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Search found 40 results on 2 pages for 'froadie'.

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• Who are Alice and Bob? [closed]

  - by froadie

  I did search for this on SO, as I assumed someone must have asked it before, similar to the Foo-Bar questions. But I haven't found it, so I'm asking it myself. Is it just me, or are the names Alice and Bob used often in connection to programming, emailing, encoding...? Where did these names come from? What is their relation to computers/programming?

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• Why would you use "AS" when aliasing a SQL table?

  - by froadie

  I just came across a SQL statement that uses AS to alias tables, like this: SELECT all, my, stuff FROM someTableName AS a INNER JOIN someOtherTableName AS b ON a.id = b.id What I'm used to seeing is: SELECT all, my, stuff FROM someTableName a INNER JOIN someOtherTableName b ON a.id = b.id I'm assuming there's no difference and it's just syntactic sugar, but which of these is more prevalent/wide-spread? Is there any reason to prefer one over the other?

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• What task can I automate in Python that's fun, simple, and useful?

  - by froadie

  I'm trying to learn Python. I'm going to eventually be using it at work, but I don't have an active project in it as of now. I've been reading through some documentation and would like to learn some basics, but I learn best when actually coding. So I'm thinking of attempting a small Python project just to sort of "get my feet wet" in Python. While reading/asking around, I've often heard people say that if you need a Python project you should automate some task you do on your computer on a day-to-day basis. Maybe I'm not so imaginative, but I can't think of anything I'd like to automate... Does anyone have any ideas of something simple, fun, and not too time-consuming that someone can automate to get some basic experience in Python? Something that they would come out of feeling like they accomplished something fun and useful?

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• Is it good practice to call module functions directly in VB.NET?

  - by froadie

  I have a Util module in my VB.NET program that has project-wide methods such as logging and property parsing. The general practice where I work seems to be to call these methods directly without prefixing them with Util. When I was new to VB, it took me a while to figure out where these methods/functions were coming from. As I use my own Util methods now, I can't help thinking that it's a lot clearer and more understandable to add Util. before each method call (you know immediately that it's user-defined but not within the current class, and where to find it), and is hardly even longer. What's the general practice when calling procedures/functions of VB modules? Should we prefix them with the module name or not?

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• Is there any way to set or code breakpoints conditionally?

  - by froadie

  I've been wondering this for a while - is there a way to code/program breakpoints...? Conditionally? For example, can I specify something like - "when this variable becomes this value, break and open the debugger"? (Would be quite useful, especially in long loops when you want to debug loop execution of a late loop value.) I suppose this may be IDE-specific since debugging is implemented differently in different IDEs... I'd be interested to know how to do this in any IDE, but specifically in Eclipse and Visual Studio.

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• SQL "JOIN" vs. "INNER JOIN"?

  - by froadie

  I recently came across a query that implements a join using just the "JOIN" keyword. On researching I saw that when using a join in SQL without specifying INNER or OUTER, the default is an INNER JOIN. I've never come across this syntax before; all the SQL I've written/read/worked with specifies INNER or some sort of OUTER (LEFT, RIGHT, FULL...). Is there any reason not to rely on the default? Is the plain JOIN widely used? What are the coding standards regarding JOIN vs. INNER JOIN?

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• Why would I do an inner join on a non-distinct field?

  - by froadie

  I just came across a query that does an inner join on a non-distinct field. I've never seen this before and I'm a little confused about this usage. Something like: SELECT distinct all, my, stuff FROM myTable INNER JOIN myOtherTable ON myTable.nonDistinctField = myOtherTable.nonDistinctField (WHERE some filters here...) I'm not quite sure what my question is or how to phrase it, or why exactly this confuses me, but I was wondering if anyone could explain why someone would need to do an inner join on a non-distinct field and then select only distinct values...? Is there ever a legitimate use of an inner join on a non-distinct field? What would be the purpose? And if there's is a legitimate reason for such a query, can you give examples of where it would be used?

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• When should you use intermediate variables for expressions?

  - by froadie

  There are times that one writes code such as this: callSomeMethod(someClass.someClassMethod()); And other times when one would write the same code like this: int result = someClass.someClassMethod(); callSomeMethod(result); This is just a basic example to illustrate the point. My question isn't if you should use an intermediate variable or not, as that depends on the code and can sometimes be a good design decision and sometimes a terrible one. The question is - when would you choose one method over the other? What factors would you consider when deciding whether to use an intermediate step? (I'd assume length and understandability of the fully inlined code would have something to do with it...)

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• Why can't I get Python's urlopen() method to work?

  - by froadie

  Why isn't this simple Python code working? import urllib file = urllib.urlopen('http://www.google.com') print file.read() This is the error that I get: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\workspace\GarchUpdate\src\Practice.py", line 26, in <module> file = urllib.urlopen('http://www.google.com') File "C:\Python26\lib\urllib.py", line 87, in urlopen return opener.open(url) File "C:\Python26\lib\urllib.py", line 206, in open return getattr(self, name)(url) File "C:\Python26\lib\urllib.py", line 345, in open_http h.endheaders() File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 892, in endheaders self._send_output() File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 764, in _send_output self.send(msg) File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 723, in send self.connect() File "C:\Python26\lib\httplib.py", line 704, in connect self.timeout) File "C:\Python26\lib\socket.py", line 514, in create_connection raise error, msg IOError: [Errno socket error] [Errno 10060] A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond I've tried it with several different pages but I can never get the urlopen method to execute correctly.

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• What are the differences and similarities between the .NET languages?

  - by froadie

  I'm trying to figure out how much overlap there is between the different languages of the .NET framework, and what the real differences are. Is there an overlap of libraries/methods/functions...? If I'm googling a question for, say, VB .NET, and C# answers come up, what can I take from the C#-relevant info and what differences/incompatibilities should I look out for?

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• Algorithms to trim leading zeroes from a SQL field?

  - by froadie

  I just came across the interesting problem of trying to trim the leading zeroes from a non-numeric field in SQL. (Since it can contain characters, it can't just be converted to a number and then back.) This is what we ended up using: SELECT REPLACE(LTRIM(REPLACE(fieldWithLeadingZeroes,'0',' ')),' ','0') It replaces the zeroes with spaces, left trims it, and then puts the zeroes back in. I thought this was a very clever and interesting way to do it, although not so readable if you've never come across it before. Are there any clearer ways to do this? Any more efficient ways to do this? Or any other ways to do this period? I was intrigued by this problem and would be interested to see any methods of getting around it.

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• When would you put a semicolon after a method closing brace?

  - by froadie

  I've been programming in Java for a while, and I've just come across this syntax for the first time: public Object getSomething(){return something;}; What's interesting me is the final semicolon. It doesn't seem to be causing a compiler error, and as far as I know isn't generating runtime errors, so it seems to be valid syntax. When would I use this syntax? Or is it just something that is allowed but generally not used?

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• What's the standard config file name and extension in Python?

  - by froadie

  I'm creating a config file to hold configuration/properties settings for my project that frequently change, such as file paths. What's the standard name/extension for such a file? (e.g. in Java I've used config.xml, in VB.NET I've used App.config...)

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• Why can't I include these data files in a Python distribution using distutils?

  - by froadie

  I'm writing a setup.py file for a Python project so that I can distribute it. The aim is to eventually create a .egg file, but I'm trying to get it to work first with distutils and a regular .zip. This is an eclipse pydev project and my file structure is something like this: ProjectName src somePackage module1.py module2.py ... config propsFile1.ini propsFile2.ini propsFile3.ini setup.py Here's my setup.py code so far: from distutils.core import setup setup(name='ProjectName', version='1.0', packages=['somePackage'], data_files = [('config', ['..\config\propsFile1.ini', '..\config\propsFile2.ini', '..\config\propsFile3.ini'])] ) When I run this (with sdist as a command line parameter), a .zip file gets generated with all the python files - but the config files are not included. I thought that this code: data_files = [('config', ['..\config\propsFile1.ini', '..\config\propsFile2.ini', '..\config\propsFile3.ini'])] indicates that those 3 specified config files should be copied to a "config" directory in the zip distribution. Why is this code not accomplishing anything? What am I doing wrong? (I have also tried playing around with the paths of the config files... But nothing seems to help. Would Python throw an error or warning if the path was incorrect / file was not found?)

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• How does polymorphism work in Python?

  - by froadie

  I'm new to Python... and coming from a mostly Java background, if that accounts for anything. I'm trying to understand polymorphism in Python. Maybe the problem is that I'm expecting the concepts I already know to project into Python. But I put together the following test code: class animal(object): "empty animal class" class dog(animal): "empty dog class" myDog = dog() print myDog.__class__ is animal print myDog.__class__ is dog From the polymorphism I'm used to (e.g. java's instanceof), I would expect both of these statements to print true, as an instance of dog is an animal and also is a dog. But my output is: False True What am I missing?

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• Is there any way to code breakpoints/debugging?

  - by froadie

  I've been wondering this for a while - is there a way to code/program breakpoints...? Conditionally? For example, can I specify something like - "when this variable becomes this value, break and open the debugger"? (Would be quite useful, especially in long loops when you want to debug loop execution of a late loop value.) I suppose this may be IDE-specific since debugging is implemented differently in different IDEs... I'd be interested to know how to do this in any IDE, but specifically in Eclipse and Visual Studio.

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• Are multiply-thrown Exceptions checked or runtime?

  - by froadie

  I have an Exception chain in which method1 throws an Exception to method2 which throws the Exception on to main. For some reason, the compiler forces me to deal with the error in method2 and marks it as an error if I don't, indicating that it's a checked Exception. But when the same Exception is thrown further down the line to main, the compiler allows me to ignore it and doesn't display any errors. The original Exception in method1 is a ParseException, which is checked. But the method has a generic throws Exception clause in the header, and the same object is thrown to method2, which has an identical throws Exception clause. When and how does this Exception lose the status of being checked / caught by the compiler? Edited to clarify: public void method1() throws Exception{ // code that may generate ParseException } public void method2() throws Exception{ method1(); //compiler error } public static void main(String[] args){ method2(); //ignored by compiler }

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• Problems initializing a final variable in Java

  - by froadie

  I keep running into slight variations of a problem in Java and it's starting to get to me, and I can't really think of a proper way to get around it. I have an object property that is final, but dynamic. That is, I want the value to be constant once assigned, but the value can be different each runtime. So I declare the class level variable at the beginning of the class - say private final FILE_NAME;. Then, in the constructor, I assign it a value - say FILE_NAME = buildFileName(); The problem begins when I have code in the buildFileName() method that throws an exception. So I try something like this in the constructor: try{ FILE_NAME = buildFileName(); } catch(Exception e){ ... System.exit(1); } Now I have an error - "The blank final field FILE_NAME may not have been initialized." This is where I start to get slightly annoyed at Java's strict compiler. I know that this won't be a problem because if it gets to the catch the program will exit... But the compiler doesn't know that and so doesn't allow this code. If I try to add a dummy assignment to the catch, I get - "The final field FILE_NAME may already have been assigned." I clearly can't assign a default value before the try-catch because I can only assign to it once. Any ideas...?

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• How can a language's compiler be written in that language?

  - by froadie

  How can you write a compiler in the same language as the language you're writing that compiler for? Isn't this sort of recursive?

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• What are simple instructions for creating a Python package structure and egg?

  - by froadie

  I just completed my first (minor) Python project, and my boss wants me to package it nicely so that it can be distributed and called from other programs easily. He suggested I look into eggs. I've been googling and reading, but I'm just getting confused. Most of the sites I'm looking at explain how to use Python eggs that were already created, or how to create an egg from a setup.py file (which I don't yet have). All I have now is an Eclipse pydev project with about 4 modules and a settings/configuration file. In easy steps, how do I go about structuring it into folders/packages and compiling it into an egg? And once it's an egg, what do I have to know about deploying/building/using it? I'm really starting from scratch here, so don't assume I know anything; simple step-by-step instructions would be really helpful... These are some of the sites that I've been looking at so far: http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/PythonEggs http://www.packtpub.com/article/writing-a-package-in-python http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-cppeak3.html#N10232 I've also browsed a few SO questions but haven't really found what I need. Thanks!

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• How do I loop through a Python list by twos?

  - by froadie

  I want to loop through a Python list and process 2 list items at a time. Something like this in another language: for(int i = 0; i < list.length(); i+=2) { // do something with list[i] and list[i + 1] } What's the best way to accomplish this?

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• I created a Python egg; now what?

  - by froadie

  I've finally figured out how to create a Python egg and gotten it to work. What do I do with it now? How do I use it? How do I ensure that everything was correctly included? (Simple steps please... not just redirection to another site. I've googled, but it's confusing me, and I was hoping someone could explain it in a couple of simple bullet points or sentences.)

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• How do you search for symbols without knowing what they're called?

  - by froadie

  This is a question that's been bothering me for a while, and it's likely that there's no way around it. But I was curious if anyone has any techniques for dealing with this. How do you search on a symbol using a search engine (such as Google or Bing) without knowing the symbol's name...? Most standard search engines seem to ignore symbols... (e.g. @, ^, etc.) Are there any engines that don't? Is there any other way to do this?

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• How can I update a record using a correlated subquery?

  - by froadie

  I have a function that accepts one parameter and returns a table/resultset. I want to set a field in a table to the first result of that recordset, passing in one of the table's other fields as the parameter. If that's too complicated in words, the query looks something like this: UPDATE myTable SET myField = (SELECT TOP 1 myFunctionField FROM fn_doSomething(myOtherField) WHERE someCondition = 'something') WHERE someOtherCondition = 'somethingElse' In this example, myField and myOtherField are fields in myTable, and myFunctionField is a field return by fn_doSomething. This seems logical to me, but I'm getting the following strange error: 'myOtherField' is not a recognized OPTIMIZER LOCK HINTS option. Any idea what I'm doing wrong, and how I can accomplish this? *UPDATE: * Based on Anil Soman's answer, I realized that the function is expecting a string parameter and the field being passed is an integer. I'm not sure if this should be a problem as an explicit call to the function using an integer value works - e.g. fn_doSomething(12345) seems to automatically cast the number to an string. However, I tried to do an explicit cast: UPDATE myTable SET myField = (SELECT TOP 1 myFunctionField FROM fn_doSomething(CAST(myOtherField AS varchar(1000))) WHERE someCondition = 'something') WHERE someOtherCondition = 'somethingElse' Now I'm getting the following error: Line 5: Incorrect syntax near '('.

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• If Python is interpreted, what are .pyc files?

  - by froadie

  I've been given to understand that Python is an interpreted language... however, when I look at my Python source code I see .pyc files, which Windows identifies as "Compiled Python Files". Where do these come in?

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