mercredi 25 juin 2025

Enable TLS on sql server 2017: the powershell way

First create a certificate (thank you chatgpt):

$cert = New-SelfSignedCertificate `
  -CertStoreLocation "Cert:\LocalMachine\My" `
  -Subject "CN=MACHINE.DOMAINE.TLD" `
  -KeySpec KeyExchange `
  -KeyLength 2048 `
  -KeyExportPolicy Exportable `
  -NotAfter (Get-Date).AddYears(5) `
  -FriendlyName "Certificat SQL Server Dev" `
  -TextExtension @("2.5.29.19={critical}{text}")

One can now configure the SQL Server Instance:

SQL Server Configuration Manager > NetWork Configuration > Protocols > Certificate

Restart the instance - and watch it fail.

A certificate is born. A service stumbles. The path is clear: a key awaits its rightful bearer.

Translation: the instance does not have the right to access the private key of the certificate.

One important point here is that you get a CNG certificate and not a CSP one. With this in mind one can emit some more powershell commands (one in fact):

$cert.PrivateKey.Key
this will display the properties of the certificat and in particular: UniqueName

One can know that one is dealing with a CNG certificate because (at least) $cert.PrivateKey.CspKeyContainerInfo is empty. This was my first attempt to grant rights: it failed.

With UniqueName one can go to: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA\MachineKeys. Here one will find a file named after UniqueName. One can then access to the properties of the file and grant the access right to the sql server service account.

Et voilà

There are other ways:

  • icacls
  • winhttpcertcfg

The exposed way is efficient for SQL Server 2017 on Windows 10.

jeudi 1 novembre 2018

Enable TLS on sql server: the opennssl way

To do so you have to get a certificate meeting this requirements. The most important of them being:

  • The Common Name (CN) in the Subject or a DNS name in the Subject Alternate Name (SAN) of the certificate exactly matches the serverName value specified in the connection string or, if specified, the hostNameInCertificate property value.

The exact name depends on being on a domain or not.

For our example one uses the following configuration file (named san.cnf):

[req]
distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name
x509_extensions = v3_req
prompt = no
[req_distinguished_name]
CN = MYCOMPUTERNAME
[v3_req]
keyUsage = keyEncipherment,dataEncipherment
extendedKeyUsage = serverAuth
subjectAltName = @alt_names
[alt_names]
DNS.1 = MYCOMPUTERNAME
DNS.2 = MYCOMPUTERNAME.MYBUSINESSDOMAIN.MYSBUSINESSDOMAINTLD

Then one issues the following commands:

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -sha256 -keyout tlssql.key -out tlssql.crt -days 600 -config san.cnf

Then:

openssl pkcs12 -export -name “tls for sql by openssl” -out tlssql.pfx -inkey tlssql.key -in tlssql.crt

Then you can import the pfx file in your favorite hive. In my case I use IIS Manager to import the pfx file in the personnal hive.

Your "tls for sql by openssl" named certificcate is now available in the Sql Server Configuration Manager.

Et voilà...

A little further:

You may want to use an mmc console with the certificats component to browse among the known certificates. In such a case you will have the choice between:

  • User,
  • Service, or
  • Computer

In my experience the computer store is available for sql server running as a user account member of the users group.

jeudi 9 mars 2017

Reading an utf8 encoded xml file in C#: the stream solution

All is in the title.
using (Stream str = System.IO.File.Open(@"fileName.xml", FileMode.Open)) {
    XmlReaderSettings p = new XmlReaderSettings {
        DtdProcessing = DtdProcessing.Parse
    };
    using (XmlReader xr = XmlReader.Create(new StreamReader(str, Encoding.UTF8), p)) {
        XDocument xDoc = XDocument.Load(xr);
        // or
        //XElement xEl = XElement.Load(xr);
   
        //do your stuff here.
    }
}

mercredi 1 mars 2017

dotnet restore hangs then time out with 100000ms

Especially on W7/x64

I found the solution here: https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/1732.

For several people it seems to be related to network interface (VMWare, VirtualBox...). For me the following unleash the restore:
Using "procmon" I found something strange happening in the lock files in %TEMP%\NugetScratch. I deleted that folder and everything started to work again and CI builds now work perfectly.
Happy restore!

vendredi 22 juillet 2016

linux and wifi troubleshooting

this is not (at all) exhaustive

first test: is the harware enabled ?
sudo rfkill list
if the command shows:
Hard bloked: yes
this means that your wifi switch is on postion OFF.

mardi 8 mars 2016

Commands you must know for ACMESharp

To complete the QuickStart from https://github.com/ebekker/ACMESharp/wiki/Quick-Start you may encounter some troubles. Among them:

----- I -----
The given key was not present in the dictionary

The solution is given by one of the issue.

This his formally an extract/copy from https://github.com/ebekker/ACMESharp/issues/101. From this link one can read:

There are a few bookkeeping cmdlets you can run to make sure the parameters to the Complete-* cmdlet are valid:
  • Get-ACMEIdentifier -- with no arguments, this cmdlet will list all the current Identifiers you have in the Vault; if you give it an Identifier reference (e.g. sequence number, Alias or GUID) it will give you more details about that particular Identifier
  • Get-ACMEChallengeHandlerProfile -ListChallengeTypes -- this will return the list of all Challenge Types that are currently registered and available in the current PS session, e.g. dns-01, http-01
  • Get-ACMEChallengeHandlerProfile -ListChallengeHandlers -- this will return the list of all Challenge Handlers that are currently registered and available in the current PS session, e.g. manual, iis, awsRoute53, awsS3
  • Get-ACMEChallengeHandlerProfile -GetChallengeHandler iis -ParametersOnly -- this form of the cmdlet will list details about the parameters that must or may be specified for the named Challenge Handler type
With these cmdlets you can ensure that the parameters to your Complete-ACMEChallenge call are all correct, for example that the Identifier reference is valid. If you run these and everything seems to be specified correctly and you still get this error, then there might be a bug somewhere and we can trace through that.

----- II -----
Stuck in the pending status

The solution can be found here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/35302044/letsencrypt-acmesharp-client-challenge-in-pending-state-for-over-an-hour

In short using the following command : (Update-ACMEIdentifier dns1 -ChallengeType http-01).Challenges should exhibit that one among three of the challenges is valid.

----- III -----
Cannot export PKCS12; Issuer certificate hasn't been resolved

The solution can be found here: https://github.com/ebekker/ACMESharp/issues/87.

In short an Update-ACMECertificate certAlias solves the problem.

lundi 14 septembre 2015

Nearest neighborS search by Binary Partition Tree

There are a lot of excellent references on Internet, one of them is:

The missing part: some code to play around. Let's try to make something generic. What to we need to make a class partitionable ?

    public interface IIsPartionableByBT {
        Int32 Id { get; }

        float BTX { get; }
        float BTY { get; }
        float BTZ { get; }

        float DistTo(IIsPartionableByBT c);
    }

    public delegate float BTCooProjector(IIsPartionableByBT coo);

We also need Cells/Nodes for the tree:

    public class MbtBSPNode<T> where T :  IIsPartionableByBT {
        public MbtBSPNode<T> Parent { get; set; }
        public T Cell { get; set; }
        public MbtBSPNode<T> Left { get; set; }
        public MbtBSPNode<T> Right { get; set; }

        public ICollection<MbtBSPNode<T>> Cells { get; set; }

        public UInt32 Depth { get { if (Parent == null) return 0; return Parent.Depth + 1; } }
    }

And the tree himself:

    public class MbtBSPTree<T> where T : class, IIsPartionableByBT {
        public MbtBSPNode<T> Root { get; private set; }

        public UInt16 SplitDepthBy { get; private set; }

        public UInt16 LimitDepthTo { get; private set; }

        public MbtBSPTree(IEnumerable<T> l, UInt16 splitDepthBy = 0, UInt16 limitDepthTo = 0) {
            if (SplitDepthBy == 0) {
                if (l.Min(x => x.BTZ) == l.Max(x => x.BTZ)) {
                    SplitDepthBy = 2;
                } else {
                    SplitDepthBy = 3;
                }
            } else {
                SplitDepthBy = splitDepthBy;
            }
            LimitDepthTo = limitDepthTo;

            Root = BuildBSPTree(l, 0);
        }

        public BTCooProjector DefProjector(UInt16 axis) {
            switch (axis) {
                case 0:
                    return (n) => n.BTX;
                case 1:
                    return (n) => n.BTY;
                case 2:
                    return (n) => n.BTZ;
                default:
                    throw new Exception("valeur de split de profondeur non gérée");
            }
        }

        public MbtBSPNode<T> BuildBSPTree(IEnumerable<T> l, UInt16 depth, MbtBSPNode<T> p = null) {
            if (l.Count() == 0)
                return null;
            UInt16 axis = (UInt16)(depth % SplitDepthBy);

            MbtBSPNode<T> n = new MbtBSPNode<T>();
            n.Parent = p;

            if (LimitDepthTo > 0 && depth == LimitDepthTo) {
                n.Cells = new List<MbtBSPNode<T>>();
                foreach (T cc in l) {
                    n.Cells.Add(new MbtBSPNode<T> { Cell = cc });
                }
            } else {
                Double med = Double.MinValue;
                List<T> ll = new List<T>();
                List<T> lr = new List<T>();

                BTCooProjector proj = DefProjector((UInt16)(depth % SplitDepthBy));
                med = l.Median(x => proj(x));
                foreach (T c in l) {
                    if (proj(c) < med) {
                        ll.Add(c);
                    } else {
                        if (proj(c) == med) {
                            if (n.Cell == null)
                                n.Cell = c;
                            else
                                ll.Add(c);
                        } else {
                            lr.Add(c);
                        }
                    }
                }

                if (depth <= 2) {
                    //this will lead to 8 threads
                    Task<MbtBSPNode<T>> tl = Task<MbtBSPNode<T>>.Factory.StartNew(() =>
                        BuildBSPTree(ll, (UInt16)(depth + 1), n));
                    n.Right = BuildBSPTree(lr, (UInt16)(depth + 1), n);
                    //synchro thread
                    n.Left = tl.Result;
                } else {
                    n.Left = BuildBSPTree(ll, (UInt16)(depth + 1), n);
                    n.Right = BuildBSPTree(lr, (UInt16)(depth + 1), n);
                }
            }

            return n;
        }

#if DEBUG
        public Int32 ScannedNodeNumber { get; set; }
#endif

        public IEnumerable<MbtBSPNode<T>> GetNearestNodes(T cel, float radius) {
#if DEBUG
            ScannedNodeNumber = 0;
#endif
            MbtBSPNode<T> current;
            Queue<MbtBSPNode<T>> q = new Queue<MbtBSPNode<T>>();
            q.Enqueue(Root);

            while (q.Count > 0) {
                current = q.Dequeue();
                BTCooProjector proj;

                if (current.Cell != null) {
#if DEBUG
                    ScannedNodeNumber++;
#endif
                    if (cel.DistTo(current.Cell) <= radius && cel.Id != current.Cell.Id) {
                        yield return current;
                    }

                    proj = DefProjector((UInt16)(current.Depth % SplitDepthBy));

                    if (proj(cel) - radius <= proj(current.Cell)) {
                        if (current.Left != null)
                            q.Enqueue(current.Left);
                    }
                    if (proj(cel) + radius > proj(current.Cell)) {
                        if (current.Right != null)
                            q.Enqueue(current.Right);
                    }
                }

                if (current.Cells != null) {
                    foreach (MbtBSPNode<T> cc in current.Cells) {
#if DEBUG
                        ScannedNodeNumber++;
#endif
                        if (cel.Id != cc.Cell.Id && cel.DistTo(cc.Cell) <= radius)
                            yield return cc;
                    }
                }

            }
        }

One can find a median algorithm in here:

jeudi 14 mai 2015

Coloring cells in an OpenXml SpreadsheetDocument

Tow days, and many readings. That's the time I needed to figure out how to set a cell color in an openXml spreadsheet.

It finally ends by the use of the OpenXml SDK Productivity Tool.

The main point seems to be that there must be a minimal stylesheet in the spreadsheet. Among other, this minimal stylesheet must comprise s two Fills. This styleshett may be generated by the following code:

private void GenerateWorkbookStylesPartContent(WorkbookPart workbookPart, String partId) {
    WorkbookStylesPart wsp = workbookPart.AddNewPart(partId);

    Stylesheet stylesheet = new Stylesheet() { 
        MCAttributes = new MarkupCompatibilityAttributes() { Ignorable = "x14ac" } };
    stylesheet.AddNamespaceDeclaration("mc", 
        "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006");
    stylesheet.AddNamespaceDeclaration("x14ac", 
        "http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2009/9/ac");

    Fonts fonts = new Fonts() { Count = (UInt32Value)1U, KnownFonts = true };
    Font font = new Font();
    FontSize fontSize = new FontSize() { Val = 11D };
    Color color = new Color() { Theme = (UInt32Value)1U };
    FontName fontName = new FontName() { Val = "Calibri" };
    FontFamilyNumbering fontFamilyNumbering = new FontFamilyNumbering() { Val = 2 };
    FontScheme fontScheme = new FontScheme() { Val = FontSchemeValues.Minor };
    font.Append(fontSize);
    font.Append(color);
    font.Append(fontName);
    font.Append(fontFamilyNumbering);
    font.Append(fontScheme);
    fonts.Append(font);
    stylesheet.Fonts = fonts;

    Borders borders = new Borders() { Count = (UInt32Value)1U };
    Border border = new Border();
    LeftBorder leftBorder = new LeftBorder();
    RightBorder rightBorder = new RightBorder();
    TopBorder topBorder = new TopBorder();
    BottomBorder bottomBorder = new BottomBorder();
    DiagonalBorder diagonalBorder = new DiagonalBorder();
    border.Append(leftBorder);
    border.Append(rightBorder);
    border.Append(topBorder);
    border.Append(bottomBorder);
    border.Append(diagonalBorder);
    borders.Append(border);
    stylesheet.Borders = borders;

    stylesheet.Fills = new Fills();
    Fill f = new Fill { PatternFill = 
        new PatternFill { PatternType = PatternValues.None}};
    stylesheet.Fills.Append(f);
    stylesheet.Fills.Append(new Fill { PatternFill = 
        new PatternFill { PatternType = PatternValues.Gray125 } });

    CellFormats cellFormats = new CellFormats() { Count = (UInt32Value)1U };
    CellFormat cellFormat = new CellFormat() { 
        NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        FontId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        FillId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U };
    cellFormats.Append(cellFormat);
    stylesheet.CellFormats = cellFormats;

    CellStyles cellStyles = new CellStyles() { Count = (UInt32Value)1U };
    CellStyle cellStyle = new CellStyle() { 
        Name = "Normal", FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, BuiltinId = (UInt32Value)0U };
    stylesheet.CellStyles = cellStyles;

    CellStyleFormats cellStyleFormats = new CellStyleFormats() { Count = (UInt32Value)1U };
    CellFormat cellFormat2 = new CellFormat() { 
        NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        FontId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        FillId = (UInt32Value)0U, 
        BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U };
    cellStyleFormats.Append(cellFormat2);
    stylesheet.CellStyleFormats = cellStyleFormats;

    cellStyles.Append(cellStyle);

    wsp.Stylesheet = stylesheet;
}

From here, all what remain to do is handle the color in the cells, during the process I use a dictionary to avoid querying the stylesheet. In my case the key type is System.Drawing.Color because I'm exporting a DataGridView but, of course this type can be of any type you need.

    private Dictionary _colors = 
        new Dictionary();

Then, somewhere in the code:

UInt32 cellStyleUid = 0;
if ( col != System.Drawing.Color.Transparent) {
    if (!_colors.ContainsKey(col)) {
        //that is the style does not exists for this color
        if (_ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart == null) {
            GenerateWorkbookStylesPartContent(_ssDoc.WorkbookPart, "rId5");
        }

        //Create the Fill
        Fill fill = new Fill();
        PatternFill pf = new PatternFill { PatternType = PatternValues.Solid };
        ForegroundColor fgc = new ForegroundColor { 
             Rgb = HexBinaryValue.FromString(Convert.ToString(col.ToArgb(), 16)) };
        BackgroundColor bgc = new BackgroundColor() { Indexed = (UInt32Value)64U };
        pf.Append(fgc);
        pf.Append(bgc);
        fill.Append(pf);
        //update the stylesheet
        _ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.Fills.Append(fill);
        Int32 iFill = _ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.Fills.Count() - 1;
        _ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.Fills.Count = (UInt32)(iFill + 1);

        //Create the CellFormat to use the created Fill
        CellFormat lcf = 
            (CellFormat)_ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.CellFormats.LastChild;
        CellFormat cf = new CellFormat { 
            NumberFormatId = lcf.NumberFormatId,
            FontId = lcf.FontId,
            FillId = (UInt32Value)(UInt32)iFill,
            BorderId = lcf.BorderId,
            FormatId = lcf.FormatId,
            ApplyFill = true,
            ApplyFont = lcf.ApplyFont
        };                   

        //update the stylesheet 
        _ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.CellFormats.Append(cf);
        Int32 iCellFormat = 
            _ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.CellFormats.Count() - 1;
        _ssDoc.WorkbookPart.WorkbookStylesPart.Stylesheet.CellFormats.Count = 
            (UInt32)(iCellFormat + 1);

        //put the index of the new CellFormat in the buffer
        _colors.Add(col, (UInt32)iCellFormat);

    }
    //retrieve the index of the cell format for the color
    cellStyleUid = _colors[col];
}

It remains to use the updated stylesheet at the cell level. With cell being of type DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Spreadsheet.Cell

if (cellStyleUid != 0)
    cell.StyleIndex = cellStyleUid;

Et voilà !

lundi 27 avril 2015

Secure connection strings in app.config for a desktop application

The goal is to get away as little as possible of the standard.

In this case the standard is : Encrypting Configuration Information Using Protected Configuration

In short: use a ProtectedConfigurationProvider. The .Net Framework provides two of them:

The main inconvenience of those providers comes from the fact that they have been designed for web applications: that are applications in which the securisable is the application server. That is one web.config in one machine

With a desktop application you have a plurality of app.config

Said providers are machine based, i.e. there is one configuration file per machine. In other words, the configuration file of one machine can't be used by another because of different encryption keys.

Fortunately the .Net Framework provides an abstract class that can be overridden to built a custom provider.

Here is a sample

The DLL:

using System;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Xml;

namespace MBT.ProtectedConfigurationProviders {

    public class WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider : ProtectedConfigurationProvider {        
        public override void Initialize(string name, 
            System.Collections.Specialized.NameValueCollection config) {
            
            base.Initialize(name, config);
        }

        public override System.Xml.XmlNode Decrypt(System.Xml.XmlNode encryptedNode) {
            string decryptedData =
                DecryptString(encryptedNode.InnerText);

            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
            xmlDoc.PreserveWhitespace = true;
            xmlDoc.LoadXml(decryptedData);

            return xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
        }

        public override System.Xml.XmlNode Encrypt(System.Xml.XmlNode node) {
            string encryptedData = EncryptString(node.OuterXml);

            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
            xmlDoc.PreserveWhitespace = true;
            xmlDoc.LoadXml("" +
                encryptedData + "");

            return xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
        }

        public static String EncryptString(String st) {
            return Convert.ToBase64String(WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider.GetBytes(st));
        }

        public static String DecryptString(String st) {
            return WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(st));
        }

        public static byte[] GetBytes(string str) {
            byte[] bytes = new byte[str.Length * sizeof(char)];
            System.Buffer.BlockCopy(str.ToCharArray(), 0, bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
            return bytes;
        }

        public static string GetString(byte[] bytes) {
            char[] chars = new char[bytes.Length / sizeof(char)];
            System.Buffer.BlockCopy(bytes, 0, chars, 0, bytes.Length);
            return new string(chars);
        }
    }

}

Here the WEAK word is deliberately chosen. Base 64 encoding is not at all a cypher algorithm.

Then the Program:

using System;
using System.Configuration;

namespace bas {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            //String cs = @"";
            //Console.WriteLine(Convert.ToBase64String(WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider.GetBytes(cs)));
            Console.WriteLine(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["SomeName"].ConnectionString);
        }
    }
}

And finally the app.config

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration >
  <!-- xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0"-->
   
  <configProtectedData defaultProvider="WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider">
    <providers>
      <clear />
      <add name ="WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider" type="MBT.ProtectedConfigurationProviders.WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider, WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider"/>
    </providers>
  </configProtectedData>

  <connectionStrings configProtectionProvider="WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider">
    <EncryptedData>
      <CipherData>
        <CipherValue>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</CipherValue>
      </CipherData>
    </EncryptedData>
  </connectionStrings>
  
</configuration>

At least two points are significant here. First:

<add name ="WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider"
    type="MBT.ProtectedConfigurationProviders.WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider,  
          WeakProtectedConfigurationProvider"/>

Here to avoid a GAC registration, on use the syntax "type, assembly"

Second:

<configuration xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/.NetConfiguration/v2.0">

One may want to use a namespace in configuration tag of app.config to avoid Visual Studio complaint. But, in my case this also leads to side effect: "side by side configuration error" which prevents application from starting. So, for now, I do without, and it runs well.

Thank you to StackOverflow for the StringToBytesToString.

samedi 25 avril 2015

Reset visual studio to have it to forget you !

From time to time you may want to connect as another one to visual studio. That is not so easy as it seems. Even the official documentation is not of great help.

Said documentation points out a ResetSettings flag, but it does not do the trick.

Hopefully, and as always, StackOverflow is helpfull, and the solution is:

devenv /resetuserdata

mardi 21 avril 2015

SSRS: pass mutivalued parameter by http

In an SSRS report you may have multivaluable parameters :


In this case the question is: how to pass such a paramter by http ?
The answer is quite simple. In your query you must have a sequence like:
&CRITS=CRIT1&CRITS=CRIT2

The number of &CRITS= depends on the number of values.

lundi 19 janvier 2015

SSRS: All report in one page in the browser

In Sql Server Reporting Service, if you want to get your report without pagination you have to disable soft page break.
This can be done by setting InteractiveHeight to 0.
  1. Select the report property by clicking anywhere outside the report.
  2. Set the InteractiveSize - Height to 0

lundi 12 janvier 2015

Je suis Charlie

while ( true ) {
    Console.WriteLine("Je suis Charlie");
}

jeudi 1 janvier 2015

Merging runs in an openxml file/document

The goal is to reduce the number of runs in the paragraphs of a document. I made the choice not to use the openxml SDK. Indeed my goal is a templating engine. In my process the runs may contain xsl, that is xml. So I made the choice to stay on raw XML tools.

The operational (without the usings, except those revealing a dependency) code looks like:

namespace SandBox {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            try {

                String fileName = @"somepath\somefile.docx";
                String destFile = "res.docx";
                
                Tuple<XPathNavigator, XmlNamespaceManager> xp = 
                    ZDocx.GetNavigatorAndManagerFromString(
                        ZDocx.GetDocxDocumentStringFromDocxFile(fileName));
                XPathNavigator xpn = xp.Item1;
                XmlNamespaceManager xnm = xp.Item2;

                XPathNodeIterator xni = xpn.Select("//w:p", xnm);
                while (xni.MoveNext()) {
                    //Merge all runs ignoring styles
                    //ZDocx.MergeRuns(xni.Current);
                    //Merge considering only Bold as a grouping condition
                    ZDocx.MergeRuns(xni.Current, new ByStylesNodesComparator  {
                        Settings = new ByStylesNodesComparatorSettings {
                            CheckBold = true
                    }});                    
                }

                System.IO.File.Copy(fileName, destFile, true);
                ZDocx.SetDocxDocumentStringToDocxFile(xpn, destFile);

            } catch (Exception ex) {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}

There are 3 main steps:

  • I fristly load the document.xml part the openxml file in an XPathNavigator
  • Then I process each paragraph.
  • Finally I inject the modified document.xml in a new openxml file.

First the cooking code:

using Ionic.Zip;

namespace SandBox {
    public class ZDocx {
        public static String nsW = "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/wordprocessingml/2006/main";

        public static String GetDocxDocumentStringFromDocxFile(String fileName) {
            String tf = System.IO.Path.GetTempFileName();
            StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(tf);
            using (ZipFile zip = ZipFile.Read(fileName)) {
                ZipEntry e = zip["word\\document.xml"];
                e.Extract(sw.BaseStream);                
            }
            try {
                sw.Close();
            } catch { }
            
            StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(tf);
            String st = sr.ReadToEnd();
            sr.Close();
            System.IO.File.Delete(tf);
            
            return st;
        }

        public static void SetDocxDocumentStringToDocxFile(XPathNavigator xdoc, String fileName) {            
            using (ZipFile zip = ZipFile.Read(fileName)) {
                using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream()) {
                    XmlWriterSettings xws = new XmlWriterSettings {
                        Encoding = Encoding.UTF8
                    };
                    using (XmlWriter xw = XmlWriter.Create(ms, xws)) {
                        xw.WriteNode(xdoc, false);
                        xw.Flush();
                        ms.Position = 0;
                        zip.UpdateEntry("word\\document.xml", ms);
                        zip.Save();
                    }
                }
            }            
        }

        public static Tuple<XPathNavigator, XmlNamespaceManager> GetNavigatorAndManagerFromString(String st) {
            XmlDocument xml = new XmlDocument();
            StringReader stReader = new StringReader(st);
            XmlReader xReader = XmlReader.Create(stReader, new XmlReaderSettings() { 
                IgnoreWhitespace = false, 
                CloseInput = true });
            xml.Load(xReader);
            xReader.Close();
            XPathNavigator navXml = xml.CreateNavigator();
            XmlNamespaceManager manager = new XmlNamespaceManager(navXml.NameTable);
            manager.AddNamespace("w", nsW);
            manager.AddNamespace("xsl", "http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform");

            return new Tuple<XPathNavigator, XmlNamespaceManager>(navXml, manager);
        }

    }
}

Then the merging code:

namespace SandBox {
    public class ZDocx {
        public static void MergeRuns(XPathNavigator paragraph, INodeComparator areMergeable = null) {
            if (paragraph.LocalName != "p")
                throw new Exception("MergeRuns: paragraph is not a 'w:p'.");
            if (areMergeable == null)
                areMergeable = AlwaysTrueNodesComparator.GetInstance();

            XPathNavigator destRun = null;
            XPathNavigator lPara = paragraph.Clone();
            lPara.MoveToFirstChild();
            do {
                if (lPara.LocalName != "r")
                    continue;

                if (destRun == null) {
                    destRun = lPara.Clone();
                    continue;
                }

                if ( areMergeable.AreMergeable(destRun, lPara) ) {
                    XPathNavigator nL = lPara.Clone();
                    XPathNavigator nK = destRun.Clone();
                    nL.MoveToChild("t", nsW);
                    nK.MoveToChild("t", nsW);
                    nK.InnerXml += nL.InnerXml;                    
                    nL.MoveToParent();
                    nL.MoveToPrevious();
                    lPara.DeleteSelf();
                    lPara = nL;
                } else {
                    destRun = lPara.Clone();
                }

            } while (lPara.MoveToNext());
        }
    }
}
In the previous code, one key is the areMergeable parameter: this parameter allows to decide how the merging occurs. This parameter implements the following interface.
    public interface INodeComparator {
        Boolean AreMergeable(XPathNavigator xpn1, XPathNavigator xpn2);
    }
This interface may be implemented as in the following samples provided as an inspiration root:
namespace SandBox {
    public class AlwaysTrueNodesComparator : INodeComparator {
        private AlwaysTrueNodesComparator() {}

        private static AlwaysTrueNodesComparator _inst = new AlwaysTrueNodesComparator();
        public static AlwaysTrueNodesComparator GetInstance() {
            return _inst;
        }

        public Boolean AreMergeable(XPathNavigator xpn1, XPathNavigator xpn2) {
            return true;
        }
    }

    public class ByStylesNodesComparatorSettings {
        public Boolean CheckBold { get; set; }
        public Boolean CheckUnderlined { get; set; }
        public Boolean CheckItalic { get; set; }
        public Boolean CheckStriked { get; set; }
    }

    public class ByStylesNodesComparator : INodeComparator {
        public ByStylesNodesComparatorSettings Settings { get; set; }

        public Boolean AreMergeable(XPathNavigator xpn1, XPathNavigator xpn2) {
            XPathNavigator nav1 = xpn1.Clone();
            XPathNavigator nav2 = xpn2.Clone();

            Boolean nav1HasRPr = nav1.MoveToChild("rPr", ZDocx.nsW);
            Boolean nav2HasRPr = nav2.MoveToChild("rPr", ZDocx.nsW);

            Boolean b1, b2;

            if (Settings == null || Settings.CheckBold) {
                b1 = nav1HasRPr && nav1.SelectChildren("b", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                b2 = nav2HasRPr && nav2.SelectChildren("b", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                if (b1 != b2)
                    return false;
            }

            if (Settings == null || Settings.CheckUnderlined) {
                b1 = nav1HasRPr && nav1.SelectChildren("u", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                b2 = nav2HasRPr && nav2.SelectChildren("u", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                if (b1 != b2)
                    return false;
            }

            if (Settings == null || Settings.CheckItalic) {
                b1 = nav1HasRPr && nav1.SelectChildren("i", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                b2 = nav2HasRPr && nav2.SelectChildren("i", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                if (b1 != b2)
                    return false;
            }

            if (Settings == null || Settings.CheckStriked) {
                b1 = nav1HasRPr && nav1.SelectChildren("strike", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                b2 = nav2HasRPr && nav2.SelectChildren("strike", ZDocx.nsW).Count == 1;
                if (b1 != b2)
                    return false;
            }

            return true;
        }
    }
}

Take care to clone the navigators in the AreMergeable method to not surprise the caller.

Using AlwaysTrueNodesComparator reduces all paragraphs to one single run with the styles (or not) of the first run of the reduced paragraph.

Using ByStylesNodesComparator allows to merge runs according to some part of their styles. In the implemented class the handled style are Bold, Underline, Strike and Italic. Be careful that only basis underlining is handled. The underline style is not handled.

samedi 8 novembre 2014

Templating from Object

The idea here is to provide a really lightweight template engine.
The point here is to demonstrate how light such a code can be. In his current state the code suffers some defaults discussed at the end.
A template is a String comprising tokens of the form [ProperyName] or [ProperyName:format]. PropertyName can be any name of any property of an object or navigable property of the object. However IEnumerable are not handled.
public static String MergeObjectFromTemplate(String st, Object o) {
    if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(st)) throw new ArgumentNullException("st");
    if (o == null) return st;

    Int32 i = st.IndexOf("[");
    Int32 j = 0;
    String pName;
    Object lo;
    String[] a;
    while (i >= 0) {
        j = st.IndexOf("]");
        if (j == -1)
            return st;

        pName = st.Substring(i + 1, j - i - 1);
        a = pName.Split(':');
        lo = GetObjectByReflection(o, a[0]);
        if (lo == null) { 
            st = st.Replace("[" + pName + "]", "_" + pName + "_");
        } else {
            if (a.Count() == 1) {
                st = st.Replace("[" + pName + "]", lo.ToString().Trim());
            } else {
                st = st.Replace("[" + pName + "]", String.Format("{0:" + a[1] + "}", lo));
            }
        }

        i = st.IndexOf("[");
    }

    return st;
}
The key function here is: GetObjectByReflection.
public static Object GetObjectByReflection(Object src, String propertyName) {
    Type type;
    Object o = src;
    foreach (String fragment in propertyName.Split('.')) {
        type = o.GetType();
        PropertyInfo pi = type.GetProperty(fragment);
        if (pi == null) {
            o = null;
            break;
        }
        o = pi.GetValue(o, null);
        if (o == null) return String.Empty;
    }

    return o;
}
That is it!
Well, not totally. It remains some defaults, but for 50 lines, that's may be not so bad. Known defaults are:

  • Bad format string are not handled.
  • This is blocking, if throwing an exception is blocking. Correcting it is easy once expected behavior is known. At the time the code was updated I was just needing to format DateTime in a relatively safe environment: templates are edited by me. It is another story if you want to allow user to produce templates.
  • Excepted for a bad format String, the code always returns a String, even if a bad object is provided, or bad property name is used.

Windows 8 new account

I recently try to create a new account on a relatively old windows 8 computer (one year, several updates).

Account creation was just fine but... impossible to connect due to the inability of the system to load the profile of the newly created user.

After some googling and hours, I finally found that the problem was the inability of the system to create, by copying from c:\Users\Default, the new profile.

I found which files were involved with the windows events observer:


Once the rights fixed, I was able to use the new account.


mercredi 29 octobre 2014

Setup Apache 2.2 for FastCgi handling of PHP on windows 7

Why ?
Because I used to setup PHP as an Apache Module. But, this morning, after starting my good old 2012 apache2.2 service, it says "mysql driver not installed"! I'm quite sure they were in 2012. In addition, IIS, on the same php.ini, says they are installed. So I try Apache with FastCGI as IIS does. Then, my drivers come back.
We here assume that
  • Apache 2.2 is yet installed.
  • php5 is in a directory named c:\php-5
From this assumptions:
Edit httpd.conf as follow:
    #LoadModule php5_module "c:/php-5/php5apache2_2.dll"
    #AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
    #PHPIniDir "C:/php-5"

    LoadModule fcgid_module modules/mod_fcgid.so
    FcgidInitialEnv PHPRC "c:/php-5"
    AddHandler fcgid-script .php
    FcgidWrapper "c:/php-5/php-cgi.exe" .php
And, to avoid HTTP 403 errors, don't forget ExecCGI in your directory configuration.
    
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI
        #...
    
By the way, mod_fcgid.so can be found here (http://mir2.ovh.net/ftp.apache.org/dist//httpd/binaries/win32/)
I'm on a windows 7 64bits professional edition.

lundi 22 septembre 2014

Managing default values for entities in EF II: the just on time way

You probably still know how to create an entity with default values. This is the 'from birth' way.
Well, there is another way to set default values: a 'just on time way'.
The principle is to override the SaveChanges method to explore entities in the tracker to find the one having unset values, just like in the 'from birth way'. Here it is how it can be done.
        //the default value for datetime properties
        public DateTime DefaultDate { get; set; }

        public override int SaveChanges() {
            Boolean defaultSet = false;

            //seeking only pertinent entities
            foreach (DbEntityEntry dbee in ChangeTracker.Entries().
                     Where(x => x.State != EntityState.Deleted && x.State != EntityState.Detached ) ) {
                defaultSet = false;
                Object o = dbee.Entity;
                Type t = o.GetType();
                foreach ( MemberInfo m in t.GetProperties() ) {
                    PropertyInfo p = t.GetProperty(m.Name);
                    switch (Type.GetTypeCode(p.PropertyType)) {
                        case TypeCode.String:
                            if (p.GetValue(o, null) == null) {
                                p.SetValue(o, String.Empty, null);
                                defaultSet = true;
                            }
                            break;
                        case TypeCode.DateTime:
                            if ((DateTime)p.GetValue(o, null) == DateTime.MinValue) {
                                p.SetValue(o, DefaultDate, null);
                                defaultSet = true;
                            }
                            break;
                    }
                    
                    //update the state if needed
                    if ( defaultSet ) {
                        switch ( dbee.State ) {
                            case EntityState.Unchanged :
                                dbee.State = EntityState.Modified;
                                break;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            return base.SaveChanges();
        }
This could be used to implement business rules, such as LastModificationDate.
Before EF6, you may have to look for the tracker in the underlying ObjectContext
A full piece of code:
using System;
using System.Linq;
using System.Data.Entity;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Data.Entity.Infrastructure;

namespace testef {
    public class Order {
        public Int32 Id { get; set; }
        public String Title { get; set; }

        public virtual ICollection Details { get; set; }

        public DateTime OrderDate { get; set; }

        public virtual OrderType Type { get; set; }
    }

    public class OrderType {
        public String Code { get; set; }
        public String Description { get; set; }
    }

    public class OrderDetail {
        public virtual Order Order { get; set; }
        public Int32 Id { get; set; }
        public String D { get; set; }
        public Boolean IsActive { get; set; }
    }

    public class OrderDetailConfiguration : EntityTypeConfiguration {
        public OrderDetailConfiguration()
            : base() {
            HasRequired(d => d.Order).WithMany(o => o.Details);
        }
    }

    public class OrderConfiguration : EntityTypeConfiguration {
        public OrderConfiguration()
            : base() {
            HasRequired(d => d.Type).WithMany();
        }
    }

    public class OrderTypeConfiguration : EntityTypeConfiguration {
        public OrderTypeConfiguration()
            : base() {
            Property(x => x.Code).HasColumnType("varchar").HasMaxLength(10);
            HasKey(x => x.Code);
        }
    }

    public class TestEFContext : DbContext {
        public DbSet Orders { get; set; }
        public DbSet Details { get; set; }

        public TestEFContext(String cs)
            : base(cs) {
            Database.SetInitializer(new DropCreateDatabaseAlways());
            //Database.SetInitializer(null);
            //Database.SetInitializer(new CreateDatabaseIfNotExists());
            //Database.SetInitializer(new CustomDataBaseInitializer());

        }

        protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder) {
        }

        public DateTime DefaultDate { get; set; }

        public override int SaveChanges() {

            Boolean defaultSet = false;
            foreach (DbEntityEntry dbee in ChangeTracker.Entries().
                     Where(x => x.State != EntityState.Deleted && x.State != EntityState.Detached ) ) {
                defaultSet = false;
                Object o = dbee.Entity;
                Type t = o.GetType();
                foreach ( MemberInfo m in t.GetProperties() ) {
                    PropertyInfo p = t.GetProperty(m.Name);
                    switch (Type.GetTypeCode(p.PropertyType)) {
                        case TypeCode.String:
                            if (p.GetValue(o, null) == null) {
                                p.SetValue(o, String.Empty, null);
                                defaultSet = true;
                            }
                            break;
                        case TypeCode.DateTime:
                            if ((DateTime)p.GetValue(o, null) == DateTime.MinValue) {
                                p.SetValue(o, DefaultDate, null);
                                defaultSet = true;
                            }
                            break;
                    }
                    if ( defaultSet ) {
                        switch ( dbee.State ) {
                            case EntityState.Unchanged :
                                dbee.State = EntityState.Modified;
                                break;
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            return base.SaveChanges();
        }
    }

    public class CustomDataBaseInitializer : CreateDatabaseIfNotExists {
        public CustomDataBaseInitializer()
            : base() {
        }
    }
        
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            String cs = @"Data Source=ALIASTVALK;Initial Catalog=TestEF;Integrated Security=True; MultipleActiveResultSets=True";
            using (TestEFContext ctx = new TestEFContext(cs)) {
                ctx.DefaultDate = new DateTime(2000, 1, 1);

                OrderType t = new OrderType { 
                    Code = "T1",
                    Description = "type One"
                };
                ctx.Orders.Add(new Order { 
                    Title = "first order",
                    Type = t
                });

                ctx.SaveChanges();
            }

            using (TestEFContext ctx = new TestEFContext(cs)) {
                Order o = ctx.Orders.First();
                Console.WriteLine(o.OrderDate);
            }
        }
    }
}

mardi 9 septembre 2014

Bulleting in MsWord openXml document, using OpenXml SDK: the basics.

As often the most important is the understanding of the model, here of the XML model.
This article is a simplifcation of Working with Numbered Lists in Open XML WordprocessingML.
Bulleting is a part of Numbering.
Numbering is a NumberingProperties (numPr) property in a ParagraphProperties property of a Paragraph from a Document object.
That is a hierarchy as follow:
<w:document>
    <w:body>
        <w:p>
            <w:pPr>
                <w:numPr>
                    <w:ilvl>X</w:ilvl>
                    <w:numId val="Y" />
numId leads to an NumberingInstance (num) in NumberingDefinitionsPart of MainDocumentPart of WordProcessingDocument.
//word/numbering.xml
    <w:numbering>
        <w:num w:numId="Y">
            <w:abstractNumId w:val="Z" />
abstractNumId leads to a AbstractNum (abstractNum)
//word/numbering.xml
    <w:numbering>
        <w:abstractNum w:abstractNumId="Z" >
            <w:lvl w:ilvl="X">
                ...
            </w:lvl>
        <w:num w:numId="Y">
            <w:abstractNumId w:val="Z" />

It is now clear that to get the bullet properties we have to traverse from the NumberingProperties of the Paragraph comprising the text of the bullet. Then we go to the NumberingDefinitionsPart searching the corresponding numId, That give us an abstractNumId which, with the ilvl of the ParagraphProperties, give us the Level we seek.
Remark
If you have a ParagraphProperties at the Paragraph level, the Paragraph stays a bullet (because of Paragraph.NumberingProperties), but the values from Paragraph.ParagraphProperties prevail over those of NumberingProperties.

mardi 1 juillet 2014

Filter DataGridView out of the DbContext

Imagine you load data into a DataGridView.DataSource from a database.
Then you want to allow end user to filter the results, but without hitting database again.
So you use a TextBox to prompt a filter an, OnTextChanged
private void tbFilter_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) {
    CurrencyManager cm = (CurrencyManager)BindingContext[dgvList.DataSource];
    cm.SuspendBinding();
    foreach (DataGridViewRow r in dgvList.Rows) {
        r.Visible = String.IsNullOrEmpty(tbFilter.Text) || r.Cells[1].Value.ToString().Contains(tbFilter.Text);
    }
    cm.ResumeBinding();
}
Here the difficulty is the use of a CurrencyManager.