Dhaval's Weblog

Joins in LINQ to SQL

dhavalshah — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:08:57 +0000

The following post shows how to write different types of joins in LINQ to SQL. I am using the Northwind database and LINQ to SQL for these examples.

   1: NorthwindDataContext dataContext = new NorthwindDataContext();

INNER JOIN :

   1: var q1 = from c in dataContext.Customers

   2:          join o in dataContext.Orders on c.CustomerID equals o.CustomerID

   3:          select new

   4:          {

   5:              c.CustomerID,

   6:              c.ContactName,

   7:              o.OrderID,

   8:              o.OrderDate

   9:          };

LEFT JOIN :

   1: var q2 = from c in dataContext.Customers

   2:          join o in dataContext.Orders on c.CustomerID equals o.CustomerID into g

   3:          from a in g.DefaultIfEmpty()

   4:          select new

   5:          {

   6:              c.CustomerID,

   7:              c.ContactName,

   8:              a.OrderID,

   9:              a.OrderDate

  10:          };

INNER JOIN ON MULTIPLE :

   1: var q3 = from c in dataContext.Customers

   2:          join o in dataContext.Orders on new { a = c.CustomerID, b = c.Country } equals new { a = o.CustomerID, b = "USA" }

   3:          select new

   4:          {

   5:              c.CustomerID,

   6:              c.ContactName,

   7:              o.OrderID,

   8:              o.OrderDate

   9:          };

INNER JOIN ON MULTIPLE WITH “OR” :

   1: var q4 = from c in dataContext.Customers

   2:          from o in dataContext.Orders.Where(a => a.CustomerID == c.CustomerID || c.Country == "INDIA")

   3:          select new

   4:          {

   5:              c.CustomerID,

   6:              c.ContactName,

   7:              o.OrderID,

   8:              o.OrderDate

   9:          };

LEFT JOIN ON MULTIPLE WITH “OR” :

   1: var q5 = from c in dataContext.Customers

   2:          from o in dataContext.Orders.Where(a => a.CustomerID == c.CustomerID || c.Country == "USA").DefaultIfEmpty()

   3:          select new

   4:          {

   5:              c.CustomerID,

   6:              c.ContactName,

   7:              o.OrderID,

   8:              o.OrderDate

   9:          };

More Example base on this article will post shortly

What’s New in ASP.NET 4.0 – Better ViewState Control

dhavalshah — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:28:22 +0000

This article is Part II of the multi-part series covering new features on ASP.NET 4.0.
In ASP.NET 2.0/3.5, you could disable ViewState for individual controls. However what you could not do is disable ViewState at a Page level and then enable it individually for controls on that page that require it. ASP.NET 4.0 changes that and gives more control to developers.
Let’s see this with an example. We will first create a page in ASP.NET 3.5 and disable ViewState on the Parent level and then observe the behavior of ViewState in child controls. We will then use the same example in ASP.NET 4.0 using the ViewStateMode property and observe the changes.

ViewState in ASP.NET 2.0/3.5

Create an ASP.NET application. Place two Label controls and one Button control on the page. Now disable view state on the Page by setting the ‘EnableViewState’ property to false. On the first Label control, set ‘EnableViewState’ property to true as shown below:

   1: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" EnableViewState="false" Inherits="_Default" %>

2:

   3: DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

4:

   5: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

   6: <head runat="server">

   7:     <title>ViewState Demo in ASP.NET 3.5title>

   8: head>

   9: <body>

  10:     <form id="form1" runat="server">

  11:     <div>

  12:         <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text="First" EnableViewState="true">asp:Label><br />

  13:         <asp:Label ID="Label2" runat="server" Text="Second">asp:Label><br /><br />

  14:         <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="PostBack" />

  15:     div>

  16:     form>

  17: body>

  18: html>

In the code behind file, write the following code which set’s the text of the Label controls:

   1: if(!IsPostBack)

   2: {

   3:     Label1.Text = "My First Example";

   4:     Label2.Text = "My Second Example";

   5: }

Now what is ‘ideally’ expected out of this setup is that although ViewState is disabled for the entire page, yet Label1 should save ViewState and retain its new value ‘Label1 Changed’ after postback; since ViewState is explicitly enabled on it.

You will observe that on hitting the button (causing a postback), Label1 does not retain the value (Label1 Changed) explicitly set on it. Not as we expected!

ViewState in ASP.NET 4.0

We will now create a similar web application in ASP.NET 4.0. The only difference is that here we will use the new ‘ViewStateMode’ property.

The ViewStateMode property accepts three values: Enabled, Disabled, andInherit.

Enabled – enables view state for that control and any child controls that are set to ‘Inherit’ or that have nothing set.

Disabled – disables view state

Inherit – specifies that the control uses the ViewStateMode setting from the parent control.

The markup looks similar to the following:

   1: <%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" ViewStateMode="Disabled" Inherits="_Default" %>

2:

   3: DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

4:

   5: <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

   6: <head id="Head1" runat="server">

   7:     <title>View State Demo in ASP.NET 4.0title>

   8: head>

   9: <body>

  10:     <form id="form1" runat="server">

  11:     <div>

  12:         <asp:Label ID="Label1" runat="server" Text="First" ViewStateMode="Enabled">asp:Label><br />

  13:         <asp:Label ID="Label2" runat="server" Text="Second">asp:Label> <br /><br />

  14:         <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="PostBack" />

  15:     div>

  16:     form>

  17: body>

  18: html>

Observe that ViewStateMode on the Page is set to Disabled. The child Label1 control has ViewStateMode set to Enabled, so Label1 ‘ideally’ should save view state. Since the ViewStateMode property is not set on Label2 , so the Label2 control inherits this property value from its parent (Page) and therefore saves no view state.

Note: The default value of ViewStateMode is Enabled for Pageobject. The default value of ViewStateMode is Inherit for controls.

Run the application and hit the button. What do you expect now?

When the page first loads, both the Label controls display the text as set in the codebehind file.

However, after hitting the button and causing a postback, Label1 does retain its value as we had expected!

What’s New in ASP.NET 4.0

dhavalshah — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 05:13:02 +0000

With the ASP.NET 4.0 release round the corner, I thought of starting an article series that covers the new features introduced in ASP.NET 4.0, one at a time. This article is Part I of this multi-part series.

In this article we will learn 2 new properties added to Pages Class.

Metkeywords.
MetaDescription.

The MetaDescription is important from an SEO perspective. The META Description Tag is an integral part which identifies a page and irrespective of the contrary belief, I think search engines take this meta tag seriously.

Now in ASP.NET 2.0/3.5, you could use the HTMLMeta class to define HTML elements for your page as shown below:

   1: HtmlMeta meta1 = new HtmlMeta();

   2: meta1.Name = "keywords name here";

   3: meta1.Content = "some keywords desctiption here";

4:

   5: HtmlMeta meta2 = new HtmlMeta();

   6: meta2.Name = "keywords name here";

   7: meta2.Content = "some keywords desctiption here";

8:

   9: Page.Header.Controls.Add(meta1);

  10: Page.Header.Controls.Add(meta2);

Too much code!

However in ASP.NET 4.0, you now have two new properties added to the Page class – MetaKeywords and MetaDescription.

   1: <%@ Page Title="New Features in ASP.NET 4" Language="C#" MasterPageFile="~/Site.master" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default"

   2: MetaKeywords="ASP.NET 4, SEO" MetaDescription="This page contains information about ASP.NET 4 and SEO enhancements" %>

In order to retain the older meta tag contents and also use the new ones, just concatenate the two programmatically as shown below:

   1: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

   2: {

   3:         Page.MetaDescription = Page.MetaDescription + " This page contains information about ASP.NET 4 and SEO enhancements";

   4:         Page.MetaKeywords = Page.MetaKeywords + " ASP.NET 4, SEO";

   5: }

Cookies and jQuery

dhavalshah — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 04:55:00 +0000

To use cookies with jQuery, you will need the special Cookie plugin.

Setting cookies :

Setting cookies with the Cookie plug-in is quite intuitive:

   1: $(document).ready(function(){

2:

   3:     // Setting a kittens cookie, it will be lost on browser restart:

   4:     $.cookie("kittens","Seven Kittens");

5:

   6:     // Setting demoCookie (as seen in the demonstration):

   7:     $.cookie("demoCookie",text,{expires: 7, path: '/', domain: 'demo.tutorialzine.com'});

8:

   9:     // "text" is a variable holding the string to be saved

  10: });

Reading cookies :

Reading a cookie is even simpler. Just call the $.cookie() function with a single cookie-name parameter, and the value of the cookie will be returned:

   1: $(document).ready(function(){

2:

   3:     // Getting the kittens cookie:

   4:     var str = $.cookie("kittens");

5:

   6:     // str now contains "Seven Kittens"

   7: });

Deleting cookies :

To delete a cookie, again use the $.cookie() function, but pass null as its second parameter.

   1: $(document).ready(function(){

2:

   3:     // Deleting the kittens cookie:

   4:     var str = $.cookie("kittens",null);

5:

   6:     // No more kittens

   7: });

PageMethods In ASP.NET AJAX

dhavalshah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 12:19:13 +0000

Page Methods is a new mechanism in ASP.Net application where the server code cab be bound to Asp.Net pages. It is an easy way to communicate asynchronously with the server using Asp.Net Ajax technologies. It’s an alternate way to call the page which is reliable and low risk. In a nutshell, it is used to expose the web methods to the client script.

Sample Application Demonstrating Page Methods

To enable Page methods we need to drag a ScriptManager control to the page and mark the EnablePageMethods to True.

   1: <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server"

   2:       EnablePageMethods="True">

   3: asp:ScriptManager>

Go the Code behind file of the page and add a static method and mark them as WebMethod. Lets Say the method name is GetPageMethod which returns a status value.

   1: [System.Web.Services.WebMethod]

   2: public static string GetPageMethod()

   3: {

   4:       return "Welcome PageMethods";

   5: }

Now that the method is exposed add a button control and call a client script which accesses the Webmethods of the page.

   1: <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Call Page Methods"

   2:       OnClientClick="return fun()"/>

In javascript function we can use PageMethods object to call the WebMethod of the page.

   1: function fun()

   2: {

   3:      PageMethods.updateProduct(GetPageMethod,OnSucceeded,OnError);

   4: }

5:

   6: function OnSucceeded(result, userContext, methodName)

   7: {

   8:     if (methodName == "GetPageMethod")

   9:     {

  10:   alert(result);

  11:     }

  12: }

13:

  14: function OnError(result,userContext,methodName)

  15: {

  16:     if(methodName == "GetPageMethod")

  17:     {

  18:         IsError = 1;

  19:     }

  20: }

Now run the application and check the result which shows the alert box with value “Welcome PageMethods”. The sample application calls the webmethods of the page using client script without full page cycle.

Value Type Vs Reference Type

dhavalshah — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:32:38 +0000

Value Type :

When a value-type instance is created, a single space in memory is allocated to store the value.
Primitive types such as integer, float, Boolean and char are also value types.
Structure are value types.
Memory Allocation : Value type local variable stored in Stack.
C# parameters are (by default) passed by value.

Reference Type :

With reference types, however, an object is created in memory, and then handled through a separate reference – rather like a pointer.
Class is Reference types.
Memory Allocation : The reference portion of reference type local variable store in Stack and content of reference type object store in Heap.

Examples :

   1: // Suppose Point is a struct, and Form is a class

   2: Point p1 = new Point();         // Point is a *struct*

   3: Form f1 = new Form();           // Form is a *class*

In the first case , one space of memory is allocated of p1 whereas in the second case, two spaces are allocated: one for a Form object and another for its reference (f1).

   1: Size s = new Size (100, 100);          // struct = value type

   2: Font f = new Font (“Arial”,10);        // class = reference type

3:

   4: // Form is Reference Type Variable

   5: Form myForm = new Form();

6:

   7: // To set the form's size and font, we can assign the objects s

   8: //and f to the form via its properties:

   9: myForm.Size = s;

  10: myForm.Font = f;

Here’s what it now looks like in memory:

Page life Cycle

dhavalshah — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:52:31 +0000

PreInit: All the Pre and Post events are introduced as part of .NET Framework 2.0. As the name suggests, this event is fired before the Init method is fired. Most common functionalities implemented in this method include:

Check the IsPostBack property
Set the master page dynamically
Set the theme property of the page dynamically
Read or Set the profile property values
Re-create the dynamic controls

Init: This event is raised after all controls in the page are initialized and any skin settings have been applied. This event is used to read or initialize control properties. It can be used to register events for some controls for which the events are not specified in the aspx page.
Ex: OnClick event of the Button can be registered in the Init rather than specifying in the OnClick property of the Button in the aspx page.

InitComplete: Use this event for processing tasks that require all initialization to be complete.

PreLoad: Use this event if you need to perform processing on your page or control before the Load event. After the Page raises this event, it loads view state for itself and all controls, and then processes any postback data included with the Request instance.

Load: The Page calls the OnLoad event method on the Page, then recursively does the same for each child control, which does the same for each of its child controls until the page and all controls are loaded. Use theOnLoad event method to set properties in controls and establish database connections.

Control events: Use these events to handle specific control events, such as a Button control’s Click event or a TextBox control’s TextChanged event.

LoadComplete: Use this event for tasks that require that all other controls on the page be loaded.

PreRender: This is the last event raised before the HTML code is generated for the page. The PreRender event also occurs for each control on the page. Use the event to make final changes to the contents of the page or its controls.

SaveStateComplete: Before this event occurs, ViewState has been saved for the page and for all controls. Any changes to the page or controls at this point will be ignored.
Use this event to perform tasks that require view state to be saved, but that do not make any changes to controls.

Render: This is the stage where the HTML code for the page is rendered. The Page object calls the Rendermethod of each control at this stage. All ASP.NET Web server controls have a Render method that writes out the control’s markup that is sent to the browser.

UnLoad: This event occurs for each control and then for the page. In controls, use this event to do final cleanup for specific controls, such as closing control-specific database connections.
For the page itself, use this event to do final cleanup work, such as closing open files and database connections, or finishing up logging or other request-specific tasks.

Evaluation of .NET Framework

dhavalshah — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:59:49 +0000

View Vs. Stored Procedure

dhavalshah — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:29:59 +0000

Differences :

View does not accepts parameters while SP takes parameters.
View contain only one single query while SP contain several statements like conditional , loop etc.
Can not perform modification in any table (DDL Statement) while SP can do this.
View is nothing but an imaginary table. It contains data at run time only not created in the database where as stored procedure can be used to store business logic.It is created at database level.Main difference is stored procedure exits in database where as view does not exits in database.

Trigger Vs. Stored Procedure

dhavalshah — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:11:52 +0000

Differences:

Actually trigger in action which is performed automatically before or after a event occur and stored procedure is a procedure which is executed when the it is called. Stored procedure is module.
SP can pass the parameters which is not a case with Triggers.
While creating a Trigger triggering event and action has to be specified which isn’t a case with SP.
A Trigger can call the specific SP in it but the reverse is not true.