Thoughts from Josh

NVARCHAR - to be used because if 100 characters are set aka NVARCHAR(100), but only 10 characters are used the amount of space used is 10.

WHERE if  NCHAR 100 Characters aka NCHAR(100) , but only 10 characters are used the amount of space used is 100...

Very wasteful on data storage.    "KNOW YOU YOUR DATA", as Larry Leonard would say.

Visual Studio Build Feature

GREAT POST --- http://geeks-squad.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-does-clean-solution-under-build.html

What does "Clean Solution" under Build Menu in Visual Studio do ?

I have been using the Visual Studio 2003 and 2008 IDE everyday at work for 9 hours for almost 7 months now and still keep running into these little stuff in the IDE that either I never thought existed or seen or even if I have seen never bothered to explore further.

So, today morning, while building my project, (I usually use Ctrl+Shift+B (Build All) rather than go to the Build Menu and use the Build Solution there) from the Build Menu, I saw the Clean Solution menu that I always knew existed but never bothered to find out what for.

So, I decided to look it up on MSDN and this is what I found.

To build, rebuild, or clean an entire solution

1. In Solution Explorer, select or open the desired solution.
2. On the Build menu, choose Build Solution, Rebuild Solution, or Clean Solution.
   • Choose Build or Build Solution to compile only those project files and components that have changed since the last build.

     Note:
     The Build command becomes Build Solution when a solution includes more than one project.

   • Choose Rebuild Solution to "clean" the solution first, and then build all project files and components.
   • Choose Clean Solution to delete any intermediate and output files, leaving only the project and component files, from which new instances of the intermediate and output files can then be built.

So, Clean Solution apparently cleans up ur .pdb files from the solution directory and adds them back again when you build the solution again with the new component files and the output generated by them.

Another article that explain "Clean Solution" can be found here.

But then again, my curiosity did not die there, so I continued on trying to find what exactly goes on in a "pdb" file and found some really good articles.

MSDN says

"A program database (PDB) file holds debugging and project state information that allows incremental linking of a debug configuration of your program. A PDB file is created when you build with /debug (Visual Basic/C#). You can build Visual Basic and Visual C# applications with/debug:full or /debug:pdbonly. Building with /debug:full generates debuggable code. Building with /debug:pdbonly generates PDBs but does not generate the DebuggableAttribute that tells the JIT compiler that debug information is available. Use /debug:pdbonly if you want to generate PDBs for a release build that you do not want to be debuggable.

The Visual Studio debugger uses the path to the PDB in the EXE or DLL file to find the project.pdb file. If the debugger cannot find the PDB file at that location, or if the path is invalid, for example, if the project was moved to another computer, the debugger searches the path containing the EXE followed by the symbol paths specified in the Options dialog box. This path is generally the Debugging folder in the Symbols node. The debugger will not load a PDB that does not match the binary being debugged."

Edition	Visual Basic	C#	C++	Web Developer
Express
Standard
Pro and Team

Table legend:

	Applies
	Does not apply
	Command or commands hidden by default.

Other findings :
"The dll is the actual binary that executes. The PDB is the symbols that map memory locations in the binary to symbolic names for the debugger."

Anyways, that's it from me as far as pdb and "Clean Solution" is concerned. Next time will talk about Generics (one of my favorite features in C#).

Until next time,
Happy Debugging !!!

New Job Title

Trained chimp behind the key board LOL...  I heard that from a co-worker today and thought that was funny.

T-SQL Cursor example

--------------------------CURSOR CODE BEGIN------------------------------

DECLARE @id INT

DECLARE @doc_id INT

DECLARE @review_count INT

DECLARE MyCursor CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR

SELECT

 doc_id,

 SUBSTRING(short_desc, 6, 6) AS id

FROM tbl_client_doc cd

WHERE 

cd.doc_type_id = 18 

AND 

cd.short_desc LIKE "XYZ: %'

AND 

cd.note_desc = ''

ORDER BY

cd.doc_type_id DESC

OPEN TarCursor

FETCH NEXT FROM MyCursor INTO @doc_id, @id

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0

BEGIN

SET @review_count = (SELECT COUNT(answer_id) FROM tbl_review_gen WHERE id = @id)

IF @review_count > 0

BEGIN

PRINT 'DELETE FROM tbl_client_doc WHERE doc_id = ' + CONVERT(varchar(10), @doc_id)

END

FETCH NEXT FROM MyCursor INTO @doc_id, @id    ---- Have to move to the next row

END

--CLOSE MyCusor

DEALLOCATE MyCursor

GO

--------------------------CURSOR CODE END-------------------------------

DropDownList set dl.SelectedValue

 Private Sub dg_srvc_ItemDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.DataGridItemEventArgs) Handles dg_srvc.ItemDataBound
        If e.Item.ItemType = ListItemType.EditItem Then
            Dim dl_span As DropDownList
            Dim t As Label

            dl_span = CType(e.Item.FindControl("dl_span"), DropDownList)
            dl_span.SelectedValue = dl_span.Items.IndexOf(dl_span.Items.FindByText(s_span.Trim.ToLower))

            t = CType(e.Item.FindControl("temp"), Label)
            t.Text = s_span.Trim

        End If

WARNING: ENSURE your values if hard coded match the value from the DB...

Visual Studio Windows opening in different Window Panes?

If your Visual Studio 2012 or any other version is opening Windows in different panes try the following:

File Menu

 --- Window

    ---- Reset Window Layout

Pretty good stuff --- Also found "Auto Hide All" good shortcut to get the full screen to code with.

Databinding

 MSDN - Data-binding expressions are contained within <%# and %> delimiters and use the Eval and Bind functions. The Eval function is used to define one-way (read-only) binding. The Bind function is used for two-way (updatable) binding. In addition to calling Eval and Bind methods to perform data binding in a data-binding expression, you can call any publicly scoped code within the <%# and %> delimiters to execute that code and return a value during page processing.

Search for Text in SQL Server DB

 use DB_NAME
SELECT DISTINCT
      DB_NAME() AS DatabaseName,
      OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(id) AS SchemaName,
      OBJECT_NAME(id) AS ObjectName,
      SUBSTRING(text, PATINDEX('%YOUR_SEARCH_TEXT%',text) - 10, 100)  AS TextLocation
FROM sys.syscomments
WHERE text LIKE '%YOUR_SEARCH_TEXT%'
ORDER BY 1, 2, 3

SQL Server Check --- IF Exists

IF EXISTS(SELECT * FROM tempdb.dbo.sysobjects WHERE ID = OBJECT_ID(N'tempdb..#temp_det_for_mst'))
BEGIN
DROP TABLE #temp_det_for_mst
END

Entity Framework (Credit Walt Daniels)

Wiring up Entity Framework to DropDownList ASP.NET.

Prereq ---  Setup Entity Framework.


Private Sub FillSource()
        ctx = New Context()



        Dim qry = From p In ctx.tbl_names
                  Where p.ACTIVE = True
                  Order By p.name
                  Select p.id, p.name


        ddlFundSource.DataSource = qry.ToList()
        ddlFundSource.DataValueField = id"
        ddlFundSource.DataTextField = "name"
        ddlFundSource.DataBind()
        ddlFundSource.Items.Insert(0, New ListItem("[Any Fund]", "0"))    ' Tip if you want to add a default value.

    End Sub