Running processes at different times stops events from working - C - c

This is a question which follows on from my previously answered question here
At first I assumed I had a problem with the way I was creating my events due to the handles for OpenEvent returning NULL, I have managed to find the real cause however I am not sure how to go about it.
Basically I use Visual Studio to launch both Process A and B at the same time, in the past my OpenEvent handle wouldn't work due to Process A looking for the address of the event a fraction of a second before Process B had time to make it.
My solution was to simply allow Process B to run before Process A, fixing the error.
The problem I have now is that Process B now reads events from Process A and as you expect it too returns a null handle when trying to open the events from Process A.
I am creating the events in WM_CREATE message of both processes, furthermore I also create a thread at the same time to open/read/act upon the events.
It seems if I run them at the same time they don't get chance to see each other, alternatively if I run one before the other one of them misses out and can't open a Handle.
Can anyone suggest a solution?
Thanks.

Just replace OpenEvent with CreateEvent. CreateEvent will open an Event instead of creating a new one it finds an existing event with the name passed to CreateEvent.

Related

xcb window manager loses all key grabs

I have an unrepeatable bug of unknown origin in my single threaded window manager that occurs fairly infrequently (once every 2-3 weeks). Something happens that causes me to lose keyboard input. Mouse events are still handled properly so I know the event loop is still running, but the key press event is no longer triggered. Actually, the key is no longer grabbed. When I press XCB_MOD_MASK_4+2 to switch to desktop 2, the 2 will show up in the text editor or terminal that currently has the input focus, instead of being grabbed by the window manager. I thought maybe it was related to xcb_allow_events, so via IPC I can execute these three tests (from within the window manager, cmd is received from an external process):
if (strcmp(cmd,"test0")==0)
xcb_allow_events(wm.conn, XCB_ALLOW_ASYNC_KEYBOARD, XCB_CURRENT_TIME);
else if (strcmp(cmd,"test1")==0)
xcb_allow_events(wm.conn, XCB_ALLOW_SYNC_KEYBOARD, XCB_CURRENT_TIME);
else if (strcmp(cmd,"test2")==0)
keyboard();
void keyboard()
{
int i,m,k;
xcb_void_cookie_t cookie;
spawn("/usr/bin/xmodmap -e 'keycode 108 = Super_L'");
spawn("/usr/bin/xmodmap -e 'remove mod1 = Super_L'");
for (i=0; i<LENGTH(key_bindings); i++)
{
m = key_bindings[i].mod;
k = keysc(key_bindings[i].keysym);
info("grabbing key: %s (%d), mod: %d",key_bindings[i].keysym,k,m);
cookie = xcb_grab_key_checked(wm.conn, 0, wm.root, m, k, XCB_GRAB_MODE_ASYNC, XCB_GRAB_MODE_ASYNC);
if (xcb_request_check (wm.conn, cookie))
error("can't grab key");
}
}
None of these tests help. I know the keyboard function works properly because it works on window manager startup. Also I can see in the log file that the key grabs in the keyboard function are actually being executed (without error) when prompted via IPC. The current workaround is to send sigterm to the window manager process, and then restart the wm. At that point everything works fine again.
I'm looking for techniques that might be helpful in tracking down the source of this problem, or in correcting the problem once it occurs (another test). Unfortunately, since I have no clue of the source of this problem, or what triggers it, I cannot make a simple test case to demonstrate. BTW I check the log files when this happens, and I don't see any pattern leading up to the problem. Each function logs an entry on entrance and exit.
Update 2021-02-12: I thought a restart would be a good workaround until I found the root cause of this problem. My restart function contains only one line:
execvp(lwm_argv[0], lwm_argv);
where lwm_argv is the argv provided as an argument to main.
I was very surprised to see that this did not alleviate the problem. I have to completely kill the old process then launch an new one to alleviate the problem. So this problem is PID dependant??? Further, I'm fairly convinced that this problem is somehow related to the stdout/stderr output of other applications launched from within the window manager using execvp. I've stopped launching applications from within the window manager and the problem went away. Any ideas of how launching other applications (and their output) could be affecting the keygrabs within the window manager would be appreciated.
You could try using strace or perf trace on the X server to see what it is doing with the key events. It ought to read them from somewhere in /dev/input and send them as events to connected clients.
If it isn't sending you events, then you might need to dig into its internal state, perhaps by building a debug server and connecting to it with GDB, to see why it isn't sending those events.
But if it is sending events to your WM then they're getting lost somewhere in the library stack.

Event queue cleanup

In my Tcl extension, a secondary thread is filling the Tcl event queue with events; the events contain pointers to structures with a dynamic life time.
What is the right strategy for ensuring that no events with dangling pointers to de-allocated structures remain in the event queue? I can prevent the secondary thread from creating new events; currently I call Tcl_DoOneEvent(TCL_DONTWAIT) in a loop till it returns 0 (i.e., event queue is empty) after ensuring no new events can be created and before de-allocating the structure.
Is that the right way to do it?
On a related note, I am unsure of the purpose of Tcl_ThreadAlert(): if this is needed after every call to Tcl_ThreadQueueEvent(), why isn't the alert included in Tcl_ThreadQueueEvent()?
Finally, my code does not call Tcl_CreateEventSource(), since it doesn't seem to be needing a setup nor a check procedure as a second thread is involved. Is that cause for concern?
On the first point, that seems OK to me. It is very much like running update at the TCL level.
I'm not sure about the second point, as it isn't part of the API that I have explored a lot. It might be that way to allow multiple events to be scheduled per notification, or because there are other uses for the call, but I really don't know.
On the third point, it sounds fine. I think you never need special event sources just to do inter-thread messaging.

Extended windows

I have an always one application, listening to a Kafka stream, and processing events. Events are part of a session. And I need to do calculations based off of a sessions data. I am running into a problem trying to correctly run my calculations due to the length of my sessions. 90% of my sessions are done after 5 minutes. 99% are done after 1 hour. Sessions may last more than a day, due to this being a real-time system, there is no determined end. Session are unique, and show never collide.
I am looking for a way where I can process a window multiple times, either with an initial wait period and processing any later events after that, or a pure process per event type structure. I will need to keep all previous events around(ListState), as well as previously processed values(ValueState).
I previously thought allowedLateness would allow me to do this, but it seems the lateness is only considered for when the event should have been processed, it does not extend an actual window. GlobalWindows may also work, but I am unsure if there is a way to process a window multiple times. I believe I can used an evictor with GlobalWindows to purge the Windows after a period of inactivity(although admittedly, I did not research this yet, because I was unsure of how to trigger a GlobalWindow multiple times.
Any suggestions on how to achieve what I am looking to do would be greatly appreciated, I would also be happy to clarify any points needed.
If SessionWindows won't do the job, then you can use GlobalWindows with a custom Trigger and Evictor. The Trigger interface has onElement and timer-based callbacks that can fire whenever and as often as you like. If you go down this route, then yes, you'll also need to implement an Evictor to dispose of elements when they are no longer needed.
The documentation and the source code are helpful when trying to understand how this all fits together.

get handles count associated to a kernel object (win 32 application)

I'm developing a simple win32 application with two processes sharing memory through a file mapping. At a certain point in the second process, I want to check if the other process has already closed the handle associated to the file mapping.
Is there a Windows function to retrieve the number of handles associated to my shared memory???
Thanks in advance for any help...
There's nothing in the API to do that. If you want to know when the other process has finished its work, create a manual reset event with CreateEventEx, and have the other process set the event when its work is done. The first process can use one of the wait functions to query the status of the event.

C - Handling events across processes

I'm trying to figure out how to set up an event that could be carried into a child process. I need this in order to calculate the time it took for the parent process to communicate with the child process. The code I've got is here: http://pastebin.com/euVfSNeg
The problem is that when the app2.exe calls app3.exe nothing happens, because the event doesn't get fired/listened (dont know which one is the case).
I need to figure this out ASAP as I've got to hand it in in a couple of hours.
Any help would be appreciated.
The MSDN page says:
lpEventAttributes A pointer to a SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES structure. If
this parameter is NULL, the handle cannot be inherited by child
processes.
A child process created by the CreateProcess function can inherit a
handle to an event object if the lpEventAttributes parameter of
CreateEvent enabled inheritance
And you're passing NULL as the first argument.

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