Wednesday, 12 March 2025

Rebuild indexes in all tables in Sql Server for a set of databases

Here is a convenient Sql script to rebuild all indexes in a set of databases in Sql Server.
RebuildAllDatabaseIndexesInSetOfDatabases.sql



/*
This script loops through all databases with names containing a specified prefix or matching a specific name.
For each database, it rebuilds indexes on all tables to improve performance by reducing fragmentation.

Variables:
- @Prefix: The prefix to match database names.
- @SomeSpecialSharedDatabaseName: The specific database specific shared database name to include in the loop.
- @DatabaseName: The name of the current database in the loop.
- @TableName: The name of the current table in the loop.
- @SQL: The dynamic SQL statement to execute.

Steps:
1. Declare the necessary variables.
2. Create a cursor to loop through the databases.
3. For each database, use another cursor to loop through all tables and rebuild their indexes.
4. Print progress messages for each database and table.
*/

DECLARE @SomeAcmeUnitDatabaseNamePrefix NVARCHAR(255) = 'SomeAcmeUnit';
DECLARE @SomeSpecialSharedDatabaseName NVARCHAR(255) = 'SomeAcmeShared';
DECLARE @DatabaseName NVARCHAR(255);
DECLARE @TableName NVARCHAR(255);
DECLARE @SQL NVARCHAR(MAX);
DECLARE @DatabaseCount INT;
DECLARE @CurrentDatabaseCount INT = 0;
DECLARE @TableCount INT;
DECLARE @CurrentTableCount INT = 0;
DECLARE @StartTime DATETIME2;
DECLARE @EndTime DATETIME2;
DECLARE @ElapsedTime NVARCHAR(100);

SET @StartTime = SYSDATETIME();

-- Get the total number of databases to process
SELECT @DatabaseCount = COUNT(*)
FROM sys.databases
WHERE [name] LIKE @SomeAcmeUnitDatabaseNamePrefix + '%' OR [name] = @SomeSpecialSharedDatabaseName;

DECLARE DatabaseCursor CURSOR FOR
SELECT [name]
FROM sys.databases
WHERE [name] LIKE @SomeAcmeUnitDatabaseNamePrefix + '%' OR [name] = @SomeSpecialSharedDatabaseName;

OPEN DatabaseCursor;
FETCH NEXT FROM DatabaseCursor INTO @DatabaseName;

WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
    SET @CurrentDatabaseCount = @CurrentDatabaseCount + 1;
    SET @SQL = '
	RAISERROR(''*****************************************************************'', 0, 1) WITH NOWAIT;
	RAISERROR(''REBUILDING ALL INDEXES OF TABLES INSIDE DB: %s'', 0, 1, @DatabaseName) WITH NOWAIT;
	RAISERROR(''*****************************************************************'', 0, 1) WITH NOWAIT;

    DECLARE @TableName NVARCHAR(255);
    DECLARE @SQL NVARCHAR(MAX);

    -- Get the total number of tables to process in the current database
    SELECT @TableCount = COUNT(*)
    FROM sys.tables;

    DECLARE TableCursor CURSOR FOR
    SELECT QUOTENAME(SCHEMA_NAME(schema_id)) + ''.'' + QUOTENAME(name)
    FROM sys.tables ORDER BY QUOTENAME(name) ASC;

    OPEN TableCursor;
    FETCH NEXT FROM TableCursor INTO @TableName;

    WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
    BEGIN
        SET @CurrentTableCount = @CurrentTableCount + 1;
        PRINT ''Rebuilding database indexes on table: '' + @TableName +  ''... (DB: '' + CAST(@CurrentDatabaseCount AS NVARCHAR) + ''/'' + CAST(@DatabaseCount AS NVARCHAR) + '')''  +  ''... (Table: '' + CAST(@CurrentTableCount AS NVARCHAR) + ''/'' + CAST(@TableCount AS NVARCHAR) + '')'';
		--RAISERROR(''..Indexing (hit Ctrl+End to go to latest message inside this buffer)'',0,1) WITH NOWAIT;
        SET @SQL = ''ALTER INDEX ALL ON '' + @TableName + '' REBUILD'';
        EXEC sp_executesql @SQL;
        FETCH NEXT FROM TableCursor INTO @TableName;
        --PRINT ''Rebuilt database indexes on table: '' + @TableName + ''.'';
    END;

    CLOSE TableCursor;
    DEALLOCATE TableCursor;';

    EXEC sp_executesql @SQL,
		N'@CurrentDatabaseCount INT, @DatabaseCount INT, @TableCount INT, @CurrentTableCount INT, @DatabaseName NVARCHAR(255)',
		@CurrentDatabaseCount, @DatabaseCount, @TableCount, @CurrentTableCount, @DatabaseName;

    FETCH NEXT FROM DatabaseCursor INTO @DatabaseName;
END;

SET @EndTime = SYSDATETIME()

-- Calculate the elapsed time
DECLARE @ElapsedSeconds INT = DATEDIFF(SECOND, @StartTime, @EndTime);
DECLARE @ElapsedMilliseconds INT = DATEPART(MILLISECOND, @EndTime) - DATEPART(MILLISECOND, @StartTime);

-- Combine seconds and milliseconds
SET @ElapsedTime = CAST(@ElapsedSeconds AS NVARCHAR) + '.' + RIGHT('000' + CAST(@ElapsedMilliseconds AS NVARCHAR), 3);

-- Print the elapsed time using RAISERROR
RAISERROR('Total execution time: %s seconds', 0, 1, @ElapsedTime) WITH NOWAIT;


CLOSE DatabaseCursor;
DEALLOCATE DatabaseCursor;



The SQL Script uses loops defined by T-SQL database cursors and uses the sys.databases and sys.tables system views to loop through all the databases matching the set prefixes of 'unit databases' like 'SomeAcmeUnit_0', 'SomeAcmeUnit_1' and 'shared database like 'SomeAcmeShared'. This matches a setup of many databases used in companies, where you just want to rebuild all the indexes in all the tables in all the set of databases. It can be handy to be sure that all indexes are rebuilt.

Sunday, 9 March 2025

Generating dropdowns for enums in Blazor

This article will look into generating dropdown for enums in Blazor. The repository for the source code listed in the article is here: https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/DallEImageGenerationImgeDemoV4 First off, a helper class for enums that will use the InputSelect control. The helper class will support setting the display text for enum options / alternatives via resources files using the display attribute.

Enumhelper.cs | C# source code



using DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Models;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Forms;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.Linq.Expressions;
using System.Resources;

namespace DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Utility
{
  
    public static class EnumHelper
    {
      
        public static RenderFragment GenerateEnumDropDown<TEnum>(
            object receiver,
            TEnum selectedValue,
            Action<TEnum> valueChanged) 
            where TEnum : Enum
        {
            Expression<Func<TEnum>> onValueExpression = () => selectedValue;
            var onValueChanged = EventCallback.Factory.Create<TEnum>(receiver, valueChanged);
            return builder =>
            {
                // Set the selectedValue to the first enum value if it is not set
                if (EqualityComparer<TEnum>.Default.Equals(selectedValue, default))
                {
                    object? firstEnum = Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum)).GetValue(0);
                    if (firstEnum != null)
                    {
                        selectedValue = (TEnum)firstEnum;
                    }
                }

                builder.OpenComponent<InputSelect<TEnum>>(0);
                builder.AddAttribute(1, "Value", selectedValue);
                builder.AddAttribute(2, "ValueChanged", onValueChanged);
                builder.AddAttribute(3, "ValueExpression", onValueExpression);
                builder.AddAttribute(4, "class", "form-select");  // Adding Bootstrap class for styling
                builder.AddAttribute(5, "ChildContent", (RenderFragment)(childBuilder =>
                {
                    foreach (var value in Enum.GetValues(typeof(TEnum)))
                    {
                        childBuilder.OpenElement(6, "option");
                        childBuilder.AddAttribute(7, "value", value?.ToString());
                        childBuilder.AddContent(8, GetEnumOptionDisplayText(value)?.ToString()?.Replace("_", " ")); // Ensure the display text is clean
                        childBuilder.CloseElement();
                    }
                }));
                builder.CloseComponent();
            };
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Retrieves the display text of an enum alternative 
        /// </summary>
        private static string? GetEnumOptionDisplayText<T>(T value)
        {
            string? result = value!.ToString()!; 

            var displayAttribute = value
                .GetType()
                .GetField(value!.ToString()!)
                ?.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(DisplayAttribute), false)?
                .OfType<DisplayAttribute>()
                .FirstOrDefault();
            if (displayAttribute != null)
            {
                if (displayAttribute.ResourceType != null && !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(displayAttribute.Name))
                {
                    result = new ResourceManager(displayAttribute.ResourceType).GetString(displayAttribute!.Name!);                    
                }
                else if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(displayAttribute.Name))
                {
                    result = displayAttribute.Name;
                }           
            }
            return result;          
        }


    }
}



The following razor component shows how to use this helper.


 <div class="form-group">
     <label for="Quality" class="form-class fw-bold">GeneratedImageQuality</label>
     @EnumHelper.GenerateEnumDropDown(this, homeModel.Quality,v => homeModel.Quality = v)
     <ValidationMessage For="@(() => homeModel.Quality)" class="text-danger" />
 </div>
 <div class="form-group">
     <label for="Size" class="form-label fw-bold">GeneratedImageSize</label>
     @EnumHelper.GenerateEnumDropDown(this, homeModel.Size, v => homeModel.Size = v)
     <ValidationMessage For="@(() => homeModel.Size)" class="text-danger" />
 </div>
 <div class="form-group">
     <label for="Style" class="form-label fw-bold">GeneratedImageStyle</label>
     @EnumHelper.GenerateEnumDropDown(this, homeModel.Style, v => homeModel.Style = v)
     <ValidationMessage For="@(() => homeModel.Style)" class="text-danger" />
 </div>


It would be possible to instead make a component than such a helper method that just passes a typeref parameter of the enum type. But using such a programmatic helper returning a RenderFragment. As the code shows, returning a builder which uses the RenderTreeBuilder let's you register the rendertree to return here. It is possible to use OpenComponent and CloseComponent. Using AddAttribute to add attributes to the InputSelect. And a childbuilder for the option values. Sometimes it is easier to just make such a class with helper method instead of a component. The downside is that it is a more manual process, it is similar to how MVC uses HtmlHelpers. What is the best option from using a component or such a RenderFragment helper is not clear, it is a technique many developers using Blazor should be aware of.

Generating images with generated AI service Dall-e-3

This article presents code showing how to generate images using Dall-e-3 images. The source code presented in this article can be cloned from my Github repo here:

https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/DallEImageGenerationImgeDemoV4

First, let's look at the following extension class that geneates the image. The method returnin a string will be used. The image is returned in this sample code in the responseformat Bytes. This is actually base 64 string, looking at the BinaryData and converted into base 64 string. A browser can display base-64 strings and the Dall-e-3 AI services delivers images in png format.

DallEImageExtensions.cs | C# source code



using OpenAI.Images;

namespace DallEImageGenerationDemo.Utility
{
    public static class DallEImageExtensions
    {

        /// <summary>
        /// Generates an image from an description in <paramref name="imagedescription"/>
        /// This uses OpenAI DALL-e-3 AI 
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="imageClient"></param>
        /// <param name="imagedescription"></param>
        /// <param name="options">Send in options for the image generation. If no options are sent, a 512x512 natural image in response format bytes will be returned</param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static async Task<GeneratedImage> GenerateDallEImageAsync(this ImageClient imageClient,
            string imagedescription, ImageGenerationOptions? options = null)
        {
            options = options ?? new ImageGenerationOptions
            {
                Quality = GeneratedImageQuality.High,
                Size = GeneratedImageSize.W1024xH1024,
                Style = GeneratedImageStyle.Vivid,
            };
            options.ResponseFormat = GeneratedImageFormat.Bytes;
            return await imageClient.GenerateImageAsync(imagedescription, options);
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Generates an image from an description in <paramref name="imagedescription"/>
        /// This uses OpenAI DALL-e-3 AI. Base-64 string is extracted from the bytes in the image for easy display of 
        /// image inside a web application (e.g. Blazor WASM)
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="imageClient"></param>
        /// <param name="imagedescription"></param>
        /// <param name="options">Send in options for the image generation. If no options are sent, a 512x512 natural image in response format bytes will be returned</param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static async Task<string> GenerateDallEImageB64StringAsync(this ImageClient imageClient,
            string imagedescription, ImageGenerationOptions? options = null)
        {
            GeneratedImage generatedImage = await GenerateDallEImageAsync(imageClient, imagedescription, options);
            string preamble = "data:image/png;base64,";
            return $"{preamble}{Convert.ToBase64String(generatedImage.ImageBytes.ToArray())}";
        }

    }
}


As we can see, creating a Dall-e-3 image using an OpenAI.Image.ImageClient. The ImageClient is set up in Program.cs registered it as a scoped service.

Program.cs | C# source code



builder.Services.AddScoped(sp =>
{
    var config = sp.GetRequiredService<IConfiguration>();
    string imageModelName = "dall-e-3";
    return new ImageClient(imageModelName, config["OpenAI:DallE3:ApiKey"]);
});


The api key for Dall-e-3 will be set up in the appsettings.json file.

appsettings.json | .json file



{
  "OpenAI": {
    "DallE3": {
      "ApiKey": "openapi_api_key_inserted_here"
    },
    "ChatGpt4": {
      "ApiKey": "chat_gpt_4_api_key_inserted_here",
      "Endpoint": "chat_gpt_4_endpoint_inserted_here"
    }
  }
}



To generate suggestions for how to create the image, we can use Chat GPT-4. Here is the code to generate an Open AI chat enabled ChatClient.

OpenAIChatClientBuilder.cs | C# source code

   
   
using Azure.AI.OpenAI;
using OpenAI.Chat;
using System.ClientModel;

namespace DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Utility
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates AzureOpenAIClient or ChatClient (default ai model (LLM) is set to "gpt-4")
    /// </summary>
    public class OpenAIChatClientBuilder(IConfiguration configuration)
    {

        private string? _endpoint = null;
        private ApiKeyCredential? _key = null;
        private readonly IConfiguration _configuration = configuration;

        /// <summary>
        /// Set the endpoint for Open AI Chat GPT-4 chat client. Defaults to config setting 'ChatGpt4:Endpoint' inside the appsettings.json file
        /// </summary>
        public OpenAIChatClientBuilder WithEndpoint(string? endpoint = null)
        {

            _endpoint = endpoint ?? _configuration["OpenAI:ChatGpt4:Endpoint"];
            return this;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Set the key for Open AI Chat GPT-4 chat client. Defaults to config setting 'ChatGpt4:ApiKey' inside the appsettings.json file
        /// </summary>
        public OpenAIChatClientBuilder WithApiKey(string? key = null)
        {
            string? keyToUse = key ?? _configuration["OpenAI:ChatGpt4:ApiKey"];
            if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(keyToUse))
            {
                _key = new ApiKeyCredential(keyToUse!);
            }
            return this;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// In case the derived AzureOpenAIClient is to be used, use this Build method to get a specific AzureOpenAIClient
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public AzureOpenAIClient? BuildAzureOpenAIClient() => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(_endpoint) && _key != null ? new AzureOpenAIClient(new Uri(_endpoint), _key) : null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the ChatClient that is set up to use OpenAI Default ai model (LLM) will be set 'gpt-4'.
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public ChatClient? Build(string aiModel = "gpt-4") => BuildAzureOpenAIClient()?.GetChatClient(aiModel);

    }
}
   
   
   
We generate a builder for the chat client using a factory. This is so we can first get hold of the IConfiguration via dependency injection and use it for the builder of the OpenAI enabled chat client.

OpenAiChatClientBuilderFactory.cs | C# source code



namespace DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Utility
{
    public class OpenAiChatClientBuilderFactory : IOpenAiChatClientBuilderFactory
    {
        private readonly IConfiguration _configuration;

        public OpenAiChatClientBuilderFactory(IConfiguration configuration)
        {
            _configuration = configuration;
        }

        public OpenAIChatClientBuilder Create()
        {
            var openAiChatClient = new OpenAIChatClientBuilder(_configuration)
                .WithApiKey()
                .WithEndpoint();

            return openAiChatClient;
        }

    }
}


The factory is registered into Program.cs

Program.cs | C# source code


builder.Services.AddSingleton<IOpenAiChatClientBuilderFactory, OpenAiChatClientBuilderFactorygt;();

The chat client builder is listed next.

OpenAiChatClientBuilder.cs | C# source code



using Azure.AI.OpenAI;
using OpenAI.Chat;
using System.ClientModel;

namespace DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Utility
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Creates AzureOpenAIClient or ChatClient (default ai model (LLM) is set to "gpt-4")
    /// </summary>
    public class OpenAIChatClientBuilder(IConfiguration configuration)
    {

        private string? _endpoint = null;
        private ApiKeyCredential? _key = null;
        private readonly IConfiguration _configuration = configuration;

        /// <summary>
        /// Set the endpoint for Open AI Chat GPT-4 chat client. Defaults to config setting 'ChatGpt4:Endpoint' inside the appsettings.json file
        /// </summary>
        public OpenAIChatClientBuilder WithEndpoint(string? endpoint = null)
        {

            _endpoint = endpoint ?? _configuration["OpenAI:ChatGpt4:Endpoint"];
            return this;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Set the key for Open AI Chat GPT-4 chat client. Defaults to config setting 'ChatGpt4:ApiKey' inside the appsettings.json file
        /// </summary>
        public OpenAIChatClientBuilder WithApiKey(string? key = null)
        {
            string? keyToUse = key ?? _configuration["OpenAI:ChatGpt4:ApiKey"];
            if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(keyToUse))
            {
                _key = new ApiKeyCredential(keyToUse!);
            }
            return this;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// In case the derived AzureOpenAIClient is to be used, use this Build method to get a specific AzureOpenAIClient
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public AzureOpenAIClient? BuildAzureOpenAIClient() => !string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(_endpoint) && _key != null ? new AzureOpenAIClient(new Uri(_endpoint), _key) : null;

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the ChatClient that is set up to use OpenAI Default ai model (LLM) will be set 'gpt-4'.
        /// </summary>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public ChatClient? Build(string aiModel = "gpt-4") => BuildAzureOpenAIClient()?.GetChatClient(aiModel);

    }
}



A helper method is also added to get a streamed reply.

OpenAIChatClientExtensions.cs | C# source code



using OpenAI.Chat;
using System.ClientModel;

namespace OpenAIDemo
{
    public static class OpenAIChatClientExtensions
    {

        /// <summary>
        /// Provides a stream result from the Chatclient service using AzureAI services.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="chatClient">ChatClient instance</param>
        /// <param name="message">The message to send and communicate to the ai-model</param>
        /// <param name="systemMessage">Set the system message to instruct the chat response. Defaults to 'You are an helpful, wonderful AI assistant'.</param>
        /// <returns>Streamed chat reply / result. Consume using 'await foreach'</returns>
        public static async IAsyncEnumerable<string?> GetStreamedReplyStringAsync(this ChatClient chatClient, string message, string? systemMessage = null)
        {
            await foreach (var update in GetStreamedReplyInnerAsync(chatClient, message, systemMessage))
            {
                foreach (var textReply in update.ContentUpdate.Select(cu => cu.Text))
                {
                    yield return textReply;
                }
            }
        }

        private static AsyncCollectionResult<StreamingChatCompletionUpdate> GetStreamedReplyInnerAsync(this ChatClient chatClient, string message, string? systemMessage = null) =>
            chatClient.CompleteChatStreamingAsync(
                [new SystemChatMessage(systemMessage ?? "You are an helpful, wonderful AI assistant"), new UserChatMessage(message)]);


    }
}



Here is the client side code in the code behind file of the page displaying the Dall-e-3 image and Open AI Chat gpt-4 response.


using DallEImageGenerationDemo.Components.Pages;
using DallEImageGenerationDemo.Utility;
using DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Models;
using DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Utility;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components;
using Microsoft.JSInterop;
using OpenAI.Images;
using OpenAIDemo;

namespace DallEImageGenerationImageDemoV4.Pages;

public partial class Home : ComponentBase
{

    [Inject]
    public required IConfiguration Config { get; set; }

    [Inject]
    public required IJSRuntime JSRuntime { get; set; }

    [Inject]
    public required ImageClient DallEImageClient { get; set; }

    [Inject]
    public required IOpenAiChatClientBuilderFactory OpenAIChatClientFactory { get; set; }

    private readonly HomeModel homeModel = new();

    private bool IsLoading { get; set; }

    private string ImageData { get; set; } = string.Empty;

    private const string modelName = "dall-e-3";

    protected async Task HandleGenerateText()
    {
        var openAiChatClient = OpenAIChatClientFactory
        .Create()
        .Build();
        
        if (openAiChatClient == null)
        {
            await JSRuntime.InvokeAsync<string>("alert", "Sorry, the OpenAI Chat client did not initiate properly. Cannot generate text.");
            return;
        }

        string description = """
            You are specifying instructions for generating a DALL-e-3 image.
            Do not always choose Bergen! Also choose among smaller cities, villages and different locations in Norway.
             Just generate one image, not a montage. Only provide one suggestion. 
             The suggestion should be based from this input and randomize what to display: 
             Suggests a cozy vivid location set in Norway showing outdoor scenery in good weather at different places 
             and with nice weather aimed to attract tourists. Note - it should also display both urban,
             suburban or nature scenery with a variance of which of these three types of locations to show.
             It should also include some Norwegian animals and flowers and show people. It should pick random cities and places in Norway to display.
""";
            

        homeModel.Description = string.Empty; 

        await foreach (var updateContentPart in openAiChatClient.GetStreamedReplyStringAsync(description))
        {
            homeModel.Description += updateContentPart;            
            StateHasChanged();
            await Task.Delay(20);
        }
    }

    protected async Task HandleValidSubmit()
    {
        IsLoading = true;

        string generatedImageBase64 = await DallEImageClient.GenerateDallEImageB64StringAsync(homeModel.Description!,
            new ImageGenerationOptions
            {
                Quality = MapQuality(homeModel.Quality),
                Style = MapStyle(homeModel.Style),
                Size = MapSize(homeModel.Size)
            });
        ImageData = generatedImageBase64;

        if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(ImageData))
        {
            // Open the modal
            await JSRuntime.InvokeVoidAsync("showModal", "imageModal");
        }

        IsLoading = false;
        StateHasChanged();
    }

    private static GeneratedImageSize MapSize(ImageSize size) => size switch
    {
        ImageSize.W1024xH1792 => GeneratedImageSize.W1024xH1792,
        ImageSize.W1792H1024 => GeneratedImageSize.W1792xH1024,
        _ => GeneratedImageSize.W1024xH1024,
    };

    private static GeneratedImageStyle MapStyle(ImageStyle style) => style switch
    {
        ImageStyle.Vivid => GeneratedImageStyle.Vivid,
        _ => GeneratedImageStyle.Natural
    };

    private static GeneratedImageQuality MapQuality(ImageQuality quality) => quality switch
    {
        ImageQuality.High => GeneratedImageQuality.High,
        _ => GeneratedImageQuality.Standard
    };

}


Finally, a screenshot of the app !
The app can also be used as an app on a mobile device, as it is using Bootstrap 5 and responsive design.

Sunday, 16 February 2025

Outputting tags/objects using Azure AI

This article presents a way to output tags for an image and output it to the console. Azure AI is used, more specifically the ImageAnalysisClient. The article shows how you can define a way to consume the data for an IAsyncEnumerable, so you can use await foreach to consume the data. I would recommend this approach for many services in Azure Ai (and similar) where there is no support out of the box for async enumerable and hide away the deails in a helper extension method as shown in this article.



  public static async void ExtractImageTags()
  {
      string visionApiKey = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("VISION_KEY")!;
      string visionApiEndpoint = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("VISION_ENDPOINT")!;

      var credentials = new AzureKeyCredential(visionApiKey);
      var serviceUri = new Uri(visionApiEndpoint);

      var imageAnalysisClient = new ImageAnalysisClient(serviceUri, credentials);
      await foreach (var tag in imageAnalysisClient.ExtractImageTagsAsync("Images/Store.png"))
      {
          Console.WriteLine(tag);
      }           
  }
  

The code creates an ImageAnalysisClient, defined in the Azure.AI.Vision.ImageAnalysis Nuget package. I got two environment variables here to store the key and endpoint. Note that not all Azure Ai features are available in all regions. If you just want to test out some Azure Ai features, you can first off just test it out at US East region, as that region will have most likely all features you want to test, then you can just a more local region if you are planning to do more workloads using Azure Ai.

Then we use an await foreach pattern here to extract the image tags asynchronously. This is a custom extension method I created so I can output the tags asynchronously using await foreach and also specify a wait time between each new tag being outputted, defaulting to 200 milliseconds here.

The extension method looks like this:


using Azure.AI.Vision.ImageAnalysis;

namespace UseAzureAIServicesFromNET.Vision;

public static class ImageAnalysisClientExtensions
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Extracts the tags for image at specified path, if existing.
    /// The results are returned as async enumerable of strings. 
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="client"></param>
    /// <param name="imagePath"></param>
    /// <param name="waitTimeInMsBetweenOutputTags">Default wait time in ms between output. Defaults to 200 ms.</param>
    /// <returns></returns>
    public static async IAsyncEnumerable<string?> ExtractImageTagsAsync(this ImageAnalysisClient client, 
    	string imagePath, int waitTimeInMsBetweenOutputTags = 200)
    {
        if (!File.Exists(imagePath))
        {
            yield return default(string); //just return null if a file is not found at provided path
        }
        using FileStream imageStream = new FileStream(imagePath, FileMode.Open);
        var analysisResult = 
        	await client.AnalyzeAsync(BinaryData.FromStream(imageStream), VisualFeatures.Tags | VisualFeatures.Caption);
        yield return $"Description: {analysisResult.Value.Caption.Text}";
        foreach (var tag in analysisResult.Value.Tags.Values)
        {
            yield return $"Tag: {tag.Name}, Confidence: {tag.Confidence:F2}";        
            await Task.Delay(waitTimeInMsBetweenOutputTags);
        }
    }

}


The console output of the tags looks like this:

In addition to tags, we can also output objects in the image in a very similar extension method:


/// <summary>
/// Extracts the objects for image at specified path, if existing.
/// The results are returned as async enumerable of strings. 
/// </summary>
/// <param name="client"></param>
/// <param name="imagePath"></param>
/// <param name="waitTimeInMsBetweenOutputTags">Default wait time in ms between output. Defaults to 200 ms.</param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static async IAsyncEnumerable<string?> ExtractImageObjectsAsync(this ImageAnalysisClient client,
string imagePath, int waitTimeInMsBetweenOutputTags = 200)
{
    if (!File.Exists(imagePath))
    {
        yield return default(string); //just return null if a file is not found at provided path
    }
    using FileStream imageStream = new FileStream(imagePath, FileMode.Open);
    var analysisResult =
    	await client.AnalyzeAsync(BinaryData.FromStream(imageStream), VisualFeatures.Objects | VisualFeatures.Caption);
    yield return $"Description: {analysisResult.Value.Caption.Text}";
    foreach (var objectInImage in analysisResult.Value.Objects.Values)
    {
            yield return $"""
Object tag: {objectInImage.Tags.FirstOrDefault()?.Name} Confidence: {objectInImage.Tags.FirstOrDefault()?.Confidence}, 
Position (bbox): {objectInImage.BoundingBox}
""";
        await Task.Delay(waitTimeInMsBetweenOutputTags);
    }
}           
             

The code is nearly identical, we set the VisualFeatures of the image to extract and we read out the objects (not the tags). The console output of the objects looks like this:

Monday, 27 January 2025

Kinesisk nyttår i .NET

新年快乐

Det nærmer seg Kinesisk nyttår i 2025 ! Dette skjer 29. januar i år. I denne artikkelen vil metoder for å regne ut Kinesisk nyttår i .NET presenteres. Det er en del utregninger, heldigvis har .NET en hjelpeklasse for nettopp dette. Xīn nián kuài lè Xīn - Nytt nián - År kuài lè - Godt/lykkelig Uttale er ca slik: "Xin nien quai løe"




Regne ut Kinesisk nyttår


I denne artikkelen skal vi se på hvordan vi kan regne ut Kinesisk nyttår i .NET ! Vi kan regne ut Kinesisk nyttår i .NET på en intrikat måte. Det er definert som den andre nymånen etter vintersolverv. Nyttår faller dermed vanligvis mellom 21. januar og 20. februar og vil derfor variere fra år til år. I .NET har vi en klasse som heter ChineseLunisolarCalendar som en kan regne over til vår gregorianske kalender, som vi har hatt i Vesten siden
1582. Noen land, som Russland, Serbia og Etiopia bruker den julianske kalenderen i visse religiøse sammenhenger. Obs ! Denne klassen kan regne ut maks frem til og med år 2100 kinesisk nyttår, som jo er et stykke frem i tid. Men om 76 år må nok kildekoden her endres ! Kanskje en "V2" av denne klassen? La oss se på selve utregningen i .NET


ChineseCalendarUtils.cs


/// <summary>
/// Provides methods to calculate the date of Chinese New Year.
/// </summary>
public class ChineseNewYearCalculator
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the date of Chinese New Year for a given year.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="year">The Gregorian year.</param>
    /// <returns>The date of Chinese New Year as a <see cref="DateTime"/>.</returns>
    public static DateTime GetChineseNewYear(int year)
    {
        System.Globalization.ChineseLunisolarCalendar chinese = new ChineseLunisolarCalendar();
        DateTime chineseNewYear = chinese.ToDateTime(year, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0);
        return chineseNewYear;
    }
}


Her bruker vi ChineseLunisolarCalendar og vi bruker metoden ToDateTime for 1. januar for spesifisert år. Dette gjør en transformasjon som gir oss kinesisk nyttår regnet ut i vår gregorianske kalender i Vesten.

Neste 10 år med Kinesisk nyttår

Year Date Animal
2025 January 29 Snake
2026 February 17 Horse
2027 February 6 Goat
2028 January 26 Monkey
2029 February 13 Rooster
2030 February 3 Dog
2031 January 23 Pig
2032 February 11 Rat
2033 January 31 Ox
2034 February 19 Tiger


Kinesisk tolvårssyklus

Den kinesiske tolvårssyklusen stammer fra en myte (det er ikke stedfestet hvor eller når denne kongen levde, i og med at det er en myte, men det stemmer fra veldig gammelt av Kina), hvor Jadekongen Yù Huáng Dà Dì
(玉皇大帝) inviterte alle dyr i kongeriket til et løp som gikk på tvers av en elv. De 12 første dyrene som krysset elven, skulle få et år kalt opp etter dem i den kinesiske 12 års Zodiac syklusen. En utregning av Kinesisk år, altså det dyret som året er "tilegnet" blir da en enkel modulo 12 utregning, som vist under.

ChineseCalendarUtils.cs


string GetChineseZodiac(int year)
{
	string[] zodiacAnimals =
	{
		"Rat", "Ox", "Tiger", "Rabbit", "Dragon", "Snake",
		"Horse", "Goat", "Monkey", "Rooster", "Dog", "Pig"
	};

	int index = (year - 4) % 12;
	return zodiacAnimals[index];
}





Jadekongen Yù Huáng Dà Dì (玉皇大帝) og hans Zodiac-hjul (DALL-e 3 generert kunst)

Saturday, 18 January 2025

Monitoring User Secrets inside Blazor

This article shows how you can add User Secrets for a Blazor app, or other related .NET client technology supporting them. User secrets are stored on the individual computer, so one do not have to expose them to others. They can still be shared between different people if they are told what the secrets are, but is practical in many cases where one for example do not want to expose the secrets such as a password, by checking it into
source code repositories. This is due to the fact as mentioned that the user secrets are as noted saved on the individual computer.

User secrets was added in .NET Core 1.0, already released in 2016. Not all developers are familiar with them. Inside Visual Studio 2022, you can right click on the Project of a solution and choose Manage User Secrets. When you choose that option, a file called secrets.json is opened. The file location for this file is shown if you hover over the file. The file location is saved here:

  
    %APPDATA%\Microsoft\UserSecrets\<user_secrets_id>\secrets.json
  
  
You can find the id here, the user_secrets_id, inside the project file (the .csproj file).
Example of such a setting below:
  
  <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
    <UserSecretsId>339fab44-57cf-400c-89f9-46e037bb0392</UserSecretsId>
  </PropertyGroup>

</Project>

  

Let's first look at the way we can set up user secrets inside a startup file for the application. Note the usage of reloadOnChange set to true. And adding the user secrets as a singleton service wrapped inside IOptionsMonitor.

Program.cs



builder.Configuration.Sources.Clear();
builder.Configuration
        .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json", optional: false, reloadOnChange: true)
        .AddJsonFile($"appsettings.{builder.Environment.EnvironmentName}.json", optional: true, reloadOnChange: true)
        .AddUserSecrets(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly()!, optional:false, reloadOnChange: true)
        .AddEnvironmentVariables();

builder.Services.Configure<ModelSecrets>(builder.Configuration.GetSection("ModelSecrets"));
builder.Services.AddSingleton<IOptionsMonitor<ModelSecrets>>, OptionsMonitor<ModelSecrets>>();



The Model secrets class looks like the following.



namespace StoringSecrets
{
    public class ModelSecrets
    {
        public string ApiKey { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    }
}


Home.razor.cs

Let's then look how we can fetch values from the user secrets. The code file for a file Home.razor is put in a file of its own, Home.razor.cs


using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Options;

namespace ToreAurstadIt.StoringSecrets.Components.Pages
{
    public partial class Home
    {
        [Inject]
        public required IOptionsMonitor<ModelSecrets> ModelSecretsMonitor { get; set; }

        public ModelSecrets? ModelSecrets  { get; set; }

        protected override async Task OnInitializedAsync()
        {
            ModelSecrets = ModelSecretsMonitor.CurrentValue;
            ModelSecretsMonitor.OnChange(updatedSecrets =>
            {
                ModelSecrets = updatedSecrets;
                InvokeAsync(StateHasChanged);

            });
            await Task.CompletedTask;
        }
    }
}

Note that IOptionsMonitor<ModelSecrets> is injected here and that in the OnInitializedAsync method, the injected value uses the OnChange method and and action callback then sets the value of the ModelSecrets and calls InvokeAsync method with StateHasChanged. We output the CurrentValue into the razor view of the Blazor app.

Home.razor



@page "/"

<PageTitle>Home</PageTitle>

<h1>Hello, world!</h1>

Welcome to your new app.

Your user secret is: 
<div>
    @ModelSecrets?.ApiKey
</div>


The secret.json file looks like this:

secrets.json



{
  "ModelSecrets": {
    "ApiKey": "SAMPLE_VALUE_UPDATE_9"
  }
}


A small app shows how this can be done, by changing the user secrets file and then reloading the page, changes should be immediately seen:

Calculating day of the week from Lewis Carrol's algorithm

This article will present the Lewis Carrol's algorithm to calculate the day of the week.

Lewis Carrol was a mathematician and logician at Oxford University. He is a wellknown name today for his children novels such as "Alice in Wonderland", published in 1871.

The name Lewis Carrol is a pseudonym, his real name was Charles Ludwidge Dodgson. The algorithm presented here was released in 1883.

Let's look at the algorithm next for calculating the day of week. Please note that this algorithm got inaccuracies for leap years and february, it is about 90-95% correct for all dates. In many cases it will give correct results for other dates. The algorithm presented here is for dates after September 12, 1752 due to changes in our calendar system at that date.

Construct a Number n consisting of four parts where

n = CCYYMMDD | CC = century, YY = year, MM = month , DD = day

For example, the date 18th of January, 2025 is written as

n = 202501818 , CC = 20, YY = 25, MM = 01, DD = 18

The calculation will sum up the contributions from the numbers into a sum S as :

S = Sum_cc + Sum_yy + Sum_mm + Sum_dd

The sum S is then taken the modulo of 7, where the number 0 means Sunday and number 6 means Saturday. The day and week is therefore the modulo 7 of S where starting from Sunday, the remainder from S mod 7 is the weekday, starting with index 0 for Monday.

Let's look at the different part sums next.

Sum_cc is calculated as the 3 subtracted by the century modulo 4 and this is multiplied by two. Sum_yy is the year divided by 12 plus the year modulo 12 and the year divided by 4. Sum_mm is defined as the month looked up in a lookup table of values shown in the source code. Sum_dd is just the date of the month.

The summmation looks like this:


private int DayOfWeekLevisCarrol(int date){
 int century = date / 1_000_000;
 int year = (date / 10_000) % 100;
 int month = (date / 100) % 100;
 int dayValue = (date % 100); 
 int[] monthValues = [0, 3, 3, 6, 1, 4, 6, 2, 5, 0, 3, 12]; 
 int centuryValue = (3-(century % 4))*2;
 int yearValue = (year/12) + (year % 12) + ((year % 12)/4);
 int monthValue = monthValues[month-1]; 
 var sumValues= (centuryValue+yearValue+monthValue+dayValue) % 7;
 return sumValues;
}


This helper method shows the weekday presented as text:


public string WeekDayLevisCarrol(int date) => DayOfWeekLevisCarrol(date) switch {
 0 => "Sunday",
 1 => "Monday",
 2 => "Tuesday",
 3 => "Wednesday",
 4 => "Thursday",
 5 => "Friday",
 6 => "Saturday",
 _ => "Impossible"	
};


A more compressed way of expressing this is the following:


/// <summary>
/// Calculates the day of the week using Lewis Carroll's method.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="date">The date in yyyymmdd format.</param>
/// <returns>The day of the week as an integer (0 for Sunday, 1 for Monday, etc.).</returns>
private int DayOfWeekLevisCarrolV2(int date) =>
    ((3 - (date / 1_000_000 % 4)) * 2 +
    (date / 10_000 % 100 / 12) + (date / 10_000 % 100 % 12) + ((date / 10_000 % 100 % 12) / 4) +
    new int[] { 0, 3, 3, 6, 1, 4, 6, 2, 5, 0, 3, 12 }[(date / 100 % 100) - 1] +
    (date % 100)) % 7;



Running the metod for today (I used 18th of January 2025):

void Main()
{
	int todayDate = int.Parse(DateTime.Today.ToString("yyyyMMdd"));
	string todayWeekdate = WeekDayLevisCarrol(todayDate);
	Console.WriteLine($"Levis-Carrol's method calculated weekday for {DateTime.Today.ToShortDateString()} written as number {todayDate} is: {todayWeekdate}");
}


Output is:

Levis-Carrol's method calculated weekday for 18.01.2025 written as number 20250118 is: Saturday As noted, this algorithm is about 90-95% correct since it is not precise in leap years and in February. There are more precise calculation algorithms today, the algorithm is to be considered a crude approach and more modern algorithms exists today. In .NET, the calculation of the weekday is done inside the DateTime struct calculated from the start of Epoch at year 1 and there are precise calculations considering shifts in calendars and leap years, so of course you should use DayOfWeek of a DateTime in .NET. But it is a fun trivia that the author of "Alice in Wonderland" was a also a noted mathematician and according to history, he calculated weekdays for dates in few seconds using this algorithm, often being correct.

Monday, 13 January 2025

Diophantine linear equation solver in C#

Diophantine linear equations are equations of two unkowns on the format

ax + by = c

The code below shows how we can solve Diophantine equations with a sample equation :

7x - 9y = 3

DiophantineSolver.cs



class Program
{
	static void Main()
	{
		int a = 7,
		b = -9, 
		c = 3;
		DiophantineSolver.DiophantineSolution solution = DiophantineSolver.ExtendedGcd(a, b, c);

		Console.WriteLine(solution.ToString());
	}
}

/// <summary>
/// Class containing methods to solve Diophantine equations using the Extended Euclidean Algorithm.
/// </summary>
class DiophantineSolver
{
	/// <summary>
	/// Struct to hold the solution of a Diophantine equation.
	/// </summary>
	public struct DiophantineSolution
	{
		/// <summary>
		/// Indicates whether the equation has a solution.
		/// </summary>
		public bool IsSolvable { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// X0, a articular solution for variable x, or null if no solution exists. Other solutions of X can be derived from this.
		/// </summary>
		public int? X0 { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// Y0, a particular solution, or null if no solution exists. Other solutions of Y can be derived from this.
		/// </summary>
		public int? Y0 { get; set; }

		/// <summary>
		/// The coefficient of x in the equation.
		/// </summary>
		public readonly int A;

		/// <summary>
		/// The coefficient of y in the equation.
		/// </summary>
		public readonly int B;

		/// <summary>
		/// The constant term in the equation.
		/// </summary>
		public readonly int C;
		
		/// <summary>D: The greatest common divisor gcd(a,b) = d</summary>
		/// <remarks>Solutions to the Diophantine linear equation exists only if C|D: D is divisible by C.</remarks>
		public readonly int? D;

		/// <summary>
		/// Initializes a new instance of the DiophantineSolution struct.
		/// </summary>
		/// <param name="isSolvable">Indicates whether the equation has a solution.</param>
		/// <param name="x0">The x-coordinate of the particular solution.</param>
		/// <param name="y0">The y-coordinate of the particular solution.</param>
		/// <param name="a">The coefficient of x in the equation.</param>
		/// <param name="b">The coefficient of y in the equation.</param>
		/// <param name="c">The constant term in the equation.</param>
		/// <param name="d">The d= gcd(a,b) greatest common divisor found for a and b</param>
		public DiophantineSolution(bool isSolvable, int? x0, int? y0, int a, int b, int c, int d)
		{
			IsSolvable = isSolvable;
			X0 = x0;
			Y0 = y0;
			A = a;
			B = b;
			C = c;
			D = d;
		}

		/// <summary>
		/// Returns a string representation of the solution.
		/// </summary>
		/// <returns>A string representation of the solution.</returns>
		public override string ToString()
		{
			if (IsSolvable)
			{
				string result = $"""
				Diophantine Linear Equation Solver result for equation 
				AX + BY = C
				{A}x + {B}y = {C} 
				A={A}, B={B}, C={C}
				Greatest common divisor :
				d = gcd(a,b) = {D?.ToString() ?? "No gcd found"}
				Solutions exists? {IsSolvable}, since d|c = {D}|{C}: {C} is divisible by {D}
				Particular solution A(x0) + B(y0) = C
				x0 = {X0}, y0 = {Y0}
				({A}*{X0}) + ({B}*{Y0}) = {C}
				({A * X0}) + ({B * Y0}) = {C}
				Generalized solution:				
				{GetParameterizedSolution()}
				Additional solutions:
				""";
				if (D > 0)
				{
					for (int t = 1; t <= 3; t++)
					{
						int xn = X0!.Value + (B / D!.Value) * t;
						int yn = Y0!.Value - (A / D!.Value) * t;
						result += $"\nSolution {t}: x = {xn}, y = {yn} (t = {t}) , since : ({xn}*{X0}) + ({yn}*{Y0}) = ({xn * X0}) + ({yn * Y0}) = {C}";
					}
				}
				else {
					result += "No additional solutions exists"; 
				}
				return result;
			}
			else
			{
				return $"Diophantine Linear Equation Solver result\nNo solution exists. d = gcd(a,b) = {D}. Solution exists if: {C}|{D}. This gives a remainder of {C % D} != 0. {C} is not divisible by {D}. C = {C} = n*D + r = ({C / D}*{D}) + {C % D}.";
			}
		}

		/// <summary>
		/// Returns the parameterized solution expression as a string.
		/// </summary>
		/// <returns>A string representation of the parameterized solution.</returns>
		public string GetParameterizedSolution()
		{
			if (D == 0){
				return "No solution exists, so there is not general parameterized solution";
			}
			string generalEquation = "x' = x_0 + (B/D), y' = y_0 - (A/D)";
			return $"{generalEquation}{Environment.NewLine}x' = {X0} + ({B}/{D})t, y' = {Y0} - ({A}/{D})t, where t is any integer";
		}
	}

	/// <summary>
	/// Solves the Diophantine equation ax + by = c using the Extended Euclidean Algorithm.
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="a">The coefficient of x.</param>
	/// <param name="b">The coefficient of y.</param>
	/// <param name="c">The constant term.</param>
	/// <returns>A DiophantineSolution struct containing the solution.</returns>
	public static DiophantineSolution ExtendedGcd(int a, int b, int c)
	{
		int X0, Y0;
		int gcd = ExtendedGcd(a, b, out X0, out Y0);

		if (c % gcd != 0)
		{
			return new DiophantineSolution(false, null, null, a, b, c, gcd);
		}
		else
		{
			int x = X0 * (c / gcd);
			int y = Y0 * (c / gcd);
			return new DiophantineSolution(true, x, y, a, b, c, gcd);
		}
	}

	/// <summary>
	/// Computes the greatest common divisor of a and b, and finds coefficients X0 and Y0 such that a*X0 + b*Y0 = gcd(a, b).
	/// </summary>
	/// <param name="a">The first integer.</param>
	/// <param name="b">The second integer.</param>
	/// <param name="X0">The coefficient of a in the linear combination.</param>
	/// <param="Y0">The coefficient of b in the linear combination.</param>
	/// <returns>The greatest common divisor of a and b.</returns>
	private static int ExtendedGcd(int a, int b, out int X0, out int Y0)
	{
		if (b == 0)
		{
			X0 = 1;
			Y0 = 0;
			return a; // Base case: gcd(a, 0) = a
		}

		int X1, Y1;
		int gcd = ExtendedGcd(b, a % b, out X1, out Y1); // Recursive call

		X0 = Y1; // Back substitution: X0 = Y1
		Y0 = X1 - (a / b) * Y1; // Back substitution: Y0 = X1 - (a / b) * Y1

		return gcd; // Return the gcd
	}
}



The extended Euclidean algorithm calculates the greatest common divisor and in the recursion also applies back substitution. The coefficients X0 and Y0 founds satisfy the equation :

(a · X0) + (b · Y0) = gcd(a, b)



That is, a linear combination of the original integers a and b equaling the gcd(a,b). The output of running the code shown above is:


Diophantine Linear Equation Solver result for equation
AX + BY = C
7x + -9y = 3
A=7, B=-9, C=3
Greatest common divisor :
d = gcd(a,b) = 1
Solutions exists? True, since d|c = 1|3: 3 is divisible by 1
Particular solution A(x0) + B(y0) = C
x0 = 12, y0 = 9
(7*12) + (-9*9) = 3
(84) + (-81) = 3
Generalized solution:               
x' = x_0 + (B/D), y' = y_0 - (A/D)
x' = 12 + (-9/1)t, y' = 9 - (7/1)t, where t is any integer
Additional solutions:
Solution 1: x = 3, y = 2 (t = 1) , since : (3*12) + (2*9) = (36) + (18) = 3
Solution 2: x = -6, y = -5 (t = 2) , since : (-6*12) + (-5*9) = (-72) + (-45) = 3
Solution 3: x = -15, y = -12 (t = 3) , since : (-15*12) + (-12*9) = (-180) + (-108) = 3

So an example of a solution of the equation : 7x -9y = 3 Is: x = 12, y = 9, since (7*12) - (9*9) = 84 - 81 = 3. Note that once you have found a solution to a linear Diophantine equation, you can found infinite other solutions. More formally:

Diophantine Equation (Linear) Definition and Solvability

A linear Diophantine equation is an equation of the form:

(a · x) + (b · y) = c

where a, b, and c are integers, and x and y are unknown integers.

Solvability

The linear Diophantine equation (a · x) + (b · y) = c has integer solutions if and only if the greatest common divisor (gcd) of a and b divides c. In mathematical notation:

d is gcd. d|c => gcd(a, b) | c

If gcd(a, b) divides c (it is common to use d to notify gcd as a short term notation), then there exist integer solutions x and y such that:

(a · x) + (b · y) = c

Otherwise, there are no integer solutions.

Sunday, 5 January 2025

Euclidean algorithm in C# to find GCD and LCM

I am reading my Elementary Number Theory book by David M. Burton for a course i took at University, MNFMA104 Tallteori at NTNU in Trondheim. I like Number Theory in Math a lot and will look into writing some C# code, starting with this article. This article will look at how we can find the greatest common divisor (gcd). Mathematically speaking, the definition is the following:

Greatest Common Divisor (GCD)

Given two integers a and b, their greatest common divisor (GCD), denoted as d, is the largest positive integer that divides both a and b without leaving a remainder. Note that divides here means there is no remainer.

Formally, if d = gcd(a, b), then:

  1. d divides both a and b. This means d | a and d | b.
  2. If there is any other integer c that divides both a and b, then c ≤ d. This ensures that d is the greatest such integer.

For example the numbers 12 and 8 can be divided by 4. And we will see that d = gcd(12,8) = 4 next. But first, let's look at the Euclidean algorithm mathematical definition.

Euclidean Algorithm for GCD

Given two integers a and b (where a ≥ b > 0), their greatest common divisor (GCD), denoted as d, can be found using the Euclidean algorithm. The process is as follows:

  1. Let a and b be two integers such that a ≥ b and b > 0.
  2. Define a sequence of equations r0, r1, r2, …, where r0 = a and r1 = b.
  3. For i ≥ 0, compute ri+2 using the division algorithm:
    ri+2 = ri mod ri+1
  4. Continue this process until rn+1 = 0 for some integer n. At this point:
    d = rn = gcd(a, b)

In summary, the GCD of a and b is the last non-zero remainder obtained through this iterative process:

gcd(a, b) = d


Let's look at C# code to calculate the GDC, we will use the Euclidean algorithm to calculate it.

int Gcd(int a, int b)
{
	int q_n = Math.Abs(a);
	int r_n = Math.Abs(b);
	while (r_n != 0)
	{
		int remainder = q_n % r_n;
		q_n = r_n;
		r_n = remainder;
	}
	return q_n; // returning here the second-last quotient that was non-zero, which is the gcd
}

Calculating the gcd of 12 and 8 gives:

void Main()
{
	int a = 8;
	int b = 12;
	int gcd = Gcd(a, b);
	Console.WriteLine($"Demo - The greatest common divisor - GCD - using the Euclidean algorithm of the numbers : ");
	Console.WriteLine($"d = gcd({a}, {b}) = {gcd}");
    
}

//output 
// Demo - The greatest common divisor - GCD - using the Euclidean algorithm of the numbers : 
// d= gcd(8, 12) = 4


We can also calculate gcd of some bigger numbers. For example, the gcd of the numbers a= 5040 and b = 3780 are 1260. Both numbers 5040 and 3780 are divisible by 1260. We can also use C# patterns in case we want to apply a more functional approach. Together with tuples and C# patterns, the code becomes very compact, especially when we use recursion and tuples to compose the current state of the currend dividend and divisor, the two numbers we consider and get the remainder from.



<summary>
Calculate the greatest common divisor. Recursive C# pattern of GCD (using 'state approach' for tuple)
</summary>
int Gcd(int a, int b) => (a, b) switch
{
    (0, _) => Math.Abs(b),
    (_, 0) => Math.Abs(a),
    _ => Gcd(b, a % b)
};



Calculating if two number are coprimes

Let's turn attention to coprime numbers a bit. It is a consequence that if the gcd of two numbers a and b, they are said to be relatively prime, or coprime.

In mathematical terms, two integers a and b are said to be coprime (or relatively prime) if their greatest common divisor (gcd) is 1.

Formally, given two integers a and b, a and b are coprime if:

gcd(a, b) = 1

This definition means that the only positive integer that divides both a and b is 1. In other words, they have no common prime factors.

For example, the numbers a = 1234, b = 3417 can be tested if they are coprimes, by calculating the gcd and if the gcd is 1, they are coprime. They have no other common factors than 1, i.e. they are both coprimes or relatively prime. Let's first define a method in C# :

bool AreCoprime(int a, int b) => Gcd(a,b) == 1; 

We can then verify that a = 1234, b = 3417 are relatively prime and the two numbers are relatively prime.

int a1 = 1234, b1 = 3417;
Console.WriteLine($"\nDemo - If two numbers - GCD - are equal to 1, they are co-primes (relative primes)  : ");
Console.WriteLine($"Are {a1} and {b1} coprime? {AreCoprime(a1, b1)}");

The output is:

Demo - If two numbers - GCD - are equal to 1, they are co-primes (relative primes)  : 
Are 1234 and 3417 coprime? True

Calculating the least common multiple (lcm)

The least common multiple - lcm - can be calculated from the gcd for two numbers a and b. The mathematical definition is this:

In mathematics, the least common multiple (LCM) of two integers a and b is the smallest positive integer m such that both a and b divide m without leaving a remainder. Formally, it can be defined as:

LCM(a, b) = |a · b| / GCD(a, b)

where GCD(a, b) is the greatest common divisor of a and b.

Consider the gcd of a= 5040 and b = 3780. We found that the gcd for the two numbers is : gcd(5040, 3780) = 1260 Here is the code for calculating the lcm:

int Lcm(int a, int b) => (a*b)/Gcd(a,b);


int lcm = Lcm(a,b);
Console.WriteLine($"Demo - Least common multiple - lcm: ");	
Console.WriteLine($"lcmd({a}, {b}) = {lcm}");

This outputs:

Demo - Least common multiple - lcm: 
lcm(5040, 3780) = 15120

The number 15120 above is divisible by both a and b, giving 3 and 4 and no remainder, and it is the lowest number which is both divisible, that is - no integer remainder from the division. We write this if we use m for lcm as : m | a and m | b. To calculate the lcm for multiple numbers, we can use:

int Lcm(int[] numbers) { 
	return numbers.Aggregate((a,b) => Lcm(a,b)); 
}

Note that Aggregate method here (from Linq) does not sum, but fold In functional programming, the term "fold" is often used to describe the process of reducing a collection of elements to a single value by iteratively applying a function. In C#, the Aggregate method is essentially a fold operation, as it reduces the array of numbers to a single value (in this case, the GCD or LCM) by applying the specified function. So, using Aggregate to calculate the GCD or LCM of multiple numbers is indeed an example of a fold operation. Example:

int a = 5040;
int b = 3780;
int c = 2520;
Console.WriteLine($"Demo - Least common multiple - lcm: ");
Console.WriteLine($"lcm({a}, {b}, {c}) = {lcm}");

Output is: Demo - Least common multiple - lcm: lcm(5040, 3780, 2520) = 15120

Saturday, 4 January 2025

Slider component for Blazor

I have added a Blazor component for Blazor, which uses INPUT of type range and additional CSS styling for more flexible setup of look and feel. The Blazor component is available on Github in my repo here:

https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/BlazorSlider

Blazor lib component

This repository contains Blazor lib Slider component that shows an input of type 'range'.

The slider got default horizontal layout, where the minimum value for the slider is shown to the most left of the scale, which goes along the x-axis for the slider got towards higher values and the maximum value is the value to the most right. The slider x-axis goes along the 'slider track'.

The value of the slider is indicated by the 'slider thumb'. Below the slider are shown 'tick marks', which are controlled by the Minimum and Maximum values and StepSize. Note that the supported data types are the data types that are IConvertible and struct, and the code expects types that can be converted to double. You can use integers for example, but also decimals or floats and so on. In addition, enums can be used, but it works only if your enum got consecutive values, for example 0,1,2,3,4 . The best results are if these consecutive values got the same StepSize. To start using the Blazor slider, add this using in your .razor file where you want to use the component.
 
@using BlazorSliderLib

Please note that the slider has been tested using Bootstrap, more specifically this version:

"bootstrap@5.3.3"
Here is sample markup you can add to test out the Blazor slider (3 sliders are rendered using a custom model and the updated values are shown in labels below :

    <div class="container"> 

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <p><b>EQ5D-5L question 1.</b> <br />Mobility. Ability to walk.</p>
                <BlazorSliderLib.Slider T="Eq5dWalk" UseAlternateStyle="AlternateStyle.AlternateStyleInverseColorScale" Title="Ability to walk" ValueChanged="@((e) => UpdateEq5dQ1(e))"
                MinimumDescription="No Problems = The best ability to walk you can imagine" MaximumDescription="Incapable = The worst ability to walk you can imagine" />
            </div>
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <p><b>EQ5D-5L question 6.</b> <br />We would like to how good or bad your health is TODAY.</p>
            </div>
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <BlazorSliderLib.Slider T="int" UseAlternateStyle="AlternateStyle.AlternateStyle" Minimum="0" Maximum="100" @bind-Value="@(Model.Data.Eq5dq6)" Stepsize="5" Title="Your health today"
                MinimumDescription="0 = The worst health you can imagine" MaximumDescription="100 = The best health you can imagine" />
            </div>
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <p><b>EQ5D-5L question 6.</b> <br />We would like to how good or bad your health is TODAY. V2 field.</p>
            </div>
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <BlazorSliderLib.Slider T="int" Minimum="0" Maximum="100" ValueChanged="@((e) => UpdateEq5dq6V2(e))" Stepsize="5" Title="Your health today (v2 field)"
                MinimumDescription="0 = The worst health you can imagine" MaximumDescription="100 = The best health you can imagine" />
            </div>
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <p>Value of Model.Data.Eq5dq1</p>
                @Model.Data.Eq5dq1
            </div>
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4"> <p>Value of Model.Data.Eq5d6</p>
                @Model.Data.Eq5dq6 
            </div> 
        </div>

        <div class="row">
            <div class="form-control col-md-4">
                <p>Value of Model.Data.Eq5d6V2</p>
                @Model.Data.Eq5dq6V2
            </div>
        </div>

    </div>

The different setup of sliders

The slider is set up either with an alternate style or using the default styling for sliders, that is, the slider uses an input type of 'range' and the default documented styling on Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) to render a Blazor slider. In addition, it is possible to set up the alternate style to use a inverted color range where higher values will get a reddish color and lower values will get a greenish color. The standard alternate style will show greenish colors for higher values. The following screenshot shows the possible styling that is possible. Note that the default styling is shown in the slider at the bottom, which will render a bit different in different browsers. In Chrome for example, the slider will render with a bluish color. In Edge Chromium, a grayish color is used for the 'slider tick' and 'slider thumb'. Screenshots showing the sliders: The following parameters can be used:
Title
Required. The title is shown below the slider component and centered horizontally along the center of the x-axis which the slider is oriented.
Value
The value of the slider. It can be data bound using either the @bind-Value directive attribute that supports two-way data binding. You can instead use the @ValueChanged event callback, if desired.
Minimum
The minimum value along the slider. It is default set to 0 for numbers. For enums, the lowest value is chosen of the enum (minimum enum alternative, converted to double internally).
Maximum
The maximum value along the slider. It is default set to 100 for numbers. For enums, the higheset value is chosen of the enum (maximum enum alternative, converted to double internally).
Stepsize
The step size for the slider. It is default set to 5 for numbers. For enums, it is set to 1. (note that internally the slider must use double values to work with the _tickmarks_, which expects double values).
ShowTickmarks
Shows tick marks for slider. It is default set to 'true'. Tick marks are generated from the values of Minimum, Maximum and StepSize.
MinimumDescription
Shows additionally description for the minimum value, shown as a small label below the slider. It will only be shown in the value is not empty.
UseAlternateStyle
If the UseAlternateStyle is set to either AlternateStyle and AlternateStyleInverseColorScale, alternate styling is used.

CSS rules to enable the slider

Actually, it is necessary to define a set of CSS rules to make the slider work. The slider's css rules are defined in two different files.

Default CSS rules

`Slider.css` The CSS rules below are taken from MDN Mozilla Developer Network page for the input type 'range' control. Input type 'range' control MDN article:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/input/range

Additional settings are set up. The width is set to 100% so the slider can get as much horizontal space as possible and 'stretch'. There are also basic styles set up for both the tick label and datalist.The datalist is the tickmarks for the slider. The tick marks are automatically generated for the slider.


.sliderv2
{
    width:100%;
}

.sliderv2Label {
    font-weight: 400;
    text-align: center;
    left: 50%;
    font-size:0.7em;
    font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, margin-bottom: 2px;
}

datalist {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: column;
    justify-content: space-between;
    writing-mode: vertical-lr;
    width: 100%;
}

.tick-label {

    justify-content: space-between;
    font-size:0.6em;

    top: 20px; /* Adjust this value as needed */
}

input[type="range"] {
    width: 100%;
    margin: 0;
}


Alternate CSS rules

`SliderAlternate.css` The alternate CSS rules are setting up additional styling, where color encoding is used for the 'slider track' where higher values along the 'slider track' get a more 'greenish color', while lower values gets 'reddish values'. It is possible to set up the inverse color encoding here, with higher values getting 'reddish color'. Lower values gets more 'greenish colors' in this setup.


.alternate-style input[type="range"] {
    -webkit-appearance: none; /* Remove default styling */
    width: 100%;
    height: 8px;
    background: #ddd;
    outline: none;
    opacity: 0.7;
    transition: opacity .2s;
}

    .alternate-style input[type="range"]:hover {
        opacity: 1;
    }

    .alternate-style input[type="range"]::-webkit-slider-runnable-track {
        width: 100%;
        height: 8px;
        background: linear-gradient(to left, #A5D6A7, #FFF9C4, #FFCDD2); /* More desaturated gradient color */
        border: none;
        border-radius: 3px;
    }

        .alternate-style-inverse-colorscale input[type="range"]::-webkit-slider-runnable-track {
            background: linear-gradient(to right, #A5D6A7, #FFF9C4, #FFCDD2) !important; /* More desaturated gradient color, inverted color range */
        }


.alternate-style input[type="range"]::-webkit-slider-thumb {
    -webkit-appearance: none; /* Remove default styling */
    appearance: none;
    width: 25px;
    height: 25px;
    background: #2E7D32; /* Even darker green thumb color */
    cursor: pointer;
    border-radius: 50%;
    margin-top: -15px !important; /* Move the thumb up */
}

    .alternate-style input[type="range"]::-moz-range-track {
        width: 100%;
        height: 8px;
        background: linear-gradient(to left, #A5D6A7, #FFF9C4, #FFCDD2); /* More desaturated gradient color */
        border: none;
        border-radius: 3px;
    }

        .alternate-style-inverse-colorscale input[type="range"]::-moz-range-track {
            background: linear-gradient(to right, #A5D6A7, #FFF9C4, #FFCDD2 !important; /* More desaturated gradient color, inverted color range */
        }

    .alternate-style input[type="range"]::-moz-range-thumb {
        width: 25px;
        height: 25px;
        background: #2E7D32; /* Even darker green thumb color */
        cursor: pointer;
        border-radius: 50%;
        transform: translateY(-15px); /* Move the thumb up */
    }


The implementation for the Blazor slider looks like this, in the codebehind file for the Slider:


using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components;

namespace BlazorSliderLib
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Slider to be used in Blazor. Uses input type='range' with HTML5 element datalist and custom css to show a slider.
    /// To add tick marks, set the <see cref="ShowTickmarks"/> to true (this is default)
    /// </summary>
    /// <typeparam name="T"></typeparam>
    public partial class Slider<T> : ComponentBase
        where T : struct, IComparable
    {

        /// <summary>
        /// Initial value to set to the slider, data bound so it can also be read out
        /// </summary>
        [Parameter]
        public T Value { get; set; }

        public double ValueAsDouble { get; set; }

        public double GetValueAsDouble()
        {
            if (typeof(T).IsEnum)
            {
                if (_isInitialized)
                {
                    var e = _enumValues.FirstOrDefault(v => Convert.ToDouble(v).Equals(Convert.ToDouble(Value)));
                    return Convert.ToDouble(Convert.ChangeType(Value, typeof(int)));
                }
                else
                {
                    return 0;
                }
            }
            else
            {
                return Convert.ToDouble(Value);
            }
        }        

        [Parameter, EditorRequired]
        public required string Title { get; set; }

        [Parameter]
        public string? MinimumDescription { get; set; }

        [Parameter]
        public string? MaximumDescription { get; set; }

        [Parameter]
        public double Minimum { get; set; } = typeof(T).IsEnum ? Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)).Cast<int>().Select(e => Convert.ToDouble(e)).Min() : 0.0;

        [Parameter]
        public double Maximum { get; set; } = typeof(T).IsEnum ? Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)).Cast<int>().Select(e => Convert.ToDouble(e)).Max() : 100.0;

        [Parameter]
        public double? Stepsize { get; set; } = typeof(T).IsEnum ? 1 : 5.0;

        [Parameter]
        public bool ShowTickmarks { get; set; } = true;

        [Parameter]
        public AlternateStyle UseAlternateStyle { get; set; } = AlternateStyle.None;

        [Parameter]
        public EventCallback<T> ValueChanged { get; set; }

        public List<double> Tickmarks { get; set; } = new List<double>();

        private List<T> _enumValues { get; set; } = new List<T>();

        private bool _isInitialized = false;

        private async Task OnValueChanged(ChangeEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.Value == null)
            {
                return;
            }
            if (typeof(T).IsEnum && e.Value != null)
            {
                var enumValue = _enumValues.FirstOrDefault(v => Convert.ToDouble(v).Equals(Convert.ToDouble(e.Value))); 
                if (Enum.TryParse(typeof(T), enumValue.ToString(), out _)) {
                    Value = enumValue; //check that it was a non-null value set from the slider
                }
                else
                {
                    return; //if we cannot handle the enum value set, do not process further
                }
            }
            else
            {
                Value = (T)Convert.ChangeType(e.Value!, typeof(T));
            }

            ValueAsDouble = GetValueAsDouble();

            await ValueChanged.InvokeAsync(Value);
        }


        private string TickmarksId = "ticksmarks_" + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N");

        protected override async Task OnParametersSetAsync()
        {
            if (_isInitialized)
            {
                return ; //initialize ONCE 
            }

            if (!typeof(T).IsEnum && Value.CompareTo(0) == 0)
            {
                Value = (T)Convert.ChangeType((Convert.ToDouble(Maximum) - Convert.ToDouble(Minimum)) / 2, typeof(T));
                ValueAsDouble = GetValueAsDouble();
            }

            if (Maximum.CompareTo(Minimum) < 1)
            {
                throw new ArgumentException("The value for parameter 'Maximum' is set to a smaller value than {Minimum}");
            }
            GenerateTickMarks();

            BuildEnumValuesListIfRequired();

            _isInitialized = true;

            await Task.CompletedTask;
        }

        private void BuildEnumValuesListIfRequired()
        {
            if (typeof(T).IsEnum)
            {
                foreach (var item in Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)))
                {
                    _enumValues.Add((T)item);
                }
            }
        }

        private void GenerateTickMarks()
        {
            Tickmarks.Clear();
            if (!ShowTickmarks)
            {
                return;
            }
            if (typeof(T).IsEnum)
            {
                int enumValuesCount = Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)).Length;
                double offsetEnum = 0;
                double minDoubleValue = Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)).Cast<int>().Select(e => Convert.ToDouble(e)).Min();
                double maxDoubleValue = Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)).Cast<int>().Select(e => Convert.ToDouble(e)).Max();
                double enumStepSizeCalculated = (maxDoubleValue - minDoubleValue) / enumValuesCount;

                foreach (var enumValue in Enum.GetValues(typeof(T)))
                {
                    Tickmarks.Add(offsetEnum);
                    offsetEnum += Math.Round(enumStepSizeCalculated, 0);
                }
                return;
            }

            for (double i = Convert.ToDouble(Minimum); i <= Convert.ToDouble(Maximum); i += Convert.ToDouble(Stepsize))
            {
                Tickmarks.Add(i);
            }

        }      

    }

    public enum AlternateStyle
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// No alternate style. Uses the ordinary styling for the slider (browser default of input type 'range')
        /// </summary>
        None,

        /// <summary>
        /// Applies alternate style, using in addition to the 'slider track' an additional visual hint with an additional 'slider track' right below that shows a reddish color for lowest parts of the scale to the slider and towards yellow and greenish hues for higher values
        /// The alternate style uses a larger 'slider thumb' and alternate style to the 'slider-track'. The alternate style gives a more interesting look, especially in Microsoft Edge Chromium.
        /// </summary>
        AlternateStyle,

        /// <summary>
        /// Similar in style to the alternate style, but uses the inverse scale for the colors along the slider
        /// </summary>
        AlternateStyleInverseColorScale
    }

}


The markup of the Slider looks like this:


@using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Forms
@using BlazorSliderLib
@typeparam T where T : struct, IComparable

<div class="slider-container sliderv2 @((UseAlternateStyle == AlternateStyle.AlternateStyle || (UseAlternateStyle == AlternateStyle.AlternateStyleInverseColorScale))? "alternate-style" : "") @(UseAlternateStyle == AlternateStyle.AlternateStyleInverseColorScale ? "alternate-style-inverse-colorscale" : "")">
<input type="range" @bind="@ValueAsDouble" min="@Minimum" max="@Maximum" step="@Stepsize" list="@TickmarksId" @oninput="OnValueChanged" />
<datalist id="@TickmarksId">
    @{
        var itemIndex = 0;
    }
    @foreach (var value in Tickmarks){
        if (typeof(T).IsEnum){
            var itemLabel = _enumValues.ElementAt(itemIndex);
            <option class="tick-label" value="@value" label="@itemLabel"></option>
        }
        else {
            <option class="tick-label" value="@value" label="@value"></option>
        }
        itemIndex++;    
    }
</datalist>

<div class="row">
@if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(MinimumDescription)){
    <div class="col-md-4">
        <label class="sliderv2Label text-muted">@MinimumDescription</label>
    </div>
}
@if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(Title)){
    <div class="col-md-4">
        <label class="sliderv2Label text-muted" style="text-align:center">@Title: @Value</label>
    </div>
}

@if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(MaximumDescription)){
    <div class="col-md-4" style="text-align:right">
        <label class="sliderv2Label tet-muted text-end">@MaximumDescription</label>
    </div>
}

</div>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="_content/BlazorSliderLib/Slider.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="_content/BlazorSliderLib/SliderAlternate.css" />

<link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="favicon.ico"/>


</div>


The slider control is provided "as is" and is free to change and use of no charge.

https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/BlazorSlider?tab=MIT-1-ov-file#readme

Friday, 27 December 2024

Terminating a process running on local port using Powershell

Developers who work with frontend and backend often switching between tools get a message that a certain process is holding a port. For example, using the dotnet command, you can get a message that the address is already in use. Note - you usually must decide if you really want to terminate the process running on a certain port, but if you are sure that you just want to close the process and free up the local port for its use, it would be nice to have a way of
just closing the process running on that local port. A typical output would be:

 System.IO.IOException: Failed to bind to address http://127.0.0.1:5000: address already in use.

We can locate which process is using te port, that is, the local port, and then terminate the process. This will free up the local port so we can use it. Here is a Powershell function that will find the process running at a local port, if any, given by a specied port number.


<#
.SYNOPSIS
Stops the process using the specified local port 

.DESCRIPTION
This function finds the process, if any, using the specified port and stops it.
In case there are no process, the function exits.

.PARAMETER portId
The port number to check for the process

.RETURNS int
If successful, returns 0. If not, returns -1.

.EXAMPLE
Terminate-Port -portId 5000
#>
function Terminate-Port {
    param (
        [Parameter(Mandatory = $true)]
        [int]$portId
    )

    # Get the process ID (PID) using the specified port 
    try {
        Write-Host "Looking for processing running using local port: $portId"
        $connection = Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort $portId -ErrorAction Stop
        if ($connection) {
            Write-Output "Port $portId is in use by process ID $($connection.OwningProcess | Select-Object -Unique)."
        } else {
            Write-Output "Port $portId is not in use."
            return 0 | Out-Null
        }
    } catch {
        Write-Output "An error occurred: $_"
        return -1 | Out-Null
    }

    $processId = $connection.OwningProcess

    if ($processId -and $processId -gt 0) {
        $process = Get-Process -Id $processId
        if ($process) {
            # Stop the process
            try {
                Stop-Process -Id $processId -Force
                Write-Host "Process running at port $portId was terminated."
                return 0 | Out-Null
            } catch {
                Write-Host "Could not stop process. Reason: $error"
            }
        }
    }

    Write-Host "No process found using port $portId."
    return -1 | Out-Null
}



To terminate , we just run the command

 Terminate-Port -portId 5000


Screenshots of the function being run: BEFORE the command Terminate-Port is run and AFTER. Note that the process running at the given portId was terminated and then the local port is freed up again.
AFTER

Monday, 23 December 2024

Custom spans in C#

This article will look more into Spans in C# and demonstrate how you can create a custom Span yourself.

Span<T> and ReadOnlySpan<T> were introduced in 2018 with C# 7.2 and .NET Core 2.1.

These types provide a way to work with contiguous regions of memory safely and efficiently, without copying data.

They are particularly useful for performance-critical applications, as they allow for slicing and accessing memory without the overhead of array bounds checking.

The introduction of spans marked a significant improvement in how .NET handles memory, offering developers more control and flexibility.

I have added a Github repo for the code shown in this article here:
https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/CustomSpan

ref struct and provide methods for supplying either a reference to an object or in more usual case, an arry. Inside the ref struct, with two fields :

    private readonly ref T _reference;
    private readonly int _length;

To provide support for passing in an array and a start index and length in the constructor of the ref struct


public CustomSpan(T[] array, int start, int length)
{
    ArgumentNullException.ThrowIfNull(array);
    if (!typeof(T).IsValueType && array.GetType() != typeof(T[]))
    {
        // Covariance guard
        throw new ArgumentException($"Covariance between types {typeof(T).FullName} and {array.GetType().FullName} is not supported in CustomSpan");
    }

#if TARGET_64BIT
    if ((ulong)(uint)start + (ulong)(uint)length > (ulong)(uint)array.Length)
    {
        throw new IndexOutOfRangeException("The index was out of bounds for the array");
    }
#else
    if ((uint)start + (uint)length > (uint)array.Length)
    {
        throw new IndexOutOfRangeException("The index was out of bounds for the array");
    }
#endif

    _reference = ref Unsafe.Add(ref MemoryMarshal.GetArrayDataReference(array), (nint)(uint)start); //nint - native integer
    _length = length;
}


MemoryMarshal class inside System.Runtime.InteropServices contains helper methods such as GetArrayDataReference, which returns a reference to the 0-th element of an array. As we can see, array variance checks are done in the method. The Unsafe class inside System.Runtime.CompilerServices provides a method Add which is used to add an element offset to a reference, handy for getting the offset. As we see, there are no copying of memory blocks, only a reference to the first element of the array and start, the offset. The length variable specified here just defines the length to use for bounds checking. Note that we must handle also if the code executes inside 32-bits and 64-bits environments. We finally return a reference to the array given by an offset provided the value start. The (nint) used here is native integer. We also want to provide an indexer, so we can retrieve a value directly. We also provide a writable indexer too, in the method GetWritable. This is not considered good practice regarding encapsulation, just to demonstrate how you could do it.


// Read-only indexer
public ref readonly T this[int index]
{
    get
    {
        if ((uint)index >= (uint)_length)
        {
            throw new IndexOutOfRangeException();
        }
        return ref Unsafe.Add(ref _reference, index);
    }
}

// Read-write indexer
public ref T GetWritable(int index)
{
    if ((uint)index >= (uint)_length)
    {
        throw new IndexOutOfRangeException();
    }
    return ref Unsafe.Add(ref _reference, index);
}


We also provide a method that returns a readonly span from the custom span.


    public ReadOnlySpan<T> AsReadOnlySpan()
    {
        return MemoryMarshal.CreateReadOnlySpan(ref _reference, _length);
    }

To use this CustomSpan, demo code is shown below:


void Main(){

    var nums = Enumerable.Range(0, 1000).ToArray(); 
    var spanOfNums = new CustomSpan<int>(nums, 500, 500); 
    var twentyToFifty = spanOfNums.Slice(20, 5);
    
    Console.WriteLine("Output of the twentytoFifty span:");
    twentyToFifty.PrintArrayContents(); //prints 520..525


    for (int i = 0; i < twentyToFifty.Length; i++)
    {
        twentyToFifty.GetWritable(i) = (int) Math.Pow((double)twentyToFifty[i], 2); //mutates the Span contents - squares the elements , using GetWritable
    }
    
    Console.WriteLine("\nOutput of the mutated twentytoFifty span:");
    twentyToFifty.PrintArrayContents();
}


The output looks like this:


Output of the twentytoFifty span:
520
521
522
523
524

Output of the mutated twentytoFifty span:
270400
271441
272484
273529
274576



Usually, you would use the built-in spans in C#, as they contain the necessary functionality you need. This article was just a dive into how Spans are implemented, the code for Spans are available on the .NET source code web site :

https://source.dot.net https://source.dot.net/#System.Private.CoreLib/src/libraries/System.Private.CoreLib/src/System/Span.cs,d2517139cac388e8