Brad Wilson

find-to-set-alias.ps1

Inspired by Harry's post, I made an expanded version of find-to-set-alias suitable to putting into a script (.ps1) file, which includes warnings and diagnostic information, with an optional -quiet switch (more useful for your profile to automatically find and alias things, when you expect that they might not be there).

Source: find-to-set-alias.ps1

param(
  $foldersearch = $(throw "foldersearch required"),
  $filename = $(throw "filename required"),
  $alias = $(throw "alias required"),
  [switch]$quiet
)

if ((test-path $foldersearch) -eq $false) {
  if ($quiet -eq $false) { write-warning ("Could not find any paths to match " + $foldersearch) }
  exit
}

# If the user specified a wildcard, turn the foldersearch into an array of matching items
# We don't always want to do this, because specifying a non-wildcard directory gives false positives

if ($foldersearch.contains('*') -or $foldersearch.contains('?')) {
  $foldersearch = Get-ChildItem $foldersearch -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}

$files = @($foldersearch | %{ Get-ChildItem $_ -Recurse -Filter $filename -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue })

if ($files -eq $null) {
  if ($quiet -eq $false) {
    write-warning ("Could not find " + $filename + " in searched paths:")
    $foldersearch | %{ write-warning (" " + $_) }
  }
  exit
}

set-alias $alias $files[0].FullName -scope Global

if ($quiet -eq $false) {
  write-host ("Added alias " + $alias + " for " + $files[0].FullName)
  if ($files.count -gt 1) {
    write-warning ("There were " + $files.count + " matches:")
    $files | %{ write-warning (" " + $_.FullName) }
  }
}

Profiling SQL Server Express User Instances

If you use ASP.NET's App_Data directory, chances are good you're using SQL Server Express and the User Instances feature. When you try to profile the default instance (usually ".\SQLEXPRESS"), you'll discover that your user instance databases don't show up in the database list and cannot be profiled. The reason is because user instance databases get their own instance of SQL Server.

To profile a user instance, you need to discover what the named pipe of the connection is. You can find it by running a query against the default instance:

SELECT owning_principal_name,instance_pipe_name FROM sys.dm_os_child_instances

The result will be something like this:

owning_principal_name  instance_pipe_name
---------------------  ------------------------------------
REDMOND\bradwils       \\.\pipe\FACC73E6-E724-44\tsql\query

(1 row(s) affected)

Locate the user in question (if you're running in the Web Server built into Visual Studio, it will be your local user account; if you're running inside of IIS, it will be whatever user you have the app pool configured to run as). Copy the instance_pipe_name value and use that as your server name for SQL Profiler:

Once you're connected, you will be able to trace the SQL for your user instance databases.

Note: You can also use that same "server name" with SQL Server Management Studio if you need to perform ad-hoc SQL queries against the user instance.

Music of 2008

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