Leniel Maccaferri's blog

How to add\pre-fill https://www. to input fields with type URL?

2020-06-16T15:39:00.008-03:00

This is quick post for something I had to implement today. It's related to input fields with type="url".

What did I do?

Opened Visual Studio Code on the Views folder of a large ASP.NET MVC project and then searched for asp-for=(.*)URL using Regular Expression. That linked me to all the places (Razor .cshtml views) which had a @model (Model\ViewModel) class which happens to have an URL property.

Some of those Model\ViewModel properties didn't have the [Url] data annotation. I proceeded to add it to properties where it was missing. This data annotation is responsible for correctly generating the <input type="url" ... > on the HTML when using Razor's html helpers like this for example:

<input asp-for="Organization.URL" class="form-control">

It'll generate this HTML code:

<input class="form-control"
    type="url"
    data-val="true"
    data-val-url="The URL field is not a valid fully-qualified http, https, or ftp URL."
    id="Organization_URL"
    name="Organization.URL"
    value="">

With that in place I crafted some jQuery\JavaScript code that does the magic:

/**
 * For all inputs with type URL and which are empty,
 * we add https://www. when the input has focus.
 */
function addHttpsWwwToInputTypeUrl() {
    $("input[type='url'][value='']").focus(function () {
        $(this).val('https://www.')
    });
}

The code is self-explanatory. It selects all inputs with type="url" and which are empty. Once the input gets focus, https://www. is added automatically to the input's value. The user now only has to complete the URL address. No more typing https://www. everytime.

The only thing necessary now is to call this JavaScript function in a central place so that it can be applied everywhere in your project.

That's it... a simple but nice user experience to have in your app. Hope it helps.

Creating a ReactJS To Do application with user Authentication\Authorization [ Introduction ] - part 1

2020-05-02T14:36:00.000-03:00

This is going to be a series of posts in which I'll show how I managed to get a simple yet functional ReactJS application working. I plan to write 1 blog post per major component detailing how it works and integrates into the app.

This was my start with ReactJS and I worked in this application for almost 1 month as seen by the git commits here. I went from 0% ReactJS knowledge to to some % knowledge of how things work in this UI\presentation framework.

Motivation

The motivation to learn it is that it's mainstream nowadays. ReactJS is also used to develop mobile apps... besides that, for a job application test I had to develop a To Do application with a set of requirements.

Requirements

Programming assignment for web development candidates

You can choose any programming language and web development framework, database, and web server you like. The web application you need to build is a basic todo list application with the following requirements:

- Users can view their todo list;
- Users can add, remove, modify and delete todo entries;
- Each todo entry includes a single line of text, due date and priority;
- Users can assign priorities and due dates to the entries;
- Users can sort todo lists using due date and priority;
- Users can mark an entry as completed;
- You don't need to spend time on UI/UX design, if you do, it will be a bonus;
- Provide a RESTful API which will allow a third-party application to trigger actions on your app (same actions available in the app);
- Provide authentication and authorization service for both the app and the API;
- As complementary item to the last requirement, you should be able to create users in the system via an interface, eg a signup/register screen.

Web Tech Stack

I took the challenge! Developed a SPA - Single Page Application using ReactJS. Why not!? I also used Visual Studio Code as the IDE in tandem with the web tech stack in which I'm experienced with: C#, ASP.NET Core Web API, SQL Server, etc.

The App

The following is the app's homepage:

Figure 1 - App home page

The left side menu when clicked gives access to the Todos form and grid.

Figure 2 - Left side menu

The right side menu allows the user to login\logout and check their profile.

Figure 3 - Right side menu

In order to be able to access the Todos form\grid the user must be authenticated.

Figure 4 - Todo form + grid

Database

Everything was developed in Mac OS and as such the database that stores todo data is an SQL Server container image running in Docker.

Figure 5 - SQL Server database image running in Docker

Web API

The Web API was implemented using an ASP.NET Core Web API project. There's also a Swagger protected help page configured.

Figure 6 - Web API Swagger help page

Source code structure

The following screenshots show how the code is structured:

Figure 7 - App structure in Visual Studio Code Explorer window

- src folder holds all the source code files for the ReactJs app.

- TodoApi holds the source code files for an ASP.NET Web API project.

The ReactJS project skeleton was created\bootstrapped with Create React App as described in the README file.

Expanding the src folder we have this:

Figure 8 - ReactJS SPA app source code files

Expanding the TodoApi folder we have this:

Figure 9 - Todo ASP.NET Web API source code files

App dependencies

The ReactJS app uses the following dependencies as listed in package.json:

"dependencies": {

"@auth0/auth0-spa-js": "^1.6.3",

"@date-io/date-fns": "^1.3.13",

"@material-ui/core": "^4.9.1",

"@material-ui/icons": "^4.9.1",

"@material-ui/pickers": "^3.2.10",

"@testing-library/jest-dom": "^5.1.1",

"@testing-library/react": "^9.4.0",

"@testing-library/user-event": "^8.1.0",

"axios": "^0.19.2",

"date-fns": "^2.9.0",

"formik": "^2.1.4",

"moment": "^2.24.0",

"react": "^16.12.0",

"react-dom": "^16.12.0",

"react-router-dom": "^5.1.2",

"react-scripts": "^3.3.1",

"react-toastify": "^5.5.0",

"yup": "^0.28.1"

},

Git history

The git history is a nice way to remember what I did along the way:

Git History on master by all authors

Adding Auth0 placeholders...
340657a (HEAD -> master, origin/master) by Leniel Macaferi , Sat May 02 2020 (54 minutes ago)
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Small fixes...
5b98458 by Leniel Macaferi , Fri Feb 21 2020 (2 months ago)
2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

- Added Roles claim... it's retrieved from Auth0 access_token; - Improved footer; - Added missing toastify messages; - Improved Profile.
2cd5cd3 by Leniel Macaferi , Tue Feb 11 2020 (3 months ago)
5 files changed, 84 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)

- Added Bearer token support to Swagger so that it's now possible to authorize with a token prior to testing the Web API endpoints; - In TodoItemsController the current user is now extracted while getting Todos so that the user can only retrieve their todos; - Added User property to TodoItem model; - Externalized getUser from Auth0 so that it can be called from stateful ReactJS components like Todo.js; - Made use of getUser() on Todo component; - Beautified Profile component.
b704348 by Leniel Macaferi , Mon Feb 10 2020 (3 months ago)
8 files changed, 122 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)

- Added scopes and protected Get Todos Web API call with read:todos scope. https://auth0.com/docs/quickstart/backend/aspnet-core-webapi/01-authorization#validate-access-tokens - Added Profile component
13a8675 by Leniel Macaferi , Sun Feb 09 2020 (3 months ago)
13 files changed, 173 insertions(+), 62 deletions(-)

- Made Get Todos protected by using [Authorize] attribute; - Added JwtBearer support to the ASP.NET Core Web API; - Moved BrowserRouter to index.js so that the works as expected. More info here: https://stackoverflow.com/q/60123391/114029 - Externalized getTokenSilently in Auth.js to be able to pass it to axios request interceptor.
ab74c14 by Leniel Macaferi , Sat Feb 08 2020 (3 months ago)
12 files changed, 182 insertions(+), 51 deletions(-)

Added Auth0 to be able to authenticate and authorize users. https://auth0.com/
7ab2538 by Leniel Macaferi , Fri Feb 07 2020 (3 months ago)
9 files changed, 892 insertions(+), 170 deletions(-)

- Added search todo functionality; - Improved the todos table by adding Table pagination actions and made the header sticky; - Improved todo form by disabling the save button when there are errors or when the form is not dirty yet, that is, the user has not changed anything yet; - Added global error message with the help of toastify;
2d59cf4 by Leniel Macaferi , Thu Feb 06 2020 (3 months ago)
5 files changed, 190 insertions(+), 44 deletions(-)

- Commented out InMemoryDatabase in the Web API project and started using a full featured SQL Server database with UseSqlServer. Accomplished that on Mac OS side using Docker and a Developer version of SQL Server 2017; More info here: https://database.guide/how-to-install-sql-server-on-a-mac/ https://stackoverflow.com/a/60080206/114029 - Added Swagger to the Web API project; https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/getting-started-with-swashbuckle?view=aspnetcore-3.1&tabs=visual-studio - Changed Web API default port from 7777 to 8888; - Improved global Progress bar. Set its position to absolute so that it won't push content down when it is displayed; - Moved todo related components to their own folder.
581da74 by Leniel Macaferi , Wed Feb 05 2020 (3 months ago)
16 files changed, 72 insertions(+), 29 deletions(-)

- Added cancel button to todo form. This is useful when the user is editing a todo and wants to cancel the action; - Implemented an improved version of todo form using the HOC [Higher Order Component] withFormik; this allowed passing a parent component [Todo] function down to the child component EnhancedTodoForm which is hooked to the the TodoForm component; Amazing stuff! :-) https://jaredpalmer.com/formik/docs/api/withFormik - route icons are now dynamically retrieved; - Added react-toastify libray to be able to show customized messages to user. https://github.com/fkhadra/react-toastify
469e858 by Leniel Macaferi , Tue Feb 04 2020 (3 months ago)
12 files changed, 328 insertions(+), 100 deletions(-)

- Added request and response interceptors to axios: https://github.com/axios/axios#interceptors ... this will allow a hooking place to display toasts (messages) to the user. This is one of the next thing to be added; - Added a menu tp AppBar using a Drawer component" https://material-ui.com/components/drawers/; - Started using react-router: https://github.com/ReactTraining/react-router; - routes are exported from routes.js; - Added About and Home pages.
7412ec3 by Leniel Macaferi , Mon Feb 03 2020 (3 months ago)
17 files changed, 3682 insertions(+), 3186 deletions(-)

- Got editTodo working; - Improved themes; - Removed unused npm packages.
4afd71e by Leniel Macaferi , Sat Feb 01 2020 (3 months ago)
8 files changed, 158 insertions(+), 866 deletions(-)

- Delete todo(s) done; - WIP Edit todo; - Added axiosInterceptor which handles the animation when any Web API is called. It shows a Material-UI ; - Externalized custom styles in themes.js; - Many improvements in Todos table.
9d3e032 by Leniel Macaferi , Fri Jan 31 2020 (3 months ago)
13 files changed, 236 insertions(+), 139 deletions(-)

Handling setSelected after deletion happens...
9be189f by Leniel Macaferi , Thu Jan 30 2020 (3 months ago)
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

Added delete todo functionality with a gotcha: https://stackoverflow.com/a/33846760/114029
5ad3cbd by Leniel Macaferi , Thu Jan 30 2020 (3 months ago)
7 files changed, 77 insertions(+), 52 deletions(-)

Added material UI Table component to be able to better visualize and operate on Todos. https://material-ui.com/components/tables/
febb4b3 by Leniel Macaferi , Thu Jan 30 2020 (3 months ago)
3 files changed, 371 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)

- Created a global theme with createMuiTheme; - Improved AppBar - Got addTodo POST call to Web API working and TodoList updating as expected.
6f8a5fb by Leniel Macaferi , Thu Jan 30 2020 (3 months ago)
8 files changed, 700 insertions(+), 174 deletions(-)

Styled App structure and TodoForm with Material UI components.
38f169d by Leniel Macaferi , Wed Jan 29 2020 (3 months ago)
8 files changed, 357 insertions(+), 196 deletions(-)

Got Formik form fields working with material-ui https://material-ui.com/.
b309899 by Leniel Macaferi , Wed Jan 29 2020 (3 months ago)
10 files changed, 1027 insertions(+), 246 deletions(-)

- Added formik, yup and react-formik-ui. - Created a Todo form with formik.
bd8b355 by Leniel Macaferi , Mon Jan 27 2020 (3 months ago)
7 files changed, 771 insertions(+), 60 deletions(-)

Started integrating UI with Web API...
614c68e by Leniel Macaferi , Sun Jan 26 2020 (3 months ago)
9 files changed, 243 insertions(+), 83 deletions(-)

- Added ASP.NET Core 3.1 Todo Web API https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/tutorials/first-web-api?view=aspnetcore-3.1&tabs=visual-studio-code
06ce6d3 by Leniel Macaferi , Sun Jan 26 2020 (3 months ago)
15 files changed, 409 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

- Added handleChange event handler to todo-item component; - Handled todo complete state with setState; - Added Bootstrap: https://getbootstrap.com/
c15ff51 by Leniel Macaferi , Sat Jan 25 2020 (3 months ago)
8 files changed, 147 insertions(+), 38 deletions(-)

Converted some functional components to ES6 classes.
64dad12 by Leniel Macaferi , Sat Jan 25 2020 (3 months ago)
3 files changed, 53 insertions(+), 30 deletions(-)

- Got todo items displayed from a todo list JSON file. - Used array.map to create a React TodoItem component dynamically avoiding code repetition.
84cf3fc by Leniel Macaferi , Sat Jan 25 2020 (3 months ago)
5 files changed, 94 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-)

Created basic components and applied some styles including dynamic styling with JavaScript.
90ac727 by Leniel Macaferi , Sat Jan 25 2020 (3 months ago)
6 files changed, 128 insertions(+), 18 deletions(-)

Added .eslintrc.json and modified app name.
f1953ac by Leniel Macaferi , Fri Jan 24 2020 (3 months ago)
4 files changed, 14480 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Initial commit from Create React App
04291f4 by Leniel Macaferi , Fri Jan 24 2020 (3 months ago)
18 files changed, 9789 insertions(+)

Source code

GitHub repository: https://github.com/leniel/ReactToDo

Figure 10 - GitHub repo with % of source code by type

Next

So stay tuned because in the next part I'll start covering the components in a top down approach, that is, we'll start looking at the index.js file where everything gets hooked up.

Adding title attribute to Social Identity Providers [IDPs] buttons when using Azure AD B2C custom policies

2019-12-11T13:06:00.000-03:00

This is a simple post that shows how you can achieve exactly what the blog title says...

You'll need only some jQuery code once you enable JavaScript for the custom policy.

By default the social login buttons are shown only with text. They don't have title attributes that are used as tooltips by default when hovering the button during 2 seconds or so.

Let's say that for the social IDPs buttons we want to show only the button logo instead of the button text to make the screen overall look & feel cleaner. However it'd be nice to show a title\tooltip to inform the user what IDP that button refers to in case they don't get it by only seeing the logo.

To accomplish that follow these 2 straightforward steps:

1 - Enable JavaScript execution inside UserJourneyBehaviors in your Azure B2C custom sign in\sing up policy .xml file:

<UserJourneyBehaviors>

  ...

  <ScriptExecution>Allow</ScriptExecution>

</UserJourneyBehaviors>

2 - Add this code in the corresponding policy signin.html page:

<script>

    // Adding title to each Social button...

    $(".accountButton").each(function (index)

    {

      var title = $(this).text();

      $(this).prop('title', title);

    });

  </script>

Once loading the B2C login page you should see something as this when you hover your cursor over any social IDP button:

Enabling and using JavaScript allows us to extend functionality in many places.

Automate moving measures between Power BI files .pbix, renaming and finding and replacing strings in DAX formula\expression

2019-09-06T12:40:00.000-03:00

Yesterday I had to accomplish a task that got me thinking: this is going to take a hell of a lot of time to finish.

The user story is this: I have a Power BI .pbix file that is used somewhat as a staging\debugging file to try and test measures. Once the job is done I usually move things over to the final\main Power BI file which will be handed in to the client. Note that this final Power BI file already has report pages implemented. That's way I try things in a different file since the work can be done in a cleaner\faster model.
The problem this time was that I had to create\move lots of measures and so I'd have to do this measure by measure from the debugging file to the main file. It would take me about 1 hour to finish. Unfortunately Power BI has no built in copy\paste of measures between files as of today in its version 2.72.5556.801 64-bit (August 2019). At least we can copy and paste the visuals from one file to the other.

OK. Problem defined. Let's Google for a solution. The solution found was this awesome post titled Bulk measure handling (copy between reports/format changes). In this post the guy mentions the tool Tabular Editor. Well that was what I was looking for, really.

Just downloaded it directly from its GitHub repo here.

Followed the steps on that post and voilá: I could get more than 30 measures copied from one .pbix file to another. Great! This took me about 10 minutes to get done. 1\6 of the time previously estimated for that cumbersome\manual work. Check the following printscreen:

1st printscreen - measures moved from one Power BI file (on the left) to the other Power BI file (on the right)

2nd printscreen - batch renaming selected formulas in blue

There was another task that needed to be accomplished and it was a little bit different: needed to duplicate those copied measures. Tabular Editor makes it easy too. Just select all of them, right click and pick Duplicate # measures. Boom! You have all measures duplicated as seen in the printscreen on the right. Note that it adds a "copy" word to the measure name. So once the measures are duplicated we need to rename them and that's easy too. Select all duplicated measures, right click and pick Batch rename.

Just replaced the uppercase U in each formula name to a uppercase C as seen in the second printscreen above. Repeated the process and replaced " copy" with a blank string. That's it. Measures duplicated and renamed accordingly. Nonetheless there's still a missing step before theses measures are ready to go: change a table column name in the DAX formula\expression in each of these measures that got duplicated and renamed. How to get this done using Tabular Editor? Well, reading through its docs we can find this Advanced Scripting section. If you look at the first printscreen above you'll note that I wrote some C# code there that does exactly what is needed. See the code below:

Selected.Measures.ForEach(m => {
var e = m.Expression;

if(e.Contains("[Unit]"))
{
e = e.Replace("[Unit]", "[Company]");

// For debugging purposes
//e.Output();

m.Expression = e;
}
});

What this piece of code is doing is that for each of the selected measures in blue on the left (see printscreens above), the measure DAX formula\expression is stored in a variable called e. I then check if this formula contains the word [Unit] that is the table column name that needs to be replaced. If the expression\formula contains this word it gets replaced with the word [Company] that refers to the other column name that is to be used in these duplicated formulas. After that the modified DAX formula is assigned back to the measure.

When finished with Tabular Editor, click Save. Return to Power BI and hit the Refresh button to reload the model.

This post is just a sample that showcases the power of Tabular Editor. You can manage and play with measures in any way imaginable.

I hope it helps someone that wants to accomplish trivial things in a more actionable way instead of having to copy\paste, rename and replace manually because that sucks.

Note: when trying to save back the modifications done in Tabular Editor an error was being displayed. Something along this line:

Failed to save modifications to the server. Error returned: 'Unexpected column name: Received column 'ObjectID.Expression' in rowset 'ObjectTranslations'. Expected column 'ObjectID.Set'.'.

I did the following to get rid of the nasty error message: opened Tabular Editor File menu and selected Preferences... checked "Allow unsupported Power BI features (experimental)". When we do this a new Translations folder appear in the Model tree. I just deleted the en-US that was under this folder (see printscreen below). Then tried saving again and it worked.

3rd printscreen - enabling Allow unsupported Power BI features (experimental) in Tabular Editor

Using IOptions from .NET Core in .NET Framework 4.5.1+ - Ninject dependency injection version

2019-07-10T11:42:00.000-03:00

This post is based on this awesome article I found @ Medium:

Configuration Management in Legacy .NET Applications (.NET Framework 4.5.1+)

I wanted to use the cool IOptions interface to grab some configs from appsettings.json. The sad thing is that it's intended to be used with .NET Core but the article mentioned above tells us that we can circumvent that with some extension code.

I won't be able to use it anymore because I just found out that I can't in the current project setup I'm working on.

As I had already converted the AutoFac code to Ninject, I'm just sharing it here in case it's useful...

You'll need to test it.

Note: make sure you have installed the following NuGet packages:

- Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration
- Microsoft.Extensions.Options
- Microsoft.Extensions.Options.ConfigurationExtensions

Using Power BI parameter to specify Excel workbook path in Power Query

2019-06-21T14:12:00.000-03:00

This is a quick post to share something that I did just now and that worked. I tried to search for some sample but couldn't find. Maybe my search query was not that right...

Let's say you use an Excel workbook as your data source in Power BI. Than you collaborate with a team and as we know, not everyone has the same folder structure setup. This can cause a problem when trying to Refresh data in Power BI. How can we "overcome" this in a simple way?

Just create a Power BI parameter and pass it to the Power Query responsible for opening the Excel workbook.

In the following printscreen you see that I created a parameter called Excel workbook path. I set this path to where the workbook is located in my machine.

Then we can use this parameter in Power Query like this:

= Excel.Workbook(File.Contents(#"Excel workbook path"&"Contingency Drawdown.xlsx"), null, true)

I was having some difficulty trying to make the string concatenation work, that is, joining the parameter with the workbook name. Tried some variants and got it working with the string concatenation token &.

As you see the workbook name doesn't change (it's hardcoded) however the path is customizable by the parameter "Excel workbook path".

We just need to change this parameter value to point to our folder structure and we're done. Now we can make use of this parameter to open all Excel sheets (tables in Power BI) in a single shot.

Hope it helps.

References:

Power BI Introduction: Working with Parameters in Power BI Desktop —Part 4

Impersonation in Windows Service with ASP.NET Core

2018-11-03T13:42:00.000-03:00

In a project one of the requirements was to be able to impersonate the current logged on Windows user.

The ASP.NET Core 2.1 project was hosted in a Windows Service. More info about this here:

Host ASP.NET Core in a Windows Service

The problem was that when doing WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name; what was being returned was the account name used as Log On as for the service. That makes sense since it is that account that is executing the service.

This particular project needed to get the current logged on Windows user and check their permissions system wide, that is, check which claims the current user making use of the service has. Claims are the key component by which the outcome of all Web-based authentication and authorization requests are determined. More info on that here: The Role of Claims.

This way we can assure a user belongs to a specific User Group, the user has read permission on some folder, etc.

After trying some options, nothing worked. Then I decided to search for “Windows Authentication in ASP.NET Core” using Google and it lead me to this page: Configure Windows Authentication in ASP.NET Core.

Since we’re not hosting the app in IIS, that was a no go. However there’s another option below that page and it’s called HTTP.sys. HTTP.sys server supports self-hosted scenarios on Windows and that was the way to go.

First thing we need to do is make use of it when creating the WebHost object:

public static IWebHostBuilder CreateWebHostBuilder(string[] args,
    IConfigurationRoot config) =>
        WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
               .UseConfiguration(config)
               .UseStartup<Startup>()
               // Using HTTP.sys for Windows Authentication support
               .UseHttpSys(options =>
               {
                   options.Authentication.Schemes =
                   AuthenticationSchemes.NTLM | AuthenticationSchemes.Negotiate;
                   options.Authentication.AllowAnonymous = false;
               });

Then in Startup.cs inside the method ConfigureServices we do:

// This method gets called by the runtime.
// Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddLogging(builder =>
    {
        builder.AddFilter("Microsoft", LogLevel.Warning)
               .AddFilter("System", LogLevel.Warning)
               .AddConsole();
    });
    // HTTP.sys server
    // HttpSysDefaults requires the following import:
    // using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Server.HttpSys;
    services.AddAuthentication(HttpSysDefaults.AuthenticationScheme);

    services.AddMvc();
}

That's it.

Now to impersonate the user we do the following:

[HttpGet]
public async Task<IActionResult> MethodWithImpersonatedWindowsUser(
[FromQueryAttribute] string filePath)
{
    // The user used as Log On as for the Windows Service
    var serviceUser = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name;
    
    // The user to be impersonated
    var userToImpersonate = (WindowsIdentity)HttpContext.User.Identity;
    // Impersonating the current Windows user [HttpContext.User.Identity]...
    var result = await WindowsIdentity.RunImpersonated(
                                     userToImpersonate.AccessToken, async () =>
    {
        // This time WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent() will retrieve the impersonated
        // user with its claims...
        var impersonatedUser = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name;
        // Your business logic code here...  
    });
    return result;
}

I saw lots of people asking the same question I made prior to knowing how to handle this requirement: why are we seeing the service user returned instead of the current logged on user when doing WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent()? The answers were to the point: in Windows you can have many user sessions (Remote Desktop, etc) where all are logged on at the same time making use of the Windows Service. So, how to get the current logged on user while still making use of the service? That must come from the HttpContext, that is, from the request arriving from the browser. WindowsIdentity.RunImpersonated makes it all possible. It runs the specified lambda action as the impersonated Windows identity.

Using the power of Razor Views embedded in external class library with FluentEmail

2018-10-22T21:04:00.000-03:00

Just got this working and would like to share how to get it configured since I could not find an explanation anywhere.

FluentEmail - All in one email sender for .NET and .NET Core is a great library to send e-mails.

Currently I have a full .NET 4.7.2 Console Application that makes use of FluentEmail.
My desire with it was to store the e-mail template (Razor .cshtml view) in an external class library and be able to use this view\template in the Console Application.

FluentEmail GitHub page has a sample code that shows how to consume that:

var email = new Email(bob@hotmail.com)
    .To(benwholikesbeer@twitter.com)
    .Subject("Hey cool name!")
    .UsingTemplateFromEmbedded("Example.Project.Namespace.template-name.cshtml",
        new { Name = "Bob" },
        TypeFromYourEmbeddedAssembly.GetType().GetTypeInfo().Assembly);

Steps:

1 - Create a Razor Class Library project. More on that can be found here:
Create reusable UI using the Razor Class Library project in ASP.NET Core

It uses .NET Standard 2.0 as its Target framework.

2 - Add Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Core NuGet package to the class library.
This is to have Intellisense, etc in Visual Studio.

Install-Package Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Core -Version 2.1.3

3 - Add a Razor view called EmailTemplate.cshtml to your class library.

4 - Right click it in Solution Explorer and select Properties. In Build Action, select Embedded resource.

5 - Add the following code to your Razor View:

@model dynamic
<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8" />
    <title>Some Title</title>
    <base href="/" />

    @*<link href="css/bootstrap/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
      <link href="css/site.css" rel="stylesheet" />
      <script src="_framework/blazor.webassembly.js"></script>*@
</head>
<body>
    E-mail template
    Hey @Model.Name,<br>
    <font size="14">You are so @Model.Compliment.</font>
</body>

</html>

Note that I’m using dynamic in the view code. This is just for testing. You can have full blown Models and use them in the templates as well.

6 - In your Console Application add a reference to the Class Library created in step 1.

7 - In your FluentEmail code, do the following in UsingTemplateFromEmbedded method:

email.To(configuration["emailTo"])
     .SetFrom(configuration["emailFrom"])
     .Subject(configuration["emailSubject"])
     .UsingTemplateFromEmbedded(
      "YourCompany.YourRazorClassLibrary.EmailTemplate.cshtml",
    new { Name = "Leniel Maccaferri", Compliment = "Cool" },
    Assembly.Load("YourCompany.YourRazorClassLibrary"));

The first parameter is the full class library (DLL) name + dot + Razor view name with .cshtml extension. The second parameter is the anonymous type that will be passed as the Model to the view and the third parameter is the class library assembly itself.

You're good to go!

This gives you a lot of flexibility.

You can add images, customize the HTML, CSS, have Layout pages, etc.

Hope it helps.

Mixing C# source code with PowerShell script code to speed your development

2018-05-08T14:00:00.000-03:00

I had some C# code ready but needed to use it inside a PowerShell script.

At StackOverflow I found some code that put me in the right path. So here's a practical example when mixing codes inside a PowerShell script file:

. ".\Invoke-Parallel.ps1" # Importing another script into this PowerShell script file

$csharpSource = @"

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

public class DateExtensions
{
              public static List<Tuple<DateTime, DateTime>> GetWeeksBetweenDates(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate)              
     {
        var weeks = new List<Tuple<DateTime, DateTime>>();
              
         for (DateTime date = startDate; date <= endDate; date = date.AddDays(8))
         {
            var weekEnd = date.AddDays(7);
                             
            weeks.Add(new Tuple<DateTime, DateTime>(date, weekEnd <= endDate ? weekEnd : endDate));              
         }

        return weeks;
    }
}
"@

Add-Type -TypeDefinition $csharpSource # Includes the C# code defined above to be called through the PowerShell script

$appPath = "C:\SomeFolder"
$startDate = [datetime]'6/1/2017'
$endDate = [datetime]'5/5/2018'

$weeks = [DateExtensions]::GetWeeksBetweenDates($startDate, $endDate)

#Calls MyApp in batches, that is, for each week...
$weeks | Invoke-Parallel -ImportVariables -ScriptBlock {    
    Set-Location -Path $appPath
            
    $date = [string]::Format("{0:yyyyMMdd},{1:yyyyMMdd}", $_.Item1, $_.Item2)

    #Write-Host $date

    dotnet MyApp.dll budat=$date cpudt=$date # Calls .NET Core "executable" DLL for each week
}

pause #Keeps PowerShell window open to see the results

As we see in the code above, the variable $csharpSource holds the C# source code that later will called in the PowerShell script.

We then add\mix the C# code to\with PowerShell with the command Add-Type passing to it the $csharpSource variable that holds the source code. Simple as that.

Inside PowerShell script code we call the method defined in C# code with:

$weeks = [DateExtensions]::GetWeeksBetweenDates($startDate, $endDate)

This is pretty useful because we don't need to convert our C# code to PowerShell idiom.

Hope it helps.

Reference:
How to convert C# code to a PowerShell Script?

Processing Stack Overflow data dump with Apache Spark

2017-07-04T13:55:00.000-03:00

This post is about the final work I did for one of the disciplines of the Master's degree I'm currently attending at UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in the branch of Data and Knowledge Engineering (Databases) that is under the division of Computer and Systems Engineering department at COPPE\UFRJ.

The discipline is called Special Topics in Databases IV and is taught by professor Alexandre Bento de Assis Lima.

The presentation (PPT slides) is in Brazilian Portuguese. I'll translate the slides to English in this blog post. They give an overall view about the work done.

The final paper is written in English.

Files

- Trabalho prático sobre Apache Spark envolvendo um problema típico de Big Data (apresentação\presentation).pdf (in Portuguese)

- Processing Stack Overflow data dump with Apache Spark (in English)

Abstract. This paper describes the process involved in building an ETL tool based on Apache Spark. It imports XML data from Stack Overflow data dump.
The XML files are processed using Spark XML library and converted to a DataFrame object. The DataFrame data is then queried with Spark SQL library.
Two applications were developed: spark-backend and spark-frontend. The first one contains the code responsible for dealing with Spark while the later one is user centric allowing the users to consume the data processed by Spark.

All the code developed is in English and should be easy to read.

Presentation

Objective
Problem
Technologies
Strategy used to acquire the data
Development
Conclusion
Links

Objective

Put into practice the concepts presented during the classes.
Have a closer contact with modern technologies used to process Big Data.
Automate the Extraction\Mining of valuable\interesting information hidden in the immensity of data.

Problem

Analyse StackOverflow data dump available on the internet on a monthly basis.
The data dump is composed of a set of XML files compacted with the .7z extension.
Even after compaction the biggest file has 15.3 GB. This size is directly linked to the data volume handled by Big Data.
Spark at first will be used as an ETL tool (ETL = Extract > Transform > Load) to prepare the data consumed by a front-end web app.
"At first" because there's also the possibility of using Spark as a tool to process the data that'll be shown in the web app.

Technologies

Apache Spark 2.0.1 +
Spark XML 0.4.1 +
Spark SQL 2.0.2
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus)
Linux VM (virtual machine) running on Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac
Scala 2.11.8
XML (Extensible Markup Language)
XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language)
Play Framework 2.5 (front end)
Eclipse Neon 4.6.1 with Scala IDE 4.5.0 plugin as the IDE

Strategy used to acquire the data

Got the .torrent file that contains all the data dumps from Stack Exchange family of sites - https://archive.org/details/stackexchange
Selected the eight .7z files related to StackOverflow: stackoverflow.com-Badges.7z, stackoverflow.com-Comments.7z, stackoverflow.com-PostHistory.7z, stackoverflow.com-PostLinks.7z, stackoverflow.com-Posts.7z, stackoverflow.com-Tags.7z, stackoverflow.com-Users.7z, stackoverflow.com-Votes.7z

Development

To make the work viable (running locally out of a cluster), a single .xml file [Users.xml] was used. A subset of 100.000 lines (32.7 MB) was selected. This file has a total of 5,987.287 lines (1.8 GB).

hadoop@ubuntu:/media/psf/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive/Downloads$ head -100000 Users.xml > Users100000.xml

The file Users.xsl was used covert Users100000.xml data to the format expected by spark-xml library. The result was saved to Users100000.out.xml.
The .xml and .xsl files were placed into the input folder of the Scala project [spark-backend] inside Eclipse.
The application spark-backend read the file Users100000.out.xml through Spark XML and transforms it into a DataFrame object.
The Spark SQL library is used subsequently to search the data. Some sample queries were created.
Each query generates a CSV file (SaveDfToCsv) to be consumed in a later stage by a web application [spark-frontend], that is, Spark is used as an ETL tool.
The result of each query is saved in multiple files in the folder output. This happens because Spark was conceived to execute jobs in a cluster (multiple nodes\computers).
For testing purposes, a method that renames the CSV file was created. This method copies the generated CSV to a folder called csv. The destiny folder can be configured in the file conf/spark-backend.properties.
The application [spark-backend] can be executed inside Eclipse or through the command line in Terminal using the command spark-submit.
In the command line we make use of the JAR file produced during the project build in Eclipse. We pass as parameters the necessary packages as below:

spark-submit --packages com.databricks:spark-xml_2.11:0.4.1 -- class com.lenielmacaferi.spark.ProcessUsersXml - -master local com.lenielmacaferi.spark- backend-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

The application [spark-frontend] was built with Play Framework (The High Velocity Web Framework For Java and Scala).
The user opens spark-frontend main page at localhost:9000 and has access to the list of CSV files generated by [spark-backend] application.
When clicking a file name, the CSV file is sent to the user's computer. The user can then use any spreadsheet software to open and post-process\analyse\massage the data.

Conclusion

With Spark's help we can develop interesting solutions as for example: a daily job that can download and upload data to a folder "input" processing the data along the way in many different ways.
Using custom made code we can work with the data in a cluster (fast processing) using a rich API full of methods and resources. In addition, we have at our disposal inumerous additional libraries\plugins developed by the developer community. Put together all the power of Scala and Java and their accompanying libraries.
The application demonstrated can be easily executed in a cluster. We only need to change some parameters in the object SparkConf.

Links

Source code @ GitHub - https://github.com/leniel/SparkEclipse
Apache Spark - https://spark.apache.org/
Spark XML - https://github.com/databricks/spark-xml
Spark SQL - http://spark.apache.org/sql/
Scala - https://www.scala-lang.org/
Ubuntu - https://www.ubuntu.com/
Eclipse - https://eclipse.org/

Using Zotero to convert Springer Link CSV search result to BibTex format

2017-06-10T10:37:00.000-03:00

Today I needed to generate a BibTex file to serve as input to Parsif.al.

Parsif.al is an online tool designed to support researchers to perform systematic literature reviews within the context of Software Engineering.

I hit a brickwall while doing a search in Springer Link because it only gives us a CSV file with the entire search result. It caps the result to the first 1000 registries. It'd be a pain to click and open each and every search result to be able to export the corresponding BibTex.

Using Zotero it's easy to get a BibTex out of the CSV file generated by Springer Link.

Figure 1 - Zotero's Add item(s) by Identifier dialog

Follow these simple steps:

1 - Open the CSV file in Excel for example and copy the column that contains the item DOI [ Digital Object Identifier ];

2 - Paste the DOI(s) into Zotero's Add item(s) by identifier (see Figure 1 above). Wait while it imports...

3 - Select the folder where you imported the DOI(s); (Player Modeling in Figure 1)

4 - Right click the folder and select Export collection... pick BibTex.

You're done.

Hope it helps.

References:

Adding Items to your Zotero Library

Italian Ancestry - Maccaferri & Cantamessa families

2017-02-14T23:23:00.000-02:00

First of all I like genealogy and I like history.

I like Italy because part of my ancestors\antenati come from there.

To know my origin is something that instigates my feelings and this post is my try to find relatives scattered all over the world.

From this MyHeritage DNA test I have 43.5% of Italian ethnicity\blood and so it's undeniable the affection I feel for the country.

I've created a Family Tree at MyHeritage:

https://www.myheritage.com.br/site-family-tree-343227191/leniel-macaferis-family

Below I tell my "recent" Italian family history in 3 idioms: Italiano, English and Portuguese.

If you think we may be relatives, just drop me a line at leniel@gmail.com or use the contact form. It'll be a pleasure to get to know you. :)

By the way, this is my Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/leniel.macaferi

My Family Tree (click to zoom)

Family tree created with the help of FamilySearch website

ITALIANO

Il mio nome è Leniel Macaferi ed è nato il 06.10.1983 in Carangola, Minas Gerais, Brasile. Io sono di origine italiana. In linea paterna, io sono il nipote di una coppia di italiani: Giuseppe Maccaferri nato il 10.07.1893 a San Felice sul Panaro, Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italia. & Anna Rosa Cantamessa nata il 23.07.1906 a Valtesse, Bergamo, Lombardia, Italia. Giuseppe Maccaferri [1893-1941] è arrivato in Brasile con 2 anni di età su 16.05.1896 a bordo della nave\vapore [Attività] con i suoi genitori Sperindio Maccaferri [1861 ~ 1935] e Maria Cirelli [1867 ~ 1935]. I miei bisnonni erano sposati a San Felice sul Panaro su 03.11.1887.
Il record dell’arrivo si trova nel sito pubblico di Arquivo Mineiro. http://www.siaapm.cultura.mg.gov.br/modules/imigrantes/brtacervo.php?cid=1383
Anna Rosa Cantamessa [1906-1983] è arrivato in Brasile con 7 anni di età su 20.08.1913 a bordo della nave\vapore [Regina Elena] con i suoi genitori Giuseppe Andrea Cantamessa [1875-1952] e Maria Camilla Irma Colombo [1880 ~ 1921]. I miei bisnonni si sono sposati in Valtesse su 24.09.1901. Il record dell’arrivo si trova nel sito di sistema nazionale informazioni archivio a Rio de Janeiro. http://imagem.sian.an.gov.br/anexos/sian/arquivos/1139635_40882.pdf
Il mio trisnonno Giacomo Cantamessa (padre di Giuseppe) è arrivato in Brasile il 16.12.1897 sulla nave\vapore [Spagne] con la moglie e gli altri bambini. Giuseppe era colui che era in Italia e emigrato in Brasile circa 15 anni più tardi. Il record dell'arrivo di Giacomo Cantamessa e la famiglia si trova nel sito pubblico di Arquivo Mineiro. http://www.siaapm.cultura.mg.gov.br/modules/imigrantes/brtacervo.php?cid=16126
Questi sono i cognome nel mio albero genealogico fino ad oggi:

#	Cognome	Antenato(a)	Relazione	Livello
1	Maccaferri	Giuseppe Maccaferri	nonno	2
2	Cantamessa	Anna Rosa Cantamessa	nonna	2
3	Colombo	Maria Camilla Irma Colombo	bisnonna	3
4	Cirelli	Maria Cirelli	bisnonna	3
5	Bocchi	Maria Bocchi	trisnonna	4
6	Bergamini	Candida Maria Filomena Bergamini	trisnonna	4
7	Baldis	Eufrosina Baldis	trisnonna	4
8	Locatelli	Antonia Locatelli	trisnonna	4
9	Dotti	Maria Dotti	quadrisavola	5
10	Calzolari	Eleonora Calzolari	quadrisavola	5
11	Cattaneo	Orsola Cattaneo	quadrisavola	5
12	Falci	Maria Teresa Falci	quadrisavola	5
13	Guidetti	Maria Guidetti	quinquisavola	6
14	Viscardi	Angela Viscardi	quinquisavola	6
15	Luiselli	Antonia Luiselli	quinquisavola	6

Il mio cognome Macaferi è il modo "brasiliano" di Maccaferri.

ENGLISH

My name is Leniel Macaferi and I was born on 10.06.1983 in Carangola, Minas Gerais, Brazil. I am descendant of Italians.

From the paternal line, I am the grandson of an Italian couple: Giuseppe Maccaferri born on 07.10.1893 in San Felice sul Panaro, Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

& Anna Rosa Cantamessa born on 07.23.1906 in Valtesse, Bergamo, Lombardy, Italy. Giuseppe (Joseph) Maccaferri [1893-1941] arrived in Brazil at the age of 2 on 05.16.1896 aboard the ship [Attivitá] with his parents Sperindio Maccaferri [1861 ~ 1935] and Maria Cirelli [1867 ~ 1935]. My great-grandparents married in San Felice sul Panaro on 11.03.1887.
The arrival record is in the public site of Arquivo Mineiro. http://www.siaapm.cultura.mg.gov.br/modules/imigrantes/brtacervo.php?cid=1383
Anna Rosa Cantamessa [1906-1983] arrived in Brazil at the age of 7 on 08.20.1913 aboard the ship [Regina Elena] with her parents Giuseppe Andrea Cantamessa [1875 - 1952] and Maria Camilla Irma Colombo [1880 ~ 1921]. My great-grandparents were married in Valtesse on 09.24.1901.

The arrival record is on the website of the National Archive Information System in Rio de Janeiro. http://imagem.sian.an.gov.br/anexos/sian/arquivos/1139635_40882.pdf
My great-great-grandfather Giacomo Cantamessa (Giuseppe’s father) has arrived in Brazil on 12.16.1897 aboard the ship [Spagne] with his wife and the other children. Giuseppe was the one who stayed in Italy and emigrated to Brazil about 15 years later.
The arrival record of Giacomo Cantamessa and the family is in the public site of Arquivo Mineiro. http://www.siaapm.cultura.mg.gov.br/modules/imigrantes/brtacervo.php?cid=16126 These are the surnames in my family tree to the present moment:

#	Surname	Ancestor	Relationship	Level
1	Maccaferri	Giuseppe Maccaferri	grandfather	2
2	Cantamessa	Anna Rosa Cantamessa	grandmother	2
3	Colombo	Maria Camilla Irma Colombo	great grandmother	3
4	Cirelli	Maria Cirelli	great grandmother	3
5	Bocchi	Maria Bocchi	2x-great-grandmother	4
6	Bergamini	Candida Maria Filomena Bergamini	2x-great-grandmother	4
7	Baldis	Eufrosina Baldis	2x-great-grandmother	4
8	Locatelli	Antonia Locatelli	2x-great-grandmother	4
9	Dotti	Maria Dotti	3x-great-grandmother	5
10	Calzolari	Eleonora Calzolari	3x-great-grandmother	5
11	Cattaneo	Orsola Cattaneo	3x-great-grandmother	5
12	Falci	Maria Teresa Falci	3x-great-grandmother	5
13	Guidetti	Maria Guidetti	4x-great-grandmother	6
14	Viscardi	Angela Viscardi	4x-great-grandmother	6
15	Luiselli	Antonia Luiselli	4x-great-grandmother	6

My last name Macaferi is the "Brazilianized" way for Maccaferri.

PORTUGUÊS

Me chamo Leniel Macaferi e nasci em 06.10.1983 em Carangola, Minas Gerais, Brasil. Sou descendente de italianos. Na linha paterna, sou neto de um casal de italianos: Giuseppe Maccaferri nascido em 10.07.1893 em San Felice sul Panaro, Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Itália. & Anna Rosa Cantamessa nascida em 23.07.1906 em Valtesse, Bergamo, Lombardia, Itália. Giuseppe (José) Maccaferri [1893-1941] chegou no Brasil com 2 anos de idade em 16.05.1896 no navio\vapor [Attività] com seus pais Sperindio Maccaferri [1861~1935] e Maria Cirelli [1867~1935]. Meus bisavós casaram-se em San Felice sul Panaro em 03.11.1887. O registro de chegada está no site do Arquivo Público Mineiro. http://www.siaapm.cultura.mg.gov.br/modules/imigrantes/brtacervo.php?cid=1383 Anna Rosa Cantamessa [1906-1983] chegou no Brasil com 7 anos de idade em 20.08.1913 no navio\vapor [Regina Elena] com seus pais Giuseppe Andrea Cantamessa [1875-1952] e Maria Camilla Irma Colombo [1880~1921]. Meus bisavós casaram-se em Valtesse em 24.09.1901. O registro de chegada está no site do Sistema de Informações do Arquivo Nacional no Rio de Janeiro. http://imagem.sian.an.gov.br/anexos/sian/arquivos/1139635_40882.pdf Meu trisavô Giacomo Cantamessa (pai de Giuseppe) chegou no Brasil em 16.12.1897 no navio\vapor [Espagne] com a mulher e os outros filhos. Giuseppe foi o único que ficou na Itália e emigrou para o Brasil aproximadamente 15 anos depois. O registro da chegada de Giacomo Cantamessa e família está no site do Arquivo Público Mineiro. http://www.siaapm.cultura.mg.gov.br/modules/imigrantes/brtacervo.php?cid=16126 Estes são os sobrenomes na minha árvore familiar até o presente momento:

#	Sobrenome	Antenato(a)	Relação	Nível
1	Maccaferri	Giuseppe Maccaferri	avô	2
2	Cantamessa	Anna Rosa Cantamessa	avó	2
3	Colombo	Maria Camilla Irma Colombo	bisavó	3
4	Cirelli	Maria Cirelli	bisavó	3
5	Bocchi	Maria Bocchi	trisavó	4
6	Bergamini	Candida Maria Filomena Bergamini	trisavó	4
7	Baldis	Eufrosina Baldis	trisavó	4
8	Locatelli	Antonia Locatelli	trisavó	4
9	Dotti	Maria Dotti	tetravó	5
10	Calzolari	Eleonora Calzolari	tetravó	5
11	Cattaneo	Orsola Cattaneo	tetravó	5
12	Falci	Maria Teresa Falci	tetravó	5
13	Guidetti	Maria Guidetti	pentavó	6
14	Viscardi	Angela Viscardi	pentavó	6
15	Luiselli	Antonia Luiselli	pentavó	6

Meu sobrenome Macaferi é a forma “abrasileirada” de Maccaferri.

Links

FamilySearch

MyHeritage

Share the Information

Create a Genealogy Web Page

Creating Your Family and Personal History

Antenati - Gli Archivi per la Ricerca Anagrafica (where I found the Italian certificates)

Crowdsourcing & Stack Overflow: the power of the Crowd

2017-02-01T23:22:00.001-02:00

It's been 2 years since I last posted. Wow! Time flies and life changes...

In 2016 I started a Master's degree course at UFRJ - Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in the branch of Data and Knowledge Engineering (Databases) that is under the division of Computer and Systems Engineering department at COPPE\UFRJ.

Some background history: I tried to join this same master's program back in 2010. I posted about it here: Masters degree application essay UFRJ 2011.1. At that time I was not accepted in the program because the teacher responsible for the Software Engineering branch and that interviewed me, told me that I didn't have a research profile. I was more like an industry guy. I was upset of course when my application got rejected but I tried again in 2015 and guess what: I applied for the Software Engineering branch again and for the Databases branch too. I got approved in the tests for the two branches. The same teacher interviewed me for the Software Engineering after 5 years. She remembered me and said the same thing. She denied my application again. Thanks God the Database branch teachers were more receptive and accepted my enrollment. I love both areas and Databases involve everything related to data which attract my attention as well.

Lesson: don't give up on your dreams... if you want it with all your heart, go for it! It can take some time but it'll happen.

Back to the post title... as part of the grade, most of the 8 necessary disciplines have a final paper to be developed. This post is about the paper I did for CSCW - Computer Supported Cooperative Work or even Computer Aided Collaborative Work.

I hope it can shed some light regarding the cooperative work put together by the Stack Overflow developer community with the help of our mainstream computers and mobile devices.

Abstract—Crowdsourcing gained attention in the past few years
as a means to disseminate work to a crowd of people. People that
can be scattered all over the world. The Internet removed all the
barriers. Advances in Information Technologies and hardware
allowed the development of tools that aid in the division of the
work and tasks that need to be carried out. We are now in a stage
where what once was supposed to be inviable is proved to be viable
with remote work being done by disparate teams located in
different continents. Computer Supported Cooperative Work is
now a reality and this paper analyzes some of the concepts and use
of modern information systems technology to fill the gap between
a crowd of software developers and their day to day job questions
when applied to a questions and answers site namely Stack
Overflow. Each and every day millions of software developers
outsource their questions to knowledgeable peer developers. Stack
Overflow is the means that allows the knowledge transfer to
happen and it came in a moment when a huge amount of data was
being generated but it wasn’t well structured and organized for
future reuse. Stack Overflow was born and is now a great option
that offers a well-structured and exciting environment to ask and
get answers online.

The full paper in PDF format is available at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4SVxswDPXtwVzNFTWtSMkJoM3M/view?usp=sharing

Just got the C# gold badge at StackOverflow

2014-12-11T10:57:00.001-02:00

This is a “marketing” post… Just kidding.

This is just to inform that I got the C# #Csharp gold badge at #StackOverflow @StackExchange after 5 years and 6 months and 342 answers posted on the C# tag! What a milestone towards a so awesome programming language.

Once when I was starting back in 2003 a somewhat experienced coworker told me: this thing [ coding ] is not for you.

I proved him wrong!

The lesson to be learnt here is: never trust others when they say you are not capable even more when you are just starting something. Instead use that as a trampoline. Not easy but you must not give up. Keep pushing always.

People that motivate us are a rare kind. So use this post as a motivation and BEFORE that remember: put God first in everything you start in your life. I remember at that time in my life I talked to God and told him that I really liked this profession|area and asked for his help so that he could guide me and provide me wisdom. Here I’m today being able to write this post. How grateful I’m.

To top that, last week a cousin (13 years old) approached me and told me he’d like to follow the same path I followed and asked what I did to get where I’m today. I answered: you have to have a passion for what you do, strive for excellence and be prepared to spend some good amount of time trying and trying... as I wrote above: don’t give up. There’ll be for sure many rocks on the road… The Long and Winding Road as sung by The Beatles is a truth but if you persist in what you really believe then success is a matter of time.

Somehow sometime somewhere God will move things in your favor.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 https://www.bible.com/bible/1/rom.8.28

http://stackoverflow.com/users/114029/leniel-macaferi

NPOI 2.0 - Support for right-to-left languages

2014-07-12T12:00:00.000-03:00

This is the 5th post of a series of posts about NPOI 2.0.

This time we’re gonna see how easy it is to enable support for right to left languages in a spreadsheet.

Here’s a Microsoft page that describes Office’s right-to-left language features.

NPOI has got you covered too. The flag first appeared in NPOI 2.0 Alpha:

g. Support isRightToLeft and setRightToLeft on the common spreadsheet Sheet interface, as per existing HSSF support (poi-developers)

Let’s jump directly to the code with no further ado…

using NPOI.SS.UserModel;
using NPOI.XSSF.UserModel;
using System.IO;

namespace NPOI.Examples.XSSF.SetIsRightToLeftInXlsx
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            IWorkbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook();

            ISheet sheet1 = workbook.CreateSheet("Sheet1");
            
            // Setting support for Right To Left
            sheet1.IsRightToLeft = true;

            sheet1.CreateRow(0).CreateCell(0).SetCellValue("This is a Sample");

            int x = 1;

            for(int i = 1; i <= 15; i++)
            {
                IRow row = sheet1.CreateRow(i);

                for(int j = 0; j < 15; j++)
                {
                    row.CreateCell(j).SetCellValue(x++);
                }
            }

            FileStream sw = File.Create("test.xlsx");

            workbook.Write(sw);

            sw.Close();
        }
    }
}

You can find the above code in the SetIsRightToLeftInXlsx sample project. I sent a pull request to Tony Qu so that this sample project gets added to NPOI’s GitHub repository.

Hope it helps!