C#: Create Dynamic Image For Byte Array Data

So you have a unit test, but maybe for some reason you need to create an object that has a constructor that needs a byte array. Maybe for some reason that byte array needs to have more than 0 length. Maybe you don’t have any of this and you are just curious. Maybe I’ve said maybe too much.

Well in any case, here’s a way to do this:

using System.Drawing;
using System.IO;

    private byte[] GetBitmapData()
    {
      //Create the empty image.
      Bitmap image = new Bitmap(50, 50);

      //draw a useless line for some data
      Graphics imageData = Graphics.FromImage(image);
      imageData.DrawLine(new Pen(Color.Red), 0, 0, 50, 50);

      //Convert to byte array
      MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();
      byte[] bitmapData;

      using (memoryStream)
      {
        image.Save(memoryStream, ImageFormat.Bmp);
        bitmapData = memoryStream.ToArray();
      }
      return bitmapData;
    }

And presto you have a fake image to send through. Can’t get much easier than that. Well maybe it could but not in this example. Why are you judging me? I’m just trying to help. You know what? Go away. I don’t want you around here anymore. You and those beady, judging eyes. Always looking… Never stopping… WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?!?!?

Awesome Language, Now What?

Let me tell you about my friend Bob. Bob is from the future.

Bob came here from about 300 hundred years from now where time machines are sold at Walmart… which apparently owns everything.

I met Bob just randomly at a plunger convention (Apparently plungers are all the rage in his time but hard to find.) and we struck up a conversation… mainly about plungers. Anyhow, when he finally revealed he was from the future (The trippy multicolor shirt kind of gave it away honestly since by my calculations it will take at least 250 years for pleather to come back in style. Give or take 50 years.) and the first thing he said after revealing this was, “No its not a f—ing utopia so don’t ask.” Oddly enough I was going to ask if Gilligan’s Island was still on repeats in his time, but I just humored him. Long story longer, by the end of the night he was my bffff (Best friend forever from the future) and he decided to give me this awesome device thing from the future and said he’d be back in a week to get it back.

Apparently it was something he bought from Walmart but was going to return before the week long return policy was up. However, he thought I might have fun with it and then just did this sort of wavy, melty, star treky thing and was gone. Odd note: No one watching seemed to be phased by this. Cause you know, that’s something you see everyday.

Anyways, I took said device and set out into the world, determined to enrich my life with the blinking-light-a-tron. Problem was, I had no f—ing clue what it did. So I did what any person would do when faced with a blinking-light-a-tron from the future, I put it through various scientific tests.

After my barrage of highly scientific investigations, I could see that it was applicable to most useful situations. Sounds good right? Except it took me a ton of time to figure out how to use it while doing things I already knew how to do.

Now I have to admit the time difference was a knowledge issue as there wasn’t much documentation and it wasn’t intuitive in use compared to what I was used to. However, it wasn’t until I found out that it can not only make a sandwich but it can make it into a smoothy too that I realized it had some powerful features. It wasn’t long before I started to realize how much it had to offer.

After the E like excitement, there was inevitable crash: When the f–k will I ever really want a turkey sandwich smoothy? I know the thing has something bigger to offer. Something just mind blowing, like somehow being able to combine sharks with an FBI agent to form some kind of super crime fighting force, but hell if I can figure out how.

It was at that point Bob just appeared, punched me, grabbed the blinking-light-a-tron and did his futuristic wavy, melty, star treky thing. I never did find out what that was all about, but I just surmised it was some kind of futuristic way of saying goodbye for good. Or it could be that I used it to find naked pictures of his wife and posted them on the internets. (Apparently there was an app for that)

Either way, the blinking-light-a-tron was gone for good, and I’m not sure if I was better off with knowing it or not. Sure it showed me what was possible but I came back to the same conclusion: When the f–k will I ever really want a turkey sandwich smoothy?

In a weird way, I’ve come to this conclusion with something like Python. I have no doubt it has crazy capabilities to be used, but put in the hands of simpleton it’s a point of confusion. I want so badly to unlock its potential, but the best I can do is make a turkey sandwich smoothy, because I lack the overall grasp of the language and have no idea how to get it through application.

And here’s the thing, it’s not a matter of being too comfortable with C#

Ok, so maybe there is some comfort but honestly it really isn’t that. It really just comes down a frustration of finding something to showcase Python’s abilities. It just plain difficult to come up with some grand plan when I don’t even have a clue what sort of plan I need.

It’s one thing to find a language that is just a horizontal move or even a step back. Then it’s easy to say, “Screw it” and stay with what you know. In the case of Python, I really want to be convinced to move to it. Nothing against C#, I still find it to be a good language, I just have a feeling. Problem is I have no way to back the feeling up.

In order to understand something, you need a reason for it. This is the hill we all must climb at some point and it’s a big hill.

CruiseControl.Net and CVS: Multiple Modules

Something I ran into is trying to check multiple modules for changes since the project I am trying to “modernize” is spread across what cvs calls modules. Really all they are is projects separated in the same trunk, but whatever. The point is I didn’t want to have to check the root directory where all projects are housed in order to see if just 5 have changed. Turns out it’s pretty easy. Just a disclaimer though: I’m still learning Cruise Control from scratch which means there might be a better way. This one however is simple and works… just like me. Well at least he simple part.

  <sourcecontrol type="multi">
    <sourceControls>
      <cvs>
        <executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\cvsnt\cvs.exe</executable>
        <cvsroot>yourCvsRoot>
        <module>location/of/theModule</module>
      </cvs>

      <cvs>
        <executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\cvsnt\cvs.exe</executable>
        <cvsroot>yourCvsRoot</cvsroot>
        <module>location/of/theSecondModule</module>
      </cvs>

      <cvs>
        <executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\cvsnt\cvs.exe</executable>
        <cvsroot>yourCvsRoot</cvsroot>
        <module>location/of/theThirdModule</module>
      </cvs>

      <cvs>
        <executable>C:\Program Files (x86)\cvsnt\cvs.exe</executable>
        <cvsroot>yourCvsRoot</cvsroot>
        <module>location/of/theFourthModule</module>
      </cvs>
    </sourceControls>
  </sourcecontrol>

The secret is the “multi” key word in the sourcecontrol tag and then adding the many cvs tags with the correct values.