mrjimoy 05 - Page 74 - Developer IT

The Incremental Architect´s Napkin - #1 - It´s about the money, stupid

- by Ralf Westphal

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/05/24/the-incremental-architectacutes-napkin---1---itacutes-about-the.aspx Software development is an economic endeavor. A customer is only willing to pay for value. What makes a software valuable is required to become a trait of the software. We as software developers thus need to understand and then find a way to implement requirements. Whether or in how far a customer really can know beforehand what´s going to be valuable for him/her in the end is a topic of constant debate. Some aspects of the requirements might be less foggy than others. Sometimes the customer does not know what he/she wants. Sometimes he/she´s certain to want something - but then is not happy when that´s delivered. Nevertheless requirements exist. And developers will only be paid if they deliver value. So we better focus on doing that. Although is might sound trivial I think it´s important to state the corollary: We need to be able to trace anything we do as developers back to some requirement. You decide to use Go as the implementation language? Well, what´s the customer´s requirement this decision is linked to? You decide to use WPF as the GUI technology? What´s the customer´s requirement? You decide in favor of a layered architecture? What´s the customer´s requirement? You decide to put code in three classes instead of just one? What´s the customer´s requirement behind that? You decide to use MongoDB over MySql? What´s the customer´s requirement behind that? etc. I´m not saying any of these decisions are wrong. I´m just saying whatever you decide be clear about the requirement that´s driving your decision. You have to be able to answer the question: Why do you think will X deliver more value to the customer than the alternatives? Customers are not interested in romantic ideals of hard working, good willing, quality focused craftsmen. They don´t care how and why you work - as long as what you deliver fulfills their needs. They want to trust you to recognize this as your top priority - and then deliver. That´s all. Fundamental aspects of requirements If you´re like me you´re probably not used to such scrutinization. You want to be trusted as a professional developer - and decide quite a few things following your gut feeling. Or by relying on “established practices”. That´s ok in general and most of the time - but still… I think we should be more conscious about our decisions. Which would make us more responsible, even more professional. But without further guidance it´s hard to reason about many of the myriad decisions we´ve to make over the course of a software project. What I found helpful in this situation is structuring requirements into fundamental aspects. Instead of one large heap of requirements then there are smaller blobs. With them it´s easier to check if a decisions falls in their scope. Sure, every project has it´s very own requirements. But all of them belong to just three different major categories, I think. Any requirement either pertains to functionality, non-functional aspects or sustainability. For short I call those aspects: Functionality, because such requirements describe which transformations a software should offer. For example: A calculator software should be able to add and multiply real numbers. An auction website should enable you to set up an auction anytime or to find auctions to bid for. Quality, because such requirements describe how functionality is supposed to work, e.g. fast or secure. For example: A calculator should be able to calculate the sinus of a value much faster than you could in your head. An auction website should accept bids from millions of users. Security of Investment, because functionality and quality need not just be delivered in any way. It´s important to the customer to get them quickly - and not only today but over the course of several years. This aspect introduces time into the “requrements equation”. Security of Investments (SoI) sure is a non-functional requirement. But I think it´s important to not subsume it under the Quality (Q) aspect. That´s because SoI has quite special properties. For one, SoI for software means something completely different from what it means for hardware. If you buy hardware (a car, a hair blower) you find that a worthwhile investment, if the hardware does not change it´s functionality or quality over time. A car still running smoothly with hardly any rust spots after 10 years of daily usage would be a very secure investment. So for hardware (or material products, if you like) “unchangeability” (in the face of usage) is desirable. With software you want the contrary. Software that cannot be changed is a waste. SoI for software means “changeability”. You want to be sure that the software you buy/order today can be changed, adapted, improved over an unforseeable number of years so as fit changes in its usage environment. But that´s not the only reason why the SoI aspect is special. On top of changeability[1] (or evolvability) comes immeasurability. Evolvability cannot readily be measured by counting something. Whether the changeability is as high as the customer wants it, cannot be determined by looking at metrics like Lines of Code or Cyclomatic Complexity or Afferent Coupling. They may give a hint… but they are far, far from precise. That´s because of the nature of changeability. It´s different from performance or scalability. Also it´s because a customer cannot tell upfront, “how much” evolvability he/she wants. Whether requirements regarding Functionality (F) and Q have been met, a customer can tell you very quickly and very precisely. A calculation is missing, the calculation takes too long, the calculation time degrades with increased load, the calculation is accessible to the wrong users etc. That´s all very or at least comparatively easy to determine. But changeability… That´s a whole different thing. Nevertheless over time the customer will develop a feedling if changeability is good enough or degrading. He/she just has to check the development of the frequency of “WTF”s from developers ;-) F and Q are “timeless” requirement categories. Customers want us to deliver on them now. Just focusing on the now, though, is rarely beneficial in the long run. So SoI adds a counterweight to the requirements picture. Customers want SoI - whether they know it or not, whether they state if explicitly or not. In closing A customer´s requirements are not monolithic. They are not all made the same. Rather they fall into different categories. We as developers need to recognize these categories when confronted with some requirement - and take them into account. Only then can we make true professional decisions, i.e. conscious and responsible ones. I call this fundamental trait of software “changeability” and not “flexibility” to distinguish to whom it´s a concern. “Flexibility” to me means, software as is can easily be adapted to a change in its environment, e.g. by tweaking some config data or adding a library which gets picked up by a plug-in engine. “Flexibiltiy” thus is a matter of some user. “Changeability”, on the other hand, to me means, software can easily be changed in its structure to adapt it to new requirements. That´s a matter of the software developer. ?

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XNA Notes 010

- by George Clingerman

With GDC 2011 wrapping up there were a LOT of great interviews and posts with and about XNA and XBLIG and some of our more notorious developers. Definitely worth spending many, many hours watching, listening and reading all those. Very inspiring! Also, don’t forget to get signed up for Dream Build Play! And just as an early warning reminder do NOT, I repeat do NOT wait to submit your game the last day. There are major issues submitting the last day every year and you do not want all your hard work to be hanging on whether your entry actually went through in that last day. Plan on submitting a few days if not a week before. I’m serious, you’ll thank yourself later! Now on to what’s happening in the XNA community! Time Critical XNA News: PAX East Meet Up (really wish I was going!) http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/71921/439262.aspx Want to stay panicked about the countdown to Dream Build Play? Mike McLaughlin shares his DBP countdown clock http://twitter.com/#!/mikebmcl/status/44454458960252928 XNA Team: Nick Gravelyn Only needs less than 600 new users in his unique marketing plan for Pixel Man 2 http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ And hares his ad revenue numbers with his XNA WP7 games http://theoneswiththelight.com/2011/my-results-with-ad-revenue-for-wp7-games/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn posts his 15,000th App Hub forum post and shares a few thoughts on the MVP summit http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/77625.aspx Chris Williams shares his thoughts on the MVP summit http://geekswithblogs.net/cwilliams/archive/2011/03/07/144229.aspx XNA Developers: Nathan Fouts of Mommy’s Best games Wraps up GDC http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/gdc-2011-wrapped.html And shares the wonderful screenshots from Serious Sam. (I’m so jealous people at PAX East willl be playing a demo of this game!) http://mommysbest.blogspot.com/2011/03/serious-sam-double-d.html James Silva of Ska Studios announces http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/09/vampire-smile-at-hotel-sierra/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/08/vengeance-begins-april-6th/ http://www.ska-studios.com/2011/03/04/good-morning-gato-52/ Michael McLaughlin writes an extremely useful set of tips for XNA WP7 developers http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/03/10/tips-for-xna-wp7-developers.aspx Robert Boyd “the one man XBLIG improving machine” posts his 9 tips for marketing an Xbox LIVE Indie Gam http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110309/7183/9_Tips_for_XBLIG_Marketing.php http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/77534/470586.aspx#470586 And shares his day by day experience at GDC this year http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7118/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_1.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110301/7123/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_2.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110303/7129/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_3.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7133/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_4.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110307/7160/GDC_Saves_the_World__Impressions_Day_5.php Phillipe Da Silva releases new IGF Pong Sample preview http://www.vimeo.com/20904070 Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): Gamergeddon posts XBox Indie Game Roundup for March 6th http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/03/06/xbox-indie-game-round-up-march-6th/ Dealspwn interviews FortressCraft developer Projector Games http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-minecraft-clones-venting-haters-part-1/ http://www.dealspwn.com/fortresscraft-developer-interview-part-2-trials-tribulations-indie-development/ Writings of Mass Destruction continues the Xbox LIVE Indie Game a day campaign, here’s his take on FishCraft (be sure to check out his other posts!) http://writingsofmassdeduction.com/2011/03/05/day-116-fishcraft/ Tom Ogburn shares his GDC notes on the XBLIG panel jotted quickly while attending the panel http://twitter.com/#!/TOgburn/status/44454191028125696 http://www.starlitskygames.com/blogs/site_news/archive/2011/03/06/802.aspx Dave Voyles of Armless Octopus has crazy good coverage on XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Game developers at GDC 2011. Interviews and articles all extremely well done! http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/06/gdc-2011-successful-indie-developers-share-insight-on-microsofts-self-publishing-service/ There’s honestly so many posts and interviews you should just hit his front page and scroll down through all of the latest ones. http://www.armlessoctopus.com/ GameMarx Episode 12 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/27/ep-12-march-4-2011.aspx B.U.T.T.O.N now on Steam! http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2011/03/button_party_game_now_on_steam.php German Xbox Dashboard gets review program from GamePro http://www.armlessoctopus.com/2011/03/07/gamepo-indie-review-show-debuts-on-german-xbox-dashboard/ XboxIndies.com (one of the best XNA sites out there at this point!) continues to add review sites to it’s main review feed. (And don’t forget to play with that awesome XBLIG pivot control!) http://xboxindies.com/ Kris Steele of FunInfused Games shares early footage of his game World of Chalk http://twitter.com/#!/kriswd40/status/45007114371989504 Raymond Matthews of Darkstarmatryx reviews FunInfused Games Abduction Action http://www.darkstarmatryx.com/?p=264 TheVideoGamerRob reviews Zombie Football Carnage http://videogamerrob.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/xblig-review-zombie-football-carnage/ XBLIG Square Off Making the Jump to WP7 http://www.wp7connect.com/2011/03/08/xblig-square-off-will-make-the-jump-to-windows-phone/ Mommy’s Best Games making the news round with their Serious Sam announcement http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/serious-sam-gets-serious-indie-cred-with-new-indie-series/ Most quoted and linked XBLIG article of the week with the least amount of actual facts and reporting. Shared only because it makes me sad that this is the best coverage we get. (Hey reporters, there’s LOT and LOTS of XBLIG and XNA experts you can contact if you need to check up on facts or wonder why on questions like, Why can’t XBLIGs have Nazis? There’s actually a real answer for that..) http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/06/xblig-facts-nazi-killing-a-no-no-revenue-a-yes-yes/ XNA Development: Mort8088 has been in an XNA tutorial writing frenzy releasing 4 XNA 4.0 entry level tutorials this week! http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-0-intro/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-1-fonts/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-2-sprites/ http://mort8088.com/2011/03/06/xna-4-0-tutorial-3-input-from-keyboard/ Interesting discussion on what it means to be a community (you do have to sign up to be a member of the XNA UK forums to read it...) http://twitter.com/#!/XNAUK/status/44705269254594560 Slyprid continues his incredible pace on Transmute and shares screens of his new Animation Builder http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/45169271847911424 http://forgottenstarstudios.com/blog/ Philippe Da Silva wants to know who is using IGF for their games. If it’s you, drop him a note letting him know! http://twitter.com/#!/philippedasilva/status/44325893719588864 New Sunburn Video Tutorials released http://www.synapsegaming.com/blogs/fivesidedbarrel/archive/2011/03/07/new-documentation-video-tutorials.aspx Loading and rendering animated collada models using XNA 4.0 http://bunkernetz.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/loading-and-rendering-animated-collada-models-using-xna-4-0/ XNA for Silverlight Developers Part 6 Accelerometer Input http://buzzgamesnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/xna-for-silverlight-developers-part-6.html

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Create PDF document using iTextSharp in ASP.Net 4.0 and MemoryMappedFile

- by sreejukg

In this article I am going to demonstrate how ASP.Net developers can programmatically create PDF documents using iTextSharp. iTextSharp is a software component, that allows developers to programmatically create or manipulate PDF documents. Also this article discusses the process of creating in-memory file, read/write data from/to the in-memory file utilizing the new feature MemoryMappedFile. I have a database of users, where I need to send a notice to all my users as a PDF document. The sending mail part of it is not covered in this article. The PDF document will contain the company letter head, to make it more official. I have a list of users stored in a database table named “tblusers”. For each user I need to send customized message addressed to them personally. The database structure for the users is give below. id Title Full Name 1 Mr. Sreeju Nair K. G. 2 Dr. Alberto Mathews 3 Prof. Venketachalam Now I am going to generate the pdf document that contains some message to the user, in the following format. Dear <Title> <FullName>, The message for the user. Regards, Administrator Also I have an image, bg.jpg that contains the background for the document generated. I have created .Net 4.0 empty web application project named “iTextSharpSample”. First thing I need to do is to download the iTextSharp dll from the source forge. You can find the url for the download here. http://sourceforge.net/projects/itextsharp/files/ I have extracted the Zip file and added the itextsharp.dll as a reference to my project. Also I have added a web form named default.aspx to my project. After doing all this, the solution explorer have the following view. In the default.aspx page, I inserted one grid view and associated it with a SQL Data source control that bind data from tblusers. I have added a button column in the grid view with text “generate pdf”. The output of the page in the browser is as follows. Now I am going to create a pdf document when the user clicking on the Generate PDF button. As I mentioned before, I am going to work with the file in memory, I am not going to create a file in the disk. I added an event handler for button by specifying onrowcommand event handler. My gridview source looks like <asp:GridView ID="GridView1" runat="server" AutoGenerateColumns="False" DataSourceID="SqlDataSource1" Width="481px" CellPadding="4" ForeColor="#333333" GridLines="None" onrowcommand="Generate_PDF" > ………………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………….. </asp:GridView> In the code behind, I wrote the corresponding event handler. protected void Generate_PDF(object sender, GridViewCommandEventArgs e) { // The button click event handler code. // I am going to explain the code for this section in the remaining part of the article } The Generate_PDF method is straight forward, It get the title, fullname and message to some variables, then create the pdf using these variables. The code for getting data from the grid view is as follows // get the row index stored in the CommandArgument property int index = Convert.ToInt32(e.CommandArgument); // get the GridViewRow where the command is raised GridViewRow selectedRow = ((GridView)e.CommandSource).Rows[index]; string title = selectedRow.Cells[1].Text; string fullname = selectedRow.Cells[2].Text; string msg = @"There are some changes in the company policy, due to this matter you need to submit your latest address to us. Please update your contact details / personnal details by visiting the member area of the website. ................................... "; since I don’t want to save the file in the disk, I am going the new feature introduced in .Net framework 4, called Memory-Mapped Files. Using Memory-Mapped mapped file, you can created non-persisted memory mapped files, that are not associated with a file in a disk. So I am going to create a temporary file in memory, add the pdf content to it, then write it to the output stream. To read more about MemoryMappedFile, read this msdn article http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997372.aspx The below portion of the code using MemoryMappedFile object to create a test pdf document in memory and perform read/write operation on file. The CreateViewStream() object will give you a stream that can be used to read or write data to/from file. The code is very straight forward and I included comment so that you can understand the code. using (MemoryMappedFile mmf = MemoryMappedFile.CreateNew("test1.pdf", 1000000)) { // Create a new pdf document object using the constructor. The parameters passed are document size, left margin, right margin, top margin and bottom margin. iTextSharp.text.Document d = new iTextSharp.text.Document(PageSize.A4, 72,72,172,72); //get an instance of the memory mapped file to stream object so that user can write to this using (MemoryMappedViewStream stream = mmf.CreateViewStream()) { // associate the document to the stream. PdfWriter.GetInstance(d, stream); /* add an image as bg*/ iTextSharp.text.Image jpg = iTextSharp.text.Image.GetInstance(Server.MapPath("Image/bg.png")); jpg.Alignment = iTextSharp.text.Image.UNDERLYING; jpg.SetAbsolutePosition(0, 0); //this is the size of my background letter head image. the size is in points. this will fit to A4 size document. jpg.ScaleToFit(595, 842); d.Open(); d.Add(jpg); d.Add(new Paragraph(String.Format("Dear {0} {1},", title, fullname))); d.Add(new Paragraph("\n")); d.Add(new Paragraph(msg)); d.Add(new Paragraph("\n")); d.Add(new Paragraph(String.Format("Administrator"))); d.Close(); } //read the file data byte[] b; using (MemoryMappedViewStream stream = mmf.CreateViewStream()) { BinaryReader rdr = new BinaryReader(stream); b = new byte[mmf.CreateViewStream().Length]; rdr.Read(b, 0, (int)mmf.CreateViewStream().Length); } Response.Clear(); Response.ContentType = "Application/pdf"; Response.BinaryWrite(b); Response.End(); } Press ctrl + f5 to run the application. First I got the user list. Click on the generate pdf icon. The created looks as follows. Summary: Creating pdf document using iTextSharp is easy. You will get lot of information while surfing the www. Some useful resources and references are mentioned below http://itextsharp.com/ http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/Article/82/iTextSharp-Adding-Text-with-Chunks-Phrases-and-Paragraphs http://somewebguy.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/itextsharp-simplify-your-html-to-pdf-creation/ Hope you enjoyed the article.

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Conversion of BizTalk Projects to Use the New WCF-SAP Adaptor

- by Geordie

We are in the process of upgrading our BizTalk Environment from BizTalk 2006 R2 to BizTalk 2010. The SAP adaptor in BizTalk 2010 is an all new and more powerful WCF-SAP adaptor. When my colleagues tested out the new adaptor they discovered that the format of the data extracted from SAP was not identical to the old adaptor. This is not a big deal if the structure of the messages from SAP is simple. In this case we were receiving the delivery and invoice iDocs. Both these structures are complex especially the delivery document. Over the past few years I have tweaked the delivery mapping to remove bugs from original mapping. The idea of redoing these maps did not appeal and due to the current work load was not even an option. I opted for a rather crude alternative of pulling in the iDoc in the new typed format and then adding a static map at the start of the orchestration to convert the data to the old schema. Note WCF-SAP data formats (on the binding tab of the configuration dialog box is the ‘RecieiveIdocFormat’ field): Typed: Returns a XML document with the hierarchy represented in XML and all fields being represented by XML tags. RFC: Returns an XML document with the hierarchy represented in XML but the iDoc lines in flat file format. String: This returns the iDoc in a format that is closest to the original flat file format but is still wrapped with some top level XML tags. The files also contained some strange characters at the end of each line. I started with the invoice document and it was quite straight forward to add the mapping but this is where my problems started. The orchestrations for these documents are dynamic and so require the identity of the partner to be able to correctly configure the orchestration. The partner identity is in the EDI_DC40 segment of the iDoc. In the old project the RECPRN node of the segment was promoted. The code to set a variable to the partner ID was now failing. After lot of head scratching I discovered the problem was due to the addition of Namespaces to the fields in the EDI_DC40 segment. To overcome this I needed to use an xPath query with a Namespace Manager. This had to be done in custom code. I now tried to repeat the process with the delivery document. Unfortunately when we tried to get sample typed data from SAP an exception was thrown. The adapter "WCF-SAP" raised an error message. Details "Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.XmlReaderGenerationException: The segment or group definition E2EDKA1001 was not found in the IDoc metadata. The UniqueId of the IDoc type is: IDOCTYP/3/DESADV01/ZASNEXT1/640. For Receive operations, the SAP adapter does not support unreleased segments. Our guess is that when the WCF-SAP adaptor tries to down load the data it retrieves a data schema from SAP. For some reason the schema does not match the data. This may be due to the version of SAP we are running or due to a customization. Either way resolving this problem did not look easy. When doing some research on this problem I found an article showing me how to get the data from SAP using the WCF-SAP adaptor without any XML tags. http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adapters/archive/2007/10/05/receiving-idocs-getting-the-raw-idoc-data.aspx Reproduction of Mustansir blog: Since the WCF based SAP Adapter is ... well, WCF based, all data flowing in and out of the adapter is encapsulated within a SOAP message. Which means there are those pesky xml tags all over the place. If you want to receive an Idoc from SAP, you can receive it in "Typed" format (in which case each column in each segment of the idoc appears within its own xml tag), or you can receive it in "String" format (in which case there are just 2 xml tags at the top, the raw xml data in string/flat file format, and the 2 closing xml tags). In "String" format, an incoming idoc (for ORDERS05, containing 5 data records) would look like: <ReceiveIdoc ><idocData>EDI_DC40 8000000000001064985620 E2EDK01005 800000000000106498500000100000001 E2EDK14 8000000000001064985000002000000020111000 E2EDK14 8000000000001064985000003000000020081000 E2EDK14 80000000000010649850000040000000200710 E2EDK14 80000000000010649850000050000000200600</idocData></ReceiveIdoc> (I have trimmed part of the control record so that it fits cleanly here on one line). Now, you're only interested in the IDOC data, and don't care much for the XML tags. It isn't that difficult to write your own pipeline component, or even some logic in the orchestration to remove the tags, right? Well, you don't need to write any extra code at all - the WCF Adapter can help you here! During the configuration of your one-way Receive Location using WCF-Custom, navigate to the Messages tab. Under the section "Inbound BizTalk Messge Body", select the "Path" radio button, and: (a) Enter the body path expression as: /*[local-name()='ReceiveIdoc']/*[local-name()='idocData'] (b) Choose "String" for the Node Encoding. What we've done is, used an XPATH to pull out the value of the "idocData" node from the XML. Your Receive Location will now emit text containing only the idoc data. You can at this point, for example, put the Flat File Pipeline component to convert the flat text into a different xml format based on some other schema you already have, and receive your version of the xml formatted message in your orchestration. This was potentially a much easier solution than adding the static maps to the orchestrations and overcame the issue with ‘Typed’ delivery documents. Not quite so fast… Note: When I followed Mustansir’s blog the characters at the end of each line disappeared. After configuring the adaptor and passing the iDoc data into the original flat file receive pipelines I was receiving exceptions. There was a failure executing the receive pipeline: "PAPINETPipelines.DeliveryFlatFileReceive, CustomerIntegration2.PAPINET.Pipelines, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=4ca3635fbf092bbb" Source: "Pipeline " Receive Port: "recSAP_Delivery" URI: "D:\CustomerIntegration2\SAP\Delivery\*.xml" Reason: An error occurred when parsing the incoming document: "Unexpected data found while looking for: 'Z2EDPZ7' The current definition being parsed is E2EDP07GRP. The stream offset where the error occured is 8859. The line number where the error occured is 23. The column where the error occured is 0.". Although the new flat file looked the same as the old one there was a differences. In the original file all lines in the document were exactly 1064 character long. In the new file all lines were truncated to the last alphanumeric character. The final piece of the puzzle was to add a custom pipeline component to pad all the lines to 1064 characters. This component was added to the decode node of the custom delivery and invoice flat file disassembler pipelines. Execute method of the custom pipeline component: public IBaseMessage Execute(IPipelineContext pc, IBaseMessage inmsg) { //Convert Stream to a string Stream s = null; IBaseMessagePart bodyPart = inmsg.BodyPart; // NOTE inmsg.BodyPart.Data is implemented only as a setter in the http adapter API and a //getter and setter for the file adapter. Use GetOriginalDataStream to get data instead. if (bodyPart != null) s = bodyPart.GetOriginalDataStream(); string newMsg = string.Empty; string strLine; try { StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(s); strLine = sr.ReadLine(); while (strLine != null) { //Execute padding code if (strLine != null) strLine = strLine.PadRight(1064, ' ') + "\r\n"; newMsg += strLine; strLine = sr.ReadLine(); } sr.Close(); } catch (IOException ex) { throw new Exception("Error occured trying to pad the message to 1064 charactors"); } //Convert back to stream and set to Data property inmsg.BodyPart.Data = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(newMsg)); ; //reset the position of the stream to zero inmsg.BodyPart.Data.Position = 0; return inmsg; }

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Windows Azure Myths

- by BuckWoody

Windows Azure is part of the Microsoft "stack" - the suite of software and services we offer. Because we have so many products in almost every part of technology, it's hard to know everything about all parts of what we do - even for those of us who work here. So it's no surprise that some folks are not as familiar with Windows and SQL Azure as they are, say Windows Server or XBox. As I chat with folks about a solution for a business or organization need, I put Windows Azure into the mix. I always start off with "What do you already know about Windows Azure?" so that I don't bore folks with information they already have. I some cases they've checked out the product ahead of time and have specific questions, in others they aren't as familiar, and in still others there is a fair amount of mis-information. Sometimes that's because of a marketing failure, sometimes it's hearsay, and somtetimes it's active misinformation. I thought I might lay out a few of these misconceptions. As always - do your fact-checking! Never take anyone's word alone (including mine) as gospel. Make sure you educate yourself on your options. Your company or your clients depend on you to have the right information on IT, so make sure you live up to that. Myth 1: Nobody uses Windows Azure It's true that we don't give out numbers on the amount of clients on Windows and SQL Azure. But lots of folks are here - companies you may have heard of like Boeing, NASA, Fujitsu, The City of London, Nuedesic, and many others. I deal with firms small and large that use Windows Azure for mission-critical applications, sometimes totally on Windows and/or SQL Azure, sometimes in conjunction with an on-premises system, sometimes for only a specific component in Windows Azure like storage. The interesting thing is that many sites you visit have a Windows Azure component, or are running on Windows Azure. They just don't announce it. Just like the other cloud providers, the companies have asked to be completely branded themselves - they don't want you to be aware or care that they are on Windows Azure. Sometimes that's for security, other times it's for different reasons. It's just like the web sites you visit. For the most part, they don't advertise which OS or Web Server they use. It really just shouldn't matter. The point is that they just use what works to solve a given problem. Check out a few public case studies here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/case-studies/ Myth 2: It's only for Microsoft stuff - can't use Open Source This is the one I face the most, and am the most dismayed by. We work just fine with many open source products, including Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Python, Hadoop, and many other languages and applications. You can quickly deploy a Wordpress, Umbraco and other "kits". We have software development kits (SDK's) for iPhones, iPads, Android, Windows phones and more. We have an SDK to work with FaceBook and other social networks. In short, we play well with others. More on the languages and runtimes we support here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ More on the SDK's here: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/05/windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios/, http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/08/windows-azure-toolkits-for-devices-now-with-android/, http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com/ Myth 3: Microsoft expects me to switch everything to "the cloud" No, we don't. That would be disasterous, unless the only things you run in your company uses works perfectly in Azure. Use Windows Azure - or any cloud for that matter - where it works. Whenever I talk to companies, I focus on two things: Something that is broken and needs to be re-architected Something you want to do that is new If something is broken, and you need new tools to scale, extend, add capacity dynamically and so on, then you can consider using Windows or SQL Azure. It can help solve problems that you have, or it may include a component you don't want to write or architect yourself. Sometimes you want to do something new, like extend your company's offerings to mobile phones, to the web, or to a social network. More info on where it works here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Myth 4: I have to write code to use Windows and SQL Azure If Windows Azure is a PaaS - a Platform as a Service - then don't you have to write code to use it? Nope. Windows and SQL Azure are made up of various components. Some of those components allow you to write and deploy code (like Compute) and others don't. We have lots of customers using Windows Azure storage as a backup, to securely share files instead of using DropBox, to distribute videos or code or firmware, and more. Others use our High Performance Computing (HPC) offering to rent a supercomputer when they need one. You can even throw workloads at that using Excel! In addition there are lots of other components in Windows Azure you can use, from the Windows Azure Media Services to others. More here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/saas/ Myth 5: Windows Azure is just another form of "vendor lock-in" Windows Azure uses .NET, OSS languages and standard interfaces for the code. Sure, you're not going to take the code line-for-line and run it on a mainframe, but it's standard code that you write, and can port to something else. And the data is yours - you can bring it back whever you want. It's either in text or binary form, that you have complete control over. There are no licenses - you can "pay as you go", and when you're done, you can leave the service and take all your code, data and IP with you. So go out there, read up, try it. Use it where it works. And don't believe everything you hear - sometimes the Internet doesn't get it all correct. :)

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Windows Azure Myths

- by BuckWoody

Windows Azure is part of the Microsoft "stack" - the suite of software and services we offer. Because we have so many products in almost every part of technology, it's hard to know everything about all parts of what we do - even for those of us who work here. So it's no surprise that some folks are not as familiar with Windows and SQL Azure as they are, say Windows Server or XBox. As I chat with folks about a solution for a business or organization need, I put Windows Azure into the mix. I always start off with "What do you already know about Windows Azure?" so that I don't bore folks with information they already have. I some cases they've checked out the product ahead of time and have specific questions, in others they aren't as familiar, and in still others there is a fair amount of mis-information. Sometimes that's because of a marketing failure, sometimes it's hearsay, and somtetimes it's active misinformation. I thought I might lay out a few of these misconceptions. As always - do your fact-checking! Never take anyone's word alone (including mine) as gospel. Make sure you educate yourself on your options. Your company or your clients depend on you to have the right information on IT, so make sure you live up to that. Myth 1: Nobody uses Windows Azure It's true that we don't give out numbers on the amount of clients on Windows and SQL Azure. But lots of folks are here - companies you may have heard of like Boeing, NASA, Fujitsu, The City of London, Nuedesic, and many others. I deal with firms small and large that use Windows Azure for mission-critical applications, sometimes totally on Windows and/or SQL Azure, sometimes in conjunction with an on-premises system, sometimes for only a specific component in Windows Azure like storage. The interesting thing is that many sites you visit have a Windows Azure component, or are running on Windows Azure. They just don't announce it. Just like the other cloud providers, the companies have asked to be completely branded themselves - they don't want you to be aware or care that they are on Windows Azure. Sometimes that's for security, other times it's for different reasons. It's just like the web sites you visit. For the most part, they don't advertise which OS or Web Server they use. It really just shouldn't matter. The point is that they just use what works to solve a given problem. Check out a few public case studies here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/case-studies/ Myth 2: It's only for Microsoft stuff - can't use Open Source This is the one I face the most, and am the most dismayed by. We work just fine with many open source products, including Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Python, Hadoop, and many other languages and applications. You can quickly deploy a Wordpress, Umbraco and other "kits". We have software development kits (SDK's) for iPhones, iPads, Android, Windows phones and more. We have an SDK to work with FaceBook and other social networks. In short, we play well with others. More on the languages and runtimes we support here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/develop/overview/ More on the SDK's here: http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/05/windows-azure-toolkit-for-ios/, http://www.wadewegner.com/2011/08/windows-azure-toolkits-for-devices-now-with-android/, http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com/ Myth 3: Microsoft expects me to switch everything to "the cloud" No, we don't. That would be disasterous, unless the only things you run in your company uses works perfectly in Azure. Use Windows Azure - or any cloud for that matter - where it works. Whenever I talk to companies, I focus on two things: Something that is broken and needs to be re-architected Something you want to do that is new If something is broken, and you need new tools to scale, extend, add capacity dynamically and so on, then you can consider using Windows or SQL Azure. It can help solve problems that you have, or it may include a component you don't want to write or architect yourself. Sometimes you want to do something new, like extend your company's offerings to mobile phones, to the web, or to a social network. More info on where it works here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckwoody/archive/2011/01/18/windows-azure-and-sql-azure-use-cases.aspx Myth 4: I have to write code to use Windows and SQL Azure If Windows Azure is a PaaS - a Platform as a Service - then don't you have to write code to use it? Nope. Windows and SQL Azure are made up of various components. Some of those components allow you to write and deploy code (like Compute) and others don't. We have lots of customers using Windows Azure storage as a backup, to securely share files instead of using DropBox, to distribute videos or code or firmware, and more. Others use our High Performance Computing (HPC) offering to rent a supercomputer when they need one. You can even throw workloads at that using Excel! In addition there are lots of other components in Windows Azure you can use, from the Windows Azure Media Services to others. More here: https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/home/scenarios/saas/ Myth 5: Windows Azure is just another form of "vendor lock-in" Windows Azure uses .NET, OSS languages and standard interfaces for the code. Sure, you're not going to take the code line-for-line and run it on a mainframe, but it's standard code that you write, and can port to something else. And the data is yours - you can bring it back whever you want. It's either in text or binary form, that you have complete control over. There are no licenses - you can "pay as you go", and when you're done, you can leave the service and take all your code, data and IP with you. So go out there, read up, try it. Use it where it works. And don't believe everything you hear - sometimes the Internet doesn't get it all correct. :)

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Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service

- by Elton Stoneman

We're in the process of delivering an enabling project to expose on-premise WCF services securely to Internet consumers. The Azure Service Bus Relay is doing the clever stuff, we register our on-premise service with Azure, consumers call into our .servicebus.windows.net namespace, and their requests are relayed and serviced on-premise. In theory it's all wonderfully simple; by using the relay we get lots of protocol options, free HTTPS and load balancing, and by integrating to ACS we get plenty of security options. Part of our delivery is a suite of sample consumers for the service - .NET, jQuery, PHP - and this set of posts will cover setting up the service and the consumers. Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service In theory, this is ultra-straightforward. In practice, and on a dev laptop it is - but in a corporate network with firewalls and proxies, it isn't, so we'll walkthrough some of the pitfalls. Note that I'm using the "old" Azure portal which will soon be out of date, but the new shiny portal should have the same steps available and be easier to use. We start with a simple WCF service which takes a string as input, reverses the string and returns it. The Part 1 version of the code is on GitHub here: on GitHub here: IPASBR Part 1. Configuring Azure Service Bus Start by logging into the Azure portal and registering a Service Bus namespace which will be our endpoint in the cloud. Give it a globally unique name, set it up somewhere near you (if you’re in Europe, remember Europe (North) is Ireland, and Europe (West) is the Netherlands), and enable ACS integration by ticking "Access Control" as a service: Authenticating and authorizing to ACS When we try to register our on-premise service as a listener for the Service Bus endpoint, we need to supply credentials, which means only trusted service providers can act as listeners. We can use the default "owner" credentials, but that has admin permissions so a dedicated service account is better (Neil Mackenzie has a good post On Not Using owner with the Azure AppFabric Service Bus with lots of permission details). Click on "Access Control Service" for the namespace, navigate to Service Identities and add a new one. Give the new account a sensible name and description: Let ACS generate a symmetric key for you (this will be the shared secret we use in the on-premise service to authenticate as a listener), but be sure to set the expiration date to something usable. The portal defaults to expiring new identities after 1 year - but when your year is up *your identity will expire without warning* and everything will stop working. In production, you'll need governance to manage identity expiration and a process to make sure you renew identities and roll new keys regularly. The new service identity needs to be authorized to listen on the service bus endpoint. This is done through claim mapping in ACS - we'll set up a rule that says if the nameidentifier in the input claims has the value serviceProvider, in the output we'll have an action claim with the value Listen. In the ACS portal you'll see that there is already a Relying Party Application set up for ServiceBus, which has a Default rule group. Edit the rule group and click Add to add this new rule: The values to use are: Issuer: Access Control Service Input claim type: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier Input claim value: serviceProvider Output claim type: net.windows.servicebus.action Output claim value: Listen When your service namespace and identity are set up, open the Part 1 solution and put your own namespace, service identity name and secret key into the file AzureConnectionDetails.xml in Solution Items, e.g: <azure namespace="sixeyed-ipasbr">  <service identityName="serviceProvider" symmetricKey="nuR2tHhlrTCqf4YwjT2RA2BZ/+xa23euaRJNLh1a/V4="/> </azure> Build the solution, and the T4 template will generate the Web.config for the service project with your Azure details in the transportClientEndpointBehavior: <behavior name="SharedSecret"> <transportClientEndpointBehavior credentialType="SharedSecret"> <clientCredentials> <sharedSecret issuerName="serviceProvider" issuerSecret="nuR2tHhlrTCqf4YwjT2RA2BZ/+xa23euaRJNLh1a/V4="/> </clientCredentials> </transportClientEndpointBehavior> </behavior> , and your service namespace in the Azure endpoint:  <endpoint address="sb://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/net" binding="netTcpRelayBinding" contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService" behaviorConfiguration="SharedSecret"> </endpoint> The sample project is hosted in IIS, but it won't register with Azure until the service is activated. Typically you'd install AppFabric 1.1 for Widnows Server and set the service to auto-start in IIS, but for dev just navigate to the local REST URL, which will activate the service and register it with Azure. Testing the service locally As well as an Azure endpoint, the service has a WebHttpBinding for local REST access:  <endpoint address="rest" binding="webHttpBinding" behaviorConfiguration="RESTBehavior" contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService" /> Build the service, then navigate to: http://localhost/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services/FormatService.svc/rest/reverse?string=abc123 - and you should see the reversed string response: If your network allows it, you'll get the expected response as before, but in the background your service will also be listening in the cloud. Good stuff! Who needs network security? Onto the next post for consuming the service with the netTcpRelayBinding. Setting up network access to Azure But, if you get an error, it's because your network is secured and it's doing something to stop the relay working. The Service Bus relay bindings try to use direct TCP connections to Azure, so if ports 9350-9354 are available *outbound*, then the relay will run through them. If not, the binding steps down to standard HTTP, and issues a CONNECT across port 443 or 80 to set up a tunnel for the relay. If your network security guys are doing their job, the first option will be blocked by the firewall, and the second option will be blocked by the proxy, so you'll get this error: System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: Unable to reach sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net via TCP (9351, 9352) or HTTP (80, 443) - and that will probably be the start of lots of discussions. Network guys don't really like giving servers special permissions for the web proxy, and they really don't like opening ports, so they'll need to be convinced about this. The resolution in our case was to put up a dedicated box in a DMZ, tinker with the firewall and the proxy until we got a relay connection working, then run some traffic which the the network guys monitored to do a security assessment afterwards. Along the way we hit a few more issues, diagnosed mainly with Fiddler and Wireshark: System.Net.ProtocolViolationException: Chunked encoding upload is not supported on the HTTP/1.0 protocol - this means the TCP ports are not available, so Azure tries to relay messaging traffic across HTTP. The service can access the endpoint, but the proxy is downgrading traffic to HTTP 1.0, which does not support tunneling, so Azure can’t make its connection. We were using the Squid proxy, version 2.6. The Squid project is incrementally adding HTTP 1.1 support, but there's no definitive list of what's supported in what version (here are some hints). System.ServiceModel.Security.SecurityNegotiationException: The X.509 certificate CN=servicebus.windows.net chain building failed. The certificate that was used has a trust chain that cannot be verified. Replace the certificate or change the certificateValidationMode. The evocation function was unable to check revocation because the revocation server was offline. - by this point we'd given up on the HTTP proxy and opened the TCP ports. We got this error when the relay binding does it's authentication hop to ACS. The messaging traffic is TCP, but the control traffic still goes over HTTP, and as part of the ACS authentication the process checks with a revocation server to see if Microsoft’s ACS cert is still valid, so the proxy still needs some clearance. The service account (the IIS app pool identity) needs access to: www.public-trust.com mscrl.microsoft.com We still got this error periodically with different accounts running the app pool. We fixed that by ensuring the machine-wide proxy settings are set up, so every account uses the correct proxy: netsh winhttp set proxy proxy-server="http://proxy.x.y.z" - and you might need to run this to clear out your credential cache: certutil -urlcache * delete If your network guys end up grudgingly opening ports, they can restrict connections to the IP address range for your chosen Azure datacentre, which might make them happier - see Windows Azure Datacenter IP Ranges. After all that you've hopefully got an on-premise service listening in the cloud, which you can consume from pretty much any technology.

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Testing Workflows – Test-After

- by Timothy Klenke

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-after.aspxIn this post I’m going to outline a few common methods that can be used to increase the coverage of of your test suite. This won’t be yet another post on why you should be doing testing; there are plenty of those types of posts already out there. Assuming you know you should be testing, then comes the problem of how do I actual fit that into my day job. When the opportunity to automate testing comes do you take it, or do you even recognize it? There are a lot of ways (workflows) to go about creating automated tests, just like there are many workflows to writing a program. When writing a program you can do it from a top-down approach where you write the main skeleton of the algorithm and call out to dummy stub functions, or a bottom-up approach where the low level functionality is fully implement before it is quickly wired together at the end. Both approaches are perfectly valid under certain contexts. Each approach you are skilled at applying is another tool in your tool belt. The more vectors of attack you have on a problem – the better. So here is a short, incomplete list of some of the workflows that can be applied to increasing the amount of automation in your testing and level of quality in general. Think of each workflow as an opportunity that is available for you to take. Test workflows basically fall into 2 categories: test first or test after. Test first is the best approach. However, this post isn’t about the one and only best approach. I want to focus more on the lesser known, less ideal approaches that still provide an opportunity for adding tests. In this post I’ll enumerate some test-after workflows. In my next post I’ll cover test-first. Bug Reporting When someone calls you up or forwards you a email with a vague description of a bug its usually standard procedure to create or verify a reproduction plan for the bug via manual testing and log that in a bug tracking system. This can be problematic. Often reproduction plans when written down might skip a step that seemed obvious to the tester at the time or they might be missing some crucial environment setting. Instead of data entry into a bug tracking system, try opening up the test project and adding a failing unit test to prove the bug. The test project guarantees that all aspects of the environment are setup properly and no steps are missing. The language in the test project is much more precise than the English that goes into a bug tracking system. This workflow can easily be extended for Enhancement Requests as well as Bug Reporting. Exploratory Testing Exploratory testing comes in when you aren’t sure how the system will behave in a new scenario. The scenario wasn’t planned for in the initial system requirements and there isn’t an existing test for it. By definition the system behaviour is “undefined”. So write a new unit test to define that behaviour. Add assertions to the tests to confirm your assumptions. The new test becomes part of the living system specification that is kept up to date with the test suite. Examples This workflow is especially good when developing APIs. When you are finally done your production API then comes the job of writing documentation on how to consume the API. Good documentation will also include code examples. Don’t let these code examples merely exist in some accompanying manual; implement them in a test suite. Example tests and documentation do not have to be created after the production API is complete. It is best to write the example code (tests) as you go just before the production code. Smoke Tests Every system has a typical use case. This represents the basic, core functionality of the system. If this fails after an upgrade the end users will be hosed and they will be scratching their heads as to how it could be possible that an update got released with this core functionality broken. The tests for this core functionality are referred to as “smoke tests”. It is a good idea to have them automated and run with each build in order to avoid extreme embarrassment and angry customers. Coverage Analysis Code coverage analysis is a tool that reports how much of the production code base is exercised by the test suite. In Visual Studio this can be found under the Test main menu item. The tool will report a total number for the code coverage, which can be anywhere between 0 and 100%. Coverage Analysis shouldn’t be used strictly for numbers reporting. Companies shouldn’t set minimum coverage targets that mandate that all projects must have at least 80% or 100% test coverage. These arbitrary requirements just invite gaming of the coverage analysis, which makes the numbers useless. The analysis tool will break down the coverage by the various classes and methods in projects. Instead of focusing on the total number, drill down into this view and see which classes have high or low coverage. It you are surprised by a low number on a class this is an opportunity to add tests. When drilling through the classes there will be generally two types of reaction to a surprising low test coverage number. The first reaction type is a recognition that there is low hanging fruit to be picked. There may be some classes or methods that aren’t being tested, which could easy be. The other reaction type is “OMG”. This were you find a critical piece of code that isn’t under test. In both cases, go and add the missing tests. Test Refactoring The general theme of this post up to this point has been how to add more and more tests to a test suite. I’ll step back from that a bit and remind that every line of code is a liability. Each line of code has to be read and maintained, which costs money. This is true regardless whether the code is production code or test code. Remember that the primary goal of the test suite is that it be easy to read so that people can easily determine the specifications of the system. Make sure that adding more and more tests doesn’t interfere with this primary goal. Perform code reviews on the test suite as often as on production code. Hold the test code up to the same high readability standards as the production code. If the tests are hard to read then change them. Look to remove duplication. Duplicate setup code between two or more test methods that can be moved to a shared function. Entire test methods can be removed if it is found that the scenario it tests is covered by other tests. Its OK to delete a test that isn’t pulling its own weight anymore. Remember to only start refactoring when all the test are green. Don’t refactor the tests and the production code at the same time. An automated test suite can be thought of as a double entry book keeping system. The unchanging, passing production code serves as the tests for the test suite while refactoring the tests. As with all refactoring, it is best to fit this into your regular work rather than asking for time later to get it done. Fit this into the standard red-green-refactor cycle. The refactor step no only applies to production code but also the tests, but not at the same time. Perhaps the cycle should be called red-green-refactor production-refactor tests (not quite as catchy). That about covers most of the test-after workflows I can think of. In my next post I’ll get into test-first workflows.

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Developing a Cost Model for Cloud Applications

- by BuckWoody

Note - please pay attention to the date of this post. As much as I attempt to make the information below accurate, the nature of distributed computing means that components, units and pricing will change over time. The definitive costs for Microsoft Windows Azure and SQL Azure are located here, and are more accurate than anything you will see in this post: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/offers/ When writing software that is run on a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering like Windows Azure / SQL Azure, one of the questions you must answer is how much the system will cost. I will not discuss the comparisons between on-premise costs (which are nigh impossible to calculate accurately) versus cloud costs, but instead focus on creating a general model for estimating costs for a given application. You should be aware that there are (at this writing) two billing mechanisms for Windows and SQL Azure: “Pay-as-you-go” or consumption, and “Subscription” or commitment. Conceptually, you can consider the former a pay-as-you-go cell phone plan, where you pay by the unit used (at a slightly higher rate) and the latter as a standard cell phone plan where you commit to a contract and thus pay lower rates. In this post I’ll stick with the pay-as-you-go mechanism for simplicity, which should be the maximum cost you would pay. From there you may be able to get a lower cost if you use the other mechanism. In any case, the model you create should hold. Developing a good cost model is essential. As a developer or architect, you’ll most certainly be asked how much something will cost, and you need to have a reliable way to estimate that. Businesses and Organizations have been used to paying for servers, software licenses, and other infrastructure as an up-front cost, and power, people to the systems and so on as an ongoing (and sometimes not factored) cost. When presented with a new paradigm like distributed computing, they may not understand the true cost/value proposition, and that’s where the architect and developer can guide the conversation to make a choice based on features of the application versus the true costs. The two big buckets of use-types for these applications are customer-based and steady-state. In the customer-based use type, each successful use of the program results in a sale or income for your organization. Perhaps you’ve written an application that provides the spot-price of foo, and your customer pays for the use of that application. In that case, once you’ve estimated your cost for a successful traversal of the application, you can build that into the price you charge the user. It’s a standard restaurant model, where the price of the meal is determined by the cost of making it, plus any profit you can make. In the second use-type, the application will be used by a more-or-less constant number of processes or users and no direct revenue is attached to the system. A typical example is a customer-tracking system used by the employees within your company. In this case, the cost model is often created “in reverse” - meaning that you pilot the application, monitor the use (and costs) and that cost is held steady. This is where the comparison with an on-premise system becomes necessary, even though it is more difficult to estimate those on-premise true costs. For instance, do you know exactly how much cost the air conditioning is because you have a team of system administrators? This may sound trivial, but that, along with the insurance for the building, the wiring, and every other part of the system is in fact a cost to the business. There are three primary methods that I’ve been successful with in estimating the cost. None are perfect, all are demand-driven. The general process is to lay out a matrix of: components units cost per unit and then multiply that times the usage of the system, based on which components you use in the program. That sounds a bit simplistic, but using those metrics in a calculation becomes more detailed. In all of the methods that follow, you need to know your application. The components for a PaaS include computing instances, storage, transactions, bandwidth and in the case of SQL Azure, database size. In most cases, architects start with the first model and progress through the other methods to gain accuracy. Simple Estimation The simplest way to calculate costs is to architect the application (even UML or on-paper, no coding involved) and then estimate which of the components you’ll use, and how much of each will be used. Microsoft provides two tools to do this - one is a simple slider-application located here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/pricing-calculator/ The other is a tool you download to create an “Return on Investment” (ROI) spreadsheet, which has the advantage of leading you through various questions to estimate what you plan to use, located here: https://roianalyst.alinean.com/msft/AutoLogin.do?d=176318219048082115 You can also just create a spreadsheet yourself with a structure like this: Program Element Azure Component Unit of Measure Cost Per Unit Estimated Use of Component Total Cost Per Component Cumulative Cost Of course, the consideration with this model is that it is difficult to predict a system that is not running or hasn’t even been developed. Which brings us to the next model type. Measure and Project A more accurate model is to actually write the code for the application, using the Software Development Kit (SDK) which can run entirely disconnected from Azure. The code should be instrumented to estimate the use of the application components, logging to a local file on the development system. A series of unit and integration tests should be run, which will create load on the test system. You can use standard development concepts to track this usage, and even use Windows Performance Monitor counters. The best place to start with this method is to use the Windows Azure Diagnostics subsystem in your code, which you can read more about here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sumitm/archive/2009/11/18/introducing-windows-azure-diagnostics.aspx This set of API’s greatly simplifies tracking the application, and in fact you can use this information for more than just a cost model. After you have the tracking logs, you can plug the numbers into ay of the tools above, which should give a representative cost or in some cases a unit cost. The consideration with this model is that the SDK fabric is not a one-to-one comparison with performance on the actual Windows Azure fabric. Those differences are usually smaller, but they do need to be considered. Also, you may not be able to accurately predict the load on the system, which might lead to an architectural change, which changes the model. This leads us to the next, most accurate method for a cost model. Sample and Estimate Using standard statistical and other predictive math, once the application is deployed you will get a bill each month from Microsoft for your Azure usage. The bill is quite detailed, and you can export the data from it to do analysis, and using methods like regression and so on project out into the future what the costs will be. I normally advise that the architect also extrapolate a unit cost from those metrics as well. This is the information that should be reported back to the executives that pay the bills: the past cost, future projected costs, and unit cost “per click” or “per transaction”, as your case warrants. The challenge here is in the model itself - statistical methods are not foolproof, and the larger the sample (in this case I recommend the entire population, not a smaller sample) is key. References and Tools Articles: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/patrick_butler_monterde/archive/2010/02/10/windows-azure-billing-overview.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg213848.aspx http://blog.codingoutloud.com/2011/06/05/azure-faq-how-much-will-it-cost-me-to-run-my-application-on-windows-azure/ http://blogs.msdn.com/b/johnalioto/archive/2010/08/25/10054193.aspx http://geekswithblogs.net/iupdateable/archive/2010/02/08/qampa-how-can-i-calculate-the-tco-and-roi-when.aspx Other Tools: http://cloud-assessment.com/ http://communities.quest.com/community/cloud_tools

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Set Context User Principal for Customized Authentication in SignalR

- by Shaun

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2014/05/27/set-context-user-principal-for-customized-authentication-in-signalr.aspxCurrently I'm working on a single page application project which is built on AngularJS and ASP.NET WebAPI. When I need to implement some features that needs real-time communication and push notifications from server side I decided to use SignalR. SignalR is a project currently developed by Microsoft to build web-based, read-time communication application. You can find it here. With a lot of introductions and guides it's not a difficult task to use SignalR with ASP.NET WebAPI and AngularJS. I followed this and this even though it's based on SignalR 1. But when I tried to implement the authentication for my SignalR I was struggled 2 days and finally I got a solution by myself. This might not be the best one but it actually solved all my problem. In many articles it's said that you don't need to worry about the authentication of SignalR since it uses the web application authentication. For example if your web application utilizes form authentication, SignalR will use the user principal your web application authentication module resolved, check if the principal exist and authenticated. But in my solution my ASP.NET WebAPI, which is hosting SignalR as well, utilizes OAuth Bearer authentication. So when the SignalR connection was established the context user principal was empty. So I need to authentication and pass the principal by myself. Firstly I need to create a class which delivered from "AuthorizeAttribute", that will takes the responsible for authenticate when SignalR connection established and any method was invoked. 1: public class QueryStringBearerAuthorizeAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute 2: { 3: public override bool AuthorizeHubConnection(HubDescriptor hubDescriptor, IRequest request) 4: { 5: } 6: 7: public override bool AuthorizeHubMethodInvocation(IHubIncomingInvokerContext hubIncomingInvokerContext, bool appliesToMethod) 8: { 9: } 10: } The method "AuthorizeHubConnection" will be invoked when any SignalR connection was established. And here I'm going to retrieve the Bearer token from query string, try to decrypt and recover the login user's claims. 1: public override bool AuthorizeHubConnection(HubDescriptor hubDescriptor, IRequest request) 2: { 3: var dataProtectionProvider = new DpapiDataProtectionProvider(); 4: var secureDataFormat = new TicketDataFormat(dataProtectionProvider.Create()); 5: // authenticate by using bearer token in query string 6: var token = request.QueryString.Get(WebApiConfig.AuthenticationType); 7: var ticket = secureDataFormat.Unprotect(token); 8: if (ticket != null && ticket.Identity != null && ticket.Identity.IsAuthenticated) 9: { 10: // set the authenticated user principal into environment so that it can be used in the future 11: request.Environment["server.User"] = new ClaimsPrincipal(ticket.Identity); 12: return true; 13: } 14: else 15: { 16: return false; 17: } 18: } In the code above I created "TicketDataFormat" instance, which must be same as the one I used to generate the Bearer token when user logged in. Then I retrieve the token from request query string and unprotect it. If I got a valid ticket with identity and it's authenticated this means it's a valid token. Then I pass the user principal into request's environment property which can be used in nearly future. Since my website was built in AngularJS so the SignalR client was in pure JavaScript, and it's not support to set customized HTTP headers in SignalR JavaScript client, I have to pass the Bearer token through request query string. This is not a restriction of SignalR, but a restriction of WebSocket. For security reason WebSocket doesn't allow client to set customized HTTP headers from browser. Next, I need to implement the authentication logic in method "AuthorizeHubMethodInvocation" which will be invoked when any SignalR method was invoked. 1: public override bool AuthorizeHubMethodInvocation(IHubIncomingInvokerContext hubIncomingInvokerContext, bool appliesToMethod) 2: { 3: var connectionId = hubIncomingInvokerContext.Hub.Context.ConnectionId; 4: // check the authenticated user principal from environment 5: var environment = hubIncomingInvokerContext.Hub.Context.Request.Environment; 6: var principal = environment["server.User"] as ClaimsPrincipal; 7: if (principal != null && principal.Identity != null && principal.Identity.IsAuthenticated) 8: { 9: // create a new HubCallerContext instance with the principal generated from token 10: // and replace the current context so that in hubs we can retrieve current user identity 11: hubIncomingInvokerContext.Hub.Context = new HubCallerContext(new ServerRequest(environment), connectionId); 12: return true; 13: } 14: else 15: { 16: return false; 17: } 18: } Since I had passed the user principal into request environment in previous method, I can simply check if it exists and valid. If so, what I need is to pass the principal into context so that SignalR hub can use. Since the "User" property is all read-only in "hubIncomingInvokerContext", I have to create a new "ServerRequest" instance with principal assigned, and set to "hubIncomingInvokerContext.Hub.Context". After that, we can retrieve the principal in my Hubs through "Context.User" as below. 1: public class DefaultHub : Hub 2: { 3: public object Initialize(string host, string service, JObject payload) 4: { 5: var connectionId = Context.ConnectionId; 6: ... ... 7: var domain = string.Empty; 8: var identity = Context.User.Identity as ClaimsIdentity; 9: if (identity != null) 10: { 11: var claim = identity.FindFirst("Domain"); 12: if (claim != null) 13: { 14: domain = claim.Value; 15: } 16: } 17: ... ... 18: } 19: } Finally I just need to add my "QueryStringBearerAuthorizeAttribute" into the SignalR pipeline. 1: app.Map("/signalr", map => 2: { 3: // Setup the CORS middleware to run before SignalR. 4: // By default this will allow all origins. You can 5: // configure the set of origins and/or http verbs by 6: // providing a cors options with a different policy. 7: map.UseCors(CorsOptions.AllowAll); 8: var hubConfiguration = new HubConfiguration 9: { 10: // You can enable JSONP by uncommenting line below. 11: // JSONP requests are insecure but some older browsers (and some 12: // versions of IE) require JSONP to work cross domain 13: // EnableJSONP = true 14: EnableJavaScriptProxies = false 15: }; 16: // Require authentication for all hubs 17: var authorizer = new QueryStringBearerAuthorizeAttribute(); 18: var module = new AuthorizeModule(authorizer, authorizer); 19: GlobalHost.HubPipeline.AddModule(module); 20: // Run the SignalR pipeline. We're not using MapSignalR 21: // since this branch already runs under the "/signalr" path. 22: map.RunSignalR(hubConfiguration); 23: }); On the client side should pass the Bearer token through query string before I started the connection as below. 1: self.connection = $.hubConnection(signalrEndpoint); 2: self.proxy = self.connection.createHubProxy(hubName); 3: self.proxy.on(notifyEventName, function (event, payload) { 4: options.handler(event, payload); 5: }); 6: // add the authentication token to query string 7: // we cannot use http headers since web socket protocol doesn't support 8: self.connection.qs = { Bearer: AuthService.getToken() }; 9: // connection to hub 10: self.connection.start(); Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 3: Anonymous partial-trust consumer

- by Elton Stoneman

This is the third in the IPASBR series, see also: Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 1: Exposing the on-premise service Integration Patterns with Azure Service Bus Relay, Part 2: Anonymous full-trust .NET consumer As the patterns get further from the simple .NET full-trust consumer, all that changes is the communication protocol and the authentication mechanism. In Part 3 the scenario is that we still have a secure .NET environment consuming our service, so we can store shared keys securely, but the runtime environment is locked down so we can't use Microsoft.ServiceBus to get the nice WCF relay bindings. To support this we will expose a RESTful endpoint through the Azure Service Bus, and require the consumer to send a security token with each HTTP service request. Pattern applicability This is a good fit for scenarios where: the runtime environment is secure enough to keep shared secrets the consumer can execute custom code, including building HTTP requests with custom headers the consumer cannot use the Azure SDK assemblies the service may need to know who is consuming it the service does not need to know who the end-user is Note there isn't actually a .NET requirement here. By exposing the service in a REST endpoint, anything that can talk HTTP can be a consumer. We'll authenticate through ACS which also gives us REST endpoints, so the service is still accessed securely. Our real-world example would be a hosted cloud app, where we we have enough room in the app's customisation to keep the shared secret somewhere safe and to hook in some HTTP calls. We will be flowing an identity through to the on-premise service now, but it will be the service identity given to the consuming app - the end user's identity isn't flown through yet. In this post, we’ll consume the service from Part 1 in ASP.NET using the WebHttpRelayBinding. The code for Part 3 (+ Part 1) is on GitHub here: IPASBR Part 3. Authenticating and authorizing with ACS We'll follow the previous examples and add a new service identity for the namespace in ACS, so we can separate permissions for different consumers (see walkthrough in Part 1). I've named the identity partialTrustConsumer. We’ll be authenticating against ACS with an explicit HTTP call, so we need a password credential rather than a symmetric key – for a nice secure option, generate a symmetric key, copy to the clipboard, then change type to password and paste in the key: We then need to do the same as in Part 2 , add a rule to map the incoming identity claim to an outgoing authorization claim that allows the identity to send messages to Service Bus: Issuer: Access Control Service Input claim type: http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/nameidentifier Input claim value: partialTrustConsumer Output claim type: net.windows.servicebus.action Output claim value: Send As with Part 2, this sets up a service identity which can send messages into Service Bus, but cannot register itself as a listener, or manage the namespace. RESTfully exposing the on-premise service through Azure Service Bus Relay The part 3 sample code is ready to go, just put your Azure details into Solution Items\AzureConnectionDetails.xml and “Run Custom Tool” on the .tt files. But to do it yourself is very simple. We already have a WebGet attribute in the service for locally making REST calls, so we are just going to add a new endpoint which uses the WebHttpRelayBinding to relay that service through Azure. It's as easy as adding this endpoint to Web.config for the service: <endpoint address="https://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/rest" binding="webHttpRelayBinding" contract="Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services.IFormatService" behaviorConfiguration="SharedSecret"> </endpoint> - and adding the webHttp attribute in your endpoint behavior: <behavior name="SharedSecret"> <webHttp/> <transportClientEndpointBehavior credentialType="SharedSecret"> <clientCredentials> <sharedSecret issuerName="serviceProvider" issuerSecret="gl0xaVmlebKKJUAnpripKhr8YnLf9Neaf6LR53N8uGs="/> </clientCredentials> </transportClientEndpointBehavior> </behavior> Where's my WSDL? The metadata story for REST is a bit less automated. In our local webHttp endpoint we've enabled WCF's built-in help, so if you navigate to: http://localhost/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.Services/FormatService.svc/rest/help - you'll see the uri format for making a GET request to the service. The format is the same over Azure, so this is where you'll be connecting: https://[your-namespace].servicebus.windows.net/rest/reverse?string=abc123 Build the service with the new endpoint, open that in a browser and you'll get an XML version of an HTTP status code - a 401 with an error message stating that you haven’t provided an authorization header: <?xml version="1.0"?><Error><Code>401</Code><Detail>MissingToken: The request contains no authorization header..TrackingId:4cb53408-646b-4163-87b9-bc2b20cdfb75_5,TimeStamp:10/3/2012 8:34:07 PM</Detail></Error> By default, the setup of your Service Bus endpoint as a relying party in ACS expects a Simple Web Token to be presented with each service request, and in the browser we're not passing one, so we can't access the service. Note that this request doesn't get anywhere near your on-premise service, Service Bus only relays requests once they've got the necessary approval from ACS. Why didn't the consumer need to get ACS authorization in Part 2? It did, but it was all done behind the scenes in the NetTcpRelayBinding. By specifying our Shared Secret credentials in the consumer, the service call is preceded by a check on ACS to see that the identity provided is a) valid, and b) allowed access to our Service Bus endpoint. By making manual HTTP requests, we need to take care of that ACS check ourselves now. We do that with a simple WebClient call to the ACS endpoint of our service; passing the shared secret credentials, we will get back an SWT: var values = new System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection(); values.Add("wrap_name", "partialTrustConsumer"); //service identity name values.Add("wrap_password", "suCei7AzdXY9toVH+S47C4TVyXO/UUFzu0zZiSCp64Y="); //service identity password values.Add("wrap_scope", "http://sixeyed-ipasbr.servicebus.windows.net/"); //this is the realm of the RP in ACS var acsClient = new WebClient(); var responseBytes = acsClient.UploadValues("https://sixeyed-ipasbr-sb.accesscontrol.windows.net/WRAPv0.9/", "POST", values); rawToken = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(responseBytes); With a little manipulation, we then attach the SWT to subsequent REST calls in the authorization header; the token contains the Send claim returned from ACS, so we will be authorized to send messages into Service Bus. Running the sample Navigate to http://localhost:2028/Sixeyed.Ipasbr.WebHttpClient/Default.cshtml, enter a string and hit Go! - your string will be reversed by your on-premise service, routed through Azure: Using shared secret client credentials in this way means ACS is the identity provider for your service, and the claim which allows Send access to Service Bus is consumed by Service Bus. None of the authentication details make it through to your service, so your service is not aware who the consumer is (MSDN calls this "anonymous authentication").

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First PC Build (Part 1)

- by Anthony Trudeau

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tonyt/archive/2014/08/05/157959.aspxA couple of months ago I made the decision to build myself a new computer. The intended use is gaming and for using the last real version of Photoshop. I was motivated by the poor state of console gaming and a simple desire to do something I haven’t done before – build a PC from the ground up. I’ve been using PCs for more than two decades. I’ve replaced a component hear and there, but for the last 10 years or so I’ve only used laptops. Therefore, this article will be written from the perspective of someone familiar with PCs, but completely new at building. I’m not an expert and this is not a definitive guide for building a PC, but I do hope that it encourages you to try it yourself. Component List Research There was a lot of research necessary, because building a PC is completely new to me, and I haven’t kept up with what’s out there. The first thing you want to do is nail down what your goals are. Your goals are going to be driven by what you want to do with your computer and personal choice. Don’t neglect the second one, because if you’re doing this for fun you want to get what you want. In my case, I focused on three things: performance, longevity, and aesthetics. The performance aspect is important for gaming and Photoshop. This will drive what components you get. For example, heavy gaming use is going to drive your choice of graphics card. Longevity is relevant to me, because I don’t want to be changing things out anytime soon for the next hot game. The consequence of performance and longevity is cost. Finally, aesthetics was my next consideration. I could have just built a box, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun for me. Aesthetics might not be important to you. They are for me. I also like gadgets and that played into at least one purchase for this build. I used PC Part Picker to put together my component list. I found it invaluable during the process and I’d recommend it to everyone. One caveat is that I wouldn’t trust the compatibility aspects. It does a pretty good job of not steering you wrong, but do your own research. The rest of it isn’t really sexy. I started out with what appealed to me and then I made changes and additions as I dived deep into researching each component and interaction I could find. The resources I used are innumerable. I used reviews, product descriptions, forum posts (praises and problems), et al. to assist me. I also asked friends into gaming what they thought about my component list. And when I got near the end I posted my list to the Reddit /r/buildapc forum. I cannot stress the value of extra sets of eyeballs and first hand experiences. Some of the resources I used: PC Part Picker Tom’s Hardware bit-tech Reddit Purchase PC Part Picker favors certain vendors. You should look at others too. In my case I found their favorites to be the best. My priorities were out-the-door price and shipping time. I knew that once I started getting parts I’d want to start building. Luckily, I timed it well and everything arrived within the span of a few days. Here are my opinions on the vendors I ended up using in alphabetical order. Amazon.com is a good, reliable choice. They have excellent customer service in my experience, and I knew I wouldn’t have trouble with them. However, shipping time is often a problem when you use their free shipping unless you order expensive items (I’ve found items over $100 ship quickly). Ultimately though, price wasn’t always the best and their collection of sales tax in my state turned me off them. I did purchase my case from them. I ordered the mouse as well, but I cancelled after it was stuck four days in a “shipping soon” state. I purchased the mouse locally. Best Buy is not my favorite place to do business. There’s a lot of history with poor, uninterested sales representatives and they used to have a lot of bad anti-consumer policies. That’s a lot better now, but the bad taste is still in my mouth. I ended up purchasing the accessories from them including mouse (locally) and headphones. NCIX is a company that I’ve never heard of before. It popped up as a recommendation for my CPU cooler on PC Part Picker. I didn’t do a lot of research on the company, because their policy on you buying insurance for your orders turned me off. That policy makes it clear to me that the company finds me responsible for the shipment once it leaves their dock. That’s not right, and may run afoul of state laws. Regardless they shipped my CPU cooler quickly and I didn’t have a problem. NewEgg.com is a well known company. I had never done business with them, but I’m glad I did. They shipped quickly and provided good visibility over everything. The prices were also the best in most cases. My main complaint is that they have a lot of exchange only return policies on components. To their credit those policies are listed in the cart underneath each item. The visibility tells me that they’re not playing any shenanigans and made me comfortable dealing with that risk. The vast majority of what I ordered came from them. Coming Next In the next part I’ll tackle my build experience.

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Testing Workflows – Test-First

- by Timothy Klenke

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/TimothyK/archive/2014/05/30/testing-workflows-ndash-test-first.aspxThis is the second of two posts on some common strategies for approaching the job of writing tests. The previous post covered test-after workflows where as this will focus on test-first. Each workflow presented is a method of attack for adding tests to a project. The more tools in your tool belt the better. So here is a partial list of some test-first methodologies. Ping Pong Ping Pong is a methodology commonly used in pair programing. One developer will write a new failing test. Then they hand the keyboard to their partner. The partner writes the production code to get the test passing. The partner then writes the next test before passing the keyboard back to the original developer. The reasoning behind this testing methodology is to facilitate pair programming. That is to say that this testing methodology shares all the benefits of pair programming, including ensuring multiple team members are familiar with the code base (i.e. low bus number). Test Blazer Test Blazing, in some respects, is also a pairing strategy. The developers don’t work side by side on the same task at the same time. Instead one developer is dedicated to writing tests at their own desk. They write failing test after failing test, never touching the production code. With these tests they are defining the specification for the system. The developer most familiar with the specifications would be assigned this task. The next day or later in the same day another developer fetches the latest test suite. Their job is to write the production code to get those tests passing. Once all the tests pass they fetch from source control the latest version of the test project to get the newer tests. This methodology has some of the benefits of pair programming, namely lowering the bus number. This can be good way adding an extra developer to a project without slowing it down too much. The production coder isn’t slowed down writing tests. The tests are in another project from the production code, so there shouldn’t be any merge conflicts despite two developers working on the same solution. This methodology is also a good test for the tests. Can another developer figure out what system should do just by reading the tests? This question will be answered as the production coder works there way through the test blazer’s tests. Test Driven Development (TDD) TDD is a highly disciplined practice that calls for a new test and an new production code to be written every few minutes. There are strict rules for when you should be writing test or production code. You start by writing a failing (red) test, then write the simplest production code possible to get the code working (green), then you clean up the code (refactor). This is known as the red-green-refactor cycle. The goal of TDD isn’t the creation of a suite of tests, however that is an advantageous side effect. The real goal of TDD is to follow a practice that yields a better design. The practice is meant to push the design toward small, decoupled, modularized components. This is generally considered a better design that large, highly coupled ball of mud. TDD accomplishes this through the refactoring cycle. Refactoring is only possible to do safely when tests are in place. In order to use TDD developers must be trained in how to look for and repair code smells in the system. Through repairing these sections of smelly code (i.e. a refactoring) the design of the system emerges. For further information on TDD, I highly recommend the series “Is TDD Dead?”. It discusses its pros and cons and when it is best used. Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) Whereas TDD focuses on small unit tests that concentrate on a small piece of the system, Acceptance Tests focuses on the larger integrated environment. Acceptance Tests usually correspond to user stories, which come directly from the customer. The unit tests focus on the inputs and outputs of smaller parts of the system, which are too low level to be of interest to the customer. ATDD generally uses the same tools as TDD. However, ATDD uses fewer mocks and test doubles than TDD. ATDD often complements TDD; they aren’t competing methods. A full test suite will usually consist of a large number of unit (created via TDD) tests and a smaller number of acceptance tests. Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) BDD is more about audience than workflow. BDD pushes the testing realm out towards the client. Developers, managers and the client all work together to define the tests. Typically different tooling is used for BDD than acceptance and unit testing. This is done because the audience is not just developers. Tools using the Gherkin family of languages allow for test scenarios to be described in an English format. Other tools such as MSpec or FitNesse also strive for highly readable behaviour driven test suites. Because these tests are public facing (viewable by people outside the development team), the terminology usually changes. You can’t get away with the same technobabble you can with unit tests written in a programming language that only developers understand. For starters, they usually aren’t called tests. Usually they’re called “examples”, “behaviours”, “scenarios”, or “specifications”. This may seem like a very subtle difference, but I’ve seen this small terminology change have a huge impact on the acceptance of the process. Many people have a bias that testing is something that comes at the end of a project. When you say we need to define the tests at the start of the project many people will immediately give that a lower priority on the project schedule. But if you say we need to define the specification or behaviour of the system before we can start, you’ll get more cooperation. Keep these test-first and test-after workflows in your tool belt. With them you’ll be able to find new opportunities to apply them.

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Different Not Automatically Implies Better

- by Alois Kraus

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/akraus1/archive/2013/11/05/154556.aspxRecently I was digging deeper why some WCF hosted workflow application did consume quite a lot of memory although it did basically only load a xaml workflow. The first tool of choice is Process Explorer or even better Process Hacker (has more options and the best feature copy&paste does work). The three most important numbers of a process with regards to memory are Working Set, Private Working Set and Private Bytes. Working set is the currently consumed physical memory (parts can be shared between processes e.g. loaded dlls which are read only) Private Working Set is the physical memory needed by this process which is not shareable Private Bytes is the number of non shareable which is only visible in the current process (e.g. all new, malloc, VirtualAlloc calls do create private bytes) When you have a bigger workflow it can consume under 64 bit easily 500MB for a 1-2 MB xaml file. This does not look very scalable. Under 64 bit the issue is excessive private bytes consumption and not the managed heap. The picture is quite different for 32 bit which looks a bit strange but it seems that the hosted VB compiler is a lot less memory hungry under 32 bit. I did try to repro the issue with a medium sized xaml file (400KB) which does contain 1000 variables and 1000 if which can be represented by C# code like this: string Var1; string Var2; ... string Var1000; if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Var1) ) { Console.WriteLine(“Var1”); } if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(Var2) ) { Console.WriteLine(“Var2”); } .... Since WF is based on VB.NET expressions you are bound to the hosted VB.NET compiler which does result in (x64) 140 MB of private bytes which is ca. 140 KB for each if clause which is quite a lot if you think about the actually present functionality. But there is hope. .NET 4.5 does allow now C# expressions for WF which is a major step forward for all C# lovers. I did create some simple patcher to “cross compile” my xaml to C# expressions. Lets look at the result: C# Expressions VB Expressions x86 x86 On my home machine I have only 32 bit which gives you quite exactly half of the memory consumption under 64 bit. C# expressions are 10 times more memory hungry than VB.NET expressions! I wanted to do more with less memory but instead it did consume a magnitude more memory. That is surprising to say the least. The workflow does initialize in about the same time under x64 and x86 where the VB code does it in 2s whereas the C# version needs 18s. Also nearly ten times slower. That is a too high price to pay for any bigger sized xaml workflow to convert from VB.NET to C# expressions. If I do reduce the number of expressions to 500 then it does need 400MB which is about half of the memory. It seems that the cost per if does rise linear with the number of total expressions in a xaml workflow. Expression Language Cost per IF Startup Time C# 1000 Ifs x64 1,5 MB 18s C# 500 Ifs x64 750 KB 9s VB 1000 Ifs x64 140 KB 2s VB 500 Ifs x64 70 KB 1s Now we can directly compare two MS implementations. It is clear that the VB.NET compiler uses the same underlying structure but it has much higher offset compared to the highly inefficient C# expression compiler. I have filed a connect bug here with a harsher wording about recent advances in memory consumption. The funniest thing is that one MS employee did give an Azure AppFabric demo around early 2011 which was so slow that he needed to investigate with xperf. He was after startup time and the call stacks with regards to VB.NET expression compilation were remarkably similar. In fact I only found this post by googling for parts of my call stacks. … “C# expressions will be coming soon to WF, and that will have different performance characteristics than VB” … What did he know Jan 2011 what I did no know until today? ;-). He knew that C# expression will come but that they will not be automatically have better footprint. It is about time to fix that. In its current state C# expressions are not usable for bigger workflows. That also explains the headline for today. You can cheat startup time by prestarting workflows so that the demo looks nice and snappy but it does hurt scalability a lot since you do need much more memory than necessary. I did find the stacks by enabling virtual allocation tracking within XPerf which is still the best tool out there. But first you need to look at your process to check where the memory is hiding: For the C# Expression compiler you do not need xperf. You can directly dump the managed heap and check with a profiler of your choice. But if the allocations are happening on the Private Data ( VirtualAlloc ) you can find it with xperf. There is a nice video on channel 9 explaining VirtualAlloc tracking it in greater detail. If your data allocations are on the Heap it does mean that the C/C++ runtime did create a heap for you where all malloc, new calls do allocate from it. You can enable heap tracing with xperf and full call stack support as well which is doable via xperf like it is shown also on channel 9. Or you can use WPRUI directly: To make “Heap Usage” it work you need to set for your executable the tracing flags (before you start it). For example devenv.exe HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\devenv.exe DWORD TracingFlags 1 Do not forget to disable it after you did complete profiling the process or it will impact the startup time quite a lot. You can with xperf attach directly to a running process and collect heap allocation information from a gone wild process. Very handy if you need to find out what a process was doing which has arrived in a funny state. “VirtualAlloc usage” does work without explicitly enabling stuff for a specific process and is always on machine wide. I had issues on my Windows 7 machines with the call stack collection and the latest Windows 8.1 Performance Toolkit. I was told that WPA from Windows 8.0 should work fine but I do not want to downgrade.

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opengl problem works on droid but not droid eris and others.

- by nathan

This GlRenderer works fine on the moto droid, but does not work well at all on droid eris or other android phones does anyone know why? package com.ntu.way2fungames.spacehockeybase; import java.io.DataInputStream; import java.io.IOException; import java.nio.Buffer; import java.nio.FloatBuffer; import javax.microedition.khronos.egl.EGLConfig; import javax.microedition.khronos.opengles.GL10; import com.ntu.way2fungames.LoadFloatArray; import com.ntu.way2fungames.OGLTriReader; import android.content.res.AssetManager; import android.content.res.Resources; import android.opengl.GLU; import android.opengl.GLSurfaceView.Renderer; import android.os.Handler; import android.os.Message; public class GlRenderer extends Thread implements Renderer { private float drawArray[]; private float yoff; private float yoff2; private long lastRenderTime; private float[] yoffs= new float[10]; int Width; int Height; private float[] pixelVerts = new float[] { +.0f,+.0f,2, +.5f,+.5f,0, +.5f,-.5f,0, +.0f,+.0f,2, +.5f,-.5f,0, -.5f,-.5f,0, +.0f,+.0f,2, -.5f,-.5f,0, -.5f,+.5f,0, +.0f,+.0f,2, -.5f,+.5f,0, +.5f,+.5f,0, }; @Override public void run() { } private float[] arenaWalls = new float[] { 8.00f,2.00f,1f,2f,2f,1f,2.00f,8.00f,1f,8.00f,2.00f,1f,2.00f,8.00f,1f,8.00f,8.00f,1f, 2.00f,8.00f,1f,2f,2f,1f,0.00f,0.00f,0f,2.00f,8.00f,1f,0.00f,0.00f,0f,0.00f,10.00f,0f, 8.00f,8.00f,1f,2.00f,8.00f,1f,0.00f,10.00f,0f,8.00f,8.00f,1f,0.00f,10.00f,0f,10.00f,10.00f,0f, 2f,2f,1f,8.00f,2.00f,1f,10.00f,0.00f,0f,2f,2f,1f,10.00f,0.00f,0f,0.00f,0.00f,0f, 8.00f,2.00f,1f,8.00f,8.00f,1f,10.00f,10.00f,0f,8.00f,2.00f,1f,10.00f,10.00f,0f,10.00f,0.00f,0f, 10.00f,10.00f,0f,0.00f,10.00f,0f,0.00f,0.00f,0f,10.00f,10.00f,0f,0.00f,0.00f,0f,10.00f,0.00f,0f, 8.00f,6.00f,1f,8.00f,4.00f,1f,122f,4.00f,1f,8.00f,6.00f,1f,122f,4.00f,1f,122f,6.00f,1f, 8.00f,6.00f,1f,122f,6.00f,1f,120f,7.00f,0f,8.00f,6.00f,1f,120f,7.00f,0f,10.00f,7.00f,0f, 122f,4.00f,1f,8.00f,4.00f,1f,10.00f,3.00f,0f,122f,4.00f,1f,10.00f,3.00f,0f,120f,3.00f,0f, 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134.55f,826.76f,-0.50f,134.55f,836.34f,-0.50f,145.09f,795.41f,-2f,134.55f,826.76f,-0.50f,145.09f,795.41f,-2f,145.09f,786.78f,-2f, 345.45f,826.76f,-0.50f,345.45f,836.34f,-0.50f,334.91f,795.41f,-2f,345.45f,826.76f,-0.50f,334.91f,795.41f,-2f,334.91f,786.78f,-2f, 355.04f,829.63f,-0.50f,460.49f,829.63f,-0.50f,438.44f,789.37f,-2f,355.04f,829.63f,-0.50f,438.44f,789.37f,-2f,343.53f,789.37f,-2f, 460.49f,24.37f,-0.50f,355.04f,24.37f,-0.50f,343.53f,64.63f,-2f,460.49f,24.37f,-0.50f,343.53f,64.63f,-2f,438.44f,64.63f,-2f, 345.45f,27.24f,-0.50f,345.45f,17.66f,-0.50f,334.91f,58.59f,-2f,345.45f,27.24f,-0.50f,334.91f,58.59f,-2f,334.91f,67.22f,-2f, 134.55f,27.24f,-0.50f,134.55f,17.66f,-0.50f,145.09f,58.59f,-2f,134.55f,27.24f,-0.50f,145.09f,58.59f,-2f,145.09f,67.22f,-2f, 463.36f,826.76f,-0.50f,463.36f,27.24f,-0.50f,441.03f,67.22f,-2f,463.36f,826.76f,-0.50f,441.03f,67.22f,-2f,441.03f,786.78f,-2f, 16.64f,27.24f,-0.50f,16.64f,826.76f,-0.50f,38.97f,786.78f,-2f,16.64f,27.24f,-0.50f,38.97f,786.78f,-2f,38.97f,67.22f,-2f, 124.96f,24.37f,-0.50f,19.51f,24.37f,-0.50f,41.56f,64.63f,-2f,124.96f,24.37f,-0.50f,41.56f,64.63f,-2f,136.47f,64.63f,-2f, 124.96f,24.37f,-0.50f,134.55f,27.24f,-0.50f,145.09f,67.22f,-2f,124.96f,24.37f,-0.50f,145.09f,67.22f,-2f,136.47f,64.63f,-2f, 19.51f,24.37f,-0.50f,16.64f,27.24f,-0.50f,38.97f,67.22f,-2f,19.51f,24.37f,-0.50f,38.97f,67.22f,-2f,41.56f,64.63f,-2f, 345.45f,27.24f,-0.50f,355.04f,24.37f,-0.50f,343.53f,64.63f,-2f,345.45f,27.24f,-0.50f,343.53f,64.63f,-2f,334.91f,67.22f,-2f, 463.36f,27.24f,-0.50f,460.49f,24.37f,-0.50f,438.44f,64.63f,-2f,463.36f,27.24f,-0.50f,438.44f,64.63f,-2f,441.03f,67.22f,-2f, 463.36f,826.76f,-0.50f,460.49f,829.63f,-0.50f,438.44f,789.37f,-2f,463.36f,826.76f,-0.50f,438.44f,789.37f,-2f,441.03f,786.78f,-2f, 355.04f,829.63f,-0.50f,345.45f,826.76f,-0.50f,334.91f,786.78f,-2f,355.04f,829.63f,-0.50f,334.91f,786.78f,-2f,343.53f,789.37f,-2f, 134.55f,826.76f,-0.50f,124.96f,829.63f,-0.50f,136.47f,789.37f,-2f,134.55f,826.76f,-0.50f,136.47f,789.37f,-2f,145.09f,786.78f,-2f, 16.64f,826.76f,-0.50f,19.51f,829.63f,-0.50f,41.56f,789.37f,-2f,16.64f,826.76f,-0.50f,41.56f,789.37f,-2f,38.97f,786.78f,-2f, }; private float[] backgroundData = new float[] { // # ,Scale, Speed, 300 , 1.05f, .001f, 150 , 1.07f, .002f, 075 , 1.10f, .003f, 040 , 1.12f, .006f, 20 , 1.15f, .012f, 10 , 1.25f, .025f, 05 , 1.50f, .050f, 3 , 2.00f, .100f, 2 , 3.00f, .200f, }; private float[] triangleCoords = new float[] { 0, -25, 0, -.75f, -1, 0, +.75f, -1, 0, 0, +2, 0, -.99f, -1, 0, .99f, -1, 0, }; private float[] triangleColors = new float[] { 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.05f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.5f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.5f, }; private float[] drawArray2; private FloatBuffer drawBuffer2; private float[] colorArray2; private static FloatBuffer colorBuffer; private static FloatBuffer triangleBuffer; private static FloatBuffer quadBuffer; private static FloatBuffer drawBuffer; private float[] backgroundVerts; private FloatBuffer backgroundVertsWrapped; private float[] backgroundColors; private Buffer backgroundColorsWraped; private FloatBuffer backgroundColorsWrapped; private FloatBuffer arenaWallsWrapped; private FloatBuffer arenaColorsWrapped; private FloatBuffer arena2VertsWrapped; private FloatBuffer arena2ColorsWrapped; private long wallHitStartTime; private int wallHitDrawTime; private FloatBuffer pixelVertsWrapped; private float[] wallHit; private FloatBuffer pixelColorsWrapped; //private float[] pitVerts; private Resources lResources; private FloatBuffer pitVertsWrapped; private FloatBuffer pitColorsWrapped; private boolean arena2; private long lastStartTime; private long startTime; private int state=1; private long introEndTime; protected long introTotalTime =8000; protected long introStartTime; private boolean initDone= false; private static int stateIntro = 0; private static int stateGame = 1; public GlRenderer(spacehockey nspacehockey) { lResources = nspacehockey.getResources(); nspacehockey.SetHandlerToGLRenderer(new Handler() { @Override public void handleMessage(Message m) { if (m.what ==0){ wallHit = m.getData().getFloatArray("wall hit"); wallHitStartTime =System.currentTimeMillis(); wallHitDrawTime = 1000; }else if (m.what ==1){ //state = stateIntro; introEndTime= System.currentTimeMillis()+introTotalTime ; introStartTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); } }}); } public void onSurfaceCreated(GL10 gl, EGLConfig config) { gl.glShadeModel(GL10.GL_SMOOTH); gl.glClearColor(.01f, .01f, .01f, .1f); gl.glClearDepthf(1.0f); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_DEPTH_TEST); gl.glDepthFunc(GL10.GL_LEQUAL); gl.glHint(GL10.GL_PERSPECTIVE_CORRECTION_HINT, GL10.GL_NICEST); } private float SumOfStrideI(float[] data, int offset, int stride) { int sum= 0; for (int i=offset;i<data.length-1;i=i+stride){ sum = (int) (data[i]+sum); } return sum; } public void onDrawFrame(GL10 gl) { if (state== stateIntro){DrawIntro(gl);} if (state== stateGame){DrawGame(gl);} } private void DrawIntro(GL10 gl) { startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); if (startTime< introEndTime){ float ptd = (float)(startTime- introStartTime)/(float)introTotalTime; float ptl = 1-ptd; gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);//dont move gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW); int setVertOff = 0; gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY); gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, backgroundColorsWrapped); for (int i = 0; i < backgroundData.length / 3; i = i + 1) { int setoff = i * 3; int setVertLen = (int) backgroundData[setoff]; yoffs[i] = (backgroundData[setoff + 2]*(90+(ptl*250))) + yoffs[i]; if (yoffs[i] > Height) {yoffs[i] = 0;} gl.glPushMatrix(); //gl.glTranslatef(0, -(Height/2), 0); //gl.glScalef(1f, 1f+(ptl*2), 1f); //gl.glTranslatef(0, +(Height/2), 0); gl.glTranslatef(0, yoffs[i], i+60); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, backgroundVertsWrapped); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, (setVertOff * 2 * 3) - 0, (setVertLen * 2 * 3) - 1); gl.glTranslatef(0, -Height, 0); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, (setVertOff * 2 * 3) - 0, (setVertLen * 2 * 3) - 1); setVertOff = (int) (setVertOff + setVertLen); gl.glPopMatrix(); } gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY); }else{state = stateGame;} } private void DrawGame(GL10 gl) { lastStartTime = startTime; startTime = System.currentTimeMillis(); long moveTime = startTime-lastStartTime; gl.glClear(GL10.GL_COLOR_BUFFER_BIT);//dont move gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_MODELVIEW); int setVertOff = 0; gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glEnableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY); gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, backgroundColorsWrapped); for (int i = 0; i < backgroundData.length / 3; i = i + 1) { int setoff = i * 3; int setVertLen = (int) backgroundData[setoff]; yoffs[i] = (backgroundData[setoff + 2]*moveTime) + yoffs[i]; if (yoffs[i] > Height) {yoffs[i] = 0;} gl.glPushMatrix(); gl.glTranslatef(0, yoffs[i], i+60); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, backgroundVertsWrapped); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, (setVertOff * 6) - 0, (setVertLen *6) - 1); gl.glTranslatef(0, -Height, 0); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, (setVertOff * 6) - 0, (setVertLen *6) - 1); setVertOff = (int) (setVertOff + setVertLen); gl.glPopMatrix(); } //arena frame gl.glPushMatrix(); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, arenaWallsWrapped); gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, arenaColorsWrapped); gl.glColor4f(.1f, .5f, 1f, 1f); gl.glTranslatef(0, 0, 50); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, 0, (int)(arenaWalls.length / 3)); gl.glPopMatrix(); //arena2 frame if (arena2 == true){ gl.glLoadIdentity(); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, pitVertsWrapped); gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, pitColorsWrapped); gl.glTranslatef(0, -Height, 40); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, 0, (int)(pitVertsWrapped.capacity() / 3)); } if (wallHitStartTime != 0) { float timeRemaining = (wallHitStartTime + wallHitDrawTime)-System.currentTimeMillis(); if (timeRemaining>0) { gl.glPushMatrix(); float percentDone = 1-(timeRemaining/wallHitDrawTime); gl.glLoadIdentity(); gl.glVertexPointer(3, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, pixelVertsWrapped); gl.glColorPointer(4, GL10.GL_FLOAT, 0, pixelColorsWrapped); gl.glTranslatef(wallHit[0], wallHit[1], 0); gl.glScalef(8, Height*percentDone, 0); gl.glDrawArrays(GL10.GL_TRIANGLES, 0, 12); gl.glPopMatrix(); } else { wallHitStartTime = 0; } } gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_VERTEX_ARRAY); gl.glDisableClientState(GL10.GL_COLOR_ARRAY); } public void init(GL10 gl) { if (arena2 == true) { AssetManager assetManager = lResources.getAssets(); try { // byte[] ba = {111,111}; DataInputStream Dis = new DataInputStream(assetManager .open("arena2.ogl")); pitVertsWrapped = LoadFloatArray.FromDataInputStream(Dis); pitColorsWrapped = MakeFakeLighting(pitVertsWrapped.array(), .25f, .50f, 1f, 200, .5f); } catch (IOException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } } if ((Height != 854) || (Width != 480)) { arenaWalls = ScaleFloats(arenaWalls, Width / 480f, Height / 854f); } arenaWallsWrapped = FloatBuffer.wrap(arenaWalls); arenaColorsWrapped = MakeFakeLighting(arenaWalls, .03f, .16f, .33f, .33f, 3); pixelVertsWrapped = FloatBuffer.wrap(pixelVerts); pixelColorsWrapped = MakeFakeLighting(pixelVerts, .03f, .16f, .33f, .10f, 20); initDone=true; } public void onSurfaceChanged(GL10 gl, int nwidth, int nheight) { Width= nwidth; Height = nheight; // avoid division by zero if (Height == 0) Height = 1; // draw on the entire screen gl.glViewport(0, 0, Width, Height); // setup projection matrix gl.glMatrixMode(GL10.GL_PROJECTION); gl.glLoadIdentity(); gl.glOrthof(0, Width, Height, 0, 100, -100); // gl.glOrthof(-nwidth*2, nwidth*2, nheight*2,-nheight*2, 100, -100); // GLU.gluPerspective(gl, 180.0f, (float)nwidth / (float)nheight, // 1000.0f, -1000.0f); gl.glEnable(GL10.GL_BLEND); gl.glBlendFunc(GL10.GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL10.GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA); System.gc(); if (initDone == false){ SetupStars(); init(gl); } } public void SetupStars(){ backgroundVerts = new float[(int) SumOfStrideI(backgroundData,0,3)*triangleCoords.length]; backgroundColors = new float[(int) SumOfStrideI(backgroundData,0,3)*triangleColors.length]; int iii=0; int vc=0; float ascale=1; for (int i=0;i<backgroundColors.length-1;i=i+1){ if (iii==0){ascale = (float) Math.random();} if (vc==3){ backgroundColors[i]= (float) (triangleColors[iii]*(ascale)); }else if(vc==2){ backgroundColors[i]= (float) (triangleColors[iii]-(Math.random()*.2)); }else{ backgroundColors[i]= (float) (triangleColors[iii]-(Math.random()*.3)); } iii=iii+1;if (iii> triangleColors.length-1){iii=0;} vc=vc+1; if (vc>3){vc=0;} } int ii=0; int i =0; int set =0; while(ii<backgroundVerts.length-1){ float scale = (float) backgroundData[(set*3)+1]; int length= (int) backgroundData[(set*3)]; for (i=0;i<length;i=i+1){ if (set ==0){ AddVertsToArray(ScaleFloats(triangleCoords, scale,scale*.25f), backgroundVerts, (float)(Math.random()*Width),(float) (Math.random()*Height), ii); }else{ AddVertsToArray(ScaleFloats(triangleCoords, scale), backgroundVerts, (float)(Math.random()*Width),(float) (Math.random()*Height), ii);} ii=ii+triangleCoords.length; } set=set+1; } backgroundVertsWrapped = FloatBuffer.wrap(backgroundVerts); backgroundColorsWrapped = FloatBuffer.wrap(backgroundColors); } public void AddVertsToArray(float[] sva,float[]dva,float ox,float oy,int start){ //x for (int i=0;i<sva.length;i=i+3){ if((start+i)<dva.length){dva[start+i]= sva[i]+ox;} } //y for (int i=1;i<sva.length;i=i+3){ if((start+i)<dva.length){dva[start+i]= sva[i]+oy;} } //z for (int i=2;i<sva.length;i=i+3){ if((start+i)<dva.length){dva[start+i]= sva[i];} } } public FloatBuffer MakeFakeLighting(float[] sa,float r, float g,float b,float a,float multby){ float[] da = new float[((sa.length/3)*4)]; int vertex=0; for (int i=0;i<sa.length;i=i+3){ if (sa[i+2]>=1){ da[(vertex*4)+0]= r*multby*sa[i+2]; da[(vertex*4)+1]= g*multby*sa[i+2]; da[(vertex*4)+2]= b*multby*sa[i+2]; da[(vertex*4)+3]= a*multby*sa[i+2]; }else if (sa[i+2]<=-1){ float divisor = (multby*(-sa[i+2])); da[(vertex*4)+0]= r / divisor; da[(vertex*4)+1]= g / divisor; da[(vertex*4)+2]= b / divisor; da[(vertex*4)+3]= a / divisor; }else{ da[(vertex*4)+0]= r; da[(vertex*4)+1]= g; da[(vertex*4)+2]= b; da[(vertex*4)+3]= a; } vertex = vertex+1; } return FloatBuffer.wrap(da); } public float[] ScaleFloats(float[] va,float s){ float[] reta= new float[va.length]; for (int i=0;i<va.length;i=i+1){ reta[i]=va[i]*s; } return reta; } public float[] ScaleFloats(float[] va,float sx,float sy){ float[] reta= new float[va.length]; int cnt = 0; for (int i=0;i<va.length;i=i+1){ if (cnt==0){reta[i]=va[i]*sx;} else if (cnt==1){reta[i]=va[i]*sy;} else if (cnt==2){reta[i]=va[i];} cnt = cnt +1;if (cnt>2){cnt=0;} } return reta; } }

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NullReferenceException when changing skin/theme via Application.Current.Resources

- by CoolCat

I am writing an wpf application with multiple skins. The code to switch theme is as below: try { Application.Current.Resources.MergedDictionaries.Add( resource ); } catch( Exception ex ) { } The first time the code is called (to switch to a new theme), it is executed successfully; however, any subsequent calls to the same code would throw System.NullReferenceException. The way I set up my themes are similar to what described here: http://www.codewrecks.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/22/simple-skinnable-and-theme-management-in-wpf-user-interface/. Has anyone seen this error before? How do I go about debugging this since the exception is thrown else where? Any help is greatly appreciated. StackTrace: at System.Windows.EffectiveValueEntry.GetFlattenedEntry(RequestFlags requests) at System.Windows.DependencyObject.EvaluateEffectiveValue(EntryIndex entryIndex, DependencyProperty dp, PropertyMetadata metadata, EffectiveValueEntry oldEntry, EffectiveValueEntry newEntry, OperationType operationType) at System.Windows.DependencyObject.UpdateEffectiveValue(EntryIndex entryIndex, DependencyProperty dp, PropertyMetadata metadata, EffectiveValueEntry oldEntry, EffectiveValueEntry& newEntry, Boolean coerceWithDeferredReference, OperationType operationType) at System.Windows.StyleHelper.ApplyStyleOrTemplateValue(FrameworkObject fo, DependencyProperty dp) at System.Windows.StyleHelper.InvalidateContainerDependents(DependencyObject container, FrugalStructList`1& exclusionContainerDependents, FrugalStructList`1& oldContainerDependents, FrugalStructList`1& newContainerDependents) at System.Windows.StyleHelper.DoStyleInvalidations(FrameworkElement fe, FrameworkContentElement fce, Style oldStyle, Style newStyle) at System.Windows.StyleHelper.UpdateStyleCache(FrameworkElement fe, FrameworkContentElement fce, Style oldStyle, Style newStyle, Style& styleCache) at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.OnStyleChanged(DependencyObject d, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) at System.Windows.DependencyObject.OnPropertyChanged(DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.OnPropertyChanged(DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs e) at System.Windows.DependencyObject.NotifyPropertyChange(DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs args) at System.Windows.DependencyObject.UpdateEffectiveValue(EntryIndex entryIndex, DependencyProperty dp, PropertyMetadata metadata, EffectiveValueEntry oldEntry, EffectiveValueEntry& newEntry, Boolean coerceWithDeferredReference, OperationType operationType) at System.Windows.DependencyObject.InvalidateProperty(DependencyProperty dp) at System.Windows.FrameworkElement.UpdateStyleProperty() at System.Windows.TreeWalkHelper.InvalidateStyleAndReferences(DependencyObject d, ResourcesChangeInfo info, Boolean containsTypeOfKey) at System.Windows.TreeWalkHelper.OnResourcesChanged(DependencyObject d, ResourcesChangeInfo info, Boolean raiseResourceChangedEvent) at System.Windows.TreeWalkHelper.OnResourcesChangedCallback(DependencyObject d, ResourcesChangeInfo info) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1._VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(FrameworkElement fe) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.VisitNode(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkLogicalChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, FrameworkContentElement fceParent, IEnumerator logicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.WalkFrameworkElementLogicalThenVisualChildren(FrameworkElement feParent, Boolean hasLogicalChildren) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.IterateChildren(DependencyObject d) at System.Windows.DescendentsWalker`1.StartWalk(DependencyObject startNode, Boolean skipStartNode) at System.Windows.TreeWalkHelper.InvalidateOnResourcesChange(FrameworkElement fe, FrameworkContentElement fce, ResourcesChangeInfo info) at System.Windows.Application.InvalidateResourceReferenceOnWindowCollection(WindowCollection wc, ResourcesChangeInfo info) at System.Windows.ResourceDictionary.NotifyOwners(ResourcesChangeInfo info) at System.Windows.ResourceDictionary.OnMergedDictionariesChanged(Object sender, NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e) at System.Collections.ObjectModel.ObservableCollection`1.OnCollectionChanged(NotifyCollectionChangedEventArgs e) at System.Collections.ObjectModel.ObservableCollection`1.InsertItem(Int32 index, T item) at System.Windows.ResourceDictionaryCollection.InsertItem(Int32 index, ResourceDictionary item) at System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection`1.Add(T item)

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jQuery DataTables server side processing and ASP.Net

- by Chad

I'm trying to use the server side functionality of the jQuery Datatables plugin with ASP.Net. The ajax request is returning valid JSON, but nothing is showing up in the table. I originally had problems with the data I was sending in the ajax request. I was getting a "Invalid JSON primative" error. I discovered that the data needs to be in a string instead of JSON serialized, as described in this post: http://encosia.com/2008/06/05/3-mistakes-to-avoid-when-using-jquery-with-aspnet-ajax/. I wasn't quite sure how to fix that, so I tried adding this in the ajax request: "data": "{'sEcho': '" + aoData.sEcho + "'}" If the aboves eventually works I'll add the other parameters later. Right now I'm just trying to get something to show up in my table. The returning JSON looks ok and validates, but the sEcho in the post is undefined, and I think thats why no data is being loaded into the table. So, what am I doing wrong? Am I even on the right track or am I being stupid? Does anyone ran into this before or have any suggestions? Here's my jQuery: $(document).ready(function() { $("#grid").dataTable({ "bJQueryUI": true, "sPaginationType": "full_numbers", "bServerSide":true, "sAjaxSource": "GridTest.asmx/ServerSideTest", "fnServerData": function(sSource, aoData, fnCallback) { $.ajax({ "type": "POST", "dataType": 'json', "contentType": "application/json; charset=utf-8", "url": sSource, "data": "{'sEcho': '" + aoData.sEcho + "'}", "success": fnCallback }); } }); }); HTML: <table id="grid"> <thead> <tr> <th>Last Name</th> <th>First Name</th> <th>UserID</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="5" class="dataTables_empty">Loading data from server</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> Webmethod: <WebMethod()> _ Public Function ServerSideTest() As Data Dim list As New List(Of String) list.Add("testing") list.Add("chad") list.Add("testing") Dim container As New List(Of List(Of String)) container.Add(list) list = New List(Of String) list.Add("testing2") list.Add("chad") list.Add("testing") container.Add(list) HttpContext.Current.Response.ContentType = "application/json" Return New Data(HttpContext.Current.Request("sEcho"), 2, 2, container) End Function Public Class Data Private _iTotalRecords As Integer Private _iTotalDisplayRecords As Integer Private _sEcho As Integer Private _sColumns As String Private _aaData As List(Of List(Of String)) Public Property sEcho() As Integer Get Return _sEcho End Get Set(ByVal value As Integer) _sEcho = value End Set End Property Public Property iTotalRecords() As Integer Get Return _iTotalRecords End Get Set(ByVal value As Integer) _iTotalRecords = value End Set End Property Public Property iTotalDisplayRecords() As Integer Get Return _iTotalDisplayRecords End Get Set(ByVal value As Integer) _iTotalDisplayRecords = value End Set End Property Public Property aaData() As List(Of List(Of String)) Get Return _aaData End Get Set(ByVal value As List(Of List(Of String))) _aaData = value End Set End Property Public Sub New(ByVal sEcho As Integer, ByVal iTotalRecords As Integer, ByVal iTotalDisplayRecords As Integer, ByVal aaData As List(Of List(Of String))) If sEcho <> 0 Then Me.sEcho = sEcho Me.iTotalRecords = iTotalRecords Me.iTotalDisplayRecords = iTotalDisplayRecords Me.aaData = aaData End Sub Returned JSON: {"__type":"Data","sEcho":0,"iTotalRecords":2,"iTotalDisplayRecords":2,"aaData":[["testing","chad","testing"],["testing2","chad","testing"]]}

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How can you connect OpenGrok to a SVN repository?

- by Malcolm Frexner

I was able to install and use opengrok on WinXP using this blog entry http://theflashesofinsight.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/install-opengrok-on-windows/ I now want to index a subversion repository. I checked out a repository to the source folder and can search the files. However the links for history and annotate are not active. I have svn installed and indexing the directory give no warnings or errors. (There was an error when I didnt have the SVN client installed) Is there some configuration needed? I saw this link http://blogs.sun.com/trond/entry/using_subversion_with_opengrok but it did not give me any clue. I used java -Xmx1024m -jar opengrok.jar -W "C:\\OpenGrok\\data\\configuration.xml" -r on -P -S -v -s "C:\\OpenGrok\\source" -d "C:\\OpenGrok\\data" and after it java -Xmx1024m -jar opengrok.jar -R "C:\\OpenGrok\\data\\configuration.xml" -H This is the resulting config: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <java version="1.6.0_20" class="java.beans.XMLDecoder"> <object class="org.opensolaris.opengrok.configuration.Configuration"> <void property="dataRoot"> <string>C:\OpenGrok\data</string> </void> <void property="projects"> <void method="add"> <object class="org.opensolaris.opengrok.configuration.Project"> <void property="description"> <string>Configuration</string> </void> <void property="path"> <string>/Configuration</string> </void> </object> </void> <void method="add"> <object class="org.opensolaris.opengrok.configuration.Project"> <void property="description"> <string>test</string> </void> <void property="path"> <string>/test</string> </void> </object> </void> </void> <void property="remoteScmSupported"> <boolean>true</boolean> </void> <void property="repositories"> <void method="add"> <object class="org.opensolaris.opengrok.history.RepositoryInfo"> <void property="datePattern"> <string>yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS'Z'</string> </void> <void property="directoryName"> <string>C:\OpenGrok\source\Configuration</string> </void> <void property="remote"> <boolean>true</boolean> </void> <void property="type"> <string>Subversion</string> </void> <void property="working"> <boolean>true</boolean> </void> </object> </void> </void> <void property="sourceRoot"> <string>C:\OpenGrok\source</string> </void> <void property="verbose"> <boolean>true</boolean> </void> </object> </java>

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Entity Framework Generic Repository Error

- by Jeff Ancel

I am trying to create a very generic generics repository for my Entity Framework repository that has the basic CRUD statements and uses an Interface. I have hit a brick wall head first and been knocked over. Here is my code, written in a console application, using a Entity Framework Model, with a table named Hurl. Simply trying to pull back the object by its ID. Here is the full application code. using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Data.Objects; using System.Linq.Expressions; using System.Reflection; using System.Data.Objects.DataClasses; namespace GenericsPlay { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var hs = new HurlRepository(new hurladminEntity()); var hurl = hs.Load<Hurl>(h => h.Id == 1); Console.Write(hurl.ShortUrl); Console.ReadLine(); } } public interface IHurlRepository { T Load<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> expression); } public class HurlRepository : IHurlRepository, IDisposable { private ObjectContext _objectContext; public HurlRepository(ObjectContext objectContext) { _objectContext = objectContext; } public ObjectContext ObjectContext { get { return _objectContext; } } private Type GetBaseType(Type type) { Type baseType = type.BaseType; if (baseType != null && baseType != typeof(EntityObject)) { return GetBaseType(type.BaseType); } return type; } private bool HasBaseType(Type type, out Type baseType) { Type originalType = type.GetType(); baseType = GetBaseType(type); return baseType != originalType; } public IQueryable<T> GetQuery<T>() { Type baseType; if (HasBaseType(typeof(T), out baseType)) { return this.ObjectContext.CreateQuery<T>("[" + baseType.Name.ToString() + "]").OfType<T>(); } else { return this.ObjectContext.CreateQuery<T>("[" + typeof(T).Name.ToString() + "]"); } } public T Load<T>(Expression<Func<T, bool>> whereCondition) { return this.GetQuery<T>().Where(whereCondition).First(); } public void Dispose() { if (_objectContext != null) { _objectContext.Dispose(); } } } } Here is the error that I am getting: System.Data.EntitySqlException was unhandled Message="'Hurl' could not be resolved in the current scope or context. Make sure that all referenced variables are in scope, that required schemas are loaded, and that namespaces are referenced correctly., near escaped identifier, line 3, column 1." Source="System.Data.Entity" Column=1 ErrorContext="escaped identifier" ErrorDescription="'Hurl' could not be resolved in the current scope or context. Make sure that all referenced variables are in scope, that required schemas are loaded, and that namespaces are referenced correctly." This is where I am attempting to extract this information from. http://blog.keithpatton.com/2008/05/29/Polymorphic+Repository+For+ADONet+Entity+Framework.aspx

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php sorting a seriously multidimensional array...

- by BigDogsBarking

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Amazon Product API: "Your request is missing a required parameter combination" on Blended ItemSearch

- by Daniel Schaffer

I'm having some problems trying to do an ItemSearch on the Blended index using the Amazon Product API. According to the documentation, Blended requests cannot specify the MerchantId parameter - and indeed, if I try to include it I get an error telling me so. However, when I don't include it, I get an error telling me that my request is missing a required parameter combination and that a valid combination includes MerchantId... what the hell? Here's the XML response: <Items xmlns="http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2005-10-05"> <Request> <IsValid>False</IsValid> <ItemSearchRequest> <Availability>Available</Availability> <Condition>All</Condition> <Keywords> home theater pc and other geekery</Keywords> <ResponseGroup>Similarities</ResponseGroup> <ResponseGroup>SalesRank</ResponseGroup> <ResponseGroup>OfferSummary</ResponseGroup> <ResponseGroup>Small</ResponseGroup> <ResponseGroup>Images</ResponseGroup> <SearchIndex>Blended</SearchIndex> </ItemSearchRequest> <Errors> <Error> <Code>AWS.MissingParameterCombination</Code> <Message>Your request is missing a required parameter combination. Required parameter combinations include MerchantId, Availability.</Message> </Error> </Errors> </Request> </Items> The failing requests are being sent as part of batches with other requests that are succeeding. I'm using REST to send my requests, so here's an example of a request: http://ecs.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?AWSAccessKeyId=-------------& ItemSearch.1.Keywords=Mates%20of%20State& ItemSearch.1.MerchantId=Amazon& ItemSearch.1.SearchIndex=DVD& ItemSearch.2.Keywords=teaching%20Lily%20various%20computer%20related%20skills& ItemSearch.2.SearchIndex=Blended& ItemSearch.Shared.Availability=Available& ItemSearch.Shared.Condition=All& ItemSearch.Shared.ResponseGroup=Small%2CSalesRank%2CImages%2COfferSummary%2CSimilarities& Operation=ItemSearch%2CSimilarityLookup& Service=AWSECommerceService& SimilarityLookup.1.ItemId=B000FNNHZ2& SimilarityLookup.2.ItemId=B000EQ5UPU& SimilarityLookup.Shared.Availability=Available& SimilarityLookup.Shared.Condition=All& SimilarityLookup.Shared.MerchantId=Amazon& SimilarityLookup.Shared.ResponseGroup=Small%2CSalesRank%2CImages%2COfferSummary& Timestamp=2010-04-02T17%3A18%3A05Z& Signature=---------------- Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?

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Only root object on request is deserialized when using Message.GetBody<>

- by user324627

I am attempting to create a wcf service that accepts any input (Action="*") and then deserialize the message after determining its type. For the purposes of testing deserialization I am currently hard-coding the type for the test service. I get no errors from the deserialization process, but only the outer object is populated after deserialization occurs. All inner fields are null. I can process the same request against the original wcf service successfully. I am deserializing this way, where knownTypes is a type list of expected types: DataContractSerializer ser = new DataContractSerializer(new createEligibilityRuleSet ().GetType(), knownTypes); createEligibilityRuleSet newReq = buf.CreateMessage().GetBody<createEligibilityRuleSet>(ser); Here is the class and sub-classes of the request object. These classes are generated by svcutil using a top down approach from an existing wsdl. I have tried replacing the XmlTypeAttributes with DataContracts and the XmlElements with DataMembers with no difference. It is the instance of CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest on the createEligibilityRuleSet object that is null. I have included the request retrieved from the request at the bottom /// <remarks/> [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")] [System.SerializableAttribute()] [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()] [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(AnonymousType = true, Namespace = "http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary/RulesEngineServices")] public partial class createEligibilityRuleSet { private CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest requestField; /// <remarks/> [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, IsNullable = true, Order = 0)] public CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest request { get { return this.requestField; } set { this.requestField = value; } } } /// <remarks/> [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")] [System.SerializableAttribute()] [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()] [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary")] public partial class CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest : RulesEngineServicesSvcRequest { private string requestField; /// <remarks/> [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 0)] public string request { get { return this.requestField; } set { this.requestField = value; } } } [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(ApplyMemberEligibilitySvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateCompletionCriteriaRuleSetSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CopyRuleSetSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(DeleteRuleSetByIDSvcRequest))] [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")] [System.SerializableAttribute()] [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()] [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary")] public partial class RulesEngineServicesSvcRequest : ServiceRequest { } /// <remarks/> [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(RulesEngineServicesSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateEligibilityRuleSetSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(ApplyMemberEligibilitySvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CreateCompletionCriteriaRuleSetSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(CopyRuleSetSvcRequest))] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlIncludeAttribute(typeof(DeleteRuleSetByIDSvcRequest))] [System.CodeDom.Compiler.GeneratedCodeAttribute("svcutil", "3.0.4506.2152")] [System.SerializableAttribute()] [System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThroughAttribute()] [System.ComponentModel.DesignerCategoryAttribute("code")] [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlTypeAttribute(Namespace = "http://FELibrary")] public partial class ServiceRequest { private string applicationIdField; /// <remarks/> [System.Xml.Serialization.XmlElementAttribute(Form = System.Xml.Schema.XmlSchemaForm.Unqualified, Order = 0)] public string applicationId { get { return this.applicationIdField; } set { this.applicationIdField = value; } } } Request from client comes on Message body as below. Retrieved from Message at runtime. <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope" xmlns:rul="http://RulesEngineServicesLibrary/RulesEngineServices"> <soap:Header/> <soap:Body> <rul:createEligibilityRuleSet> <request> <applicationId>test</applicationId> <request>Perf Rule Set1</request> </request> </rul:createEligibilityRuleSet> </soap:Body> </soap:Envelope>

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JQuery Slide Onclick

- by everreadyeddy

I am using the code in example http://www.faridesign.net/2012/05/create-a-awesome-vertical-tabbed-content-area-using-css3-jquery/ I am trying to slide the div tags on a button click on the list so the current tab-content will slide in and the tab just clicked will slide out. I currently have the working example where I can switch between divs fine, but I need to slide in and out between divs. Is there any script I can do this with the current code. using .slide or .effect instead of .show() looks to display two divs at the same time. I'm not sure what I am doing wrong. <div id="v-nav"> <ul> <li tab="tab1" class="first current">Main Screen</li> <li tab="tab2">Div 1</li> <li tab="tab3">Div 2</li> <li tab="tab4">Div 3</li> <li tab="tab5">Div 4</li> <li tab="tab6">Div 5</li> <li tab="tab7">Div 6</li> <li tab="tab8" class="last">Div 7</li> </ul> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Main Screen</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 1</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 2</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 3</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 4</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 5</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 6</h4> </div> <div class="tab-content"> <h4>Div 7</h4> </div> My Script looks like $(function () { var items = $('#v-nav>ul>li').each(function () { $(this).click(function () { //remove previous class and add it to clicked tab items.removeClass('current'); $(this).addClass('current'); //hide all content divs and show current one //$('#v-nav>div.tab-content').hide().eq(items.index($(this))).show(); //$('#v-nav>div.tab-content').hide().eq(items.index($(this))).fadeIn(100); $('#v-nav>div.tab-content').hide().eq(items.index($(this))).slideToggle(); window.location.hash = $(this).attr('tab'); }); }); if (location.hash) { showTab(location.hash); } else { showTab("tab1"); } function showTab(tab) { $("#v-nav ul li:[tab*=" + tab + "]").click(); } // Bind the event hashchange, using jquery-hashchange-plugin $(window).hashchange(function () { showTab(location.hash.replace("#", "")); }) // Trigger the event hashchange on page load, using jquery-hashchange-plugin $(window).hashchange(); });

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SOAP Service Request C#

- by user3728352

I have this code that tries to send a request to a soap server, I'm new to soap so i am not sure if the terms i am using are correct or not please correct me I am wrong. Basically i am accessing a web service method named getUserDomain via soap request Here is the code: public void CallWebService() { var _url = "https://....com/QcXmlWebService/QcXmlWebService.asmx?wsdl"; var _action = "https://....com/QcXmlWebService/QcXmlWebService.asmx?op=GetUserDomains"; XmlDocument soapEnvelopeXml = CreateSoapEnvelope(); HttpWebRequest webRequest = CreateWebRequest(_url, _action); InsertSoapEnvelopeIntoWebRequest(soapEnvelopeXml, webRequest); webRequest.BeginGetResponse(null, null); // begin async call to web request. IAsyncResult asyncResult = webRequest.BeginGetResponse(null, null); // suspend this thread until call is complete. You might want to // do something usefull here like update your UI. asyncResult.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(); // get the response from the completed web request. string soapResult; using (WebResponse webResponse = webRequest.EndGetResponse(asyncResult)) { using (StreamReader rd = new StreamReader(webResponse.GetResponseStream())) { soapResult = rd.ReadToEnd(); } Console.Write(soapResult); } } private HttpWebRequest CreateWebRequest(string url, string action) { HttpWebRequest webRequest = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url); webRequest.Headers.Add("SOAPAction", action); webRequest.ContentType = "text/xml;charset=\"utf-8\""; webRequest.Accept = "text/xml"; webRequest.Method = "POST"; return webRequest; } private XmlDocument CreateSoapEnvelope() { XmlDocument soapEnvelop = new XmlDocument(); string oRequest = ""; oRequest = @"<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap=""http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope"" xmlns:qcx=""http://smething.com/QCXML"">"; oRequest = oRequest + "<soap:Header/>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<soap:Body>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<qcx:GetUserDomains>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<qcx:inputXml><![CDATA["; oRequest = oRequest + "<GetUserDomains>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<login>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<domain_name>MBB_BTS</domain_name>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<project_name>WCDMA_BTS_IV</project_name>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<user_name>user</user_name>"; oRequest = oRequest + "<password>pass</password>"; oRequest = oRequest + "</login>"; oRequest = oRequest + "</GetUserDomains>"; oRequest = oRequest + " ]]>"; oRequest = oRequest + "</qcx:inputXml>"; oRequest = oRequest + "</qcx:GetUserDomains>"; oRequest = oRequest + "</soap:Body>"; oRequest = oRequest + "</soap:Envelope>"; soapEnvelop.LoadXml(oRequest); return soapEnvelop; } private void InsertSoapEnvelopeIntoWebRequest(XmlDocument soapEnvelopeXml, HttpWebRequest webRequest) { using (Stream stream = webRequest.GetRequestStream()) { soapEnvelopeXml.Save(stream); } } This code i have seen somewhere in stack overflow before as an answer but i couldn't get it to work... The error im getting is threw exception System.net.webexception. the remote server returned an error :(500) internal server Thanks

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SignalR Auto Disconnect when Page Changed in AngularJS

- by Shaun

Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/shaunxu/archive/2014/05/30/signalr-auto-disconnect-when-page-changed-in-angularjs.aspxIf we are using SignalR, the connection lifecycle was handled by itself very well. For example when we connect to SignalR service from browser through SignalR JavaScript Client the connection will be established. And if we refresh the page, close the tab or browser, or navigate to another URL then the connection will be closed automatically. This information had been well documented here. In a browser, SignalR client code that maintains a SignalR connection runs in the JavaScript context of a web page. That's why the SignalR connection has to end when you navigate from one page to another, and that's why you have multiple connections with multiple connection IDs if you connect from multiple browser windows or tabs. When the user closes a browser window or tab, or navigates to a new page or refreshes the page, the SignalR connection immediately ends because SignalR client code handles that browser event for you and calls the "Stop" method. But unfortunately this behavior doesn't work if we are using SignalR with AngularJS. AngularJS is a single page application (SPA) framework created by Google. It hijacks browser's address change event, based on the route table user defined, launch proper view and controller. Hence in AngularJS we address was changed but the web page still there. All changes of the page content are triggered by Ajax. So there's no page unload and load events. This is the reason why SignalR cannot handle disconnect correctly when works with AngularJS. If we dig into the source code of SignalR JavaScript Client source code we will find something below. It monitors the browser page "unload" and "beforeunload" event and send the "stop" message to server to terminate connection. But in AngularJS page change events were hijacked, so SignalR will not receive them and will not stop the connection. 1: // wire the stop handler for when the user leaves the page 2: _pageWindow.bind("unload", function () { 3: connection.log("Window unloading, stopping the connection."); 4: 5: connection.stop(asyncAbort); 6: }); 7: 8: if (isFirefox11OrGreater) { 9: // Firefox does not fire cross-domain XHRs in the normal unload handler on tab close. 10: // #2400 11: _pageWindow.bind("beforeunload", function () { 12: // If connection.stop() runs runs in beforeunload and fails, it will also fail 13: // in unload unless connection.stop() runs after a timeout. 14: window.setTimeout(function () { 15: connection.stop(asyncAbort); 16: }, 0); 17: }); 18: } Problem Reproduce In the codes below I created a very simple example to demonstrate this issue. Here is the SignalR server side code. 1: public class GreetingHub : Hub 2: { 3: public override Task OnConnected() 4: { 5: Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("Connected: {0}", Context.ConnectionId)); 6: return base.OnConnected(); 7: } 8: 9: public override Task OnDisconnected() 10: { 11: Debug.WriteLine(string.Format("Disconnected: {0}", Context.ConnectionId)); 12: return base.OnDisconnected(); 13: } 14: 15: public void Hello(string user) 16: { 17: Clients.All.hello(string.Format("Hello, {0}!", user)); 18: } 19: } Below is the configuration code which hosts SignalR hub in an ASP.NET WebAPI project with IIS Express. 1: public class Startup 2: { 3: public void Configuration(IAppBuilder app) 4: { 5: app.Map("/signalr", map => 6: { 7: map.UseCors(CorsOptions.AllowAll); 8: map.RunSignalR(new HubConfiguration() 9: { 10: EnableJavaScriptProxies = false 11: }); 12: }); 13: } 14: } Since we will host AngularJS application in Node.js in another process and port, the SignalR connection will be cross domain. So I need to enable CORS above. In client side I have a Node.js file to host AngularJS application as a web server. You can use any web server you like such as IIS, Apache, etc.. Below is the "index.html" page which contains a navigation bar so that I can change the page/state. As you can see I added jQuery, AngularJS, SignalR JavaScript Client Library as well as my AngularJS entry source file "app.js". 1: <html data-ng-app="demo"> 2: <head> 3: <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-2.1.0.js"></script> 1: 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="angular.js"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="angular-ui-router.js"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.signalR-2.0.3.js"> 1: </script> 2: <script type="text/javascript" src="app.js"></script> 4: </head> 5: <body> 6: <h1>SignalR Auto Disconnect with AngularJS by Shaun</h1> 7: <div> 8: <a href="javascript:void(0)" data-ui-sref="view1">View 1</a> | 9: <a href="javascript:void(0)" data-ui-sref="view2">View 2</a> 10: </div> 11: <div data-ui-view></div> 12: </body> 13: </html> Below is the "app.js". My SignalR logic was in the "View1" page and it will connect to server once the controller was executed. User can specify a user name and send to server, all clients that located in this page will receive the server side greeting message through SignalR. 1: 'use strict'; 2: 3: var app = angular.module('demo', ['ui.router']); 4: 5: app.config(['$stateProvider', '$locationProvider', function ($stateProvider, $locationProvider) { 6: $stateProvider.state('view1', { 7: url: '/view1', 8: templateUrl: 'view1.html', 9: controller: 'View1Ctrl' }); 10: 11: $stateProvider.state('view2', { 12: url: '/view2', 13: templateUrl: 'view2.html', 14: controller: 'View2Ctrl' }); 15: 16: $locationProvider.html5Mode(true); 17: }]); 18: 19: app.value('$', $); 20: app.value('endpoint', 'http://localhost:60448'); 21: app.value('hub', 'GreetingHub'); 22: 23: app.controller('View1Ctrl', function ($scope, $, endpoint, hub) { 24: $scope.user = ''; 25: $scope.response = ''; 26: 27: $scope.greeting = function () { 28: proxy.invoke('Hello', $scope.user) 29: .done(function () {}) 30: .fail(function (error) { 31: console.log(error); 32: }); 33: }; 34: 35: var connection = $.hubConnection(endpoint); 36: var proxy = connection.createHubProxy(hub); 37: proxy.on('hello', function (response) { 38: $scope.$apply(function () { 39: $scope.response = response; 40: }); 41: }); 42: connection.start() 43: .done(function () { 44: console.log('signlar connection established'); 45: }) 46: .fail(function (error) { 47: console.log(error); 48: }); 49: }); 50: 51: app.controller('View2Ctrl', function ($scope, $) { 52: }); When we went to View1 the server side "OnConnect" method will be invoked as below. And in any page we send the message to server, all clients will got the response. If we close one of the client, the server side "OnDisconnect" method will be invoked which is correct. But is we click "View 2" link in the page "OnDisconnect" method will not be invoked even though the content and browser address had been changed. This might cause many SignalR connections remain between the client and server. Below is what happened after I clicked "View 1" and "View 2" links four times. As you can see there are 4 live connections. Solution Since the reason of this issue is because, AngularJS hijacks the page event that SignalR need to stop the connection, we can handle AngularJS route or state change event and stop SignalR connect manually. In the code below I moved the "connection" variant to global scope, added a handler to "$stateChangeStart" and invoked "stop" method of "connection" if its state was not "disconnected". 1: var connection; 2: app.run(['$rootScope', function ($rootScope) { 3: $rootScope.$on('$stateChangeStart', function () { 4: if (connection && connection.state && connection.state !== 4 /* disconnected */) { 5: console.log('signlar connection abort'); 6: connection.stop(); 7: } 8: }); 9: }]); Now if we refresh the page and navigated to View 1, the connection will be opened. At this state if we clicked "View 2" link the content will be changed and the SignalR connection will be closed automatically. Summary In this post I demonstrated an issue when we are using SignalR with AngularJS. The connection cannot be closed automatically when we navigate to other page/state in AngularJS. And the solution I mentioned below is to move the SignalR connection as a global variant and close it manually when AngularJS route/state changed. You can download the full sample code here. Moving the SignalR connection as a global variant might not be a best solution. It's just for easy to demo here. In production code I suggest wrapping all SignalR operations into an AngularJS factory. Since AngularJS factory is a singleton object, we can safely put the connection variant in the factory function scope. Hope this helps, Shaun All documents and related graphics, codes are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. Copyright © Shaun Ziyan Xu. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons License.

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