Content on a need to know basis for Computer Science Students

Delete All Triggers (Sql Server 2008)

2011-10-08T01:10:00.000-07:00

DECLARE @SqlCmd VARCHAR(8000)
declare @Trig sysname
declare @owner sysname
declare @uid int

DECLARE TGCursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT name, uid FROM sysobjects WHERE type = 'TR'
OPEN TGCursor
FETCH next FROM TGCursor INTO @Trig, @uid
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN

select @SQLCmd = 'drop trigger [' + @Trig + ']'

exec (@SqlCmd)

FETCH next FROM TGCursor INTO @Trig, @uid
END
CLOSE TGCursor
DEALLOCATE TGCursor

Delete all stored procedures

2011-10-07T01:13:00.001-07:00

declare @procName sysname

declare someCursor cursor for
    select name from sysobjects where type = 'P' and objectproperty(id, 'IsMSShipped') = 0

open someCursor
fetch next from someCursor into @procName
while @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
begin
    exec('drop proc ' + @procName)
    fetch next from someCursor into @procName
end

close someCursor
deallocate someCursor
go

Generate Audit Table for every database

2011-10-07T01:12:00.001-07:00

-- ALL COLUMN TYPES SHOULD HAVE A NUMBER
-- DO NOT USE FOR VARIABLE TYPES OF TYPE "MAX"
--

-- #########################################################

-- ##########################################################
/* SET CONFIG VARIABLES THAT ARE USED IN SCRIPT */
-- ##########################################################

-- Do we want to generate the SP definitions for every user defined
-- table in the database or just a single specified table?
-- Assign a blank string - '' for all tables or the table name for
-- a single table.
DECLARE @GenerateProcsFor varchar(100)
--SET @GenerateProcsFor = 'Orders'
SET @GenerateProcsFor = ''

-- which database do we want to create the procs for?
-- Change both the USE and SET lines below to set the datbase name
-- to the required database.
USE RMS_ORIGINAL
DECLARE @DatabaseName varchar(100)
SET @DatabaseName = 'RMS_ORIGINAL'

-- do we want the script to print out the CREATE PROC statements
-- or do we want to execute them to actually create the procs?
-- Assign a value of either 'Print' or 'Execute'
DECLARE @PrintOrExecute varchar(10)
SET @PrintOrExecute = 'Execute'

-- Is there a table name prefix i.e. 'tbl_' which we don't want
-- to include in our stored proc names?
DECLARE @TablePrefix varchar(10)
SET @TablePrefix = ''

-- For our '_lst' and '_sel' procedures do we want to
-- do SELECT * or SELECT [ColumnName,]...
-- Assign a value of either 1 or 0
DECLARE @UseSelectWildCard bit
SET @UseSelectWildCard = 0

-- ##########################################################
/* END SETTING OF CONFIG VARIABLE
-- do not edit below this line */
-- ##########################################################

-- DECLARE CURSOR containing all columns from user defined tables
-- in the database
DECLARE TableCol Cursor FOR
SELECT c.TABLE_SCHEMA, c.TABLE_NAME, c.COLUMN_NAME, c.DATA_TYPE, c.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns c INNER JOIN
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Tables t ON c.TABLE_NAME = t.TABLE_NAME
WHERE t.Table_Catalog = @DatabaseName
AND t.TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'
ORDER BY c.TABLE_NAME, c.ORDINAL_POSITION

-- Declare variables which will hold values from cursor rows
DECLARE @TableSchema varchar(100), @TableName varchar(100)
DECLARE @ColumnName varchar(100), @DataType varchar(30)
DECLARE @CharLength varchar(100)

DECLARE @ColumnNameCleaned varchar(100)

-- Declare variables which will track what table we are
-- creating Stored Procs for
DECLARE @CurrentTable varchar(100)
DECLARE @FirstTable bit
DECLARE @FirstColumnName varchar(100)
DECLARE @FirstColumnDataType varchar(30)
DECLARE @ObjectName varchar(100) -- this is the tablename with the
-- specified tableprefix lopped off.
DECLARE @TablePrefixLength int

-- init vars
SET @CurrentTable = ''
SET @FirstTable = 1
SET @TablePrefixLength = Len(@TablePrefix)

-- Declare variables which will hold the queries we are building use unicode
-- data types so that can execute using sp_ExecuteSQL
DECLARE @LIST nvarchar(4000), @UPSERT nvarchar(4000)
DECLARE @SELECT nvarchar(4000), @INSERT nvarchar(4000), @INSERTVALUES varchar(4000)
DECLARE @UPDATE nvarchar(4000), @DELETE nvarchar(4000)

-- open the cursor
OPEN TableCol

-- get the first row of cursor into variables
FETCH NEXT FROM TableCol INTO @TableSchema, @TableName, @ColumnName, @DataType, @CharLength

-- loop through the rows of the cursor
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN

SET @ColumnNameCleaned = Replace(@ColumnName, ' ', '')

-- is this a new table?
IF @TableName <> @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- if is the end of the last table
IF @CurrentTable <> '' BEGIN
IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- first add any syntax to end the statement

-- _lst
SET @LIST = @List + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13)

-- _sel
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13)

-- UPDATE (remove trailing comma and append the WHERE clause)
SET @UPDATE = SUBSTRING(@UPDATE, 0, LEN(@UPDATE)- 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)

-- INSERT
SET @INSERT = SUBSTRING(@INSERT, 0, LEN(@INSERT) - 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = SUBSTRING(@INSERTVALUES, 0, LEN(@INSERTVALUES) -1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')'
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + @INSERTVALUES

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @FirstColumnDataType IN ('int', 'bigint', 'smallint', 'tinyint', 'float', 'decimal')
BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = 0 BEGIN' + Char(13)
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = '''' BEGIN' + Char(13)
END
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@INSERT, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(9) + 'SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() As InsertedID' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'ELSE BEGIN' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@UPDATE, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13)

IF @PrintOrExecute <> 'Execute' BEGIN
PRINT @LIST
PRINT @SELECT
PRINT @UPSERT
PRINT @DELETE
END ELSE BEGIN
EXEC sp_Executesql @LIST
EXEC sp_Executesql @SELECT
EXEC sp_Executesql @UPSERT
EXEC sp_Executesql @DELETE
END
END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable
END

-- update the value held in @CurrentTable
SET @CurrentTable = @TableName
SET @FirstColumnName = @ColumnName
SET @FirstColumnDataType = @DataType

IF @TablePrefixLength > 0 BEGIN
IF SUBSTRING(@CurrentTable, 1, @TablePrefixLength) = @TablePrefix BEGIN
PRINT Char(13) + 'DEBUG: OBJ NAME: ' + RIGHT(@CurrentTable, LEN(@CurrentTable) - @TablePrefixLength)
SET @ObjectName = RIGHT(@CurrentTable, LEN(@CurrentTable) - @TablePrefixLength)
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @ObjectName = @CurrentTable
END
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @ObjectName = @CurrentTable
END

IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- _lst
SET @LIST = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_lst]' + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @UseSelectWildcard = 1 BEGIN
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + 'SELECT * '
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + 'SELECT [' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _sel
SET @SELECT = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_sel]' + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
IF @CharLength = -1 BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + '(MAX)'
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As varchar(100)) + ')'
END
END
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @UseSelectWildcard = 1 BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'SELECT * '
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'SELECT [' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_ups]' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
IF @CharLength = -1 BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + '(MAX)'
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As Varchar(10)) + ')'
END

END

-- UPDATE
SET @UPDATE = Char(9) + 'UPDATE ' + @TableName + ' SET ' + Char(13)

-- INSERT -- don't add first column to insert if it is an
-- integer (assume autonumber)
SET @INSERT = Char(9) + 'INSERT INTO ' + @TableName + ' (' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = Char(9) + 'VALUES (' + Char(13)

IF @FirstColumnDataType NOT IN ('int', 'bigint', 'smallint', 'tinyint')
BEGIN
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + Char(9) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + '],' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = @INSERTVALUES + Char(9) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ',' + Char(13)
END

-- _del
SET @DELETE = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_del]' + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
IF @CharLength = -1 BEGIN
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + '(MAX)'
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As Varchar(10)) + ')'
END

END
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + 'DELETE FROM ' + @TableName + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + 'WHERE [' + @ColumnName + '] = @' + @ColumnNameCleaned + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(13)

END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable
END
ELSE BEGIN
IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- _lst
IF @UseSelectWildCard = 0 BEGIN
SET @LIST = @LIST + ', ' + Char(13) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _sel
IF @UseSelectWildCard = 0 BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + ', ' + Char(13) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ',' + Char(13) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As varchar(10)) + ')'
END

-- UPDATE
SET @UPDATE = @UPDATE + Char(9) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + '] = @' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ',' + Char(13)

-- INSERT
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + Char(9) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + '],' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = @INSERTVALUES + Char(9) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ',' + Char(13)

-- _del
-- delete proc completed already
END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable'
END

-- fetch next row of cursor into variables
FETCH NEXT FROM TableCol INTO @TableSchema, @TableName, @ColumnName, @DataType, @CharLength
END

-- ----------------
-- clean up cursor
-- ----------------
CLOSE TableCol
DEALLOCATE TableCol

-- if is the end of the last table
IF @CurrentTable <> '' BEGIN
IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- first add any syntax to end the statement

-- _lst
SET @LIST = @List + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13)

-- _sel
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13)

-- UPDATE (remove trailing comma and append the WHERE clause)
SET @UPDATE = SUBSTRING(@UPDATE, 0, LEN(@UPDATE)- 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)

-- INSERT
SET @INSERT = SUBSTRING(@INSERT, 0, LEN(@INSERT) - 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = SUBSTRING(@INSERTVALUES, 0, LEN(@INSERTVALUES) -1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')'
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + @INSERTVALUES

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @FirstColumnDataType IN ('int', 'bigint', 'smallint', 'tinyint', 'float', 'decimal')
BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = 0 BEGIN' + Char(13)
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = '''' BEGIN' + Char(13)
END
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@INSERT, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(9) + 'SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() As InsertedID' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'ELSE BEGIN' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@UPDATE, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13)
IF @PrintOrExecute <> 'Execute' BEGIN
PRINT @LIST
PRINT @SELECT
PRINT @UPSERT
PRINT @DELETE
END ELSE BEGIN
EXEC sp_Executesql @LIST
EXEC sp_Executesql @SELECT
EXEC sp_Executesql @UPSERT
EXEC sp_Executesql @DELETE
END
END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable
END

Fourier Transform - NOTES

2011-07-13T01:24:00.000-07:00

Read along as the syllabus outlines.
Matlab problems for homework. doesnt need to be terribly advance... get some experience and get some access.
very mathematical class. corner stone for signal processing.
rich and diverse subject. make a choice on how to start and go about.
start with fourier series:
identified with the mathematical analysis of periodic phenomena.
fourier transform as a limiting case of fourier series or techniques is concerned with non periodic phenomena.(doesnt say everything but says something)
some ideas carry easily between the 2.

Analysis (taking a function and breaking it up to simple constituent parts)
synthesis (reassembling a function from its constituent parts)

both analysis and synthesis are accomplished by linear operation ei.integrals and series.

often see or hear that fourier analysis is part of "linear systems"
period phenomena and Fourier Series
mathematics and engineering of regularly repeating patterns. ( you know it when you see it)
periodic phenomena often are either periodicity in time or space. which may also overlap. ei. harmonic motion.
periodicity in space: an object that has symmetry in space 2D or 3D or ...
a physical quantity distributed over a region with symmetry. periodicity arises from symmetry. eg. distribution of heat on a circular ring. temperature.
measure temp at points in a ring. periodic in space not time. therefore periodic in spatial variable.
fourier analysis is often associated with problems with symmetry.

Mathematical descriptor of periodicity. frequency is used in periodic in time. number of cycles in a second. number of repetition of a pattern over time.

periodicity in space we use PERIOD.measurement of how big the pattern is that repeats.
periodic time and space come together in eg. wave motion.
a regularly repeating or moving disturbance pattern that changes in time or moves.
for periodicity in space, fix the time and see the pattern distributed in space. length of one complete disturbance or pattern is a wave length. denoted by lambda

relationship between frequency and wave length.

distance = rate * time

rate is the velocity (v) of the wave.

Lambda  = velocity * (1\mu)

lambda*mu = v

Reciprocal relationship between frequency and wavelength.

Math comes in because there are simple mathematical functions that are periodic that repeat and so can be used to model periodic phenomena.

cost and sint are periodic of period 2pi

cos (t +2pi) = cost

sin(t+2pi) = sint

in a circle
(cost, sint) -> t is radian.periodicity in space.
any multiple of 2pi from positive or negative

cos (t +2pin) = cost

sin(t+2pin) = sint

n = 0,+-1,+-2 

Number of connections to your Database

2011-06-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

SELECT db_name(dbid) as DatabaseName, count(dbid) as NoOfConnections,
loginame as LoginName
FROM sys.sysprocesses
WHERE dbid > 0
GROUP BY dbid, loginame

Works for SQL express and SQL standard edition

i use this to test if the code i write keeps the connection open or closed. very useful when programming in LINQ

DatabaseName    NoOfConnections    LoginName

master    18    sa
VLOCAL    4    vareshlocal

Encrypt/Decrypt QueryString in ASP.net

2010-12-21T17:44:00.000-08:00

when creating asp.net applications its a bummer to actually use

server.urlencode

specially when your using urls such as this

http://www.yoursite.com/default.aspx?page=1
http://www.yoursite.com/default.aspx?page=home

you have to protect these querystrings from unwanted variables that a user might set. alot of solutions point to encrypting these query strings. the following is an extension to the IHttpModule that i modified just setting the httpModules in web config will allow the encryption of the url.
so you can easily use

Response.Write("default.aspx?page=home");

and the output will be encrypted to this :

default.aspx?ats=KtpU3C6JGPi6Q5Dm5vy/+xM33YwsP+19dJYkJ10qAOZwxK4JaK7iT8BozTwC6W17

in the url. and you can easily use Request.Querystring["page"] without the need to decrypt it. so the user sees one thing and the server sees another. this is a very useful feature in the production server.

using System;

using System.IO;

using System.Web;

using System.Text;

using System.Security.Cryptography;

namespace ats

{

public class QueryStringModule : IHttpModule

{

private const string PARAMETER_NAME = "ats=";

private const string ENCRYPTION_KEY = "key";

private readonly static byte[] SALT = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(ENCRYPTION_KEY.Length.ToString());

public void Dispose()

{

// Nothing to dispose

}

public void Init(HttpApplication context)

{

context.BeginRequest += new EventHandler(context_BeginRequest);

}

public void context_BeginRequest(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

HttpContext context = HttpContext.Current;

if (context.Request.Url.OriginalString.Contains("aspx") && context.Request.RawUrl.Contains("?"))

{

string query = ExtractQuery(context.Request.RawUrl);

string path = GetVirtualPath();

if (query.StartsWith(PARAMETER_NAME, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))

{

// Decrypts the query string and rewrites the path.

string rawQuery = query.Replace(PARAMETER_NAME, string.Empty);

string decryptedQuery = Decrypt(rawQuery);

context.RewritePath(path, string.Empty, decryptedQuery);

}

else if (context.Request.HttpMethod == "GET")

{

string encryptedQuery = Encrypt(query);

context.Response.Redirect(path + encryptedQuery);

}

}

}

private static string GetVirtualPath()

{

string path = HttpContext.Current.Request.RawUrl;

path = path.Substring(0, path.IndexOf("?"));

path = path.Substring(path.LastIndexOf("/") + 1);

return path;

}

private static string ExtractQuery(string url)

{

int index = url.IndexOf("?") + 1;

return url.Substring(index);

}

public static string Encrypt(string inputText)

{

RijndaelManaged rijndaelCipher = new RijndaelManaged();

byte[] plainText = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(inputText);

PasswordDeriveBytes SecretKey = new PasswordDeriveBytes(ENCRYPTION_KEY, SALT);

using (ICryptoTransform encryptor = rijndaelCipher.CreateEncryptor(SecretKey.GetBytes(32), SecretKey.GetBytes(16)))

{

using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream())

{

using (CryptoStream cryptoStream = new CryptoStream(memoryStream, encryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Write))

{

cryptoStream.Write(plainText, 0, plainText.Length);

cryptoStream.FlushFinalBlock();

return "?" + PARAMETER_NAME + Convert.ToBase64String(memoryStream.ToArray());

}

}

}

}

public static string Decrypt(string inputText)

{

RijndaelManaged rijndaelCipher = new RijndaelManaged();

byte[] encryptedData = Convert.FromBase64String(inputText);

PasswordDeriveBytes secretKey = new PasswordDeriveBytes(ENCRYPTION_KEY, SALT);

using (ICryptoTransform decryptor = rijndaelCipher.CreateDecryptor(secretKey.GetBytes(32), secretKey.GetBytes(16)))

{

using (MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream(encryptedData))

{

using (CryptoStream cryptoStream = new CryptoStream(memoryStream, decryptor, CryptoStreamMode.Read))

{

byte[] plainText = new byte[encryptedData.Length];

int decryptedCount = cryptoStream.Read(plainText, 0, plainText.Length);

return Encoding.Unicode.GetString(plainText, 0, decryptedCount);

}

}

}

}

}

}

and adding this line to the webconfig httpmodules section:

The beauty of PYTHON Language

2010-11-30T16:25:00.000-08:00

Introduction to Python

Python is a multifaceted, multi-platform, open source, general-purpose and object-oriented programming language like Java, C++ TCL, and Perl, but with a particular affinity towards text processing. Python is a language that maps well to the thought process and abilities of the modern sophisticated programmer. Python has minimal syntax and it is highly scalable, interpreted and readable. It is very easy to use and for maintenance and increases significant productivity.

Python is also useful for coding scripts to be embedded in server side technologies such as Microsoft ASP towards generating dynamic Web pages. Python is highly portable that its statements can be interpreted in a number of operating systems including Unix and its variants, Mac and Windows systems. Python is freely available in both source code and compiled form for nearly every hardware platform in this planet. A major deviation of Python from other languages is that Python uses the indentation of lines of code to work out how the lines should be grouped together for processing. Python is highly interactive, and specifically good for XML processing by its string slicing feature.

Python is written in C and has incorporated many robust features of C. Execution of Python programs is similar to Java. Python programs are compiled into an intermediate representation known as Python bytecode, which will be executed by Python Virtual machine. Python uses reference counting as its memory management scheme.

Python is a dynamically typed language, that is, its variables are not restricted to referencing objects of any particular type by the language.

Scripting languages are traditionally used for small tasks, gluing other programs together, and automating processes, Python is unique in its scalability, from small scripts to very large systems. Python incorporates the best features of a variety of other languages, and introduces a few new ideas of its own, into a remarkably elegant, cohesive, and useful whole. Python can help the job done more quickly and simply.

Python Features

Python's features are more inclined toward programmer efficiency and efficacy, sometimes at the expense of program efficiency. That is, Python programs are faster to write, but sometimes slower to run.

Python is a very high level language (VHLL). Python programs are a high level representation of a programmer's ideas. Low-level housekeeping details like memory allocation and reclamation are handled by Python itself. The developers need not worry about them. High level means seeing the big picture and delegating the details. Python with intelligent syntax reduces clutter. The interpreter understands program structure by examining the physical structure of the code; block delimiters are not required. Modules and classes provide exceedingly accessible abstraction, encapsulation and modularity.

Python programs are interpreted and they have only two tasks: edit and run. Normally the compiling languages like C, undergoes edit, compile, link and run cycles. With dynamic loading and some planning, the cycle can be run, edit and reload the edited part into the running process with stopping. The Python interpreter reads source files called modules, which usually have the extension .py, converts them to portable byte codes, and executes them by interpreting the byte codes much like Java does. Python is sometimes referred to as a scripting language.

Python code is clean, simple and powerful. It is remarkably easy to write, read and maintain. Python programs can be read and understood by non-Python programmers and even non-programmers. Python also makes an excellent teaching as it is relatively devoid of the details that make other languages difficult for neophytes to learn. Python's syntax is minimalist. It lacks a lot of the noise characters that other languages suffer from, like semicolons at the end of each statement, special dereferencing symbols and braces or begin/end for nested code blocks. As opposed to some form of start/end indicators ({ and }), begin/end, if/fi, case/esac and for/done in other programming languages, the hierarchy of blocks of code in Python is indicated by that code block's indentation level. Because of its simplicity, Python's syntax is also very powerful. An equivalent task will often require far less Python code than C code. Fewer lines of code also means fewer bugs, greater programmer productivity and far less frustration. Python began as a minimalist language and change to the core language syntax has been planned and deliberately slow. Future versions of Python may even reduce the complexity of the language.

Python is object-oriented. In Python, everything is an object. The implementation of classes and objects is much simpler in Python. The simplicity makes OOP accessible, laying bare the essential nature of object orientation without complicated trappings that get in the way of the concept.

In Python, variables are dynamically typed. That is, variables are created when they assigned a value and their type depends on the data they contain. An existing variable can be assigned a new value of a different type. With care and understanding, this feature leads to impressive programming power. Used carelessly, dynamic typing can be a major source of program bugs.

Python is blessed with large standard library. Python's core language is very minimal, providing much less functionality. However the standard Python distribution includes a large number and variety of modules, ready and easy to use in our own programs. Library modules include: string operations, regular expressions, file and operating system access, threads, sockets, database access, Internet protocols and even access to Python's parser internals.

Python works on multi-platform. Python has been ported to almost every hardware platform and operating system available, including Linux, Unix, MacOS, and Windows. General-purpose modules, if properly coded, will run on multiple platforms without any modification.

Python has multiple implementations. Python standard implementation has been written in C. Now there is JPython, which is 100% Java. This runs on Java platforms and provides seamless integration to Java classes. In addition, Stackless Python is available. This takes away the necessity of C stack, enabling Python to run in tight quarters, such as on handheld devices.

Python is scalable. That is, simple 10-line scripts are easy to write and read and large systems with thousands of lines of code are feasible and maintainable in Python. Python implements encapsulation at multiple levels. Functions encapsulate reusable program code, classes combine data with their associated functions, modules contain related classes and functions and packages encapsulate systems. If native Python code is too slow or can not access low-level functionality, extension modules can be written in C. If we have an application that needs to be scriptable, Python can be embedded.

Python is open source. It is completely free for use, modification, redistribution, and commercial use. Python's source code is freely downloadable.

Convert microsoft word documents to HTML

2010-11-22T03:59:00.001-08:00

this is my class file, modified for easy use see below

to invoke this method in an asp.net page just use :

string fullPath = Server.MapPath("~/folderTest/");
ats_docConverter.atsWord.atsStart(fullPath + "test.doc");

this is my class file:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections;

namespace ats_docConverter
{
public class atsWord : IDisposable
{
// Fields
private bool _CreateFilesFolder;
private Exception _Except;
private bool _IsWordInstalled;
private int _ReturnCode;
private bool _SavePictureWithDocument;
private bool _UpdateLinksOnSave;
private string _Version;
private object objDoc;
private object objDocuments;
private object objWordApp;
private object unknown;
private Type wordApp;

public static void atsStart(String _filename)
{
atsWord a = new atsWord();
a.OpenDoc(_filename);
a.DocToHtml(_filename);
a.Dispose();
}
// Methods
public atsWord()
{
this.OfficeApplicationsInit();
}

public void Dispose()
{
if ((this.objWordApp != null) || (this.wordApp != null))
{
Exception exception;
try
{
if (this.objDoc != null)
{
this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("Close", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDoc, new object[3]);
}
this.objWordApp.GetType().InvokeMember("Quit", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objWordApp, null);
}
catch (Exception exception1)
{
exception = exception1;
this._Except = exception;
}
try
{
if (this.objDoc != null)
{
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(this.objDoc);
this.objDoc = null;
}
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(this.objDocuments);
this.objDocuments = null;
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(this.objWordApp);
this.objWordApp = null;
GC.Collect();
GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();
GC.Collect();
}
catch (Exception exception2)
{
exception = exception2;
this._Except = exception;
}
}
}

private int DocToHtml(string fileHtml)
{
this._ReturnCode = 0;
if (((this.objDoc != null) && (this.objWordApp != null)) && (this.wordApp != null))
{
try
{
int num;
object[] objArray;
if (Convert.ToInt32(this.Version) <= 9)
{
num = 10;
objArray = new object[] { fileHtml, num, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown };
this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("SaveAs", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDoc, objArray);
}
else if (Convert.ToInt32(this.Version) <= 10)
{
num = 10;
objArray = new object[] { fileHtml, num, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown };
this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("SaveAs", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDoc, objArray);
}
else
{
num = 10;
objArray = new object[] { fileHtml, num, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown };
this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("SaveAs", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDoc, objArray);
}
}
catch (Exception exception)
{
this._Except = exception;
this._ReturnCode = 2;
return 2;
}
return 0;
}
this._ReturnCode = 100;
return 100;
}

private void OfficeApplicationsInit()
{
this._ReturnCode = 0;
this._IsWordInstalled = false;
this._SavePictureWithDocument = false;
this._CreateFilesFolder = true;
this._UpdateLinksOnSave = true;
this.unknown = Type.Missing;
this.wordApp = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("Word.Application");
if (this.wordApp == null)
{
this._ReturnCode = 1;
this._IsWordInstalled = false;
}
this.objWordApp = Activator.CreateInstance(this.wordApp);
this.objWordApp.GetType().InvokeMember("Visible", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, this.objWordApp, new object[] { false });
this.objWordApp.GetType().InvokeMember("DisplayAlerts", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, this.objWordApp, new object[] { false });
this.objDocuments = this.objWordApp.GetType().InvokeMember("Documents", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, this.objWordApp, null);
this.objDoc = null;
this._IsWordInstalled = true;
this._Version = "";
if (this._ReturnCode == 0)
{
object obj2 = null;
if (this._IsWordInstalled)
{
obj2 = this.objWordApp.GetType().InvokeMember("Version", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, this.objWordApp, null);
}
this._Version = obj2.ToString().Split(new char[] { '.' })[0];
if (this.Version == "")
{
this._ReturnCode = 2;
}
}
}

private int OpenDoc(string fileDoc)
{
this._ReturnCode = 0;
if ((this.objWordApp != null) && (this.wordApp != null))
{
Exception exception;
if (this.objDoc != null)
{
try
{
object[] args = new object[3];
args[0] = false;
this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("Close", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDoc, args);
this.objDoc = null;
}
catch (Exception exception1)
{
exception = exception1;
this._Except = exception;
}
}
try
{
object[] objArray;
if (Convert.ToInt32(this.Version) <= 9)
{
objArray = new object[] { fileDoc, this.unknown, false, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown };
this.objDoc = this.objDocuments.GetType().InvokeMember("Open", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDocuments, objArray);
}
else if (Convert.ToInt32(this.Version) <= 10)
{
objArray = new object[] { fileDoc, this.unknown, false, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown };
this.objDoc = this.objDocuments.GetType().InvokeMember("Open", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDocuments, objArray);
}
else
{
objArray = new object[] { fileDoc, this.unknown, true, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown, this.unknown };
this.objDoc = this.objDocuments.GetType().InvokeMember("Open", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDocuments, objArray);
}
object target = this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("Range", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objDoc, new object[] { 0, 0 });
target.GetType().InvokeMember("Text", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, target,null);
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(target);
target = null;
if (this._SavePictureWithDocument)
{
try
{
object obj3 = this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("InlineShapes", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, this.objDoc, null);
int num = (int)obj3.GetType().InvokeMember("Count", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, obj3, null);
for (int i = 1; i <= num; i++)
{
object obj4 = obj3.GetType().InvokeMember("Item", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, obj3, new object[] { i });
if (obj4 != null)
{
object obj5 = obj4.GetType().InvokeMember("LinkFormat", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, obj4, null);
if (obj5 != null)
{
obj5.GetType().InvokeMember("SavePictureWithDocument", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, obj5, new object[] { true });
}
}
}
}
catch
{
}
}
object obj6 = this.objDoc.GetType().InvokeMember("WebOptions", BindingFlags.GetProperty, null, this.objDoc, null);
obj6.GetType().InvokeMember("OrganizeInFolder", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, obj6, new object[] { this._CreateFilesFolder });
object obj7 = this.objWordApp.GetType().InvokeMember("DefaultWebOptions", BindingFlags.InvokeMethod, null, this.objWordApp, null);
obj7.GetType().InvokeMember("UpdateLinksOnSave", BindingFlags.SetProperty, null, obj7, new object[] { this._UpdateLinksOnSave });
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(obj7);
obj7 = null;
Marshal.ReleaseComObject(obj6);
obj6 = null;
}
catch (Exception exception2)
{
exception = exception2;
this._Except = exception;
this._ReturnCode = 1;
return 1;
}
return 0;
}
this._ReturnCode = 100;
return 100;
}

private bool CreateFilesFolder
{
get
{
return this._CreateFilesFolder;
}
set
{
this._CreateFilesFolder = value;
}
}

private bool IsWordInstalled
{
get
{
return this._IsWordInstalled;
}
}

private int ReturnCode
{
get
{
return this._ReturnCode;
}
}

private bool SavePictureWithDocument
{
get
{
return this._SavePictureWithDocument;
}
set
{
this._SavePictureWithDocument = value;
}
}

private bool UpdateLinksOnSave
{
get
{
return this._UpdateLinksOnSave;
}
set
{
this._UpdateLinksOnSave = value;
}
}

private string Version
{
get
{
return this._Version;
}
}
}

}

Auto Generate SIMPLE complete sql procedures

2010-11-09T17:49:00.000-08:00

i modified this script from the source for it to run on SQL server 2008 R2.
updated: THIS WILL WORK with data types of length MAX

-- Author: www.sqlbook.com
-- Modified: Aresh Saharkhiz
-- Copyright: (c) www.sqlbook.com. You are free to use and redistribute
-- this script as long as this comments section with the
-- author and copyright details are not altered.
-- Purpose: For a specified user defined table (or all user defined
-- tables) in the database this script generates 4 Stored
-- Procedure definitions with different Procedure name
-- suffixes:
-- 1) List all records in the table (suffix of _lst)
-- 2) Get a specific record from the table (suffix of _sel)
-- 3) UPDATE or INSERT (UPSERT) - (suffix of _ups)
-- 4) DELETE a specified row - (suffix of _del)
-- e.g. For a table called location the script will create
-- procedure definitions for the following procedures:
-- dbo.udp_Location_lst
-- dbo.udp_Location_sel
-- dbo.udp_Location_ups
-- dbo.udp_Location_del
-- Notes: The stored procedure definitions can either be printed
-- to the screen or executed using EXEC sp_ExecuteSQL.
-- The stored proc names are prefixed with udp_ to avoid
-- conflicts with system stored procs.
-- Assumptions: - This script assumes that the primary key is the first
-- column in the table and that if the primary key is
-- an integer then it is an IDENTITY (autonumber) field.
-- - This script is not suitable for the link tables
-- in the middle of a many to many relationship.
-- - After the script has run you will need to add
-- an ORDER BY clause into the '_lst' procedures
-- according to your needs / required sort order.
-- - Assumes you have set valid values for the
-- config variables in the section immediately below
-- #########################################################

-- ##########################################################
/* SET CONFIG VARIABLES THAT ARE USED IN SCRIPT */
-- ##########################################################

-- Do we want to generate the SP definitions for every user defined
-- table in the database or just a single specified table?
-- Assign a blank string - '' for all tables or the table name for
-- a single table.
DECLARE @GenerateProcsFor varchar(100)
--SET @GenerateProcsFor = 'Orders'
SET @GenerateProcsFor = ''

-- which database do we want to create the procs for?
-- Change both the USE and SET lines below to set the datbase name
-- to the required database.
USE test
DECLARE @DatabaseName varchar(100)
SET @DatabaseName = 'test'

-- do we want the script to print out the CREATE PROC statements
-- or do we want to execute them to actually create the procs?
-- Assign a value of either 'Print' or 'Execute'
DECLARE @PrintOrExecute varchar(10)
SET @PrintOrExecute = 'Print'

-- Is there a table name prefix i.e. 'tbl_' which we don't want
-- to include in our stored proc names?
DECLARE @TablePrefix varchar(10)
SET @TablePrefix = ''

-- For our '_lst' and '_sel' procedures do we want to
-- do SELECT * or SELECT [ColumnName,]...
-- Assign a value of either 1 or 0
DECLARE @UseSelectWildCard bit
SET @UseSelectWildCard = 0

-- ##########################################################
/* END SETTING OF CONFIG VARIABLE
-- do not edit below this line */
-- ##########################################################

-- DECLARE CURSOR containing all columns from user defined tables
-- in the database
DECLARE TableCol Cursor FOR
SELECT c.TABLE_SCHEMA, c.TABLE_NAME, c.COLUMN_NAME, c.DATA_TYPE, c.CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns c INNER JOIN
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Tables t ON c.TABLE_NAME = t.TABLE_NAME
WHERE t.Table_Catalog = @DatabaseName
AND t.TABLE_TYPE = 'BASE TABLE'
ORDER BY c.TABLE_NAME, c.ORDINAL_POSITION

-- Declare variables which will hold values from cursor rows
DECLARE @TableSchema varchar(100), @TableName varchar(100)
DECLARE @ColumnName varchar(100), @DataType varchar(30)
DECLARE @CharLength varchar(100)

DECLARE @ColumnNameCleaned varchar(100)

-- Declare variables which will track what table we are
-- creating Stored Procs for
DECLARE @CurrentTable varchar(100)
DECLARE @FirstTable bit
DECLARE @FirstColumnName varchar(100)
DECLARE @FirstColumnDataType varchar(30)
DECLARE @ObjectName varchar(100) -- this is the tablename with the
-- specified tableprefix lopped off.
DECLARE @TablePrefixLength int

-- init vars
SET @CurrentTable = ''
SET @FirstTable = 1
SET @TablePrefixLength = Len(@TablePrefix)

-- Declare variables which will hold the queries we are building use unicode
-- data types so that can execute using sp_ExecuteSQL
DECLARE @LIST nvarchar(4000), @UPSERT nvarchar(4000)
DECLARE @SELECT nvarchar(4000), @INSERT nvarchar(4000), @INSERTVALUES varchar(4000)
DECLARE @UPDATE nvarchar(4000), @DELETE nvarchar(4000)

-- open the cursor
OPEN TableCol

-- get the first row of cursor into variables
FETCH NEXT FROM TableCol INTO @TableSchema, @TableName, @ColumnName, @DataType, @CharLength

-- loop through the rows of the cursor
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN

SET @ColumnNameCleaned = Replace(@ColumnName, ' ', '')

-- is this a new table?
IF @TableName <> @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- if is the end of the last table
IF @CurrentTable <> '' BEGIN
IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- first add any syntax to end the statement

-- _lst
SET @LIST = @List + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13)

-- _sel
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13)

-- UPDATE (remove trailing comma and append the WHERE clause)
SET @UPDATE = SUBSTRING(@UPDATE, 0, LEN(@UPDATE)- 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)

-- INSERT
SET @INSERT = SUBSTRING(@INSERT, 0, LEN(@INSERT) - 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = SUBSTRING(@INSERTVALUES, 0, LEN(@INSERTVALUES) -1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')'
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + @INSERTVALUES

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @FirstColumnDataType IN ('int', 'bigint', 'smallint', 'tinyint', 'float', 'decimal')
BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = 0 BEGIN' + Char(13)
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = '''' BEGIN' + Char(13)
END
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@INSERT, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(9) + 'SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() As InsertedID' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'ELSE BEGIN' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@UPDATE, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13)

-- _del
-- delete proc completed already

-- --------------------------------------------------
-- now either print the SP definitions or
-- execute the statements to create the procs
-- --------------------------------------------------
IF @PrintOrExecute <> 'Execute' BEGIN
PRINT @LIST
PRINT @SELECT
PRINT @UPSERT
PRINT @DELETE
END ELSE BEGIN
EXEC sp_Executesql @LIST
EXEC sp_Executesql @SELECT
EXEC sp_Executesql @UPSERT
EXEC sp_Executesql @DELETE
END
END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable
END

-- update the value held in @CurrentTable
SET @CurrentTable = @TableName
SET @FirstColumnName = @ColumnName
SET @FirstColumnDataType = @DataType

IF @TablePrefixLength > 0 BEGIN
IF SUBSTRING(@CurrentTable, 1, @TablePrefixLength) = @TablePrefix BEGIN
PRINT Char(13) + 'DEBUG: OBJ NAME: ' + RIGHT(@CurrentTable, LEN(@CurrentTable) - @TablePrefixLength)
SET @ObjectName = RIGHT(@CurrentTable, LEN(@CurrentTable) - @TablePrefixLength)
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @ObjectName = @CurrentTable
END
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @ObjectName = @CurrentTable
END

IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- ----------------------------------------------------
-- now start building the procedures for the next table
-- ----------------------------------------------------

-- _lst
SET @LIST = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_lst]' + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @UseSelectWildcard = 1 BEGIN
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + 'SELECT * '
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + 'SELECT [' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _sel
SET @SELECT = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_sel]' + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
IF @CharLength = -1 BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + '(MAX)'
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As varchar(100)) + ')'
END
END
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @UseSelectWildcard = 1 BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'SELECT * '
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'SELECT [' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_ups]' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
IF @CharLength = -1 BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + '(MAX)'
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As Varchar(10)) + ')'
END

END

-- UPDATE
SET @UPDATE = Char(9) + 'UPDATE ' + @TableName + ' SET ' + Char(13)

-- INSERT -- don't add first column to insert if it is an
-- integer (assume autonumber)
SET @INSERT = Char(9) + 'INSERT INTO ' + @TableName + ' (' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = Char(9) + 'VALUES (' + Char(13)

IF @FirstColumnDataType NOT IN ('int', 'bigint', 'smallint', 'tinyint')
BEGIN
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + Char(9) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + '],' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = @INSERTVALUES + Char(9) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ',' + Char(13)
END

-- _del
SET @DELETE = 'CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[udp_' + @ObjectName + '_del]' + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
IF @CharLength = -1 BEGIN
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + '(MAX)'
END
ELSE BEGIN
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As Varchar(10)) + ')'
END

END
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + 'DELETE FROM ' + @TableName + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + 'WHERE [' + @ColumnName + '] = @' + @ColumnNameCleaned + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @DELETE = @DELETE + Char(13)

END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable
END
ELSE BEGIN
IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- is the same table as the last row of the cursor
-- just append the column

-- _lst
IF @UseSelectWildCard = 0 BEGIN
SET @LIST = @LIST + ', ' + Char(13) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _sel
IF @UseSelectWildCard = 0 BEGIN
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + ', ' + Char(13) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + ']'
END

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ',' + Char(13) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ' ' + @DataType
IF @DataType IN ('varchar', 'nvarchar', 'char', 'nchar') BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + '(' + CAST(@CharLength As varchar(10)) + ')'
END

-- UPDATE
SET @UPDATE = @UPDATE + Char(9) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + '] = @' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ',' + Char(13)

-- INSERT
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + Char(9) + Char(9) + '[' + @ColumnName + '],' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = @INSERTVALUES + Char(9) + Char(9) + '@' + @ColumnNameCleaned + ',' + Char(13)

-- _del
-- delete proc completed already
END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable'
END

-- fetch next row of cursor into variables
FETCH NEXT FROM TableCol INTO @TableSchema, @TableName, @ColumnName, @DataType, @CharLength
END

-- ----------------
-- clean up cursor
-- ----------------
CLOSE TableCol
DEALLOCATE TableCol

-- ------------------------------------------------
-- repeat the block of code from within the cursor
-- So that the last table has its procs completed
-- and printed / executed
-- ------------------------------------------------

-- if is the end of the last table
IF @CurrentTable <> '' BEGIN
IF @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable BEGIN

-- first add any syntax to end the statement

-- _lst
SET @LIST = @List + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @LIST = @LIST + Char(13)

-- _sel
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + 'FROM ' + @CurrentTable + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13) + Char(13) + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @SELECT = @SELECT + Char(13)

-- UPDATE (remove trailing comma and append the WHERE clause)
SET @UPDATE = SUBSTRING(@UPDATE, 0, LEN(@UPDATE)- 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + 'WHERE [' + @FirstColumnName + '] = @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + Char(13)

-- INSERT
SET @INSERT = SUBSTRING(@INSERT, 0, LEN(@INSERT) - 1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')' + Char(13)
SET @INSERTVALUES = SUBSTRING(@INSERTVALUES, 0, LEN(@INSERTVALUES) -1) + Char(13) + Char(9) + ')'
SET @INSERT = @INSERT + @INSERTVALUES

-- _ups
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13) + 'AS' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT ON' + Char(13)
IF @FirstColumnDataType IN ('int', 'bigint', 'smallint', 'tinyint', 'float', 'decimal')
BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = 0 BEGIN' + Char(13)
END ELSE BEGIN
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'IF @' + Replace(@FirstColumnName, ' ', '') + ' = '''' BEGIN' + Char(13)
END
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@INSERT, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(9) + 'SELECT SCOPE_IDENTITY() As InsertedID' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'ELSE BEGIN' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + ISNULL(@UPDATE, '') + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'END' + Char(13) + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + 'SET NOCOUNT OFF' + Char(13)
SET @UPSERT = @UPSERT + Char(13)

-- _del
-- delete proc completed already

-- --------------------------------------------------
-- now either print the SP definitions or
-- execute the statements to create the procs
-- --------------------------------------------------
IF @PrintOrExecute <> 'Execute' BEGIN
PRINT @LIST
PRINT @SELECT
PRINT @UPSERT
PRINT @DELETE
END ELSE BEGIN
EXEC sp_Executesql @LIST
EXEC sp_Executesql @SELECT
EXEC sp_Executesql @UPSERT
EXEC sp_Executesql @DELETE
END
END -- end @GenerateProcsFor = '' OR @GenerateProcsFor = @CurrentTable
END

ATS my own Content Mangement System in ASP.NET 4.0 (Part 1)

2010-10-19T20:39:00.000-07:00

This is part 1 of a series of tutorials ive decided to write on CMS. this will be my 3rd CMS. i started with .net version 1.1 and 2.0 then moved to 3.0 and 3.5 and now 4.0

my first CMS made use of dynamic templates loaded from the database and the content of the templates were placed inside each place in the template using javascript. The advantage was that the templates could be edited in any way...as long as you placed the right DIV the content would jump inside the template in the browser. the disadvantage was when you made a mistake in loading the DIV or you wanted to extend the content to add more

in the second CMS i made use of master pages and created a structure, the structure would load custom user controls that were the content of the page. the disadvantage was templates should be pre-created. i had to create a complete structure of a template before i could fill it up that means placeholders had to be there and uploading the master page was a drag

this version im going to be creating a combination of both, a master page that can be loaded from the database and content as custom user controls placed in the template during run time

for this tutorial im going to start with creating a dynamic template loaded from the database
im using visual studio professional with .net Framework 4.0

Step 1: Create a master page and default page and remove all the contents of the master page
Step 2: Create a default page and remove all the contents aswell

Step 3 create a class file under the upcode and name it master, change the master pages extended option in the code behind to the name of that file

Step 4: Time to code our master page

//START HERE

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Data.SqlClient;

namespace atsLibrary ///you can name this anything you want

{

/// Basic master

public class Master : System.Web.UI.MasterPage

{
///im enumerating my placeholders incase i want to add more
private enum MyPlaceHolders

{

banner,

leftnav,

bodymain,

rightnav,

footer

}

public Master()

: base()

{

base.AppRelativeVirtualPath = "~/Master.Master";

Array PlaceHolderItems = Enum.GetValues(typeof(MyPlaceHolders));

foreach(MyPlaceHolders i in PlaceHolderItems)

{

base.ContentPlaceHolders.Add(i.ToString());

}

}

private HtmlHead _head;

public HtmlHead Head

{

get

{

return _head;

}

private set

{

_head = value;

}

}

private HtmlTitle _title;

public string Title

{

get

{

return _title.Text;

}

set

{

_title.Text = value;

}

}

private HtmlForm _form;

public HtmlForm Form

{

get

{

return _form;

}

private set

{

_form = value;

}

}

public Panel DefaultTopNavigationPanel { get; private set; }

protected override void FrameworkInitialize()

{

base.FrameworkInitialize();

Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("\r\n\r\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN\" \"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd\">\r\n\r\n<html xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml\" >\r\n"));

Head = new HtmlHead("head");

_title = new HtmlTitle();

Head.Controls.Add(_title);

var headContentPlaceHolder = new ContentPlaceHolder();

headContentPlaceHolder.ID = "head";

ITemplate templateHead = null;

if (base.ContentTemplates != null)

{

templateHead = (ITemplate)base.ContentTemplates["head"];

}

if (templateHead != null)

{

templateHead.InstantiateIn(headContentPlaceHolder);

}

Head.Controls.Add(headContentPlaceHolder);

Controls.Add(Head);

Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("\r\n<body>\r\n"));

Form = new HtmlForm();

Form.ID = "aspnetForm";

Controls.Add(Form);

var contentPlaceHolderContainer = new Panel

{

CssClass = "main"

};

Form.Controls.Add(contentPlaceHolderContainer);

///------i want to get a template from the database--------
///the template can contain this
///
test me content after the place holder

object result = null;

using (SqlConnection dbConn = connectionManager.getSqlConn())

{

String sql = "Select templateContent from tbl_atsTemplate";

SqlCommand newsComm = new SqlCommand(sql, dbConn);

result = newsComm.ExecuteScalar();

}

String myResult = result.ToString();

string[] separator = new string[] { "<con>" };
///replace any con with a placeholder

String[] splotArr = myResult.Split(separator, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

Array PlaceHolderItems = Enum.GetValues(typeof(MyPlaceHolders));

int i = 0;

foreach (string arrStr in splotArr)

{

contentPlaceHolderContainer.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(arrStr.ToString()));

ContentPlaceHolder SpecificContentPlaceHolder = new ContentPlaceHolder();

String PlaceHolderName = PlaceHolderItems.GetValue(i).ToString();

SpecificContentPlaceHolder.ID = PlaceHolderName;

ITemplate templateSpecific = null;

if (base.ContentTemplates != null)

{

templateSpecific = (ITemplate)base.ContentTemplates[PlaceHolderName];

}

if (templateSpecific != null)

{

templateSpecific.InstantiateIn(SpecificContentPlaceHolder);

}

contentPlaceHolderContainer.Controls.Add(SpecificContentPlaceHolder);

i++;

}

InternalFrameworkInitialize();

Form.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("\r\n </div>\r\n "));

Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("\r\n</body>\r\n</html>\r\n"));

}

/// method to add master specific controls from within inheriting masters

protected virtual void InternalFrameworkInitialize() { }

}

}

//END HERE

Step 5: either override the content place holders on leave them blank
if you override you will get new content

EXAMPLE:OUTPUT:

you can see all the were replaced by content place holders

OUTCOME: given this a complete template can be placed in the database. and internal parts of the a template can be changed using other controls. Part 2 will explain how to load these controls also coming from the database.

Convert a blender model to an MD2 Format

2010-08-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

MD2 is a model format used by id Software's id Tech 2 engine and is thus used by Quake II as well as many other games, most of them using this engine, including SiN and Soldier of Fortune.

The format is primarily used for animated player models although it can also be used for static models.

Blender automatically exports 199 frames (in Md2) unless you load a framelist.

USING BLENDER 2.49b
Problem exporting to MD2 format:

Title: Blender 2.49b Bugfix Release
* Quake MD2 Export, Fix for vertex normals [patch #19206]

so its already fixed...what to do?
md2 requires the whole model be a single object & everything must be assigned a UV
Follow this tutorial to make it happen and try to convert again.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics

Remember each Vertex should have an image... that means selecting a face and then moving the vertex based on the view
After loading an image and moving the vertex of each face:

you can now convert to MD2... you will notice the command window showing the details of the conversion

Blender Hot key Cheat sheet

2010-04-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.blender.org/

UNIVERSAL
ESC	Stops Ongoing Procedure
SPACE	Opens Toolbox
TAB	Toggles Edit/Object Mode
CTRL-Z	Undo
CTRL-Y	Redo
ALT-U	Undo Menu
CTRL-W	Save File
F1	Open File
F2	Save File
F3	Save Rendered Image
F4	Logic Buttons
F5	Shading Buttons
F6	Texture Buttons
F7	Object Buttons
F8	World Buttons
F9	Editing Buttons
F10	Scene Buttons
F11	Show/Hide Rendering
F12	Starts Rendering

Modeling
IKEY	Insert Keyframe
ALT-C	Convert Menu
SHIFT-D	Duplicate
NKEY	Object Properties Panel
CTRL-J	Join Objects
ALT-J	Join Faces
PKEY	Separate
MKEY	Layer Menu
CTRL-P	Parent
ALT-P	Clears Parent
WKEY	Specials Menu
XKEY	Delete
CTRL-H	Hooks Verticies
OKEY	Proportional Editing
EKEY	Extrude Menu
CTRL-N	Align Face Normals
FKEY	Make Face/Edge
KKEY	Knife Tool
CTRL-LMB	Create New Vertex
SHIFT-R	Face Loop Selection
CTRL-E	Edge Specials Menu
SHIFT-M	Mirror Menu

Navigation
Home	All Layers Displayed
CKEY	Centers View on 3D Cursor
ZKEY	Toggles Wire/Solid View
NUM.	View Selected
NUM1	Front View
NUM7	Top View
NUM3	Side View
NUM0	Camera View
CTRL-NUM1	Back View
CTRL-NUM7	Bottom View
CTRL-NUM3	Other Side View
CTRL-NUM4	Pan Display Right
CTRL-NUM6	Pan Display Left
CTRL-NUM2	Pan Display Up
CTRL-NUM8	Pan Dislay Down
NUM8	Oribt Up
NUM2	Orbit Down
NUM4	Orbit Counter-Clockwise
NUM6	Orbit Clockwise
MMB-SCROLL	Zoom In/Out
MMB-DRAG	Orbit View
NUM-	Zoom Out
NUM+	Zoom In
ALT-A	Play Animation
LEFT ARROW	Decrease Frame Number
RIGHT ARROW	Increase Frame Number

Selecting - Transforms
AKEY	Selects/Deselects All
BKEY	Border/Box Select
BKEY-BKEY	Circle Select
GKEY	Grab Mode
GKEY-X or Y or Z	Grab Constrain to X-Y-Z
ALT-G	Object Set To 0 Location
RKEY	Rotate Mode
RKEY-X or Y or Z	Rotate Constrain to X-Y-Z
ALT-R	Object Set To 0 Rotation
SKEY	Scale Mode
SKEY-X or Y or Z	Scale Constrain to X-Y-Z
ALT-S	Object Set To 0 Scale
HKEY	Toggle Align/Free Handles
VKEY	Vector Handles
CTRL-SPACE	Toggles 3D Widget
SHIFT-TAB	Use Snap/Grid

My toolbox for web development using .net

2010-01-20T19:13:00.000-08:00

Resharper: Is one of those add-ins that once you start using it would be hard to give up – as it provides solutions to programming errors, helps out with refactoring, unit testing, code formatting and clean up. [link]
GhostDoc: This free extension automatically generates your documentation comments for your code. A must. [link]
Clone Detective: This add-in tells you where you are repeating code. Very helpful but sometimes does not play well with others add-ins. [link]
Dundas: Best graphing framework on .NET period. Only negative is that it is not cheap but you can accomplish most stuff with ASP.NET Charting Controls. [link]
Virtual Earth: Fun control to use Virtual Earth. [link]
Telerik Controls: Great controls and is a must but like Dundas is not cheap. [link]
ASP.Net Ajax Framework: A must if you are still doing web forms page. [link]
ASP.Net Ajax Toolkit: The bells and whistles for the framework. [link]

Most Common Sorting algorithms in C# class

2009-12-28T23:01:00.000-08:00

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Web;

namespace ats.SortAlgo

{

public class Sorters

{

}

public class QuickSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Quick Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

q_sort(0, x - 1);

}

public void q_sort(int left, int right)

{

int pivot, l_hold, r_hold;

l_hold = left;

r_hold = right;

pivot = a[left];

while (left < right)

{

while ((a[right] >= pivot) && (left < right))

{

right--;

}

if (left != right)

{

a[left] = a[right];

left++;

}

while ((a[left] <= pivot) && (left < right))

{

left++;

}

if (left != right)

{

a[right] = a[left];

right--;

}

}

a[left] = pivot;

pivot = left;

left = l_hold;

right = r_hold;

if (left < pivot)

{

q_sort(left, pivot - 1);

}

if (right > pivot)

{

q_sort(pivot + 1, right);

}

}

}

public class BubbleSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Bubble Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

int i;

int j;

int temp;

for (i = (x - 1); i >= 0; i--)

{

for (j = 1; j <= i; j++)

{

if (a[j - 1] > a[j])

{

temp = a[j - 1];

a[j - 1] = a[j];

a[j] = temp;

}

}

}

}

}

public class HeapSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Heap Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

int i;

int temp;

for (i = (x / 2) - 1; i >= 0; i--)

{

siftDown(i, x);

}

for (i = x - 1; i >= 1; i--)

{

temp = a[0];

a[0] = a[i];

a[i] = temp;

siftDown(0, i - 1);

}

}

public void siftDown(int root, int bottom)

{

bool done = false;

int maxChild;

int temp;

while ((root * 2 <= bottom) && (!done))

{

if (root * 2 == bottom)

maxChild = root * 2;

else if (a[root * 2] > a[root * 2 + 1])

maxChild = root * 2;

else

maxChild = root * 2 + 1;

if (a[root] < a[maxChild])

{

temp = a[root];

a[root] = a[maxChild];

a[maxChild] = temp;

root = maxChild;

}

else

{

done = true;

}

}

}

}

public class InsertionSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Insertion Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

int i;

int j;

int index;

for (i = 1; i < x; i++)

{

index = a[i];

j = i;

while ((j > 0) && (a[j - 1] > index))

{

a[j] = a[j - 1];

j = j - 1;

}

a[j] = index;

}

}

}

public class MergeSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

private int[] b = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Merge Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

m_sort(0, x - 1);

}

public void m_sort(int left, int right)

{

int mid;

if (right > left)

{

mid = (right + left) / 2;

m_sort(left, mid);

m_sort(mid + 1, right);

merge(left, mid + 1, right);

}

}

public void merge(int left, int mid, int right)

{

int i, left_end, num_elements, tmp_pos;

left_end = mid - 1;

tmp_pos = left;

num_elements = right - left + 1;

while ((left <= left_end) && (mid <= right))

{

if (a[left] <= a[mid])

{

b[tmp_pos] = a[left];

tmp_pos = tmp_pos + 1;

left = left + 1;

}

else

{

b[tmp_pos] = a[mid];

tmp_pos = tmp_pos + 1;

mid = mid + 1;

}

}

while (left <= left_end)

{

b[tmp_pos] = a[left];

left = left + 1;

tmp_pos = tmp_pos + 1;

}

while (mid <= right)

{

b[tmp_pos] = a[mid];

mid = mid + 1;

tmp_pos = tmp_pos + 1;

}

for (i = 0; i < num_elements; i++)

{

a[right] = b[right];

right = right - 1;

}

}

}

public class SelectionSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Selection Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

int i, j;

int min, temp;

for (i = 0; i < x - 1; i++)

{

min = i;

for (j = i + 1; j < x; j++)

{

if (a[j] < a[min])

{

min = j;

}

}

temp = a[i];

a[i] = a[min];

a[min] = temp;

}

}

}

public class ShellSort

{

// array of integers to hold values

private int[] a = new int[100];

// number of elements in array

private int x;

// Shell Sort Algorithm

public void sortArray()

{

int i, j, increment, temp;

increment = 3;

while (increment > 0)

{

for (i = 0; i < x; i++)

{

j = i;

temp = a[i];

while ((j >= increment) && (a[j - increment] > temp))

{

a[j] = a[j - increment];

j = j - increment;

}

a[j] = temp;

}

if (increment / 2 != 0)

{

increment = increment / 2;

}

else if (increment == 1)

{

increment = 0;

}

else

{

increment = 1;

}

}

}

}

}

Basic of Electronics to build robots

2009-10-03T20:04:00.000-07:00

Transistor

a transistor is a semiconductor device commonly used to amplify or switch electronic signals.

One of the Symbols used for transistors in schematic diagrams

a common transistor that i use is the C945 transistor.

Examples of Transistors

Resistor
A resistor is a block of material that limits the flow of current. The greater the resistance, the lower the current will be. on other words Resistors restrict the flow of electric current, for example a resistor is placed in series with a light-emitting diode (LED) to limit the current passing through the LED.

Resistor values are normally shown using coloured bands.
Each colour represents a number as shown in the table.

Most resistors have 4 bands:

The first band gives the first digit.
The second band gives the second digit.
The third band indicates the number of zeros.
The fourth band is used to shows the tolerance (precision) of the resistor, this may be ignored for almost all circuits

The Resistor Colour Code
Colour	Number
Black	0
Brown	1
Red	2
Orange	3
Yellow	4
Green	5
Blue	6
Violet	7
Grey	8
White	9

Capacitors

A capacitor (historically known as a "condenser") is a device that stores energy in an electric field, by accumulating an internal imbalance of electric charge.
A capacitor functions much like a battery, but charges and discharges much more efficiently (batteries, though, can store much more charge).

Capacitor Symbol

Capacitors are labeled differently for a list please see http://www.twysted-pair.com/capidcds.htm

Relay
A relay is an electrically operated switch.
Relays are used to and for:

* Control a high-voltage circuit with a low-voltage signal, as in some types of modems or audio amplifiers.

Relay Symbols

a typical 5 pin relay (different with 6 pin replay)

Other Examples

10 CSS Hacks

2009-08-20T02:56:00.000-07:00

If you are front end coder you must know how important is to make cross browses, valid CSS and xHTML code. And also you must know how much time we are spending in all those hacks and fixes for various browsers. I've written about some of them earlier on PNG transparency issues, Yellow fields in web form, Vertical align div etc..

Here is the list of 10 hand picked CSS hacks and tricks which can help you in your CSS code and also save some time.

1. Vertical align div

One of current CSS left outs is vertical align div. And before CSS 3 comes we have to use some tricks to solve this problem. I looked over for some solutions and it all comes up to defining it as table and using vertical align. The second one appears a lot and it’s a nice solution, but it has two faults, I’ll tell you later about them, here’s the code first.

Idea is to place absolute div 50% left and top and then to move margin left and top half if it’s size.

Vector people

.wrapper {

width: 100px;

height: 100px;

position: absolute;

top: 50%;

left: 50%;

margin-left: -50px;

margin-top: -50px;

}

Problem?

This works only with defined height and when div height is less then browser height so you can’t have scroll. Now you’ll ask why do anyone want vertical align when there’s a vertical scroll? Well for example you have container height 820px and you have it vertically centered in all larger resolutions, simple.

Solution

In this problem (when browser height is less than div height) at smaller resolutions 1/3 of div is not visible, it’s in negative top margin. So idea is to place some relative div that will prevent div to go into negative margin. Here is the code.

Content

</div>

html, body {

height: 100%;

margin: 0;

padding: 0;

}

* {

margin:0px auto;

padding:0;

}

div#shim {

visibility: hidden;

width: 100%;

height: 50%;

margin-top: -200px;

float: left;

}

div#wrapper {

width: 1000px;

height: 400px;

clear: both;

background:red;

position: relative;

top: -200px;

/* IE4ever Hack: Hide from IE4 **/

position: static;

/** end hack */

}

/* Hide from IE5mac \*//*/

div#shim {

display: none;

}

html, body {

height: auto;}/* end hack */

/* ]]> */

2. Min-Height

selector {

min-height:500px;

height:auto; !important

height:500px;

}

3. PNG transparency

First one is if you need just simple transparent image, without some special needs for example backgrounds etc. The solution would be png fix. I've used it many times but it has lots of faults, for example with padding, margins and absolute positioning. Sometimes i can mess up the rest of your JavaScript files, but anyway very useful script. You can download it here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/pngfix.js and just include it in your <head> tag

PNG

<!--[if lt IE 7.]>

<![endif]-->

The second one can partly handle issues from first and it's pure CSS solution. I mostly use this for backgrounds, because if your path for a background is from CSS file then png fix can't handle it.

PNG

.someelement {

}

* html .someelemen {

background-color: #333;

back\ground-color: transparent;

filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.

AlphaImageLoader(src="images/image.png", sizingMethod="scale");

}

I found this very useful, and also when you add some hover effects for example some color or other image. You can see live example here

NOTE: This simple hover is just example and it doesn't work in IE6

.someelement:hover {

background: #333;

}

.someelement:hover {

}

Only problem I had with this was with <a> tag, link just don't work (when it's in div with this kind of background) and i don't know why (talking again for IE6). And only solution i could think of was to place another absolute div over it for the links, content etc... Yes i know it's not elegant but it works if content is not dynamic.

4. Autoclear

.container:after {

content: ".";

display: block;

height: 0;

clear: both;

visibility: hidden;

}

.container {display: inline-table;}

/* Hides from IE-mac \*/

* html .container {height: 1%;}

.container {display: block;}

/* End hide from IE-mac */

5. Reset CSS

html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td {

border:0pt none;

font-family:inherit;

font-size:100%;

font-style:inherit;

font-weight:inherit;

margin:0pt;

outline-color:invert;

outline-style:none;

outline-width:0pt;

padding:0pt;

vertical-align:baseline;

}

table {

border-collapse:separate;

border-spacing:0pt;

}

caption, th, td {

font-weight:normal;

text-align:left;

}

blockquote:before, blockquote:after, q:before, q:after {

content:"";

}

blockquote, q {

quotes:"" "";

}

strong {

font-weight:bold;

}

em {

font-style:italic;

}

* {

margin:0pt;

padding:0pt;

}

6. Scrolling Render IE

html {

background : url(null) fixed no-repeat;

}

7. Opacity

#transdiv {

filter:alpha(opacity=75);

-moz-opacity:.75;

opacity:.75;

}

8. PRE Tag

pre {

white-space: pre-wrap; /* css-3 */

white-space: -moz-pre-wrap !important; /* Mozilla, since 1999 */

white-space: -pre-wrap; /* Opera 4-6 */

white-space: -o-pre-wrap; /* Opera 7 */

word-wrap: break-word; /* Internet Explorer 5.5+ */

}

9. Li Background Repeat IE

<!--[if lt IE 7]>

<style>

#leftnav li { zoom: 1;} /* haslayout=true */

</style>

<![endif]-->

10. Good to know

@charset "UTF-8";

/* ----------------------------------------------------------------------

WinIE7

---------------------------------------------------------------------- */

*:first-child+html selector{property:value;}

/* ----------------------------------------------------------------------

WinIE6 & Mac IE

---------------------------------------------------------------------- */

* html selector{property:value;}

/* ----------------------------------------------------------------------

WinIE6

---------------------------------------------------------------------- */

/*\*/

* html selector{property:value;}

/**/

/* ----------------------------------------------------------------------

MacIE

---------------------------------------------------------------------- */

/*\*//*/

selector{property:value;}

/**/

Weka Using Command Prompt

2009-08-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Using the WEKA GUI is fun and easy, but there are more options when using the command line. also the command line allows you to incorporate any programming language by simply calling the function from the command prompt. Here is what you need to do to get things going.

Download and install WINRAR (you will need to extract the classes)
Download and install WEKA. go to the directory and create a new folder "EXEC"

Notice the default directory. and notice the WEKA.JAR file. aswell as the new folder that we created.

Extract the contents of WEKA.JAR to EXEC folder

going to the EXEC folder, you will notice 3 folders that were extracted. your all set to use the command line.

Try the following code

C:/> java weka.classifiers.functions.multilayerperceptron

you will see a list of commands you can use.
if your just starting and dont know what each command or keyword means. you can copy the exact from the GUI.

How will you know what classifier is where? experience.

but you can start with the GUI. multilayerperceptron is located under weka > Classifiers > functions

once you click you will see a set of commands you can edit via GUI but there are more from the command line. lastly -T tells java what file to look for

the following is an example of running a neural network from the command line

the following is the result of the command.

Introduction to WEKA (GUI)

2009-08-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

What is WEKA?
Collection of machine learning algorithms for solving data mining problems implemented in Java and open sourced under the GPL.
you can download it from
http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/

data files have an extension of ARFF
when creating a file which holds all your data, use the following in sequence:

@relation -> holds the name of the data and how its related to your research
@attribute -> informs you of what attribute each of your data is about(ex. its a real number)
@data -> your main data which should be the same length as the number of attributes separated by a comma.

example:

@relation MusicGenre
@attribute BitRate real
@attribute Music {Jazz, Rock, Country, Classical}

@data
12.51,Jazz
45.23,Pop

the weka version im using is 3.6.1. lets start off with opening weka, you will see the following once the program starts running

Our Start-up screen. you start by selecting explorer.

The explorer window will open, select choose a file for your data input

Select the ARFF file which holds your data and open

Once the data is opened, it will look like so, showing all the data attributes in your set of data and the distribution. select the classify tab from the top tabs in your explorer

select choose for the type of classifier

a drop down will appear, select function -> multilayerperceptron

once the type of classifier appeas, right click on it and an option list will appear for settings

adjust the settings to your desired needs. as you can see all settings are default. click OK when done

Press Start to run the classifier. we are using a back-propagation with sigmoid function

The GUI option ON will give you the following output, allowing you to train your neural network per build since we are running at 10 folds. you can edit and move your neurons (see weka documentation) once your done with your training, accept and continue

the following shows the output either using the GUI ON/OFF feature. as you can see our classifier was able to classify 90% of the time.

Lecture 1: Programming paradigms (notes)

2009-07-24T21:14:00.000-07:00

I have several language but only one concept that i will write down here. this will represent my introduction to this class:

C
Assembly
C++ / Java
Concurrent programming ( not a language)
Lisp
Python

i want to give u all some mileage and some very relevant knowledge and languages that you can use for research and the industry however the real intellectual value in learning all these languages is to study the paradigms they represent.

to program in C or C++/Java is following a totally different thought process than in Lisp or Python. Im sure many of you already know C and C++, all you have to do is remove the Object oriented way of programming and you will be left with C. When u program in C and pure C with no classes and ur very procedure oriented you think of a main function as being a high level outline of sub functions and sub sub function. your oriented around procedures and you program with side effects, you pass around pointers and references with the idea of updating shared data. you do that in both C and C++. but as far as C is concerned you call it the procedural or sometimes the imperative paradigm. its verb oriented. the first thing you see is the function call. and the function call is so strong that it will let you know what the function will accomplish.

but in C++ all of a sudden rather than calling "Do this and Pass the address with some object". you do my object arrow do this. in java its my object dot do this. so the first thing you see is the data or the object thats being manipulated. and thats why its object oriented.

in between i have assembly here. now i have yet to decide on the direction to go however there is an assembly language called "MIPS" its very easy as far as assembly language goes. however im not really interested in teaching you assembly but im going to use it as a tool to show you how C and C++ files compile and eventually become binaries. im interesting in teaching u how a line like a=0 or a++ will translate to binary (one and zero). ill give u some insight on how C is translated in to assembly and how your variables functions all boil down to a collection of zeros and ones and a little for C++ aswell. while it turns out that C and C++ represent different paradigms; that they really also compile to 0 and 1. and after u get a hand at the manual computation and find out of a C or C++ code will look like in assembly; your really going to see almost look like the same language as far as the zeros and ones are concerned.

so by the end of this ill be able to do something like
****&*P arrow ***** = 7
and you will know exactly what it means.
it will take a little work but when it compiles it means something and when it runs it actually does something. and you will know why it crashes rather it is crashing.

now ill spend some time talking about concurrent programing. we actually do that in C however in concurrent programming we will get two functions to run seemingly simultaneously. please note the "seamless". because if we have a single CPU the process goes back and forth on the two functions. since its so fast u wont be able to say they dont run concurrently. Also there are some problems you will encounter that u might not think about for example the atm machine with data integrity issues.

Lisp Represents the functional paradigms. its very interesting because when you program you rely on a return value of a function to move forward. now whats nice about it is that there are no side effects. when you code in C or C++ u always have side effects. the return value doesnt tell you very much because it might be a number of a boolean but when you pass in a data structure by reference to a function and you update it so the original data structure has been changed, thats programing by side effects. while in Lisp you dont have that at all. you always synthesize the result or partial result that become larger results. and only then you see the answer on the screen. but we will get there. its a fun language and the easiest of all others.

python has been around for 17 or 18 years. it has a good library for dealing with web programming. and python being a scripting language is interpreted. so your going to write a small dynamic web server in python for the final project, it wont be that hard. you wont write all of Apache but you will write something that u have a web server making decisions on how to construct an HTML page and serve it to a client. you can program procedurally, OOP, functionally.

now there are some other paradigms that i will not cover but these are most likely what you will see for the next 10 to 15 years.

algorithms - How they Work

2009-07-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

A Path length is the sum of all edges in a path
Relaxation:
For each vertex v in the graph, we maintain v.d(), the estimate of the shortest path from s, initialized to ¥ at the start
Relaxing an edge (u,v) means testing whether we can improve the shortest path to v found so far by going through u

Breath First Search
A graph Search algorithm that works like the following example: using a QUEUE or First In is First Out

Given the following and we start from Vertex A

We En-queue A and we look at connecting vertices. on a directed graph we only take note of the connection out of the vertice.

from A we en-queue B and C. either can be first. in this case i picked B over C.

From B we can connect to D and C however we have already been to C so we will only put D inside our queue.

we de-queue the next, C. From C we can connect to D and E but we have already entered D in our Queue, so we will disregard the path and en-queue E.

So on and so forth

Depth First Search
also done in the same way however we use a stack for LIFO (Last In is First Out) to go through the graph.

Johnson's algorithm
Johnson's algorithm is a way to find shortest paths between all pairs of vertices in a sparse directed graph. It allows some of the edge weights to be negative numbers, but no negative-weight cycles may exist. It works by using the Bellman-Ford algorithm to compute a transformation of the input graph that removes all negative weights, allowing Dijkstra's algorithm to be used on the transformed graph.

Johnson's algorithm consists of the following steps:

1. First, a new node q is added to the graph, connected by zero-weight edge to each other node.
2. Second, the Bellman-Ford algorithm is used, starting from the new vertex q, to find for each vertex v the least weight h(v) of a path from q to v. If this step detects a negative cycle, the algorithm is terminated.
3. Next the edges of the original graph are reweighted using the values computed by the Bellman-Ford algorithm: an edge from u to v, having length w(u,v), is given the new length w(u,v) + h(u) −h(v).
4. Finally, for each node s, Dijkstra's algorithm is used to find the shortest paths from s to each other vertex in the reweighted graph.

Use the Bellman-Ford algorithm for computation

Compute weights from 'w(u,v) + h(u) −h(v).'
from 0 to -5 this is how its computed
previous weight was 8 :
8 + 0 - (-5) = 13

for -4 to 0 (bottom edge):
6 + (-4) - 0 = 2

after reweighing all edges, use Dijkstra's algorithm to compute the shortest path

Kruskal's algorithm
Kruskal's algorithm is an algorithm in graph theory that finds a minimum spanning tree for a connected weighted graph.

We start off by looking at the edge with the smallest weight. in this case the edge connecting B and D. and the edge connecting C and E.

We Select either edge B-D or C-E. in this case we selected C-E.

we then select the next smallest edge, taking note the vertices were not connected before. since B-D and C-E are separate we can select B-D.

Next look for the next smallest weight on an edge. A-C is 3. since A is not connected to C in any path we can choose to use A-C. however if A-B was connected and D-C or B-C were connected, we couldnt use it.

Bellman-Ford algorithm
The BellmanFord algorithm is a Dynamic Programming algorithm that solves the "shortest path problem". It looks at the structure of the graph, and iteratively generates a better solution from a previous one, until it reaches the best solution. BellmanFord can handle negative weights readily, because it uses the entire graph to improve a solution.

Distance to T and Y is computed

distance is computed from both T and Y to X and Z

T is recomputed from X since its smaller we disregard the 6 and replace is with the new computation

we examine the rest and our final answer.

Prim's Algorithm / Prim-Jarnik algorithm

A solution for the "minimum spanning tree problem" for a connected weighted graph. Sometimes called the DJP algorithm, the Jarník algorithm, or the Prim-Jarník algorithm.

Steps:
Select the initial Vertex and compute the distance to connected vertices.
Select the shortest path and shade the vertex traversed.
from the new vertex compute connected vertices as if its your starting point.
continue until all vertices have been traveled.

Select A as the starting Vertex

we start with A. we compute for B and C. we select the shortest path which is C.

From C we compute for B which is 4. however we computed for B. since 4 is less than 10 we update. we compute for D and E.

Note: we do not add the weight to the already computed vertex. so we dont add 3+4. we consider it as a point blank!

We select the shortest path which is E. Recompute other vertex connecting to E. since 8 is less than 9 we keep 8 as is. between B and D. we select B.

From B we compute to the connected vertices. since we have already been to C, we disregard it and update D with 2. We travel D since its the only remaining path.

we select D as the final vertex and we are DONE.

Dijkstra's algorithm
a Solution for the "Single Source Shortest Path Problem"
Given a weighted graph G and a source vertex v in G, determine the shortest paths from v to all other vertices in G. Find the shortest Path:

Steps:
Repeatedly select the vertex (u) with shortest path length
update other lengths by considering the path that passes through that vertex
select the shortest path while updating.
(ex. Path A to B is 5 however B was computed at 6. replace 5 with 6. if not keep the smallest number
stop when all vertices have been selected

EXAMPLE

Given a graph with a NON NEGATIVE edge weight:
Start from vertex A

First Step: Initialize the first vertex to zero and all the other vertex to UNKNOWN.

Next Step is to look at the edges connecting to other vertices. Compute the distance until that vertex. so B is 10 and C is 3. D and E are still UNKNOWN. Take the shortest Path. The shortest Path is C.

We have already gone through A and C. A is Zero, B is 10,C is 3, D is UNKNOWN, E is UNKNOWN.

From C: there are 3 paths to B to D and to E.
in B : 3+4 =7 however we computed B at 10 since 7 is less we update it to the shortest path.
in D: 3+8 = 11
in E: 3+2= 5
Between 5,7 and 11 the shortest path is?

The shortest Path is E. so we have updated and we have a path to all vertices. But we havent passed vertex B and D. so we look for the next shortest Path.

From E we can go to D. from C we can go to D and B. we have already computed D from C. lets compute D again from E.
in E: 5+9 = 14 since 11 is less than 14, we keep 11.
so we have a choice between going to B or D thats 7 and 11. the shortest path between 7 and 11 is? B

We Select B since its the shortest path between 7 and 11. Now we compute for D to update the path to D.
in B: 7+2 = 9. so we update 11 with 9 in D.
there is another path to C. However we have already been to C so we dont need to recompute it.

We have recomputed D from B so we updated 11 with 9. since the only vertex remaining is D. we take D. and we are DONE

Dijkstra's algorithm is a generalization of the BFS algorithm – meaning that Dijkstra's is itself a graph search algorithm. A search algorithm can be thought of as starting at some source vertex in a graph, and "search" the graph by walking along the edges and marking the vertices. These search algorithms do not make use of the fact that we already know beforehand the entire structure of the graph. This explains why Dijkstra's algorithm cannot handle negative weights – it can only search from what we have seen so far, and does not expect new "discoveries" at some later stage would affect what it already processed.

TO FOLLOW

Baruvka's algorithm
Boyer-Moore algorithm
Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm
Push-Relabel algorithm
Relabel-to-front algorithm
Strassen's algorithm
Rabin-Karp algorithm
Floyd-Warshall algorithm

Ford-Fulkerson method

Double Buffering in Applets - T3

2009-07-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you recognized in the first applet that the circle is flickering. There is a very simple reason for this. Every time the paint - method is called by repaint() the applet screen is cleared completely. Because of this we can see for a millisecond a absolutely blank screen. To suppress this phenomena, we have three possibilities:

1. We don't clear the screen at all
2. We clear the screen only where something is changing
3. We use double buffering

Don't clear the screen at all

This idea seems to be the solution to all our problems (but it is not!). In our case it would mean that the ball would paint a thick red line across the applet because the screen stays red at every position the ball has been once. This might be ok for some situations but we want to see a moving ball, not a thick red line. So this technique is just usefull for objects that are not moving.
At first it is important for you to know one thing. The call of repaint() doesn't call the paint() - method at the same time. Instead a method called update() is called. If one doesn't overwrite this method, update() clears the complete screen and afterwards calls paint() which paints the background and our circle again. To avoid clearing the screen you have to overwrite the update() - method. Our new update() - method doesn't clear the screen anymore, but just calls paint(). This can be done with three line of code:

public void update(Graphics g)
{

paint(g);

}

As I said before this is no solution for our applet. But it is essential to understand that repaint() doesn't call paint() but update() which calls paint() then!!
Clear the screen only where something is changing

This solution is based on the idea to repaint just these parts of our applet where something has changed. This concept is very good for a game like snakin'. If the last part of your snake is colored in the same color as the background, this part overpaints the parts of the snake, where the snake has been. I don't want to talk about this solution in detail, because one could use this method just in very special situations. So let's talk about the double buffering which is a really good and effective solution to avoid a flickering screen and the best of it all: You can use this method in every applet the same way as I do now, so you'll never have to worry about that problem again!
Double buffering

As I said you can use double buffering in every applet in a very easy way. Double buffering means to paint all the things in the paint() method to a offscreen image. If all things, that have to be painted, are painted, this image is copied to the applet screen. The method does the following in detail:

1. Generate a new offscreen-image by using createImage and store this image in a instance variable( = generate a empty image)
2. Call getGraphics to get graphic context for this image
3. Draw everything (including to clear the screen complete) on the offscreen image ( = draw image in the background)
4. When finished, copy this image over the existing image on the screen. ( = draw image in the foreground)

This technique means that the picture is already painted before it is copied to the screen. When copiing the image to the foreground the old pixels are overlayed by the new ones. There won't be any flickering picture anymore because there is not a millisecond you could see a empty screen!

The only disadvantage of the double buffering is, that it produces a large amount of data and every image is drawn two times (offscreen and when copiing to the screen). But in most cases and on a fast computer this is much better than wasting time on finding an other solution!

Well after all this theorie I will show you how to integrate the double buffering into our "ball moving" applet (use the applet of the chapter before as basic code!):
Double buffering: the code

// declare two instance variables at the head of the program
private Image dbImage;
private Graphics dbg;

... other code ...

/** Update - Method, implements double buffering */
public void update (Graphics g)
{

// initialize buffer
if (dbImage == null)
{
dbImage = createImage (this.getSize().width, this.getSize().height);
dbg = dbImage.getGraphics ();
}

// clear screen in background
dbg.setColor (getBackground ());
dbg.fillRect (0, 0, this.getSize().width, this.getSize().height);

// draw elements in background
dbg.setColor (getForeground());
paint (dbg);

// draw image on the screen
g.drawImage (dbImage, 0, 0, this);

}

as ive mentioned you can copy paste this on every applet that requires animation.

Source code to follow

Simple Applet Animation using a ball - T2

2009-07-03T07:13:00.000-07:00

I want to start off with a very important step, rather go for a HelloWorld,We will program an applet in which a ball is moving from the left to the right hand side. Its nothing fancy but the basic step in programming a game is to learn how to animate objects!

At the beginning we have to write our basic structure of an applet again but we will add two little things. Our applet has to implement the interface Runnable and the corrosponding method run() to animate a object. The structure of the applet should look like this:

import java.applet.*;
import java.awt.*;
public class BallApplet extends Applet implements Runnable
{
public void init() { }
public void start() { }
public void stop() { }
public void destroy() { }
public void run () { }
public void paint (Graphics g) { }
}

Most of the methods, We have already used in Java Application Development. So i will no longer explain in detail, just an overview and reminder.

To move an object we need another object that has to be an instance of the class Thread, we declare this object in the start - method of our applet:

Reminder on Threads

A thread is a piece of program that is able to run paralell to other parts of the program (multithreading). Threads are implemented by the class Thread, the interface Runnable and the method run(), we have already implemented these two things in the step before. Important methods of the class Thread are:

Thread.start(): starts a thread

Thread.stop(): stops a thread

Thread.sleep(time in milliseconds): stops thread for a certain amount of time

You can find more functions of the thread class in the Java API! And here comes the code!

public void start ()
{
// define a new thread
Thread th = new Thread (this);
// start this thread
th.start ();
}

Now this thread is running in the run() - method of our applet. Every time all methods... in the run - method have been called, we stop the thread for a short time. Your run method should look like this:

public void run ()
{
// lower ThreadPriority
Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.MIN_PRIORITY);
// run a long while (true) this means in our case "always"
while (true)
{
// repaint the applet
repaint();
try
{
// Stop thread for 20 milliseconds
Thread.sleep (20);
}
catch (InterruptedException ex)
{
// do nothing
}
// set ThreadPriority to maximum value
Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.MAX_PRIORITY);
}

}

What we have now is a neverending loop that executes all things within the loop, waits 20 milliseconds and executes everything once again and so on. But how can we move a circle that is painted by the applet?

Well this is a very simple idea: Our circle has a x - and a y - position. If we would add 1 to the x - position everytime the thread executed, the ball should be moving across the applet, because it is painted at a different x - position everytime we execute the thread!

Ok, let's start with drawing a circle: Add these lines to the paint - method of the applet:

public void paint (Graphics g)

{
// set color

g.setColor (Color.red);
// paint a filled colored circle
g.fillOval (x_pos - radius, y_pos - radius, 2 * radius, 2 * radius);
}

And we need the following instance variables at the head of the program:

int x_pos = 10;
int y_pos = 100;
int radius = 20;

To move a ball we change the value of the x_pos variable everytime the thread is executed. Our run - method should look like this:

public void run ()

{

...

while (true)
{
// changing the x - position of the ball/circle
x_pos ++;
...
}

}

If you add this applet to a HTML - document as seen in T1 before, a red ball should be moving across the applet one times!

Source Code to Follow:

import java.applet.*;
import java.awt.*;
public class Ballbewegung1 extends Applet implements Runnable
{
int x_pos = 10; // x - Position
int y_pos = 100; // y - Position
int radius = 20; // Radius
public void init()
{
setBackground (Color.blue);
}
public void start ()
{
// New Thread
Thread th = new Thread (this);
// Start thread
th.start ();
}
public void stop()
{
}
public void destroy()
{
}
public void run ()
{
Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.MIN_PRIORITY);
while (true)
{
x_pos ++;
repaint();
try
{
Thread.sleep (20);
}
catch (InterruptedException ex)
{
// do nothing
}
Thread.currentThread().setPriority(Thread.MAX_PRIORITY);
}
}
public void paint (Graphics g)
{
g.setColor (Color.red);
g.fillOval (x_pos - radius, y_pos - radius, 2 * radius, 2 * radius);
}
}

Java Applet Game Basics - T1

2009-07-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

Well, this is very simple and the basic structure of an applet will be the same for every applet you will program. The major difference between an applet and an application is that there is no public static void main (String[]args) - method in an applet! Instead every applet should implement the following methods:

// import necessary packages
import java.applet.*;
import java.awt.*;

// Inherit the applet class from the class Applet
public class FirstApplet extends Applet
{

// Now you should implement the following methods

// init - method is called the first time you enter the HTML site with the applet
public void init() {... }

// start - method is called every time you enter the HTML - site with the applet
public void start() {... }

// stop - method is called if you leave the site with the applet
public void stop() {... }

// destroy method is called if you leave the page finally (e. g. closing browser)
public void destroy() {... }

/** paint - method allows you to paint into your applet. This method is called e.g. if you move your browser window or if you call repaint() */
public void paint (Graphics g) { }

}

To insert an applet to a HTML - site you have to add the following lines to your HTML document.

<html>
<head>
<body>

</body>
<.html>

This is the most important line: <p><applet code="FirstApplet.class" width="700" height="400"> .

applet code ="FirstApplet.class" tells the browser where to find the "extends Applet" - class.
width and height tell the browser how big the applet should be

Pringles banner ad worth a few dozen clicks

2009-07-02T03:27:00.000-07:00

I've long been of the opinion that creating banner ads should be punishable by stoning. But this Pringles ad from Bridge Worldwide in Cincinnati doesn't suck. If nothing else, I appreciate that it isn't flashing horrible circus colors and promising me a free Xbox or a spyware-laden "virus scan." It's also kind of neat that clicking on it repeatedly reveals a little story within the ad, an innovation that earned it a gold Cyber Lion at Cannes last week. According to its Cannes entry materials, the ad "shows a young, online audience how fun, eccentric—and even downright weird—life with Pringles can be." The best part? It doesn't even take you to the Pringles Web site. That's a quality I can appreciate in a banner ad. It does expose, however, that Pringles needs to make a wider can already.

i think youll really enjoy this ad. ofcourse in my part of it ive placed it between a google ad so i can get clicks out of it! im sure u guys will enjoy the story

Mapping IP to Host Names

2009-06-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

Some cases require you to browse a local IP address, However when you ping the IP it gets link to an IP on the internet. To remove this confusion and use the computer name instead you need to map the IP to the host name

Example:
My PC is names "server-db" with IP address 192.168.1.5
From another PC i want to connect to the SQL Server.
I use the "SQL Server configuration manager" to enable the TCP/IP
from my PC i try to connect to the HOST using the computer name "server-db"
when i ping that host name it gets linked to "server-db.com"

Solution: WINDOWS XP
under the following folder you will find a file called "HOSTS"
Folder : C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
Click and open it in notepad and add the IP and host name togeather.
Now when you ping the host name you will get the correct IP.

Class Notes: Tile Based Map

2009-06-24T21:39:00.001-07:00

In a 2D platform game, the map of an entire level, or the game map, is usually several screens wide. Some maps are 20 screens wide; others are 100 or more. As the main character walks across the screen, the map scrolls.
As you can imagine, using one huge image for the game map is not the best idea in this situation. This would take up so much memory that most machines wouldn't be capable of loading the map. Plus, using a huge image doesn't help define which parts of the map the player can and cannot walk through—in other words, which parts are "solid" and which are "empty."
Instead of using a huge image for the entire map, you'll create a tile-based map. Tile-based maps break down the map into a grid, as shown in the figure. Each cell in the grid contains either a small tile image or nothing.
Tile-based maps are like creating a game with building blocks. Only a few different block colors are used, but you have an unlimited amount of each color.
The tile map contains references to which image belongs to each cell in the grid. This way, you need only a few small images for the tiles, and you can make the maps as big as you want without worrying too much about memory constraints.
How big the tiles are is up to you. Most tile-based games use a tile sizethat is a power of 2, such as 16 or 32. In our game, you'll use a tile size of 64.
Tile-based maps also have the nice side effect of being able to easily determine what's "solid" and what's "empty" in a map.
That way, you know which part of the map the player can jump on, and you can make sure the player can't magically walk through walls.Implementing the Tile MapThe TileMap class contains the tile map you'll use in the game. It holds a two-dimensional array of Image objects that define the tile map. Empty tiles are null.
Keep in mind that each entry in the Image array isn't a unique object; it's just a reference to an existing object. If one tile is in the map 12 times, the same Image object will be in the array 12 times.
Object references are only 4 bytes on a 32-bit Java VM, so a one dimensional 5,000-Image array takes up only about 20KB. Besides the tiles, the TileMap contains the sprites in the game.
Sprites can be anywhere on the map, not just on tile boundaries.
The TileMap class also treats the player as a special sprite because you usually want to treat it quite differently from the rest of the sprites.
Tile-based games always have more than one map or level. You'll want an easy way to create multiple maps so that when the player finishes one map, the player can then start the next map.
You could create maps by calling TileMap's addTile() and addSprite() methods for every tile and sprite in the game. As you can imagine, this technique isn't very flexible. It makes editing levels far too difficult, and the code itself would not be very pretty to look at.
Many tile-based games have their own map editors for creating maps. These tile-based editors enable you to visually add tiles and sprites to the game, and are quick and easy to use. They usually store maps in an intermediate map file that the game can parse.
Creating a map editor is a bit of overkill in this case. Instead, you'll just define a text-based map file format that can be edited in an everyday text editor.
Because tile maps are defined on a grid, each character in the text file will be either a tile or a sprite.
Lines that start with # are comments, and all other lines define a row of tiles. The size of the map isn't fixed, so you can make maps bigger by adding more lines or making the lines longer.
Parsing the map file is easy and basically takes three steps:1. Read every line, ignoring commented lines, and put each line in a list.2. Create a TileMap object. The width of the TileMap is the length of thelongest line in the list, and the height is the number of lines in the list.3. Parse each character in each line, and add the appropriate tile or sprite tothe map, depending on that character.
If a character is encountered that is "illegal," the tile is considered to be empty.
One thing to note is the special case of adding sprites to the TileMap. For starters, you need to create a different Sprite object for each sprite in the game. To do this, you can clone sprites from a "host" sprite.
Second, a sprite might not necessarily be the same size as the tile size. So, in this case, you'll center and bottom-justify each sprite in the tile it's in. All this is taken care of in the addSprite() method
In this section the sprite's position is relative to the tile map. You can use the TileMapRender.tilesToPixels() static function to convert tile positions to pixel positions in the map.
This function multiplies the number of tiles by the tile size This way, sprites can move around to any position in the map and don't have to be justified with the tile boundaries.
Tile maps are much larger than the screen, so only a portion of the map is shown on the screen at a time.
As the player moves, the map scrolls to keep the player in the middle of the screen.
Therefore, before you draw the tiles, you need to figure out the position of the map onscreen. Start off by keeping the player in the middle of the screen.
This formula assigns offsetX the horizontal position of the map onscreen. It's an easy formula, but you also need to make sure that when the player is near the far left or far right edges of the map, the scrolling stops so that the "void" beyond the edges of the map isn't shown. To do this, give the offsetX value a limit
For convenience, also create the offsetY variable for the verticalscroll position. It keeps the map flush with the bottom of thescreen, no matter how big the screen is:
int offsetY = screenHeight - tilesToPixels(map.getHeight());
We are now ready to draw the tiles. You could just draw every singletile in the map, but instead, you just need to draw the visible tiles.Here, you get the first horizontal tile to draw based on offsetX andthen calculate the last horizontal tile to draw based on the width ofthe screen. Then you draw the visible tiles:
After drawing the tiles, you'll draw the sprites. Because you drewonly the visible tiles, let's look into only drawing the visible sprites aswell. Here are a few ideas:
Partition the sprites into screen-size sections. Draw only the spritesthat are in the sections visible on the screen. As the sprites move, makesure they are stored in the appropriate section.
Keep the sprites in a list ordered by the sprites' horizontal position,from left to right. Keep track of the first visible sprite in the list, whichcan change as bad guys die or the screen scrolls. Draw sprites in the listfrom the first visible sprite until one is found that is not visible. As thesprites move, make sure the list is sorted.
Implement the brute-force method of running through every sprite inthe list, checking whether it's visible.
The first two ideas no doubt are useful if there are a lot of sprites in the map. However, in this case, there are not very many sprites in each map, so you can use the brute-force method and check to see if each sprite is visible. Actually, you can just run through the list, drawing every sprite
This way, the graphics engine does the work, checking to see whether each image is visible before drawing it. It's not the most efficient solution, but it works.

Creating an Executable .Jar File

2009-06-24T21:29:00.000-07:00

When your done with your game the last thing you want to give to your friends is an arcane instructions on how to run the code. Telling another programmer to type something like:
java Game
might be ok but a good idea, so it will be easier is to create an executable .JAR file. with an executable .jar file, all the user has to do is double click on the .jar file and the game starts right up.
If your unfamiliar with what a .jar file is,
- its a java archive file -
basically a container for a group of classes. All the classes for your game are stored in the .jar file, which is usually compressed.

To make the .jar file executable you specify which class to run in the .jar manifest.
The MANIFEST file is called META-INF/MANIFEST.MF inside the .jar

Example:
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Main-Class: gamePlay

when you double click the .jar file the JVM startsup and looks at the .jar files manifest. if the main-class attribute is found, it runs the specific class. if there is no manifest or the Main-Class attribute doesnt exist, the JVM pretends that nothing happened and exists.

If your using the jar tool to create.JAR files. first create a manifest file in the text editor of your choice and then use the -m option to add the manifest to your .jar

Creating a .JAR file is easy. using the command prompt Simply go to the directory your classes are stored in and type :-

jar -cf myfile.jar *.class

If your application or applet uses packages, then you'll need to do things a little differently. Suppose your classes were in the package mycode.games.CoolGame - you'd change to the directory above mycode and type the following :- (Remember to use / on UNIX systems)

jar -cf myfile.jar .\mycode\games\CoolGame\*.class

Now, if you have an existing JAR file, and want to extract it, you'd type the following

jar -xf myfile.jar

Working with JAR files isn't that difficult, especially if you've used the unix 'tar' command before. If you're planning on packaging an applet for Internet Explorer, or an application for Microsoft's jview, you might also want to consider .CAB files.

Class Notes - SOUND

2009-06-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

our topic is sounds and we only have 2 more meetings to finish a few more.so we will discuss the BASICS of sound and then move on to collision detection by next meeting after the next meeting you will have the whole day to present that means 2 meeting after today... you will all present ur games nothing to show...no grade! 10% is the call for it.

on sounds now

we talked about in class about the sound basics which you will all see when u take multimedia class.for the purposes of this class we assume u can download and know enough knowledge to get things going for ur project
so i mentioned u can use a few open source sound programs like
1. ProTools Free at www.digidesgin.com/ptfree
2. Cool edit
3. Goldwave
4. Audacity (very popular)

now you will see in the downloads a sound manager
in order to open sound files in java you will be using the audio System Class it contains several static functions such as getAudioInputStream();
now this method opens an audio file. i hope you remember what Java supports...for this class we will stick with WAV files but it also supports ... AU AIFF! Questions?ill post this in the blog once we are done

now in the source code you will see the following:
File file = new File("something.wav");
thats the way to go about it... the method gets an input stream either from a fil or internet or any other source.
the next thing to do is to query the sound by calling the getFormat() method.Questions? why is it noisy?\ok

so the audioFormat Class provides a way to get information about the format of the sound such as the Sample rate and number of channels.
so A LINE is an interface to send or recieve audio from the sound system.
The line interface has several subinterfaces. the mainline subinterface used in the sample codes is asourceDataLine which enables you to write audio data to the sound system.
lines are created by using AudioSystems getLine() method. you pass this method a Line.Info object wich specifies thetype of line you want to create.
Line.Info. has a dataLine.Info Sub class which youll use to create your lines because it contains information onthe lines audio format.Besides the line thers another called the CLIP. a clip does a lot of work for you. loading samples into memoryfrom an audioStream and feeding them to the audio system automatically.

questions?ok i want you all to look at SimpleSoundPlayer.Java and we will continue after....
ok i said something about clips.

now clips are convinient and easy to use and are similar to AudioClips. it was first introduced in java 1.0 SDKhowever they have some ( SLIGHT) drawbacks. the number of lines that can be used or opened at the same time are limitedthis means that you can only open and use a maximum of 32 lines.although several clips can be played simultaneously, each clip can only play one sound at a time. did thatmake sense? ok example. lets say you have 3 different sounds for explosion. each of those sounds can only playonce one of them is finished playing... you cant play all 3 at the same time.malinaw?so the SimpleSoundPlayer.java that you see plays a sound... the class loads samples from an AudioInputSteaminto a byte array.it also plays sound from any inputstream by copying data from it to a line.the samples loaded are converted to an inputStream by using a "ByteArrayInputStream" this will enable you to read samples from memory instead of reading from a disk

so try downloading a few wav files...FREE WAV files...im sure there are alot on the internet and try changingit...QUESTION??

Collision Detection (Object to Object)

2009-06-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Collision Basics

• Deciding what collisions to test. It seems kind of ridiculous to test
whether two objects collide if they are on opposite sides of the world. Also, a
world with 1,000 moving objects would require you to test each object against
every other object, or 999,000 tests in all. So, you should try to limit the
number of objects you need to test as much as possible. An easy way to do this
is only test objects that are close.

• Detecting a collision. Collision detection really depends on how accurate
you want the collisions to be. You could provide perfect collision detection and
test every polygon in one object with every polygon in another object, but just
imagine the amount of computation involved. Likewise, for the 2D world, you
could test every pixel from one sprite to every pixel from another sprite.
Usually, games settle with collision-detection techniques that are slightly
inaccurate but can be processed quickly.

• Handling a collision. If an object collides with something, the collision will
be handled in different ways depending on the type of collision. For example, a
projectile colliding with a robot might destroy both the projectile and the
robot. An object bumping against a wall might slide against the wall. And so on.
Eliminate as many collision tests as possible.

• Quickly decide whether there is a collision.

• Provide collision detection that is accurate enough for
the game.

• Handle the collision in a way that doesn't distract the
user from the game.

• Consider that everything that moves in the game is an object, whether it's a
monster, the player, a projectile, or whatever. For each object, follow these
steps:
- Update the object's location.
- Check for any collisions with other objects or with the environment.
- If a collision is found, revert the object to its previous location.

• Note: you check for a collision after each object moves. Alternatively, you
could just move all the objects first and then check collisions afterward.
However, you'd have to store the object's previous location with the object,
and problems could occur if three or more objects collide.

• Also, this basic algorithm just reverts an object to its previous location if a
collision occurred. Normally, you want to use other types of collision
handling based on the type of collision.

• Ideally, no matter how accurate you want the collision detection to be, it's a
good idea to both eliminate as many object-to-object tests as possible and
do a few other tests first to ensure that two objects have a good chance of
colliding.

• Eliminating Tests

- If an object doesn't move from one frame to the next, you don't need to do any
collision tests for that object. For example, a crate that just sits there will never
collide with anything. Other objects will collide with the crate, but those
collisions are handled by the other objects.
- To help eliminate collision tests further, you really should test only objects that
are in the same proximity.
- One way to do this is to arrange objects on a grid. Each object exists in one cell
on the grid. Even though an object's bounds could extend to other cells, the
object exists in only one cell. This way, an object needs to test for collisions only
with objects in its own cell and its surrounding cells.

Object-to-Object Collisions

An inaccurate but fast technique for performing collision detection is the use of bounding spheres.

This idea is that if two objects' spheres collide, the collision is treated as if the
two objects collide. A first try at testing whether two objects' spheres collide
works something like this:

dx = objectA.x - objectB.x;
dy = objectA.y - objectB.y;
dz = objectA.z -
objectB.z;
minDistance = objectA.radius + objectB.radius
if
(Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz) <>

However, that Math.sqrt() function call involves a lot of computation. Instead,
you could square both sides of the equation to get something a bit simpler:

if (dx*dx + dy*dy + dz*dz <>

If your game is in a 2D world instead of 3D, you can test for circles instead of
spheres, taking the z coordinate out of the equation.

Testing bounding spheres is easy, but it's not very accurate. For example, in the
figure, the bounding sphere of the player collides with the bounding sphere of
the robot, even though the player and the robot don't actually collide.

Having this amount of inaccuracy is fine for many games. For example, for a fastmoving
action game in which you're running around picking up food, you
probably won't care whether you pick up the item a little before you actually
touch the item. But for other situations, the inaccuracy can be annoying, such as
when you get wounded by a creature that you know didn't touch you.

Another method is to use a second set of spheres as a more accurate set of
tests. In this figure, the robot has three bounding spheres that more accurately
describe the robot's shape.
- After the bounding spheres of two objects test positive for a collision, their
second set of spheres could be tested. If any of the player's secondary spheres
collide with any of the robot's secondary spheres, then a collision occurs.

Sphere tree or sphere subdivision. This way, you can quickly reject noncolliding
objects and have more accurate tests for potential collisions. This also
lets you know which part of your object was hit, allowing you to act accordingly.
For example, you could have just your robot's lower leg fall off if a missile strikes
it.
- Note that sphere trees need to rotate with the object as the object rotates. For
example, the spheres need to follow a robot's arm as it moves around.
- To sum it up, for a typical frame, most of the objects require no collision test,
some objects require a simple collision test, and a few objects require the more
complex, computationally expensive collision tests.

Other Techniques
Bounding Cylinders (No Time To discuss)

The Discrete Time Issue
A typical game updates the state of the game in discrete time slices, such as how
you update each object based on the amount of time passed since the last
update.
Unfortunately, this discrete time movement can cause a problem with collision
detection. Imagine that the object is moving faster or the frame rate is slower.
A couple solutions to this problem exist. The more accurate but computationally
expensive solution is to treat a moving object's bounds as a solid shape from the
start location to the end location

Which SQL version do you have?

2009-06-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

to check any SQL version. just write the script in a query and run it.

Game: Interactivity and User Interfaces

2009-05-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

If you've ever played a chess game by yourself in which the chess pieces were glued to the board, you know what it's like to play a game without any interactivity. It's boring.

Interactivity is essentially taking input from the user and changing what's displayed on the screen based on that input. Without interactivity, there would be no games—or, at least, the games would be really boring.

Today, you'll learn how to receive input—namely, keyboard and mouse events—from the user. You'll also integrate this input into your games and learn about how to implement user interfaces with Swing.

As of Java SDK 1.4, there is no way to receive input from a joystick. Although this is a shortcoming, it won't affect too many people because most people don't have joysticks for their computers. Also, many prefer to use the mouse or keyboard anyway.

Before we get started, let's note what code we will use. For the remainder of the book, we'll be organizing the reusable code into subpackages of mapua.game.class. This will keep the code organized and easier to find.

Note: You can choose not to use packages and continue adding classes to your current project in BLUEJ. Just omit all the import and set packages in the source code.

The ScreenManager, Animation, and Sprite classes, are in the mapua.game.class.graphics package. Reusable code created in this chapter belongs to the mapua.game.class.input package. Also, any code that's just a quick test will be in the default, unnamed package.

Finally, we'll need a simple class to make the quick test programs easier to implement. The GameCore class does just that, implementing some of the common techniques from the previous posts, such as setting the display mode and running an animation loop. All we have to do is extend this abstract class and implement the draw() and update() methods.

GameCore.java


package mapua.game.class.test; //can be omitted

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;

import mapua.game.class.graphics.ScreenManager; //can be omitted

/**
    Simple abstract class used for testing. Subclasses should
    implement the draw() method.
*/
public abstract class GameCore {

    protected static final int FONT_SIZE = 24;

    private static final DisplayMode POSSIBLE_MODES[] = {
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 32, 0),
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 24, 0),
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 16, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 32, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 24, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 16, 0)
    };

    private boolean isRunning;
    protected ScreenManager screen;

    /**
        Signals the game loop that it's time to quit
    */
    public void stop() {
        isRunning = false;
    }


    /**
        Calls init() and gameLoop()
    */
    public void run() {
        try {
            init();
            gameLoop();
        }
        finally {
             screen.restoreScreen();
        }
    }


    /**
        Sets full screen mode and initiates and objects.
    */
    public void init() {
        screen = new ScreenManager();
        DisplayMode displayMode =
            screen.findFirstCompatibleMode(POSSIBLE_MODES);
        screen.setFullScreen(displayMode);

        Window window = screen.getFullScreenWindow();
        window.setFont(new Font("Dialog", Font.PLAIN, FONT_SIZE));
        window.setBackground(Color.blue);
        window.setForeground(Color.white);

        isRunning = true;
    }


    public Image loadImage(String fileName) {
        return new ImageIcon(fileName).getImage();
    }


    /**
        Runs through the game loop until stop() is called.
    */
    public void gameLoop() {
        long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        long currTime = startTime;

        while (isRunning) {
            long elapsedTime =
                System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime;
            currTime += elapsedTime;

            // update
            update(elapsedTime);

            // draw the screen
            Graphics2D g = screen.getGraphics();
            draw(g);
            g.dispose();
            screen.update();

            // take a nap
            try {
                Thread.sleep(20);
            }
            catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
        }
    }

    /**
        Updates the state of the game/animation based on the
        amount of elapsed time that has passed.
    */
    public void update(long elapsedTime) {
        // do nothing
    }


    /**
        Draws to the screen. Subclasses must override this
        method.
    */
    public abstract void draw(Graphics2D g);
}

By default, the update() method doesn't do anything, but in subclasses, you'll use it for updating sprites and such. Also, you'll probably extend the init() method to do things such as load images or initialize any variables.

In Java the AWT event has its own event dispatch thread. This thread dispatches all sorts of events, such as mouse clicks and key presses coming in from the operating system.

Where does the AWT dispatch these events? When an event occurs on a particular component, the AWT checks to see if there are any listeners for that event. A listener is an object that receives events from another object. In this case, events come from the AWT event dispatch thread.

There is a different type of listener for every type of event. For example, for key input events, there is a KeyListener interface.

Here's an example of how the event model works for a key press:

The user presses a key.
The operating system sends the key event to the Java runtime.
The Java runtime posts the event to the AWT's event queue.
The AWT event dispatch thread dispatches the event to any KeyListeners.
The KeyListener receives the key event and does whatever it wants with it.

All listeners are interfaces, so any object can be a listener by implementing a listener interface. Also note that there can be several listeners for the same event type. For example, several objects could be listening for mouse events. This can be a useful feature, but you won't need to deal with multiple listeners for the same type of event in your code.

There is a way to capture all AWT events. Although doing this isn't useful for a real game, it can be helpful for debugging your code or seeing what events get dispatched. The following code captures all the events by creating an AWTEventListener and prints the events to the console:

Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().addAWTEventListener(
new AWTEventListener() {
   public void eventDispatched(AWTEvent event) {
       System.out.println(event);
   }
}, -1);

Remember, don't use something like this in a real game; use it only for debugging.

For a game, you want to use lots of keys, such as the arrow keys for movement and maybe the Control key for firing a weapon. We really aren't going to deal with things like text input—we can leave that for Swing components discussed later in this chapter.

To capture key events, you need to do two things: create a KeyListener and register the listener to receive events. To register a listener, just call the addKeyListener() method on the component that you want to receive key events on. For games here, that component is the full-screen window:

Window window = screen.getFullScreenWindow();
window.addKeyListener(keyListener);

To create a KeyListener, you just need to create an object that implements the KeyListener interface. The KeyListener interface has three methods: keyPressed(), keyReleased(), and keyTyped(). The "typed" event occurs when a key is first pressed and then repeatedly based on the key repeat rate. Receiving events when a key is "typed" is pretty useless for a game, so we just focus on the key presses and releases.

Each of these three methods takes a KeyEvent as a parameter. The KeyEvent object enables you to inspect what key was actually pressed or released, in the form of a virtual key code. A virtual key code is the Java-defined code to a particular keyboard key, but it is not the same as the character. For example, although Q and q are different characters, they have the same key code.

All the virtual key codes are defined in KeyEvent in the form VK_xxx. For example, the Q key has the key code KeyEvent.VK_Q. Most of the time, you can guess the name of a key code (such as VK_ENTER or VK_1), but be sure to look up the KeyEvent class in the Java API documentation for the full list of virtual key codes.

URL: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/awt/event/KeyEvent.html

Now let's try it out. The KeyTest class is an implementation of the KeyListener interface. It simply displays key press and release events to the screen. Press Escape to exit the program.

KeyTest.java


import java.awt.event.KeyListener;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.util.LinkedList;

import mapua.game.class.graphics.*;
import mapua.game.class.test.GameCore;

/**
    A simple keyboard test. Displays keys pressed and released to
    the screen. Useful for debugging key input, too.
*/
public class KeyTest extends GameCore implements KeyListener {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new KeyTest().run();
    }

    private LinkedList messages = new LinkedList();

    public void init() {
        super.init();

        Window window = screen.getFullScreenWindow();

        // allow input of the TAB key and other keys normally
        // used for focus traversal
        window.setFocusTraversalKeysEnabled(false);

        // register this object as a key listener for the window
        window.addKeyListener(this);

        addMessage("KeyInputTest. Press Escape to exit");
    }


    // a method from the KeyListener interface
    public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
        int keyCode = e.getKeyCode();

        // exit the program
        if (keyCode == KeyEvent.VK_ESCAPE) {
             stop();
        }
        else {
            addMessage("Pressed: " +
                KeyEvent.getKeyText(keyCode));

            // make sure the key isn't processed for anything else
            e.consume();
        }
    }


    // a method from the KeyListener interface
    public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
        int keyCode = e.getKeyCode();
        addMessage("Released: " + KeyEvent.getKeyText(keyCode));

        // make sure the key isn't processed for anything else
        e.consume();
    }


    // a method from the KeyListener interface
    public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {
        // this is called after the key is released - ignore it
        // make sure the key isn't processed for anything else
        e.consume();
    }


    /**
        Add a message to the list of messages.
    */
    public synchronized void addMessage(String message) {
        messages.add(message);
        if (messages.size() >= screen.getHeight() / FONT_SIZE) {
            messages.remove(0);
        }
    }


    /**
        Draw the list of messages
    */
    public synchronized void draw(Graphics2D g) {

        Window window = screen.getFullScreenWindow();

        g.setRenderingHint(
            RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
            RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);

        // draw background
        g.setColor(window.getBackground());
        g.fillRect(0, 0, screen.getWidth(), screen.getHeight());

        // draw messages
        g.setColor(window.getForeground());
        int y = FONT_SIZE;
        for (int i=0; i<messages.size(); i++) {
            g.drawString((String)messages.get(i), 5, y);
            y+=FONT_SIZE;
        }
    }
}

You should note a couple things about this code. First, the init() method uses this line:

window.setFocusTraversalKeysEnabled(false);

This, of course, disables focus traversal keys. Focus traversal keys are the keys pressed to change the keyboard focus from one component to another. For example, on a web page, you've probably pressed Tab to move from field to field in a form. Normally, the Tab key event is swallowed up by the AWT's focus traversal code, but in this case we want to receive the Tab key event. Calling this method allows us to do so.

If you're curious what the various focus traversal keys are, call the getFocusTraversalKeys() method.

The Tab key isn't the only key that can cause some strange behavior. The Alt key can also cause a problem. On most systems, the Alt key is used to activate a mnemonic. A mnemonic is a shortcut or accelerator key for a particular user interface element. For example, pressing Alt+F activates the File menu on most applications that have a menu bar. The AWT thinks the next key pressed after Alt is a mnemonic and ignores the key. To disable this, in KeyTest you stop every KeyEvent in each KeyListener from being processed in the default manner by calling this:

e.consume();

This makes sure no other object processes the Alt key (or whatever modifier key activates a mnemonic), so the Alt key is treated like a normal key.

A side effect to KeyTest is that it's a useful program for testing how keys behave on different systems. "Gasp! You mean key input isn't the same on all systems?" Unfortunately, no, it's not.

Let's take key repetition for an example. When the user holds down a key, the operating system sends multiple events for that key. In a text editor, for example, when you hold down the Q key, several Qs appear. On some systems (such as Linux), both the key press and the key release event are sent for each key repeat. On other systems (such as Windows), only the key press event is sent for each repetition, and the key release event isn't sent until the user actually releases the key.

Also, there could be other subtle differences, such as the Windows Start key behaving differently depending on what version of Windows is running. Or, the key behavior could be different depending on what Java VM is running.

Luckily, these differences aren't drastic; most of the time, you won't have to deal with them.

Website: Configure SSL (HTTPS)

2009-05-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

Because of the way that the SSL protocol works, it is normally necessary to have a unique IP address for each SSL certificate that you are using. This is because the host header information that tells the server which website to serve up and therefore which SSL certificate to use is encrypted and can't be unencrypted unless it knows which SSL certificate to use. It's like the "Chicken and Egg" problem.

If you have to use the same IP address for multiple sites, one simple solution is to just use different port numbers. For example:

https://site1.mysite.com
https://site2.mysite.com:8081
https://myothersite.com:8082

But doing it this way requires that you always visit the site using the port number and always reference it in links with the port number.

There is a more elegant method, if you have IIS 6.0 or later. That method is to use SSL Host Headers.

With SSL Host Headers, you will essentially use one SSL certificate for all of the sites that use SSL on a particular IP address. For this to work then, you will need to have either a WildCard Certificate or a Unified Communications Certificated. If all of the websites are subdomains of one domain name (e.g. site1.mysite.com, site2.mysite.com), you can use a Wildcard certificate. If there are completely different domain names (e.g. mysite.com, myothersite.com), you will need to use a Unified Communications Certificate.

The first step, if you haven't already done it, is to set up each of the websites with normal http host header values. You can do this by clicking the Advanced button next to the IP address when editing each website's properties in IIS. Just click the Edit button and add a domain name as the host header value.

Next, you will need to create a pending request on one of the websites and order the Wildcard or UC certificate from the certificate authority of your choice. Once you have a Wildcard or UC certificate that will work for all of the hostnames that are on the same IP address, you need to use it to complete the pending request on the website that you created it on. Then you just need to configure the SecureBindings metabase property on each of the other sites so it contains the host header name of the site. To do so, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type "cmd" in the Open box, and then click OK.
Navigate to your IIS scripts directory by typing "cd C:\Inetpub\AdminScripts". Adjust the path to where the adsutil.vbs file is, if necessary.
Type the following command at the command prompt:

cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set /w3svc//SecureBindings ":443:"

is the host header value for the Web site (www.myothersite.com). is the IIS site ID displayed when looking at all the websites in IIS.

Run that command for each of the websites that need to use that certificate. They will then use the same certificate that was install to the first site on the IP.

Game: Using Sprites

2009-05-20T22:04:00.000-07:00

The animation is now running smoothly, but it's not that exciting to see something animate in one place on the screen. Let's make it move by creating a sprite.

A sprite is a graphic that moves independently around the screen. In this case, the sprite is also animated, so it can animate and move at the same time.

Besides an animation, the sprites will be composed of two things: a position and a velocity. If you were sleeping the day they told you about velocity in school, a velocity is both a speed (such as 55mph) and a direction (such as north). In this case, we'll break down velocity into horizontal and vertical components. Instead of miles per hour or meters per second, we'll use pixels per millisecond.

You might be asking, "Why use velocity? Why not just update the sprite's position a certain amount each frame?" Well, if you did that, the sprite would move at different speeds depending on the speed of the machine. A faster frame rate would mean a faster-moving sprite. Tying the sprite's movement to real time causes the sprite to move at a consistent pace, whether the time between frames is short or long.

As with the animation, the sprite updates based on the number of milliseconds that have passed since the last time the sprite was drawn. You'll say, "Hey, sprite, 50 milliseconds have passed," and the sprite will update its position (based on its velocity) and its animation.

The Sprite class, has an animation, a position, and a velocity.

You could make the sprite's position an integer, but what if a sprite is moving slowly? For example, imagine a sprite moving a tenth of a pixel every time the update() method is called. That means the sprite would have nonvisible movement on 9 out of 10 calls to update(). If the sprite's position were an integer, the sprite would never move because the result would be rounded each time.

If the sprite's position is a floating-point value, the sprite position could increment these nonvisible movements, and the sprite would move 1 pixel on every tenth call to update(), as expected. For this reason, you'll make the sprites' position a floating-point value. To get its exact pixel position, use Math.round().

Listing Sprite.java


import java.awt.Image;

public class Sprite {

   private Animation anim;
   // position (pixels)
   private float x;
   private float y;
   // velocity (pixels per millisecond)
   private float dx;
   private float dy;

   /**
       Creates a new Sprite object with the specified Animation.
   */
   public Sprite(Animation anim) {
       this.anim = anim;
   }

   /**
       Updates this Sprite's Animation and its position based
       on the velocity.
   */
   public void update(long elapsedTime) {
       x += dx * elapsedTime;
       y += dy * elapsedTime;
       anim.update(elapsedTime);
   }

   /**
       Gets this Sprite's current x position.
   */
   public float getX() {
       return x;
   }

   /**
       Gets this Sprite's current y position.
   */
   public float getY() {
       return y;
   }

   /**
       Sets this Sprite's current x position.
   */
   public void setX(float x) {
       this.x = x;
   }

   /**
       Sets this Sprite's current y position.
   */
   public void setY(float y) {
       this.y = y;
   }

   /**
       Gets this Sprite's width, based on the size of the
       current image.
   */
   public int getWidth() {
       return anim.getImage().getWidth(null);
   }

   /**
       Gets this Sprite's height, based on the size of the
       current image.
   */
   public int getHeight() {
       return anim.getImage().getHeight(null);
   }

   /**
       Gets the horizontal velocity of this Sprite in pixels
       per millisecond.
   */
   public float getVelocityX() {
       return dx;
   }

   /**
       Gets the vertical velocity of this Sprite in pixels
       per millisecond.
   */
   public float getVelocityY() {
       return dy;
   }

   /**
       Sets the horizontal velocity of this Sprite in pixels
       per millisecond.
   */
   public void setVelocityX(float dx) {
       this.dx = dx;
   }

   /**
       Sets the vertical velocity of this Sprite in pixels
       per millisecond.
   */
   public void setVelocityY(float dy) {
       this.dy = dy;
   }

   /**
       Gets this Sprite's current image.
   */
   public Image getImage() {
       return anim.getImage();
   }
}

The Sprite class is fairly simple. Mostly it's a just bunch of get and set methods. All the work is done in the update() method, which updates the sprite's position based on its velocity and the amount of time elapsed.

Now let's have some fun. Let's use the Sprite class to make the character animate and bounce around the screen. SpriteTest1, does just that. Every time the sprite hits the edge of the screen, its velocity is changed to reflect the bounce.

Listing SpriteTest1.java


import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;

public class SpriteTest1 {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        SpriteTest1 test = new SpriteTest1();
        test.run();
    }

    private static final DisplayMode POSSIBLE_MODES[] = {
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 32, 0),
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 24, 0),
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 16, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 32, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 24, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 16, 0)
    };

    private static final long DEMO_TIME = 10000;

    private ScreenManager screen;
    private Image bgImage;
    private Sprite sprite;

    public void loadImages() {
        // load images
        bgImage = loadImage("images/background.jpg");
        Image player1 = loadImage("images/player1.png");
        Image player2 = loadImage("images/player2.png");
        Image player3 = loadImage("images/player3.png");

        // create sprite
        Animation anim = new Animation();
        anim.addFrame(player1, 250);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player1, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player3, 200);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        sprite = new Sprite(anim);

        // start the sprite off moving down and to the right
        sprite.setVelocityX(0.2f);
        sprite.setVelocityY(0.2f);
    }


    private Image loadImage(String fileName) {
        return new ImageIcon(fileName).getImage();
    }


    public void run() {
        screen = new ScreenManager();
        try {
            DisplayMode displayMode =
                screen.findFirstCompatibleMode(POSSIBLE_MODES);
            screen.setFullScreen(displayMode);
            loadImages();
            animationLoop();
        }
        finally {
            screen.restoreScreen();
        }
    }


    public void animationLoop() {
        long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        long currTime = startTime;

        while (currTime - startTime < DEMO_TIME) {
            long elapsedTime =
                System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime;
            currTime += elapsedTime;

            // update the sprites
            update(elapsedTime);

            // draw and update the screen
            Graphics2D g = screen.getGraphics();
            draw(g);
            g.dispose();
            screen.update();

            // take a nap
            try {
                Thread.sleep(20);
            }
            catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
        }
    }


    public void update(long elapsedTime) {
        // check sprite bounds
        if (sprite.getX() < 0) {
            sprite.setVelocityX(Math.abs(sprite.getVelocityX()));
        }
        else if (sprite.getX() + sprite.getWidth() >=
            screen.getWidth())
        {
            sprite.setVelocityX(-Math.abs(sprite.getVelocityX()));
        }
        if (sprite.getY() < 0) {
            sprite.setVelocityY(Math.abs(sprite.getVelocityY()));
        }
        else if (sprite.getY() + sprite.getHeight() >=
            screen.getHeight())
        {
            sprite.setVelocityY(-Math.abs(sprite.getVelocityY()));
        }

        // update sprite
        sprite.update(elapsedTime);
    }


    public void draw(Graphics g) {
        // draw background
        g.drawImage(bgImage, 0, 0, null);

        // draw sprite
        g.drawImage(sprite.getImage(),
            Math.round(sprite.getX()),
            Math.round(sprite.getY()),
            null);
    }

}

Because the Sprite object handles its own movement, there's not much new happening in the SpriteTest1 class. The newest thing is the update() method, which causes the sprite to "bounce" when it hits the edge of the screen. If the sprite hits the left or right edge of the screen, the horizontal velocity is reversed. If the sprite hits the top or bottom edge of the screen, the vertical velocity is reversed.

Game: Getting Rid of Flicker and Tearing

2009-05-20T21:22:00.000-07:00

When you run AnimationTest1, you probably notice a big problem: The animated character flickers. And it's annoying. Why does this happen, and how can you get rid of it?

This is happening because you're constantly drawing directly to the screen. That means you erase the character with the background and then redraw the character, so there are sometimes brief moments that you see the background where the character should be. Because it's happening so fast, it appears as flicker.

How can you get rid of the flicker? The answer is to use double buffering.

The back buffer can be just a normal Java image. You can use Component's

createImage(int w, int h)

method to create a back buffer. For example, if you want to double buffer an applet that isn't using active rendering, you could override the update() method to use a double buffer and call the paint() method with the double buffer's graphics context:

private Image doubleBuffer;
...
public void update(Graphics g) {
Dimension size = getSize();
if (doubleBuffer == null ||
doubleBuffer.getWidth(this) != size.width ||
doubleBuffer.getHeight(this) != size.height)
{
doubleBuffer = createImage(size.width, size.height);
}


if (doubleBuffer != null) {
// paint to double buffer
Graphics g2 = doubleBuffer.getGraphics();
paint(g2);
g2.dispose();

// copy double buffer to screen
g.drawImage(doubleBuffer, 0, 0, null);
}
else {
// couldn't create double buffer, just paint to screen
paint(g);
}
}

public void paint(Graphics g) {
// do drawing here
...
}

Page Flipping

One drawback to using double buffering is the amount of time it takes to copy the back buffer to the screen. A display resolution of 800x600 at a bit depth of 16 takes 800x600x2 bytes, or 938KB. That's nearly a megabyte of memory that has to get shuffled around at 30 frames per second. Although copying that amount of memory is fast enough for many games, what if you didn't have to copy a buffer at all and could instantly make the back buffer the display buffer?

You can: This technique is called page flipping. With page flipping, you use two buffers, one as a back buffer and the other as a display buffer.

The display pointer points to buffer being displayed. This display pointer can be changed on most modern systems. When you are finished drawing to the back buffer, the display pointer can be switched from the current display buffer to the back buffer. When the display pointer is changed, the display buffer instantly becomes the back buffer, and vice versa.

Monitor Refresh and Tearing
Remember that your monitor has a refresh rate. This refresh rate is usually
around 75Hz or so, which means the monitor is refreshed 75 times a second. But
what happens when page flipping occurs or a buffer is copied in the middle of a
monitor refresh? Yes, you guessed it: Part of the old buffer can display at the
same time as part of the new buffer. This effect, similar to flickering, is
called tearing. It happens so fast it might barely be
noticeable, but when it is noticeable, it appears as tears somewhere in the
screen. To get around this, it's possible to perform the page flip at just the right
moment, right before the monitor is about to be refreshed. This might sound like
a complicated task, but don't worry—the Java runtime does it all for you, using
the BufferStrategy class.


The BufferStrategy Class

Double buffering, page flipping, and waiting for the monitor refresh all are handled by the BufferStrategy class. BufferStrategy chooses the best buffering method based on the capabilities of the system. First, it tries page flipping. If that's not possible, it tries double buffering. Also, it waits on the monitor refresh to finish before performing any page flip. In short, it does all the work for you, without you having to think about it.

One drawback to waiting for the monitor refresh is that the game is limited in the number of frames per second it can display. If the monitor is set at a 75Hz refresh rate, the game displays a maximum of 75 frames per second. This means you can't use the game's frame rate as a "benchmark" for how fast a system runs.

Of course, it really doesn't matter whether your game runs at 200 frames per second—you'll still see only what your monitor is capable of. No matter how fast your game runs, you'll still see 75 frames per second on a monitor with a 75Hz refresh rate.

Both the Canvas and Window objects can have a BufferStrategy. Use the createBufferStrategy() method to create a BufferStrategy based on the number of buffers you want. You'll want at least two buffers for double buffering and page flipping to work. For example:

frame.createBufferStrategy(2);

After you've created the BufferStrategy, get a reference to it by calling the getBufferStrategy() method and use the getDrawGraphics() method to get the graphics context for the draw buffer. After you finish drawing, call the show() method to show the draw buffer, either by using a page flip or by copying the draw buffer to the display buffer. Here's an example:

BufferStrategy strategy = frame.getBufferStrategy();
Graphics g = strategy.getDrawGraphics();
draw(g);
g.dispose();
strategy.show();

Creating a Screen Manager

Now let's update the SimpleScreenManager with these new features. Here are some of the things you'll add:

Double buffering and page flipping by creating a BufferStrategy
getGraphics(), which gets the graphics context for the display
update(), which updates the display
getCompatibleDisplayModes(), which gets a list of the compatible display modes
getCurrentDisplayMode(), which gets the current display mode
findFirstCompatibleMode(), which gets the first compatible mode from a list of modes

Also, now that you're doing active rendering, there's no need for the JFrame used as the full-screen window to receive paint events from the operating system, so you can turn them off:

frame.ignoreRepaint(true);

This doesn't turn off normal repaint events, however. Calling repaint() on the JFrame stills send a paint event.

The SimpleScreenManager is updated in the ScreenManager class, shown here

Listing ScreenManager.java

import java.awt.*;

import java.awt.image.BufferStrategy;

import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

import javax.swing.JFrame;

/**

The ScreenManager class manages initializing and displaying

full screen graphics modes.

*/

public class ScreenManager {

private GraphicsDevice device;

/**

Creates a new ScreenManager object.

*/

public ScreenManager() {

GraphicsEnvironment environment =

GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment();

device = environment.getDefaultScreenDevice();

}

/**

Returns a list of compatible display modes for the

default device on the system.

*/

public DisplayMode[] getCompatibleDisplayModes() {

return device.getDisplayModes();

}

/**

Returns the first compatible mode in a list of modes.

Returns null if no modes are compatible.

*/

public DisplayMode findFirstCompatibleMode(

DisplayMode modes[])

{

DisplayMode goodModes[] = device.getDisplayModes();

for (int i = 0; i < modes.length; i++) {

for (int j = 0; j < goodModes.length; j++) {

if (displayModesMatch(modes[i], goodModes[j])) {

return modes[i];

}

}

}

return null;

}

/**

Returns the current display mode.

*/

public DisplayMode getCurrentDisplayMode() {

return device.getDisplayMode();

}

/**

Determines if two display modes "match". Two display

modes match if they have the same resolution, bit depth,

and refresh rate. The bit depth is ignored if one of the

modes has a bit depth of DisplayMode.BIT_DEPTH_MULTI.

Likewise, the refresh rate is ignored if one of the

modes has a refresh rate of

DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN.

*/

public boolean displayModesMatch(DisplayMode mode1,

DisplayMode mode2)

{

if (mode1.getWidth() != mode2.getWidth() ||

mode1.getHeight() != mode2.getHeight())

{

return false;

}

if (mode1.getBitDepth() != DisplayMode.BIT_DEPTH_MULTI &&

mode2.getBitDepth() != DisplayMode.BIT_DEPTH_MULTI &&

mode1.getBitDepth() != mode2.getBitDepth())

{

return false;

}

if (mode1.getRefreshRate() !=

DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN &&

mode2.getRefreshRate() !=

DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN &&

mode1.getRefreshRate() != mode2.getRefreshRate())

{

return false;

}

return true;

}

/**

Enters full screen mode and changes the display mode.

If the specified display mode is null or not compatible

with this device, or if the display mode cannot be

changed on this system, the current display mode is used.

<p>

The display uses a BufferStrategy with 2 buffers.

*/

public void setFullScreen(DisplayMode displayMode) {

JFrame frame = new JFrame();

frame.setUndecorated(true);

frame.setIgnoreRepaint(true);

frame.setResizable(false);

device.setFullScreenWindow(frame);

if (displayMode != null &&

device.isDisplayChangeSupported())

{

try {

device.setDisplayMode(displayMode);

}

catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) { }

}

frame.createBufferStrategy(2);

}

/**

Gets the graphics context for the display. The

ScreenManager uses double buffering, so applications must

call update() to show any graphics drawn.

<p>

The application must dispose of the graphics object.

*/

public Graphics2D getGraphics() {

Window window = device.getFullScreenWindow();

if (window != null) {

BufferStrategy strategy = window.getBufferStrategy();

return (Graphics2D)strategy.getDrawGraphics();

}

else {

return null;

}

}

/**

Updates the display.

*/

public void update() {

Window window = device.getFullScreenWindow();

if (window != null) {

BufferStrategy strategy = window.getBufferStrategy();

if (!strategy.contentsLost()) {

strategy.show();

}

}

// Sync the display on some systems.

// (on Linux, this fixes event queue problems)

Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync();

}

/**

Returns the window currently used in full screen mode.

Returns null if the device is not in full screen mode.

*/

public Window getFullScreenWindow() {

return device.getFullScreenWindow();

}

/**

Returns the width of the window currently used in full

screen mode. Returns 0 if the device is not in full

screen mode.

*/

public int getWidth() {

Window window = device.getFullScreenWindow();

if (window != null) {

return window.getWidth();

}

else {

return 0;

}

}

/**

Returns the height of the window currently used in full

screen mode. Returns 0 if the device is not in full

screen mode.

*/

public int getHeight() {

Window window = device.getFullScreenWindow();

if (window != null) {

return window.getHeight();

}

else {

return 0;

}

}

/**

Restores the screen's display mode.

*/

public void restoreScreen() {

Window window = device.getFullScreenWindow();

if (window != null) {

window.dispose();

}

device.setFullScreenWindow(null);

}

/**

Creates an image compatible with the current display.

*/

public BufferedImage createCompatibleImage(int w, int h,

int transparency)

{

Window window = device.getFullScreenWindow();

if (window != null) {

GraphicsConfiguration gc =

window.getGraphicsConfiguration();

return gc.createCompatibleImage(w, h, transparency);

}

return null;

}

}

In ScreenManager, you'll notice the following line in the update() method:

Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().sync();

This method makes sure the display is synchronized with the window system. On many systems, this method does nothing, but on Linux, calling this method fixes problems with the AWT event queue. Without calling this method, some Linux systems might experience delayed mouse and keyboard input events.

Two new ScreenManager methods to note are displayModesMatch() and createCompatibleImage().

The displayModesMatch() method checks whether two DisplayMode objects "match." They match if the resolution, bit depth, and refresh rate are equal. The bit depth and the refresh rate are ignored if they aren't specified in one of the DisplayMode objects.

createCompatibleImage() creates an image that is compatible with the display—that is, the image would have the same bit depth and color model as the display. The image class created is a BufferedImage, which is a nonaccelerated image stored in system memory. This method is useful for creating transparent or translucent images because the normal createImage() method creates only opaque images.

Now you'll update AnimationTest1 to use the new and improved ScreenManager, creating the AnimationTest2 class. Hooray, no more flickering!

Listing AnimationTest2.java


import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;

public class AnimationTest2 {

    public static void main(String args[]) {
        AnimationTest2 test = new AnimationTest2();
        test.run();
    }

    private static final DisplayMode POSSIBLE_MODES[] = {
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 32, 0),
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 24, 0),
        new DisplayMode(800, 600, 16, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 32, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 24, 0),
        new DisplayMode(640, 480, 16, 0)
    };

    private static final long DEMO_TIME = 10000;

    private ScreenManager screen;
    private Image bgImage;
    private Animation anim;


    public void loadImages() {
        // load images
        bgImage = loadImage("images/background.jpg");
        Image player1 = loadImage("images/player1.png");
        Image player2 = loadImage("images/player2.png");
        Image player3 = loadImage("images/player3.png");

        // create animation
        anim = new Animation();
        anim.addFrame(player1, 250);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player1, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player3, 200);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
    }


    private Image loadImage(String fileName) {
        return new ImageIcon(fileName).getImage();
    }


    public void run() {
        screen = new ScreenManager();
        try {
            DisplayMode displayMode =
                screen.findFirstCompatibleMode(POSSIBLE_MODES);
            screen.setFullScreen(displayMode);
            loadImages();
            animationLoop();
        }
        finally {
             screen.restoreScreen();
        }
    }


    public void animationLoop() {
        long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        long currTime = startTime;

        while (currTime - startTime < DEMO_TIME) {
            long elapsedTime =
                System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime;
            currTime += elapsedTime;

            // update animation
            anim.update(elapsedTime);

            // draw and update screen
            Graphics2D g = screen.getGraphics();
            draw(g);
            g.dispose();
            screen.update();

            // take a nap
            try {
                Thread.sleep(20);
            }
            catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
        }

    }


    public void draw(Graphics g) {
        // draw background
        g.drawImage(bgImage, 0, 0, null);

        // draw image
        g.drawImage(anim.getImage(), 0, 0, null);
    }

}

Not much has changed in the move from AnimationTest1 to AnimationTest2. One thing that has changed is how AnimationTest2 selects a display mode. Instead of using a default display mode or getting the display mode from the command line, AnimationTest2 provides the ScreenManager with a list of possible modes to use, and the ScreenManager selects the first compatible mode in the list.

Also, the ScreenManager creates its own JFrame object, so AnimationTest2 doesn't have to deal with creating the JFrame used as the full-screen window.

Try it Out and Leave a comment on what you think

Game : 2D Graphics in Animation

2009-05-13T09:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, enough about images and drawing! Let's move on to something you can use in a game: animation.

Animation

The first type of animation we'll go over is cartoon-style animation. This type of animation is displayed as a sequence of images, one after another. This is how animated cartoons work.

Frame 1

Frame 2

Frame 3

The images in an animation can be referred to as frames. Each frame displays for a certain amount of time, but frames don't all have to display for the same amount of time. For example, the first frame might display for 200 milliseconds, the second for 75 milliseconds, and so on...

Take Note that : An animation is made of several images, and each image displays for a certain amount of time. The same image can be used more than once.

Now we'll take the concept of an animation and turn it into code. We'll make it so our animations can use the same image more than once. Also, the animations will loop indefinitely instead of just playing through once.

The Animation class has three important methods: addFrame(), update(), and getImage(). The addFrame() method adds an image to the animation with a specified time (in milliseconds) to display. The update() method tells the animation that a specified amount of time has passed. Finally, the getImage() method gets the image that should be displayed based on the amount of time that has passed.

Listing Animation.java

import java.awt.Image;
import java.util.ArrayList;

/**
    The Animation class manages a series of images (frames) and
    the amount of time to display each frame.
*/
public class Animation {

    private ArrayList frames;
    private int currFrameIndex;
    private long animTime;
    private long totalDuration;


    /**
        Creates a new, empty Animation.
    */
    public Animation() {
        frames = new ArrayList();
        totalDuration = 0;
        start();
    }


    /**
        Adds an image to the animation with the specified
        duration (time to display the image).
    */
    public synchronized void addFrame(Image image,
        long duration)
    {
        totalDuration += duration;
        frames.add(new AnimFrame(image, totalDuration));
    }


    /**
        Starts this animation over from the beginning.
    */
    public synchronized void start() {
        animTime = 0;
        currFrameIndex = 0;
    }


    /**
        Updates this animation's current image (frame), if
        necessary.
    */
    public synchronized void update(long elapsedTime) {
        if (frames.size() > 1) {
            animTime += elapsedTime;

            if (animTime >= totalDuration) {
                animTime = animTime % totalDuration;
                currFrameIndex = 0;
            }

            while (animTime > getFrame(currFrameIndex).endTime) {
                currFrameIndex++;
            }
        }
    }

    /**
        Gets this Animation's current image. Returns null if this
        animation has no images.
    */
    public synchronized Image getImage() {
        if (frames.size() == 0) {
            return null;
        }
        else {
            return getFrame(currFrameIndex).image;
        }
    }


    private AnimFrame getFrame(int i) {
        return (AnimFrame)frames.get(i);
    }


    private class AnimFrame {

        Image image;
        long endTime;

        public AnimFrame(Image image, long endTime) {
            this.image = image;
            this.endTime = endTime;
        }
    }
}

In the Animation class, you might notice the odd % character in the following line:

animTime = animTime % totalDuration;

In case you are unfamiliar with this, the % character is the remainder operator, returning the remainder from an integer division. For example, (10 % 3) equals 1—the integer result of 10 divided by 3 is 3, with 1 left over. It's used here to make sure the animation time starts over when the animation is done so that the animation loops.

The Animation code is fairly straightforward. The inner class AnimFrame contains an image and the amount of time to display it. Most of the work is done in Animation's update() method, which selects the correct AnimFrame to use based on how much time has elapsed.

To implement animation, you need a way to continuously update the screen in an efficient way. Before, you relied on the paint() method to do any rendering. You could call repaint() to signal the AWT event dispatch thread to repaint the screen, but this can cause delays because the AWT thread might be busy doing other things.

Another option is to use active rendering. Active rendering is a term to describe drawing directly to the screen in the main thread. This way, you have control over when the screen actually gets drawn, and it simplifies the code a bit.

To use the active rendering technique, use Component's getGraphics() method to get the graphics context for the screen:

Graphics g = screen.getFullScreenWindow().getGraphics();
draw(g);
g.dispose();

Pretty simple, isn't it? As in this example, don't forget to dispose of the Graphics object when you're done drawing. This cleans up some resources that the garbage collector might not get around to for a while.

Now you'll use active rendering to continuously draw in a loop. This loop is known as the animation loop. An animation loop follows these steps:

Updates any animations

Draws to the screen
Optionally sleeps for a short period

Starts over with step 1

In code, the animation loop might look something like this:

while (true) {

// update any animations
updateAnimations();

// draw to screen
Graphics g = screen.getFullScreenWindow().getGraphics();
draw(g);
g.dispose();

// take a nap
try {
   Thread.sleep(20);
}
catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
}

Obviously, in a real-world example, the animation loop shouldn't loop forever. In our examples, we'll make the animation loop stop after a few seconds.

In AnimationTest1, you will update the entire screen every time you draw. Alternatively, you could update only the parts of the screen that have changed since the last draw. This method works great for games in which the background is static, such as the maze in Pac-Man. But most modern games have a dynamic background or have several things happening at once. Also, redrawing only what has changed since the last draw doesn't work when you're using page flipping, which we discuss later. In short, you'll just go ahead and update the entire screen in these examples.

Listing AnimationTest1.java

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;

public class AnimationTest1 {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        DisplayMode displayMode;

        if (args.length == 3) {
            displayMode = new DisplayMode(
                Integer.parseInt(args[0]),
                Integer.parseInt(args[1]),
                Integer.parseInt(args[2]),
                DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN);
        }
        else {
            displayMode = new DisplayMode(800, 600, 16,
                DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN);
        }

        AnimationTest1 test = new AnimationTest1();
        test.run(displayMode);
    }

    private static final long DEMO_TIME = 5000;

    private SimpleScreenManager screen;
    private Image bgImage;
    private Animation anim;

    public void loadImages() {
        // load images
        bgImage = loadImage("images/background.jpg");
        Image player1 = loadImage("images/player1.png");
        Image player2 = loadImage("images/player2.png");
        Image player3 = loadImage("images/player3.png");

        // create animation
        anim = new Animation();
        anim.addFrame(player1, 250);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player1, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
        anim.addFrame(player3, 200);
        anim.addFrame(player2, 150);
    }


    private Image loadImage(String fileName) {
        return new ImageIcon(fileName).getImage();
    }


    public void run(DisplayMode displayMode) {
        screen = new SimpleScreenManager();
        try {
            screen.setFullScreen(displayMode, new JFrame());
            loadImages();
            animationLoop();
        }
        finally {
             screen.restoreScreen();
        }
    }


    public void animationLoop() {
        long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
        long currTime = startTime;
        while (currTime - startTime < DEMO_TIME) {
            long elapsedTime =
                System.currentTimeMillis() - currTime;
            currTime += elapsedTime;

            // update animation
            anim.update(elapsedTime);

            // draw to screen
            Graphics g =
                screen.getFullScreenWindow().getGraphics();
            draw(g);
            g.dispose();

            // take a nap
            try {
                Thread.sleep(20);
            }
            catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
        }

    }


    public void draw(Graphics g) {
        // draw background
        g.drawImage(bgImage, 0, 0, null);

        // draw image
        g.drawImage(anim.getImage(), 0, 0, null);
    }

}

Game : Using Images in 2D Graphics and Animation

2009-05-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

Drawing text on the screen is fun and all, but you probably want to have some images in your game, right? Right. Before you draw images on the screen, let's learn about some image fundamentals: transparency types and file formats.

Opaque. Every pixel in the image is visible.
Transparent. Every pixel in the image is either completely visible or completely see-through. In the image, the white background could be transparent so that what's "underneath" the image shows through when it is drawn.
Translucent. Pixels can be partially transparent, to create a ghostlike, partially see-through effect. Also, translucency can be used just on the edges of an image, to create an anti-aliased image.

File Formats

Two basic types of image formats exist: raster and vector. A raster image format describes images just like your display does, in terms of pixels with a specified bit depth. A vector image format describes an image geometrically and can be resized without degrading the quality.

The Java API doesn't have any vector formats built in, so we focus on raster images.

The Java runtime has three different raster formats built in, and you can read them with hardly any effort. These three formats are GIF, PNG, and JPEG:

GIF. GIF images can be either opaque or transparent, and can have 8-bit color or less. Although GIF has high compression for graphics images without a lot of color variation, PNG supercedes GIF's functionality, so there's no reason to use GIF anymore.
PNG. PNG images can have any type of transparency: opaque, transparent, or translucent. Also, PNG images can have any bit depth, all the way up to 24-bit color. The compression ratio for 8-bit PNG images is about the same as for GIF images.
JPEG. JPEG images can be opaque, 24-bit images only. JPEG has high compression for photographic images, but it is a lossy compression, so the image isn't an exact replica of its source.

To read Image into your program and display them you use the Toolkit's getImage() method. heres how:

Toolkit toolkit = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
Image image = toolkit.getImage(fileName);

This code looks innocent enough, but it doesn't actually load the image. The image begins loading in another thread. If you display the image before it is finished loading, only part (or none) of the image actually gets displayed.

You can use a MediaTracker object to watch the image and wait for it to finish loading, but there is an easier solution. The ImageIcon class loads an image using MediaTracker for you. The ImageIcon class in the javax.swing package loads an image using the Toolkit and waits for it to finish loading before it returns. For example:

ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(fileName);
Image image = icon.getImage();

Okay, now that you can load images, you can try it. The ImageTest class in the Listing works similarly to the FullScreenTest class, also using SimpleScreenManager. ImageTest draws one JPEG background image and four PNG foreground images, waits 10 seconds, and then exits.

Note: the image folder should be in the same directory as your source file. change the name of the files to reflect the names used in the code or vice-versa.

Listing ImageTest.java

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;

public class ImageTest extends JFrame {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        DisplayMode displayMode;

        if (args.length == 3) {
            displayMode = new DisplayMode(
                Integer.parseInt(args[0]),
                Integer.parseInt(args[1]),
                Integer.parseInt(args[2]),
                DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN);
        }
        else {
            displayMode = new DisplayMode(800, 600, 16,
                DisplayMode.REFRESH_RATE_UNKNOWN);
        }

        ImageTest test = new ImageTest();
        test.run(displayMode);
    }

    private static final int FONT_SIZE = 24;
    private static final long DEMO_TIME = 10000;

    private SimpleScreenManager screen;
    private Image bgImage;
    private Image opaqueImage;
    private Image transparentImage;
    private Image translucentImage;
    private Image antiAliasedImage;
    private boolean imagesLoaded;

    public void run(DisplayMode displayMode) {
        setBackground(Color.blue);
        setForeground(Color.white);
        setFont(new Font("Dialog", Font.PLAIN, FONT_SIZE));
        imagesLoaded = false;

        screen = new SimpleScreenManager();
        try {
            screen.setFullScreen(displayMode, this);
            loadImages();
            try {
                Thread.sleep(DEMO_TIME);
            }
            catch (InterruptedException ex) { }
        }
        finally {
             screen.restoreScreen();
        }
    }


    public void loadImages() {
     //Place a folder called "images"
        bgImage = loadImage("images/background.jpg");
        opaqueImage = loadImage("images/opaque.png");
        transparentImage = loadImage("images/transparent.png");
        translucentImage = loadImage("images/translucent.png");
        antiAliasedImage = loadImage("images/antialiased.png");
        imagesLoaded = true;
        // signal to AWT to repaint this window
        repaint();
    }


    private Image loadImage(String fileName) {
        return new ImageIcon(fileName).getImage();
    }


    public void paint(Graphics g) {
        // set text anti-aliasing
        if (g instanceof Graphics2D) {
            Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;
            g2.setRenderingHint(
                RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
                RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
        }
        // draw images
        if (imagesLoaded) {
            g.drawImage(bgImage, 0, 0, null);
            drawImage(g, opaqueImage, 0, 0, "Opaque");
            drawImage(g, transparentImage, 320, 0, "Transparent");
            drawImage(g, translucentImage, 0, 300, "Translucent");
            drawImage(g, antiAliasedImage, 320, 300,
                "Translucent (Anti-Aliased)");
        }
        else {
            g.drawString("Loading Images...", 5, FONT_SIZE);
        }
    }


    public void drawImage(Graphics g, Image image, int x, int y,
        String caption)
    {
        g.drawImage(image, x, y, null);
        g.drawString(caption, x + 5, y + FONT_SIZE +
            image.getHeight(null));
    }

}

Before the images are loaded, the ImageTest class shows a "Loading images" message. After the images are loaded, repaint() is called to signal the AWT to repaint the screen. At that point, the background and four PNGs are drawn.