My visual studio settings

Lots of people send me email about what kind of visual studio settings I am using and I am replying them again and again so I thought it will be good idea to write a blog post about it.

Yes, Since last 2 months I have been using dark theme of Visual Studio 2012 but I am not using default dark theme color settings of visual studio. I’m using dark theme color settings created by Keith Elder. You can find more information about color settings of this theme from following link.

http://keithelder.net/2010/03/05/my-visual-studio-color-settings-again/

I simply love this one and its works on all flavours of Visual Studio starting from Visual Studio 2008 to 2012. Below are few screenshots from that.



Here is another screenshot.



It’s been great for eyes and I can work with very easily and as you may notice my default font for visual studio is Consolas and size is 11.

Now lots of people ask me whether its working fine with resharper or not and Its works like a charm. See following screenshot.



And this is how intellisense look with Visual studio 2012 dark theme.



And this how HTML part of ASP.NET MVC looks in the dark theme.



If you still never try of any dark theme for visual studio then try it and it is great for your eyes. I would like to say big thanks to  Keith Elder for creating a great black theme. If you want to try same theme then you can download that from above link I have mentioned.
Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more..Happy Programming

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How to find space used by table in SQL Server

Recently there was requirement for a client where we need to find space occupied/used  by particular table in SQL Server. I did some research a found a very cool way to get space used information from SQL Server.

With SQL server 2005 and higher version you can use ‘sp_spaceused’ to find space used by table in SQL Server.

Following is a syntax for that.
sp_spaceused N'YourTableName'

You can find more information about it from the following link.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms188776.aspx

When you run this in SQL Server, Its displays Number of Rows, disk space served and disk space used by a table or indexed view and also displays disk space reserved and used by database.



Here in the above example, You have seen that I have used to find space for employee table in my blog sample database and its providing information about rows, reserved space, data size, index_size space and unused space.

That’s it. Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more.

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How to find path of database data files and log files in SQL Server

In this post, We will learn about different technique to find path of data files and log files on SQL Server. Let’s go through one by one of them.

The first technique, We are going to use is very simple way to finding file path for database. But with this you can find path for one database only. It’s very simple, Select database on object explorer and right click and select properties.




Now once you click on properties a dialog box appear like following. Select files and go to path column it will show path of database data files and log files.


Now we will learn another technique where we can find database data file and log file path from query. Below is query for that.

SELECT name, physical_name FROM sys.master_files where database_id= db_id('blog')

Now once you run this query it will load result like following.




That’s it you can find you database file path very easily. You can use above query to find files path for multiple databases also without using where clause. Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more.

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All about Virtual,Override and New in C#

I have seen that lots of people get confused with Virtual, Override and new keyword in C#. So I thought it will be a good idea to write a blog post about it. In this blog post we will learn what is virtual, override and new keyword in C# and what’s difference between override and new in C#.

Virtual and Override in C#:

Virtual keyword allows class member to override in derived class. Let’s take simple example. I have class A which contains Print Method method as virtual method and I have another class B which is derived from class A which overrides Print method. Following is a code for that.

public class A
{
    public virtual void Print()
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Virtual Print method from a");
    }
}

public class B:A
{
    public override void Print()
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Override Print method from b");
    }
}

Now If I create a object of class A like following and run the code Print method run as normal method. Following is code for for that.

class Program
   {
       static void Main(string[] args)
       {
          A a=new A();
          a.Print();
       }
   }

Once you run this it will have following output.



But when you create a object of class B like following it will completely override the functionality of class A. That is called method Method Overriding. Following is a code for that.

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
       B b=new B();
       b.Print();
    }
}

Now, if you run this code it will completely override the code and following will be output as expected.

How to call base class method with override:

In some scenario, we need base class functionality also while overriding the method of that class. C# provides that functionality with ‘base’ keyword. For that I have changed code of class B like following.

public class B:A
{
public override void Print()
{
    System.Console.WriteLine("Override Print method from b");
    base.Print();
}
}

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
       B b=new B();
       b.Print();
    }
}

Now if you run the code you will see output of both method as expected.

What is difference between new and override in C#:

After looking into above example some people will argue that this functionality will be achieved by new keyword also. This is call Method Hiding where with new keyword you can hide functionality of base class.  But wait there is a difference. Both are slightly different let’s take some simple example to show difference following is a code for that.

namespace Oops
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
           A a=new B();
           B b=new B();

           a.Print();
           b.Print();
        }
    }

    public class A
    {
        public virtual void Print()
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine("Virtual Print method from a");
        }
    }

    public class B:A
    {
        public override void Print()
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine("Override Print method from b");
        }
    }
}

In this code, same A class Print method is override by B class Print method and I have created two object of class B. One with reference to base class A and another B itself. Now let’s run this example and following is a output.



Here you see both time it will override class A’s Print Method. Now let’s change above code with new keyword like following.

namespace Oops
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
           A a=new B();
           B b=new B();

           a.Print();
           b.Print();
        }
    }

    public class A
    {
        public virtual void Print()
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine("Virtual Print method from a");
        }
    }

    public class B:A
    {
        public new void Print()
        {
            System.Console.WriteLine("Override Print method from b");
        }
    }
}

Now you run this code. Following is output.



If you see both output carefully then you will notice a difference. With override keyword it will override Print method in both scenarios. While with new keyword it will only hide print method and both method exist as separate method so if you create a class A object with B then it will class A’s Print method without hiding it and If you create class B object with B then it will hide the base class method and print from class B’s method. So that was the difference.

That’s it. Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more..CodeProject

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Linq- AddRange Method in C#

In this post I’m going to explain you about Linq AddRange method. This method is quite useful when you want to add multiple elements to a end of list. Following is a method signature for this.

public void AddRange(
    IEnumerable<T> collection
)

To Understand let’s take simple example like following.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System;
namespace Linq
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            List<string> names=new List<string> {"Jalpesh"};
            string[] newnames=new string[]{"Vishal","Tushar","Vikas","Himanshu"};
            foreach (var newname in newnames)
            {
                names.Add(newname);
            }
            foreach (var n in names)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(n);
            }
        }
    }
}

Here in the above code I am adding content of array to a already created list via foreach loop. You can use AddRange method instead of for loop like following.It will same output as above.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace Linq
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            List<string> names=new List<string> {"Jalpesh"};
            string[] newnames=new string[]{"Vishal","Tushar","Vikas","Himanshu"};
            names.AddRange(newnames);
            foreach (var n in names)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(n);
            }
        }
    }
}

Now when you run that example output is like following.

Add Range in more complex scenario:

You can also use add range to more complex scenarios also like following.You can use other operator with add range as following.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;

namespace Linq
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            List<string> names=new List<string> {"Jalpesh"};
            string[] newnames=new string[]{"Vishal","Tushar","Vikas","Himanshu"};
            names.AddRange(newnames.Where(nn=>nn.StartsWith("Vi")));
            foreach (var n in names)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(n);
            }
        }
    }
}

Here in the above code I have created array with string and filter it with where operator while adding it to an existing list. Following is output as expected.



That’s it. Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more..

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throw new exception- C#

This post will be in response to my older post about throw exception best practice. where one of user asked that I should include throw new exception.So I thought it will be good idea to write a whole blog post for it. This blog post explains what's wrong with throw new exception.

What’s wrong with throw new exception:

Throw new exception is even worse, It will create a new exception and will erase all the earlier exception data. So it will erase stack trace also.Please go through following code. It’s same earlier post the only difference is throw new exception.

using System;

namespace Oops
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                DevideByZero(10);
            }
            catch (Exception exception)
            {
                throw new Exception
                (string.Format(
                    "Brand new Exception-Old Message:{0}",
                     exception.Message));
            }
        }

        public  static void DevideByZero(int i)
        {
           int j = 0;
           int k = i/j;
           Console.WriteLine(k);
          
        }
    }
}

Now once you run this example. You will get following output as expected.



Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more..

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throw vs. throw(ex) best practice and difference- c#

Recently I was looking into someone’s code found that they are using the throw(ex) to log exception so I told that person that why you are not using only throw he said there is no difference.. Wait this is not true there is a difference. So, this post is all about throw Vs. throw(ex) best practice and what is difference.

We all know that C# provides facility to handle exception with try and catch block and some times we use throw statement in catch block to throw the exception to log the exception. Here there two options either you could use throw(ex) or simple throw just like following.

try
{

}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    throw;
}

And

try
{

}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    throw(ex);
}

So which one is good and best practice let’s study that.

Similarities:

Let’s first see what is similar in both.

1. Both are used to throw exception in catch block to log message
2. Both contains same message of exception

Difference:

Now let’s see what is difference.

1. throw is used to throw current exception while throw(ex) mostly used to create a wrapper of exception.
2. throw(ex) will reset your stack trace so error will appear from the line where throw(ex) written while throw does not reset stack trace and you will get information about original exception.
3. In MSIL code when you use throw(ex) it will generate code as throw and if you use throw it will create rethrow.

Let’s understand by example. Following is example where you use throw.

using System;

namespace Oops
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                DevideByZero(10);
            }
            catch (Exception exception)
            {
                throw;
            }
        }

        public  static void DevideByZero(int i)
        {
           int j = 0;
           int k = i/j;
           Console.WriteLine(k);
          
        }
    }
}

Here in the above code I have created function DevideByZero where it will create a problem as it try to devide a integer by zero. and in try catch block I am use throw to again throw exception. Now let’s run this application.



Now I have just replace throw with throw(exception) and see it will have following output.



So you can see in first image we have got full stack trace information where the actual exception called at line 22 and again rethrow at line 15 While in the another screenshot you can see there is only information about line 15. It does not show full stack trace.So when you use throw(ex) it will reset stack trace.

So it’s always best practice to use throw instead of throw(ex). That’s it. Hope you like it..Stay tuned for more CodeProject

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