Glavs Blog : SQL Server

WiX - Painful at best

Glav — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:35:25 GMT

So I finally got WiX to create an installer for me after many hours of poor documentation, obscure errors and bizarre angle bracket syntax.

The latest error I have really annoyed me as there was no obvious indication what the error was and how to resolve it, which is really the purpose of this post. To share this so that others may benefit, and because my memory is so poor, I need to record it for later use :-)

Basically I got this:

candle.exe : error CNDL0001: Cannot set column 'Attributes' with value 239 because it is greater than the maximum allowed value for this column, 127.

Nice. I wont bore you with the vulgarities that I produced trying to decipher this message, but it ended up being the fact that I had put a <sql:sqlDatabase> server definition was inside a feature element rather than outside on its own.

So I had put this:

<sql:sqlDatabase Id="SqlDatabase" Server="[DATABASESERVERNAME]" Database="[DATABASENAME]" />

inside a <Component> tag.

Placing the <sql:sqlDatabase> tag back outside the <Component> tag fixed this issue.

Hope it saves others similar frustration.

ASP.NET Podcasts

Glav — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:57:12 GMT

After going on holidays, feeling relaxed and generally not doing much tech related stuff, I have fallen behind in a number of things. One was my inbox, something like 1400+ messages I have had to wade through, and they keep coming.

However, the other is the podcasts. Wally has been producing some podcasts and I have been out of the loop, and being the slacker that I am, have not listed them here on my blog. So without further ado, here's the recent list:

( As usual, Subscribe here )

ASP.NET Podcast Show #97 - Jim Wooley on Link Part III (video and audio)

Original URL: http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2007/07/12/asp-net-podcast-show-97-jim-wooley-on-link-part-iii-video-and-audio.aspx

Download WMV File, MP4 File (iPod and Zune), MP3 Audio File.

Show Notes:

In the past, working with data has required learning a number of different API sets for each kind of data you needed to access. Relational data requires ADO. XML uses Xpath, XQuery and the XML Dom. Objects require you to write your own manipulation code. In this video, Jim Wooley (MVP in VB) continues to look at the Language Integrated Query (LINQ) project and demonstrates how to leverage it to use a single API to work against XML, objects and relational data. In it, we continue exploring the ThinqLinq web site by demonstrating creating and querying XML to create and consume RSS feeds using ASP.Net with Visual Studio code name "Orcas". The video concludes with an overview of the language changes in C#3.0 and VB 9.0 which enable the querying functionality.
This video is part 3 of 3. The code samples and slides are available at http://devauthority.com/files/13/jwooley/entry38500.aspx. Jim can be contacted via his web site at http://devauthority.com/blogs/jwooley or at the site for his upcoming LINQ book at http://LinqInAction.net.

ASP.NET Podcast Show #96 - Jim Wooley on Link Part II (video and audio)

Direct Download format: WMV File, Ipod/Zune, MP3 audio File

Show Notes:

In the past, working with data has required learning a number of different API sets for each kind of data you needed to access. Relational data requires ADO. XML uses Xpath, XQuery and the XML Dom. Objects require you to write your own manipulation code. In this video, Jim Wooley (MVP in VB) continues to look at the Language Integrated Query (LINQ) project and demonstrates how to leverage it to use a single API to work against objects or relational data. In it, we continue exploring the ThinqLinq
<http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2007/07/09/asp-net-podcast-show-96-jim-wooley-on-link-part-ii-video-and-audio.aspx> web site by demonstrating joining in-memory object structures from System.IO with relational data from SQL Server. We also look at updating data back to the database using ASP.Net with Visual Studio code name "Orcas".
This video is part 2 of 3. The code samples and slides are available at http://devauthority.com/files/13/jwooley/entry38500.aspx. Jim can be contacted via his web site at http://devauthority.com/blogs/jwooley or at the site for his upcoming LINQ book at http://LinqInAction.net

ASP.NET Podcast Show #95 - Jim Wooley on LINQ Part I (video and audio)

Original url: http://aspnetpodcast.com/CS11/blogs/asp.net_podcast/archive/2007/06/28/asp-net-podcast-show-95-jim-wooley-on-linq-part-i-video-and-audio.aspx

Download WMV video, iPod video, MP3 audio.

Show Notes:

Part 1:
In the past, working with data has required learning a number of different API sets for each kind of data you needed to access. Relational data requires ADO. XML uses Xpath, XQuery and the XML Dom. Objects require you to write your own manipulation code. In this video, Jim Wooley (MVP in VB) introduces the Language Integrated Query (LINQ) project and demonstrates how to leverage it to use a single API to work against objects or relational data. In it, we explore extending an existing web site to add the ability to load a set of web links from a database and display them using ASP.Net with Visual Studio code name "Orcas". He starts with a standard object collection populated by a DataReader and demonstrates how to eliminate the plumbing code using LINQ and LINQ to SQL.

Originally recorded on 3/21. Link to the Beta 1 download page: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa700831.aspx
This video is part 1 of 3 recorded at the Atlanta Visual Basic Study Group (www.avbsg.net). If it stops abruptly, it is because we didn't realize pressing F10 to step through code in a VPC would cause our recording tool to stop. The code samples and slides are available at http://devauthority.com/files/13/jwooley/entry38500.aspx. Jim can be contacted via his web site at http://devauthority.com/blogs/jwooley or at the site for his upcoming LINQ book at http://LinqInAction.net.

VSTS for Database Professionals on my current project

Glav — Mon, 28 May 2007 12:24:25 GMT

On a current project I was interested in using VSTS for Database professionals to see if it could add any value with database management. Traditionally its been a very manual process as Visual Studio has not had any real support for it.

I also knew that Nick Weinholt is due to present at SDNUG on the topic of all things data related, one of which is VSTS for DB Pros, at the next meeting of SDNUG next Thursday, June 7th.

So I pinged Nick on MSN IM to get some of the early lowdown on the product. He quite liked the product and pointed out a few of its strengths like the Database schema comparisons (and by that I mean comparing db schema to another db schema OR to the schema defined in your Db project - its just another comparison), data generation, current data script generation, playing nice with source control tools, and full recognition of all the database aspects and objects.

So I installed it and started playing. All in all it looks very cool. Very script oriented in that everything works against .SQL scripts. There are .SQL scripts that represent all the objects within your DB and the final build produces a single .SQL script that is used to execute against your DB, or in the case of deploying your Db project, it just gets executed on your behalf. This includes any data related scripts, everything. That's right everything. Think of the project as an offline image of your database in script form.

One thing I did notice is that it keeps a temporary connection to a database that it seems to use for working with. This database gets created when you open the project, and removed when you close it. Not sure exactly as I haven't had time to figure out if its absolutely necessary yet.

The image here shows the -Database project with a GUID after it which is the temporary Db that DB Pro creates when I open the project.

I will say that it does take some getting used to. If you are going to use it, first install it, then download one of the many videos available from the DB Pro site that show what its all about. Work through the videos with the tool open, then you can apply it to a project of your own. I have also used red-gates SQL Compare tool and I think that Red-Gates tool is definitely easier to use. Without thinking, I can use the red-gate tool to compare a DB in a few minutes. VSTS DB Pro takes some getting used to. As to a proper comparison, VSTS DB Pro integrates fully with Visual Studio so its on a winner there but a full comparison is not something I could comfortably do just yet. At any rate, I am pretty impressed thus far.