part time - Page 48 - Developer IT

Can I save & store a user's submission in a way that proves that the data has not been altered, and that the timestamp is accurate?

- by jt0dd

There are many situations where the validity of the timestamp attached to a certain post (submission of information) might be invaluable for the post owner's legal usage. I'm not looking for a service to achieve this, as requested in this great question, but rather a method for the achievement of such a service. For the legal (in most any law system) authentication of text content and its submission time, the owner of the content would need to prove: that the timestamp itself has not been altered and was accurate to begin with. that the text content linked to the timestamp had not been altered I'd like to know how to achieve this via programming (not a language-specific solution, but rather the methodology behind the solution). Can a timestamp be validated to being accurate to the time that the content was really submitted? Can data be stored in a form that it can be read, but not written to, in a proven way? In other words, can I save & store a user's submission in a way that proves that the data has not been altered, and that the timestamp is accurate? I can't think of any programming method that would make this possible, but I am not the most experienced programmer out there. Based on MidnightLightning's answer to the question I cited, this sort of thing is being done. Clarification: I'm looking for a method (hashing, encryption, etc) that would allow an average guy like me to achieve the desired effect through programming. I'm interested in this subject for the purpose of Defensive Publication. I'd like to learn a method that allows an every-day programmer to pick up his computer, write a program, pass information through it, and say: I created this text at this moment in time, and I can prove it. This means the information should be protected from the programmer who writes the code as well. Perhaps a 3rd party API would be required. I'm ok with that.

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Source Control and SQL Development – Part 3

- by Ajarn Mark Caldwell

In parts one and two of this series, I have been specifically focusing on the latest version of SQL Source Control by Red Gate Software. But I have been doing source-controlled SQL development for years, long before this product was available, and well before Microsoft came out with Database Projects for Visual Studio. “So, how does that work?” you may wonder. Well, let me share some of the details of how we do it where I work… The key to this approach is that everything is done via Transact-SQL script files; either natively written T-SQL, or generated. My preference is to write all my code by hand, which forces you to become better at your SQL syntax. But if you really prefer to use the Management Studio GUI to make database changes, you can still do that, and then you use the Generate Scripts feature of the GUI to produce T-SQL scripts afterwards, and store those in your source control system. You can generate scripts for things like stored procedures and views by right-clicking on the database in the Object Explorer, and Choosing Tasks, Generate Scripts (see figure 1 to the left). You can also do that for the CREATE scripts for tables, but that does not work when you have a table that is already in production, and you need to make just a simple change, such as adding a new column or index. In this case, you can use the GUI to make the table changes, and then instead of clicking the Save button, click the Generate Change Script button (). Then, once you have saved the change script, go ahead and execute it on your development database to actually make the change. I believe that it is important to actually execute the script rather than just click the Save button because this is your first test that your change script is working and you didn’t somehow lose a portion of the change. As you can imagine, all this generating of scripts can get tedious and tempting to skip entirely, so again, I would encourage you to just get in the habit of writing your own Transact-SQL code, and then it is just a matter of remembering to save your work, just like you are in the habit of saving changes to a Word or Excel document before you exit the program. So, now that you have all of these script files, what do you do with them? Well, we organize ours into folders labeled ChangeScripts, Functions, Views, and StoredProcedures, and those folders are loaded into our source control system. ChangeScripts contains all of the table and index changes, and anything else that is basically a one-time-only execution. Of course you want to write your scripts with qualifying logic so that if a script were accidentally run more than once in a database, it would not crash nor corrupt anything; but these scripts are really intended to be run only once in a database. Once you have your initial set of scripts loaded into source control, then making changes, such as altering a stored procedure becomes a simple matter of checking out your CREATE PROCEDURE* script, editing it in SSMS, saving the change, executing the script in order to effect the change in your database, and then checking the script back in to source control. Of course, this is where the lack of integration for source control systems within SSMS becomes an irritation, because this means that in addition to SSMS, I also have my source control client application running to do the check-out and check-in. And when you have 800+ procedures like we do, that can be quite tedious to locate the procedure I want to change in source control, check it out, then locate the script file in my working folder, open it in SSMS, do the change, save it, and the go back to source control to check in. Granted, it is not nearly as burdensome as, say, losing your source code and having to rebuild it from memory, or losing the audit trail that good source control systems provide. It is worth the effort, and this is how I have been doing development for the last several years. Remember that everything that the SQL Server Management Studio does in modifying your database can also be done in plain Transact-SQL code, and this is what you are storing. And now I have shown you how you can do it all without spending any extra money. You already have source control, or can get free, open-source source control systems (almost seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it) and of course Management Studio is free with your SQL Server database engine software. So, whether you spend the money on tools to make it easier, or not, you now have no excuse for not using source control with your SQL development. * In our current model, the scripts for stored procedures and similar database objects are written with an IF EXISTS…DROP… at the top, followed by the CREATE PROCEDURE… section, and that followed by a section that assigns permissions. This allows me to run the same script regardless of whether the procedure previously existed in the database. If the script was only an ALTER PROCEDURE, then it would fail the first time that procedure was deployed to a database, unless you wrote other code to stub it if it did not exist. There are a few different ways you could organize your scripts for deployment, each with its own trade-offs, but I think it is absolutely critical that whichever way you organize things, you ensure that the same script is run throughout the deployment cycle, and do not allow customizations to creep in between TEST and PROD. If you do, then you have broken the integrity of your deployment process because what you deployed to PROD was not exactly the same as what was tested in TEST, so you effectively have now released untested code into PROD.

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Silverlight 4 Twitter Client - Part 2

- by Max

We will create a few classes now to help us with storing and retrieving user credentials, so that we don't ask for it every time we want to speak with Twitter for getting some information. Now the class to sorting out the credentials. We will have this class as a static so as to ensure one instance of the same. This class is mainly going to include a getter setter for username and password, a method to check if the user if logged in and another one to log out the user. You can get the code here. Now let us create another class to facilitate easy retrieval from twitter xml format results for any queries we make. This basically involves just creating a getter setter for all the values that you would like to retrieve from the xml document returned. You can get the format of the xml document from here. Here is what I've in my Status.cs data structure class. using System; using System.Net; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Documents; using System.Windows.Ink; using System.Windows.Input; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Animation; using System.Windows.Shapes; namespace MaxTwitter.Classes { public class Status { public Status() {} public string ID { get; set; } public string Text { get; set; } public string Source { get; set; } public string UserID { get; set; } public string UserName { get; set; } } } Now let us looking into implementing the Login.xaml.cs, first thing here is if the user is already logged in, we need to redirect the user to the homepage, this we can accomplish using the event OnNavigatedTo, which is fired when the user navigates to this particular Login page. Here you utilize the navigate to method of NavigationService to goto a different page if the user is already logged in. if (GlobalVariable.isLoggedin()) this.NavigationService.Navigate(new Uri("/Home", UriKind.Relative)); On the submit button click event, add the new event handler, which would save the perform the WebClient request and download the results as xml string. WebRequest.RegisterPrefix("https://", System.Net.Browser.WebRequestCreator.ClientHttp); The following line allows us to create a web client to create a web request to a url and get back the string response. Something that came as a great news with SL 4 for many SL developers. WebClient myService = new WebClient(); myService.AllowReadStreamBuffering = true; myService.UseDefaultCredentials = false; myService.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(TwitterUsername.Text, TwitterPassword.Password); Here in the following line, we add an event that has to be fired once the xml string has been downloaded. Here you can do all your XLINQ stuff. myService.DownloadStringCompleted += new DownloadStringCompletedEventHandler(TimelineRequestCompleted); myService.DownloadStringAsync(new Uri("https://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.xml")); Now let us look at implementing the TimelineRequestCompleted event. Here we are not actually using the string response we get from twitter, I just use it to ensure the user is authenticated successfully and then save the credentials and redirect to home page. public void TimelineRequestCompleted(object sender, System.Net.DownloadStringCompletedEventArgs e) { if (e.Error != null) { MessageBox.Show("This application must be installed first"); } If there is no error, we can save the credentials to reuse it later. else { GlobalVariable.saveCredentials(TwitterUsername.Text, TwitterPassword.Password); this.NavigationService.Navigate(new System.Uri("/Home", UriKind.Relative)); } } Ok so now login page is done. Now the main thing – running this application. This credentials stuff would only work, if the application is run out of the browser. So we need fiddle with a few Silverlioght project settings to enable this. Here is how: Right click on Silverlight > properties then check the "Enable running application out of browser". Then click on Out-Of-Browser settings and check "Require elevated trust…" option. That's it, all done to run. Now press F5 to run the application, fix the errors if any. Then once the application opens up in browser with the login page, right click and choose install. Once you install, it would automatically run and you can login and can see that you are redirected to the Home page. Here are the files that are related to this posts. We will look at implementing the Home page, etc… in the next post. Please post your comments and feedbacks; it would greatly help me in improving my posts! Thanks for your time, catch you soon.

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Silverlight Reporting Application Part 3.5 - Prism Background and WCF RIA [Series Intermission]

Taking a step back before I dive into the details and full-on coding fun, I wanted to once again respond to a comment on my last post to clear up some things in regards to how I'm setting up my project and some of the choices I've made. Aka, thanks Ben. :) Prism Project Setup For starters, I'm not the ideal use case for a Prism application. In most cases where you've got a one-man team, Prism can be overkill as it is more intended for large teams who are geographically dispersed or in applications that have a larger scale than my Recruiting application in which you'll greatly benefit from modularity, delayed loading of xaps, etc. What Prism offers, though, is a manner for handling UI, commands, and events with the idea that, through a modular approach in which no parts really need to know about one another, I can update this application bit by bit as hiring needs change or requirements differ between offices without having to worry that changing something in the Jobs module will break something in, say, the Scheduling module. All that being said, here's a look at how our project breakdown for Recruit (MVVM/Prism implementation) looks: This could be a little misleading though, as each of those modules is actually another project in the overall Recruit solution. As far as what the projects actually are, that looks a bit like this: Recruiting Solution Recruit (Shell up there) - Main Silverlight Application .Web - Default .Web application to host the Silverlight app Infrastructure - Silverlight Class Library Project Modules - Silverlight Class Library Projects Infrastructure &Modules The Infrastructure project is probably something you'll see to some degree in any composite application. In this application, it is going to contain custom commands (you'll see the joy of these in a post or two down the road), events, helper classes, and any custom classes I need to share between different modules. Think of this as a handy little crossroad between any parts of your application. Modules on the other hand are the bread and butter of this application. Besides the shell, which holds the UI skeleton, and the infrastructure, which holds all those shared goodies, the modules are self-contained bundles of functionality to handle different concerns. In my scenario, I need a way to look up and edit Jobs, Applicants, and Schedule interviews, a Notification module to handle telling the user when different things are happening (i.e., loading from database), and a Menu to control interaction and moving between different views. All modules are going to follow the following pattern: The module class will inherit from IModule and handle initialization and loading the correct view into the correct region, whereas the Views and ViewModels folders will contain paired Silverlight user controls and ViewModel class backings. WCF RIA Services Since we've got all the projects in a single solution, we did not have to go the route of creating a WCR RIA Services Class Library. Every module has it's WCF RIA link back to the main .Web project, so the single Linq-2-SQL (yes, I said Linq-2-SQL, but I'll soon be switching to OpenAccess due to the new visual designer) context I'm using there works nicely with the scope of my project. If I were going for completely separating this project out and doing different, dynamically loaded elements, I'd probably go for the separate class library. Hope that clears that up. In the future though, I will be using that in a project that I've got in the "when I've got enough time to work on this" pipeline, so we'll get into that eventually- and hopefully when WCF RIA is in full release! Why Not use Silverlight Navigation/Business Template? The short answer- I'm a creature of habit, and having used Silverlight for a few years now, I'm used to doing lots of things manually. :) Plus, starting with a blank slate of a project I'm able to set up things exactly as I want them to be. In this case, rather than the navigation frame we would see in one of the templates, the MainRegion/ContentControl is working as our main navigation window. In many cases I will use theSilverlight navigation template to start things off, however in this case I did not need those features so I opted out of using that. Next time when I actually hit post #4, we're going to get into the modules and starting to get functionality into this application. Next week is also release week for the Q1 2010 release, so be sure to check out our annualWebinar Week (I might be biased, but Wednesday is my favorite out of the group). Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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A first look at ConfORM - Part 1

- by thangchung

All source codes for this post can be found at here.Have you ever heard of ConfORM is not? I have read it three months ago when I wrote an post about NHibernate and Autofac. At that time, this project really has just started and still in beta version, so I still do not really care much. But recently when reading a book by Jason Dentler NHibernate 3.0 Cookbook, I started to pay attention to it. Author have mentioned quite a lot of OSS in his book. And now again I have reviewed ConfORM once again. I have been involved in ConfORM development group on google and read some articles about it. Fabio Maulo spent a lot of work for the OSS, and I hope it will adapt a great way for NHibernate (because he contributed to NHibernate that). So what is ConfORM? It is stand for Configuration ORM, and it was trying to use a lot of heuristic model for identifying entities from C# code. Today, it's mostly Model First Driven development, so the first thing is to build the entity model. This is really important and we can see it is the heart of business software. Then we have to tell DB about the entity of this model. We often will use Inversion Engineering here, Database Schema is will create based on recently Entity Model. From now we will absolutely not interested in the DB again, only focus on the Entity Model.Fluent NHibenate really good, I liked this OSS. Sharp Architecture and has done so well in Fluent NHibernate integration with applications. A Multiple Database technical in Sharp Architecture is truly awesome. It can receive configuration, a connection string and a dll containing entity model, which would then create a SessionFactory, finally caching inside the computer memory. As the number of SessionFactory can be very large and will full of the memory, it has also devised a way of caching SessionFactory in the file. This post I hope this will not completely explain about and building a model of multiple databases. I just tried to mount a number of posts from the community and apply some of my knowledge to build a management model Session for ConfORM.As well as Fluent NHibernate, ConfORM also supported on the interface mapping, see this to understand it. So the first thing we will build the Entity Model for it, and here is what I will use the model for this article. A simple model for managing news and polls, it will be too easy for a number of people, but I hope not to bring complexity to this post.I will then have some code to build super type for the Entity Model. public interface IEntity<TId> { TId Id { get; set; } } public abstract class EntityBase<TId> : IEntity<TId> { public virtual TId Id { get; set; } public override bool Equals(object obj) { return Equals(obj as EntityBase<TId>); } private static bool IsTransient(EntityBase<TId> obj) { return obj != null && Equals(obj.Id, default(TId)); } private Type GetUnproxiedType() { return GetType(); } public virtual bool Equals(EntityBase<TId> other) { if (other == null) return false; if (ReferenceEquals(this, other)) return true; if (!IsTransient(this) && !IsTransient(other) && Equals(Id, other.Id)) { var otherType = other.GetUnproxiedType(); var thisType = GetUnproxiedType(); return thisType.IsAssignableFrom(otherType) || otherType.IsAssignableFrom(thisType); } return false; } public override int GetHashCode() { if (Equals(Id, default(TId))) return base.GetHashCode(); return Id.GetHashCode(); } } Database schema will be created as:The next step is to build the ConORM builder to create a NHibernate Configuration. Patrick have a excellent article about it at here. Contract of it below: public interface IConfigBuilder { Configuration BuildConfiguration(string connectionString, string sessionFactoryName); } The idea here is that I will pass in a connection string and a set of the DLL containing the Entity Model and it makes me a NHibernate Configuration (shame that I stole this ideas of Sharp Architecture). And here is its code: public abstract class ConfORMConfigBuilder : RootObject, IConfigBuilder { private static IConfigurator _configurator; protected IEnumerable<Type> DomainTypes; private readonly IEnumerable<string> _assemblies; protected ConfORMConfigBuilder(IEnumerable<string> assemblies) : this(new Configurator(), assemblies) { _assemblies = assemblies; } protected ConfORMConfigBuilder(IConfigurator configurator, IEnumerable<string> assemblies) { _configurator = configurator; _assemblies = assemblies; } public abstract void GetDatabaseIntegration(IDbIntegrationConfigurationProperties dBIntegration, string connectionString); protected abstract HbmMapping GetMapping(); public Configuration BuildConfiguration(string connectionString, string sessionFactoryName) { Contract.Requires(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(connectionString), "ConnectionString is null or empty"); Contract.Requires(!string.IsNullOrEmpty(sessionFactoryName), "SessionFactory name is null or empty"); Contract.Requires(_configurator != null, "Configurator is null"); return CatchExceptionHelper.TryCatchFunction( () => { DomainTypes = GetTypeOfEntities(_assemblies); if (DomainTypes == null) throw new Exception("Type of domains is null"); var configure = new Configuration(); configure.SessionFactoryName(sessionFactoryName); configure.Proxy(p => p.ProxyFactoryFactory<ProxyFactoryFactory>()); configure.DataBaseIntegration(db => GetDatabaseIntegration(db, connectionString)); if (_configurator.GetAppSettingString("IsCreateNewDatabase").ConvertToBoolean()) { configure.SetProperty("hbm2ddl.auto", "create-drop"); } configure.Properties.Add("default_schema", _configurator.GetAppSettingString("DefaultSchema")); configure.AddDeserializedMapping(GetMapping(), _configurator.GetAppSettingString("DocumentFileName")); SchemaMetadataUpdater.QuoteTableAndColumns(configure); return configure; }, Logger); } protected IEnumerable<Type> GetTypeOfEntities(IEnumerable<string> assemblies) { var type = typeof(EntityBase<Guid>); var domainTypes = new List<Type>(); foreach (var assembly in assemblies) { var realAssembly = Assembly.LoadFrom(assembly); if (realAssembly == null) throw new NullReferenceException(); domainTypes.AddRange(realAssembly.GetTypes().Where( t => { if (t.BaseType != null) return string.Compare(t.BaseType.FullName, type.FullName) == 0; return false; })); } return domainTypes; } } I do not want to dependency on any RDBMS, so I made a builder as an abstract class, and so I will create a concrete instance for SQL Server 2008 as follows: public class SqlServerConfORMConfigBuilder : ConfORMConfigBuilder { public SqlServerConfORMConfigBuilder(IEnumerable<string> assemblies) : base(assemblies) { } public override void GetDatabaseIntegration(IDbIntegrationConfigurationProperties dBIntegration, string connectionString) { dBIntegration.Dialect<MsSql2008Dialect>(); dBIntegration.Driver<SqlClientDriver>(); dBIntegration.KeywordsAutoImport = Hbm2DDLKeyWords.AutoQuote; dBIntegration.IsolationLevel = IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted; dBIntegration.ConnectionString = connectionString; dBIntegration.LogSqlInConsole = true; dBIntegration.Timeout = 10; dBIntegration.LogFormatedSql = true; dBIntegration.HqlToSqlSubstitutions = "true 1, false 0, yes 'Y', no 'N'"; } protected override HbmMapping GetMapping() { var orm = new ObjectRelationalMapper(); orm.Patterns.PoidStrategies.Add(new GuidPoidPattern()); var patternsAppliers = new CoolPatternsAppliersHolder(orm); //patternsAppliers.Merge(new DatePropertyByNameApplier()).Merge(new MsSQL2008DateTimeApplier()); patternsAppliers.Merge(new ManyToOneColumnNamingApplier()); patternsAppliers.Merge(new OneToManyKeyColumnNamingApplier(orm)); var mapper = new Mapper(orm, patternsAppliers); var entities = new List<Type>(); DomainDefinition(orm); Customize(mapper); entities.AddRange(DomainTypes); return mapper.CompileMappingFor(entities); } private void DomainDefinition(IObjectRelationalMapper orm) { orm.TablePerClassHierarchy(new[] { typeof(EntityBase<Guid>) }); orm.TablePerClass(DomainTypes); orm.OneToOne<News, Poll>(); orm.ManyToOne<Category, News>(); orm.Cascade<Category, News>(Cascade.All); orm.Cascade<News, Poll>(Cascade.All); orm.Cascade<User, Poll>(Cascade.All); } private static void Customize(Mapper mapper) { CustomizeRelations(mapper); CustomizeTables(mapper); CustomizeColumns(mapper); } private static void CustomizeRelations(Mapper mapper) { } private static void CustomizeTables(Mapper mapper) { } private static void CustomizeColumns(Mapper mapper) { mapper.Class<Category>( cm => { cm.Property(x => x.Name, m => m.NotNullable(true)); cm.Property(x => x.CreatedDate, m => m.NotNullable(true)); }); mapper.Class<News>( cm => { cm.Property(x => x.Title, m => m.NotNullable(true)); cm.Property(x => x.ShortDescription, m => m.NotNullable(true)); cm.Property(x => x.Content, m => m.NotNullable(true)); }); mapper.Class<Poll>( cm => { cm.Property(x => x.Value, m => m.NotNullable(true)); cm.Property(x => x.VoteDate, m => m.NotNullable(true)); cm.Property(x => x.WhoVote, m => m.NotNullable(true)); }); mapper.Class<User>( cm => { cm.Property(x => x.UserName, m => m.NotNullable(true)); cm.Property(x => x.Password, m => m.NotNullable(true)); }); } } As you can see that we can do so many things in this class, such as custom entity relationships, custom binding on the columns, custom table name, ... Here I only made two so-Appliers for OneToMany and ManyToOne relationships, you can refer to it here public class ManyToOneColumnNamingApplier : IPatternApplier<PropertyPath, IManyToOneMapper> { #region IPatternApplier<PropertyPath,IManyToOneMapper> Members public void Apply(PropertyPath subject, IManyToOneMapper applyTo) { applyTo.Column(subject.ToColumnName() + "Id"); } #endregion #region IPattern<PropertyPath> Members public bool Match(PropertyPath subject) { return subject != null; } #endregion } public class OneToManyKeyColumnNamingApplier : OneToManyPattern, IPatternApplier<PropertyPath, ICollectionPropertiesMapper> { public OneToManyKeyColumnNamingApplier(IDomainInspector domainInspector) : base(domainInspector) { } #region Implementation of IPattern<PropertyPath> public bool Match(PropertyPath subject) { return Match(subject.LocalMember); } #endregion Implementation of IPattern<PropertyPath> #region Implementation of IPatternApplier<PropertyPath,ICollectionPropertiesMapper> public void Apply(PropertyPath subject, ICollectionPropertiesMapper applyTo) { applyTo.Key(km => km.Column(GetKeyColumnName(subject))); } #endregion Implementation of IPatternApplier<PropertyPath,ICollectionPropertiesMapper> protected virtual string GetKeyColumnName(PropertyPath subject) { Type propertyType = subject.LocalMember.GetPropertyOrFieldType(); Type childType = propertyType.DetermineCollectionElementType(); var entity = subject.GetContainerEntity(DomainInspector); var parentPropertyInChild = childType.GetFirstPropertyOfType(entity); var baseName = parentPropertyInChild == null ? subject.PreviousPath == null ? entity.Name : entity.Name + subject.PreviousPath : parentPropertyInChild.Name; return GetKeyColumnName(baseName); } protected virtual string GetKeyColumnName(string baseName) { return string.Format("{0}Id", baseName); } } Everyone also can download the ConfORM source at google code and see example inside it. Next part I will write about multiple database factory. Hope you enjoy about it. happy coding and see you next part.

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From Editor-in-Chief to Reader (part two)

- by alexismp

It's time for me (Alexis) to move to new challenges and this 773rd post of mine on TheAquarium will be my last one. For all these years since TheAquarium was started by others, this place has seen the community come to life, grow and thrive. It has been an effective way for the GlassFish team to share our progress and for you the community to provide feedback, both good and not so good. Thank you for your continued readership, support and feedback, all of which contributed to keep TheAquarium the #1 technical blog at Oracle and helped us improve Java EE and GlassFish in a significant way. Oracle has exciting and ambitious plans for GlassFish 4.0 and Java EE 7 and I trust TheAquarium will remain an important link in the chain as both of these are being delivered. I leave you in the hands of savvy and sharp contributors. Long live The Aquarium! - AlexisMP

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

- by lawlist

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

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Creating PDF documents dynamically using Umbraco and XSL-FO part 2

- by Vizioz Limited

Since my last post I have made a few modifications to the PDF generation, the main one being that the files are now dynamically renamed so that they reflect the name of the case study instead of all being called PDF.PDF which was not a very helpful filename, I just wanted to get something live last week, so decided that something was better than nothing :)The issue with the filenames comes down to the way that the PDF's are being generated by using an alternative template in Umbraco, this means that all you need to do is add " /pdf " to the end of a case study URL and it will create a PDF version of the case study. The down side is that your browser will merrily download the file and save it as PDF.PDF because that is the name of the last part of the URL.What you need to do is set the content-disposition header to be equal to the name you would like the file use, Darren Ferguson mentioned this on the Change the name of the PDF forum post.We have used the same technique for downloading dynamically generated excel files, so I thought it would be useful to create a small macro to set both this header and also to set the caching headers to prevent any caching issues, I think in the past we have experienced all possible issues, including various issues where IE behaves differently to other browsers when you are using SSL and so the below code should work in all situations!The template for the PDF alternative template is very simple:<%@ Master Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/umbraco/masterpages/default.master" AutoEventWireup="true" %><asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="ContentPlaceHolderDefault" runat="server"> <umbraco:Macro Alias="PDFHeaders" runat="server"></umbraco:Macro> <umbraco:Macro xsl="FO-CaseStudy.xslt" Alias="PDFXSLFO" runat="server"></umbraco:Macro></asp:Content>The following code snippet is the XSLT macro that simply creates our file name and then passes the file name into the helper function:<xsl:template match="/"> <xsl:variable name="fileName"> <xsl:text>Vizioz_</xsl:text> <xsl:value-of select="$currentPage/@nodeName" /> <xsl:text>_case_study.pdf</xsl:text> </xsl:variable> <xsl:value-of select="Vizioz.Helper:AddDocumentDownloadHeaders('application/pdf', $fileName)"/> </xsl:template>And the following code is the helper function that clears the current response and adds all the appropriate headers:public static void AddDocumentDownloadHeaders(string contentType, string fileName){ HttpResponse response = HttpContext.Current.Response; HttpRequest request = HttpContext.Current.Request; response.Clear(); response.ClearHeaders(); if (request.IsSecureConnection & request.Browser.Browser == "IE") { // Don't use the caching headers if the browser is IE and it's a secure connection // see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323308 } else { // force not using the cache response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "private"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "no-store"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "must-revalidate"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "max-stale=0"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "post-check=0"); response.AppendHeader("Cache-Control", "pre-check=0"); response.AppendHeader("Pragma", "no-cache"); response.Cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.NoCache); response.Cache.SetNoStore(); response.Cache.SetExpires(DateTime.UtcNow.AddMinutes(-1)); } response.AppendHeader("Expires", DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(-1).ToLongDateString()); response.AppendHeader("Keep-Alive", "timeout=3, max=993"); response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment; filename=\"" + fileName + "\""); response.ContentType = contentType;}I will write another blog soon with some more details about XSL-FO and how to create the PDF's dynamically.Please do re-tweet if you find this interest :)

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Silverlight Recruiting Application Part 5 - Jobs Module / View

Now we starting getting into a more code-heavy portion of this series, thankfully though this means the groundwork is all set for the most part and after adding the modules we will have a complete application that can be provided with full source. The Jobs module will have two concerns- adding and maintaining jobs that can then be broadcast out to the website. How they are displayed on the site will be handled by our admin system (which will just poll from this common database), so we aren't too concerned with that, but rather with getting the information into the system and allowing the backend administration/HR users to keep things up to date. Since there is a fair bit of information that we want to display, we're going to move editing to a separate view so we can get all that information in an easy-to-use spot. With all the files created for this module, the project looks something like this: And now... on to the code. XAML for the Job Posting View All we really need for the Job Posting View is a RadGridView and a few buttons. This will let us both show off records and perform operations on the records without much hassle. That XAML is going to look something like this: 01.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 02.Background="White"> 03.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 04.<RowDefinition Height="30" /> 05.<RowDefinition /> 06.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 07.<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal"> 08.<Button x:Name="xAddRecordButton" 09.Content="Add Job" 10.Width="120" 11.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddRecord}" 12.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 13.<Button x:Name="xEditRecordButton" 14.Content="Edit Job" 15.Width="120" 16.cal:Click.Command="{Binding EditRecord}" 17.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 18.</StackPanel> 19.<telerikGrid:RadGridView x:Name="xJobsGrid" 20.Grid.Row="1" 21.IsReadOnly="True" 22.AutoGenerateColumns="False" 23.ColumnWidth="*" 24.RowDetailsVisibilityMode="VisibleWhenSelected" 25.ItemsSource="{Binding MyJobs}" 26.SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedJob, Mode=TwoWay}" 27.command:SelectedItemChangedEventClass.Command="{Binding SelectedItemChanged}"> 28.<telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 29.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Job Title" 30.DataMemberBinding="{Binding JobTitle}" 31.UniqueName="JobTitle" /> 32.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Location" 33.DataMemberBinding="{Binding Location}" 34.UniqueName="Location" /> 35.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Resume Required" 36.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsResume}" 37.UniqueName="NeedsResume" /> 38.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="CV Required" 39.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsCV}" 40.UniqueName="NeedsCV" /> 41.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Overview Required" 42.DataMemberBinding="{Binding NeedsOverview}" 43.UniqueName="NeedsOverview" /> 44.<telerikGrid:GridViewDataColumn Header="Active" 45.DataMemberBinding="{Binding IsActive}" 46.UniqueName="IsActive" /> 47.</telerikGrid:RadGridView.Columns> 48.</telerikGrid:RadGridView> 49.</Grid> I'll explain what's happening here by line numbers: Lines 11 and 16: Using the same type of click commands as we saw in the Menu module, we tie the button clicks to delegate commands in the viewmodel. Line 25: The source for the jobs will be a collection in the viewmodel. Line 26: We also bind the selected item to a public property from the viewmodel for use in code. Line 27: We've turned the event into a command so we can handle it via code in the viewmodel. So those first three probably make sense to you as far as Silverlight/WPF binding magic is concerned, but for line 27... This actually comes from something I read onDamien Schenkelman's blog back in the day for creating an attached behavior from any event. So, any time you see me using command:Whatever.Command, the backing for it is actually something like this: SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior : CommandBehaviorBase<Telerik.Windows.Controls.DataControl> 02.{ 03.public SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DataControl element) 04.: base(element) 05.{ 06.element.SelectionChanged += new EventHandler<SelectionChangeEventArgs>(element_SelectionChanged); 07.} 08.void element_SelectionChanged(object sender, SelectionChangeEventArgs e) 09.{ 10.// We'll only ever allow single selection, so will only need item index 0 11.base.CommandParameter = e.AddedItems[0]; 12.base.ExecuteCommand(); 13.} 14.} SelectedItemChangedEventClass.cs: 01.public class SelectedItemChangedEventClass 02.{ 03.#region The Command Stuff 04.public static ICommand GetCommand(DependencyObject obj) 05.{ 06.return (ICommand)obj.GetValue(CommandProperty); 07.} 08.public static void SetCommand(DependencyObject obj, ICommand value) 09.{ 10.obj.SetValue(CommandProperty, value); 11.} 12.public static readonly DependencyProperty CommandProperty = 13.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("Command", typeof(ICommand), 14.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), new PropertyMetadata(OnSetCommandCallback)); 15.public static void OnSetCommandCallback(DependencyObject dependencyObject, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) 16.{ 17.DataControl element = dependencyObject as DataControl; 18.if (element != null) 19.{ 20.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = GetOrCreateBehavior(element); 21.behavior.Command = e.NewValue as ICommand; 22.} 23.} 24.#endregion 25.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetOrCreateBehavior(DataControl element) 26.{ 27.SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior behavior = element.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty) as SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior; 28.if (behavior == null) 29.{ 30.behavior = new SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(element); 31.element.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, behavior); 32.} 33.return behavior; 34.} 35.public static SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior GetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj) 36.{ 37.return (SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior)obj.GetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty); 38.} 39.public static void SetSelectedItemChangedEventBehavior(DependencyObject obj, SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior value) 40.{ 41.obj.SetValue(SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty, value); 42.} 43.public static readonly DependencyProperty SelectedItemChangedEventBehaviorProperty = 44.DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior", 45.typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventBehavior), typeof(SelectedItemChangedEventClass), null); 46.} These end up looking very similar from command to command, but in a nutshell you create a command based on any event, determine what the parameter for it will be, then execute. It attaches via XAML and ties to a DelegateCommand in the viewmodel, so you get the full event experience (since some controls get a bit event-rich for added functionality). Simple enough, right? Viewmodel for the Job Posting View The Viewmodel is going to need to handle all events going back and forth, maintaining interactions with the data we are using, and both publishing and subscribing to events. Rather than breaking this into tons of little pieces, I'll give you a nice view of the entire viewmodel and then hit up the important points line-by-line: 001.public class JobPostingViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005.public DelegateCommand<object> AddRecord { get; set; } 006.public DelegateCommand<object> EditRecord { get; set; } 007.public DelegateCommand<object> SelectedItemChanged { get; set; } 008.public RecruitingContext context; 009.private QueryableCollectionView _myJobs; 010.public QueryableCollectionView MyJobs 011.{ 012.get { return _myJobs; } 013.} 014.private QueryableCollectionView _selectionJobActionHistory; 015.public QueryableCollectionView SelectedJobActionHistory 016.{ 017.get { return _selectionJobActionHistory; } 018.} 019.private JobPosting _selectedJob; 020.public JobPosting SelectedJob 021.{ 022.get { return _selectedJob; } 023.set 024.{ 025.if (value != _selectedJob) 026.{ 027._selectedJob = value; 028.NotifyChanged("SelectedJob"); 029.} 030.} 031.} 032.public SubscriptionToken editToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 033.public SubscriptionToken addToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 034.public JobPostingViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 035.{ 036.// set Unity items 037.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 038.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 039.// load our context 040.context = new RecruitingContext(); 041.this._myJobs = new QueryableCollectionView(context.JobPostings); 042.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 043.// set command events 044.this.AddRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddNewRecord); 045.this.EditRecord = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.EditExistingRecord); 046.this.SelectedItemChanged = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.SelectedRecordChanged); 047.SetSubscriptions(); 048.} 049.#region DelegateCommands from View 050.public void AddNewRecord(object obj) 051.{ 052.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>().Publish(true); 053.} 054.public void EditExistingRecord(object obj) 055.{ 056.if (_selectedJob == null) 057.{ 058.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<NotifyUserEvent>().Publish("No job selected."); 059.} 060.else 061.{ 062.this._myJobs.EditItem(this._selectedJob); 063.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>().Publish(this._selectedJob); 064.} 065.} 066.public void SelectedRecordChanged(object obj) 067.{ 068.if (obj.GetType() == typeof(ActionHistory)) 069.{ 070.// event bubbles up so we don't catch items from the ActionHistory grid 071.} 072.else 073.{ 074.JobPosting job = obj as JobPosting; 075.GrabHistory(job.PostingID); 076.} 077.} 078.#endregion 079.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 080.public void SetSubscriptions() 081.{ 082.EditJobCompleteEvent editComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>(); 083.if (editToken != null) 084.editComplete.Unsubscribe(editToken); 085.editToken = editComplete.Subscribe(this.EditCompleteEventHandler); 086.AddJobCompleteEvent addComplete = eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>(); 087.if (addToken != null) 088.addComplete.Unsubscribe(addToken); 089.addToken = addComplete.Subscribe(this.AddCompleteEventHandler); 090.} 091.public void EditCompleteEventHandler(bool complete) 092.{ 093.if (complete) 094.{ 095.JobPosting thisJob = _myJobs.CurrentEditItem as JobPosting; 096.this._myJobs.CommitEdit(); 097.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 098.{ 099.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 100.myAction.PostingID = thisJob.PostingID; 101.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", thisJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 102.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 103.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 104.} 105., null); 106.} 107.else 108.{ 109.this._myJobs.CancelEdit(); 110.} 111.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 112.} 113.public void AddCompleteEventHandler(JobPosting job) 114.{ 115.if (job == null) 116.{ 117.// do nothing, new job add cancelled 118.} 119.else 120.{ 121.this.context.JobPostings.Add(job); 122.this.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 123.{ 124.ActionHistory myAction = new ActionHistory(); 125.myAction.PostingID = job.PostingID; 126.myAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", job.JobTitle, "default user"); 127.myAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 128.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddActionEvent>().Publish(myAction); 129.} 130., null); 131.} 132.this.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "JobPostingsView"); 133.} 134.#endregion 135.public void GrabHistory(int postID) 136.{ 137.context.ActionHistories.Clear(); 138._selectionJobActionHistory = new QueryableCollectionView(context.ActionHistories); 139.context.Load(context.GetHistoryForJobQuery(postID)); 140.} Taking it from the top, we're injecting an Event Aggregator and Region Manager for use down the road and also have the public DelegateCommands (just like in the Menu module). We also grab a reference to our context, which we'll obviously need for data, then set up a few fields with public properties tied to them. We're also setting subscription tokens, which we have not yet seen but I will get into below. The AddNewRecord (50) and EditExistingRecord (54) methods should speak for themselves for functionality, the one thing of note is we're sending events off to the Event Aggregator which some module, somewhere will take care of. Since these aren't entirely relying on one another, the Jobs View doesn't care if anyone is listening, but it will publish AddJobEvent (52), NotifyUserEvent (58) and EditJobEvent (63)regardless. Don't mind the GrabHistory() method so much, that is just grabbing history items (visibly being created in the SubmitChanges callbacks), and adding them to the database. Every action will trigger a history event, so we'll know who modified what and when, just in case. ;) So where are we at? Well, if we click to Add a job, we publish an event, if we edit a job, we publish an event with the selected record (attained through the magic of binding). Where is this all going though? To the Viewmodel, of course! XAML for the AddEditJobView This is pretty straightforward except for one thing, noted below: 001.<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" 002.Background="White"> 003.<Grid x:Name="xEditGrid" 004.Margin="10" 005.validationHelper:ValidationScope.Errors="{Binding Errors}"> 006.<Grid.Background> 007.<LinearGradientBrush EndPoint="0.5,1" 008.StartPoint="0.5,0"> 009.<GradientStop Color="#FFC7C7C7" 010.Offset="0" /> 011.<GradientStop Color="#FFF6F3F3" 012.Offset="1" /> 013.</LinearGradientBrush> 014.</Grid.Background> 015.<Grid.RowDefinitions> 016.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 017.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 018.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 019.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 020.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 021.<RowDefinition Height="100" /> 022.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 023.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 024.<RowDefinition Height="40" /> 025.</Grid.RowDefinitions> 026.<Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 027.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 028.<ColumnDefinition Width="150" /> 029.<ColumnDefinition Width="300" /> 030.<ColumnDefinition Width="100" /> 031.</Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 032. 033.<TextBlock Margin="8" 034.Text="{Binding AddEditString}" 035.TextWrapping="Wrap" 036.Grid.Column="1" 037.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 038.FontSize="16" /> 039. 040. 041.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 042.Style="{StaticResource LabelTxb}" 043.Grid.Row="1" 044.Text="Job Title" 045.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 046.<TextBox x:Name="xJobTitleTB" 047.Margin="0,8" 048.Grid.Column="1" 049.Grid.Row="1" 050.Text="{Binding activeJob.JobTitle, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 051.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 052.<TextBlock Margin="8,0,0,0" 053.Grid.Row="2" 054.Text="Location" 055.d:LayoutOverrides="Height" 056.VerticalAlignment="Center" /> 057.<TextBox x:Name="xLocationTB" 058.Margin="0,8" 059.Grid.Column="1" 060.Grid.Row="2" 061.Text="{Binding activeJob.Location, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 062.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 063. 064.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 065.Grid.Row="3" 066.Text="Description" 067.TextWrapping="Wrap" 068.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 069. 070.<TextBox x:Name="xDescriptionTB" 071.Height="84" 072.TextWrapping="Wrap" 073.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 074.Grid.Column="1" 075.Grid.Row="3" 076.Text="{Binding activeJob.Description, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 077.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 078.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 079.Grid.Row="4" 080.Text="Requirements" 081.TextWrapping="Wrap" 082.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 083. 084.<TextBox x:Name="xRequirementsTB" 085.Height="84" 086.TextWrapping="Wrap" 087.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 088.Grid.Column="1" 089.Grid.Row="4" 090.Text="{Binding activeJob.Requirements, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 091.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 092.<TextBlock Margin="8,11,8,0" 093.Grid.Row="5" 094.Text="Qualifications" 095.TextWrapping="Wrap" 096.VerticalAlignment="Top" /> 097. 098.<TextBox x:Name="xQualificationsTB" 099.Height="84" 100.TextWrapping="Wrap" 101.ScrollViewer.VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto" 102.Grid.Column="1" 103.Grid.Row="5" 104.Text="{Binding activeJob.Qualifications, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}" 105.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" /> 106. 107. 108.<CheckBox x:Name="xResumeRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 109.Content="Resume Required" 110.Grid.Row="6" 111.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 112.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsResume, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 113. 114.<CheckBox x:Name="xCoverletterRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 115.Content="Cover Letter Required" 116.Grid.Column="2" 117.Grid.Row="6" 118.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsCV, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 119. 120.<CheckBox x:Name="xOverviewRequiredCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 121.Content="Overview Required" 122.Grid.Row="7" 123.Grid.ColumnSpan="2" 124.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.NeedsOverview, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 125. 126.<CheckBox x:Name="xJobActiveCB" Margin="8,8,8,15" 127.Content="Job is Active" 128.Grid.Column="2" 129.Grid.Row="7" 130.IsChecked="{Binding activeJob.IsActive, Mode=TwoWay, NotifyOnValidationError=True, ValidatesOnExceptions=True}"/> 131. 132. 133. 134.<Button x:Name="xAddEditButton" Margin="8,8,0,10" 135.Content="{Binding AddEditButtonString}" 136.cal:Click.Command="{Binding AddEditCommand}" 137.Grid.Column="2" 138.Grid.Row="8" 139.HorizontalAlignment="Left" 140.Width="125" 141.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 142. 143.<Button x:Name="xCancelButton" HorizontalAlignment="Right" 144.Content="Cancel" 145.cal:Click.Command="{Binding CancelCommand}" 146.Margin="0,8,8,10" 147.Width="125" 148.Grid.Column="2" 149.Grid.Row="8" 150.telerik:StyleManager.Theme="Windows7" /> 151.</Grid> 152.</Grid> The 'validationHelper:ValidationScope' line may seem odd. This is a handy little trick for catching current and would-be validation errors when working in this whole setup. This all comes from an approach found on theJoy Of Code blog, although it looks like the story for this will be changing slightly with new advances in SL4/WCF RIA Services, so this section can definitely get an overhaul a little down the road. The code is the fun part of all this, so let us see what's happening under the hood. Viewmodel for the AddEditJobView We are going to see some of the same things happening here, so I'll skip over the repeat info and get right to the good stuff: 001.public class AddEditJobViewModel : ViewModelBase 002.{ 003.private readonly IEventAggregator eventAggregator; 004.private readonly IRegionManager regionManager; 005. 006.public RecruitingContext context; 007. 008.private JobPosting _activeJob; 009.public JobPosting activeJob 010.{ 011.get { return _activeJob; } 012.set 013.{ 014.if (_activeJob != value) 015.{ 016._activeJob = value; 017.NotifyChanged("activeJob"); 018.} 019.} 020.} 021. 022.public bool isNewJob; 023. 024.private string _addEditString; 025.public string AddEditString 026.{ 027.get { return _addEditString; } 028.set 029.{ 030.if (_addEditString != value) 031.{ 032._addEditString = value; 033.NotifyChanged("AddEditString"); 034.} 035.} 036.} 037. 038.private string _addEditButtonString; 039.public string AddEditButtonString 040.{ 041.get { return _addEditButtonString; } 042.set 043.{ 044.if (_addEditButtonString != value) 045.{ 046._addEditButtonString = value; 047.NotifyChanged("AddEditButtonString"); 048.} 049.} 050.} 051. 052.public SubscriptionToken addJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 053.public SubscriptionToken editJobToken = new SubscriptionToken(); 054. 055.public DelegateCommand<object> AddEditCommand { get; set; } 056.public DelegateCommand<object> CancelCommand { get; set; } 057. 058.private ObservableCollection<ValidationError> _errors = new ObservableCollection<ValidationError>(); 059.public ObservableCollection<ValidationError> Errors 060.{ 061.get { return _errors; } 062.} 063. 064.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 065.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 066.{ 067.get { return this._valResults; } 068.} 069. 070.public AddEditJobViewModel(IEventAggregator eventAgg, IRegionManager regionmanager) 071.{ 072.// set Unity items 073.this.eventAggregator = eventAgg; 074.this.regionManager = regionmanager; 075. 076.context = new RecruitingContext(); 077. 078.AddEditCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.AddEditJobCommand); 079.CancelCommand = new DelegateCommand<object>(this.CancelAddEditCommand); 080. 081.SetSubscriptions(); 082.} 083. 084.#region Subscription Declaration and Events 085. 086.public void SetSubscriptions() 087.{ 088.AddJobEvent addJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobEvent>(); 089. 090.if (addJobToken != null) 091.addJob.Unsubscribe(addJobToken); 092. 093.addJobToken = addJob.Subscribe(this.AddJobEventHandler); 094. 095.EditJobEvent editJob = this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobEvent>(); 096. 097.if (editJobToken != null) 098.editJob.Unsubscribe(editJobToken); 099. 100.editJobToken = editJob.Subscribe(this.EditJobEventHandler); 101.} 102. 103.public void AddJobEventHandler(bool isNew) 104.{ 105.this.activeJob = null; 106.this.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 107.this.activeJob.IsActive = true; // We assume that we want a new job to go up immediately 108.this.isNewJob = true; 109.this.AddEditString = "Add New Job Posting"; 110.this.AddEditButtonString = "Add Job"; 111. 112.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 113.} 114. 115.public void EditJobEventHandler(JobPosting editJob) 116.{ 117.this.activeJob = null; 118.this.activeJob = editJob; 119.this.isNewJob = false; 120.this.AddEditString = "Edit Job Posting"; 121.this.AddEditButtonString = "Edit Job"; 122. 123.MakeMeActive(this.regionManager, "MainRegion", "AddEditJobView"); 124.} 125. 126.#endregion 127. 128.#region DelegateCommands from View 129. 130.public void AddEditJobCommand(object obj) 131.{ 132.if (this.Errors.Count > 0) 133.{ 134.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 135. 136.foreach (var valR in this.Errors) 137.{ 138.errorMessages.Add(valR.Exception.Message); 139.} 140. 141.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 142. 143.} 144.else if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 145.{ 146.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 147. 148.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 149.{ 150.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 151.} 152. 153.this._valResults.Clear(); 154. 155.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<DisplayValidationErrorsEvent>().Publish(errorMessages); 156.} 157.else 158.{ 159.if (this.isNewJob) 160.{ 161.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(this.activeJob); 162.} 163.else 164.{ 165.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(true); 166.} 167.} 168.} 169. 170.public void CancelAddEditCommand(object obj) 171.{ 172.if (this.isNewJob) 173.{ 174.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<AddJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(null); 175.} 176.else 177.{ 178.this.eventAggregator.GetEvent<EditJobCompleteEvent>().Publish(false); 179.} 180.} 181. 182.#endregion 183.} 184.} We start seeing something new on line 103- the AddJobEventHandler will create a new job and set that to the activeJob item on the ViewModel. When this is all set, the view calls that familiar MakeMeActive method to activate itself. I made a bit of a management call on making views self-activate like this, but I figured it works for one reason. As I create this application, views may not exist that I have in mind, so after a view receives its 'ping' from being subscribed to an event, it prepares whatever it needs to do and then goes active. This way if I don't have 'edit' hooked up, I can click as the day is long on the main view and won't get lost in an empty region. Total personal preference here. :) Everything else should again be pretty straightforward, although I do a bit of validation checking in the AddEditJobCommand, which can either fire off an event back to the main view/viewmodel if everything is a success or sent a list of errors to our notification module, which pops open a RadWindow with the alerts if any exist. As a bonus side note, here's what my WCF RIA Services metadata looks like for handling all of the validation: private JobPostingMetadata() { } [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Description should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Description is required.")] public string Description; [Required(ErrorMessage="Active Status is Required")] public bool IsActive; [StringLength(100, ErrorMessage = "Posting title must be more than 3 but less than 100 characters.", MinimumLength = 3)] [Required(ErrorMessage = "Job Title is required.")] public bool JobTitle; [Required] public string Location; public bool NeedsCV; public bool NeedsOverview; public bool NeedsResume; public int PostingID; [Required(ErrorMessage="Qualifications are required.")] [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage="Qualifications should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength=1)] public string Qualifications; [StringLength(2500, ErrorMessage = "Requirements should be more than one and less than 2500 characters.", MinimumLength = 1)] [Required(ErrorMessage="Requirements are required.")] public string Requirements; The RecruitCB Alternative See all that Xaml I pasted above? Those are now two pieces sitting in the JobsView.xaml file now. The only real difference is that the xEditGrid now sits in the same place as xJobsGrid, with visibility swapping out between the two for a quick switch. I also took out all the cal: and command: command references and replaced Button events with clicks and the Grid selection command replaced with a SelectedItemChanged event. Also, at the bottom of the xEditGrid after the last button, I add a ValidationSummary (with Visibility=Collapsed) to catch any errors that are popping up. Simple as can be, and leads to this being the single code-behind file: 001.public partial class JobsView : UserControl 002.{ 003.public RecruitingContext context; 004.public JobPosting activeJob; 005.public bool isNew; 006.private ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> _valResults = new ObservableCollection<ValidationResult>(); 007.public ObservableCollection<ValidationResult> ValResults 008.{ 009.get { return this._valResults; } 010.} 011.public JobsView() 012.{ 013.InitializeComponent(); 014.this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(JobsView_Loaded); 015.} 016.void JobsView_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 017.{ 018.context = new RecruitingContext(); 019.xJobsGrid.ItemsSource = context.JobPostings; 020.context.Load(context.GetJobPostingsQuery()); 021.} 022.private void xAddRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 023.{ 024.activeJob = new JobPosting(); 025.isNew = true; 026.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Add a Job Posting"; 027.xAddEditButton.Content = "Add"; 028.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 029.HideJobsGrid(); 030.} 031.private void xEditRecordButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 032.{ 033.activeJob = xJobsGrid.SelectedItem as JobPosting; 034.isNew = false; 035.xAddEditTitle.Text = "Edit a Job Posting"; 036.xAddEditButton.Content = "Edit"; 037.xEditGrid.DataContext = activeJob; 038.HideJobsGrid(); 039.} 040.private void xAddEditButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 041.{ 042.if (!Validator.TryValidateObject(this.activeJob, new ValidationContext(this.activeJob, null, null), _valResults, true)) 043.{ 044.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 045.foreach (var valR in this._valResults) 046.{ 047.errorMessages.Add(valR.ErrorMessage); 048.} 049.this._valResults.Clear(); 050.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 051.} 052.else if (xSummary.Errors.Count > 0) 053.{ 054.List<string> errorMessages = new List<string>(); 055.foreach (var err in xSummary.Errors) 056.{ 057.errorMessages.Add(err.Message); 058.} 059.ShowErrors(errorMessages); 060.} 061.else 062.{ 063.if (this.isNew) 064.{ 065.context.JobPostings.Add(activeJob); 066.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 067.{ 068.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 069.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 070.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been edited by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 071.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 072.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 073.context.SubmitChanges(); 074.}, null); 075.} 076.else 077.{ 078.context.SubmitChanges((s) => 079.{ 080.ActionHistory thisAction = new ActionHistory(); 081.thisAction.PostingID = activeJob.PostingID; 082.thisAction.Description = String.Format("Job '{0}' has been added by {1}", activeJob.JobTitle, "default user"); 083.thisAction.TimeStamp = DateTime.Now; 084.context.ActionHistories.Add(thisAction); 085.context.SubmitChanges(); 086.}, null); 087.} 088.ShowJobsGrid(); 089.} 090.} 091.private void xCancelButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 092.{ 093.ShowJobsGrid(); 094.} 095.private void ShowJobsGrid() 096.{ 097.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 098.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 099.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 100.} 101.private void HideJobsGrid() 102.{ 103.xAddEditRecordButtonPanel.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 104.xJobsGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Collapsed; 105.xEditGrid.Visibility = Visibility.Visible; 106.} 107.private void ShowErrors(List<string> errorList) 108.{ 109.string nm = "Errors received: \n"; 110.foreach (string anerror in errorList) 111.nm += anerror + "\n"; 112.RadWindow.Alert(nm); 113.} 114.} The first 39 lines should be pretty familiar, not doing anything too unorthodox to get this up and running. Once we hit the xAddEditButton_Click on line 40, we're still doing pretty much the same things except instead of checking the ValidationHelper errors, we both run a check on the current activeJob object as well as check the ValidationSummary errors list. Once that is set, we again use the callback of context.SubmitChanges (lines 68 and 78) to create an ActionHistory which we will use to track these items down the line. That's all? Essentially... yes. If you look back through this post, most of the code and adventures we have taken were just to get things working in the MVVM/Prism setup. Since I have the whole 'module' self-contained in a single JobView+code-behind setup, I don't have to worry about things like sending events off into space for someone to pick up, communicating through an Infrastructure project, or even re-inventing events to be used with attached behaviors. Everything just kinda works, and again with much less code. Here's a picture of the MVVM and Code-behind versions on the Jobs and AddEdit views, but since the functionality is the same in both apps you still cannot tell them apart (for two-strike): Looking ahead, the Applicants module is effectively the same thing as the Jobs module, so most of the code is being cut-and-pasted back and forth with minor tweaks here and there. So that one is being taken care of by me behind the scenes. Next time, we get into a new world of fun- the interview scheduling module, which will pull from available jobs and applicants for each interview being scheduled, tying everything together with RadScheduler to the rescue. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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Migrating SQL Server Databases – The DBA’s Checklist (Part 3)

- by Sadequl Hussain

Continuing from Part 2 of the Database Migration Checklist series: Step 10: Full-text catalogs and full-text indexing This is one area of SQL Server where people do not seem to take notice unless something goes wrong. Full-text functionality is a specialised area in database application development and is not usually implemented in your everyday OLTP systems. Nevertheless, if you are migrating a database that uses full-text indexing on one or more tables, you need to be aware a few points. First of all, SQL Server 2005 now allows full-text catalog files to be restored or attached along with the rest of the database. However, after migration, if you are unable to look at the properties of any full-text catalogs, you are probably better off dropping and recreating it. You may also get the following error messages along the way: Msg 9954, Level 16, State 2, Line 1 The Full-Text Service (msftesql) is disabled. The system administrator must enable this service. This basically means full text service is not running (disabled or stopped) in the destination instance. You will need to start it from the Configuration Manager. Similarly, if you get the following message, you will also need to drop and recreate the catalog and populate it. Msg 7624, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Full-text catalog ‘catalog_name‘ is in an unusable state. Drop and re-create this full-text catalog. A full population of full-text indexes can be a time and resource intensive operation. Obviously you will want to schedule it for low usage hours if the database is restored in an existing production server. Also, bear in mind that any scheduled job that existed in the source server for populating the full text catalog (e.g. nightly process for incremental update) will need to be re-created in the destination. Step 11: Database collation considerations Another sticky area to consider during a migration is the collation setting. Ideally you would want to restore or attach the database in a SQL Server instance with the same collation. Although not used commonly, SQL Server allows you to change a database’s collation by using the ALTER DATABASE command: ALTER DATABASE database_name COLLATE collation_name You should not be using this command for no reason as it can get really dangerous. When you change the database collation, it does not change the collation of the existing user table columns. However the columns of every new table, every new UDT and subsequently created variables or parameters in code will use the new setting. The collation of every char, nchar, varchar, nvarchar, text or ntext field of the system tables will also be changed. Stored procedure and function parameters will be changed to the new collation and finally, every character-based system data type and user defined data types will also be affected. And the change may not be successful either if there are dependent objects involved. You may get one or multiple messages like the following: Cannot ALTER ‘object_name‘ because it is being referenced by object ‘dependent_object_name‘. That is why it is important to test and check for collation related issues. Collation also affects queries that use comparisons of character-based data. If errors arise due to two sides of a comparison being in different collation orders, the COLLATE keyword can be used to cast one side to the same collation as the other. Continues…

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Part 9: EBS Customizations, how to track

- by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

In the previous blogs we were concentrating on the preparation tasks. We have defined standards, we know about the tools and techniques we will start with. Additionally, we have defined the modification strategy, and how to handle such topics best. Now we are ready to take the requirements! Such requirements coming over in spreadsheets, word files (like GAP documents), or in any other format. As we have to assign some attributes, we start numbering all that and assign a short name to each of these requirements (=CEMLI reference). We may also have already a Functional person assigned, and we might involve someone from the tech team to estimate, and we like to assign a status such as 'planned', 'estimated' etc. All these data are usually kept in spreadsheets, but I would put them into a database (yes, I am from Oracle :). If you don't have any good looking and centralized application already, please give a try with Oracle APEX. It should be up and running in a day and the imported sheets are than manageable concurrently! For one of my clients I have created this CEMLI-DB; in between enriched with a lot of additional functionality, but initially it was just a simple centralized CEMLI tracking application. Why I am pointing out again the centralized method to manage such data? Well, your data quality will dramatically increase, if you let your project members see (also review and update) "your" data. APEX allows you to filter, sort, print, and also export. And if you can spend some time to define proper value lists, everyone will gain from. APEX allows you to work in 'agile' mode, means you can improve your application step by step. Let's say you like to reference a document, or even upload the same, you can do that. Or, you need to classify the CEMLIs by release, just add this release field, same for business area or CEMLI type. One CEMLI record may then look like this: Prepare one or two (online) reports, to be ready to present your "workload" to the project management. Use such extracts also when you work offline (to prioritize etc.). But as soon as you are again connected, feed the data back into the central application. Note: I have combined this application with an additional issue tracker. Here the most important element is the CEMLI reference, which acts as link to any other application (if you are not using APEX also as issue tracker :). Please spend a minute to define such a reference (see blog Part 8: How to name Customizations). Summary: Building the bridge from Gap analyse to the development has to be done in a controlled way. Usually the information is provided differently, but it is suggested to collect all requirements centrally. Oracle APEX is a great solution to enter and maintain such information in a structured, but flexible way. APEX helped me a lot to work with distributed development teams during the complete development cycle.

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InfoPath 2010 Form Design and Web Part Deployment

- by JKenderdine

In January I had the pleasure to speak at SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach. I presented a session on InfoPath 2010 forms design which included some of the basics of Forms Design, description of some of the new options with InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010, and other integration possibilities. Included below is the information presented as well as the solution to create the demo: First thing you need to understand is what the difference is between an InfoPath List form and a Form Library Form? SharePoint List Forms: Store data directly in a SharePoint list. Each control (e.g. text box) in the form is bound to a column in the list. SharePoint list forms are directly connected to the list, which means that you don’t have to worry about setting up the publish and submit locations. You also do not have the option for back-end code. Form Library Forms: Store data in XML files in a SharePoint form library. This means they are more flexible and you can do more with them. For example, they can be configured to save drafts and submit to different locations. However, they are more complex to work with and require more decisions to be made during configuration. You do have the option of back-end code with these type of forms. Next steps: You need to create your File Architecture Plan. Plan the location for the saved template – both Test and Production (This is pretty much a given, but just in case - Always make sure to have a test environment) Plan for the location of the published template Then you need to document your Form Template Design Plan. Some questions to ask to gather your requirements: What will the form be designed to do? Will it gather user information? Will it display data from a data source? Do we need to show different views to different users? What do we base this on? How will it be implemented for the users? Browser or Client based form Site collection content type – Published through Central Admin Form Library – Published directly to form library So what are the requirements for this template? Business Card Request Form Template Design Plan Gather user information and requirements for card Pull in as much user information as possible. Use data from the user profile web services as a data source Show and hide fields as necessary for requirements Create multiple views – one for those submitting the form and another view for the executive assistants placing the orders. Browser based form integrated into SharePoint team site Published directly to form library The form was published through Central Administration and incorporated into the site as a content type. Utilizing the new InfoPath Web part, the form is integrated into the page and the users can complete the form directly from within that page. For now, if you are interested in the final form XSN, contact me using the Contact link above. I will post soon with the details on how the form was created and how it integrated the requirements detailed above.

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Improving WIF’s Claims-based Authorization - Part 1

- by Your DisplayName here!

As mentioned in my last post, I made several additions to WIF’s built-in authorization infrastructure to make it more flexible and easy to use. The foundation for all this work is that you have to be able to directly call the registered ClaimsAuthorizationManager. The following snippet is the universal way to get to the WIF configuration that is currently in effect: public static ServiceConfiguration ServiceConfiguration { get { if (OperationContext.Current == null) { // no WCF return FederatedAuthentication.ServiceConfiguration; } // search message property if (OperationContext.Current.IncomingMessageProperties. ContainsKey("ServiceConfiguration")) { var configuration = OperationContext.Current. IncomingMessageProperties["ServiceConfiguration"] as ServiceConfiguration; if (configuration != null) { return configuration; } } // return configuration from configuration file return new ServiceConfiguration(); } } From here you can grab ServiceConfiguration.ClaimsAuthoriationManager which give you direct access to the CheckAccess method (and thus control over claim types and values). I then created the following wrapper methods: public static bool CheckAccess(string resource, string action) { return CheckAccess(resource, action, Thread.CurrentPrincipal as IClaimsPrincipal); } public static bool CheckAccess(string resource, string action, IClaimsPrincipal principal) { var context = new AuthorizationContext(principal, resource, action); return AuthorizationManager.CheckAccess(context); } public static bool CheckAccess(Collection<Claim> actions, Collection<Claim> resources) { return CheckAccess(new AuthorizationContext( Thread.CurrentPrincipal.AsClaimsPrincipal(), resources, actions)); } public static bool CheckAccess(AuthorizationContext context) { return AuthorizationManager.CheckAccess(context); } I also created the same set of methods but called DemandAccess. They internally use CheckAccess and will throw a SecurityException when false is returned. All the code is part of Thinktecture.IdentityModel on Codeplex – or via NuGet (Install-Package Thinktecture.IdentityModel).

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What's up with LDoms: Part 9 - Direct IO

- by Stefan Hinker

In the last article of this series, we discussed the most general of all physical IO options available for LDoms, root domains. Now, let's have a short look at the next level of granularity: Virtualizing individual PCIe slots. In the LDoms terminology, this feature is called "Direct IO" or DIO. It is very similar to root domains, but instead of reassigning ownership of a complete root complex, it only moves a single PCIe slot or endpoint device to a different domain. Let's look again at hardware available to mars in the original configuration: root@sun:~# ldm ls-io NAME TYPE BUS DOMAIN STATUS ---- ---- --- ------ ------ pci_0 BUS pci_0 primary pci_1 BUS pci_1 primary pci_2 BUS pci_2 primary pci_3 BUS pci_3 primary /SYS/MB/PCIE1 PCIE pci_0 primary EMP /SYS/MB/SASHBA0 PCIE pci_0 primary OCC /SYS/MB/NET0 PCIE pci_0 primary OCC /SYS/MB/PCIE5 PCIE pci_1 primary EMP /SYS/MB/PCIE6 PCIE pci_1 primary EMP /SYS/MB/PCIE7 PCIE pci_1 primary EMP /SYS/MB/PCIE2 PCIE pci_2 primary EMP /SYS/MB/PCIE3 PCIE pci_2 primary OCC /SYS/MB/PCIE4 PCIE pci_2 primary EMP /SYS/MB/PCIE8 PCIE pci_3 primary EMP /SYS/MB/SASHBA1 PCIE pci_3 primary OCC /SYS/MB/NET2 PCIE pci_3 primary OCC /SYS/MB/NET0/IOVNET.PF0 PF pci_0 primary /SYS/MB/NET0/IOVNET.PF1 PF pci_0 primary /SYS/MB/NET2/IOVNET.PF0 PF pci_3 primary /SYS/MB/NET2/IOVNET.PF1 PF pci_3 primary All of the "PCIE" type devices are available for SDIO, with a few limitations. If the device is a slot, the card in that slot must support the DIO feature. The documentation lists all such cards. Moving a slot to a different domain works just like moving a PCI root complex. Again, this is not a dynamic process and includes reboots of the affected domains. The resulting configuration is nicely shown in a diagram in the Admin Guide: There are several important things to note and consider here: The domain receiving the slot/endpoint device turns into an IO domain in LDoms terminology, because it now owns some physical IO hardware. Solaris will create nodes for this hardware under /devices. This includes entries for the virtual PCI root complex (pci_0 in the diagram) and anything between it and the actual endpoint device. It is very important to understand that all of this PCIe infrastructure is virtual only! Only the actual endpoint devices are true physical hardware. There is an implicit dependency between the guest owning the endpoint device and the root domain owning the real PCIe infrastructure: Only if the root domain is up and running, will the guest domain have access to the endpoint device. The root domain is still responsible for resetting and configuring the PCIe infrastructure (root complex, PCIe level configurations, error handling etc.) because it owns this part of the physical infrastructure. This also means that if the root domain needs to reset the PCIe root complex for any reason (typically a reboot of the root domain) it will reset and thus disrupt the operation of the endpoint device owned by the guest domain. The result in the guest is not predictable. I recommend to configure the resulting behaviour of the guest using domain dependencies as described in the Admin Guide in Chapter "Configuring Domain Dependencies". Please consult the Admin Guide in Section "Creating an I/O Domain by Assigning PCIe Endpoint Devices" for all the details! As you can see, there are several restrictions for this feature. It was introduced in LDoms 2.0, mainly to allow the configuration of guest domains that need access to tape devices. Today, with the higher number of PCIe root complexes and the availability of SR-IOV, the need to use this feature is declining. I personally do not recommend to use it, mainly because of the drawbacks of the depencies on the root domain and because it can be replaced with SR-IOV (although then with similar limitations). This was a rather short entry, more for completeness. I believe that DIO can usually be replaced by SR-IOV, which is much more flexible. I will cover SR-IOV in the next section of this blog series.

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Managing Operational Risk of Financial Services Processes – part 1/ 2

- by Sanjeevio

Financial institutions view compliance as a regulatory burden that incurs a high initial capital outlay and recurring costs. By its very nature regulation takes a prescriptive, common-for-all, approach to managing financial and non-financial risk. Needless to say, no longer does mere compliance with regulation will lead to sustainable differentiation. Genuine competitive advantage will stem from being able to cope with innovation demands of the present economic environment while meeting compliance goals with regulatory mandates in a faster and cost-efficient manner. Let’s first take a look at the key factors that are limiting the pursuit of the above goal. Regulatory requirements are growing, driven in-part by revisions to existing mandates in line with cross-border, pan-geographic, nature of financial value chains today and more so by frequent systemic failures that have destabilized the financial markets and the global economy over the last decade. In addition to the increase in regulation, financial institutions are faced with pressures of regulatory overlap and regulatory conflict. Regulatory overlap arises primarily from two things: firstly, due to the blurring of boundaries between lines-of-businesses with complex organizational structures and secondly, due to varying requirements of jurisdictional directives across geographic boundaries e.g. a securities firm with operations in US and EU would be subject different requirements of “Know-Your-Customer” (KYC) as per the PATRIOT ACT in US and MiFiD in EU. Another consequence and concomitance of regulatory change is regulatory conflict, which again, arises primarily from two things: firstly, due to diametrically opposite priorities of line-of-business and secondly, due to tension that regulatory requirements create between shareholders interests of tighter due-diligence and customer concerns of privacy. For instance, Customer Due Diligence (CDD) as per KYC requires eliciting detailed information from customers to prevent illegal activities such as money-laundering, terrorist financing or identity theft. While new customers are still more likely to comply with such stringent background checks at time of account opening, existing customers baulk at such practices as a breach of trust and privacy. As mentioned earlier regulatory compliance addresses both financial and non-financial risks. Operational risk is a non-financial risk that stems from business execution and spans people, processes, systems and information. Operational risk arising from financial processes in particular transcends other sources of such risk. Let’s look at the factors underpinning the operational risk of financial processes. The rapid pace of innovation and geographic expansion of financial institutions has resulted in proliferation and ad-hoc evolution of back-office, mid-office and front-office processes. This has had two serious implications on increasing the operational risk of financial processes: · Inconsistency of processes across lines-of-business, customer channels and product/service offerings. This makes it harder for the risk function to enforce a standardized risk methodology and in turn breaches harder to detect. · The proliferation of processes coupled with increasingly frequent change-cycles has resulted in accidental breaches and increased vulnerability to regulatory inadequacies. In summary, regulatory growth (including overlap and conflict) coupled with process proliferation and inconsistency is driving process compliance complexity In my next post I will address the implications of this process complexity on financial institutions and outline the role of BPM in lowering specific aspects of operational risk of financial processes.

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Apprentice Boot Camp in South Africa (Part 2)

- by Tim Koekkoek

By Maximilian Michel (DE), Jorge Garnacho (ES), Daniel Maull (UK), Adam Griffiths (UK), Guillermo De Las Nieves (ES), Catriona McGill (UK), Ed Dunlop (UK) Today we have the second part of the adventures of seven apprentices from all over Europe in South-Africa! Kruger National Park & other experiences Going to the Kruger National Park was definitely an experience we will all remember for the rest of our lives. This trip,organised by Patrick Fitzgerald, owner of the Travellers Nest (where we all stayed), took us from the hustle and bustle of Joburg to experience what Africa is all about, the wild! Although the first week’s training we had prior to this trip to the Kruger was going very well, we all knew this was to be a very nice break before we started the second week of training. And we were right, the animals, scenery and sights we saw were just simply incredible and like I said something we will remember for the rest of our lives. To see lions, elephants, cheetahs and rhinos and many more in a zoo is one thing, but to see them in the wild, in their natural habitat is very special and I personally only realised this from the early 5 am start on the first morning in the Kruger, which was definitely worth it. Not only was it all about the safari, we ate some wonderful food, in particular on the Saturday night, Patrick made us a traditional South African Braai which was one of my favourite meals of the whole two weeks. After the Kruger National Park we had a whole day of traveling back to Johannesburg but even this was made to be a good day by our hosts. Despite the early start on the road it was all worth it by the time we reached God's Window. The walk to the top was made a lot harder by all the steaks we had eaten in the first week but the hard walk was worth it at the top, with views that stretched for miles. The Food The food in South Africa is typically meat and in big amounts, while there we ate a lot of big beef steaks, ribs and kudu sausage. All of the meat we ate was usually cooked with a sauce such as a Barbeque glaze. The restaurants we visited were: Upperdeck Restaurant, with live music and a great terrace to eat, the atmosphere was good for enjoying the music and eating our food. Most of us ate Spare ribs that weighed 600 kg, with barbecue sauce that was delicious. Die Bosvelder Pub & Restaurant is a restaurant with a very surprising decor, this is because the walls had many of south Africa’s famous animals on them. The food was maybe the best we ate in South Africa. Our orders were: Springbokvlakte Lambs' Neck Stew, beef in gravy and steaks topped with cheese and then more meat on top! All meals were accompanied by a selection of white sauce cauliflower, spinach and zanhorias. Pepper Chair Restaurant, where the specialty is T-Bone steaks of 1.4 kg, but most of us were happy to attempt the 1 kg. Cooked with barbecue sauce over the meat, it was very good! The only problem was their size causing the the meat to get cold if you did not eat it very fast! We’re all waiting for our 1.0 kg t-bone steak including our Senior Director EMEA Systems Support Germany & Switzerland: Werner Hoellrigl The Godfather Restaurant, the food here was more meat in abundance. We ate: great ribs, hamburgers, steaks and all accompanied with a small plates of carrot and sauteed spinach, very good. We had two great weeks in South-Africa! If you want to join Oracle, then check http://campus.oracle.com

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Stepping outside Visual Studio IDE [Part 2 of 2] with Mono 2.6.4

- by mbcrump

Continuing part 2 of my Stepping outside the Visual Studio IDE, is the open-source Mono Project. Mono is a software platform designed to allow developers to easily create cross platform applications. Sponsored by Novell (http://www.novell.com/), Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications. So, to clarify. You can use Mono to develop .NET applications that will run on Linux, Windows or Mac. It’s basically a IDE that has roots in Linux. Let’s first look at the compatibility: Compatibility If you already have an application written in .Net, you can scan your application with the Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA) to determine if your application uses anything not supported by Mono. The current release version of Mono is 2.6. (Released December 2009) The easiest way to describe what Mono currently supports is: Everything in .NET 3.5 except WPF and WF, limited WCF. Here is a slightly more detailed view, by .NET framework version: Implemented C# 3.0 System.Core LINQ ASP.Net 3.5 ASP.Net MVC C# 2.0 (generics) Core Libraries 2.0: mscorlib, System, System.Xml ASP.Net 2.0 - except WebParts ADO.Net 2.0 Winforms/System.Drawing 2.0 - does not support right-to-left C# 1.0 Core Libraries 1.1: mscorlib, System, System.Xml ASP.Net 1.1 ADO.Net 1.1 Winforms/System.Drawing 1.1 Partially Implemented LINQ to SQL - Mostly done, but a few features missing WCF - silverlight 2.0 subset completed Not Implemented WPF - no plans to implement WF - Will implement WF 4 instead on future versions of Mono. System.Management - does not map to Linux System.EnterpriseServices - deprecated Links to documentation. The Official Mono FAQ’s Links to binaries. Mono IDE Latest Version is 2.6.4 That's it, nothing more is required except to compile and run .net code in Linux. Installation After landing on the mono project home page, you can select which platform you want to download. I typically pick the Virtual PC image since I spend all of my day using Windows 7. Go ahead and pick whatever version is best for you. The Virtual PC image comes with Suse Linux. Once the image is launch, you will see the following: I’m not going to go through each option but its best to start with “Start Here” icon. It will provide you with information on new projects or existing VS projects. After you get Mono installed, it's probably a good idea to run a quick Hello World program to make sure everything is setup properly. This allows you to know that your Mono is working before you try writing or running a more complex application. To write a "Hello World" program follow these steps: Start Mono Development Environment. Create a new Project: File->New->Solution Select "Console Project" in the category list. Enter a project name into the Project name field, for example, "HW Project". Click "Forward" Click “Packaging” then OK. You should have a screen very simular to a VS Console App. Click the "Run" button in the toolbar (Ctrl-F5). Look in the Application Output and you should have the “Hello World!” Your screen should look like the screen below. That should do it for a simple console app in mono. To test out an ASP.NET application, simply copy your code to a new directory in /srv/www/htdocs, then visit the following URL: http://localhost/directoryname/page.aspx where directoryname is the directory where you deployed your application and page.aspx is the initial page for your software. Databases You can continue to use SQL server database or use MySQL, Postgress, Sybase, Oracle, IBM’s DB2 or SQLite db. Conclusion I hope this brief look at the Mono IDE helps someone get acquainted with development outside of VS. As always, I welcome any suggestions or comments.

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Web Service Example - Part 3: Asynchronous

- by Denis T

In this edition of the ADF Mobile blog we'll tackle part 3 of our Web Service examples. In this posting we'll take a look at firing the web service asynchronously and then filling in the UI when it completes. This can be useful when you have data on the device in a local store and want to show that to the user while the application uses lazy loading from a web service to load more data. Getting the sample code: Just click here to download a zip of the entire project. You can unzip it and load it into JDeveloper and deploy it either to iOS or Android. Please follow the previous blog posts if you need help getting JDeveloper or ADF Mobile installed. Note: This is a different workspace than WS-Part2 What's different? In this example, when you click the Search button on the Forecast By Zip option, now it takes you directly to the results page, which is initially blank. When the web service returns a second or two later the data pops into the UI. If you go back to the search page and hit Search it will again clear the results and invoke the web service asynchronously. This isn't really that useful for this particular example but it shows an important technique that can be used for other use cases. How it was done 1) First we created a new class, ForecastWorker, that implements the Runnable interface. This is used as our worker class that we create an instance of and pass to a new thread that we create when the Search button is pressed inside the retrieveForecast actionListener handler. Once the thread is started, the retrieveForecast returns immediately. 2) The rest of the code that we had previously in the retrieveForecast method has now been moved to the retrieveForecastAsync. Note that we've also added synchronized specifiers on both these methods so they are protected from re-entrancy. 3) The run method of the ForecastWorker class then calls the retrieveForecastAsync method. This executes the web service code that we had previously, but now on a separate thread so the UI is not locked. If we had already shown data on the screen it would have appeared before this was invoked. Note that you do not see a loading indicator either because this is on a separate thread and nothing is blocked. 4) The last but very important aspect of this method is that once we update data in the collections from the data we retrieve from the web service, we call AdfmfJavaUtilities.flushDataChangeEvents(). We need this because as data is updated in the background thread, those data change events are not propagated to the main thread until you explicitly flush them. As soon as you do this, the UI will get updated if any changes have been queued. Summary of Fundamental Changes In This Application The most fundamental change is that we are invoking and handling our web services in a background thread and updating the UI when the data returns. This allows an application to provide a better user experience in many cases because data that is already available locally is displayed while lengthy queries or web service calls can be done in the background and the UI updated when they return. There are many different use cases for background threads and this is just one example of optimizing the user experience and generating a better mobile application.

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Identity in .NET 4.5–Part 3: (Breaking) changes

- by Your DisplayName here!

I recently started porting a private build of Thinktecture.IdentityModel to .NET 4.5 and noticed a number of changes. The good news is that I can delete large parts of my library because many features are now in the box. Along the way I found some other nice additions. ClaimsIdentity now has methods to query the claims collection, e.g. HasClaim(), FindFirst(), FindAll(). ClaimsPrincipal has those methods as well. But they work across all contained identities. Nice! ClaimsPrincipal.Current retrieves the ClaimsPrincipal from Thread.CurrentPrincipal. Combined with the above changes, no casting necessary anymore. SecurityTokenHandler now has read and write methods that work directly with strings. This makes it much easier to deal with non-XML tokens like SWT or JWT. A new session security token handler that uses the ASP.NET machine key to protect the cookie. This makes it easier to get started in web farm scenarios. No need for a custom service host factory or the federation behavior anymore. WCF can be switched into “WIF mode” with the useIdentityConfiguration switch (odd name though). Tooling has become better and the new test STS makes it very easy to get started. On the other hand – and that was kind of expected – to bring claims into the core framework, there are also some breaking changes for WIF code. If you want to migrate (and I would recommend that), most changes to your code are mechanical. The following is a brain dump of the changes I encountered. Assembly Microsoft.IdentityModel is gone. The new functionality is now in mscorlib, System.IdentityModel(.Services) and System.ServiceModel. All the namespaces have changed as well. No IClaimsPrincipal and IClaimsIdentity anymore. Configuration section has been split into <system.identityModel /> and <system.identityModel.services />. WCF configuration story has changed as well. Claim.ClaimType is now Claim.Type. ClaimCollection is now IEnumerable<Claim>. IsSessionMode is now IsReferenceMode. Bootstrap token handling is different now. ClaimsPrincipalHttpModule is gone. This is not really needed anymore, apart from maybe claims transformation (see here). Various factory methods on ClaimsPrincipal are gone (e.g. ClaimsPrincipal.CreateFromIdentity()). SecurityTokenHandler.ValidateToken now returns a ReadOnlyCollection<ClaimsIdentity>. Some lower level helper classes are gone or internal now (e.g. KeyGenerator). The WCF WS-Trust bindings are gone. I think this is a pity. They were *really* useful when doing work with WSTrustChannelFactory. Since WIF is part of the Windows operating system and also supported in future versions of .NET, there is no urgent need to migrate to the 4.5 claims model. But obviously, going forward, at some point you want to make the move.

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Parallelism in .NET – Part 16, Creating Tasks via a TaskFactory

- by Reed

The Task class in the Task Parallel Library supplies a large set of features. However, when creating the task, and assigning it to a TaskScheduler, and starting the Task, there are quite a few steps involved. This gets even more cumbersome when multiple tasks are involved. Each task must be constructed, duplicating any options required, then started individually, potentially on a specific scheduler. At first glance, this makes the new Task class seem like more work than ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem in .NET 3.5. In order to simplify this process, and make Tasks simple to use in simple cases, without sacrificing their power and flexibility, the Task Parallel Library added a new class: TaskFactory. The TaskFactory class is intended to “Provide support for creating and scheduling Task objects.” Its entire purpose is to simplify development when working with Task instances. The Task class provides access to the default TaskFactory via the Task.Factory static property. By default, TaskFactory uses the default TaskScheduler to schedule tasks on a ThreadPool thread. By using Task.Factory, we can automatically create and start a task in a single “fire and forget” manner, similar to how we did with ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem: Task.Factory.StartNew(() => this.ExecuteBackgroundWork(myData) ); .csharpcode, .csharpcode pre { font-size: small; color: black; font-family: consolas, "Courier New", courier, monospace; background-color: #ffffff; /*white-space: pre;*/ } .csharpcode pre { margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .rem { color: #008000; } .csharpcode .kwrd { color: #0000ff; } .csharpcode .str { color: #006080; } .csharpcode .op { color: #0000c0; } .csharpcode .preproc { color: #cc6633; } .csharpcode .asp { background-color: #ffff00; } .csharpcode .html { color: #800000; } .csharpcode .attr { color: #ff0000; } .csharpcode .alt { background-color: #f4f4f4; width: 100%; margin: 0em; } .csharpcode .lnum { color: #606060; } This provides us with the same level of simplicity we had with ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem, but even more power. For example, we can now easily wait on the task: // Start our task on a background thread var task = Task.Factory.StartNew(() => this.ExecuteBackgroundWork(myData) ); // Do other work on the main thread, // while the task above executes in the background this.ExecuteWorkSynchronously(); // Wait for the background task to finish task.Wait(); TaskFactory simplifies creation and startup of simple background tasks dramatically. In addition to using the default TaskFactory, it’s often useful to construct a custom TaskFactory. The TaskFactory class includes an entire set of constructors which allow you to specify the default configuration for every Task instance created by that factory. This is particularly useful when using a custom TaskScheduler. For example, look at the sample code for starting a task on the UI thread in Part 15: // Given the following, constructed on the UI thread // TaskScheduler uiScheduler = TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext(); // When inside a background task, we can do string status = GetUpdatedStatus(); (new Task(() => { statusLabel.Text = status; })) .Start(uiScheduler); This is actually quite a bit more complicated than necessary. When we create the uiScheduler instance, we can use that to construct a TaskFactory that will automatically schedule tasks on the UI thread. To do that, we’d create the following on our main thread, prior to constructing our background tasks: // Construct a task scheduler from the current SynchronizationContext (UI thread) var uiScheduler = TaskScheduler.FromCurrentSynchronizationContext(); // Construct a new TaskFactory using our UI scheduler var uiTaskFactory = new TaskFactory(uiScheduler); If we do this, when we’re on a background thread, we can use this new TaskFactory to marshal a Task back onto the UI thread. Our previous code simplifies to: // When inside a background task, we can do string status = GetUpdatedStatus(); // Update our UI uiTaskFactory.StartNew( () => statusLabel.Text = status); Notice how much simpler this becomes! By taking advantage of the convenience provided by a custom TaskFactory, we can now marshal to set data on the UI thread in a single, clear line of code!

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WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 3

- by psheriff

I have had a lot of great feedback on the blog post about turning the ListView into a DataGrid by creating GridViewColumn objects on the fly. So, in the last 2 parts, I showed a couple of different methods for accomplishing this. Let’s now look at one more and that is use Reflection to extract the properties from a Product, Customer, or Employee object to create the columns. Yes, Reflection is a slower approach, but you could create the columns one time then cache the View object for re-use. Another potential drawback is you may have columns in your object that you do not wish to display on your ListView. But, just because so many people asked, here is how to accomplish this using Reflection. Figure 1: Use Reflection to create GridViewColumns. Using Reflection to gather property names is actually quite simple. First you need to pass any type (Product, Customer, Employee, etc.) to a method like I did in my last two blog posts on this subject. Below is the method that I created in the WPFListViewCommon class that now uses reflection. C#public static GridView CreateGridViewColumns(Type anyType){ // Create the GridView GridView gv = new GridView(); GridViewColumn gvc; // Get the public properties. PropertyInfo[] propInfo = anyType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance); foreach (PropertyInfo item in propInfo) { gvc = new GridViewColumn(); gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = new Binding(item.Name); gvc.Header = item.Name; gvc.Width = Double.NaN; gv.Columns.Add(gvc); } return gv;} VB.NETPublic Shared Function CreateGridViewColumns( _ ByVal anyType As Type) As GridView ' Create the GridView Dim gv As New GridView() Dim gvc As GridViewColumn ' Get the public properties. Dim propInfo As PropertyInfo() = _ anyType.GetProperties(BindingFlags.Public Or _ BindingFlags.Instance) For Each item As PropertyInfo In propInfo gvc = New GridViewColumn() gvc.DisplayMemberBinding = New Binding(item.Name) gvc.Header = item.Name gvc.Width = [Double].NaN gv.Columns.Add(gvc) Next Return gvEnd Function The key to using Relection is using the GetProperties method on the type you pass in. When you pass in a Product object as Type, you can now use the GetProperties method and specify, via flags, which properties you wish to return. In the code that I wrote, I am just retrieving the Public properties and only those that are Instance properties. I do not want any static/Shared properties or private properties. GetProperties returns an array of PropertyInfo objects. You can loop through this array and build your GridViewColumn objects by reading the Name property from the PropertyInfo object. Build the Product Screen To populate the ListView shown in Figure 1, you might write code like the following: C#private void CollectionSample(){ Product prod = new Product(); // Setup the GridView Columns lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns(typeOf(Product)); lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts();} VB.NETPrivate Sub CollectionSample() Dim prod As New Product() ' Setup the GridView Columns lstData.View = WPFListViewCommon.CreateGridViewColumns( _ GetType(Product)) lstData.DataContext = prod.GetProducts()End Sub All you need to do now is to pass in a Type object from your Product class that you can get by using the typeOf() function in C# or the GetType() function in VB. That’s all there is to it! Summary There are so many different ways to approach the same problem in programming. That is what makes programming so much fun! In this blog post I showed you how to create ListView columns on the fly using Reflection. This gives you a lot of flexibility without having to write extra code as was done previously. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code (in both VB and C#) at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "WPF ListView as a DataGrid – Part 3" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free eBook on "Fundamentals of N-Tier".

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Linux-Containers — Part 1: Overview

- by Lenz Grimmer

"Containers" by Jean-Pierre Martineau (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Linux Containers (LXC) provide a means to isolate individual services or applications as well as of a complete Linux operating system from other services running on the same host. To accomplish this, each container gets its own directory structure, network devices, IP addresses and process table. The processes running in other containers or the host system are not visible from inside a container. Additionally, Linux Containers allow for fine granular control of resources like RAM, CPU or disk I/O. Generally speaking, Linux Containers use a completely different approach than "classicial" virtualization technologies like KVM or Xen (on which Oracle VM Server for x86 is based on). An application running inside a container will be executed directly on the operating system kernel of the host system, shielded from all other running processes in a sandbox-like environment. This allows a very direct and fair distribution of CPU and I/O-resources. Linux containers can offer the best possible performance and several possibilities for managing and sharing the resources available. Similar to Containers (or Zones) on Oracle Solaris or FreeBSD jails, the same kernel version runs on the host as well as in the containers; it is not possible to run different Linux kernel versions or other operating systems like Microsoft Windows or Oracle Solaris for x86 inside a container. However, it is possible to run different Linux distribution versions (e.g. Fedora Linux in a container on top of an Oracle Linux host), provided it supports the version of the Linux kernel that runs on the host. This approach has one caveat, though - if any of the containers causes a kernel crash, it will bring down all other containers (and the host system) as well. For example, Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 (2.6.39) is supported for both Oracle Linux 5 and 6. This makes it possible to run Oracle Linux 5 and 6 container instances on top of an Oracle Linux 6 system. Since Linux Containers are fully implemented on the OS level (the Linux kernel), they can be easily combined with other virtualization technologies. It's certainly possible to set up Linux containers within a virtualized Linux instance that runs inside Oracle VM Server for Oracle VM Virtualbox. Some use cases for Linux Containers include: Consolidation of multiple separate Linux systems on one server: instances of Linux systems that are not performance-critical or only see sporadic use (e.g. a fax or print server or intranet services) do not necessarily need a dedicated server for their operations. These can easily be consolidated to run inside containers on a single server, to preserve energy and rack space. Running multiple instances of an application in parallel, e.g. for different users or customers. Each user receives his "own" application instance, with a defined level of service/performance. This prevents that one user's application could hog the entire system and ensures, that each user only has access to his own data set. It also helps to save main memory — if multiple instances of a same process are running, the Linux kernel can share memory pages that are identical and unchanged across all application instances. This also applies to shared libraries that applications may use, they are generally held in memory once and mapped to multiple processes. Quickly creating sandbox environments for development and testing purposes: containers that have been created and configured once can be archived as templates and can be duplicated (cloned) instantly on demand. After finishing the activity, the clone can safely be discarded. This allows to provide repeatable software builds and test environments, because the system will always be reset to its initial state for each run. Linux Containers also boot significantly faster than "classic" virtual machines, which can save a lot of time when running frequent build or test runs on applications. Safe execution of an individual application: if an application running inside a container has been compromised because of a security vulnerability, the host system and other containers remain unaffected. The potential damage can be minimized, analyzed and resolved directly from the host system. Note: Linux Containers on Oracle Linux 6 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 2 (2.6.39) are still marked as Technology Preview - their use is only recommended for testing and evaluation purposes. The Open-Source project "Linux Containers" (LXC) is driving the development of the technology behind this, which is based on the "Control Groups" (CGroups) and "Name Spaces" functionality of the Linux kernel. Oracle is actively involved in the Linux Containers development and contributes patches to the upstream LXC code base. Control Groups provide means to manage and monitor the allocation of resources for individual processes or process groups. Among other things, you can restrict the maximum amount of memory, CPU cycles as well as the disk and network throughput (in MB/s or IOP/s) that are available for an application. Name Spaces help to isolate process groups from each other, e.g. the visibility of other running processes or the exclusive access to a network device. It's also possible to restrict a process group's access and visibility of the entire file system hierarchy (similar to a classic "chroot" environment). CGroups and Name Spaces provide the foundation on which Linux containers are based on, but they can actually be used independently as well. A more detailed description of how Linux Containers can be created and managed on Oracle Linux will be explained in the second part of this article. Additional links related to Linux Containers: OTN Article: The Role of Oracle Solaris Zones and Linux Containers in a Virtualization Strategy Linux Containers on Wikipedia - Lenz Grimmer Follow me on: Personal Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Linux Blog |

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Migrating SQL Server Databases – The DBA’s Checklist (Part 2)

- by Sadequl Hussain

Continuing from Part 1 , our Migration Checklist continues: Step 5: Update statistics It is always a good idea to update the statistics of the database that you have just installed or migrated. To do this, run the following command against the target database: sp_updatestats The sp_updatestats system stored procedure runs the UPDATE STATISTICS command against every user and system table in the database. However, a word of caution: running the sp_updatestats against a database with a compatibility level below 90 (SQL Server 2005) will reset the automatic UPDATE STATISTICS settings for every index and statistics of every table in the database. You may therefore want to change the compatibility mode before you run the command. Another thing you should remember to do is to ensure the new database has its AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS and AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS properties set to ON. You can do so using the ALTER DATABASE command or from the SSMS. Step 6: Set database options You may have to change the state of a database after it has been restored. If the database was changed to single-user or read-only mode before backup, the restored copy will also retain these settings. This may not be an issue when you are manually restoring from Enterprise Manager or the Management Studio since you can change the properties. However, this is something to be mindful of if the restore process is invoked by an automated job or script and the database needs to be written to immediately after restore. You may want to check the database’s status programmatically in such cases. Another important option you may want to set for the newly restored / attached database is PAGE_VERIFY. This option specifies how you want SQL Server to ensure the physical integrity of the data. It is a new option from SQL Server 2005 and can have three values: CHECKSUM (default for SQL Server 2005 and latter databases), TORN_PAGE_DETECTION (default when restoring a pre-SQL Server 2005 database) or NONE. Torn page detection was itself an option for SQL Server 2000 databases. From SQL Server 2005, when PAGE_VERIFY is set to CHECKSUM, the database engine calculates the checksum for a page’s contents and writes it to the page header before storing it in disk. When the page is read from the disk, the checksum is computed again and compared with the checksum stored in the header. Torn page detection works much like the same way in that it stores a bit in the page header for every 512 byte sector. When data is read from the page, the torn page bits stored in the header is compared with the respective sector contents. When PAGE_VERIFY is set to NONE, SQL Server does not perform any checking, even if torn page data or checksums are present in the page header. This may not be something you would want to set unless there is a very specific reason. Microsoft suggests using the CHECKSUM page verify option as this offers more protection. Step 7: Map database users to logins A common database migration issue is related to user access. Windows and SQL Server native logins that existed in the source instance and had access to the database may not be present in the destination. Even if the logins exist in the destination, the mapping between the user accounts and the logins will not be automatic. You can use a special system stored procedure called sp_change_users_login to address these situations. The procedure needs to be run against the newly attached or restored database and can accept four parameters. Depending on what you want to do, you may be using less than four though. The first parameter, @Action, can take three values. When you specify @Action = ‘Report’, the system will provide you with a list of database users which are not mapped to any login. If you want to map a database user to an existing SQL Server login, the value for @Action will be ‘Update_One’. In this case, you will only need to provide the database user name and the login it will map to. So if your newly restored database has a user account called “bob” and there is already a SQL Server login with the same name and you want to map the user to the login, you will execute a query like the following: sp_change_users_login @Action = ‘Update_One’, @UserNamePattern = ‘bob’, @LoginName = ‘bob’ If the login does not exist, you can instruct SQL Server to create the login with the same name. In this case you will need to provide a password for the login and the value of the @Action parameter will be ‘Auto_Fix’. If the login already exists, it will be automatically mapped to the user account. Unfortunately sp_change_users_login system stored procedure cannot be used to map database users to trusted logins (Windows accounts) in SQL Server. You will need to follow a manual process to re-map the database user accounts. Continues…

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Optimized Integration between Oracle Data Integrator and Oracle GoldenGate

- by Alex Kotopoulis

The Journalizing Knowledge Module for Oracle GoldenGate's CDC mechanism has just been released as part of the ODI 10.1.3.6_02 patch, and a very useful post from Mark Rittman gives detailed instructions about how to set it up in a sample environment. This integration combines the best of two worlds, the non-invasive, highly performant data replication from Oracle GoldenGate with the innovative and scalable EL-T concept from ODI to perform complex loads into real-time data warehouses. Please also check out the new datasheet about this integration.

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Working with Reporting Services Filters–Part 1

- by smisner

There are two ways that you can filter data in Reporting Services. The first way, which usually provides a faster performance, is to use query parameters to apply a filter using the WHERE clause in a SQL statement. In that case, the structure of the filter depends upon the syntax recognized by the source database. Another way to filter data in Reporting Services is to apply a filter to a dataset, data region, or a group. Using this latter method, you can even apply multiple filters. However, the use of filter operators or the setup of multiple filters is not always obvious, so in this series of posts, I'll provide some more information about the configuration of filters. First, why not use query parameters exclusively for filtering? Here are a few reasons: You might want to apply a filter to part of the report, but not all of the report. Your dataset might retrieve data from a stored procedure, and doesn't allow you to pass a query parameter for filtering purposes. Your report might be set up as a snapshot on the report server and, in that case, cannot be dynamically filtered based on a query parameter. Next, let's look at how to set up a report filter in general. The process is the same whether you are applying the filter to a dataset, data region, or a group. When you go to the Filters page in the Properties dialog box for whichever of these items you selected (dataset, data region, group), you click the Add button to create a new filter. The interface looks like this: The Expression field is usually a field in the dataset, so to make it easier for you to make a selection,the drop-down list displays all of the current dataset fields. But notice the expression button to the right, which means that you can set up any type of expression-not just a dataset field. To the right of the expression button, you'll find a data type drop-down list. It's important to specify the correct data type for the field or expression you're using. Now for the operators. Here's a list of the options that you have: This Operator Performs This Action =, <>, >, >=, <, <=, Like Compares expression to value Top N, Bottom N Compares expression to Top (Bottom) set of N values (N = integer) Top %, Bottom % Compares expression to Top (Bottom) N percent of values (N = integer or float) Between Determines whether expression is between two values, inclusive In Determines whether expression is found in list of values Last, the Value is what you're comparing to the expression using the operator. The construction of a filter using some operators (=, <>, >, etc.) is fairly simple. If my dataset (for AdventureWorks data) has a Category field, and I have a parameter that prompts the user for a single category, I can set up a filter like this: Expression Data Type Operator Value [Category] Text = [@Category] But if I set the parameter to accept multiple values, I need to change the operator from = to In, just as I would have to do if I were using a query parameter. The parameter expression, [@Category], which translates to =Parameters!Category.Value, doesn’t need to change because it represents an array as soon as I change the parameter to allow multiple values. The “In” operator requires an array. With that in mind, let’s consider a variation on Value. Let’s say that I have a parameter that prompts the user for a particular year – and for simplicity’s sake, this parameter only allows a single value, and I have an expression that evaluates the previous year based on the user’s selection. Then I want to use these two values in two separate filters with an OR condition. That is, I want to filter either by the year selected OR by the year that was computed. If I create two filters, one for each year (as shown below), then the report will only display results if BOTH filter conditions are met – which would never be true. Expression Data Type Operator Value [CalendarYear] Integer = [@Year] [CalendarYear] Integer = =Parameters!Year.Value-1 To handle this scenario, we need to create a single filter that uses the “In” operator, and then set up the Value expression as an array. To create an array, we use the Split function after creating a string that concatenates the two values (highlighted in yellow) as shown below. Expression Data Type Operator Value =Cstr(Fields!CalendarYear.Value) Text In =Split( CStr(Parameters!Year.Value) + ”,” + CStr(Parameters!Year.Value-1) , “,”) Note that in this case, I had to apply a string conversion on the year integer so that I could concatenate the parameter selection with the calculated year. Pay attention to the second argument of the Split function—you must use a comma delimiter for the result to work correctly with the In operator. I also had to change the Expression value from [CalendarYear] (or =Fields!CalendarYear.Value) so that the expression would return a string that I could compare with the values in the string array. More fun with filter expressions in future posts!

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