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  • Ethernet cable unplugged after updating from windows 8.0 to 8.1

    - by Pehmolelu
    Yeah, so I went and updated my windows 8 pro to 8.1. Now everything else seems to work but the network. The Ethernet just says that Network cable is unplugged, even though it is plugged and I have tried different cord as well and I have tested that the router works. I have tried uninstalling the network drivers (Realtec PCIe GBE) and reinstall them with no success. After installing drivers the Device Management gives error for it "Device could not be started. Code 10" Before 8.1 update I had rt630x64.inf, after update it was netrt630x64.inf, and after installing the latest driver rt630x64.inf. With rt630x64.inf there isn't any error, but it's still not just working. New downloaded version: 8.020.0815.2013 (From Realtek website) The driver before: 8.1.510.2013 (After updating the windows to 8.1) I'm using Desktop PC, no VM. I dont have VirtualBox or Vmware installed. I have checked from BIOS that the card is enabled. I have booted in safe mode with network enabled. Says unplugged there as well. I have put the power off for few minutes and put back on, no effect. If anyone has any kind of suggestions, please tell.

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  • Need software to convert RAR to ZIP ("store" mode - no compression) * Extract->re-archive changes date/time attributes

    - by Larry78
    I have tried all of the following applications (download.cnet.com - the free ones), and none of them will convert an RAR archive to a ZIP, without compressing the files ("store" mode). 7-ZIP would be fine, too. [The RAR is a "solid" archive with password (I know it), files "stored" - no compression, used WinRAR 3.5.1] PeaZip, 7-Zip, FilZip, TugZip, SimplyZipSE, QuickZip, WinShrink. (A couple of the apps let you try, but the program gives an error - indicating how bad the software is. (Like "unknown header # #.") None of these apps will do the conversion at all. IZArc 4.1 comes the closest. It will convert an RAR to a ZIP, but it compresses the zip. There is a general preference setting to "store" - but it doesn't effect conversions. I don't want to extract the RAR files and re-archive them because I need to preserve the modified/created file attributes. IZArc preserves them, but it compresses the files. WinRAR has the option to convert archives, but I get the error "skipping encryped archive" when I try to convert it. It asks for the password first, and I know it's right because that password opens the archive, and I can read/view all the files in the archive.

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  • Cannot install SQL Server CE 4

    - by Manos Dilaverakis
    I'm trying to install SQL Server CE 4 on a WinXP Pro SP3 machine. I double-click on the file and absolutely nothing happens. There is nothing in the event viewer and the only effect I can see is the addition of an empty, randomly named folder in C:\ which looks something like C:\7c59aaeb5e43f6bdcb2430e923 I've tried this with both SQL Server CE 4 and the SP1 version. I've tried disabling the AV (Nod32) file protection but it didn't make a difference. I've checked the installed program list in case it's already installed, but I don't see it anywhere. I checked in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition\ and there's only the \3.5 folder in there from the already installed 3.5 version. Does anyone know what's going on or how I can further diagnose the problem? Edit in response to Ramhound: I have .NET 4 installed. Why, does it need a particular version? Edit in response to leinad13 I tried Process Explorer and filtered by the name of the temporary folder created. I see the following, but can't make much sense of it.

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  • Dual Monitor + Virtual Desktop software (plus for cube)

    - by xenithorb
    I've recently purchased another monitor, my first one being a TV and being much larger. I now sit at a desk and use my shiny new 24" LED more often, but I like to extend the desktop into the TV. The problem presented with this is to save power and the longevity of my 47" VIZIO, I try to keep it off when possible. What I'm seeking sounds very simple - If any of you have ever used Compiz or Deskspace (Yod'm) - You'll know what im referring to when I talk about a "cube." The most important functionality I'm looking for is the ability to scroll desktop contents between both displays and virtual desktops. Deskspace does and excellent job of presenting an attractive cube, but it creates a separate cube and virtual desktop space for the second extended monitor (now the TV) - Again, what I'm looking to do is scroll between virtual desktops, by passing through both monitors. The net effect of this functionality would allow me to scroll the contents of the extended monitor to the first monitor should a window get caught there without having to turn on the TV. So imagine the horizontal portion of a cube as being actual real monitors - is there anything that allows one to rotate desktops between displays?

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  • Nagios: turn off service checks/display on down hosts

    - by Alien Life Form
    I want to to tweak nagios in such a way that all checking stops (with services not displayed, or displayed as unknown) for any down node. Said differently I only want to see one alert for a down host instead of 1 (down) + n (1 for every service). Note that I am interested in service display/status, not only in turning off notifications. Rationale: we use the nagios firefox/chrome plugin to monitor status and nagios' behavior is too noisy giving readings like these (because every node has 20 services): 3 down, 1 unreachable, 4 warnings, 87 critical This means that the 7 critical services on up node (the problem is on the service) are swamped in a slab of red services which are critical only because they sit on a node that's down/unreachable. What I'd rather like to see is: 3 down, 1 unreachable, 80 unknown, 4 warnings, 7 critical Or even 3 down, 1 unreachable, 4 warnings, 7 critical I have looked in service dependencies but I did not fine a way to describe: "make all services on a alive-host dependen on the status of the host check". I found the problem discussed here, where one of the participants thought it was a nagios bug, and here where one of the participants thought it was "as designed". As things are, I am just interested in the effect, much less in the design philosophy. Note that this nagios is checking hundreds of nodes, so the maintainablilty of the solution is also important. TIA and cheers.

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  • Win7 loses connection to network shares after resume unless server specified using FQDN

    - by Szonja Zemkó
    My Win7 client has a connection to a Linux server and its shared folders. The problem occurs when the computer wakes up after a sleep and then one of the shared folders is not accessible. I receive the following message: Error code: 80070035, The network path was not found. I have problem with one specific folder only. When I restart the computer this problematic folder is accessible again. When I log off before sleep the folder is accessible after wakeup. If I try to access the folder by using the FQDN of the server or the server IP it is also accessible. As a temporary solution I mapped the folder to a network drive using the FQDN and it's working fine but it's inconvenient since every other folder is accessible on the server. To summarize: \server\problematicshare no longer works after resume (the Samba server sees my client connect, then disconnects a few seconds later while I receive the above error message) \server\othershare works after resume \fqdn.of.server\problematicshare always works \ip.of.server\problematicshare always works once the problem manifests, I'm no longer able to restart the "Workstation" service (it is not responding) restarting the "Computer Browser" service has no apparent effect the event log doesn't contain anything that seems relevant "ping server" works

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  • Remote Desktop svchost (networkservice) & lsa.exe high cpu usage, hangs on welcome screen

    - by Rohan1
    We have deployed an RDS Farm with 12 virtual RDS servers using Hyper V. Currently some users are not able to log on. After passing credentials to the connection broker, the session hangs on the "Welcome" screen. Using resource monitor we've seen that svchost (with the "networkservice" service) has a CPU usage of 50%, when viewing the wait chain on the process it displays that it's waiting for a lsa.exe to finish. We can't kill any of the users processes, even when trying with taskkill /f. Suspending lsa.exe did work but didn't have any effect. The networkservice also couldn't be restarted. Also, if this happens, the current users logged on to the RDS server can't be displayed. Task manager crashes when viewing the users, RDS service manager crashes when viewing the users (even remotely) and the cmd command "query session" doesn't work. No antivirus is installed on the RDS server. The only thing we can do is rebooting the server, which is not an option because of the fact that other users are in active sessions. Does anyone have ANY idea what's going on? We didn't encounter this in our pre-production setup.

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  • HP LaserJet 1515: Disable "refill" warning

    - by Pekka
    I have a HP LaserJet 1515 connected to a Windows 7 PC. The Magenta cartridge is empty; the printer shows a warning to that effect, and won't let me print even black-and-white documents any more. I can't turn the warning off manually using the printer's small console: When I try to enter any menu, the display says "Menu access disabled". I have no idea why. There is a setting to override the warning, but it can't be changed using the Network interface in the browser (Although it is there on the status page) According to the manual,the HP printing tool is supposed to offer a switch for this, but it won't install on my Windows 7. It just rumbles about for half an hour, to magnificently exit with an "unknown error" requiring a reboot. On second look, the problem seems to be that Windows 7 just isn't supported. There is no download link for the tool when you specify Windows 7 as your OS. I just want to print a black-and-white-document on a printer whose black cartridge is still 65% full. Is this indeed impossible? On second thought, I'm cross-posting this on the HP support forum. I'll update here if anything comes up.

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  • Running two graphics cards (non-SLI) to power 3D on two different monitors?

    - by Delameko
    Hi, I'm a bit clueless about this, so excuse my naivety. I have two video cards, a Nvidia 8800 and a GT120, powering three monitors. I run two 3D game instances (two Everquest 2 clients), one on each of my first two monitors. It's been running fine, although sometimes it sounds like the computer is trying to take off. Today I realised that I was actually playing them on the two monitors that are both powered by the 8800. Thinking that I might as well make use of the power of both cards I tried switching the monitor cables over so that each card would be "powering" one of the clients. (Is it silly to assume this is how it works?) This doesn't seem to have had the desired effect, as the client running on the 8800 screen is running worse than it was before. Is it even possible to run two clients on separate GPUs? Is SLI the only way to utilise 2 GPUs? Is there something special I have to do? Or do I have to set the client to use a particular GPU (an option I can't seem to find in EQ2)? I run the clients in window mode if that makes any difference, and I'm running Win 7. Thanks.

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  • How many iptables block rules is too many

    - by mhost
    We have a server with a Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor 2378. It acts as our firewall for several servers. I've been asked to block all IPs from China. In a separate network, we have some small VPS machines (256MB and 512MB). I've been asked to block china on those VPS's as well. I've looked online and found lists which requires 4500 block rules. My question is will putting in all 4500 rules be a problem? I know iptables can handle far more rules than that, what I am concerned about is since these are blocks that I don't want to have access to any port, I need to put these rules before any allow. This means all legitimate traffic needs to be compared to all those rules before getting through. Will the traffic be noticeably slower after implementing this? Will those small VPS's be able to handle processing that many rules for every new packet (I'll put an established allow before the blocks)? My question is not How many rules can iptables support?, its about the effect that these rules will have on load and speed. Thanks.

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  • Matched or unmatched drives for RAID arrays?

    - by Will
    Looking around there is conflciting information on this, with some strongly suggesting one or the other. From my understanding the issue with matched drives is that the wear on both drives is more or less the same, so the potential for the second drive failing with or very soon after the first is pretty high. People also claim matched drives give substianatally higher performance however assuming the unmatched drives are more or less the same (eg 2, 1 TB STATA II 7200rpm drives with 32MB cache), would the minor differences between say a Seagate and a Western Digital one (say one has a 128MB/s read rate, and the other a 150MB/s read rate, as well as I guess various other minor differences) actually cause any notable performance loss, ie potentialy worse than two matched 128MB/s drives, or does RAID not really care and give you essentially an optimal solution (eg upto 278MB/s total read speed for RAID 0 and 1) and similar for other RAID with more "unmatched" drives (5 and 1+0 come to mind as possibilities)? Also I couldnt find much info on how this is different on different RAID setups, eg RAID 0 or RAID 1, software or hardware RAID, etc. I'm assuming such things have an effect, and thats it's not all the same for RAID in general?

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  • How can I document and automate a system's configuration?

    - by Diomidis Spinellis
    Having a system's configuration represented by its current state is risky, inefficient, and opaque. At some point you may be left with an unsupported system and no upgrade path. Then configuring a new system compatible with the old is a process or trial and error. Furthermore, if at some point the system is damaged the only option is to go back to the most recent full backup, and try to remember what changes followed from that point. Also, the only way to create a system compatible with the original is through a complete dump/restore. Finally, in such a setup there's no way to know how you solved a particular problem; the only thing you can do is to look at the corresponding configuration files and try to guess what you changed to achieve the desired effect. Currently for each system I maintain, I keep a log file where I record all system administration activity, starting from the installation: installation options, added packages, changes in configuration files, updates, problem fixes etc. In theory this allows me to (manually) replay all changes to arrive at the current state, or to unroll an erroneous change by executing the reverse commands. However, this process is also inefficient, error-prone, and relies on human judgment. Another thing I've tried is to put /etc configuration files under version control with git. This helps me document the changes automatically and also apply them on a clean setup. But it's not without problems: git has to run under sudo, passwords and private keys may be stored in the repository, installed packages can't be meaningfully tracked, and git will have a fit if I try to extend this approach to all the system's directories. I've also thought about performing all changes through shell scripts or makefiles, but I think this process will require a lot of effort and will be fragile. Are there some better methods or tools that I'm missing?

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  • My server is taking too long to respond when I connect to it outside the local network [closed]

    - by Buzu
    I have my local server online most of the time because it is easy for clients to access a url and see how their project is coming along. They can see updates in real time. However, I got a message from one of my clients saying that the server was not responding. I have a hosts file, and in that file I have my server's address pointed to the local ip. This is because some problem with the ftp. Due to this setup, I had not noticed that the server was not accessible from outside the local network. The address is http://imbuzu.dyndns.info SSH works fine, I can connect from my windows machine to the server, but HTTP does not. The server is taking too long to respond. Looking at the logs, I see that the last incoming connection to the server from outside the network is this: 77.242.153.180 - - [04/Dec/2012:12:11:01 -0800] "\xce\x89\x8d\x85b\ro" 400 317 "-" "-" I'm going to restart the server, but I doubt that will have any effect on it. --EDIT-- I restarted the server, and it did not help. Also, I pinged the server and it seems to be resolving correctly.

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  • Where does Firefox store cerificates and how to delete one?

    - by majid4466
    Hi all, The root cause of my problem is not known to me, whatever it is, I experience frequent DNS failures. When it happens I cannot browse to my Gmail inbox. I use two DNS settings. One is the public DNS server offered by OpenDNS, and the other is Google's free DNS server. When this happens I switch from the active setting to the other one and the problem goes away. But there is a side effect to this. When browsing to Gmail fails to load, after switching the DNS I receive an error saying the security certificate the site uses is only valid for OpenDNS. This my wild guess at what is going on: 1. OpenDNS fails to resolve mail.google.com to its IP, 2. My ISP sends me a page showing search results for 'mail.google.com' 3. Since I have received some sort of page instead of a timeout, the browser, mistakenly, binds the certificate it has cached for 'mail.google.com' to the new domain. This search page is not served by https so not exception is thrown by the wrong binding 4. After switching the DNS, the domain is correctly resolved to Gmail server's IP and since his is on https the handshake is triggered. 5. Now, because of the wrong binding, which passed quietly as no handshake was involved, I receive the error saying the certificate used by 'mail.google.com' is only good for openDNS I don't know much about DNS, less about https and the process of establishing a secure connection. How correct is my explanation? How can I delete the wrong association and/or the certificate? Thanks for listening. P. S. The problem goes away by itself, but sometimes it takes several hours before Gmail works again.

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  • Where does Firefox store cerificates and how to delete one?

    - by majid4466
    Hi all, The root cause of my problem is not known to me, whatever it is, I experience frequent DNS failures. When it happens I cannot browse to my Gmail inbox. I use two DNS settings. One is the public DNS server offered by OpenDNS, and the other is Google's free DNS server. When this happens I switch from the active setting to the other one and the problem goes away. But there is a side effect to this. When browsing to Gmail fails to load, after switching the DNS I receive an error saying the security certificate the site uses is only valid for OpenDNS. This my wild guess at what is going on: OpenDNS fails to resolve mail.google.com to its IP, My ISP sends me a page showing search results for 'mail.google.com' Since I have received some sort of page instead of a timeout, the browser, mistakenly, binds the certificate it has cached for 'mail.google.com' to the new domain. This search page is not served by https so not exception is thrown by the wrong binding After switching the DNS, the domain is correctly resolved to Gmail server's IP and since his is on https the handshake is triggered. Now, because of the wrong binding, which passed quietly as no handshake was involved, I receive the error saying the certificate used by 'mail.google.com' is only good for openDNS I don't know much about DNS, less about https and the process of establishing a secure connection. How correct is my explanation? How can I delete the wrong association and/or the certificate? Thanks for listening. P. S. The problem goes away by itself, but sometimes it takes several hours before Gmail works again.

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  • Is is possible to guide installation of new programs using %ProgramFiles%? [closed]

    - by ??????? ???????????
    The purpose of this is to have the default "program files" (32 and 64 bit) folders located under an arbitrary path, possibly on a drive separate from where windows lives. Initially I thought that this may be done using a system environment variable through the dialog located under Control Panel - System - Advanced - Environment Variables. These variables turned out to be set in the registry under the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. However, one particular entry is confusing. The ProgramFilesPath entry seems to point at an environment variable that is not defined under the same registry key. I could assume that the difference between ProgramFilesDir and ProgramFilesPath is none and that one of them exists as a backwards compatibility, but having some legitimate resource from Microsoft to look at would be better than guessing. After receiving some worrying feedback about having both 32 and 64bit applications in the same folder, I have decided not to ask about the feasibility of this to avoid discussion. The real question is if the desired effect is possible to attain by "cutting into" the windows setup process and modifying those registry entries as early as possible. These settings should be system wide and not only for software installed by a particular user. If this is indeed something that can be done, I wonder if there are any subtle pitfalls. Programs that expect libraries and other resources to be in default locations can probably be dealt with using the same technique as employed by Windows to re-map the "Documents and Settings" folders and the like (i.e. breaking legacy applications is not real concern).

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  • Some pages begin to load and stop on Chrome

    - by corsiKa
    I'm using Chrome (Version 22.0.1229.94). About 20% of pages simply stop loading after a second or two. Sometimes, I'm able to click an early link after a second or third reload. If I attempt to close the page, it continues to hang for a few (10-30) additional seconds, then closes. However, if I switch to other tabs, it works just fine. If I don't change tabs and wait long enough, it says that there's something on the page that's taking too long to run and offers to let me kill it. Only a select number of sites fail to load, and they do so consistently. None of the stackexchange sites or google fail, but others like realclearpolitics and wowwiki do. I visit those sites every day, and this is the first time it has failed like this. If it were just one site, I would say someone messed something up in their deployment. But it seems incredibly peculiar that suddenly, half a dozen popular sites all mysteriously have the same symptoms. If I attempt to load the pages in Firefox or IE9, they load just fine. Nothing new has been installed, regarding Chrome or otherwise. Antivirus reports no abnormalities. System is regularly patched. Restarting both chrome and the computer have had no effect.

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  • Access denied when trying to open files/folders after reinstall [closed]

    - by user711532
    Possible Duplicate: Access Denied when saving a file in Windows 7 I installed Windows 7 fresh on a new machine. Now when I unarchive (winrar or 7z etc. ) to Program files (x86) (for example), access denied. Even if I copy a file to a folder I installed an app to it is still access denied. I checked the security, it looks like full control is given to the creator - this is weird as I never ran across this before (same version of Windows 7 - its just a fresh install after some new hardware). It is the same effect as if I was editing the hosts file, and you do not use "run as admin" you will not be able to save it, yo will have to save it somewhere else. This "file copy" issue I ran into is the same. I could change all these permissions, however this is something I never had to do before. I am the admin, why did the install, not give me "full control"? How can this be globally fixed. I cannot change the permissions - they are greyed out - so that is weird as well. If I was a standard reason, It would make sense, however, again, I am the admin.

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  • Would a USB hub work in reverse?

    - by Tim
    Imagine for a moment with a 4 port USB hub. Normally how this would work is the hub has one plug that goes to the computer, then 4 ports that you can plug in other things to (thumb drive, keyboard, mouse etc). I am wondering if I can use it in reverse. So I would have 1 keyboard going in to the hub, and then plug in male to male usb cables from the 4 ports to 4 different PCs, my aim is that when a key is pressed on the keyboard all 4 PCs will receive it as if the keyboard were plugged in to them. Does anyone know if this would work? And if not does anyone have any ideas how I could get the same effect? EDIT: So I am looking for more of a KVM switch type device rather than a USB hub. However all of the KVM switches I've found use some sort of mechanism to select which computer you'll be using. (some are physical switches / buttons, others do it via software "automatically" some how) However I need to have 1 keyboard hooked up to 2 computers and when I press a key on the keyboard I want the keypress to be sent to both computers simultaneously, not to one or the other. Does anyone know if KVMs with this feature exist?

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  • value types in the vm

    - by john.rose
    value types in the vm p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 14.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 15.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} p.p5 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Courier} p.p6 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Courier; min-height: 17.0px} p.p7 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p8 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 36.0px; text-indent: -36.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p9 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} p.p10 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; color: #000000} li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times} li.li7 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Times; min-height: 18.0px} span.s1 {font: 14.0px Courier} span.s2 {color: #000000} span.s3 {font: 14.0px Courier; color: #000000} ol.ol1 {list-style-type: decimal} Or, enduring values for a changing world. Introduction A value type is a data type which, generally speaking, is designed for being passed by value in and out of methods, and stored by value in data structures. The only value types which the Java language directly supports are the eight primitive types. Java indirectly and approximately supports value types, if they are implemented in terms of classes. For example, both Integer and String may be viewed as value types, especially if their usage is restricted to avoid operations appropriate to Object. In this note, we propose a definition of value types in terms of a design pattern for Java classes, accompanied by a set of usage restrictions. We also sketch the relation of such value types to tuple types (which are a JVM-level notion), and point out JVM optimizations that can apply to value types. This note is a thought experiment to extend the JVM’s performance model in support of value types. The demonstration has two phases.  Initially the extension can simply use design patterns, within the current bytecode architecture, and in today’s Java language. But if the performance model is to be realized in practice, it will probably require new JVM bytecode features, changes to the Java language, or both.  We will look at a few possibilities for these new features. An Axiom of Value In the context of the JVM, a value type is a data type equipped with construction, assignment, and equality operations, and a set of typed components, such that, whenever two variables of the value type produce equal corresponding values for their components, the values of the two variables cannot be distinguished by any JVM operation. Here are some corollaries: A value type is immutable, since otherwise a copy could be constructed and the original could be modified in one of its components, allowing the copies to be distinguished. Changing the component of a value type requires construction of a new value. The equals and hashCode operations are strictly component-wise. If a value type is represented by a JVM reference, that reference cannot be successfully synchronized on, and cannot be usefully compared for reference equality. A value type can be viewed in terms of what it doesn’t do. We can say that a value type omits all value-unsafe operations, which could violate the constraints on value types.  These operations, which are ordinarily allowed for Java object types, are pointer equality comparison (the acmp instruction), synchronization (the monitor instructions), all the wait and notify methods of class Object, and non-trivial finalize methods. The clone method is also value-unsafe, although for value types it could be treated as the identity function. Finally, and most importantly, any side effect on an object (however visible) also counts as an value-unsafe operation. A value type may have methods, but such methods must not change the components of the value. It is reasonable and useful to define methods like toString, equals, and hashCode on value types, and also methods which are specifically valuable to users of the value type. Representations of Value Value types have two natural representations in the JVM, unboxed and boxed. An unboxed value consists of the components, as simple variables. For example, the complex number x=(1+2i), in rectangular coordinate form, may be represented in unboxed form by the following pair of variables: /*Complex x = Complex.valueOf(1.0, 2.0):*/ double x_re = 1.0, x_im = 2.0; These variables might be locals, parameters, or fields. Their association as components of a single value is not defined to the JVM. Here is a sample computation which computes the norm of the difference between two complex numbers: double distance(/*Complex x:*/ double x_re, double x_im,         /*Complex y:*/ double y_re, double y_im) {     /*Complex z = x.minus(y):*/     double z_re = x_re - y_re, z_im = x_im - y_im;     /*return z.abs():*/     return Math.sqrt(z_re*z_re + z_im*z_im); } A boxed representation groups component values under a single object reference. The reference is to a ‘wrapper class’ that carries the component values in its fields. (A primitive type can naturally be equated with a trivial value type with just one component of that type. In that view, the wrapper class Integer can serve as a boxed representation of value type int.) The unboxed representation of complex numbers is practical for many uses, but it fails to cover several major use cases: return values, array elements, and generic APIs. The two components of a complex number cannot be directly returned from a Java function, since Java does not support multiple return values. The same story applies to array elements: Java has no ’array of structs’ feature. (Double-length arrays are a possible workaround for complex numbers, but not for value types with heterogeneous components.) By generic APIs I mean both those which use generic types, like Arrays.asList and those which have special case support for primitive types, like String.valueOf and PrintStream.println. Those APIs do not support unboxed values, and offer some problems to boxed values. Any ’real’ JVM type should have a story for returns, arrays, and API interoperability. The basic problem here is that value types fall between primitive types and object types. Value types are clearly more complex than primitive types, and object types are slightly too complicated. Objects are a little bit dangerous to use as value carriers, since object references can be compared for pointer equality, and can be synchronized on. Also, as many Java programmers have observed, there is often a performance cost to using wrapper objects, even on modern JVMs. Even so, wrapper classes are a good starting point for talking about value types. If there were a set of structural rules and restrictions which would prevent value-unsafe operations on value types, wrapper classes would provide a good notation for defining value types. This note attempts to define such rules and restrictions. Let’s Start Coding Now it is time to look at some real code. Here is a definition, written in Java, of a complex number value type. @ValueSafe public final class Complex implements java.io.Serializable {     // immutable component structure:     public final double re, im;     private Complex(double re, double im) {         this.re = re; this.im = im;     }     // interoperability methods:     public String toString() { return "Complex("+re+","+im+")"; }     public List<Double> asList() { return Arrays.asList(re, im); }     public boolean equals(Complex c) {         return re == c.re && im == c.im;     }     public boolean equals(@ValueSafe Object x) {         return x instanceof Complex && equals((Complex) x);     }     public int hashCode() {         return 31*Double.valueOf(re).hashCode()                 + Double.valueOf(im).hashCode();     }     // factory methods:     public static Complex valueOf(double re, double im) {         return new Complex(re, im);     }     public Complex changeRe(double re2) { return valueOf(re2, im); }     public Complex changeIm(double im2) { return valueOf(re, im2); }     public static Complex cast(@ValueSafe Object x) {         return x == null ? ZERO : (Complex) x;     }     // utility methods and constants:     public Complex plus(Complex c)  { return new Complex(re+c.re, im+c.im); }     public Complex minus(Complex c) { return new Complex(re-c.re, im-c.im); }     public double abs() { return Math.sqrt(re*re + im*im); }     public static final Complex PI = valueOf(Math.PI, 0.0);     public static final Complex ZERO = valueOf(0.0, 0.0); } This is not a minimal definition, because it includes some utility methods and other optional parts.  The essential elements are as follows: The class is marked as a value type with an annotation. The class is final, because it does not make sense to create subclasses of value types. The fields of the class are all non-private and final.  (I.e., the type is immutable and structurally transparent.) From the supertype Object, all public non-final methods are overridden. The constructor is private. Beyond these bare essentials, we can observe the following features in this example, which are likely to be typical of all value types: One or more factory methods are responsible for value creation, including a component-wise valueOf method. There are utility methods for complex arithmetic and instance creation, such as plus and changeIm. There are static utility constants, such as PI. The type is serializable, using the default mechanisms. There are methods for converting to and from dynamically typed references, such as asList and cast. The Rules In order to use value types properly, the programmer must avoid value-unsafe operations.  A helpful Java compiler should issue errors (or at least warnings) for code which provably applies value-unsafe operations, and should issue warnings for code which might be correct but does not provably avoid value-unsafe operations.  No such compilers exist today, but to simplify our account here, we will pretend that they do exist. A value-safe type is any class, interface, or type parameter marked with the @ValueSafe annotation, or any subtype of a value-safe type.  If a value-safe class is marked final, it is in fact a value type.  All other value-safe classes must be abstract.  The non-static fields of a value class must be non-public and final, and all its constructors must be private. Under the above rules, a standard interface could be helpful to define value types like Complex.  Here is an example: @ValueSafe public interface ValueType extends java.io.Serializable {     // All methods listed here must get redefined.     // Definitions must be value-safe, which means     // they may depend on component values only.     List<? extends Object> asList();     int hashCode();     boolean equals(@ValueSafe Object c);     String toString(); } //@ValueSafe inherited from supertype: public final class Complex implements ValueType { … The main advantage of such a conventional interface is that (unlike an annotation) it is reified in the runtime type system.  It could appear as an element type or parameter bound, for facilities which are designed to work on value types only.  More broadly, it might assist the JVM to perform dynamic enforcement of the rules for value types. Besides types, the annotation @ValueSafe can mark fields, parameters, local variables, and methods.  (This is redundant when the type is also value-safe, but may be useful when the type is Object or another supertype of a value type.)  Working forward from these annotations, an expression E is defined as value-safe if it satisfies one or more of the following: The type of E is a value-safe type. E names a field, parameter, or local variable whose declaration is marked @ValueSafe. E is a call to a method whose declaration is marked @ValueSafe. E is an assignment to a value-safe variable, field reference, or array reference. E is a cast to a value-safe type from a value-safe expression. E is a conditional expression E0 ? E1 : E2, and both E1 and E2 are value-safe. Assignments to value-safe expressions and initializations of value-safe names must take their values from value-safe expressions. A value-safe expression may not be the subject of a value-unsafe operation.  In particular, it cannot be synchronized on, nor can it be compared with the “==” operator, not even with a null or with another value-safe type. In a program where all of these rules are followed, no value-type value will be subject to a value-unsafe operation.  Thus, the prime axiom of value types will be satisfied, that no two value type will be distinguishable as long as their component values are equal. More Code To illustrate these rules, here are some usage examples for Complex: Complex pi = Complex.valueOf(Math.PI, 0); Complex zero = pi.changeRe(0);  //zero = pi; zero.re = 0; ValueType vtype = pi; @SuppressWarnings("value-unsafe")   Object obj = pi; @ValueSafe Object obj2 = pi; obj2 = new Object();  // ok List<Complex> clist = new ArrayList<Complex>(); clist.add(pi);  // (ok assuming List.add param is @ValueSafe) List<ValueType> vlist = new ArrayList<ValueType>(); vlist.add(pi);  // (ok) List<Object> olist = new ArrayList<Object>(); olist.add(pi);  // warning: "value-unsafe" boolean z = pi.equals(zero); boolean z1 = (pi == zero);  // error: reference comparison on value type boolean z2 = (pi == null);  // error: reference comparison on value type boolean z3 = (pi == obj2);  // error: reference comparison on value type synchronized (pi) { }  // error: synch of value, unpredictable result synchronized (obj2) { }  // unpredictable result Complex qq = pi; qq = null;  // possible NPE; warning: “null-unsafe" qq = (Complex) obj;  // warning: “null-unsafe" qq = Complex.cast(obj);  // OK @SuppressWarnings("null-unsafe")   Complex empty = null;  // possible NPE qq = empty;  // possible NPE (null pollution) The Payoffs It follows from this that either the JVM or the java compiler can replace boxed value-type values with unboxed ones, without affecting normal computations.  Fields and variables of value types can be split into their unboxed components.  Non-static methods on value types can be transformed into static methods which take the components as value parameters. Some common questions arise around this point in any discussion of value types. Why burden the programmer with all these extra rules?  Why not detect programs automagically and perform unboxing transparently?  The answer is that it is easy to break the rules accidently unless they are agreed to by the programmer and enforced.  Automatic unboxing optimizations are tantalizing but (so far) unreachable ideal.  In the current state of the art, it is possible exhibit benchmarks in which automatic unboxing provides the desired effects, but it is not possible to provide a JVM with a performance model that assures the programmer when unboxing will occur.  This is why I’m writing this note, to enlist help from, and provide assurances to, the programmer.  Basically, I’m shooting for a good set of user-supplied “pragmas” to frame the desired optimization. Again, the important thing is that the unboxing must be done reliably, or else programmers will have no reason to work with the extra complexity of the value-safety rules.  There must be a reasonably stable performance model, wherein using a value type has approximately the same performance characteristics as writing the unboxed components as separate Java variables. There are some rough corners to the present scheme.  Since Java fields and array elements are initialized to null, value-type computations which incorporate uninitialized variables can produce null pointer exceptions.  One workaround for this is to require such variables to be null-tested, and the result replaced with a suitable all-zero value of the value type.  That is what the “cast” method does above. Generically typed APIs like List<T> will continue to manipulate boxed values always, at least until we figure out how to do reification of generic type instances.  Use of such APIs will elicit warnings until their type parameters (and/or relevant members) are annotated or typed as value-safe.  Retrofitting List<T> is likely to expose flaws in the present scheme, which we will need to engineer around.  Here are a couple of first approaches: public interface java.util.List<@ValueSafe T> extends Collection<T> { … public interface java.util.List<T extends Object|ValueType> extends Collection<T> { … (The second approach would require disjunctive types, in which value-safety is “contagious” from the constituent types.) With more transformations, the return value types of methods can also be unboxed.  This may require significant bytecode-level transformations, and would work best in the presence of a bytecode representation for multiple value groups, which I have proposed elsewhere under the title “Tuples in the VM”. But for starters, the JVM can apply this transformation under the covers, to internally compiled methods.  This would give a way to express multiple return values and structured return values, which is a significant pain-point for Java programmers, especially those who work with low-level structure types favored by modern vector and graphics processors.  The lack of multiple return values has a strong distorting effect on many Java APIs. Even if the JVM fails to unbox a value, there is still potential benefit to the value type.  Clustered computing systems something have copy operations (serialization or something similar) which apply implicitly to command operands.  When copying JVM objects, it is extremely helpful to know when an object’s identity is important or not.  If an object reference is a copied operand, the system may have to create a proxy handle which points back to the original object, so that side effects are visible.  Proxies must be managed carefully, and this can be expensive.  On the other hand, value types are exactly those types which a JVM can “copy and forget” with no downside. Array types are crucial to bulk data interfaces.  (As data sizes and rates increase, bulk data becomes more important than scalar data, so arrays are definitely accompanying us into the future of computing.)  Value types are very helpful for adding structure to bulk data, so a successful value type mechanism will make it easier for us to express richer forms of bulk data. Unboxing arrays (i.e., arrays containing unboxed values) will provide better cache and memory density, and more direct data movement within clustered or heterogeneous computing systems.  They require the deepest transformations, relative to today’s JVM.  There is an impedance mismatch between value-type arrays and Java’s covariant array typing, so compromises will need to be struck with existing Java semantics.  It is probably worth the effort, since arrays of unboxed value types are inherently more memory-efficient than standard Java arrays, which rely on dependent pointer chains. It may be sufficient to extend the “value-safe” concept to array declarations, and allow low-level transformations to change value-safe array declarations from the standard boxed form into an unboxed tuple-based form.  Such value-safe arrays would not be convertible to Object[] arrays.  Certain connection points, such as Arrays.copyOf and System.arraycopy might need additional input/output combinations, to allow smooth conversion between arrays with boxed and unboxed elements. Alternatively, the correct solution may have to wait until we have enough reification of generic types, and enough operator overloading, to enable an overhaul of Java arrays. Implicit Method Definitions The example of class Complex above may be unattractively complex.  I believe most or all of the elements of the example class are required by the logic of value types. If this is true, a programmer who writes a value type will have to write lots of error-prone boilerplate code.  On the other hand, I think nearly all of the code (except for the domain-specific parts like plus and minus) can be implicitly generated. Java has a rule for implicitly defining a class’s constructor, if no it defines no constructors explicitly.  Likewise, there are rules for providing default access modifiers for interface members.  Because of the highly regular structure of value types, it might be reasonable to perform similar implicit transformations on value types.  Here’s an example of a “highly implicit” definition of a complex number type: public class Complex implements ValueType {  // implicitly final     public double re, im;  // implicitly public final     //implicit methods are defined elementwise from te fields:     //  toString, asList, equals(2), hashCode, valueOf, cast     //optionally, explicit methods (plus, abs, etc.) would go here } In other words, with the right defaults, a simple value type definition can be a one-liner.  The observant reader will have noticed the similarities (and suitable differences) between the explicit methods above and the corresponding methods for List<T>. Another way to abbreviate such a class would be to make an annotation the primary trigger of the functionality, and to add the interface(s) implicitly: public @ValueType class Complex { … // implicitly final, implements ValueType (But to me it seems better to communicate the “magic” via an interface, even if it is rooted in an annotation.) Implicitly Defined Value Types So far we have been working with nominal value types, which is to say that the sequence of typed components is associated with a name and additional methods that convey the intention of the programmer.  A simple ordered pair of floating point numbers can be variously interpreted as (to name a few possibilities) a rectangular or polar complex number or Cartesian point.  The name and the methods convey the intended meaning. But what if we need a truly simple ordered pair of floating point numbers, without any further conceptual baggage?  Perhaps we are writing a method (like “divideAndRemainder”) which naturally returns a pair of numbers instead of a single number.  Wrapping the pair of numbers in a nominal type (like “QuotientAndRemainder”) makes as little sense as wrapping a single return value in a nominal type (like “Quotient”).  What we need here are structural value types commonly known as tuples. For the present discussion, let us assign a conventional, JVM-friendly name to tuples, roughly as follows: public class java.lang.tuple.$DD extends java.lang.tuple.Tuple {      double $1, $2; } Here the component names are fixed and all the required methods are defined implicitly.  The supertype is an abstract class which has suitable shared declarations.  The name itself mentions a JVM-style method parameter descriptor, which may be “cracked” to determine the number and types of the component fields. The odd thing about such a tuple type (and structural types in general) is it must be instantiated lazily, in response to linkage requests from one or more classes that need it.  The JVM and/or its class loaders must be prepared to spin a tuple type on demand, given a simple name reference, $xyz, where the xyz is cracked into a series of component types.  (Specifics of naming and name mangling need some tasteful engineering.) Tuples also seem to demand, even more than nominal types, some support from the language.  (This is probably because notations for non-nominal types work best as combinations of punctuation and type names, rather than named constructors like Function3 or Tuple2.)  At a minimum, languages with tuples usually (I think) have some sort of simple bracket notation for creating tuples, and a corresponding pattern-matching syntax (or “destructuring bind”) for taking tuples apart, at least when they are parameter lists.  Designing such a syntax is no simple thing, because it ought to play well with nominal value types, and also with pre-existing Java features, such as method parameter lists, implicit conversions, generic types, and reflection.  That is a task for another day. Other Use Cases Besides complex numbers and simple tuples there are many use cases for value types.  Many tuple-like types have natural value-type representations. These include rational numbers, point locations and pixel colors, and various kinds of dates and addresses. Other types have a variable-length ‘tail’ of internal values. The most common example of this is String, which is (mathematically) a sequence of UTF-16 character values. Similarly, bit vectors, multiple-precision numbers, and polynomials are composed of sequences of values. Such types include, in their representation, a reference to a variable-sized data structure (often an array) which (somehow) represents the sequence of values. The value type may also include ’header’ information. Variable-sized values often have a length distribution which favors short lengths. In that case, the design of the value type can make the first few values in the sequence be direct ’header’ fields of the value type. In the common case where the header is enough to represent the whole value, the tail can be a shared null value, or even just a null reference. Note that the tail need not be an immutable object, as long as the header type encapsulates it well enough. This is the case with String, where the tail is a mutable (but never mutated) character array. Field types and their order must be a globally visible part of the API.  The structure of the value type must be transparent enough to have a globally consistent unboxed representation, so that all callers and callees agree about the type and order of components  that appear as parameters, return types, and array elements.  This is a trade-off between efficiency and encapsulation, which is forced on us when we remove an indirection enjoyed by boxed representations.  A JVM-only transformation would not care about such visibility, but a bytecode transformation would need to take care that (say) the components of complex numbers would not get swapped after a redefinition of Complex and a partial recompile.  Perhaps constant pool references to value types need to declare the field order as assumed by each API user. This brings up the delicate status of private fields in a value type.  It must always be possible to load, store, and copy value types as coordinated groups, and the JVM performs those movements by moving individual scalar values between locals and stack.  If a component field is not public, what is to prevent hostile code from plucking it out of the tuple using a rogue aload or astore instruction?  Nothing but the verifier, so we may need to give it more smarts, so that it treats value types as inseparable groups of stack slots or locals (something like long or double). My initial thought was to make the fields always public, which would make the security problem moot.  But public is not always the right answer; consider the case of String, where the underlying mutable character array must be encapsulated to prevent security holes.  I believe we can win back both sides of the tradeoff, by training the verifier never to split up the components in an unboxed value.  Just as the verifier encapsulates the two halves of a 64-bit primitive, it can encapsulate the the header and body of an unboxed String, so that no code other than that of class String itself can take apart the values. Similar to String, we could build an efficient multi-precision decimal type along these lines: public final class DecimalValue extends ValueType {     protected final long header;     protected private final BigInteger digits;     public DecimalValue valueOf(int value, int scale) {         assert(scale >= 0);         return new DecimalValue(((long)value << 32) + scale, null);     }     public DecimalValue valueOf(long value, int scale) {         if (value == (int) value)             return valueOf((int)value, scale);         return new DecimalValue(-scale, new BigInteger(value));     } } Values of this type would be passed between methods as two machine words. Small values (those with a significand which fits into 32 bits) would be represented without any heap data at all, unless the DecimalValue itself were boxed. (Note the tension between encapsulation and unboxing in this case.  It would be better if the header and digits fields were private, but depending on where the unboxing information must “leak”, it is probably safer to make a public revelation of the internal structure.) Note that, although an array of Complex can be faked with a double-length array of double, there is no easy way to fake an array of unboxed DecimalValues.  (Either an array of boxed values or a transposed pair of homogeneous arrays would be reasonable fallbacks, in a current JVM.)  Getting the full benefit of unboxing and arrays will require some new JVM magic. Although the JVM emphasizes portability, system dependent code will benefit from using machine-level types larger than 64 bits.  For example, the back end of a linear algebra package might benefit from value types like Float4 which map to stock vector types.  This is probably only worthwhile if the unboxing arrays can be packed with such values. More Daydreams A more finely-divided design for dynamic enforcement of value safety could feature separate marker interfaces for each invariant.  An empty marker interface Unsynchronizable could cause suitable exceptions for monitor instructions on objects in marked classes.  More radically, a Interchangeable marker interface could cause JVM primitives that are sensitive to object identity to raise exceptions; the strangest result would be that the acmp instruction would have to be specified as raising an exception. @ValueSafe public interface ValueType extends java.io.Serializable,         Unsynchronizable, Interchangeable { … public class Complex implements ValueType {     // inherits Serializable, Unsynchronizable, Interchangeable, @ValueSafe     … It seems possible that Integer and the other wrapper types could be retro-fitted as value-safe types.  This is a major change, since wrapper objects would be unsynchronizable and their references interchangeable.  It is likely that code which violates value-safety for wrapper types exists but is uncommon.  It is less plausible to retro-fit String, since the prominent operation String.intern is often used with value-unsafe code. We should also reconsider the distinction between boxed and unboxed values in code.  The design presented above obscures that distinction.  As another thought experiment, we could imagine making a first class distinction in the type system between boxed and unboxed representations.  Since only primitive types are named with a lower-case initial letter, we could define that the capitalized version of a value type name always refers to the boxed representation, while the initial lower-case variant always refers to boxed.  For example: complex pi = complex.valueOf(Math.PI, 0); Complex boxPi = pi;  // convert to boxed myList.add(boxPi); complex z = myList.get(0);  // unbox Such a convention could perhaps absorb the current difference between int and Integer, double and Double. It might also allow the programmer to express a helpful distinction among array types. As said above, array types are crucial to bulk data interfaces, but are limited in the JVM.  Extending arrays beyond the present limitations is worth thinking about; for example, the Maxine JVM implementation has a hybrid object/array type.  Something like this which can also accommodate value type components seems worthwhile.  On the other hand, does it make sense for value types to contain short arrays?  And why should random-access arrays be the end of our design process, when bulk data is often sequentially accessed, and it might make sense to have heterogeneous streams of data as the natural “jumbo” data structure.  These considerations must wait for another day and another note. More Work It seems to me that a good sequence for introducing such value types would be as follows: Add the value-safety restrictions to an experimental version of javac. Code some sample applications with value types, including Complex and DecimalValue. Create an experimental JVM which internally unboxes value types but does not require new bytecodes to do so.  Ensure the feasibility of the performance model for the sample applications. Add tuple-like bytecodes (with or without generic type reification) to a major revision of the JVM, and teach the Java compiler to switch in the new bytecodes without code changes. A staggered roll-out like this would decouple language changes from bytecode changes, which is always a convenient thing. A similar investigation should be applied (concurrently) to array types.  In this case, it seems to me that the starting point is in the JVM: Add an experimental unboxing array data structure to a production JVM, perhaps along the lines of Maxine hybrids.  No bytecode or language support is required at first; everything can be done with encapsulated unsafe operations and/or method handles. Create an experimental JVM which internally unboxes value types but does not require new bytecodes to do so.  Ensure the feasibility of the performance model for the sample applications. Add tuple-like bytecodes (with or without generic type reification) to a major revision of the JVM, and teach the Java compiler to switch in the new bytecodes without code changes. That’s enough musing me for now.  Back to work!

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  • Creating a thematic map

    - by jsharma
    This post describes how to create a simple thematic map, just a state population layer, with no underlying map tile layer. The map shows states color-coded by total population. The map is interactive with info-windows and can be panned and zoomed. The sample code demonstrates the following: Displaying an interactive vector layer with no background map tile layer (i.e. purpose and use of the Universe object) Using a dynamic (i.e. defined via the javascript client API) color bucket style Dynamically changing a layer's rendering style Specifying which attribute value to use in determining the bucket, and hence style, for a feature (FoI) The result is shown in the screenshot below. The states layer was defined, and stored in the user_sdo_themes view of the mvdemo schema, using MapBuilder. The underlying table is defined as SQL> desc states_32775  Name                                      Null?    Type ----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------  STATE                                              VARCHAR2(26)  STATE_ABRV                                         VARCHAR2(2) FIPSST                                             VARCHAR2(2) TOTPOP                                             NUMBER PCTSMPLD                                           NUMBER LANDSQMI                                           NUMBER POPPSQMI                                           NUMBER ... MEDHHINC NUMBER AVGHHINC NUMBER GEOM32775 MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY We'll use the TOTPOP column value in the advanced (color bucket) style for rendering the states layers. The predefined theme (US_STATES_BI) is defined as follows. SQL> select styling_rules from user_sdo_themes where name='US_STATES_BI'; STYLING_RULES -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?> <styling_rules highlight_style="C.CB_QUAL_8_CLASS_DARK2_1"> <hidden_info> <field column="STATE" name="Name"/> <field column="POPPSQMI" name="POPPSQMI"/> <field column="TOTPOP" name="TOTPOP"/> </hidden_info> <rule column="TOTPOP"> <features style="states_totpop"> </features> <label column="STATE_ABRV" style="T.BLUE_SERIF_10"> 1 </label> </rule> </styling_rules> SQL> The theme definition specifies that the state, poppsqmi, totpop, state_abrv, and geom columns will be queried from the states_32775 table. The state_abrv value will be used to label the state while the totpop value will be used to determine the color-fill from those defined in the states_totpop advanced style. The states_totpop style, which we will not use in our demo, is defined as shown below. SQL> select definition from user_sdo_styles where name='STATES_TOTPOP'; DEFINITION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <?xml version="1.0" ?> <AdvancedStyle> <BucketStyle> <Buckets default_style="C.S02_COUNTRY_AREA"> <RangedBucket seq="0" label="10K - 5M" low="10000" high="5000000" style="C.SEQ6_01" /> <RangedBucket seq="1" label="5M - 12M" low="5000001" high="1.2E7" style="C.SEQ6_02" /> <RangedBucket seq="2" label="12M - 20M" low="1.2000001E7" high="2.0E7" style="C.SEQ6_04" /> <RangedBucket seq="3" label="&gt; 20M" low="2.0000001E7" high="5.0E7" style="C.SEQ6_05" /> </Buckets> </BucketStyle> </AdvancedStyle> SQL> The demo defines additional advanced styles via the OM.style object and methods and uses those instead when rendering the states layer.   Now let's look at relevant snippets of code that defines the map extent and zoom levels (i.e. the OM.universe),  loads the states predefined vector layer (OM.layer), and sets up the advanced (color bucket) style. Defining the map extent and zoom levels. function initMap() {   //alert("Initialize map view");     // define the map extent and number of zoom levels.   // The Universe object is similar to the map tile layer configuration   // It defines the map extent, number of zoom levels, and spatial reference system   // well-known ones (like web mercator/google/bing or maps.oracle/elocation are predefined   // The Universe must be defined when there is no underlying map tile layer.   // When there is a map tile layer then that defines the map extent, srid, and zoom levels.      var uni= new OM.universe.Universe(     {         srid : 32775,         bounds : new OM.geometry.Rectangle(                         -3280000, 170000, 2300000, 3200000, 32775),         numberOfZoomLevels: 8     }); The srid specifies the spatial reference system which is Equal-Area Projection (United States). SQL> select cs_name from cs_srs where srid=32775 ; CS_NAME --------------------------------------------------- Equal-Area Projection (United States) The bounds defines the map extent. It is a Rectangle defined using the lower-left and upper-right coordinates and srid. Loading and displaying the states layer This is done in the states() function. The full code is at the end of this post, however here's the snippet which defines the states VectorLayer.     // States is a predefined layer in user_sdo_themes     var  layer2 = new OM.layer.VectorLayer("vLayer2",     {         def:         {             type:OM.layer.VectorLayer.TYPE_PREDEFINED,             dataSource:"mvdemo",             theme:"us_states_bi",             url: baseURL,             loadOnDemand: false         },         boundingTheme:true      }); The first parameter is a layer name, the second is an object literal for a layer config. The config object has two attributes: the first is the layer definition, the second specifies whether the layer is a bounding one (i.e. used to determine the current map zoom and center such that the whole layer is displayed within the map window) or not. The layer config has the following attributes: type - specifies whether is a predefined one, a defined via a SQL query (JDBC), or in a json-format file (DATAPACK) theme - is the predefined theme's name url - is the location of the mapviewer server loadOnDemand - specifies whether to load all the features or just those that lie within the current map window and load additional ones as needed on a pan or zoom The code snippet below dynamically defines an advanced style and then uses it, instead of the 'states_totpop' style, when rendering the states layer. // override predefined rendering style with programmatic one    var theRenderingStyle =      createBucketColorStyle('YlBr5', colorSeries, 'States5', true);   // specify which attribute is used in determining the bucket (i.e. color) to use for the state   // It can be an array because the style could be a chart type (pie/bar)   // which requires multiple attribute columns     // Use the STATE.TOTPOP column (aka attribute) value here    layer2.setRenderingStyle(theRenderingStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); The style itself is defined in the createBucketColorStyle() function. Dynamically defining an advanced style The advanced style used here is a bucket color style, i.e. a color style is associated with each bucket. So first we define the colors and then the buckets.     numClasses = colorSeries[colorName].classes;    // create Color Styles    for (var i=0; i < numClasses; i++)    {         theStyles[i] = new OM.style.Color(                      {fill: colorSeries[colorName].fill[i],                        stroke:colorSeries[colorName].stroke[i],                       strokeOpacity: useGradient? 0.25 : 1                      });    }; numClasses is the number of buckets. The colorSeries array contains the color fill and stroke definitions and is: var colorSeries = { //multi-hue color scheme #10 YlBl. "YlBl3": {   classes:3,                  fill: [0xEDF8B1, 0x7FCDBB, 0x2C7FB8],                  stroke:[0xB5DF9F, 0x72B8A8, 0x2872A6]   }, "YlBl5": {   classes:5,                  fill:[0xFFFFCC, 0xA1DAB4, 0x41B6C4, 0x2C7FB8, 0x253494],                  stroke:[0xE6E6B8, 0x91BCA2, 0x3AA4B0, 0x2872A6, 0x212F85]   }, //multi-hue color scheme #11 YlBr.  "YlBr3": {classes:3,                  fill:[0xFFF7BC, 0xFEC44F, 0xD95F0E],                  stroke:[0xE6DEA9, 0xE5B047, 0xC5360D]   }, "YlBr5": {classes:5,                  fill:[0xFFFFD4, 0xFED98E, 0xFE9929, 0xD95F0E, 0x993404],                  stroke:[0xE6E6BF, 0xE5C380, 0xE58A25, 0xC35663, 0x8A2F04]     }, etc. Next we create the bucket style.    bucketStyleDef = {       numClasses : colorSeries[colorName].classes, //      classification: 'custom',  //since we are supplying all the buckets //      buckets: theBuckets,       classification: 'logarithmic',  // use a logarithmic scale       styles: theStyles,       gradient:  useGradient? 'linear' : 'off' //      gradient:  useGradient? 'radial' : 'off'     };    theBucketStyle = new OM.style.BucketStyle(bucketStyleDef);    return theBucketStyle; A BucketStyle constructor takes a style definition as input. The style definition specifies the number of buckets (numClasses), a classification scheme (which can be equal-ranged, logarithmic scale, or custom), the styles for each bucket, whether to use a gradient effect, and optionally the buckets (required when using a custom classification scheme). The full source for the demo <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <title>Oracle Maps V2 Thematic Map Demo</title> <script src="http://localhost:8080/mapviewer/jslib/v2/oraclemapsv2.js" type="text/javascript"> </script> <script type="text/javascript"> //var $j = jQuery.noConflict(); var baseURL="http://localhost:8080/mapviewer"; // location of mapviewer OM.gv.proxyEnabled =false; // no mvproxy needed OM.gv.setResourcePath(baseURL+"/jslib/v2/images/"); // location of resources for UI elements like nav panel buttons var map = null; // the client mapviewer object var statesLayer = null, stateCountyLayer = null; // The vector layers for states and counties in a state var layerName="States"; // initial map center and zoom var mapCenterLon = -20000; var mapCenterLat = 1750000; var mapZoom = 2; var mpoint = new OM.geometry.Point(mapCenterLon,mapCenterLat,32775); var currentPalette = null, currentStyle=null; // set an onchange listener for the color palette select list // initialize the map // load and display the states layer $(document).ready( function() { $("#demo-htmlselect").change(function() { var theColorScheme = $(this).val(); useSelectedColorScheme(theColorScheme); }); initMap(); states(); } ); /** * color series from ColorBrewer site (http://colorbrewer2.org/). */ var colorSeries = { //multi-hue color scheme #10 YlBl. "YlBl3": { classes:3, fill: [0xEDF8B1, 0x7FCDBB, 0x2C7FB8], stroke:[0xB5DF9F, 0x72B8A8, 0x2872A6] }, "YlBl5": { classes:5, fill:[0xFFFFCC, 0xA1DAB4, 0x41B6C4, 0x2C7FB8, 0x253494], stroke:[0xE6E6B8, 0x91BCA2, 0x3AA4B0, 0x2872A6, 0x212F85] }, //multi-hue color scheme #11 YlBr. "YlBr3": {classes:3, fill:[0xFFF7BC, 0xFEC44F, 0xD95F0E], stroke:[0xE6DEA9, 0xE5B047, 0xC5360D] }, "YlBr5": {classes:5, fill:[0xFFFFD4, 0xFED98E, 0xFE9929, 0xD95F0E, 0x993404], stroke:[0xE6E6BF, 0xE5C380, 0xE58A25, 0xC35663, 0x8A2F04] }, // single-hue color schemes (blues, greens, greys, oranges, reds, purples) "Purples5": {classes:5, fill:[0xf2f0f7, 0xcbc9e2, 0x9e9ac8, 0x756bb1, 0x54278f], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Blues5": {classes:5, fill:[0xEFF3FF, 0xbdd7e7, 0x68aed6, 0x3182bd, 0x18519C], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Greens5": {classes:5, fill:[0xedf8e9, 0xbae4b3, 0x74c476, 0x31a354, 0x116d2c], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Greys5": {classes:5, fill:[0xf7f7f7, 0xcccccc, 0x969696, 0x636363, 0x454545], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Oranges5": {classes:5, fill:[0xfeedde, 0xfdb385, 0xfd8d3c, 0xe6550d, 0xa63603], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] }, "Reds5": {classes:5, fill:[0xfee5d9, 0xfcae91, 0xfb6a4a, 0xde2d26, 0xa50f15], stroke:[0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3, 0xd3d3d3] } }; function createBucketColorStyle( colorName, colorSeries, rangeName, useGradient) { var theBucketStyle; var bucketStyleDef; var theStyles = []; var theColors = []; var aBucket, aStyle, aColor, aRange; var numClasses ; numClasses = colorSeries[colorName].classes; // create Color Styles for (var i=0; i < numClasses; i++) { theStyles[i] = new OM.style.Color( {fill: colorSeries[colorName].fill[i], stroke:colorSeries[colorName].stroke[i], strokeOpacity: useGradient? 0.25 : 1 }); }; bucketStyleDef = { numClasses : colorSeries[colorName].classes, // classification: 'custom', //since we are supplying all the buckets // buckets: theBuckets, classification: 'logarithmic', // use a logarithmic scale styles: theStyles, gradient: useGradient? 'linear' : 'off' // gradient: useGradient? 'radial' : 'off' }; theBucketStyle = new OM.style.BucketStyle(bucketStyleDef); return theBucketStyle; } function initMap() { //alert("Initialize map view"); // define the map extent and number of zoom levels. // The Universe object is similar to the map tile layer configuration // It defines the map extent, number of zoom levels, and spatial reference system // well-known ones (like web mercator/google/bing or maps.oracle/elocation are predefined // The Universe must be defined when there is no underlying map tile layer. // When there is a map tile layer then that defines the map extent, srid, and zoom levels. var uni= new OM.universe.Universe( { srid : 32775, bounds : new OM.geometry.Rectangle( -3280000, 170000, 2300000, 3200000, 32775), numberOfZoomLevels: 8 }); map = new OM.Map( document.getElementById('map'), { mapviewerURL: baseURL, universe:uni }) ; var navigationPanelBar = new OM.control.NavigationPanelBar(); map.addMapDecoration(navigationPanelBar); } // end initMap function states() { //alert("Load and display states"); layerName = "States"; if(statesLayer) { // states were already visible but the style may have changed // so set the style to the currently selected one var theData = $('#demo-htmlselect').val(); setStyle(theData); } else { // States is a predefined layer in user_sdo_themes var layer2 = new OM.layer.VectorLayer("vLayer2", { def: { type:OM.layer.VectorLayer.TYPE_PREDEFINED, dataSource:"mvdemo", theme:"us_states_bi", url: baseURL, loadOnDemand: false }, boundingTheme:true }); // add drop shadow effect and hover style var shadowFilter = new OM.visualfilter.DropShadow({opacity:0.5, color:"#000000", offset:6, radius:10}); var hoverStyle = new OM.style.Color( {stroke:"#838383", strokeThickness:2}); layer2.setHoverStyle(hoverStyle); layer2.setHoverVisualFilter(shadowFilter); layer2.enableFeatureHover(true); layer2.enableFeatureSelection(false); layer2.setLabelsVisible(true); // override predefined rendering style with programmatic one var theRenderingStyle = createBucketColorStyle('YlBr5', colorSeries, 'States5', true); // specify which attribute is used in determining the bucket (i.e. color) to use for the state // It can be an array because the style could be a chart type (pie/bar) // which requires multiple attribute columns // Use the STATE.TOTPOP column (aka attribute) value here layer2.setRenderingStyle(theRenderingStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); currentPalette = "YlBr5"; var stLayerIdx = map.addLayer(layer2); //alert('State Layer Idx = ' + stLayerIdx); map.setMapCenter(mpoint); map.setMapZoomLevel(mapZoom) ; // display the map map.init() ; statesLayer=layer2; // add rt-click event listener to show counties for the state layer2.addListener(OM.event.MouseEvent.MOUSE_RIGHT_CLICK,stateRtClick); } // end if } // end states function setStyle(styleName) { // alert("Selected Style = " + styleName); // there may be a counties layer also displayed. // that wll have different bucket ranges so create // one style for states and one for counties var newRenderingStyle = null; if (layerName === "States") { if(/3/.test(styleName)) { newRenderingStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'States3', false); currentStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'Counties3', false); } else { newRenderingStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'States5', false); currentStyle = createBucketColorStyle(styleName, colorSeries, 'Counties5', false); } statesLayer.setRenderingStyle(newRenderingStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); if (stateCountyLayer) stateCountyLayer.setRenderingStyle(currentStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); } } // end setStyle function stateRtClick(evt){ var foi = evt.feature; //alert('Rt-Click on State: ' + foi.attributes['_label_'] + // ' with pop ' + foi.attributes['TOTPOP']); // display another layer with counties info // layer may change on each rt-click so create and add each time. var countyByState = null ; // the _label_ attribute of a feature in this case is the state abbreviation // we will use that to query and get the counties for a state var sqlText = "select totpop,geom32775 from counties_32775_moved where state_abrv="+ "'"+foi.getAttributeValue('_label_')+"'"; // alert(sqlText); if (currentStyle === null) currentStyle = createBucketColorStyle('YlBr5', colorSeries, 'Counties5', false); /* try a simple style instead new OM.style.ColorStyle( { stroke: "#B8F4FF", fill: "#18E5F4", fillOpacity:0 } ); */ // remove existing layer if any if(stateCountyLayer) map.removeLayer(stateCountyLayer); countyByState = new OM.layer.VectorLayer("stCountyLayer", {def:{type:OM.layer.VectorLayer.TYPE_JDBC, dataSource:"mvdemo", sql:sqlText, url:baseURL}}); // url:baseURL}, // renderingStyle:currentStyle}); countyByState.setVisible(true); // specify which attribute is used in determining the bucket (i.e. color) to use for the state countyByState.setRenderingStyle(currentStyle, ["TOTPOP"]); var ctLayerIdx = map.addLayer(countyByState); // alert('County Layer Idx = ' + ctLayerIdx); //map.addLayer(countyByState); stateCountyLayer = countyByState; } // end stateRtClick function useSelectedColorScheme(theColorScheme) { if(map) { // code to update renderStyle goes here //alert('will try to change render style'); setStyle(theColorScheme); } else { // do nothing } } </script> </head> <body bgcolor="#b4c5cc" style="height:100%;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,Verdana"> <h3 align="center">State population thematic map </h3> <div id="demo" style="position:absolute; left:68%; top:44px; width:28%; height:100%"> <HR/> <p/> Choose Color Scheme: <select id="demo-htmlselect"> <option value="YlBl3"> YellowBlue3</option> <option value="YlBr3"> YellowBrown3</option> <option value="YlBl5"> YellowBlue5</option> <option value="YlBr5" selected="selected"> YellowBrown5</option> <option value="Blues5"> Blues</option> <option value="Greens5"> Greens</option> <option value="Greys5"> Greys</option> <option value="Oranges5"> Oranges</option> <option value="Purples5"> Purples</option> <option value="Reds5"> Reds</option> </select> <p/> </div> <div id="map" style="position:absolute; left:10px; top:50px; width:65%; height:75%; background-color:#778f99"></div> <div style="position:absolute;top:85%; left:10px;width:98%" class="noprint"> <HR/> <p> Note: This demo uses HTML5 Canvas and requires IE9+, Firefox 10+, or Chrome. No map will show up in IE8 or earlier. </p> </div> </body> </html>

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  • Run-Time Check Failure #2 - Stack around the variable 'indices' was corrupted.

    - by numerical25
    well I think I know what the problem is. I am just having a hard time debugging it. I am working with the directx api and I am trying to generate a plane along the x and z axis according to a book I have. The problem is when I am creating my indices. I think I am setting values out of the bounds of the indices array. I am just having a hard time figuring out what I did wrong. I am unfamiliar with the this method of generating a plane. so its a little difficult for me. below is my code. Take emphasis on the indices loop. #include "MyGame.h" //#include "CubeVector.h" /* This code sets a projection and shows a turning cube. What has been added is the project, rotation and a rasterizer to change the rasterization of the cube. The issue that was going on was something with the effect file which was causing the vertices not to be rendered correctly.*/ typedef struct { ID3D10Effect* pEffect; ID3D10EffectTechnique* pTechnique; //vertex information ID3D10Buffer* pVertexBuffer; ID3D10Buffer* pIndicesBuffer; ID3D10InputLayout* pVertexLayout; UINT numVertices; UINT numIndices; }ModelObject; ModelObject modelObject; // World Matrix D3DXMATRIX WorldMatrix; // View Matrix D3DXMATRIX ViewMatrix; // Projection Matrix D3DXMATRIX ProjectionMatrix; ID3D10EffectMatrixVariable* pProjectionMatrixVariable = NULL; //grid information #define NUM_COLS 16 #define NUM_ROWS 16 #define CELL_WIDTH 32 #define CELL_HEIGHT 32 #define NUM_VERTSX (NUM_COLS + 1) #define NUM_VERTSY (NUM_ROWS + 1) bool MyGame::InitDirect3D() { if(!DX3dApp::InitDirect3D()) { return false; } D3D10_RASTERIZER_DESC rastDesc; rastDesc.FillMode = D3D10_FILL_WIREFRAME; rastDesc.CullMode = D3D10_CULL_FRONT; rastDesc.FrontCounterClockwise = true; rastDesc.DepthBias = false; rastDesc.DepthBiasClamp = 0; rastDesc.SlopeScaledDepthBias = 0; rastDesc.DepthClipEnable = false; rastDesc.ScissorEnable = false; rastDesc.MultisampleEnable = false; rastDesc.AntialiasedLineEnable = false; ID3D10RasterizerState *g_pRasterizerState; mpD3DDevice->CreateRasterizerState(&rastDesc, &g_pRasterizerState); mpD3DDevice->RSSetState(g_pRasterizerState); // Set up the World Matrix D3DXMatrixIdentity(&WorldMatrix); D3DXMatrixLookAtLH(&ViewMatrix, new D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 10.0f, -20.0f), new D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f), new D3DXVECTOR3(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f)); // Set up the projection matrix D3DXMatrixPerspectiveFovLH(&ProjectionMatrix, (float)D3DX_PI * 0.5f, (float)mWidth/(float)mHeight, 0.1f, 100.0f); if(!CreateObject()) { return false; } return true; } //These are actions that take place after the clearing of the buffer and before the present void MyGame::GameDraw() { static float rotationAngle = 0.0f; // create the rotation matrix using the rotation angle D3DXMatrixRotationY(&WorldMatrix, rotationAngle); rotationAngle += (float)D3DX_PI * 0.0f; // Set the input layout mpD3DDevice->IASetInputLayout(modelObject.pVertexLayout); // Set vertex buffer UINT stride = sizeof(VertexPos); UINT offset = 0; mpD3DDevice->IASetVertexBuffers(0, 1, &modelObject.pVertexBuffer, &stride, &offset); mpD3DDevice->IASetIndexBuffer(modelObject.pIndicesBuffer, DXGI_FORMAT_R32_UINT, 0); // Set primitive topology mpD3DDevice->IASetPrimitiveTopology(D3D10_PRIMITIVE_TOPOLOGY_TRIANGLELIST); // Combine and send the final matrix to the shader D3DXMATRIX finalMatrix = (WorldMatrix * ViewMatrix * ProjectionMatrix); pProjectionMatrixVariable->SetMatrix((float*)&finalMatrix); // make sure modelObject is valid // Render a model object D3D10_TECHNIQUE_DESC techniqueDescription; modelObject.pTechnique->GetDesc(&techniqueDescription); // Loop through the technique passes for(UINT p=0; p < techniqueDescription.Passes; ++p) { modelObject.pTechnique->GetPassByIndex(p)->Apply(0); // draw the cube using all 36 vertices and 12 triangles mpD3DDevice->DrawIndexed(modelObject.numIndices,0,0); } } //Render actually incapsulates Gamedraw, so you can call data before you actually clear the buffer or after you //present data void MyGame::Render() { DX3dApp::Render(); } bool MyGame::CreateObject() { VertexPos vertices[NUM_VERTSX * NUM_VERTSY]; for(int z=0; z < NUM_VERTSY; ++z) { for(int x = 0; x < NUM_VERTSX; ++x) { vertices[x + z * NUM_VERTSX].pos.x = (float)x * CELL_WIDTH; vertices[x + z * NUM_VERTSX].pos.z = (float)z * CELL_HEIGHT; vertices[x + z * NUM_VERTSX].pos.y = 0.0f; vertices[x + z * NUM_VERTSX].color = D3DXVECTOR4(1.0, 0.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f); } } DWORD indices[NUM_VERTSX * NUM_VERTSY]; int curIndex = 0; for(int z=0; z < NUM_ROWS; ++z) { for(int x = 0; x < NUM_COLS; ++x) { int curVertex = x + (z * NUM_VERTSX); indices[curIndex] = curVertex; indices[curIndex + 1] = curVertex + NUM_VERTSX; indices[curIndex + 2] = curVertex + 1; indices[curIndex + 3] = curVertex + 1; indices[curIndex + 4] = curVertex + NUM_VERTSX; indices[curIndex + 5] = curVertex + NUM_VERTSX + 1; curIndex += 6; } } //Create Layout D3D10_INPUT_ELEMENT_DESC layout[] = { {"POSITION",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32_FLOAT, 0 , 0, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0}, {"COLOR",0,DXGI_FORMAT_R32G32B32A32_FLOAT, 0 , 12, D3D10_INPUT_PER_VERTEX_DATA, 0} }; UINT numElements = (sizeof(layout)/sizeof(layout[0])); modelObject.numVertices = sizeof(vertices)/sizeof(VertexPos); //Create buffer desc D3D10_BUFFER_DESC bufferDesc; bufferDesc.Usage = D3D10_USAGE_DEFAULT; bufferDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(VertexPos) * modelObject.numVertices; bufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D10_BIND_VERTEX_BUFFER; bufferDesc.CPUAccessFlags = 0; bufferDesc.MiscFlags = 0; D3D10_SUBRESOURCE_DATA initData; initData.pSysMem = vertices; //Create the buffer HRESULT hr = mpD3DDevice->CreateBuffer(&bufferDesc, &initData, &modelObject.pVertexBuffer); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; modelObject.numIndices = sizeof(indices)/sizeof(DWORD); bufferDesc.ByteWidth = sizeof(DWORD) * modelObject.numIndices; bufferDesc.BindFlags = D3D10_BIND_INDEX_BUFFER; initData.pSysMem = indices; hr = mpD3DDevice->CreateBuffer(&bufferDesc, &initData, &modelObject.pIndicesBuffer); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //Set up fx files LPCWSTR effectFilename = L"effect.fx"; modelObject.pEffect = NULL; hr = D3DX10CreateEffectFromFile(effectFilename, NULL, NULL, "fx_4_0", D3D10_SHADER_ENABLE_STRICTNESS, 0, mpD3DDevice, NULL, NULL, &modelObject.pEffect, NULL, NULL); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; pProjectionMatrixVariable = modelObject.pEffect->GetVariableByName("Projection")->AsMatrix(); //Dont sweat the technique. Get it! LPCSTR effectTechniqueName = "Render"; modelObject.pTechnique = modelObject.pEffect->GetTechniqueByName(effectTechniqueName); if(modelObject.pTechnique == NULL) return false; //Create Vertex layout D3D10_PASS_DESC passDesc; modelObject.pTechnique->GetPassByIndex(0)->GetDesc(&passDesc); hr = mpD3DDevice->CreateInputLayout(layout, numElements, passDesc.pIAInputSignature, passDesc.IAInputSignatureSize, &modelObject.pVertexLayout); if(FAILED(hr)) return false; return true; }

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  • Cocos2d-xna memory management for WP8

    - by Arkiliknam
    I recently upgraded to VS2012 and try my in dev game out on the new WP8 emulators but was dismayed to find out the emulator now crashes and throws an out of memory exception during my sprite loading procedure (funnily, it still works in WP7 emulators and on my WP7). Regardless of whether the problem is the emulator or not, I want to get a clear understanding of how I should be managing memory in the game. My game consists of a character whom has 4 or more different animations. Each animation consists of 4 to 7 frames. On top of that, the character has up to 8 stackable visualization modifications (eg eye type, nose type, hair type, clothes type). Pre memory issue, I preloaded all textures for each animation frame and customization and created animate action out of them. The game then plays animations using the customizations applied to that current character. I re-looked at this implementation when I received the out of memory exceptions and have started playing with RenderTexture instead, so instead of pre loading all possible textures, it on loads textures needed for the character, renders them onto a single texture, from which the animation is built. This means the animations use 1/8th of the sprites they were before. I thought this would solve my issue, but it hasn't. Here's a snippet of my code: var characterTexture = CCRenderTexture.Create((int)width, (int)height); characterTexture.BeginWithClear(0, 0, 0, 0); // stamp a body onto my texture var bodySprite = MethodToCreateSpecificSprite(); bodySprite.Position = centerPoint; bodySprite.Visit(); bodySprite.Cleanup(); bodySprite = null; // stamp eyes, nose, mouth, clothes, etc... characterTexture.End(); As you can see, I'm calling CleanUp and setting the sprite to null in the hope of releasing the memory, though I don't believe this is the right way, nor does it seem to work... I also tried using SharedTextureCache to load textures before Stamping my texture out, and then clearing the SharedTextureCache with: CCTextureCache.SharedTextureCache.RemoveAllTextures(); But this didn't have an effect either. Any tips on what I'm not doing? I used VS to do a memory profile of the emulation causing the crash. Both WP7.1 and WP8 emulators peak at about 150mb of usage. WP8 crashes and throws an out of memory exception. Each customisation/frame is 15kb at the most. Lets say there are 8 layers of customisation = 120kb but I render then onto one texture which I would assume is only 15kb again. Each animation is 8 frames at the most. That's 15kb for 1 texture, or 960kb for 8 textures of customisation. There are 4 animation sets. That's 60Kb for 4 sets of 1 texture, or 3.75MB for 4 sets of 8 textures of customisation. So even if its storing every layer, its 3.75MB.... no where near the 150mb breaking point my profiler seems to suggest :( WP 7.1 Memory Profile (max 150MB) WP8 Memory Profile (max 150MB and crashes)

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  • Write, Read and Update Oracle CLOBs with PL/SQL

    - by robertphyatt
    Fun with CLOBS! If you are using Oracle, if you have to deal with text that is over 4000 bytes, you will probably find yourself dealing with CLOBs, which can go up to 4GB. They are pretty tricky, and it took me a long time to figure out these lessons learned. I hope they will help some down-trodden developer out there somehow. Here is my original code, which worked great on my Oracle Express Edition: (for all examples, the first one writes a new CLOB, the next one Updates an existing CLOB and the final one reads a CLOB back) CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_WR_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            OUT NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN    INSERT INTO TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC (CLOBHOLDERDDOC)        VALUES (empty_CLOB())        RETURNING CLOBHOLDERDDOC, CLOBHOLDERDDOCID INTO lob_loc, p_id;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)), 1, UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_UD_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            IN NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN        SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO lob_loc FROM TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC        WHERE CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id FOR UPDATE;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)), 1, UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW(p_document)); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_RD_CLOB (    p_id IN NUMBER,    p_clob OUT VARCHAR2) IS    lob_loc  CLOB; BEGIN    SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO lob_loc    FROM   TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC    WHERE  CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id;    p_clob := UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(lob_loc, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(lob_loc), 1)); END; / As you can see, I had originally been casting everything back and forth between RAW formats using the UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2() and UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_RAW() functions all over the place, but it had the nasty side effect of working great on my Oracle express edition on my developer box, but having all the CLOBs above a certain size display garbage when read back on the Oracle test database server . So...I kept working at it and came up with the following, which ALSO worked on my Oracle Express Edition on my developer box:   CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_WR_CLOB (     p_document      IN VARCHAR2,     p_id        OUT NUMBER) IS       lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN     INSERT INTO TBL_CLOBHOLDERDOC (CLOBHOLDERDOC)         VALUES (empty_CLOB())         RETURNING CLOBHOLDERDOC, CLOBHOLDERDOCID INTO lob_loc, p_id;     DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document);   END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_UD_CLOB (     p_document      IN VARCHAR2,     p_id        IN NUMBER) IS       lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN     SELECT CLOBHOLDERDOC INTO lob_loc FROM TBL_CLOBHOLDERDOC     WHERE CLOBHOLDERDOCID = p_id FOR UPDATE;     DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_RD_CLOB (     p_id IN NUMBER,     p_clob OUT VARCHAR2) IS     lob_loc  CLOB; BEGIN     SELECT CLOBHOLDERDOC INTO lob_loc     FROM   TBL_CLOBHOLDERDOC     WHERE  CLOBHOLDERDOCID = p_id;     p_clob := DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(lob_loc, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(lob_loc), 1); END; / Unfortunately, by changing my code to what you see above, even though it kept working on my Oracle express edition, everything over a certain size just started truncating after about 7950 characters on the test server! Here is what I came up with in the end, which is actually the simplest solution and this time worked on both my express edition and on the database server (note that only the read function was changed to fix the truncation issue, and that I had Oracle worry about converting the CLOB into a VARCHAR2 internally): CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_WR_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            OUT NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN    INSERT INTO TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC (CLOBHOLDERDDOC)        VALUES (empty_CLOB())        RETURNING CLOBHOLDERDDOC, CLOBHOLDERDDOCID INTO lob_loc, p_id;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_UD_CLOB (        p_document      IN VARCHAR2,        p_id            IN NUMBER) IS      lob_loc CLOB; BEGIN        SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO lob_loc FROM TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC        WHERE CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id FOR UPDATE;    DBMS_LOB.WRITE(lob_loc, LENGTH(p_document), 1, p_document); END; / CREATE OR REPLACE PROCEDURE PRC_RD_CLOB (    p_id IN NUMBER,    p_clob OUT VARCHAR2) IS BEGIN    SELECT CLOBHOLDERDDOC INTO p_clob    FROM   TBL_CLOBHOLDERDDOC    WHERE  CLOBHOLDERDDOCID = p_id; END; /   I hope that is useful to someone!

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  • The Incremental Architect&rsquo;s Napkin - #5 - Design functions for extensibility and readability

    - by Ralf Westphal
    Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/theArchitectsNapkin/archive/2014/08/24/the-incremental-architectrsquos-napkin---5---design-functions-for.aspx The functionality of programs is entered via Entry Points. So what we´re talking about when designing software is a bunch of functions handling the requests represented by and flowing in through those Entry Points. Designing software thus consists of at least three phases: Analyzing the requirements to find the Entry Points and their signatures Designing the functionality to be executed when those Entry Points get triggered Implementing the functionality according to the design aka coding I presume, you´re familiar with phase 1 in some way. And I guess you´re proficient in implementing functionality in some programming language. But in my experience developers in general are not experienced in going through an explicit phase 2. “Designing functionality? What´s that supposed to mean?” you might already have thought. Here´s my definition: To design functionality (or functional design for short) means thinking about… well, functions. You find a solution for what´s supposed to happen when an Entry Point gets triggered in terms of functions. A conceptual solution that is, because those functions only exist in your head (or on paper) during this phase. But you may have guess that, because it´s “design” not “coding”. And here is, what functional design is not: It´s not about logic. Logic is expressions (e.g. +, -, && etc.) and control statements (e.g. if, switch, for, while etc.). Also I consider calling external APIs as logic. It´s equally basic. It´s what code needs to do in order to deliver some functionality or quality. Logic is what´s doing that needs to be done by software. Transformations are either done through expressions or API-calls. And then there is alternative control flow depending on the result of some expression. Basically it´s just jumps in Assembler, sometimes to go forward (if, switch), sometimes to go backward (for, while, do). But calling your own function is not logic. It´s not necessary to produce any outcome. Functionality is not enhanced by adding functions (subroutine calls) to your code. Nor is quality increased by adding functions. No performance gain, no higher scalability etc. through functions. Functions are not relevant to functionality. Strange, isn´t it. What they are important for is security of investment. By introducing functions into our code we can become more productive (re-use) and can increase evolvability (higher unterstandability, easier to keep code consistent). That´s no small feat, however. Evolvable code can hardly be overestimated. That´s why to me functional design is so important. It´s at the core of software development. To sum this up: Functional design is on a level of abstraction above (!) logical design or algorithmic design. Functional design is only done until you get to a point where each function is so simple you are very confident you can easily code it. Functional design an logical design (which mostly is coding, but can also be done using pseudo code or flow charts) are complementary. Software needs both. If you start coding right away you end up in a tangled mess very quickly. Then you need back out through refactoring. Functional design on the other hand is bloodless without actual code. It´s just a theory with no experiments to prove it. But how to do functional design? An example of functional design Let´s assume a program to de-duplicate strings. The user enters a number of strings separated by commas, e.g. a, b, a, c, d, b, e, c, a. And the program is supposed to clear this list of all doubles, e.g. a, b, c, d, e. There is only one Entry Point to this program: the user triggers the de-duplication by starting the program with the string list on the command line C:\>deduplicate "a, b, a, c, d, b, e, c, a" a, b, c, d, e …or by clicking on a GUI button. This leads to the Entry Point function to get called. It´s the program´s main function in case of the batch version or a button click event handler in the GUI version. That´s the physical Entry Point so to speak. It´s inevitable. What then happens is a three step process: Transform the input data from the user into a request. Call the request handler. Transform the output of the request handler into a tangible result for the user. Or to phrase it a bit more generally: Accept input. Transform input into output. Present output. This does not mean any of these steps requires a lot of effort. Maybe it´s just one line of code to accomplish it. Nevertheless it´s a distinct step in doing the processing behind an Entry Point. Call it an aspect or a responsibility - and you will realize it most likely deserves a function of its own to satisfy the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP). Interestingly the above list of steps is already functional design. There is no logic, but nevertheless the solution is described - albeit on a higher level of abstraction than you might have done yourself. But it´s still on a meta-level. The application to the domain at hand is easy, though: Accept string list from command line De-duplicate Present de-duplicated strings on standard output And this concrete list of processing steps can easily be transformed into code:static void Main(string[] args) { var input = Accept_string_list(args); var output = Deduplicate(input); Present_deduplicated_string_list(output); } Instead of a big problem there are three much smaller problems now. If you think each of those is trivial to implement, then go for it. You can stop the functional design at this point. But maybe, just maybe, you´re not so sure how to go about with the de-duplication for example. Then just implement what´s easy right now, e.g.private static string Accept_string_list(string[] args) { return args[0]; } private static void Present_deduplicated_string_list( string[] output) { var line = string.Join(", ", output); Console.WriteLine(line); } Accept_string_list() contains logic in the form of an API-call. Present_deduplicated_string_list() contains logic in the form of an expression and an API-call. And then repeat the functional design for the remaining processing step. What´s left is the domain logic: de-duplicating a list of strings. How should that be done? Without any logic at our disposal during functional design you´re left with just functions. So which functions could make up the de-duplication? Here´s a suggestion: De-duplicate Parse the input string into a true list of strings. Register each string in a dictionary/map/set. That way duplicates get cast away. Transform the data structure into a list of unique strings. Processing step 2 obviously was the core of the solution. That´s where real creativity was needed. That´s the core of the domain. But now after this refinement the implementation of each step is easy again:private static string[] Parse_string_list(string input) { return input.Split(',') .Select(s => s.Trim()) .ToArray(); } private static Dictionary<string,object> Compile_unique_strings(string[] strings) { return strings.Aggregate( new Dictionary<string, object>(), (agg, s) => { agg[s] = null; return agg; }); } private static string[] Serialize_unique_strings( Dictionary<string,object> dict) { return dict.Keys.ToArray(); } With these three additional functions Main() now looks like this:static void Main(string[] args) { var input = Accept_string_list(args); var strings = Parse_string_list(input); var dict = Compile_unique_strings(strings); var output = Serialize_unique_strings(dict); Present_deduplicated_string_list(output); } I think that´s very understandable code: just read it from top to bottom and you know how the solution to the problem works. It´s a mirror image of the initial design: Accept string list from command line Parse the input string into a true list of strings. Register each string in a dictionary/map/set. That way duplicates get cast away. Transform the data structure into a list of unique strings. Present de-duplicated strings on standard output You can even re-generate the design by just looking at the code. Code and functional design thus are always in sync - if you follow some simple rules. But about that later. And as a bonus: all the functions making up the process are small - which means easy to understand, too. So much for an initial concrete example. Now it´s time for some theory. Because there is method to this madness ;-) The above has only scratched the surface. Introducing Flow Design Functional design starts with a given function, the Entry Point. Its goal is to describe the behavior of the program when the Entry Point is triggered using a process, not an algorithm. An algorithm consists of logic, a process on the other hand consists just of steps or stages. Each processing step transforms input into output or a side effect. Also it might access resources, e.g. a printer, a database, or just memory. Processing steps thus can rely on state of some sort. This is different from Functional Programming, where functions are supposed to not be stateful and not cause side effects.[1] In its simplest form a process can be written as a bullet point list of steps, e.g. Get data from user Output result to user Transform data Parse data Map result for output Such a compilation of steps - possibly on different levels of abstraction - often is the first artifact of functional design. It can be generated by a team in an initial design brainstorming. Next comes ordering the steps. What should happen first, what next etc.? Get data from user Parse data Transform data Map result for output Output result to user That´s great for a start into functional design. It´s better than starting to code right away on a given function using TDD. Please get me right: TDD is a valuable practice. But it can be unnecessarily hard if the scope of a functionn is too large. But how do you know beforehand without investing some thinking? And how to do this thinking in a systematic fashion? My recommendation: For any given function you´re supposed to implement first do a functional design. Then, once you´re confident you know the processing steps - which are pretty small - refine and code them using TDD. You´ll see that´s much, much easier - and leads to cleaner code right away. For more information on this approach I call “Informed TDD” read my book of the same title. Thinking before coding is smart. And writing down the solution as a bunch of functions possibly is the simplest thing you can do, I´d say. It´s more according to the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle than returning constants or other trivial stuff TDD development often is started with. So far so good. A simple ordered list of processing steps will do to start with functional design. As shown in the above example such steps can easily be translated into functions. Moving from design to coding thus is simple. However, such a list does not scale. Processing is not always that simple to be captured in a list. And then the list is just text. Again. Like code. That means the design is lacking visuality. Textual representations need more parsing by your brain than visual representations. Plus they are limited in their “dimensionality”: text just has one dimension, it´s sequential. Alternatives and parallelism are hard to encode in text. In addition the functional design using numbered lists lacks data. It´s not visible what´s the input, output, and state of the processing steps. That´s why functional design should be done using a lightweight visual notation. No tool is necessary to draw such designs. Use pen and paper; a flipchart, a whiteboard, or even a napkin is sufficient. Visualizing processes The building block of the functional design notation is a functional unit. I mostly draw it like this: Something is done, it´s clear what goes in, it´s clear what comes out, and it´s clear what the processing step requires in terms of state or hardware. Whenever input flows into a functional unit it gets processed and output is produced and/or a side effect occurs. Flowing data is the driver of something happening. That´s why I call this approach to functional design Flow Design. It´s about data flow instead of control flow. Control flow like in algorithms is of no concern to functional design. Thinking about control flow simply is too low level. Once you start with control flow you easily get bogged down by tons of details. That´s what you want to avoid during design. Design is supposed to be quick, broad brush, abstract. It should give overview. But what about all the details? As Robert C. Martin rightly said: “Programming is abot detail”. Detail is a matter of code. Once you start coding the processing steps you designed you can worry about all the detail you want. Functional design does not eliminate all the nitty gritty. It just postpones tackling them. To me that´s also an example of the SRP. Function design has the responsibility to come up with a solution to a problem posed by a single function (Entry Point). And later coding has the responsibility to implement the solution down to the last detail (i.e. statement, API-call). TDD unfortunately mixes both responsibilities. It´s just coding - and thereby trying to find detailed implementations (green phase) plus getting the design right (refactoring). To me that´s one reason why TDD has failed to deliver on its promise for many developers. Using functional units as building blocks of functional design processes can be depicted very easily. Here´s the initial process for the example problem: For each processing step draw a functional unit and label it. Choose a verb or an “action phrase” as a label, not a noun. Functional design is about activities, not state or structure. Then make the output of an upstream step the input of a downstream step. Finally think about the data that should flow between the functional units. Write the data above the arrows connecting the functional units in the direction of the data flow. Enclose the data description in brackets. That way you can clearly see if all flows have already been specified. Empty brackets mean “no data is flowing”, but nevertheless a signal is sent. A name like “list” or “strings” in brackets describes the data content. Use lower case labels for that purpose. A name starting with an upper case letter like “String” or “Customer” on the other hand signifies a data type. If you like, you also can combine descriptions with data types by separating them with a colon, e.g. (list:string) or (strings:string[]). But these are just suggestions from my practice with Flow Design. You can do it differently, if you like. Just be sure to be consistent. Flows wired-up in this manner I call one-dimensional (1D). Each functional unit just has one input and/or one output. A functional unit without an output is possible. It´s like a black hole sucking up input without producing any output. Instead it produces side effects. A functional unit without an input, though, does make much sense. When should it start to work? What´s the trigger? That´s why in the above process even the first processing step has an input. If you like, view such 1D-flows as pipelines. Data is flowing through them from left to right. But as you can see, it´s not always the same data. It get´s transformed along its passage: (args) becomes a (list) which is turned into (strings). The Principle of Mutual Oblivion A very characteristic trait of flows put together from function units is: no functional units knows another one. They are all completely independent of each other. Functional units don´t know where their input is coming from (or even when it´s gonna arrive). They just specify a range of values they can process. And they promise a certain behavior upon input arriving. Also they don´t know where their output is going. They just produce it in their own time independent of other functional units. That means at least conceptually all functional units work in parallel. Functional units don´t know their “deployment context”. They now nothing about the overall flow they are place in. They are just consuming input from some upstream, and producing output for some downstream. That makes functional units very easy to test. At least as long as they don´t depend on state or resources. I call this the Principle of Mutual Oblivion (PoMO). Functional units are oblivious of others as well as an overall context/purpose. They are just parts of a whole focused on a single responsibility. How the whole is built, how a larger goal is achieved, is of no concern to the single functional units. By building software in such a manner, functional design interestingly follows nature. Nature´s building blocks for organisms also follow the PoMO. The cells forming your body do not know each other. Take a nerve cell “controlling” a muscle cell for example:[2] The nerve cell does not know anything about muscle cells, let alone the specific muscel cell it is “attached to”. Likewise the muscle cell does not know anything about nerve cells, let a lone a specific nerve cell “attached to” it. Saying “the nerve cell is controlling the muscle cell” thus only makes sense when viewing both from the outside. “Control” is a concept of the whole, not of its parts. Control is created by wiring-up parts in a certain way. Both cells are mutually oblivious. Both just follow a contract. One produces Acetylcholine (ACh) as output, the other consumes ACh as input. Where the ACh is going, where it´s coming from neither cell cares about. Million years of evolution have led to this kind of division of labor. And million years of evolution have produced organism designs (DNA) which lead to the production of these different cell types (and many others) and also to their co-location. The result: the overall behavior of an organism. How and why this happened in nature is a mystery. For our software, though, it´s clear: functional and quality requirements needs to be fulfilled. So we as developers have to become “intelligent designers” of “software cells” which we put together to form a “software organism” which responds in satisfying ways to triggers from it´s environment. My bet is: If nature gets complex organisms working by following the PoMO, who are we to not apply this recipe for success to our much simpler “machines”? So my rule is: Wherever there is functionality to be delivered, because there is a clear Entry Point into software, design the functionality like nature would do it. Build it from mutually oblivious functional units. That´s what Flow Design is about. In that way it´s even universal, I´d say. Its notation can also be applied to biology: Never mind labeling the functional units with nouns. That´s ok in Flow Design. You´ll do that occassionally for functional units on a higher level of abstraction or when their purpose is close to hardware. Getting a cockroach to roam your bedroom takes 1,000,000 nerve cells (neurons). Getting the de-duplication program to do its job just takes 5 “software cells” (functional units). Both, though, follow the same basic principle. Translating functional units into code Moving from functional design to code is no rocket science. In fact it´s straightforward. There are two simple rules: Translate an input port to a function. Translate an output port either to a return statement in that function or to a function pointer visible to that function. The simplest translation of a functional unit is a function. That´s what you saw in the above example. Functions are mutually oblivious. That why Functional Programming likes them so much. It makes them composable. Which is the reason, nature works according to the PoMO. Let´s be clear about one thing: There is no dependency injection in nature. For all of an organism´s complexity no DI container is used. Behavior is the result of smooth cooperation between mutually oblivious building blocks. Functions will often be the adequate translation for the functional units in your designs. But not always. Take for example the case, where a processing step should not always produce an output. Maybe the purpose is to filter input. Here the functional unit consumes words and produces words. But it does not pass along every word flowing in. Some words are swallowed. Think of a spell checker. It probably should not check acronyms for correctness. There are too many of them. Or words with no more than two letters. Such words are called “stop words”. In the above picture the optionality of the output is signified by the astrisk outside the brackets. It means: Any number of (word) data items can flow from the functional unit for each input data item. It might be none or one or even more. This I call a stream of data. Such behavior cannot be translated into a function where output is generated with return. Because a function always needs to return a value. So the output port is translated into a function pointer or continuation which gets passed to the subroutine when called:[3]void filter_stop_words( string word, Action<string> onNoStopWord) { if (...check if not a stop word...) onNoStopWord(word); } If you want to be nitpicky you might call such a function pointer parameter an injection. And technically you´re right. Conceptually, though, it´s not an injection. Because the subroutine is not functionally dependent on the continuation. Firstly continuations are procedures, i.e. subroutines without a return type. Remember: Flow Design is about unidirectional data flow. Secondly the name of the formal parameter is chosen in a way as to not assume anything about downstream processing steps. onNoStopWord describes a situation (or event) within the functional unit only. Translating output ports into function pointers helps keeping functional units mutually oblivious in cases where output is optional or produced asynchronically. Either pass the function pointer to the function upon call. Or make it global by putting it on the encompassing class. Then it´s called an event. In C# that´s even an explicit feature.class Filter { public void filter_stop_words( string word) { if (...check if not a stop word...) onNoStopWord(word); } public event Action<string> onNoStopWord; } When to use a continuation and when to use an event dependens on how a functional unit is used in flows and how it´s packed together with others into classes. You´ll see examples further down the Flow Design road. Another example of 1D functional design Let´s see Flow Design once more in action using the visual notation. How about the famous word wrap kata? Robert C. Martin has posted a much cited solution including an extensive reasoning behind his TDD approach. So maybe you want to compare it to Flow Design. The function signature given is:string WordWrap(string text, int maxLineLength) {...} That´s not an Entry Point since we don´t see an application with an environment and users. Nevertheless it´s a function which is supposed to provide a certain functionality. The text passed in has to be reformatted. The input is a single line of arbitrary length consisting of words separated by spaces. The output should consist of one or more lines of a maximum length specified. If a word is longer than a the maximum line length it can be split in multiple parts each fitting in a line. Flow Design Let´s start by brainstorming the process to accomplish the feat of reformatting the text. What´s needed? Words need to be assembled into lines Words need to be extracted from the input text The resulting lines need to be assembled into the output text Words too long to fit in a line need to be split Does sound about right? I guess so. And it shows a kind of priority. Long words are a special case. So maybe there is a hint for an incremental design here. First let´s tackle “average words” (words not longer than a line). Here´s the Flow Design for this increment: The the first three bullet points turned into functional units with explicit data added. As the signature requires a text is transformed into another text. See the input of the first functional unit and the output of the last functional unit. In between no text flows, but words and lines. That´s good to see because thereby the domain is clearly represented in the design. The requirements are talking about words and lines and here they are. But note the asterisk! It´s not outside the brackets but inside. That means it´s not a stream of words or lines, but lists or sequences. For each text a sequence of words is output. For each sequence of words a sequence of lines is produced. The asterisk is used to abstract from the concrete implementation. Like with streams. Whether the list of words gets implemented as an array or an IEnumerable is not important during design. It´s an implementation detail. Does any processing step require further refinement? I don´t think so. They all look pretty “atomic” to me. And if not… I can always backtrack and refine a process step using functional design later once I´ve gained more insight into a sub-problem. Implementation The implementation is straightforward as you can imagine. The processing steps can all be translated into functions. Each can be tested easily and separately. Each has a focused responsibility. And the process flow becomes just a sequence of function calls: Easy to understand. It clearly states how word wrapping works - on a high level of abstraction. And it´s easy to evolve as you´ll see. Flow Design - Increment 2 So far only texts consisting of “average words” are wrapped correctly. Words not fitting in a line will result in lines too long. Wrapping long words is a feature of the requested functionality. Whether it´s there or not makes a difference to the user. To quickly get feedback I decided to first implement a solution without this feature. But now it´s time to add it to deliver the full scope. Fortunately Flow Design automatically leads to code following the Open Closed Principle (OCP). It´s easy to extend it - instead of changing well tested code. How´s that possible? Flow Design allows for extension of functionality by inserting functional units into the flow. That way existing functional units need not be changed. The data flow arrow between functional units is a natural extension point. No need to resort to the Strategy Pattern. No need to think ahead where extions might need to be made in the future. I just “phase in” the remaining processing step: Since neither Extract words nor Reformat know of their environment neither needs to be touched due to the “detour”. The new processing step accepts the output of the existing upstream step and produces data compatible with the existing downstream step. Implementation - Increment 2 A trivial implementation checking the assumption if this works does not do anything to split long words. The input is just passed on: Note how clean WordWrap() stays. The solution is easy to understand. A developer looking at this code sometime in the future, when a new feature needs to be build in, quickly sees how long words are dealt with. Compare this to Robert C. Martin´s solution:[4] How does this solution handle long words? Long words are not even part of the domain language present in the code. At least I need considerable time to understand the approach. Admittedly the Flow Design solution with the full implementation of long word splitting is longer than Robert C. Martin´s. At least it seems. Because his solution does not cover all the “word wrap situations” the Flow Design solution handles. Some lines would need to be added to be on par, I guess. But even then… Is a difference in LOC that important as long as it´s in the same ball park? I value understandability and openness for extension higher than saving on the last line of code. Simplicity is not just less code, it´s also clarity in design. But don´t take my word for it. Try Flow Design on larger problems and compare for yourself. What´s the easier, more straightforward way to clean code? And keep in mind: You ain´t seen all yet ;-) There´s more to Flow Design than described in this chapter. In closing I hope I was able to give you a impression of functional design that makes you hungry for more. To me it´s an inevitable step in software development. Jumping from requirements to code does not scale. And it leads to dirty code all to quickly. Some thought should be invested first. Where there is a clear Entry Point visible, it´s functionality should be designed using data flows. Because with data flows abstraction is possible. For more background on why that´s necessary read my blog article here. For now let me point out to you - if you haven´t already noticed - that Flow Design is a general purpose declarative language. It´s “programming by intention” (Shalloway et al.). Just write down how you think the solution should work on a high level of abstraction. This breaks down a large problem in smaller problems. And by following the PoMO the solutions to those smaller problems are independent of each other. So they are easy to test. Or you could even think about getting them implemented in parallel by different team members. Flow Design not only increases evolvability, but also helps becoming more productive. All team members can participate in functional design. This goes beyon collective code ownership. We´re talking collective design/architecture ownership. Because with Flow Design there is a common visual language to talk about functional design - which is the foundation for all other design activities.   PS: If you like what you read, consider getting my ebook “The Incremental Architekt´s Napkin”. It´s where I compile all the articles in this series for easier reading. I like the strictness of Function Programming - but I also find it quite hard to live by. And it certainly is not what millions of programmers are used to. Also to me it seems, the real world is full of state and side effects. So why give them such a bad image? That´s why functional design takes a more pragmatic approach. State and side effects are ok for processing steps - but be sure to follow the SRP. Don´t put too much of it into a single processing step. ? Image taken from www.physioweb.org ? My code samples are written in C#. C# sports typed function pointers called delegates. Action is such a function pointer type matching functions with signature void someName(T t). Other languages provide similar ways to work with functions as first class citizens - even Java now in version 8. I trust you find a way to map this detail of my translation to your favorite programming language. I know it works for Java, C++, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, Go. And if you´re using a Functional Programming language it´s of course a no brainer. ? Taken from his blog post “The Craftsman 62, The Dark Path”. ?

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