error 0040: The Type … is not qualified with a namespace or alias. Only PrimitiveTypes can be used without qualification.

This is caused by Npgsql mapping a very sparse selection of type-names to the underlying Entity Framework type structures.

As of 2.0.9, the following type names are recognized:

• bool
• int2
• int4
• float4
• float8
• uuid
• numeric
• bpchar
• varchar
• text
• xml
• timestamp
• date
• bytea

R: Gendarme.Rules.Exceptions.ExceptionShouldBeVisibleRule
T: System.Diagnostics.Contracts.__ContractsRuntime/ContractException

R: Gendarme.Rules.Exceptions.MissingExceptionConstructorsRule
T: System.Diagnostics.Contracts.__ContractsRuntime/ContractException

R: Gendarme.Rules.Serialization.MissingSerializableAttributeOnISerializableTypeRule
T: System.Diagnostics.Contracts.__ContractsRuntime/ContractException

R: Gendarme.Rules.Serialization.MissingSerializationConstructorRule
T: System.Diagnostics.Contracts.__ContractsRuntime/ContractException

Since this is a tool-generated class we cannot do anything about it anyways and should not access or need the missing features.

In short: If WCF receives a message whose length is not 16+n*3 bytes (int n>=0) AND the receiver tries to read the last byte with Stream.ReadByte or Stream.ReadBoolean, a System.IO.EndOfStreamException “Unable to read beyond the end of the stream.” is thrown from the bowels of WCF. Looking at the source, Reflector’s output, and the strange length restriction, we presume that the Base64 decode tries to read beyond the underlying stream when the last byte is requested.

As an easy workaround we now pad the end of the stream with a few additional bytes which we never read. This way we do not trigger this bug.

Since MS Connect doesn’t allow downloading the Demo Project, here is a local copy.

You can find the packages on the download pages of the Kolab Sync for Outlook und Kolab Sync for Android projects.

Please use the issue trackers there for feedback.

Using this software you will be able synchronize your contacts and calendar to any IMAP folder. Every item is saved in a separate Email using the Kolab Storage Format. This allows for interoperability with other Kolab Clients.

Please join us on the Google code projects for the Android and the Outlook connectors.

Since there are still quite a few rough edges, this is only a developer preview to publish the already done work. Read on for a more detailed status of the development so far.

Status

• Sync Infrastructure: although the two projects are written in Java and C#, they share the basic algorithms and principles of operation. This groundwork is also shared between the addressbook and contacts synchronizers of each project. This is already stable. Some edge cases still require a second synchronization run to converge.
• Addressbook Synchronization: being the easier part of the two, this is mostly finished and working.
• Calendar Synchronization: Arthur is currently implementing the last piece here: reading and writing of recurrences.
• Managing Edit Collisions: If two copies of the same item are edited and then synchronized, there is no easy way to automatically manage the merge. On the Android the server item always wins. For the Outlook plugin we plan on implementing a conflict resolution dialog where the user can pick and choose from the conflicting items.
• Managing Duplicates: When starting to use synchronization tools, users often end up with multiple copies of the same entries (especially in the addressbook) when multiple data sources are added. Currently the only way to work around this problem is to use a third-party duplicate-detector or wipe all but one device clean before synchronizing. A way to handle this could be added similar to a edit conflict resolver.
• Multiple Calendars, multiple IMAP Folders: planned.
• Testing: Currently there are only manual test routines.

Symptom: Upon reaching a breakpoint, StepOver/Into do not work, but resume execution. This makes the debugger pretty pointless.

There is an update for this available since february the fourth, 2009(!). I’m wondering why this was not distributed via Windows Update. Anyways, here’re the links:

• KB-Article
• Download

    using Microsoft.Build.Framework;
    using Microsoft.Build.Utilities;

    public class ArebisGenTask
        : Task
    {
        [Required]
        public ITaskItem[] Templates { get; set; }

        [Output]
        public ITaskItem[] GeneratedFiles { get; set; }

        public override bool Execute()
        {
            var generatedFileNames = new List<string>();
            foreach (var task in this.Templates)
            {
                string inputFileName = task.ItemSpec;
                string outputFileName = Path.ChangeExtension(inputFileName, ".Designer.cs");
                string result;

                try
                {
                    // Build code string
                    result = Builder.CreateCode(inputFileName);

                    using (var destination = new FileStream(outputFileName, FileMode.Create))
                    {
                        var bytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(result);
                        destination.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
                    }
                    generatedFileNames.Add(outputFileName);
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    Log.LogError("Error while compiling [{0}]", inputFileName);
                    Log.LogErrorFromException(ex, true, true, inputFileName);
                }
            }
            GeneratedFiles = generatedFileNames.Select(name => new TaskItem(name)).ToArray();
            Log.LogMessage("Finished Generation");
            return !Log.HasLoggedErrors;
        }
    }

Now that I finally found some tuits to do it, the next problem became obvious: doing a quick commit often lead to a quick build fail. Gendarme would have no use if it didn’t find anything, no? So the missing piece was integration into Visual Studio. Arthur hacked together a little XSLT+PowerShell and voila, Gendarme now runs on every build right from the studio and populates the “Error List” window with properly linked entries. Yay!

Read on for the details of the implementation. The complete source is downloadable at the end of the article.

First, the XSLT (“gendarme.xslt”), transforming Gendarme’s XML to properly formatted text.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet
  xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
  version="2.0">
  <xsl:output method="text"/>

  <xsl:template match="/">
    <xsl:call-template name="rules">
      <xsl:with-param name="detailnodes" select="//results/rule"/>
    </xsl:call-template>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template name="rules">
    <xsl:param name="detailnodes"/>
    <xsl:for-each select="$detailnodes">
      <xsl:call-template name="defects">
        <xsl:with-param name="detailnodes" select="target/defect"/>
      </xsl:call-template>
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>

  <xsl:template name="defects">
    <xsl:param name="detailnodes"/>
    <xsl:for-each select="$detailnodes">
      <xsl:value-of select="@Source"/>: error :[gendarme] <xsl:value-of select="../../problem"/> Target: <xsl:value-of select="../@Name"/>.
    </xsl:for-each>
  </xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Second, the powershell fragment to execute gendarme and transform the output (“gendarme.ps1″).

param($SolutionDir)

function Convert-WithXslt($xmlFilePath, $xsltFilePath, $outputFilePath)
{
    $xsltFilePath = resolve-path $xsltFilePath
    $xmlFilePath = resolve-path $xmlFilePath
    $outputFilePath = resolve-path $outputFilePath

    $xslt = new-object system.xml.xsl.xslcompiledtransform
    $xslt.load( $xsltFilePath )
    $xslt.Transform( $xmlFilePath, $outputFilePath )
}

if(-not $SolutionDir)
{
	$SolutionDir = ".";
}

"." > $SolutionDir\bin\gendarme.txt
gendarme.exe -config $SolutionDir\gendarmerules.xml --xml $SolutionDir\bin\gendarme.xml $SolutionDir\bin\Debug\blahblah.exe
convert-withxslt $SolutionDir\bin\gendarme.xml $SolutionDir\gendarme.xslt $SolutionDir\bin\gendarme.txt
(get-content $SolutionDir\bin\gendarme.txt) -replace '\(\D?(\d+)\)', ' ($1,1)' | set-content $SolutionDir\bin\gendarme.txt
exit 0

Instead of blahblah.exe, put your own assemblies you want to check.

And last but not least, the post build step to actually run the whole thing.

powershell -command $(SolutionDir)gendarme.ps1 -SolutionDir:$(SolutionDir)
type $(SolutionDir)bin\gendarme.txt


This can be added in your project properties on the “Build Events” tab, as “Post-build event command line”. In our project this is executed in one of the unit-test projects which has dependencies on all other projects and thus builds last.

Don’t forget to enable the RemoteSigned execution policy of the powershell; either by running

set-executionpolicy -executionPolicy RemoteSigned


from a Administrator’s shell or by adding one or both of the powershell.executionpolicy.reg and powershell.executionpolicy.wow6432.reg files to your registry.

You can find all files in this ZIP archive.

The behavior of float and real follows the IEEE 754 specification on approximate numeric data types.

[emphasis mine]

The XPath article states it clearly:

However, float(53) is not exactly IEEE 754. For example, neither NaN (Not-a-Number) nor infinity is used.

.

For completeness, here’s a little review about other DMBS’ support for NaNs and Infinity:

• MySQL does what it always does if it encounters “strange” values: according to this comment by Carl Fischer (bottom of the page), MySQL transforms the special values quietly to zero when writing them into the table.
• Oracle (starting at version 10g) supports all IEEE754 single and double precision values and provides constants for NaN and Infinity in its SQL implementation. This is implemented using the BINARY_FLOAT and BINARY_DOUBLE data types.
• PostgreSQL uses the underlying system’s float representation and allows input of NaN and infinite values.

[Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application

If you need to create a ODBC Datasource for 32 Bit Applications under Windows 7 x64 you have to use C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. More info can be found in this tutorial.