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  • In the Enterprise Library, how does the abstract Validator.cs have a method definition?

    - by Soham
    Consider this piece of code: public abstract class Validator { protected Validator() { } protected abstract void ValidateCore(object instance, string value, IList<ValidationResult> results); public void Validate(object instance, string value, IList<ValidationResult> results) { if (null == instance) throw new ArgumentNullException("instance"); if (null == results) throw new ArgumentNullException("results"); ValidateCore(instance, value, results); } } Look at the Validate() overload, how can an abstract class have definitions like this?

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  • this parameter modifier in C#?

    - by Ivan
    I'm curious about this code snippet: public static class XNAExtensions { /// <summary> /// Write a Point /// </summary> public static void Write(this NetOutgoingMessage message, Point value) { message.Write(value.X); message.Write(value.Y); } // ... }; What does the this keyword mean next to the parameter type? I can't seem to find any information about it anywhere, even in the C# specification.

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  • Why does (360 / 24) / 60 = 0 ... in Java

    - by Ankur
    I am trying to compute (360 / 24) / 60 I keep getting the answer 0.0 when I should get 0.25 In words: I want to divide 360 by 24 and then divide the result by 60 public class Divide { public static void main(String[] args){ float div = ((360 / 24) / 60); System.out.println(div); } } This prints out: 0.0 Why is that? Am I doing something really stupid, or is there a good reason for this

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  • Dynamic class annotation

    - by jlanza
    Hi, I want to annotate a class dynamically to make it the more generic as possible: public class Test<T> { @XmlAttribute(name = dynamicvalue) T[] data; public Test(String dynamicvalue) { } } Is there any way to achieve something like this. TA

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  • [Linq & Dictionary (.NET)] A problem with compare item value

    - by Tony
    Hi, I have defined my class: public class Host { public string Name; } then a strobgly-typed dictionary: Dictionary<string, Host> HostsTable; then I try to compare a value: if (HostsTable.Values.Where(s => s.Name == "myhostname") != null) { doSomething } and the problem is, nothing is found, even I'm sure the item is on the list. What I'm doing wrong ?

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  • Controlling access to method's in C#

    - by user460103
    Is there a way to control access to methods to certain roles in .net. Like class A { //should only be called by Admins** public void Method1() { } //should only be called by Admins and PM's** public void Method2() { } } I'm using windows authentication only for retrieving user names and nothing more.User roles are maintained in a different application. I think it's possible through attributes but I'm not really sure how

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  • Tell me what's wrong [closed]

    - by steve care
    public class Sample { public static void main (String[]a){ int[] x; x = new int[10]; int i;' int n=0; for (i=0;i<=10;i++){ n++; x[i]=n; System.out.print(x[i] + " "); } } } the problem is I got an error of "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 10"

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  • CSS: my side bar overflow the container div's border when I set it's height to 100%

    - by mnml
    Hi, My side bar overflow the container div's border when I set it's height to 100%, I would like to know if there is any way I can have it's height 100% minus some px. Here is the source: <div id="main"> <br /><br /> <div class="content"> <div id="sidecontent"> <h1 id="title">Title</h1> ***** </div> <div id="sidebar"> <div class="sidebox"> **** </div> </div> </div> <div class="bottom"></div> </div> #main { position: relative; background:transparent url('/public/images/main_bg.png') top left repeat-y; padding:37px 37px 37px 37px; margin-left: auto ; margin-right: auto ; width:940px; min-height: 363px; } #main div.top, #main div.bottom { height:70px; width:1015px; position: absolute; left:0px; } #main div.content { padding:0 15px 0 15px; } #sidecontent { width: 675px; } #sidebar { background: #fff url('/public/images/bg_side.png') top right repeat-y; position: absolute; height: 100%; right:34px; top:42px; width: 200px; padding: 10px 10px 0px 40px; z-index:50; } .created_at { color:gray; } .sidebox { margin-bottom: 5px; } #main div.top { top:-70px; background: transparent url(/public/images/main_top.png) bottom no-repeat; } #main div.bottom { bottom:-70px; background: transparent url(/public/images/main_bottom.png) top no-repeat; }

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  • How to get the PropertyName of a class?

    - by Mike108
    How to get the PropertyName of a class? For example, How can I get the PropertyName "StudentName" of a Student class instance. public class Student { public string StudentName{get;set;} } Student student = new Student(); //I want to get the PropertyName "StudentName" student.StudentName.GetName();

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  • .NET HTML Sanitation for rich HTML Input

    - by Rick Strahl
    Recently I was working on updating a legacy application to MVC 4 that included free form text input. When I set up the new site my initial approach was to not allow any rich HTML input, only simple text formatting that would respect a few simple HTML commands for bold, lists etc. and automatically handles line break processing for new lines and paragraphs. This is typical for what I do with most multi-line text input in my apps and it works very well with very little development effort involved. Then the client sprung another note: Oh by the way we have a bunch of customers (real estate agents) who need to post complete HTML documents. Oh uh! There goes the simple theory. After some discussion and pleading on my part (<snicker>) to try and avoid this type of raw HTML input because of potential XSS issues, the client decided to go ahead and allow raw HTML input anyway. There has been lots of discussions on this subject on StackOverFlow (and here and here) but to after reading through some of the solutions I didn't really find anything that would work even closely for what I needed. Specifically we need to be able to allow just about any HTML markup, with the exception of script code. Remote CSS and Images need to be loaded, links need to work and so. While the 'legit' HTML posted by these agents is basic in nature it does span most of the full gamut of HTML (4). Most of the solutions XSS prevention/sanitizer solutions I found were way to aggressive and rendered the posted output unusable mostly because they tend to strip any externally loaded content. In short I needed a custom solution. I thought the best solution to this would be to use an HTML parser - in this case the Html Agility Pack - and then to run through all the HTML markup provided and remove any of the blacklisted tags and a number of attributes that are prone to JavaScript injection. There's much discussion on whether to use blacklists vs. whitelists in the discussions mentioned above, but I found that whitelists can make sense in simple scenarios where you might allow manual HTML input, but when you need to allow a larger array of HTML functionality a blacklist is probably easier to manage as the vast majority of elements and attributes could be allowed. Also white listing gets a bit more complex with HTML5 and the new proliferation of new HTML tags and most new tags generally don't affect XSS issues directly. Pure whitelisting based on elements and attributes also doesn't capture many edge cases (see some of the XSS cheat sheets listed below) so even with a white list, custom logic is still required to handle many of those edge cases. The Microsoft Web Protection Library (AntiXSS) My first thought was to check out the Microsoft AntiXSS library. Microsoft has an HTML Encoding and Sanitation library in the Microsoft Web Protection Library (formerly AntiXSS Library) on CodePlex, which provides stricter functions for whitelist encoding and sanitation. Initially I thought the Sanitation class and its static members would do the trick for me,but I found that this library is way too restrictive for my needs. Specifically the Sanitation class strips out images and links which rendered the full HTML from our real estate clients completely useless. I didn't spend much time with it, but apparently I'm not alone if feeling this library is not really useful without some way to configure operation. To give you an example of what didn't work for me with the library here's a small and simple HTML fragment that includes script, img and anchor tags. I would expect the script to be stripped and everything else to be left intact. Here's the original HTML:var value = "<b>Here</b> <script>alert('hello')</script> we go. Visit the " + "<a href='http://west-wind.com'>West Wind</a> site. " + "<img src='http://west-wind.com/images/new.gif' /> " ; and the code to sanitize it with the AntiXSS Sanitize class:@Html.Raw(Microsoft.Security.Application.Sanitizer.GetSafeHtmlFragment(value)) This produced a not so useful sanitized string: Here we go. Visit the <a>West Wind</a> site. While it removed the <script> tag (good) it also removed the href from the link and the image tag altogether (bad). In some situations this might be useful, but for most tasks I doubt this is the desired behavior. While links can contain javascript: references and images can 'broadcast' information to a server, without configuration to tell the library what to restrict this becomes useless to me. I couldn't find any way to customize the white list, nor is there code available in this 'open source' library on CodePlex. Using Html Agility Pack for HTML Parsing The WPL library wasn't going to cut it. After doing a bit of research I decided the best approach for a custom solution would be to use an HTML parser and inspect the HTML fragment/document I'm trying to import. I've used the HTML Agility Pack before for a number of apps where I needed an HTML parser without requiring an instance of a full browser like the Internet Explorer Application object which is inadequate in Web apps. In case you haven't checked out the Html Agility Pack before, it's a powerful HTML parser library that you can use from your .NET code. It provides a simple, parsable HTML DOM model to full HTML documents or HTML fragments that let you walk through each of the elements in your document. If you've used the HTML or XML DOM in a browser before you'll feel right at home with the Agility Pack. Blacklist based HTML Parsing to strip XSS Code For my purposes of HTML sanitation, the process involved is to walk the HTML document one element at a time and then check each element and attribute against a blacklist. There's quite a bit of argument of what's better: A whitelist of allowed items or a blacklist of denied items. While whitelists tend to be more secure, they also require a lot more configuration. In the case of HTML5 a whitelist could be very extensive. For what I need, I only want to ensure that no JavaScript is executed, so a blacklist includes the obvious <script> tag plus any tag that allows loading of external content including <iframe>, <object>, <embed> and <link> etc. <form>  is also excluded to avoid posting content to a different location. I also disallow <head> and <meta> tags in particular for my case, since I'm only allowing posting of HTML fragments. There is also some internal logic to exclude some attributes or attributes that include references to JavaScript or CSS expressions. The default tag blacklist reflects my use case, but is customizable and can be added to. Here's my HtmlSanitizer implementation:using System.Collections.Generic; using System.IO; using System.Xml; using HtmlAgilityPack; namespace Westwind.Web.Utilities { public class HtmlSanitizer { public HashSet<string> BlackList = new HashSet<string>() { { "script" }, { "iframe" }, { "form" }, { "object" }, { "embed" }, { "link" }, { "head" }, { "meta" } }; /// <summary> /// Cleans up an HTML string and removes HTML tags in blacklist /// </summary> /// <param name="html"></param> /// <returns></returns> public static string SanitizeHtml(string html, params string[] blackList) { var sanitizer = new HtmlSanitizer(); if (blackList != null && blackList.Length > 0) { sanitizer.BlackList.Clear(); foreach (string item in blackList) sanitizer.BlackList.Add(item); } return sanitizer.Sanitize(html); } /// <summary> /// Cleans up an HTML string by removing elements /// on the blacklist and all elements that start /// with onXXX . /// </summary> /// <param name="html"></param> /// <returns></returns> public string Sanitize(string html) { var doc = new HtmlDocument(); doc.LoadHtml(html); SanitizeHtmlNode(doc.DocumentNode); //return doc.DocumentNode.WriteTo(); string output = null; // Use an XmlTextWriter to create self-closing tags using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter()) { XmlWriter writer = new XmlTextWriter(sw); doc.DocumentNode.WriteTo(writer); output = sw.ToString(); // strip off XML doc header if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(output)) { int at = output.IndexOf("?>"); output = output.Substring(at + 2); } writer.Close(); } doc = null; return output; } private void SanitizeHtmlNode(HtmlNode node) { if (node.NodeType == HtmlNodeType.Element) { // check for blacklist items and remove if (BlackList.Contains(node.Name)) { node.Remove(); return; } // remove CSS Expressions and embedded script links if (node.Name == "style") { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(node.InnerText)) { if (node.InnerHtml.Contains("expression") || node.InnerHtml.Contains("javascript:")) node.ParentNode.RemoveChild(node); } } // remove script attributes if (node.HasAttributes) { for (int i = node.Attributes.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--) { HtmlAttribute currentAttribute = node.Attributes[i]; var attr = currentAttribute.Name.ToLower(); var val = currentAttribute.Value.ToLower(); span style="background: white; color: green">// remove event handlers if (attr.StartsWith("on")) node.Attributes.Remove(currentAttribute); // remove script links else if ( //(attr == "href" || attr== "src" || attr == "dynsrc" || attr == "lowsrc") && val != null && val.Contains("javascript:")) node.Attributes.Remove(currentAttribute); // Remove CSS Expressions else if (attr == "style" && val != null && val.Contains("expression") || val.Contains("javascript:") || val.Contains("vbscript:")) node.Attributes.Remove(currentAttribute); } } } // Look through child nodes recursively if (node.HasChildNodes) { for (int i = node.ChildNodes.Count - 1; i >= 0; i--) { SanitizeHtmlNode(node.ChildNodes[i]); } } } } } Please note: Use this as a starting point only for your own parsing and review the code for your specific use case! If your needs are less lenient than mine were you can you can make this much stricter by not allowing src and href attributes or CSS links if your HTML doesn't allow it. You can also check links for external URLs and disallow those - lots of options.  The code is simple enough to make it easy to extend to fit your use cases more specifically. It's also quite easy to make this code work using a WhiteList approach if you want to go that route. The code above is semi-generic for allowing full featured HTML fragments that only disallow script related content. The Sanitize method walks through each node of the document and then recursively drills into all of its children until the entire document has been traversed. Note that the code here uses an XmlTextWriter to write output - this is done to preserve XHTML style self-closing tags which are otherwise left as non-self-closing tags. The sanitizer code scans for blacklist elements and removes those elements not allowed. Note that the blacklist is configurable either in the instance class as a property or in the static method via the string parameter list. Additionally the code goes through each element's attributes and looks for a host of rules gleaned from some of the XSS cheat sheets listed at the end of the post. Clearly there are a lot more XSS vulnerabilities, but a lot of them apply to ancient browsers (IE6 and versions of Netscape) - many of these glaring holes (like CSS expressions - WTF IE?) have been removed in modern browsers. What a Pain To be honest this is NOT a piece of code that I wanted to write. I think building anything related to XSS is better left to people who have far more knowledge of the topic than I do. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a tool that worked even closely for me, or even provided a working base. For the project I was working on I had no choice and I'm sharing the code here merely as a base line to start with and potentially expand on for specific needs. It's sad that Microsoft Web Protection Library is currently such a train wreck - this is really something that should come from Microsoft as the systems vendor or possibly a third party that provides security tools. Luckily for my application we are dealing with a authenticated and validated users so the user base is fairly well known, and relatively small - this is not a wide open Internet application that's directly public facing. As I mentioned earlier in the post, if I had my way I would simply not allow this type of raw HTML input in the first place, and instead rely on a more controlled HTML input mechanism like MarkDown or even a good HTML Edit control that can provide some limits on what types of input are allowed. Alas in this case I was overridden and we had to go forward and allow *any* raw HTML posted. Sometimes I really feel sad that it's come this far - how many good applications and tools have been thwarted by fear of XSS (or worse) attacks? So many things that could be done *if* we had a more secure browser experience and didn't have to deal with every little script twerp trying to hack into Web pages and obscure browser bugs. So much time wasted building secure apps, so much time wasted by others trying to hack apps… We're a funny species - no other species manages to waste as much time, effort and resources as we humans do :-) Resources Code on GitHub Html Agility Pack XSS Cheat Sheet XSS Prevention Cheat Sheet Microsoft Web Protection Library (AntiXss) StackOverflow Links: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/341872/html-sanitizer-for-net http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/06/safe-html-and-xss/ http://code.google.com/p/subsonicforums/source/browse/trunk/SubSonic.Forums.Data/HtmlScrubber.cs?r=61© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in Security  HTML  ASP.NET  JavaScript   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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  • Passing parameters between Silverlight and ASP.NET – Part 1

    - by mohanbrij
    While working with Silverlight applications, we may face some scenarios where we may need to embed Silverlight as a component, like for e.g in Sharepoint Webpars or simple we can have the same with ASP.NET. The biggest challenge comes when we have to pass the parameters from ASP.NET to Silverlight components or back from Silverlight to ASP.NET. We have lots of ways we can do this, like using InitParams, QueryStrings, using HTML objects in Silverlight, etc. All these different techniques have some advantages or disadvantages or limitations. Lets see one by one why we should choose one and what are the ways to achieve the same. 1. InitParams: Lets start with InitParams, Start your Visual Studio 2010 IDE, and Create a Silverlight Application, give any name. Now go to the ASP.NET WebProject which is used to Host the Silverlight XAP component. You will find lots of different tags are used by Silverlight object as <params> tags. To use InitParams, Silverlight provides us with a tag called InitParams which we can use to pass parameters to Silverlight object from ASP.NET. 1: <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%"> 2: <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApp.xap"/> 3: <param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" /> 4: <param name="background" value="white" /> 5: <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="4.0.50826.0" /> 6: <param name="initparams" id="initParams" runat="server" value=""/> 7: <param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" /> 8: <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&v=4.0.50826.0" style="text-decoration:none"> 9: <img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161376" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style:none"/> 10: </a> 11: </object> Here in the code above I have included a initParam as a param tag (line 6), now in the page load I will add a line 1: initParams.Attributes.Add("value", "key1=Brij, key2=Mohan"); This basically add a value parameter inside the initParam. So thats all we need in our ASP.NET side, now coming to the Silverlight Code open the code behind of App.xaml and add the following lines of code. 1: private string firstKey, secondKey; 2: private void Application_Startup(object sender, StartupEventArgs e) 3: { 4: if (e.InitParams.ContainsKey("key1")) 5: this.firstKey = e.InitParams["key1"]; 6: if (e.InitParams.ContainsKey("key2")) 7: this.secondKey = e.InitParams["key2"]; 8: this.RootVisual = new MainPage(firstKey, secondKey); 9: } This code fetch the init params and pass it to our MainPage.xaml constructor, in the MainPage.xaml we can use these variables according to our requirement, here in this example I am simply displaying the variables in a Message Box. 1: public MainPage(string param1, string param2) 2: { 3: InitializeComponent(); 4: MessageBox.Show("Welcome, " + param1 + " " + param2); 5: } This will give you a sample output as Limitations: Depending on the browsers you have some limitation on the overall string length of the parameters you can pass. To get more details on this limitation, you can refer to this link :http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/misc/urllength.html 2. QueryStrings To show this example I am taking the scenario where we have a default.aspx page and we are going to the SIlverlightTestPage.aspx, and we have to work with the parameters which was passed by default.aspx in the SilverlightTestPage.aspx Silverlight Component. So first I will add a new page in my application which contains a button with ID =btnNext, and on click of the button I will redirect my page to my SilverlightTestAppPage.aspx with the required query strings. Code of Default.aspx 1: protected void btnNext_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) 2: { 3: Response.Redirect("~/SilverlightAppTestPage.aspx?FName=Brij" + "&LName=Mohan"); 4: } Code of MainPage.xaml.cs 1: public partial class MainPage : UserControl 2: { 3: public MainPage() 4: { 5: InitializeComponent(); 6: this.Loaded += new RoutedEventHandler(MainPage_Loaded); 7: } 8: 9: void MainPage_Loaded(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 10: { 11: IDictionary<string, string> qString = HtmlPage.Document.QueryString; 12: string firstName = string.Empty; 13: string lastName = string.Empty; 14: foreach (KeyValuePair<string, string> keyValuePair in qString) 15: { 16: string key = keyValuePair.Key; 17: string value = keyValuePair.Value; 18: if (key == "FName") 19: firstName = value; 20: else if (key == "LName") 21: lastName = value; 22: } 23: MessageBox.Show("Welcome, " + firstName + " " + lastName); 24: } 25: } Set the Startup page as Default.aspx, now run the application. This will give you the following output: Since here also you are using the Query Strings to pass your parameters, so you are depending on the browser capabilities of the length of the query strings it can pass. Here also you can refer the limitation which I have mentioned in my previous example for the length of parameters you can use.   3. Using HtmlPage.Document Silverlight to ASP.NET <—> ASP.NET to Silverlight: To show this I setup a sample Silverlight Application with Buttons Get Data and Set Data with the Data Text Box. In ASP.NET page I kep a TextBox to Show how the values passed to and From Silverlight to ASP.NET reflects back. My page with Silverlight control looks like this. When I Say Get Data it pulls the data from ASP.NET to Silverlight Control Text Box, and When I say Set data it basically Set the Value from Silverlight Control TextBox to ASP.NET TextBox. Now let see the code how it is doing. This is my ASP.NET Source Code. Here I have just created a TextBox named : txtData 1: <body> 2: <form id="form1" runat="server" style="height:100%"> 3: <div id="silverlightControlHost"> 4: ASP.NET TextBox: <input type="text" runat="server" id="txtData" value="Some Data" /> 5: <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%"> 6: <param name="source" value="ClientBin/SilverlightApplication1.xap"/> 7: <param name="onError" value="onSilverlightError" /> 8: <param name="background" value="white" /> 9: <param name="minRuntimeVersion" value="4.0.50826.0" /> 10: <param name="autoUpgrade" value="true" /> 11: <a href="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=149156&v=4.0.50826.0" style="text-decoration:none"> 12: <img src="http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=161376" alt="Get Microsoft Silverlight" style="border-style:none"/> 13: </a> 14: </object><iframe id="_sl_historyFrame" style="visibility:hidden;height:0px;width:0px;border:0px"></iframe> 15: </div> 16: </form> 17: </body> My actual logic for getting and setting the data lies in my Silverlight Control, this is my XAML code with TextBox and Buttons. 1: <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" Background="White" Height="100" Width="450" VerticalAlignment="Top"> 2: <Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 3: <ColumnDefinition Width="110" /> 4: <ColumnDefinition Width="110" /> 5: <ColumnDefinition Width="110" /> 6: <ColumnDefinition Width="110" /> 7: </Grid.ColumnDefinitions> 8: <TextBlock Text="Silverlight Text Box: " Grid.Column="0" VerticalAlignment="Center"></TextBlock> 9: <TextBox x:Name="DataText" Width="100" Grid.Column="1" Height="20"></TextBox> 10: <Button x:Name="GetData" Width="100" Click="GetData_Click" Grid.Column="2" Height="30" Content="Get Data"></Button> 11: <Button x:Name="SetData" Width="100" Click="SetData_Click" Grid.Column="3" Height="30" Content="Set Data"></Button> 12: </Grid> Now we have to write few lines of Button Events for Get Data and Set Data which basically make use of Windows.System.Browser namespace. 1: private void GetData_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 2: { 3: DataText.Text = HtmlPage.Document.GetElementById("txtData").GetProperty("value").ToString(); 4: } 5:  6: private void SetData_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) 7: { 8: HtmlPage.Document.GetElementById("txtData").SetProperty("value", DataText.Text); 9: } That’s it so when we run this application my Form will look like this. 4. Using Object Serialization. This is a useful when we want to pass Objects of Data from our ASP.NET application to Silverlight Controls and back. This technique basically uses the above technique I mentioned in Pint 3 above. Since this itself is a length topic so details of this I am going to cover in Part 2 of this Post with Sample Code Example very soon.

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  • OIM 11g notification framework

    - by Rajesh G Kumar
    OIM 11g has introduced an improved and template based Notifications framework. New release has removed the limitation of sending text based emails (out-of-the-box emails) and enhanced to support html features. New release provides in-built out-of-the-box templates for events like 'Reset Password', 'Create User Self Service' , ‘User Deleted' etc. Also provides new APIs to support custom templates to send notifications out of OIM. OIM notification framework supports notification mechanism based on events, notification templates and template resolver. They are defined as follows: Ø Events are defined as XML file and imported as part of MDS database in order to make notification event available for use. Ø Notification templates are created using OIM advance administration console. The template contains the text and the substitution 'variables' which will be replaced with the data provided by the template resolver. Templates support internationalization and can be defined as HTML or in form of simple text. Ø Template resolver is a Java class that is responsible to provide attributes and data to be used at runtime and design time. It must be deployed following the OIM plug-in framework. Resolver data provided at design time is to be used by end user to design notification template with available entity variables and it also provides data at runtime to replace the designed variable with value to be displayed to recipients. Steps to define custom notifications in OIM 11g are: Steps# Steps 1. Define the Notification Event 2. Create the Custom Template Resolver class 3. Create Template with notification contents to be sent to recipients 4. Create Event triggering spots in OIM 1. Notification Event metadata The Notification Event is defined as XML file which need to be imported into MDS database. An event file must be compliant with the schema defined by the notification engine, which is NotificationEvent.xsd. The event file contains basic information about the event.XSD location in MDS database: “/metadata/iam-features-notification/NotificationEvent.xsd”Schema file can be viewed by exporting file from MDS using weblogicExportMetadata.sh script.Sample Notification event metadata definition: 1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 2: <Events xmlns:xsi=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../metadata/NotificationEvent.xsd"> 3: <EventType name="Sample Notification"> 4: <StaticData> 5: <Attribute DataType="X2-Entity" EntityName="User" Name="Granted User"/> 6: </StaticData> 7: <Resolver class="com.iam.oim.demo.notification.DemoNotificationResolver"> 8: <Param DataType="91-Entity" EntityName="Resource" Name="ResourceInfo"/> 9: </Resolver> 10: </EventType> 11: </Events> Line# Description 1. XML file notation tag 2. Events is root tag 3. EventType tag is to declare a unique event name which will be available for template designing 4. The StaticData element lists a set of parameters which allow user to add parameters that are not data dependent. In other words, this element defines the static data to be displayed when notification is to be configured. An example of static data is the User entity, which is not dependent on any other data and has the same set of attributes for all event instances and notification templates. Available attributes are used to be defined as substitution tokens in the template. 5. Attribute tag is child tag for StaticData to declare the entity and its data type with unique reference name. User entity is most commonly used Entity as StaticData. 6. StaticData closing tag 7. Resolver tag defines the resolver class. The Resolver class must be defined for each notification. It defines what parameters are available in the notification creation screen and how those parameters are replaced when the notification is to be sent. Resolver class resolves the data dynamically at run time and displays the attributes in the UI. 8. The Param DataType element lists a set of parameters which allow user to add parameters that are data dependent. An example of the data dependent or a dynamic entity is a resource object which user can select at run time. A notification template is to be configured for the resource object. Corresponding to the resource object field, a lookup is displayed on the UI. When a user selects the event the call goes to the Resolver class provided to fetch the fields that are displayed in the Available Data list, from which user can select the attribute to be used on the template. Param tag is child tag to declare the entity and its data type with unique reference name. 9. Resolver closing tag 10 EventType closing tag 11. Events closing tag Note: - DataType needs to be declared as “X2-Entity” for User entity and “91-Entity” for Resource or Organization entities. The dynamic entities supported for lookup are user, resource, and organization. Once notification event metadata is defined, need to be imported into MDS database. Fully qualified resolver class name need to be define for XML but do not need to load the class in OIM yet (it can be loaded later). 2. Coding the notification resolver All event owners have to provide a resolver class which would resolve the data dynamically at run time. Custom resolver class must implement the interface oracle.iam.notification.impl.NotificationEventResolver and override the implemented methods with actual implementation. It has 2 methods: S# Methods Descriptions 1. public List<NotificationAttribute> getAvailableData(String eventType, Map<String, Object> params); This API will return the list of available data variables. These variables will be available on the UI while creating/modifying the Templates and would let user select the variables so that they can be embedded as a token as part of the Messages on the template. These tokens are replaced by the value passed by the resolver class at run time. Available data is displayed in a list. The parameter "eventType" specifies the event Name for which template is to be read.The parameter "params" is the map which has the entity name and the corresponding value for which available data is to be fetched. Sample code snippet: List<NotificationAttribute> list = new ArrayList<NotificationAttribute>(); long objKey = (Long) params.get("resource"); //Form Field details based on Resource object key HashMap<String, Object> formFieldDetail = getObjectFormName(objKey); for (Iterator<?> itrd = formFieldDetail.entrySet().iterator(); itrd.hasNext(); ) { NotificationAttribute availableData = new NotificationAttribute(); Map.Entry formDetailEntrySet = (Entry<?, ?>)itrd.next(); String fieldLabel = (String)formDetailEntrySet.getValue(); availableData.setName(fieldLabel); list.add(availableData); } return list; 2. Public HashMap<String, Object> getReplacedData(String eventType, Map<String, Object> params); This API would return the resolved value of the variables present on the template at the runtime when notification is being sent. The parameter "eventType" specifies the event Name for which template is to be read.The parameter "params" is the map which has the base values such as usr_key, obj_key etc required by the resolver implementation to resolve the rest of the variables in the template. Sample code snippet: HashMap<String, Object> resolvedData = new HashMap<String, Object>();String firstName = getUserFirstname(params.get("usr_key"));resolvedData.put("fname", firstName); String lastName = getUserLastName(params.get("usr_key"));resolvedData.put("lname", lastname);resolvedData.put("count", "1 million");return resolvedData; This code must be deployed as per OIM 11g plug-in framework. The XML file defining the plug-in is as below: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <oimplugins xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <plugins pluginpoint="oracle.iam.notification.impl.NotificationEventResolver"> <plugin pluginclass= " com.iam.oim.demo.notification.DemoNotificationResolver" version="1.0" name="Sample Notification Resolver"/> </plugins> </oimplugins> 3. Defining the template To create a notification template: Log in to the Oracle Identity Administration Click the System Management tab and then click the Notification tab From the Actions list on the left pane, select Create On the Create page, enter values for the following fields under the Template Information section: Template Name: Demo template Description Text: Demo template Under the Event Details section, perform the following: From the Available Event list, select the event for which the notification template is to be created from a list of available events. Depending on your selection, other fields are displayed in the Event Details section. Note that the template Sample Notification Event created in the previous step being used as the notification event. The contents of the Available Data drop down are based on the event XML StaticData tag, the drop down basically lists all the attributes of the entities defined in that tag. Once you select an element in the drop down, it will show up in the Selected Data text field and then you can just copy it and paste it into either the message subject or the message body fields prefixing $ symbol. Example if list has attribute like First_Name then message body will contains this as $First_Name which resolver will parse and replace it with actual value at runtime. In the Resource field, select a resource from the lookup. This is the dynamic data defined by the Param DataType element in the XML definition. Based on selected resource getAvailableData method of resolver will be called to fetch the resource object attribute detail, if method is overridden with required implementation. For current scenario, Map<String, Object> params will get populated with object key as value and key as “resource” in the map. This is the only input will be provided to resolver at design time. You need to implement the further logic to fetch the object attributes detail to populate the available Data list. List string should not have space in between, if object attributes has space for attribute name then implement logic to replace the space with ‘_’ before populating the list. Example if attribute name is “First Name” then make it “First_Name” and populate the list. Space is not supported while you try to parse and replace the token at run time with real value. Make a note that the Available Data and Selected Data are used in the substitution tokens definition only, they do not define the final data that will be sent in the notification. OIM will invoke the resolver class to get the data and make the substitutions. Under the Locale Information section, enter values in the following fields: To specify a form of encoding, select either UTF-8 or ASCII. In the Message Subject field, enter a subject for the notification. From the Type options, select the data type in which you want to send the message. You can choose between HTML and Text/Plain. In the Short Message field, enter a gist of the message in very few words. In the Long Message field, enter the message that will be sent as the notification with Available data token which need to be replaced by resolver at runtime. After you have entered the required values in all the fields, click Save. A message is displayed confirming the creation of the notification template. Click OK 4. Triggering the event A notification event can be triggered from different places in OIM. The logic behind the triggering must be coded and plugged into OIM. Examples of triggering points for notifications: Event handlers: post process notifications for specific data updates in OIM users Process tasks: to notify the users that a provisioning task was executed by OIM Scheduled tasks: to notify something related to the task The scheduled job has two parameters: Template Name: defines the notification template to be sent User Login: defines the user record that will provide the data to be sent in the notification Sample Code Snippet: public void execute(String templateName , String userId) { try { NotificationService notService = Platform.getService(NotificationService.class); NotificationEvent eventToSend=this.createNotificationEvent(templateName,userId); notService.notify(eventToSend); } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } private NotificationEvent createNotificationEvent(String poTemplateName, String poUserId) { NotificationEvent event = new NotificationEvent(); String[] receiverUserIds= { poUserId }; event.setUserIds(receiverUserIds); event.setTemplateName(poTemplateName); event.setSender(null); HashMap<String, Object> templateParams = new HashMap<String, Object>(); templateParams.put("USER_LOGIN",poUserId); event.setParams(templateParams); return event; } public HashMap getAttributes() { return null; } public void setAttributes() {} }

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  • Metro, Authentication, and the ASP.NET Web API

    - by Stephen.Walther
    Imagine that you want to create a Metro style app written with JavaScript and you want to communicate with a remote web service. For example, you are creating a movie app which retrieves a list of movies from a movies service. In this situation, how do you authenticate your Metro app and the Metro user so not just anyone can call the movies service? How can you identify the user making the request so you can return user specific data from the service? The Windows Live SDK supports a feature named Single Sign-On. When a user logs into a Windows 8 machine using their Live ID, you can authenticate the user’s identity automatically. Even better, when the Metro app performs a call to a remote web service, you can pass an authentication token to the remote service and prevent unauthorized access to the service. The documentation for Single Sign-On is located here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh826544.aspx In this blog entry, I describe the steps that you need to follow to use Single Sign-On with a (very) simple movie app. We build a Metro app which communicates with a web service created using the ASP.NET Web API. Creating the Visual Studio Solution Let’s start by creating a Visual Studio solution which contains two projects: a Windows Metro style Blank App project and an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application project. Name the Metro app MovieApp and the ASP.NET MVC application MovieApp.Services. When you create the ASP.NET MVC application, select the Web API template: After you create the two projects, your Visual Studio Solution Explorer window should look like this: Configuring the Live SDK You need to get your hands on the Live SDK and register your Metro app. You can download the latest version of the SDK (version 5.2) from the following address: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29938 After you download the Live SDK, you need to visit the following website to register your Metro app: https://manage.dev.live.com/build Don’t let the title of the website — Windows Push Notifications & Live Connect – confuse you, this is the right place. Follow the instructions at the website to register your Metro app. Don’t forget to follow the instructions in Step 3 for updating the information in your Metro app’s manifest. After you register, your client secret is displayed. Record this client secret because you will need it later (we use it with the web service): You need to configure one more thing. You must enter your Redirect Domain by visiting the following website: https://manage.dev.live.com/Applications/Index Click on your application name, click Edit Settings, click the API Settings tab, and enter a value for the Redirect Domain field. You can enter any domain that you please just as long as the domain has not already been taken: For the Redirect Domain, I entered http://superexpertmovieapp.com. Create the Metro MovieApp Next, we need to create the MovieApp. The MovieApp will: 1. Use Single Sign-On to log the current user into Live 2. Call the MoviesService web service 3. Display the results in a ListView control Because we use the Live SDK in the MovieApp, we need to add a reference to it. Right-click your References folder in the Solution Explorer window and add the reference: Here’s the HTML page for the Metro App: <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title>MovieApp</title> <!-- WinJS references --> <link href="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/css/ui-dark.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/base.js"></script> <script src="//Microsoft.WinJS.1.0.RC/js/ui.js"></script> <!-- Live SDK --> <script type="text/javascript" src="/LiveSDKHTML/js/wl.js"></script> <!-- WebServices references --> <link href="/css/default.css" rel="stylesheet" /> <script src="/js/default.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="tmplMovie" data-win-control="WinJS.Binding.Template"> <div class="movieItem"> <span data-win-bind="innerText:title"></span> <br /><span data-win-bind="innerText:director"></span> </div> </div> <div id="lvMovies" data-win-control="WinJS.UI.ListView" data-win-options="{ itemTemplate: select('#tmplMovie') }"> </div> </body> </html> The HTML page above contains a Template and ListView control. These controls are used to display the movies when the movies are returned from the movies service. Notice that the page includes a reference to the Live script that we registered earlier: <!-- Live SDK --> <script type="text/javascript" src="/LiveSDKHTML/js/wl.js"></script> The JavaScript code looks like this: (function () { "use strict"; var REDIRECT_DOMAIN = "http://superexpertmovieapp.com"; var WEBSERVICE_URL = "http://localhost:49743/api/movies"; function init() { WinJS.UI.processAll().done(function () { // Get element and control references var lvMovies = document.getElementById("lvMovies").winControl; // Login to Windows Live var scopes = ["wl.signin"]; WL.init({ scope: scopes, redirect_uri: REDIRECT_DOMAIN }); WL.login().then( function(response) { // Get the authentication token var authenticationToken = response.session.authentication_token; // Call the web service var options = { url: WEBSERVICE_URL, headers: { authenticationToken: authenticationToken } }; WinJS.xhr(options).done( function (xhr) { var movies = JSON.parse(xhr.response); var listMovies = new WinJS.Binding.List(movies); lvMovies.itemDataSource = listMovies.dataSource; }, function (xhr) { console.log(xhr.statusText); } ); }, function(response) { throw WinJS.ErrorFromName("Failed to login!"); } ); }); } document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", init); })(); There are two constants which you need to set to get the code above to work: REDIRECT_DOMAIN and WEBSERVICE_URL. The REDIRECT_DOMAIN is the domain that you entered when registering your app with Live. The WEBSERVICE_URL is the path to your web service. You can get the correct value for WEBSERVICE_URL by opening the Project Properties for the MovieApp.Services project, clicking the Web tab, and getting the correct URL. The port number is randomly generated. In my code, I used the URL  “http://localhost:49743/api/movies”. Assuming that the user is logged into Windows 8 with a Live account, when the user runs the MovieApp, the user is logged into Live automatically. The user is logged in with the following code: // Login to Windows Live var scopes = ["wl.signin"]; WL.init({ scope: scopes, redirect_uri: REDIRECT_DOMAIN }); WL.login().then(function(response) { // Do something }); The scopes setting determines what the user has permission to do. For example, access the user’s SkyDrive or access the user’s calendar or contacts. The available scopes are listed here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/live/hh243646.aspx In our case, we only need the wl.signin scope which enables Single Sign-On. After the user signs in, you can retrieve the user’s Live authentication token. The authentication token is passed to the movies service to authenticate the user. Creating the Movies Service The Movies Service is implemented as an API controller in an ASP.NET MVC 4 Web API project. Here’s what the MoviesController looks like: using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Net; using System.Net.Http; using System.Web.Http; using JWTSample; using MovieApp.Services.Models; namespace MovieApp.Services.Controllers { public class MoviesController : ApiController { const string CLIENT_SECRET = "NtxjF2wu7JeY1unvVN-lb0hoeWOMUFoR"; // GET api/values public HttpResponseMessage Get() { // Authenticate // Get authenticationToken var authenticationToken = Request.Headers.GetValues("authenticationToken").FirstOrDefault(); if (authenticationToken == null) { return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized); } // Validate token var d = new Dictionary<int, string>(); d.Add(0, CLIENT_SECRET); try { var myJWT = new JsonWebToken(authenticationToken, d); } catch { return new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.Unauthorized); } // Return results return Request.CreateResponse( HttpStatusCode.OK, new List<Movie> { new Movie {Title="Star Wars", Director="Lucas"}, new Movie {Title="King Kong", Director="Jackson"}, new Movie {Title="Memento", Director="Nolan"} } ); } } } Because the Metro app performs an HTTP GET request, the MovieController Get() action is invoked. This action returns a set of three movies when, and only when, the authentication token is validated. The Movie class looks like this: using Newtonsoft.Json; namespace MovieApp.Services.Models { public class Movie { [JsonProperty(PropertyName="title")] public string Title { get; set; } [JsonProperty(PropertyName="director")] public string Director { get; set; } } } Notice that the Movie class uses the JsonProperty attribute to change Title to title and Director to director to make JavaScript developers happy. The Get() method validates the authentication token before returning the movies to the Metro app. To get authentication to work, you need to provide the client secret which you created at the Live management site. If you forgot to write down the secret, you can get it again here: https://manage.dev.live.com/Applications/Index The client secret is assigned to a constant at the top of the MoviesController class. The MoviesController class uses a helper class named JsonWebToken to validate the authentication token. This class was created by the Windows Live team. You can get the source code for the JsonWebToken class from the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/liveservices/LiveSDK/blob/master/Samples/Asp.net/AuthenticationTokenSample/JsonWebToken.cs You need to add an additional reference to your MVC project to use the JsonWebToken class: System.Runtime.Serialization. You can use the JsonWebToken class to get a unique and validated user ID like this: var user = myJWT.Claims.UserId; If you need to store user specific information then you can use the UserId property to uniquely identify the user making the web service call. Running the MovieApp When you first run the Metro MovieApp, you get a screen which asks whether the app should have permission to use Single Sign-On. This screen never appears again after you give permission once. Actually, when I first ran the app, I get the following error: According to the error, the app is blocked because “We detected some suspicious activity with your Online Id account. To help protect you, we’ve temporarily blocked your account.” This appears to be a bug in the current preview release of the Live SDK and there is more information about this bug here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/messengerconnect/thread/866c495f-2127-429d-ab07-842ef84f16ae/ If you click continue, and continue running the app, the error message does not appear again.  Summary The goal of this blog entry was to describe how you can validate Metro apps and Metro users when performing a call to a remote web service. First, I explained how you can create a Metro app which takes advantage of Single Sign-On to authenticate the current user against Live automatically. You learned how to register your Metro app with Live and how to include an authentication token in an Ajax call. Next, I explained how you can validate the authentication token – retrieved from the request header – in a web service. I discussed how you can use the JsonWebToken class to validate the authentication token and retrieve the unique user ID.

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  • Enterprise Process Maps: A Process Picture worth a Million Words

    - by raul.goycoolea
    p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }h1 { margin-top: 0.33in; margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(54, 95, 145); page-break-inside: avoid; }h1.western { font-family: "Cambria",serif; font-size: 14pt; }h1.cjk { font-family: "DejaVu Sans"; font-size: 14pt; }h1.ctl { font-size: 14pt; } Getting Started with Business Transformations A well-known proverb states that "A picture is worth a thousand words." In relation to Business Process Management (BPM), a credible analyst might have a few questions. What if the picture was taken from some particular angle, like directly overhead? What if it was taken from only an inch away or a mile away? What if the photographer did not focus the camera correctly? Does the value of the picture depend on who is looking at it? Enterprise Process Maps are analogous in this sense of relative value. Every BPM project (holistic BPM kick-off, enterprise system implementation, Service-oriented Architecture, business process transformation, corporate performance management, etc.) should be begin with a clear understanding of the business environment, from the biggest picture representations down to the lowest level required or desired for the particular project type, scope and objectives. The Enterprise Process Map serves as an entry point for the process architecture and is defined: the single highest level of process mapping for an organization. It is constructed and evaluated during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. (see Figure 1) Fig. 1: Business Process Management Lifecycle Many organizations view such maps as visual abstractions, constructed for the single purpose of process categorization. This, in turn, results in a lesser focus on the inherent intricacies of the Enterprise Process view, which are explored in the course of this paper. With the main focus of a large scale process documentation effort usually underlying an ERP or other system implementation, it is common for the work to be driven by the desire to "get to the details," and to the type of modeling that will derive near-term tangible results. For instance, a project in American Pharmaceutical Company X is driven by the Director of IT. With 120+ systems in place, and a lack of standardized processes across the United States, he and the VP of IT have decided to embark on a long-term ERP implementation. At the forethought of both are questions, such as: How does my application architecture map to the business? What are each application's functionalities, and where do the business processes utilize them? Where can we retire legacy systems? Well-developed BPM methodologies prescribe numerous model types to capture such information and allow for thorough analysis in these areas. Process to application maps, Event Driven Process Chains, etc. provide this level of detail and facilitate the completion of such project-specific questions. These models and such analysis are appropriately carried out at a relatively low level of process detail. (see figure 2) Fig. 2: The Level Concept, Generic Process HierarchySome of the questions remaining are ones of documentation longevity, the continuation of BPM practice in the organization, process governance and ownership, process transparency and clarity in business process objectives and strategy. The Level Concept in Brief Figure 2 shows a generic, four-level process hierarchy depicting the breakdown of a "Process Area" into progressively more detailed process classifications. The number of levels and the names of these levels are flexible, and can be fit to the standards of the organization's chosen terminology or any other chosen reference model that makes logical sense for both short and long term process description. It is at Level 1 (in this case the Process Area level), that the Enterprise Process Map is created. This map and its contained objects become the foundation for a top-down approach to subsequent mapping, object relationship development, and analysis of the organization's processes and its supporting infrastructure. Additionally, this picture serves as a communication device, at an executive level, describing the design of the business in its service to a customer. It seems, then, imperative that the process development effort, and this map, start off on the right foot. Figuring out just what that right foot is, however, is critical and trend-setting in an evolving organization. Key Considerations Enterprise Process Maps are usually not as living and breathing as other process maps. Just as it would be an extremely difficult task to change the foundation of the Sears Tower or a city plan for the entire city of Chicago, the Enterprise Process view of an organization usually remains unchanged once developed (unless, of course, an organization is at a stage where it is capable of true, high-level process innovation). Regardless, the Enterprise Process map is a key first step, and one that must be taken in a precise way. What makes this groundwork solid depends on not only the materials used to construct it (process areas), but also the layout plan and knowledge base of what will be built (the entire process architecture). It seems reasonable that care and consideration are required to create this critical high level map... but what are the important factors? Does the process modeler need to worry about how many process areas there are? About who is looking at it? Should he only use the color pink because it's his boss' favorite color? Interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, these are all valid considerations that may just require a bit of structure. Below are Three Key Factors to consider when building an Enterprise Process Map: Company Strategic Focus Process Categorization: Customer is Core End-to-end versus Functional Processes Company Strategic Focus As mentioned above, the Enterprise Process Map is created during the Strategy Phase of the Business Process Management Lifecycle. From Oracle Business Process Management methodology for business transformation, it is apparent that business processes exist for the purpose of achieving the strategic objectives of an organization. In a prescribed, top-down approach to process development, it must be ensured that each process fulfills its objectives, and in an aggregated manner, drives fulfillment of the strategic objectives of the company, whether for particular business segments or in a broader sense. This is a crucial point, as the strategic messages of the company must therefore resound in its process maps, in particular one that spans the processes of the complete business: the Enterprise Process Map. One simple example from Company X is shown below (see figure 3). Fig. 3: Company X Enterprise Process Map In reviewing Company X's Enterprise Process Map, one can immediately begin to understand the general strategic mindset of the organization. It shows that Company X is focused on its customers, defining 10 of its process areas belonging to customer-focused categories. Additionally, the organization views these end-customer-oriented process areas as part of customer-fulfilling value chains, while support process areas do not provide as much contiguous value. However, by including both support and strategic process categorizations, it becomes apparent that all processes are considered vital to the success of the customer-oriented focus processes. Below is an example from Company Y (see figure 4). Fig. 4: Company Y Enterprise Process Map Company Y, although also a customer-oriented company, sends a differently focused message with its depiction of the Enterprise Process Map. Along the top of the map is the company's product tree, overarching the process areas, which when executed deliver the products themselves. This indicates one strategic objective of excellence in product quality. Additionally, the view represents a less linear value chain, with strong overlaps of the various process areas. Marketing and quality management are seen as a key support processes, as they span the process lifecycle. Often, companies may incorporate graphics, logos and symbols representing customers and suppliers, and other objects to truly send the strategic message to the business. Other times, Enterprise Process Maps may show high level of responsibility to organizational units, or the application types that support the process areas. It is possible that hundreds of formats and focuses can be applied to an Enterprise Process Map. What is of vital importance, however, is which formats and focuses are chosen to truly represent the direction of the company, and serve as a driver for focusing the business on the strategic objectives set forth in that right. Process Categorization: Customer is Core In the previous two examples, processes were grouped using differing categories and techniques. Company X showed one support and three customer process categorizations using encompassing chevron objects; Customer Y achieved a less distinct categorization using a gradual color scheme. Either way, and in general, modeling of the process areas becomes even more valuable and easily understood within the context of business categorization, be it strategic or otherwise. But how one categorizes their processes is typically more complex than simply choosing object shapes and colors. Previously, it was stated that the ideal is a prescribed top-down approach to developing processes, to make certain linkages all the way back up to corporate strategy. But what about external influences? What forces push and pull corporate strategy? Industry maturity, product lifecycle, market profitability, competition, etc. can all drive the critical success factors of a particular business segment, or the company as a whole, in addition to previous corporate strategy. This may seem to be turning into a discussion of theory, but that is far from the case. In fact, in years of recent study and evolution of the way businesses operate, cross-industry and across the globe, one invariable has surfaced with such strength to make it undeniable in the game plan of any strategy fit for survival. That constant is the customer. Many of a company's critical success factors, in any business segment, relate to the customer: customer retention, satisfaction, loyalty, etc. Businesses serve customers, and so do a business's processes, mapped or unmapped. The most effective way to categorize processes is in a manner that visualizes convergence to what is core for a company. It is the value chain, beginning with the customer in mind, and ending with the fulfillment of that customer, that becomes the core or the centerpiece of the Enterprise Process Map. (See figure 5) Fig. 5: Company Z Enterprise Process Map Company Z has what may be viewed as several different perspectives or "cuts" baked into their Enterprise Process Map. It has divided its processes into three main categories (top, middle, and bottom) of Management Processes, the Core Value Chain and Supporting Processes. The Core category begins with Corporate Marketing (which contains the activities of beginning to engage customers) and ends with Customer Service Management. Within the value chain, this company has divided into the focus areas of their two primary business lines, Foods and Beverages. Does this mean that areas, such as Strategy, Information Management or Project Management are not as important as those in the Core category? No! In some cases, though, depending on the organization's understanding of high-level BPM concepts, use of category names, such as "Core," "Management" or "Support," can be a touchy subject. What is important to understand, is that no matter the nomenclature chosen, the Core processes are those that drive directly to customer value, Support processes are those which make the Core processes possible to execute, and Management Processes are those which steer and influence the Core. Some common terms for these three basic categorizations are Core, Customer Fulfillment, Customer Relationship Management, Governing, Controlling, Enabling, Support, etc. End-to-end versus Functional Processes Every high and low level of process: function, task, activity, process/work step (whatever an organization calls it), should add value to the flow of business in an organization. Suppose that within the process "Deliver package," there is a documented task titled "Stop for ice cream." It doesn't take a process expert to deduce the room for improvement. Though stopping for ice cream may create gain for the one person performing it, it likely benefits neither the organization nor, more importantly, the customer. In most cases, "Stop for ice cream" wouldn't make it past the first pass of To-Be process development. What would make the cut, however, would be a flow of tasks that, each having their own value add, build up to greater and greater levels of process objective. In this case, those tasks would combine to achieve a status of "package delivered." Figure 3 shows a simple example: Just as the package can only be delivered (outcome of the process) without first being retrieved, loaded, and the travel destination reached (outcomes of the process steps), some higher level of process "Play Practical Joke" (e.g., main process or process area) cannot be completed until a package is delivered. It seems that isolated or functionally separated processes, such as "Deliver Package" (shown in Figure 6), are necessary, but are always part of a bigger value chain. Each of these individual processes must be analyzed within the context of that value chain in order to ensure successful end-to-end process performance. For example, this company's "Create Joke Package" process could be operating flawlessly and efficiently, but if a joke is never developed, it cannot be created, so the end-to-end process breaks. Fig. 6: End to End Process Construction That being recognized, it is clear that processes must be viewed as end-to-end, customer-to-customer, and in the context of company strategy. But as can also be seen from the previous example, these vital end-to-end processes cannot be built without the functionally oriented building blocks. Without one, the other cannot be had, or at least not in a complete and organized fashion. As it turns out, but not discussed in depth here, the process modeling effort, BPM organizational development, and comprehensive coverage cannot be fully realized without a semi-functional, process-oriented approach. Then, an Enterprise Process Map should be concerned with both views, the building blocks, and access points to the business-critical end-to-end processes, which they construct. Without the functional building blocks, all streams of work needed for any business transformation would be lost mess of process disorganization. End-to-end views are essential for utilization in optimization in context, understanding customer impacts, base-lining all project phases and aligning objectives. Including both views on an Enterprise Process Map allows management to understand the functional orientation of the company's processes, while still providing access to end-to-end processes, which are most valuable to them. (See figures 7 and 8). Fig. 7: Simplified Enterprise Process Map with end-to-end Access Point The above examples show two unique ways to achieve a successful Enterprise Process Map. The first example is a simple map that shows a high level set of process areas and a separate section with the end-to-end processes of concern for the organization. This particular map is filtered to show just one vital end-to-end process for a project-specific focus. Fig. 8: Detailed Enterprise Process Map showing connected Functional Processes The second example shows a more complex arrangement and categorization of functional processes (the names of each process area has been removed). The end-to-end perspective is achieved at this level through the connections (interfaces at lower levels) between these functional process areas. An important point to note is that the organization of these two views of the Enterprise Process Map is dependent, in large part, on the orientation of its audience, and the complexity of the landscape at the highest level. If both are not apparent, the Enterprise Process Map is missing an opportunity to serve as a holistic, high-level view. Conclusion In the world of BPM, and specifically regarding Enterprise Process Maps, a picture can be worth as many words as the thought and effort that is put into it. Enterprise Process Maps alone cannot change an organization, but they serve more purposes than initially meet the eye, and therefore must be designed in a way that enables a BPM mindset, business process understanding and business transformation efforts. Every Enterprise Process Map will and should be different when looking across organizations. Its design will be driven by company strategy, a level of customer focus, and functional versus end-to-end orientations. This high-level description of the considerations of the Enterprise Process Maps is not a prescriptive "how to" guide. However, a company attempting to create one may not have the practical BPM experience to truly explore its options or impacts to the coming work of business process transformation. The biggest takeaway is that process modeling, at all levels, is a science and an art, and art is open to interpretation. It is critical that the modeler of the highest level of process mapping be a cognoscente of the message he is delivering and the factors at hand. Without sufficient focus on the design of the Enterprise Process Map, an entire BPM effort may suffer. For additional information please check: Oracle Business Process Management.

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  • Continuous Integration for SQL Server Part II – Integration Testing

    - by Ben Rees
    My previous post, on setting up Continuous Integration for SQL Server databases using GitHub, Bamboo and Red Gate’s tools, covered the first two parts of a simple Database Continuous Delivery process: Putting your database in to a source control system, and, Running a continuous integration process, each time changes are checked in. However there is, of course, a lot more to to Continuous Delivery than that. Specifically, in addition to the above: Putting some actual integration tests in to the CI process (otherwise, they don’t really do much, do they!?), Deploying the database changes with a managed, automated approach, Monitoring what you’ve just put live, to make sure you haven’t broken anything. This post will detail how to set up a very simple pipeline for implementing the first of these (continuous integration testing). NB: A lot of the setup in this post is built on top of the configuration from before, so it might be difficult to implement this post without running through part I first. There’ll then be a third post on automated database deployment followed by a final post dealing with the last item – monitoring changes on the live system. In the previous post, I used a mixture of Red Gate products and other 3rd party software – GitHub and Atlassian Bamboo specifically. This was partly because I believe most people work in an heterogeneous environment, using software from different vendors to suit their purposes and I wanted to show how this could work for this process. For example, you could easily substitute Atlassian’s BitBucket or Stash for GitHub, depending on your needs, or use an alternative CI server such as TeamCity, TFS or Jenkins. However, in this, post, I’ll be mostly using Red Gate products only (other than tSQLt). I would do this, firstly because I work for Red Gate. However, I also think that in the area of Database Delivery processes, nobody else has the offerings to implement this process fully – so I didn’t have any choice!   Background on Continuous Delivery For me, a great source of information on what makes a proper Continuous Delivery process is the Jez Humble and David Farley classic: Continuous Delivery – Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation This book is not of course, primarily about databases, and the process I outline here and in the previous article is a gross simplification of what Jez and David describe (not least because it’s that much harder for databases!). However, a lot of the principles that they describe can be equally applied to database development and, I would argue, should be. As I say however, what I describe here is a very simple version of what would be required for a full production process. A couple of useful resources on handling some of these complexities can be found in the following two references: Refactoring Databases – Evolutionary Database Design, by Scott J Ambler and Pramod J. Sadalage Versioning Databases – Branching and Merging, by Scott Allen In particular, I don’t deal at all with the issues of multiple branches and merging of those branches, an issue made particularly acute by the use of GitHub. The other point worth making is that, in the words of Martin Fowler: Continuous Delivery is about keeping your application in a state where it is always able to deploy into production.   I.e. we are not talking about continuously delivery updates to the production database every time someone checks in an amendment to a stored procedure. That is possible (and what Martin calls Continuous Deployment). However, again, that’s more than I describe in this article. And I doubt I need to remind DBAs or Developers to Proceed with Caution!   Integration Testing Back to something practical. The next stage, building on our set up from the previous article, is to add in some integration tests to the process. As I say, the CI process, though interesting, isn’t enormously useful without some sort of test process running. For this we’ll use the tSQLt framework, an open source framework designed specifically for running SQL Server tests. tSQLt is part of Red Gate’s SQL Test found on http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-test/ or can be downloaded separately from www.tsqlt.org - though I’ll provide a step-by-step guide below for setting this up. Getting tSQLt set up via SQL Test Click on the link http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-test/ and click on the blue Download button to download the Red Gate SQL Test product, if not already installed. Follow the install process for SQL Test to install the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) plugin on to your machine, if not already installed. Open SSMS. You should now see SQL Test under the Tools menu:   Clicking this link will give you the basic SQL Test dialogue: As yet, though we’ve installed the SQL Test product we haven’t yet installed the tSQLt test framework on to any particular database. To do this, we need to add our RedGateApp database using this dialogue, by clicking on the + Add Database to SQL Test… link, selecting the RedGateApp database and clicking the Add Database link:   In the next screen, SQL Test describes what will be installed on the database for the tSQLt framework. Also in this dialogue, uncheck the “Add SQL Cop tests” option (shown below). SQL Cop is a great set of pre-defined tests that work within the tSQLt framework to check the general health of your SQL Server database. However, we won’t be using them in this particular simple example: Once you’ve clicked on the OK button, the changes described in the dialogue will be made to your database. Some of these are shown in the left-hand-side below: We’ve now installed the framework. However, we haven’t actually created any tests, so this will be the next step. But, before we proceed, we’ve made an update to our database so should, again check this in to source control, adding comments as required:   Also worth a quick check that your build still runs with the new additions!: (And a quick check of the RedGateAppCI database shows that the changes have been made).   Creating and Testing a Unit Test There are, of course, a lot of very interesting unit tests that you could and should set up for a database. The great thing about the tSQLt framework is that you can write these in SQL. The example I’m going to use here is pretty Mickey Mouse – our database table is going to include some email addresses as reference data and I want to check whether these are all in a correct email format. Nothing clever but it illustrates the process and hopefully shows the method by which more interesting tests could be set up. Adding Reference Data to our Database To start, I want to add some reference data to my database, and have this source controlled (as well as the schema). First of all I need to add some data in to my solitary table – this can be done a number of ways, but I’ll do this in SSMS for simplicity: I then add some reference data to my table: Currently this reference data just exists in the database. For proper integration testing, this needs to form part of the source-controlled version of the database – and so needs to be added to the Git repository. This can be done via SQL Source Control, though first a Primary Key needs to be added to the table. Right click the table, select Design, then right-click on the first “id” row. Then click on “Set Primary Key”: NB: once this change is made, click Save to save the change to the table. Then, to source control this reference data, right click on the table (dbo.Email) and selecting the following option:   In the next screen, link the data in the Email table, by selecting it from the list and clicking “save and close”: We should at this point re-commit the changes (both the addition of the Primary Key, and the data) to the Git repo. NB: From here on, I won’t show screenshots for the GitHub side of things – it’s the same each time: whenever a change is made in SQL Source Control and committed to your local folder, you then need to sync this in the GitHub Windows client (as this is where the build server, Bamboo is taking it from). An interesting point to note here, when these changes are committed in SQL Source Control (right-click database and select “Commit Changes to Source Control..”): The display gives a warning about possibly needing a migration script for the “Add Primary Key” step of the changes. This isn’t actually necessary in this case, but this mechanism would allow you to create override scripts to replace the default change scripts created by the SQL Compare engine (which runs underneath SQL Source Control). Ignoring this message (!), we add a comment and commit the changes to Git. I then sync these, run a build (or the build gets run automatically), and check that the data is being deployed over to the target RedGateAppCI database:   Creating and Running the Test As I mention, the test I’m going to use here is a very simple one - are the email addresses in my reference table valid? This isn’t of course, a full test of email validation (I expect the email addresses I’ve chosen here aren’t really the those of the Fab Four) – but just a very basic check of format used. I’ve taken the relevant SQL from this Stack Overflow article. In SSMS select “SQL Test” from the Tools menu, then click on + New Test: In the next screen, give your new test a name, and also enter a name in the Test Class box (test classes are schemas that help you keep things organised). Also check that the database in which the test is going to be created is correct – RedGateApp in this example: Click “Create Test”. After closing a couple of subsequent dialogues, you’ll see a dummy script for the test, that needs filling in:   We now need to define the SQL for our test. As mentioned before, tSQLt allows you to write your unit tests in T-SQL, and the code I’m going to use here is as below. This needs to be copied and pasted in to the query window, to replace the default given by tSQLt: –  Basic email check test ALTER PROCEDURE [MyChecks].[test Check Email Addresses] AS BEGIN SET NOCOUNT ON         Declare @Output VarChar(max)     Set @Output = ”       SELECT  @Output = @Output + Email +Char(13) + Char(10) FROM dbo.Email WHERE email NOT LIKE ‘%_@__%.__%’       If @Output > ”         Begin             Set @Output = Char(13) + Char(10)                           + @Output             EXEC tSQLt.Fail@Output         End   END;   Once this script is entered, hit execute to add the Stored Procedure to the database. Before committing the test to source control,  it’s worth just checking that it works! For a positive test, click on “SQL Test” from the Tools menu, then click Run Tests. You should see output like the following: - a green tick to indicate success! But of course, what we also need to do is test that this is actually doing something by showing a failed test. Edit one of the email addresses in your table to an incorrect format: Now, re-run the same SQL Test as before and you’ll see the following: Great – we now know that our test is really doing something! You’ll also see a useful error message at the bottom of SSMS: (leave the email address as invalid for now, for the next steps). The next stage is to check this new test in to source control again, by right-clicking on the database and checking in the changes with a commit message (and not forgetting to sync in the GitHub client):   Checking that the Tests are Running as Integration Tests After the changes above are made, and after a build has run on Bamboo (manual or automatic), looking at the Stored Procedures for the RedGateAppCI, the SPROC for the new test has been moved over to the database. However this is not exactly what we were after. We didn’t want to just copy objects from one database to another, but actually run the tests as part of the build/integration test process. I.e. we’re continuously checking any changes we make (in this case, to the reference data emails), to ensure we’re not breaking a test that we’ve set up. The behaviour we want to see is that, if we check in static data that is incorrect (as we did in step 9 above) and we have the tSQLt test set up, then our build in Bamboo should fail. However, re-running the build shows the following: - sadly, a successful build! To make sure the tSQLt tests are run as part of the integration test, we need to amend a switch in the Red Gate CI config file. First, navigate to file sqlCI.targets in your working folder: Edit this document, make the following change, save the document, then commit and sync this change in the GitHub client: <!-- tSQLt tests --> <!-- Optional --> <!-- To run tSQLt tests in source control for the database, enter true. --> <enableTsqlt>true</enableTsqlt> Now, if we re-run the build in Bamboo (NB: I’ve moved to a new server here, hence different address and build number): - superb, a broken build!! The error message isn’t great here, so to get more detailed info, click on the full build log link on this page (below the fold). The interesting part of the log shown is towards the bottom. Pulling out this part:   21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 Build FAILED. 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 "C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj" (default target) (1) -> 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 (sqlCI target) -> 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: RedGate.Deploy.SqlServerDbPackage.Shared.Exceptions.InvalidSqlException: Test Case Summary: 1 test case(s) executed, 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 errored. [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: [MyChecks].[test Check Email Addresses] failed: [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: ringo.starr@beatles [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: +----------------------+ [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj] 21-Jun-2013 11:35:19 EXEC : sqlCI error occurred: |Test Execution Summary| [C:\Users\Administrator\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\RGA-RGP-JOB1\sqlCI.proj]   As a final check, we should make sure that, if we now fix this error, the build succeeds. So in SSMS, I’m going to correct the invalid email address, then check this change in to SQL Source Control (with a comment), commit to GitHub, and re-run the build:   This should have fixed the build: It worked! Summary This has been a very quick run through the implementation of CI for databases, including tSQLt tests to test whether your database updates are working. The next post in this series will focus on automated deployment – we’ve tested our database changes, how can we now deploy these to target sites?  

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  • Insert Record by Drag & Drop from ADF Tree to ADF Tree Table

    - by arul.wilson(at)oracle.com
    If you want to create record based on the values Dragged from ADF Tree and Dropped on a ADF Tree Table, then here you go.UseCase DescriptionUser Drags a tree node from ADF Tree and Drops it on a ADF Tree Table node. A new row gets added in the Tree Table based on the source tree node, subsequently a record gets added to the database table on which Tree table in based on.Following description helps to achieve this using ADF BC.Run the DragDropSchema.sql to create required tables.Create Business Components from tables (PRODUCTS, COMPONENTS, SUB_COMPONENTS, USERS, USER_COMPONENTS) created above.Add custom method to App Module Impl, this method will be used to insert record from view layer.   public String createUserComponents(String p_bugdbId, String p_productId, String p_componentId, String p_subComponentId){    Row newUserComponentsRow = this.getUserComponentsView1().createRow();    try {      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("Bugdbid", p_bugdbId);      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("ProductId", new oracle.jbo.domain.Number(p_productId));      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("Component1", p_componentId);      newUserComponentsRow.setAttribute("SubComponent", p_subComponentId);    } catch (Exception e) {        e.printStackTrace();        return "Failure";    }        return "Success";  }Expose this method to client interface.To display the root node we need a custom VO which can be achieved using below query. SELECT Users.ACTIVE, Users.BUGDB_ID, Users.EMAIL, Users.FIRSTNAME, Users.GLOBAL_ID, Users.LASTNAME, Users.MANAGER_ID, Users.MANAGER_PRIVILEGEFROM USERS UsersWHERE Users.MANAGER_ID is NULLCreate VL between UsersView and UsersRootNodeView VOs.Drop ProductsView from DC as ADF Tree to jspx page.Add Tree Level Rule based on ComponentsView and SubComponentsView.Drop UsersRootNodeView as ADF Tree TableAdd Tree Level Rules based on UserComponentsView and UsersView.Add DragSource to ADF Tree and CollectionDropTarget to ADF Tree Table respectively.Bind CollectionDropTarget's DropTarget to backing bean and implement method of signature DnDAction (DropEvent), this method gets invoked when Tree Table encounters a drop action, here details required for creating new record are captured from the drag source and passed to 'createUserComponents' method. public DnDAction onTreeDrop(DropEvent dropEvent) {      String newBugdbId = "";      String msgtxt="";            try {          // Getting the target node bugdb id          Object serverRowKey = dropEvent.getDropSite();          if (serverRowKey != null) {                  //Code for Tree Table as target              String dropcomponent = dropEvent.getDropComponent().toString();              dropcomponent = (String)dropcomponent.subSequence(0, dropcomponent.indexOf("["));              if (dropcomponent.equals("RichTreeTable")){                RichTreeTable richTreeTable = (RichTreeTable)dropEvent.getDropComponent();                richTreeTable.setRowKey(serverRowKey);                int rowIndexTreeTable = richTreeTable.getRowIndex();                //Drop Target Logic                if (((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getAttributeValue()==null) {                  //Get Parent                  newBugdbId = (String)((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getParent().getAttributeValue();                } else {                  if (isNum(((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getAttributeValue().toString())) {                    //Get Parent's parent                              newBugdbId = (String)((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getParent().getParent().getAttributeValue();                  } else{                      //Dropped on USER                                          newBugdbId = (String)((JUCtrlHierNodeBinding)richTreeTable.getRowData(rowIndexTreeTable)).getAttributeValue();                  }                  }              }           }                     DataFlavor<RowKeySet> df = DataFlavor.getDataFlavor(RowKeySet.class);          RowKeySet droppedValue = dropEvent.getTransferable().getData(df);            Object[] keys = droppedValue.toArray();          Key componentKey = null;          Key subComponentKey = null;           // binding for createUserComponents method defined in AppModuleImpl class  to insert record in database.                      operationBinding = bindings.getOperationBinding("createUserComponents");            // get the Product, Component, Subcomponent details and insert to UserComponents table.          // loop through the keys if more than one comp/subcomponent is select.                   for (int i = 0; i < keys.length; i++) {                  System.out.println("in for :"+i);              List list = (List)keys[i];                  System.out.println("list "+i+" : "+list);              System.out.println("list size "+list.size());              if (list.size() == 1) {                                // we cannot drag and drop  the highest node !                                msgtxt="You cannot drop Products, please drop Component or SubComponent from the Tree.";                  System.out.println(msgtxt);                                this.showInfoMessage(msgtxt);              } else {                  if (list.size() == 2) {                    // were doing the first branch, in this case all components.                    componentKey = (Key)list.get(1);                    Object[] droppedProdCompValues = componentKey.getAttributeValues();                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_bugdbId",newBugdbId);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_productId",droppedProdCompValues[0]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_componentId",droppedProdCompValues[1]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_subComponentId","ALL");                    Object result = operationBinding.execute();              } else {                    subComponentKey = (Key)list.get(2);                    Object[] droppedProdCompSubCompValues = subComponentKey.getAttributeValues();                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_bugdbId",newBugdbId);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_productId",droppedProdCompSubCompValues[0]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_componentId",droppedProdCompSubCompValues[1]);                    operationBinding.getParamsMap().put("p_subComponentId",droppedProdCompSubCompValues[2]);                    Object result = operationBinding.execute();                  }                   }            }                        /* this.getCil1().setDisabled(false);            this.getCil1().setPartialSubmit(true); */                      return DnDAction.MOVE;        } catch (Exception ex) {          System.out.println("drop failed with : " + ex.getMessage());          ex.printStackTrace();                  /* this.getCil1().setDisabled(true); */          return DnDAction.NONE;          }    } Run jspx page and drop a Component or Subcomponent from Products Tree to UserComponents Tree Table.

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  • The Product Owner

    - by Robert May
    In a previous post, I outlined the rules of Scrum.  This post details one of those rules. Picking a most important part of Scrum is difficult.  All of the rules are required, but if there were one rule that is “more” required that every other rule, its having a good Product Owner.  Simply put, the Product Owner can make or break the project. Duties of the Product Owner A Product Owner has many duties and responsibilities.  I’ll talk about each of these duties in detail below. A Product Owner: Discovers and records stories for the backlog. Prioritizes stories in the Product Backlog, Release Backlog and Iteration Backlog. Determines Release dates and Iteration Dates. Develops story details and helps the team understand those details. Helps QA to develop acceptance tests. Interact with the Customer to make sure that the product is meeting the customer’s needs. Discovers and Records Stories for the Backlog When I do Scrum, I always use User Stories as the means for capturing functionality that’s required in the system.  Some people will use Use Cases, but the same rule applies.  The Product Owner has the ultimate responsibility for figuring out what functionality will be in the system.  Many different mechanisms for capturing this input can be used.  User interviews are great, but all sources should be considered, including talking with Customer Support types.  Often, they hear what users are struggling with the most and are a great source for stories that can make the application easier to use. Care should be taken when soliciting user stories from technical types such as programmers and the people that manage them.  They will almost always give stories that are very technical in nature and may not have a direct benefit for the end user.  Stories are about adding value to the company.  If the stories don’t have direct benefit to the end user, the Product Owner should question whether or not the story should be implemented.  In general, technical stories should be included as tasks in User Stories.  Technical stories are often needed, but the ultimate value to the user is in user based functionality, so technical stories should be considered nothing more than overhead in providing that user functionality. Until the iteration prior to development, stories should be nothing more than short, one line placeholders. An exercise called Story Planning can be used to brainstorm and come up with stories.  I’ll save the description of this activity for another blog post. For more information on User Stories, please read the book User Stories Applied by Mike Cohn. Prioritizes Stories in the Product Backlog, Release Backlog and Iteration Backlog Prioritization of stories is one of the most difficult tasks that a Product Owner must do.  A key concept of Scrum done right is the need to have the team working from a single set of prioritized stories.  If the team does not have a single set of prioritized stories, Scrum will likely fail at your organization.  The Product Owner is the ONLY person who has the responsibility to prioritize that list.  The Product Owner must be very diplomatic and sincerely listen to the people around him so that he can get the priorities correct. Just listening will still not yield the proper priorities.  Care must also be taken to ensure that Return on Investment is also considered.  Ultimately, determining which stories give the most value to the company for the least cost is the most important factor in determining priorities.  Product Owners should be willing to look at cold, hard numbers to determine the order for stories.  Even when many people want a feature, if that features is costly to develop, it may not have as high of a return on investment as features that are cheaper, but not as popular. The act of prioritization often causes conflict in an environment.  Customer Service thinks that feature X is the most important, because it will stop people from calling.  Operations thinks that feature Y is the most important, because it will stop servers from crashing.  Developers think that feature Z is most important because it will make writing software much easier for them.  All of these are useful goals, but the team can have only one list of items, and each item must have a priority that is different from all other stories.  The Product Owner will determine which feature gives the best return on investment and the other features will have to wait their turn, which means that someone will not have their top priority feature implemented first. A weak Product Owner will refuse to do prioritization.  I’ve heard from multiple Product Owners the following phrase, “Well, it’s all got to be done, so what does it matter what order we do it in?”  If your product owner is using this phrase, you need a new Product Owner.  Order is VERY important.  In Scrum, every release is potentially shippable.  If the wrong priority items are developed, then the value added in each release isn’t what it should be.  Additionally, the Product Owner with this mindset doesn’t understand Agile.  A product is NEVER finished, until the company has decided that it is no longer a going concern and they are no longer going to sell the product.  Therefore, prioritization isn’t an event, its something that continues every day.  The logical extension of the phrase “It’s all got to be done” is that you will never ship your product, since a product is never “done.”  Once stories have been prioritized, assigning them to the Release Backlog and the Iteration Backlog becomes relatively simple.  The top priority items are copied into the respective backlogs in order and the task is complete.  The team does have the right to shuffle things around a little in the iteration backlog.  For example, they may determine that working on story C with story A is appropriate because they’re related, even though story B is technically a higher priority than story C.  Or they may decide that story B is too big to complete in the time available after Story A has tasks created, so they’ll work on Story C since it’s smaller.  They can’t, however, go deep into the backlog to pick stories to implement.  The team and the Product Owner should work together to determine what’s best for the company. Prioritization is time consuming, but its one of the most important things a Product Owner does. Determines Release Dates and Iteration Dates Product owners are responsible for determining release dates for a product.  A common misconception that Product Owners have is that every “release” needs to correspond with an actual release to customers.  This is not the case.  In general, releases should be no more than 3 months long.  You  may decide to release the product to the customers, and many companies do release the product to customers, but it may also be an internal release. If a release date is too far away, developers will fall into the trap of not feeling a sense of urgency.  The date is far enough away that they don’t need to give the release their full attention.  Additionally, important tasks, such as performance tuning, regression testing, user documentation, and release preparation, will not happen regularly, making them much more difficult and time consuming to do.  The more frequently you do these tasks, the easier they are to accomplish. The Product Owner will be a key participant in determining whether or not a release should be sent out to the customers.  The determination should be made on whether or not the features contained in the release are valuable enough  and complete enough that the customers will see real value in the release.  Often, some features will take more than three months to get them to a state where they qualify for a release or need additional supporting features to be released.  The product owner has the right to make this determination. In addition to release dates, the Product Owner also will help determine iteration dates.  In general, an iteration length should be chosen and the team should follow that iteration length for an extended period of time.  If the iteration length is changed every iteration, you’re not doing Scrum.  Iteration lengths help the team and company get into a rhythm of developing quality software.  Iterations should be somewhere between 2 and 4 weeks in length.  Any shorter, and significant software will likely not be developed.  Any longer, and the team won’t feel urgency and planning will become very difficult. Iterations may not be extended during the iteration.  Companies where Scrum isn’t really followed will often use this as a strategy to complete all stories.  They don’t want to face the harsh reality of what their true performance is, and looking good is more important than seeking visibility and improving the process and team.  Companies like this typically don’t allow failure.  This is unhealthy.  Failure is part of life and unless we learn from it, we can’t improve.  I would much rather see a team push out stories to the next iteration and then have healthy discussions about why they failed rather than extend the iteration and not deal with the core problems. If iteration length varies, retrospectives become more difficult.  For example, evaluating the performance of the team’s estimation efforts becomes much more difficult if the iteration length varies.  Also, the team must have a velocity measurement.  If the iteration length varies, measuring velocity becomes impossible and upper management no longer will have the ability to evaluate the teams performance.  People external to the team will no longer have the ability to determine when key features are likely to be developed.  Variable iterations cause the entire company to fail and likely cause Scrum to fail at an organization. Develops Story Details and Helps the Team Understand Those Details A key concept in Scrum is that the stories are nothing more than a placeholder for a conversation.  Stories should be nothing more than short, one line statements about the functionality.  The team will then converse with the Product Owner about the details about that story.  The product owner needs to have a very good idea about what the details of the story are and needs to be able to help the team understand those details. Too often, we see this requirement as being translated into the need for comprehensive documentation about the story, including old fashioned requirements documentation.  The team should only develop the documentation that is required and should not develop documentation that is only created because their is a process to do so. In general, what we see that works best is the iteration before a team starts development work on a story, the Product Owner, with other appropriate business analysts, will develop the details of that story.  They’ll figure out what business rules are required, potentially make paper prototypes or other light weight mock-ups, and they seek to understand the story and what is implied.  Note that the time allowed for this task is deliberately short.  The Product Owner only has a single iteration to develop all of the stories for the next iteration. If more than one iteration is used, I’ve found that teams will end up with Big Design Up Front and traditional requirements documents.  This is a waste of time, since the team will need to then have discussions with the Product Owner to figure out what the requirements document says.  Instead of this, skip making the pretty pictures and detailing the nuances of the requirements and build only what is minimally needed by the team to do development.  If something comes up during development, you can address it at that time and figure out what you want to do.  The goal is to keep things as light weight as possible so that everyone can move as quickly as possible. Helps QA to Develop Acceptance Tests In Scrum, no story can be counted until it is accepted by QA.  Because of this, acceptance tests are very important to the team.  In general, acceptance tests need to be developed prior to the iteration or at the very beginning of the iteration so that the team can make sure that the tasks that they develop will fulfill the acceptance criteria. The Product Owner will help the team, including QA, understand what will make the story acceptable.  Note that the Product Owner needs to be careful about specifying that the feature will work “Perfectly” at the end of the iteration.  In general, features are developed a little bit at a time, so only the bit that is being developed should be considered as necessary for acceptance. A weak Product Owner will make statements like “Do it right the first time.”  Not only are these statements damaging to the team (like they would try to do it WRONG the first time . . .), they’re also ignoring the iterative nature of Scrum.  Additionally, a weak product owner will seek to add scope in the acceptance testing.  For example, they will refuse to determine acceptance at the beginning of the iteration, and then, after the team has planned and committed to the iteration, they will expand scope by defining acceptance.  This often causes the team to miss the iteration because scope that wasn’t planned on is included.  There are ways that the team can mitigate this problem.  For example, include extra “Product Owner” time to deal with the uncertainty that you know will be introduced by the Product Owner.  This will slow the perceived velocity of the team and is not ideal, since they’ll be doing more work than they get credit for. Interact with the Customer to Make Sure that the Product is Meeting the Customer’s Needs Once development is complete, what the team has worked on should be put in front of real live people to see if it meets the needs of the customer.  One of the great things about Agile is that if something doesn’t work, we can revisit it in a future iteration!  This frees up the team to make the best decision now and know that if that decision proves to be incorrect, the team can revisit it and change that decision. Features are about adding value to the customer, so if the customer doesn’t find them useful, then having the team make tweaks is valuable.  In general, most software will be 80 to 90 percent “right” after the initial round and only minor tweaks are required.  If proper coding standards are followed, these tweaks are usually minor and easy to accomplish.  Product Owners that are doing a good job will encourage real users to see and use the software, since they know that they are trying to add value to the customer. Poor product owners will think that they know the answers already, that their customers are silly and do stupid things and that they don’t need customer input.  If you have a product owner that is afraid to show the team’s work to real customers, you probably need a different product owner. Up Next, “Who Makes a Good Product Owner.” Followed by, “Messing with the Team.” Technorati Tags: Scrum,Product Owner

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  • Problem rendering VBO

    - by Onno
    I'm developing a game engine using OpenTK. I'm trying to get to grips with the use of VBO's. I've run into some trouble because somehow it doesn't render correctly. Thus far I've used immediate mode to render a test object, a test cube with a texture. namespace SharpEngine.Utility.Mesh { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using OpenTK; using OpenTK.Graphics; using OpenTK.Graphics.OpenGL; using SharpEngine.Utility; using System.Drawing; public class ImmediateFaceBasedCube : IMesh { private IList<Face> faces = new List<Face>(); public ImmediateFaceBasedCube() { IList<Vector3> allVertices = new List<Vector3>(); //rechtsbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //0 //rechtsbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //1 //linksbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //2 //linksbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //3 //rechtsondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //4 //rechtsonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //5 //linksonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //6 //linksondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //7 IList<Vector2> textureCoordinates = new List<Vector2>(); textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0)); //AA - 0 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.3333333f)); //AB - 1 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.6666666f)); //AC - 2 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 1)); //AD - 3 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0)); //BA - 4 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.3333333f)); //BB - 5 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.6666666f)); //BC - 6 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 1)); //BD - 7 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0)); //CA - 8 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.3333333f)); //CB - 9 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.6666666f)); //CC -10 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 1)); //CD -11 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0)); //DA -12 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.3333333f)); //DB -13 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.6666666f)); //DC -14 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 1)); //DD -15 Vector3 copy1 = new Vector3(-2.0f, -2.5f, -3.5f); IList<Vector3> normals = new List<Vector3>(); normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 1.0f, 0)); //0 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, 1.0f)); //1 normals.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 0, 0)); //2 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, -1.0f)); //3 normals.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 0, 0)); //4 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, -1.0f, 0)); //5 //todo: move vertex normal and texture data to datastructure //todo: VBO based rendering //top face //1 IList<VertexData> verticesT1 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T1a = new VertexData(); T1a.Normal = normals[0]; T1a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T1a.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT1.Add(T1a); VertexData T1b = new VertexData(); T1b.Normal = normals[0]; T1b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T1b.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT1.Add(T1b); VertexData T1c = new VertexData(); T1c.Normal = normals[0]; T1c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[10]; T1c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT1.Add(T1c); Face F1 = new Face(verticesT1); faces.Add(F1); //2 IList<VertexData> verticesT2 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T2a = new VertexData(); T2a.Normal = normals[0]; T2a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[10]; T2a.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT2.Add(T2a); VertexData T2b = new VertexData(); T2b.Normal = normals[0]; T2b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[6]; T2b.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT2.Add(T2b); VertexData T2c = new VertexData(); T2c.Normal = normals[0]; T2c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T2c.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT2.Add(T2c); Face F2 = new Face(verticesT2); faces.Add(F2); //front face //3 IList<VertexData> verticesT3 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T3a = new VertexData(); T3a.Normal = normals[1]; T3a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[1]; T3a.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT3.Add(T3a); VertexData T3b = new VertexData(); T3b.Normal = normals[1]; T3b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[0]; T3b.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT3.Add(T3b); VertexData T3c = new VertexData(); T3c.Normal = normals[1]; T3c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T3c.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT3.Add(T3c); Face F3 = new Face(verticesT3); faces.Add(F3); //4 IList<VertexData> verticesT4 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T4a = new VertexData(); T4a.Normal = normals[1]; T4a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T4a.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT4.Add(T4a); VertexData T4b = new VertexData(); T4b.Normal = normals[1]; T4b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[0]; T4b.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT4.Add(T4b); VertexData T4c = new VertexData(); T4c.Normal = normals[1]; T4c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[4]; T4c.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT4.Add(T4c); Face F4 = new Face(verticesT4); faces.Add(F4); //right face //5 IList<VertexData> verticesT5 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T5a = new VertexData(); T5a.Normal = normals[2]; T5a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[2]; T5a.Position = allVertices[0]; verticesT5.Add(T5a); VertexData T5b = new VertexData(); T5b.Normal = normals[2]; T5b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[1]; T5b.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT5.Add(T5b); VertexData T5c = new VertexData(); T5c.Normal = normals[2]; T5c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[6]; T5c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT5.Add(T5c); Face F5 = new Face(verticesT5); faces.Add(F5); //6 IList<VertexData> verticesT6 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T6a = new VertexData(); T6a.Normal = normals[2]; T6a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[1]; T6a.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT6.Add(T6a); VertexData T6b = new VertexData(); T6b.Normal = normals[2]; T6b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T6b.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT6.Add(T6b); VertexData T6c = new VertexData(); T6c.Normal = normals[2]; T6c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[6]; T6c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT6.Add(T6c); Face F6 = new Face(verticesT6); faces.Add(F6); //back face //7 IList<VertexData> verticesT7 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T7a = new VertexData(); T7a.Normal = normals[3]; T7a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[4]; T7a.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT7.Add(T7a); VertexData T7b = new VertexData(); T7b.Normal = normals[3]; T7b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T7b.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT7.Add(T7b); VertexData T7c = new VertexData(); T7c.Normal = normals[3]; T7c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[5]; T7c.Position = allVertices[1]; verticesT7.Add(T7c); Face F7 = new Face(verticesT7); faces.Add(F7); //8 IList<VertexData> verticesT8 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T8a = new VertexData(); T8a.Normal = normals[3]; T8a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T8a.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT8.Add(T8a); VertexData T8b = new VertexData(); T8b.Normal = normals[3]; T8b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[4]; T8b.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT8.Add(T8b); VertexData T8c = new VertexData(); T8c.Normal = normals[3]; T8c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[8]; T8c.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT8.Add(T8c); Face F8 = new Face(verticesT8); faces.Add(F8); //left face //9 IList<VertexData> verticesT9 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T9a = new VertexData(); T9a.Normal = normals[4]; T9a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[8]; T9a.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT9.Add(T9a); VertexData T9b = new VertexData(); T9b.Normal = normals[4]; T9b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[13]; T9b.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT9.Add(T9b); VertexData T9c = new VertexData(); T9c.Normal = normals[4]; T9c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T9c.Position = allVertices[2]; verticesT9.Add(T9c); Face F9 = new Face(verticesT9); faces.Add(F9); //10 IList<VertexData> verticesT10 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T10a = new VertexData(); T10a.Normal = normals[4]; T10a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[8]; T10a.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT10.Add(T10a); VertexData T10b = new VertexData(); T10b.Normal = normals[4]; T10b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[12]; T10b.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT10.Add(T10b); VertexData T10c = new VertexData(); T10c.Normal = normals[4]; T10c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[13]; T10c.Position = allVertices[3]; verticesT10.Add(T10c); Face F10 = new Face(verticesT10); faces.Add(F10); //bottom face //11 IList<VertexData> verticesT11 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T11a = new VertexData(); T11a.Normal = normals[5]; T11a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[10]; T11a.Position = allVertices[7]; verticesT11.Add(T11a); VertexData T11b = new VertexData(); T11b.Normal = normals[5]; T11b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T11b.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT11.Add(T11b); VertexData T11c = new VertexData(); T11c.Normal = normals[5]; T11c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[14]; T11c.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT11.Add(T11c); Face F11 = new Face(verticesT11); faces.Add(F11); //12 IList<VertexData> verticesT12 = new List<VertexData>(); VertexData T12a = new VertexData(); T12a.Normal = normals[5]; T12a.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[13]; T12a.Position = allVertices[5]; verticesT12.Add(T12a); VertexData T12b = new VertexData(); T12b.Normal = normals[5]; T12b.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[14]; T12b.Position = allVertices[4]; verticesT12.Add(T12b); VertexData T12c = new VertexData(); T12c.Normal = normals[5]; T12c.TexCoord = textureCoordinates[9]; T12c.Position = allVertices[6]; verticesT12.Add(T12c); Face F12 = new Face(verticesT12); faces.Add(F12); } public void draw() { GL.Begin(BeginMode.Triangles); foreach (Face face in faces) { foreach (VertexData datapoint in face.verticesWithTexCoords) { GL.Normal3(datapoint.Normal); GL.TexCoord2(datapoint.TexCoord); GL.Vertex3(datapoint.Position); } } GL.End(); } } } Gets me this very nice picture: The immediate mode cube renders nicely and taught me a bit on how to use OpenGL, but VBO's are the way to go. Since I read on the OpenTK forums that OpenTK has problems doing VA's or DL's, I decided to skip using those. Now, I've tried to change this cube to a VBO by using the same vertex, normal and tc collections, and making float arrays from them by using the coordinates in combination with uint arrays which contain the index numbers from the immediate cube. (see the private functions at end of the code sample) Somehow this only renders two triangles namespace SharpEngine.Utility.Mesh { using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using OpenTK; using OpenTK.Graphics; using OpenTK.Graphics.OpenGL; using SharpEngine.Utility; using System.Drawing; public class VBOFaceBasedCube : IMesh { private int VerticesVBOID; private int VerticesVBOStride; private int VertexCount; private int ELementBufferObjectID; private int textureCoordinateVBOID; private int textureCoordinateVBOStride; //private int textureCoordinateArraySize; private int normalVBOID; private int normalVBOStride; public VBOFaceBasedCube() { IList<Vector3> allVertices = new List<Vector3>(); //rechtsbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //0 //rechtsbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //1 //linksbovenachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, -1.0f)); //2 //linksbovenvoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f)); //3 //rechtsondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //4 //rechtsonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //5 //linksonderachter allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, -1.0f)); //6 //linksondervoor allVertices.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, -1.0f, 1.0f)); //7 IList<Vector2> textureCoordinates = new List<Vector2>(); textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0)); //AA - 0 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.3333333f)); //AB - 1 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 0.6666666f)); //AC - 2 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0, 1)); //AD - 3 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0)); //BA - 4 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.3333333f)); //BB - 5 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 0.6666666f)); //BC - 6 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.3333333f, 1)); //BD - 7 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0)); //CA - 8 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.3333333f)); //CB - 9 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 0.6666666f)); //CC -10 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(0.6666666f, 1)); //CD -11 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0)); //DA -12 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.3333333f)); //DB -13 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 0.6666666f)); //DC -14 textureCoordinates.Add(new Vector2(1, 1)); //DD -15 Vector3 copy1 = new Vector3(-2.0f, -2.5f, -3.5f); IList<Vector3> normals = new List<Vector3>(); normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 1.0f, 0)); //0 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, 1.0f)); //1 normals.Add(new Vector3(1.0f, 0, 0)); //2 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, 0, -1.0f)); //3 normals.Add(new Vector3(-1.0f, 0, 0)); //4 normals.Add(new Vector3(0, -1.0f, 0)); //5 //todo: VBO based rendering uint[] vertexElements = { 3,0,1, //01 1,2,3, //02 3,7,0, //03 0,7,4, //04 0,4,1, //05 4,5,1, //06 5,2,1, //07 2,5,6, //08 6,3,2, //09 6,7,5, //10 7,6,4, //11 5,4,6 //12 }; VertexCount = vertexElements.Length; IList<uint> vertexElementList = new List<uint>(vertexElements); uint[] normalElements = { 0,0,0, 0,0,0, 1,1,1, 1,1,1, 2,2,2, 2,2,2, 3,3,3, 3,3,3, 4,4,4, 4,4,4, 5,5,5, 5,5,5 }; IList<uint> normalElementList = new List<uint>(normalElements); uint[] textureIndexArray = { 5,9,10, 10,6,5, 1,0,5, 5,0,4, 2,1,6, 1,5,6, 4,9,5, 9,4,8, 8,13,9, 8,12,13, 10,9,14, 13,14,9 }; //textureCoordinateArraySize = textureIndexArray.Length; IList<uint> textureIndexList = new List<uint>(textureIndexArray); LoadVBO(allVertices, normals, textureCoordinates, vertexElements, normalElementList, textureIndexList); } public void draw() { //bind vertices //bind elements //bind normals //bind texture coordinates GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.VertexArray); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.NormalArray); GL.EnableClientState(ArrayCap.TextureCoordArray); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, VerticesVBOID); GL.VertexPointer(3, VertexPointerType.Float, VerticesVBOStride, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, normalVBOID); GL.NormalPointer(NormalPointerType.Float, normalVBOStride, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, textureCoordinateVBOID); GL.TexCoordPointer(2, TexCoordPointerType.Float, textureCoordinateVBOStride, 0); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, ELementBufferObjectID); GL.DrawElements(BeginMode.Polygon, VertexCount, DrawElementsType.UnsignedShort, 0); } //loads a static VBO void LoadVBO(IList<Vector3> vertices, IList<Vector3> normals, IList<Vector2> texcoords, uint[] elements, IList<uint> normalIndices, IList<uint> texCoordIndices) { int size; //todo // To create a VBO: // 1) Generate the buffer handles for the vertex and element buffers. // 2) Bind the vertex buffer handle and upload your vertex data. Check that the buffer was uploaded correctly. // 3) Bind the element buffer handle and upload your element data. Check that the buffer was uploaded correctly. float[] verticesArray = convertVector3fListToFloatArray(vertices); float[] normalsArray = createFloatArrayFromListOfVector3ElementsAndIndices(normals, normalIndices); float[] textureCoordinateArray = createFloatArrayFromListOfVector2ElementsAndIndices(texcoords, texCoordIndices); GL.GenBuffers(1, out VerticesVBOID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, VerticesVBOID); Console.WriteLine("load 1 - vertices"); VerticesVBOStride = BlittableValueType.StrideOf(verticesArray); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(verticesArray.Length * sizeof(float)), verticesArray, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); if (verticesArray.Length * BlittableValueType.StrideOf(verticesArray) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("Vertex data not uploaded correctly"); } else { Console.WriteLine("load 1 finished ok"); size = 0; } Console.WriteLine("load 2 - elements"); GL.GenBuffers(1, out ELementBufferObjectID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, ELementBufferObjectID); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(elements.Length * sizeof(uint)), elements, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ElementArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); if (elements.Length * sizeof(uint) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("Element data not uploaded correctly"); } else { size = 0; Console.WriteLine("load 2 finished ok"); } GL.GenBuffers(1, out normalVBOID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, normalVBOID); Console.WriteLine("load 3 - normals"); normalVBOStride = BlittableValueType.StrideOf(normalsArray); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(normalsArray.Length * sizeof(float)), normalsArray, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); Console.WriteLine("load 3 - pre check"); if (normalsArray.Length * BlittableValueType.StrideOf(normalsArray) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("Normal data not uploaded correctly"); } else { Console.WriteLine("load 3 finished ok"); size = 0; } GL.GenBuffers(1, out textureCoordinateVBOID); GL.BindBuffer(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, textureCoordinateVBOID); Console.WriteLine("load 4- texture coordinates"); textureCoordinateVBOStride = BlittableValueType.StrideOf(textureCoordinateArray); GL.BufferData(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, (IntPtr)(textureCoordinateArray.Length * textureCoordinateVBOStride), textureCoordinateArray, BufferUsageHint.StaticDraw); GL.GetBufferParameter(BufferTarget.ArrayBuffer, BufferParameterName.BufferSize, out size); if (textureCoordinateArray.Length * BlittableValueType.StrideOf(textureCoordinateArray) != size) { throw new ApplicationException("texture coordinate data not uploaded correctly"); } else { Console.WriteLine("load 3 finished ok"); size = 0; } } //used to convert vertex arrayss for use with VBO's private float[] convertVector3fListToFloatArray(IList<Vector3> input) { int arrayElementCount = input.Count * 3; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (Vector3 v in input) { output[fillCount] = v.X; output[fillCount + 1] = v.Y; output[fillCount + 2] = v.Z; fillCount += 3; } return output; } //used for converting texture coordinate arrays for use with VBO's private float[] convertVector2List_to_floatArray(IList<Vector2> input) { int arrayElementCount = input.Count * 2; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (Vector2 v in input) { output[fillCount] = v.X; output[fillCount + 1] = v.Y; fillCount += 2; } return output; } //used to create an array of floats from private float[] createFloatArrayFromListOfVector3ElementsAndIndices(IList<Vector3> inputVectors, IList<uint> indices) { int arrayElementCount = inputVectors.Count * indices.Count * 3; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (int i in indices) { output[fillCount] = inputVectors[i].X; output[fillCount + 1] = inputVectors[i].Y; output[fillCount + 2] = inputVectors[i].Z; fillCount += 3; } return output; } private float[] createFloatArrayFromListOfVector2ElementsAndIndices(IList<Vector2> inputVectors, IList<uint> indices) { int arrayElementCount = inputVectors.Count * indices.Count * 2; float[] output = new float[arrayElementCount]; int fillCount = 0; foreach (int i in indices) { output[fillCount] = inputVectors[i].X; output[fillCount + 1] = inputVectors[i].Y; fillCount += 2; } return output; } } } This code will only render two triangles and they're nothing like I had in mind: I've done some searching. In some other questions I read that, if I did something wrong, I'd get no rendering at all. Clearly, something gets sent to the GFX card, but it might be that I'm not sending the right data. I've tried altering the sequence in which the triangles are rendered by swapping some of the index numbers in the vert, tc and normal index arrays, but this doesn't seem to be of any effect. I'm slightly lost here. What am I doing wrong here?

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  • Sorting Algorithms

    - by MarkPearl
    General Every time I go back to university I find myself wading through sorting algorithms and their implementation in C++. Up to now I haven’t really appreciated their true value. However as I discovered this last week with Dictionaries in C# – having a knowledge of some basic programming principles can greatly improve the performance of a system and make one think twice about how to tackle a problem. I’m going to cover briefly in this post the following: Selection Sort Insertion Sort Shellsort Quicksort Mergesort Heapsort (not complete) Selection Sort Array based selection sort is a simple approach to sorting an unsorted array. Simply put, it repeats two basic steps to achieve a sorted collection. It starts with a collection of data and repeatedly parses it, each time sorting out one element and reducing the size of the next iteration of parsed data by one. So the first iteration would go something like this… Go through the entire array of data and find the lowest value Place the value at the front of the array The second iteration would go something like this… Go through the array from position two (position one has already been sorted with the smallest value) and find the next lowest value in the array. Place the value at the second position in the array This process would be completed until the entire array had been sorted. A positive about selection sort is that it does not make many item movements. In fact, in a worst case scenario every items is only moved once. Selection sort is however a comparison intensive sort. If you had 10 items in a collection, just to parse the collection you would have 10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2=54 comparisons to sort regardless of how sorted the collection was to start with. If you think about it, if you applied selection sort to a collection already sorted, you would still perform relatively the same number of iterations as if it was not sorted at all. Many of the following algorithms try and reduce the number of comparisons if the list is already sorted – leaving one with a best case and worst case scenario for comparisons. Likewise different approaches have different levels of item movement. Depending on what is more expensive, one may give priority to one approach compared to another based on what is more expensive, a comparison or a item move. Insertion Sort Insertion sort tries to reduce the number of key comparisons it performs compared to selection sort by not “doing anything” if things are sorted. Assume you had an collection of numbers in the following order… 10 18 25 30 23 17 45 35 There are 8 elements in the list. If we were to start at the front of the list – 10 18 25 & 30 are already sorted. Element 5 (23) however is smaller than element 4 (30) and so needs to be repositioned. We do this by copying the value at element 5 to a temporary holder, and then begin shifting the elements before it up one. So… Element 5 would be copied to a temporary holder 10 18 25 30 23 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 4 would shift to Element 5 10 18 25 30 30 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 3 would shift to Element 4 10 18 25 25 30 17 45 35 – T 23 Element 2 (18) is smaller than the temporary holder so we put the temporary holder value into Element 3. 10 18 23 25 30 17 45 35 – T 23   We now have a sorted list up to element 6. And so we would repeat the same process by moving element 6 to a temporary value and then shifting everything up by one from element 2 to element 5. As you can see, one major setback for this technique is the shifting values up one – this is because up to now we have been considering the collection to be an array. If however the collection was a linked list, we would not need to shift values up, but merely remove the link from the unsorted value and “reinsert” it in a sorted position. Which would reduce the number of transactions performed on the collection. So.. Insertion sort seems to perform better than selection sort – however an implementation is slightly more complicated. This is typical with most sorting algorithms – generally, greater performance leads to greater complexity. Also, insertion sort performs better if a collection of data is already sorted. If for instance you were handed a sorted collection of size n, then only n number of comparisons would need to be performed to verify that it is sorted. It’s important to note that insertion sort (array based) performs a number item moves – every time an item is “out of place” several items before it get shifted up. Shellsort – Diminishing Increment Sort So up to now we have covered Selection Sort & Insertion Sort. Selection Sort makes many comparisons and insertion sort (with an array) has the potential of making many item movements. Shellsort is an approach that takes the normal insertion sort and tries to reduce the number of item movements. In Shellsort, elements in a collection are viewed as sub-collections of a particular size. Each sub-collection is sorted so that the elements that are far apart move closer to their final position. Suppose we had a collection of 15 elements… 10 20 15 45 36 48 7 60 18 50 2 19 43 30 55 First we may view the collection as 7 sub-collections and sort each sublist, lets say at intervals of 7 10 60 55 – 20 18 – 15 50 – 45 2 – 36 19 – 48 43 – 7 30 10 55 60 – 18 20 – 15 50 – 2 45 – 19 36 – 43 48 – 7 30 (Sorted) We then sort each sublist at a smaller inter – lets say 4 10 55 60 18 – 20 15 50 2 – 45 19 36 43 – 48 7 30 10 18 55 60 – 2 15 20 50 – 19 36 43 45 – 7 30 48 (Sorted) We then sort elements at a distance of 1 (i.e. we apply a normal insertion sort) 10 18 55 60 2 15 20 50 19 36 43 45 7 30 48 2 7 10 15 18 19 20 30 36 43 45 48 50 55 (Sorted) The important thing with shellsort is deciding on the increment sequence of each sub-collection. From what I can tell, there isn’t any definitive method and depending on the order of your elements, different increment sequences may perform better than others. There are however certain increment sequences that you may want to avoid. An even based increment sequence (e.g. 2 4 8 16 32 …) should typically be avoided because it does not allow for even elements to be compared with odd elements until the final sort phase – which in a way would negate many of the benefits of using sub-collections. The performance on the number of comparisons and item movements of Shellsort is hard to determine, however it is considered to be considerably better than the normal insertion sort. Quicksort Quicksort uses a divide and conquer approach to sort a collection of items. The collection is divided into two sub-collections – and the two sub-collections are sorted and combined into one list in such a way that the combined list is sorted. The algorithm is in general pseudo code below… Divide the collection into two sub-collections Quicksort the lower sub-collection Quicksort the upper sub-collection Combine the lower & upper sub-collection together As hinted at above, quicksort uses recursion in its implementation. The real trick with quicksort is to get the lower and upper sub-collections to be of equal size. The size of a sub-collection is determined by what value the pivot is. Once a pivot is determined, one would partition to sub-collections and then repeat the process on each sub collection until you reach the base case. With quicksort, the work is done when dividing the sub-collections into lower & upper collections. The actual combining of the lower & upper sub-collections at the end is relatively simple since every element in the lower sub-collection is smaller than the smallest element in the upper sub-collection. Mergesort With quicksort, the average-case complexity was O(nlog2n) however the worst case complexity was still O(N*N). Mergesort improves on quicksort by always having a complexity of O(nlog2n) regardless of the best or worst case. So how does it do this? Mergesort makes use of the divide and conquer approach to partition a collection into two sub-collections. It then sorts each sub-collection and combines the sorted sub-collections into one sorted collection. The general algorithm for mergesort is as follows… Divide the collection into two sub-collections Mergesort the first sub-collection Mergesort the second sub-collection Merge the first sub-collection and the second sub-collection As you can see.. it still pretty much looks like quicksort – so lets see where it differs… Firstly, mergesort differs from quicksort in how it partitions the sub-collections. Instead of having a pivot – merge sort partitions each sub-collection based on size so that the first and second sub-collection of relatively the same size. This dividing keeps getting repeated until the sub-collections are the size of a single element. If a sub-collection is one element in size – it is now sorted! So the trick is how do we put all these sub-collections together so that they maintain their sorted order. Sorted sub-collections are merged into a sorted collection by comparing the elements of the sub-collection and then adjusting the sorted collection. Lets have a look at a few examples… Assume 2 sub-collections with 1 element each 10 & 20 Compare the first element of the first sub-collection with the first element of the second sub-collection. Take the smallest of the two and place it as the first element in the sorted collection. In this scenario 10 is smaller than 20 so 10 is taken from sub-collection 1 leaving that sub-collection empty, which means by default the next smallest element is in sub-collection 2 (20). So the sorted collection would be 10 20 Lets assume 2 sub-collections with 2 elements each 10 20 & 15 19 So… again we would Compare 10 with 15 – 10 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10) leaving us with 20 & 15 19 Compare 20 with 15 – 15 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10 15) leaving us with 20 & 19 Compare 20 with 19 – 19 is the winner so we add it to our sorted collection (10 15 19) leaving us with 20 & _ 20 is by default the winner so our sorted collection is 10 15 19 20. Make sense? Heapsort (still needs to be completed) So by now I am tired of sorting algorithms and trying to remember why they were so important. I think every year I go through this stuff I wonder to myself why are we made to learn about selection sort and insertion sort if they are so bad – why didn’t we just skip to Mergesort & Quicksort. I guess the only explanation I have for this is that sometimes you learn things so that you can implement them in future – and other times you learn things so that you know it isn’t the best way of implementing things and that you don’t need to implement it in future. Anyhow… luckily this is going to be the last one of my sorts for today. The first step in heapsort is to convert a collection of data into a heap. After the data is converted into a heap, sorting begins… So what is the definition of a heap? If we have to convert a collection of data into a heap, how do we know when it is a heap and when it is not? The definition of a heap is as follows: A heap is a list in which each element contains a key, such that the key in the element at position k in the list is at least as large as the key in the element at position 2k +1 (if it exists) and 2k + 2 (if it exists). Does that make sense? At first glance I’m thinking what the heck??? But then after re-reading my notes I see that we are doing something different – up to now we have really looked at data as an array or sequential collection of data that we need to sort – a heap represents data in a slightly different way – although the data is stored in a sequential collection, for a sequential collection of data to be in a valid heap – it is “semi sorted”. Let me try and explain a bit further with an example… Example 1 of Potential Heap Data Assume we had a collection of numbers as follows 1[1] 2[2] 3[3] 4[4] 5[5] 6[6] For this to be a valid heap element with value of 1 at position [1] needs to be greater or equal to the element at position [3] (2k +1) and position [4] (2k +2). So in the above example, the collection of numbers is not in a valid heap. Example 2 of Potential Heap Data Lets look at another collection of numbers as follows 6[1] 5[2] 4[3] 3[4] 2[5] 1[6] Is this a valid heap? Well… element with the value 6 at position 1 must be greater or equal to the element at position [3] and position [4]. Is 6 > 4 and 6 > 3? Yes it is. Lets look at element 5 as position 2. It must be greater than the values at [4] & [5]. Is 5 > 3 and 5 > 2? Yes it is. If you continued to examine this second collection of data you would find that it is in a valid heap based on the definition of a heap.

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