Application.DispatcherUnhandledException is a solution provided by the .NET Framework to manage any Unmanaged Exception bubbling up to the root of your application (App.AppStartup).

Whilst using this solution I faced a problem when opening new windows from the Dispatcher of the UI Thread. When performing a try/catch around a Window.ShowDialog(), the DispatcherUnhandledException will be invoked before the try/catch.

This basically means that your root exception handler is used instead of higher try/catch. This also imply that using a multi-windowed application and using the DispatcherUnhandledException does not allow you to properly managed any Exception as you will need to know where they come from.

Example

App.xaml.cs

public App()
{
    DispatcherUnhandledException += App_OnDispatcherUnhandledException;
}

private void App_OnDispatcherUnhandledException(object sender, DispatcherUnhandledExceptionEventArgs e)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Handler #1 An Exception occured in the Root (App.xaml.cs)");
}

 
MainWindow.xaml.cs

private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    ErroringWindow window = new ErroringWindow();
    try
    {
        window.ShowDialog();
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Handler #2 Exception occured in the try/catch");
    }
}

You would expect the handler #2 to catch an Exception from the ErroringWindow first.

But here is the result :

> Handler #1 An Exception occured in the Root (App.xaml.cs)

> Handler #2 Exception occured in the try/catch

Solution

The solution is very simple and straightforward. Using a try/catch around all the code of the App.Startup event will let the Exception bubble up the right way and let you manage the UnhandledExceptions in your try/catch.

App.xaml

Remove the StartupUri="MainWindow.xaml" from the App.xaml so that we invoke it in code.

App.xaml.cs

public App()
{
    Startup += OnStartup;
}

private void OnStartup(object sender, StartupEventArgs startupEventArgs)
{
    try
    {
        MainWindow window = new MainWindow();
        window.ShowDialog();
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
        ManageGlobalException(ex);
    }
}

private void ManageGlobalException(Exception ex)
{
    Console.WriteLine("An Exception occured in the Root (App.xaml.cs)");
}

MainWindow.xaml.cs

 private void Button_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    ErroringWindow window = new ErroringWindow();
    try
    {
        window.ShowDialog();
    }
    catch (Exception)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Handler #2 Exception occured in the try/catch");
    }
}

Result :

> Exception occured in the try/catch

Regex is a powerful tool allowing us to extract content from a string based on a Regular Expression. When you need to identify a string that contains nested elements, it might be more difficult to understand how to create a Regex solving this specific problem.

Let’s say you want to extract a specific function from a JavaScript file, how are you going to manage the nested braces of condition or loop...

This post will explain how to perform this operation with a simple Regex (in .NET).

Here is the input string:

exampleChars*&^%(((!£)!)_*$)({}
function myFunc()
{
	var piloupe = true
	while (piloupe)
	{
		if (piloupe)
		{
			alert('Hello Nested Regex');
			piloupe = false;
		}
	}
}}
exampleChars*&^%(((!£)!)_*$))

> We want the output string to be :

function myFunc()
{
	var piloupe = true
	while (piloupe)
	{
		if (piloupe)
		{
			alert('Hello Nested Regex');
			piloupe = false;
		}
	}
}

The Regex!

1. The identification of the first line is a classic Regex

                function myFunc\(\)\s*

2. Identify the code inside the function

Basic example without nested braces:

function myFunc()
{
	var piloupe = true;
}
}

Regex :

function myFunc\(\)\s*\{(?:[^{}])\}

The blue element identifies the beginning of the function.

The red elements identify the opening and closing braces.

The black brackets create a non-capturing group.

The green identifies the elements inside the braces that are not (nested) braces.

3. Identify Nested braces

If our function has nested braces we need to use Balancing Groups:

Regex:

function myFunc\(\)\s*\{(?:[^{}]|(?<counter>\{)|(?<-counter>\}))+(?(counter)(?!))\}

The blue element identifies the beginning of the function.

The red elements identify the opening and closing braces.

The black brackets create a non-capturing group that will be used as a “loop”.

The green identifies the elements inside the braces that are not (nested) braces.

The orange elements identify the opening and closing nested braces. When a first opening brace is discovered the counter increases to one. The counter has initially a value of 0. The greenidentified all the elements before any brace.

• If the character detected after the green is an opening brace it increments the value of the counter by one ((?<counter>\{)).

The pink elements indicates that if the current value of the counter is different from 0 (meaning that there is less closing brackets than opening brackets) the regex is invalid.

Hope you looped the Regex.

Linvi

These controls might either be Winform or WPF control. VSTO allows developers to insert Winform controls inside their document.

Create the project

Create a new project Word 2010 project

Then select “Create a new document”.

When the project finished loading, click F7 to open the code behind.

Create the WPF UserControl

Select the current project and “Add an Item”, select “Visual C# Items > WPF > Use Control (WPF)”.

You can add any component that you feel useful for your document interface.

I personally decided to implement a simple WebBrowser.

<UserControl x:Class="WordCustomControl.WPFUserControl"
             xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="https://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:mc="https://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006" 
             xmlns:d="https://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008" 
             mc:Ignorable="d" 
             d:DesignHeight="300" d:DesignWidth="300">
    <Grid>
        <WebBrowser Name="MyWebBrowser" />
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

Here is the code behind:

 public partial class WinformUserControl : UserControl
    {
        public WinformUserControl()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            elementHost1.Child = new WPFUserControl();
        }
    }

Create the Winform UserControl

Now create a Winform User Control.

Use your toolbox to insert an ElementHost and Click “Dock to parent Container”.

In your Winform User Control code behind specify that you want the ElementHost to have the WPFUserControl as a child.

elementHost1.Child = new WPFUserControl();

Insert in the Word Document

Going back to word code behind (ThisDocument.cs), we now will add some code to insert our control.

 private void ThisDocument_Startup(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
        {
            Word.Paragraph paragraph = this.Paragraphs.Add();
            WinformUserControl control = new WinformUserControl();
            Word.Range range = paragraph.Range;
            float width = 450;
            float height = 300;
            string objectID = "Winform_UserControl_1";
 
            this.Controls.AddControl(control, range, width, height, objectID);
        }

We now have a WebBrowser inside our word document!

Enjoy,

Linvi

I found multiple answers on the internet as:

• Move the object in a different folder
  • C:\Windows\system
  • C:\Windows\system32
  • C:\Windows\SysWOW64
• Update the registry
• Reinstall VB6…

While trying to use the classic regsvr32 and modifying my registry I found that Internet Explorer 10 might cause some compatibility issues with this component.

Uninstalling Internet Explorer 10 instantly solved the issue.

So please check the version of your internet explorer if you have this issue :)

Linvi

The problem comes from the adapter that can be in "sleep mode".

As explained in the KB (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2625519), follow this instructions : 

1. Click on the Start button and select Control Panel.
2. Select System and Security.
3. Select Device Manager under System.
4. Select and expand the Network adapters from the list of devices.
5. Find the wireless network adapter and right-click on it and select Properties.
   > If you cannot find your adapter in the device manager you might need to restart your computer.
   > The 2 next steps are not really required, what you need to do now is to enable your device
6. Select the Power Management tab.
7. Under the Power Management tab, make sure the following option is checked (enabled): “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power".

You should now be able to restart your hosted network using the classical wlan command.

"PS C:\Windows\system32> netsh wlan start hostednetwork

The hosted network started."

Hope this helps.

Linvi

Going on https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2716442 I was not able to solve the issue neither so I wanted to share how I solved this issue.

To solve the issue type "Regedit" in your start menu.

UPDATE 01/26/2013 : 

Some comments describe that depending on your SQL version you might want to change other keys. For example setting the registry key "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\110\ConfigurationState" to 1 helps completing some installations.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

You might have some Keys with a value of 3. Change all the keys so that they have a value of 1.

This operation works for SQL Server 2008, SQL server 2008 R2 by using the node 100 in the regedit and SQL server 2012 uses 110.

Hope this will help you.

Linvi

Reading some forums, I have seen some people having troubles creating a new TypeScript project in Visual Studio 2012.

This is a quick tutorial to demonstrate the creation of a default project.

Hello TypeScript

Go to the Microsoft Download page and install the Visual Studio 2012 plugin. Some people do have some trouble to find the new project directly after installation, in that case restart your session.

If you still do not have the plugin installed, please go to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\TypeScript\0.8.0.0"

Install the TypeScriptLanguageService.vsix to add the plugin to Visual Studio.

The TypeScript application project can be found under Visual C# and is called HTML Application with TypeScript.

After the project has been created your new project should look like this.

Clicking F5 will tell you that you need a Web.Config file to enable debugging.

Click Ok, the project should start in your browser and you are good to go!

What’s next?

I will try to make some tutorial concerning this new language and providing some examples combining Node.Js and TypeScript.

Until then enjoy developing :)

This post’s goal is to introduce you to Bulk Copy. We’ll create a SQL query which is going to concatenate several attached databases and extract the data to an output csv file.

The first goal is to demonstrate how to use Bulk Copy as well as solving an issue that I sometime encountered for some customers, meaning, converting several databases into a single one and extract it as CSV.

To fully understand the post, you’ll need some knowledge about SQL and how to make queries.

You can download the final SQL script here.

Bulk Copy

Bulk Copy also known as BCP is a command line tool installed on your server during SQL installation and is located here:

     C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn\bcp.exe

BCP is a tool which allows copying large amounts of data from one location to another. You may use this tool from a .NET application, using the class SqlBulkCopy, Powershell or directly in a SQL query via xp_cmdshell. We will see that bcp allows us to extract data directly from a table or through a SQL SELECT query.

You coud find more details concerning bcp at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162802.aspx.

Developing the script

Context

Our company has 2 databases saved in *.mdf files, each containing 2 tables Customer and Order. An Order is linked to a Customer through its CustomerID field (1.* relationship). 

Setting the database configuration

To be able to use BCP, we need to execute a command on the server. By default SQL server does not allow this.

To enable this feature just use the following query.

EXECUTE sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;

EXECUTE sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', '1';
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;

EXECUTE sp_configure 'show advanced options', 0;
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE; 

If you don't you'll receive the following error message :

Msg 15281, Level 16, State 1, Procedure xp_cmdshell, Line 1
SQL Server blocked access to procedure 'sys.xp_cmdshell' of component 'xp_cmdshell' because this component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server. 
A system administrator can enable the use of 'xp_cmdshell' by using sp_configure. For more information about enabling 'xp_cmdshell', search for 'xp_cmdshell' in SQL Server Books Online.

Testing Bulk Copy

In a first time we are going to test bcp and just export the table customer to as csv file.

For test purposes just insert row into bcp_demo_1 and bcp_demo_2 : 

Now we can take a look to the copy:

After executing this query, some information will be sent to you. They gave you some log information concerning BCP execution.

As you can see, BCP can take some parameters, for defining how the data are going to be parsed, or how it is going to render them in the external source.

-c : Allows you to specify a character format or without argument the default one
-t  : Allows you to specify a special character for your separation in the csv file (here comma ",")
-T : Means that I connect to a trusted connection using integrated security.
-S : Allows me to specify the name of the database that I will connect on 

For a complete list of the parameters please visit : https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162802.aspx 

To remove this output just use NO_OUTPUT as a parameter of xp_cmdshell :

Detect all existing Tables to copy

Now we will create 2 tables named : bcp_demo_1 and bcp_demo_2.

Now that we have the 2 databases, we can simply retrieving them thanks to a Regex, that will allow you to get all the tables you require to be concatenated.

This script list the databases which name is LIKE '%bcp_demo_%'; and create a temporary TABLE of this databases name to be able to query them later, one by one.

Push all data in one table

To simplify this script we are first going to push all the data into a temporary table

-- List of tables to concatenate

-- Create temporary Table with all infos

DECLARE @i int;
SET @i = 1;

DECLARE @tablesCount int;
SET @tablesCount = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM @tables);

IF OBJECT_ID('[tempdb]..[##data]') IS NOT NULL
	BEGIN
		DROP TABLE [tempdb].[##data];
	END 

CREATE TABLE [tempdb].[##data] (
	[id]		        [nchar](20)  NOT NULL,
	[FirstName]   [nchar](10)  NULL,
	[LastName]	[nchar](10)  NULL,
	[Address]	[nchar](10)  NULL
);

INSERT INTO [tempdb].[##data] (id, FirstName, LastName, Address)  VALUES ('Id', 'Firstname', 'LastName', 'Address');

WHILE (@i <= @tablesCount)
      BEGIN
            DECLARE @table varchar(64);
            SET @table = (SELECT TableName FROM @tables WHERE TableNb = @i);
            INSERT [tempdb].[##data] EXEC('SELECT * FROM [' + @table + '].dbo.Customer');
            SET @i = @i + 1;
      END

SELECT * FROM [tempdb].[##data];

Full script

Having all the data in one table will now allow us to move all this data thanks to BCP that we previously saw.

Here is the full script.

-- List of tables to concatenate

-- Create temporary Table with all infos

DECLARE @i int;
SET @i = 1;

DECLARE @tablesCount int;
SET @tablesCount = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM @tables);

IF OBJECT_ID('[tempdb]..[##data]') IS NOT NULL
	BEGIN
		DROP TABLE [tempdb].[##data];
	END 

CREATE TABLE [tempdb].[##data] (
	[id]		        [nchar](20)  NOT NULL,
	[FirstName]   [nchar](10)  NULL,
	[LastName]	[nchar](10)  NULL,
	[Address]	[nchar](10)  NULL
);

INSERT INTO [tempdb].[##data] (id, FirstName, LastName, Address)  VALUES ('Id', 'Firstname', 'LastName', 'Address');

WHILE (@i <= @tablesCount)
      BEGIN
            DECLARE @table varchar(64);
            SET @table = (SELECT TableName FROM @tables WHERE TableNb = @i);
            INSERT [tempdb].[##data] EXEC('SELECT * FROM [' + @table + '].dbo.Customer');
            SET @i = @i + 1;
      END

SELECT * FROM [tempdb].[##data];

And here is the generated file in the C:\temp 

I hope this will be helpful to some of you.

Linvi

BCP - Bulk Copy.sql

To activate Windows Enterprise we will need to change the key of the license.

To activate your account. Take your key on your MSDN account.

Open your Powershell as administrator and type the following commands

> slmgr.vbs /ipk YOUR_KEY
> slmgr.vbs /ato

A dialog should now inform you that your Windows license has been activated!

Congratulations your Windows should now be registered.

I wanted to share the steps to enable debugging on a Windows computer.
To debug  we will use a very powerful tool : node-inspector. Node inspector is a web-hosted debugger which communicates with your application thanks to WebSocket and will allow you to create breakpoints, update your application in live to improve your capacity to solve the issues you can have.

1. Download and install Node.JS.
2. Type : npm install -g node-inspector to install node-inspector
3. Open a first Powershell and type : node-inspector
   This will start a server that you can access by default at : https://localhost:8080/debug?port=5858
4. Open a second Powershell, go to your application folder and type : node --debug-brk .\app.js
   This will start your application in debug mode.
5. Go to : https://localhost:8080/debug?port=5858, the application is stopped by default at the start of your app.js application.
   Use the resume button to launch your application
6. Go to : https://localhost:APP_PORT to access your application