Scott's Breeze Blog - Integration, BizTalk, Cloud - .NET Framework

Show me the frameworks installed on this machine – quick’n’easy

Scott Scovell — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 12:48:06 GMT

Might be an oldie, but I only found this out now…

Open up IE and paste in the following address > javascript:alert(navigator.userAgent)

Sure, there is always a trip down to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework to be certain, but I like this one too.

Supported LINQ Query Operators for Azure Table Storage Service

Scott Scovell — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:32:00 GMT

Hit this little hurdle recently while creating WCF Data Service against Azure Table Storage. At the moment only a handful of operators are supported by the client library when using the Table Storage Service.

Supported Query Operators

LINQ operator	Table service support	Additional information
From	Supported as defined.
Where	Supported as defined.
Take	Supported, with some restrictions.	The value specified for the Take operator must be less than or equal to 1,000. If it is greater than 1,000, the service returns status code 400 (Bad Request). If the Take operator is not specified, a maximum of 1,000 entries will be returned.
First, FirstOrDefault	Supported.

What this means is that we can not perform LINQ queries that group, order by, distinct or even return single entity properties from the query (we must always return the entire entity). In most situations the solution is to construct our LINQ queries that first make use of the supported operators and then use AsEnumerable() followed by any operations that are not supported. This generates two parts to the LINQ query. The first part (everything before the AsEnumerable) gets sent to the backend (Azure Table Storage in this case) and the remaining parts execute locally against the results of the first (in-memory). This helps get over the road-block but as you can image you are bringing a greater chunk of data down to the client and continuing processing there.

Some examples:

Using Distinct()

var query = myTableServiceContext.MyEntity.Where(e => e.Category == someCatgeory).AsEnumerable().Select(c
=> c.Name).Distinct();

Select next 5 entities after a given date and time (using OrderBy together with Take)

var query = myTableServiceContext.MyEntity.Where(e => e.Category == someCatgeory & e.StartDate > DateTime.UtcNow).AsEnumerable().OrderBy(o
=> o.StartDate).Take(5);

For further details check out the online documentation.

Useful Developer Tools

Scott Scovell — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:53:00 GMT

Just thought I might share some useful dev tools I have either found or have had recommended to me.

The first is a must if you are doing any LINQ action in your code (…and most of us are in some degree these days).
Check out LINQPad. I am blown away how useful this tool has been. Think SQL Management Studio for LINQ!

Another great tool I have been using lately is Neudesic’s Azure Storage Explorer

Essential for generating and managing Azure table storage data during development.
Plays nicely with both developer storage and Azure storage accounts.

Windows could not start the Enterprise Single Sign-On Service

Scott Scovell — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 05:05:59 GMT

I am getting a few reports that after a recent windows update (or installing .NET Framework 4.0) the ESSO service fails to restart. Microsoft have released a hotfix to address this (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2252691)

Microsoft Reports:

This issue occurs after installing .NET Framework 4.0. The registration of the assembly used by ENTSSO to access SQL Server does not specify the correct version of the .NET Framework. When .NET Framework 4.0 is installed, the assembly will try to use the newer framework and then fail to load

To resolve this manually:

32-bit Server

1.       Open a command window
2.       Go to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
3.       Type: regasm “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On\ssosql.dll”

64-bit Server

1.       Open a command window
2.       Go to C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727
3.       Type each of the following and hit ENTER:

32bit: regasm “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On\win32\ssosql.dll”
64bit: regasm “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Enterprise Single Sign-On\ssosql.dll”

Note On a 64-bit server, regasm will need to be run for both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of ssosql.dll.

Hope this helps

Custom Configuration Section

Scott Scovell — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:13:26 GMT

In my last post, I was exploring a different approach to implementing a simple windows service. In that solution, I used Windows Workflow to implement a folder monitor service. Part of the solution required me to gather target folder details from configuration. I needed more than the out-of-the-box appSettings collection of key-value pairs. Normally I would use a second xml configuration file and basically deserialise that into my custom collection class. However, I was in exploration mode so I decided to give the System.Configuration classes another go.

I wanted the client to easily manage the target folders to monitor and customise the alert that gets logged in BAM (see the last post). I wanted something like this:

<folderMonitors>


<folderMonitor targetFolder="E:\Data\BizTalk\Monitor1" fileMask="*.xml" timerInterval="1" processingInterval="2">


<alert alertInterval="5" sender="BIZTALK" destination="LOB1" messageType="Order" errorType="Folder
Monitor" errorCode="OFFLINE"/>


</folderMonitor>


<folderMonitor targetFolder="E:\Data\BizTalk\Monitor2" fileMask="*.xml" timerInterval="1" processingInterval="2">


<alert alertInterval="5" sender="BIZTALK" destination="LOB2" messageType="Invoice" errorType="Folder
Monitor" errorCode="OFFLINE"/>


</folderMonitor>


</folderMonitors>

I was surprised by the amount of code I needed to write. Basically you have to:

Define a ConfigurationSection
Define the ConfigurationElementCollection and implement the indexers and ARC methods
Define the actual ConfigurationElement (the folder monitor structure you see above)
Declare the configuration section in the app.config

Here is the source code

 : ConfigurationSection
   Accessors
  <summary>
  Gets the configuration section using the default element name.
  </summary>
  GetSection()
     <summary>
  Gets the configuration section using the specified element name.
  </summary>
  GetSection(string sectionName)
    == null)
   = string.Format("The specified configuration section (<{0}>) was not found.", sectionName);
       Properties
  IsDefaultCollection = true)]
  FolderMonitors
   }
  = value; }
         CollectionType = ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap)]
  : ConfigurationElementCollection
   CreateNewElement()
       }
   CollectionType
   }
          }
    != null)
          }
    Methods
  element)
           Methods
  item)
         item)
               : ConfigurationElement
        Properties
  IsRequired = true)]
    }
  = value; }
   IsRequired = true, DefaultValue = "*.*")]
    }
  = value; }
   IsRequired = true, DefaultValue = "3")]
  MaxValue = 1440, MinValue = 1)]
    }
  = value; }
   IsRequired = true, DefaultValue = "5")]
  MaxValue = 1440, MinValue = 1)]
    }
  = value; }
    AlertConfig
   }
  = value; }
   : ConfigurationElement
      IsRequired = true, DefaultValue = "20")]
  MaxValue = 1440, MinValue = 1)]
    }
  = value; }
      }
  = value; }
      }
  = value; }
      }
  = value; }
      }
  = value; }
      }
  = value; }

cursor: text; border-right: silver 1px solid; padding-top: 4px" id="codeSnippetWrapper"> style="border-bottom-style: none; text-align: left; padding-bottom: 0px; line-height: 12pt; border-right-style: none; background-color: white; margin: 0em; padding-left: 0px; width: 100%; padding-right: 0px; font-family: 'Courier New', courier, monospace; direction: ltr; border-top-style: none; color: black; font-size: 8pt; border-left-style: none; overflow: visible; padding-top: 0px">using System; 0px">using System.Collections.Generic; 0px">using System.Linq; 0px">using System.Text; 0px">using System.Configuration; 0px"> 0px">namespace Breeze.BizTalk.WorkflowLibrary 0px">{ public class FolderMonitorSection { #region Static /// /// /// public static FolderMonitorSection { return GetSection("folderMonitorConfig"); } 0px"> /// /// /// public static FolderMonitorSection { FolderMonitorSection section = ConfigurationManager.GetSection(sectionName) as FolderMonitorSection; if (section { string message throw new ConfigurationErrorsException(message); } return section; } #endregion 0px"> #region Configuration 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("folderMonitors", public FolderMonitorConfigElementCollection { get { return (FolderMonitorConfigElementCollection)this["folderMonitors"]; set { this["folderMonitors"] } 0px"> public override bool IsReadOnly() { return false; } #endregion } 0px"> [ConfigurationCollection(typeof(FolderMonitorConfigElement), public class FolderMonitorConfigElementCollection { protected override ConfigurationElement { return new FolderMonitorConfigElement(); } 0px"> protected override string ElementName { get { return "folderMonitor"; } 0px"> public override ConfigurationElementCollectionType { get { return ConfigurationElementCollectionType.BasicMap; } 0px"> public override bool IsReadOnly() { return false; } 0px"> #region Indexers 0px"> public FolderMonitorConfigElement this[int index] { get { return BaseGet(index) as FolderMonitorConfigElement; set { if (BaseGet(index) { BaseRemoveAt(index); } BaseAdd(index, value); } } 0px"> public new FolderMonitorConfigElement this[string name] { get { return BaseGet(name) as FolderMonitorConfigElement; } 0px"> #endregion 0px"> #region Lookup 0px"> protected override object GetElementKey(ConfigurationElement { FolderMonitorConfigElement cfg = element as FolderMonitorConfigElement; return cfg.TargetFolder; } 0px"> public string GetKey(int index) { return (string)BaseGetKey(index); } 0px"> #endregion 0px"> #region Add/Remove/Clear 0px"> public void Add(FolderMonitorConfigElement { BaseAdd(item); } 0px"> public void Remove(string name) { BaseRemove(name); } 0px"> public void Remove(FolderMonitorConfigElement { BaseRemove(GetElementKey(item)); } 0px"> public void RemoveAt(int index) { BaseRemoveAt(index); } 0px"> public void Clear() { BaseClear(); } 0px"> #endregion } 0px"> public class FolderMonitorConfigElement { #region Constructors 0px"> public FolderMonitorConfigElement() { } 0px"> #endregion 0px"> #region Configuration 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("targetFolder", public string TargetFolder { get { return (string)this["targetFolder"]; set { this["targetFolder"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("fileMask", public string FileMask { get { return (string)this["fileMask"]; set { this["fileMask"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("timerInterval", [IntegerValidator(ExcludeRange = false, public int TimerInterval { get { return (int)this["timerInterval"]; set { this["timerInterval"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("processingInterval", [IntegerValidator(ExcludeRange = false, public int ProcessingInterval { get { return (int)this["processingInterval"]; set { this["processingInterval"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("alert")] public AlertConfigElement { get { return (AlertConfigElement)this["alert"]; set { this["alert"] } 0px"> public class AlertConfigElement { public AlertConfigElement() { } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("alertInterval", [IntegerValidator(ExcludeRange = false, public int AlertInterval { get { return (int)this["alertInterval"]; set { this["alertInterval"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("sender")] public string Sender { get { return (string)this["sender"]; set { this["sender"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("destination")] public string Destination { get { return (string)this["destination"]; set { this["destination"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("messageType")] public string MessageType { get { return (string)this["messageType"]; set { this["messageType"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("errorType")] public string ErrorType { get { return (string)this["errorType"]; set { this["errorType"] } 0px"> [ConfigurationProperty("errorCode")] public string ErrorCode { get { return (string)this["errorCode"]; set { this["errorCode"] } } 0px"> #endregion 0px"> } 0px"> 0px">}

And my app.config file looks like this

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>

<configSections>
    
    <section
     name="folderMonitorConfig"
      type="Breeze.BizTalk.WorkflowLibrary.FolderMonitorSection, Breeze.BizTalk.WorkflowLibrary, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null"
    />
</configSections>


<folderMonitorConfig>
    <folderMonitors>
      <folderMonitor targetFolder="E:\Data\BizTalk\Monitor1" fileMask="*.xml" timerInterval="1" processingInterval="2">
        <alertalertInterval="5" sender="BIZTALK" destination="LOB1" messageType="Order" errorType="Folder Monitor" errorCode="OFFLINE"/>
      </folderMonitor>
      <folderMonitor targetFolder="E:\Data\BizTalk\Monitor2" fileMask="*.xml" timerInterval="1" processingInterval="2">
        <alertalertInterval="5" sender="BIZTALK" destination="LOB2" messageType="Invoice" errorType="Folder Monitor" errorCode="OFFLINE"/>
      </folderMonitor>
    </folderMonitors>
</folderMonitorConfig>

</configuration>

Tip: If you do end up GAC’ing the assembly your configuration classes are under, don’t forget to update the type in the <configSections> to use the new PublicKeyToken value.

Once all that was setup (Birthdays and Christmas sorted out along the way) I was happy with the end result. In my WF I simply used the static accessor to get my configuration collection and bound that to the Repeater Activity in my workflow. Because of the amount of work involved, I think it would of been much better to stick with my usual approach. That is, using a second custom configuration file and deserialise it into my custom collection class. The real test will be what I choose next time I am asked to implement this type of thing…custom config file or custom config section?