Regular Expressions a bind - not anymore :) - Expresso

This great little tool found a while back saves a lot of hassle :)

Expresso by Ultrapico

Long Text Fields in NHibernate

Beware if you do not include type="StringClob" on a large text field in the nhibernate mapping it will automatically chop to around 2000 characters - this is because it defaults the size when creating the parameter. You can avoid this by using the above :)

Useful system views on sql server - there are loads but here are the useful ones

all abbreviated sys.*

sys.sql_logins Lists all users who can access the database.
sys.columns Lists all columns on database
sys.tables Lists all tables on database
sys.assemblies Lists all assemblies on database
sys.foreign_keys Lists all foreign keys on database
sys.triggers Lists all triggers on database
sys.procedures Lists all procedures on database

Regular Expression for National Insurance Number

Here is a regular expression for the UK National Insurance Number accepting values such as AB123456C etc

^[A-CEGHJ-PR-TW-Z]{1}[A-CEGHJ-NPR-TW-Z]{1}\s?[0-9]{2}\s?[0-9]{2}\s?[0-9]{2}\s?[A-DFM]{0,1}$

How do i find the xpath of an XmlNode in c#?

I came across this problem today where I was trying to find the xpath of the current node, so i could access the parent and remove that node from the collection. I knocked together some useful code to remove this. It basically works out the position of that node in the document and then which child it is on the child node.

/// <summary>
        /// Gets an xpath to a node 
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="node">Node to get xpath for</param>
        /// <returns>Xpath for node</returns>
        private static string GetXPathToNode(XmlNode node)
        {
            if (node.NodeType == XmlNodeType.Attribute)
            {
                // attributes have an OwnerElement, not a ParentNode; also they have
                // to be matched by name, not found by position
                return String.Format(
                    "{0}/@{1}",
                    GetXPathToNode(((XmlAttribute)node).OwnerElement),
                    node.Name
                    );
            }
            if (node.ParentNode == null)
            {
                //Have root node - so return empty path
                return "";
            }

            // the path to a node is the path to its parent, plus "/node()[n]", where 
            // n is its position among its siblings.
            return String.Format(
                "{0}/node()[{1}]",
                GetXPathToNode(node.ParentNode),
                GetNodePosition(node)
                );
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Gets node position in relation to the child
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="child">Child</param>
        /// <returns>Position on parent</returns>
        private static int GetNodePosition(XmlNode childNode)
        {
            for (int position = 0; position < childNode.ParentNode.ChildNodes.Count; position++)
            {
                if (childNode.ParentNode.ChildNodes[position] == childNode)
                {
                    // need to add one as xpath index starts not at zero
                    return position + 1;
                }
            }
            throw new InvalidOperationException("Missing Child Node");
        }

JavaScript popup window features

Here are the window.open options for the JavaScript window.open method, just set =1 if you want them included or =0 if you want them hidden.

status
Determines if you want the status bar at the bottom of the window to be shown

toolbar
This shows/hides the standard browser bar i.e. the back and forward buttons amongst others.

location
The location bar where you enter url’s.

menubar
This shows or hides the menu bar for the browser.

directories
This shows or hides the directories toolbar – i.e. whats new etc.

resizable
Enables/disables the user to resize the browser window.

scrollbars
Enable the scrollbars if the document takes up more area than the window

height
The height of the window in pixels. (i.e.: height='550')

width
The width of the window in pixels.

Granting permission to a user to create stored procedures on SQL Server 2005

To enable a user to create stored procedures on a SQL Server 2005 use

GRANT ALTER ON SCHEMA::dbo TO

GRANT CREATE PROCEDURE TO

How to remove all empty nodes from an XmlDocument in c#

I've used xsl before for stripping out unwanted empty nodes from passed xml - but now needed it for some c# code. So I created the following chunk of code and it works a treat.

This is the xslt which does all the hard work...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
    <xsl:output omit-xml-declaration="no" indent="no"/>
    <xsl:strip-space elements="*" />
    <xsl:template match="*[not(node()) and not(./@*)]"/>
    <xsl:template match="@* | node()">
        <xsl:copy>
            <xsl:apply-templates select="@* | node()"/>
        </xsl:copy>
    </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

And some code...

    //Xsl to strip stylesheet
    string strippingStylesheet = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\" ?><xsl:stylesheet version=\"1.0\" xmlns:xsl=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform\"><xsl:output omit-xml-declaration=\"no\" indent=\"no\"/><xsl:strip-space elements=\"*\" /><xsl:template match=\"*[not(node()) and not(./@*)]\"/><xsl:template match=\"@* | node()\"><xsl:copy><xsl:apply-templates select=\"@* | node()\"/></xsl:copy></xsl:template></xsl:stylesheet>";
 
    //Set up empty node stripper
    XmlDocument stripper = new XmlDocument();
    stripper.LoadXml(strippingStylesheet);

    //Compile here
    StringWriter output = new StringWriter();
    XslCompiledTransform emptyNodeRemover = new XslCompiledTransform();
    emptyNodeRemover.Load(stripper);
 
    //Port output to string 
    StringWriter output = new StringWriter();
    emptyNodeRemover.Transform(new XmlNodeReader(source), null, output);
    output.Flush();

    //Reload source with emptied nodes
    source.LoadXml(output.ToString());
    output.Close();
    output.Dispose();

Adding columns dynamically to a data grid control

Ok just a quick note here for the future. To add columns (i.e. bound or template etc) columns to a datagrid use the following:-

make sure the autogenerate on the data grid is switched off.

dataGrid1.AutoGenerateColumns=false;

then loop over the columns in the data source table.

foreach (DataColumn dc in dataTable.Columns)
{
BoundColumn newColumn = new BoundColumn();
newColumn.DataField = dc.ColumnName;
newColumn.HeaderText = ;

dataGrid1.Columns.Add(newColumn);
}

etc.

If you autogenerate the columns then the columns collection on the data grid will have no items.

A Regular Expression for a Strong Password

Finally constructed a regex for a strong password I like:

(?=^.{8,}$)((?=.*\d)|(?=.*\W+))(?![.\n])(?=.*[A-Z])(?=.*[a-z]).*$

A strong password is defined here as

1) Containing at least 1 upper case letter
2) Containing at least 1 lower case letter
3) Containing at least 1 number or special charachter
4) Containing at least 8 characters