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• Anatomy of a .NET Assembly - CLR metadata 1

  - by Simon Cooper

  Before we look at the bytes comprising the CLR-specific data inside an assembly, we first need to understand the logical format of the metadata (For this post I only be looking at simple pure-IL assemblies; mixed-mode assemblies & other things complicates things quite a bit). Metadata streams Most of the CLR-specific data inside an assembly is inside one of 5 streams, which are analogous to the sections in a PE file. The name of each section in a PE file starts with a ., and the name of each stream in the CLR metadata starts with a #. All but one of the streams are heaps, which store unstructured binary data. The predefined streams are: #~ Also called the metadata stream, this stream stores all the information on the types, methods, fields, properties and events in the assembly. Unlike the other streams, the metadata stream has predefined contents & structure. #Strings This heap is where all the namespace, type & member names are stored. It is referenced extensively from the #~ stream, as we'll be looking at later. #US Also known as the user string heap, this stream stores all the strings used in code directly. All the strings you embed in your source code end up in here. This stream is only referenced from method bodies. #GUID This heap exclusively stores GUIDs used throughout the assembly. #Blob This heap is for storing pure binary data - method signatures, generic instantiations, that sort of thing. Items inside the heaps (#Strings, #US, #GUID and #Blob) are indexed using a simple binary offset from the start of the heap. At that offset is a coded integer giving the length of that item, then the item's bytes immediately follow. The #GUID stream is slightly different, in that GUIDs are all 16 bytes long, so a length isn't required. Metadata tables The #~ stream contains all the assembly metadata. The metadata is organised into 45 tables, which are binary arrays of predefined structures containing information on various aspects of the metadata. Each entry in a table is called a row, and the rows are simply concatentated together in the file on disk. For example, each row in the TypeRef table contains: A reference to where the type is defined (most of the time, a row in the AssemblyRef table). An offset into the #Strings heap with the name of the type An offset into the #Strings heap with the namespace of the type. in that order. The important tables are (with their table number in hex): 0x2: TypeDef 0x4: FieldDef 0x6: MethodDef 0x14: EventDef 0x17: PropertyDef Contains basic information on all the types, fields, methods, events and properties defined in the assembly. 0x1: TypeRef The details of all the referenced types defined in other assemblies. 0xa: MemberRef The details of all the referenced members of types defined in other assemblies. 0x9: InterfaceImpl Links the types defined in the assembly with the interfaces that type implements. 0xc: CustomAttribute Contains information on all the attributes applied to elements in this assembly, from method parameters to the assembly itself. 0x18: MethodSemantics Links properties and events with the methods that comprise the get/set or add/remove methods of the property or method. 0x1b: TypeSpec 0x2b: MethodSpec These tables provide instantiations of generic types and methods for each usage within the assembly. There are several ways to reference a single row within a table. The simplest is to simply specify the 1-based row index (RID). The indexes are 1-based so a value of 0 can represent 'null'. In this case, which table the row index refers to is inferred from the context. If the table can't be determined from the context, then a particular row is specified using a token. This is a 4-byte value with the most significant byte specifying the table, and the other 3 specifying the 1-based RID within that table. This is generally how a metadata table row is referenced from the instruction stream in method bodies. The third way is to use a coded token, which we will look at in the next post. So, back to the bytes Now we've got a rough idea of how the metadata is logically arranged, we can now look at the bytes comprising the start of the CLR data within an assembly: The first 8 bytes of the .text section are used by the CLR loader stub. After that, the CLR-specific data starts with the CLI header. I've highlighted the important bytes in the diagram. In order, they are: The size of the header. As the header is a fixed size, this is always 0x48. The CLR major version. This is always 2, even for .NET 4 assemblies. The CLR minor version. This is always 5, even for .NET 4 assemblies, and seems to be ignored by the runtime. The RVA and size of the metadata header. In the diagram, the RVA 0x20e4 corresponds to the file offset 0x2e4 Various flags specifying if this assembly is pure-IL, whether it is strong name signed, and whether it should be run as 32-bit (this is how the CLR differentiates between x86 and AnyCPU assemblies). A token pointing to the entrypoint of the assembly. In this case, 06 (the last byte) refers to the MethodDef table, and 01 00 00 refers to to the first row in that table. (after a gap) RVA of the strong name signature hash, which comes straight after the CLI header. The RVA 0x2050 corresponds to file offset 0x250. The rest of the CLI header is mainly used in mixed-mode assemblies, and so is zeroed in this pure-IL assembly. After the CLI header comes the strong name hash, which is a SHA-1 hash of the assembly using the strong name key. After that comes the bodies of all the methods in the assembly concatentated together. Each method body starts off with a header, which I'll be looking at later. As you can see, this is a very small assembly with only 2 methods (an instance constructor and a Main method). After that, near the end of the .text section, comes the metadata, containing a metadata header and the 5 streams discussed above. We'll be looking at this in the next post. Conclusion The CLI header data doesn't have much to it, but we've covered some concepts that will be important in later posts - the logical structure of the CLR metadata and the overall layout of CLR data within the .text section. Next, I'll have a look at the contents of the #~ stream, and how the table data is arranged on disk.

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• How to implement an email unsubscribe system for a site with many kinds of emails?

  - by Mike Liu

  I'm working on a website that features many different types of emails. Users have accounts, and when logged in they have access to a setting page that they can use to customize what types of emails they receive. However, I'd like to also give users an easy way to unsubscribe directly in the emails they receive. I've looked into list unsubscribe headers as well as creating some type of one click link that would unsubscribe a user from that type of email without requiring login or further action. The later would probably require me to break convention and make changes to the database in response to a GET on the link. However, am I incorrect in thinking that either of these would require me to generate and permanently store a unique identifier in my database for every email I ever send, really complicating email delivery? Without that, I'm not sure how I would be able to uniquely identify a user and a type of email in order to change their email preferences, and this identifier would need to be stored forever as a user could have an email sitting in their inbox for a long time before they decide to act on it. Alternatively, I was considering having a no-login page for managing email preferences. In contrast to above where I would need one of these identifiers for each email, this would only need one identifier per user, with no generation or other action required on sending an email. All of these raise security issues, and they could potentially be used by people to tamper with others' email preferences. This could be mitigated somewhat by ensuring that the identifier is really difficult to guess. For the once per user identifier approach, I was considering generating the identifier by passing a user's ID through some type of encryption algorithm, is this a sound approach? For the per-email identifiers, perhaps I could use a user's ID appended to the time. However, even this would not eliminate the problem entirely, as this would really just be security through obscurity, and anyone with the URL could tamper, and in the end the main defense would have to be that most people aren't so bored as to tamper with other people's email preferences. Are there any other alternatives I've missed, or issues or solutions with these that anyone can provide insight on? What are best practices in this area?

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• Get Application Title from Windows Phone

  - by psheriff

  In a Windows Phone application that I am currently developing I needed to be able to retrieve the Application Title of the phone application. You can set the Deployment Title in the Properties of your Windows Phone Application, however getting to this value programmatically can be a little tricky. This article assumes that you have Visual Studio 2010 and the Windows Phone tools installed along with it. The Windows Phone tools must be downloaded separately and installed with Visual Studio2010. You may also download the free Visual Studio2010 Express for Windows Phone developer environment. The WMAppManifest.xml File First off you need to understand that when you set the Deployment Title in the Properties windows of your Windows Phone application, this title actually gets stored into an XML file located under the \Properties folder of your application. This XML file is named WMAppManifest.xml. A portion of this file is shown in the following listing. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><Deployment  http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsphone/2009/deployment"http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsphone/2009/deployment"  AppPlatformVersion="7.0">  <App xmlns=""       ProductID="{71d20842-9acc-4f2f-b0e0-8ef79842ea53}"       Title="Mobile Time Track"       RuntimeType="Silverlight"       Version="1.0.0.0"       Genre="apps.normal"       Author="PDSA, Inc."       Description="Mobile Time Track"       Publisher="PDSA, Inc."> ... ...  </App></Deployment> Notice the “Title” attribute in the <App> element in the above XML document. This is the value that gets set when you modify the Deployment Title in your Properties Window of your Phone project. The only value you can set from the Properties Window is the Title. All of the other attributes you see here must be set by going into the XML file and modifying them directly. Note that this information duplicates some of the information that you can also set from the Assembly Information… button in the Properties Window. Why Microsoft did not just use that information, I don’t know. Reading Attributes from WMAppManifest I searched all over the namespaces and classes within the Windows Phone DLLs and could not find a way to read the attributes within the <App> element. Thus, I had to resort to good old fashioned XML processing. First off I created a WinPhoneCommon class and added two static methods as shown in the snippet below: public class WinPhoneCommon{  /// <summary>  /// Returns the Application Title   /// from the WMAppManifest.xml file  /// </summary>  /// <returns>The application title</returns>  public static string GetApplicationTitle()  {    return GetWinPhoneAttribute("Title");  }   /// <summary>  /// Returns the Application Description   /// from the WMAppManifest.xml file  /// </summary>  /// <returns>The application description</returns>  public static string GetApplicationDescription()  {    return GetWinPhoneAttribute("Description");  }   ... GetWinPhoneAttribute method here ...} In your Windows Phone application you can now simply call WinPhoneCommon.GetApplicationTitle() or WinPhone.GetApplicationDescription() to retrieve the Title or Description properties from the WMAppManifest.xml file respectively. You notice that each of these methods makes a call to the GetWinPhoneAttribute method. This method is shown in the following code snippet: /// <summary>/// Gets an attribute from the Windows Phone WMAppManifest.xml file/// To use this method, add a reference to the System.Xml.Linq DLL/// </summary>/// <param name="attributeName">The attribute to read</param>/// <returns>The Attribute's Value</returns>private static string GetWinPhoneAttribute(string attributeName){  string ret = string.Empty;   try  {    XElement xe = XElement.Load("WMAppManifest.xml");    var attr = (from manifest in xe.Descendants("App")                select manifest).SingleOrDefault();    if (attr != null)      ret = attr.Attribute(attributeName).Value;  }  catch  {    // Ignore errors in case this method is called    // from design time in VS.NET  }   return ret;} I love using the new LINQ to XML classes contained in the System.Xml.Linq.dll. When I did a Bing search the only samples I found for reading attribute information from WMAppManifest.xml used either an XmlReader or XmlReaderSettings objects. These are fine and work, but involve a little extra code. Instead of using these, I added a reference to the System.Xml.Linq.dll, then added two using statements to the top of the WinPhoneCommon class: using System.Linq;using System.Xml.Linq; Now, with just a few lines of LINQ to XML code you can read to the App element and extract the appropriate attribute that you pass into the GetWinPhoneAttribute method. Notice that I added a little bit of exception handling code in this method. I ignore the exception in case you call this method in the Loaded event of a user control. In design-time you cannot access the WMAppManifest file and thus an exception would be thrown. Summary In this article you learned how to retrieve the attributes from the WMAppManifest.xml file. I use this technique to grab information that I would otherwise have to hard-code in my application. Getting the Title or Description for your Windows Phone application is easy with just a little bit of LINQ to XML code. NOTE: You can download the complete sample code at my website. http://www.pdsa.com/downloads. Choose Tips & Tricks, then "Get Application Title from Windows Phone" from the drop-down. Good Luck with your Coding,Paul Sheriff ** SPECIAL OFFER FOR MY BLOG READERS **Visit http://www.pdsa.com/Event/Blog for a free video on Silverlight entitled Silverlight XAML for the Complete Novice - Part 1.  

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• Using Apache FOP from .NET level

  - by Lukasz Kurylo

  In one of my previous posts I was talking about FO.NET which I was using to generate a pdf documents from XSL-FO. FO.NET is one of the .NET ports of Apache FOP. Unfortunatelly it is no longer maintained. I known it when I decidec to use it, because there is a lack of available (free) choices for .NET to render a pdf form XSL-FO. I hoped in this implementation I will find all I need to create a pdf file with my really simple requirements. FO.NET is a port from some old version of Apache FOP and I found really quickly that there is a lack of some features that I needed, like dotted borders, double borders or support for margins. So I started to looking for some alternatives. I didn’t try the NFOP, another port of Apache FOP, because I found something I think much more better, the IKVM.NET project.   IKVM.NET it is not a pdf renderer. So what it is? From the project site:   IKVM.NET is an implementation of Java for Mono and the Microsoft .NET Framework. It includes the following components: a Java Virtual Machine implemented in .NET a .NET implementation of the Java class libraries tools that enable Java and .NET interoperability   In the simplest form IKVM.NET allows to use a Java code library in the C# code and vice versa.   I tried to use an Apache FOP, the best I think open source pdf –> XSL-FO renderer written in Java from my project written in C# using an IKVM.NET and it work like a charm. In the rest of the post I want to show, how to prepare a .NET *.dll class library from Apache FOP *.jar’s with IKVM.NET and generate a simple Hello world pdf document.   To start playing with IKVM.NET and Apache FOP we need to download their packages: IKVM.NET Apache FOP and then unpack them.   From the FOP directory copy all the *.jar’s files from lib and build catalogs to some location, e.g. d:\fop. Second step is to build the *.dll library from these files. On the console execute the following comand:   ikvmc –target:library –out:d:\fop\fop.dll –recurse:d:\fop   The ikvmc is located in the bin subdirectory where you unpacked the IKVM.NET. You must execute this command from this catalog, add this path to the global variable PATH or specify the full path to the bin subdirectory.   In no error occurred during this process, the fop.dll library should be created. Right now we can create a simple project to test if we can create a pdf file.   So let’s create a simple console project application and add reference to the fop.dll and the IKVM dll’s: IKVM.OpenJDK.Core and IKVM.OpenJDK.XML.API.   Full code to generate a pdf file from XSL-FO template:   static void Main(string[] args)         {             //initialize the Apache FOP             FopFactory fopFactory = FopFactory.newInstance();               //in this stream we will get the generated pdf file             OutputStream o = new DotNetOutputMemoryStream();             try             {                 Fop fop = fopFactory.newFop("application/pdf", o);                 TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();                 Transformer transformer = factory.newTransformer();                   //read the template from disc                 Source src = new StreamSource(new File("HelloWorld.fo"));                 Result res = new SAXResult(fop.getDefaultHandler());                 transformer.transform(src, res);             }             finally             {                 o.close();             }             using (System.IO.FileStream fs = System.IO.File.Create("HelloWorld.pdf"))             {                 //write from the .NET MemoryStream stream to disc the generated pdf file                 var data = ((DotNetOutputMemoryStream)o).Stream.GetBuffer();                 fs.Write(data, 0, data.Length);             }             Process.Start("HelloWorld.pdf");             System.Console.ReadLine();         }   Apache FOP be default using a Java’s Xalan to work with XML files. I didn’t find a way to replace this piece of code with equivalent from .NET standard library. If any error or warning will occure during generating the pdf file, on the console will ge shown, that’s why I inserted the last line in the sample above. The DotNetOutputMemoryStream this is my wrapper for the Java OutputStream. I have created it to have the possibility to exchange data between the .NET <-> Java objects. It’s implementation:   class DotNetOutputMemoryStream : OutputStream     {         private System.IO.MemoryStream ms = new System.IO.MemoryStream();         public System.IO.MemoryStream Stream         {             get             {                 return ms;             }         }         public override void write(int i)         {             ms.WriteByte((byte)i);         }         public override void write(byte[] b, int off, int len)         {             ms.Write(b, off, len);         }         public override void write(byte[] b)         {             ms.Write(b, 0, b.Length);         }         public override void close()         {             ms.Close();         }         public override void flush()         {             ms.Flush();         }     } The last thing we need, this is the HelloWorld.fo template.   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <fo:root xmlns:fo="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format"          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">   <fo:layout-master-set>     <fo:simple-page-master master-name="simple"                   page-height="29.7cm"                   page-width="21cm"                   margin-top="1.8cm"                   margin-bottom="0.8cm"                   margin-left="1.6cm"                   margin-right="1.2cm">       <fo:region-body margin-top="3cm"/>       <fo:region-before extent="3cm"/>       <fo:region-after extent="1.5cm"/>     </fo:simple-page-master>   </fo:layout-master-set>   <fo:page-sequence master-reference="simple">     <fo:flow flow-name="xsl-region-body">       <fo:block font-size="18pt" color="black" text-align="center">         Hello, World!       </fo:block>     </fo:flow>   </fo:page-sequence> </fo:root>   I’m not going to explain how how this template is created, because this will be covered in the near future posts.   Generated pdf file should look that:

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• Given the presentation model pattern, is the view, presentation model, or model responsible for adding child views to an existing view at runtime?

  - by Ryan Taylor

  I am building a Flex 4 based application using the presentation model design pattern. This application will have several different components to it as shown in the image below. The MainView and DashboardView will always be visible and they each have corresponding presentation models and models as necessary. These views are easily created by declaring their MXML in the application root. <s:HGroup width="100%" height="100%"> <MainView width="75% height="100%"/> <DashboardView width="25%" height="100%"/> </s:HGroup> There will also be many WidgetViewN views that can be added to the DashboardView by the user at runtime through a simple drop down list. This will need to be accomplished via ActionScript. The drop down list should always show what WidgetViewN has already been added to the DashboardView. Therefore some state about which WidgetViewN's have been created needs to be stored. Since the list of available WidgetViewN and which ones are added to the DashboardView also need to be accessible from other components in the system I think this needs to be stored in a Model object. My understanding of the presentation model design pattern is that the view is very lean. It contains as close to zero logic as is practical. The view communicates/binds to the presentation model which contains all the necessary view logic. The presentation model is effectively an abstract representation of the view which supports low coupling and eases testability. The presentation model may have one or more models injected in in order to display the necessary information. The models themselves contain no view logic whatsoever. So I have a several questions around this design. Who should be responsible for creating the WidgetViewN components and adding these to the DashboardView? Is this the responsibility of the DashboardView, DashboardPresentationModel, DashboardModel or something else entirely? It seems like the DashboardPresentationModel would be responsible for creating/adding/removing any child views from it's display but how do you do this without passing in the DashboardView to the DashboardPresentationModel? The list of available and visible WidgetViewN components needs to be accessible to a few other components as well. Is it okay for a reference to a WidgetViewN to be stored/referenced in a model? Are there any good examples of the presentation model pattern online in Flex that also include creating child views at runtime?

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• Get to Know a Candidate (12 of 25): Andre Barnett&ndash;Reform Party

  - by Brian Lanham

  DISCLAIMER: This is not a post about “Romney” or “Obama”. This is not a post for whom I am voting. Information sourced for Wikipedia. Barnett is an American politician and entrepreneur. He is the founder of the information technology (IT) company WiseDome Inc.  Barnett was born in Zanesville, Ohio in 1976. He attended Austin Peay State University and Western Governors University.  A former member of the United States Armed Forces, Barnett served in Sarajevo before being wounded in a helicopter accident.  Following his military service, Barnett became a fitness model in New York. In 2001, he founded WiseDome Incorporated, an IT company that provides information technology and data recovery services. Reform Party of the United States of America (RPUSA), generally known as the Reform Party USA or the Reform Party, is a political party in the United States, founded in 1995 by Ross Perot. Perot said Americans were disillusioned with the state of politics—as being corrupt and unable to deal with vital issues—and desired a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic Parties. The party has nominated different candidates over the years, such as founder Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, and Ralph Nader. The party's most significant victory came when Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota in 1998. Since then, the party has been torn by infighting and disagreements, which it seeks to overcome. The Reform Party platform includes the following: * Maintaining a balanced budget, ensured by passing a Balanced Budget Amendment and changing budgeting practices, and paying down the federal debt * Campaign finance reform, including strict limits on campaign contributions and the outlawing of the Political action committee * Enforcement of existing immigration laws and opposition to illegal immigration * Opposition to free trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement and Central America Free Trade Agreement, and a call for withdrawal from the World Trade Organization * Term limits on U.S. Representatives and Senators * Direct election of the United States President by popular vote * Federal elections held on weekends A noticeable absence from the Reform Party platform has been social issues, including abortion and gay rights. Reform Party representatives had long stated beliefs that their party could bring together people from both sides of these issues, which they consider divisive, to address what they considered to be more vital concerns as expressed in their platform. The idea was to form a large coalition of moderates; that intention was overridden in 2001 by the Buchanan takeover which rewrote the RPUSA Constitution to specifically include platform planks opposed to any form of abortion. The Buchananists, in turn, were overridden by the 2002 Convention which specifically reverted the Constitution to its 1996 version and the party's original stated goals. Barnett has Ballot Access in: FL Learn more about Andre Barnett and Reform Party on Wikipedia.

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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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• Answers to Your Common Oracle Database Lifecycle Management Questions

  - by Scott McNeil

  We recently ran a live webcast on Strategies for Managing Oracle Database's Lifecycle. There were tons of questions from our audience that we simply could not get to during the hour long presentation. Below are some of those questions along with their answers. Enjoy! Question: In the webcast the presenter talked about “gold” configuration standards, for those who want to use this technique, could you recommend a best practice to consider or follow? How do I get started? Answer:Gold configuration standardization is a quick and easy way to improve availability through consistency. Start by choosing a reference database and saving the configuration to the Oracle Enterprise Manager repository using the Save Configuration feature. Next create a comparison template using the Oracle provided template as a starting point and modify the ignored properties to eliminate expected differences in your environment. Finally create a comparison specification using the comparison template you created plus your saved gold configuration and schedule it to run on a regular basis. Don’t forget to fill in the email addresses of those you want to notify upon drift detection. Watch the database configuration management demo to learn more. Question: Can Oracle Lifecycle Management Pack for Database help with patching an Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) environment? Answer: Yes, Oracle Enterprise Manager supports both parallel and rolling patch application of Oracle Real Application Clusters. The use of rolling patching is recommended as there is no downtime involved. For more details watch this demo. Question: What are some of the things administrators can do to control configuration drift? Why is it important? Answer:Configuration drift is one of the main causes of instability and downtime of applications. Oracle Enterprise Manager makes it easy to manage and control drift using scheduled configuration comparisons combined with comparison templates. Question: Does Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2 offer an incremental update feature for "gold" images? For instance, if the source binary has a higher PSU level, what is the best approach to update the existing "gold" image in the software library? Do you have to create a new image or can you just update the original one? Answer:Provisioning Profiles (Gold images) can contain the installation files and database configuration templates. Although it is possible to make some changes to the profile after creation (mainly to configuration), it is normally recommended to simply create a new profile after applying a patch to your reference database. Question: The webcast talked about enforcing in-house standards, does Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c offer verification of your databases and systems to those standards? For example, the initial "gold" image has been massively deployed over time, and there may be some changes to it. How can you do regular checks from Enterprise Manager to ensure the in-house standards are being enforced? Answer:There are really two methods to validate conformity to standards. The first method is to use gold standards which you compare other databases to report unwanted differences. This method uses a new comparison template technology which allows users to ignore known differences (i.e. SID, Start time, etc) which results in a report only showing important or non-conformant differences. This method is quick to setup and configure and recommended for those who want to get started validating compliance quickly. The second method leverages the new compliance framework which allows the creation of specific and robust validations. These compliance rules are grouped into standards which can be assigned to databases quickly and easily. Compliance rules allow for targeted and more sophisticated validation beyond the basic equals operation available in the comparison method. The compliance framework can be used to implement just about any internal or industry standard. The compliance results will track current and historic compliance scores at the overall and individual database targets. When the issue is resolved, the score is automatically affected. Compliance framework is the recommended long term solution for validating compliance using Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c. Check out this demo on database compliance to learn more. Question: If you are using the integration between Oracle Enterprise Manager and My Oracle Support in an "offline" mode, how do you know if you have the latest My Oracle Support metadata? Answer:In Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c Release 2, you now only need to download one zip file containing all of the metadata xmls files. There is no indication that the metadata has changed but you could run a checksum on the file and compare it to the previously downloaded version to see if it has changed. Question: What happens if a patch fails while administrators are applying it to a database or system? Answer:A large portion of Oracle Enterprise Manager's patch automation is the pre-requisite checks that happen to ensure the highest level of confidence the patch will successfully apply. It is recommended you test the patch in a non-production environment and save the patch plan as a template once successful so you can create new plans using the saved template. If you are using the recommended ‘out of place’ patching methodology, there is no urgency because the database is still running as the cloned Oracle home is being patched. Users can address the issue and restart the patch procedure at the point it left off. If you are using 'in place' method, you can address the issue and continue where the procedure left off. Question: Can Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c R2 compare configurations between more than one target at the same time? Answer:Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c can compare any number of target configurations at one time. This is the basis of many important use cases including Configuration Drift Management. These comparisons can also be scheduled on a regular basis and emails notification sent should any differences appear. To learn more about configuration search and compare watch this demo. Question: How is data comparison done since changes are taking place in a live production system? Answer:There are many things to keep in mind when using the data comparison feature (as part of the Change Management ability to compare table data). It was primarily intended to be used for maintaining consistency of important but relatively static data. For example, application seed data and application setup configuration. This data does not change often but is critical when testing an application to ensure results are consistent with production. It is not recommended to use data comparison on highly dynamic data like transactional tables or very large tables. Question: Which versions of Oracle Database can be monitored through Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c? Answer:Oracle Database versions: 9.2.0.8, 10.1.0.5, 10.2.0.4, 10.2.0.5, 11.1.0.7, 11.2.0.1, 11.2.0.2, 11.2.0.3. Watch the On-Demand Webcast Stay Connected: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Linkedin | NewsletterDownload the Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control12c Mobile app

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• Export all SSIS packages from msdb using Powershell

  - by jamiet

  Have you ever wanted to dump all the SSIS packages stored in msdb out to files? Of course you have, who wouldn’t? Right? Well, at least one person does because this was the subject of a thread (save all ssis packages to file) on the SSIS forum earlier today. Some of you may have already figured out a way of doing this but for those that haven’t here is a nifty little script that will do it for you and it uses our favourite jack-of-all tools … Powershell!! Imagine I have the following package folder structure on my Integration Services server (i.e. in [msdb]): There are two packages in there called “20110111 Chaining Expression components” & “Package”, I want to export those two packages into a folder structure that mirrors that in [msdb]. Here is the Powershell script that will do that:Param($SQLInstance = "localhost") #####Add all the SQL goodies (including Invoke-Sqlcmd)##### add-pssnapin sqlserverprovidersnapin100 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue add-pssnapin sqlservercmdletsnapin100 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue cls $Packages = Invoke-Sqlcmd -MaxCharLength 10000000 -ServerInstance $SQLInstance -Query "WITH cte AS ( SELECT cast(foldername as varchar(max)) as folderpath, folderid FROM msdb..sysssispackagefolders WHERE parentfolderid = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000' UNION ALL SELECT cast(c.folderpath + '\' + f.foldername as varchar(max)), f.folderid FROM msdb..sysssispackagefolders f INNER JOIN cte c ON c.folderid = f.parentfolderid ) SELECT c.folderpath,p.name,CAST(CAST(packagedata AS VARBINARY(MAX)) AS VARCHAR(MAX)) as pkg FROM cte c INNER JOIN msdb..sysssispackages p ON c.folderid = p.folderid WHERE c.folderpath NOT LIKE 'Data Collector%'" Foreach ($pkg in $Packages) { $pkgName = $Pkg.name $folderPath = $Pkg.folderpath $fullfolderPath = "c:\temp\$folderPath\" if(!(test-path -path $fullfolderPath)) { mkdir $fullfolderPath | Out-Null } $pkg.pkg | Out-File -Force -encoding ascii -FilePath "$fullfolderPath\$pkgName.dtsx" } To run it simply change the “localhost” parameter of the server you want to connect to either by editing the script or passing it in when the script is executed. It will create the folder structure in C:\Temp (which you can also easily change if you so wish – just edit the script accordingly). Here’s the folder structure that it created for me: Notice how it is a mirror of the folder structure in [msdb]. Hope this is useful! @Jamiet UPDATE: THis post prompted Chad Miller to write a post describing his Powershell add-in that utilises a SSIS API to do exporting of packages. Go take a read here: http://sev17.com/2011/02/importing-and-exporting-ssis-packages-using-powershell/

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• Ubuntu 12.04 won't load - hangs at Busybox v1.18.5 / initramfs

  - by Marty

  I want to start by saying that I am very new with Linux (about 1 month using it). I have had no problems up until now. I am running Ubuntu 12.04 from a Toshiba laptop with 250 GB hard drive and 3 GB of ram. Everything worked fine yesterday. The only changes I made was was that I downloaded Banshee to try as a replacement for Rhythmbox and did a few recommended updates. This morning I tried to boot and it took a long time and I finally got this error: mount: mounting /dev/disk/by-uuid/02bc41cc-1e21-4700-a179-be2805a658c4 on /root failed: Invalid argument mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory mount: mounting /proc on /root/proc failed: No such file or directory Target filesystem doesn't have requested /sbin/init. No init found. Try passing init= bootarg. BusyBox v1.18. (Ubuntu 1:1.18.5-1ubuntu4) built-in shell (ash) Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands (initramfs) I'm not sure what to do beyond this point. I have read around on here and haven't found the help I need. I did try to boot it from the Live CD. I can boot up to the Try Ubuntu/Install Ubuntu screen. When I go through the Try Ubuntu selection I can't access my hard disk. When I clicked on it I got this error: Unable to mount 247 GB Filesystem Error mounting: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda/1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error. In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg|tail or so. I tried dmesg|tail and saw a string of values but nothing that looked helpful. I have also tried to boot from the GRUB screen as recovery mode and previous Linux version but they didn't work either. I tried to load Windows Recovery Environment (loader) (on /dev/sdc3) and got this message: error: no such device: 268057B1805785E9 error: hd1 cannot get C/H/S values I had saw somewhere that I could fix this with the Live CD but my knowledge isn't good enough to try. I tried something with Gpart that I had read, but the system told me that I didn't have Gpart. Could someone please explain to me what I need to do and/or haven't tried yet. Thanks so much!

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• 6 Facts About GlassFish Announcement

  - by Bruno.Borges

  Since Oracle announced the end of commercial support for future Oracle GlassFish Server versions, the Java EE world has started wondering what will happen to GlassFish Server Open Source Edition. Unfortunately, there's a lot of misleading information going around. So let me clarify some things with facts, not FUD. Fact #1 - GlassFish Open Source Edition is not dead GlassFish Server Open Source Edition will remain the reference implementation of Java EE. The current trunk is where an implementation for Java EE 8 will flourish, and this will become the future GlassFish 5.0. Calling "GlassFish is dead" does no good to the Java EE ecosystem. The GlassFish Community will remain strong towards the future of Java EE. Without revenue-focused mind, this might actually help the GlassFish community to shape the next version, and set free from any ties with commercial decisions. Fact #2 - OGS support is not over As I said before, GlassFish Server Open Source Edition will continue. Main change is that there will be no more future commercial releases of Oracle GlassFish Server. New and existing OGS 2.1.x and 3.1.x commercial customers will continue to be supported according to the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy. In parallel, I believe there's no other company in the Java EE business that offers commercial support to more than one build of a Java EE application server. This new direction can actually help customers and partners, simplifying decision through commercial negotiations. Fact #3 - WebLogic is not always more expensive than OGS Oracle GlassFish Server ("OGS") is a build of GlassFish Server Open Source Edition bundled with a set of commercial features called GlassFish Server Control and license bundles such as Java SE Support. OGS has at the moment of this writing the pricelist of U$ 5,000 / processor. One information that some bloggers are mentioning is that WebLogic is more expensive than this. Fact 3.1: it is not necessarily the case. The initial edition of WebLogic is called "Standard Edition" and falls into a policy where some “Standard Edition” products are licensed on a per socket basis. As of current pricelist, US$ 10,000 / socket. If you do the math, you will realize that WebLogic SE can actually be significantly more cost effective than OGS, and a customer can save money if running on a CPU with 4 cores or more for example. Quote from the price list: “When licensing Oracle programs with Standard Edition One or Standard Edition in the product name (with the exception of Java SE Support, Java SE Advanced, and Java SE Suite), a processor is counted equivalent to an occupied socket; however, in the case of multi-chip modules, each chip in the multi-chip module is counted as one occupied socket.” For more details speak to your Oracle sales representative - this is clearly at list price and every customer typically has a relationship with Oracle (like they do with other vendors) and different contractual details may apply. And although OGS has always been production-ready for Java EE applications, it is no secret that WebLogic has always been more enterprise, mission critical application server than OGS since BEA. Different editions of WLS provide features and upgrade irons like the WebLogic Diagnostic Framework, Work Managers, Side by Side Deployment, ADF and TopLink bundled license, Web Tier (Oracle HTTP Server) bundled licensed, Fusion Middleware stack support, Oracle DB integration features, Oracle RAC features (such as GridLink), Coherence Management capabilities, Advanced HA (Whole Service Migration and Server Migration), Java Mission Control, Flight Recorder, Oracle JDK support, etc. Fact #4 - There’s no major vendor supporting community builds of Java EE app servers There are no major vendors providing support for community builds of any Open Source application server. For example, IBM used to provide community support for builds of Apache Geronimo, not anymore. Red Hat does not commercially support builds of WildFly and if I remember correctly, never supported community builds of former JBoss AS. Oracle has never commercially supported GlassFish Server Open Source Edition builds. Tomitribe appears to be the exception to the rule, offering commercial support for Apache TomEE. Fact #5 - WebLogic and GlassFish share several Java EE implementations It has been no secret that although GlassFish and WebLogic share some JSR implementations (as stated in the The Aquarium announcement: JPA, JSF, WebSockets, CDI, Bean Validation, JAX-WS, JAXB, and WS-AT) and WebLogic understands GlassFish deployment descriptors, they are not from the same codebase. Fact #6 - WebLogic is not for GlassFish what JBoss EAP is for WildFly WebLogic is closed-source offering. It is commercialized through a license-based plus support fee model. OGS although from an Open Source code, has had the same commercial model as WebLogic. Still, one cannot compare GlassFish/WebLogic to WildFly/JBoss EAP. It is simply not the same case, since Oracle has had two different products from different codebases. The comparison should be limited to GlassFish Open Source / Oracle GlassFish Server versus WildFly / JBoss EAP. But the message now is much clear: Oracle will commercially support only the proprietary product WebLogic, and invest on GlassFish Server Open Source Edition as the reference implementation for the Java EE platform and future Java EE 8, as a developer-friendly community distribution, and encourages community participation through Adopt a JSR and contributions to GlassFish. In comparison Oracle's decision has pretty much the same goal as to when IBM killed support for Websphere Community Edition; and to when Red Hat decided to change the name of JBoss Community Edition to WildFly, simplifying and clarifying marketing message and leaving the commercial field wide open to JBoss EAP only. Oracle can now, as any other vendor has already been doing, focus on only one commercial offer. Some users are saying they will now move to WildFly, but it is important to note that Red Hat does not offer commercial support for WildFly builds. Although the future JBoss EAP versions will come from the same codebase as WildFly, the builds will definitely not be the same, nor sharing 100% of their functionalities and bug fixes. This means there will be no company running a WildFly build in production with support from Red Hat. This discussion has also raised an important and interesting information: Oracle offers a free for developers OTN License for WebLogic. For other environments this is different, but please note this is the same policy Red Hat applies to JBoss EAP, as stated in their download page and terms. Oracle had the same policy for OGS. TL;DR; GlassFish Server Open Source Edition isn’t dead. Current and new OGS 2.x/3.x customers will continue to have support (respecting LSP). WebLogic is not necessarily more expensive than OGS. Oracle will focus on one commercially supported Java EE application server, like other vendors also limit themselves to support one build/product only. Community builds are hardly supported. Commercially supported builds of Open Source products are not exactly from the same codebase as community builds. What's next for GlassFish and the Java EE community? There are conversations in place to tackle some of the community desires, most of them stated by Markus Eisele in his blog post. We will keep you posted.

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• VirtualBox 4.2.14 is now available

  - by user12611829

  The VirtualBox development team has just released version 4.2.14, and it is now available for download. This is a maintenance release for version 4.2 and contains quite a few fixes. Here is the list from the official Changelog. VMM: another TLB invalidation fix for non-present pages VMM: fixed a performance regression (4.2.8 regression; bug #11674) GUI: fixed a crash on shutdown GUI: prevent stuck keys under certain conditions on Windows hosts (bugs #2613, #6171) VRDP: fixed a rare crash on the guest screen resize VRDP: allow to change VRDP parameters (including enabling/disabling the server) if the VM is paused USB: fixed passing through devices on Mac OS X host to a VM with 2 or more virtual CPUs (bug #7462) USB: fixed hang during isochronous transfer with certain devices (4.1 regression; Windows hosts only; bug #11839) USB: properly handle orphaned URBs (bug #11207) BIOS: fixed function for returning the PCI interrupt routing table (fixes NetWare 6.x guests) BIOS: don't use the ENTER / LEAVE instructions in the BIOS as these don't work in the real mode as set up by certain guests (e.g. Plan 9 and QNX 4) DMI: allow to configure DmiChassisType (bug #11832) Storage: fixed lost writes if iSCSI is used with snapshots and asynchronous I/O (bug #11479) Storage: fixed accessing certain VHDX images created by Windows 8 (bug #11502) Storage: fixed hang when creating a snapshot using Parallels disk images (bug #9617) 3D: seamless + 3D fixes (bug #11723) 3D: version 4.2.12 was not able to read saved states of older versions under certain conditions (bug #11718) Main/Properties: don't create a guest property for non-running VMs if the property does not exist and is about to be removed (bug #11765) Main/Properties: don't forget to make new guest properties persistent after the VM was terminated (bug #11719) Main/Display: don't lose seamless regions during screen resize Main/OVF: don't crash during import if the client forgot to call Appliance::interpret() (bug #10845) Main/OVF: don't create invalid appliances by stripping the file name if the VM name is very long (bug #11814) Main/OVF: don't fail if the appliance contains multiple file references (bug #10689) Main/Metrics: fixed Solaris file descriptor leak Settings: limit depth of snapshot tree to 250 levels, as more will lead to decreased performance and may trigger crashes VBoxManage: fixed setting the parent UUID on diff images using sethdparentuuid Linux hosts: work around for not crashing as a result of automatic NUMA balancing which was introduced in Linux 3.8 (bug #11610) Windows installer: force the installation of the public certificate in background (i.e. completely prevent user interaction) if the --silent command line option is specified Windows Additions: fixed problems with partial install in the unattended case Windows Additions: fixed display glitch with the Start button in seamless mode for some themes Windows Additions: Seamless mode and auto-resize fixes Windows Additions: fixed trying to to retrieve new auto-logon credentials if current ones were not processed yet Windows Additions installer: added the /with_wddm switch to select the experimental WDDM driver by default Linux Additions: fixed setting own timed out and aborted texts in information label of the lightdm greeter Linux Additions: fixed compilation against Linux 3.2.0 Ubuntu kernels (4.2.12 regression as a side effect of the Debian kernel build fix; bug #11709) X11 Additions: reduced the CPU load of VBoxClient in drag'and'drop mode OS/2 Additions: made the mouse wheel work (bug #6793) Guest Additions: fixed problems copying and pasting between two guests on an X11 host (bug #11792) The full changelog can be found here. You can download binaries for Solaris, Linux, Windows and MacOS hosts at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads Technocrati Tags: Oracle Virtualization VirtualBox

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• Problems Rendering Text in OpenGL Using FreeType

  - by Sean M.

  I've been following both the FreeType2 tutorial and the WikiBooks tuorial, trying to combine things from them both in order to load and render fonts using the FreeType library. I used the font loading code from the FreeType2 tutorial and tried to implement the rendering code from the wikibooks tutorial (tried being the keyword as I'm still trying to learn model OpenGL, I'm using 3.2). Everything loads correctly and I have the shader program to render the text with working, but I can't get the text to render. I'm 99% sure that it has something to do with how I cam passing data to the shader, or how I set up the screen. These are the code segments that handle OpenGL initialization, as well as Font initialization and rendering: //Init glfw if (!glfwInit()) { fprintf(stderr, "GLFW Initialization has failed!\n"); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } printf("GLFW Initialized.\n"); //Process the command line arguments processCmdArgs(argc, argv); //Create the window glfwWindowHint(GLFW_SAMPLES, g_aaSamples); glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MAJOR, 3); glfwWindowHint(GLFW_CONTEXT_VERSION_MINOR, 2); g_mainWindow = glfwCreateWindow(g_screenWidth, g_screenHeight, "Voxel Shipyard", g_fullScreen ? glfwGetPrimaryMonitor() : nullptr, nullptr); if (!g_mainWindow) { fprintf(stderr, "Could not create GLFW window!\n"); closeOGL(); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } glfwMakeContextCurrent(g_mainWindow); printf("Window and OpenGL rendering context created.\n"); glClearColor(0.2f, 0.2f, 0.2f, 1.0f); //Are these necessary for Modern OpenGL (3.0+)? glViewport(0, 0, g_screenWidth, g_screenHeight); glOrtho(0, g_screenWidth, g_screenHeight, 0, -1, 1); //Init glew int err = glewInit(); if (err != GLEW_OK) { fprintf(stderr, "GLEW initialization failed!\n"); fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", glewGetErrorString(err)); closeOGL(); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } printf("GLEW initialized.\n"); Here is the font file (it's slightly too big to post): CFont.h/CFont.cpp Here is the solution zipped up: [solution] (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/36062916/VoxelShipyard.zip), if anyone feels they need the entire solution. If anyone could take a look at the code, it would be greatly appreciated. Also if someone has a tutorial that is a little more user friendly, that would also be appreciated. Thanks.

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• Control-Break Style ADF Table - Comparing Values with Previous Row

  - by Steven Davelaar

  Sometimes you need to display data in an ADF Faces table in a control-break layout style, where rows should be "indented" when the break column has the same value as in the previous row. In the screen shot below, you see how the table breaks on both the RegionId column as well as the CountryId column. To implement this I didn't use fancy SQL statements. The table is based on a straightforward Locations ViewObject that is based on the Locations entity object and the Countries reference entity object, and the join query was automatically created by adding the reference EO. To get the indentation in the ADF Faces table, we simple use two rendered properties on the RegionId and CountryId outputText items:  <af:column sortProperty="RegionId" sortable="false"            headerText="#{bindings.LocationsView1.hints.RegionId.label}"            id="c5">   <af:outputText value="#{row.RegionId}" id="ot2"                  rendered="#{!CompareWithPreviousRowBean['RegionId']}">     <af:convertNumber groupingUsed="false"                       pattern="#{bindings.LocationsView1.hints.RegionId.format}"/>   </af:outputText> </af:column> <af:column sortProperty="CountryId" sortable="false"            headerText="#{bindings.LocationsView1.hints.CountryId.label}"            id="c1">   <af:outputText value="#{row.CountryId}" id="ot5"                  rendered="#{!CompareWithPreviousRowBean['CountryId']}"/> </af:column> The CompareWithPreviousRowBean managed bean is defined in request scope and is a generic bean that can be used for all the tables in your application that needs this layout style. As you can see the bean is a Map-style bean where we pass in the name of the attribute that should be compared with the previous row. The get method in the bean that is called returns boolean false when the attribute has the same value in the same row. Here is the code of the get method:  public Object get(Object key) {   String attrName = (String) key;   boolean isSame = false;   // get the currently processed row, using row expression #{row}   JUCtrlHierNodeBinding row = (JUCtrlHierNodeBinding) resolveExpression(getRowExpression());   JUCtrlHierBinding tableBinding = row.getHierBinding();   int rowRangeIndex = row.getViewObject().getRangeIndexOf(row.getRow());   Object currentAttrValue = row.getRow().getAttribute(attrName);   if (rowRangeIndex > 0)   {     Object previousAttrValue = tableBinding.getAttributeFromRow(rowRangeIndex - 1, attrName);     isSame = currentAttrValue != null && currentAttrValue.equals(previousAttrValue);   }   else if (tableBinding.getRangeStart() > 0)   {     // previous row is in previous range, we create separate rowset iterator,     // so we can change the range start without messing up the table rendering which uses     // the default rowset iterator     int absoluteIndexPreviousRow = tableBinding.getRangeStart() - 1;     RowSetIterator rsi = null;     try     {       rsi = tableBinding.getViewObject().getRowSet().createRowSetIterator(null);       rsi.setRangeStart(absoluteIndexPreviousRow);       Row previousRow = rsi.getRowAtRangeIndex(0);       Object previousAttrValue = previousRow.getAttribute(attrName);       isSame = currentAttrValue != null && currentAttrValue.equals(previousAttrValue);     }     finally     {       rsi.closeRowSetIterator();     }   }   return isSame; } The row expression defaults to #{row} but this can be changed through the rowExpression  managed property of the bean.  You can download the sample application here.

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• How To: Using spatial data with Entity Framework and Connector/Net

  - by GABMARTINEZ

  One of the new features introduced in Entity Framework 5.0 is the incorporation of some new types of data within an Entity Data Model: the spatial data types. These types allow us to perform operations on coordinates values in an easier way. There's no need to add stored routines or functions for every operation among these geometry types, now the user can have the alternative to put this logic on his application or keep it in the database. In the new 6.7.4 version there's also this new feature incorporated to Connector/Net library so our users can start exploring it and could provide us some feedback or comments about this new functionality. Through this tutorial on how to create a Code First Entity Model with a geometry column, we'll show an example on using Geometry types and some common operations when using geometry types inside an application. Requirements: - Connector/Net 6.7.4 - Entity Framework 5.0 version - .NET Framework 4.5 version - Basic understanding on Entity Framework and C# language. - An installed and running instance of MySQL Server 5.5.x or 5.6.10 version- Visual Studio 2012. Step One: Create a new Console Application  Inside Visual Studio select File->New Project menu option and select the Console Application template. Also make sure the .Net 4.5 version is selected so the new features for EF 5.0 will work with the application. Step Two: Add the Entity Framework Package For adding the Entity Framework Package there is more than one option: the package manager console or the Manage Nuget Packages option dialog. If you want to open the Package Manager Console, go to the Tools Menu -> Library Package Manager -> Package Manager Console. On the Package Manager Console Type:Install-Package EntityFrameworkThis will add the reference to the project of the latest released No alpha version of Entity Framework. Step Three: Adding Entity class and DBContext We'll add a simple class that represents a table entity to save some places and its location using a DBGeometry column that will be mapped to a Geometry type in MySQL. After that some operations can be performed using this data. public class MyPlace { [Key] public int Id { get; set; } public string name { get; set; } public DbGeometry location { get; set; } } public class JourneyDb : DbContext { public DbSet<MyPlace> MyPlaces { get; set; } }  Also make sure to add the connection string to the App.Config file as in the example: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <configuration>   <configSections>     <!-- For more information on Entity Framework configuration, visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=237468 -->     <section name="entityFramework" type="System.Data.Entity.Internal.ConfigFile.EntityFrameworkSection, EntityFramework, Version=5.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />   </configSections>   <startup>     <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />   </startup>   <connectionStrings>     <add name="JourneyDb" connectionString="server=localhost;userid=root;pwd=;database=journeydb" providerName="MySql.Data.MySqlClient"/>   </connectionStrings>   <entityFramework>     </entityFramework> </configuration> Note also that the <entityFramework> section is empty.Step Four: Adding some new records.On the Program.cs file add the following code for the Main method so the Database gets created and also some new data can be added to the new table. This code adds some records containing some determinate locations. After being added a distance function will be used to know how much distance has each location in reference to the Queens Village Station in New York. static void Main(string[] args)    {     using (JourneyDb cxt = new JourneyDb())      {        cxt.Database.Delete();        cxt.Database.Create();         cxt.MyPlaces.Add(new MyPlace()        {          name = "JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT OF NEW YORK",          location = DbGeometry.FromText("POINT(40.644047 -73.782291)"),        });         cxt.MyPlaces.Add(new MyPlace()        {          name = "ALLEY POND PARK",          location = DbGeometry.FromText("POINT(40.745696 -73.742638)"),        });       cxt.MyPlaces.Add(new MyPlace()        {          name = "CUNNINGHAM PARK",          location = DbGeometry.FromText("POINT(40.735031 -73.768387)"),        });         cxt.MyPlaces.Add(new MyPlace()        {          name = "QUEENS VILLAGE STATION",          location = DbGeometry.FromText("POINT(40.717957 -73.736501)"),        });         cxt.SaveChanges();         var points = (from p in cxt.MyPlaces                      select new { p.name, p.location });        foreach (var item in points)       {         Console.WriteLine("Location " + item.name + " has a distance in Km from Queens Village Station " + DbGeometry.FromText("POINT(40.717957 -73.736501)").Distance(item.location) * 100);       }       Console.ReadKey();      }  }}Output : Location JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT OF NEW YORK has a distance from Queens Village Station 8.69448802402959 Km. Location ALLEY POND PARK has a distance from Queens Village Station 2.84097675104912 Km. Location CUNNINGHAM PARK has a distance from Queens Village Station 3.61695793727275 Km. Location QUEENS VILLAGE STATION has a distance from Queens Village Station 0 Km. Conclusion:Adding spatial data to a table is easier than before when having Entity Framework 5.0. This new Entity Framework feature that handles spatial data columns within the Data layer has a lot of integrated functions and methods toease this type of tasks.Notes:This version of Connector/Net is just released as GA so is preatty much stable to be used on a ProductionEnvironment. Please send us your comments or questions using this blog or at the Forums where we keep answering any questions you have about Connector/Net and MySQL Server.A copy of this sample project can be downloaded here. This application does not include any library so you will haveto add them before running it. Happly MySQL/.Net Coding.

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• 302: this blog will be closed

  - by preishuber

  After nearly 7 years I will discontinue blogging on this site. My resources are limited. You can reach my German blog which is used to support my customers. Looking back to a long an interesting journey ASP.NET by ScottGu That was the reason to attend this site and support Microsoft as much as I can. For that I was honored as ASP.NET MVP- thanks again. Meet Scoot several times. Great guy! Forums I have left NNTP forums a few years ago and now Microsoft closed it- It was my idea ;-) AJAX Was the wrong way- JQuery won the game IIS7 That is really a great plattform and the IIS team rules. I am sad that is so silent around that topic. ASP.NET after 2.0 Is no longer my world. I love ASP.NET and ASP.NET Server controls. I hate the discussion about how to follow the holy rules of MVC. Microsoft have dropped the goal to bring ASP.NET to #1 and accepted PHP is it. Facebook & Twittering Microblogging takes over a part of the blogging business. Shorter faster cheaper- or as SteveB mentioned - do more with less. Google Google is taking over the web. I am using Bing every time as I can but Google have more options. Sorry Microsoft you will loose that game. Apple That is not the biggest problem of Microsoft. the Ixxx takes over a small part but big money of the market, but the customers are not strongly linked. New wave new hype- Game over Apple. Silverlight My new home. I can reuse a lot of my skills and love the possibilitys. Silverligth will passing WPF-and strike Flash Windows phone 7 Also my skills fit. I just will use it for fun. I am not really satisfied about what I have heard from MIX. Guys from Redmond, I am sad to say you have been the best Smartphone OS and lost everything. The ADO vNext Story That will be the next mystic point. WCF, REST, JSON, ATOM and now OData. Nothing about SQL commands. LINQ, ORM is also not the final solution for multilayered disconnected async scenarios. Personally I prefere the OData idea and dislike the Swiss Army Knife (German Eierlegende Wollmilchsau) WCF. I am still in INETA Speakers board and I am glad to come to your user group. In all other cases you can hire me over ppedv AG. Good by and have good live.

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• Data-driven animation states

  - by user8363

  I'm trying to handle animations in a 2D game engine hobby project, without hard-coding them. Hard coding animation states seems like a common but very strange phenomenon, to me. A little background: I'm working with an entity system where components are bags of data and subsystems act upon them. I chose to use a polling system to update animation states. With animation states I mean: "walking_left", "running_left", "walking_right", "shooting", ... My idea to handle animations was to design it as a data driven model. Data could be stored in an xml file, a rdbms, ... And could be loaded at the start of a game / level/ ... This way you can easily edit animations and transitions without having to go change the code everywhere in your game. As an example I made an xml draft of the data definitions I had in mind. One very important piece of data would simply be the description of an animation. An animation would have a unique id (a descriptive name). It would hold a reference id to an image (the sprite sheet it uses, because different animations may use different sprite sheets). The frames per second to run the animation on. The "replay" here defines if an animation should be run once or infinitely. Then I defined a list of rectangles as frames. <animation id='WIZARD_WALK_LEFT'> <image id='WIZARD_WALKING' /> <fps>50</fps> <replay>true</replay> <frames> <rectangle> <x>0</x> <y>0</y> <width>45</width> <height>45</height> </rectangle> <rectangle> <x>45</x> <y>0</y> <width>45</width> <height>45</height> </rectangle> </frames> </animation> Animation data would be loaded and held in an animation resource pool and referenced by game entities that are using it. It would be treated as a resource like an image, a sound, a texture, ... The second piece of data to define would be a state machine to handle animation states and transitions. This defines each state a game entity can be in, which states it can transition to and what triggers that state change. This state machine would differ from entity to entity. Because a bird might have states "walking" and "flying" while a human would only have the state "walking". However it could be shared by different entities because multiple humans will probably have the same states (especially when you define some common NPCs like monsters, etc). Additionally an orc might have the same states as a human. Just to demonstrate that this state definition might be shared but only by a select group of game entities. <state id='IDLE'> <event trigger='LEFT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_LEFT' /> <event trigger='RIGHT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_RIGHT' /> </state> <state id='MOVING_LEFT'> <event trigger='LEFT_UP' goto='IDLE' /> <event trigger='RIGHT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_RIGHT' /> </state> <state id='MOVING_RIGHT'> <event trigger='RIGHT_UP' goto='IDLE' /> <event trigger='LEFT_DOWN' goto='MOVING_LEFT' /> </state> These states can be handled by a polling system. Each game tick it grabs the current state of a game entity and checks all triggers. If a condition is met it changes the entity's state to the "goto" state. The last part I was struggling with was how to bind animation data and animation states to an entity. The most logical approach seemed to me to add a pointer to the state machine data an entity uses and to define for each state in that machine what animation it uses. Here is an xml example how I would define the animation behavior and graphical representation of some common entities in a game, by addressing animation state and animation data id. Note that both "wizard" and "orc" have the same animation states but a different animation. Also, a different animation could mean a different sprite sheet, or even a different sequence of animations (an animation could be longer or shorter). <entity name="wizard"> <state id="IDLE" animation="WIZARD_IDLE" /> <state id="MOVING_LEFT" animation="WIZARD_WALK_LEFT" /> </entity> <entity name="orc"> <state id="IDLE" animation="ORC_IDLE" /> <state id="MOVING_LEFT" animation="ORC_WALK_LEFT" /> </entity> When the entity is being created it would add a list of states with state machine data and an animation data reference. In the future I would use the entity system to build whole entities by defining components in a similar xml format. -- This is what I have come up with after some research. However I had some trouble getting my head around it, so I was hoping op some feedback. Is there something here what doesn't make sense, or is there a better way to handle these things? I grasped the idea of iterating through frames but I'm having trouble to take it a step further and this is my attempt to do that.

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• Part 1 Basic Webtrends REST Examples

  - by GeekAgilistMercenary

  In this entry I just want to cover some examples of how to connect to Webtrends DX Web Services.  The DX Web Services use REST as the architecture, providing simple URI based end points to connect to.  With the Webtrends SDK you can connect to these services with your account information.  Here are the basic steps to retrieve a profile list, the reports from one of those profiles, and then the report you want from that report list. First step is to create a Webtrends User. WebTrends.Sdk.Account.User webtrendsUser = new Account.User(); webtrendsUser.UserName = username; webtrendsUser.Password = password; webtrendsUser.AccountName = account; After you create the Webtrends User, simple request a profile list by getting list of ProfileDefinition Objects. List<WebTrends.Sdk.Profile.ProfileDefinition> profiles = WebTrends.Sdk.Factory.NavigationFactory.BuildListing(webtrendsUser); Next you will want to grab a report based on the profile you are in and your credentials. List<WebTrends.Sdk.Report.ReportDefinition> reports = WebTrends.Sdk.Factory.NavigationFactory.BuildListing(profiles[i], webtrendsUser); In the code above, i would equate to the specific profile you want from the retrieved list of profiles in the profiles list.  The common scenario is that one has pulled the profiles into a drop down, combo, or list box that the user can select.  Then when the user selects the specific profile that profile object can then be used to pull the List of ReportDefinitions. Once we have the report definitions, all sorts of criteria can be added together to query for a specific report.  This is also were things can get a little tricky.  For instance, take a look at the code below. WebTrends.Sdk.Factory.ReportFactory.CreateDimensionalReport( report.ID.ToString(), profiles[i].ID.ToString(), "2010m01", webtrendsUser); The CreateDimensionalReport takes 4 parameters for this particular overload.  The report ID, profile ID, the Webtrends Date Format, and the Webtrends User Object.  There are a number of other overloads available within this factory's method that allow for passing the specific REST URI, and other criteria to retrieve the report of your choice.  In the near future we will be adding some more to this method also, which will provide more flexibility without needing to use the full REST URI. I will have more on this, so all you Coders out there using Webtrends DX Services, I hope this is helpful!  Enjoy. Original Entry

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• SQL SERVER – Weekly Series – Memory Lane – #031

  - by Pinal Dave

  Here is the list of selected articles of SQLAuthority.com across all these years. Instead of just listing all the articles I have selected a few of my most favorite articles and have listed them here with additional notes below it. Let me know which one of the following is your favorite article from memory lane. 2007 Find Table without Clustered Index – Find Table with no Primary Key Clustered index is very important concept for any table. They impact the performance very heavily. Here is a quick script to find tables without a clustered index. Replace TEXT with VARCHAR(MAX) – Stop using TEXT, NTEXT, IMAGE Data Types Question: “Is VARCHAR (MAX) big enough to store the TEXT field?” Answer: “Yes, VARCHAR(MAX) is big enough to accommodate TEXT field. TEXT, NTEXT and IMAGE data types of SQL Server 2000 will be deprecated in a future version of SQL Server, SQL Server 2005 provides backward compatibility to data types but it is recommended to use new data types which are VARHCAR (MAX), NVARCHAR (MAX) and VARBINARY (MAX).” Limiting Result Sets by Using TABLESAMPLE – Examples Introduced in SQL Server 2005, TABLESAMPLE allows you to extract a sampling of rows from a table in the FROM clause. The rows retrieved are random and they are are not in any order. This sampling can be based on a percentage of number of rows. You can use TABLESAMPLE when only a sampling of rows is necessary for the application instead of a full result set. User Defined Functions (UDF) Limitations UDF have its own advantage and usage but in this article we will see the limitation of UDF. Things UDF can not do and why Stored Procedure are considered as more flexible then UDFs. Stored Procedure are more flexibility then User Defined Functions(UDF). However, this blog post is a good read to know what are the limitations of UDF. Change Database Compatible Level – Backward Compatibility For a long time SQL Server stayed on the compatibility level of 80 which is of SQL Server 2000. However, as soon as SQL Server 2005 introduced the issue of compatibility was quite a major issue. Since that time MS has been releasing the versions at every 2-3 years, changing compatibility is a ever popular topic. In this blog post, we learn how we can do the same using T-SQL. We can also do the same using SSMS and here is the blog post for the same: Change Database Compatible Level – Backward Compatibility – Part 2 – Management Studio. Constraint on VARCHAR(MAX) Field To Limit It Certain Length How can I limit the VARCHAR(MAX) field with maximum length of 12500 characters only. His Question was valid as our application was allowed 12500 characters. First of all – this requirement is bit strange but if someone wants to do the same, they can do it as described in this blog post. 2008 UNPIVOT Table Example Understanding UNPIVOT can be very complicated at times. In this blog post, I have attempted to explain the same concept in very simple words. Create Default Constraint Over Table Column A simple straight to script blog post – I still use this blog quite many times for my own reference. UDF – Get the Day of the Week Function It took me 4 iteration to find this very simple function which can immediately get the day of the week in a single line. 2009 Find Hostname and Current Logged In User Name There are two tricks listed in this blog post where users can find out the hostname and current logged user name immediately and very easily. Interesting Observation of Logon Trigger On All Servers When I was doing a project, I made an interesting observation of executing a logon trigger multiple times. It was absolutely unexpected for me! As I was logging only once, naturally, I was expecting the entry only once. However, it did it multiple times on different threads – indeed an eccentric phenomenon at first sight! Difference Between Candidate Keys and Primary Key One needs to be very careful in selecting the Primary Key as an incorrect selection can adversely impact the database architect and future normalization. For a Candidate Key to qualify as a Primary Key, it should be Non-NULL and unique in any domain. I have observed quite often that Primary Keys are seldom changed. I would like to have your feedback on not changing a Primary Key. Create Multiple Filegroup For Single Database Why should one create multiple file group for any database and what are the advantages of the same. In this blog post, I explain the same in detail. List All Objects Created on All Filegroups in Database In this blog post we discuss the essential question – “How can I find which object belongs to which filegroup. Is there any way to know this?” 2010 DATE and TIME in SQL Server 2008 When DATE is converted to DATETIME it adds the of midnight. When TIME is converted to DATETIME it adds the date of 1900 and it is something one wants to consider if you are going to run scripts from SQL Server 2008 to earlier version with CONVERT. Disabled Index and Update Statistics If you do not need a nonclustered index, I suggest you to drop it as keeping them disabled is an overhead on your system. This is because every time the statistics are updated for system all the statistics for disabled indexes are also updated. Precision of SMALLDATETIME – A 1 Minute Precision The precision of the datatype SMALLDATETIME is 1 minute. It discards the seconds by rounding up or rounding down any seconds greater than zero. 2011 Getting Columns Headers without Result Data – SET FMTONLY ON SET FMTONLY ON returns only metadata to the client. It can be used to test the format of the response without actually running the query. When this setting is ON the resultset only have headers of the results but no data. Copy Database from Instance to Another Instance – Copy Paste in SQL Server SQL Server has a feature which copy database from one database to another database and it can be automated as well using SSIS. Make sure you have SQL Server Agent Turned on as this feature will create a job. Puzzle – SELECT * vs SELECT COUNT(*) If you have ever wondered SELECT * gives error when executed alone but SELECT COUNT(*) does not. Why? in that case, you should read this blog post. Creating All New Database with Full Recovery Model This blog post is very based on very interesting story where the user wants to do something by default for every single new database created. Model database is a secret weapon which should be used very carefully and with proper evalution. If used carefully this can be a very much beneficiary when we need a newly created database behave in certain fashion. 2012 In year 2012 I had two interesting series ran on the blog. If there is no fun in learning, the learning becomes a burden. For the same reason, I had decided to build a three part quiz around SEQUENCE. The quiz was to identify the next value of the sequence. I encourage all of you to take part in this fun quiz. Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 1 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 2 Guess the Next Value – Puzzle 3 Can anyone remember their final day of schooling?  This is probably a silly question because – of course you can!  Many people mark this as the most exciting, happiest day of their life.  It marks the end of testing, the end of following rules set by teachers, and the beginning of finally being able to earn money and work in your chosen field. Read five part series on developer training subject Developer Training - Importance and Significance - Part 1 Developer Training – Employee Morals and Ethics – Part 2 Developer Training – Difficult Questions and Alternative Perspective - Part 3 Developer Training – Various Options for Developer Training – Part 4 Developer Training – A Conclusive Summary- Part 5 Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Memory Lane, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

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• Export all SSIS packages from msdb using Powershell

  - by jamiet

  Have you ever wanted to dump all the SSIS packages stored in msdb out to files? Of course you have, who wouldn’t? Right? Well, at least one person does because this was the subject of a thread (save all ssis packages to file) on the SSIS forum earlier today. Some of you may have already figured out a way of doing this but for those that haven’t here is a nifty little script that will do it for you and it uses our favourite jack-of-all tools … Powershell!!   Imagine I have the following package folder structure on my Integration Services server (i.e. in [msdb]): There are two packages in there called “20110111 Chaining Expression components” & “Package”, I want to export those two packages into a folder structure that mirrors that in [msdb]. Here is the Powershell script that will do that:   Param($SQLInstance = "localhost") #####Add all the SQL goodies (including Invoke-Sqlcmd)##### add-pssnapin sqlserverprovidersnapin100 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue add-pssnapin sqlservercmdletsnapin100 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue cls $Packages = Invoke-Sqlcmd -MaxCharLength 10000000 -ServerInstance $SQLInstance -Query "WITH cte AS ( SELECT cast(foldername as varchar(max)) as folderpath, folderid FROM msdb..sysssispackagefolders WHERE parentfolderid = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000' UNION ALL SELECT cast(c.folderpath + '\' + f.foldername as varchar(max)), f.folderid FROM msdb..sysssispackagefolders f INNER JOIN cte c ON c.folderid = f.parentfolderid ) SELECT c.folderpath,p.name,CAST(CAST(packagedata AS VARBINARY(MAX)) AS VARCHAR(MAX)) as pkg FROM cte c INNER JOIN msdb..sysssispackages p ON c.folderid = p.folderid WHERE c.folderpath NOT LIKE 'Data Collector%'" Foreach ($pkg in $Packages) { $pkgName = $Pkg.name $folderPath = $Pkg.folderpath $fullfolderPath = "c:\temp\$folderPath\" if(!(test-path -path $fullfolderPath)) { mkdir $fullfolderPath | Out-Null } $pkg.pkg | Out-File -Force -encoding ascii -FilePath "$fullfolderPath\$pkgName.dtsx" }   To run it simply change the “localhost” parameter of the server you want to connect to either by editing the script or passing it in when the script is executed. It will create the folder structure in C:\Temp (which you can also easily change if you so wish – just edit the script accordingly). Here’s the folder structure that it created for me: Notice how it is a mirror of the folder structure in [msdb]. Hope this is useful! @Jamiet

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• Book Review: Brownfield Application Development in .NET

  - by DotNetBlues

  I recently finished reading the book Brownfield Application Development in .NET by Kyle Baley and Donald Belcham.  The book is available from Manning.  First off, let me say that I'm a huge fan of Manning as a publisher.  I've found their books to be top-quality, over all.  As a Kindle owner, I also appreciate getting an ebook copy along with the dead tree copy.  I find ebooks to be much more convenient to read, but hard-copies are easier to reference. The book covers, surprisingly enough, working with brownfield applications.  Which is well and good, if that term has meaning to you.  It didn't for me.  Without retreading a chunk of the first chapter, the authors break code bases into three broad categories: greenfield, brownfield, and legacy.  Greenfield is, essentially, new development that hasn't had time to rust and is (hopefully) being approached with some discipline.  Legacy applications are those that are more or less stable and functional, that do not expect to see a lot of work done to them, and are more likely to be replaced than reworked. Brownfield code is the gray (brown?) area between the two and the authors argue, quite effectively, that it is the most likely state for an application to be in.  Brownfield code has, in some way, been allowed to tarnish around the edges and can be difficult to work with.  Although I hadn't realized it, most of the code I've worked on has been brownfield.  Sometimes, there's talk of scrapping and starting over.  Sometimes, the team dismisses increased discipline as ivory tower nonsense.  And, sometimes, I've been the ignorant culprit vexing my future self. The book is broken into two major sections, plus an introduction chapter and an appendix.  The first section covers what the authors refer to as "The Ecosystem" which consists of version control, build and integration, testing, metrics, and defect management.  The second section is on actually writing code for brownfield applications and discusses object-oriented principles, architecture, external dependencies, and, of course, how to deal with these when coming into an existing code base. The ecosystem section is just shy of 140 pages long and brings some real meat to the matter.  The focus on "pain points" immediately sets the tone as problem-solution, rather than academic.  The authors also approach some of the topics from a different angle than some essays I've read on similar topics.  For example, the chapter on automated testing is on just that -- automated testing.  It's all well and good to criticize a project as conflating integration tests with unit tests, but it really doesn't make anyone's life better.  The discussion on testing is more focused on the "right" level of testing for existing projects.  Sometimes, an integration test is the best you can do without gutting a section of functional code.  Even if you can sell other developers and/or management on doing so, it doesn't actually provide benefit to your customers to rewrite code that works.  This isn't to say the authors encourage sloppy coding.  Far from it.  Just that they point out the wisdom of ignoring the sleeping bear until after you deal with the snarling wolf. The other sections take a similarly real-world, workable approach to the pain points they address.  As the section moves from technical solutions like version control and continuous integration (CI) to the softer, process issues of metrics and defect tracking, the authors begin to gently suggest moving toward a zero defect count.  While that really sounds like an unreasonable goal for a lot of ongoing projects, it's quite apparent that the authors have first-hand experience with taming some gruesome projects.  The suggestions are grounded and workable, and the difficulty of some situations is explicitly acknowledged. I have to admit that I started getting bored by the end of the ecosystem section.  No matter how valuable I think a good project manager or business analyst is to a successful ALM, at the end of the day, I'm a gear-head.  Also, while I agreed with a lot of the ecosystem ideas, in theory, I didn't necessarily feel that a lot of the single-developer projects that I'm often involved in really needed that level of rigor.  It's only after reading the sidebars and commentary in the coding section that I had the context for the arguments made in favor of a strong ecosystem supporting the development process.  That isn't to say that I didn't support good product management -- indeed, I've probably pushed too hard, on occasion, for a strong ALM outside of just development.  This book gave me deeper insight into why some corners shouldn't be cut and how damaging certain sins of omission can be. The code section, though, kept me engaged for its entirety.  Many technical books can be used as reference material from day one.  The authors were clear, however, that this book is not one of these.  The first chapter of the section (chapter seven, over all) addresses object oriented (OO) practices.  I've read any number of definitions, discussions, and treatises on OO.  None of the chapter was new to me, but it was a good review, and I'm of the opinion that it's good to review the foundations of what you do, from time to time, so I didn't mind. The remainder of the book is really just about how to apply OOP to existing code -- and, just because all your code exists in classes does not mean that it's object oriented.  That topic has the potential to be extremely condescending, but the authors miraculously managed to never once make me feel like a dolt or that they were wagging their finger at me for my prior sins.  Instead, they continue the "pain points" and problem-solution presentation to give concrete examples of how to apply some pretty academic-sounding ideas.  That's a point worth emphasizing, as my experience with most OO discussions is that they stay in the academic realm.  This book gives some very, very good explanations of why things like the Liskov Substitution Principle exist and why a corporate programmer should even care.  Even if you know, with absolute certainty, that you'll never have to work on an existing code-base, I would recommend this book just for the clarity it provides on OOP. This book goes beyond just theory, or even real-world application.  It presents some methods for fixing problems that any developer can, and probably will, encounter in the wild.  First, the authors address refactoring application layers and internal dependencies.  Then, they take you through those layers from the UI to the data access layer and external dependencies.  Finally, they come full circle to tie it all back to the overall process.  By the time the book is done, you're left with a lot of ideas, but also a reasonable plan to begin to improve an existing project structure. Throughout the book, it's apparent that the authors have their own preferred methodology (TDD and domain-driven design), as well as some preferred tools.  The "Our .NET Toolbox" is something of a neon sign pointing to that latter point.  They do not beat the reader over the head with anything resembling a "One True Way" mentality.  Even for the most emphatic points, the tone is quite congenial and helpful.  With some of the near-theological divides that exist within the tech community, I found this to be one of the more remarkable characteristics of the book.  Although the authors favor tools that might be considered Alt.NET, there is no reason the advice and techniques given couldn't be quite successful in a pure Microsoft shop with Team Foundation Server.  For that matter, even though the book specifically addresses .NET, it could be applied to a Java and Oracle shop, as well.

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• BizTalk Send Ports, Delivery Notification and ACK / NACK messages

  - by Robert Kokuti

  Recently I worked on an orchestration which sent messages out to a Send Port on a 'fire and forget' basis. The idea was that once the orchestration passed the message to the Messagebox, it was left to BizTalk to manage the sending process. Should the send operation fail, the Send Port got suspended, and the orchestration completed asynchronously, regardless of the Send Port success or failure. However, we still wanted to log the sending success, using the ACK / NACK messages. On normal ports, BizTalk generates ACK / NACK messages back to the Messagebox, if the logical port's Delivery Notification property is set to 'Transmitted'. Unfortunately, this setting also causes the orchestration to wait for the send port's result, and should the Send Port fail, the orchestration will also receive a 'DeliveryFailureException' exception. So we may end up with a suspended port and a suspended orchestration - not the outcome wanted here, there was no value in suspending the orchestration in our case. There are a couple of ways to fix this: 1. Catch the DeliveryFailureException  (full type name Microsoft.XLANGs.BaseTypes.DeliveryFailureException) and do nothing in the orchestration's exception block. Although this works, it still slows down the orchestration as the orchestration still has to wait for the outcome of the send port operation. 2. Use a Direct Port instead, and set the ACK request on the message Context, prior passing to the port: msgToSend(BTS.AckRequired) = true; This has to be done in an expression shape, as a Direct logical port does not have Delivery Notification property - make sure to add a reference to Microsoft.BizTalk.GlobalPropertySchemas. Setting this context value in the message will cause the messaging agent to create an appropriate ACK or NACK message after the port execution. The ACK / NACK messages can be caught and logged by dedicated Send Ports, filtering on BTS.AckType value (which is either ACK or NACK). ACK/NACK messages are treated in a special way by BizTalk, and a useful feature is that the original message's context values are copied to the ACK/NACK message context - these can be used for logging the right information. Other useful context properties of the ACK/NACK messages: -  BTS.AckSendPortName can be used to identify the original send port. - BTS.AckOwnerID, aka http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalk/2003/system-properties.AckOwnerID - holds the instance ID of the failed Send Port - can be used to resubmit / terminate the instance Someone may ask, can we just turn off the Delivery Notification on a 'normal' port, and set the AckRequired property on the message as for a Direct port. Unfortunately, this does not work - BizTalk seems to remove this property automatically, if the message goes through a port where Delivery Notification is set to None.

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• Cool Tools You Can Use: Validation Templates for PeopleSoft Contracts Processes

  - by Mark Rosenberg

  This is the first in a series of postings we’ll be making under the heading of Cool Tools You Can Use. Our PeopleSoft product management team identified the need for this series after reflecting on the many conversations we have each year with our PeopleSoft community members. During these conversations, we were discovering that customers and implementation partners were often not aware that solutions exist to the problems they were trying to address and that the solutions were readily available at no additional charge. Thus, the Cool Tools You Can Use series will describe the business challenge we’ve heard, the PeopleSoft solution to the challenge, and how you can learn more about the solution so that everyone can be sure to make full use of what PeopleSoft applications have to offer. The first cool tool we’ll look at is the Validation Template for PeopleSoft Contracts Process Requests, which was first released in December 2013 as part of PeopleSoft Contracts 9.2 Update Image 4. The business issue our customers highlighted to us is the need to tightly control but easily configure and manage the scope of data that any user can process when initiating a process. Control of each user’s span of impact is essential to reducing billing reconciliation issues, passing span of authority audits, and reducing (or even eliminating) the frequency of unexpected process results.  Setting Up the Validation Template for a PeopleSoft Contracts Process With the validation template, organizations can easily and quickly ensure the software restricts the scope of transactions a user can affect and gives organizations the confidence to know that business processes are being governed effectively. Additionally, this control of PeopleSoft Contracts process requests can be applied and easily maintained and adjusted from a web browser thereby enabling analysts to administer the rules without having to engage software developers to customize the software. During the field validation template setup, an analyst specifies the combinations of fields that must contain values when a user tries to setup a run control and initiate a PeopleSoft Contracts process from a process request page. For example, for the Process Limits component, an organization could require that users enter a valid combination of values for the business unit, contract, and contract type fields or a value in the contract administrator field. Until the user enters a valid combination of entries on the process request page, he cannot launch the process. With the validation template activated for process request pages, organizations can be confident that PeopleSoft Contracts users will not accidentally begin generating invoices or triggering other revenue management processes for transactions beyond their scope of authority. To learn more about the Validation Template, please review the Defining Validation Templates section of the PeopleSoft Contracts PeopleBooks. 

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• links for 2011-02-21

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Calling all enterprise architects | Enterprise architecture - InfoWorld Nominations are now open for the 2011 InfoWorld Enterprise Architecture Award, honoring companies whose enterprise architecture initiatives made a difference (tags: ping.fm) Red Tape, Part II : OTN Garage "How do you back up all of that storage? Tape: really fast tape. And, lots of it. This creates a whole variety of very interesting challenges today, elevating the topic to – at the very least – glamorous, but I think it qualifies as being downright hot!" - Kemer Thomson (tags: oracle entarch datastorage) The Buttso Blathers: Using Secure Config Files with the WebLogic Maven Plugin "WebLogic Server has long had a mechanism to provide a more secure way of connecting to the Administration Server from client utilities such that the username and password do not need to be specified and therefore can’t be seen from the process list or command shell history." (tags: oracle weblogic) World-class EA | Open Group Blog "World-class Enterprise Architecture is all about creating definitive collateral that defines how the architecture delivers value for societal value." - Mick Adams (tags: enterprisearchitecture entarch opengroup) Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words (Telecommunications Architecture Corner) "Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment..." - Raul Goycoolea (tags: oracle otn telecommunications businessprocess entarch bpm) Andrejus Baranovskis's Blog: WebCenter PS3 Customization Manager- Long Awaited Feature for MDS Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovski shares "really great news for those of you who are working on MDS personalization and customization support in Oracle Fusion Middleware applications." (tags: oracle otn oracleace webcenter enterprise2.0) Oracle WebCenter: Common User Experience Architecture (Oracle Enterprise 2.0 Blog) Kellsey Ruppel describes "how the new release of Oracle WebCenter delivers a Common User Experience Architecture." (tags: oracle otn webcenter enterprise2.0) Java / Oracle SOA blog: Do your SOA deployments & configuration with AIA Oracle ACE Edwin Biemond illustrates the use of the SOA Suite / FMW deployment framework, "one of the Application Integration Architecture (AIA) hidden gems." (tags: oracle oracleace soa otn fusionmiddleware) Enterprise Software Development with Java: Clustering Stateful Session Beans with GlassFish 3.1 Oracle ACE Director Markus Eisele describes what he did "to get a Stateful Session Bean failover scenario working with two instances on one node." (tags: oracle otn oracleace glassfish) Enhanced REST Support in Oracle Service Bus 11gR1 (SOA Thinker) Jeff Davies illustrates how to re-implement the REST-ful Products services using query strings for passing parameter information. (tags: oracle otn soa REST)

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• Rails - How to use modal form to add object in one model, then reflect that change on main page?

  - by Jim

  I'm working on a Rails app and I've come across a situation where I'm unsure of the cleanest way to proceed. I posted a question on SO with code samples and such - it has received no answers, and the more I think about the problem, the more I think I might be approaching this the wrong way. (See the SO question at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9521319/how-to-reference-form-when-rendering-partial-from-js-erb-file) So, in more of a generic architecture type question: Right now I have a form where a user can add a new recipe. The form also allows the user to select ingredients (it uses a collection_select which contains Ingredient.all). The catch is - I'd like the user to be able to add a new ingredient on the fly, without leaving the recipe form. Using a hidden div and some jQuery/AJAX, I have a link the user can click to popup a modal form containing ingredients/new.html.erb which is a simple form. When that form is submitted, I call ingredients/create.js.erb to validate the ingredient was saved and hide the modal div. Now I am back to my recipe form, but my collection_select hasn't updated. It seems I have a few choices here: try and re-render the collection_select portion of the form so it grabs a new list of ingredients. This was the method I was attempting when I wrote the SO question. The problem I run into is the partial I use for the collection_select needs the parent form passed in, and when I try and render from the JS file I don't know how to pass it the form object. Reload the recipe form. This works (the collection_select now contains the new ingredient), but the user loses any progress they made on the recipe form. I would need a way to persist the form data - I thought about manually passing the values back and forth, but that is sloppy and there has to be a better way... Try and manually insert the tags using jQuery - this would be simple, but because I'm allowing for multiple ingredients to be added, I can't be certain what ID to target. Now, I can't be the only person to have this issue - so is there an easier way I'm missing? I like option 2 above, but I don't know if there's an easy way to grab the entire params hash as if I had submitted the main recipes form. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction so I can find an answer to this... If this doesn't make any sense at all, let me know - I can post code samples if you want, but most of the pertinent code is up on the SO question. Thanks!

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