Francisco Figueiredo Jr Activities

ConnectionPool performance improvements

2012-01-09T13:13:00.002-02:00

Hi, all!

Today I committed a change to Npgsql which will improve connection pool performance. This change was motivated by Andrew's bug report where he noticed that a lot of threads were waiting to get a new connection from pool.

In order to keep consistence of the pool, Npgsql has to lock access to it. Andrew's problem appeared in a busy server where a lot of threads were trying to get a new connection from the pool. They had to wait in line. And obviously this isn't good.

The current implementation of Npgsql creates a big lock surrounding all the code needed to work with the pool and more! As Andrew noticed in his bug report, I/O operations were being done inside this lock which was contributing to more delays to get a connection from the pool.

So, to fix that, I rewrote connection pool logic to remove this big lock and break it down to smaller ones only when really needed. All the I/O operations were left out of the locks, this way, other threads waiting to get a new connection from the pool don't need to wait for those expensive operations to finish.

I made a lot of tests and could confirm that when I break the code inside the debugger, threads are spread throughout connection pool code as expected instead of waiting in line on the big lock.

As this change is somewhat critical to Npgsql usage, I'd like to ask you to download the code, compile it and give it a try and see if everything is working ok or even better than before. I expect busy servers to be able to increase their raw throughput because it will have to wait less to get connections from the pool.

As always, please, let me know if you have any problems and all feedback is very welcome!

Npgsql2 source code mirror is now available on github

2011-12-14T14:50:00.000-02:00

Hello, all!

Npgsql2 source code hosted on pgfoundry is now mirrored on github: https://github.com/franciscojunior/Npgsql2

What does this mean to developers and users?

You have another way of access to latest Npgsql2 code through github interface
I hope it will be easier to developers and users to provide patches. You can make forks and pull requests.

Please, if you weren't being able to access Npgsql2 source code because of cvs, please give it a try on this new interface and let me know if you have any problems.

Thanks github for providing this service to open source community.

Fixed! LOG: unexpected EOF on client connection

2011-12-04T18:57:00.001-02:00

Hi all!

Since we implemented connection pool in Npgsql, we received some complaints about EOF log messages being generated on Postgresql logs when using Npgsql. This was caused by Npgsql not sending the proper terminate message to Postgresql on pooled connections when the application terminated or more specifically when the assembly was unloaded.
This is a long time problem with Npgsql connection pool. I even talked about it in the past.

Up to now, I had no idea about how to fix that as I wasn't able to close the connections in the pool. When I tried to put a finalizer in NpgsqlConnectorPool, which would be triggered when the assembly was unloaded, I received object already disposed exceptions when trying to send something to the stream.
That's when I came up with the "excellent" idea of subclassing the networkstream class and override its Dispose method so that I could send the postgresql terminate message before it was disposed! :)

It worked like a charm! Now, Npgsql doesn't produce EOF log messages anymore.
The current implementation isn't very beautiful, as it is a simple callback to NpgsqlConnector.Close() method, but it works ok and there is no need to manage with any other finalizer.

Next Npgsql version will have this fix and finally we will get rid of this strange log message.

Npgsql Design time support preview available for download!

2011-05-14T10:39:00.007-03:00

UPDATE2: For some reason, Blogger lost the original post. I had to republish it.

UPDATE: Jerónimo told me that you must use the Npgsql version which is inside the zip file in order to make it work.

After so much time (more than I wanted it to take) Npgsql finally has a initial design time support for Visual Studio!

This work was done by Jerónimo Milea. Jerónimo let me know he was working on DDEX support on this thread after I said I was working on DDEX support for Npgsql.

He sent me his working copy and I started to play with it. Note that as a preview version many things may not work ok and we wanted you to provide us feedback so we can fix any bugs.

You can download the project file from our downloads page.

Design time support is provided as a zip file containing support code as well as a copy of Npgsql project file. So, everything you need to start working with design time support is already packaged for you.

When you unzip the file, you will have three folders and a project file. Open up this project file in Visual Studio 2010.

There are three projects. The Npgsql.Provider project is there for historical reasons, Jerónimo told me. We will clean it up in another release. The main project is the Npgsql.Provider2. Set it up as your startup project. Right Click -> Set up as Startup Project.

After that, tell Visual Studio to build all projects. After everything is compiled ok, there are still some other steps to be done:

Install Npgsql.dll and Mono.Security.dll to GAC.
Add Npgsql as a provider factory in machine.config

Install Npgsql.dll and Mono.Security.dll to GAC

Go to the Npgsql2\bin\debug4\ folder and add Npgsql.dll and Mono.Security.dll to GAC:

  gacutil -i Npgsql.dll
  gacutil -i Mono.Security.dll

Note that you will need to start a Visual Studio Command Prompt so command line tools are available to you. This shortcut is inside Visual Studio 2010 programs folder in the Visual Studio Tools subfolder.

Add Npgsql as a provider factory in machine.config

In the machine.config file, located at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config you have to add following line:

This line goes inside the DbProviderFactories section.

Playing with Design Time support project

After config Npgsql in gac and machine.config, it's time to run the project.

As this project will work inside VS.Net, you will need to debug VS.Net itself in order to have the project running inside it. In order to do that, you have to specify VS.net as the debug target. To do that, open Npgsql.Designer2 project properties and in the Debug tab, check the value of "Start external program" edit text. It is set to the path of devenv.exe. Note that it is the path of (x86) Program Files folder. This is ok if you are using a 64-bits windows installation. If you are using a 32-bits install (as I do), you just have to remove the (x86) from the path and you are set.

After setting everything up, you can hit F5 to start the project ( you specified Npgsql.Designer2 as your startup project, right?). A new VS.Net will show up and your first VS.Net will be attached to it in debug mode. Now, comes a very important step you have to make: Inside Npgsql.Designer2 folder, there is a file called NpgsqlProvider.gen.reg. You have to merge this file to your registry every time you start VS.Net to debug the project. This is needed because VS.Net as it is started by the project, has a command line option which makes it use an alternate registry tree which is cleaned up every time this VS.net is started. This reg file has the settings to register Npgsql.Designer inside VS.Net.

That's it! If everything is ok, you may now create a new project or open an existing one and add a new datasource to it using Postgresql as the backend! This procedure is somewhat complex, but after it is done once, you only have to repeat the merge registry file part.

Please, let me know if you have any problems setting this up. Also, please, send your comments and bug reports to our bug tracker: bugs.npgsql.org

Again, thanks Jerónimo for all his help and for this excellent work.

Npgsql 2.0.11 released!

2010-11-05T23:24:00.000-02:00

As I've said in my last post, Npgsql 2.0.11 is finally here!

This release fixes the problem with bytea handling with Postgresql 9.0. This patch should have been applied a long time ago. My fault for not being there yet.

Also on this release, Josh Cooley fixed some other bugs related to EF.

Checkout the release notes here for more info and download it from here.

Npgsql bytea handling fix is coming...

2010-11-05T00:03:00.000-02:00

Hi all!

I'm aware of this problem and it is already fixed. We will be doing a new release on the next few days. For while, the current workaround is to fallback to previous handling style by changing postgresql.conf file. More info can be found here.

Sorry for the problems this may have caused.

Going Flash-Free too.

2010-11-05T00:00:00.002-02:00

UPDATE2: here is what I decided to do. I reenabled flash plugin on my google chrome. Now, everytime I use flash and have finished, I simply fire up activity monitor and kills chrome's flash handling process. I noticed it keeps using cpu even after I closed the page which used flash :) I think this way I can save on battery and heating. Let's see how far I can go with this setup.

UPDATE: well, it seemed I ~~could~~ couldn't go too far. There were a lot of videos I couldn't load anymore. Back to flash! :)

After seeing this post from John Gruber, I decided to remove flash from my macbook and disable it from Chrome. Let's see what happens. I notice since a long time ago that Flash eats up a lot of cpu power. I think it only works ok on MS Windows. I hope Adobe can fix that.

I also opted in for youtube html5 version. So youtube videos are seeing in webm or h264. The problem is that those videos seem to eat up more cpu power than flash! :(

Another big missing thing is gtalk video in the browser. It seems to require Flash. Google, would you mind give us another alternative, please?

Well, that's it. Let's see what I get...

Trip to Canada

2010-09-19T12:00:00.000-03:00

Hi all!

Today I'm going to Canada. I took sometime out of my job and decided to visit Rocky Mountains. I'll also take a cruise to Alaska. They say it is an awesome experience!

This means I'll won't be able to work on Npgsql for while. I'll be back on 13th October.

I'll post photos later.

Npgsql receives donation of an MSDN subscription!!

2010-08-23T19:10:00.000-03:00

Hi all!

It all started when Josh Cooley told me about this post: http://devlicio.us/blogs/tuna_toksoz/archive/2010/07/27/codebetter-devlicio-us-msdn-ultimate-giveaways.aspx

I sent a mail talking about Npgsql and how a VS.Net would help us to add design time support and today I received a very nice mail saying that Npgsql was choosen to receive an MSDN subscription!

I'd like to thank the people who contributed to make this possible: Codebetter Crew: Ben Hall, Ward Bell, James Kovacs. Devlicious Crew: Hadi Hariri, Christopher Bennage, Tim Barcz, Rob Reynolds. Lostechies Crew: Eric Hexter, Jimmy Bogard, Keith Dahlby and Josh Cooley for heads up!

Thank you very much! Your support to OSS projects is awesome!

And stay tuned for better support of Npgsql inside VS.Net :)

New Android Blog

2010-08-17T19:32:00.003-03:00

Hi all!

I've been playing with Android for quite some time now and so I decided to create a blog where I'll talk about my experience with the platform and the projects I'm developing for it.

The blog page is: http://franciscodroid.blogspot.com

I invite you all who are interested in the platform to have a look at it.

This blog will continue to be about Npgsql, Mono and other relevant things. I decided to create another blog so I could concentrate posts about Android there.

Feedback, as always, is very welcome.

Npgsql 2.0.10 and NpgsqlParameter.Value

2010-08-14T23:45:00.004-03:00

Hi all!

As you may already know, Npgsql 2.0.10 is out. Besides the usual batch of bug fixes and enhancements, this release has a new feature which needs more attention as it may give you backward compatibility problems.

What happened?

With this release, we decided to implement a property in NpgsqlParameter which returns provider specific objects, just like SQLClient does.

NpgsqlParameter now features a property called NpgsqlValue. As you may guess, when you use it, you will receive a value whose type is Npgsql specific.

Why this change?

In the past, we had a lot of problems dealing how we would handle values which are specific to Npgsql, like NpgsqlTimestamp from others which are represented in CLR, like DateTime. This situation led to cast exceptions bugs. This was the main motivation for this.

Also, we think that by implementing this we would be giving our users a much consistent way of getting values in CLR type and in Npgsql-specific type. Another benefit is that now Npgsql can behave better inside DataSet and DataRow objects as they use Value property and expect CLR types being returned.

What is the problem and what can I do about it?

The problem lies in the fact that now, NpgsqlParameter.Value returns only CLR types. So, if your code was expecting to receive Npgsql specific types you may need to change your code to either use CLR type or change the call to NpgsqlValue property.

I think the first option is a good one as it will make your code more portable between other providers. If you are using only Npgsql, second option is a better choice as it will allow you to use directly Npgsql specific types.

We would like to hear from you how this modification is working for you.

Please, post your questions and suggestions in our user forums.

Thanks in advance.

Did I say already that I'm loving MonoDevelop?

2010-07-11T22:15:00.003-03:00

After seeing Miguel's post about the Navigation features of Monodevelop, I updated my Monodevelop version to 2.4 and I couldn't agree more with Miguel's opinion: Navigate To is the best feature of Monodevelop. It is awesome!!

You remember the type you want to work with, press Command-. (I'm using OS X), type part of its name (Monodvelop guys did an wonderful job about how little you have to type to find it) and voilà, your type is open and ready to edit!

See more features of Monodevelop here.

Npgsql Connection Pool Explained

2010-04-29T11:25:00.006-03:00

Hi all!

From time to time, we receive some questions regarding connection pool in Npgsql and I think I should post some info about its current design.

Npgsql connection pool implements the common pattern of having some connections open beforehand so when one is needed, it will be readily available for using.

How it works

When a application opens a connection, Npgsql tries to find a pool of connections based on the connection string. If a pool doesn't exist, it is created with a number of connections specified in the MinPoolSize connectionstring parameter. After that, a connection is retrieved from this pool.

The min and max number of connections created in each pool is controlled by connection string parameters called MinPoolSize and MaxPoolSize respectively. This way, users can fine tune the pool behavior to match their scalability needs.

Npgsql controls the lifetime of unused connections in the pool, trying to get connections number near the minimum value set by user. This is done by closing unused connections which are open far long than NpgsqlConnection.ConnectionLifeTime. This control is helpful in a scenario where application uses a lot of connections in a peak situation and later goes back to normal connection usage. Those "extra" connections will stay open but won't be used anytime soon, so instead of laying there consuming server resources, Npgsql simply closes them when their lifetime is reached.

Applications also can clear a pool or all pools by using NpgsqlConnection.ClearPool() and NpgsqlConnection.ClearAllPools() static methods.

EOF Error Message

There is one error message which appears in server log with applications which use Npgsql with pooled connections. This is the error message:


LOG: unexpected EOF on client connection

This is generally caused when the application is terminated and there are connections in the pool. The Tcp connection is closed by the .Net framework without Npgsql sending the Terminate message. Sending the Terminate message to all open connections would be the best thing to do, but Npgsql, by itself, isn't be able to know when the application is being terminated and so the log is generated. According to docs, this disconnection will make the backend clean up and terminate the connection ok. So, the only drawback of this situation is this message log.

In order to get more information about Npgsql connection pooling, you may check the NpgsqlConnectorPool.cs file.

I hope this information helps developers to understand better how connection pool works with Npgsql.

If you have any other questions, please drop by Npgsql forums.

Function call performance optimizations

2010-04-04T19:10:00.005-03:00

On my last post about that subject, I wrote about some optimizations I did to get better performance when calling functions with Npgsql.

While that optimizations were very nice, they had a drawback: you had to reuse your NpgsqlCommand object. You had to reuse it because the optimizations were based on cached data and if you created a new NpgsqlCommand object the data would need to be cached again.

In the general case, where you would create many NpgsqlCommand objects and call functions with them, you would not benefit from those optimizations.

In order to fix that, Noah Misch created a patch which remove 2 of the 3 internal calls which were giving performance problems.

The only case left is for functions which have return type of 'record'. We are working to get this case also covered.

I'm going to show here how much performance improvement you get with this patch with a simple call to a function which returns an integer. This function is on Npgsql unit test suite, but I reproduce it here just for completeness:


create function funcA() returns int as '
  select 0;

' language 'sql';

I'm going to compare the latest stable release version Npgsql 2.0.8 with our latest cvs version with Noah's patch.

In a loop of 100 iteractions, this is what we get with Npgsql 2.0.8 and Npgsql cvs:


Npgsql 2.0.8:

time mono teste.exe

real 0m0.537s
user 0m0.457s
sys 0m0.028s


Npgsql cvs:

time mono teste.exe

real 0m0.467s
user 0m0.420s
sys 0m0.026s

It is 13% faster!

If we raise the number of interactions to 1000 we get:


Npgsql 2.0.8:

time mono teste.exe

real 0m1.237s
user 0m0.698s
sys 0m0.089s


Npgsql cvs:

time mono teste.exe

real 0m0.655s
user 0m0.492s
sys 0m0.054s

Which gives 47% improvement!

So, when next Npgsql release is out, we can see a modest to good performance improvement in function calling scenarios using Npgsql.

If you want to try it out today, please grab the latest cvs code and let us know what do you get.

Please, leave your comments and feedback. Also, participate on our Forums so you can share your experience.

Using SSL Client Certificates with Npgsql

2010-04-02T11:07:00.003-03:00

Hi all!

Recently, Jarrod Kinsley asked on our Forums how to establish an SSL connection. As Laurenz Albe pointed out, normally you just need to change your connection string to put "SSL=True;Sslmode=Require;" in your connection string and "ssl=on" in postgresql.conf and you are ready to go.

The problem was that this works in the general case where you don't have to deal with client certificates and other stuff. Npgsql has a lot of callbacks to help you to validate and talk to the server.

The last callback added to the chain by Frank Bollack was to provide a way to pass client certificates to server.

Later on the thread, Jennifer Marienfeld was also trying to connect and was stuck in the client certificate part. Jennifer eventually got success to establish connection to the server and I decided to create this post to show the code so others can benefit from this.

Here is Jennifer's code so you all can use as a template:



using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;

using Npgsql;
using Mono.Security.Protocol.Tls;
using Mono.Security.Authenticode;

namespace my
{
class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
string conStr =
"Server=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx;" +
"User Id=xxx;" +
"Password=xxx;" +
"Protocol=3;" +
"Database=xxx;" +
"SSL=True;" +
"Sslmode=Require;";

NpgsqlConnection conn = new NpgsqlConnection(conStr);


conn.ProvideClientCertificatesCallback += new ProvideClientCertificatesCallback(
MyProvideClientCertificates
);


conn.CertificateSelectionCallback +=
new CertificateSelectionCallback(
MyCertificateSelectionCallback
);


conn.CertificateValidationCallback +=
new CertificateValidationCallback(
MyCertificateValidationCallback
);

conn.PrivateKeySelectionCallback +=
new PrivateKeySelectionCallback(
MyPrivateKeySelectionCallback
);

try
{
conn.Open();
System.Console.WriteLine("Verbindung aufgebaut");
}
catch (Exception e)
{
System.Console.WriteLine(e);
}
finally
{
conn.Close();
System.Console.ReadLine();
}
}


static void MyProvideClientCertificates(X509CertificateCollection clienteCertis)
{
X509Certificate cert = new X509Certificate("mycert.crt");
clienteCertis.Add(cert);
}


static X509Certificate MyCertificateSelectionCallback(X509CertificateCollection clienteCertis, X509Certificate serverCerti, string hostDestino, X509CertificateCollection serverRequestedCertificates)
{
return clienteCertis[0];
}

static AsymmetricAlgorithm MyPrivateKeySelectionCallback(X509Certificate certificate, string targetHost)
{
PrivateKey key =null;
try
{
//it is very important that the key has the .pvk format in windows!!!
key = PrivateKey.CreateFromFile("myKey.pvk", "xxx");
}
catch (CryptographicException ex)
{
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine(ex);
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine();
}

if (key == null)
return null;

return key.RSA;
}



static bool MyCertificateValidationCallback(X509Certificate certificate, int[] certificateErrors)
{
/*
* CertVALID = 0,
* CertEXPIRED = -2146762495,//0x800B0101
* CertVALIDITYPERIODNESTING = -2146762494,//0x800B0102
* CertROLE = -2146762493,//0x800B0103
* CertPATHLENCONST = -2146762492,//0x800B0104
* CertCRITICAL = -2146762491,//0x800B0105
* CertPURPOSE = -2146762490,//0x800B0106
* CertISSUERCHAINING = -2146762489,//0x800B0107
* CertMALFORMED = -2146762488,//0x800B0108
* CertUNTRUSTEDROOT = -2146762487,//0x800B0109
* CertCHAINING = -2146762486,//0x800B010A
* CertREVOKED = -2146762485,//0x800B010C
* CertUNTRUSTEDTESTROOT = -2146762484,//0x800B010D
* CertREVOCATION_FAILURE = -2146762483,//0x800B010E
* CertCN_NO_MATCH = -2146762482,//0x800B010F
* CertWRONG_USAGE = -2146762481,//0x800B0110
* CertUNTRUSTEDCA = -2146762480,//0x800B0112
*/

//error: -2146762487, -2146762481
System.Console.WriteLine(certificateErrors[0]);
return true;
}
}
}

SSL Renegotiation patch

2010-03-29T14:08:00.005-03:00

Hi all!

Albe Laurenz called my attention to a new patch applied to Postgresql servers which allows the administrator to set a value telling server when it will start SSL renegotiations. This parameter also allows you to disable the renegotiation.[1]

Today, I committed a patch which tries to disable SSL Renegotiation on supported postgresql servers, which means, servers which had this patch applied. According to Albe those server versions are: 9.0, 8.4.3, 8.3.10, 8.2.16, 8.1.20, 8.0.24, 7.4.28.

This patch simple calls:

SET ssl_renegotiation_limit=0

as suggested by Albe.

One positive side effect of this modification is that it serves as an workaround
to SSL renegotiation problem with Npgsql.
Today, Npgsql has problems with this, as can be seen on this bug report[2]. Although this patch isn't a solution, at least it makes Npgsql works on long SSL sessions.

If you want to try it out now, please grab latest code from cvs and let us know if you got any problems on our forums: http://forums.npgsql.org

[1] http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-committers/2010-02/msg00363.php

[2]http://lists.pgfoundry.org/pipermail/npgsql-devel/2010-February/001065.html

Changing build system file Npgsql.build and AssemblyInfo

2010-02-14T01:27:00.002-02:00

Hi all!

I just committed a change to our Npgsql.build file in order to easy
package distribution generation as well as integration with
CruiseControl. Yes, Npgsql is going to have a cruisecontrol server.
More details later.

The biggest change is that our AssemblyInfo.cs file can be generated
automatically. This will be needed in order to generate assembly
versions with a value cruise control server will assign to each build.

So, now, in order to generate a build, you will need to specify the
CCNetLabel property. You don't have to, but if you don't, Npgsql build
will have a 0.0.0.0 version value.

You just need to do:

./build.sh -D:CCNetLabel=2.0.9.0 ccnet

And it will generate an AssemblyInfo.cs like this:

using System;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Resources;

// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
//  <autogenerated>
//      This code was generated by a tool.
//      Mono Runtime Version: 2.0.50727.1433
//
//      Changes to this file may cause incorrect behavior and will be lost if
//      the code is regenerated.
//  </autogenerated>
// ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[assembly: CLSCompliantAttribute(true)]
[assembly: AssemblyTitleAttribute("Npgsql - .Net Data Provider for PostgreSQL")]
[assembly: AssemblyDescriptionAttribute(".Net Data Provider for PostgreSQL")]
[assembly: AssemblyCompanyAttribute("Npgsql Development Team")]
[assembly: AssemblyProductAttribute("Npgsql")]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyrightAttribute("Copyright © 2002 - 2010 Npgsql Development Team")]
[assembly: AssemblyTrademarkAttribute("")]
[assembly: AssemblyVersionAttribute("2.0.9.0")]
[assembly: AssemblyFileVersionAttribute("2.0.9.0")]
[assembly: NeutralResourcesLanguageAttribute("en", UltimateResourceFallbackLocation.MainAssembly)]

This ccnet doesn't only generate the AssemblyInfo.cs file. This is in fact done by the createAssemblyInfo which ccnet depends on.

ccnet builds everything. It cleans up the build folder, builds, run the analysis tools and create the
packages. As its name implies, it will be called by cruisecontrol server in order to create the builds.

This is the first shot on this issue, so if you have comments or
suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

New "articles" section on our Forums

2010-01-20T16:21:00.004-02:00

Hi all!

I created an "articles" section on our forums so people can post links to Npgsql, .Net and/or Postgresql related articles which can benefit Npgsql users. This will help users to get a centralized point where they can find valuable information.

Please, check it out here.

Comments and, of course, links are very much welcome.

UPDATE: Alaric Dailey was the first person to post a link to an article about .Net Data Providers. Please, check it out here

Better data type handling mechanism landed on cvs

2009-12-13T20:30:00.003-02:00

Hi all!

Yesterday, 2009-12-12, Josh Cooley committed a better datatype handling mechanism to Npgsql. This will allow Npgsql to be more consistent when handling types because it is now much better defined when to return specific (or provider specific) datatypes and when to return CLR datatypes.

What does all this mean?

Well, Npgsql now implements the methods DbDataReader.GetProviderSpecificValue(), DbDataReader.GetproviderSpecificValues() and GetProviderSpecificDataType().

With those methods implemented, users will have a defined way of getting the specific types provided by Npgsql. The other methods will now always return the CLR types.

This modification will also enable Npgsql to work better with the ado.net library. For example, we have reports that NpgsqlInet data wasn't being rendered in a DataGrid.
By inspecting the test case, the dataset was correctly filled, but Datagrid seemed to not like NpgsqlInet and didn't render its value. With this type handling modification, the data would be returned as an CLR type, maybe an IPAddress or a String which, according to my tests, showed up correctly.

Another solution this modification enable is about support for "interval" npgsql datatype. We have a bug report about that and this modification will fix it too.

This is a big change in the way Npgsql handles data types. We would like you to test it and send us feedback about problems and solutions this change brought. Thanks in advance.

Blogging from mobile

2009-12-01T11:42:00.000-02:00

Hi all!

I just installed an app which allows me to post direclty from my mobile.

Now I think I'll be able to write more frequently, or at least I hope so. :-)

Stay tuned!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Npgsql 2.0.7 released!

2009-11-18T11:44:00.005-02:00

Hi all,

Npgsql 2.0.7 is out. This is a minor bug fix release.

The most notorious bug fix is one made by Josh Cooley about possible freezes and strange exceptions when canceling a query. So, if you were having any problem like this, please give it a try.

Download it from: downloads.npgsql.org

This is the release notes of this release:

Bugs fixed:

[#1010527] Fix query timeout connection corruption.

[#1010700] Capture parameter names with NpgsqlCommandBuilder.DeriveParameters. Thanks Brian Schloz (bschloz @nospam@ hotmail.com) for patch. Also added nunit testcase.

[#1010668] Npgsql ConnectionStringBuilder provides no connectionstring properties. Now Npgsql correctly reports default connectionstring properties. Thanks Alaric Dailey for heads up and patch!

Fixed bug when trying to retrieve a date value with -infinity value. See more here: http://pgfoundry.org/forum/message.php?msg_id=1005249 Thanks Andrus Moor for bug report and test case and Laurenz Albe for reporting the commit where the infinity date value was added.

[#1010679] NpgsqlCommand.GetClearCommandText speed optimization. Thanks Dmitri Maximov (dmitri.maximov @nospam@ dataobjects.net) for patch.

Thanks all for your help and feedback with this release!

Another postcard has arrived!

2009-06-08T23:29:00.006-03:00

Hi, all!

Another postcard has arrived. It is from Transylvania:

It is from Alin Hanghiuc (Update: Thanks for correction, Alin!) from Brasov, Romenia.

Thank you very much, Alin for sending this postcard. This give us a lot of motivation!

ASP.Net SQL Provider has a build server

2009-05-19T01:12:00.003-03:00

Hi all!

Daniel Nauck, the developer of ASP.Net SQL Provider for Postgresql, let me know today that he has setup a build server for his project. This means that users will be able to get the latest build easily.

In order to download the latest build, point your browser to: http://build.nauck-it.de.

Nice job, Daniel!!

Npgsql Tips: Using " in (...)" queries with parameters list and "any" operator

2009-05-12T01:19:00.003-03:00

Hi, all!

We have received some users questions about how to send a list of values to be used in queries using the "in" operator. Something like:

select foo, bar from table where foo in (blah1, blah2, blah3);

Npgsql supports array-like parameter values and the first idea to have this working would try to use it directly:

NpgsqlCommand command = new NpgsqlCommand("select * from tablee where field_serial in (:parameterlist)", conn);

ArrayList l = new ArrayList();
l.Add(5);
l.Add(6);

command.Parameters.Add(new NpgsqlParameter("parameterlist", NpgsqlDbType.Array | NpgsqlDbType.Integer));

command.Parameters[0].Value = l.ToArray();

NpgsqlDataReader dr = command.ExecuteReader();

but unfortunately this won't work as expected. Npgsql will send a query like this:

select * from tablee where field_serial in ((array[5,6])::int4[])

And Postgresql will complain with the following message:

ERROR: operator does not exist: integer = integer[]

This is because it is trying to compare the integer value of the column with an array of integers.

But, thanks to Josh Cooley and Jerónimo Milea who posted a solution on our forum, you just have to change your "in" operator to use the "any" operator and it will work as expected:

NpgsqlCommand command = new NpgsqlCommand("select * from tablee where field_serial = any (:parameterlist)", conn);

So if you want to use a query to compare a list of values, remember to use the any operator.

Npgsql 2.0.5 released!

2009-05-07T18:54:00.003-03:00

Hi, all!

Npgsql Development Team released Npgsql 2.0.5.

This is a bug fix release. And we fixed some important bugs.

The first one is about the famous NotSupportedException seek operation. Npgsql now handles this by flushing the stream before writing to it. It is not the complete solution but it is an step in the right direction.

Another bug which is open for quite some time is the return value of DataAdapter.Update. It wasn't working very well for multiple statements. Now it is working ok.

Josh Cooley added a lot of fixes for Entity Framework and Transactions support.

Please, check our release notes to see all the changes on this release.

You can download this release on our usual location.

Thanks everybody who helped us with comments, feedback and patches.

First Postcard arrived!!

2009-04-14T00:21:00.005-03:00

Hi, all!

A few days ago I checked my mail box and noticed that there was a postcard there!

It is from Albe Laurenz.

The postcard is from Vienna, Austria.

Here it is:

Thank you very much for your postcard, Albe. It is very nice! I loved it.

Last activities about Npgsql....

2009-04-01T19:31:00.002-03:00

Hi all!

It's been a long time since my last post.

I've been a little bit busy those days (or it's better say: months!) but I'm catching up with Npgsql bugs little by little.

Today I fixed a bug which was making Npgsql to not return the correct number of rows affected by an update when using DataAdapter.Update() method. This bug was floating around for a long time! Thanks Christian for the heads up and testcase!

Some weeks ago, I played with another bug which was causing the famous "stream doesn't support seek operations" exception. It turned out that that the large object api isn't handling errors correctly which is letting data on the stream which causes the problem. I have an ugly workaround for this which is simply flush the stream before trying to write to it again. I sent a message to Npgsql dev list explaining this issue with more details.

That's it for while. I'll be hunting down the remaining bugs and will post progress here.

Playing with Firefox 3.1beta2

2009-01-05T00:15:00.002-02:00

Well, after a long time playing with nightly Webkit because Firefox wasn't so good on my mac, I decided to give it a try again with 3.1 beta2 and.... Wow! It's amazing! Super fast and I can even say that it seems faster than last webkit builds. I also liked that it seems to use a little less cpu than webkit which is very nice!

Kudos to Mozilla Firefox people who is doing an excellent job regarding performance of firefox on OSX and from what I saw on other OS's too.

Did you like Npgsql? Send us a postcard!

2008-12-15T14:17:00.003-02:00

Hi all!

Some time ago, a friend of mine, Horita, told me about a project whose owner asked people who liked his software to send him a postcard. I liked the idea and yesterday, while cooking the 2.0.2 release with Josh Cooley, I told him about this idea and he also liked it.

So, if you like Npgsql you can send us a postcard. Here are the addresses:

Josh Cooley
102 Boston Harbour Way
Madison, AL 35758
USA

Francisco Figueiredo Jr.
QMSW 05 Lote 02 Bloco C Apto 116
Sudoeste - Brasilia - DF - Brazil
Zip Code: 70680-500

Thank you very much!

Npgsql 2.0.2 released!

2008-12-15T14:13:00.005-02:00

Hi all!

Npgsql Development Team is proud to announce we just released Npgsql 2.0.2!

This release brings the usual bug fixes and minor improvements from previous release.

Here are the release notes:

Fixes:

Fix the fix for datetime.MinValue and MaxValue. Only MinValue was fixed. Now both Min and Max are fixed. Thanks Andrus Moor for heads up.(fxjr)
Fixed problem with parameter sizes and prepared statements.(fxjr)
[#1010488] NgsqlParameter of type containing DBNull values throws NullReferenceException
[#1010521] NpgsqlInterval should be quoted.
Datetime with negative values (thanks to Mathieu Fenniak ) and singular values such as "1 day"
[#1010495] Bad performance calling a (empty) function very often.

New additions:

Added documentation about how to use Npgsql with Provider Factory. Thanks Alaric for heads up.
Ensure refcursors work with System.Transactions. (Josh)

On this release, Josh Cooley fixed some bugs on Entity Framework support and System.Transactions.

For more information about those and other fixes, please, see our ChangeLog.

You can get it from our usual location:
http://downloads.npgsql.org

Thank you Josh and everybody for all the help with this release.

NpgsqlCommand optimizations and usage tip

2008-11-28T19:46:00.005-02:00

Hi, all!

Some days ago, I fixed a slow performance problem with Npgsql when calling functions. The problem was that Npgsql was doing a lot of expensive checks (in fact, 3) to verify parameter information and return type. The solution was to cache those checks so that new calls to the same function don't need to pass through the same checks again.

In order to not have problems with outdated caches and etc and after talking to Josh on gmail, I decided to make the cache local and it would be invalidated as soon as the command text is changed.

This semantics lead me to write this blog to share the idea that you can get a big performance improvement if you "cache" your NpgsqlCommands which will be used with function calls. This way, instead of creating and releasing the command object after its usage, you can create all your NpgsqlCommand objects associated to function calls and reuse them as needed. This way you pay for the costly checks only once.

I hope this tip can help people to get some performance gains from this fix. :)

Npgsql2 2.0.1 released!

2008-11-04T12:53:00.004-02:00

Hi, all!

Npgsql Development Team has just released Npgsql2 2.0.1.

This is a minor bug fix release with highlights to entity framework fixes.

Check out release notes for more information.

You can grab it from the usual location: http://downloads.npgsql.org

Enjoy.

Npgsql appeared in Msdn Ado.net blog!

2008-10-17T11:45:00.002-03:00

Josh Cooley sent me a mail to tell me Npgsql appeared in Microsoft's ADO.Net blog as one of providers which supports EntityFramework!

Nice!

Thanks, Josh!

Npgsql2 Final Released!!

2008-10-06T02:20:00.001-03:00

Hi, all!

The Npgsql Development Team is proud to announce the Npgsql2 RTM!

Npgsql is a .Net Data provider written 100% in C# which allows .net
programs to talk to postgresql backends. Npgsql is licensed under BSD.
More info can be obtained from http://www.npgsql.org

After almost two years of development since Npgsql 1.0, Npgsql 2
brings new features and support for newer versions of .Net.

Although externally Npgsql2 doesn't seem very different of Npgsql1
regarding features, internally Npgsql2 had a lot of improvements which
represents a much more stable product, more bugs fixed and many
implemented methods. It is strongly advised that current users update
from Npgsql1 to Npgsql2.

Main features are:

Support for .Net 2.0 and 3.5

Josh Cooley did a great job and added support for EntityFramework.

Npgsql2 now doesn't read all table contents before returning control
to user code. This makes Npgsql much more memory efficient when
dealing with large tables. Thanks Jon Hanna for this.
Check User Manual for more info about that and how to revert to old
behavior of loading all data if you need it.

Thanks to Daniel Nauck, Npgsql now have support for ASP.Net providers.
You can visit Daniel project page at:
http://dev.nauck-it.de/aspsqlprovider/

You can see full changelog and release notes here:
http://pgfoundry.org/frs/shownotes.php?release_id=1230

You can dowload it from here: http://downloads.npgsql.org

For instructions about how to use NpgsqlFactory, check out our User Manual:
http://manual.npgsql.org

Please, give it a try and let us know if you have any problems.
Check out our forums: http://forums.npgsql.org

Npgsql2 RC2 Released!!

2008-09-12T03:08:00.002-03:00

Hi all!

It's a great pleasure to say that Npgsql2 RC2 is released.

From release notes:

This version contains some fixes and updates for latest entity framework release.
We are already in feature freeze and not so many things were added this time.

Highlights include:

Npgsql2 rc2 now supports .NET 3.5 sp1 with Entity Framework support. We support model generation by the command line edmgen.exe tool. This requires the Npgsql be registered in the provider section of machine.config.

A lot of fixes were done on connection pool handling. Also, when running under Mono, Npgsql wasn't using connection pool. Now it is.

We added some code to better handle threadabort when executing queries with Npgsql. It isn't perfect but is much better than with previous versions.

Grab it from http://downloads.npgsql.org

Thank you everybody who helped with bug reports, comments and patches!

Committed fix to make Npgsql use Pool when running under Mono

2008-09-08T11:41:00.004-03:00

Yes, you read it right, Npgsql wasn't using connection pool when running under Mono!!

The problem seemed to be that Npgsql was using one key to get a connection to pool and another one to return it back.
The issue is that although it is wrong, those two values were supposed to be the same.
You can see here and here bug reports about it.

Well, the fix is already on cvs, so if you were using Npgsql on Mono, you should definitely give it a try so you can see if your code works ok.

Sorry for this problem.

Later I will bring a full analysis of what can be the problem.

Stream seek error

2008-08-28T19:35:00.003-03:00

Hi all!

Since Npgsql RC1, we started to receive some error reports about problems when closing connections. The typical stack trace looked like this:

System.NotSupportedException : This stream does not support seek operations.

at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Seek(Int64 offset, SeekOrigin origin)

at System.IO.BufferedStream.FlushRead()
at System.IO.BufferedStream.WriteByte(Byte value)
−
at Npgsql.NpgsqlQuery.WriteToStream(Stream outputStream) in C:\Npgsql\Npgsql2\src\Npgsql\NpgsqlQuery.cs:line 62
−
at Npgsql.NpgsqlReadyState.QueryEnum(NpgsqlConnector context, NpgsqlCommand command) in
C:\Npgsql\Npgsql2\src\Npgsql\NpgsqlReadyState.cs:line 64
−
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnector.ReleasePlansPortals() in C:\Npgsql\Npgsql2\src\Npgsql\NpgsqlConnector.cs:line 373
−
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnectorPool.UngetPooledConnector(NpgsqlConnection Connection, NpgsqlConnector Connector)
in C:\Npgsql\Npgsql2\src\Npgsql\NpgsqlConnectorPool.cs:line 541
−
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnectorPool.ReleasePooledConnector(NpgsqlConnection Connection, NpgsqlConnector Connector) in
C:\Npgsql\Npgsql2\src\Npgsql\NpgsqlConnectorPool.cs:line 284
−
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection.Close() in C:\Npgsql\Npgsql2\src\Npgsql\NpgsqlConnection.cs:line 584
−

This seems to be caused by some out of sync problem with Npgsql. I proposed a solution in our bug tracking about this problem.

Please, give it a try and let me know if it solves the problem.

Thanks in advance.

Server donation received!

2008-08-28T19:24:00.003-03:00

Hi all!

Today, Npgsql received a server donation from a person who prefers to remain anonymous.

With it, we will be able to provide nightly builds as well as a continuous integration build service. We are thinking about using CruiseControl.Net

Thank you very much for the donation!

Pé quebrado - Broken foot

2008-08-05T00:31:00.002-03:00

Olá, pessoal!

Ontem eu quebrei o meu pé descendo as escadas!! Tristeza total. :(

Vou ficar 30 dias com gesso e esperar pelo melhor.

A parte boa disso é que eu vou ter mais tempo para o Npgsql e para ver TV :)

-------------

Hi, all!

Yesterday I broke my foot while I was going down the stairs!! Absolute sadness :(

I'm going to stay 30 days in plaster e hope for the best.

The good part of all this is that I'll have more time for Npgsql and to watch TV :)

Npgsql2 RC1 Released!

2008-07-29T14:35:00.003-03:00

Hi, all!

It's a great pleasure to say Npgsql Development Team made a new release of Npgsql2. We are closer to the final release!

On the highlights, thanks to Josh Cooley, we have support for newer version of EntityFramework 3.5sp1beta.

Another highlight is that we fixed the cast problem some people had when using Npgsql2 beta4. Now, Npgsql will only use casts if the user explicitly specify a DbType or NpgsqlDbType value.

Also, thanks Andreas Schönebeck, who provided us with testcases and feedback, we have a much better threadabortexception handling. Those exceptions were making Npgsql be instable and sometimes unusable.

Please, if you had any problem, give RC1 a try and help us to improve Npgsql for final release.

Other changes can be seen in our changelog.

Donwload Npgsql2RC1 from our usual place

Thank you to all who helped us with this release with feedback, bug fixes, bug reports and comments.

Simplesmente absurdo!

2008-07-08T11:33:00.002-03:00

Sr. Senador Azeredo...

"Isso é uma... vergonha!"

Já votei na petição para acabar com essa falta de vergonha. Querer criminalizar fansubber??

Fala sério!!

Ohloh

2008-07-08T08:45:00.003-03:00

Yesterday Daniel Nauck showed me Ohloh site.

There was even Npgsql project registered there! I never heard about this site until yesterday. And it is very nice! Thank you, Ricardo Stuven for creating the project. At least this is the person who appears as the project creator on the history page.

From the project page you can see a timeline of commits, code analysis, miniblogs like twitter about development and many other things. Cool!

Thank you very much for the tip, Daniel. I think this site will be a great addition to provide more information about the project to our users and other developers.

Finally post my PGCon2008 pictures!!

2008-07-03T23:17:00.002-03:00

Hi all,

I finally post my pictures from PGCon2008.

You can see them on my picasa web album.

Cleaning up the patches list

2008-07-03T12:13:00.001-03:00

Wow! I think our patch list is too big and I need to do something about it! :)

Sorry all who sent your patches and didn't have them applied yet. I'm starting to run through the list and reviewing/discussing/applying them.

If you have any patch you think needs urgent attention, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Perian: Codec solution for my quicktime no audio with video files

2008-06-26T09:09:00.006-03:00

After having some problems playing audio from some video files, I found this thread on macosxhints which talked about Perian. And voilà! It worked perfectly. It has a simple double click install procedure which adds a new item on your preferences pane.

Very nice! :)

And today I knew Shiira...

2008-06-24T01:11:00.004-03:00

And I loved it!

I know I said about using firefox 3 and liking it, but after some days I was not confortable with it. I think I could get more. After some research, I found about Shiira on google search and decided to give it a try.

I loved its speed. Also it needs very few resources. At least processor power. I'm still investigating memory usage which I thought it was a little too much for some pages I opened.

I also liked it because if uses WebKit rendering engine which I think is faster than gecko. Also, it is opensource, so I'm very happy and for while doesn't need to use the proprietary Safari.

For while I'm enjoying it very much.

Shiira homepage: http://shiira.jp/en.php

Update: Two complains: Screen Responsiveness and SuspendToRam/Disk

2008-06-20T16:08:00.003-03:00

Hi all!

You may have seen I had two main complains about gnu/linux desktop. Today I updated my ubuntu with some long standing pending updates. I could see there was updates for firefox 3.0 and ati binary drivers.

Well, I can see that now firefox responsiveness is much, much better. It is not so good as I'd like it to be, but it is in the right direction for sure!. I also see that desktop has a better screen responsiveness than before. That's great!

I hope things get better and better as I want to see gnu/desktop as the best user experience possible.

Thanks all who are working on those issues and fixing them.

Getting control back...

2008-06-19T03:49:00.002-03:00

Hi all!

After some testing with Firefox on OSX I confess I was a little bit disappointed because with only a blank page firefox was taking up 10%-13% of cpu time!

Today celebrating the firefox download day and of course to test the new version I give it a try again, thinking it could be something with the beta version. No luck :( Firefox was still getting something like 10%-13% of cpu. It was then I tried to google about it and I found something about problems with add-ons. And then I remember I installed del.icio.us add-on. I disabled it and immediately firefox started to use 0.4%-0.1% of cpu time! :) Sweet!! Now I can use firefox as my primary browser again. Thank you guys for such a great product. Version 3 rocks even more!

Another change I made was to give songbird another try. After playing a little bit, I found out there is the 0.6 version available. Wow! What a difference... As they said in songbird release notes, browing music library is much, much faster! Great!! Also, after installing the excellent Album Art Manager I got exactly what I wanted: a cover art displayer and also a very nice growl notification integration. Sweetˆ2 :)

That's it. I'm very happy I could get control back from two main applications I use most. OpenSource rulez! That's what opensource is all about: freedom.

See you.

Two complains: Screen Responsiveness and SuspendToRam/Disk

2008-06-09T19:30:00.005-03:00

Hi all!

Firstly, I'd like to say that I love Gnu/Linux and please don't take me wrong. What I'm saying here is based on what I see after using Gnu/Linux for the last 4 years.

About the suspend to ram/disk I understand because it may be very difficult to have it working on all type of hardware. But as it was already pointed out on Ubuntu Brainstorm and I think they are already working on it.

But now, at least to me, the biggest complain I have is the performance of screen responsiveness of gnu/linux desktop. I don't know if this is the correct term, but what I mean is the speed the text is draw in the screen, the speed the windows are rendered and so on. In summary, the perception I have of how fast the screen is drawing its contents.

My experience is based on my old notebook. A Pentium4m with an intel 855gm with shared video memory.
I'm using Ubuntu 8.04 with Gnome.

When I open firefox on my gmail page, for example, the scroll is not so good. The scroll is too slow. On the same hardware, when I boot on windows with firefox the scroll is not perfect but it is much better. I can't even talk about processor usage of firefox. I don't know why this happens. But after so much time using Gnome when I boot up again on windows so a friend of mine who only used windows could work on it, I saw that windowing and screen performance was very very different. I just don't know why it is this way. Another point: Just to change from one tab to another on firefox on my system could make me wait for something like 0.5 seconds. Again, I'd like to say that on windows on the same machine, firefox didn't take so much time like this.

So, I don't know if the problem is in firefox itself. Or somewhere else. I noticed that if I use XFCE I get a better performance on screen rendering but not so much. So, maybe it is Gnome the problem? I noticed that Konqueror on KDE seemed to give me a better screen responsiveness compared to gnome and xfce. Maybe it is a GTK problem? I also thought it could be a problem of X11 but I don't know very well about it to say if it has so much to contribute to this problem or not.

This is what I got with firefox only. If I talk about MPlayer and video performance for example, we have a similar history. On windows, the performance of mplayer is much better. Even when Ubuntu is using XV output driver.

So, please, if someone can explain me this difference and maybe some why's about it. I don't know if I'm saying non sense things and please, correct me if I am. But I really really whish those screen related performance problems were excluded from my gnu/linux experience.

Just another comparison... Before I bought my macbook, I used Ubuntu 8.04 on a sony vaio with a nvidia card 8400GT with 256MB of dedicated video memory and while the screen responsiveness was much much better, of course, I still could see some lags while scrolling the gmail page and while chaging from one tab to other. I had vista installed on it and firefox didn't showed this problem while I was using ff with vista. I don't know if this is a good comparison as I didn't take any numbers of it, but it gives me some practical results about what I feel when using windows, os x and gnu/linux. And as a big fan and advocate of gnu/linux, I repeat, I really really wish those problems to be solved.

Thank you in advance for you time. Please, send your comments.

One week of MacBook later....

2008-06-09T10:59:00.003-03:00

Well, Macbook continues to be awesome, but I already have some complains with the software... :(

No ABNT2 keyboard support! Just after one week of research and I still had to make a modification in the keyboard layout, I finally could find one which worked on my ABNT2 keyboard. Thanks to this post I could get a 99% working keyboard layout. I just had to swap back the \ | and ' " mappings. I have to admit I'm really upset with Apple for not providing a keyboard mapping which works on Brazilian Portuguese ABNT2 keyboards.

Another difficult I faced was to use the external monitor only. On gnu/linux I just used the xrandr command xrandr --output LCD off and it was done. Thanks to this post I could get it working by connect my external LCD monitor, close the lid, wait for macbook to sleep and so wake it up with my external keyboard. At least it is working ok now.

Another thing which is making me nuts is that the spaces feature always wants to bring to front the finder window and not the window which had focus before I changed the virtual desktop. I already installed the MacOS 10.5.3 combo update which says something about fixing this but for me it didn't work :(

I will stay with OSX for while, now that my keyboard and monitor problems are solved. But I have to say that I was much more comfortable with the gnome gnu/linux environment. Maybe I still need time to get used to all this. In another post I will talk about what make me nuts with gnu/linux and desktop. Tip: Power management (suspend to ram/disk) and X11 performance (screen updates).

See you.

Thank you for so many OSX tips!!

2008-06-05T12:04:00.005-03:00

Wow! I was very surprised by the big number of feedback I got when asking tips for my new MacBook! I'd like to say you a big THANK YOU! You are great.

I already installed iStat Pro. I liked it very much.

I also installed Adium, NoeOffice, Transmission, Songbird and I'm still downloading and installing other suggestions.

One drawback I saw was that after installing some applications, my solid rock brand new MacBook started to hang when shutting down! :O

I uninstalled iStat Pro as I think it is the only low level thing which could give me this type of problem. Until now, I already shut down my laptop two times and the problem seems to be solved. I installed the 4.6 version on my OSX 10.5.3.
I will try another version or a previous one later.

I don't now but I didn't like the SongBird. I don't know why yet. I liked very much the Rhythmbox and I'm sad I can't get it on my Mac :(. For while I think I will keep using iTunes. But I'd rather use some other open source audio player.

I followed the suggestion of creating a new folder inside the Applications special place. (This makes me ask: Is there a way to add other folders to the Places together with my home folder and the applications folder itself?)
I also put this folder near the trashcan in the dock so I can access it easily. I just couldn't use the long click where I could see the hierarchical list of applications through menus. Maybe I need more explanation?? :) Anyway,thank you for your excellent explanations of many other aspects related about OSX. I didn't know I would need to be so cautious about software updates.

Another problem I had was that OSX seemed to not recognize my wireless keyboard correctly. It is an ABNT2 Brazilian Portuguese keyboard. When I connected it it showed me some keyboard options but I couldn't get my ç key to work on it. :( Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I will try again later.

Another problem I faced was when using my external LCD television. It has a resolution of 1360x768 and I couldn't use mirror with native screen resolution. I only could use it with extended desktop. I'd like to be able to turn off laptop lcd and just use the external monitor. Is this possible? A friend of mine said I could close the laptop lid but I think this could make my macbook heat up.

Other than that, everything seems to be working very well. I will post here more things I find about OSX.

Again, I'd like to thank everybody who spent some time to read my post and comment it. Thank you very much! I'm a much happier Mac user now. :)

That's it. See you!

P.S.: Thanks for the Pratchett quote indication. :) I hope my sanity is not so in danger because of so many exclamation marks. Just to be sure, I used fewer ones this time :)

I finally got my MacBook!! Tips???

2008-06-04T16:37:00.004-03:00

Hi all!!

I finally got a MacBook 13.3"!! This baby is awesome!! I'm enjoying it very much. :) I still didn't install Ubuntu on it because I'd like to play a little bit with MacOS.

My first impressions of MacOS is that it is a very nice OS. I'd like the Aqua UI was opensource so I could have a complete OpenSource OS stack. At least Darwin is OpenSource.

Now I need to familiarize with MacOS and its utilities. So, if you have tips, links, suggestions for nice opensource applications I can install on my MacOS, please let me know.

I already have Mono installed. Thanks mono guys who provide the MacOS install package. It was pretty easy to install. I'd like to know if I can use Banshee on my Mac. I know iTunes is very good, but I'd like to use an OpenSource player. Do you know of anyone for MacOS? I couldn't find anyone.

I also installed MPlayer which worked perfectly! The MacOS sound is awesome!!

I also would like to know of a good IRC client, a good torrent client, and more important: I'd like to know some monitoring tools, like network speed, battery information, fan information, cpu etc. Which could be added to mac menu and give me information directly.

Thanks everybody in advance.

Back to Brazil!!!

2008-06-04T15:56:00.002-03:00

Hi, all!

I'm back to Brazil! And I have to say that I loved Canada!! I'm seriously thinking about applying for an immigration process. Let's see what I can get...

I could see a lot of things and I liked very much Canadian people. They are very nice! For me it was a great pleasure to be in such a place! I hope to go back there some day.

I visited Niagara Falls, went for the first time to a casino. In Brazil they are not allowed. I met a lot of people from many places in the world: Korea, Japan, Belgium, England, Australia, USA and so on. I enjoyed very much to stay in a hostel. I never stayed in one before and I liked very much the experience.

That's it! I will post some pictures later and more impressions too.

Life after PGCon2008...

2008-05-27T00:41:00.002-03:00

PGCon 2008 was awesome!!! I could meet a lot of people from postgresql community and take a lot of pictures!! I even got a picture with Tom Lane! Thank you very much, Selena! :)

I finally could meet Dave Page in person. Dave has helped Npgsql project in the beginning, 2002 and we never have met before!

I also could meet Magnus Hagander in person. He is a very nice person. I saw some of his talks and was very good!

I also could meet Hiroshi Saito and Josh Cooley. Hiroshi Saito is a big evangelist of Npgsql in Japan and has done a great work to talk to others about Npgsql there. Josh Cooley has been working on Npgsql adding nice features, like System.Transactions and entity framework support, and fixing bugs. I enjoyed very much to meet them and doing the presentation. Our presentation was very nice considering this was my first time doing a presentation in english. Josh said my english was good, so I was ok. Thank you Josh!

Another person I enjoyed very much to talk to was Selena. She is very nice. She makes me remember of Brazilian girls because she is very active and has very strong energy. She even talked about my twitter and so this explains why suddenly I started to be followed by some other people!! Selena, it was a great pleasure to meet you.

I'd like to thank Dan Langille for his support which allowed me to be here in Canada to attend this conference.

The unexpected thing which occur in this PGCon2008 was that Fernando Ike who was doing a presentation just before mine asked me to make a real time translation of his speech! So, just before I do my first talk in english I had to make my first real time translation! I must confess that I was very nervous but in the end everything was fine!

Well, that's it! I will add more later.

See you.....

And now going to Toronto to see Niagara Falls

2008-05-17T00:54:00.003-03:00

Hi all!!

Tomorrow I'm leaving Ottawa heading to Toronto to see Niagara Falls. I'll be taking a bus to go there and I hope to be able to get some guided tour to Falls. If not, I will go by myself anyway :)

I will be at Backpackers on Dundas hostel and I plan to stay there until next Tuesday when I will go back to Ottawa for PG Con.

So, if you are in Toronto and would like to talk about Npgsql, Postgresql or Mono, or just want to talk, please, drop me a mail.

P.S.: Kangaroo (Mono irc, sorry if this isn't exactly your nickname) please, drop me a mail so we can have some beers in Toronto!

See you.

Going to Canada...

2008-05-10T18:05:00.002-03:00

Hi, all!!

It's a great pleasure to say I'm going to attend PGCon2008 this year!! :)

I'm going to Canada tomorrow (May, 11) and hope to enjoy Ottawa and Canada before conference starts.

If you live in Ottawa and would like to talk about Npgsql, Mono, .Net or anything else, please drop me a mail.

About Npgsql, I posted on npgsql-devel list about an Npgsql2 beta4 release this week. But unfortunately it won't be possible. Josh is fixing some last bugs and will be doing a release next week. Sorry for any problems this announce may have caused.

So, that's it!

Stay tuned!

VirtualBox is amazing!!! Thank you VirtualBox developers!!

2008-05-02T19:57:00.004-03:00

Man... I used to cry every time I thought about the beauty VMWare is about virtualization. But now, I have another one to cry for: VirtualBox.

Why?

First of all it is OpenSource. Only this is already a motivation by itself.

Second: It flies!!! I know VMware is very fast, but VirtualBox is a piece of magic. I don't know how to describe it. It is very fast, runs very smoothly and consumes very little resources!! I think there is no need for saying that I'm very excited with VirtualBox, is there? :)

Third: Starting with 1.6.0 It has support for Seamless integration for GNU/Linux and Solaris guests!!

Man!! Seamless integration is the next step in the way of virtualization... It is really nice!!

I'm doing some tests here and it works very well!

I'd like to thank you VirtualBox developers. And I also would like to say that Sun did a big step in the right direction buying VirtualBox. I hope many more features come and that 1.6 version is just the first of many excellent releases!

UPDATE:
P.S.: Please, don't take me wrong. I'm a big fan of VMWare, I even have a 4.x license I bought to be able to compile Npgsql on MS .Net. But now that I have VirtualBox, I think that license will not be used anymore soon.

Looking for accommodation tips at Ottawa, Canada

2008-04-23T20:55:00.005-03:00

Hi all!

I'm right now looking for accommodations in Ottawa, Canada. I'm going to do a presentation about Npgsql at PGCon2008 and as I never went to Ottawa I don't know of any good place to stay. If you have any tips about cheap hotels, hostels or anything , please, let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Update: I'd really really thank you all of those who gave me tips about places in Ottawa. I already did my reservation and hope to see you there at PGCon2008!!

Back from FISL 9.0!

2008-04-23T20:43:00.004-03:00

Hi all!

FISL 9.0 was very, very nice!! I enjoyed very much to be able to talk to so many people about FLOSS!

I had the great pleasure to meet Josh Berkus and David Fetter! I took a picture with Josh I will post here later. Josh is a very nice person! I enjoyed very much to be able to talk to him. Unfortunately I talked almost nothing with David Fetter. I hope when I'm at PGCon I can talk to him a little bit more :)

I also met for the first time Everaldo Canuto on this presentation about Mono. It was very funny. Suddenly on his presentation, Everaldo stops and asks: "Is Francisco here?" After I put my hand up, he asks again: "Are you the Francisco I'm thinking you are?" and everybody started to laugh... :)
Anyway, Everaldo is a very funny person. He has a very particular way of doing presentations...

I also found my old friend Alessandro Binhara! I didn't know he would be there! It was a very nice surprise. We talked a little bit but unfortunately he said he wouldn't be able to stay much time there. :( I hope we can talk more later on another opportunity.

That's all for while. I will post some pictures I took at FISL later when I transfer them to my computer.

Stay tuned.

FISL 9.0

2008-04-18T10:16:00.003-03:00

Hi, all!!

I'm right now at FISL (Fórum Internacional de Software Livre) 9.0 at Porto Alegre - RS - Brazil!

FISL is an annual conference about FOSS where we have a very nice opportunity to talk to many people about FOSS.

I will post more info about FISL later in another post.

I'm now a twitter

2008-04-17T23:37:00.004-03:00

As you now can see on my sidebar, I'm now a twitter

So, now you can see, or better, read to know what I'm doing. This is a youtube video a friend of mine Osny ( who is also my first twitter contact ) sent me about twitter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Good twitting for you!

Npgsql2 Beta3 released!!

2008-04-07T15:08:00.003-03:00

Hi all!!

Npgsql2 Beta3 has been released!

You can see full release notes here.
You can download files from here.

I'd like to thank everybody involved. This wouldn't be possible without your help.

I will post with more details about the new features and updates we had with this release.
Stay tuned!!

Bye Gentoo... Welcome Ubuntu

2008-03-09T18:49:00.000-03:00

Hi all!

After long time using Gentoo distribution (since June 2004) , I decided to try another distribution. I think one of the reasons I'm leaving Gentoo may be because I'm getting older and I'm not getting fun anymore of tweaking it. ;) Just kidding. Gentoo was and still is my best Gnu/Linux experience I had until now. I love the freedom you have to choose what you want and not want compiled and all the tweaks you can do. I learned very much about Gnu/Linux with it. Because of my aging, I think I'm getting lazier too :) Now I want my system to have everything automagically configured to me. I want to concentrate on other things besides the OS and desktop itself.

So, after some time trying to find another distribution, I decided to try Ubuntu Gutsy (7.10) Wow!! It is working perfectly! Just the way I wanted and it is super fast! Awesome! I have to admit I was a little skeptical about overall performance ( I think this is normal as I was coming from Gentoo) and also because my experience with Ubuntu 6.10 and 7.04 were horrible ( the whole thing was very very slow! ) Now the history seems to be different, way different. Ubuntu Gutsy is very fast and I liked it.

Just to note, I also installed OpenSuse some time ago, which seems to be a very nice distribution too. I like the 1-click install idea. But I had a bad experience with it when trying to mount my external hd's. Some time later, after I had removed it from my laptop I found out the problem wasn't with OpenSuse, but a kernel bug. When OpenSuse 11 comes out I shall try it again.

Last week I updated to Ubuntu Hardy (8.04) Alpha from update-manager -d command line. Upgrade was smooth and the system was very nice, until I find some problems which luckly I could find some easy solutions which are bookmarked on my del.ici.us.

The main problem was with old intel 855GM video card. Thanks forums and bug report I could find a tweak (hmmm, I didn't want that, but I had no choice) on xorg.conf which made the trick. Ubuntu developers say that this tweak comes default in new alphas of Hardy.

That's it! As soon as I get more information about how is going my experience with Ubuntu I will let you know.

Npgsql at PGCON2008! Here we go!

2008-03-01T17:14:00.000-03:00

Hi, all!

It's a great pleasure to say that "Introducing Npgsql" will be presented at PGCON2008 by me, Josh Cooley and Hiroshi Saito!

To me is a great pleasure to be able to meet such great guys! It will be very nice to meet Dave Page too! He helped me very much since beginning of the project. Also, I will have the opportunity to meet other great people from Postgresql community!

I'm very excited! I already have my passport and now I'm waiting to get my visa to enter in Canada!

This is my first international trip and I think I'm starting very well! I hope to be able to attend international open source meetings more often.

This is my first time in Canada and I'm planning to stay from May 12 through May 30. If you have any tips about accommodation, places to eat, sleep and go in Canada (day and night :) ), please, let me know!

Thanks everybody and thanks God for this opportunity.

See you in Canada at PGCON2008!!

Array support commited in Npgsql2 cvs

2008-02-11T02:20:00.000-02:00

Hi, all!

As previously stated, array support was in the works and now it is commited to cvs!

So, from now on you can start persisting array data to postgresql. Thanks very much to Jon Hanna for getting this work done.

Now, you can persist arrays and, as Jon said in previous post's comments: "Anything that implements IEnumerable<T> where T is a type already supported by npgsql will be treated the same as T[], anything that implements IEnumerable<U> where U implements IEnumerable<T> will be treated the same as T[,] (but cause an error if it's a "jagged" array, as postgres doesn't support them) and so on. In order to use it, just use an array or IEnumerable<T> as parameter value."

So, let the game begin!

Also, thanks to Michael Parshin for his help fixing bugs on array type support.

Array support in the works!

2008-01-31T19:31:00.000-02:00

Hi all,

Jon Hanna is working to add Array support to Npgsql. He already sent a patch which I applied to my working copy and it is working very well!

Now it is possible to write code like that:

NpgsqlConnection conn = new NpgsqlConnection("Server=127.0.0.1;User id=npgsql_tests;password=npgsql_tests;");

conn.Open();

NpgsqlCommand d = new NpgsqlCommand();

Int32[] a = new Int32[2];

a[0] = 4;
a[1] = 2;

NpgsqlCommand command = new NpgsqlCommand("select :arrayParam", conn);

command.Parameters.Add(new NpgsqlParameter("arrayParam", a));
Console.WriteLine(command.ExecuteScalar());

conn.Close();

And get this logged on server:

LOG: statement: select array['4','2']::int4[]

Also, Npgsql is able to receive an array from server as the example above shows. Npgsql will print to console:

System.Int32[]

Which shows it received an int32 array as expected!

Excellent work, Jon!

Parameters explicit typing support commited in cvs

2008-01-30T18:59:00.000-02:00

Hi all!

Today I commited a patch (here, here, and here) to allow parameters explicit typing on plain queries.

What this means? This means that all parameters are sent to backend carrying its explicit type as specified by DbType and/or NpgsqlDbType enums. This will allow better typing matching between client and server. See here for Jon Hanna discussion about it. This explict typing isn't completely new. It was already being applied to function calling. We just decided to apply it to plain queries too.

Now queries are sent this way:

select * from tablea where field_serial = '4'::int4

where they were being sent as:

select * from tablea where field_serial = 4

This modification may lead to problems, as said in discussion above (end of first post), but we hope this can be easily fixed. Please, send your comments about it.

Please, grab a cvs copy of it and give it a try. We soon will be doing a new beta release which will contain this code.

Thanks Jon Hanna, Agrinei and Josh Cooley for discussion about this feature.

I'm back from my vacation!

2007-12-30T13:52:00.000-02:00

Hi, all!

I just returned from my trip to visit my grandfather and other related. It was very, very enjoyable and I could get some rest and meet great people! I took a lot of pictures with my digital camera ( in fact, I took more pictures this time than ever in my whole life! ) I shall post some here later.

About development activities, I will be returning to Npgsql project and start to integrate many patches which are pending. Josh Cooley did the excellent job with Npgsql2 beta2 release so you can enjoy some of the newest features we implemented lately. Stay tuned for more features and improvements!! I'd like to thank Daniel Nauck for his asp.net providers implementation which are also available for download. Thank you, Daniel!

That's all, folks. I will keep you informed as soon as I get more news.

Going out on vacation for 2-3 weeks

2007-12-12T08:16:00.000-02:00

Hi, all!

On this end of year, I'm going visit my grandfather. So, I will be out
for 2 or three weeks starting on this wednesday (2007-12-12). But don't worry, Npgsql will be in excellent hands: Josh Cooley will be heading any new beta release (which we expect to be released soon) and all patches and reviews needed.
I don't know if there will be Internet connection where I'm going to, but if there is, I will let you know.

Thanks everybody and Merry Christmas!!

Npgsql listed as one of MS Entity Framework providers in Press Release

2007-12-12T08:08:00.000-02:00

Hi, all!

Microsoft has released its beta 3 of ADO.Net Entity Framework and Npgsql is one of the providers which will support it. We are working on this support and, as announced, we will have support for entity framework whithin 3 months of RTM. That's exciting news and shows we are doing a good work to bring better and better support for Postgresql .Net developers! Stay tuned!

References:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQTH06106122007-1.htm
http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20071206-904072.html?mod=wsjcrmain

Pure Eye Candy...

2007-11-08T16:46:00.000-02:00

After struggle for some time to get compiz-fusion 0.6.2 to work on my old intel 855/GM graphics card, I finally got it working.

I was playing around reading some bug descriptions of intel xorg driver when I faced a comment from Ian which gave me some hope:

"Although I'm using Debian, if I turn this option off none of my terminal window contents get painted,[...]"

This is exactly the behavior I was facing when running compiz-fusion with newer driver (2.1.1). After making the change in xorg.conf... voilà! It worked perfectly! No more repaint problems!! Ah, the modification:

Option "XAANoOffscreenPixmaps" "true"

With this configuration set, I could go one more step and get mplayer composition to work. :)

I followed the instructions on this blog post about mplayer composition and compiled mplayer rc2 with the patch linked there and to my surprise it worked perfectly!!!

The only drawback is that the patch only works on 24bits and my card hasn't a good performance at 24 bits. At least I still can use compiz-fusion when in 16 bits and when I don't want to watch any movies or animes as I love to watch.

I hope this experience helps others to get their graphics card working with this awesome software which are compiz, compiz-fusion and mplayer!

Now I can see in my own machine all that I only watched on youtube videos :)

Npgsql2 Beta1 Released!!

2007-11-06T15:17:00.000-02:00

Hi, all!

Npgsql Development Team is proud to announce that Npgsql2 Beta1 is available! Its assembly version is 1.98.1, just in case you need to configure something with it using its assembly number.

In this release, besides the usual bug fixes, we would like to highlight initial support for System.Transactions, COPY IN/OUT and uuid postgresql 8.3 datatype.

Full release notes can be found here.

You can get it at the usual place.

I'd like to thank God for allowing me to make this happen.

I'd like to help all who helped us contributing with feedback, bug fixes and comments which allowed us to improve Npgsql even more!

Stay tuned for more features in upcoming releases.

Keep your feedback and bug fixes coming!

Npgsql 1.0.1 released!!

2007-10-27T15:55:00.000-02:00

Hi, all!

This release is a one-line patched version to add support for standard conforming string parameter in postgresql.conf. More info can be found here

This patch is needed for correct bytea handling.

As always, binary versions are ready to download at the usual place.

Thanks Laurenz Albe & Erich Lerch for patch!

UUID datatype and COPY IN/OUT support added to cvs

2007-10-03T16:43:00.000-03:00

Hi all!

It was just added support to uuid datatype in cvs head. This type will be available in next Postgresql release 8.3. Thanks to David Bachmann for his patch! You can get more info about this patch in this mailing list post.

Also was added support for copy in and copy out operations. Now, users can provide streams which can be copied directly to and from Postgresql tables! Thanks to Kalle Hallivuori for providing a patch! Thanks to Truviso for giving support to Kalle. More info about that including a demo and ready to use compiled Npgsql.dll versions can be found here.

That's it! As soon as we get more features added, I will post info about them here. Stay tuned! :)

Npgsql has a new homepage layout

2007-08-31T18:00:00.000-03:00

Hi, all!

After some research on open source site web designs: www.oswd.org, www.openwebdesign.org and www.opendesigns.org, I finally choose this one, from styleshout. Npgsql homepage now looks nicer than previous one.

Please, send your feedback and suggestions for this new site.

Thanks in advance.

Npgsql License Changed to BSD!!!

2007-08-28T02:56:00.001-03:00

Hi, all!!

Well, it is finally here... Npgsql is now licensed under BSD License!! We had to drop two patches which we didn't got approval license change for. One patch, from Torben, wasn't being used anymore and another from Gridnine can give some problems with case mixed table and column names. We will work on another fix for this problem until next release under new license.

This is an exciting news and this license change opens a new horizon for Npgsql2. We have a lot of work to do as we were holding a lot of patches. So, expect to see many new features being implemented. More news about them will be posted here. Stay tuned!!

Thank you very much to all patch owners who helped with this license transition.

Thanks God for allowing all this to happen.

Npgsql License change is almost done!

2007-07-29T23:22:00.000-03:00

UPDATE2 at 2007-08-10: Chris just sent me his permission. So, now, there are only 2 permissions pending. License change is very near!!

UPDATE: Daniel Morgan and Magnus Hagander sent me their permission. We are now waiting for others to send theirs.

Hi all!!

I have been revising some more files to make Npgsql license change and we are very close now.

There are only 6 files pending waiting for permissions:

NpgsqlCommandBuilder.cs

Waiting license change permission from gridnine systems.
http://pgfoundry.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1000447&group_id=1000140&atid=592

NpgsqlDataReader.cs

Waiting Daniel Morgan license chage permission request.

NpgsqlParameter.cs

Waiting license change permission from gridnine systems.
http://pgfoundry.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1000447&group_id=1000140&atid=592

NpgsqlRowDescription.cs

Waiting license change permission from Magnus Hagander.

PGUtil.cs

Waiting license change permission from Chris Wenneman

NpgsqlTypesHelper.cs

Waiting license change permission from Torben.

To me, the most problematic permission will be from gridnine systems: (www.gridnine.com) because I already sent a mail before and didn't have any answer. I'm afraid the person who posted the patch doesn't remember his patch or can't be found. If you are from gridnine or know someone from there, please let them know I'm asking their permission to change the license of their patch.

Gridnine patch changed a lot of code at the time it was created, but today it just affects two lines, so I think that even if we don't get their permission, we can live without their patch.

Permission from Daniel and Magnus is a matter of time as I already talked to them just didn't ask them officially for their permission.

I hope to be getting permissions from Chris and Torben really soon.

With all those permissions we are set to go!!

I will keep everybody informed about that as I'm receiving permissions.

Thanks all for your help.

Npgsql License Change Status Report

2007-07-19T11:55:00.000-03:00

Hi all!!

I've been working on Npgsql license change...

Here is the list of files which are already ok:

NpgsqlAsciiRow.cs

NpgsqlBackendKeyData.cs

NpgsqlBinaryRow.cs

NpgsqlBind.cs

NpgsqlCancelRequest.cs

NpgsqlClosedState.cs:

NpgsqlCommand.cs:

NpgsqlConnection.cs

NpgsqlConnectionString.cs

NpgsqlConnector.cs

NpgsqlConnectorPool.cs

NpgsqlDescribe.cs

NpgsqlError.cs

NpgsqlEventLog.cs

NpgsqlException.cs

NpgsqlExecute.cs

NpgsqlFlush.cs

NpgsqlMediator.cs

NpgsqlMessageTypes.cs

NpgsqlNotificationEventArgs.cs

NpgsqlParameterStatus.cs

NpgsqlParse.cs

NpgsqlPasswordPacket.cs

NpgsqlQuery.cs

NpgsqlReadyState.cs

NpgsqlResultSet.cs

NpgsqlRow.cs

NpgsqlSchema.cs

NpgsqlStartupPacket.cs

NpgsqlStartupState.cs

NpgsqlState.cs

NpgsqlSync.cs

NpgsqlTransaction.cs

NpgsqlDbType.cs

NpgsqlTypeConverters.cs

NpgsqlTypes.cs

NpgsqlDataAdapter.cs

And here is the list which needs revision:

NpgsqlCommandBuilder.cs

NpgsqlDataReader.cs

NpgsqlParameter.cs

NpgsqlParameterCollection.cs

NpgsqlRowDescription.cs

PGUtil.cs

FastPath.cs

FastPathArg.cs

LargeObject.cs

LargeObjectManager.cs

NpgsqlTypesHelper.cs

So, if you have any patch to any of these to-be-revised files and didn't send me a mail allowing us to change it to BSD, please, drop me a mail. I will update this post as soon as more files are revised.

Very soon we will have our first BSD licensed Npgsql release! :)

Thanks all!

Npgsql2 Preview Release is now available!!

2007-07-11T00:57:00.000-03:00

Yeah, that's it! After so many months without any update, Npgsql2 is finally alive. While this release doesn't give you full blown potential of new features, you can at least test it using the new ado.net 2.0 api as well as asp.net providers. Please, give it a try and let us know what you think.

Important notice: We are changing license to BSD. So this may be the last release under LGPL. This means that not all features currently available may be at next release. This is due to the fact that not all patch submitters may be reached or he/she doesn't give permission to change the license. If this is the case we don't have any other alternative than drop the patch and try to reimplement it. I'm sorry for that and I hope we don't have any problems with patch owners. :)

I'd like to thank God for allowing me to do that.
I'd like to thank all people involved in this release who helped to make it happen.

Thank you!

Npgsql2 housekeeping

2007-07-04T01:38:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

After 2 weeks without being able to play very much with computers due to my RSI problems, I'm finally getting back to normal work. Of course, under a much less workload... :)

Today, I did some housekeeping in Npgsql2 project. I fixed Npgsql.build file which wasn't compiling due to some missing files. Now it is compiling very well with NAnt. Just call nant and it will compile a nice assembly Npgsql.dll for you. I also added MonoDevelop project files and also fixed Npgsql2 version in AssemblyInfo.cs file.

That's it!

I hope to be able to release a preview of Npgsql2 really soon. Stay tuned!

Npgsql2 and my RSI - Repetitive Strain Injuries.

2007-06-20T10:15:00.000-03:00

Hi, all...

On monday, I went to doctor to see about my fingers which were hurting very much... :(

Of course, I had some type of RSI - Repetitive Strains Injuries. :(

He said I would need to stay away from keyboards from some time, so, Npgsql2 release may take some more time than this week as I wanted. I hope to get everything done, but more slowly... :(

Hiroshi also remembered me that our documentation is lacking information about Npgsql2. We need to fix that too.

That's it guys. As soon as I have any news, I will let you know.

Thank you!

Npgsql is still alive! And license change in works...

2007-05-26T19:51:00.000-03:00

Hi, all!!

It's been a long time since my last post.

I apologize for that. :(

Since end of last year I had a lot of personal problems and I also was studying for some job tests which took a lot of my time and I couldn't work very much on Npgsql.

But now I think things are settling and I'm getting more time to work on Npgsql! :)

Right now, we are working in the process of change Npgsql license from LGPL to BSD. We believe this change would allows better integration of projects (commercial or not) and we will have the same license as postgresql server itself.

I'm revising our code and asking people who commited any code to Npgsql his authorization to relicense their patches.

So, if you submitted any patch to Npgsql and didn't receive a mail from me asking your authorization, please, send a mail.

I will come back later with more details about it.

Thank you very much for your feedback and patience.

Initial Npgsql2 provider factory support added to cvs

2006-11-12T13:49:00.000-02:00

UPDATE: Thomas Burkhart sent me a mail telling me that this configuration syntax doesn't work on ms.net 2.0. This is the version which works:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
<configuration>

<system.data>
<DbProviderFactories>

<add name="Npgsql Data Provider" invariant="Npgsql" support="FF" description=".Net Framework Data Provider for Postgresql Server" type="Npgsql.NpgsqlFactory, Npgsql, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=5d8b90d52f46fda7" />

</DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

</configuration>

Thomas said that "the tags are case sensitive and the must be outside any <applicationSettings>"

Thank you Thomas for your feedback which, for sure will help others to get their configuration up and running. I will check with Mono guys to see why my original configuration worked.

Hi all!

Today I committed an initial support for provider factory to Npgsql2.

This will allow ado.net 2.0 users to work with Npgsql using ado.net generic coding.

In order to use it, you have to add the following xml config in your machine.config or yourapp.exe.config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<configuration>
<appsettings>

<system.data>
<dbproviderfactories>

<add name="Npgsql Data Provider" invariant="Npgsql" support="FF" description=".Net Framework Data Provider for Postgresql Server" type="Npgsql.NpgsqlFactory, Npgsql, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=5d8b90d52f46fda7">
</add>
</dbproviderfactories>
</system.data>
</appsettings>
</configuration>

P.S.: Sorry for indentation lacking. I don't know how to add it on blogger :(

Note that this is the full contents of a yourapp.exe.config file. If you are changing the machine.config file, just add the "add name=..." section.

The key elements here are the invariant name which will be used in your application when returning the provider factory. In this case it is defined as "Npgsql". But you can specify whatever you want.

That's it! If everything is ok, you will be able to write some code like that, to connect to postgresql:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.Common;

public class c
{
public static void Main(String[] args)
{

DbProviderFactory factory = DbProviderFactories.GetFactory("Npgsql");

DbConnection conn = factory.CreateConnection();

conn.ConnectionString = "Server=127.0.0.1;User id=npgsql_tests;password=npgsql_tests;";

conn.Open();

conn.Close();

}
}

Enjoy!

P.S.: Npgsql2 code is found in Npgsql2 cvs module. See here for more info about how to get it.

Warning: This is a very early code, so bugs still exist and there are things missing. Basic functionality should work ok.

Started works on Npgsql2

2006-10-27T00:12:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

We already started to work on Npgsql2 with support for .net 2.0 and ado.net 2.0. Josh Cooley already refactored all Npgsql classes to extend from .net 2.0 classes, like DbCommand, DbConnection and others. We hope to have a preview release soon with some long awaited features like Provider Factory support, design time in vs.net 2005 and others.

Stay tuned!

Npgsql 1.0 Released!! A little bit of its history

2006-10-17T11:13:00.000-03:00

Hi all!

I'm really happy to announce that Npgsql Team has released Npgsql 1.0 final!

I started to work on Npgsql 4 years ago, just after I finished my CS graduation course. What motivated me was the possibility to implement a network communication protocol and to have something done to community. I'm a big fan of OpenSource philosophy, better, I'm passionate about OpenSource and community, and realized I didn't return anything to it up to now. Besides that, I wanted to make part of it.

So, I started sending a message to postgresql mailling list asking if there was something about that being worked on. I received some replies about nothing being done yet and one saying that a p/invoke based proof of concept was tested. I wanted to implement postgresql communication protocol so I started to work on it. Some time later, I sent another message talking about project launch. At that time, Dave Page, from pgAdmin, jumped the wagon and started to help me get project going. I couldn't believe it! Dave Page, who later I discovered didn't play only with pgAdmin but also with postgresql installer and postgresql itself and others, was helping me with my just-started project! Thank you, Dave!

Since then, we have been working on a lot of features to make Npgsql work as best as possible. We have made a lot of progress and today Npgsql is a big success. One thing which make me think we were in the right direction was an invitation from Daniel Morgan, of Mono Project, to make Npgsql available in Mono sources. This made Npgsql become part of a bigger project and I'm very happy this happened. You guys, rock! Thanks for believing in the project.

I learned a lot about opensource on all those years working with Npgsql. I also knew a lot of very nice people, here in my country, Brazil, and throughout the world. I think this is the biggest reward I received for all this work. It is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

I would like to thank, firstly, God for allowing all this to happen and all people who helped me and the project to become what it is today! Without your help this won't be possible. I'd like to give special thanks to Josh Cooley, who have been doing a great job helping me to organize and give Npgsql the right direction and Hiroshi Saito who is helping us to spread the word of Npgsql in Japan! Dave Page for all his guidance and support. Guys and gals at gborg and pgfoundry who hosted Npgsql. Thank you!

(Note: I will edit this post later to add the name of all developers who helped Npgsql. I will search my mail archives to get your names and make sure I don't forget anyone)

For the future, we will be working on new ado.net 2.0 features and integration with visual studio.net. We will work on better performance and feature completeness. There is a lot of work to do and we will count on community feedback to make it even better! Stay tuned!

Thank you all

Francisco Figueiredo Jr.
Npgsql Lead Developer

Npgsql 1.0RC3 released!

2006-08-20T18:12:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

Npgsql 1.0 RC3 is released!

Download it here

This release fixes some critical bugs with concurrent connection stablishment and "This stream does not support seek operation" error when sending a query. Please, have a look at release notes here for more information about there errors.

We are almost finished with 1.0. We hope to have a 1.0 final really soon so we can get 100% concentration on ado.net 2.0 features.

Critical bugs fixed. RC3 is on the way...

2006-08-10T11:25:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

These past 10 days, Josh Cooley fixed and helped to fix a lot of critical bugs on Npgsql! Here are they:

Josh Cooley fixed a bug when dealing with concurrent connection establishment using Npgsql RC2. When I implemented ConnectionTimeout support for connection establishment, I was incorrectly using an instance variable with a singleton object :(
This was leading to some nasty problems like this.

Here is the relevant stack trace:

Npgsql.NpgsqlException:
Operation not allowed on non-connected sockets.
at Npgsql.NpgsqlClosedState.Open(NpgsqlConnector context)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnector.Open()
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnectorPool.GetNonPooledConnector(NpgsqlConnection Connection)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnectorPool.RequestConnector(NpgsqlConnection Connection)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnection.Open()

Another problem, this time with async notification support, was that Npgsql wasn't handling correctly the notification message sent from server when async notification was off. This was leading to nasty exceptions from Npgsql about "this stream doesn't not support seek operation". More information about this bug can be found here. Josh Cooley had a critical role here as his observations about some details on code while struggling to fix this bug lead us to find the culpirit. Thank you, Josh! This is the root stack trace:

System.NotSupportedException: This stream does not
support seek operations.
at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.Seek(Int64 offset, SeekOrigin origin)
at System.IO.BufferedStream.FlushRead()
at System.IO.BufferedStream.WriteByte(Byte value)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlQuery.WriteToStream(Stream outputStream, Encoding encoding)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlReadyState.Query(NpgsqlConnector context, NpgsqlCommand command)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlConnector.Query(NpgsqlCommand queryCommand)
at Npgsql.NpgsqlCommand.ExecuteCommand()
at Npgsql.NpgsqlCommand.ExecuteNonQuery()

One thing worth noting here is that if you look closer, this exception is caused because BufferedStream, when flusing the stream, calls Seek method! It seems FlushRead() doesn't check if the stream passed can seek or not. This error only happens on ms.net, 1.1 and 2.0.
Mono correctly checks if stream can seek when flushing the stream and doesn't throw the exception.

So, if you are being affected by some of these bugs ( or all of them :) ) and need an urgent fix, please grab a copy of cvs and give it a try. Otherwise, RC3 release is on the way with those fixes.

Sorry for any problem this may have caused to you.

Npgsql 1.0RC2 released!

2006-07-11T23:33:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

after a lot of time, I'm finally writing here again! I had to reinstall my development box. But here are some good news: Npgsql 1.0RC2 is released!! :)

There were a lot of bug fixes and some nice features added this time. Please, have a look at release notes and download it here.

Please, give it a try and let me know of any problems you may have.

I'm back from 7th Forum Internacional de Software Livre

2006-04-23T22:45:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

I'm back from 7th Fórum Internacional de Software Livre em Porto Alegre. It was very good! I attended to a lot of presentations. I also could meet some Mono Brasil friends. I also met Miguel de Icaza there! He took a lot of pictures :)

I'd like to thank all the organization crew for this great event and all people who went there.

Synchronous notification explained

2006-04-13T02:27:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

it seems that my coined feature name "synchronous notification" is confusing everybody. I hope to explain it better now.

Synchronous notification is the name I gave to Npgsql implementation of Listen/Notify support where you (the Npgsql client) receive a notification message "synchronously" or "almost" at same time the notification is sent from server. This contrasts to what Npgsql had before: the client would just receive any notification on next iteration with server as this was when we processed the notification server sent us.

One possible solution for this problem before was the client to keep "polling" the server with empty commands in order to force an interation with server and receive the notification. Now, behind the scenes, Npgsql creates a new thread which keeps polling server for you with Socket.Poll() method while client is idle. This way, as soon as notification arrives in Npgsql socket, it can promptly process notification and deliver it to client with no intervention of client as before. This will help very much client applications which just stays there and wants to receive notifications from server without any modification.

It is disabled by default. You can enable it by specifying SyncNotification=true in your connection string.

I hope this explanation helps clear what is this feature of Npgsql :)

Please, share what you think about this feature and if it is working for you like it should.

Npgsql 1.0RC1 released!

2006-04-09T18:03:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

Npgsql Development Team has just released Npgsql 1.0RC1.

Please, check release notes at usual place: http://pgfoundry.org/frs/shownotes.php?release_id=529

Thanks God for making this possible.
Thanks all who contributed with bug reports and feedback.

You can download binaries and sources from here

Synchronous notification landed in cvs.

2006-03-24T12:20:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

I finally could get synchronous notification done. It is in cvs now.

What is synchronous notification?
Up to now, in order to get notifications from postgresql, Npgsql clients would need to call empty commands. If application didn't do that, only on next NpgsqlCommand.Execute* call notification would be delivered.
Now with synchronous notification, client applications are notified as soon as message arrives, hence the name synchronous notification.

On current code, it is disabled by default. To enable it, you have to put syncnotification=true in your connection string.

How it works?

When you enable synchronous notification, Npgsql will create another thread to check is data arrived in socket. To do that, it uses Socket.Poll method. When Npgsql is idle, this thread is running. It is stopped as soon as any NpgsqlCommand.Execute* method is called and resumed when this call returns.

Side effects:

Because of synchronization of threads, there is performance drop when using synchronous notification. So, if you want max performance, don't use it. Synchronous notification is more valuable on desktop applications where they have more idle cycles and need more "real time" notifications.

Please, give it a try and let me know if you find any problems.

This blog is now subscribed in PlanetPostgresql.org

2006-03-24T12:16:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

Magnus Hagander added this blog to the list of blogs in PlanetPostgresql.org! Thank you very much, Magnus. As I said before, this is a honor to me :)

Synchronous notification is working!!

2006-03-20T00:11:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

I finally got the synchronization problems fixed and now Npgsql supports synchronous notification!

Right now the code is only on my devel machine. I will commit the code to cvs this week. I'm still doing more tests. All tests I did up to now passed ok!

Npgsql synchronous notification status...

2006-03-16T12:37:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

After recovering from my myopia surgery, I started to play with the long ago requested synchronous notification support in Npgsql. With it, you will be able to receive notifications from Postgresql server as soon as they are posted.

Right now it can handle correctly the notifications, but I'm having some problems when sync'ing the notification thread. This notification thread will be checking for notifications from server with Socket.Poll calls.

As soon as I got this sync problem done, I will commit it to cvs. Stay tunned.

Music genoma really exists...

2006-03-11T13:42:00.000-03:00

Well, I think it is around for some time, but just today I had a look at Pandora site.

I have to admit that I started to really believe in music genoma!! It really exists! Each new music Pandora presented to my ears was 90% close to what I like. :) I don't say 100% because there were some bad choices. But for sure this is just a matter of time and fine tunning. I just listened to 8 songs.

Pandora is really an excellent way of getting personal playlists.

If you don't know it yet, give it a try: www.pandora.com

Eu também falo Português do Brasil :)

2006-03-09T11:10:00.000-03:00

Olá pessoal,

Alguns colegas meus me perguntaram porque o meu blog estava todo em inglês. Eu falei para eles que era apenas uma questão de audiência. No entanto o fato de eu escrever em Inglês não impede que os meus amigos deixem comentários em Português. Podem escrever à vontade! :)

Valeu pelo apoio e por me chamar a atenção para esse fato.

Até a próxima!

I see "almost crystal clear" people!

2006-02-06T10:04:00.000-02:00

Hi all,

Today I'm getting back to work. Finally! Myopia surgery seems to went ok. But I'm still seeing some blur and I hope it goes away on next weeks :) Now I will, little by little, start to answer emails and keep updates to Npgsql project which has some bugs and patches pending :)

I'd like to thank God, in first place, for allowing me to be back.
Also, I'd like to thank Dr. Antônio Márcio who did the surgery. And thank you to all my friends and co-workers who gave me a big support on all this.

Myopia surgery

2006-01-22T11:50:00.000-02:00

Hi all,

Tomorrow (2006-01-23) I'll be submitted to a myopia surgery. This means I won't be able to work for a couple of days. I hope to be back online soon :)

Npgsql 1.0beta2 released!

2006-01-09T01:03:00.000-02:00

Hi all,

after some delay, finally I could release Npgsql 1.0beta2.

This release has a lot of bug fixes and features a huge performance improvement, thanks Hubert Fongarnand and Bryan Mayland who sent a lot of optimizations to Npgsql.

Also, on this release, for the first time we release assemblies for .net 2.0, mono and ms implementations.

You can download it from Npgsql homepage

Please, give it a try and let me know if you have any problems with it.

Thanks God for allowing me to make this happen.

Thanks all who helped with patches and feedbacks.