Sometimes you just need a file with nothing particular in it so you can test a web-page with a <input type="file"/>

Rather than write a snippet of code, or use a utility, you can use the operating system to do this.

On WindowsXP, you can use FSUTIL to do this.

FSUTIL FILE CREATENEWFILE <path> <sizeInBytes>

FSUTIL FILE CREATENEWFILE C:\20mbfile.txt 20971520

I want to get a Process ID for the current Application in C#, so which is faster (and does it really matter).

Lets find out!

namespace ProcessIDFaceoff
{
class Program
{
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError =true)]
staticexternint GetCurrentProcessId();

staticvoid Main(string[] args)
{
for (int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
{
new Program().RunTest();
}
}

publicvoid RunTest()
{
constint times = 1000;
System.Console.WriteLine("PInvoke,Native");

for (int j = 0; j < 20; j++)
{
using (new DisposableStopwatch(System.Console.Out))
{
for (int i = 0; i < times; i++)
{
int pid = GetCurrentProcessId();
}
}
System.Console.Write(",");
using (new DisposableStopwatch(System.Console.Out))
{
for (int i = 0; i < times; i++)
{
int pid = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id;
}
}
System.Console.WriteLine();
}
}

class DisposableStopwatch : System.IDisposable
{
private System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch watch;

public DisposableStopwatch(System.IO.TextWriter logger)
{
watch = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.StartNew();
}

#region IDisposable Members

publicvoid Dispose()
{
watch.Stop();
System.Console.Write("{0}", watch.Elapsed);
}

#endregion
}
}
}

Yields something like this.

PInvoke,Native
00:00:00.0003477,00:00:00.0004451
00:00:00.0000705,00:00:00.0003653
00:00:00.0000675,00:00:00.0003550
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0003782
00:00:00.0000679,00:00:00.0003586
00:00:00.0000674,00:00:00.0003772
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0017131
00:00:00.0000706,00:00:00.0004838
00:00:00.0000689,00:00:00.0053451
00:00:00.0000676,00:00:00.0003648
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0003676
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0003659
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0017793
00:00:00.0000766,00:00:00.0004811
00:00:00.0000694,00:00:00.0004966
00:00:00.0000690,00:00:00.0004918
00:00:00.0000704,00:00:00.0003739
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0003609
00:00:00.0000769,00:00:00.0003749
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0034804
PInvoke,Native
00:00:00.0000704,00:00:00.0004326
00:00:00.0000695,00:00:00.0014194
00:00:00.0000770,00:00:00.0002896
00:00:00.0000681,00:00:00.0003052
00:00:00.0000705,00:00:00.0003009
00:00:00.0000711,00:00:00.0003472
00:00:00.0000708,00:00:00.0038629
00:00:00.0000681,00:00:00.0003193
00:00:00.0000678,00:00:00.0003672
00:00:00.0000679,00:00:00.0003150
00:00:00.0000675,00:00:00.0003610
00:00:00.0000679,00:00:00.0003227
00:00:00.0000674,00:00:00.0061228
00:00:00.0000704,00:00:00.0004289
00:00:00.0000701,00:00:00.0004732
00:00:00.0000696,00:00:00.0004107
00:00:00.0000697,00:00:00.0003274
00:00:00.0000678,00:00:00.0003034
00:00:00.0000679,00:00:00.0004169
00:00:00.0000688,00:00:00.0047879
PInvoke,Native
00:00:00.0000703,00:00:00.0004419
00:00:00.0000697,00:00:00.0004428
00:00:00.0000699,00:00:00.0003065
00:00:00.0000678,00:00:00.0003064
00:00:00.0000674,00:00:00.0003073
00:00:00.0000674,00:00:00.0015432
00:00:00.0000694,00:00:00.0004473
00:00:00.0000704,00:00:00.0053116
00:00:00.0000680,00:00:00.0003242
00:00:00.0000698,00:00:00.0003293
00:00:00.0000721,00:00:00.0003163
00:00:00.0000720,00:00:00.0003264
00:00:00.0000716,00:00:00.0039090
00:00:00.0000700,00:00:00.0004544
00:00:00.0000703,00:00:00.0003519
00:00:00.0000678,00:00:00.0003039
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0003300
00:00:00.0000678,00:00:00.0003068
00:00:00.0000677,00:00:00.0070403
00:00:00.0000727,00:00:00.0003814

Looks faster to me. By at least 3x-5x in most cases. That's maybe worth the consideration to PInvoke it.

A colleage approached me and asked how he could convert some ASP Classic code to ASP.Net 2.

Here's the snippet

Dim user 'DOMAIN\USERNAME

Const DomainAuthority = "dc.hq.domain.com"

user = Request.ServerVariables("AUTH_USER") ' BASIC Authentication

user = Mid(user, InStr(user, "\") + 1)

Set user = GetObject("WINNT://" & DomainAuthority & "/" & user)

For Each grp in user.Groups

   If grp.Name = "GroupName1" Then GroupFlag1 = True

   If grp.Name = "GroupName2" Then GroupFlag2 = True

Next

This doesn't compile in a VB.Net web-app.

In order to fix this, lets first add a reference to the types we're using.

At the project level in the Solution Explorer, right click and select Add Reference

Switch to the COM tab, and Choose the "Active DS Type Library"

This will automagically add some things to your project.

These are the magical COM Interop DLLs that are generated for you, and allow you to use the objects inside that library.
Dim up a few objects, to use a bit later.

Dim usr As IADsUser
Dim grp As IADsGroup

Set a reference to your user the same as always, using the WinNT ADSI provider.

usr = GetObject("WINNT://" & TheDC & "/" & UsrName)

Now that the compiler knows what the grp object's type is, it won't puke on you

For Each grp In usr.Groups()
  If (grp.Name = "foo" Or grp.Name = "bar") Then
    ' Do something with it
  End If
Next


There are better ways to do this though, Stay tuned for how to totally pimp this out, the ASP.Net 2.0 way.

I've had to do this way too many times, and keep forgetting to document how here.

Referencing an article http://www.activedir.org/article.aspx?aid=110. It occurred to me that you can impliment the snippet very easily in VBS.

1. Connect to the of the current workstation rootDSE
2. query for all User objects using an indexed attribute to get results as quickly as possible, also with little load on the server
3. get a full IADsUser object using the LDAP ADSI provider
4. do something with each user.

Here's what I wound up with.

Option Explicit ' Enough said. Don't write production code without it.

Dim objConnection, objCommand, objRecordSet, objRootDSE, objUser

Dim start, strDomain
start = Now

' AD (NTDS) is, afterall, just a service that sits on top of a
' JET Blue-basedExtensible Storage Engine (WikiPedia Active_Directory)
' So why not just treat it as such and use a Database-esque provider to access the data?

Set objConnection = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
objConnection.Open "Provider=ADsDSOObject;"

Set objCommand = CreateObject("ADODB.Command")
objCommand.ActiveConnection = objConnection

' Get Domain name from RootDSE object.
Set objRootDSE = GetObject(" LDAP://RootDSE ")
strDomain = objRootDSE.Get("DefaultNamingContext")

' One could just as easily do (&(objectClass=User)(objectCategory=Person))

' I found this approach using indexed attributes to produce a speed gain of several magnitudes.

objCommand.CommandText = _
"<LDAP://" & strDomain & ">;" & _
 "(&(sAMAccountType=805306368)(!(objectClass=inetOrgPerson)));" & _
 "adspath;subtree"

Set objRecordSet = objCommand.Execute

While Not objRecordset.EOF

  ' Here is an IADsUser object using the ADSI LDAP provider.

 Set objUser = GetObject(objRecordset.Fields("adspath"))
 
 WScript.Echo objUser.name ' Do your work here! woohoo!
 
 objRecordset.MoveNext
 
Wend

WScript.Echo "Retrieved (" & objRecordSet.RecordCount & ") records in (" & DateDiff("s", start, Now) & ") seconds"

objConnection.Close

Javascript closures

<SCRIPT type="text/javascript">
function CreateRandomNumbers(count, max)
{
 var a = new Array();
 for(var i = 0; i < count; i++)
 {
   a.push(Math.floor(Math.random()*max)+1);
 }
 return a;
}

var smallRandomNumbers = CreateRandomNumbers(20, 20);
var largeRandomNumbers = CreateRandomNumbers(20, 500);

function makeGreaterThanPredicate(lowerBound) {
    return function(numberToCheck) {
    return (numberToCheck > lowerBound) ? true : false;
  };
}

function filter(sortby, arr)
{
  var l = arr.length;
  var a = new Array();
 
  for(var i = 0; i < l; i++)
  {
    var currentElement = arr[i];
    if(sortby(currentElement)) a.push(currentElement);
  }
  return a;
}

function dumpArray(obj)
{
  var l = obj.length;
  document.write('[');
  for(var i = 0; i < l; i++)
  {
    document.write(obj[i]);
    if(i != l-1)
    {
    document.write(',');
    }
  }
 document.write(']');
}
function dump(obj)
{
  var switchToken = typeof(obj);

  switch (switchToken)
  {
    case 'object':
      dumpArray(obj);
      break;
    default:
      document.writeln("Unknown type:");
      document.writeln(obj.toString());
  }
  document.writeln("<br/>");
}
var greaterThan10 = makeGreaterThanPredicate(10);
var greaterThan100 = makeGreaterThanPredicate(100);
dump(smallRandomNumbers);
dump(filter(greaterThan10, smallRandomNumbers));
dump(largeRandomNumbers);
dump(filter(greaterThan100, largeRandomNumbers));
dump(filter(makeGreaterThanPredicate(250), largeRandomNumbers));
</SCRIPT>

More DOS Scripting goodness. This snippet appends some arbitrary location to your PATH variable, so you can call the executables inside of it.

@ECHO OFF
ECHO %PATH% | FIND /I "C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder with Spaces\bin\Release"
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Folder1\Folder2\Folder with Spaces\bin\Release

That, ladies and gentleman, will save you minutes of grief. Isn't that what it's all about anyway? makes it all worth while.

I've found myself using this pattern alot lately. I figured I'd post it for posterity.

@ECHO OFF

SET NOWD=%DATE%
SET mm=%NOWD:~4,2%
SET dd=%NOWD:~7,2%
SET yyyy=%NOWD:~10,4%

:: ECHO mm=%mm%
:: ECHO dd=%dd%
:: ECHO yyyy=%yyyy%

SET NOWT=%TIME%
SET hour=%TIME:~0,2%
SET min=%TIME:~3,2%
SET sec=%TIME:~6,2%
SET ms=%TIME:~9,2%

:: ECHO NOWT=%NOWT%
:: ECHO hour=%hour%
:: ECHO min=%min%
:: ECHO sec=%sec%
:: ECHO ms=%ms%

SET LOGFILENAME=%yyyy%%mm%%dd%_%hour%%min%%sec%%ms%.txt

:: ECHO %LOGFILENAME%

:: make sure to use a double arrow to append, not 'create'

ECHO %DATE% - %TIME% >> %LOGFILENAME%

ECHO Whatever your program should do >> %LOGFILENAME%

Some people (like myself) should learn not to touch a compiler on Monday mornings (before the third cup of coffee at least)

I don't know why I couldn't remember how to do this, but I feel like a noob.

I was just trying to build a Xml Document in memory with a XmlWriter and a MemoryStream simple stuff right?

...

}

Now what if you want to get that back into a string? Say for use in a web-service query or something. like, I don't know, the SharePoint 2003 Search Web Service.

That conversion back to a string might look something like this.

string s;
System.O.MemoryStream ms;
System.IO.StreamReader sr = new System.IO.StreamReader(ms));
s = sr.ReadToEnd();
sr.Close();
ms.Close();

Of course later in the day, I decided to actually download the Research Service SDK, grab a copy of the QueryPacket Schema I was working against, generated a class against it with the XSD tool, and subclassed it to make sure I was submitting a valid search request. All was well with the world again, and I didn't feel so horribly inept for a Monday morning. Yeah me!

I realized I haven't blogged in 5 months. How pathetic is that.

Here's some quick coding goodness. This will insert the current date formatted per the user's Locale into the div. One of them is IE specific, the other is a more standards-happy way of doing it. As always, code should be valid XHTML!

<div id="CurrentDate"></div>
<hr />
<div id="CurrentDate2"></div>

<script type="text/vbscript" language="vbscript">
<!--
<![CDATA[
    Document.all("CurrentDate").innerText = FormatDateTime(Now(),1)
]]>
//-->
</script>

<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
<!--
<![CDATA[
    var now =new Date();
    now.getDate();
    document.getElementById("CurrentDate2").innerText = now.toLocaleDateString();

]]>
//-->
</script>