Develop Reference

Is it possible to do a simple print in WEB API without the use of a console?

As the title suggested, is it possible to print out info for web API? I understand there is the option of logging but I am just trying to look for a simple print. I tried console.writeline() but my WEB API do not have a console.
I publish the API to an IIS server, and I would call the API for various functions through a webpage. However, there is no logging setup yet therefore I am trying to find a quick and easy way to print info such as the value of a variable etc. For instance, I would console.log() when I do a quick troubleshoot on my webpage, how can I achieve this for WEB API?

There are a couple of options.
If you use a typical logging framework like Log4Net or Serilog or similar, you can easily write to files. This is easy to set up and recommended.
If you need it now, and are using windows, you could use the event log to write data to it.
See: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.diagnostics.eventlog?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0
// Create an EventLog instance and assign its source.
EventLog myLog = new EventLog();
myLog.Source = "MySource";
// Write an informational entry to the event log.
myLog.WriteEntry("Writing to event log.");
And look for it in the windows event log.
See this on how to access it.

I just noticed writing to a txtfile would be the easiest for me, if I were to avoid setting up logging, basically I will just call as something below when needed.
private void fakeLogging (string data)
{
string logpath = #"C:\path\to\file.txt";
if (!System.IO.File.Exists(logpath))
{
FileStream fs = System.IO.File.Create(logpath);
fs.Close();
}
System.IO.File.AppendAllText(logpath, DateTime.Now + " " + data + Environment.NewLine);
}

Automatic update a Windows application

How do I develop my Windows application so it will auto update on the client machine, like Firefox, Skype, etc.?
Is there any simple approach or any open source library which help me to do it just following some steps or a few lines of code?

ClickOnce is what you're searching for.
You might also find these SO questions interesting (which offers some different solutions):
Auto update for WinForms application
How do I implement an auto update strategy for my in-house winform app

try microsoft clickonce technology
(in MSDN)

You can use wyUpdate or .NET Application Updater Component

There is also the Update Block in the Ent Lib by msft.

The most popular frameworks are:
Google Omaha - This is what Chrome uses. Very powerful.
Squirrel - This is used in Electron applications. Easy to use but can't update machine-wide installations. Also, no graphical update notifications.
WinSparkle - Gives you graphical update notifications. But less mature than Squirrel.
AutoUpdater.NET - Both graphical and silent updates. Similar to Squirrel and WinSparkle.
I've taken these links from this article. It goes into more details about the pros and cons of each of the frameworks.

Use MD5-Update it easy only need add 5 lines at your application, no configuration need in your app only add library and publish the files.
1. Your need a web server with PHP for publish your files please include updt.exe.
2. Add index.php for make list of update files. aviable on github repository https://github.com/jrz-soft-mx/MD5-Update/blob/main/Tools/Tools.zip o create new app with this code.
<?php
$_dat = array();
$_dir=new RecursiveDirectoryIterator(".");
foreach (new RecursiveIteratorIterator($_dir) as $_itm) {
$_fil = str_replace(".".DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR, "", $_itm);
if(!is_dir($_fil) && $_fil != "index.php"){
$_dat[]=array('StrFil' => "$_fil", 'StrMd5' => strtoupper(md5_file($_fil)), 'lonSiz' => filesize($_fil));
}
}
echo json_encode($_dat, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);
?>
3. Add nuget repository at your proyect
PM> Install-Package MD5.Update
4. Call the library when your app stars, with your update folder url, update all files and download your new app on updt folder, for replace your app need updt.exe
string strUrl = "http://yourdomain.com/app/";
if (MD5Update.MD5Update.Check(strUrl, true))
{
Process.Start(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + #"updt.exe", AppDomain.CurrentDomain.FriendlyName + " " + Process.GetCurrentProcess().ProcessName);
Application.Exit();
}
5. updt.exe for replace the current app with the new app updt folder to app. aviable on github repository https://github.com/jrz-soft-mx/MD5-Update/blob/main/Tools/Tools.zip o create new app with this code.
try
{
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
List<string> lisArg = Environment.GetCommandLineArgs().ToList();
if (lisArg.Count < 2)
{
MessageBox.Show("Please provide App Excutable Name and Procees name");
Application.Exit();
return;
}
string strAppName = lisArg[1];
string strAppProcees = lisArg[2];
Process[] lisPro = Process.GetProcessesByName(strAppProcees);
foreach (Process Pro in lisPro)
{
if (Pro.Id != Process.GetCurrentProcess().Id)
{
Pro.Kill();
Thread.Sleep(1000);
}
}
string strAppMain = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + strAppName;
string strAppUpdate = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + #"updt\" + strAppName;
if (!File.Exists(strAppMain))
{
MessageBox.Show("App Excutable dosent exists");
Application.Exit();
return;
}
if (!File.Exists(strAppUpdate))
{
MessageBox.Show("App Excutable Updated dosent exists");
Application.Exit();
return;
}
File.Copy(strAppUpdate, strAppMain, true);
long fileSize = 0;
FileInfo currentFile = new FileInfo(strAppMain);
while (fileSize < currentFile.Length)
{
fileSize = currentFile.Length;
Thread.Sleep(1000);
currentFile.Refresh();
}
Process.Start(strAppMain);
}
catch (Exception Ex)
{
MessageBox.Show("An error ocurred");
File.WriteAllText(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + #"updt_" + DateTime.Now.ToString("yyyyMMddTHHmmss") + " .txt", Ex.ToString());
Application.Exit();
}

How about System Center 2012 Configuration Manager?

I'd add another possible variation:
https://github.com/synhershko/NAppUpdate
https://github.com/cecon/autoupdatereasy
https://github.com/NetSparkleUpdater/NetSparkle

While ClickOnce is simple and it resurrected for .NET 5, it still has a lot of limitations, so I found out that nowadays better option exists: you could use included in Windows 10 mechanism for app delivery called AppInstaller by packaging your app in MSIX bundle or package.
I covered my findings related to the topic in this answer

How do I programatically add an article page to a sharepoint site?

I've been given the task of content migration from another CMS system to SharePoint 2010.
The data in the old system is fairly easy to capture and the page hierarchy is simple so I'm not worried about that.
However, I am completely flummoxed about how to even create a page in code. I'm using the Microsoft.SharePoint.Client namespace as I do not have sharepoint installed on my system and am wanting to code this up as a console application and so I'm using I'm using ClientContext. (On the other hand, I am willing to go into other solutions if necessary).
My end-game: To get a page uploaded into some folder hierarchy which uses a master page, has the page title in a header web part, and a big ol' content-editable web part in the body so any user can come along and edit the content.
Things I've tried so far:
Using FileCollection.Add() to add an aspx file to the folder "Site Pages". This renders the html in the browser but doesn't enable any features for the user to edit the page
Using ListItemCollection.Add() to add a page to the site, but I didn't know what fields I needed. Also I remember it came up with a runtime error saying I should use FileCollection.Add()
Uploading to 'Site Pages' instead of 'Pages'
So many others... ow my head :(
The only plausible thing I can see on the net is to use the PublishingPage type along with PublishingWeb. However, PublishingWeb can only be constructed from an SPWeb object which requires me to be actually hosting the sharepoint application on my workstation.
If anyone can lend a hand that would be greatly appreciated :)

Here is a method I use to create pages. It seems a more supported way of creating pages than mr Aquino's. Though this is for MOSS 2007 I'm sure the equivalent exists in 2010. Also, I'd recommend to create console apps using the full object model. You'll have to run it on the server itself but that doesn't seem much of a problem for a migration? This way you won't be limited in any way.
public static void CreatePage(string url, string pageName, string title, string layoutName, Dictionary<string, string> fieldDataCollection)
{
var relUrl = new Uri(url);
using (SPSite site = new SPSite(url))
using (SPWeb web = site.AllWebs[relUrl.AbsolutePath])
{
if (!PublishingWeb.IsPublishingWeb(web))
throw new ArgumentException("The specified web is not a publishing web.");
PublishingWeb pubweb = PublishingWeb.GetPublishingWeb(web);
PageLayout layout = null;
string availableLayouts = string.Empty;
foreach (PageLayout lo in pubweb.GetAvailablePageLayouts())
{
availableLayouts += "\t" + lo.Name + "\r\n";
if (lo.Name.ToLowerInvariant() == layoutName.ToLowerInvariant())
{ layout = lo; break; }
}
if (layout == null)
throw new ArgumentException("The layout specified could not be found. Available layouts are:\r\n" + availableLayouts);
if (!pageName.ToLowerInvariant().EndsWith(".aspx")) pageName += ".aspx";
PublishingPage page = pubweb.GetPublishingPages().Add(pageName, layout);
page.Title = title;
SPListItem item = page.ListItem;
foreach (string fieldName in fieldDataCollection.Keys)
{
string fieldData = fieldDataCollection[fieldName];
try
{
SPField field = item.Fields.GetFieldByInternalName(fieldName);
if (field.ReadOnlyField)
{
Console.WriteLine("Field '{0}' is read only and will not be updated.", field.InternalName);
continue;
}
if (field.Type == SPFieldType.Computed)
{
Console.WriteLine("Field '{0}' is a computed column and will not be updated.", field.InternalName);
continue;
}
if (field.Type == SPFieldType.URL)
{
item[field.Id] = new SPFieldUrlValue(fieldData);
}
else if (field.Type == SPFieldType.User)
{
// AddListItem.SetUserField(web, item, field, fieldData);
}
else
{
item[field.Id] = fieldData;
}
}
catch (ArgumentException)
{
Console.WriteLine("WARNING: Could not set field {0} for item {1}.", fieldName, item.ID);
}
}
page.Update();
}
}

I don't see a way of creating a publishing page without the actual publishing methods.
When you create a new article page it will only create a few xml parameters inside the page, the layout itself lives in the /_catalogs/masterpage/article-XXXX.aspx file.
You can try downloading a native file created in the Pages document library, understand its structure, fill the XML with your data and then uploading it back to the Pages document library using the FileCollection -- that's my only guess.
Edit: sample Article Page
<%# Page Inherits="Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing.TemplateRedirectionPage,Microsoft.SharePoint.Publishing,Version=12.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=71e9bce111e9429c" %>
<%# Reference VirtualPath="~TemplatePageUrl" %>
<%# Reference VirtualPath="~masterurl/custom.master" %>
<html xmlns:mso="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:msdt="uuid:C2F41010-65B3-11d1-A29F-00AA00C14882"><head>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<mso:CustomDocumentProperties>
<mso:PublishingContact msdt:dt="string">1073741823</mso:PublishingContact>
<mso:display_urn_x003a_schemas-microsoft-com_x003a_office_x003a_office_x0023_PublishingContact msdt:dt="string">System Account</mso:display_urn_x003a_schemas-microsoft-com_x003a_office_x003a_office_x0023_PublishingContact>
<mso:PublishingContactPicture msdt:dt="string"></mso:PublishingContactPicture>
<mso:PublishingContactName msdt:dt="string"></mso:PublishingContactName>
<mso:ContentTypeId msdt:dt="string">0x010100C568DB52D9D0A14D9B2FDCC96666E9F2007948130EC3DB064584E219954237AF390078FB5FE740F6714B9595501175ECD8F000727044016EAB3B45B9E104498E366C85</mso:ContentTypeId>
<mso:Comments msdt:dt="string"></mso:Comments>
<mso:PublishingContactEmail msdt:dt="string"></mso:PublishingContactEmail>
<mso:PublishingPageLayout msdt:dt="string">http://dmserver008/_catalogs/masterpage/ArticlePage.aspx, EstudoAndre</mso:PublishingPageLayout>
</mso:CustomDocumentProperties>
</xml><![endif]--><title>New Article</title></head>
To grab one, hit the Pages library => Content Menu => Send To => Download a Copy

Uploading a page file should work, as long as you get the settings right on the item as well as the document itself. After you upload the file you can set the content type and properties appropriately. If you create a page manually first, you should be able to get an object that has all the right settings.
However, I would strongly recommend getting set up to develop a console app that will run on the sharepoint server rather than relying on the web services. The server side apis (including PublishingPage) tend to be a lot easier to work with.

Can I run a ASPX and grep the result without making HTTP request?

How can I just make a function call, without URL, and without HTTP, to a simple ASP.NET file, and capture the byte stream it generated?
More background information,
I need a some kind of template can put a little logic inside, to render some INI like text files. I give up those libraries ported from Java and come up a solution of using ASP.NET for template engine. (I am NOT using it to build a website, not even a HTML.)
I have written a ASP.NET page (no WebForm, no MVC), which accept a XML POST, and it generate a long text file based on a set of simple but not too simple rules.
I generate the XML from DB objects, submit to the ASP page, grep the result and it works very well. However, the problem is that we want to use as a library, using by a WCF. Because of this, I failed to use a relative path and I have to store the URL of the ASP somewhere in the configuration, which I do not want to.
It will be hosted on a IIS server, but not called (at least not directly) from any frontend ASP, and will never called from end user.
PS. I was originally looking for a simple template engine for C#, but they are too old and not maintenance anymore, poor documentation, missing integrated editor/debugger, too simple, and the they might speak different languages.
PPS. I've also thought about T4, but it does not have a editor nor debugger in VS 2008.

You can run an ASPX page without IIS, without an HTTP message, if you build a host for the ASPNET runtime.
Example:
public class MyAspNetHost : System.MarshalByRefObject
{
public void ProcessRequest(string page)
{
var request = new System.Web.Hosting.SimpleWorkerRequest
(page, // the page being requested
null, // query - none in this case
System.Console.Out // output - any TextWriter will do
);
// this will emit the page output to Console.Out
System.Web.HttpRuntime.ProcessRequest(request);
}
public AppDomain GetAppDomain()
{
return System.Threading.Thread.GetDomain();
}
}
public class Example
{
public void Run(IEnumerable<String> pages)
{
// ASPNET looks for assemblies - including the assembbly
// that contains any custom ASPNET host - in the bin\
// subdirectory of the physical directory that backs the
// ASPNET Host. Because we are going to use the current
// working directory as the physical backing directory for
// the ASPNET host, we need to ensure there's a bin
// subdirectory present.
bool cleanBin = false;
if (!Directory.Exists("bin"))
{
cleanBin = true;
Directory.CreateDirectory("bin");
}
// Now, ensure that the assembly containing the custom host is
// present in that bin directory. The assembly containing the
// custom host is actually *this* assembly.
var a = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
string destfile= Path.Combine("bin", Path.GetFileName(a.Location));
File.Copy(a.Location, destfile, true);
host =
(MyAspNetHost) System.Web.Hosting.ApplicationHost.CreateApplicationHost
( typeof(MyAspNetHost),
"/foo", // virtual dir - can be anything
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() // physical dir
);
// process each page
foreach (string page in pages)
host.ProcessRequest(page);
}
}
If you want to clean up that bin directory, you have to get the AppDomain to unload first. You can do that, like this:
private ManualResetEvent aspNetHostIsUnloaded;
private void HostedDomainHasBeenUnloaded(object source, System.EventArgs e)
{
// cannot clean bin dir here. The AppDomain is not yet gone.
aspNetHostIsUnloaded.Set();
}
private Run(IEnumerable<String> pages)
{
try
{
....code from above ....
}
finally
{
if (host!= null)
{
aspNetHostIsUnloaded = new ManualResetEvent(false);
host.GetAppDomain().DomainUnload += this.HostedDomainHasBeenUnloaded;
AppDomain.Unload(host.GetAppDomain());
// wait for it to unload
aspNetHostIsUnloaded.WaitOne();
// optionally remove the bin directory
if (cleanBin)
{
Directory.Delete("bin", true);
}
aspNetHostIsUnloaded.Close();
}
}
}
This makes sense for testing ASPX pages, and that sort of thing. But I'm not so sure this is the right thing, for your scenario. There are more direct ways to generate text files. But, it may be right for you. If you really like the template engine idea, hosting ASPNET may be just the thing for you.
In your case, you would want to modify the custom Host so that the output for each page goes to a StringWriter instead of Console.Out, and then you could do Grep (or more likely a search with Regex) on that output. You might also want to modify it to accept all the input data as a querystring. You'd need to format the page request to do that.
EDIT: There's a good article on MSDN Magazine on this technique of hosting the ASPNET runtime. From December 2004.
EDIT2: There's a simpler way to manage the bin directory. Just create a symbolic link named bin, pointing to ".". Then, you can remove the symlink after the call to AppDomain.Unload(), without waiting. Looks like this:
public void Run(string[] pages)
{
bool cleanBin = false;
MyAspNetHost host = null;
try
{
// This creates a symlink.
// ASPNET always looks for a bin\ directory for the privateBinPath of the AppDomain.
// This will create the bin dir, pointing to the current dir.
if (!Directory.Exists("bin"))
{
cleanBin = true;
CreateSymbolicLink("bin", ".", 1);
}
host =
(MyAspNetHost) System.Web.Hosting.ApplicationHost.CreateApplicationHost
( typeof(MyAspNetHost),
"/foo", // virtual dir - can be anything
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() // physical dir
);
foreach (string page in pages)
host.ProcessRequest(page);
}
finally
{
// tell the host to unload
if (host!= null)
{
AppDomain.Unload(host.GetAppDomain());
if (cleanBin)
{
// remove symlink - can do without waiting for AppDomain unload
Directory.Delete("bin");
}
}
}
}
This eliminates the need for the ManualResetEvent, copying files, synchronization, etc. It assumes the assembly for the custom ASPNet Host as well as all the assemblies required by the ASPX pages you run are contained in the current working directory.

This sounds like a very similar issue which is generating HTML emails on a server. There are some answers here that do that (for MVC):
ASP.NET MVC: How to send an html email using a controller?
You can proceed in a similar fashion for non-MVC by loading and rendering a control (ASCX) to a file.

Enable ASP.NET in IIS6 Programmatically

Is there a way to enable the ASP.NET Web Service Extension in IIS6 via C#? I'm trying to simplify a website setup program for people who haven't used IIS before.

C# NET. Framework usage:
Process.Start(#"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis", "-i -enable");
CMD usage:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis -i -enable
It's useful.
Source: https://serverfault.com/questions/1649/why-does-iis-refuse-to-serve-asp-net-content

You could call out to WMI easily enough (System.Management namespace, IIRC) and I believe you can set it from there. However, it may well be much simpler to set it manually, you can't do it from within an ASP.NET site since your server won't be able to run it until it is set...
Principles of doing something similar may be found here

Looking around all the examples of this are written in vbscript. So I cheated and came up with this function:
static void EnableASPNET()
{
var file = "wmi.vbs";
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(file))
{
writer.WriteLine("Set webServiceObject = GetObject(\"IIS://localhost/W3SVC\")");
writer.WriteLine("webServiceObject.EnableWebServiceExtension \"ASP.NET v2.0.50727\"");
writer.WriteLine("webServiceObject.SetInfo");
}
var process = Process.Start("cscript", file);
process.WaitForExit();
File.Delete(file);
}

// if windows 2003
if (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major == 5 &&
Environment.OSVersion.Version.Minor == 2)
{
DirectoryEntry folderRoot = new DirectoryEntry("IIS://localhost/W3SVC");
folderRoot.Invoke("EnableWebServiceExtension", "ASP.NET v2.0.50727");
}
Copied from: http://lastdon.blogspot.com/2006/12/setup-web-application-on-windows-2003.html

I believe you can also run the following command line:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -s W3SVC
And this will recursively enable the AND.NET framework v2.0.50727 for all configured websites.