Yesterday I decided to modify a utlity I wrote to assist with copying Banner permissions from one user to another.  I decided to add a list of the actual classes and objects that the destination user would receive as a result of the copy.   This was a fairly easy modification, but as usual, I found myself spending most of my time on the easiest part of the project.  

I naively assumed that C# would have some automagic way of display columns.  While there may be a more official way to do it, nothing seemed to fit my scenario perfectly.   

The average user has between 15 and 30 classes, but some have much more.  I wanted to shorten the length, page wise, of the output.  This was for purpose of readability.  As I’m looping through a query result, my initial code looked something like this:

while (reader.Read())
{
    Console.WriteLine(reader[0].ToString());
}

I spent a good amount of time trying to use String.Format and things like it to try to turn this one column of output into two columns. The result? No success. Finally, I realized I was spending all my time trying to come up with the proper way to do something when there was most likely an easy, functional way to do this. I finally arrived at the following code:

int n = 0;
while (reader.Read())
{
    if (n % 2 == 0)
    {
        Console.Write(reader[0].ToString().PadRight(30));
    }
    else
    {
        Console.WriteLine(reader[0].ToString().PadRight(30));
    }
    n++;
}

The counter allows us to do an “every other time” operation by relying on whether or not the number is even or odd. Console.Write, as you should know, doesn’t append a return carriage, Console.WriteLine does.

PadRight(30) simply ensures that the output for each is a constant length. This prevents the “columns” from being misaligned.

There may be other, better ways to accomplish this. (And I welcome you to share them!) If you are dealing with a large amount of data and numerous columns, this is probably NOT the best approach. But if you’re looking for a functional, easy to implement means to an end, this may assist you.

Note: I’m perfectly aware that what I wrote was not actually a virus. Virus definitions define it various ways ranging from a trojan to “potentially unwanted software”. In the purest sense it wasn’t a virus, trojan, worm, or any other derivative–which is fine by me. It wasn’t my intention to write a virus in the first place.

Every so often and a few of my close friends love to casually mention that I “wrote a virus”. This is usually in front of a cute girl or a large group of people who I don’t know very well.

This invariably leaves me in the position of either a) letting the remarks stand umodified, or b) qualifying the story with the facts. I usually choose b. A story like this might not be the key to a ladies heart (or anyone else’s for that matter), but I guess I get points for being unique.

It’s been a long time since these things happened so a lot of the details are hazy. I don’t think about it often and when I do think about it, it seems like it happened in another lifetime. Because of all of this, I’m going to write all of the details down to assist my memory, and possibly entertain you with the antics of a 19 year old with too much time and too little social life. Read More…