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Installing and Using Glimpse
5:14To audit Entity Framework queries, let's install a tool called Glimpse.
To audit EF queries, we'll install and
use a tool called Glimpse.
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Once installed, Glimpse will give us the
ability to easily inspect web requests,
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including the EF queries
that are executed.
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To install Glimpse,
we use the NuGet Package Manager.
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Select the Browse tab and
search for Glimpse.
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Glimpse is the main base package, so
we'll start with installing that.
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When the Glimpse package is finished
installing, it'll open a Readme file that
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contains information on how to
get started with using Glimpse.
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To get the most out of using
Glimpse with our web app,
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we'll install two additional
Glimpse packages.
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The Glimpse EF6 package, for auditing
Entity Framework queries and commands, and
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the Glimpse Mvc5 package, for auditing
events related to the MVC web framework.
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Since the Glimpse EF6 package
is right here in this list,
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let's start with installing that.
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Then, search for Glimpse.mvc, and
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install the Glimpse.Mvc5 package.
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Every time that you install
a Glimpse related package,
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the installer will inspect your Glimpse
packages, and update the Readme file to
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let you know if any are out of date,
and need to be updated.
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Looks like there's an update for
the Glimpse.AspNet package.
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Let's select the Updates tab,
and update the package.
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Now that we have all of the necessary
packages installed, we can run our
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application and configure Glimpse by
browsing to the path glimpse.axd.
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Glimpse.axd looks like it'd be
a file in our project, but it's not,
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it's a special path that maps
to the Glimpse HTTP handler.
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In the Web.config file that's
located in the root of our project,
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we can see the HTTP handler
configuration that was added
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when we installed
the Glimpse NuGet package.
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The way that ASP.NET handles processing
requests can be customized through the use
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of custom HTTP handlers or modules,
Glimpse makes use of both.
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For more information about HTTP handlers
and modules, see the teacher's notes.
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To enable Glimpse, we simply click
the large Turn Glimpse On button.
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Once the page is reloaded,
we can see here on the right,
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in this green box,
that the Glimpse cookie is set to on.
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An HTTP cookie is a little piece of data
that the browser sends to the web server
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on every request.
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Glimpse uses a cookie to
determine when it's enabled.
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For more information on cookies,
see the teacher's notes.
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Now that we've enabled Glimpse,
we can remove glimpse.axd from our path,
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to return to our web app's home page.
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And here's our home page, but
notice here in the lower-right,
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we now have the glimpse Heads-Up Display,
or HUD, being displayed.
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The glimpse HUD will give us some
basic information about our request,
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how long the request took to
complete in milliseconds.
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And a breakdown of how much time that was
spent communicating between the client and
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the server, processing on the server,
and processing on the client.
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We can also see a breakdown of
the server processing time,
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how much spent in the action method,
and rendering the view.
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We can also see which controller and
action was called, and
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just to right of that, how many database
queries were ran, and how long they took.
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We can hover over each section to get a
quick look at some additional information.
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Here's a closer look at the HTTP section,
And the Host section.
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Clicking on the g in the lower right-hand
corner opens up the full Glimpse panel.
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Glimpse gives you detailed
information about the request.
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For now, let's select the SQL tab,
and take a look at
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the information that Glimpse provides
about EF queries and commands.
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We can see that a single
query was executed, and
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how long it took to complete, and
the SQL that EF generated for the query.
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Let's look at another example by
browsing to the ADD COMIC BOOK page.
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Now, we can see that 3 queries were
executed, and the total execution time.
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Then, below that,
we can see the SQL for each query, and
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how long each took to execute.
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Glimpse is a powerful, easy-to-use tool
that can help you to not only understand
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how a request is being processed,
but how each part is performing.
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We'll continue to use Glimpse
throughout the rest of this workshop,
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as we take a closer look at some
common EF query performance issues.
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