Markdown Monster
Posts related to: C#
Putting the Westwind.Scripting C# Templating Library to work, Part 2
In part 2 of this post series I look at some of the issues you may have to deal with when using the Westwind.Scripting library as an offline document or Web site creation engine. While running simple templates is easy enough, when generating static output for Web site publishing or local preview requires some special considerations.
Revisiting C# Scripting with the Westwind.Scripting Templating Library, Part 1
The `Westwind.Scripting` library provides runtime C# code compilation and execution as well as a C# based Script Template engine using Handlebars style syntax with pure C# code. In this post I discuss use cases for script templating and some examples of how I use in real-world applications, followed by a discussion of the engine's features and the new Layout, Section and Partials feature that was added recently.
Using .NET Native AOT to build Windows WinAPI Dlls
Did you know that you can use .NET AOT compilation to create native Windows DLLs to potentially replace traditional C/C++ compiled DLLs? It's now possible to build completely native DLLs that can be called from external applications and legacy applications in particular using .NET AOT compilation. In this post I show how this works and discuss the hits and misses of this tech.
Back to Basics: Using the Parallel Library to Massively Boost Loop Performance
I recently had another occasion to add Parallel.ForEachAsync() into an application to improve performance of an Http look up operation drastically. When I tweeted a note on X there was quite a bit of response, so I thought I follow up and discuss Parallel use in this use case and when it makes sense to use Parallel in applications.
C# Version String Formatting
I'm tired of trying to format versions for user facing interfaces after fumbling with it again and again. In this short post I show a small helper extension method that lets you configure how to form user friendly version strings to display to end users.
Basic Windows Machine Hardware information from WMI for Exception Logging from .NET
When writing out error information for a desktop application to a log whether local or to a telmetry engine, it's useful to get some idea of what hardware the app is running on. WPF applications in particular can have odd behaviors that are related to hardware acceleration, running inside of a VM or particular video drivers. In this short post I show how you can get very basic machine and GPU information that provides information on these basic system stats that can prove useful to trackdown rare hardware related issues.
Runtime C# Code Compilation Revisited for Roslyn
Recently I needed to update my scripting tools that are integrated into Markdown Monster, in order to support .NET Core. The old CodeDom compiler APIs I'd been using as part of my `Westwind.Scripting` library aren't supported in Core and so I ended up updating to the newer Roslyn CodeAnalysis APIs. In this post I discuss how the Roslyn compilation APIs work, and how I built and updated the Westwind.Scripting library to provide an easy to use wrapper around these tools.
Async and Async Void Event Handling in WPF
When running WPF and WinForms applications with async operations, I've run into a number of issues with event handling 'hanging' the UI thread in unexpected ways, where the UI hangs until the mouse is moved or a key is pressed. A lot of times these issues are associated with events that fire async code, and in this post I take closer look at one scenario that can cause these hang ups along with a workaround that has proven useful in a number of occasions for me.
Discovering new C# String Pattern Matching Features
I admit it: I haven't been using the new C# pattern matching features a lot, but every once in a while ReSharper smacks me in the head and points out a good pattern that not only makes the code more compact, but also makes it more readable. In this post I talk about a few patterns that help with null and string casting and with comparing values in a more natural way.
Async/Await Calls Gotcha with the CSharp ? Null Propagator
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Null propagation in C# allows for short circuiting of void method calls, but when using result-less `await` async calls, this behavior works decidedly different, resulting in null exception runtime errors. While this behavior makes sense when you break down the command, it's certainly not obvious. In this post I break down the how and why of the failure and how to work around it.
Blank Zero Values in .NET Number Format Strings
Recently needed a way to display a set of numbers in a WPF List display that required that values with a value of `0` display blank - using no explicit code or model changes. I learnt something new today: There's actually a way to use C# format strings to format numbers separately for positive, negative and zero values. Here's how that works.
A .NET Color Console Helper
In this short post I'll discuss a small Console helper class I've been using to make it easier and more consistent to use colors with the .NET Console command. The .NET Console support colors easily enough, but switching colors and resetting them can be a bit tedious, so these helpers make working with color a bit easier.
Static Constructor Failures and Declaration Order
I ran into an ugly problem today with an application where nested static constructors where not doing the expected thing - failing to provide a value when one should be available. It turns out the issue has to do with constructor calls nesting and the order in which auto-initialized values are assigned.
Returning an XML Encoded String in .NET
XML is not as popular as it once was, but there's still a lot of XML based configuration and data floating around today. Today I ran into a recurring issue where I needed to convert a string to a properly encoded XML string. Seems simple enough but it's not as straightforward as you might think to generate an XML Encoded string properly. This post shows a few different ways to retrieve a string and discusses advantages of each.
Explicitly Ignoring Exceptions in C#
In most applications I have a few places where I explicitly need to ignore errors. While generally this isn't a good idea, under some circumstances you just don't care if an error occurs or you simply want a yay or nay response. In this stupid pet tricks post, I describe a few scenarios where not catching any exceptions makes sense along with a couple of helper methods that make these scenarios more explicit so code analyzer and book thrower reviewers can be quieted down.