Igor Zelmanovich's Blog

Use ASP.NET Resource strings from within javascript files

2011-11-14T21:41:00.001-08:00

It seems to be a common issue.

ASP.NET allows you to use resource files (*.resx) to localize content of pages (or views, if we are in context of ASP.NET MVC). All what you need is to put resource files under ~/App_GlobalResources folder and use either resource expression or HttpContext.GetGlobalResourceObject() API to get a proper string. It is well documented on MSDN. The only issue - this API is not accessible within static resources such JavaScript files.

There are several solution already described by different people: Martin Normark's solution is generating static JavaScript resource files on post-build, Mads Kristensen suggest to localize text in JavaScript files by string replacing, and finally Rick Strahl introduce a localization handler to serve ASP.NET resources to JavaScript.

The last solution looks most elegant for me. Since I am working only with global resources I just simplified his solution and ended up with my own:

    public class JavaScriptResourceHandler : IHttpHandler
    {
 
        public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
        {
            var requestedCulture = new CultureInfo(context.Request.QueryString["locale"]);
            var classKey = context.Request.QueryString["classKey"];
 
            var dictionary = ReadResources(classKey, requestedCulture);
 
            var javaScriptSerializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
            var script =
                @"
if (typeof(Resources) == ""undefined"") Resources = {};
Resources." + classKey + " = " +
                javaScriptSerializer.Serialize(dictionary) + ";";
            
            context.Response.ContentType = "application/javascript";
 
            context.Response.Expires = 43200; // 30 days
            context.Response.Cache.SetLastModified(DateTime.UtcNow);
 
            context.Response.Write(script);
        }
 
        public bool IsReusable
        {
            get
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
 
        private static Dictionary<object ,object> ReadResources(string classKey,
                                                           CultureInfo requestedCulture )
        {
            var resourceManager = new ResourceManager("Resources." + classKey,
                                                Assembly.Load("App_GlobalResources"));
            using (var resourceSet = 
                resourceManager.GetResourceSet(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture, true, true))
            {
 
                return resourceSet
                    .Cast<DictionaryEntry>()
                    .ToDictionary(x => x.Key,
                         x => resourceManager.GetObject((string)x.Key, requestedCulture));
            }
 
        }
    }

The demo project running this code might be found at Googe Code: http://code.google.com/p/izlabs/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2FJavaScriptResourceHandler

Write custom ASP.NET HTTP Handler using JavaScript

2011-08-01T02:11:00.000-07:00

JavaScript is extremely popular language and already has implementations for server-side programming. For example Node.js - a server-side JavaScript environment that utilizes Goggle's V8 JavaScript Engine.

I am an ASP.NET developer and want to use JavaScript in the ASP.NET environment. I found Javascript .NET project, that bring Google's V8 to the .NET world and I started with a simple task - to write a custom ASP.NET HTTP Handler using JavaScript. (I had done similar task with IronPython before)

Setup requirements

1. I want *.js file to be processed on server (like *.aspx or *.ashx)
2. I want to access server side objects (such HttpContext, HttpRequest and HttpResponse) from javascript code.

Implementation

First of all, download Javascript .NET and add the reference to Noesis.Javascript.dll. It embeds Google's V8 and contains an API required to run JavaScript code

Setup custom HTTP Handler in web.config. It will handle any request of *.js file under App folder. I configure it this way to allow other javascript files (not under App folder) to be processed as static content for being used in browser.

Next step - create App folder and HelloWorld.js file:

Write the single line code:

At this moment I expect this code run on server and produce simple 'Hello World!' html.
But to make it works I have to implement JavaScriptHttpHandlerFactory - the core of all this.

JavaScriptHttpHandlerFactory

Implementation is listed below:

using System.IO;
using System.Web;
using Noesis.Javascript;

namespace Web
{
    public class JavaScriptHttpHandlerFactory : IHttpHandlerFactory
    {
        public IHttpHandler GetHandler(HttpContext context, 
                   string requestType, string url, string pathTranslated)
        {
            return new JavaScriptHttpHandler(pathTranslated);
        }

        public void ReleaseHandler(IHttpHandler handler)
        {
        }
    }

    public class JavaScriptHttpHandler : IHttpHandler
    {
        private readonly string pathTranslated;

        public JavaScriptHttpHandler(string pathTranslated)
        {
            this.pathTranslated = pathTranslated;
        }

        public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
        {
            var scriptCode = File.ReadAllText(pathTranslated);

            using (var jsContext = new JavascriptContext())
            {
                jsContext.SetParameter("context", context);
                jsContext.SetParameter("request", context.Request);
                jsContext.SetParameter("response", context.Response);

                try
                {
                    jsContext.Run(scriptCode);
                }
                catch (JavascriptException ex)
                {
                    throw new HttpParseException(ex.Message, ex, 
                      pathTranslated, scriptCode, ex.Line);
                }
            }
        }

        public bool IsReusable
        {
            get { return false; }
        }
    }
}

As you may see, implementation of JavaScriptHttpHandlerFactory is pretty simple. Read the js file, create JavascriptContext, setup context parameters and finally execute.

Now when you run HelloWorld.js you get "Hello World!" in browser:

Error handling

But all of this worth nothing if we are not able to debug javascript easily.
Javascript.NET allows us to handle javascript errors and even points to source code line where error was occurred.

I used this feature to expose a javascript error in convenient format of "yellow screen of death":

Conclusion

Integration of JavaScript into ASP.NET environment is possible and not so hard

BTW, Javascript.NET is not only technology allows it. There is IronJS wich runs javascript over DLR. May be in one next posts will play with it.

Week picker using jQuery UI Datepicker

2011-07-18T23:46:00.000-07:00

There is my implementation of Week picker using jQuery UI Datepicker (requers jQuery UI 1.8+).

Html and Javascript are shared on JsFiddle http://jsfiddle.net/manishma/AVZJh/

ASP.NET Web Pages and FormAuthentication.LoginUrl configuration

2011-07-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

Recently I had integrated ASP.NET Web Pages into existing ASP.NET Web Forms site.
It was classic Web Forms project uses most of ASP.NET Web Forms features.

And of course it uses the built-in FormAuthentication. See Web.config:

Any time you access 'secure' url, you get redirected to Login.aspx with ReturnUrl parameter. This worked fine for years.

There was a reason to integrate ASP.NET Web Pages into this working project. Integration itself was not painful. First of all I upgraded the project to ASP.NET 4 and then added following setting to enable Web Pages.

My old aspx pages and new cshtml worked fine, but it broke user authentication flow in strange way. All unauthenticated requests was redirected to /Account/Login instead of Login.aspx.
I was shocked!!!. Where this /Account/Login came from?!?!

Starting debugging I found that FormAuthentication.LoginUrl returns ~/Account/Login despite configuration in Web.config. Seems someone overrides web.config settings, but why?

The answer came from Reflector (this tool always helps).
When I enabled ASP.NET Web Pages in the project, it forced WebMatrix.WebData.dll being loaded, which in its turn called FormsAuthentication.EnableFormsAuthentication overriding existing FormAuthentication settings.

Web Pages looks for loginUrl app setting and use a default ~/Account/Login if no such setting found. I added following setting and it solved my problem:

I think this is a bug in ASP.NET Web Pages. Configuring loginUrl with appSettings is not clear when you already have form authentication being configured in the same Web.config.

ELMAH - Logging errors in ASP.NET

2011-07-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

Catching and logging unhandled exceptions is one of the first tasks in developing an ASP.NET application.

Typically you put code which handles exceptions into Global.asax:

The are many ways to report an error: you may write it into a database, send an email or store it in memory. I got tired of copying such code from one app to another and finally found a component that allows me to handle errors in a code-less way. It is ELMAH

ELMAH provides an HttpModule which does exactly the same work that I previously used to do.
All I need is to configure its behavior in Web.config.

Installing ELMAH

The easiest way to install ELMAH is using NuGet.
I am not familiar with the command line and always prefer a graphic UI, so I used its this one:

Search for ELMAH package:

Select ELMAH, click 'Install' - that's it.

ELMAH in action

Any time you have an unhandled exception you see the "yellow screen of death":

At the same time the ELMAH module has captured this exception along with all related data and gives you simple web access to the recent errors logged (by default at /elmah.axd)

Configuration

By default ELMAH stores logs in memory, but it supports XML and database storages.
Go back to the NuGet package manager and select one of these additional packages: 'ELMA on XML Log', 'ELMA on MS Sql Server Compact', 'ELMAH on MongoDB', etc.

The selected storage appears in sections in Web.config:

I assume that it is possible to implement a custom logger by deriving the Elmah.ErrorLog class

Log an expected exception

ELMAH allows to log any exception from your code.

For example if you have a code flow which might throw an exception and you gracefully handle it (e.g. with a try/catch block). Such a swallowed exception will not be propagated and logged by the ELMAH module. For such a case ELMAH provides the ErrorSignal API:

More features

ELMAH has a lot more features, which are not part of this short overview. You can:

Filter unwanted exceptions, programmatically and via configuration.
Get a digest RSS feed that lists errors by day and up to last 15 days.
Send error notifications as tweets to Twitter.
Send an e-mail notification of each error at the time it occurs.
and more...

Mono's Gendarme

2011-03-10T03:46:00.000-08:00

Gendarme is a extensible rule-based tool to find problems in .NET applications and libraries. Gendarme inspects programs and libraries that contain code in ECMA CIL format (Mono and .NET) and looks for common problems with the code, problems that compiler do not typically check or have not historically checked.

I ran this tool against my IZWebFileManager. The result was 1213 potential defects using 254 rules!:

Seems I have a lot of work here.

DateTime formatting in C#

2011-02-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

I use a custom format to show DateTime to user: "dd/MM/yyyy".

var nowString = now.ToString("dd/MM/yyyy");

The reason, I use the custom formatting, is to be not depended on user regional settings.

So, no matter what user's locale is, I expect the same format for a date.

But today I found that it does not work as I expect. On one of the target machines I got "28.02.2011" instead of expected "28/02/2011".

Why slash (/) is replaced by dot (.)? Is format string not enough explicit?

I got the answer on MSDN (RTFM!): The slash (/) is not a literal, but a pattern for the default date separator defined in DateTimeFormatInfo.DateSeparator. It has to be escaped (leading with back slash (\)), for being reproduced literally.

I fix my format string to be @"dd\/MM\/yyyy"

var nowString = now.ToString(@"dd\/MM\/yyyy");

Now it works!

Profiling NHibernate 3 application with NHProf

2011-02-27T01:30:00.000-08:00

NHProf is a great too for profiling a NHibernate application. It is powerful and easy to use.

I used it for a long time, but recently I ran into troubles when I tried to capture DB queries in my newly started web application using NHibernate 3.0.

As many times before I downloaded latest NHibernate release, created a new web application, added a references to NHibernate.dll and all dependencies, added a reference to HibernatingRhinos.Profiler.Appender.dll and put a code, initializing NHProf - HibernatingRhinos.Profiler.Appender.NHibernate.NHibernateProfiler.Initialize(); in Application_Start.

After all that I expected NHPfrof be working smoothly, but all what I got was NHPfor window with no record, but indicating my application is being profiled:

It was strange!

Since it was my first application using NHibernate 3, I though it is a compatibility issue of NHibernate. But then I took one of my previous applications, upgraded it to use NHibernate 3.0 - and this one was profiled perfect.

I started to look at differences between two applications. Both looked similar, except one detail - all my previous application have reference to log4net.dll.

Of course! NHProf use logging interceptions to capture NHibernate logs. It relies on log4net is exists in my application. After I added a reference to log4net.dll (and ensured it's copied to the 'bin' directory), it worked fine.

The problem had been solved, but I still was interesting, why I did not get such a problem with my previous projects. The answer was found with reflector (amazing tool, BTW).

I figured out that NHibernate 3.0 download does not contain log4net.dll, and NHibernate.dll does not reference to log4net.dll either:

It allowed me to run my application with no log4net.

If I used NHibernate 2.x with no log4net.dll , I would get an exception at runtime. That why all my previous application have explicit reference to log4net, and I never got a troubled with NHProf.

Conclusion: Don't forget to add log4net to your project, if you using NHibernate 3!

Microsoft's free tool for PHP development

2011-02-17T03:54:00.000-08:00

It sounds ironical, but Microsoft really provides a great tool for web development supporting PHP.

Welcome WebMatrix!

At first look it is yet another tool to support the native Microsoft .NET technology. In fact I don't remember that Microsoft ever supported non their stuff.

But the world is changing and now WebMatrix is not only tool for .NET developing. With WebMatrix you can write a pure PHP web application! It is amazing! Isn't it?

In this post will show you how to start a new PHP web application with WebMatrix.

When you first time run WebMatrix you get a splash screen with four option of starting using WebMatrix.

As new WebMatrix user I start with "Site from template" which takes me to selection of template.

There you may chose any template from the list, but for keeping this simple I select "Empty Site".

By clicking "OK" button WebMatrix create the site and now it is a time to take a look at the site settings.

In the settings you will find "Enable PHP" checkbox. That's the thing!
It not only enables PHP, it lets you select which PHP version you want to use!

After configuring PHP there is a time to start codding.
Switch to to "Files" view and "New" button on the toolbar. It prompts you to select a file type (which is actually file template). In the list of file types pick "PHP" and name it "index.pxp"

The new file is opened in the file editor. Lets start coding. I replace existing content with 'classic' phpinfo();. As you may see, they have PHP syntax highlighting there!

Lets run!

Switch back to "Site" view. There you may find a URL of web server (IIS 7 express) which hosts this site. Just click the link.

That's the story! Microsoft has a free tool for PHP!

What do you say?

ASP.NET MVC 3 Extensionless URLs on IIS 7 classic mode

2011-02-16T20:48:00.000-08:00

Prior ASP.NET 4.0, the only way to handle extensionless URLs was setting runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests=”true” (IIS 7 integrated mode) or mapping a wildcard (IIS 6 and IIS 7 in classic mode). That impacts the performance of static requests (HTML, JPG, GIF, CSS, JS, etc), because a all requests are handled by ASP.NET and runs application pipeline with all attached modules.

ASP.NET v4.0 provides a better way to enable extensionless URLs routing.
There is a new feature that allows extensionless URLs to be directed into managed code, without a wildcard mapping or setting runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests=”true”.
Because of this feature all static resources requests are not longer handled by ASP.NET, and consequentially, they are no longer suffered by performance impact.

It works by default on IIS 6. You may read more about this feature on IIS 6 here .

But IIS 7 surprises a lot! It does not support this feature by default, and I spend an hours to find solution.

The solution is called IIS 7 QFE and steps to download it can be found at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/980368.

I don't know why they did not supply this with .NET 4 installation, they know it better.

Configuring IronPython CGI on IIS 7

2010-11-22T08:03:00.000-08:00

This guide walks you through configuring IronPython CGI on IIS 7.

Install IronPython

First you need to download and install IronPython at http://ironpython.codeplex.com/.
This post uses IronPython 2.7 Beta 1. By default, installer put the files in C:\Program Files (x86)\IronPython 2.7. The installation path might be changed during installation process.

Install CGI support in IIS

By default CGI support is not installed. To turn it on, open Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on and off dialog.

Select Internet Information Services > World Wide Web Services > Application Development Features > CGI module and click OK

Configure Handle Mapping

Open Control Pane > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager

In the Features View, open Handler Mappings, right click to Add Script Map ...

In Request path, put "*.py" as the script files extension, In Executable select "C:\Program Files (x86)\IronPython 2.7\ipy.exe" %s%s - the IronPython installation path and it's parameters.

I actually don't know what such "%s%s" parameters mean, but believe me, you need to keep it as is. It doesn't work without.

Click OK, then you will be prompt to allow this CGI extension - click OK.

Run Python script

Write a simple Python script and place it in the root folder of the web site.

Point your browser to the test script and it should be working.

Write custom ASP.NET HTTP Handler with IronPython

2010-11-21T00:20:00.001-08:00

An HTTP handler is the endpoint that responds to handle request made by an ASP.NET Web application. The request is mapped to HTTP handler based on name pattern (commonly file extension). ASP.NET provides a few default HTTP handlers: Page handler (.aspx), Web Service handler (.asmx), Generic handler (.ashx) and so forth.

ASHX Generic handler is special since it allows to implement IHttpHandler API immediately.
There is a sample - HelloWorld.ashx:

Language attribute allows me to chose program language to use, but it strongly limited by only two - C# and VB. What if I want to write my code in Python?

.NET actually provides support for Python language with IronPython. And I assume that it is possible to write such a handle using IronPython. But How?

.ashx is mapped to System.Web.UI.SimpleHandlerFactory. When .ashx file is requested, this handler parses .ashx file into .NET class and compiles it using either C# or VB compiler (accordingly to language attribute). Using another language requires to setup suitable compiler for this language, handle parsing and so on. I am not sure I want to work so hard for that.

So I chose an alternative way. I will create my own handler, which will process a python code.

At first I chose a file extension to be mapped - .pyhx.
I want .pyhx be pure python code but looks similar to .ashx. Each file will define a class implements IHttpHandler. The name of the class have to be the same as the file name.
There is a sample - HelloWorld.pyhx:

The next step is implementing IHttpHandlerFactory, to which .pyhx will be mapped.
Such factory creates instances of IHttpHandler defined in .pyhx (pure Python code). It works similar to SimpleHandlerFactory, but instead of parsing and compiling the file, it executes the python code using advantage of DLR hosting API.

There is C# implementation:

The only thing is left is to declare .pyhx mapping in Web.config:

That's it! You can write your custom HTTP handler in Python as well as in C# and VB!

The sample project may be found on GitHub: https://github.com/manishma/IronPythonAspNetSamples

Write ASP.NET MVC using IronPython - Resources

2010-11-19T01:02:00.000-08:00

I started research of using IronPython on ASP.NET MVC.

There are resources I found helpful:

Official Site: http://ironpython.net/ (download links are not up to date)
Downloads: http://ironpython.codeplex.com/

ASP.NET Dynamic Language Support: http://aspnet.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Dynamic%20Language%20Support&referringTitle=Home&ProjectName=aspnet
IronPython integration with ASP.NET, No support for ASP.NET MVC (at least for now, seems they did support ASP.NET MVC in the past)

The New Dynamic Language Extensibility Model for ASP.NET: http://www.asp.net/dynamiclanguages/whitepaper

Write ASP.NET MVC application in Ruby: https://github.com/jschementi/ironrubymvc (not Python, but similar to my target)

Using IronPython in ASP.NET MVC: http://www.codevoyeur.com/Articles/Tags/ironpython.aspx
A Simple IronPython ControllerFactory for ASP.NET MVC
A Simple IronPython ActionFilter for ASP.NET MVC
A Simple IronPython Route Mapper for ASP.NET MVC
An Unobtrusive IronPython ViewEngine for ASP.NET MVC

The last links seem to be worthiest

The next step is starting simple ASP.NET MVC application with IronPython.

IZWebFileManager 2.6.2 release is out

2010-10-22T04:38:00.000-07:00

Hi there!

I released IZWebFileManager 2.6.2 which has two new features:

1. Now is goes with French translation - thanks a lot to Cédric Mousset who did it.

2. New property EnableContextMenu. I was asked about this at forum: http://www.izwebfilemanager.com/forums/thread/591.aspx
You may disable context menu in the file list by setting this property false (it is true by default)
Disabling the context menu will not automatically prevent an actions (such delete file or create new folder). It affects UI only. If you need to disable/cancel an action you have to handle proper event (for example SelectedItemsAction of NewFolderCreating) and cancel the action by setting Cancel=true of event argument.

The release is available for download from Google Code
https://code.google.com/p/izwebfilemanager/

IZWebFileManager 2.6.1 release is out

2010-08-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to announce that IZWebFileManager 2.6.1 has been released.

The main feature of this release is support of applications running in "Medium Trust" environment.

I added following <trust level="Medium"></trust> directive in Demo's web.config to enforce security restrictions when you run it.

The release is available for download from Google Code
https://code.google.com/p/izwebfilemanager/

Running ASP+MySql on 64-bit Windows 7

2010-08-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

I have a legacy ASP 3.0 application working with MySql 4 database via MySql ODBC 3.51 connector.
Currently it runs on Windows 2003 server (32-bit, IIS 6.0). Everything works fine.

Recently I was asked to make some changes in the application and I had to setup developing environment. Last time I did such setup it was 32-bit Windows XP and I had no problem. But time went by and today I am working with 64-bit Windows 7.

I started as usual by installing MySql ODBC 3.51 connector. Install ran smoothly and my next step was to configure proper data source in "ODBC Data Source Administrator" dialog box (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Data Sources (ODBC)). But to my surprise opened dialog did not list MySql ODBC driver, so I was not able to configure it. Reinstalling the driver did not bring success. What's wrong I did?!?!

After searching internet (thanks Google) I found solution: "To manage a data source that connects to a 32-bit driver under 64-bit platform, use c:\windows\sysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. To manage a data source that connects to a 64-bit driver, use c:\windows\system32\odbcad32.exe." Can you imagine that?

I ran c:\windows\sysWOW64\odbcad32.exe and got the same "ODBC Data Source Administrator" dialog box but now with ability to configure my data source.

Next step was to set up IIS 7.0 to run ASP 3.0 application. It was relatively easy so I will omit the details.

At this step I was pretty sure that my application will run properly, but the first request returns error: "The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application". The same question - What's wrong I did?!?!

Searching again (What would we do without Google?) . Luckily I am not only one who has such a problem. The solution is to configure web application to run in a 32-bit application pool. There is no direct way to run a 32-bit in-process components from a 64-bit application pool.

Now I got my application runs!

IZWebFileManager 2.6 release is out

2010-07-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

Welcome the new generation of IZWebFileManager - v2.6

What's new?

1. Multiple files upload.
File upload bar allows you to select more then one file to upload at once.

I added two new resource keys to support localization:

Upload_Another_File - default value "Upload Another File", text of the link bellow the browse file box.

Upload_File_Remove - default value "Remove", text of the link near to each of browse file boxes.

To enable localization of this texts just add a proper resources to WebFileManagerResource.XXX.resx suitable you locale.

2. Upgraded to VS 2010/.NET 3.5.
Since this release using of IZWebFileManager requires .NET 3.5 or higher.

The release is available for download from Google Code
https://code.google.com/p/izwebfilemanager/

What's next?

In current implementation I use reflection to access some not public API. That causes application fail when run in Medium trust environment. (http://www.izwebfilemanager.com/forums/thread/543.aspx)

So, in the next release I will solve this problem.

Thanks for support!

HtmlTextWriter fluent interface

2010-07-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

When working on new features in IZWebFileManager I needed to change rendered HTML.

I took a look at the code I wrote more then 3 years ago.... It is so complicated!

IZWebFileManager is a typical custom control that overrides Render and uses HtmlTextWriter's API to produce HTML. Here is a small part of the rendering flow:

It took me a while to figure out what is HTML is rendered here.
The fact is, that HtmlTextWriter's API is not intuitive and requires a lot of effort to produce relatively simple HTML. Is there a alternative way to render output?

WhenLINQ has been released all the .NET world has met fluent APIs, and I was wandering if there is such an API for rendering ASP.NET controls.

I found this one: http://csharpfeeds.com/post/9989/HtmlTextWriter_fluent_interface.aspx

I've just added it to my project (made it internal to prevent collisions), changed it a bit and rewrote the code above:

Now it is much easier to change the rendered HTML, because this code flow is much closer to the HTML markup flow, than when it was written using the "classic" HtmlTextWriter API.

IZWebFileManager 2.5.4 release is out

2010-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

I am very happy to announce that IZWebFileManager 2.5.4 has been released.

From now (and forever) it supports Chrome, Safari and Opera browsers.
You are welcome to try it using online demo:
http://www.izwebfilemanager.com/demo/default.aspx

The release is available for download from Google Code
https://code.google.com/p/izwebfilemanager/

Cheers!

Build .NET Project with NAnt

2010-06-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Since NAnt comes with NAnt 0.90 release I was interested to use it with my project IZWebFileManage.

At first look it is powerful tool allows me easy to build project, run tests and package release.

The first task was"build" of course.

For such purpose NAnt offers <csc> task, but using this task I have to declare output type, list of source files, resources etc. It is quite good if you are using Notepad or any other (not Visual Studio) IDE, but I (and I believe most of .NET developers) use Visual Studio and have *.csproj file.

Is there a way to build VS project with NAnt? Yes, you may find it in NAntContrib. It provides <msbuild> task. But problem is that NAntContrib is quite out of date. The last release is on 2006/10/15 and I am not sure it supports NAnt 0.90 and VS 2008

Is there alternative way to build *.csproj? Yes - msbuild command line!
NAnt has <exec> task which run any command line you want.

There is my Default.build file:


<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<project name="IZWebFileManager" default="build" 
        xmlns="http://nant.sf.net/schemas/nant.xsd">

 <property name="project.config" value="Debug" />

 <target name="clean">
     <exec program="${framework::get-framework-directory(framework::get-target-framework())}\msbuild.exe"
               commandline='/t:Clean /p:Configuration=${project.config} /p:Platform="AnyCPU" /v:n'
                 workingdir="." />
 </target>
 
 <target name="version">
 </target>

 <target name="build" depends="clean, version">
     <exec program="${framework::get-framework-directory(framework::get-target-framework())}\msbuild.exe"
               commandline='/t:Build /p:Configuration=${project.config} /p:Platform="AnyCPU" /v:n'
                 workingdir="." />
 </target>

</project>

I place Default.build file near to *.csproj file and msbuild find it by default, so there is no need to mention name of project file explicitly.

Run build using command line:

>nant build

P.S. After a while I figured out <solution> task. Looks like that is what I need to run msbuild with NAnt. I will discover it...

ASP.NET MVC 2 Client side validation using jQuery validation plug-in

2010-05-17T06:07:00.001-07:00

ASP.NET MVC 2 has validation architecture that support both server-side and client-side validation. ScottGu describes in details how to get validation works in his post ASP.NET MVC 2: Model Validation.

The best feature in client-side architecture is that you may use alternative java scripts validation libraries like jQuery validation.

There are a steps to get client-side validation works using jQuery validation plug-in:

Download and add to your ASP.NET MVC project following java scripts:
- jquery-1.4.2.js
- jquery.validate.js
- MicrosoftMvcJQueryValidation.js (ASP.NET MVC 2 Futures download)
I assume you put all scripts into /Scripts folder of your MVC application
Enable client side validation
- add three JavaScript references to your view
- write one line of code in the view before form

That's it! Now you have Client-side validation using jQuery validation plug-in!

S#arp Arcitecture 1.5 - running T4 teplate error

2010-04-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

I decided to build some project using S#arp Architecture. I am using VS 2010.

I went through all installation steps and created my first project S#arp Architecture Application.

My next step was running scaffolding generator. And then I got the troubles.

Any time I run custom tool, I get two error messages:

Compiling transformation: Metadata file 'Inflector.Net.dll' could not be found
Compiling transformation: Metadata file 'SharpArch.Core.dll' could not be found

I checked the references - they was set correctly. I was stuck but I didn't want to surrender, and after hours of googling and voodoo I got the solution.

The problem is solved by specifying the absolute path to the referenced assembly in template file (@assembly directive)

I found two files where Inflector.Net.dll and SharpArch.Core.dll are referenced:

[solution folder]\tools\CrudScaffolding\EntityScaffoldingDetails.tt
[solution folder]\tools\CrudScaffolding\Templates\BaseTemplate.tt

and replaced following rows

<#@ assembly name="SharpArch.Core.dll" #>

with

<#@ assembly name="[solution folder]\lib\SharpArch.Core.dll" #>

and

<#@ assembly name="Inflector.Net.dll" #>

with

<#@ assembly name="[solution folder]\lib\Inflector.Net.dll" #>

No error anymore!

IZWebFileManager 2.5.3 has been released

2010-03-13T11:07:00.000-08:00

IZWebFileManager 2.5.3 has been released

It includes:
* Thumbnail view fix (http://www.izwebfilemanager.com/forums/thread/445.aspx)
* New Netherlands/Dutch translation (by Marcel van den Arend)

The release is available for download from Google Code
https://code.google.com/p/izwebfilemanager/

Cheers!

Query the database with NHibernate 3.0

2010-02-10T08:50:00.000-08:00

Introduction

NHibernate gives you many alternative APIs for querying database. There is HQL, which is similar to SQL, Linq to NHibernate and finally ICriteria.
And once you start to use NHibernate in your project, you have to decide which API to use. Since NH 3.0 you have one more option. It is QueryOver API.

In this post I want to compare a usage of different APIs for a simple query.

For this sample I created a console application with embedded database. Full source code is available at google code.
In my sample I have a database with one table Emploee (Id, Name, Age, Salary) and I want to calculate average salary of employees who's between 25 to 30 years old.

Lets start!

HQL

Since I was not familiar with NH (but had an experience with SQL), I found HQL is easiest way to get started with.
There is query:


var salary = session.CreateQuery(
@"
select
    avg(employee.Salary)
from
    Employee employee
where
    employee.Age >= 25 and employee.Age <=30
"
).UniqueResult<double>();

Looks good, readable but not strongly typed.

Go next one.

ICriteria

The ICriteria API is NHibernate's implementation of Query Object.


var salary = session.CreateCriteria(typeof(Employee))
                    .Add(Restrictions.Between("Age", 25, 30))
                    .SetProjection(Projections.Avg("Salary"))
                    .UniqueResult<double>();

Much better, but still has some "magic strings". I am looking for strongly typed code where refactoring tools like 'Find All References', and 'Refactor->Rename' will work perfectly.

Linq

NHibernate 3.0 has a built-in Linq provider.


var query = from employee in session.Query<Employee>()
            where employee.Age >= 25 && employee.Age <= 30
            select employee.Salary;

var salary = query.Average();

Pretty good! Strongly typed, readable. But it uses the fact that Enumerable has Average in this case. Would we need a more complicated projection, it would be not available in LINQ. Also, LINQ syntax is still confusing for some people. It just looks different than surrounding C# code.

Keeping looking for a perfect.

QueryOver

QueryOver combines the use of Extension Methods and Lambda Expressions to provide a statically typesafe wrapper round the ICriteria API.


var salary = session.QueryOver<Employee>()
                    .WhereRestrictionOn(e => e.Age).IsBetween(25).And(30)
                    .Select(e1 => e1.SelectAvg(e2 => e2.Salary))
                    .List<double>()
                    .Single();

Perfect!

In my opinion this one is the best.

IZWebFileManager 2.5.2 has been released

2010-01-05T11:59:00.000-08:00

IZWebFileManager 2.5.2 has been released

It includes:
* FileDownload event
* New Swedish translation (by Peter Strömblad)
* IE8 compatibility fixes

The release is available for download from Google Code
https://code.google.com/p/izwebfilemanager/

Cheers!

Mapping URLs using ASP.NET 2.0 Web Forms

2009-11-30T04:16:00.000-08:00

ASP.NET 4.0 is coming with new feature - URL routing with ASP.NET Web Forms

It is pretty cool feature, but require upgrade up to .NET 4.0.
I am not sure that such a good feature is a real reason to get upgraded, and in most cases you will stay with current version on .NET.

But I want it and I want it now, with .NET 3.5. I am going to implement it!

Requirements

I want an API as close as possible to .NET 4.0 version:

RouteCollection.MapPageRoute() helper method in ASP.NET 4.0 to map the "/products/Category_1" URL to a "Products.aspx" page that lives immediately under the application root directory:


void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   // Code that runs on application startup

   RegisterRoutes(System.Web.Routing.RouteTable.Routes);

}

void RegisterRoutes(System.Web.Routing.RouteCollection routes)
{

   routes.MapPageRoute(
       "product-browse",
       "products/{category}",
       "~/Products.aspx");

}

Page.GetRouteData() method to retrieve the "category" parameter value mapped using the /products/{category} URL filter.


protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   Label1.Text = (string)this.GetRouteData().Values["category"];
}

Page.GetRouteUrl() helper method to lookup the route within the URL routing system, optionally specify parameters to it, and then retrieve an actual URL that it maps back to. For example, the below code would retrieve a URL value of “/products/Category_1”:


protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
   HyperLink1.NavigateUrl =
       this.GetRouteUrl("product-browse", new { category = "Category_1" });
}

Implementation

For getting it works I need to implement a IRouteHandler, which will handle all routes I set using MapPageRoute() method:


public class PageRouteHandler : IRouteHandler, IHttpHandler
{
   private readonly string _virtualPath;
   public static object RouteData = new object();

   public PageRouteHandler(string virtualPath)
   {
      _virtualPath = virtualPath;
   }

   #region IRouteHandler Members

   public IHttpHandler GetHttpHandler(RequestContext requestContext)
   {
      HttpContext.Current.Items[RouteData] = requestContext.RouteData;
      return this;
   }

   #endregion

   #region IHttpHandler Members

   public bool IsReusable
   {
      get { return false; }
   }

   public void ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)
   {
      context.Server.Transfer(_virtualPath, true);
   }

   #endregion
}

It saves current route data into HttpContext and returns itself as IHttpHandler. Implementation of IHttpHandler might be done in different ways, but I prefer Server.Transfer().

Next step is implementing of extension methods. Here they are:


public static void MapPageRoute(this RouteCollection routes,
   string name, string url, string target)
{
    routes.Add(name, new Route(url, new PageRouteHandler(target)));
}

public static RouteData GetRouteData(this Page page)
{
    return (HttpContext.Current.Items[PageRouteHandler.RouteData] as RouteData)
       ?? new RouteData();
}

public static string GetRouteUrl(this Page page, string name, object values)
{
    return GetRouteUrl(page, name, new RouteValueDictionary(values));
}

public static string GetRouteUrl(this Page page, string name,
   RouteValueDictionary values)
{
    return RouteTable.Routes.GetVirtualPath(null, name, values).VirtualPath;
}

Summary

Such Web Forms routing makes it easy to implement clean, SEO friendly, URLs.
It can by used with ASP.NET MVC as well, you can have applications that mix the two.
And it does not require upgrade up to .NET 4.0.

Resources

The source code of sample web side I used here might be found at http://code.google.com/p/izlabs/source/browse/#svn/trunk/UrlPageRouting

ASP.NET MVC Model Binding and Model's fields

2009-11-24T04:54:00.000-08:00

A Model Binding in MVC provides a simple way to map posted form values to a .NET Framework type and pass the type to an action method as a parameter.

Everything works fine while a model has public properties like this:

public Person
{
    public string Id {get;set;}
    public string Name {get;set;}
    ...
}

But if you try to use public fields instead of properties like this:

public Person
{
    public string Id;
    public string Name;
    ...
}

you will be surprised to get the model passed to controller's action with no assigned fields.

It happens because ASP.NET MVC use DefaultModelBinder by default which deals with properties but not with fields when map posted form values.

Of course you can use properties instead of fields wherever you need model bindings. But it is an annoying limitation.

ASP.NET MVC allows us to override both the default model binder, as well as add custom model binders, through the ModelBinders static class:


ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder = new SomeCustomDefaultBinder();
ModelBinders.Binders.Add(typeof(Person), new PersonModelBinder());

There are more blog entries about ASP.NET MVC Model Binding
6 Tips for ASP.NET MVC Model Binding
A better Model Binder