C# .NET

How to access a WCF Service behind ISA Server 2006 Forms Based Authentication

Stacy Vicknair — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:25:35 GMT

I ran into this particular issue and didn’t find any answers to this specific question online. Here’s how I was able to accomplish this. A couple notes about my scenario:

I used slsvcutil.exe to generate my service. I could not get connected to a service through “Add Service Reference” when connecting from outside the ISA server protected connection.
This connection was tested and successfully retrieved data from a Windows Phone 7 device. I figured on the scale of success this was the platform that I had the most concern for.
This works for services behind ISA Server 2006’s cookie-based authentication.

Step 1: Get the details about the ISA Server POST

Using firebug or a similar tool, take a look at what information happens when you select “Log On” on the ISA Server FBA page. The important information to keep is the Request URL and any Form Data passed in the HTTP POST made when you click “Log On”. The request url should appear in the format https://mysite.com/CookieAuth.dll?Logon

Here’s the form data as reported in Chrome:

Step 2: Mimic the POST in your code with a provided CookieContainer

First we have to POST to the CookieAuth.dll?Logon in order to get our CookieContainer populated. _container is a private CookieContainer shared between all methods.

        1: Public Sub New()

       2:     InitializeComponent()

       3:  

       4:     Dim logonUrl = "https://mysite.com/CookieAuth.dll?Logon"

       5:     _container = New CookieContainer()

       6:  

       7:     Dim request = CType(WebRequest.Create(logonUrl), HttpWebRequest)

       8:     request.CookieContainer = _container

       9:     request.Method = "POST"

      10:  

      11:     request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"

      12:  

      13:     request.BeginGetRequestStream(AddressOf RequestCallback, request)

      14: End Sub

      15:  

      16: Private Sub RequestCallback(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult)

      17:     Dim postData = String.Format("curl=Z2F&flags=0&forcedownlevel=0&formdir=3&trusted=4&username={0}&password={1}&SubmitCreds=Log On", "username", "password")

      18:  

      19:     Dim request = CType(ar.AsyncState, HttpWebRequest)

      20:  

      21:     Dim stream = request.EndGetRequestStream(ar)

      22:  

      23:     Using sw As New StreamWriter(stream)

      24:         sw.Write(postData)

      25:     End Using

      26:  

      27:     request.BeginGetResponse(AddressOf ResponseCallback, request)

      28: End Sub

Step 3: Pass the CookieContainer to your service

When using WCF basicHttpBinding make sure that the binding configuration specifies allowCookies=”true”. You can also set this by specifying the same in code against the binding.

       1: Private Sub ResponseCallback(ByVal ar As IAsyncResult)

       2:     Dim request = CType(ar.AsyncState, HttpWebRequest)

       3:     Dim response = request.EndGetResponse(ar)

       4:  

       5:     Dim service = New ListsSoapClient With {.CookieContainer = _container}

       6:  

       7:     AddHandler service.GetListCollectionCompleted, AddressOf GetListCollectionCompleted

       8:  

       9:     service.GetListCollectionAsync(service)

      10: End Sub

      11:  

      12: Private Sub GetListCollectionCompleted(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As GetListCollectionCompletedEventArgs)

      13:     Dim result = e.Result.Descendants().Select(Function(x) x.Attribute("Title").Value).ToList()

      14:     Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(Sub() ListBox1.ItemsSource = result)

      15: End Sub

Step 4: Profit!

Now you should be good to go get data from your service!

C# Example:

       1: public MainPage()

       2: {

       3:     InitializeComponent();

       4:  

       5:  

       6:     var logonUrl = "https://mysite.com/CookieAuth.dll?Logon";

       7:     _container = new CookieContainer();

       8:  

       9:     var request = (HttpWebRequest) WebRequest.Create(logonUrl);

    request.CookieContainer = _container;

    request.Method = "POST";

 

    request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";

 

    request.BeginGetRequestStream(RequestCallback, request);

}

 

private void RequestCallback(IAsyncResult ar)

{

    var postData = string.Format("curl=Z2F&flags=0&forcedownlevel=0&formdir=3&trusted=4&username={0}&password={1}&SubmitCreds=Log On", @"username", "password");

    

    var request = (HttpWebRequest) ar.AsyncState;

 

    var stream = request.EndGetRequestStream(ar);

 

    using(var sw = new StreamWriter(stream))

    {

        sw.Write(postData);

    }

 

    request.BeginGetResponse(ResponseCallback, request);

 

}

       1: private void ResponseCallback(IAsyncResult ar)

       2: {

       3:     var request = (HttpWebRequest) ar.AsyncState;

       4:     var response = request.EndGetResponse(ar);

       5:  

       6:     var service = new ListsSoapClient { CookieContainer = _container};

       7:  

       8:     service.GetListCollectionCompleted += GetListCollectionCompleted;

       9:  

      10:     service.GetListCollectionAsync(service);

      11: }

      12:  

      13: private void GetListCollectionCompleted(object sender, GetListCollectionCompletedEventArgs e)

      14: {

      15:     var result = e.Result.Descendants().Select(x => x.Attribute("Title").Value).ToList();

      16:     Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() => listBox1.ItemsSource = result);

      17: }

Test Data Builder pattern with object initializers in .NET

Stacy Vicknair — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:59:08 GMT

Test Data Builder Pattern

When unit testing we often need to fill any POCO objects with enough data to satisfy the needs of the test. Redoing this in every test can quickly become a burden and slow down the testing process. Test Data Builder is a pattern that’s meant to help in just that situation.

With test data builder you build a fluent interface that allows you to build out your POCO objects by only replacing the properties that you need specific values for. The other values are set to defaults specified by the builder.

Here’s a classic example of test data builder:

Our POCO Object

        1: Public Class Person

       2:     Public Property FirstName As String

       3:     Public Property LastName As String

       4:     Public Property DateOfBirth As DateTime

       5: End Class

Our Test Data Builder Class

       1: Public Class PersonBuilder

       2:     'Set the defaults

       3:     Private _firstName As String = "Default"

       4:     Private _lastName As String = "Default"

       5:     Private _dateOfBirth As DateTime = New DateTime(1999, 12, 31)

       6:  

       7:     Public Function WithFirstName(ByVal firstName As String) As PersonBuilder

       8:         _firstName = firstName

       9:         Return Me

    End Function

  

    Public Function WithLastName(ByVal lastName As String) As PersonBuilder

        _lastName = lastName

        Return Me

    End Function

  

    Public Function WithDateOfBirth(ByVal dateOfBirth As DateTime) As PersonBuilder

        _dateOfBirth = dateOfBirth

        Return Me

    End Function

  

    Public Function Build() As Person

        Return New Person() With

            {

                .FirstName = _firstName,

                .LastName = _lastName,

                .DateOfBirth = _dateOfBirth

            }

    End Function

End Class

Usage example

       1: Dim person = New PersonBuilder() _

       2:     .WithFirstName("Stacy") _

       3:     .WithDateOfBirth(New DateTime(1984, 12, 6)) _

       4:     .Build()

Still a lot of work

Depending on how many objects you need to create builders for and how many properties each object has you can still be in for a lot of upfront work following the test data builder pattern to create that fluent experience.

Creating the builder pattern with object initializers

In .NET we have object initializers that can take much of this extra work out by providing an expressive method of setting the object properties. If possible, simply subclassing off of the POCO will prevent us from even needing to write out all of the properties, then we can set default values in the constructor.

Our Subclassed Test Data Builder

       1: Public Class PersonBuilderWithObjectInitializers

       2:     Inherits Person

       3:  

       4:     Public Sub New()

       5:         FirstName = "Default"

       6:         LastName = "Default"

       7:         DateOfBirth = New DateTime(1999, 12, 31)

       8:     End Sub

       9:  

      10:     Public Function Build() As Person

      11:         Return New Person() With

      12:             {

      13:                 .FirstName = FirstName,

      14:                 .LastName = LastName,

      15:                 .DateOfBirth = DateOfBirth

      16:             }

      17:     End Function

      18: End Class

The new builder’s usage

       1: Dim person = New PersonBuilderWithObjectInitializers() With

       2:         {

       3:             .FirstName = "Stacy",

       4:             .DateOfBirth = New DateTime(1984, 12, 6)

       5:         }.Build()

Why still have a build method?

Some of you might be asking, “Why keep the build method when polymorphism should do the work?” Well, good point. The reason I keep the build method is that when working against Entity Framework against POCO objects it will attempt to figure out the true type of the object, not just the type the object is cast as. As a result, it will complain when trying to persist the object. The build method in this case just acts as added assurance that if any type discovery is called against the object you will be safe knowing that the correct type will be discovered.

C# examples

Our POCO Object

       1: public class Person

       2: {

       3:     public string FirstName { get; set; }

       4:     public string LastName { get; set; }

       5:     public DateTime DateOfBirth { get; set; }

       6: }

Our Test Data Builder Class

       1: public class PersonBuilder

       2: {

       3:     // Set our defaults

       4:     private string _firstName = "Default";

       5:     private string _lastName = "Default";

       6:     private DateTime _dateOfBirth = new DateTime(1999, 12, 31);

       7:  

       8:     public PersonBuilder WithFirstName(string firstName)

       9:     {

        _firstName = firstName;

        return this;

    }

  

    public PersonBuilder WithLastName(string lastName)

    {

        _lastName = lastName;

        return this;

    }

  

    public PersonBuilder WithDateOfBirth(DateTime dateOfBirth)

    {

        _dateOfBirth = dateOfBirth;

        return this;

    }

  

    public Person Build()

    {

        return new Person

                   {

                       FirstName = _firstName,

                       LastName = _lastName,

                       DateOfBirth = _dateOfBirth

                   };

    }

}

Usage example

       1: //arrange

       2: var person = new PersonBuilder()

       3:     .WithFirstName("Stacy")

       4:     .WithDateOfBirth(new DateTime(1984, 12, 6))

       5:     .Build();

Our Subclassed Test Data Builder

       1: public class PersonBuilderWithObjectInitializers : Person

       2: {

       3:     public PersonBuilderWithObjectInitializers()

       4:     {

       5:         // Set our defaults

       6:         FirstName = "Default";

       7:         LastName = "Default";

       8:         DateOfBirth = new DateTime(1999, 12, 31);

       9:     }

      10:  

      11:     public Person Build()

      12:     {

      13:         return new Person

      14:             {

      15:                 FirstName = FirstName,

      16:                 LastName = LastName,

      17:                 DateOfBirth = DateOfBirth

      18:             };

      19:     }

      20: }

The new builder’s usage

       1: var person = new PersonBuilderWithObjectInitializers

       2:                 {

       3:                     FirstName = "Stacy",

       4:                     DateOfBirth = new DateTime(1984, 12, 6)

       5:                 }.Build();

.NET XPath Returns No Results

Stacy Vicknair — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 02:57:00 GMT

When using XPath in .NET one of the gotchas to be aware of is that all namespaces must be named, otherwise you’ll end up with no results. Default namespaces that are specified with xmlns alone still need to be recognized in the XPath query!

Say I had a bit of XML like what is returned from the QueryService web service in Sharepoint:

        1: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

       2: <ResponsePacket xmlns="urn:Microsoft.Search.Response">

       3:   <Response>

       4:     <Range>

       5:       ...

       6:       <Results>

       7:         <Document xmlns="urn:Microsoft.Search.Response.Document" relevance="849">

       8:             ...

When consuming and navigating this response with XPath it is necessary to name all namespaces. Then those named namespaces must be used in reference to the individual element being requested (i.e. doc:Document).

In VB:

       1: Dim xdoc = new XPathDocument(reader)

       2: Dim nav = xdoc.CreateNavigator()

       3: Dim nsMgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(nav.NameTable)

       4: nsMgr.AddNamespace("resp", "urn:Microsoft.Search.Response")

       5: nsMgr.AddNamespace("doc", "urn:Microsoft.Search.Response.Document")

       6:  

       7: Dim results = nav.Select("//doc:Document", nsMgr)

In C#:

       1: var xdoc = new XPathDocument(reader);

       2: var nav = xdoc.CreateNavigator();

       3: var nsMgr = new XmlNamespaceManager(nav.NameTable);

       4:  

       5: nsMgr.AddNamespace("resp", "urn:Microsoft.Search.Response");

       6: nsMgr.AddNamespace("doc", "urn:Microsoft.Search.Response.Document");

       7:  

       8: var results = nav.Select("//doc:Document", nsMgr);

Increase your Visual Studio 2010 keyboard kung-fu! Shortcut charts are available for VB.NET, C#, F# and C++

Stacy Vicknair — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 01:28:34 GMT

Get them now!

Technorati Tags: VS2010,keyboard,shortcuts

Combating Failure – Principles for OO Success Presentation

Stacy Vicknair — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:29:30 GMT

I’ll be participating in the Baton Rouge .NET User Group’s second Speaker Idol event and doing a presentation on the SOLID principles. This’ll be my first time speaking for the BRDNUG, so we’ll see how it goes. At the least, hopefully those attending will find the presentation entertaining.

You’ll find a link to my presentation included in this blog, please check it out and feel free to adapt from it if you find it useful. Keep in mind that this presentation is designed for 15-20 minutes.

Also I would love to hear any feedback, good or bad. I’ve got a lot of growing to do and the only way I’ll do it is through honest feedback.

Powerpoint:
http://www.filesavr.com/combattingfailure-principlesforoosuccess_1

PDF:
http://www.filesavr.com/combattingfailure-principlesforoosuccess

Event Information:
http://www.brdnug.org/events_view.aspx?eventid=37

Technorati Tags: SOLID,SRP,OCP,LSP,ISP,DIP,Presentations,.NET,PPP

BRDNUG Meeting this Wednesday, November 5th

Stacy Vicknair — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:58:25 GMT

Just a reminder about the upcoming BRDNUG meeting. We'll be looking at ADO.NET data services. The whole summary is available here:

http://www.wtfnext.com/archive/2008/10/28/october-baton-rouge-.net-users-group-meeting-in-november.aspx

Technorati Tags: BRDNUG,ADO.NET Data Services

Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 CTP available once again

Stacy Vicknair — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:31:27 GMT

Maybe you’ve already noticed, but the download links are once again active for the VS2010 .NET 4.0 CTP. Tackle yourself some new team oriented features here:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/content/content.aspx?ContentID=9790

Technorati Tags: Visual Studio 2010,.NET 4.0

October Baton Rouge .NET Users Group Meeting (in November)

Stacy Vicknair — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:16:44 GMT

NOTICE: Due to a scheduling conflicts as Halloween activities the October meeting has been moved 1 week to Wednesday, November 5th. Sorry for any inconvenience.

.Net User Group Meeting

location:
At Lamar Advertising
Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
5:45 PM - 8:15 PM
Sponsored by: Portico Learning Solutions

Presenter
Jeremy Beckham

BIO:
Jeremy is a Senior Developer for High Power Consulting, Inc. and has over 5 years of experience in .Net and SQL Server development. He's worked on projects ranging from ASP.Net MVC websites to enterprise wide custom ERP systems. He specializes in application integration and has built integration solutions including custom FTP interfaces for portal applications, socket interfaces for the Louisiana State Police's Law Enforcement Messaging Switch, interfaces for content management systems such as FileNet and IBM Content Manager, and the correspondence generation system Thunderhead. He has worked extensively with Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services including dynamic image generation inside of reports and building report models for Adhoc Reporting.

Topic
ADO.Net Data Services
The ADO.NET Data Services framework consists of a combination of patterns and libraries that enable the creation and consumption of data services for the web. The goal of the ADO.Net Data Services framework is to facilitate the creation of flexible data services that are naturally integrated with the web, using URIs to point to pieces of data and simple, well-known formats to represent that data, such as JSON and plain XML. This results in the data service being surfaced to the web as a REST-style resource collection that is addressable with URIs and that agents can interact with using the usual HTTP verbs such as GET, POST or DELETE.

Presentation Outline:
•     Introduction
•     What is ADO.Net Data Services?
•     How can it be used?
•     Consuming ADO.Net Data Services.
•     Demo
o       Website using ASP.Net AJAX and JavaScript to consume ADO.Net Data Services.

Agenda
5:45 pm - 6:15 pm:      General Introduction/Food and Drinks
6:15 pm - 7:15 pm:      Jeremy will speak on ADO.Net Data Services
7:20 pm - until:        Open forum for questions

Raffle and Giveaways
•     LLBLGen Pro ORM Tool
•     Office Ultimate 2007
•     Infragistics Net Advantage 2008
•     Several Books

Hope to see you guys at the November October Meeting, good ole scheduling issues :)

Technorati Tags: BRDNUG,Baton Rouge,ADO.NET

RegularExpressionValidator will not stop the empty string

Stacy Vicknair — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:45:44 GMT

I’ll be honest that this did happen to me, and thankfully the MSDN straightened me out.

For those of us who normally program for winforms, sometimes the switch to an ASP.NET project can prove to be a whole new world. For instance, I was working on a straightforward single page in ASP.NET 1.1 so that members of the same project could gather some information easily.

The form itself had one field, and I wanted to ensure that the field was a number only. I added a RegularExpressionValidator and pointed it to my text box, and gave the simple regex ^[0-9]+$ which should just allow 1 or more numbers to be entered. When I started testing it out, that wasn’t the case.

The validation worked properly for all cases except when the user would enter nothing. In that case, the validator just let the thing straight on through. I’m not delusional and I don’t have to write a regex every day, so I starting thinking what’s wrong with my regex? I even talked to people I trusted on ASP.NET about it, and they were mostly suggesting the regex might be wrong (from lack of familiarity with regex).

Turns out, RegularExpressionValidator will not stop the empty string. When you think about it (and I’m sure most ASP.NET developers are thinking “Duh!”) what good would regex be if you couldn’t apply it to a field, even if it wasn’t mandatory.

So, to filter out the lack of entry, add a RequiredFieldValidator to the mix. This’ll catch the contingency the regex doesn’t, and you’ll be good to go.

For more info on RegularExpressionValidator and its uses, reference the MSDN here. The first Note in the remarks highlights the information presented here.

Technorati Tags: VB .NET,C# .NET,RegularExpressionValidator

Mono 2.0 Released

Stacy Vicknair — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:09:48 GMT

For those Linux devs who don’t have something adamantly against Microsoft, Mono 2.0 has been released!

From the release notes:

Mono 2.0 is a portable and open source implementation of the .NET framework for Unix, Windows, MacOS and other operating systems.

Release Date: October 6th, 2008

Major Highlights

Mono 2.0 is a major milestone in the Mono project, and it supports the following features:

Microsoft Compatible APIs

ADO.NET 2.0 API for accessing databases.

ASP.NET 2.0 API for developing Web-based applications.

Windows.Forms 2.0 API to create desktop applications.

System.XML 2.0: An API to manipulate XML documents.

System.Core: Provides support for the Language Integrated Query (LINQ).

System.Xml.Linq: Provides a LINQ provider for XML.

System.Drawing 2.0 API: A portable graphics rendering API.

Mono APIs

Gtk# 2.12: A binding to the Gtk+ 2.12 and GNOME libraries for creating desktop applications on Linux, Windows and MacOS X.
Mono.Cecil: A library to manipulate ECMA CLI files (the native format used for executables and libraries).
Mono.Cairo: A binding to the Cairo Graphics library to produce 2D graphics and render them into a variety of forms (images, windows, postscript and PDF).
Mono's SQLite support: a library to create and consume databases created with SQLite.
Mono.Posix: a library to access Linux and Unix specific functionality from your managed application. With both a low-level interface as well as higher level interfaces.

Third Party APIs bundled with Mono

Extensive support for databases: PostgreSQL, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, SQL server, SQLite and Firebird.
C5 Generics Library: we are bundling the C5 generics collection class library as part of Mono.

Download Mono 2.0 Here

Technorati Tags: Mono,.NET,Linux