In one of my previous blogs I wrote about serializing of javascript objects. You can do it with JSON.stringify or Sys.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer.serialize. Both methods work fine… almost. There is a big difference when it comes to datetime objects. MS treats dates a little bit different (like RegEx and much more). Let’s try this one:

var writer = { name: "Ajgi", birthdate: new Date(1934, 8-1, 21) };
var json = JSON.stringify(writer);
var msjson = Sys.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer.serialize(writer);

What happens if we try to parse back msjson with JSON.parse: Well, the date isn’t a valid date anymore. How can we improve it. Rick Strahl gives a solution with custom functions for serializing and deserializing of ms date. But the thing is: we don’t need any custom functions for this, not if you run ASP.NET. The only thing we need is to use serialize and deserialize functions from Sys.Serialization.JavascriptSerializer namespace which you get automatically when you add ScriptManager in ASP.NET (and you get it even automagically in SharePoint). But what about $.ajax and functions I wrote about for retrieving list items and populating them, and updating list items with listdata.svc? Well, there comes the really nice tip from Rick Strahl: not to force $.ajax to parse the response. So instead of dataType: “json”, use the plain dataType: “text”. As the result we’ll get just a text, which we, of course, will deserialize with the native code for Microsoft:…. Use text when possible. When you define json as response format:

SPWebConfigModification. Some links to start with: http://panvega.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/using-spwebconfigmodification-within-a-feature-receiver/ http://www.onedotnetway.com/get-name-of-current-executing-assembly-in-c/ http://blogs.devhorizon.com/reza/?p=459 http://ikarstein.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/add-web-config-modification-with-powershell-spwebconfigmodification/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb861909.aspx

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
	var webapp = parent as SPWebApplication;
	if (webapp != null)
	{
		var mod1 = GetWebControlsConfigMod();
		webapp.WebConfigModifications.Add(mod1);
		var mod2 = GetConStringConfigMod();
		webapp.WebConfigModifications.Add(mod2);
		SaveChanges(webapp);
	}
	else
	{
		Log.Warning("no modifications to webapp are done");
	}
}

public override void FeatureDeactivating(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
	var webapp = parent as SPWebApplication;
	if (webapp != null)
	{
		var mod = GetWebControlsConfigMod();
		var modsCollection = webapp.WebConfigModifications;
		var modToDelete =
			(from m in modsCollection
			 where m.Value.Equals(mod.Value, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)
			 select m).FirstOrDefault();
		if (modToDelete != null)
		{
			modsCollection.Remove(modToDelete);
			SaveChanges(webapp);
		}
	}
}
private static void SaveChanges(SPPersistedObject webapp)
{
	var service = webapp.Farm.Services.GetValue();
	service.ApplyWebConfigModifications();
	webapp.Update();
}

private static SPWebConfigModification GetWebControlsConfigMod()
{
	var assembly = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(WebControls.OfficeEditor));
	var ass = assembly.FullName;
	var @namespace = assembly.GetName().Name + ".WebControls";
	var value = string.Format("", ass,
							  @namespace);
	const string path = "configuration/SharePoint/SafeControls";
	var mod = new SPWebConfigModification
	{
		Path = path,
		Name = "JustaName1",
		Sequence = 0,
		Owner = @namespace,
		Type = SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureChildNode,
		Value = value
	};
	return mod;
}

private static SPWebConfigModification GetConStringConfigMod()
{
	const string name = "ContosoConString";
	const string conString =
		"Data Source=db.contoso.com;Initial Catalog=contoso\_db;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=contoso\_Contributor;Password=contoso";
	var mod = new SPWebConfigModification
	  {
		  Name = "JustaName2",
		  Path = "configuration/connectionStrings",
		  Owner = "contoso\_connectionstrings",
		  Type = SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureChildNode,
		  Value = String.Format("", name, conString)
	  };
	return mod;
}
```Powershell:

#ADDING asnp microsoft.sharepoint.powershell $url = “http://contoso” $app = Get-SPWebApplication $url $name = “ContosoConString”; $conString = “Data Source=db.contoso.com;Initial Catalog=contoso_db;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=contoso_Contributor;Password=contoso”; $mod = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebConfigModification $mod.Name = “JustName2” $mod.Path = “configuration/connectionStrings” $mod.Owner = “User Name” $mod.Type = 0 #for the enum value “SPWebConfigModification.SPWebConfigModificationType.EnsureChildNode” $mod.Value = ‘’ -f $name, $conString $app.WebConfigModifications.Add($mod) $service = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService $service.ApplyWebConfigModifications() $app.Update() #ADDING snapin asnp microsoft.sharepoint.powershell

To get all users from an AD group is very simple:

groupName = "an\_ad\_group";
PrincipalContext ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain);
GroupPrincipal grp = GroupPrincipal.FindByIdentity(ctx, IdentityType.Name, groupName);
var principals = grp.GetMembers(true);
```But what about an OU? There is no OrganizationUnitPrincipal... [Well, there is a solution: to instantiate a context for your OU](http://stackoverflow.com/a/1927476/632117 "See the solution on Stack Overflow"): So if you want to check if a user in a OU:

internal static bool IsUserInOu(string ou, string name) { var domain = “takana.local”; var container = string.Format(“OU={0}, DC=takana, DC=local”, ou); var ctx = new PrincipalContext(ContextType.Domain, domain, container); var up = new UserPrincipal(ctx); var ps = new PrincipalSearcher(up);

Want to add some tabs and new lines to your output in Powershell. Well, it works like \n and \t. But there is a little different syntax: `t and `n. Just a tip. An alternative way to add new line is to use [Environment]::NewLine:

$nl = \[Environment\]::NewLine
$var = "hej" + $nl
Write $var

Just include it in your script or function:

if(-not(Get-PSSnapin | 
   Where { $_.Name -eq "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"})) { 
   Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell}

By the way, I found it in PowerShell for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administrators by Niklas Goude and Mattias Karlsson. Powershell for Sharepoint Administrators. UPDATE: I found a better way to check a variable for null: Thomas Maurer. Powershell: check variable for null. It is like in javascript, just put it in the if-statement to test if it exists or not:

There is a question in Stackoverflow and this one, too. There is a fine solution for jQuery. The only thing we need is window.location.search. Say we have http://domain.com?q=hello&a=good#home, then it takes only ?q=hello&a=good, and leaves #home and the main url. Anchors can be retrieved with hash. Here are all properties of window.location: Google Chrome provides a fine function: window.location.getParameter: I like the name of this function. So why not to use it or create this one if a browser doesn’t have it? Well here we go:

There are many ways to reload / refresh a page in javascript. One of them is as in discoveringsharepoint.wordpress.com describes:

window.location.reload()
```Today I found some tools which are shipped with ASP.NET/SharePoint to reload a page. The big advantage of them they are designed to work with SharePoint and take all possible aspects of page life cycle into account. The javascript function to refresh a page is just called, guess..: **RefreshPage** and it resides in init.js:

//init.js: function RefreshPageTo(evt, url, bForceSubmit) {ULSA13:; CoreInvoke(’_RefreshPageTo’, evt, url, bForceSubmit); }

Want to run some javascript code everywhere, but not in a modal dialog. Because errors are occured, or this code is unnecessary i dialogs. Well here is a solution I have found after some experiments:

$(document).ready(function() {
  if (!window.location.href.match(/isdlg=1/i)) {
    onDocumentReadyExceptItIsInDialog();
  }
});

function onDocumentReadyExceptItIsInDialog() {}
```This code checks with Regular Expressions if the url of the parent window contains IsDlg=1, if so nothing happens. In the usual case (not inside a dialog), the javascript code runs. EDIT: after I wrote this I actually found that this is the way SharePoint itself does: [![](https://sharepointkunskap.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/isdlg.png "isdlg")](https://sharepointkunskap.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/isdlg.png) So now I update the previous function to this:

$(document).ready(function() { if (window.location.search.match(/[?&]isdlg=1/i)) { return; } onDocumentReadyExceptItIsInDialog(); });

What is better and where and when… I’ll try to find out.. This post will be updated soon. Take a look at this so far: http://sharepoint.stackexchange.com/questions/23209/sharepoint-2010-javascript-client-object-model-cross-site-collections

sprintf is actually the best javascript implementation of sprintf (string.format). But wait, shouldn’t it be some more .NET-like stuff in SharePoint environment? Indeed there is! (Well, not only in SP, but ASP.NET) String.format(“Hello {0}”, “world”) does exactly the same thing as on server side. Wow, it opens for many opportunities, e.g. in jQuery tmpl: String.format validates arguments, and if all is OK, it invokes another function String._toFormattedString:

function String$_toFormattedString(useLocale, args) {
    var result = '';
    var format = args\[0\];
    for (var i=0;;) {
        var open = format.indexOf('{', i);
        var close = format.indexOf('}', i);
        if ((open < 0) && (close < 0)) {             
            result += format.slice(i);
            break;
        }
        if ((close > 0) && ((close < open) || (open < 0))) {
            if (format.charAt(close + 1) !== '}') {
                throw Error.argument('format', Sys.Res.stringFormatBraceMismatch);
            }
            result += format.slice(i, close + 1);
            i = close + 2;
            continue;
        }
        result += format.slice(i, open);
        i = open + 1;
        if (format.charAt(i) === '{') {
            result += '{';
            i++;
            continue;
        }
        if (close < 0) throw Error.argument('format', Sys.Res.stringFormatBraceMismatch);
        var brace = format.substring(i, close);
        var colonIndex = brace.indexOf(':');
        var argNumber = parseInt((colonIndex < 0)? brace : brace.substring(0, colonIndex), 10) + 1;
        if (isNaN(argNumber)) throw Error.argument('format', Sys.Res.stringFormatInvalid);
        var argFormat = (colonIndex < 0)? '' : brace.substring(colonIndex + 1);
        var arg = args\[argNumber\];
        if (typeof(arg) === "undefined" || arg === null) {
            arg = '';
        }
        if (arg.toFormattedString) {
            result += arg.toFormattedString(argFormat);
        }
        else if (useLocale && arg.localeFormat) {
            result += arg.localeFormat(argFormat);
        }
        else if (arg.format) {
            result += arg.format(argFormat);
        }
        else
            result += arg.toString();
        i = close + 1;
    }
    return result;
}

By the way, take a look at summary part of String.format: