array population - Page 606

ColdFusion Server crash after thousands of HTTP requests

- by Jason Bristol

We are running ColdFusion 8 on a windows server 2003 VPS with an API that exposes student records to a partner API through a connector. Our API returns around 50k student records serialized in XML format pretty seamlessly. My question originates when something very frightening happened today when we tested our connector to our partners API. Our entire website and web host went down. We assumed that our host was just having some issues and after 4 hours with no resolution and no response from their customer service we finally got a response from them claiming that they had an "unauthorized user" in their network. After our server was back up we were unable to connect to our website as if the web service or coldfusion itself had froze. This is really where my concern comes from as I fear we may have overloaded the web service. As I mentioned before we tried sending over 50k HTTP POST requests over to our partner's API, however everything stopped after around 1.6k Is this bad practice or is there some sort of rate limiting I can relax somewhere in server configuration? We managed to find a workaround, but it bypasses our connector which is critical to our design. This would have been a one time deal as the purpose of so many requests was to populate our partner's website with current data, after that hourly syncs will keep requests down to around 100 per hour. UPDATE Our partner API is owned and operated by Pardot. We are converting students to prospects by passing student data to their API which unfortunately only seems to accept one student at a time. For that reason we have to do all 50k requests individually. Our server has 4GB of RAM, an Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.8GHz running Windows Server 2003 SP2. I monitored the server during a 100 student sync, a 400 student sync, and a 1.4k student sync with the following results: 100 students - 2.25GB of Memory, 30-40% CPU utilization, 0.2-0.3% network bandwidth 400 students - 2.30GB of Memory, 30-50% CPU utilization, 0.2-1.0% network bandwidth 1.4k students - 2.30GB of Memory, 30-70% CPU utilization, 0.2-1.0% network bandwidth I know this is a far cry from 50k students, but I don't want to risk taking down our CMS system again assuming that was the cause. To give you a look at our code: <cfif (#getStudents.statusCode# eq "200 OK")> <cftry> <cfloop index="StudentXML" array="#XmlSearch(responseSTUD,'/students/student')#"> <cfset StudentXML = XmlParse(StudentXML)> <cfhttp url="#PARDOT_CMS_UPSERT#" method="post" timeout="10000" > <cfhttpparam type="url" name="user_key" value="#PARDOT_CMS_USERKEY#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="api_key" value="#api_key#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="email" value="#StudentXML.student.email.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="first_name" value="#StudentXML.student.first.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="last_name" value="#StudentXML.student.last.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="in_cms" value="#StudentXML.student.studentid.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="company" value="#StudentXML.student.agencyname.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="country" value="#StudentXML.student.countryname.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="address_one" value="#StudentXML.student.address.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="address_two" value="#StudentXML.student.address2.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="city" value="#StudentXML.student.city.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="state" value="#StudentXML.student.state_province.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="zip" value="#StudentXML.student.postalcode.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="phone" value="#StudentXML.student.phone.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="fax" value="#StudentXML.student.fax.XmlText#"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="output" value="simple"> </cfhttp> </cfloop> <cfcatch type="any"> <cfdump var="#cfcatch.Message#"> </cfcatch> </cftry> </cfif> UPDATE 2 I checked the CF logs and found a couple of these: "Error","jrpp-8","06/06/13","16:10:18","CMS-API","Java heap space The specific sequence of files included or processed is: D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm, line: 675 " java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space at java.util.Arrays.copyOf(Arrays.java:2882) at java.io.CharArrayWriter.write(CharArrayWriter.java:105) at coldfusion.runtime.CharBuffer.replace(CharBuffer.java:37) at coldfusion.runtime.CharBuffer.replace(CharBuffer.java:50) at coldfusion.runtime.NeoBodyContent.write(NeoBodyContent.java:254) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor30(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:675) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor31(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:662) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor36(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:659) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor42(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:657) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor37(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor44(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:456) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor38(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor46(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:455) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor39(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm) at cfapi2ecfm292155732._factor47(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:453) at cfapi2ecfm292155732.runPage(D:\Clients\www.xxx.com\www\dev.cms\api\v1\api.cfm:1) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:192) at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:366) at coldfusion.filter.CfincludeFilter.invoke(CfincludeFilter.java:65) at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:279) at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:48) at coldfusion.filter.MonitoringFilter.invoke(MonitoringFilter.java:40) at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:86) at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28) at coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:38) at coldfusion.filter.NoCacheFilter.invoke(NoCacheFilter.java:46) at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:38) at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22) at coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:175) at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet.service(BootstrapServlet.java:89) at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:86) Looks like I might have crashed the JVM in CF, is there a better way to do this? We are thinking of just exporting all records initially as a CSV file and importing it into Pardot seeing as we will never have to do a request this large again.

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How to configure fastcgi to work with ligttpd in ubuntu

- by michael

I am able to run lighttpd on ubuntu 9.10. But when i tried to setup fastcgi with lighttpd by putting this in the ligttpd.conf file: #### fastcgi module fastcgi.server = ( "/fastcgi_scripts/" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => "9098", "check-local" => "disable", "bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi", "docroot" => "/" # remote server may use # it's own docroot )) ) This is what I get in the error.log in ligttpd: 2010-03-07 21:00:11: (log.c.166) server started 2010-03-07 21:00:11: (mod_fastcgi.c.1104) the fastcgi-backend /usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi failed to start: 2010-03-07 21:00:11: (mod_fastcgi.c.1108) child exited with status 1 /usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi 2010-03-07 21:00:11: (mod_fastcgi.c.1111) If you're trying to run your app as a FastCGI backend, make sure you're using the FastCGI-enabled version. If this is PHP on Gentoo, add 'fastcgi' to the USE flags. 2010-03-07 21:00:11: (mod_fastcgi.c.1399) [ERROR]: spawning fcgi failed. 2010-03-07 21:00:11: (server.c.931) Configuration of plugins failed. Going down. I do have cgi-fcgi in /usr/local/bin: $ which cgi-fcgi /usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi '/usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi' is the executable after I download and compile fast-cgi. Here is my lighttpd conf file: $ more lighttpd.conf # lighttpd configuration file # # use it as a base for lighttpd 1.0.0 and above # # $Id: lighttpd.conf,v 1.7 2004/11/03 22:26:05 weigon Exp $ ############ Options you really have to take care of #################### ## modules to load # at least mod_access and mod_accesslog should be loaded # all other module should only be loaded if really neccesary # - saves some time # - saves memory server.modules = ( # "mod_rewrite", # "mod_redirect", # "mod_alias", "mod_access", # "mod_trigger_b4_dl", # "mod_auth", # "mod_status", # "mod_setenv", "mod_fastcgi", # "mod_proxy", # "mod_simple_vhost", # "mod_evhost", # "mod_userdir", # "mod_cgi", # "mod_compress", # "mod_ssi", # "mod_usertrack", # "mod_expire", # "mod_secdownload", # "mod_rrdtool", "mod_accesslog" ) ## A static document-root. For virtual hosting take a look at the ## mod_simple_vhost module. server.document-root = "/srv/www/htdocs/" ## where to send error-messages to server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/error.log" # files to check for if .../ is requested index-file.names = ( "index.php", "index.html", "index.htm", "default.htm" ) ## set the event-handler (read the performance section in the manual) # server.event-handler = "freebsd-kqueue" # needed on OS X # mimetype mapping mimetype.assign = ( ".pdf" => "application/pdf", ".sig" => "application/pgp-signature", ".spl" => "application/futuresplash", ".class" => "application/octet-stream", ".ps" => "application/postscript", ".torrent" => "application/x-bittorrent", ".dvi" => "application/x-dvi", ".gz" => "application/x-gzip", ".pac" => "application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig", ".swf" => "application/x-shockwave-flash", ".tar.gz" => "application/x-tgz", ".tgz" => "application/x-tgz", ".tar" => "application/x-tar", ".zip" => "application/zip", ".mp3" => "audio/mpeg", ".m3u" => "audio/x-mpegurl", ".wma" => "audio/x-ms-wma", ".wax" => "audio/x-ms-wax", ".ogg" => "application/ogg", ".wav" => "audio/x-wav", ".gif" => "image/gif", ".jar" => "application/x-java-archive", ".jpg" => "image/jpeg", ".jpeg" => "image/jpeg", ".png" => "image/png", ".xbm" => "image/x-xbitmap", ".xpm" => "image/x-xpixmap", ".xwd" => "image/x-xwindowdump", ".css" => "text/css", ".html" => "text/html", ".htm" => "text/html", ".js" => "text/javascript", ".asc" => "text/plain", ".c" => "text/plain", ".cpp" => "text/plain", ".log" => "text/plain", ".conf" => "text/plain", ".text" => "text/plain", ".txt" => "text/plain", ".dtd" => "text/xml", ".xml" => "text/xml", ".mpeg" => "video/mpeg", ".mpg" => "video/mpeg", ".mov" => "video/quicktime", ".qt" => "video/quicktime", ".avi" => "video/x-msvideo", ".asf" => "video/x-ms-asf", ".asx" => "video/x-ms-asf", ".wmv" => "video/x-ms-wmv", ".bz2" => "application/x-bzip", ".tbz" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar", ".tar.bz2" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar", # default mime type "" => "application/octet-stream", ) # Use the "Content-Type" extended attribute to obtain mime type if possible #mimetype.use-xattr = "enable" ## send a different Server: header ## be nice and keep it at lighttpd # server.tag = "lighttpd" #### accesslog module accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/access.log" ## deny access the file-extensions # # ~ is for backupfiles from vi, emacs, joe, ... # .inc is often used for code includes which should in general not be part # of the document-root url.access-deny = ( "~", ".inc" ) $HTTP["url"] =~ "\.pdf$" { server.range-requests = "disable" } ## # which extensions should not be handle via static-file transfer # # .php, .pl, .fcgi are most often handled by mod_fastcgi or mod_cgi static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" ) ######### Options that are good to be but not neccesary to be changed ####### ## bind to port (default: 80) server.port = 9090 ## bind to localhost (default: all interfaces) server.bind = "127.0.0.1" ## error-handler for status 404 #server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.html" #server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.php" ## to help the rc.scripts #server.pid-file = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid" ###### virtual hosts ## ## If you want name-based virtual hosting add the next three settings and load ## mod_simple_vhost ## ## document-root = ## virtual-server-root + virtual-server-default-host + virtual-server-docroot ## or ## virtual-server-root + http-host + virtual-server-docroot ## #simple-vhost.server-root = "/srv/www/vhosts/" #simple-vhost.default-host = "www.example.org" #simple-vhost.document-root = "/htdocs/" ## ## Format: <errorfile-prefix><status-code>.html ## -> ..../status-404.html for 'File not found' #server.errorfile-prefix = "/usr/share/lighttpd/errors/status-" #server.errorfile-prefix = "/srv/www/errors/status-" ## virtual directory listings #dir-listing.activate = "enable" ## select encoding for directory listings #dir-listing.encoding = "utf-8" ## enable debugging #debug.log-request-header = "enable" #debug.log-response-header = "enable" #debug.log-request-handling = "enable" #debug.log-file-not-found = "enable" ### only root can use these options # # chroot() to directory (default: no chroot() ) #server.chroot = "/" ## change uid to <uid> (default: don't care) #server.username = "wwwrun" ## change uid to <uid> (default: don't care) #server.groupname = "wwwrun" #### compress module #compress.cache-dir = "/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/" #compress.filetype = ("text/plain", "text/html") #### proxy module ## read proxy.txt for more info #proxy.server = ( ".php" => # ( "localhost" => # ( # "host" => "192.168.0.101", # "port" => 80 # ) # ) # ) #### fastcgi module fastcgi.server = ( "/fastcgi_scripts/" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 1026, "check-local" => "disable", "bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi", #"docroot" => "/" # remote server may use # it's own docroot )) ) ## read fastcgi.txt for more info ## for PHP don't forget to set cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 in the php.ini #fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => # ( "localhost" => # ( # "socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.s ocket", # "bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/php-cgi" # ) # ) # ) #### CGI module #cgi.assign = ( ".pl" => "/usr/bin/perl", # ".cgi" => "/usr/bin/perl" ) # #### SSL engine #ssl.engine = "enable" #ssl.pemfile = "/etc/ssl/private/lighttpd.pem" #### status module #status.status-url = "/server-status" #status.config-url = "/server-config" #### auth module ## read authentication.txt for more info #auth.backend = "plain" #auth.backend.plain.userfile = "lighttpd.user" #auth.backend.plain.groupfile = "lighttpd.group" #auth.backend.ldap.hostname = "localhost" #auth.backend.ldap.base-dn = "dc=my-domain,dc=com" #auth.backend.ldap.filter = "(uid=$)" #auth.require = ( "/server-status" => # ( # "method" => "digest", # "realm" => "download archiv", # "require" => "user=jan" # ), # "/server-config" => # ( # "method" => "digest", # "realm" => "download archiv", # "require" => "valid-user" # ) # ) #### url handling modules (rewrite, redirect, access) #url.rewrite = ( "^/$" => "/server-status" ) #url.redirect = ( "^/wishlist/(.+)" => "http://www.123.org/$1" ) #### both rewrite/redirect support back reference to regex conditional using %n #$HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.(.*)" { # url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://%1/$1" ) #} # # define a pattern for the host url finding # %% => % sign # %0 => domain name + tld # %1 => tld # %2 => domain name without tld # %3 => subdomain 1 name # %4 => subdomain 2 name # #evhost.path-pattern = "/srv/www/vhosts/%3/htdocs/" #### expire module #expire.url = ( "/buggy/" => "access 2 hours", "/asdhas/" => "ac cess plus 1 seconds 2 minutes") #### ssi #ssi.extension = ( ".shtml" ) #### rrdtool #rrdtool.binary = "/usr/bin/rrdtool" #rrdtool.db-name = "/var/lib/lighttpd/lighttpd.rrd" #### setenv #setenv.add-request-header = ( "TRAV_ENV" => "mysql://user@host/db" ) #setenv.add-response-header = ( "X-Secret-Message" => "42" ) ## for mod_trigger_b4_dl # trigger-before-download.gdbm-filename = "/var/lib/lighttpd/trigger.db" # trigger-before-download.memcache-hosts = ( "127.0.0.1:11211" ) # trigger-before-download.trigger-url = "^/trigger/" # trigger-before-download.download-url = "^/download/" # trigger-before-download.deny-url = "http://127.0.0.1/index.html" # trigger-before-download.trigger-timeout = 10 #### variable usage: ## variable name without "." is auto prefixed by "var." and becomes "var.bar" #bar = 1 #var.mystring = "foo" ## integer add #bar += 1 ## string concat, with integer cast as string, result: "www.foo1.com" #server.name = "www." + mystring + var.bar + ".com" ## array merge #index-file.names = (foo + ".php") + index-file.names #index-file.names += (foo + ".php") #### include #include /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd-inc.conf ## same as above if you run: "lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf" #include "lighttpd-inc.conf" #### include_shell #include_shell "echo var.a=1" ## the above is same as: #var.a=1 Thank you for your help.

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ServerRoot in my lighttpd.conf

- by michael

Hi, I have use the following example lighttpd.conf to launch my lighttpd. Can you please tell me where is my 'ServerRoot'? # lighttpd configuration file # # use it as a base for lighttpd 1.0.0 and above # # $Id: lighttpd.conf,v 1.7 2004/11/03 22:26:05 weigon Exp $ ############ Options you really have to take care of #################### ## modules to load # at least mod_access and mod_accesslog should be loaded # all other module should only be loaded if really neccesary # - saves some time # - saves memory server.modules = ( # "mod_rewrite", # "mod_redirect", # "mod_alias", "mod_access", # "mod_trigger_b4_dl", # "mod_auth", # "mod_status", # "mod_setenv", "mod_fastcgi", # "mod_proxy", # "mod_simple_vhost", # "mod_evhost", # "mod_userdir", # "mod_cgi", # "mod_compress", # "mod_ssi", # "mod_usertrack", # "mod_expire", # "mod_secdownload", # "mod_rrdtool", "mod_accesslog" ) ## A static document-root. For virtual hosting take a look at the ## mod_simple_vhost module. server.document-root = "/srv/www/htdocs/" ## where to send error-messages to server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/error.log" # files to check for if .../ is requested index-file.names = ( "index.php", "index.html", "index.htm", "default.htm" ) ## set the event-handler (read the performance section in the manual) # server.event-handler = "freebsd-kqueue" # needed on OS X # mimetype mapping mimetype.assign = ( ".pdf" => "application/pdf", ".sig" => "application/pgp-signature", ".spl" => "application/futuresplash", ".class" => "application/octet-stream", ".ps" => "application/postscript", ".torrent" => "application/x-bittorrent", ".dvi" => "application/x-dvi", ".gz" => "application/x-gzip", ".pac" => "application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig", ".swf" => "application/x-shockwave-flash", ".tar.gz" => "application/x-tgz", ".tgz" => "application/x-tgz", ".tar" => "application/x-tar", ".zip" => "application/zip", ".mp3" => "audio/mpeg", ".m3u" => "audio/x-mpegurl", ".wma" => "audio/x-ms-wma", ".wax" => "audio/x-ms-wax", ".ogg" => "application/ogg", ".wav" => "audio/x-wav", ".gif" => "image/gif", ".jar" => "application/x-java-archive", ".jpg" => "image/jpeg", ".jpeg" => "image/jpeg", ".png" => "image/png", ".xbm" => "image/x-xbitmap", ".xpm" => "image/x-xpixmap", ".xwd" => "image/x-xwindowdump", ".css" => "text/css", ".html" => "text/html", ".htm" => "text/html", ".js" => "text/javascript", ".asc" => "text/plain", ".c" => "text/plain", ".cpp" => "text/plain", ".log" => "text/plain", ".conf" => "text/plain", ".text" => "text/plain", ".txt" => "text/plain", ".dtd" => "text/xml", ".xml" => "text/xml", ".mpeg" => "video/mpeg", ".mpg" => "video/mpeg", ".mov" => "video/quicktime", ".qt" => "video/quicktime", ".avi" => "video/x-msvideo", ".asf" => "video/x-ms-asf", ".asx" => "video/x-ms-asf", ".wmv" => "video/x-ms-wmv", ".bz2" => "application/x-bzip", ".tbz" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar", ".tar.bz2" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar", # default mime type "" => "application/octet-stream", ) # Use the "Content-Type" extended attribute to obtain mime type if possible #mimetype.use-xattr = "enable" ## send a different Server: header ## be nice and keep it at lighttpd # server.tag = "lighttpd" #### accesslog module accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/access.log" ## deny access the file-extensions # # ~ is for backupfiles from vi, emacs, joe, ... # .inc is often used for code includes which should in general not be part # of the document-root url.access-deny = ( "~", ".inc" ) $HTTP["url"] =~ "\.pdf$" { server.range-requests = "disable" } ## # which extensions should not be handle via static-file transfer # # .php, .pl, .fcgi are most often handled by mod_fastcgi or mod_cgi static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" ) ######### Options that are good to be but not neccesary to be changed ####### ## bind to port (default: 80) server.port = 9090 ## bind to localhost (default: all interfaces) server.bind = "127.0.0.1" ## error-handler for status 404 #server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.html" #server.error-handler-404 = "/error-handler.php" ## to help the rc.scripts #server.pid-file = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid" ###### virtual hosts ## ## If you want name-based virtual hosting add the next three settings and load ## mod_simple_vhost ## ## document-root = ## virtual-server-root + virtual-server-default-host + virtual-server-docroot ## or ## virtual-server-root + http-host + virtual-server-docroot ## #simple-vhost.server-root = "/srv/www/vhosts/" #simple-vhost.default-host = "www.example.org" #simple-vhost.document-root = "/htdocs/" ## ## Format: <errorfile-prefix><status-code>.html ## -> ..../status-404.html for 'File not found' #server.errorfile-prefix = "/usr/share/lighttpd/errors/status-" #server.errorfile-prefix = "/srv/www/errors/status-" ## virtual directory listings #dir-listing.activate = "enable" ## select encoding for directory listings #dir-listing.encoding = "utf-8" ## enable debugging #debug.log-request-header = "enable" #debug.log-response-header = "enable" #debug.log-request-handling = "enable" #debug.log-file-not-found = "enable" ### only root can use these options # # chroot() to directory (default: no chroot() ) #server.chroot = "/" ## change uid to <uid> (default: don't care) #server.username = "wwwrun" ## change uid to <uid> (default: don't care) #server.groupname = "wwwrun" #### compress module #compress.cache-dir = "/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/" #compress.filetype = ("text/plain", "text/html") #### proxy module ## read proxy.txt for more info #proxy.server = ( ".php" => # ( "localhost" => # ( # "host" => "192.168.0.101", # "port" => 80 # ) # ) # ) #### fastcgi module fastcgi.server = ( "/fastcgi_scripts/" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 1026, "check-local" => "disable", "bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/cgi-fcgi", #"docroot" => "/" # remote server may use # it's own docroot )) ) ## read fastcgi.txt for more info ## for PHP don't forget to set cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 in the php.ini #fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => # ( "localhost" => # ( # "socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket", # "bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/php-cgi" # ) # ) # ) #### CGI module #cgi.assign = ( ".pl" => "/usr/bin/perl", # ".cgi" => "/usr/bin/perl" ) # #### SSL engine #ssl.engine = "enable" #ssl.pemfile = "/etc/ssl/private/lighttpd.pem" #### status module #status.status-url = "/server-status" #status.config-url = "/server-config" #### auth module ## read authentication.txt for more info #auth.backend = "plain" #auth.backend.plain.userfile = "lighttpd.user" #auth.backend.plain.groupfile = "lighttpd.group" #auth.backend.ldap.hostname = "localhost" #auth.backend.ldap.base-dn = "dc=my-domain,dc=com" #auth.backend.ldap.filter = "(uid=$)" #auth.require = ( "/server-status" => # ( # "method" => "digest", # "realm" => "download archiv", # "require" => "user=jan" # ), # "/server-config" => # ( # "method" => "digest", # "realm" => "download archiv", # "require" => "valid-user" # ) # ) #### url handling modules (rewrite, redirect, access) #url.rewrite = ( "^/$" => "/server-status" ) #url.redirect = ( "^/wishlist/(.+)" => "http://www.123.org/$1" ) #### both rewrite/redirect support back reference to regex conditional using %n #$HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.(.*)" { # url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://%1/$1" ) #} # # define a pattern for the host url finding # %% => % sign # %0 => domain name + tld # %1 => tld # %2 => domain name without tld # %3 => subdomain 1 name # %4 => subdomain 2 name # #evhost.path-pattern = "/srv/www/vhosts/%3/htdocs/" #### expire module #expire.url = ( "/buggy/" => "access 2 hours", "/asdhas/" => "access plus 1 seconds 2 minutes") #### ssi #ssi.extension = ( ".shtml" ) #### rrdtool #rrdtool.binary = "/usr/bin/rrdtool" #rrdtool.db-name = "/var/lib/lighttpd/lighttpd.rrd" #### setenv #setenv.add-request-header = ( "TRAV_ENV" => "mysql://user@host/db" ) #setenv.add-response-header = ( "X-Secret-Message" => "42" ) ## for mod_trigger_b4_dl # trigger-before-download.gdbm-filename = "/var/lib/lighttpd/trigger.db" # trigger-before-download.memcache-hosts = ( "127.0.0.1:11211" ) # trigger-before-download.trigger-url = "^/trigger/" # trigger-before-download.download-url = "^/download/" # trigger-before-download.deny-url = "http://127.0.0.1/index.html" # trigger-before-download.trigger-timeout = 10 #### variable usage: ## variable name without "." is auto prefixed by "var." and becomes "var.bar" #bar = 1 #var.mystring = "foo" ## integer add #bar += 1 ## string concat, with integer cast as string, result: "www.foo1.com" #server.name = "www." + mystring + var.bar + ".com" ## array merge #index-file.names = (foo + ".php") + index-file.names #index-file.names += (foo + ".php") #### include #include /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd-inc.conf ## same as above if you run: "lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf" #include "lighttpd-inc.conf" #### include_shell #include_shell "echo var.a=1" ## the above is same as: #var.a=1 Thank you.

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NFS issue brings down entire vSphere ESX estate

- by growse

I experienced an odd issue this morning where an NFS issue appeared to have taken down the majority of my VMs hosted on a small vSphere 5.0 estate. The infrastructure itself is 4x IBM HS21 blades running around 20 VMs. The storage is provided by a single HP X1600 array with attached D2700 chassis running Solaris 11. There's a couple of storage pools on this which are exposed over NFS for the storage of the VM files, and some iSCSI LUNs for things like MSCS shared disks. Normally, this is pretty stable, but I appreciate the lack of resiliancy in having a single X1600 doing all the storage. This morning, in the logs of each ESX host, at around 0521 GMT I saw a lot of entries like this: 2011-11-30T05:21:54.161Z cpu2:2050)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000a4cf9a8 3 2011-11-30T05:21:54.161Z cpu2:2050)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000a4dc9e8 3 2011-11-30T05:21:54.161Z cpu2:2050)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000a4d3fa8 3 2011-11-30T05:21:54.161Z cpu2:2050)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000a4de0a8 3 [....] 2011-11-30T06:16:07.042Z cpu0:2058)WARNING: NFS: 283: Lost connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /sastank/VMStorage, mounted as f0342e1c-19be66b5-0000-000000000000 ("SAStank") 2011-11-30T06:17:01.459Z cpu2:4011)NFS: 292: Restored connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /sastank/VMStorage, mounted as f0342e1c-19be66b5-0000-000000000000 ("SAStank") 2011-11-30T06:25:17.887Z cpu3:2051)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000a4c2b28 3 2011-11-30T06:27:16.063Z cpu3:4011)NFSLock: 568: Start accessing fd 0x41000a4d8928 again 2011-11-30T06:35:30.827Z cpu1:2058)WARNING: NFS: 283: Lost connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /tank/ISO, mounted as 5acdbb3e-410e56e3-0000-000000000000 ("ISO (1)") 2011-11-30T06:36:37.953Z cpu6:2054)NFS: 292: Restored connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /tank/ISO, mounted as 5acdbb3e-410e56e3-0000-000000000000 ("ISO (1)") 2011-11-30T06:40:08.242Z cpu6:2054)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000a4c3e68 3 2011-11-30T06:40:34.647Z cpu3:2051)NFSLock: 568: Start accessing fd 0x41000a4d8928 again 2011-11-30T06:44:42.663Z cpu1:2058)WARNING: NFS: 283: Lost connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /sastank/VMStorage, mounted as f0342e1c-19be66b5-0000-000000000000 ("SAStank") 2011-11-30T06:44:53.973Z cpu0:4011)NFS: 292: Restored connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /sastank/VMStorage, mounted as f0342e1c-19be66b5-0000-000000000000 ("SAStank") 2011-11-30T06:51:28.296Z cpu5:2058)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000ae3c528 3 2011-11-30T06:51:44.024Z cpu4:2052)NFSLock: 568: Start accessing fd 0x41000ae3b8e8 again 2011-11-30T06:56:30.758Z cpu4:2058)WARNING: NFS: 283: Lost connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /sastank/VMStorage, mounted as f0342e1c-19be66b5-0000-000000000000 ("SAStank") 2011-11-30T06:56:53.389Z cpu7:2055)NFS: 292: Restored connection to the server 10.13.111.197 mount point /sastank/VMStorage, mounted as f0342e1c-19be66b5-0000-000000000000 ("SAStank") 2011-11-30T07:01:50.350Z cpu6:2054)ScsiDeviceIO: 2316: Cmd(0x41240072bc80) 0x12, CmdSN 0x9803 to dev "naa.600508e000000000505c16815a36c50d" failed H:0x0 D:0x2 P:0x0 Valid sense data: 0x5 0x24 0x0. 2011-11-30T07:03:48.449Z cpu3:2051)NFSLock: 608: Stop accessing fd 0x41000ae46b68 3 2011-11-30T07:03:57.318Z cpu4:4009)NFSLock: 568: Start accessing fd 0x41000ae48228 again (I've put a complete dump from one of the hosts on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/Vn60wgTt) When I got in the office at 9am, I saw various failures and alarms and troubleshooted the issue. It turned out that pretty much all of the VMs were inaccessible, and that the ESX hosts either were describing each VM as 'powered off', 'powered on', or 'unavailable'. The VMs described as 'powered on' where not in any way reachable or responding to pings, so this may be lies. There's absolutely no indication on the X1600 that anything was awry, and nothing on the switches to indicate any loss of connectivity. I only managed to resolve the issue by rebooting the ESX hosts in turn. I have a number of questions: What the hell happened? If this was a temporary NFS failure, why did it put the ESX hosts into a state from which a reboot was the only recovery? In the future, when the NFS server goes a little off-piste, what would be the best approach to add some resilience? I've been looking at budgeting for next year and potentially have budget to purchase another X1600/D2700/disks, would an identical mirrored disk setup help to mitigate these sorts of failures automatically? Edit (Added requested details) To expand with some details as requested: The X1600 has 12x 1TB disks lumped together in mirrored pairs as tank, and the D2700 (connected with a mini SAS cable) has 12x 300GB 10k SAS disks lumped together in mirrored pairs as sastank zpool status pool: rpool state: ONLINE scan: none requested config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM rpool ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t0d0s0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors pool: sastank state: ONLINE scan: scrub repaired 0 in 74h21m with 0 errors on Wed Nov 30 02:51:58 2011 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM sastank ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t14d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t15d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-1 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t16d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t17d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-2 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t18d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t19d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-3 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t20d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t21d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-4 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t22d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t23d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-5 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t24d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t25d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors pool: tank state: ONLINE scan: scrub repaired 0 in 17h28m with 0 errors on Mon Nov 28 17:58:19 2011 config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM tank ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t1d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t2d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-1 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t3d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t4d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-2 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t5d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t6d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-3 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t8d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t9d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-4 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t10d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t11d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 mirror-5 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t12d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 c7t13d0 ONLINE 0 0 0 errors: No known data errors The filesystem exposed over NFS for the primary datastore is sastank/VMStorage zfs list NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT rpool 45.1G 13.4G 92.5K /rpool rpool/ROOT 2.28G 13.4G 31K legacy rpool/ROOT/solaris 2.28G 13.4G 2.19G / rpool/dump 15.0G 13.4G 15.0G - rpool/export 11.9G 13.4G 32K /export rpool/export/home 11.9G 13.4G 32K /export/home rpool/export/home/andrew 11.9G 13.4G 11.9G /export/home/andrew rpool/swap 15.9G 29.2G 123M - sastank 1.08T 536G 33K /sastank sastank/VMStorage 1.01T 536G 1.01T /sastank/VMStorage sastank/comstar 71.7G 536G 31K /sastank/comstar sastank/comstar/sql_tempdb 6.31G 536G 6.31G - sastank/comstar/sql_tx_data 65.4G 536G 65.4G - tank 4.79T 578G 42K /tank tank/FTP 269G 578G 269G /tank/FTP tank/ISO 28.8G 578G 25.9G /tank/ISO tank/backupstage 2.64T 578G 2.49T /tank/backupstage tank/cifs 301G 578G 297G /tank/cifs tank/comstar 1.54T 578G 31K /tank/comstar tank/comstar/msdtc 1.07G 579G 32.8M - tank/comstar/quorum 577M 578G 47.9M - tank/comstar/sqldata 1.54T 886G 304G - tank/comstar/vsphere_lun 2.09G 580G 22.2M - tank/mcs-asset-repository 7.01M 578G 6.99M /tank/mcs-asset-repository tank/mscs-quorum 55K 578G 36K /tank/mscs-quorum tank/sccm 16.1G 578G 12.8G /tank/sccm As for the networking, all connections between the X1600, the Blades and the switch are either LACP or Etherchannel bonded 2x 1Gbit links. Switch is a single Cisco 3750. Storage traffic sits on its own VLAN segregated from VM machine traffic.

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FreeBSD 8.1 unstable network connection

- by frankcheong

I have three FreeBSD 8.1 running on three different hardware and therefore consist of different network adapter as well (bce, bge and igb). I found that the network connection is kind of unstable which I have tried to scp some 10MB file and found that I cannot always get the files completed successfully. I have further checked with my network admin and he claim that the problem is being caused by the network driver which cannot support the load whereby he tried to ping using huge packet size (around 15k) and my server will drop packet consistently at a regular interval. I found that this statement may not be valid since the three server is using three different network drive and it would be quite impossible that the same problem is being caused by three different network adapter and thus different network driver. Since then I have tried to tune up the performance by playing around with the /etc/sysctl.conf figures with no luck. kern.ipc.somaxconn=1024 kern.ipc.shmall=3276800 kern.ipc.shmmax=1638400000 # Security net.inet.ip.redirect=0 net.inet.ip.sourceroute=0 net.inet.ip.accept_sourceroute=0 net.inet.icmp.maskrepl=0 net.inet.icmp.log_redirect=0 net.inet.icmp.drop_redirect=1 net.inet.tcp.drop_synfin=1 # Security net.inet.udp.blackhole=1 net.inet.tcp.blackhole=2 # Required by pf net.inet.ip.forwarding=1 #Network Performance Tuning kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=16777216 net.inet.tcp.rfc1323=1 net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_max=16777216 net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_max=16777216 # Setting specifically for 1 or even 10Gbps network net.local.stream.sendspace=262144 net.local.stream.recvspace=262144 net.inet.tcp.local_slowstart_flightsize=10 net.inet.tcp.nolocaltimewait=1 net.inet.tcp.mssdflt=1460 net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_auto=1 net.inet.tcp.sendbuf_inc=16384 net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_auto=1 net.inet.tcp.recvbuf_inc=524288 net.inet.tcp.sendspace=262144 net.inet.tcp.recvspace=262144 net.inet.udp.recvspace=262144 kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=16777216 kern.ipc.nmbclusters=32768 net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=1 net.inet.tcp.delacktime=100 net.inet.tcp.slowstart_flightsize=179 net.inet.tcp.inflight.enable=1 net.inet.tcp.inflight.min=6144 # Reduce the cache size of slow start connection net.inet.tcp.hostcache.expire=1 Our network admin also claim that they see quite a lot of network up and down from their cisco switch log while I cannot find any up down message inside the dmesg. Have further checked the netstat -s but dont have concrete idea. tcp: 133695291 packets sent 39408539 data packets (3358837321 bytes) 61868 data packets (89472844 bytes) retransmitted 24 data packets unnecessarily retransmitted 0 resends initiated by MTU discovery 50756141 ack-only packets (2148 delayed) 0 URG only packets 0 window probe packets 4372385 window update packets 39781869 control packets 134898031 packets received 72339403 acks (for 3357601899 bytes) 190712 duplicate acks 0 acks for unsent data 59339201 packets (3647021974 bytes) received in-sequence 114 completely duplicate packets (135202 bytes) 27 old duplicate packets 0 packets with some dup. data (0 bytes duped) 42090 out-of-order packets (60817889 bytes) 0 packets (0 bytes) of data after window 0 window probes 3953896 window update packets 64181 packets received after close 0 discarded for bad checksums 0 discarded for bad header offset fields 0 discarded because packet too short 45192 discarded due to memory problems 19945391 connection requests 1323420 connection accepts 0 bad connection attempts 0 listen queue overflows 0 ignored RSTs in the windows 21133581 connections established (including accepts) 21268724 connections closed (including 32737 drops) 207874 connections updated cached RTT on close 207874 connections updated cached RTT variance on close 132439 connections updated cached ssthresh on close 42392 embryonic connections dropped 72339338 segments updated rtt (of 69477829 attempts) 390871 retransmit timeouts 0 connections dropped by rexmit timeout 0 persist timeouts 0 connections dropped by persist timeout 0 Connections (fin_wait_2) dropped because of timeout 13990 keepalive timeouts 2 keepalive probes sent 13988 connections dropped by keepalive 173044 correct ACK header predictions 36947371 correct data packet header predictions 1323420 syncache entries added 0 retransmitted 0 dupsyn 0 dropped 1323420 completed 0 bucket overflow 0 cache overflow 0 reset 0 stale 0 aborted 0 badack 0 unreach 0 zone failures 1323420 cookies sent 0 cookies received 1864 SACK recovery episodes 18005 segment rexmits in SACK recovery episodes 26066896 byte rexmits in SACK recovery episodes 147327 SACK options (SACK blocks) received 87473 SACK options (SACK blocks) sent 0 SACK scoreboard overflow 0 packets with ECN CE bit set 0 packets with ECN ECT(0) bit set 0 packets with ECN ECT(1) bit set 0 successful ECN handshakes 0 times ECN reduced the congestion window udp: 5141258 datagrams received 0 with incomplete header 0 with bad data length field 0 with bad checksum 1 with no checksum 0 dropped due to no socket 129616 broadcast/multicast datagrams undelivered 0 dropped due to full socket buffers 0 not for hashed pcb 5011642 delivered 5016050 datagrams output 0 times multicast source filter matched sctp: 0 input packets 0 datagrams 0 packets that had data 0 input SACK chunks 0 input DATA chunks 0 duplicate DATA chunks 0 input HB chunks 0 HB-ACK chunks 0 input ECNE chunks 0 input AUTH chunks 0 chunks missing AUTH 0 invalid HMAC ids received 0 invalid secret ids received 0 auth failed 0 fast path receives all one chunk 0 fast path multi-part data 0 output packets 0 output SACKs 0 output DATA chunks 0 retransmitted DATA chunks 0 fast retransmitted DATA chunks 0 FR's that happened more than once to same chunk 0 intput HB chunks 0 output ECNE chunks 0 output AUTH chunks 0 ip_output error counter Packet drop statistics: 0 from middle box 0 from end host 0 with data 0 non-data, non-endhost 0 non-endhost, bandwidth rep only 0 not enough for chunk header 0 not enough data to confirm 0 where process_chunk_drop said break 0 failed to find TSN 0 attempt reverse TSN lookup 0 e-host confirms zero-rwnd 0 midbox confirms no space 0 data did not match TSN 0 TSN's marked for Fast Retran Timeouts: 0 iterator timers fired 0 T3 data time outs 0 window probe (T3) timers fired 0 INIT timers fired 0 sack timers fired 0 shutdown timers fired 0 heartbeat timers fired 0 a cookie timeout fired 0 an endpoint changed its cookiesecret 0 PMTU timers fired 0 shutdown ack timers fired 0 shutdown guard timers fired 0 stream reset timers fired 0 early FR timers fired 0 an asconf timer fired 0 auto close timer fired 0 asoc free timers expired 0 inp free timers expired 0 packet shorter than header 0 checksum error 0 no endpoint for port 0 bad v-tag 0 bad SID 0 no memory 0 number of multiple FR in a RTT window 0 RFC813 allowed sending 0 RFC813 does not allow sending 0 times max burst prohibited sending 0 look ahead tells us no memory in interface 0 numbers of window probes sent 0 times an output error to clamp down on next user send 0 times sctp_senderrors were caused from a user 0 number of in data drops due to chunk limit reached 0 number of in data drops due to rwnd limit reached 0 times a ECN reduced the cwnd 0 used express lookup via vtag 0 collision in express lookup 0 times the sender ran dry of user data on primary 0 same for above 0 sacks the slow way 0 window update only sacks sent 0 sends with sinfo_flags !=0 0 unordered sends 0 sends with EOF flag set 0 sends with ABORT flag set 0 times protocol drain called 0 times we did a protocol drain 0 times recv was called with peek 0 cached chunks used 0 cached stream oq's used 0 unread messages abandonded by close 0 send burst avoidance, already max burst inflight to net 0 send cwnd full avoidance, already max burst inflight to net 0 number of map array over-runs via fwd-tsn's ip: 137814085 total packets received 0 bad header checksums 0 with size smaller than minimum 0 with data size < data length 0 with ip length > max ip packet size 0 with header length < data size 0 with data length < header length 0 with bad options 0 with incorrect version number 1200 fragments received 0 fragments dropped (dup or out of space) 0 fragments dropped after timeout 300 packets reassembled ok 137813009 packets for this host 530 packets for unknown/unsupported protocol 0 packets forwarded (0 packets fast forwarded) 61 packets not forwardable 0 packets received for unknown multicast group 0 redirects sent 137234598 packets sent from this host 0 packets sent with fabricated ip header 685307 output packets dropped due to no bufs, etc. 52 output packets discarded due to no route 300 output datagrams fragmented 1200 fragments created 0 datagrams that can't be fragmented 0 tunneling packets that can't find gif 0 datagrams with bad address in header icmp: 0 calls to icmp_error 0 errors not generated in response to an icmp message Output histogram: echo reply: 305 0 messages with bad code fields 0 messages less than the minimum length 0 messages with bad checksum 0 messages with bad length 0 multicast echo requests ignored 0 multicast timestamp requests ignored Input histogram: destination unreachable: 530 echo: 305 305 message responses generated 0 invalid return addresses 0 no return routes ICMP address mask responses are disabled igmp: 0 messages received 0 messages received with too few bytes 0 messages received with wrong TTL 0 messages received with bad checksum 0 V1/V2 membership queries received 0 V3 membership queries received 0 membership queries received with invalid field(s) 0 general queries received 0 group queries received 0 group-source queries received 0 group-source queries dropped 0 membership reports received 0 membership reports received with invalid field(s) 0 membership reports received for groups to which we belong 0 V3 reports received without Router Alert 0 membership reports sent arp: 376748 ARP requests sent 3207 ARP replies sent 245245 ARP requests received 80845 ARP replies received 326090 ARP packets received 267712 total packets dropped due to no ARP entry 108876 ARP entrys timed out 0 Duplicate IPs seen ip6: 2226633 total packets received 0 with size smaller than minimum 0 with data size < data length 0 with bad options 0 with incorrect version number 0 fragments received 0 fragments dropped (dup or out of space) 0 fragments dropped after timeout 0 fragments that exceeded limit 0 packets reassembled ok 2226633 packets for this host 0 packets forwarded 0 packets not forwardable 0 redirects sent 2226633 packets sent from this host 0 packets sent with fabricated ip header 0 output packets dropped due to no bufs, etc. 8 output packets discarded due to no route 0 output datagrams fragmented 0 fragments created 0 datagrams that can't be fragmented 0 packets that violated scope rules 0 multicast packets which we don't join Input histogram: UDP: 2226633 Mbuf statistics: 962679 one mbuf 1263954 one ext mbuf 0 two or more ext mbuf 0 packets whose headers are not continuous 0 tunneling packets that can't find gif 0 packets discarded because of too many headers 0 failures of source address selection Source addresses selection rule applied: icmp6: 0 calls to icmp6_error 0 errors not generated in response to an icmp6 message 0 errors not generated because of rate limitation 0 messages with bad code fields 0 messages < minimum length 0 bad checksums 0 messages with bad length Histogram of error messages to be generated: 0 no route 0 administratively prohibited 0 beyond scope 0 address unreachable 0 port unreachable 0 packet too big 0 time exceed transit 0 time exceed reassembly 0 erroneous header field 0 unrecognized next header 0 unrecognized option 0 redirect 0 unknown 0 message responses generated 0 messages with too many ND options 0 messages with bad ND options 0 bad neighbor solicitation messages 0 bad neighbor advertisement messages 0 bad router solicitation messages 0 bad router advertisement messages 0 bad redirect messages 0 path MTU changes rip6: 0 messages received 0 checksum calculations on inbound 0 messages with bad checksum 0 messages dropped due to no socket 0 multicast messages dropped due to no socket 0 messages dropped due to full socket buffers 0 delivered 0 datagrams output netstat -m 516/5124/5640 mbufs in use (current/cache/total) 512/1634/2146/32768 mbuf clusters in use (current/cache/total/max) 512/1536 mbuf+clusters out of packet secondary zone in use (current/cache) 0/1303/1303/12800 4k (page size) jumbo clusters in use (current/cache/total/max) 0/0/0/6400 9k jumbo clusters in use (current/cache/total/max) 0/0/0/3200 16k jumbo clusters in use (current/cache/total/max) 1153K/9761K/10914K bytes allocated to network (current/cache/total) 0/0/0 requests for mbufs denied (mbufs/clusters/mbuf+clusters) 0/0/0 requests for jumbo clusters denied (4k/9k/16k) 0/8/6656 sfbufs in use (current/peak/max) 0 requests for sfbufs denied 0 requests for sfbufs delayed 0 requests for I/O initiated by sendfile 0 calls to protocol drain routines Anyone got an idea what might be the possible cause?

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26 Days: Countdown to Oracle OpenWorld 2012

- by Michael Snow

Welcome to our countdown to Oracle OpenWorld! Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is just around the corner. In less than 26 days, San Francisco will be invaded by an expected 50,000 people from all over the world. Here on the Oracle WebCenter team, we’ve all been working to help make the experience a great one for all our WebCenter customers. For a sneak peak – we’ll be spending this week giving you a teaser of what to look forward to if you are joining us in San Francisco from September 30th through October 4th. We have Oracle WebCenter sessions covering all topics imaginable. Take a look and use the tools we provide to build out your schedule in advance and reserve your seats in your favorite sessions. That gives you plenty of time to plan for your week with us in San Francisco. If unfortunately, your boss denied your request to attend - there are still some ways that you can join in the experience virtually On-Demand. This year - we are expanding even more up North of Market Street and will be taking over Union Square as well. Check out this map of San Francisco to get a sense of how much of a footprint Oracle OpenWorld has grown to this year. With so much to see and so many sessions to learn from - its no wonder that people get excited. Add to that a good mix of fun and all of the possible WebCenter sessions you could attend - you won't want to sleep at all to take full advantage of such an opportunity. We'll also have our annual WebCenter Customer Appreciation reception - stay tuned this week for some more info on registration to make sure you'll be able to join us. If you've been following the America's Cup at all and believe in EXTREME PERFORMANCE you'll definitely want to take a look at this video from last year's OpenWorld Keynote. 12.00 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Important OpenWorld Links: Attendee / Presenters Toolkit Oracle Schedule Builder WebCenter Sessions (listed in the catalog under Fusion Middleware as "Portals, Sites, Content, and Collaboration" ) Oracle Music Festival - AMAZING Line up!! Oracle Customer Appreciation Night -LOOK HERE!! Oracle OpenWorld LIVE On-Demand Here are all the WebCenter sessions broken down by day for your viewing pleasure. Monday, October 1st CON8885 - Simplify CRM Engagement with Contextual Collaboration Are your sales teams disconnected and disengaged? Do you want a tool for easily connecting expertise across your organization and providing visibility into the complete sales process? Do you want a way to enhance and retain organization knowledge? Oracle Social Network is the answer. Attend this session to learn how to make CRM easy, effective, and efficient for use across virtual sales teams. Also learn how Oracle Social Network can drive sales force collaboration with natural conversations throughout the sales cycle, promote sales team productivity through purposeful social networking without the noise, and build cross-team knowledge by integrating conversations with CRM and other business applications. CON8268 - Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging Your Customers. Empowering Your Business Oracle WebCenter is a user engagement platform for social business, connecting people and information. Attend this session to learn about the Oracle WebCenter strategy, and understand where Oracle is taking the platform to help companies engage customers, empower employees, and enable partners. Business success starts with ensuring that everyone is engaged with the right people and the right information and can access what they need through the channel of their choice—Web, mobile, or social. Are you giving customers, employees, and partners the best-possible experience? Come learn how you can! ¶ HOL10208 - Add Social Capabilities to Your Enterprise Applications Oracle Social Network enables you to add real-time collaboration capabilities into your enterprise applications, so that conversations can happen directly within your business systems. In this hands-on lab, you will try out the Oracle Social Network product to collaborate with other attendees, using real-time conversations with document sharing capabilities. Next you will embed social capabilities into a sample Web-based enterprise application, using embedded UI components. Experts will also write simple REST-based integrations, using the Oracle Social Network API to programmatically create social interactions. ¶ CON8893 - Improve Employee Productivity with Intuitive and Social Work Environments Social technologies have already transformed the ways customers, employees, partners, and suppliers communicate and stay informed. Forward-thinking organizations today need technologies and infrastructures to help them advance to the next level and integrate social activities with business applications to deliver a user experience that simplifies business processes and enterprise application engagement. Attend this session to hear from an innovative Oracle Social Network customer and learn how you can improve productivity with intuitive and social work environments and empower your employees with innovative social tools to enable contextual access to content and dynamic personalization of solutions. ¶ CON8270 - Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy and Vision Oracle WebCenter provides a strategic content infrastructure for managing documents, images, e-mails, and rich media files. With a single repository, organizations can address any content use case, such as accounts payable, HR onboarding, document management, compliance, records management, digital asset management, or Website management. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter will address new use cases as well as new integrations with Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications, leveraging your investments by making your users more productive and error-free. ¶ CON8269 - Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy and Vision Oracle’s Web experience management solution, Oracle WebCenter Sites, enables organizations to use the online channel to drive customer acquisition and brand loyalty. It helps marketers and business users easily create and manage contextually relevant, social, interactive online experiences across multiple channels on a global scale. In this session, learn about future plans for how Oracle WebCenter Sites will provide you with the tools, capabilities, and integrations you need in order to continue to address your customers’ evolving requirements for engaging online experiences and keep moving your business forward. ¶ CON8896 - Living with SharePoint SharePoint is a popular platform, but it’s not always the best fit for Oracle customers. In this session, you’ll discover the technical and nontechnical limitations and pitfalls of SharePoint and learn about Oracle alternatives for collaboration, portals, enterprise and Web content management, social computing, and application integration. The presentation shows you how to integrate with SharePoint when business or IT requirements dictate and covers cloud-based (Office 365) and on-premises versions of SharePoint. Presented by a former Microsoft director of SharePoint product management and backed by independent customer research, this session will prepare you to answer the question “Why don’t we just use SharePoint for that?’ the next time it comes up in your organization. ¶ CON7843 - Content-Enabling Enterprise Processes with Oracle WebCenter Organizations today continually strive to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. Many business processes are content-intensive and unstructured, requiring ad hoc collaboration, and distributed in nature, requiring many approvals and generating huge volumes of paper. In this session, learn how Oracle and SYSTIME have partnered to help a customer content-enable its enterprise with Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g and integrate them with Oracle Applications. ¶ CON6114 - Tape Robotics’ Newest Superhero: Now Fueled by Oracle Software For small, midsize, and rapidly growing businesses that want the most energy-efficient, scalable storage infrastructure to meet their rapidly growing data demands, Oracle’s most recent addition to its award-winning tape portfolio leverages several pieces of Oracle software. With Oracle Linux, Oracle WebLogic, and Oracle Fusion Middleware tools, the library achieves a higher level of usability than previous products while offering customers a familiar interface for management, plus ease of use. This session examines the competitive advantages of the tape library and how Oracle software raises customer satisfaction. Learn how the combination of Oracle engineered systems, Oracle Secure Backup, and Oracle’s StorageTek tape libraries provide end-to-end coverage of your data. ¶ CON9437 - Mobile Access Management With more than five billion mobile devices on the planet and an increasing number of users using their own devices to access corporate data and applications, securely extending identity management to mobile devices has become a hot topic. This session focuses on how to extend your existing identity management infrastructure and policies to securely and seamlessly enable mobile user access. CON7815 - Customer Experience Online in Cloud: Oracle WebCenter Sites, Oracle ATG Apps, Oracle Exalogic Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle’s ATG product line together can provide a compelling marketing and e-commerce experience. When you couple them with the extreme performance of Oracle Exalogic, you’ll see unmatched scalability that provides you with a true cloud-based solution. In this session, you’ll learn how running Oracle WebCenter Sites and ATG applications on Oracle Exalogic delivers both a private and a public cloud experience. Find out what it takes to get these systems working together and delivering engaging Web experiences. Even if you aren’t considering Oracle Exalogic today, the rich Web experience of Oracle WebCenter, paired with the depth of the ATG product line, can provide your business full support, from merchandising through sale completion. ¶ CON8271 - Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy and Vision To innovate and keep a competitive edge, organizations need to leverage the power of agile and responsive Web applications. Oracle WebCenter Portal enables you to do just that, by delivering intuitive user experiences for enterprise applications to drive innovation with composite applications and mashups. Attend this session to learn firsthand from customers how Oracle WebCenter Portal extends the value of existing enterprise applications, business processes, and content; delivers a superior business user experience; and maximizes limited IT resources. ¶ CON8880 - The Connected Customer Experience Begins with the Online Channel There’s a lot of talk these days about how to connect the customer journey across various touchpoints—from Websites and e-commerce to call centers and in-store—to provide experiences that are more relevant and engaging and ultimately gain competitive edge. Doing it all at once isn’t a realistic objective, so where do you start? Come to this session, and hear about three steps you can take that can help you begin your journey toward delivering the connected customer experience. You’ll hear how Oracle now has an integrated digital marketing platform for your corporate Website, your e-commerce site, your self-service portal, and your marketing and loyalty campaigns, and you’ll learn what you can do today to begin executing on your customer experience initiatives. ¶ GEN11451 - General Session: Building Mobile Applications with Oracle Cloud With the prevalence of smart mobile devices, companies are facing an increased demand to provide access to data and applications from new channels. However, developing applications for mobile devices poses some unique challenges. Come to this session to learn how Oracle addresses these challenges, offering a simpler way to develop and deploy cross-device mobile applications. See how Oracle Cloud enables you to access applications, data, and services from mobile channels in an easier way. CON8272 - Oracle Social Network Strategy and Vision One key way of increasing employee productivity is by bringing people, processes, and information together—providing new social capabilities to enable business users to quickly correspond and collaborate on business activities. Oracle WebCenter provides a user engagement platform with social and collaborative technologies to empower business users to focus on their key business processes, applications, and content in the context of their role and process. Attend this session to hear how the latest social capabilities in Oracle Social Network are enabling organizations to transform themselves into social businesses. --- Tuesday, October 2nd HOL10194 - Enterprise Content Management Simplified: Oracle WebCenter Content’s Next-Generation UI Regardless of the nature of your business, unstructured content underpins many of its daily functions. Whether you are working with traditional presentations, spreadsheets, or text documents—or even with digital assets such as images and multimedia files—your content needs to be accessible and manageable in convenient and intuitive ways to make working with the content easier. Additionally, you need the ability to easily share documents with coworkers to facilitate a collaborative working environment. Come to this session to see how Oracle WebCenter Content’s next-generation user interface helps modern knowledge workers easily manage personal and enterprise documents in a collaborative environment.¶ CON8877 - Develop a Mobile Strategy with Oracle WebCenter: Engage Customers, Employees, and Partners Mobile technology has gone from nice-to-have to a cornerstone of user engagement. Mobile access enables users to have information available at their fingertips, enabling them to take action the moment they make a decision, interact in the moment of convenience, and take advantage of new service offerings in their preferred channels. All your employees have your mobile applications in their pocket; now what are you going to do? It is a critical step for companies to think through what their employees, customers, and partners really need on their devices. Attend this session to see how Oracle WebCenter enables you to better engage your customers, employees, and partners by providing a unified experience across multiple channels. ¶ CON9447 - Enabling Access for Hundreds of Millions of Users How do you grow your business by identifying, authenticating, authorizing, and federating users on the Web, leveraging social identity and the open source OAuth protocol? How do you scale your access management solution to support hundreds of millions of users? With social identity support out of the box, Oracle’s access management solution is also benchmarked for 250-million-user deployment according to real-world customer scenarios. In this session, you will learn about the social identity capability and the 250-million-user benchmark testing of Oracle Access Manager and Oracle Adaptive Access Manager running on Oracle Exalogic and Oracle Exadata. ¶ HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity. ¶ CON2906 - Get Proactive: Best Practices for Maintaining Oracle Fusion Middleware You chose Oracle Fusion Middleware products to help your organization deliver superior business results. Now learn how to take full advantage of your software with all the great tools, resources, and product updates you’re entitled to through Oracle Support. In this session, Oracle product experts provide proven best practices to help you work more efficiently, plan and prepare for upgrades and patching more effectively, and manage risk. Topics include configuration management tools, remote diagnostics, My Oracle Support Community, and My Oracle Support Lifecycle Advisors. New users and Oracle Fusion Middleware experts alike are guaranteed to leave with fresh ideas and practical, easy-to-implement next steps. ¶ CON8878 - Oracle WebCenter’s Cloud Strategy: From Social and Platform Services to Mashups Cloud computing represents a paradigm shift in how we build applications, automate processes, collaborate, and share and in how we secure our enterprise. Additionally, as you adopt cloud-based services in your organization, it’s likely that you will still have many critical on-premises applications running. With these mixed environments, multiple user interfaces, different security, and multiple datasources and content sources, how do you start evolving your strategy to account for these challenges? Oracle WebCenter offers a complete array of technologies enabling you to solve these challenges and prepare you for the cloud. Attend this session to learn how you can use Oracle WebCenter in the cloud as well as create on-premises and cloud application mash-ups. ¶ CON8901 - Optimize Enterprise Business Processes with Oracle WebCenter and Oracle BPM Do you have business processes that span multiple applications? Are you grappling with how to have visibility across these business processes; how to manage content that is associated with these processes; and, most importantly, how to model and optimize these business processes? Attend this session to hear how Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Process Management provide a unique set of integrated solutions to provide a composite application dashboard across these business processes and offer a solution for content-centric business processes. ¶ CON8883 - Deliver Engaging Interfaces to Oracle Applications with Oracle WebCenter Critical business processes live within enterprise applications, and application users need to manage and execute these processes as effectively as possible. Oracle provides a comprehensive user engagement platform to increase user productivity and optimize overall processes within Oracle Applications—Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle’s Siebel, PeopleSoft, and JD Edwards product families—and third-party applications. Attend this session to learn how you can integrate these applications with Oracle WebCenter to deliver composite application dashboards to your end users—whether they are your customers, partners, or employees—for enhanced usability and Web 2.0–enabled enterprise portals.¶ Wednesday, October 3rd CON8895 - Future-Ready Intranets: How Aramark Re-engineered the Application Landscape There are essential techniques and technologies you can use to deliver employee portals that garner higher productivity, improve business efficiency, and increase user engagement. Attend this session to learn how you can leverage Oracle WebCenter Portal as a user engagement platform for bringing together business process management, enterprise content management, and business intelligence into a highly relevant and integrated experience. Hear how Aramark has leveraged Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to deliver a unified workspace providing simpler navigation and processing, consolidation of tools, easy access to information, integrated search, and single sign-on. ¶ CON8886 - Content Consolidation: Save Money, Increase Efficiency, and Eliminate Silos Organizations are looking for ways to save money and be more efficient. With content in many different places, it’s difficult to know where to look for a document and whether the document is the most current version. With Oracle WebCenter, content can be consolidated into one best-of-breed repository that is secure, scalable, and integrated with your business processes and applications. Users can find the content they need, where they need it, and ensure that it is the right content. This session covers content challenges that affect your business; content consolidation that can lead to savings in storage and administration costs and can lower risks; and how companies are realizing savings. ¶ CON8911 - Improve Online Experiences for Customers and Partners with Self-Service Portals Are you able to provide your customers and partners an easy-to-use online self-service experience? Are you processing high-volume transactions and struggling with call center bottlenecks or back-end systems that won’t integrate, causing order delays and customer frustration? Are you looking to target content such as product and service offerings to your end users? This session shares approaches to providing targeted delivery as well as strategies and best practices for transforming your business by providing an intuitive user experience for your customers and partners. ¶ CON6156 - Top 10 Ways to Integrate Oracle WebCenter Content This session covers 10 common ways to integrate Oracle WebCenter Content with other enterprise applications and middleware. It discusses out-of-the-box modules that provide expanded features in Oracle WebCenter Content—such as enterprise search, SOA, and BPEL—as well as developer tools you can use to create custom integrations. The presentation also gives guidance on which integration option may work best in your environment. ¶ HOL10207 - Build an Intranet Portal with Oracle WebCenter In this hands-on lab, you’ll work with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle WebCenter Content to build out an enterprise portal that maximizes the productivity of teams and individual contributors. Using browser-based tools, you’ll manage site resources such as page styles, templates, and navigation. You’ll edit content stored in Oracle WebCenter Content directly from your portal. You’ll also experience the latest features that promote collaboration, social networking, and personal productivity. ¶ CON7817 - Migration to Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g Customers today continually strive to automate business processes, reduce costs, and improve efficiency. The accounts payable process—which is often distributed in nature, requires many approvals, and generates huge volumes of paper invoices—is automated by many customers. In this session, learn how Oracle and SYSTIME have partnered to help a customer migrate its existing Oracle Imaging and Process Management Release 7.6 to the latest Oracle WebCenter Imaging 11g and integrate it with Oracle’s JD Edwards family of products. ¶ CON8910 - How to Engage Customers Across Web, Mobile, and Social Channels Whether on desktops at the office, on tablets at home, or on mobile phones when on the go, today’s customers are always connected. To engage today’s customers, you need to make the online customer experience connected and consistent across a host of devices and multiple channels, including Web, mobile, and social networks. Managing this multichannel environment can result in lots of headaches without the right tools. Attend this session to learn how Oracle WebCenter Sites solves the challenge of multichannel customer engagement. ¶ HOL10206 - Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g: Transforming the Content Contributor Experience Oracle WebCenter Sites 11g makes it easy for marketers and business users to contribute to and manage Websites with the new visual, contextual, and intuitive Web authoring interface. In this hands-on lab, you will create and manage content for a sports-themed Website, using many of the new and enhanced features of the 11g release. ¶ CON8900 - Building Next-Generation Portals: An Interactive Customer Panel Discussion Social and collaborative technologies have changed how people interact, learn, and collaborate, and providing a modern, social Web presence is imperative to remain competitive in today’s market. Can your business benefit from a more collaborative and interactive portal environment for employees, customers, and partners? Attend this session to hear from Oracle WebCenter Portal customers as they share their strategies and best practices for providing users with a modern experience that adapts to their needs and includes personalized access to content in context. The panel also addresses how customers have benefited from creating next-generation portals by migrating from older portal technologies to Oracle WebCenter Portal. ¶ CON9625 - Taking Control of Oracle WebCenter Security Organizations are increasingly looking to extend their Oracle WebCenter portal for social business, to serve external users and provide seamless access to the right information. In particular, many organizations are extending Oracle WebCenter in a business-to-business scenario requiring secure identification and authorization of business partners and their users. This session focuses on how customers are leveraging, securing, and providing access control to Oracle WebCenter portal and mobile solutions. You will learn best practices and hear real-world examples of how to provide flexible and granular access control for Oracle WebCenter deployments, using Oracle Platform Security Services and Oracle Access Management Suite product offerings. ¶ CON8891 - Extending Social into Enterprise Applications and Business Processes Oracle Social Network is an extensible social platform that enables contextual collaboration within enterprise applications and business processes, providing relevant data from across various enterprise systems in one place. Attend this session to see how an Oracle Social Network customer is integrating multiple applications—such as CRM, HCM, and business processes—into Oracle Social Network and Oracle WebCenter to enable individuals and teams to solve complex cross-organizational business problems more effectively by utilizing the social enterprise. ¶ Thursday, October 4th CON8899 - Becoming a Social Business: Stories from the Front Lines of Change What does it really mean to be a social business? How can you change our organization to embrace social approaches? What pitfalls do you need to avoid? In this lively panel discussion, customer and industry thought leaders in social business explore these topics and more as they share their stories of the good, the bad, and the ugly that can happen when embracing social methods and technologies to improve business success. Using moderated questions and open Q&A from the audience, the panel discusses vital topics such as the critical factors for success, the major issues to avoid, how to gain senior executive support for social efforts, how to handle undesired behavior, and how to measure business impact. It takes a thought-provoking look at becoming a social business from the inside. ¶ CON6851 - Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to Create Vendor Portals Large manufacturers of grocery items routinely find themselves depending on the inventory management expertise of their wholesalers and distributors. Inventory costs can be managed more efficiently by the manufacturers if they have better insight into the inventory levels of items carried by their distributors. This creates a unique opportunity for distributors and wholesalers to leverage this knowledge into a revenue-generating subscription service. Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition and Oracle WebCenter Portal play a key part in enabling creation of business-managed business intelligence portals for vendors. This session discusses one customer that implemented this by leveraging Oracle WebCenter and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition. ¶ CON8879 - Provide a Personalized and Consistent Customer Experience in Your Websites and Portals Your customers engage with your company online in different ways throughout their journey—from prospecting by acquiring information on your corporate Website to transacting through self-service applications on your customer portal—and then the cycle begins again when they look for new products and services. Ensuring that the customer experience is consistent and personalized across online properties—from branding and content to interactions and transactions—can be a daunting task. Oracle WebCenter enables you to speak and interact with your customers with one voice across your Websites and portals by providing an integrated platform for delivery of self-service and engagement that unifies and personalizes the online experience. Learn more in this session. ¶ CON8898 - Land Mines, Potholes, and Dirt Roads: Navigating the Way to ECM Nirvana Ten years ago, people were predicting that by this time in history, we’d be some kind of utopian paperless society. As we all know, we’re not there yet, but are we getting closer? What is keeping companies from driving down the road to enterprise content management bliss? Most people understand that using ECM as a central platform enables organizations to expedite document-centric processes, but most business processes in organizations are still heavily paper-based. Many of these processes could be automated and improved with an ECM platform infrastructure. In this panel discussion, you’ll hear from Oracle WebCenter customers that have already solved some of these challenges as they share their strategies for success and roads to avoid along your journey. ¶ CON8908 - Oracle WebCenter Portal: Creating and Using Content Presenter Templates Oracle WebCenter Portal applications use task flows to display and integrate content stored in the Oracle WebCenter Content server. Among the most flexible task flows is Content Presenter, which renders various types of content on an Oracle WebCenter Portal page. Although Oracle WebCenter Portal comes with a set of predefined Content Presenter templates, developers can create their own templates for specific rendering needs. This session shows the lifecycle of developing Content Presenter task flows, including how to create, package, import, modify at runtime, and use such templates. In addition to simple examples with Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF) UI elements to render the content, it shows how to use other UI technologies, CSS files, and JavaScript libraries. ¶ CON8897 - Using Web Experience Management to Drive Online Marketing Success Every year, the online channel becomes more imperative for driving organizational top-line revenue, but for many companies, mastering how to best market their products and services in a fast-evolving online world with high customer expectations for personalized experiences can be a complex proposition. Come to this panel discussion, and hear directly from online marketers how they are succeeding today by using Web experience management to drive marketing success, using capabilities such as targeting and optimization, user-generated content, mobile site publishing, and site visitor personalization to deliver engaging online experiences. ¶ CON8892 - Oracle’s Journey to Social Business Social business is a revolution, one that is causing rapidly accelerating change in how companies and customers engage with one another and how employees work together. Oracle’s goal in becoming a social business is to create a socially connected organization in which working collaboratively across geographical locations, lines of business, and management chains is second nature, enabling innovative solutions to business challenges. We can achieve this by connecting the right people, finding the right content, communicating with the right people, collaborating at the right time, and building the right communities in the right context—all ready in the CLOUD. Attend this session to see how Oracle is transforming itself into a social business. ¶ ------------ If you've read all the way to the end here - we are REALLY looking forward to seeing you in San Francisco.

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Node.js Adventure - When Node Flying in Wind

- by Shaun

In the first post of this series I mentioned some popular modules in the community, such as underscore, async, etc.. I also listed a module named “Wind (zh-CN)”, which is created by one of my friend, Jeff Zhao (zh-CN). Now I would like to use a separated post to introduce this module since I feel it brings a new async programming style in not only Node.js but JavaScript world. If you know or heard about the new feature in C# 5.0 called “async and await”, or you learnt F#, you will find the “Wind” brings the similar async programming experience in JavaScript. By using “Wind”, we can write async code that looks like the sync code. The callbacks, async stats and exceptions will be handled by “Wind” automatically and transparently. What’s the Problem: Dense “Callback” Phobia Let’s firstly back to my second post in this series. As I mentioned in that post, when we wanted to read some records from SQL Server we need to open the database connection, and then execute the query. In Node.js all IO operation are designed as async callback pattern which means when the operation was done, it will invoke a function which was taken from the last parameter. For example the database connection opening code would be like this. 1: sql.open(connectionString, function(error, conn) { 2: if(error) { 3: // some error handling code 4: } 5: else { 6: // connection opened successfully 7: } 8: }); And then if we need to query the database the code would be like this. It nested in the previous function. 1: sql.open(connectionString, function(error, conn) { 2: if(error) { 3: // some error handling code 4: } 5: else { 6: // connection opened successfully 7: conn.queryRaw(command, function(error, results) { 8: if(error) { 9: // failed to execute this command 10: } 11: else { 12: // records retrieved successfully 13: } 14: }; 15: } 16: }); Assuming if we need to copy some data from this database to another then we need to open another connection and execute the command within the function under the query function. 1: sql.open(connectionString, function(error, conn) { 2: if(error) { 3: // some error handling code 4: } 5: else { 6: // connection opened successfully 7: conn.queryRaw(command, function(error, results) { 8: if(error) { 9: // failed to execute this command 10: } 11: else { 12: // records retrieved successfully 13: target.open(targetConnectionString, function(error, t_conn) { 14: if(error) { 15: // connect failed 16: } 17: else { 18: t_conn.queryRaw(copy_command, function(error, results) { 19: if(error) { 20: // copy failed 21: } 22: else { 23: // and then, what do you want to do now... 24: } 25: }; 26: } 27: }; 28: } 29: }; 30: } 31: }); This is just an example. In the real project the logic would be more complicated. This means our application might be messed up and the business process will be fragged by many callback functions. I would like call this “Dense Callback Phobia”. This might be a challenge how to make code straightforward and easy to read, something like below. 1: try 2: { 3: // open source connection 4: var s_conn = sqlConnect(s_connectionString); 5: // retrieve data 6: var results = sqlExecuteCommand(s_conn, s_command); 7: 8: // open target connection 9: var t_conn = sqlConnect(t_connectionString); 10: // prepare the copy command 11: var t_command = getCopyCommand(results); 12: // execute the copy command 13: sqlExecuteCommand(s_conn, t_command); 14: } 15: catch (ex) 16: { 17: // error handling 18: } What’s the Problem: Sync-styled Async Programming Similar as the previous problem, the callback-styled async programming model makes the upcoming operation as a part of the current operation, and mixed with the error handling code. So it’s very hard to understand what on earth this code will do. And since Node.js utilizes non-blocking IO mode, we cannot invoke those operations one by one, as they will be executed concurrently. For example, in this post when I tried to copy the records from Windows Azure SQL Database (a.k.a. WASD) to Windows Azure Table Storage, if I just insert the data into table storage one by one and then print the “Finished” message, I will see the message shown before the data had been copied. This is because all operations were executed at the same time. In order to make the copy operation and print operation executed synchronously I introduced a module named “async” and the code was changed as below. 1: async.forEach(results.rows, 2: function (row, callback) { 3: var resource = { 4: "PartitionKey": row[1], 5: "RowKey": row[0], 6: "Value": row[2] 7: }; 8: client.insertEntity(tableName, resource, function (error) { 9: if (error) { 10: callback(error); 11: } 12: else { 13: console.log("entity inserted."); 14: callback(null); 15: } 16: }); 17: }, 18: function (error) { 19: if (error) { 20: error["target"] = "insertEntity"; 21: res.send(500, error); 22: } 23: else { 24: console.log("all done."); 25: res.send(200, "Done!"); 26: } 27: }); It ensured that the “Finished” message will be printed when all table entities had been inserted. But it cannot promise that the records will be inserted in sequence. It might be another challenge to make the code looks like in sync-style? 1: try 2: { 3: forEach(row in rows) { 4: var entity = { /* ... */ }; 5: tableClient.insert(tableName, entity); 6: } 7: 8: console.log("Finished"); 9: } 10: catch (ex) { 11: console.log(ex); 12: } How “Wind” Helps “Wind” is a JavaScript library which provides the control flow with plain JavaScript for asynchronous programming (and more) without additional pre-compiling steps. It’s available in NPM so that we can install it through “npm install wind”. Now let’s create a very simple Node.js application as the example. This application will take some website URLs from the command arguments and tried to retrieve the body length and print them in console. Then at the end print “Finish”. I’m going to use “request” module to make the HTTP call simple so I also need to install by the command “npm install request”. The code would be like this. 1: var request = require("request"); 2: 3: // get the urls from arguments, the first two arguments are `node.exe` and `fetch.js` 4: var args = process.argv.splice(2); 5: 6: // main function 7: var main = function() { 8: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 9: // get the url 10: var url = args[i]; 11: // send the http request and try to get the response and body 12: request(url, function(error, response, body) { 13: if(!error && response.statusCode == 200) { 14: // log the url and the body length 15: console.log( 16: "%s: %d.", 17: response.request.uri.href, 18: body.length); 19: } 20: else { 21: // log error 22: console.log(error); 23: } 24: }); 25: } 26: 27: // finished 28: console.log("Finished"); 29: }; 30: 31: // execute the main function 32: main(); Let’s execute this application. (I made them in multi-lines for better reading.) 1: node fetch.js 2: "http://www.igt.com/us-en.aspx" 3: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/games.aspx" 4: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/cabinets.aspx" 5: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/systems.aspx" 6: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/interactive.aspx" 7: "http://www.igt.com/us-en/social-gaming.aspx" 8: "http://www.igt.com/support.aspx" Below is the output. As you can see the finish message was printed at the beginning, and the pages’ length retrieved in a different order than we specified. This is because in this code the request command, console logging command are executed asynchronously and concurrently. Now let’s introduce “Wind” to make them executed in order, which means it will request the websites one by one, and print the message at the end. First of all we need to import the “Wind” package and make sure the there’s only one global variant named “Wind”, and ensure it’s “Wind” instead of “wind”. 1: var Wind = require("wind"); Next, we need to tell “Wind” which code will be executed asynchronously so that “Wind” can control the execution process. In this case the “request” operation executed asynchronously so we will create a “Task” by using a build-in helps function in “Wind” named Wind.Async.Task.create. 1: var requestBodyLengthAsync = function(url) { 2: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function(t) { 3: request(url, function(error, response, body) { 4: if(error || response.statusCode != 200) { 5: t.complete("failure", error); 6: } 7: else { 8: var data = 9: { 10: uri: response.request.uri.href, 11: length: body.length 12: }; 13: t.complete("success", data); 14: } 15: }); 16: }); 17: }; The code above created a “Task” from the original request calling code. In “Wind” a “Task” means an operation will be finished in some time in the future. A “Task” can be started by invoke its start() method, but no one knows when it actually will be finished. The Wind.Async.Task.create helped us to create a task. The only parameter is a function where we can put the actual operation in, and then notify the task object it’s finished successfully or failed by using the complete() method. In the code above I invoked the request method. If it retrieved the response successfully I set the status of this task as “success” with the URL and body length. If it failed I set this task as “failure” and pass the error out. Next, we will change the main() function. In “Wind” if we want a function can be controlled by Wind we need to mark it as “async”. This should be done by using the code below. 1: var main = eval(Wind.compile("async", function() { 2: })); When the application is running, Wind will detect “eval(Wind.compile(“async”, function” and generate an anonymous code from the body of this original function. Then the application will run the anonymous code instead of the original one. In our example the main function will be like this. 1: var main = eval(Wind.compile("async", function() { 2: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 3: try 4: { 5: var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); 6: console.log( 7: "%s: %d.", 8: result.uri, 9: result.length); 10: } 11: catch (ex) { 12: console.log(ex); 13: } 14: } 15: 16: console.log("Finished"); 17: })); As you can see, when I tried to request the URL I use a new command named “$await”. It tells Wind, the operation next to $await will be executed asynchronously, and the main thread should be paused until it finished (or failed). So in this case, my application will be pause when the first response was received, and then print its body length, then try the next one. At the end, print the finish message. Finally, execute the main function. The full code would be like this. 1: var request = require("request"); 2: var Wind = require("wind"); 3: 4: var args = process.argv.splice(2); 5: 6: var requestBodyLengthAsync = function(url) { 7: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function(t) { 8: request(url, function(error, response, body) { 9: if(error || response.statusCode != 200) { 10: t.complete("failure", error); 11: } 12: else { 13: var data = 14: { 15: uri: response.request.uri.href, 16: length: body.length 17: }; 18: t.complete("success", data); 19: } 20: }); 21: }); 22: }; 23: 24: var main = eval(Wind.compile("async", function() { 25: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 26: try 27: { 28: var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); 29: console.log( 30: "%s: %d.", 31: result.uri, 32: result.length); 33: } 34: catch (ex) { 35: console.log(ex); 36: } 37: } 38: 39: console.log("Finished"); 40: })); 41: 42: main().start(); Run our new application. At the beginning we will see the compiled and generated code by Wind. Then we can see the pages were requested one by one, and at the end the finish message was printed. Below is the code Wind generated for us. As you can see the original code, the output code were shown. 1: // Original: 2: function () { 3: for(var i = 0; i < args.length; i++) { 4: try 5: { 6: var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); 7: console.log( 8: "%s: %d.", 9: result.uri, 10: result.length); 11: } 12: catch (ex) { 13: console.log(ex); 14: } 15: } 16: 17: console.log("Finished"); 18: } 19: 20: // Compiled: 21: /* async << function () { */ (function () { 22: var _builder_$0 = Wind.builders["async"]; 23: return _builder_$0.Start(this, 24: _builder_$0.Combine( 25: _builder_$0.Delay(function () { 26: /* var i = 0; */ var i = 0; 27: /* for ( */ return _builder_$0.For(function () { 28: /* ; i < args.length */ return i < args.length; 29: }, function () { 30: /* ; i ++) { */ i ++; 31: }, 32: /* try { */ _builder_$0.Try( 33: _builder_$0.Delay(function () { 34: /* var result = $await(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i])); */ return _builder_$0.Bind(requestBodyLengthAsync(args[i]), function (result) { 35: /* console.log("%s: %d.", result.uri, result.length); */ console.log("%s: %d.", result.uri, result.length); 36: return _builder_$0.Normal(); 37: }); 38: }), 39: /* } catch (ex) { */ function (ex) { 40: /* console.log(ex); */ console.log(ex); 41: return _builder_$0.Normal(); 42: /* } */ }, 43: null 44: ) 45: /* } */ ); 46: }), 47: _builder_$0.Delay(function () { 48: /* console.log("Finished"); */ console.log("Finished"); 49: return _builder_$0.Normal(); 50: }) 51: ) 52: ); 53: /* } */ }) How Wind Works Someone may raise a big concern when you find I utilized “eval” in my code. Someone may assume that Wind utilizes “eval” to execute some code dynamically while “eval” is very low performance. But I would say, Wind does NOT use “eval” to run the code. It only use “eval” as a flag to know which code should be compiled at runtime. When the code was firstly been executed, Wind will check and find “eval(Wind.compile(“async”, function”. So that it knows this function should be compiled. Then it utilized parse-js to analyze the inner JavaScript and generated the anonymous code in memory. Then it rewrite the original code so that when the application was running it will use the anonymous one instead of the original one. Since the code generation was done at the beginning of the application was started, in the future no matter how long our application runs and how many times the async function was invoked, it will use the generated code, no need to generate again. So there’s no significant performance hurt when using Wind. Wind in My Previous Demo Let’s adopt Wind into one of my previous demonstration and to see how it helps us to make our code simple, straightforward and easy to read and understand. In this post when I implemented the functionality that copied the records from my WASD to table storage, the logic would be like this. 1, Open database connection. 2, Execute a query to select all records from the table. 3, Recreate the table in Windows Azure table storage. 4, Create entities from each of the records retrieved previously, and then insert them into table storage. 5, Finally, show message as the HTTP response. But as the image below, since there are so many callbacks and async operations, it’s very hard to understand my logic from the code. Now let’s use Wind to rewrite our code. First of all, of course, we need the Wind package. Then we need to include the package files into project and mark them as “Copy always”. Add the Wind package into the source code. Pay attention to the variant name, you must use “Wind” instead of “wind”. 1: var express = require("express"); 2: var async = require("async"); 3: var sql = require("node-sqlserver"); 4: var azure = require("azure"); 5: var Wind = require("wind"); Now we need to create some async functions by using Wind. All async functions should be wrapped so that it can be controlled by Wind which are open database, retrieve records, recreate table (delete and create) and insert entity in table. Below are these new functions. All of them are created by using Wind.Async.Task.create. 1: sql.openAsync = function (connectionString) { 2: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 3: sql.open(connectionString, function (error, conn) { 4: if (error) { 5: t.complete("failure", error); 6: } 7: else { 8: t.complete("success", conn); 9: } 10: }); 11: }); 12: }; 13: 14: sql.queryAsync = function (conn, query) { 15: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 16: conn.queryRaw(query, function (error, results) { 17: if (error) { 18: t.complete("failure", error); 19: } 20: else { 21: t.complete("success", results); 22: } 23: }); 24: }); 25: }; 26: 27: azure.recreateTableAsync = function (tableName) { 28: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 29: client.deleteTable(tableName, function (error, successful, response) { 30: console.log("delete table finished"); 31: client.createTableIfNotExists(tableName, function (error, successful, response) { 32: console.log("create table finished"); 33: if (error) { 34: t.complete("failure", error); 35: } 36: else { 37: t.complete("success", null); 38: } 39: }); 40: }); 41: }); 42: }; 43: 44: azure.insertEntityAsync = function (tableName, entity) { 45: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 46: client.insertEntity(tableName, entity, function (error, entity, response) { 47: if (error) { 48: t.complete("failure", error); 49: } 50: else { 51: t.complete("success", null); 52: } 53: }); 54: }); 55: }; Then in order to use these functions we will create a new function which contains all steps for data copying. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: } 4: catch (ex) { 5: console.log(ex); 6: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 7: } 8: })); Let’s execute steps one by one with the “$await” keyword introduced by Wind so that it will be invoked in sequence. First is to open the database connection. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: } 7: catch (ex) { 8: console.log(ex); 9: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 10: } 11: })); Then retrieve all records from the database connection. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: } 10: catch (ex) { 11: console.log(ex); 12: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 13: } 14: })); After recreated the table, we need to create the entities and insert them into table storage. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 10: // recreate the table 11: $await(azure.recreateTableAsync(tableName)); 12: console.log("table created"); 13: // insert records in table storage one by one 14: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 15: var entity = { 16: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 17: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 18: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 19: }; 20: $await(azure.insertEntityAsync(tableName, entity)); 21: console.log("entity inserted"); 22: } 23: } 24: } 25: catch (ex) { 26: console.log(ex); 27: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 28: } 29: })); Finally, send response back to the browser. 1: var copyRecords = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 10: // recreate the table 11: $await(azure.recreateTableAsync(tableName)); 12: console.log("table created"); 13: // insert records in table storage one by one 14: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 15: var entity = { 16: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 17: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 18: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 19: }; 20: $await(azure.insertEntityAsync(tableName, entity)); 21: console.log("entity inserted"); 22: } 23: // send response 24: console.log("all done"); 25: res.send(200, "All done!"); 26: } 27: } 28: catch (ex) { 29: console.log(ex); 30: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 31: } 32: })); If we compared with the previous code we will find now it became more readable and much easy to understand. It’s very easy to know what this function does even though without any comments. When user go to URL “/was/copyRecords” we will execute the function above. The code would be like this. 1: app.get("/was/copyRecords", function (req, res) { 2: copyRecords(req, res).start(); 3: }); And below is the logs printed in local compute emulator console. As we can see the functions executed one by one and then finally the response back to me browser. Scaffold Functions in Wind Wind provides not only the async flow control and compile functions, but many scaffold methods as well. We can build our async code more easily by using them. I’m going to introduce some basic scaffold functions here. In the code above I created some functions which wrapped from the original async function such as open database, create table, etc.. All of them are very similar, created a task by using Wind.Async.Task.create, return error or result object through Task.complete function. In fact, Wind provides some functions for us to create task object from the original async functions. If the original async function only has a callback parameter, we can use Wind.Async.Binding.fromCallback method to get the task object directly. For example the code below returned the task object which wrapped the file exist check function. 1: var Wind = require("wind"); 2: var fs = require("fs"); 3: 4: fs.existsAsync = Wind.Async.Binding.fromCallback(fs.exists); In Node.js a very popular async function pattern is that, the first parameter in the callback function represent the error object, and the other parameters is the return values. In this case we can use another build-in function in Wind named Wind.Async.Binding.fromStandard. For example, the open database function can be created from the code below. 1: sql.openAsync = Wind.Async.Binding.fromStandard(sql.open); 2: 3: /* 4: sql.openAsync = function (connectionString) { 5: return Wind.Async.Task.create(function (t) { 6: sql.open(connectionString, function (error, conn) { 7: if (error) { 8: t.complete("failure", error); 9: } 10: else { 11: t.complete("success", conn); 12: } 13: }); 14: }); 15: }; 16: */ When I was testing the scaffold functions under Wind.Async.Binding I found for some functions, such as the Azure SDK insert entity function, cannot be processed correctly. So I personally suggest writing the wrapped method manually. Another scaffold method in Wind is the parallel tasks coordination. In this example, the steps of open database, retrieve records and recreated table should be invoked one by one, but it can be executed in parallel when copying data from database to table storage. In Wind there’s a scaffold function named Task.whenAll which can be used here. Task.whenAll accepts a list of tasks and creates a new task. It will be returned only when all tasks had been completed, or any errors occurred. For example in the code below I used the Task.whenAll to make all copy operation executed at the same time. 1: var copyRecordsInParallel = eval(Wind.compile("async", function (req, res) { 2: try { 3: // connect to the windows azure sql database 4: var conn = $await(sql.openAsync(connectionString)); 5: console.log("connection opened"); 6: // retrieve all records from database 7: var results = $await(sql.queryAsync(conn, "SELECT * FROM [Resource]")); 8: console.log("records selected. count = %d", results.rows.length); 9: if (results.rows.length > 0) { 10: // recreate the table 11: $await(azure.recreateTableAsync(tableName)); 12: console.log("table created"); 13: // insert records in table storage in parallal 14: var tasks = new Array(results.rows.length); 15: for (var i = 0; i < results.rows.length; i++) { 16: var entity = { 17: "PartitionKey": results.rows[i][1], 18: "RowKey": results.rows[i][0], 19: "Value": results.rows[i][2] 20: }; 21: tasks[i] = azure.insertEntityAsync(tableName, entity); 22: } 23: $await(Wind.Async.Task.whenAll(tasks)); 24: // send response 25: console.log("all done"); 26: res.send(200, "All done!"); 27: } 28: } 29: catch (ex) { 30: console.log(ex); 31: res.send(500, "Internal error."); 32: } 33: })); 34: 35: app.get("/was/copyRecordsInParallel", function (req, res) { 36: copyRecordsInParallel(req, res).start(); 37: }); Besides the task creation and coordination, Wind supports the cancellation solution so that we can send the cancellation signal to the tasks. It also includes exception solution which means any exceptions will be reported to the caller function. Summary In this post I introduced a Node.js module named Wind, which created by my friend Jeff Zhao. As you can see, different from other async library and framework, adopted the idea from F# and C#, Wind utilizes runtime code generation technology to make it more easily to write async, callback-based functions in a sync-style way. By using Wind there will be almost no callback, and the code will be very easy to understand. Currently Wind is still under developed and improved. There might be some problems but the author, Jeff, should be very happy and enthusiastic to learn your problems, feedback, suggestion and comments. You can contact Jeff by - Email: [email protected] - Group: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/windjs - GitHub: https://github.com/JeffreyZhao/wind/issues Source code can be download here. Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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AngularJS on top of ASP.NET: Moving the MVC framework out to the browser

- by Varun Chatterji

Heavily drawing inspiration from Ruby on Rails, MVC4’s convention over configuration model of development soon became the Holy Grail of .NET web development. The MVC model brought with it the goodness of proper separation of concerns between business logic, data, and the presentation logic. However, the MVC paradigm, was still one in which server side .NET code could be mixed with presentation code. The Razor templating engine, though cleaner than its predecessors, still encouraged and allowed you to mix .NET server side code with presentation logic. Thus, for example, if the developer required a certain <div> tag to be shown if a particular variable ShowDiv was true in the View’s model, the code could look like the following: Fig 1: To show a div or not. Server side .NET code is used in the View Mixing .NET code with HTML in views can soon get very messy. Wouldn’t it be nice if the presentation layer (HTML) could be pure HTML? Also, in the ASP.NET MVC model, some of the business logic invariably resides in the controller. It is tempting to use an antipattern like the one shown above to control whether a div should be shown or not. However, best practice would indicate that the Controller should not be aware of the div. The ShowDiv variable in the model should not exist. A controller should ideally, only be used to do the plumbing of getting the data populated in the model and nothing else. The view (ideally pure HTML) should render the presentation layer based on the model. In this article we will see how Angular JS, a new JavaScript framework by Google can be used effectively to build web applications where: 1. Views are pure HTML 2. Controllers (in the server sense) are pure REST based API calls 3. The presentation layer is loaded as needed from partial HTML only files. What is MVVM? MVVM short for Model View View Model is a new paradigm in web development. In this paradigm, the Model and View stuff exists on the client side through javascript instead of being processed on the server through postbacks. These frameworks are JavaScript frameworks that facilitate the clear separation of the “frontend” or the data rendering logic from the “backend” which is typically just a REST based API that loads and processes data through a resource model. The frameworks are called MVVM as a change to the Model (through javascript) gets reflected in the view immediately i.e. Model > View. Also, a change on the view (through manual input) gets reflected in the model immediately i.e. View > Model. The following figure shows this conceptually (comments are shown in red): Fig 2: Demonstration of MVVM in action In Fig 2, two text boxes are bound to the same variable model.myInt. Thus, changing the view manually (changing one text box through keyboard input) also changes the other textbox in real time demonstrating V > M property of a MVVM framework. Furthermore, clicking the button adds 1 to the value of model.myInt thus changing the model through JavaScript. This immediately updates the view (the value in the two textboxes) thus demonstrating the M > V property of a MVVM framework. Thus we see that the model in a MVVM JavaScript framework can be regarded as “the single source of truth“. This is an important concept. Angular is one such MVVM framework. We shall use it to build a simple app that sends SMS messages to a particular number. Application, Routes, Views, Controllers, Scope and Models Angular can be used in many ways to construct web applications. For this article, we shall only focus on building Single Page Applications (SPAs). Many of the approaches we will follow in this article have alternatives. It is beyond the scope of this article to explain every nuance in detail but we shall try to touch upon the basic concepts and end up with a working application that can be used to send SMS messages using Sent.ly Plus (a service that is itself built using Angular). Before you read on, we would like to urge you to forget what you know about Models, Views, Controllers and Routes in the ASP.NET MVC4 framework. All these words have different meanings in the Angular world. Whenever these words are used in this article, they will refer to Angular concepts and not ASP.NET MVC4 concepts. The following figure shows the skeleton of the root page of an SPA: Fig 3: The skeleton of a SPA The skeleton of the application is based on the Bootstrap starter template which can be found at: http://getbootstrap.com/examples/startertemplate/ Apart from loading the Angular, jQuery and Bootstrap JavaScript libraries, it also loads our custom scripts /app/js/controllers.js /app/js/app.js These scripts define the routes, views and controllers which we shall come to in a moment. Application Notice that the body tag (Fig. 3) has an extra attribute: ngapp=”smsApp” Providing this tag “bootstraps” our single page application. It tells Angular to load a “module” called smsApp. This “module” is defined /app/js/app.js angular.module('smsApp', ['smsApp.controllers', function () {}]) Fig 4: The definition of our application module The line shows above, declares a module called smsApp. It also declares that this module “depends” on another module called “smsApp.controllers”. The smsApp.controllers module will contain all the controllers for our SPA. Routing and Views Notice that in the Navbar (in Fig 3) we have included two hyperlinks to: “#/app” “#/help” This is how Angular handles routing. Since the URLs start with “#”, they are actually just bookmarks (and not server side resources). However, our route definition (in /app/js/app.js) gives these URLs a special meaning within the Angular framework. angular.module('smsApp', ['smsApp.controllers', function () { }]) //Configure the routes .config(['$routeProvider', function ($routeProvider) { $routeProvider.when('/binding', { templateUrl: '/app/partials/bindingexample.html', controller: 'BindingController' }); }]); Fig 5: The definition of a route with an associated partial view and controller As we can see from the previous code sample, we are using the $routeProvider object in the configuration of our smsApp module. Notice how the code “asks for” the $routeProvider object by specifying it as a dependency in the [] braces and then defining a function that accepts it as a parameter. This is known as dependency injection. Please refer to the following link if you want to delve into this topic: http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/di What the above code snippet is doing is that it is telling Angular that when the URL is “#/binding”, then it should load the HTML snippet (“partial view”) found at /app/partials/bindingexample.html. Also, for this URL, Angular should load the controller called “BindingController”. We have also marked the div with the class “container” (in Fig 3) with the ngview attribute. This attribute tells Angular that views (partial HTML pages) defined in the routes will be loaded within this div. You can see that the Angular JavaScript framework, unlike many other frameworks, works purely by extending HTML tags and attributes. It also allows you to extend HTML with your own tags and attributes (through directives) if you so desire, you can find out more about directives at the following URL: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/607873/ExtendingHTMLwithAngularJSDirectives Controllers and Models We have seen how we define what views and controllers should be loaded for a particular route. Let us now consider how controllers are defined. Our controllers are defined in the file /app/js/controllers.js. The following snippet shows the definition of the “BindingController” which is loaded when we hit the URL http://localhost:port/index.html#/binding (as we have defined in the route earlier as shown in Fig 5). Remember that we had defined that our application module “smsApp” depends on the “smsApp.controllers” module (see Fig 4). The code snippet below shows how the “BindingController” defined in the route shown in Fig 5 is defined in the module smsApp.controllers: angular.module('smsApp.controllers', [function () { }]) .controller('BindingController', ['$scope', function ($scope) { $scope.model = {}; $scope.model.myInt = 6; $scope.addOne = function () { $scope.model.myInt++; } }]); Fig 6: The definition of a controller in the “smsApp.controllers” module. The pieces are falling in place! Remember Fig.2? That was the code of a partial view that was loaded within the container div of the skeleton SPA shown in Fig 3. The route definition shown in Fig 5 also defined that the controller called “BindingController” (shown in Fig 6.) was loaded when we loaded the URL: http://localhost:22544/index.html#/binding The button in Fig 2 was marked with the attribute ngclick=”addOne()” which added 1 to the value of model.myInt. In Fig 6, we can see that this function is actually defined in the “BindingController”. Scope We can see from Fig 6, that in the definition of “BindingController”, we defined a dependency on $scope and then, as usual, defined a function which “asks for” $scope as per the dependency injection pattern. So what is $scope? Any guesses? As you might have guessed a scope is a particular “address space” where variables and functions may be defined. This has a similar meaning to scope in a programming language like C#. Model: The Scope is not the Model It is tempting to assign variables in the scope directly. For example, we could have defined myInt as $scope.myInt = 6 in Fig 6 instead of $scope.model.myInt = 6. The reason why this is a bad idea is that scope in hierarchical in Angular. Thus if we were to define a controller which was defined within the another controller (nested controllers), then the inner controller would inherit the scope of the parent controller. This inheritance would follow JavaScript prototypal inheritance. Let’s say the parent controller defined a variable through $scope.myInt = 6. The child controller would inherit the scope through java prototypical inheritance. This basically means that the child scope has a variable myInt that points to the parent scopes myInt variable. Now if we assigned the value of myInt in the parent, the child scope would be updated with the same value as the child scope’s myInt variable points to the parent scope’s myInt variable. However, if we were to assign the value of the myInt variable in the child scope, then the link of that variable to the parent scope would be broken as the variable myInt in the child scope now points to the value 6 and not to the parent scope’s myInt variable. But, if we defined a variable model in the parent scope, then the child scope will also have a variable model that points to the model variable in the parent scope. Updating the value of $scope.model.myInt in the parent scope would change the model variable in the child scope too as the variable is pointed to the model variable in the parent scope. Now changing the value of $scope.model.myInt in the child scope would ALSO change the value in the parent scope. This is because the model reference in the child scope is pointed to the scope variable in the parent. We did no new assignment to the model variable in the child scope. We only changed an attribute of the model variable. Since the model variable (in the child scope) points to the model variable in the parent scope, we have successfully changed the value of myInt in the parent scope. Thus the value of $scope.model.myInt in the parent scope becomes the “single source of truth“. This is a tricky concept, thus it is considered good practice to NOT use scope inheritance. More info on prototypal inheritance in Angular can be found in the “JavaScript Prototypal Inheritance” section at the following URL: https://github.com/angular/angular.js/wiki/UnderstandingScopes. Building It: An Angular JS application using a .NET Web API Backend Now that we have a perspective on the basic components of an MVVM application built using Angular, let’s build something useful. We will build an application that can be used to send out SMS messages to a given phone number. The following diagram describes the architecture of the application we are going to build: Fig 7: Broad application architecture We are going to add an HTML Partial to our project. This partial will contain the form fields that will accept the phone number and message that needs to be sent as an SMS. It will also display all the messages that have previously been sent. All the executable code that is run on the occurrence of events (button clicks etc.) in the view resides in the controller. The controller interacts with the ASP.NET WebAPI to get a history of SMS messages, add a message etc. through a REST based API. For the purposes of simplicity, we will use an in memory data structure for the purposes of creating this application. Thus, the tasks ahead of us are: Creating the REST WebApi with GET, PUT, POST, DELETE methods. Creating the SmsView.html partial Creating the SmsController controller with methods that are called from the SmsView.html partial Add a new route that loads the controller and the partial. 1. Creating the REST WebAPI This is a simple task that should be quite straightforward to any .NET developer. The following listing shows our ApiController: public class SmsMessage { public string to { get; set; } public string message { get; set; } } public class SmsResource : SmsMessage { public int smsId { get; set; } } public class SmsResourceController : ApiController { public static Dictionary<int, SmsResource> messages = new Dictionary<int, SmsResource>(); public static int currentId = 0; // GET api/<controller> public List<SmsResource> Get() { List<SmsResource> result = new List<SmsResource>(); foreach (int key in messages.Keys) { result.Add(messages[key]); } return result; } // GET api/<controller>/5 public SmsResource Get(int id) { if (messages.ContainsKey(id)) return messages[id]; return null; } // POST api/<controller> public List<SmsResource> Post([FromBody] SmsMessage value) { //Synchronize on messages so we don't have id collisions lock (messages) { SmsResource res = (SmsResource) value; res.smsId = currentId++; messages.Add(res.smsId, res); //SentlyPlusSmsSender.SendMessage(value.to, value.message); return Get(); } } // PUT api/<controller>/5 public List<SmsResource> Put(int id, [FromBody] SmsMessage value) { //Synchronize on messages so we don't have id collisions lock (messages) { if (messages.ContainsKey(id)) { //Update the message messages[id].message = value.message; messages[id].to = value.message; } return Get(); } } // DELETE api/<controller>/5 public List<SmsResource> Delete(int id) { if (messages.ContainsKey(id)) { messages.Remove(id); } return Get(); } } Once this class is defined, we should be able to access the WebAPI by a simple GET request using the browser: http://localhost:port/api/SmsResource Notice the commented line: //SentlyPlusSmsSender.SendMessage The SentlyPlusSmsSender class is defined in the attached solution. We have shown this line as commented as we want to explain the core Angular concepts. If you load the attached solution, this line is uncommented in the source and an actual SMS will be sent! By default, the API returns XML. For consumption of the API in Angular, we would like it to return JSON. To change the default to JSON, we make the following change to WebApiConfig.cs file located in the App_Start folder. public static class WebApiConfig { public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config) { config.Routes.MapHttpRoute( name: "DefaultApi", routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}", defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional } ); var appXmlType = config.Formatters.XmlFormatter. SupportedMediaTypes. FirstOrDefault( t => t.MediaType == "application/xml"); config.Formatters.XmlFormatter.SupportedMediaTypes.Remove(appXmlType); } } We now have our backend REST Api which we can consume from Angular! 2. Creating the SmsView.html partial This simple partial will define two fields: the destination phone number (international format starting with a +) and the message. These fields will be bound to model.phoneNumber and model.message. We will also add a button that we shall hook up to sendMessage() in the controller. A list of all previously sent messages (bound to model.allMessages) will also be displayed below the form input. The following code shows the code for the partial:  <div class="well" style="margin-top: 30px;"> <table style="width: 100%;"> <tr> <td style="width: 45%; text-align: center;"> <input type="text" placeholder="Phone number (eg; +44 7778 609466)" ng-model="model.phoneNumber" class="form-control" style="width: 90%" onkeypress="return checkPhoneInput();" /> </td> <td style="width: 45%; text-align: center;"> <input type="text" placeholder="Message" ng-model="model.message" class="form-control" style="width: 90%" /> </td> <td style="text-align: center;"> <button class="btn btn-danger" ng-click="sendMessage();" ng-disabled="model.isAjaxInProgress" style="marginright: 5px;">Send</button> <img src="/Content/ajax-loader.gif" ng-show="model.isAjaxInProgress" /> </td> </tr> </table> </div>  <div style="margin-top: 30px;">  <div ng-show="model.allMessages.length == 0"> No messages have been sent yet! </div>  <div ng-show="model.allMessages.length == 0"> <table style="width: 100%;" class="table table-striped"> <tr> <td>Phone Number</td> <td>Message</td> <td></td> </tr>  <tr ng-repeat="message in model.allMessages"> <td>{{ message.to }}</td> <td>{{ message.message }}</td> <td> <button class="btn btn-danger" ng-click="delete(message.smsId);" ng-disabled="model.isAjaxInProgress">Delete</button> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </div> The above code is commented and should be self explanatory. Conditional rendering is achieved through using the ng-show=”condition” attribute on various div tags. Input fields are bound to the model and the send button is bound to the sendMessage() function in the controller as through the ngclick=”sendMessage()” attribute defined on the button tag. While AJAX calls are taking place, the controller sets model.isAjaxInProgress to true. Based on this variable, buttons are disabled through the ng-disabled directive which is added as an attribute to the buttons. The ng-repeat directive added as an attribute to the tr tag causes the table row to be rendered multiple times much like an ASP.NET repeater. 3. Creating the SmsController controller The penultimate piece of our application is the controller which responds to events from our view and interacts with our MVC4 REST WebAPI. The following listing shows the code we need to add to /app/js/controllers.js. Note that controller definitions can be chained. Also note that this controller “asks for” the $http service. The $http service is a simple way in Angular to do AJAX. So far we have only encountered modules, controllers, views and directives in Angular. The $http is new entity in Angular called a service. More information on Angular services can be found at the following URL: http://docs.angularjs.org/guide/dev_guide.services.understanding_services. .controller('SmsController', ['$scope', '$http', function ($scope, $http) { //We define the model $scope.model = {}; //We define the allMessages array in the model //that will contain all the messages sent so far $scope.model.allMessages = []; //The error if any $scope.model.errorMessage = undefined; //We initially load data so set the isAjaxInProgress = true; $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = true; //Load all the messages $http({ url: '/api/smsresource', method: "GET" }). success(function (data, status, headers, config) { this callback will be called asynchronously //when the response is available $scope.model.allMessages = data; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }). error(function (data, status, headers, config) { //called asynchronously if an error occurs //or server returns response with an error status. $scope.model.errorMessage = "Error occurred status:" + status; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); $scope.delete = function (id) { //We are making an ajax call so we set this to true $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = true; $http({ url: '/api/smsresource/' + id, method: "DELETE" }). success(function (data, status, headers, config) { // this callback will be called asynchronously // when the response is available $scope.model.allMessages = data; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); error(function (data, status, headers, config) { // called asynchronously if an error occurs // or server returns response with an error status. $scope.model.errorMessage = "Error occurred status:" + status; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); } $scope.sendMessage = function () { $scope.model.errorMessage = undefined; var message = ''; if($scope.model.message != undefined) message = $scope.model.message.trim(); if ($scope.model.phoneNumber == undefined || $scope.model.phoneNumber == '' || $scope.model.phoneNumber.length < 10 || $scope.model.phoneNumber[0] != '+') { $scope.model.errorMessage = "You must enter a valid phone number in international format. Eg: +44 7778 609466"; return; } if (message.length == 0) { $scope.model.errorMessage = "You must specify a message!"; return; } //We are making an ajax call so we set this to true $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = true; $http({ url: '/api/smsresource', method: "POST", data: { to: $scope.model.phoneNumber, message: $scope.model.message } }). success(function (data, status, headers, config) { // this callback will be called asynchronously // when the response is available $scope.model.allMessages = data; //We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }). error(function (data, status, headers, config) { // called asynchronously if an error occurs // or server returns response with an error status. $scope.model.errorMessage = "Error occurred status:" + status // We are done with AJAX loading $scope.model.isAjaxInProgress = false; }); } }]); We can see from the previous listing how the functions that are called from the view are defined in the controller. It should also be evident how easy it is to make AJAX calls to consume our MVC4 REST WebAPI. Now we are left with the final piece. We need to define a route that associates a particular path with the view we have defined and the controller we have defined. 4. Add a new route that loads the controller and the partial This is the easiest part of the puzzle. We simply define another route in the /app/js/app.js file: $routeProvider.when('/sms', { templateUrl: '/app/partials/smsview.html', controller: 'SmsController' }); Conclusion In this article we have seen how much of the server side functionality in the MVC4 framework can be moved to the browser thus delivering a snappy and fast user interface. We have seen how we can build client side HTML only views that avoid the messy syntax offered by server side Razor views. We have built a functioning app from the ground up. The significant advantage of this approach to building web apps is that the front end can be completely platform independent. Even though we used ASP.NET to create our REST API, we could just easily have used any other language such as Node.js, Ruby etc without changing a single line of our front end code. Angular is a rich framework and we have only touched on basic functionality required to create a SPA. For readers who wish to delve further into the Angular framework, we would recommend the following URL as a starting point: http://docs.angularjs.org/misc/started. To get started with the code for this project: Sign up for an account at http://plus.sent.ly (free) Add your phone number Go to the “My Identies Page” Note Down your Sender ID, Consumer Key and Consumer Secret Download the code for this article at: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzjEWqSE31yoZjZlV0d0R2Y3eW8/edit?usp=sharing Change the values of Sender Id, Consumer Key and Consumer Secret in the web.config file Run the project through Visual Studio!

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C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Concurrent Collections (1 of 3)

- by James Michael Hare

Once again we consider some of the lesser known classes and keywords of C#. In the next few weeks, we will discuss the concurrent collections and how they have changed the face of concurrent programming. This week’s post will begin with a general introduction and discuss the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T>. Then in the following post we’ll discuss the ConcurrentDictionary<T> and ConcurrentBag<T>. Finally, we shall close on the third post with a discussion of the BlockingCollection<T>. For more of the "Little Wonders" posts, see the index here. A brief history of collections In the beginning was the .NET 1.0 Framework. And out of this framework emerged the System.Collections namespace, and it was good. It contained all the basic things a growing programming language needs like the ArrayList and Hashtable collections. The main problem, of course, with these original collections is that they held items of type object which means you had to be disciplined enough to use them correctly or you could end up with runtime errors if you got an object of a type you weren't expecting. Then came .NET 2.0 and generics and our world changed forever! With generics the C# language finally got an equivalent of the very powerful C++ templates. As such, the System.Collections.Generic was born and we got type-safe versions of all are favorite collections. The List<T> succeeded the ArrayList and the Dictionary<TKey,TValue> succeeded the Hashtable and so on. The new versions of the library were not only safer because they checked types at compile-time, in many cases they were more performant as well. So much so that it's Microsoft's recommendation that the System.Collections original collections only be used for backwards compatibility. So we as developers came to know and love the generic collections and took them into our hearts and embraced them. The problem is, thread safety in both the original collections and the generic collections can be problematic, for very different reasons. Now, if you are only doing single-threaded development you may not care – after all, no locking is required. Even if you do have multiple threads, if a collection is “load-once, read-many” you don’t need to do anything to protect that container from multi-threaded access, as illustrated below: 1: public static class OrderTypeTranslator 2: { 3: // because this dictionary is loaded once before it is ever accessed, we don't need to synchronize 4: // multi-threaded read access 5: private static readonly Dictionary<string, char> _translator = new Dictionary<string, char> 6: { 7: {"New", 'N'}, 8: {"Update", 'U'}, 9: {"Cancel", 'X'} 10: }; 11: 12: // the only public interface into the dictionary is for reading, so inherently thread-safe 13: public static char? Translate(string orderType) 14: { 15: char charValue; 16: if (_translator.TryGetValue(orderType, out charValue)) 17: { 18: return charValue; 19: } 20: 21: return null; 22: } 23: } Unfortunately, most of our computer science problems cannot get by with just single-threaded applications or with multi-threading in a load-once manner. Looking at today's trends, it's clear to see that computers are not so much getting faster because of faster processor speeds -- we've nearly reached the limits we can push through with today's technologies -- but more because we're adding more cores to the boxes. With this new hardware paradigm, it is even more important to use multi-threaded applications to take full advantage of parallel processing to achieve higher application speeds. So let's look at how to use collections in a thread-safe manner. Using historical collections in a concurrent fashion The early .NET collections (System.Collections) had a Synchronized() static method that could be used to wrap the early collections to make them completely thread-safe. This paradigm was dropped in the generic collections (System.Collections.Generic) because having a synchronized wrapper resulted in atomic locks for all operations, which could prove overkill in many multithreading situations. Thus the paradigm shifted to having the user of the collection specify their own locking, usually with an external object: 1: public class OrderAggregator 2: { 3: private static readonly Dictionary<string, List<Order>> _orders = new Dictionary<string, List<Order>>(); 4: private static readonly _orderLock = new object(); 5: 6: public void Add(string accountNumber, Order newOrder) 7: { 8: List<Order> ordersForAccount; 9: 10: // a complex operation like this should all be protected 11: lock (_orderLock) 12: { 13: if (!_orders.TryGetValue(accountNumber, out ordersForAccount)) 14: { 15: _orders.Add(accountNumber, ordersForAccount = new List<Order>()); 16: } 17: 18: ordersForAccount.Add(newOrder); 19: } 20: } 21: } Notice how we’re performing several operations on the dictionary under one lock. With the Synchronized() static methods of the early collections, you wouldn’t be able to specify this level of locking (a more macro-level). So in the generic collections, it was decided that if a user needed synchronization, they could implement their own locking scheme instead so that they could provide synchronization as needed. The need for better concurrent access to collections Here’s the problem: it’s relatively easy to write a collection that locks itself down completely for access, but anything more complex than that can be difficult and error-prone to write, and much less to make it perform efficiently! For example, what if you have a Dictionary that has frequent reads but in-frequent updates? Do you want to lock down the entire Dictionary for every access? This would be overkill and would prevent concurrent reads. In such cases you could use something like a ReaderWriterLockSlim which allows for multiple readers in a lock, and then once a writer grabs the lock it blocks all further readers until the writer is done (in a nutshell). This is all very complex stuff to consider. Fortunately, this is where the Concurrent Collections come in. The Parallel Computing Platform team at Microsoft went through great pains to determine how to make a set of concurrent collections that would have the best performance characteristics for general case multi-threaded use. Now, as in all things involving threading, you should always make sure you evaluate all your container options based on the particular usage scenario and the degree of parallelism you wish to acheive. This article should not be taken to understand that these collections are always supperior to the generic collections. Each fills a particular need for a particular situation. Understanding what each container is optimized for is key to the success of your application whether it be single-threaded or multi-threaded. General points to consider with the concurrent collections The MSDN points out that the concurrent collections all support the ICollection interface. However, since the collections are already synchronized, the IsSynchronized property always returns false, and SyncRoot always returns null. Thus you should not attempt to use these properties for synchronization purposes. Note that since the concurrent collections also may have different operations than the traditional data structures you may be used to. Now you may ask why they did this, but it was done out of necessity to keep operations safe and atomic. For example, in order to do a Pop() on a stack you have to know the stack is non-empty, but between the time you check the stack’s IsEmpty property and then do the Pop() another thread may have come in and made the stack empty! This is why some of the traditional operations have been changed to make them safe for concurrent use. In addition, some properties and methods in the concurrent collections achieve concurrency by creating a snapshot of the collection, which means that some operations that were traditionally O(1) may now be O(n) in the concurrent models. I’ll try to point these out as we talk about each collection so you can be aware of any potential performance impacts. Finally, all the concurrent containers are safe for enumeration even while being modified, but some of the containers support this in different ways (snapshot vs. dirty iteration). Once again I’ll highlight how thread-safe enumeration works for each collection. ConcurrentStack<T>: The thread-safe LIFO container The ConcurrentStack<T> is the thread-safe counterpart to the System.Collections.Generic.Stack<T>, which as you may remember is your standard last-in-first-out container. If you think of algorithms that favor stack usage (for example, depth-first searches of graphs and trees) then you can see how using a thread-safe stack would be of benefit. The ConcurrentStack<T> achieves thread-safe access by using System.Threading.Interlocked operations. This means that the multi-threaded access to the stack requires no traditional locking and is very, very fast! For the most part, the ConcurrentStack<T> behaves like it’s Stack<T> counterpart with a few differences: Pop() was removed in favor of TryPop() Returns true if an item existed and was popped and false if empty. PushRange() and TryPopRange() were added Allows you to push multiple items and pop multiple items atomically. Count takes a snapshot of the stack and then counts the items. This means it is a O(n) operation, if you just want to check for an empty stack, call IsEmpty instead which is O(1). ToArray() and GetEnumerator() both also take snapshots. This means that iteration over a stack will give you a static view at the time of the call and will not reflect updates. Pushing on a ConcurrentStack<T> works just like you’d expect except for the aforementioned PushRange() method that was added to allow you to push a range of items concurrently. 1: var stack = new ConcurrentStack<string>(); 2: 3: // adding to stack is much the same as before 4: stack.Push("First"); 5: 6: // but you can also push multiple items in one atomic operation (no interleaves) 7: stack.PushRange(new [] { "Second", "Third", "Fourth" }); For looking at the top item of the stack (without removing it) the Peek() method has been removed in favor of a TryPeek(). This is because in order to do a peek the stack must be non-empty, but between the time you check for empty and the time you execute the peek the stack contents may have changed. Thus the TryPeek() was created to be an atomic check for empty, and then peek if not empty: 1: // to look at top item of stack without removing it, can use TryPeek. 2: // Note that there is no Peek(), this is because you need to check for empty first. TryPeek does. 3: string item; 4: if (stack.TryPeek(out item)) 5: { 6: Console.WriteLine("Top item was " + item); 7: } 8: else 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine("Stack was empty."); 11: } Finally, to remove items from the stack, we have the TryPop() for single, and TryPopRange() for multiple items. Just like the TryPeek(), these operations replace Pop() since we need to ensure atomically that the stack is non-empty before we pop from it: 1: // to remove items, use TryPop or TryPopRange to get multiple items atomically (no interleaves) 2: if (stack.TryPop(out item)) 3: { 4: Console.WriteLine("Popped " + item); 5: } 6: 7: // TryPopRange will only pop up to the number of spaces in the array, the actual number popped is returned. 8: var poppedItems = new string[2]; 9: int numPopped = stack.TryPopRange(poppedItems); 10: 11: foreach (var theItem in poppedItems.Take(numPopped)) 12: { 13: Console.WriteLine("Popped " + theItem); 14: } Finally, note that as stated before, GetEnumerator() and ToArray() gets a snapshot of the data at the time of the call. That means if you are enumerating the stack you will get a snapshot of the stack at the time of the call. This is illustrated below: 1: var stack = new ConcurrentStack<string>(); 2: 3: // adding to stack is much the same as before 4: stack.Push("First"); 5: 6: var results = stack.GetEnumerator(); 7: 8: // but you can also push multiple items in one atomic operation (no interleaves) 9: stack.PushRange(new [] { "Second", "Third", "Fourth" }); 10: 11: while(results.MoveNext()) 12: { 13: Console.WriteLine("Stack only has: " + results.Current); 14: } The only item that will be printed out in the above code is "First" because the snapshot was taken before the other items were added. This may sound like an issue, but it’s really for safety and is more correct. You don’t want to enumerate a stack and have half a view of the stack before an update and half a view of the stack after an update, after all. In addition, note that this is still thread-safe, whereas iterating through a non-concurrent collection while updating it in the old collections would cause an exception. ConcurrentQueue<T>: The thread-safe FIFO container The ConcurrentQueue<T> is the thread-safe counterpart of the System.Collections.Generic.Queue<T> class. The concurrent queue uses an underlying list of small arrays and lock-free System.Threading.Interlocked operations on the head and tail arrays. Once again, this allows us to do thread-safe operations without the need for heavy locks! The ConcurrentQueue<T> (like the ConcurrentStack<T>) has some departures from the non-concurrent counterpart. Most notably: Dequeue() was removed in favor of TryDequeue(). Returns true if an item existed and was dequeued and false if empty. Count does not take a snapshot It subtracts the head and tail index to get the count. This results overall in a O(1) complexity which is quite good. It’s still recommended, however, that for empty checks you call IsEmpty instead of comparing Count to zero. ToArray() and GetEnumerator() both take snapshots. This means that iteration over a queue will give you a static view at the time of the call and will not reflect updates. The Enqueue() method on the ConcurrentQueue<T> works much the same as the generic Queue<T>: 1: var queue = new ConcurrentQueue<string>(); 2: 3: // adding to queue is much the same as before 4: queue.Enqueue("First"); 5: queue.Enqueue("Second"); 6: queue.Enqueue("Third"); For front item access, the TryPeek() method must be used to attempt to see the first item if the queue. There is no Peek() method since, as you’ll remember, we can only peek on a non-empty queue, so we must have an atomic TryPeek() that checks for empty and then returns the first item if the queue is non-empty. 1: // to look at first item in queue without removing it, can use TryPeek. 2: // Note that there is no Peek(), this is because you need to check for empty first. TryPeek does. 3: string item; 4: if (queue.TryPeek(out item)) 5: { 6: Console.WriteLine("First item was " + item); 7: } 8: else 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine("Queue was empty."); 11: } Then, to remove items you use TryDequeue(). Once again this is for the same reason we have TryPeek() and not Peek(): 1: // to remove items, use TryDequeue. If queue is empty returns false. 2: if (queue.TryDequeue(out item)) 3: { 4: Console.WriteLine("Dequeued first item " + item); 5: } Just like the concurrent stack, the ConcurrentQueue<T> takes a snapshot when you call ToArray() or GetEnumerator() which means that subsequent updates to the queue will not be seen when you iterate over the results. Thus once again the code below will only show the first item, since the other items were added after the snapshot. 1: var queue = new ConcurrentQueue<string>(); 2: 3: // adding to queue is much the same as before 4: queue.Enqueue("First"); 5: 6: var iterator = queue.GetEnumerator(); 7: 8: queue.Enqueue("Second"); 9: queue.Enqueue("Third"); 10: 11: // only shows First 12: while (iterator.MoveNext()) 13: { 14: Console.WriteLine("Dequeued item " + iterator.Current); 15: } Using collections concurrently You’ll notice in the examples above I stuck to using single-threaded examples so as to make them deterministic and the results obvious. Of course, if we used these collections in a truly multi-threaded way the results would be less deterministic, but would still be thread-safe and with no locking on your part required! For example, say you have an order processor that takes an IEnumerable<Order> and handles each other in a multi-threaded fashion, then groups the responses together in a concurrent collection for aggregation. This can be done easily with the TPL’s Parallel.ForEach(): 1: public static IEnumerable<OrderResult> ProcessOrders(IEnumerable<Order> orderList) 2: { 3: var proxy = new OrderProxy(); 4: var results = new ConcurrentQueue<OrderResult>(); 5: 6: // notice that we can process all these in parallel and put the results 7: // into our concurrent collection without needing any external locking! 8: Parallel.ForEach(orderList, 9: order => 10: { 11: var result = proxy.PlaceOrder(order); 12: 13: results.Enqueue(result); 14: }); 15: 16: return results; 17: } Summary Obviously, if you do not need multi-threaded safety, you don’t need to use these collections, but when you do need multi-threaded collections these are just the ticket! The plethora of features (I always think of the movie The Three Amigos when I say plethora) built into these containers and the amazing way they acheive thread-safe access in an efficient manner is wonderful to behold. Stay tuned next week where we’ll continue our discussion with the ConcurrentBag<T> and the ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue>. For some excellent information on the performance of the concurrent collections and how they perform compared to a traditional brute-force locking strategy, see this wonderful whitepaper by the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform team here. Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Concurrent Collections,Collections,Multi-Threading,Little Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,James Michael Hare

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Table sorting & pagination with jQuery and Razor in ASP.NET MVC

- by hajan

Introduction jQuery enjoys living inside pages which are built on top of ASP.NET MVC Framework. The ASP.NET MVC is a place where things are organized very well and it is quite hard to make them dirty, especially because the pattern enforces you on purity (you can still make it dirty if you want so ;) ). We all know how easy is to build a HTML table with a header row, footer row and table rows showing some data. With ASP.NET MVC we can do this pretty easy, but, the result will be pure HTML table which only shows data, but does not includes sorting, pagination or some other advanced features that we were used to have in the ASP.NET WebForms GridView. Ok, there is the WebGrid MVC Helper, but what if we want to make something from pure table in our own clean style? In one of my recent projects, I’ve been using the jQuery tablesorter and tablesorter.pager plugins that go along. You don’t need to know jQuery to make this work… You need to know little CSS to create nice design for your table, but of course you can use mine from the demo… So, what you will see in this blog is how to attach this plugin to your pure html table and a div for pagination and make your table with advanced sorting and pagination features. Demo Project Resources The resources I’m using for this demo project are shown in the following solution explorer window print screen: Content/images – folder that contains all the up/down arrow images, pagination buttons etc. You can freely replace them with your own, but keep the names the same if you don’t want to change anything in the CSS we will built later. Content/Site.css – The main css theme, where we will add the theme for our table too Controllers/HomeController.cs – The controller I’m using for this project Models/Person.cs – For this demo, I’m using Person.cs class Scripts – jquery-1.4.4.min.js, jquery.tablesorter.js, jquery.tablesorter.pager.js – required script to make the magic happens Views/Home/Index.cshtml – Index view (razor view engine) the other items are not important for the demo. ASP.NET MVC 1. Model In this demo I use only one Person class which defines Person entity with several properties. You can use your own model, maybe one which will access data from database or any other resource. Person.cs public class Person { public string Name { get; set; } public string Surname { get; set; } public string Email { get; set; } public int? Phone { get; set; } public DateTime? DateAdded { get; set; } public int? Age { get; set; } public Person(string name, string surname, string email, int? phone, DateTime? dateadded, int? age) { Name = name; Surname = surname; Email = email; Phone = phone; DateAdded = dateadded; Age = age; } } 2. View In our example, we have only one Index.chtml page where Razor View engine is used. Razor view engine is my favorite for ASP.NET MVC because it’s very intuitive, fluid and keeps your code clean. 3. Controller Since this is simple example with one page, we use one HomeController.cs where we have two methods, one of ActionResult type (Index) and another GetPeople() used to create and return list of people. HomeController.cs public class HomeController : Controller { // // GET: /Home/ public ActionResult Index() { ViewBag.People = GetPeople(); return View(); } public List<Person> GetPeople() { List<Person> listPeople = new List<Person>(); listPeople.Add(new Person("Hajan", "Selmani", "[email protected]", 070070070,DateTime.Now, 25)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Straight", "Dean", "[email protected]", 123456789, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-5), 35)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Karsen", "Livia", "[email protected]", 46874651, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-2), 31)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Ringer", "Anne", "[email protected]", null, DateTime.Now, null)); listPeople.Add(new Person("O'Leary", "Michael", "[email protected]", 32424344, DateTime.Now, 44)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Gringlesby", "Anne", "[email protected]", null, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-9), 18)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Locksley", "Stearns", "[email protected]", 2135345, DateTime.Now, null)); listPeople.Add(new Person("DeFrance", "Michel", "[email protected]", 235325352, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-18), null)); listPeople.Add(new Person("White", "Johnson", null, null, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-22), 55)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Panteley", "Sylvia", null, 23233223, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-1), 32)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Blotchet-Halls", "Reginald", null, 323243423, DateTime.Now, 26)); listPeople.Add(new Person("Merr", "South", "[email protected]", 3232442, DateTime.Now.AddDays(-5), 85)); listPeople.Add(new Person("MacFeather", "Stearns", "[email protected]", null, DateTime.Now, null)); return listPeople; } } TABLE CSS/HTML DESIGN Now, lets start with the implementation. First of all, lets create the table structure and the main CSS. 1. HTML Structure @{ Layout = null; } <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <title>ASP.NET & jQuery</title>  </head> <body> <div> <table class="tablesorter"> <thead> <tr> <th> value </th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>value</td> </tr> </tbody> <tfoot> <tr> <th> value </th> </tr> </tfoot> </table> <div id="pager"> </div> </div> </body> </html> So, this is the main structure you need to create for each of your tables where you want to apply the functionality we will create. Of course the scripts are referenced once ;). As you see, our table has class tablesorter and also we have a div with id pager. In the next steps we will use both these to create the needed functionalities. The complete Index.cshtml coded to get the data from controller and display in the page is: <body> <div> <table class="tablesorter"> <thead> <tr> <th>Name</th> <th>Surname</th> <th>Email</th> <th>Phone</th> <th>Date Added</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> @{ foreach (var p in ViewBag.People) { <tr> <td>@p.Name</td> <td>@p.Surname</td> <td>@p.Email</td> <td>@p.Phone</td> <td>@p.DateAdded</td> </tr> } } </tbody> <tfoot> <tr> <th>Name</th> <th>Surname</th> <th>Email</th> <th>Phone</th> <th>Date Added</th> </tr> </tfoot> </table> <div id="pager" style="position: none;"> <form> <img src="@Url.Content("~/Content/images/first.png")" class="first" /> <img src="@Url.Content("~/Content/images/prev.png")" class="prev" /> <input type="text" class="pagedisplay" /> <img src="@Url.Content("~/Content/images/next.png")" class="next" /> <img src="@Url.Content("~/Content/images/last.png")" class="last" /> <select class="pagesize"> <option selected="selected" value="5">5</option> <option value="10">10</option> <option value="20">20</option> <option value="30">30</option> <option value="40">40</option> </select> </form> </div> </div> </body> So, mainly the structure is the same. I have added @Razor code to create table with data retrieved from the ViewBag.People which has been filled with data in the home controller. 2. CSS Design The CSS code I’ve created is: /* DEMO TABLE */ body { font-size: 75%; font-family: Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Sans-Serif; color: #232323; background-color: #fff; } table { border-spacing:0; border:1px solid gray;} table.tablesorter thead tr .header { background-image: url(images/bg.png); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center right; cursor: pointer; } table.tablesorter tbody td { color: #3D3D3D; padding: 4px; background-color: #FFF; vertical-align: top; } table.tablesorter tbody tr.odd td { background-color:#F0F0F6; } table.tablesorter thead tr .headerSortUp { background-image: url(images/asc.png); } table.tablesorter thead tr .headerSortDown { background-image: url(images/desc.png); } table th { width:150px; border:1px outset gray; background-color:#3C78B5; color:White; cursor:pointer; } table thead th:hover { background-color:Yellow; color:Black;} table td { width:150px; border:1px solid gray;} PAGINATION AND SORTING Now, when everything is ready and we have the data, lets make pagination and sorting functionalities 1. jQuery Scripts referencing <link href="@Url.Content("~/Content/Site.css")" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery-1.4.4.min.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.tablesorter.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="@Url.Content("~/Scripts/jquery.tablesorter.pager.js")" type="text/javascript"></script> 2. jQuery Sorting and Pagination script <script type="text/javascript"> $(function () { $("table.tablesorter").tablesorter({ widthFixed: true, sortList: [[0, 0]] }) .tablesorterPager({ container: $("#pager"), size: $(".pagesize option:selected").val() }); }); </script> So, with only two lines of code, I’m using both tablesorter and tablesorterPager plugins, giving some options to both these. Options added: tablesorter - widthFixed: true – gives fixed width of the columns tablesorter - sortList[[0,0]] – An array of instructions for per-column sorting and direction in the format: [[columnIndex, sortDirection], ... ] where columnIndex is a zero-based index for your columns left-to-right and sortDirection is 0 for Ascending and 1 for Descending. A valid argument that sorts ascending first by column 1 and then column 2 looks like: [[0,0],[1,0]] (source: http://tablesorter.com/docs/) tablesorterPager – container: $(“#pager”) – tells the pager container, the div with id pager in our case. tablesorterPager – size: the default size of each page, where I get the default value selected, so if you put selected to any other of the options in your select list, you will have this number of rows as default per page for the table too. END RESULTS 1. Table once the page is loaded (default results per page is 5 and is automatically sorted by 1st column as sortList is specified) 2. Sorted by Phone Descending 3. Changed pagination to 10 items per page 4. Sorted by Phone and Name (use SHIFT to sort on multiple columns) 5. Sorted by Date Added 6. Page 3, 5 items per page ADDITIONAL ENHANCEMENTS We can do additional enhancements to the table. We can make search for each column. I will cover this in one of my next blogs. Stay tuned. DEMO PROJECT You can download demo project source code from HERE.CONCLUSION Once you finish with the demo, run your page and open the source code. You will be amazed of the purity of your code.Working with pagination in client side can be very useful. One of the benefits is performance, but if you have thousands of rows in your tables, you will get opposite result when talking about performance. Hence, sometimes it is nice idea to make pagination on back-end. So, the compromise between both approaches would be best to combine both of them. I use at most up to 500 rows on client-side and once the user reach the last page, we can trigger ajax postback which can get the next 500 rows using server-side pagination of the same data. I would like to recommend the following blog post http://weblogs.asp.net/gunnarpeipman/archive/2010/09/14/returning-paged-results-from-repositories-using-pagedresult-lt-t-gt.aspx, which will help you understand how to return page results from repository. I hope this was helpful post for you. Wait for my next posts ;). Please do let me know your feedback. Best Regards, Hajan

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SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn

- by Claus Jandausch

Ich war nicht nur irritiert, ich war sogar regelrecht schockiert - und für einen kurzen Moment sprachlos (was nur selten der Fall ist). Gerade eben hatte mich jemand gefragt "Wann Oracle denn etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde - und ob überhaupt?" War ich hier im falschen Film gelandet? Ich konnte nicht anders, als meinen Unmut kundzutun und zu erklären, dass die Fragestellung normalerweise anders herum läuft. Zugegeben - es mag vielleicht strittige Punkte geben im Vergleich zwischen Oracle und SQL Server - bei denen nicht unbedingt immer Oracle die Nase vorn haben muss - aber das Thema Clustering für Hochverfügbarkeit (HA), Disaster Recovery (DR) und Skalierbarkeit gehört mit Sicherheit nicht dazu. Dieses Erlebnis hakte ich am Nachgang als Einzelfall ab, der so nie wieder vorkommen würde. Bis ich kurz darauf eines Besseren belehrt wurde und genau die selbe Frage erneut zu hören bekam. Diesmal sogar im Exadata-Umfeld und einem Oracle Stretch Cluster. Einmal ist keinmal, doch zweimal ist einmal zu viel... Getreu diesem alten Motto war mir klar, dass man das so nicht länger stehen lassen konnte. Ich habe keine Ahnung, wie die Microsoft Marketing Abteilung es geschafft hat, unter dem AlwaysOn Brading eine innovative Technologie vermuten zu lassen - aber sie hat ihren Job scheinbar gut gemacht. Doch abgesehen von einem guten Marketing, stellt sich natürlich die Frage, was wirklich dahinter steckt und wie sich das Ganze mit Oracle vergleichen lässt - und ob überhaupt? Damit wären wir wieder bei der ursprünglichen Frage angelangt. So viel zum Hintergrund dieses Blogbeitrags - von meiner Antwort handelt der restliche Blog. "Windows was the God ..." Um den wahren Unterschied zwischen Oracle und Microsoft verstehen zu können, muss man zunächst das bedeutendste Microsoft Dogma kennen. Es lässt sich schlicht und einfach auf den Punkt bringen: "Alles muss auf Windows basieren." Die Überschrift dieses Absatzes ist kein von mir erfundener Ausspruch, sondern ein Zitat. Konkret stammt es aus einem längeren Artikel von Kurt Eichenwald in der Vanity Fair aus dem August 2012. Er lautet Microsoft's Lost Decade und sei jedem ans Herz gelegt, der die "Microsoft-Maschinerie" unter Steve Ballmer und einige ihrer Kuriositäten besser verstehen möchte. "YOU TALKING TO ME?" Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer bei seiner Keynote auf der 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas am 9. Januar Manche Dinge in diesem Artikel mögen überspitzt dargestellt erscheinen - sind sie aber nicht. Vieles davon kannte ich bereits aus eigener Erfahrung und kann es nur bestätigen. Anderes hat sich mir erst so richtig erschlossen. Insbesondere die folgenden Passagen führten zum Aha-Erlebnis: “Windows was the god—everything had to work with Windows,” said Stone... “Every little thing you want to write has to build off of Windows (or other existing roducts),” one software engineer said. “It can be very confusing, …” Ich habe immer schon darauf hingewiesen, dass in einem SQL Server Failover Cluster die Microsoft Datenbank eigentlich nichts Nenneswertes zum Geschehen beiträgt, sondern sich voll und ganz auf das Windows Betriebssystem verlässt. Deshalb muss man auch die Windows Server Enterprise Edition installieren, soll ein Failover Cluster für den SQL Server eingerichtet werden. Denn hier werden die Cluster Services geliefert - nicht mit dem SQL Server. Er ist nur lediglich ein weiteres Server Produkt, für das Windows in Ausfallszenarien genutzt werden kann - so wie Microsoft Exchange beispielsweise, oder Microsoft SharePoint, oder irgendein anderes Server Produkt das auf Windows gehostet wird. Auch Oracle kann damit genutzt werden. Das Stichwort lautet hier: Oracle Failsafe. Nur - warum sollte man das tun, wenn gleichzeitig eine überlegene Technologie wie die Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) zur Verfügung steht, die dann auch keine Windows Enterprise Edition voraussetzen, da Oracle die eigene Clusterware liefert. Welche darüber hinaus für kürzere Failover-Zeiten sorgt, da diese Cluster-Technologie Datenbank-integriert ist und sich nicht auf "Dritte" verlässt. Wenn man sich also schon keine technischen Vorteile mit einem SQL Server Failover Cluster erkauft, sondern zusätzlich noch versteckte Lizenzkosten durch die Lizenzierung der Windows Server Enterprise Edition einhandelt, warum hat Microsoft dann in den vergangenen Jahren seit SQL Server 2000 nicht ebenfalls an einer neuen und innovativen Lösung gearbeitet, die mit Oracle RAC mithalten kann? Entwickler hat Microsoft genügend? Am Geld kann es auch nicht liegen? Lesen Sie einfach noch einmal die beiden obenstehenden Zitate und sie werden den Grund verstehen. Anders lässt es sich ja auch gar nicht mehr erklären, dass AlwaysOn aus zwei unterschiedlichen Technologien besteht, die beide jedoch wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) basieren. Denn daraus ergeben sich klare Nachteile - aber dazu später mehr. Um AlwaysOn zu verstehen, sollte man sich zunächst kurz in Erinnerung rufen, was Microsoft bisher an HA/DR (High Availability/Desaster Recovery) Lösungen für SQL Server zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Replikation Basiert auf logischer Replikation und Pubisher/Subscriber Architektur Transactional Replication Merge Replication Snapshot Replication Microsoft's Replikation ist vergleichbar mit Oracle GoldenGate. Oracle GoldenGate stellt jedoch die umfassendere Technologie dar und bietet High Performance. Log Shipping Microsoft's Log Shipping stellt eine einfache Technologie dar, die vergleichbar ist mit Oracle Managed Recovery in Oracle Version 7. Das Log Shipping besitzt folgende Merkmale: Transaction Log Backups werden von Primary nach Secondary/ies geschickt Einarbeitung (z.B. Restore) auf jedem Secondary individuell Optionale dritte Server Instanz (Monitor Server) für Überwachung und Alarm Log Restore Unterbrechung möglich für Read-Only Modus (Secondary) Keine Unterstützung von Automatic Failover Database Mirroring Microsoft's Database Mirroring wurde verfügbar mit SQL Server 2005, sah aus wie Oracle Data Guard in Oracle 9i, war funktional jedoch nicht so umfassend. Für ein HA/DR Paar besteht eine 1:1 Beziehung, um die produktive Datenbank (Principle DB) abzusichern. Auf der Standby Datenbank (Mirrored DB) werden alle Insert-, Update- und Delete-Operationen nachgezogen. Modi Synchron (High-Safety Modus) Asynchron (High-Performance Modus) Automatic Failover Unterstützt im High-Safety Modus (synchron) Witness Server vorausgesetzt Zur Frage der Kontinuität Es stellt sich die Frage, wie es um diesen Technologien nun im Zusammenhang mit SQL Server 2012 bestellt ist. Unter Fanfaren seinerzeit eingeführt, war Database Mirroring das erklärte Mittel der Wahl. Ich bin kein Produkt Manager bei Microsoft und kann hierzu nur meine Meinung äußern, aber zieht man den SQL AlwaysOn Team Blog heran, so sieht es nicht gut aus für das Database Mirroring - zumindest nicht langfristig. "Does AlwaysOn Availability Group replace Database Mirroring going forward?” “The short answer is we recommend that you migrate from the mirroring configuration or even mirroring and log shipping configuration to using Availability Group. Database Mirroring will still be available in the Denali release but will be phased out over subsequent releases. Log Shipping will continue to be available in future releases.” Damit wären wir endlich beim eigentlichen Thema angelangt. Was ist eine sogenannte Availability Group und was genau hat es mit der vielversprechend klingenden Bezeichnung AlwaysOn auf sich? SQL Server 2012 - AlwaysOn Zwei HA-Features verstekcne sich hinter dem “AlwaysOn”-Branding. Einmal das AlwaysOn Failover Clustering aka SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) - zum Anderen die AlwaysOn Availability Groups. Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Entspricht ungefähr dem Stretch Cluster Konzept von Oracle Setzt auf Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) auf Bietet HA auf Instanz-Ebene AlwaysOn Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Ähnlich der Idee von Consistency Groups, wie in Storage-Level Replikations-Software von z.B. EMC SRDF Abhängigkeiten zu Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Bietet HA auf Datenbank-Ebene Hinweis: Verwechseln Sie nicht eine SQL Server Datenbank mit einer Oracle Datenbank. Und auch nicht eine Oracle Instanz mit einer SQL Server Instanz. Die gleichen Begriffe haben hier eine andere Bedeutung - nicht selten ein Grund, weshalb Oracle- und Microsoft DBAs schnell aneinander vorbei reden. Denken Sie bei einer SQL Server Datenbank eher an ein Oracle Schema, das kommt der Sache näher. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema. Wenn Sie die genauen Unterschiede kennen möchten, finden Sie eine detaillierte Beschreibung in meinem Buch "Oracle10g Release 2 für Windows und .NET", erhältich bei Lehmanns, Amazon, etc. Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Wie man sieht, basieren beide AlwaysOn Technologien wiederum auf dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC), um einerseits Hochverfügbarkeit auf Ebene der Instanz zu gewährleisten und andererseits auf der Datenbank-Ebene. Deshalb nun eine kurze Beschreibung der WSFC. Die WSFC sind ein mit dem Windows Betriebssystem geliefertes Infrastruktur-Feature, um HA für Server Anwendungen, wie Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, SQL Server, etc. zu bieten. So wie jeder andere Cluster, besteht ein WSFC Cluster aus einer Gruppe unabhängiger Server, die zusammenarbeiten, um die Verfügbarkeit einer Applikation oder eines Service zu erhöhen. Falls ein Cluster-Knoten oder -Service ausfällt, kann der auf diesem Knoten bisher gehostete Service automatisch oder manuell auf einen anderen im Cluster verfügbaren Knoten transferriert werden - was allgemein als Failover bekannt ist. Unter SQL Server 2012 verwenden sowohl die AlwaysOn Avalability Groups, als auch die AlwaysOn Failover Cluster Instances die WSFC als Plattformtechnologie, um Komponenten als WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen zu registrieren. Verwandte Ressourcen werden in eine Ressource Group zusammengefasst, die in Abhängigkeit zu anderen WSFC Cluster-Ressourcen gebracht werden kann. Der WSFC Cluster Service kann jetzt die Notwendigkeit zum Neustart der SQL Server Instanz erfassen oder einen automatischen Failover zu einem anderen Server-Knoten im WSFC Cluster auslösen. Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) Eine SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanz (FCI) ist eine einzelne SQL Server Instanz, die in einem Failover Cluster betrieben wird, der aus mehreren Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) Knoten besteht und so HA (High Availability) auf Ebene der Instanz bietet. Unter Verwendung von Multi-Subnet FCI kann auch Remote DR (Disaster Recovery) unterstützt werden. Eine weitere Option für Remote DR besteht darin, eine unter FCI gehostete Datenbank in einer Availability Group zu betreiben. Hierzu später mehr. FCI und WSFC Basis FCI, das für lokale Hochverfügbarkeit der Instanzen genutzt wird, ähnelt der veralteten Architektur eines kalten Cluster (Aktiv-Passiv). Unter SQL Server 2008 wurde diese Technologie SQL Server 2008 Failover Clustering genannt. Sie nutzte den Windows Server Failover Cluster. In SQL Server 2012 hat Microsoft diese Basistechnologie unter der Bezeichnung AlwaysOn zusammengefasst. Es handelt sich aber nach wie vor um die klassische Aktiv-Passiv-Konfiguration. Der Ablauf im Failover-Fall ist wie folgt: Solange kein Hardware-oder System-Fehler auftritt, werden alle Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache auf Platte geschrieben Alle entsprechenden SQL Server Services (Dienste) in der Ressource Gruppe werden auf dem aktiven Knoten gestoppt Die Ownership der Ressource Gruppe wird auf einen anderen Knoten der FCI transferriert Der neue Owner (Besitzer) der Ressource Gruppe startet seine SQL Server Services (Dienste) Die Connection-Anforderungen einer Client-Applikation werden automatisch auf den neuen aktiven Knoten mit dem selben Virtuellen Network Namen (VNN) umgeleitet Abhängig vom Zeitpunkt des letzten Checkpoints, kann die Anzahl der Dirty Pages im Buffer Cache, die noch auf Platte geschrieben werden müssen, zu unvorhersehbar langen Failover-Zeiten führen. Um diese Anzahl zu drosseln, besitzt der SQL Server 2012 eine neue Fähigkeit, die Indirect Checkpoints genannt wird. Indirect Checkpoints ähnelt dem Fast-Start MTTR Target Feature der Oracle Datenbank, das bereits mit Oracle9i verfügbar war. SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Ein SQL Server Multi-Subnet Failover Cluster entspricht vom Konzept her einem Oracle RAC Stretch Cluster. Doch dies ist nur auf den ersten Blick der Fall. Im Gegensatz zu RAC ist in einem lokalen SQL Server Failover Cluster jeweils nur ein Knoten aktiv für eine Datenbank. Für die Datenreplikation zwischen geografisch entfernten Sites verlässt sich Microsoft auf 3rd Party Lösungen für das Storage Mirroring. Die Verbesserung dieses Szenario mit einer SQL Server 2012 Implementierung besteht schlicht darin, dass eine VLAN-Konfiguration (Virtual Local Area Network) nun nicht mehr benötigt wird, so wie dies bisher der Fall war. Das folgende Diagramm stellt dar, wie der Ablauf mit SQL Server 2012 gehandhabt wird. In Site A und Site B wird HA jeweils durch einen lokalen Aktiv-Passiv-Cluster sichergestellt. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit muss hier der Konfiguration und dem Tuning geschenkt werden, da ansonsten völlig inakzeptable Failover-Zeiten resultieren. Dies liegt darin begründet, weil die Downtime auf Client-Seite nun nicht mehr nur von der reinen Failover-Zeit abhängt, sondern zusätzlich von der Dauer der DNS Replikation zwischen den DNS Servern. (Rufen Sie sich in Erinnerung, dass wir gerade von Multi-Subnet Clustering sprechen). Außerdem ist zu berücksichtigen, wie schnell die Clients die aktualisierten DNS Informationen abfragen. Spezielle Konfigurationen für Node Heartbeat, HostRecordTTL (Host Record Time-to-Live) und Intersite Replication Frequeny für Active Directory Sites und Services werden notwendig. Default TTL für Windows Server 2008 R2: 20 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 1 Minute DNS Update Replication Frequency in Windows Umgebung: 180 Minuten Empfohlene Einstellung: 15 Minuten (minimaler Wert) Betrachtet man diese Werte, muss man feststellen, dass selbst eine optimale Konfiguration die rigiden SLAs (Service Level Agreements) heutiger geschäftskritischer Anwendungen für HA und DR nicht erfüllen kann. Denn dies impliziert eine auf der Client-Seite erlebte Failover-Zeit von insgesamt 16 Minuten. Hierzu ein Auszug aus der SQL Server 2012 Online Dokumentation: Cons: If a cross-subnet failover occurs, the client recovery time could be 15 minutes or longer, depending on your HostRecordTTL setting and the setting of your cross-site DNS/AD replication schedule. Wir sind hier an einem Punkt unserer Überlegungen angelangt, an dem sich erklärt, weshalb ich zuvor das "Windows was the God ..." Zitat verwendet habe. Die unbedingte Abhängigkeit zu Windows wird zunehmend zum Problem, da sie die Komplexität einer Microsoft-basierenden Lösung erhöht, anstelle sie zu reduzieren. Und Komplexität ist das Letzte, was sich CIOs heutzutage wünschen. Zur Ehrenrettung des SQL Server 2012 und AlwaysOn muss man sagen, dass derart lange Failover-Zeiten kein unbedingtes "Muss" darstellen, sondern ein "Kann". Doch auch ein "Kann" kann im unpassenden Moment unvorhersehbare und kostspielige Folgen haben. Die Unabsehbarkeit ist wiederum Ursache vieler an der Implementierung beteiligten Komponenten und deren Abhängigkeiten, wie beispielsweise drei Cluster-Lösungen (zwei von Microsoft, eine 3rd Party Lösung). Wie man die Sache auch dreht und wendet, kommt man an diesem Fakt also nicht vorbei - ganz unabhängig von der Dauer einer Downtime oder Failover-Zeiten. Im Gegensatz zu AlwaysOn und der hier vorgestellten Version eines Stretch-Clusters, vermeidet eine entsprechende Oracle Implementierung eine derartige Komplexität, hervorgerufen duch multiple Abhängigkeiten. Den Unterschied machen Datenbank-integrierte Mechanismen, wie Fast Application Notification (FAN) und Fast Connection Failover (FCF). Für Oracle MAA Konfigurationen (Maximum Availability Architecture) sind Inter-Site Failover-Zeiten im Bereich von Sekunden keine Seltenheit. Wenn Sie dem Link zur Oracle MAA folgen, finden Sie außerdem eine Reihe an Customer Case Studies. Auch dies ist ein wichtiges Unterscheidungsmerkmal zu AlwaysOn, denn die Oracle Technologie hat sich bereits zigfach in höchst kritischen Umgebungen bewährt. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Die sogenannten Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) sind - neben FCI - der weitere Baustein von AlwaysOn. Hinweis: Bevor wir uns näher damit beschäftigen, sollten Sie sich noch einmal ins Gedächtnis rufen, dass eine SQL Server Datenbank nicht die gleiche Bedeutung besitzt, wie eine Oracle Datenbank, sondern eher einem Oracle Schema entspricht. So etwas wie die SQL Server Northwind Datenbank ist vergleichbar mit dem Oracle Scott Schema. Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe setzt sich zusammen aus einem Set mehrerer Benutzer-Datenbanken, die im Falle eines Failover gemeinsam als Gruppe behandelt werden. Eine Verfügbarkeitsgruppe unterstützt ein Set an primären Datenbanken (primäres Replikat) und einem bis vier Sets von entsprechenden sekundären Datenbanken (sekundäre Replikate). Es können jedoch nicht alle SQL Server Datenbanken einer AlwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zugeordnet werden. Der SQL Server Spezialist Michael Otey zählt in seinem SQL Server Pro Artikel folgende Anforderungen auf: Verfügbarkeitsgruppen müssen mit Benutzer-Datenbanken erstellt werden. System-Datenbanken können nicht verwendet werden Die Datenbanken müssen sich im Read-Write Modus befinden. Read-Only Datenbanken werden nicht unterstützt Die Datenbanken in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe müssen Multiuser Datenbanken sein Sie dürfen nicht das AUTO_CLOSE Feature verwenden Sie müssen das Full Recovery Modell nutzen und es muss ein vollständiges Backup vorhanden sein Eine gegebene Datenbank kann sich nur in einer einzigen Verfügbarkeitsgruppe befinden und diese Datenbank düerfen nicht für Database Mirroring konfiguriert sein Microsoft empfiehl außerdem, dass der Verzeichnispfad einer Datenbank auf dem primären und sekundären Server identisch sein sollte Wie man sieht, eignen sich Verfügbarkeitsgruppen nicht, um HA und DR vollständig abzubilden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Instanzen-Ebene (FCI) und Datenbank-Ebene (Availability Groups) ist von hoher Bedeutung. Vor kurzem wurde mir gesagt, dass man mit den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen auf Shared Storage verzichten könne und dadurch Kosten spart. So weit so gut ... Man kann natürlich eine Installation rein mit Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und ohne FCI durchführen - aber man sollte sich dann darüber bewusst sein, was man dadurch alles nicht abgesichert hat - und dies wiederum für Desaster Recovery (DR) und SLAs (Service Level Agreements) bedeutet. Kurzum, um die Kombination aus beiden AlwaysOn Produkten und der damit verbundene Komplexität kommt man wohl in der Praxis nicht herum. Availability Groups und WSFC AlwaysOn hängt von Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) ab, um die aktuellen Rollen der Verfügbarkeitsreplikate einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe zu überwachen und zu verwalten, und darüber zu entscheiden, wie ein Failover-Ereignis die Verfügbarkeitsreplikate betrifft. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt de Beziehung zwischen Verfügbarkeitsgruppen und WSFC: Der Verfügbarkeitsmodus ist eine Eigenschaft jedes Verfügbarkeitsreplikats. Synychron und Asynchron können also gemischt werden: Availability Modus (Verfügbarkeitsmodus) Asynchroner Commit-Modus Primäres replikat schließt Transaktionen ohne Warten auf Sekundäres Synchroner Commit-Modus Primäres Replikat wartet auf Commit von sekundärem Replikat Failover Typen Automatic Manual Forced (mit möglichem Datenverlust) Synchroner Commit-Modus Geplanter, manueller Failover ohne Datenverlust Automatischer Failover ohne Datenverlust Asynchroner Commit-Modus Nur Forced, manueller Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust Der SQL Server kennt keinen separaten Switchover Begriff wie in Oracle Data Guard. Für SQL Server werden alle Role Transitions als Failover bezeichnet. Tatsächlich unterstützt der SQL Server keinen Switchover für asynchrone Verbindungen. Es gibt nur die Form des Forced Failover mit möglichem Datenverlust. Eine ähnliche Fähigkeit wie der Switchover unter Oracle Data Guard ist so nicht gegeben. SQL Sever FCI mit Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Neben den Verfügbarkeitsgruppen kann eine zweite Failover-Ebene eingerichtet werden, indem SQL Server FCI (auf Shared Storage) mit WSFC implementiert wird. Ein Verfügbarkeitesreplikat kann dann auf einer Standalone Instanz gehostet werden, oder einer FCI Instanz. Zum Verständnis: Die Verfügbarkeitsgruppen selbst benötigen kein Shared Storage. Diese Kombination kann verwendet werden für lokale HA auf Ebene der Instanz und DR auf Datenbank-Ebene durch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Das folgende Diagramm zeigt dieses Szenario: Achtung! Hier handelt es sich nicht um ein Pendant zu Oracle RAC plus Data Guard, auch wenn das Bild diesen Eindruck vielleicht vermitteln mag - denn alle sekundären Knoten im FCI sind rein passiv. Es existiert außerdem eine weitere und ernsthafte Einschränkung: SQL Server Failover Cluster Instanzen (FCI) unterstützen nicht das automatische AlwaysOn Failover für Verfügbarkeitsgruppen. Jedes unter FCI gehostete Verfügbarkeitsreplikat kann nur für manuelles Failover konfiguriert werden. Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate Ein oder mehrere Verfügbarkeitsreplikate in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe können für den lesenden Zugriff konfiguriert werden, wenn sie als sekundäres Replikat laufen. Dies ähnelt Oracle Active Data Guard, jedoch gibt es Einschränkungen. Alle Abfragen gegen die sekundäre Datenbank werden automatisch auf das Snapshot Isolation Level abgebildet. Es handelt sich dabei um eine Versionierung der Rows. Microsoft versuchte hiermit die Oracle MVRC (Multi Version Read Consistency) nachzustellen. Tatsächlich muss man die SQL Server Snapshot Isolation eher mit Oracle Flashback vergleichen. Bei der Implementierung des Snapshot Isolation Levels handelt sich um ein nachträglich aufgesetztes Feature und nicht um einen inhärenten Teil des Datenbank-Kernels, wie im Falle Oracle. (Ich werde hierzu in Kürze einen weiteren Blogbeitrag verfassen, wenn ich mich mit der neuen SQL Server 2012 Core Lizenzierung beschäftige.) Für die Praxis entstehen aus der Abbildung auf das Snapshot Isolation Level ernsthafte Restriktionen, derer man sich für den Betrieb in der Praxis bereits vorab bewusst sein sollte: Sollte auf der primären Datenbank eine aktive Transaktion zu dem Zeitpunkt existieren, wenn ein lesbares sekundäres Replikat in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen wird, werden die Row-Versionen auf der korrespondierenden sekundären Datenbank nicht sofort vollständig verfügbar sein. Eine aktive Transaktion auf dem primären Replikat muss zuerst abgeschlossen (Commit oder Rollback) und dieser Transaktions-Record auf dem sekundären Replikat verarbeitet werden. Bis dahin ist das Isolation Level Mapping auf der sekundären Datenbank unvollständig und Abfragen sind temporär geblockt. Microsoft sagt dazu: "This is needed to guarantee that row versions are available on the secondary replica before executing the query under snapshot isolation as all isolation levels are implicitly mapped to snapshot isolation." (SQL Storage Engine Blog: AlwaysOn: I just enabled Readable Secondary but my query is blocked?) Grundlegend bedeutet dies, dass ein aktives lesbares Replikat nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden kann, ohne das primäre Replikat vorübergehend stillzulegen. Da Leseoperationen auf das Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level abgebildet werden, kann die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf dem primären Replikat durch Transaktionen auf einem oder mehreren sekundären Replikaten geblockt werden - z.B. durch eine lang laufende Abfrage auf dem sekundären Replikat. Diese Bereinigung wird auch blockiert, wenn die Verbindung zum sekundären Replikat abbricht oder der Datenaustausch unterbrochen wird. Auch die Log Truncation wird in diesem Zustant verhindert. Wenn dieser Zustand längere Zeit anhält, empfiehlt Microsoft das sekundäre Replikat aus der Verfügbarkeitsgruppe herauszunehmen - was ein ernsthaftes Downtime-Problem darstellt. Die Read-Only Workload auf den sekundären Replikaten kann eingehende DDL Änderungen blockieren. Obwohl die Leseoperationen aufgrund der Row-Versionierung keine Shared Locks halten, führen diese Operatioen zu Sch-S Locks (Schemastabilitätssperren). DDL-Änderungen durch Redo-Operationen können dadurch blockiert werden. Falls DDL aufgrund konkurrierender Lese-Workload blockiert wird und der Schwellenwert für 'Recovery Interval' (eine SQL Server Konfigurationsoption) überschritten wird, generiert der SQL Server das Ereignis sqlserver.lock_redo_blocked, welches Microsoft zum Kill der blockierenden Leser empfiehlt. Auf die Verfügbarkeit der Anwendung wird hierbei keinerlei Rücksicht genommen. Keine dieser Einschränkungen existiert mit Oracle Active Data Guard. Backups auf sekundären Replikaten Über die sekundären Replikate können Backups (BACKUP DATABASE via Transact-SQL) nur als copy-only Backups einer vollständigen Datenbank, Dateien und Dateigruppen erstellt werden. Das Erstellen inkrementeller Backups ist nicht unterstützt, was ein ernsthafter Rückstand ist gegenüber der Backup-Unterstützung physikalischer Standbys unter Oracle Data Guard. Hinweis: Ein möglicher Workaround via Snapshots, bleibt ein Workaround. Eine weitere Einschränkung dieses Features gegenüber Oracle Data Guard besteht darin, dass das Backup eines sekundären Replikats nicht ausgeführt werden kann, wenn es nicht mit dem primären Replikat kommunizieren kann. Darüber hinaus muss das sekundäre Replikat synchronisiert sein oder sich in der Synchronisation befinden, um das Beackup auf dem sekundären Replikat erstellen zu können. Vergleich von Microsoft AlwaysOn mit der Oracle MAA Ich komme wieder zurück auf die Eingangs erwähnte, mehrfach an mich gestellte Frage "Wann denn - und ob überhaupt - Oracle etwas Vergleichbares wie AlwaysOn bieten würde?" und meine damit verbundene (kurze) Irritation. Wenn Sie diesen Blogbeitrag bis hierher gelesen haben, dann kennen Sie jetzt meine darauf gegebene Antwort. Der eine oder andere Punkt traf dabei nicht immer auf Jeden zu, was auch nicht der tiefere Sinn und Zweck meiner Antwort war. Wenn beispielsweise kein Multi-Subnet mit im Spiel ist, sind alle diesbezüglichen Kritikpunkte zunächst obsolet. Was aber nicht bedeutet, dass sie nicht bereits morgen schon wieder zum Thema werden könnten (Sag niemals "Nie"). In manch anderes Fettnäpfchen tritt man wiederum nicht unbedingt in einer Testumgebung, sondern erst im laufenden Betrieb. Erst recht nicht dann, wenn man sich potenzieller Probleme nicht bewusst ist und keine dedizierten Tests startet. Und wer AlwaysOn erfolgreich positionieren möchte, wird auch gar kein Interesse daran haben, auf mögliche Schwachstellen und den besagten Teufel im Detail aufmerksam zu machen. Das ist keine Unterstellung - es ist nur menschlich. Außerdem ist es verständlich, dass man sich in erster Linie darauf konzentriert "was geht" und "was gut läuft", anstelle auf das "was zu Problemen führen kann" oder "nicht funktioniert". Wer will schon der Miesepeter sein? Für mich selbst gesprochen, kann ich nur sagen, dass ich lieber vorab von allen möglichen Einschränkungen wissen möchte, anstelle sie dann nach einer kurzen Zeit der heilen Welt schmerzhaft am eigenen Leib erfahren zu müssen. Ich bin davon überzeugt, dass es Ihnen nicht anders geht. Nachfolgend deshalb eine Zusammenfassung all jener Punkte, die ich im Vergleich zur Oracle MAA (Maximum Availability Architecture) als unbedingt Erwähnenswert betrachte, falls man eine Evaluierung von Microsoft AlwaysOn in Betracht zieht. 1. AlwaysOn ist eine komplexe Technologie Der SQL Server AlwaysOn Stack ist zusammengesetzt aus drei verschiedenen Technlogien: Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) SQL Server Failover Cluster Instances (FCI) SQL Server Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) Man kann eine derartige Lösung nicht als nahtlos bezeichnen, wofür auch die vielen von Microsoft dargestellten Einschränkungen sprechen. Während sich frühere SQL Server Versionen in Richtung eigener HA/DR Technologien entwickelten (wie Database Mirroring), empfiehlt Microsoft nun die Migration. Doch weshalb dieser Schwenk? Er führt nicht zu einem konsisten und robusten Angebot an HA/DR Technologie für geschäftskritische Umgebungen. Liegt die Antwort in meiner These begründet, nach der "Windows was the God ..." noch immer gilt und man die Nachteile der allzu engen Kopplung mit Windows nicht sehen möchte? Entscheiden Sie selbst ... 2. Failover Cluster Instanzen - Kein RAC-Pendant Die SQL Server und Windows Server Clustering Technologie basiert noch immer auf dem veralteten Aktiv-Passiv Modell und führt zu einer Verschwendung von Systemressourcen. In einer Betrachtung von lediglich zwei Knoten erschließt sich auf Anhieb noch nicht der volle Mehrwert eines Aktiv-Aktiv Clusters (wie den Real Application Clusters), wie er von Oracle bereits vor zehn Jahren entwickelt wurde. Doch kennt man die Vorzüge der Skalierbarkeit durch einfaches Hinzufügen weiterer Cluster-Knoten, die dann alle gemeinsam als ein einziges logisches System zusammenarbeiten, versteht man was hinter dem Motto "Pay-as-you-Grow" steckt. In einem Aktiv-Aktiv Cluster geht es zwar auch um Hochverfügbarkeit - und ein Failover erfolgt zudem schneller, als in einem Aktiv-Passiv Modell - aber es geht eben nicht nur darum. An dieser Stelle sei darauf hingewiesen, dass die Oracle 11g Standard Edition bereits die Nutzung von Oracle RAC bis zu vier Sockets kostenfrei beinhaltet. Möchten Sie dazu Windows nutzen, benötigen Sie keine Windows Server Enterprise Edition, da Oracle 11g die eigene Clusterware liefert. Sie kommen in den Genuss von Hochverfügbarkeit und Skalierbarkeit und können dazu die günstigere Windows Server Standard Edition nutzen. 3. SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering - Abhängigkeit zu 3rd Party Storage Mirroring Die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur unterstützt den Aufbau eines Stretch Clusters, basiert dabei aber auf dem Aktiv-Passiv Modell. Das eigentlich Problematische ist jedoch, dass man sich zur Absicherung der Datenbank auf 3rd Party Storage Mirroring Technologie verlässt, ohne Integration zwischen dem Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) und der darunterliegenden Mirroring Technologie. Wenn nun im Cluster ein Failover auf Instanzen-Ebene erfolgt, existiert keine Koordination mit einem möglichen Failover auf Ebene des Storage-Array. 4. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - Vier, oder doch nur Zwei? Ein primäres Replikat erlaubt bis zu vier sekundäre Replikate innerhalb einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe, jedoch nur zwei im Synchronen Commit Modus. Während dies zwar einen Vorteil gegenüber dem stringenten 1:1 Modell unter Database Mirroring darstellt, fällt der SQL Server 2012 damit immer noch weiter zurück hinter Oracle Data Guard mit bis zu 30 direkten Stanbdy Zielen - und vielen weiteren durch kaskadierende Ziele möglichen. Damit eignet sich Oracle Active Data Guard auch für die Bereitstellung einer Reader-Farm Skalierbarkeit für Internet-basierende Unternehmen. Mit AwaysOn Verfügbarkeitsgruppen ist dies nicht möglich. 5. Availability Groups (Verfügbarkeitsgruppen) - kein asynchrones Switchover Die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen wird auch als geeignetes Mittel für administrative Aufgaben positioniert - wie Upgrades oder Wartungsarbeiten. Man muss sich jedoch einem gravierendem Defizit bewusst sein: Im asynchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus besteht die einzige Möglichkeit für Role Transition im Forced Failover mit Datenverlust! Um den Verlust von Daten durch geplante Wartungsarbeiten zu vermeiden, muss man den synchronen Verfügbarkeitsmodus konfigurieren, was jedoch ernstzunehmende Auswirkungen auf WAN Deployments nach sich zieht. Spinnt man diesen Gedanken zu Ende, kommt man zu dem Schluss, dass die Technologie der Verfügbarkeitsgruppen für geplante Wartungsarbeiten in einem derartigen Umfeld nicht effektiv genutzt werden kann. 6. Automatisches Failover - Nicht immer möglich Sowohl die SQL Server FCI, als auch Verfügbarkeitsgruppen unterstützen automatisches Failover. Möchte man diese jedoch kombinieren, wird das Ergebnis kein automatisches Failover sein. Denn ihr Zusammentreffen im Failover-Fall führt zu Race Conditions (Wettlaufsituationen), weshalb diese Konfiguration nicht länger das automatische Failover zu einem Replikat in einer Verfügbarkeitsgruppe erlaubt. Auch hier bestätigt sich wieder die tiefere Problematik von AlwaysOn, mit einer Zusammensetzung aus unterschiedlichen Technologien und der Abhängigkeit zu Windows. 7. Problematische RTO (Recovery Time Objective) Microsoft postioniert die SQL Server Multi-Subnet Clustering Architektur als brauchbare HA/DR Architektur. Bedenkt man jedoch die Problematik im Zusammenhang mit DNS Replikation und den möglichen langen Wartezeiten auf Client-Seite von bis zu 16 Minuten, sind strenge RTO Anforderungen (Recovery Time Objectives) nicht erfüllbar. Im Gegensatz zu Oracle besitzt der SQL Server keine Datenbank-integrierten Technologien, wie Oracle Fast Application Notification (FAN) oder Oracle Fast Connection Failover (FCF). 8. Problematische RPO (Recovery Point Objective) SQL Server ermöglicht Forced Failover (erzwungenes Failover), bietet jedoch keine Möglichkeit zur automatischen Übertragung der letzten Datenbits von einem alten zu einem neuen primären Replikat, wenn der Verfügbarkeitsmodus asynchron war. Oracle Data Guard hingegen bietet diese Unterstützung durch das Flush Redo Feature. Dies sichert "Zero Data Loss" und beste RPO auch in erzwungenen Failover-Situationen. 9. Lesbare Sekundäre Replikate mit Einschränkungen Aufgrund des Snapshot Isolation Transaction Level für lesbare sekundäre Replikate, besitzen diese Einschränkungen mit Auswirkung auf die primäre Datenbank. Die Bereinigung von Ghost Records auf der primären Datenbank, wird beeinflusst von lang laufenden Abfragen auf der lesabaren sekundären Datenbank. Die lesbare sekundäre Datenbank kann nicht in die Verfügbarkeitsgruppe aufgenommen werden, wenn es aktive Transaktionen auf der primären Datenbank gibt. Zusätzlich können DLL Änderungen auf der primären Datenbank durch Abfragen auf der sekundären blockiert werden. Und imkrementelle Backups werden hier nicht unterstützt. Keine dieser Restriktionen existiert unter Oracle Data Guard.

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Tips on Migrating from AquaLogic .NET Accelerator to WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET

- by user647124

This year I embarked on a journey to migrate a group of ASP.NET web applications developed to integrate with WebLogic Portal 9.2 via the AquaLogic® Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.0 to instead use the Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET and integrated with WebLogic Portal 10.3.4. It has been a very winding path and this blog entry is intended to share both the lessons learned and relevant approaches that led to those learnings. Like most journeys of discovery, it was not a direct path, and there are notes to let you know when it is practical to skip a section if you are in a hurry to get from here to there. For the Curious From the perspective of necessity, this section would be better at the end. If it were there, though, it would probably be read by far fewer people, including those that are actually interested in these types of sections. Those in a hurry may skip past and be none the worst for it in dealing with the hands-on bits of performing a migration from .NET Accelerator to WSRP Producer. For others who want to talk about why they did what they did after they did it, or just want to know for themselves, enjoy. A Brief (and edited) History of the WSRP for .NET Technologies (as Relevant to the this Post) Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration path is not as simple as many other Oracle technologies. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The currently deployed architecture that was to be migrated and upgraded achieved initial integration between .NET and J2EE over the WSRP protocol through the use of The AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator. The .NET Accelerator allowed the applications that were written in ASP.NET and deployed on a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) to interact with a WebLogic Portal application deployed on a WebLogic (J2EE application) Server (both version 9.2, the state of the art at the time of its creation). At the time this architectural decision for the application was made, both the AquaLogic and WebLogic brands were owned by BEA Systems. The AquaLogic brand included products acquired by BEA through the acquisition of Plumtree, whose flagship product was a portal platform available in both J2EE and .NET versions. As part of this dual technology support an adaptor was created to facilitate the use of WSRP as a communication protocol where customers wished to integrate components from both versions of the Plumtree portal. The adapter evolved over several product generations to include a broad array of both standard and proprietary WSRP integration capabilities. Later, BEA Systems was acquired by Oracle. Over the course of several years Oracle has acquired a large number of portal applications and has taken the strategic direction to migrate users of these myriad (and formerly competitive) products to the Oracle WebCenter technology stack. As part of Oracle’s strategic technology roadmap, older portal products are being schedule for end of life, including the portal products that were part of the BEA acquisition. The .NET Accelerator has been modified over a very long period of time with features driven by users of that product and developed under three different vendors (each a direct competitor in the same solution space prior to merger). The Oracle WebCenter WSRP Producer for .NET was introduced much more recently with the key objective to specifically address the needs of the WebCenter customers developing solutions accessible through both J2EE and .NET platforms utilizing the WSRP specifications. The Oracle Product Development Team also provides these insights on the drivers for developing the WSRP Producer: ***************************************** Support for ASP.NET AJAX. Controls using the ASP.NET AJAX script manager do not function properly in the Application Accelerator for .NET. Support 2 way SSL in WLP. This was not possible with the proxy/bridge set up in the existing Application Accelerator for .NET. Allow developers to code portlets (Web Parts) using the .NET framework rather than a proprietary framework. Developers had to use the Application Accelerator for .NET plug-ins to Visual Studio to manage preferences and profile data. This is now replaced with the .NET Framework Personalization (for preferences) and Profile providers. The WSRP Producer for .NET was created as a new way of developing .NET portlets. It was never designed to be an upgrade path for the Application Accelerator for .NET. .NET developers would create new .NET portlets with the WSRP Producer for .NET and leave any existing .NET portlets running in the Application Accelerator for .NET. ***************************************** The advantage to creating a new solution for WSRP is a product that is far easier for Oracle to maintain and support which in turn improves quality, reliability and maintainability for their customers. No changes to J2EE applications consuming the WSRP portlets previously rendered by the.NET Accelerator is required to migrate from the Aqualogic WSRP solution. For some customers using the .NET Accelerator the challenge is adapting their current .NET applications to work with the WSRP Producer (or any other WSRP adapter as they are proprietary by nature). Part of this adaptation is the need to deploy the .NET applications as a child to the WSRP producer web application as root. Differences between .NET Accelerator and WSRP Producer Note: This section is for those who are curious about why the migration is not as pluggable as something such as changing security providers in WebLogic Server. You can skip this section in its entirety and still be just as competent in performing a migration as if you had read it. The basic terminology used to describe the participating applications in a WSRP environment are the same when applied to either the .NET Accelerator or the WSRP Producer: Producer and Consumer. In both cases the .NET application serves as what is referred to as a WSRP environment as the Producer. The difference lies in how the two adapters create the WSRP translation of the .NET application. The .NET Accelerator, as the name implies, is meant to serve as a quick way of adding WSRP capability to a .NET application. As such, at a high level, the .NET Accelerator behaves as a proxy for requests between the .NET application and the WSRP Consumer. A WSRP request is sent from the consumer to the .NET Accelerator, the.NET Accelerator transforms this request into an ASP.NET request, receives the response, then transforms the response into a WSRP response. The .NET Accelerator is deployed as a stand-alone application on IIS. The WSRP Producer is deployed as a parent application on IIS and all ASP.NET modules that will be made available over WSRP are deployed as children of the WSRP Producer application. In this manner, the WSRP Producer acts more as a Request Filter than a proxy in the WSRP transactions between Producer and Consumer. Highly Recommended Enabling Logging Note: You can skip this section now, but you will most likely want to come back to it later, so why not just read it now? Logging is very helpful in tracking down the causes of any anomalies during testing of migrated portlets. To enable the WSRP Producer logging, update the Application_Start method in the Global.asax.cs for your .NET application by adding log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure(); IIS logs will usually (in a standard configuration) be in a sub folder under C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC. WSRP Producer logs will be found at C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\Logs\WSRPProducer.log InputTrace.webinfo and OutputTrace.webinfo are located under C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault and can be useful in debugging issues related to markup transformations. Things You Must Do Merge Web.Config Note: If you have been skipping all the sections that you can, now is the time to stop and pay attention J Because the existing .NET application will become a sub-application to the WSRP Producer, you will want to merge required settings from the existing Web.Config to the one in the WSRP Producer. Use the WSRP Producer Master Page The Master Page installed for the WSRP Producer provides common, hiddenform fields and JavaScripts to facilitate portlet instance management and display configuration when the child page is being rendered over WSRP. You add the Master Page by including it in the <@ Page declaration with MasterPageFile="~/portlets/Resources/MasterPages/WSRP.Master" . You then replace: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" > <HTML> <HEAD> With <asp:Content ID="ContentHead1" ContentPlaceHolderID="wsrphead" Runat="Server"> And </HEAD> <body> <form id="theForm" method="post" runat="server"> With </asp:Content> <asp:Content ID="ContentBody1" ContentPlaceHolderID="Main" Runat="Server"> And finally </form> </body> </HTML> With </asp:Content> In the event you already use Master Pages, adapt your existing Master Pages to be sub masters. See Nested ASP.NET Master Pages for a detailed reference of how to do this. It Happened to Me, It Might Happen to You…Or Not Watch for Use of Session or Request in OnInit In the event the .NET application being modified has pages developed to assume the user has been authenticated in an earlier page request there may be direct or indirect references in the OnInit method to request or session objects that may not have been created yet. This will vary from application to application, so the recommended approach is to test first. If there is an issue with a page running as a WSRP portlet then check for potential references in the OnInit method (including references by methods called within OnInit) to session or request objects. If there are, the simplest solution is to create a new method and then call that method once the necessary object(s) is fully available. I find doing this at the start of the Page_Load method to be the simplest solution. Case Sensitivity .NET languages are not case sensitive, but Java is. This means it is possible to have many variations of SRC= and src= or .JPG and .jpg. The preferred solution is to make these mark up instances all lower case in your .NET application. This will allow the default Rewriter rules in wsrp-producer.xml to work as is. If this is not practical, then make duplicates of any rules where an issue is occurring due to upper or mixed case usage in the .NET application markup and match the case in use with the duplicate rule. For example: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(href=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> May need to be duplicated as: <RewriterRule> <LookFor>(HREF=\"([^\"]+)</LookFor> <ChangeToAbsolute>true</ChangeToAbsolute> <ApplyTo>.axd,.css</ApplyTo> <MakeResource>true</MakeResource> </RewriterRule> While it is possible to write a regular expression that will handle mixed case usage, it would be long and strenous to test and maintain, so the recommendation is to use duplicate rules. Is it Still Relative? Some .NET applications base relative paths with a fixed root location. With the introduction of the WSRP Producer, the root has moved up one level. References to ~/ will need to be updated to ~/portlets and many ../ paths will need another ../ in front. I Can See You But I Can’t Find You This issue was first discovered while debugging modules with code that referenced the form on a page from the code-behind by name and/or id. The initial error presented itself as run-time error that was difficult to interpret over WSRP but seemed clear when run as straight ASP.NET as it indicated that the object with the form name did not exist. Since the form name was no longer valid after implementing the WSRP Master Page, the likely fix seemed to simply update the references in the code. However, as the WSRP Master Page is external to the code, a compile time error resulted: Error 155 The name 'form1' does not exist in the current context C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault\portlets\legacywebsite\module\Screens \Reporting.aspx.cs 51 52 legacywebsite.module Much hair-pulling research later it was discovered that it was the use of the FindControl method causing the issue. FindControl doesn’t work quite as expected once a Master Page has been introduced as the controls become embedded in controls, require a recursion to find them that is not part of the FindControl method. In code where the page form is referenced by name, there are two steps to the solution. First, the form needs to be referenced in code generically with Page.Form. For example, this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(frmManualEntry, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Becomes this: ToggleControl ctrl = new ToggleControl(Page.Form, FunctionLibrary.ParseArrayLst(userObj.Roles)); Generally the form id is referenced in most ASP.NET applications as a path to a control on the form. To reach the control once a MasterPage has been added requires an additional method to recurse through the controls collections within the form and find the control ID. The following method (found at Rick Strahl's Web Log) corrects this very nicely: public static Control FindControlRecursive(Control Root, string Id) { if (Root.ID == Id) return Root; foreach (Control Ctl in Root.Controls) { Control FoundCtl = FindControlRecursive(Ctl, Id); if (FoundCtl != null) return FoundCtl; } return null; } Where the form name is not referenced, simply using the FindControlRecursive method in place of FindControl will be all that is necessary. Following the second part of the example referenced earlier, the method called with Page.Form changes its value extraction code block from this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label)frmRef.FindControl("lblBRMsg" To this: Label lblErrMsg = (Label) FunctionLibrary.FindControlRecursive(frmRef, "lblBRMsg" The Master That Won’t Step Aside In most migrations it is preferable to make as few changes as possible. In one case I ran across an existing Master Page that would not function as a sub-Master Page. While it would probably have been educational to trace down why, the expedient process of updating it to take the place of the WSRP Master Page is the route I took. The changes are highlighted below: … <asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="wsrphead" runat="server"></asp:ContentPlaceHolder> </head> <body leftMargin="0" topMargin="0"> <form id="TheForm" runat="server"> <input type="hidden" name="key" id="key" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="formactionurl" id="formactionurl" value="" /> <input type="hidden" name="handle" id="handle" value="" /> <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" EnablePartialRendering="true" > </asp:ScriptManager> This approach did not work for all existing Master Pages, but fortunately all of the other existing Master Pages I have run across worked fine as a sub-Master to the WSRP Master Page. Moving On In Enterprise Portals, even after you get everything working, the work is not finished. Next you need to get it where everyone will work with it. Migration Planning Providing that the server where IIS is running is adequately sized, it is possible to run both the .NET Accelerator and the WSRP Producer on the same server during the upgrade process. The upgrade can be performed incrementally, i.e., one portlet at a time, if server administration processes support it. Those processes would include the ability to manage a second producer in the consuming portal and to change over individual portlet instances from one provider to the other. If processes or requirements demand that all portlets be cut over at the same time, it needs to be determined if this cut over should include a new producer, updating all of the portlets in the consumer, or if the WSRP Producer portlet configuration must maintain the naming conventions used by the .NET Accelerator and simply change the WSRP end point configured in the consumer. In some enterprises it may even be necessary to maintain the same WSDL end point, at which point the IIS configuration will be where the updates occur. The downside to such a requirement is that it makes rolling back very difficult, should the need arise. Location, Location, Location Not everyone wants the web application to have the descriptively obvious wsrpdefault location, or needs to create a second WSRP site on the same server. The instructions below are from the product team and, while targeted towards making a second site, will work for creating a site with a different name and then remove the old site. You can also change just the name in IIS. Manually Creating a WSRP Producer Site Instructions (NOTE: all executables used are the same ones used by the installer and “wsrpdev” will be the name of the new instance): 1. Copy C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdefault to C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev. 2. Bring up a command window as an administrator 3. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\IISAppAccelSiteCreator.exe install WSRPProducers wsrpdev "C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev" 8678 2.0.50727 4. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev "NETWORK SERVICE" 3 1 5. Run C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\uninstall_resources\PermManage.exe add FileSystem C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsrpdev EVERYONE 1 1 6. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev 7. Open up C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\wsdl\2.0\WSRPService.wsdl and replace wsrpdefault with wsrpdev Tests: 1. Bring up a browser on the host itself and go to http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/wsdl/1.0/WSRPService.wsdl and make sure that the URLs in the XML returned include the wsrpdev changes you made in step 6. 2. Bring up a browser on the host itself and see if the default sample comes up: http://localhost:8678/wsrpdev/portlets/ASPNET_AJAX_sample/default.aspx 3. Register the producer in WLP and test the portlet. Changing the Port used by WSRP Producer The pre-configured port for the WSRP Producer is 8678. You can change this port by updating both the IIS configuration and C:\Oracle\Middleware\WSRPProducerForDotNet\[WSRP_APP_NAME]\wsdl\1.0\WSRPService.wsdl. Do You Need to Migrate? Oracle Premier Support ended in November of 2010 for AquaLogic Interaction .NET Application Accelerator 1.x and Extended Support ends in November 2012 (see http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/lifetime-support-software-342730.html for other related dates). This means that integration with products released after November of 2010 is not supported. If having such support is the policy within your enterprise, you do indeed need to migrate. If changes in your enterprise cause your current solution with the .NET Accelerator to no longer function properly, you may need to migrate. Migration is a choice, and if the goals of your enterprise are to take full advantage of newer technologies then migration is certainly one activity you should be planning for.

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Red Gate Coder interviews: Robin Hellen

- by Michael Williamson

Robin Hellen is a test engineer here at Red Gate, and is also the latest coder I’ve interviewed. We chatted about debugging code, the roles of software engineers and testers, and why Vala is currently his favourite programming language. How did you get started with programming?It started when I was about six. My dad’s a professional programmer, and he gave me and my sister one of his old computers and taught us a bit about programming. It was an old Amiga 500 with a variant of BASIC. I don’t think I ever successfully completed anything! It was just faffing around. I didn’t really get anywhere with it.But then presumably you did get somewhere with it at some point.At some point. The PC emerged as the dominant platform, and I learnt a bit of Visual Basic. I didn’t really do much, just a couple of quick hacky things. A bit of demo animation. Took me a long time to get anywhere with programming, really.When did you feel like you did start to get somewhere?I think it was when I started doing things for someone else, which was my sister’s final year of university project. She called up my dad two days before she was due to submit, saying “We need something to display a graph!”. Dad says, “I’m too busy, go talk to your brother”. So I hacked up this ugly piece of code, sent it off and they won a prize for that project. Apparently, the graph, the bit that I wrote, was the reason they won a prize! That was when I first felt that I’d actually done something that was worthwhile. That was my first real bit of code, and the ugliest code I’ve ever written. It’s basically an array of pre-drawn line elements that I shifted round the screen to draw a very spikey graph.When did you decide that programming might actually be something that you wanted to do as a career?It’s not really a decision I took, I always wanted to do something with computers. And I had to take a gap year for uni, so I was looking for twelve month internships. I applied to Red Gate, and they gave me a job as a tester. And that’s where I really started having to write code well. To a better standard that I had been up to that point.How did you find coming to Red Gate and working with other coders?I thought it was really nice. I learnt so much just from other people around. I think one of the things that’s really great is that people are just willing to help you learn. Instead of “Don’t you know that, you’re so stupid”, it’s “You can just do it this way”.If you could go back to the very start of that internship, is there something that you would tell yourself?Write shorter code. I have a tendency to write massive, many-thousand line files that I break out of right at the end. And then half-way through a project I’m doing something, I think “Where did I write that bit that does that thing?”, and it’s almost impossible to find. I wrote some horrendous code when I started. Just that principle, just keep things short. Even if looks a bit crazy to be jumping around all over the place all of the time, it’s actually a lot more understandable.And how do you hold yourself to that?Generally, if a function’s going off my screen, it’s probably too long. That’s what I tell myself, and within the team here we have code reviews, so the guys I’m with at the moment are pretty good at pulling me up on, “Doesn’t that look like it’s getting a bit long?”. It’s more just the subjective standard of readability than anything.So you’re an advocate of code review?Yes, definitely. Both to spot errors that you might have made, and to improve your knowledge. The person you’re reviewing will say “Oh, you could have done it that way”. That’s how we learn, by talking to others, and also just sharing knowledge of how your project works around the team, or even outside the team. Definitely a very firm advocate of code reviews.Do you think there’s more we could do with them?I don’t know. We’re struggling with how to add them as part of the process without it becoming too cumbersome. We’ve experimented with a few different ways, and we’ve not found anything that just works.To get more into the nitty gritty: how do you like to debug code?The first thing is to do it in my head. I’ll actually think what piece of code is likely to have caused that error, and take a quick look at it, just to see if there’s anything glaringly obvious there. The next thing I’ll probably do is throw in print statements, or throw some exceptions from various points, just to check: is it going through the code path I expect it to? A last resort is to actually debug code using a debugger.Why is the debugger the last resort?Probably because of the environments I learnt programming in. VB and early BASIC didn’t have much of a debugger, the only way to find out what your program was doing was to add print statements. Also, because a lot of the stuff I tend to work with is non-interactive, if it’s something that takes a long time to run, I can throw in the print statements, set a run off, go and do something else, and look at it again later, rather than trying to remember what happened at that point when I was debugging through it. So it also gives me the record of what happens. I hate just sitting there pressing F5, F5, continually. If you’re having to find out what your code is doing at each line, you’ve probably got a very wrong mental model of what your code’s doing, and you can find that out just as easily by inspecting a couple of values through the print statements.If I were on some codebase that you were also working on, what should I do to make it as easy as possible to understand?I’d say short and well-named methods. The one thing I like to do when I’m looking at code is to find out where a value comes from, and the more layers of indirection there are, particularly DI [dependency injection] frameworks, the harder it is to find out where something’s come from. I really hate that. I want to know if the value come from the user here or is a constant here, and if I can’t find that out, that makes code very hard to understand for me.As a tester, where do you think the split should lie between software engineers and testers?I think the split is less on areas of the code you write and more what you’re designing and creating. The developers put a structure on the code, while my major role is to say which tests we should have, whether we should test that, or it’s not worth testing that because it’s a tiny function in code that nobody’s ever actually going to see. So it’s not a split in the code, it’s a split in what you’re thinking about. Saying what code we should write, but alternatively what code we should take out.In your experience, do the software engineers tend to do much testing themselves?They tend to control the lowest layer of tests. And, depending on how the balance of people is in the team, they might write some of the higher levels of test. Or that might go to the testers. I’m the only tester on my team with three other developers, so they’ll be writing quite a lot of the actual test code, with input from me as to whether we should test that functionality, whereas on other teams, where it’s been more equal numbers, the testers have written pretty much all of the high level tests, just because that’s the best use of resource.If you could shuffle resources around however you liked, do you think that the developers should be writing those high-level tests?I think they should be writing them occasionally. It helps when they have an understanding of how testing code works and possibly what assumptions we’ve made in tests, and they can say “actually, it doesn’t work like that under the hood so you’ve missed this whole area”. It’s one of those agile things that everyone on the team should be at least comfortable doing the various jobs. So if the developers can write test code then I think that’s a very good thing.So you think testers should be able to write production code?Yes, although given most testers skills at coding, I wouldn’t advise it too much! I have written a few things, and I did make a few changes that have actually gone into our production code base. They’re not necessarily running every time but they are there. I think having that mix of skill sets is really useful. In some ways we’re using our own product to test itself, so being able to make those changes where it’s not working saves me a round-trip through the developers. It can be really annoying if the developers have no time to make a change, and I can’t touch the code.If the software engineers are consistently writing tests at all levels, what role do you think the role of a tester is?I think on a team like that, those distinctions aren’t quite so useful. There’ll be two cases. There’s either the case where the developers think they’ve written good tests, but you still need someone with a test engineer mind-set to go through the tests and validate that it’s a useful set, or the correct set for that code. Or they won’t actually be pure developers, they’ll have that mix of test ability in there.I think having slightly more distinct roles is useful. When it starts to blur, then you lose that view of the tests as a whole. The tester job is not to create tests, it’s to validate the quality of the product, and you don’t do that just by writing tests. There’s more things you’ve got to keep in your mind. And I think when you blur the roles, you start to lose that end of the tester.So because you’re working on those features, you lose that holistic view of the whole system?Yeah, and anyone who’s worked on the feature shouldn’t be testing it. You always need to have it tested it by someone who didn’t write it. Otherwise you’re a bit too close and you assume “yes, people will only use it that way”, but the tester will come along and go “how do people use this? How would our most idiotic user use this?”. I might not test that because it might be completely irrelevant. But it’s coming in and trying to have a different set of assumptions.Are you a believer that it should all be automated if possible?Not entirely. So an automated test is always better than a manual test for the long-term, but there’s still nothing that beats a human sitting in front of the application and thinking “What could I do at this point?”. The automated test is very good but they follow that strict path, and they never check anything off the path. The human tester will look at things that they weren’t expecting, whereas the automated test can only ever go “Is that value correct?” in many respects, and it won’t notice that on the other side of the screen you’re showing something completely wrong. And that value might have been checked independently, but you always find a few odd interactions when you’re going through something manually, and you always need to go through something manually to start with anyway, otherwise you won’t know where the important bits to write your automation are.When you’re doing that manual testing, do you think it’s important to do that across the entire product, or just the bits that you’ve touched recently?I think it’s important to do it mostly on the bits you’ve touched, but you can’t ignore the rest of the product. Unless you’re dealing with a very, very self-contained bit, you’re almost always encounter other bits of the product along the way. Most testers I know, even if they are looking at just one path, they’ll keep open and move around a bit anyway, just because they want to find something that’s broken. If we find that your path is right, we’ll go out and hunt something else.How do you think this fits into the idea of continuously deploying, so long as the tests pass?With deploying a website it’s a bit different because you can always pull it back. If you’re deploying an application to customers, when you’ve released it, it’s out there, you can’t pull it back. Someone’s going to keep it, no matter how hard you try there will be a few installations that stay around. So I’d always have at least a human element on that path. With websites, you could probably automate straight out, or at least straight out to an internal environment or a single server in a cloud of fifty that will serve some people. But I don’t think you should release to everyone just on automated tests passing.You’ve already mentioned using BASIC and C# — are there any other languages that you’ve used?I’ve used a few. That’s something that has changed more recently, I’ve become familiar with more languages. Before I started at Red Gate I learnt a bit of C. Then last year, I taught myself Python which I actually really enjoyed using. I’ve also come across another language called Vala, which is sort of a C#-like language. It’s basically a pre-processor for C, but it has very nice syntax. I think that’s currently my favourite language.Any particular reason for trying Vala?I have a completely Linux environment at home, and I’ve been looking for a nice language, and C# just doesn’t cut it because I won’t touch Mono. So, I was looking for something like C# but that was useable in an open source environment, and Vala’s what I found. C#’s got a few features that Vala doesn’t, and Vala’s got a few features where I think “It would be awesome if C# had that”.What are some of the features that it’s missing?Extension methods. And I think that’s the only one that really bugs me. I like to use them when I’m writing C# because it makes some things really easy, especially with libraries that you can’t touch the internals of. It doesn’t have method overloading, which is sometimes annoying.Where it does win over C#?Everything is non-nullable by default, you never have to check that something’s unexpectedly null.Also, Vala has code contracts. This is starting to come in C# 4, but the way it works in Vala is that you specify requirements in short phrases as part of your function signature and they stick to the signature, so that when you inherit it, it has exactly the same code contract as the base one, or when you inherit from an interface, you have to match the signature exactly. Just using those makes you think a bit more about how you’re writing your method, it’s not an afterthought when you’ve got contracts from base classes given to you, you can’t change it. Which I think is a lot nicer than the way C# handles it. When are those actually checked?They’re checked both at compile and run-time. The compile-time checking isn’t very strong yet, it’s quite a new feature in the compiler, and because it compiles down to C, you can write C code and interface with your methods, so you can bypass that compile-time check anyway. So there’s an extra runtime check, and if you violate one of the contracts at runtime, it’s game over for your program, there’s no exception to catch, it’s just goodbye!One thing I dislike about C# is the exceptions. You write a bit of code and fifty exceptions could come from any point in your ten lines, and you can’t mentally model how those exceptions are going to come out, and you can’t even predict them based on the functions you’re calling, because if you’ve accidentally got a derived class there instead of a base class, that can throw a completely different set of exceptions. So I’ve got no way of mentally modelling those, whereas in Vala they’re checked like Java, so you know only these exceptions can come out. You know in advance the error conditions.I think Raymond Chen on Old New Thing says “the only thing you know when you throw an exception is that you’re in an invalid state somewhere in your program, so just kill it and be done with it!”You said you’ve also learnt bits of Python. How did you find that compared to Vala and C#?Very different because of the dynamic typing. I’ve been writing a website for my own use. I’m quite into photography, so I take photos off my camera, post-process them, dump them in a file, and I get a webpage with all my thumbnails. So sort of like Picassa, but written by myself because I wanted something to learn Python with. There are some things that are really nice, I just found it really difficult to cope with the fact that I’m not quite sure what this object type that I’m passed is, I might not ever be sure, so it can randomly blow up on me. But once I train myself to ignore that and just say “well, I’m fairly sure it’s going to be something that looks like this, so I’ll use it like this”, then it’s quite nice.Any particular features that you’ve appreciated?I don’t like any particular feature, it’s just very straightforward to work with. It’s very quick to write something in, particularly as you don’t have to worry that you’ve changed something that affects a different part of the program. If you have, then that part blows up, but I can get this part working right now.If you were doing a big project, would you be willing to do it in Python rather than C# or Vala?I think I might be willing to try something bigger or long term with Python. We’re currently doing an ASP.NET MVC project on C#, and I don’t like the amount of reflection. There’s a lot of magic that pulls values out, and it’s all done under the scenes. It’s almost managed to put a dynamic type system on top of C#, which in many ways destroys the language to me, whereas if you’re already in a dynamic language, having things done dynamically is much more natural. In many ways, you get the worst of both worlds. I think for web projects, I would go with Python again, whereas for anything desktop, command-line or GUI-based, I’d probably go for C# or Vala, depending on what environment I’m in.It’s the fact that you can gain from the strong typing in ways that you can’t so much on the web app. Or, in a web app, you have to use dynamic typing at some point, or you have to write a hell of a lot of boilerplate, and I’d rather use the dynamic typing than write the boilerplate.What do you think separates great programmers from everyone else?Probably design choices. Choosing to write it a piece of code one way or another. For any given program you ask me to write, I could probably do it five thousand ways. A programmer who is capable will see four or five of them, and choose one of the better ones. The excellent programmer will see the largest proportion and manage to pick the best one very quickly without having to think too much about it. I think that’s probably what separates, is the speed at which they can see what’s the best path to write the program in. More Red Gater Coder interviews

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Problem rendering VBO

- by Onno

I'm developing a game engine using OpenTK. I'm trying to get to grips with the use of VBO's. I've run into some trouble because somehow it doesn't render correctly. Thus far I've used immediate mode to render a test object, a test cube with a texture. namespace SharpEngine.Utility.Mesh { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using OpenTK; using OpenTK.Graphics; using OpenTK.Graphics.OpenGL; using SharpEngine.Utility; using System.Drawing; public class ImmediateFaceBasedCube : IMesh { private IList<Face> faces = new List<Face>(); public ImmediateFaceBasedCube() { IList<Vector3> allVertices = new List<Vector3>(); //rechtsbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //0 //rechtsbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //1 //linksbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //2 //linksbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //3 //rechtsondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //4 //rechtsonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //5 //linksonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //6 //linksondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //7 IList<Vector2> textureCoordinates = new List<Vector2>(); textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0)); //AA - 0 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.3333333f)); //AB - 1 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.6666666f)); //AC - 2 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 1)); //AD - 3 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0)); //BA - 4 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.3333333f)); //BB - 5 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.6666666f)); //BC - 6 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 1)); //BD - 7 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0)); //CA - 8 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.3333333f)); //CB - 9 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.6666666f)); //CC -10 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 1)); //CD -11 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0)); //DA -12 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.3333333f)); //DB -13 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.6666666f)); //DC -14 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 1)); //DD -15 Vector3 copy1 = new Vector3(-2.0f, -2.5f, -3.5f); IList<Vector3> normals = new List<Vector3>(); normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 1.0f, 0)); //0 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, 1.0f)); //1 normals.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 0, 0)); //2 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, -1.0f)); //3 normals.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 0, 0)); //4 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, -1.0f, 0)); //5 //todo: move vertex normal and texture data to datastructure //todo: VBO based rendering //top face //1 IList<VertexData> verticesT1 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T1a = new VertexData(); T1a.Normal = normals[0]; T1a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T1a.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT1.Add(T1a); VertexData T1b = new VertexData(); T1b.Normal = normals[0]; T1b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T1b.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT1.Add(T1b); VertexData T1c = new VertexData(); T1c.Normal = normals[0]; T1c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[10]; T1c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT1.Add(T1c); Face F1 = new Face(verticesT1); faces.Add(F1); //2 IList<VertexData> verticesT2 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T2a = new VertexData(); T2a.Normal = normals[0]; T2a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[10]; T2a.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT2.Add(T2a); VertexData T2b = new VertexData(); T2b.Normal = normals[0]; T2b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[6]; T2b.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT2.Add(T2b); VertexData T2c = new VertexData(); T2c.Normal = normals[0]; T2c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T2c.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT2.Add(T2c); Face F2 = new Face(verticesT2); faces.Add(F2); //front face //3 IList<VertexData> verticesT3 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T3a = new VertexData(); T3a.Normal = normals[1]; T3a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[1]; T3a.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT3.Add(T3a); VertexData T3b = new VertexData(); T3b.Normal = normals[1]; T3b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[0]; T3b.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT3.Add(T3b); VertexData T3c = new VertexData(); T3c.Normal = normals[1]; T3c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T3c.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT3.Add(T3c); Face F3 = new Face(verticesT3); faces.Add(F3); //4 IList<VertexData> verticesT4 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T4a = new VertexData(); T4a.Normal = normals[1]; T4a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T4a.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT4.Add(T4a); VertexData T4b = new VertexData(); T4b.Normal = normals[1]; T4b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[0]; T4b.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT4.Add(T4b); VertexData T4c = new VertexData(); T4c.Normal = normals[1]; T4c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[4]; T4c.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT4.Add(T4c); Face F4 = new Face(verticesT4); faces.Add(F4); //right face //5 IList<VertexData> verticesT5 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T5a = new VertexData(); T5a.Normal = normals[2]; T5a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[2]; T5a.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT5.Add(T5a); VertexData T5b = new VertexData(); T5b.Normal = normals[2]; T5b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[1]; T5b.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT5.Add(T5b); VertexData T5c = new VertexData(); T5c.Normal = normals[2]; T5c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[6]; T5c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT5.Add(T5c); Face F5 = new Face(verticesT5); faces.Add(F5); //6 IList<VertexData> verticesT6 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T6a = new VertexData(); T6a.Normal = normals[2]; T6a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[1]; T6a.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT6.Add(T6a); VertexData T6b = new VertexData(); T6b.Normal = normals[2]; T6b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T6b.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT6.Add(T6b); VertexData T6c = new VertexData(); T6c.Normal = normals[2]; T6c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[6]; T6c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT6.Add(T6c); Face F6 = new Face(verticesT6); faces.Add(F6); //back face //7 IList<VertexData> verticesT7 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T7a = new VertexData(); T7a.Normal = normals[3]; T7a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[4]; T7a.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT7.Add(T7a); VertexData T7b = new VertexData(); T7b.Normal = normals[3]; T7b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T7b.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT7.Add(T7b); VertexData T7c = new VertexData(); T7c.Normal = normals[3]; T7c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T7c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT7.Add(T7c); Face F7 = new Face(verticesT7); faces.Add(F7); //8 IList<VertexData> verticesT8 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T8a = new VertexData(); T8a.Normal = normals[3]; T8a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T8a.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT8.Add(T8a); VertexData T8b = new VertexData(); T8b.Normal = normals[3]; T8b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[4]; T8b.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT8.Add(T8b); VertexData T8c = new VertexData(); T8c.Normal = normals[3]; T8c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[8]; T8c.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT8.Add(T8c); Face F8 = new Face(verticesT8); faces.Add(F8); //left face //9 IList<VertexData> verticesT9 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T9a = new VertexData(); T9a.Normal = normals[4]; T9a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[8]; T9a.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT9.Add(T9a); VertexData T9b = new VertexData(); T9b.Normal = normals[4]; T9b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[13]; T9b.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT9.Add(T9b); VertexData T9c = new VertexData(); T9c.Normal = normals[4]; T9c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T9c.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT9.Add(T9c); Face F9 = new Face(verticesT9); faces.Add(F9); //10 IList<VertexData> verticesT10 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T10a = new VertexData(); T10a.Normal = normals[4]; T10a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[8]; T10a.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT10.Add(T10a); VertexData T10b = new VertexData(); T10b.Normal = normals[4]; T10b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[12]; T10b.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT10.Add(T10b); VertexData T10c = new VertexData(); T10c.Normal = normals[4]; T10c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[13]; T10c.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT10.Add(T10c); Face F10 = new Face(verticesT10); faces.Add(F10); //bottom face //11 IList<VertexData> verticesT11 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T11a = new VertexData(); T11a.Normal = normals[5]; T11a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[10]; T11a.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT11.Add(T11a); VertexData T11b = new VertexData(); T11b.Normal = normals[5]; T11b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T11b.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT11.Add(T11b); VertexData T11c = new VertexData(); T11c.Normal = normals[5]; T11c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[14]; T11c.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT11.Add(T11c); Face F11 = new Face(verticesT11); faces.Add(F11); //12 IList<VertexData> verticesT12 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T12a = new VertexData(); T12a.Normal = normals[5]; T12a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[13]; T12a.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT12.Add(T12a); VertexData T12b = new VertexData(); T12b.Normal = normals[5]; T12b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[14]; T12b.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT12.Add(T12b); VertexData T12c = new VertexData(); T12c.Normal = normals[5]; T12c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T12c.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT12.Add(T12c); Face F12 = new Face(verticesT12); faces.Add(F12); } public void draw() { GL.Begin(BeginMode.Triangles); foreach (Face face in faces) { foreach (VertexData datapoint in face.verticesWithTexCoords) { GL.Normal3(datapoint.Normal); GL.TexCoord2(datapoint.TexCoord); GL.Vertex3(datapoint.Position); } } GL.End(); } } } Gets me this very nice picture: The immediate mode cube renders nicely and taught me a bit on how to use OpenGL, but VBO's are the way to go. Since I read on the OpenTK forums that OpenTK has problems doing VA's or DL's, I decided to skip using those. Now, I've tried to change this cube to a VBO by using the same vertex, normal and tc collections, and making float arrays from them by using the coordinates in combination with uint arrays which contain the index numbers from the immediate cube. (see the private functions at end of the code sample) Somehow this only renders two triangles namespace SharpEngine.Utility.Mesh { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using OpenTK; using OpenTK.Graphics; using OpenTK.Graphics.OpenGL; using SharpEngine.Utility; using System.Drawing; public class VBOFaceBasedCube : IMesh { private int VerticesVBOID; private int VerticesVBOStride; private int VertexCount; private int ELementBufferObjectID; private int textureCoordinateVBOID; private int textureCoordinateVBOStride; //private int textureCoordinateArraySize; private int normalVBOID; private int normalVBOStride; public VBOFaceBasedCube() { IList<Vector3> allVertices = new List<Vector3>(); //rechtsbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //0 //rechtsbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //1 //linksbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //2 //linksbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //3 //rechtsondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //4 //rechtsonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //5 //linksonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //6 //linksondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //7 IList<Vector2> textureCoordinates = new List<Vector2>(); textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0)); //AA - 0 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.3333333f)); //AB - 1 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.6666666f)); //AC - 2 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 1)); //AD - 3 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0)); //BA - 4 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.3333333f)); //BB - 5 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.6666666f)); //BC - 6 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 1)); //BD - 7 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0)); //CA - 8 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.3333333f)); //CB - 9 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.6666666f)); //CC -10 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 1)); //CD -11 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0)); //DA -12 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.3333333f)); //DB -13 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.6666666f)); //DC -14 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 1)); //DD -15 Vector3 copy1 = new Vector3(-2.0f, -2.5f, -3.5f); IList<Vector3> normals = new List<Vector3>(); normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 1.0f, 0)); //0 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, 1.0f)); //1 normals.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 0, 0)); //2 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, -1.0f)); //3 normals.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 0, 0)); //4 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, -1.0f, 0)); //5 //todo: VBO based rendering uint[] vertexElements = { 3,0,1, //01 1,2,3, //02 3,7,0, //03 0,7,4, //04 0,4,1, //05 4,5,1, //06 5,2,1, //07 2,5,6, //08 6,3,2, //09 6,7,5, //10 7,6,4, //11 5,4,6 //12 }; VertexCount = vertexElements.Length; IList<uint> vertexElementList = new List<uint>(vertexElements); uint[] normalElements = { 0,0,0, 0,0,0, 1,1,1, 1,1,1, 2,2,2, 2,2,2, 3,3,3, 3,3,3, 4,4,4, 4,4,4, 5,5,5, 5,5,5 }; IList<uint> normalElementList = new List<uint>(normalElements); uint[] textureIndexArray = { 5,9,10, 10,6,5, 1,0,5, 5,0,4, 2,1,6, 1,5,6, 4,9,5, 9,4,8, 8,13,9, 8,12,13, 10,9,14, 13,14,9 }; //textureCoordinateArraySize = textureIndexArray.Length; IList<uint> textureIndexList = new List<uint>(textureIndexArray); LoadVBO(allVertices, normals, textureCoordinates, vertexElements, normalElementList, textureIndexList); } public void draw() { //bind vertices //bind elements //bind normals //bind texture coordinates GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.NormalArray); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.TextureCoordArray); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, VerticesVBOID); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Float, VerticesVBOStride, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, normalVBOID); GL.NormalPointer(NormalPointerType.Float, normalVBOStride, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, textureCoordinateVBOID); GL.TexCoordPointer(2, TexCoordPointerType.Float, textureCoordinateVBOStride, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, ELementBufferObjectID); GL.DrawElements(BeginMode.Polygon, VertexCount, DrawElementsType.UnsignedShort, 0); } //loads a static VBO void LoadVBO(IList<Vector3> vertices, IList<Vector3> normals, IList<Vector2> texcoords, uint[] elements, IList<uint> normalIndices, IList<uint> texCoordIndices) { int size; //todo // To create a VBO: // 1) Generate the buffer handles for the vertex and element buffers. // 2) Bind the vertex buffer handle and upload your vertex data. Check that the buffer was uploaded correctly. // 3) Bind the element buffer handle and upload your element data. Check that the buffer was uploaded correctly. float[] verticesArray = convertVector3fListToFloatArray(vertices); float[] normalsArray = createFloatArrayFromListOfVector3ElementsAndIndices(normals, normalIndices); float[] textureCoordinateArray = createFloatArrayFromListOfVector2ElementsAndIndices(texcoords, texCoordIndices); GL.GenBuffers(1, out VerticesVBOID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, VerticesVBOID); Console.WriteLine("load 1 - vertices"); VerticesVBOStride = BlittableValueType.StrideOf(verticesArray); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(verticesArray.Length * sizeof(float)), verticesArray, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); if (verticesArray.Length * BlittableValueType.StrideOf(verticesArray) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("Vertex data not uploaded correctly"); } else { Console.WriteLine("load 1 finished ok"); size = 0; } Console.WriteLine("load 2 - elements"); GL.GenBuffers(1, out ELementBufferObjectID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, ELementBufferObjectID); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(elements.Length * sizeof(uint)), elements, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); if (elements.Length * sizeof(uint) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("Element data not uploaded correctly"); } else { size = 0; Console.WriteLine("load 2 finished ok"); } GL.GenBuffers(1, out normalVBOID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, normalVBOID); Console.WriteLine("load 3 - normals"); normalVBOStride = BlittableValueType.StrideOf(normalsArray); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(normalsArray.Length * sizeof(float)), normalsArray, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); Console.WriteLine("load 3 - pre check"); if (normalsArray.Length * BlittableValueType.StrideOf(normalsArray) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("Normal data not uploaded correctly"); } else { Console.WriteLine("load 3 finished ok"); size = 0; } GL.GenBuffers(1, out textureCoordinateVBOID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, textureCoordinateVBOID); Console.WriteLine("load 4- texture coordinates"); textureCoordinateVBOStride = BlittableValueType.StrideOf(textureCoordinateArray); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(textureCoordinateArray.Length * textureCoordinateVBOStride), textureCoordinateArray, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); if (textureCoordinateArray.Length * BlittableValueType.StrideOf(textureCoordinateArray) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("texture coordinate data not uploaded correctly"); } else { Console.WriteLine("load 3 finished ok"); size = 0; } } //used to convert vertex arrayss for use with VBO's private float[] convertVector3fListToFloatArray(IList<Vector3> input) { int arrayElementCount = input.Count * 3; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (Vector3 v in input) { output[fillCount] = v.X; output[fillCount + 1] = v.Y; output[fillCount + 2] = v.Z; fillCount += 3; } return output; } //used for converting texture coordinate arrays for use with VBO's private float[] convertVector2List_to_floatArray(IList<Vector2> input) { int arrayElementCount = input.Count * 2; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (Vector2 v in input) { output[fillCount] = v.X; output[fillCount + 1] = v.Y; fillCount += 2; } return output; } //used to create an array of floats from private float[] createFloatArrayFromListOfVector3ElementsAndIndices(IList<Vector3> inputVectors, IList<uint> indices) { int arrayElementCount = inputVectors.Count * indices.Count * 3; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (int i in indices) { output[fillCount] = inputVectors[i].X; output[fillCount + 1] = inputVectors[i].Y; output[fillCount + 2] = inputVectors[i].Z; fillCount += 3; } return output; } private float[] createFloatArrayFromListOfVector2ElementsAndIndices(IList<Vector2> inputVectors, IList<uint> indices) { int arrayElementCount = inputVectors.Count * indices.Count * 2; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (int i in indices) { output[fillCount] = inputVectors[i].X; output[fillCount + 1] = inputVectors[i].Y; fillCount += 2; } return output; } } } This code will only render two triangles and they're nothing like I had in mind: I've done some searching. In some other questions I read that, if I did something wrong, I'd get no rendering at all. Clearly, something gets sent to the GFX card, but it might be that I'm not sending the right data. I've tried altering the sequence in which the triangles are rendered by swapping some of the index numbers in the vert, tc and normal index arrays, but this doesn't seem to be of any effect. I'm slightly lost here. What am I doing wrong here?

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XNA Screen Manager problem with transitions

- by NexAddo

I'm having issues using the game statemanagement example in the game I am developing. I have no issues with my first three screens transitioning between one another. I have a main menu screen, a splash screen and a high score screen that cycle: mainMenuScreen->splashScreen->highScoreScreen->mainMenuScreen The screens change every 15 seconds. Transition times public MainMenuScreen() { TransitionOnTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); TransitionOffTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.0); currentCreditAmount = Global.CurrentCredits; } public SplashScreen() { TransitionOnTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); TransitionOffTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); } public HighScoreScreen() { TransitionOnTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); TransitionOffTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); } public GamePlayScreen() { TransitionOnTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); TransitionOffTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(0.5); } When a user inserts credits they can play the game after pressing start mainMenuScreen->splashScreen->highScoreScreen->(loops forever) || || || ===========Credits In============= || Start || \/ LoadingScreen || Start || \/ GamePlayScreen During each of these transitions, between screens, the same code is used, which exits(removes) all current active screens and respects transitions, then adds the new screen to the screen manager: foreach (GameScreen screen in ScreenManager.GetScreens()) screen.ExitScreen(); //AddScreen takes a new screen to manage and the controlling player ScreenManager.AddScreen(new NameOfScreenHere(), null); Each screen is removed from the ScreenManager with ExitScreen() and using this function, each screen transition is respected. The problem I am having is with my gamePlayScreen. When the current game is finished and the transition is complete for the gamePlayScreen, it should be removed and the next screens should be added to the ScreenManager. GamePlayScreen Code Snippet private void FinishCurrentGame() { AudioManager.StopSounds(); this.UnloadContent(); if (Global.SaveDevice.IsReady) Stats.Save(); if (HighScoreScreen.IsInHighscores(timeLimit)) { foreach (GameScreen screen in ScreenManager.GetScreens()) screen.ExitScreen(); Global.TimeRemaining = timeLimit; ScreenManager.AddScreen(new BackgroundScreen(), null); ScreenManager.AddScreen(new MessageBoxScreen("Enter your Initials", true), null); } else { foreach (GameScreen screen in ScreenManager.GetScreens()) screen.ExitScreen(); ScreenManager.AddScreen(new BackgroundScreen(), null); ScreenManager.AddScreen(new MainMenuScreen(), null); } } The problem is that when isExiting is set to true by screen.ExitScreen() for the gamePlayScreen, the transition never completes the transition and removes the screen from the ScreenManager. Every other screen that I use the same technique to add and remove each screen fully transitions On/Off and is removed at the appropriate time from the ScreenManager, but noy my GamePlayScreen. Has anyone that has used the GameStateManagement example experienced this issue or can someone see the mistake I am making? EDIT This is what I tracked down. When the game is done, I call foreach (GameScreen screen in ScreenManager.GetScreens()) screen.ExitScreen(); to start the transition off process for the gameplay screen. At this point there is only 1 screen on the ScreenManager stack. The gamePlay screen gets isExiting set to true and starts to transition off. Right after the above call to ExitScreen() I add a background screen and menu screen to the screenManager: ScreenManager.AddScreen(new background(), null); ScreenManager.AddScreen(new Menu(), null); The count of the ScreenManager is now 3. What I noticed while stepping through the updates for GameScreen and ScreenManager, the gameplay screen never gets to the point where the transistion process finishes so the ScreenManager can remove it from the stack. This anomaly does not happen to any of my other screens when I switch between them. Screen Manager Code #region File Description //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // ScreenManager.cs // // Microsoft XNA Community Game Platform // Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #endregion #define DEMO #region Using Statements using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.Collections.Generic; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics; using PerformanceUtility.GameDebugTools; #endregion namespace GameStateManagement { /// <summary> /// The screen manager is a component which manages one or more GameScreen /// instances. It maintains a stack of screens, calls their Update and Draw /// methods at the appropriate times, and automatically routes input to the /// topmost active screen. /// </summary> public class ScreenManager : DrawableGameComponent { #region Fields List<GameScreen> screens = new List<GameScreen>(); List<GameScreen> screensToUpdate = new List<GameScreen>(); InputState input = new InputState(); SpriteBatch spriteBatch; SpriteFont font; Texture2D blankTexture; bool isInitialized; bool getOut; bool traceEnabled; #if DEBUG DebugSystem debugSystem; Stopwatch stopwatch = new Stopwatch(); bool debugTextEnabled; #endif #endregion #region Properties /// <summary> /// A default SpriteBatch shared by all the screens. This saves /// each screen having to bother creating their own local instance. /// </summary> public SpriteBatch SpriteBatch { get { return spriteBatch; } } /// <summary> /// A default font shared by all the screens. This saves /// each screen having to bother loading their own local copy. /// </summary> public SpriteFont Font { get { return font; } } public Rectangle ScreenRectangle { get { return new Rectangle(0, 0, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width, GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height); } } /// <summary> /// If true, the manager prints out a list of all the screens /// each time it is updated. This can be useful for making sure /// everything is being added and removed at the right times. /// </summary> public bool TraceEnabled { get { return traceEnabled; } set { traceEnabled = value; } } #if DEBUG public bool DebugTextEnabled { get { return debugTextEnabled; } set { debugTextEnabled = value; } } public DebugSystem DebugSystem { get { return debugSystem; } } #endif #endregion #region Initialization /// <summary> /// Constructs a new screen manager component. /// </summary> public ScreenManager(Game game) : base(game) { // we must set EnabledGestures before we can query for them, but // we don't assume the game wants to read them. //TouchPanel.EnabledGestures = GestureType.None; } /// <summary> /// Initializes the screen manager component. /// </summary> public override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); #if DEBUG debugSystem = DebugSystem.Initialize(Game, "Fonts/MenuFont"); #endif isInitialized = true; } /// <summary> /// Load your graphics content. /// </summary> protected override void LoadContent() { // Load content belonging to the screen manager. ContentManager content = Game.Content; spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); font = content.Load<SpriteFont>(@"Fonts\menufont"); blankTexture = content.Load<Texture2D>(@"Textures\Backgrounds\blank"); // Tell each of the screens to load their content. foreach (GameScreen screen in screens) { screen.LoadContent(); } } /// <summary> /// Unload your graphics content. /// </summary> protected override void UnloadContent() { // Tell each of the screens to unload their content. foreach (GameScreen screen in screens) { screen.UnloadContent(); } } #endregion #region Update and Draw /// <summary> /// Allows each screen to run logic. /// </summary> public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { #if DEBUG debugSystem.TimeRuler.StartFrame(); debugSystem.TimeRuler.BeginMark("Update", Color.Blue); if (debugTextEnabled && getOut == false) { debugSystem.FpsCounter.Visible = true; debugSystem.TimeRuler.Visible = true; debugSystem.TimeRuler.ShowLog = true; getOut = true; } else if (debugTextEnabled == false) { getOut = false; debugSystem.FpsCounter.Visible = false; debugSystem.TimeRuler.Visible = false; debugSystem.TimeRuler.ShowLog = false; } #endif // Read the keyboard and gamepad. input.Update(); // Make a copy of the master screen list, to avoid confusion if // the process of updating one screen adds or removes others. screensToUpdate.Clear(); foreach (GameScreen screen in screens) screensToUpdate.Add(screen); bool otherScreenHasFocus = !Game.IsActive; bool coveredByOtherScreen = false; // Loop as long as there are screens waiting to be updated. while (screensToUpdate.Count > 0) { // Pop the topmost screen off the waiting list. GameScreen screen = screensToUpdate[screensToUpdate.Count - 1]; screensToUpdate.RemoveAt(screensToUpdate.Count - 1); // Update the screen. screen.Update(gameTime, otherScreenHasFocus, coveredByOtherScreen); if (screen.ScreenState == ScreenState.TransitionOn || screen.ScreenState == ScreenState.Active) { // If this is the first active screen we came across, // give it a chance to handle input. if (!otherScreenHasFocus) { screen.HandleInput(input); otherScreenHasFocus = true; } // If this is an active non-popup, inform any subsequent // screens that they are covered by it. if (!screen.IsPopup) coveredByOtherScreen = true; } } // Print debug trace? if (traceEnabled) TraceScreens(); #if DEBUG debugSystem.TimeRuler.EndMark("Update"); #endif } /// <summary> /// Prints a list of all the screens, for debugging. /// </summary> void TraceScreens() { List<string> screenNames = new List<string>(); foreach (GameScreen screen in screens) screenNames.Add(screen.GetType().Name); Debug.WriteLine(string.Join(", ", screenNames.ToArray())); } /// <summary> /// Tells each screen to draw itself. /// </summary> public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { #if DEBUG debugSystem.TimeRuler.StartFrame(); debugSystem.TimeRuler.BeginMark("Draw", Color.Yellow); #endif foreach (GameScreen screen in screens) { if (screen.ScreenState == ScreenState.Hidden) continue; screen.Draw(gameTime); } #if DEBUG debugSystem.TimeRuler.EndMark("Draw"); #endif #if DEMO SpriteBatch.Begin(); SpriteBatch.DrawString(font, "DEMO - NOT FOR RESALE", new Vector2(20, 80), Color.White); SpriteBatch.End(); #endif } #endregion #region Public Methods /// <summary> /// Adds a new screen to the screen manager. /// </summary> public void AddScreen(GameScreen screen, PlayerIndex? controllingPlayer) { screen.ControllingPlayer = controllingPlayer; screen.ScreenManager = this; screen.IsExiting = false; // If we have a graphics device, tell the screen to load content. if (isInitialized) { screen.LoadContent(); } screens.Add(screen); } /// <summary> /// Removes a screen from the screen manager. You should normally /// use GameScreen.ExitScreen instead of calling this directly, so /// the screen can gradually transition off rather than just being /// instantly removed. /// </summary> public void RemoveScreen(GameScreen screen) { // If we have a graphics device, tell the screen to unload content. if (isInitialized) { screen.UnloadContent(); } screens.Remove(screen); screensToUpdate.Remove(screen); } /// <summary> /// Expose an array holding all the screens. We return a copy rather /// than the real master list, because screens should only ever be added /// or removed using the AddScreen and RemoveScreen methods. /// </summary> public GameScreen[] GetScreens() { return screens.ToArray(); } /// <summary> /// Helper draws a translucent black fullscreen sprite, used for fading /// screens in and out, and for darkening the background behind popups. /// </summary> public void FadeBackBufferToBlack(float alpha) { Viewport viewport = GraphicsDevice.Viewport; spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(blankTexture, new Rectangle(0, 0, viewport.Width, viewport.Height), Color.Black * alpha); spriteBatch.End(); } #endregion } } Game Screen Parent of GamePlayScreen #region File Description //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- // GameScreen.cs // // Microsoft XNA Community Game Platform // Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. //----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #endregion #region Using Statements using System; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework; using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input; //using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input.Touch; using System.IO; #endregion namespace GameStateManagement { /// <summary> /// Enum describes the screen transition state. /// </summary> public enum ScreenState { TransitionOn, Active, TransitionOff, Hidden, } /// <summary> /// A screen is a single layer that has update and draw logic, and which /// can be combined with other layers to build up a complex menu system. /// For instance the main menu, the options menu, the "are you sure you /// want to quit" message box, and the main game itself are all implemented /// as screens. /// </summary> public abstract class GameScreen { #region Properties /// <summary> /// Normally when one screen is brought up over the top of another, /// the first screen will transition off to make room for the new /// one. This property indicates whether the screen is only a small /// popup, in which case screens underneath it do not need to bother /// transitioning off. /// </summary> public bool IsPopup { get { return isPopup; } protected set { isPopup = value; } } bool isPopup = false; /// <summary> /// Indicates how long the screen takes to /// transition on when it is activated. /// </summary> public TimeSpan TransitionOnTime { get { return transitionOnTime; } protected set { transitionOnTime = value; } } TimeSpan transitionOnTime = TimeSpan.Zero; /// <summary> /// Indicates how long the screen takes to /// transition off when it is deactivated. /// </summary> public TimeSpan TransitionOffTime { get { return transitionOffTime; } protected set { transitionOffTime = value; } } TimeSpan transitionOffTime = TimeSpan.Zero; /// <summary> /// Gets the current position of the screen transition, ranging /// from zero (fully active, no transition) to one (transitioned /// fully off to nothing). /// </summary> public float TransitionPosition { get { return transitionPosition; } protected set { transitionPosition = value; } } float transitionPosition = 1; /// <summary> /// Gets the current alpha of the screen transition, ranging /// from 1 (fully active, no transition) to 0 (transitioned /// fully off to nothing). /// </summary> public float TransitionAlpha { get { return 1f - TransitionPosition; } } /// <summary> /// Gets the current screen transition state. /// </summary> public ScreenState ScreenState { get { return screenState; } protected set { screenState = value; } } ScreenState screenState = ScreenState.TransitionOn; /// <summary> /// There are two possible reasons why a screen might be transitioning /// off. It could be temporarily going away to make room for another /// screen that is on top of it, or it could be going away for good. /// This property indicates whether the screen is exiting for real: /// if set, the screen will automatically remove itself as soon as the /// transition finishes. /// </summary> public bool IsExiting { get { return isExiting; } protected internal set { isExiting = value; } } bool isExiting = false; /// <summary> /// Checks whether this screen is active and can respond to user input. /// </summary> public bool IsActive { get { return !otherScreenHasFocus && (screenState == ScreenState.TransitionOn || screenState == ScreenState.Active); } } bool otherScreenHasFocus; /// <summary> /// Gets the manager that this screen belongs to. /// </summary> public ScreenManager ScreenManager { get { return screenManager; } internal set { screenManager = value; } } ScreenManager screenManager; public KeyboardState KeyboardState { get {return Keyboard.GetState();} } /// <summary> /// Gets the index of the player who is currently controlling this screen, /// or null if it is accepting input from any player. This is used to lock /// the game to a specific player profile. The main menu responds to input /// from any connected gamepad, but whichever player makes a selection from /// this menu is given control over all subsequent screens, so other gamepads /// are inactive until the controlling player returns to the main menu. /// </summary> public PlayerIndex? ControllingPlayer { get { return controllingPlayer; } internal set { controllingPlayer = value; } } PlayerIndex? controllingPlayer; /// <summary> /// Gets whether or not this screen is serializable. If this is true, /// the screen will be recorded into the screen manager's state and /// its Serialize and Deserialize methods will be called as appropriate. /// If this is false, the screen will be ignored during serialization. /// By default, all screens are assumed to be serializable. /// </summary> public bool IsSerializable { get { return isSerializable; } protected set { isSerializable = value; } } bool isSerializable = true; #endregion #region Initialization /// <summary> /// Load graphics content for the screen. /// </summary> public virtual void LoadContent() { } /// <summary> /// Unload content for the screen. /// </summary> public virtual void UnloadContent() { } #endregion #region Update and Draw /// <summary> /// Allows the screen to run logic, such as updating the transition position. /// Unlike HandleInput, this method is called regardless of whether the screen /// is active, hidden, or in the middle of a transition. /// </summary> public virtual void Update(GameTime gameTime, bool otherScreenHasFocus, bool coveredByOtherScreen) { this.otherScreenHasFocus = otherScreenHasFocus; if (isExiting) { // If the screen is going away to die, it should transition off. screenState = ScreenState.TransitionOff; if (!UpdateTransition(gameTime, transitionOffTime, 1)) { // When the transition finishes, remove the screen. ScreenManager.RemoveScreen(this); } } else if (coveredByOtherScreen) { // If the screen is covered by another, it should transition off. if (UpdateTransition(gameTime, transitionOffTime, 1)) { // Still busy transitioning. screenState = ScreenState.TransitionOff; } else { // Transition finished! screenState = ScreenState.Hidden; } } else { // Otherwise the screen should transition on and become active. if (UpdateTransition(gameTime, transitionOnTime, -1)) { // Still busy transitioning. screenState = ScreenState.TransitionOn; } else { // Transition finished! screenState = ScreenState.Active; } } } /// <summary> /// Helper for updating the screen transition position. /// </summary> bool UpdateTransition(GameTime gameTime, TimeSpan time, int direction) { // How much should we move by? float transitionDelta; if (time == TimeSpan.Zero) transitionDelta = 1; else transitionDelta = (float)(gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalMilliseconds / time.TotalMilliseconds); // Update the transition position. transitionPosition += transitionDelta * direction; // Did we reach the end of the transition? if (((direction < 0) && (transitionPosition <= 0)) || ((direction > 0) && (transitionPosition >= 1))) { transitionPosition = MathHelper.Clamp(transitionPosition, 0, 1); return false; } // Otherwise we are still busy transitioning. return true; } /// <summary> /// Allows the screen to handle user input. Unlike Update, this method /// is only called when the screen is active, and not when some other /// screen has taken the focus. /// </summary> public virtual void HandleInput(InputState input) { } public KeyboardState currentKeyState; public KeyboardState lastKeyState; public bool IsKeyHit(Keys key) { if (currentKeyState.IsKeyDown(key) && lastKeyState.IsKeyUp(key)) return true; return false; } /// <summary> /// This is called when the screen should draw itself. /// </summary> public virtual void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { } #endregion #region Public Methods /// <summary> /// Tells the screen to serialize its state into the given stream. /// </summary> public virtual void Serialize(Stream stream) { } /// <summary> /// Tells the screen to deserialize its state from the given stream. /// </summary> public virtual void Deserialize(Stream stream) { } /// <summary> /// Tells the screen to go away. Unlike ScreenManager.RemoveScreen, which /// instantly kills the screen, this method respects the transition timings /// and will give the screen a chance to gradually transition off. /// </summary> public void ExitScreen() { if (TransitionOffTime == TimeSpan.Zero) { // If the screen has a zero transition time, remove it immediately. ScreenManager.RemoveScreen(this); } else { // Otherwise flag that it should transition off and then exit. isExiting = true; } } #endregion #region Helper Methods /// <summary> /// A helper method which loads assets using the screen manager's /// associated game content loader. /// </summary> /// <typeparam name="T">Type of asset.</typeparam> /// <param name="assetName">Asset name, relative to the loader root /// directory, and not including the .xnb extension.</param> /// <returns></returns> public T Load<T>(string assetName) { return ScreenManager.Game.Content.Load<T>(assetName); } #endregion } }

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C#/.NET Little Wonders: The ConcurrentDictionary

- by James Michael Hare

Once again we consider some of the lesser known classes and keywords of C#. In this series of posts, we will discuss how the concurrent collections have been developed to help alleviate these multi-threading concerns. Last week’s post began with a general introduction and discussed the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T>. Today's post discusses the ConcurrentDictionary<T> (originally I had intended to discuss ConcurrentBag this week as well, but ConcurrentDictionary had enough information to create a very full post on its own!). Finally next week, we shall close with a discussion of the ConcurrentBag<T> and BlockingCollection<T>. For more of the "Little Wonders" posts, see the index here. Recap As you'll recall from the previous post, the original collections were object-based containers that accomplished synchronization through a Synchronized member. While these were convenient because you didn't have to worry about writing your own synchronization logic, they were a bit too finely grained and if you needed to perform multiple operations under one lock, the automatic synchronization didn't buy much. With the advent of .NET 2.0, the original collections were succeeded by the generic collections which are fully type-safe, but eschew automatic synchronization. This cuts both ways in that you have a lot more control as a developer over when and how fine-grained you want to synchronize, but on the other hand if you just want simple synchronization it creates more work. With .NET 4.0, we get the best of both worlds in generic collections. A new breed of collections was born called the concurrent collections in the System.Collections.Concurrent namespace. These amazing collections are fine-tuned to have best overall performance for situations requiring concurrent access. They are not meant to replace the generic collections, but to simply be an alternative to creating your own locking mechanisms. Among those concurrent collections were the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T> which provide classic LIFO and FIFO collections with a concurrent twist. As we saw, some of the traditional methods that required calls to be made in a certain order (like checking for not IsEmpty before calling Pop()) were replaced in favor of an umbrella operation that combined both under one lock (like TryPop()). Now, let's take a look at the next in our series of concurrent collections!For some excellent information on the performance of the concurrent collections and how they perform compared to a traditional brute-force locking strategy, see this wonderful whitepaper by the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform team here. ConcurrentDictionary – the fully thread-safe dictionary The ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue> is the thread-safe counterpart to the generic Dictionary<TKey, TValue> collection. Obviously, both are designed for quick – O(1) – lookups of data based on a key. If you think of algorithms where you need lightning fast lookups of data and don’t care whether the data is maintained in any particular ordering or not, the unsorted dictionaries are generally the best way to go. Note: as a side note, there are sorted implementations of IDictionary, namely SortedDictionary and SortedList which are stored as an ordered tree and a ordered list respectively. While these are not as fast as the non-sorted dictionaries – they are O(log2 n) – they are a great combination of both speed and ordering -- and still greatly outperform a linear search. Now, once again keep in mind that if all you need to do is load a collection once and then allow multi-threaded reading you do not need any locking. Examples of this tend to be situations where you load a lookup or translation table once at program start, then keep it in memory for read-only reference. In such cases locking is completely non-productive. However, most of the time when we need a concurrent dictionary we are interleaving both reads and updates. This is where the ConcurrentDictionary really shines! It achieves its thread-safety with no common lock to improve efficiency. It actually uses a series of locks to provide concurrent updates, and has lockless reads! This means that the ConcurrentDictionary gets even more efficient the higher the ratio of reads-to-writes you have. ConcurrentDictionary and Dictionary differences For the most part, the ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue> behaves like it’s Dictionary<TKey,TValue> counterpart with a few differences. Some notable examples of which are: Add() does not exist in the concurrent dictionary. This means you must use TryAdd(), AddOrUpdate(), or GetOrAdd(). It also means that you can’t use a collection initializer with the concurrent dictionary. TryAdd() replaced Add() to attempt atomic, safe adds. Because Add() only succeeds if the item doesn’t already exist, we need an atomic operation to check if the item exists, and if not add it while still under an atomic lock. TryUpdate() was added to attempt atomic, safe updates. If we want to update an item, we must make sure it exists first and that the original value is what we expected it to be. If all these are true, we can update the item under one atomic step. TryRemove() was added to attempt atomic, safe removes. To safely attempt to remove a value we need to see if the key exists first, this checks for existence and removes under an atomic lock. AddOrUpdate() was added to attempt an thread-safe “upsert”. There are many times where you want to insert into a dictionary if the key doesn’t exist, or update the value if it does. This allows you to make a thread-safe add-or-update. GetOrAdd() was added to attempt an thread-safe query/insert. Sometimes, you want to query for whether an item exists in the cache, and if it doesn’t insert a starting value for it. This allows you to get the value if it exists and insert if not. Count, Keys, Values properties take a snapshot of the dictionary. Accessing these properties may interfere with add and update performance and should be used with caution. ToArray() returns a static snapshot of the dictionary. That is, the dictionary is locked, and then copied to an array as a O(n) operation. GetEnumerator() is thread-safe and efficient, but allows dirty reads. Because reads require no locking, you can safely iterate over the contents of the dictionary. The only downside is that, depending on timing, you may get dirty reads. Dirty reads during iteration The last point on GetEnumerator() bears some explanation. Picture a scenario in which you call GetEnumerator() (or iterate using a foreach, etc.) and then, during that iteration the dictionary gets updated. This may not sound like a big deal, but it can lead to inconsistent results if used incorrectly. The problem is that items you already iterated over that are updated a split second after don’t show the update, but items that you iterate over that were updated a split second before do show the update. Thus you may get a combination of items that are “stale” because you iterated before the update, and “fresh” because they were updated after GetEnumerator() but before the iteration reached them. Let’s illustrate with an example, let’s say you load up a concurrent dictionary like this: 1: // load up a dictionary. 2: var dictionary = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, int>(); 3: 4: dictionary["A"] = 1; 5: dictionary["B"] = 2; 6: dictionary["C"] = 3; 7: dictionary["D"] = 4; 8: dictionary["E"] = 5; 9: dictionary["F"] = 6; Then you have one task (using the wonderful TPL!) to iterate using dirty reads: 1: // attempt iteration in a separate thread 2: var iterationTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates using a dirty read 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary) 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 8: } 9: }); And one task to attempt updates in a separate thread (probably): 1: // attempt updates in a separate thread 2: var updateTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates, and updates the value by one 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary) 6: { 7: dictionary[pair.Key] = pair.Value + 1; 8: } 9: }); Now that we’ve done this, we can fire up both tasks and wait for them to complete: 1: // start both tasks 2: updateTask.Start(); 3: iterationTask.Start(); 4: 5: // wait for both to complete. 6: Task.WaitAll(updateTask, iterationTask); Now, if I you didn’t know about the dirty reads, you may have expected to see the iteration before the updates (such as A:1, B:2, C:3, D:4, E:5, F:6). However, because the reads are dirty, we will quite possibly get a combination of some updated, some original. My own run netted this result: 1: F:6 2: E:6 3: D:5 4: C:4 5: B:3 6: A:2 Note that, of course, iteration is not in order because ConcurrentDictionary, like Dictionary, is unordered. Also note that both E and F show the value 6. This is because the output task reached F before the update, but the updates for the rest of the items occurred before their output (probably because console output is very slow, comparatively). If we want to always guarantee that we will get a consistent snapshot to iterate over (that is, at the point we ask for it we see precisely what is in the dictionary and no subsequent updates during iteration), we should iterate over a call to ToArray() instead: 1: // attempt iteration in a separate thread 2: var iterationTask = new Task(() => 3: { 4: // iterates using a dirty read 5: foreach (var pair in dictionary.ToArray()) 6: { 7: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 8: } 9: }); The atomic Try…() methods As you can imagine TryAdd() and TryRemove() have few surprises. Both first check the existence of the item to determine if it can be added or removed based on whether or not the key currently exists in the dictionary: 1: // try add attempts an add and returns false if it already exists 2: if (dictionary.TryAdd("G", 7)) 3: Console.WriteLine("G did not exist, now inserted with 7"); 4: else 5: Console.WriteLine("G already existed, insert failed."); TryRemove() also has the virtue of returning the value portion of the removed entry matching the given key: 1: // attempt to remove the value, if it exists it is removed and the original is returned 2: int removedValue; 3: if (dictionary.TryRemove("C", out removedValue)) 4: Console.WriteLine("Removed C and its value was " + removedValue); 5: else 6: Console.WriteLine("C did not exist, remove failed."); Now TryUpdate() is an interesting creature. You might think from it’s name that TryUpdate() first checks for an item’s existence, and then updates if the item exists, otherwise it returns false. Well, note quite... It turns out when you call TryUpdate() on a concurrent dictionary, you pass it not only the new value you want it to have, but also the value you expected it to have before the update. If the item exists in the dictionary, and it has the value you expected, it will update it to the new value atomically and return true. If the item is not in the dictionary or does not have the value you expected, it is not modified and false is returned. 1: // attempt to update the value, if it exists and if it has the expected original value 2: if (dictionary.TryUpdate("G", 42, 7)) 3: Console.WriteLine("G existed and was 7, now it's 42."); 4: else 5: Console.WriteLine("G either didn't exist, or wasn't 7."); The composite Add methods The ConcurrentDictionary also has composite add methods that can be used to perform updates and gets, with an add if the item is not existing at the time of the update or get. The first of these, AddOrUpdate(), allows you to add a new item to the dictionary if it doesn’t exist, or update the existing item if it does. For example, let’s say you are creating a dictionary of counts of stock ticker symbols you’ve subscribed to from a market data feed: 1: public sealed class SubscriptionManager 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, int> _subscriptions = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, int>(); 4: 5: // adds a new subscription, or increments the count of the existing one. 6: public void AddSubscription(string tickerKey) 7: { 8: // add a new subscription with count of 1, or update existing count by 1 if exists 9: var resultCount = _subscriptions.AddOrUpdate(tickerKey, 1, (symbol, count) => count + 1); 10: 11: // now check the result to see if we just incremented the count, or inserted first count 12: if (resultCount == 1) 13: { 14: // subscribe to symbol... 15: } 16: } 17: } Notice the update value factory Func delegate. If the key does not exist in the dictionary, the add value is used (in this case 1 representing the first subscription for this symbol), but if the key already exists, it passes the key and current value to the update delegate which computes the new value to be stored in the dictionary. The return result of this operation is the value used (in our case: 1 if added, existing value + 1 if updated). Likewise, the GetOrAdd() allows you to attempt to retrieve a value from the dictionary, and if the value does not currently exist in the dictionary it will insert a value. This can be handy in cases where perhaps you wish to cache data, and thus you would query the cache to see if the item exists, and if it doesn’t you would put the item into the cache for the first time: 1: public sealed class PriceCache 2: { 3: private readonly ConcurrentDictionary<string, double> _cache = new ConcurrentDictionary<string, double>(); 4: 5: // adds a new subscription, or increments the count of the existing one. 6: public double QueryPrice(string tickerKey) 7: { 8: // check for the price in the cache, if it doesn't exist it will call the delegate to create value. 9: return _cache.GetOrAdd(tickerKey, symbol => GetCurrentPrice(symbol)); 10: } 11: 12: private double GetCurrentPrice(string tickerKey) 13: { 14: // do code to calculate actual true price. 15: } 16: } There are other variations of these two methods which vary whether a value is provided or a factory delegate, but otherwise they work much the same. Oddities with the composite Add methods The AddOrUpdate() and GetOrAdd() methods are totally thread-safe, on this you may rely, but they are not atomic. It is important to note that the methods that use delegates execute those delegates outside of the lock. This was done intentionally so that a user delegate (of which the ConcurrentDictionary has no control of course) does not take too long and lock out other threads. This is not necessarily an issue, per se, but it is something you must consider in your design. The main thing to consider is that your delegate may get called to generate an item, but that item may not be the one returned! Consider this scenario: A calls GetOrAdd and sees that the key does not currently exist, so it calls the delegate. Now thread B also calls GetOrAdd and also sees that the key does not currently exist, and for whatever reason in this race condition it’s delegate completes first and it adds its new value to the dictionary. Now A is done and goes to get the lock, and now sees that the item now exists. In this case even though it called the delegate to create the item, it will pitch it because an item arrived between the time it attempted to create one and it attempted to add it. Let’s illustrate, assume this totally contrived example program which has a dictionary of char to int. And in this dictionary we want to store a char and it’s ordinal (that is, A = 1, B = 2, etc). So for our value generator, we will simply increment the previous value in a thread-safe way (perhaps using Interlocked): 1: public static class Program 2: { 3: private static int _nextNumber = 0; 4: 5: // the holder of the char to ordinal 6: private static ConcurrentDictionary<char, int> _dictionary 7: = new ConcurrentDictionary<char, int>(); 8: 9: // get the next id value 10: public static int NextId 11: { 12: get { return Interlocked.Increment(ref _nextNumber); } 13: } Then, we add a method that will perform our insert: 1: public static void Inserter() 2: { 3: for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) 4: { 5: _dictionary.GetOrAdd((char)('A' + i), key => NextId); 6: } 7: } Finally, we run our test by starting two tasks to do this work and get the results… 1: public static void Main() 2: { 3: // 3 tasks attempting to get/insert 4: var tasks = new List<Task> 5: { 6: new Task(Inserter), 7: new Task(Inserter) 8: }; 9: 10: tasks.ForEach(t => t.Start()); 11: Task.WaitAll(tasks.ToArray()); 12: 13: foreach (var pair in _dictionary.OrderBy(p => p.Key)) 14: { 15: Console.WriteLine(pair.Key + ":" + pair.Value); 16: } 17: } If you run this with only one task, you get the expected A:1, B:2, ..., Z:26. But running this in parallel you will get something a bit more complex. My run netted these results: 1: A:1 2: B:3 3: C:4 4: D:5 5: E:6 6: F:7 7: G:8 8: H:9 9: I:10 10: J:11 11: K:12 12: L:13 13: M:14 14: N:15 15: O:16 16: P:17 17: Q:18 18: R:19 19: S:20 20: T:21 21: U:22 22: V:23 23: W:24 24: X:25 25: Y:26 26: Z:27 Notice that B is 3? This is most likely because both threads attempted to call GetOrAdd() at roughly the same time and both saw that B did not exist, thus they both called the generator and one thread got back 2 and the other got back 3. However, only one of those threads can get the lock at a time for the actual insert, and thus the one that generated the 3 won and the 3 was inserted and the 2 got discarded. This is why on these methods your factory delegates should be careful not to have any logic that would be unsafe if the value they generate will be pitched in favor of another item generated at roughly the same time. As such, it is probably a good idea to keep those generators as stateless as possible. Summary The ConcurrentDictionary is a very efficient and thread-safe version of the Dictionary generic collection. It has all the benefits of type-safety that it’s generic collection counterpart does, and in addition is extremely efficient especially when there are more reads than writes concurrently. Tweet Technorati Tags: C#, .NET, Concurrent Collections, Collections, Little Wonders, Black Rabbit Coder,James Michael Hare

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Using TPL and PLINQ to raise performance of feed aggregator

- by DigiMortal

In this posting I will show you how to use Task Parallel Library (TPL) and PLINQ features to boost performance of simple RSS-feed aggregator. I will use here only very basic .NET classes that almost every developer starts from when learning parallel programming. Of course, we will also measure how every optimization affects performance of feed aggregator. Feed aggregator Our feed aggregator works as follows: Load list of blogs Download RSS-feed Parse feed XML Add new posts to database Our feed aggregator is run by task scheduler after every 15 minutes by example. We will start our journey with serial implementation of feed aggregator. Second step is to use task parallelism and parallelize feeds downloading and parsing. And our last step is to use data parallelism to parallelize database operations. We will use Stopwatch class to measure how much time it takes for aggregator to download and insert all posts from all registered blogs. After every run we empty posts table in database. Serial aggregation Before doing parallel stuff let’s take a look at serial implementation of feed aggregator. All tasks happen one after other. internal class FeedClient { private readonly INewsService _newsService; private const int FeedItemContentMaxLength = 255; public FeedClient() { ObjectFactory.Initialize(container => { container.PullConfigurationFromAppConfig = true; }); _newsService = ObjectFactory.GetInstance<INewsService>(); } public void Execute() { var blogs = _newsService.ListPublishedBlogs(); for (var index = 0; index <blogs.Count; index++) { ImportFeed(blogs[index]); } } private void ImportFeed(BlogDto blog) { if(blog == null) return; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(blog.RssUrl)) return; var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); SyndicationContentFormat feedFormat; feedFormat = SyndicationDiscoveryUtility.SyndicationContentFormatGet(uri); if (feedFormat == SyndicationContentFormat.Rss) ImportRssFeed(blog); if (feedFormat == SyndicationContentFormat.Atom) ImportAtomFeed(blog); } private void ImportRssFeed(BlogDto blog) { var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); var feed = RssFeed.Create(uri); foreach (var item in feed.Channel.Items) { SaveRssFeedItem(item, blog.Id, blog.CreatedById); } } private void ImportAtomFeed(BlogDto blog) { var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); var feed = AtomFeed.Create(uri); foreach (var item in feed.Entries) { SaveAtomFeedEntry(item, blog.Id, blog.CreatedById); } } } Serial implementation of feed aggregator downloads and inserts all posts with 25.46 seconds. Task parallelism Task parallelism means that separate tasks are run in parallel. You can find out more about task parallelism from MSDN page Task Parallelism (Task Parallel Library) and Wikipedia page Task parallelism. Although finding parts of code that can run safely in parallel without synchronization issues is not easy task we are lucky this time. Feeds import and parsing is perfect candidate for parallel tasks. We can safely parallelize feeds import because importing tasks doesn’t share any resources and therefore they don’t also need any synchronization. After getting the list of blogs we iterate through the collection and start new TPL task for each blog feed aggregation. internal class FeedClient { private readonly INewsService _newsService; private const int FeedItemContentMaxLength = 255; public FeedClient() { ObjectFactory.Initialize(container => { container.PullConfigurationFromAppConfig = true; }); _newsService = ObjectFactory.GetInstance<INewsService>(); } public void Execute() { var blogs = _newsService.ListPublishedBlogs(); var tasks = new Task[blogs.Count]; for (var index = 0; index <blogs.Count; index++) { tasks[index] = new Task(ImportFeed, blogs[index]); tasks[index].Start(); } Task.WaitAll(tasks); } private void ImportFeed(object blogObject) { if(blogObject == null) return; var blog = (BlogDto)blogObject; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(blog.RssUrl)) return; var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); SyndicationContentFormat feedFormat; feedFormat = SyndicationDiscoveryUtility.SyndicationContentFormatGet(uri); if (feedFormat == SyndicationContentFormat.Rss) ImportRssFeed(blog); if (feedFormat == SyndicationContentFormat.Atom) ImportAtomFeed(blog); } private void ImportRssFeed(BlogDto blog) { var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); var feed = RssFeed.Create(uri); foreach (var item in feed.Channel.Items) { SaveRssFeedItem(item, blog.Id, blog.CreatedById); } } private void ImportAtomFeed(BlogDto blog) { var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); var feed = AtomFeed.Create(uri); foreach (var item in feed.Entries) { SaveAtomFeedEntry(item, blog.Id, blog.CreatedById); } } } You should notice first signs of the power of TPL. We made only minor changes to our code to parallelize blog feeds aggregating. On my machine this modification gives some performance boost – time is now 17.57 seconds. Data parallelism There is one more way how to parallelize activities. Previous section introduced task or operation based parallelism, this section introduces data based parallelism. By MSDN page Data Parallelism (Task Parallel Library) data parallelism refers to scenario in which the same operation is performed concurrently on elements in a source collection or array. In our code we have independent collections we can process in parallel – imported feed entries. As checking for feed entry existence and inserting it if it is missing from database doesn’t affect other entries the imported feed entries collection is ideal candidate for parallelization. internal class FeedClient { private readonly INewsService _newsService; private const int FeedItemContentMaxLength = 255; public FeedClient() { ObjectFactory.Initialize(container => { container.PullConfigurationFromAppConfig = true; }); _newsService = ObjectFactory.GetInstance<INewsService>(); } public void Execute() { var blogs = _newsService.ListPublishedBlogs(); var tasks = new Task[blogs.Count]; for (var index = 0; index <blogs.Count; index++) { tasks[index] = new Task(ImportFeed, blogs[index]); tasks[index].Start(); } Task.WaitAll(tasks); } private void ImportFeed(object blogObject) { if(blogObject == null) return; var blog = (BlogDto)blogObject; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(blog.RssUrl)) return; var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); SyndicationContentFormat feedFormat; feedFormat = SyndicationDiscoveryUtility.SyndicationContentFormatGet(uri); if (feedFormat == SyndicationContentFormat.Rss) ImportRssFeed(blog); if (feedFormat == SyndicationContentFormat.Atom) ImportAtomFeed(blog); } private void ImportRssFeed(BlogDto blog) { var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); var feed = RssFeed.Create(uri); feed.Channel.Items.AsParallel().ForAll(a => { SaveRssFeedItem(a, blog.Id, blog.CreatedById); }); } private void ImportAtomFeed(BlogDto blog) { var uri = new Uri(blog.RssUrl); var feed = AtomFeed.Create(uri); feed.Entries.AsParallel().ForAll(a => { SaveAtomFeedEntry(a, blog.Id, blog.CreatedById); }); } } We did small change again and as the result we parallelized checking and saving of feed items. This change was data centric as we applied same operation to all elements in collection. On my machine I got better performance again. Time is now 11.22 seconds. Results Let’s visualize our measurement results (numbers are given in seconds). As we can see then with task parallelism feed aggregation takes about 25% less time than in original case. When adding data parallelism to task parallelism our aggregation takes about 2.3 times less time than in original case. More about TPL and PLINQ Adding parallelism to your application can be very challenging task. You have to carefully find out parts of your code where you can safely go to parallel processing and even then you have to measure the effects of parallel processing to find out if parallel code performs better. If you are not careful then troubles you will face later are worse than ones you have seen before (imagine error that occurs by average only once per 10000 code runs). Parallel programming is something that is hard to ignore. Effective programs are able to use multiple cores of processors. Using TPL you can also set degree of parallelism so your application doesn’t use all computing cores and leaves one or more of them free for host system and other processes. And there are many more things in TPL that make it easier for you to start and go on with parallel programming. In next major version all .NET languages will have built-in support for parallel programming. There will be also new language constructs that support parallel programming. Currently you can download Visual Studio Async to get some idea about what is coming. Conclusion Parallel programming is very challenging but good tools offered by Visual Studio and .NET Framework make it way easier for us. In this posting we started with feed aggregator that imports feed items on serial mode. With two steps we parallelized feed importing and entries inserting gaining 2.3 times raise in performance. Although this number is specific to my test environment it shows clearly that parallel programming may raise the performance of your application significantly.

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CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 10, 2014

CodePlex Daily Summary for Sunday, August 10, 2014Popular ReleasesWinForms MVP: WinForms MVP v1.0.1008.2014: Issues Fixed Issue 1 New Added MessageBus and AppState features. Added tests in support of the MessageBus and AppState features Added dependency injection support for Ninject. Added tests in support of the NinjectPresenterFactory.WP8 Native Access Webserver: Version alpha 0.5.3: Figured I should post a newer version. This build includes pretty broad registry browsing (especially if you can use the AllCapabilities version) and (in the AC version) also fairly broad file system access. It also includes the ability to download .REG files. There have been tons of bugfixes and performance improvements as well, plus a slightly better UI in both the app and the web interface. For more info, please read the forum post here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=23...ClosedXML - The easy way to OpenXML: ClosedXML 0.74.0: Many updates. See history.SEToolbox: SEToolbox 01.042.019 Release 1: Added RadioAntenna broadcast name to ship name detail. Added two additional columns for Asteroid material generation for Asteroid Fields. Added Mass and Block number columns to main display. Added Ellipsis to some columns on main display to reduce name confusion. Added correct SE version number in file when saving. Re-added in reattaching Motor when drag/dropping or importing ships (KeenSH have added RotorEntityId back in after removing it months ago). Added option to export and r...Instant Beautiful Browsing: IBB 14.3 Alpha: An alpha release of IBB. After 3 years of the last release this version is made from scratch, with tons of new features like: Make your own IBB aps. HTML 5. Better UI. Extreme Windows 8 resemblance. Photos. Store. Movement TONS of times smother compared to previous versions. Remember that this is AN ALPHA release, I hope I will have "IBB 14" finished by December. The documentation on how to create a new application for IBB will come next monthjQuery List DragSort: jQuery List DragSort 0.5.2: Fixed scrollContainer removing deprecated use of $.browser so should now work with latest version of jQuery. Added the ability to return false in dragEnd to revert sort order Project changes Added nuget package for dragsort https://www.nuget.org/packages/dragsort Converted repository from SVN to MercurialCRM 2013 One Click Navigation: CRM2013OneClickNavigation_1_0_0_4_managed.zip: Fixed some minor issues and added support for the following languages Spanish German French Italian Portuguese Russian Arabic Chinese Japanese Hindi Hebrew Korean Polish ThaiBraintree Client Library: Braintree 2.32.0: Allow credit card verification options to be passed outside of the nonce for PaymentMethod.create Allow billingaddress parameters and billingaddress_id to be passed outside of the nonce for PaymentMethod.create Add Subscriptions to paypal accounts Add PaymentMethod.update Add failonduplicatepaymentmethod option to PaymentMethod.create Add support for dispute webhooksThe Mario Kart 8 App: V1.0.2.1: First Codeplex release. WINDOWS INSTALLER ONLYAspose Java for Docx4j: Aspose.Words vs Docx4j - v 1.0: Release contain the Code Comparison for Features in Docx4j SDK and Aspose.Words What's New ?Following Examples: Accessing Document Properties Add Bookmarks Convert to Formats Delete Bookmarks Working with Comments Feedback and Suggestions Many more examples are available at Aspose Docs. Raise your queries and suggest more examples via Aspose Forums or via this social coding site.File System Security PowerShell Module: NTFSSecurity 2.4.1: Add-Access and Remove-Access now take multiple accoutsYourSqlDba: YourSqlDba 5.2.1.: This version improves alert message that comes a while after you install the script. First it says to get it from YourSqlDba.CodePlex.com If you don't want to update now, just-rerun the script from your installed version. To get actual version running just execute install.PrintVersionInfo. . You can go to source code / history and click on change set 72957 to see changes in the script.Manipulator: Manipulator: manipulatorXNB filetype plugin for Paint.NET: Paint.NET XNB plugin v0.4.0.0: CHANGELOG Reverted old incomplete changes. Updated library for compatibility with Paint .NET 4. Updated project to NET 4.5. Updated version to 0.4.0.0. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Extract the ZIP file to your Paint.NET\FileTypes folder.EdiFabric: Release 4.1: Changed MessageContextWix# (WixSharp) - managed interface for WiX: Release 1.0.0.0: Release 1.0.0.0 Custom UI Custom MSI Dialog Custom CLR Dialog External UIMath.NET Numerics: Math.NET Numerics v3.2.0: Linear Algebra: Vector.Map2 (map2 in F#), storage-optimized Linear Algebra: fix RemoveColumn/Row early index bound check (was not strict enough) Statistics: Entropy ~Jeff Mastry Interpolation: use Array.BinarySearch instead of local implementation ~Candy Chiu Resources: fix a corrupted exception message string Portable Build: support .Net 4.0 as well by using profile 328 instead of 344. .Net 3.5: F# extensions now support .Net 3.5 as well .Net 3.5: NuGet package now contains pro...Virto Commerce Enterprise Open Source eCommerce Platform (asp.net mvc): Virto Commerce 1.11: Virto Commerce Community Edition version 1.11. To install the SDK package, please refer to SDK getting started documentation To configure source code package, please refer to Source code getting started documentation This release includes many bug fixes and minor improvements. More details about this release can be found on our blog at http://blog.virtocommerce.com.BoxStarter: Boxstarter 2.4.80: Running the Setup.bat file will install Chocolatey if not present and then install the Boxstarter modules.ProjkyAddin ssms addin script shortcut ssmsaddin: projkyaddin source code and msi files.: projkyaddin source code and msi files.New ProjectsBolos: BolosBWQS - The BitWise Query Service: Generic object queries with a bitwise syntax.DocX Razor: A DocX scaffolding engine with Razor syntaxJQuery Simple Logger: Its a very simple jQuery extension for logging client side events. There are four levels of logging: Error, Warning, Info, Debug ???????: ???????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，????????????????????????. ????????????????????，????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。???????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，?????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、???????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，????????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。?????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????????: ???????????: ??????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，????????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　 ????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，??????? ????????，?????????????， ???????????????????????. ???????????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，????????????，????，??“??????”????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????，????????????!??????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。???????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、???????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　??????98???????????，???????????????????，????????????，????，??????????，?????????，?????????,????????????????，???????????，??????????: ??????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、???????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　??????98???????????，???????????????????，????????????，????，??????????，?????????，?????????,????????????????，???????????，??????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，???????: ??????????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????????: ???????????: ????????????: ????????????: ????????????: ????????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，????????????????????????: ?????????????: ???????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，??????????????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，????????????????????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，??????????????????????. ????????????????????，???????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，?????????????????????????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，????????????????????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，?????????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，???????? ????????????: ?????????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”?????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。???????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，?????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????，???????????????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、??????: ??????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????,??????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，??????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????，????????????，??????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，???????????，????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? 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QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????? ?????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，???????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。????????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;???????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，???????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，???????????，??????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。????????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，????????: ????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????????: ????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，??????????????，????，??“???????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ????????????: ??????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??1998?7??????，??????????，?????????，?????????????，???????????????????????. ????????????????????，?????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，???????????????????????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;???????: ????????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????? ????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，??????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。?????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????，????????: ????????????: ????????????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　?????2004?，??????????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，????????????，????，??“????????: ???????????: ?????????????: ???????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????，?????????????????????，?????????????????????????!???????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。???????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，?????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????，????????????!??????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????。????????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。????????，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，??????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，??????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;???????: ????????????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　???????????????????，????????????，???????98???????????，????，??????????，?????????. 　　?????????,????????????????，???????????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，???????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????，?????????????????????，????????????????????????!??????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、?????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、??????????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，?????????????????????????，????????????!?????????????????????????????????????????、???????、????、??????、???????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。???????????????????????????,???????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　????????????????????，????????。????????????????、???????。??????????????。???????????????????,??????,??????,??????,??????????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。　　?????????????、??、??、??????????????????，???????，???????，?????????????，??????????????，?????、??????????、??、???，?????????????，???????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????????!????????????????????????????????????????????、?????????、??????、????????、????????????。??????????，????????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。　　??????98???????????，???????????????????，????????????，????，??????????，?????????，?????????,????????????????，???????????，??????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????1998?????????。????????????，???????????????，?????????????，???????????，?2003?????????????，?????????????????????????????????: ????????????: ????????????: ??????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????。????????????????????，??????????????，????，?????????????????????，??????。??，??????????????????????。????????，????????????，????????????: ????????????: ???????????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。?????????，??????????????????。?????? ?????，????????????????，????????????。????，???????????，????，??“??????”???? ?????，???????????????: ?????QQ:2281595668，?????，????，????　　??????????????????????????,??????????,???????????????????????,???????:????,????;?????????????;??;??;????;????????;????;????;?????: ?????QQ：2281595668，?????，????，????。??????????????，??????、????、?????????????????????????，???????????? ??。???????????，??????????，???????????，????2000?，??????????，??????: ??????

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Building a better mouse-trap – Improving the creation of XML Message Requests using Reflection, XML & XSLT

- by paulschapman

Introduction The way I previously created messages to send to the GovTalk service I used the XMLDocument to create the request. While this worked it left a number of problems; not least that for every message a special function would need to created. This is OK for the short term but the biggest cost in any software project is maintenance and this would be a headache to maintain. So the following is a somewhat better way of achieving the same thing. For the purposes of this article I am going to be using the CompanyNumberSearch request of the GovTalk service – although this technique would work for any service that accepted XML. The C# functions which send and receive the messages remain the same. The magic sauce in this is the XSLT which defines the structure of the request, and the use of objects in conjunction with reflection to provide the content. It is a bit like Sweet Chilli Sauce added to Chicken on a bed of rice. So on to the Sweet Chilli Sauce The Sweet Chilli Sauce The request to search for a company based on it’s number is as follows; <GovTalkMessage xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" > <EnvelopeVersion>1.0</EnvelopeVersion> <Header> <MessageDetails> <Class>NumberSearch</Class> <Qualifier>request</Qualifier> <TransactionID>1</TransactionID> </MessageDetails> <SenderDetails> <IDAuthentication> <SenderID>????????????????????????????????</SenderID> <Authentication> <Method>CHMD5</Method> <Value>????????????????????????????????</Value> </Authentication> </IDAuthentication> </SenderDetails> </Header> <GovTalkDetails> <Keys/> </GovTalkDetails> <Body> <NumberSearchRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/NumberSearch.xsd"> <PartialCompanyNumber>99999999</PartialCompanyNumber> <DataSet>LIVE</DataSet> <SearchRows>1</SearchRows> </NumberSearchRequest> </Body> </GovTalkMessage> This is the XML that we send to the GovTalk Service and we get back a list of companies that match the criteria passed A message is structured in two parts; The envelope which identifies the person sending the request, with the name of the request, and the body which gives the detail of the company we are looking for. The Chilli What makes it possible is the use of XSLT to define the message – and serialization to convert each request object into XML. To start we need to create an object which will represent the contents of the message we are sending. However there is a common properties in all the messages that we send to Companies House. These properties are as follows SenderId – the id of the person sending the message SenderPassword – the password associated with Id TransactionId – Unique identifier for the message AuthenticationValue – authenticates the request Because these properties are unique to the Companies House message, and because they are shared with all messages they are perfect candidates for a base class. The class is as follows; using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; using System.Security.Cryptography; using System.Text; using System.Text.RegularExpressions; using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.ServiceRuntime; namespace CompanyHub.Services { public class GovTalkRequest { public GovTalkRequest() { try { SenderID = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SenderId"); SenderPassword = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("SenderPassword"); TransactionId = DateTime.Now.Ticks.ToString(); AuthenticationValue = EncodePassword(String.Format("{0}{1}{2}", SenderID, SenderPassword, TransactionId)); } catch (System.Exception ex) { throw ex; } } /// <summary> /// returns the Sender ID to be used when communicating with the GovTalk Service /// </summary> public String SenderID { get; set; } /// <summary> /// return the password to be used when communicating with the GovTalk Service /// </summary> public String SenderPassword { get; set; } // end SenderPassword /// <summary> /// Transaction Id - uses the Time and Date converted to Ticks /// </summary> public String TransactionId { get; set; } // end TransactionId /// <summary> /// calculate the authentication value that will be used when /// communicating with /// </summary> public String AuthenticationValue { get; set; } // end AuthenticationValue property /// <summary> /// encodes password(s) using MD5 /// </summary> /// <param name="clearPassword"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static String EncodePassword(String clearPassword) { MD5CryptoServiceProvider md5Hasher = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider(); byte[] hashedBytes; UTF32Encoding encoder = new UTF32Encoding(); hashedBytes = md5Hasher.ComputeHash(ASCIIEncoding.Default.GetBytes(clearPassword)); String result = Regex.Replace(BitConverter.ToString(hashedBytes), "-", "").ToLower(); return result; } } } There is nothing particularly clever here, except for the EncodePassword method which hashes the value made up of the SenderId, Password and Transaction id. Each message inherits from this object. So for the Company Number Search in addition to the properties above we need a partial number, which dataset to search – for the purposes of the project we only need to search the LIVE set so this can be set in the constructor and the SearchRows. Again all are set as properties. With the SearchRows and DataSet initialized in the constructor. public class CompanyNumberSearchRequest : GovTalkRequest, IDisposable { /// <summary> /// /// </summary> public CompanyNumberSearchRequest() : base() { DataSet = "LIVE"; SearchRows = 1; } /// <summary> /// Company Number to search against /// </summary> public String PartialCompanyNumber { get; set; } /// <summary> /// What DataSet should be searched for the company /// </summary> public String DataSet { get; set; } /// <summary> /// How many rows should be returned /// </summary> public int SearchRows { get; set; } public void Dispose() { DataSet = String.Empty; PartialCompanyNumber = String.Empty; DataSet = "LIVE"; SearchRows = 1; } } As well as inheriting from our base class, I have also inherited from IDisposable – not just because it is just plain good practice to dispose of objects when coding, but it gives also gives us more versatility when using the object. There are four stages in making a request and this is reflected in the four methods we execute in making a call to the Companies House service; Create a request Send a request Check the status If OK then get the results of the request I’ve implemented each of these stages within a static class called Toolbox – which also means I don’t need to create an instance of the class to use it. When making a request there are three stages; Get the template for the message Serialize the object representing the message Transform the serialized object using a predefined XSLT file. Each of my templates I have defined as an embedded resource. When retrieving a resource of this kind we have to include the full namespace to the resource. In making the code re-usable as much as possible I defined the full ‘path’ within the GetRequest method. requestFile = String.Format("CompanyHub.Services.Schemas.{0}", RequestFile); So we now have the full path of the file within the assembly. Now all we need do is retrieve the assembly and get the resource. asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); sr = asm.GetManifestResourceStream(requestFile); Once retrieved So this can be returned to the calling function and we now have a stream of XSLT to define the message. Time now to serialize the request to create the other side of this message. // Serialize object containing Request, Load into XML Document t = Obj.GetType(); ms = new MemoryStream(); serializer = new XmlSerializer(t); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, Obj); ms = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream; GovTalkRequest = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(ms.ToArray()); First off we need the type of the object so we make a call to the GetType method of the object containing the Message properties. Next we need a MemoryStream, XmlSerializer and an XMLTextWriter so these can be initialized. The object is serialized by making the call to the Serialize method of the serializer object. The result of that is then converted into a MemoryStream. That MemoryStream is then converted into a string. ConvertByteArrayToString This is a fairly simple function which uses an ASCIIEncoding object found within the System.Text namespace to convert an array of bytes into a string. public static String ConvertByteArrayToString(byte[] bytes) { System.Text.ASCIIEncoding enc = new System.Text.ASCIIEncoding(); return enc.GetString(bytes); } I only put it into a function because I will be using this in various places. The Sauce When adding support for other messages outside of creating a new object to store the properties of the message, the C# components do not need to change. It is in the XSLT file that the versatility of the technique lies. The XSLT file determines the format of the message. For the CompanyNumberSearch the XSLT file is as follows; <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:template match="/"> <GovTalkMessage xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" > <EnvelopeVersion>1.0</EnvelopeVersion> <Header> <MessageDetails> <Class>NumberSearch</Class> <Qualifier>request</Qualifier> <TransactionID> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/TransactionId"/> </TransactionID> </MessageDetails> <SenderDetails> <IDAuthentication> <SenderID><xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/SenderID"/></SenderID> <Authentication> <Method>CHMD5</Method> <Value> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/AuthenticationValue"/> </Value> </Authentication> </IDAuthentication> </SenderDetails> </Header> <GovTalkDetails> <Keys/> </GovTalkDetails> <Body> <NumberSearchRequest xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/NumberSearch.xsd"> <PartialCompanyNumber> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/PartialCompanyNumber"/> </PartialCompanyNumber> <DataSet> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/DataSet"/> </DataSet> <SearchRows> <xsl:value-of select="CompanyNumberSearchRequest/SearchRows"/> </SearchRows> </NumberSearchRequest> </Body> </GovTalkMessage> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> The outer two tags define that this is a XSLT stylesheet and the root tag from which the nodes are searched for. The GovTalkMessage is the format of the message that will be sent to Companies House. We first set up the XslCompiledTransform object which will transform the XSLT template and the serialized object into the request to Companies House. xslt = new XslCompiledTransform(); resultStream = new MemoryStream(); writer = new XmlTextWriter(resultStream, Encoding.ASCII); doc = new XmlDocument(); The Serialize method require XmlTextWriter to write the XML (writer) and a stream to place the transferred object into (writer). The XML will be loaded into an XMLDocument object (doc) prior to the transformation. // create XSLT Template xslTemplate = Toolbox.GetRequest(Template); xslTemplate.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); templateReader = XmlReader.Create(xslTemplate); xslt.Load(templateReader); I have stored all the templates as a series of Embedded Resources and the GetRequestCall takes the name of the template and extracts the relevent XSLT file. /// <summary> /// Gets the framwork XML which makes the request /// </summary> /// <param name="RequestFile"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static Stream GetRequest(String RequestFile) { String requestFile = String.Empty; Stream sr = null; Assembly asm = null; try { requestFile = String.Format("CompanyHub.Services.Schemas.{0}", RequestFile); asm = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly(); sr = asm.GetManifestResourceStream(requestFile); } catch (Exception) { throw; } finally { asm = null; } return sr; } // end private static stream GetRequest We first take the template name and expand it to include the full namespace to the Embedded Resource I like to keep all my schemas in the same directory and so the namespace reflects this. The rest is the default namespace for the project. Then we get the currently executing assembly (which will contain the resources with the call to GetExecutingAssembly() ) Finally we get a stream which contains the XSLT file. We use this stream and then load an XmlReader with the contents of the template, and that is in turn loaded into the XslCompiledTransform object. We convert the object containing the message properties into Xml by serializing it; calling the Serialize() method of the XmlSerializer object. To set up the object we do the following; t = Obj.GetType(); ms = new MemoryStream(); serializer = new XmlSerializer(t); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); We first determine the type of the object being transferred by calling GetType() We create an XmlSerializer object by passing the type of the object being serialized. The serializer writes to a memory stream and that is linked to an XmlTextWriter. Next job is to serialize the object and load it into an XmlDocument. serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, Obj); ms = (MemoryStream)xmlTextWriter.BaseStream; xmlRequest = new XmlTextReader(ms); GovTalkRequest = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(ms.ToArray()); doc.LoadXml(GovTalkRequest); Time to transform the XML to construct the full request. xslt.Transform(doc, writer); resultStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin); request = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(resultStream.ToArray()); So that creates the full request to be sent to Companies House. Sending the request So far we have a string with a request for the Companies House service. Now we need to send the request to the Companies House Service. Configuration within an Azure project There are entire blog entries written about configuration within an Azure project – most of this is out of scope for this article but the following is a summary. Configuration is defined in two files within the parent project *.csdef which contains the definition of configuration setting. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <ServiceDefinition name="OnlineCompanyHub" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition"> <WebRole name="CompanyHub.Host"> <InputEndpoints> <InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="80" /> </InputEndpoints> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> <Setting name="DataConnectionString" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> <WebRole name="CompanyHub.Services"> <InputEndpoints> <InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="8080" /> </InputEndpoints> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> <Setting name="SenderId"/> <Setting name="SenderPassword" /> <Setting name="GovTalkUrl"/> </ConfigurationSettings> </WebRole> <WorkerRole name="CompanyHub.Worker"> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </WorkerRole> </ServiceDefinition> Above is the configuration definition from the project. What we are interested in however is the ConfigurationSettings tag of the CompanyHub.Services WebRole. There are four configuration settings here, but at the moment we are interested in the second to forth settings; SenderId, SenderPassword and GovTalkUrl The value of these settings are defined in the ServiceDefinition.cscfg file; <?xml version="1.0"?> <ServiceConfiguration serviceName="OnlineCompanyHub" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceConfiguration"> <Role name="CompanyHub.Host"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="DataConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="CompanyHub.Services"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> <Setting name="SenderId" value="UserID"/> <Setting name="SenderPassword" value="Password"/> <Setting name="GovTalkUrl" value="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/xmlgw/Gateway"/> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> <Role name="CompanyHub.Worker"> <Instances count="2" /> <ConfigurationSettings> <Setting name="DiagnosticsConnectionString" value="UseDevelopmentStorage=true" /> </ConfigurationSettings> </Role> </ServiceConfiguration> Look for the Role tag that contains our project name (CompanyHub.Services). Having configured the parameters we can now transmit the request. This is done by ‘POST’ing a stream of XML to the Companies House servers. govTalkUrl = RoleEnvironment.GetConfigurationSettingValue("GovTalkUrl"); request = WebRequest.Create(govTalkUrl); request.Method = "POST"; request.ContentType = "text/xml"; writer = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream()); writer.WriteLine(RequestMessage); writer.Close(); We use the WebRequest object to send the object. Set the method of sending to ‘POST’ and the type of data as text/xml. Once set up all we do is write the request to the writer – this sends the request to Companies House. Did the Request Work Part I – Getting the response Having sent a request – we now need the result of that request. response = request.GetResponse(); reader = response.GetResponseStream(); result = Toolbox.ConvertByteArrayToString(Toolbox.ReadFully(reader)); The WebRequest object has a GetResponse() method which allows us to get the response sent back. Like many of these calls the results come in the form of a stream which we convert into a string. Did the Request Work Part II – Translating the Response Much like XSLT and XML were used to create the original request, so it can be used to extract the response and by deserializing the result we create an object that contains the response. Did it work? It would be really great if everything worked all the time. Of course if it did then I don’t suppose people would pay me and others the big bucks so that our programmes do not a) Collapse in a heap (this is an area of memory) b) Blow every fuse in the place in a shower of sparks (this will probably not happen this being real life and not a Hollywood movie, but it was possible to blow the sound system of a BBC Model B with a poorly coded setting) c) Go nuts and trap everyone outside the airlock (this was from a movie, and unless NASA get a manned moon/mars mission set up unlikely to happen) d) Go nuts and take over the world (this was also from a movie, but please note life has a habit of being of exceeding the wildest imaginations of Hollywood writers (note writers – Hollywood executives have no imagination and judging by recent output of that town have turned plagiarism into an art form). e) Freeze in total confusion because the cleaner pulled the plug to the internet router (this has happened) So anyway – we need to check to see if our request actually worked. Within the GovTalk response there is a section that details the status of the message and a description of what went wrong (if anything did). I have defined an XSLT template which will extract these into an XML document. <?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ev="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <xsl:template match="/"> <GovTalkStatus xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Status> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Header/ev:MessageDetails/ev:Qualifier"/> </Status> <Text> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Text"/> </Text> <Location> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Location"/> </Location> <Number> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Number"/> </Number> <Type> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:GovTalkDetails/ev:GovTalkErrors/ev:Error/ev:Type"/> </Type> </GovTalkStatus> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> Only thing different about previous XSL files is the references to two namespaces ev & gt. These are defined in the GovTalk response at the top of the response; xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema/Egov_ch-v2-0.xsd" xmlns="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:dsig="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" xmlns:gt="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemas/govtalk/core" If we do not put these references into the XSLT template then the XslCompiledTransform object will not be able to find the relevant tags. Deserialization is a fairly simple activity. encoder = new ASCIIEncoding(); ms = new MemoryStream(encoder.GetBytes(statusXML)); serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(GovTalkStatus)); xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(ms, Encoding.ASCII); messageStatus = (GovTalkStatus)serializer.Deserialize(ms); We set up a serialization object using the object type containing the error state and pass to it the results of a transformation between the XSLT above and the GovTalk response. Now we have an object containing any error state, and the error message. All we need to do is check the status. If there is an error then we can flag an error. If not then we extract the results and pass that as an object back to the calling function. We go this by guess what – defining an XSLT template for the result and using that to create an Xml Stream which can be deserialized into a .Net object. In this instance the XSLT to create the result of a Company Number Search is; <?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" xmlns:ev="http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/CM/envelope" xmlns:sch="http://xmlgw.companieshouse.gov.uk/v1-0/schema" exclude-result-prefixes="ev"> <xsl:template match="/"> <CompanySearchResult xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <CompanyNumber> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Body/sch:NumberSearch/sch:CoSearchItem/sch:CompanyNumber"/> </CompanyNumber> <CompanyName> <xsl:value-of select="ev:GovTalkMessage/ev:Body/sch:NumberSearch/sch:CoSearchItem/sch:CompanyName"/> </CompanyName> </CompanySearchResult> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> and the object definition is; using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Web; namespace CompanyHub.Services { public class CompanySearchResult { public CompanySearchResult() { CompanyNumber = String.Empty; CompanyName = String.Empty; } public String CompanyNumber { get; set; } public String CompanyName { get; set; } } } Our entire code to make calls to send a request, and interpret the results are; String request = String.Empty; String response = String.Empty; GovTalkStatus status = null; fault = null; try { using (CompanyNumberSearchRequest requestObj = new CompanyNumberSearchRequest()) { requestObj.PartialCompanyNumber = CompanyNumber; request = Toolbox.CreateRequest(requestObj, "CompanyNumberSearch.xsl"); response = Toolbox.SendGovTalkRequest(request); status = Toolbox.GetMessageStatus(response); if (status.Status.ToLower() == "error") { fault = new HubFault() { Message = status.Text }; } else { Object obj = Toolbox.GetGovTalkResponse(response, "CompanyNumberSearchResult.xsl", typeof(CompanySearchResult)); } } } catch (FaultException<ArgumentException> ex) { fault = new HubFault() { FaultType = ex.Detail.GetType().FullName, Message = ex.Detail.Message }; } catch (System.Exception ex) { fault = new HubFault() { FaultType = ex.GetType().FullName, Message = ex.Message }; } finally { } Wrap up So there we have it – a reusable set of functions to send and interpret XML results from an internet based service. The code is reusable with a little change with any service which uses XML as a transport mechanism – and as for the Companies House GovTalk service all I need to do is create various objects for the result and message sent and the relevent XSLT files. I might need minor changes for other services but something like 70-90% will be exactly the same.

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Ball bouncing at a certain angle and efficiency computations

- by X Y

I would like to make a pong game with a small twist (for now). Every time the ball bounces off one of the paddles i want it to be under a certain angle (between a min and a max). I simply can't wrap my head around how to actually do it (i have some thoughts and such but i simply cannot implement them properly - i feel i'm overcomplicating things). Here's an image with a small explanation . One other problem would be that the conditions for bouncing have to be different for every edge. For example, in the picture, on the two small horizontal edges i do not want a perfectly vertical bounce when in the middle of the edge but rather a constant angle (pi/4 maybe) in either direction depending on the collision point (before the middle of the edge, or after). All of my collisions are done with the Separating Axes Theorem (and seem to work fine). I'm looking for something efficient because i want to add a lot of things later on (maybe polygons with many edges and such). So i need to keep to a minimum the amount of checking done every frame. The collision algorithm begins testing whenever the bounding boxes of the paddle and the ball intersect. Is there something better to test for possible collisions every frame? (more efficient in the long run,with many more objects etc, not necessarily easy to code). I'm going to post the code for my game: Paddle Class public class Paddle : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.DrawableGameComponent { #region Private Members private SpriteBatch spriteBatch; private ContentManager contentManager; private bool keybEnabled; private bool isLeftPaddle; private Texture2D paddleSprite; private Vector2 paddlePosition; private float paddleSpeedY; private Vector2 paddleScale = new Vector2(1f, 1f); private const float DEFAULT_Y_SPEED = 150; private Vector2[] Normals2Edges; private Vector2[] Vertices = new Vector2[4]; private List<Vector2> lst = new List<Vector2>(); private Vector2 Edge; #endregion #region Properties public float Speed { get {return paddleSpeedY; } set { paddleSpeedY = value; } } public Vector2[] Normal2EdgesVector { get { NormalsToEdges(this.isLeftPaddle); return Normals2Edges; } } public Vector2[] VertexVector { get { return Vertices; } } public Vector2 Scale { get { return paddleScale; } set { paddleScale = value; NormalsToEdges(this.isLeftPaddle); } } public float X { get { return paddlePosition.X; } set { paddlePosition.X = value; } } public float Y { get { return paddlePosition.Y; } set { paddlePosition.Y = value; } } public float Width { get { return (Scale.X == 1f ? (float)paddleSprite.Width : paddleSprite.Width * Scale.X); } } public float Height { get { return ( Scale.Y==1f ? (float)paddleSprite.Height : paddleSprite.Height*Scale.Y ); } } public Texture2D GetSprite { get { return paddleSprite; } } public Rectangle Boundary { get { return new Rectangle((int)paddlePosition.X, (int)paddlePosition.Y, (int)this.Width, (int)this.Height); } } public bool KeyboardEnabled { get { return keybEnabled; } } #endregion private void NormalsToEdges(bool isLeftPaddle) { Normals2Edges = null; Edge = Vector2.Zero; lst.Clear(); for (int i = 0; i < Vertices.Length; i++) { Edge = Vertices[i + 1 == Vertices.Length ? 0 : i + 1] - Vertices[i]; if (Edge != Vector2.Zero) { Edge.Normalize(); //outer normal to edge !! (origin in top-left) lst.Add(new Vector2(Edge.Y, -Edge.X)); } } Normals2Edges = lst.ToArray(); } public float[] ProjectPaddle(Vector2 axis) { if (Vertices.Length == 0 || axis == Vector2.Zero) return (new float[2] { 0, 0 }); float min, max; min = Vector2.Dot(axis, Vertices[0]); max = min; for (int i = 1; i < Vertices.Length; i++) { float p = Vector2.Dot(axis, Vertices[i]); if (p < min) min = p; else if (p > max) max = p; } return (new float[2] { min, max }); } public Paddle(Game game, bool isLeftPaddle, bool enableKeyboard = true) : base(game) { contentManager = new ContentManager(game.Services); keybEnabled = enableKeyboard; this.isLeftPaddle = isLeftPaddle; } public void setPosition(Vector2 newPos) { X = newPos.X; Y = newPos.Y; } public override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); this.Speed = DEFAULT_Y_SPEED; X = 0; Y = 0; NormalsToEdges(this.isLeftPaddle); } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); paddleSprite = contentManager.Load<Texture2D>(@"Content\pongBar"); } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { //vertices array Vertices[0] = this.paddlePosition; Vertices[1] = this.paddlePosition + new Vector2(this.Width, 0); Vertices[2] = this.paddlePosition + new Vector2(this.Width, this.Height); Vertices[3] = this.paddlePosition + new Vector2(0, this.Height); // Move paddle, but don't allow movement off the screen if (KeyboardEnabled) { float moveDistance = Speed * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; KeyboardState newKeyState = Keyboard.GetState(); if (newKeyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Down) && Y + paddleSprite.Height + moveDistance <= Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height) { Y += moveDistance; } else if (newKeyState.IsKeyDown(Keys.Up) && Y - moveDistance >= 0) { Y -= moveDistance; } } else { if (this.Y + this.Height > this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height) { this.Y = this.Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height - this.Height - 1; } } base.Update(gameTime); } public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Texture,null); spriteBatch.Draw(paddleSprite, paddlePosition, null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, Scale, SpriteEffects.None, 0); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } Ball Class public class Ball : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.DrawableGameComponent { #region Private Members private SpriteBatch spriteBatch; private ContentManager contentManager; private const float DEFAULT_SPEED = 50; private float speedIncrement = 0; private Vector2 ballScale = new Vector2(1f, 1f); private const float INCREASE_SPEED = 50; private Texture2D ballSprite; //initial texture private Vector2 ballPosition; //position private Vector2 centerOfBall; //center coords private Vector2 ballSpeed = new Vector2(DEFAULT_SPEED, DEFAULT_SPEED); //speed #endregion #region Properties public float DEFAULTSPEED { get { return DEFAULT_SPEED; } } public Vector2 ballCenter { get { return centerOfBall; } } public Vector2 Scale { get { return ballScale; } set { ballScale = value; } } public float SpeedX { get { return ballSpeed.X; } set { ballSpeed.X = value; } } public float SpeedY { get { return ballSpeed.Y; } set { ballSpeed.Y = value; } } public float X { get { return ballPosition.X; } set { ballPosition.X = value; } } public float Y { get { return ballPosition.Y; } set { ballPosition.Y = value; } } public Texture2D GetSprite { get { return ballSprite; } } public float Width { get { return (Scale.X == 1f ? (float)ballSprite.Width : ballSprite.Width * Scale.X); } } public float Height { get { return (Scale.Y == 1f ? (float)ballSprite.Height : ballSprite.Height * Scale.Y); } } public float SpeedIncreaseIncrement { get { return speedIncrement; } set { speedIncrement = value; } } public Rectangle Boundary { get { return new Rectangle((int)ballPosition.X, (int)ballPosition.Y, (int)this.Width, (int)this.Height); } } #endregion public Ball(Game game) : base(game) { contentManager = new ContentManager(game.Services); } public void Reset() { ballSpeed.X = DEFAULT_SPEED; ballSpeed.Y = DEFAULT_SPEED; ballPosition.X = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2 - ballSprite.Width / 2; ballPosition.Y = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - ballSprite.Height / 2; } public void SpeedUp() { if (ballSpeed.Y < 0) ballSpeed.Y -= (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); else ballSpeed.Y += (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); if (ballSpeed.X < 0) ballSpeed.X -= (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); else ballSpeed.X += (INCREASE_SPEED + speedIncrement); } public float[] ProjectBall(Vector2 axis) { if (axis == Vector2.Zero) return (new float[2] { 0, 0 }); float min, max; min = Vector2.Dot(axis, this.ballCenter) - this.Width/2; //center - radius max = min + this.Width; //center + radius return (new float[2] { min, max }); } public void ChangeHorzDirection() { ballSpeed.X *= -1; } public void ChangeVertDirection() { ballSpeed.Y *= -1; } public override void Initialize() { base.Initialize(); ballPosition.X = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width / 2 - ballSprite.Width / 2; ballPosition.Y = Game.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - ballSprite.Height / 2; } protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); ballSprite = contentManager.Load<Texture2D>(@"Content\ball"); } public override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { if (this.Y < 1 || this.Y > GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height - this.Height - 1) this.ChangeVertDirection(); centerOfBall = new Vector2(ballPosition.X + this.Width / 2, ballPosition.Y + this.Height / 2); base.Update(gameTime); } public override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { spriteBatch.Begin(); spriteBatch.Draw(ballSprite, ballPosition, null, Color.White, 0f, Vector2.Zero, Scale, SpriteEffects.None, 0); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } Main game class public class gameStart : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game { GraphicsDeviceManager graphics; SpriteBatch spriteBatch; public gameStart() { graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this); Content.RootDirectory = "Content"; this.Window.Title = "Pong game"; } protected override void Initialize() { ball = new Ball(this); paddleLeft = new Paddle(this,true,false); paddleRight = new Paddle(this,false,true); Components.Add(ball); Components.Add(paddleLeft); Components.Add(paddleRight); this.Window.AllowUserResizing = false; this.IsMouseVisible = true; this.IsFixedTimeStep = false; this.isColliding = false; base.Initialize(); } #region MyPrivateStuff private Ball ball; private Paddle paddleLeft, paddleRight; private int[] bit = { -1, 1 }; private Random rnd = new Random(); private int updates = 0; enum nrPaddle { None, Left, Right }; private nrPaddle PongBar = nrPaddle.None; private ArrayList Axes = new ArrayList(); private Vector2 MTV; //minimum translation vector private bool isColliding; private float overlap; //smallest distance after projections private Vector2 overlapAxis; //axis of overlap #endregion protected override void LoadContent() { spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice); paddleLeft.setPosition(new Vector2(0, this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - paddleLeft.Height / 2)); paddleRight.setPosition(new Vector2(this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Width - paddleRight.Width, this.GraphicsDevice.Viewport.Height / 2 - paddleRight.Height / 2)); paddleLeft.Scale = new Vector2(1f, 2f); //scale left paddle } private bool ShapesIntersect(Paddle paddle, Ball ball) { overlap = 1000000f; //large value overlapAxis = Vector2.Zero; MTV = Vector2.Zero; foreach (Vector2 ax in Axes) { float[] pad = paddle.ProjectPaddle(ax); //pad0 = min, pad1 = max float[] circle = ball.ProjectBall(ax); //circle0 = min, circle1 = max if (pad[1] <= circle[0] || circle[1] <= pad[0]) { return false; } if (pad[1] - circle[0] < circle[1] - pad[0]) { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(-pad[1] + circle[0])) { overlap = -pad[1] + circle[0]; overlapAxis = ax; } } else { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(circle[1] - pad[0])) { overlap = circle[1] - pad[0]; overlapAxis = ax; } } } if (overlapAxis != Vector2.Zero) { MTV = overlapAxis * overlap; } return true; } protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime) { updates += 1; float ftime = 5 * (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds; if (updates == 1) { isColliding = false; int Xrnd = bit[Convert.ToInt32(rnd.Next(0, 2))]; int Yrnd = bit[Convert.ToInt32(rnd.Next(0, 2))]; ball.SpeedX = Xrnd * ball.SpeedX; ball.SpeedY = Yrnd * ball.SpeedY; ball.X += ftime * ball.SpeedX; ball.Y += ftime * ball.SpeedY; } else { updates = 100; ball.X += ftime * ball.SpeedX; ball.Y += ftime * ball.SpeedY; } //autorun :) paddleLeft.Y = ball.Y; //collision detection PongBar = nrPaddle.None; if (ball.Boundary.Intersects(paddleLeft.Boundary)) { PongBar = nrPaddle.Left; if (!isColliding) { Axes.Clear(); Axes.AddRange(paddleLeft.Normal2EdgesVector); //axis from nearest vertex to ball's center Axes.Add(FORMULAS.NormAxisFromCircle2ClosestVertex(paddleLeft.VertexVector, ball.ballCenter)); } } else if (ball.Boundary.Intersects(paddleRight.Boundary)) { PongBar = nrPaddle.Right; if (!isColliding) { Axes.Clear(); Axes.AddRange(paddleRight.Normal2EdgesVector); //axis from nearest vertex to ball's center Axes.Add(FORMULAS.NormAxisFromCircle2ClosestVertex(paddleRight.VertexVector, ball.ballCenter)); } } if (PongBar != nrPaddle.None && !isColliding) switch (PongBar) { case nrPaddle.Left: if (ShapesIntersect(paddleLeft, ball)) { isColliding = true; if (MTV != Vector2.Zero) ball.X += MTV.X; ball.Y += MTV.Y; ball.ChangeHorzDirection(); } break; case nrPaddle.Right: if (ShapesIntersect(paddleRight, ball)) { isColliding = true; if (MTV != Vector2.Zero) ball.X += MTV.X; ball.Y += MTV.Y; ball.ChangeHorzDirection(); } break; default: break; } if (!ShapesIntersect(paddleRight, ball) && !ShapesIntersect(paddleLeft, ball)) isColliding = false; ball.X += ftime * ball.SpeedX; ball.Y += ftime * ball.SpeedY; //check ball movement if (ball.X > paddleRight.X + paddleRight.Width + 2) { //IncreaseScore(Left); ball.Reset(); updates = 0; return; } else if (ball.X < paddleLeft.X - 2) { //IncreaseScore(Right); ball.Reset(); updates = 0; return; } base.Update(gameTime); } protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime) { GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.Aquamarine); spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.BackToFront, BlendState.AlphaBlend); spriteBatch.End(); base.Draw(gameTime); } } And one method i've used: public static Vector2 NormAxisFromCircle2ClosestVertex(Vector2[] vertices, Vector2 circle) { Vector2 temp = Vector2.Zero; if (vertices.Length > 0) { float dist = (circle.X - vertices[0].X) * (circle.X - vertices[0].X) + (circle.Y - vertices[0].Y) * (circle.Y - vertices[0].Y); for (int i = 1; i < vertices.Length;i++) { if (dist > (circle.X - vertices[i].X) * (circle.X - vertices[i].X) + (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y) * (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y)) { temp = vertices[i]; //memorize the closest vertex dist = (circle.X - vertices[i].X) * (circle.X - vertices[i].X) + (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y) * (circle.Y - vertices[i].Y); } } temp = circle - temp; temp.Normalize(); } return temp; } Thanks in advance for any tips on the 4 issues. EDIT1: Something isn't working properly. The collision axis doesn't come out right and the interpolation also seems to have no effect. I've changed the code a bit: private bool ShapesIntersect(Paddle paddle, Ball ball) { overlap = 1000000f; //large value overlapAxis = Vector2.Zero; MTV = Vector2.Zero; foreach (Vector2 ax in Axes) { float[] pad = paddle.ProjectPaddle(ax); //pad0 = min, pad1 = max float[] circle = ball.ProjectBall(ax); //circle0 = min, circle1 = max if (pad[1] < circle[0] || circle[1] < pad[0]) { return false; } if (Math.Abs(pad[1] - circle[0]) < Math.Abs(circle[1] - pad[0])) { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(-pad[1] + circle[0])) { overlap = -pad[1] + circle[0]; overlapAxis = ax * (-1); } //to get the proper axis } else { if (Math.Abs(overlap) > Math.Abs(circle[1] - pad[0])) { overlap = circle[1] - pad[0]; overlapAxis = ax; } } } if (overlapAxis != Vector2.Zero) { MTV = overlapAxis * Math.Abs(overlap); } return true; } And part of the Update method: if (ShapesIntersect(paddleRight, ball)) { isColliding = true; if (MTV != Vector2.Zero) { ball.X += MTV.X; ball.Y += MTV.Y; } //test if (overlapAxis.X == 0) //collision with horizontal edge { } else if (overlapAxis.Y == 0) //collision with vertical edge { float factor = Math.Abs(ball.ballCenter.Y - paddleRight.Y) / paddleRight.Height; if (factor > 1) factor = 1f; if (overlapAxis.X < 0) //left edge? ball.Speed = ball.DEFAULTSPEED * Vector2.Normalize(Vector2.Reflect(ball.Speed, (Vector2.Lerp(new Vector2(-1, -3), new Vector2(-1, 3), factor)))); else //right edge? ball.Speed = ball.DEFAULTSPEED * Vector2.Normalize(Vector2.Reflect(ball.Speed, (Vector2.Lerp(new Vector2(1, -3), new Vector2(1, 3), factor)))); } else //vertex collision??? { ball.Speed = -ball.Speed; } } What seems to happen is that "overlapAxis" doesn't always return the right one. So instead of (-1,0) i get the (1,0) (this happened even before i multiplied with -1 there). Sometimes there isn't even a collision registered even though the ball passes through the paddle... The interpolation also seems to have no effect as the angles barely change (or the overlapAxis is almost never (-1,0) or (1,0) but something like (0.9783473, 0.02743843)... ). What am i missing here? :(

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PHP Pear Installation on CentOS

- by Prabhakar

[root@ip ~]# yum install php-pear* Reducing CentOS-5 Testing to included packages only Finished Setting up Install Process Package 1:php-pear-1.8.1-2.el5.centos.noarch already installed and latest versio n Package php-pear-XML-Util is obsoleted by php-pear, trying to install 1:php-pear -1.8.1-2.el5.centos.noarch instead Package 1:php-pear-1.8.1-2.el5.centos.noarch already installed and latest versio n Package php-pear-DB is obsoleted by php-pear-db, trying to install php-pear-db-1 .7.13-2.el5.rf.noarch instead Resolving Dependencies --> Running transaction check ---> Package php-pear-Auth-RADIUS.noarch 0:1.0.6-1.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-pecl(radius) >= 1.2.5 for package: php-pear-Auth- RADIUS --> Processing Dependency: php-mcrypt for package: php-pear-Auth-RADIUS ---> Package php-pear-Auth-SASL.noarch 0:1.0.4-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Benchmark.noarch 0:1.2.7-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-CAS.noarch 0:1.1.3-1.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-domxml-php4-php5 for package: php-pear-CAS ---> Package php-pear-Cache-Lite.noarch 0:1.7.5-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-CodeGen.noarch 0:1.0.7-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-CodeGen-PECL.noarch 0:1.1.3-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Console-CommandLine.noarch 0:1.1.3-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Console-Getargs.noarch 0:1.3.5-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Console-ProgressBar.noarch 0:0.5.2-0.2.beta.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Console-Table.noarch 0:1.1.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Crypt-Blowfish.noarch 0:1.0.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Crypt-CHAP.noarch 0:1.0.2-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-DB-DataObject.noarch 0:1.8.12-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-DB-DataObject-FormBuilder.noarch 0:1.0.0-1.el5 set to be u pdated ---> Package php-pear-DB-QueryTool.noarch 0:1.1.2-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Date.noarch 0:1.4.7-2.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Date-Holidays.noarch 0:0.21.4-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Date-Holidays-USA.noarch 0:0.1.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Event-Dispatcher.noarch 0:1.1.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-File.noarch 0:1.2.2-1.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-File-Find.noarch 0:1.3.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-File-Passwd.noarch 0:1.1.7-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-File-SMBPasswd.noarch 0:1.0.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML-Common.noarch 0:1.2.5-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML-QuickForm.noarch 0:3.2.12-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML-QuickForm-ElementGrid.noarch 0:0.1.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML-QuickForm-advmultiselect.noarch 0:1.4.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML-Table.noarch 0:1.7.5-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML-Template-IT.noarch 0:1.3.0-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTML_Template_PHPLIB.noarch 0:1.4.0-2.el5 set to be update d ---> Package php-pear-HTTP.noarch 0:1.4.0-7.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTTP-Client.noarch 0:1.1.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTTP-Request.noarch 0:1.4.4-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-HTTP-Upload.noarch 0:0.9.1-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Image-Canvas.noarch 0:0.3.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Image-Color.noarch 0:1.0.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Image-Graph.noarch 0:0.8.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Image-GraphViz.noarch 0:1.2.1-4.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: graphviz for package: php-pear-Image-GraphViz ---> Package php-pear-Log.noarch 0:1.12.7-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-MDB2.noarch 0:2.4.1-2.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysql.noarch 0:1.4.1-3.el5.centos set to be up dated ---> Package php-pear-MDB2-Driver-pgsql.noarch 0:1.4.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-MDB2-Schema.noarch 0:0.8.0-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Mail.noarch 0:1.1.14-5.el5.1 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Mail-Mime.noarch 0:1.4.0-1.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Math-Stats.noarch 0:0.9.0-0.1.beta3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-Curl.noarch 0:1.2.5-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-DIME.noarch 0:1.0.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-FTP.noarch 0:1.3.4-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-POP3.noarch 0:1.3.7-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-Ping.noarch 0:2.4.5-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-SMTP.noarch 0:1.4.4-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-Sieve.noarch 0:1.3.2-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-Socket.noarch 0:1.0.10-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-Traceroute.noarch 0:0.21.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-URL.noarch 0:1.0.15-1.el5.centos set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-URL-Mapper.noarch 0:0.9.0-2.el5.1 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-URL2.noarch 0:0.3.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Net-UserAgent-Detect.noarch 0:2.5.2-1.el5 set to be update d ---> Package php-pear-Numbers-Roman.noarch 0:1.0.2-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Numbers-Words.noarch 0:0.16.1-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-OLE.noarch 0:1.0.0-0.4.rc1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-PHP-CodeSniffer.noarch 0:1.2.2-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-PHP-Compat.noarch 0:1.5.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-PHP-CompatInfo.noarch 0:1.4.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-PHPUnit.noarch 0:3.3.5-2.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-pecl(Xdebug) >= 2.0.0 for package: php-pear-PHPUn it --> Processing Dependency: php-channel(pear.phpunit.de) for package: php-pear-PH PUnit ---> Package php-pear-Pager.noarch 0:2.4.8-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Payment-Process.noarch 0:0.6.6-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Phlickr.noarch 0:0.2.7-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-PhpDocumentor.noarch 0:1.4.3-1.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-Smarty >= 2.6.0 for package: php-pear-PhpDocument or ---> Package php-pear-PhpDocumentor-docs.noarch 0:1.4.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-SOAP.noarch 0:0.11.0-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Spreadsheet-Excel-Writer.noarch 0:0.9.2-2.el5 set to be up dated ---> Package php-pear-Structures-DataGrid.noarch 0:0.8.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Structures-DataGrid-DataSource-Array.noarch 0:0.1.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Structures-DataGrid-DataSource-DataObject.noarch 0:0.1.2-1 .el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Structures-DataGrid-DataSource-MDB2.noarch 0:0.1.10-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Structures-DataGrid-DataSource-RSS.noarch 0:0.1.1-1.el5 se t to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Structures-DataGrid-Renderer-Pager.noarch 0:0.1.2-1.el5 se t to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Text-Diff.noarch 0:1.1.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Validate.noarch 0:0.8.3-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Validate-Finance-CreditCard.noarch 0:0.5.2-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-Var-Dump.noarch 0:1.0.3-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-XML-Beautifier.noarch 0:1.1-3.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-XML-Parser.noarch 0:1.2.8-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-XML-RSS.noarch 0:1.0.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-XML-Serializer.noarch 0:0.20.0-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-date.noarch 0:1.4.6-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-db.noarch 0:1.7.13-2.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-excel.noarch 0:0.9.0-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-file.noarch 0:1.2.2-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-log.noarch 0:1.9.3-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-mail_mime.noarch 0:1.3.1-1.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-pear-ole.noarch 0:0.5-2.el5.rf set to be updated --> Running transaction check ---> Package graphviz.i386 0:2.22.0-4.el5.rf set to be updated ---> Package php-Smarty.noarch 0:2.6.26-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-channel-phpunit.noarch 0:1.0-2.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-domxml-php4-php5.noarch 0:1.21.2-1.el5 set to be updated ---> Package php-mcrypt.i386 0:5.2.9-2.el5.centos.3 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 for package: php-mcrypt ---> Package php-pecl-radius.i386 0:1.2.5-4.el5 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 for package: php-pecl-radius ---> Package php-pecl-xdebug.i386 0:2.0.5-1.el5.1 set to be updated --> Processing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 for package: php-pecl-xdebug --> Finished Dependency Resolution php-pecl-xdebug-2.0.5-1.el5.1.i386 from epel has depsolving problems --> Missing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 is needed by package php-pecl-xdebu g-2.0.5-1.el5.1.i386 (epel) php-pecl-radius-1.2.5-4.el5.i386 from epel has depsolving problems --> Missing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 is needed by package php-pecl-radiu s-1.2.5-4.el5.i386 (epel) php-mcrypt-5.2.9-2.el5.centos.3.i386 from c5-testing has depsolving problems --> Missing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 is needed by package php-mcrypt-5.2 .9-2.el5.centos.3.i386 (c5-testing) Error: Missing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 is needed by package php-pecl-radi us-1.2.5-4.el5.i386 (epel) Error: Missing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 is needed by package php-mcrypt-5. 2.9-2.el5.centos.3.i386 (c5-testing) Error: Missing Dependency: php-api = 20041225 is needed by package php-pecl-xdeb ug-2.0.5-1.el5.1.i386 (epel) You could try using --skip-broken to work around the problem You could try running: package-cleanup --problems package-cleanup --dupes rpm -Va --nofiles --nodigest The program package-cleanup is found in the yum-utils package.

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Bundler isn't loading gems

- by Garrett

I have been having a problem with using Bundler and being able to access my gems without having to require them somewhere, as config.gem used to do that for me (as far as I know). In my Rails 3 app, I defined my Gemfile like so: clear_sources source "http://gemcutter.org" source "http://gems.github.com" bundle_path "vendor/bundler_gems" ## Bundle edge rails: git "git://github.com/rails/arel.git" git "git://github.com/rails/rack.git" gem "rails", :git => "git://github.com/rails/rails.git" ## Bundle gem "mongo_mapper", :git => "git://github.com/jnunemaker/mongomapper.git" gem "bluecloth", ">= 2.0.0" Then I run gem bundle, it bundles it all up like expected. Inside the environment.rb file that is included within boot.rb it looks like this: # DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE module Bundler file = File.expand_path(__FILE__) dir = File.dirname(file) ENV["PATH"] = "#{dir}/../../../../bin:#{ENV["PATH"]}" ENV["RUBYOPT"] = "-r#{file} #{ENV["RUBYOPT"]}" $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/builder-2.1.2/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/builder-2.1.2/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/text-hyphen-1.0.0/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/text-hyphen-1.0.0/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/i18n-0.3.3/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/i18n-0.3.3/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/arel/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/arel/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activemodel/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activemodel/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/jnunemaker-validatable-1.8.1/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/jnunemaker-validatable-1.8.1/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/abstract-1.0.0/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/abstract-1.0.0/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/erubis-2.6.5/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/erubis-2.6.5/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/mime-types-1.16/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/mime-types-1.16/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/mail-2.1.2/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/mail-2.1.2/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/rake-0.8.7/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/railties/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/railties/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/memcache-client-1.7.7/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/memcache-client-1.7.7/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rack/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rack/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/rack-test-0.5.3/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/rack-test-0.5.3/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/rack-mount-0.4.5/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/rack-mount-0.4.5/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/actionpack/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/actionpack/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/bluecloth-2.0.7/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/bluecloth-2.0.7/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/bluecloth-2.0.7/ext") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activerecord/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activerecord/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/text-format-1.0.0/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/text-format-1.0.0/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/actionmailer/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/actionmailer/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/tzinfo-0.3.16/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/tzinfo-0.3.16/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activesupport/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activesupport/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activeresource/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/activeresource/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/rails/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/mongo-0.18.2/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/gems/mongo-0.18.2/lib") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/mongomapper/bin") $LOAD_PATH.unshift File.expand_path("#{dir}/dirs/mongomapper/lib") @gemfile = "#{dir}/../../../../Gemfile" require "rubygems" unless respond_to?(:gem) # 1.9 already has RubyGems loaded @bundled_specs = {} @bundled_specs["builder"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/builder-2.1.2.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["builder"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/builder-2.1.2.gemspec" @bundled_specs["text-hyphen"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/text-hyphen-1.0.0.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["text-hyphen"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/text-hyphen-1.0.0.gemspec" @bundled_specs["i18n"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/i18n-0.3.3.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["i18n"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/i18n-0.3.3.gemspec" @bundled_specs["arel"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/arel-0.2.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["arel"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/arel-0.2.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["activemodel"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/activemodel-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["activemodel"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/activemodel-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["jnunemaker-validatable"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/jnunemaker-validatable-1.8.1.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["jnunemaker-validatable"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/jnunemaker-validatable-1.8.1.gemspec" @bundled_specs["abstract"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/abstract-1.0.0.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["abstract"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/abstract-1.0.0.gemspec" @bundled_specs["erubis"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/erubis-2.6.5.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["erubis"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/erubis-2.6.5.gemspec" @bundled_specs["mime-types"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/mime-types-1.16.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["mime-types"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/mime-types-1.16.gemspec" @bundled_specs["mail"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/mail-2.1.2.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["mail"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/mail-2.1.2.gemspec" @bundled_specs["rake"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/rake-0.8.7.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["rake"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/rake-0.8.7.gemspec" @bundled_specs["railties"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/railties-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["railties"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/railties-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["memcache-client"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/memcache-client-1.7.7.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["memcache-client"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/memcache-client-1.7.7.gemspec" @bundled_specs["rack"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/rack-1.1.0.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["rack"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/rack-1.1.0.gemspec" @bundled_specs["rack-test"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/rack-test-0.5.3.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["rack-test"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/rack-test-0.5.3.gemspec" @bundled_specs["rack-mount"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/rack-mount-0.4.5.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["rack-mount"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/rack-mount-0.4.5.gemspec" @bundled_specs["actionpack"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/actionpack-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["actionpack"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/actionpack-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["bluecloth"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/bluecloth-2.0.7.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["bluecloth"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/bluecloth-2.0.7.gemspec" @bundled_specs["activerecord"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/activerecord-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["activerecord"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/activerecord-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["text-format"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/text-format-1.0.0.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["text-format"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/text-format-1.0.0.gemspec" @bundled_specs["actionmailer"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/actionmailer-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["actionmailer"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/actionmailer-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["tzinfo"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/tzinfo-0.3.16.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["tzinfo"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/tzinfo-0.3.16.gemspec" @bundled_specs["activesupport"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/activesupport-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["activesupport"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/activesupport-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["activeresource"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/activeresource-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["activeresource"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/activeresource-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["rails"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/rails-3.0.pre.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["rails"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/rails-3.0.pre.gemspec" @bundled_specs["mongo"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/mongo-0.18.2.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["mongo"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/mongo-0.18.2.gemspec" @bundled_specs["mongo_mapper"] = eval(File.read("#{dir}/specifications/mongo_mapper-0.6.10.gemspec")) @bundled_specs["mongo_mapper"].loaded_from = "#{dir}/specifications/mongo_mapper-0.6.10.gemspec" def self.add_specs_to_loaded_specs Gem.loaded_specs.merge! @bundled_specs end def self.add_specs_to_index @bundled_specs.each do |name, spec| Gem.source_index.add_spec spec end end add_specs_to_loaded_specs add_specs_to_index def self.require_env(env = nil) context = Class.new do def initialize(env) @env = env && env.to_s ; end def method_missing(*) ; yield if block_given? ; end def only(*env) old, @only = @only, _combine_only(env.flatten) yield @only = old end def except(*env) old, @except = @except, _combine_except(env.flatten) yield @except = old end def gem(name, *args) opt = args.last.is_a?(Hash) ? args.pop : {} only = _combine_only(opt[:only] || opt["only"]) except = _combine_except(opt[:except] || opt["except"]) files = opt[:require_as] || opt["require_as"] || name files = [files] unless files.respond_to?(:each) return unless !only || only.any? {|e| e == @env } return if except && except.any? {|e| e == @env } if files = opt[:require_as] || opt["require_as"] files = Array(files) files.each { |f| require f } else begin require name rescue LoadError # Do nothing end end yield if block_given? true end private def _combine_only(only) return @only unless only only = [only].flatten.compact.uniq.map { |o| o.to_s } only &= @only if @only only end def _combine_except(except) return @except unless except except = [except].flatten.compact.uniq.map { |o| o.to_s } except |= @except if @except except end end context.new(env && env.to_s).instance_eval(File.read(@gemfile), @gemfile, 1) end end module Gem @loaded_stacks = Hash.new { |h,k| h[k] = [] } def source_index.refresh! super Bundler.add_specs_to_index end end But when I try to access any of my gems, e.g. MongoMapper, Paperclip, Haml, etc. I get: NameError: uninitialized constant MongoMapper The same goes for any other gem. Does Bundler not include gems like the old Rails 2.0 did? Or is something messed up with my system? Any help would be appreciated, thank you!

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Delphi 2009 - Strip non alpha numeric from string

- by Brad

I've got the following code, and need to strip all non alpha numeric characters. It's not working in delphi 2009 ` unit Unit2; //Used information from // http://stackoverflow.com/questions/574603/what-is-the-fastest-way-of-stripping-non-alphanumeric-characters-from-a-string-in interface uses Windows, Messages, SysUtils, Variants, Classes, Graphics, Controls, Forms, Dialogs, StdCtrls; Type TExplodeArray = Array Of String; TForm2 = class(TForm) Memo1: TMemo; ListBox1: TListBox; Button1: TButton; procedure Button1Click(Sender: TObject); private { Private declarations } public { Public declarations } Function Explode ( Const cSeparator, vString : String ) : TExplodeArray; Function Implode ( Const cSeparator : String; Const cArray : TExplodeArray ) : String; Function StripHTML ( S : String ) : String; function allwords(data:string):integer; end; var Form2: TForm2; allword, allphrase: TExplodeArray; implementation {$R *.dfm} Function TForm2.StripHTML ( S : String ) : String; Var TagBegin, TagEnd, TagLength : Integer; Begin TagBegin := Pos ( '<', S ); // search position of first < While ( TagBegin > 0 ) Do Begin // while there is a < in S TagEnd := Pos ( '>', S ); // find the matching > TagLength := TagEnd - TagBegin + 1; Delete ( S, TagBegin, TagLength ); // delete the tag TagBegin := Pos ( '<', S ); // search for next < End; Result := S; // give the result End; Function TForm2.Implode ( Const cSeparator : String; Const cArray : TExplodeArray ) : String; Var i : Integer; Begin Result := ''; For i := 0 To Length ( cArray ) - 1 Do Begin Result := Result + cSeparator + cArray [i]; End; System.Delete ( Result, 1, Length ( cSeparator ) ); End; Function TForm2.Explode ( Const cSeparator, vString : String ) : TExplodeArray; Var i : Integer; S : String; Begin S := vString; SetLength ( Result, 0 ); i := 0; While Pos ( cSeparator, S ) 0 Do Begin SetLength ( Result, Length ( Result ) + 1 ); Result[i] := Copy ( S, 1, Pos ( cSeparator, S ) - 1 ); Inc ( i ); S := Copy ( S, Pos ( cSeparator, S ) + Length ( cSeparator ), Length ( S ) ); End; SetLength ( Result, Length ( Result ) + 1 ); Result[i] := Copy ( S, 1, Length ( S ) ); End; //Copied from JclStrings function StrKeepChars(const S: AnsiString; const Chars: TSysCharSet): AnsiString; var Source, Dest: PChar; begin SetLength(Result, Length(S)); UniqueString(Result); Source := PChar(S); Dest := PChar(Result); while (Source < nil) and (Source^ < #0) do begin if Source^ in Chars then begin Dest^ := Source^; Inc(Dest); end; Inc(Source); end; SetLength(Result, (Longint(Dest) - Longint(PChar(Result))) div SizeOf(AnsiChar)); end; function ReplaceNewlines(const AValue: string): string; var SrcPtr, DestPtr: PChar; begin SrcPtr := PChar(AValue); SetLength(Result, Length(AValue)); DestPtr := PChar(Result); while SrcPtr < {greater than less than} #0 do begin if (SrcPtr[0] = #13) and (SrcPtr[1] = #10) then begin DestPtr[0] := '\'; DestPtr[1] := 't'; Inc(SrcPtr); Inc(DestPtr); end else DestPtr[0] := SrcPtr[0]; Inc(SrcPtr); Inc(DestPtr); end; SetLength(Result, DestPtr - PChar(Result)); end; function StripNonAlphaNumeric(const AValue: string): string; var SrcPtr, DestPtr: PChar; begin SrcPtr := PChar(AValue); SetLength(Result, Length(AValue)); DestPtr := PChar(Result); while SrcPtr < #0 do begin if SrcPtr[0] in ['a'..'z', 'A'..'Z', '0'..'9'] then begin DestPtr[0] := SrcPtr[0]; Inc(DestPtr); end; Inc(SrcPtr); end; SetLength(Result, DestPtr - PChar(Result)); end; function TForm2.allwords(data:string):integer; var i:integer; begin listbox1.Items.add(data); data:= StripHTML ( data ); listbox1.Items.add(data); ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// data := StrKeepChars(data, ['A'..'Z', 'a'..'z', '0'..'9']); // Strips out everything data comes back blank in Delphi 2009 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// listbox1.Items.add(data); data := stringreplace(data,' ',' ', [rfReplaceAll, rfIgnoreCase] ); //Replace two spaces with one. listbox1.Items.add(data); allword:= explode(' ',data); { // Converting the following PHP code to Delphi $text = ereg_replace("[^[:alnum:]]", " ", $text); while(strpos($text,' ')!==false) $text = ereg_replace(" ", " ", $text); $text=$string=strtolower($text); $text=explode(" ",$text); return count($text); } for I := 0 to Length(allword) - 1 do listbox1.Items.Add(allword[i]); end; procedure TForm2.Button1Click(Sender: TObject); begin //[^[:alnum:]] allwords(memo1.Text); end; end. ` How else would I go about doing this? Thanks

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Why is this RMagick call generating a segmentation fault?

- by Grant Heaslip

I've been banging my head against the wall for the better part of an hour trying to figure out what's going wrong here, and I'm sure (or rather hoping) it's something fairly obvious that I'm overlooking. I'm using Ruby 1.9.1, Sinatra 1.0, and RMagick 2.13.1. ImageMagick and RMagick are correctly installed and functional—I've successfully manipulated and saved images from irb. The relevant part of the params array (formatting changes for the sake of readability): {"admin_user_new_image_file"=> { :filename=>"freddie-on-shetland-pony.png", :type=>"image/png", :name=>"admin_user_new_image_file", :tempfile=>#<File:/var/folders/a7/a7pO5jMcGLCww9XBGRvWfE+++TI/-Tmp-/RackMultipart20100514-20700-o2tkqu-0>, :head=>"Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"admin_user_new_image_file\"; filename=\"freddie-on-shetland-pony.png\"\r\nContent-Type: image/png\r\n" } } The relevant code: post "/admin/user/:account_name/image/new/" do if params[:admin_user_new_image_file][:tempfile] thumbnail = Magick::Image.read("png:"+params[:admin_user_new_image_file][:tempfile].path).first end end The error (line 229 is the line starting with "thumbnail = ": config.ru:229: [BUG] Segmentation fault ruby 1.9.1p376 (2009-12-07 revision 26041) [i386-darwin10.3.0] -- control frame ---------- c:0042 p:---- s:0196 b:0196 l:000195 d:000195 CFUNC :read c:0041 p:0121 s:0192 b:0192 l:001ab8 d:000191 LAMBDA config.ru:229 c:0040 p:---- s:0189 b:0189 l:000188 d:000188 FINISH c:0039 p:---- s:0187 b:0187 l:000186 d:000186 CFUNC :call c:0038 p:0018 s:0184 b:0184 l:001d78 d:000183 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:865 c:0037 p:---- s:0182 b:0182 l:000181 d:000181 FINISH c:0036 p:---- s:0180 b:0180 l:000179 d:000179 CFUNC :instance_eval c:0035 p:0016 s:0177 b:0175 l:000174 d:000174 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:521 c:0034 p:0024 s:0171 b:0171 l:000148 d:000170 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:500 c:0033 p:---- s:0169 b:0169 l:000168 d:000168 FINISH c:0032 p:---- s:0167 b:0167 l:000166 d:000166 CFUNC :catch c:0031 p:0140 s:0163 b:0163 l:000148 d:000162 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:497 c:0030 p:---- s:0154 b:0154 l:000153 d:000153 FINISH c:0029 p:---- s:0152 b:0152 l:000151 d:000151 CFUNC :each c:0028 p:0073 s:0149 b:0149 l:000148 d:000148 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:476 c:0027 p:0076 s:0141 b:0141 l:000140 d:000140 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:601 c:0026 p:0009 s:0137 b:0137 l:000138 d:000136 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:411 c:0025 p:---- s:0135 b:0135 l:000134 d:000134 FINISH c:0024 p:---- s:0133 b:0133 l:000132 d:000132 CFUNC :instance_eval c:0023 p:0012 s:0130 b:0130 l:000121 d:000129 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:566 c:0022 p:---- s:0128 b:0128 l:000127 d:000127 FINISH c:0021 p:---- s:0126 b:0126 l:000125 d:000125 CFUNC :catch c:0020 p:0013 s:0122 b:0122 l:000121 d:000121 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:566 c:0019 p:0098 s:0115 b:0115 l:000138 d:000138 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:411 c:0018 p:0019 s:0108 b:0108 l:000107 d:000107 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:399 c:0017 p:0014 s:0104 b:0104 l:000103 d:000103 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/showexceptions.rb:24 c:0016 p:0150 s:0098 b:0098 l:000097 d:000097 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:24 c:0015 p:0031 s:0092 b:0092 l:000091 d:000091 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/commonlogger.rb:18 c:0014 p:0018 s:0084 b:0084 l:002080 d:000083 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:979 c:0013 p:0032 s:0082 b:0082 l:000081 d:000081 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:1005 c:0012 p:0011 s:0078 b:0078 l:002080 d:002080 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:979 c:0011 p:0100 s:0074 b:0074 l:000ff0 d:000ff0 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lint.rb:47 c:0010 p:0022 s:0068 b:0068 l:000067 d:000067 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lint.rb:35 c:0009 p:0014 s:0064 b:0064 l:000063 d:000063 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/showexceptions.rb:24 c:0008 p:0031 s:0058 b:0058 l:000057 d:000057 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/commonlogger.rb:18 c:0007 p:0014 s:0050 b:0050 l:000049 d:000049 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/content_length.rb:13 c:0006 p:0320 s:0042 b:0042 l:000041 d:000041 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/handler/webrick.rb:48 c:0005 p:0256 s:0030 b:0030 l:000029 d:000029 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:111 c:0004 p:0382 s:0020 b:0020 l:000019 d:000019 METHOD /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:70 c:0003 p:0123 s:0009 b:0009 l:000bc8 d:000008 BLOCK /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/server.rb:183 c:0002 p:---- s:0004 b:0004 l:000003 d:000003 FINISH c:0001 p:---- s:0002 b:0002 l:000001 d:000001 TOP --------------------------- -- Ruby level backtrace information----------------------------------------- config.ru:229:in `read' config.ru:229:in `block (2 levels) in <main>' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:865:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:865:in `block in route' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:521:in `instance_eval' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:521:in `route_eval' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:500:in `block (2 levels) in route!' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:497:in `catch' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:497:in `block in route!' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:476:in `each' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:476:in `route!' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:601:in `dispatch!' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:411:in `block in call!' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:566:in `instance_eval' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:566:in `block in invoke' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:566:in `catch' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:566:in `invoke' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:411:in `call!' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:399:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/showexceptions.rb:24:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:24:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/commonlogger.rb:18:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:979:in `block in call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:1005:in `synchronize' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/sinatra-1.0/lib/sinatra/base.rb:979:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lint.rb:47:in `_call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lint.rb:35:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/showexceptions.rb:24:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/commonlogger.rb:18:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/content_length.rb:13:in `call' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/handler/webrick.rb:48:in `service' /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:111:in `service' /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/httpserver.rb:70:in `run' /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.9.1/webrick/server.rb:183:in `block in start_thread' -- C level backtrace information ------------------------------------------- 0x10010cd8d 0 libruby.dylib 0x000000010010cd8d rb_vm_bugreport + 77 0x10002b184 1 libruby.dylib 0x000000010002b184 report_bug + 260 0x10002b318 2 libruby.dylib 0x000000010002b318 rb_bug + 200 0x1000b7124 3 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000b7124 sigsegv + 132 0x7fff8301c80a 4 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff8301c80a _sigtramp + 26 0x1032313ac 5 libMagickCore.3.dylib 0x00000001032313ac Splay + 300 0x103119245 6 libMagickCore.3.dylib 0x0000000103119245 AcquirePixelCache + 325 0x1031cb317 7 libMagickCore.3.dylib 0x00000001031cb317 AcquireImage + 375 0x10333035b 8 libMagickCore.3.dylib 0x000000010333035b ReadPNGImage + 155 0x1031418fd 9 libMagickCore.3.dylib 0x00000001031418fd ReadImage + 2221 0x101f1b72b 10 RMagick2.bundle 0x0000000101f1b72b rd_image + 339 0x101f1b59b 11 RMagick2.bundle 0x0000000101f1b59b Image_read + 36 0x1000fd0e4 12 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 13 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 14 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 15 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x100106643 16 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100106643 rb_vm_invoke_proc + 691 0x100106ccd 17 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100106ccd vm_call0 + 1085 0x1000317c6 18 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000317c6 rb_method_call + 406 0x1000fd0e4 19 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 20 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 21 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 22 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x100105ce6 23 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100105ce6 yield_under + 710 0x100106188 24 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100106188 specific_eval + 72 0x1000fd0e4 25 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 26 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 27 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 28 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x10010b6bf 29 libruby.dylib 0x000000010010b6bf rb_f_catch + 639 0x1000fd0e4 30 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 31 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 32 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 33 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x10010aac9 34 libruby.dylib 0x000000010010aac9 rb_yield + 505 0x100007902 35 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100007902 rb_ary_each + 82 0x1000fd0e4 36 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 37 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 38 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 39 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x100105ce6 40 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100105ce6 yield_under + 710 0x100106188 41 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100106188 specific_eval + 72 0x1000fd0e4 42 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 43 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 44 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 45 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x10010b6bf 46 libruby.dylib 0x000000010010b6bf rb_f_catch + 639 0x1000fd0e4 47 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fd0e4 vm_call_cfunc + 340 0x1000fe9b0 48 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000fe9b0 vm_call_method + 896 0x1000ff8fc 49 libruby.dylib 0x00000001000ff8fc vm_exec_core + 3180 0x100104b93 50 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100104b93 vm_exec + 1203 0x100106643 51 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100106643 rb_vm_invoke_proc + 691 0x100111803 52 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100111803 thread_start_func_2 + 835 0x100111921 53 libruby.dylib 0x0000000100111921 thread_start_func_1 + 17 0x7fff82ff58b6 54 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff82ff58b6 _pthread_start + 331 0x7fff82ff5769 55 libSystem.B.dylib 0x00007fff82ff5769 thread_start + 13 [NOTE] You may encounter a bug of Ruby interpreter. Bug reports are welcome. For details: http://www.ruby-lang.org/bugreport.html Abort trap Anyone have any idea what's going on? Thanks!

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Exception with RubyAMF and Ruby 1.9 although code works

- by Tam

I'm getting an exception with RubyAMF using Ruby 1.9 and Rails 2.3.5. Although code afterward executes normally I'm not very comfortable with seeing such exception in the log file. Do you know what is causing it: >>>>>>>> RubyAMF >>>>>>>>> #<RubyAMF::Actions::PrepareAction:0x0000010139ff48> took: 0.00020 secs >>>>>>>> RubyAMF >>>>>>>>> #<RubyAMF::Actions::RailsInvokeAction:0x0000010139ff10> took: 0.29973 secs You have a nil object when you didn't expect it! You might have expected an instance of Array. The error occurred while evaluating nil.include? /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods.rb:142:in `create_time_zone_conversion_attribute?' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods.rb:75:in `block in define_attribute_methods' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods.rb:71:in `each' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods.rb:71:in `define_attribute_methods' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods.rb:242:in `method_missing' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/base.rb:2832:in `hash' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:366:in `hash' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:366:in `hash' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:366:in `[]=' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:366:in `store_object' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:234:in `write_amf3_object' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:154:in `write_amf3' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:78:in `write' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:70:in `block in run' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:56:in `upto' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/io/amf_serializer.rb:56:in `run' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/app/filters.rb:91:in `block in run' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.1-p378/lib/ruby/1.9.1/benchmark.rb:309:in `realtime' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/app/filters.rb:91:in `run' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/app/filters.rb:12:in `block in run' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/app/filters.rb:11:in `each' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/app/filters.rb:11:in `run' /Users/tammam56/lal/vendor/plugins/ruby_amf/app/rails_gateway.rb:28:in `service' /Users/tammam56/lal/app/controllers/rubyamf_controller.rb:19:in `gateway' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/base.rb:1331:in `perform_action' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/filters.rb:617:in `call_filters' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/filters.rb:610:in `perform_action_with_filters' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/benchmarking.rb:68:in `block in perform_action_with_benchmark' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/core_ext/benchmark.rb:17:in `block in ms' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.1-p378/lib/ruby/1.9.1/benchmark.rb:309:in `realtime' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activesupport-2.3.5/lib/active_support/core_ext/benchmark.rb:17:in `ms' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/benchmarking.rb:68:in `perform_action_with_benchmark' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/rescue.rb:160:in `perform_action_with_rescue' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/flash.rb:146:in `perform_action_with_flash' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/base.rb:532:in `process' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/filters.rb:606:in `process_with_filters' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/base.rb:391:in `process' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/base.rb:386:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/routing/route_set.rb:437:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:87:in `dispatch' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:121:in `_call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:130:in `block in build_middleware_stack' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:29:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:29:in `block in call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/query_cache.rb:34:in `cache' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:9:in `cache' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:28:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:361:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/string_coercion.rb:25:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/head.rb:9:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:24:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/params_parser.rb:15:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/session/cookie_store.rb:93:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/failsafe.rb:26:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in `block in call' <internal:prelude>:8:in `synchronize' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:114:in `block in call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/reloader.rb:34:in `run' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/actionpack-2.3.5/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:108:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/rails/rack/static.rb:31:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:46:in `block in call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:40:in `each' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:40:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rails-2.3.5/lib/rails/rack/log_tailer.rb:17:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/content_length.rb:13:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/chunked.rb:15:in `call' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/rack-1.0.1/lib/rack/handler/mongrel.rb:64:in `process' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/mongrel-1.1.5/lib/mongrel.rb:159:in `block in process_client' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/mongrel-1.1.5/lib/mongrel.rb:158:in `each' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/mongrel-1.1.5/lib/mongrel.rb:158:in `process_client' /Users/tammam56/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.1-p378/gems/mongrel-1.1.5/lib/mongrel.rb:285:in `block (2 levels) in run '

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