Forem: Pradeep Pradyumna

Build your first Hangfire job .NET8 with PostgreSQL

Pradeep Pradyumna — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:29:29 +0000

In this article, I will share a few simple steps you will need to create your first hangfire job using .NET 8(the latest at the time of writing this article) with Postgres as the database.

Also, please be aware that in this article I'm not going to brief what Hangfire is, as there are plenty of articles already written by wise authors. :)

Alright, let's get started.

1. First step first

We can create either an ASP.NET Core Web App or API (it doesn't really matter what you choose). However, for simplicity, I'm using an API project targeting.NET8

2. Install Nuget Packages

You'll need to install the following Nuget packages
Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design
Hangfire.AspNetCore
Hangfire.PostgreSql

That's all you need!

3. Create a DBContext

You will need a custom DBContext class to run a DB Migration

    public class DefaultDbContext : DbContext
    {
        public DefaultDbContext(DbContextOptions<DefaultDbContext> options)
            : base(options) { }
    }

4. Create a DB in Postgres

Just go ahead and create a database called HangfireSample
This is all you need to do at the DB level!

5. Configuration

Now before you run migration configure the DB path in appsettings.json and update program.cs

"ConnectionStrings": {
  "defaultConnection": "Host=localhost;Port=5432;Username=postgres;Password=YOUR_PWD;Database=HangfireSample"
}

Update the below code in program.cs

builder.Services.AddEntityFrameworkNpgsql().AddDbContext<DefaultDbContext>(options => {
    options.UseNpgsql(builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("defaultConnection"));
});

6. Run migration

Just open Package Manager Console and run the below commands

dotnet ef migrations add InitContext
dotnet ef database update

This will create __EFMigrationsHistory under public schema

7. Almost done

Now configure Hangfire service in program.cs with the below code

builder.Services.AddHangfire(x =>
    x.UsePostgreSqlStorage(builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("defaultConnection")));

And update middleware

app.UseHangfireDashboard("/dashboard");
app.UseHangfireServer();

This was all you had to do create the hangfire server and storage.

Now, let's create a simple job.

8. First Hangfire job

Just copy the code below

BackgroundJob.Enqueue(() => Console.WriteLine("My first handfire job!"));

Now, you run the solution!

To see your job, visit
https://localhost:44397/dashboard

And if you go to https://localhost:44397/dashboard/jobs/succeeded
you'll see the job you just executed.

Also, just you know, if you check the HangfireSample database, you'll the hangfire tables would be created under hangfire schema.

Just for your reference here is the complete working sample of the code I just explained.

I hope it helped you!

Want to improve your code?

Pradeep Pradyumna — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 14:51:34 +0000

This article I published originally here

If you are a programmer and write lots a lot of code then it always important to keep a few things in mind like how you want to proceed. But also it is important to set the mentality right if you have intentions for improving your approaches. Here are some tips I believe which helped me a lot in writing and improving my code over the years.

PATIENCE, INTEREST
You always have to be patient and trust your gut. Always assume that your code will break. No matter how experienced you are. Just keep calm.

PRACTICE
Once you’re able to fix a problem, practice the habit of going through the solution once again. It brings confidence.

TIME
You cannot be the best overnight. It takes time and interest. And you need to make an effort for it.

OBSERVE
Always observe your code. Once you have written a logic/ code, just compare it with others. Get it reviewed by your peers and get their opinion. And see how better could it be.

MOTIVATED, POSITIVE
Be motivated and if you do not, go get motivation when you want to do something good. Unless you are not, then you cannot improve your code.

BREAK, BREATHE
If you’ve spent hours writing a program and trying to clean it up the same time or breaking your head, probably it’s a bad idea. Go take a break. Breathe.

End of the day, it’s the happiness and sense of satisfaction you get once you see your work.

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments

Super Mario

Pradeep Pradyumna — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 07:37:24 +0000

Who doesn't like the Super Mario game here? It's one of my favorites that I loved playing during my childhood. To cherish the moment, I tried building the game using plain HTML, Javascript, and CSS.

Spoiler Alert It's very basic one. 😁

I have embedded the sound effects to retain the feel too. And hosted it on Github.

Here is the game

pradeepradyumna.github.io

My highest score was 17. What is yours? Do let me know in the comments.

6 things required to integrate SourceTree with Azure Repos

Pradeep Pradyumna — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 06:57:06 +0000

Step 1

Open your Azure DevOps account and select any repository and click the Clone button

Step 2

Click on Generate Git Credentials button, it will show Username & Password. Just a make copy of it in a notepad

Step 3

Launch SourceTree and go to Remote tab and click on Add an account… button

Step 4

Set following values:

Hosting Service: Azure DevOps
Host URL: https://yourorganisationname.visualstudio.com
Preferred Protocol: HTTPS
Authentication: Personal Access Token

and click on the Refresh Personal Access Token button, it will prompt for username & password, just copy-paste the values from Step 2
That’s it! You’re all set to clone your repositories

Step 5

In the Remote tab, it will start listing down all your repositories. Now pick any repository you want and click on the Clone option

Step 6

All the fields will be prefilled for you, so just go ahead and click Clone
It will start downloading the code to your drive

Thanks for reading! ✌

Azure CLI: Get Azure repositories list in 4 steps

Pradeep Pradyumna — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 10:29:37 +0000

If you're looking for an azure cli command to get a list of repositories, you can follow the steps:

Step 1:

Download Azure CLI from here

Step 2:

Add the Azure DevOps extension
az extension add --name azure-devops

Step 3:

Configure defaults. Give YOUR organization and project names
az devops configure --defaults organization=https://dev.azure.com/<ORGANIZATION_NAME> project=<PROJECT_NAME>

Step 4:

Get list by running either of the below commands

az repos list --org "https://dev.azure.com/<ORGANIZATION_NAME>" -p "<PROJECT_NAME>" -o tsv --query [].name

az repos list --query '[].{Name:name, Url:remoteUrl}' -o json

Cheers!
Thanks for reading! 💛

Learned how to change the background color of a React function component randomly

Pradeep Pradyumna — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 14:18:22 +0000

Currently, I'm working on a web app using React JS and it has a lot of functional components that I render selectively when required. I have defined styles for almost every component in my App.css file. But, I wanted one of my components to change its background color randomly every time it loads. I wasn't sure of the JS syntax and when I looked upon the internet I didn't get the exact syntax I was looking for.

After some trial and error, I finally cracked a syntax and it worked! So, I thought of sharing with the community here. 😁

import React from "react";

function MyComponent({ name }) {
  // I found this formula
  // here: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/javascript/random-hex-color/
  let randomColor = Math.floor(Math.random() * 16777215).toString(16);

  // The trouble I had was about how to use
  // the variable randomColor in "style:{}" tag
  return (
    <div className="parent-container">
      <div
        className="child-container"
        style={{ backgroundColor: "#" + `${randomColor}` }}
      >
        <h4 className="name">{name}</h4>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
}

export default MyComponent;

I'm not sure if this the only way of doing it. But if there are any other ways too, pls share them in the comments. I would be happy to learn!

Thanks for reading! ✌

Form Teams Online: A React App

Pradeep Pradyumna — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 07:37:01 +0000

I have built an app using React JS and hosted it over Netlify. I'm not going to brag about how I built this app and other technicalities, as there are just so many ReactJS tutorials available on this community already 😀, BUT I'm gonna share why I built this app and how it helps my folks.

The Problem Statement 🔥

There are a lot of fun activities and games that my company organizes on various occasions and being a part of the creative team:

We send out registration forms to all employees across the company
In turn, we get a lot of nominations
We calculate on a total of how many teams that we can have out so many participation received/ how many teams can we form for a specific count of participation in a team.

For example: Suppose we have received 60 nominations

if we need 15 teams, how can we equally distribute 60 participants in 15 teams. How many extras (participants left out) would we get.

if we want 12 participants in one team, how many teams could we form, and how many would be the extras

We then have to form teams where we ensure that participants are equally distributed and shuffled at the same time in different teams.
Sometimes we get nominations at the very last moment, and we try to fit that new participant in a team and end up reorganizing teams.
The same process goes on if any participant backs out after all team formations are done.

And this whole task of forming teams is just so time-consuming.

😒 😒 😒

Hence, I decided to build an app for this to speed up the process.

The Idea ☕

I built a very user-friendly app that would have simple UI controls to

Add/ Remove participants
An input field that takes in the number of teams to create?
An input field that takes in the number of participants per team?
😎 😎 😎

https://formteamsforme.netlify.app/

I built this app using React JS and hosted it over Netlify to achieve CI/ CD in no time.

The Advantages 😁

⚡ Now anybody can form teams easily in minutes
⚡ Shuffling participants is no big deal
⚡ Teams shuffle for every new entry/ removal of participants
⚡ Any addition/ removal of participants, teams adjust automatically
⚡ Get extras i.e. the list participants who fall out of teams
⚡ In case you accidentally close the TAB in which the application is running, it would prompt you a message as a precautionary measure 🔥. This is to prevent the user from losing any changes.
⚡ Out of all, it is super fast, super easy and fun to create teams. So much time is saved!

Yet to be done

I have some styling and alignment issues pending, which I'm working on. But do let me know if there's anything you like and needs to be added/ improved in the app. I'm all ears.

The Github link for this application is available here

Thank you for reading! ✌

Want to run your exe from just anywhere on your computer?

Pradeep Pradyumna — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 11:46:06 +0000

Wouldn't it be cool, if we were able to launch an exe that we built/ saved in a particular folder in say F:\ drive be runnable even outside that folder or anywhere you want by typing just the exe name and not including the entire path referencing to it? 😀

And by "anywhere" I mean, you can launch your application
⚡ From start menu (shortcut - Windows key)
⚡ From Run command dialog box (shortcut - Windows + r)
⚡ By typing application name in Windows Address bar of any drive/ folder on your computer
⚡ By typing application name from a command prompt opened from any drive/ folder directly without worrying to change the directory.

✨Sounds interesting? ✨

For demonstration purposes, I have built a very basic C# .NET console application with the name "SayMyName" which outputs the currently logged-in username.



using System;

namespace SayMyName
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(Environment.UserName.ToUpper());
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

The output path of this application is
T:\MyExe\SayMyName\SayMyName\bin\Debug\SayMyName.exe

Just make a copy of your exe's path looking like this on a notepad and that's it. It is all you need and we are very much good to go!

We will be basically doing two things here to let our computer know about this application.
One, registering the path to exe in the system registry HKLM
Two, registering the path to exe in PATH environment variable

Step 1

Open windows registry and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

Step 2

Right-click on App Paths and add a Key with the name saymyname.exe.

Step 3

On the right side, you see the (Default) value name? Right-click on it click Modify.... Now copy-paste the path T:\MyExe\SayMyName\SayMyName\bin\Debug\SayMyName.exe and click OK. Now add one more value, by right-clicking -> New -> String value and name it Path and set its data value to the exe's containing folder followed by a semicolon i.e. T:\MyExe\SayMyName\SayMyName\bin\Debug;

You're almost done! These steps will enable your application to be accessible via the Windows Address bar of any drive and folder, start menu, and Run box.

For ease, you can find the .reg file here, which I have customized. You can just download, edit, and import it into your registry.

Now, perform just this one last step to make your application accessible from any command prompt anywhere. 😁

Step 4

Now go to the Environment Variable window. You can do this by, right-click 'This PC'->Properties-> Advance System Properties->System properties-> Advanced Tab. There you can find the 'Environment Variables...' button. Just smash it!

You will find Path variable under the 'User variables' section. Edit it. In the variable value, copy-paste the path T:\MyExe\SayMyName\SayMyName\bin\Debug; and click OK.

That's it! There you go. You just made your application a global star on your computer. You can call it from anywhere now with just the name.

Like this 😎

There is also a tutorial demonstrating the same and it is available here. 👍

Thanks for reading! 💛

Machine Learning: Visual Introduction

Pradeep Pradyumna — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 14:26:30 +0000

While researching machine learning, I came across this cool article that has a visual representation for a beginner-level introduction to the concept. So, just wanted to share with the community here.

😀

Do check out this link here

Just wanted to appreciate the efforts of the team behind http://www.r2d3.us/

Azure pipeline: Simple way to compile a Setup project (.vdproj) in pipeline

Pradeep Pradyumna — Sat, 07 Nov 2020 08:56:20 +0000

After my team decided to incorporate Azure Pipelines on existing projects, one of the most difficult parts of the task for me was to look for the right pipeline task that would compile the setup project (vdproj) present in my solution using a pipeline.

After a lot of research and hours of testing, I found a way to achieve it.

Just use a command line task and use a script in the format shown below to compile the solution

"<full path to devenv.exe" "<full path to solution file (.sln)>" /Rebuild "<configuration>|<platform>"

Executing this task would compile all the projects present in the solution file, including setup projects. The outcome of setup projects like EXE and MSI files could be found in the configured the output path

If you have a requirement of compiling the solution as an administrator, then that's easy too. Just create a shortcut of devenv.exe as an admin in any desired location, and use that path in the command line given above.

Let me know if it helped you!

Visual Studio IDE Shortcut keys: 5 cool handy tips to speed your programming

Pradeep Pradyumna — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 16:00:51 +0000

I have been coding in C# on Visual Studio for almost around 8 years and I have realized using some of the keyboard short keys while writing the code is just so fast than using a mouse and going around options to click. Using shortcut keys is not just cool but also increases productivity. And one more cool fact about these is you don't have to do anything in the settings to enable it. They are there already, configured by default when you install a fresh copy of Visual Studio (any version).

Keyboard shortcuts are my favorite and there just so many I love. But I'm going to list down the 5 shortcut keys that I use the most to increase my programming speed.

1. Power of DOUBLE-TAB

If I want to write a class, a constructor, a for-loop, etc, I just type the keyword and hit TAB twice. Tada! The snippet is generated.

2. Switch-Case: Case generator

If I want to write a switch-case for all values present in a very tall enum (an enum with a huge list of entries), I just generate the switch-case template using my trick of Double-Tab, enter the enum name in the switch-on place and Click on the default keyword just once. Tada!

3. Commenting uncommenting game

Often writing code, I would like to make tweaks while testing. And this requires commenting-uncommenting the lines. So, I just use
Ctrl + K + C for commenting and Ctrl + K + U for uncommenting. It is so quick!

4. Code alignment

Often writing code, it tricks me if my code is not aligned properly at all. It is difficult to identify which part belongs to other parts of the code. So, I just do Ctrl + K + D after writing the code and it is aligned. And also, if you are generating code snippets using the double-tab method, most of the code will auto-aligned. So cool!

5. Member references and definition

If I'm working on a gigantic codebase with multiple project files in a solution and I want to see all the references of a particular member like Class, Method, Variable, or Properties, I just click on that member and do Shift + F12. That's it! The reference window will be open.

And, if I'm going through code and want to know the definition of a member like Class, Variable, or a Method, I just click on it and hit F12. It takes me to the original place where it defined.

These tricks are always so fun to use. I hope you find this article useful. If you know any cool shortcut that's cool, please let me know in comments.