Software Solutions To Database, Programming and Logical Problems

T-SQL Table Valued Functions and Linq-to-SQL

2011-04-05T06:25:00.000-04:00

I noticed that calling a T-SQL table value function that does not explicitly define the return table type causes the Linq-To-SQL code generation engine to create an incorrectly formed SQL request.

When querying the SQL functions listed at the bottom of the post with these statements, the first will not work and the second will work correctly.


foo(1).Dump();
foo2(2).Dump();

The first function (from the two listed below) will have SQL generated that looks like


-- Region Parameters
DECLARE @p0 Int = 1
-- EndRegion
SELECT [t0].@Max AS [Max]
FROM [dbo].[foo](@p0) AS [t0]

which is incorrect. If you inspect the SELECT statement closely you will see [t0].@Max and the @ symbol should not be there.

The following SQL function definitions are referenced above:

Fwd: ID thieves' new hangout: file-sharing software - MSNBC.com

2007-11-14T19:44:00.001-05:00

If you are using file-sharing software or even thinking about using it, you need to read this msnbc article.

Latest post from: ID thieves' new hangout: file-sharing software ( http://redtape.msnbc.com/2007/11/id-thieves-new-.html)

Strange SQL Server Behavior

2007-09-12T08:39:00.000-04:00

A co-worker discovered the following odd behavior in Microsoft SQL Server 2000.

declare @foo table (
A int, B varchar(50))

insert @foo values(null,'abc')

select IsNull(A,'-'), B from @foo
select IsNull(convert(varchar(5),A),'-'), B from @foo

The result of the first select statement is the value 0 for the first column. This statement in reality should have caused an error message and indeed does cause an error when the type of the A column is changed to a float. For some reason an integer has an implicit null conversion to the value 0. This may have something to do with the setting of ANSI NULL, I have not investigated it that much.

As a final note, this functionality is the same in SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005.

The following select statement in MySQL returns the value '-' for the column A when in reality column A should be of type Integer!

SELECT IFNULL( A, '-' ) , B

and the following query works without error as well:

SELECT 1,''
UNION
SELECT IFNULL(A,'-'),B
FROM FOO

when the previous query should return an error because an integer type is not compatible with a char/varchar type!

So in conclusion it pays to be aware of this issue as my co-worker discovered. Apparently a significant amount of work was done based upon incorrect data resulting from this odd behavior.

New Apple Products

2007-09-06T07:31:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Apple released a new iPod touch. Essentially this is a wi-fi enabled tablet computer along the lines of the Nokia 770. It seemes priced right at $299 for the 8GB model and $399 for the 16GB model. I think it will fit a niche market of people who want some of the features of the iPhone but not the AT&T service contract. When a few more carriers agree to work with Apple to make the iPhone work on their networks (read Verizon) I think the iPhone may really take off more. For now there is a halfway product that has a lot of the glamour of the iPhone, just without the big iPhone price tag and service commitment.

Advantages of Interfaces in Unit Testing

2007-09-05T07:12:00.000-04:00

As a software developer I strive to integrate Unit Testing into my development process. At my organization there is a hard and fast rule, no testing code can reside in the production assembly. This was a problem with a class I was attempting to test because the class contains many protected methods that I wanted to be able to test in addition to the public interface to the class. Fortunately in .NET, if protected methods implement an interface on a class, you can access those methods if you create an object instance which is typed to the interface instead of the concrete class.

In C# you might do the following:


// This would be the class you are attempting to test in another assembly
public class Testing:ITestable {
 protected Boolean TestThis() {return false;}

 // You must make this interface public in order to execute the tests.
 // However, if you only want to make this available in certain build
 // configurations then you can easily add pre-compiler directives to
 // exclude this interface from the release build configuration.

#if DEBUG
 public Interface ITestable {
#else
 private Interface ITestable {
#endif
     Boolean TestThis();
 }
}

//This class would reside in another class library assembly and get executing using an NUnit test runner.
[TestFixture()]
public class TestingTests {

   [Test()]
   public void TestThisTest() {
       Testing.ITestable testObject = new Testing();
      
       Assert.IsFalse(testObject.TestThis());
   }
}

Essentially what is happening is that you conditionally include an interface which the unit testing class uses to reach inside of the object under test to enable testing of internal functions. One caveat, it is generally a much better design principle to just test the public interface, allowing for redesign and application of test cases to children who may inherit from the base class. However, for situations where you can not change the entire architecture, this method allows you to improve the code coverage of unit tests for classes with protected or private members that need testing.

Looking For MD5 or SHA1 Implementation In T-SQL?

2007-08-23T16:50:00.001-04:00

For those of you that might be looking for an implementation of the MD5 or the SHA1 implementation for SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 this might fit the bill!

Hardware Hacking

2007-03-09T16:48:00.000-05:00

CPU memory protections can't help this hack.

Check out this article about why hacking your system is now easier.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2099603,00.asp

Norman

Darwin Streaming Server - Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake)

2006-11-16T22:01:00.000-05:00

Recently I have decided that Microsoft may not be the be-all-end all to technology and have begun exploring the "darker" side of the world. (That would be the Linux side.) Ok, so darker may not be the right idea to convey but anyway, its the side that the average PC user does not get to work with often.

I am building up my second install of Ubuntu 6.06 (Hard drive crash on the old one kind of blew things away for me. Arrg) and I realized it would be really cool to have a streaming server running on my computer, so I decided to do some looking to find out if anyone had gotten Darwin to run with Ubuntu. I found one post that described some problems that one user had.

The trick to getting it to install and run correctly is to understand that the commands in the Install shell script do not actually create the qtss user and associated group account properly. The parameter "-M" that is in that file is invalid for Ubuntu's version of "adduser" and so that fails. What you can do is before you run the Install script, you can create the user yourself using either the commandline tools or the visual tools from the System -> Administration -> Users and Groups menu in Ubuntu.

Also, make sure that your user (qtss) has appropriate security configured so that it can read the files that you are going to stream.

And finally, what I did to get the streamingadminserver.pl running correctly is to use "sudo su - qtss" to get a shell running as the "qtss" user and then run the script, which ensured that it was started under that users privilege.

Unfortunately no one has stepped up to the plate to create an Ubuntu installer package for this application and hence there is no /etc/init.d/darwin script to control the server. Mabye I will make that if I get to feeling adventurous with bash.

Ok, so this was a little long but hopefully it will help you get Darwin Streaming Server installed on your Ubuntu Server today.

Social Engineering - Extremely Low Risk Infiltration Scheme

2006-06-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

This is a great article describing how easy it is to utilize human nature to overcome security policy to gain covert access to remote systems with a VERY low detection probability.

The gist of this story is that USB thumb drives were loaded with trojans and left in the parking lot and break area around the target and curious employees then loaded them into their computers which then sent compromise details to an unauthorized hacker.

Be safe out there and beware the gift of the Trojans in USB drive form.

Norman

Full Article URL: http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=95556&WT.svl=column1_1

Security News: Reduce Brute-Force Attack Success

2006-04-17T09:43:00.000-04:00

The following is an article with good information on how to reduce the effectiveness of brute-force attacks against web applications. The technology relies on mathematical algorithms on the client that require more time to compute than to verify to incur a transaction cost for authentication against a web application to make it computationally infeasible to implement a large-scale attack.

http://www.infosecwriters.com/text_resources/pdf/AntiBruteForceResourceMetering.pdf

Web-based AJAX messaging client

2006-03-24T12:27:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine just showed me this URL for a web-based messaging client. I have not tried it out yet, but it looks interesting! It probably spells trouble for network administrators who can't firewall web traffic. I do suppose they could block the website, but that does not mean other people will not take up the technology and implement it elsewhere.

http://www13.meebo.com/

Norman

Social Engineering

2006-03-22T10:28:00.000-05:00

This is a great introduction to the art of social engineering that is one of the biggest security threats that many organizations do not consider when reviewing security policies and procedures. This article is good information if you have friends that have not heard of the topic that work in IT.

http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1860/1

Norman

Finally, industry heads are getting things right!

2006-03-20T19:49:00.000-05:00

Hello,

I saw this article in the November 15 2005 issue of CIO magazine (an extremely valuable issue I might add!) and realized that I needed to share the information in this issue. The article linked below is on requirements analysis. There are other articles in that issue on testing and quality assurance as well which are very good articles which address those areas from the CIO point of view (which in my opinion is good for anyone to at least be aware of).

For anyone who has ever been involved in a software project, this is the kind of information that CIO's need to help software development move out of the quagmire of failure that the industry has seen.

------- Article Text -------
CIO Magazine
NOV 15, 2005
How to Fix the Requirements Mess
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Some CIOs are rewriting the rules for deciding what should be included in software.Some CIOs are rewriting the rules for deciding what should be included in software.

Complete article online:
http://www.cio.com/archive/111505/require.html?CID=14295

Hospitality Industry Information Technology

2005-12-08T15:41:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking of some ways in which the hospitality industry information systems could be better accessed and utilized by the general public to reduce the number of times that itinerary information is entered and re-keyed and to improve the way in which a person of the general public would be able to locate housing in a foreign city with a minimum amount of time.

Web Service Tips and Tricks

2005-10-19T01:28:00.000-04:00

One of my professors from my graduate program asked me about some information on developing web services in an environment that does not include Visual Studio .NET .

One of the great benefits of using Visual Studio .NET 2003 is that you can get automatically generated proxies to the remote web service without really lifting a finger.

Unfortunately, this is not a built-in feature of #develop. However, not to worry, it is a built-in feature of NAnt Contrib a sibling project with the NAnt project that creates additional functionality for use with the NAnt tool.

You say, but wait, I don't want to use an NAnt controlled build process! Don't fret, its not as hard as it used to be. #develop has integration with NAnt (and NUnit) that really works well. You can either use the #develop VS.NET 2003-style build manager or you can use your own custom NAnt script.

One last thing, if you have ever wanted to upload large files via a web service, you might want to check out this bit of code: http://www.codeproject.com/cs/webservices/DimeBufferedUpload.asp.

That's about it for now! Happy Coding!

Norman

#develop and NAnt integration

2005-09-30T15:30:00.000-04:00

Wow! Check this out.

#develop has now been updated to include full NAnt build support. What this means is that for those of you using concurrent build systems or trying to build complex solutions, you can use NAnt's flexibility and STILL be able to use build information RIGHT IN THE IDE just as if you were using the built-in #develop build tool.

Try to keep up with that Microsoft...