Paulo Morgado : MSDN

ReMIX 09 Is Coming To Lisbon, Portugal

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:50:28 GMT

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!

Microsoft Tech•Ed Europe 2009 Registration Opened

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:42:44 GMT

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).
The registration site uses Windows Live™ ID for authentication.
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.

Playing With SQL Server CLR Integration – Part IV (Deploying To SQL Server 2005)

Paulo Morgado — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 08:39:10 GMT

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.

Playing With SQL Server CLR Integration – Part III

Paulo Morgado — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 00:11:00 GMT

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>

Playing With SQL Server CLR Integration – Part II

Paulo Morgado — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:52:37 GMT

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.

Playing With SQL Server CLR Integration – Part I

Paulo Morgado — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:41:14 GMT

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

Defining the Table-Valued User-Defined Function in Transact-SQL:

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.

MSDN Code Search Preview

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:38:21 GMT

(Just read about this on CoDe Magazine)

Microsoft launched MSDN Code Search Preview.

The MSDN Code Search Preview lets you search for code in the MSDN Library, MSDN Code Gallery, and CodePlex.

You can read all about it on the about page or this post from the MSDN & TechNet Search Blog.

MIX09 Session Presentation Slides

Paulo Morgado — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:51:20 GMT

On a previous post I introduced the feeds I created to subscribe to Mix09 session videos.

I’ve decided to also create a feed for the presentation slides:

PPTX: http://feeds.paulomorgado.net/PauloMorgado/Events/Mix09/SessionSlides

MIX09 Session Videos – How I Did It

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:04:04 GMT

On my last post I introduced the feeds I created to subscribe to Mix09 session videos.

In case someone is interested on how I did it, here it is:

<%@ WebHandler Language="C#" Class="mix09" %>

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Web;
using System.Linq;
using System.Xml.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Xml;

public class mix09 : IHttpHandler, IHttpAsyncHandler
{
    class WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult : IAsyncResult
    {
        private AsyncCallback callback;

        public WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult()
        {
            this.IsCompleted = true;
            this.CompletedSynchronously = true;
        }

        public WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult(AsyncCallback callback)
        {
            this.callback = callback;
            this.IsCompleted = false;
            this.CompletedSynchronously = false;
        }

        public object AsyncState
        {
            get { return null; }
        }

        public bool CompletedSynchronously { get; private set; }

        public System.Threading.WaitHandle AsyncWaitHandle
        {
            get { throw new InvalidOperationException("ASP.NET should not use this property ."); }
        }

        public bool IsCompleted { get; private set; }

        public Stream Stream { get; private set; }

        public void Completed(object sender, OpenReadCompletedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.IsCompleted = true;
            this.Stream = e.Result;
            if (this.callback != null)
            {
                this.callback(this);
            }
        }

    }

    private static Uri mixSessionsUri = new Uri("http://sessions.visitmix.com/RSS");

    private HttpContext context;

    private string type;

    #region IHttpHandler Members

    public bool IsReusable
    {
        get { return true; }
    }

    public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
    {
        WebClient wc = InitializeRequest(context);

        if (wc == null)
        {
            return;
        }

        OutputFeed(wc.OpenRead(mixSessionsUri));
    }

    #endregion

    #region IHttpAsyncHandler Members

    public IAsyncResult BeginProcessRequest(HttpContext context, AsyncCallback cb, object extraData)
    {
        WebClient wc = InitializeRequest(context);

        if (wc == null)
        {
            return new WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult();
        }

        WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult ar = new WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult(cb);

        wc.OpenReadCompleted += ar.Completed;

        wc.OpenReadAsync(mixSessionsUri, extraData);

        return ar;
    }

    public void EndProcessRequest(IAsyncResult result)
    {
        Stream stream = (result as WebClientOpenReadAsyncResult).Stream;

        if (stream != null)
        {
            OutputFeed(stream);
        }
    }

    #endregion

    private WebClient InitializeRequest(HttpContext context)
    {
        this.context = context;
        this.type = context.Request.QueryString["type"];

        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(this.type))
        {
            return null;
        }

        WebClient wc = new WebClient();
        wc.Headers[HttpRequestHeader.UserAgent] = "Required User Agent";
        return wc;
    }

    private void OutputFeed(Stream source)
    {
        XmlReader feedReader = XmlReader.Create(source);

        XDocument feed = XDocument.Load(feedReader);

        var rss = feed.Element("rss");
        var channel = rss.Element("channel");
        var title = channel.Element("title");

        title.Value = string.Format("{0} ({1})", title.Value, this.type.ToUpper());
        channel.Element("link").Value = "http://cli.gs/Mix09Sessions";

        foreach (var item in channel.Elements("item"))
        {
            string link = item.Element("link").Value;
            string session = link.Substring(link.LastIndexOf('/') + 1).ToLower();
            string enclosureUrl = string.Format("http://mschannel9.vo.msecnd.net/o9/mix/09/{0}/{1}.wmv", this.type.ToLower(), session);

            item.Add(
                new XElement("enclosure",
                    new XAttribute("url", enclosureUrl)));
        }

        this.context.Response.Write(feed.ToString());

        this.context.Response.ContentType = "application/rss+xml";

        HttpCachePolicy cache = this.context.Response.Cache;
        cache.SetCacheability(HttpCacheability.ServerAndPrivate);
        cache.SetExpires(DateTime.Now.AddHours(1));
        cache.VaryByParams["type"] = true;
        cache.SetValidUntilExpires(true);
    }
}

MIX09 Session Videos

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:06:00 GMT

Updated (2009Mar25): Added MP4 feed.

Mix09 is over and I would like to watch some sessions.

I like to watch these kind of videos by subscribing them using the Zune Software as a podcast. I like the Zune Software because it downloads the “episodes” and I can watch them in any order and it never forgets where I was – even if I was watching it in the Zune.

Unfortunately, the only feed available (http://sessions.visitmix.com/RSS) does not include the videos.

Fortunately, the address of the videos is very predictable and I was able to build my own feeds:

The session videos are not available in all formats for every session (at least, not now) but, if you subscribe to all, you’ll get videos for all the sessions.

Subscribe and enjoy.

ASP.NET Futures: Control ClientID Generation

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:44:50 GMT

ASP.NET is expected to have some improvements on the generation of client IDs.

Although this is a major improvement, it comes short by not allowing the generation of shorter client IDs for server controls.

My good friend Nuno Gomes has done some work on generating shorter client IDs for controls (*).

Jeff has taken it one step further with his How to shorten ASP.NET automatically generated control IDs article on CodeProject.

If you want to see a running example, check out http://www.biocompare.com/.

(*)

Setting A Web Proxy Through Configuration In .NET Applications

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:06:00 GMT

Specially in enterprise environments, proxy servers are used to access the Internet.

In a Windows / Internet Explorer environments there is a proxy server configuration in Internet Properties > Connections > LAN settings > Proxy server.

Although these configurations are tightly connected to Internet Explorer, any well behaved Windows application should, at least, allow the user to choose to use them.

In applications targeting the .NET framework, these the proxy server can be set on a per call basis. Several networking classes have a Proxy property that receives a value implementing the IWebProxy interface.

In order for the Windows/ Internet Explorer configuration to be used, the application must be configured to use the default proxy settings.

This configuration is done in the machine or application file in the proxy element of the defaultProxy configuration section in the system.net section group:

<configuration>
  <system.net>
    <defaultProxy enabled="true">
      <proxy usesystemdefault="True"/>
    </defaultProxy>
  </system.net>
</configuration>

You can use this configuration also to set a specific proxy to be used by your application. In the following example, a proxy setting for using the Fiddler Tool is used:

<configuration>
  <system.net>
    <defaultProxy enabled="true">
      <proxy proxyaddress="http://ipv4.fiddler"/>
    </defaultProxy>
  </system.net>
</configuration>

Unfortunately, this is a MachineToApplication setting and, for that reason, is not allowed in the user settings configuration file, when in a shared installation. In these type of installations, the default Windows / Internet Explorer settings should be used as a default. If a user needs or wants to specify proxy server settings, application specific proxy server settings must be used but, assigning the user defined proxy server configuration to the GlobalProxySelection.Select property will allow its use for the entire application.

Another Great Example Of Silverlight Deep Zoom – From ViaTecla Innovation Laboratories

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 14:16:00 GMT

This innovative use of Deep Zoom uses screenshots of sites powered by ViaTecla’s software solutions to form a picture of a Santa Claus.

Saved By The .NET Framework Cleanup Tool – Again!

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:23:29 GMT

I don’t know what’s wrong with my XP system (besides the fact that I’m still using it) but I couldn’t install .NET 3.5 without removing .NET 2.0 and now I couldn’t install apply SP1 without removing .NET 3.0 and 3.5.

Fortunately, I was rescued by Aaron Stebner’s .NET Framework cleanup Tool – both times.

Kudos Aaron!

How To Issue Server Callbacks

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 01:03:48 GMT

Callbacks were introduced in ASP.NET 2.0 and is a simple mechanism for calling page or control functionality without page rendering and without the user noticing a post back.

For a page or control to handle callbacks, all it needs is to implement the ICallbackEventHandler Interface.

When the client calls back to de page or control, the initial state of the controls is posted along with the control being called upon in the __CALLBACKID field and the callback parameter in the __CALLBACKPARAM field.

It’s quite a simple procedure.

But what if you want to issue a callback server side?

In order for a request to be identified as a callback (IsCallback), the request must be a postback (IsPostback) and the before mentioned fields must be in the post data of the request. On the other hand, for a request to be considered a postback, the level of server calls (Transfer or Execute) must be 0 (meaning that the current request hasn’t made any Transfer or Execute calls) or the type of the page is the same of the Handler for the current request and the HTTP method is POST.

Changing the HTTP method is (as far as I know) impossible. So, if the request is not already a POST, there’s no way to issue a callback.

Setting the post data is easier. All it’s needed is to override the page’s DeterminePostBackMode method (or in a page adapter) and return the post data previously saved in a context item. Something like this:

protected override NameValueCollection DeterminePostBackMode()
{
    NameValueCollection postBackMode = Context.Items["callbackPostData"] as NameValueCollection;

    return (postBackMode != null) ? postBackMode : base.DeterminePostBackMode();
}

And issue a callback is something like this:

IHttpHandler handler = this.Context.Handler;
try
{
    NameValueCollection postData = new NameValueCollection();
    postData.Add("__CALLBACKID", sender);
    postData.Add("__CALLBACKPARAM", this.argument.Text);

    Context.Items["callbackPostData"] = postData;

    Page calledPage = (Page)PageParser.GetCompiledPageInstance("~/Callback1.aspx", this.Server.MapPath("~/Callback1.aspx"), this.Context);

    this.Context.Handler = calledPage;

    StringWriter writer = new StringWriter();

    Server.Execute(calledPage, writer, false);

    this.response.Text = writer.ToString();
}
finally
{
    this.Context.Handler = handler;
}

You can find an implementation of a caller and a called page here.

Improving Debugging And Testing Through Assertions

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:56:52 GMT

Reading through the The Typemock Insider blog, I came across this post from Gil Zilberfeld.

I myself tend to fall in Gil’s practice ("binary search" debugging), but I don’t think Kent Beck has the right solution.

Gil’s suggestion of using Isolator is tempting (I don’t miss an opportunity to use it), but still not my favorite one.

I prefer to use debug assertions. Debug assertions can be used when running a debug version of the application to pop-up assertion messages and when running unit tests to fail tests.

In order to use debug assertions in unit tests a “special” trace listener is needed to make the test fail when its Fail method is called.

public class UnitTestTraceListener : global::System.Diagnostics.DefaultTraceListener
{
     public UnitTestTraceListener() : base()
    {
        this.Name = "UnitTest";
        this.AssertUiEnabled = false;
    }

    public override void Fail(string message, string detailMessage)
    {
        Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting.Assert.Fail("Debug.Assert Failed: " + message + " " + detailMessage);
    }
}

Now, all you need to do is register it.

Registering the trace listener can either be done in code:

System.Diagnostics.Trace.Listeners.Remove("Default");
System.Diagnostics.Trace.Listeners.Add(new UnitTestTraceListener());

or configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <system.diagnostics>
    <assert assertuienabled="false"/>
    <trace>
      <listeners>
        <clear/>
        <add name="UnitTest" type="UnitTestTraceListener"/>
      </listeners>
    </trace>
  </system.diagnostics>
</configuration>

And if I’m using Isolator I have the take in account the accesses made in the call to the Assert method. More fun to me.

The Future Of C#

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:17:00 GMT

If you were able to attend this session at PDC or Tech-Ed EMEA Developers, you were presented with a first class presentation of the future of C#, presented, respectively, by Anders Hejlsberg and Mads Torgersen.

For the near future (.NET 4.0) C# will have:

Dynamically Typed Objects
Optional and Named Parameters
Improved COM Interoperability
Co- and Contra-variance

A preview of the compiler as a service was shown, but that’s not for the .NET 4.0 / Visual Studio 2010 timeframe. Probably, not even for the next.

Starting with .NET 4.0, C# and Visual Basic will converge in terms of features and follow a path of co-evolution going into the future.

No! That doesn’t mean that XML literals will be in C# in a foreseeable future. What that means is that the above list also applies to Visual Basic.

Talking of Visual Basic evolution, the _ line continuation character has been retired. If you have any use for the underscore, please visit http://www.unemployedunderscores.com/.

Resources:

C# Future
Microsoft Pre-release Software Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 Community Technology Preview (CTP)
Charlie Calvert's Community Blog
PDC Session: TL16 - The Future of C#

Presenter: Anders Hejlsberg

PPTX | WMV-HQ | WMV | Zune | MP4
PDC Session: TL12 - Future Directions for Microsoft Visual Basic

Presenter(s): Paul Vick, Lucian Wischik

PPTX | WMV-HQ | WMV | Zune | MP4

PDC And Tech-Ed Wrap-Up

Paulo Morgado — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:15:57 GMT

(It might seem a bit late for this, but, lately, I’ve been having a lot on my mind. So here it goes.)

This was my first PDC. It was just as I had been told.

For those who don’t know, the PDC is all about the future. The near future (.NET 4.0 and Windows 7) and the further future (Windows Azure, “Oslo”, “Dublin”, “Geneva”).

Next year’s PDC (Yes! Apparently, there’ll be one next year) will be also held in Los Angeles from November 17 to 20, and (I suspect) will be the commercial launch of the Azure Services Platform and a better story to tell about “Oslo”.

Tech-ED EMEA Developers, on the other hand, is more about the present and the near future. But, this year, attendees were able to have a sneak peek at what had bee shown at the PDC.

Next year’s Tech-ED EMEA Developers will be held in Berlin from November 2 to 6. Probably, like in 2006, it will be the launch of .NET 4.0 and Visual Studio 2010.

And I intend to attend both.

MSDN Ramp Up Program

Paulo Morgado — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:53:35 GMT

I just came across this: www.MyRampUp

Ramp Up is a free, online, community-based program that can help users save time in learning Microsoft technology.

The easy-to-access content (provided by subject-matter gurus) is specifically tailored to the Ramp Up program, and offered in a variety of forms (whitepaper, v-lab, codecast and slidecast).

The currently available routes are:

Currently, there are no assessments in the program, so it's quicker than ever to graduate and receive the reward (25% off on certification and 50% off on e-Learning - only for graduates of Ramp Up).

PDC2008 Is Over! PDC2009 Is Coming!

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 01:06:08 GMT