At the beginning, let me confess that I am totally new to Workflow Foundation. I am trying to write one custom activity, let's say we call it GoTo. This activity has a property called TargetActivityName (of type string). The TargetActivityName specifies the name (or DisplayName) of another activity present in the workflow. Now, I need to validate that the activity name is valid, that is, whenever the someone designs a workflow with the GoTo activity and specifies the TargetActivityName, the workflow should validate that an activity of that name is present.
Any ways to achieve this? I am not rehosting it, just using Visual Studio.
Thanks,
Jeevan
If you need all the activities present in a assembly you can check
C#: List All Classes in Assembly
and then use that list to get compare your string with fullName.
Related
In our implementation of the Rules Engine we have a test form similar to Rule Test Form on the online demo on "Business Rules Engine Demo". What we would like to do is conditionally show only the Test Fields for the items in use in the rule. We are doing this by grabbing the rule.definition JSON from the ruleeditor then look for the items which we can conditionally create using AngularJS's ng-if directive. This works great with Fields. If the user selects a method, our method of parsing the string is failing. What it appears is the Field Names are stored in the JSON as plain text however the Method Names are not. Is there a way we can configure the control to either A not encrypt the method names or is there a way that we can tap into the encryption to identify if a method is in use in our rule? Thanks in advance.
Methods and actions can have overloads which the Code Effects rule editor supports. Therefore, we can't have multiple menu entries with the same name. Instead, we use a signature hash on all in-rule methods and rule actions regardless of whether it has an overload or not to make them unique on the client.
You need to have either the Full Source or the Editor Source license in order to change the code to either stop that hashing, or tap into the process, or implement it your own way. You don't have that option with any other Code Effects perpetual license.
This is a question about using PowerShell with Custom Commands (or scheduled tasks) in the Adaxes Active Directory management software by Softerra.
I am trying to accept a parameter from a user when using a custom command, then I need to take that value and modify it for use in a future action of the custom command.
A "for example" use-case would be creating a script that sets a user's out of office, where the custom command takes a target user reference in the out of office message. The first action in the custom command would find the email address of the provided user, then the second action would set the out-of-office with a message telling recipients for immediate assistance to email the provided user's email address. I realize there may be ways to solve this with one PowerShell script, but there are MANY scenarios where it would be beneficial to process provided information with a script action for use with MULTIPLE future actions in the custom command.
I already know how to access parameter values in custom commands for Softerra Adaxes, but I can't figure out how to WRITE to parameter values.
Accessing values:
$context.GetParameterValue('param-Example')
Does anyone know how to write TO parameter values? $context.SetParameterValue() does not work. This would be extremely useful for being able to store and manipulate values between actions in custom commands in Adaxes.
If anyone is looking for something similar, the answer I got from Adaxes support was that there is no means to do this currently with their software.
The only work-around would be writing to a property of the object being modified, then reference that property later.
For instance, writing a value to the extensionAttribute1 property of a user, then referencing that later in the script in a different action.
If anyone comes up with a better solution or Adaxes changes this, please feel free to suggest a better solution!
I'm attempting to dynamically use the Microsoft.Web.Administration namespace within a powershell cmdlet.
Is there a way to add a variable into a Namespace.Class declaration.
I'm using the namespace [Microsoft.Web.Administration] and it's class [Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool], it has a property under it 'Recycling' that you can access using a GetProperty method.
[Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool].GetProperty("Recycling")
If you spit out the PropertyType of the above using this
[Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool].GetProperty("Recycling").PropertyType.FullName
You get this result,
Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPoolRecycling
which is another class. I now want to access this class dynamically within the cmdlet. How do access this class from within the code, I want the code to dynamically discover the new class of the object and then access that class. But I can't find a way to accomplish this.
Psuedocode for what I'm trying
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom( "C:\windows\system32\inetsrv\Microsoft.Web.Administration.dll" )
$appPoolProperty = [Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool].GetProperty($Property)
$subClassName = $appPoolProperty.PropertyType.FullName
#This is the step I'm lost on
$subClass = New-Object $subClassName
So I'm not sure if there's a way to have a TypeName for an object put in as a string value and I can't seem to find a way to cast the variable as anything else. Sorry if this is remedial, I'm a basement grown coder and just learn things as I go.
EDIT: As requested by Mathias below in the comments, an overview of what I'm trying to achieve.
I have a script that automates the configuration of many IIS components. At this time I'm attempting to add validation to the cmdlet Set-AppPoolConfiguration that I've created that allows a configuration to be fed into the cmdlet that configures an AppPool (this is used to deploy websites/weapplications throughout a distributed web environment). Utilizing the details inside the Microsoft.Web.Administration I'm able to get enum values, as well as types of the many configuration components of an AppPool. This is saving me time to where I don't have to hard code in the data types and can just dynamically discover them and do validation on the values when the specific configuration element is chosen.
For example. If an AppPool Recycle schedule is need to be configured, I need to validate it against a TimeSpan data type. If it is not a TimeSpan data type issues will arise when being added to the ScheduleCollection. So I'm looking to validate the value provided before attempting to add it.
Since there are many AppPool configuration elements, I don't want to have to create a massive switch or if/elseif chain that checks each configuration element and statically dictate what data type it is for validation. I want the class itself to dynamically provide this information to simplify the code.
I can get the majority of these data types by simply accessing the property chain within the namespace. For example, if you want to know what type is required for the QueueLength, use this:
[Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool].GetProperty("QueueLength").PropertyType.Name
And you'll get Int64.
It's also extremely useful for getting enums.
[Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool].GetProperty("ManagedPipelineMode").PropertyType.GetEnumNames()
However attempting this with Schedule and you run into a small issue as it returns ScheduleCollection. This is true of any of the configuration elements that are part of a collection.
[Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPool].GetProperty("Recycling").PropertyType.GetProperty('PeriodicRestart').PropertyType.GetProperty('Schedule').PropertyType.Name
However the knowledge that the schedule item inside the ScheduleCollection is only accessible from within the Schedule class. My code currently checks to see if it is a collection, and then if it is, it is attempting to access that collection/class and get the information that is required. To find out that schedule is a TimeSpan you have to access it's specific class instance:
[Microsoft.Web.Administration.Schedule].GetProperty('Time').PropertyType.Name
Now AppPools are simple, there's only a single collection group that is normally edited, so hard coding in that if you're attempting to set a new recycle schedule it will be a TimeSpan isn't that big of a deal, however when we move over to WebSite/WebApplication configurations, it becomes more tedious to statically declare data types for each configuration element that is part of a collection, and becomes more useful to try and discover these dynamically based on the configuration element selected.
This was my initial approach, I just included the above for clarity. I'm going to step back and take another look at how to attack this as this does not appear to be as easy as I had hoped, I'll post my solution here.
You can retrieve the constructor from the type literal and invoke it like so:
$type = [Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationPoolRecycling]
$ctor = $type.GetConstructor('NonPublic,Instance',$null,#(),$null)
$appPoolRecyclingInstance = $ctor.Invoke($null)
Though there may be a way to do the above, in order to complete the updates to my cmdlet and proceed forward with my project I went a hybrid route.
The reason why I started exploring the [Microsoft.Web.Administration] namespace was that it provided information on the data types where the typical way I was manipulating IIS settings failed using Get/Set/Add-WebConfigurationProperty.
The specific failure is in reporting back valid data types for Enums. Take for instance ProcessModel.IdentityTypes. There is a set of valid entries for an IdentityType. However the following doesn't provide you with those valid types, so you either have to create static instances of them inside your cmdlet, or some other external data source, whereas I wanted Microsoft to provide them either through IIS itself, or through the classes attached to these configuration elements so the cmdlet would need minimal updating as IIS versions/configuration elements change.
This code returns Boolean
(Get-WebConfigurationProperty -pspath 'MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST' -filter "system.applicationHost/applicationPools/add[#name='$AppPool']" -name "AutoStart").Value.GetType().Name
However, this code returns string, which is true, but I needed to know that it is an enum and I needed to know the proper values.
(Get-WebConfigurationProperty -pspath 'MACHINE/WEBROOT/APPHOST' -filter "system.applicationHost/applicationPools/add[#name='$AppPool']" -name "processModel").identityType.GetType().Name
Using a mix of both the Namespace and the traditional Get-WebConfigurationProperty commands I can successfully now test for data types, as well as gather proper values for enums dynamically in code. If there is interest I can post the entire validation code here that I'm using for this cmdlet.
In my application I have a setting that can be configured by the user called Date Format. There are a list of formats they can use and when they choose one, all dates in the application and in the reports use that format.
Every time I create a new report I have to create the parameter and link the input control. I just added a new setting, for formatting numbers. I have about 50 reports that I need to apply this to. After going through the monotonous task of adding the parameter and input control to every report I was wondering if there is an easier way.
Is it possible to create a custom global parameter that is automatically available to all reports (Similar to the built in parameters)?
Furthermore, is there a way to tell jasper if a field is of a certain type to automatically do something with it, on a global level. For example if my field type is 'decimal' apply the number format?
Every report has a REPORT_FORMAT_FACTORY parameter that is an instance of net.sf.jasperreports.engine.util.FormatFactory. You should be able to create your class that implements FormatFactory and in the constructor takes what ever you need to determine the correct format. Then add it to the parameters when exporting your report.
You will probably need to play with it, as I am not sure what it passes in for pattern when a value is/isn't set. And if you always ignore the pattern, then when you need to explicitly set it to be the same in all reports it will cause problems.
If I get time tonight, I will try to create an example and see how it works and update my answer, or if you beat me to it, you could post a comment letting us know how it works.
I am trying to use Windows Workflow and have a model that looks similar to the image in the link below:
After each of the Send Activities (GetSomthing, GetSomthingElse, GetSomeMoreStuff) the same custom activity is being called (LogSomthingBadHappened).
While it might not look so bad in this picture in my real model the custom activity is a SequenceActivty, has quite a few nodes, and when its repeated 3 times starts to make the workflow look very ugly.
I would like to do something like this:
Can the IfElse branches be merged like this?
Should I be using a State Machine work flow instead (haven't figured these out yet)?
Use a FaultHandler on the workflow and throw a specific exception type that the handler will catch. Not the most graceful, but I think it should work.
In sequential workflows all steps must appear in a specific order, and the execution path is regulated exclusively by control structures (IF, WHILE).Altering the execution path in the way you describe would be like using a GOTO statement in imperative code, which we know leads to unnecessary complexity.
If the activities contained in the SequenceActivity that you need to execute at different stages of your workflow are exacty the same, you could embed them in a custom activity. This way it is easier to manage them since they are contained in a single logical unit.In imperative code, this would be like refactoring out a portion of duplicated code into a method, which is then invoked multiple places.
Another alternative that might work is to put your LogSomthingBadHappened activity into a custom workflow and include that several time. Several things to watch out for: Subworkflow are executed asynchronously, if the LogSomthingBadHappened activity needs state information from the main workflow, copying it to the sub workflow might be hard.
I have not tried this, so it might not even work.
I think the answer by gbanfill points to the right direction.
To generalize, I define the problem as:
Is there a way to define a group of activities that will be executed in several places of a workflow?
Further requirements are:
The group of activities should be defined in XAML only ie no code.
Type of input to this group will, of course, be fixed but actual values should depend on call (like calling a function).
Maybe the way to do it is define sub-workflows and build a custom activity that would instantiate the sub-workflow and wait for it to complete before continuing.
This custom activity should have at least two parameters: the sub-workflow id and input parameters.