How to use alias for using-directives and namespaces in C#

Anyone who has already written one or the other program in Visual Studio with C# probably knows the following problem. Sometimes you use different libraries (Dlls) from different developers/vendors. Partly also libraries that fulfill similar purposes. This might go well, but it doesn’t have to.
Often you will get confronted with an error message like this: “‘XYZ’ is an ambiguous reference between ‘LibraryA.XYZ’ and ‘LibraryB.XYZ’”
What next? In the following I’ll explain how to solve this kind of error by taking the example of the AForge library. For instance we profess that we included the following using-directives into our program.
using System.Drawing;
using AForge.Imaging;
So now, if we use the class “Image” in our program, we will see the following error message, which result from the fact that there are two “Image” classes referenced. One in the System.Drawing namespace as also one in the AForge.Drawing namespace. Visual Studio (and later on it’s compiler) doesn’t know which Image class to […]

Javascript’s escape() in C# – a C# equivalent to the escape()-function

Posted by Raffael on 10/18/2013 Posted in C#.Net, JavaScript, Tutorials Tagged c sharp escape character, C#, c# equivalent javascript escape, c# equivalent to javascript escape, c# escape quotes javascript, c#.net, JavaScript, javascript escape c# unescape, JS, Jscript

csharp_vs_javascript The .NET framework provides a large number of ways to encode HTML code and URLs. There exist, for example, Uri.EscapeDataString(), Uri.EscapeUriString(), System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode(), System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlPathEncode(), System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode() or System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlAttributeEncode().
However, if you are looking for equivalent functionality to Javascript’s escape(), so you will be disappointed by all of these aforementioned functions. None of these inherently with the .NET framework delivered functions is equivalent to the Javascript escape() function. For better understanding, I made the following example:
The test text is in german, because the ‘ä’ is a nice character to show the problems. Translated to english it means: “Raffi’s annoying C# testcode”.

// Original source text
// Raffi’s ärgerlicher C# Teststring/Testcode.

// Javascript original (produced by escape())
// Raffi%27s%20%E4rgerlicher%20C%23%20Teststring/Testcode.

// Uri.EscapeDataString():
// Raffi’s%20%C3%A4rgerlicher%20C%23%20Teststring%2FTestcode.

// Uri.EscapeUriString():
// Raffi’s%20%C3%A4rgerlicher%20C#%20Teststring/Testcode.

// System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlEncode():
// Raffi%27s+%c3%a4rgerlicher+C%23+Teststring%2fTestcode.

// System.Web.HttpUtility.UrlPathEncode():
// Raffi’s%20%c3%a4rgerlicher%20C#%20Teststring/Testcode.

// System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlEncode():
// Raffi's ärgerlicher C# Teststring/Testcode.

// System.Web.HttpUtility.HtmlAttributeEncode():
// Raffi's ärgerlicher C# Teststring/Testcode.

But I would not blog about it if I did not have a […]

QRCoder – an Open Source QR code generator implementation in C#

Posted by Raffael on 10/17/201312/03/2016 Posted in C#.Net, Tutorials Tagged c# iso 18004, c# open source qr code, C# QR code, c# qr code library, c# qr code mit lizenz, free .net qr code library, ISO 18004, QR code

QRCoder demo In modern times QR codes should be known by pretty much everyone. Since smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, QR codes can also be found at more and more places in our everyday lives. As a fairly serious geek this should be reason enough to engage a bit more in detail with the technology behind it. And what way seems to be more suitable than implementing a QR code generator by yourself?
Because C# is my favourite programming language, the choice fell accordingly to this language. Sadly information on the QR code are not so easy to get. The easiest way of course would be the official way – simply buy the ISO/IEC document. That would be the ISO/IEC 18004. But there’s also a crux on that. The ISO 18004 […]

How to convert C# DateTime.Ticks into Unix timestamp

Posted by Raffael on 09/22/201311/04/2017 Posted in C#.Net, Tutorials Tagged .NET, C#, csharp datetime to unix time, date converter, DateTime, DateTime.Ticks, mktime, System.getCurrentMillis, Timestamp, Unix-Timestamp

C# DateTime.Ticks Converter With the .NET frameworks DateTime functions you can do a lot of nice things. The handling turns out, in my opinion, very pleasant. The only requirement: You find yourself in a pure .NET environment. When other systems come into play, the trouble begins. But why is it that you can not compare DateTime.Ticks with the PHP mktime()-function?
If you request the “timestamp” from a DateTime-object (DateTime.Ticks), so you get back the number of ticks since 01.01.0001 00:00. A tick in turn is 100 nanoseconds long.
A Unix timestamp, as produced by mktime() for example, is to the contrary, the number of seconds since 01/01/1970. A direct comparison is not possible. So you have to convert between the both units at first. And how to do this, is what I want to show you today, based on a […]

Simple XML serialization in C#

Posted by Raffael on 09/21/2013 Posted in C#.Net, Tutorials Tagged .NET, C#, c# xml serialization, c# xml serializer, c#.net, generic serialization c#, xml serializer

C# XML Serialisierung Today I want to show you how to perform a XML serialization in C#. Serialization itself, means that you convert an object to another, transportable form.
Using XML serialization, it is possible, for example, to store an object of a class in the form of an XML file and restore it later.
This can make sense if you if you want to transfer an object, for example, via HTTP or restore an object to its state after closing and reopening an application.
For our example, I created the following class “Blog”:

public class Blog
{
public string User { get; set; }
public string Pass { get; set; }
public string Subdomain { get; set; }
public string BaseUrl { get; set; }
}

The method used to serialize is as follows:

public […]