private static void ListEnum(Type _enum)
{
Console.WriteLine("enum " + _enum.Name);
Console.WriteLine("{");
string[] foo = Enum.GetNames(_enum);
Array bar = Enum.GetValues(_enum);
for(int i =0;i<foo.Length; i++)
{
Console.WriteLine(
foo[i] + " = " +
((int)bar.GetValue(i)).ToString() + ",");
}
Console.WriteLine("}");
}
The first method I tried for doing this used an undocumented system stored procedure in MSSQL, called xp_fileexist. The code for that looks like this:
-- using MSSQL built-in stored proc xp_fileexist
CREATE FUNCTION FileExists(@File varchar(255)) RETURNS BIT AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @i int
EXEC master..xp_fileexist @File, @i out
RETURN @i
END
--- usage
SELECT *
FROM tbl_FileInformation
WHERE (dbo.FileExists(PathAndFile) = 'True')
So that led me to write this next function, which uses Scripting.FileSystemObject via the OLE Automation Options. First things first, I needed to run the following commands to enable OLE Automation, to make it possible:
-- configuring for use of scripting object
sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
sp_configure 'Ole Automation Procedures', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE;
GO
-- Using the scripting object
CREATE FUNCTION FileExists(@File varchar(255)) RETURNS BIT AS
BEGIN
declare @objFSys int
declare @i int
exec sp_OACreate 'Scripting.FileSystemObject', @objFSys out
exec sp_OAMethod @objFSys, 'FileExists', @i out, @File
exec sp_OADestroy @objFSys
return @i
END
So, the moral of the story? Kids, MS SQL just can't see mapped drives. Give it up now!
If you're lucky enough to have all your data on a drive that's local to the SQL server, and find yourself needing to know if a file you've got referenced still exists, then give these methods a try!
YMMV.
The reason for this is that, I, being slightly conservative regarding willy-nilly-ly installing new OSes as soon as they are available, choose to upgrade by force, only when absolutely unable to do otherwise. That means, I'm running Windows XP. So what is a developer to do now that his interest is piqued? Install Vista so I can play with Gadgets and the mystical sidebar? No! I, of course, choose to google up a nice patched version of sidebar.exe that can run on XP!
Woohoo! I'm excited to say, that this not only works, but works without a hitch. I was able to install and run the Vista Sidebar on XP in mere moments. And that also means I can fiddle with widgets, oops I mean Gadgets. ;)
See my next few posts for more information about Gadgets... But before you do, download the XP version of Windows Sidebar so you can join in the fun too!
Links and knowledge courtesy of MSTN and their article about this, which I found out about by reading this blog post on My Digital Life.
His first reaction was "that's sort of militant". Probably in reference to the term "vanguard" which is generally used to refer to an aggressive front-line force of some sort. I concurred, but still felt I had made a good choice.
Max then immediately hijacked my computer, launched a new firefox window, and began googling up and mumbling unrecognizable names. Dijkstra, The Humble Programmer, and How do we tell truths that might hurt? suddenly appeared and were read out-loud to me by my excited friend and companion.
He was right!
How fascinating was Dijkstra? Fascinating enough that, even though I had worked 13 hours straight, eaten almost nothing all day, and have a beautiful wife and 1.5 week old child waiting for me, I felt compelled to click about and read more.
I came across self-stabilization and it occurred to me, that the impetus behind creating this blog is a form of self-stabilization. In one sense, it's my own self-stabilization, in which I will divest and store the processes by which I created order from confusion in my daily life, providing a resource which I could use to reduce the amount of overhead needed to repeat these feats. But secondly, it is self-stabilization as and unconscious process of the online tech-blogging community. I rely heavily on the blogged accounts of problem-solving that others so diligently post for all the world to see. The first thing I do when I encounter a new and challenging problem is to check and see who has dealt with this problem before, and what did they do? What solutions are already available in the vast spray of information available from public search engines? Most of the valuable information I find is not the official formal documentation provided by the institutions that created the technologies, detailing every facet of the system with excrutiating thoroughness, but rather the anecdotal, code-snippetted, hyper-linked, semi-stable accounts posted by my unknown peers battling the same dragons. From these bits, I learn how to use the vast and morbid technology describing in the aforementioned chronicles of specificata.
So this blog, is self-stabilization for the blogging culture in which I so heavily rely. If there were no blogs to read, how would I solve many of those problems? Isn't it my duty to give back to that system? Shouldn't I also serve to stabilize this information vortex and let other reap from my trouble-shooting bounty?
Indeed. I should.
