XML

AJaX - Asynchronous JavaScript and XML

Rob Reynolds — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 11:12:00 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX

http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/csharpsample/default.aspx

http://ajax.schwarz-interactive.de/vbnetsample/default.aspx

What is it? It is a way to leave out postbacks from a page when you use ASP.NET. This causes it to only return the data that is needed instead of an entire page each time.

Advantages:

Speed
Less bandwidth
Richer Interface (possibly)

Disadvantages:

Harder to Debug.
More Javascript on pages. (much more)

I really think the speed wins out in this case, because you can pull the JS code back into your Class and have it register the JavaScript code on first load. It is possible to debug Javascript with VS.NET, so it may make sense to do this.

Speaking of AJaX, if you use GMail, then you have used an interface that uses it. It is very responsive and very nice...

Using .NET to POST (or send) an XML request file to a URL without XMLHTTP (VB.NET)

Rob Reynolds — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:24:00 GMT

This a very efficient (plus maybe the only) way to use .NET to post (or send) an XML request file to a URL. I have to pass some credit to Andre Torrez because he built XML Pad where I found what I was missing (manipulating the webRequest's RequestStream()).

''' -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

''' <summary>

''' A way to post files to other servers and receive responses.

''' This also includes utilizing a proxy server.

''' If no URL is sent, it calls GetURL() to get the posting URL.

''' </summary>

''' <param name="strURL">URL to access.</param>

''' <param name="fileToSend">Relative path to file to POST to the server. Does not have to be an XML file.</param>

''' <param name="postingContentType">MIME Type</param>

''' <param name="encoding">Type of System.Text.Encoding. Use UTF8 encoding for XML files.</param>

''' <returns>System.IO.Stream of the response from the remote server.</returns>

''' <example>

''' This is the code you will have to set prior to calling this function.

''' <code>

''' Private Const DOMAIN As String = ""

''' Private Const USERNAME As String = ""

''' Private Const PSSWRD As String = ""

''' Private Const PROXY_ADDRESS As String = ""

''' Private Const PROXY_PORT As Integer = 80

''' </code>

''' This sample shows how to call the method and POST a file to the remote server:

''' <code>

''' Dim strm As System.IO.Stream = GetResponseStream(url, "xml/getMeetings.xml","text/xml", New System.Text.UTF8Encoding)

''' </code>

''' This sample shows how to call the method without posting:

''' <code>

''' Dim strm As System.IO.Stream = GetResponseStream(strURL, Nothing, Nothing, Nothing)

''' </code>

''' Once you have the stream, this is how you load it into XML:

''' <code>

''' Dim xml As System.Xml.XmlDocument = New System.Xml.XmlDocument

''' xml.Load(strm)

''' </code>

''' </example>

''' <remarks>

''' </remarks>

''' <history>

''' [robz] 2/25/2005 Created

''' </history>

''' -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Private Function GetResponseStream(ByVal strURL As String, ByVal fileToSend As String, ByVal postingContentType As String, ByVal encoding As System.Text.Encoding) As System.IO.Stream

If IsNothing(strURL) Then

strURL = GetURL()

End If

' set up the proxy and credentials that you will need to get out of the network -optional

Dim proxy As New System.Net.WebProxy(PROXY_ADDRESS, PROXY_PORT)

Dim creds As New Net.NetworkCredential(USERNAME, PSSWRD, DOMAIN)

' create a new webRequest to send off for information.

Dim wR As System.Net.WebRequest = System.Net.WebRequest.Create(strURL)

' apply the credentials - optional

proxy.Credentials = creds

wR.Credentials = creds

' set the timeout property in milliseconds

wR.Timeout = 10000

' give the webRequest the Proxy to use - optional

If (System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings("useProxy").ToString() = "true") Then

wR.Proxy = proxy

End If

' if passed xmlfile, then post it in the web request

If Not (IsNothing(fileToSend)) Then

' set request stream to the xml file content

Dim strR As System.IO.StreamReader = New System.IO.StreamReader(_programLocation & fileToSend, encoding)

' read it into a byte array to use in the post

Dim postBuffer As Byte()

Dim encode As System.Text.Encoding = strR.CurrentEncoding()

postBuffer = encode.GetBytes(strR.ReadToEnd())

encode = Nothing

strR.Close()

' set up the webRequest to POST an xml file

wR.Method = "POST"

wR.ContentType = postingContentType

wR.ContentLength = postBuffer.Length

' set the stream to the webRequest's request stream

Dim postStream As System.IO.Stream = wR.GetRequestStream()

postStream.Write(postBuffer, 0, postBuffer.Length)

postStream.Close()

End If

' pass the response from webRequest to a webResponse.

Dim wResponse As System.Net.WebResponse = wR.GetResponse()

wR = Nothing

Return wResponse.GetResponseStream()

End Function

By the way Andre, that one part was pretty fricken important. =)

Update: Added the ability to use any kind of file, such as a ZIP file.

XSLT Button Code Snipptet (ADA Compliant)

Rob Reynolds — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 02:07:00 GMT

For those of you who have used XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) to transform XML into whatever, you know it can perhaps be a pain sometimes. I have been learning the easy parts of it to try and markup a document at work, and also to get this blog to look pretty and usable.

Here is a code snippet for something I have learned that is pretty cool.

Before I just throw it out there, this is part of the XSLT that transforms this page on robz.webhop.org that links over to the main Blog. That is in the header and in the feedback links.

<div>
    <xsl:attribute name="OnClick">
        <xsl:text>javascript:window.open('< /xsl:text>
        <xsl:value-of select="link" />
        <xsl:text>')< /xsl:text>
    < /xsl:attribute>
    <xsl:attribute name="OnKeyPress">
        <xsl:text>javascript:window.open('< /xsl:text>
        <xsl:value-of select="link" />
        <xsl:text>')< /xsl:text>
    < /xsl:attribute>
    <span style="cursor:hand;">
        <xsl:attribute name="onMouseOver">
            <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">this.className='underline'< /xsl:text>
        < /xsl:attribute>
        <xsl:attribute name="onFocus">
            <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">this.className='underline'< /xsl:text>
        < /xsl:attribute>
        <xsl:attribute name="onMouseOut">
            <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">this.className=''< /xsl:text>
        < /xsl:attribute>
        <xsl:attribute name="onBlur">
            <xsl:text disable-output-escaping="yes">this.className=''< /xsl:text>
        < /xsl:attribute>
        <xsl:value-of select="title" />
    < /span>
< /div>

The class “underline” that is being referred to is:

.underline {
text-decoration:underline;
}