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  • Android - what's the difference between the various methods to get a Context?

    - by Alnitak
    In various bits of Android code I've seen: public class MyActivity extends Activity { public void method() { mContext = this; // since Activity extends Context mContext = getApplicationContext(); mContext = getBaseContext(); } } However I can't find any decent explanation of which is preferable, and under what circumstances which should be used. Pointers to documentation on this, and guidance about what might break if the wrong one is chosen, would be much appreciated.

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  • methods of joining 2 tables without using JOIN or SELECT more than one distinct table in the query

    - by GB_J
    Is there a way of joining results from 2 tables without using JOIN or SELECT from more than one table? The reason being the database im working with requires queries that only contain SELECT, FROM, and WHERE clauses containing only one distinct table. I do, however, need information from other tables for the project i'm working on. More info: the querier returns the query results in a .csv format, is there something we can manipulate there?

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  • Creating a dynamic, extensible C# Expando Object

    - by Rick Strahl
    I love dynamic functionality in a strongly typed language because it offers us the best of both worlds. In C# (or any of the main .NET languages) we now have the dynamic type that provides a host of dynamic features for the static C# language. One place where I've found dynamic to be incredibly useful is in building extensible types or types that expose traditionally non-object data (like dictionaries) in easier to use and more readable syntax. I wrote about a couple of these for accessing old school ADO.NET DataRows and DataReaders more easily for example. These classes are dynamic wrappers that provide easier syntax and auto-type conversions which greatly simplifies code clutter and increases clarity in existing code. ExpandoObject in .NET 4.0 Another great use case for dynamic objects is the ability to create extensible objects - objects that start out with a set of static members and then can add additional properties and even methods dynamically. The .NET 4.0 framework actually includes an ExpandoObject class which provides a very dynamic object that allows you to add properties and methods on the fly and then access them again. For example with ExpandoObject you can do stuff like this:dynamic expand = new ExpandoObject(); expand.Name = "Rick"; expand.HelloWorld = (Func<string, string>) ((string name) => { return "Hello " + name; }); Console.WriteLine(expand.Name); Console.WriteLine(expand.HelloWorld("Dufus")); Internally ExpandoObject uses a Dictionary like structure and interface to store properties and methods and then allows you to add and access properties and methods easily. As cool as ExpandoObject is it has a few shortcomings too: It's a sealed type so you can't use it as a base class It only works off 'properties' in the internal Dictionary - you can't expose existing type data It doesn't serialize to XML or with DataContractSerializer/DataContractJsonSerializer Expando - A truly extensible Object ExpandoObject is nice if you just need a dynamic container for a dictionary like structure. However, if you want to build an extensible object that starts out with a set of strongly typed properties and then allows you to extend it, ExpandoObject does not work because it's a sealed class that can't be inherited. I started thinking about this very scenario for one of my applications I'm building for a customer. In this system we are connecting to various different user stores. Each user store has the same basic requirements for username, password, name etc. But then each store also has a number of extended properties that is available to each application. In the real world scenario the data is loaded from the database in a data reader and the known properties are assigned from the known fields in the database. All unknown fields are then 'added' to the expando object dynamically. In the past I've done this very thing with a separate property - Properties - just like I do for this class. But the property and dictionary syntax is not ideal and tedious to work with. I started thinking about how to represent these extra property structures. One way certainly would be to add a Dictionary, or an ExpandoObject to hold all those extra properties. But wouldn't it be nice if the application could actually extend an existing object that looks something like this as you can with the Expando object:public class User : Westwind.Utilities.Dynamic.Expando { public string Email { get; set; } public string Password { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public bool Active { get; set; } public DateTime? ExpiresOn { get; set; } } and then simply start extending the properties of this object dynamically? Using the Expando object I describe later you can now do the following:[TestMethod] public void UserExampleTest() { var user = new User(); // Set strongly typed properties user.Email = "[email protected]"; user.Password = "nonya123"; user.Name = "Rickochet"; user.Active = true; // Now add dynamic properties dynamic duser = user; duser.Entered = DateTime.Now; duser.Accesses = 1; // you can also add dynamic props via indexer user["NickName"] = "AntiSocialX"; duser["WebSite"] = "http://www.west-wind.com/weblog"; // Access strong type through dynamic ref Assert.AreEqual(user.Name,duser.Name); // Access strong type through indexer Assert.AreEqual(user.Password,user["Password"]); // access dyanmically added value through indexer Assert.AreEqual(duser.Entered,user["Entered"]); // access index added value through dynamic Assert.AreEqual(user["NickName"],duser.NickName); // loop through all properties dynamic AND strong type properties (true) foreach (var prop in user.GetProperties(true)) { object val = prop.Value; if (val == null) val = "null"; Console.WriteLine(prop.Key + ": " + val.ToString()); } } As you can see this code somewhat blurs the line between a static and dynamic type. You start with a strongly typed object that has a fixed set of properties. You can then cast the object to dynamic (as I discussed in my last post) and add additional properties to the object. You can also use an indexer to add dynamic properties to the object. To access the strongly typed properties you can use either the strongly typed instance, the indexer or the dynamic cast of the object. Personally I think it's kinda cool to have an easy way to access strongly typed properties by string which can make some data scenarios much easier. To access the 'dynamically added' properties you can use either the indexer on the strongly typed object, or property syntax on the dynamic cast. Using the dynamic type allows all three modes to work on both strongly typed and dynamic properties. Finally you can iterate over all properties, both dynamic and strongly typed if you chose. Lots of flexibility. Note also that by default the Expando object works against the (this) instance meaning it extends the current object. You can also pass in a separate instance to the constructor in which case that object will be used to iterate over to find properties rather than this. Using this approach provides some really interesting functionality when use the dynamic type. To use this we have to add an explicit constructor to the Expando subclass:public class User : Westwind.Utilities.Dynamic.Expando { public string Email { get; set; } public string Password { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public bool Active { get; set; } public DateTime? ExpiresOn { get; set; } public User() : base() { } // only required if you want to mix in seperate instance public User(object instance) : base(instance) { } } to allow the instance to be passed. When you do you can now do:[TestMethod] public void ExpandoMixinTest() { // have Expando work on Addresses var user = new User( new Address() ); // cast to dynamicAccessToPropertyTest dynamic duser = user; // Set strongly typed properties duser.Email = "[email protected]"; user.Password = "nonya123"; // Set properties on address object duser.Address = "32 Kaiea"; //duser.Phone = "808-123-2131"; // set dynamic properties duser.NonExistantProperty = "This works too"; // shows default value Address.Phone value Console.WriteLine(duser.Phone); } Using the dynamic cast in this case allows you to access *three* different 'objects': The strong type properties, the dynamically added properties in the dictionary and the properties of the instance passed in! Effectively this gives you a way to simulate multiple inheritance (which is scary - so be very careful with this, but you can do it). How Expando works Behind the scenes Expando is a DynamicObject subclass as I discussed in my last post. By implementing a few of DynamicObject's methods you can basically create a type that can trap 'property missing' and 'method missing' operations. When you access a non-existant property a known method is fired that our code can intercept and provide a value for. Internally Expando uses a custom dictionary implementation to hold the dynamic properties you might add to your expandable object. Let's look at code first. The code for the Expando type is straight forward and given what it provides relatively short. Here it is.using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Dynamic; using System.Reflection; namespace Westwind.Utilities.Dynamic { /// <summary> /// Class that provides extensible properties and methods. This /// dynamic object stores 'extra' properties in a dictionary or /// checks the actual properties of the instance. /// /// This means you can subclass this expando and retrieve either /// native properties or properties from values in the dictionary. /// /// This type allows you three ways to access its properties: /// /// Directly: any explicitly declared properties are accessible /// Dynamic: dynamic cast allows access to dictionary and native properties/methods /// Dictionary: Any of the extended properties are accessible via IDictionary interface /// </summary> [Serializable] public class Expando : DynamicObject, IDynamicMetaObjectProvider { /// <summary> /// Instance of object passed in /// </summary> object Instance; /// <summary> /// Cached type of the instance /// </summary> Type InstanceType; PropertyInfo[] InstancePropertyInfo { get { if (_InstancePropertyInfo == null && Instance != null) _InstancePropertyInfo = Instance.GetType().GetProperties(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly); return _InstancePropertyInfo; } } PropertyInfo[] _InstancePropertyInfo; /// <summary> /// String Dictionary that contains the extra dynamic values /// stored on this object/instance /// </summary> /// <remarks>Using PropertyBag to support XML Serialization of the dictionary</remarks> public PropertyBag Properties = new PropertyBag(); //public Dictionary<string,object> Properties = new Dictionary<string, object>(); /// <summary> /// This constructor just works off the internal dictionary and any /// public properties of this object. /// /// Note you can subclass Expando. /// </summary> public Expando() { Initialize(this); } /// <summary> /// Allows passing in an existing instance variable to 'extend'. /// </summary> /// <remarks> /// You can pass in null here if you don't want to /// check native properties and only check the Dictionary! /// </remarks> /// <param name="instance"></param> public Expando(object instance) { Initialize(instance); } protected virtual void Initialize(object instance) { Instance = instance; if (instance != null) InstanceType = instance.GetType(); } /// <summary> /// Try to retrieve a member by name first from instance properties /// followed by the collection entries. /// </summary> /// <param name="binder"></param> /// <param name="result"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override bool TryGetMember(GetMemberBinder binder, out object result) { result = null; // first check the Properties collection for member if (Properties.Keys.Contains(binder.Name)) { result = Properties[binder.Name]; return true; } // Next check for Public properties via Reflection if (Instance != null) { try { return GetProperty(Instance, binder.Name, out result); } catch { } } // failed to retrieve a property result = null; return false; } /// <summary> /// Property setter implementation tries to retrieve value from instance /// first then into this object /// </summary> /// <param name="binder"></param> /// <param name="value"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override bool TrySetMember(SetMemberBinder binder, object value) { // first check to see if there's a native property to set if (Instance != null) { try { bool result = SetProperty(Instance, binder.Name, value); if (result) return true; } catch { } } // no match - set or add to dictionary Properties[binder.Name] = value; return true; } /// <summary> /// Dynamic invocation method. Currently allows only for Reflection based /// operation (no ability to add methods dynamically). /// </summary> /// <param name="binder"></param> /// <param name="args"></param> /// <param name="result"></param> /// <returns></returns> public override bool TryInvokeMember(InvokeMemberBinder binder, object[] args, out object result) { if (Instance != null) { try { // check instance passed in for methods to invoke if (InvokeMethod(Instance, binder.Name, args, out result)) return true; } catch { } } result = null; return false; } /// <summary> /// Reflection Helper method to retrieve a property /// </summary> /// <param name="instance"></param> /// <param name="name"></param> /// <param name="result"></param> /// <returns></returns> protected bool GetProperty(object instance, string name, out object result) { if (instance == null) instance = this; var miArray = InstanceType.GetMember(name, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.GetProperty | BindingFlags.Instance); if (miArray != null && miArray.Length > 0) { var mi = miArray[0]; if (mi.MemberType == MemberTypes.Property) { result = ((PropertyInfo)mi).GetValue(instance,null); return true; } } result = null; return false; } /// <summary> /// Reflection helper method to set a property value /// </summary> /// <param name="instance"></param> /// <param name="name"></param> /// <param name="value"></param> /// <returns></returns> protected bool SetProperty(object instance, string name, object value) { if (instance == null) instance = this; var miArray = InstanceType.GetMember(name, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.SetProperty | BindingFlags.Instance); if (miArray != null && miArray.Length > 0) { var mi = miArray[0]; if (mi.MemberType == MemberTypes.Property) { ((PropertyInfo)mi).SetValue(Instance, value, null); return true; } } return false; } /// <summary> /// Reflection helper method to invoke a method /// </summary> /// <param name="instance"></param> /// <param name="name"></param> /// <param name="args"></param> /// <param name="result"></param> /// <returns></returns> protected bool InvokeMethod(object instance, string name, object[] args, out object result) { if (instance == null) instance = this; // Look at the instanceType var miArray = InstanceType.GetMember(name, BindingFlags.InvokeMethod | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance); if (miArray != null && miArray.Length > 0) { var mi = miArray[0] as MethodInfo; result = mi.Invoke(Instance, args); return true; } result = null; return false; } /// <summary> /// Convenience method that provides a string Indexer /// to the Properties collection AND the strongly typed /// properties of the object by name. /// /// // dynamic /// exp["Address"] = "112 nowhere lane"; /// // strong /// var name = exp["StronglyTypedProperty"] as string; /// </summary> /// <remarks> /// The getter checks the Properties dictionary first /// then looks in PropertyInfo for properties. /// The setter checks the instance properties before /// checking the Properties dictionary. /// </remarks> /// <param name="key"></param> /// /// <returns></returns> public object this[string key] { get { try { // try to get from properties collection first return Properties[key]; } catch (KeyNotFoundException ex) { // try reflection on instanceType object result = null; if (GetProperty(Instance, key, out result)) return result; // nope doesn't exist throw; } } set { if (Properties.ContainsKey(key)) { Properties[key] = value; return; } // check instance for existance of type first var miArray = InstanceType.GetMember(key, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.GetProperty); if (miArray != null && miArray.Length > 0) SetProperty(Instance, key, value); else Properties[key] = value; } } /// <summary> /// Returns and the properties of /// </summary> /// <param name="includeProperties"></param> /// <returns></returns> public IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string,object>> GetProperties(bool includeInstanceProperties = false) { if (includeInstanceProperties && Instance != null) { foreach (var prop in this.InstancePropertyInfo) yield return new KeyValuePair<string, object>(prop.Name, prop.GetValue(Instance, null)); } foreach (var key in this.Properties.Keys) yield return new KeyValuePair<string, object>(key, this.Properties[key]); } /// <summary> /// Checks whether a property exists in the Property collection /// or as a property on the instance /// </summary> /// <param name="item"></param> /// <returns></returns> public bool Contains(KeyValuePair<string, object> item, bool includeInstanceProperties = false) { bool res = Properties.ContainsKey(item.Key); if (res) return true; if (includeInstanceProperties && Instance != null) { foreach (var prop in this.InstancePropertyInfo) { if (prop.Name == item.Key) return true; } } return false; } } } Although the Expando class supports an indexer, it doesn't actually implement IDictionary or even IEnumerable. It only provides the indexer and Contains() and GetProperties() methods, that work against the Properties dictionary AND the internal instance. The reason for not implementing IDictionary is that a) it doesn't add much value since you can access the Properties dictionary directly and that b) I wanted to keep the interface to class very lean so that it can serve as an entity type if desired. Implementing these IDictionary (or even IEnumerable) causes LINQ extension methods to pop up on the type which obscures the property interface and would only confuse the purpose of the type. IDictionary and IEnumerable are also problematic for XML and JSON Serialization - the XML Serializer doesn't serialize IDictionary<string,object>, nor does the DataContractSerializer. The JavaScriptSerializer does serialize, but it treats the entire object like a dictionary and doesn't serialize the strongly typed properties of the type, only the dictionary values which is also not desirable. Hence the decision to stick with only implementing the indexer to support the user["CustomProperty"] functionality and leaving iteration functions to the publicly exposed Properties dictionary. Note that the Dictionary used here is a custom PropertyBag class I created to allow for serialization to work. One important aspect for my apps is that whatever custom properties get added they have to be accessible to AJAX clients since the particular app I'm working on is a SIngle Page Web app where most of the Web access is through JSON AJAX calls. PropertyBag can serialize to XML and one way serialize to JSON using the JavaScript serializer (not the DCS serializers though). The key components that make Expando work in this code are the Properties Dictionary and the TryGetMember() and TrySetMember() methods. The Properties collection is public so if you choose you can explicitly access the collection to get better performance or to manipulate the members in internal code (like loading up dynamic values form a database). Notice that TryGetMember() and TrySetMember() both work against the dictionary AND the internal instance to retrieve and set properties. This means that user["Name"] works against native properties of the object as does user["Name"] = "RogaDugDog". What's your Use Case? This is still an early prototype but I've plugged it into one of my customer's applications and so far it's working very well. The key features for me were the ability to easily extend the type with values coming from a database and exposing those values in a nice and easy to use manner. I'm also finding that using this type of object for ViewModels works very well to add custom properties to view models. I suspect there will be lots of uses for this - I've been using the extra dictionary approach to extensibility for years - using a dynamic type to make the syntax cleaner is just a bonus here. What can you think of to use this for? Resources Source Code and Tests (GitHub) Also integrated in Westwind.Utilities of the West Wind Web Toolkit West Wind Utilities NuGet© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in CSharp  .NET  Dynamic Types   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • How LINQ to Object statements work

    - by rajbk
    This post goes into detail as to now LINQ statements work when querying a collection of objects. This topic assumes you have an understanding of how generics, delegates, implicitly typed variables, lambda expressions, object/collection initializers, extension methods and the yield statement work. I would also recommend you read my previous two posts: Using Delegates in C# Part 1 Using Delegates in C# Part 2 We will start by writing some methods to filter a collection of data. Assume we have an Employee class like so: 1: public class Employee { 2: public int ID { get; set;} 3: public string FirstName { get; set;} 4: public string LastName {get; set;} 5: public string Country { get; set; } 6: } and a collection of employees like so: 1: var employees = new List<Employee> { 2: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 3: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 4: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 5: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" }, 6: }; Filtering We wish to  find all employees that have an even ID. We could start off by writing a method that takes in a list of employees and returns a filtered list of employees with an even ID. 1: static List<Employee> GetEmployeesWithEvenID(List<Employee> employees) { 2: var filteredEmployees = new List<Employee>(); 3: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 4: if (emp.ID % 2 == 0) { 5: filteredEmployees.Add(emp); 6: } 7: } 8: return filteredEmployees; 9: } The method can be rewritten to return an IEnumerable<Employee> using the yield return keyword. 1: static IEnumerable<Employee> GetEmployeesWithEvenID(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 2: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 3: if (emp.ID % 2 == 0) { 4: yield return emp; 5: } 6: } 7: } We put these together in a console application. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: //No System.Linq 4:  5: public class Program 6: { 7: [STAThread] 8: static void Main(string[] args) 9: { 10: var employees = new List<Employee> { 11: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 14: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" }, 15: }; 16: var filteredEmployees = GetEmployeesWithEvenID(employees); 17:  18: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 19: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 20: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 21: } 22:  23: Console.ReadLine(); 24: } 25: 26: static IEnumerable<Employee> GetEmployeesWithEvenID(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 27: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 28: if (emp.ID % 2 == 0) { 29: yield return emp; 30: } 31: } 32: } 33: } 34:  35: public class Employee { 36: public int ID { get; set;} 37: public string FirstName { get; set;} 38: public string LastName {get; set;} 39: public string Country { get; set; } 40: } Output: ID 2 First_Name Jim Last_Name Ashlock Country UK ID 4 First_Name Jill Last_Name Anderson Country AUS Our filtering method is too specific. Let us change it so that it is capable of doing different types of filtering and lets give our method the name Where ;-) We will add another parameter to our Where method. This additional parameter will be a delegate with the following declaration. public delegate bool Filter(Employee emp); The idea is that the delegate parameter in our Where method will point to a method that contains the logic to do our filtering thereby freeing our Where method from any dependency. The method is shown below: 1: static IEnumerable<Employee> Where(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, Filter filter) { 2: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 3: if (filter(emp)) { 4: yield return emp; 5: } 6: } 7: } Making the change to our app, we create a new instance of the Filter delegate on line 14 with a target set to the method EmployeeHasEvenId. Running the code will produce the same output. 1: public delegate bool Filter(Employee emp); 2:  3: public class Program 4: { 5: [STAThread] 6: static void Main(string[] args) 7: { 8: var employees = new List<Employee> { 9: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 13: }; 14: var filterDelegate = new Filter(EmployeeHasEvenId); 15: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, filterDelegate); 16:  17: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 18: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 19: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 20: } 21: Console.ReadLine(); 22: } 23: 24: static bool EmployeeHasEvenId(Employee emp) { 25: return emp.ID % 2 == 0; 26: } 27: 28: static IEnumerable<Employee> Where(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, Filter filter) { 29: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 30: if (filter(emp)) { 31: yield return emp; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } 36:  37: public class Employee { 38: public int ID { get; set;} 39: public string FirstName { get; set;} 40: public string LastName {get; set;} 41: public string Country { get; set; } 42: } Lets use lambda expressions to inline the contents of the EmployeeHasEvenId method in place of the method. The next code snippet shows this change (see line 15).  For brevity, the Employee class declaration has been skipped. 1: public delegate bool Filter(Employee emp); 2:  3: public class Program 4: { 5: [STAThread] 6: static void Main(string[] args) 7: { 8: var employees = new List<Employee> { 9: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 13: }; 14: var filterDelegate = new Filter(EmployeeHasEvenId); 15: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 16:  17: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 18: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 19: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 20: } 21: Console.ReadLine(); 22: } 23: 24: static bool EmployeeHasEvenId(Employee emp) { 25: return emp.ID % 2 == 0; 26: } 27: 28: static IEnumerable<Employee> Where(IEnumerable<Employee> employees, Filter filter) { 29: foreach (Employee emp in employees) { 30: if (filter(emp)) { 31: yield return emp; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: } 36:  The output displays the same two employees.  Our Where method is too restricted since it works with a collection of Employees only. Lets change it so that it works with any IEnumerable<T>. In addition, you may recall from my previous post,  that .NET 3.5 comes with a lot of predefined delegates including public delegate TResult Func<T, TResult>(T arg); We will get rid of our Filter delegate and use the one above instead. We apply these two changes to our code. 1: public class Program 2: { 3: [STAThread] 4: static void Main(string[] args) 5: { 6: var employees = new List<Employee> { 7: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 8: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 9: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 11: }; 12:  13: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 14:  15: foreach (Employee emp in filteredEmployees) { 16: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} First_Name {1} Last_Name {2} Country {3}", 17: emp.ID, emp.FirstName, emp.LastName, emp.Country); 18: } 19: Console.ReadLine(); 20: } 21: 22: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 23: foreach (var x in source) { 24: if (filter(x)) { 25: yield return x; 26: } 27: } 28: } 29: } We have successfully implemented a way to filter any IEnumerable<T> based on a  filter criteria. Projection Now lets enumerate on the items in the IEnumerable<Employee> we got from the Where method and copy them into a new IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted>. The EmployeeFormatted class will only have a FullName and ID property. 1: public class EmployeeFormatted { 2: public int ID { get; set; } 3: public string FullName {get; set;} 4: } We could “project” our existing IEnumerable<Employee> into a new collection of IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted> with the help of a new method. We will call this method Select ;-) 1: static IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted> Select(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 2: foreach (var emp in employees) { 3: yield return new EmployeeFormatted { 4: ID = emp.ID, 5: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 6: }; 7: } 8: } The changes are applied to our app. 1: public class Program 2: { 3: [STAThread] 4: static void Main(string[] args) 5: { 6: var employees = new List<Employee> { 7: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 8: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 9: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 11: }; 12:  13: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 14: var formattedEmployees = Select(filteredEmployees); 15:  16: foreach (EmployeeFormatted emp in formattedEmployees) { 17: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 18: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 19: } 20: Console.ReadLine(); 21: } 22:  23: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 24: foreach (var x in source) { 25: if (filter(x)) { 26: yield return x; 27: } 28: } 29: } 30: 31: static IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted> Select(IEnumerable<Employee> employees) { 32: foreach (var emp in employees) { 33: yield return new EmployeeFormatted { 34: ID = emp.ID, 35: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 36: }; 37: } 38: } 39: } 40:  41: public class Employee { 42: public int ID { get; set;} 43: public string FirstName { get; set;} 44: public string LastName {get; set;} 45: public string Country { get; set; } 46: } 47:  48: public class EmployeeFormatted { 49: public int ID { get; set; } 50: public string FullName {get; set;} 51: } Output: ID 2 Full_Name Ashlock, Jim ID 4 Full_Name Anderson, Jill We have successfully selected employees who have an even ID and then shaped our data with the help of the Select method so that the final result is an IEnumerable<EmployeeFormatted>.  Lets make our Select method more generic so that the user is given the freedom to shape what the output would look like. We can do this, like before, with lambda expressions. Our Select method is changed to accept a delegate as shown below. TSource will be the type of data that comes in and TResult will be the type the user chooses (shape of data) as returned from the selector delegate. 1:  2: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 3: foreach (var x in source) { 4: yield return selector(x); 5: } 6: } We see the new changes to our app. On line 15, we use lambda expression to specify the shape of the data. In this case the shape will be of type EmployeeFormatted. 1:  2: public class Program 3: { 4: [STAThread] 5: static void Main(string[] args) 6: { 7: var employees = new List<Employee> { 8: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 9: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 10: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 12: }; 13:  14: var filteredEmployees = Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0); 15: var formattedEmployees = Select(filteredEmployees, (emp) => 16: new EmployeeFormatted { 17: ID = emp.ID, 18: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 19: }); 20:  21: foreach (EmployeeFormatted emp in formattedEmployees) { 22: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 23: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 24: } 25: Console.ReadLine(); 26: } 27: 28: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 29: foreach (var x in source) { 30: if (filter(x)) { 31: yield return x; 32: } 33: } 34: } 35: 36: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 37: foreach (var x in source) { 38: yield return selector(x); 39: } 40: } 41: } The code outputs the same result as before. On line 14 we filter our data and on line 15 we project our data. What if we wanted to be more expressive and concise? We could combine both line 14 and 15 into one line as shown below. Assuming you had to perform several operations like this on our collection, you would end up with some very unreadable code! 1: var formattedEmployees = Select(Where(employees, emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0), (emp) => 2: new EmployeeFormatted { 3: ID = emp.ID, 4: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 5: }); A cleaner way to write this would be to give the appearance that the Select and Where methods were part of the IEnumerable<T>. This is exactly what extension methods give us. Extension methods have to be defined in a static class. Let us make the Select and Where extension methods on IEnumerable<T> 1: public static class MyExtensionMethods { 2: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 3: foreach (var x in source) { 4: if (filter(x)) { 5: yield return x; 6: } 7: } 8: } 9: 10: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 11: foreach (var x in source) { 12: yield return selector(x); 13: } 14: } 15: } The creation of the extension method makes the syntax much cleaner as shown below. We can write as many extension methods as we want and keep on chaining them using this technique. 1: var formattedEmployees = employees 2: .Where(emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0) 3: .Select (emp => new EmployeeFormatted { ID = emp.ID, FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName }); Making these changes and running our code produces the same result. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:  4: public class Program 5: { 6: [STAThread] 7: static void Main(string[] args) 8: { 9: var employees = new List<Employee> { 10: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 14: }; 15:  16: var formattedEmployees = employees 17: .Where(emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0) 18: .Select (emp => 19: new EmployeeFormatted { 20: ID = emp.ID, 21: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 22: } 23: ); 24:  25: foreach (EmployeeFormatted emp in formattedEmployees) { 26: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 27: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 28: } 29: Console.ReadLine(); 30: } 31: } 32:  33: public static class MyExtensionMethods { 34: static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 35: foreach (var x in source) { 36: if (filter(x)) { 37: yield return x; 38: } 39: } 40: } 41: 42: static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 43: foreach (var x in source) { 44: yield return selector(x); 45: } 46: } 47: } 48:  49: public class Employee { 50: public int ID { get; set;} 51: public string FirstName { get; set;} 52: public string LastName {get; set;} 53: public string Country { get; set; } 54: } 55:  56: public class EmployeeFormatted { 57: public int ID { get; set; } 58: public string FullName {get; set;} 59: } Let’s change our code to return a collection of anonymous types and get rid of the EmployeeFormatted type. We see that the code produces the same output. 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3:  4: public class Program 5: { 6: [STAThread] 7: static void Main(string[] args) 8: { 9: var employees = new List<Employee> { 10: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 11: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 14: }; 15:  16: var formattedEmployees = employees 17: .Where(emp => emp.ID % 2 == 0) 18: .Select (emp => 19: new { 20: ID = emp.ID, 21: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 22: } 23: ); 24:  25: foreach (var emp in formattedEmployees) { 26: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 27: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 28: } 29: Console.ReadLine(); 30: } 31: } 32:  33: public static class MyExtensionMethods { 34: public static IEnumerable<T> Where<T>(this IEnumerable<T> source, Func<T, bool> filter) { 35: foreach (var x in source) { 36: if (filter(x)) { 37: yield return x; 38: } 39: } 40: } 41: 42: public static IEnumerable<TResult> Select<TSource, TResult>(this IEnumerable<TSource> source, Func<TSource, TResult> selector) { 43: foreach (var x in source) { 44: yield return selector(x); 45: } 46: } 47: } 48:  49: public class Employee { 50: public int ID { get; set;} 51: public string FirstName { get; set;} 52: public string LastName {get; set;} 53: public string Country { get; set; } 54: } To be more expressive, C# allows us to write our extension method calls as a query expression. Line 16 can be rewritten a query expression like so: 1: var formattedEmployees = from emp in employees 2: where emp.ID % 2 == 0 3: select new { 4: ID = emp.ID, 5: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 6: }; When the compiler encounters an expression like the above, it simply rewrites it as calls to our extension methods.  So far we have been using our extension methods. The System.Linq namespace contains several extension methods for objects that implement the IEnumerable<T>. You can see a listing of these methods in the Enumerable class in the System.Linq namespace. Let’s get rid of our extension methods (which I purposefully wrote to be of the same signature as the ones in the Enumerable class) and use the ones provided in the Enumerable class. Our final code is shown below: 1: using System; 2: using System.Collections.Generic; 3: using System.Linq; //Added 4:  5: public class Program 6: { 7: [STAThread] 8: static void Main(string[] args) 9: { 10: var employees = new List<Employee> { 11: new Employee { ID = 1, FirstName = "John", LastName = "Wright", Country = "USA" }, 12: new Employee { ID = 2, FirstName = "Jim", LastName = "Ashlock", Country = "UK" }, 13: new Employee { ID = 3, FirstName = "Jane", LastName = "Jackson", Country = "CHE" }, 14: new Employee { ID = 4, FirstName = "Jill", LastName = "Anderson", Country = "AUS" } 15: }; 16:  17: var formattedEmployees = from emp in employees 18: where emp.ID % 2 == 0 19: select new { 20: ID = emp.ID, 21: FullName = emp.LastName + ", " + emp.FirstName 22: }; 23:  24: foreach (var emp in formattedEmployees) { 25: Console.WriteLine("ID {0} Full_Name {1}", 26: emp.ID, emp.FullName); 27: } 28: Console.ReadLine(); 29: } 30: } 31:  32: public class Employee { 33: public int ID { get; set;} 34: public string FirstName { get; set;} 35: public string LastName {get; set;} 36: public string Country { get; set; } 37: } 38:  39: public class EmployeeFormatted { 40: public int ID { get; set; } 41: public string FullName {get; set;} 42: } This post has shown you a basic overview of LINQ to Objects work by showning you how an expression is converted to a sequence of calls to extension methods when working directly with objects. It gets more interesting when working with LINQ to SQL where an expression tree is constructed – an in memory data representation of the expression. The C# compiler compiles these expressions into code that builds an expression tree at runtime. The provider can then traverse the expression tree and generate the appropriate SQL query. You can read more about expression trees in this MSDN article.

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  • Revisiting ANTS Performance Profiler 7.4

    - by James Michael Hare
    Last year, I did a small review on the ANTS Performance Profiler 6.3, now that it’s a year later and a major version number higher, I thought I’d revisit the review and revise my last post. This post will take the same examples as the original post and update them to show what’s new in version 7.4 of the profiler. Background A performance profiler’s main job is to keep track of how much time is typically spent in each unit of code. This helps when we have a program that is not running at the performance we expect, and we want to know where the program is experiencing issues. There are many profilers out there of varying capabilities. Red Gate’s typically seem to be the very easy to “jump in” and get started with very little training required. So let’s dig into the Performance Profiler. I’ve constructed a very crude program with some obvious inefficiencies. It’s a simple program that generates random order numbers (or really could be any unique identifier), adds it to a list, sorts the list, then finds the max and min number in the list. Ignore the fact it’s very contrived and obviously inefficient, we just want to use it as an example to show off the tool: 1: // our test program 2: public static class Program 3: { 4: // the number of iterations to perform 5: private static int _iterations = 1000000; 6: 7: // The main method that controls it all 8: public static void Main() 9: { 10: var list = new List<string>(); 11: 12: for (int i = 0; i < _iterations; i++) 13: { 14: var x = GetNextId(); 15: 16: AddToList(list, x); 17: 18: var highLow = GetHighLow(list); 19: 20: if ((i % 1000) == 0) 21: { 22: Console.WriteLine("{0} - High: {1}, Low: {2}", i, highLow.Item1, highLow.Item2); 23: Console.Out.Flush(); 24: } 25: } 26: } 27: 28: // gets the next order id to process (random for us) 29: public static string GetNextId() 30: { 31: var random = new Random(); 32: var num = random.Next(1000000, 9999999); 33: return num.ToString(); 34: } 35: 36: // add it to our list - very inefficiently! 37: public static void AddToList(List<string> list, string item) 38: { 39: list.Add(item); 40: list.Sort(); 41: } 42: 43: // get high and low of order id range - very inefficiently! 44: public static Tuple<int,int> GetHighLow(List<string> list) 45: { 46: return Tuple.Create(list.Max(s => Convert.ToInt32(s)), list.Min(s => Convert.ToInt32(s))); 47: } 48: } So let’s run it through the profiler and see what happens! Visual Studio Integration First, let’s look at how the ANTS profilers integrate with Visual Studio’s menu system. Once you install the ANTS profilers, you will get an ANTS menu item with several options: Notice that you can either Profile Performance or Launch ANTS Performance Profiler. These sound similar but achieve two slightly different actions: Profile Performance: this immediately launches the profiler with all defaults selected to profile the active project in Visual Studio. Launch ANTS Performance Profiler: this launches the profiler much the same way as starting it from the Start Menu. The profiler will pre-populate the application and path information, but allow you to change the settings before beginning the profile run. So really, the main difference is that Profile Performance immediately begins profiling with the default selections, where Launch ANTS Performance Profiler allows you to change the defaults and attach to an already-running application. Let’s Fire it Up! So when you fire up ANTS either via Start Menu or Launch ANTS Performance Profiler menu in Visual Studio, you are presented with a very simple dialog to get you started: Notice you can choose from many different options for application type. You can profile executables, services, web applications, or just attach to a running process. In fact, in version 7.4 we see two new options added: ASP.NET Web Application (IIS Express) SharePoint web application (IIS) So this gives us an additional way to profile ASP.NET applications and the ability to profile SharePoint applications as well. You can also choose your level of detail in the Profiling Mode drop down. If you choose Line-Level and method-level timings detail, you will get a lot more detail on the method durations, but this will also slow down profiling somewhat. If you really need the profiler to be as unintrusive as possible, you can change it to Sample method-level timings. This is performing very light profiling, where basically the profiler collects timings of a method by examining the call-stack at given intervals. Which method you choose depends a lot on how much detail you need to find the issue and how sensitive your program issues are to timing. So for our example, let’s just go with the line and method timing detail. So, we check that all the options are correct (if you launch from VS2010, the executable and path are filled in already), and fire it up by clicking the [Start Profiling] button. Profiling the Application Once you start profiling the application, you will see a real-time graph of CPU usage that will indicate how much your application is using the CPU(s) on your system. During this time, you can select segments of the graph and bookmark them, giving them mnemonic names. This can be useful if you want to compare performance in one part of the run to another part of the run. Notice that once you select a block, it will give you the call tree breakdown for that selection only, and the relative performance of those calls. Once you feel you have collected enough information, you can click [Stop Profiling] to stop the application run and information collection and begin a more thorough analysis. Analyzing Method Timings So now that we’ve halted the run, we can look around the GUI and see what we can see. By default, the times are shown in terms of percentage of time of the total run of the application, though you can change it in the View menu item to milliseconds, ticks, or seconds as well. This won’t affect the percentages of methods, it only affects what units the times are shown. Notice also that the major hotspot seems to be in a method without source, ANTS Profiler will filter these out by default, but you can right-click on the line and remove the filter to see more detail. This proves especially handy when a bottleneck is due to a method in the BCL. So now that we’ve removed the filter, we see a bit more detail: In addition, ANTS Performance Profiler gives you the ability to decompile the methods without source so that you can dive even deeper, though typically this isn’t necessary for our purposes. When looking at timings, there are generally two types of timings for each method call: Time: This is the time spent ONLY in this method, not including calls this method makes to other methods. Time With Children: This is the total of time spent in both this method AND including calls this method makes to other methods. In other words, the Time tells you how much work is being done exclusively in this method, and the Time With Children tells you how much work is being done inclusively in this method and everything it calls. You can also choose to display the methods in a tree or in a grid. The tree view is the default and it shows the method calls arranged in terms of the tree representing all method calls and the parent method that called them, etc. This is useful for when you find a hot-spot method, you can see who is calling it to determine if the problem is the method itself, or if it is being called too many times. The grid method represents each method only once with its totals and is useful for quickly seeing what method is the trouble spot. In addition, you can choose to display Methods with source which are generally the methods you wrote (as opposed to native or BCL code), or Any Method which shows not only your methods, but also native calls, JIT overhead, synchronization waits, etc. So these are just two ways of viewing the same data, and you’re free to choose the organization that best suits what information you are after. Analyzing Method Source If we look at the timings above, we see that our AddToList() method (and in particular, it’s call to the List<T>.Sort() method in the BCL) is the hot-spot in this analysis. If ANTS sees a method that is consuming the most time, it will flag it as a hot-spot to help call out potential areas of concern. This doesn’t mean the other statistics aren’t meaningful, but that the hot-spot is most likely going to be your biggest bang-for-the-buck to concentrate on. So let’s select the AddToList() method, and see what it shows in the source window below: Notice the source breakout in the bottom pane when you select a method (from either tree or grid view). This shows you the timings in this method per line of code. This gives you a major indicator of where the trouble-spot in this method is. So in this case, we see that performing a Sort() on the List<T> after every Add() is killing our performance! Of course, this was a very contrived, duh moment, but you’d be surprised how many performance issues become duh moments. Note that this one line is taking up 86% of the execution time of this application! If we eliminate this bottleneck, we should see drastic improvement in the performance. So to fix this, if we still wanted to maintain the List<T> we’d have many options, including: delay Sort() until after all Add() methods, using a SortedSet, SortedList, or SortedDictionary depending on which is most appropriate, or forgoing the sorting all together and using a Dictionary. Rinse, Repeat! So let’s just change all instances of List<string> to SortedSet<string> and run this again through the profiler: Now we see the AddToList() method is no longer our hot-spot, but now the Max() and Min() calls are! This is good because we’ve eliminated one hot-spot and now we can try to correct this one as well. As before, we can then optimize this part of the code (possibly by taking advantage of the fact the list is now sorted and returning the first and last elements). We can then rinse and repeat this process until we have eliminated as many bottlenecks as possible. Calls by Web Request Another feature that was added recently is the ability to view .NET methods grouped by the HTTP requests that caused them to run. This can be helpful in determining which pages, web services, etc. are causing hot spots in your web applications. Summary If you like the other ANTS tools, you’ll like the ANTS Performance Profiler as well. It is extremely easy to use with very little product knowledge required to get up and running. There are profilers built into the higher product lines of Visual Studio, of course, which are also powerful and easy to use. But for quickly jumping in and finding hot spots rapidly, Red Gate’s Performance Profiler 7.4 is an excellent choice. Technorati Tags: Influencers,ANTS,Performance Profiler,Profiler

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  • Metro: Creating an IndexedDbDataSource for WinJS

    - by Stephen.Walther
    The goal of this blog entry is to describe how you can create custom data sources which you can use with the controls in the WinJS library. In particular, I explain how you can create an IndexedDbDataSource which you can use to store and retrieve data from an IndexedDB database. If you want to skip ahead, and ignore all of the fascinating content in-between, I’ve included the complete code for the IndexedDbDataSource at the very bottom of this blog entry. What is IndexedDB? IndexedDB is a database in the browser. You can use the IndexedDB API with all modern browsers including Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer 10. And, of course, you can use IndexedDB with Metro style apps written with JavaScript. If you need to persist data in a Metro style app written with JavaScript then IndexedDB is a good option. Each Metro app can only interact with its own IndexedDB databases. And, IndexedDB provides you with transactions, indices, and cursors – the elements of any modern database. An IndexedDB database might be different than the type of database that you normally use. An IndexedDB database is an object-oriented database and not a relational database. Instead of storing data in tables, you store data in object stores. You store JavaScript objects in an IndexedDB object store. You create new IndexedDB object stores by handling the upgradeneeded event when you attempt to open a connection to an IndexedDB database. For example, here’s how you would both open a connection to an existing database named TasksDB and create the TasksDB database when it does not already exist: var reqOpen = window.indexedDB.open(“TasksDB”, 2); reqOpen.onupgradeneeded = function (evt) { var newDB = evt.target.result; newDB.createObjectStore("tasks", { keyPath: "id", autoIncrement: true }); }; reqOpen.onsuccess = function () { var db = reqOpen.result; // Do something with db }; When you call window.indexedDB.open(), and the database does not already exist, then the upgradeneeded event is raised. In the code above, the upgradeneeded handler creates a new object store named tasks. The new object store has an auto-increment column named id which acts as the primary key column. If the database already exists with the right version, and you call window.indexedDB.open(), then the success event is raised. At that point, you have an open connection to the existing database and you can start doing something with the database. You use asynchronous methods to interact with an IndexedDB database. For example, the following code illustrates how you would add a new object to the tasks object store: var transaction = db.transaction(“tasks”, “readwrite”); var reqAdd = transaction.objectStore(“tasks”).add({ name: “Feed the dog” }); reqAdd.onsuccess = function() { // Tasks added successfully }; The code above creates a new database transaction, adds a new task to the tasks object store, and handles the success event. If the new task gets added successfully then the success event is raised. Creating a WinJS IndexedDbDataSource The most powerful control in the WinJS library is the ListView control. This is the control that you use to display a collection of items. If you want to display data with a ListView control, you need to bind the control to a data source. The WinJS library includes two objects which you can use as a data source: the List object and the StorageDataSource object. The List object enables you to represent a JavaScript array as a data source and the StorageDataSource enables you to represent the file system as a data source. If you want to bind an IndexedDB database to a ListView then you have a choice. You can either dump the items from the IndexedDB database into a List object or you can create a custom data source. I explored the first approach in a previous blog entry. In this blog entry, I explain how you can create a custom IndexedDB data source. Implementing the IListDataSource Interface You create a custom data source by implementing the IListDataSource interface. This interface contains the contract for the methods which the ListView needs to interact with a data source. The easiest way to implement the IListDataSource interface is to derive a new object from the base VirtualizedDataSource object. The VirtualizedDataSource object requires a data adapter which implements the IListDataAdapter interface. Yes, because of the number of objects involved, this is a little confusing. Your code ends up looking something like this: var IndexedDbDataSource = WinJS.Class.derive( WinJS.UI.VirtualizedDataSource, function (dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error) { this._adapter = new IndexedDbDataAdapter(dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error); this._baseDataSourceConstructor(this._adapter); }, { nuke: function () { this._adapter.nuke(); }, remove: function (key) { this._adapter.removeInternal(key); } } ); The code above is used to create a new class named IndexedDbDataSource which derives from the base VirtualizedDataSource class. In the constructor for the new class, the base class _baseDataSourceConstructor() method is called. A data adapter is passed to the _baseDataSourceConstructor() method. The code above creates a new method exposed by the IndexedDbDataSource named nuke(). The nuke() method deletes all of the objects from an object store. The code above also overrides a method named remove(). Our derived remove() method accepts any type of key and removes the matching item from the object store. Almost all of the work of creating a custom data source goes into building the data adapter class. The data adapter class implements the IListDataAdapter interface which contains the following methods: · change() · getCount() · insertAfter() · insertAtEnd() · insertAtStart() · insertBefore() · itemsFromDescription() · itemsFromEnd() · itemsFromIndex() · itemsFromKey() · itemsFromStart() · itemSignature() · moveAfter() · moveBefore() · moveToEnd() · moveToStart() · remove() · setNotificationHandler() · compareByIdentity Fortunately, you are not required to implement all of these methods. You only need to implement the methods that you actually need. In the case of the IndexedDbDataSource, I implemented the getCount(), itemsFromIndex(), insertAtEnd(), and remove() methods. If you are creating a read-only data source then you really only need to implement the getCount() and itemsFromIndex() methods. Implementing the getCount() Method The getCount() method returns the total number of items from the data source. So, if you are storing 10,000 items in an object store then this method would return the value 10,000. Here’s how I implemented the getCount() method: getCount: function () { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore().then(function (store) { var reqCount = store.count(); reqCount.onerror = that._error; reqCount.onsuccess = function (evt) { complete(evt.target.result); }; }); }); } The first thing that you should notice is that the getCount() method returns a WinJS promise. This is a requirement. The getCount() method is asynchronous which is a good thing because all of the IndexedDB methods (at least the methods implemented in current browsers) are also asynchronous. The code above retrieves an object store and then uses the IndexedDB count() method to get a count of the items in the object store. The value is returned from the promise by calling complete(). Implementing the itemsFromIndex method When a ListView displays its items, it calls the itemsFromIndex() method. By default, it calls this method multiple times to get different ranges of items. Three parameters are passed to the itemsFromIndex() method: the requestIndex, countBefore, and countAfter parameters. The requestIndex indicates the index of the item from the database to show. The countBefore and countAfter parameters represent hints. These are integer values which represent the number of items before and after the requestIndex to retrieve. Again, these are only hints and you can return as many items before and after the request index as you please. Here’s how I implemented the itemsFromIndex method: itemsFromIndex: function (requestIndex, countBefore, countAfter) { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that.getCount().then(function (count) { if (requestIndex >= count) { return WinJS.Promise.wrapError(new WinJS.ErrorFromName(WinJS.UI.FetchError.doesNotExist)); } var startIndex = Math.max(0, requestIndex - countBefore); var endIndex = Math.min(count, requestIndex + countAfter + 1); that._getObjectStore().then(function (store) { var index = 0; var items = []; var req = store.openCursor(); req.onerror = that._error; req.onsuccess = function (evt) { var cursor = evt.target.result; if (index < startIndex) { index = startIndex; cursor.advance(startIndex); return; } if (cursor && index < endIndex) { index++; items.push({ key: cursor.value[store.keyPath].toString(), data: cursor.value }); cursor.continue(); return; } results = { items: items, offset: requestIndex - startIndex, totalCount: count }; complete(results); }; }); }); }); } In the code above, a cursor is used to iterate through the objects in an object store. You fetch the next item in the cursor by calling either the cursor.continue() or cursor.advance() method. The continue() method moves forward by one object and the advance() method moves forward a specified number of objects. Each time you call continue() or advance(), the success event is raised again. If the cursor is null then you know that you have reached the end of the cursor and you can return the results. Some things to be careful about here. First, the return value from the itemsFromIndex() method must implement the IFetchResult interface. In particular, you must return an object which has an items, offset, and totalCount property. Second, each item in the items array must implement the IListItem interface. Each item should have a key and a data property. Implementing the insertAtEnd() Method When creating the IndexedDbDataSource, I wanted to go beyond creating a simple read-only data source and support inserting and deleting objects. If you want to support adding new items with your data source then you need to implement the insertAtEnd() method. Here’s how I implemented the insertAtEnd() method for the IndexedDbDataSource: insertAtEnd:function(unused, data) { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore("readwrite").done(function(store) { var reqAdd = store.add(data); reqAdd.onerror = that._error; reqAdd.onsuccess = function (evt) { var reqGet = store.get(evt.target.result); reqGet.onerror = that._error; reqGet.onsuccess = function (evt) { var newItem = { key:evt.target.result[store.keyPath].toString(), data:evt.target.result } complete(newItem); }; }; }); }); } When implementing the insertAtEnd() method, you need to be careful to return an object which implements the IItem interface. In particular, you should return an object that has a key and a data property. The key must be a string and it uniquely represents the new item added to the data source. The value of the data property represents the new item itself. Implementing the remove() Method Finally, you use the remove() method to remove an item from the data source. You call the remove() method with the key of the item which you want to remove. Implementing the remove() method in the case of the IndexedDbDataSource was a little tricky. The problem is that an IndexedDB object store uses an integer key and the VirtualizedDataSource requires a string key. For that reason, I needed to override the remove() method in the derived IndexedDbDataSource class like this: var IndexedDbDataSource = WinJS.Class.derive( WinJS.UI.VirtualizedDataSource, function (dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error) { this._adapter = new IndexedDbDataAdapter(dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error); this._baseDataSourceConstructor(this._adapter); }, { nuke: function () { this._adapter.nuke(); }, remove: function (key) { this._adapter.removeInternal(key); } } ); When you call remove(), you end up calling a method of the IndexedDbDataAdapter named removeInternal() . Here’s what the removeInternal() method looks like: setNotificationHandler: function (notificationHandler) { this._notificationHandler = notificationHandler; }, removeInternal: function(key) { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore("readwrite").done(function (store) { var reqDelete = store.delete (key); reqDelete.onerror = that._error; reqDelete.onsuccess = function (evt) { that._notificationHandler.removed(key.toString()); complete(); }; }); }); } The removeInternal() method calls the IndexedDB delete() method to delete an item from the object store. If the item is deleted successfully then the _notificationHandler.remove() method is called. Because we are not implementing the standard IListDataAdapter remove() method, we need to notify the data source (and the ListView control bound to the data source) that an item has been removed. The way that you notify the data source is by calling the _notificationHandler.remove() method. Notice that we get the _notificationHandler in the code above by implementing another method in the IListDataAdapter interface: the setNotificationHandler() method. You can raise the following types of notifications using the _notificationHandler: · beginNotifications() · changed() · endNotifications() · inserted() · invalidateAll() · moved() · removed() · reload() These methods are all part of the IListDataNotificationHandler interface in the WinJS library. Implementing the nuke() Method I wanted to implement a method which would remove all of the items from an object store. Therefore, I created a method named nuke() which calls the IndexedDB clear() method: nuke: function () { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore("readwrite").done(function (store) { var reqClear = store.clear(); reqClear.onerror = that._error; reqClear.onsuccess = function (evt) { that._notificationHandler.reload(); complete(); }; }); }); } Notice that the nuke() method calls the _notificationHandler.reload() method to notify the ListView to reload all of the items from its data source. Because we are implementing a custom method here, we need to use the _notificationHandler to send an update. Using the IndexedDbDataSource To illustrate how you can use the IndexedDbDataSource, I created a simple task list app. You can add new tasks, delete existing tasks, and nuke all of the tasks. You delete an item by selecting an item (swipe or right-click) and clicking the Delete button. Here’s the HTML page which contains the ListView, the form for adding new tasks, and the buttons for deleting and nuking tasks: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title>DataSources</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- DataSources references --> <link href="indexedDb.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="indexedDbDataSource.js"></script> <script src="indexedDb.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="tmplTask" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="taskItem"> Id: <span data-win-bind="innerText:id"></span> <br /><br /> Name: <span data-win-bind="innerText:name"></span> </div> </div> <div id="lvTasks" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemTemplate: select('#tmplTask'), selectionMode: 'single' }"></div> <form id="frmAdd"> <fieldset> <legend>Add Task</legend> <label>New Task</label> <input id="inputTaskName" required /> <button>Add</button> </fieldset> </form> <button id="btnNuke">Nuke</button> <button id="btnDelete">Delete</button> </body> </html> And here is the JavaScript code for the TaskList app: /// <reference path="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/base.js" /> /// <reference path="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/ui.js" /> function init() { WinJS.UI.processAll().done(function () { var lvTasks = document.getElementById("lvTasks").winControl; // Bind the ListView to its data source var tasksDataSource = new DataSources.IndexedDbDataSource("TasksDB", 1, "tasks", upgrade); lvTasks.itemDataSource = tasksDataSource; // Wire-up Add, Delete, Nuke buttons document.getElementById("frmAdd").addEventListener("submit", function (evt) { evt.preventDefault(); tasksDataSource.beginEdits(); tasksDataSource.insertAtEnd(null, { name: document.getElementById("inputTaskName").value }).done(function (newItem) { tasksDataSource.endEdits(); document.getElementById("frmAdd").reset(); lvTasks.ensureVisible(newItem.index); }); }); document.getElementById("btnDelete").addEventListener("click", function () { if (lvTasks.selection.count() == 1) { lvTasks.selection.getItems().done(function (items) { tasksDataSource.remove(items[0].data.id); }); } }); document.getElementById("btnNuke").addEventListener("click", function () { tasksDataSource.nuke(); }); // This method is called to initialize the IndexedDb database function upgrade(evt) { var newDB = evt.target.result; newDB.createObjectStore("tasks", { keyPath: "id", autoIncrement: true }); } }); } document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", init); The IndexedDbDataSource is created and bound to the ListView control with the following two lines of code: var tasksDataSource = new DataSources.IndexedDbDataSource("TasksDB", 1, "tasks", upgrade); lvTasks.itemDataSource = tasksDataSource; The IndexedDbDataSource is created with four parameters: the name of the database to create, the version of the database to create, the name of the object store to create, and a function which contains code to initialize the new database. The upgrade function creates a new object store named tasks with an auto-increment property named id: function upgrade(evt) { var newDB = evt.target.result; newDB.createObjectStore("tasks", { keyPath: "id", autoIncrement: true }); } The Complete Code for the IndexedDbDataSource Here’s the complete code for the IndexedDbDataSource: (function () { /************************************************ * The IndexedDBDataAdapter enables you to work * with a HTML5 IndexedDB database. *************************************************/ var IndexedDbDataAdapter = WinJS.Class.define( function (dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error) { this._dbName = dbName; // database name this._dbVersion = dbVersion; // database version this._objectStoreName = objectStoreName; // object store name this._upgrade = upgrade; // database upgrade script this._error = error || function (evt) { console.log(evt.message); }; }, { /******************************************* * IListDataAdapter Interface Methods ********************************************/ getCount: function () { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore().then(function (store) { var reqCount = store.count(); reqCount.onerror = that._error; reqCount.onsuccess = function (evt) { complete(evt.target.result); }; }); }); }, itemsFromIndex: function (requestIndex, countBefore, countAfter) { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that.getCount().then(function (count) { if (requestIndex >= count) { return WinJS.Promise.wrapError(new WinJS.ErrorFromName(WinJS.UI.FetchError.doesNotExist)); } var startIndex = Math.max(0, requestIndex - countBefore); var endIndex = Math.min(count, requestIndex + countAfter + 1); that._getObjectStore().then(function (store) { var index = 0; var items = []; var req = store.openCursor(); req.onerror = that._error; req.onsuccess = function (evt) { var cursor = evt.target.result; if (index < startIndex) { index = startIndex; cursor.advance(startIndex); return; } if (cursor && index < endIndex) { index++; items.push({ key: cursor.value[store.keyPath].toString(), data: cursor.value }); cursor.continue(); return; } results = { items: items, offset: requestIndex - startIndex, totalCount: count }; complete(results); }; }); }); }); }, insertAtEnd:function(unused, data) { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore("readwrite").done(function(store) { var reqAdd = store.add(data); reqAdd.onerror = that._error; reqAdd.onsuccess = function (evt) { var reqGet = store.get(evt.target.result); reqGet.onerror = that._error; reqGet.onsuccess = function (evt) { var newItem = { key:evt.target.result[store.keyPath].toString(), data:evt.target.result } complete(newItem); }; }; }); }); }, setNotificationHandler: function (notificationHandler) { this._notificationHandler = notificationHandler; }, /***************************************** * IndexedDbDataSource Method ******************************************/ removeInternal: function(key) { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore("readwrite").done(function (store) { var reqDelete = store.delete (key); reqDelete.onerror = that._error; reqDelete.onsuccess = function (evt) { that._notificationHandler.removed(key.toString()); complete(); }; }); }); }, nuke: function () { var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore("readwrite").done(function (store) { var reqClear = store.clear(); reqClear.onerror = that._error; reqClear.onsuccess = function (evt) { that._notificationHandler.reload(); complete(); }; }); }); }, /******************************************* * Private Methods ********************************************/ _ensureDbOpen: function () { var that = this; // Try to get cached Db if (that._cachedDb) { return WinJS.Promise.wrap(that._cachedDb); } // Otherwise, open the database return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error, progress) { var reqOpen = window.indexedDB.open(that._dbName, that._dbVersion); reqOpen.onerror = function (evt) { error(); }; reqOpen.onupgradeneeded = function (evt) { that._upgrade(evt); that._notificationHandler.invalidateAll(); }; reqOpen.onsuccess = function () { that._cachedDb = reqOpen.result; complete(that._cachedDb); }; }); }, _getObjectStore: function (type) { type = type || "readonly"; var that = this; return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._ensureDbOpen().then(function (db) { var transaction = db.transaction(that._objectStoreName, type); complete(transaction.objectStore(that._objectStoreName)); }); }); }, _get: function (key) { return new WinJS.Promise(function (complete, error) { that._getObjectStore().done(function (store) { var reqGet = store.get(key); reqGet.onerror = that._error; reqGet.onsuccess = function (item) { complete(item); }; }); }); } } ); var IndexedDbDataSource = WinJS.Class.derive( WinJS.UI.VirtualizedDataSource, function (dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error) { this._adapter = new IndexedDbDataAdapter(dbName, dbVersion, objectStoreName, upgrade, error); this._baseDataSourceConstructor(this._adapter); }, { nuke: function () { this._adapter.nuke(); }, remove: function (key) { this._adapter.removeInternal(key); } } ); WinJS.Namespace.define("DataSources", { IndexedDbDataSource: IndexedDbDataSource }); })(); Summary In this blog post, I provided an overview of how you can create a new data source which you can use with the WinJS library. I described how you can create an IndexedDbDataSource which you can use to bind a ListView control to an IndexedDB database. While describing how you can create a custom data source, I explained how you can implement the IListDataAdapter interface. You also learned how to raise notifications — such as a removed or invalidateAll notification — by taking advantage of the methods of the IListDataNotificationHandler interface.

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  • Understanding the static keyword

    - by user985482
    I have some experience in developing with Java, Javascript and PHP. I am reading Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Step by Step which I feel it is a very good book on introducing you to the C# language. I seem to be having problems in understanding the static keyword. From what I understand this far if a class is declared static all methods and variable have to be static. The main method always is a static method so in the class that the main method exists all variables and methods are declared static if you have to call them in the main method. Also I have noticed that in order to call a static method from another class you do not need to create an object of that you can use the class name. What are the advantages of declaring static variables and methods? When should I declare static variable and methods?

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  • Is there a "golden ratio" in coding?

    - by badallen
    My coworkers and I often come up with silly ideas such as adding entries to Urban Dictionary that are inappropriate but completely make sense if you are a developer. Or making rap songs that are about delegates, reflections or closures in JS... Anyhow, here is what I brought up this afternoon which was immediately dismissed to be a stupid idea. So I want to see if I can get redemptions here. My idea is coming up with a Golden Ratio (or in the neighborhood of) between the number of classes per project versus the number of methods/functions per class versus the number of lines per method/function. I know this is silly and borderline, if not completely, useless, but just think of all the legacy methods or classes you have encountered that are absolutely horrid - like methods with 10000 lines or classes with 10000 methods. So Golden Ratio, anyone? :)

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  • class hierarchy design for small java project

    - by user523956
    I have written a java code which does following:- Main goal is to fetch emails from (inbox, spam) folders and store them in database. It fetches emails from gmail,gmx,web.de,yahoo and Hotmail. Following attributes are stored in mysql database. Slno, messagedigest, messageid, foldername, dateandtime, receiver, sender, subject, cc, size and emlfile. For gmail,gmy and web.de, I have used javamail API, because email form it can be fetched with IMAP. For yahoo and hotmail, I have used html parser and httpclient to fetch emails form spam folder and for inbox folder, I have used pop3 javamail API. I want to have proper class hierarchy which makes my code efficient and easily reusable. As of now I have designed class hierarchy as below: I am sure it can still be improved. So I would like to have different opinions on it. I have following classes and methods as of now. MainController:- Here I pass emailid, password and foldername from which emails have to be fetched. Abstract Class :-EmailProtocol Abstract Methods of it (All methods except executeParser contains method definition):- connectImap() // used by gmx,gmail and web.de email ids connectPop3() // used by hotmail and yahoo to fetch emails of inbox folder createMessageDigest // used by every email provider(gmx, gmail,web.de,yahoo,hotmail) establishDBConnection // used by every email emailAlreadyExists // used by every email which checks whether email already exists in db or not, if not then store it. storeemailproperties // used by every email to store emails properties to mysql database executeParser // nothing written in it. Overwridden and used by just hotmail and yahoo to fetch emails form spam folder. Imap extends EmailProtocol (nothing in it. But I have to have it to access methods of EmailProtocol. This is used to fetch emails from gmail,gmx and web.de) I know this is really a bad way but don't know how to do it other way. Hotmsil extends EmailProtocol Methods:- executeParser() :- This is used by just hotmail email id. fetchjunkemails() :- This is also very specific for only hotmail email id. Yahoo extends EmailProtocol Methods:- executeParser() storeEmailtotemptable() MoveEmailtoInbox() getFoldername() nullorEquals() All above methods are specific for yahoo email id. public DateTimeFormat(class) format() //this formats datetime of gmax,gmail and web.de emails. formatYahoodate //this formats datetime of yahoo email. formatHotmaildate // this formats datetime of hotmail email. public StringFormat ConvertStreamToString() // Accessed by every class except DateTimeFormat class. formatFromTo() // Accessed by every class except DateTimeFormat class. public Class CheckDatabaseExistance public static void checkForDatabaseTablesAvailability() (This method checks at the beginnning whether database and required tables exist in mysql or not. if not it creates them) Please see code of my MainController class so that You can have an idea about how I use different classes. public class MainController { public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception { ArrayList<String> web_de_folders = new ArrayList<String>(); web_de_folders.add("INBOX"); web_de_folders.add("Unbekannt"); web_de_folders.add("Spam"); web_de_folders.add("OUTBOX"); web_de_folders.add("SENT"); web_de_folders.add("DRAFTS"); web_de_folders.add("TRASH"); web_de_folders.add("Trash"); ArrayList<String> gmx_folders = new ArrayList<String>(); gmx_folders.add("INBOX"); gmx_folders.add("Archiv"); gmx_folders.add("Entwürfe"); gmx_folders.add("Gelöscht"); gmx_folders.add("Gesendet"); gmx_folders.add("Spamverdacht"); gmx_folders.add("Trash"); ArrayList<String> gmail_folders = new ArrayList<String>(); gmail_folders.add("Inbox"); gmail_folders.add("[Google Mail]/Spam"); gmail_folders.add("[Google Mail]/Trash"); gmail_folders.add("[Google Mail]/Sent Mail"); ArrayList<String> pop3_folders = new ArrayList<String>(); pop3_folders.add("INBOX"); CheckDatabaseExistance.checkForDatabaseTablesAvailability(); EmailProtocol imap = new Imap(); System.out.println("CHECKING FOR NEW EMAILS IN WEB.DE...(IMAP)"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); imap.connectImap("[email protected]", "pwd", web_de_folders); System.out.println("\nCHECKING FOR NEW EMAILS IN GMX.DE...(IMAP)"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); imap.connectImap("[email protected]", "pwd", gmx_folders); System.out.println("\nCHECKING FOR NEW EMAILS IN GMAIL...(IMAP)"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); imap.connectImap("[email protected]", "pwd", gmail_folders); EmailProtocol yahoo = new Yahoo(); Yahoo y=new Yahoo(); System.out.println("\nEXECUTING YAHOO PARSER"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); y.executeParser("http://de.mc1321.mail.yahoo.com/mc/welcome?ymv=0","[email protected]","pwd"); System.out.println("\nCHECKING FOR NEW EMAILS IN INBOX OF YAHOO (POP3)"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); yahoo.connectPop3("[email protected]","pwd",pop3_folders); System.out.println("\nCHECKING FOR NEW EMAILS IN INBOX OF HOTMAIL (POP3)"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); yahoo.connectPop3("[email protected]","pwd",pop3_folders); EmailProtocol hotmail = new Hotmail(); Hotmail h=new Hotmail(); System.out.println("\nEXECUTING HOTMAIL PARSER"); System.out.println("*********************************************************************************"); h.executeParser("https://login.live.com/ppsecure/post.srf","[email protected]","pwd"); } } I have kept DatetimeFormat and StringFormat class public so that I can access its public methods by just (DatetimeFormat.formatYahoodate for e.g. from different methods). This is the first time I have developed something in java. It serves its purpose but of course code is still not so efficient I think. I need your suggestions on this project.

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  • Can a loosely typed language be considered true object oriented?

    - by user61852
    Can a loosely typed programming language like PHP be really considered object oriented? I mean, the methods don't have returning types and method parameters has no declared type either. Doesn't class design require methods to have a return type? Don't methods signatures have specifically-typed parameters? How can OOP techniques help you code in PHP if you always have to check the types of parameters received because the language doesn't enforce types? Please, if I'm wrong, explain it to me. When you design things using UML, then code classes in PHP with no return-typed methods and no-type parameters... Is the code really compliant with the UML design? You spend time designing the architecture of your software, then the compiler doesn't force the programmer to follow your design while coding, letting he/she assign any object variable to any other variable with no "type-mismatch" warning.

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  • PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

    - by Simon Cooper
    Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day!

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  • Make a controller a superclass in MVC design pattern

    - by Nikola
    I am really confused how to handle this. I have: model.Outsider model.SubContractor (which extends Outsider) Basically, Outsider would mean Supplier, but SubContractor is not a Supplier itself so I had to divide it somehow. I used to have model.Outsider (super class of the two bellow) model.Supplier model.SubContractor But Supplier didn't have any unique fields so I have removed it (Was this correct?) So, continuing, I have db layer which has: db.DBOutsider db.DBSubContractor (which again extends the top one) And I have no place to put my Supplier methods. I can do that in DBOutsider, but then DBSubContractor (which extends DBOutsider) would get unnecessary methods. Do I create a DBSupplier even though there is no such class in the model layer? Then again, going to controller layer. It is the same situation as db layer. I have OutsiderController and SubContractorController (which extends the first one) (is this correct in first place? to have an extended controller?). But I have no place to put the methods which are concerned with Supplier and if I put them in the OutsiderController the SubContractorController would recieve unneccessary methods. At the moment I am going for the extra DBSupplier and SupplierController classes, but I have no idea if this is the correct way. Basically what perplexes me is the "empty" Supplier. Since it is supposed to be an Outsider but has no extra methods or fields, should there be an empty class?

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  • Using Delegates in C# (Part 1)

    - by rajbk
    This post provides a very basic introduction of delegates in C#. Part 2 of this post can be read here. A delegate is a class that is derived from System.Delegate.  It contains a list of one or more methods called an invocation list. When a delegate instance is “invoked” with the arguments as defined in the signature of the delegate, each of the methods in the invocation list gets invoked with the arguments. The code below shows example with static and instance methods respectively: Static Methods 1: using System; 2: using System.Linq; 3: using System.Collections.Generic; 4: 5: public delegate void SayName(string name); 6: 7: public class Program 8: { 9: [STAThread] 10: static void Main(string[] args) 11: { 12: SayName englishDelegate = new SayName(SayNameInEnglish); 13: SayName frenchDelegate = new SayName(SayNameInFrench); 14: SayName combinedDelegate =(SayName)Delegate.Combine(englishDelegate, frenchDelegate); 15: 16: combinedDelegate.Invoke("Tom"); 17: Console.ReadLine(); 18: } 19: 20: static void SayNameInFrench(string name) { 21: Console.WriteLine("J'ai m'appelle " + name); 22: } 23: 24: static void SayNameInEnglish(string name) { 25: Console.WriteLine("My name is " + name); 26: } 27: } We have declared a delegate of type SayName with return type of void and taking an input parameter of name of type string. On line 12, we create a new instance of this delegate which refers to a static method - SayNameInEnglish.  SayNameInEnglish has the same return type and parameter list as the delegate declaration.  Once a delegate is instantiated, the instance will always refer to the same target. Delegates are immutable. On line 13, we create a new instance of the delegate but point to a different static method. As you may recall, a delegate instance encapsulates an invocation list. You create an invocation list by combining delegates using the Delegate.Combine method (there is an easier syntax as you will see later). When two non null delegate instances are combined, their invocation lists get combined to form a new invocation list. This is done in line 14.  On line 16, we invoke the delegate with the Invoke method and pass in the required string parameter. Since the delegate has an invocation list with two entries, each of the method in the invocation list is invoked. If an unhandled exception occurs during the invocation of one of these methods, the exception gets bubbled up to the line where the invocation was made (line 16). If a delegate is null and you try to invoke it, you will get a System.NullReferenceException. We see the following output when the method is run: My name is TomJ'ai m'apelle Tom Instance Methods The code below outputs the same results as before. The only difference here is we are creating delegates that point to a target object (an instance of Translator) and instance methods which have the same signature as the delegate type. The target object can never be null. We also use the short cut syntax += to combine the delegates instead of Delegate.Combine. 1: public delegate void SayName(string name); 2: 3: public class Program 4: { 5: [STAThread] 6: static void Main(string[] args) 7: { 8: Translator translator = new Translator(); 9: SayName combinedDelegate = new SayName(translator.SayNameInEnglish); 10: combinedDelegate += new SayName(translator.SayNameInFrench); 11:  12: combinedDelegate.Invoke("Tom"); 13: Console.ReadLine(); 14: } 15: } 16: 17: public class Translator { 18: public void SayNameInFrench(string name) { 19: Console.WriteLine("J'ai m'appelle " + name); 20: } 21: 22: public void SayNameInEnglish(string name) { 23: Console.WriteLine("My name is " + name); 24: } 25: } A delegate can be removed from a combination of delegates by using the –= operator. Removing a delegate from an empty list or removing a delegate that does not exist in a non empty list will not result in an exception. Delegates are invoked synchronously using the Invoke method. We can also invoke them asynchronously using the BeginInvoke and EndInvoke methods which are compiler generated.

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  • PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

    - by Simon Cooper
    Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day!

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  • PostSharp, Obfuscation, and IL

    - by simonc
    Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm. Originating at Xerox PARC in 1994, the paradigm was first made available for general-purpose development as an extension to Java in 2001. From there, it has quickly been adapted for use in all the common languages used today. In the .NET world, one of the primary AOP toolkits is PostSharp. Attributes and AOP Normally, attributes in .NET are entirely a metadata construct. Apart from a few special attributes in the .NET framework, they have no effect whatsoever on how a class or method executes within the CLR. Only by using reflection at runtime can you access any attributes declared on a type or type member. PostSharp changes this. By declaring a custom attribute that derives from PostSharp.Aspects.Aspect, applying it to types and type members, and running the resulting assembly through the PostSharp postprocessor, you can essentially declare 'clever' attributes that change the behaviour of whatever the aspect has been applied to at runtime. A simple example of this is logging. By declaring a TraceAttribute that derives from OnMethodBoundaryAspect, you can automatically log when a method has been executed: public class TraceAttribute : PostSharp.Aspects.OnMethodBoundaryAspect { public override void OnEntry(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Entering {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } public override void OnExit(MethodExecutionArgs args) { MethodBase method = args.Method; System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine( String.Format( "Leaving {0}.{1}.", method.DeclaringType.FullName, method.Name)); } } [Trace] public void MethodToLog() { ... } Now, whenever MethodToLog is executed, the aspect will automatically log entry and exit, without having to add the logging code to MethodToLog itself. PostSharp Performance Now this does introduce a performance overhead - as you can see, the aspect allows access to the MethodBase of the method the aspect has been applied to. If you were limited to C#, you would be forced to retrieve each MethodBase instance using Type.GetMethod(), matching on the method name and signature. This is slow. Fortunately, PostSharp is not limited to C#. It can use any instruction available in IL. And in IL, you can do some very neat things. Ldtoken C# allows you to get the Type object corresponding to a specific type name using the typeof operator: Type t = typeof(Random); The C# compiler compiles this operator to the following IL: ldtoken [mscorlib]System.Random call class [mscorlib]System.Type [mscorlib]System.Type::GetTypeFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeTypeHandle) The ldtoken instruction obtains a special handle to a type called a RuntimeTypeHandle, and from that, the Type object can be obtained using GetTypeFromHandle. These are both relatively fast operations - no string lookup is required, only direct assembly and CLR constructs are used. However, a little-known feature is that ldtoken is not just limited to types; it can also get information on methods and fields, encapsulated in a RuntimeMethodHandle or RuntimeFieldHandle: // get a MethodBase for String.EndsWith(string) ldtoken method instance bool [mscorlib]System.String::EndsWith(string) call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase [mscorlib]System.Reflection.MethodBase::GetMethodFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeMethodHandle) // get a FieldInfo for the String.Empty field ldtoken field string [mscorlib]System.String::Empty call class [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo [mscorlib]System.Reflection.FieldInfo::GetFieldFromHandle( valuetype [mscorlib]System.RuntimeFieldHandle) These usages of ldtoken aren't usable from C# or VB, and aren't likely to be added anytime soon (Eric Lippert's done a blog post on the possibility of adding infoof, methodof or fieldof operators to C#). However, PostSharp deals directly with IL, and so can use ldtoken to get MethodBase objects quickly and cheaply, without having to resort to string lookups. The kicker However, there are problems. Because ldtoken for methods or fields isn't accessible from C# or VB, it hasn't been as well-tested as ldtoken for types. This has resulted in various obscure bugs in most versions of the CLR when dealing with ldtoken and methods, and specifically, generic methods and methods of generic types. This means that PostSharp was behaving incorrectly, or just plain crashing, when aspects were applied to methods that were generic in some way. So, PostSharp has to work around this. Without using the metadata tokens directly, the only way to get the MethodBase of generic methods is to use reflection: Type.GetMethod(), passing in the method name as a string along with information on the signature. Now, this works fine. It's slower than using ldtoken directly, but it works, and this only has to be done for generic methods. Unfortunately, this poses problems when the assembly is obfuscated. PostSharp and Obfuscation When using ldtoken, obfuscators don't affect how PostSharp operates. Because the ldtoken instruction directly references the type, method or field within the assembly, it is unaffected if the name of the object is changed by an obfuscator. However, the indirect loading used for generic methods was breaking, because that uses the name of the method when the assembly is put through the PostSharp postprocessor to lookup the MethodBase at runtime. If the name then changes, PostSharp can't find it anymore, and the assembly breaks. So, PostSharp needs to know about any changes an obfuscator does to an assembly. The way PostSharp does this is by adding another layer of indirection. When PostSharp obfuscation support is enabled, it includes an extra 'name table' resource in the assembly, consisting of a series of method & type names. When PostSharp needs to lookup a method using reflection, instead of encoding the method name directly, it looks up the method name at a fixed offset inside that name table: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(ContainingClass).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: get_Prop1 21: set_Prop1 22: DoFoo 23: GetWibble When the assembly is later processed by an obfuscator, the obfuscator can replace all the method and type names within the name table with their new name. That way, the reflection lookups performed by PostSharp will now use the new names, and everything will work as expected: MethodBase genericMethod = typeof(#kGy).GetMethod(GetNameAtIndex(22)); PostSharp.NameTable resource: ... 20: #kkA 21: #zAb 22: #EF5a 23: #2tg As you can see, this requires direct support by an obfuscator in order to perform these rewrites. Dotfuscator supports it, and now, starting with SmartAssembly 6.6.4, SmartAssembly does too. So, a relatively simple solution to a tricky problem, with some CLR bugs thrown in for good measure. You don't see those every day! Cross posted from Simple Talk.

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  • Are too many assertions code smell?

    - by Florents
    I've really fallen in love with unit testing and TDD - I am test infected. However, unit testing is used for public methods. Sometimes though I do have to test some assumptions-assertions in private methods too, because some of them are "dangerous" and refactoring can't help further. (I know, testing frameworks allo testing private methods). So, It became a habit of mine that (almost always) the first and the last line of a private method are both assertions. I guess this couldn't be bad (right ??). However, I've noticed that I also tend to use assertions in public methods too (as in the private) just "to be sure". Could this be "testing duplication" since the public method assumpotions are tested from the unit testng framework? Could someone think of too many assertions as a code smell?

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  • The .NET 4.5 async/await Commands in Promise and Practice

    The .NET 4.5 async/await feature provides an opportunity for improving the scalability and performance of applications, particularly where tasks are more effectively done in parallel. The question is: do the scalability gains come at a cost of slowing individual methods? In this article Jon Smith investigates this issue by conducting a side-by-side evaluation of the standard synchronous methods and the new async methods in real applications.

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  • Visual Tree Enumeration

    - by codingbloke
    I feel compelled to post this blog because I find I’m repeatedly posting this same code in silverlight and windows-phone-7 answers in Stackoverflow. One common task that we feel we need to do is burrow into the visual tree in a Silverlight or Windows Phone 7 application (actually more recently I found myself doing this in WPF as well).  This allows access to details that aren’t exposed directly by some controls.  A good example of this sort of requirement is found in the “Restoring exact scroll position of a listbox in Windows Phone 7”  question on stackoverflow.  This required that the scroll position of the scroll viewer internal to a listbox be accessed. A caveat One caveat here is that we should seriously challenge the need for this burrowing since it may indicate that there is a design problem.  Burrowing into the visual tree or indeed burrowing out to containing ancestors could represent significant coupling between module boundaries and that generally isn’t a good idea. Why isn’t this idea just not cast aside as a no-no?  Well the whole concept of a “Templated Control”, which are in extensive use in these applications, opens the coupling between the content of the visual tree and the internal code of a control.   For example, I can completely change the appearance and positioning of elements that make up a ComboBox.  The ComboBox control relies on specific template parts having set names of a specified type being present in my template.  Rightly or wrongly this does kind of give license to writing code that has similar coupling. Hasn’t this been done already? Yes it has.  There are number of blogs already out there with similar solutions.  In fact if you are using Silverlight toolkit the VisualTreeExtensions class already provides this feature.  However I prefer my specific code because of the simplicity principle I hold to.  Only write the minimum code necessary to give all the features needed.  In this case I add just two extension methods Ancestors and Descendents, note I don’t bother with “Get” or “Visual” prefixes.  Also I haven’t added Parent or Children methods nor additional “AndSelf” methods because all but Children is achievable with the addition of some other Linq methods.  I decided to give Descendents an additional overload for depth hence a depth of 1 is equivalent to Children but this overload is a little more flexible than simply Children. So here is the code:- VisualTreeEnumeration public static class VisualTreeEnumeration {     public static IEnumerable<DependencyObject> Descendents(this DependencyObject root, int depth)     {         int count = VisualTreeHelper.GetChildrenCount(root);         for (int i = 0; i < count; i++)         {             var child = VisualTreeHelper.GetChild(root, i);             yield return child;             if (depth > 0)             {                 foreach (var descendent in Descendents(child, --depth))                     yield return descendent;             }         }     }     public static IEnumerable<DependencyObject> Descendents(this DependencyObject root)     {         return Descendents(root, Int32.MaxValue);     }     public static IEnumerable<DependencyObject> Ancestors(this DependencyObject root)     {         DependencyObject current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(root);         while (current != null)         {             yield return current;             current = VisualTreeHelper.GetParent(current);         }     } }   Usage examples The following are some examples of how to combine the above extension methods with Linq to generate the other axis scenarios that tree traversal code might require. Missing Axis Scenarios var parent = control.Ancestors().Take(1).FirstOrDefault(); var children = control.Descendents(1); var previousSiblings = control.Ancestors().Take(1)     .SelectMany(p => p.Descendents(1).TakeWhile(c => c != control)); var followingSiblings = control.Ancestors().Take(1)     .SelectMany(p => p.Descendents(1).SkipWhile(c => c != control).Skip(1)); var ancestorsAndSelf = Enumerable.Repeat((DependencyObject)control, 1)     .Concat(control.Ancestors()); var descendentsAndSelf = Enumerable.Repeat((DependencyObject)control, 1)     .Concat(control.Descendents()); You might ask why I don’t just include these in the VisualTreeEnumerator.  I don’t on the principle of only including code that is actually needed.  If you find that one or more of the above  is needed in your code then go ahead and create additional methods.  One of the downsides to Extension methods is that they can make finding the method you actually want in intellisense harder. Here are some real world usage scenarios for these methods:- Real World Scenarios //Gets the internal scrollviewer of a ListBox ScrollViewer sv = someListBox.Descendents().OfType<ScrollViewer>().FirstOrDefault(); // Get all text boxes in current UserControl:- var textBoxes = this.Descendents().OfType<TextBox>(); // All UIElement direct children of the layout root grid:- var topLevelElements = LayoutRoot.Descendents(0).OfType<UIElement>(); // Find the containing `ListBoxItem` for a UIElement:- var container = elem.Ancestors().OfType<ListBoxItem>().FirstOrDefault(); // Seek a button with the name "PinkElephants" even if outside of the current Namescope:- var pinkElephantsButton = this.Descendents()     .OfType<Button>()     .FirstOrDefault(b => b.Name == "PinkElephants"); //Clear all checkboxes with the name "Selector" in a Treeview foreach (CheckBox checkBox in elem.Descendents()     .OfType<CheckBox>().Where(c => c.Name == "Selector")) {     checkBox.IsChecked = false; }   The last couple of examples above demonstrate a common requirement of finding controls that have a specific name.  FindName will often not find these controls because they exist in a different namescope. Hope you find this useful, if not I’m just glad to be able to link to this blog in future stackoverflow answers.

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  • Go/Obj-C style interfaces with ability to extend compiled objects after initial release

    - by Skrylar
    I have a conceptual model for an object system which involves combining Go/Obj-C interfaces/protocols with being able to add virtual methods from any unit, not just the one which defines a class. The idea of this is to allow Ruby-ish open classes so you can take a minimalist approach to library development, and attach on small pieces of functionality as is actually needed by the whole program. Implementation of this involves a table of methods marked virtual in an RTTI table, which system functions are allowed to add to during module initialization. Upon typecasting an object to an interface, a Go-style lookup is done to create a vtable for that particular mapping and pass it off so you can have comparable performance to C/C++. In this case, methods may be added /afterwards/ which were not previously known and these new methods allow newer interfaces to be satisfied; while I like this idea because it seems like it would be very flexible (disregarding the potential for spaghetti code, which can happen with just about any model you use regardless). By wrapping the system calls for binding methods up in a set of clean C-compatible calls, one would also be able to integrate code with shared libraries and retain a decent amount of performance (Go does not do shared linking, and Objective-C does a dynamic lookup on each call.) Is there a valid use-case for this model that would make it worth the extra background plumbing? As much as this Dylan-style extensibility would be nice to have access to, I can't quite bring myself to a use case that would justify the overhead other than "it could make some kinds of code more extensible in future scenarios."

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  • should I extend or create instance of the class

    - by meWantToLearn
    I have two classes Class A and Class B in Class A, i have three methods that perform the save, delete and select operation based upon the object I pass them. in Class B I perform the logic operations, such as modification to the property of the object before being passed to the methods of Class A, My problem is in Class B, should it extend Class A, and call the methods of class A , by parent::methodName or create instance of class A and then call Class A does not includes any property just methods. class A{ public function save($obj){ //code here } public function delete($obj){ //code here } public function select($obj){ //code here } } //Should I extend class A, and call the method by parent::methodName($obj) or create an instance of class A, call the method $instanceOfA-methodName($obj); class B extends A{ public function checkIfHasSaved($obj){ if($obj->saved == 'Yes'){ parent::save($obj); //**should I call the method like this** $instanceOFA = new A(); //**or create instance of class A and call without extending class A** instanceOFA->save($obj); } //other logic operations here } }

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