Here's a PowerShell script that removes empty folders recursively: $rootFolder = 'C:\Temp' Get-ChildItem $rootFolder -Recurse -Directory -Force | Sort-Object -Property FullName -Descending | Where-Object { $($_ | Get-ChildItem -Force | Select-Object -First 1).Count -eq 0 } | Remove-Item The logic is following: Get all directories recursively, use -Force to get hidden folders Sort them in descending order… [read more]

There is no self-closing tag in html! This statement seems wrong as you may have seen self-closing tags in html, such as <img src="foo.jpg" /> (with /> at the end). However, this is not a concept in html. Let me explain. While HTML looks similar to a permissive XML, it's not XML. As an example, you don't need to open or close all tags. For instance, you can omit the closing tag for some elements such as… [read more]

PowerShell doesn't provide a built-in way to use a natural sort. However, you can use the Sort-Object cmdlet with a custom script block to achieve a natural sort. In this post, I describe how you can use a natural sort in PowerShell. What is a natural sort? A natural sort is a sorting algorithm that orders strings in a way that is more human-friendly. For example, a natural sort of the following strings:… [read more]

Symbolic link allows to create a link to a file or directory. The symbolic link is a second file that exists independently of its target. If a symbolic link is deleted, its target remains unaffected. If the target is deleted, the symbolic link is not automatically removed. This is different from hard links which always refer to an existing file. Windows allows creation of symbolic links since Windows… [read more]

This post is just me sharing a snippet of code where I'm glad C# has list pattern matching 🙂 You can see how concise the code is! Also, you can see the SplitAny method introduced in .NET 9 in action with the SearchValues<char>. This snippet is a simple version matcher that checks if a version satisfies a constraint. The constraint is a string that can contain multiple constraints separated by , or ;.… [read more]

Stating with C# 9.0, you can use the static modifier on lambda functions. For instance, you can write the following code: enumerable.Select(static x => x * 2); When you use the static modifier on a lambda function, the compilers ensures that there is no capture of variables from the enclosing scope. This allows the compiler to generate better code. Indeed, it can cache the lambda function and reuse it… [read more]

There are multiple ways to iterate on a ConcurrentDictionary<TKey, TValue> in .NET. You can use the foreach loop, or the Keys and Values properties. Both methods provide different results, and you should choose the one that best fits your needs. Using the foreach loop The foreach loop lazily iterates over the key-value pairs in the ConcurrentDictionary. This means that the loop will only fetch the next… [read more]

To improve the UX, it can be useful to listen to clipboard changes. For instance, you can fill a 2FA code in a text box when the user copies it to the clipboard. This can be done using the AddClipboardFormatListener function. Here is a simple example of how to listen to clipboard changes in a WPF application: First, you need to add the Microsoft.Windows.CsWin32 package to your project. This package… [read more]

The default keyword is a powerful tool in C#. For reference types, it returns null, and for value types (structs), it returns a zeroed-out value. Interestingly, default(T) and new T() can yield different results for structs (check out for more info). Initially, C# required default(T), but now you can simply use default when the type can be inferred by the compiler. But how does the compiler infer the… [read more]

Entity Framework Core allows to update the database schema using migrations. The migrations are created manually by running a CLI command. It's easy to forget to create a new migration when you change the model. To ensure the migrations are up-to-date, you can write a test that compares the current model with the snapshot model: [Fact] public async Task EnsureMigrationsAreUpToDate() { await using var… [read more]