I never tried to do a GUI without a GUI designer and now I'm learning how to develop Palm OS applications with the book Palm OS Programming: The Developers Guide. And on it I have this code that is a declaration of some GUI items:
#define HelloWorldForm 1000
#define HelloWorldButtonButton 1003
#define HelloWorldMenuBar 1000
#define GoodnightMoonAlert 1101
#define FirstBeep 1010
#define SecondBeepmore 1000
I want to know some things:
I need to do this in a type of order?
Why I need to declare this numbers?
In what they are going to help me?
They have anything connected to the type of item they are?
They resource IDs. You aren't required to define such macros, but if you don't, you'll instead have to use the raw integer values when you try to refer to the UI widgets in code. For example, the typical way you'd get a pointer to a UI control would be to call:
FormType* formP = FrmGetActiveForm();
UInt16 index = FrmGetObjectIndex(formP, objectID);
ControlType* controlP = FrmGetObjectPtr(formP, index);
You'd need to get pointers to the UI widgets in order to do things such as reading their states (such as for checkboxes), changing text labels, showing or hiding them dynamically, etc.
There's no type safety between the resource IDs and what you do with the pointer you get back from FrmGetObjectPtr; it's your responsibility to keep track of which ID corresponds to which type of control (the common practice is to use descriptive names).
Those are probably "human readable shortcuts" (in the form of C macros it seems) associated with GUI elements: the said elements are probably only referenced through integers in the host system. You didn't provide us with much details to work with here.
The advantage of such technique is usually associated with easier maintenance (amongst others).
They provide a couple of benefits.
Documenting the code. Would you rather have a call like LoadForm(1000); or LoadForm(HelloWorldForm); in your source code?
They may actually be used by the file that defines the resources. If you ever need to renumber the resources (perhaps you are merging two projects that both used 1000 for different forms), you would only need to modify the value in a single place.
Related
I am tasked to assist with the design of a dynamic library (exposed with a C interface) aimed to be used in embed software application on various embed platform (Android,Windows,Linux).
Main requirements are speed , and decoupling.
For the decoupling part : one of our requirement is to be able to facilitate integration and so permit backward compatibility and resilience.
My library have some entry points that should be called by the integrating software (like an initialize constructor to provide options as where to log, how to behave etc...) and could also call some callback in the application (an event to inform when task is finished).
So I have come with several propositions but as each of one not seems great I am searching advice on a better or standard ways to achieve decoupling an d backward compatibility than this 3 ways that I have come up :
First an option that I could think of is to have a generic interface call for my exposed entry points for example with a hashmap of key/values for the parameters of my functions so in pseudo code it gives something like :
myLib.Initialize(Key_Value_Option_Array_Here);
Another option is to provide a generic function to provide all the options to the library :
myLib.SetOption(Key_Of_Option, Value_OfOption);
myLib.SetCallBack(Key_Of_Callbak, FunctionPointer);
When presenting my option my collegue asked me why not use a google protobuf argument as interface between the library and the embed software : but it seems weird to me, as their will be a performance hit on each call for serialization and deserialization.
Are there any more efficient or standard way that you coud think of?
You could have a struct for optional arguments:
typedef struct {
uint8_t optArg1;
float optArg2;
} MyLib_InitOptArgs_T;
void MyLib_Init(int16_t arg1, uint32_t arg2, MyLib_InitOptArgs_T const * optionalArgs);
Then you could use compound literals on function call:
MyLib_Init(1, 2, &(MyLib_InitOptArgs_T){ .optArg2=1.2f });
All non-specified values would have zero-ish value (0, NULL, NaN), and would be considered unused. Similarly, when passing NULL for struct pointer, all optional arguments would be considered unused.
Downside with this method is that if you expect to have many new arguments in the future, structure could grow too big. But whether that is an issue, depends on what your limits are.
Another option is to simply have multiple smaller initialization functions for initializating different subsystems. This could be combined with the optional arguments system above.
I have an array of objects, lets say MyArray[1..x] of Object.
When programming I want to have a more "readable" way of addressing each object. Instead of saying MyArray[1] := ...etc. I would like to say MyReadableName :=...
I've looked into references, but I'm worried a bit about the whole pointer stuff. How could I do this in a good way and support online change? And where should I put the declaration and assignment of the references, it could be many many hundreds, and I don't want to clutter the Main VAR window when in online mode?
Another thing I've looked at is having an enum with the readable names and using this as an index into the array. The lookup is then MyArray[Enum.MyReadableName] :=... but I'm not sure if that is a good solution.
Any solutions or hints are very welcome! Thanks!
You have already mentioned all possible ways for this.
Pointers
You should not be worried of them. Pointers are not a part of IEC-61131 so it's implementation varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. It would be good if you've mention IDE you are using, and a structure of array elements.
The best way how I work with tasks like this, I create ACTION and there I map all variables into arrays or out of arrays. I run this tasks only once on PLC load and call this action Mapping.
VAR
aA: ARRAY [1..2] OF StructureName;
stMyName1: POINTER TO StructureName;
stMyName2: POINTER TO StructureName;
xInit: BOOL;
END_VAR
ACTION actMap
stMyName1 := ADR(aA[1]);
stMyName2 := ADR(aA[2]);
END_ACTION
IF NOT xInit THEN
actMap();
xInit := TRUE;
END_IF
But usually, in IDE actions are created differently, not with ACTION keyword. In Codesys it is right click on POU.
I would go with pointers, because it is mot logical way. It requires little bit more for application setup, but later save time with coding.
Enumeration
This one as you described. In Codesys you should use # like Color#red. But if you make names unique, you can use them without name of enumeration. In addition if you make name of your array short it can looks informative like a[MyArrayName].
I have just stumbled across picoc and I am very impressed with what it can do - especially the fact that it can be extended by adding new functions etc. It saves me from going down the route of trying to "roll my own" interpreter.
However, I am wondering if there is anyway I can extend picoc by:
Adding new data types (for example, MySimpleDataType, MyPointerDataType)
Adding simple arithmetic operator functions (+,-,/, * etc) for my new data types.
Does anyone have any experience of doing this, or can someone provide pointers on how to go about adding new data types and their operator functions to picoc?
[[Edit]]
On further inspection of the code, I believe I have found how to add new data types (by modifying type.c). However, it is still not clear to me how to add arithmetic operators for new data types in picoc. Any help appreciated,
In general, C does not have operators overloading (while C++ does). Picoc is positioned as very tiny and having only the essentials, so I don't think it provides any extensions for it.
Adding new types can be done in the same manner that you can add new functions. A simple example of this can be had by examining picoc's source stdbool.c, where you'll find a typedef int bool; in the StdboolDefs element. You have to look elsewhere, include.c, to find the element in use; you'll find it as the "SetupCSource" parameter to an IncludeRegister() call.
Regarding adding new operators -- of course it's possible but only with a rather invasive change to the picoc library. As #yeputons said, the C language doesn't allow you to change or add operators, so there's no reason for picoc to directly support that.
What distinguishes and object from a struct?
When and why do we use an object as opposed to a struct?
How does an array differ from both, and when and why would we use an array as opposed to an object or a struct?
I would like to get an idea of what each is intended for.
Obviously you can blur the distinctions according to your programming style, but generally a struct is a structured piece of data. An object is a sovereign entity that can perform some sort of task. In most systems, objects have some state and as a result have some structured data behind them. However, one of the primary functions of a well-designed class is data hiding — exactly how a class achieves whatever it does is opaque and irrelevant.
Since classes can be used to represent classic data structures such as arrays, hash maps, trees, etc, you often see them as the individual things within a block of structured data.
An array is a block of unstructured data. In many programming languages, every separate thing in an array must be of the same basic type (such as every one being an integer number, every one being a string, or similar) but that isn't true in many other languages.
As guidelines:
use an array as a place to put a large group of things with no other inherent structure or hierarchy, such as "all receipts from January" or "everything I bought in Denmark"
use structured data to compound several discrete bits of data into a single block, such as you might want to combine an x position and a y position to describe a point
use an object where there's a particular actor or thing that thinks or acts for itself
The implicit purpose of an object is therefore directly to associate tasks with the data on which they can operate and to bundle that all together so that no other part of the system can interfere. Obeying proper object-oriented design principles may require discipline at first but will ultimately massively improve your code structure and hence your ability to tackle larger projects and to work with others.
Generally speaking, objects bring the full object oriented functionality (methods, data, virtual functions, inheritance, etc, etc) whereas structs are just organized memory. Structs may or may not have support for methods / functions, but they generally won't support inheritance and other full OOP features.
Note that I said generally speaking ... individual languages are free to overload terminology however they want to.
Arrays have nothing to do with OO. Indeed, pretty much every language around support arrays. Arrays are just blocks of memory, generally containing a series of similar items, usually indexable somehow.
What distinguishes and object from a struct?
There is no notion of "struct" in OOP. The definition of structures depends on the language used. For example in C++ classes and structs are the same, but class members are private by defaults while struct members are public to maintain compatibility with C structs. In C# on the other hand, struct is used to create value types while class is for reference types. C has structs and is not object oriented.
When and why do we use an object as opposed to a struct?
Again this depends on the language used. Normally structures are used to represent PODs (Plain Old Data), meaning that they don't specify behavior that acts on the data and are mainly used to represent records and not objects. This is just a convention and is not enforced in C++.
How does an array differ from both,
and when and why would we use an
array as opposed to an object or a
struct?
An array is very different. An array is normally a homogeneous collection of elements indexed by an integer. A struct is a heterogeneous collection where elements are accessed by name. You'd use an array to represent a collection of objects of the same type (an array of colors for example) while you'd use a struct to represent a record containing data for a certain object (a single color which has red, green, and blue elements)
Short answer: Structs are value types. Classes(Objects) are reference types.
By their nature, an object has methods, a struct doesn't.
(nothing stops you from having an object without methods, jus as nothing stops you from, say, storing an integer in a float-typed variable)
When and why do we use an object as opposed to a struct?
This is a key question. I am using structs and procedural code modules to provide most of the benefits of OOP. Structs provide most of the data storage capability of objects (other than read only properties). Procedural modules provide code completion similar to that provided by objects. I can enter module.function in the IDE instead of object.method. The resulting code looks the same. Most of my functions now return stucts rather than single values. The effect on my code has been dramatic, with code readability going up and the number of lines being greatly reduced. I do not know why procedural programming that makes extensive use of structs is not more common. Why not just use OOP? Some of the languages that I use are only procedural (PureBasic) and the use of structs allows some of the benefits of OOP to be experienced. Others languages allow a choice of procedural or OOP (VBA and Python). I currently find it easier to use procedural programming and in my discipline (ecology) I find it very hard to define objects. When I can't figure out how to group data and functions together into objects in a philosophically coherent collection then I don't have a basis for creating classes/objects. With structs and functions, there is no need for defining a hierarchy of classes. I am free to shuffle functions between modules which helps me to improve the organisation of my code as I go. Perhaps this is a precursor to going OO.
Code written with structs has higher performance than OOP based code. OOP code has encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism, however I think that struct/function based procedural code often shares these characteristics. A function returns a value only to its caller and only within scope, thereby achieving encapsulation. Likewise a function can be polymorphic. For example, I can write a function that calculates the time difference between two places with two internal algorithms, one that considers the international date line and one that does not. Inheritance usually refers to methods inheriting from a base class. There is inheritance of sorts with functions that call other functions and use structs for data transfer. A simple example is passing up an error message through a stack of nested functions. As the error message is passed up, it can be added to by the calling functions. The result is a stack trace with a very descriptive error message. In this case a message inherited through several levels. I don't know how to describe this bottom up inheritance, (event driven programming?) but it is a feature of using functions that return structs that is absent from procedural programming using simple return values. At this point in time I have not encountered any situations where OOP would be more productive than functions and structs. The surprising thing for me is that very little of the code available on the internet is written this way. It makes me wonder if there is any reason for this?
Arrays are ordered collection of items that (usually) are of the same types. Items can be accessed by index. Classic arrays allow integer indices only, however modern languages often provide so called associative arrays (dictionaries, hashes etc.) that allow use e.g. strings as indices.
Structure is a collection of named values (fields) which may be of 'different types' (e.g. field a stores integer values, field b - string values etc.). They (a) group together logically connected values and (b) simplify code change by hiding details (e.g. changing structure layout don't affect signature of function working with this structure). The latter is called 'encapsulation'.
Theroretically, object is an instance of structure that demonstrates some behavior in response to messages being sent (i.e., in most languages, having some methods). Thus, the very usefullness of object is in this behavior, not its fields.
Different objects can demonstrate different behavior in response to the same messages (the same methods being called), which is called 'polymorphism'.
In many (but not all) languages objects belong to some classes and classes can form hierarchies (which is called 'inheritance').
Since object methods can work with its fields directly, fields can be hidden from access by any code except for this methods (e.g. by marking them as private). Thus encapsulation level for objects can be higher than for structs.
Note that different languages add different semantics to this terms.
E.g.:
in CLR languages (C#, VB.NET etc) structs are allocated on stack/in registers and objects are created in heap.
in C++ structs have all fields public by default, and objects (instances of classes) have all fields private.
in some dynamic languages objects are just associative arrays which store values and methods.
I also think it's worth mentioning that the concept of a struct is very similar to an "object" in Javascript, which is defined very differently than objects in other languages. They are both referenced like "foo.bar" and the data is structured similarly.
As I see it an object at the basic level is a number of variables and a number of methods that manipulate those variables, while a struct on the other hand is only a number of variables.
I use an object when you want to include methods, I use a struct when I just want a collection of variables to pass around.
An array and a struct is kind of similar in principle, they're both a number of variables. Howoever it's more readable to write myStruct.myVar than myArray[4]. You could use an enum to specify the array indexes to get myArray[indexOfMyVar] and basically get the same functionality as a struct.
Of course you can use constants or something else instead of variables, I'm just trying to show the basic principles.
This answer may need the attention of a more experienced programmer but one of the differences between structs and objects is that structs have no capability for reflection whereas objects may. Reflection is the ability of an object to report the properties and methods that it has. This is how 'object explorer' can find and list new methods and properties created in user defined classes. In other words, reflection can be used to work out the interface of an object. With a structure, there is no way that I know of to iterate through the elements of the structure to find out what they are called, what type they are and what their values are.
If one is using structs as a replacement for objects, then one can use functions to provide the equivalent of methods. At least in my code, structs are often used for returning data from user defined functions in modules which contain the business logic. Structs and functions are as easy to use as objects but functions lack support for XML comments. This means that I constantly have to look at the comment block at the top of the function to see just what the function does. Often I have to read the function source code to see how edge cases are handled. When functions call other functions, I often have to chase something several levels deep and it becomes hard to figure things out. This leads to another benefit of OOP vs structs and functions. OOP has XML comments which show up as tool tips in the IDE (in most but not all OOP languages) and in OOP there are also defined interfaces and often an object diagram (if you choose to make them). It is becoming clear to me that the defining advantage of OOP is the capability of documenting the what code does what and how it relates to other code - the interface.
An Example
Suppose we have a text to write and could be converted to "uppercase or lowercase", and can be printed "at left, center or right".
Specific case implementation (too many functions)
writeInUpperCaseAndCentered(char *str){//..}
writeInLowerCaseAndCentered(char *str){//..}
writeInUpperCaseAndLeft(char *str){//..}
and so on...
vs
Many Argument function (bad readability and even hard to code without a nice autocompletion IDE)
write( char *str , int toUpper, int centered ){//..}
vs
Context dependent (hard to reuse, hard to code, use of ugly globals, and sometimes even impossible to "detect" a context)
writeComplex (char *str)
{
// analize str and perhaps some global variables and
// (under who knows what rules) put it center/left/right and upper/lowercase
}
And perhaps there are others options..(and are welcome)
The question is:
Is there is any good practice or experience/academic advice for this (recurrent) trilemma ?
EDIT:
What I usually do is to combine "specific case" implementation, with an internal (I mean not in header) general common many-argument function, implementing only used cases, and hiding the ugly code, but I don't know if there is a better way that I don't know. This kind of things make me realize of why OOP was invented.
I'd avoid your first option because as you say the number of function you end up having to implement (though possibly only as macros) can grow out of control. The count doubles when you decide to add italic support, and doubles again for underline.
I'd probably avoid the second option as well. Againg consider what happens when you find it necessary to add support for italics or underlines. Now you need to add another parameter to the function, find all of the cases where you called the function and updated those calls. In short, anoying, though once again you could probably simplify the process with appropriate use of macros.
That leaves the third option. You can actually get some of the benefits of the other alternatives with this using bitflags. For example
#define WRITE_FORMAT_LEFT 1
#define WRITE_FORMAT_RIGHT 2
#define WRITE_FORMAT_CENTER 4
#define WRITE_FORMAT_BOLD 8
#define WRITE_FORMAT_ITALIC 16
....
write(char *string, unsigned int format)
{
if (format & WRITE_FORMAT_LEFT)
{
// write left
}
...
}
EDIT: To answer Greg S.
I think that the biggest improvement is that it means that if I decide, at this point, to add support for underlined text I it takes two steps
Add #define WRITE_FORMAT_UNDERLINE 32 to the header
Add the support for underlines in write().
At this point it can call write(..., ... | WRITE_FORMAT_UNLDERINE) where ever I like. More to the point I don't need to modify pre-existing calls to write, which I would have to do if I added a parameter to its signature.
Another potential benefit is that it allows you do something like the following:
#define WRITE_ALERT_FORMAT (WRITE_FORMAT_CENTER | \
WRITE_FORMAT_BOLD | \
WRITE_FORMAT_ITALIC)
I prefer the argument way.
Because there's going to be some code that all the different scenarios need to use. Making a function out of each scenario will produce code duplication, which is bad.
Instead of using an argument for each different case (toUpper, centered etc..), use a struct. If you need to add more cases then you only need to alter the struct:
typedef struct {
int toUpper;
int centered;
// etc...
} cases;
write( char *str , cases c ){//..}
I'd go for a combination of methods 1 and 2.
Code a method (A) that has all the arguments you need/can think of right now and a "bare" version (B) with no extra arguments. This version can call the first method with the default values. If your language supports it add default arguments. I'd also recommend that you use meaningful names for your arguments and, where possible, enumerations rather than magic numbers or a series of true/false flags. This will make it far easier to read your code and what values are actually being passed without having to look up the method definition.
This gives you a limited set of methods to maintain and 90% of your usages will be the basic method.
If you need to extend the functionality later add a new method with the new arguments and modify (A) to call this. You might want to modify (B) to call this as well, but it's not necessary.
I've run into exactly this situation a number of times -- my preference is none of the above, but instead to use a single formatter object. I can supply it with the number of arguments necessary to specify a particular format.
One major advantage of this is that I can create objects that specify logical formats instead of physical formats. This allows, for example, something like:
Format title = {upper_case, centered, bold};
Format body = {lower_case, left, normal};
write(title, "This is the title");
write(body, "This is some plain text");
Decoupling the logical format from the physical format gives you roughly the same kind of capabilities as a style sheet. If you want to change all your titles from italic to bold-face, change your body style from left justified to fully justified, etc., it becomes relatively easy to do that. With your current code, you're likely to end up searching through all your code and examining "by hand" to figure out whether a particular lower-case, left-justified item is body-text that you want to re-format, or a foot-note that you want to leave alone...
As you already mentioned, one striking point is readability: writeInUpperCaseAndCentered("Foobar!") is much easier to understand than write("Foobar!", true, true), although you could eliminate that problem by using enumerations. On the other hand, having arguments avoids awkward constructions like:
if(foo)
writeInUpperCaseAndCentered("Foobar!");
else if(bar)
writeInLowerCaseAndCentered("Foobar!");
else
...
In my humble opinion, this is a very strong argument (no pun intended) for the argument way.
I suggest more cohesive functions as opposed to superfunctions that can do all kinds of things unless a superfunction is really called for (printf would have been quite awkward if it only printed one type at a time). Signature redundancy should generally not be considered redundant code. Technically speaking it is more code, but you should focus more on eliminating logical redundancies in your code. The result is code that's much easier to maintain with very concise, well-defined behavior. Think of this as the ideal when it seems redundant to write/use multiple functions.