Displaying assemblies used by the application process

Today I am going to show how to print out assemblies used by the running application. This information may be useful for logs and can be collected on application/service start.

System.Diagnostics has Process class that I am going to use to get information about current process and its modules. 

Below is a snippet of the console application that prints out information to console.

	using System;
	using System.Diagnostics;
	namespace ConsoleApplication
	{
	public class Program
	{
	public static void Main(string[] args)
	{
	Process oProcess = Process.GetCurrentProcess( );
	Console.WriteLine( string.Format( "Process: {0} ({1})",
	oProcess.ProcessName, oProcess.Id ) );
	Console.WriteLine( );
	Console.WriteLine( "MODULES:" );
	Console.WriteLine( "________" );
	foreach ( ProcessModule oModule in oProcess.Modules )
	{
	Console.WriteLine( string.Format( "{0} ({1})",
	oModule.ModuleName, oModule.FileName ) );
	}
	}
	}
	}

view raw GetCurrentProcess.cs hosted with ❤ by GitHub

VB.NET - Validating InputBox Control

If you are working with the system that still uses InputBox control from MS VisualBasic then you may get a situation where the input needs to be validated. InputBox control does not allow any validation checks and in ideal case needs to be replaced with custom WinForms dialog box. This post will show a simple way of validating InputBox by creating InputBoxValidated function and using IStringValidator interface.

	Public Class InputBoxValidated
	Public Function InputBoxValidated _
	(
	prompt As String,
	title As String,
	Optional stringValidator As IStringValidator = Nothing,
	Optional validationMessage As String = ""
	) As String
	Dim value As String _
	= Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction.InputBox(prompt, title)
	' If the cancel button wasn't pressed
	' And IStringValidator is passed with validation message
	If Not value = String.Empty AndAlso stringValidator IsNot Nothing _
	AndAlso Not String.IsNullOrEmpty(validationMessage) Then
	If Not stringValidator.Validate(value) Then
	MessageBox.Show(validationMessage, Application.ProductName)
	value = InputBoxValidated(
	prompt, title, stringValidator, validationMessage)
	End If
	End If
	Return value
	End Function
	End Class

view raw vbnet_InputBoxValidated.vb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

As you can see InputBoxValidated function uses IStringValidator interface that can implement any kind of string validations and criteria.

	Public Interface IStringValidator
	Function Validate(value As String) As Boolean
	End Interface

view raw vbnet_IStringValidator.vb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Below is an example of StringValidator class that implements IStringValidator interface and makes use of StringValidator from System.Configuration.

	Public Class StringValidator
	Implements IStringValidator
	Public Sub New(maxLength As Integer, invalidCharacters As String)
	Me.MaxLength = maxLength
	Me.InvalidCharacters = invalidCharacters
	End Sub
	Public Property MaxLength As Integer
	Public Property InvalidCharacters As String
	Public Function Validate(value As String) _
	As Boolean Implements IStringValidator.Validate
	Dim valid As Boolean = True
	Try
	Dim stringValidator As _
	New System.Configuration.StringValidator _
	(0, MaxLength, InvalidCharacters)
	If stringValidator.CanValidate(value.GetType()) Then
	stringValidator.Validate(value)
	Else
	valid = False
	End If
	Catch ex As ArgumentException
	valid = False
	End Try
	Return valid
	End Function
	End Class

view raw vbnet_StringValidator.vb hosted with ❤ by GitHub

References:

• Validation winform inputbox text in VB/net

Creating self extracting zip EXE under Linux for windows

Recently, I had a need to create a self extracting zip archive, which will open on any windows machine. Because, I am using Linux, I did not want to go through the process of installing the windows with 7z on it just for a sake of creating that archive. I was expecting that the process will be not trivial, as some of internet resources show, but all turned out very simple. Peazip archiver available for Windows as well as Linux, which is able to create self extracting exe archive. I downloaded portable version for 64 bit machine and when creating a new archive you get an option to create self extracting file in a single volume or split by chosen size.

What I found, peazip creates small archives that extract under windows machine just fine. If you need to zip large amount of files say > 1 GB, I would suggest to create normal archive, which can span several files of set size and then use 7zip on windows computer to extract them.

References:

• PeaZip for Linux x86_64 | Free WinZip WinRar alternative
• Howto: create a Windows compatible (.exe) self-extracting ZIP file in Ubuntu