I'm new to Lua (language version 5.4 if it matters, there doesn't seem to be a tag for that version on SO yet) and I'm trying to find the most idiomatic way to implement iteration (for loop) over a userdata object.
The Lua 5.4 Reference Manual says regarding a loop statement for var_1, ยทยทยท, var_n in explist do body end:
The loop starts by evaluating explist to produce four values: an iterator function, a state, an initial value for the control variable, and a closing value.
The idiomatic way to loop seems to be using the pairs(t) function. This also works for userdata via the __pairs metamethod. However:
If t has a metamethod __pairs, calls it with t as argument and returns the first three results from the call.
Why only three instead of four? If I have a complex userdata object that needs to allocate some resource for a loop, I'll need that closing value so I know when to deallocate that resource in case the loop ends early, right? Does that mean I cannot use pairs in such a case or am I missing something?
I could of course provide a new function, say pairs4, but that doesn't seem to be very idiomatic.
Because that's how it has always worked since at least Lua 5.0. pairs always returned 3 values because for previously only took 3 values.
"to-be-closed variables" are a new feature of Lua 5.4, as is the fourth value for generic for. Why pairs wasn't updated to match is unknown. It is possible that pairs returns all of the values from the __pairs metamethod, but I haven't looked at the implementation to verify this.
In this case, I would suggest writing a pairs_close that returns 4 arguments from the __pairs metamethod.
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.
I have a UserForm with a ListBox for the user to select values. Those values are populated in UserForm_Initialize() via a function call to the base module, which returns an array as variant. This works without problems.
If the user selects some values and presses a button, the buttons Click event calls another function in the base module to pass on the user-entered array and compute things. This does not work at all. The value received in the base module is always nonexistent (not even null, but I don't know the correct VBA term, nothing is there at all).
Things I have tried so far:
Passing all arguments ByVal: Did not make a difference
Using global shared variables: This did work, but I don't want to rely on them if all I do is pass a single array to a single function. This also introduces state into the code which has to be managed, especially when reusing the function
Accessing the functions by full qualifiers: Did not make a difference. The functions are found and executed correctly, but the argument variables are empty, therefore the functions fail later on when doing the calculations.
My question is: How can I pass arrays from UserForms to Modules (not vice versa) without relying on global variables and without losing the array content?
This question may be related to this question about passing a String from Form to Module, but the accepted answer does not help in my case (using global variables).
When adding the code as requested in the comments, I stumbled upon that fact that I could print the content of the array, but it would not show anything in the debugger and the size would be 0.
The size issue was because I used Len(array) instead of Application.CountA(array) and I had a leftover On error resume next from earlier still in the code, which meant that no error was raised and size was always set to zero... This was the reason for the strange behaviour.
I am trying to implement a pulse generator in SIMULINK that needs to know the previous 2 input values i.e. I need to know the previous 2 state values for the input signal. Also, I need to know the previous output value.
My pseudo code is:
IF !input AND input_prevValue AND !input_prevValue2
output = !output_pv
ELSE
output = output_pv;
I know that I can use legacy function importer and use C code to do this job in SIMULINK. However, the problem arises when you apply a configuration reference set to your model. The key problem is the flexibility. When you use this model somewhere else (say share it with a colleague or whoever), unless you have used a configuration reference set, you can rebuild the code (i.e. from S-Function Block) and run your model. But you cannot rebuild the code if the configuration reference set is applied.
My solution would be to implement the logic in a way that I can do the same without C functions. I tried to use the memory block in SIMULINK but apparently it doesn't do it. Does anyone know how to hold previous values for input and output in SIMULINK (for as long as the model is open)?
Have you tried with a MATLAB Function block? Alternatively, if you have a Stateflow license, this would lend itself nicely to a state chart.
EDIT
Based on your pseudo-code, I would expect the code in the MATLAB Function block to look like this
function op = logic_fcn(ip,ip_prev,ip_prev2,op_prev)
% #codegen
if ~ip && ip_prev && ~ip_prev2
op = ~op_prev;
else
op = op_prev;
end
where ip, ip_prev, ip_prev2 and op_prev are defined as boolean inputs and op as a boolean output. If you are using a fixed-step discrete solver, the memory block should work so that you would for example feed the output of the MATLAB Function block to a memory block (with the correct sample time), and the output of the memory block to the op_prev input of the MATLAB Function block.
You could (and should) test your function in MATLAB first (and/or a test Simulink model) to make sure it works and produces the output you expect for a given input.
This is reasonably straight forward to do with fundamental blocks,
Note that for the Switch block the "Criteria for passing first input:" has been changed to "u2~=0".
My project has classes which, unavoidably, contain hundreds upon hundreds of variables that I'm always having to keep straight. For example, I'm always having to keep track of specific kinds of variables for a recurring set of "items" that occur inside of a class, where placing those variables between multiple classes would cause a lot of confusion.
How do I better sort my variables to keep from going crazy, especially when it comes time to save my data?
Am I missing something? Actionscript is an Object Oriented language, so you might have hundreds of variables, but unless you've somehow treated it like a grab bag and dumped it all in one place, everything should be to hand. Without knowing what all you're keeping track of, it's hard to give concrete advice, but here's an example from a current project I'm working on, which is a platform for building pre-employment assessments.
The basic unit is a Question. A Question has a stem, text that can go in the status bar, a collection of answers, and a collection of measures of things we're tracking about what the user does in that particular type of questions.
The measures are, again, their own type of object, and come in two "flavors": one that is used to track a time limit and one that isn't. The measure has a name (so we know where to write back to the database) and a value (which tells us what). Timed ones also have a property for the time limit.
When we need to time the question, we hand that measure to yet another object that counts the time down and a separate object that displays the time (if appropriate for the situation). The answers, known as distractors, have a label and a value that they can impart to the appropriate measure based on the user selection. For example, if a user selects "d", its value, "4" is transferred to the measure that stores the user's selection.
Once the user submits his answer, we loop through all the measures for the question and send those to the database. If those were not treated as a collection (in this case, a Vector), we'd have to know exactly what specific measures are being stored for each question and each question would have a very different structure that we'd have to dig through. So if looping through collections is your issue, I think you should revisit that idea. It saves a lot of code and is FAR more efficient than "var1", "var2", "var3."
If the part you think is unweildy is the type checking you have to do because literally anything could be in there, then Vector could be a good solution for you as long as you're using at least Flash Player 10.
So, in summary:
When you have a lot of related properties, write a Class that keeps all of those related bits and pieces together (like my Question).
When objects have 0-n "things" that are all of the same or very similar, use a collection of some sort, such as an Array or Vector, to allow you to iterate through them as a group and perform the same operation on each (for example, each Question is part of a larger grouping that allows each question to be presented in turn, and each question has a collection of distractors and another of measures.
These two concepts, used together, should help keep your information tidy and organized.
While I'm certain there are numerous ways of keeping arrays straight, I have found a method that works well for me. Best of all, it collapses large amounts of information into a handful of arrays that I can parse to an XML file or other storage method. I call this method my "indexed array system".
There are actually multiple ways to do this: creating a handful of 1-dimensional arrays, or creating 2-dimensional (or higher) array(s). Both work equally well, so choose the one that works best for your code. I'm only going to show the 1-dimensional method here. Those of you who are familiar with arrays can probably figure out how to rewrite this to use higher dimensional arrays.
I use Actionscript 3, but this approach should work with almost any programming or scripting language.
In this example, I'm trying to keep various "properties" of different "activities" straight. In this case, we'll say these properties are Level, High Score, and Play Count. We'll call the activities Pinball, Word Search, Maze, and Memory.
This method involves creating multiple arrays, one for each property, and creating constants that hold the integer "key" used for each activity.
We'll start by creating the constants, as integers. Constants work for this, because we never change them after compile. The value we put into each constant is the index the corresponding data will always be stored at in the arrays.
const pinball:int = 0;
const wordsearch:int = 1;
const maze:int = 2;
const memory:int = 3;
Now, we create the arrays. Remember, arrays start counting from zero. Since we want to be able to modify the values, this should be a regular variable.
Note, I am constructing the array to be the specific length we need, with the default value for the desired data type in each slot. I've used all integers here, but you can use just about any data type you need.
var highscore:Array = [0, 0, 0, 0];
var level:Array = [0, 0, 0, 0];
var playcount:Array = [0, 0, 0, 0];
So, we have a consistent "address" for each property, and we only had to create four constants, and three arrays, instead of 12 variables.
Now we need to create the functions to read and write to the arrays using this system. This is where the real beauty of the system comes in. Be sure this function is written in public scope if you want to read/write the arrays from outside this class.
To create the function that gets data from the arrays, we need two arguments: the name of the activity and the name of the property. We also want to set up this function to return a value of any type.
GOTCHA WARNING: In Actionscript 3, this won't work in static classes or functions, as it relies on the "this" keyword.
public function fetchData(act:String, prop:String):*
{
var r:*;
r = this[prop][this[act]];
return r;
}
That queer bit of code, r = this[prop][this[act]], simply uses the provided strings "act" and "prop" as the names of the constant and array, and sets the resulting value to r. Thus, if you feed the function the parameters ("maze", "highscore"), that code will essentially act like r = highscore[2] (remember, this[act] returns the integer value assigned to it.)
The writing method works essentially the same way, except we need one additional argument, the data to be written. This argument needs to be able to accept any
GOTCHA WARNING: One significant drawback to this system with strict typing languages is that you must remember the data type for the array you're writing to. The compiler cannot catch these type errors, so your program will simply throw a fatal error if it tries to write the wrong value type.
One clever way around this is to create different functions for different data types, so passing the wrong data type in an argument will trigger a compile-time error.
public function writeData(act:String, prop:String, val:*):void
{
this[prop][this[act]] = val;
}
Now, we just have one additional problem. What happens if we pass an activity or property name that doesn't exist? To protect against this, we just need one more function.
This function will validate a provided constant or variable key by attempting to access it, and catching the resulting fatal error, returning false instead. If the key is valid, it will return true.
function validateName(ID:String):Boolean
{
var checkthis:*
var r:Boolean = true;
try
{
checkthis = this[ID];
}
catch (error:ReferenceError)
{
r = false;
}
return r;
}
Now, we just need to adjust our other two functions to take advantage of this. We'll wrap the function's code inside an if statement.
If one of the keys is invalid, the function will do nothing - it will fail silently. To get around this, just put a trace (a.k.a. print) statement or a non-fatal error in the else construct.
public function fetchData(act:String, prop:String):*
{
var r:*;
if(validateName(act) && validateName(prop))
{
r = this[prop][this[act]];
return r;
}
}
public function writeData(act:String, prop:String, val:*):void
{
if(validateName(act) && validateName(prop))
{
this[prop][this[act]] = val;
}
}
Now, to use these functions, you simply need to use one line of code each. For the example, we'll say we have a text object in the GUI that shows the high score, called txtHighScore. I've omitted the necessary typecasting for the sake of the example.
//Get the high score.
txtHighScore.text = fetchData("maze", "highscore");
//Write the new high score.
writeData("maze", "highscore", txtHighScore.text);
I hope ya'll will find this tutorial useful in sorting and managing your variables.
(Afternote: You can probably do something similar with dictionaries or databases, but I prefer the flexibility with this method.)