Q Do you Posts

Learn how to make an easy SQL Server Script that will automatically back up all your databases in a simple way.

In a perfect world, API documentation would contain clear, complete instructions on everything that developers need to know to use your platform. In reality, organizations have limited time and budget to create API documentation, and so organizations need to prioritize to create documentation that is most useful to the people who will use it.

SDK Bridge set out to find out what is most important to the people who use APIs by sending out a survey and asking them. We found, not surprisingly, that many thought that documentation could be better. When asked to rate quantitatively, people rated overviews, sample code, and API references the highest, followed closely by tutorials. When asked for open-ended comments, a large percentage mentioned working sample code as helpful, and an equally high percentage mentioned how important it is that documentation be complete and accurate. Two other important factors that were mentioned by several respondants are (1) it is very helpful to explain why you would use something in addition to how you use it and (2) completeness and accuracy are critical.

With the introduction of support for ADO Database access, Borland gave us TADOTable, a quick, easy-to-use component to begin the job of outfitting an existing application with a newer database. But TADOTable is no TTable! It comes with some baggage you can do without.

Delphi for Win32 supports abstract class members using the abstract keyword. You can even instantiate instances of a class that contains abstract members. Then you override each abstract member in a descendant class with Override. Delphi does not support setting an entire class as abstract. You can create an abstract class (a class with one or more abstract methods), but there is no way to tell the compiler to not allow the instantiation of the abstract class. Delphi does not support abstract member properties directly. To implement an abstract properity, make use of abstract methods. That is, you can read a GetPropertyX abstract function and write to a SetPropertyX abstract procedure. In effect, creating  an abstract property.

Have you installed SQL Server 2005, set all the right SQL Server settings, and still can't browse the server? If you're running XP Pro service pack 2 or later, you may have forgotten to fix this issue at the FIREWALL! (doh!)

Currently Facebook is the "it" website for social networking. Create a business Facebook account if you don't have and don't want a personal account. If you already have a personal account, create a fan page for your business. If you don't wish to mix personal info with business, set your privacy settings to friends-of-friends and direct business-folk to your fan page. Facebook groups are limited to 5,000 members and are used for family, or friends, or club-like activity. However, if your club activity is public, it is better to use a fan page any way. Just like your public account, fan pages are indexed by the search engines but groups are not.

The number of Web APIs is growing rapidly, especially with the increasing popularity of Software as a Service. Because Web APIs are still fairly new, the quality and format of their documentation varies a great deal. Good documentation is important for Web APIs because experimentation is more difficult than with local APIs. Because Web APIs are language-neutral, you may need to write sample code in a variety of different languages. Be sure to cover authentication, error handling, and HTTP information.

Crowd-sourcing (that is, using Web-based technology to gather API documentation content from your users) has the potential to lower documentation costs and make your documentation more relevant. However, relying solely your developer community to provide documentation will result in uneven quality and coverage. I recommend a hybrid approach, where professional programmer/writers write parts of the documentation, as well as rewrite and polish content from the community. Several tools are available that enable communities to contribute documentation content. 

In PHP, you declare constants using the define keyword:

Constants in PHP are case sensitive. A common standard in PHP is to use all-uppercase letters, with underscores to separate words within the name.

In PHP, you declare constants using the define keyword:

Constants in PHP are case sensitive. A common standard in PHP is to use all-uppercase letters, with underscores to separate words within the name.

Setting up a wireless router is easy. Essentially you turn your cable or DSL modem off and your wireless router on. Then, you connect the router to the modem with a cable, and turn the modem back on. You are more or less done. The wireless network wizard on your computer will pick up the router and, if your ISP does not have any special requirements, away-you-go, you are on the Internet.

Paradox has a built-in report writer that will suffice for nearly all reports you wish to create. You base a report on one or more tables or on a query. It uses a banded approach so you think in terms of records, pages, and report. Except for the record band, each section has a header and a footer. Paradox also offers a quick report which is useful for printing data quickly.

The following function demonstrates one technique for coding a Yes/No dropdown. It uses a for loop which can be expanded to handle more than the 3 states (Y, N, and blank).

Example of calling the function:

Ok, no one really needs information on how to make the worst possible web site.  This article was written as a guide how not to do a web page for your business.  As a professional web designer I am well-versed in all the nerdy ways required to carve a web site out of solid stone.  What I offer here is a humorous attempt to get you thinking about the things a business needs to consider before creating or redesigning your web page.

Found a cryptic version of this code on http://www.delphifaq.com/faq/delphi/network/f702.shtml by narayana and re-arranged and adapted it to produce a non-duplicated list of MAC addresses in a re-usable code snippet. I show you how to include this unit in your project and then how to call it to get a list of the MAC addresses. Most importantly, it does not use NetBios and I have tested it on Win7 32- and 64-bit.

In Delphi, you specify a virtual method with the virtual keyword in a parent class and replace it in a descendant class using the override keyword. Call Inherited in the descendant method to execute the code in the parent method.

Delphi allows you to extend an existing class without using inheritance. Buggy in 2005 and not officially supported but stable and usable in 2006 and above. You declare a class helper similiar to how you declare a class but use the keywords class helper for.

• You can name a helper anything.
• Helpers have access only to public members of the class.
• You cannot create an object instance directly from a class helper.
• self refers to the class being helped.

Having lots of other web sites host links to your site is a great way to make search engines regard your site as important, or relevant.  It helps ensure high visibility for your site when Internet visitors use search providers to find content related to your site.

There are several ways to accomplish this, but you must tread carefully: The wrong techniques can backfire - with serious consequences.

ObjectPAL provides a rich set of commands for finding a record with a TCursor or UIObject including:

• locate() -  Seach for a value based on a criteria. Uses indexes as appropriate.
• locatePattern() - Search for a pattern within a value.
• moveToRecord() - Moves to a specific record number.
• qLocate() - Search using currently set index.

Each of these basic find record commands has supporting commands such as locateNext() and recNo().

Think globally, act locally.  How many times have you needed to determine the geographic distance between two places?  This tutorial will show you how to accomplish just that.

All data and functions exist in a SQL Server Database, and can be used in VB.NET, C#.NET, Paradox, Delphi, or any other language that can call a database function.

Although the .NET Framework is well "tuned" for MS SQL Server, it can also be pressed into service with other databases.

A somewhat unusual case is using ASP .NET to access and modify data in Paradox tables.  If you're going to do that, the most important thing to know is which ODBC driver to use - because you will be using an ODBC Driver.

The driver to use was created by Intersolv and bundled with Paradox v9. That driver has a version designation of v3.11

In VB.Net, you define constants with the Const keyword.

All constants are part of a class (no global constants) but you can make a constant public and have access to it using ClassName.ConstantName so long as you have added the class to the project. This works even without creating the class as if the public constants were static, but you cannot use the Shared keyword.

Constants must be of an integral type (sbyte, byte, short, ushort, int, uint, long, ulong, char, float, double, decimal, bool, or string), an enumeration, or a reference to null.

VB.Net supports both method and operator overloading.

For method overloading, you either use implicit overloading (no special syntax like C#) or use the Overloads keyword. If you use the Overloads keyword, all overloaded methods with the same name in the same class must include the Overloads keyword.

In VB.Net you can set the visibility of a member field to any visibility: private, protected, public, friend or protected friend.

You can intialize a member field with a default when declared. If you set the member field value in your constructor, it will override the default value.

Finally, you can use the Shared modifier (no instance required) and ReadOnly modifier (similar to a constant).

In C#, the Object keyword is an alias for the base System.Object class and is the single base class all classes ultimately inherit from.

C# is case sensitive. The following does NOT:

The first time you type any other case for commands or variables, VS.Net will change it to the accepted or defined case. For example, if you type messagebox.show it is converted to MessageBox.Show. Once corrected, you can break it again by editing MessageBox to messagebox and the compiler will give you an error.

The syntax of object.method() is consistent throughout ObjectPAL. If an object with the name box has code on its mouseClick event, you can access that code with box.mouseClick() method from any other object. When this code executes, the UIObject method mouseClick() calls the mouseClick event.

How do you know when you can call the code in a built-in method of an object? Easy, if the run-time library has a method equivalent, then you can use itfor example, mouseClick() and pushButton().

Before you code in ObjectPAL, ask yourself two questions. Does Paradox already do this? Is there a better and easier way? Remember, simple solutions for simple problems.

Language Overview: Object based language. Although ObjectPAL uses object oriented techniques "under the hood", it is not object oriented. Although you cannot create classes, ObjectPAL has built-in objects you can use in your code. You code in a traditional approach attaching code to objects or within a script. Most Paradox applications are form based. You may have a short startup script but you design forms and reports and tie them together with a common form. You can store reusable code such as custom methods and procedures in a library.

Target Platforms: Corel Paradox is most suitable for creating business desktop applications that run within Corel Paradox for Windows.

In Delphi, you can inline assembler code using the asm keyword.

Many objects in Delphi have events you can use to trigger code. For example, when you add a form to your project you have access to the form events such as onCreate, onShow, onHide, onDockDrop, etc. In addition, Delphi offers module level events initialization and finalization sections.

Like all .Net languages, Prism events are a separate type of class member. You define a member event by using the event keyword. Events depend on Delegates to define the signature (the type) of the event they represent and they maintain a list of multiple subscribers - unlike in Delphi for Win32, where each event can only have one handler

The Delphi Prism

Most notable for Delphi developers is the fact that Prism does not offer initialization nor finalization sections.

The JavaScript event handler contains events centered around the Document Object Model (DOM). Common events include onMouseOver and onMouseOut, onFocus and onBlur, onClick and onDblClick, onChange and onSelect, onLoad and onUnload.

For example, onMouseOver and onMouseOut are frequently used with websites to change an image when your mouse moves over it. The onClick event is used to trigger code upon a mouse click.

Unlike Delphi, Delphi Prism uses the .Net garbage collector to free managed object instances. Prism does not have nor need a true destructor.

In .Net, a finalizer is used to free non-managed objects such as a file or network resource. Because you don't know when the garbage collector will call your finalizer, Microsoft recommends you implement the IDisposable interface for non-managed resources and call it's Dispose() method at the appropriate time.

In Prism you can set the visibility of a member field to any visibility: private, protected, public, assembly and protected or assembly or protected. Prism supports the readonly modifier for member fields which is handy for constant like data. In this case, I chose not to preface my read-only member field with "F" so it's usage is just like a read-only property. Prism also support the class modifier (static data) for member fields. Delphi developers should notice the use of := to initialize a member field (in Delphi you use an =).

If your computer was fast but is now slow, you can use techniques such as adware removers, defrag, and others to bring your PC back to life! You can also add hardware to speed up your computer (RAM, SATA HD, better video card, etc.).

In Delphi, use the constructor keyword to signify which method or methods are constructors for a class. It is traditional but not required to use a procedure called Create.

In addition to having multiple named constructors, you can overload constructors.

In C# you can set the visibility of a member field to any visibility: private, protected, public, internal or protected internal. You can intialize a member field with a default when declared. If you set the member field value in your constructor, it will override the default value. Finally, you can use the static modifier (no instance required) and readonly modifier (similar to a constant).

Object Pascal

• Operator - Yes. But not Pascal.
• Method - Yes.  

In Prism, you specify each class and each class member's visibility with a Class Member Visibility Level preceding the return type. Like Delphi, you group member declarations as part of defining the interface for a class in the Interface section of a unit.

Unlike Delphi, Prism supports a traditional OO approach to member visibility with additional .Net type assembly visibility. For example, private members are truly private to the class they are declared in. In Delphi for Win32, you use strict private for true traditional private visibility.

Prism also supports assembly and protected and assembly or protected which modify the visibility of protected members to include only descendants in the same assembly (and) or publicly accessible from assembly and descendant only outside (or). OO purist might object to assembly and protected and assembly or protected and I suggest you choose the traditional private, protected, and public as your first chose at least until you both fully understand them and have a specific need for them.

Although pointer data types in Prism coding are less important than in other languages such as C++, Prism does support developer defined pointers. Use the ^ operator to declare a pointer data type. Use the @ operator to return the current address of a variable.

In .Net managed coding the use of pointers is not safe because the garbage collector may move memory around. To safely use pointers, use the unsafe keyword. However, avoid unsafe code if possible.

Same as Delphi. In Prism, you specify a virtual method with the virtual keyword in a parent class and replace it in a descendant class using the override keyword. Call Inherited in the descendant method to execute the code in the parent method.

Method overriding allows you to define or implement a virtual method in a parent class and then replace it in a descendant class. In C#, you specify a virtual method with the virtual keyword in a parent class and replace it in a descendant class using the override keyword.

In VB.Net, you specify a virtual method with the Overridable keyword in a parent class and extend (or replace) it in a descendant class using the Overrides keyword.

Use the base keyword in the descendant method to execute the code in the parent method, i.e. base.SomeMethod().

VB.Net doesn't support pointers. The closest it comes is IntPtr which you use to get pointer handles on windows, files, etc.

C# does have better support for pointers and C++/CLI has extensive support. One solution when it's really needed in VB.Net is to code in C# or C++/CLI and add it to your project.

However, VB.Net does support references.

Although pointer data types in C# coding are less important than in other languages such as C++, C# does support developer defined pointers. Use the * operator to declare a pointer data type. Use the & operator to return the current address of a variable.

In .Net managed coding the use of pointers is not safe because the garbage collector may move memory around. To safely use pointers, use the unsafe keyword.

C++/CLI has more extensive support for pointers than C#. If you have needs that go beyond what C# offers, you can code in C++/CLI and add it to your project.