Posted by jpluimers on 2010/03/17
Sometimes you wish there was some universal translation table to get the English error messages.
Just got this at a client:
Project Foo.exe raised exception class EOleException with message ‘De bewerking moet worden uitgevoerd op een query die kan worden bijgewerkt‘.
The English translation of the error message is “Operation must use an updateable query” (which is also wrong: the query is indeed updateable).
But not knowing that English translation beforehand, how do you find out the cause?
Posted in Access, Database Development, Delphi, Development | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/02/15
I just found out that the sourcecode tag in WordPress now supports even more languages.
This is the list of languages is below, it contains links to Wikipedia for each language.
Starred ones (bold and hyperlinks in this theme are the same ) are new since my post last year.
This is a follow up on the original article Including formatted sourcecode in WordPress « The Wiert Corner – Jeroen Pluimers’ irregular stream of Wiert stuff.
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, C#, CSS, Database Development, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Java, Software Development, SQL Server, Web Development, WordPress, XML, XML/XSD | Tagged: sourcecode language | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2010/02/12
Google published an interesting graph generated from their internal data based on their indexed web pages.
A quick summary of popular encodings based on the graph:
Conclusion: if you do something with the web, make sure you support Unicode.
When you are using Delphi, and need help with transitioning to Unicode: contact me.
–jeroen
* Western European encodings: Windows-1252, ISO-8859-1 and ISO-8859-15.
Reference: Official Google Blog: Unicode nearing 50% of the web.
Edit: 20100212T1500
Some people mentioned (either in the comments or otherwise) that a some sites pretend they emit Unicode, but in fact they don’t.
This doesn’t relieve you from making sure you support Unicode: Don’t pretend you support Unicode, but do it properly!
Examples of bad support for Unicode are not limited to the visible web, but also applications talking to the web, and to webservices (one of my own experiences is explained in StUF – receiving data from a provider where UTF-8 is in fact ISO-8859: it shows an example where a vendor does Unicode support really wrong).
So: when you support Unicode, support it properly.
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, ASP.NET, C#, Database Development, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Firebird, IIS, InterBase, ISO-8859, ISO8859, Prism, SOAP/WebServices, Software Development, SQL Server, Unicode, UTF-8, UTF8, Visual Studio and tools, Web Development | 7 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/12/05
This is very handy on testing your software on multiple versions of FireBird.
Now someone that expands this to InterBase as well :-)
Le Vosgien du Net · Switch between versions of Firebird SQL Server.
–jeroen
Posted in Database Development, Development, Firebird, InterBase | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/12/01
One of the applications that I’m currently involved with will in the future be used in different European countries.
Since it is developed in Delphi 2007, and uses InterBase 2007 we have chosen to use the ISO8859_15 character set: it is a single byte character set very similar to ISO8859_1, but supports the euro sign (€) and some other characters (Š, š, Ž, ž, Œ, œ and Ÿ).
When testing, we found out that UPPER would not always function as we expected.
Hence below some explanation about how UPPER behaves depending on the character sets and collation sequences you specify.
Note: most of this also holds for other versions of InterBase and for FireBird versions, but I have not checked everything with all versions yet, FireBird might be different as this piece of documentation shows.
If anyone does have the results for other InterBase or FireBird versions, please let me know the results.
Posted in Database Development, Delphi, Development, Firebird, InterBase | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/09/29
Nick Hodges just posted he has become the tpfsadmin on sourceforge: the administrative account for the Turbo Power tools and libraries.
It is not an officially sponsored Embarcadero thing, but at best semi official.
However, it is an admirable step into getting the Turbo Power tools and libraries updated in one central place again.
Those tools include OnGuard, Orpheus, SysTools, FlashFiler, B-TreeFiler, Async Professional and many others.
So if you have your own fork of any of the Turbo Power code from sourceforge, then please drop Nick a note.
Many thanks to Nick!
–jeroen
Posted in .NET, Database Development, Delphi, Development, Software Development, Source Code Management, SourceForge, Web Development | 6 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/09/25
Sitting in on Maciej Pilecki’s BASTA! 2009 session on “Advanced SQL Server Troubleshooting” is fun.
First of all it gives a good overview of many topics for which information usually is spreaded.
And there are many new things, for instance some of them about login failures:
Understanding “login failed” – the “state” part is important!
State=16 is undocumented, it can mean that the Administrator Studio is not being run with “Administrative Privileges” (UAC!) under Vista or Windows 7, or you are not allowed to login to the particular database.
Some other useful links
How to use Kerberos authentication in SQL Server (KB 319723).
Cannot create SSPI context (KB 811889).
DMV: Dynamic Management Views.
Sample:
select * from sysobjects where name like 'dm_%' order by name select * from sys.dm_os_sys_info
When a LOG file is missing, state_desc in the below query will show ‘RECOVERY_PENDING’
select * from sys.databases
If you have a database backup and all the log files since that instant in time, you can restore your data.
Last resort: You can try open a database in EMERGENCY mode now (but your DB might be inconsistent because some of the transactions might be open):
ALTER DATABASE Northwind SET EMERGENCY
DBCC CHECKDB('Northwind') -- now (wrongly!) indicates no errors
Trick to loose your SQL SERVER log file. The two most important commands there:
SET DATABASE DemoSuspect SET EMERGENCY
GO
SET DATABASE DemoSuspect SET SINGLE_USER
GO
DBCC CHECKDB ('DemoSuspect', REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS) WITH NO_INFOMSGS, ALL_ERRORMSGS;
GO
SET DATABASE DemoSuspect SET MULTI_USER
GO
Note that because of the repair, you lost ‘transactional consistency’!
Memory usage:
Page life expectancy should not fall below 300 seconds for a longer period of time.
Manually geneate a BSOD in order to be able to debug a hung system.
It can now also be done with USB keyboards in Windows Server 2003 SP2 and up, and Windows 7.
See also thishttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/972110.
Some more interesting links:
– Encryption Hierarchy / Encryption Hierarchy
– Book: SQL Server 2005 Practical Troubleshooting (by the late Ken Henderson)
– SQL Server 2005 Data Encryption and data length limitations
–jeroen
Posted in BASTA!, Conferences, Database Development, Development, Event, SQL Server | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/09/18
Somehow, CodeCentral managed to not only delete my uploaded CodeRage 4 session materials (the videos are fine!), but also newer uploads with other submissions.
Since I’m in crush mode to get the BASTA! and DelphiLive 2009 Germany sessions done, and all Embarcadero sites having to do with their membership server perform like a dead horse, I have temporary moved the downloads, and corrected my earlier post on the downloads.
I have notified Embarcadero of the problems, so I’m pretty sure they are being addressed on their side as well.
Edit 20090919: Embarcadero indicated that between 20090913 and 20090914 there has been a database restore on CodeCentral. Some entries therefore have been permanently lost.
When I get back from the conferences, and CodeCentral is more responsive, I’ll retry uploading it there, and correct the posts.
In the mean time, be sure not to save shortcuts to the current locations, as they are bound to change.
The are the new download locations can all be found in my xs4all temporary CodeRage 4 2009 download folder.
This is the full list of my CodeRage 4 sessions and places where you can download everything: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, ASCII, CodeRage, CommandLine, Conferences, CP437/OEM 437/PC-8, Database Development, Debugging, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Event, Firebird, InterBase, ISO-8859, ISO8859, Prism, Software Development, SQL Server, Unicode, UTF-8, UTF8, Windows-1252 | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/09/16
SQL Server triggers can operate on multiple records at once.
So it is important to not only to make your triggers work properly, but also make them work performantly.
Given a table like the Users table below, which in the future is likely to be extended with fields like Initials, MaidenName, Suffix, Prefix, etc.
The client has choosen not to make the FullName calculated, but update it using a trigger.
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Users]( [UserId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL, [FullName] [nvarchar](100) NULL, [FirstName] [nvarchar](50) NULL, [LastName] [nvarchar](100) NULL ) ON [PRIMARY]
A trigger that updates the FullName field is only needed for Insert and Update statements.
It needs to update the FullName for all the records in that statement, but not for any other records.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Database Development, Development, SQL Server | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2009/09/13
Embarcadero has made available the replays of the CodeRage 4 sessions.
You can find them in the CodeRage 4 sessions overview.
In order to download them from that overview, NOTE: To access this session replay, you must be logged into EDN. you can login or sign-up (which is free).
To make it easier to find all the relevant downloads, below is an overview of my sessions and their links.
Let me know what you use it for, I’m always interested!
Update 20090918: changed the download locations because CodeCentral messed up.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in .NET, ASCII, C#, C# 2.0, CodeRage, CommandLine, Conferences, CP437/OEM 437/PC-8, Database Development, Debugging, Delphi, Development, Encoding, Event, Firebird, InterBase, ISO-8859, ISO8859, Java, Prism, Software Development, Unicode, UTF-8, UTF8, Visual Studio and tools, XML, XML/XSD, XSD | 4 Comments »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 