Search Results

Search found 2971 results on 119 pages for 'alex aaron goven'.

Page 117/119 | < Previous Page | 113 114 115 116 117 118 119  | Next Page >

  • ExecutorService - scaling

    - by Stanciu Alexandru-Marian
    I am trying to write a program in Java using ExecutorService and it's function invokeAll. My question is: does the invokeAll functions solve the tasks simultaneously? I mean, if i have two processors, there will be two workers in the same time? Because a can't make it to scale correct. It takes the same time to complete the problem if i give newFixedThreadPool(2) or 1. List<Future<PartialSolution>> list = new ArrayList<Future<PartialSolution>>(); Collection<Callable<PartialSolution>> tasks = new ArrayList<Callable<PartialSolution>>(); for(PartialSolution ps : wp) { tasks.add(new Map(ps, keyWords)); } list = executor.invokeAll(tasks); Map is a class that implements Callable and wp is a vector of Partial Solutions, a class that holds some informations in different times. Why doesn't it scale? What could be the problem? Thank you, Alex

    Read the article

  • How can I create a dynamic LINQ query in C# with possible multiple group by clauses?

    - by FordPrefect141
    I have been a programmer for some years now but I am a newcomer to LINQ and C# so forgive me if my question sounds particularly stupid. I hope someone may be able to point me in the right direction. My task is to come up with the ability to form a dynamic multiple group by linq query within a c# script using a generic list as a source. For example, say I have a list containing multiple items with the following structure: FieldChar1 - character FieldChar2 - character FieldChar3 - character FieldNum1 - numeric FieldNum2 - numeric In a nutshell I want to be able to create a LINQ query that will sum FieldNum1 and FieldNum2 grouped by any one, two or all three of the FieldChar fields that will be decided at runtime depending on the users requirements as well as selecting the FieldChar fields in the same query. I have the dynamic.cs in my project which icludes a GroupByMany extension method but I have to admit I am really not sure how to put these to use. I am able to get the desired results if I use a query with hard-wired group by requests but not dynamically. Apologies for any erroneous nomenclature, I am new to this language but any advice would be most welcome. Many thanks Alex

    Read the article

  • Google App Engine - Caching generated HTML

    - by Alexander
    I have written a Google App Engine application that programatically generates a bunch of HTML code that is really the same output for each user who logs into my system, and I know that this is going to be in-efficient when the code goes into production. So, I am trying to figure out the best way to cache the generated pages. The most probable option is to generate the pages and write them into the database, and then check the time of the database put operation for a given page against the time that the code was last updated. Then, if the code is newer than the last put to the database (for a particular HTML request), new HTML will be generated and served, and cached to the database. If the code is older than the last put to the database, then I will just get the HTML direct from the database and serve it (therefore avoiding all the CPU wastage of generating the HTML). I am not only looking to minimize load times, but to minimize CPU usage. However, one issue that I am having is that I can't figure out how to programatically check when the version of code uploaded to the app engine was updated. I am open to any suggestions on this approach, or other approaches for caching generated html. Note that while memcache could help in this situation, I believe that it is not the final solution since I really only need to re-generate html when the code is updated (as opposed to every time the memcache expires). Kind Regards, and thank you in advance for any suggestions you may be able to offer. -Alex

    Read the article

  • sorting names in a linked list

    - by sil3nt
    Hi there, I'm trying to sort names into alphabetical order inside a linked list but am getting a run time error. what have I done wrong here? #include <iostream> #include <string> using namespace std; struct node{ string name; node *next; }; node *A; void addnode(node *&listpointer,string newname){ node *temp; temp = new node; if (listpointer == NULL){ temp->name = newname; temp->next = listpointer; listpointer = temp; }else{ node *add; add = new node; while (true){ if(listpointer->name > newname){ add->name = newname; add->next = listpointer->next; break; } listpointer = listpointer->next; } } } int main(){ A = NULL; string name1 = "bob"; string name2 = "tod"; string name3 = "thomas"; string name4 = "kate"; string name5 = "alex"; string name6 = "jimmy"; addnode(A,name1); addnode(A,name2); addnode(A,name3); addnode(A,name4); addnode(A,name5); addnode(A,name6); while(true){ if(A == NULL){break;} cout<< "name is: " << A->name << endl; A = A->next; } return 0; }

    Read the article

  • tipfy for Google App Engine: Is it stable? Can auth/session components of tipfy be used with webapp?

    - by cv12
    I am building a web application on Google App Engine that requires users to register with the application and subsequently authenticate with it and maintain sessions. I don't want to force users to have Google accounts. Also, the target audience for the application is the average non-geek, so I'm not very keen on using OpenID or OAuth. I need something simple like: User registers with an e-mail and password, and then can log back in with those credentials. I understand that this approach does not provide the security benefits of Google or OpenID authentication, but I am prepared to trade foolproof security for end-user convenience and hassle-free experience. I explored Django, but decided that consecutive deprecations from appengine-helper to app-engine-patch to django-nonrel may signal that path may be a bit risky in the long-term. I'd like to use a code base that is likely to be maintained consistently. I also explored standalone session/auth packages like gaeutilities and suas. GAEUtilities looked a bit immature (e.g., the code wasn't pythonic in places, in my opinion) and SUAS did not give me a lot of comfort with the cookie-only sessions. I could be wrong with my assessment of these two, so I would appreciate input on those (or others that may serve my objective). Finally, I recently came across tipfy. It appears to be based on Werkzeug and Alex Martelli spoke highly of it here on stackoverflow. I have two primary questions related to tipfy: As a framework, is it as mature as webapp? Is it stable and likely to be maintained for some time? Since my primary interest is the auth/session components, can those components of the tipfy framework be used with webapp, independent of the broader tipfy framework? If yes, I would appreciate a few pointers to how I could go about doing that.

    Read the article

  • JavaScript function, which reads connections between objects

    - by Nikita Sumeiko
    I have a JavaScript literal: var members = { "mother": { "name" : "Mary", "age" : "48", "connection": { "brother" : "sun" } }, "father": { "name" : "Bill", "age" : "50" }, "brother": { "name" : "Alex", "age" : "28" } } Than I have a function, which should read connections from the literal above. It looks like this: function findRelations(members){ var wires = new Array(); var count = 0; for (n = 0; n < members.length; n++){ alert(members.length); // this alert is undefined if (members[n].connection){ for (i = 0; i < members[n].connection[0].length; i++){ var mw = new Array(); var destination = 0; for (m = 0; m < members.length; m ++){ if (members[m] == members[n].connection[0]){ destination = m; mw = [n, destination]; wires [count] = mw; count++; } } } } } return wires; } However, when I run this function, I get nothing. And the first alert, which is placed inside the function shows 'undefined' at all. findRelations(members); alert("Found " + wires.length + " connections"); I guess that's because of JavaScript literal. Could you suggest how to change a function or perhaps to change litteral to JSON array to get it work?! And at the end to get 'm' and 'n' values as numbers.

    Read the article

  • How to loop a json array and update links

    - by azz0r
    Hello, On page load, I do one call to get the current status of all the favourite links (display the right message aka: click to subscribe, click to unsubscribe. So far I have the following code: $(InitFavorite); function InitFavorite(){ var jList = $(".favourite_link"); var ids_to_check = {};//new Array(); $.each(jList, function () { var id = this.id; var object = id.split("_"); if (!ids_to_check[object[1]]) { ids_to_check[object[1]] = []; } ids_to_check[object[1]].push(object[0]); }); //console.log(ids_to_check); $.ajax({ type: 'POST', url: '/user/subscription/favourite-listing', data: ids_to_check, dataType: 'json', beforeSend: function(x) { if(x && x.overrideMimeType) { x.overrideMimeType("application/j-son;charset=UTF-8"); } }, error: function() { alert(1); }, success: function(returned_values) { $.each(returned_values, function() { console.log($(this)); }) } }); } My returned data is: {"env":"development","loggedIn":true,"translate":{},"aaron":"{\"Playlist\":{\"10\":\"Stop Recieving Updates For This Playlist\"},\"Clip\":{\"26\":\"Recieve Updates For This Clip\",\"27\":\"Recieve Updates For This Clip\",\"28\":\"Recieve Updates For This Clip\",\"29\":\"Stop Recieving Updates For This Clip\",\"30\":\"Recieve Updates For This Clip\"}}"} I would like it to loop through the data and for example update the class <a href="/user/subscription/toggle/id/26/object/Clip" class="favourite_link" id="26_Clip"> <img src="/design/images/icon/subscribe.png"> Add Clip To Favourites</a> However eaching through returned_values equals this in firebug: ["{", """, "P", "l", "a", "y", "l", "i", "s", "t", """, ":", "{", """, "1", "0", """, ":", """, "S", "t", "o", "p", " ", "R", "e", "c", "i", "e", "v", "i", "n", "g", " ", "U", "p", "d", "a", "t", "e", "s", " ", "F", "o", "r", " ", "T", "h", "i", "s", " ", "P", "l", "a", "y", "l", "i", "s", "t", """, "}", ",", """, "C", "l", "i", "p", """, ":", "{", """, "2", "6", """, ":", """, "R", "e", "c", "i", "e", "v", "e", " ", "U", "p", "d", "a", "t", "e", "s", " ", "F", "o", "r", " ", "T", "h", "i", "s", " ", "C", "l", "i", "p", """, ",", """, "2", "7", """, ":", """, "R", "e", "c", "i", "e", "v", "e", " ", "U", "p", "d", "a", "t", "e", "s", " ", "F", "o", "r", " ", "T", "h", "i", "s", " ", "C", "l", "i", "p", """, ",", """, "2", "8", """, ":", """, "R", "e", "c", "i", "e", "v", "e", " ", "U", "p", "d", "a", "t", "e", "s", " ", "F", "o", "r", " ", "T", "h", "i", "s", " ", "C", "l", "i", "p", """, ",", """, "2", "9", """, ":", """, "S", "t", "o", "p", " ", "R", "e", "c", "i", "e", "v", "i", "n", "g", " ", "U", "p", "d", "a", "t", "e", "s", " ", "F", "o", "r", " ", "T", "h", "i", "s", " ", "C", "l", "i", "p", """, ",", """, "3", "0", """, ":", """, "R", "e", "c", "i", "e", "v", "e", " ", "U", "p", "d", "a", "t", "e", "s", " ", "F", "o", "r", " ", "T", "h", "i", "s", " ", "C", "l", "i", "p", """, "}", "}"] How would I successfully loop that json array? Many thanks

    Read the article

  • I need to speed up a function. Should I use cython, ctypes, or something else?

    - by Peter Stewart
    I'm having a lot of fun learning Python by writing a genetic programming type of application. I've had some great advice from Torsten Marek, Paul Hankin and Alex Martelli on this site. The program has 4 main functions: generate (randomly) an expression tree. evaluate the fitness of the tree crossbreed mutate As all of generate, crossbreed and mutate call 'evaluate the fitness'. it is the busiest function and is the primary bottleneck speedwise. As is the nature of genetic algorithms, it has to search an immense solution space so the faster the better. I want to speed up each of these functions. I'll start with the fitness evaluator. My question is what is the best way to do this. I've been looking into cython, ctypes and 'linking and embedding'. They are all new to me and quite beyond me at the moment but I look forward to learning one and eventually all of them. The 'fitness function' needs to compare the value of the expression tree to the value of the target expression. So it will consist of a postfix evaluator which will read the tree in a postfix order. I have all the code in python. I need advice on which I should learn and use now: cython, ctypes or linking and embedding. Thank you.

    Read the article

  • Why do I get empty request from the Jakarta Commons HttpClient?

    - by polyurethan
    I have a problem with the Jakarta Commons HttpClient. Before my self-written HttpServer gets the real request there is one request which is completely empty. That's the first problem. The second problem is, sometimes the request data ends after the third or fourth line of the http request: POST / HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: Jakarta Commons-HttpClient/3.1 Host: 127.0.0.1:4232 For debugging I am using the Axis TCPMonitor. There every things is fine but the empty request. How I process the stream: StringBuffer requestBuffer = new StringBuffer(); InputStreamReader is = new InputStreamReader(socket.getInputStream(), "UTF-8"); int byteIn = -1; do { byteIn = is.read(); if (byteIn > 0) { requestBuffer.append((char) byteIn); } } while (byteIn != -1 && is.ready()); String requestData = requestBuffer.toString(); How I send the request: client.getParams().setSoTimeout(30000); method = new PostMethod(url.getPath()); method.getParams().setContentCharset("utf-8"); method.setRequestHeader("Content-Type", "application/xml; charset=utf-8"); method.addRequestHeader("Connection", "close"); method.setFollowRedirects(false); byte[] requestXml = getRequestXml(); method.setRequestEntity(new InputStreamRequestEntity(new ByteArrayInputStream(requestXml))); client.executeMethod(method); int statusCode = method.getStatusCode(); Have anyone of you an idea how to solve these problems? Alex

    Read the article

  • PostgreSQL: return select count(*) from old_ids;

    - by Alexander Farber
    Hello, please help me with 1 more PL/pgSQL question. I have a PHP-script run as daily cronjob and deleting old records from 1 main table and few further tables referencing its "id" column: create or replace function quincytrack_clean() returns integer as $BODY$ begin create temp table old_ids (id varchar(20)) on commit drop; insert into old_ids select id from quincytrack where age(QDATETIME) > interval '30 days'; delete from hide_id where id in (select id from old_ids); delete from related_mks where id in (select id from old_ids); delete from related_cl where id in (select id from old_ids); delete from related_comment where id in (select id from old_ids); delete from quincytrack where id in (select id from old_ids); return select count(*) from old_ids; end; $BODY$ language plpgsql; And here is how I call it from the PHP script: $sth = $pg->prepare('select quincytrack_clean()'); $sth->execute(); if ($row = $sth->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) printf("removed %u old rows\n", $row['count']); Why do I get the following error? SQLSTATE[42601]: Syntax error: 7 ERROR: syntax error at or near "select" at character 9 QUERY: SELECT select count(*) from old_ids CONTEXT: SQL statement in PL/PgSQL function "quincytrack_clean" near line 23 Thank you! Alex

    Read the article

  • finding common prefix of array of strings

    - by bumperbox
    I have an array like this $sports = array( 'Softball - Counties', 'Softball - Eastern', 'Softball - North Harbour', 'Softball - South', 'Softball - Western' ); and i would like to find the longest common part of the string so in this instance, it would be 'Softball - '; I am thinking that I would follow the this process $i = 1; // loop to the length of the first string while ($i < strlen($sports[0]) { // grab the left most part up to i in length $match = substr($sports[0], 0, $i); // loop through all the values in array, and compare if they match foreach ($sports as $sport) { if ($match != substr($sport, 0, $i) { // didn't match, return the part that did match return substr($sport, 0, $i-1); } } // foreach // increase string length $i++; } // while // if you got to here, then all of them must be identical Questions is there a built in function or much simpler way of doing this ? for my 5 line array that is probably fine, but if i were to do several thousand line arrays, there would be a lot of overhead, so i would have to be move calculated with my starting values of $i, eg $i = halfway of string, if it fails, then $i/2 until it works, then increment $i by 1 until we succeed. so that we are doing the least number of comparisons to get a result If there a formula/algorithm out already out there for this kind of problem ? thanks alex

    Read the article

  • How do I break down an NSTimeInterval into year, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds on iPhone?

    - by willc2
    I have a time interval that spans years and I want all the time components from year down to seconds. My first thought is to integer divide the time interval by seconds in a year, subtract that from a running total of seconds, divide that by seconds in a month, subtract that from the running total and so on. That just seems convoluted and I've read that whenever you are doing something that looks convoluted, there is probably a built-in method. Is there? I integrated Alex's 2nd method into my code. It's in a method called by a UIDatePicker in my interface. NSDate *now = [NSDate date]; NSDate *then = self.datePicker.date; NSTimeInterval howLong = [now timeIntervalSinceDate:then]; NSDate *date = [NSDate dateWithTimeIntervalSince1970:howLong]; NSString *dateStr = [date description]; const char *dateStrPtr = [dateStr UTF8String]; int year, month, day, hour, minute, sec; sscanf(dateStrPtr, "%d-%d-%d %d:%d:%d", &year, &month, &day, &hour, &minute, &sec); year -= 1970; NSLog(@"%d years\n%d months\n%d days\n%d hours\n%d minutes\n%d seconds", year, month, day, hour, minute, sec); When I set the date picker to a date 1 year and 1 day in the past, I get: 1 years 1 months 1 days 16 hours 0 minutes 20 seconds which is 1 month and 16 hours off. If I set the date picker to 1 day in the past, I am off by the same amount. Update: I have an app that calculates your age in years, given your birthday (set from a UIDatePicker), yet it was often off. This proves there was an inaccuracy, but I can't figure out where it comes from, can you?

    Read the article

  • xsl:for-each not supported in this context

    - by alexbf
    Hi! I have this XSLT document : <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:mstns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:msdata="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:xml-msdata" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"> <xsl:output method="xml" version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" indent="yes"/> <xsl:template match="/MyDocRootElement"> <xs:schema id="DataSet" targetNamespace="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" attributeFormDefault="qualified" elementFormDefault="qualified" > <xs:element name="DataSet" msdata:IsDataSet="true"> <xs:complexType> <xs:choice maxOccurs="unbounded"> <xs:element name="Somename"> </xs:element> <xs:element name="OtherName"> </xs:element> <!-- FOR EACH NOT SUPPORTED? --> <xsl:for-each select="OtherElements/SubElement"> <xs:element name="OtherName"> </xs:element> </xsl:for-each> </xs:choice> </xs:complexType> </xs:element> </xs:schema> </xsl:template> </xsl:stylesheet> I have a validation error saying that the "for-each element is not supported in this context" I am guessing it has something to do with the xs namespace validation. Any ideas on how can I make this work? (Exclude validation?) Thanks Alex

    Read the article

  • jQuery: Giving each matched element an unique ID

    - by AnGafraidh
    I am writing an 'inline translator' application to be used with a cloud computing platform to extend non-supported languages. The majority of this uses jQuery to find the text value, replace it with the translation, then append the element with a span tag that has an unique ID, to be used elsewhere within the application. The problem arises however, when there are more than one element, say , that have the exact same value to be translated (matched elements). What happens in the function in question is that it puts all matched elements in the same span, taking the second, third, fourth, etc. out of their parent tags. My code is pretty much like this example: <script src='jquery-1.4.2.js'></script> <script> jQuery.noConflict(); var uniqueID='asdfjkl'; jQuery(window).ready(function() { var myQ1 = jQuery("input[id~=test1]"); myClone=myQ1.clone(); myClone.val('Replaced this button'); myQ1.replaceWith('<span id='+uniqueID+'></span>'); jQuery('#'+uniqueID).append(myClone); }); </script> <table> <tr><td> <input id='test1' type='button' value="I'm a button!"></input> &nbsp; <input id='test2' type='button' value="And so am I"></input> </tr></td> <tr><td> <input id='test1' type='button' value="I'm a button!"></input> </tr></td> </table> As a workaround, I've experimented with using a loop to create a class for each span, rising in increment until jQuery("input[id~=test1]").length, but I can't seem to get anything I do to work. Is there any way to give each matched element an unique ID? My fluency in jQuery is being put to the test! Thanks for any help in advance. Aaron

    Read the article

  • How do I iterate through hierarchical data in a Sql Server 2005 stored proc?

    - by AlexChilcott
    Hi, I have a SqlServer2005 table "Group" similar to the following: Id (PK, int) Name (varchar(50)) ParentId (int) where ParentId refers to another Id in the Group table. This is used to model hierarchical groups such as: Group 1 (id = 1, parentid = null) +--Group 2 (id = 2, parentid = 1) +--Group 3 (id = 3, parentid = 1) +--Group 4 (id = 4, parentid = 3) Group 5 (id = 5, parentid = null) +--Group 6 (id = 6, parentid = 5) You get the picture I have another table, let's call it "Data" for the sake of simplification, which looks something like: Id (PK, int) Key (varchar) Value (varchar) GroupId (FK, int) Now, I am trying to write a stored proc which can get me the "Data" for a given group. For example, if I query for group 1, it returns me the Key-Value-Pairs from Data where groupId = 1. If I query for group 2, it returns the KVPs for groupId = 1, then unioned with those which have groupId = 2 (and duplicated keys are replaced). Ideally, the sproc would also fail gracefully if there is a cycle (ie if group 1's parent is group 2 and group 2's parent is group 1) Has anyone had experience in writing such a sproc, or know how this might be accomplished? Thanks guys, much appreciated, Alex

    Read the article

  • Folders and its files do get copied.. pls help me in given code..

    - by OM The Eternity
    I have a joomla folder, and i have a script which has to copy the complete joomla folder to another new folder..below is the code which copies only the files contain in the main folder but NOT the other directories existing in the joomla folder, I know that i have to plcae some check for dir_exist function and create it if do not exist.. also I want this code to perform a function to overrite the previously existing files and folders.. how can i accomplish thisss?????? <?php $source = '/var/www/html/pranav_test/'; $destination = '/var/www/html/parth/'; $sourceFiles = glob($source . '*'); foreach($sourceFiles as $file) { $baseFile = basename($file); if (file_exists($destination . $baseFile)) { $originalHash = md5_file($file); $destinationHash = md5_file($destination . $baseFile); if ($originalHash === $destinationHash) { continue; } } copy($file, $destination . $baseFile); } ?> Thanks to @alex who helped me to get the code... But I need more support pls help...

    Read the article

  • Memory usage of strings (or any other objects) in .Net

    - by ava
    I wrote this little test program: using System; namespace GCMemTest { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { System.GC.Collect(); System.Diagnostics.Process pmCurrentProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess(); long startBytes = pmCurrentProcess.PrivateMemorySize64; double kbStart = (double)(startBytes) / 1024.0; System.Console.WriteLine("Currently using " + kbStart + "KB."); { int size = 2000000; string[] strings = new string[size]; for(int i = 0; i < size; i++) { strings[i] = "blabla" + i; } } System.GC.Collect(); pmCurrentProcess = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess(); long endBytes = pmCurrentProcess.PrivateMemorySize64; double kbEnd = (double)(endBytes) / 1024.0; System.Console.WriteLine("Currently using " + kbEnd + "KB."); System.Console.WriteLine("Leaked " + (kbEnd - kbStart) + "KB."); System.Console.ReadKey(); } } } The output in Release build is: Currently using 18800KB. Currently using 118664KB. Leaked 99864KB. I assume that the GC.collect call will remove the allocated strings since they go out of scope, but it appears it does not. I do not understand nor can I find an explanation for it. Maybe anyone here? Thanks, Alex

    Read the article

  • PasswordFiled char[] to String in Java connection MySql?

    - by user1819551
    This is a jFrame to connect to the database and this is in the button connect. My issue is in the passwordField NetBeans make me do a char[], but my .getConnection not let me insert the char[] ERROR: "no suitable method found for getConnection(String,String,char[])". So I will change to String right? So when I change and run the jFrame said access denied. when I start doing the System.out.println(l) " Give me the right answer" Like this: "Alex". But when I do the System.out.println(password) "Give me the Array spaces and not the value" Like this: jdbc:mysql://localhost/home inventory root [C@5be5ab68 <--- Array space . What I doing wrong? try { Class.forName("org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver"); //Load the driver String host = "jdbc:mysql://"+tServerHost.getText()+"/"+tSchema.getText(); String uName = tUsername.getText(); char[] l = pPassword.getPassword(); System.out.println(l); String password= l.toString(); System.out.println(host+uName+l); con = DriverManager.getConnection(host, uName, password); System.out.println(host+uName+password); } catch (SQLException | ClassNotFoundException ex) { JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(this, ex.getMessage()); } }

    Read the article

  • How to find an specific key/value (property list)

    - by Bob Rivers
    Hi, I'm learning cocoa/objective-c. Right now I'm dealing with key/value coding. After reading Aaron's book and other sources, I thought that I was able to left the simple examples and try a complex one... I'm trying read iTunes property list (iTunes Music Library.xml). I would like to retrieve the tracks held by an specific playlist. Probably everybody knows it, but bellow I put a piece of the xml: <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Major Version</key><integer>1</integer> ... <key>Playlists</key> <array> <dict> <key>Name</key><string>Library</string> ... <key>Playlist Items</key> <array> <dict> <key>Track ID</key><integer>10281</integer> </dict> ... </array> </dict> <dict> ... </dict> </array> </dict> </plist> As you can see, the playlists are stored as dictionaries inside an array, and the key that identifies it is inside it, not as a <key> preceding it. The problem is that I'm not able to figure out how to search for a key that is inside another one. With the following code I can find the the array in which the playlists are stored, but how to find an specific <dict>? NSDictionary *rootDict = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:file]; NSArray *playlists = [rootDict objectForKey:@"Playlists"]; Here at Stackoverflow I found this post, but I'm not sure if iterate over the array and test it is a good idea. I'm quite sure that I could use valueForKeyPath, but I'm unable to figure out how to do it. Any help is welcome. TIA, Bob

    Read the article

  • Travelling MVP #1: Visit to SharePoint User Group Finland

    - by DigiMortal
    My first self organized trip this autumn was visit to SharePoint User Group Finland community evening. As active community leaders who make things like these possible they are worth mentioning and on spug.fi side there was Jussi Roine the one who invited me. Here is my short review about my trip to Helsinki. User group meeting As Helsinki is near Tallinn I went there using ship. It was easy to get from sea port to venue and I had also some minutes of time to visit academic book store. Community evening was held on the ground floor of one city center hotel and room was conveniently located near hotel bar and restaurant. Here is the meeting schedule: Welcome (Jussi Roine) OpenText application archiving and governance for SharePoint (Bernd Hennicke, OpenText) Using advanced C# features in SharePoint development (Alexey Sadomov, NED Consulting) Optimizing public-facing internet sites for SharePoint (Gunnar Peipman) After meeting, of course, local dudes doesn’t walk away but continue with some beers and discussion. Sessions After welcome words by Jussi there was session by Bernd Hennicke who spoke about OpenText. His session covered OpenText history and current moment. After this introduction he spoke about OpenText products for SharePoint and gave the audience good overview about where their SharePoint extensions fit in big picture. I usually don’t like those vendors sessions but this one was good. I mean vendor dudes were not aggressively selling something. They were way different – kind people who introduced their stuff and later answered questions. They acted like good guests. Second speaker was Alexey Sadomov who is working on SharePoint development projects. He introduced some ways how to get over some limitations of SharePoint. I don’t go here deeply with his session but it’s worth to mention that this session was strong one. It is not rear case when developers have to make nasty hacks to SharePoint. I mean really nasty hacks. Often these hacks are long blocks of code that uses terrible techniques to achieve the result. Alexey introduced some very much civilized ways about how to apply hacks. Alex Sadomov, SharePoint MVP, speaking about SharePoint coding tips and tricks on C# I spoke about how I optimized caching of Estonian Microsoft community portal that runs on SharePoint Server and that uses publishing infrastructure. I made no actual demos on SharePoint because I wanted to focus on optimizing process and share some experiences about how to get caches optimized and how to measure caches. Networking After official part there was time to talk and discuss with people. Finns are cool – they have beers and they are glad. It was not big community event but people were like one good family. Developers there work often for big companies and it was very interesting to me to hear about their experiences with SharePoint. One thing was a little bit surprising for me – SharePoint guys in Finland are talking actively also about Office 365 and online SharePoint. It doesn’t happen often here in Estonia. I had to leave a little bit 21:00 to get to my ship back to Tallinn. I am sure spug.fi dudes continued nice evening and they had at least same good time as I did. Do I want to go back to Finland and meet these guys again? Yes, sure, let’s do it again! :)

    Read the article

  • Postfix log.... spam attempt?

    - by luri
    I have some weird entries in my mail.log. What I'd like to ask is if postfix is avoiding correctly (according with the main.cf attached below) what seems to be relay attempts, presumably for spamming, or if I can enhance it's security somehow. Feb 2 11:53:25 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[9094]: connect from catv-80-99-46-143.catv.broadband.hu[80.99.46.143] Feb 2 11:53:25 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[9094]: warning: non-SMTP command from catv-80-99-46-143.catv.broadband.hu[80.99.46.143]: GET / HTTP/1.1 Feb 2 11:53:25 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[9094]: disconnect from catv-80-99-46-143.catv.broadband.hu[80.99.46.143] Feb 2 11:56:45 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[9097]: statistics: max connection rate 1/60s for (smtp:80.99.46.143) at Feb 2 11:53:25 Feb 2 11:56:45 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[9097]: statistics: max connection count 1 for (smtp:80.99.46.143) at Feb 2 11:53:25 Feb 2 11:56:45 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[9097]: statistics: max cache size 1 at Feb 2 11:53:25 Feb 2 12:09:19 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[9302]: connect from vs148181.vserver.de[62.75.148.181] Feb 2 12:09:19 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[9302]: warning: non-SMTP command from vs148181.vserver.de[62.75.148.181]: GET / HTTP/1.1 Feb 2 12:09:19 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[9302]: disconnect from vs148181.vserver.de[62.75.148.181] Feb 2 12:12:39 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[9304]: statistics: max connection rate 1/60s for (smtp:62.75.148.181) at Feb 2 12:09:19 Feb 2 12:12:39 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[9304]: statistics: max connection count 1 for (smtp:62.75.148.181) at Feb 2 12:09:19 Feb 2 12:12:39 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[9304]: statistics: max cache size 1 at Feb 2 12:09:19 Feb 2 14:17:02 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[10847]: connect from unknown[202.46.129.123] Feb 2 14:17:02 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[10847]: warning: non-SMTP command from unknown[202.46.129.123]: GET / HTTP/1.1 Feb 2 14:17:02 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[10847]: disconnect from unknown[202.46.129.123] Feb 2 14:20:22 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[10853]: statistics: max connection rate 1/60s for (smtp:202.46.129.123) at Feb 2 14:17:02 Feb 2 14:20:22 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[10853]: statistics: max connection count 1 for (smtp:202.46.129.123) at Feb 2 14:17:02 Feb 2 14:20:22 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[10853]: statistics: max cache size 1 at Feb 2 14:17:02 Feb 2 20:57:33 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[18452]: warning: 95.110.224.230: hostname host230-224-110-95.serverdedicati.aruba.it verification failed: Name or service not known Feb 2 20:57:33 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[18452]: connect from unknown[95.110.224.230] Feb 2 20:57:33 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[18452]: lost connection after CONNECT from unknown[95.110.224.230] Feb 2 20:57:33 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[18452]: disconnect from unknown[95.110.224.230] Feb 2 21:00:53 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[18455]: statistics: max connection rate 1/60s for (smtp:95.110.224.230) at Feb 2 20:57:33 Feb 2 21:00:53 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[18455]: statistics: max connection count 1 for (smtp:95.110.224.230) at Feb 2 20:57:33 Feb 2 21:00:53 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[18455]: statistics: max cache size 1 at Feb 2 20:57:33 Feb 2 21:13:44 MYSERVER pop3d: Connection, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:13:44 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=admin, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:13:50 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=test, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:13:56 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=danny, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:01 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=sharon, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:07 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=aron, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:12 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=alex, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:18 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=brett, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:24 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=mike, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:29 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=alan, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:35 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=info, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 2 21:14:41 MYSERVER pop3d: LOGIN FAILED, user=shop, ip=[::ffff:219.94.190.222] Feb 3 06:49:29 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[25834]: warning: 71.6.142.196: hostname db4142196.aspadmin.net verification failed: Name or service not known Feb 3 06:49:29 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[25834]: connect from unknown[71.6.142.196] Feb 3 06:49:29 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[25834]: lost connection after CONNECT from unknown[71.6.142.196] Feb 3 06:49:29 MYSERVER postfix/smtpd[25834]: disconnect from unknown[71.6.142.196] Feb 3 06:52:49 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[25837]: statistics: max connection rate 1/60s for (smtp:71.6.142.196) at Feb 3 06:49:29 Feb 3 06:52:49 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[25837]: statistics: max connection count 1 for (smtp:71.6.142.196) at Feb 3 06:49:29 Feb 3 06:52:49 MYSERVER postfix/anvil[25837]: statistics: max cache size 1 at Feb 3 06:49:29 I have Postfix 2.7.1-1 running on Ubuntu 10.10. This is my (modified por privacy) main.cf: smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu) biff = no append_dot_mydomain = no readme_directory = no smtpd_tls_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/smtpd.crt smtpd_tls_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/smtpd.key myhostname = mymailserver.org alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases myorigin = /etc/mailname mydestination = mymailserver.org, MYSERVER, localhost relayhost = mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8, 192.168.1.0/24 mailbox_size_limit = 0 recipient_delimiter = + inet_interfaces = all inet_protocols = all home_mailbox = Maildir/ smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_sasl_authenticated,permit_mynetworks,reject_unauth_destination mailbox_command = smtpd_sasl_local_domain = smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous broken_sasl_auth_clients = yes smtpd_tls_security_level = may smtpd_tls_auth_only = no smtp_tls_note_starttls_offer = yes smtpd_tls_CAfile = /etc/ssl/certs/cacert.pem smtpd_tls_loglevel = 1 smtpd_tls_received_header = yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_timeout = 3600s tls_random_source = dev:/dev/urandom smtp_tls_security_level = may

    Read the article

  • Drinking Our Own Champagne: Fusion Accounting Hub at Oracle

    - by Di Seghposs
    A guest post by Corey West, Senior Vice President, Oracle's Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer There's no better story to tell than one about Oracle using its own products with blowout success. Here's how this one goes. As you know, Oracle has increased its share of the software market through a number of high-profile acquisitions. Legally combining companies is a very complicated process -- it can take months to complete, especially for the acquisitions with offices in several countries, each with its own unique laws and regulations. It's a mission critical and time sensitive process to roll an acquired company's legacy systems (running vital operations, such as accounts receivable and general ledger (GL)) into the existing systems at Oracle. To date, we've run our primary financial ledgers in E-Business Suite R12 -- and we've successfully met the requirements of the business and closed the books on time every single quarter. But there's always room for improvement and that comes in the form of Fusion Applications. We are now live on Fusion Accounting Hub (FAH), which is the first critical step in moving to a full Fusion Financials instance. We started with FAH so that we could design a global chart of accounts. Eventually, every transaction in every country will originate from this global chart of accounts -- it becomes the structure for managing our business more uniformly. In conjunction, we're using Oracle Hyperion Data Relationship Management (DRM) to centralize and automate governance of our global chart of accounts and related hierarchies, which will help us lower our costs and greatly reduce risk. Each month, we have to consolidate data from our primary general ledgers. We have been able to simplify this process considerably using FAH. We can now submit our primary ledgers running in E-Business Suite (EBS) R12 directly to FAH, eliminating the need for more than 90 redundant consolidation ledgers. Also we can submit incrementally, so if we need to book an adjustment in a primary ledger after close, we can do so without re-opening it and re-submitting. As a result, we have earlier visibility to period-end actuals during the close. A goal of this implementation, and one that we successfully achieved, is that we are able to use FAH globally with no customization. This means we have the ability to fully deploy ledger sets at the consolidation level, plus we can use standard functionality for currency translation and mass allocations. We're able to use account monitoring and drill down functionality from the consolidation level all the way through to EBS primary ledgers and sub-ledgers, which allows someone to click through a transaction appearing at the consolidation level clear through to its original source, a significant productivity enhancement when doing research. We also see a significant improvement in reporting using Essbase cube and Hyperion Smart View. Specifically, "the addition of an Essbase cube on top of the GL gives us tremendous versatility to automate and speed our elimination process," says Claire Sebti, Senior Director of Corporate Accounting at Oracle. A highlight of this story is that FAH is running in a co-existence environment. Our plan is to move to Fusion Financials in steps, starting with FAH. Next, our Oracle Financial Services Software subsidiary will move to a full Fusion Financials instance. Then we'll replace our EBS instance with Fusion Financials. This approach allows us to plan in steps, learn as we go, and not overwhelm our teams. It also reduces the risk that comes with moving the entire instance at once. Maria Smith, Vice President of Global Controller Operations, is confident about how they've positioned themselves to uptake more Fusion functionality and is eager to "continue to drive additional efficiency and cost savings." In this story, the happy customers are Oracle controllers, financial analysts, accounting specialists, and our management team that get earlier access to more flexible reporting. "Fusion Accounting Hub simplifies our processes and gives us more transparency into account activity," raves Alex SanJuan, Senior Director, Record to Report Strategic Process Owner. Overall, the team has been very impressed with the usability and functionality of FAH and are pleased with the quantifiable improvements. Claire Sebti states, "Our WD5 close activities have been reduced by at least four hours of system processing time, just for the consolidation group." Fusion Accounting Hub is an inspiring beginning to our Fusion Financials implementation story. There's no doubt it's going to be an international bestseller! Corey West, Senior Vice President Oracle's Corporate Controller and Chief Accounting Officer

    Read the article

  • Mastering snow and Java development at jDays in Gothenburg

    - by JavaCecilia
    Last weekend, I took the train from Stockholm to Gothenburg to attend and present at the new Java developer conference jDays. It was professionally arranged in the Swedish exhibition hall close to the amusement park Liseberg and we got a great deal out of the top-level presenters and hallway discussions. Understanding and Improving Your Java Process Our main purpose was to spread information on JVM and our monitoring tools for Java processes, so I held a crash course in the most important terms and concepts if you want to affect the performance of your Java process. From the beginning - the JVM specification to interpretation of heap usage graphs. For correct analysis, you also need to understand something about process memory - you need space for the Java heap (-Xms for initial size and -Xmx for max heap size), but the process memory also contain the thread stacks (to a size of -Xss), JVM internal data structures used for keeping track of Java objects on the heap, method compilation/optimization, native libraries, etc. If you get long pause times, make sure to monitor your application, see the allocation rate and frequency of pause times.My colleague Klara Ward then held a presentation on the Java Mission Control product, the profiling and diagnostics tools suite for HotSpot, coming soon. The room was packed and very appreciated, Klara demonstrated four different scenarios, e.g. how to diagnose and fix latencies due to lock contention for logging.My German colleague, OpenJDK ambassador Dalibor Topic travelled to Sweden to do the second keynote on "Make the Future Java". He let us in on the coming features and roadmaps of Java, now delivering major versions on a two-year schedule (Java 7 2011, Java 8 2013, etc). Also letting us in on where to download early versions of 8, to report problems early on. Software Development in teams Being a scout leader, I'm drilled in different team building and workshop techniques, creating strong groups - of course, I had to attend Henrik Berglund's session on building successful teams. He spoke about the importance of clear goals, autonomy and agreed processes. Thomas Sundberg ended the conference by doing live remote pair programming with Alex in Rumania and a concrete tips for people wanting to try it out (for local collaboration, remember to wash and change clothes). Memory Master Keynote The conference keynote was delivered by the Swedish memory master Mattias Ribbing, showing off by remembering the order of a deck of cards he'd seen once. He made it interactive by forcing the audience to learn a memory mastering technique of remembering ten ordered things by heart, asking us to shout out the order backwards and we made it! I desperately need this - bought the book, will get back on the subject. Continuous Delivery The most impressive presenter was Axel Fontaine on Continuous Delivery. Very well prepared slides with key images of his message and moved about the stage like a rock star. The topic is of course highly interesting, how to create an infrastructure enabling immediate feedback to developers and ability to release your product several times per day. Tomek Kaczanowski delivered a funny and useful presentation on good and bad tests, providing comic relief with poorly written tests and the useful rules of thumb how to rewrite them. To conclude, we had a great time and hope to see you at jDays next year :)

    Read the article

  • Learning content for MCSDs: Web Applications and Windows Store Apps using HTML5

    Recently, I started again to learn for various Microsoft certifications. First candidate on my way to MSCD: Web Applications is the Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3. Motivation to go for a Microsoft exam I guess, this is quite personal but let me briefly describe my intentions to go that exam. First, I'm doing web development since the 1990's. Working with HTML, CSS and Javascript is happening almost daily in my workspace. And honestly, I do not only do 'pure' web development but already integrated several HTML/CSS/Javascript frontend UIs into an existing desktop application (written in Visual FoxPro) inclusive two-way communication and data exchange. Hm, might be an interesting topic for another blog article here... Second, this exam has a very interesting aspect which is listed at the bottom of the exam's details: Credit Toward Certification When you pass Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3, you complete the requirements for the following certification(s): Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Specialist Exam 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3: counts as credit toward the following certification(s): MCSD: Web Applications MCSD: Windows Store Apps using HTML5 So, passing one single exam will earn you specialist certification straight-forward, and opens the path to higher levels of certifications. Preparations and learning path Well, due to a newsletter from Microsoft Learning (MSL) I caught interest in picking up the circumstances and learning materials for this particular exam. As of writing this article there is a promotional / voucher code available which enables you to register for this exam for free! Simply register yourself with or log into your existing account at Prometric, choose the exam for a testing facility near to you and enter the voucher code HTMLJMP (available through 31.03.2013 or while supplies last). Hurry up, there are restrictions... As stated above, I'm already very familiar with web development and the programming flavours involved into this. But of course, it is always good to freshen up your knowledge and reflect on yourself. Microsoft is putting a lot of effort to attract any kind of developers into the 'App Development'. Whether it is for the Windows 8 Store or the Windows Phone 8 Store, doesn't really matter. They simply need more apps. This demand for skilled developers also comes with a nice side-effect: Lots and lots of material to study. During the first couple of hours, I could easily gather high quality preparation material - again for free! Following is just a small list of starting points. If you have more resources, please drop me a message in the comment section, and I'll be glad to update this article accordingly. Developing HTML5 Apps Jump Start This is an accelerated jump start video course on development of HTML5 Apps for Windows 8. There are six modules that are split into two video sessions per module. Very informative and intense course material. This is packed stuff taken from an official preparation course for exam 70-480. Developing Windows Store Apps with HTML5 Jump Start Again, an accelerated preparation video course on Windows 8 Apps. There are six modules with two video sessions each which will catapult you to your exam. This is also related to preps for exam 70-481. Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Kraig Brockschmidt delves into the ups and downs of Windows 8 App development over 800+ pages. Great eBook to read, study, and to practice the samples - best of all, it's for free. codeSHOW() This is a Windows 8 HTML/JS project with the express goal of demonstrating simple development concepts for the Windows 8 platform. Code, code and more code... absolutely great stuff to study and practice. Microsoft Virtual Academy I already wrote about the MVA in a previous article. Well, if you haven't registered yourself yet, now is the time. The list is not complete for sure, but this might keep you busy for at least one or even two weeks to go through the material. Please don't hesitate to add more resources in the comment section. Right now, I'm already through all videos once, and digging my way through chapter 4 of Kraig's book. Additional material - Pluralsight Apart from those free online resources, I also following some courses from the excellent library of Pluralsight. They already have their own section for Windows 8 development, but of course, you get companion material about HTML5, CSS and Javascript in other sections, too. Introduction to Building Windows 8 Applications Building Windows 8 Applications with JavaScript and HTML Selling Windows 8 Apps HTML5 Fundamentals Using HTML5 and CSS3 HTML5 Advanced Topics CSS3 etc... Interesting to see that Michael Palermo provides his course material on multiple platforms. Fantastic! You might also pay a visit to his personal blog. Hm, it just came to my mind that Aaron Skonnard of Pluralsight publishes so-called '24 hours Learning Paths' based on courses available in the course library. Would be interested to see a combination for Windows 8 App development using HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript in the future. Recommended workspace environment Well, you might have guessed it but this requires Windows 8, Visual Studio 2012 Express or another flavour, and a valid Developers License. Due to an MSDN subscription I working on VS 2012 Premium with some additional tools by Telerik. Honestly, the fastest way to get you up and running for Windows 8 App development is the source code archive of codeSHOW(). It does not only give you all source code in general but contains a couple of SDKs like Bing Maps, Microsoft Advertising, Live ID, and Telerik Windows 8 controls... for free! Hint: Get the Windows Phone 8 SDK as well. Don't worry, while you are studying the material for Windows 8 you will be able to leverage from this knowledge to development for the phone platform, too. It takes roughly one to two hours to get your workspace and learning environment, at least this was my time frame due to slow internet connection and an aged spare machine. ;-) Oh, before I forget to mention it, as soon as you're done, go quickly to the Windows Store and search for ClassBrowserPlus. You might not need it ad hoc for your development using HTML5, CSS and Javascript but I think that it is a great developer's utility that enables you to view the properties, methods and events (along with help text) for all Windows 8 classes. It's always good to look behind the scenes and to explore how it is made. Idea: Start/join a learning group The way you learn new things or intensify your knowledge in a certain technology is completely up to your personal preference. Back in my days at the university, we used to meet once or twice a week in a small quiet room to exchange our progress, questions and problems we ran into. In general, I recommend to any software craftsman to lift your butt and get out to exchange with other developers. Personally, I like this approach, as it gives you new points of view and an insight into others' own experience with certain techniques and how they managed to solve tricky issues. Just keep it relaxed and not too formal after all, and you might a have a good time away from your dull office desk. Give your machine a break, too.

    Read the article

  • T-SQL Tuesday #31 - Logging Tricks with CONTEXT_INFO

    - by Most Valuable Yak (Rob Volk)
    This month's T-SQL Tuesday is being hosted by Aaron Nelson [b | t], fellow Atlantan (the city in Georgia, not the famous sunken city, or the resort in the Bahamas) and covers the topic of logging (the recording of information, not the harvesting of trees) and maintains the fine T-SQL Tuesday tradition begun by Adam Machanic [b | t] (the SQL Server guru, not the guy who fixes cars, check the spelling again, there will be a quiz later). This is a trick I learned from Fernando Guerrero [b | t] waaaaaay back during the PASS Summit 2004 in sunny, hurricane-infested Orlando, during his session on Secret SQL Server (not sure if that's the correct title, and I haven't used parentheses in this paragraph yet).  CONTEXT_INFO is a neat little feature that's existed since SQL Server 2000 and perhaps even earlier.  It lets you assign data to the current session/connection, and maintains that data until you disconnect or change it.  In addition to the CONTEXT_INFO() function, you can also query the context_info column in sys.dm_exec_sessions, or even sysprocesses if you're still running SQL Server 2000, if you need to see it for another session. While you're limited to 128 bytes, one big advantage that CONTEXT_INFO has is that it's independent of any transactions.  If you've ever logged to a table in a transaction and then lost messages when it rolled back, you can understand how aggravating it can be.  CONTEXT_INFO also survives across multiple SQL batches (GO separators) in the same connection, so for those of you who were going to suggest "just log to a table variable, they don't get rolled back":  HA-HA, I GOT YOU!  Since GO starts a new batch all variable declarations are lost. Here's a simple example I recently used at work.  I had to test database mirroring configurations for disaster recovery scenarios and measure the network throughput.  I also needed to log how long it took for the script to run and include the mirror settings for the database in question.  I decided to use AdventureWorks as my database model, and Adam Machanic's Big Adventure script to provide a fairly large workload that's repeatable and easily scalable.  My test would consist of several copies of AdventureWorks running the Big Adventure script while I mirrored the databases (or not). Since Adam's script contains several batches, I decided CONTEXT_INFO would have to be used.  As it turns out, I only needed to grab the start time at the beginning, I could get the rest of the data at the end of the process.   The code is pretty small: declare @time binary(128)=cast(getdate() as binary(8)) set context_info @time   ... rest of Big Adventure code ...   go use master; insert mirror_test(server,role,partner,db,state,safety,start,duration) select @@servername, mirroring_role_desc, mirroring_partner_instance, db_name(database_id), mirroring_state_desc, mirroring_safety_level_desc, cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime), datediff(s,cast(cast(context_info() as binary(8)) as datetime),getdate()) from sys.database_mirroring where db_name(database_id) like 'Adv%';   I declared @time as a binary(128) since CONTEXT_INFO is defined that way.  I couldn't convert GETDATE() to binary(128) as it would pad the first 120 bytes as 0x00.  To keep the CAST functions simple and avoid using SUBSTRING, I decided to CAST GETDATE() as binary(8) and let SQL Server do the implicit conversion.  It's not the safest way perhaps, but it works on my machine. :) As I mentioned earlier, you can query system views for sessions and get their CONTEXT_INFO.  With a little boilerplate code this can be used to monitor long-running procedures, in case you need to kill a process, or are just curious  how long certain parts take.  In this example, I added code to Adam's Big Adventure script to set CONTEXT_INFO messages at strategic places I want to monitor.  (His code is in UPPERCASE as it was in the original, mine is all lowercase): declare @msg binary(128) set @msg=cast('Altering bigProduct.ProductID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ALTER COLUMN ProductID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg1 binary(128) set @msg1=cast('Adding pk_bigProduct Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg1 go ALTER TABLE bigProduct ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigProduct PRIMARY KEY (ProductID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg2 binary(128) set @msg2=cast('Altering bigTransactionHistory.TransactionID' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg2 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ALTER COLUMN TransactionID INT NOT NULL GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg3 binary(128) set @msg3=cast('Adding pk_bigTransactionHistory Constraint' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg3 go ALTER TABLE bigTransactionHistory ADD CONSTRAINT pk_bigTransactionHistory PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED(TransactionID) GO set context_info 0x0 go declare @msg4 binary(128) set @msg4=cast('Creating IX_ProductId_TransactionDate Index' as binary(128)) set context_info @msg4 go CREATE NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_ProductId_TransactionDate ON bigTransactionHistory(ProductId,TransactionDate) INCLUDE(Quantity,ActualCost) GO set context_info 0x0   This doesn't include the entire script, only those portions that altered a table or created an index.  One annoyance is that SET CONTEXT_INFO requires a literal or variable, you can't use an expression.  And since GO starts a new batch I need to declare a variable in each one.  And of course I have to use CAST because it won't implicitly convert varchar to binary.  And even though context_info is a nullable column, you can't SET CONTEXT_INFO NULL, so I have to use SET CONTEXT_INFO 0x0 to clear the message after the statement completes.  And if you're thinking of turning this into a UDF, you can't, although a stored procedure would work. So what does all this aggravation get you?  As the code runs, if I want to see which stage the session is at, I can run the following (assuming SPID 51 is the one I want): select CAST(context_info as varchar(128)) from sys.dm_exec_sessions where session_id=51   Since SQL Server 2005 introduced the new system and dynamic management views (DMVs) there's not as much need for tagging a session with these kinds of messages.  You can get the session start time and currently executing statement from them, and neatly presented if you use Adam's sp_whoisactive utility (and you absolutely should be using it).  Of course you can always use xp_cmdshell, a CLR function, or some other tricks to log information outside of a SQL transaction.  All the same, I've used this trick to monitor long-running reports at a previous job, and I still think CONTEXT_INFO is a great feature, especially if you're still using SQL Server 2000 or want to supplement your instrumentation.  If you'd like an exercise, consider adding the system time to the messages in the last example, and an automated job to query and parse it from the system tables.  That would let you track how long each statement ran without having to run Profiler. #TSQL2sDay

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 113 114 115 116 117 118 119  | Next Page >