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• Crash when trying to get NSManagedObject from NSFetchedResultsController after 25 objects?

  - by Jeremy

  Hey everyone, I'm relatively new to Core Data on iOS, but I think I've been getting better with it. I've been experiencing a bizarre crash, however, in one of my applications and have not been able to figure it out. I have approximately 40 objects in Core Data, presented in a UITableView. When tapping on a cell, a UIActionSheet appears, presenting the user with a UIActionSheet with options related to the cell that was selected. So that I can reference the selected object, I declare an NSIndexPath in my header called "lastSelection" and do the following when the UIActionSheet is presented: // Each cell has a tag based on its row number (i.e. first row has tag 0) lastSelection = [NSIndexPath indexPathForRow:[sender tag] inSection:0]; NSManagedObject *managedObject = [self.fetchedResultsController objectAtIndexPath:lastSelection]; BOOL onDuty = [[managedObject valueForKey:@"onDuty"] boolValue]; UIActionSheet *actionSheet = [[UIActionSheet alloc] initWithTitle:@"Status" delegate:self cancelButtonTitle:nil destructiveButtonTitle:nil otherButtonTitles:nil]; if(onDuty) { [actionSheet addButtonWithTitle:@"Off Duty"]; } else { [actionSheet addButtonWithTitle:@"On Duty"]; } actionSheet.actionSheetStyle = UIActionSheetStyleBlackOpaque; // Override the typical UIActionSheet behavior by presenting it overlapping the sender's frame. This makes it more clear which cell is selected. CGRect senderFrame = [sender frame]; CGPoint point = CGPointMake(senderFrame.origin.x + (senderFrame.size.width / 2), senderFrame.origin.y + (senderFrame.size.height / 2)); CGRect popoverRect = CGRectMake(point.x, point.y, 1, 1); [actionSheet showFromRect:popoverRect inView:[sender superview] animated:NO]; [actionSheet release]; When the UIActionSheet is dismissed with a button, the following code is called: - (void)actionSheet:(UIActionSheet *)actionSheet willDismissWithButtonIndex:(NSInteger)buttonIndex { // Set status based on UIActionSheet button pressed if(buttonIndex == -1) { return; } NSManagedObject *managedObject = [self.fetchedResultsController objectAtIndexPath:lastSelection]; if([actionSheet.title isEqualToString:@"Status"]) { if([[actionSheet buttonTitleAtIndex:buttonIndex] isEqualToString:@"On Duty"]) { [managedObject setValue:[NSNumber numberWithBool:YES] forKey:@"onDuty"]; [managedObject setValue:@"onDuty" forKey:@"status"]; } else { [managedObject setValue:[NSNumber numberWithBool:NO] forKey:@"onDuty"]; [managedObject setValue:@"offDuty" forKey:@"status"]; } } NSError *error; [self.managedObjectContext save:&error]; [tableView reloadData]; } This might not be the most efficient code (sorry, I'm new!), but it does work. That is, for the first 25 items in the list. Selecting the 26th item or beyond, the UIActionSheet will appear, but if it is dismissed with a button, I get a variety of errors, including any one of the following: [__NSCFArray section]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x4c6bf90 Program received signal: “EXC_BAD_ACCESS” [_NSObjectID_48_0 section]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x4c54710 [__NSArrayM section]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x4c619a0 [NSComparisonPredicate section]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x6088790 [NSKeyPathExpression section]: unrecognized selector sent to instance 0x4c18950 If I comment out NSManagedObject *managedObject = [self.fetchedResultsController objectAtIndexPath:lastSelection]; it doesn't crash anymore, so I believe it has something do do with that. Can anyone offer any insight? Please let me know if I need to include any other information. Thanks! EDIT: Interestingly, my fetchedResultsController code returns a different object every time. Is this expected, or could this be a cause of my issue? The code looks like this: - (NSFetchedResultsController *)fetchedResultsController { /* Set up the fetched results controller. */ // Create the fetch request for the entity. NSFetchRequest *fetchRequest = [[NSFetchRequest alloc] init]; // Edit the entity name as appropriate. NSEntityDescription *entity = [NSEntityDescription entityForName:@"Employee" inManagedObjectContext:self.managedObjectContext]; [fetchRequest setEntity:entity]; // Set the batch size to a suitable number. [fetchRequest setFetchBatchSize:80]; // Edit the sort key as appropriate. NSString *sortKey; BOOL ascending; if(sortControl.selectedSegmentIndex == 0) { sortKey = @"startTime"; ascending = YES; } else if(sortControl.selectedSegmentIndex == 1) { sortKey = @"name"; ascending = YES; } else { sortKey = @"onDuty"; ascending = NO; } NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:sortKey ascending:ascending]; NSArray *sortDescriptors = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:sortDescriptor, nil]; [fetchRequest setSortDescriptors:sortDescriptors]; // Edit the section name key path and cache name if appropriate. NSFetchedResultsController *aFetchedResultsController = [[NSFetchedResultsController alloc] initWithFetchRequest:fetchRequest managedObjectContext:self.managedObjectContext sectionNameKeyPath:nil cacheName:@"Root"]; aFetchedResultsController.delegate = self; self.fetchedResultsController = aFetchedResultsController; [aFetchedResultsController release]; [fetchRequest release]; [sortDescriptor release]; [sortDescriptors release]; NSError *error = nil; if (![fetchedResultsController_ performFetch:&error]) { /* Replace this implementation with code to handle the error appropriately. abort() causes the application to generate a crash log and terminate. You should not use this function in a shipping application, although it may be useful during development. If it is not possible to recover from the error, display an alert panel that instructs the user to quit the application by pressing the Home button. */ //NSLog(@"Unresolved error %@, %@", error, [error userInfo]); abort(); } return fetchedResultsController_; } This happens when I set a breakpoint: (gdb) po [self fetchedResultsController] <NSFetchedResultsController: 0x61567c0> (gdb) po [self fetchedResultsController] <NSFetchedResultsController: 0x4c83630>

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• C#/.NET Little Wonders: Using &lsquo;default&rsquo; to Get Default Values

  - by James Michael Hare

  Once again, in this series of posts I look at the parts of the .NET Framework that may seem trivial, but can help improve your code by making it easier to write and maintain. The index of all my past little wonders posts can be found here. Today’s little wonder is another of those small items that can help a lot in certain situations, especially when writing generics.  In particular, it is useful in determining what the default value of a given type would be. The Problem: what’s the default value for a generic type? There comes a time when you’re writing generic code where you may want to set an item of a given generic type.  Seems simple enough, right?  We’ll let’s see! Let’s say we want to query a Dictionary<TKey, TValue> for a given key and get back the value, but if the key doesn’t exist, we’d like a default value instead of throwing an exception. So, for example, we might have a the following dictionary defined: 1: var lookup = new Dictionary<int, string> 2: { 3: { 1, "Apple" }, 4: { 2, "Orange" }, 5: { 3, "Banana" }, 6: { 4, "Pear" }, 7: { 9, "Peach" } 8: }; And using those definitions, perhaps we want to do something like this: 1: // assume a default 2: string value = "Unknown"; 3:  4: // if the item exists in dictionary, get its value 5: if (lookup.ContainsKey(5)) 6: { 7: value = lookup[5]; 8: } But that’s inefficient, because then we’re double-hashing (once for ContainsKey() and once for the indexer).  Well, to avoid the double-hashing, we could use TryGetValue() instead: 1: string value; 2:  3: // if key exists, value will be put in value, if not default it 4: if (!lookup.TryGetValue(5, out value)) 5: { 6: value = "Unknown"; 7: } But the “flow” of using of TryGetValue() can get clunky at times when you just want to assign either the value or a default to a variable.  Essentially it’s 3-ish lines (depending on formatting) for 1 assignment.  So perhaps instead we’d like to write an extension method to support a cleaner interface that will return a default if the item isn’t found: 1: public static class DictionaryExtensions 2: { 3: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 4: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound) 5: { 6: TValue value; 7:  8: // value will be the result or the default for TValue 9: if (!dict.TryGetValue(key, out value)) 10: { 11: value = defaultIfNotFound; 12: } 13:  14: return value; 15: } 16: } 17:  So this creates an extension method on Dictionary<TKey, TValue> that will attempt to get a value using the given key, and will return the defaultIfNotFound as a stand-in if the key does not exist. This code compiles, fine, but what if we would like to go one step further and allow them to specify a default if not found, or accept the default for the type?  Obviously, we could overload the method to take the default or not, but that would be duplicated code and a bit heavy for just specifying a default.  It seems reasonable that we could set the not found value to be either the default for the type, or the specified value. So what if we defaulted the type to null? 1: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 2: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound = null) // ... No, this won’t work, because only reference types (and Nullable<T> wrapped types due to syntactical sugar) can be assigned to null.  So what about a calling parameterless constructor? 1: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 2: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound = new TValue()) // ... No, this won’t work either for several reasons.  First, we’d expect a reference type to return null, not an “empty” instance.  Secondly, not all reference types have a parameter-less constructor (string for example does not).  And finally, a constructor cannot be determined at compile-time, while default values can. The Solution: default(T) – returns the default value for type T Many of us know the default keyword for its uses in switch statements as the default case.  But it has another use as well: it can return us the default value for a given type.  And since it generates the same defaults that default field initialization uses, it can be determined at compile-time as well. For example: 1: var x = default(int); // x is 0 2:  3: var y = default(bool); // y is false 4:  5: var z = default(string); // z is null 6:  7: var t = default(TimeSpan); // t is a TimeSpan with Ticks == 0 8:  9: var n = default(int?); // n is a Nullable<int> with HasValue == false Notice that for numeric types the default is 0, and for reference types the default is null.  In addition, for struct types, the value is a default-constructed struct – which simply means a struct where every field has their default value (hence 0 Ticks for TimeSpan, etc.). So using this, we could modify our code to this: 1: public static class DictionaryExtensions 2: { 3: public static TValue GetValueOrDefault<TKey, TValue>(this Dictionary<TKey, TValue> dict, 4: TKey key, TValue defaultIfNotFound = default(TValue)) 5: { 6: TValue value; 7:  8: // value will be the result or the default for TValue 9: if (!dict.TryGetValue(key, out value)) 10: { 11: value = defaultIfNotFound; 12: } 13:  14: return value; 15: } 16: } Now, if defaultIfNotFound is unspecified, it will use default(TValue) which will be the default value for whatever value type the dictionary holds.  So let’s consider how we could use this: 1: lookup.GetValueOrDefault(1); // returns “Apple” 2:  3: lookup.GetValueOrDefault(5); // returns null 4:  5: lookup.GetValueOrDefault(5, “Unknown”); // returns “Unknown” 6:  Again, do not confuse a parameter-less constructor with the default value for a type.  Remember that the default value for any type is the compile-time default for any instance of that type (0 for numeric, false for bool, null for reference types, and struct will all default fields for struct).  Consider the difference: 1: // both zero 2: int i1 = default(int); 3: int i2 = new int(); 4:  5: // both “zeroed” structs 6: var dt1 = default(DateTime); 7: var dt2 = new DateTime(); 8:  9: // sb1 is null, sb2 is an “empty” string builder 10: var sb1 = default(StringBuilder()); 11: var sb2 = new StringBuilder(); So in the above code, notice that the value types all resolve the same whether using default or parameter-less construction.  This is because a value type is never null (even Nullable<T> wrapped types are never “null” in a reference sense), they will just by default contain fields with all default values. However, for reference types, the default is null and not a constructed instance.  Also it should be noted that not all classes have parameter-less constructors (string, for instance, doesn’t have one – and doesn’t need one). Summary Whenever you need to get the default value for a type, especially a generic type, consider using the default keyword.  This handy word will give you the default value for the given type at compile-time, which can then be used for initialization, optional parameters, etc. Technorati Tags: C#,CSharp,.NET,Little Wonders,default

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• How to include multiple XML files in a single XML file for deserialization by XmlSerializer in .NET

  - by harrydev

  Hi, is it possible to use the XmlSerializer in .NET to load an XML file which includes other XML files? And how? This, in order to share XML state easily in two "parent" XML files, e.g. AB and BC in below. Example: using System; using System.IO; using System.Xml.Serialization; namespace XmlSerializerMultipleFilesTest { [Serializable] public class A { public int Value { get; set; } } [Serializable] public class B { public double Value { get; set; } } [Serializable] public class C { public string Value { get; set; } } [Serializable] public class AB { public A A { get; set; } public B B { get; set; } } [Serializable] public class BC { public B B { get; set; } public C C { get; set; } } class Program { public static void Serialize<T>(T data, string filePath) { using (var writer = new StreamWriter(filePath)) { var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)); xmlSerializer.Serialize(writer, data); } } public static T Deserialize<T>(string filePath) { using (var reader = new StreamReader(filePath)) { var xmlSerializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(T)); return (T)xmlSerializer.Deserialize(reader); } } static void Main(string[] args) { const string fileNameA = @"A.xml"; const string fileNameB = @"B.xml"; const string fileNameC = @"C.xml"; const string fileNameAB = @"AB.xml"; const string fileNameBC = @"BC.xml"; var a = new A(){ Value = 42 }; var b = new B(){ Value = Math.PI }; var c = new C(){ Value = "Something rotten" }; Serialize(a, fileNameA); Serialize(b, fileNameB); Serialize(c, fileNameC); // How can AB and BC be deserialized from single // files which include two of the A, B or C files. // Using ideally something like: var ab = Deserialize<AB>(fileNameAB); var bc = Deserialize<BC>(fileNameBC); // That is, so that A, B, C xml file // contents are shared across these two } } } Thus, the A, B, C files contain the following: A.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <A xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Value>42</Value> </A> B.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <B xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Value>3.1415926535897931</Value> </B> C.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <C xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <Value>Something rotten</Value> </C> And then the "parent" XML files would contain a XML include file of some sort (I have not been able to find anything like this), such as: AB.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <AB xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <A include="A.xml"/> <B include="B.xml"/> </AB> BC.xml: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <BC xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"> <B include="B.xml"/> <C include="C.xml"/> </BC> Of course, I guess this can be solved by implementing IXmlSerializer for AB and BC, but I was hoping there was an easier solution or a generic solution with which classes themselves only need the [Serializable] attribute and nothing else. That is, the split into multiple files is XML only and handled by XmlSerializer itself or a custom generic serializer on top of this. I know this should be somewhat possible with app.config (as in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/480538/use-xml-includes-or-config-references-in-app-config-to-include-other-config-files), but I would prefer a solution based on XmlSerializer. Thanks.

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• Using WeakReference to resolve issue with .NET unregistered event handlers causing memory leaks.

  - by Eric

  The problem: Registered event handlers create a reference from the event to the event handler's instance. If that instance fails to unregister the event handler (via Dispose, presumably), then the instance memory will not be freed by the garbage collector. Example: class Foo { public event Action AnEvent; public void DoEvent() { if (AnEvent != null) AnEvent(); } } class Bar { public Bar(Foo l) { l.AnEvent += l_AnEvent; } void l_AnEvent() { } } If I instantiate a Foo, and pass this to a new Bar constructor, then let go of the Bar object, it will not be freed by the garbage collector because of the AnEvent registration. I consider this a memory leak, and seems just like my old C++ days. I can, of course, make Bar IDisposable, unregister the event in the Dispose() method, and make sure to call Dispose() on instances of it, but why should I have to do this? I first question why events are implemented with strong references? Why not use weak references? An event is used to abstractly notify an object of changes in another object. It seems to me that if the event handler's instance is no longer in use (i.e., there are no non-event references to the object), then any events that it is registered with should automatically be unregistered. What am I missing? I have looked at WeakEventManager. Wow, what a pain. Not only is it very difficult to use, but its documentation is inadequate (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.weakeventmanager.aspx -- noticing the "Notes to Inheritors" section that has 6 vaguely described bullets). I have seen other discussions in various places, but nothing I felt I could use. I propose a simpler solution based on WeakReference, as described here. My question is: Does this not meet the requirements with significantly less complexity? To use the solution, the above code is modified as follows: class Foo { public WeakReferenceEvent AnEvent = new WeakReferenceEvent(); internal void DoEvent() { AnEvent.Invoke(); } } class Bar { public Bar(Foo l) { l.AnEvent += l_AnEvent; } void l_AnEvent() { } } Notice two things: 1. The Foo class is modified in two ways: The event is replaced with an instance of WeakReferenceEvent, shown below; and the invocation of the event is changed. 2. The Bar class is UNCHANGED. No need to subclass WeakEventManager, implement IWeakEventListener, etc. OK, so on to the implementation of WeakReferenceEvent. This is shown here. Note that it uses the generic WeakReference that I borrowed from here: http://damieng.com/blog/2006/08/01/implementingweakreferencet I had to add Equals() and GetHashCode() to his class, which I include below for reference. class WeakReferenceEvent { public static WeakReferenceEvent operator +(WeakReferenceEvent wre, Action handler) { wre._delegates.Add(new WeakReference<Action>(handler)); return wre; } public static WeakReferenceEvent operator -(WeakReferenceEvent wre, Action handler) { foreach (var del in wre._delegates) if (del.Target == handler) { wre._delegates.Remove(del); return wre; } return wre; } HashSet<WeakReference<Action>> _delegates = new HashSet<WeakReference<Action>>(); internal void Invoke() { HashSet<WeakReference<Action>> toRemove = null; foreach (var del in _delegates) { if (del.IsAlive) del.Target(); else { if (toRemove == null) toRemove = new HashSet<WeakReference<Action>>(); toRemove.Add(del); } } if (toRemove != null) foreach (var del in toRemove) _delegates.Remove(del); } } public class WeakReference<T> : IDisposable { private GCHandle handle; private bool trackResurrection; public WeakReference(T target) : this(target, false) { } public WeakReference(T target, bool trackResurrection) { this.trackResurrection = trackResurrection; this.Target = target; } ~WeakReference() { Dispose(); } public void Dispose() { handle.Free(); GC.SuppressFinalize(this); } public virtual bool IsAlive { get { return (handle.Target != null); } } public virtual bool TrackResurrection { get { return this.trackResurrection; } } public virtual T Target { get { object o = handle.Target; if ((o == null) || (!(o is T))) return default(T); else return (T)o; } set { handle = GCHandle.Alloc(value, this.trackResurrection ? GCHandleType.WeakTrackResurrection : GCHandleType.Weak); } } public override bool Equals(object obj) { var other = obj as WeakReference<T>; return other != null && Target.Equals(other.Target); } public override int GetHashCode() { return Target.GetHashCode(); } } It's functionality is trivial. I override operator + and - to get the += and -= syntactic sugar matching events. These create WeakReferences to the Action delegate. This allows the garbage collector to free the event target object (Bar in this example) when nobody else is holding on to it. In the Invoke() method, simply run through the weak references and call their Target Action. If any dead (i.e., garbage collected) references are found, remove them from the list. Of course, this only works with delegates of type Action. I tried making this generic, but ran into the missing where T : delegate in C#! As an alternative, simply modify class WeakReferenceEvent to be a WeakReferenceEvent, and replace the Action with Action. Fix the compiler errors and you have a class that can be used like so: class Foo { public WeakReferenceEvent<int> AnEvent = new WeakReferenceEvent<int>(); internal void DoEvent() { AnEvent.Invoke(5); } } Hopefully this will help someone else when they run into the mystery .NET event memory leak!

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• How-to delete a tree node using the context menu

  - by frank.nimphius

  Hierarchical trees in Oracle ADF make use of View Accessors, which means that only the top level node needs to be exposed as a View Object instance on the ADF Business Components Data Model. This also means that only the top level node has a representation in the PageDef file as a tree binding and iterator binding reference. Detail nodes are accessed through tree rule definitions that use the accessor mentioned above (or nested collections in the case of POJO or EJB business services). The tree component is configured for single node selection, which however can be declaratively changed for users to press the ctrl key and selecting multiple nodes. In the following, I explain how to create a context menu on the tree for users to delete the selected tree nodes. For this, the context menu item will access a managed bean, which then determines the selected node(s), the internal ADF node bindings and the rows they represent. As mentioned, the ADF Business Components Data Model only needs to expose the top level node data sources, which in this example is an instance of the Locations View Object. For the tree to work, you need to have associations defined between entities, which usually is done for you by Oracle JDeveloper if the database tables have foreign keys defined Note: As a general hint of best practices and to simplify your life: Make sure your database schema is well defined and designed before starting your development project. Don't treat the database as something organic that grows and changes with the requirements as you proceed in your project. Business service refactoring in response to database changes is possible, but should be treated as an exception, not the rule. Good database design is a necessity – even for application developers – and nothing evil. To create the tree component, expand the Data Controls panel and drag the View Object collection to the view. From the context menu, select the tree component entry and continue with defining the tree rules that make up the hierarchical structure. As you see, when pressing the green plus icon  in the Edit Tree Binding  dialog, the data structure, Locations -  Departments – Employees in my sample, shows without you having created a View Object instance for each of the nodes in the ADF Business Components Data Model. After you configured the tree structure in the Edit Tree Binding dialog, you press OK and the tree is created. Select the tree in the page editor and open the Structure Window (ctrl+shift+S). In the Structure window, expand the tree node to access the conextMenu facet. Use the right mouse button to insert a Popup  into the facet. Repeat the same steps to insert a Menu and a Menu Item into the Popup you created. The Menu item text should be changed to something meaningful like "Delete". Note that the custom menu item later is added to the context menu together with the default context menu options like expand and expand all. To define the action that is executed when the menu item is clicked on, you select the Action Listener property in the Property Inspector and click the arrow icon followed by the Edit menu option. Create or select a managed bean and define a method name for the action handler. Next, select the tree component and browse to its binding property in the Property Inspector. Again, use the arrow icon | Edit option to create a component binding in the same managed bean that has the action listener defined. The tree handle is used in the action listener code, which is shown below: public void onTreeNodeDelete(ActionEvent actionEvent) {   //access the tree from the JSF component reference created   //using the af:tree "binding" property. The "binding" property   //creates a pair of set/get methods to access the RichTree instance   RichTree tree = this.getTreeHandler();   //get the list of selected row keys   RowKeySet rks = tree.getSelectedRowKeys();   //access the iterator to loop over selected nodes   Iterator rksIterator = rks.iterator();          //The CollectionModel represents the tree model and is   //accessed from the tree "value" property   CollectionModel model = (CollectionModel) tree.getValue();   //The CollectionModel is a wrapper for the ADF tree binding   //class, which is JUCtrlHierBinding   JUCtrlHierBinding treeBinding =                  (JUCtrlHierBinding) model.getWrappedData();          //loop over the selected nodes and delete the rows they   //represent   while(rksIterator.hasNext()){     List nodeKey = (List) rksIterator.next();     //find the ADF node binding using the node key     JUCtrlHierNodeBinding node =                       treeBinding.findNodeByKeyPath(nodeKey);     //delete the row.     Row rw = node.getRow();       rw.remove();   }          //only refresh the tree if tree nodes have been selected   if(rks.size() > 0){     AdfFacesContext adfFacesContext =                          AdfFacesContext.getCurrentInstance();     adfFacesContext.addPartialTarget(tree);   } } Note: To enable multi node selection for a tree, select the tree and change the row selection setting from "single" to "multiple". Note: a fully pictured version of this post will become available at the end of the month in a PDF summary on ADF Code Corner : http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/adf/learnmore/index-101235.html 

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• Superclass Sensitive Actions

  - by Geertjan

  I've created a small piece of functionality that enables you to create actions for Java classes in the IDE. When the user right-clicks on a Java class, they will see one or more actions depending on the superclass of the selected class. To explain this visually, here I have "BlaTopComponent.java". I right-click on its node in the Projects window and I see "This is a TopComponent": Indeed, when you look at the source code of "BlaTopComponent.java", you'll see that it implements the TopComponent class. Next, in the screenshot below, you see that I have right-click a different class. In this case, there's an action available because the selected class implements the ActionListener class. Then, take a look at this one. Here both TopComponent and ActionListener are superclasses of the current class, hence both the actions are available to be invoked: Finally, here's a class that subclasses neither TopComponent nor ActionListener, hence neither of the actions that I created for doing something that relates to TopComponents or ActionListeners is available, since those actions are irrelevant in this context: How does this work? Well, it's a combination of my blog entries "Generic Node Popup Registration Solution" and "Showing an Action on a TopComponent Node". The cool part is that the definition of the two actions that you see above is remarkably trivial: import java.awt.event.ActionEvent; import java.awt.event.ActionListener; import javax.swing.JOptionPane; import org.openide.loaders.DataObject; import org.openide.util.Utilities; public class TopComponentSensitiveAction implements ActionListener { private final DataObject context; public TopComponentSensitiveAction() { context = Utilities.actionsGlobalContext().lookup(DataObject.class); } @Override public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) { //Do something with the context: JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "TopComponent: " + context.getNodeDelegate().getDisplayName()); } } The above is the action that will be available if you right-click a Java class that extends TopComponent. This, in turn, is the action that will be available if you right-click a Java class that implements ActionListener: import java.awt.event.ActionEvent; import java.awt.event.ActionListener; import javax.swing.JOptionPane; import org.openide.loaders.DataObject; import org.openide.util.Utilities; public class ActionListenerSensitiveAction implements ActionListener { private final DataObject context; public ActionListenerSensitiveAction() { context = Utilities.actionsGlobalContext().lookup(DataObject.class); } @Override public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) { //Do something with the context: JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "ActionListener: " + context.getNodeDelegate().getDisplayName()); } } Indeed, the classes, at this stage are the same. But, depending on what I want to do with TopComponents or ActionListeners, I now have a starting point, which includes access to the DataObject, from where I can get down into the source code, as shown here. This is how the two ActionListeners that you see defined above are registered in the layer, which could ultimately be done via annotations on the ActionListeners, of course: <folder name="Actions"> <folder name="Tools"> <file name="org-netbeans-sbas-impl-TopComponentSensitiveAction.instance"> <attr stringvalue="This is a TopComponent" name="displayName"/> <attr name="instanceCreate" methodvalue="org.netbeans.sbas.SuperclassSensitiveAction.create"/> <attr name="type" stringvalue="org.openide.windows.TopComponent"/> <attr name="delegate" newvalue="org.netbeans.sbas.impl.TopComponentSensitiveAction"/> </file> <file name="org-netbeans-sbas-impl-ActionListenerSensitiveAction.instance"> <attr stringvalue="This is an ActionListener" name="displayName"/> <attr name="instanceCreate" methodvalue="org.netbeans.sbas.SuperclassSensitiveAction.create"/> <attr name="type" stringvalue="java.awt.event.ActionListener"/> <attr name="delegate" newvalue="org.netbeans.sbas.impl.ActionListenerSensitiveAction"/> </file> </folder> </folder> <folder name="Loaders"> <folder name="text"> <folder name="x-java"> <folder name="Actions"> <file name="org-netbeans-sbas-impl-TopComponentSensitiveAction.shadow"> <attr name="originalFile" stringvalue="Actions/Tools/org-netbeans-sbas-impl-TopComponentSensitiveAction.instance"/> <attr intvalue="150" name="position"/> </file> <file name="org-netbeans-sbas-impl-ActionListenerSensitiveAction.shadow"> <attr name="originalFile" stringvalue="Actions/Tools/org-netbeans-sbas-impl-ActionListenerSensitiveAction.instance"/> <attr intvalue="160" name="position"/> </file> </folder> </folder> </folder> </folder> The most important parts of the layer registration are the lines that are highlighted above. Those lines connect the layer to the generic action that delegates back to the action listeners defined above, as follows: public final class SuperclassSensitiveAction extends AbstractAction implements ContextAwareAction { private final Map map; //This method is called from the layer, via "instanceCreate", //magically receiving a map, which contains all the attributes //that are defined in the layer for the file: static SuperclassSensitiveAction create(Map map) { return new SuperclassSensitiveAction(Utilities.actionsGlobalContext(), map); } public SuperclassSensitiveAction(Lookup context, Map m) { super(m.get("displayName").toString()); this.map = m; String superclass = m.get("type").toString(); //Enable the menu item only if //we're dealing with a class of type superclass: JavaSource javaSource = JavaSource.forFileObject( context.lookup(DataObject.class).getPrimaryFile()); try { javaSource.runUserActionTask(new ScanTask(this, superclass), true); } catch (IOException ex) { Exceptions.printStackTrace(ex); } //Hide the menu item if it isn't enabled: putValue(DynamicMenuContent.HIDE_WHEN_DISABLED, true); } @Override public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent ev) { ActionListener delegatedAction = (ActionListener)map.get("delegate"); delegatedAction.actionPerformed(ev); } @Override public Action createContextAwareInstance(Lookup actionContext) { return new SuperclassSensitiveAction(actionContext, map); } private class ScanTask implements Task<CompilationController> { private SuperclassSensitiveAction action = null; private String superclass; private ScanTask(SuperclassSensitiveAction action, String superclass) { this.action = action; this.superclass = superclass; } @Override public void run(final CompilationController info) throws Exception { info.toPhase(Phase.ELEMENTS_RESOLVED); new EnableIfGivenSuperclassMatches(info, action, superclass).scan( info.getCompilationUnit(), null); } } private static class EnableIfGivenSuperclassMatches extends TreePathScanner<Void, Void> { private CompilationInfo info; private final AbstractAction action; private final String superclassName; public EnableIfGivenSuperclassMatches(CompilationInfo info, AbstractAction action, String superclassName) { this.info = info; this.action = action; this.superclassName = superclassName; } @Override public Void visitClass(ClassTree t, Void v) { Element el = info.getTrees().getElement(getCurrentPath()); if (el != null) { TypeElement te = (TypeElement) el; List<? extends TypeMirror> interfaces = te.getInterfaces(); if (te.getSuperclass().toString().equals(superclassName)) { action.setEnabled(true); } else { action.setEnabled(false); } for (TypeMirror typeMirror : interfaces) { if (typeMirror.toString().equals(superclassName)){ action.setEnabled(true); } } } return null; } } } This is a pretty cool solution and, as you can see, very generic. Create a new ActionListener, register it in the layer so that it maps to the generic class above, and make sure to set the type attribute, which defines the superclass to which the action should be sensitive.

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• Windows Azure – Write, Run or Use Software

  - by BuckWoody

  Windows Azure is a platform that has you covered, whether you need to write software, run software that is already written, or Install and use “canned” software whether you or someone else wrote it. Like any platform, it’s a set of tools you can use where it makes sense to solve a problem. The primary location for Windows Azure information is located at http://windowsazure.com. You can find everything there from the development kits for writing software to pricing, licensing and tutorials on all of that. I have a few links here for learning to use Windows Azure – although it’s best if you focus not on the tools, but what you want to solve. I’ve got it broken down here into various sections, so you can quickly locate things you want to know. I’ll include resources here from Microsoft and elsewhere – I use these same resources in the Architectural Design Sessions (ADS) I do with my clients worldwide. Write Software Also called “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), Windows Azure has lots of components you can use together or separately that allow you to write software in .NET or various Open Source languages to work completely online, or in partnership with code you have on-premises or both – even if you’re using other cloud providers. Keep in mind that all of the features you see here can be used together, or independently. For instance, you might only use a Web Site, or use Storage, but you can use both together. You can access all of these components through standard REST API calls, or using our Software Development Kit’s API’s, which are a lot easier. In any case, you simply use Visual Studio, Eclipse, Cloud9 IDE, or even a text editor to write your code from a Mac, PC or Linux.  Components you can use: Azure Web Sites: Windows Azure Web Sites allow you to quickly write an deploy websites, without setting a Virtual Machine, installing a web server or configuring complex settings. They work alone, with other Windows Azure Web Sites, or with other parts of Windows Azure. Web and Worker Roles: Windows Azure Web Roles give you a full stateless computing instance with Internet Information Services (IIS) installed and configured. Windows Azure Worker Roles give you a full stateless computing instance without Information Services (IIS) installed, often used in a "Services" mode. Scale-out is achieved either manually or programmatically under your control. Storage: Windows Azure Storage types include Blobs to store raw binary data, Tables to use key/value pair data (like NoSQL data structures), Queues that allow interaction between stateless roles, and a relational SQL Server database. Other Services: Windows Azure has many other services such as a security mechanism, a Cache (memcacheD compliant), a Service Bus, a Traffic Manager and more. Once again, these features can be used with a Windows Azure project, or alone based on your needs. Various Languages: Windows Azure supports the .NET stack of languages, as well as many Open-Source languages like Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, NodeJS, C++ and more.   Use Software Also called “Software as a Service” (SaaS) this often means consumer or business-level software like Hotmail or Office 365. In other words, you simply log on, use the software, and log off – there’s nothing to install, and little to even configure. For the Information Technology professional, however, It’s not quite the same. We want software that provides services, but in a platform. That means we want things like Hadoop or other software we don’t want to have to install and configure.  Components you can use: Kits: Various software “kits” or packages are supported with just a few clicks, such as Umbraco, Wordpress, and others. Windows Azure Media Services: Windows Azure Media Services is a suite of services that allows you to upload media for encoding, processing and even streaming – or even one or more of those functions. We can add DRM and even commercials to your media if you like. Windows Azure Media Services is used to stream large events all the way down to small training videos. High Performance Computing and “Big Data”: Windows Azure allows you to scale to huge workloads using a few clicks to deploy Hadoop Clusters or the High Performance Computing (HPC) nodes, accepting HPC Jobs, Pig and Hive Jobs, and even interfacing with Microsoft Excel. Windows Azure Marketplace: Windows Azure Marketplace offers data and programs you can quickly implement and use – some free, some for-fee.   Run Software Also known as “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS), this offering allows you to build or simply choose a Virtual Machine to run server-based software.  Components you can use: Persistent Virtual Machines: You can choose to install Windows Server, Windows Server with Active Directory, with SQL Server, or even SharePoint from a pre-configured gallery. You can configure your own server images with standard Hyper-V technology and load them yourselves – and even bring them back when you’re done. As a new offering, we also even allow you to select various distributions of Linux – a first for Microsoft. Windows Azure Connect: You can connect your on-premises networks to Windows Azure Instances. Storage: Windows Azure Storage can be used as a remote backup, a hybrid storage location and more using software or even hardware appliances.   Decision Matrix With all of these options, you can use Windows Azure to solve just about any computing problem. It’s often hard to know when to use something on-premises, in the cloud, and what kind of service to use. I’ve used a decision matrix in the last couple of years to take a particular problem and choose the proper technology to solve it. It’s all about options – there is no “silver bullet”, whether that’s Windows Azure or any other set of functions. I take the problem, decide which particular component I want to own and control – and choose the column that has that box darkened. For instance, if I have to control the wiring for a solution (a requirement in some military and government installations), that means the “Networking” component needs to be dark, and so I select the “On Premises” column for that particular solution. If I just need the solution provided and I want no control at all, I can look as “Software as a Service” solutions. Security, Pricing, and Other Info  Security: Security is one of the first questions you should ask in any distributed computing environment. We have certification info, coding guidelines and more, even a general “Request for Information” RFI Response already created for you.   Pricing: Are there licenses? How much does this cost? Is there a way to estimate the costs in this new environment? New Features: Many new features were added to Windows Azure - a good roundup of those changes can be found here. Support: Software Support on Virtual Machines, general support.    

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• Will creating a background thread in a WCF service during a call, take up a thread in the ASP .NET t

  - by Nate Pinchot

  The following code is part of a WCF service. Will eventWatcher take up a thread in the ASP .NET thread pool, even if it is set IsBackground = true? /// <summary> /// Provides methods to work with the PhoneSystem web services SDK. /// This is a singleton since we need to keep track of what lines (extensions) are open. /// </summary> public sealed class PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory : IDisposable { // singleton instance reference private static readonly PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory instance = new PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory(); private static readonly object l = new object(); private static volatile Hashtable monitoredExtensions = new Hashtable(); private static readonly PhoneSystemWebServiceClient webServiceClient = CreateWebServiceClient(); private static volatile bool isClientRegistered; private static volatile string clientHandle; private static readonly Thread eventWatcherThread = new Thread(EventPoller) {IsBackground = true}; #region Constructor // these constructors are hacks to make the C# compiler not mark beforefieldinit // more info: http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/singleton.html static PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory() { } PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory() { } #endregion #region Properties /// <summary> /// Gets a thread safe instance of PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory /// </summary> public static PhoneSystemWebServiceFactory Instance { get { return instance; } } #endregion #region Private methods /// <summary> /// Create and configure a PhoneSystemWebServiceClient with basic http binding and endpoint from app settings. /// </summary> /// <returns>PhoneSystemWebServiceClient</returns> private static PhoneSystemWebServiceClient CreateWebServiceClient() { string url = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["PhoneSystemWebService_Url"]; if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(url)) { throw new ConfigurationErrorsException( "The AppSetting \"PhoneSystemWebService_Url\" could not be found. Check the application configuration and ensure that the element exists. Example: <appSettings><add key=\"PhoneSystemWebService_Url\" value=\"http://xyz\" /></appSettings>"); } return new PhoneSystemWebServiceClient(new BasicHttpBinding(), new EndpointAddress(url)); } #endregion #region Event poller public static void EventPoller() { while (true) { if (Thread.CurrentThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Aborted || Thread.CurrentThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.AbortRequested || Thread.CurrentThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Stopped || Thread.CurrentThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.StopRequested) break; // get events //webServiceClient.GetEvents(clientHandle, 30, 100); } Thread.Sleep(5000); } #endregion #region Client registration methods private static void RegisterClientIfNeeded() { if (isClientRegistered) { return; } lock (l) { // double lock check if (isClientRegistered) { return; } //clientHandle = webServiceClient.RegisterClient("PhoneSystemWebServiceFactoryInternal", null); isClientRegistered = true; } } private static void UnregisterClient() { if (!isClientRegistered) { return; } lock (l) { // double lock check if (!isClientRegistered) { return; } //webServiceClient.UnegisterClient(clientHandle); } } #endregion #region Phone extension methods public bool SubscribeToEventsForExtension(string extension) { if (monitoredExtensions.Contains(extension)) { return false; } lock (monitoredExtensions.SyncRoot) { // double lock check if (monitoredExtensions.Contains(extension)) { return false; } RegisterClientIfNeeded(); // open line so we receive events for extension LineInfo lineInfo; try { //lineInfo = webServiceClient.OpenLine(clientHandle, extension); } catch (FaultException<PhoneSystemWebSDKErrorDetail>) { // TODO: log error return false; } // add extension to list of monitored extensions //monitoredExtensions.Add(extension, lineInfo.lineID); monitoredExtensions.Add(extension, 1); // start event poller thread if not already started if (eventWatcherThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Stopped || eventWatcherThread.ThreadState == ThreadState.Unstarted) { eventWatcherThread.Start(); } return true; } } public bool UnsubscribeFromEventsForExtension(string extension) { if (!monitoredExtensions.Contains(extension)) { return false; } lock (monitoredExtensions.SyncRoot) { if (!monitoredExtensions.Contains(extension)) { return false; } // close line try { //webServiceClient.CloseLine(clientHandle, (int) monitoredExtensions[extension]); } catch (FaultException<PhoneSystemWebSDKErrorDetail>) { // TODO: log error return false; } // remove extension from list of monitored extensions monitoredExtensions.Remove(extension); // if we are not monitoring anything else, stop the poller and unregister the client if (monitoredExtensions.Count == 0) { eventWatcherThread.Abort(); UnregisterClient(); } return true; } } public bool IsExtensionMonitored(string extension) { lock (monitoredExtensions.SyncRoot) { return monitoredExtensions.Contains(extension); } } #endregion #region Dispose public void Dispose() { lock (l) { // close any open lines var extensions = monitoredExtensions.Keys.Cast<string>().ToList(); while (extensions.Count > 0) { UnsubscribeFromEventsForExtension(extensions[0]); extensions.RemoveAt(0); } if (!isClientRegistered) { return; } // unregister web service client UnregisterClient(); } } #endregion }

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• How to Control Screen Layouts in LightSwitch

  - by ChrisD

  Visual Studio LightSwitch has a bunch of screen templates that you can use to quickly generate screens. They give you good starting points that you can customize further. When you add a new screen to your project you see a set of screen templates that you can choose from. These templates lay out all the related data you choose to put on a screen automatically for you. And don’t under estimate them; they do a great job of laying out controls in a smart way. For instance, a tab control will be used when you select more than one related set of data to display on a screen. However, you’re not limited to taking the layout as is. In fact, the screen designer is pretty flexible and allows you to create stacks of controls in a variety of configurations. You just need to visualize your screen as a series of containers that you can lay out in rows and columns. You then place controls or stacks of controls into these areas to align the screen exactly how you want. If you’re new in Visual Studio LightSwitch, you can see this tutorial. OK, Let’s start with a simple example. I have already designed my data entities for a simple order tracking system similar to the Northwind database. I also have added a Search Data  Screen to search my Products already. Now I will add a new Details Screen for my Products and make it the default screen via the “Add New Screen” dialog: The screen designer picks a simple layout for me based on the single entity I chose, in this case Product. Hit F5 to run the application, select a Product on the search screen to open the Product Details Screen. Notice that it’s pretty simple because my entity is simple. Click the “Customize” button in the top right of the screen so we can start tweaking it. The left side of the screen shows the containership of controls and data bindings (called the content tree) and the right side shows the live preview with data. Notice that we have a simple layout of two rows but only one row is populated (with a vertical stack of controls in this case). The bottom row is empty. You can envision the screen like this: Each container will display a group of data that you select. For instance in the above screen, the top row is set to a vertical stack control and the group of data to display is coming from Product. So when laying out screens you need to think in terms of containers of controls bound to groups of data. To change the data to which a container is bound, select the data item next to the container: You can select the “New Group” item in order to create more containers (or controls) within the current container. For instance to totally control the layout, select the Product in the top row and hit the delete key. This will delete the vertical stack and therefore all the controls on the screen. The content tree will still have two rows, but the rows are now both empty. If you want a layout of four containers (two rows and two columns) then select “New Group” for the data item and then change the vertical stack control to “Two Columns” for both of the rows as shown here: You can keep going on and on by selecting new groups and choosing between rows or columns. Here’s a layout with 8 containers, 4 rows and 2 columns: And here is a layout with 7 content areas; one row across the top of the screen and three rows with two columns below that: When you select Choose Content and select a data item like Product it will populate all the controls within the container (row or column in a vertical stack) however you have complete control on what to display within each group. You can delete fields you don’t want to display and/or change their controls. You can also change the size of controls and how they display by changing the settings in the properties window. If you are in the Screen Designer (and not the customization mode like we are here) you can also drag-drop data items from the left-hand side of the screen to the content tree. Note, however, that not all areas of the tree will allow you to drop a data item if there is a binding already set to a different set of data. For instance you can’t drop a Customer ID into the same group as a Product if they originate from different entities. To get around this, all you need to do is create a new group and content area as shown above. Let’s take a more complex example that deals with more than just product. I want to design a complex screen that displays Products and their Category, as well as all the OrderDetails for which that product is selected. This time I will create a new screen and select List and Details, select the Products screen data, and include the related OrderDetails. However I’m going to totally change the layout so that a Product grid is at the top left and below that is the selected Product detail. Below that will be the Category text fields and image in two columns below. On the right side I want the OrderDetails grid to take up the whole right side of the screen. All this can be done in customization mode while you’re debugging the application. To do this, I first deleted all the content items in the tree and then re-created the content tree as shown in the image below. I also set the image to be larger and the description textbox to be 5 rows using the property window below the live preview. I added the green lines to indicate the containers and show how it maps to the content tree (click to enlarge): I hope this demystifies the screen designer a little bit. Remember that screen templates are excellent starting points – you can take them as-is or customize them further. It takes a little fooling around with customizing screens to get them to do exactly what you want but there are a ton of possibilities once you get the hang of it. Stay tuned for more information on how to create your own screen templates that show up in the “Add New Screen” dialog. Enjoy! The tutorial that might be interested: Adding Custom Control In LightSwitch

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• ANTS CLR and Memory Profiler In Depth Review (Part 2 of 2 &ndash; Memory Profiler)

  - by ToStringTheory

  One of the things that people might not know about me, is my obsession to make my code as efficient as possible. Many people might not realize how much of a task or undertaking that this might be, but it is surely a task as monumental as climbing Mount Everest, except this time it is a challenge for the mind… In trying to make code efficient, there are many different factors that play a part – size of project or solution, tiers, language used, experience and training of the programmer, technologies used, maintainability of the code – the list can go on for quite some time. I spend quite a bit of time when developing trying to determine what is the best way to implement a feature to accomplish the efficiency that I look to achieve. One program that I have recently come to learn about – Red Gate ANTS Performance (CLR) and Memory profiler gives me tools to accomplish that job more efficiently as well. In this review, I am going to cover some of the features of the ANTS memory profiler set by compiling some hideous example code to test against. Notice As a member of the Geeks With Blogs Influencers program, one of the perks is the ability to review products, in exchange for a free license to the program. I have not let this affect my opinions of the product in any way, and Red Gate nor Geeks With Blogs has tried to influence my opinion regarding this product in any way. Introduction – Part 2 In my last post, I reviewed the feature packed Red Gate ANTS Performance Profiler.  Separate from the Red Gate Performance Profiler is the Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler – a simple, easy to use utility for checking how your application is handling memory management…  A tool that I wish I had had many times in the past.  This post will be focusing on the ANTS Memory Profiler and its tool set. The memory profiler has a large assortment of features just like the Performance Profiler, with the new session looking nearly exactly alike: ANTS Memory Profiler Memory profiling is not something that I have to do very often…  In the past, the few cases I’ve had to find a memory leak in an application I have usually just had to trace the code of the operations being performed to look for oddities…  Sadly, I have come across more undisposed/non-using’ed IDisposable objects, usually from ADO.Net than I would like to ever see.  Support is not fun, however using ANTS Memory Profiler makes this task easier.  For this round of testing, I am going to use the same code from my previous example, using the WPF application. This time, I will choose the ‘Profile Memory’ option from the ANTS menu in Visual Studio, which launches the solution in its currently configured state/start-up project, and then launches the ANTS Memory Profiler to help.  It prepopulates all of the fields with the current project information, and all I have to do is select the ‘Start Profiling’ option. When the window comes up, it is actually quite barren, just giving ideas on how to work the profiler.  You start by getting to the point in your application that you want to profile, and then taking a ‘Memory Snapshot’.  This performs a full garbage collection, and snapshots the managed heap.  Using the same WPF app as before, I will go ahead and take a snapshot now. As you can see, ANTS is already giving me lots of information regarding the snapshot, however this is just a snapshot.  The whole point of the profiler is to perform an action, usually one where a memory problem is being noticed, and then take another snapshot and perform a diff between them to see what has changed.  I am going to go ahead and generate 5000 primes, and then take another snapshot: As you can see, ANTS is already giving me a lot of new information about this snapshot compared to the last.  Information such as difference in memory usage, fragmentation, class usage, etc…  If you take more snapshots, you can use the dropdown at the top to set your actual comparison snapshots. If you beneath the timeline, you will see a breadcrumb trail showing how best to approach profiling memory using ANTS.  When you first do the comparison, you start on the Summary screen.  You can either use the charts at the bottom, or switch to the class list screen to get to the next step.  Here is the class list screen: As you can see, it lists information about all of the instances between the snapshots, as well as at the bottom giving you a way to filter by telling ANTS what your problem is.  I am going to go ahead and select the Int16[] to look at the Instance Categorizer Using the instance categorizer, you can travel backwards to see where all of the instances are coming from.  It may be hard to see in this image, but hopefully the lightbox (click on it) will help: I can see that all of these instances are rooted to the application through the UI TextBlock control.  This image will probably be even harder to see, however using the ‘Instance Retention Graph’, you can trace an objects memory inheritance up the chain to see its roots as well.  This is a simple example, as this is simply a known element.  Usually you would be profiling an actual problem, and comparing those differences.  I know in the past, I have spotted a problem where a new context was created per page load, and it was rooted into the application through an event.  As the application began to grow, performance and reliability problems started to emerge.  A tool like this would have been a great way to identify the problem quickly. Overview Overall, I think that the Red Gate ANTS Memory Profiler is a great utility for debugging those pesky leaks.  3 Biggest Pros: Easy to use interface with lots of options for configuring profiling session Intuitive and helpful interface for drilling down from summary, to instance, to root graphs ANTS provides an API for controlling the profiler. Not many options, but still helpful. 2 Biggest Cons: Inability to automatically snapshot the memory by interval Lack of complete integration with Visual Studio via an extension panel Ratings Ease of Use (9/10) – I really do believe that they have brought simplicity to the once difficult task of memory profiling.  I especially liked how it stepped you further into the drilldown by directing you towards the best options. Effectiveness (10/10) – I believe that the profiler does EXACTLY what it purports to do.  Features (7/10) – A really great set of features all around in the application, however, I would like to see some ability for automatically triggering snapshots based on intervals or framework level items such as events. Customer Service (10/10) – My entire experience with Red Gate personnel has been nothing but good.  their people are friendly, helpful, and happy! UI / UX (9/10) – The interface is very easy to get around, and all of the options are easy to find.  With a little bit of poking around, you’ll be optimizing Hello World in no time flat! Overall (9/10) – Overall, I am happy with the Memory Profiler and its features, as well as with the service I received when working with the Red Gate personnel.  Thank you for reading up to here, or skipping ahead – I told you it would be shorter!  Please, if you do try the product, drop me a message and let me know what you think!  I would love to hear any opinions you may have on the product. Code Feel free to download the code I used above – download via DropBox

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• Getting Started With Tailoring Business Processes

  - by Richard Bingham

  In this article, and for the sake of simplicity, we will use the term “On-Premise” to mean a deployment where you have design-time development access to the instance, including administration of the technology components, the applications filesystem, and the database. In reality this might be a local development instance that is then supported by a team who can deploy your customizations to the restricted production instance equivalents. Tools Overview Firstly let’s look at the Design-Time tools within JDeveloper for customizing and extending the artifacts of a Business Process. In essence this falls into two buckets; SOA Composite Editor for working with BPEL processes, and the BPM Studio. The SOA Composite Editor As a standard extension to JDeveloper, this graphical design tool should be familiar to anyone previously worked with Oracle SOA Server. With easy-to-use modeling capability, backed-up by full XML source-view (for read-only), it provides everything that is needed to implement the technical design. In simple terms, once deployed to the remote SOA Server the composite components (like Mediator) leverage the Event Delivery Network (EDN) for interaction with the application logic. If you are customizing an existing Fusion Applications BPEL process then be aware that it does support MDS-based customization layers just like Page Composer where different customizations are used based on the run-time context, like for a specific Product or Business Unit. This also makes them safe from patching and upgrades, although only a single active version of the composite is available at run-time. This is defined by a field on the composite record, available in Enterprise Manager. Obviously if you wish to fire different activities and tasks based on the user context then you can should include switches to fork the flows in your custom BPEL process. Figure 1 – A BPEL process in Composite Editor The following describes the simplified steps for making customizations to BPEL processes. This is the most common method of changing the business processes of Fusion Applications, as over 400 BPEL-based composite applications are provided out-of-the-box. Setup your local Fusion Applications JDeveloper environment. The SOA Composite Editor should be installed as part of the Fusion Applications extension. If there are problems you can also find it under the ‘Check for Updates’ help menu option. Since SOA Server is not part of the JDeveloper integrated WebLogic Server, setup a standalone WebLogic environment for deploying and testing. Obviously you might use a Fusion Applications development instance also. Package the existing standard Fusion Applications SOA Composite using Enterprise Manager and export it as a complete SOA Archive (SAR) file, resulting in a local .jar file. You may need to ask your system administrator for this. Import the exported SAR .jar file into JDeveloper using the File menu, under the option ‘SOA Archive into SOA Project’. In JDeveloper set the appropriate customization layer values, and then change from the default role to the Fusion Applications Customization Developer role. Make the customizations and save the application project. Finally redeploy the composite application, either to a direct Application Server connection, or as a fresh SAR (jar) file that can then be re-imported and deployed via Enterprise Manager. The Business Process Management (BPM) Suite In addition to the relatively low-level development environment associated with BPEL process creation, Oracle provides a suite of products that allow business process adjustments to be made without the need for some of the programming skills.  The aim is to abstract much of the technical implementation and to provide a Business Analyst tools for immediately implementing organization changes. Obviously there are some limitations on what they can do, however the BPM Suite functionality increases with each release and for the majority of the cases the tools remains as applicable as its developer-orientated sister. At the current time business processes must be explicitly coded to support just one of these use-cases, either BPEL for developer use or BPM for business analyst use. That said, they both run on the same SOA Server in much the same way. The components bundled in each SOA Composite Application can be verified by inspection through Enterprise Manager. Figure 2 – A BPM Process in JDeveloper BPM Suite. BPM processes are written in a standard notation (BPMN) and the modeling tools are very similar to that of BPEL. The steps to deploy a custom BPM process are also essentially much the same, since the BPM process is bundled into a SOA Composite just like a BPEL process. As such the SOA Composite Editor  actually has support for both artifacts and even allows use of them together, such as a calling a BPM process as a partnerlink from a BPEL process. For more details see the references below. Business Analyst Tooling In addition to using JDeveloper extensions for BPM development, there are run-time tools that Business Analysts can use to make adjustments, so that without high costs of an IT project the system can be tuned to match changes to the business operation. The first tool to consider is the BPM Composer, deployed with the middleware SOA Server and accessible online, and for Fusion Applications it is under the Business Process icon on the homepage of the Application Composer. Figure 3 – Business Process Composer showing a CRM process flow. The key difference between this and using JDeveloper is that the BPM Composer has a Business Catalog prepopulated with features and functions that can be used, mostly through registered WebServices. This means no coding or complex interface development is required, simply drag-drop-configure. The items in the business catalog are seeded by either Oracle (as a BPM Template) or added to by your own custom development. You cannot create or generate catalog content from BPM Composer directly. As per the screenshot you can see the Business Catalog content in the BPM Project browser region. In addition, other online tools for use by Business Analysts include the BPM Worklist application for editing business rules and approval management configuration, plus the SOA Composer which focuses on non-approval business rules and domain value maps. At the current time there are only a handful of BPM processes shipped with Fusion Applications HCM and CRM, including on-boarding workers and processing customer registrations.  This also means a limited number of associated BPM Templates provided out-of-the-box, therefore a limited Business Catalog. That said, BPM-based extension is a powerful capability to leverage and will most likely develop going forwards, especially for use in SaaS deployments where full design-time JDeveloper access is not available. Further Reading For BPEL – Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide – Section 12 For BPM – Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide – Section 7 The product-specific documentation and implementation guides for Fusion Applications Fusion Middleware Developers Guide for SOA Suite Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Composer Oracle University courses on BPM Suite and SOA Development

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• Azure Task Scheduling Options

  - by charlie.mott

  Currently, the Azure PaaS does not offer a distributed\resilient task scheduling service.  If you do want to host a task scheduling product\solution off-premise (and ideally use Azure), what are your options? PaaS Option 1: Worker Roles Use a worker role to schedule and execute actions at specific time periods.  There are a few frameworks available to assist with this: http://azuretoolkit.codeplex.com https://github.com/Lokad/lokad-cloud/wiki/TaskScheduler http://blog.smarx.com/posts/building-a-task-scheduler-in-windows-azure - This addresses a slightly different set of requirements. It’s a more dynamic approach for queuing up tasks, but not repeatable tasks (e.g. daily). I found the Azure Toolkit option the most simple to implement.  Step 1 : Create a domain entity implementing IJob for each job to schedule.  In this sample, I asynchronously call a WCF service method. 1: namespace Acme.WorkerRole.Jobs 2: { 3: using AzureToolkit; 4: using ScheduledTasksService; 5: 6: public class UploadEmployeesJob : IJob 7: { 8: public void Run() 9: { 10: // Call Tasks Service 11: var client = new ScheduledTasksServiceClient("BasicHttpBinding_IScheduledTasksService"); 12: client.UploadEmployees(); 13: client.Close(); 14: } 15: } 16: } Step 2 : In the worker role run method, add the jobs to the toolkit engine. 1: namespace Acme.WorkerRole 2: { 3: using AzureToolkit.Engine; 4: using Jobs; 5:   6: public class WorkerRole : WorkerRoleEntryPoint 7: { 8: public override void Run() 9: { 10: var engine = new CloudEngine(); 11:   12: // Add Scheduled Jobs (using CronJob syntax - see http://www.adminschoice.com/crontab-quick-reference). 13:   14: // 1. Upload Employee job - 8.00 PM every weekday (Mon-Fri) 15: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<UploadEmployeesJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "0 20 * * 1-5"; }); 16: // 2. Purge Data job - 10 AM every Saturday 17: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<PurgeDataJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "0 10 * * 6"; }); 18: // 3. Process Exceptions job - Every 5 minutes 19: engine.WithJobScheduler().ScheduleJob<ProcessExceptionsJob>(c => { c.CronSchedule = "*/5 * * * *"; }); 20:   21: engine.Run(); 22: base.Run(); 23: } 24: } 25: } Pros Cons Azure Toolkit option is simple to implement. For the AzureToolkit option, you are limited to a single worker role.  Otherwise, the jobs will be executed multiple times, once for each worker role instance.   Paying for a continuously running worker role, even if it just processes a single job once a week.  If you only have a few scheduled tasks to run calling asynchronous services hosted in different web roles, an extra small worker role likely to be sufficient.  However, for an extra small worker role this still costs $14.40/month (03/09/2012). Option 2: Use Scheduled Task on Azure Web Role calling a console app Setup a Windows Scheduled Task on the Azure Web Role. This calls a console application that calls the WCF service methods that run the task actions. This design is described here: http://www.ronaldwidha.net/2011/02/23/cron-job-on-azure-using-scheduled-task-on-a-web-role-to-replace-azure-worker-role-for-background-job/ http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/index.php/2011/07/windows-azure-task-scheduler/ http://devlicio.us/blogs/vinull/archive/2011/10/23/moving-to-azure-worker-roles-for-nothing-and-tasks-for-free.aspx Pros Cons Fairly easy to implement. Supportability - I RDC’ed onto the Azure server and stopped the scheduled task. I then rebooted the machine and the task was re-started. I also tried deleting the task and rebooting, the same thing occurred. The only way to permanently guarantee that a task is disabled is to do a fresh deployment. I think this is a major supportability concern.   Saleability - multiple instances would trigger multiple tasks. You can only have one instance for the scheduled task web role. The guidance implements setup of the scheduled task as part of a web role instance. But if you have more than one instance in a web role, the task will be triggered multiple times for each scheduled action (once per machine). Workaround: If we wanted to use scheduled tasks for another client with a saleable WCF service, then we could include the console & tasks scripts in a separate web role (e.g. a empty WCF service with no real purpose to it). SaaS Option 3: Azure Marketplace I thought that someone might be offering this type of service via the Azure marketplace. At the point of writing this blog post, I did not find anyone doing so. https://datamarket.azure.com/ Pros Cons   Nobody currently offers this on the Azure Marketplace. Option 4: Online Job Scheduling Service Provider There are plenty of online providers that offer this type of service on a pay-as-you-go approach.  Some of these are free for small usage.   Many of these providers are listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webcron Pros Cons No bespoke development for scheduler. Reliance on third party. IaaS Option 5: Setup Scheduling Software on Azure IaaS VM’s One of job scheduling software offerings could be installed and configured on Azure VM’s.  A list of software options is listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_job_scheduler_software Pros Cons Enterprise distributed\resilient task scheduling service VM Setup and maintenance   Software Licence Costs Option 6: VM Gallery A the time of writing this blog post, I did not spot a VM in the gallery that included pre-installation of any of the above software options. Pros Cons   No current VM template. Summary For my current project that had a small handful of tasks to schedule with a limited project budget I chose option 1 (a worker role using the Azure Toolkit to schedule tasks).  If I was building an enterprise scale solution for the future, options 4 and 5 are currently worthy of consideration. Hopefully, Microsoft will include tasks scheduling in the future as part of their PaaS offerings.

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• Data Guard - Snapshot Standby Database??

  - by Jian Zhang-Oracle

  ?? -------- ?????,??standby?????mount??????????REDO??,??standby????????????????????,???????read-only???open????,????ACTIVE DATA GUARD,????standby?????????(read-only)??(????????),????standby???????????(read-write)? ?????,?????????????Real Application Testing(RAT)??????????,?????????standby??????snapshot standby?????????,??snapshot standby??????????,???????????(read-write)??????snapshot standby??????????????,?????????,??????????,????????,?????????snapshot standby?????standby???,????????? ?? ---------  1.??standby?????? SQL> Alter system set db_recovery_file_dest_size=500M; System altered. SQL> Alter system set db_recovery_file_dest='/u01/app/oracle/snapshot_standby'; System altered. 2.??standby?????? SQL> alter database recover managed standby database cancel; Database altered. 3.??standby???snapshot standby,??open snapshot standby SQL> alter database convert to snapshot standby; Database altered. SQL> alter database open;    Database altered. ??snapshot standby??????SNAPSHOT STANDBY,open???READ WRITE: SQL> select DATABASE_ROLE,name,OPEN_MODE from v$database; DATABASE_ROLE    NAME      OPEN_MODE ---------------- --------- -------------------- SNAPSHOT STANDBY FSDB      READ WRITE 4.?snapshot standby???????????Real Application Testing(RAT)????????? 5.?????,??snapshot standby???physical standby,?????????? SQL> shutdown immediate; Database closed. Database dismounted. ORACLE instance shut down. SQL> startup mount; ORACLE instance started. Database mounted. SQL> ALTER DATABASE CONVERT TO PHYSICAL STANDBY; Database altered. SQL> shutdown immediate; ORA-01507: database not mounted ORACLE instance shut down. SQL> startup mount; ORACLE instance started. Database mounted. SQL>ALTER DATABASE RECOVER MANAGED STANDBY DATABASE DISCONNECT FROM SESSION; Database altered. 5.?????standby?,???????PHYSICAL STANDBY,open???MOUNTED SQL> select DATABASE_ROLE,name,OPEN_MODE from v$database; DATABASE_ROLE    NAME      OPEN_MODE ---------------- --------- -------------------- PHYSICAL STANDBY FSDB      MOUNTED 6.??????????????? ????: SQL> select ads.dest_id,max(sequence#) "Current Sequence",            max(log_sequence) "Last Archived"        from v$archived_log al, v$archive_dest ad, v$archive_dest_status ads        where ad.dest_id=al.dest_id        and al.dest_id=ads.dest_id        and al.resetlogs_change#=(select max(resetlogs_change#) from v$archived_log )        group by ads.dest_id;    DEST_ID Current Sequence Last Archived ---------- ---------------- -------------      1              361           361      2              361           362 --???? SQL>    select al.thrd "Thread", almax "Last Seq Received", lhmax "Last Seq Applied"       from (select thread# thrd, max(sequence#) almax           from v$archived_log           where resetlogs_change#=(select resetlogs_change# from v$database)           group by thread#) al,          (select thread# thrd, max(sequence#) lhmax           from v$log_history           where resetlogs_change#=(select resetlogs_change# from v$database)           group by thread#) lh      where al.thrd = lh.thrd;     Thread Last Seq Received Last Seq Applied ---------- ----------------- ----------------          1               361              361 ??????????,???blog,???????????,??"??:Data Guard - Snapshot Standby Database??" 

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• Using Unity – Part 5

  - by nmarun

  In the previous article of the series, I talked about constructor and property (setter) injection. I wanted to write about how to work with arrays and generics in Unity in this blog, after seeing how lengthy this one got, I’ve decided to write about generics in the next one. This one will only concentrate on arrays. My Product4 class has the following definition: 1: public interface IProduct 2: { 3: string WriteProductDetails(); 4: } 5:  6: public class Product4 : IProduct 7: { 8: public string Name { get; set; } 9: public ILogger[] Loggers { get; set; } 10:  11: public Product4(string productName, ILogger[] loggers) 12: { 13: Name = productName; 14: Loggers = loggers; 15: } 16:  17: public string WriteProductDetails() 18: { 19: StringBuilder productDetails = new StringBuilder(); 20: productDetails.AppendFormat("{0}<br/>", Name); 21: for (int i = 0; i < Loggers.Count(); i++) 22: { 23: productDetails.AppendFormat("{0}<br/>", Loggers[i].WriteLog()); 24: } 25: 26: return productDetails.ToString(); 27: } 28: } The key parts are line 4 where we declare an array of ILogger and line 5 where-in the constructor passes an instance of an array of ILogger objects. I’ve created another class – FakeLogger: 1: public class FakeLogger : ILogger 2: { 3: public string WriteLog() 4: { 5: return string.Format("Type: {0}", GetType()); 6: } 7: } It’s implementation is the same as what we had for the FileLogger class. Coming to the web.config file, first add the following aliases. The alias for FakeLogger should make sense right away. ILoggerArray defines an array of ILogger objects. I’ll tell why we need an alias for System.String data type. 1: <typeAlias alias="string" type="System.String, mscorlib" /> 2: <typeAlias alias="ILoggerArray" type="ProductModel.ILogger[], ProductModel" /> 3: <typeAlias alias="FakeLogger" type="ProductModel.FakeLogger, ProductModel"/> Next is to create mappings for the FileLogger and FakeLogger classes: 1: <type type="ILogger" mapTo="FileLogger" name="logger1"> 2: <lifetime type="singleton" /> 3: </type> 4: <type type="ILogger" mapTo="FakeLogger" name="logger2"> 5: <lifetime type="singleton" /> 6: </type> Finally, for the real deal: 1: <type type="IProduct" mapTo="Product4" name="ArrayProduct"> 2: <typeConfig extensionType="Microsoft.Practices.Unity.Configuration.TypeInjectionElement,Microsoft.Practices.Unity.Configuration, Version=1.2.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"> 3: <constructor> 4: <param name="productName" parameterType="string" > 5: <value value="Product name from config file" type="string"/> 6: </param> 7: <param name="loggers" parameterType="ILoggerArray"> 8: <array> 9: <dependency name="logger2" /> 10: <dependency name="logger1" /> 11: </array> 12: </param> 13: </constructor> 14: </typeConfig> 15: </type> Here’s where I’m saying, that if a type of IProduct is requested to be resolved, map it to type Product4. Furthermore, the Product4 has two constructor parameters – a string and an array of type ILogger. You might have observed the first parameter of the constructor is named ‘productName’ and that matches the value in the name attribute of the param element. The parameterType of ‘string’ maps to ‘System.String, mscorlib’ and is defined in the type alias above. The set up is similar for the second constructor parameter. The name matches the name of the parameter (loggers) and is of type ILoggerArray, which maps to an array of ILogger objects. We’ve also decided to add two elements to this array when unity resolves it – an instance of FileLogger and one of FakeLogger. The click event of the button does the following: 1: //unityContainer.RegisterType<IProduct, Product4>(); 2: //IProduct product4 = unityContainer.Resolve<IProduct>(); 3: IProduct product4 = unityContainer.Resolve<IProduct>("ArrayConstructor"); 4: productDetailsLabel.Text = product4.WriteProductDetails(); It’s worth mentioning here about the change in the format of resolving the IProduct to create an instance of Product4. You cannot use the regular way (the commented lines) to get an instance of Product4. The reason is due to the behavior of Unity which Alex Ermakov has brilliantly explained here. The corresponding output of the action is: You have a couple of options when it comes to adding dependency elements in the array node. You can: - leave it empty (no dependency elements declared): This will only create an empty array of loggers. This way you can check for non-null condition, in your mock classes. - add multiple dependency elements with the same name 1: <param name="loggers" parameterType="ILoggerArray"> 2: <array> 3: <dependency name="logger2" /> 4: <dependency name="logger2" /> 5: </array> 6: </param> With this you’ll see two instances of FakeLogger in the output. This article shows how Unity allows you to instantiate objects with arrays. Find the code here.

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• Building Visual Studio Setup Projects with TFS 2010 Team Build

  - by Jakob Ehn

  One of the most common complaints from people starting to use Team Build is that is doesn’t support building Microsoft’s own Setup and Deployment project (*.vdproj). When creating a default build definition that compiles a solution containing a setup project, you’ll get the following warning: The project file "MyProject.vdproj" is not supported by MSBuild and cannot be built.   This is what the problem is all about. MSBuild, that is used for compiling your projects, does not understand the proprietary vdproj format defined by Microsoft quite some time ago. Unfortunately there is no sign that this will change in the near future, in fact the setup projects has barely changed at all since they were introduced. VS 2010 brings no new features or improvements hen it comes to the setup projects. VS 2010 does include a limited version of InstallShield which promises to be more MSBuild friendly and with more or less the same features as VS setup projects. I hope to get a closer look at this installer project type soon. But, how do we go about to build a Visual Studio setup project and produce an MSI as part of a Team Build process? Well, since only one application known to man understands the vdproj projects, we will have to installa copy of Visual Studio on the build server. Sad but true. After doing this, we use the Visual Studio command line interface (devenv) to perform the build. In this post I will show how to do this by using the InvokeProcess activity directly in a build workflow template. You’ll want to run build your setup projects after you have successfully compiled the projects.   Install Visual Studio 2010 on the build server(s)   Open your build process template /remember to branch or copy the xaml file before modifying it!)   Locate the Try to Compile the Project activity   Drop an instance of the InvokeProcess activity from the toolbox onto the designer, after the Run MSBuild for Project activity   Drop an instance of the WriteBuildMessage activity inside the Handle Standard Output section. Set the Importance property to Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Client.BuildMessageImportance.High (NB: This is necessary if you want the output from devenv to show up in the build log when running the build with the default verbosity) Set the Message property to stdOutput   Drop an instance of the WriteBuildError activity to the Handle Error Output section Set the Message property to errOutput   Select the InvokeProcess activity and set the values of the parameters to:     The finished workflow should look like this:     This will generate the MSI files, but they won’t be copied to the drop location. This is because we are using devenv and not MSBuild, so we have to do this explicitly   Drop a Sequence activity somewhere after the Copy to Drop location activity.   Create a variable in the Sequence activity of type IEnumerable<String> and call it GeneratedInstallers   Drop a FindMatchingFiles activity in the sequence activity and set the properties to:     Drop a ForEach<String> activity after the FindMatchingFiles activity. Set the Value property to GeneratedInstallers   Drop an InvokeProcess activity inside the ForEach activity.  FileName: “xcopy.exe” Arguments: String.Format("""{0}"" ""{1}""", item, BuildDetail.DropLocation) The Sequence activity should look like this:     Save the build process template and check it in.   Run the build and verify that the MSI’s is built and copied to the drop location.   Note 1: One of the drawback of using devenv like this in a team build is that since all the output from the default compilations is placed in the Binaries folder, the outputs is not avaialable when devenv is invoked, which causes the whole solution to rebuild again. In TFS 2008, this was pretty simple to fix by using the CustomizableOutDir property. In TFS 2010, the same feature is not avaialble. Jim Lamb blogged about this recently, have a look at it if you have a problem with this: http://blogs.msdn.com/jimlamb/archive/2010/04/13/customizableoutdir-in-tfs-2010.aspx   Note 2: Although the above solution works, a better approach is to wrap this in a custom activity that you can use in your builds. I will come back to this in a future post.

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• BizTalk and IBM WebSphere MQ Errors

  - by Christopher House

  The project I'm currently working on is going to make heavy use of IBM WebShere MQ to send messages from BizTalk to the client's iSeries box.  I'd never previously worked with WebSphere MQ, so I didn't really have any idea what it would take to get this to work.  I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't too difficult to configure a send port and pass messages through it to a queue.  Or so I thought... A couple of weeks ago, the client gave me the name of a host, queue manager and queue that I'd been using for my development.  Everything was going great, I was able to put messages onto the queue, I was happy, the client was happy.  Life was good.  Then the client tells me that the host I've been connecting to is actually a Solaris box and that in prod, we'll actually be sending to an iSeries.  We both agree that it would behoove us to start pointing my dev environment to their dev iSeries box in order to flush out any weirdness there might be.  As it turns out, it was a good thing we made the change.  As soon as I reconfigured my BRE policy that sets endpoint information to point to the iSeries queue, we started seeing failures in the event log.  An example from the event log: Event Type: Error Event Source: BizTalk Server 2009 Event Category: BizTalk Server 2009 Event ID: 5754 Date:  6/9/2010 Time:  10:16:41 AM User:  N/A Computer: WINDOWS2003 Description: A message sent to adapter "MQSC" on send port "<my dynamic sendport name>" with URI "mqsc://client/tcp/<hostname>(1414)/<queue manager name>/<queue name>" is suspended.  Error details: Failure encountered while attempting to open queue. queue = <queue name> queueManager = <queue manager name>, reasonCode = 6124  MessageId:  {76825C7C-611A-4A56-8A6F-35E1124BDB5C}  InstanceID: {BA389103-DF9B-493F-8C61-44574822AAD6} The key piece of information in the event entry is the reasonCode, 6124.  A quick Google search shows that reasonCode 6124 is the code for MQRC_NOT_CONNECTED.  According to IBM's docs, this means that you've tried to send a message without first opening a connection to the queue manager.  Obviously, in the context of BizTalk, this is an unexpected error, since this sort of thing should be managed entirely by the send adapter. Perusing IBM's documentation a bit more, I came across some info on how to turn on tracing for MQ.  With tracing enabled, I tried sending a message again, then went and reviewed the trace files.  The bulk of the information in the trace files didn't mean a thing to me, but at the end of one of the files, I did notice this: 00006257 15:40:20.327795   3500.4      RSESS:000009 ------{  reqReleaseConn 00006258 15:40:20.328714   3500.4      RSESS:000009 ------}  reqReleaseConn (rc=OK) 00006259 15:40:20.328727   3500.4      RSESS:000009 ------{  xcsClearTraceIdent 0000625A 15:40:20.328739   3500.4           :       ------}  xcsClearTraceIdent (rc=OK) 0000625B 15:40:20.328752   3500.4           :       -----}! trmzstMQCONNX (rc=MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED) 0000625C 15:40:20.328765   3500.4           :       ----}! MQCONNX (rc=MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED) 0000625D 15:40:20.328766   3500.4           :       ---}! ImqQueueManager::connect (rc=MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED) 0000625E 15:40:20.328767   3500.4           :       --}! ImqObject::open (rc=MQRC_NOT_CONNECTED) 0000625F 15:40:20.328768   3500.4           :       --{  ImqQueue::lock 00006260 15:40:20.328769   3500.4           :       --}! ImqQueue::lock (rc=Unknown(1)) 00006261 15:40:20.328769   3500.4           :       --{  ImqQueue::unlock 00006262 15:40:20.328769   3500.4           :       --}! ImqQueue::unlock (rc=Unknown(1)) It seemed like the MQRC_NOT_CONNECTED error was being caused by a security related issue (MQRC_NOT_AUTHORIZED).  I did notice something earlier in the log where it appeared that MQ was passing a field named UID with a value equal to the account name that my BizTalk service was running under.  I ended up creating a new local account on the BizTalk server that had the same name as a user which had access to the queue manager on the iSeries.  I then created a new host instance that ran under this new account, created a send handler for the MQSC adapter on this new host instance and reconfigured my orchestration to run on the new host instance.  After bouncing all my host instances, I was now able to send messages to the iSeries. It's still not clear to me why we were able to connect to the Solaris server.  I ended up contacting IBM's support and they did confirm that the process sending to MQ does in fact pass the identity to the queue manager it's connecting to.

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• ActionResult types in MVC2

  - by rajbk

  In ASP.NET MVC, incoming browser requests gets mapped to a controller action method. The action method returns a type of ActionResult in response to the browser request. A basic example is shown below: public class HomeController : Controller { public ActionResult Index() { return View(); } } Here we have an action method called Index that returns an ActionResult. Inside the method we call the View() method on the base Controller. The View() method, as you will see shortly, is a method that returns a ViewResult. The ActionResult class is the base class for different controller results. The following diagram shows the types derived from the ActionResult type. ASP.NET has a description of these methods ContentResult – Represents a text result. EmptyResult – Represents no result. FileContentResult – Represents a downloadable file (with the binary content). FilePathResult – Represents a downloadable file (with a path). FileStreamResult – Represents a downloadable file (with a file stream). JavaScriptResult – Represents a JavaScript script. JsonResult – Represents a JavaScript Object Notation result that can be used in an AJAX application. PartialViewResult – Represents HTML and markup rendered by a partial view. RedirectResult – Represents a redirection to a new URL. RedirectToRouteResult – Represents a result that performs a redirection by using the specified route values dictionary. ViewResult – Represents HTML and markup rendered by a view. To return the types shown above, you call methods that are available in the Controller base class. A list of these methods are shown below.   Methods without an ActionResult return type The MVC framework will translate action methods that do not return an ActionResult into one. Consider the HomeController below which has methods that do not return any ActionResult types. The methods defined return an int, object and void respectfully. public class HomeController : Controller { public int Add(int x, int y) { return x + y; }   public Employee GetEmployee() { return new Employee(); }   public void DoNothing() { } } When a request comes in, the Controller class hands internally uses a ControllerActionInvoker class which inspects the action parameters and invokes the correct action method. The CreateActionResult method in the ControllerActionInvoker class is used to return an ActionResult. This method is shown below. If the result of the action method is null, an EmptyResult instance is returned. If the result is not of type ActionResult, the result is converted to a string and returned as a ContentResult. protected virtual ActionResult CreateActionResult(ControllerContext controllerContext, ActionDescriptor actionDescriptor, object actionReturnValue) { if (actionReturnValue == null) { return new EmptyResult(); }   ActionResult actionResult = (actionReturnValue as ActionResult) ?? new ContentResult { Content = Convert.ToString(actionReturnValue, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) }; return actionResult; }   In the HomeController class above, the DoNothing method will return an instance of the EmptyResult() Renders an empty webpage the GetEmployee() method will return a ContentResult which contains a string that represents the current object Renders the text “MyNameSpace.Controllers.Employee” without quotes. the Add method for a request of /home/add?x=3&y=5 returns a ContentResult Renders the text “8” without quotes. Unit Testing The nice thing about the ActionResult types is in unit testing the controller. We can, without starting a web server, create an instance of the Controller, call the methods and verify that the type returned is the expected ActionResult type. We can then inspect the returned type properties and confirm that it contains the expected values. Enjoy! Sulley: Hey, Mike, this might sound crazy but I don't think that kid's dangerous. Mike: Really? Well, in that case, let's keep it. I always wanted a pet that could kill me.

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• SSAS processing error: Client unable to establish connection; 08001; Encryption not supported on the client.; 08001

  - by Kevin Shyr

  After getting the cube to successfully deploy and process on Friday, I was baffled on Monday that the newly added dimension caused the cube processing to break.  I then followed the first instinct, discarded all my changes to reverted back to the version on Friday, and had no luck.  The error message (attached below) did not help as I was looking for some kind of SQL service error.  After examining the windows server log and the SQL server log, I just couldn't see anything wrong with it.After swearing for some time, and with the help of going off and working on something else for a while.  I came back to the solution and looked at the data source.  Even though I know I have never changed the provider (the default setup gave me SQL native client), I decided to change it and give OLE DB a try.This simple change allows my cube to process successfully again.  While I don't understand why the same settings that worked last week doesn't work this week, I don't have all the information to say with certainty that nothing has changed in the environment (firewall changes, server updates, etc.).SSAS processing error:<Batch >  <Parallel>    <Process xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:ddl2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine/2" xmlns:ddl2_2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine/2/2" xmlns:ddl100_100="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2008/engine/100/100" xmlns:ddl200="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2010/engine/200" xmlns:ddl200_200="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2010/engine/200/200">      <Object>        <DatabaseID>DWH Sales Facts</DatabaseID>        <CubeID>DWH Sales Facts</CubeID>      </Object>      <Type>ProcessFull</Type>      <WriteBackTableCreation>UseExisting</WriteBackTableCreation>    </Process>  </Parallel></Batch>                Processing Dimension 'Date' completed.                                Errors and Warnings from Response                OLE DB error: OLE DB or ODBC error: A network-related or instance-specific error has occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. Server is not found or not accessible. Check if instance name is correct and if SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. For more information see SQL Server Books Online.; 08001; Client unable to establish connection; 08001; Encryption not supported on the client.; 08001.                Errors in the high-level relational engine. A connection could not be made to the data source with the DataSourceID of 'DWH Sales Facts', Name of 'DWH Sales Facts'.                Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the dimension, with the ID of 'Currency', Name of 'Currency' was being processed.                Errors in the OLAP storage engine: An error occurred while the 'Currency Dim ID' attribute of the 'Currency' dimension from the 'DWH Sales Facts' database was being processed.                Internal error: The operation terminated unsuccessfully.                Server: The operation has been cancelled.

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• BizTalk 2009 - BizTalk Benchmark Wizard: Installation

  - by StuartBrierley

  As previously detailed, I have completed a single server installation of BizTalk Server 2009 standard on my development laptop; a MacBook Pro Core2Duo running at 2.16Ghz with 2Gb of RAM.  Following this I also posted on my use of the BizTalk Server Best Practices Anaylser and how to configure the BizTalk SQL Server Jobs.  All of which means that I should have some confidence that I have a decent working BizTalk Server 2009 environment, Next I thought that it would be a good idea to try and get some idea of how this setup performs by carrying out some baseline tests that can then be replicated on the test and live servers. The aim of this would be to allow confident predictions to be made of how any solutions developed on a single "server" installation may be expected to perform when deployed to these multi-server BizTalk Server 2009 standard installations. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard would seem to be the perfect tool for the job. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard is a ultility that can be used to gain some validation of a BizTalk installation, giving a level of guidance on whether it is performing as might be expected. This utility should be used after BizTalk Server has been installed and before any solutions are deployed to the environment.  This will ensure that you are getting consistent and clean results from the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard applies load to the BizTalk Server environment under a choice of specific scenarios. During these scenarios performance counter information is collected and assessed against statistics that are appropriate to the BizTalk Server environment: "The executed scenarios may or may not be relative to any realistic scenario, and is only intended for testing. The BizTalk Benchmark Wizard has been developed in relation to the BizTalk Server 2009 Scale Out Testing Study. More information about the study can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee377068(BTS.10).aspx" After downloading and installing the wizard you will need set up the Hosts, Instances and Adapter handlers.  This is done by running a script file using the “cscript” detailed below.  To do this you will need to open a command prompt window and navigate to the script folder; assuming the default installation location this would be C:\Program Files\Blogical\BizTalk Benchmark Wizard\Artefacts\BizTalk. In this folder you should find an InstallHosts.vbs file which can be executed using the following parameters: NTGroupName - The name of the Windows NT group. UserName – The name of the user account running the service instances. Password – The password of the user account running the service instances. Receive Host – The name of the server where you want to run the receive host instance.  Send Host - The name of the server where you want to run the sen host instance. Processing Host - The name of the server where you want to run the process host instance. By default the script is set up for 64 bit hosts, so if you are running in 32 bit environment make sure that you change the following line in the script before continuing: from:   objHS.IsHost32BitOnly = False to:    objHS.IsHost32BitOnly = True If you have a single box installation, your script command might look like this: cscript InstallHosts.vbs "BizTalk Application Users" “\MyUser” “MyPassword” “BtsServer1” “BtsServer1” “BtsServer1” If you have a multi server installation, your script command might look like this: cscript InstallHosts.vbs "MyDomain\BizTalk Application Users" “MyDomain\MyUser” “MyPassword” “BtsServer1” “BtsServer2” “BtsServer2” Running this script will create: Three hosts (BBW_RxHost, BBW_TxHost and BBW_PxHost) Three host instances One send and one receive adapter handler for the WCF NetTcp adapter. You will then need to import the BizTalk MSI via the BizTalk Administration Console.  Open the BizTalk Administration Console, point to the “Applications” node and import the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard.msi found in the same folder as the script above. This will create a “BizTalk Benchmark Wizard” application along with all ports and orchestrations needed. To finish the installation you will need to run the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard.msi on all BizTalk servers to add the assemblies to the Global Assembly Cache (GAC). Next I will look at running the BizTalk Benchmark Wizard.

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• Subterranean IL: Pseudo custom attributes

  - by Simon Cooper

  Custom attributes were designed to make the .NET framework extensible; if a .NET language needs to store additional metadata on an item that isn't expressible in IL, then an attribute could be applied to the IL item to represent this metadata. For instance, the C# compiler uses DecimalConstantAttribute and DateTimeConstantAttribute to represent compile-time decimal or datetime constants, which aren't allowed in pure IL, and FixedBufferAttribute to represent fixed struct fields. How attributes are compiled Within a .NET assembly are a series of tables containing all the metadata for items within the assembly; for instance, the TypeDef table stores metadata on all the types in the assembly, and MethodDef does the same for all the methods and constructors. Custom attribute information is stored in the CustomAttribute table, which has references to the IL item the attribute is applied to, the constructor used (which implies the type of attribute applied), and a binary blob representing the arguments and name/value pairs used in the attribute application. For example, the following C# class: [Obsolete("Please use MyClass2", true)] public class MyClass { // ... } corresponds to the following IL class definition: .class public MyClass { .custom instance void [mscorlib]System.ObsoleteAttribute::.ctor(string, bool) = { string('Please use MyClass2' bool(true) } // ... } and results in the following entry in the CustomAttribute table: TypeDef(MyClass) MemberRef(ObsoleteAttribute::.ctor(string, bool)) blob -> {string('Please use MyClass2' bool(true)} However, there are some attributes that don't compile in this way. Pseudo custom attributes Just like there are some concepts in a language that can't be represented in IL, there are some concepts in IL that can't be represented in a language. This is where pseudo custom attributes come into play. The most obvious of these is SerializableAttribute. Although it looks like an attribute, it doesn't compile to a CustomAttribute table entry; it instead sets the serializable bit directly within the TypeDef entry for the type. This flag is fully expressible within IL; this C#: [Serializable] public class MySerializableClass {} compiles to this IL: .class public serializable MySerializableClass {} For those interested, a full list of pseudo custom attributes is available here. For the rest of this post, I'll be concentrating on the ones that deal with P/Invoke. P/Invoke attributes P/Invoke is built right into the CLR at quite a deep level; there are 2 metadata tables within an assembly dedicated solely to p/invoke interop, and many more that affect it. Furthermore, all the attributes used to specify p/invoke methods in C# or VB have their own keywords and syntax within IL. For example, the following C# method declaration: [DllImport("mscorsn.dll", SetLastError = true)] [return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U1)] private static extern bool StrongNameSignatureVerificationEx( [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string wszFilePath, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U1)] bool fForceVerification, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.U1)] ref bool pfWasVerified); compiles to the following IL definition: .method private static pinvokeimpl("mscorsn.dll" lasterr winapi) bool marshal(unsigned int8) StrongNameSignatureVerificationEx( string marshal(lpwstr) wszFilePath, bool marshal(unsigned int8) fForceVerification, bool& marshal(unsigned int8) pfWasVerified) cil managed preservesig {} As you can see, all the p/invoke and marshal properties are specified directly in IL, rather than using attributes. And, rather than creating entries in CustomAttribute, a whole bunch of metadata is emitted to represent this information. This single method declaration results in the following metadata being output to the assembly: A MethodDef entry containing basic information on the method Four ParamDef entries for the 3 method parameters and return type An entry in ModuleRef to mscorsn.dll An entry in ImplMap linking ModuleRef and MethodDef, along with the name of the function to import and the pinvoke options (lasterr winapi) Four FieldMarshal entries containing the marshal information for each parameter. Phew! Applying attributes Most of the time, when you apply an attribute to an element, an entry in the CustomAttribute table will be created to represent that application. However, some attributes represent concepts in IL that aren't expressible in the language you're coding in, and can instead result in a single bit change (SerializableAttribute and NonSerializedAttribute), or many extra metadata table entries (the p/invoke attributes) being emitted to the output assembly.

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• Using progress dialog in Visual Studio extensions

  - by Utkarsh Shigihalli

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/onlyutkarsh/archive/2014/05/23/using-progress-dialog-in-visual-studio-extensions.aspxAs a Visual Studio extension developer you are required to keep the aesthetics of Visual Studio in tact when you integrate your extension with Visual Studio. Your extension looks odd when you try to use windows controls and dialogs in your extensions. Visual Studio SDK exposes many interfaces so that your extension looks as integrated with Visual Studio as possible. When your extension is performing a long running task, you have many options to notify the progress to the user. One such option is through Visual Studio status bar. I have previously blogged about displaying progress through Visual Studio status bar. In this blog post I am going to highlight another way using IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface. One thing to note is, as the IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface name suggests it is a dialog hence user cannot perform any action when the dialog is being shown. So Visual Studio seems responsive to user, even when a task is being performed. Visual Studio itself makes use of this interface heavily. One example is when you are loading a solution (.sln) with lot of projects Visual Studio displays dialog implemented by this interface (screenshot below). So the first step is to get the instance of IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface using IServiceProvider interface. var dialogFactory = _serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(SVsThreadedWaitDialogFactory)) as IVsThreadedWaitDialogFactory; IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 dialog = null; if (dialogFactory != null) { dialogFactory.CreateInstance(out dialog); } So if your have the package initialized properly out object dialog will be not null and would contain the instance of IVsThreadedWaitDialog2 interface. Once the instance is got, you call the different methods to manage the dialog. I will cover 3 methods StartWaitDialog, EndWaitDialog and HasCanceled in this blog post. You show the progress dialog as below. if (dialog != null && dialog.StartWaitDialog( "Threaded Wait Dialog", "VS is Busy", "Progress text", null, "Waiting status bar text", 0, false, true) == VSConstants.S_OK) { Thread.Sleep(4000); } As you can see from the method syntax it is very similar to standard windows message box. If you pass true to the 7th parameter to StartWaitDialog method, you will also see a cancel button allowing user to cancel the running task. You can react when user cancels the task as below. bool isCancelled; dialog.HasCanceled(out isCancelled); if (isCancelled) { MessageBox.Show("Cancelled"); } Finally, you can close the dialog when you complete the task running as below. int usercancel; dialog.EndWaitDialog(out usercancel); To help you quickly experience the above code, I have created a sample. It is available for download from GitHub. The sample creates a tool window with two buttons to demo the above explained scenarios. The tool window can be accessed by clicking View –> Other Windows -> ProgressDialogDemo Window

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• How to develop RPG Damage Formulas?

  - by user127817

  I'm developing a classical 2d RPG (in a similar vein to final fantasy) and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to do damage formulas/links to resources/examples? I'll explain my current setup. Hopefully I'm not overdoing it with this question, and I apologize if my questions is too large/broad My Characters stats are composed of the following: enum Stat { HP = 0, MP = 1, SP = 2, Strength = 3, Vitality = 4, Magic = 5, Spirit = 6, Skill = 7, Speed = 8, //Speed/Agility are the same thing Agility = 8, Evasion = 9, MgEvasion = 10, Accuracy = 11, Luck = 12, }; Vitality is basically defense to physical attacks and spirit is defense to magic attacks. All stats have fixed maximums (9999 for HP, 999 for MP/SP and 255 for the rest). With abilities, the maximums can be increased (99999 for HP, 9999 for HP/SP, 999 for the rest) with typical values (at level 100) before/after abilities+equipment+etc will be 8000/20,000 for HP, 800/2000 for SP/MP, 180/350 for other stats Late game Enemy HP will typically be in the lower millions (with a super boss having the maximum of ~12 million). I was wondering how do people actually develop proper damage formulas that scale correctly? For instance, based on this data, using the damage formulas for Final Fantasy X as a base looked very promising. A full reference here http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/197344-final-fantasy-x/faqs/31381 but as a quick example: Str = 127, 'Attack' command used, enemy Def = 34. 1. Physical Damage Calculation: Step 1 ------------------------------------- [{(Stat^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x DmCon ÷16] Step 2 ---------------------------------------- [{(127^3 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 3 -------------------------------------- [{(2048383 ÷ 32) + 32} x 16 ÷ 16] Step 4 --------------------------------------------------- [{(64011) + 32} x 1] Step 5 -------------------------------------------------------- [{(64043 x 1)}] Step 6 ---------------------------------------------------- Base Damage = 64043 Step 7 ----------------------------------------- [{(Def - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------ [{(34 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ------------------------------------------------- [(-246)^2) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 ---------------------------------------------------- [60516 ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [550] + 16 Step 12 ---------------------------------------------------------- DefNum = 566 Step 13 ---------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * DefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [64043 * 566 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------------ [36248338 ÷ 730] Step 16 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 49655 Step 17 ------------ Base Damage 2 * {730 - (Def * 51 - Def^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ---------------------- 49655 * {730 - (34 * 51 - 34^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 ------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 1156 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1734 - 105) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 21 ------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - (1629) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 22 --------------------------------------------- 49655 * {730 - 162} ÷ 730 Step 23 ----------------------------------------------------- 49655 * 568 ÷ 730 Step 24 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 38635 I simply modified the dividers to include the attack rating of weapons and the armor rating of armor. Magic Damage is calculated as follows: Mag = 255, Ultima is used, enemy MDef = 1 Step 1 ----------------------------------- [DmCon * ([Stat^2 ÷ 6] + DmCon) ÷ 4] Step 2 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([255^2 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 3 ------------------------------------------ [70 * ([65025 ÷ 6] + 70) ÷ 4] Step 4 ------------------------------------------------ [70 * (10837 + 70) ÷ 4] Step 5 ----------------------------------------------------- [70 * (10907) ÷ 4] Step 6 ------------------------------------ Base Damage = 190872 [cut to 99999] Step 7 ---------------------------------------- [{(MDef - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 8 ------------------------------------------- [{(1 - 280.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 9 ---------------------------------------------- [{(-279.4)^2} ÷ 110] + 16 Step 10 -------------------------------------------------- [(78064) ÷ 110] + 16 Step 11 ------------------------------------------------------------ [709] + 16 Step 12 --------------------------------------------------------- MDefNum = 725 Step 13 --------------------------------------------- [BaseDmg * MDefNum ÷ 730] Step 14 --------------------------------------------------- [99999 * 725 ÷ 730] Step 15 ------------------------------------------------- Base Damage 2 = 99314 Step 16 ---------- Base Damage 2 * {730 - (MDef * 51 - MDef^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 17 ------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (1 * 51 - 1^2 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 18 ------------------------------ 99314 * {730 - (51 - 1 ÷ 11) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 19 --------------------------------------- 99314 * {730 - (49) ÷ 10} ÷ 730 Step 20 ----------------------------------------------------- 99314 * 725 ÷ 730 Step 21 -------------------------------------------------- Final Damage = 98633 The problem is that the formulas completely fall apart once stats start going above 255. In particular Defense values over 300 or so start generating really strange behavior. High Strength + Defense stats lead to massive negative values for instance. While I might be able to modify the formulas to work correctly for my use case, it'd probably be easier just to use a completely new formula. How do people actually develop damage formulas? I was considering opening excel and trying to build the formula that way (mapping Attack Stats vs. Defense Stats for instance) but I was wondering if there's an easier way? While I can't convey the full game mechanics of my game here, might someone be able to suggest a good starting place for building a damage formula? Thanks

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• Overview of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor

  - by Akshay Deep Lamba

  Problem Like most organizations, we are planning to upgrade our database server from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008. I would like to know is there an easy way to know in advance what kind of issues one may encounter when upgrading to a newer version of SQL Server? One way of doing this is to use the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor to plan for upgrades from SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005. In this tip we will take a look at how one can use the SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor to identify potential issues before the upgrade. Solution SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor is a free tool designed by Microsoft to identify potential issues before upgrading your environment to a newer version of SQL Server. Below are prerequisites which need to be installed before installing the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor. Prerequisites for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor .Net Framework 2.0 or a higher version Windows Installer 4.5 or a higher version Windows Server 2003 SP 1 or a higher version, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP SP2 or a higher version, Windows Vista Download SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor You can download SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor from the following link. Once you have successfully installed Upgrade Advisor follow the below steps to see how you can use this tool to identify potential issues before upgrading your environment. 1. Click Start -> Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2008 -> SQL Server 2008 Upgrade Advisor. 2. Click Launch Upgrade Advisor Analysis Wizard as highlighted below to open the wizard. 2. On the wizard welcome screen click Next to continue. 3. In SQL Server Components screen, enter the Server Name and click the Detect button to identify components which need to be analyzed and then click Next to continue with the wizard. 4. In Connection Parameters screen choose Instance Name, Authentication and then click Next to continue with the wizard. 5. In SQL Server Parameters wizard screen select the Databases which you want to analysis, trace files if any and SQL batch files if any.  Then click Next to continue with the wizard. 6. In Reporting Services Parameters screen you can specify the Reporting Server Instance name and then click next to continue with the wizard. 7. In Analysis Services Parameters screen you can specify an Analysis Server Instance name and then click Next to continue with the wizard. 8. In Confirm Upgrade Advisor Settings screen you will be able to see a quick summary of the options which you have selected so far. Click Run to start the analysis. 9. In Upgrade Advisor Progress screen you will be able to see the progress of the analysis. Basically, the upgrade advisor runs predefined rules which will help to identify potential issues that can affect your environment once you upgrade your server from a lower version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2008. 10. In the below snippet you can see that Upgrade Advisor has completed the analysis of SQL Server, Analysis Services and Reporting Services. To see the output click the Launch Report button at the bottom of the wizard screen. 11. In View Report screen you can see a summary of issues which can affect you once you upgrade. To learn more about each issue you can expand the issue and read the detailed description as shown in the below snippet.

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• Tips &amp; Tricks: How to crawl a SSL enabled Oracle E-Business Suite

  - by Rajesh Ghosh

  Oracle E-Business Suite can be integrated with Oracle Secure Enterprise Search for a superior end user experience and enhanced data retrieval capabilities. Before end-users can perform search operations, data has to be crawled and indexed into Oracle SES server. However if the Oracle E-Business Suite instance is on SSL, some additional configurations are needed in Oracle SES server as well as in Oracle Search Modeler, before a search object can be deployed and crawled. The process involves the following steps: Step 1: Export the SSL certificate of Oracle E-Business Suite Access the Oracle E-business Suite instance from a web browser. You should be able to locate a security or certificate icon somewhere in the browser toolbar or status bar, depending on which browser you are using. Click on it and you should be able to view the certificate as well as export it to a local file. While exporting make sure that you use “DER encoded” format. Step 2: Import the SSL certificate into Oracle Secure Enterprise server’s java key-store Oracle SES (10.1.8.4) by default ships a JDK under $ORACLE_HOME. The Oracle SES mid-tier uses this jdk to start the oc4j container services. In this step the Oracle E-Business Suite’s SSL certificate which has been exported in step #1, has to be imported into the Oracle SES server’s java key store. Perform the following: Copy the certificate file onto the server where Oracle SES server is running; under $ORACLE_HOME/jdk/jre/lib/security/cacerts. “ORACLE_HOME” points to the Oracle SES oracle home. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to $ORACLE_HOME/jdk. Append $JAVA_HOME/bin to the PATH environment variable Issue the command :  “keytool -import -keystore keystore.jks -trustcacerts -alias myOHS –file ebs.crt” . Please substitute “ebs.crt” with the name of the certificate file you copied in step #2.1. The default key-store password “changeit”. Enter the same when prompted. If successful this process will end with a message saying “certificate successfully imported”. Step 3: Import the SSL certificate into Search Modeler java key-store Unlike Oracle SES, Search Modeler is not shipped with a bundled JDK. If you are using standalone OC4J, then you actually use an external JDK to start the oc4j container services. If you are using IAS instance then the JDK comes bundled with the IAS installation. Perform the following: Copy the certificate file onto the server where Search Modeler application is running; under $JDK_HOME/jre/lib/security/cacerts. “JDK_HOME” points to the JDK directory depending on whether you are using external JDK or a bundled one. Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to JDK directory. Append $JAVA_HOME/bin to the PATH environment variable Issue the command :  “keytool -import -keystore keystore.jks -trustcacerts -alias myOHS –file ebs.crt” . Please substitute “ebs.crt” with the name of the certificate file you copied in step #3.1. The default key-store password “changeit”. Enter the same when prompted. If successful this process will end with a message saying “certificate successfully imported”. Once you have completed the above steps successfully, you can deploy the search objects using Search Modeler and then start crawling them as well.

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• Subterranean IL: Custom modifiers

  - by Simon Cooper

  In IL, volatile is an instruction prefix used to set a memory barrier at that instruction. However, in C#, volatile is applied to a field to indicate that all accesses on that field should be prefixed with volatile. As I mentioned in my previous post, this means that the field definition needs to store this information somehow, as such a field could be accessed from another assembly. However, IL does not have a concept of a 'volatile field'. How is this information stored? Attributes The standard way of solving this is to apply a VolatileAttribute or similar to the field; this extra metadata notifies the C# compiler that all loads and stores to that field should use the volatile prefix. However, there is a problem with this approach, namely, the .NET C++ compiler. C++ allows methods to be overloaded using properties, like volatile or const, on the parameters; this is perfectly legal C++: public ref class VolatileMethods { void Method(int *i) {} void Method(volatile int *i) {} } If volatile was specified using a custom attribute, then the VolatileMethods class wouldn't be compilable to IL, as there is nothing to differentiate the two methods from each other. This is where custom modifiers come in. Custom modifiers Custom modifiers are similar to custom attributes, but instead of being applied to an IL element separately to its declaration, they are embedded within the field or parameter's type signature itself. The VolatileMethods class would be compiled to the following IL: .class public VolatileMethods { .method public instance void Method(int32* i) {} .method public instance void Method( int32 modreq( [mscorlib]System.Runtime.CompilerServices.IsVolatile)* i) {} } The modreq([mscorlib]System.Runtime.CompilerServices.IsVolatile) is the custom modifier. This adds a TypeDef or TypeRef token to the signature of the field or parameter, and even though they are mostly ignored by the CLR when it's executing the program, this allows methods and fields to be overloaded in ways that wouldn't be allowed using attributes. Because the modifiers are part of the signature, they need to be fully specified when calling such a method in IL: call instance void Method( int32 modreq([mscorlib]System.Runtime.CompilerServices.IsVolatile)*) There are two ways of applying modifiers; modreq specifies required modifiers (like IsVolatile), and modopt specifies optional modifiers that can be ignored by compilers (like IsLong or IsConst). The type specified as the modifier argument are simple placeholders; if you have a look at the definitions of IsVolatile and IsLong they are completely empty. They exist solely to be referenced by a modifier. Custom modifiers are used extensively by the C++ compiler to specify concepts that aren't expressible in IL, but still need to be taken into account when calling method overloads. C++ and C# That's all very well and good, but how does this affect C#? Well, the C++ compiler uses modreq(IsVolatile) to specify volatility on both method parameters and fields, as it would be slightly odd to have the same concept represented using a modifier or attribute depending on what it was applied to. Once you've compiled your C++ project, it can then be referenced and used from C#, so the C# compiler has to recognise the modreq(IsVolatile) custom modifier applied to fields, and vice versa. So, even though you can't overload fields or parameters with volatile using C#, volatile needs to be expressed using a custom modifier rather than an attribute to guarentee correct interoperability and behaviour with any C++ dlls that happen to come along. Next up: a closer look at attributes, and how certain attributes compile in unexpected ways.

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