Pranav ... Blogging https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/feed.xml This blog is all about Office Automation, VSTO, InfoPath and other programming stuff. Remember.. "Real Stuff is Out Of The Box...!!" Wed, 17 Apr 2019 04:00:50 GMT en-US hourly 1 Programmatically adding a style assumes number format as “General” https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/programmatically-adding-a-style-assumes-number-format-as-general Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:49:36 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2012/07/31/programmatically-adding-a-style-assumes-number-format-as-general/  

Hello All,

Few days back, I’ve seen an interesting scenario; If you add a “Style” programmatically, without specifying the number format as anything, it is assumed to be “General”.

Something like below is fine ..

Imports Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel
Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim oXL As Excel.Application
        Dim oWB As Excel.Workbook
       

        Dim str As String

        str = "SomeStyle"
        Try

            oXL = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
            oXL.Visible = True

            ' Get a new workbook.
            oWB = oXL.Workbooks.Add

            oXL.ActiveWorkbook.Styles.Add(str) ' Add a new style to the workbook

            'Define the style formatings

            oXL.ActiveWorkbook.Styles(str).NumberFormat = "#,##0.0" 
            With oXL.ActiveWorkbook.Styles(str).Font
                .Name = "Times New Roman"
                .Size = 15
                .Bold = True
                .Italic = True   
                .Strikethrough = False   
            End With

            With oXL.ActiveWorkbook.Styles(str)
                .HorizontalAlignment = Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft
                .VerticalAlignment = Excel.XlVAlign.xlVAlignTop
                .WrapText = False
                .Orientation = 0
                .AddIndent = False
                .ShrinkToFit = False
                .IncludeBorder = False
            End With

        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString())
        End Try

But if I comment out the line “.NumberFormat=”#,##0.0”, then the number format for “SomeStyle” is assumed to be “General”, which is .. well .. kind of fine in most cases.

Now, imagine a scenario, where you have a lot of different number formatting in different cells, (e.g. 9.7489900 is displayed as 9.74), and then if you apply a style, which has a “General” format, it would reset the number format back .. which means, now you have 9.7489900! I’m sure you won’t like it .. if you specifically omitted NumberFormating.

The only workaround I see is .. use something like below:

   Public Sub ApplyStyle(str As String)

        Select Case str
            Case "Style1"
                With oXL.Selection.Font
                    .Name = "Times New Roman"
                    .Color = Color.Blue
                    .Strikethrough = False
                End With

                With oXL.Selection
                    .HorizontalAlignment = Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft
                    .VerticalAlignment = Excel.XlVAlign.xlVAlignTop

                End With

            Case "Style2"

                With oXL.Selection.Font
                    .Name = "Times New Roman"
                    .Color = Color.Red
                    .Strikethrough = False
                End With

                With oXL.Selection

                    .HorizontalAlignment = Excel.XlHAlign.xlHAlignLeft
                    .VerticalAlignment = Excel.XlVAlign.xlVAlignTop
                    .NumberFormat = "General"

                    

                End With
        End Select

    End Sub

In this scenario .. you don’t really apply a style to the Workbook, you just have the code which decides as to, what is to be done @ runtime.

Okay! Bye …

]]> Dear readers - My Windows Phone 7 App is Live! https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/dear-readers-my-windows-phone-7-app-is-live Tue, 03 Apr 2012 05:24:29 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2012/04/03/dear-readers-my-windows-phone-7-app-is-live/  

Hello All -

I hope all of you've been doing fine! fantastic! supperb! well .. I am here to give you one more reason to feel more fantastic! supperb! and more empowered!!

My Windows Phone 7 App is unveiled http://windowsphone.com/s?appid=7b8f683a-2dcf-47bb-8c9f-d3921250bcd0. It's called "Click Map".

ClickMap is an answer of all of your questions like .. "Where did I park my car?", "Where is my "x" friend right now? Which place is he talking about? never heard of it ..", "This pic is fantastic .. where did I click it?", "One of my friend has a fantastic pic of a beach, but he doesn't remember which one .. how can we find it?"

Please download it, use it .. give feedbacks! so that you get more goodness, and more love in the next version in the next version ..which is comming really really soon

 

Bye!

]]> Excel RTD Caching–Memory usage https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/excel-rtd-cachingmemory-usage Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:24:26 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2011/09/30/excel-rtd-cachingmemory-usage/  

Microsoft Office Excel provides a worksheet function, RealTimeData (RTD). This function enables you to call a Component Object Model (COM) Automation server  provides you with a way to view and update data in real time. This real-time data (RTD) feature is great for working with constantly-changing data such as stock quotes, currency exchange rates, inventory levels, price quotes, weather information, sports scores, and so on.

To achieve high performance in such time critical scenarios, Excel has chosen to cache RTD topics related data structures at the application level (viz. they will be cached till the application lifetime). Though this offers the performance which is needed for real time scenarios, but as you can imagine, this does have an impact on the Excel memory usage in some scenarios, for example

1)  When you are using Excel RTD with dynamic “topics”

2) You may encounter same thing, if you happen to open multiple workbooks with large number unique RTD topics

In both of these scenarios, if you happen to consume total addressable heap memory for that particular architecture, you may get error like “Out of virtual memory” or “There is not enough memory to complete the operation” etc. or even a crash.

If you are running into any of the above scenario, the way to move forward is to close excel instance when there is a significant memory pressure.

More about RTD Servers:

Building a Real-Time Data Server in Excel 2002
How to set up and use the RTD function in Excel

]]> Manipulating Office document contents – On Steroids! https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/manipulating-office-document-contents-on-steroids Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:29:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2011/06/20/manipulating-office-document-contents-on-steroids/ Yes, after a long time  .. sorry, whatever .. let’s not spend time on reasons. Not going to help anyone … Smile

 

Here is the new story: How many time did you try manipulating document contents (for example adding something .. removing something etc), and the perf wasn’t something that you really expected. I’ve been there, part of the reason is: generally when things work great, I don’t get to see them Smile

While working on an issue, I came across a way to manipulate Office documents with a great performance – OpenXML: Yes, I know what are you thinking, because I thought the same thing – “How on earth can you use OpenXML to manipulate a loaded document!! you can’t even open it with OpenXML SDK!!”.  The answer lies in one of my previous post where I talked about FlatOPC, (not explicitly though). I am using the same thing for document manipulation. The core idea is -

  1. Get “System.IO.Packaging.Package”  stream for the document
  2. Open it using OpenXML SDK (Yes! you can open memory stream using OpenXML SDK)
  3. Convert it to FlatOPC
  4. Manipulate whatever you want ..
  5. Use InsertXML to insert it back to the document

Now, this is the idea – how to use it, is left to your imagination. Though I have already built a reusable library that you can use for achieving the same results without bothering what’s going on under the hoods, but it’s still in need of a good plugin system. But, you’ll get it for sure

Below is one example of what are the things that you can achieve using this: In this example I am removing all the “Editors” from the document (because having a lot of editors might mean, a lot of network calls)

 1:       private void button1_Click(object sender, RibbonControlEventArgs e)
 2:         {
 3:             wdApp.ScreenUpdating = false;
 4:             wdApp.ActiveDocument.Content.Select();
 5:             string openxml = string.Empty;
 6:  
 7:             //Get stream for the range. This is the System.IO.Packaging.Package stream
 8:             Stream packageStream = OpcHelper.GetPackageStreamFromRange(wdApp.Selection.Range);
 9:  
 10:             //Stream packageStream = this.Paragraphs[1].Range.GetPackageStreamFromRange();
 11:             //Use Open Xml SDK to process it.
 12:             using (WordprocessingDocument wordDoc = WordprocessingDocument.Open(packageStream, true))
 13:             {
 14:                 //Convert to flat opc using this in-memory package
 15:                 XDocument xDoc = OpcHelper.OpcToFlatOpc(wordDoc.Package);
 16:  
 17:                 XmlNamespaceManager xnm = new XmlNamespaceManager(xDoc.CreateReader().NameTable);
 18:                 xnm.AddNamespace("w", "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main");
 19:  
 20:                 xDoc.XPathSelectElements("//w:permStart", xnm).ToList().ForEach(a => a.Remove());
 21:                 xDoc.XPathSelectElements("//w:permEnd", xnm).ToList().ForEach(a => a.Remove());
 22:  
 23:                 openxml = xDoc.ToString();
 24:             }
 25:  
 26:             
 27:  
 28:             //Insert this flat opc Xml
 29:             wdApp.ActiveDocument.Select();
 30:  
 31:             try
 32:             {
 33:                 object nullstring = "";
 34:                 wdApp.ActiveDocument.Unprotect(ref nullstring);
 35:             }
 36:             catch (Exception)
 37:             {
 38:                 throw;
 39:             }
 40:  
 41:  
 42:             wdApp.Selection.Range.InsertXML(openxml, ref missing);
 43:             wdApp.ScreenUpdating = true;
 44:         }

Now, I am sure you are looking for explanation for some of the things here .. which I would do surely: but in the next post. This one is for you to figure out what’s happening Smile . But, don’t worry, I am not going to throw you in the dark – Below is OpcHelper that is being used:

 

 1: using System;
 2: using System.IO;
 3: using System.IO.Packaging;
 4: using System.Linq;
 5: using System.Text;
 6: using System.Xml;
 7: using System.Xml.Linq;
 8: using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;
 9:  
 10:  
 11: namespace WordAddIn2
 12: {
 13:     public static class OpcHelper
 14:     {
 15:     /// <summary>
 16:     /// Returns the part contents in xml
 17:     /// </summary>
 18:     /// <param name="part">System.IO.Packaging.Packagepart</param>
 19:     /// <returns></returns>
 20:     static XElement GetContentsAsXml(PackagePart part)
 21:     {
 22:         XNamespace pkg = 
 23:            "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/xmlPackage";
 24:         if (part.ContentType.EndsWith("xml"))
 25:         {
 26:             using (Stream partstream = part.GetStream())
 27:             using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader(partstream))
 28:             {
 29:                 string streamString = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
 30:                 XElement newXElement = 
 31:                     new XElement(pkg + "part", new XAttribute(pkg + "name", part.Uri), 
 32:                         new XAttribute(pkg + "contentType", part.ContentType), 
 33:                         new XElement(pkg + "xmlData", XElement.Parse(streamString)));
 34:                 return newXElement;
 35:             }
 36:          }
 37:         else
 38:         {
 39:             using (Stream str = part.GetStream())
 40:             using (BinaryReader binaryReader = new BinaryReader(str))
 41:             {
 42:                 int len = (int)binaryReader.BaseStream.Length;
 43:                 byte[] byteArray = binaryReader.ReadBytes(len);
 44:                 // the following expression creates the base64String, then chunks
 45:                 // it to lines of 76 characters long
 46:                 string base64String = (System.Convert.ToBase64String(byteArray))
 47:                     .Select
 48:                     (
 49:                         (c, i) => new
 50:                         {
 51:                             Character = c,
 52:                             Chunk = i / 76
 53:                         }
 54:                     )
 55:                     .GroupBy(c => c.Chunk)
 56:                     .Aggregate(
 57:                         new StringBuilder(),
 58:                         (s, i) =>
 59:                             s.Append(
 60:                                 i.Aggregate(
 61:                                     new StringBuilder(),
 62:                                     (seed, it) => seed.Append(it.Character),
 63:                                     sb => sb.ToString()
 64:                                 )
 65:                             )
 66:                             .Append(Environment.NewLine),
 67:                         s => s.ToString()
 68:                     );
 69:  
 70:                 return new XElement(pkg + "part",
 71:                     new XAttribute(pkg + "name", part.Uri),
 72:                     new XAttribute(pkg + "contentType", part.ContentType),
 73:                     new XAttribute(pkg + "compression", "store"),
 74:                     new XElement(pkg + "binaryData", base64String)
 75:                 );
 76:             }
 77:         }
 78:     }
 79:     /// <summary>
 80:     /// Returns an XDocument
 81:     /// </summary>
 82:     /// <param name="package">System.IO.Packaging.Package</param>
 83:     /// <returns></returns>
 84:     public static XDocument OpcToFlatOpc(Package package)
 85:     {
 86:         XNamespace 
 87:             pkg = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/xmlPackage";
 88:         XDeclaration 
 89:             declaration = new XDeclaration("1.0", "UTF-8", "yes");
 90:         XDocument doc = new XDocument(
 91:             declaration,
 92:             new XProcessingInstruction("mso-application", "progid=\"Word.Document\""),
 93:             new XElement(pkg + "package",
 94:                 new XAttribute(XNamespace.Xmlns + "pkg", pkg.ToString()),
 95:                 package.GetParts().Select(part => GetContentsAsXml(part))
 96:             )
 97:         );
 98:         return doc;
 99:     }
 100:     /// <summary>
 101:     /// Returns a System.IO.Packaging.Package stream for the given range.
 102:     /// </summary>
 103:     /// <param name="range">Range in word document</param>
 104:     /// <returns></returns>
 105:     public static Stream GetPackageStreamFromRange(Range range)
 106:     {
 107:         XDocument doc = XDocument.Parse(range.WordOpenXML);
 108:         XNamespace pkg =
 109:            "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/xmlPackage";
 110:         XNamespace rel =
 111:             "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/package/2006/relationships";
 112:         Package InmemoryPackage = null;
 113:         MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
 114:         using (InmemoryPackage = Package.Open(memStream, FileMode.Create))
 115:         {
 116:             // add all parts (but not relationships)
 117:             foreach (var xmlPart in doc.Root
 118:                 .Elements()
 119:                 .Where(p =>
 120:                     (string)p.Attribute(pkg + "contentType") !=
 121:                     "application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml"))
 122:             {
 123:                 string name = (string)xmlPart.Attribute(pkg + "name");
 124:                 string contentType = (string)xmlPart.Attribute(pkg + "contentType");
 125:                 if (contentType.EndsWith("xml"))
 126:                 {
 127:                     Uri u = new Uri(name, UriKind.Relative);
 128:                     PackagePart part = InmemoryPackage.CreatePart(u, contentType,
 129:                         CompressionOption.SuperFast);
 130:                     using (Stream str = part.GetStream(FileMode.Create))
 131:                     using (XmlWriter xmlWriter = XmlWriter.Create(str))
 132:                         xmlPart.Element(pkg + "xmlData")
 133:                             .Elements()
 134:                             .First()
 135:                             .WriteTo(xmlWriter);
 136:                 }
 137:                 else
 138:                 {
 139:                     Uri u = new Uri(name, UriKind.Relative);
 140:                     PackagePart part = InmemoryPackage.CreatePart(u, contentType,
 141:                         CompressionOption.SuperFast);
 142:                     using (Stream str = part.GetStream(FileMode.Create))
 143:                     using (BinaryWriter binaryWriter = new BinaryWriter(str))
 144:                     {
 145:                         string base64StringInChunks =
 146:                        (string)xmlPart.Element(pkg + "binaryData");
 147:                         char[] base64CharArray = base64StringInChunks
 148:                             .Where(c => c != '\r' && c != '\n').ToArray();
 149:                         byte[] byteArray =
 150:                             System.Convert.FromBase64CharArray(base64CharArray,
 151:                             0, base64CharArray.Length);
 152:                         binaryWriter.Write(byteArray);
 153:                     }
 154:                 }
 155:             }
 156:             foreach (var xmlPart in doc.Root.Elements())
 157:             {
 158:                 string name = (string)xmlPart.Attribute(pkg + "name");
 159:                 string contentType = (string)xmlPart.Attribute(pkg + "contentType");
 160:                 if (contentType ==
 161:                     "application/vnd.openxmlformats-package.relationships+xml")
 162:                 {
 163:                     // add the package level relationships
 164:                     if (name == "/_rels/.rels")
 165:                     {
 166:                         foreach (XElement xmlRel in
 167:                             xmlPart.Descendants(rel + "Relationship"))
 168:                         {
 169:                             string id = (string)xmlRel.Attribute("Id");
 170:                             string type = (string)xmlRel.Attribute("Type");
 171:                             string target = (string)xmlRel.Attribute("Target");
 172:                             string targetMode =
 173:                                 (string)xmlRel.Attribute("TargetMode");
 174:                             if (targetMode == "External")
 175:                                 InmemoryPackage.CreateRelationship(
 176:                                     new Uri(target, UriKind.Absolute),
 177:                                     TargetMode.External, type, id);
 178:                             else
 179:                                 InmemoryPackage.CreateRelationship(
 180:                                     new Uri(target, UriKind.Relative),
 181:                                     TargetMode.Internal, type, id);
 182:                         }
 183:                     }
 184:                     else
 185:                     // add part level relationships
 186:                     {
 187:                         string directory = name.Substring(0, name.IndexOf("/_rels"));
 188:                         string relsFilename = name.Substring(name.LastIndexOf('/'));
 189:                         string filename =
 190:                             relsFilename.Substring(0, relsFilename.IndexOf(".rels"));
 191:                         PackagePart fromPart = InmemoryPackage.GetPart(
 192:                             new Uri(directory + filename, UriKind.Relative));
 193:                         foreach (XElement xmlRel in
 194:                             xmlPart.Descendants(rel + "Relationship"))
 195:                         {
 196:                             string id = (string)xmlRel.Attribute("Id");
 197:                             string type = (string)xmlRel.Attribute("Type");
 198:                             string target = (string)xmlRel.Attribute("Target");
 199:                             string targetMode =
 200:                                 (string)xmlRel.Attribute("TargetMode");
 201:                             if (targetMode == "External")
 202:                                 fromPart.CreateRelationship(
 203:                                     new Uri(target, UriKind.Absolute),
 204:                                     TargetMode.External, type, id);
 205:                             else
 206:                                 fromPart.CreateRelationship(
 207:                                     new Uri(target, UriKind.Relative),
 208:                                     TargetMode.Internal, type, id);
 209:                         }
 210:                     }
 211:                 }
 212:             }
 213:             InmemoryPackage.Flush();
 214:         }
 215:         return memStream;
 216:     }
 217: }
 218: }

Stay tuned for the next set of entries where I’d attempt to explains some of the things that we’ve used here – and we’d have a full fledged library (which supports addins – and you’ll be able to do the contribution)

]]> How to find all the strings in the thread stack? https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/how-to-find-all-the-strings-in-the-thread-stack Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:23:32 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2010/04/07/how-to-find-all-the-strings-in-the-thread-stack/ To find the all the strings in the thread stack, you’ll need to know about a few things before we jump into code, in windbg there is something called as pseudo registers, and they are very handy to use, one of them is “$csp”, This is the current call stack pointer. This pointer is the register that is most representative of call stack depth; then there is something known as $teb, this points to thread environment block and poi(@$teb+4) always points to the stack base. You can also confirm it using !teb

Here is the output:

0:002> ?poi(@$teb+4)
Evaluate expression: 40566784 = 026b0000
0:002> !teb
TEB at 7ffda000
    ExceptionList:        026affdc
    StackBase:            026b0000
    StackLimit:           026af000
    SubSystemTib:         00000000
    FiberData:            00001e00
    ArbitraryUserPointer: 00000000
    Self:                 7ffda000
    EnvironmentPointer:   00000000
    ClientId:             00000c70 . 00000c90
    RpcHandle:            00000000
    Tls Storage:          0023db88
    PEB Address:          7ffd4000
    LastErrorValue:       1008
    LastStatusValue:      c000007c
    Count Owned Locks:    0
    HardErrorMode:        0

Now, there are a few more things to know, which would be pretty clearer after seeing the code.

1) You can set the value of an inbuilt alias using “r <alias_name> =” notation (e.g. r@$t0 = 2, sets the value of inuilt alias $t0 to 2)
2) “s” is a command to search strings, use –su or –sa to look for unicode or ascii strings respectively. @$t0 and @$t1 tells the command to search in the range starting from the value of @$t0 and ending at @$t1

Using the above concepts, you can easily construct the command below easily.

r @$t0=@$csp;r @$t1=poi(@$teb+4);s- sa @$t0 @$t1
r @$t0=@$csp;r @$t1=poi(@$teb+4);s- su @$t0 @$t1

 

Bye, got to get back to my work ..

]]> Blog maintenance going on … https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/blog-maintenance-going-on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:06:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2010/01/28/blog-maintenance-going-on/ Replacement of !runaway https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/replacement-of-runaway Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:28:00 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2009/12/25/replacement-of-runaway/ !runway is a beautiful command which tells you the time taken by specific threads, very useful in hang scenarios, this is the sample output of the command:

0:004> !runaway
User Mode Time
  Thread       Time
   0:11b8      0 days 0:00:05.656
   6:5f8       0 days 0:00:00.265
   9:9a8       0 days 0:00:00.156
   4:1200      0 days 0:00:00.109
  12:1418      0 days 0:00:00.015
  11:1018      0 days 0:00:00.000
  10:1028      0 days 0:00:00.000
  .

  .

But, what if you do not have this command? and no, I am not trying to reinvent the wheal, actually, this command was broken in one of the internal builds of windbg, so I had to use an alternative. Here is the alternative, with the sample output (nowadays, I prefer to use this command rather than !runaway)

0:004> ~*e .block{~.;.ttime}
.  0  Id: df4.11b8 Suspend: 1 Teb: 7ffdf000 Unfrozen
      Start: EXCEL!Ordinal40+0x2f74 (30002f74)
      Priority: 0  Priority class: 32  Affinity: 3
Created: Wed Dec  9 20:18:13.610 2009 (UTC + 5:30)
Kernel:  0 days 0:00:04.484
User:    0 days 0:00:05.656
.  1  Id: df4.14a4 Suspend: 1 Teb: 7ffdd000 Unfrozen
      Start: csma_ldr!WlnDisconnect+0x28c7 (611052cb)
      Priority: 0  Priority class: 32  Affinity: 3
Created: Wed Dec  9 20:18:13.641 2009 (UTC + 5:30)
Kernel:  0 days 0:00:00.000
User:    0 days 0:00:00.000
.  2  Id: df4.1700 Suspend: 1 Teb: 7ffde000 Unfrozen
      Start: EXCEL!Ordinal40+0x13681 (30013681)
      Priority: 0  Priority class: 32  Affinity: 3
Created: Wed Dec  9 20:18:13.750 2009 (UTC + 5:30)
Kernel:  0 days 0:00:00.000
User:    0 days 0:00:00.000
.  3  Id: df4.5d8 Suspend: 1 Teb: 7ffdc000 Unfrozen
      Start: EXCEL!Ordinal40+0x13681 (30013681)
      Priority: 0  Priority class: 32  Affinity: 3
Created: Wed Dec  9 20:18:13.750 2009 (UTC + 5:30)
Kernel:  0 days 0:00:00.000
User:    0 days 0:00:00.000
.  4  Id: df4.1200 Suspend: 1 Teb: 7ffdb000 Unfrozen
      Start: <Unloaded_DLL>+0xe927f (001284c7)
      Priority: 0  Priority class: 32  Affinity: 3
Created: Wed Dec  9 20:18:13.844 2009 (UTC + 5:30)
Kernel:  0 days 0:00:00.484
User:    0 days 0:00:00.109

.

.

Btw, there is a rather funny story regarding this command, I’ll tell you about it latter …

]]> News: It’s the time to change my “about” page, I am a Support Escalation Engineer now https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/news-its-the-time-to-change-my-about-page-i-am-a-support-escalation-engineer-now Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:48:07 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2009/12/24/news-its-the-time-to-change-my-about-page-i-am-a-support-escalation-engineer-now/ Hello Friends,

Today, let me try to give you a few tips about my favourite part of job, dump analysis. All of us know that a problem is the mother of all inventions (or reinventions). So, what’s the problem with me? My problem is, I am lazy, very very lazy, not in everything, but in anything redundant which makes me try to automate anything and everything possible, here are a few attempts.

Problem: Lot of dumps to analyze for the exact same problem, (say, 10 -12) and I’ve got to open all of them, find out if the dump is worth examining or not, very painstaking and believe me, the pain is directly proportional to the number of dumps.  

Solution: Write a nifty piece of code, that does the work for you ..

Code: 

REM: "This batch file (*.bat) is intended to do an auto analysis of multiple dumps. REM: It will just do enough analysis to get you started. "
REM: "The problem I am trying to solve here is, how to find a needle from a haystack."
REM: "This is just a first pass of the haystack :)"
 
REM: "This batch file needs two parameters."
REM: "First parameter: The directory, in which either you have the dumps, or you have subdirectories with the dumps."
REM: "Second parameter: A log file name, in which you want to dump the analysis"
 
FOR /R %1 %%x IN (*.dmp) DO C:\debuggers\cdb.exe -c ".echo -------------------------------------------------------------;.echo --------------------| Start Analysis   |--------------------;.echo --------------------| Start kvnL |--------------------;kvnL;.echo --------------------| End kvnL |--------------------;.echo --------------------| Start .ecxr |--------------------;.ecxr;.echo --------------------| End .ecxr |--------------------;.echo --------------------| Start !locks |--------------------;!locks;.echo --------------------| End !locks |--------------------;.echo --------------------| Start !cs -l |--------------------;!cs -l;.echo --------------------| End !cs -l |--------------------;.echo --------------------| Start !analyze -v |--------------------;!analyze -v;.echo --------------------| End !analyze -v   |--------------------;.echo --------------------| End Analysis      |--------------------;.echo -------------------------------------------------------------;qd" -loga %2 -y "srv*C:\pubsym*http://msdl.microsoft.com/downloads/symbols" -z %%x
 

 

Isn’t it a good one, it uses just the common commands, !analyze, .ecxr, !locks, !cs –l and the output file tells you which dump(s) to analyze.

Next Script, in my next post …

]]> Project Natal: A move from “Video Gaming” to “Video Sporting”! https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/project-natal-a-move-from-video-gaming-to-video-sporting Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:29:01 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2009/06/10/project-natal-a-move-from-video-gaming-to-video-sporting/ Yes .. that’s how I look @ it .. check it out if you don’t believe (or if you do ..) and spread the love!

Xbox: "Project Natal" Home

and here is what my fellow bloggers are saying about it …

Hands – and Body – on with Project Natal
XBOX Announces Project Natal- Revolutionary Gaming Experience
Microsoft’s Project Natal in Action

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]]> So, do you really know the difference? Try blindsearch! https://docs.microsoft.com/archive/blogs/pranavwagh/so-do-you-really-know-the-difference-try-blindsearch Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:57:12 GMT https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/pranavwagh/2009/06/09/so-do-you-really-know-the-difference-try-blindsearch/ I haven’t seen the algorithm to generate three anonymous columns, but if it’s using random numbers, I’d not call it blind search, I’d call it double blind  search engine perception, experience and search experiment or DBSEPESE; Hey! I coined an acronym .. :)

Here is the link .. have fun, http://blindsearch.fejus.com/  for more information on this experiment Blind Search- The Search Taste Test

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