Navigation for dotNetTips.com - July, 2008

The download that installs the Visual Studio Tools for the Office system 3.0 Runtime, which is required to run VSTO solutions for the 2007 Microsoft Office system built using Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 has been released.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=54EB3A5A-0E52-40F9-A2D1-EECD7A092DCB&displaylang=en

Getting command line parameters or seeing if they are present is not as easy as you would think. I whipped up some code to make this flexible and easy.

   Private Const ParameterPrefix As Char = "/"c
       
   Private Function GetCommandLineArgument(ByVal parameter As String) As String
      Dim paramValue = String.Empty

      For Each tempValue As String In System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs
         If tempValue.Contains(ParameterPrefix + parameter + "=") Then
            paramValue = tempValue.Split(Char.Parse("="))(1).ToString().Trim()
            Exit For
         End If
      Next

      Return paramValue

   End Function

   Private Function CommandLineArgumentExists(ByVal parameter As String) As Boolean
      Dim exists = False

      For Each tempValue As String In System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs
         If tempValue.Contains(ParameterPrefix + parameter) Then
            exists = True
            Exit For
         End If
      Next

      Return exists

   End Function

   Private Function GetCommandLineArgument(ByVal parameter As String, ByVal prefix As String) As String
      Dim paramValue = String.Empty

      For Each tempValue As String In System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs
         If tempValue.Contains(prefix + parameter + "=") Then
            paramValue = tempValue.Split(Char.Parse("="))(1).ToString().Trim()
            Exit For
         End If
      Next

      Return paramValue

   End Function

   Private Function CommandLineArgumentExists(ByVal parameter As String, ByVal prefix As String) As Boolean
      Dim exists = False

      For Each tempValue As String In System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs
         If tempValue.Contains(prefix + parameter) Then
            exists = True
            Exit For
         End If
      Next

      Return exists

   End Function

Usage:

 Debug.WriteLine(CommandLineArgumentExists("source"))
 Debug.WriteLine(GetCommandLineArgument("source", "-"))

Tip Submitted By: David McCarter

Here is some easy, generic code to serialize your objects to and from JSON:

Public Shared Function JsonEncode(ByVal input As Object) As String

  Dim serilizer = New DataContractJsonSerializer(input.GetType)

  Using ms = New MemoryStream()

    serilizer.WriteObject(ms, input)

    Return Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray())

  End Using

End Function

Public Shared Function JsonDecode(Of T)(ByVal input As String) As T

  Using ms = New MemoryStream(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(input))

    Dim serilizer = New DataContractJsonSerializer(GetType(T))

    Return DirectCast(serilizer.ReadObject(ms), T)

  End Using

End Function

public static string JsonEncode(object input)
{
  var serilizer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(input.GetType());

  using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
  {
    serilizer.WriteObject(ms, input);

    return Encoding.Default.GetString(ms.ToArray());
  }
}

public static T JsonDecode<T>(string input)
{
  using (var ms = new MemoryStream(Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(input)))
  {
    var serilizer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T));

    return (T)serilizer.ReadObject(ms);
  }
} 

Tip Submitted By: David McCarter