Monday, July 15, 2013

SQL SERVER 2012 Express version

Are you working on SQL Server 2005 or 2008 servers. Here is SQL Server 2012 Express version for download

Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Express is a powerful and reliable free data management system that delivers a rich and reliable data store for lightweight Web Sites and desktop applications.

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

How to Validate Date based on format “MM/dd/YYYY” in VB.NET

Here is the sample code snippet which I wrote to do date validation for a particular format and culture.

   1: Private Function validateDateFormat(ByVal strDate As String) As Boolean
   2:     Dim isValid As Boolean = True
   3:     Dim provider As CultureInfo = CultureInfo.GetCultureInfo("en-us")
   4:     Dim formats As String = "d" '"MM/dd/yyyy"
   5:     Dim dateValue As DateTime
   6:     Try
   7:         If DateTime.TryParseExact(strDate, formats, provider, DateTimeStyles.None, dateValue) Then
   8:             isValid = True
   9:         Else
  10:             isValid = False
  11:         End If
  12:     Catch ex As Exception
  13:  
  14:     End Try
  15:     Return isValid
  16: End Function


You can change the formats and CultureInfo to your own custom information. Here is my pervious blog which describes how formatting date time can be done using string object.

Monday, June 03, 2013

How to Kill Excel Ghost Process in SSIS using VB.NET

Here is the simple method to kill Excel Ghost process which is running behind scene while running SSIS package. Here is a small method to kill Excel process if we know the excel caption or excel title we want to close.
Code snippet of the method to kill Excel process
Private Sub KillExcellProcess(ByVal excelCaption As String)
Dim proc As System.Diagnostics.Process
For Each proc In System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessesByName("EXCEL")
If (proc.MainWindowTitle = excelCaption) Then
proc.Kill()
End If
Next
End Sub

Use this method in SSIS script task to kill the Excel Ghost process by calling this method in your code
 
Dim xlApp As Excel.Application
Dim xlBook As Excel.WorkbookClass
xlApp = CType(CreateObject("Excel.Application"), Excel.Application)
xlApp.Visible = False
xlApp.DisplayAlerts = False
' Once done with excel stuff and when you want
' to kill excel use the below lines of code
Dim sCaption As String
sCaption = xlApp.Caption
KillExcellProcess(sCaption)
 
Hope this helps!!

How to Kill specific Excel Ghost Process generated in SSIS using VB.NET

There are some scenarios where we might need to kill excel process programmatically.  Even though we use proper error handling and try catch to clear all excel objects still the excel ghost process remains in usage. So for these cases we might need to kill the excel process generated in SSIS package by identifying its process.   Here is how we can kill specific excel process by getting the process id of the excel that is been generated by SSIS package in script task. Refer to my previous blog for kill process by its name
<Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll")> _
Private Shared Function EndTask(ByVal hWnd As System.IntPtr) As Integer
End Function
<Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll")> _
Private Shared Function FindWindow(ByVal lpClassName As String, ByVal lpWindowName As String) As IntPtr
End Function
<Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("kernel32.dll")> _
Private Shared Function SetLastError(ByVal dwErrCode As Integer) As IntPtr
End Function
<Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError:=True)> _
Private Shared Function GetWindowThreadProcessId(ByVal hWnd As System.IntPtr, ByRef lpdwProcessId As Integer) As Integer
End Function

Public Sub EnsureProcessKilled(ByVal MainWindowHandle As System.IntPtr, ByVal Caption As String)
SetLastError(0)
' for Excel versions <10, this won't be set yet
If System.IntPtr.Equals(MainWindowHandle, System.IntPtr.Zero) Then
MainWindowHandle = FindWindow(Nothing, Caption)
End If
If System.IntPtr.Equals(MainWindowHandle, System.IntPtr.Zero) Then
Return
End If
' at this point, presume the window has been closed.
Dim iRes As Integer = 0
Dim iProcID As Integer = 0
iRes = GetWindowThreadProcessId(MainWindowHandle, iProcID)
' can?t get Process ID
If iProcID = 0 Then
If EndTask(MainWindowHandle) <> 0 Then
Return
End If
' success
Throw New ApplicationException("Failed to close.")
End If
Dim proc As System.Diagnostics.Process = Nothing
proc = System.Diagnostics.Process.GetProcessById(iProcID)
proc.CloseMainWindow()
proc.Refresh()
If proc.HasExited Then
Return
End If
proc.Kill()
End Sub

Use this method in SSIS script task to kill the Excel Ghost process by calling this method in your code
 
Dim sVer As String
sVer = xlApp.Version
Dim iHandle As IntPtr = IntPtr.Zero
If Val(Convert.ToDouble(sVer)) >= 10.0 Then
iHandle = New IntPtr(CType(xlApp.Parent.Hwnd, Integer))
End If
'To kill process created by this job by process id
EnsureProcessKilled(iHandle, xlApp.Caption)


Hope this help!!

How do I format date value as yyyymmdd or any specific using SSIS expression builder?

I have a scenario where I need to create a folder on fly with current date in YYYYMMDD format.

Here is simple solution how we can achieve using Expression Builder in SSIS packages. Pick the variable that’s needs to be configured.

Go to properties of the variable you want to configure and click expression.

A Popup window will appear where you can select the variable you want to configure

Select the property you want to override. For me its Destination path property of the Source folder variable I am using in my package.

C:\Development\XXXXX\XXXXX\20130516\

Here is code that needs to append to the variable. So here is what I have used to get this in below format. 
(DT_STR,4,1252)DATEPART( "yyyy" , getdate() ) + 
RIGHT("0" + (DT_STR,4,1252)DATEPART( "mm" , getdate() ), 2) +
RIGHT("0" + (DT_STR,4,1252)DATEPART( "dd" , getdate() ), 2)


clip_image002
 For me its yyyymmdd format if you want some other format just change the interval one of the following this as per your requirement
  • yyyy – Year
  • q – Quarter
  • m – Month
  • y - Day of year
  • d – Day
  • w – Weekday
  • ww - Week of year
  • h – Hour
  • n – Minute
  • s - Second
Hope this helps!!!