SharePoint Designer Now Free

by community-syndication | Apr 4, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Thanks Stephen Alderman 🙂 …

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=baa3ad86-bfc1-4bd4-9812-d9e710d44f42

Accessing Extended Data from IExtensibleDataObject

by community-syndication | Apr 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

[Source: http://geekswithblogs.net/EltonStoneman]

DataContract classes in WCF can be declared as implementing IExtensibleDataObject to provide in-built support for schema versioning. Any data contracts created through svcutil or Add Service Reference implement the interface, and it’s good practice to implement it for any custom DataContract classes you write. On deserializing, elements which are not declared in the data contract are extracted by the DataContractSerializer and added to the ExtensionDataObject property, so unexpected data is not lost (see Vagif Abilov’s blog post on backwards compatibility with IExtensibleDataObject).

Internally, the ExtensionDataMember holds a convoluted key-value collection of the unrecognised data members. If you want to inspect the contents of the collection it’s a fiddly process as the members are non-public, and the types and interfaces of the members (ExtensionDataMember and IDataNode) are also non-public. The code below allows you to extract the value of an ExtensionDataMember given its name:

private object GetExtensionDataMemberValue(IExtensibleDataObject extensibleObject, string dataMemberName)

{

object innerValue = null;

PropertyInfo membersProperty = typeof(ExtensionDataObject).GetProperty(“Members”, BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);

IList members = (IList)membersProperty.GetValue(extensibleObject.ExtensionData, null);

foreach (object member in members)

{

PropertyInfo nameProperty = member.GetType().GetProperty(“Name”, BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);

string name = (string) nameProperty.GetValue(member, null);

if (name == dataMemberName)

{

PropertyInfo valueProperty = member.GetType().GetProperty(“Value”, BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);

object value = valueProperty.GetValue(member, null);

PropertyInfo innerValueProperty = value.GetType().GetProperty(“Value”, BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);

innerValue = innerValueProperty.GetValue(value, null);

break;

}

}

return innerValue;

}

Obviously this is fragile and isn’t appropriate for production solutions, but it can be useful for unit testing or debugging WCF calls, or when you want to confirm the effects of having data contracts which are out of sync between the service and the consumer. Similar code could be used to get the count of extended data members to identify if the DataContract schema is not the correct version, and interestingly, the value and innerValue properties are writeable, so you could update the contents of the unrecognised members.

BizTalk and WCF Finds a New Home at Microsoft

by community-syndication | Apr 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Saw on eWeek this morning that there has been some movement of Microsoft product teams.  Buried near the end of this article we find out that the Connected Systems Division (home of BizTalk, WCF, Oslo, etc) is combined with the Data and Storage Platform (SQL Server) team.  The entire new team is called “Business Platform […]

BizTalk MVP 2009

by community-syndication | Apr 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I have been awarded MVP for BizTalk in 2009. I'm really happy to be able to involve myself even further in my favorite product as well as other things. A big thank you to everyone that was somehow involved. I'm looking forward to an exciting year…(read more)

BizTalk Server Orchestration Performance Webcast

by community-syndication | Apr 3, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Interview with Richard Seroter

by community-syndication | Apr 2, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

I had the pleasure of taking part in Richard Seroter’s interview series this week http://seroter.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/interview-series-four-questions-with-ewan-fairweather/

Richard is one of our most prolific CSD bloggers and is a real asset to the MVP community.  I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing his upcoming book “SOA Patterns with BizTalk Server 2009” which is available for pre-order now.  For those of you who are architecting SOA applicaitons that are using BizTalk Server and related technologies Richard’s book is unmissable reading.  I will be publishing a full review of the book shortly. 

Richard has an overview of the book available on his blog at http://seroter.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/my-book-soa-patterns-with-biztalk-server-2009-is-up-for-pre-order/ 

WCF Fight Night

by community-syndication | Apr 2, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

The team launched a micro-site highlighting the multi-faceted capabilities of WCF. As part of this effort, the site will be hosting three rounds of head-to-head competition. The first ’round’ was just recently posted to the site and up on YouTube. It’s a funny video, and worth the 3 minutes to watch.

The site highlights WCF’s capabilities as a multi-discipline technology for connecting applications both within the firewall and in the public interweb, and provides pointers for folks to learn more.

More videos are coming over the coming month; enjoy!

WCF "Champ"

by community-syndication | Apr 2, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Funny video – http://www.microsoft.com/net/wcf/champ. 
I wonder if they will have a WCF REST vs SOAP version (you know who I’d be betting
on :))

Check out my new book on REST.

Got a very nice book review

by community-syndication | Apr 2, 2009 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Thanks Nick – http://techfortesco.blogspot.com/2009/04/tescocom-api-to-become-more-restful.html

Check out my new book on REST.