Jonathan Crozier, Author at Jonathan Crozier

Store and retrieve enums as strings with Entity Framework Core

C# enumeration types (enums) provide a highly extensible and type-safe way of storing values and they are used frequently in .NET software development. When enums are saved to a SQL database with Entity Framework Core, by default they are stored using their underlying integer values rather than as strings. There are several reasons for this…

How to replace accented characters with plain characters using C#

InProgramming

The majority of software applications developed today need to work with strings that contain accented characters such as à and é since many human languages use these to indicate variations in pronunciation and other subtleties. Even English borrows some French words that contain accents and other glyphs, such as café, déjà vu, and façade. These…

ASP.NET Core runtime exception: Could not load type ‘Microsoft.IdentityModel.Json.JsonConvert’

InAPIs Web

When developing ASP.NET Core web applications, it is common to interact with JWTs (JSON Web Tokens). Quite often you will want to validate JWTs and possibly even generate your own JWTs to secure API endpoints. However, it’s not always plain sailing when it comes to software development. After updating certain Microsoft NuGet packages to newer…

Extracting query performance statistics from a SQL Server database

InSQL

Monitoring query performance is an essential aspect of proper database management. Poorly performing queries can produce a domino effect, affecting the overall health of your database server and severely degrading application user experience. Queries that result in many reads and writes to the hard disk and that use excessive amounts of CPU time and memory…

Exploring ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs: Should I use them in production?

InAPIs

If you’ve been keeping up to date with what’s new in the .NET ecosystem over the last year or two, you’ll probably already be aware of the Minimal APIs feature that debuted in ASP.NET 6.0 back in 2021. However, since Minimal APIs are still a relatively new concept, perhaps you haven’t considered using them in…

Substituting Moq for NSubstitute

InProgramming

In light of the recent controversy surrounding the .NET Moq library, many developers are reconsidering their choice of mocking framework for unit testing. The undisclosed inclusion of the proprietary SponsorLink DLL that reportedly extracts internal developer email addresses and uploads them to a remote server has undoubtedly been alarming to many. Beyond the immediate privacy…

Why you can’t debug your Blazor WebAssembly application

InWeb

You’ve had enough. Yes, you’ve finally decided that this is the last time you’ll use a Console.WriteLine method call to troubleshoot one of your Blazor WebAssembly components because you can’t get any debug breakpoints to hit! Debugging is an essential part of software development and when it doesn’t work, it can be frustrating. This is…

Taming Nullable Reference Types in C#

InProgramming

The term Nullable Reference Types refers to a set of features introduced in C# 8.0 that help us to write cleaner, more robust code that is resistant to unintended null dereferencing. The features that are provided make us aware of possible null reference exceptions that could occur in our applications, reducing the likelihood of encountering…

What to do when emojis are not rendered correctly by ASP.NET Core web applications

InWeb

For better or worse emojis have become part of our everyday life, we use them to communicate our emotions and as a quick way to acknowledge our approval or disapproval as the case may be! 👍 Recently I came across what seemed to be a rather odd issue where an emoji was being used within…

Understanding the Blazor component lifecycle

InWeb

As a Blazor developer, it is essential to have a solid understanding of the lifecycle events that take place from the moment a Blazor component is created until it is eventually torn down. By gaining an understanding of the Blazor component lifecycle, you will be able to make your components more efficient and reduce the…

Author: Jonathan Crozier

Store and retrieve enums as strings with Entity Framework Core

How to replace accented characters with plain characters using C#

ASP.NET Core runtime exception: Could not load type ‘Microsoft.IdentityModel.Json.JsonConvert’

Extracting query performance statistics from a SQL Server database

Exploring ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs: Should I use them in production?

Substituting Moq for NSubstitute

Why you can’t debug your Blazor WebAssembly application

Taming Nullable Reference Types in C#

What to do when emojis are not rendered correctly by ASP.NET Core web applications

Understanding the Blazor component lifecycle

How to catch and parse a SQL Server Duplicate Key Exception

How to publish a .NET application as a standalone executable file

Encrypt directories and file names within a zip archive using 7-Zip