January 2008 Entries
A command line interface base class

I needed a simpler way build basic command line interfaces so I cobbled together a useful C# base class.

I made the class as simple as possible to create entry point (start up) classes.


class Program :BaseConsole {

    public override string Name {
        get { return "Console Application"; }
    }

    protected override void LoadCommands() {
        this.Commands.Add("print", () => Console.WriteLine("print out"));
        this.Commands.Add("another", () => Console.WriteLine("another print out"));
    }

    static void Main(string[] args) {
        new Program().Run();
    }
}
 
 
Just run a console application that starts the Main() of the Program class. Typing in any commands that have been added to Commands will invoke the associated action.
 
Console Application
=====================================
Type 'help' to get available commands
Type 'exit','done' or 'quit' to exit

>>print
print out

>>another
another print out

>>
 
If you type "help" it will print a list of available commands. You can exit the program by typing "exit","quit" or "done".
 
The commands themselves are stored in a Dictionary<string,Action> - the new lambdas in C# 3 make writing inline functions so simple.
 

Download it here.

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posted @ Thursday, January 03, 2008 6:51 AM | Feedback (4)
A more useful UrlBuilder class

When I started my first ASP.NET project in 05, my URL building code included way too many string concatenations, String.Format calls and plain literals.

Being pre-MS-MVC days of typed URL construction via routing engines, I needed some code to make URL construction (particularly the query string) easier.

Then I found this UrlBuilder class. This is a great little class because it neatly derives from the framework UriBuilder class.

Since I started using it, I found it was inadequate when dealing with case sensitive HTTP servers. The specialized StringDictionary it uses lower-cases all keys and values.

To suit my needs, I modified the class in a few ways:

  • Upgraded to C# 3 - I think I'm addicted to lambda's so I involuntarily compiled it in .NET framework 3.5
  • The un-rendered query string is now stored as Dictionary<string,string> instead of StringDictionary which avoids casing problems
  • Provided overloads for ToString() casing - upper,lower or default (leaves casing alone)

Here's a simple example for building a Clickatell SMS sending URL.


UrlBuilder builder = new UrlBuilder("http://api.clickatell.com/http/sendmsg");
builder.QueryString["api_id"] = "23223";
builder.QueryString["user"] = "cutnpaste";
builder.QueryString["password"] = "ninja";
builder.QueryString["to"] = "61043678945";
builder.QueryString["text"] = "the message to send";
Console.WriteLine(builder.ToString(StringCaseDirection.Lower));

Download source code

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posted @ Wednesday, January 02, 2008 4:33 AM | Feedback (2)
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