After having put my .NET 1.1 application running on the .NET 2.0 runtime (^), I’m planning on migrating it to .NET 2.0, but not all at once.
Because I don’t want to have 2 solutions (one on Visual Studio 2003 for the .NET 1.1 assemblies and another on Visual Studio 2008 for the .NET 2.0 assemblies) I decide to try using MSBee and have only one Visual Studio 2008 solution.
MSBee has a CodePlex project. You can download it from there or from Microsoft Downloads. Because the build on Microsoft Downloads seemed to be the most stable one, that was the one I downloaded and installed. The package comes with a Word document that explains all that needs to be done.
Before you can install and use MSBee you’ll need to install the .NET 1.1 SDK.
Having everything installed, I just opened the Visual Studio 2003 solution in Visual Studio 2008 and let it convert the solution and projects (near 30).
After the conversion, for building the projects with the .NET 1.1 C# compiler, the project files need to be edited to add the override the default targets with the MSBee ones by adding the MSBee imports after the default imports for the language:
<Import Project="$(MSBuildBinPath)\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" />
<Import Project="$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBee\MSBuildExtras.FX1_1.CSharp.targets" />
Another change needed (for Visual Studio 2008 - I don't know if it was needed for Visual Studio 2005) is the tools version. MSBee needs version 2.0. To change that you'll have to change the ToolsVersion attribute of the project’s root element:
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="2.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
MSBee likes has own idea about output paths and I had set up custom output paths on my project. There’s information about this on the documentation but I decided to simply comment that out of the $(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBee\MSBuildExtras.FX1_1.Common.targets file:
<!-- Paulo
<Choose>
<When Condition=" '$(BaseFX1_1OutputPath)' == '' ">
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputPath>bin\FX1_1\</OutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>
</When>
<Otherwise>
<PropertyGroup>
<OutputPath>$(BaseFX1_1OutputPath)</OutputPath>
<OutputPath Condition=" !HasTrailingSlash('$(OutputPath)') ">$(OutputPath)\</OutputPath>
</PropertyGroup>
</Otherwise>
</Choose>
-->
<!-- Paulo
<PropertyGroup>
<BaseIntermediateOutputPath>obj\FX1_1\</BaseIntermediateOutputPath>
<IntermediateOutputPath Condition=" '$(PlatformName)' == 'AnyCPU' ">$(BaseIntermediateOutputPath)$(Configuration)\</IntermediateOutputPath>
<IntermediateOutputPath Condition=" '$(PlatformName)' != 'AnyCPU' ">$(BaseIntermediateOutputPath)$(PlatformName)\$(Configuration)\</IntermediateOutputPath>
<OutputPath Condition=" '$(PlatformName)' == 'AnyCPU' ">$(OutputPath)$(Configuration)\</OutputPath>
<OutputPath Condition=" '$(PlatformName)' != 'AnyCPU' ">$(OutputPath)$(PlatformName)\$(Configuration)\</OutputPath>
<- Once OutputPath is determined, set OutDir to its value. ->
<OutDir>$(OutputPath)</OutDir>
</PropertyGroup>
-->
This all seemed to work fine on my old Windows XP machine without any third party Visual Studio plug-ins, but when I tried it on my Windows Vista X64 machine, I came across some problems:
-
License Compiler
Because I'm using Infragistics' controls, there's a licences.licx file and the build will compile it. And that proved to be a problem.
MSBee copies all the files it needs to the build process to a temporary folder, builds it in there and then copies the result to the output path.
LC.exe seemed to never be able to find all the assemblies it needed. Searching seemed to me to be an old issue (even from the .NET 1.1 times) and the solution always pointed to not compile the license file. So, I commented that part out of the $(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\MSBee\MSBuildExtras.FX1_1.Common.targets file:
<Target
Name="CompileLicxFiles" Condition="'@(_LicxFile)'!=''"
DependsOnTargets="$(CompileLicxFilesDependsOn)"
Inputs="$(MSBuildAllProjects);@(_LicxFile);@(ReferencePath);@(ReferenceDependencyPaths)"
Outputs="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).licenses">
<!--
<LC
Sources="@(_LicxFile)"
LicenseTarget="$(TargetFileName)"
OutputDirectory="$(IntermediateOutputPath)"
OutputLicense="$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName).licenses"
ReferencedAssemblies="@(ReferencePath);@(ReferenceDependencyPaths)"
ToolPath="$(TargetFrameworkSDKDirectory)bin\">
<Output TaskParameter="OutputLicense" ItemName="CompiledLicenseFile"/>
<Output TaskParameter="OutputLicense" ItemName="FileWrites"/>
</LC>
-->
</Target>
-
Resource Generator
Although this worked fine on the command line, inside Visual Studio ResGen.exe would throw some error and needed to be closed.
Looking at the Windows Application Log I found out this:
Faulting application Resgen.exe, version 1.1.4322.573, time stamp 0x3e559b5f, faulting module MockWeaver.dll, version 0.0.0.0, time stamp 0x4adb072e, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x00018fac, process id 0x4a50, application start time 0x01ca53c14488a2fb.
MockWeaver.dll belongs to Isolator and I just disable it when building inside Visual Studio. I was hoping to start using Isolator on this project, but, for now, I can't.
I hope this can be of some help and, if you need more, you’ll probably find it at the MSBee’s CodePlex forum.
The bottom line is: You don’t need Visual Studio 2003!
One of the applications I develop is a .NET 1.1 Windows Forms application used by more than 5000 users and critical for the business.
Being a complex and critical application, porting it to the 2.0 runtime just because it was not an option because it would mean installing the new runtime and framework on the stable environment of the workstations (Windows XP) and test fully the application. That was not an option.
As time went by, a developer received a brand new laptop with Windows Vista. Since he only needed ,NET 2.0 for his developments, he never installed .NET 1.1.
Another developer on my team had already tried to port the application to .NET 2.0 and run into some issues:
-
The main component of this application is the
Web Browser Control. This control derives from
AxHost, which changed going from 1.1 to 2.0 and needed major changes to compile for the 2.0 framework.
-
Another change was that mixing synchronous and asynchronous calls is not allowed in the 2.0 framework and we had, at least, one of those in our use of
HttpWebRequest/
HttpWebResponse.
The .NET 2.0 runtime and frameworks were developed to be highly compatible with applications written and compiled to the 1.1 runtime and frameworks. In fact, some of the changes were just applying the ObsoleteAttribute set to throw a compiler error when used, which doesn’t prevent its use by already compiled assemblies. This was the case of the WebBrowserControl/AxHost and just using the assembly compiled for .NET 1.1 would probably run fine. And it did.
The synchronous/asynchronous was also very easy to fix. All it took was changing this:
request.GetRequestStream()
into this:
request.EndGetRequestStream(response.BeginGetRequestStream(null, null))
And it all worked as if it was running on .NET 1.1.
But that’s not the end of it. Latter came a requirement to use, in one of the web pages that ran in the web browser control, an ActiveX component developed in .NET 2.0.
But that time, the 2.0 runtime and framework were already installed on the workstations.
But how would we force the application to run in the 2.0 runtime if the 1.1 runtime was still there?
As simple as adding this to the configuration file (App.config):
<configuration>
<startup>
<requiredRuntime version="v2.0.50727" safemode="true"/>
</startup>
</configuration>
LINQ brought developers a very user friendly and domain independent style of writing queries.
The fact that the way queries are written is domain independent doesn’t mean that any query will compile the same way or even run the same way. You’ll always need to know how the provider will behave.
LINQ To Objects, for example, will compile queries as a Func<> delegate and the query methods will return IEnumerable(T) implementations.
On the other hand, LINQ To SQL will compile queries as an Expression<Func<>> (which is, in fact, an expression tree) instance and the query methods will return IQueryable(T) implementations.
Because LINQ To SQL queries are compiled to an expression tree, that allows the provider to treat the query elements as it sees fit.
In this case, this means that all operations that can be done on the database will be done on the database and the developer must be aware of this when she/he is writing the queries.
Lets take an example using the AdventureWorks database (if you don’t have it, you can download it from here).
I want to build a list of salutation for every employee that has the SalariedFlag set, in the form of:
[Mr.|Mrs.|Miss] <first name> <middle name> <last name>
But there’s also one detail about the data in the database: FirstName, MiddleName and LastName may have trailing spaces and I don’t want them.
This is a simple query like this:
var q1 = from e in context.Employees
where e.SalariedFlag
select
((e.Gender == 'F') ? ((e.MaritalStatus == 'S') ? "Miss" : "Mrs.") : "Mr.") + " " +
e.Person.FirstName.Trim() +
(e.Person.MiddleName == null || e.Person.MiddleName.Trim().Length == 0 ? " " : " " + e.Person.MiddleName.Trim() + " ") +
e.Person.LastName.Trim();
and it will be executed as:
SELECT ((((
(CASE
WHEN UNICODE([t0].[Gender]) = @p0 THEN
(CASE
WHEN UNICODE([t0].[MaritalStatus]) = @p1 THEN @p2
ELSE @p3
END)
ELSE CONVERT(NVarChar(4),@p4)
END)) + @p5) + LTRIM(RTRIM([t1].[FirstName]))) + (
(CASE
WHEN ([t1].[MiddleName] IS NULL) OR (LEN(LTRIM(RTRIM([t1].[MiddleName]))) = @p6) THEN CONVERT(NVarChar(MAX),@p7)
ELSE (@p8 + LTRIM(RTRIM([t1].[MiddleName]))) + @p9
END))) + LTRIM(RTRIM([t1].[LastName])) AS [value]
FROM [HumanResources].[Employee] AS [t0]
INNER JOIN [Person].[Person] AS [t1] ON [t1].[BusinessEntityID] = [t0].[BusinessEntityID]
WHERE [t0].[SalariedFlag] = 1
-- @p0: Input Int (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [70]
-- @p1: Input Int (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [83]
-- @p2: Input NVarChar (Size = 4; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [Miss]
-- @p3: Input NVarChar (Size = 4; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [Mrs.]
-- @p4: Input NVarChar (Size = 3; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [Mr.]
-- @p5: Input NVarChar (Size = 1; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [ ]
-- @p6: Input Int (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [0]
-- @p7: Input NVarChar (Size = 1; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [ ]
-- @p8: Input NVarChar (Size = 1; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [ ]
-- @p9: Input NVarChar (Size = 1; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [ ]
-- Context: SqlProvider(Sql2008) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.30729.4926
If you notice the query, there are a lot of text operations going on for each row.
Depending on the number of rows or database load this can prove to be very bad. The result might even be just a timeout.
So, how do we force the string operations to occur on the client instead of the database?
Only IQueryable<T> will be translated to T-SQL. So, all we need to do is change the type of the enumerator being iterated.
One way to do this is using the the AsEnumerable method of the Enumerable class.
The query would now be written as:
var q2 = from e in context.Employees.Where(e => e.SalariedFlag).AsEnumerable()
select
((e.Gender == 'F') ? ((e.MaritalStatus == 'S') ? "Miss" : "Mrs.") : "Mr.") + " " + e.Person.FirstName.Trim() +
(e.Person.MiddleName == null || e.Person.MiddleName.Trim().Length == 0 ? " " : " " + e.Person.MiddleName.Trim() + " ") +
e.Person.LastName.Trim();
and it will be executed as:
SELECT
[t0].[BusinessEntityID],
[t0].[LoginID],
[t0].[NationalIDNumber],
[t0].[JobTitle],
[t0].[MaritalStatus],
[t0].[BirthDate],
[t0].[Gender],
[t0].[HireDate],
[t0].[SalariedFlag],
[t0].[VacationHours],
[t0].[SickLeaveHours],
[t0].[CurrentFlag],
[t0].[rowguid],
[t0].[ModifiedDate],
[t1].[BusinessEntityID] AS [BusinessEntityID2],
[t1].[PersonType],
[t1].[NameStyle],
[t1].[Title],
[t1].[FirstName],
[t1].[MiddleName],
[t1].[LastName],
[t1].[Suffix],
[t1].[EmailPromotion],
[t1].[AdditionalContactInfo],
[t1].[Demographics],
[t1].[rowguid] AS [rowguid2],
[t1].[ModifiedDate] AS [ModifiedDate2]
FROM [HumanResources].[Employee] AS [t0]
INNER JOIN [Person].[Person] AS [t1] ON [t1].[BusinessEntityID] = [t0].[BusinessEntityID]
WHERE [t0].[SalariedFlag] = 1
-- Context: SqlProvider(Sql2008) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.30729.4926
As you can notice, text operations are no longer done on the database, but all the columns of both tables are being returned. And this is still a bad thing because we are using network bandwidth with data that won’t be used.
The way to choose the columns that will be retrieved from the database is by selecting only the ones wanted in the select statement. But because we still want string operations the be done on the client, we’ll need to project the desired columns into an intermediary object. Since we won’t need this object outside the query, we’ll use an anonymous type.
The query would now be written as:
var q3 = from n in
(
from e in context.Employees
where e.SalariedFlag
select new
{
Gender = e.Gender,
MaritalStatus = e.MaritalStatus,
FirstName = e.Person.FirstName,
MiddleName = e.Person.MiddleName,
LastName = e.Person.LastName
}
).AsEnumerable()
select ((n.Gender == 'F') ? ((n.MaritalStatus == 'S') ? "Miss" : "Mrs.") : "Mr.") + " " + n.FirstName.Trim()
+ (n.MiddleName == null || n.MiddleName.Trim().Length == 0 ? " " : " " + n.MiddleName.Trim() + " ")
+ n.LastName.Trim();
and it will be executed as:
SELECT
[t0].[Gender],
[t0].[MaritalStatus],
[t1].[FirstName],
[t1].[MiddleName],
[t1].[LastName]
FROM [HumanResources].[Employee] AS [t0]
INNER JOIN [Person].[Person] AS [t1] ON [t1].[BusinessEntityID] = [t0].[BusinessEntityID]
WHERE [t0].[SalariedFlag] = 1
-- Context: SqlProvider(Sql2008) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.30729.4926
Notice the call to Enumerable.As Enumerable to translate the LINQ To SQL query into a LINQ To Objects query.
And, to end this long blog post, if you don’t use any string operations on the query, they, obviously, won’t be translated to T-SQL:
var q4 = from e in context.Employees
where e.SalariedFlag
select BuildSalutation(e.Gender, e.MaritalStatus, e.Person.FirstName, e.Person.MiddleName, e.Person.LastName);
where BuildSalutation is implemented as:
private static object BuildSalutation(char gender, char maritalStatus, string firstName, string middleName, string lastName)
{
return ((gender == 'F') ? ((maritalStatus == 'S') ? "Miss" : "Mrs.") : "Mr.") + " "
+ firstName.Trim()
+ (middleName == null || middleName.Trim().Length == 0 ? " " : " " + middleName.Trim() + " ")
+ lastName.Trim();
}
and it will be executed as:
SELECT
[t0].[Gender] AS [gender],
[t0].[MaritalStatus] AS [maritalStatus],
[t1].[FirstName] AS [firstName],
[t1].[MiddleName] AS [middleName],
[t1].[LastName] AS [lastName]
FROM [HumanResources].[Employee] AS [t0]
INNER JOIN [Person].[Person] AS [t1] ON [t1].[BusinessEntityID] = [t0].[BusinessEntityID]
WHERE [t0].[SalariedFlag] = 1
-- Context: SqlProvider(Sql2008) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.30729.4926
Have you noticed that this T-SQL query is pretty much the same in the previous example?
If you are still reading this, I hope you now aware of how you write your LINQ To SQL queries affect the generated T-SQL.
Some time ago I needed to have the validationKey of the machineKey element of an ASP.NET application changed and found out that ASP.NET doesn’t provide a command-line tool (or any other) to do this.
Looking around I found several applications and code samples to do it, but to have a system administrator do this I needed to test and document the application and it was to much work for such task.
I’ve always been a supporter of the idea of PowerShell but I never used it my self. Just because I almost always have Visual Studio open and writing a simple console application is quicker and easier than learning PowerShell.
This time I decide that I would do a PowerShell script instead.
In C# I would have done something like this:
class Program
{
private static string GenerateKey()
{
var buff = new byte[64];
(new System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider()).GetBytes(buff);
var sb = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
foreach (var b in buff)
{
sb.AppendFormat("{0:X2}", b);
}
return sb.ToString();
}
private static void Main(string[] args)
{
var path = args[0];
var config = System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager.OpenMachineConfiguration(path);
var systemWeb = config.GetSectionGroup("system.web") as System.Web.Configuration.SystemWebSectionGroup;
var machineKey = systemWeb.MachineKey;
machineKey.ValidationKey = GenerateKey();
config.Save(System.Configuration.ConfigurationSaveMode.Modified);
}
}
How would it be in PowerShell? As simple as this:
function GenerateKey
{
[System.Byte[]]$buff = 0..63
(new-object System.Security.Cryptography.RNGCryptoServiceProvider).GetBytes($buff)
$sb = new-object System.Text.StringBuilder(128)
for($i = 0; ($i -lt $buff.Length); $i++)
{
$sb = $sb.AppendFormat("{0:X2}", $buff[$i])
}
return $sb.ToString()
}
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Web")
$config = [System.Web.Configuration.WebConfigurationManager]::OpenWebConfiguration("<path>")
$systemWeb = $config.GetSectionGroup("system.web");
$machineKey = $systemWeb.MachineKey
$machineKey.ValidationKey=GenerateKey
$config.save("Modified")
Wonder how I got from no knowledge of PowerShell to this? Simple. Something that every real .NET developer has and loves: .NET Reflector (with a PowerShell add-in, of course).
My son inherits my old machines.
His current one was a machine that started with Windows Vista x86 Ultimate RTM, then SP1 and finally SP2. Also, along the way, several versions of Microsoft Office, .NET, Visual Studio, SQL Server and much more.
I usually have dozens of applications installed. Retrieving license keys and installing them a gain is such an hassle that I choose to upgrade whenever I can.
Now that Windows 7 is out and there’s a beta of Office 2010, my son wanted to upgrade the machine.
Because the machine had already gone through all those updates and he didn’t like the way I had partitioned the disk, I recommended him to format the disk and do a clean install.
One of the hassles of a clean install is that you loose all your settings such as Internet Explorer settings and favorites and Microsoft Outlook accounts and PSTs (specially if you have IMAP accounts).
Since I had already successfully used Windows Easy Transfer to migrate my work laptop from Windows XP (x86) to Windows Vista x64 Enterprise, I told him not to worry.
Windows Easy Transfer guides you through the process of transferring files and settings from one Windows installation to another.
With Windows Easy Transfer you can transfer:
-
Files and folders.
Everything within the Documents, Pictures, and Shared Documents folders. Using advanced options, you can select additional files and folders to transfer.
-
E‑mail settings, contacts, and messages.
Messages, account settings, and address books from Microsoft Outlook Express, Outlook, Windows Mail, and other e‑mail programs.
-
Program settings.
Settings that keep your programs configured as you had them on your old installation. You must first install the programs on your new computer, because Windows Easy Transfer does not transfer the programs themselves. Some programs might not work on this version of Windows, including security programs, antivirus programs, firewall programs (your new computer should already have a firewall running to help ensure safety during the transfer), and programs with software drivers.
-
User accounts and settings.
Color schemes, desktop backgrounds, network connections, screen savers, fonts, Start menu options, taskbar options, folders, specific files, network printers and drives, and accessibility options.
-
Internet settings and favorites.
Internet connection settings, favorites, and cookies.
-
Music.
Electronic music files, playlists, and album art.
-
Pictures and video.
Pictures—which includes any visual file type (for example, .jpg, .bmp, .gif) - and personal videos.
After saving everything to the .MIG file, all it took was installing Windows 7, Office 2010 and import the settings back.
To get the other files and folders that were on the disk before being formatted, since we have a Windows Home Server that backs up all the PCs in the house , all it was needed was mounting one of the old backups as a disk and copying the files back.
It’s so easy that he did it al by himself while and he just turned 14. So, if you need to do something like this, don’t stress. It’s that easy.
For the first time, ReMIX is coming to Portugal.
The event will have a keynote and 3 tracks (Web Developer, UX and Architect) with 4 sessions each by the best speakers in each field.
Don’t miss it! Register now!
Filed under: Architecture, ASP.NET, SoftDev, Events, Microsoft, MSDN, Web, Mix, Mix09, Expression Blend, Expression, ASP.NET MVC, Expression Studio
Today I came across this issue when trying to sign in to Windows Live Messenger.
Everyone I talked to was able to sign in, though, so I tried another account and was also able to sign in.
Binging around, I found several blog posts pointing to a post in the Messenger Support blog with the solution to this problem. In my case (Windows 7 x64) the solution would be to remove the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts (usually C:\Users\<Windows Logon name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows Live Contacts) folder.
Instead of removing the folder, I thought of renaming it to avoid removing my contacts for all account that were able to sign in. When I tried it, I got an error stating the the folder was already being used by another application.
Since I had Windows Live Mail open and assumed it uses the same contact store, I closed it and was able to sign in to messenger with no problems.
As a developer and architect, I find it disturbing that such errors are presented to the user. The message hinted that there was a problem signing in to the server and, as it turned out, it was a problem with only one account for only one Windows user in only one machine.
So, developers and architects out there (me included), always give the user an error message meaningful to what problem he/she is running into. Adding technical data to help support is nice but should be expressly accessed by the user (Windows Live Messenger got that part right).
After all these years, it's still an honor, a privilege ... and a few stressful days.
Microsoft Tech•Ed Europe 2009 Registration is now open.
There are a few novelties this year:
-
Due to attendee feedback, both the Developer and IT Pro editions will take place at the same time (November, 9-13).
-
-
Registration prices are based on a tiered approach with the earlier you registration the more you will save. Register first, save the most!
Top Reasons To Attend Tech·Ed Europe 2009
-
EVERYONE CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT:
-
MICROSOFT WINDOWS 7 - Learn about Microsoft's next-generation operating system
Advancements Windows 7 brings to user productivity, security and PC management - all of which save businesses time and money.
-
MICROSOFT OFFICE and new ways to maximize business productivity
The Office System track will help you deploy, adopt and develop on business productivity applications.
Learn about deploying Microsoft Office to your users, building pervasive Microsoft Office SharePoint solutions and managing your work with Microsoft Business Productivity Visio.
-
DEVELOPERS CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT:
-
STREAMLINING your way to cloud applications
Find out how The Azure™ Services Platform reduces the need for up-front technology purchases, and enables developers to quickly and easily create applications running in the cloud.
-
SECURITY that helps cut application support costs
Find out how Microsoft’s ForeFront technologies can secure your IT environment faster, and help you write more secure code to eliminate application support costs.
-
TRUTH about maximizing deployments and search
Find out how SharePoint can help create that central repository, maximizing deployments and search that eliminates multiple versions and misunderstandings about the source of the "truth" on any given project.
-
IT PROFESSIONALS CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT:
-
VIRTUALISATION that helps leverage existing investments
Get an in-depth understanding of today’s low-cost virtualization technologies and how they can help you make the most of your current software and hardware investments.
-
HOSTING for economies of scale
Learn how to take advantage of Microsoft’s hosted services to scale your IT department’s communications and collaboration offering. You’ll also lower your hardware, management and power costs.
-
UNIFYING to reduce costs and help increase efficiencies
Truly unified communications create a single communication infrastructure. That means reduced costs for PBX enhancements while improving productivity through unified inboxes along with rules that help workers manage interruptions.
-
DEPLOYMENT - maximize your existing IT infrastructure and do more with what you've got
Learn how to get maximum value out of your existing IT infrastructure.
With all developed and tested on my laptop using SQL Server 2008, it’s time to deploy to the company’s test machine running SQL Server 2005.
The first thing I ran into when executing:
CREATE ASSEMBLY [MyAssembly]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM '...\MyAssembly.dll'
WITH PERMISSION_SET = SAFE
GO
was:
Msg 10327, Level 14, State 1, Line 1
Assembly 'MyAssembly' references assembly 'system.xml.linq, version=3.5.0.0, culture=neutral, publickeytoken=b77a5c561934e089.',
which is not present in the current database.
SQL Server attempted to locate and automatically load the referenced assembly from the same location where referring assembly came from,
but that operation has failed (reason: 2(The system cannot find the file specified.)).
Please load the referenced assembly into the current database and retry your request.
Looks like SQL Server 2005 doesn’t know about .NET Framework 3.5. I’d just load the assemblies being used: System.Core and System.Linq.Xml:
CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Core]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5\System.Core.dll'
WITH PERMISSION_SET = SAFE
GO
Not so easy:
Warning: The Microsoft .Net frameworks assembly 'system.core, version=3.5.0.0, culture=neutral, publickeytoken=b77a5c561934e089, processorarchitecture=msil.' you are registering is not fully tested in SQL Server hosted environment.
Msg 6218, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
CREATE ASSEMBLY for assembly 'System.Core' failed because assembly 'System.Core' failed verification. Check if the referenced assemblies are up-to-date and trusted (for external_access or unsafe) to execute in the database. CLR Verifier error messages if any will follow this message
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::EtwRegister][mdToken=0x600003b][offset 0x0000003D][found Native Int][expected unmanaged pointer] Unexpected type on the stack.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::EncodeObject][mdToken=0x6000046][offset 0x00000000] Unmanaged pointers are not a verifiable type.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteMessageEvent][mdToken=0x6000047][offset 0x0000003C][found ref 'System.String'] Expected numeric type on the stack.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteEvent][mdToken=0x6000049][offset 0x0000012E] Instruction cannot be verified.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteEvent][mdToken=0x6000049][offset 0x00000030] Instruction cannot be verified.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteEvent][mdToken=0x600004a][offset 0x0000005F][found ref 'System.String'] Expected numeric type on the stack.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteEvent][mdToken=0x600004b][offset 0x00000010][found unmanaged pointer][expected unmanaged pointer] Unexpected type on the stack.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteTransferEvent][mdToken=0x600004c][offset 0x0000007D] Instruction cannot be verified.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteTransferEvent][mdToken=0x600004c][offset 0x00000309][found Native Int][expected unmanaged pointer] Unexpected type on the stack.
[ : System.Diagnostics.Eventing.EventProvider::WriteTransferEvent][mdToken=0x600004d][offset 0x0000001B][found unmanaged pointer][expected unmanaged pointer] Unexpected type on the stack.
[ : System.Security.Cryptography.CapiNative::ImportSymmetricKey][mdToken=0x60007c2][offset 0x00000071][found address of Byte] Expected numeric type on the stac...
Ok. I’d just load it with PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE:
CREATE ASSEMBLY [MyAssembly]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM '...\MyAssembly.dll'
WITH PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE
GO
Not yet:
Warning: The Microsoft .Net frameworks assembly 'system.core, version=3.5.0.0, culture=neutral, publickeytoken=b77a5c561934e089, processorarchitecture=msil.' you are registering is not fully tested in SQL Server hosted environment.
Msg 10327, Level 14, State 1, Line 1
CREATE ASSEMBLY for assembly 'System.Core' failed because assembly 'System.Core' is not authorized for PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE.
The assembly is authorized when either of the following is true: the database owner (DBO) has UNSAFE ASSEMBLY permission and the database has the TRUSTWORTHY database property on; or the assembly is signed with a certificate or an asymmetric key that has a corresponding login with UNSAFE ASSEMBLY permission.
If you have restored or attached this database, make sure the database owner is mapped to the correct login on this server.
If not, use sp_changedbowner to fix the problem.
Solved:
ALTER DATABASE MyDatabase SET TRUSTWORTHY ON
GO
Only than I was able to load the .NET 3.5 assemblies:
CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Core]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5\System.Core.dll'
WITH PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE
GO
CREATE ASSEMBLY [System.Xml.Linq]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM 'C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\v3.5\System.Xml.Linq.dll'
WITH PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE
GO
With all dependencies in place, I tried to load the assembly with PERMISSION_SET = SAFE with no luck:
Msg 6212, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
CREATE ASSEMBLY failed because method 'ShortPropsToXml' on type 'ShortProps' in safe assembly 'Esi.SA.Encyclopedia' is storing to a static field.
Storing to a static field is not allowed in safe assemblies.
It had to be with PERMISSION_SET = UNSAFE.
After successfully loading the assemblies, I was finally able to create the Transact-SQL definitions for the functions (see Part I and Part II).
Now the DBAs won’t definitely let me use this, but it was fun to build it.
You might have noticed that I used LINQ in my last Playing With SQL Server CLR Integration posts (Part I, Part II).
I couldn’t make it work with the standard Visual Studio 2008 SQL CLR project template. Changing the Target Framework to .NET Framework 3.5 wasn’t enough. I had to edit the .csproj file by hand:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="3.5" DefaultTargets="Build" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
<!— ... -->
<ItemGroup>
<!— ... -->
<Reference Include="System.Core">
<RequiredTargetFramework>3.5</RequiredTargetFramework>
</Reference>
<Reference Include="System.Xml.Linq">
<RequiredTargetFramework>3.5</RequiredTargetFramework>
</Reference>
</ItemGroup>
<!— ... -->
</Project>
On my last post, I showed how to convert a property bag stored in text to a CLR Table-Valued Function.
I started thinking that I could retrieve the property values, but I couldn’t change them or add new properties.
Passing a table as a parameter is still not possible in SQL Server 2005. And that would force me to load the table into a variable, change it and load it back into the property bag.
Or I could create functions to Create, Update and Delete properties from the property bag.
Or I could just use XML. All it takes is creating a CLR Scalar-Valued Function to convert the property bag to an XML representation and another to convert the XML back to the property bag format.
It still makes me load the property bag into a variable if I want to change it, but it’s usable in SQL Server 2005, which was the targeted platform.
Converting the property bag to an XML document is easy using the previously created enumerator:
[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction(
Name = "ShortPropsToXml",
IsDeterministic = true,
IsPrecise = false,
DataAccess = DataAccessKind.None,
SystemDataAccess = SystemDataAccessKind.None)]
public static SqlXml ShortPropsToXml(string shortPropsText)
{
var xml = new XElement("ShortProps",
from shortProp in ShortPropsEnumerable(shortPropsText)
select new XElement("p",
new XAttribute("n", shortProp.Key),
new XCData(shortProp.Value)));
using (var buffer = new MemoryStream())
{
using (var xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(buffer, new XmlWriterSettings { CheckCharacters = false }))
{
xml.WriteTo(xmlWriter);
}
buffer.Position = 0;
using (XmlReader xmlReader = XmlReader.Create(buffer, new XmlReaderSettings { CheckCharacters = false }))
{
return new SqlXml(xmlReader);
}
}
}
Converting the an XML document back into the property bag format is also easy:
[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction(
Name = "XmlToShortProps",
IsDeterministic = true,
IsPrecise = false,
DataAccess = DataAccessKind.None,
SystemDataAccess = SystemDataAccessKind.None)]
public static SqlChars XmlToShortProps(SqlXml shortPropsXml)
{
var xml = XDocument.Parse(shortPropsXml.Value);
var textBuilder = new StringBuilder();
foreach (var item in xml.Document.Element("ShortProps").Elements("p"))
{
textBuilder.AppendFormat("[[[{1}]]]{0}{2}{0}", Environment.NewLine, item.Attribute("n").Value, item.Value);
}
return new SqlChars(textBuilder.ToString().ToCharArray());
}
Now it’s just uploading the new version of the assembly to the database:
ALTER ASSEMBLY [MyAssembly]
FROM '...\MyAssembly.dll'
GO
And defining the Scalar-Valued Functions in Transact-SQL:
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ShortPropsToXml](@shortPropsText [nvarchar](4000))
RETURNS [xml] WITH EXECUTE AS CALLER
AS
EXTERNAL NAME [Esi.SA.Encyclopedia].[ShortProps].[ShortPropsToXml]
GO
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[XmlToShortProps](@shortPropsXml [xml])
RETURNS [nvarchar](max) WITH EXECUTE AS CALLER
AS
EXTERNAL NAME [Esi.SA.Encyclopedia].[ShortProps].[XmlToShortProps]
GO
And it’s all set to go.
Now, given this property bag definition:
declare @text nvarchar(max)='[[[name1]]]
value1
[[[name2]]]
value2
[[[name3]]]
value3
'
I can change it into XML:
DECLARE @xml [xml] = dbo.ShortPropsToXml(@text)
-
Update:
set @xml.modify('replace value of (/ShortProps/p[@n="name2"]/text())[1] with "new value2"')
-
Insert:
set @xml.modify('insert <p n="name4">Value4.1
Value4.2</p> after (/ShortProps/p[@n="name2"])[1]')
-
Delete
set @xml.modify('delete (/ShortProps/p[@n="name3"])[1]')
-
Convert back to the property bag format:
print dbo.XmlToShortProps(@xml)
[[[name1]]]
value1
[[[name2]]]
new value2
[[[name4]]]
Value4.1
Value4.2
-
Query as a table:
select T.C.value('./@n', 'nvarchar(max)') as Name, T.C.value('.', 'nvarchar(max)') as Value from @xml.nodes('/ShortProps/p') T(C)
| Name |
Value |
| name1 |
value1 |
| name2 |
new value2 |
| name4 |
Value4.1
Value4.2 |
Unfortunately, the application uses characters that are invalid to SQL Server as XML characters and I can’t use it on that application. I’ll have to understand those values better and add other fields to the table and XML.
I’m currently working with an application that stores a property bag in a SQL Server column like this:
[[[name1]]]
value1
[[[name2]]]
value2.1
value2.2
[[[name3]]]
value3
Don’t ask me why it’s done like this. It just is.
The application decodes this property bag into its inner structures and all works fine.
Sometimes I would like to query the database directly or do some reporting on those properties and just can’t.
So, I thought this was a good use case for SQL Server CLR Integration. I decided to build a CLR Table-Valued Function that would return the property bag as a two column table.
Parsing the property bag text can easily be achieved with a simple regular expression:
new Regex(
string.Format(@"(?<Name>(?<=\[\[\[).*(?=\]\]\]{0}))\]\]\]{0}(?<Value>(([\s\S]*?(?={0}\[\[\[))|([\s\S]*?(?={0}$))))", Environment.NewLine),
RegexOptions.Multiline | RegexOptions.ExplicitCapture | RegexOptions.CultureInvariant | RegexOptions.Compiled);
Ultrapico’s Expresso was a big help when developing this regular expression.
In case you don’t know, the way CLR Table-Valued Function are built is using an initial method to take the input and return an IEnumerable and row filler method the receives the enumerator item and outputs the column values.
Since these are really key-value pairs of strings, I decided to use )>) Structure" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/5tbh8a42.aspx" target=_blank>KeyValuePair<string, string> instances to store each item and the enumerator became simply this:
private static IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, string>> ShortPropsEnumerable(string shortPropsText)
{
return from Match m in shortPropsRegex.Matches(shortPropsText)
select new KeyValuePair<string, string>(m.Groups["Name"].Value, m.Groups["Value"].Value);
}
And the implementation of the CLR Table-Valued Function is as simple as this:
[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction(
Name = "ShortPropsToTable",
FillRowMethodName = "ShortPropsToTableFillRow",
TableDefinition = "Name NVARCHAR(4000), Value NVARCHAR(4000)",
IsDeterministic = true,
IsPrecise = false,
DataAccess = DataAccessKind.None,
SystemDataAccess = SystemDataAccessKind.None)]
public static IEnumerable ShortPropsToTable(string shortPropsText)
{
return ShortPropsEnumerable(shortPropsText);
}
public static void ShortPropsToTableFillRow(object item, out SqlChars name, out SqlChars value)
{
KeyValuePair<string, string> shortProp = (KeyValuePair<string, string>)item;
name = new SqlChars(shortProp.Key);
value = new SqlChars(shortProp.Value);
}
To use this in SQL Server a few simple steps are need:
-
Load the assembly into the database:
CREATE ASSEMBLY [MyAssembly]
AUTHORIZATION [dbo]
FROM '...\MyAssembly.dll'
WITH PERMISSION_SET = SAFE
GO
-
CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[ShortPropsToTable](@shortPropsText [nvarchar](4000))
RETURNS TABLE (
[Name] [nvarchar](4000) NULL,
[Value] [nvarchar](4000) NULL
) WITH EXECUTE AS CALLER
AS
EXTERNAL NAME [MyAssembly].[ShortProps].[ShortPropsToTable]
GO
-
Enable CLR Integration:
EXEC sp_configure 'clr enabled', 1
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO
And all is set to go.
Now I can just query the property bag as a table:
SELECT
e.[ID],
e.[Name],
e.[Class],
e.[Type],
p.[Name],
p.[Value]
FROM
dbo.Entity as e
CROSS APPLY dbo.ShortPropsToTable(e.[ShortProps]) as p
Just for curiosity, for a little over 50000 entities (that can be retrieved on about 1 second on my laptop), I got a little under 630000 properties in les then 40 seconds.
40 seconds might seem a lot compared to the 1 second, but I would like to see better times using T-SQL. And develop and test the TVF in just a couple of hours.
Now, if only he DBAs would allow me to use it. It doesn’t fit into the company’s “security policy”, you know.
We are migrating the PontoNetPT community from an old .TEXT version to the latest Community Server (CS).
Because PontoNetPT has nearly 200 blogs with I don’t know how any posts, commentaries, trackbacks, etc., we are using the Community Server REST API.
The problem with using this API is that it doesn’t create the folder that CS can be configured to create with a default.aspx file for each blog created using it’s web site administration.
The importance of this folder and file is for IIS to be able to handle the requests http://<your community>/blogs/<your blog> or http://<your community>/blogs/<your blog>/ as if was a request to http://<your community>/blogs/<your blog>/default.aspx.
Fortunately, we are running on Windows 2008 and IIS 7 and all it took was to install the Microsoft URL Rewrite Module 1.1 For IIS 7 and configure it:
<configuration>
<!--...-->
<system.webServer>
<!--...-->
<rewrite>
<rules>
<rule name="Add Default.aspx to blog root URLs" stopProcessing="false">
<match url="^blogs/([^/]*)(/?)$" />
<action type="Rewrite" url="blogs/{R:1}/Default.aspx" />
</rule>
</rules>
</rewrite>
<!--...-->
</system.webServer>
<!--...-->
</configuration>
Typemock is launching a new product for ASP.NET developers – the ASP.NET Bundle - and for the launch they are giving out FREE licenses to bloggers and their readers.
The ASP.NET Bundle is the ultimate ASP.NET unit testing solution, and offers both Typemock Isolator and Ivonna, the ASP.NET Isolator add-on, for a discounted price.
ASP.NET Bundle launch giveaway:
For the ASP.NET Bundle launch Typemock are giving away free licenses to bloggers and their readers.
How do I get the free license?
Are you a blogger, webmaster, or internet columnist? Get your free license by helping Typemock launch their new ASP.NET Bundle, the ultimate ASP.NET unit testing solution.
Post the text below on your blog (as is, with links) and tell them about it . If you are in the first 60 to mail us after posting, your license will be on its way!
If you have an ASP.NET dedicated blog, you'll get a license automatically (even if more than 60 submit) during the first week of this announcement.
8 bloggers will also get an additional 2 licenses (each) to give away / raffle to their readers or friends.
A few simple requirements:
-
You must own a website, blog space or internet column, older than 2 months, or get permission from the owner of such a site.
-
Your post must include the text below (including the links) between *Begin* and *End*.
*Begin*
Unit Testing ASP.NET? ASP.NET unit testing has never been this easy.
Typemock is launching a new product for ASP.NET developers – the ASP.NET Bundle - and for the launch will be giving out FREE licenses to bloggers and their readers.
The ASP.NET Bundle is the ultimate ASP.NET unit testing solution, and offers both Typemock Isolator, a unit test tool and Ivonna, the Isolator add-on for ASP.NET unit testing, for a bargain price.
Typemock Isolator is a leading .NET unit testing tool (C# and VB.NET) for many ‘hard to test’ technologies such as SharePoint, ASP.NET, MVC, WCF, WPF, Silverlight and more. Note that for unit testing Silverlight there is an open source Isolator add-on called SilverUnit.
The first 60 bloggers who will blog this text in their blog and tell us about it, will get a Free Isolator ASP.NET Bundle license (Typemock Isolator + Ivonna). If you post this in an ASP.NET dedicated blog, you'll get a license automatically (even if more than 60 submit) during the first week of this announcement.
Also 8 bloggers will get an additional 2 licenses (each) to give away to their readers / friends.
Go ahead, click the following link for more information on how to get your free license.
*End*
Once you post this in your site, just drop them a line at asp@typemock.com with your name and the post URL to get your free license.
Hurry up – this offer is limited to the first 60 bloggers, or to ASP.NET dedicated bloggers who will post this in the first week.
Make sure to follow their Blog, Site or Twitter for updates on this event.
It’s finally out!
The LINQ Com C# (LINQ With C#) book that Luís and I wrote is out. Well, mostly Luís than I.
This book, published by FCA, is targeted at anyone that already knows C# 2.0 and wants to know learn the new features introduced with C# 3.0 that made possible LINQ (Language INtegrated Query). The examples in the book are written in C#, but Visual Basic get be get from the book’s site.
The book can be found here:
Unlike it happened on Windows XP, on Windows Vista and Windows 7, the search results window doesn’t have (by default) a column with the folder path of the found items. Instead, it has a column named Folder in the form of Folder name (folder’s containing folder path).
I don’t know the reason behind this decision, I just know that it makes hard to sort the found files by its path.
Fortunately, the folder path of the found items can be added to the list view by right clicking on any list column and selecting the folder path to be shown.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to make it permanent. I need to do that for every search.
Most enterprises backup their data on a regular basis and stored those backups for some amount of time.
But, beyond restoring last day’s backup or part of a previous recent backup, are these backups real useful? Will they be useful 3, 4, 5 or 10 years from now?
Nowadays, the tendency is to virtualize almost every machine which increases the probability of a successful restore in the future. But some software packages come with timed and online checking licenses and one might end up with a successful restore of an unusable system.
And what if the hardware to run the system (virtualized or not) no longer exists?
The solution is to backup the business data (instead of the system data) in a interoperable format like XML (that can contain both data and metadata).
The added benefit beyond disaster recovery is system or application migrations.
That doesn’t mean that systems don’t need to be backed up. They do, but only for operational purposes.
It is a good security practice to use Windows Authentication to connect to SQL Server because you don’t need to write the password on some configuration file or registry entry.
This practice also brings governance benefits. Managing users becomes part of domain administration and not part of each SQL Server instance’s administration.
But this becomes an hassle to users (in this context, the user is someone that needs to perform administration task of some kind – a SQL Server Management Studio user) who need to connect to databases using different credentials.
One workaround is using the runas command:
runas /user:DOMAIN\USERNAME "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe"
But if you are working on an environment were there are several domains and your machine does not belong to the domain of the ser account you want to use, you’ll get the folloing error:
RUNAS ERROR: Unable to run - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe
1787: The security database on the server does not have a computer account for this workstation trust relationship.
But not everything is lost. Because you want to make a remote connection, you can use the /netonly switch, and it works just fine:
runas /netonly /user:DOMAIN\USERNAME "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\VSShell\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe"
SQL Server Management Studio still shows all the databases in the server (unlike what happens if you connect from a machine logged in as the user you want to access to the SQL Server instance), but ApexSQL Edit will only show the databases that account has access to.
The Next Generation of Windows® is almost here!
Microsoft is setting up a video blog that will officially debut in early May called Talking About Windows.
This video blog provides insight on Windows 7 from the Microsoft engineers who helped build the product.
Additionally, it provides real-world commentary from IT professionals who have chosen to shift to a modern OS.
You can watch the videos and participate by commenting in the spaces below each video and help spread the word about this exciting endeavor to build community.
Too bad the site doesn’t provide a feed to subscribe to the videos on my Zune.
Watch. Connect.
www.talkingaboutwindows.com
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