Getting started with Blinq

phuff — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 20:46:10 GMT

Blinq is a command-line tool located at \Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\Blinq\Blinq.exe. To start using Blinq, click Start, Run, and type "cmd" into the box. Then type

cd "\Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\Blinq"

(Note, if you're on a 64-bit machine, Blinq will install into the Program Files(x86) directory instead of Program Files.)

You can now run Blinq from the command prompt. Use the /t: option to point to your target Web site directory, and use the /database, /server, /user, and /password options to connect to your database. A typical Blinq command might look like this:

Blinq /t:c:\MySite /database:MyDatabase /vDir:MySite

A complete list of Blinq's command line options is below, or available using the /help option.

Argument	Description
/t:TargetPath	(Required) Specifies a full or relative path to the directory where the Web site will be created. Note Blinq will request confirmation to delete the contents of the target directory.
/database:name /databasefile:name	(Required) Specifies the name of the SQL Server database Blinq will use to create the Web site. Database refers to the internal name of a SQL database. Databasefile refers to an .mdf file used with SQL Server Express.
/server:name	(Optional) Specifies the name of the SQL Server instance that contains the specified database. If no server is specified, Blinq uses "(local)" if you have specified a database name, or ".\SQLExpress" if you have specified a database file.
/user:name	(Optional) Specifies the user name used to log into SQL Server. If user is not specified, Integrated Security (Windows Authentication) is used. The user name and password are stored in the <connectionStrings> section of the Web.config file generated by the tool. This value is not encrypted in the Web.config file.
/password:name	(Optional) Specifies the password used to log into SQL Server. The user name and password are stored in the <connectionStrings> section of the Web.config file generated by the tool. This value is not encrypted in the Web.config file.
/f	(Optional) Specifies that Blinq will delete all files in the target directory specified by the /t argument without prompting for confirmation.
/l:language	(Optional) Specifies the programming language of the code files generated by Blinq. Possible values are cs for C# and vb for Visual Basic. The default is C#.
/namespace:name	(Optional) Specifies the namespace for generated classes. The default is empty, which specifies that no namespace is generated.
/pageDataSource	(Optional) Specifies that generated Web pages should use a PageDataSource control instead of an ObjectDataSource control. PageDataSource is a new data source control which invokes methods on the ASP.NET page rather than on a business object. Data access methods will be generated in each page’s code file rather than as static methods in a class file in the App_Code directory.
/noStyle	(Optional) Specifies that the default theme and master page layout should not be used to create the Web site. Pages will have no style assigned and no theme files will be generated.
/sprocs	(Optional) Specifies that the object relational mapping of the database should include the database’s stored procedures as methods in the DataContext class. Note The stored procedures will not be called by any of the generated pages. If you wish to call these stored procedures, you will need to add or change code to call the DataContext object’s stored procedure methods.
/vDir:name	(Optional) Specifies that Blinq should create an IIS virtual directory with the specified name and start the application in a Web browser when Web page generation is complete.
/? or /help	(Optional) Displays help for Blinq.

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Getting started with Blinq