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  • What should be taught in a "Fundamentals of programming" course at university?

    - by Dervin Thunk
    I have started a new question (see here), because I think the topic is of importance in a more general form. The question is now: If you were a professor at a Computer Science Dept. in some university, what would make it into your course? This is a programming course, second term, first year computer science/computer engineering. Remember you have a limited amount of time, and students are of different levels of competence, and some may be scientists, but some will also go on to be programmers in companies of different kinds. You have to cater to all. Bonus: What language? (Although see this question for my current thoughts about this...) Maybe you want to attach a course outline from some university? See here for an even more general question about this. Answer: I can't really summarize this post... I guess it was too subjective. However, it looks like we have to cover the history of computing up to a certain extent, computer architecture (memory, registers, whatever), C, and finally some basic algos and data structures in a problem solving fashion. This will be the bare bones of the course. Thanks all. I will accept the most voted up answer to close the thread, as it should be done.

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  • How should I progressively enhance this content with JavaScript?

    - by Sean Dunwoody
    The background to this problem is that I'm doing a computing project which involves Some drop down boxes for input, and a text input where the user can input a date. I've used YUI to enhance the form, so the calendar input uses the YUI calendar widget and the drop down list is converted into a horizontal list of inputs where the user only has to click once to select any input as opposed to two clicks with the drop down box (hope that makes sense, not sure how to explain it clearly) The problem is, that in the design section of my project I stated that I would follow the progressive enhancement principles. I am struggling however to ensure that users without JavaScript are able to view the drop down box / text input on said page. This is not because I do not necessarily know how, but the two methods I've tried seem unsatisfactory. Method 1 - I tried using YUI to hide the text box and drop down list, this seemed like the ideal solution however there was quite a noticeable lag when loading the page (especially for the first time), the text box and drop down list where visibile for at least a second. I included the script for this just before the end of the body tag, is there any way that I can run it onload with YUI? Would that help? Method 2 - Use the noscript tag . . . however I am loathed to do this as while it would be a simple solution, I have read various bad things about the noscript tag. Is there a way of making mehtod one work? Or is there a better way of doing this that I am yet to encounter?

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  • Neural Networks or Human-computer interaction

    - by Shahin
    I will be entering my third year of university in my next academic year, once I've finished my placement year as a web developer, and I would like to hear some opinions on the two modules in the Title. I'm interested in both, however I want to pick one that will be relevant to my career and that I can apply to systems I develop. I'm doing an Internet Computing degree, it covers web development, networking, database work and programming. Though I have had myself set on becoming a web developer I'm not so sure about that any more so am trying not to limit myself to that area of development. I know HCI would help me as a web developer, but do you think it's worth it? Do you think Neural Network knowledge could help me realistically in a system I write in the future? Thanks. EDIT: Hi guys, I thought it would be useful to follow-up with what I decided to do and how it's worked out. I picked Artificial Neural Networks over HCI, and I've really enjoyed it. Having a peek into cognitive science and machine learning has ignited my interest for the subject area, and I will be hoping to take on a postgraduate project a few years from now when I can afford it. I have got a job which I am starting after my final exams (which are in a few days) and I was indeed asked if I had done a module in HCI or similar. It didn't seem to matter, as it isn't a front-end developer position! I would recommend taking the module if you have it as an option, as well as any module consisting of biological computation, it will open up more doors should you want to go onto postgraduate research in the future. Thanks again, Shahin

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  • Is it possible to send OSC commands to an iPad via the Camera Connection Kit?

    - by HELVETICADE
    I'm building a small controller device that I'd like to partner with a computer. I've settled on using OSC out from my custom built hardware and am pretty satisfied with what I can get from WOscLib. Two goals I'd like to achieve are portability and a very nice ratio between battery:computing power, and this has lured me towards using iPhoneOS to accomplish my goals. I think the iPad would suit my needs perfectly, except that using wifi to broadcast OSC out from my device requires that device to be connected to a third device with a wifi chip, and this would destroy the goal of portability, whilst also introducing potential latency and stability headaches. My question is pretty simple: Can I push OSC commands FROM my controller TO an iPad via USB and the Camera Connection Kit? If I could accomplish this, the two major goals of my project would be fulfilled very nicely. This seems like it should be a simple little question, but researching this obsessively over the past few weeks has left me more almost more uncertain than if I had done no research at all. I'd really like some more confidence before I go down this route, and it seems like it should be possible. Any insight would be very, very appreciated.

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  • Which MySQL Fork/Version to Pick??

    - by Drew
    As most of you know, Sun acquired MySQL (and later Oracle acquired Sun), and during these acquisitions, there were a lot of FUD in MySQL community which resulted in creation of various forks. Today we have MySQL from MySQL, Percona (XtraDB) MySQL, OurDelta MySQL, MariaDB, Drizzle to name a few. Which brings us to the source of the problem. We are in the process of upgrading our databases (hardware/software) and I would like to know which one of the forks should I go with. Each has their own set of pros/cons. We are currently using MySQL 5.0.x from MySQL/Linux on an 8-core machine. Our new hardware is a monster with 32 cores and 32GB of memory connecting to a fast NetApp Storage via FC. I would like to stick with MySQL from MySQL but I have heard horror stories on how badly MySQL 5.1 performs on many cores. I have also heard that MySQL 5.4 performs better on multi-core machines but that's still not production ready. In addition, I have also heard a lot of good things about Percona builds. This is what I know so far: MySQL 5.1 from MySQL: Reliable choice, but doesn't scale well on a big machine Percona: Scales well, good backing company. I don't have much experience with it MariaDB: Don't know much about it besides that it was founded by Original MySQL developers (including Monty) OurDelta: Don't know much Drizzle: Mostly optimized for cloud computing I would like to know what's the general notion about this problem. Which build/version should I go with? How are you guys picking your builds/versions? Thanks!

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  • Storing date/times as UTC in database

    - by James
    I am storing date/times in the database as UTC and computing them inside my application back to local time based on the specific timezone. Say for example I have the following date/time: 01/04/2010 00:00 Say it is for a country e.g. UK which observes DST (Daylight Savings Time) and at this particular time we are in daylight savings. When I convert this date to UTC and store it in the database it is actually stored as: 31/03/2010 23:00 As the date would be adjusted -1 hours for DST. This works fine when your observing DST at time of submission. However, what happens when the clock is adjusted back? When I pull that date from the database and convert it to local time that particular datetime would be seen as 31/03/2009 23:00 when in reality it was processed as 01/04/2010 00:00. Correct me if I am wrong but isn't this a bit of a flaw when storing times as UTC? Example of Timezone conversion Basically what I am doing is storing the date/times of when information is being submitted to my system in order to allow users to do a range report. Here is how I am storing the date/times: public DateTime LocalDateTime(string timeZoneId) { var tzi = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById(timeZoneId); return TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTimeFromUtc(DateTime.UtcNow, tzi).ToLocalTime(); } Storing as UTC: var localDateTime = LocalDateTime("AUS Eastern Standard Time"); WriteToDB(localDateTime.ToUniversalTime());

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  • Calculating distance from latitude, longitude and height using a geocentric co-ordinate system

    - by Sarge
    I've implemented this method in Javascript and I'm roughly 2.5% out and I'd like to understand why. My input data is an array of points represented as latitude, longitude and the height above the WGS84 ellipsoid. These points are taken from data collected from a wrist-mounted GPS device during a marathon race. My algorithm was to convert each point to cartesian geocentric co-ordinates and then compute the Euclidean distance (c.f Pythagoras). Cartesian geocentric is also known as Earth Centred Earth Fixed. i.e. it's an X, Y, Z co-ordinate system which rotates with the earth. My test data was the data from a marathon and so the distance should be very close to 42.26km. However, the distance comes to about 43.4km. I've tried various approaches and nothing changes the result by more than a metre. e.g. I replaced the height data with data from the NASA SRTM mission, I've set the height to zero, etc. Using Google, I found two points in the literature where lat, lon, height had been transformed and my transformation algorithm is matching. What could explain this? Am I expecting too much from Javascript's double representation? (The X, Y, Z numbers are very big but the differences between two points is very small). My alternative is to move to computing the geodesic across the WGS84 ellipsoid using Vincenty's algorithm (or similar) and then calculating the Euclidean distance with the two heights but this seems inaccurate. Thanks in advance for your help!

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  • regexp in java problem

    - by Staszek28
    Hello! I found some problem while testing my NLP system. I have a java regex "(.\.\s)*Dendryt.*" and for string "v Table of Contents List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " it just dont stop computing. Its clear that this regex complexity is very high, I will try to refactor it. Have you some suggestions for me for a future regex development ??? Thanks.

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  • determining if value is in range with 0=360 degree problem.

    - by Raven
    Hi, I am making a piece of code for DirectX app. It's meaning is to not show faces that are not visible. Normaly it would be just using Z-buffer, but I'm making many moves and rotations of mesh, so I would like to not do them and save computing power. I will describe this on cube. You are looking from the front so you see just one face and you don't need to rotate the 5 that left. If you would have one side of cube from 100*100 meshes, it would be great to not have to turn around 50k meshes that you really don't need. So I have stored X,Y,Z rotation of camera(the Z rotation I'm not using), and also X,Y,Z rotation of faces. In this cube simplified I would see faces that makes this statement true: cRot //camera rotation in degrees oRot //face rotation in degrees if(oRot.x > cRot.x-90 && oRot.x < cRot.x+90 && oRot.y > cRot.y-90 && oRot.y < cRot.y+90) But there comes a problem. If I will rotate arround, the camera can get to value 330 for exapmple. In this state, I would see front and right side of cube. Right side have rotation 270 so that's allright in IF statement. Problem is with 0 rotation of front face, which is also 360 degrees. So my question is how to make this statement to work, because when I use modulo, it will be failing for that right side and in this way it won't work for 0=360.

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  • jQuery: Trouble with draggable across cloned elements

    - by Rosarch
    I'm trying to implement: User drags a draggable li to a droppable li. The original li is no longer draggable A new li is cloned from the original li, and is appended to the droppable li. I can't get it to work. function moveToTerm(original_course, helper, term) { var cloned_course = original_course.clone(true); original_course.addClass('already-scheduled'); original_course.draggable('disable'); cloned_course.draggable(); cloned_course.appendTo(term).hide().fadeIn('slow'); } This works fine, except now the cloned_course is not draggable. A droppable li: <li class="term ui-droppable"> <strong>Fall 2010</strong> <li class="course">Computing Cultures</li> <!-- this course was just dropped. I want it to be draggable but it's not --> <li class="course ui-draggable" style="display: list-item;">New Media and Society</li> </li> What am I doing wrong?

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  • ssh & script problem

    - by Nishanth
    I am having a strange problem while doing ssh. I am not sure where the term Unmatched ` is coming from. What I need to do is run script that logs information of what I am doing on the terminal to text file. After ssh - Sun Microsystems Inc. SunOS 5.8 Generic Patch October 2001 This is /etc/motd, last updated 3 Feb 2003. To learn about the UCS system and other aspects of computing at UL-Lafayette visit our home page http://helpdesk.louisiana.edu/ . For more information about system use, contact the Help Desk, Stephens Hall, Room 201, 482-5516 (x25516), during normal UL office hours; or send e-mail to [email protected]. ATTENTION: Unsecure Telnet and FTP will be turned off soon. Please make arrange to use ssh or sftp. Putty(telnet) and WinSCP(ftp) would be a good replacement. Unmatched ` d13.ucs.louisiana.edu% bash bash-2.04$ script -a myInformation.txt Script started, file is myInformation.txt Unmatched ` d13.ucs.louisiana.edu% When I tried to start the script with name myInformation.txt, you can see the message I am getting - Script started, file is myInformation.txt. But again I am getting that message Unmatched ` and is coming out of bash, as you can notice. What is the problem ? Any insights suggested would be very great. Note: file with name myInformation.txt is being created but nothing goes in to it. As I have even tried running certain commands like ls and then exited the script with ctrl+d. But when I open the file, nothing is there.

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  • How would I instruct extconf.rb to use additional g++ optimization flags, and which are advisable?

    - by mohawkjohn
    I'm using Rice to write a C++ extension for a Ruby gem. The extension is in the form of a shared object (.so) file. This requires 'mkmf-rice' instead of 'mkmf', but the two (AFAIK) are pretty similar. By default, the compiler uses the flags -g -O2. Personally, I find this kind of silly, since it's hard to debug with any optimization enabled. I've resorted to editing the Makefile to take out the flags I don't like (e.g., removing -fPIC -shared when I need to debug using main() instead of Ruby's hooks). But I figure there's got to be a better way. I know I can just do $CPPFLAGS += " -DRICE" to add additional flags. But how do I remove things without editing the Makefile directly? A secondary question: what optimizations are safe for shared objects loaded by Ruby? Can I do things like -funroll-loops? What do you all recommend? It's a scientific computing project, so the faster the better. Memory is not much of an issue. Many thanks!

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  • OpenMP in Fortran

    - by user345293
    I very rarely use fortran, however I have been tasked with taking legacy code rewriting it to run in parallel. I'm using gfortran for my compiler choice. I found some excellent resources at https://computing.llnl.gov/tutorials/openMP/ as well as a few others. My problem is this, before I add any OpenMP directives, if I simply compile the legacy program: gfortran Example1.F90 -o Example1 everything works, but turning on the openmp compiler option even without adding directives: gfortran -openmp Example1.F90 -o Example1 ends up with a Segmentation fault when I run the legacy program. Using smaller test programs that I wrote, I've successfully compiled other programs with -openmp that run on multiple threads, but I'm rather at a loss why enabling the option alone and no directives is resulting in a seg fault. I apologize if my question is rather simple. I could post code but it is rather long. It faults as I assign initial values: REAL, DIMENSION(da,da) :: uconsold REAL, DIMENSION(da,da,dr,dk) :: uconsolde ... uconsold=0.0 uconsolde=0.0 The first assignment to "uconsold" works fine, the second seems to be the source of the fault as when I comment the line out the next several lines execute merrily until "uconsolde" is used again. Thank you for any help in this matter.

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  • Cant we use a Set or collection as a return type in GAE?

    - by user273422
    In my code i have used Set<Employees> as a return type to my function addEmp(). So, i m gettin an Compilation error. The Error is: Compiling module com.employeedepartmentgae.Employeedepartmentgae Refreshing module from source Validating newly compiled units Removing units with errors [ERROR] Errors in 'file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/GreetingServiceAsync.java' [ERROR] Line 6: The import com.employeedepartmentgae.server.domainobject.Employee cannot be resolved [ERROR] Line 18: Employee cannot be resolved to a type [ERROR] Errors in 'file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/GreetingService.java' [ERROR] Line 6: The import com.employeedepartmentgae.server.domainobject.Employee cannot be resolved [ERROR] Line 20: Employee cannot be resolved to a type [ERROR] Errors in 'file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/EmployeeWidget.java' [ERROR] Line 12: The import com.employeedepartmentgae.server.domainobject.Employee cannot be resolved [ERROR] Line 75: The method addEmp(String, String, String, AsyncCallback) from the type GreetingServiceAsync refers to the missing type Employee [ERROR] Line 75: The type new AsyncCallback(){} must implement the inherited abstract method AsyncCallback.onSuccess(Set) [ERROR] Line 75: Employee cannot be resolved to a type [ERROR] Line 94: The method onSuccess(Set) of type new AsyncCallback(){} must override or implement a supertype method [ERROR] Line 94: Employee cannot be resolved to a type [ERROR] Line 96: Employee cannot be resolved to a type [ERROR] Line 96: Employee cannot be resolved to a type [ERROR] Line 98: Employee cannot be resolved to a type Removing invalidated units [WARN] Compilation unit 'file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/Employeedepartmentgae.java' is removed due to invalid reference(s): [WARN] file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/EmployeeWidget.java [WARN] Compilation unit 'file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/DepartmentWidget.java' is removed due to invalid reference(s): [WARN] file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/GreetingService.java [WARN] file:/home/wissen18/employeedepartmentgae/src/com/employeedepartmentgae/client/GreetingServiceAsync.java Computing all possible rebind results for 'com.employeedepartmentgae.client.Employeedepartmentgae' Rebinding com.employeedepartmentgae.client.Employeedepartmentgae Checking rule [ERROR] Unable to find type 'com.employeedepartmentgae.client.Employeedepartmentgae' [ERROR] Hint: Previous compiler errors may have made this type unavailable [ERROR] Hint: Check the inheritance chain from your module; it may not be inheriting a required module or a module may not be adding its source path entries properly So please help me.....

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  • My kernel only works in block (0,0)

    - by ZeroDivide
    I am trying to write a simple matrixMultiplication application that multiplies two square matrices using CUDA. I am having a problem where my kernel is only computing correctly in block (0,0) of the grid. This is my invocation code: dim3 dimBlock(4,4,1); dim3 dimGrid(4,4,1); //Launch the kernel; MatrixMulKernel<<<dimGrid,dimBlock>>>(Md,Nd,Pd,Width); This is my Kernel function __global__ void MatrixMulKernel(int* Md, int* Nd, int* Pd, int Width) { const int tx = threadIdx.x; const int ty = threadIdx.y; const int bx = blockIdx.x; const int by = blockIdx.y; const int row = (by * blockDim.y + ty); const int col = (bx * blockDim.x + tx); //Pvalue stores the Pd element that is computed by the thread int Pvalue = 0; for (int k = 0; k < Width; k++) { Pvalue += Md[row * Width + k] * Nd[k * Width + col]; } __syncthreads(); //Write the matrix to device memory each thread writes one element Pd[row * Width + col] = Pvalue; } I think the problem may have something to do with memory but I'm a bit lost. What should I do to make this code work across several blocks?

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  • Many users, many cpus, no delays. Good for cloud?

    - by Eric
    I wish to set up a CPU-intensive time-important query service for users on the internet. A usage scenario is described below. Is cloud computing the right way to go for such an implementation? If so, what cloud vendor(s) cater to this type of application? I ask specifically, in terms of: 1) pricing 2) latency resulting from: - slow CPUs, instance creations, JIT compiles, etc.. - internal management and communication of processes inside the cloud (e.g. a queuing process and a calculation process) - communication between cloud and end user 3) ease of deployment A usage scenario I am expecting is: - A typical user sends a query (XML of size around 1K) once every 30 seconds on average. - Each query requires a numerical computation of average time 0.2 sec and max time 1 sec on a 1 GHz Pentium. The computation requires no data other than the query itself and is performed by the same piece of code each time. - The delay a user experiences between sending a query and receiving a response should be on average no more than 2 seconds and in general no more than 5 seconds. - A background save to a DB of the response should occur (not time critical) - There can be up to 30000 simultaneous users - i.e., on average 1000 queries a second, each requiring an average 0.2 sec calculation, so that would necessitate around 200 CPUs. Currently I'm look at GAE Java (for quicker deployment and less IT hassle) and EC2 (Speed and price optimization) as options. Where can I learn more about the right way to set ups such a system? past threads, different blogs, books, etc.. BTW, if my terminology is wrong or confusing, please let me know. I'd greatly appreciate any help.

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  • Boost Include Files in VC++

    - by Dr. K
    For the last few years, I have been exclusively a C# developer. Previously, I developed in C++ and have a C++ application that I built about 3 years ago using VS2005. It made extensive use of the Boost libraries. I recently decided to brush off the old app and rebuild it in VS2008 with the latest version of Boost (the latest version with the "easy" installation program from BoostPro Computing), 1.39. Previously when I had the program running I was at 1.33. Also, the last time the program was running was at least 2 OS installations ago. The Boost installation is located on my machine at: "C:\Program Files\boost\boost_1_39". Anyway, I have done the following: Set the project's "Additional Include Directories" directory to "C:\Program Files\boost\boost_1_39" Added "C:\Program Files\boost\boost_1_39" to VS2008's Tools - Options - Projects and Solutions - VC++ Directories - Include Files I have a number of Boost includes in my stdafx.h file. The compiler fails upon attempting to open the first one - #include <boost/algorithm/string/string.hpp> I have confirmed that the above file is indeed located at "C:\Program Files\boost\boost_1_39\boost\algorithm\string\string.hpp" I continue to get: fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'boost/algorithm/string/string.hpp': No such file or directory Any tips on what else to check would be greatly appreciated. Again, this is an application that compiled fine a few years ago, but the source has now been moved to a new machine/compiler.

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  • The best way to structure this database?

    - by James P
    At the moment I'm doing this: gems(id, name, colour, level, effects, source) id is the primary key and is not auto-increment. A typical row of data would look like this: id => 40153 name => Veiled Ametrine colour => Orange level => 80 effects => +12 sp, +10 hit source => Ametrine (Some of you gamers might see what I'm doing here :) ) But I realise this could be sorted a lot better. I have studied database relationships and secondary keys in my A-Level computing class but never got as far as to set one up properly. I just need help with how this database should be organised, like what tables should have what data with what secondary and foreign keys? I was thinking maybe 3 tables: gem, effects, source. Which then have relationships to each other? Can anyone shed some light on this? Is a complex way like I'm proposing really the way to go or should I just carry on with what I'm doing? Cheers.

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  • Explaining a Ruby code snippet

    - by Michael Foukarakis
    I'm in that uncomfortable position again, where somebody has left me with a code snippet in a language I don't know and I have to maintain it. While I haven't introduced Ruby to myself some parts of it are quite simple, but I'd like to hear your explanations nonetheless. Here goes: words = File.open("lengths.txt") {|f| f.read }.split # read all lines of a file in 'words'? values = Array.new(0) words.each { |value| values << value.to_i } # looked this one up, it's supposed to convert to an array of integers, right? values.sort! values.uniq! diffs = Array.new(0) # this looks unused, unless I'm missing something obvious sum = 0 s = 0 # another unused variable # this looks like it's computing the sum of differences between successive # elements, but that sum also remains unused, or does it? values.each_index { |index| if index.to_i < values.length-1 then sum += values.at(index.to_i + 1) - values.at(index.to_i) end } # could you also explain the syntax here? puts "delta has the value of\n" # this will eventually print the minimum of the original values divided by 2 puts values.at(0) / 2 The above script was supposed to figure out the average of the differences between every two successive elements (integers, essentially) in a list. Am I right in saying this is nowhere near what it actually does, or am I missing something fundamental, which is likely considering I have no Ruby knowledge?

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  • Parallelizing for loop

    - by vman049
    I have MATLAB code which I'm trying to parallelize with a simple change from "for" to "parfor." I'm unable to do so because of an error I'm receiving on the variable "votes" which states: Valid indices for 'votes' are restricted in PARFOR loops. Explanation: For MATLAB to execute parfor loops efficiently, the amount of data sent to the MATLAB workers must be minimal. One of the ways MATLAB achieves this is by restricting the way variables can be indexed in parfor iterations. The indicated variable is indexed in a way that is incompatible with parfor. Suggested Action: Fix the indexing. For a description of the indexing restrictions, see “Sliced Variables” in the Parallel Computing Toolbox documentation. Below is my code: votes = zeros(num_layers, size(spikes, 1), size(SVMs_layer1, 1)); predDir = zeros(size(spikes, 1), 1); chronProb = zeros([num_layers, size(chronDists)]); for i = 1:num_layers switch i case 1 B = B1; k_elem_temp = k_elem1; rest_elem_temp = rest_elem1; case 2 B = B2; k_elem_temp = k_elem2; rest_elem_temp = rest_elem2; case 3 B = B3; k_elem_temp = k_elem3; rest_elem_temp = rest_elem3; end for j = 1:length(chronPred) if chronDists(i, j, :) ~= 0 parfor k = 1:8 chronProb(i, j, k) = logistic(B{k}(1) + chronDists(i, j, k).*(B{k}(2))); votes(i, j, k_elem_temp(k, :)) = votes(i, j, k_elem_temp(k, :)) + chronProb(i, j, k)/num_k(i)/num_layers; votes(i, j, rest_elem_temp(k, :)) = votes(i, j, rest_elem_temp(k, :)) + (1 - chronProb(i, j, k))/num_rest(i)/num_layers; end end end end Do you have any suggestions as to how I could adjust my code so that it runs in parallel? Thank you!

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  • Using JSON.NET for dynamic JSON parsing

    - by Rick Strahl
    With the release of ASP.NET Web API as part of .NET 4.5 and MVC 4.0, JSON.NET has effectively pushed out the .NET native serializers to become the default serializer for Web API. JSON.NET is vastly more flexible than the built in DataContractJsonSerializer or the older JavaScript serializer. The DataContractSerializer in particular has been very problematic in the past because it can't deal with untyped objects for serialization - like values of type object, or anonymous types which are quite common these days. The JavaScript Serializer that came before it actually does support non-typed objects for serialization but it can't do anything with untyped data coming in from JavaScript and it's overall model of extensibility was pretty limited (JavaScript Serializer is what MVC uses for JSON responses). JSON.NET provides a robust JSON serializer that has both high level and low level components, supports binary JSON, JSON contracts, Xml to JSON conversion, LINQ to JSON and many, many more features than either of the built in serializers. ASP.NET Web API now uses JSON.NET as its default serializer and is now pulled in as a NuGet dependency into Web API projects, which is great. Dynamic JSON Parsing One of the features that I think is getting ever more important is the ability to serialize and deserialize arbitrary JSON content dynamically - that is without mapping the JSON captured directly into a .NET type as DataContractSerializer or the JavaScript Serializers do. Sometimes it isn't possible to map types due to the differences in languages (think collections, dictionaries etc), and other times you simply don't have the structures in place or don't want to create them to actually import the data. If this topic sounds familiar - you're right! I wrote about dynamic JSON parsing a few months back before JSON.NET was added to Web API and when Web API and the System.Net HttpClient libraries included the System.Json classes like JsonObject and JsonArray. With the inclusion of JSON.NET in Web API these classes are now obsolete and didn't ship with Web API or the client libraries. I re-linked my original post to this one. In this post I'll discus JToken, JObject and JArray which are the dynamic JSON objects that make it very easy to create and retrieve JSON content on the fly without underlying types. Why Dynamic JSON? So, why Dynamic JSON parsing rather than strongly typed parsing? Since applications are interacting more and more with third party services it becomes ever more important to have easy access to those services with easy JSON parsing. Sometimes it just makes lot of sense to pull just a small amount of data out of large JSON document received from a service, because the third party service isn't directly related to your application's logic most of the time - and it makes little sense to map the entire service structure in your application. For example, recently I worked with the Google Maps Places API to return information about businesses close to me (or rather the app's) location. The Google API returns a ton of information that my application had no interest in - all I needed was few values out of the data. Dynamic JSON parsing makes it possible to map this data, without having to map the entire API to a C# data structure. Instead I could pull out the three or four values I needed from the API and directly store it on my business entities that needed to receive the data - no need to map the entire Maps API structure. Getting JSON.NET The easiest way to use JSON.NET is to grab it via NuGet and add it as a reference to your project. You can add it to your project with: PM> Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json From the Package Manager Console or by using Manage NuGet Packages in your project References. As mentioned if you're using ASP.NET Web API or MVC 4 JSON.NET will be automatically added to your project. Alternately you can also go to the CodePlex site and download the latest version including source code: http://json.codeplex.com/ Creating JSON on the fly with JObject and JArray Let's start with creating some JSON on the fly. It's super easy to create a dynamic object structure with any of the JToken derived JSON.NET objects. The most common JToken derived classes you are likely to use are JObject and JArray. JToken implements IDynamicMetaProvider and so uses the dynamic  keyword extensively to make it intuitive to create object structures and turn them into JSON via dynamic object syntax. Here's an example of creating a music album structure with child songs using JObject for the base object and songs and JArray for the actual collection of songs:[TestMethod] public void JObjectOutputTest() { // strong typed instance var jsonObject = new JObject(); // you can explicitly add values here using class interface jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // or cast to dynamic to dynamically add/read properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; album.Artist = "AC/DC"; album.YearReleased = 1976; album.Songs = new JArray() as dynamic; dynamic song = new JObject(); song.SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; song.SongLength = "4:11"; album.Songs.Add(song); song = new JObject(); song.SongName = "Love at First Feel"; song.SongLength = "3:10"; album.Songs.Add(song); Console.WriteLine(album.ToString()); } This produces a complete JSON structure: { "Entered": "2012-08-18T13:26:37.7137482-10:00", "AlbumName": "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "Artist": "AC/DC", "YearReleased": 1976, "Songs": [ { "SongName": "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", "SongLength": "4:11" }, { "SongName": "Love at First Feel", "SongLength": "3:10" } ] } Notice that JSON.NET does a nice job formatting the JSON, so it's easy to read and paste into blog posts :-). JSON.NET includes a bunch of configuration options that control how JSON is generated. Typically the defaults are just fine, but you can override with the JsonSettings object for most operations. The important thing about this code is that there's no explicit type used for holding the values to serialize to JSON. Rather the JSON.NET objects are the containers that receive the data as I build up my JSON structure dynamically, simply by adding properties. This means this code can be entirely driven at runtime without compile time restraints of structure for the JSON output. Here I use JObject to create a album 'object' and immediately cast it to dynamic. JObject() is kind of similar in behavior to ExpandoObject in that it allows you to add properties by simply assigning to them. Internally, JObject values are stored in pseudo collections of key value pairs that are exposed as properties through the IDynamicMetaObject interface exposed in JSON.NET's JToken base class. For objects the syntax is very clean - you add simple typed values as properties. For objects and arrays you have to explicitly create new JObject or JArray, cast them to dynamic and then add properties and items to them. Always remember though these values are dynamic - which means no Intellisense and no compiler type checking. It's up to you to ensure that the names and values you create are accessed consistently and without typos in your code. Note that you can also access the JObject instance directly (not as dynamic) and get access to the underlying JObject type. This means you can assign properties by string, which can be useful for fully data driven JSON generation from other structures. Below you can see both styles of access next to each other:// strong type instance var jsonObject = new JObject(); // you can explicitly add values here jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // expando style instance you can just 'use' properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; JContainer (the base class for JObject and JArray) is a collection so you can also iterate over the properties at runtime easily:foreach (var item in jsonObject) { Console.WriteLine(item.Key + " " + item.Value.ToString()); } The functionality of the JSON objects are very similar to .NET's ExpandObject and if you used it before, you're already familiar with how the dynamic interfaces to the JSON objects works. Importing JSON with JObject.Parse() and JArray.Parse() The JValue structure supports importing JSON via the Parse() and Load() methods which can read JSON data from a string or various streams respectively. Essentially JValue includes the core JSON parsing to turn a JSON string into a collection of JsonValue objects that can be then referenced using familiar dynamic object syntax. Here's a simple example:public void JValueParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"{""Name"":""Rick"",""Company"":""West Wind"", ""Entered"":""2012-03-16T00:03:33.245-10:00""}"; dynamic json = JValue.Parse(jsonString); // values require casting string name = json.Name; string company = json.Company; DateTime entered = json.Entered; Assert.AreEqual(name, "Rick"); Assert.AreEqual(company, "West Wind"); } The JSON string represents an object with three properties which is parsed into a JObject class and cast to dynamic. Once cast to dynamic I can then go ahead and access the object using familiar object syntax. Note that the actual values - json.Name, json.Company, json.Entered - are actually of type JToken and I have to cast them to their appropriate types first before I can do type comparisons as in the Asserts at the end of the test method. This is required because of the way that dynamic types work which can't determine the type based on the method signature of the Assert.AreEqual(object,object) method. I have to either assign the dynamic value to a variable as I did above, or explicitly cast ( (string) json.Name) in the actual method call. The JSON structure can be much more complex than this simple example. Here's another example of an array of albums serialized to JSON and then parsed through with JsonValue():[TestMethod] public void JsonArrayParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"[ { ""Id"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""AlbumName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""Artist"": ""AC/DC"", ""YearReleased"": 1976, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2810521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61kTaH-uZBL._AA115_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/…ASIN=B00008BXJ4"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""SongLength"": ""4:11"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Love at First Feel"", ""SongLength"": ""3:10"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Big Balls"", ""SongLength"": ""2:38"" } ] }, { ""Id"": ""7b919432"", ""AlbumName"": ""End of the Silence"", ""Artist"": ""Henry Rollins Band"", ""YearReleased"": 1992, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2800521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FO3rb1tuL._SL160_AA160_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/End-Silence-Rollins-Band/dp/B0000040OX/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1302232195&sr=8-5"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Low Self Opinion"", ""SongLength"": ""5:24"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Grip"", ""SongLength"": ""4:51"" } ] } ]"; JArray jsonVal = JArray.Parse(jsonString) as JArray; dynamic albums = jsonVal; foreach (dynamic album in albums) { Console.WriteLine(album.AlbumName + " (" + album.YearReleased.ToString() + ")"); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { Console.WriteLine("\t" + song.SongName); } } Console.WriteLine(albums[0].AlbumName); Console.WriteLine(albums[0].Songs[1].SongName); } JObject and JArray in ASP.NET Web API Of course these types also work in ASP.NET Web API controller methods. If you want you can accept parameters using these object or return them back to the server. The following contrived example receives dynamic JSON input, and then creates a new dynamic JSON object and returns it based on data from the first:[HttpPost] public JObject PostAlbumJObject(JObject jAlbum) { // dynamic input from inbound JSON dynamic album = jAlbum; // create a new JSON object to write out dynamic newAlbum = new JObject(); // Create properties on the new instance // with values from the first newAlbum.AlbumName = album.AlbumName + " New"; newAlbum.NewProperty = "something new"; newAlbum.Songs = new JArray(); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { song.SongName = song.SongName + " New"; newAlbum.Songs.Add(song); } return newAlbum; } The raw POST request to the server looks something like this: POST http://localhost/aspnetwebapi/samples/PostAlbumJObject HTTP/1.1User-Agent: FiddlerContent-type: application/jsonHost: localhostContent-Length: 88 {AlbumName: "Dirty Deeds",Songs:[ { SongName: "Problem Child"},{ SongName: "Squealer"}]} and the output that comes back looks like this: {  "AlbumName": "Dirty Deeds New",  "NewProperty": "something new",  "Songs": [    {      "SongName": "Problem Child New"    },    {      "SongName": "Squealer New"    }  ]} The original values are echoed back with something extra appended to demonstrate that we're working with a new object. When you receive or return a JObject, JValue, JToken or JArray instance in a Web API method, Web API ignores normal content negotiation and assumes your content is going to be received and returned as JSON, so effectively the parameter and result type explicitly determines the input and output format which is nice. Dynamic to Strong Type Mapping You can also map JObject and JArray instances to a strongly typed object, so you can mix dynamic and static typing in the same piece of code. Using the 2 Album jsonString shown earlier, the code below takes an array of albums and picks out only a single album and casts that album to a static Album instance.[TestMethod] public void JsonParseToStrongTypeTest() { JArray albums = JArray.Parse(jsonString) as JArray; // pick out one album JObject jalbum = albums[0] as JObject; // Copy to a static Album instance Album album = jalbum.ToObject<Album>(); Assert.IsNotNull(album); Assert.AreEqual(album.AlbumName,jalbum.Value<string>("AlbumName")); Assert.IsTrue(album.Songs.Count > 0); } This is pretty damn useful for the scenario I mentioned earlier - you can read a large chunk of JSON and dynamically walk the property hierarchy down to the item you want to access, and then either access the specific item dynamically (as shown earlier) or map a part of the JSON to a strongly typed object. That's very powerful if you think about it - it leaves you in total control to decide what's dynamic and what's static. Strongly typed JSON Parsing With all this talk of dynamic let's not forget that JSON.NET of course also does strongly typed serialization which is drop dead easy. Here's a simple example on how to serialize and deserialize an object with JSON.NET:[TestMethod] public void StronglyTypedSerializationTest() { // Demonstrate deserialization from a raw string var album = new Album() { AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", Artist = "AC/DC", Entered = DateTime.Now, YearReleased = 1976, Songs = new List<Song>() { new Song() { SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", SongLength = "4:11" }, new Song() { SongName = "Love at First Feel", SongLength = "3:10" } } }; // serialize to string string json2 = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(album,Formatting.Indented); Console.WriteLine(json2); // make sure we can serialize back var album2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Album>(json2); Assert.IsNotNull(album2); Assert.IsTrue(album2.AlbumName == "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"); Assert.IsTrue(album2.Songs.Count == 2); } JsonConvert is a high level static class that wraps lower level functionality, but you can also use the JsonSerializer class, which allows you to serialize/parse to and from streams. It's a little more work, but gives you a bit more control. The functionality available is easy to discover with Intellisense, and that's good because there's not a lot in the way of documentation that's actually useful. Summary JSON.NET is a pretty complete JSON implementation with lots of different choices for JSON parsing from dynamic parsing to static serialization, to complex querying of JSON objects using LINQ. It's good to see this open source library getting integrated into .NET, and pushing out the old and tired stock .NET parsers so that we finally have a bit more flexibility - and extensibility - in our JSON parsing. Good to go! Resources Sample Test Project http://json.codeplex.com/© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  Web Api  AJAX   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • Where does ASP.NET Web API Fit?

    - by Rick Strahl
    With the pending release of ASP.NET MVC 4 and the new ASP.NET Web API, there has been a lot of discussion of where the new Web API technology fits in the ASP.NET Web stack. There are a lot of choices to build HTTP based applications available now on the stack - we've come a long way from when WebForms and Http Handlers/Modules where the only real options. Today we have WebForms, MVC, ASP.NET Web Pages, ASP.NET AJAX, WCF REST and now Web API as well as the core ASP.NET runtime to choose to build HTTP content with. Web API definitely squarely addresses the 'API' aspect - building consumable services - rather than HTML content, but even to that end there are a lot of choices you have today. So where does Web API fit, and when doesn't it? But before we get into that discussion, let's talk about what a Web API is and why we should care. What's a Web API? HTTP 'APIs' (Microsoft's new terminology for a service I guess)  are becoming increasingly more important with the rise of the many devices in use today. Most mobile devices like phones and tablets run Apps that are using data retrieved from the Web over HTTP. Desktop applications are also moving in this direction with more and more online content and synching moving into even traditional desktop applications. The pending Windows 8 release promises an app like platform for both the desktop and other devices, that also emphasizes consuming data from the Cloud. Likewise many Web browser hosted applications these days are relying on rich client functionality to create and manipulate the browser user interface, using AJAX rather than server generated HTML data to load up the user interface with data. These mobile or rich Web applications use their HTTP connection to return data rather than HTML markup in the form of JSON or XML typically. But an API can also serve other kinds of data, like images or other binary files, or even text data and HTML (although that's less common). A Web API is what feeds rich applications with data. ASP.NET Web API aims to service this particular segment of Web development by providing easy semantics to route and handle incoming requests and an easy to use platform to serve HTTP data in just about any content format you choose to create and serve from the server. But .NET already has various HTTP Platforms The .NET stack already includes a number of technologies that provide the ability to create HTTP service back ends, and it has done so since the very beginnings of the .NET platform. From raw HTTP Handlers and Modules in the core ASP.NET runtime, to high level platforms like ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, ASP.NET AJAX and the WCF REST engine (which technically is not ASP.NET, but can integrate with it), you've always been able to handle just about any kind of HTTP request and response with ASP.NET. The beauty of the raw ASP.NET platform is that it provides you everything you need to build just about any type of HTTP application you can dream up from low level APIs/custom engines to high level HTML generation engine. ASP.NET as a core platform clearly has stood the test of time 10+ years later and all other frameworks like Web API are built on top of this ASP.NET core. However, although it's possible to create Web APIs / Services using any of the existing out of box .NET technologies, none of them have been a really nice fit for building arbitrary HTTP based APIs. Sure, you can use an HttpHandler to create just about anything, but you have to build a lot of plumbing to build something more complex like a comprehensive API that serves a variety of requests, handles multiple output formats and can easily pass data up to the server in a variety of ways. Likewise you can use ASP.NET MVC to handle routing and creating content in various formats fairly easily, but it doesn't provide a great way to automatically negotiate content types and serve various content formats directly (it's possible to do with some plumbing code of your own but not built in). Prior to Web API, Microsoft's main push for HTTP services has been WCF REST, which was always an awkward technology that had a severe personality conflict, not being clear on whether it wanted to be part of WCF or purely a separate technology. In the end it didn't do either WCF compatibility or WCF agnostic pure HTTP operation very well, which made for a very developer-unfriendly environment. Personally I didn't like any of the implementations at the time, so much so that I ended up building my own HTTP service engine (as part of the West Wind Web Toolkit), as have a few other third party tools that provided much better integration and ease of use. With the release of Web API for the first time I feel that I can finally use the tools in the box and not have to worry about creating and maintaining my own toolkit as Web API addresses just about all the features I implemented on my own and much more. ASP.NET Web API provides a better HTTP Experience ASP.NET Web API differentiates itself from the previous Microsoft in-box HTTP service solutions in that it was built from the ground up around the HTTP protocol and its messaging semantics. Unlike WCF REST or ASP.NET AJAX with ASMX, it’s a brand new platform rather than bolted on technology that is supposed to work in the context of an existing framework. The strength of the new ASP.NET Web API is that it combines the best features of the platforms that came before it, to provide a comprehensive and very usable HTTP platform. Because it's based on ASP.NET and borrows a lot of concepts from ASP.NET MVC, Web API should be immediately familiar and comfortable to most ASP.NET developers. Here are some of the features that Web API provides that I like: Strong Support for URL Routing to produce clean URLs using familiar MVC style routing semantics Content Negotiation based on Accept headers for request and response serialization Support for a host of supported output formats including JSON, XML, ATOM Strong default support for REST semantics but they are optional Easily extensible Formatter support to add new input/output types Deep support for more advanced HTTP features via HttpResponseMessage and HttpRequestMessage classes and strongly typed Enums to describe many HTTP operations Convention based design that drives you into doing the right thing for HTTP Services Very extensible, based on MVC like extensibility model of Formatters and Filters Self-hostable in non-Web applications  Testable using testing concepts similar to MVC Web API is meant to handle any kind of HTTP input and produce output and status codes using the full spectrum of HTTP functionality available in a straight forward and flexible manner. Looking at the list above you can see that a lot of functionality is very similar to ASP.NET MVC, so many ASP.NET developers should feel quite comfortable with the concepts of Web API. The Routing and core infrastructure of Web API are very similar to how MVC works providing many of the benefits of MVC, but with focus on HTTP access and manipulation in Controller methods rather than HTML generation in MVC. There’s much improved support for content negotiation based on HTTP Accept headers with the framework capable of detecting automatically what content the client is sending and requesting and serving the appropriate data format in return. This seems like such a little and obvious thing, but it's really important. Today's service backends often are used by multiple clients/applications and being able to choose the right data format for what fits best for the client is very important. While previous solutions were able to accomplish this using a variety of mixed features of WCF and ASP.NET, Web API combines all this functionality into a single robust server side HTTP framework that intrinsically understands the HTTP semantics and subtly drives you in the right direction for most operations. And when you need to customize or do something that is not built in, there are lots of hooks and overrides for most behaviors, and even many low level hook points that allow you to plug in custom functionality with relatively little effort. No Brainers for Web API There are a few scenarios that are a slam dunk for Web API. If your primary focus of an application or even a part of an application is some sort of API then Web API makes great sense. HTTP ServicesIf you're building a comprehensive HTTP API that is to be consumed over the Web, Web API is a perfect fit. You can isolate the logic in Web API and build your application as a service breaking out the logic into controllers as needed. Because the primary interface is the service there's no confusion of what should go where (MVC or API). Perfect fit. Primary AJAX BackendsIf you're building rich client Web applications that are relying heavily on AJAX callbacks to serve its data, Web API is also a slam dunk. Again because much if not most of the business logic will probably end up in your Web API service logic, there's no confusion over where logic should go and there's no duplication. In Single Page Applications (SPA), typically there's very little HTML based logic served other than bringing up a shell UI and then filling the data from the server with AJAX which means the business logic required for data retrieval and data acceptance and validation too lives in the Web API. Perfect fit. Generic HTTP EndpointsAnother good fit are generic HTTP endpoints that to serve data or handle 'utility' type functionality in typical Web applications. If you need to implement an image server, or an upload handler in the past I'd implement that as an HTTP handler. With Web API you now have a well defined place where you can implement these types of generic 'services' in a location that can easily add endpoints (via Controller methods) or separated out as more full featured APIs. Granted this could be done with MVC as well, but Web API seems a clearer and more well defined place to store generic application services. This is one thing I used to do a lot of in my own libraries and Web API addresses this nicely. Great fit. Mixed HTML and AJAX Applications: Not a clear Choice  For all the commonality that Web API and MVC share they are fundamentally different platforms that are independent of each other. A lot of people have asked when does it make sense to use MVC vs. Web API when you're dealing with typical Web application that creates HTML and also uses AJAX functionality for rich functionality. While it's easy to say that all 'service'/AJAX logic should go into a Web API and all HTML related generation into MVC, that can often result in a lot of code duplication. Also MVC supports JSON and XML result data fairly easily as well so there's some confusion where that 'trigger point' is of when you should switch to Web API vs. just implementing functionality as part of MVC controllers. Ultimately there's a tradeoff between isolation of functionality and duplication. A good rule of thumb I think works is that if a large chunk of the application's functionality serves data Web API is a good choice, but if you have a couple of small AJAX requests to serve data to a grid or autocomplete box it'd be overkill to separate out that logic into a separate Web API controller. Web API does add overhead to your application (it's yet another framework that sits on top of core ASP.NET) so it should be worth it .Keep in mind that MVC can generate HTML and JSON/XML and just about any other content easily and that functionality is not going away, so just because you Web API is there it doesn't mean you have to use it. Web API is not a full replacement for MVC obviously either since there's not the same level of support to feed HTML from Web API controllers (although you can host a RazorEngine easily enough if you really want to go that route) so if you're HTML is part of your API or application in general MVC is still a better choice either alone or in combination with Web API. I suspect (and hope) that in the future Web API's functionality will merge even closer with MVC so that you might even be able to mix functionality of both into single Controllers so that you don't have to make any trade offs, but at the moment that's not the case. Some Issues To think about Web API is similar to MVC but not the Same Although Web API looks a lot like MVC it's not the same and some common functionality of MVC behaves differently in Web API. For example, the way single POST variables are handled is different than MVC and doesn't lend itself particularly well to some AJAX scenarios with POST data. Code Duplication I already touched on this in the Mixed HTML and Web API section, but if you build an MVC application that also exposes a Web API it's quite likely that you end up duplicating a bunch of code and - potentially - infrastructure. You may have to create authentication logic both for an HTML application and for the Web API which might need something different altogether. More often than not though the same logic is used, and there's no easy way to share. If you implement an MVC ActionFilter and you want that same functionality in your Web API you'll end up creating the filter twice. AJAX Data or AJAX HTML On a recent post's comments, David made some really good points regarding the commonality of MVC and Web API's and its place. One comment that caught my eye was a little more generic, regarding data services vs. HTML services. David says: I see a lot of merit in the combination of Knockout.js, client side templates and view models, calling Web API for a responsive UI, but sometimes late at night that still leaves me wondering why I would no longer be using some of the nice tooling and features that have evolved in MVC ;-) You know what - I can totally relate to that. On the last Web based mobile app I worked on, we decided to serve HTML partials to the client via AJAX for many (but not all!) things, rather than sending down raw data to inject into the DOM on the client via templating or direct manipulation. While there are definitely more bytes on the wire, with this, the overhead ended up being actually fairly small if you keep the 'data' requests small and atomic. Performance was often made up by the lack of client side rendering of HTML. Server rendered HTML for AJAX templating gives so much better infrastructure support without having to screw around with 20 mismatched client libraries. Especially with MVC and partials it's pretty easy to break out your HTML logic into very small, atomic chunks, so it's actually easy to create small rendering islands that can be used via composition on the server, or via AJAX calls to small, tight partials that return HTML to the client. Although this is often frowned upon as to 'heavy', it worked really well in terms of developer effort as well as providing surprisingly good performance on devices. There's still plenty of jQuery and AJAX logic happening on the client but it's more manageable in small doses rather than trying to do the entire UI composition with JavaScript and/or 'not-quite-there-yet' template engines that are very difficult to debug. This is not an issue directly related to Web API of course, but something to think about especially for AJAX or SPA style applications. Summary Web API is a great new addition to the ASP.NET platform and it addresses a serious need for consolidation of a lot of half-baked HTTP service API technologies that came before it. Web API feels 'right', and hits the right combination of usability and flexibility at least for me and it's a good fit for true API scenarios. However, just because a new platform is available it doesn't meant that other tools or tech that came before it should be discarded or even upgraded to the new platform. There's nothing wrong with continuing to use MVC controller methods to handle API tasks if that's what your app is running now - there's very little to be gained by upgrading to Web API just because. But going forward Web API clearly is the way to go, when building HTTP data interfaces and it's good to see that Microsoft got this one right - it was sorely needed! Resources ASP.NET Web API AspConf Ask the Experts Session (first 5 minutes) © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • error about ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND)

    - by Yavuz Maslak
    I have ubuntu server 11.10 64 bit I see an error in kernel.log. This error comes out when the server reboot. some port of grep APCI in kernel.log; Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588605] pci0000:00: Requesting ACPI _OSC control (0x1d) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588667] pci0000:00: ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND), returned control mask: 0x1d Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588746] ACPI _OSC control for PCIe not granted, disabling ASPM Which hardware may be cause this error ? root@www:# grep -r ACPI /var/log/kern.log Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf780000 - 00000000bf798000 (ACPI data) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf798000 - 00000000bf7dc000 (ACPI NVS) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDP 00000000000fb1a0 00014 (v00 ACPIAM) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDT 00000000bf780000 00040 (v01 022410 RSDT1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACP 00000000bf780200 00084 (v01 022410 FACP1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: DSDT 00000000bf7804b0 0C359 (v01 A1279 A1279001 00000001 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACS 00000000bf798000 00040 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: APIC 00000000bf780390 000D8 (v01 022410 APIC1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: MCFG 00000000bf780470 0003C (v01 022410 OEMMCFG 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OEMB 00000000bf798040 00072 (v01 022410 OEMB1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET 00000000bf78f4b0 00038 (v01 022410 OEMHPET 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OSFR 00000000bf78f4f0 000B0 (v01 022410 OEMOSFR 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf798fe0 00363 (v01 DpgPmm CpuPm 00000012 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x04] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x06] enabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x05] lapic_id[0x84] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x06] lapic_id[0x85] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x07] lapic_id[0x86] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x87] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x09] lapic_id[0x88] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x89] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0b] lapic_id[0x8a] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0c] lapic_id[0x8b] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0d] lapic_id[0x8c] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0e] lapic_id[0x8d] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0f] lapic_id[0x8e] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x10] lapic_id[0x8f] disabled) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0]) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x03] address[0xfec8a000] gsi_base[24]) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ0 used by override. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ2 used by override. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET id: 0x8086a301 base: 0xfed00000 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.009507] ACPI: Core revision 20110413 Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.499129] PM: Registering ACPI NVS region at bf798000 (278528 bytes) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.500749] ACPI: bus type pci registered Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.502747] ACPI: EC: Look up EC in DSDT Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.503788] ACPI: Executed 1 blocks of module-level executable AML code Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.520435] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf7980c0 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.520863] ACPI: Dynamic OEM Table Load: Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.520990] ACPI: SSDT (null) 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.521308] ACPI: Interpreter enabled Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.521366] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.521611] ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.522622] PCI: MMCONFIG at [mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff] reserved in ACPI motherboard resources Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.554150] ACPI: No dock devices found. Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.554267] PCI: Using host bridge windows from ACPI; if necessary, use "pci=nocrs" and report a bug Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.555231] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (domain 0000 [bus 00-ff]) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588224] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588398] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P1._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588451] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P4._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588473] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P6._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588492] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P7._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588512] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P8._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588540] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE1._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588559] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE3._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588579] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE7._PRT] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588605] pci0000:00: Requesting ACPI _OSC control (0x1d) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588667] pci0000:00: ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND), returned control mask: 0x1d Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.588746] ACPI _OSC control for PCIe not granted, disabling ASPM Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.597666] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 *15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.598142] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs *5) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.598336] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.598810] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 *10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.599284] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 *14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.599762] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs *3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.600236] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 6 *7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.600709] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 3 *4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.601931] PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628146] pnp: PnP ACPI init Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628211] ACPI: bus type pnp registered Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628417] pnp 00:00: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0a08 PNP0a03 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628859] system 00:01: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628915] pnp 00:02: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0200 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628951] pnp 00:03: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0b00 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.628975] pnp 00:04: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0800 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629004] pnp 00:05: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c04 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629229] system 00:06: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629779] system 00:07: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629849] pnp 00:08: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0103 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.629901] pnp 00:09: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs INT0800 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630030] system 00:0a: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630254] system 00:0b: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630304] pnp 00:0c: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0303 PNP030b (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630359] pnp 00:0d: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0f03 PNP0f13 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630492] system 00:0e: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.630986] system 00:0f: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.631078] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 16 devices Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.631135] ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.726291] ACPI: Power Button [PWRB] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.726452] ACPI: Power Button [PWRF] Dec 5 09:08:51 www kernel: [ 0.726527] ACPI: acpi_idle yielding to intel_idle Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf780000 - 00000000bf798000 (ACPI data) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: 00000000bf798000 - 00000000bf7dc000 (ACPI NVS) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDP 00000000000fb1a0 00014 (v00 ACPIAM) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: RSDT 00000000bf780000 00040 (v01 022410 RSDT1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACP 00000000bf780200 00084 (v01 022410 FACP1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: DSDT 00000000bf7804b0 0C359 (v01 A1279 A1279001 00000001 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: FACS 00000000bf798000 00040 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: APIC 00000000bf780390 000D8 (v01 022410 APIC1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: MCFG 00000000bf780470 0003C (v01 022410 OEMMCFG 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OEMB 00000000bf798040 00072 (v01 022410 OEMB1405 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET 00000000bf78f4b0 00038 (v01 022410 OEMHPET 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: OSFR 00000000bf78f4f0 000B0 (v01 022410 OEMOSFR 20100224 MSFT 00000097) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf798fe0 00363 (v01 DpgPmm CpuPm 00000012 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: Local APIC address 0xfee00000 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x01] lapic_id[0x00] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x02] lapic_id[0x02] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x03] lapic_id[0x04] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x04] lapic_id[0x06] enabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x05] lapic_id[0x84] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x06] lapic_id[0x85] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x07] lapic_id[0x86] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x08] lapic_id[0x87] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x09] lapic_id[0x88] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0a] lapic_id[0x89] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0b] lapic_id[0x8a] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0c] lapic_id[0x8b] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0d] lapic_id[0x8c] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0e] lapic_id[0x8d] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x0f] lapic_id[0x8e] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: LAPIC (acpi_id[0x10] lapic_id[0x8f] disabled) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x01] address[0xfec00000] gsi_base[0]) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IOAPIC (id[0x03] address[0xfec8a000] gsi_base[24]) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 0 global_irq 2 dfl dfl) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: INT_SRC_OVR (bus 0 bus_irq 9 global_irq 9 high level) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ0 used by override. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ2 used by override. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: IRQ9 used by override. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] Using ACPI (MADT) for SMP configuration information Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.000000] ACPI: HPET id: 0x8086a301 base: 0xfed00000 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.009505] ACPI: Core revision 20110413 Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.499203] PM: Registering ACPI NVS region at bf798000 (278528 bytes) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.500819] ACPI: bus type pci registered Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.503121] ACPI: EC: Look up EC in DSDT Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.504162] ACPI: Executed 1 blocks of module-level executable AML code Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.520821] ACPI: SSDT 00000000bf7980c0 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521247] ACPI: Dynamic OEM Table Load: Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521374] ACPI: SSDT (null) 00F20 (v01 DpgPmm P001Ist 00000011 INTL 20060113) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521691] ACPI: Interpreter enabled Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521748] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S3 S4 S5) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.521993] ACPI: Using IOAPIC for interrupt routing Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.523002] PCI: MMCONFIG at [mem 0xe0000000-0xefffffff] reserved in ACPI motherboard resources Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.554533] ACPI: No dock devices found. Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.554649] PCI: Using host bridge windows from ACPI; if necessary, use "pci=nocrs" and report a bug Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.555620] ACPI: PCI Root Bridge [PCI0] (domain 0000 [bus 00-ff]) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588224] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588398] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P1._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588451] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P4._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588473] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P6._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588492] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P7._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588512] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P8._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588540] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE1._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588559] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE3._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588579] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Routing Table [\_SB_.PCI0.NPE7._PRT] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588606] pci0000:00: Requesting ACPI _OSC control (0x1d) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588667] pci0000:00: ACPI _OSC request failed (AE_NOT_FOUND), returned control mask: 0x1d Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.588746] ACPI _OSC control for PCIe not granted, disabling ASPM Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.597661] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKA] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 *15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.598137] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKB] (IRQs *5) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.598331] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKC] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 *11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.598804] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKD] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 *10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.599278] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKE] (IRQs 3 4 6 7 10 11 12 *14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.599756] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKF] (IRQs *3 4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.600230] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKG] (IRQs 3 4 6 *7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.600704] ACPI: PCI Interrupt Link [LNKH] (IRQs 3 *4 6 7 10 11 12 14 15) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.601926] PCI: Using ACPI for IRQ routing Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624115] pnp: PnP ACPI init Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624179] ACPI: bus type pnp registered Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624382] pnp 00:00: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0a08 PNP0a03 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624821] system 00:01: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624875] pnp 00:02: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0200 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624911] pnp 00:03: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0b00 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624933] pnp 00:04: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0800 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.624962] pnp 00:05: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c04 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625186] system 00:06: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625733] system 00:07: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625803] pnp 00:08: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0103 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625856] pnp 00:09: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs INT0800 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.625984] system 00:0a: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626206] system 00:0b: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626256] pnp 00:0c: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0303 PNP030b (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626312] pnp 00:0d: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0f03 PNP0f13 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626445] system 00:0e: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c02 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.626936] system 00:0f: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c01 (active) Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.627027] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 16 devices Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.627084] ACPI: ACPI bus type pnp unregistered Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.722086] ACPI: Power Button [PWRB] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.722246] ACPI: Power Button [PWRF] Dec 7 21:45:22 www kernel: [ 0.722320] ACPI: acpi_idle yielding to intel_idle

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  • Upload File to Windows Azure Blob in Chunks through ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript and HTML5

    - by Shaun
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2013/07/01/upload-file-to-windows-azure-blob-in-chunks-through-asp.net.aspxMany people are using Windows Azure Blob Storage to store their data in the cloud. Blob storage provides 99.9% availability with easy-to-use API through .NET SDK and HTTP REST. For example, we can store JavaScript files, images, documents in blob storage when we are building an ASP.NET web application on a Web Role in Windows Azure. Or we can store our VHD files in blob and mount it as a hard drive in our cloud service. If you are familiar with Windows Azure, you should know that there are two kinds of blob: page blob and block blob. The page blob is optimized for random read and write, which is very useful when you need to store VHD files. The block blob is optimized for sequential/chunk read and write, which has more common usage. Since we can upload block blob in blocks through BlockBlob.PutBlock, and them commit them as a whole blob with invoking the BlockBlob.PutBlockList, it is very powerful to upload large files, as we can upload blocks in parallel, and provide pause-resume feature. There are many documents, articles and blog posts described on how to upload a block blob. Most of them are focus on the server side, which means when you had received a big file, stream or binaries, how to upload them into blob storage in blocks through .NET SDK.  But the problem is, how can we upload these large files from client side, for example, a browser. This questioned to me when I was working with a Chinese customer to help them build a network disk production on top of azure. The end users upload their files from the web portal, and then the files will be stored in blob storage from the Web Role. My goal is to find the best way to transform the file from client (end user’s machine) to the server (Web Role) through browser. In this post I will demonstrate and describe what I had done, to upload large file in chunks with high speed, and save them as blocks into Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Traditional Upload, Works with Limitation The simplest way to implement this requirement is to create a web page with a form that contains a file input element and a submit button. 1: @using (Html.BeginForm("About", "Index", FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) 2: { 3: <input type="file" name="file" /> 4: <input type="submit" value="upload" /> 5: } And then in the backend controller, we retrieve the whole content of this file and upload it in to the blob storage through .NET SDK. We can split the file in blocks and upload them in parallel and commit. The code had been well blogged in the community. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public ActionResult About(HttpPostedFileBase file) 3: { 4: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 5: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 6: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(file.FileName); 7: var blockDataList = new Dictionary<string, byte[]>(); 8: using (var stream = file.InputStream) 9: { 10: var blockSizeInKB = 1024; 11: var offset = 0; 12: var index = 0; 13: while (offset < stream.Length) 14: { 15: var readLength = Math.Min(1024 * blockSizeInKB, (int)stream.Length - offset); 16: var blockData = new byte[readLength]; 17: offset += stream.Read(blockData, 0, readLength); 18: blockDataList.Add(Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)), blockData); 19:  20: index++; 21: } 22: } 23:  24: Parallel.ForEach(blockDataList, (bi) => 25: { 26: blob.PutBlock(bi.Key, new MemoryStream(bi.Value), null); 27: }); 28: blob.PutBlockList(blockDataList.Select(b => b.Key).ToArray()); 29:  30: return RedirectToAction("About"); 31: } This works perfect if we selected an image, a music or a small video to upload. But if I selected a large file, let’s say a 6GB HD-movie, after upload for about few minutes the page will be shown as below and the upload will be terminated. In ASP.NET there is a limitation of request length and the maximized request length is defined in the web.config file. It’s a number which less than about 4GB. So if we want to upload a really big file, we cannot simply implement in this way. Also, in Windows Azure, a cloud service network load balancer will terminate the connection if exceed the timeout period. From my test the timeout looks like 2 - 3 minutes. Hence, when we need to upload a large file we cannot just use the basic HTML elements. Besides the limitation mentioned above, the simple HTML file upload cannot provide rich upload experience such as chunk upload, pause and pause-resume. So we need to find a better way to upload large file from the client to the server.   Upload in Chunks through HTML5 and JavaScript In order to break those limitation mentioned above we will try to upload the large file in chunks. This takes some benefit to us such as - No request size limitation: Since we upload in chunks, we can define the request size for each chunks regardless how big the entire file is. - No timeout problem: The size of chunks are controlled by us, which means we should be able to make sure request for each chunk upload will not exceed the timeout period of both ASP.NET and Windows Azure load balancer. It was a big challenge to upload big file in chunks until we have HTML5. There are some new features and improvements introduced in HTML5 and we will use them to implement our solution.   In HTML5, the File interface had been improved with a new method called “slice”. It can be used to read part of the file by specifying the start byte index and the end byte index. For example if the entire file was 1024 bytes, file.slice(512, 768) will read the part of this file from the 512nd byte to 768th byte, and return a new object of interface called "Blob”, which you can treat as an array of bytes. In fact,  a Blob object represents a file-like object of immutable, raw data. The File interface is based on Blob, inheriting blob functionality and expanding it to support files on the user's system. For more information about the Blob please refer here. File and Blob is very useful to implement the chunk upload. We will use File interface to represent the file the user selected from the browser and then use File.slice to read the file in chunks in the size we wanted. For example, if we wanted to upload a 10MB file with 512KB chunks, then we can read it in 512KB blobs by using File.slice in a loop.   Assuming we have a web page as below. User can select a file, an input box to specify the block size in KB and a button to start upload. 1: <div> 2: <input type="file" id="upload_files" name="files[]" /><br /> 3: Block Size: <input type="number" id="block_size" value="512" name="block_size" />KB<br /> 4: <input type="button" id="upload_button_blob" name="upload" value="upload (blob)" /> 5: </div> Then we can have the JavaScript function to upload the file in chunks when user clicked the button. 1: <script type="text/javascript"> 1: 2: $(function () { 3: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 4: }); 5: });</script> Firstly we need to ensure the client browser supports the interfaces we are going to use. Just try to invoke the File, Blob and FormData from the “window” object. If any of them is “undefined” the condition result will be “false” which means your browser doesn’t support these premium feature and it’s time for you to get your browser updated. FormData is another new feature we are going to use in the future. It could generate a temporary form for us. We will use this interface to create a form with chunk and associated metadata when invoked the service through ajax. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 4: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 5: } 6: else { 7: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 8: return; 9: } 10: }); Each browser supports these interfaces by their own implementation and currently the Blob, File and File.slice are supported by Chrome 21, FireFox 13, IE 10, Opera 12 and Safari 5.1 or higher. After that we worked on the files the user selected one by one since in HTML5, user can select multiple files in one file input box. 1: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 2: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 3: var file = files[i]; 4: var fileSize = file.size; 5: var fileName = file.name; 6: } Next, we calculated the start index and end index for each chunks based on the size the user specified from the browser. We put them into an array with the file name and the index, which will be used when we upload chunks into Windows Azure Blob Storage as blocks since we need to specify the target blob name and the block index. At the same time we will store the list of all indexes into another variant which will be used to commit blocks into blob in Azure Storage once all chunks had been uploaded successfully. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10:  11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 14: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 15: var blocks = []; 16: var offset = 0; 17: var index = 0; 18: var list = ""; 19: while (offset < fileSize) { 20: var start = offset; 21: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 22:  23: blocks.push({ 24: name: fileName, 25: index: index, 26: start: start, 27: end: end 28: }); 29: list += index + ","; 30:  31: offset = end; 32: index++; 33: } 34: } 35: }); Now we have all chunks’ information ready. The next step should be upload them one by one to the server side, and at the server side when received a chunk it will upload as a block into Blob Storage, and finally commit them with the index list through BlockBlobClient.PutBlockList. But since all these invokes are ajax calling, which means not synchronized call. So we need to introduce a new JavaScript library to help us coordinate the asynchronize operation, which named “async.js”. You can download this JavaScript library here, and you can find the document here. I will not explain this library too much in this post. We will put all procedures we want to execute as a function array, and pass into the proper function defined in async.js to let it help us to control the execution sequence, in series or in parallel. Hence we will define an array and put the function for chunk upload into this array. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4:  5: // start to upload each files in chunks 6: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 7: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 8: var file = files[i]; 9: var fileSize = file.size; 10: var fileName = file.name; 11: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 12: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 13: ... ... 14:  15: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 16: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 17: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 18: }); 19: }); 20: } 21: }); 22: }); As you can see, I used File.slice method to read each chunks based on the start and end byte index we calculated previously, and constructed a temporary HTML form with the file name, chunk index and chunk data through another new feature in HTML5 named FormData. Then post this form to the backend server through jQuery.ajax. This is the key part of our solution. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 15: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 16: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 17: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 18: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 19: var fd = new FormData(); 20: fd.append("name", block.name); 21: fd.append("index", block.index); 22: fd.append("file", blob); 23: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 24: $.ajax({ 25: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 26: data: fd, 27: processData: false, 28: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 29: type: "POST", 30: success: function (result) { 31: if (!result.success) { 32: alert(result.error); 33: } 34: callback(null, block.index); 35: } 36: }); 37: }); 38: }); 39: } 40: }); Then we will invoke these functions one by one by using the async.js. And once all functions had been executed successfully I invoked another ajax call to the backend service to commit all these chunks (blocks) as the blob in Windows Azure Storage. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); That’s all in the client side. The outline of our logic would be - Calculate the start and end byte index for each chunks based on the block size. - Defined the functions of reading the chunk form file and upload the content to the backend service through ajax. - Execute the functions defined in previous step with “async.js”. - Commit the chunks by invoking the backend service in Windows Azure Storage finally.   Save Chunks as Blocks into Blob Storage In above we finished the client size JavaScript code. It uploaded the file in chunks to the backend service which we are going to implement in this step. We will use ASP.NET MVC as our backend service, and it will receive the chunks, upload into Windows Azure Bob Storage in blocks, then finally commit as one blob. As in the client side we uploaded chunks by invoking the ajax call to the URL "/Home/UploadInFormData", I created a new action under the Index controller and it only accepts HTTP POST request. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: } 8: catch (Exception e) 9: { 10: error = e.ToString(); 11: } 12:  13: return new JsonResult() 14: { 15: Data = new 16: { 17: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 18: error = error 19: } 20: }; 21: } Then I retrieved the file name, index and the chunk content from the Request.Form object, which was passed from our client side. And then, used the Windows Azure SDK to create a blob container (in this case we will use the container named “test”.) and create a blob reference with the blob name (same as the file name). Then uploaded the chunk as a block of this blob with the index, since in Blob Storage each block must have an index (ID) associated with so that finally we can put all blocks as one blob by specifying their block ID list. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 9: var file = Request.Files[0]; 10: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 11:  12: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 13: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 14: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 15: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 16: } 17: catch (Exception e) 18: { 19: error = e.ToString(); 20: } 21:  22: return new JsonResult() 23: { 24: Data = new 25: { 26: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 27: error = error 28: } 29: }; 30: } Next, I created another action to commit the blocks into blob once all chunks had been uploaded. Similarly, I retrieved the blob name from the Request.Form. I also retrieved the chunks ID list, which is the block ID list from the Request.Form in a string format, split them as a list, then invoked the BlockBlob.PutBlockList method. After that our blob will be shown in the container and ready to be download. 1: [HttpPost] 2: public JsonResult Commit() 3: { 4: var error = string.Empty; 5: try 6: { 7: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 8: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 9: var ids = list 10: .Split(',') 11: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 12: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 13: .ToArray(); 14:  15: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 16: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 17: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 18: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 19: } 20: catch (Exception e) 21: { 22: error = e.ToString(); 23: } 24:  25: return new JsonResult() 26: { 27: Data = new 28: { 29: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 30: error = error 31: } 32: }; 33: } Now we finished all code we need. The whole process of uploading would be like this below. Below is the full client side JavaScript code. 1: <script type="text/javascript" src="~/Scripts/async.js"></script> 2: <script type="text/javascript"> 3: $(function () { 4: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 5: // assert the browser support html5 6: if (window.File && window.Blob && window.FormData) { 7: alert("Your brwoser is awesome, let's rock!"); 8: } 9: else { 10: alert("Oh man plz update to a modern browser before try is cool stuff out."); 11: return; 12: } 13:  14: // start to upload each files in chunks 15: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 16: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 17: var file = files[i]; 18: var fileSize = file.size; 19: var fileName = file.name; 20:  21: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 22: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 23: var blockSizeInKB = $("#block_size").val(); 24: var blockSize = blockSizeInKB * 1024; 25: var blocks = []; 26: var offset = 0; 27: var index = 0; 28: var list = ""; 29: while (offset < fileSize) { 30: var start = offset; 31: var end = Math.min(offset + blockSize, fileSize); 32:  33: blocks.push({ 34: name: fileName, 35: index: index, 36: start: start, 37: end: end 38: }); 39: list += index + ","; 40:  41: offset = end; 42: index++; 43: } 44:  45: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 46: var putBlocks = []; 47: blocks.forEach(function (block) { 48: putBlocks.push(function (callback) { 49: // load blob based on the start and end index for each chunks 50: var blob = file.slice(block.start, block.end); 51: // put the file name, index and blob into a temporary from 52: var fd = new FormData(); 53: fd.append("name", block.name); 54: fd.append("index", block.index); 55: fd.append("file", blob); 56: // post the form to backend service (asp.net mvc controller action) 57: $.ajax({ 58: url: "/Home/UploadInFormData", 59: data: fd, 60: processData: false, 61: contentType: "multipart/form-data", 62: type: "POST", 63: success: function (result) { 64: if (!result.success) { 65: alert(result.error); 66: } 67: callback(null, block.index); 68: } 69: }); 70: }); 71: }); 72:  73: // invoke the functions one by one 74: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 75: async.series(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 76: var data = { 77: name: fileName, 78: list: list 79: }; 80: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 81: if (!result.success) { 82: alert(result.error); 83: } 84: else { 85: alert("done!"); 86: } 87: }); 88: }); 89: } 90: }); 91: }); 92: </script> And below is the full ASP.NET MVC controller code. 1: public class HomeController : Controller 2: { 3: private CloudStorageAccount _account; 4: private CloudBlobClient _client; 5:  6: public HomeController() 7: : base() 8: { 9: _account = CloudStorageAccount.Parse(CloudConfigurationManager.GetSetting("DataConnectionString")); 10: _client = _account.CreateCloudBlobClient(); 11: } 12:  13: public ActionResult Index() 14: { 15: ViewBag.Message = "Modify this template to jump-start your ASP.NET MVC application."; 16:  17: return View(); 18: } 19:  20: [HttpPost] 21: public JsonResult UploadInFormData() 22: { 23: var error = string.Empty; 24: try 25: { 26: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 27: var index = int.Parse(Request.Form["index"]); 28: var file = Request.Files[0]; 29: var id = Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(index)); 30:  31: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 32: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 33: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 34: blob.PutBlock(id, file.InputStream, null); 35: } 36: catch (Exception e) 37: { 38: error = e.ToString(); 39: } 40:  41: return new JsonResult() 42: { 43: Data = new 44: { 45: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 46: error = error 47: } 48: }; 49: } 50:  51: [HttpPost] 52: public JsonResult Commit() 53: { 54: var error = string.Empty; 55: try 56: { 57: var name = Request.Form["name"]; 58: var list = Request.Form["list"]; 59: var ids = list 60: .Split(',') 61: .Where(id => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(id)) 62: .Select(id => Convert.ToBase64String(BitConverter.GetBytes(int.Parse(id)))) 63: .ToArray(); 64:  65: var container = _client.GetContainerReference("test"); 66: container.CreateIfNotExists(); 67: var blob = container.GetBlockBlobReference(name); 68: blob.PutBlockList(ids); 69: } 70: catch (Exception e) 71: { 72: error = e.ToString(); 73: } 74:  75: return new JsonResult() 76: { 77: Data = new 78: { 79: success = string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(error), 80: error = error 81: } 82: }; 83: } 84: } And if we selected a file from the browser we will see our application will upload chunks in the size we specified to the server through ajax call in background, and then commit all chunks in one blob. Then we can find the blob in our Windows Azure Blob Storage.   Optimized by Parallel Upload In previous example we just uploaded our file in chunks. This solved the problem that ASP.NET MVC request content size limitation as well as the Windows Azure load balancer timeout. But it might introduce the performance problem since we uploaded chunks in sequence. In order to improve the upload performance we could modify our client side code a bit to make the upload operation invoked in parallel. The good news is that, “async.js” library provides the parallel execution function. If you remembered the code we invoke the service to upload chunks, it utilized “async.series” which means all functions will be executed in sequence. Now we will change this code to “async.parallel”. This will invoke all functions in parallel. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallel(putBlocks, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: }); In this way all chunks will be uploaded to the server side at the same time to maximize the bandwidth usage. This should work if the file was not very large and the chunk size was not very small. But for large file this might introduce another problem that too many ajax calls are sent to the server at the same time. So the best solution should be, upload the chunks in parallel with maximum concurrency limitation. The code below specified the concurrency limitation to 4, which means at the most only 4 ajax calls could be invoked at the same time. 1: $("#upload_button_blob").click(function () { 2: // assert the browser support html5 3: ... ... 4: // start to upload each files in chunks 5: var files = $("#upload_files")[0].files; 6: for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) { 7: var file = files[i]; 8: var fileSize = file.size; 9: var fileName = file.name; 10: // calculate the start and end byte index for each blocks(chunks) 11: // with the index, file name and index list for future using 12: ... ... 13: // define the function array and push all chunk upload operation into this array 14: ... ... 15: // invoke the functions one by one 16: // then invoke the commit ajax call to put blocks into blob in azure storage 17: async.parallelLimit(putBlocks, 4, function (error, result) { 18: var data = { 19: name: fileName, 20: list: list 21: }; 22: $.post("/Home/Commit", data, function (result) { 23: if (!result.success) { 24: alert(result.error); 25: } 26: else { 27: alert("done!"); 28: } 29: }); 30: }); 31: } 32: });   Summary In this post we discussed how to upload files in chunks to the backend service and then upload them into Windows Azure Blob Storage in blocks. We focused on the frontend side and leverage three new feature introduced in HTML 5 which are - File.slice: Read part of the file by specifying the start and end byte index. - Blob: File-like interface which contains the part of the file content. - FormData: Temporary form element that we can pass the chunk alone with some metadata to the backend service. Then we discussed the performance consideration of chunk uploading. Sequence upload cannot provide maximized upload speed, but the unlimited parallel upload might crash the browser and server if too many chunks. So we finally came up with the solution to upload chunks in parallel with the concurrency limitation. We also demonstrated how to utilize “async.js” JavaScript library to help us control the asynchronize call and the parallel limitation.   Regarding the chunk size and the parallel limitation value there is no “best” value. You need to test vary composition and find out the best one for your particular scenario. It depends on the local bandwidth, client machine cores and the server side (Windows Azure Cloud Service Virtual Machine) cores, memory and bandwidth. Below is one of my performance test result. The client machine was Windows 8 IE 10 with 4 cores. I was using Microsoft Cooperation Network. The web site was hosted on Windows Azure China North data center (in Beijing) with one small web role (1.7GB 1 core CPU, 1.75GB memory with 100Mbps bandwidth). The test cases were - Chunk size: 512KB, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB. - Upload Mode: Sequence, parallel (unlimited), parallel with limit (4 threads, 8 threads). - Chunk Format: base64 string, binaries. - Target file: 100MB. - Each case was tested 3 times. Below is the test result chart. Some thoughts, but not guidance or best practice: - Parallel gets better performance than series. - No significant performance improvement between parallel 4 threads and 8 threads. - Transform with binaries provides better performance than base64. - In all cases, chunk size in 1MB - 2MB gets better performance.   Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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  • New features of C# 4.0

    This article covers New features of C# 4.0. Article has been divided into below sections. Introduction. Dynamic Lookup. Named and Optional Arguments. Features for COM interop. Variance. Relationship with Visual Basic. Resources. Other interested readings… 22 New Features of Visual Studio 2008 for .NET Professionals 50 New Features of SQL Server 2008 IIS 7.0 New features Introduction It is now close to a year since Microsoft Visual C# 3.0 shipped as part of Visual Studio 2008. In the VS Managed Languages team we are hard at work on creating the next version of the language (with the unsurprising working title of C# 4.0), and this document is a first public description of the planned language features as we currently see them. Please be advised that all this is in early stages of production and is subject to change. Part of the reason for sharing our plans in public so early is precisely to get the kind of feedback that will cause us to improve the final product before it rolls out. Simultaneously with the publication of this whitepaper, a first public CTP (community technology preview) of Visual Studio 2010 is going out as a Virtual PC image for everyone to try. Please use it to play and experiment with the features, and let us know of any thoughts you have. We ask for your understanding and patience working with very early bits, where especially new or newly implemented features do not have the quality or stability of a final product. The aim of the CTP is not to give you a productive work environment but to give you the best possible impression of what we are working on for the next release. The CTP contains a number of walkthroughs, some of which highlight the new language features of C# 4.0. Those are excellent for getting a hands-on guided tour through the details of some common scenarios for the features. You may consider this whitepaper a companion document to these walkthroughs, complementing them with a focus on the overall language features and how they work, as opposed to the specifics of the concrete scenarios. C# 4.0 The major theme for C# 4.0 is dynamic programming. Increasingly, objects are “dynamic” in the sense that their structure and behavior is not captured by a static type, or at least not one that the compiler knows about when compiling your program. Some examples include a. objects from dynamic programming languages, such as Python or Ruby b. COM objects accessed through IDispatch c. ordinary .NET types accessed through reflection d. objects with changing structure, such as HTML DOM objects While C# remains a statically typed language, we aim to vastly improve the interaction with such objects. A secondary theme is co-evolution with Visual Basic. Going forward we will aim to maintain the individual character of each language, but at the same time important new features should be introduced in both languages at the same time. They should be differentiated more by style and feel than by feature set. The new features in C# 4.0 fall into four groups: Dynamic lookup Dynamic lookup allows you to write method, operator and indexer calls, property and field accesses, and even object invocations which bypass the C# static type checking and instead gets resolved at runtime. Named and optional parameters Parameters in C# can now be specified as optional by providing a default value for them in a member declaration. When the member is invoked, optional arguments can be omitted. Furthermore, any argument can be passed by parameter name instead of position. COM specific interop features Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters both help making programming against COM less painful than today. On top of that, however, we are adding a number of other small features that further improve the interop experience. Variance It used to be that an IEnumerable<string> wasn’t an IEnumerable<object>. Now it is – C# embraces type safe “co-and contravariance” and common BCL types are updated to take advantage of that. Dynamic Lookup Dynamic lookup allows you a unified approach to invoking things dynamically. With dynamic lookup, when you have an object in your hand you do not need to worry about whether it comes from COM, IronPython, the HTML DOM or reflection; you just apply operations to it and leave it to the runtime to figure out what exactly those operations mean for that particular object. This affords you enormous flexibility, and can greatly simplify your code, but it does come with a significant drawback: Static typing is not maintained for these operations. A dynamic object is assumed at compile time to support any operation, and only at runtime will you get an error if it wasn’t so. Oftentimes this will be no loss, because the object wouldn’t have a static type anyway, in other cases it is a tradeoff between brevity and safety. In order to facilitate this tradeoff, it is a design goal of C# to allow you to opt in or opt out of dynamic behavior on every single call. The dynamic type C# 4.0 introduces a new static type called dynamic. When you have an object of type dynamic you can “do things to it” that are resolved only at runtime: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); The C# compiler allows you to call a method with any name and any arguments on d because it is of type dynamic. At runtime the actual object that d refers to will be examined to determine what it means to “call M with an int” on it. The type dynamic can be thought of as a special version of the type object, which signals that the object can be used dynamically. It is easy to opt in or out of dynamic behavior: any object can be implicitly converted to dynamic, “suspending belief” until runtime. Conversely, there is an “assignment conversion” from dynamic to any other type, which allows implicit conversion in assignment-like constructs: dynamic d = 7; // implicit conversion int i = d; // assignment conversion Dynamic operations Not only method calls, but also field and property accesses, indexer and operator calls and even delegate invocations can be dispatched dynamically: dynamic d = GetDynamicObject(…); d.M(7); // calling methods d.f = d.P; // getting and settings fields and properties d[“one”] = d[“two”]; // getting and setting thorugh indexers int i = d + 3; // calling operators string s = d(5,7); // invoking as a delegate The role of the C# compiler here is simply to package up the necessary information about “what is being done to d”, so that the runtime can pick it up and determine what the exact meaning of it is given an actual object d. Think of it as deferring part of the compiler’s job to runtime. The result of any dynamic operation is itself of type dynamic. Runtime lookup At runtime a dynamic operation is dispatched according to the nature of its target object d: COM objects If d is a COM object, the operation is dispatched dynamically through COM IDispatch. This allows calling to COM types that don’t have a Primary Interop Assembly (PIA), and relying on COM features that don’t have a counterpart in C#, such as indexed properties and default properties. Dynamic objects If d implements the interface IDynamicObject d itself is asked to perform the operation. Thus by implementing IDynamicObject a type can completely redefine the meaning of dynamic operations. This is used intensively by dynamic languages such as IronPython and IronRuby to implement their own dynamic object models. It will also be used by APIs, e.g. by the HTML DOM to allow direct access to the object’s properties using property syntax. Plain objects Otherwise d is a standard .NET object, and the operation will be dispatched using reflection on its type and a C# “runtime binder” which implements C#’s lookup and overload resolution semantics at runtime. This is essentially a part of the C# compiler running as a runtime component to “finish the work” on dynamic operations that was deferred by the static compiler. Example Assume the following code: dynamic d1 = new Foo(); dynamic d2 = new Bar(); string s; d1.M(s, d2, 3, null); Because the receiver of the call to M is dynamic, the C# compiler does not try to resolve the meaning of the call. Instead it stashes away information for the runtime about the call. This information (often referred to as the “payload”) is essentially equivalent to: “Perform an instance method call of M with the following arguments: 1. a string 2. a dynamic 3. a literal int 3 4. a literal object null” At runtime, assume that the actual type Foo of d1 is not a COM type and does not implement IDynamicObject. In this case the C# runtime binder picks up to finish the overload resolution job based on runtime type information, proceeding as follows: 1. Reflection is used to obtain the actual runtime types of the two objects, d1 and d2, that did not have a static type (or rather had the static type dynamic). The result is Foo for d1 and Bar for d2. 2. Method lookup and overload resolution is performed on the type Foo with the call M(string,Bar,3,null) using ordinary C# semantics. 3. If the method is found it is invoked; otherwise a runtime exception is thrown. Overload resolution with dynamic arguments Even if the receiver of a method call is of a static type, overload resolution can still happen at runtime. This can happen if one or more of the arguments have the type dynamic: Foo foo = new Foo(); dynamic d = new Bar(); var result = foo.M(d); The C# runtime binder will choose between the statically known overloads of M on Foo, based on the runtime type of d, namely Bar. The result is again of type dynamic. The Dynamic Language Runtime An important component in the underlying implementation of dynamic lookup is the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), which is a new API in .NET 4.0. The DLR provides most of the infrastructure behind not only C# dynamic lookup but also the implementation of several dynamic programming languages on .NET, such as IronPython and IronRuby. Through this common infrastructure a high degree of interoperability is ensured, but just as importantly the DLR provides excellent caching mechanisms which serve to greatly enhance the efficiency of runtime dispatch. To the user of dynamic lookup in C#, the DLR is invisible except for the improved efficiency. However, if you want to implement your own dynamically dispatched objects, the IDynamicObject interface allows you to interoperate with the DLR and plug in your own behavior. This is a rather advanced task, which requires you to understand a good deal more about the inner workings of the DLR. For API writers, however, it can definitely be worth the trouble in order to vastly improve the usability of e.g. a library representing an inherently dynamic domain. Open issues There are a few limitations and things that might work differently than you would expect. · The DLR allows objects to be created from objects that represent classes. However, the current implementation of C# doesn’t have syntax to support this. · Dynamic lookup will not be able to find extension methods. Whether extension methods apply or not depends on the static context of the call (i.e. which using clauses occur), and this context information is not currently kept as part of the payload. · Anonymous functions (i.e. lambda expressions) cannot appear as arguments to a dynamic method call. The compiler cannot bind (i.e. “understand”) an anonymous function without knowing what type it is converted to. One consequence of these limitations is that you cannot easily use LINQ queries over dynamic objects: dynamic collection = …; var result = collection.Select(e => e + 5); If the Select method is an extension method, dynamic lookup will not find it. Even if it is an instance method, the above does not compile, because a lambda expression cannot be passed as an argument to a dynamic operation. There are no plans to address these limitations in C# 4.0. Named and Optional Arguments Named and optional parameters are really two distinct features, but are often useful together. Optional parameters allow you to omit arguments to member invocations, whereas named arguments is a way to provide an argument using the name of the corresponding parameter instead of relying on its position in the parameter list. Some APIs, most notably COM interfaces such as the Office automation APIs, are written specifically with named and optional parameters in mind. Up until now it has been very painful to call into these APIs from C#, with sometimes as many as thirty arguments having to be explicitly passed, most of which have reasonable default values and could be omitted. Even in APIs for .NET however you sometimes find yourself compelled to write many overloads of a method with different combinations of parameters, in order to provide maximum usability to the callers. Optional parameters are a useful alternative for these situations. Optional parameters A parameter is declared optional simply by providing a default value for it: public void M(int x, int y = 5, int z = 7); Here y and z are optional parameters and can be omitted in calls: M(1, 2, 3); // ordinary call of M M(1, 2); // omitting z – equivalent to M(1, 2, 7) M(1); // omitting both y and z – equivalent to M(1, 5, 7) Named and optional arguments C# 4.0 does not permit you to omit arguments between commas as in M(1,,3). This could lead to highly unreadable comma-counting code. Instead any argument can be passed by name. Thus if you want to omit only y from a call of M you can write: M(1, z: 3); // passing z by name or M(x: 1, z: 3); // passing both x and z by name or even M(z: 3, x: 1); // reversing the order of arguments All forms are equivalent, except that arguments are always evaluated in the order they appear, so in the last example the 3 is evaluated before the 1. Optional and named arguments can be used not only with methods but also with indexers and constructors. Overload resolution Named and optional arguments affect overload resolution, but the changes are relatively simple: A signature is applicable if all its parameters are either optional or have exactly one corresponding argument (by name or position) in the call which is convertible to the parameter type. Betterness rules on conversions are only applied for arguments that are explicitly given – omitted optional arguments are ignored for betterness purposes. If two signatures are equally good, one that does not omit optional parameters is preferred. M(string s, int i = 1); M(object o); M(int i, string s = “Hello”); M(int i); M(5); Given these overloads, we can see the working of the rules above. M(string,int) is not applicable because 5 doesn’t convert to string. M(int,string) is applicable because its second parameter is optional, and so, obviously are M(object) and M(int). M(int,string) and M(int) are both better than M(object) because the conversion from 5 to int is better than the conversion from 5 to object. Finally M(int) is better than M(int,string) because no optional arguments are omitted. Thus the method that gets called is M(int). Features for COM interop Dynamic lookup as well as named and optional parameters greatly improve the experience of interoperating with COM APIs such as the Office Automation APIs. In order to remove even more of the speed bumps, a couple of small COM-specific features are also added to C# 4.0. Dynamic import Many COM methods accept and return variant types, which are represented in the PIAs as object. In the vast majority of cases, a programmer calling these methods already knows the static type of a returned object from context, but explicitly has to perform a cast on the returned value to make use of that knowledge. These casts are so common that they constitute a major nuisance. In order to facilitate a smoother experience, you can now choose to import these COM APIs in such a way that variants are instead represented using the type dynamic. In other words, from your point of view, COM signatures now have occurrences of dynamic instead of object in them. This means that you can easily access members directly off a returned object, or you can assign it to a strongly typed local variable without having to cast. To illustrate, you can now say excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Hello"; instead of ((Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]).Value2 = "Hello"; and Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; instead of Excel.Range range = (Excel.Range)excel.Cells[1, 1]; Compiling without PIAs Primary Interop Assemblies are large .NET assemblies generated from COM interfaces to facilitate strongly typed interoperability. They provide great support at design time, where your experience of the interop is as good as if the types where really defined in .NET. However, at runtime these large assemblies can easily bloat your program, and also cause versioning issues because they are distributed independently of your application. The no-PIA feature allows you to continue to use PIAs at design time without having them around at runtime. Instead, the C# compiler will bake the small part of the PIA that a program actually uses directly into its assembly. At runtime the PIA does not have to be loaded. Omitting ref Because of a different programming model, many COM APIs contain a lot of reference parameters. Contrary to refs in C#, these are typically not meant to mutate a passed-in argument for the subsequent benefit of the caller, but are simply another way of passing value parameters. It therefore seems unreasonable that a C# programmer should have to create temporary variables for all such ref parameters and pass these by reference. Instead, specifically for COM methods, the C# compiler will allow you to pass arguments by value to such a method, and will automatically generate temporary variables to hold the passed-in values, subsequently discarding these when the call returns. In this way the caller sees value semantics, and will not experience any side effects, but the called method still gets a reference. Open issues A few COM interface features still are not surfaced in C#. Most notably these include indexed properties and default properties. As mentioned above these will be respected if you access COM dynamically, but statically typed C# code will still not recognize them. There are currently no plans to address these remaining speed bumps in C# 4.0. Variance An aspect of generics that often comes across as surprising is that the following is illegal: IList<string> strings = new List<string>(); IList<object> objects = strings; The second assignment is disallowed because strings does not have the same element type as objects. There is a perfectly good reason for this. If it were allowed you could write: objects[0] = 5; string s = strings[0]; Allowing an int to be inserted into a list of strings and subsequently extracted as a string. This would be a breach of type safety. However, there are certain interfaces where the above cannot occur, notably where there is no way to insert an object into the collection. Such an interface is IEnumerable<T>. If instead you say: IEnumerable<object> objects = strings; There is no way we can put the wrong kind of thing into strings through objects, because objects doesn’t have a method that takes an element in. Variance is about allowing assignments such as this in cases where it is safe. The result is that a lot of situations that were previously surprising now just work. Covariance In .NET 4.0 the IEnumerable<T> interface will be declared in the following way: public interface IEnumerable<out T> : IEnumerable { IEnumerator<T> GetEnumerator(); } public interface IEnumerator<out T> : IEnumerator { bool MoveNext(); T Current { get; } } The “out” in these declarations signifies that the T can only occur in output position in the interface – the compiler will complain otherwise. In return for this restriction, the interface becomes “covariant” in T, which means that an IEnumerable<A> is considered an IEnumerable<B> if A has a reference conversion to B. As a result, any sequence of strings is also e.g. a sequence of objects. This is useful e.g. in many LINQ methods. Using the declarations above: var result = strings.Union(objects); // succeeds with an IEnumerable<object> This would previously have been disallowed, and you would have had to to some cumbersome wrapping to get the two sequences to have the same element type. Contravariance Type parameters can also have an “in” modifier, restricting them to occur only in input positions. An example is IComparer<T>: public interface IComparer<in T> { public int Compare(T left, T right); } The somewhat baffling result is that an IComparer<object> can in fact be considered an IComparer<string>! It makes sense when you think about it: If a comparer can compare any two objects, it can certainly also compare two strings. This property is referred to as contravariance. A generic type can have both in and out modifiers on its type parameters, as is the case with the Func<…> delegate types: public delegate TResult Func<in TArg, out TResult>(TArg arg); Obviously the argument only ever comes in, and the result only ever comes out. Therefore a Func<object,string> can in fact be used as a Func<string,object>. Limitations Variant type parameters can only be declared on interfaces and delegate types, due to a restriction in the CLR. Variance only applies when there is a reference conversion between the type arguments. For instance, an IEnumerable<int> is not an IEnumerable<object> because the conversion from int to object is a boxing conversion, not a reference conversion. Also please note that the CTP does not contain the new versions of the .NET types mentioned above. In order to experiment with variance you have to declare your own variant interfaces and delegate types. COM Example Here is a larger Office automation example that shows many of the new C# features in action. using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Linq; using Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel; using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word; class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var excel = new Excel.Application(); excel.Visible = true; excel.Workbooks.Add(); // optional arguments omitted excel.Cells[1, 1].Value = "Process Name"; // no casts; Value dynamically excel.Cells[1, 2].Value = "Memory Usage"; // accessed var processes = Process.GetProcesses() .OrderByDescending(p =&gt; p.WorkingSet) .Take(10); int i = 2; foreach (var p in processes) { excel.Cells[i, 1].Value = p.ProcessName; // no casts excel.Cells[i, 2].Value = p.WorkingSet; // no casts i++; } Excel.Range range = excel.Cells[1, 1]; // no casts Excel.Chart chart = excel.ActiveWorkbook.Charts. Add(After: excel.ActiveSheet); // named and optional arguments chart.ChartWizard( Source: range.CurrentRegion, Title: "Memory Usage in " + Environment.MachineName); //named+optional chart.ChartStyle = 45; chart.CopyPicture(Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen, Excel.XlCopyPictureFormat.xlBitmap, Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen); var word = new Word.Application(); word.Visible = true; word.Documents.Add(); // optional arguments word.Selection.Paste(); } } The code is much more terse and readable than the C# 3.0 counterpart. Note especially how the Value property is accessed dynamically. This is actually an indexed property, i.e. a property that takes an argument; something which C# does not understand. However the argument is optional. Since the access is dynamic, it goes through the runtime COM binder which knows to substitute the default value and call the indexed property. Thus, dynamic COM allows you to avoid accesses to the puzzling Value2 property of Excel ranges. Relationship with Visual Basic A number of the features introduced to C# 4.0 already exist or will be introduced in some form or other in Visual Basic: · Late binding in VB is similar in many ways to dynamic lookup in C#, and can be expected to make more use of the DLR in the future, leading to further parity with C#. · Named and optional arguments have been part of Visual Basic for a long time, and the C# version of the feature is explicitly engineered with maximal VB interoperability in mind. · NoPIA and variance are both being introduced to VB and C# at the same time. VB in turn is adding a number of features that have hitherto been a mainstay of C#. As a result future versions of C# and VB will have much better feature parity, for the benefit of everyone. Resources All available resources concerning C# 4.0 can be accessed through the C# Dev Center. Specifically, this white paper and other resources can be found at the Code Gallery site. Enjoy! span.fullpost {display:none;}

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