MZ-Tools Articles Series

MZ-Tools Articles Series: BUG: ProjectItem.Collection returns a wrong collection for folders of SQL Projects of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals

2 Comments

While adding support for SQL Server database projects of VS Team Edition for Database Professionals in my MZ-Tools add-in, I found a nasty bug in the implementation of the ProjectItem.Collection property when the item is a folder:

BUG: ProjectItem.Collection returns a wrong collection for folders of SQL Projects of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals
http://www.mztools.com/articles/2007/MZ2007031.aspx

I reported it to Microsoft through Microsoft Connect but they closed it without even acknowledging the bug:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=295434

I used Reflector for .NET to examine the internals of the package and I discovered the code that is wrong, so I opened a new one with a more detailed explanation:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=296758

Fortunately once you know the internals of the class that is wrong you can use Reflection to make the correct calls and get the expected result, so the next build of MZ-Tools will support database projects, but I hate when I spend time reporting a bug that will not be fixed or even acknowledged. BTW, they introduced a new bug in VS 2008 that did not exist in VS 2005:

EditPoint.FindPattern causes InvalidCastException on SQL editor of VSTS for DB Professional projects
http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=295427

I wish they fix that one…

2 thoughts on “MZ-Tools Articles Series: BUG: ProjectItem.Collection returns a wrong collection for folders of SQL Projects of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals”

  1. Thank you, Carlos!

    That would be really nice to see a new article on your great resource with some tips about how to work around the bug using reflection. Are you going to share it with us?

  2. Yep. the workaround is:

    If CType(objProjectItem, Object).GetType.Name.EndsWith(“OAFolderItem”) Then
    objParent = GetDatabaseProjectItemParent(objProjectItem)
    Else
    objParent = objProjectItem.Collection.Parent()
    End If

    Function GetDatabaseProjectItemParent(ByVal objProjectItem As ProjectItem) As Object

    Dim objResult As Object = Nothing
    Dim objProjectItemObject As Object
    Dim objProjectItemType As Type
    Dim objPropertyInfo As System.Reflection.PropertyInfo
    Dim objNodeValue As Object
    Dim objNodeType As Type
    Dim objParentValue As Object
    Dim objParentType As Type
    Dim objMethodInfo As System.Reflection.MethodInfo

    objProjectItemObject = CType(objProjectItem, Object)

    objProjectItemType = objProjectItemObject.GetType.BaseType
    objPropertyInfo = objProjectItemType.GetProperty(“Node”, Reflection.BindingFlags.Instance Or Reflection.BindingFlags.NonPublic)
    objNodeValue = objPropertyInfo.GetValue(objProjectItemObject, Nothing)

    objNodeType = objNodeValue.GetType
    objPropertyInfo = objNodeType.GetProperty(“Parent”)
    objParentValue = objPropertyInfo.GetValue(objNodeValue, Nothing)

    objParentType = objParentValue.GetType
    objMethodInfo = objParentType.GetMethod(“GetAutomationObject”)
    objResult = objMethodInfo.Invoke(objParentValue, Nothing)

    Return objResult

    End Function

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