VPortalDataServiceClient client = new VPortalDataServiceClient();
                client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.UserName = "btomas";
                client.ClientCredentials.Windows.ClientCredential.Password = "password123";

The UserName is the windows account user name that is hosting the service. This user may just need to be one on the domain that the machine can see — not exactly sure though.  And the Password is the password of that user.

    [XmlRoot("Comment")]
    public class Comment
    {
        [XmlIgnore]
        public DateTime? CommentTime { get; set; }

        [XmlAttribute("CommentTime")]
        public string CommentTimeStr
        {
            get
            {
                return (CommentTime.HasValue) ? CommentTime.Value.ToString() : null;
            }

            set
            {
                if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
                    CommentTime = null;
                else
                    CommentTime = DateTime.Parse(value);
            }
        }
  }

Now it can be serialized.

But here’s one for string comparisons:

StringComparer

This static class contains many different predefined IEqualityComparer instances to be used in functions like “Contains”. Enjoy.

string hostName = Dns.GetHostName();
var addrs = Dns.GetHostAddresses(hostName);
bool hasIP = false;
for (int i = 0; i < addrs.Length; i++)
{
    IPAddress addr = addrs[i];
    if (addr.AddressFamily == System.Net.Sockets.AddressFamily.InterNetwork)
    {
        si.DataIP = addr.ToString();
        hasIP = true;
        break;
    }
}

int position = 12;
richedit1.Select( position, 0 );
richedit1.ScrollToCaret(); // if you want the position to be shown

It’s that simple.

public class DCLogger : IDisposable
    {
        private StringWriter writer;

        public DCLogger(System.Data.Linq.DataContext dc)
        {
            writer = new StringWriter();
            dc.Log = writer;
        }

        #region IDisposable Members

        public void Dispose()
        {
            writer.Flush();
            System.IO.File.WriteAllText( "c:\\temp\\sql.log", writer.ToString() );
        }

        #endregion
    }

To use it just create it passing it you data context. The results are written to the file when it’s disposed.

  using( DCLogger( dc ) )
  {
    // ... some linq statement that executes
  }

The exact macth

DataContext dc = new DataContext(...)
var results =
  from row in dc.table
  where row.string_column == "Exact Match"
  select row;

Begins With:

DataContext dc = new DataContext(...)
var results =
  from row in dc.table
  where row.string_column.StartsWith("Ex")
  select row;

produces an sql match string “Ex%”

Contains

DataContext dc = new DataContext(...)
var results =
  from row in dc.table
  where row.string_column.Contains("Ex")
  select row;

Which is equivalent to “%Ex%”

Ends With

DataContext dc = new DataContext(...)
var results =
  from row in dc.table
  where row.string_column.EndsWith("Ex")
  select row;

Which is equivalent to “%Ex”

MyDataContext dc() = new MyDataContext;
var query = dc.MyTables;
query = query.Where( t=>t.id > 10);

and so I want to order it by a certain column:

query = query.OrderBy( t=>t.id )

but the problem is the order direction isn’t know before hand so at first I was stuck with the following:

if ( descending )
    query = query.OrderByDescending( t=>t.id);
else
    query = query.OrderBy(t=>t.id);

Now if there is only a few possible columns to sort against it isn’t too bad.  But when you have 10 different possible columns it really makes a lot of extra work just to control to sort direction.  So I made a little helper class that allows the following.  It works with linq and linq to sql:

query = query.OrderByAscDec( t=>t.id, descending );

here’s the static class that implments the OrderByAscDec function:

static class VPLinqExtensions
{
	public static IOrderedQueryable<TSource> OrderByAscDes<TSource, TKey>(
		this IQueryable<TSource> source,
		System.Linq.Expressions.Expression<Func<TSource,
		TKey>> keySelector, bool IsDescending)
	{
		if (IsDescending)
			return source.OrderByDescending(keySelector);
		else
			return source.OrderBy(keySelector);
	}
}

Creating a socket is easy here is how:

using System.Net.Sockets;

//...

// Creating a connection
Socket client;
client = new Socket( AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp );
client.Connect(hostName, port);
client.Blocking = false; // This needs to be done after Connect or it will error out.

Here’s how to write data to the socket

// Writing information to the socket
byte[] buffer = ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(messageText);
foreach (byte c in buffer)
{
	SocketError err = SocketError.WouldBlock;
	// need to try again if the socket would have blocked
	while ( err == SocketError.WouldBlock )
	{
		// this version of Send must be used or an exception would be thrown, which I feel is a pain
		// to deal with -- this way you can see handle the error appropriately.
		client.Send(buffer, 0, 1, SocketFlags.None, out err );
	}

	if ( err != SocketError.Success )
	{
		// handle error
		break;
	}
}

And now code to read from a non-blocking socket

// Reading from the socket
// this loop keeps going until there is a socket error or a '0' byte is read which
// in this example marks the end of the message
System.Text.StringBuilder message = new System.Text.StringBuilder();
while ( true )
{
	byte c = 0;
	int bytesRead;
	SocketError err;
	// read a character.
	bytesRead = client.Receive(buffer, 0, 1, SocketFlags.None, out err );
	// checking what happened
	if ( SocketError.Success == err )
	{
		// read a byte!  Let's process it
		if ( bytesRead > 0 )
		{
			// found a null character -- in this case it makes the end of a message.
			if (c == 0)
			{
				// null terminated message received
				break;
			}
			else
				message.Append((char)c);
			}
		}
	}
	else if ( SocketError.WouldBlock != err )
	{
		break;
	}
}

string uri = "http://finance.google.com/finance/historical?cid=667226&startdate=Sep+9%2C+2007&enddate=Sep+10%2C+2008&output=csv";
WebRequest request = WebRequest.Create(uri);
WebResponse response = request.GetResponse();
var stream = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream, Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8"));
string page = reader.ReadToEnd();

There you go. Very simple isn’t it? Just got to love .Net