Month: October 2012

Joins in LINQ

The scenario: you have two related collections of objects, and you need to smush ’em together into a collection of combined records. It’s easy to do with LINQ’s Join method, but Join can seem a little intimidating–just check out its declaration:

// yikes!
public static IEnumerable Join<TOuter, TInner, TKey, TResult>(
	this IEnumerable<TOuter> outer,
	IEnumerable<TInner> inner,
	Func<TOuter, TKey> outerKeySelector,
	Func<TInner, TKey> innerKeySelector,
	Func<TOuter, TInner, TResult> resultSelector
)

It’s really not so bad, though. Here’s the breakdown:

  • “this IEnumerable<TOuter> outer” what you’re joining from
  • “IEnumerable<TInner> inner” what you’re joining to
  • “Func<TOuter, TKey> outerKeySelector” an expression for how to match the ‘from’ records
  • “Func<TInner, TKey> innerKeySelector” an expression for how to match the ‘to’ records
  • “Func<TOuter, TInner, TResult> resultSelector” an expression for the joined result

Still sounds rough? Let’s look at an easy example:

class Person
{
	public string Name;
	public string Occupation;
}

class Job
{
	public string Name;
	public decimal Salary;
}

void Main()
{
	var people = new[]
	{
		new Person { Name = "Adam", Occupation = "Blogger" },
		new Person { Name = "Joe", Occupation = "Teacher" },
		new Person { Name = "Hilary", Occupation = "Actress" }
	};
	var jobs = new[]
	{
		new Job { Name = "Blogger", Salary = 0.0m },
		new Job { Name = "Teacher", Salary = 100.0m },
		new Job { Name = "Actress", Salary = 5000.0m }
	};

	var salaryByPerson = people.Join(
		jobs,
		p => p.Occupation,
		j => j.Name,
		(p,j) => new { Person = p.Name, Salary = j.Salary });

	foreach (var sbp in salaryByPerson)
	{
		Console.WriteLine("Person: {0}, Salary: {1}",
			sbp.Person,
			sbp.Salary.ToString("c"));
	}
}

/* Output
Person: Adam, Salary: $0.00
Person: Joe, Salary: $100.00
Person: Hilary, Salary: $5,000.00
*/

The Join in the above example is equivalent to SQL like this:

SELECT p.Name AS Person, j.Salary
FROM people p
JOIN jobs j ON p.Occupation=j.Name

Now you’ve got it, right? Yea!

ScenarioContext in SpecFlow

I’ve been using SpecFlow pretty regularly for a few weeks now, and I must say, I’m a fan. I find that it’s a lot easier to do test-first development because I’m writing the test in human-readable, business language.

One of the ideas that I didn’t understand right away was how to re-use generated step definitions across features and scenarios. ScenarioContext and FeatureContext give you great options to handle this, though. Let’s check out an example using a modified version of the default scenario SpecFlow generates with a new feature file:

Scenario: Add two numbers
	Given I enter 50 into the calculator
	And I press plus
	And I enter 70 into the calculator
	When I press enter
	Then the result should be 120 be displayed

When I generate step definitions, I might end up with a class that looks like this:

namespace adamprescott.net.Calculator.SpecFlow
{
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
    using TechTalk.SpecFlow;

    [Binding]
    public class Calculator_AddSteps
    {
        Calculator calculator = new Calculator();

        [Given(@"I enter (.*) into the calculator")]
        public void GivenIEnterIntoTheCalculator(int p0)
        {
            calculator.Number(p0);
        }

        [Given(@"I press plus")]
        public void GivenIPressPlus()
        {
            calculator.Plus();
        }

        [When(@"I press enter")]
        public void WhenIPressEnter()
        {
            calculator.Enter();
        }

        [Then(@"the result should be (.*) be displayed")]
        public void ThenTheResultShouldBeBeDisplayed(int p0)
        {
            Assert.AreEqual(Convert.ToString(p0), calculator.Display);
        }
    }
}

Okay, not bad. A logical next feature might be subtraction. Some of the steps, like entering numbers and pressing enter, are shared. It would be nice if we could re-use those, but they’re configured to manipulate private variables in the Calculator_AddSteps class. So let’s do some refactoring! Instead of using a member-level variable, I can store my Calculator object in the ScenarioContext, making it accessible to other steps being executed in the same scenario.

// store to ScenarioContext like this:
ScenarioContext.Current.Set<Calculator>(new Calculator());
ScenarioContext.Current.Set<Calculator>(new Calculator(), "Calc");
ScenarioContext.Current["Calc"] = new Calculator();

// retrieve from ScenarioContext like this:
var c = ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>();
var c = ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>("Calc");
var c = ScenarioContext.Current["Calc"] as Calculator;

This is overkill for such a simple example, but I separated my shared steps into a new step definitions file. The final solution has three classes for the step definitions: Calculator_AddSteps, Calculator_SubtractSteps, and Calculator_SharedSteps.

Here’s the final solution, broken up by file:

Calculator_Add.feature

Feature: Calculator_Add
	In order to avoid silly mistakes
	As a math idiot
	I want to be told the sum of two numbers

Background:
	Given I have a calculator

Scenario: Add two numbers
	Given I enter 50 into the calculator
	And I press plus
	And I enter 70 into the calculator
	When I press enter
	Then the result should be 120 be displayed

Calculator_AddSteps.cs

namespace adamprescott.net.Calculator.SpecFlow
{
    using TechTalk.SpecFlow;

    [Binding]
    public class Calculator_AddSteps
    {
        [Given(@"I press plus")]
        public void GivenIPressPlus()
        {
            ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>().Plus();
        }
    }
}

Calculator_SharedSteps.cs

namespace adamprescott.net.Calculator.SpecFlow
{
    using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;
    using System;
    using TechTalk.SpecFlow;

    [Binding]
    public class Calculator_SharedSteps
    {
        [Given(@"I have a calculator")]
        public void GivenIHaveACalculator()
        {
            ScenarioContext.Current.Set<Calculator>(new Calculator());
        }

        [Given(@"I enter (.*) into the calculator")]
        public void GivenIEnterIntoTheCalculator(int p0)
        {
            ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>().Number(p0);
        }

        [When(@"I press enter")]
        public void WhenIPressEnter()
        {
            ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>().Enter();
        }

        [Then(@"the result should be (.*) be displayed")]
        public void ThenTheResultShouldBeBeDisplayed(int p0)
        {
            Assert.AreEqual(Convert.ToString(p0), ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>().Display);
        }
    }
}

Calculator_Subtract.feature

Feature: Calculator_Subtract
	In order to avoid silly mistakes
	As a math idiot
	I want to be told the difference between two numbers

Background:
	Given I have a calculator

Scenario: Subtract two numbers
	Given I enter 70 into the calculator
	And I press minus
	And I enter 50 into the calculator
	When I press enter
	Then the result should be 20 be displayed

Calculator_SubtractSteps.cs

namespace adamprescott.net.Calculator.SpecFlow
{
    using TechTalk.SpecFlow;

    [Binding]
    public class Calculator_SubtractSteps
    {
        [Given(@"I press minus")]
        public void GivenIPressMinus()
        {
            ScenarioContext.Current.Get<Calculator>().Minus();
        }
    }
}

.NET Rocks! Road Trip

.NET Rocks! is a popular internet talk show, and they’re taking the show on the road. Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell are traversing the country on their .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2012 Launch Road Trip, making stops in over 37 different cities. I was able to attend their Detroit session in Southfield, MI yesterday. The event was hosted by the Great Lakes Area .NET User Group (with yummy BBQ provided by sponsor New World Systems), and it was a good time!

Carl gave a good talk and demo on creating modern, Windows Store app-style (formerly “metro-style”) apps. In the demo, a slick app was built to display and listen to .NET Rocks! shows using a simple web service. The code was minimal, but the app looked great thanks to the built-in styles–it was impressive to see how little code it takes to make a great looking Windows Store app.

Richard then took over and gave a talk about DevOps. DevOps blurs the line between IT professionals and developers, allowing them to coordinate efforts to evolve and improve applications over time. A big focus of this talk was on Microsoft System Center, Microsoft’s enterprise resource monitoring tool. System Center allows you to collect logs and events from different resources across the network and puts them into a consolidated view. New to System Center is the ability to hook into .NET apps, allowing you to specify and create events for things like methods that take too long. System Center can tie into TFS, so when an application event occurs, a work item can be created.

Third to take the stage was Microsoft’s Jeff Wilcox, independent creator of the popular Foursquare client 4th & Mayor. Jeff talked to us his experience with Microsoft, but most of the discussion was about 4th & Mayor. I’m not a Foursquare user, but I can appreciate what Jeff has done in creating this beautiful app with a focus on providing a great user experience. Jeff’s brief presentation was followed by a live taping of The Tablet Show, another offering from Franklin and Campbell.

It was a fun event. The food was great, it was entertaining, and I learned a few new things. Thanks to GANG for hosting and to .NET Rocks! for stopping by Detroit!

My Foray into Jelly Bean

I’ve been a happy Android (Epic 4G Touch/Galaxy SII) user ever since I made the switch from WP7 (Samsung Focus). Since that time, my wife has switched to an iPhone. I was secretly jealous of features like Siri. Whenever we needed to remember to do something, I’d tell me wife to have Siri set up a reminder because it was so easy and convenient. I was still dedicated to Android because of the free mobile hotspot and turn-by-turn navigation, but I was feeling like my next phone should be an iPhone.

That all changed yesterday when I upgraded to Jelly Bean.

This was only the second time I’ve installed a custom ROM, and I was admittedly nervous. Part of the reason for my initial switch to Android was to get onto a custom ROM to unlock the free mobile hotspot. I stumbled through that, and hadn’t had problems since. I was nervous to do it again because of the satisfaction achieved in my first attempt.

I ran into some bumps along the way. Most significantly, I ran into the error described here when flashing the ROM. The solution offered by one of the replies got me over the hump, though, and it was smooth sailing from there. I’m now up and running on CM10 Alpha 5.3, which can be found here. It’s great!

Everything about Jelly Bean feels new and clean. The visuals and animations look and feel crisp and smooth. The every features like messaging, alerts, and email look better. I haven’t noticed any feature changes with those, but I also haven’t done more exploration.

What I’m most excited about is Google Now, Google’s answer to Siri. I can now ask my phone to set reminders, look-up directions, and send text messages. One of the features that Now boasts is “no digging required.” It’s supposed to learn what information I need and present it to me without asking. I’m very curious to see how this works. But for now, I’m happy with the voice search and command capabilities offered by Now. I can also hold the search button to initiate a voice command from within any screen–very Siri-like.

My allegiance and excitement have been renewed, and my gravitation toward iPhone has been killed. Sorry, Apple.

TransactionScope in Multi-Threaded Applications

Using the TransactionScope class is a terrific way to do implicit transactional programming. It’s incredibly simple, and transactions can span multiple operations across multiple connections.

Basic usage couldn’t be simpler:

using (var ts = new TransactionScope())
{
    // do transactional stuff

    ts.Complete();
}

I was working on an application that accepted a batch of items to be processed asynchronously. The desired behavior was to rollback everything if any individual items failed. I figured this would be a snap with TransactionScope. I wrapped the multi-threaded processing code in a TransactionScope, but it didn’t work. The problem is that the TransactionScope does not transcend application and thread boundaries, so the operations launched on a separate thread were executed outside the scope of the ambient transaction.

There is a relatively simple solution to this problem, though. A DependentTransaction can be created from the current transaction and passed into the sub-processes. Here is a simple example:

public void Parent()
{
    using (var ts = new TransactionScope())
    {
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(
            Child,
            Transaction.Current.DependentClone(DependentCloneOption.BlockCommitUntilComplete);
        ts.Complete();
    }
}

public void Child(object o)
{
    var dtx = o as DependentTransaction;
    using (var ts = new TransactionScope(dtx))
    {
        // do transactional stuff

        ts.Complete();
    }
    dtx.Complete();
}

Resolve Generic Types at Runtime with Unity

I’m working on a small project that uses Unity to manage record type-specific data providers. As a brief overview, the project accepts a collection of objects. An appropriate data provider is retrieved for each object, and then the object is passed to that provider for processing.

I register the providers in a UnityContainer like so:

UnityContainer.RegisterType<IDataProvider<RecordType>, RecordTypeDataProvider>();

So, in a perfect world, I wanted to resolve the providers based on the type of each record in a collection. Something like this:

foreach (var record in collection)
{
    var provider = ResolveProvider(record);
    provider.Process(record);
}

The problem with this approach is that I need to resolve the type using the record’s type.

// what I want (invalid)
UnityContainer.Resolve<IDataProvider<record.GetType()>>();

Luckily, there’s a way to do this by using the Type.MakeGenericType method. Check it out:

var providerType = typeof(IDataProvider<>).MakeGenericType(record.GetType());
var provider = UnityContainer.Resolve(providerType);

This works, but it leaves me with another challenge. UnityContainer.Resolve returns an object, but I need an IDataProvider. The solution? A base interface containing the non-generic methods and properties. This allows me to resolve the data provider using the record type but still return a typed object. Here’s the complete solution:

public interface IDataProvider
{
    void Process(BaseType record);
}

public interface IDataProvider<T> : IDataProvider
    where T : BaseType
{
    void Process<T>(T record);
}

public class RecordTypeDataProvider : IDataProvider<RecordType>
{
	// IDataProvider.Process
	public void Process(BaseType record)
	{
		Process(record as RecordType);
	}

	// IDataProvider<RecordType>.Process
	public void Process<RecordType>(RecordType record)
	{
		// process it!
	}
}

public static class Broker
{
	private static readonly UnityContainer UnityContainer;

	static Broker()
	{
		UnityContainer = new UnityContainer();

		UnityContainer.RegisterType<IDataProvider<RecordType>, RecordTypeDataProvider>();
		// other providers...
	}

	private static IDataProvider Resolve(BaseType record)
	{
		var providerType = typeof(IDataProvider<>).MakeGenericType(record.GetType());
		return UnityContainer.Resolve(providerType) as IDataProvider;
	}

	public static void Process(IEnumerable<BaseType> collection)
	{
		foreach (var record in collection)
		{
			var provider = Resolve(record);
			provider.Process(record);
		}
	}
}
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