dusty_machines

DOS Batch Script to Delete Files in a Directory older than x Days

pop — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:18:04 +0000

Here’s a clever little batch script I found at work, by setting a few parameters near the top of the file, you can run this batch file whenever, to clean up a directory.

Typical usage would be to delete all .dmp files in a given directory which are older than 30 days.

I’m not sure who originally wrote this, but its cool!

DelOld.txt

Error 14426: A log shipping monitor is already defined - How To Fix!

pop — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:21:56 +0000

I’ve been trying to set up log shipping between two boxes running Sql Server 2000 - but everytime I got to the last step, I’d get the above error.

This is actually really simple to fix! On a previous attempt, running the Log Shipping wizard, the wizard had finished uncleanly, not rolled back entirely, and had left a row in the log_shipping_monitor table of msdb, a system database which comes with Sql Server 2000.

Check that table now! Is there a row there? Delete it and re-run the wizard, you should have gotten rid of the above error.

Lightning Quick .NET Profiling

pop — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:12:49 +0000

Here’s a super-quick tip for evaluating the time-hit of a section of .NET code.

You’ll obviously want to use profiling tools once your application has taken shape, but I’ve been in the situation many times where you want to quickly evaluate several code options.

Simply use the System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch class to record the time taken for a piece of code to execute:

 
        System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch theWatch = new System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();
 
        theWatch.Start();
        // Execute a block of code..
        theWatch.Stop();
 
        Response.Write(theWatch.ElapsedMilliseconds.ToString());

ASP.NET & C# - Merge DataTables based on Common Value

pop — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 06:01:15 +0000

Want to do the equivalent of an sql inner-join, on two .NET DataTables?

I wrote the code below some time ago, you can use it to effectively merge two datatables.

Use the static method, Merge, like so..

DataTable ANewMergedTable = DataTableMerger.Merge(DataTable1, DataTable2);

This method will

(a) see if any columns in the first datatable also appear in the second table

(b) if any do, join the two tables, using the shared column.

Enjoy!

using System;
 
using System.Data;
 
using System.Collections.Generic;
 
public static class DataTableMerger
 
{
 
    public static DataTable Merge(DataTable dt1, DataTable dt2)
 
    {
 
        //Make sure we have some valid data to work with
 
        if (dt1 == null || dt2 == null || dt1.Columns.Count < 1 || dt1.Columns.Count < 1)
 
        {
 
            return null;
 
        }
 
	//Find the common fields.
 
        List dt1ColumnsUsed = new List();
 
        List dt2ColumnsUsed = new List();
 
        List CommonColumns = new List();
 
        foreach (DataColumn dc in dt1.Columns)
 
        {
 
            if (dt2.Columns.Contains(dc.ColumnName))
 
            {
 
                CommonColumns.Add(dc.ColumnName);
 
            }
 
        }
	//Did we find a match?
 
        if (CommonColumns.Count < 1) { return null; } //no
 
        //Else Yes.
 
	//Create a new DataTable
 
        DataTable newdt = new DataTable();
 
	//Copy columns from Table 1
 
        foreach (DataColumn dc in dt1.Columns)
 
        {
 
            DataColumn newdc = new DataColumn();
 
            newdc.ColumnName = dc.ColumnName;
 
            newdt.Columns.Add(newdc);
 
            dt1ColumnsUsed.Add(dc.ColumnName);
 
        }
 
	//Copy columns from Table 2
 
        foreach (DataColumn dc in dt2.Columns)
 
        {
 
            if(!newdt.Columns.Contains(dc.ColumnName))
 
            {
 
                DataColumn newdc = new DataColumn();
 
                newdc.ColumnName = dc.ColumnName;
 
                newdt.Columns.Add(newdc);
 
                dt2ColumnsUsed.Add(dc.ColumnName);
 
            }
 
        }
 
	//Get data from both tables
 
        foreach (DataRow dr in dt1.Rows)
 
        {
 
                for(int i = 0; i < dt2.Rows.Count; i++)
 
                {
 
                    DataRow dr2 = dt2.Rows[i];
 
	            //if we have more than one.. check here now.
 
                    bool match = true;
 
                    foreach (string shared in CommonColumns)
 
                    {
 
                        if (dr[shared].ToString() != dr2[shared].ToString())
 
                        {
 
                            match = false;
 
                        }
 
                    }
 
		if(match)
 
                    {
 
                        //We have a match..
 
                        DataRow newdr = newdt.NewRow();
 
			//Load in data from dt1
 
                        foreach (string dt1col in dt1ColumnsUsed)
 
                        {
 
                            newdr[dt1col] = dr[dt1col].ToString();
 
                        }
 
			//Load in data from dt2
 
                        foreach (string dt2col in dt2ColumnsUsed)
 
                        {
 
                            newdr[dt2col] = dr2[dt2col].ToString();
 
                        }
 
			//add the new row to the table
 
                        newdt.Rows.Add(newdr);
 
                    }
 
            }
 
        }
 
	//return the table
 
        return newdt;
 
    }
 
}

How To Fix: Provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 5 - Invalid parameter(s) found

pop — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 00:54:23 +0000

Are you coming up against this error, when connecting to SQL Server?

An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 5 - Invalid parameter(s) found

Here are the two biggest causes:

You dont have TCP/IP enabled for this instance of SQL Server. In the SQL Server Configuration Manager (under Configuration Tools in the Microsoft SQL Server folder), you can change these settings.
Your connection string is in the following format:

Server=\\MYSERVER\SQL2000;Initial Catalog=my_database;uid=sa;pwd=sa

The solution here is to drop the leading backslashes, ie. make this connection string:

Server=MYSERVER\SQL2000;Initial Catalog=my_database;uid=sa;pwd=sa