Web Deployment Installation Gotchas

1. Right click on the "web application folder" and choose "Add", "Project Output".
   
2. The standard choices are usually "Primary Output" and "Content Files"
   
3. Note the dropdown list for other projects in the current solution! Here you can select outputs from other projects to be included in the installation....
   
4. ...BUT...there's a property on each reference that's hard to remember.
   
   
   
   • Right click, properties on a reference for the main web application. The property is Copy Local, and describes whether the output (usually the DLL assembly) for this reference should be copied to the output directory of the project.
     
   • This way...the "Primary Output" group for the main web application will include all the supporting assemblies in your solution!
     
   
   
5. Right click on a folder in the right pane and choose "Outputs" to see what will be installed by that folder.
   

Web Application Deployment

Tidbits

• In the deployment project, right side pane, right click on a category and select "outputs". Shows you what's currently in the list to be installed.


• Probably obvious, but "Contents" are aspx and config files (text stuff), and "Primary Output" are the assemblies from the project.


• Also obvious, but you can uninstall through the IDE with right click, Uninstall, or in Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs

Why does the runtime c# compiler fire up when I first access the pages?!

1. The compiled aspx page code is coming out of Temp ASP.NET files subdirs, even though the source for these script/text files is in the appilcation root. This file will have a class like ASP.WebForm1_aspx that extends WebApp1.WebForm1 (the code behind file)


2. Your supporting assemblies (including the code-behind classes) are being run out of the application\bin directory. This file will have a class like WebApp1.WebForm1 that extends System.Web.UI.Page

• your assemblies are actually "shadow copied" to some other directory by IIS so you may write over the assembly with a new version without stopping the web server
  

During Development...

Debugging

• Processes dialog - ability to debug more than one process at a time...and detach from process (allowing it to continue to run) at the end of debug session
  
• Customize F5 - tell the debugger what to launch (remote process, URL, etc) when hit F5
  
• JIT debugging - add <system.winforms.forms jitDebugging="true"/> in configuration section
  

Debugging ASP.NET

Remote Debugging ASP.NET

Trace & Debug

• Calls on Debug class will be skipped by compiler in release builds - since the DEBUG symbol is not defined (project properties, build, code generation).
  
• Calls on Trace class will be included (by default, TRACE is defined for release build), but can be turned on/off with config files.
  

	<configuration>

	  <system.diagnostics>

	    <switches>

	      <add name="mySwitch" value="10" />

	      <add name="myNewSwitch" value="20" />

	    </switches>

	  </system.diagnostics>

	</configuration>

  <system.diagnostics>

    <trace autoflush="true" indentsize="4">

      <listeners>

        <add name="lis" type="Sytsem.Diagnostics.TextWriterTraceListener" 

                initializeData="c:\trace.log"/>

      </listeners>

    </trace>

  </system.diagnostics>

Tracing ASP.NET

     <trace enabled="true" pageOuput="false"/>

Hidden Goodies

• mcee_cs.dat --- c#
  
• mcee_mc.dat --- managed c++
  

Simple Performance Counter

PerformanceCounter pc = new PerformanceCounter( 

                       "CategoryName", "CounterName", "InstanceName", false );

pc.IncrementBy( 1 );

MSIL Obfuscators

Simple NT Event Logging

Application_Start {

  string LogName = "DanSource";

  if ( EventLog.SourceExists( LogName ) == false )

    EventLog.CreateEventSource( LogName, LogName );

}



Application_Error {

  string msg = String.Format( "error in {0}, text = {1}", 

                  Request.Path, Server.GetLastError.ToString() );

  EventLog evt = new EventLog();

  evt.Source = LogName;

  evt.WriteEntry( msg, EventLogEntryType.Error );

}

ASP.NET Tracing

• From First - time since the first trace statement
  
• From Last - time since the previous trace statement
  

Filter Rows from DataTable into another DataTable

	DataTable	tNew = new DataTable("LowNumberedNodes");

	DataRow[] rows = ds.Tables[0].Select( "T1NID < 5" );

	for ( int i=0; i<rows.Length; i++ )

		tNew.ImportRow( rows[i] );

	DataTable	tNew = new DataTable("LowNumberedNodes");

	foreach ( DataRow r in ds.Tables[0].Select( "T1NID < 5" ) )

		tNew.ImportRow( r );

Command Window

Protected Multiple Thread Access

ASP.NET Tracing

    <trace

        enabled="true"

        requestLimit="10"

        pageOutput="false"

        traceMode="SortByTime"

        localOnly="true"

    />

Lists, Grids, Repeaters

• Table gives programatic control of the HTML table element
  
• Repeater is for simple, read-only output, layout list by creating templates
  
• DataList provides data-binding output with editing, non-tabular lists, easily customizable output, WYSIWYG editing, horizontal or vertical layout
  
• DataGrid provides full-featured data-binding output with editing, paging, auto-format, customizable with templates, edit/update/delete contents, sorting
  

	TableRow tr = null;

	TableCell tc = null;

	for ( int j=0; j<2; j++ )

	{

		tr = new TableRow();

		Table1.Rows.Add( tr );

		for (int i = 0; i<3; i++ ) 

		{

			tc = new TableCell();

			tc.Text = "Row " + j + ", Cell " + i;

			tr.Cells.Add( tc );

		}

		// add a "control" to a cell instead of just plain text

		tc = new TableCell();

		tc.Controls.Add( new LiteralControl( "Search " ));

		System.Web.UI.WebControls.HyperLink h = new HyperLink();

		h.Text = "MSDN";

		h.NavigateUrl = "http://msdn.microsoft.com";

		tc.Controls.Add( h );

		tr.Cells.Add( tc );

	}

• table layout
  
• comma separated list ( "a, b, c, d, ... " )
  
• bulleted or numbered list
  

• ItemTemplate - rendered once for each row in data source.
  
• AlternatingItemTemplate - rendered for every other row in the data source.
  
• HeaderTemplate & FooterTemplate - rendered before and after all rows in the data source
  
• SeparatorTemplate - render between each row, such as line breaks, <BR>, etc.
  

	<ItemTemplate>

	<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "DataItem.T1NAME") %>

	<%# DataBinder.Eval(Container, "DataItem.T1NID") %>

	, 

	</ItemTemplate>

ASP.NET Caching

• system level (runtime provided) caching, persisting compiled pages on a per-application basis
  
• application level, persisting output of static pages
  
• page level, access to new Cache object that works side-by-side with Session and Application (see "tidbits" below)
  

   <%@ OutputCache

   Duration="seconds"

   Location="where"

   VaryByCustom="custom"

   VaryByHeader="headers"

   VaryByParam="paramname"

   %>

A couple more caching tidbits

• Store cache expiration settings in a centralized place. Instead of DB, try writing an "application settings" object that persists itself to xml on disk. Can reload the settings from disk whenever you want (from admin page, or from the code detecting a change in the file timestamp)
  
• Cache object is thread-safe from any page with Insert and Item methods, while the Application object must be wrapped with calls to Lock/Unlock
  
• Cache object has timeout settings when the data you insert will be thrown away
  
• Can "listen" for cache item expirations with CacheItemRemovedCallback delegate
  

Runtime Callable Wrappers

• Locallay declared runtime callable wrapper object becomes garbage when it goes out of scope.
  
• COM object that is being wrapped will be released at the next garbage collection.
  
• Force immediate release of RCW's internal COM object with Marshal.ReleaseComObject() [from System.Runtime.InteropServices]
  

Late-binding a COM object

System.Type ComType = Type.GetTypeFromProgID( "foo.foo.1" );

System.Object ComObj = Activator.CreateInstance( ComType );

ComType.InvokeMember( "MethodNameHere", 

               Reflection.BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, 

               ComObj, params );