screenshot

<script src="/JumpMenu.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<select id="jumpNavSelect" name="jumpNavSelect" onchange="JumpToHeading(this.selectedIndex)">

<option value="">On this page...</option>

</select>

var array;


function CreateAnchorMenu() {

array = document.getElementsByTagName("h2"); 


var src = document.getElementById('jumpNavSelect');

// iterate through all H2 headings, add dropdown items for each. 


for (var i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {

var heading = array[i];

var text = heading.firstChild.nodeValue;

if (!text)

continue;

src[i+1] = new Option(text, i);

}

}


function JumpToHeading(HeadingIndex) {

if (HeadingIndex == 0)

return;

var heading = array[HeadingIndex-1];

ScrollToElement(heading);

}


function ScrollToElement(theElement) {

var selectedPosX = 0;

var selectedPosY = 0;

while (theElement != null) {

selectedPosX += theElement.offsetLeft;

selectedPosY += theElement.offsetTop;

theElement = theElement.offsetParent;

}

window.scrollTo(selectedPosX, selectedPosY);

}


window.onload = CreateAnchorMenu;

Cstr(CDate({Table.Column}), "dd/MM/yyyy")

File.WriteAllText(filepath, text, Encoding.UTF8);

this.DropDownList1.Attributes.Add("onchange", "if(!confirm('Are you sure you want to delete this item?')) return;");

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800736B1):
Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID
{5FF57840-5172-4482-9CA3-541C7878AE0F} failed due to the following error:
800736b1. at CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument..cctor()

Note: this doesn't really work..

i'm just leaving it here for interest.  the approach will work for the first invocation of either v2 or v3 client, but after a v2 client has used the web service, any v3 clients will fail.  MS told me this is not supported because of the 2 soapExtensions interfere with each other in the pipeline etc

• Leave the existing web service in place, e.g. Service_WSE2.asmx
  
• Create a new web service for the WSE3 client, essentially copy/paste the ASMX file, e.g. Service_WSE3.asmx
• Create a new CustomUsernameTokenManager for the WSE3 service which inherits from Microsoft.Web.Services3.Security.Tokens.UsernameTokenManager.  In my case it was as easy as copy/paste from the WSE2 token manager and change all the WSE2 namespaces to WSE3.
  
• then in web.config, make sure both WSE config sections are listed:
  

  <configuration>
  
  <configSections>
  
  <section name="microsoft.web.services3" type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.Configuration.WebServicesConfiguration,
  Microsoft.Web.Services3,Version=3.0.0.0,Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
  />
  
  <section name="microsoft.web.services2" type="Microsoft.Web.Services2.Configuration.WebServicesConfiguration,
  Microsoft.Web.Services2, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
  />
  
  </configSections>
  

• add in references to both the assemblies for the compilation section (not 100% sure if this is necessary, but at least it means the app will not compile on the production server if you forget to deploy either of the WSE assemblies, instead of waiting till one of your clients connects).
  

  	<compilation defaultLanguage="c#" debug="true">
  
  <assemblies>
  
  <add assembly="Microsoft.Web.Services2, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>
  
  <add assembly="Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35"/>

• remove the <webServices> section from <system.web>, because each web service should be configured by location, not global as this interferes.
  

  	<location path="Service_WSE2.asmx">
  
  <system.web>
  
  <webServices>
  
  <soapExtensionTypes>
  
  <add type="Microsoft.Web.Services2.WebServicesExtension, Microsoft.Web.Services2,
  Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" priority="1" group="0"
  />
  
  </soapExtensionTypes> 
  
  
  </webServices>
  
  </system.web>
  
  </location>
  
  
  <location path="Service_WSE3.asmx">
  
  <system.web>
  
  <webServices>
  
  <soapExtensionTypes>
  
  <clear/>
  
  </soapExtensionTypes>
  
  <soapServerProtocolFactory type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.WseProtocolFactory, Microsoft.Web.Services3,
  Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
  
  <soapExtensionImporterTypes>
  
  <add type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.Description.WseExtensionImporter, Microsoft.Web.Services3,
  Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"/>
  
  </soapExtensionImporterTypes> 
  
  
  </webServices>
  
  </system.web>
  
  </location>

• my webservice policy are defined in policyCache.config files, so the following web.config sections point each version of WSE to the right file:
  

  	<microsoft.web.services3>
  
  <policy fileName="policyCache_WSE3.config"/>
  
  <security>
  
  <securityTokenManager>
  
  <add type="Whatever.CustomUsernameTokenManager3" namespace="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"
  localName="UsernameToken"/>
  
  </securityTokenManager>
  
  </security>
  
  </microsoft.web.services3>
  
  <microsoft.web.services2>
  
  <messaging>
  
  <maxRequestLength>10000</maxRequestLength>
  
  </messaging>
  
  <security>
  
  <securityTokenManager type="Whatever.CustomUsernameTokenManager2, MyAssemblyName"
  xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd"
  
  qname="wsse:UsernameToken" />
  
  <defaultTtlInSeconds>86400</defaultTtlInSeconds>
  
  <timeToleranceInSeconds>86400</timeToleranceInSeconds>
  
  </security>
  
  <policy>
  
  <cache name="policyCache_WSE2.config" />
  
  </policy>
  
  </microsoft.web.services2>

• and lastly, the policy cache files themselves:
  WSE 3 version
  

  <?xml version="1.0"?>
  
  <policies xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wse/2005/06/policy">
  
  <extensions>
  
  <extension name="usernameOverTransportSecurity" type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.Design.UsernameOverTransportAssertion,
  Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
  />
  
  <extension name="requireActionHeader" type="Microsoft.Web.Services3.Design.RequireActionHeaderAssertion,
  Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"
  />
  
  </extensions>
  
  <policy name="usernameTokenSecurity"> 
  
  
  <usernameOverTransportSecurity />
  
  <requireActionHeader />
  
  </policy>
  
  </policies>

• WSE 2 version
  

  <?xml version="1.0"?>
  
  <policyDocument xmlns:wse="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wse/2003/06/Policy" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wse/2003/06/Policy">
  
  <mappings xmlns:wse="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wse/2003/06/Policy">
  
  
  <endpoint uri="http://localhost/Service_WSE2.asmx">
  
  <defaultOperation>
  
  <request policy="#username-token-signed" />
  
  <response policy="" />
  
  <fault policy="" />
  
  </defaultOperation>
  
  </endpoint>
  
  
  <defaultEndpoint>
  
  <defaultOperation>
  
  <request policy="" />
  
  <response policy="" />
  
  <fault policy="" />
  
  </defaultOperation>
  
  </defaultEndpoint>
  
  
  </mappings>
  
  <policies xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">
  
  <wsp:Policy wsu:Id="username-token-signed" xmlns:wsp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/12/policy"
  xmlns:wsa="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/03/addressing" xmlns:wssp="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/12/secext">
  
  <wsp:MessagePredicate wsp:Usage="wsp:Required" Dialect="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/2002/12/wsse#part">
  
  wsp:Body() wsp:Header(wsa:To) wsp:Header(wsa:Action) wsp:Header(wsa:MessageID) wse:Timestamp()
  
  </wsp:MessagePredicate>
  
  <wssp:Integrity wsp:Usage="wsp:Required">
  
  <wssp:TokenInfo>
  
  <SecurityToken xmlns="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2002/12/secext">
  
  <wssp:TokenType>http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-username-token-profile-1.0#UsernameToken</wssp:TokenType>
  
  <wssp:Claims>
  
  <wssp:UsePassword wsp:Usage="wsp:Required" />
  
  </wssp:Claims>
  
  </SecurityToken>
  
  </wssp:TokenInfo>
  
  <wssp:MessageParts Dialect="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/2002/12/wsse#part">
  
  wsp:Body() wsp:Header(wsa:Action) wsp:Header(wsa:FaultTo) wsp:Header(wsa:From) wsp:Header(wsa:MessageID)
  wsp:Header(wsa:RelatesTo) wsp:Header(wsa:ReplyTo) wsp:Header(wsa:To) wse:Timestamp()
  
  </wssp:MessageParts>
  
  </wssp:Integrity>
  
  </wsp:Policy>
  
  </policies>
  
  </policyDocument>
  

SELECT TOP 10 [t1].[Name], [t1].[Address], [t1].[Tel1], [t1].[Tel2], [t1].[Email], [t1].[DateCommenced], [t1].[Comments], [t1].[Active], [t1].[Fax]

FROM (

SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY [t0].[Name], [t0].[Address], [t0].[Tel1], [t0].[Tel2],
[t0].[Email], [t0].[DateCommenced], [t0].[Comments], [t0].[Active], [t0].[Fax]) AS
[ROW_NUMBER], [t0].[Name], [t0].[Address], [t0].[Tel1], [t0].[Tel2], [t0].[Email],
[t0].[DateCommenced], [t0].[Comments], [t0].[Active], [t0].[Fax]

FROM [dbo].[Table1] AS [t0]

) AS [t1]

WHERE [t1].[ROW_NUMBER] > @p0

-- @p0: Input Int32 (Size = 0; Prec = 0; Scale = 0) [50]

-- Context: SqlProvider(Sql2005) Model: AttributedMetaModel Build: 3.5.20706.1

it's not immediately obvious why they use the subquery like this, but i'm sure they have been very thorough in optimising LINQ. 

List<string> lst = new List<string>();

foreach(Match m in Regex.Matches(this.txtInput.Text, @"\w+\.\w+", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase))

lst.Add(m.Groups[0].Captures[0].Value);

var results = (from l in lst group l by l into g select new {Ref = g.Key, Total =
g.Count()}).OrderByDescending(z => z.Total).Take(10);

foreach(var v in results)

this.txtOutput.Text += v.Ref + "\t" + v.Total + "\r\n";

select * from table order by @OrderBy

select * from table order by case 


when @OrderBy = 'Column1' then Column1

when @OrderBy = 'Column2' then Column2

end

select * from table order by 


case when @OrderBy = 'Column1' then Column1 end,

case when @OrderBy = 'Column2' then Column2 end

• the namespace System.Data.Linq.Expressions no longer exists.  i just deleted this namespace and it worked fine, they must have moved various classes back into the root Linq namespace or something.
• if you use SqlMetal, you will have to use the new version of this tool, which i found at C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\V6.0A\Bin\SqlMetal.exe. The generated code from the new tool is very different to before so you will need to regenerate in order to use the new LINQ libraries.
  
• web.config changes are also introduced.  the best way to figure out the changes is to open up a blank web application and compare the standard web.config in the empty project to your own web.config.
• Crystal Reports assembly version numbers are the same with this release of VS, 10.5.3700.0, so no changes here since Beta1.

Update 30 July 2007 - Deployment Issues

• To deploy a VS 2008 beta 2 web application to a Server 2003 with .net runtime 2.0, you need to install 3.5 of the runtime.  i got all sorts of web.config errors due to the new syntax with beta 2.  A web app compiled against v3.5 in Beta 1 had no trouble running on top of the 2.0 runtime with the various v3.5 DLLs deployed to the /bin directory, however this doesn't seem to be possible anymore.  it took me a while to find the correct download for the 3.5 beta 2 redistributable, it installed in about 10 mins and required a reboot, and did not affect any of the v1.1 and v2 web sites running on the server. 
  

public static ImageCodecInfo GetEncoderInfo(String mimeType)

{

int j;

ImageCodecInfo[] encoders;

encoders = ImageCodecInfo.GetImageEncoders();

for(j = 0; j < encoders.Length; ++j)

if(encoders[j].MimeType == mimeType)

return encoders[j];

return null;

}


public static Bitmap resizeImage(Bitmap originalImage, int max)

{

// never increase the size of an image from this method because it loses resolution

if(originalImage.Height <= max && originalImage.Width <= max)

return originalImage;


int height, width;

if(originalImage.Width > originalImage.Height)

{

width = max;

height = (int)(max/((double)originalImage.Width / (double)originalImage.Height));

}

else

{ 


height = max;

width = (int)(max/((double)originalImage.Height / (double)originalImage.Width));

}


Bitmap thumb = new Bitmap(originalImage as Image, width, height);
 Graphics resizer = Graphics.FromImage(thumb);

resizer.InterpolationMode = System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode.HighQualityBicubic;

resizer.DrawImage(originalImage, 0, 0, width, height);

resizer.Dispose();

return thumb;

}


public static bool ThumbnailCallback()

{

return false;

}

I know we're not supposed to be going live with .Net 3.5 / Orcas Beta 1 yet, but hey. 

I ran into a Crystal Reports deployment problem with an asp.net web application developed in Orcas beta 1, using the bundled version of crystal reports.  The problem is that the crystal report dlls used in a Beta 1 project are 10.5.3700.0 but there don't appear to be any merge modules available to support this version number, so there is no supported way to run the Orcas version of Crystal Reports on a server, without installing Orcas itself.  I tried numerous options of digging out the 10.5.3700.0 dlls from program files\common files\business objects etc and putting them in the web site bin directory on the server, but that didn't work.  The obvious error message that comes up is as follows:

          
            
              Could not load file or assembly 'CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine, 


Version=10.5.3700.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=692fbea5521e1304' or one of its
dependencies. 


The system cannot find the file specified.
            
          
        

what i ended up doing was instructing the web application to bind to the 10.2.3600.0 versions of the assemblies, which are already deployed using the normal CR server install.

here is what i added to the end of my web.config file to get it going:

          
                ....

<runtime>

        <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

            <dependentAssembly>

                <assemblyIdentity
name="CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine" publicKeyToken="692fbea5521e1304"/>

                <bindingRedirect
oldVersion="10.5.3700.0" newVersion="10.2.3600.0"/>

            </dependentAssembly>

            <dependentAssembly>

                <assemblyIdentity
name="CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Shared" publicKeyToken="692fbea5521e1304"/>

                <bindingRedirect
oldVersion="10.5.3700.0" newVersion="10.2.3600.0"/>

            </dependentAssembly>

            <dependentAssembly>

                <assemblyIdentity
name="CrystalDecisions.Shared" publicKeyToken="692fbea5521e1304"/>

                <bindingRedirect
oldVersion="10.5.3700.0" newVersion="10.2.3600.0"/>

            </dependentAssembly>

        </assemblyBinding>

    </runtime>

</configuration>

          
        

• if you had any code in the "App_Code" folder, VS will probably have set the compile action to "content", it should be changed to "compile".  otherwise you will get errors like: The type or namespace name 'xyz' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
• you'll have to remove any reference to the System.Query and System.Expressions, these are not part of the new LINQ spec.
• Replace System.Data.DLinq with System.Data.Linq.
• if you want to use any LINQ expressions, like "from x in db.Table select x" then you need to include the System.Linq namespace.  otherwise you will get errors like 'System.Data.Linq.Table<xyz>' does not contain a definition for 'Where' and no extension method 'Where' accepting a first argument of type 'System.Data.Linq.Table<xyz>' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)
  
• you will also need to include System.Linq.Expressions if you are using "language-level code expressions to be represented as objects in the form of expression trees".

Crystal reports

<%@ Page Language="C#" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Collections" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Collections.Generic" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Data" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Data.OleDb" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Data.SqlClient" %>

<%@ Import Namespace="System.Net" %>


<script RunAt="server">


/* Server Monitoring Script:

* - test SQL databases by running an sql string against an SQL connection string

* - test Access databases by running an sql string against a JET connection string

* - test web sites by Regex matching a search string against the contents of a HttpWebRequest

*/


enum TestType {Sql_Server, Ms_Access, Http_Request } // different types of supported
requests


/// <summary>

/// Container class to represent a 'test' object for a resource on the server.

/// </summary>

class TestObject

{

public TestType Type; // e.g. Sql_Server.

public string TestString; // e.g. connection string for a database. or URI for http
request.

public string TestParam; // e.g. sql string for a database. or search string for a
http request.


public TestObject(TestType type, string testString, string testParam)

{

this.Type = type; 


this.TestString = testString;

this.TestParam = testParam;

}

}


void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

List<TestObject> tests = new List<TestObject>();


tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Sql_Server, @"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DB1;Integrated
Security=True", "select top 10 * from Table1"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Sql_Server, @"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DB2;Integrated
Security=True", "select top 10 * from Table1"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Sql_Server, @"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DB3;Integrated
Security=True", "select top 10 * from Table1"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Sql_Server, @"Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=DB4;Integrated
Security=True", "select top 10 * from Table1"));


tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Ms_Access, @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data
Source=c:\Inetpub\Database\DB5.mdb;Persist Security Info=True", "select top 10 * from
Table1"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Ms_Access, @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data
Source=c:\Inetpub\Database\DB6.mdb;Persist Security Info=True", "select top 10 * from
Table1"));


tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Http_Request, "http://mysite1.ie/", "Site 1"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Http_Request, "http://mysite2.ie/", "Site 2"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Http_Request, "https://mysite3.ie/", "Site 3"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Http_Request, "https://mysite4.ie/", "Site 4"));

tests.Add(new TestObject(TestType.Http_Request, "https://mysite5.ie/", "Site 5"));


int numCompleted = 0;

int numFailed = 0;


// write the HTML header. (a result is flushed to the client after each test finishes.)

Flush(@" 


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC '-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN' 'http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd'>

<html>

<head>

<title>Server Test</title>

<meta name='ROBOTS' content='NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW'>

<link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='ServerTestStyles.css' />

</head>

<body>");


foreach(TestObject test in tests)

{ 


try

{

switch(test.Type)

{ 


case TestType.Sql_Server:

runQuerySql(test.TestParam, test.TestString);

break;

case TestType.Ms_Access:

runQueryOleDb(test.TestParam, test.TestString);

break;

case TestType.Http_Request:

string pageContents = new WebClient().DownloadString(test.TestString);

if(!Regex.IsMatch(pageContents, test.TestParam, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase))

throw new Exception("Search string not found: " + test.TestParam);

break;

default:

throw new Exception("Test type not handled " + test.Type);

}

Flush(String.Format("<span class='pass'>Pass</span> &nbsp; <span
class='type'>{0}</span> &nbsp; {1} <hr />", test.Type, test.TestString));

numCompleted++;

}

catch(Exception ex)

{

Flush(String.Format("<span class='fail'>Fail</span> &nbsp; {1} <span
class='type'>{0}</span><BR><span class='error'>{2}</span><hr
/>", test.Type, test.TestString, ex.Message));

numFailed++;

}

}

if(numFailed > 0)

Flush(String.Format("<h1>{0} errors occured</h1>", numFailed));

else

Flush(String.Format("<h1>All Good!</h1>", numFailed)); // if you use this
page with an automated monitoring service, look for "All Good" in the page contents.
otherwise an error occured

Flush("</body></html>");

}


/// <summary>

/// Method to run an sql string against an sql database

/// </summary>

public static DataSet runQuerySql(string sql, string connString)

{

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connString);

DataSet ds = new DataSet();

SqlDataAdapter dba = new SqlDataAdapter();

SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand(sql, conn);


try

{

dba.SelectCommand = cmd;

dba.Fill(ds, "Table");

return (ds);

}

catch(Exception e)

{

throw e;

}

finally

{

cmd.Connection.Close();

conn.Close();

}

}


/// <summary>

/// Method to run an sql string against an Access database

/// </summary>

public static DataSet runQueryOleDb(string sql, string connString)

{

OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(connString);

DataSet ds = new DataSet();

OleDbDataAdapter dba = new OleDbDataAdapter();

OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand(sql, conn);


try

{

dba.SelectCommand = cmd;

dba.Fill(ds, "Table");

return (ds);

}

catch(Exception e)

{

throw e;

}

finally

{

cmd.Connection.Close();

conn.Close();

}

}


/// <summary>

/// Flush output to the browser (useful to indicate which tests are causing any delay)

/// </summary>

/// <param name="output"></param>

private void Flush(string output)

{

Response.Write(output);

Response.Flush();

}


</script>

ServerTestStyles.css:  (just to make the output more legible)

body

{

font-size: 90%;

font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, Sans-Serif;

padding: .5em;

}


hr

{

color: #87ceeb;

background-color: #87ceeb;

margin: .3em 0 .3em 0;

padding: 0;

height: 1px;

}


.pass

{

color: Blue;

font-weight: bold;

}

.fail

{

color: Red;

font-weight: bold;

}

.type

{

color: purple;

font-weight: bold;

}

.error

{

color: Red;

font-size: small;

}

I have configured the test in InternetVista to search for "All Good" in the url for the test page.  If this isn't present, i'll get an SMS/email alert and i can go and see what exactly is wrong.  It should be fairly easy to add other test types if you have different resources you need to check on.
Enjoy.

Faulting application devenv.exe, version 8.0.50727.762, time stamp 0x45716759, faulting module craxddrt.dll_unloaded, version 0.0.0.0,
time stamp 0x43068582, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x0d26e30f, process id 0x1180, application start time 0x01c75cae13960a41.

Error    35    The type 'CrystalDecisions.Shared.ExportFormatType' exists in both 


'c:\Windows\assembly\GAC\CrystalDecisions.Shared\9.1.5000.0__692fbea5521e1304\CrystalDecisions.Shared.dll'
and 


'c:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\CrystalDecisions.Shared\10.2.3600.0__692fbea5521e1304\CrystalDecisions.Shared.dll'   

	<runtime>

<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine" publicKeyToken="692fbea5521e1304"
/>

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="9.1.5000.0" newVersion="10.2.3600.0"/>

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Shared" publicKeyToken="692fbea5521e1304"
/>

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="9.1.5000.0" newVersion="10.2.3600.0"/>

</dependentAssembly>

<dependentAssembly>

<assemblyIdentity name="CrystalDecisions.Shared" publicKeyToken="692fbea5521e1304"
/>

<bindingRedirect oldVersion="9.1.5000.0" newVersion="10.2.3600.0"/>

</dependentAssembly>

</assemblyBinding>

</runtime>

set SSDIR=C:\Data\VSS                                        ** the folder containing of your srcsafe.ini file **

cd "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual SourceSafe\"

ss dir -R -D $/*.*

/// <summary>

/// Swap 2 objects

/// </summary>

public static void Swap<T>(ref T first, ref T second)

{

T tmp = first;

first = second;

second = tmp;

}

A string concatenated with null always gives null.
You have to check if the first name is null with

     if not IsNull(firstname) then 


        lastname + " " + firstname 


    else 


        lastname 

Count({Table.Field}) > 0

Count({Table.Field}) = 0

But apparently the value returned by Count can be null if there are no records.  so you have to use:

IsNull(Count({Table.Field})) OR Count({Table.Field}) = 0

This is just another crystal reports annoyance, of which there are many.

private void btnUpload_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// create a new FtpSettings class to store all the paramaters for the FtpProgress
thread

FtpSettings f = new FtpSettings();

f.Host = this.txtHost.Text;

f.Username = this.txtUsername.Text;

f.Password = this.txtPassword.Text;

f.TargetFolder = this.txtDir.Text;

f.SourceFile = this.txtUploadFile.Text;

f.Passive = this.chkPassive.Checked;

f.Port = Int32.Parse(this.txtPort.Text); 


this.ftpProgress1.RunWorkerAsync(f);

}


private void ftpProgress1_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs
e)

{

this.toolStripStatusLabel1.Text = e.UserState.ToString(); // the message will be something
like: 45 Kb / 102.12 Mb

this.toolStripProgressBar1.Value = Math.Min(this.toolStripProgressBar1.Maximum, e.ProgressPercentage); 


}

string MetaBase = "";

using(StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["MetaBasePath"].ToString()))

MetaBase = sr.ReadToEnd();


foreach(Match m in new Regex(@"(?x:)<IIsWebServer[^>]*>.*?</IIsWebServer>",
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase).Matches(MetaBase))

{

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

string IisCode = "", ServerBindings = "", ServerComment = "";

doc.LoadXml(m.Groups[0].Value);

XmlElement node = doc.DocumentElement;

// now you can access the node attributes

...

Unable to validate data at

System.Web.Configuration.MachineKey.GetDecodedData(Byte[] buf, Byte[] modifier, Int32
start, Int32 length, Int32& dataLength) at 


System.Web.UI.LosFormatter.Deserialize(String input)

(rpt.Section3.ReportObjects["txtDate"] as TextObject).Text = DateTime.Now.ToShortDateString();

rpt.DataDefinition.FormulaFields[0].Text = "'" + YourString.Replace("\r\n", "' + chr(10) + '") + "'";

• Download source for web service + Windows client - 52.1 Kb

Introduction

In trying to keep up to speed with .NET 2.0, I decided to do a .NET 2.0 version of my CodeProject article "DIME Buffered Upload" which used the DIME standard to transfer binary data over web services. The DIME approach was reasonably efficient but the code is quite complex and I was keen to explore what .NET 2.0 has to offer. In this article, I use version 3.0 of the WSE (Web Service Enhancements) which is available for .NET 2.0 as an add-in, to provide a simpler and faster method of sending binary data in small chunks over HTTP web services.

Background

Just a recap on why you may need to send data in small chunks at all: if you have a large file and you want to send it across a web service, you must understand the way it all fits together between IIS, .NET, and the web service call. You send your file as an array of bytes, as a parameter to a web service call, which is all sent to the IIS web server as a single request. This is bad if the size of the file is beyond the configured MaxRequestLength of your application, or if the request causes an IIS timeout. It is also bad from the point of view of providing feedback of the file transfer to the user interface because you have no indication how the transfer is going, until it is either completed or failed. The solution outlined here is to send chunks of the file one by one, and append them to the file on the server.

There is an MD5 file hash done on the client and the server to verify that the file received is identical to the file sent.

Also, there is an upload and download code included in this article.

Adventures with MTOM

MTOM stands for SOAP "Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism" and it is a W3C standard. To use it (and to run this application), you must download and install WSE 3.0, which includes MTOM support for the first time. If you look in the app.config and web.config files in the source code, you will see sections referring to the WSE 3 assembly, and a messaging clientMode or serverMode setting. These are necessary to run MTOM in the application.

The problem with DIME was that the binary content of the message was sent outside the SoapEnvelope of the XML message. This meant that although your message was secure, the Dime Attachment may not be secure. MTOM fully complies with the other WS-* specifications (like WS-Security) so the entire message is secure.

It took me a while to realise that when MTOM is turned on for the client and the server, WSE automatically handles the binary encoding of the data in the web service message. With DIME and WSE 2.0, you had to configure your app for DIME and then use DimeAttachments in your code. This is no longer necessary, you just send your byte[] as a parameter or return value, and WSE makes sure that it is sent as binary, and not padded by XML serialization as it would be in the absence of DIME or MTOM.

How it works

The web service has two main methods, AppendChunk is for uploading a file to the server, DownloadChunk is for downloading from the server. These methods receive parameters for the file name, the offset of the chunk, and the size of the buffer being sent/received.

The Windows Forms client application can upload a file by sending all the chunks one after the other using AppendChunk, until the file has been completely sent. It can do an MD5 hash on the local file, and compare it with the hash on the file on the server, to make sure the contents of the files are identical. The download code is very similar, the main difference is that the client must know from the server how big the file is, so that it can know when to stop requesting chunks.

A simplified version of the upload code is shown below (from the WinForms client). Have a look in the code for Form1.cs to see the inline comments + the explanation of the code. Essentially, a file stream is opened on the client for the duration of the transfer. Then the first chunk is read into the Buffer byte array. The while loop keeps running until the FileStream.Read() method returns 0, i.e. the end of the file has been reached. For each iteration, the buffer is sent directly to the web service as a byte[]. The 'SentBytes' variable is used to report progress to the form.

using(FileStream fs = new FileStream(LocalFilePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))

{

int BytesRead = fs.Read(Buffer, 0, ChunkSize);

while(BytesRead > 0 && !worker.CancellationPending)

{

ws.AppendChunk(FileName, Buffer, SentBytes, BytesRead);

SentBytes += BytesRead;

BytesRead = fs.Read(Buffer, 0, ChunkSize); 


}

}

Example of the BackgroundWorker class in .NET 2.0

.NET 2.0 has a great new class called 'BackgroundWorker' to simplify running tasks asynchronously. Although this application sends the file in small chunks, even these small chunks would delay the WinForms application and make it look crashed during the transfer. So the web service calls still need to be done asynchronously. The BackgroundWorker class works using an event model, where you have code sections to run for DoWork (when you start), ProgressChanged (to update your progress bar / status bar), and Completed (or failed). You can pass parameters to the DoWork method, which you could not do with the Thread class in .NET 1.1 (I know you could with delegates, but delegates aren't great for thread control). You can also access the return value of DoWork in the Completed event handler. So for once, MS has thought of everything and made a very clean threading model. Exceptions are handled internally and you can access them in the Completed method via the RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs.Error property.

The code shown below is an example of the ProgressChanged event handler:

private void workerUpload_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)

{

// update the progress bar and status bar text

this.toolStripProgressBar1.Value = e.ProgressPercentage;

this.statusText.Text = e.UserState.ToString();

// summary text is sent in the UserState parameter

}

I have used four BackgroundWorker objects in the application:

• one to manage the upload process,
• one to manage the download process,
• another to calculate the local MD5 file hash in parallel while waiting for the server result,
• and another to download the list of files in the Upload server folder to allow the user to select a file to download.

The reason I use a BackgroundWorker object for each task is because the code for each task is tied in to the events for that object.

A good example of Thread.Join()

When the upload or download is complete, the client asks for an MD5 hash of the file on the server, so it can compare it with the local file to make sure they are identical. I originally did these in sequence. But it can take a few seconds to calculate the result for a large file (anything over a few hundred MB), so the application was waiting five seconds for the server to calculate the hash, and then five more seconds for the client to calculate its own hash. This made no sense, so I decided to implement a multi-threaded approach to allow them to run in parallel. While the client is waiting on the server, it should be calculating its own file hash. This is done with the Thread class, and the use of the Join() method which blocks execution until the thread is complete.

The code below shows how this is accomplished:

// start calculating the local hash (stored in class variable)

this.hashThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(this.CheckFileHash));

this.hashThread.Start();


// request the server hash

string ServerFileHash = ws.CheckFileHash(FileName);


// wait for the local hash to complete

this.hashThread.Join();


if(this.LocalFileHash == ServerFileHash)

e.Result = "Hashes match exactly";

else 


e.Result = "Hashes do not match";

There is a good chance that the two operations will finish at approximately the same time, so very little waiting around will actually happen.

Performance compared with DIME

I found that MTOM was about 10% faster than DIME in my limited testing. This is probably to do with the need to package up each chunk into a DIME attachment, which is no longer necessary with MTOM. I was able to upload files of several gigabytes in size without problems.

Obviously, there is an overhead with all this business of reading file chunks and appending them, so the larger the chunk size, the more efficient your application will be. It should be customised based on the network and the expected size of files. For very small files, it is no harm to use small chunk sizes (e.g., 32 Kb) because this will give accurate and regular feedback to the user interface. For very large files on a fast network, consider using 4000 Kb to make good use of the bandwidth and reduce the File Input/Output overhead. If you want to send chunks larger than 4 MB, you must increase the .NET 2.0 Max Request Size limit in your web.config.

Conclusions

Feel free to use this code and modify it as you please. Please post a comment for any bugs, suggestions, or improvements. Enjoy!

XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(PageCollection));
xs.Serialize(fs, pages); // 'fs' is a FileStream to my xml file, and 'pages' is a collection class of objects

XmlSerializer xs = new XmlSerializer(typeof(PageCollection));
pages = xs.Deserialize(fs) as PageCollection;

xmlns=''> was not expected

[XmlRootAttribute("CmsPages", Namespace = "http://www.whatever.com/Cms", IsNullable = false)]

I had a transaction comprised of about 5 commands, and in the middle of it, i needed to do a SELECT on a table to know what values to insert for one of the commands.  I encountered a timeout just after i called Fill on the DataAdapter.  it took me a while to figure out that it was because the transaction had already taken out a lock on the table i was selecting from.  makes sense now, but i spent ages on it!  just posting it here in case anyone else runs into the same problem.

Introduction

I've spent a long time trying many different approaches at getting rid of MS Word HTML, when importing or pasting text into my content management system, with very mixed success.  Previous efforts involved using the MSHTML Element Dom but this was slow and difficult to implement.  i think i've finally found a satisfactory and fast solution using only regular expressions.  Please feel free to use it in your applications, and post any improvements you may find.

The Code

/// <summary>

/// Removes all FONT and SPAN tags, and all Class and Style attributes.

/// Designed to get rid of non-standard Microsoft Word HTML tags.

/// </summary>

private string CleanHtml(string html)

{ 


// start by completely removing all unwanted tags 


html = Regex.Replace(html, @"<[/]?(font|span|xml|del|ins|[ovwxp]:\w+)[^>]*?>",
"", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); 


// then run another pass over the html (twice), removing unwanted attributes 


html = Regex.Replace(html, @"<([^>]*)(?:class|lang|style|size|face|[ovwxp]:\w+)=(?:'[^']*'|""[^""]*""|[^\s>]+)([^>]*)>","<$1$2>",
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); 


html = Regex.Replace(html, @"<([^>]*)(?:class|lang|style|size|face|[ovwxp]:\w+)=(?:'[^']*'|""[^""]*""|[^\s>]+)([^>]*)>","<$1$2>",
RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); 


return html;

}

Samples of non-standard Microsoft Word HTML

<SPAN lang=EN-IE style="mso-ansi-language: EN-IE">

<p class="MSO Normal">

<UL style="MARGIN-TOP: 0cm" type=circle>

<o:p>&nbsp;</o:p>

<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-list:l3 level1 lfo3;tab-stops:list 36.0pt'>

Explanation of Regular Expressions

I've spent a good deal of time examining the problematic tags that MS Word inserts in its HTML, some examples are shown above.  The above code is based on a few requirements for my CMS:

• remove all FONT and SPAN tags, because all the content in my CMS is done through style-sheets.
• remove all CLASS and STYLE tags because they mean nothing outside of the original word document
• remove all namespace tags and attributes like <o:p> and < ... v:shape ... >

The first regular expression removes unwanted tags, and is broken down as follows:

<[/]?(font|span|xml|del|ins|[ovwxp]:\w+)[^>]*?>

• match an open tag character <
• and optionally match a close tag sequence </  (because we also want to remove the closing tags)
• match any of the list of unwanted tags: font,span,xml,del,ins
• a pattern is given to match any of the namespace tags, anything beginning with o,v,w,x,p, followed by a : followed by another word
• match any attributes as far as the closing tag character >
• the replace string for this regex is "", which will completely remove the instances of any matching tags.
• note that we are not removing anything between the tags, just the tags themselves

The second regular expression removes unwanted attributes, and is broken down as follows:

<([^>]*)(?:class|lang|style|size|face|[ovwxp]:\w+)=(?:'[^']*'|""[^""]*""|[^\s>]+)([^>]*)>

• match an open tag character <
• capture any text before the unwanted attribute (This is $1 in the replace expression)
• match (but don't capture) any of the unwanted attributes: class, lang, style, size, face, o:p, v:shape etc.
• there should always be an = character after the attribute name
• match the value of the attribute by identifying the delimiters. these can be single quotes, or double quotes, or no quotes at all.
• for single quotes, the pattern is: ' followed by anything but a ' followed by a '
• similarly for double quotes. 
• for a non-delimited attribute value, i specify the pattern as anything except the closing tag character >
• lastly, capture whatever comes after the unwanted attribute in ([^>]*)
• the replacement string <$1$2> reconstructs the tag without the unwanted attribute found in the middle.
• note: this only removes one occurence of an unwanted attribute, this is why i run the same regex twice.  For example, take the html fragment: <p class="MSO Normal" style="Margin-TOP:3em"> 
  the regex will only remove one of these attributes.  Running the regex twice will remove the second one.  I can't think of any reasonable cases where it would need to be run more than that.

Suggestions!

If you have any suggestions or improvments, please post them here as comments.
Thanks :)

This might sound really obvious, but i couldn't find a better way.  Normally i would use TOP in the SQL query to limit the number of records i want to retrieve, but in my case, this value is parameterised and Access won't allow me to parameterise that value.  I tried using a DataView but TOP isn't one of it's supported functions.  So i just loop through the dataset and keep removing rows until the right number of records is reached.

int maxItems = 5;
while(ds.Tables[0].Rows.Count > MaxItems)
    ds.Tables[0].Rows.RemoveAt(MaxItems);

public static char GetRandomLowerCaseCharacter(int seed)
{
   return ((char) ( (short) 'a' + new Random(seed).Next(26)));
}

public static char GetRandomUpperCaseCharacter(int seed)
{
   return ((char) ( (short) 'A' + new Random(seed).Next(26)));
}

If you call the above methods straight after each other with the same seed, you may get the same value on a fast processor.  It is a good reason to pass in a different seed value for operations that will be done in quick succession.  E.g. use DateTime.Now.Seconds for one operation and then use Minutes or Hour or Milliseconds for the next ones.

This came in useful for ensuring that web site users have entered a strong password.  Thanks to Eli Robillard for posting this on his blog.

In this case, a strong password is defined as follows:

• between 5 and 128 characters long
• contains at least one digit
• contains at least one upper case letter
• contains at least one lower case letter.

Here is the pattern:

^(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).{5,128}$ 

C# code using this pattern:

public bool IsStrongPassword(string s)
{
    string pattern = @"^(?=.*\d)(?=.*[a-z])(?=.*[A-Z]).{5,128}$";
    return Regex.IsMatch(s, pattern, RegexOptions.IgnorePatternWhitespace);
}

Background

In my content management system, i allow the user to define their own 'objects' (e.g. Staff Member) and then i provide templated data entry forms to let them populate instances of these objects.  It's aimed at non-techies so i have my own datatypes called 'Text' which maps to System.String, 'Number' maps to System.Double etc.  I also have a few custom data types called 'File' and 'Image' to allow the user to add files or images to an instance of the object. 

Problem

This business of doing column-mapping was ok as long as my data types had obvious .Net equivalents, but 'Image' doesn't in my case. i'm only storing a reference to the image, but in my application, it's not to be treated just as a System.String.  When the user is creating a new object with an 'Image' field in it, i want to display a file upload instead of a textbox, and when i go to display the object on the site, I want to display a html IMG tag with the SRC set to the value of the image field. 

Solution

The dataset is serialised into an xml file with the schema embedded. i needed to find some way of encoding my own custom data type information into the dataset that would persist into the xml file.  I looked through the VS intellisense and found the 'ExtendedProperties' data column property.  This property allows you to plug in any number of key/value pairs of information to each column.  This was exactly what i needed, so i added in a pair with something like "MyDataType=Image" for each column.  This persisted nicely into the xml file as follows:

<xs:complexType>
  <xs:sequence>
     <xs:element name="Photo" msprop:MyDataType="Image" type="xs:string" minOccurs="0" />

Note that the official type of the field is "xs:string", because it contains a path to the image. but now it also has the custom data type tagged on to the column definition. in this respect, i'm glad to see that MS have provided a very elegant and flexible framework.

If you get annoyed at Visual Source Safe's complications with using asp.net web projects, and integrating them with Visual Studio.Net, an increasingly popular approach is to use 'class library' projects instead of web projects.  (Of course, this problem will disappear with Whidbey but i'm still using VS 2003).  A web project compiles a dll / class library anyway, and VS doesn't have to interact with IIS to load the project.  It isn't hard to set up but it does require careful instructions to be followed.  A guy called Fritz Onion prepared the content below:

This is copied/pasted here in case Fritz's link changes or disappears. The original content is available from:
http://www.pluralsight.com/fritz/Samples/aspdotnet_without_web_projects.htm

Reference prepared by Fritz Onion

The Web Project wizard in Visual Studio .NET is convenient for creating quick ASP.NET applications on your local machine, but in an effort to simplify your life, it also makes many decisions for you that are difficult to change if you need more flexibility. My biggest pet peeve with Web Projects is that you cannot even open a .sln file if the virtual directory mapping in IIS is not set up correctly. I also dislike the way it places .sln and .csproj | .vbproj files in a separate location from the actual source files (I understand that this is necessary to allow application creation directly on a server, but I never deploy that way).

As a result, most of my web projects are created as standard class library projects. Unfortunately this means that you don't get the nice Web component wizards (like WebForms and UserControls). However, with a little tweaking, you can have it all.  I have prepared this document describing how to enable these wizards in class library projects (thanks to Dan Sullivan for pointing out how to do this), as well as how to convert existing Web Projects to class library projects and still keep the nice integrated debugging.

To enable Web wizards in a class library project:

In a directory called

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\VC#\CSharpProjectItems\LocalProjectItems

is a file callled localprojectitems.vsdir.

Likewise in a directory

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\VC#\CSharpProjectItems\WebProjectItems

is a file called webprojectitems.vsdir.

If open the second file with notepad you can figure out the lines to copy to the first file to be able to add the usual files you need to create an aspx page or web service to a class lib project.

Once you have copied these thing open VS, open a class lib and go to add new item and you will see these additional file types available.

To set the output of a class library project to go to a /bin directory of your choosing:

1. Right-click on the project and select properties
2. Set Configuration to 'All Configurations' to affect both debug and release builds
3. Under configuration properties/build set the OutputPath to the /bin directory
 

To convert an existing web project into a class library project:

1. Open the .sln file in a text editor, and change the reference to the project from an http://... reference to a simple reference to the .csproj (or .vbproj) filename. For example:
change:
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "WebApplication133", "http://localhost/WebApplication133/WebApplication133.csproj", "{39CB37A5-F735-4684-B5DA-DD355B683090}"

to:
Project("{FAE04EC0-301F-11D3-BF4B-00C04F79EFBC}") = "WebApplication133", "WebApplication133.csproj", "{39CB37A5-F735-4684-B5DA-DD355B683090}"

2. If there is one, delete the .webinfo file
3. Open the .csproj (or .vbproj) file and change the ProjectType attribute from "Web" to "Local"

To set up a class library project to run a browser when you debug it:

1. Right-click on the project in the solution explorer and select properties
2. Under Configuration Properties/Debugging, change Debug Mode from 'Project' to 'URL'
3. Hit Apply
4. In the Start URL field, enter the complete url to the page you want to hit to debug, like:
http://localhost/testproj/webform1.aspx