pretty printer - Page 491

Ruby number_to_currency displays a totally wrong number!

- by SueP

Greetings! I’m an old Delphi programmer making the leap to the Mac, Ruby, Rails, and web programming in general. I’m signed up for the Advanced Rails workshop at the end of the month. In the meantime, I’ve been working on porting a mission-critical (of course) app from Delphi to RAILS. It feels like I’ve spent most of the past year with my head buried in a book or podcast. Right now, I’ve hit a major issue and I’m tearing my hair out. I literally don’t know where to go with this, I desperately don’t want to deploy with this bug, and I’m feeling a bit frantic. (The company database is currently running on an ancient XP box that’s looking rustier by the day.) So, I set up a test database that shows the problem. I’m running: OS/X 10.6.3 Rails 2.3.5 ruby 1.8.7 (2009-06-08 patchlevel 173) [universal-darwin10.0] MySQL 5.1.38-log via socket MySQL Client Version 5.1.8 ActiveRecord::Schema.define(:version => 20100406222528) do create_table “money”, :force => true do |t| t.decimal “amount_due”, :precision => 10, :scale => 2, :default => 0.0 t.decimal “balance”, :precision => 10, :scale => 2, :default => 0.0 t.text “memofield” t.datetime “created_at” t.datetime “updated_at” end The index view is right out of the generator, slightly modified to add the formatting that's breaking on me. Listing money <table> <tr> <th>Amount</th> <th>Amount to_s </th> <th>Balance to $</th> <th>Balance with_precision </th> <th>Memofield</th> </tr> <% @money.each do |money| %> <tr> <td><%=h money.amount_due %></td> <td><%=h money.amount_due.to_s(‘F’) %></td> <td><%=h number_to_currency(money.balance) %></td> <td><%=h number_with_precision(money.balance, :precision => 2) %></td> <td><%=h money.memofield %></td> <td><%= link_to ‘Show’, money %></td> <td><%= link_to ‘Edit’, edit_money_path(money) %></td> <td><%= link_to ‘Destroy’, money, :confirm => ‘Are you sure?’, :method => :delete %></td> </tr> *<% end %> *</table> <%= link_to ‘New money’, new_money_path %> This seemed to work pretty well. Then I started testing with production data and hit a major problem with number_to_currency. The number in the database is: 10542.28, I verified it with the MySQL Query Browser. RAILS will display this as 10542.28 unless I call number_to_currency, then that number is displayed as: $15422.80 The error seems to happen with any number between 10,000.00 and 10,999.99 So far, I haven’t seen it outside of that range, but I obviously haven’t tested everything. I guess my workaround is to remove number_to_currency, but that leaves the views looking really sloppy and unprofessional. The formatting is messed up, things don’t line up properly and I can’t force the display to 2 decimal places. I’m seriously hoping there is an easy fix for this. I can’t imagine this being a widespread problem. It would affect so many people that someone would have fixed it! But I don’t know where to go from here. I’d desperately like some help. (Later – number_with_precision fails the same way number_to_currency does.) Sue Petersen

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How to make my robot move in a rectangular path along the black tape?

- by Sahat

I am working on a robot, it's part of the summer robotics workshop in our college. We are using C-STAMP micro controllers by A-WIT. I was able to make it move, turn left, turn right, move backward. I have even managed to make it go along the black tape using a contrast sensor. I send the robot at 30-45 degrees toward the black tape on the table and it aligns itself and starts to move along the black tape. It jerks a little, probably due to my programming logic below, it's running a while loop and constantly checking if statements, so it ends up trying to turn left and right every few milliseconds, which explains the jerking part. But it's okay, it works, not as smooth as I want it to work but it works! Problem is that I can't make my robot go into a rectangular path of the black tape. As soon as it reaches the corner it just keeps going straight instead of making a left/right turn. Here's my attempt. The following code is just part of the code. My 2 sensors are located right underneath the robot, next to the front wheel, almost at the floor level. It has "index" value ranging from 0 to 8. I believe it's 8 when you have a lot of light coming into the sensor , and 0 when it's nearly pitch black. So when the robot moves into the black-tape-zone, the index value drops, and based on that I have an if-statement telling my robot to either turn left or right. To avoid confusion I didn't post the entire source code, but only the logical part responsible for the movement of my robot along the black tape. while(1) { // don't worry about these. // 10 and 9 represent Sensor's PIN location on the motherboard V = ANALOGIN(10, 1, 0, 0, 0); V2 = ANALOGIN(9, 1, 0, 0, 0); // i got this "formula" from the example in my Manual. // V stands for voltage of the sensor. // it gives me the index value of the sensor. 0 = darkest, 8 = lightest. index = ((-(V - 5) / 5) * 8 + 0.5); index2 = ((-(V2 - 5) / 5) * 8 + 0.5); // i've tweaked the position of the sensors so index > 7 is just right number. // the robot will move anywhere on the table just fine with index > 7. // as soon as it drops to or below 7 (i.e. finds black tape), the robot will // either turn left or right and then go forward. // lp & rp represent left-wheel pin and right-wheel pin, 1 means run forever. // if i change it from 1 to 100, it will go forward for 100ms. if (index > 7 && index2 > 7) goForward(lp, rp, 1); if (index <= 7) { turnLeft(lp, rp, 1); goForward(lp, rp, 1); // this is the tricky part. i've added this code last minute // trying to make my robot turn, but i didn't work. if (index > 4) { turnLeft(lp, rp, 1); goForward(lp, rp, 1); } } else if (index2 <= 7) { turnRight(lp, rp, 1); goForward(lp, rp, 1); // this is also the last minute addition. it's same code as above // but it's for the 2nd sensor. if (index2 > 4) { turnRight(lp, rp, 1); goForward(lp, rp, 1); } } I've spent the entire day trying to figure it out. I've pretty much exhausted all avenues. Asking for the solution on stackoverflow is my very last option now. Thanks in advance! If you have any questions about the code, let me know, but comments should be self-explanatory.

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OpenGL + cgFX Alpha Blending failure

- by dopplex

I have a shader that needs to additively blend to its output render target. While it had been fully implemented and working, I recently refactored and have done something that is causing the alpha blending to not work anymore. I'm pretty sure that the problem is somewhere in my calls to either OpenGL or cgfx - but I'm currently at a loss for where exactly the problem is, as everything looks like it is set up properly for alpha blending to occur. No OpenGL or cg framework errors are showing up, either. For some context, what I'm doing here is taking a buffer which contains screen position and luminance values for each pixel, copying it to a PBO, and using it as the vertex buffer for drawing GL_POINTS. Everything except for the alpha blending appears to be working as expected. I've confirmed both that the input vertex buffer has the correct values, and that my vertex and fragment shaders are outputting the points to the correct locations and with the correct luminance values. The way that I've arrived at the conclusion that the Alpha blending was broken is by making my vertex shader output every point to the same screen location and then setting the pixel shader to always output a value of float4(0.5) for that pixel. Invariably, the end color (dumped afterwards) ends up being float4(0.5). The confusing part is that as far as I can tell, everything is properly set for alpha blending to occur. The cgfx pass has the two following state assignments (among others - I'll put a full listing at the end): BlendEnable = true; BlendFunc = int2(One, One); This ought to be enough, since I am calling cgSetPassState() - and indeed, when I use glGets to check the values of GL_BLEND_SRC, GL_BLEND_DEST, GL_BLEND, and GL_BLEND_EQUATION they all look appropriate (GL_ONE, GL_ONE, GL_TRUE, and GL_FUNC_ADD). This check was done immediately after the draw call. I've been looking around to see if there's anything other than blending being enabled and the blending function being correctly set that would cause alpha blending not to occur, but without any luck. I considered that I could be doing something wrong with GL, but GL is telling me that blending is enabled. I doubt it's cgFX related (as otherwise the GL state wouldn't even be thinking it was enabled) but it still fails if I explicitly use GL calls to set the blend mode and enable it. Here's the trimmed down code for starting the cgfx pass and the draw call: CGtechnique renderTechnique = Filter->curTechnique; TEXUNITCHECK; CGpass pass = cgGetFirstPass(renderTechnique); TEXUNITCHECK; while (pass) { cgSetPassState(pass); cgUpdatePassParameters(pass); //drawFSPointQuadBuff((void*)PointQuad); drawFSPointQuadBuff((void*)LumPointBuffer); TEXUNITCHECK; cgResetPassState(pass); pass = cgGetNextPass(pass); }; and the function with the draw call: void drawFSPointQuadBuff(void* args) { PointBuffer* pointBuffer = (PointBuffer*)args; FBOERRCHECK; glClear(GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT); GLERRCHECK; glPointSize(1.0); GLERRCHECK; glEnableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); GLERRCHECK; glEnable(GL_POINT_SMOOTH); if (pointBuffer-BufferObject) { glBindBufferARB(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER_ARB, (unsigned int)pointBuffer-BufData); glVertexPointer(pointBuffer-numComp, GL_FLOAT, 0, 0); } else { glVertexPointer(pointBuffer-numComp, GL_FLOAT, 0, pointBuffer-BufData); }; GLERRCHECK; glDrawArrays(GL_POINTS, 0, pointBuffer-numElem); GLboolean testBool; glGetBooleanv(GL_BLEND, &testBool); int iblendColor, iblendDest, iblendEquation, iblendSrc; glGetIntegerv(GL_BLEND_SRC, &iblendSrc); glGetIntegerv(GL_BLEND_DST, &iblendDest); glGetIntegerv(GL_BLEND_EQUATION, &iblendEquation); if (iblendEquation == GL_FUNC_ADD) { cerr << "Correct func" << endl; }; GLERRCHECK; if (pointBuffer-BufferObject) { glBindBufferARB(GL_ARRAY_BUFFER_ARB,0); } GLERRCHECK; glDisableClientState(GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); GLERRCHECK; }; Finally, here is the full state setting of the shader: AlphaTestEnable = false; DepthTestEnable = false; DepthMask = false; ColorMask = true; CullFaceEnable = false; BlendEnable = true; BlendFunc = int2(One, One); FragmentProgram = compile glslf std_PS(); VertexProgram = compile glslv bilatGridVS2();

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Losing NSManaged Objects in my Application

- by Wayfarer

I've been doing quite a bit of work on a fun little iPhone app. At one point, I get a bunch of player objects from my Persistant store, and then display them on the screen. I also have the options of adding new player objects (their just custom UIButtons) and removing selected players. However, I believe I'm running into some memory management issues, in that somehow the app is not saving which "players" are being displayed. Example: I have 4 players shown, I select them all and then delete them all. They all disappear. But if I exit and then reopen the application, they all are there again. As though they had never left. So somewhere in my code, they are not "really" getting removed. MagicApp201AppDelegate *appDelegate = [[UIApplication sharedApplication] delegate]; context = [appDelegate managedObjectContext]; NSFetchRequest *request = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init]; NSEntityDescription *desc = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Player" inManagedObjectContext:context]; [request setEntity:desc]; NSError *error; NSMutableArray *objects = [[[context executeFetchRequest:request error:&error] mutableCopy] autorelease]; if (objects == nil) { NSLog(@"Shit man, there was an error taking out the single player object when the view did load. ", error); } int j = 0; while (j < [objects count]) { if ([[[objects objectAtIndex:j] valueForKey:@"currentMultiPlayer"] boolValue] == NO) { [objects removeObjectAtIndex:j]; j--; } else { j++; } } [self setPlayers:objects]; //This is a must, it NEEDS to work Objects are all the players playing So in this snippit (in the viewdidLoad method), I grab the players out of the persistant store, and then remove the objects I don't want (those whose boolValue is NO), and the rest are kept. This works, I'm pretty sure. I think the issue is where I remove the players. Here is that code: NSLog(@"Remove players"); /** For each selected player: Unselect them (remove them from SelectedPlayers) Remove the button from the view Remove the button object from the array Remove the player from Players */ NSLog(@"Debugging Removal: %d", [selectedPlayers count]); for (int i=0; i < [selectedPlayers count]; i++) { NSManagedObject *rPlayer = [selectedPlayers objectAtIndex:i]; [rPlayer setValue:[NSNumber numberWithBool:NO] forKey:@"currentMultiPlayer"]; int index = [players indexOfObjectIdenticalTo:rPlayer]; //this is the index we need for (int j = (index + 1); j < [players count]; j++) { UIButton *tempButton = [playerButtons objectAtIndex:j]; tempButton.tag--; } NSError *error; if ([context hasChanges] && ![context save:&error]) { NSLog(@"Unresolved error %@, %@", error, [error userInfo]); abort(); } UIButton *aButton = [playerButtons objectAtIndex:index]; [players removeObjectAtIndex:index]; [aButton removeFromSuperview]; [playerButtons removeObjectAtIndex:index]; } [selectedPlayers removeAllObjects]; NSError *error; if ([context hasChanges] && ![context save:&error]) { NSLog(@"Unresolved error %@, %@", error, [error userInfo]); abort(); } NSLog(@"About to refresh YES"); [self refreshAllPlayers:YES]; The big part in the second code snippet is I set them to NO for currentMultiPlayer. NO NO NO NO NO, they should NOT come back when the view does load, NEVER ever ever. Not until I say so. No other relevant part of the code sets that to YES. Which makes me think... perhaps they aren't being saved. Perhaps that doesn't save, perhaps those objects aren't being managed anymore, and so they don't get saved in. Is there a lifetime (metaphorically) of NSManaged object? The Players array is the same I set in the "viewDidLoad" method, and SelectedPlayers holds players that are selected, references to NSManagedObjects. Does it have something to do with Removing them from the array? I'm so confused, some insight would be greatly appreciated!!

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STORED PROCEDURE working in my local test machine cannot be created in production environment.

- by Marcos Buarque

Hi, I have an SQL CREATE PROCEDURE statement that runs perfectly in my local SQL Server, but cannot be recreated in production environment. The error message I get in production is Msg 102, Level 15, State 1, Incorrect syntax near '='. It is a pretty big query and I don't want to annoy StackOverflow users, but I simply can't find a solution. If only you could point me out what settings I could check in the production server in order to enable running the code... I must be using some kind of syntax or something that is conflicting with some setting in production. This PROCEDURE was already registered in production before, but when I ran a DROP - CREATE PROCEDURE today, the server was able to drop the procedure, but not to recreate it. I will paste the code below. Thank you! =============== USE [Enorway] GO /****** Object: StoredProcedure [dbo].[Spel_CM_ChartsUsersTotals] Script Date: 03/17/2010 11:59:57 ******/ SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO CREATE PROC [dbo].[Spel_CM_ChartsUsersTotals] @IdGroup int, @IdAssessment int, @UserId int AS SET NOCOUNT ON DECLARE @RequiredColor varchar(6) SET @RequiredColor = '3333cc' DECLARE @ManagersColor varchar(6) SET @ManagersColor = '993300' DECLARE @GroupColor varchar(6) SET @GroupColor = 'ff0000' DECLARE @SelfColor varchar(6) SET @SelfColor = '336600' DECLARE @TeamColor varchar(6) SET @TeamColor = '993399' DECLARE @intMyCounter tinyint DECLARE @intManagersPosition tinyint DECLARE @intGroupPosition tinyint DECLARE @intSelfPosition tinyint DECLARE @intTeamPosition tinyint SET @intMyCounter = 1 -- Table that will hold the subtotals... DECLARE @tblTotalsSource table ( IdCompetency int, CompetencyName nvarchar(200), FunctionRequiredLevel float, ManagersAverageAssessment float, SelfAssessment float, GroupAverageAssessment float, TeamAverageAssessment float ) INSERT INTO @tblTotalsSource ( IdCompetency, CompetencyName, FunctionRequiredLevel, ManagersAverageAssessment, SelfAssessment, GroupAverageAssessment, TeamAverageAssessment ) SELECT e.[IdCompetency], dbo.replaceAccentChar(e.[Name]) AS CompetencyName, (i.[LevelNumber]) AS FunctionRequiredLevel, ( SELECT ROUND(avg(CAST(ac.[LevelNumber] AS float)),0) FROM Spel_CM_AssessmentsData aa INNER JOIN Spel_CM_CompetenciesLevels ab ON aa.[IdCompetencyLevel] = ab.[IdCompetencyLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Levels ac ON ab.[IdLevel] = ac.[IdLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_AssessmentsEvents ad ON aa.[IdAssessmentEvent] = ad.[IdAssessmentEvent] WHERE aa.[EvaluatedUserId] = @UserId AND aa.[AssessmentType] = 't' AND aa.[IdGroup] = @IdGroup AND ab.[IdCompetency] = e.[IdCompetency] AND ad.[IdAssessment] = @IdAssessment ) AS ManagersAverageAssessment, ( SELECT bc.[LevelNumber] FROM Spel_CM_AssessmentsData ba INNER JOIN Spel_CM_CompetenciesLevels bb ON ba.[IdCompetencyLevel] = bb.[IdCompetencyLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Levels bc ON bb.[IdLevel] = bc.[IdLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_AssessmentsEvents bd ON ba.[IdAssessmentEvent] = bd.[IdAssessmentEvent] WHERE ba.[EvaluatedUserId] = @UserId AND ba.[AssessmentType] = 's' AND ba.[IdGroup] = @IdGroup AND bb.[IdCompetency] = e.[IdCompetency] AND bd.[IdAssessment] = @IdAssessment ) AS SelfAssessment, ( SELECT ROUND(avg(CAST(cc.[LevelNumber] AS float)),0) FROM Spel_CM_AssessmentsData ca INNER JOIN Spel_CM_CompetenciesLevels cb ON ca.[IdCompetencyLevel] = cb.[IdCompetencyLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Levels cc ON cb.[IdLevel] = cc.[IdLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_AssessmentsEvents cd ON ca.[IdAssessmentEvent] = cd.[IdAssessmentEvent] WHERE ca.[EvaluatedUserId] = @UserId AND ca.[AssessmentType] = 'g' AND ca.[IdGroup] = @IdGroup AND cb.[IdCompetency] = e.[IdCompetency] AND cd.[IdAssessment] = @IdAssessment ) AS GroupAverageAssessment, ( SELECT ROUND(avg(CAST(dc.[LevelNumber] AS float)),0) FROM Spel_CM_AssessmentsData da INNER JOIN Spel_CM_CompetenciesLevels db ON da.[IdCompetencyLevel] = db.[IdCompetencyLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Levels dc ON db.[IdLevel] = dc.[IdLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_AssessmentsEvents dd ON da.[IdAssessmentEvent] = dd.[IdAssessmentEvent] WHERE da.[EvaluatedUserId] = @UserId AND da.[AssessmentType] = 'm' AND da.[IdGroup] = @IdGroup AND db.[IdCompetency] = e.[IdCompetency] AND dd.[IdAssessment] = @IdAssessment ) AS TeamAverageAssessment FROM Spel_CM_AssessmentsData a INNER JOIN Spel_CM_AssessmentsEvents c ON a.[IdAssessmentEvent] = c.[IdAssessmentEvent] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_CompetenciesLevels d ON a.[IdCompetencyLevel] = d.[IdCompetencyLevel] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Competencies e ON d.[IdCompetency] = e.[IdCompetency] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Levels f ON d.[IdLevel] = f.[IdLevel] -- This will link with user's assigned functions INNER JOIN Spel_CM_FunctionsCompetenciesLevels g ON a.[IdFunction] = g.[IdFunction] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_CompetenciesLevels h ON g.[IdCompetencyLevel] = h.[IdCompetencyLevel] AND e.[IdCompetency] = h.[IdCompetency] INNER JOIN Spel_CM_Levels i ON h.[IdLevel] = i.[IdLevel] WHERE (NOT c.[EndDate] IS NULL) AND a.[EvaluatedUserId] = @UserId AND c.[IdAssessment] = @IdAssessment AND a.[IdGroup] = @IdGroup GROUP BY e.[IdCompetency], e.[Name], i.[LevelNumber] ORDER BY e.[Name] ASC -- This will define the position of each element (managers, group, self and team) SELECT @intManagersPosition = @intMyCounter FROM @tblTotalsSource WHERE NOT ManagersAverageAssessment IS NULL IF IsNumeric(@intManagersPosition) = 1 BEGIN SELECT @intMyCounter += 1 END SELECT @intGroupPosition = @intMyCounter FROM @tblTotalsSource WHERE NOT GroupAverageAssessment IS NULL IF IsNumeric(@intGroupPosition) = 1 BEGIN SELECT @intMyCounter += 1 END SELECT @intSelfPosition = @intMyCounter FROM @tblTotalsSource WHERE NOT SelfAssessment IS NULL IF IsNumeric(@intSelfPosition) = 1 BEGIN SELECT @intMyCounter += 1 END SELECT @intTeamPosition = @intMyCounter FROM @tblTotalsSource WHERE NOT TeamAverageAssessment IS NULL -- This will render the final table for the end user. The tabe will flatten some of the numbers to allow them to be prepared for Google Graphics. SELECT SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( '|' + REPLACE(ma.[CompetencyName],' ','+')) FROM @tblTotalsSource ma ORDER BY ma.[CompetencyName] DESC FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'CompetenciesNames', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( ',' + REPLACE(ra.[FunctionRequiredLevel]*10,' ','+')) FROM @tblTotalsSource ra FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'FunctionRequiredLevel', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( ',' + CAST(na.[ManagersAverageAssessment]*10 AS nvarchar(10))) FROM @tblTotalsSource na FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'ManagersAverageAssessment', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( ',' + CAST(oa.[GroupAverageAssessment]*10 AS nvarchar(10))) FROM @tblTotalsSource oa FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'GroupAverageAssessment', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( ',' + CAST(pa.[SelfAssessment]*10 AS nvarchar(10))) FROM @tblTotalsSource pa FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'SelfAssessment', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( ',' + CAST(qa.[TeamAverageAssessment]*10 AS nvarchar(10))) FROM @tblTotalsSource qa FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'TeamAverageAssessment', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( '|t++' + CAST([FunctionRequiredLevel] AS varchar(10)) + ',' + @RequiredColor + ',0,' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY CompetencyName) - 1 AS varchar(2)) + ',9') FROM @tblTotalsSource FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'FunctionRequiredAverageLabel', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( '|t++' + CAST([ManagersAverageAssessment] AS varchar(10)) + ',' + @ManagersColor + ',' + CAST(@intManagersPosition AS varchar(2)) + ',' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY CompetencyName) - 1 AS varchar(2)) + ',9') FROM @tblTotalsSource FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'ManagersLabel', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( '|t++' + CAST([GroupAverageAssessment] AS varchar(10)) + ',' + @GroupColor + ',' + CAST(@intGroupPosition AS varchar(2)) + ',' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY CompetencyName) - 1 AS varchar(2)) + ',9') FROM @tblTotalsSource FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'GroupLabel', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( '|t++' + CAST([SelfAssessment] AS varchar(10)) + ',' + @SelfColor + ',' + CAST(@intSelfPosition AS varchar(2)) + ',' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY CompetencyName) - 1 AS varchar(2)) + ',9') FROM @tblTotalsSource FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'SelfLabel', SUBSTRING( ( SELECT ( '|t++' + CAST([TeamAverageAssessment] AS varchar(10)) + ',' + @TeamColor + ',' + CAST(@intTeamPosition AS varchar(2)) + ',' + CAST(ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY CompetencyName) - 1 AS varchar(2)) + ',10') FROM @tblTotalsSource FOR XML PATH('') ), 2, 1000) AS 'TeamLabel', (Count(src.[IdCompetency]) * 30) + 100 AS 'ControlHeight' FROM @tblTotalsSource src SET NOCOUNT OFF GO

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c++ and c# speed compared

- by Mack

I was worried about C#'s speed when it deals with heavy calculations, when you need to use raw CPU power. I always thought that C++ is much faster than C# when it comes to calculations. So I did some quick tests. The first test computes prime numbers < an integer n, the second test computes some pandigital numbers. The idea for second test comes from here: Pandigital Numbers C# prime computation: using System; using System.Diagnostics; class Program { static int primes(int n) { uint i, j; int countprimes = 0; for (i = 1; i <= n; i++) { bool isprime = true; for (j = 2; j <= Math.Sqrt(i); j++) if ((i % j) == 0) { isprime = false; break; } if (isprime) countprimes++; } return countprimes; } static void Main(string[] args) { int n = int.Parse(Console.ReadLine()); Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch(); sw.Start(); int res = primes(n); sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine("I found {0} prime numbers between 0 and {1} in {2} msecs.", res, n, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); Console.ReadKey(); } } C++ variant: #include <iostream> #include <ctime> int primes(unsigned long n) { unsigned long i, j; int countprimes = 0; for(i = 1; i <= n; i++) { int isprime = 1; for(j = 2; j < (i^(1/2)); j++) if(!(i%j)) { isprime = 0; break; } countprimes+= isprime; } return countprimes; } int main() { int n, res; cin>>n; unsigned int start = clock(); res = primes(n); int tprime = clock() - start; cout<<"\nI found "<<res<<" prime numbers between 1 and "<<n<<" in "<<tprime<<" msecs."; return 0; } When I ran the test trying to find primes < than 100,000, C# variant finished in 0.409 seconds and C++ variant in 5.553 seconds. When I ran them for 1,000,000 C# finished in 6.039 seconds and C++ in about 337 seconds. Pandigital test in C#: using System; using System.Diagnostics; class Program { static bool IsPandigital(int n) { int digits = 0; int count = 0; int tmp; for (; n > 0; n /= 10, ++count) { if ((tmp = digits) == (digits |= 1 << (n - ((n / 10) * 10) - 1))) return false; } return digits == (1 << count) - 1; } static void Main() { int pans = 0; Stopwatch sw = new Stopwatch(); sw.Start(); for (int i = 1; i <= 123456789; i++) { if (IsPandigital(i)) { pans++; } } sw.Stop(); Console.WriteLine("{0}pcs, {1}ms", pans, sw.ElapsedMilliseconds); Console.ReadKey(); } } Pandigital test in C++: #include <iostream> #include <ctime> using namespace std; int IsPandigital(int n) { int digits = 0; int count = 0; int tmp; for (; n > 0; n /= 10, ++count) { if ((tmp = digits) == (digits |= 1 << (n - ((n / 10) * 10) - 1))) return 0; } return digits == (1 << count) - 1; } int main() { int pans = 0; unsigned int start = clock(); for (int i = 1; i <= 123456789; i++) { if (IsPandigital(i)) { pans++; } } int ptime = clock() - start; cout<<"\nPans:"<<pans<<" time:"<<ptime; return 0; } C# variant runs in 29.906 seconds and C++ in about 36.298 seconds. I didn't touch any compiler switches and bot C# and C++ programs were compiled with debug options. Before I attempted to run the test I was worried that C# will lag well behind C++, but now it seems that there is a pretty big speed difference in C# favor. Can anybody explain this? C# is jitted and C++ is compiled native so it's normal that a C++ will be faster than a C# variant. Thanks for the answers!

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HLSL/XNA Ambient light texture mixed up with multi pass lighting

- by Manu-EPITA

I've been having some troubles lately with lighting. I have found a source on google which is working pretty good on the example. However, when I try to implement it to my current project, I am getting some very weird bugs. The main one is that my textures are "mixed up" when I only activate the ambient light, which means that a model gets the texture of another one . I am using the same effect for every meshes of my models. I guess this could be the problem, but I don't really know how to "reset" an effect for a new model. Is it possible? Here is my shader: float4x4 WVP; float4x4 WVP; float3x3 World; float3 Ke; float3 Ka; float3 Kd; float3 Ks; float specularPower; float3 globalAmbient; float3 lightColor; float3 eyePosition; float3 lightDirection; float3 lightPosition; float spotPower; texture2D Texture; sampler2D texSampler = sampler_state { Texture = <Texture>; MinFilter = anisotropic; MagFilter = anisotropic; MipFilter = linear; MaxAnisotropy = 16; }; struct VertexShaderInput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 Texture : TEXCOORD0; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; }; struct VertexShaderOutput { float4 Position : POSITION0; float2 Texture : TEXCOORD0; float3 PositionO: TEXCOORD1; float3 Normal : NORMAL0; }; VertexShaderOutput VertexShaderFunction(VertexShaderInput input) { VertexShaderOutput output; output.Position = mul(input.Position, WVP); output.Normal = input.Normal; output.PositionO = input.Position.xyz; output.Texture = input.Texture; return output; } float4 PSAmbient(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { return float4(Ka*globalAmbient + Ke,1) * tex2D(texSampler,input.Texture); } float4 PSDirectionalLight(VertexShaderOutput input) : COLOR0 { //Difuze float3 L = normalize(-lightDirection); float diffuseLight = max(dot(input.Normal,L), 0); float3 diffuse = Kd*lightColor*diffuseLight; //Specular float3 V = normalize(eyePosition - input.PositionO); float3 H = normalize(L + V); float specularLight = pow(max(dot(input.Normal,H),0),specularPower); if(diffuseLight<=0) specularLight=0; float3 specular = Ks * lightColor * specularLight; //sum all light components float3 light = diffuse + specular; return float4(light,1) * tex2D(texSampler,input.Texture); } technique MultiPassLight { pass Ambient { VertexShader = compile vs_3_0 VertexShaderFunction(); PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 PSAmbient(); } pass Directional { PixelShader = compile ps_3_0 PSDirectionalLight(); } } And here is how I actually apply my effects: public void ApplyLights(ModelMesh mesh, Matrix world, Texture2D modelTexture, Camera camera, Effect effect, GraphicsDevice graphicsDevice) { graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Opaque; effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes["Ambient"].Apply(); foreach (ModelMeshPart part in mesh.MeshParts) { graphicsDevice.SetVertexBuffer(part.VertexBuffer); graphicsDevice.Indices = part.IndexBuffer; // Texturing graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.AlphaBlend; if (modelTexture != null) { effect.Parameters["Texture"].SetValue( modelTexture ); } graphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives( PrimitiveType.TriangleList, part.VertexOffset, 0, part.NumVertices, part.StartIndex, part.PrimitiveCount ); // Applying our shader to all the mesh parts effect.Parameters["WVP"].SetValue( world * camera.View * camera.Projection ); effect.Parameters["World"].SetValue(world); effect.Parameters["eyePosition"].SetValue( camera.Position ); graphicsDevice.BlendState = BlendState.Additive; // Drawing lights foreach (DirectionalLight light in DirectionalLights) { effect.Parameters["lightColor"].SetValue(light.Color.ToVector3()); effect.Parameters["lightDirection"].SetValue(light.Direction); // Applying changes and drawing them effect.CurrentTechnique.Passes["Directional"].Apply(); graphicsDevice.DrawIndexedPrimitives( PrimitiveType.TriangleList, part.VertexOffset, 0, part.NumVertices, part.StartIndex, part.PrimitiveCount ); } } I am also applying this when loading the effect: effect.Parameters["lightColor"].SetValue(Color.White.ToVector3()); effect.Parameters["globalAmbient"].SetValue(Color.White.ToVector3()); effect.Parameters["Ke"].SetValue(0.0f); effect.Parameters["Ka"].SetValue(0.01f); effect.Parameters["Kd"].SetValue(1.0f); effect.Parameters["Ks"].SetValue(0.3f); effect.Parameters["specularPower"].SetValue(100); Thank you very much UPDATE: I tried to load an effect for each model when drawing, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything. I suppose it is because XNA detects that the effect has already been loaded before and doesn't want to load a new one. Any idea why?

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modalpopupextender.Show() wont fire

- by Peter Lea

I'm pretty new to developing for the web so bare with me. I have a company page with multiple locations and emails etc at each of these addresses. The idea is to have a single modalpopup to edit each type of data (one for email, one for urls, one for addresses etc). I link the modalpopupextender to a hiddenbutton and then call an edit function from various places where I can populate some hiddenfields and textboxes in the panel before showing it. The code executes but it just wont show the damn popup, I just see a flash and can't figure out if its my panel, my css or something I don't understand about ajax and postbacks etc. Things i've tried after reading various threads: Disable smart navigation in web.config Move ToolKitScriptManager up to master page and use proxy in content set hiddenbutton to use style="display:none" tried links etc instead of hidden button Heres my code CSS .modalBackground { position: absolute; z-index: 100; top: 0px; left: 0px; background-color: #000; filter: alpha(opacity=60); -moz-opacity: 0.6; opacity: 0.6; } .modalPopup { background-color: #FFD; border-width: 3px; border-style: solid; border-color: gray; padding: 3px;} Asp/html <ajaxToolkit:ModalPopupExtender runat="server" ID="mpe_email" BackgroundCssClass="modalBackground" PopupControlID="modal_email" CancelControlID="btn_cancel_email" TargetControlID="fake_btn_email" /> <asp:Button ID="fake_btn_email" runat="server" Text="email" style="display:none;" /> <asp:panel id="modal_email" runat="server" class="modalPopup" Width="500px" Height="500px"> <asp:HiddenField ID="hf_modal_email_location_id" runat="server" Value="" /> <asp:HiddenField ID="hf_modal_email_contact_id" runat="server" Value="" /> <asp:HiddenField ID="hf_modal_email_comms_id" runat="server" Value="" /> <table width="100%"> <tr> <td> <asp:Label ID="lbl_mpe_email_title" runat="server" Text="Edit Email Address" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <table width="100%"> <tr> <td width="40px"><img src="../images/email.png" height="30px" width="30px"/></td> <td> <table width="100px"> <tr> <td><span>Quick Ref: <asp:TextBox ID="txb_mpe_email_qref" runat="server" Text="" /></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td><span>Email Address: <asp:TextBox ID="txb_mpe_email_address_full" runat="server" Text="" /></span></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="40px" align="left"><asp:Button ID="btn_cancel_email" runat="server" Text="Cancel"/></td> <td align="right"><asp:Button ID="btn_save_email" runat="server" Text="Save" OnCommand="save_modal_email" /></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2" align="right"><asp:Label ID="lbl_mpe_email_err" runat="server" Text="" /></td> </tr> </table> c# public void oloc_ocon_email_edit(object sender, RepeaterCommandEventArgs e) { switch (e.CommandName) { case "edit": hf_modal_email_location_id.Value = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_location_id")).Value; hf_modal_email_contact_id.Value = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_contact_id")).Value; hf_modal_email_comms_id.Value = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_comms_id")).Value; lbl_mpe_email_title.Text = "Edit Email Address"; txb_mpe_email_qref.Text = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_qref")).Value; txb_mpe_email_address_full.Text = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_email_full")).Value; lbl_mpe_email_err.Text = ""; mpe_email.Show(); break; case "new": hf_modal_email_location_id.Value = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_location_id_p")).Value; hf_modal_email_contact_id.Value = ((HiddenField)e.Item.FindControl("hf_oloc_ocon_emails_contact_id_p")).Value; hf_modal_email_comms_id.Value = "0"; lbl_mpe_email_title.Text = "New Email Address"; txb_mpe_email_qref.Text = ""; txb_mpe_email_address_full.Text = ""; lbl_mpe_email_err.Text = ""; mpe_email.Show(); break; } } Stuff makes so much more sense in a desktop environment, I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks

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NullReferenceException makes me want to shoot myself

- by rockinthesixstring

Ok, so once upon a time, my code worked. Since then I did some refactoring (basic stuff so I thought) but now I'm getting a null reference exception, and I can't bloody well figure out why. Here's where it starts. note, this is the logout method, but all of my ActivityLogs sections are throwing this error Function LogOut(ByVal go As String) As ActionResult ActivityLogService.AddActivity(AuthenticationHelper.RetrieveAuthUser.ID, _ IActivityLogService.LogType.UserLogout, _ HttpContext.Request.UserHostAddress) ActivityLogService.SubmitChanges() ''# more stuff happens after this End Function The service is pretty straight forward (notice the ERROR THROWN HERE) Public Sub AddActivity(ByVal userid As Integer, ByVal activity As Integer, ByVal ip As String) Implements IActivityLogService.AddActivity Dim _activity As ActivityLog = New ActivityLog With {.Activity = activity, .UserID = userid, .UserIP = ip.IPAddressToNumber, .ActivityDate = DateTime.UtcNow} ActivityLogRepository.Create(_activity) ''#ERROR THROWN HERE End Sub And the Interface that the Service uses looks like this Public Interface IActivityLogService Sub AddActivity(ByVal userid As Integer, ByVal activity As Integer, ByVal ip As String) Function GetUsersLastActivity(ByVal UserID As Integer) As ActivityLog Sub SubmitChanges() ''' <summary> ''' The type of activity done by the user ''' </summary> ''' <remarks>Each int refers to an activity. ''' There can be no duplicates or modifications ''' after this application goes live</remarks> Enum LogType As Integer ''' <summary> ''' A new session started ''' </summary> SessionStarted = 1 ''' <summary> ''' A new user is Added/Created ''' </summary> UserAdded = 2 ''' <summary> ''' User has updated their profile ''' </summary> UserUpdated = 3 ''' <summary> ''' User has logged into they system ''' </summary> UserLogin = 4 ''' <summary> ''' User has logged out of the system ''' </summary> UserLogout = 5 ''' <summary> ''' A new event has been added ''' </summary> EventAdded = 6 ''' <summary> ''' An event has been updated ''' </summary> EventUpdated = 7 ''' <summary> ''' An event has been deleted ''' </summary> EventDeleted = 8 ''' <summary> ''' An event has received a Up/Down vote ''' </summary> EventVoted = 9 ''' <summary> ''' An event has been closed ''' </summary> EventCloseVoted = 10 ''' <summary> ''' A comment has been added to an event ''' </summary> CommentAdded = 11 ''' <summary> ''' A comment has been updated ''' </summary> CommentUpdated = 12 ''' <summary> ''' A comment has been deleted ''' </summary> CommentDeleted = 13 ''' <summary> ''' An event or comment has been reported as spam ''' </summary> SpamReported = 14 End Enum End Interface And the repository is equally straight forward Public Sub Create(ByVal activity As ActivityLog) Implements IActivityLogRepository.Create dc.ActivityLogs.InsertOnSubmit(activity) End Sub The stack trace is as follows [NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.] MyApp.Core.Domain.ActivityLogService.AddActivity(Int32 userid, Int32 activity, String ip) in E:\Projects\MyApp\MyApp.Core\Domain\Services\ActivityLogService.vb:49 MyApp.Core.Controllers.UsersController.Authenticate(String go) in E:\Projects\MyApp\MyApp.Core\Controllers\UsersController.vb:258 lambda_method(Closure , ControllerBase , Object[] ) +163 System.Web.Mvc.ActionMethodDispatcher.Execute(ControllerBase controller, Object[] parameters) +51 System.Web.Mvc.ReflectedActionDescriptor.Execute(ControllerContext controllerContext, IDictionary2 parameters) +409 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethod(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary2 parameters) +52 System.Web.Mvc.<c_DisplayClass15.b_12() +127 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethodFilter(IActionFilter filter, ActionExecutingContext preContext, Func1 continuation) +436 System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClass17.<InvokeActionMethodWithFilters>b__14() +61 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeActionMethodWithFilters(ControllerContext controllerContext, IList1 filters, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, IDictionary2 parameters) +305 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.InvokeAction(ControllerContext controllerContext, String actionName) +830 System.Web.Mvc.Controller.ExecuteCore() +136 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +232 System.Web.Mvc.ControllerBase.System.Web.Mvc.IController.Execute(RequestContext requestContext) +39 System.Web.Mvc.<>c__DisplayClassb.<BeginProcessRequest>b__5() +68 System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass1.<MakeVoidDelegate>b__0() +44 System.Web.Mvc.Async.<>c__DisplayClass81.b__7(IAsyncResult ) +42 System.Web.Mvc.Async.WrappedAsyncResult`1.End() +141 System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.End(IAsyncResult asyncResult, Object tag) +54 System.Web.Mvc.Async.AsyncResultWrapper.End(IAsyncResult asyncResult, Object tag) +40 System.Web.Mvc.<c_DisplayClasse.b_d() +61 System.Web.Mvc.SecurityUtil.b_0(Action f) +31 System.Web.Mvc.SecurityUtil.ProcessInApplicationTrust(Action action) +56 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult asyncResult) +110 System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.System.Web.IHttpAsyncHandler.EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result) +38 System.Web.CallHandlerExecutionStep.System.Web.HttpApplication.IExecutionStep.Execute() +690 System.Web.HttpApplication.ExecuteStep(IExecutionStep step, Boolean& completedSynchronously) +194 here's an image of the error when attached to the debugger. And here's an image of the DB schema in question Can anyone shed some light on what I might be missing here?

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Javascript: Make a static code, dynamic - List of inputs

- by BoDiE2003

I have this code, that checks some ids and enable others, the javascript is pretty clear about what it does, but since it corresponds to some specific id ranges, I cant do just a look until it finishes, but I'm looking a way to do this dynamic and save 40 lines of code (or more), since its not the best way. function loopGroup1() { var a = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-3_' + a).each(function(chk1) { // watch for clicks chk1.observe('click', function(evt) { dynamicCheckbox1(); }); dynamicCheckbox1(); }); a++; } while (a < 4); } function dynamicCheckbox1() { // count how many of group_first are checked, // doEnable true if any are checked var doEnable = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-3_0:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; var doEnable1 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-3_1:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; var doEnable2 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-3_2:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; // for each in group_second, enable the checkbox, and // remove the cssDisabled class from the parent label var i = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-4_' + i).each(function(item) { if (doEnable || doEnable1 || doEnable2) { item.enable().up('li').removeClassName('cssDisabled'); } else { item.disable().up('li').addClassName('cssDisabled'); } }); i++; } while (i < 4); }; /* * * Loop Group 2 * * */ function loopGroup2() { var a = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-5_' + a).each(function(chk1) { // watch for clicks chk1.observe('click', function(evt) { dynamicCheckbox2(); }); dynamicCheckbox2(); }); a++; } while (a < 4); } function dynamicCheckbox2() { // count how many of group_first are checked, // doEnable true if any are checked var doEnable3 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-5_0:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; // for each in group_second, enable the checkbox, and // remove the cssDisabled class from the parent label var i = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-6_' + i).each(function(item) { if (doEnable3) { item.enable().up('li').removeClassName('cssDisabled'); } else { item.disable().up('li').addClassName('cssDisabled'); } }); i++; } while (i < 4); }; /* * * Loop Group 3 * * */ function loopGroup3() { var a = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-6_' + a).each(function(chk1) { // watch for clicks chk1.observe('click', function(evt) { dynamicCheckbox3(); }); dynamicCheckbox3(); }); a++; } while (a < 4); } function dynamicCheckbox3() { // count how many of group_first are checked, // doEnable true if any are checked var doEnable4 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-6_0:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; var doEnable5 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-6_1:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; // for each in group_second, enable the checkbox, and // remove the cssDisabled class from the parent label var i = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-7_' + i).each(function(item) { if (doEnable4 || doEnable5) { item.enable().up('li').removeClassName('cssDisabled'); } else { item.disable().up('li').addClassName('cssDisabled'); } }); i++; } while (i < 4); }; /* * * Loop Group 4 * * */ function loopGroup4() { var a = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-9_' + a).each(function(chk1) { // watch for clicks chk1.observe('click', function(evt) { dynamicCheckbox4(); }); dynamicCheckbox4(); }); a++; } while (a < 4); } function dynamicCheckbox4() { // count how many of group_first are checked, // doEnable true if any are checked var doEnable6 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-9_0:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; var doEnable7 = ($$('.selectedAuthorities-9_1:checked').length > 0) ? true : false; // for each in group_second, enable the checkbox, and // remove the cssDisabled class from the parent label var i = 0; do { $$('.selectedAuthorities-10_' + i).each(function(item) { if (doEnable6 || doEnable7) { item.enable().up('li').removeClassName('cssDisabled'); } else { item.disable().up('li').addClassName('cssDisabled'); } }); i++; } while (i < 4); };

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Is multithreading the right way to go for my case?

- by Julien Lebosquain

Hello, I'm currently designing a multi-client / server application. I'm using plain good old sockets because WCF or similar technology is not what I need. Let me explain: it isn't the classical case of a client simply calling a service; all clients can 'interact' with each other by sending a packet to the server, which will then do some action, and possible re-dispatch an answer message to one or more clients. Although doable with WCF, the application will get pretty complex with hundreds of different messages. For each connected client, I'm of course using asynchronous methods to send and receive bytes. I've got the messages fully working, everything's fine. Except that for each line of code I'm writing, my head just burns because of multithreading issues. Since there could be around 200 clients connected at the same time, I chose to go the fully multithreaded way: each received message on a socket is immediately processed on the thread pool thread it was received, not on a single consumer thread. Since each client can interact with other clients, and indirectly with shared objects on the server, I must protect almost every object that is mutable. I first went with a ReaderWriterLockSlim for each resource that must be protected, but quickly noticed that there are more writes overall than reads in the server application, and switched to the well-known Monitor to simplify the code. So far, so good. Each resource is protected, I have helper classes that I must use to get a lock and its protected resource, so I can't use an object without getting a lock. Moreover, each client has its own lock that is entered as soon as a packet is received from its socket. It's done to prevent other clients from making changes to the state of this client while it has some messages being processed, which is something that will happen frequently. Now, I don't just need to protect resources from concurrent accesses. I must keep every client in sync with the server for some collections I have. One tricky part that I'm currently struggling with is the following: I have a collection of clients. Each client has its own unique ID. When a client connects, it must receive the IDs of every connected client, and each one of them must be notified of the newcomer's ID. When a client disconnects, every other client must know it so that its ID is no longer valid for them. Every client must always have, at a given time, the same clients collection as the server so that I can assume that everybody knows everybody. This way if I'm sending a message to client #1 telling "Client #2 has done something", I know that it will always be correctly interpreted: Client 1 will never wonder "but who is Client 2 anyway?". My first attempt for handling the connection of a new client (let's call it X) was this pseudo-code (remember that newClient is already locked here): lock (clients) { foreach (var client in clients) { lock (client) { client.Send("newClient with id X has connected"); } } clients.Add(newClient); newClient.Send("the list of other clients"); } Now imagine that in the same time, another client has sent a packet that translates into a message that must be broadcasted to every connected client, the pseudo-code will be something like this (remember that the current client - let's call it Y - is already locked here): lock (clients) { foreach (var client in clients) { lock (client) { client.Send("something"); } } } An obvious deadlock occurs here: on one thread X is locked, the clients lock has been entered, started looping through the clients, and at one moment must get Y's lock... which is already acquired on the second thread, itself waiting for the clients collection lock to be released! This is not the only case like this in the server application. There are other collections which must be kept in sync with the clients, some properties on a client can be changed by another one, etc. I tried other types of locks, lock-free mechanisms and a bunch of other things. Either there were obvious deadlocks when I'm using too much locks for safety, or obvious race conditions otherwise. When I finally find a good middle point between the two, it usually comes with very subtle race conditions / dead locks and other multi-threading issues... my head hurts very quickly since for any single line of code I'm writing I have to review almost the whole application to ensure everything will behave correctly with any number of threads. So here's my final question: how would you resolve this specific case, the general case, and more importantly: aren't I going the wrong way here? I have little problems with the .NET framework, C#, simple concurrency or algorithms in general. Still, I'm lost here. I know I could use only one thread processing the incoming requests and everything will be fine. However, that won't scale well at all with more clients... But I'm thinking more and more to go this simple way. What do you think? Thanks in advance to you, StackOverflow people which have taken the time to read this huge question. I really had to explain the whole context if I want to get some help.

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How to move the mouse

- by GroundZero

I'm making a little bot in C#. At the moment it works pretty well, it can load text from a file and type it for you. But for now, I need to manualy click the textfield to put the focus on it, remaximize my form and then click the Type-button. After the typing, I need to manualy slide the scorebar and press submit. I'd like to know how I can move my mouse with C# and if possible, if possible I'd like to load the mouse positions from a xml-file. I need to move to the textfield, click in it to focus on it, start the type script, move to the slider, hold the mouse down on it while dragging, releasing it on the correct position & clicking on the submitbutton This is what I have for now: To load in the variables, I'm using this script: private void Initialize() { XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(Application.StartupPath + @"..\..\..\CursorPositions.xml"); while (reader.Read()) { switch (reader.NodeType) { case XmlNodeType.Element: // The node is an element. element = reader.Value; break; case XmlNodeType.Text: //Display the text in each element. switch (element) { case "Textbox-X": textX = int.Parse(reader.Value); break; case "Textbox-Y": textY = int.Parse(reader.Value); break; case "SliderBegin-X": sliderX = int.Parse(reader.Value); break; case "SliderBegin-Y": sliderY = int.Parse(reader.Value); break; case "SubmitButton-X": submitX = int.Parse(reader.Value); break; case "SubmitButton-Y": submitY = int.Parse(reader.Value); break; } break; } } This is the xml-file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <CursorPositions> <Textbox-X>430</Textbox-X> <Textbox-Y>270</Textbox-Y> <SliderBegin-X>430</SliderBegin-X> <SliderBegin-Y>470</SliderBegin-Y> <SubmitButton-X>860</SubmitButton-X> <SubmitButton-Y>365</SubmitButton-Y> </CursorPositions> To move the mouse I'm using this piece of code: public partial class FrmMain : Form { [System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll")] public static extern void mouse_event(int dwFlags, int dx, int dy, int cButtons, int dwExtraInfo); public const int MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN = 0x0002; public const int MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP = 0x0004; public const int MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTDOWN = 0x0008; public const int MOUSEEVENTF_RIGHTUP = 0x0010; ... private void btnStart_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { // start button (de)activates loop if (!running) { btnStart.Text = "Stop"; btnStart.Cursor = Cursors.No; running = true; } else { btnStart.Text = "Start"; btnStart.Cursor = Cursors.AppStarting; running = false; } while (running) { // move to textbox & type Cursor.Position = new Point(textX, textY); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, textX, textY, 0, 0); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP, textX, textY, 0, 0); Type(); // wait 90 seconds till slider available Thread.Sleep(90 * 1000); // move to slider & slide according to score Cursor.Position = new Point(sliderX, sliderY); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, sliderX, sliderY, 0, 0); Cursor.Position = new Point(sliderX + 345 / 10 * score, sliderY); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP, sliderX + 345 / 10 * score, sliderY, 0, 0); // submit Cursor.Position = new Point(submitX, submitY); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTDOWN, submitX, submitY, 0, 0); mouse_event(MOUSEEVENTF_LEFTUP, submitX, submitY, 0, 0); // wait 10 sec to be sure it's submitted Thread.Sleep(10 * 1000); // refresh page SendKeys.SendWait("{F5}"); // get new text NewText(); // wait 10 sec to refresh and load song Thread.Sleep(10 * 1000); } } } PS: I get the coordinates via my form. I've got 2 labels that show my X & Y coordinates. To capture them outside the form, I press and hold my Left Mouse Button and 'drag' it outside the form to the correct place. This way I get the coordinates of my mouse outside the form

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Designing an API with compile-time option to remove first parameter to most functions and use a glob

- by tomlogic

I'm trying to design a portable API in ANSI C89/ISO C90 to access a wireless networking device on a serial interface. The library will have multiple network layers, and various versions need to run on embedded devices as small as an 8-bit micro with 32K of code and 2K of data, on up to embedded devices with a megabyte or more of code and data. In most cases, the target processor will have a single network interface and I'll want to use a single global structure with all state information for that device. I don't want to pass a pointer to that structure through the network layers. In a few cases (e.g., device with more resources that needs to live on two networks) I will interface to multiple devices, each with their own global state, and will need to pass a pointer to that state (or an index to a state array) through the layers. I came up with two possible solutions, but neither one is particularly pretty. Keep in mind that the full driver will potentially be 20,000 lines or more, cover multiple files, and contain hundreds of functions. The first solution requires a macro that discards the first parameter for every function that needs to access the global state: // network.h typedef struct dev_t { int var; long othervar; char name[20]; } dev_t; #ifdef IF_MULTI #define foo_function( x, a, b, c) _foo_function( x, a, b, c) #define bar_function( x) _bar_function( x) #else extern dev_t DEV; #define IFACE (&DEV) #define foo_function( x, a, b, c) _foo_function( a, b, c) #define bar_function( x) _bar_function( ) #endif int bar_function( dev_t *IFACE); int foo_function( dev_t *IFACE, int a, long b, char *c); // network.c #ifndef IF_MULTI dev_t DEV; #endif int bar_function( dev_t *IFACE) { memset( IFACE, 0, sizeof *IFACE); return 0; } int foo_function( dev_t *IFACE, int a, long b, char *c) { bar_function( IFACE); IFACE->var = a; IFACE->othervar = b; strcpy( IFACE->name, c); return 0; } The second solution defines macros to use in the function declarations: // network.h typedef struct dev_t { int var; long othervar; char name[20]; } dev_t; #ifdef IF_MULTI #define DEV_PARAM_ONLY dev_t *IFACE #define DEV_PARAM DEV_PARAM_ONLY, #else extern dev_t DEV; #define IFACE (&DEV) #define DEV_PARAM_ONLY void #define DEV_PARAM #endif int bar_function( DEV_PARAM_ONLY); // I don't like the missing comma between DEV_PARAM and arg2... int foo_function( DEV_PARAM int a, long b, char *c); // network.c #ifndef IF_MULTI dev_t DEV; #endif int bar_function( DEV_PARAM_ONLY) { memset( IFACE, 0, sizeof *IFACE); return 0; } int foo_function( DEV_PARAM int a, long b, char *c) { bar_function( IFACE); IFACE->var = a; IFACE->othervar = b; strcpy( IFACE->name, c); return 0; } The C code to access either method remains the same: // multi.c - example of multiple interfaces #define IF_MULTI #include "network.h" dev_t if0, if1; int main() { foo_function( &if0, -1, 3.1415926, "public"); foo_function( &if1, 42, 3.1415926, "private"); return 0; } // single.c - example of a single interface #include "network.h" int main() { foo_function( 11, 1.0, "network"); return 0; } Is there a cleaner method that I haven't figured out? I lean toward the second since it should be easier to maintain, and it's clearer that there's some macro magic in the parameters to the function. Also, the first method requires prefixing the function names with "_" when I want to use them as function pointers. I really do want to remove the parameter in the "single interface" case to eliminate unnecessary code to push the parameter onto the stack, and to allow the function to access the first "real" parameter in a register instead of loading it from the stack. And, if at all possible, I don't want to have to maintain two separate codebases. Thoughts? Ideas? Examples of something similar in existing code? (Note that using C++ isn't an option, since some of the planned targets don't have a C++ compiler available.)

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Trouble Upgrading Rails 2 Routes for a Redmine Plugin

- by user1858628

I am trying to get a Redmine plugin designed for Rails 2 to work with Rails 3. https://github.com/dalyons/redmine-todos-scrum-plugin I've pretty much fixed most parts, but having no success whatsoever in getting the routes to work. The original routes for Rails 2 are as follows: map.resources :todos, :name_prefix => 'project_', :path_prefix => '/projects/:project_id', :member => {:toggle_complete => :post }, :collection => {:sort => :post} map.resources :todos, :name_prefix => 'user_', :path_prefix => '/users/:user_id', :controller => :mytodos, :member => {:toggle_complete => :post }, :collection => {:sort => :post} map.my_todos 'my/todos', :controller => :mytodos, :action => :index map.connect 'projects/:project_id/todos/show/:id', :controller => "todos", :action => "show" rake routes outputs the following: sort_project_todos POST /projects/:project_id/todos/sort(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"sort"} project_todos GET /projects/:project_id/todos(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"index"} POST /projects/:project_id/todos(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"create"} new_project_todo GET /projects/:project_id/todos/new(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"new"} toggle_complete_project_todo POST /projects/:project_id/todos/:id/toggle_complete(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"toggle_complete"} edit_project_todo GET /projects/:project_id/todos/:id/edit(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"edit"} project_todo GET /projects/:project_id/todos/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"show"} PUT /projects/:project_id/todos/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"update"} DELETE /projects/:project_id/todos/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"destroy"} sort_user_todos POST /users/:user_id/todos/sort(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"sort"} user_todos GET /users/:user_id/todos(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"index"} POST /users/:user_id/todos(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"create"} new_user_todo GET /users/:user_id/todos/new(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"new"} toggle_complete_user_todo POST /users/:user_id/todos/:id/toggle_complete(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"toggle_complete"} edit_user_todo GET /users/:user_id/todos/:id/edit(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"edit"} user_todo GET /users/:user_id/todos/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"show"} PUT /users/:user_id/todos/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"update"} DELETE /users/:user_id/todos/:id(.:format) {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"destroy"} my_todos /my/todos {:controller=>"mytodos", :action=>"index"} /projects/:project_id/todos/show/:id {:controller=>"todos", :action=>"show"} The nearest I have got for Rails 3 is follows: scope '/projects/:project_id', :name_prefix => 'project_' do resources :todos, :controller => 'todos' do member do post :toggle_complete end collection do post :sort end end end scope '/users/:user_id', :name_prefix => 'user_' do resources :todos, :controller => 'mytodos' do member do post :toggle_complete end collection do post :sort end end end match 'my/todos' => 'mytodos#index', :as => :my_todos match 'projects/:project_id/todos/show/:id' => 'todos#show' rake routes outputs the following: toggle_complete_todo POST /projects/:project_id/todos/:id/toggle_complete(.:format) todos#toggle_complete {:name_prefix=>"project_"} sort_todos POST /projects/:project_id/todos/sort(.:format) todos#sort {:name_prefix=>"project_"} todos GET /projects/:project_id/todos(.:format) todos#index {:name_prefix=>"project_"} POST /projects/:project_id/todos(.:format) todos#create {:name_prefix=>"project_"} new_todo GET /projects/:project_id/todos/new(.:format) todos#new {:name_prefix=>"project_"} edit_todo GET /projects/:project_id/todos/:id/edit(.:format) todos#edit {:name_prefix=>"project_"} todo GET /projects/:project_id/todos/:id(.:format) todos#show {:name_prefix=>"project_"} PUT /projects/:project_id/todos/:id(.:format) todos#update {:name_prefix=>"project_"} DELETE /projects/:project_id/todos/:id(.:format) todos#destroy {:name_prefix=>"project_"} POST /users/:user_id/todos/:id/toggle_complete(.:format) mytodos#toggle_complete {:name_prefix=>"user_"} POST /users/:user_id/todos/sort(.:format) mytodos#sort {:name_prefix=>"user_"} GET /users/:user_id/todos(.:format) mytodos#index {:name_prefix=>"user_"} POST /users/:user_id/todos(.:format) mytodos#create {:name_prefix=>"user_"} GET /users/:user_id/todos/new(.:format) mytodos#new {:name_prefix=>"user_"} GET /users/:user_id/todos/:id/edit(.:format) mytodos#edit {:name_prefix=>"user_"} GET /users/:user_id/todos/:id(.:format) mytodos#show {:name_prefix=>"user_"} PUT /users/:user_id/todos/:id(.:format) mytodos#update {:name_prefix=>"user_"} DELETE /users/:user_id/todos/:id(.:format) mytodos#destroy {:name_prefix=>"user_"} my_todos /my/todos(.:format) mytodos#index /projects/:project_id/todos/show/:id(.:format) todos#show I am guessing that I am not using :name_prefix correctly, resulting in duplicate paths which are then omitted. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Need help with writing from XML to a SQL Server database (detailed)

- by fogedi

I'm a bit of a newbie with XML and WebServices and stuff like that. I'm working on a project using GlassFish OpenESB to schedule a process to get some information from a webservice and then store in a database. The criteria is basically that i have to use GlassFish OpenESB or EJB modules where i can expose webservices or something along those lines, AND i have to use SQL Server 2005. So far I've been able to talk to the webservice: and receive something along those lines <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/ http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"> <SOAP-ENV:Body> <m:entrypoint_getSettlementsOperationResponse xmlns:m="http://j2ee.netbeans.org/wsdl/BorgunTestBPEL/entrypoint_getSettlements"> <part1> <GetSettlementsByMerchantResponse xmlns="http://Borgun.Services.Gateway/2010/04/Settlement"> <GetSettlementsByMerchantResult xmlns:a="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/Borgun.Library.Common" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:msgns="http://Borgun.Services.Gateway/2010/04/Settlement" xmlns:ns0="http://j2ee.netbeans.org/wsdl/BorgunTestBPEL/entrypoint_getSettlements"> <a:CreditCardSettlement> <a:amexAmount>XXX</a:amexAmount> <a:amount>XXXX</a:amount> <a:batches> <a:CreditCardBatch> <a:batchdate>xxx</a:batchdate> <a:batchnumber>XXXX</a:batchnumber> <a:currencyCode>xxxx</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementRunNumber>xx4</a:settlementRunNumber> <a:settlementdate>2010-04-06T00:00:00</a:settlementdate> <a:slips>2</a:slips> <a:sum>xxxx</a:sum> </a:CreditCardBatch> <a:CreditCardBatch> <a:batchdate>xxx</a:batchdate> <a:batchnumber>xxxxx</a:batchnumber> <a:currencyCode>xxxx</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementRunNumber>xxxx</a:settlementRunNumber> <a:settlementdate>xxxx</a:settlementdate> <a:slips>x</a:slips> <a:sum>xxx</a:sum> </a:CreditCardBatch> </a:batches> <a:commission>xx</a:commission> <a:currencyCode>xxx</a:currencyCode> <a:deduction>-xxx</a:deduction> <a:deductionItems> <a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> <a:amount>-xxx</a:amount> <a:code>VIÐSKF</a:code> <a:currencyCode>ISK</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementrunnumber>xxx</a:settlementrunnumber> <a:text>Afsláttur v/ekorta</a:text> </a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> <a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> <a:amount>-335.00</a:amount> <a:code>ÁLAGKREK</a:code> <a:currencyCode>ISK</a:currencyCode> <a:merchantnumber>xxx</a:merchantnumber> <a:settlementrunnumber>xxx</a:settlementrunnumber> <a:text>xxx</a:text> </a:CrediCardSettlementDeduction> </a:deductionItems> </a:CreditCardSettlement> </GetSettlementsByMerchantResult> </GetSettlementsByMerchantResponse> </part1> </m:entrypoint_getSettlementsOperationResponse> </SOAP-ENV:Body> </SOAP-ENV:Envelope> I have access to the SQL Server 2005 server which is remote and i know i can insert into it but given that now i have a one-to-many relationship i want to be able to rollback if something fails. So in short how can I insert from this XML into the DB preferably without manually walking through the XML tree? I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be able to use Entity and Session Beans or maybe JAXB bindings but I'm simply not being successful. One of the reasons might have something to do with the fact that the soap response contains an array of CreditCardSettlements and each of which contains an array of Batches and DeductionItems It would be best if someone can help me do this via a BPEL in GlassFish OpenESB but any hint at a java solution is much appreciated.

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how to define div or table cell height depending on the height of other divs or cells

- by John

I want to have a web page that contains 3 parts: A header at the top of the page , a footer (both of which having specific height in px)and the main part of the page which should be a div or table cell with the appropriate height attribute in order to take all the available space between them. I want the page to take 100% of the browser window height, trying to avoid scrollbars. The problems I have are the following: USING DIVs a) If I set the maindiv height to 100%, the page overflows and I get a vertical scrolbar. (the maindiv's height is set to the 100% of the browser window) <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Untitled Document</title> </head> <style type="text/css"> <!-- body, html{ height: 100%; max-height:100%; width: 100%; margin:0; padding:0; } div{padding:0;margin:0;} #containerdiv{height:100%;width:100%;background-color:#FF9;border:0;} #headerdiv{height:150px;width:100%;background-color:#0F0;border:0;} #footerdiv{height:50px;width:100%;background-color:#00F;border:0; } #maindiv{ background-color:#F00; height:100%; } div{border:#000 medium solid;border:0;} </style> <body> <div id="containerdiv"> <div id="headerdiv">headerdiv</div> <div id="maindiv">maindiv</div> <div id="footerdiv">footerdiv</div> </div> </body> </html> b) If I set the maindiv height to auto, the maindiv height is depending on it's content, which is not what I want. USING tables a) If I set the main cell height to 100% it works fine with Firefox but in Internet Explorer 8 I get a vertical scrollbar (you can use the next code block using th style="height:100%" instead of "auto" to see this.) b) If I set the main cell to auto it seems to be working both in IE and FF but then I have the problem that anything I put inside the maincell (table or div) cannot get maincell's full height in IE. <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Untitled Document</title> </head> <style type="text/css"> <!-- body, html, table{ height: 100%; width: 100%; margin:0; padding:0; } table{border:#000 0px solid} </style> <body> <table style="background:#063" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"> <tr><th style="height:150px;background-color:#FF0"></th></tr> <tr> <th style="height:auto"><table style="background:#0FF;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><th style="height:auto">nested cell</th></tr></table> </th> </tr> <tr><th style="height:50px;background-color:#FF0"></th></tr> </table> </body> </html> </html> Any ideas? Maybe there is an easier way to define the size of the main part of the page in px using javascript? (my javascript skills are pretty poor so any help with this is welcome!)

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Specifying $(this).val() for two different elements (by class)

- by Chaya Cooper

What would be the correct syntax for specifying 2 elements by class to evaluate their values when they have different classes? This snippet adds and/or removes values from "increase_priority1" when the user has selected both a complaint and ranked the importance level of the issue, however when I added the 2nd element (".complaint select") to the If Statement it stopped working properly and only accepts input from the 2nd item (Waist) after the 1rst item (Shoulders) has been selected. I believe the problem is that it's unable to determine which ".complaint select" to use, but I haven't been able to figure out how to use (this) for the 2nd element, or another similar approach. The complete function includes apx. 20 similar pairs of If Statements to set & unset other elements, and a working example with 4 pairs is available at http://jsfiddle.net/chayacooper/vWLEn/168/ I'm trying to avoid using ID's because that becomes pretty cumbersome to do for 25 Select elements and each of their values (ID's were also problematic because it stopped working when I added a 2nd element to the If Statement for removing/unsetting a value) Javascript var $increase_priority1 = $(".increase_priority1"); // If value is "Shoulders", complaint was Shoulders too small (select name=Shoulders value=Too_small) and it was assigned a level 1 priority (select class="ranking shoulders" value=1). // var's for other issues and priority levels go here $(".ranking, .complaint select").change(function() { var name = $(this).data("name"); //get priority name if ($(".complaint select").val() === "Too_small" && $(this).val() == 1 && !$(this).data("increase_priority1")) { //rank is 1, and not yet added to priority list $("<option>", {text:name, val:name}).appendTo($increase_priority1); $(this).data("increase_priority1", true); //flag as a priority item } if ($(this).data("increase_priority1") && ($(this).val() != 1 || $(".complaint select").val() != "Too_small")) { //is in priority list, but now demoted $("option[value=" + name + "]", $increase_priority1).remove(); $(this).removeData("increase_priority1"); //no longer a priority item } // Similar If Statements to set & unset other elements go here }); HTML <div> <label>To Increase - 1rst Priority <select name="modify_increase_1rst[]" class="increase_priority1" multiple> </select></label> </div> <div> <span class="complaint"> <label>Shoulders</label> <select name=Shoulders> <option value="null">Select</option><option value="Too_small">Too Small</option><option value="Too_big">Too Big</option><option value="Too_expensive">Too expensive</option> </select> </span> <label>Ranking</label> <select name="importance_bother_shoulders" class="ranking shoulders" data-name="Shoulders"> <option value="Null">Select</option><option value="1">1</option><option value="2">2</option><option value="3">3</option><option value="4">4</option> <option value="5">5</option> </select> </div> <div> <span class="complaint"> <label>Waist</label> <select name=Waist> <option value="null">Select</option><option value="Too_small">Too Small</option><option value="Too_big">Too Big</option><option value="Too_expensive">Too expensive</option> </select> </span> <label>Ranking</label> <select name="importance_bother_waist" class="ranking waist" data-name="Waist"> <option value="Null">Select</option><option value="1">1</option><option value="2">2</option><option value="3">3</option><option value="4">4</option> <option value="5">5</option> </select> </div>

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ZF2 Vertical Form

- by yunhasnawa

I created a simple form in typical ZF2 application. The form class code is just a modified code provided by Zend's Album example. <?php namespace Admin\Form; use Zend\Form\Form; class CityForm extends Form { public function __construct($name = null) { parent::__construct('city'); $this->setAttribute('method', 'post'); $this->add(array( 'name' => 'id', 'attributes' => array( 'type' => 'hidden', ), )); $this->add(array( 'name' => 'name', 'attributes' => array( 'type' => 'text' ), 'options' => array( 'label' => 'Name', ), )); $this->add(array( 'name' => 'province', 'attributes' => array( 'type' => 'text' ), 'options' => array( 'label' => 'Province', ), )); $this->add(array( 'name' => 'country', 'attributes' => array( 'type' => 'text' ), 'options' => array( 'label' => 'Country', ), )); $this->add(array( 'name' => 'coordinate', 'attributes' => array( 'type' => 'text' ), 'options' => array( 'label' => 'Coordinate', ), )); $this->add(array( 'name' => 'submit', 'attributes' => array( 'type' => 'submit', 'value' => 'Save', 'id' => 'submitButton', ), )); } } And call it like this in CityController, a typical controller extends AbstractActionController: public function addAction() { $form = new CityForm(); $viewData = array( 'form' => $form ); return new ViewModel($viewData); } Finally in view I echo it like this: <?php $title = 'Add New City'; ?> <?php $this->headtitle($title); ?> <h1><?php echo $this->escapehtml($title); ?></h1> <?php $form = $this->form; ?> <?php $form->setAttribute('action', $this->url('city', array('action' => 'add'))); ?> <?php $form->prepare(); ?> <?php echo $this->form()->openTag($form); echo $this->formHidden($form->get('id')); echo $this->formRow($form->get('name')); echo $this->formRow($form->get('province')); echo $this->formRow($form->get('country')); echo $this->formRow($form->get('coordinate')); echo $this->formSubmit($form->get('submit')); echo $this->form()->closeTag(); ?> What I expected to see is a vertical form like this: But what i got is an ugly form like this: What's wrong with my code? Please help. EDIT: When I inspect element, the form generated is strange. The <input> element is inside the <label> element. <form id="city" name="city" method="post" action="/karciscus/public/admin/city/add"> <input type="hidden" value="" name="id"> <label> <span>Name</span><input type="text" value="" name="name"> </label> <label> <span>Province</span><input type="text" value="" name="province"> </label> <label> <span>Country</span><input type="text" value="" name="country"> </label> <label> <span> Coordinate</span><input type="text" value="" name="coordinate"> </label> <input type="submit" value="Save" id="submitButton" name="submit"> </form> I'm pretty sure it is the cause of my ugly rendered form. I think it is not supposedly like that. How to fix it?

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Simple prime number program - Weird issue with threads C#

- by Para

Hi! This is my code: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading; namespace FirePrime { class Program { static bool[] ThreadsFinished; static bool[] nums; static bool AllThreadsFinished() { bool allThreadsFinished = false; foreach (var threadFinished in ThreadsFinished) { allThreadsFinished &= threadFinished; } return allThreadsFinished; } static bool isPrime(int n) { if (n < 2) { return false; } if (n == 2) { return true; } if (n % 2 == 0) { return false; } int d = 3; while (d * d <= n) { if (n % d == 0) { return false; } d += 2; } return true; } static void MarkPrimes(int startNumber,int stopNumber,int ThreadNr) { for (int j = startNumber; j < stopNumber; j++) nums[j] = isPrime(j); lock (typeof(Program)) { ThreadsFinished[ThreadNr] = true; } } static void Main(string[] args) { int nrNums = 100; int nrThreads = 10; //var threadStartNums = new List<int>(); ThreadsFinished = new bool[nrThreads]; nums = new bool[nrNums]; //var nums = new List<bool>(); nums[0] = false; nums[1] = false; for(int i=2;i<nrNums;i++) nums[i] = true; int interval = (int)(nrNums / nrThreads); //threadStartNums.Add(2); //int aux = firstStartNum; //int i = 2; //while (aux < interval) //{ // aux = interval*i; // i=i+1; // threadStartNums.Add(aux); //} int startNum = 0; for (int i = 0; i < nrThreads; i++) { var _thread = new System.Threading.Thread(() => MarkPrimes(startNum, Math.Min(startNum + interval, nrNums), i)); startNum = startNum + interval; //set the thread to run in the background _thread.IsBackground = true; //start our thread _thread.Start(); } while (!AllThreadsFinished()) { Thread.Sleep(1); } for (int i = 0; i < nrNums; i++) if(nums[i]) Console.WriteLine(i); } } } This should be a pretty simple program that is supposed to find and output the first nrNums prime numbers using nrThreads threads working in parallel. So, I just split nrNums into nrThreads equal chunks (well, the last one won't be equal; if nrThreads doesn't divide by nrNums, it will also contain the remainder, of course). I start nrThreads threads. They all test each number in their respective chunk and see if it is prime or not; they mark everything out in a bool array that keeps a tab on all the primes. The threads all turn a specific element in another boolean array ThreadsFinished to true when they finish. Now the weird part begins: The threads never all end. If I debug, I find that ThreadNr is not what I assign to it in the loop but another value. I guess this is normal since the threads execute afterwards and the counter (the variable i) is already increased by then but I cannot understand how to make the code be right. Can anyone help? Thank you in advance. P.S.: I know the algorithm is not very efficient; I am aiming at a solution using the sieve of Eratosthenes also with x given threads. But for now I can't even get this one to work and I haven't found any examples of any implementations of that algorithm anywhere in a language that I can understand.

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jquery for each function

- by jonathan p

I have added a show more or less function to a div - this all works fine however now i need to only allow this functionality if a element is over a certain height in this case. there are numerous classes of the same so i need to do the check on each element. although i am having problems getting it to work see code below : $(document).ready(function() { $(".less").hide(); $(".more").each(function() { var actualHeight = ($(this).parent().parent().find('.appsList').height()); if (actualHeight < 150) { $(".more").hide(); } }); $(".more").click(function() { var paragraphHeight = ($(this).parent().parent().find('.appsList').height()); if (paragraphHeight > 150) { $(this).parent().parent().find('.appsHolderBody').animate({height:(paragraphHeight + 100) }); $(this).hide('slow'); $(this).parent().find('.less').show(); } return false; }); $(".less").click(function() { $(this).parent().parent().find('.appsHolderBody').animate({height:190 }); $(this).hide('slow'); $(this).parent().find('.more').show(); return false; }); }); Any help would be greatly appreciated - please note when i am targeting the parent using .parent.parent i know its not pretty but could'nt get it to run using eq(4) for some reason. so the main problem is with this part of code $(".more").each(function() { var actualHeight = ($(this).parent().parent().find('.appsList').height()); if (actualHeight < 150) { $(".more").hide(); } it hides all of the elements $(".more") instead of the ones that match the condition. html as requested <div class="appsHolder"> <div class="appsHolderBody"> <h5 class="appTitle">General Apps</h5> <ul class="appsList"> <li class="mainAppList">Resource Manager</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Resource Manager</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Yet Another App</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Yet Another App</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Yet Another App</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Yet Another App</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Yet Another App</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> <li class="mainAppList">Yet Another App</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="appsHolderExpander"> <a href="" class="more">More <img src="/wps/PA_applicationsintros/./img/downArrow.png" /></a> <a href="" class="less">Less <img src="/wps/PA_applicationsintros/./img/upArrow.png" /></a> </div> </div> <div class="appsHolderAdvertising"> <div class="appsHolderBody"> <h5 class="appTitle">Advertising Apps</h5> <ul class="appsList"> <li class="mainAppList">ATEX</li> <li><a href="">Launch</a> <a href="">Info</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="appsHolderExpander"> <a href="" class="more">More <img src="/wps/PA_applicationsintros/./img/downArrow.png" /></a> <a href="" class="less">Less <img src="/wps/PA_applicationsintros/./img/upArrow.png" /></a> </div> </div> cheers in advance

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Objects in Java ArrayList don't get updated.

- by Sbm007

This is going to be a very long post, hopefully you can understand what I'm talking about and I appreciate any help. Thanks Basically, I've created a personal, non-commercial project (which I don't plan to release) that can read ZIP and RAR files. It can only read the contents in the archive, the folders inside, the files inside the folders and its properties (such as last modified date, last modified time, CRC checksum, uncompressed size, compressed size and file name). It can't extract files either, so it's really a ZIP/RAR viewer if you may. Anyway that's slightly irrelevant to my problem but I thought I'd give you some background info. Now for my problem: I can successfully list all the folders and files inside a ZIP archive, so now I want to take that raw input and link it together in some useful way. I made 2 classes: ArchiveFile (represents a file inside a ZIP) and ArchiveFolder (represents a folder inside a ZIP). They both have some useful methods such as getLastModifiedDate, getName, getPath and so on. But the difference is that ArchiveFolder can hold an ArrayList of ArchiveFile's and additional ArchiveFolder's (think of this as files and folders inside a folder). Now I want to populate my raw input into one root ArchiveFolder, which will have all the files in the root dir of the ZIP in the ArchiveFile's ArrayList and any additional folders in the root dir of the ZIP in the ArchiveFolder's ArrayList (and this process can continue on like this like a chain reaction (more files/folders in that ArchiveFolder etc etc). So I came up with the following code: while (archive.hasMore()) { String path = ""; ArchiveFolder current = root; String[] contents = archive.getName().split("/"); for (int x = 0; x < contents.length; ++x) { if (x == (contents.length - 1) && !archive.getName().endsWith("/")) { // If on last item and item is a file path += contents[x]; // Update final path ArchiveFile file = new ArchiveFile(path, contents[x], archive.getUncompressedSize(), archive.getCompressedSize(), archive.getModifiedTime(), archive.getModifiedDate(), archive.getCRC()); current.addFile(file); // Create and add the file to the current ArchiveFolder } else if (x == (contents.length - 1)) { // Else if we are on last item and it is a folder path += contents[x] + "/"; // Update final path ArchiveFolder folder = new ArchiveFolder(path, contents[x], archive.getModifiedTime(), archive.getModifiedDate()); current.addFolder(folder); // Create and add this folder to the current ArchiveFile } else { // Else if we are still traversing through the path path += contents[x] + "/"; // Update path ArchiveFolder folder = new ArchiveFolder(path, contents[x]); current.addFolder(folder); // Create and add folder (remember we do not know the modified date/time as all we know is the path, so we can deduce the name only) current = folder; // Update current ArchiveFolder to the newly created one for the next iteration of the for loop } } archive.getNext(); } Assume that root is the root ArchiveFolder (initially empty). And that archive.getName() returns the name of the current file OR folder in the following fashion: file.txt or folder1/file2.txt or folder4/folder2/ (this is a empty folder) etc. So basically the relative path from the root of the ZIP archive. Please read through the comments in the above code to familiarize yourself with it. Also assume that the addFolder method in an ArchiveFile, only adds the folder if it doesn't exist already (so there are no multiple folders) and it also updates the time and date of an existing folder if it is blank (ie it was a intermediate folder we only knew the name of, but now we know its details). The code for addFolder is (pretty self-explanitory): public void addFolder(ArchiveFolder folder) { int loc = folders.indexOf(folder); // folders is the ArrayList containing ArchiveFolder's if (loc == -1) { folders.add(folder); } else { ArchiveFolder real = folders.get(loc); if (real.time == null) { real.setTime(folder.getTime()); real.setDate(folder.getDate()); } } } So I can't see anything wrong with the code, it works and after finishing, the root ArchiveFolder contains all the files in the root of the ZIP as I want it to, and it contains all the direcories in the root folder as I want it to. So you'd think it works as expected, but no the ArchiveFolder's in the root folder don't contain the data inside those 'child' folders, it's just a blank folder with no additional files and folders (while it does really contain some more files/folders when viewed in WinZip). After debugging using Eclipse, the for loop does iterate through all the files (even those not included above), so this led me to believe that there is a problem with this line of the code: current = folder; What it does is, it updates the current folder (used as an intermediate by the loop) to the newly added folder. I thought Java passed by reference and thus all new operations and new additions in future ArchiveFile's and ArchiveFolder's are automatically updated, and parent ArchiveFolder's will be updated accordingly. But that does not appear to be the case? I know this is a long ass post and I really hope anyone can help me out with this. Thanks in advance.

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.NET WebRequest.PreAuthenticate not quite what it sounds like

- by Rick Strahl

I’ve run into the problem a few times now: How to pre-authenticate .NET WebRequest calls doing an HTTP call to the server – essentially send authentication credentials on the very first request instead of waiting for a server challenge first? At first glance this sound like it should be easy: The .NET WebRequest object has a PreAuthenticate property which sounds like it should force authentication credentials to be sent on the first request. Looking at the MSDN example certainly looks like it does: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.webrequest.preauthenticate.aspx Unfortunately the MSDN sample is wrong. As is the text of the Help topic which incorrectly leads you to believe that PreAuthenticate… wait for it - pre-authenticates. But it doesn’t allow you to set credentials that are sent on the first request. What this property actually does is quite different. It doesn’t send credentials on the first request but rather caches the credentials ONCE you have already authenticated once. Http Authentication is based on a challenge response mechanism typically where the client sends a request and the server responds with a 401 header requesting authentication. So the client sends a request like this: GET /wconnect/admin/wc.wc?_maintain~ShowStatus HTTP/1.1 Host: rasnote User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506) Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en,de;q=0.7,en-us;q=0.3 Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive: 300 Connection: keep-alive and the server responds with: HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized Cache-Control: private Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Server: Microsoft-IIS/7.5 WWW-Authenticate: basic realm=rasnote" X-AspNet-Version: 2.0.50727 WWW-Authenticate: Negotiate WWW-Authenticate: NTLM WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="rasnote" X-Powered-By: ASP.NET Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:58:20 GMT Content-Length: 5163 plus the actual error message body. The client then is responsible for re-sending the current request with the authentication token information provided (in this case Basic Auth): GET /wconnect/admin/wc.wc?_maintain~ShowStatus HTTP/1.1 Host: rasnote User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506) Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 Accept-Language: en,de;q=0.7,en-us;q=0.3 Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Keep-Alive: 300 Connection: keep-alive Cookie: TimeTrakker=2HJ1998WH06696; WebLogCommentUser=Rick Strahl|http://www.west-wind.com/|[email protected]; WebStoreUser=b8bd0ed9 Authorization: Basic cgsf12aDpkc2ZhZG1zMA== Once the authorization info is sent the server responds with the actual page result. Now if you use WebRequest (or WebClient) the default behavior is to re-authenticate on every request that requires authorization. This means if you look in Fiddler or some other HTTP client Proxy that captures requests you’ll see that each request re-authenticates: Here are two requests fired back to back: and you can see the 401 challenge, the 200 response for both requests. If you watch this same conversation between a browser and a server you’ll notice that the first 401 is also there but the subsequent 401 requests are not present. WebRequest.PreAuthenticate And this is precisely what the WebRequest.PreAuthenticate property does: It’s a caching mechanism that caches the connection credentials for a given domain in the active process and resends it on subsequent requests. It does not send credentials on the first request but it will cache credentials on subsequent requests after authentication has succeeded: string url = "http://rasnote/wconnect/admin/wc.wc?_maintain~ShowStatus"; HttpWebRequest req = HttpWebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest; req.PreAuthenticate = true; req.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("rick", "secret", "rasnote"); req.AuthenticationLevel = System.Net.Security.AuthenticationLevel.MutualAuthRequested; req.UserAgent = ": Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506)"; WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse(); resp.Close(); req = HttpWebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest; req.PreAuthenticate = true; req.Credentials = new NetworkCredential("rstrahl", "secret", "rasnote"); req.AuthenticationLevel = System.Net.Security.AuthenticationLevel.MutualAuthRequested; req.UserAgent = ": Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506)"; resp = req.GetResponse(); which results in the desired sequence: where only the first request doesn’t send credentials. This is quite useful as it saves quite a few round trips to the server – bascially it saves one auth request request for every authenticated request you make. In most scenarios I think you’d want to send these credentials this way but one downside to this is that there’s no way to log out the client. Since the client always sends the credentials once authenticated only an explicit operation ON THE SERVER can undo the credentials by forcing another login explicitly (ie. re-challenging with a forced 401 request). Forcing Basic Authentication Credentials on the first Request On a few occasions I’ve needed to send credentials on a first request – mainly to some oddball third party Web Services (why you’d want to use Basic Auth on a Web Service is beyond me – don’t ask but it’s not uncommon in my experience). This is true of certain services that are using Basic Authentication (especially some Apache based Web Services) and REQUIRE that the authentication is sent right from the first request. No challenge first. Ugly but there it is. Now the following works only with Basic Authentication because it’s pretty straight forward to create the Basic Authorization ‘token’ in code since it’s just an unencrypted encoding of the user name and password into base64. As you might guess this is totally unsecure and should only be used when using HTTPS/SSL connections (i’m not in this example so I can capture the Fiddler trace and my local machine doesn’t have a cert installed, but for production apps ALWAYS use SSL with basic auth). The idea is that you simply add the required Authorization header to the request on your own along with the authorization string that encodes the username and password: string url = "http://rasnote/wconnect/admin/wc.wc?_maintain~ShowStatus"; HttpWebRequest req = HttpWebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest; string user = "rick"; string pwd = "secret"; string domain = "www.west-wind.com"; string auth = "Basic " + Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(user + ":" + pwd)); req.PreAuthenticate = true; req.AuthenticationLevel = System.Net.Security.AuthenticationLevel.MutualAuthRequested;req.Headers.Add("Authorization", auth); req.UserAgent = ": Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506)"; WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse(); resp.Close(); This works and causes the request to immediately send auth information to the server. However, this only works with Basic Auth because you can actually create the authentication credentials easily on the client because it’s essentially clear text. The same doesn’t work for Windows or Digest authentication since you can’t easily create the authentication token on the client and send it to the server. Another issue with this approach is that PreAuthenticate has no effect when you manually force the authentication. As far as Web Request is concerned it never sent the authentication information so it’s not actually caching the value any longer. If you run 3 requests in a row like this: string url = "http://rasnote/wconnect/admin/wc.wc?_maintain~ShowStatus"; HttpWebRequest req = HttpWebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest; string user = "ricks"; string pwd = "secret"; string domain = "www.west-wind.com"; string auth = "Basic " + Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(user + ":" + pwd)); req.PreAuthenticate = true; req.Headers.Add("Authorization", auth); req.UserAgent = ": Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506)"; WebResponse resp = req.GetResponse(); resp.Close(); req = HttpWebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest; req.PreAuthenticate = true; req.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(user, pwd, domain); req.UserAgent = ": Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506)"; resp = req.GetResponse(); resp.Close(); req = HttpWebRequest.Create(url) as HttpWebRequest; req.PreAuthenticate = true; req.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(user, pwd, domain); req.UserAgent = ": Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 4.0.20506)"; resp = req.GetResponse(); you’ll find the trace looking like this: where the first request (the one we explicitly add the header to) authenticates, the second challenges, and any subsequent ones then use the PreAuthenticate credential caching. In effect you’ll end up with one extra 401 request in this scenario, which is still better than 401 challenges on each request. Getting Access to WebRequest in Classic .NET Web Service Clients If you’re running a classic .NET Web Service client (non-WCF) one issue with the above is how do you get access to the WebRequest to actually add the custom headers to do the custom Authentication described above? One easy way is to implement a partial class that allows you add headers with something like this: public partial class TaxService { protected NameValueCollection Headers = new NameValueCollection(); public void AddHttpHeader(string key, string value) { this.Headers.Add(key,value); } public void ClearHttpHeaders() { this.Headers.Clear(); } protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri uri) { HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest) base.GetWebRequest(uri); request.Headers.Add(this.Headers); return request; } } where TaxService is the name of the .NET generated proxy class. In code you can then call AddHttpHeader() anywhere to add additional headers which are sent as part of the GetWebRequest override. Nice and simple once you know where to hook it. For WCF there’s a bit more work involved by creating a message extension as described here: http://weblogs.asp.net/avnerk/archive/2006/04/26/Adding-custom-headers-to-every-WCF-call-_2D00_-a-solution.aspx. FWIW, I think that HTTP header manipulation should be readily available on any HTTP based Web Service client DIRECTLY without having to subclass or implement a special interface hook. But alas a little extra work is required in .NET to make this happen Not a Common Problem, but when it happens… This has been one of those issues that is really rare, but it’s bitten me on several occasions when dealing with oddball Web services – a couple of times in my own work interacting with various Web Services and a few times on customer projects that required interaction with credentials-first services. Since the servers determine the protocol, we don’t have a choice but to follow the protocol. Lovely following standards that implementers decide to ignore, isn’t it? :-}© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2010Posted in .NET CSharp Web Services

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Loading jQuery Consistently in a .NET Web App

- by Rick Strahl

One thing that frequently comes up in discussions when using jQuery is how to best load the jQuery library (as well as other commonly used and updated libraries) in a Web application. Specifically the issue is the one of versioning and making sure that you can easily update and switch versions of script files with application wide settings in one place and having your script usage reflect those settings in the entire application on all pages that use the script. Although I use jQuery as an example here, the same concepts can be applied to any script library - for example in my Web libraries I use the same approach for jQuery.ui and my own internal jQuery support library. The concepts used here can be applied both in WebForms and MVC. Loading jQuery Properly From CDN Before we look at a generic way to load jQuery via some server logic, let me first point out my preferred way to embed jQuery into the page. I use the Google CDN to load jQuery and then use a fallback URL to handle the offline or no Internet connection scenario. Why use a CDN? CDN links tend to be loaded more quickly since they are very likely to be cached in user's browsers already as jQuery CDN is used by many, many sites on the Web. Using a CDN also removes load from your Web server and puts the load bearing on the CDN provider - in this case Google - rather than on your Web site. On the downside, CDN links gives the provider (Google, Microsoft) yet another way to track users through their Web usage. Here's how I use jQuery CDN plus a fallback link on my WebLog for example: <!DOCTYPE HTML> <html> <head> <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js"></script> <script> if (typeof (jQuery) == 'undefined') document.write(unescape("%3Cscript " + "src='/Weblog/wwSC.axd?r=Westwind.Web.Controls.Resources.jquery.js' %3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <title>Rick Strahl's Web Log</title> ... </head> You can see that the CDN is referenced first, followed by a small script block that checks to see whether jQuery was loaded (jQuery object exists). If it didn't load another script reference is added to the document dynamically pointing to a backup URL. In this case my backup URL points at a WebResource in my Westwind.Web assembly, but the URL can also be local script like src="/scripts/jquery.min.js". Important: Use the proper Protocol/Scheme for for CDN Urls [updated based on comments] If you're using a CDN to load an external script resource you should always make sure that the script is loaded with the same protocol as the parent page to avoid mixed content warnings by the browser. You don't want to load a script link to an http:// resource when you're on an https:// page. The easiest way to use this is by using a protocol relative URL: <script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js"></script> which is an easy way to load resources from other domains. This URL syntax will automatically use the parent page's protocol (or more correctly scheme). As long as the remote domains support both http:// and https:// access this should work. BTW this also works in CSS (with some limitations) and links. BTW, I didn't know about this until it was pointed out in the comments. This is a very useful feature for many things - ah the benefits of my blog to myself :-) Version Numbers When you use a CDN you notice that you have to reference a specific version of jQuery. When using local files you may not have to do this as you can rename your private copy of jQuery.js, but for CDN the references are always versioned. The version number is of course very important to ensure you getting the version you have tested with, but it's also important to the provider because it ensures that cached content is always correct. If an existing file was updated the updates might take a very long time to get past the locally cached content and won't refresh properly. The version number ensures you get the right version and not some cached content that has been changed but not updated in your cache. On the other hand version numbers also mean that once you decide to use a new version of the script you now have to change all your script references in your pages. Depending on whether you use some sort of master/layout page or not this may or may not be easy in your application. Even if you do use master/layout pages, chances are that you probably have a few of them and at the very least all of those have to be updated for the scripts. If you use individual pages for all content this issue then spreads to all of your pages. Search and Replace in Files will do the trick, but it's still something that's easy to forget and worry about. Personaly I think it makes sense to have a single place where you can specify common script libraries that you want to load and more importantly which versions thereof and where they are loaded from. Loading Scripts via Server Code Script loading has always been important to me and as long as I can remember I've always built some custom script loading routines into my Web frameworks. WebForms makes this fairly easy because it has a reasonably useful script manager (ClientScriptManager and the ScriptManager) which allow injecting script into the page easily from anywhere in the Page cycle. What's nice about these components is that they allow scripts to be injected by controls so components can wrap up complex script/resource dependencies more easily without having to require long lists of CSS/Scripts/Image includes. In MVC or pure script driven applications like Razor WebPages the process is more raw, requiring you to embed script references in the right place. But its also more immediate - it lets you know exactly which versions of scripts to use because you have to manually embed them. In WebForms with different controls loading resources this often can get confusing because it's quite possible to load multiple versions of the same script library into a page, the results of which are less than optimal… In this post I look a simple routine that embeds jQuery into the page based on a few application wide configuration settings. It returns only a string of the script tags that can be manually embedded into a Page template. It's a small function that merely a string of the script tags shown at the begging of this post along with some options on how that string is comprised. You'll be able to specify in one place which version loads and then all places where the help function is used will automatically reflect this selection. Options allow specification of the jQuery CDN Url, the fallback Url and where jQuery should be loaded from (script folder, Resource or CDN in my case). While this is specific to jQuery you can apply this to other resources as well. For example I use a similar approach with jQuery.ui as well using practically the same semantics. Providing Resources in ControlResources In my Westwind.Web Web utility library I have a class called ControlResources which is responsible for holding resource Urls, resource IDs and string contants that reference those resource IDs. The library also provides a few helper methods for loading common scriptscripts into a Web page. There are specific versions for WebForms which use the ClientScriptManager/ScriptManager and script link methods that can be used in any .NET technology that can embed an expression into the output template (or code for that matter). The ControlResources class contains mostly static content - references to resources mostly. But it also contains a few static properties that configure script loading: A Script LoadMode (CDN, Resource, or script url) A default CDN Url A fallback url They are static properties in the ControlResources class: public class ControlResources { /// <summary> /// Determines what location jQuery is loaded from /// </summary> public static JQueryLoadModes jQueryLoadMode = JQueryLoadModes.ContentDeliveryNetwork; /// <summary> /// jQuery CDN Url on Google /// </summary> public static string jQueryCdnUrl = "//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.4/jquery.min.js"; /// <summary> /// jQuery CDN Url on Google /// </summary> public static string jQueryUiCdnUrl = "//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.16/jquery-ui.min.js"; /// <summary> /// jQuery UI fallback Url if CDN is unavailable or WebResource is used /// Note: The file needs to exist and hold the minimized version of jQuery ui /// </summary> public static string jQueryUiLocalFallbackUrl = "~/scripts/jquery-ui.min.js"; } These static properties are fixed values that can be changed at application startup to reflect your preferences. Since they're static they are application wide settings and respected across the entire Web application running. It's best to set these default in Application_Init or similar startup code if you need to change them for your application: protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Force jQuery to be loaded off Google Content Network ControlResources.jQueryLoadMode = JQueryLoadModes.ContentDeliveryNetwork; // Allow overriding of the Cdn url ControlResources.jQueryCdnUrl = "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js"; // Route to our own internal handler App.OnApplicationStart(); } With these basic settings in place you can then embed expressions into a page easily. In WebForms use: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head runat="server"> <%= ControlResources.jQueryLink() %> <script src="scripts/ww.jquery.min.js"></script> </head> In Razor use: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> @Html.Raw(ControlResources.jQueryLink()) <script src="scripts/ww.jquery.min.js"></script> </head> Note that in Razor you need to use @Html.Raw() to force the string NOT to escape. Razor by default escapes string results and this ensures that the HTML content is properly expanded as raw HTML text. Both the WebForms and Razor output produce: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> if (typeof (jQuery) == 'undefined') document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='/WestWindWebToolkitWeb/WebResource.axd?d=-b6oWzgbpGb8uTaHDrCMv59VSmGhilZP5_T_B8anpGx7X-PmW_1eu1KoHDvox-XHqA1EEb-Tl2YAP3bBeebGN65tv-7-yAimtG4ZnoWH633pExpJor8Qp1aKbk-KQWSoNfRC7rQJHXVP4tC0reYzVw2&t=634535391996872492' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));</script> <script src="scripts/ww.jquery.min.js"></script> </head> which produces the desired effect for both CDN load and fallback URL. The implementation of jQueryLink is pretty basic of course: /// <summary> /// Inserts a script link to load jQuery into the page based on the jQueryLoadModes settings /// of this class. Default load is by CDN plus WebResource fallback /// </summary> /// <param name="url"> /// An optional explicit URL to load jQuery from. Url is resolved. /// When specified no fallback is applied /// </param> /// <returns>full script tag and fallback script for jQuery to load</returns> public static string jQueryLink(JQueryLoadModes jQueryLoadMode = JQueryLoadModes.Default, string url = null) { string jQueryUrl = string.Empty; string fallbackScript = string.Empty; if (jQueryLoadMode == JQueryLoadModes.Default) jQueryLoadMode = ControlResources.jQueryLoadMode; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) jQueryUrl = WebUtils.ResolveUrl(url); else if (jQueryLoadMode == JQueryLoadModes.WebResource) { Page page = new Page(); jQueryUrl = page.ClientScript.GetWebResourceUrl(typeof(ControlResources), ControlResources.JQUERY_SCRIPT_RESOURCE); } else if (jQueryLoadMode == JQueryLoadModes.ContentDeliveryNetwork) { jQueryUrl = ControlResources.jQueryCdnUrl; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(jQueryCdnUrl)) { // check if jquery loaded - if it didn't we're not online and use WebResource fallbackScript = @"<script type=""text/javascript"">if (typeof(jQuery) == 'undefined') document.write(unescape(""%3Cscript src='{0}' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E""));</script>"; fallbackScript = string.Format(fallbackScript, WebUtils.ResolveUrl(ControlResources.jQueryCdnFallbackUrl)); } } string output = "<script src=\"" + jQueryUrl + "\" type=\"text/javascript\"></script>"; // add in the CDN fallback script code if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(fallbackScript)) output += "\r\n" + fallbackScript + "\r\n"; return output; } There's one dependency here on WebUtils.ResolveUrl() which resolves Urls without access to a Page/Control (another one of those features that should be in the runtime, not in the WebForms or MVC engine). You can see there's only a little bit of logic in this code that deals with potentially different load modes. I can load scripts from a Url, WebResources or - my preferred way - from CDN. Based on the static settings the scripts to embed are composed to be returned as simple string <script> tag(s). I find this extremely useful especially when I'm not connected to the internet so that I can quickly swap in a local jQuery resource instead of loading from CDN. While CDN loading with the fallback works it can be a bit slow as the CDN is probed first before the fallback kicks in. Switching quickly in one place makes this trivial. It also makes it very easy once a new version of jQuery rolls around to move up to the new version and ensure that all pages are using the new version immediately. I'm not trying to make this out as 'the' definite way to load your resources, but rather provide it here as a pointer so you can maybe apply your own logic to determine where scripts come from and how they load. You could even automate this some more by using configuration settings or reading the locations/preferences out of some sort of data/metadata store that can be dynamically updated instead via recompilation. FWIW, I use a very similar approach for loading jQuery UI and my own ww.jquery library - the same concept can be applied to any kind of script you might be loading from different locations. Hopefully some of you find this a useful addition to your toolset. Resources Google CDN for jQuery Full ControlResources Source Code ControlResource Documentation Westwind.Web NuGet This method is part of the Westwind.Web library of the West Wind Web Toolkit or you can grab the Web library from NuGet and add to your Visual Studio project. This package includes a host of Web related utilities and script support features. © Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2011Posted in ASP.NET jQuery Tweet (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Using an alternate JSON Serializer in ASP.NET Web API

- by Rick Strahl

The new ASP.NET Web API that Microsoft released alongside MVC 4.0 Beta last week is a great framework for building REST and AJAX APIs. I've been working with it for quite a while now and I really like the way it works and the complete set of features it provides 'in the box'. It's about time that Microsoft gets a decent API for building generic HTTP endpoints into the framework. DataContractJsonSerializer sucks As nice as Web API's overall design is one thing still sucks: The built-in JSON Serialization uses the DataContractJsonSerializer which is just too limiting for many scenarios. The biggest issues I have with it are: No support for untyped values (object, dynamic, Anonymous Types) MS AJAX style Date Formatting Ugly serialization formats for types like Dictionaries To me the most serious issue is dealing with serialization of untyped objects. I have number of applications with AJAX front ends that dynamically reformat data from business objects to fit a specific message format that certain UI components require. The most common scenario I have there are IEnumerable query results from a database with fields from the result set rearranged to fit the sometimes unconventional formats required for the UI components (like jqGrid for example). Creating custom types to fit these messages seems like overkill and projections using Linq makes this much easier to code up. Alas DataContractJsonSerializer doesn't support it. Neither does DataContractSerializer for XML output for that matter. What this means is that you can't do stuff like this in Web API out of the box:public object GetAnonymousType() { return new { name = "Rick", company = "West Wind", entered= DateTime.Now }; } Basically anything that doesn't have an explicit type DataContractJsonSerializer will not let you return. FWIW, the same is true for XmlSerializer which also doesn't work with non-typed values for serialization. The example above is obviously contrived with a hardcoded object graph, but it's not uncommon to get dynamic values returned from queries that have anonymous types for their result projections. Apparently there's a good possibility that Microsoft will ship Json.NET as part of Web API RTM release. Scott Hanselman confirmed this as a footnote in his JSON Dates post a few days ago. I've heard several other people from Microsoft confirm that Json.NET will be included and be the default JSON serializer, but no details yet in what capacity it will show up. Let's hope it ends up as the default in the box. Meanwhile this post will show you how you can use it today with the beta and get JSON that matches what you should see in the RTM version. What about JsonValue? To be fair Web API DOES include a new JsonValue/JsonObject/JsonArray type that allow you to address some of these scenarios. JsonValue is a new type in the System.Json assembly that can be used to build up an object graph based on a dictionary. It's actually a really cool implementation of a dynamic type that allows you to create an object graph and spit it out to JSON without having to create .NET type first. JsonValue can also receive a JSON string and parse it without having to actually load it into a .NET type (which is something that's been missing in the core framework). This is really useful if you get a JSON result from an arbitrary service and you don't want to explicitly create a mapping type for the data returned. For serialization you can create an object structure on the fly and pass it back as part of an Web API action method like this:public JsonValue GetJsonValue() { dynamic json = new JsonObject(); json.name = "Rick"; json.company = "West Wind"; json.entered = DateTime.Now; dynamic address = new JsonObject(); address.street = "32 Kaiea"; address.zip = "96779"; json.address = address; dynamic phones = new JsonArray(); json.phoneNumbers = phones; dynamic phone = new JsonObject(); phone.type = "Home"; phone.number = "808 123-1233"; phones.Add(phone); phone = new JsonObject(); phone.type = "Home"; phone.number = "808 123-1233"; phones.Add(phone); //var jsonString = json.ToString(); return json; } which produces the following output (formatted here for easier reading):{ name: "rick", company: "West Wind", entered: "2012-03-08T15:33:19.673-10:00", address: { street: "32 Kaiea", zip: "96779" }, phoneNumbers: [ { type: "Home", number: "808 123-1233" }, { type: "Mobile", number: "808 123-1234" }] } If you need to build a simple JSON type on the fly these types work great. But if you have an existing type - or worse a query result/list that's already formatted JsonValue et al. become a pain to work with. As far as I can see there's no way to just throw an object instance at JsonValue and have it convert into JsonValue dictionary. It's a manual process. Using alternate Serializers in Web API So, currently the default serializer in WebAPI is DataContractJsonSeriaizer and I don't like it. You may not either, but luckily you can swap the serializer fairly easily. If you'd rather use the JavaScriptSerializer built into System.Web.Extensions or Json.NET today, it's not too difficult to create a custom MediaTypeFormatter that uses these serializers and can replace or partially replace the native serializer. Here's a MediaTypeFormatter implementation using the ASP.NET JavaScriptSerializer:using System; using System.Net.Http.Formatting; using System.Threading.Tasks; using System.Web.Script.Serialization; using System.Json; using System.IO; namespace Westwind.Web.WebApi { public class JavaScriptSerializerFormatter : MediaTypeFormatter { public JavaScriptSerializerFormatter() { SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new System.Net.Http.Headers.MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json")); } protected override bool CanWriteType(Type type) { // don't serialize JsonValue structure use default for that if (type == typeof(JsonValue) || type == typeof(JsonObject) || type== typeof(JsonArray) ) return false; return true; } protected override bool CanReadType(Type type) { if (type == typeof(IKeyValueModel)) return false; return true; } protected override System.Threading.Tasks.Taskobject OnReadFromStreamAsync(Type type, System.IO.Stream stream, System.Net.Http.Headers.HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, FormatterContext formatterContext) { var task = Taskobject.Factory.StartNew(() = { var ser = new JavaScriptSerializer(); string json; using (var sr = new StreamReader(stream)) { json = sr.ReadToEnd(); sr.Close(); } object val = ser.Deserialize(json,type); return val; }); return task; } protected override System.Threading.Tasks.Task OnWriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, System.IO.Stream stream, System.Net.Http.Headers.HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, FormatterContext formatterContext, System.Net.TransportContext transportContext) { var task = Task.Factory.StartNew( () = { var ser = new JavaScriptSerializer(); var json = ser.Serialize(value); byte[] buf = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(json); stream.Write(buf,0,buf.Length); stream.Flush(); }); return task; } } } Formatter implementation is pretty simple: You override 4 methods to tell which types you can handle and then handle the input or output streams to create/parse the JSON data. Note that when creating output you want to take care to still allow JsonValue/JsonObject/JsonArray types to be handled by the default serializer so those objects serialize properly - if you let either JavaScriptSerializer or JSON.NET handle them they'd try to render the dictionaries which is very undesirable. If you'd rather use Json.NET here's the JSON.NET version of the formatter:// this code requires a reference to JSON.NET in your project #if true using System; using System.Net.Http.Formatting; using System.Threading.Tasks; using System.Web.Script.Serialization; using System.Json; using Newtonsoft.Json; using System.IO; using Newtonsoft.Json.Converters; namespace Westwind.Web.WebApi { public class JsonNetFormatter : MediaTypeFormatter { public JsonNetFormatter() { SupportedMediaTypes.Add(new System.Net.Http.Headers.MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json")); } protected override bool CanWriteType(Type type) { // don't serialize JsonValue structure use default for that if (type == typeof(JsonValue) || type == typeof(JsonObject) || type == typeof(JsonArray)) return false; return true; } protected override bool CanReadType(Type type) { if (type == typeof(IKeyValueModel)) return false; return true; } protected override System.Threading.Tasks.Taskobject OnReadFromStreamAsync(Type type, System.IO.Stream stream, System.Net.Http.Headers.HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, FormatterContext formatterContext) { var task = Taskobject.Factory.StartNew(() = { var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings() { NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore, }; var sr = new StreamReader(stream); var jreader = new JsonTextReader(sr); var ser = new JsonSerializer(); ser.Converters.Add(new IsoDateTimeConverter()); object val = ser.Deserialize(jreader, type); return val; }); return task; } protected override System.Threading.Tasks.Task OnWriteToStreamAsync(Type type, object value, System.IO.Stream stream, System.Net.Http.Headers.HttpContentHeaders contentHeaders, FormatterContext formatterContext, System.Net.TransportContext transportContext) { var task = Task.Factory.StartNew( () = { var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings() { NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore, }; string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(value, Formatting.Indented, new JsonConverter[1] { new IsoDateTimeConverter() } ); byte[] buf = System.Text.Encoding.Default.GetBytes(json); stream.Write(buf,0,buf.Length); stream.Flush(); }); return task; } } } #endif One advantage of the Json.NET serializer is that you can specify a few options on how things are formatted and handled. You get null value handling and you can plug in the IsoDateTimeConverter which is nice to product proper ISO dates that I would expect any Json serializer to output these days. Hooking up the Formatters Once you've created the custom formatters you need to enable them for your Web API application. To do this use the GlobalConfiguration.Configuration object and add the formatter to the Formatters collection. Here's what this looks like hooked up from Application_Start in a Web project:protected void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e) { // Action based routing (used for RPC calls) RouteTable.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "StockApi", routeTemplate: "stocks/{action}/{symbol}", defaults: new { symbol = RouteParameter.Optional, controller = "StockApi" } ); // WebApi Configuration to hook up formatters and message handlers // optional RegisterApis(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration); } public static void RegisterApis(HttpConfiguration config) { // Add JavaScriptSerializer formatter instead - add at top to make default //config.Formatters.Insert(0, new JavaScriptSerializerFormatter()); // Add Json.net formatter - add at the top so it fires first! // This leaves the old one in place so JsonValue/JsonObject/JsonArray still are handled config.Formatters.Insert(0, new JsonNetFormatter()); } One thing to remember here is the GlobalConfiguration object which is Web API's static configuration instance. I think this thing is seriously misnamed given that GlobalConfiguration could stand for anything and so is hard to discover if you don't know what you're looking for. How about WebApiConfiguration or something more descriptive? Anyway, once you know what it is you can use the Formatters collection to insert your custom formatter. Note that I insert my formatter at the top of the list so it takes precedence over the default formatter. I also am not removing the old formatter because I still want JsonValue/JsonObject/JsonArray to be handled by the default serialization mechanism. Since they process in sequence and I exclude processing for these types JsonValue et al. still get properly serialized/deserialized. Summary Currently DataContractJsonSerializer in Web API is a pain, but at least we have the ability with relatively limited effort to replace the MediaTypeFormatter and plug in our own JSON serializer. This is useful for many scenarios - if you have existing client applications that used MVC JsonResult or ASP.NET AJAX results from ASMX AJAX services you can plug in the JavaScript serializer and get exactly the same serializer you used in the past so your results will be the same and don't potentially break clients. JSON serializers do vary a bit in how they serialize some of the more complex types (like Dictionaries and dates for example) and so if you're migrating it might be helpful to ensure your client code doesn't break when you switch to ASP.NET Web API. Going forward it looks like Microsoft is planning on plugging in Json.Net into Web API and make that the default. I think that's an awesome choice since Json.net has been around forever, is fast and easy to use and provides a ton of functionality as part of this great library. I just wish Microsoft would have figured this out sooner instead of now at the last minute integrating with it especially given that Json.Net has a similar set of lower level JSON objects JsonValue/JsonObject etc. which now will end up being duplicated by the native System.Json stuff. It's not like we don't already have enough confusion regarding which JSON serializer to use (JavaScriptSerializer, DataContractJsonSerializer, JsonValue/JsonObject/JsonArray and now Json.net). For years I've been using my own JSON serializer because the built in choices are both limited. However, with an official encorsement of Json.Net I'm happily moving on to use that in my applications. Let's see and hope Microsoft gets this right before ASP.NET Web API goes gold.© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Web Api AJAX ASP.NET Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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Tools and Utilities for the .NET Developer

- by mbcrump

Tweet this list! Add a link to my site to your bookmarks to quickly find this page again! Add me to twitter! This is a list of the tools/utilities that I use to do my job/hobby. I wanted this page to load fast and contain information that only you care about. If I have missed a tool that you like, feel free to contact me and I will add it to the list. Also, this list took a lot of time to complete. Please do not steal my work, if you like the page then please link back to my site. I will keep the links/information updated as new tools/utilities are created. Windows/.NET Development – This is a list of tools that any Windows/.NET developer should have in his bag. I have used at some point in my career everything listed on this page and below is the tools worth keeping. Name Description License AnkhSVN Subversion support for Visual Studio. It also works with VS2010. Free Aurora XAML Designer One of the best XAML creation tools available. Has a ton of built in templates that you can copy/paste into VS2010. COST/Trial BeyondCompare Beyond Compare 3 is the ideal tool for comparing files and folders on your Windows or Linux system. Visualize changes in your code and carefully reconcile them. COST/Trial BuildIT Automated Task Tool Its main purpose is to automate tasks, whether it is the final packaging of a product, an automated daily build, maybe sending out a mailing list, even backing-up files. Free C Sharper for VB Convert VB to C#. COST CLRProfiler Analyze and improve the behavior of your .NET app. Free CodeRush Direct competitor to ReSharper, contains similar feature. This is one of those decide for yourself. COST/Trial Disk2VHD Disk2vhd is a utility that creates VHD (Virtual Hard Disk - Microsoft's Virtual Machine disk format) versions of physical disks for use in Microsoft Virtual PC or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs). Free Eazfuscator.NET Is a free obfuscator for .NET. The main purpose is to protect intellectual property of software. Free EQATEC Profiler Make your .NET app run faster. No source code changes are needed. Just point the profiler to your app, run the modified code, and get a visual report. COST Expression Studio 3/4 Comes with Web, Blend, Sketch Flow and more. You can create websites, produce beautiful XAML and more. COST/Trial Expresso The award-winning Expresso editor is equally suitable as a teaching tool for the beginning user of regular expressions or as a full-featured development environment for the experienced programmer or web designer with an extensive knowledge of regular expressions. Free Fiddler Fiddler is a web debugging proxy which logs all HTTP(s) traffic between your computer and the internet. Free Firebug Powerful Web development tool. If you build websites, you will need this. Free FxCop FxCop is an application that analyzes managed code assemblies (code that targets the .NET Framework common language runtime) and reports information about the assemblies, such as possible design, localization, performance, and security improvements. Free GAC Browser and Remover Easy way to remove multiple assemblies from the GAC. Assemblies registered by programs like Install Shield can also be removed. Free GAC Util The Global Assembly Cache tool allows you to view and manipulate the contents of the global assembly cache and download cache. Free HelpScribble Help Scribble is a full-featured, easy-to-use help authoring tool for creating help files from start to finish. You can create Win Help (.hlp) files, HTML Help (.chm) files, a printed manual and online documentation (on a web site) all from the same Help Scribble project. COST/Trial IETester IETester is a free Web Browser that allows you to have the rendering and JavaScript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process. Free iTextSharp iText# (iTextSharp) is a port of the iText open source java library for PDF generation written entirely in C# for the .NET platform. Use the iText mailing list to get support. Free Kaxaml Kaxaml is a lightweight XAML editor that gives you a "split view" so you can see both your XAML and your rendered content. Free LINQPad LinqPad lets you interactively query databases in a LINQ. Free Linquer Many programmers are familiar with SQL and will need a help in the transition to LINQ. Sometimes there are complicated queries to be written and Linqer can help by converting SQL scripts to LINQ. COST/Trial LiquidXML Liquid XML Studio 2010 is an advanced XML developers toolkit and IDE, containing all the tools needed for designing and developing XML schema and applications. COST/Trial Log4Net log4net is a tool to help the programmer output log statements to a variety of output targets. log4net is a port of the excellent log4j framework to the .NET runtime. We have kept the framework similar in spirit to the original log4j while taking advantage of new features in the .NET runtime. For more information on log4net see the features document. Free Microsoft Web Platform Installer The Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 (Web PI) is a free tool that makes getting the latest components of the Microsoft Web Platform, including Internet Information Services (IIS), SQL Server Express, .NET Framework and Visual Web Developer easy. Free Mono Development Don't have Visual Studio - no problem! This is an open Source C# and .NET development environment for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X Free Net Mass Downloader While it’s great that Microsoft has released the .NET Reference Source Code, you can only get it one file at a time while you’re debugging. If you’d like to batch download it for reading or to populate the cache, you’d have to write a program that instantiated and called each method in the Framework Class Library. Fortunately, .NET Mass Downloader comes to the rescue! Free nMap Nmap ("Network Mapper") is a free and open source (license) utility for network exploration or security auditing. Many systems and network administrators also find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime. Free NoScript (Firefox add-in) The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and other Mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript, Java and Flash and other plug-ins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser. Free NotePad 2 Notepad2, a fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system's registry. Free PageSpy PageSpy is a small add-on for Internet Explorer that allows you to select any element within a webpage, select an option in the context menu, and view detailed information about both the coding behind the page and the element you selected. Free Phrase Express PhraseExpress manages your frequently used text snippets in customizable categories for quick access. Free PowerGui PowerGui is a free community for PowerGUI, a graphical user interface and script editor for Microsoft Windows PowerShell! Free Powershell Comes with Win7, but you can automate tasks by using the .NET Framework. Great for network admins. Free Process Explorer Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. Also, included in the SysInterals Suite. Free Process Monitor Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Free Reflector Explore and analyze compiled .NET assemblies, viewing them in C#, Visual Basic, and IL. This is an Essential for any .NET developer. Free Regular Expression Library Stuck on a Regular Expression but you think someone has already figured it out? Chances are they have. Free Regulator Regulator makes Regular Expressions easy. This is a must have for a .NET Developer. Free RenameMaestro RenameMaestro is probably the easiest batch file renamer you'll find to instantly rename multiple files COST ReSharper The one program that I cannot live without. Supports VS2010 and offers simple refactoring, code analysis/assistance/cleanup/templates. One of the few applications that is worth the $$$. COST/Trial ScrewTurn Wiki ScrewTurn Wiki allows you to create, manage and share wikis. A wiki is a collaboratively-edited, information-centered website: the most famous is Wikipedia. Free SharpDevelop What is #develop? SharpDevelop is a free IDE for C# and VB.NET projects on Microsoft's .NET platform. Free Show Me The Template Show Me The Template is a tool for exploring the templates, be their data, control or items panel, that comes with the controls built into WPF for all 6 themes. Free SnippetCompiler Compiles code snippets without opening Visual Studio. It does not support .NET 4. Free SQL Prompt SQL Prompt is a plug-in that increases how fast you can work with SQL. It provides code-completion for SQL server, reformatting, db schema information and snippets. Awesome! COST/Trial SQLinForm SQLinForm is an automatic SQL code formatter for all major databases including ORACLE, SQL Server, DB2, UDB, Sybase, Informix, PostgreSQL, Teradata, MySQL, MS Access etc. with over 70 formatting options. COST/OnlineFree SSMS Tools SSMS Tools Pack is an add-in for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) including SSMS Express. Free Storm STORM is a free and open source tool for testing web services. Free Telerik Code Convertor Convert code from VB to C Sharp and Vice Versa. Free TurtoiseSVN TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows.Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. Free UltraEdit UltraEdit is the ideal text, HTML and hex editor, and an advanced PHP, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers. UltraEdit is also an XML editor including a tree-style XML parser. An industry-award winner, UltraEdit supports disk-based 64-bit file handling (standard) on 32-bit Windows platforms (Windows 2000 and later). COST/Trial Virtual Windows XP Comes with some W7 version and allows you to run WinXP along side W7. Free VirtualBox Virtualization by Sun Microsystems. You can virtualize Windows, Linux and more. Free Visual Log Parser SQL queries against a variety of log files and other system data sources. Free WinMerge WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. Free Wireshark Wireshark is one of the best network protocol analyzer's for Unix and windows. This has been used several times to get me out of a bind. Free XML Notepad 07 Old, but still one of my favorite XML viewers. Free Productivity Tools – This is the list of tools that I use to save time or quickly navigate around Windows. Name Description License AutoHotKey Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder. Free CLCL CLCL is clipboard caching utility. Free Ditto Ditto is an extension to the standard windows clipboard. It saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Ditto allows you to save any type of information that can be put on the clipboard, text, images, html, custom formats, ..... Free Evernote Remember everything from notes to photos. It will synch between computers/devices. Free InfoRapid Inforapid is a search tool that will display all you search results in a html like browser. If you click on a word in that browser, it will start another search to the word you clicked on. Handy if you want to trackback something to it's true origin. The word you looked for will be highlighted in red. Clicking on the red word will open the containing file in a text based viewer. Clicking on any word in the opened document will start another search on that word. Free KatMouse The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefulness of the mouse wheel. Free ScreenR Instant Screencast with nothing to download. Works with Mac or PC and free. Free Start++ Start++ is an enhancement for the Start Menu in Windows Vista. It also extends the Run box and the command-line with customizable commands. For example, typing "w Windows Vista" will take you to the Windows Vista page on Wikipedia! Free Synergy Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s). Free Texter Texter lets you define text substitution hot strings that, when triggered, will replace hotstring with a larger piece of text. By entering your most commonly-typed snippets of text into Texter, you can save countless keystrokes in the course of the day. Free Total Commander File handling, FTP, Archive handling and much more. Even works with Win3.11. COST/Trial Available Wizmouse WizMouse is a mouse enhancement utility that makes your mouse wheel work on the window currently under the mouse pointer, instead of the currently focused window. This means you no longer have to click on a window before being able to scroll it with the mouse wheel. This is a far more comfortable and practical way to make use of the mouse wheel. Free Xmarks Bookmark sync and search between computers. Free General Utilities – This is a list for power user users or anyone that wants more out of Windows. I usually install a majority of these whenever I get a new system. Name Description License µTorrent µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. I use this for downloading LEGAL media. Free Audacity Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check our Wiki and Forum for more information. Free AVast Free FREE Antivirus. Free CD Burner XP Pro CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Free CDEX You can extract digital audio CDs into mp3/wav. Free Combofix Combofix is a freeware (a legitimate spyware remover created by sUBs), Combofix was designed to scan a computer for known malware, spyware (SurfSideKick, QooLogic, and Look2Me as well as any other combination of the mentioned spyware applications) and remove them. Free Cpu-Z Provides information about some of the main devices of your system. Free Cropper Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C#. It makes it fast and easy to grab parts of your screen. Use it to easily crop out sections of vector graphic files such as Fireworks without having to flatten the files or open in a new editor. Use it to easily capture parts of a web site, including text and images. It's also great for writing documentation that needs images of your application or web site. Free DropBox Drag and Drop files to sync between computers. Free DVD-Fab Converts/Copies DVDs/Blu-Ray to different formats. (like mp4, mkv, avi) COST/Trial Available FastStone Capture FastStone Capture is a powerful, lightweight, yet full-featured screen capture tool that allows you to easily capture and annotate anything on the screen including windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and even scrolling windows/web pages. Free ffdshow FFDShow is a DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DivX, XviD, H.264, FLV1, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, MPEG-4 movies. Free Filezilla FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface. You can also download a server version. Free FireFox Web Browser, do you really need an explanation? Free FireGestures A customizable mouse gestures extension which enables you to execute various commands and user scripts with five types of gestures. Free FoxIt Reader Light weight PDF viewer. You should install this with the advanced setting or it will install a toolbar and setup some shortcuts. Free gSynchIt Synch Gmail and Outlook. Even supports Outlook 2010 32/64 bit COST/Trial Available Hulu Desktop At home or in a hotel, this has replaced my cable/satellite subscription. Free ImgBurn ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit! Free Infrarecorder InfraRecorder is a free CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. It offers a wide range of powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration. Free KeePass KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. Free LastPass Another password management, synchronize between browsers, automatic form filling and more. Free Live Essentials One download and lots of programs including Mail, Live Writer, Movie Maker and more! Free Monitores MonitorES is a small windows utility that helps you to turnoff monitor display when you lock down your machine.Also when you lock your machine, it will pause all your running media programs & set your IM status message to "Away" / Custom message(via options) and restore it back to normal when you back. Free mRemote mRemote is a full-featured, multi-tab remote connections manager. Free Open Office OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Free Paint.NET Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface for editing photos. Free Picasa Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Free Pidgin Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once. Free PING PING is a live Linux ISO, based on the excellent Linux From Scratch (LFS) documentation. It can be burnt on a CD and booted, or integrated into a PXE / RIS environment. Free Putty PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed originally by Simon Tatham for the Windows platform. Free Revo Uninstaller Revo Uninstaller Pro helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer easily! Even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! It has very powerful features to uninstall and remove programs. Free Security Essentials Microsoft Security Essentials is a new, free consumer anti-malware solution for your computer. Free SetupVirtualCloneDrive Virtual CloneDrive works and behaves just like a physical CD/DVD drive, however it exists only virtually. Point to the .ISO file and it appears in Windows Explorer as a Drive. Free Shark 007 Codec Pack Play just about any file format with this download. Also includes my W7 Media Playlist Generator. Free Snagit 9 Screen Capture on steroids. Add arrows, captions, etc to any screenshot. COST/Trial Available SysinternalsSuite Go ahead and download the entire sys internals suite. I have mentioned multiple programs in this suite already. Free TeraCopy TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed, providing the user with a lot of features. Free for Home TrueCrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux Free TweetDeck Fully featured Twitter client. Free UltraVNC UltraVNC is a powerful, easy to use and free software that can display the screen of another computer (via internet or network) on your own screen. The program allows you to use your mouse and keyboard to control the other PC remotely. It means that you can work on a remote computer, as if you were sitting in front of it, right from your current location. Free Unlocker Unlocks locked files. Pretty simple right? Free VLC Media Player VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats Free Windows 7 Media Playlist This program is special to my heart because I wrote it. It has been mentioned on podcast and various websites. It allows you to quickly create wvx video playlist for Windows Media Center. Free WinRAR WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format. COST/Trial Available Blogging – I use the following for my blog. Name Description License Insert Code for Windows Live Writer Insert Code for Windows Live Writer will format a snippet of text in a number of programming languages such as C#, HTML, MSH, JavaScript, Visual Basic and TSQL. Free LiveWriter Included in Live Essentials, but the ultimate in Windows Blogging Free PasteAsVSCode Plug-in for Windows Live Writer that pastes clipboard content as Visual Studio code. Preserves syntax highlighting, indentation and background color. Converts RTF, outputted by Visual Studio, into HTML. Free Desktop Management – The list below represent the best in Windows Desktop Management. Name Description License 7 Stacks Allows users to have "stacks" of icons in their taskbar. Free Executor Executor is a multi purpose launcher and a more advanced and customizable version of windows run. Free Fences Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use. Free RocketDock Rocket Dock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock. Free WindowsTab Tabbing is an essential feature of modern web browsers. Window Tabs brings the productivity of tabbed window management to all of your desktop applications. Free

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