] 3,Xhaiden,Durano,[email protected] 4,Angel,Santos,[email protected] 5,Kier,Binks,[email protected] 6,Erika,Bird,[email protected] 7,Vianne,Durano,[email protected] 8,Lilibeth,Tree,[email protected] 9,Bon,Bolger,[email protected] 10,Brian,Jones,[email protected] Now save the newly created CSV file in some location in your hard drive. Okay let's run the application and browse the CSV file that we have just created. Take a look at the sample screen shots below: After browsing the CSV file. After clicking the Import Button Now if we look at the database that we have created earlier you'll notice that the Employee table is created with the imported data on it. See below screen shot.   That's it! I hope someone find this post useful! Technorati Tags: ASP.NET,CSV,SQL,C#,ADO.NET

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• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 10, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, June 10, 2013Popular ReleasesNexusCamera: NexusCamera: Nexus Camera is a control for Windows Phone 7 & 8, which can be used as a menu on the Camera. The idea in making this control when we use a camera nexus. Thanks for Nexus. Need Windows Phone Toolkit https://phone.codeplex.com/ View Sample Camera http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/nexus4-camera.jpgVR Player: VR Player 0.3 ALPHA: New plugin system with individual folders TrackIR support Maya and 3ds max formats support Dual screen support Mono layouts (left and right) Cylinder height parameter Barel effect factor parameter Razer hydra filter parameter VRPN bug fixes UI improvements Performances improvements Stabilization and logging with Log4Net New default values base on users feedback CTRL key to open menuZXMAK2: Version 2.7.5.4: - add hayes modem device (thanks to Eltaron) - add host joystick selection - fix joystick bits (swapped in previous version)SimCityPak: SimCityPak 0.1.0.8: SimCityPak 0.1.0.8 New features: Import BMP color palettes for vehicles Import RASTER file (uncompressed 8.8.8.8 DDS files) View different channels of RASTER files or preview of all layers combined Find text in javascripts TGA viewer Ground textures added to lot editor Many additional identified instances and propertiesWsus Package Publisher: Release v1.2.1306.09: Add more verifications on certificate validation. WPP will not let user to try publishing an update until the certificate is valid. Add certificate expiration date on the 'About' form. Filter Approbation to avoid a user to try to approve an update for uninstallation when the update do not support uninstallation. Add the server and console version on the 'About' form. WPP will not let user to publish an update until the server and console are not at the same level. WPP do not let user ...AJAX Control Toolkit: June 2013 Release: AJAX Control Toolkit Release Notes - June 2013 Release Version 7.0607June 2013 release of the AJAX Control Toolkit. AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4.5 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 4 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 4 and sample site (Recommended). AJAX Control Toolkit .NET 3.5 – AJAX Control Toolkit for .NET 3.5 and sample site (Recommended). Notes: - Instructions for using the AJAX Control Toolkit with ASP.NET 4.5 can be found at...Rawr: Rawr 5.2.1: This is the Downloadable WPF version of Rawr!For web-based version see http://elitistjerks.com/rawr.php You can find the version notes at: http://rawr.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=VersionNotes Rawr Addon (NOT UPDATED YET FOR MOP)We now have a Rawr Official Addon for in-game exporting and importing of character data hosted on Curse. The Addon does not perform calculations like Rawr, it simply shows your exported Rawr data in wow tooltips and lets you export your character to Rawr (including ba...VG-Ripper & PG-Ripper: PG-Ripper 1.4.13: changes NEW: Added Support for "ImageJumbo.com" links FIXED: Ripping of Threads with multiple pagesXomega Framework: Xomega.Framework 1.4: Adding support for Visual Studio 2012 and .Net framework 4.5. Minor bug fixes and enhancements.sb0t v.5: sb0t 5.14: Stability fix in script engine. Avatar.exists property fixed in scripting. cb0t custom font protocol re-added and updated to support new Ares.ASP.NET MVC Forum: MVCForum v1.3.5: This is a bug release version, with a couple of small usability features and UI changes. All the small amount of bugs reported in v1.3 have been fixed, no upgrade needed just overwrite the files and everything should just work.Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 6: New feature - Added serialized/deserialized JSON to verbose tracing New feature - Added support for using type name handling with ISerializable content Fix - Fixed not using default serializer settings with primitive values and JToken.ToObject Fix - Fixed error writing BigIntegers with JsonWriter.WriteToken Fix - Fixed serializing and deserializing flag enums with EnumMember attribute Fix - Fixed error deserializing interfaces with a valid type converter Fix - Fixed error deser...Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Template: DotNetNuke 7 Project Templates V2.3 for VS2012: V2.3 - Release Date 6/5/2013 Items addressed in this 2.3 release Fixed bad namespace for BusinessController in one of the C# templates. Updated documentation in all templates. Setting up your DotNetNuke Module Development Environment Installing Christoc's DotNetNuke Module Development Templates Customizing the latest DotNetNuke Module Development Project TemplatesPulse: Pulse 0.6.7.0: A number of small bug fixes to stabilize the previous Beta. Sorry about the never ending "New Version" bug!QlikView Extension - Animated Scatter Chart: Animated Scatter Chart - v1.0: Version 1.0 including Source Code qar File Example QlikView application Tested With: Browser Firefox 20 (x64) Google Chrome 27 (x64) Internet Explorer 9 QlikView QlikView Desktop 11 - SR2 (x64) QlikView Desktop 11.2 - SR1 (x64) QlikView Ajax Client 11.2 - SR2 (based on x64)BarbaTunnel: BarbaTunnel 7.2: Warning: HTTP Tunnel is not compatible with version 6.x and prior, HTTP packet format has been changed. Check Version History for more information about this release.SuperWebSocket, a .NET WebSocket Server: SuperWebSocket 0.8: This release includes these changes below: Upgrade SuperSocket to 1.5.3 which is much more stable Added handshake request validating api (WebSocketServer.ValidateHandshake(TWebSocketSession session, string origin)) Fixed a bug that the m_Filters in the SubCommandBase can be null if the command's method LoadSubCommandFilters(IEnumerable<SubCommandFilterAttribute> globalFilters) is not invoked Fixed the compatibility issue on Origin getting in the different version protocols Marked ISub...BlackJumboDog: Ver5.9.0: 2013.06.04 Ver5.9.0 (1) ?????????????????????????????????($Remote.ini Tmp.ini) (2) ThreadBaseTest?? (3) ????POP3??????SMTP???????????????? (4) Web???????、?????????URL??????????????? (5) Ftp???????、LIST?????????????? (6) ?????????????????????Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.569b: New* Movies - Autoscrape/Batch Rescrape extra fanart and or extra thumbs. * Movies - Alternative editor can add manually actors. * TV - Batch Rescraper, AutoScrape extrafanart, if option enabled. Fixed* Movies - Slow performance switching to movie tab by adding option 'Disable "Not Matching Rename Pattern"' to Movie Preferences - General. * Movies - Fixed only actors with images were scraped and added to nfo * Movies - Fixed filter reset if selected tab was above Home Movies. * Updated Medi...Nearforums - ASP.NET MVC forum engine: Nearforums v9.0: Version 9.0 of Nearforums with great new features for users and developers: SQL Azure support Admin UI for Forum Categories Avoid html validation for certain roles Improve profile picture moderation and support Warn, suspend, and ban users Web administration of site settings Extensions support Visit the Roadmap for more details. Webdeploy package sha1 checksum: 9.0.0.0: e687ee0438cd2b1df1d3e95ecb9d66e7c538293b New ProjectsASP.NET MVC 4 and RequireJS: ASP.NET MVC 4 application with Areas and RequireJSBaseX - Base converter and calculator: Dealing with numbers of any base in .NET.C# Exercises: C# ExercisesClassfinder: ClassfinderCreative OS ALPHA: This is a OS!!!!CSS Exercises: CSS ExercisesCustom Workflow Action: Project showing how to create and use Custom Workflow Action for SharePoint Designer 2013.Devshed Tools: Provides easy to use and compile-time-support solution for various type of projects on the .NET framework. Currently Devshed.Web is in development.Envar Editor: Edit environment variables easily on windowsExcel To Sql: A simplified tool for importing Excel data into SQL.HTML Exercises: HTML ExercisesKnockout.js with ASP.NET MVC: This project implements a system which maps .NET ViewModels to javascript ViewModels for use with knockout.js, using Razor markup syntax.LogoBids: LOGO??????,ORM??OpenAccess ORMManagistics: Management Logistics Application (including: Warehouse, Sale, Purchase, ...)Matrix Switch Preset Utility: A small utility for managing the inputs and outputs from a matrix switch via RS-232. Developed in WPF (VB9) and running on the .Net3.5SP1 framework.MvcSystemsCommander: An ASP.NET C# MVC4 webapp to help systems administrators consolidate common systems administration tasksNewspaperAgent: My small projectOutlook Recovery Software - Efficiently Repair Damaged PST File: This project tells you the easiest way to recover PST file of Outlook. Complete information has been given here to help users.Pattern: Testprocedure: a new procedural programming framework based on .net, by using lambda expression, it can handle async io friendly and provide a full lock-free solutionSharePoint 2013 custom field samples: SharePoint 2013 custom field samples is a research project aims to provide samples for developing custom fields in SharePoint 2013.SharePoint 2013 List Forms: This small framework allows you to manage custom list forms using rendering templates and controls stored in a SharePoint library.The Coconut Cranium Decision Engine: The Coconut Cranium Decision Engine is a boolean decision engine using the most mind-bendingly worse way of working.TxtToSeq: Command line utility to convert Commodore SEQ files to TXT files and vice-versa.ultgw: ult gw

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• SQL Spatial: Getting “nearest” calculations working properly

  - by Rob Farley

  If you’ve ever done spatial work with SQL Server, I hope you’ve come across the ‘nearest’ problem. You have five thousand stores around the world, and you want to identify the one that’s closest to a particular place. Maybe you want the store closest to the LobsterPot office in Adelaide, at -34.925806, 138.605073. Or our new US office, at 42.524929, -87.858244. Or maybe both! You know how to do this. You don’t want to use an aggregate MIN or MAX, because you want the whole row, telling you which store it is. You want to use TOP, and if you want to find the closest store for multiple locations, you use APPLY. Let’s do this (but I’m going to use addresses in AdventureWorks2012, as I don’t have a list of stores). Oh, and before I do, let’s make sure we have a spatial index in place. I’m going to use the default options. CREATE SPATIAL INDEX spin_Address ON Person.Address(SpatialLocation); And my actual query: WITH MyLocations AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('LobsterPot Adelaide', geography::Point(-34.925806, 138.605073, 4326)),                        ('LobsterPot USA', geography::Point(42.524929, -87.858244, 4326))                ) t (Name, Geo)) SELECT l.Name, a.AddressLine1, a.City, s.Name AS [State], c.Name AS Country FROM MyLocations AS l CROSS APPLY (     SELECT TOP (1) *     FROM Person.Address AS ad     ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation)     ) AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS s     ON s.StateProvinceID = a.StateProvinceID JOIN Person.CountryRegion AS c     ON c.CountryRegionCode = s.CountryRegionCode ; Great! This is definitely working. I know both those City locations, even if the AddressLine1s don’t quite ring a bell. I’m sure I’ll be able to find them next time I’m in the area. But of course what I’m concerned about from a querying perspective is what’s happened behind the scenes – the execution plan. This isn’t pretty. It’s not using my index. It’s sucking every row out of the Address table TWICE (which sucks), and then it’s sorting them by the distance to find the smallest one. It’s not pretty, and it takes a while. Mind you, I do like the fact that it saw an indexed view it could use for the State and Country details – that’s pretty neat. But yeah – users of my nifty website aren’t going to like how long that query takes. The frustrating thing is that I know that I can use the index to find locations that are within a particular distance of my locations quite easily, and Microsoft recommends this for solving the ‘nearest’ problem, as described at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-au/library/ff929109.aspx. Now, in the first example on this page, it says that the query there will use the spatial index. But when I run it on my machine, it does nothing of the sort. I’m not particularly impressed. But what we see here is that parallelism has kicked in. In my scenario, it’s split the data up into 4 threads, but it’s still slow, and not using my index. It’s disappointing. But I can persuade it with hints! If I tell it to FORCESEEK, or use my index, or even turn off the parallelism with MAXDOP 1, then I get the index being used, and it’s a thing of beauty! Part of the plan is here: It’s massive, and it’s ugly, and it uses a TVF… but it’s quick. The way it works is to hook into the GeodeticTessellation function, which is essentially finds where the point is, and works out through the spatial index cells that surround it. This then provides a framework to be able to see into the spatial index for the items we want. You can read more about it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895265.aspx#tessellation – including a bunch of pretty diagrams. One of those times when we have a much more complex-looking plan, but just because of the good that’s going on. This tessellation stuff was introduced in SQL Server 2012. But my query isn’t using it. When I try to use the FORCESEEK hint on the Person.Address table, I get the friendly error: Msg 8622, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Query processor could not produce a query plan because of the hints defined in this query. Resubmit the query without specifying any hints and without using SET FORCEPLAN. And I’m almost tempted to just give up and move back to the old method of checking increasingly large circles around my location. After all, I can even leverage multiple OUTER APPLY clauses just like I did in my recent Lookup post. WITH MyLocations AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('LobsterPot Adelaide', geography::Point(-34.925806, 138.605073, 4326)),                        ('LobsterPot USA', geography::Point(42.524929, -87.858244, 4326))                ) t (Name, Geo)) SELECT     l.Name,     COALESCE(a1.AddressLine1,a2.AddressLine1,a3.AddressLine1),     COALESCE(a1.City,a2.City,a3.City),     s.Name AS [State],     c.Name AS Country FROM MyLocations AS l OUTER APPLY (     SELECT TOP (1) *     FROM Person.Address AS ad     WHERE l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) < 1000     ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation)     ) AS a1 OUTER APPLY (     SELECT TOP (1) *     FROM Person.Address AS ad     WHERE l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) < 5000     AND a1.AddressID IS NULL     ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation)     ) AS a2 OUTER APPLY (     SELECT TOP (1) *     FROM Person.Address AS ad     WHERE l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation) < 20000     AND a2.AddressID IS NULL     ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation)     ) AS a3 JOIN Person.StateProvince AS s     ON s.StateProvinceID = COALESCE(a1.StateProvinceID,a2.StateProvinceID,a3.StateProvinceID) JOIN Person.CountryRegion AS c     ON c.CountryRegionCode = s.CountryRegionCode ; But this isn’t friendly-looking at all, and I’d use the method recommended by Isaac Kunen, who uses a table of numbers for the expanding circles. It feels old-school though, when I’m dealing with SQL 2012 (and later) versions. So why isn’t my query doing what it’s supposed to? Remember the query... WITH MyLocations AS (SELECT * FROM (VALUES ('LobsterPot Adelaide', geography::Point(-34.925806, 138.605073, 4326)),                        ('LobsterPot USA', geography::Point(42.524929, -87.858244, 4326))                ) t (Name, Geo)) SELECT l.Name, a.AddressLine1, a.City, s.Name AS [State], c.Name AS Country FROM MyLocations AS l CROSS APPLY (     SELECT TOP (1) *     FROM Person.Address AS ad     ORDER BY l.Geo.STDistance(ad.SpatialLocation)     ) AS a JOIN Person.StateProvince AS s     ON s.StateProvinceID = a.StateProvinceID JOIN Person.CountryRegion AS c     ON c.CountryRegionCode = s.CountryRegionCode ; Well, I just wasn’t reading http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff929109.aspx properly. The following requirements must be met for a Nearest Neighbor query to use a spatial index: A spatial index must be present on one of the spatial columns and the STDistance() method must use that column in the WHERE and ORDER BY clauses. The TOP clause cannot contain a PERCENT statement. The WHERE clause must contain a STDistance() method. If there are multiple predicates in the WHERE clause then the predicate containing STDistance() method must be connected by an AND conjunction to the other predicates. The STDistance() method cannot be in an optional part of the WHERE clause. The first expression in the ORDER BY clause must use the STDistance() method. Sort order for the first STDistance() expression in the ORDER BY clause must be ASC. All the rows for which STDistance returns NULL must be filtered out. Let’s start from the top. 1. Needs a spatial index on one of the columns that’s in the STDistance call. Yup, got the index. 2. No ‘PERCENT’. Yeah, I don’t have that. 3. The WHERE clause needs to use STDistance(). Ok, but I’m not filtering, so that should be fine. 4. Yeah, I don’t have multiple predicates. 5. The first expression in the ORDER BY is my distance, that’s fine. 6. Sort order is ASC, because otherwise we’d be starting with the ones that are furthest away, and that’s tricky. 7. All the rows for which STDistance returns NULL must be filtered out. But I don’t have any NULL values, so that shouldn’t affect me either. ...but something’s wrong. I do actually need to satisfy #3. And I do need to make sure #7 is being handled properly, because there are some situations (eg, differing SRIDs) where STDistance can return NULL. It says so at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb933808.aspx – “STDistance() always returns null if the spatial reference IDs (SRIDs) of the geography instances do not match.” So if I simply make sure that I’m filtering out the rows that return NULL… …then it’s blindingly fast, I get the right results, and I’ve got the complex-but-brilliant plan that I wanted. It just wasn’t overly intuitive, despite being documented. @rob_farley

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• Ingredient Substitutes while Baking

  - by Rekha

  In our normal cooking, we substitute the vegetables for the gravies we prepare. When we start baking, we look for a good recipe. At least one or two ingredient will be missing. We do not know where to substitute what to bring same output. So we finally drop the plan of baking. Again after a month, we get the interest in baking. Again one or two lack of ingredient and that’s it. We keep on doing this for months. When I was going through the cooking blogs, I came across a site with the Ingredient Substitutes for Baking: (*) is to indicate that this substitution is ideal from personal experience. Flour Substitutes ( For 1 cup of Flour) All Purpose Flour 1/2 cup white cake flour plus 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 1 cup self-rising flour (omit using salt and baking powder if the recipe calls for it since self raising flour has it already) 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons cake flour 1/2 cup (75 grams) whole wheat flour 7/8 cup (130 grams) rice flour (starch) (do not replace all of the flour with the rice flour) 7/8 cup whole wheat Bread Flour 1 cup all purpose flour 1 cup all purpose flour plus 1 teaspoon wheat gluten (*) Cake Flour Place 2 tbsp cornstarch in 1 cup and fill the rest up with All Purpose flour (*) 1 cup all purpose flour minus 2 tablespoons Pastry flour Place 2 tbsp cornstarch in 1 cup and fill the rest up with All Purpose flour Equal parts of All purpose flour plus cake flour (*) Self-rising Flour 1½ teaspoons of baking powder plus ½ teaspoon of salt plus 1 cup of all-purpose flour. Cornstarch (1 tbsp) 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon arrowroot 4 teaspoons quick-cooking tapioca 1 tablespoon potato starch or rice starch or flour Tapioca (1 tbsp) 1 – 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour Cornmeal (stone ground) polenta OR corn flour (gives baked goods a lighter texture) if using cornmeal for breading,crush corn chips in a blender until they have the consistency of cornmeal. maize meal Corn grits Sweeteners ( for Every 1 cup ) * * (HV) denotes Healthy Version for low fat or fat free substitution in Baking Light Brown Sugar 2 tablespoons molasses plus 1 cup of white sugar Dark Brown Sugar 3 tablespoons molasses plus 1 cup of white sugar Confectioner’s/Powdered Sugar Process 1 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch Corn Syrup 1 cup sugar plus 1/4 cup water 1 cup Golden Syrup 1 cup honey (may be little sweeter) 1 cup molasses Golden Syrup Combine two parts light corn syrup plus one part molasses 1/2 cup honey plus 1/2 cup corn syrup 1 cup maple syrup 1 cup corn syrup Honey 1- 1/4 cups sugar plus 1/4 cup water 3/4 cup maple syrup plus 1/2 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup corn syrup plus 1/2 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup light molasses plus 1/2 cup granulated white sugar 1 1/4 cups granulated white or brown sugar plus 1/4 cup additional liquid in recipe plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar Maple Syrup 1 cup honey,thinned with water or fruit juice like apple 3/4 cup corn syrup plus 1/4 cup butter 1 cup Brown Rice Syrup 1 cup Brown sugar (in case of cereals) 1 cup light molasses (on pancakes, cereals etc) 1 cup granulated sugar for every 3/4 cup of maple syrup and increase liquid in the recipe by 3 tbsp for every cup of sugar.If baking soda is used, decrease the amount by 1/4 teaspoon per cup of sugar substituted, since sugar is less acidic than maple syrup Molasses 1 cup honey 1 cup dark corn syrup 1 cup maple syrup 3/4 cup brown sugar warmed and dissolved in 1/4 cup of liquid ( use this if taste of molasses is important in the baked good) Cocoa Powder (Natural, Unsweetened) 3 tablespoons (20 grams) Dutch-processed cocoa plus 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar, lemon juice or white vinegar 1 ounce (30 grams) unsweetened chocolate (reduce fat in recipe by 1 tablespoon) 3 tablespoons (20 grams) carob powder Semisweet baking chocolate (1 oz) 1 oz unsweetened baking chocolate plus 1 Tbsp sugar Unsweetened baking chocolate (1 oz ) 3 Tbsp baking cocoa plus 1 Tbsp vegetable oil or melted shortening or margarine Semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup) 6 oz semisweet baking chocolate, chopped (Alternatively) For 1 cup of Semi sweet chocolate chips you can use : 6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, 7 tablespoons sugar ,1/4 cup fat (butter or oil) Leaveners and Diary * * (HV) denotes Healthy Version for low fat or fat free substitution in Baking Compressed Yeast (1 cake) 1 envelope or 2 teaspoons active dry yeast 1 packet (1/4 ounce) Active Dry yeast 1 cake fresh compressed yeast 1 tablespoon fast-rising active yeast Baking Powder (1 tsp) 1/3 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar 1/2 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 1/3 cup molasses. When using the substitutions that include liquid, reduce other liquid in recipe accordingly Baking Soda(1 tsp) 3 tsp Baking Powder ( and reduce the acidic ingredients in the recipe. Ex Instead of buttermilk add milk) 1 tsp potassium bicarbonate Ideal substitution – 2 tsp Baking powder and omit salt in recipe Cream of tartar (1 tsp) 1 teaspoon white vinegar 1 tsp lemon juice Notes from What’s Cooking America – If cream of tartar is used along with baking soda in a cake or cookie recipe, omit both and use baking powder instead. If it calls for baking soda and cream of tarter, just use baking powder.Normally, when cream of tartar is used in a cookie, it is used together with baking soda. The two of them combined work like double-acting baking powder. When substituting for cream of tartar, you must also substitute for the baking soda. If your recipe calls for baking soda and cream of tarter, just use baking powder. One teaspoon baking powder is equivalent to 1/4 teaspoon baking soda plus 5/8 teaspoon cream of tartar. If there is additional baking soda that does not fit into the equation, simply add it to the batter. Buttermilk (1 cup) 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar (white or cider) plus enough milk to make 1 cup (let stand 5-10 minutes) 1 cup plain or low fat yogurt 1 cup sour cream 1 cup water plus 1/4 cup buttermilk powder 1 cup milk plus 1 1/2 – 1 3/4 teaspoons cream of tartar Plain Yogurt (1 cup) 1 cup sour cream 1 cup buttermilk 1 cup crème fraiche 1 cup heavy whipping cream (35% butterfat) plus 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice Whole Milk (1 cup) 1 cup fat free milk plus 1 tbsp unsaturated Oil like canola (HV) 1 cup low fat milk (HV) Heavy Cream (1 cup) 3/4 cup milk plus 1/3 cup melted butter.(whipping wont work) Sour Cream (1 cup) (pls refer also Substitutes for Fats in Baking below) 7/8 cup buttermilk or sour milk plus 3 tablespoons butter. 1 cup thickened yogurt plus 1 teaspoon baking soda. 3/4 cup sour milk plus 1/3 cup butter. 3/4 cup buttermilk plus 1/3 cup butter. Cooked sauces: 1 cup yogurt plus 1 tablespoon flour plus 2 teaspoons water. Cooked sauces: 1 cup evaporated milk plus 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice. Let stand 5 minutes to thicken. Dips: 1 cup yogurt (drain through a cheesecloth-lined sieve for 30 minutes in the refrigerator for a thicker texture). Dips: 1 cup cottage cheese plus 1/4 cup yogurt or buttermilk, briefly whirled in a blender. Dips: 6 ounces cream cheese plus 3 tablespoons milk,briefly whirled in a blender. Lower fat: 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice plus 2 tablespoons skim milk, whipped until smooth in a blender. Lower fat: 1 can chilled evaporated milk whipped with 1 teaspoon lemon juice. 1 cup plain yogurt plus 1 tablespoon cornstarch 1 cup plain nonfat yogurt Substitutes for Fats in Baking * * (HV) denoted Healthy Version for low fat or fat free substitution in Baking Butter (1 cup) 1 cup trans-free vegetable shortening 3/4 cups of vegetable oil (example. Canola oil) Fruit purees (example- applesauce, pureed prunes, baby-food fruits). Add it along with some vegetable oil and reduce any other sweeteners needed in the recipe since fruit purees are already sweet. 1 cup polyunsaturated margarine (HV) 3/4 cup polyunsaturated oil like safflower oil (HV) 1 cup mild olive oil (not extra virgin)(HV) Note: Butter creates the flakiness and the richness which an oil/purees cant provide. If you don’t want to compromise that much to taste, replace half the butter with the substitutions. Shortening(1 cup) 1 cup polyunsaturated margarine like Earth Balance or Smart Balance(HV) 1 cup + 2tbsp Butter ( better tasting than shortening but more expensive and has cholesterol and a higher level of saturated fat; makes cookies less crunchy, bread crusts more crispy) 1 cup + 2 tbsp Margarine (better tasting than shortening but more expensive; makes cookies less crunchy, bread crusts tougher) 1 Cup – 2tbsp Lard (Has cholesterol and a higher level of saturated fat) Oil equal amount of apple sauce stiffly beaten egg whites into batter equal parts mashed banana equal parts yogurt prune puree grated raw zucchini or seeds removed if cooked. Works well in quick breads/muffins/coffee cakes and does not alter taste pumpkin puree (if the recipe can handle the taste change) Low fat cottage cheese (use only half of the required fat in the recipe). Can give rubbery texture to the end result Silken Tofu – (use only half of the required fat in the recipe). Can give rubbery texture to the end result Equal parts of fruit juice Note: Fruit purees can alter the taste of the final product is used in large quantities. Cream Cheese (1 cup) 4 tbsps. margarine plus 1 cup low-fat cottage cheese – blended. Add few teaspoons of fat-free milk if needed (HV) Heavy Cream (1 cup) 1 cup evaporated skim milk (or full fat milk) 1/2 cup low fat Yogurt plus 1/2 low fat Cottage Cheese (HV) 1/2 cup Yogurt plus 1/2 Cottage Cheese Sour Cream (1 cup) 1 cup plain yogurt (HV) 3/4 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt plus 1/3 cup melted butter 1 cup crème fraiche 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar plus enough whole milk to fill 1 cup (let stand 5-10 minutes) 1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese plus 1/2 cup low-fat or nonfat yogurt (HV) 1 cup fat-free sour cream (HV) Note: How to Make Maple Syrup Substitute at home For 1 Cup Maple Syrup 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed 1 cup boiling water 1 teaspoon butter 1 teaspoon maple extract or vanilla extract Method In a heavy saucepan, place the granulated sugar and keep stirring until it melts and turns slightly brown. Alternatively in another pan, place brown sugar and water and bring to a boil without stirring. Now mix both the sugars and simmer in low heat until they come together as one thick syrup. Remove from heat, add butter and the extract. Use this in place of maple syrup. Store it in a fridge in an air tight container. Even though this was posted in their site long back, I found it helpful. So posting it for you. via chefinyou . cc image credit: flickr/zetrules

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• In Which We Demystify A Few Docupresentment Settings And Learn the Ethos of the Author

  - by Andy Little

  It's no secret that Docupresentment (part of the Oracle Documaker suite) is powerful tool for integrating on-demand and interactive applications for publishing with the Oracle Documaker framework.  It's also no secret there are are many details with respect to the configuration of Docupresentment that can elude even the most erudite of of techies.  To be sure, Docupresentment will work for you right out of the box, and in most cases will suit your needs without toying with a configuration file.  But, where's the adventure in that?   With this inaugural post to That's The Way, I'm going to introduce myself, and what my aim is with this blog.  If you didn't figure it out already by checking out my profile, my name is Andy and I've been with Oracle (nee Skywire Software nee Docucorp nee Formmaker) since the formative years of 1998.  Strangely, it doesn't seem that long ago, but it's certainly a lifetime in the age of technology.  I recall running a BBS from my parent's basement on a 1200 baud modem, and the trepidation and sweaty-palmed excitement of upgrading to the power and speed of 2400 baud!  Fine, I'll admit that perhaps I'm inflating the experience a bit, but I was kid!  This is the stuff of War Games and King's Quest I and the demise of TI-99 4/A.  Exciting times.  So fast-forward a bit and I'm 12 years into a career in the world of document automation and publishing working for the best (IMHO) software company on the planet.  With That's The Way I hope to shed a little light and peek under the covers of some of the more interesting aspects of implementations involving the tech space within the Oracle Insurance Global Business Unit (IGBU), which includes Oracle Documaker, Rating & Underwriting, and Policy Administration to name a few.  I may delve off course a bit, and you'll likely get a dose of humor (at least in my mind) but I hope you'll glean at least a tidbit of usefulness with each post.  Feel free to comment as I'm a fairly conversant guy and happy to talk -- it's stopping the talking that's the hard part... So, back to our regularly-scheduled post, already in progress.  By this time you've visited Oracle's E-Delivery site and acquired your properly-licensed version of Oracle Documaker.  Wait -- you didn't find it?  Understandable -- navigating the voluminous download library within Oracle can be a daunting task.  It's pretty simple once you’ve done it a few times.  Login to the e-delivery site, and accept the license terms and restrictions.  Then, you’ll be able to select the Oracle Insurance Applications product pack and your appropriate platform. Click Go and you’ll see a list of applicable products, and you’ll click on Oracle Documaker Media Pack (as I went to press with this article the version is 11.4): Finally, click the Download button next to Docupresentment (again, version at press time is 2.2 p5). This should give you a ZIP file that contains the installation packages for the Docupresentment Server and Client, cryptically named IDSServer22P05W32.exe and IDSClient22P05W32.exe. At this time, I’d like to take a little detour and explain that the world of Oracle, like most technical companies, is rife with acronyms.  One of the reasons Skywire Software was a appealing to Oracle was our use of many acronyms, including the occasional use of multiple acronyms with the same meaning.  I apologize in advance and will try to point these out along the way.  Here’s your first sticky note to go along with that: IDS = Internet Document Server = Docupresentment Once you’ve completed the installation, you’ll have a shiny new Docupresentment server and client, and if you installed the default location it will be living in c:\docserv. Unix users, I’m one of you!  You’ll find it by default in  ~/docupresentment/docserv.  Forging onward with the meat of this post is learning about some special configuration options.  By now you’ve read the documentation included with the download (specifically ids_book.pdf) which goes into some detail of the rubric of the configuration file and in fact there’s even a handy utility that provides an interface to the configuration file (see Running IDSConfig in the documentation).  But who wants to deal with a configuration utility when we have the tools and technology to edit the file <gasp> by hand! I shall now proceed with the standard Information Technology Under the Hood Disclaimer: Please remember to back up any files before you make changes.  I am not responsible for any havoc you may wreak! Go to your installation directory, and locate your docserv.xml file.  Open it in your favorite XML editor.  I happen to be fond of Notepad++ with the XML Tools plugin.  Almost immediately you will behold the splendor of the configuration file.  Just take a moment and let that sink in.  Ok – moving on.  If you reviewed the documentation you know that inside the root <configuration> node there are multiple <section> nodes, each containing a specific group of settings.  Let’s take a look at <section name=”DocumentServer”>: There are a few entries I’d like to discuss.  First, <entry name=”StartCommand”>. This should be pretty self-explanatory; it’s the name of the executable that’s run when you fire up Docupresentment.  Immediately following that is <entry name=”StartArguments”> and as you might imagine these are the arguments passed to the executable.  A few things to point out: The –Dids.configuration=docserv.xml parameter specifies the name of your configuration file. The –Dlogging.configuration=logconf.xml parameter specifies the name of your logging configuration file (this uses log4j so bone up on that before you delve here). The -Djava.endorsed.dirs=lib/endorsed parameter specifies the path where 3rd party Java libraries can be located for use with Docupresentment.  More on that in another post. The <entry name=”Instances”> allows you to specify the number of instances of Docupresentment that will be started.  By default this is two, and generally two instances per CPU is adequate, however you will always need to perform load testing to determine the sweet spot based on your hardware and types of transactions.  You may have many, many more instances than 2. Time for a sidebar on instances.  An instance is nothing more than a separate process of Docupresentment.  The Docupresentment service that you fire up with docserver.bat or docserver.sh actually starts a watchdog process, which is then responsible for starting up the actual Docupresentment processes.  Each of these act independently from one another, so if one crashes, it does not affect any others.  In the case of a crashed process, the watchdog will start up another instance so the number of configured instances are always running.  Bottom line: instance = Docupresentment process. And now, finally, to the settings which gave me pause on an not-too-long-ago implementation!  Docupresentment includes a feature that watches configuration files (such as docserv.xml and logconf.xml) and will automatically restart its instances to load the changes.  You can configure the time that Docupresentment waits to check these files using the setting <entry name=”FileWatchTimeMillis”>.  By default the number is 12000ms, or 12 seconds.  You can save yourself a few CPU cycles by extending this time, or by disabling  the check altogether by setting the value to 0.  This may or may not be appropriate for your environment; if you have 100% uptime requirements then you probably don’t want to bring down an entire set of processes just to accept a new configuration value, so it’s best to leave this somewhere between 12 seconds to a few minutes.  Another point to keep in mind: if you are using Documaker real-time processing under Docupresentment the Master Resource Library (MRL) files and INI options are cached, and if you need to affect a change, you’ll have to “restart” Docupresentment.  Touching the docserv.xml file is an easy way to do this (other methods including using the RSS request, but that’s another post). The next item up: <entry name=”FilePurgeTimeSeconds”>.  You may already know that the Docupresentment system can generate many temporary files based on certain request types that are processed through the system.  What you may not know is how those files are cleaned up.  There are many rules in Docupresentment that cause the creation of temporary files.  When these files are created, Docupresentment writes an entry into a properties file called the file cache.  This file contains the name, creation date, and expiration time of each temporary file created by each instance of Docupresentment.  Periodically Docupresentment will check the file cache to determine if there are files that are past the expiration time, not unlike that block of cheese festering away in the back of my refrigerator.  However, unlike my ‘fridge cleaning tendencies, Docupresentment is quick to remove files that are past their expiration time.  You, my friend, have the power to control how often Docupresentment inspects the file cache.  Simply set the value for <entry name=”FilePurgeTimeSeconds”> to the number of seconds appropriate for your requirements and you’re set.  Note that file purging happens on a separate thread from normal request processing, so this shouldn’t interfere with response times unless the CPU happens to be really taxed at the point of cache processing.  Finally, after all of this, we get to the final setting I’m going to address in this post: <entry name=”FilePurgeList”>.  The default is “filecache.properties”.  This establishes the root name for the Docupresentment file cache that I mentioned previously.  Docupresentment creates a separate cache file for each instance based on this setting.  If you have two instances, you’ll see two files created: filecache.properties.1 and filecache.properties.2.  Feel free to open these up and check them out. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first foray into the configuration file of Docupresentment.  If you did enjoy it, feel free to drop a comment, I welcome feedback.  If you have ideas for other posts you’d like to see, please do let me know.  You can reach me at [email protected]. ‘Til next time! ###

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: The EventHandler and EventHandler&lt;TEventArgs&gt; delegates

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. In the last two weeks, we examined the Action family of delegates (and delegates in general), and the Func family of delegates and how they can be used to support generic, reusable algorithms and classes. So this week, we are going to look at a handy pair of delegates that can be used to eliminate the need for defining custom delegates when creating events: the EventHandler and EventHandler<TEventArgs> delegates. Events and delegates Before we begin, let’s quickly consider events in .NET.  According to the MSDN: An event in C# is a way for a class to provide notifications to clients of that class when some interesting thing happens to an object. So, basically, you can create an event in a type so that users of that type can subscribe to notifications of things of interest.  How is this different than some of the delegate programming that we talked about in the last two weeks?  Well, you can think of an event as a special access modifier on a delegate.  Some differences between the two are: Events are a special access case of delegates They behave much like delegates instances inside the type they are declared in, but outside of that type they can only be (un)subscribed to. Events can specify add/remove behavior explicitly If you want to do additional work when someone subscribes or unsubscribes to an event, you can specify the add and remove actions explicitly. Events have access modifiers, but these only specify the access level of those who can (un)subscribe A public event, for example, means anyone can (un)subscribe, but it does not mean that anyone can raise (invoke) the event directly.  Events can only be raised by the type that contains them In contrast, if a delegate is visible, it can be invoked outside of the object (not even in a sub-class!). Events tend to be for notifications only, and should be treated as optional Semantically speaking, events typically don’t perform work on the the class directly, but tend to just notify subscribers when something of note occurs. My basic rule-of-thumb is that if you are just wanting to notify any listeners (who may or may not care) that something has happened, use an event.  However, if you want the caller to provide some function to perform to direct the class about how it should perform work, make it a delegate. Declaring events using custom delegates To declare an event in a type, we simply use the event keyword and specify its delegate type.  For example, let’s say you wanted to create a new TimeOfDayTimer that triggers at a given time of the day (as opposed to on an interval).  We could write something like this: 1: public delegate void TimeOfDayHandler(object source, ElapsedEventArgs e); 2:  3: // A timer that will fire at time of day each day. 4: public class TimeOfDayTimer : IDisposable 5: { 6: // Event that is triggered at time of day. 7: public event TimeOfDayHandler Elapsed; 8:  9: // ... 10: } The first thing to note is that the event is a delegate type, which tells us what types of methods may subscribe to it.  The second thing to note is the signature of the event handler delegate, according to the MSDN: The standard signature of an event handler delegate defines a method that does not return a value, whose first parameter is of type Object and refers to the instance that raises the event, and whose second parameter is derived from type EventArgs and holds the event data. If the event does not generate event data, the second parameter is simply an instance of EventArgs. Otherwise, the second parameter is a custom type derived from EventArgs and supplies any fields or properties needed to hold the event data. So, in a nutshell, the event handler delegates should return void and take two parameters: An object reference to the object that raised the event. An EventArgs (or a subclass of EventArgs) reference to event specific information. Even if your event has no additional information to provide, you are still expected to provide an EventArgs instance.  In this case, feel free to pass the EventArgs.Empty singleton instead of creating new instances of EventArgs (to avoid generating unneeded memory garbage). The EventHandler delegate Because many events have no additional information to pass, and thus do not require custom EventArgs, the signature of the delegates for subscribing to these events is typically: 1: // always takes an object and an EventArgs reference 2: public delegate void EventHandler(object sender, EventArgs e) It would be insane to recreate this delegate for every class that had a basic event with no additional event data, so there already exists a delegate for you called EventHandler that has this very definition!  Feel free to use it to define any events which supply no additional event information: 1: public class Cache 2: { 3: // event that is raised whenever the cache performs a cleanup 4: public event EventHandler OnCleanup; 5:  6: // ... 7: } This will handle any event with the standard EventArgs (no additional information).  But what of events that do need to supply additional information?  Does that mean we’re out of luck for subclasses of EventArgs?  That’s where the generic for of EventHandler comes into play… The generic EventHandler<TEventArgs> delegate Starting with the introduction of generics in .NET 2.0, we have a generic delegate called EventHandler<TEventArgs>.  Its signature is as follows: 1: public delegate void EventHandler<TEventArgs>(object sender, TEventArgs e) 2: where TEventArgs : EventArgs This is similar to EventHandler except it has been made generic to support the more general case.  Thus, it will work for any delegate where the first argument is an object (the sender) and the second argument is a class derived from EventArgs (the event data). For example, let’s say we wanted to create a message receiver, and we wanted it to have a few events such as OnConnected that will tell us when a connection is established (probably with no additional information) and OnMessageReceived that will tell us when a new message arrives (probably with a string for the new message text). So for OnMessageReceived, our MessageReceivedEventArgs might look like this: 1: public sealed class MessageReceivedEventArgs : EventArgs 2: { 3: public string Message { get; set; } 4: } And since OnConnected needs no event argument type defined, our class might look something like this: 1: public class MessageReceiver 2: { 3: // event that is called when the receiver connects with sender 4: public event EventHandler OnConnected; 5:  6: // event that is called when a new message is received. 7: public event EventHandler<MessageReceivedEventArgs> OnMessageReceived; 8:  9: // ... 10: } Notice, nowhere did we have to define a delegate to fit our event definition, the EventHandler and generic EventHandler<TEventArgs> delegates fit almost anything we’d need to do with events. Sidebar: Thread-safety and raising an event When the time comes to raise an event, we should always check to make sure there are subscribers, and then only raise the event if anyone is subscribed.  This is important because if no one is subscribed to the event, then the instance will be null and we will get a NullReferenceException if we attempt to raise the event. 1: // This protects against NullReferenceException... or does it? 2: if (OnMessageReceived != null) 3: { 4: OnMessageReceived(this, new MessageReceivedEventArgs(aMessage)); 5: } The above code seems to handle the null reference if no one is subscribed, but there’s a problem if this is being used in multi-threaded environments.  For example, assume we have thread A which is about to raise the event, and it checks and clears the null check and is about to raise the event.  However, before it can do that thread B unsubscribes to the event, which sets the delegate to null.  Now, when thread A attempts to raise the event, this causes the NullReferenceException that we were hoping to avoid! To counter this, the simplest best-practice method is to copy the event (just a multicast delegate) to a temporary local variable just before we raise it.  Since we are inside the class where this event is being raised, we can copy it to a local variable like this, and it will protect us from multi-threading since multicast delegates are immutable and assignments are atomic: 1: // always make copy of the event multi-cast delegate before checking 2: // for null to avoid race-condition between the null-check and raising it. 3: var handler = OnMessageReceived; 4: 5: if (handler != null) 6: { 7: handler(this, new MessageReceivedEventArgs(aMessage)); 8: } The very slight trade-off is that it’s possible a class may get an event after it unsubscribes in a multi-threaded environment, but this is a small risk and classes should be prepared for this possibility anyway.  For a more detailed discussion on this, check out this excellent Eric Lippert blog post on Events and Races. Summary Generic delegates give us a lot of power to make generic algorithms and classes, and the EventHandler delegate family gives us the flexibility to create events easily, without needing to redefine delegates over and over.  Use them whenever you need to define events with or without specialized EventArgs.   Tweet Technorati Tags: .NET, C#, CSharp, Little Wonders, Generics, Delegates, EventHandler

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• That Escalated Quickly

  - by Jesse Taber

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/GruffCode/archive/2014/05/17/that-escalated-quickly.aspxI have been working remotely out of my home for over 4 years now. All of my coworkers during that time have also worked remotely. Lots of folks have written about the challenges inherent in facilitating communication on remote teams and strategies for overcoming them. A popular theme around this topic is the notion of “escalating communication”. In this context “escalating” means taking a conversation from one mode of communication to a different, higher fidelity mode of communication. Here are the five modes of communication I use at work in order of increasing fidelity: Email – This is the “lowest fidelity” mode of communication that I use. I usually only check it a few times a day (and I’m trying to check it even less frequently than that) and I only keep items in my inbox if they represent an item I need to take action on that I haven’t tracked anywhere else. Forums / Message boards – Being a developer, I’ve gotten into the habit of having other people look over my code before it becomes part of the product I’m working on. These code reviews often happen in “real time” via screen sharing, but I also always have someone else give all of the changes another look using pull requests. A pull request takes my code and lets someone else see the changes I’ve made side-by-side with the existing code so they can see if I did anything dumb. Pull requests can facilitate a conversation about the code changes in an online-forum like style. Some teams I’ve worked on also liked using tools like Trello or Google Groups to have on-going conversations about a topic or task that was being worked on. Chat & Instant Messaging  - Chat and instant messaging are the real workhorses for communication on the remote teams I’ve been a part of. I know some teams that are co-located that also use it pretty extensively for quick messages that don’t warrant walking across the office to talk with someone but reqire more immediacy than an e-mail. For the purposes of this post I think it’s important to note that the terms “chat” and “instant messaging” might insinuate that the conversation is happening in real time, but that’s not always true. Modern chat and IM applications maintain a searchable history so people can easily see what might have been discussed while they were away from their computers. Voice, Video and Screen sharing – Everyone’s got a camera and microphone on their computers now, and there are an abundance of services that will let you use them to talk to other people who have cameras and microphones on their computers. I’m including screen sharing here as well because, in my experience, these discussions typically involve one or more people showing the other participants something that’s happening on their screen. Obviously, this mode of communication is much higher-fidelity than any of the ones listed above. Scheduled meetings are typically conducted using this mode of communication. In Person – No matter how great communication tools become, there’s no substitute for meeting with someone face-to-face. However, opportunities for this kind of communcation are few and far between when you work on a remote team. When a conversation gets escalated that usually means it moves up one or more positions on this list. A lot of people advocate jumping to #4 sooner than later. Like them, I used to believe that, if it was possible, organizing a call with voice and video was automatically better than any kind of text-based communication could be. Lately, however, I’m becoming less convinced that escalating is always the right move. Working Asynchronously Last year I attended a talk at our local code camp given by Drew Miller. Drew works at GitHub and was talking about how they use GitHub internally. Many of the folks at GitHub work remotely, so communication was one of the main themes in Drew’s talk. During the talk Drew used the phrase, “asynchronous communication” to describe their use of chat and pull request comments. That phrase stuck in my head because I hadn’t heard it before but I think it perfectly describes the way in which remote teams often need to communicate. You don’t always know when your co-workers are at their computers or what hours (if any) they are working that day. In order to work this way you need to assume that the person you’re talking to might not respond right away. You can’t always afford to wait until everyone required is online and available to join a voice call, so you need to use text-based, persistent forms of communication so that people can receive and respond to messages when they are available. Going back to my list from the beginning of this post for a second, I characterize items #1-3 as being “asynchronous” modes of communication while we could call items #4 and #5 “synchronous”. When communication gets escalated it’s almost always moving from an asynchronous mode of communication to a synchronous one. Now, to the point of this post: I’ve become increasingly reluctant to escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication for two primary reasons: 1 – You can often find a higher fidelity way to convey your message without holding a synchronous conversation 2 - Asynchronous modes of communication are (usually) persistent and searchable. You Don’t Have to Broadcast Live Let’s start with the first reason I’ve listed. A lot of times you feel like you need to escalate to synchronous communication because you’re having difficulty describing something that you’re seeing in words. You want to provide the people you’re conversing with some audio-visual aids to help them understand the point that you’re trying to make and you think that getting on Skype and sharing your screen with them is the best way to do that. Firing up a screen sharing session does work well, but you can usually accomplish the same thing in an asynchronous manner. For example, you could take a screenshot and annotate it with some text and drawings to illustrate what it is you’re seeing. If a screenshot won’t work, taking a short screen recording while your narrate over it and posting the video to your forum or chat system along with a text-based description of what’s in the recording that can be searched for later can be a great way to effectively communicate with your team asynchronously. I Said What?!? Now for the second reason I listed: most asynchronous modes of communication provide a transcript of what was said and what decisions might have been made during the conversation. There have been many occasions where I’ve used the search feature of my team’s chat application to find a conversation that happened several weeks or months ago to remember what was decided. Unfortunately, I think the benefits associated with the persistence of communicating asynchronously often get overlooked when people decide to escalate to a in-person meeting or voice/video call. I’m becoming much more reluctant to suggest a voice or video call if I suspect that it might lead to codifying some kind of design decision because everyone involved is going to hang up the call and immediately forget what was decided. I recognize that you can record and archive these types of interactions, but without being able to search them the recordings aren’t terribly useful. When and How To Escalate I don’t mean to imply that communicating via voice/video or in person is never a good idea. I probably jump on a Skype call with a co-worker at least once a day to quickly hash something out or show them a bit of code that I’m working on. Also, meeting in person periodically is really important for remote teams. There’s no way around the fact that sometimes it’s easier to jump on a call and show someone my screen so they can see what I’m seeing. So when is it right to escalate? I think the simplest way to answer that is when the communication starts to feel painful. Everyone’s tolerance for that pain is different, but I think you need to let it hurt a little bit before jumping to synchronous communication. When you do escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication, there are a couple of things you can do to maximize the effectiveness of the communication: Takes notes – This is huge and yet I’ve found that a lot of teams don’t do this. If you’re holding a meeting with  > 2 people you should have someone taking notes. Taking notes while participating in a meeting can be difficult but there are a few strategies to deal with this challenge that probably deserve a short post of their own. After the meeting, make sure the notes are posted to a place where all concerned parties (including those that might not have attended the meeting) can review and search them. Persist decisions made ASAP – If any decisions were made during the meeting, persist those decisions to a searchable medium as soon as possible following the conversation. All the teams I’ve worked on used a web-based system for tracking the on-going work and a backlog of work to be done in the future. I always try to make sure that all of the cards/stories/tasks/whatever in these systems always reflect the latest decisions that were made as the work was being planned and executed. If held a quick call with your team lead and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to build real-time validation into that new UI you were working on, go and codify that decision in the story associated with that work immediately after you hang up. Even better, write it up in the story while you are both still on the phone. That way when the folks from your QA team pick up the story to test a few days later they’ll know why the real-time validation isn’t there without having to invoke yet another conversation about the work. Communicating Well is Hard At this point you might be thinking that communicating asynchronously is more difficult than having a live conversation. You’re right: it is more difficult. In order to communicate effectively this way you need to very carefully think about the message that you’re trying to convey and craft it in a way that’s easy for your audience to understand. This is almost always harder than just talking through a problem in real time with someone; this is why escalating communication is such a popular idea. Why wouldn’t we want to do the thing that’s easier? Easier isn’t always better. If you and your team can get in the habit of communicating effectively in an asynchronous manner you’ll find that, over time, all of your communications get less painful because you don’t need to re-iterate previously made points over and over again. If you communicate right the first time, you often don’t need to rehash old conversations because you can go back and find the decisions that were made laid out in plain language. You’ll also find that you get better at doing things like writing useful comments in your code, creating written documentation about how the feature that you just built works, or persuading your team to do things in a certain way.

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• Unity – Part 5: Injecting Values

  - by Ricardo Peres

  Introduction This is the fifth post on Unity. You can find the introductory post here, the second post, on dependency injection here, a third one on Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) here and the latest so far, on writing custom extensions, here. This time we will talk about injecting simple values. An Inversion of Control (IoC) / Dependency Injector (DI) container like Unity can be used for things other than injecting complex class dependencies. It can also be used for setting property values or method/constructor parameters whenever a class is built. The main difference is that these values do not have a lifetime manager associated with them and do not come from the regular IoC registration store. Unlike, for instance, MEF, Unity won’t let you register as a dependency a string or an integer, so you have to take a different approach, which I will describe in this post. Scenario Let’s imagine we have a base interface that describes a logger – the same as in previous examples: 1: public interface ILogger 2: { 3: void Log(String message); 4: } And a concrete implementation that writes to a file: 1: public class FileLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: public String Filename 4: { 5: get; 6: set; 7: } 8:  9: #region ILogger Members 10:  11: public void Log(String message) 12: { 13: using (Stream file = File.OpenWrite(this.Filename)) 14: { 15: Byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(message); 16: 17: file.Write(data, 0, data.Length); 18: } 19: } 20:  21: #endregion 22: } And let’s say we want the Filename property to come from the application settings (appSettings) section on the Web/App.config file. As usual with Unity, there is an extensibility point that allows us to automatically do this, both with code configuration or statically on the configuration file. Extending Injection We start by implementing a class that will retrieve a value from the appSettings by inheriting from ValueElement: 1: sealed class AppSettingsParameterValueElement : ValueElement, IDependencyResolverPolicy 2: { 3: #region Private methods 4: private Object CreateInstance(Type parameterType) 5: { 6: Object configurationValue = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[this.AppSettingsKey]; 7:  8: if (parameterType != typeof(String)) 9: { 10: TypeConverter typeConverter = this.GetTypeConverter(parameterType); 11:  12: configurationValue = typeConverter.ConvertFromInvariantString(configurationValue as String); 13: } 14:  15: return (configurationValue); 16: } 17: #endregion 18:  19: #region Private methods 20: private TypeConverter GetTypeConverter(Type parameterType) 21: { 22: if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(this.TypeConverterTypeName) == false) 23: { 24: return (Activator.CreateInstance(TypeResolver.ResolveType(this.TypeConverterTypeName)) as TypeConverter); 25: } 26: else 27: { 28: return (TypeDescriptor.GetConverter(parameterType)); 29: } 30: } 31: #endregion 32:  33: #region Public override methods 34: public override InjectionParameterValue GetInjectionParameterValue(IUnityContainer container, Type parameterType) 35: { 36: Object value = this.CreateInstance(parameterType); 37: return (new InjectionParameter(parameterType, value)); 38: } 39: #endregion 40:  41: #region IDependencyResolverPolicy Members 42:  43: public Object Resolve(IBuilderContext context) 44: { 45: Type parameterType = null; 46:  47: if (context.CurrentOperation is ResolvingPropertyValueOperation) 48: { 49: ResolvingPropertyValueOperation op = (context.CurrentOperation as ResolvingPropertyValueOperation); 50: PropertyInfo prop = op.TypeBeingConstructed.GetProperty(op.PropertyName); 51: parameterType = prop.PropertyType; 52: } 53: else if (context.CurrentOperation is ConstructorArgumentResolveOperation) 54: { 55: ConstructorArgumentResolveOperation op = (context.CurrentOperation as ConstructorArgumentResolveOperation); 56: String args = op.ConstructorSignature.Split('(')[1].Split(')')[0]; 57: Type[] types = args.Split(',').Select(a => Type.GetType(a.Split(' ')[0])).ToArray(); 58: ConstructorInfo ctor = op.TypeBeingConstructed.GetConstructor(types); 59: parameterType = ctor.GetParameters().Where(p => p.Name == op.ParameterName).Single().ParameterType; 60: } 61: else if (context.CurrentOperation is MethodArgumentResolveOperation) 62: { 63: MethodArgumentResolveOperation op = (context.CurrentOperation as MethodArgumentResolveOperation); 64: String methodName = op.MethodSignature.Split('(')[0].Split(' ')[1]; 65: String args = op.MethodSignature.Split('(')[1].Split(')')[0]; 66: Type[] types = args.Split(',').Select(a => Type.GetType(a.Split(' ')[0])).ToArray(); 67: MethodInfo method = op.TypeBeingConstructed.GetMethod(methodName, types); 68: parameterType = method.GetParameters().Where(p => p.Name == op.ParameterName).Single().ParameterType; 69: } 70:  71: return (this.CreateInstance(parameterType)); 72: } 73:  74: #endregion 75:  76: #region Public properties 77: [ConfigurationProperty("appSettingsKey", IsRequired = true)] 78: public String AppSettingsKey 79: { 80: get 81: { 82: return ((String)base["appSettingsKey"]); 83: } 84:  85: set 86: { 87: base["appSettingsKey"] = value; 88: } 89: } 90: #endregion 91: } As you can see from the implementation of the IDependencyResolverPolicy.Resolve method, this will work in three different scenarios: When it is applied to a property; When it is applied to a constructor parameter; When it is applied to an initialization method. The implementation will even try to convert the value to its declared destination, for example, if the destination property is an Int32, it will try to convert the appSettings stored string to an Int32. Injection By Configuration If we want to configure injection by configuration, we need to implement a custom section extension by inheriting from SectionExtension, and registering our custom element with the name “appSettings”: 1: sealed class AppSettingsParameterInjectionElementExtension : SectionExtension 2: { 3: public override void AddExtensions(SectionExtensionContext context) 4: { 5: context.AddElement<AppSettingsParameterValueElement>("appSettings"); 6: } 7: } And on the configuration file, for setting a property, we use it like this: 1: <appSettings> 2: <add key="LoggerFilename" value="Log.txt"/> 3: </appSettings> 4: <unity xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/practices/2010/unity"> 5: <container> 6: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.ConsoleLogger, MyAssembly"/> 7: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.FileLogger, MyAssembly" name="File"> 8: <lifetime type="singleton"/> 9: <property name="Filename"> 10: <appSettings appSettingsKey="LoggerFilename"/> 11: </property> 12: </register> 13: </container> 14: </unity> If we would like to inject the value as a constructor parameter, it would be instead: 1: <unity xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/practices/2010/unity"> 2: <sectionExtension type="MyNamespace.AppSettingsParameterInjectionElementExtension, MyAssembly" /> 3: <container> 4: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.ConsoleLogger, MyAssembly"/> 5: <register type="MyNamespace.ILogger, MyAssembly" mapTo="MyNamespace.FileLogger, MyAssembly" name="File"> 6: <lifetime type="singleton"/> 7: <constructor> 8: <param name="filename" type="System.String"> 9: <appSettings appSettingsKey="LoggerFilename"/> 10: </param> 11: </constructor> 12: </register> 13: </container> 14: </unity> Notice the appSettings section, where we add a LoggerFilename entry, which is the same as the one referred by our AppSettingsParameterInjectionElementExtension extension. For more advanced behavior, you can add a TypeConverterName attribute to the appSettings declaration, where you can pass an assembly qualified name of a class that inherits from TypeConverter. This class will be responsible for converting the appSettings value to a destination type. Injection By Attribute If we would like to use attributes instead, we need to create a custom attribute by inheriting from DependencyResolutionAttribute: 1: [Serializable] 2: [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Parameter | AttributeTargets.Property, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] 3: public sealed class AppSettingsDependencyResolutionAttribute : DependencyResolutionAttribute 4: { 5: public AppSettingsDependencyResolutionAttribute(String appSettingsKey) 6: { 7: this.AppSettingsKey = appSettingsKey; 8: } 9:  10: public String TypeConverterTypeName 11: { 12: get; 13: set; 14: } 15:  16: public String AppSettingsKey 17: { 18: get; 19: private set; 20: } 21:  22: public override IDependencyResolverPolicy CreateResolver(Type typeToResolve) 23: { 24: return (new AppSettingsParameterValueElement() { AppSettingsKey = this.AppSettingsKey, TypeConverterTypeName = this.TypeConverterTypeName }); 25: } 26: } As for file configuration, there is a mandatory property for setting the appSettings key and an optional TypeConverterName  for setting the name of a TypeConverter. Both the custom attribute and the custom section return an instance of the injector AppSettingsParameterValueElement that we implemented in the first place. Now, the attribute needs to be placed before the injected class’ Filename property: 1: public class FileLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: [AppSettingsDependencyResolution("LoggerFilename")] 4: public String Filename 5: { 6: get; 7: set; 8: } 9:  10: #region ILogger Members 11:  12: public void Log(String message) 13: { 14: using (Stream file = File.OpenWrite(this.Filename)) 15: { 16: Byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(message); 17: 18: file.Write(data, 0, data.Length); 19: } 20: } 21:  22: #endregion 23: } Or, if we wanted to use constructor injection: 1: public class FileLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: public String Filename 4: { 5: get; 6: set; 7: } 8:  9: public FileLogger([AppSettingsDependencyResolution("LoggerFilename")] String filename) 10: { 11: this.Filename = filename; 12: } 13:  14: #region ILogger Members 15:  16: public void Log(String message) 17: { 18: using (Stream file = File.OpenWrite(this.Filename)) 19: { 20: Byte[] data = Encoding.Default.GetBytes(message); 21: 22: file.Write(data, 0, data.Length); 23: } 24: } 25:  26: #endregion 27: } Usage Just do: 1: ILogger logger = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ILogger>("File"); And off you go! A simple way do avoid hardcoded values in component registrations. Of course, this same concept can be applied to registry keys, environment values, XML attributes, etc, etc, just change the implementation of the AppSettingsParameterValueElement class. Next stop: custom lifetime managers.

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• Software Engineering Practices &ndash; Different Projects should have different maturity levels

  - by Dylan Smith

  I’ve had a lot of discussions at the office lately about the drastically different sets of software engineering practices used on our various projects, if what we are doing is appropriate, and what factors should you be considering when determining what practices are most appropriate in a given context. I wanted to write up my thoughts in a little more detail on this subject, so here we go: If you compare any two software projects (specifically comparing their codebases) you’ll often see very different levels of maturity in the software engineering practices employed. By software engineering practices, I’m specifically referring to the quality of the code and the amount of technical debt present in the project. Things such as Test Driven Development, Domain Driven Design, Behavior Driven Development, proper adherence to the SOLID principles, etc. are all practices that you would expect at the mature end of the spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum would be the quick-and-dirty solutions that are done using something like an Access Database, Excel Spreadsheet, or maybe some quick “drag-and-drop coding”. For this blog post I’m going to refer to this as the Software Engineering Maturity Spectrum (SEMS). I believe there is a time and a place for projects at every part of that SEMS. The risks and costs associated with under-engineering solutions have been written about a million times over so I won’t bother going into them again here, but there are also (unnecessary) costs with over-engineering a solution. Sometimes putting multiple layers, and IoC containers, and abstracting out the persistence, etc is complete overkill if a one-time use Access database could solve the problem perfectly well. A lot of software developers I talk to seem to automatically jump to the very right-hand side of this SEMS in everything they do. A common rationalization I hear is that it may seem like a small trivial application today, but these things always grow and stick around for many years, then you’re stuck maintaining a big ball of mud. I think this is a cop-out. Sure you can’t always anticipate how an application will be used or grow over its lifetime (can you ever??), but that doesn’t mean you can’t manage it and evolve the underlying software architecture as necessary (even if that means having to toss the code out and re-write it at some point…maybe even multiple times). My thoughts are that we should be making a conscious decision around the start of each project approximately where on the SEMS we want the project to exist. I believe this decision should be based on 3 factors: 1. Importance - How important to the business is this application? What is the impact if the application were to suddenly stop working? 2. Complexity - How complex is the application functionality? 3. Life-Expectancy - How long is this application expected to be in use? Is this a one-time use application, does it fill a short-term need, or is it more strategic and is expected to be in-use for many years to come? Of course this isn’t an exact science. You can’t say that Project X should be at the 73% mark on the SEMS and expect that to be helpful. My point is not that you need to precisely figure out what point on the SEMS the project should be at then translate that into some prescriptive set of practices and techniques you should be using. Rather my point is that we need to be aware that there is a spectrum, and that not everything is going to be (or should be) at the edges of that spectrum, indeed a large number of projects should probably fall somewhere within the middle; and different projects should adopt a different level of software engineering practices and maturity levels based on the needs of that project. To give an example of this way of thinking from my day job: Every couple of years my company plans and hosts a large event where ~400 of our customers all fly in to one location for a multi-day event with various activities. We have some staff whose job it is to organize the logistics of this event, which includes tracking which flights everybody is booked on, arranging for transportation to/from airports, arranging for hotel rooms, name tags, etc The last time we arranged this event all these various pieces of data were tracked in separate spreadsheets and reconciliation and cross-referencing of all the data was literally done by hand using printed copies of the spreadsheets and several people sitting around a table going down each list row by row. Obviously there is some room for improvement in how we are using software to manage the event’s logistics. The next time this event occurs we plan to provide the event planning staff with a more intelligent tool (either an Excel spreadsheet or probably an Access database) that can track all the information in one location and make sure that the various pieces of data are properly linked together (so for example if a person cancels you only need to delete them from one place, and not a dozen separate lists). This solution would fall at or near the very left end of the SEMS meaning that we will just quickly create something with very little attention paid to using mature software engineering practices. If we examine this project against the 3 criteria I listed above for determining it’s place within the SEMS we can see why: Importance – If this application were to stop working the business doesn’t grind to a halt, revenue doesn’t stop, and in fact our customers wouldn’t even notice since it isn’t a customer facing application. The impact would simply be more work for our event planning staff as they revert back to the previous way of doing things (assuming we don’t have any data loss). Complexity – The use cases for this project are pretty straightforward. It simply needs to manage several lists of data, and link them together appropriately. Precisely the task that access (and/or Excel) can do with minimal custom development required. Life-Expectancy – For this specific project we’re only planning to create something to be used for the one event (we only hold these events every 2 years). If it works well this may change (see below). Let’s assume we hack something out quickly and it works great when we plan the next event. We may decide that we want to make some tweaks to the tool and adopt it for planning all future events of this nature. In that case we should examine where the current application is on the SEMS, and make a conscious decision whether something needs to be done to move it further to the right based on the new objectives and goals for this application. This may mean scrapping the access database and re-writing it as an actual web or windows application. In this case, the life-expectancy changed, but let’s assume the importance and complexity didn’t change all that much. We can still probably get away with not adopting a lot of the so-called “best practices”. For example, we can probably still use some of the RAD tooling available and might have an Autonomous View style design that connects directly to the database and binds to typed datasets (we might even choose to simply leave it as an access database and continue using it; this is a decision that needs to be made on a case-by-case basis). At Anvil Digital we have aspirations to become a primarily product-based company. So let’s say we use this tool to plan a handful of events internally, and everybody loves it. Maybe a couple years down the road we decide we want to package the tool up and sell it as a product to some of our customers. In this case the project objectives/goals change quite drastically. Now the tool becomes a source of revenue, and the impact of it suddenly stopping working is significantly less acceptable. Also as we hold focus groups, and gather feedback from customers and potential customers there’s a pretty good chance the feature-set and complexity will have to grow considerably from when we were using it only internally for planning a small handful of events for one company. In this fictional scenario I would expect the target on the SEMS to jump to the far right. Depending on how we implemented the previous release we may be able to refactor and evolve the existing codebase to introduce a more layered architecture, a robust set of automated tests, introduce a proper ORM and IoC container, etc. More likely in this example the jump along the SEMS would be so large we’d probably end up scrapping the current code and re-writing. Although, if it was a slow phased roll-out to only a handful of customers, where we collected feedback, made some tweaks, and then rolled out to a couple more customers, we may be able to slowly refactor and evolve the code over time rather than tossing it out and starting from scratch. The key point I’m trying to get across is not that you should be throwing out your code and starting from scratch all the time. But rather that you should be aware of when and how the context and objectives around a project changes and periodically re-assess where the project currently falls on the SEMS and whether that needs to be adjusted based on changing needs. Note: There is also the idea of “spectrum decay”. Since our industry is rapidly evolving, what we currently accept as mature software engineering practices (the right end of the SEMS) probably won’t be the same 3 years from now. If you have a project that you were to assess at somewhere around the 80% mark on the SEMS today, but don’t touch the code for 3 years and come back and re-assess its position, it will almost certainly have changed since the right end of the SEMS will have moved farther out (maybe the project is now only around 60% due to decay). Developer Skills Another important aspect to this whole discussion is around the skill sets of your architects and lead developers. When talking about the progression of a developers skills from junior->intermediate->senior->… they generally start by only being able to write code that belongs on the left side of the SEMS and as they gain more knowledge and skill they become capable of working at a higher and higher level along the SEMS. We all realize that the learning never stops, but eventually you’ll get to the point where you can comfortably develop at the right-end of the SEMS (the exact practices and techniques that translates to is constantly changing, but that’s not the point here). A critical skill that I’d love to see more evidence of in our industry is the most senior guys not only being able to work at the right-end of the SEMS, but more importantly be able to consciously work at any point along the SEMS as project needs dictate. An even more valuable skill would be if you could make the conscious decision to move a projects code further right on the SEMS (based on changing needs) and do so in an incremental manner without having to start from scratch. An exercise that I’m planning to go through with all of our projects here at Anvil in the near future is to map out where I believe each project currently falls within this SEMS, where I believe the project *should* be on the SEMS based on the business needs, and for those that don’t match up (i.e. most of them) come up with a plan to improve the situation.

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• VSNewFile: A Visual Studio Addin to More Easily Add New Items to a Project

  - by InfinitiesLoop

  My first Visual Studio Add-in! Creating add-ins is pretty simple, once you get used to the CommandBar model it is using, which is apparently a general Office suite extensibility mechanism. Anyway, let me first explain my motivation for this. It started out as an academic exercise, as I have always wanted to dip my feet in a little VS extensibility. But I thought of a legitimate need for an add-in, at least in my personal experience, so it took on new life. But I figured I can’t be the only one who has felt this way, so I decided to publish the add-in, and host it on GitHub (VSNewFile on GitHub) hoping to spur contributions. Adding Files the Built-in Way Here’s the problem I wanted to solve. You’re working on a project, and it’s time to add a new file to the project. Whatever it is – a class, script, html page, aspx page, or what-have-you, you go through a menu or keyboard shortcut to get to the “Add New Item” dialog. Typically, you do it by right-clicking the location where you want the file (the project or a folder of it): This brings up a dialog the contains, well, every conceivable type of item you might want to add. It’s all the available item templates, which can result in anywhere from a ton to a veritable sea of choices. To be fair, this dialog has been revamped in Visual Studio 2010, which organizes it a little better than Visual Studio 2008, and adds a search box. It also loads noticeably faster.   To me, this dialog is just getting in my way. If I want to add a JavaScript script to my project, I don’t want to have to hunt for the script template item in this dialog. Yes, it is categorized, and yes, it now has a search box. But still, all this UI to swim through when all I need is a new file in the project. I will name it. I will provide the content, I don’t even need a ‘template’. VS kind of realizes this. In the add menu in a class library project, for example, there is a “Add Class…” choice. But all this really does is select that project item from the dialog by default. You still must wait for the dialog, see it, and type in a name for the file. How is that really any different than hitting F2 on an existing item? It isn’t. Adding Files the Hack Way What I often find myself doing, just to avoid going through this dialog, is to copy and paste an existing file, rename it, then “CTRL-A, DEL” the content. In a few short keystrokes I’ve got my new file. Even if the original file wasn’t the right type, it doesn’t matter – I will rename it anyway, including the extension. It works well enough if the place I am adding the file to doesn’t have much in it already. But if there are a lot of files at that level, it sucks, because the new file will have the name “Copy of xyz”, causing it to be moved into the ‘C’ section of the alphabetically sorted items, which might be far, far away from the original file (and so I tend to try and copy a file that starts with ‘C’ *evil grin*). Using ‘Export Template’ To be completely fair I should at least mention this feature. I’m not even sure if this is new in VS 2010 or not (I think so). But it allows you to export a project item or items, including potential project references required by it. Then it becomes a new item in the available ‘installed templates’. No doubt this is useful to help bootstrap new projects. But that still requires you to go through the ‘New Item’ dialog. Adding Files with VSNewFile So hopefully I have sufficiently defined the problem and got a few of you to think, “Yeah, me too!”… What VSNewFile does is let you skip the dialog entirely by adding project items directly to the context menu. But it does a bit more than that, so do read on. For example, to add a new class, you can right-click the location and pick that option. A new .cs file is instantly added to the project, and the new item is selected and put into the ‘rename’ mode immediately. The default items available are shown here. But you can customize them. You can also customize the content of each template. To do so, you create a directory in your documents folder, ‘VSNewFile Templates’. In there, you drop the templates you want to use, but you name them in a particular way. For example, here’s a template that will add a new item named “Add TITLE”. It will add a project item named “SOMEFILE.foo” (or ‘SOMEFILE1.foo’ if that exists, etc). The format of the file name is: <ORDER>_<KEY>_<BASE FILENAME>_<ICON ID>_<TITLE>.<EXTENTION> Where: <ORDER> is a number that lets you determine the order of the items in the menu (relative to each other). <KEY> is a case sensitive identifier different for each template item. More on that later. <BASE FILENAME> is the default name of the file, which doesn’t matter that much, since they will be renaming it anyway. <ICON ID> is a number the dictates the icon used for the menu item. There are a huge number of built-in choices. More on that later. <TITLE> is the string that will appear in the menu. And, the contents of the file are the default content for the item (the ‘template’). The content of the file can contain anything you want, of course. But it also supports two tokens: %NAMESPACE% and %FILENAME%, which will be replaced with the corresponding values. Here is the content of this sample: testing Namespace = %NAMESPACE% Filename = %FILENAME% I kind went back and forth on this. I could have made it so there’d be an XML or JSON file that defines the templates, instead of cramming all this data into the filename itself. I like the simplicity of this better. It makes it easy to customize since you can literally just throw these files around, copy them from someone else, etc, without worrying about merge data into a central description file, in whatever format. Here’s our new item showing up: Practical Use One immediate thing I am using this for is to make it easier to add very commonly used scripts to my web projects. For example, uh, say, jQuery? :) All I need to do is drop jQuery-1.4.2.js and jQuery-1.4.2.min.js into the templates folder, provide the order, title, etc, and then instantly, I can now add jQuery to any project I have without even thinking about “where is jQuery? Can I copy it from that other project?”   Using the KEY There are two reasons for the ‘key’ portion of the item. First, it allows you to turn off the built-in, default templates, which are: FILE = Add File (generic, empty file) VB = Add VB Class CS = Add C# Class (includes some basic usings) HTML = Add HTML page (includes basic structure, doctype, etc) JS = Add Script (includes an immediately-invoking function closure) To turn one off, just include a file with the name “_<KEY>”. For example, to turn off all the items except our custom one, you do this: The other reason for the key is that there are new Visual Studio Commands created for each one. This makes it possible to bind a keyboard shortcut to one of them. So you could, for example, have a keyboard combination that adds a new web page to your website, or a new CS class to your class library, etc. Here is our sample item showing up in the keyboard bindings option. Even though the contents of the template directory may change from one launch of Visual Studio to the next, the bindings will remain attached to any item with a particular key, thanks to it taking care not to lose keyboard bindings even though the commands are completely recreated each time. The Icon Face ID Visual Studio uses a Microsoft Office style add-in mechanism, I gather. There are a predetermined set of built-in icons available. You can use your own icons when developing add-ins, of course, but I’m no designer. I just wanted to find appropriate-ish icons for the built-in templates, and allow you to choose from an existing built-in icon for your own. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot out there on the interwebs that helps you figure out what the built-in types are. There’s an MSDN article that describes at length a way to create a program that lists all the icons. But I don’t want to write a program to figure them out! Just show them to me! Sheesh :) Thankfully, someone out there felt the same way, and uses a novel hack to get the icons to show up in an outlook toolbar. He then painstakingly took screenshots of them, one group at a time. It isn’t complete though – there are tens of thousands of icons. But it’s good enough. If anyone has an exhaustive list, please let me, and the rest of the add-in community know. Icon Face ID Reference Installing the Add-in It will work with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010. Just unzip the release into your Documents\Visual Studio 20xx\Addins folder. It contains the binary and the Visual Studio “.addin” file. For example, the path to mine is: C:\Users\InfinitiesLoop\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Addins Conclusion So that’s it! I hope you find it as useful as I have. It’s on GitHub, so if you’re into this kind of thing, please do fork it and improve it! Reference: VSNewFile on GitHub VSNewFile release on GitHub Icon Face ID Reference

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• How to Avoid Your Next 12-Month Science Project

  - by constant

  While most customers immediately understand how the magic of Oracle's Hybrid Columnar Compression, intelligent storage servers and flash memory make Exadata uniquely powerful against home-grown database systems, some people think that Exalogic is nothing more than a bunch of x86 servers, a storage appliance and an InfiniBand (IB) network, built into a single rack. After all, isn't this exactly what the High Performance Computing (HPC) world has been doing for decades? On the surface, this may be true. And some people tried exactly that: They tried to put together their own version of Exalogic, but then they discover there's a lot more to building a system than buying hardware and assembling it together. IT is not Ikea. Why is that so? Could it be there's more going on behind the scenes than merely putting together a bunch of servers, a storage array and an InfiniBand network into a rack? Let's explore some of the special sauce that makes Exalogic unique and un-copyable, so you can save yourself from your next 6- to 12-month science project that distracts you from doing real work that adds value to your company. Engineering Systems is Hard Work! The backbone of Exalogic is its InfiniBand network: 4 times better bandwidth than even 10 Gigabit Ethernet, and only about a tenth of its latency. What a potential for increased scalability and throughput across the middleware and database layers! But InfiniBand is a beast that needs to be tamed: It is true that Exalogic uses a standard, open-source Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution (OFED) InfiniBand driver stack. Unfortunately, this software has been developed by the HPC community with fastest speed in mind (which is good) but, despite the name, not many other enterprise-class requirements are included (which is less good). Here are some of the improvements that Oracle's InfiniBand development team had to add to the OFED stack to make it enterprise-ready, simply because typical HPC users didn't have the need to implement them: More than 100 bug fixes in the pieces that were not related to the Message Passing Interface Protocol (MPI), which is the protocol that HPC users use most of the time, but which is less useful in the enterprise. Performance optimizations and tuning across the whole IB stack: From Switches, Host Channel Adapters (HCAs) and drivers to low-level protocols, middleware and applications. Yes, even the standard HPC IB stack could be improved in terms of performance. Ethernet over IB (EoIB): Exalogic uses InfiniBand internally to reach high performance, but it needs to play nicely with datacenters around it. That's why Oracle added Ethernet over InfiniBand technology to it that allows for creating many virtual 10GBE adapters inside Exalogic's nodes that are aggregated and connected to Exalogic's IB gateway switches. While this is an open standard, it's up to the vendor to implement it. In this case, Oracle integrated the EoIB stack with Oracle's own IB to 10GBE gateway switches, and made it fully virtualized from the beginning. This means that Exalogic customers can completely rewire their server infrastructure inside the rack without having to physically pull or plug a single cable - a must-have for every cloud deployment. Anybody who wants to match this level of integration would need to add an InfiniBand switch development team to their project. Or just buy Oracle's gateway switches, which are conveniently shipped with a whole server infrastructure attached! IPv6 support for InfiniBand's Sockets Direct Protocol (SDP), Reliable Datagram Sockets (RDS), TCP/IP over IB (IPoIB) and EoIB protocols. Because no IPv6 = not very enterprise-class. HA capability for SDP. High Availability is not a big requirement for HPC, but for enterprise-class application servers it is. Every node in Exalogic's InfiniBand network is connected twice for redundancy. If any cable or port or HCA fails, there's always a replacement link ready to take over. This requires extra magic at the protocol level to work. So in addition to Weblogic's failover capabilities, Oracle implemented IB automatic path migration at the SDP level to avoid unnecessary failover operations at the middleware level. Security, for example spoof-protection. Another feature that is less important for traditional users of InfiniBand, but very important for enterprise customers. InfiniBand Partitioning and Quality-of-Service (QoS): One of the first questions we get from customers about Exalogic is: “How can we implement multi-tenancy?” The answer is to partition your IB network, which effectively creates many networks that work independently and that are protected at the lowest networking layer possible. In addition to that, QoS allows administrators to prioritize traffic flow in multi-tenancy environments so they can keep their service levels where it matters most. Resilient IB Fabric Management: InfiniBand is a self-managing network, so a lot of the magic lies in coming up with the right topology and in teaching the subnet manager how to properly discover and manage the network. Oracle's Infiniband switches come with pre-integrated, highly available fabric management with seamless integration into Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center. In short: Oracle elevated the OFED InfiniBand stack into an enterprise-class networking infrastructure. Many years and multiple teams of manpower went into the above improvements - this is something you can only get from Oracle, because no other InfiniBand vendor can give you these features across the whole stack! Exabus: Because it's not About the Size of Your Network, it's How You Use it! So let's assume that you somehow were able to get your hands on an enterprise-class IB driver stack. Or maybe you don't care and are just happy with the standard OFED one? Anyway, the next step is to actually leverage that InfiniBand performance. Here are the choices: Use traditional TCP/IP on top of the InfiniBand stack, Develop your own integration between your middleware and the lower-level (but faster) InfiniBand protocols. While more bandwidth is always a good thing, it's actually the low latency that enables superior performance for your applications when running on any networking infrastructure: The lower the latency, the faster the response travels through the network and the more transactions you can close per second. The reason why InfiniBand is such a low latency technology is that it gets rid of most if not all of your traditional networking protocol stack: Data is literally beamed from one region of RAM in one server into another region of RAM in another server with no kernel/drivers/UDP/TCP or other networking stack overhead involved! Which makes option 1 a no-go: Adding TCP/IP on top of InfiniBand is like adding training wheels to your racing bike. It may be ok in the beginning and for development, but it's not quite the performance IB was meant to deliver. Which only leaves option 2: Integrating your middleware with fast, low-level InfiniBand protocols. And this is what Exalogic's "Exabus" technology is all about. Here are a few Exabus features that help applications leverage the performance of InfiniBand in Exalogic: RDMA and SDP integration at the JDBC driver level (SDP), for Oracle Weblogic (SDP), Oracle Coherence (RDMA), Oracle Tuxedo (RDMA) and the new Oracle Traffic Director (RDMA) on Exalogic. Using these protocols, middleware can communicate a lot faster with each other and the Oracle database than by using standard networking protocols, Seamless Integration of Ethernet over InfiniBand from Exalogic's Gateway switches into the OS, Oracle Weblogic optimizations for handling massive amounts of parallel transactions. Because if you have an 8-lane Autobahn, you also need to improve your ramps so you can feed it with many cars in parallel. Integration of Weblogic with Oracle Exadata for faster performance, optimized session management and failover. As you see, “Exabus” is Oracle's word for describing all the InfiniBand enhancements Oracle put into Exalogic: OFED stack enhancements, protocols for faster IB access, and InfiniBand support and optimizations at the virtualization and middleware level. All working together to deliver the full potential of InfiniBand performance. Who else has 100% control over their middleware so they can develop their own low-level protocol integration with InfiniBand? Even if you take an open source approach, you're looking at years of development work to create, test and support a whole new networking technology in your middleware! The Extras: Less Hassle, More Productivity, Faster Time to Market And then there are the other advantages of Engineered Systems that are true for Exalogic the same as they are for every other Engineered System: One simple purchasing process: No headaches due to endless RFPs and no “Will X work with Y?” uncertainties. Everything has been engineered together: All kinds of bugs and problems have been already fixed at the design level that would have only manifested themselves after you have built the system from scratch. Everything is built, tested and integrated at the factory level . Less integration pain for you, faster time to market. Every Exalogic machine world-wide is identical to Oracle's own machines in the lab: Instant replication of any problems you may encounter, faster time to resolution. Simplified patching, management and operations. One throat to choke: Imagine finger-pointing hell for systems that have been put together using several different vendors. Oracle's Engineered Systems have a single phone number that customers can call to get their problems solved. For more business-centric values, read The Business Value of Engineered Systems. Conclusion: Buy Exalogic, or get ready for a 6-12 Month Science Project And here's the reason why it's not easy to "build your own Exalogic": There's a lot of work required to make such a system fly. In fact, anybody who is starting to "just put together a bunch of servers and an InfiniBand network" is really looking at a 6-12 month science project. And the outcome is likely to not be very enterprise-class. And it won't have Exalogic's performance either. Because building an Engineered System is literally rocket science: It takes a lot of time, effort, resources and many iterations of design/test/analyze/fix to build such a system. That's why InfiniBand has been reserved for HPC scientists for such a long time. And only Oracle can bring the power of InfiniBand in an enterprise-class, ready-to use, pre-integrated version to customers, without the develop/integrate/support pain. For more details, check the new Exalogic overview white paper which was updated only recently. P.S.: Thanks to my colleagues Ola, Paul, Don and Andy for helping me put together this article! var flattr_uid = '26528'; var flattr_tle = 'How to Avoid Your Next 12-Month Science Project'; var flattr_dsc = 'While most customers immediately understand how the magic of Oracle's Hybrid Columnar Compression, intelligent storage servers and flash memory make Exadata uniquely powerful against home-grown database systems, some people think that Exalogic is nothing more than a bunch of x86 servers, a storage appliance and an InfiniBand (IB) network, built into a single rack.After all, isn't this exactly what the High Performance Computing (HPC) world has been doing for decades?On the surface, this may be true. And some people tried exactly that: They tried to put together their own version of Exalogic, but then they discover there's a lot more to building a system than buying hardware and assembling it together. IT is not Ikea.Why is that so? Could it be there's more going on behind the scenes than merely putting together a bunch of servers, a storage array and an InfiniBand network into a rack? Let's explore some of the special sauce that makes Exalogic unique and un-copyable, so you can save yourself from your next 6- to 12-month science project that distracts you from doing real work that adds value to your company.'; var flattr_tag = 'Engineered Systems,Engineered Systems,Infiniband,Integration,latency,Oracle,performance'; var flattr_cat = 'text'; var flattr_url = 'http://constantin.glez.de/blog/2012/04/how-avoid-your-next-12-month-science-project'; var flattr_lng = 'en_GB'

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• Using Lightbox with _Screen

  Although, I have to admit that I discovered Bernard Bout's ideas and concepts about implementing a lightbox in Visual FoxPro quite a while ago, there was no "spare" time in active projects that allowed me to have a closer look into his solution(s). Luckily, these days I received a demand to focus a little bit more on this. This article describes the steps about how to integrate and make use of Bernard's lightbox class in combination with _Screen in Visual FoxPro. The requirement in this project was to be able to visually lock the whole application (_Screen area) and guide the user to an information that should not be ignored easily. Depending on the importance any current user activity should be interrupted and focus put onto the notification. Getting the "meat", eh, source code Please check out Bernard's blog on Foxite directly in order to get the latest and greatest version. As time of writing this article I use version 6.0 as described in this blog entry: The Fastest Lightbox Ever The Lightbox class is sub-classed from the imgCanvas class from the GdiPlusX project on VFPx and therefore you need to have the source code of GdiPlusX as well, and integrate it into your development environment. The version I use is available here: Release GDIPlusX 1.20 As soon as you open the bbGdiLightbox class the first it, VFP might ask you to update the reference to the gdiplusx.vcx. As we have the sources, no problem and you have access to Bernard's code. The class itself is pretty easy to understand, some properties that you do not need to change and three methods: Setup(), ShowLightbox() and BeforeDraw() The challenge - _Screen or not? Reading Bernard's article about the fastest lightbox ever, he states the following: "The class will only work on a form. It will not support any other containers" Really? And what about _Screen? Isn't that a form class, too? Yes, of course it is but nonetheless trying to use _Screen directly will fail. Well, let's have look at the code to see why: WITH This .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Height = ThisForm.Height .Width = ThisForm.Width .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F.ENDWITH During the setup of the lightbox as well as while capturing the image as replacement for your forms and controls, the object reference Thisform is used. Which is a little bit restrictive to my opinion but let's continue. The second issue lies in the method ShowLightbox() and introduced by the call of .Bitmap.FromScreen(): Lparameters tlVisiblilty* tlVisiblilty - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controlsIF tlVisiblilty Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = IIF(ThisForm.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = IIF(ThisForm.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(ThisForm.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; ThisForm.Width ,; ThisForm.Height) ENDWITH * save it to a property This.capturebmp = loCaptureBmp ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.DraW() This.Visible = .T.ELSE ThisForm.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F.ENDIF My first trials in using the class ended in an exception - GdiPlusError:OutOfMemory - thrown by the Bitmap object. Frankly speaking, this happened mainly because of my lack of knowledge about GdiPlusX. After reading some documentation, especially about the FromScreen() method I experimented a little bit. Capturing the visible area of _Screen actually was not the real problem but the dimensions I specified for the bitmap. The modifications - step by step First of all, it is to get rid of restrictive object references on Thisform and to change them into either This.Parent or more generic into This.oForm (even better: This.oControl). The Lightbox.Setup() method now sets the necessary object reference like so: *====================================================================* Initial setup* Default value: This.oControl = "This.Parent"* Alternative: This.oControl = "_Screen"*====================================================================With This .oControl = Evaluate(.oControl) If Vartype(.oControl) == T_OBJECT .Anchor = 0 .Left = 0 .Top = 0 .Width = .oControl.Width .Height = .oControl.Height .Anchor = 15 .ZOrder(0) .Visible = .F. EndIfEndwith Also, based on other developers' comments in Bernard articles on his lightbox concept and evolution I found the source code to handle the differences between a form and _Screen and goes into Lightbox.ShowLightbox() like this: *====================================================================* tlVisibility - show or hide (T/F)* grab a screen dump with controls*====================================================================Lparameters tlVisibility Local loControl m.loControl = This.oControl If m.tlVisibility Local loCaptureBmp As xfcBitmap Local lnTitleHeight, lnLeftBorder, lnTopBorder, lcImage, loImage lnTitleHeight = Iif(m.loControl.TitleBar = 1,Sysmetric(9),0) lnLeftBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(3)) lnTopBorder = Iif(m.loControl.BorderStyle < 2,0,Sysmetric(4)) With _Screen.System.Drawing If Upper(m.loControl.Name) == Upper("Screen") loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd) Else loCaptureBmp = .Bitmap.FromScreen(m.loControl.HWnd,; lnLeftBorder,; lnTopBorder+lnTitleHeight,; m.loControl.Width ,; m.loControl.Height) EndIf Endwith * save it to a property This.CaptureBmp = loCaptureBmp m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.F.) This.Draw() This.Visible = .T. Else This.CaptureBmp = .Null. m.loControl.SetAll("Visible",.T.) This.Visible = .F. Endif {loadposition content_adsense} Are we done? Almost... Although, Bernard says it clearly in his article: "Just drop the class on a form and call it as shown." It did not come clear to my mind in the first place with _Screen, but, yeah, he is right. Dropping the class on a form provides a permanent link between those two classes, it creates a valid This.Parent object reference. Bearing in mind that the lightbox class can not be "dropped" on the _Screen, we have to create the same type of binding during runtime execution like so: *====================================================================* Create global lightbox component*==================================================================== Local llOk, loException As Exception m.llOk = .F. m.loException = .Null. If Not Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O" Try _Screen.AddObject("Lightbox", "bbGdiLightbox") Catch To m.loException Assert .F. Message m.loException.Message EndTry EndIf m.llOk = (Vartype(_Screen.Lightbox) == "O")Return m.llOk Through runtime instantiation we create a valid binding to This.Parent in the lightbox object and the code works as expected with _Screen. Ease your life: Use properties instead of constants Having a closer look at the BeforeDraw() method might wet your appetite to simplify the code a little bit. Looking at the sample screenshots in Bernard's article you see several forms in different colors. This got me to modify the code like so: *====================================================================* Apply the actual lightbox effect on the captured bitmap.*====================================================================If Vartype(This.CaptureBmp) == T_OBJECT Local loGfx As xfcGraphics loGfx = This.oGfx With _Screen.System.Drawing loGfx.DrawImage(This.CaptureBmp,This.Rectangle,This.Rectangle,.GraphicsUnit.Pixel) * change the colours as needed here * possible colours are (220,128,0,0),(220,0,0,128) etc. loBrush = .SolidBrush.New(.Color.FromArgb( ; This.Opacity, .Color.FromRGB(This.BorderColor))) loGfx.FillRectangle(loBrush,This.Rectangle) EndwithEndif Create an additional property Opacity to specify the grade of translucency you would like to have without the need to change the code in each instance of the class. This way you only need to change the values of Opacity and BorderColor to tweak the appearance of your lightbox. This could be quite helpful to signalize different levels of importance (ie. green, yellow, orange, red, etc...) of notifications to the users of the application. Final thoughts Using the lightbox concept in combination with _Screen instead of forms is possible. Already Jim Wiggins comments in Bernard's article to loop through the _Screen.Forms collection in order to cascade the lightbox visibility to all active forms. Good idea. But honestly, I believe that instead of looping all forms one could use _Screen.SetAll("ShowLightbox", .T./.F., "Form") with Form.ShowLightbox_Access method to gain more speed. The modifications described above might provide even more features to your applications while consuming less resources and performance. Additionally, the restrictions to capture only forms does not exist anymore. Using _Screen you are able to capture and cover anything. The captured area of _Screen does not include any toolbars, docked windows, or menus. Therefore, it is advised to take this concept on a higher level and to combine it with additional classes that handle the state of toolbars, docked windows and menus. Which I did for the customer's project.

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #038

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 CASE Statement in ORDER BY Clause – ORDER BY using Variable This article is as per request from the Application Development Team Leader of my company. His team encountered code where the application was preparing string for ORDER BY clause of the SELECT statement. Application was passing this string as variable to Stored Procedure (SP) and SP was using EXEC to execute the SQL string. This is not good for performance as Stored Procedure has to recompile every time due to EXEC. sp_executesql can do the same task but still not the best performance. SSMS – View/Send Query Results to Text/Grid/Files Results to Text – CTRL + T Results to Grid – CTRL + D Results to File – CTRL + SHIFT + F 2008 Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 2 I wrote about Introduction to SPARSE Columns Part 1. Let us understand the concept of the SPARSE column in more detail. I suggest you read the first part before continuing reading this article. All SPARSE columns are stored as one XML column in the database. Let us see some of the advantage and disadvantage of SPARSE column. Deferred Name Resolution How come when table name is incorrect SP can be created successfully but when an incorrect column is used SP cannot be created? 2009 Backup Timeline and Understanding of Database Restore Process in Full Recovery Model In general, databases backup in full recovery mode is taken in three different kinds of database files. Full Database Backup Differential Database Backup Log Backup Restore Sequence and Understanding NORECOVERY and RECOVERY While doing RESTORE Operation if you restoring database files, always use NORECOVER option as that will keep the database in a state where more backup file are restored. This will also keep database offline also to prevent any changes, which can create itegrity issues. Once all backup file is restored run RESTORE command with a RECOVERY option to get database online and operational. Four Different Ways to Find Recovery Model for Database Perhaps, the best thing about technical domain is that most of the things can be executed in more than one ways. It is always useful to know about the various methods of performing a single task. Two Methods to Retrieve List of Primary Keys and Foreign Keys of Database When Information Schema is used, we will not be able to discern between primary key and foreign key; we will have both the keys together. In the case of sys schema, we can query the data in our preferred way and can join this table to another table, which can retrieve additional data from the same. Get Last Running Query Based on SPID PID is returns sessions ID of the current user process. The acronym SPID comes from the name of its earlier version, Server Process ID. 2010 SELECT * FROM dual – Dual Equivalent Dual is a table that is created by Oracle together with data dictionary. It consists of exactly one column named “dummy”, and one record. The value of that record is X. You can check the content of the DUAL table using the following syntax. SELECT * FROM dual Identifying Statistics Used by Query Someone asked this question in my training class of query optimization and performance tuning.  “Can I know which statistics were used by my query?” 2011 SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 14 of 31 What are the basic functions for master, msdb, model, tempdb and resource databases? What is the Maximum Number of Index per Table? Explain Few of the New Features of SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Explain IntelliSense for Query Editing Explain MultiServer Query Explain Query Editor Regions Explain Object Explorer Enhancements Explain Activity Monitors SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 15 of 31 What is Service Broker? Where are SQL server Usernames and Passwords Stored in the SQL server? What is Policy Management? What is Database Mirroring? What are Sparse Columns? What does TOP Operator Do? What is CTE? What is MERGE Statement? What is Filtered Index? Which are the New Data Types Introduced in SQL SERVER 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 16 of 31 What are the Advantages of Using CTE? How can we Rewrite Sub-Queries into Simple Select Statements or with Joins? What is CLR? What are Synonyms? What is LINQ? What are Isolation Levels? What is Use of EXCEPT Clause? What is XPath? What is NOLOCK? What is the Difference between Update Lock and Exclusive Lock? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 17 of 31 How will you Handle Error in SQL SERVER 2008? What is RAISEERROR? What is RAISEERROR? How to Rebuild the Master Database? What is the XML Datatype? What is Data Compression? What is Use of DBCC Commands? How to Copy the Tables, Schema and Views from one SQL Server to Another? How to Find Tables without Indexes? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 18 of 31 How to Copy Data from One Table to Another Table? What is Catalog Views? What is PIVOT and UNPIVOT? What is a Filestream? What is SQLCMD? What do you mean by TABLESAMPLE? What is ROW_NUMBER()? What are Ranking Functions? What is Change Data Capture (CDC) in SQL Server 2008? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 19 of 31 How can I Track the Changes or Identify the Latest Insert-Update-Delete from a Table? What is the CPU Pressure? How can I Get Data from a Database on Another Server? What is the Bookmark Lookup and RID Lookup? What is Difference between ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE and WITH NO_WAIT during ALTER DATABASE? What is Difference between GETDATE and SYSDATETIME in SQL Server 2008? How can I Check that whether Automatic Statistic Update is Enabled or not? How to Find Index Size for Each Index on Table? What is the Difference between Seek Predicate and Predicate? What are Basics of Policy Management? What are the Advantages of Policy Management? SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Day 20 of 31 What are Policy Management Terms? What is the ‘FILLFACTOR’? Where in MS SQL Server is ’100’ equal to ‘0’? What are Points to Remember while Using the FILLFACTOR Argument? What is a ROLLUP Clause? What are Various Limitations of the Views? What is a Covered index? When I Delete any Data from a Table, does the SQL Server reduce the size of that table? What are Wait Types? How to Stop Log File Growing too Big? If any Stored Procedure is Encrypted, then can we see its definition in Activity Monitor? 2012 Example of Width Sensitive and Width Insensitive Collation Width Sensitive Collation: A single-byte character (half-width) represented as single-byte and the same character represented as a double-byte character (full-width) are when compared are not equal the collation is width sensitive. In this example we have one table with two columns. One column has a collation of width sensitive and the second column has a collation of width insensitive. Find Column Used in Stored Procedure – Search Stored Procedure for Column Name Very interesting conversation about how to find column used in a stored procedure. There are two different characters in the story and both are having a conversation about how to find column in the stored procedure. Here are two part story Part 1 | Part 2 SQL SERVER – 2012 Functions – FORMAT() and CONCAT() – An Interesting Usage Generate Script for Schema and Data – SQL in Sixty Seconds #021 – Video In simple words, in many cases the database move from one place to another place. It is not always possible to back up and restore databases. There are possibilities when only part of the database (with schema and data) has to be moved. In this video we learn that we can easily generate script for schema for data and move from one server to another one. INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS and Value Character Maximum Length -1 I often see the value -1 in the CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH column of INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS table. I understand that the length of any column can be between 0 to large number but I do not get it when I see value in negative (i.e. -1). Any insight on this subject? Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Windows 8 Will be Here Tomorrow; but Should Silverlight be Gone Today?

  - by andrewbrust

  The software industry lives within an interesting paradox. IT in the enterprise moves slowly and cautiously, upgrading only when safe and necessary.  IT interests intentionally live in the past.  On the other hand, developers, and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) not only want to use the latest and greatest technologies, but this constituency prides itself on gauging tech’s future, and basing its present-day strategy upon it.  Normally, we as an industry manage this paradox with a shrug of the shoulder and musings along the lines of “it takes all kinds.”  Different subcultures have different tendencies.  So be it. Microsoft, with its Windows operating system (OS), can’t take such a laissez-faire view of the world though.  Redmond relies on IT to deploy Windows and (at the very least) influence its procurement, but it also relies on developers to build software for Windows, especially software that has a dependency on features in new versions of the OS.  It must indulge and nourish developers’ fetish for an early birthing of the next generation of software, even as it acknowledges the IT reality that the next wave will arrive on-schedule in Redmond and will travel very slowly to end users. With the move to Windows 8, and the corresponding shift in application development models, this paradox is certainly in place. On the one hand, the next version of Windows is widely expected sometime in 2012, and its full-scale deployment will likely push into 2014 or even later.  Meanwhile, there’s a technology that runs on today’s Windows 7, will continue to run in the desktop mode of Windows 8 (the next version’s codename), and provides absolutely the best architectural bridge to the Windows 8 Metro-style application development stack.  That technology is Silverlight.  And given what we now know about Windows 8, one might think, as I do, that Microsoft ecosystem developers should be flocking to it. But because developers are trying to get a jump on the future, and since many of them believe the impending v5.0 release of Silverlight will be the technology’s last, not everyone is flocking to it; in fact some are fleeing from it.  Is this sensible?  Is it not unprecedented?  What options does it lead to?  What’s the right way to think about the situation? Is v5.0 really the last major version of the technology called Silverlight?  We don’t know.  But Scott Guthrie, the “father” and champion of the technology, left the Developer Division of Microsoft months ago to work on the Windows Azure team, and he took his people with him.  John Papa, who was a very influential Redmond-based evangelist for Silverlight (and is a Visual Studio Magazine author), left Microsoft completely.  About a year ago, when initial suspicion of Silverlight’s demise reached significant magnitude, Papa interviewed Guthrie on video and their discussion served to dispel developers’ fears; but now they’ve moved on. So read into that what you will and let’s suppose, for the sake of argument, speculation that Silverlight’s days of major revision and iteration are over now is correct.  Let’s assume the shine and glimmer has dimmed.  Let’s assume that any Silverlight application written today, and that therefore any investment of financial and human resources made in Silverlight development today, is destined for rework and extra investment in a few years, if the application’s platform needs to stay current. Is this really so different from any technology investment we make?  Every framework, language, runtime and operating system is subject to change, to improvement, to flux and, yes, to obsolescence.  What differs from project to project, is how near-term that obsolescence is and how disruptive the change will be.  The shift from .NET 1.1. to 2.0 was incremental.  Some of the further changes were too.  But the switch from Windows Forms to WPF was major, and the change from ASP.NET Web Services (asmx) to Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) was downright fundamental. Meanwhile, the transition to the .NET development model for Windows 8 Metro-style applications is actually quite gentle.  The finer points of this subject are covered nicely in Magenic’s excellent white paper “Assessing the Windows 8 Development Platform.” As the authors of that paper (including Rocky Lhotka)  point out, Silverlight code won’t just “port” to Windows 8.  And, no, Silverlight user interfaces won’t either; Metro always supports XAML, but that relationship is not commutative.  But the concepts, the syntax, the architecture and developers’ skills map from Silverlight to Windows 8 Metro and the Windows Runtime (WinRT) very nicely.  That’s not a coincidence.  It’s not an accident.  This is a protected transition.  It’s not a slap in the face. There are few things that are unnerving about this transition, which make it seem markedly different from others: The assumed end of the road for Silverlight is something many think they can see.  Instead of being ignorant of the technology’s expiration date, we believe we know it.  If ignorance is bliss, it would seem our situation lacks it. The new technology involving WinRT and Metro involves a name change from Silverlight. .NET, which underlies both Silverlight and the XAML approach to WinRT development, has just about reached 10 years of age.  That’s equivalent to 80 in human years, or so many fear. My take is that the combination of these three factors has contributed to what for many is a psychologically compelling case that Silverlight should be abandoned today and HTML 5 (the agnostic kind, not the Windows RT variety) should be embraced in its stead.  I understand the logic behind that.  I appreciate the preemptive, proactive, vigilant conscientiousness involved in its calculus.  But for a great many scenarios, I don’t agree with it.  HTML 5 clients, no matter how impressive their interactivity and the emulation of native application interfaces they present may be, are still second-class clients.  They are getting better, especially when hardware acceleration and fast processors are involved.  But they still lag.  They still feel like they’re emulating something, like they’re prototypes, like they’re not comfortable in their own skins.  They are based on compromise, and they feel compromised too. HTML 5/JavaScript development tools are getting better, and will get better still, but they are not as productive as tools for other environments, like Flash, like Silverlight or even more primitive tooling for iOS or Android.  HTML’s roots as a document markup language, rather than an application interface, create a disconnect that impedes productivity.  I do not necessarily think that problem is insurmountable, but it’s here today. If you’re building line-of-business applications, you need a first-class client and you need productivity.  Lack of productivity increases your costs and worsens your backlog.  A second class client will erode user satisfaction, which is never good.  Worse yet, this erosion will be inconspicuous, rather than easily identified and diagnosed, because the inferiority of an HTML 5 client over a native one is hard to identify and, notably, doing so at this juncture in the industry is unpopular.  Why would you fault a technology that everyone believes is revolutionary?  Instead, user disenchantment will remain latent and yet will add to the malaise caused by slower development. If you’re an ISV and you’re coveting the reach of running multi-platform, it’s a different story.  You’ve likely wanted to move to HTML 5 already, and the uncertainty around Silverlight may be the only remaining momentum or pretext you need to make the shift.  You’re deploying many more copies of your application than a line-of-business developer is anyway; this makes the economic hit from lower productivity less impactful, and the wider potential installed base might even make it profitable. But no matter who you are, it’s important to take stock of the situation and do it accurately.  Continued, but merely incremental changes in a development model lead to conservatism and general lack of innovation in the underlying platform.  Periods of stability and equilibrium are necessary, but permanence in that equilibrium leads to loss of platform relevance, market share and utility.  Arguably, that’s already happened to Windows.  The change Windows 8 brings is necessary and overdue.  The marked changes in using .NET if we’re to build applications for the new OS are inevitable.  We will ultimately benefit from the change, and what we can reasonably hope for in the interim is a migration path for our code and skills that is navigable, logical and conceptually comfortable. That path takes us to a place called WinRT, rather than a place called Silverlight.  But considering everything that is changing for the good, the number of disruptive changes is impressively minimal.  The name may be changing, and there may even be some significance to that in terms of Microsoft’s internal management of products and technologies.  But as the consumer, you should care about the ingredients, not the name.  Turkish coffee and Greek coffee are much the same. Although you’ll find plenty of interested parties who will find the names significant, drinkers of the beverage should enjoy either one.  It’s all coffee, it’s all sweet, and you can tell your fortune from the grounds that are left at the end.  Back on the software side, it’s all XAML, and C# or VB .NET, and you can make your fortune from the product that comes out at the end.  Coffee drinkers wouldn’t switch to tea.  Why should XAML developers switch to HTML?

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• Operator of the week - Assert

  - by Fabiano Amorim

  Well my friends, I was wondering how to help you in a practical way to understand execution plans. So I think I'll talk about the Showplan Operators. Showplan Operators are used by the Query Optimizer (QO) to build the query plan in order to perform a specified operation. A query plan will consist of many physical operators. The Query Optimizer uses a simple language that represents each physical operation by an operator, and each operator is represented in the graphical execution plan by an icon. I'll try to talk about one operator every week, but so as to avoid having to continue to write about these operators for years, I'll mention only of those that are more common: The first being the Assert. The Assert is used to verify a certain condition, it validates a Constraint on every row to ensure that the condition was met. If, for example, our DDL includes a check constraint which specifies only two valid values for a column, the Assert will, for every row, validate the value passed to the column to ensure that input is consistent with the check constraint. Assert  and Check Constraints: Let's see where the SQL Server uses that information in practice. Take the following T-SQL: IF OBJECT_ID('Tab1') IS NOT NULL   DROP TABLE Tab1 GO CREATE TABLE Tab1(ID Integer, Gender CHAR(1))  GO  ALTER TABLE TAB1 ADD CONSTRAINT ck_Gender_M_F CHECK(Gender IN('M','F'))  GO INSERT INTO Tab1(ID, Gender) VALUES(1,'X') GO To the command above the SQL Server has generated the following execution plan: As we can see, the execution plan uses the Assert operator to check that the inserted value doesn't violate the Check Constraint. In this specific case, the Assert applies the rule, 'if the value is different to "F" and different to "M" than return 0 otherwise returns NULL'. The Assert operator is programmed to show an error if the returned value is not NULL; in other words, the returned value is not a "M" or "F". Assert checking Foreign Keys Now let's take a look at an example where the Assert is used to validate a foreign key constraint. Suppose we have this  query: ALTER TABLE Tab1 ADD ID_Genders INT GO  IF OBJECT_ID('Tab2') IS NOT NULL   DROP TABLE Tab2 GO CREATE TABLE Tab2(ID Integer PRIMARY KEY, Gender CHAR(1))  GO  INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(1, 'F') INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(2, 'M') INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(3, 'N') GO  ALTER TABLE Tab1 ADD CONSTRAINT fk_Tab2 FOREIGN KEY (ID_Genders) REFERENCES Tab2(ID) GO  INSERT INTO Tab1(ID, ID_Genders, Gender) VALUES(1, 4, 'X') Let's look at the text execution plan to see what these Assert operators were doing. To see the text execution plan just execute SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON before run the insert command. |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN NOT [Pass1008] AND [Expr1007] IS NULL THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))      |--Nested Loops(Left Semi Join, PASSTHRU:([Tab1].[ID_Genders] IS NULL), OUTER REFERENCES:([Tab1].[ID_Genders]), DEFINE:([Expr1007] = [PROBE VALUE]))           |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN [Tab1].[Gender]<>'F' AND [Tab1].[Gender]<>'M' THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))           |    |--Clustered Index Insert(OBJECT:([Tab1].[PK]), SET:([Tab1].[ID] = RaiseIfNullInsert([@1]),[Tab1].[ID_Genders] = [@2],[Tab1].[Gender] = [Expr1003]), DEFINE:([Expr1003]=CONVERT_IMPLICIT(char(1),[@3],0)))           |--Clustered Index Seek(OBJECT:([Tab2].[PK]), SEEK:([Tab2].[ID]=[Tab1].[ID_Genders]) ORDERED FORWARD) Here we can see the Assert operator twice, first (looking down to up in the text plan and the right to left in the graphical plan) validating the Check Constraint. The same concept showed above is used, if the exit value is "0" than keep running the query, but if NULL is returned shows an exception. The second Assert is validating the result of the Tab1 and Tab2 join. It is interesting to see the "[Expr1007] IS NULL". To understand that you need to know what this Expr1007 is, look at the Probe Value (green text) in the text plan and you will see that it is the result of the join. If the value passed to the INSERT at the column ID_Gender exists in the table Tab2, then that probe will return the join value; otherwise it will return NULL. So the Assert is checking the value of the search at the Tab2; if the value that is passed to the INSERT is not found  then Assert will show one exception. If the value passed to the column ID_Genders is NULL than the SQL can't show a exception, in that case it returns "0" and keeps running the query. If you run the INSERT above, the SQL will show an exception because of the "X" value, but if you change the "X" to "F" and run again, it will show an exception because of the value "4". If you change the value "4" to NULL, 1, 2 or 3 the insert will be executed without any error. Assert checking a SubQuery: The Assert operator is also used to check one subquery. As we know, one scalar subquery can't validly return more than one value: Sometimes, however, a  mistake happens, and a subquery attempts to return more than one value . Here the Assert comes into play by validating the condition that a scalar subquery returns just one value. Take the following query: INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')    INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')    |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN NOT [Pass1016] AND [Expr1015] IS NULL THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))        |--Nested Loops(Left Semi Join, PASSTHRU:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo] IS NULL), OUTER REFERENCES:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo]), DEFINE:([Expr1015] = [PROBE VALUE]))              |--Assert(WHERE:([Expr1017]))             |    |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1017]=CASE WHEN [tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo]<>'F' AND [tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo]<>'M' THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))              |         |--Clustered Index Insert(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[PK__Tab1__3214EC277097A3C8]), SET:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo] = [Expr1008],[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo] = [Expr1009],[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID] = [Expr1003]))              |              |--Top(TOP EXPRESSION:((1)))              |                   |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1008]=[Expr1014], [Expr1009]='F'))              |                        |--Nested Loops(Left Outer Join)              |                             |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1003]=getidentity((1856985942),(2),NULL)))              |                             |    |--Constant Scan              |                             |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN [Expr1013]>(1) THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))              |                                  |--Stream Aggregate(DEFINE:([Expr1013]=Count(*), [Expr1014]=ANY([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo])))             |                                       |--Clustered Index Scan(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[PK__Tab1__3214EC277097A3C8]))              |--Clustered Index Seek(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab2].[PK__Tab2__3214EC27755C58E5]), SEEK:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab2].[ID]=[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo]) ORDERED FORWARD)  You can see from this text showplan that SQL Server as generated a Stream Aggregate to count how many rows the SubQuery will return, This value is then passed to the Assert which then does its job by checking its validity. Is very interesting to see that  the Query Optimizer is smart enough be able to avoid using assert operators when they are not necessary. For instance: INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1 WHERE ID = 1), 'F') INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT TOP 1 ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')  For both these INSERTs, the Query Optimiser is smart enough to know that only one row will ever be returned, so there is no need to use the Assert. Well, that's all folks, I see you next week with more "Operators". Cheers, Fabiano

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• C#/.NET &ndash; Finding an Item&rsquo;s Index in IEnumerable&lt;T&gt;

  - by James Michael Hare

  Sorry for the long blogging hiatus.  First it was, of course, the holidays hustle and bustle, then my brother and his wife gave birth to their son, so I’ve been away from my blogging for two weeks. Background: Finding an item’s index in List<T> is easy… Many times in our day to day programming activities, we want to find the index of an item in a collection.  Now, if we have a List<T> and we’re looking for the item itself this is trivial: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // can find the exact item using IndexOf() 5: var pos = list.IndexOf(64); This will return the position of the item if it’s found, or –1 if not.  It’s easy to see how this works for primitive types where equality is well defined.  For complex types, however, it will attempt to compare them using EqualityComparer<T>.Default which, in a nutshell, relies on the object’s Equals() method. So what if we want to search for a condition instead of equality?  That’s also easy in a List<T> with the FindIndex() method: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // finds index of first even number or -1 if not found. 5: var pos = list.FindIndex(i => i % 2 == 0);   Problem: Finding an item’s index in IEnumerable<T> is not so easy... This is all well and good for lists, but what if we want to do the same thing for IEnumerable<T>?  A collection of IEnumerable<T> has no indexing, so there’s no direct method to find an item’s index.  LINQ, as powerful as it is, gives us many tools to get us this information, but not in one step.  As with almost any problem involving collections, there are several ways to accomplish the same goal.  And once again as with almost any problem involving collections, the choice of the solution somewhat depends on the situation. So let’s look at a few possible alternatives.  I’m going to express each of these as extension methods for simplicity and consistency. Solution: The TakeWhile() and Count() combo One of the things you can do is to perform a TakeWhile() on the list as long as your find condition is not true, and then do a Count() of the items it took.  The only downside to this method is that if the item is not in the list, the index will be the full Count() of items, and not –1.  So if you don’t know the size of the list beforehand, this can be confusing. 1: // a collection of extra extension methods off IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // Finds an item in the collection, similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: // note if item not found, result is length and not -1! 8: return list.TakeWhile(i => !finder(i)).Count(); 9: } 10: } Personally, I don’t like switching the paradigm of not found away from –1, so this is one of my least favorites.  Solution: Select with index Many people don’t realize that there is an alternative form of the LINQ Select() method that will provide you an index of the item being selected: 1: list.Select( (item,index) => do something here with the item and/or index... ) This can come in handy, but must be treated with care.  This is because the index provided is only as pertains to the result of previous operations (if any).  For example: 1: // assume have a list of ints: 2: var list = new List<int> { 1, 13, 42, 64, 121, 77, 5, 99, 132 }; 3:  4: // you'd hope this would give you the indexes of the even numbers 5: // which would be 2, 3, 8, but in reality it gives you 0, 1, 2 6: list.Where(item => item % 2 == 0).Select((item,index) => index); The reason the example gives you the collection { 0, 1, 2 } is because the where clause passes over any items that are odd, and therefore only the even items are given to the select and only they are given indexes. Conversely, we can’t select the index and then test the item in a Where() clause, because then the Where() clause would be operating on the index and not the item! So, what we have to do is to select the item and index and put them together in an anonymous type.  It looks ugly, but it works: 1: // extensions defined on IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // finds an item in a collection, similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: // if you don't name the anonymous properties they are the variable names 8: return list.Select((item, index) => new { item, index }) 9: .Where(p => finder(p.item)) 10: .Select(p => p.index + 1) 11: .FirstOrDefault() - 1; 12: } 13: }     So let’s look at this, because i know it’s convoluted: First Select() joins the items and their indexes into an anonymous type. Where() filters that list to only the ones matching the predicate. Second Select() picks the index of the matches and adds 1 – this is to distinguish between not found and first item. FirstOrDefault() returns the first item found from the previous clauses or default (zero) if not found. Subtract one so that not found (zero) will be –1, and first item (one) will be zero. The bad thing is, this is ugly as hell and creates anonymous objects for each item tested until it finds the match.  This concerns me a bit but we’ll defer judgment until compare the relative performances below. Solution: Convert ToList() and use FindIndex() This solution is easy enough.  We know any IEnumerable<T> can be converted to List<T> using the LINQ extension method ToList(), so we can easily convert the collection to a list and then just use the FindIndex() method baked into List<T>. 1: // a collection of extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // find the index of an item in the collection similar to List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: return list.ToList().FindIndex(finder); 8: } 9: } This solution is simplicity itself!  It is very concise and elegant and you need not worry about anyone misinterpreting what it’s trying to do (as opposed to the more convoluted LINQ methods above). But the main thing I’m concerned about here is the performance hit to allocate the List<T> in the ToList() call, but once again we’ll explore that in a second. Solution: Roll your own FindIndex() for IEnumerable<T> Of course, you can always roll your own FindIndex() method for IEnumerable<T>.  It would be a very simple for loop which scans for the item and counts as it goes.  There’s many ways to do this, but one such way might look like: 1: // extension methods for IEnumerable<T> 2: public static class EnumerableExtensions 3: { 4: // Finds an item matching a predicate in the enumeration, much like List<T>.FindIndex() 5: public static int FindIndex<T>(this IEnumerable<T> list, Predicate<T> finder) 6: { 7: int index = 0; 8: foreach (var item in list) 9: { 10: if (finder(item)) 11: { 12: return index; 13: } 14:  15: index++; 16: } 17:  18: return -1; 19: } 20: } Well, it’s not quite simplicity, and those less familiar with LINQ may prefer it since it doesn’t include all of the lambdas and behind the scenes iterators that come with deferred execution.  But does having this long, blown out method really gain us much in performance? Comparison of Proposed Solutions So we’ve now seen four solutions, let’s analyze their collective performance.  I took each of the four methods described above and run them over 100,000 iterations of lists of size 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 and here’s the performance results.  Then I looked for targets at the begining of the list (best case), middle of the list (the average case) and not in the list (worst case as must scan all of the list). Each of the times below is the average time in milliseconds for one execution as computer over the 100,000 iterations: Searches Matching First Item (Best Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 0.0003 Select 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 0.0005 ToList 0.0002 0.0003 0.0013 0.0121 Manual 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001   Searches Matching Middle Item (Average Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0004 0.0020 0.0191 0.1889 Select 0.0008 0.0042 0.0387 0.3802 ToList 0.0002 0.0007 0.0057 0.0562 Manual 0.0002 0.0013 0.0129 0.1255   Searches Where Not Found (Worst Case)   10 100 1000 10000 TakeWhile 0.0006 0.0039 0.0381 0.3770 Select 0.0012 0.0081 0.0758 0.7583 ToList 0.0002 0.0012 0.0100 0.0996 Manual 0.0003 0.0026 0.0253 0.2514   Notice something interesting here, you’d think the “roll your own” loop would be the most efficient, but it only wins when the item is first (or very close to it) regardless of list size.  In almost all other cases though and in particular the average case and worst case, the ToList()/FindIndex() combo wins for performance, even though it is creating some temporary memory to hold the List<T>.  If you examine the algorithm, the reason why is most likely because once it’s in a ToList() form, internally FindIndex() scans the internal array which is much more efficient to iterate over.  Thus, it takes a one time performance hit (not including any GC impact) to create the List<T> but after that the performance is much better. Summary If you’re concerned about too many throw-away objects, you can always roll your own FindIndex() method, but for sheer simplicity and overall performance, using the ToList()/FindIndex() combo performs best on nearly all list sizes in the average and worst cases.    Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Litte Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,Software,LINQ,List

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• C#: Why Decorate When You Can Intercept

  - by James Michael Hare

  We've all heard of the old Decorator Design Pattern (here) or used it at one time or another either directly or indirectly.  A decorator is a class that wraps a given abstract class or interface and presents the same (or a superset) public interface but "decorated" with additional functionality.   As a really simplistic example, consider the System.IO.BufferedStream, it itself is a descendent of System.IO.Stream and wraps the given stream with buffering logic while still presenting System.IO.Stream's public interface:   1: Stream buffStream = new BufferedStream(rawStream); Now, let's take a look at a custom-code example.  Let's say that we have a class in our data access layer that retrieves a list of products from a database:  1: // a class that handles our CRUD operations for products 2: public class ProductDao 3: { 4: ... 5:  6: // a method that would retrieve all available products 7: public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 8: { 9: var results = new List<Product>(); 10:  11: // must create the connection 12: using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 13: { 14: con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 15: con.Open(); 16:  17: // create the command 18: using (var cmd = _factory.CreateCommand()) 19: { 20: cmd.Connection = con; 21: cmd.CommandText = _getAllProductsStoredProc; 22: cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure; 23:  24: // get a reader and pass back all results 25: using (var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader()) 26: { 27: while(reader.Read()) 28: { 29: results.Add(new Product 30: { 31: Name = reader["product_name"].ToString(), 32: ... 33: }); 34: } 35: } 36: } 37: }            38:  39: return results; 40: } 41: } Yes, you could use EF or any myriad other choices for this sort of thing, but the germaine point is that you have some operation that takes a non-trivial amount of time.  What if, during the production day I notice that my application is performing slowly and I want to see how much of that slowness is in the query versus my code.  Well, I could easily wrap the logic block in a System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch and log the results to log4net or other logging flavor of choice: 1:     // a class that handles our CRUD operations for products 2:     public class ProductDao 3:     { 4:         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(ProductDao)); 5:         ... 6:         7:         // a method that would retrieve all available products 8:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 9:         { 10:             var results = new List<Product>(); 11:             var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 12:             13:             // must create the connection 14:             using (var con = _factory.CreateConnection()) 15:             { 16:                 con.ConnectionString = _productsConnectionString; 17:                 18:                 // and all that other DB code... 19:                 ... 20:             } 21:             22:             timer.Stop(); 23:             24:             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000) 25:             { 26:                 _log.WarnFormat("Long query in GetAvailableProducts() took {0} ms", 27:                     timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 28:             } 29:             30:             return results; 31:         } 32:     } In my eye, this is very ugly.  It violates Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), which says that a class should only ever have one responsibility, where responsibility is often defined as a reason to change.  This class (and in particular this method) has two reasons to change: If the method of retrieving products changes. If the method of logging changes. Well, we could “simplify” this using the Decorator Design Pattern (here).  If we followed the pattern to the letter, we'd need to create a base decorator that implements the DAOs public interface and forwards to the wrapped instance.  So let's assume we break out the ProductDAO interface into IProductDAO using your refactoring tool of choice (Resharper is great for this). Now, ProductDao will implement IProductDao and get rid of all logging logic: 1:     public class ProductDao : IProductDao 2:     { 3:         // this reverts back to original version except for the interface added 4:     } 5:  And we create the base Decorator that also implements the interface and forwards all calls: 1:     public class ProductDaoDecorator : IProductDao 2:     { 3:         private readonly IProductDao _wrappedDao; 4:         5:         // constructor takes the dao to wrap 6:         public ProductDaoDecorator(IProductDao wrappedDao) 7:         { 8:             _wrappedDao = wrappedDao; 9:         } 10:         11:         ... 12:         13:         // and then all methods just forward their calls 14:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 15:         { 16:             return _wrappedDao.GetAvailableProducts(); 17:         } 18:     } This defines our base decorator, then we can create decorators that add items of interest, and for any methods we don't decorate, we'll get the default behavior which just forwards the call to the wrapper in the base decorator: 1:     public class TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator : ProductDaoDecorator 2:     { 3:         private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator)); 4:         5:         public TimedThresholdProductDaoDecorator(IProductDao wrappedDao) : 6:             base(wrappedDao) 7:         { 8:         } 9:         10:         ... 11:         12:         public IEnumerable<Product> GetAvailableProducts() 13:         { 14:             var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 15:             16:             var results = _wrapped.GetAvailableProducts(); 17:             18:             timer.Stop(); 19:             20:             if (timer.ElapsedMilliseconds > 5000) 21:             { 22:                 _log.WarnFormat("Long query in GetAvailableProducts() took {0} ms", 23:                     timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 24:             } 25:             26:             return results; 27:         } 28:     } Well, it's a bit better.  Now the logging is in its own class, and the database logic is in its own class.  But we've essentially multiplied the number of classes.  We now have 3 classes and one interface!  Now if you want to do that same logging decorating on all your DAOs, imagine the code bloat!  Sure, you can simplify and avoid creating the base decorator, or chuck it all and just inherit directly.  But regardless all of these have the problem of tying the logging logic into the code itself. Enter the Interceptors.  Things like this to me are a perfect example of when it's good to write an Interceptor using your class library of choice.  Sure, you could design your own perfectly generic decorator with delegates and all that, but personally I'm a big fan of Castle's Dynamic Proxy (here) which is actually used by many projects including Moq. What DynamicProxy allows you to do is intercept calls into any object by wrapping it with a proxy on the fly that intercepts the method and allows you to add functionality.  Essentially, the code would now look like this using DynamicProxy: 1: // Note: I like hiding DynamicProxy behind the scenes so users 2: // don't have to explicitly add reference to Castle's libraries. 3: public static class TimeThresholdInterceptor 4: { 5: // Our logging handle 6: private static readonly ILog _log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(TimeThresholdInterceptor)); 7:  8: // Handle to Castle's proxy generator 9: private static readonly ProxyGenerator _generator = new ProxyGenerator(); 10:  11: // generic form for those who prefer it 12: public static object Create<TInterface>(object target, TimeSpan threshold) 13: { 14: return Create(typeof(TInterface), target, threshold); 15: } 16:  17: // Form that uses type instead 18: public static object Create(Type interfaceType, object target, TimeSpan threshold) 19: { 20: return _generator.CreateInterfaceProxyWithTarget(interfaceType, target, 21: new TimedThreshold(threshold, level)); 22: } 23:  24: // The interceptor that is created to intercept the interface calls. 25: // Hidden as a private inner class so not exposing Castle libraries. 26: private class TimedThreshold : IInterceptor 27: { 28: // The threshold as a positive timespan that triggers a log message. 29: private readonly TimeSpan _threshold; 30:  31: // interceptor constructor 32: public TimedThreshold(TimeSpan threshold) 33: { 34: _threshold = threshold; 35: } 36:  37: // Intercept functor for each method invokation 38: public void Intercept(IInvocation invocation) 39: { 40: // time the method invocation 41: var timer = Stopwatch.StartNew(); 42:  43: // the Castle magic that tells the method to go ahead 44: invocation.Proceed(); 45:  46: timer.Stop(); 47:  48: // check if threshold is exceeded 49: if (timer.Elapsed > _threshold) 50: { 51: _log.WarnFormat("Long execution in {0} took {1} ms", 52: invocation.Method.Name, 53: timer.ElapsedMillseconds); 54: } 55: } 56: } 57: } Yes, it's a bit longer, but notice that: This class ONLY deals with logging long method calls, no DAO interface leftovers. This class can be used to time ANY class that has an interface or virtual methods. Personally, I like to wrap and hide the usage of DynamicProxy and IInterceptor so that anyone who uses this class doesn't need to know to add a Castle library reference.  As far as they are concerned, they're using my interceptor.  If I change to a new library if a better one comes along, they're insulated. Now, all we have to do to use this is to tell it to wrap our ProductDao and it does the rest: 1: // wraps a new ProductDao with a timing interceptor with a threshold of 5 seconds 2: IProductDao dao = TimeThresholdInterceptor.Create<IProductDao>(new ProductDao(), 5000); Automatic decoration of all methods!  You can even refine the proxy so that it only intercepts certain methods. This is ideal for so many things.  These are just some of the interceptors we've dreamed up and use: Log parameters and returns of methods to XML for auditing. Block invocations to methods and return default value (stubbing). Throw exception if certain methods are called (good for blocking access to deprecated methods). Log entrance and exit of a method and the duration. Log a message if a method takes more than a given time threshold to execute. Whether you use DynamicProxy or some other technology, I hope you see the benefits this adds.  Does it completely eliminate all need for the Decorator pattern?  No, there may still be cases where you want to decorate a particular class with functionality that doesn't apply to the world at large. But for all those cases where you are using Decorator to add functionality that's truly generic.  I strongly suggest you give this a try!

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• So&hellip; What is a SharePoint Developer?

  - by Mark Rackley

  A few days ago Stacy Draper and I were chatting about what it means to be a SharePoint Developer. That actually turns about to be a conversation with lots of shades of grey. Stacy thought it would make a good blog post… well, I can’t promise this to be a GOOD blog post… So, anyway, I decided to let off a little bomb this morning by posting the following tweet on Twitter: @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? Now, I knew this is a debate that has been going on since the first SharePoint Designer User put SharePoint Developer on their resume. There are probably several blogs out there on the subject, but with the wildfire that is jQuery and a few other new features out there I believe it is an important subject to tackle again. I got a lot of great feedback as well on Twitter. The entire twitter conversation is at the end of this blog posting. Thanks everyone for their opinions. Who cares? Why does it matter? Can’t we all just get along? Yes it matters… everything must be labeled and put in it’s proper place. Pigeon holing is the only way to go!  Just kidding.. I’m not near that anal, but yes! It is important to be able to properly identify the skill set of those people on your team and correctly identify the role you are wanting to hire. Saying you are a “SharePoint Developer” is just too vague and just barely begins to answer the question. Also, knowing who’s on your team and what they can do will ensure you give your clients the best people for the job. A Developer writes code right? So, a Developer uses Visual Studio! Whoa, hold on there Sparky. Even if I concede that to be a developer you have to write code then you still can’t say a SharePoint Developer has to use Visual Studio.  So, you can spell C#, how well can you write XSLT? How’s your jQuery? Sorry bud, that’s code whether you like it or not. There are many ways to write code in SharePoint that have nothing to do with cracking open Visual Studio. So, what are the different ways to develop in SharePoint then? How many different ways can you “develop” in SharePoint?? A lot… Out of the box features In SharePoint you can create a site, create a custom list on that site, do basic calculations in a calculated column, set up alerts, and add all sorts of web parts to a page. Let’s face it.. that IS development! javaScript/jQuery Perhaps you’ve heard by now about this thing called jQuery? It’s all over the place and the answer to a lot of people’s prayers. However be careful, with great power comes great responsibility. Remember, javaScript is executed on the client side and if you abuse it your performance could be affected. Also, Marc Anderson (@sympmarc) wrote a pretty awesome javaScript library called SPServices.  This allows you to access SharePoint’s Web Services using jQuery. How freakin cool is that? With these tools at your disposal the number of things you CAN’T do without Visual Studio grows smaller and smaller. This is definitely development no matter what anyone else says and there is no Visual Studio involved. SharePoint Designer Ahhh.. The cause of and the answer to all of your SharePoint development problems. With SharePoint Designer you can use DataView Web Parts, develop (there’s that word again) your branding, and even connect to external datasources.  There’s a lot you can do in SharePoint Designer. It’s got it’s shortcomings, but it is an invaluable tool in the SharePoint developers toolbox. InfoPath So, can InfoPath development really be considered SharePoint development? I would say yes. You can connect to SharePoint lists, populate fields in a SharePoint list, and even write code in InfoPath. Sounds like SharePoint development to me. Visual Studio – Web Services/WCF So, get this. You can write code for SharePoint and not have a clue what the 12 hive is, what “site actions” means, or know how to do ANYTHING in SharePoint? Poppycock! You say? SharePoint Web Services I say… With SharePoint Web Services you can totally interact with SharePoint without knowing anything about SharePoint. I don’t recommend it of course, but it’s possible. What can you write using SharePoint Web Services? How about a little application called SharePoint Designer? Visual Studio – Object Model And here we are finally:  the SharePoint Object Model.  When you hear “SharePoint Developer” most people think of someone opening Visual Studio and creating a custom web part, workflow, event receiver, etc.. etc.. but I hope that by now I have made the point that this is NOT the only form of SharePoint Development! Again… Who cares? Just crack open Visual Studio for everything! Problem solved! Let’s ponder for a moment, shall we? The business comes to you with a requirement that involves some pretty fancy business calculations, and a complicated view that they do NOT want to look like SharePoint. “No Problem” you proclaim you mighty SharePoint Developer. You go back to your cube, chuckle at the latest Dilbert comic, and crack open Visual Studio. Then you build your custom web part… fight with all the deployment, migration, and UAT that you must go through and proclaim victory two weeks later!!!! Well done my good sir/ma’am! Oh wait… it turns out Sally who is not a “developer” did the exact same thing with a Dataview web part and some jQuery and it’s been in production for two weeks? #CockinessFail I know there are many ASP.NET developers out there that can create a custom control and wrap it to be a SharePoint Web Part.  That does NOT mean they are SharePoint Developers though as far as I’m concerned and I personally would much rather have someone on my team that can manipulate the heck (yes, I said ‘heck’) out of SharePoint using Dataview Web Parts, jQuery, and a roll of duct tape. Just because you know how to write code in Visual Studio does not mean you are a SharePoint Developer. What’s the conclusion here? How do we define ‘it’ and what ‘it’ is called? Fortunately, this is MY blog. I don’t have to give answers, I can stir the pot, laugh and leave you to ponder what it means! There is obviously no right or wrong answer here (unless you disagree with me,then you are flat out wrong). Anyway, there are many opinions.  Here’s mine.  If you put SharePoint Developer on your resume make sure to clearly specify HOW you develop in SharePoint and what tools you use. If we must label these gurus of jQuery and SPD, how about “SharePoint Client Developer” or “SharePoint Front End Developer”? Just throwing out an idea. Whatever we call them, to say they are not developers is short-sighted, arrogant, and unfair. Of course, then we need to figure out what to call all those other SharePoint development types.  Twitter Conversation @next_connect: RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? | I say no.... @mikegil:  @mrackley re: yr Developer question: SPD expert <> SP Developer. Can be "sous-developer," though. #SharePoint #SPD @WonderLaura:  Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -- My opinion is that devs write code. @exnav29:  Rt @mrackley Can someone be considered a SharePoint Dev if all they know how to do is work in SPD? => I think devs would use VS as well @ssKevin:  @WonderLaura @mrackley does that mean strictly vb and c# when it comes to #SharePoint ? @jimmywim:  @exnav29 @mrackley nah, I'd say they were a power user. Devs know their way around the 12 hive ;) @sympmarc:  RT @mrackley: Can someone be considered a SharePoint Developer if all they know how to do is work in SPD? -> Fighting words. @sympmarc:  @next_connect @mrackley Besides, we prefer to be called "hacks". ;+) @next_connect:  @sympmarc The important thing is that you don't have to develop code to solve problems and create solutions. @mrackley @mrackley:  @sympmarc @next_connect not tryin to pick fight.. just try and find consensus on definition @usher:  @mrackley I'd still argue that you have a DevLite title that's out there for the collaboration engineers (@sympmarc @next_connect) @next_connect: @usher I agree. I've called it Light Dev/ Configuration before. @sympmarc @mrackley @usher:  @next_connect I like DevLite, low calorie but still same great taste :) @mrackley @sympmarc @mrackley:  @next_connect @usher @sympmarc I don't think there's any "lite" to someone who can bend jQuery and XSLT to their will. @usher:  @mrackley okay, so would you refer to someone that writes user controls and assemblies something different (@next_connect @sympmarc) @usher:  @mrackley when looking for a developer that can write .net code, it's a bit different than an XSLT/jQuery designer. @sympmarc @next_connect @jimmywim:  @mrackley @sympmarc @next_connect I reckon a "dev" does managed code and works in the 12 hive @sympmarc:  @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect We had a similar debate a few days ago @toddbleeker et al @sympmarc:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @toddbleeker @stevenmfowler More abt my Middle Tier term, but still connected. Meet bus need. @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect I used "No Assembly Required" in the past. I also suggested "Supplimenting the SharePoint DOM" @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect Others suggested Information Worker Solutions/Enhancements @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler I also like "SharePoint Scripting Solutions". All the technologies are script. @jimmywim:  @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect I like the IW solutions one... @toddbleeker:  @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler This is like the debate that never ends: it is definitely not called Middle Tier. @jimmywim:  @toddbleeker @sympmarc @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler "Scripting" these days makes me think PowerShell... @sympmarc:  @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler If it forces a debate on h2 best solve bus probs, I'll keep sayin Middle Tier. @usher:  @sympmarc so we know what we're looking for, we just can't define a name? @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler @sympmarc:  @usher @sympmarc @toddbleeker @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler The naming seems to matter more than the substance. :-( @jimmywim:  @sympmarc @usher @toddbleeker @mrackley @next_connect @stevemfowler work brkdn defines tasks, defines tools needed, can then b grp'd by user @WonderLaura:  @mrackley @toddbleeker @jimmywim @sympmarc @usher @next_connect Funny you're asking. @johnrossjr and I spent hours this week on the subject. @stevenmfowler:  RT @toddbleeker: @sympmarc @jimmywim @mrackley @next_connect @stevenmfowler it is definitely not called Middle Tier. < I'm with Todd

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• Installing a DHCP Service On Win2k8 ( Windows Server 2008 )

  - by Akshay Deep Lamba

  Introduction Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a core infrastructure service on any network that provides IP addressing and DNS server information to PC clients and any other device. DHCP is used so that you do not have to statically assign IP addresses to every device on your network and manage the issues that static IP addressing can create. More and more, DHCP is being expanded to fit into new network services like the Windows Health Service and Network Access Protection (NAP). However, before you can use it for more advanced services, you need to first install it and configure the basics. Let’s learn how to do that. Installing Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Installing Windows Server 2008 DCHP Server is easy. DHCP Server is now a “role” of Windows Server 2008 – not a windows component as it was in the past. To do this, you will need a Windows Server 2008 system already installed and configured with a static IP address. You will need to know your network’s IP address range, the range of IP addresses you will want to hand out to your PC clients, your DNS server IP addresses, and your default gateway. Additionally, you will want to have a plan for all subnets involved, what scopes you will want to define, and what exclusions you will want to create. To start the DHCP installation process, you can click Add Roles from the Initial Configuration Tasks window or from Server Manager à Roles à Add Roles. Figure 1: Adding a new Role in Windows Server 2008 When the Add Roles Wizard comes up, you can click Next on that screen. Next, select that you want to add the DHCP Server Role, and click Next. Figure 2: Selecting the DHCP Server Role If you do not have a static IP address assigned on your server, you will get a warning that you should not install DHCP with a dynamic IP address. At this point, you will begin being prompted for IP network information, scope information, and DNS information. If you only want to install DHCP server with no configured scopes or settings, you can just click Next through these questions and proceed with the installation. On the other hand, you can optionally configure your DHCP Server during this part of the installation. In my case, I chose to take this opportunity to configure some basic IP settings and configure my first DHCP Scope. I was shown my network connection binding and asked to verify it, like this: Figure 3: Network connection binding What the wizard is asking is, “what interface do you want to provide DHCP services on?” I took the default and clicked Next. Next, I entered my Parent Domain, Primary DNS Server, and Alternate DNS Server (as you see below) and clicked Next. Figure 4: Entering domain and DNS information I opted NOT to use WINS on my network and I clicked Next. Then, I was promoted to configure a DHCP scope for the new DHCP Server. I have opted to configure an IP address range of 192.168.1.50-100 to cover the 25+ PC Clients on my local network. To do this, I clicked Add to add a new scope. As you see below, I named the Scope WBC-Local, configured the starting and ending IP addresses of 192.168.1.50-192.168.1.100, subnet mask of 255.255.255.0, default gateway of 192.168.1.1, type of subnet (wired), and activated the scope. Figure 5: Adding a new DHCP Scope Back in the Add Scope screen, I clicked Next to add the new scope (once the DHCP Server is installed). I chose to Disable DHCPv6 stateless mode for this server and clicked Next. Then, I confirmed my DHCP Installation Selections (on the screen below) and clicked Install. Figure 6: Confirm Installation Selections After only a few seconds, the DHCP Server was installed and I saw the window, below: Figure 7: Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Installation succeeded I clicked Close to close the installer window, then moved on to how to manage my new DHCP Server. How to Manage your new Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server Like the installation, managing Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server is also easy. Back in my Windows Server 2008 Server Manager, under Roles, I clicked on the new DHCP Server entry. Figure 8: DHCP Server management in Server Manager While I cannot manage the DHCP Server scopes and clients from here, what I can do is to manage what events, services, and resources are related to the DHCP Server installation. Thus, this is a good place to go to check the status of the DHCP Server and what events have happened around it. However, to really configure the DHCP Server and see what clients have obtained IP addresses, I need to go to the DHCP Server MMC. To do this, I went to Start à Administrative Tools à DHCP Server, like this: Figure 9: Starting the DHCP Server MMC When expanded out, the MMC offers a lot of features. Here is what it looks like: Figure 10: The Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server MMC The DHCP Server MMC offers IPv4 & IPv6 DHCP Server info including all scopes, pools, leases, reservations, scope options, and server options. If I go into the address pool and the scope options, I can see that the configuration we made when we installed the DHCP Server did, indeed, work. The scope IP address range is there, and so are the DNS Server & default gateway. Figure 11: DHCP Server Address Pool Figure 12: DHCP Server Scope Options So how do we know that this really works if we do not test it? The answer is that we do not. Now, let’s test to make sure it works. How do we test our Windows Server 2008 DHCP Server? To test this, I have a Windows Vista PC Client on the same network segment as the Windows Server 2008 DHCP server. To be safe, I have no other devices on this network segment. I did an IPCONFIG /RELEASE then an IPCONFIG /RENEW and verified that I received an IP address from the new DHCP server, as you can see below: Figure 13: Vista client received IP address from new DHCP Server Also, I went to my Windows 2008 Server and verified that the new Vista client was listed as a client on the DHCP server. This did indeed check out, as you can see below: Figure 14: Win 2008 DHCP Server has the Vista client listed under Address Leases With that, I knew that I had a working configuration and we are done!

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