Improving Time-Critical Code written in C

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:00:33 GMT

Writing web pages is very similar to writing any other type of code. You have to understand how it is going to be used and where you need to really make things run as quickly as possible.

There are a number of tips on this blog already that deal with managed code and ways to optimize it. But one of the things that we don't look at as often are other areas of code that we are dependant on. For example, if you P/Invoke a native function, whatever it is doing, is something that you need to be aware of. Because there is a lot of native functionality that is still available to us, I wanted to remind everyone of some of the tips you can use when dealing with C/C++ code.

A great place to start is with: Tips for Improving Time-Critical Code. While most of these things don't apply to .NET based code, they are all very important when working with native code. Another useful thing to be aware of is what the compiler can do for you. For example, take a look at Optimizing Your Code with Visual C++.

Feel free to add your own tips or pointers here. I'd like to get a good collection going and then I can share that out as well.

Visual Studio Designer not Respecting Assembly Binding Redirection

Anonymous — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:16:33 GMT

So we recently came across an issue where Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 Designers were not respecting assembly binding redirection.

Scenario

We have a file which is now version 2 and stored in the GAC. So the assembly version is 2.0.0.0. We have some existing customers using version 1 so we want to be able to use Assembly Binding Redirection to point them to the new version of the assembly.

For more information on configuring this, check out Configuring Assembly Binding Redirection.

The web page has code like:

<tc:TestContacts ID="QuickContacts1" runat="server">
    <tc:AContact Name="Test Tester" 
        Email="test@test.com" 
        Phone="(999) 555-1212" />
    <tc:AContact Email="no@spam.thx" 
        Name="Mr. A. Nonymous" 
        Phone="(999) 555-1234" />
</tc:TestContacts>

We also have a Register Assembly line at the top that points to the 1.0.0.0 version of the file. And we have an entry in our web.config that looks like this:

<runtime>
    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
        <dependentAssembly>
            <assemblyIdentity name="Tester1" publicKeyToken="6ace53ab3256c766"/>
            <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-1.1.0.0"
                             newVersion="2.0.0.0"/>
        </dependentAssembly>
    </assemblyBinding>
</runtime>

We could have done this in a policy file and got the same results. So now we open this file in Design view inside Visual Studio and change a property of the TestContacts control. For instance, adding an AccessKey. Switching back to the Source view, we will now see:

<tc:TestContacts ID="QuickContacts1" runat="server">
    <samples.aspnet.cs.controls.acontact Name="Test Tester" 
        Email="test@test.com" 
        Phone="(999) 555-1212" />
    <samples.aspnet.cs.controls.acontact Email="no@spam.thx" 
        Name="Mr. A. Nonymous" 
        Phone="(999) 555-1234" />
</tc:TestContacts>

This breaks the site and it no longer works.

Note: Assembly Binding Redirection works find in other scenarios, it just doesn’t work right inside the Designer.

Resolutions

There are two ways to resolve this issue.

Don’t use Assembly Binding Redirection at all and just leave the 1.0.0.0 version of the file in the GAC. You will see a lot of .NET files do this, there are versions for .NET 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, etc all inside the GAC at the same time.
Change the existing files so that the Register Assembly line at the top of the web page points to the 2.0.0.0 version of the file.

Keep in mind that this is only a problem if you are actively changing the older files already, if you don’t touch the file it will be fine since this issue is only with the Designer. So since you are already updating the file, it is trivial to update this line also.

We are looking into this issue also, so there may be another resolution posted in the future.

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Improving Time-Critical Code written in C

Visual Studio Designer not Respecting Assembly Binding Redirection

Scenario

Resolutions