Programming Archives - Jonathan Crozier

How to get the Local AppData directory for all Windows users within a .NET application

Local AppData is a directory within the Windows operating system where software applications can store data that is specific to the current user. Getting the location of the Local AppData directory for the current user within a .NET application is straightforward. However, currently, there isn’t a .NET API that allows you to get the Local…

Subscribing to events dynamically using C#

InProgramming

When types from another assembly cannot be referenced statically at compile-time in a .NET application, subscribing to events defined in that assembly and subsequently accessing event arguments that are passed to event handlers can seem a little tricky. Thankfully, with the combination of the Reflection API and the dynamic operator, it is possible to subscribe…

Launching a GUI application from a Windows Service using C#

InProgramming

It isn’t usually possible to launch a GUI (Graphical User Interface) application from a Windows Service. There are good reasons for this; aside from the security considerations, being interrupted while doing something important by a badly behaving background application would not be fun! However, there are some limited use cases for starting processes that feature…

How to create an IdentityModel TokenResponse object instance for mocking purposes

InProgramming

IdentityModel is an open-source library developed by Dominick Baier and Brock Allen which does an excellent job of simplifying interactions with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect servers. However, when it comes to unit testing, it can appear on the surface to be somewhat difficult to create certain objects that need to be instantiated on demand…

Getting the command line of a running process using C#

InProgramming

Every process on a Windows device features a ‘command line’ that may include one or more arguments or ‘switches’ that can affect the behaviour of the running program. While it is possible in a .NET application to specify the arguments to use before starting a new process, currently there isn’t an API that allows the…

How to create and install a .NET Core Windows Service

InProgramming

Windows Services offer a robust mechanism for hosting long-running background applications on Windows devices. These services are usually configured to start with the operating system and can be stopped and started on demand. They are ideal for processing background tasks as they do not show a user interface and therefore do not interfere with what…

Creating your first C# Azure Function using Visual Studio

InAPIs Programming Web

Azure Functions is an Azure cloud service that allows software developers to focus on writing code that reacts to events, without needing to concern themselves as much with the infrastructure that the code is running on. Azure Functions applications are serverless by nature and can scale to meet demand with minimal overhead and cost. There…

Generating secure signed licenses using C# and Standard.Licensing

InProgramming Security

When it comes to licensing software that is installed on an end user’s device, one of the most secure approaches that we can take as software developers, is to generate and subsequently validate a digitally signed license. With this approach, a cryptographically secure public/private key pair is created that is specific to the software being…

Base64 URL encoding using C#

InProgramming Web

Base64 is an encoding scheme that allows binary data to be converted to text and back again. It is useful in a wide variety of scenarios and makes it easier to transfer and store data in many cases. This is especially true in a web context where everything tends to be based on text content…

Using NCache as your distributed ASP.NET Core caching store

InProgramming

NCache is an open-source, in-memory, distributed cache written in .NET and usable by several different languages and frameworks. A distributed cache pools together memory from one or more servers into a single data store that can be accessed from a consuming application that is typically hosted on another server. The cache can be used to…

Category: Programming

How to get the Local AppData directory for all Windows users within a .NET application

Subscribing to events dynamically using C#

Launching a GUI application from a Windows Service using C#

How to create an IdentityModel TokenResponse object instance for mocking purposes

Getting the command line of a running process using C#

How to create and install a .NET Core Windows Service

Creating your first C# Azure Function using Visual Studio

Generating secure signed licenses using C# and Standard.Licensing

Base64 URL encoding using C#

Using NCache as your distributed ASP.NET Core caching store

Query to list the number of rows for each table in a SQL Server database

How to get the Local AppData directory for all Windows users within a .NET application

Using JavaScript to copy text to the clipboard