My name is Edward Tanguay. I'm an American software and web developer living and working in Berlin, Germany.
4 hours ago: If you are a developer in Berlin and need to improve your English, I'm looking for groups to teach after work: http://tanguay.info/itenglish.
5 hours ago: As far as I'm concerned, the singularity is already here, every time I wake up twitter tells me something amazing was created while I slept.
5 hours ago: We're not suffering from information overload, we're suffering from faulty filtering.
5 hours ago: Classic literature for free as nicely formatted 1-page or 2-page PDF downloads: http://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks.asp.
5 hours ago: Yes, when you pour coffee, "a lightning storm of neuronal activity occurs almost across the entire brain": http://is.gd/eWO1T @pholdings.
22 hours ago: If you put two spaces after a period or use underlining for emphasis, you were born before 1980.
22 hours ago: Word of the day: infovore, n. an animal with a voracious appetite for information.
yesterday: It's said that on average people use less than 10% of their brain, but I think on average computers use less than 1% of their CPU.
2 days ago: Saturday fun: team drawing on two computers with six-year-old in a shared google doc diagram.
2 days ago: Someday I want to produce a developer podcast called "What's that?" but for now "the developer's life" is a nice genre: http://is.gd/eTURO.
3 days ago: Here's a use-case for datapod format, recording human-readable data that later can be used as a datasource: http://is.gd/eSsLg @pholdings.

Categories

My Older Tutorials

My Old Web Dev Site

C# CODE EXAMPLE created 4 days ago permalink
Extension method for checking regex in one line
This simple extension method allows you to check strings against regular expressions in one line.
using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace TestRegex2342343
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            List<string> texts = new List<string>()
            {
                "233-2887",
                "2332887",
                "442-1121",
                "",
                null
            };

            foreach (var text in texts)
            {
                if (text.MatchesRegex("^[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{4}$"))
                    Console.WriteLine(text + " matches");
                else
                    Console.WriteLine(text + " does NOT match");
            }
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    public static class Helpers
    {
        public static bool MatchesRegex(this string text, string regex)
        {
            if (text == null || regex == null)
                return false;
            else
            {
                Match match = Regex.Match(text, regex);
                return match.Success;
            }
        }
    }
}
 
C# CODE EXAMPLE created on Sunday, August 22, 2010 permalink
How to use a Dictionary<> with struct key to save a dynamic matrix of objects
The following is an example of how you can save both a fixed matrix of objects and a dynamic matrix of objects (size determined at runtime) using first a multi-dimensional array and then a generic dictionary with a struct key. In both examples you can pick the object out of the map with the x/y coordinates.
using System;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace TestDoubarray
{
    public partial class Window1 : Window
    {
        public Window1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            StaticMatrixExampleWithArray();
            DynamicMatrixExampleWithDictionary(10, 10);
            DynamicMatrixExampleWithDictionary(20, 20);
        }

        private void StaticMatrixExampleWithArray()
        {

            CheckBox[,] checkBoxes = new CheckBox[10, 10];

            for (int x = 0; x < 10; x++)
            {
                for (int y = 0; y < 10; y++)
                {
                    CheckBox cb = new CheckBox();
                    cb.Tag = String.Format("x={0}/y={1}", x, y);
                    checkBoxes[x,y] = cb;
                }
            }

            CheckBox cbOut = checkBoxes[4, 8];
            Message.Text += cbOut.Tag.ToString() + Environment.NewLine;
        }

        private void DynamicMatrixExampleWithDictionary(int xMax, int yMax)
        {
            Dictionary<MatrixCoordinates, CheckBox> checkboxes = new Dictionary<MatrixCoordinates, CheckBox>();

            for (int x = 0; x < xMax; x++)
            {
                for (int y = 0; y < yMax; y++)
                {
                    CheckBox cb = new CheckBox();
                    cb.Tag = String.Format("x={0}/y={1}", x, y);
                    checkboxes.Add(new MatrixCoordinates { X = x, Y = y }, cb);
                }
            }

            CheckBox cbOut = checkboxes[new MatrixCoordinates { X = 4, Y = 8 }];
            Message.Text += cbOut.Tag.ToString() + Environment.NewLine;
        }

        private struct MatrixCoordinates
        {
            public int X { get; set; }
            public int Y { get; set; }
        }
    }
}
 
JQUERY CODE EXAMPLE created on Sunday, August 22, 2010 permalink
A simple jquery search machine for a web page
This example shows how easy it is with JQuery to put a little form on the page that allows a user to search for a keyword which highlights that keyword on the page.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi" type="text/javascript"></script>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            google.load('jquery', '1.4.2');
            google.setOnLoadCallback(function() {
                $('#searchButton').click(function() {
                    $('p').removeClass('highlight');
                    $('p:contains("' + $('#searchText').val() + '")').addClass('highlight');
                });
            });
        </script>
        <style>
            p {
                color: brown;
            }

            p.highlight {
                background-color: orange;
            }

            body {
                background-color: beige;
            }
        </style>

    </head>
    <body>
        <input id="searchText" value="second" />
        <button id="searchButton">Search</button>
        <p>This is the first entry.</p>
        <p>This is the second entry.</p>
        <p>This is the third entry.</p>
        <p>This is the fourth entry.</p>
    </body>
</html>
 
WPF CODE EXAMPLE created on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 permalink
Wrapper class to simplify the creation of Excel files in C# 4.0
This class uses of the improved COM Interop in C# 4.0 and makes it simple to create Excel files from data in your application. Note that in your visual studio project you have to add a reference to (in COM tab) the Microsoft Excel 14.0 Object Library.    
using System;
using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;

namespace test_excel
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            ExcelManager em = new ExcelManager(@"c:testreport1234.xlsx");
            em.FillCell(1, 2, "Jan");
            em.FillCell(1, 3, "Feb");
            em.FillCell(1, 4, "Mar");
            em.FillCell(2, 1, "Boston");
            em.FillCell(3, 1, "New York");
            em.Save();
        }
    }

    public class ExcelManager
    {
        Application _excelApp;
        Workbook _wb;
        Worksheet _ws;
        Range _range;
        string _pathAndFileName;

        public ExcelManager(string pathAndFileName, string sheetName = "Data")
        {
            _pathAndFileName = pathAndFileName;
            _excelApp = new Application();
            if (_excelApp == null)
                throw new Exception("excel sheet could not be created, check your office installation");
            //_excelApp.Visible = true; //uncomment to see it being created
            _wb = _excelApp.Workbooks.Add(XlWBATemplate.xlWBATWorksheet);
            _ws = (Worksheet)_wb.Worksheets[1];
            if (_ws == null)
                throw new Exception("workshop could not be craeted, check your office installation");
            _ws.Name = sheetName;
            _range = _ws.UsedRange;
        }

        public void FillCell(int row, int column, string value)
        {
            _ws.Cells[row, column] = value;
        }

        public void Save()
        {
            _wb.SaveAs(_pathAndFileName);
            _wb.Close();
        }
    }
}
 
JAVASCRIPT CODE EXAMPLE created on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 permalink
How to make clickable flashcards in plain javascript for your mobile phone
I realized that my Sony Ericsson C510 phone doesn't support JQuery (NetFront browser) so had to recreate the flashcards in plain Javascript, thanks to bobince via stackoverflow it works nicely.
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
        <script type="text/javascript">    
            window.onload= function() {
                var divs= document.getElementsByTagName('div');
                for (var i= divs.length; i-->0;)
                    if (divs[i].className==='question')
                        Toggler(divs[i]);
            };
            
            function Toggler(div) {
                var state= false;
                var toggled= div.nextSibling;
                while (toggled.nodeType!==1)
                    toggled= toggled.nextSibling;
            
                div.onclick= function() {
                    state= !state;
                    toggled.style.display= state? 'block' : 'none';
                };
            };

        </script>
        <style>
            div.flashcard {
                margin: 0 10px 10px 0;
            }
            div.flashcard div.question {
                background-color:#ddd;
                width: 400px;        
                padding: 5px;    
                cursor: hand;    
                cursor: pointer;
            }
            div.flashcard div.answer {
                background-color:#eee;
                width: 400px;
                padding: 5px;    
                display: none;        
            }                
        </style>
    </head>
<body>

    <div id="1" class="flashcard">
    <div class="question">Who was Wagner?</div>
    <div class="answer">German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as they were later called). Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his works.</div>
    </div>
    
    <div id="2" class="flashcard">
    <div class="question">Who was Thalberg?</div>
    <div class="answer">a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.</div>
    </div>

</body>
</html>
 
JQUERY CODE EXAMPLE created on Wednesday, July 07, 2010 permalink
Simple example of javascript which loads jquery locally
Just download the latest version from jquery.com (click the button and copy/paste the text into e.g. the file /jquery-1.4.2.min.js).
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="javascript/jquery-1.4.2.min.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
            $(document).ready(function() {
            $("div > div.question").click(function() {
                if($(this).next().is(':hidden')) {
                $(this).next().fadeIn("slow");
                } else {
                $(this).next().fadeOut("slow");
                }
            });    
            });
    
        </script>
        <style>
            div.flashcard {
                margin: 0 10px 10px 0;
            }
            div.flashcard div.question {
                background-color:#ddd;
                width: 400px;        
                padding: 5px;    
                cursor: hand;    
                cursor: pointer;
            }
            div.flashcard div.answer {
                background-color:#eee;
                width: 400px;
                padding: 5px;    
                display: none;        
            }
        </style>
    </head>

<body>
    <div id="1" class="flashcard">
    <div class="question">Who was Wagner?</div>
    <div class="answer">German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as they were later called). Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his works.</div>
    </div>
    
    <div id="2" class="flashcard">
    <div class="question">Who was Thalberg?</div>
    <div class="answer">a composer and one of the most distinguished virtuoso pianists of the 19th century.</div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>
 
C# CODE EXAMPLE created on Tuesday, July 06, 2010 permalink
How to stop regular expression greediness
This example shows how you can tell a regular expression to only get the text before the first colon, thanks Matthew and Jason.
using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace TestRegex92343
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            //Regex regex = new Regex(@"(?<label>.+):s*(?<text>.+)"); //wont' work in second case

            {
                string line = "title: The Way We Were";
                Regex regex = new Regex(@"(?<label>[^:]+):s*(?<text>.+)");
                Match match = regex.Match(line);
                Console.WriteLine("LABEL IS: {0}", match.Groups["label"]);
                Console.WriteLine("TEXT IS: {0}", match.Groups["text"]);
            }

            {
                string line = "title: The Way We Were: A Study of Youth";
                Regex regex = new Regex(@"(?<label>[^:]+):s*(?<text>.+)");
                Match match = regex.Match(line);
                Console.WriteLine("LABEL IS: {0}", match.Groups["label"]);
                Console.WriteLine("TEXT IS: {0}", match.Groups["text"]);
            }

            Console.ReadLine();

        }
    }
}

 
C# CODE EXAMPLE created on Friday, July 02, 2010 permalink
How to use a generic dictionary to total enum values
This code example shows how you can use a generic dictionary to add up the total of each kind of item in an enum collection. It is flexible so that if you add an enum value, it automatically is totalled as well.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace TestDict2394343
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            List<LessonStatus> lessonStatuses = new List<LessonStatus>();
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Defined);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Recorded);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Defined);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Practiced);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Prepared);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Defined);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Practiced);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Prepared);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Defined);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Practiced);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Practiced);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Prepared);
            lessonStatuses.Add(LessonStatus.Defined);

            Section section = new Section(lessonStatuses);
            section.ShowTotals();
            Console.ReadLine();

        }


        public class Section
        {
            protected Dictionary<string, int> _lessonStatusTotals = new Dictionary<string, int>();

            public Section(List<LessonStatus> lessonStatuses)
            {
                foreach (var lessonStatus in Enum.GetNames(typeof(LessonStatus)))
                {
                    _lessonStatusTotals.Add(lessonStatus, 0);
                }


                foreach (var lessonStatus in lessonStatuses)
                {
                    _lessonStatusTotals[lessonStatus.ToString()]++;
                }
            }

            public void ShowTotals()
            {
                foreach (KeyValuePair<string, int> lst in _lessonStatusTotals)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", lst.Key, lst.Value);
                }
            }
        }

        public enum LessonStatus
        {
            Defined,
            Prepared,
            Practiced,
            Recorded
        }
    }
}
 
C# CODE EXAMPLE created on Friday, July 02, 2010 permalink
Generic method to case-insensitively convert a string to any enum
This generic static method takes an enum type and a string and converts it, ignoring case, and if the string is invalid, it will return the first (default) item in the enum collection. I'm returning the default value in a catch since IsDefined doesn't have an ignoreCase parameter, but there are more elegant ways to do this, especially in C#4 .
using System;

namespace TestEnum2934234
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            LessonStatus lessonStatus = StringHelpers.ConvertStringToEnum<LessonStatus>("pxrepared");
            ReportStatus reportStatus = StringHelpers.ConvertStringToEnum<ReportStatus>("finished");

            Console.WriteLine(lessonStatus.ToString());
            Console.WriteLine(reportStatus.ToString());
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    public static class StringHelpers
    {
        public static T ConvertStringToEnum<T>(string text)
        {
            try
            {
                return (T)Enum.Parse(typeof(T), text, true);
            }
            catch (ArgumentException ex)
            {
                return default(T);
            }
        }
    }

    public enum LessonStatus
    {
        Defined,
        Prepared,
        Practiced,
        Recorded
    }

    public enum ReportStatus
    {
        Draft,
        Revising,
        Finished
    }
}
 
SILVERLIGHT CODE EXAMPLE created on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 permalink
How to create a TextBlock that has various font formatting in code behind
When you create a TextBlock, you can assign it a text and then assign formatting only to the whole text, e.g. the whole TextBlock can be one color. If you want different parts of the TextBlock.Text to be various colors and have various formatting (e.g. italic/bold), you can create as many Run elements as you need and add them to the TextBlock with Inlines collection.
XAML:
<UserControl x:Class="TestRun2343.MainPage"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006">
    <StackPanel HorizontalAlignment="Left" Margin="10">
        <ContentControl Content="{Binding MainContent}"/>
    </StackPanel>
</UserControl>

Code Behind:
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Media;

namespace TestRun2343
{
    public partial class MainPage : UserControl, INotifyPropertyChanged
    {
        #region ViewModelProperty: MainContent .
        private object _mainContent;
        public object MainContent
        {
            get
            {
                return _mainContent;
            }

            set
            {
                _mainContent = value;
                OnPropertyChanged("MainContent");
            }
        }
        #endregion .

        public MainPage()
            : base()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            DataContext = this;

            TextBlock tb = new TextBlock();
            tb.FontSize = 14;
            tb.FontFamily = new FontFamily("Courier");

            Run runLabel = new Run();
            runLabel.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Brown);
            runLabel.Text = "Test 1: ";

            Run runContent = new Run();
            runContent.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);
            runContent.FontStyle = FontStyles.Italic;
            runContent.Text = "This is the first test.";

            tb.Inlines.Add(runLabel);
            tb.Inlines.Add(runContent);

            MainContent = tb;
        }

        #region INotifiedProperty Block .
        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        protected void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName)
        {
            PropertyChangedEventHandler handler = PropertyChanged;

            if (handler != null)
            {
                handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
            }
        }
        #endregion .
    }
}