Reliable Logging - C# Discussion Boards

Dan Neely2-Dec-08 5:31

2-Dec-08 5:31

OTOH multi megabuck protection systems like SecureOmgWtfLolBbqDisk don't stop the no cd hacks for more than a few hours or days, so I'd rate it as a lost cause.

The only way to effectively limit piracy is to design an app that can't work without talking to servers owned by the company that wrote it.

Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall

Re: copy protection

Paul Conrad2-Dec-08 5:36

Paul Conrad

2-Dec-08 5:36

dan neely wrote:
only way to effectively limit piracy is to design an app that can't work without talking to servers owned by the company that wrote it.

True. I mentioned that the other day to some guy who didn't want people to copy his app that uses a sql express database. Require your app to "phone home" and it does keep it on a leash so to speak when it is out in the wild Smile | :)

"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer

"Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon

"Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham

Re: copy protection

Dan Neely2-Dec-08 5:46

Dan Neely

2-Dec-08 5:46

I'm directing my reply towards the OP.

Paul Conrad wrote:
Require your app to "phone home" and it does keep it on a leash so to speak when it is out in the wild Smile

Just a simple phone home isn't any more effective than any other simple in application check. You need to store either a critical portion of the data or application functionality on a remote server.

Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall

Re: copy protection

Paul Conrad2-Dec-08 5:51

Paul Conrad

2-Dec-08 5:51

dan neely wrote:
Just a simple phone home isn't any more effective than any other simple in application check.

Totally agree. I wasn't going to go into deep details as to how I approach my copy protection methods. It's proprietary Poke tongue | ;-P

dan neely wrote:
You need to store either a critical portion of the data or application functionality on a remote server.

That's part of it, but which parts is the question Roll eyes | :rolleyes:

Re: copy protection

Samer Aburabie2-Dec-08 10:41

Samer Aburabie

2-Dec-08 10:41

Paul Conrad wrote:
Require your app to "phone home" and it does keep it on a leash so to speak when it is out in the wild

I liked the way you described it Smile | :)

.. but certainly I would agree on that ... thats what I have been thinking of for an application of mine !

Sincerely Samer Abu Rabie

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Re: copy protection

Paul Conrad2-Dec-08 10:45

Paul Conrad

2-Dec-08 10:45

Thanks. It should not be just doing an application check, but handling control of the critical parts of the app from remote as well. See dan's post, as well as my reply to him ( I would share how I protect my code, but it's a heavily guarded secret Poke tongue | ;-P

)....

BTW, my app isn't just on a leash, but has a choke collar on the leash. It really isn't getting away Laugh | :laugh:

Re: copy protection

Samer Aburabie2-Dec-08 11:16

Samer Aburabie

2-Dec-08 11:16

Sincerely Samer Abu Rabie

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Reliable Logging

blackjack21502-Dec-08 1:06

blackjack2150

2-Dec-08 1:06

Imagine this situation:
Multi-user system over network. When error occurs on either machine, it is logged on a single shared file across the whole system. If one machine trues to write while another one already is, then of course IOException is thrown. (file is being used by another process...)
Question: Is there any logging library that is reliable for this kind of situations? It must be able to wait and try to log the event as long as the target file is in use or for a specified time. Am I asking for too much?

Insert funny quote here.

Re: Reliable Logging

SeMartens2-Dec-08 1:13

SeMartens

2-Dec-08 1:13

Hi blackjack,

well there is a library called log4net http://logging.apache.org/log4net/index.html[^].

If you read through the documentation you will find somthing called RemotingAppender or UDPAppender. What you can do with this is to send all your logging events to a special sink. This sink will get all events and could write them into a single file.

I think this is a much better way than using a shared file...

Hope this helps you a bit.

Regards
Sebastian

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Me in Softwareland.

Re: Reliable Logging

Samer Aburabie2-Dec-08 10:46

Samer Aburabie

2-Dec-08 10:46

SeMartens wrote:
well there is a library called log4net http://logging.apache.org/log4net/index.html[^].

I haven't use this too ... but if i wanted to make it by hand I would think of some kind of queue where when a user has an error sends it to the queue which will watch that logging file ... and when the file is available it logs the error ... if it couldn't ... it waits then tries again.

Sincerely Samer Abu Rabie

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Re: Reliable Logging

Andrew Rissing2-Dec-08 6:00

Andrew Rissing

2-Dec-08 6:00

Depending on your situation (company network, access to a mail server, etc.), you might consider using email. It gives you the benefit of being able to add attachments, etc.

I haven't used Log4Net, but it does support emails: log4net.Appender.SmtpAppender.

Something that looks pretty similiar to Log4Net that I've used is, the logging application block from Microsoft: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc309506.aspx[^]

Unable to load (unmanaged) DLL: not found

HosamAly2-Dec-08 0:46

HosamAly

2-Dec-08 0:46

I am getting an error loading a function from an unmanaged DLL, but I'm getting this error:

System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'MyLibrary.dll': The specified module could not be found.
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007007E)

I have the DLL file in the project next to the source code files, and its properties are set to "copy if newer". Even "copy always" did not work. The file is there, but the application can't find it (at least in VS Debugger)! WTF | :WTF:

I tried checking File.Exists("MyLibrary.dll"), and it returns true!

Any idea what's happening? Confused | :confused:

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Re: Unable to load (unmanaged) DLL: not found

Simon P Stevens2-Dec-08 0:48

Simon P Stevens

2-Dec-08 0:48

Post the code you are using to load the dll.

Simon

Re: Unable to load (unmanaged) DLL: not found

HosamAly2-Dec-08 1:29

HosamAly

2-Dec-08 1:29

[DllImport("MyLibrary.dll")]void myFunction();

I think I found the error: MyLibrary.dll depends on another DLL, and that other was not found. The error message is misleading.

Thanks.

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Re: Unable to load (unmanaged) DLL: not found

Simon P Stevens2-Dec-08 1:50

Simon P Stevens

2-Dec-08 1:50

Cool. At least you figured it out.

Simon

Update progressbar , text box from thread

ptr_Electron1-Dec-08 23:42

ptr_Electron

1-Dec-08 23:42

In C#.net
I am tring to update progressbar , text box
from thread. Please advice

Re: Update progressbar , text box from thread

N a v a n e e t h1-Dec-08 23:44

N a v a n e e t h

1-Dec-08 23:44

Check this[^]. Other way is to use BackgroundWorker class.

Navaneeth

How to use google | Ask smart questions

Re: Update progressbar , text box from thread

Simon P Stevens1-Dec-08 23:47

Simon P Stevens

1-Dec-08 23:47

What's the problem? Are you getting an exception? Post it with the stack trace and all the details.

You must update GUI from the main GUI thread. You can use .InvokeRequired[^] to check if you are on the GUI thread or not, and you can call .Invoke() to request that the GUI thread execute your method.

There's an article about it here[^].

Simon

Re: Update progressbar , text box from thread

Giorgi Dalakishvili2-Dec-08 1:58

Giorgi Dalakishvili

2-Dec-08 1:58

Here you are: Beginners Guide To Threading In .NET Part 5 of n[^]

Giorgi Dalakishvili

#region signature
My Articles

Asynchronous Registry Notification Using Strongly-typed WMI Classes in .NET [^]

My blog
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Re: Update progressbar , text box from thread

Samer Aburabie2-Dec-08 10:52

Samer Aburabie

2-Dec-08 10:52

I believe the exception you are getting is a cross thread exception ... this occurs when your thread is trying to access controls in the form which are created by the main thread ... a common exception in UI especially when using threading and asynchronous calls ... read about threading ... and search for cross threading exception.

Sincerely Samer Abu Rabie

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Using Binary Operators

MatthysDT1-Dec-08 23:15

MatthysDT

1-Dec-08 23:15

Hi
I'm trying to do a logical AND between two integers (x && y) but I get the following error:
Operator && cannot be applied to operands of type 'int'

I get a similar error when converting the integers to byte.

Is there another operator/function I could use or to what should I convert the integers to be able to do the logical AND?

Doggy treat[^]

Re: Using Binary Operators

Simon P Stevens1-Dec-08 23:21

Simon P Stevens

1-Dec-08 23:21

You're talking about bitwise operators. See this table of C# operators[^]. It's about half way down, titled "logical AND"

The operator you want is just a single '&' sign. (See here[^]).

[Edit: Oops, for some reason I gave you SQL server bitwise operator links.]

Simon

Re: Using Binary Operators

Guffa2-Dec-08 0:53

Guffa

2-Dec-08 0:53

You can't do a logical and between two integers. Logical operators only works with boolean types.

What you want is the binary operator &, not the logical operator &&.

Despite everything, the person most likely to be fooling you next is yourself.

Re: Using Binary Operators

Alan Balkany2-Dec-08 4:05

Alan Balkany

2-Dec-08 4:05

C++ programmers sometimes treat integers as Boolean values, where 0 is false and non-zero is true. This doesn't work in C#, which is more strongly typed.

If this is what you want to do, it can be written:

((x != 0) && (y != 0))

Re: Using Binary Operators

ely_bob2-Dec-08 6:35

ely_bob

2-Dec-08 6:35

C# doesn't use (int)1 as true, so you will need to use (x==y && y==1)
see the link below, but to make a long story short, the C# compiler tends
to be more like a binary child, it likes things in strong typed format,
as such if there is any disention inside its ranks, it will just throw a compilation error.
just try something like

int a = Math.Round(Math.PI,0);

which throws Error:

Cannot implicitly convert type 'double' to 'int'.<br />
An explicit conversion exists (are you missing a cast?)

and can be resolved by

int a = (int)Math.Round(Math.PI,0);

but you cannot use:

int a = 2, b = 3;
if((bool)(a)&&(bool)(b)){}//Does NOT work

alternativly you can restructure to just use bools

bool bx;    //     int ix;
bx = false; //     ix = 0;
bx != bx;   //     ix = ix % 2;

or make an operator

BinaryAnd(int x,int y)
{
     if(x==1&&y==1){return true;}
     return false;
}

you should say more about how you intend to use it,
because there are lots of ways to get the same result.

clicky...hope it helps, my C is a bit rusty, it's been a couple of years. Confused | :confused:

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