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  • Support for IMAP IDLE in ruby

    - by Asaxena
    Ok, I have been suck on it for hours. I thought net/imap.rb with ruby 1.9 supported the idle command, but not yet. Can anyone help me in implementing that? From here, I though this would work: class Net::IMAP def idle cmd = "IDLE" synchronize do tag = generate_tag put_string(tag + " " + cmd) put_string(CRLF) end end def done cmd = "DONE" synchronize do put_string(cmd) put_string(CRLF) end end end But imap.idle with that just return nil.

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  • richtextbox dosn't support arabic

    - by mohamed
    hi all when i replace english characters in richtextbox with arabic characters, it appears to be question marks instead of the arabic characters. but when i try to write in the richtextbox directly with arabic, it accepts is there is any solution for the problem of replacing? thanks in advance.

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  • Programmatically find device support GPS or not?

    - by RockOn
    Hi! I am trying to find a code which will help to me to find out the device which I used it has a GPS feature or not? I dont want to know its GPS is enable or disable. I just want to that the device has GPS hardware or not throug program. Anyone have any idea pls help.. Thanks and regards. Mintu

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  • Will IE9 support conditional comments?

    - by greim
    I thought I remembered reading somewhere that IE9 would not be supporting them, but now after searching I can't find any indication that this is true. Is anyone aware of a definitive statement, either way, about whether Microsoft will be supporting conditional comments in IE9?

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  • UTF-8 support in java application

    - by jacekn
    I'm having trouble with UTF-8. common.jsp <%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" pageEncoding="UTF-8"%> typical.jsp <%@ include file="common.jsp" %> Page Head <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> Form <form id="screenObject" accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/SiteAdmin/articleHeaderEdit?articleId=15" method="post"> I enter non latin1 characters into a text field and click Save. Validator complains about another field and stops the submission. This never gets to the database, so database ability to handle UTF-8 is not in this picture. The page redisplays with appropriate error but the text that had been entered is all messed up. All non latin1 characters are converted to some gibberish. I'm using Spring 3 MVC, in case that matters... Attempts Adding this to my view resolver didn't help: <property name="contentType" value="text/html;charset=UTF-8" />

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  • Support for multiple domains/subdomains in Rails

    - by thefactor
    I have a Rails app that has a similar setup to Tumblr, that is, you can have either: (1) Subdomain hosting (your-username.myapp.com) (2) Domain hosting (your-username.com) Both would forward to a personalized website for that user, created with my application. How can I accomplish this in Rails? I have been able to get (1) working with subdomain-fu, but I'm not sure how to get (2) working. Any pointers (plugins, gems, tutorials), etc. would be greatly helpful, I can't seem to find any. Thanks!

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  • CSS Compressor with @include support

    - by Michael
    Is there any CSS compressor that supports the @include directive? I have a bunch of css files that have one main file and are linked via those @include directives. Now that I want to compress the CSS files I'm looking for a compression tool that supports that. I cannot change the original files not to use includes because those are centrally developed ones.

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  • Best way to support large dropdowns

    - by JustAProgrammer
    Say I have a report that can be restricted by specifying some value in a dropdown. This dropdown list references a table with 30,000 records. I don't think this would be feasible to populate a dropdown with! So, what is the best way to provide the user the ability to select a value given this situation? These values do not really have categories and even if I subdivided (by having some nesting dropdown situation) by the first letter of the value, that may still leave a few thousand entries. What's the best way to deal with this?

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  • WPF inherited UserControl lost VS designer support

    - by PaN1C_Showt1Me
    Hi ! I' written this UserControl: <my:MyUserControl x:Class="MyClass" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" xmlns:my="clr-namespace:MyNameSpace.MyControls;assembly=MyAssembly"> </my:MyUserControl> public partial class Editor : MyNameSpace.MyControls.MyUserControl {} Everything works, the control is shown in the VS 2008 Designer, but I cannot click directly in the elements and select them as it was with UserControl. Any idea how to solve it?

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  • Proxy support in VB.Net

    - by CFP
    I'm running the following code to check for updates in my software, and I wonder whether VB.Net will automatically user computer proxy settings: Dim CurrentVersion As String = (New System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString("URL/version.txt") If not, how can I adapt it to use proxy settings?

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  • Does GenerateScriptType support NonSerialized?

    - by BlueFox
    I have an object that's used both on the client and server side. GenerateScriptType(typeof(MyClass)) However, there are some fields that I don't need on the client, so my question is there any way to prevent those fields being serialized? (For example, Field2 and Field3 in MyClass) I tried marking the fields with [NonSerialized] but they still get serialized... public class MyClass { public string Field1; public string Field2 { get; set; } private string _field3; public string Field3 { get { return _field3 ?? (_field3 = "lala"); } } } Regards,

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  • JMS On demand Support Active MQ with Spring

    - by user345275
    Hi Team I am involving in SMS Gate way project. The Very Base function is our system have couple of Customers They will send their request to our gateway in a form of XML. Those request is Process first and send it to a common out bound JMS(ActiveMQ 5.3 ) There is an listener running on which should be capable of doing the following 1. Retrive Bunch of Messages(Let say 5 ) on retrieval. 2. The retival should be on demand .It means ,once the listeners triggers only those bunch of message should return . Guys i really need ur help.If you have any idea please help me ou

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  • Design classes/interface to support methods returning different types

    - by Nayn
    Hi, I have classes as below. public interface ITest <T> { public T MethodHere(); } public class test1 implements ITest<String> { String MethodHere(){ return "Bla"; } } public class test2 implements ITest<Integer> { Integer MethodHere(){ return Integer.valueOf(2); } } public class ITestFactory { public static ITest getInstance(int type) { if(type == 1) return new test1(); else if(type == 2) return new test2(); } } There is a warning in the factory class that ITest is used as raw type. What modification should I do to get rid of it? Thanks Nayn

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  • Which Android app resolutions to support?

    - by wordyword
    I see on the Android SDK pages, it mentions some screen resolutions to expect on Android platforms: Small screen QVGA (240x320), 2.6"-3.0" diagonal Normal screen WQVGA (240x400), 3.2"-3.5" diagonal FWQVGA (240x432), 3.5"-3.8" diagonal HVGA (320x480), 3.0"-3.5" diagonal WVGA (480x800), 3.3"-4.0" diagonal FWVGA (480x854), 3.5"-4.0" diagonal Large screen WVGA (480x800), 4.8"-5.5" diagonal FWVGA (480x854), 5.0"-5.8" diagonal Obviously, testing an app you want to sell on all these resolutions is going to be a pain. Is there any data on what percent of android phones being used use the above resolutions? My hope is that there's only really 3 or so popular resolutions...

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  • Does C# 4's covariance support nesting of generics?

    - by Scott Bilas
    I don't understand why 'x' below converts, but 'y' and 'z' do not. var list = new List<List<int>>(); IEnumerable<List<int>> x = list; List<IEnumerable<int>> y = list; IEnumerable<IEnumerable<int>> z = list; Does the new covariance feature simply not work on generics of generics or am I doing something wrong? (I'd like to avoid using .Cast< to make y and z work.)

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  • Does Java not support multiple inheritance?

    - by user1720616
    Lets us take instances of two classes public abstract class Shapes { public abstract void draw(Graphics g); } public class Rectangle extends Shapes { public void draw(Graphics g) { //implementation of the method } } here the class Rectangle has extended class Shapes and implicitly it extends class Object.I know no other extension is possible but cant we call inheriting classes Shapes and Object multiple inheritance?(Since inheriting two classes is multiple inheritance from one perspective)

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  • spring security : Failed to load ApplicationContext with pre-post-annotations="enabled"

    - by thogau
    I am using spring 3.0.1 + spring-security 3.0.2 and I am trying to use features like @PreAuthorize and @PostFilter annotations. When running in units tests using @RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class) or in a main(String[] args) method my application context fails to start if enable pre-post-annotations and use org.springframework.security.acls.AclPermissionEvaluator : <!-- Enable method level security--> <security:global-method-security pre-post-annotations="enabled"> <security:expression-handler ref="expressionHandler"/> </security:global-method-security> <bean id="expressionHandler" class="org.springframework.security.access.expression.method.DefaultMethodSecurityExpressionHandler"> <property name="permissionEvaluator" ref="aclPermissionEvaluator"/> </bean> <bean id="aclPermissionEvaluator" class="org.springframework.security.acls.AclPermissionEvaluator"> <constructor-arg ref="aclService"/> </bean> <!-- Enable stereotype support --> <context:annotation-config /> <context:component-scan base-package="com.rreps.core" /> <bean id="propertyConfigurer" class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"> <property name="locations"> <list> <value>classpath:applicationContext.properties</value> </list> </property> </bean> <bean id="dataSource" class="com.mchange.v2.c3p0.ComboPooledDataSource"> <property name="driverClass" value="${jdbc.driver}" /> <property name="jdbcUrl" value="${jdbc.url}" /> <property name="user" value="${jdbc.username}" /> <property name="password" value="${jdbc.password}" /> <property name="initialPoolSize" value="10" /> <property name="minPoolSize" value="5" /> <property name="maxPoolSize" value="25" /> <property name="acquireRetryAttempts" value="10" /> <property name="acquireIncrement" value="5" /> <property name="idleConnectionTestPeriod" value="3600" /> <property name="maxIdleTime" value="10800" /> <property name="maxConnectionAge" value="14400" /> <property name="preferredTestQuery" value="SELECT 1;" /> <property name="testConnectionOnCheckin" value="false" /> </bean> <bean id="auditedSessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean"> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /> <property name="configLocation" value="classpath:hibernate.cfg.xml" /> <property name="hibernateProperties"> <value> hibernate.dialect=${hibernate.dialect} hibernate.query.substitutions=true 'Y', false 'N' hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache=true hibernate.cache.provider_class=net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.SingletonEhCacheProvider hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=update hibernate.c3p0.acquire_increment=5 hibernate.c3p0.idle_test_period=3600 hibernate.c3p0.timeout=10800 hibernate.c3p0.max_size=25 hibernate.c3p0.min_size=1 hibernate.show_sql=false hibernate.validator.autoregister_listeners=false </value> </property> <!-- validation is performed by "hand" (see http://opensource.atlassian.com/projects/hibernate/browse/HV-281) <property name="eventListeners"> <map> <entry key="pre-insert" value-ref="beanValidationEventListener" /> <entry key="pre-update" value-ref="beanValidationEventListener" /> </map> </property> --> <property name="entityInterceptor"> <bean class="com.rreps.core.dao.hibernate.interceptor.TrackingInterceptor" /> </property> </bean> <bean id="simpleSessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean"> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /> <property name="configLocation" value="classpath:hibernate.cfg.xml" /> <property name="hibernateProperties"> <value> hibernate.dialect=${hibernate.dialect} hibernate.query.substitutions=true 'Y', false 'N' hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache=true hibernate.cache.provider_class=net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.SingletonEhCacheProvider hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=update hibernate.c3p0.acquire_increment=5 hibernate.c3p0.idle_test_period=3600 hibernate.c3p0.timeout=10800 hibernate.c3p0.max_size=25 hibernate.c3p0.min_size=1 hibernate.show_sql=false hibernate.validator.autoregister_listeners=false </value> </property> <!-- property name="eventListeners"> <map> <entry key="pre-insert" value-ref="beanValidationEventListener" /> <entry key="pre-update" value-ref="beanValidationEventListener" /> </map> </property--> </bean> <bean id="sequenceSessionFactory" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.annotation.AnnotationSessionFactoryBean"> <property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" /> <property name="configLocation" value="classpath:hibernate.cfg.xml" /> <property name="hibernateProperties"> <value> hibernate.dialect=${hibernate.dialect} hibernate.query.substitutions=true 'Y', false 'N' hibernate.cache.use_second_level_cache=true hibernate.cache.provider_class=net.sf.ehcache.hibernate.SingletonEhCacheProvider hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=update hibernate.c3p0.acquire_increment=5 hibernate.c3p0.idle_test_period=3600 hibernate.c3p0.timeout=10800 hibernate.c3p0.max_size=25 hibernate.c3p0.min_size=1 hibernate.show_sql=false hibernate.validator.autoregister_listeners=false </value> </property> </bean> <bean id="validationFactory" class="javax.validation.Validation" factory-method="buildDefaultValidatorFactory" /> <!-- bean id="beanValidationEventListener" class="org.hibernate.cfg.beanvalidation.BeanValidationEventListener"> <constructor-arg index="0" ref="validationFactory" /> <constructor-arg index="1"> <props/> </constructor-arg> </bean--> <!-- Enable @Transactional support --> <tx:annotation-driven transaction-manager="transactionManager"/> <bean id="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.orm.hibernate3.HibernateTransactionManager"> <property name="sessionFactory" ref="auditedSessionFactory" /> </bean> <security:authentication-manager alias="authenticationManager"> <security:authentication-provider user-service-ref="userDetailsService" /> </security:authentication-manager> <bean id="userDetailsService" class="com.rreps.core.service.impl.UserDetailsServiceImpl" /> <!-- ACL stuff --> <bean id="aclCache" class="org.springframework.security.acls.domain.EhCacheBasedAclCache"> <constructor-arg> <bean class="org.springframework.cache.ehcache.EhCacheFactoryBean"> <property name="cacheManager"> <bean class="org.springframework.cache.ehcache.EhCacheManagerFactoryBean"/> </property> <property name="cacheName" value="aclCache"/> </bean> </constructor-arg> </bean> <bean id="lookupStrategy" class="org.springframework.security.acls.jdbc.BasicLookupStrategy"> <constructor-arg ref="dataSource"/> <constructor-arg ref="aclCache"/> <constructor-arg> <bean class="org.springframework.security.acls.domain.AclAuthorizationStrategyImpl"> <constructor-arg> <list> <bean class="org.springframework.security.core.authority.GrantedAuthorityImpl"> <constructor-arg value="ROLE_ADMINISTRATEUR"/> </bean> <bean class="org.springframework.security.core.authority.GrantedAuthorityImpl"> <constructor-arg value="ROLE_ADMINISTRATEUR"/> </bean> <bean class="org.springframework.security.core.authority.GrantedAuthorityImpl"> <constructor-arg value="ROLE_ADMINISTRATEUR"/> </bean> </list> </constructor-arg> </bean> </constructor-arg> <constructor-arg> <bean class="org.springframework.security.acls.domain.ConsoleAuditLogger"/> </constructor-arg> </bean> <bean id="aclService" class="com.rreps.core.service.impl.MysqlJdbcMutableAclService"> <constructor-arg ref="dataSource"/> <constructor-arg ref="lookupStrategy"/> <constructor-arg ref="aclCache"/> </bean> The strange thing is that the context starts normally when deployed in a webapp and @PreAuthorize and @PostFilter annotations are working fine as well... Any idea what is wrong? Here is the end of the stacktrace : ... 55 more Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'dataSource' defined in class path resource [applicationContext-core.xml]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.config.internalTransactionAdvisor': Cannot resolve reference to bean 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0' while setting bean property 'transactionAttributeSource'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0': Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:521) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:450) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:290) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:287) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:189) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveReference(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:322) ... 67 more Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.config.internalTransactionAdvisor': Cannot resolve reference to bean 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0' while setting bean property 'transactionAttributeSource'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0': Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveReference(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:328) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveValueIfNecessary(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:106) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1308) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1067) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:511) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:450) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:290) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:287) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.BeanFactoryAdvisorRetrievalHelper.findAdvisorBeans(BeanFactoryAdvisorRetrievalHelper.java:86) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.findCandidateAdvisors(AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.java:100) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.findEligibleAdvisors(AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.java:86) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.getAdvicesAndAdvisorsForBean(AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.java:68) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.wrapIfNecessary(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:359) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.postProcessAfterInitialization(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:322) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:404) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1409) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:513) ... 73 more Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.transaction.annotation.AnnotationTransactionAttributeSource#0': Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:521) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:450) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:290) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:287) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:189) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveReference(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:322) ... 91 more Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.springframework.security.access.method.DelegatingMethodSecurityMetadataSource.getAttributes(DelegatingMethodSecurityMetadataSource.java:52) at org.springframework.security.access.intercept.aopalliance.MethodSecurityMetadataSourceAdvisor$MethodSecurityMetadataSourcePointcut.matches(MethodSecurityMetadataSourceAdvisor.java:129) at org.springframework.aop.support.AopUtils.canApply(AopUtils.java:215) at org.springframework.aop.support.AopUtils.canApply(AopUtils.java:252) at org.springframework.aop.support.AopUtils.findAdvisorsThatCanApply(AopUtils.java:284) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.findAdvisorsThatCanApply(AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.java:117) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.findEligibleAdvisors(AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.java:87) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.getAdvicesAndAdvisorsForBean(AbstractAdvisorAutoProxyCreator.java:68) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.wrapIfNecessary(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:359) at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.postProcessAfterInitialization(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:322) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:404) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1409) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:513) ... 97 more

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  • What Every Developer Should Know About MSI Components

    - by Alois Kraus
    Hopefully nothing. But if you have to do more than simple XCopy deployment and you need to support updates, upgrades and perhaps side by side scenarios there is no way around MSI. You can create Msi files with a Visual Studio Setup project which is severely limited or you can use the Windows Installer Toolset. I cannot talk about WIX with my German colleagues because WIX has a very special meaning. It is funny to always use the long name when I talk about deployment possibilities. Alternatively you can buy commercial tools which help you to author Msi files but I am not sure how good they are. Given enough pain with existing solutions you can also learn the MSI Apis and create your own packaging solution. If I were you I would use either a commercial visual tool when you do easy deployments or use the free Windows Installer Toolset. Once you know the WIX schema you can create well formed wix xml files easily with any editor. Then you can “compile” from the wxs files your Msi package. Recently I had the “pleasure” to get my hands dirty with C++ (again) and the MSI technology. Installation is a complex topic but after several month of digging into arcane MSI issues I can safely say that there should exist an easier way to install and update files as today. I am not alone with this statement as John Robbins (creator of the cool tool Paraffin) states: “.. It's a brittle and scary API in Windows …”. To help other people struggling with installation issues I present you the advice I (and others) found useful and what will happen if you ignore this advice. What is a MSI file? A MSI file is basically a database with tables which reference each other to control how your un/installation should work. The basic idea is that you declare via these tables what you want to install and MSI controls the how to get your stuff onto or off your machine. Your “stuff” consists usually of files, registry keys, shortcuts and environment variables. Therefore the most important tables are File, Registry, Environment and Shortcut table which define what will be un/installed. The key to master MSI is that every resource (file, registry key ,…) is associated with a MSI component. The actual payload consists of compressed files in the CAB format which can either be embedded into the MSI file or reside beside the MSI file or in a subdirectory below it. To examine MSI files you need Orca a free MSI editor provided by MS. There is also another free editor called Super Orca which does support diffs between MSI and it does not lock the MSI files. But since Orca comes with a shell extension I tend to use only Orca because it is so easy to right click on a MSI file and open it with this tool. How Do I Install It? Double click it. This does work for fresh installations as well as major upgrades. Updates need to be installed via the command line via msiexec /i <msi> REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus   This tells the installer to reinstall all already installed features (new features will NOT be installed). The reinstallmode letters do force an overwrite of the old cached package in the %WINDIR%\Installer folder. All files, shortcuts and registry keys are redeployed if they are missing or need to be replaced with a newer version. When things did go really wrong and you want to overwrite everything unconditionally use REINSTALLMODE=vamus. How To Enable MSI Logs? You can download a MSI from Microsoft which installs some registry keys to enable full MSI logging. The log files can be found in your %TEMP% folder and are called MSIxxxx.log. Alternatively you can add to your msiexec command line the option msiexec …. /l*vx <LogFileName> Personally I find it rather strange that * does not mean full logging. To really get all logs I need to add v and x which is documented in the msiexec help but I still find this behavior unintuitive. What are MSI components? The whole MSI logic is bound to the concept of MSI components. Nearly every msi table has a Component column which binds an installable resource to a component. Below are the screenshots of the FeatureComponents and Component table of an example MSI. The Feature table defines basically the feature hierarchy.  To find out what belongs to a feature you need to look at the FeatureComponents table where for each feature the components are listed which will be installed when a feature is installed. The MSI components are defined in the  Component table. This table has as first column the component name and as second column the component id which is a GUID. All resources you want to install belong to a MSI component. Therefore nearly all MSI tables have a Component_ column which contains the component name. If you look e.g. a the File table you see that every file belongs to a component which is true for all other tables which install resources. The component table is the glue between all other tables which contain the resources you want to install. So far so easy. Why is MSI then so complex? Most MSI problems arise from the fact that you did violate a MSI component rule in one or the other way. When you install a feature the reference count for all components belonging to this feature will increase by one. If your component is installed by more than one feature it will get a higher refcount. When you uninstall a feature its refcount will drop by one. Interesting things happen if the component reference count reaches zero: Then all associated resources will be deleted. That looks like a reasonable thing and it is. What it makes complex are the strange component rules you have to follow. Below are some important component rules from the Tao of the Windows Installer … Rule 16: Follow Component Rules Components are a very important part of the Installer technology. They are the means whereby the Installer manages the resources that make up your application. The SDK provides the following guidelines for creating components in your package: Never create two components that install a resource under the same name and target location. If a resource must be duplicated in multiple components, change its name or target location in each component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Two components must not have the same key path file. This is a consequence of the previous rule. The key path value points to a particular file or folder belonging to the component that the installer uses to detect the component. If two components had the same key path file, the installer would be unable to distinguish which component is installed. Two components however may share a key path folder. Do not create a version of a component that is incompatible with all previous versions of the component. This rule should be applied across applications, products, product versions, and companies. Do not create components containing resources that will need to be installed into more than one directory on the user’s system. The installer installs all of the resources in a component into the same directory. It is not possible to install some resources into subdirectories. Do not include more than one COM server per component. If a component contains a COM server, this must be the key path for the component. Do not specify more than one file per component as a target for the Start menu or a Desktop shortcut. … And these rules do not even talk about component ids, update packages and upgrades which you need to understand as well. Lets suppose you install two MSIs (MSI1 and MSI2) which have the same ComponentId but different component names. Both do install the same file. What will happen when you uninstall MSI2?   Hm the file should stay there. But the component names are different. Yes and yes. But MSI uses not use the component name as key for the refcount. Instead the ComponentId column of the Component table which contains a GUID is used as identifier under which the refcount is stored. The components Comp1 and Comp2 are identical from the MSI perspective. After the installation of both MSIs the Component with the Id {100000….} has a refcount of two. After uninstallation of one MSI there is still a refcount of one which drops to zero just as expected when we uninstall the last msi. Then the file which was the same for both MSIs is deleted. You should remember that MSI keeps a refcount across MSIs for components with the same component id. MSI does manage components not the resources you did install. The resources associated with a component are then and only then deleted when the refcount of the component reaches zero.   The dependencies between features, components and resources can be described as relations. m,k are numbers >= 1, n can be 0. Inside a MSI the following relations are valid Feature    1  –> n Components Component    1 –> m Features Component      1  –>  k Resources These relations express that one feature can install several components and features can share components between them. Every (meaningful) component will install at least one resource which means that its name (primary key to stay in database speak) does occur in some other table in the Component column as value which installs some resource. Lets make it clear with an example. We want to install with the feature MainFeature some files a registry key and a shortcut. We can then create components Comp1..3 which are referenced by the resources defined in the corresponding tables.   Feature Component Registry File Shortcuts MainFeature Comp1 RegistryKey1     MainFeature Comp2   File.txt   MainFeature Comp3   File2.txt Shortcut to File2.txt   It is illegal that the same resource is part of more than one component since this would break the refcount mechanism. Lets illustrate this:            Feature ComponentId Resource Reference Count Feature1 {1000-…} File1.txt 1 Feature2 {2000-….} File1.txt 1 The installation part works well but what happens when you uninstall Feature2? Component {20000…} gets a refcount of zero where MSI deletes all resources belonging to this component. In this case File1.txt will be deleted. But Feature1 still has another component {10000…} with a refcount of one which means that the file was deleted too early. You just have ruined your installation. To fix it you then need to click on the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs to let MSI reinstall any missing registry keys, files or shortcuts. The vigilant reader might has noticed that there is more in the Component table. Beside its name and GUID it has also an installation directory, attributes and a KeyPath. The KeyPath is a reference to a file or registry key which is used to detect if the component is already installed. This becomes important when you repair or uninstall a component. To find out if the component is already installed MSI checks if the registry key or file referenced by the KeyPath property does exist. When it does not exist it assumes that it was either already uninstalled (can lead to problems during uninstall) or that it is already installed and all is fine. Why is this detail so important? Lets put all files into one component. The KeyPath should be then one of the files of your component to check if it was installed or not. When your installation becomes corrupt because a file was deleted you cannot repair it with the Repair button under Add/Remove Programs because MSI checks the component integrity via the Resource referenced by its KeyPath. As long as you did not delete the KeyPath file MSI thinks all resources with your component are installed and never executes any repair action. You get even more trouble when you try to remove files during an upgrade (you cannot remove files during an update) from your super component which contains all files. The only way out and therefore best practice is to assign for every resource you want to install an extra component. This ensures painless updatability and repairs and you have much less effort to remove specific files during an upgrade. In effect you get this best practice relation Feature 1  –> n Components Component   1  –>  1 Resources MSI Component Rules Rule 1 – One component per resource Every resource you want to install (file, registry key, value, environment value, shortcut, directory, …) must get its own component which does never change between versions as long as the install location is the same. Penalty If you add more than one resources to a component you will break the repair capability of MSI because the KeyPath is used to check if the component needs repair. MSI ComponentId Files MSI 1.0 {1000} File1-5 MSI 2.0 {2000} File2-5 You want to remove File1 in version 2.0 of your MSI. Since you want to keep the other files you create a new component and add them there. MSI will delete all files if the component refcount of {1000} drops to zero. The files you want to keep are added to the new component {2000}. Ok that does work if your upgrade does uninstall the old MSI first. This will cause the refcount of all previously installed components to reach zero which means that all files present in version 1.0 are deleted. But there is a faster way to perform your upgrade by first installing your new MSI and then remove the old one.  If you choose this upgrade path then you will loose File1-5 after your upgrade and not only File1 as intended by your new component design.   Rule 2 – Only add, never remove resources from a component If you did follow rule 1 you will not need Rule 2. You can add in a patch more resources to one component. That is ok. But you can never remove anything from it. There are tricky ways around that but I do not want to encourage bad component design. Penalty Lets assume you have 2 MSI files which install under the same component one file   MSI1 MSI2 {1000} - ComponentId {1000} – ComponentId File1.txt File2.txt   When you install and uninstall both MSIs you will end up with an installation where either File1 or File2 will be left. Why? It seems that MSI does not store the resources associated with each component in its internal database. Instead Windows will simply query the MSI that is currently uninstalled for all resources belonging to this component. Since it will find only one file and not two it will only uninstall one file. That is the main reason why you never can remove resources from a component!   Rule 3 Never Remove A Component From an Update MSI. This is the same as if you change the GUID of a component by accident for your new update package. The resulting update package will not contain all components from the previously installed package. Penalty When you remove a component from a feature MSI will set the feature state during update to Advertised and log a warning message into its log file when you did enable MSI logging. SELMGR: ComponentId '{2DCEA1BA-3E27-E222-484C-D0D66AEA4F62}' is registered to feature 'xxxxxxx, but is not present in the Component table.  Removal of components from a feature is not supported! MSI (c) (24:44) [07:53:13:436]: SELMGR: Removal of a component from a feature is not supported Advertised means that MSI treats all components of this feature as not installed. As a consequence during uninstall nothing will be removed since it is not installed! This is not only bad because uninstall does no longer work but this feature will also not get the required patches. All other features which have followed component versioning rules for update packages will be updated but the one faulty feature will not. This results in very hard to find bugs why an update was only partially successful. Things got better with Windows Installer 4.5 but you cannot rely on that nobody will use an older installer. It is a good idea to add to your update msiexec call MSIENFORCEUPGRADECOMPONENTRULES=1 which will abort the installation if you did violate this rule.

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