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• Physics not synchronizing correctly over the network when using Bullet

  - by Lucas

  I'm trying to implement a client/server physics system using Bullet however I'm having problems getting things to sync up. I've implemented a custom motion state which reads and write the transform from my game objects and it works locally but I've tried two different approaches for networked games: Dynamic objects on the client that are also on the server (eg not random debris and other unimportant stuff) are made kinematic. This works correctly but the objects don't move very smoothly Objects are dynamic on both but after each message from the server that the object has moved I set the linear and angular velocity to the values from the server and call btRigidBody::proceedToTransform with the transform on the server. I also call btCollisionObject::activate(true); to force the object to update. My intent with method 2 was to basically do method 1 but hijacking Bullet to do a poor-man's prediction instead of doing my own to smooth out method 1, but this doesn't seem to work (for reasons that are not 100% clear to me even stepping through Bullet) and the objects sometimes end up in different places. Am I heading in the right direction? Bullet seems to have it's own interpolation code built-in. Can that help me make method 1 work better? Or is my method 2 code not working because I am accidentally stomping that?

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• Apress "Pro DLR in .NET 4' - ISBN 978-1-430203066-3 - Initial comments

  - by TATWORTH

  The dynamic language runtime (DLR) is a radical development of Dot Net. In some ways it is like the Laser was 40 years, a solution looking for a problem. At the moment the DLR supports languages such as Iron Ruby and Iron Python, together with dynamic extensions for C# and VB.NET. Where DLR will also score is the ability to write your own Dot Net language for specialist areas. So how does this book fare in introducing the DLR? It is a book that will require careful study and perhaps reading several times before fully understanding the subject. You will need to spend time trying out the sample code. So who would I recommend this book to? I recommend it to C# development teams for their library. I recommend it to individuals who not only know C# but have a good history of learning other computer languages. It is not a book that can just be "dipped into", but will require one or more reads from start to finish. This is no reflection on the skill of the author but of the newness of the material.

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• Object pools for efficient resource management

  - by GameDevEnthusiast

  How can I avoid using default new() to create each object? My previous demo had very unpleasant framerate hiccups during dynamic memory allocations (usually, when arrays are resized), and creating lots of small objects which often contain one pointer to some DirectX resource seems like an awful lot of waste. I'm thinking about: Creating a master look-up table to refer to objects by handles (for safety & ease of serialization), much like EntityList in source engine Creating a templated object pool, which will store items contiguously (more cache-friendly, fast iteration, etc.) and the stored elements will be accessed (by external systems) via the global lookup table. The object pool will use the swap-with-last trick for fast removal (it will invoke the object's ~destructor first) and will update the corresponding indices in the global table accordingly (when growing/shrinking/moving elements). The elements will be copied via plain memcpy(). Is it a good idea? Will it be safe to store objects of non-POD types (e.g. pointers, vtable) in such containers? Related post: Dynamic Memory Allocation and Memory Management

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• Develop and Use Applications with MySQL and PHP

  - by Antoinette O'Sullivan

  Want to develop and use applications with PHP and the MySQL database? Consider taking the MySQL and PHP: Developing Dynamic Web Applications training course. Before taking this course you should: Understand how HTML files are assembled Understand fundamental PHP syntax Have some programming experience (preferably PHP) Have some experience with relational databases Have some knowledge of Object-Oriented Programming This 4-day live, instructor-led course is perfect for developers who use PHP and MySQL to build and maintain their websites and who want to learn how PHP and MySQL can be used to rapidly prototype and deploy dynamic websites. You can take this course as a: Live-virtual event: Take this event from your own desk, no travel required, choosing from a selection of virtual events already on the schedule. In-class event: Travel to an education center to take this course. Below is a selection of events already on the schedule.  Location  Date  Delivery Language  Jakarta, Indonesia  3 December 2013 English   Rome, Italy  5 May 2014 Italian   Turin, Italy 17 March 2014  Italian   Warsaw, Poland 12 November 2013  Polish   Madrid, Spain  16 December 2013  Spanish  Tunis, Tunisia 17 March 2014  French For more information on the authentic MySQL curriculum, go to http://oracle.com/education/mysql.

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• LOD in modern games

  - by Firas Assaad

  I'm currently working on my master's thesis about LOD and mesh simplification, and I've been reading many academic papers and articles about the subject. However, I can't find enough information about how LOD is being used in modern games. I know many games use some sort of dynamic LOD for terrain, but what about elsewhere? Level of Detail for 3D Graphics for example points out that discrete LOD (where artists prepare several models in advance) is widely used because of the performance overhead of continuous LOD. That book was published in 2002 however, and I'm wondering if things are different now. There has been some research in performing dynamic LOD using the geometry shader (this paper for example, with its implementation in ShaderX6), would that be used in a modern game? To summarize, my question is about the state of LOD in modern video games, what algorithms are used and why? In particular, is view dependent continuous simplification used or does the runtime overhead make using discrete models with proper blending and impostors a more attractive solution? If discrete models are used, is an algorithm used (e.g. vertex clustering) to generate them offline, do artists manually create the models, or perhaps a combination of both methods is used?

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• Why isn't my other two constant buffers being updated to the shader?

  - by Paul Ske

  I posted previously before about my two dynamic buffers not being dynamically updating the constant shader. The tessellation buffer isn't working because I have to manually update the tessellation factor inside the hull shader. I believe the camera position isn't updating either because when I perform distance adaptation the far edges are more tessellated then the what's truly in front of the camera. I have all the buffers set to dynamic. Inside the render loop I have them set as: ID3D11Buffer *multiBuffers[3]; devcon->VSSetConstantBuffers(0,3,multiBuffers); ... devcon->DSSetConstantBuffers(0,3,multiBuffers); I only got that from a directX Sample. Inside the shader file I have the three cbuffer structs. cbuffer ConstantBuffer { float4x4 WorldMatrix; float4x4 viewMatrix; float4x4 projectionMatrix; float4x4 modelWorldMatrix; // the rotation matrix float3 lightvec; // the light's vector float4 lightcol; // the light's color float4 ambientcol; // the ambient light's color bool isSelected; } cbuffer cameraBuffer { float3 cameraDirection; float padding; } cbuffer TessellationBuffer { float tessellationAmount; float3 padding2; } Am I missing something or would anyone know why wouldn't my buffers update to the shader file?

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• For a large website developed in PHP, is it necessary to have a framework?

  - by Martin

  I am wondering if it is necessary to have a framework or if it is a must-have if I plan to make a large website. Large website could mean a lot of things: in other words, multiple dynamic web pages (40-50 dynamic pages, mysql content) and a lot of visitors (+- a million hits per month). The site will be hosted in a dedicated server environment. I know that it could simplify coding for a developer team, that it includes libraries and a lot of advantages. But I just feel that I don't need that. I think that learning how it works, managing it and installing it would take more time and I could use that time to code. I write PHP the simplest way I could (with performance in mind) and I try to reuse my code/functions/classes most of the time and I make sure that if another developer joins the team, that he won't be lost in the code. I am also planning to use MemCached or another Cache for PHP. As I said, the site will be hosted in a dedicated server environment but will be entirely managed by the hosting company. I am pretty sure the control panel for me to control the basic stuff will be Cpanel. For a developer like me that only knows PHP, Javascript, HTML, CSS, MYSQL and really basic server management, I feel that it seems to complicated to have a framework. Am I wrong? Is it worth the time to learn all about it? Thank you for your opinions and suggestions.

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• Why isn't one of the constant buffers being loaded inside the shader?

  - by Paul Ske

  I however got the model to load under tessellation; only problem is that one of the constant buffers aren't actually updating the shader's tessellation factor inside the hullshader. I created a messagebox at the rendering point so I know for sure the tessellation factor is assigned to the dynamic constant buffer. Inside the shader code where it says .Edges[1] = tessellationAmount; the tessellationAmount is suppose to be sent from the dynamic buffer to the shader. Otherwise it's just a plain box. In better explanation; there's a matrixBuffer, cameraBuffer, TessellationBuffer for constant. There's a multiBuffer array that assigns the matrix, camera, tesselation. So, when I set the Hull Shader, PixelShader, VertexShader, DomainShader it gets assigned by the multibuffer. E.G. devcon-HSSetConstantBuffers(0,3,multibuffer); The only way around the whole ideal would be to go in the shader and change how much the edges tessellate and inside the edges as well with the same number. My question is why wouldn't the tessellationBuffer not work in the shader?

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• Quadcopters Play Catch [Video]

  - by Jason Fitzpatrick

  Working like a group of hive-minded bees, these quadcopters come off as almost playful with their ball throwing antics. Courtesy of the folks at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich’s Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, we’re treated to a video of three quadcopters playing catch in the research facility’s Flying Machine Area. They explain the processes demonstrated in the video: This video shows three quadrocopters cooperatively tossing and catching a ball with the aid of an elastic net. To toss the ball, the quadrocopters accelerate rapidly outward to stretch the net tight between them and launch the ball up. Notice in the video that the quadrocopters are then pulled forcefully inward by the tension in the elastic net, and must rapidly stabilize in order to avoid a collision. Once recovered, the quadrotors cooperatively position the net below the ball in order to catch it. Because they are coupled to each other by the net, the quadrocopters experience complex forces that push the vehicles to the limits of their dynamic capabilities. To exploit the full potential of the vehicles under these circumstances requires several novel algorithms, including: HTG Explains: How Antivirus Software Works HTG Explains: Why Deleted Files Can Be Recovered and How You Can Prevent It HTG Explains: What Are the Sys Rq, Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break Keys on My Keyboard?

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• How often do you review fundamentals?

  - by mlnyc

  So I've been out of school for a year and a half now. In school, of course we covered all the fundamentals: OS, databases, programming languages (i.e. syntax, binding rules, exception handling, recursion, etc), and fundamental algorithms. the rest were more in-depth topics on things like NLP, data mining, etc. Now, a year ago if you would have told me to write a quicksort, or reverse a singly-linked list, analyze the time complexity of this 'naive' algorithm vs it's dynamic programming counterpart, etc I would have been able to give you a decent and hopefully satisfying answer. But if you would have asked me more real world questions I might have been stumped (things like how would handle logging for an application, or security difference between GET and POST, differences between SQL Server and Oracle SQL, anything I list on my resume as currently working with [jQuery questions, ColdFusion questions, ...] etc) Now, I feel things are the opposite. I haven't wrote my own sort since graduating, and I don't really have to worry much about theoretical things that do not naturally fall into problems I am trying to solve. For example, I might give you some great SQL solutions using an analytical function that I would have otherwise been stumped on or write a cool web application using angular or something but ask me to write an algo for insertAfter(Element* elem) and I might not be able to do it in a reasonable time frame. I guess my question here to the experienced programmers is how do you balance the need to both learn and experiment with new technologies (fun!), working on personal projects (also fun!) working and solving real world problems in a timeboxed environment (so I might reach out to a library that does what I want rather than re-invent the wheel so that I can focus on the problem I am trying to solve) (work, basically), and refreshing on old theoretical material which is still valid for interviews and such (can be a drag)? Do you review older material (such as famous algorithms, dynamic programming, Big-O analysis, locking implementations) regularly or just when you need it? How much time do you dedicate to both in your 'deliberate practice' and do you have a certain to-do list of topics that you want to work on?

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• So You Want To Build a SPARC Cloud

  - by user12601629

  Did you ever wish you could get the industrial strength power of UNIX/RISC with the flexibility of cloud computing?  Well, now you can!  With recent advances from Oracle it's possible to build an incredibly high-performance, flexible, available virtualized infrastructure based on Solaris and SPARC.  Here's the recipe! Authored in collaboration across the Oracle "Systems Group" team, we now have a complete best practice guide for you.  Click below to download it: Best Practices for Building a Virtualized SPARC Computing Environment Inside you'll find recommendations for how and when to leverage technologies like: SPARC T4 OVM for SPARC hypervisor (version 2.2 and newer) Solaris 11 Ops Center 12c ZFS Storage Appliance Oracle network switches Based on following these best practices, you'll be able to construct a dynamic, virtualized infrastructure that allows for: Easy, GUI-based provisioning on new VMs Automated HA failover in the event of physical server failures Automatic load balancing across a cluster of VM hosts Complete end-to-end monitoring You should download this paper and check it out.  Even if you aren't planning on buying all new hardware, and instead want to transform some existing gear into a dynamic virtualized environment then this paper will give you concrete info on what to do and the trade-offs you'll make. Have fun getting started on your journey to build a SPARC cloud!

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• Best method to implement a filtered search

  - by j0N45

  I would like to ask you, your opinion when it comes to implement a filtered search form. Let's imagine the following case: 1 Big table with lots of columns It might be important to say that this SQL Server You need to implement a form to search data in this table, and in this form you'll have several check boxes that allow you to costumize this search. Now my question here is which one of the following should be the best way to implement the search? Create a stored procedure with a query inside. This stored procedure will check if the parameters are given by the application and in the case they are not given a wildcard will be putted in the query. Create a dynamic query, that is built accordingly to what is given by the application. I am asking this because I know that SQL Server creates an execution plan when the stored procedure is created, in order to optimize its performance, however by creating a dynamic query inside of the stored procedure will we sacrifice the optimization gained by the execution plan? Please tell me what would be the best approach in your oppinion.

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• Extended URL php

  - by web.ask

  I have a problem with the extended url here in php. I'm not even sure if it's called extended url. I was wondering if someone can help me since i'm no good with PHP. I have a php page the careers.php it shows the career listing but when I click on Learn more link it goes to http(dot)localhost/houseofpatel/jobs/4/Career-4 but it outputs an "Object not found". Does xampplite have something to do with this? or is it just the codes? I also have the breadcrumb.php in here. Please see code below: session_start(); include("Breadcrumb.php"); $trail = new Breadcrumb(); $trail->add('Careers', $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], 1); $trail -> output(); # REMOVE SPECIAL CHARACTERS $sPattern = array('/[^a-zA-Z0-9 -]/', '/[ -]+/', '/^-|-$/'); $sReplace = array('', '-', ''); mysql_query("SET CHARACTER_SET utf8"); //$query = "SELECT * FROM careers_mst WHERE status = 1 ORDER BY dateposted DESC LIMIT 0, 4"; if(!$_GET['jobs']){ $jobsPerPage = 4; }else{ $jobsPerPage = $_GET['jobs']; } if(!$_GET['page']){ $currPage = 1; $showMoreJobs = true; }else{ $currPage = $_GET['page']; $showMoreJobs = false; } $offset = ($currPage - 1 )* $jobsPerPage; $query = "SELECT * FROM careers_mst WHERE status = 1 ORDER BY dateposted"; $process = mysql_query($query); if(@mysql_num_rows($process) > 0){ $totalRows = @mysql_num_rows($process); $query2 = "SELECT * FROM careers_mst WHERE status = 1 ORDER BY dateposted DESC LIMIT $offset, $jobsPerPage"; $process2 = mysql_query($query2); if(@mysql_num_rows($process2) > 0){ $pagNav = pageNavigator($totalRows,$jobsPerPage,$currPage,''); while($row = @mysql_fetch_array($process2)){ $id = $row[0]; $title = stripslashes($row['title']); $title1 = preg_replace($sPattern, $sReplace, $title); $description = stripslashes($row['description']); $description1 = substr($description, 0, 200); $careers_list .= ' <div class="left" style="width:340px; padding-left:10px;"> <p><span class="blue"><strong>'.$title.'</strong></span></p> '.$description1.'... <p><a href="jobs/'.$id.'/'.$title1.'" title="Learn more">[ Learn More ]</a></p> </div>'; } /*$careers_list .= ' <div class="left" style="width: 100%; margin-top:15px;"> <p><a href="more-jobs" title="More Job Opennings">MORE JOB OPENNINGS >> </a></p> <div class="divider left"></div> </div>'; */ if($showMoreJobs){ if($totalRows > $jobsPerPage){ $currPage++; } $jobNav = "<a href=careers.php?page=$currPage title='More Job Opennings'>MORE JOB OPENNINGS >> </a>"; }else{ $jobNav = "$pagNav"; } $careers_list .= "<div class='left' style='width: 100%; margin-top:15px;'> <p>$jobNav</p> <div class='divider left'></div> </div>"; } }

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• Vim: Context sensitive code completion for PHP

  - by eddy147

  Vim gives me too much options when I use code completion. In a class, and type $class- it gives me about a zillion options, so not only from the class itself but also from php, all globals ever created, in short: a mess. I only want to have the options from the class itself (or the parent subtype class it extends from), so context or scope sensitive code completion, just like Netbeans for example. How can I do that? My current configuration is this: I am using ctags, and created 1 ctags file for our (big) application in the root. This is the .ctags file I used to create the ctags file: -R -h ".php" --exclude=.svn --languages=+PHP,-JavaScript --tag-relative=yes --regex-PHP=/abstract\s+class\s+([^ ]+)/\1/c/ --regex-PHP=/interface\s+([^ ]+)/\1/c/ --regex-PHP=/(public\s+|static\s+|protected\s+|private\s+)\$([^ \t=]+)/\2/p/ --regex-PHP=/const\s+([^ \t=]+)/\1/d/ --regex-PHP=/final\s+(public\s+|static\s+|abstract\s+|protected\s+|private\s+)function\s+\&?\s*([^ (]+)/\2/f/ --PHP-kinds=+cdf --fields=+iaS This is the .vimrc file: " autocomplete funcs and identifiers for languages autocmd FileType php set omnifunc=phpcomplete#CompletePHP autocmd FileType python set omnifunc=pythoncomplete#Complete autocmd FileType javascript set omnifunc=javascriptcomplete#CompleteJS autocmd FileType html set omnifunc=htmlcomplete#CompleteTags autocmd FileType css set omnifunc=csscomplete#CompleteCSS autocmd FileType xml set omnifunc=xmlcomplete#CompleteTags autocmd FileType php set omnifunc=phpcomplete#CompletePHP autocmd FileType c set omnifunc=ccomplete#Complete " exuberant ctags " the magic is the ';' at end. it will make vim tags file search go up from current directory until it finds one. set tags=projectrootdir/tags; map <F8> :!ctags " TagList " :tag getUser => Jump to getUser method " :tn (or tnext) => go to next search result " :tp (or tprev) => to to previous search result " :ts (or tselect) => List the current tags " => Go back to last tag location " +Left click => Go to definition of a method " More info: " http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/tagsrch.html (official documentation) " http://www.vim.org/tips/tip.php?tip_id=94 (a vim tip) let Tlist_Ctags_Cmd = "~/bin/ctags" let Tlist_WinWidth = 50 map <F4> :TlistToggle<cr> "see http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Make_Vim_completion_popup_menu_work_just_like_in_an_IDE " will change the 'completeopt' option so that Vim's popup menu doesn't select the first completion item, but rather just inserts the longest common text of all matches :set completeopt=longest,menuone " will change the behavior of the <Enter> key when the popup menu is visible. In that case the Enter key will simply select the highlighted menu item, just as <C-Y> does :inoremap <expr> <CR> pumvisible() ? "\<C-y>" : "\<C-g>u\<CR>" " inoremap <expr> <C-n> pumvisible() ? '<C-n>' : \ '<C-n><C-r>=pumvisible() ? "\<lt>Down>" : ""<CR>' inoremap <expr> <M-,> pumvisible() ? '<C-n>' : \ '<C-x><C-o><C-n><C-p><C-r>=pumvisible() ? "\<lt>Down>" : ""<CR>'

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• Using jQuery and OData to Insert a Database Record

  - by Stephen Walther

  In my previous blog entry, I explored two ways of inserting a database record using jQuery. We added a new Movie to the Movie database table by using a generic handler and by using a WCF service. In this blog entry, I want to take a brief look at how you can insert a database record using OData. Introduction to OData The Open Data Protocol (OData) was developed by Microsoft to be an open standard for communicating data across the Internet. Because the protocol is compatible with standards such as REST and JSON, the protocol is particularly well suited for Ajax. OData has undergone several name changes. It was previously referred to as Astoria and ADO.NET Data Services. OData is used by Sharepoint Server 2010, Azure Storage Services, Excel 2010, SQL Server 2008, and project code name “Dallas.” Because OData is being adopted as the public interface of so many important Microsoft technologies, it is a good protocol to learn. You can learn more about OData by visiting the following websites: http://www.odata.org http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/bb931106.aspx When using the .NET framework, you can easily expose database data through the OData protocol by creating a WCF Data Service. In this blog entry, I will create a WCF Data Service that exposes the Movie database table. Create the Database and Data Model The MoviesDB database is a simple database that contains the following Movies table: You need to create a data model to represent the MoviesDB database. In this blog entry, I use the ADO.NET Entity Framework to create my data model. However, WCF Data Services and OData are not tied to any particular OR/M framework such as the ADO.NET Entity Framework. For details on creating the Entity Framework data model for the MoviesDB database, see the previous blog entry. Create a WCF Data Service You create a new WCF Service by selecting the menu option Project, Add New Item and selecting the WCF Data Service item template (see Figure 1). Name the new WCF Data Service MovieService.svc. Figure 1 – Adding a WCF Data Service Listing 1 contains the default code that you get when you create a new WCF Data Service. There are two things that you need to modify. Listing 1 – New WCF Data Service File using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Data.Services; using System.Data.Services.Common; using System.Linq; using System.ServiceModel.Web; using System.Web; namespace WebApplication1 { public class MovieService : DataService< /* TODO: put your data source class name here */ > { // This method is called only once to initialize service-wide policies. public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { // TODO: set rules to indicate which entity sets and service operations are visible, updatable, etc. // Examples: // config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("MyEntityset", EntitySetRights.AllRead); // config.SetServiceOperationAccessRule("MyServiceOperation", ServiceOperationRights.All); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } } } First, you need to replace the comment /* TODO: put your data source class name here */ with a class that represents the data that you want to expose from the service. In our case, we need to replace the comment with a reference to the MoviesDBEntities class generated by the Entity Framework. Next, you need to configure the security for the WCF Data Service. By default, you cannot query or modify the movie data. We need to update the Entity Set Access Rule to enable us to insert a new database record. The updated MovieService.svc is contained in Listing 2: Listing 2 – MovieService.svc using System.Data.Services; using System.Data.Services.Common; namespace WebApplication1 { public class MovieService : DataService<MoviesDBEntities> { public static void InitializeService(DataServiceConfiguration config) { config.SetEntitySetAccessRule("Movies", EntitySetRights.AllWrite); config.DataServiceBehavior.MaxProtocolVersion = DataServiceProtocolVersion.V2; } } } That’s all we have to do. We can now insert a new Movie into the Movies database table by posting a new Movie to the following URL: /MovieService.svc/Movies The request must be a POST request. The Movie must be represented as JSON. Using jQuery with OData The HTML page in Listing 3 illustrates how you can use jQuery to insert a new Movie into the Movies database table using the OData protocol. Listing 3 – Default.htm <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <title>jQuery OData Insert</title> <script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.4.2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script src="Scripts/json2.js" type="text/javascript"></script> </head> <body> <form> <label>Title:</label> <input id="title" /> <br /> <label>Director:</label> <input id="director" /> </form> <button id="btnAdd">Add Movie</button> <script type="text/javascript"> $("#btnAdd").click(function () { // Convert the form into an object var data = { Title: $("#title").val(), Director: $("#director").val() }; // JSONify the data var data = JSON.stringify(data); // Post it $.ajax({ type: "POST", contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", url: "MovieService.svc/Movies", data: data, dataType: "json", success: insertCallback }); }); function insertCallback(result) { // unwrap result var newMovie = result["d"]; // Show primary key alert("Movie added with primary key " + newMovie.Id); } </script> </body> </html> jQuery does not include a JSON serializer. Therefore, we need to include the JSON2 library to serialize the new Movie that we wish to create. The Movie is serialized by calling the JSON.stringify() method: var data = JSON.stringify(data); You can download the JSON2 library from the following website: http://www.json.org/js.html The jQuery ajax() method is called to insert the new Movie. Notice that both the contentType and dataType are set to use JSON. The jQuery ajax() method is used to perform a POST operation against the URL MovieService.svc/Movies. Because the POST payload contains a JSON representation of a new Movie, a new Movie is added to the database table of Movies. When the POST completes successfully, the insertCallback() method is called. The new Movie is passed to this method. The method simply displays the primary key of the new Movie: Summary The OData protocol (and its enabling technology named WCF Data Services) works very nicely with Ajax. By creating a WCF Data Service, you can quickly expose your database data to an Ajax application by taking advantage of open standards such as REST, JSON, and OData. In the next blog entry, I want to take a closer look at how the OData protocol supports different methods of querying data.

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• Rendering ASP.NET MVC Views to String

  - by Rick Strahl

  It's not uncommon in my applications that I require longish text output that does not have to be rendered into the HTTP output stream. The most common scenario I have for 'template driven' non-Web text is for emails of all sorts. Logon confirmations and verifications, email confirmations for things like orders, status updates or scheduler notifications - all of which require merged text output both within and sometimes outside of Web applications. On other occasions I also need to capture the output from certain views for logging purposes. Rather than creating text output in code, it's much nicer to use the rendering mechanism that ASP.NET MVC already provides by way of it's ViewEngines - using Razor or WebForms views - to render output to a string. This is nice because it uses the same familiar rendering mechanism that I already use for my HTTP output and it also solves the problem of where to store the templates for rendering this content in nothing more than perhaps a separate view folder. The good news is that ASP.NET MVC's rendering engine is much more modular than the full ASP.NET runtime engine which was a real pain in the butt to coerce into rendering output to string. With MVC the rendering engine has been separated out from core ASP.NET runtime, so it's actually a lot easier to get View output into a string. Getting View Output from within an MVC Application If you need to generate string output from an MVC and pass some model data to it, the process to capture this output is fairly straight forward and involves only a handful of lines of code. The catch is that this particular approach requires that you have an active ControllerContext that can be passed to the view. This means that the following approach is limited to access from within Controller methods. Here's a class that wraps the process and provides both instance and static methods to handle the rendering:/// <summary> /// Class that renders MVC views to a string using the /// standard MVC View Engine to render the view. /// /// Note: This class can only be used within MVC /// applications that have an active ControllerContext. /// </summary> public class ViewRenderer { /// <summary> /// Required Controller Context /// </summary> protected ControllerContext Context { get; set; } public ViewRenderer(ControllerContext controllerContext) { Context = controllerContext; } /// <summary> /// Renders a full MVC view to a string. Will render with the full MVC /// View engine including running _ViewStart and merging into _Layout /// </summary> /// <param name="viewPath"> /// The path to the view to render. Either in same controller, shared by /// name or as fully qualified ~/ path including extension /// </param> /// <param name="model">The model to render the view with</param> /// <returns>String of the rendered view or null on error</returns> public string RenderView(string viewPath, object model) { return RenderViewToStringInternal(viewPath, model, false); } /// <summary> /// Renders a partial MVC view to string. Use this method to render /// a partial view that doesn't merge with _Layout and doesn't fire /// _ViewStart. /// </summary> /// <param name="viewPath"> /// The path to the view to render. Either in same controller, shared by /// name or as fully qualified ~/ path including extension /// </param> /// <param name="model">The model to pass to the viewRenderer</param> /// <returns>String of the rendered view or null on error</returns> public string RenderPartialView(string viewPath, object model) { return RenderViewToStringInternal(viewPath, model, true); } public static string RenderView(string viewPath, object model, ControllerContext controllerContext) { ViewRenderer renderer = new ViewRenderer(controllerContext); return renderer.RenderView(viewPath, model); } public static string RenderPartialView(string viewPath, object model, ControllerContext controllerContext) { ViewRenderer renderer = new ViewRenderer(controllerContext); return renderer.RenderPartialView(viewPath, model); } protected string RenderViewToStringInternal(string viewPath, object model, bool partial = false) { // first find the ViewEngine for this view ViewEngineResult viewEngineResult = null; if (partial) viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindPartialView(Context, viewPath); else viewEngineResult = ViewEngines.Engines.FindView(Context, viewPath, null); if (viewEngineResult == null) throw new FileNotFoundException(Properties.Resources.ViewCouldNotBeFound); // get the view and attach the model to view data var view = viewEngineResult.View; Context.Controller.ViewData.Model = model; string result = null; using (var sw = new StringWriter()) { var ctx = new ViewContext(Context, view, Context.Controller.ViewData, Context.Controller.TempData, sw); view.Render(ctx, sw); result = sw.ToString(); } return result; } } The key is the RenderViewToStringInternal method. The method first tries to find the view to render based on its path which can either be in the current controller's view path or the shared view path using its simple name (PasswordRecovery) or alternately by its full virtual path (~/Views/Templates/PasswordRecovery.cshtml). This code should work both for Razor and WebForms views although I've only tried it with Razor Views. Note that WebForms Views might actually be better for plain text as Razor adds all sorts of white space into its output when there are code blocks in the template. The Web Forms engine provides more accurate rendering for raw text scenarios. Once a view engine is found the view to render can be retrieved. Views in MVC render based on data that comes off the controller like the ViewData which contains the model along with the actual ViewData and ViewBag. From the View and some of the Context data a ViewContext is created which is then used to render the view with. The View picks up the Model and other data from the ViewContext internally and processes the View the same it would be processed if it were to send its output into the HTTP output stream. The difference is that we can override the ViewContext's output stream which we provide and capture into a StringWriter(). After rendering completes the result holds the output string. If an error occurs the error behavior is similar what you see with regular MVC errors - you get a full yellow screen of death including the view error information with the line of error highlighted. It's your responsibility to handle the error - or let it bubble up to your regular Controller Error filter if you have one. To use the simple class you only need a single line of code if you call the static methods. Here's an example of some Controller code that is used to send a user notification to a customer via email in one of my applications:[HttpPost] public ActionResult ContactSeller(ContactSellerViewModel model) { InitializeViewModel(model); var entryBus = new busEntry(); var entry = entryBus.LoadByDisplayId(model.EntryId); if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Email) ) entryBus.ValidationErrors.Add("Email address can't be empty.","Email"); if ( string.IsNullOrEmpty(model.Message)) entryBus.ValidationErrors.Add("Message can't be empty.","Message"); model.EntryId = entry.DisplayId; model.EntryTitle = entry.Title; if (entryBus.ValidationErrors.Count > 0) { ErrorDisplay.AddMessages(entryBus.ValidationErrors); ErrorDisplay.ShowError("Please correct the following:"); } else { string message = ViewRenderer.RenderView("~/views/template/ContactSellerEmail.cshtml",model, ControllerContext); string title = entry.Title + " (" + entry.DisplayId + ") - " + App.Configuration.ApplicationName; AppUtils.SendEmail(title, message, model.Email, entry.User.Email, false, false)) } return View(model); } Simple! The view in this case is just a plain MVC view and in this case it's a very simple plain text email message (edited for brevity here) that is created and sent off:@model ContactSellerViewModel @{ Layout = null; }re: @Model.EntryTitle @Model.ListingUrl @Model.Message ** SECURITY ADVISORY - AVOID SCAMS ** Avoid: wiring money, cross-border deals, work-at-home ** Beware: cashier checks, money orders, escrow, shipping ** More Info: @(App.Configuration.ApplicationBaseUrl)scams.html Obviously this is a very simple view (I edited out more from this page to keep it brief) -  but other template views are much more complex HTML documents or long messages that are occasionally updated and they are a perfect fit for Razor rendering. It even works with nested partial views and _layout pages. Partial Rendering Notice that I'm rendering a full View here. In the view I explicitly set the Layout=null to avoid pulling in _layout.cshtml for this view. This can also be controlled externally by calling the RenderPartial method instead: string message = ViewRenderer.RenderPartialView("~/views/template/ContactSellerEmail.cshtml",model, ControllerContext); with this line of code no layout page (or _viewstart) will be loaded, so the output generated is just what's in the view. I find myself using Partials most of the time when rendering templates, since the target of templates usually tend to be emails or other HTML fragment like output, so the RenderPartialView() method is definitely useful to me. Rendering without a ControllerContext The preceding class is great when you're need template rendering from within MVC controller actions or anywhere where you have access to the request Controller. But if you don't have a controller context handy - maybe inside a utility function that is static, a non-Web application, or an operation that runs asynchronously in ASP.NET - which makes using the above code impossible. I haven't found a way to manually create a Controller context to provide the ViewContext() what it needs from outside of the MVC infrastructure. However, there are ways to accomplish this,  but they are a bit more complex. It's possible to host the RazorEngine on your own, which side steps all of the MVC framework and HTTP and just deals with the raw rendering engine. I wrote about this process in Hosting the Razor Engine in Non-Web Applications a long while back. It's quite a process to create a custom Razor engine and runtime, but it allows for all sorts of flexibility. There's also a RazorEngine CodePlex project that does something similar. I've been meaning to check out the latter but haven't gotten around to it since I have my own code to do this. The trick to hosting the RazorEngine to have it behave properly inside of an ASP.NET application and properly cache content so templates aren't constantly rebuild and reparsed. Anyway, in the same app as above I have one scenario where no ControllerContext is available: I have a background scheduler running inside of the app that fires on timed intervals. This process could be external but because it's lightweight we decided to fire it right inside of the ASP.NET app on a separate thread. In my app the code that renders these templates does something like this:var model = new SearchNotificationViewModel() { Entries = entries, Notification = notification, User = user }; // TODO: Need logging for errors sending string razorError = null; var result = AppUtils.RenderRazorTemplate("~/views/template/SearchNotificationTemplate.cshtml", model, razorError); which references a couple of helper functions that set up my RazorFolderHostContainer class:public static string RenderRazorTemplate(string virtualPath, object model,string errorMessage = null) { var razor = AppUtils.CreateRazorHost(); var path = virtualPath.Replace("~/", "").Replace("~", "").Replace("/", "\\"); var merged = razor.RenderTemplateToString(path, model); if (merged == null) errorMessage = razor.ErrorMessage; return merged; } /// <summary> /// Creates a RazorStringHostContainer and starts it /// Call .Stop() when you're done with it. /// /// This is a static instance /// </summary> /// <param name="virtualPath"></param> /// <param name="binBasePath"></param> /// <param name="forceLoad"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static RazorFolderHostContainer CreateRazorHost(string binBasePath = null, bool forceLoad = false) { if (binBasePath == null) { if (HttpContext.Current != null) binBasePath = HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath("~/"); else binBasePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory; } if (_RazorHost == null || forceLoad) { if (!binBasePath.EndsWith("\\")) binBasePath += "\\"; //var razor = new RazorStringHostContainer(); var razor = new RazorFolderHostContainer(); razor.TemplatePath = binBasePath; binBasePath += "bin\\"; razor.BaseBinaryFolder = binBasePath; razor.UseAppDomain = false; razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "ClassifiedsBusiness.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "ClassifiedsWeb.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Utilities.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Web.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add(binBasePath + "Westwind.Web.Mvc.dll"); razor.ReferencedAssemblies.Add("System.Web.dll"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("System.Web"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("ClassifiedsBusiness"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("ClassifiedsWeb"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("Westwind.Web"); razor.ReferencedNamespaces.Add("Westwind.Utilities"); _RazorHost = razor; _RazorHost.Start(); //_RazorHost.Engine.Configuration.CompileToMemory = false; } return _RazorHost; } The RazorFolderHostContainer essentially is a full runtime that mimics a folder structure like a typical Web app does including caching semantics and compiling code only if code changes on disk. It maps a folder hierarchy to views using the ~/ path syntax. The host is then configured to add assemblies and namespaces. Unfortunately the engine is not exactly like MVC's Razor - the expression expansion and code execution are the same, but some of the support methods like sections, helpers etc. are not all there so templates have to be a bit simpler. There are other folder hosts provided as well to directly execute templates from strings (using RazorStringHostContainer). The following is an example of an HTML email template @inherits RazorHosting.RazorTemplateFolderHost <ClassifiedsWeb.SearchNotificationViewModel> <html> <head> <title>Search Notifications</title> <style> body { margin: 5px;font-family: Verdana, Arial; font-size: 10pt;} h3 { color: SteelBlue; } .entry-item { border-bottom: 1px solid grey; padding: 8px; margin-bottom: 5px; } </style> </head> <body> Hello @Model.User.Name,<br /> <p>Below are your Search Results for the search phrase:</p> <h3>@Model.Notification.SearchPhrase</h3> <small>since @TimeUtils.ShortDateString(Model.Notification.LastSearch)</small> <hr /> You can see that the syntax is a little different. Instead of the familiar @model header the raw Razor  @inherits tag is used to specify the template base class (which you can extend). I took a quick look through the feature set of RazorEngine on CodePlex (now Github I guess) and the template implementation they use is closer to MVC's razor but there are other differences. In the end don't expect exact behavior like MVC templates if you use an external Razor rendering engine. This is not what I would consider an ideal solution, but it works well enough for this project. My biggest concern is the overhead of hosting a second razor engine in a Web app and the fact that here the differences in template rendering between 'real' MVC Razor views and another RazorEngine really are noticeable. You win some, you lose some It's extremely nice to see that if you have a ControllerContext handy (which probably addresses 99% of Web app scenarios) rendering a view to string using the native MVC Razor engine is pretty simple. Kudos on making that happen - as it solves a problem I see in just about every Web application I work on. But it is a bummer that a ControllerContext is required to make this simple code work. It'd be really sweet if there was a way to render views without being so closely coupled to the ASP.NET or MVC infrastructure that requires a ControllerContext. Alternately it'd be nice to have a way for an MVC based application to create a minimal ControllerContext from scratch - maybe somebody's been down that path. I tried for a few hours to come up with a way to make that work but gave up in the soup of nested contexts (MVC/Controller/View/Http). I suspect going down this path would be similar to hosting the ASP.NET runtime requiring a WorkerRequest. Brrr…. The sad part is that it seems to me that a View should really not require much 'context' of any kind to render output to string. Yes there are a few things that clearly are required like paths to the virtual and possibly the disk paths to the root of the app, but beyond that view rendering should not require much. But, no such luck. For now custom RazorHosting seems to be the only way to make Razor rendering go outside of the MVC context… Resources Full ViewRenderer.cs source code from Westwind.Web.Mvc library Hosting the Razor Engine for Non-Web Applications RazorEngine on GitHub© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in ASP.NET   ASP.NET  MVC   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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• Another "Windows 7 entry missing from Grub2" Question

  - by 4x10

  Like many before me had the following problem that after installing Ubuntu (with windows 7 already installed), the grub boot loader wouldnt show windows 7 as a boot option, though i can boot fine if I use the "Choose Boot Device" options on the x220. The difference is that I try using UEFI only so many answers didn't really fit my problem, though i tried several stuffs: after running boot repair it destroyed the ubuntu boot loader custom entry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom for windows which doesnt show up many update-grub and reboots trying windows repair recovery thing while being there i also did bootrec.exe /FixBoot and update-grub and reboot again and finaly because it was so much fun, i installed linux all over again, while formatting and deleting everything linux related before that. Now that i think of it, Ubuntu also didn't notice Windows being there during the Setup and it still doesnt according to the Boot Info from Boot Repair. Boot Info Script 0.61-git-patched [23 April 2012] ============================= Boot Info Summary: =============================== => No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. sda1: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: vfat Boot sector type: Windows 7: FAT32 Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Boot files: /efi/Boot/bootx64.efi /efi/ubuntu/grubx64.efi sda2: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Mounting failed: mount: unknown filesystem type '' sda3: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ntfs Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7: NTFS Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block. Operating System: Windows 7 Boot files: /Windows/System32/winload.exe sda4: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Ubuntu precise (development branch) Boot files: /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab sda5: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: ext4 Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: Operating System: Boot files: sda6: __________________________________________________________________________ File system: swap Boot sector type: - Boot sector info: ============================ Drive/Partition Info: ============================= Drive: sda _____________________________________________________________________ Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Partition Boot Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors Id System /dev/sda1 1 625,142,447 625,142,447 ee GPT GUID Partition Table detected. Partition Start Sector End Sector # of Sectors System /dev/sda1 2,048 206,847 204,800 EFI System partition /dev/sda2 206,848 468,991 262,144 Microsoft Reserved Partition (Windows) /dev/sda3 468,992 170,338,303 169,869,312 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda4 170,338,304 330,338,304 160,000,001 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda5 330,338,305 617,141,039 286,802,735 Data partition (Windows/Linux) /dev/sda6 617,141,040 625,141,040 8,000,001 Swap partition (Linux) "blkid" output: ________________________________________________________________ Device UUID TYPE LABEL /dev/sda1 885C-ED1B vfat /dev/sda3 EE06CC0506CBCCB1 ntfs /dev/sda4 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 ext4 /dev/sda5 d62515fd-8120-4a74-b17b-0bdf244124a3 ext4 /dev/sda6 7078b649-fb2a-4c59-bd03-fd31ef440d37 swap ================================ Mount points: ================================= Device Mount_Point Type Options /dev/sda1 /boot/efi vfat (rw) /dev/sda4 / ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) /dev/sda5 /home ext4 (rw) =========================== sda4/boot/grub/grub.cfg: =========================== -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # # DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE # # It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates # from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub # ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ### if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then set have_grubenv=true load_env fi set default="0" if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}" save_env saved_entry set prev_saved_entry= save_env prev_saved_entry set boot_once=true fi function savedefault { if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then saved_entry="${chosen}" save_env saved_entry fi } function recordfail { set recordfail=1 if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi } function load_video { insmod efi_gop insmod efi_uga insmod video_bochs insmod video_cirrus } insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then set gfxmode=auto load_video insmod gfxterm insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale set lang=en_US insmod gettext fi terminal_output gfxterm if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then set timeout=-1 else set timeout=10 fi ### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### set menu_color_normal=white/black set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray if background_color 44,0,30; then clear fi ### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### function gfxmode { set gfxpayload="$1" if [ "$1" = "keep" ]; then set vt_handoff=vt.handoff=7 else set vt_handoff= fi } if [ ${recordfail} != 1 ]; then if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then set linux_gfx_mode=keep else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi else set linux_gfx_mode=keep fi else set linux_gfx_mode=text fi export linux_gfx_mode if [ "$linux_gfx_mode" != "text" ]; then load_video; fi menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-20-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-20-generic root=UUID=604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 ro quiet splash $vt_handoff initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-20-generic } menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.2.0-20-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os { recordfail insmod gzio insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 echo 'Loading Linux 3.2.0-20-generic ...' linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-20-generic root=UUID=604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 ro recovery nomodeset echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...' initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-20-generic } ### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin } menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" { insmod part_gpt insmod ext2 set root='(hd0,gpt4)' search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8 } ### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### # This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the # menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change # the 'exec tail' line above. ### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ### ### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### if [ -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then source $prefix/custom.cfg; fi ### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ### -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =============================== sda4/etc/fstab: ================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 # / was on /dev/sda4 during installation UUID=604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 # /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation UUID=885C-ED1B /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1 # /home was on /dev/sda5 during installation UUID=d62515fd-8120-4a74-b17b-0bdf244124a3 /home ext4 defaults 0 2 # swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation UUID=7078b649-fb2a-4c59-bd03-fd31ef440d37 none swap sw 0 0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- =================== sda4: Location of files loaded by Grub: ==================== GiB - GB File Fragment(s) 129.422874451 = 138.966753280 boot/grub/grub.cfg 1 83.059570312 = 89.184534528 boot/initrd.img-3.2.0-20-generic 2 101.393131256 = 108.870045696 boot/vmlinuz-3.2.0-20-generic 1 83.059570312 = 89.184534528 initrd.img 2 101.393131256 = 108.870045696 vmlinuz 1 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : =================== log of boot-repair 2012-04-25__23h40 =================== boot-repair version : 3.18-0ppa3~precise boot-sav version : 3.18-0ppa4~precise glade2script version : 0.3.2.1-0ppa7~precise internet: connected python-software-properties version : 0.82.7 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 591 not upgraded. dpkg-preconfigure: unable to re-open stdin: No such file or directory boot-repair is executed in installed-session (Ubuntu precise (development branch) , precise , Ubuntu , x86_64) WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== OSPROBER: /dev/sda4:The OS now in use - Ubuntu precise (development branch) CurrentSession:linux =================== BLKID: /dev/sda3: UUID="EE06CC0506CBCCB1" TYPE="ntfs" /dev/sda1: UUID="885C-ED1B" TYPE="vfat" /dev/sda4: UUID="604dd3b2-64ca-4200-b8fb-820e8d0ca899" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda5: UUID="d62515fd-8120-4a74-b17b-0bdf244124a3" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sda6: UUID="7078b649-fb2a-4c59-bd03-fd31ef440d37" TYPE="swap" 1 disks with OS, 1 OS : 1 Linux, 0 MacOS, 0 Windows, 0 unknown type OS. WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util sfdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== /etc/default/grub : # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update # /boot/grub/grub.cfg. # For full documentation of the options in this file, see: # info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration' GRUB_DEFAULT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true GRUB_TIMEOUT=10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...) #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef" # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console # The resolution used on graphical terminal # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo' #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true" # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1" EFI_OF_PART[1] (, ) =================== dmesg | grep EFI : [ 0.000000] EFI v2.00 by Lenovo [ 0.000000] Kernel-defined memdesc doesn't match the one from EFI! [ 0.000000] EFI: mem00: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000000000-0x0000000000001000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem01: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000001000-0x000000000004e000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem02: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000000004e000-0x0000000000058000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem03: type=10, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000058000-0x0000000000059000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem04: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000059000-0x000000000005e000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem05: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000000005e000-0x000000000005f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem06: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000000005f000-0x00000000000a0000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem07: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000000100000-0x00000000005b9000) (4MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem08: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000005b9000-0x0000000020000000) (506MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem09: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000020000000-0x0000000020200000) (2MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem10: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000020200000-0x00000000364e4000) (354MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem11: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000364e4000-0x000000003726a000) (13MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem12: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000003726a000-0x0000000040000000) (141MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem13: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000040000000-0x0000000040200000) (2MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem14: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000040200000-0x000000009df35000) (1501MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem15: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x000000009df35000-0x00000000d39a0000) (858MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem16: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d39a0000-0x00000000d39c0000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem17: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d39c0000-0x00000000d5df5000) (36MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem18: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d5df5000-0x00000000d6990000) (11MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem19: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d6990000-0x00000000d6b82000) (1MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem20: type=1, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d6b82000-0x00000000d6b9f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem21: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d6b9f000-0x00000000d77b0000) (12MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem22: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d77b0000-0x00000000d780a000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem23: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d780a000-0x00000000d7826000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem24: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d7826000-0x00000000d7868000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem25: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d7868000-0x00000000d7869000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem26: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d7869000-0x00000000d786a000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem27: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786a000-0x00000000d786b000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem28: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786b000-0x00000000d786c000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem29: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786c000-0x00000000d786d000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem30: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d786d000-0x00000000d825f000) (9MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem31: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d825f000-0x00000000d8261000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem32: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8261000-0x00000000d82f7000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem33: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d82f7000-0x00000000d82f8000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem34: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d82f8000-0x00000000d8705000) (4MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem35: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8705000-0x00000000d8706000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem36: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8706000-0x00000000d8761000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem37: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8761000-0x00000000d8768000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem38: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d8768000-0x00000000d9b9f000) (20MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem39: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d9b9f000-0x00000000d9e4c000) (2MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem40: type=2, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d9e4c000-0x00000000d9e52000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem41: type=3, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000d9e52000-0x00000000da59f000) (7MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem42: type=5, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da59f000-0x00000000da6c3000) (1MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem43: type=5, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da6c3000-0x00000000da79f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem44: type=6, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da79f000-0x00000000da8b1000) (1MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem45: type=6, attr=0x800000000000000f, range=[0x00000000da8b1000-0x00000000da99f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem46: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000da99f000-0x00000000daa22000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem47: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa22000-0x00000000daa9b000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem48: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa9b000-0x00000000daa9c000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem49: type=0, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa9c000-0x00000000daa9f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem50: type=10, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daa9f000-0x00000000daadd000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem51: type=10, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000daadd000-0x00000000dab9f000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem52: type=9, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000dab9f000-0x00000000dabdc000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem53: type=9, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000dabdc000-0x00000000dabff000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem54: type=4, attr=0xf, range=[0x00000000dabff000-0x00000000dac00000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem55: type=7, attr=0xf, range=[0x0000000100000000-0x000000021e600000) (4582MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem56: type=11, attr=0x8000000000000001, range=[0x00000000f80f8000-0x00000000f80f9000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] EFI: mem57: type=11, attr=0x8000000000000001, range=[0x00000000fed1c000-0x00000000fed20000) (0MB) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000dabde000 0003E (v01 LENOVO TP-8D 00001280 PTL 00000002) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000dabdd000 00042 (v01 PTL COMBUF 00000001 PTL 00000001) [ 0.000000] ACPI: UEFI 00000000dabdc000 00292 (v01 LENOVO TP-8D 00001280 PTL 00000002) [ 0.795807] fb0: EFI VGA frame buffer device [ 1.057243] EFI Variables Facility v0.08 2004-May-17 [ 9.122104] fb: conflicting fb hw usage inteldrmfb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver ReadEFI: /dev/sda , N 128 , 0 , , PRStart 1024 , PRSize 128 WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== PARTITIONS & DISKS: sda4 : sda, not-sepboot, grubenv-ok grub2, grub-efi, update-grub, 64, with-boot, is-os, gpt-but-not-EFI, fstab-has-bad-efi, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, apt-get, grub-install, . sda3 : sda, maybesepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, gpt-but-not-EFI, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, haswinload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, /mnt/boot-sav/sda3. sda1 : sda, maybesepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, is-correct-EFI, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, /boot/efi. sda5 : sda, maybesepboot, no-grubenv nogrub, no-docgrub, no-update-grub, 32, no-boot, no-os, gpt-but-not-EFI, part-has-no-fstab, no-nt, no-winload, no-recov-nor-hid, no-bmgr, no-grldr, no-b-bcd, nopakmgr, nogrubinstall, /home. sda : GPT-BIS, GPT, no-BIOS_boot, has-correctEFI, 2048 sectors * 512 bytes =================== PARTED: Model: ATA HITACHI HTS72323 (scsi) Disk /dev/sda: 320GB Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Partition Table: gpt Number Start End Size File system Name Flags 1 1049kB 106MB 105MB fat32 EFI system partition boot 2 106MB 240MB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres 3 240MB 87.2GB 87.0GB ntfs Basic data partition 4 87.2GB 169GB 81.9GB ext4 5 169GB 316GB 147GB ext4 6 316GB 320GB 4096MB linux-swap(v1) =================== MOUNT: /dev/sda4 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro) proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev) none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw) none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw) none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw) udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755) devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620) tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755) none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880) none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev) /dev/sda1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw) /dev/sda5 on /home type ext4 (rw) gvfs-fuse-daemon on /home/vierlex/.gvfs type fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=vierlex) /dev/sda3 on /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,blksize=4096) /sys/block/sda: alignment_offset bdi capability dev device discard_alignment events events_async events_poll_msecs ext_range holders inflight power queue range removable ro sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 size slaves stat subsystem trace uevent /dev: agpgart autofs block bsg btrfs-control bus char console core cpu cpu_dma_latency disk dri ecryptfs fb0 fd full fuse hpet input kmsg log mapper mcelog mei mem net network_latency network_throughput null oldmem port ppp psaux ptmx pts random rfkill rtc rtc0 sda sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 sda5 sda6 sg0 shm snapshot snd stderr stdin stdout tpm0 uinput urandom usbmon0 usbmon1 usbmon2 v4l vga_arbiter video0 watchdog zero /dev/mapper: control /boot/efi: EFI /boot/efi/EFI: Boot Microsoft ubuntu /boot/efi/efi: Boot Microsoft ubuntu /boot/efi/efi/Boot: bootx64.efi /boot/efi/efi/ubuntu: grubx64.efi WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted. =================== DF: Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda4 ext4 77G 4.1G 69G 6% / udev devtmpfs 3.9G 12K 3.9G 1% /dev tmpfs tmpfs 1.6G 864K 1.6G 1% /run none tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none tmpfs 3.9G 152K 3.9G 1% /run/shm /dev/sda1 vfat 96M 18M 79M 19% /boot/efi /dev/sda5 ext4 137G 2.2G 128G 2% /home /dev/sda3 fuseblk 81G 30G 52G 37% /mnt/boot-sav/sda3 =================== FDISK: Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0xf34fe538 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 625142447 312571223+ ee GPT =================== Before mainwindow FSCK no PASTEBIN yes WUBI no WINBOOT yes recommendedrepair, purge, QTY_OF_PART_FOR_REINSTAL 1 no-kernel-purge UNHIDEBOOT_ACTION yes (10s), noflag () PART_TO_REINSTALL_GRUB sda4, FORCE_GRUB no (sda) REMOVABLEDISK no USE_SEPARATEBOOTPART no (sda3) grub2 () UNCOMMENT_GFXMODE no ATA ADD_KERNEL_OPTION no (acpi=off) MBR_TO_RESTORE ( ) EFI detected. Please check the options. =================== Actions FSCK no PASTEBIN yes WUBI no WINBOOT no bootinfo, nombraction, QTY_OF_PART_FOR_REINSTAL 1 no-kernel-purge UNHIDEBOOT_ACTION no (10s), noflag () PART_TO_REINSTALL_GRUB sda4, FORCE_GRUB no (sda) REMOVABLEDISK no USE_SEPARATEBOOTPART no (sda3) grub2 () UNCOMMENT_GFXMODE no ATA ADD_KERNEL_OPTION no (acpi=off) MBR_TO_RESTORE ( ) No change has been performed on your computer. See you soon! internet: connected Thanks for your time and attention. EDIT: additional Info Request =No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda. But maybe this is how it is supposed to work? yea this is ok. boot stuff seems to be on a seperate partition, in my case sda1. I'm very new to this UEFI thing too. missing files like bootmgr i don't really have a clue :D but yea, maybe thats how it suppose to be? Instead and whats not shown in the log for some reason: There is additional microsoft bootfiles on sda1 under /efi/microsoft/ [much stuff] I remember also doing some kind of hack to make a UEFI windows 7 usb stick. http://jake.io/b/2011/installing-windows-7-with-uefi-boot-on-an-x220-from-usb/ In short: creating and placing bootx64.efi on the stick so it can be booted in UEFI mode. boot order i decide that in my BIOS. i read somwhere that the thinkpad x220 (essential part of the serial number: 4921 http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/x220_x220i_x220tablet_x220itablet_ug_en.pdf) doesnt really have UEFI interface or something, still, these 2 options are listed with all the other usual devices you can give a boot priority to. Right now it looks like this: Boot Priority Order 1. ubuntu 2. Windows Boot Manager 3. USB FDD 4. USB HDD 5. ATA HDD0 HITACHI [random string]

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• Constructor parameter validation in C# - Best practices

  - by MPelletier

  What is the best practice for constructor parameter validation? Suppose a simple bit of C#: public class MyClass { public MyClass(string text) { if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(text)) throw new ArgumentException("Text cannot be empty"); // continue with normal construction } } Would it be acceptable to throw an exception? The alternative I encountered was pre-validation, before instantiating: public class CallingClass { public MyClass MakeMyClass(string text) { if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(text)) { MessageBox.Show("Text cannot be empty"); return null; } else { return new MyClass(text); } } }

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• Replacing “if”s with your own number system

  - by Michael Williamson

  During our second code retreat at Red Gate, the restriction for one of the sessions was disallowing the use of if statements. That includes other constructs that have the same effect, such as switch statements or loops that will only be executed zero or one times. The idea is to encourage use of polymorphism instead, and see just how far it can be used to get rid of “if”s. The main place where people struggled to get rid of numbers from their implementation of Conway’s Game of Life was the piece of code that decides whether a cell is live or dead in the next generation. For instance, for a cell that’s currently live, the code might look something like this: if (numberOfNeighbours == 2 || numberOfNeighbours == 3) { return CellState.LIVE; } else { return CellState.DEAD; } The problem is that we need to change behaviour depending on the number of neighbours each cell has, but polymorphism only allows us to switch behaviour based on the type of a value. It follows that the solution is to make different numbers have different types: public interface IConwayNumber { IConwayNumber Increment(); CellState LiveCellNextGeneration(); } public class Zero : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return new One(); } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.DEAD; } } public class One : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return new Two(); } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.LIVE; } } public class Two : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return new ThreeOrMore(); } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.LIVE; } } public class ThreeOrMore : IConwayNumber { public IConwayNumber Increment() { return this; } public CellState LiveCellNextGeneration() { return CellState.DEAD; } } In the code that counts the number of neighbours, we use our new number system by starting with Zero and incrementing when we find a neighbour. To choose the next state of the cell, rather than inspecting the number of neighbours, we ask the number of neighbours for the next state directly: return numberOfNeighbours.LiveCellNextGeneration(); And now we have no “if”s! If C# had double-dispatch, or if we used the visitor pattern, we could move the logic for choosing the next cell out of the number classes, which might feel a bit more natural. I suspect that reimplementing the natural numbers is still going to feel about the same amount of crazy though.

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• The Game vs The Game Engine?

  - by Milo

  I was wondering if somebody could tell me how the game and the game engine fit into game development. Specifically what I mean is, the game engine does not actually have a game. So where I'm unclear about is basically, do game developpers build an engine, then create a new class that inherits from engine which becomes the game? Ex: class ShooterGame : public Engine { }; So basically i'm unclear on where the game code fits into the engine. Thanks

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• ASP.NET Controls – CommunityServer Captcha ControlAdapter, a practical case

  - by nmgomes

  The ControlAdapter is available since .NET framework version 2.0 and his main goal is to adapt and customize a control render in order to achieve a specific behavior or layout. This customization is done without changing the base control. A ControlAdapter is commonly used to custom render for specific platforms like Mobile. In this particular case the ControlAdapter was used to add a specific behavior to a Control. In this  post I will use one adapter to add a Captcha to all WeblogPostCommentForm controls within pontonetpt.com CommunityServer instance. The Challenge The ControlAdapter complexity is usually associated with the complexity/structure of is base control. This case is precisely one of those since base control dynamically load his content (controls) thru several ITemplate. Those of you who already played with ITemplate knows that while it is an excellent option for control composition it also brings to the table a big issue: “Controls defined within a template are not available for manipulation until they are instantiated inside another control.” While analyzing the WeblogPostCommentForm control I found that he uses the ITemplate technique to compose it’s layout and unfortunately I also found that the template content vary from theme to theme. This could have been a problem but luckily WeblogPostCommentForm control template content always contains a submit button with a well known ID (at least I can assume that there are a well known set of IDs). Using this submit button as anchor it’s possible to add the Captcha controls in the correct place. Another important finding was that WeblogPostCommentForm control inherits from the WrappedFormBase control which is the base control for all CommunityServer input forms. Knowing this inheritance link the main goal has changed to became the creation of a base ControlAdapter that  could be extended and customized to allow adding Captcha to: post comments form contact form user creation form. And, with this mind set, I decided to used the following ControlAdapter base class signature :public abstract class WrappedFormBaseCaptchaAdapter<T> : ControlAdapter where T : WrappedFormBase { }Great, but there are still many to do … Captcha The Captcha will be assembled with: A dynamically generated image with a set of random numbers A TextBox control where the image number will be inserted A Validator control to validate whether TextBox numbers match the image numbers This is a common Captcha implementation, is not rocket science and don’t bring any additional problem. The main problem, as told before, is to find the correct anchor control to ensure a correct Captcha control injection. The anchor control can vary by: target control  theme Implementation To support this dynamic scenario I choose to use the following implementation:private List<string> _validAnchorIds = null; protected virtual List<string> ValidAnchorIds { get { if (this._validAnchorIds == null) { this._validAnchorIds = new List<string>(); this._validAnchorIds.Add("btnSubmit"); } return this._validAnchorIds; } } private Control GetAnchorControl(T wrapper) { if (this.ValidAnchorIds == null || this.ValidAnchorIds.Count == 0) { throw new ArgumentException("Cannot be null or empty", "validAnchorNames"); } var q = from anchorId in this.ValidAnchorIds let anchorControl = CSControlUtility.Instance().FindControl(wrapper, anchorId) where anchorControl != null select anchorControl; return q.FirstOrDefault(); } I can now, using the ValidAnchorIds property, configure a set of valid anchor control  Ids. The GetAnchorControl method searches for a valid anchor control within the set of valid control Ids. Here, some of you may question why to use a LINQ To Objects expression, but the important here is to notice the usage of CSControlUtility.Instance().FindControl CommunityServer method. I want to build on top of CommunityServer not to reinvent the wheel. Assuming that an anchor control was found, it’s now possible to inject the Captcha at the correct place. This not something new, we do this all the time when creating server controls or adding dynamic controls:protected sealed override void CreateChildControls() { base.CreateChildControls(); if (this.IsCaptchaRequired) { T wrapper = base.Control as T; if (wrapper != null) { Control anchorControl = GetAnchorControl(wrapper); if (anchorControl != null) { Panel phCaptcha = new Panel {CssClass = "CommonFormField", ID = "Captcha"}; int index = anchorControl.Parent.Controls.IndexOf(anchorControl); anchorControl.Parent.Controls.AddAt(index, phCaptcha); CaptchaConfiguration.DefaultProvider.AddCaptchaControls( phCaptcha, GetValidationGroup(wrapper, anchorControl)); } } } } Here you can see a new entity in action: a provider. This is a CaptchaProvider class instance and is only goal is to create the Captcha itself and do everything else is needed to ensure is correct operation.public abstract class CaptchaProvider : ProviderBase { public abstract void AddCaptchaControls(Panel captchaPanel, string validationGroup); } You can create your own specific CaptchaProvider class to use different Captcha strategies including the use of existing Captcha services  like ReCaptcha. Once the generic ControlAdapter was created became extremely easy to created a specific one. Here is the specific ControlAdapter for the WeblogPostCommentForm control:public class WeblogPostCommentFormCaptchaAdapter : WrappedFormBaseCaptchaAdapter<WrappedFormBase> { #region Overriden Methods protected override List<string> ValidAnchorIds { get { List<string> validAnchorNames = base.ValidAnchorIds; validAnchorNames.Add("CommentSubmit"); return validAnchorNames; } } protected override string DefaultValidationGroup { get { return "CreateCommentForm"; } } #endregion Overriden Methods } Configuration This is the magic step. Without changing the original pages and keeping the application original assemblies untouched we are going to add a new behavior to the CommunityServer application. To glue everything together you must follow this steps: Add the following configuration to default.browser file:<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?> <browsers> <browser refID="Default"> <controlAdapters> <!-- Adapter for the WeblogPostCommentForm control in order to add the Captcha and prevent SPAM comments --> <adapter controlType="CommunityServer.Blogs.Controls.WeblogPostCommentForm" adapterType="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Components.WeblogPostCommentFormCaptchaAdapter, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" /> </controlAdapters> </browser> </browsers> Add the following configuration to web.config file:<configuration> <configSections> <!-- New section for Captcha providers configuration --> <section name="communityServer.Captcha" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Configuration.CaptchaSection" /> </configSections> <!-- Configuring a simple Captcha provider --> <communityServer.Captcha defaultProvider="simpleCaptcha"> <providers> <add name="simpleCaptcha" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Providers.SimpleCaptchaProvider, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" imageUrl="~/captcha.ashx" enabled="true" passPhrase="_YourPassPhrase_" saltValue="_YourSaltValue_" hashAlgorithm="SHA1" passwordIterations="3" keySize="256" initVector="_YourInitVectorWithExactly_16_Bytes_" /> </providers> </communityServer.Captcha> <system.web> <httpHandlers> <!-- The Captcha Image handler used by the simple Captcha provider --> <add verb="GET" path="captcha.ashx" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Providers.SimpleCaptchaProviderImageHandler, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" /> </httpHandlers> </system.web> <system.webServer> <handlers accessPolicy="Read, Write, Script, Execute"> <!-- The Captcha Image handler used by the simple Captcha provider --> <add verb="GET" name="captcha" path="captcha.ashx" type="NunoGomes.CommunityServer.Captcha.Providers.SimpleCaptchaProviderImageHandler, NunoGomes.CommunityServer" /> </handlers> </system.webServer> </configuration> Conclusion Building a ControlAdapter can be complex but the reward is his ability to allows us, thru configuration changes, to modify an application render and/or behavior. You can see this ControlAdapter in action here and here (anonymous required). A complete solution is available in “CommunityServer Extensions” Codeplex project.

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• ASP.NET MVC 3 Hosting :: ASP.NET MVC 3 First Look

  - by mbridge

  MVC 3 View Enhancements MVC 3 introduces two improvements to the MVC view engine: - Ability to select the view engine to use. MVC 3 allows you to select from any of your  installed view engines from Visual Studio by selecting Add > View (including the newly introduced ASP.NET “Razor” engine”): - Support for the next ASP.NET “Razor” syntax. The newly previewed Razor syntax is a concise lightweight syntax. MVC 3 Control Enhancements - Global Filters: ASP.NET MVC 3  allows you to specify that a filter which applies globally to all Controllers within an app by adding it to the GlobalFilters collection.  The RegisterGlobalFilters() method is now included in the default Global.asax class template and so provides a convenient place to do this since is will then be called by the Application_Start() method: void RegisterGlobalFilters(GlobalFilterCollection filters) { filters.Add(new HandleLoggingAttribute()); filters.Add(new HandleErrorAttribute()); } void Application_Start() { RegisterGlobalFilters (GlobalFilters.Filters); } - Dynamic ViewModel Property : MVC 3 augments the ViewData API with a new “ViewModel” property on Controller which is of type “dynamic” – and therefore enables you to use the new dynamic language support in C# and VB pass ViewData items using a cleaner syntax than the current dictionary API. Public ActionResult Index() { ViewModel.Message = "Hello World"; return View(); } - New ActionResult Types : MVC 3 includes three new ActionResult types and helper methods: 1. HttpNotFoundResult – indicates that a resource which was requested by the current URL was not found. HttpNotFoundResult will return a 404 HTTP status code to the calling client. 2. PermanentRedirects – The HttpRedirectResult class contains a new Boolean “Permanent” property which is used to indicate that a permanent redirect should be done. Permanent redirects use a HTTP 301 status code.  The Controller class  includes three new methods for performing these permanent redirects: RedirectPermanent(), RedirectToRoutePermanent(), andRedirectToActionPermanent(). All  of these methods will return an instance of the HttpRedirectResult object with the Permanent property set to true. 3. HttpStatusCodeResult – used for setting an explicit response status code and its associated description. MVC 3 AJAX and JavaScript Enhancements MVC 3 ships with built-in JSON binding support which enables action methods to receive JSON-encoded data and then model-bind it to action method parameters. For example a jQuery client-side JavaScript could define a “save” event handler which will be invoked when the save button is clicked on the client. The code in the event handler then constructs a client-side JavaScript “product” object with 3 fields with their values retrieved from HTML input elements. Finally, it uses jQuery’s .ajax() method to POST a JSON based request which contains the product to a /theStore/UpdateProduct URL on the server: $('#save').click(function () { var product = { ProdName: $('#Name').val() Price: $('#Price').val(), } $.ajax({ url: '/theStore/UpdateProduct', type: "POST"; data: JSON.stringify(widget), datatype: "json", contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8", success: function () { $('#message').html('Saved').fadeIn(), }, error: function () { $('#message').html('Error').fadeIn(), } }); return false; }); MVC will allow you to implement the /theStore/UpdateProduct URL on the server by using an action method as below. The UpdateProduct() action method will accept a strongly-typed Product object for a parameter. MVC 3 can now automatically bind an incoming JSON post value to the .NET Product type on the server without having to write any custom binding. [HttpPost] public ActionResult UpdateProduct(Product product) { // save logic here return null } MVC 3 Model Validation Enhancements MVC 3 builds on the MVC 2 model validation improvements by adding   support for several of the new validation features within the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace in .NET 4.0: - Support for the new DataAnnotations metadata attributes like DisplayAttribute. - Support for the improvements made to the ValidationAttribute class which now supports a new IsValid overload that provides more info on  the current validation context, like what object is being validated. - Support for the new IValidatableObject interface which enables you to perform model-level validation and also provide validation error messages which are specific to the state of the overall model. MVC 3 Dependency Injection Enhancements MVC 3 includes better support for applying Dependency Injection (DI) and also integrating with Dependency Injection/IOC containers. Currently MVC 3 Preview 1 has support for DI in the below places: - Controllers (registering & injecting controller factories and injecting controllers) - Views (registering & injecting view engines, also for injecting dependencies into view pages) - Action Filters (locating and  injecting filters) And this is another important blog about Microsoft .NET and technology: - Windows 2008 Blog - SharePoint 2010 Blog - .NET 4 Blog And you can visit here if you're looking for ASP.NET MVC 3 hosting

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• Dependency injection with n-tier Entity Framework solution

  - by Matthew

  I am currently designing an n-tier solution which is using Entity Framework 5 (.net 4) as its data access strategy, but am concerned about how to incorporate dependency injection to make it testable / flexible. My current solution layout is as follows (my solution is called Alcatraz): Alcatraz.WebUI: An asp.net webform project, the front end user interface, references projects Alcatraz.Business and Alcatraz.Data.Models. Alcatraz.Business: A class library project, contains the business logic, references projects Alcatraz.Data.Access, Alcatraz.Data.Models Alcatraz.Data.Access: A class library project, houses AlcatrazModel.edmx and AlcatrazEntities DbContext, references projects Alcatraz.Data.Models. Alcatraz.Data.Models: A class library project, contains POCOs for the Alcatraz model, no references. My vision for how this solution would work is the web-ui would instantiate a repository within the business library, this repository would have a dependency (through the constructor) of a connection string (not an AlcatrazEntities instance). The web-ui would know the database connection strings, but not that it was an entity framework connection string. In the Business project: public class InmateRepository : IInmateRepository { private string _connectionString; public InmateRepository(string connectionString) { if (connectionString == null) { throw new ArgumentNullException("connectionString"); } EntityConnectionStringBuilder connectionBuilder = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder(); connectionBuilder.Metadata = "res://*/AlcatrazModel.csdl|res://*/AlcatrazModel.ssdl|res://*/AlcatrazModel.msl"; connectionBuilder.Provider = "System.Data.SqlClient"; connectionBuilder.ProviderConnectionString = connectionString; _connectionString = connectionBuilder.ToString(); } public IQueryable<Inmate> GetAllInmates() { AlcatrazEntities ents = new AlcatrazEntities(_connectionString); return ents.Inmates; } } In the Web UI: IInmateRepository inmateRepo = new InmateRepository(@"data source=MATTHEW-PC\SQLEXPRESS;initial catalog=Alcatraz;integrated security=True;"); List<Inmate> deathRowInmates = inmateRepo.GetAllInmates().Where(i => i.OnDeathRow).ToList(); I have a few related questions about this design. 1) Does this design even make sense in terms of Entity Frameworks capabilities? I heard that Entity framework uses the Unit-of-work pattern already, am I just adding another layer of abstract unnecessarily? 2) I don't want my web-ui to directly communicate with Entity Framework (or even reference it for that matter), I want all database access to go through the business layer as in the future I will have multiple projects using the same business layer (web service, windows application, etc.) and I want to have it easy to maintain / update by having the business logic in one central area. Is this an appropriate way to achieve this? 3) Should the Business layer even contain repositories, or should that be contained within the Access layer? If where they are is alright, is passing a connection string a good dependency to assume? Thanks for taking the time to read!

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• Anti-Forgery Request Helpers for ASP.NET MVC and jQuery AJAX

  - by Dixin

  Background To secure websites from cross-site request forgery (CSRF, or XSRF) attack, ASP.NET MVC provides an excellent mechanism: The server prints tokens to cookie and inside the form; When the form is submitted to server, token in cookie and token inside the form are sent in the HTTP request; Server validates the tokens. To print tokens to browser, just invoke HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken():<% using (Html.BeginForm()) { %> <%: this.Html.AntiForgeryToken(Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)%> <%-- Other fields. --%> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> <% } %> This invocation generates a token then writes inside the form:<form action="..." method="post"> <input name="__RequestVerificationToken" type="hidden" value="J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP" /> <!-- Other fields. --> <input type="submit" value="Submit" /> </form> and also writes into the cookie: __RequestVerificationToken_Lw__= J56khgCvbE3bVcsCSZkNVuH9Cclm9SSIT/ywruFsXEgmV8CL2eW5C/gGsQUf/YuP When the above form is submitted, they are both sent to server. In the server side, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute is used to specify the controllers or actions to validate them:[HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult Action(/* ... */) { // ... } This is very productive for form scenarios. But recently, when resolving security vulnerabilities for Web products, some problems are encountered. Specify validation on controller (not on each action) The server side problem is, It is expected to declare [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] on controller, but actually it has be to declared on each POST actions. Because POST actions are usually much more then controllers, this is a little crazy Problem Usually a controller contains actions for HTTP GET and actions for HTTP POST requests, and usually validations are expected for HTTP POST requests. So, if the [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] is declared on the controller, the HTTP GET requests become invalid:[ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller // One [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute. { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Index() cannot work. { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } If browser sends an HTTP GET request by clicking a link: http://Site/Some/Index, validation definitely fails, because no token is provided. So the result is, [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute must be distributed to each POST action:public class SomeController : Controller // Many [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes. { [HttpGet] public ActionResult Index() // Works. { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction1(/* ... */) { // ... } [HttpPost] [ValidateAntiForgeryToken(Salt = Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public ActionResult PostAction2(/* ... */) { // ... } // ... } This is a little bit crazy, because one application can have a lot of POST actions. Solution To avoid a large number of [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attributes (one for each POST action), the following ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute wrapper class can be helpful, where HTTP verbs can be specified:[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method, AllowMultiple = false, Inherited = true)] public class ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute : FilterAttribute, IAuthorizationFilter { private readonly ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute _validator; private readonly AcceptVerbsAttribute _verbs; public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs) : this(verbs, null) { } public ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapperAttribute(HttpVerbs verbs, string salt) { this._verbs = new AcceptVerbsAttribute(verbs); this._validator = new ValidateAntiForgeryTokenAttribute() { Salt = salt }; } public void OnAuthorization(AuthorizationContext filterContext) { string httpMethodOverride = filterContext.HttpContext.Request.GetHttpMethodOverride(); if (this._verbs.Verbs.Contains(httpMethodOverride, StringComparer.OrdinalIgnoreCase)) { this._validator.OnAuthorization(filterContext); } } } When this attribute is declared on controller, only HTTP requests with the specified verbs are validated:[ValidateAntiForgeryTokenWrapper(HttpVerbs.Post, Constants.AntiForgeryTokenSalt)] public class SomeController : Controller { // GET actions are not affected. // Only HTTP POST requests are validated. } Now one single attribute on controller turns on validation for all POST actions. Maybe it would be nice if HTTP verbs can be specified on the built-in [ValidateAntiForgeryToken] attribute, which is easy to implemented. Submit token via AJAX The browser side problem is, if server side turns on anti-forgery validation for POST, then AJAX POST requests will fail be default. Problem For AJAX scenarios, when request is sent by jQuery instead of form:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 // Token is not posted. }, callback); This kind of AJAX POST requests will always be invalid, because server side code cannot see the token in the posted data. Solution The tokens are printed to browser then sent back to server. So first of all, HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be called somewhere. Now the browser has token in HTML and cookie. Then jQuery must find the printed token in the HTML, and append token to the data before sending:$.post(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1, __RequestVerificationToken: getToken() // Token is posted. }, callback); To be reusable, this can be encapsulated into a tiny jQuery plugin:/// <reference path="jquery-1.4.2.js" /> (function ($) { $.getAntiForgeryToken = function (tokenWindow, appPath) { // HtmlHelper.AntiForgeryToken() must be invoked to print the token. tokenWindow = tokenWindow && typeof tokenWindow === typeof window ? tokenWindow : window; appPath = appPath && typeof appPath === "string" ? "_" + appPath.toString() : ""; // The name attribute is either __RequestVerificationToken, // or __RequestVerificationToken_{appPath}. tokenName = "__RequestVerificationToken" + appPath; // Finds the <input type="hidden" name={tokenName} value="..." /> from the specified. // var inputElements = $("input[type='hidden'][name='__RequestVerificationToken" + appPath + "']"); var inputElements = tokenWindow.document.getElementsByTagName("input"); for (var i = 0; i < inputElements.length; i++) { var inputElement = inputElements[i]; if (inputElement.type === "hidden" && inputElement.name === tokenName) { return { name: tokenName, value: inputElement.value }; } } return null; }; $.appendAntiForgeryToken = function (data, token) { // Converts data if not already a string. if (data && typeof data !== "string") { data = $.param(data); } // Gets token from current window by default. token = token ? token : $.getAntiForgeryToken(); // $.getAntiForgeryToken(window). data = data ? data + "&" : ""; // If token exists, appends {token.name}={token.value} to data. return token ? data + encodeURIComponent(token.name) + "=" + encodeURIComponent(token.value) : data; }; // Wraps $.post(url, data, callback, type). $.postAntiForgery = function (url, data, callback, type) { return $.post(url, $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data), callback, type); }; // Wraps $.ajax(settings). $.ajaxAntiForgery = function (settings) { settings.data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(settings.data); return $.ajax(settings); }; })(jQuery); In most of the scenarios, it is Ok to just replace $.post() invocation with $.postAntiForgery(), and replace $.ajax() with $.ajaxAntiForgery():$.postAntiForgery(url, { productName: "Tofu", categoryId: 1 }, callback); // Token is posted. There might be some scenarios of custom token. Here $.appendAntiForgeryToken() is provided:data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data, token); // Token is already in data. No need to invoke $.postAntiForgery(). $.post(url, data, callback); And there are scenarios that the token is not in the current window. For example, an HTTP POST request can be sent by iframe, while the token is in the parent window. Here window can be specified for $.getAntiForgeryToken():data = $.appendAntiForgeryToken(data, $.getAntiForgeryToken(window.parent)); // Token is already in data. No need to invoke $.postAntiForgery(). $.post(url, data, callback); If you have better solution, please do tell me.

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• Easier ASP.NET MVC Routing

  - by Steve Wilkes

  I've recently refactored the way Routes are declared in an ASP.NET MVC application I'm working on, and I wanted to share part of the system I came up with; a really easy way to declare and keep track of ASP.NET MVC Routes, which then allows you to find the name of the Route which has been selected for the current request. Traditional MVC Route Declaration Traditionally, ASP.NET MVC Routes are added to the application's RouteCollection using overloads of the RouteCollection.MapRoute() method; for example, this is the standard way the default Route which matches /controller/action URLs is created: routes.MapRoute(     "Default",     "{controller}/{action}/{id}",     new { controller = "Home", action = "Index", id = UrlParameter.Optional }); The first argument declares that this Route is to be named 'Default', the second specifies the Route's URL pattern, and the third contains the URL pattern segments' default values. To then write a link to a URL which matches the default Route in a View, you can use the HtmlHelper.RouteLink() method, like this: @ this.Html.RouteLink("Default", new { controller = "Orders", action = "Index" }) ...that substitutes 'Orders' into the {controller} segment of the default Route's URL pattern, and 'Index' into the {action} segment. The {Id} segment was declared optional and isn't specified here. That's about the most basic thing you can do with MVC routing, and I already have reservations: I've duplicated the magic string "Default" between the Route declaration and the use of RouteLink(). This isn't likely to cause a problem for the default Route, but once you get to dozens of Routes the duplication is a pain. There's no easy way to get from the RouteLink() method call to the declaration of the Route itself, so getting the names of the Route's URL parameters correct requires some effort. The call to MapRoute() is quite verbose; with dozens of Routes this gets pretty ugly. If at some point during a request I want to find out the name of the Route has been matched.... and I can't. To get around these issues, I wanted to achieve the following: Make declaring a Route very easy, using as little code as possible. Introduce a direct link between where a Route is declared, where the Route is defined and where the Route's name is used, so I can use Visual Studio's Go To Definition to get from a call to RouteLink() to the declaration of the Route I'm using, making it easier to make sure I use the correct URL parameters. Create a way to access the currently-selected Route's name during the execution of a request. My first step was to come up with a quick and easy syntax for declaring Routes. 1 . An Easy Route Declaration Syntax I figured the easiest way of declaring a route was to put all the information in a single string with a special syntax. For example, the default MVC route would be declared like this: "{controller:Home}/{action:Index}/{Id}*" This contains the same information as the regular way of defining a Route, but is far more compact: The default values for each URL segment are specified in a colon-separated section after the segment name The {Id} segment is declared as optional simply by placing a * after it That's the default route - a pretty simple example - so how about this? routes.MapRoute(     "CustomerOrderList",     "Orders/{customerRef}/{pageNo}",     new { controller = "Orders", action = "List", pageNo = UrlParameter.Optional },     new { customerRef = "^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$", pageNo = "^[0-9]+$" }); This maps to the List action on the Orders controller URLs which: Start with the string Orders/ Then have a {customerRef} set of characters and numbers Then optionally a numeric {pageNo}. And again, it’s quite verbose. Here's my alternative: "Orders/{customerRef:^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$}/{pageNo:^[0-9]+$}*->Orders/List" Quite a bit more brief, and again, containing the same information as the regular way of declaring Routes: Regular expression constraints are declared after the colon separator, the same as default values The target controller and action are specified after the -> The {pageNo} is defined as optional by placing a * after it With an appropriate parser that gave me a nice, compact and clear way to declare routes. Next I wanted to have a single place where Routes were declared and accessed. 2. A Central Place to Declare and Access Routes I wanted all my Routes declared in one, dedicated place, which I would also use for Route names when calling RouteLink(). With this in mind I made a single class named Routes with a series of public, constant fields, each one relating to a particular Route. With this done, I figured a good place to actually declare each Route was in an attribute on the field defining the Route’s name; the attribute would parse the Route definition string and make the resulting Route object available as a property. I then made the Routes class examine its own fields during its static setup, and cache all the attribute-created Route objects in an internal Dictionary. Finally I made Routes use that cache to register the Routes when requested, and to access them later when required. So the Routes class declares its named Routes like this: public static class Routes{     [RouteDefinition("Orders/{customerName}->Orders/Index")]     public const string OrdersCustomerIndex = "OrdersCustomerIndex";     [RouteDefinition("Orders/{customerName}/{orderId:^([0-9]+)$}->Orders/Details")]     public const string OrdersDetails = "OrdersDetails";     [RouteDefinition("{controller:Home}*/{action:Index}*")]     public const string Default = "Default"; } ...which are then used like this: @ this.Html.RouteLink(Routes.Default, new { controller = "Orders", action = "Index" }) Now that using Go To Definition on the Routes.Default constant takes me to where the Route is actually defined, it's nice and easy to quickly check on the parameter names when using RouteLink(). Finally, I wanted to be able to access the name of the current Route during a request. 3. Recovering the Route Name The RouteDefinitionAttribute creates a NamedRoute class; a simple derivative of Route, but with a Name property. When the Routes class examines its fields and caches all the defined Routes, it has access to the name of the Route through the name of the field against which it is defined. It was therefore a pretty easy matter to have Routes give NamedRoute its name when it creates its cache of Routes. This means that the Route which is found in RequestContext.RouteData.Route is now a NamedRoute, and I can recover the Route's name during a request. For visibility, I made NamedRoute.ToString() return the Route name and URL pattern, like this: The screenshot is from an example project I’ve made on bitbucket; it contains all the named route classes and an MVC 3 application which demonstrates their use. I’ve found this way of defining and using Routes much tidier than the default MVC system, and you find it useful too

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