adamski - Developer IT

crontab environment

- by Adamski

I have written various scripts to launch Java server applications, which are typically run for 24 hours before being shut down (by invoking the same script with a different parameter). The script relies on environment variables defined in a file: ~/<user>.env, which I source from .bashrc. This works fine when invoking the script from the command line but if I want to add the script as a crontab entry I run into the problem where .bashrc isn't read. My question: What is the best practice approach for solving this problem? I realise I could define a crontab entry such as: * * * * 1-5 /usr/bin/bash -c '. /home/myuser/myuser.env && /home/myuser/scripts/myscript.sh' ... but this seems plain ugly. Alternatively I could source myuser.env at the beginning of every script, but this would become a nightmare to maintain. Any help appreciated.

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Is an "infinite" iterator bad design?

- by Adamski

Is it generally considered bad practice to provide Iterator implementations that are "infinite"; i.e. where calls to hasNext() always(*) return true? Typically I'd say "yes" because the calling code could behave erratically, but in the below implementation hasNext() will return true unless the caller removes all elements from the List that the iterator was initialised with; i.e. there is a termination condition. Do you think this is a legitimate use of Iterator? It doesn't seem to violate the contract although I suppose one could argue it's unintuitive. public class CyclicIterator<T> implements Iterator<T> { private final List<T> l; private Iterator it; public CyclicIterator<T>(List<T> l) { this.l = l; this.it = l.iterator(); } public boolean hasNext() { return !l.isEmpty(); } public T next() { T ret; if (!hasNext()) { throw new NoSuchElementException(); } else if (it.hasNext()) { ret = it.next(); } else { it = l.iterator(); ret = it.next(); } return ret; } public void remove() { it.remove(); } }

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Check if BigDecimal is integer value

- by Adamski

Can anyone recommend an efficient way of determining whether a BigDecimal is an integer value in the mathematical sense? At present I have the following code: private boolean isIntegerValue(BigDecimal bd) { boolean ret; try { bd.toBigIntegerExact(); ret = true; } catch (ArithmeticException ex) { ret = false; } return ret; } ... but would like to avoid the object creation overhead if necessary. Previously I was using bd.longValueExact() which would avoid creating an object if the BigDecimal was using its compact representation internally, but obviously would fail if the value was too big to fit into a long. Any help appreciated.

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k-combinations of a set of integers in ascending size order

- by Adamski

Programming challenge: Given a set of integers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] I would like to generate all possible k-combinations in ascending size order in Java; e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [1, 2], [1, 3] ... [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] It is fairly easy to produce a recursive solution that generates all combinations and then sort them afterwards but I imagine there's a more efficient way that removes the need for the additional sort.

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Use PermGen space or roll-my-own intern method?

- by Adamski

I am writing a Codec to process messages sent over TCP using a bespoke wire protocol. During the decode process I create a number of Strings, BigDecimals and dates. The client-server access patterns mean that it is common for the client to issue a request and then decode thousands of response messages, which results in a large number of duplicate Strings, BigDecimals, etc. Therefore I have created an InternPool<T> class allowing me to intern each class of object. Internally, the pool uses a WeakHashMap<T, WeakReferemce<T>>. For example: InternPool<BigDecimal> pool = new InternPool<BigDecimal>(); ... // Read BigDecimal from in buffer and then intern. BigDecimal quantity = pool.intern(readBigDecimal(in)); My question: I am using InternPool for BigDecimal but should I consider also using it for String instead of String's intern() method, which I believe uses PermGen space? What is the advantage of using PermGen space?

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Measuring time spent in application / thread

- by Adamski

I am writing a simulation in Java whereby objects act under Newtonian physics. An object may have a force applied to it and the resulting velocity causes it to move across the screen. The nature of the simulation means that objects move in discrete steps depending on the time ellapsed between the current and previous iteration of the animation loop; e.g public void animationLoop() { long prev = System.currentTimeMillis(); long now; while(true) { long now = System.currentTimeMillis(); long deltaMillis = now - prev; prev = now; if (deltaMillis > 0) { // Some time has passed for (Mass m : masses) { m.updatePosition(deltaMillis); } // Do all repaints. } } } A problem arises if the animation thread is delayed in some way causing a large amount of time to ellapse (the classic case being under Windows whereby clicking and holding on minimise / maximise prevents a repaint), which causes objects to move at an alarming rate. My question: Is there a way to determine the time spent in the animation thread rather than the wallclock time, or can anyone suggest a workaround to avoid this problem? My only thought so far is to contstrain deltaMillis by some upper bound.

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Is there any point in using a volatile long?

- by Adamski

I occasionally use a volatile instance variable in cases where I have two threads reading from / writing to it and don't want the overhead (or potential deadlock risk) of taking out a lock; for example a timer thread periodically updating an int ID that is exposed as a getter on some class: public class MyClass { private volatile int id; public MyClass() { ScheduledExecutorService execService = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1); execService.scheduleAtFixedRate(new Runnable() { public void run() { ++id; } }, 0L, 30L, TimeUnit.SECONDS); } public int getId() { return id; } } My question: Given that the JLS only guarantees that 32-bit reads will be atomic is there any point in ever using a volatile long? (i.e. 64-bit). Caveat: Please do not reply saying that using volatile over synchronized is a case of pre-optimisation; I am well aware of how / when to use synchronized but there are cases where volatile is preferable. For example, when defining a Spring bean for use in a single-threaded application I tend to favour volatile instance variables, as there is no guarantee that the Spring context will initialise each bean's properties in the main thread.

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php functions within functions.

- by Adamski

Hi all, ihave created a simple project to help me get to grips with php and mysql, but have run into a minor issue, i have a working solution but would like to understand why i cannot run this code successfully this way, ill explain: i have a function, function fetch_all_movies(){ global $connection; $query = 'select distinct * FROM `'.TABLE_MOVIE.'` ORDER BY movieName ASC'; $stmt = mysqli_prepare($connection,$query); mysqli_execute($stmt); mysqli_stmt_bind_result($stmt,$id,$name,$genre,$date,$year); while(mysqli_stmt_fetch($stmt)){ $editUrl = "index.php?a=editMovie&movieId=".$id.""; $delUrl = "index.php?a=delMovie&movieId=".$id.""; echo "<tr><td>".$id."</td><td>".$name."</td><td>".$date."</td><td>".get_actors($id)."</td><td><a href=\"".$editUrl."\">Edit</a> | <a href=\"".$delUrl."\">Delete</a></td></tr>"; } } this fetches all the movies in my db, then i wish to get the count of actors for each film, so i pass in the get_actors($id) function which gets the movie id and then gives me the count of how many actors are realted to a film. here is the function for that: function get_actors($movieId){ global $connection; $query = 'SELECT DISTINCT COUNT(*) FROM `'.TABLE_ACTORS.'` WHERE movieId = "'.$movieId.'"'; $result = mysqli_query($connection,$query); $row = mysqli_fetch_array($result); return $row[0]; } the functions both work perfect when called separately, i just would like to understand when i pass the function inside a function i get this warning: Warning: mysqli_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli_result, boolean given in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/movie_db/includes/functions.inc.php on line 287 could anyone help me understand why? many thanks.

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Using GA in GUI

- by AlexT

Sorry if this isn't clear as I'm writing this on a mobile device and I'm trying to make it quick. I've written a basic Genetic Algorithm with a binary encoding (genes) that builds a fitness value and evolves through several iterations using tournament selection, mutation and crossover. As a basic command-line example it seems to work. The problem I've got is with applying a genetic algorithm within a GUI as I am writing a maze-solving program that uses the GA to find a method through a maze. How do I turn my random binary encoded genes and fitness function (add all the binary values together) into a method to control a bot around a maze? I have built a basic GUI in Java consisting of a maze of labels (like a grid) with the available routes being in blue and the walls being in black. To reiterate my GA performs well and contains what any typical GA would (fitness method, get and set population, selection, crossover, etc) but now I need to plug it into a GUI to get my maze running. What needs to go where in order to get a bot that can move in different directions depending on what the GA says? Rough pseudocode would be great if possible As requested, an Individual is built using a separate class (Indiv), with all the main work being done in a Pop class. When a new individual is instantiated an array of ints represent the genes of said individual, with the genes being picked at random from a number between 0 and 1. The fitness function merely adds together the value of these genes and in the Pop class handles selection, mutation and crossover of two selected individuals. There's not much else to it, the command line program just shows evolution over n generations with the total fitness improving over each iteration. EDIT: It's starting to make a bit more sense now, although there are a few things that are bugging me... As Adamski has suggested I want to create an "Agent" with the options shown below. The problem I have is where the random bit string comes into play here. The agent knows where the walls are and has it laid out in a 4 bit string (i.e. 0111), but how does this affect the random 32 bit string? (i.e. 10001011011001001010011011010101) If I have the following maze (x is the start place, 2 is the goal, 1 is the wall): x 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 If I turn left I'm facing the wrong way and the agent will move completely off the maze if it moves forward. I assume that the first generation of the string will be completely random and it will evolve as the fitness grows but I don't get how the string will work within a maze. So, to get this straight... The fitness is the result of when the agent is able to move and is by a wall. The genes are a string of 32 bits, split into 16 sets of 2 bits to show the available actions and for the robot to move the two bits need to be passed with four bits from the agent showings its position near the walls. If the move is to go past a wall the move isn't made and it is deemed invalid and if the move is made and if a new wall is found then the fitness goes up. Is that right?

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