Comparing HTTP and HTTPS URIs

Working with URIs is a regular exercise when we crawl the web. Consequently, comparing HTTP and HTTPS URIs quickly becomes an interesting challenge. Fortunately, .NET has us covered with the Uri.Compare(Uri, Uri, UriComponents, UriFormat, StringComparison) Method

[TestMethod]
public void CompareHttpAndHttpsURIsTest()
{
    var http = new Uri("http://www.microsoft.com");
    var https = new Uri("https://www.microsoft.com");

    var result = Uri.Compare(http,
        https,
        UriComponents.Host | UriComponents.PathAndQuery,
        UriFormat.SafeUnescaped, StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase);

    Assert.IsTrue(result == 0);
}

The next challenge, will probably be around comparing query strings. Because this gets complicated quickly, I’ll leave this one for another time.

Create Predictable GUIDs for your Windows Azure Table Storage Entities

This week I was face with an odd scenario. I needed to track URIs that are store in Windows Azure Table Storage. Since I didn’t want to use the actual URIs as row keys I tried to find a way to create a consistent hash compatible with Windows Azure Table Storage Row & Primary Keys. This is when I came across an answer on Stack Overflow about converting URIs into GUIDs.

The "correct" way (according to RFC 4122 §4.3) is to create a name-based UUID. The advantage of doing this (over just using a MD5 hash) is that these are guaranteed not to collide with non-named-based UUIDs, and have a very (very) small possibility of collision with other name-based UUIDs. [source]

Using the code referenced in this answer I was able to put together an IdentityProvider who’s job is to generate GUIDs based on strings. In my case I use it to create GUIDs based on URIs.

Characteristics of Good REST Services

REST (Representational state transfer) Services play an important role in today’s interconnected systems. By exploiting HTTP, a well-known protocol, they enable applications of all types to easily exploit these service.

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