Easiest and shortest sample to get a c# ILogger instance working

 I am embarrassed but I could not get a working ILogger instance to log to the console. I expected this to be achievable with 3, 4 lines. Tried several different approaches, following different posts/articles, nothing !

Using Serilog, however, gives the desired results, easily.

            var serilog = new LoggerConfiguration()

               .MinimumLevel.Debug()

               .WriteTo.Console()

               .WriteTo.File("Logs\\tests.txt", rollingInterval: RollingInterval.Day)

               .CreateLogger();

            

            var logger = new LoggerFactory().AddSerilog(serilog).CreateLogger<LinuxStartUpAndUpdaterManager>();

For instance, I use the following method in a base class all my test classes inherit from:

        protected ILogger<K> GetLogger<K>()

        {

            var serilog = new LoggerConfiguration()

                            .WriteTo.Console()

                            .WriteTo.File("testLog.txt", rollingInterval: RollingInterval.Day)

                            .CreateLogger();

            //if you need a Microsoft.Extensions.Logging ILogger out of your serilog

            return LoggerFactory.Create((c) =>

            {

                c.AddConsole();

                c.AddSerilog(serilog);

            }).CreateLogger<K>();

        }

Creating Unit Test Fact method code snippet in Visual Studio

Save the following xml file with the .snippet extension.

Afterwards, load it into the Code Snippet Manager in Visual Studio via 

Tools -> Code Snippet Manager -> Import

That's it. Type tt + Tab and the code block between CDATA[...] is inserted.

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">

<CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">

<Header>

<Title>UT Fact</Title>

<Author>AYK</Author>

<Description>Add Unit Test Fact</Description>

<Shortcut>tt</Shortcut>

</Header>

<Snippet>

<Code Language="CSharp">

<![CDATA[

[Fact]

public async Task ObjectBeingTested_Action_ExpectedResult()

{

                                        //arrange

                                        //act

                                        //assert

}]]>

</Code>

</Snippet>

</CodeSnippet>

</CodeSnippets>

Auto generate class diagram in visual studio 2019

 From StackOverflow:

In Visual Studio 2019, dragging the whole project to an empty class diagram (add new item -> class diagram) will do the job.

Make sure you have the Visual Studio Class Designer component installed.

Why create a .NET Core Worker Service?

From Randy Patterson:

.NET Core 3 introduced a new project template called Worker Service. This template is designed to give you a starting point for cross-platform services. As an alternate use case, it sets up a very nice environment for general console applications that is perfect for containers and microservices.

From Steve J Gordon:

The simple answer is – when and if you need them! If you have a requirement to develop a microservice which has no user interface and which performs long-running work, then a worker service is very likely going to be a good fit.

Remember that a worker service is just a console application under the hood. That console application uses a host to turn the application into something which runs until it is signalled to stop. The host brings with it features like dependency injection that you’ll likely already familiar with. Using the same logging and configuration extensions available in ASP.NET Core makes it easy to develop worker services which should log information and which require some configuration. These requirements are nearly always present when building worker services that will run in the cloud. For example, you will likely need to provide configuration for any external services that your worker service will interact with. A queue URL for example.

Worker services can be used to extract responsibilities from existing ASP.NET Core applications (I cover this in my Pluralsight course) and to design new .NET Core based microservices.

You are debugging a release build error

From StackOverflow

I went with Sam's suggestion, but after reading the docs here decided to try again. I spotted a build warning stating that some modules were optimized but I had Enable Just My Code set. I then reverted Supress JIT Optimization on module load to its original value (selected) but de-selected Enable Just My Code. I am able to debug now

Chrome deprecated console.info some time ago.
Here's a workaround that will actually make you happier than with console.info :)

Importing .shp (shape) GIS files into mySQL db

Steps to import SHP files exported from GIS systems, into mySQL db:

To import GIS data into mySQL, we need to translate the geometry GIS descriptions into sql statements.

This can be achieved by using the opensource shp2mysql utility, along with cygwin1.dll (both in the same folter)

After generating the .sql file, all is left to do is to import it into mysql. I did it using sqlyog: right click in the target database → Import → Execute SQL Script → select the .sql file generated above.

But before doing that, you might do the following:

The table name where the data will be imported is derived from the sql output file name. Make sure you rename it in the Create Table statement, accordingly.

I had to manually fix the .sql file, to overcome the following issues:

1. shp2mysql will create two columns named ID. I renamed the 2nd one to _ID
2. my shp2mysql execution generates a 3D representation of each point, and I did not find a 3D syntax for MULTILINESTRING. I ended up replacing all 0.000000000000000 occurrences in the sql file to blank spaces, to fix it.
3. the generated sql file had a -1 SRS id for each generated gis representation in WKT. mySql stated -1 is invalid, we checked which SRS id was used in our other GIS dbs, figured out it was 0, then I replaced all occurrences of ,-1) with ,0) in my sql file.
4. shp2mysql will generate the sql file using a deprecated mysql function, GeometryFromText. According to mysql documentation, it was deprecated in mySql 5.7.6. Since my machine has mySql 8, I renamed all occurrences of it to ST_GeomFromText:

GeomFromText() and GeometryFromText() are deprecated as of MySQL 5.7.6 and will be removed in a future MySQL release. Use ST_GeomFromText() and ST_GeometryFromText() instead.

Now the file is valid and free of errors, and you can proceed and run the Execute SQL Script described above.