Latest News from James McCaffrey

String Combinatorics with Visual Basic.NET

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:00:00 EDT

Sooner or later you'll probably find it useful to be able to create and manipulate combinations programmatically. By far the most useful kinds of combinations are string combinations. A string combination of order (n, k) is a subset of k strings chosen from a set of n strings, where order doesn't matter.

Cover Story: Understanding Base64 Encoding

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 09:00:00 EST

If you work in a .NET environment you have probably come across Base64 encoded data. For example, Base64 encoding is used in ASP.NET for a Web application's ViewState value, as shown in Figure 1. Base64 encoding is also used to transmit binary data over e-mail. However, if you are like most of my colleagues (and me until recently) you do not have a thorough understanding of precisely what Base64 encoding is and when Base64 encoding should be used. In the this article I will explain exactly what Base64 encoding is, show you how to use the two primary .NET Framework methods that support Base64 encoding and decoding, and present a lightweight, custom C# implementation of Base64 encoding and decoding methods. This article assumes you are a .NET developer, tester, or manager and have intermediate level C# coding skill. After reading the article you'll have a solid grasp of Base64 encoding as well as the ability to write your own custom encoding methods. I think you'll find the ability to use Base64 encoded data is a valuable addition to your skill set.

Programmatically Posting Data to ASP .NET Web Applications

Mon, 07 Jun 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Programmatically posting data to a traditional ASP page is an extremely useful and well-known technique. However, I recently discovered that posting data to an ASP .NET Web application from another program is not well understood and requires several new programming tricks.