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  • Java-Hibernate-Newbie: How do I acces the values from this list?

    - by Mes
    I have this class mapped @Entity @Table(name = "USERS") public class User { private long id; private String userName; } and I make a query: Query query = session.createQuery("select id, userName, count(userName) from User order by count(userName) desc"); return query.list(); How can I acces the value returned by the query?

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  • Django Custom Field: Only run to_python() on values from DB?

    - by Adam Levy
    How can I ensure that my custom field's *to_python()* method is only called when the data in the field has been loaded from the DB? I'm trying to use a Custom Field to handle the Base64 Encoding/Decoding of a single model property. Everything appeared to be working correctly until I instantiated a new instance of the model and set this property with its plaintext value...at that point, Django tried to decode the field but failed because it was plaintext. The allure of the Custom Field implementation was that I thought I could handle 100% of the encoding/decoding logic there, so that no other part of my code ever needed to know about it. What am I doing wrong? (NOTE: This is just an example to illustrate my problem, I don't need advice on how I should or should not be using Base64 Encoding) def encode(value): return base64.b64encode(value) def decode(value): return base64.b64decode(value) class EncodedField(models.CharField): __metaclass__ = models.SubfieldBase def __init__(self, max_length, *args, **kwargs): super(EncodedField, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs) def get_prep_value(self, value): return encode(value) def to_python(self, value): return decode(value) class Person(models.Model): internal_id = EncodedField(max_length=32) ...and it breaks when I do this in the interactive shell. Why is it calling to_python() here? >>> from myapp.models import * >>> Person(internal_id="foo") Traceback (most recent call last): File "<console>", line 1, in <module> File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/base.py", line 330, in __init__ setattr(self, field.attname, val) File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/django/db/models/fields/subclassing.py", line 98, in __set__ obj.__dict__[self.field.name] = self.field.to_python(value) File "../myapp/models.py", line 87, in to_python return decode(value) File "../myapp/models.py", line 74, in decode return base64.b64decode(value) File "/usr/lib/python2.6/base64.py", line 76, in b64decode raise TypeError(msg) TypeError: Incorrect padding I had expected I would be able to do something like this... >>> from myapp.models import * >>> obj = Person(internal_id="foo") >>> obj.internal_id 'foo' >>> obj.save() >>> newObj = Person.objects.get(internal_id="foo") >>> newObj.internal_id 'foo' >>> newObj.internal_id = "bar" >>> newObj.internal_id 'bar' >>> newObj.save() ...what am I doing wrong?

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  • Purpose of front() and back() in assigning values in a Queue? (C++)

    - by kevin
    I have declared: queue<int, list<int> > Q After a series of calls: Q.push(37); Q.pop(); Q.push(19); Q.push(3); Q.push(13); Q.front(); Q.push(22); Q.push(8); Q.back(); I get: 19-3-13-22-8-NULL What I don't get is what the calls to Q.front() and Q.back() do. From what I understand, they return a reference to the first or last elements respectively, but I dont see how my list would be any different had those calls not been made. Do they have any effect? Sorry if this seems trivial, but I'm trying to figure out of those calls have a purpose, or of my professor is just trying to screw with me.

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  • MySQL is there a Single Select to Query Various Unrelated Values from a database?

    - by zzapper
    I saw somewhere what seemed to be nested selects, one "master" select on the "outside" and a series of selects inside- is this possible? I'm not talking about joins as there is particular relation between the selects. I seem not to be explaining myself very well. I want to do a single query which will pull out a series of stats from various tables latest order, latest customer, largest order. Obviously I can do that with a series of selects. The example I saw was something like select ( select ... from tbl_1 where .., select ... from tbl_2 where .., select ... from tbl_3 where .., ... )

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  • I just learned about C++ functions; can I use if statements on function return values?

    - by Sagistic
    What I am confused on is about the isNumPalindrome() function. It returns a boolean value of either true or false. How am I suppose to use that so I can display if it's a palindrome or not. For ex. if (isNumPalindrome == true) cout << "Your number is a palindrome"; else cout << "your number is not a palindrome."; #include "stdafx.h" int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { return 0; } #include <iostream> #include <cmath> using namespace std; int askNumber(); bool isNumPalindrome(); int num, pwr; int main() { askNumber(); return 0; } bool isNumPalindrome() { int pwr = 0; if (num < 10) return true; else { while (num / static_cast<int>(pow(10.0, pwr)) >=10) pwr++; while (num >=10) { int tenTopwr = static_cast<int>(pow(10.0, pwr)); if ((num / tenTopwr) != (num% 10)) return false; else { num = num % tenTopwr; num = num / 10; pwr = pwr-2; } } return true; } } int askNumber() { cout << "Enter an integer in order to determine if it is a palindrome: " ; cin >> num; cout << endl; if(isNumPalindrome(num)) { cout << "It is a palindrome." ; cout << endl; } else { cout << "It is not a palindrome." ; cout << endl; } return num; }

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  • How do I stop the designer from filling in my properties with null values?

    - by Tim Gradwell
    When I add a control to a form, visual studio assigns various of the properties of that form a value of null in the auto-generated designer code. I don't want the designer to make the redundant assignment (the value is already null). Can anyone tell me how to prevent it? example MyControl has property public SomeClass MyProperty { get { return m_MyValue; } set { m_MyValue = value; } } designer then autogenerates the following: myControl1.MyProperty = null;

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  • Is it possible to auto generate Getter/Setter from Array Values in PHP?

    - by Phill Pafford
    So I have a couple of arrays $array_1 = Array('one','two','three'); $array_2 = Array('red','blue','green'); Is there a dynamic way to create the Setters and Getters for an array with single value entries? So the class would be something like: class xFromArray() { } So the above if I passed $array_1 it would generate something like this: private $one; setOne($x) { $one = $x; } getOne() { return $one; } if I passed $array_2 it would generate something like this: private $red; setRed($x) { $red = $x; } getRed() { return $red; } So I would call it somehow like this? (My best guess but doesn't seem that this would work) $xFromArray = new xFromArray; foreach($array_1 as $key=>$data) { $xFromArray->create_function(set.ucfirst($data)($data)); echo $xFromArray->create_function(get.ucfirst($data)); }

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  • SQL query to get lowest 2 values of a counted query selection (using db2)?

    - by jNoob
    Hi, Imagine I already have a query that returns the following: Col1 | Col2 ------------ A | 2 B | 3 C | 3 D | 4 E | 8 ... Say I used something like this: select Col1, count ( * ) as Col2 \ from ... where ... order by Col2 \ group by Col1 \ So now, all I want to select are (Col1, Col2) such that it returns the selections (a, b) and (c, d) where (b >= all (Col2)) and (d >= ((all (Col2)) - a)). So for the above example, it would return {(A, 2), (B, 3), (C, 3)}. How do I go about doing this? Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks.

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  • Where to find viterbi algorithm transition values for natural language processing?

    - by Rodrigo Salazar
    I just watched a video where they used Viterbi algorithm to determine whether certain words in a sentence are intended to be nouns/verbs/adjs etc, they used transition and emission probabilities, for example the probability of the word 'Time' being used as a verb is known (emission) and the probability of a noun leading onto a verb (transition). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_q82UMtjoM&feature=relmfu (The video) How can I find a good dataset of transition and emission probabilities for this use-case? Or EVEN just a single example with all the probabilities displayed, I want to use realistic numbers in a demonstration.

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  • How to find "y" values of the already estimated monotone function of the non-monotone regression curve corresponding to the original "x" points?

    - by parenthesis
    The title sounds complicated but that is what I am looking for. Focus on the picture. ## data x <- c(1.009648,1.017896,1.021773,1.043659,1.060277,1.074578,1.075495,1.097086,1.106268,1.110550,1.117795,1.143573,1.166305,1.177850,1.188795,1.198032,1.200526,1.223329,1.235814,1.239068,1.243189,1.260003,1.262732,1.266907,1.269932,1.284472,1.307483,1.323714,1.326705,1.328625,1.372419,1.398703,1.404474,1.414360,1.415909,1.418254,1.430865,1.431476,1.437642,1.438682,1.447056,1.456152,1.457934,1.457993,1.465968,1.478041,1.478076,1.485995,1.486357,1.490379,1.490719) y <- c(0.5102649,0.0000000,0.6360097,0.0000000,0.8692671,0.0000000,1.0000000,0.0000000,0.4183691,0.8953987,0.3442624,0.0000000,0.7513169,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.1291901,0.4936121,0.7565551,1.0085108,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.1655482,0.0000000,0.1473168,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.1875293,0.4918018,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.8101771,0.6853480,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.4068802,1.1061434,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.0000000,0.6391678) fit1 <- c(0.5102649100,0.5153380934,0.5177234836,0.5255544980,0.5307668662,0.5068087080,0.5071001179,0.4825657520,0.4832969250,0.4836378194,0.4842147729,0.5004039310,0.4987301366,0.4978800742,0.4978042478,0.4969807064,0.5086987191,0.4989497612,0.4936121200,0.4922210302,0.4904593166,0.4775197108,0.4757040857,0.4729265271,0.4709141776,0.4612406896,0.4459316517,0.4351338346,0.4331439717,0.4318664278,0.3235179189,0.2907908968,0.1665721429,0.1474035158,0.1443999345,0.1398517097,0.1153991839,0.1142140393,0.1022584672,0.1002410843,0.0840033244,0.0663669309,0.0629119398,0.0627979240,0.0473336492,0.0239237481,0.0238556876,0.0084990298,0.0077970954,0.0000000000,-0.0006598571) fit2 <- c(-0.0006598571,0.0153328298,0.0228511733,0.0652889427,0.0975108758,0.1252414661,0.1270195143,0.1922510501,0.2965234797,0.3018551305,0.3108761043,0.3621749370,0.4184150225,0.4359301495,0.4432114081,0.4493565757,0.4510158144,0.4661865431,0.4744926045,0.4766574718,0.4796937554,0.4834718810,0.4836125426,0.4839450098,0.4841092849,0.4877317306,0.4930561638,0.4964939389,0.4970089201,0.4971376528,0.4990394601,0.5005881678,0.5023814257,0.5052125977,0.5056691690,0.5064254338,0.5115481820,0.5117259449,0.5146054557,0.5149729419,0.5184178197,0.5211542908,0.5216215426,0.5216426533,0.5239797875,0.5273573222,0.5273683002,0.5293994824,0.5295130266,0.5306236672,0.5307303109) ## picture plot(x, y) ## red regression curve points(x, fit1, col=2); lines(x, fit1, col=2) ## blue monotonic curve to the regression points(min(x) + cumsum(c(0, rev(diff(x)))), rev(fit2), col="blue"); lines(min(x) + cumsum(c(0, rev(diff(x)))), rev(fit2), col="blue") ## "x" original point matches with the regression estimated point ## but not with the estimated (fit2=estimate) monotonic curve abline(v=1.223329, lty=2, col="grey") Focus on the dashed grey line. The idea is to get y value of the monotonic blue curve corresponding to x original value. The grey line should cross three points (the original one "black", the regression estimate "red", the adjusted regression estimate "blue"). Can we do this? Methodology: The object "fit2" is the output of the function rearrangement(). It is always monotonically increasing. library(Rearrangement) fit2 <- rearrangement(x=as.data.frame(x), y=fit1)

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  • How to save the values of one model in another?

    - by ragupathi
    I have user model and Language model where the language model contains different languages and i want the user to select the languages from that model and it should be stored for the corresponding user. Consider there are five languages A, B, C, D, E then the user has to select from the languages. Suppose user 1 selects A and C whereas user 2 selects B and D then the languages has to be stored for that user. How can i do this? please help me.

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  • How can I sum array values by unique key?

    - by AndrewSpilak
    For example array ( product1_quantity => 5, product1_quantity => 1, product2_quantity => 3, product2_quantity => 7, product3_quantity => 2, ) with result: product1_quantity - 6, product2_quantity - 10, product3_quantity - 2 Thanx! sorry, guys stupid example, instead this really Array ( [0] = Array ( [product1] = 7 ) [1] = Array ( [product1] = 2 ) [2] = Array ( [product2] = 3 ) ) ?

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  • [PHP] Does unsetting array values during iterating save on memory?

    - by saturn_rising
    Hello fellow code warriors, This is a simple programming question, coming from my lack of knowledge of how PHP handles array copying and unsetting during a foreach loop. It's like this, I have an array that comes to me from an outside source formatted in a way I want to change. A simple example would be: $myData = array('Key1' => array('value1', 'value2')); But what I want would be something like: $myData = array([0] => array('MyKey' => array('Key1' => array('value1', 'value2')))); So I take the first $myData and format it like the second $myData. I'm totally fine with my formatting algorithm. My question lies in finding a way to conserve memory since these arrays might get a little unwieldy. So, during my foreach loop I copy the current array value(s) into the new format, then I unset the value I'm working with from the original array. E.g.: $formattedData = array(); foreach ($myData as $key => $val) { // do some formatting here, copy to $reformattedVal $formattedData[] = $reformattedVal; unset($myData[$key]); } Is the call to unset() a good idea here? I.e., does it conserve memory since I have copied the data and no longer need the original value? Or, does PHP automatically garbage collect the data since I don't reference it in any subsequent code? The code runs fine, and so far my datasets have been too negligible in size to test for performance differences. I just don't know if I'm setting myself up for some weird bugs or CPU hits later on. Thanks for any insights. -sR

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  • Selecting only the entries that have a distinct combination of values?

    - by Theodore E O'Neal
    I have a table, links1, that has the columns headers CardID and AbilityID, that looks like this: CardID | AbilityID 1001 | 1 1001 | 2 1001 | 3 1002 | 2 1002 | 3 1002 | 4 1003 | 3 1003 | 4 1003 | 5 What I want is to be able to return all the CardID that that have two specific AbilityID. For example: If I choose 1 and 2, it returns 1001. If I choose 3 and 4, it returns 1002 and 1003. Is it possible to do this with only one table, or will I need to create an identical table and do an INNER JOIN on those?

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  • How to get values of atributes on a XML file using C++ ?

    - by Reversed
    Need to write some C++ code that reads XML string and if i do something like: get valueofElement("ACTION_ON_CARD") it returns 3 get valueofElement("ACTION_ON_ENVELOPE") it returns YES XML String: <ACTION_ON_CARD>3</ACTION_ON_CARD> <ACTION_ON_ENVELOPE>YES</ACTION_ON_ENVELOPE> Any code example would be helpfull Thanks

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  • Dynamic JSON Parsing in .NET with JsonValue

    - by Rick Strahl
    So System.Json has been around for a while in Silverlight, but it's relatively new for the desktop .NET framework and now moving into the lime-light with the pending release of ASP.NET Web API which is bringing a ton of attention to server side JSON usage. The JsonValue, JsonObject and JsonArray objects are going to be pretty useful for Web API applications as they allow you dynamically create and parse JSON values without explicit .NET types to serialize from or into. But even more so I think JsonValue et al. are going to be very useful when consuming JSON APIs from various services. Yes I know C# is strongly typed, why in the world would you want to use dynamic values? So many times I've needed to retrieve a small morsel of information from a large service JSON response and rather than having to map the entire type structure of what that service returns, JsonValue actually allows me to cherry pick and only work with the values I'm interested in, without having to explicitly create everything up front. With JavaScriptSerializer or DataContractJsonSerializer you always need to have a strong type to de-serialize JSON data into. Wouldn't it be nice if no explicit type was required and you could just parse the JSON directly using a very easy to use object syntax? That's exactly what JsonValue, JsonObject and JsonArray accomplish using a JSON parser and some sweet use of dynamic sauce to make it easy to access in code. Creating JSON on the fly with JsonValue Let's start with creating JSON on the fly. It's super easy to create a dynamic object structure. JsonValue uses the dynamic  keyword extensively to make it intuitive to create object structures and turn them into JSON via dynamic object syntax. Here's an example of creating a music album structure with child songs using JsonValue:[TestMethod] public void JsonValueOutputTest() { // strong type instance var jsonObject = new JsonObject(); // dynamic expando instance you can add properties to dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; album.Artist = "AC/DC"; album.YearReleased = 1977; album.Songs = new JsonArray() as dynamic; dynamic song = new JsonObject(); song.SongName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; song.SongLength = "4:11"; album.Songs.Add(song); song = new JsonObject(); song.SongName = "Love at First Feel"; song.SongLength = "3:10"; album.Songs.Add(song); Console.WriteLine(album.ToString()); } This produces proper JSON just as you would expect: {"AlbumName":"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap","Artist":"AC\/DC","YearReleased":1977,"Songs":[{"SongName":"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap","SongLength":"4:11"},{"SongName":"Love at First Feel","SongLength":"3:10"}]} The important thing about this code is that there's no explicitly type that is used for holding the values to serialize to JSON. I am essentially creating this value structure on the fly by adding properties and then serialize it to JSON. This means this code can be entirely driven at runtime without compile time restraints of structure for the JSON output. Here I use JsonObject() to create a new object and immediately cast it to dynamic. JsonObject() is kind of similar in behavior to ExpandoObject in that it allows you to add properties by simply assigning to them. Internally, JsonValue/JsonObject these values are stored in pseudo collections of key value pairs that are exposed as properties through the DynamicObject functionality in .NET. The syntax gets a little tedious only if you need to create child objects or arrays that have to be explicitly defined first. Other than that the syntax looks like normal object access sytnax. Always remember though these values are dynamic - which means no Intellisense and no compiler type checking. It's up to you to ensure that the values you create are accessed consistently and without typos in your code. Note that you can also access the JsonValue instance directly and get access to the underlying type. This means you can assign properties by string, which can be useful for fully data driven JSON generation from other structures. Below you can see both styles of access next to each other:// strong type instance var jsonObject = new JsonObject(); // you can explicitly add values here jsonObject.Add("Entered", DateTime.Now); // expando style instance you can just 'use' properties dynamic album = jsonObject; album.AlbumName = "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"; JsonValue internally stores properties keys and values in collections and you can iterate over them at runtime. You can also manipulate the collections if you need to to get the object structure to look exactly like you want. Again, if you've used ExpandoObject before JsonObject/Value are very similar in the behavior of the structure. Reading JSON strings into JsonValue The JsonValue structure supports importing JSON via the Parse() and Load() methods which can read JSON data from a string or various streams respectively. Essentially JsonValue includes the core JSON parsing to turn a JSON string into a collection of JsonValue objects that can be then referenced using familiar dynamic object syntax. Here's a simple example:[TestMethod] public void JsonValueParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"{""Name"":""Rick"",""Company"":""West Wind"",""Entered"":""2012-03-16T00:03:33.245-10:00""}"; dynamic json = JsonValue.Parse(jsonString); // values require casting string name = json.Name; string company = json.Company; DateTime entered = json.Entered; Assert.AreEqual(name, "Rick"); Assert.AreEqual(company, "West Wind"); } The JSON string represents an object with three properties which is parsed into a JsonValue object and cast to dynamic. Once cast to dynamic I can then go ahead and access the object using familiar object syntax. Note that the actual values - json.Name, json.Company, json.Entered - are actually of type JsonPrimitive and I have to assign them to their appropriate types first before I can do type comparisons. The dynamic properties will automatically cast to the right type expected as long as the compiler can resolve the type of the assignment or usage. The AreEqual() method oesn't as it expects two object instances and comparing json.Company to "West Wind" is comparing two different types (JsonPrimitive to String) which fails. So the intermediary assignment is required to make the test pass. The JSON structure can be much more complex than this simple example. Here's another example of an array of albums serialized to JSON and then parsed through with JsonValue():[TestMethod] public void JsonArrayParsingTest() { var jsonString = @"[ { ""Id"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""AlbumName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""Artist"": ""AC/DC"", ""YearReleased"": 1977, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2810521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61kTaH-uZBL._AA115_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008BXJ4/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=westwindtechn-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00008BXJ4"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"", ""SongLength"": ""4:11"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Love at First Feel"", ""SongLength"": ""3:10"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""b3ec4e5c"", ""SongName"": ""Big Balls"", ""SongLength"": ""2:38"" } ] }, { ""Id"": ""67280fb8"", ""AlbumName"": ""Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace"", ""Artist"": ""Foo Fighters"", ""YearReleased"": 2007, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2810521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41mtlesQPVL._SL500_AA280_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UFAURI/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=westwindtechn-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000UFAURI"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""67280fb8"", ""SongName"": ""The Pretender"", ""SongLength"": ""4:29"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""67280fb8"", ""SongName"": ""Let it Die"", ""SongLength"": ""4:05"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""67280fb8"", ""SongName"": ""Erase/Replay"", ""SongLength"": ""4:13"" } ] }, { ""Id"": ""7b919432"", ""AlbumName"": ""End of the Silence"", ""Artist"": ""Henry Rollins Band"", ""YearReleased"": 1992, ""Entered"": ""2012-03-16T00:13:12.2800521-10:00"", ""AlbumImageUrl"": ""http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FO3rb1tuL._SL160_AA160_.jpg"", ""AmazonUrl"": ""http://www.amazon.com/End-Silence-Rollins-Band/dp/B0000040OX/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1302232195&sr=8-5"", ""Songs"": [ { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Low Self Opinion"", ""SongLength"": ""5:24"" }, { ""AlbumId"": ""7b919432"", ""SongName"": ""Grip"", ""SongLength"": ""4:51"" } ] } ]"; dynamic albums = JsonValue.Parse(jsonString); foreach (dynamic album in albums) { Console.WriteLine(album.AlbumName + " (" + album.YearReleased.ToString() + ")"); foreach (dynamic song in album.Songs) { Console.WriteLine("\t" + song.SongName ); } } Console.WriteLine(albums[0].AlbumName); Console.WriteLine(albums[0].Songs[1].SongName);}   It's pretty sweet how easy it becomes to parse even complex JSON and then just run through the object using object syntax, yet without an explicit type in the mix. In fact it looks and feels a lot like if you were using JavaScript to parse through this data, doesn't it? And that's the point…© Rick Strahl, West Wind Technologies, 2005-2012Posted in .NET  Web Api  JSON   Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); (function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();

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  • C#/.NET Little Wonders: The Concurrent Collections (1 of 3)

    - by James Michael Hare
    Once again we consider some of the lesser known classes and keywords of C#.  In the next few weeks, we will discuss the concurrent collections and how they have changed the face of concurrent programming. This week’s post will begin with a general introduction and discuss the ConcurrentStack<T> and ConcurrentQueue<T>.  Then in the following post we’ll discuss the ConcurrentDictionary<T> and ConcurrentBag<T>.  Finally, we shall close on the third post with a discussion of the BlockingCollection<T>. For more of the "Little Wonders" posts, see the index here. A brief history of collections In the beginning was the .NET 1.0 Framework.  And out of this framework emerged the System.Collections namespace, and it was good.  It contained all the basic things a growing programming language needs like the ArrayList and Hashtable collections.  The main problem, of course, with these original collections is that they held items of type object which means you had to be disciplined enough to use them correctly or you could end up with runtime errors if you got an object of a type you weren't expecting. Then came .NET 2.0 and generics and our world changed forever!  With generics the C# language finally got an equivalent of the very powerful C++ templates.  As such, the System.Collections.Generic was born and we got type-safe versions of all are favorite collections.  The List<T> succeeded the ArrayList and the Dictionary<TKey,TValue> succeeded the Hashtable and so on.  The new versions of the library were not only safer because they checked types at compile-time, in many cases they were more performant as well.  So much so that it's Microsoft's recommendation that the System.Collections original collections only be used for backwards compatibility. So we as developers came to know and love the generic collections and took them into our hearts and embraced them.  The problem is, thread safety in both the original collections and the generic collections can be problematic, for very different reasons. Now, if you are only doing single-threaded development you may not care – after all, no locking is required.  Even if you do have multiple threads, if a collection is “load-once, read-many” you don’t need to do anything to protect that container from multi-threaded access, as illustrated below: 1: public static class OrderTypeTranslator 2: { 3: // because this dictionary is loaded once before it is ever accessed, we don't need to synchronize 4: // multi-threaded read access 5: private static readonly Dictionary<string, char> _translator = new Dictionary<string, char> 6: { 7: {"New", 'N'}, 8: {"Update", 'U'}, 9: {"Cancel", 'X'} 10: }; 11:  12: // the only public interface into the dictionary is for reading, so inherently thread-safe 13: public static char? Translate(string orderType) 14: { 15: char charValue; 16: if (_translator.TryGetValue(orderType, out charValue)) 17: { 18: return charValue; 19: } 20:  21: return null; 22: } 23: } Unfortunately, most of our computer science problems cannot get by with just single-threaded applications or with multi-threading in a load-once manner.  Looking at  today's trends, it's clear to see that computers are not so much getting faster because of faster processor speeds -- we've nearly reached the limits we can push through with today's technologies -- but more because we're adding more cores to the boxes.  With this new hardware paradigm, it is even more important to use multi-threaded applications to take full advantage of parallel processing to achieve higher application speeds. So let's look at how to use collections in a thread-safe manner. Using historical collections in a concurrent fashion The early .NET collections (System.Collections) had a Synchronized() static method that could be used to wrap the early collections to make them completely thread-safe.  This paradigm was dropped in the generic collections (System.Collections.Generic) because having a synchronized wrapper resulted in atomic locks for all operations, which could prove overkill in many multithreading situations.  Thus the paradigm shifted to having the user of the collection specify their own locking, usually with an external object: 1: public class OrderAggregator 2: { 3: private static readonly Dictionary<string, List<Order>> _orders = new Dictionary<string, List<Order>>(); 4: private static readonly _orderLock = new object(); 5:  6: public void Add(string accountNumber, Order newOrder) 7: { 8: List<Order> ordersForAccount; 9:  10: // a complex operation like this should all be protected 11: lock (_orderLock) 12: { 13: if (!_orders.TryGetValue(accountNumber, out ordersForAccount)) 14: { 15: _orders.Add(accountNumber, ordersForAccount = new List<Order>()); 16: } 17:  18: ordersForAccount.Add(newOrder); 19: } 20: } 21: } Notice how we’re performing several operations on the dictionary under one lock.  With the Synchronized() static methods of the early collections, you wouldn’t be able to specify this level of locking (a more macro-level).  So in the generic collections, it was decided that if a user needed synchronization, they could implement their own locking scheme instead so that they could provide synchronization as needed. The need for better concurrent access to collections Here’s the problem: it’s relatively easy to write a collection that locks itself down completely for access, but anything more complex than that can be difficult and error-prone to write, and much less to make it perform efficiently!  For example, what if you have a Dictionary that has frequent reads but in-frequent updates?  Do you want to lock down the entire Dictionary for every access?  This would be overkill and would prevent concurrent reads.  In such cases you could use something like a ReaderWriterLockSlim which allows for multiple readers in a lock, and then once a writer grabs the lock it blocks all further readers until the writer is done (in a nutshell).  This is all very complex stuff to consider. Fortunately, this is where the Concurrent Collections come in.  The Parallel Computing Platform team at Microsoft went through great pains to determine how to make a set of concurrent collections that would have the best performance characteristics for general case multi-threaded use. Now, as in all things involving threading, you should always make sure you evaluate all your container options based on the particular usage scenario and the degree of parallelism you wish to acheive. This article should not be taken to understand that these collections are always supperior to the generic collections. Each fills a particular need for a particular situation. Understanding what each container is optimized for is key to the success of your application whether it be single-threaded or multi-threaded. General points to consider with the concurrent collections The MSDN points out that the concurrent collections all support the ICollection interface. However, since the collections are already synchronized, the IsSynchronized property always returns false, and SyncRoot always returns null.  Thus you should not attempt to use these properties for synchronization purposes. Note that since the concurrent collections also may have different operations than the traditional data structures you may be used to.  Now you may ask why they did this, but it was done out of necessity to keep operations safe and atomic.  For example, in order to do a Pop() on a stack you have to know the stack is non-empty, but between the time you check the stack’s IsEmpty property and then do the Pop() another thread may have come in and made the stack empty!  This is why some of the traditional operations have been changed to make them safe for concurrent use. In addition, some properties and methods in the concurrent collections achieve concurrency by creating a snapshot of the collection, which means that some operations that were traditionally O(1) may now be O(n) in the concurrent models.  I’ll try to point these out as we talk about each collection so you can be aware of any potential performance impacts.  Finally, all the concurrent containers are safe for enumeration even while being modified, but some of the containers support this in different ways (snapshot vs. dirty iteration).  Once again I’ll highlight how thread-safe enumeration works for each collection. ConcurrentStack<T>: The thread-safe LIFO container The ConcurrentStack<T> is the thread-safe counterpart to the System.Collections.Generic.Stack<T>, which as you may remember is your standard last-in-first-out container.  If you think of algorithms that favor stack usage (for example, depth-first searches of graphs and trees) then you can see how using a thread-safe stack would be of benefit. The ConcurrentStack<T> achieves thread-safe access by using System.Threading.Interlocked operations.  This means that the multi-threaded access to the stack requires no traditional locking and is very, very fast! For the most part, the ConcurrentStack<T> behaves like it’s Stack<T> counterpart with a few differences: Pop() was removed in favor of TryPop() Returns true if an item existed and was popped and false if empty. PushRange() and TryPopRange() were added Allows you to push multiple items and pop multiple items atomically. Count takes a snapshot of the stack and then counts the items. This means it is a O(n) operation, if you just want to check for an empty stack, call IsEmpty instead which is O(1). ToArray() and GetEnumerator() both also take snapshots. This means that iteration over a stack will give you a static view at the time of the call and will not reflect updates. Pushing on a ConcurrentStack<T> works just like you’d expect except for the aforementioned PushRange() method that was added to allow you to push a range of items concurrently. 1: var stack = new ConcurrentStack<string>(); 2:  3: // adding to stack is much the same as before 4: stack.Push("First"); 5:  6: // but you can also push multiple items in one atomic operation (no interleaves) 7: stack.PushRange(new [] { "Second", "Third", "Fourth" }); For looking at the top item of the stack (without removing it) the Peek() method has been removed in favor of a TryPeek().  This is because in order to do a peek the stack must be non-empty, but between the time you check for empty and the time you execute the peek the stack contents may have changed.  Thus the TryPeek() was created to be an atomic check for empty, and then peek if not empty: 1: // to look at top item of stack without removing it, can use TryPeek. 2: // Note that there is no Peek(), this is because you need to check for empty first. TryPeek does. 3: string item; 4: if (stack.TryPeek(out item)) 5: { 6: Console.WriteLine("Top item was " + item); 7: } 8: else 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine("Stack was empty."); 11: } Finally, to remove items from the stack, we have the TryPop() for single, and TryPopRange() for multiple items.  Just like the TryPeek(), these operations replace Pop() since we need to ensure atomically that the stack is non-empty before we pop from it: 1: // to remove items, use TryPop or TryPopRange to get multiple items atomically (no interleaves) 2: if (stack.TryPop(out item)) 3: { 4: Console.WriteLine("Popped " + item); 5: } 6:  7: // TryPopRange will only pop up to the number of spaces in the array, the actual number popped is returned. 8: var poppedItems = new string[2]; 9: int numPopped = stack.TryPopRange(poppedItems); 10:  11: foreach (var theItem in poppedItems.Take(numPopped)) 12: { 13: Console.WriteLine("Popped " + theItem); 14: } Finally, note that as stated before, GetEnumerator() and ToArray() gets a snapshot of the data at the time of the call.  That means if you are enumerating the stack you will get a snapshot of the stack at the time of the call.  This is illustrated below: 1: var stack = new ConcurrentStack<string>(); 2:  3: // adding to stack is much the same as before 4: stack.Push("First"); 5:  6: var results = stack.GetEnumerator(); 7:  8: // but you can also push multiple items in one atomic operation (no interleaves) 9: stack.PushRange(new [] { "Second", "Third", "Fourth" }); 10:  11: while(results.MoveNext()) 12: { 13: Console.WriteLine("Stack only has: " + results.Current); 14: } The only item that will be printed out in the above code is "First" because the snapshot was taken before the other items were added. This may sound like an issue, but it’s really for safety and is more correct.  You don’t want to enumerate a stack and have half a view of the stack before an update and half a view of the stack after an update, after all.  In addition, note that this is still thread-safe, whereas iterating through a non-concurrent collection while updating it in the old collections would cause an exception. ConcurrentQueue<T>: The thread-safe FIFO container The ConcurrentQueue<T> is the thread-safe counterpart of the System.Collections.Generic.Queue<T> class.  The concurrent queue uses an underlying list of small arrays and lock-free System.Threading.Interlocked operations on the head and tail arrays.  Once again, this allows us to do thread-safe operations without the need for heavy locks! The ConcurrentQueue<T> (like the ConcurrentStack<T>) has some departures from the non-concurrent counterpart.  Most notably: Dequeue() was removed in favor of TryDequeue(). Returns true if an item existed and was dequeued and false if empty. Count does not take a snapshot It subtracts the head and tail index to get the count.  This results overall in a O(1) complexity which is quite good.  It’s still recommended, however, that for empty checks you call IsEmpty instead of comparing Count to zero. ToArray() and GetEnumerator() both take snapshots. This means that iteration over a queue will give you a static view at the time of the call and will not reflect updates. The Enqueue() method on the ConcurrentQueue<T> works much the same as the generic Queue<T>: 1: var queue = new ConcurrentQueue<string>(); 2:  3: // adding to queue is much the same as before 4: queue.Enqueue("First"); 5: queue.Enqueue("Second"); 6: queue.Enqueue("Third"); For front item access, the TryPeek() method must be used to attempt to see the first item if the queue.  There is no Peek() method since, as you’ll remember, we can only peek on a non-empty queue, so we must have an atomic TryPeek() that checks for empty and then returns the first item if the queue is non-empty. 1: // to look at first item in queue without removing it, can use TryPeek. 2: // Note that there is no Peek(), this is because you need to check for empty first. TryPeek does. 3: string item; 4: if (queue.TryPeek(out item)) 5: { 6: Console.WriteLine("First item was " + item); 7: } 8: else 9: { 10: Console.WriteLine("Queue was empty."); 11: } Then, to remove items you use TryDequeue().  Once again this is for the same reason we have TryPeek() and not Peek(): 1: // to remove items, use TryDequeue. If queue is empty returns false. 2: if (queue.TryDequeue(out item)) 3: { 4: Console.WriteLine("Dequeued first item " + item); 5: } Just like the concurrent stack, the ConcurrentQueue<T> takes a snapshot when you call ToArray() or GetEnumerator() which means that subsequent updates to the queue will not be seen when you iterate over the results.  Thus once again the code below will only show the first item, since the other items were added after the snapshot. 1: var queue = new ConcurrentQueue<string>(); 2:  3: // adding to queue is much the same as before 4: queue.Enqueue("First"); 5:  6: var iterator = queue.GetEnumerator(); 7:  8: queue.Enqueue("Second"); 9: queue.Enqueue("Third"); 10:  11: // only shows First 12: while (iterator.MoveNext()) 13: { 14: Console.WriteLine("Dequeued item " + iterator.Current); 15: } Using collections concurrently You’ll notice in the examples above I stuck to using single-threaded examples so as to make them deterministic and the results obvious.  Of course, if we used these collections in a truly multi-threaded way the results would be less deterministic, but would still be thread-safe and with no locking on your part required! For example, say you have an order processor that takes an IEnumerable<Order> and handles each other in a multi-threaded fashion, then groups the responses together in a concurrent collection for aggregation.  This can be done easily with the TPL’s Parallel.ForEach(): 1: public static IEnumerable<OrderResult> ProcessOrders(IEnumerable<Order> orderList) 2: { 3: var proxy = new OrderProxy(); 4: var results = new ConcurrentQueue<OrderResult>(); 5:  6: // notice that we can process all these in parallel and put the results 7: // into our concurrent collection without needing any external locking! 8: Parallel.ForEach(orderList, 9: order => 10: { 11: var result = proxy.PlaceOrder(order); 12:  13: results.Enqueue(result); 14: }); 15:  16: return results; 17: } Summary Obviously, if you do not need multi-threaded safety, you don’t need to use these collections, but when you do need multi-threaded collections these are just the ticket! The plethora of features (I always think of the movie The Three Amigos when I say plethora) built into these containers and the amazing way they acheive thread-safe access in an efficient manner is wonderful to behold. Stay tuned next week where we’ll continue our discussion with the ConcurrentBag<T> and the ConcurrentDictionary<TKey,TValue>. For some excellent information on the performance of the concurrent collections and how they perform compared to a traditional brute-force locking strategy, see this wonderful whitepaper by the Microsoft Parallel Computing Platform team here.   Tweet Technorati Tags: C#,.NET,Concurrent Collections,Collections,Multi-Threading,Little Wonders,BlackRabbitCoder,James Michael Hare

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