Comments by Robert Welliever (Top 111 by date)

Really? You have never written a bot to scrape a web site LEGALLY, and that site returned a 403 because of certificate errors? Certificate errors due to a bug in the Java framework? Or received a 403 from a malformed header property when writing in C#? There are a host of reasons why a coder with legitimate intent and legal code might receive this message. I am one of those people. In the future, you might ask the poster if they are acting legally, and validate by getting the resource URIs with further doubt. I'm not sure how it goes in your country, but we don't convict without getting facts of the case. Also, saying this is a site for "professional developers" and then telling him to disable his firewalls and antivirus products is anything but professional.

Why doesn't that work? Aren't you just checking if childElement has an innerText equal to 4? So replace:
MessageBox.Show(childElement.InnerText)
with:
if(childElement.InnerText == "4") { // do something }.

Or you could just replace:
if (curElement.GetAttribute("className").ToString() == "ng-scope") { ... }
with:
if (curElement.GetAttribute("className").ToString() == "ng-scope" && curElement.FirstChild.InnerText == "4") { // do something }
which would work if the span inside the "ng-scope" element is invariant.

I have extensive experience with what you are describing, and I promise it's the correct solution. You just need to capture and parse the page prerequisite to your POST. What is the resource you are trying to scrape? If I can't give you an optimal solution twenty minutes after I read your message, you can have your money back.

You are incorrect. Your statements are actually easily disprovable regardless of your experience. You make gross generalizations to which I only have to produce a single counterexample, which I did. I'm pretty sure that's how you do science.

That's quite a disprovable assertion. I've been helped countless times by looking at other people's answers. I've also specifically been helped by reading answers to interview questions.

So how many errors does Chrome report when you inspect the page? What does the code do if you step debug with IE?

You have far more tact than I do. +5

One other thing. It is very difficult to debug JavaScript (as you have noticed). If you debug in Chrome, you can right click the page and then select "Inspect Element" from the context menu. You will see a little red circled X if there are JavaScript errors, and it will explain the errors. Internet Explorer will not give you that information as easily.

Also I see you don't have the variable i instantiated correctly.
Instead of:
for (i = 1; i < GridView1.rows.length; i++)
use:
for (var i = 1; i < GridView1.rows.length; i++)

That's not JQuery, that's just plain JavaScript.

Well, you have multiple invalid casts and multiple logic flaws. It took me three messages just to explain the first invalid cast. I apologize, but based on that, I don't think I can help you. If I were you, I would just go ahead and delete that whole thing and then enroll in a computer science program at your local University.

Let me try again. It's NOT possible to convert the query object into a DateTime object; that makes absolutely no sense. You will get a runtime exception every time because they are not convertable.
For example:
string cat = "cat";
DateTime birthday = Convert.ToDateTime(cat);
That just doesn't work because the string "cat" is not convertable to DateTime. Understand yet?

I guess first let's figure out why you want to cast a Linq query into a DateTime.

Sure, there's always a solution. You haven't explained what isn't rendering correctly though. I can't actually see your computer screen and you didn't provide any links/code/etc.

If you are trying to find a record then you should execute a query instead of executing a non-query. What is your proc "spfindtblstudent" doing instead of selecting the record?

No thanks, I'd rather just add comments to improve an existing answer if the answer is close but just a little bit wrong. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Your unlawful cast is a runtime error and that's why you're not seeing it in your editor. You create a Linq query and then in the next line of code try and cast it to a datetime.

What I was suggesting is just basic and common practice, not some idealistic implementation of perfection. How about I mark your answer with 5 stars so you won't be so pissy. Happy now?

Except whichever Microsoft employee wrote that isn't telling the whole story and the article you keep referencing isn't up to Microsoft's usually stringent quality control.

I read it. It appears the code you pasted specifically is for connecting to Oracle and he's connecting to Excel. Aside from that, the page does use the @ symbol for all parameter naming. Using named parameters in the command text works just fine in OleDb and so the code will look the same as other adapters. This is for readability and/or if you need to write a SqlCommand version using the same code. I know I sound really arrogant but I still think I'm right.

Sounds like a student question. Aren't you violating academic standards or some sort of personal ethics and pride by posting your question in that manner?

The parameter names should not be the same names as the column names; the accepted practice is to use the @ symbol, and then use them correctly in the command text. So for your example to be acceptable the command text should be:
"Insert Into Contacts (FirstName, LastName) Values (@FirstName,@LastName)"
and then adding the parameter would be like:
cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@FirstName", txtFirstName.Text);

It is difficult to understand your English, but it sounds like you want to asyncronously communicate with the server. You can create and use the XMLHttpRequest object directly or one of its wrappers. I use ICallbackEventHandler interface with ASP or Ajax if I'm not using ASP. Put your async call right before the call to preventDefault().

It is likely you are using HTML5 objects that aren't implemented in IE8 and below. Your question is far too vague to give a precise answer though.

You should use the OleDbParameter object. I guess it's dependent on who is accessing the code, but it really would be easy for a user to delete all the data from that file by injecting a Delete statement into your textbox.

Why are you leaving the connection open?

Unmaintainable, unreadable garbage. How did this get votes?

It would be easy to just put a textreader on either file, then read it into a string. You can compare both lines of code for equality. That's barely any code, but then that only compares that the files have the exact same contents. What are you comparing? Just for equality?

That's not a Save As Dialog in ASP.NET. That's flushing a file to the output stream like I recommended in the comments. The dialog box belongs to the browser.

There isn't a save dialog box for ASP. You have to flush whatever file you want to the output stream and the browser will pop up a dialog box on its own.

Even better than a single image, I just googled for a good tutorial and somebody on this site actually wrote one (http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/18223/Versions-of-the-NET-Framework-and-the-IIS-Applica) The article has multiple images, and an image showing the ASP.NET tab for virtual directory setup is shown towards the bottom of the page. Good luck.

Why don't you set the timer for a two second interval instead of five, and then store the value of the textbox on each poll? You can then ignore the check for textChanged and lastTime > two seconds ago, and just check that the strings aren't equal. You see, your current implementation will do a search in cases where the text hasn't changed, but the event was fired (e.g. I press a key and then the backspace to delete it). Also the five second delay and the two second check are at odds with each other, just doesn't make sense. Also the lockObject doesn't make any sense as there is no concurrency issues.

A Trie is a type of tree data structure great for string indexing. For example you can fit every two letter word in the English language using just 26 * 2 nodes and 2 levels, every three letter word with 26 * 3 nodes and 3 levels, ..., every n letter word with 26 * n nodes and n levels. Anyway, I really think Wikipedia can explain it better than me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie.

I tried about a year ago and failed (just too much work). I had light data storage needs so I ended up just using html/js/css to save myself time. Not too long after that I remember someone claiming that the Telerik product for windows UI dev was great, but I haven't used it before. I just googled for it now (http://www.telerik.com/products/winforms.aspx) and it appears you can do Metro style with it.

Ok, I just verified and saw that you can set the target framework. When you set up your virtual directory, it is on the right hand side on a tab called "ASP.NET" (at least for IIS 6).

Sorry I don't have an answer, but what a very intriguing idea you have! However, I can understand that you could detect if the device is falling, but how would you know if the human body is attached to it?

Wow that's a lot of porn you must have.

What is the thrown exception? Aside from that, you should get in the practice of using the SqlParameter object to defend against Sql injection. Also you're connection is open unnecessarily long. You should open it right before the call to Fill() and close it right after the call to Fill(), or even better yet, do it with a "Using" statement for cleanliness and disposal insurance (on all your db crap i.e. connection, adapter, command object, etc.)

HTML tables don't come with paging. Which ASP object are you using? DataGrid or Gridview? Something else?

Sorry, I don't have much experience with Oracle. I've only migrated data from Oracle to Sql and they didn't play nice (for example Oracle has more precise Datetime than Sql). I do remember Oracle WAS case-sensitive for string matching while Sql Server is not though. If your original passwords are all upper case, then how would you know what the original password even was? You wouldn't be able to convert them to case-sensitive because that information was lost, no? Wouldn't you have to ask the original creator of the password which letters were originally lower-case? I mean, how would you even know which characters weren't supposed to be upper-cased since they were converted long ago?

When internal, use role based authorization. These days it's extremely rare to use static IPs in an intranet (IPs are easily spoofed anyway).

Umm, how about never storing passwords? I've never met someone that thought that was a good idea.

Are you sure it's not there? With IIS 6 I remember setting up app pools and there was a tab called ASP.NET on the right that allowed framework selection (when setting up the virtual directory part).

Bill, My god that was a funny response. I wish I could upvote your comment for entertainment value alone.

A macro would be a terrible solution. The biggest reason is that they are typically disabled when downloading from the web as they are a security violation.

Can you be any more vague?

Why do you have three if statements in a row when e.Row.RowType can only be one thing? Try if-else statements. Also the first two if statements are checking for the same condition which is just goofy. However, the reason it won't work is when you check for the footer, you try to find a control that doesn't exist inside the footer template. The invalidly named "WORKHRS" control doesn't exist in the footer, which is why it doesn't work.

Is this for an intranet? I've never had a security problem using roles/azman if that is the case.

Where is RecreateChildren()? Anyway, your inheriting class never calls anything in the parent class when _dimensions is set; that's the reason why it doesn't work.

Oh and if you ever did actually need to call the GC explicitly it would not need to be done in every iteration of the loop. You might just add some code like:
if(i %100000 == 0) GC.Collect();

Good night and good luck.

Because strings are immutable and it is not efficient to create and destroy them. StringBuilder uses a resizable array as the backing element to get around that. The whole point of the Append() is so you don't use the + concatenation operator. Append() adds the string to the resizable array, but the concat operator sets both strings for garbage collection and creates a third as a product. If you have a series of concatenations it gets expensive fast, especially in a loop.

Ok, I apologize. It's done and testing working now. I have not been so humbled in a long time. That was extremely easy and yet I made a terrible mess out of it at first. Thank you for the challenge though, way better than a crossword puzzle.

Wait, it's still not right. I will get this before going to bed.

Just do multiple calls to Append(). For example:
Output.Append(Lastchar).Append("-").Append(Times).Append(",");

ok?

Ah I see now. You're not tallying frequencies of characters. Stand-by, let me re-write this thing.

It would be extremely difficult to write better code than what is above as there is no faster way to do it.

By the way, your using string concatenation inside your improperly cased "Output" StringBuilder variable. That's buying a Mercedes and then sh*tting on the seat.

I think the number you posted exceeds the maximum allowable size for a C# string. You should run my code with your large input set and no explicit garbage collection. Watch memory use with perfmon to see if normal gc isn't working well enough.

I'm pretty sure you can only do one at a time:
ALTER TABLE dbo.TRTemplate ADD column CreatedbyId Bigint not null;
ALTER TABLE dbo.TRTemplate ADD column ModifiedId Bigint not null;
....

Oh, you already had posted the answer. Why did you put it in comments?

That won't work. He's using ASP and the button click carries a postback you haven't addressed.

That doesn't make any sense. A regular expression wouldn't set a limit on the number of characters entered but murkialkiran's code would. Are you sure you know what question you asked? You have to latch onto one of the textbox's events in order to know if someone is altering the text.

That is about as beautiful as code gets. More of a solution than a comment though.

Where? It isn't above in the code you just pasted. If you dynamically set the timeout the code would look like this: System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Session.Timeout = 120000;

How about changing:
Select @Count=(Username)from...
To:
Select @Count=Count(Username)from...

Lol, sorry you're right. While you should still test that int for int-ness as I stated, your error is being thrown on the execution of the sql statement and is bubbling from Sql Server to the C# code. I promise you there is a spot in the select statement where you're converting. Post the command text if you can't find the error.

I don't use Ajax, but that doesn't make sense that you would set a Session timeout in an Ajax call. That is not a Session timeout; it's going to be a request or response timeout. A session timeout is typically set in the web.config or dynamically during the Session load event in the Global.asax.

stop trying to convert an invalid string to int would be the best solution. For one, you aren't converting nvarchar because that's SQL talk (you're using a C# string). Second you should be testing to see if it can by converted by using Int32.TryParse(). If the value is not parse-able, then don't try.

Are you talking about Session timeout or Response timeout? You have two minutes set in the response timeout but you keep using the word Session.

What do you mean? Your application can write a message to the queue by using a Sql insert statement. Your Queue listener is a C# thread that uses a Sql select statement to check for messages. It checks then sleeps, checks then sleeps. If it checks and finds a message, then that thread calls whatever function you have associated with a particular message. I'm sorry I couldn't write that code for you without getting paid. That's a good half hour's work and would deprive you of the learning you need.

Can you please rephrase your question in English?

You can launch a thread in your application that polls Sql Server for change every so often. If that thread detects change then it can signal to the application. Your "message" queue could just be records in a table called Messages.

You promise? That makes my day then. Goodbye!

Calling your comments pretentious and ignorant is perfectly ethical and entirely accurate. Don't tell me what I can and can't write and quit trolling me.

The problem is conversion from feet and inches to meters with using a string input and output. The function I wrote above is the correctly written portion that does the conversion from feet and inches to meters. The conversion function should not be combined with input parsing and string manipulation, that's just rookie. I'll be honest, I've read a number of your comments now and they're generally just pretentious and ignorant.

The rest of that sentence said, "or the individual Page makes more sense." That means if you're not using Master Page then to just put it in the Page. Why can't you just put it in the Page_Load and solve the problem normally?

Jumping to conclusions is appropriate when those conclusions are correct. However, after reading your solution below it seems you might take your own advice. :)

It is EXTREMELY rare that programmers use multi-threading under ASP for a variety of reasons (I'm guessing you aren't a web programmer). That makes no sense to look for that first. Based on how the initial question is worded, it sounds more like he/she was debugging and couldn't step out of the server code, which is going to be just unfamiliarity with debugging under ASP.

Race conditions? WTF? What do you think happens when you click a breakpoint to turn it off? What cases are you talking about when turning off a breakpoint does something except turn off the breakpoint?

Are the old and new databases compatible with the same adapter? I'm not sure about you're data source and destination, but I had a project where I could only use Jet OleDB with old Excel files and I had to use a different OleDB connection for new Excel files. Are you using different version of Access across the big format switch? Like a 2003 version and a 2007 or newer version?

Yah, please specify. Nothing should happen when you remove a breakpoint except the breakpoint will disappear and then the code won't break there again. Removing a breakpoint won't step you out of the code if you're actively debugging.

Yah, I got the end index of the actual token/element, but you needed the index of the following whitespace. I understand now, good luck with your project!

Sounds like you're making a frustrated statement rather than asking a question. You can pad right with css to prevent the covering up though.

I don't know why you ignored my correct answer, but Chrome is properly blocking your confirm dialog exactly as it is designed to. Do you just not believe that is the case? I gave you instructions to verify for yourself and the solution to your problem.

String.Empty is an unnecessary abstraction with no performance advantage or additional readability, and using StringBuilder for string concatenation is not always faster.

Whipping out StringBuilder for four iterations of a loop with a few concatenations is not faster or more efficient. Reassigning the immutable strings actually is in this case.

You have to use the OleDbDataAdapter with an excel connection string. You can query as if it were any other data table once set up. If you are just doing it once, it would be far easier to use Sql Server's SSIS to latch on and move the data. If you're creating an upload module so people can move data regularly via Excel to Sql Server, then it's best to write your own code using the OleDBDataAdapter. https://www.connectionstrings.com/excel-2007/ shows the connection string you need.

It depends if you're using XLS or XLSX or both (each requires a different data adapter). What version of Excel are you supporting?

I worked with an alcoholic VB6 programmer who liked to compare strings as though they were dates too. You should cast to the appropriate data types before doing comparisons.

If you right click Chrome when running, then 'Inspect Element', click the 'Resources' tab, click 'Frames' and navigate to where your event should execute, you will see Chrome block it and throw an error. You can't prevent that from happening so you have to send the popup before onunload is fired. jQuery's beforeunload fires before onunload, but has pretty much the same effect. If you put your _AreyousureLeaving variable right where I put 'Please Stay On This Page' in the code snippet above, it should work as you intend.