You might come across this error when trying to attach an existing MDF file.
TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
------------------------------
Failed to retrieve data for this request. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Sdk.Sfc)
For help, click: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft%20SQL%20Server&LinkId=20476
------------------------------
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)
------------------------------
CREATE FILE encountered operating system error 5(Access is denied.) while attempting to open or create the physical file 'D:\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Data\AM8K.mdf'. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 5123)
For help, click: https://docs.microsoft.com/sql/relational-databases/errors-events/mssqlserver-5123-database-engine-error
------------------------------
BUTTONS:
OK
------------------------------
Please do the following:
Make sure currently logged in Windows/Domain user has access to the physical folder where the MDF file resides.
Start “Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio” as administrator.
Now, try to attach the MDF file, this should resolve the Access Denied error.
Special Note: If you want ONLY get the currently logged in Windows username (useful for Windows domain networks) all you need is to change the website’s authentication to Windows & calling “User.Identity.Name”. The below example mostly looking at how to implement HttpContext in a project.
Recently we decided to retire our Classic ASP intranet application & opted ASP.NET Core for the upgrade. As a Business, we are totally in to Oracle technologies and hardly had much exposure towards .NET development. With the help of netizens, blogs and forums, we figured out the basics of CRUD operations using ASP.NET Core. However, were totally bowled out while getting currently logged in Windows usernames (domain accounts) for the application. Then we came across this post
Using the above post, we managed to figure out way to “get” the Windows username using HttpContext & realizing the above link (although helped us), was too technical for beginners and decided to make a post that simplifies the instructions further a level. So, here it is.
Please note, I am using 2019 community editions for both Visual Studio and MS SQL Database. If you are using a previous versions of Visual Studio, may not able to open the sample solution provided with this post. A note of caution. We are as fresh as possible with ASP.NET Core development & would appreciate pointing out our mistakes instead lamenting. Thank you.
So let us start creating a new ASP.NET Core project that uses C# (ASP.NET Core Web App (Model-View-Controller)
Give a meaningful name for your solution
Select “Windows Authentication” for your solution (must)
Your project explorer should look like this
Open Startup.cs file and modify “ConfigureServices” method like below
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddControllersWithViews();
//Rajesh Added the below
services.AddHttpContextAccessor();
}
To keep it clean and simple, we will use a class specific to establish HttpContext.
Add a new class to Models, and let us call it “WindowsUserClass”
Add Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http namespace to the class before adding the below properties initializing the class.
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace GetWindowsUserName.Models
{
public class WindowsUserClass
{
private readonly IHttpContextAccessor _httpContextAccessor;
private readonly string _userName;
public WindowsUserClass(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
{
_httpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;
_userName = httpContextAccessor.HttpContext.User.Identity.Name;
}
public string GetUserName()
{
return _userName;
}
}
}
We will use the Controller construct dependency injection (read it, going to be difficult to understand if you are a beginner like us :) ) to initialize the WindowsUserClass by passing IHttpContextAccessor as a parameter.
HomeController constructor before adding IHttpContextAccessor
After modification
You have to add Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http namespace to the controller also.
Now we should able to call the GetUserName() function from WindowsUserClass from the HomeController! Let us give it a try
We’ll modify the Index view call slightly by passing the “yourusername” string.
We’ll modify “Index” view to show our Windows username now. You can call the view directly referring the GetUserName() function also. That will avoid an additional variable declaration.
@model string
@{
ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page";
}
<div class="text-center">
<h1 class="display-4">Welcome @Model</h1>
<p>Learn about <a href="https://docs.microsoft.com/aspnet/core">building Web apps with ASP.NET Core</a>.</p>
</div>
Before executing your project, we must change one more existing file!
Open launchSettings.json file and modify the content like below
You must change the windowsAuthentication string value to “true” and anonymousAuthentication to “false”. Save the changes.
You can build the solution and run to debug to check whether the solution is working as per expectations. One of the most important things you MUST understand now, for HttpContext to fetch you the intended results, your website should not be configured for Anonymous authentication. Here is the screen once after you enter the windows username and password when prompted!
You must change the website’s authentication methods prior publishing using IIS. For example
Hope this helps few out there! If the situation permits, I might record a video with instructions soon for the same. Stay tuned folks. For those who cannot open the Visual Studio 2019 solution using their versions of VS, find the page codes below. This way of calling HttpContextAccessor is supported from ASP.NET Core 3.1
Startup.cs
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.HttpsPolicy;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace GetWindowsUserName
{
public class Startup
{
public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
{
Configuration = configuration;
}
public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddControllersWithViews();
//Rajesh Added the below
services.AddHttpContextAccessor();
}
// This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
{
if (env.IsDevelopment())
{
app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
}
else
{
app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
// The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
app.UseHsts();
}
app.UseHttpsRedirection();
app.UseStaticFiles();
app.UseRouting();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
name: "default",
pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
});
}
}
}
HomeController.cs
using GetWindowsUserName.Models;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace GetWindowsUserName.Controllers
{
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private readonly ILogger<HomeController> _logger;
WindowsUserClass windowsUserClass = null;
public HomeController(ILogger<HomeController> logger, IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
{
_logger = logger;
windowsUserClass = new WindowsUserClass(httpContextAccessor);
}
public IActionResult Index()
{
string yourusername = windowsUserClass.GetUserName();
return View("Index",yourusername);
}
public IActionResult Privacy()
{
return View();
}
[ResponseCache(Duration = 0, Location = ResponseCacheLocation.None, NoStore = true)]
public IActionResult Error()
{
return View(new ErrorViewModel { RequestId = Activity.Current?.Id ?? HttpContext.TraceIdentifier });
}
}
}
WindowsUserClass.cs
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Http;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace GetWindowsUserName.Models
{
public class WindowsUserClass
{
private readonly IHttpContextAccessor _httpContextAccessor;
private readonly string _userName;
public WindowsUserClass(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor)
{
_httpContextAccessor = httpContextAccessor;
_userName = httpContextAccessor.HttpContext.User.Identity.Name;
}
public string GetUserName()
{
return _userName;
}
}
}
You may download the sample solution from this link.
nopCommerce is one of the free and open-source eCommerce platforms that you can instantly publish and go online with. Please follow the below steps to publish nopCommerce using IIS
Download nopCommerce. If you are not going to develop the suite further, better download package without source code.
Unzip the package.
Based on your choice, you can move this folder to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\. For example, I renamed the folder and current path for nopCommerce is C:\inetpub\wwwroot\nop
You can have this folder anywhere in your computer. Just make sure that you changed the permissions as specified below. Full control is only recommended for development environments.
The most important element of publishing nopCommerce successfully is how you setup the folder access to IIS_IUSRS. Right click on the folder and change the permissions to either Full Control or Read, Write. Failing will fail the nopCommerce suite from launching. You will keep getting “HTTP Error 500.30 – ASP.NET Core app failed to start” until you change the folder permissions.
Now, install DOTNET Core Hosting Bundle. While writing this article, the latest stable version was 5.0.5 and you can download the same from here. Just make sure that you download the correct Hosting Bundle.
Install the bundle, that takes hardly couple of minutes. Once the bundle is installed, restart the IIS service.
Create a database on your SQL Server, exclusively dedicated for nopCommerce. You have to provide these details while setting up nopCommerce for the first time. You may skip creating the database yourself, as the installer offers to create a new database during the installation. However, you must be ready with the connection credentials. nopCommerce supports both integrated security and user/password based security approaches.
Create a new Application pool. Make sure the Application pool has .NET CLR Version set as “No Managed Code”. I can confirm that nopCommerce works with .NET CLR Version set as well. However, all the documents are asking you to setup “No Managed Code”
Finally you can publish nopCommerce. You can either publish nopCommerce as an application with an existing website or create a new website and publish it. For my development machine, I opted to publish it with existing website.
Open your favorite browser and point to http://localhost/nop or http://localhost based on how you published the application & you must be taken the nopCommerce installation. Follow the instructions & I suggest you to select sample items during installation. This will give you an idea of how the items are presented over your portal. You can remove those sample items anytime. Make sure that you will enable the https switch in the application before implementing https for the application with IIS.
This is the 2nd part of my experiences with SAP Crystal Reports for Visual Studio. I’ve posted about installing & creating a simple Crystal Report earlier, if you haven’t read it yet, please find it here.
One of the major confusions around passing values to a Crystal Report was contributed by multiple questions and answers available on StackOverFlow. The ones which came nearest to my requirements had only “teasers”, not real solutions! Finally on the 3rd or 4th day, I realized that, the parameters were called based on the index numbers and the finding the index numbers for parameters were as simple as counting the 1st parameter as “0” & incrementing the index number with 1 for subsequent parameters.
Example Scenario:
I am using a stored procedure with the crystal report that accepts more than 1 parameter to select data from different tables
Here with this example, I am trying to list the salaries for employees based on the year, month & company section in which they are working as filters. An end user will pick up those filters from a web form and pass to the crystal report before the final report is generated.
Crystal report has a very simple method to pass the parameters & I am limiting this post to “Stored Procedure” based reports. The same should apply to table/dataset based reports as well until you have sub-reports involved.
In this example, you could see that I have @pProcessYear, @pProcessMonth & @pProcessSection as parameters for the report. Notice the order they are listed (refer the picture)
@pProcessYear is listed first, followed by @pProcessMonth & @pProcessSection. So the index number for @pProcessYear is 0 and @pProcessMonth is 1 & @pProcessSection is 2!
Now, let us see how we will pass values to these parameters from a WebForm.
using CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine;
using CrystalDecisions.Shared;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using Table = CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.Table;
namespace insert_demo
{
public partial class ShowEmp : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
ReportDocument reportDocument = new ReportDocument();
reportDocument.Load(Server.MapPath(@"~/CrystalReport2.rpt"));
reportDocument.SetParameterValue(0, 2020);
reportDocument.SetParameterValue(1, 1);
reportDocument.SetParameterValue(2, 3);
reportDocument.DataSourceConnections[0].SetConnection("RAJESH-PC", "MenaSS", true);
CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = reportDocument;
}
}
}
}
Notice the intellisense suggestion for Crystal Reports document parameter. Definitely “ReportDocument.SetParameterValue” expects an integer value for the index, when much of the examples available with StackOverFlow were passing report parameter names in the place of index, which didn’t work at all. I am forced to believe, Crystal Reports used to accept this for previous versions of Crystal Reports for Visual Studio & may be not many are using Crystal Reports with Visual Studio anymore…? Interestingly most of the questions related to the subject were many years old.
So, it is as simple is going through the order of the parameters as they are listed on the report design form (the order never changes, unless you delete and recreate them), starting with the index number 0 for the first parameter, increase by 1 until the last parameter & pass the values accordingly & you are done!
With my next post, I will try to talk about sub-reports and complex formatting using available Crystal Report tools.
My .Net developments were ALWAYS at risk! Whenever I am doing it good, the project gets cancelled & I return to the Oracle world.
Anyway, for the last project that is about be shelved, I chose SAP Crystal Reports in addition to Microsoft’s RDLC for few reasons. Microsoft has stopped shipping Report components with their IDE Visual Studio & getting it work by installing Nuget packages and extension methods are not going to be very easy for most of the newbies (I am a life long newbie when it is all about .NET development)
On the other hand, installing & going online with SAP Crystal Reports for Visual Studio is pretty straight forward. Download the package from SAP, install it and you are all set to go. Well definitely not!
Let us quickly see how to install & get the most out of SAP Crystal Reports.
Installation
Server Runtime
Your 1st Crystal Report
POST BACK and hacks
Installation
Register & download SAP Crystal Reports for Visual Studio. Make sure you install the runtime engine which is prompted during the installation. Simple as it is.
Server Runtime
If you are publishing your application with SAP reports from another computer/Server make sure you install the Runtime package.
If you’ve installed the runtime, this will create the below structure under inetpub\wwwroot folder
Your 1st Crystal Report
If you are a .Net developer, already familiar with dragging and dropping controls from the Toolbox node(s). Crystal Reports is not different. Just drag and drop “CrystalReportViewer” control to your page & you are all set to go.
Dropping the control to the page adds many references to your project. You may scroll through the references to identify them. All the references have “Crystal” in the name.
Now let us create a sample report & view the report on the web.
If this is your 1st attempt to create a report, select the default & continue. Based on the connections already available in the environment, you will be provided existing connections or an option to create a new connection.
Here is the catch. If the database (MSSQL or other) is configured for integrated security & you prefer to continue using the same for your project, you must make sure that from your webform/page you will be sticking to the same authentication method. Said, you cannot use integrated authentication during design and username/password login during the runtime. So be careful when you are creating connections.
We will create a new connection using username and password to local MS SQL server.
You don’t have to change anything here. Just click the “Finish” button to complete the connection.
That’s it. This creates a new connection and the same will be available under “My Connections”.
Now from the connection, you can select a table, view or stored procedure for your report as source. I have selected a table “bal2020” as you could see with the below image.
Once you click the OK button, you will be taken back to object browser window.
You can see that the table you have selected is shown under “Database Fields” node and expanding the Table node will show you the available columns those you could add to the report.
Drag and drop the columns you want to add in the “Section 3 (Details)” area and the act creates relevant titles in the “Section 2 (Page Header)” area. You can always modify the titles.
Unlike RDLC, you can immediately preview your reports from the design window itself by switching to “Main Report Preview” tab.
Let us see how this report viewed from a webform/page.
As we are trying to create a report for the first time, I suggest you to use the GUI for linking your newly created report with the webform/page.
Select “New Report Source” form “Choose Report Source” and select your newly created report. Leave the names as seen for this exercise.
Prior attaching the report, the Crystal Report Viewer control code was minimal like below
As there are not complex code involved as in with stored procedures, your page will load the report. You can save the webform & try to see whether it truly gets loaded on the browser.
Save everything & build the solution & debug the page that you have just created. Do not use Internet Explorer for debugging. You may end up with “N” number of errors by using IE.
Something is wrong, right? let us see why the report is not loading. With this specific case, an empty page in the place of report viewer is due to missing runtime binaries. If you remember, I asked you to install the runtime while installing the report developer. So there is something wrong…
I don’t have the technical knowledge to confidently say it is a bug , however looks like one, with certain solutions, the symbolic link to rootdrive:\inetpub\wwwroot\aspnet_client is not created within the solution folder after Crystal Report Viewer control is added. Failing to find “aspnet_client” symbolic link to the actual path where the runtime binaries are kept results in failing to load the report on the browser, unfortunately without generating visible errors. While missing the symbolic link being one of the major reasons, there could be few other reasons as well like application pool configured for both 32 Bit & 64 Bit. I have noticed that if your default application pool is configured to cater both 32 & 64 Bit, the 64 Bit runtime will not load & errors will be generated while trying to load reports. If you have installed 64 Bit SAP components, create a new application pool exclusively for 64 Bit only.
To resolve the issues due to runtime binaries, we can either create a symbolic link to “rootdrive:\inetpub\wwwroot\aspnet_client” or copy the entire aspnet_client folder to project, which is approximately 17-18 MBs in size.
I will always prefer the 1st option. So let us see how we can create a symbolic link to “rootdrive:\inetpub\wwwroot\aspnet_client” from our project.
The above symbolic link is explained as below.
Your project is created under user’s home folder. For example, my username is Rajesh. Hence Visual Studio has created a path “sources\repos” where all new solutions will be created and stored (unless I change the VS options)
As I have chosen “CrystalReportsDemo” as my solution name, a folder with the same name is created inside “sources\repos” and the solution related files and folders are kept within a subfolder with the solution name. Finally, the path will look like below once after the solution is created.
We are expected to create the symbolic link to “aspnet_client” folder inside the “CrystalReportsDemo” subfolder.
The symbolic link must have a name, hence you will provide “aspnet_client” as the link name (no other names please!) and refer the original path of aspnet_client as source.
I know it sounds bit complex and I hope you will get a hang of it with practice. A successfully created symbolic link will look like below. If you have grouping enabled for the files in explorer, the newly created symbolic link will be listed under folders.
Let us try to view the webform once again after creating the symbolic link.
Basically, when you add a crystal report to your solution, it is treated as an “Embedded Resource” & not copied to output directory. Unless you change these properties, your published application will not able to access the reports. Let us see quickly how these changes are made.
Now the output directory will copy the report files each time the solution is built.
PostBack & hacks
What is PostBack? PostBack is the name given to the process of submitting an ASP.NET page to the server for processing. This has a big effect on how Crystal Reports behave.
Consider a case when you have a webform that has few user choices & a crystal report attached to it. By default much of the ASP.Net controls support “AutoPostBack” property & very useful when a developer wants to refer to other controls values programmatically. Well, each instance of AutoPostBack causes the Crystal Report to refresh itself.
As you are already aware ASP.Net is stateless and Crystal Report will loose all functionalities like progressing to next page or previous page etc when associated buttons on the toolbar is pressed immediately after a postback. In addition to losing these functionality, you may be prompted to enter the database connection details. SAP recommends using Page_Init() instead of Page_Load() method in addition to using session variables to load the report after postback. We will see a complex sample now, which is from a production environment.
Scope of the report
Generate a report for Finance department that lists all salary elements for a chosen company, department & few other selections by the end user.
So this particular report has a total of 5 parameters received from the user & clicking the “Print Report” should show the report with relevant data.
The above report uses multiple stored procedures to fetch the relevant data for the report & copying the script here will defy the intend. Hence I will copy a sample that I posted as an answer to my own question over StackOverFlow & explain it.
The below example generates the same report sample you have seen above, however much of the parameters are hardcoded & the only user interactable control is the button. This report uses database stored procedures for report data.
using CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Configuration;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
namespace CrystalTest
{
public partial class c4 : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Init(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (IsPostBack)
{
CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = (ReportDocument)Session["Report"];
}
}
private void ShowReport1()
{
string ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["menass"].ToString();
using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(ConnectionString))
{
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("GETMONTHSALARY", con))
{
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessYear", SqlDbType.Int).Value = 2020;
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessMonth", SqlDbType.Int).Value = 1;
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessSection", SqlDbType.VarChar).Value = "9";
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessSite", SqlDbType.VarChar).Value = "1";
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessCatg", SqlDbType.VarChar).Value = "1";
SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(cmd);
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
adapter.Fill(ds, "SalaryDT");
ReportDocument oRpt = new ReportDocument();
oRpt.Load(Server.MapPath(@"~/dataset/CrystalReport1.rpt"));
oRpt.DataSourceConnections.Clear();
oRpt.SetDataSource(ds);
oRpt.Subreports[0].SetDataSource(FillOverTime());
CrystalReportViewer1.Visible = true;
CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = oRpt;
Session["Report"] = oRpt;
}
}
}
private DataSet FillOverTime()
{
string ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["menass"].ToString();
using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(ConnectionString))
{
using (SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand("GetEmployeeOverTime", con))
{
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pEmployeeCode", SqlDbType.VarChar).Value = DBNull.Value;
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessYear", SqlDbType.Int).Value = 2020;
cmd.Parameters.Add("@pProcessMonth", SqlDbType.Int).Value = 1;
SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(cmd);
DataSet ds1 = new DataSet();
adapter.Fill(ds1, "OverTimeDT");
return ds1;
}
}
}
protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
ShowReport1();
}
}
}
The above sample uses 2 different stored procedures to generate data for main report and a sub report. ShowReport1() method is triggered when the button is clicked. Once the report is generated, it is saved into a session object & whenever a post back happens, this saved object is assigned to report source. Simple as it is. Each button click on the reports toolbar is treated as post back, triggering the report source being assigned again and again. You might notice that I don’t have a Page_Load() method with the code behind!
I know this is just a beginning & including more detailing might make the post irrelevant. With my next post, I will try to explain Crystal Reports parameters, sub-reports etc.
At times we have to have a recent backup of the SQL database on a development machine to insure that our testing is false-proof prior the same is pushed to a production instance. As SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) doesn’t allow remote backup functionality out of the box, we can try the following (applies to both home networks and windows domain networks)
From your local machine, setup a shared folder, giving full read/write access to the entity “Everyone”
Now, prior attempting below instructions, be sure of your privileges against the target database. Are you a sys admin? Does your database account have the rights to make a backup? If yes, go ahead
Now, start SSMS & proceed with the backup task
Depending upon the security constraints, you may disable the sharing of local folder immediately after the backup completion.
My laptop has many software development components installed, say few of them are there from last many years (regardless whether I still need them) & such get me in to complicated situations (most of the times)
I’ve had Visual Studio 2013 Professional edition installed for last many years & recently I have switched to the community edition (which is as good as pro edition & costs nothing)
After upgrading my SQL Server 2017 (Developer Edition) on my home computer using 2019 ISO mounted media, I decided to upgrade the SQL Server 2017 on my laptop and it failed, miserably!
So I decided to do a fresh installation, that also failed. Luckily I came across the following thread:
While, there could be more reasons for the failure to install/upgrade your existing SQL server, make sure whether you have “Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client” already installed, if yes, remove it (Which might popup a warning stating the dependency of Local DB 2016 on the Native client, hence make sure that you know what you are doing)
Once the 2012 Native client uninstalled, try again to upgrade/fresh installation of SQL Server 2019.
As I started developing a web application for our business, One of the toughest requirements from end users were to “freeze” the header row of data grid views. I left .Net development almost 11 years back and was struggling to catch up with the whole set of changes .Net has came up with.
I’ve scavenged through dozen’s of articles explaining different hacks to freeze/lock the header row of grid views & was surprised to see that Microsoft didn’t address this requirement throughout their .Net iterations. Few of the workarounds those I tried out were ONLY applicable to static set of data, not at all applicable to data grids those have more than three or four columns and failed while column contents exceeded certain number of characters.
The post has a VS solution download (Dated 21st February 2011) which was giving me multiple reference errors while opened with VS 2019 Community edition. So I decided to open the .aspx and code behind pages manually and create a new solution using VS 2019
Although the java script does freeze the header rows (while no themes applied to the grid & has limited columns), the moment a theme applied to the grid, the header row alignment with the data columns go for a toast. You will able to see how it works with attached example that you can download from the provided link by the bottom of the post.
I’ve created a huge employee list with 20 columns, where few of the columns have varying data lengths (like employee name, department, section name & job positions) as an XML source and throughout the examples I will be using the same data source to demonstrate how each page adjusts the GridView with minor hacks using both java script and CSS styling.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
namespace FreezeGridViewHeader
{
public partial class Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/employees.xml"));
GridView1.DataSource = ds;
GridView1.DataBind();
}
}
}
}
Executing Default.aspx brings up a page like below
Now, we will use the java script to see how far the intended results are achieved.
Example Two, Calling java script function to freeze the header row
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
namespace FreezeGridViewHeader
{
public partial class Gridjs : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/employees.xml"));
GridView1.DataSource = ds;
GridView1.DataBind();
}
}
}
}
I’ve applied one of the built-in themes available for GridView control with the above example, which causes the header and data rows misalignment.
However, the java script has done what it was meant to do! Freezing the header row and providing a scrolling function without breaking much sweat. I have noticed one thing, if the theme is removed from the GridView control, everything goes back to as expected, header row is perfectly aligned with the data row & the scrolling works as expected. Please note, if your grid is populated with huge volume of data, then it will take few moments before the java script manages to bring up the effects in place. I’ve tested this solution using Microsoft Edge Chromium, Mozilla Firefox & Internet Explorer. Both the modern browsers deal with the java script much efficiently while Internet Explorer experiences were NOT that good.
Example Three, fixing the misalignment issues by using some simple CSS styling.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
namespace FreezeGridViewHeader
{
public partial class Gridjscss : System.Web.UI.Page
{
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
if (!IsPostBack)
{
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/employees.xml"));
GridView1.DataSource = ds;
GridView1.DataBind();
}
}
}
}
Now, everything looks fine! A theme is applied, header and data rows are in perfect sync & the header row is locked when the data rows are scrolled up and down.
There are many alternatives, modern approaches using jQuery and other, which I do not understand at this point of learning. Once I am confident enough to, will sure try them and get back to you guys. Happy coding!
Please note, this solution has been developed using .Net 4.7.2 & I have modified the java script in a way that I can call the script from any page by passing couple of parameters to it. The whole credit for the java script goes to original coder.
A pretty long title? Well, recently I came across a situation where I needed a trigger with MS SQL server table to insert some information into our Oracle database.
The MS SQL Server is hosted in a Windows 64 bit OS, with Oracle 11g 64Bit client installed (For 64Bit OS, you must install Oracle client 64Bit for the Oracle OLEDB provider)
I did some sample inserts using the Management studio and created a trigger like following with one of the sample tables:
create trigger addRecordsToERPTable on [UNIS].[dbo].[tRajesh]
after insert
as
begin
insert into [XYZ].[APPS].[XXFPPUNCHM]
(PUNCH_TIME,MACHINE_NAME,EMPLOYEE_NUMBER,PUNCH_TYPE)
Select PUNCH_TIME,MACHINE_NAME,EMPLOYEE_NUMBER,PUNCH_TYPE
FROM inserted
end
go
So the idea was pretty simple, like an audit, as soon as the SQL table “rRajesh” has a new row inserted, the after insert trigger should sent the same row to underlying table over Oracle. Instead I started getting the following error:
OLE DB provider “OraOLEDB.Oracle” for linked server “XYZ” returned message “New transaction cannot enlist in the specified transaction coordinator. “. Msg 7391, Level 16, State 2, Procedure addRecordsToERPTable, Line 5 The operation could not be performed because OLE DB provider “OraOLEDB.Oracle” for linked server “XYZ” was unable to begin a distributed transaction.
I’m not very familiar with MS SQL or the complexities related to Linked Server environments. So, started my next series of Google searches. I referred tons of discussions, however was not getting anywhere with the dreaded situation. During the frantic search for a solution, I executed the instructions available over different links.
Even after making changes as mentioned with the above threads, I still kept on receiving the same errors while a row was inserted into my SQL sample table. So I continued searching for a solution and came across a thread
Although the article addresses pretty Old OS and Oracle environments, the solution is still applicable on later OS and Oracle clients. For example, My MS SQL Server is installed over Windows 2008 R2 and the Oracle client I am using with the server is 11G R2 64Bit.
Let us see quickly what Microsoft provides as a solution.
I checked the registry of my server and found something pretty interesting like below:
Now, Oracle names almost all their major dll files in a particular fashion. Most of the times you will find the dll files having the major version numbers by the end of the filename, for example, if your Oracle database is 8.0, your client dll file will be “Oraclient8.dll” and if you are using Oracle 11g, the filename would be “Oraclient11.dll”
After taking a full backup of the registry, I modified the values with 11g specific & restarted the Server (as per the instructions available for Oracle 8.1 in the Microsoft document.)
Once the server started, I went ahead and tried to insert a new row into my sample table and that was it. No more errors and the row was inserted to both MS SQL table and Oracle table at the same time.
So if you were frantically searching for a solution, this post may help you to resolve it.
Yesterday I was contacted by one of the visitors after referring my posts about Classic ASP connection to Oracle databases in general & I revisited this “area” after a long time. It took a while for me to setup everything, however the results were pretty awesome. So here comes one more post about Classic ASP with Oracle database, this time Oracle 12c 64Bit.
OS: Windows 10/64Bit Windows Server OS
Prerequisites
Setup IIS for publish classic ASP with Oracle 12c database
Software requirement(s):
Oracle client 32Bit, 12c (for best connectivity)
Launch IIS and create a new application pool, as shown with the image.
Now go to the advanced settings for the application pool that you have created & switch “Enable 32-Bit Applications” from “false” to “True”
Connection possibilities
There are two ways to connect to Oracle database from Classic ASP
Using DSN (Data Source Name)
DSN less connections. Here we will use the Oracle tnsnames.ora file to identify and connect to the database. We have to insure that the TNS_HOME directory is set at the environment level, or the client that is used is 1st entry in the environment variable “PATH” for Oracle products in case of multi Oracle homed hosts.
Create a DSN
Classic ASP could interact with only 32Bit environment, hence the IIS server hosting machine must have the latest Oracle 32-Bit client installed (older clients may not connect to later databases properly). As I am writing this post, Oracle 12c 12.2.0 is the latest client available.
Logged with an account having “Administrator” privileges, Open ODBC Data Source (32-bit)
Please note, my box has multiple Oracle products, hence don’t get confused by the names in next few screens.
If your installation for the Oracle client was correct, you should able to see an entry for the Oracle driver like the one you could see the image above.
Click “Finish”. This will pop up another window. Under the “System DSN” tab we have to create our new DSN
Provide a name of your choice for the “Data Source Name” and “Description”
Make sure you have the “TNS Service Name” already available with the listener.ora file. Oracle 12c passwords are case sensitive. Hence make sure you are going to provide the case sensitive password while testing the connection.
If you don’t have previous experiences with creating net service names, please follow the instructions below.
Start “Net Configuration Assistant” from the Oracle Home and follow the images below.
Read the help texts available, especially if you are new to Oracle
Provide the service name, which is your database name usually.
Provide the FQDN (fully qualified domain name), ie, your computer name like “rajesh-pc.abc.com” in case if you are connected to a domain, else just the name of your computer, like “rajesh-pc”
I would suggest doing a test, if you are sure that all the details provided are correct & no need to test, you can skip this step
By default the configuration tool would suggest you the Oracle service name as new net service name, which you can change to any name. Just make sure that you will remember it.
Now let us test the new service name we have just created.
Once the Net Service Name is created, we will see both the scenarios using 2 different asp files, both using different connection approaches
<html>
<head>
<title>Connecting to an Oracle database using ODBC and DSN connection</title>
</head>
<body>
<%
SET myConn=SERVER.createobject("adodb.connection")
myConn.Open "DSN=BAC;" & _
"Uid=APPS;" & "Pwd=APPS"
SQLStr="SELECT BANK_ID, BANK_NAME, BANK_TYPE FROM BAC_BANKS"
SET result=adoCon.execute(SQLStr)
IF NOT result.EOF thEN
response.write("<h2>Oracle ASP Example</h2>")
response.write("<p>Connecting to the Oracle11g database using ODBC & without a DSN</p>")
response.write("<table BORDER=3 BGCOLOR=#0099CC><tr><th>BANK ID</th>" & _
"<th>Name</th><th>TYPE</th>")
WHILE NOT result.EOF
response.write("<tr><td>" & result("BANK_ID") & "</td>")
response.write("<td>" & result("BANK_NAME") & "</td>")
response.write("<td>" & result("BANK_TYPE") & "</td></tr>")
result.movenext()
WEND
response.write("</table>")
ELSE
response.write("<p>Error retrieving bank data!!</p>")
END IF
adoCon.Close()
%>
</body>
</html>
[/code]
2. Connecting to 12c without DSN
[code language=”vb” gutter=”false”]
<%
Dim adoCon ‘Holds Connection
Dim rsViewRecords ‘Holds Record Set
‘ Initiate connection
Set adoCon = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
if Err.Number <> 0 then
Response.Clear()
response.Write "<hr>ORASESSION Error<br>" & err.number & " — " & err.Description & "<hr>"
response.End
end if
SQLStr="SELECT BANK_ID, BANK_NAME, BANK_TYPE FROM BAC_BANKS"
SET result=adoCon.execute(SQLStr)
IF NOT result.EOF thEN
response.write("<h2>Oracle ASP Example</h2>")
response.write("<p>Connecting to the Oracle11g database using ODBC & without a DSN</p>")
response.write("<table BORDER=3 BGCOLOR=#0099CC><tr><th>BANK ID</th>" & _
"<th>Name</th><th>TYPE</th>")
WHILE NOT result.EOF
response.write("<tr><td>" & result("BANK_ID") & "</td>")
response.write("<td>" & result("BANK_NAME") & "</td>")
response.write("<td>" & result("BANK_TYPE") & "</td></tr>")
result.movenext()
WEND
response.write("</table>")
ELSE
response.write("<p>Error retrieving bank data!!</p>")
END IF
adoCon.Close()
%>
[/code]
Hope this helps few “Classic ASP” guys out there ;)
