DbFunctions class of Entity Framework.

Playing with date time in both dotnet and sql server (t-sql) is always challenging and painful for me. Sometimes I forget that, entity framework cannot translate expressions into sql if I convert type using Convert class. like, Convert.ToDateTime(). If I do so then entity framework throws error like:
     "The specified type member 'Date' is not supported in LINQ to Entities. Only initializers, entity members, and entity navigation properties are supported. "

To rescue from  this, Microsoft introduces DbFunctions class from EF6 version. Prior of EF6 it was EntityFunctions. There are lot of built-in functions related to datetime type has been implemented there. Check them out.

Right Way for Editing EDMX File of Entity Framework (EF)

As an object relation mapper, Entity Framework enables user(in this case, developer) to work with relational data in object oriented manner. It helps user to do operations like insert, update, delete, search - in database without writing sql like string and getting help of intelligence of code editor like visual studio.

Updating Entity Framework from database could be hassle if user do not know where to do what. As for example, to update a stored procedure follow the following steps -

1. Open edmx file.
2. Right click and select Model Browser

Delete stored procedure
3. from Complex Type (if any)
4. from Function Imports
5. from Stored Procedure / Functions

Then save, then update from database.


If the Stored Procedure is complex type, that means, it is returning some rows (like table) then follow these steps - 

1. Write these two lines at the beginning - 
    SET NOCOUNT ON
    SET FMTONLY OFF

2. Use temporary table to store data and finally return that table.
    IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..##PGM_MonthlySalaryStatement') IS NOT NULL
    BEGIN
        DROP TABLE ##PGM_MonthlySalaryStatement
    END

..........
..........
     INSERT INTO ##PGM_MonthlySalaryStatement
..........
..........

    SELECT * FROM ##PGM_MonthlySalaryStatement


Thats it. 

Happy coding

Channel 9 usefull tutorials

Some channel 9 good tutorials:-

Creating Virtual and Augmented Reality Applications on Windows Platform

Developer Productivity: What's New in C# 6

Twenty C# Questions Explained

Security Fundamentals


Game Development:-

Construct 2 Advanced Game Development

Developing Advanced 2D Games with HTML5

Game Production Basics

Developing 2D Games with HTML5

SQL Server DB:-

Database Fundamentals

Open Source Database on Microsoft Azure

Developing Microsoft SQL Server Databases

Designing Solutions for SQL Server

Mission Critical Performance with SQL Server 2014

Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases


ASP.NET:-

Application Performance Monitoring

What's New with ASP.NET 5

Customizing ASP.NET Authentication with Identity

Web API Design

Cross-Platform Development with Xamarin & Visual Studio

Lighting Up Real-Time Web Communications with SignalR

MVC:-

Introduction to ASP.NET MVC

Implementing Entity Framework with MVC

Developing ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Applications

From Microsoft:-


Documentation Resources for ASP.NET MVC 4

PowerShell:-

Advanced Tools & Scripting with PowerShell 3.0

Advanced PowerShell Techniques

Getting Started with PowerShell 3.0

XAML:-

XAML Deep Dive for Windows & Windows Phone Apps

Designing Your XAML UI with Blend

Developing Universal Windows Apps with C# and XAML

TFS and Git:-

Administering Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012

Using Git with Visual Studio 2013

Software Testing:-

Software Testing Fundamentals

Software Testing with Visual Studio 2012

Test Tools in Visual Studio

JavaScript:-

Introduction to jQuery

JavaScript Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners

HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners

Preparing for Exam 98-375: HTML5 App Development Fundamentals

Miscellaneous:-

The History of Microsoft

The Visual Studio Documentary

Developer Diaries

Imagine Cup: Building Your Student Startup

Microsoft Campus Tours

Do More With Your Microsoft Lumia Phone

A Developer's Guide to Windows 10

Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise Videos

Visual Studio TV

EF error - Type '{your_entity_name}' already defines a member called '.ctor' with the same parameter types

Couple of days ago I have decided to set custom database connection string to my entity framework data model in one of my project. Then I have created a partial class with the same name of my entity and modify connection string name of base parameter. like example below -


public partial class DBPointOfSalesEntities
{
  public DBPointOfSalesEntities()
           : base(my.GetEntityConnectionString)
      {
      }
}

and deleted default constructor from [model].cs file.

But the problem is, whenever I update my model, it generates default constructor with default base parameter value. And occurs error for ambiguous constructor name as I have created above.

Then after googling, I found a nice solution - there is a [model].tt file which is called T4 template. Entity model is generating its automatic code based on this template. There is a specific code snippet which is responsible for generating default constructor after updating model from database each time. following is that code snippet. I have just deleted those lines and my problem fixed.public <#=code.Escape(container)#>()
      : base("name=<#=container.Name#>")
  {
<#
if (!loader.IsLazyLoadingEnabled(container))
{
#>
      this.Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = false;
<#
}
foreach (var entitySet in container.BaseEntitySets.OfType())
{
  // Note: the DbSet members are defined below such that the getter and

  // setter always have the same accessibility as the DbSet definition
  if (Accessibility.ForReadOnlyProperty(entitySet) != "public")
  {
#>
      <#=codeStringGenerator.DbSetInitializer(entitySet)#>
<#
  }
}
#>
   }


Happy coding...

Using "Crystal Report" with "Visual Studio 2010"

First shocking news is Crystal Report tool is not included by default with Visual Studio 2010. To come back from this shock, download crystal report tool from following link

=> http://downloads.businessobjects.com/akdlm/cr4vs2010/CRforVS_13_0.exe
After install don't forget to restart your computer. Because this is WINDOWS. Then after creating your first report if you get the following exception -
Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\Crystal Reports for .NET Framework 4.0\Common\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\win32_x86\dotnet1\crdb_adoplus.dll' or one of its dependencies.

Than open App.Config file. Then find the attribute useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy and change the value to "true"


Happy Coding..........

Dynamic query and Incorrect syntax near 'GO' error.

This is in codeproject... :)

Fun! hah?

ACM problem set 10300 - Ecological Premium

Hello there.

Ecological premium is a very easy problem. Just you have to look at datatype. Consider following test case -

Input:-

1
10
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999
99999 99999 99999

Output:-
99998000010

And following table is showing all fundamental integer types of variables in C:

Keyword	Size	Range	Format Specifier
int	2	-32768 --> +32767	%d
long	4	-2,147,483,648 --> 2,147,438,647	%ld
long long	8	−9223372036854775807 --> +9223372036854775807	%lld
unsigned int	2	0 --> 65535	%u
unsigned long	4	0 --> 4,294,967,295	%lu
unsigned long long	8	0 --> 18446744073709551614	%llu

So carefully choice datatype.

Happy coding.

ACM problem set - 100 - The 3n+1 Problem

2 months ago when I have started solving ACM ad-hoc problems, I started with The 3n+1 problem. And I have failed to solve as usual. Then next few days I was thinking some complex solutions for that problem but my misfortune. I have failed again and again I have failed. 

Then I have focused on other ad-hoc problems. Solved some and learned that, "Sticky with Story!". The story of some ad-hoc problems have written in such way that readers started to think like they are going to solve a dynamic greedy np-hard problem. :D :D :D. One of my academic fellow who already competed regional math olympierd in Indonesia 2 times, he also gave-up ACM for this The 3n+1 problem!!

Here I am giving some clue for them who have tried this problem already and becoming frasted :)

clue 1: look at data type: declare all of your variables long (%ld)

clue 2: input would not always be given in sorted order. check whether first number < second number

clue 3: Show output in given order: If you swap first number and second number at the beginning of your program then be careful when showing output.

clue 4: If you got Time Limit Exit then check - does your program terminates correctly?
To terminate your program write program like this - 
while( scanf("%ld %ld", &firstNumber, &secondNumber) != EOF )
{
     // ... rest of your code ...
}

clue 5: The program algorithm is given in story. so you do not need to think about new algorithm.

clue 6: after each output there will be a new line. so,
printf("%ld %ld %ld\n", printNumberOne, printNumberTwo, output);

clue 7: debug, debug and debug if you get wrong output.

This problem is a Brute Force problem. so think straight.

Happy coding.

ACM problem set - 10055 - Hashmat the Brave Warrior

Hello all. Today is my last fasting day of this Arabic fiscal year. I am preparing myself to celebrate EID-day tomorrow. But I am missing my family a lot. Without them nothing could be fulfilled.

Today I was looking into an acm problem 10055 - Hashmat the brave warrior. At first I was disappointed by the problem setter by thinking that, what a easy problem!  - Simple subtraction. And wrote code in 2 minutes and got 3 times penalty from online judge.  

What the hell!! simple subtraction :(
Then I read the problem again and again and found the tricks hidden in story. :)

You can try once. just find the tricks. you do not need to solve.

Happy coding.

Do you know which windows port is used by Microsoft SQL Server?

The default TCP port of Microsoft SQL Server default instance is 1433. But if the named instance is different than default instance then SQL server could use different port. Here I found a useful script to find out which TCP port is currently used by SQL server.


DECLARE @InstName VARCHAR(16) 
DECLARE @RegLoc VARCHAR(100) 

SELECT @InstName = @@SERVICENAME 

IF @InstName = 'MSSQLSERVER' 
BEGIN 
    SET @RegLoc='Software\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\Tcp\' 
END 
ELSE 
BEGIN 
    SET @RegLoc='Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\' + @InstName + '\MSSQLServer\SuperSocketNetLib\Tcp\' 
END 

EXEC [master].[dbo].[xp_regread] 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE', @RegLoc, 'tcpPort'


Now, why it is important to know this TCP port number?
If you are planning to access database from remote computer and/or
if the firewall of your computer is opened then you have to allow that TCP port number as exception.

Thats it.

Happy Coding.

Subversion cleanup issue.

I have been using subversion for last two years. TortoiseSVN is a great free subversion client for freelancer like me. Although I am using AnkhSVN subversion client to manage subversion from Visual Studio IDE. Today during work, I have deleted a folder manually from my project working directory. After that my nightmare has just began. Whenever I was trying to commit/update/revert/unlock my project, it was showing a nice error "Previous operation has not finished: run 'cleanup' if it was interrupted". Sometimes the error text was different but was containing at-least "cleanup" word. Like, "Please execute the 'Cleanup' command". Well, there is a cleanup button in both TortoiseSVN and AnkhSVN subversion client. But same error was showing after clicking cleanup button too.


It was clear to me that, I was ended up in such issue, which was not possible to resolve by my subversion client. After a long time I have found a solution in stackoverflow. Subversion repository is using a internal SQLite database (wc.db in .svn folder) which contains a table named work_queue. Whenever we are trying to do an event, subversion repository searches previous pending task in that table and compare current task with that pending task and forward.


The solution was to delete all entries of work_queue table. There is an executable file of SQLite in SQLite official website. Download and unzip in project working directory. Then run the following command from windows command prompt(cmd.exe) to see the pending tasks -


sqlite3.exe .svn/wc.db "select * from work_queue"

To delete all old pending task, run the following command

sqlite3.exe .svn/wc.db "delete from work_queue"

Then try again "Cleanup" from subversion client. 
Hope this will help to get rid of this cleanup issue. 

Happy coding.

Accessing "enum" values in .NET

Accessing enum values are very interesting in this sense that if you directly call enum item then it will return the left part of equal (=) sign. If you convert the enum item into integer then you will get right part of equal (=) sign. Lets see an example.

public enum NeedRefreshDataSource
    {
        Yes = 1,
        No = 2
    }


Now,

if you write NeedRefreshDataSource.Yes then you will get - Yes which is NeedRefreshDataSource type value.

if you write NeedRefreshDataSource.yes.ToString() then you will get - "Yes" which is string type value.

if you write Convert.ToInt32(NeedRefreshDataSource.yes) then you will get - 1 which is integer type value.

if you write Convert.ToInt32(NeedRefreshDataSource.yes).ToString() then you will get - "1" which is string type value.




Happy Coding...

Export crystal report to Excel - some tips.

Developing a crystal report which will be exported into Excel is always tricky, time consuming and needs a lot of patience. There are a lot of blog posts, forum discussions, articles in the web about this matter. During last couple of days I was hanging with one of my report and at last I've figured out some tricks about exporting crystal report to excel. Here is some - 

1. Do not use your mouse to resize/align your header/detail fields. Always depend on Properties pane. make sure the height. width and left properties are always same of related header and detail fields.

2. Top property of header/detail fields should be always 0.

2. Do not use line object. It will create an extra excel row after export.

3. You can use (single) right and bottom border of detail field objects. and only right border of header objects. 

4. May be the report which will export to excel will not be presentable for clients. So create another presentable report for client which may have lines or brders or colors whatever you want.

5. After export into excel - may be your header or detail section will be created using more than one excel rows. This may not be a problem. But you can decrease the height of detail/header fields to accommodate in single excel row. 

6. Suppress (Drill Down) the report header, report footer, page header, page footer. Because they are value less in Excel.

7. In your data source do not keep null data in any field. At-least fill data with empty string/something not valuable like dash (-).

May be these tricks will help you. 



Happy coding!

(also published in codeproject.com)

Getting worksheet from workbook when there is no such worksheet exists.

During application-level excel add-in development sometimes we need to check whether the worksheet is null or not. Consider the following lines -

string myWorkSheetName = "a_worksheet_Name";
Excel.Workbook Wb= Globals.ThisAddIn.Application.ActiveWorkbook;
Excel.Worksheet mySheet = Wb.Worksheets.get_Item(myWorkSheetName) as Excel.Worksheet;

or,

Excel.Worksheet mySheet = Wb.Worksheets[myWorkSheetName] as Excel.Worksheet;

The worksheets indexer ([]) 
or the get_Item method of Worksheets class does not return nullable object. In this case we can take advantage of LINQ -

 Excel.Worksheet mySheet = Wb.Worksheets.Cast().Where(w => w.Name == myWorkSheetName).FirstOrDefault();

If the worksheet does not found then mySheet will contain null.

MS Office Add-in development: Enable "Embed Interop Types".

Warning    1    A reference was created to embedded interop assembly 'c:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\VSTO40\v4.0.Framework\Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common.dll' because of an indirect reference to that assembly created by assembly 'c:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\VSTO40\v4.0.Framework\Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word.dll'. Consider changing the 'Embed Interop Types' property on either assembly.

Developers get this is common warning during developing add-in for Microsoft Office. Because the type equivalence feature is not enabled by default in a office project. To enable this feature go to properties of
-- Microsoft.Office.Tools.Common 
-- Microsoft.Office.Tools
-- Microsoft.Office.Tools.Word 
-- Microsoft.Office.Tools.Excel  
-- Microsoft.Office.Tools.Outlook - references and 
set "True" to "Embed Interop Types" property.

The type equivalence feature, embeds type information to the office solution. And enables the version independence at run time

Md Moheeb Ullah Patuary invited you to check out Dropbox

Hi there, Md Moheeb Ullah Patuary wants you to try Dropbox! Dropbox lets you bring all your photos, docs and videos with you anywhere and share them easily. Accept invite Thanks! - The Dropbox Team To stop receiving invites from Dropbox, please go here. Dropbox, Inc., PO Box 77767, San Francisco, CA 94107 © 2013 Dropbox

AllowUserToResizeColumns property of DataGridView control.

If you see that you cannot resize the column of a DataGridView control though you set true value of AllowUserToResizeColumns property then check AutoSizeColumnsMode property also. Choose Fill/None value of this AutoSizeColumnsMode property.


Happy coding..

SQL Execution Error: Cannot insert explicit value for identity column in table.....

Sometimes we get a very interesting error when we try to insert a new row in a table. The error is like following:

Cannot insert explicit value for identity column in table 'TableName' when IDENTITY_INSERT is set to OFF

Then we developers starts googling and find almost same solution. 

SET IDENTITY_INSERT TableName  On
insert into TableName  Values(1,1,1)
SET IDENTITY_INSERT TableName  OFF

This solution is ok. But before going to that solution we need to know in which context we have to set identity_insert on. 

The context is if we want to insert data to an Identity Specified column. (Generally we specify the primary key column identical.)

So, do we want to insert the data to a Identity column? If answer is “No” then check your sql query. I have seen many beginners do this wrong in their sql query. 

So, Happy Coding.

About a MS SQL Server Table Schema Change Warning - Saving changes is not permitted......

After changing a table schema sometimes we get a MS SQL Server warning saying that - Saving Changes is not permitted. The changes you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created......

To avoide this warning do the following:-

1. From Tool menu select Options.

2. Expand "Designers" node. Then uncheck "Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation". Then click OK.

For Visual Studio select Tools --> Options then under "Database Tools" under "Table and Database Designers" select "Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation"

That's all. Happy coding :)

Test: Post Hit Counting for Blogspot Blogger

Hello all. last day I have thought about post hit counter for my blog. Then I googling and find some good posts on it. Among them I choose this post and implement it in my blog. It is working like a charm. 

One thing you need to know that you can see the hit counter only for new posts after setting up the post counter feature in your template.

Thank you Mohammad Mostafa and Happy Blogging.