Paulo Morgado : Reflector

PowerShell For The .NET Developer

Paulo Morgado — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:03:12 GMT

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).

redgate .NET Reflector 5.1.5.0 Released

Paulo Morgado — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:47:35 GMT

Today redgate released version 5.1.5.0 of .NET Reflector.

It was a bumpy release. Early today, at work, as soon as @antsprofiler was announced the deployment of the new version I tried to upgrade and was offered an upgrade to the version 5.1.4.0 over and over again.

Early tonight, at home, when I tried to upgrade I was offered to upgrade to 5.1.5.0.

The funny thing is that, if I try to run it from C:\Program Files I get a UAC dialog the mentions Reflector 5.1.3.

Just moved to my C:\Program Files (Utils) and it all works fine.

Lutz Roeder’s .NET Reflector Is Now Red Gate’s .NET Reflector

Paulo Morgado — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:34:29 GMT

Let’s face it, if you don’t know .NET Reflector, you can never claim to be a .NET developer.

Today Red Gate announced the acquisition of Lutz Roeder’s .NET Reflector.

On .NET Reflector’s page, Red Gate states that “will continue to maintain a free version for the benefit of the community”.

You can read an interview with Lutz Roeder and James Moore (general manager of .NET Developer Tools at Red Gate) at simple-talk.

James doesn’t know yet how to improve Reflector, but I do. Reflector needs a major improvement on UI usability and performance. Let’s see if I can come up with a list:

For me, search as you type is not a good idea as it is in Reflector.
Still in the search theme, search as you type would be nice for the active code window.
I cannot understand why changing any of the options fires a total repaint and lost of the view of the active code item.
Settings like code, documentation and number formatting should possible to change on the fly with a simple toolbar click.

I’m sure Red Gate is more than capable of taking good care of .NET Reflector.

.NET Reflector 5.1.2.0 Released

Paulo Morgado — Sun, 18 May 2008 23:38:29 GMT

Get it from here.