.Net

Configuration Section Designer Tool for Visual Studio

Saqib Ullah — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:26:02 GMT

Yesterday we need a customized configuration section in my application and I don’t want write xml schema and C# code for configuration loadingJ. My required configuration pattern for the application
is give below.

</configSections>

<platformProvider xmlns="urn:xxxx.Configuration.Design" name="Azure">

</values>

</settings>

</types>

</modules>

</service>

</services>

</platformProvider>
</configuration>

If we need to load the above configuration in our application we need to writing different classes and verify them all manually. Thank God I found a very useful add-in for Visual Studio 2010 called Configuration Section Designer and it’s free. You only need to installed CSD add-in and open the new project under the option General -> Configuration Section Project.

Fig 1: Design your customized configure using Configuration Section Designer

When your design is finished press save button and it will prompt you to save the file. When it’s done a xxx.dll file will be created in the bin folder. Now open the Solution Explorer Window and then open nested files.

Fig 2: C# and schema files are showing in the Solution Explorer.

So you are ready to test your dll in your sample application. Add Reference in your sample project and start writing code that manipulates your custom section.

xxx.Configuration.Design.PlatformProvider providers = (xxx.Configuration.Design.PlatformProvider)ConfigurationManager.GetSection("platformProvider");

string str = providers.Services.Name;

Console.BackgroundColor = ConsoleColor.Blue;

Console.ForegroundColor = ConsoleColor.White;

Console.WriteLine("Platform Name '{0}'.", providers.Name);

Console.WriteLine("Platform Services Name '{0}'.", providers.Services.Name);

foreach (xxx.Configuration.Design.Service service in providers.Services)

{

Console.WriteLine("Implementated Service Name '{0}'.", service.Name);

foreach (xxx.Design.Value setting in service.Settings.Values)

{

Console.WriteLine("Setting {0}={1}, for implementated Service Name '{2}'.", setting.Name, setting.Data, service.Name);

}

foreach (xxx.Configuration.Design.Type type in service.Modules.Types)

{

Console.WriteLine("Module {0}={1}, for implementated Service Name '{2}'.", type.Name, type.Assembly, service.Name);

}

Fig 3: Configuration access code.

Fig 4: Configuration Output.

Aun this is very nice tool I was wrong.

System.Security.Cryptography.CryptographicException: Keyset does not exist or Access is denied issue.

Saqib Ullah — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 18:56:56 GMT

This issue is related to permission on MachineKeys folder. I think this is right place where you should know what the determination of MachineKeys folder is.

What is MachineKeys Folder?

The MachineKeys folder stores certificate pair keys for both the computer and users. Both Certificate services and Internet Explorer use this folder.

Possible reasons for getting this error message in your application are, may be your application using a certificate or your application trying to access a private key.

There are two ways through which you can solve this error.

First Way (When you don’t know the certificate key)

Open this folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys

Fig 1: MachineKeys Folder is protected and showing lock sign.

Give “Read and Write” and “List Folder Contents” permissions in Security tab to the IIS worker processes impersonated account (IUSER_MachineName or Network Service or any other account) to below folder

Fig 2: Giving Rights to MachineKeys Folder.

Fig 3: MachineKeys folder is granted for IIS worker processes impersonated account and lock sign has gone.

Second Way (When you certificate key)

Open mmc from Start menu. Add certificates snap-In and open the respective certificate store folder and then follow the step.

“Certificate Name” -> (Right-click) -> All Tasks -> Manage private keys

Add the IIS worker processes impersonated account (IUSER_MachineName or Network Service or any other account).

Fig 4: Certificate Manage private keys property.

IIS 6 Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration Compatibility Issue

Saqib Ullah — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:28:23 GMT

Sometime when you open asp.net project in Visual studio 2010 and you get the following error message. Even some time when IIS 7.x already installed and running different applications.

Fig a:

Error Message:

https://localhost/ClaimsEnableWebSiteEx01 : error : Unable to open the Web site 'https://localhost/ClaimsEnableWebSiteEx01'. IIS is not installed on this computer. To access local IIS Web sites, you must install the following IIS components:

Internet Information Services

IIS 6 Metabase and IIS 6 Configuration Compatibility

ASP.NET

In addition, you must run Visual Studio in the context of an administrator account.

For more information, press F1.

Solution:

Open Control Panel-> Programs and Features->Turn Windows features on or off. Under the list of features open Internet Information Services tree and then open Web Management Tools and then select IIS 6 Management Compatibility checkbox. Click OK button and install the selected feature of IIS.

Fig: b

Enjoy guys....

Windows Phone 7 Application Lifecycle Events

Saqib Ullah — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:49:10 GMT

A very nice preliminary blog on Windows Phone 7 application lifecycle.

msmvps.com/blogs/siva/archive/2011/02/24/windows-phone-7-application-lifecycle-events.aspx

How To Set Public Port for Web Role [Windows Azure]

Saqib Ullah — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:29:41 GMT

Many time developer required specific port for development when he/she using Visual Studio for asp.net application development. They specify port by taking Properties of the Web Site and select Web option. Under Server option select Use Visual Studio Development Server and then set port in Specific Port option.

Ok when Windows Azure developer need to set a specific port to the WebRole application they need to take different approach. From Solution Explorer Window select open WebRole Section in my case[AzureTableApp] is and then open Roles folder and take properties of any WebRole in your application in my case [ServiceEndWebRole].

Under Properties select Endpoints option, by default Endpoint1 is selected.

Double click on Public Port and set the specific port in the textbox. Now open Service Definition file from Solution Explorer [ServiceDefinition.csdef].

Here your Service Definition file has been updated with the specific port.

What is Windows Azure development requirements

Saqib Ullah — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:28:24 GMT

I saw lot of geeks confused about the development environment for Windows Azure applications. Lot of discussion on the forums and blogs is going on. Here I want to share a wonderful information about preparing Windows Azure Compute Emulator.

here

Load .Net Assembly without loading it in AppDomain

Saqib Ullah — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:30:47 GMT

We had a Situation when we want to check different binaries files for managed assembly. In our case we had more than 100 files in which 50 of them are .Net assembles and we want to check all of them and load all of .Net assemblies for verification. The very common approach that comes in our mind is AppDomain. But the problem with AppDomain.CurrentDomain is that it not unload the loaded assemble from current AppDomain and keep in mind that we had around 50 .net assembles that we need to check.

Here is come a very handy utility I found in Microsoft.Build.Tasks.dll

public bool FileIsAssembly(string assemblyName)

{

bool _loadAss = false;

AssemblyIdentity identity = null;

try

{

identity = AssemblyIdentity.FromFile(assemblyName);

if (identity != null)

_loadAss = true;

}

catch (Exception ex)

{ }

return _loadAss;

}

Enjoy geeks...

Assemble is not load in Current AppDomain so no need to unload that.

Custom Async File Stream

Saqib Ullah — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:32:23 GMT

After a very long time I am writing this blog about one of the vital topic of the programming industry yes I am talking about Asynchronous programming. Today I gone a show you how to write a pure Async call in C#.

I saw lot of geeks are talking about how the actual asynchronous perform, how automatically callback calls oop it looks a rocket science but if you ask me or senior developers it not. Asynchronous call is simple as simple synchronous function calls.

By default System.Delegate provide us BeginInvoke and EndInvoke function that does actually the same operation for us. Today I am not writing this blog to show you guy how to write and use a delegate I am instead going to talk about how things work. For complete understanding Async operation we need some interfaces and classes that we required for our custom Async File Stream operation.

Interfaces

IAsyncHandler
IAsyncAction (not as such mandatory)

Classess

AsyncFileRead (Main class that read file and return stream)
AsyncFileStream (Implement IAsyncHandler)
AsyncOperation (Operate on AsyncFileRead class)

namespace AsyncApp

{

public interface IAsyncHandler

{

IAsyncResult BeginRequest(AsyncCallback cb,object data);

void EndRequest(IAsyncResult result);

}

Defines methods that must be implemented for custom Async Operation in our case AsyncFileStream is the class that implement IAsyncHandler interface. AsyncFileStream class override BeginRequest and EndRequest function.

namespace AsyncApp

{

public class AsyncFileStream : IAsyncHandler

{

private long _count = 1;

Thread thread;

#region IAsyncHandler Members

public IAsyncResult BeginRequest(AsyncCallback cb, object data)

{

AsyncFileRead fileRead = new AsyncFileRead(cb, data);

AsyncOperation operation = new AsyncOperation(fileRead);

ThreadStart threadAction = new ThreadStart(operation.Process);

thread = new Thread(threadAction);

thread.Name = "Async_File" + _count.ToString();

thread.Start();

_count++;

return fileRead;

}

public void EndRequest(IAsyncResult result)

{

AsyncFileRead read = result as AsyncFileRead;

if (read.Stream != null)

read.Stream.Close();

}

#endregion

}

In BeginRequest function we take two parameters first is AsyncCallback and second is object. Here we create AsyncFileRead object by passing two args. We instantiate AsyncOperation class by passing it AsyncFileRead object and start new Thread from [operation.Process]AsyncOperation object. File open operation has been perform in this Thread.

EndRequest function take IAsyncResult as a parameter. In this function I casting result param into AsyncFileRead [in this case AsyncFileRead is my target class] and close the open stream.

namespace AsyncApp

{

public class AsyncFileRead : IAsyncResult, IAsyncAction

{

private AsyncCallback m_callBack;

private object m_data;

private bool m_isComplete = false;

private object m_lock = new object();

private ManualResetEvent m_complete = null;

private System.IO.Stream m_stream = null;

public System.IO.Stream Stream

{

get { return m_stream; }

set { m_stream = value; }

}

public AsyncFileRead(AsyncCallback callBack, object data)

{

m_callBack = callBack;

m_data = data;

}

#region IAsyncResult Members

public object AsyncState

{

get

{

return m_data;

}

public System.Threading.WaitHandle AsyncWaitHandle

{

get

{

lock (m_lock)

{

if (m_complete == null)

m_complete = new ManualResetEvent(false);

return m_complete;

}

public bool CompletedSynchronously

{

get { return false; }

}

public bool IsCompleted

{

get { return m_isComplete; }

}

#endregion

public void Complete()

{

lock (m_lock)

{

if (m_complete != null)

m_complete.Set();

}

m_isComplete = true;

if (m_callBack != null)

m_callBack(this);

}

#region IMyOperation Members

public System.IO.Stream Run(string filePath)

{

Uri uri = new Uri(filePath);

System.IO.FileStream fstream = null;

if(System.IO.File.Exists(uri.AbsolutePath))

fstream = File.OpenRead(uri.AbsolutePath);

else

throw new FileNotFoundException(uri.AbsolutePath);

return (Stream)fstream;

}

#endregion

}

AsyncFileRead class inherit from IAsyncResult and IAsyncAction interfaces. This class provide core implementation of Asynchronous operation. I am not going in detail of how to implement IAsyncResult interface reither then show the detail of IAsyncAction implementation.

namespace AsyncApp

{

public interface IAsyncAction

{

System.IO.Stream Run(string filePath);

}

Run function take file name as a parameter and open that file if exist other wise FileNotFoundException has throw and if file exist return stream object of the file.

namespace AsyncApp

{

internal class AsyncOperation

{

private AsyncFileRead m_AsyncResult;

public AsyncFileRead AsyncResult

{

get { return m_AsyncResult; }

}

public AsyncOperation(AsyncFileRead obj)

{

m_AsyncResult = obj;

}

public void Process()

{

try

{

string _fileName = m_AsyncResult.AsyncState as string;

m_AsyncResult.Stream = m_AsyncResult.Run(_fileName);

}

finally

{

m_AsyncResult.Complete();

}

Process function of AsyncOperation class actually call the Run(string filePath) function of AsyncFileRead class in a thread.

Main Calling class code of AsyncFileStream

static void Main()

{

AsyncCaller cal = new AsyncCaller();

while (true) { }

}

class AsyncCaller

{

IAsyncHandler read;

public AsyncCaller()

{

read = new AsyncFileStream();

read.BeginRequest(End, @"F:\CentOS_5.2-f001.vmdk");

}

void End(IAsyncResult result)

{

AsyncFileRead res = result as AsyncFileRead;

Console.WriteLine("File Name {0}, File Length {1}", res.AsyncState.ToString(), res.Stream.Length);

read.EndRequest(result);

}

There is a lot of room available for the improvement in this example I am looking for yours feedback.

How to use .Net Netmodule in C++

Saqib Ullah — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:38:53 GMT

In my last blog we saw how to create netmodule any code in .net. Today we well see that how we can use it in an application. So for the implementation of the netmodule in my code I would like to show you a little Managed C++ application that easily consumed it.

// HelloWorld.h

#using <mscorlib.dll>

#using "CSharpHelloWorld.netmodule"

using namespace System;

// This code wraps the C# class using Managed C++

public __gc class HelloWorldC

{

public:

CSharpHelloWorld __gc *t; // Provide .NET interop and garbage collecting to the pointer.

HelloWorldC() {

t = new CSharpHelloWorld(); // Assign the reference a new instance of the constructor.

}

void callCSharpHelloWorld() {

t->displayHelloWorld();

}

};

Note:-

You get the CSharpHelloWorld class code from my last blog post. Where you also find the command how to create netmodule. For successfully run the above code you need to place the CSharpHelloWorld.netmodule and CSharpHelloWorld.dll in the same folder of Managed C++ application output folder because netmodule always required its respective .dll file for running.

Difference between Netmodule and Assembly file

Saqib Ullah — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:56:08 GMT

Hello geeks after a long time, I write some thing that basically tell what the actually difference between .net assembly and Netmodule file. I illustrate this blog by using the following piece of code block.

using System;

public class CSharpHelloWorld

{

public CSharpHelloWorld() {}

///<summary>

///

///</summary>

public void displayHelloWorld()

{

Console.WriteLine("Hello World, from C#!");

}

.Net Assembly File

Basically .Net assembly is a compile library that contains code in CIL (Common Intermediate Language) form, which is generated form actual source code and assembly manifest that is a metadata for assembly. It’s practically possible that assembly consist of more than one files e.g. resource file, .netmodule file.

Figure 1: [CSharpHelloWorld.dll] Contain assembly manifest and metadata

Netmodule File

Netmodule is a unit of compilation. Basically code file is a single module. This is the feature of the specific compiler to compile the source code into assembly or a netmodule. Netmodule only contain type metadata and compiled code (netmodule does not required assembly manifest information). But there is a limitation with netmodule files; it has to be required assembly linking for execution [you can use /addmodule switch of compiler to link the netmodule into assembly].

Figure 2: [CSharpHelloWorld.netmodule] Contain only metadata information.

Note:-

Type the following command on Visual Studio Command prompt to generate netmodule file

csc.exe /t:module HelloWorld.cs

This blog contain only initial level of information. *