ELCAROOP

Powershell Format XML Schema (ps.formats.xsd)

2007-09-21T14:33:00.000+02:00

After I've found an XML schema for Powershell types last week but no one for formats I collected one which successfully validates Powershell and PSCX format files. It's also customized for VS.NET similar to Keith's types schema.
Download the schema file here: ps.formats.xsd

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xs:schema   xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
      xmlns:vs="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Visual-Studio-Intellisense" 
      elementFormDefault="qualified" 
      attributeFormDefault="unqualified" 
      vs:friendlyname="PowerShell Format Data" 
      vs:ishtmlschema="false" 
      xmlns:psfd="http://schemas.microsoft.com/PowerShell/FormatData/2007/09" 
      targetNamespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/PowerShell/FormatData/2007/09">
  <xs:element name="Wrap">
    <xs:complexType/>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Width" type="xs:nonNegativeInteger">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the width of the column.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="WideItem">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:PropertyName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:FormatString" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ScriptBlock" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="WideEntry">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:EntrySelectedBy" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:WideItem"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="WideEntries">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:WideEntry" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="WideControl">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:WideEntries"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ViewSelectedBy">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines the .NET objects to which this view applies.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:SelectionSetName" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TypeName" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ViewDefinitions">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the definitions, referred to as views, for how object data is displayed.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:View" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="View">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the column and row definitions for a specific view. Note that a single view can be used by several objects.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Name"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:OutOfBand" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ViewSelectedBy"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:GroupBy" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:choice maxOccurs="unbounded">
          <xs:element ref="psfd:ListControl"/>
          <xs:element ref="psfd:TableControl"/>
          <xs:element ref="psfd:WideControl"/>
          <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomControl"/>
          <xs:element ref="psfd:Controls"/>
        </xs:choice>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Types">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TypeName" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TypeName" type="xs:string">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the name of the .NET object to which the view applies.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Text">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:simpleContent>
        <xs:extension base="xs:string">
          <xs:attribute name="ResourceId" type="xs:string" use="optional"/>
          <xs:attribute name="BaseName" type="xs:string" use="optional"/>
          <xs:attribute name="AssemblyName" type="xs:string" use="optional"/>
        </xs:extension>
      </xs:simpleContent>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableRowEntry">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines the row information for the display view. This information defines what data is displayed in the columns of the display view, such as an object property or script block.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Wrap" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TableColumnItems"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableRowEntries">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines the row information for the display view. This information defines what data is displayed in the columns of the display view, such as an object property or script block.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TableRowEntry" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableHeaders">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines the header information for the columns in the display view.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TableColumnHeader" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableControl">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines the column and row information for the display view.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:AutoSize" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TableHeaders" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TableRowEntries"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableColumnItems">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines what type of data is displayed in each column of the display view, such as an object property or script block.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TableColumnItem" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableColumnItem">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines what type of data is displayed in a column of the display view, such as an object property or script block.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:PropertyName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ScriptBlock" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:FormatString" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Alignment" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="TableColumnHeader">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines the header information for a column in the display view.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:annotation>
          <xs:documentation>Label would be expected to be mandatory, but PS registry.format.ps1xml defines an empty TableColumnHeader element</xs:documentation>
        </xs:annotation>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Label" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Width" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Alignment" minOccurs="0">
          <xs:annotation>
            <xs:documentation>Contains the alignment setting (Left, Centered, Right) that controls how the data is displayed in the column.</xs:documentation>
          </xs:annotation>
        </xs:element>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="SelectionSets">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:SelectionSet"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="SelectionSetName" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="SelectionSet">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Name"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Types"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ScriptBlock" type="xs:string">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the script block that generates the data that is displayed in the column.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="PropertyName" type="xs:string">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the name of the .NET object property that is displayed in the column.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="NewLine">
    <xs:complexType/>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Name" type="xs:string">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the name of the view. This name is not displayed, but it can be used when referencing which view is used by an object.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ListItems">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ListItem" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ListItem">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:PropertyName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Label" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ScriptBlock" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ListEntry">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:EntrySelectedBy" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ListItems"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ListEntries">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ListEntry" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="ListControl">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ListEntries"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="LeftIndent" type="xs:nonNegativeInteger"/>
  <xs:element name="Label" type="xs:string">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the label that appears at the top of the column.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="GroupBy">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Defines how Windows PowerShell groups the objects of the view. For example, a directory listing is grouped by its parent. Each grouping needs a header, as defined by a control node, such as a TableControl node. The header is most relevant when the user performs a recursive directory listing.</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:PropertyName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomControlName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Label" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ScriptBlock" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Frame">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:FirstLineHanging" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:LeftIndent" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomItem"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="FormatString" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="ExpressionBinding">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ScriptBlock" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:PropertyName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ItemSelectionCondition" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomControl" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomControlName" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:EnumerateCollection" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="EntrySelectedBy">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:TypeName"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="CustomItem">
    <xs:complexType mixed="true">
      <xs:choice maxOccurs="unbounded">
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ExpressionBinding"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:NewLine"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Frame"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Text"/>
      </xs:choice>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="CustomEntry">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomItem" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:EntrySelectedBy" minOccurs="0"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="CustomEntries">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomEntry" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="CustomControlName" type="xs:string"/>
  <xs:element name="CustomControl">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomEntries"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Controls">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Control" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Control">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:sequence>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Name"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:CustomControl"/>
      </xs:sequence>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Configuration">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:SelectionSets" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:Controls" minOccurs="0"/>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ViewDefinitions"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="Alignment" type="xs:string">
    <xs:annotation>
      <xs:documentation>Contains the alignment setting (Left, Centered, Right) that controls how the data is displayed in the column.
</xs:documentation>
    </xs:annotation>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="AutoSize"/>
  <xs:element name="OutOfBand"/>
  <xs:element name="FirstLineHanging" type="xs:nonNegativeInteger"/>
  <xs:element name="ItemSelectionCondition">
    <xs:complexType>
      <xs:all>
        <xs:element ref="psfd:ScriptBlock"/>
      </xs:all>
    </xs:complexType>
  </xs:element>
  <xs:element name="EnumerateCollection"/>
</xs:schema>

Nice idea: Swickis

2007-02-21T15:50:00.000+01:00

Found at www.eurekster.com. A mixture of a search engine, digg.com and a wiki. I have created a so called Swicki named powershell. A bit too much advertiser support here, we'll see if that will succeed...

Yahoo Pipes

2007-02-08T09:33:00.000+01:00

For those of you being addicted to News Feeds and similar: pipes.yahoo.com! This is sooo coool!

Agile Estimating

2007-01-22T10:14:00.000+01:00

http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/AgileEstimating.html

Agree! I'll try to do that.

MSDN code samples look funny today

2007-01-16T15:10:00.000+01:00

First I thought that is specific to Firefox only, but it looks similar in IE.

Firefox + Thunderbird + Feeds = :-(

2006-11-27T23:14:00.000+01:00

Normally I use www.bloglines.com to read feeds. Today I wanted to subscribe to a intranet local RSS feed, I choosed Thunderbird as the aggregator of choice. The handy subscribe feature in Firefox 2.0 didn't show Thunderbird as an application. Choosing it by "Choose application..." didn't do what I expected. Thunderbird popped up but didn't subscribe to the feed. In settings about:config:browser.feeds.handlers.application has Thunderbird set now as an application, but how to make it work? Adding "%s" - similar to the other settings - to the config value didn't help.

Tags:

firefox

Powershell released!

2006-11-14T20:43:00.000+01:00

Hey, just saw it! I'm really looking forward to work with that thing!

Tags:

Google again

2006-10-24T13:07:00.000+02:00

Ok, documents successfully moved - finally. Now trying to blog from Google Docs...

Basically it works. But it published to the wrong blog :-(

Ok, found the reason: The blog name is case sensitive....

Google - it's enough!

2006-10-20T13:43:00.000+02:00

Before the new Google Blogger version I could work with Blogger easily. Since weeks I get a 'cookies disabled' error on some machines using Firefox.

Furthermore Blogger is unusable slow (this post is created using IE :-( ). Testing the new Beta it seems that you can't host the blog on your own server :-(

Before Writely joined Google I was able to blog to Blogger from within Writely - fine thing. But that doesn't work since months.

Today I tried to login into Writely - I was redirected to docs.google.com. Does that mean that I can't use my documents without an Google account? Ok, I have one, so login with Google account worked, but no docs. I pressed the 'Move the documents' button (How do they know the mapping between my writely account and the Google account?) and got

Hey, I have important documents there! Where are they?

Objektforum - Contract First Design

2006-10-10T20:27:00.000+02:00

I attended yesterdays Objektforum session with Ralf Westphal. Ok, the man is entertaining. Ok, the man is right with a lot of the positions he presented. But at the end he was talking about 2 hours about 1.5 very basic patterns - known as Inversion of Control.

The more interesting questions

How does contract first design compare to agile principles like 'deliver early'?
How can we ensure that developer do not over-abstraction by defining contracts without delivering implementation??
How to ensure that the contracts are well suited for the service, constrained enough to prevent misuse, open enough to ensure a good service?
Requirements management is normally focused on a single product, a single implementation, not contract. Is a change required also in this area
Doing contract first design ensures testable components. Ok, but how to write good tests?

I still have all my questions. The expectation to get them answered here would be not realistic.

Tags:

Overdemanding Underachiever

2006-10-10T14:32:00.000+02:00

Heute gelesen bei Daily Dueck. Und ein wenig kam ich mir ertappt vor. Da erzaehl ich hier wie Globalization mit .NET WinForms gemacht werden sollte, da dass man Unit-Tests haben sollte, und wieder woanders, wie man Abhaengigkeiten zwischen Komponenten reduziert. Nicht zu vergessen die Appelle, dass DataSets in .NET nicht das allein seligmachende sind und Databinding auch mit custom objects funktioniert. Und was mache ich selbst... Zumindest ist es schwer, seinen eigenen Anspruechen jederzeit gerecht zu werden. Na, so bleiben wenigstens genuegend unerreichte Ziele, die erreichten sind ja meist eh schnell vergessen.

Tags:

misc

Found www.mappedup.com

2006-09-27T10:45:00.000+02:00

I've found a nice little service called www.mappedup.com showing blog entries as bubbles on a world map. It's in beta currently, as all the Web2.0 stuff.

Anyway, they really have some things to fix:

You can't create an account when your email address has a dot before the @ :-(
It doesn't really work in IE6 :-) (account setup, feed registration)
They did not automatically detect the geocode in my blog :-|
The nice little screensaver shows the following with the wrong IE proxy settings :-)

Tags:

This week as a user, this week as a developer

2006-09-19T20:52:00.000+02:00

Example 1
A bug tracking system. SQL Server based.

Use case: I want to do some analysis on the historical data of bug entries with some visualization BI tool.

Situation: SQL Server schema is not documented, as far as I know. IT people claim that I'm not allowed to use the 'raw' DB interface. They say I should use the CSV export functionality provided in the client.

Solution: Only workarounds. I need to do the export manually from the client UI, no automation possible. The export can't give me the historical data, only the current state of the bug entries. The BI tool can't deal with special delimiters when importing CSV, so I have to go the extra step of converting the data into Excel. Soo 19xx!

Example 2
A version control system. File system based.

Use case: I want to be informed about changes on a set of documents in the system, ideally by a data feed (RSS).

Situation: The system has a lot of CL tools to make 'queries' against it. All of them have a different syntax to tell the system what I would like to know, all of them produce different textual results. The system has a couple of UI tools. All of them with a different workflow to tell the system what I would like to know, all of them produce differently presented results which can't be exported finally. As far as I know it has absolutly no consistent query capabilities and tools.

Solution: I've found a tool called RSSBus, very smart, very nice idea to use RSS for integration and as a messaging system. That can be used to fetch the file metadata each time my feed aggregator requests the feed. Nice workaround, but from a performance perspective it would be a nightmare if all users would do it the same way. I assume the version control system would go down under heavy load. So 19xx!

Example 3
A License Server system. Not even considered to be a data system.

Use case: I want to do some analysis on the usage of the licenses of one of our systems. When is concurrent license maximum reached, what's the high watermark, what's the avery and what not. Should be used to decide, how many licenses we ould really need to pay.

Situation: The system has only a UI client which presents an ugly textbox with some partially helpful information.

Solution: Not even an initial one. I don't have a real chance to get the needed information although it could safe us multiple thousands of dollars. So 19xx!

Example 4
A debugging/profiling tool. File based in proprietary format.

Use case: Just wanted to see some advanced views on the data gathered during profiling.

Situation: The tool has really nice capabilities in terms of profiling a running application. When it comes to data analysis it has a fixed set of view with some pragmatic filter/sort features. But if you want to have some simple calulated views or aggregations you're lost. The vendor says, some of the features will come wih the next version of the tool. I mean, all I want to do is to be able to access my very own data with the tools I prefer.

Solution: They have a restricted text export feature. Again, that means doing manual exports, redundant data, text parsing and all of that. So 19xx!

Example 5
A project/product I worked on in the life science area. Oracle DB based.

Use case: A customer has a LIMS system where the results out of our measurement system should go to.

Situation: Although I think we have technically all in place to serve the customers need, the database as an open system to deal with data was never promoted to customers. Customers use a client Excel export to bring the data into their LIMS with Macros. That thing breaks every time the report template changes and hence the Excel stuctures change as well. The customer never asked about a more open/stable/automated solution to deal with the data.

Solution: Hm, none currently. This time I'm the developer seeing my customers in the very same situation as I was in examples 1-4. Who's the one to blame? Developers, who don't put the pressure on marketing to make the products really open systems? The marketing people, not realizing that a product should be more than a fancy UI these days? The customer, who knows the pain of data integration since years and gave up to ask for better interfaces? When do we start to be a bit more 20xx?

Tags:

Fun with Powershell and Shoutcast.com

2006-09-17T00:09:00.000+02:00

What do you do when it's late summer, you had week full of 'meta stuff' without any hacking and your girl friend is at their parents place? *ggg* I took my new discovery Powershell and wanted to do something useful. Ok, useful in a way not everyone would agree...

Ok, I have a Buffalo Linktheater, the media server normally is a Buffalo Linkstation. More and more I do hear Internet Radio. So far I copied the pls files manually to the linkstation and I can hear the audio streams by selecting the files on the linktheater. Wouldn't it be fine to have all the shoutcast stations on my linktheater?

Hm. Let's see. My first idea was to do some HTML screen scraping. Bad idea, the HTML returned is no XHTML which can be casted to XML, so the following went wrong:

 1: $Url = "http://www.shoutcast.com"

 2: $webClient = (new-object System.Net.WebClient)

 3: $xml = [xml]$webClient.DownloadString($Url)

Next try. Shoutcast may have some API to get the stations as XML. Some initial google search gave

 1: $Url = "http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/xmllister.phtml"

 2: $webClient = (new-object System.Net.WebClient)

 3: $xml = [xml]$webClient.DownloadString($Url)

 4: $xml.WinampXML.playlist.entry

5:

 6: Playstring : http://localhost:8000

 7: Name : UPGRADE NEEDED! Please ask your software authors to upgrade their SHOUTcast directory support!

 8: Genre : Please Upgrade

 9: Nowplaying : Please Upgrade

 10: Listeners : 1

 11: Bitrate : 128

Hm. Something's going on here. Reading this thread on the Winamp forum I learned how to get at least the top 30 stations

 1: $Url = "http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/xmllister.phtml?service=winamp2&no_compress=1"

 2: $webClient = (new-object System.Net.WebClient)

 3: $xml = [xml]$webClient.DownloadString($Url)

 4: $xml.WinampXML.playlist

5:

 6: num_entries label entry

 7: ----------- ----- -----

 8: 30 SHOUTcast top 30 {radioparty.pl - najlepsza klubowa m...

Fine. That could be a starting point. But it is not what I wanted. I wanted all the 15000 stations, not 30. Digging a bit deeper I realized that the shoutcast list format has changed meanwhile. There is a service to retrieve all the genres, with that you can retrieve all the stations per genre and finally built up the URL retrieve the pls file.

 1: $genres = [xml](new-object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString("http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newxml.phtml")

 2: $genres.genrelist

3:

 4: genre

 5: -----

 6: {24h, 60s, 70s, 80s...}

7:

 8: $Url = "http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/newxml.phtml?genre=70s"

 9: $stations = [xml](new-object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString($Url)

 10: $stations.stationlist

11:

 12: tunein station

 13: ------ -------

 14: tunein {!KICKRADIO the 80s Channel. Only 80's the whole day, Bi...

15:

 16: $Url = "http://www.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=158194"

 17: $pls = (new-object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString($Url)

 18: $pls

19:

 20: <br />

 21: <b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: HTTP_USER_AGENT in <b>/usr/local/apache/htdocs/sbin/tunein-station.pls</b> on line <b>22</b><br />

 22: <br />

 23: <b>Notice</b>: Undefined index: HTTP_USER_AGENT in <b>/usr/local/apache/htdocs/sbin/tunein-station.pls</b> on line <b>34</b><br />

 24: <br />

 25: <b>Warning</b>: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/local/apache/htdocs/sbin/tunein-station.pls:22) in <b>/usr/local/apache/htdocs/sbin/tunein-station.pls</b> on line <b>44</b><br />

 26: [playlist]

 27: numberofentries=1

 28: File1=http://81.4.95.91:8000

 29: Title1=(#1 - 46/250) !KICKRADIO the 80s Channel. Only 80's the whole day

 30: Length1=-1

 31: Browser1=http://www.winamp.com/bin/sc/sccontext.php?host=81.4.95.91:8000&title=!KICKRADIO the 80s Channel. Only 80's the whole day&slots=46&genre=80s 70s Pop&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kickradio.nl

 32: Version=2

That looks as expected. After tweaking these lines a bit to create the wanted directory structure on the linkstation and removing illegal characters out of the station names which were used to generate the pls file names I encountered that I get a 'Too many requests. Try again tomorrow.' response from the shoutcast server. Hm. They really blocked my IP after some hundred requests. Ok, so I extended the script to fetch the audio stream details whenever it gets a useful reponse. So running the script multiple times should result in a complete list over time. The script currently looks like this:

 1: function ConvertTo-PathString

 2: {

 3: param ([string] $value = $null)

4:

 5:  $value.Replace("\*","%2A")

 6: }

7:

 8: function ConvertFrom-PathString

 9: {

 10:  $_.Replace("%2A","\*")

 11: }

 12: $DomainUrl = "http://www.shoutcast.com"

 13: $BaseUrl = "/sbin/newxml.phtml"

 14: $targetRoot = "X:\playlists\shoutcast.com"

 15: $Tmr = "Too many requests. Try again tomorrow."

16:

 17: $WriteErrors=0

 18: $RetrieveErrors=0

 19: $Successes=0

 20: $Existing=0

21:

 22: $webClient = (new-object System.Net.WebClient)

23:

 24: $xml = [xml]$webClient.DownloadString($DomainUrl+$BaseUrl)

25:

 26: $counter = 0

 27: $xml.genrelist.genre | foreach {

 28:  $counter++

 29:  write-Progress $_.name starting -Id 0 -PercentComplete ($counter/$xml.genrelist.genre.Count*100)

 30:  $genrexml = [xml]$webClient.DownloadString($DomainUrl+$BaseUrl+"?genre="+$_.name)

31:

 32:  ## create a directory structure by genre having a 2 step hierarchy <FirstCharacter>/<GenreName>

 33:  if ($_.name[0] -match "[A-Z,a-z]")

 34:  {$targetDir = new-Item -path $targetroot -name (ConvertTo-PathString $_.name[0]) -type directory -force}

 35:  else

 36:  {$targetDir= get-item $targetroot}

 37:  $directory = new-Item -path $targetDir.FullName -name (ConvertTo-PathString $_.name) -type directory -force

38:

 39:  $stationCounter = 0

40:

 41:  ## walk through the stations of single genre, we retrieve stations with bitrate >= 128 only

 42:  $genrexml.stationlist.station |Where-Object {$_.br -ge 128} | foreach {

 43:  $stationCounter++

 44:  write-Progress $_.name Executing -Id 1 -PercentComplete ($stationCounter/$genrexml.stationlist.station.Count*100) -ParentId 0

 45:  $sourceUrl = $DomainUrl+$genrexml.stationlist.tunein.base+"?id="+$_.id

 46:  $targetPath = join-Path $directory.FullName ((ConvertTo-PathString $_.name)+".pls")

 47:  if ((test-Path $targetPath) -eq $false)

 48:  {

 49:  $pls = $webClient.DownloadString($sourceUrl)

 50:  ## $pls="dummy"

 51:  if ($pls -ne $Tmr)

 52:  {

 53:  set-content $targetPath $pls

 54:  "$targetPath written."

 55:  $Successes++

 56:  trap [System.Exception]

 57:  {

 58:  "$targetPath coudn't get written."

 59:  $WriteErrors++;

 60:  continue;

 61:  }

 62:  }

 63:  else

 64:  {

 65:  "$targetPath coudn't get retrieved."

 66:  $RetrieveErrors++

 67:  }

 68:  }

 69:  else

 70:  {

 71:  "$targetPath exists."

 72:  $Existing++

 73:  }

 74:  }

 75:  }

 76: "Successes : $Successes"

 77: "Existing : $Existing"

 78: "WriteErrors : $WriteErrors"

 79: "RetrieveErrors: $RetrieveErrors"

 80: "finished."

Not the cleanest piece of code, but it seems to do the what expected. Was a lot of fun!

Tags:

Was mache ich hier?

2006-07-11T09:23:00.000+02:00

Gefunden beim Spielen mit der Google Calendar API:
..."mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".

Das klingt gar nicht schlecht. Koennte man als eigenen Leitsatz in etwa so abwandeln:
"My mission is to organize %mycompanie's|mycustomer's% information and make it universally accessible and useful".

Zu hoch gegriffen?

Tags:

misc

Oracle Developer Day: Sicher und verfuegbar mit Datenbank Patches

2006-06-25T12:38:00.000+02:00

Seit langem mal wieder ein Besuch bei einer kostenlosen Oracle-Veranstaltung. Inhaltlich meiner Ansicht nach völlig in Ordnung. Genug technicher Inhalt, nicht allzuviel Marketing-Blasen.

Man merkt allerdings (hier wie im Web), daß Oracle das Thema Sicherheit von außen aufgedrückt bekommt. Man beschäftigt sich nicht wirklich gern mit solchen Themen (wenn man nebenbei andauernd aufgekaufte Produke zu verdauen hat).

Was mich betrifft, frage ich mich wieder einmal, ob man den technischen Überblick über den Oracle-Proukte-Stack und parallel über die Pendants im Hause Microsoft behalten kann bzw. sich erarbeiten kann...

Google Sync is out

2006-06-12T14:24:00.000+02:00

After having a discussion about syncing application profiles accross the net with a collegue of mine Google released Google Sync - a Firefox plugin syncing Firefox user environments across computers (What does Google with this data...?).

Installing it was a bit disappointing as I've got the following message when trying to sync:

After I tried to remove some components from the sync process I've got:

Hm. Seems to be an early beta this time...

Tags:

DOAG Regionaltreffen Mannheim - Oracle Clusterware API

2006-06-09T17:26:00.000+02:00

Hm. Da war nicht soviel fuer mich drin diesmal. Vielleicht lag es daran, dass ich mich die ganze Woche schon mit Localization und Globalization in .NET beschaeftige - sind halt doch ziemlich weit weg voneinander, diese beiden Welten...

Tags:

oracle

Google Notebook

2006-05-16T17:52:00.000+02:00

Cool or not so cool? Cool but subject to improve.

Is Oracle Drive cool?

2006-05-08T10:36:00.000+02:00

After having Novell Netdrive in use for some months now I realized that Oracle has a similar tool called Oracle Drive. Seems to support Webdav only, no FTP support. The UI is a bit frumpy and chaotic but basically it does it's job. I'll continue testing...

Tags:

oracle
tools

DOAG Regionaltreffen Mannheim - Oracle Discoverer

2006-03-17T16:20:00.000+01:00

Wieder mal ein Vortrag von einem Oracle Sales-Menschen. Obwohl mir Anwender-Vortraege eigentlich besser gefallen, war dieser doch ganz informativ. Allerdings scheint mir die ganze Discoverer-Welt technisch zu geschlossen, als dass ich mich da fuer meine Projekte bedienen koennte. Eigene Daten-Visualisierungen etc. einzuhaengen, d.h. das Produkt mehr oder weniger nur als Grundlage zu nehmen um darauf eigene Loesungen (jetzt fang ich auch schon mit solchem 'Suelz' an...) aufzubauen, scheint mir schwierig bis unmoeglich.

Noch ein Lob: Organisation in Mannheim immer top!

Tags:

DOAG Regionaltreffen Karlsruhe - Oracle Text

2006-03-16T08:03:00.000+01:00

What's new in Oracle Text?

Wieder mal einen Vortrag ueber Oracle Text besucht, wieder einmal festgestellt, dass ich mich damit mal (endlich) spielenderweise beschaeftigen sollte. Jetzt aber wirklich! Ganz sicher... bald... vielleicht...

Tags:

I'm normal, not really a geek

2006-03-10T08:18:00.000+01:00

Found at Datentrampelpfad.

The Barely Geek
You scored 12% geek!

Either take pride, or cry pitifully. You're barely a geek at all. You might own a computer, but you don't spend much time on it. Most of your hobbies are also socially acceptable, and considered distinctly "non-geeky". You've probably also been laid at least a time or two.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 3% on geekiness

Link: The What's your Geek Level? Test written by dingus93 on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Tags:

misc

Objektforum Karlsruhe - Framework Konzept für Smart Client - Online Systeme

2006-03-07T08:22:00.000+01:00

Everytime I attend an Objektforum event I'm surprised how much I as a Windows/Oracle centric developer can get out of a session which is more or less Java centric. Same weaknesses, same challenges, similar solutions everywhere. And it's very interesting to compare the concepts based on different technology stacks.

For me yesterdays session held by Alexander Ziegler from www.compeople.de did not come to the point of what Smart Clients are and why we should go there.

Questions leftover from the session:

Are offline capabilities an integrated part of a Smart Client?
If not, is AJAX more capabale midterm to bring rich clients and web clients together again?
Modern software systems have more and more complex configuration files (mostly a couple of XMLs on the client) which are subject to maintain, merge, backup and migrate. Do we get the next data management problem coming through the back door?
A big part of the offline capability features of Smart Clients - transparent client side persistence, data replication including conflict resolve, traffic optimization when synchronizing, transaction replay - is already there in mainstream databases. On the other hand all of the big database players currently have 'free' stripped down versions of their databases. Couldn't it be an idea to use these small size versions as local Smart Client persistence component? Sounds like Golden Hammer to you? Think again.

Tags:

Too lazy to test

2006-02-23T11:47:00.000+01:00

I had a dream. Instead of promoting unit testing against management and other developers I decided some months ago to get some experience in that field by my own and afterwards convince them with the facts, very similar to what Kevin Lawrence pointed out today. I planned to have a test for each and every new or changed feature.

Looking back at the last development cycle in my project I must say I didn't reach the goal. Initially I was very disciplined to at least try to setup a test. But the more the release date came closer the more I skipped writing a test for a feature.

Especially for complex database stuff (PL/SQL, complex views) it takes a lot of time to write good tests. Setting up data, checking the correct results and teardown the data is not a trivial task.

By the way, it is astonishing how little articles/experiences one can find about that topic on the net. Everyone praises doing unit testing but no one writes about how to do it.

Anyway, I keep on trying to get better in that field.

Tags:

testing