Download and Installation
The first thing you need to do is download and install the Enterprise Library in order to get the .dll files needed for the data application block. As of EntLib 5.0, you will need 5 .dll files:

• Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Common.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.ServiceLocation.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.Unity.dll
• Microsoft.Practices.Unity.Interception.dll

Once installed you can find these files in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Enterprise Library 5.0\Bin folder if you used the default installation options.

Referencing the Enterprise Library assemblies
Let’s assume you are working on an ASP.NET web applicaiton. I typically create a folder in my project that contains all of the third party libraries and then copy the .dll files that I need to that folder. Instead of referencing the location of the installed dll files, I reference the files that are in my folder. This allows for easy maintenance of third party libraries as well as now I don’t need to have the EntLib installed on other machines. You can use this structure in windows applications as well.

Code Setup
Ok, so we have added the references to our web application and we are ready to create the database connection and do some coding. With EntLib 5.0, there is nothing you have to add to the web.config to make this work for the data application block. The only thing you need to have is a ConnectionString section properly configured to connect to your database. Let’s use the default connection string name of LocalSqlServer in the web.config.

We need to create a Database object that we will use as our connection. I typically have a public common class that I put this in. So, I’m going to add a using statement and then add a public static variable for my connection.

// Add this to the using statements
using Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Data;

public class _Common
{
    public static Database dbConn = DatabaseFactory.CreateDatabase("LocalSqlServer");
}

Next, let’s code a function in the business logic layer that uses the connection, adds some parameters, and calls the stored procedure and returns a dataset with the results.

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.Common;
using System.Web;

    public class _Event
    {
        #region Variables
        private string _EventName;
        private string _EventDesc;
        #endregion

        #region Properties
        public int EventId { get; set; }
        public string EventName
        {
            get { return _EventName; }
            set { _EventName = value.Trim(); }
        }
        public string EventDesc
        {
            get { return _EventDesc; }
            set { _EventDesc = value.Trim(); }
        }
        public bool bCompleted { get; set; }
        #endregion

        #region Methods
        ///
        /// Selects all events.
        ///
        public bool SelectEvents(ref DataSet objDS)
        {
            try
            {
                DbCommand cmd = _Common.dbConn.GetStoredProcCommand("usp_Event_Sel");
                _Common.dbConn.AddInParameter(cmd, "bIncludeCompleted", DbType.Boolean, bCompleted);
                objDS = _Common.dbConn.ExecuteDataSet(cmd);
                return true;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                throw ex;
            }
        }
        #endregion
    }

As you can see, I have created a method called SelectEvents that takes a DataSet as a parameter. This will be the dataset that gets populated. The method returns a bool indicating success or failure of the method. The name of the stored procedure I am calling is usp_Event_Sel. You will also see that I have used a parameter called bIncludeCompleted. This is the parameter that the stored procedure accepts. Then, I call ExecuteDataSet on my database connection dbConn, pass in the DbCommand object cmd and assign the result to my passed in DataSet.

A few last notes. By using the try-catch block, you will return any error messages that the stored procedure throws. The nice thing about this is that any Raiserror functions will return that message and you can display it to the user. Sometimes you have to do database checks before you execute an INSERT or UPDATE in a stored procedure and you can return any problems with these checks through the raiserror function to let your user know what is happening.

You can also add output parameters by calling the AddOutParameter function in the same way as the AddInParameter. Likewise, you can simply call ExecuteNonQuery or ExecuteDataReader if you need that functionality.

Greg

Greg

I also finally got a client’s website updated with a new design – www.bluedolphincottages.com. Check it out!

Greg

So, my task was to come up with a new web service (now called a WCF Service in 4.0) that can handle encrypting and decrypting strings in a Silverlight application. So, I create a WCF Service (aka Web Service) that would handle the routines on the server side. Then, all I need to do is use the existing class in the Silverlight application right? WRONG! Apparently, Silverlight applications have limited capabilities to namespaces like System.Security.Cryptography and System.Text to just name a few. So, I had to Google to come up with another solution. So instead of using the Rijndael algorithm, I had to use the Rfc2898DeriveBytes algorithm. Worked like a charm!

Anyway, it was a learning day in the world of .NET 4.0 and Silverlight!

Thanks,
Greg

So as we reflect on the year, look back at what has happened in your life, whether good and bad, and learn from it.  Things could be worse but be happy with what you have and don’t envy what you don’t.  Merry Christmas to all my family and friends and we’ll see you back in FL for the holidays!

So, the first thing that you NEED to know: Web Application Projects and Web Site projects are not the same thing!  If you create a Web Site project, the Profile class is automatically generated and you can begin using it by creating your web.config entries and then referring to Profile.whatever in your code.  This is, and has been, not the case for web application projects.

So, amongst my research I have finally figured this out.  The first step is to install the Web Profile Builder version 1.3.  Note that unlike in previous versions, when you open your project and right click on the web.config file, you will NOT see the Build WebProfile option.  You must do a few other things to get this to work.

The next step is to open up your project file (.vbproj or .csproj) and add the following Import line: <Import Project=”$(MSBuildExtensionsPath)\WebProfileBuilder\WebProfileBuilder.targets” />  If you are working on a 64 bit system, make sure you use MSBuildExtensionsPath32 as the WebProfileBuilder will be installed in the Program Files (x86) folder.

You cannot add this Import statement from within the Visual Studio UI so don’t try!  Save the project file and re-open it in Visual Studio.  Next, assumming you have added your profile properties in the web.config, build your project.  After building, click the button to show All Files and you should now see the WebProfile.cs or WebProfile.vb file located just under the web.config file in the Solution Explorer.  Right click on the WebProfile file and include it in your project.  You should now be able to access the Profile properties via Profile class.

Hopefully this will help anyone looking to continue using the Profile class with WAP!

Greg