Programming Update

So, as is my usual custom I forget to blog my progress. I stopped working on Python and have moved onto Javascript and I have practically fallen in love. Back when I first started learning web-oriented development (when I was about 8 years old - back in the 90's) I got an impression that Javascript was a "toy" language - used for cool effects and stuff but nothing more. I moved on to systems languages (C++ and asm) and basically forgot about web stuff. The impression lingered on though and when I started my current internship at Ryder and found out I would be working with Javascript I kind of thought "oh poo a boring language." This lingered for awhile until I started taking a closer look at it. Now I can honestly say that I love javascript - more than any other language i've used so far.

I heavily use jQuery to do DOM manipulation and am in the process of converting myself over to use jQuery's AJAX support versus using Microsoft's AJAX library (which is what I have been using up till now). I'm also looking into both Knockout.js and Node.js which are both freaking awesome so far. It seems like I am taking a stepping away from Microsoft's technologies and moving more towards open source software.

A coworker and I have started a small business on the side and we are currently working away for our first client. I will be doing all of the UI design for this project and right now I have Photoshop fired up and am diligently working away! I will attempt to post more, but I would rather have this blog used more for code snippets and/or ideas - of which I have nothing significant at the moment.

Project Euler - Python - Problem 6

sum_of_square, square_of_sum = 0, 0

for i in range(1, 101):

    sum_of_square += i*i

    square_of_sum += i

total = square_of_sum * square_of_sum

print((total - sum_of_square))

Project Euler - Python - Problem 5

This took a long time to compute (brute force!) - I will revisit this later to make it more efficient.

for i in range(99999999, 999999999):

    flag = True

    for x in range(11, 20):

        if i%x>0:

            flag = False

            break

    if (flag == False):

        continue

    else:

        print(i)

        break

Project Euler - Python - Problem 4

Made some assumptions in this code - dont hate! haha

max, pal = 998001, []

for i in range(max, 100000, -1):

    test = str(i)

    if len(test) == 6:

        if (test[0] == test[-1] and test[1] == test[-2] and test[2] == test[-3]):

            pal.append(i)

print(pal)

for i in pal:

    for x in range(100,999):

        for y in range(100,999):

            if (x*y == i):

                print("%d: %d * %d" % (i, x, y))

Project Euler - Python - Problem 3

Lots of work! Not much personal time =) Still working on python!

from math import sqrt

def primenum(num):

    flag = True

    for i in range(4, int(sqrt(num))):

        if (num%i==0):

            flag = False

    return flag

number, primes = 600851475143, []

for i in range(1000, int(sqrt(number))):

    if number%i == 0:

        if (primenum(i) == True):

            primes.append(i)

print(primes)

Styling Reports using XML (Reporting Services 2008)

I got the inspiration for this from the article "Centralising Reporting Services Stylesheets". Basically, the article states a way to create an assembly and reference that assembly from within a report. This assembly (in the article) contains static functions that return styles based on parameters (colors, sizes, etc.). Taking this one step further would be to use an XML document to hold all of the styling information and use the assembly to load that XML and return the style. I ran into a large obstacle - .NET security permissions. To get past this obstacle requires a few steps as outlined below.

There are two ways you can use an XML file - either through the web (hosted on a web server) or residing in the file system.

Step 1) Take your DLL (and XML file if you are using a local copy) and place it into:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PublicAssemblies

Step 2) Open your security configuration:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies\RSPreviewPolicy.config

Step 3) Add a CodeGroup after the others in the config file. Note that you can create a new permission set specifically for this assembly - using "FullTrust" is faster.

                  <CodeGroup class="UnionCodeGroup"
                             version="1"
                             PermissionSetName="FullTrust"
                             Name="TestCodeGroup"
                             Description="">
                     <IMembershipCondition class="UrlMembershipCondition"
                                           version="1"
                                           Url="file://C:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0/Common7/IDE/PublicAssemblies/ReportStyles.dll"/>
                  </CodeGroup>

Step 4) Assert permissions in your assembly before using the XML file.

For local xml file:

string FilePath = "C:\PathToDLLFile\";
FileIOPermission filePerm = new FileIOPermission(FileIOPermissionAccess.Read, FilePath);
filePerm.Assert();

For xml on web server:

string URL = "http://www.url.com/yourXMLfile.xml";
System.Net.WebPermission p = new System.Net.WebPermission(NetworkAccess.Connect,URL);
p.Assert();


Step 5) All the above steps were for using design mode in Visual Studio - you still need to change settings on the reporting server. The next step is to deploy the DLL (and optionally the XML if using local copy) to your reporting server. Place the file(s) into:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting Services\ReportServer\Bin

Step 6) Add the CodeGroup to the reporting services configuration file (same as Step 3 except on reporting server)

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Reporting Services\ReportServer\rssrvpolicy.config


Example code for DLL:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Xml;

using System.Xml.Linq;

using System.IO;

using System.Reflection;

using System.Security.Permissions;

using System.Security;

using System.Net;

public static class Style

{

    public static string Get(string Parent, string Child, string Keyword)

    {

        string url = "http://test/globalstyle.xml";

        System.Net.WebPermission p = new System.Net.WebPermission(NetworkAccess.Connect, url);

        p.Assert();

        XDocument xml = XDocument.Load(url);

        XElement temp = xml.Descendants(Parent).First().Descendants(Child).First();

        switch (Keyword.ToLower())

        {

            case "background":

                return temp.Descendants("Color").First().Element("Background").Value;

            case "color":

                return temp.Descendants("Color").First().Element("Text").Value;

            case "border":

                return temp.Descendants("Color").First().Element("Border").Value;

            case "weight":

                return temp.Descendants("Font").First().Element("Weight").Value;

            case "size":

                return temp.Descendants("Font").First().Element("Size").Value;

            case "family":

                return temp.Descendants("Font").First().Element("Family").Value;

            case "align":

                return temp.Descendants("Font").First().Element("Align").Value;

            case "vertalign":

                return temp.Descendants("Font").First().Element("VerticalAlign").Value;

            case "right":

                return temp.Descendants("Padding").First().Element("Right").Value;

            case "left":

                return temp.Descendants("Padding").First().Element("Left").Value;

            case "bottom":

                return temp.Descendants("Padding").First().Element("Bottom").Value;

            case "top":

                return temp.Descendants("Padding").First().Element("Top").Value;

            default:

                return "";

        }

    }

}

Example XML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<Style>

  <Table>

    <Header>

      <Color>

        <Background>#c0c0c0</Background>

        <Text>#000080</Text>

        <Border>White</Border>

      </Color>

      <Font>

        <Weight>Bold</Weight>

        <Size>7.8pt</Size>

        <Family>Verdana</Family>

        <Align>Center</Align>

        <VerticalAlign>Middle</VerticalAlign>

      </Font>

      <Padding>

        <Right>2pt</Right>

        <Left>2pt</Left>

        <Bottom>2pt</Bottom>

        <Top>2pt</Top>

      </Padding>

    </Header>

    <Row>

      <Color>

        <Background>#f5f5f5</Background>

        <Text>Navy</Text>

        <Border>White</Border>

      </Color>

      <Font>

        <Weight>Normal</Weight>

        <Size>7.8pt</Size>

        <Family>Verdana</Family>

        <Align>Center</Align>

        <VerticalAlign>Middle</VerticalAlign>

      </Font>

      <Padding>

        <Right>0pt</Right>

        <Left>0pt</Left>

        <Bottom>0pt</Bottom>

        <Top>0pt</Top>

      </Padding>

    </Row>

    <AlternatingRow>

      <Color>

        <Background>#ffffcc</Background>

        <Text>Navy</Text>

        <Border>White</Border>

      </Color>

      <Font>

        <Weight>Normal</Weight>

        <Size>7.8pt</Size>

        <Family>Verdana</Family>

        <Align>Center</Align>

        <VerticalAlign>Middle</VerticalAlign>

      </Font>

      <Padding>

        <Right>0pt</Right>

        <Left>0pt</Left>

        <Bottom>0pt</Bottom>

        <Top>0pt</Top>

      </Padding>

    </AlternatingRow>

    <GroupingRow>

      <Color>

        <Background>#eee8aa</Background>

        <Text>Navy</Text>

        <Border>White</Border>

      </Color>

      <Font>

        <Weight>Bold</Weight>

        <Size>7.8pt</Size>

        <Family>Verdana</Family>

        <Align>Center</Align>

        <VerticalAlign>Middle</VerticalAlign>

      </Font>

      <Padding>

        <Right>0pt</Right>

        <Left>0pt</Left>

        <Bottom>0pt</Bottom>

        <Top>0pt</Top>

      </Padding>

    </GroupingRow>

  </Table>

</Style>

How to use it from Report (after you create a reference to assembly):

=Style.Get("Table", "Header", "Background")

Now when you change the XML file it changes all of the styles in your reports!

References:

• http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Reporting+Services+(SSRS)/65811/
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms152828(v=SQL.90).aspx
• http://support.microsoft.com/kb/842419
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa179495(SQL.80).aspx

Project Euler - Python - Problem 2

Python has some very cool iteration features - ive never used (or even heard of) generator functions before so I find this concept quite powerful.

from itertools import takewhile

def fibonacci():

    a,b=0,1

    while 1:

        yield a

        a,b=b,a+b

print(sum([i for i in takewhile(lambda z: z<4000000, fibonacci()) if i%2==0]))