The typical way to handle a button press in GTK is:
g_signal_connect(GTK_BUTTON(myButton), "pressed", G_CALLBACK(myButtonHandler), NULL);
However, I find it bad, slow, and unnecessary to use strings (such as "pressed") for internal identification. If I can find the numerical signal ID that corrosponds to this, I can skip the parsing step. But how do I connect an event by ID rather than string name? I did a lot of digging and found this, and I also learned that g_signal_connect is a macro that expands to g_signal_connect_data, but none of these quite solve my problem.
Is this possible, if so, how do I do this?
You can use g_signal_connect_closure_by_id() but then you have to create a GClosure structure to hold your callback and callback data.
I would really recommend against this, as it will add boilerplate to your code for little benefit. You generally only connect signals once. If you are connecting a signal in a tight loop, then you are probably doing something wrong, or you have a very unusual use case. Anyway, signal names are actually interned, which means that you are not even incurring the cost of string comparisons; only the cost of splitting the string at : if the signal has a detail annotation. Don't bother with optimizing this unless it is actually showing up as a bottleneck on your profiler graphs.
Related
I've been drawing a sequence diagram of a module recently, while reverse engineering.
I encountered a control statement, and it is like,
if (func_A() == True)
{
DoSomeThing();
}
else
{
DoSomeThingElse();
}
The problem is how to draw the condition?
As I mentioned, It is reverse engineering. The code cannot be modified now.
I drew two diagrams, and I don't know which way is right,
The first one is this, I think it's wrong because it doesn't show the function call as a message from A to B.
This is the second, It shows a message func_A.
What do you think about to do this right?
To complete the other answer there is anyway a problem in the second proposal because we do not know if in [func_A() == True] you reuse the value return by the previous call or you do a second call, to avoid that add the explicit return in your diagram :
Out of that do you know the activities ? A sequence diagram is "just" an interaction while an activity is a behavior and can be more adapted :
It depends. If func_A is an operation defined in Object2 the second representation would be correct. The first does not tell where the operation is defined. Most likely (!) one would interpret func_A as an operation local to ObjectA which your code seems to say. (Btw. you have two completely different object sets AB vs. 12 in your examples.) But that is uncertain. So the 2nd variant is more explicit (and correct).
In any case I advise to not overdo SDs with fragments as "graphical programming" doesn't make things easier to read (my practical experience). It's excellent to show message flows in various collaborations. But when it comes to conditions it's getting messy very soon. A better way is to create different sub-diagrams or even use pseudo code if there are too nested if conditions. In many cases such if clauses are a good fit for state machines.
My program answers on incoming messages and do some logic based on ID`s and data included in messages.
I have a different function for each ID.
The project is pure C.
To make the code easy to work with I have adjusted all functions to the same style (same return and parameters).
I also want to evade the long switch-case constructions and make code easier to edit later, so I have created the following function:
AnswerStruct IDHandler(Request Message)
{
struct AnswerStruct ANS;
SIDHandler = IDfunctions[Message.ID];
ANS = SIDHandler(Message);
return ANS;
}
AnswerStruct is struct for answer messages.
Request is struct for incoming messages.
IDfunctions is array of pointers to functions which looks like this -
AnswerStruct func1(Request);
AnswerStruct func4(Request);
...
typedef AnswerStruct(*f)(Request);
AnswerStruct (*SIDHandler)(Request);
static f IDfunctions[IDMax] = {0, *func1, 0, 0, *func4, ...};
Function pointers placed in the array cells equal to their id`s, for example:
func1 related to message with ID=1.
func4 related to message with ID=4.
I think, that by using this array I make my life much easier.
I can call function which I need in one step (just go to the IDfunctions[ID]).
Also, adding new functions becomes a two step operation (just add function to the IDfunctions and write logic).
I doubt the efficiency of the selected solution, it seems clunky to me.
The question is - Is this a good architecture?
If no, how can I edit my solution to make it better?
Thanks.
I doubt the efficiency of the selected solution, it seems clunky to
me.
It can be less efficient to call a function via a function pointer than to call it directly by name, because the former denies the compiler any opportunity to optimize the call. But you have to consider whether that actually matters. In a system that dispatches function calls based on messages received from an external source, the I/O involved in receiving the messages is likely to be much more expensive than the indirect function calls, so the difference in call performance is unlikely to be significant.
On the other hand, your approach affords simpler logic and many fewer lines of code, which is a different and potentially more valuable kind of efficiency.
The question is - Is this a good architecture?
The general approach is perfectly good, and I don't see much to complain about in the implementation sketch provided.
Personally, I would declare array IDFunctions to be const (supposing, of course, that you don't intend to replace any of its members after their initialization), but that's a minor safety / performance detail, where again the performance dimension is probably irrelevant.
I have two loops:
One loop gets data from a device and processes it. Scales received variables, calculates extra data.
Second loop visualizes the data and stores it.
There are lots of different variables that need to passed between those two loops - about 50 variables. I need the second loop to have access only to the newest values of the data. It needs to be able to read those variables any time they are needed to be visualized.
What is the best way to share such vector between two loops?
There are various ways of sharing data.
The fastest and simplest is a local variable, however that is rather uncontrolled, and you need to make sure to write them at one place (plus you need an indicator).
One of the most advanced options is creating a class for your data, and use an instance (if you create a by-ref class, otherwise it won't matter), and create a public 'GET' method.
In between you have sevaral other options:
queues
semaphores
property nodes
global variables
shared variables
notifiers
events
TCP-IP
In short there is no best way, it all depends on your skills and application.
As long as you're considering loops within the SAME application, there ARE good and bad ideas, though:
queues (OK, has most features)
notifiers (OK)
events (OK)
FGVs (OK, but keep an eye on massively parallel access hindering exec)
semaphores (that's not data comms)
property nodes (very inefficient, prone to race cond.)
global variables (prone to race cond.)
shared variables (badly implemented by NI, prone to race cond.)
TCP-IP (slow, awkward, affected by firewall config)
The quick and dirty way to do this is to write each value to an indicator in the producer loop - these indicators can be hidden offscreen, or in a page of a tab control, if you don't want to see them - and read a local variable of each one in the consumer loop. However if you have 50 different values it may become hard to maintain this code if you need to change or extend it.
As Ton says there are many different options but my suggestion would be:
Create a cluster control, with named elements, containing all your data
Save this cluster as a typedef
Create a notifier using this cluster as the data type
Bundle the data into the cluster (by name) and write this to the notifier in the producer loop
Read the cluster from the notifier in the consumer loop, unbundle it by name and do what you want with each element.
Using a cluster means you can easily pass it to different subVIs to process different elements if you like, and saving as a typedef means you can add, rename or alter the elements and your code will update to match. In your consumer loop you can use the timeout setting of the notifier read to control the loop timing, if you want. You can also use the notifier to tell the loops when to exit, by force-destroying it and trapping the error.
Two ways:
Use a display loop with SEQ (Single Element Queue)
Use a event structure with User Event. (Do not put two event structures in same loop!! Use another)
Use an enum with case structure and variant to cast the data to expected type.
(Notifier isn't reliable to stream data, because is a lossy scheme. Leave this only to trigger small actions)
If all of your variables can be bundled together in a single cluster to send at once, then you should use a single element queue. If your requirements change later such that the transmission cannot be lossy, then it's a matter of changing the input to the Obtain Queue VI (with a notifier you'd have to swap out all of the VIs). Setting up individual indicators and local variables would be pretty darn tedious. Also, not good style.
If the loops are inside of the same VI then:
The simplest solution would be local variables.
Little bit better to use shared variables.
Better is to use functional global variables (FGVs)
The best solution would be using SEQ (Single Element Queue).
Anyway for better understanding please go trough this paper.
I have been asked in an interview how one can return more than one value from function. I have answered saying by using pointers we can achieve(call by reference) this in C. Then he told me he is looking for some other way of returning more than one value. I said we can return a struct object but here also he didn't seem to be impressed.
I would like to know others ways to return more than one value from a function.
I have seen this questions being asked here on SO, but could not find anything C specific.
The tricky problem is that the interviewer has some solution they are particularly happy with in mind and they are likely grading you by whether you have the same clever trick as them or not.
You could just name a few ways such as you did, and still not fall upon their secret trick. And if you knew their secret trick, you could well not be impressed with it.
So in these situations, its to turn it from interview into conversation. Once you detect you're not moving towards their ego, you can avoid heading towards the intimidating "I don't know" "I give up" and instead try out the "so do you have any clever solution? Is there an in-house recipe for this at Xyz Inc?" etc.
Any glimpse at their obviously self-impressed solution and you are back on firm ground where you can talk about it and ask them if they have thought about various factors that come to mind and basically interview them.
Everyone loves a good listener, and getting them to talk about their tricks is a good way to get them to leave the interview throughly impressed with you! ;)
There are a few ways:
Return value using the return statement (as you already know)
Return via references.
Return values via the heap.
Return values via global variables.
That depends on what you consider a value. If a value is a piece of information for you, more values could be a struct of values. More values could be also passed via pointers or arrays, even a char* containing a list of (non-zero alphanumerical) values. If you consider a value to be a bit of information a single returned uint32_t may hold 32 values. You could even mess around with signals or sockets or pipes or files.
But for you do not even know the use case and the requirements it imposes on the solution, it's indeed a rather hard task to come up with the right solution (and you actually did come up with some proper solutions ...).
Return a pointer to a structure, or pack several small datatypes into one large datatype, or use global variables.
The first is probably the cleanest way to do it, the other two might have their uses in certain situations.
If we pass the address instead of the true value of the parameters.
Then whenever we refer those parameters we do it with the address.
returning a pointer to structure is the suitable answer.(Obviously, the objective of the program can decide what's the best that can be done). The interviewer might have wanted you to say 'I don't know' which would have shown your lack of confidence in the field. I think you provided good solutions, though not what he had in his mind. You could have asked him about a typical scenario where he wanted multiple values to be returned and then discuss how struct-pointer is a reasonable alternative.
I have this code
n_userobject inv_userobject[]
For i = 1 to dw_1.Rowcount()
inv_userobject[i] = create n_userobject
.
.
.
NEXT
dw_1.rowcount() returns only 210 rows. Its so odd that in the range of 170 up, the application stop and crashes on inv_userobject[i] = create n_userobject.
My question, is there any limit on array or userobject declaration using arrays?
I already try destroying it after the loop so as to check if that will be a possible solution, but it is still crashing.
Or how can i be able to somehow refresh the userobject?
Or is there anyone out there encounter this?
Thanks for all your help.
First, your memory problem. You're definitely not running into an array limit. If I was to take a guess, one of the instance variables in n_userobject isn't being cleaned up properly (i.e. pointing to a class that isn't being destroyed when the parent class is destroyed) or pointing to a class that similarly doesn't clean itself up. If you've got PB Enterprise, I'd do a profiling trace with a smaller loop and see what is being garbage collected (there's a utility called CDMatch that really helps this process).
Secondly, let's face it, you're just doing this to avoid writing a reset method. Even if you get this functional, it will never be as efficient as writing your own reset method and reusing the same instance over again. Yes, it's another method you'll have to maintain whenever the instance variable list changes or the defaults change, but you'll easily gain that back in performance.
Good luck,
Terry.
I'm assuming the crash you're facing is at the PBVM level, and not a regular PB exception (which you can catch in your code). If I'm wrong, please add the exception details.
A loop of 170-210 iterations really isn't a large one. However, crashes within loops are usually the result of resource exhaustion. What we usually do in long loops is call GarbageCollect() occasionally. How often should it be called depends on what your code does - using it frequently could allow the use of less memory, but it will slow down the run. Read this for more.
If this doesn't help, make sure the error does not come from some non-PB code (imported DLL or so). You can check the stack trace during the crash to see the exception's origin.
Lastly, if you're supported by Sybase (or a local representative), you can send them a crash dump. They can analyze it, and see if it's a bug in PB, and if so, let you know when it was (or will be) fixed.
What I would normally do with a DataWindow is to create an object that processes the data in a row and call it for each row.
the only suggestion i have for this is to remove the rowcount from the for (For i = 1 to dw_1.Rowcount()) this will cause the code to recount the rows every time it uses one. get the count into a variable and then use the variable. it should run a bit better and be far more easy to debug.