I would like to insert my DotNet EXE application in excel sheet just like an OLE object. Is it possible? If yes, how we can do this.
In Excel 2003 when we click Insert->Object menu item, we get the 'Object' diloag. The 'Create New' tab of this dilaog contains varios OLE objects. I would like to display my DotNet exe application in this list so that when I select and click the 'Ok' button of this dialog, EXE should execute like others OLE object of this list.
Thanks,
Amit
Well, its been a long time since you asked, but I don't think that there is a reasonable way to achieve your goal in terms of making the WPF application an OLE object for direct embedding. The technologies are very different, and while there may be some obscure interop path through COM, you'd probably save a lot of time by taking a different approach.
For example, if you are just trying to 'launch' the application from Excel, make an OLE object that 'launches' your WPF application instead of trying to make them both the same thing.
As far as the interop is concerned, here is some more reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Linking_and_Embedding#Interoperability
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COM_Interop
On a side note, this is an interesting question / technical challenge, but may not be worth your time at the end of the day.
Related
I've hit a wall when it comes to how the Universal Windows Platform connects/manages/interacts with a local SQL Server database. My current project (WPF using .NET Framework 4.8) that I'm interested in porting over to UWP uses EntityFramework 6 with ADO.NET models and it works like a charm. No issues at all. UWP on the other hand, well I'll just say that I have absolutely no idea what's going on when it comes to connecting to a local instance of SQL Server. I've gone through about 3-4 different guides/templates and none have worked. I really want to use UWP and take advantage of all the new features coming for Windows 10 v2004, but it doesn't look like this will happen.
As I currently understand the process, I need to essentially create two separate projects within the same solution. One is the UWP main program and the other would be a .NET Core class library that targets the .NET Standard 2.0 platform. I also have read that EntityFramework 6 is not supported on .NET Core or UWP, so the only way is by using EntityFrameworkCore (more specifically NuGet package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer). So I installed it on the .NET Core class library and then set a reference from the UWP app to the class library. Because the local SQL Server is already up and running, I'm not doing what is called the 'code first' approach to the creation of all the models/DbContext.cs files. Based on what I've read, the ONLY way to import a currently existing SQL Server into the data model is by use of the Scaffold-DbContext command with a standard connection string through the package manager. Surprisingly, this worked on the first attempt and the models and DbContext were all created without any issues.
This is about as far as I seem to be able to get as everything after does nothing but throw exceptions. If I try to pass any C# code using the DbContext to retrieve any data from the database, I get about 10-15 exceptions that essentially say the program can't find or connect to the database. I have manually edited the connection string in every way imaginable, but nothing seems to work. I also tried to manually set up a new connection using Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection, Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionStringBuilder and System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection but they all fail with the same exceptions.
Sorry for the long post but at this point, I really don't know what's going on and would really appreciate any feedback you all could offer.
Update 1
So, I went back through my currently working app on .NET Framework and looked for the connection string in the App.config file to see what the regular EntityFramework is using and it's completely different than anything I've used before. My guess is that it's generating a completely custom connection string that includes references to all sorts of files and a property called 'ProviderName'. Will try cutting and pasting this string into UWP to see if it'll work.
Update 2
I think I'm missing something fundamental on this. I can generate the scaffold with a connection string without any issues, but if I attempt to open a connection at runtime using the same connection string, I'm getting errors.
Finally was able to get a connection at runtime after months of trial and error. Without getting into too much detail, here's what worked for me (assuming EFCore has already generated a DbContext file):
Enable Enterprise Authentication.
Enable TCP/IP connections to the SQL Server instance.
In Visual Studio's server explorer, click Add Connection. If you already have a connection saved for the database, right click the server and click Modify Connection
In the connection properties window, click the Advanced button. Make a note of all of the listed parameters and their values and save it.
Open the data context file that isn't able to connect and add a using statement for Microsoft.Data.SqlClient. Now locate the OnConfiguring method. Use a SqlConnectionStringBuilder and configure all of the parameters from the advanced connection properties that were saved earlier.
And that should work. If there are still errors, I would double check the parameters to make sure they were all entered correctly.
Hope this post will help out anyone else dealing with this issue.
I did some research and the web has taken me all over the place and I still haven't found a suitable solution or guide to what I am trying to achieve.
I read up a similar post to what I am asking. Except that's #php
Retrieving Image in SQL Server (varbinary)
Update:
The "conventional" way is the create file directory and file path. This was my initial method to get the front end up and running for the user.
My sup actually advised that I use this hash method nonsense which he can't even explain properly to me.
A user must be able to insert an image on the form, generate a report displaying the image as well.
How does the varbinary work to link sql and Access for what I am trying to achieve? I am currently playing around with my development to resolve it.
Any clarification?
I have no other way of putting this question after my first edit.
This is the form
For each form entry a user should insert a picture to support the Findings.
A VARBINARY field in SQL server is a field that stores binary data, and is often used for storing files. You can fit entire files in this field.
If you have a VARBINARY field in SQL server, and create a linked table in Access to the table with that field, it gets interpreted as an OLE object, since OLE objects are binary data too.
You can use the Bound object frame control in Access to save images into OLE objects, both as an image (which is displayable), or as a package. This does not require any code. You can right click the field -> Insert Object -> Bitmap Image to insert bitmap images into an OLE field. However, this stores OLE object data along with the image data, which makes it very hard to work with using code, and nearly impossible in non-vba applications. Using this approach is only justifiable if you're sure you're going to stick with Access for the lifetime of the database, in my opinion.
I've shared an example on working with VBA code and the OLE object here, but that uses hacky code that executes GUI operations. It's nearly impossible to port to other applications. I recommend you use the next way instead.
Alternatively, you can directly store binary data in the OLE object/Varbinary field. This makes it a lot easier to deal with using VBA code or any future application, since it's just the file data stored in the field, there's no OLE object data stored with it. I've shared code to load binary data in a field and save it back to disk here.
The hard part of this puzzle, if you're just working with binary image data, is displaying the image to the user. I've shared 3 approaches here, with code for one one of them. However, that's quite complex VBA code.
I have to import about 50 different types of files every day. Some of them with a few columns, some inculde up to 250 columns.
The Flat File connection always defaults all columns to 50 chars.
Some columns can be way longer than 50 chars, and will of course end up in errors.
Currently i am doing a stupid search&replace with notepad++ - Opening all SISS packages, replacing:
DTS:MaximumWidth="50"
by
DTS:MaximumWidth="500"
This is an annoying workaround.
Is there any possibility to set a default length for flatfile string columns to a certain value?
I am developing in Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2015 and SQL Server Data Tools 14.0.61021.0
Thanks!
I don't think that there is a way to achieve this from SQL Server Data Tools.
But you can do some workaround to achieve this:
Easiest solution, In the Flat file connection manager - Advanced Tab, select all columns (using Ctrl key) and change the data length property for them all in one edit. (detailed in #MikeHoney answer)
You can use BIML (Business Intelligence Markup Language) to create ssis package, if you're new to BIML you can access to BIML Script website for detailed tutorials.
You can create a Small application that loop over .dtsx files in a folder and replace DTS:MaximumWidth="50" with DTS:MaximumWidth="500" using normal String.Replace function or using Regular expressions. (you can read my answer # Automate Version number Retrieval from .Dtsx files to see an exmaple on reading .dtsx file using Regular expressions)
Function To Read and Replace content of dtsx file (Vb.Net)
Public Sub FixDTSX(byval strFile as string)
dim strContent as string = string.empty
Using sr as new Io.StreamReader(strFile)
strContent = sr.ReadToEnd()
sr.Close()
End Using
strContent = strContent.Replace("DTS:MaximumWidth=""50""","DTS:MaximumWidth=""500""")
Using sw as new Io.StreamWriter(strFile,False)
sw.Write(strContent)
sw.Close()
End Using
End Sub
There is a way to achieve what you want using the standard Visual Studio SSDT UI, although it is quite obscure. AFAIK it works in every version of this editor since SQL Server 2005.
With the package open, from the Connection Managers pane, right-click your Flat File Connection and choose Edit. Then navigate to the Advanced page. Then multi-select the columns you want to change (e.g. shift-click a range or ctrl-click a specific set). Now the Properties appearing at the right will be applied to all the selected columns.
In the example shown below, I have set all the selected columns to a width of 255.
Esteban,
I suggest you use the Object Model API which allows you to develop SSIS packages programmatically. Using that, you can make use of any .net code that allows you to gather data/metadata from text files. Also, the assumption is that, since you are using SSIS, you already might be familiar with writing code in C#/VB.Net
Now, if you are just starting with the Object Model API, there would be a huge learning curve (but it is worth learning it if SSIS is your day to day life). If you do not have the time to invest right now, I would recommend you to use a library I wrote (called Pegasus) which greatly simplifies how you can use the Object Model API; you can create your packages in an almost declarative fashion (using C#).
On Github, there is an example that shows how to create a package that loads any number of text files with differing schemas in a given folder. See here; specifically the method GenerateProjectToLoadTextFilesToSqlServerDatabase().
In the example, I use a third party .Net library called lumenworks.framework to probe delimited files and get their metadata. Using this library, I get the names of the columns; and I also infer data types and lengths based on sampling the first 'n' number of rows. (In my code, I am only inferring ints, dates and strings; if you have more data types, add relevant code accordingly). Or you can specify one specific data type and length (looks like you want to use string of 500 chars) for all your columns. [Or (in some cases), you might have this metadata available outside in a excel file/config file.] Then I use this metadata to configure my text file connection managers programmatically.
YOu can download the code from Github and run the DataFlowExample by specifying where your source files are and see how far it gets you.
Another recommendation would be Biml, but I am not sure if you can incorporate your own/third party full fledged C# code (not just snippets) into Biml workflow. If you can, then go with Biml.
Let me know if you have any questions.
I am trying to learn WPF and how to connect and bind a sql database I have so i can return information etc. I have connected the database, the dataset is within solution explorer, the data sources are there for selection and there is a .edmx file within solution explorer.
I am trying to drag a table across from the data sources to the main window in the mainWindow.xaml page. I am getting this error. Can anyone advise on what I have to do.
"Cannot add the control to the design surface or bind to the control because the type wpftryout.CiaranTestDataSet cannot be resolved. Please try to build the project or add necessary assembly references."
As per my knowledge, There is no direct way to include SQL Database object for Display purpose. What you can do is get information from database in one table and then you can bind your information to specific object As mentioned in below link
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/362436/Data-binding-in-WPF-DataGrid-control
In case u required more help, Please let me know
I had the same problem. After reading this: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/9fc4f835-d6c0-4d04-86c2-779c1f8e0791/unable-to-drag-data-source-to-control-to-bind I created a new project on my C: drive (rather than the network location VS defaulted to) and it suddenly worked fine!
Can anyone please tell me how to perform a simple batch process in SSIS?
I know how to do such a thing using T-SQL and/or .NET code but what I wish to do is to use the SSIS GUI to do this entirely. I am not sure if it is possible and all I can find on Google are over complicated solutions.
To explain a bit more - I am reading from a flat file and I want to insert its entire contents into a Sql Server table. Pretty simple huh... But I want to do it 50,000 records at a time. I expect this to be as simple as setting a property somewhere or at the most using some kind of loop tool from the toolbox.
Thanks
You are right. It is a property of the Data Flow task.
Right click on the task, click on the "Properties..." command, look for the DefaultBufferMaxRows property and set the desired value.
References #MSDN.