This post shows how to import and export .xls or .xlsx (Excel files) in ASP.NET Core. And when thinking about dealing with excel with .NET, we always look for third-party libraries or component. And one of the most popular .net library that reads and writes Excel 2007/2010 files using the Open Office Xml format (xlsx) is EPPlus. However, at the time of writing this post, this library is not updated to support .NET Core. But there exists an unofficial version of this library EPPlus.Core which can do the job of import and export xlsx in ASP.NET Core. This works on Windows, Linux and Mac. 

The gist of the story goes as follow:

1. The most popular languages are JavaScript/TypeScript and Python with roughly 20% of all pull requests each. In effect, if you put JavaScript/TypeScript and Python together, you get about 40% of all pull requests.
2. Then you get the second tier languages: Java and Scala, C/C++, and Go. They all are in the 10% to 15% range.
3. Finally, you have PHP, Ruby and C# that all manage to get about 5% of all pull requests.
4. Other languages are typically far below 5%. 

CREATE SEARCH PROPERTY LIST WordSearchPropertyList;
GO

ALTER SEARCH PROPERTY LIST WordSearchPropertyList
   ADD 'Authors'
   WITH (PROPERTY_SET_GUID = 'F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9',
             PROPERTY_INT_ID = 4,
             PROPERTY_DESCRIPTION = 'System.Authors - authors of a given item.');
GO

 -- Check the Stopwords list
SELECT w.stoplist_id,
   l.name,
   w.stopword,
   w.language
FROM sys.fulltext_stopwords AS w
   INNER JOIN sys.fulltext_stoplists AS l
     ON w.stoplist_id = l.stoplist_id;

 -- Stopwords list
CREATE FULLTEXT STOPLIST SQLStopList;
GO

-- Add a stopword
ALTER FULLTEXT STOPLIST SQLStopList
 ADD 'SQL' LANGUAGE 'English';
GO

 create fulltext catalog catalog_name
on filegroup filegroup_name
in path  'rootpath'
with some_options
as default
authoriztion owner_name
accent_sensivity = {on|off}

 -- Full-text catalog
CREATE FULLTEXT CATALOG DocumentsFtCatalog;
GO

-- Full-text index
CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.Documents
(
  docexcerpt Language 1033,
  doccontent TYPE COLUMN doctype
  Language 1033
  STATISTICAL_SEMANTICS
)
KEY INDEX PK_Documents
ON DocumentsFtCatalog
WITH STOPLIST = SQLStopList,
  SEARCH PROPERTY LIST = WordSearchPropertyList,
  CHANGE_TRACKING AUTO;
GO

 CREATE TABLE dbo.Documents
(
  id INT IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
  doctype NCHAR(4) NOT NULL,
  docexcerpt NVARCHAR(1000) NOT NULL,
  doccontent VARBINARY(MAX) NOT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT PK_Documents
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED(id)
);

-- Insert data
-- First row
INSERT INTO dbo.Documents
(title, doctype, docexcerpt, doccontent)
SELECT N'Columnstore Indices and Batch Processing', 
 N'docx',
 N'You should use a columnstore index on your fact tables,
   putting all columns of a fact table in a columnstore index. 
   In addition to fact tables, very large dimensions could benefit 
   from columnstore indices as well. 
   Do not use columnstore indices for small dimensions. ',
 bulkcolumn
FROM OPENROWSET
 (BULK 'C:\Users\Vahid\Desktop\Updates\fts_docs\ColumnstoreIndicesAndBatchProcessing.docx', 
  SINGLE_BLOB) AS doc;

-- Second row
INSERT INTO dbo.Documents
(title, doctype, docexcerpt, doccontent)
SELECT N'Introduction to Data Mining', 
 N'docx',
 N'Using Data Mining is becoming more a necessity for every company 
   and not an advantage of some rare companies anymore. ',
 bulkcolumn
FROM OPENROWSET
 (BULK 'C:\Users\Vahid\Desktop\Updates\fts_docs\IntroductionToDataMining.docx', 
  SINGLE_BLOB) AS doc;

-- Third row
INSERT INTO dbo.Documents
(title, doctype, docexcerpt, doccontent)
SELECT N'Why Is Bleeding Edge a Different Conference', 
 N'docx',
 N'During high level presentations attendees encounter many questions. 
   For the third year, we are continuing with the breakfast Q&A session. 
   It is very popular, and for two years now, 
   we could not accommodate enough time for all questions and discussions! ',
 bulkcolumn
FROM OPENROWSET
 (BULK 'C:\Users\Vahid\Desktop\Updates\fts_docs\WhyIsBleedingEdgeADifferentConference.docx', 
  SINGLE_BLOB) AS doc;

-- Fourth row
INSERT INTO dbo.Documents
(title, doctype, docexcerpt, doccontent)
SELECT N'Additivity of Measures', 
 N'docx',
 N'Additivity of measures is not exactly a data warehouse design problem. 
   However, you have to realize which aggregate functions you will use 
   in reports for which measure, and which aggregate functions 
   you will use when aggregating over which dimension.',
 bulkcolumn
FROM OPENROWSET
 (BULK 'C:\Users\Vahid\Desktop\Updates\fts_docs\AdditivityOfMeasures.docx', 
  SINGLE_BLOB) AS doc;
GO

 -- Search property list
CREATE SEARCH PROPERTY LIST WordSearchPropertyList;
GO
ALTER SEARCH PROPERTY LIST WordSearchPropertyList
 ADD 'Authors'
 WITH (PROPERTY_SET_GUID = 'F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9',
PROPERTY_INT_ID = 4,
PROPERTY_DESCRIPTION = 'System.Authors - authors of a given item.');
GO

 -- Stopwords list
CREATE FULLTEXT STOPLIST SQLStopList;
GO
-- Add a stopword
ALTER FULLTEXT STOPLIST SQLStopList
 ADD 'SQL' LANGUAGE 'English';
GO

 -- Full-text catalog
CREATE FULLTEXT CATALOG DocumentsFtCatalog;
GO

 -- Full-text index
CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX ON dbo.Documents
(
  docexcerpt Language 1033,
  doccontent TYPE COLUMN doctype
  Language 1033
  STATISTICAL_SEMANTICS
)
KEY INDEX PK_Documents
ON DocumentsFtCatalog
WITH STOPLIST = SQLStopList,
  SEARCH PROPERTY LIST = WordSearchPropertyList,
  CHANGE_TRACKING AUTO;
GO

REST has brought us into a better position since the days of sharing XML contracts through SOAP. It is a good standard and brought us a long way, but what it makes easy to understand and consume can also be a problem. 

.NET August updates

The following table includes release notes and binaries for the updates.

IKVM.NET includes the following components:

• A Java virtual machine (JVM) implemented in .NET
• A .NET implementation of the Java class libraries
• A tool that translates Java bytecode (JAR files) to .NET IL (DLLs or EXE files).
• Tools that enable Java and .NET interoperability 

Today, the Entity Framework Core team announces the sixth preview release of EF Core 5.0. This release includes split queries for related collections, a new “index” attribute, improved exceptions related to query translations, IP address mapping, exposing transaction id for correlation, and much more. 

With .NET Standard 2.0, we’re focusing on compatibility. In order to support .NET Standard 2.0 in .NET Core and UWP, we’ll be extending these platforms to include many more of the existing APIs. This also includes a compatibility shim that allows referencing binaries that were compiled against the .NET Framework. 

ASP.NET 5 beta7 is now available both on NuGet and as a tooling update to Visual Studio 2015! This release also includes the first public preview of the .NET Execution Environment (DNX) for Mac and Linux based on .NET Core – no Mono required.

Today is the official GA release for .NET 5, and along with it we are excited to share the latest updates with our recent release of C#/WinRT version 1.0. C#/WinRT provides WinRT projection support for .NET 5 based apps. The Windows SDK leverages this technology and is now integrated with the .NET 5.0 SDK to expose Windows APIs through the new Target Framework Monikers. In addition to the Windows SDK support added for .NET 5, C#/WinRT itself allows component authors to build their own .NET 5 projections using the CsWinRT NuGet package.