Browsing the GAC

GAC in fact is here: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL 

Obsolete but possibly still useful old trick from http://msmvps.com/blogs/bill/archive/2005/09/20/66921.aspx

You can make it possible to browse the GAC like a set of folders and files and hence access assemblies that are only in the GAC.  Typically I just use a command prompt to do this, but there's a registry hack which lets you do it from explorer:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fusion]
"DisableCacheViewer"=hex:10

Toogle the value to 0 to go back to the usual view, non zero for folder and file view.  Now when you do that you might find some interesting assemblies.  My favourite at the moment that comes with VS 2005, is:

C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Zip

Oh, and an interesting side effect of this is you can now browse to a file in the GAC and add it as a reference to your Visual Studio project.

MVC3, Razor and other cool stuff

I made presentation on Sarasota Barcamp 2011.
For the presentation I created temporary web site greatsarasota.com.
Most resources can be found on http://greatsarasota.com/Home/About

Delete directory in IsolatedStorage

IsolatedStorageFile.DeleteDirectory works with empty directories only.

I wrote the method for recursive deleting content of the directory:

using System.IO.IsolatedStorage;

. . .

        public void DeleteDirectory(IsolatedStorageFile fs, String dirName)

        {

            String pattern = dirName + @"\*";

            String[] files = fs.GetFileNames(pattern);

            foreach (String fName in files)

            {

                fs.DeleteFile(Path.Combine(dirName, fName));

            }

            String[] dirs = fs.GetDirectoryNames(pattern);

            foreach (String dName in dirs)

            {

                DeleteDirectory(fs, Path.Combine(dirName, dName));

            }

            fs.DeleteDirectory(dirName);

        }

Usage:

            using (IsolatedStorageFile fs = IsolatedStorageFile.GetUserStoreForApplication())

            {
                DeleteDirectory(fs, @"\Projects"); // directory "Projects" in the root will be deleted

            }

Pluralize English Nouns

Pluralize English Nouns

By KodefuGuru9. December 2010 18:56

It’s a common problem: you have a noun that needs to be pluralized (or singularized!), so you end up rolling a custom solution or go with the dreaded (s) moniker. I recently discovered that it is in fact easy: the .NET Framework will pluralize or singularize nouns for you.

LINQ to XML sample: get value with default (if not exists)

XElement dummy = new XElement("dummy");

if (xe.Descendants("Response").Descendants("Status").DefaultIfEmpty(dummy).First().Value == "ok"){}

LINQ to XML tiny sample

// load from file

XElement resp = XElement.Load("RCExtResponse.xml");

var all = from r in resp.Descendants()

          where r.Attributes().Count() == 0

          select r;

// or load from string

XElement xe = XElement.Parse(xmlString);

// use default

var caller =

    (from e in xe.Descendants("PracticeName")

     select (String)e).DefaultIfEmpty("");

Nullables

String filter = param as String ?? String.Empty;

Colors. Part 2.

Enumerate all Known Colors and put them in the dictionary

Dictionary<KnownColor, int> colorsRGB;

can be done this way:

int

    numAliceBlue = (int)KnownColor.AliceBlue,

    numYellowGreen = (int)KnownColor.YellowGreen,

    numColors = numYellowGreen - numAliceBlue + 1;

colorsRGB = new Dictionary<KnownColor, int>(numColors);

for (int i = numAliceBlue; i <= numYellowGreen; i++)

{

    KnownColor kc = (KnownColor)i;

    colorsRGB.Add(kc, Color.FromKnownColor(kc).ToArgb());

}

Then I can sort the collection using LINQ:

Sort by name:

var sortedColors = (from clr in colorsRGB

                    orderby clr.Key

                    select clr).ToArray();
by RGB value:

var sortedColors = (from clr in colorsRGB

                   orderby clr.Value descending

                   select clr).ToArray();

I created a function ColorWeight to “weight” a color (just sum of R, G, and B components),

And even can sort by the “weight”:

var sortedColors = (from clr in colorsRGB

                    orderby ColorWeight(clr.Key) descending

                    select clr).ToArray();

I do like LINQ!

For the test I draw buttons with KnownColor as background. I wanted to have foreground color to be recognizable on the background.

This turn out to be not easy task. I did not want to mess with non-RGB presentations (like HSV or HSL) which would simplify the task.

At first I tried “inverted” color:

return Color.FromArgb((int)backColor.ToArgb() ^ 0xF0F0F0);

It did not work well.

So I created “color weight”

private int ColorWeight(Color color)

{

    int bColor = (int)color.ToArgb(),

        r = (bColor & 0x00FF0000) >> 16,

        g = (bColor & 0x0000FF00) >> 8,

        b = bColor & 0x000000FF;

    return r + g + b;

}

It is not perfect, but kind of fit the purpose: after all I put Black text if “weight” > 0x60+0x60+0x60 and White text otherwise.

This is the result:

Download source code

Colors. Part 1.

First 27 and last 7 of System.Drawing.KnownColor are “System” colors:

for (int i = 1; i <= Enum.GetValues(typeof(KnownColor)).Length; i++){

    if (i <= 27 || i >= 168){

        String str = String.Format("{0}.{1}", i, (KnownColor)i);

        System.Diagnostics.Trace.WriteLine(str);

    }

}

1.ActiveBorder 2.ActiveCaption 3.ActiveCaptionText 4.AppWorkspace 5.Control 6.ControlDark 7.ControlDarkDark 8.ControlLight 9.ControlLightLight

10.ControlText 11.Desktop 12.GrayText 13.Highlight 14.HighlightText 15.HotTrack 16.InactiveBorder 17.InactiveCaption 18.InactiveCaptionText

19.Info 20.InfoText 21.Menu 22.MenuText 23.ScrollBar 24.Window 25.WindowFrame 26.WindowText 27.Transparent

168.ButtonFace 169.ButtonHighlight 170.ButtonShadow 171.GradientActiveCaption 172.GradientInactiveCaption 173.MenuBar 174.MenuHighlight

ENUMs

Using bitwise enums:

[Flags]

enum Color : long {

    Black=0,

    Red=1,

    Green=2,

    Blue=4,

    Orange = Red | Green,

    White = Red |Green | Blue

}

Variable number of parameters in method (function)

Variable number of parameters in method:

Use params in declaration, use comma-separated list or array when calling.

Extension methods

It was not that difficult to create extension after all.

At one moment I found out that String type do not allow me to surround a string with double quotas.

So I wrote the following extension to String type:

public static class Extensions
{
    public static String SurroundWith(this String str, Char chr)

    {

        return chr + str + chr;

    }

}

This extension I can then use in my program:
String fileName =

@"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\Excel.exe";

fileName = fileName.SurroundWith('"');

fileName = Path.Combine(

Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "Test.csv");

Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo("Excel.exe", fileName.SurroundWith('"')));

Download Source Code