it stuck - Page 183 - Developer IT

What version-control system is most trivial to set up and use for toy projects?

- by Norman Ramsey

I teach the third required intro course in a CS department. One of my homework assignments asks students to speed up code they have written for a previous assignment. Factor-of-ten speedups are routine; factors of 100 or 1000 are not unheard of. (For a factor of 1000 speedup you have to have made rookie mistakes with malloc().) Programs are improved by a sequence is small changes. I ask students to record and describe each change and the resulting improvement. While you're improving a program it is also possible to break it. Wouldn't it be nice to back out? You can see where I'm going with this: my students would benefit enormously from version control. But there are some caveats: Our computing environment is locked down. Anything that depends on a central repository is suspect. Our students are incredibly overloaded. Not just classes but jobs, sports, music, you name it. For them to use a new tool it has to be incredibly easy and have obvious benefits. Our students do most work in pairs. Getting bits back and forth between accounts is problematic. Could this problem also be solved by distributed version control? Complexity is the enemy. I know setting up a CVS repository is too baffling---I myself still have trouble because I only do it once a year. I'm told SVN is even harder. Here are my comments on existing systems: I think central version control (CVS or SVN) is ruled out because our students don't have the administrative privileges needed to make a repository that they can share with one other student. (We are stuck with Unix file permissions.) Also, setup on CVS or SVN is too hard. darcs is way easy to set up, but it's not obvious how you share things. darcs send (to send patches by email) seems promising but it's not clear how to set it up. The introductory documentation for git is not for beginners. Like CVS setup, it's something I myself have trouble with. I'm soliciting suggestions for what source-control to use with beginning students. I suspect we can find resources to put a thin veneer over an existing system and to simplify existing documentation. We probably don't have resources to write new documentation. So, what's really easy to setup, commit, revert, and share changes with a partner but does not have to be easy to merge or to work at scale? A key constraint is that programming pairs have to be able to share work with each other and only each other, and pairs change every week. Our infrastructure is Linux, Solaris, and Windows with a netapp filer. I doubt my IT staff wants to create a Unix group for each pair of students. Is there an easier solution I've overlooked? (Thanks for the accepted answer, which beats the others on account of its excellent reference to Git Magic as well as the helpful comments.)

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C++ templated factory constructor/de-serialization

- by KRao

Hi, I was looking at the boost serialization library, and the intrusive way to provide support for serialization is to define a member function with signature (simplifying): class ToBeSerialized { public: //Define this to support serialization //Notice not virtual function! template<class Archive> void serialize(Archive & ar) {.....} }; Moreover, one way to support serilization of derived class trough base pointers is to use a macro of the type: //No mention to the base class(es) from which Derived_class inherits BOOST_CLASS_EXPORT_GUID(Derived_class, "derived_class") where Derived_class is some class which is inheriting from a base class, say Base_class. Thanks to this macro, it is possible to serialize classes of type Derived_class through pointers to Base_class correctly. The question is: I am used in C++ to write abstract factories implemented through a map from std::string to (pointer to) functions which return objects of the desired type (and eveything is fine thanks to covariant types). Hover I fail to see how I could use the above non-virtual serialize template member function to properly de-serialize (i.e. construct) an object without knowing its type (but assuming that the type information has been stored by the serializer, say in a string). What I would like to do (keeping the same nomenclature as above) is something like the following: XmlArchive xmlArchive; //A type or archive xmlArchive.open("C:/ser.txt"); //Contains type information for the serialized class Base_class* basePtr = Factory<Base_class>::create("derived_class",xmlArchive); with the function on the righ-hand side creating an object on the heap of type Derived_class (via default constructor, this is the part I know how to solve) and calling the serialize function of xmlArchive (here I am stuck!), i.e. do something like: Base_class* Factory<Base_class>::create("derived_class",xmlArchive) { Base_class* basePtr = new Base_class; //OK, doable, usual map string to pointer to function static_cast<Derived_class*>( basePtr )->serialize( xmlArchive ); //De-serialization, how????? return basePtr; } I am sure this can be done (boost serialize does it but its code is impenetrable! :P), but I fail to figure out how. The key problem is that the serialize function is a template function. So I cannot have a pointer to a generic templated function. As the point in writing the templated serialize function is to make the code generic (i.e. not having to re-write the serialize function for different Archivers), it does not make sense then to have to register all the derived classes for all possible archive types, like: MY_CLASS_REGISTER(Derived_class, XmlArchive); MY_CLASS_REGISTER(Derived_class, TxtArchive); ... In fact in my code I relies on overloading to get the correct behaviour: void serialize( XmlArchive& archive, Derived_class& derived ); void serialize( TxtArchive& archive, Derived_class& derived ); ... The key point to keep in mind is that the archive type is always known, i.e. I am never using runtime polymorphism for the archive class...(again I am using overloading on the archive type). Any suggestion to help me out? Thank you very much in advance! Cheers

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Create and Share a File (Also a mysterious error)

- by Kirk

My goal is to create a XML file and then send it through the share Intent. I'm able to create a XML file using this code FileOutputStream outputStream = context.openFileOutput(fileName, Context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE); PrintStream printStream = new PrintStream(outputStream); String xml = this.writeXml(); // get XML here printStream.println(xml); printStream.close(); I'm stuck trying to retrieve a Uri to the output file in order to share it. I first tried to access the file by converting the file to a Uri File outFile = context.getFileStreamPath(fileName); return Uri.fromFile(outFile); This returns file:///data/data/com.my.package/files/myfile.xml but I cannot appear to attach this to an email, upload, etc. If I manually check the file length, it's proper and shows there is a reasonable file size. Next I created a content provider and tried to reference the file and it isn't a valid handle to the file. The ContentProvider doesn't ever seem to be called a any point. Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://" + CachedFileProvider.AUTHORITY + "/" + fileName); return uri; This returns content://com.my.package.provider/myfile.xml but I check the file and it's zero length. How do I access files properly? Do I need to create the file with the content provider? If so, how? Update Here is the code I'm using to share. If I select Gmail, it does show as an attachment but when I send it gives an error Couldn't show attachment and the email that arrives has no attachment. public void onClick(View view) { Log.d(TAG, "onClick " + view.getId()); switch (view.getId()) { case R.id.share_cancel: setResult(RESULT_CANCELED, getIntent()); finish(); break; case R.id.share_share: MyXml xml = new MyXml(); Uri uri; try { uri = xml.writeXmlToFile(getApplicationContext(), "myfile.xml"); //uri is "file:///data/data/com.my.package/files/myfile.xml" Log.d(TAG, "Share URI: " + uri.toString() + " path: " + uri.getPath()); File f = new File(uri.getPath()); Log.d(TAG, "File length: " + f.length()); // shows a valid file size Intent shareIntent = new Intent(); shareIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND); shareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, uri); shareIntent.setType("text/plain"); startActivity(Intent.createChooser(shareIntent, "Share")); } catch (FileNotFoundException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } break; } } I noticed that there is an Exception thrown here from inside createChooser(...), but I can't figure out why it's thrown. E/ActivityThread(572): Activity com.android.internal.app.ChooserActivity has leaked IntentReceiver com.android.internal.app.ResolverActivity$1@4148d658 that was originally registered here. Are you missing a call to unregisterReceiver()? I've researched this error and can't find anything obvious. Both of these links suggest that I need to unregister a receiver. Chooser Activity Leak - Android Why does Intent.createChooser() need a BroadcastReceiver and how to implement? I have a receiver setup, but it's for an AlarmManager that is set elsewhere and doesn't require the app to register / unregister. Code for openFile(...) In case it's needed, here is the content provider I've created. public ParcelFileDescriptor openFile(Uri uri, String mode) throws FileNotFoundException { String fileLocation = getContext().getCacheDir() + "/" + uri.getLastPathSegment(); ParcelFileDescriptor pfd = ParcelFileDescriptor.open(new File(fileLocation), ParcelFileDescriptor.MODE_READ_ONLY); return pfd; }

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piecing together a jquery form mailer

- by Joel

Hi guys, My newbieness is shining through here...I managed to piece together a form mailer that works great, but now I need to add two more fields, and I'm at a loss as to how to do it. Over the months, I have commented out some things I didn't need, but now I'm stuck. I borrowed from this tutorial to make the original form: http://trevordavis.net/blog/tutorial/ajax-forms-with-jquery/ But then I cannibalized it to make an email signup form for a newsletter, so the fields I need are: recipient email (me-hard coded in) senders email address subject (hardcoded in) first name and city in the body of the message For my form, I have this: <div> <?php include('verify.php'); ?> <form action="index_success.php" method="post" id="sendEmail" class="email"> <h3 class="register2">Newsletter Signup:</h3> <ul class="forms email"> <li class="name"><label for="yourName">Name: </label> <input type="text" name="yourName" class="info" id="yourName" value=" " /><br> </li> <li class="city"><label for="yourCity">City: </label> <input type="text" name="yourCity" class="info" id="yourCity" value=" " /><br> </li> <li class="email"><label for="emailFrom">Email: </label> <input type="text" name="emailFrom" class="info" id="emailFrom" value="<?= $_POST['emailFrom']; ?>" /> <?php if(isset($emailFromError)) echo '<span class="error">'.$emailFromError.'</span>'; ?> </li> <li class="buttons email"> <button type="submit" id="submit">Send</button> <input type="hidden" name="submitted" id="submitted" value="true" /> </li> </ul> </form> </div> emailcontact.js: $(document).ready(function(){ $("#submit").click(function(){ $(".error").hide(); var hasError = false; var emailReg = /^([\w-\.]+@([\w-]+\.)+[\w-]{2,4})?$/; var emailFromVal = $("#emailFrom").val(); if(emailFromVal == '') { $("#emailFrom").after('<span class="error">You forgot to enter the email address to send from.</span>'); hasError = true; } else if(!emailReg.test(emailFromVal)) { $("#emailFrom").after('<span class="error">Enter a valid email address to send from.</span>'); hasError = true; } var subjectVal = $("#subject").val(); if(subjectVal == '') { $("#subject").after('<span class="error">You forgot to enter your name.</span>'); hasError = true; } var messageVal = $("#message").val(); if(messageVal == '') { $("#message").after('<span class="error">You forgot to enter your city.</span>'); hasError = true; } if(hasError == false) { $(this).hide(); $("#sendEmail li.buttons").append('<img src="/wp-content/themes/default/images/template/loading.gif" alt="Loading" id="loading" />'); $.post("/includes/sendemail.php", //emailTo: emailToVal, { emailFrom: emailFromVal, subject: subjectVal, message: messageVal }, function(data){ $("#sendEmail").slideUp("normal", function() { $("#sendEmail").before('<h3 class="register2">Success!</h3><p class="emailbox">You are on the Newsletter email list.</p>'); }); } ); } return false; }); }); sendmail.php: <?php $mailTo = $_POST['emailTo']; $mailFrom = $_POST['emailFrom']; $subject = $_POST['yourName']; $message = $_POST['yourCity']; mail('[email protected]','Rattletree Newsletter', 'Name='.$subject. ' City='.$message, "From: ".$mailFrom); ?> Thanks for any help! I'm going crosseyed trying to figure this one out.

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Difficulty creating classes and arrays of those classes C#

- by Lucifer Fayte

I'm trying to implement a Discrete Fourier Transformation algorithm for a project I'm doing in school. But creating a class is seeming to be difficult(which it shouldn't be). I'm using Visual Studio 2012. Basically I need a class called Complex to store the two values I get from a DFT; The real portion and the imaginary portion. This is what I have so far for that: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; namespace SoundEditor_V3 { public class Complex { public double real; public double im; public Complex() { real = 0; im = 0; } } } The problem is that it doesn't recognize the constructor as a constructor, now I'm just learning C#, but I looked it up online and this is how it's supposed to look apparently. It recognizes my constructor as a method. Why is that? Am I creating the class wrong? It's doing the same thing for my Fourier class as well. So each time I try to create a Fourier object and then use it's method...there is no such thing. example, I do this: Fourier fou = new Fourier(); fou.DFT(s, N, amp, 0); and it tells me fou is a 'field' but is used like a 'type' why is it saying that? Here is the code for my Fourier class as well: using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; namespace SoundEditor_V3 { public class Fourier { //FOURIER //N = number of samples //s is the array of samples(data) //amp is the array where the complex result will be written to //start is the where in the array to start public void DFT(byte[] s, int N, ref Complex[] amp, int start) { Complex tem = new Complex(); int f; int t; for (f = 0; f < N; f++) { tem.real = 0; tem.im = 0; for (t = 0; t < N; t++) { tem.real += s[t + start] * Math.Cos(2 * Math.PI * t * f / N); tem.im -= s[t + start] * Math.Sin(2 * Math.PI * t * f / N); } amp[f].real = tem.real; amp[f].im = tem.im; } } //INVERSE FOURIER public void IDFT(Complex[] A, ref int[] s) { int N = A.Length; int t, f; double result; for (t = 0; t < N; t++) { result = 0; for (f = 0; f < N; f++) { result += A[f].real * Math.Cos(2 * Math.PI * t * f / N) - A[f].im * Math.Sin(2 * Math.PI * t * f / N); } s[t] = (int)Math.Round(result); } } } } I'm very much stuck at the moment, any and all help would be appreciated. Thank you.

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PHP Mail Not Sending Messages

- by Kenton de Jong

I realize this question title is pretty overused, but I couldn't find an answer to my problem. This could be because either I'm not too good with PHP and I don't understand the problem, or because I have a different issue, but I thought I would post it and see if somebody can help me. I developed a website for a local church in my city and I made the site on my computer, put it onto my website as a sub directory and tested it all. It worked great. One of the things the client wanted was there to be an email form that can send emails. I made it and all was good. I then uploaded it onto the church server and thought it went good too. But then we decided to try the email form out, and for some reason it didn't work. I made the email form by having the user select a recipient (pastor, office manager, etc.) with a radio button, and that would change the action of the email form. I just did something like this: if (recipent == "pastor") { document.forms[0].action = "../scripts/php/pastor_contact.php"; } else if (recipent == "pastoralAssist") { document.forms[0].action = "../scripts/php/pastoral_assist_contact.php"; } else if (recipent == "famMinistry") { document.forms[0].action = "../scripts/php/sacra_assist_contact.php"; } else if (recipent == "sacraAssist") { document.forms[0].action = "../scripts/php/fam_ministry_contact.php"; } I know this isn't the cleanest, but it works great. The php files then, all look very similar to this (just a different email)" <?php $name = $_POST['name']; $email = $_POST['email']; $phone = $_POST['phone']; $message = $_POST['message']; $formcontent="From: $name \n Email: $email \n Phone Number: $phone \n Message: $message"; $recipient = "[email protected]"; $subject = $_POST['subject']; $mailheader = "$subject \r\n"; mail($recipient, $subject, $formcontent, $mailheader) or die("There seems to be an error with this form. Sorry about the inconveince. We are working to get this fixed."); header('Location: ../../quickylinks/message_sent.html') ; ?> What this does, briefly, is collect the information from the email form, submit it as an email and then redirect the user to a "Message Sent" page. This works on my server, but not theirs so I believe it's something to do with their server. You can see their server information here and mine here. When the user sends the message, they get "There seems to be an error with this form. Sorry about the inconveince. We are working to get this fixed." and the email doesn't go through, although the code is the same on my server and it works fine there. My initial thought was that PHP wasn't installed on their server (rare, but it does happen). But it was. So then I thought maybe it was installed, but the "mail" function was disabled. So I tried the following php code: <?php if (function_exists('mail')) { echo 'mail() is available'; } else { echo 'mail() has been disabled'; } ?> And it came back with "mail() is available". So now I'm stuck and I don't know the problem could be. As I said, I'm not very good at PHP yet so if somebody could give a detailed answer, I would be really really thankful! Thank you so much!

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First time using select(), maybe a basic question?

- by darkletter

Hello people, i've been working for a few days with this server using select(). What it does, is that, i have two arrays of clients (one is "suppliers", and the other is "consumers"), and the mission of the server is to check whether the suppliers have something to send to the consumers, and in case affirmative, send it. The second part of the server is that, when the consumers have received the suppliers' info, they send a confirmation message to the same suppliers that sent the info. When a client connects, it gets recognized as "undefined", until it sends a message with the word "supplier" or "consumer" (in Spanish, as i'm from there), when the server puts it in the correct clients array. Well, what the server does is not very important here. What's important is that, i'm doing both parts with two different "for" loops, and that's where i'm getting the problems. When the first user connects to the server (be it a supplier or a consumer), the server gets stuck in the first or second loop, instead of just continuing its execution. As it's the first time i'm using select(), i may be missing something. Could you guys give me any sort of help? Thanks a lot in advance. for(;;) { rset=allset; nready=select(maxfd+1,&rset,NULL,NULL,NULL); if (FD_ISSET(sockfd, &rset)){ clilen=sizeof(cliente); if((connfd=accept(sockfd,(struct sockaddr *)&cliente,&clilen))<0) printf("Error"); IP=inet_ntoa(cliente.sin_addr); for(i=0;i<COLA;i++){if(indef[i]<0){indef[i]=connfd;IPind[i]=IP;break;}} FD_SET(connfd,&allset); if(connfd > maxfd) maxfd=connfd; if(i>maxii) maxii=i; if(--nready<=0) continue; }// Fin ISSET(sockfd) for(i=0;i<=maxii;i++){ if((sockfd1=indef[i])<0){ continue;} //! if(FD_ISSET(sockfd1,&rset)){ if((n=read(sockfd1,comp,MAXLINE))==0){close(sockfd1);FD_CLR(sockfd1,&allset);indef[i]=-1;printf("Cliente indefinido desconectado \n");} else{ comp[n]='\0'; if(strcmp(comp,"suministrador")==0){ for(j=0;j<=limite;j++){if(sumi[j]<0){IPsum[j]=IPind[i];sumi[j]=indef[i]; indef[i]=-1;if(j>maxis) {maxis=j;}break; } } } else if(strcmp(comp,"consumidor")==0){ for(o=0;j<=limite;j++){if(consum[o]<0){IPcons[o]=IPind[i];consum[o]=indef[i]; indef[o]=-1;if(o>maxic) {maxic=o;}break; } } } if(--nready <=0)break; } } }//fin bucle for maxii for(i=0;i<=maxis;i++){ if((sockfd2=sumi[i])<0){continue;} if(FD_ISSET(sockfd2,&rset)){ if((n=read(sockfd2,buffer2,MAXLINE))==0){close(sockfd2);FD_CLR(sockfd2,&allset);sumi[i]=-1;printf("Suministrador desconectado \n");} else{ buffer2[n]='\0'; for(j=0;j<=maxic;j++){ if((sockfd3=consum[j])<0){ continue;} else {strcpy(final,IPsum[i]);strcat(final,":");strcat(final,buffer2);write(sockfd3,final,sizeof(final));respuesta[i]=1;} } break; // ? } } }//fin for maxis for(i=miniic;i<=maxic;i++){ if((sockfd4=consum[i])<0){continue;} if(FD_ISSET(sockfd4,&rset)){ if((n=read(sockfd4,buffer3,MAXLINE))==0){close(sockfd4);FD_CLR(sockfd4,&allset);consum[i]=-1;printf("Consumidor desconectado \n");} else{ buffer3[n]='\0'; IP2=strtok(buffer3,":"); obj=strtok(NULL,":"); for(j=0;j<100;j++){ if((strcmp(IPsum[j],IP2)==0) && (respuesta[j]==1)) {write(sumi[j],obj,sizeof(obj)); miniic=i+1; respuesta[j]=0; break; } } } } }

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Getting the constructor of an Interface Type through reflection?

- by Will Marcouiller

I have written a generic type: IDirectorySource<T> where T : IDirectoryEntry, which I'm using to manage Active Directory entries through my interfaces objects: IGroup, IOrganizationalUnit, IUser. So that I can write the following: IDirectorySource<IGroup> groups = new DirectorySource<IGroup>(); // Where IGroup implements `IDirectoryEntry`, of course.` foreach (IGroup g in groups.ToList()) { listView1.Items.Add(g.Name).SubItems.Add(g.Description); } From the IDirectorySource<T>.ToList() methods, I use reflection to find out the appropriate constructor for the type parameter T. However, since T is given an interface type, it cannot find any constructor at all! Of course, I have an internal class Group : IGroup which implements the IGroup interface. No matter how hard I have tried, I can't figure out how to get the constructor out of my interface through my implementing class. [DirectorySchemaAttribute("group")] public interface IGroup { } internal class Group : IGroup { internal Group(DirectoryEntry entry) { NativeEntry = entry; Domain = NativeEntry.Path; } // Implementing IGroup interface... } Within the ToList() method of my IDirectorySource<T> interface implementation, I look for the constructor of T as follows: internal class DirectorySource<T> : IDirectorySource<T> { // Implementing properties... // Methods implementations... public IList<T> ToList() { Type t = typeof(T) // Let's assume we're always working with the IGroup interface as T here to keep it simple. // So, my `DirectorySchema` property is already set to "group". // My `DirectorySearcher` is already instantiated here, as I do it within the DirectorySource<T> constructor. Searcher.Filter = string.Format("(&(objectClass={0}))", DirectorySchema) ConstructorInfo ctor = null; ParameterInfo[] params = null; // This is where I get stuck for now... Please see the helper method. GetConstructor(out ctor, out params, new Type() { DirectoryEntry }); SearchResultCollection results = null; try { results = Searcher.FindAll(); } catch (DirectoryServicesCOMException ex) { // Handling exception here... } foreach (SearchResult entry in results) entities.Add(ctor.Invoke(new object() { entry.GetDirectoryEntry() })); return entities; } } private void GetConstructor(out ConstructorInfo constructor, out ParameterInfo[] parameters, Type paramsTypes) { Type t = typeof(T); ConstructorInfo[] ctors = t.GetConstructors(BindingFlags.CreateInstance | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.InvokeMethod); bool found = true; foreach (ContructorInfo c in ctors) { parameters = c.GetParameters(); if (parameters.GetLength(0) == paramsTypes.GetLength(0)) { for (int index = 0; index < parameters.GetLength(0); ++index) { if (!(parameters[index].GetType() is paramsTypes[index].GetType())) found = false; } if (found) { constructor = c; return; } } } // Processing constructor not found message here... } My problem is that T will always be an interface, so it never finds a constructor. Might somebody guide me to the right path to follow in this situation?

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C++ Optimize if/else condition

- by Heye

I have a single line of code, that consumes 25% - 30% of the runtime of my application. It is a less-than comparator for an std::set (the set is implemented with a Red-Black-Tree). It is called about 180 Million times within 52 seconds. struct Entry { const float _cost; const long _id; // some other vars Entry(float cost, float id) : _cost(cost), _id(id) { } }; template<class T> struct lt_entry: public binary_function <T, T, bool> { bool operator()(const T &l, const T &r) const { // Most readable shape if(l._cost != r._cost) { return r._cost < l._cost; } else { return l._id < r._id; } } }; The entries should be sorted by cost and if the cost is the same by their id. I have many insertions for each extraction of the minimum. I thought about using Fibonacci-Heaps, but I have been told that they are theoretically nice, but suffer from high constants and are pretty complicated to implement. And since insert is in O(log(n)) the runtime increase is nearly constant with large n. So I think its okay to stick to the set. To improve performance I tried to express it in different shapes: return l._cost < r._cost || r._cost > l._cost || l._id < r._id; return l._cost < r._cost || (l._cost == r._cost && l._id < r._id); Even this: typedef union { float _f; int _i; } flint; //... flint diff; diff._f = (l._cost - r._cost); return (diff._i && diff._i >> 31) || l._id < r._id; But the compiler seems to be smart enough already, because I haven't been able to improve the runtime. I also thought about SSE but this problem is really not very applicable for SSE... The assembly looks somewhat like this: movss (%rbx),%xmm1 mov $0x1,%r8d movss 0x20(%rdx),%xmm0 ucomiss %xmm1,%xmm0 ja 0x410600 <_ZNSt8_Rb_tree[..]+96> ucomiss %xmm0,%xmm1 jp 0x4105fd <_ZNSt8_Rb_[..]_+93> jne 0x4105fd <_ZNSt8_Rb_[..]_+93> mov 0x28(%rdx),%rax cmp %rax,0x8(%rbx) jb 0x410600 <_ZNSt8_Rb_[..]_+96> xor %r8d,%r8d I have a very tiny bit experience with assembly language, but not really much. I thought it would be the best (only?) point to squeeze out some performance, but is it really worth the effort? Can you see any shortcuts that could save some cycles? The platform the code will run on is an ubuntu 12 with gcc 4.6 (-stl=c++0x) on a many-core intel machine. Only libraries available are boost, openmp and tbb. I am really stuck on this one, it seems so simple, but takes that much time. I have been crunching my head since days thinking how I could improve this line... Can you give me a suggestion how to improve this part, or is it already at its best?

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Codeigniter: Controller URI with Library

- by Kevin Brown

I have a working controller and library function, but I now need to pass a URI segment to the library for decision making, and I'm stuck. Controller: function survey($method) { $id = $this->session->userdata('id'); $data['member'] = $this->home_model->getUser($id); //Convert the db Object to a row array $data['manager'] = $data['member']->row(); $manager_id = $data['manager']->manager_id; $data['manager'] = $this->home_model->getUser($manager_id); $data['manager'] = $data['manager']->row(); if ($data['manager']->credits == '0') { flashMsg('warning',"You can't complete the assessment until your manager has purchased credit."); redirect('home','location'); } elseif ($data['manager']->test_complete == '3'){ flashMsg('warning',"You already completed the Assessment."); redirect('home','location'); } else{ $data['header'] = "Home"; $this->survey_form_processing->survey_form($this->_container,$data); } } Library: function survey_form($container) { if($method ==1){ $id = $this->CI->session->userdata('id'); // Setup fields for($i=1;$i<18;$i++){ $fields["a_".$i] = 'Question '.$i; } for($i=1;$i<17;$i++){ $fields["b_".$i] = 'Question '.$i; } $fields["company_name"] = "Company Name"; $fields['company_address'] = "company_address"; $fields['company_phone'] = "company_phone"; $fields['company_state'] = "company_state"; $fields['company_city'] = "company_city"; $fields['company_zip'] = "company_zip"; $fields['job_title'] = "job_title"; $fields['job_type'] = "job_type"; $fields['job_time'] = "job_time"; $fields['department'] = "department"; $fields['supervisor'] = "supervisor"; $fields['vision'] = "vision"; $fields['height'] = "height"; $fields['weight'] = "weight"; $fields['hand_dominance'] = "hand_dominance"; $fields['areas_of_fatigue'] = "areas_of_fatigue"; $fields['injury_review'] = "injury_review"; $fields['job_positive'] = "job_positive"; $fields['risk_factors'] = "risk_factors"; $fields['job_improvement_short'] = "job_improvement_short"; $fields['job_improvement_long'] = "job_improvement_long"; $fields["c_1"] = "Near Lift"; $fields["c_2"] = "Middle Lift"; $fields["c_3"] = "Far Lift"; $this->CI->validation->set_fields($fields); // Set Rules for($i=1;$i<18;$i++){ $rules["a_".$i]= 'hour|integer|max_length[2]'; } for($i=1;$i<17;$i++){ $rules["b_".$i]= 'hour|integer|max_length[2]'; } // Setup form default values $this->CI->validation->set_rules($rules); if ( $this->CI->validation->run() === FALSE ) { // Output any errors $this->CI->validation->output_errors(); } else { // Submit form $this->_submit(); } // Modify form, first load $this->CI->db->from('be_user_profiles'); $this->CI->db->where('user_id' , $id); $user = $this->CI->db->get(); $this->CI->db->from('be_survey'); $this->CI->db->where('user_id' , $id); $survey = $this->CI->db->get(); $user = array_merge($user->row_array(),$survey->row_array()); $this->CI->validation->set_default_value($user); // Display page $data['user'] = $user; $data['header'] = 'Risk Assessment Survey'; $data['page'] = $this->CI->config->item('backendpro_template_public') . 'form_survey'; $this->CI->load->view($container,$data); } else{ redirect('home','location'); } } My library function doesn't know what to do with Method...and I'm confused. Does it have something to do with instances in my library?

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WCF/REST Get image into picturebox?

- by Garrith

So I have wcf rest service which succesfuly runs from a console app, if I navigate to: http://localhost:8000/Service/picture/300/400 my image is displayed note the 300/400 sets the width and height of the image within the body of the html page. The code looks like this: namespace WcfServiceLibrary1 { [ServiceContract] public interface IReceiveData { [OperationContract] [WebInvoke(Method = "GET", BodyStyle = WebMessageBodyStyle.Wrapped, ResponseFormat = WebMessageFormat.Xml, UriTemplate = "picture/{width}/{height}")] Stream GetImage(string width, string height); } public class RawDataService : IReceiveData { public Stream GetImage(string width, string height) { int w, h; if (!Int32.TryParse(width, out w)) { w = 640; } // Handle error if (!Int32.TryParse(height, out h)) { h = 400; } Bitmap bitmap = new Bitmap(w, h); for (int i = 0; i < bitmap.Width; i++) { for (int j = 0; j < bitmap.Height; j++) { bitmap.SetPixel(i, j, (Math.Abs(i - j) < 2) ? Color.Blue : Color.Yellow); } } MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); bitmap.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg); ms.Position = 0; WebOperationContext.Current.OutgoingResponse.ContentType = "image/jpeg"; return ms; } } } What I want to do now is use a client application "my windows form app" and add that image into a picturebox. Im abit stuck as to how this can be achieved as I would like the width and height of the image from my wcf rest service to be set by the width and height of the picturebox. I have tryed this but on two of the lines have errors and im not even sure if it will work as the code for my wcf rest service seperates width and height with a "/" if you notice in the url. string uri = "http://localhost:8080/Service/picture"; private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(); sb.AppendLine("<picture>"); sb.AppendLine("<width>" + pictureBox1.Image.Width + "</width>"); // the url looks like this http://localhost:8080/Service/picture/300/400 when accessing the image so I am trying to set this here sb.AppendLine("<height>" + pictureBox1.Image.Height + "</height>"); sb.AppendLine("</picture>"); string picture = sb.ToString(); byte[] getimage = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(picture); // not sure this is right HttpWebRequest req = WebRequest.Create(uri); //cant convert webrequest to httpwebrequest req.Method = "GET"; req.ContentType = "image/jpg"; req.ContentLength = getimage.Length; MemoryStream reqStrm = req.GetRequestStream(); //cant convert IO stream to IO Memory stream reqStrm.Write(getimage, 0, getimage.Length); reqStrm.Close(); HttpWebResponse resp = req.GetResponse(); // cant convert web respone to httpwebresponse MessageBox.Show(resp.StatusDescription); pictureBox1.Image = Image.FromStream(reqStrm); reqStrm.Close(); resp.Close(); } So just wondering if some one could help me out with this futile attempt at adding a variable image size from my rest service to a picture box on button click. This is the host app aswell: namespace ConsoleApplication1 { class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { string baseAddress = "http://" + Environment.MachineName + ":8000/Service"; ServiceHost host = new ServiceHost(typeof(RawDataService), new Uri(baseAddress)); host.AddServiceEndpoint(typeof(IReceiveData), new WebHttpBinding(), "").Behaviors.Add(new WebHttpBehavior()); host.Open(); Console.WriteLine("Host opened"); Console.ReadLine();

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What is the best free or low-cost Java reporting library (e.g. BIRT, JasperReports, etc.) for making

- by Max3000

I want to print, email and write to PDF very simple reports. The reports are basically a list of items, divided in various sections/columns. The sections are not necessarily identical. Think newspaper. I just wasted a solid 2 days of work trying to make this kind of reports using JasperReports. I find that Jasper is great for outputing "normalized" data. The kind that would come out of a database for instance, each row neatly describing an item and each item printed on a line. I'm simplifying a bit but that's the idea. However, given what I want to do I always ended up completely lost. Data not being displayed for no apparent reason, columns of texts never the correct size, column positioning always ending up incorrect, pagination not sanely possible (I was never able to figure it out; the FAQ gives an obscure workaround), etc. I came to the conclusion that Jasper is really not built to make the kind of reports I want. Am I missing something? I'm ready to pay for a tool, as long as the price is reasonable. By reasonable I mean a few $100s. Thanks. EDIT: To answer cetus, here is more information about the report I made in Jasper. What I want is something like this: text text text text ------------------- text | text text |---------- text | text text | text --------| text text |---------- text | text What I made in jasper is this: (detail band) subreport | subreport ------------------------------------ subreport | subreport ------------------------------------ subreport | subreport The subreports are all the same actual report. This report has one field (called "field") and basically just prints this field in a detail band. Hence, running a single subreport simply lists all items from the datasource. The datasource itself is a simple custom JRDatasource containing a collection of strings in the field "field". The datasource iterates over the collection until there are no more strings. Each subreport has its own datasource. I tried many different variations of the above, with all sorts of different properties for the report, subreports, etc. IMO, this is fairly simple stuff. However, the problems I encounter are as follows: Subreports starting from the 3rd don't show up when their position type is 'float'. They do show up when they have 'fix relative to top'. However, I don't want to do this because the first two subreports can be of any length. I can't make each subreport to stretch according to its own length. Instead, they either don't stretch at all (which is not desirable because they have different lenghts) or they stretch according to the longest subreport. This makes a weird layout for sure. Pagination doesn't happen. If some subreports fall outside the page, they simple don't show. One alternative is to increase the 'page height' considerably and the 'detail band height' accordingly. However, in this case it is not really possibly to know the total height in advance. So I'm stuck with calculating/guessing it myself, before the report is even generated. More importantly, long reports end up on one page and this is not acceptable (the printout text is too small, it's ugly/non-professional to have different reports with different PDF page lengths, etc.). BTW, I used iReport so it's possibly limitations of iReport I'm listing here and not of Jasper itself. That's one of the things I'm trying to find out asking this question here. One alternative would be to generate the jrxml myself with just static text but I'm afraid I'll encounter the very same limitations. Anyway, I just generally wasted so much time getting anything done with Jasper that I can't help thinking its not the right tool for the job. (Not to say that Jasper doesn't excel in what it's good at).

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Handling a Long Running jsp request on the server using Ajax and threads

- by John Blue

I am trying to implement a solution for a long running process on the server where it is taking about 10 min to process a pdf generation request. The browser bored/timesout at the 5 mins. I was thinking to deal with this using a Ajax and threads. I am using regular javascript for ajax. But I am stuck with it. I have reached till the point where it sends the request to the servlet and the servlet starts the thread.Please see the below code public class HelloServlet extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet implements javax.servlet.Servlet { protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException { } protected void doPost(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException { System.out.println("POST request!!"); LongProcess longProcess = new LongProcess(); longProcess.setDaemon(true); longProcess.start(); request.getSession().setAttribute("longProcess", longProcess); request.getRequestDispatcher("index.jsp").forward(request, response); } } class LongProcess extends Thread { public void run() { System.out.println("Thread Started!!"); while (progress < 10) { try { sleep(2000); } catch (InterruptedException ignore) {} progress++; } } } Here is my AJax call <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html><head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title>My Title</title> <script language="JavaScript" > function getXMLObject() //XML OBJECT { var xmlHttp = false; xmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); //For Mozilla, Opera Browsers return xmlHttp; // Mandatory Statement returning the ajax object created } var xmlhttp = new getXMLObject(); //xmlhttp holds the ajax object function ajaxFunction() { xmlhttp.open("GET","HelloServlet" ,true); xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = handleServerResponse; xmlhttp.setRequestHeader('Content-Type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'); xmlhttp.send(null); } function handleServerResponse() { if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4) { if(xmlhttp.status == 200) { document.forms[0].myDiv.value = xmlhttp.responseText; setTimeout(ajaxFunction(), 2000); } else { alert("Error during AJAX call. Please try again"); } } } function openPDF() { document.forms[0].method = "POST"; document.forms[0].action = "HelloServlet"; document.forms[0].submit(); } function stopAjax(){ clearInterval(intervalID); } </script> </head> <body><form name="myForm"> <table><tr><td> <INPUT TYPE="BUTTON" NAME="Download" VALUE="Download Queue ( PDF )" onclick="openPDF();"> </td></tr> <tr><td> Current status: <div id="myDiv"></div>% </td></tr></table> </form></body></html> But I dont know how to proceed further like how will the thread communicate the browser that the process has complete and how should the ajax call me made and check the status of the request. Please let me know if I am missing some pieces. Any suggestion if helpful.

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CoreData, transient atribute and EXC_BAD_ACCESS.

- by Lukasz

I'm trying to build simple file browser and i'm stuck. I defined classes, build window, add controllers, views.. Everything works but only ONE time. Selecting again Folder in NSTableView or trying to get data from Folder.files causing silent EXC_BAD_ACCESS (code=13, address0x0) from main. Info about files i keep outside of CoreData, in simple class, I don't want to save them: #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> @interface TPDrawersFileInfo : NSObject @property (nonatomic, retain) NSString * filename; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSString * extension; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate * creation; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSDate * modified; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber * isFile; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber * size; @property (nonatomic, retain) NSNumber * label; +(TPDrawersFileInfo *) initWithURL: (NSURL *) url; @end @implementation TPDrawersFileInfo +(TPDrawersFileInfo *) initWithURL: (NSURL *) url { TPDrawersFileInfo * new = [[TPDrawersFileInfo alloc] init]; if (new!=nil) { NSFileManager * fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager]; NSError * error; NSDictionary * infoDict = [fileManager attributesOfItemAtPath: [url path] error:&error]; id labelValue = nil; [url getResourceValue:&labelValue forKey:NSURLLabelNumberKey error:&error]; new.label = labelValue; new.size = [infoDict objectForKey: @"NSFileSize"]; new.modified = [infoDict objectForKey: @"NSFileModificationDate"]; new.creation = [infoDict objectForKey: @"NSFileCreationDate"]; new.isFile = [NSNumber numberWithBool:[[infoDict objectForKey:@"NSFileType"] isEqualToString:@"NSFileTypeRegular"]]; new.extension = [url pathExtension]; new.filename = [[url lastPathComponent] stringByDeletingPathExtension]; } return new; } Next I have class Folder, which is NSManagesObject subclass // Managed Object class to keep info about folder content @interface Folder : NSManagedObject { NSArray * _files; } @property (nonatomic, retain) NSArray * files; // Array with TPDrawersFileInfo objects @property (nonatomic, retain) NSString * url; // url of folder -(void) reload; //if url changed, load file info again. @end @implementation Folder @synthesize files = _files; @dynamic url; -(void)awakeFromInsert { [self addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"url" options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew context:@"url"]; } -(void)awakeFromFetch { [self addObserver:self forKeyPath:@"url" options:NSKeyValueObservingOptionNew context:@"url"]; } -(void)prepareForDeletion { [self removeObserver:self forKeyPath:@"url"]; } -(void) observeValueForKeyPath:(NSString *)keyPath ofObject:(id)object change:(NSDictionary *)change context:(void *)context { if (context == @"url") { [self reload]; } } -(void) reload { NSMutableArray * result = [NSMutableArray array]; NSError * error = nil; NSFileManager * fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager]; NSString * percented = [self.url stringByAddingPercentEscapesUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding]; NSArray * listDir = [fileManager contentsOfDirectoryAtURL: [NSURL URLWithString: percented] includingPropertiesForKeys: [NSArray arrayWithObject: NSURLCreationDateKey ] options:NSDirectoryEnumerationSkipsHiddenFiles error:&error]; if (error!=nil) {NSLog(@"Error <%@> reading <%@> content", error, self.url);} for (id fileURL in listDir) { TPDrawersFileInfo * fi = [TPDrawersFileInfo initWithURL:fileURL]; [result addObject: fi]; } _files = [NSArray arrayWithArray:result]; } @end In app delegate i defined @interface TPAppDelegate : NSObject <NSApplicationDelegate> { IBOutlet NSArrayController * foldersController; Folder * currentFolder; } - (IBAction)chooseDirectory:(id)sender; // choose folder and - (Folder * ) getFolderObjectForPath: path { //gives Folder object if already exist or nil if not ..... } - (IBAction)chooseDirectory:(id)sender { //Opens panel, asking for url NSOpenPanel * panel = [NSOpenPanel openPanel]; [panel setCanChooseDirectories:YES]; [panel setCanChooseFiles:NO]; [panel setMessage:@"Choose folder to show:"]; NSURL * currentDirectory; if ([panel runModal] == NSOKButton) { currentDirectory = [[panel URLs] objectAtIndex:0]; } Folder * folderObject = [self getFolderObjectForPath:[currentDirectory path]]; if (folderObject) { //if exist: currentFolder = folderObject; } else { // create new one Folder * newFolder = [NSEntityDescription insertNewObjectForEntityForName:@"Folder" inManagedObjectContext:self.managedObjectContext]; [newFolder setValue:[currentDirectory path] forKey:@"url"]; [foldersController addObject:newFolder]; currentFolder = newFolder; } [foldersController setSelectedObjects:[NSArray arrayWithObject:currentFolder]]; } Please help ;)

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C++ Simple thread with parameter (no .net)

- by Marc Vollmer

I've searched the internet for a while now and found different solutions but then all don't really work or are to complicated for my use. I used C++ until 2 years ago so it might be a bit rusty :D I'm currently writing a program that posts data to an URL. It only posts the data nothing else. For posting the data I use curl, but it blocks the main thread and while the first post is still running there will be a second post that should start. In the end there are about 5-6 post operations running at the same time. Now I want to push the posting with curl into another thread. One thread per post. The thread should get a string parameter with the content what to push. I'm currently stuck on this. Tried the WINAPI for windows but that crashes on reading the parameter. (the second thread is still running in my example while the main thread ended (waiting on system("pause")). It would be nice to have a multi plattform solution, because it will run under windows and linux! Heres my current code: #define CURL_STATICLIB #include <curl/curl.h> #include <curl/easy.h> #include <cstdlib> #include <iostream> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string> #if defined(WIN32) #include <windows.h> #else //#include <pthread.h> #endif using namespace std; void post(string post) { // Function to post it to url CURL *curl; // curl object CURLcode res; // CURLcode object curl = curl_easy_init(); // init curl if(curl) { // is curl init curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_URL, "http://10.8.27.101/api.aspx"); // set url string data = "api=" + post; // concat post data strings curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, data.c_str()); // post data res = curl_easy_perform(curl); // execute curl_easy_cleanup(curl); // cleanup } else { cerr << "Failed to create curl handle!\n"; } } #if defined(WIN32) DWORD WINAPI thread(LPVOID data) { // WINAPI Thread string pData = *((string*)data); // convert LPVOID to string [THIS FAILES] post(pData); // post it with curl } #else // Linux version #endif void startThread(string data) { // FUnction to start the thread string pData = data; // some Test #if defined(WIN32) CreateThread(NULL, 0, (LPTHREAD_START_ROUTINE)thread, &pData, 0, NULL); // Start a Windows thread with winapi #else // Linux version #endif } int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { // The post data to send string postData = "test1234567890"; startThread(postData); // Start the thread system("PAUSE"); // Dont close the console window return EXIT_SUCCESS; } Has anyone a suggestion? Thanks for the help!

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PHP & MySQL pagination display problem.

- by TaG

I asked a similar question like this yesterday but after waiting for ever I figured out part of the problem but now I'm stuck again I'm trying to display ... when the search results are to long because my pagination links will keep on displaying and will not stop until every link is displayed on the page. For example I'm trying to achieve the following in the example below. Can some one help me fix my code so I can update my site. Thanks This is what I want to be able to do. First Previous 1 2 ... 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ... 199 200 Next Last Here is my pagination code that displays the links. $display = 20; if (isset($_GET['p']) && is_numeric($_GET['p'])) { $pages = $_GET['p']; } else { $q = "SELECT COUNT(id) FROM comments WHERE user_id=3"; $r = mysqli_query ($mysqli, $q) or trigger_error("Query: $q\n<br />MySQL Error: " . mysqli_error($mysqli)); $row = mysqli_fetch_array ($r, MYSQLI_NUM); $records = $row[0]; if ($records > $display) { $pages = ceil ($records/$display); } else { $pages = 1; } } if (isset($_GET['s']) && is_numeric($_GET['s'])) { $start = $_GET['s']; } else { $start = 0; } //content goes here if ($pages > 1) { echo '<br /><p>'; $current_page = ($start/$display) + 1; if ($current_page != 1) { echo '<a href="index.php">First</a>'; } if ($current_page != 1) { echo '<a href="index.php?s=' . ($start - $display) . '&p=' . $pages . '">Previous</a> '; } for ($i = 1; $i <= $pages; $i++) { if ($i != $current_page) { echo '<a href="index.php?s=' . (($display * ($i - 1))) . '&p=' . $pages . '">' . $i . '</a> '; } else { echo '<span>' . $i . '</span> '; } } if ($current_page != $pages) { echo '<a href="index.php?s=' . ($start + $display) . '&p=' . $pages . '">Next</a>'; } if ($current_page != $pages) { echo '<a href="index.php?s=' . ($pages - 1) . '&p=' . $pages . '">Last</a>'; } echo '</p>'; }

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How to make MySQL utilize available system resources, or find "the real problem"?

- by anonymous coward

This is a MySQL 5.0.26 server, running on SuSE Enterprise 10. This may be a Serverfault question. The web user interface that uses these particular queries (below) is showing sometimes 30+, even up to 120+ seconds at the worst, to generate the pages involved. On development, when the queries are run alone, they take up to 20 seconds on the first run (with no query cache enabled) but anywhere from 2 to 7 seconds after that - I assume because the tables and indexes involved have been placed into ram. From what I can tell, the longest load times are caused by Read/Update Locking. These are MyISAM tables. So it looks like a long update comes in, followed by a couple 7 second queries, and they're just adding up. And I'm fine with that explanation. What I'm not fine with is that MySQL doesn't appear to be utilizing the hardware it's on, and while the bottleneck seems to be the database, I can't understand why. I would say "throw more hardware at it", but we did and it doesn't appear to have changed the situation. Viewing a 'top' during the slowest times never shows much cpu or memory utilization by mysqld, as if the server is having no trouble at all - but then, why are the queries taking so long? How can I make MySQL use the crap out of this hardware, or find out what I'm doing wrong? Extra Details: On the "Memory Health" tab in the MySQL Administrator (for Windows), the Key Buffer is less than 1/8th used - so all the indexes should be in RAM. I can provide a screen shot of any graphs that might help. So desperate to fix this issue. Suffice it to say, there is legacy code "generating" these queries, and they're pretty much stuck the way they are. I have tried every combination of Indexes on the tables involved, but any suggestions are welcome. Here's the current Create Table statement from development (the 'experimental' key I have added, seems to help a little, for the example query only): CREATE TABLE `registration_task` ( `id` varchar(36) NOT NULL default '', `date_entered` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `date_modified` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00', `assigned_user_id` varchar(36) default NULL, `modified_user_id` varchar(36) default NULL, `created_by` varchar(36) default NULL, `name` varchar(80) NOT NULL default '', `status` varchar(255) default NULL, `date_due` date default NULL, `time_due` time default NULL, `date_start` date default NULL, `time_start` time default NULL, `parent_id` varchar(36) NOT NULL default '', `priority` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '9', `description` text, `order_number` int(11) default '1', `task_number` int(11) default NULL, `depends_on_id` varchar(36) default NULL, `milestone_flag` varchar(255) default NULL, `estimated_effort` int(11) default NULL, `actual_effort` int(11) default NULL, `utilization` int(11) default '100', `percent_complete` int(11) default '0', `deleted` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0', `wf_task_id` varchar(36) default '0', `reg_field` varchar(8) default '', `date_offset` int(11) default '0', `date_source` varchar(10) default '', `date_completed` date default '0000-00-00', `completed_id` varchar(36) default NULL, `original_name` varchar(80) default NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`id`), KEY `idx_reg_task_p` (`deleted`,`parent_id`), KEY `By_Assignee` (`assigned_user_id`,`deleted`), KEY `status_assignee` (`status`,`deleted`), KEY `experimental` (`deleted`,`status`,`assigned_user_id`,`parent_id`,`date_due`) ) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 And one of the ridiculous queries in question: SELECT users.user_name assigned_user_name, registration.FIELD001 parent_name, registration_task.status status, registration_task.date_modified date_modified, registration_task.date_due date_due, registration.FIELD240 assigned_wf, if(LENGTH(registration_task.description)>0,1,0) has_description, registration_task.* FROM registration_task LEFT JOIN users ON registration_task.assigned_user_id=users.id LEFT JOIN registration ON registration_task.parent_id=registration.id where (registration_task.status != 'Completed' AND registration.FIELD001 LIKE '%' AND registration_task.name LIKE '%' AND registration.FIELD060 LIKE 'GN001472%') AND registration_task.deleted=0 ORDER BY date_due asc LIMIT 0,20; my.cnf - '[mysqld]' section. [mysqld] port = 3306 socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock skip-locking key_buffer = 384M max_allowed_packet = 100M table_cache = 2048 sort_buffer_size = 2M net_buffer_length = 100M read_buffer_size = 2M read_rnd_buffer_size = 160M myisam_sort_buffer_size = 128M query_cache_size = 16M query_cache_limit = 1M EXPLAIN above query, without additional index: +----+-------------+-------------------+--------+--------------------------------+----------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+---------+-----------------------------+ | id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra | +----+-------------+-------------------+--------+--------------------------------+----------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+---------+-----------------------------+ | 1 | SIMPLE | registration_task | ref | idx_reg_task_p,status_assignee | idx_reg_task_p | 1 | const | 1067354 | Using where; Using filesort | | 1 | SIMPLE | registration | eq_ref | PRIMARY,gbl | PRIMARY | 8 | sugarcrm401.registration_task.parent_id | 1 | Using where | | 1 | SIMPLE | users | ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 38 | sugarcrm401.registration_task.assigned_user_id | 1 | | +----+-------------+-------------------+--------+--------------------------------+----------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+---------+-----------------------------+ EXPLAIN above query, with 'experimental' index: +----+-------------+-------------------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------------+------------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+--------+-----------------------------+ | id | select_type | table | type | possible_keys | key | key_len | ref | rows | Extra | +----+-------------+-------------------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------------+------------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+--------+-----------------------------+ | 1 | SIMPLE | registration_task | range | idx_reg_task_p,status_assignee,NewIndex1,tcg_experimental | tcg_experimental | 259 | NULL | 103345 | Using where; Using filesort | | 1 | SIMPLE | registration | eq_ref | PRIMARY,gbl | PRIMARY | 8 | sugarcrm401.registration_task.parent_id | 1 | Using where | | 1 | SIMPLE | users | ref | PRIMARY | PRIMARY | 38 | sugarcrm401.registration_task.assigned_user_id | 1 | | +----+-------------+-------------------+--------+-----------------------------------------------------------+------------------+---------+------------------------------------------------+--------+-----------------------------+

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Java: how to avoid circual references when dumping object information with reflection?

- by Tom

I've modified an object dumping method to avoid circual references causing a StackOverflow error. This is what I ended up with: //returns all fields of the given object in a string public static String dumpFields(Object o, int callCount, ArrayList excludeList) { //add this object to the exclude list to avoid circual references in the future if (excludeList == null) excludeList = new ArrayList(); excludeList.add(o); callCount++; StringBuffer tabs = new StringBuffer(); for (int k = 0; k < callCount; k++) { tabs.append("\t"); } StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer(); Class oClass = o.getClass(); if (oClass.isArray()) { buffer.append("\n"); buffer.append(tabs.toString()); buffer.append("["); for (int i = 0; i < Array.getLength(o); i++) { if (i < 0) buffer.append(","); Object value = Array.get(o, i); if (value != null) { if (excludeList.contains(value)) { buffer.append("circular reference"); } else if (value.getClass().isPrimitive() || value.getClass() == java.lang.Long.class || value.getClass() == java.lang.String.class || value.getClass() == java.lang.Integer.class || value.getClass() == java.lang.Boolean.class) { buffer.append(value); } else { buffer.append(dumpFields(value, callCount, excludeList)); } } } buffer.append(tabs.toString()); buffer.append("]\n"); } else { buffer.append("\n"); buffer.append(tabs.toString()); buffer.append("{\n"); while (oClass != null) { Field[] fields = oClass.getDeclaredFields(); for (int i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) { if (fields[i] == null) continue; buffer.append(tabs.toString()); fields[i].setAccessible(true); buffer.append(fields[i].getName()); buffer.append("="); try { Object value = fields[i].get(o); if (value != null) { if (excludeList.contains(value)) { buffer.append("circular reference"); } else if ((value.getClass().isPrimitive()) || (value.getClass() == java.lang.Long.class) || (value.getClass() == java.lang.String.class) || (value.getClass() == java.lang.Integer.class) || (value.getClass() == java.lang.Boolean.class)) { buffer.append(value); } else { buffer.append(dumpFields(value, callCount, excludeList)); } } } catch (IllegalAccessException e) { System.out.println("IllegalAccessException: " + e.getMessage()); } buffer.append("\n"); } oClass = oClass.getSuperclass(); } buffer.append(tabs.toString()); buffer.append("}\n"); } return buffer.toString(); } The method is initially called like this: System.out.println(dumpFields(obj, 0, null); So, basically I added an excludeList which contains all the previousely checked objects. Now, if an object contains another object and that object links back to the original object, it should not follow that object further down the chain. However, my logic seems to have a flaw as I still get stuck in an infinite loop. Does anyone know why this is happening?

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C++ class functions calling fortran subroutine

- by user2863626

Okay so I am trying to make my code work. It is a simple C++ program with a class "CArray". This class has 2 properties, the array size, and the value. I want the main C++ program to create two instances of the class CArray. In the class CArray, I have a function called "AddArray( CArray )" where it adds another array to the current array. The problem I am stuck with, is that I want the function "AddArray" to add the two arrays in fortran. I know, much more complicated, but that is what I need. I am having issues with linking the two inside the class code. #include <iostream> using namespace std; class CArray { public: CArray(); ~CArray(); int Size; int* Val; void SetSize( int ); void SetValues(); void GetArray(); extern "C" { void Add( int*, int*, int*, int*); void Subtract( int*, int*, int*, int*); void Muliply( int*, int*, int *, int* ); } void AddArray( CArray ); void SubtractArray( CArray ); void MultiplyArray( CArray ); }; Also here is the CArray function file. #include "Array.h" #include <iostream> using namespace std; CArray::CArray() { } CArray::~CArray() { } void CArray::SetSize( int s ) { Size = s; for ( int i=0; i<s; i++ ) { Val = new int[Size]; } } void CArray::SetValues() { for ( int i=0; i<Size; i++ ) { cout << "Element " << i+1 << ": "; cin >> Val[i]; } } void CArray::GetArray() { for ( int i=0; i<Size; i++ ) { cout << Val[i] << " "; } } void CArray::AddArray( CArray a ) { if ( Size == a.Size ) { Add(&Val, &a.Val); } else { cout << "Array dimensions do not agree!" << endl; } } void CArray::SubtractArray( CArray a ) { Subtract( &Val, &a, &Size, &a.Size); GetArray(); } Here is my Fortran code. module SubtractArrays use ico_c_binding implicit none contains subroutine Subtract(a,b,s1,s2) bind(c,name='Subtract') integer s1,s2 integer a(s1),b(s2) if ( s1.eq.s2 ) do i=1,s1 a(i) = a(i) - b(i) end return end end If someone could just help me with setting me up to send arrays of integers from C++ classes to fortran I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you, Josh Derrick

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javascript: Problems with multiple setIntervals running simultaniously

- by user340879

Hello, My first post here. I want to make a horizontal menu with submenu's sliding down on mouseover. I know I could use jQuery but this is to practice my javascript skills. I use the following code: var up = new Array() var down = new Array() var submenustart function titleover(headmenu, inter) { submenu = headmenu.lastChild up[inter] = window.clearInterval(up[inter]) down[inter] = window.setInterval("slidedown(submenu)",1) } function slidedown(submenu) { if(submenu.offsetTop < submenustart) { submenu.style.top = submenu.offsetTop + 1 + "px" } } function titleout(headmenu, inter) { submenu = headmenu.lastChild down[inter] = window.clearInterval(down[inter]) up[inter] = window.setInterval("slideup(submenu)", 1) } function slideup(submenu) { if(submenu.offsetTop > submenustart - submenu.clientHeight + 1) { submenu.style.top = submenu.offsetTop - 1 + "px" } } The variable submenustart gets appointed a value in another function which is not relevant for my question. HTML looks like this: <table class="hoofding" id="hoofding"> <tr> <td onmouseover="titleover(this, 0)" onmouseout="titleout(this, 0)"><a href="#" class="hoofdinglink" id="hoofd1">AAAA</a> <table class="menu"> <tr><td><a href="...">1111</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="...">2222</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="...">3333</a></td></tr> </table></td> <td onmouseover="titleover(this, 1)" onmouseout="titleout(this, 1)"><a href="#" class="hoofdinglink">BBBB</a> <table class="menu"> <tr><td><a href="...">1111</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="...">2222</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="...">3333</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="...">4444</a></td></tr> <tr><td><a href="...">5555</a></td></tr> </table></td> ... </tr> </table> What happens is the following: If I go over and out (for ex) menu A it works fine. If i go now over menu B the interval applied to A is now applied to B. There are now 2 interval functions applied to B. The one originally for A and a new one triggered by the mouseover on B. If I would go to A all the intervals are now applied to A. I have been searching for hours but and I am completely stuck. Thanks in advance.

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Get backreferences values and modificate these values

- by roasted

Could you please explain why im not able to get values of backreferences from a matched regex result and apply it some modification before effective replacement? The expected result is replacing for example string ".coord('X','Y')" by "X * Y". But if X to some value, divide this value by 2 and then use this new value in replacement. Here the code im currently testing: See /*>>1<<*/ & /*>>2<<*/ & /*>>3<<*/, this is where im stuck! I would like to be able to apply modification on backrefrences before replacement depending of backreferences values. Difference between /*>>2<<*/ & /*>>3<<*/ is just the self call anonymous function param The method /*>>2<<*/ is the expected working solution as i can understand it. But strangely, the replacement is not working correctly, replacing by alias $1 * $2 and not by value...? You can test the jsfiddle //string to test ".coord('125','255')" //array of regex pattern and replacement //just one for the example //for this example, pattern matching alphanumerics is not necessary (only decimal in coord) but keep it as it var regexes = [ //FORMAT is array of [PATTERN,REPLACEMENT] /*.coord("X","Y")*/ [/\.coord$['"]([\w]+)['"],['"]?([\w:\.\\]+)['"]?$/g, '$1 * $2'] ]; function testReg(inputText, $output) { //using regex for (var i = 0; i < regexes.length; i++) { /*==>**1**/ //this one works as usual but dont let me get backreferences values $output.val(inputText.replace(regexes[i][0], regexes[i][2])); /*==>**2**/ //this one should works as i understand it $output.val(inputText.replace(regexes[i][0], function(match, $1, $2, $3, $4) { $1 = checkReplace(match, $1, $2, $3, $4); //here want using $1 modified value in replacement return regexes[i][3]; })); /*==>**3**/ //this one is just a test by self call anonymous function $output.val(inputText.replace(regexes[i][0], function(match, $1, $2, $3, $4) { $1 = checkReplace(match, $1, $2, $3, $4); //here want using $1 modified value in replacement return regexes[i][4]; }())); inputText = $output.val(); } } function checkReplace(match, $1, $2, $3, $4) { console.log(match + ':::' + $1 + ':::' + $2 + ':::' + $3 + ':::' + $4); //HERE i should be able if lets say $1 > 200 divide it by 2 //then returning $1 value if($1 > 200) $1 = parseInt($1 / 2); return $1; }? Sure I'm missing something, but cannot get it! Thanks for your help, regards. EDIT WORKING METHOD: Finally get it, as mentionned by Eric: The key thing is that the function returns the literal text to substitute, not a string which is parsed for backreferences.?? JSFIDDLE So complete working code: (please note as pattern replacement will change for each matched pattern and optimisation of speed code is not an issue here, i will keep it like that) $('#btn').click(function() { testReg($('#input').val(), $('#output')); }); //array of regex pattern and replacement //just one for the example var regexes = [ //FORMAT is array of [PATTERN,REPLACEMENT] /*.coord("X","Y")*/ [/\.coord$['"]([\w]+)['"],['"]?([\w:\.\\]+)['"]?$/g, '$1 * $2'] ]; function testReg(inputText, $output) { //using regex for (var i = 0; i < regexes.length; i++) { $output.val(inputText.replace(regexes[i][0], function(match, $1, $2, $3, $4) { var checkedValues = checkReplace(match, $1, $2, $3, $4); $1 = checkedValues[0]; $2 = checkedValues[1]; regexes[i][1] = regexes[i][1].replace('$1', $1).replace('$2', $2); return regexes[i][1]; })); inputText = $output.val(); } } function checkReplace(match, $1, $2, $3, $4) { console.log(match + ':::' + $1 + ':::' + $2 + ':::' + $3 + ':::' + $4); if ($1 > 200) $1 = parseInt($1 / 2); if ($2 > 200) $2 = parseInt($2 / 2); return [$1,$2]; }

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Shrinking image by 57% and centering inside css structure

- by Johua

Hy, i'm really stuck. I'll go step by step and hope to make it short. This is the html structure: <li class="FAVwithimage"> <a href=""> <img src="pics/Joshua.png"> <span class="name">Joshua</span> <span class="comment">Developer</span> <span class="arrow"></span> </a> </li> Before i paste the css classes, some info about the exact goal to accomplish: Resize the picture (img) by 57%. If it cannot be done with css, then jquery/javascript solution. For example: Original pic is 240x240px, i need to resize it by 57%. That means that a pic of 400x400 would be bigger after resizing. After resizing, the picture needs to be centered vertical&horizontal inside a: 68x90 boundaries. So you have an LI element, wich has an A element, and inside A we have IMG, IMG is resized by 57% and centered where the maximum width can be of course 68px and maximum height 90px. No for that to work i was adding a SPAN element arround the IMG. This is what i was thinking: <li class="FAVwithimage"> <a href=""> <span class="picHolder"><img src="pics/Joshua.png"></span> <span class="name">Joshua</span> <span class="comment">Developer</span> <span class="arrow"></span> </a> </li> Then i would give the span element: display:block and w=68px, h=90px. But unforunatelly that didn't work. I know it's a long post but i'v did my best to describe it very simple. Beneath are the css classes and a picture to see what i need. li.FAVwithimage { height: 90px!important; } li.FAVwithimage a, li.FAVwithimage:hover a { height: 81px!important; } That's it what's relevant. I have not included the classes for: name,comment,arrow And now the classes that are incomplete and refer to IMG. li.FAVwithimage a span.picHolder{ /*put the picHolder to the beginning of the LI element*/ position: absolute; left: 0; top: 0; width: 68px; height: 90px; diplay:block; border:1px solid #F00; } Border is used just temporary to show the actuall picHolder. It is now on the beginning of LI, width and height is set. li.FAVwithimage span.picHolder img { max-width:68px!important; max-height:90px!important; } This is the class wich should shrink the pic by 57% and center inside picHolder Here I have a drawing describing what i need:

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PHP will not Echo

- by user2981166

I've tried to look into why this isn't echoing but every result the persons trying use php on an html page so this is why I'm here asking. I have 3 php files, a login file, a global config file, and a theme file. The login page echo's the login script but it connects to the global file. The global file connects to the theme file and the db config file. The theme file is a simple table. Here's my files <? include('../tools/global.php'); switch($_POST[act]){ case "setlogin": set($login); break; case "refresh": refresh(); break; case "logout": lout(); break; default: login($mes); break; } function login($mes){ if (isset($_COOKIE["user"])){ $out[body]="<br /> <center> <table width='90%' border='0' cellspacing='1' cellpadding='1' bgcolor='#BDBDBD'> <tr bgcolor='##ff80ff'> <td width='100%' valign='center' align='left' colspan='2' background='#BDBDBD'> <strong>Login</strong> </td> </tr> <tr bgcolor='#BDBDBD'> <td width='100%' valign='center' align='left'><center> <b>You are already logged in! Would you like to <a href='http://www.fivedesignguys.com/dir/panel/login.php?act=refresh&type=logout'>Logout?</a></center></td></tr> </table> </center><br /><br /><br /><br />"; }else{ $out[body]=" <br /> <center> <table width='400' border='0' cellspacing='1' bgcolor='#BDBDBD' cellpadding='1'> <form method='post'> <tr bgcolor='$config[altcolor]'> <td background='#BDBDBD' width='100%' valign='center' align='left' colspan='2'> <strong>Login</strong>"; It continues but I know it's going to echo me the first option, Heres the global php file <?php include('../theme/default.php'); include('config.php'); ?> and finally the default.php theme file <table border='0'> <tr> <td colspan='2'> <center>bar</center> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width='10%'> hey<br>hey<br> </td> <td> hello <?php echo $out[body]; ?> </td> </tr> </table> as you can tell I want it to echo $out[body] but it doesn't want to. Yes all the files are PHP but this is where I'm stuck.

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The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like)

- by The Geek

Welcome to the very first How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide, where we’ve put together a list of our absolute favorites to help you weed through all of the junk out there to pick the perfect gift for anybody. Though really, it’s just a list of the geeky stuff we want. We’ve got a whole range of items on the list, from cheaper gifts that most anybody can afford, to the really expensive stuff that we’re pretty sure nobody is giving us. Stocking Stuffers Here’s a couple of ideas for items that won’t break the bank. LED Keychain Micro-Light Magcraft 1/8-Inch Rare Earth Cube Magnets Best little LED keychain light around. If they don’t need the penknife of the above item this is the perfect gift. I give them out by the handfuls and nobody ever says anything but good things about them. I’ve got ones that are years old and still running on the same battery. Price: $8 Geeks cannot resist magnets. Jason bought this pack for his fridge because he was sick of big clunky magnets… these things are amazing. One tiny magnet, smaller than an Altoid mint, can practically hold a clipboard right to the fridge. Amazing. I spend more time playing with them on the counter than I do actually hanging stuff. Price: $10 Lots of Geeky Mugs Astronomy Powerful Green Laser Pointer There’s loads of fun, geeky mugs you can find on Amazon or anywhere else—and they are great choices for the geek who loves their coffee. You can get the Caffeine mug pictured here, or go with an Atari one, Canon Lens, or the Aperture mug based on Portal. Your choice. Price: $7 No, it’s not a light saber, but it’s nearly bright enough to be one—you can illuminate low flying clouds at night or just blind some aliens on your day off. All that for an extremely low price. Loads of fun. Price: $15 Geeky TV Shows and Books Sometimes you just want to relax and enjoy a some TV or a good book. Here’s a few choices. The IT Crowd Fourth Season Doctor Who, Complete Fifth Series Ridiculous, funny show about nerds in the IT department, loved by almost all the geeks here at HTG. Justin even makes this required watching for new hires in his office so they’ll get his jokes. You can pre-order the fourth season, or pick up seasons one, two, or three for even cheaper. Price: $13 It doesn’t get any more nerdy than Eric’s pick, the fifth all-new series of Doctor Who, where the Daleks are hatching a new master plan from the heart of war-torn London. There’s also alien vampires, humanoid reptiles, and a lot more. Price: $52 Battlestar Galactica Complete Series MAKE: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery Watch the epic fight to save the human race by finding the fabled planet Earth while being hunted by the robotic Cylons. You can grab the entire series on DVD or Blu-ray, or get the seasons individually. This isn’t your average sci-fi TV show. Price: $150 for Blu-ray. Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun, hands-on way? The Make:Electronics book helps you build the circuits and learn how it all works—as if you had any more time between all that registry hacking and loading software on your new PC. Price: $21 Geeky Gadgets for the Gadget-Loving Geek Here’s a few of the items on our gadget list, though lets be honest: geeks are going to love almost any gadget, especially shiny new ones. Klipsch Image S4i Premium Noise-Isolating Headset with 3-Button Apple Control GP2X Caanoo MAME/Console Emulator If you’re a real music geek looking for some serious quality in the headset for your iPhone or iPod, this is the pair that Alex recommends. They aren’t terribly cheap, but you can get the less expensive S3 earphones instead if you prefer. Price: $50-100 Eric says: “As an owner of an older version, I can say the GP2X is one of my favorite gadgets ever. Touted a “Retro Emulation Juggernaut,” GP2X runs Linux and may be the only open source software console available. Sounds too good to be true, but isn’t.” Price: $150 Roku XDS Streaming Player 1080p Western Digital WD TV Live Plus HD Media Player If you do a lot of streaming over Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon’s Video on Demand, Pandora, and others, the Roku box is a great choice to get your content on your TV without paying a lot of money. It’s also got Wireless-N built in, and it supports full 1080P HD. Price: $99 If you’ve got a home media collection sitting on a hard drive or a network server, the Western Digital box is probably the cheapest way to get that content on your TV, and it even supports Netflix streaming too. It’ll play loads of formats in full HD quality. Price: $99 Fujitsu ScanSnap S300 Color Mobile Scanner Doxie, the amazing scanner for documents Trevor said: “This wonderful little scanner has become absolutely essential to me. My desk used to just be a gigantic pile of papers that I didn’t need at the moment, but couldn’t throw away ‘just in case.’ Now, every few weeks, I’ll run that paper pile through this and then happily shred the originals!” Price: $300 If you don’t scan quite as often and are looking for a budget scanner you can throw into your bag, or toss into a drawer in your desk, the Doxie scanner is a great alternative that I’ve been using for a while. It’s half the price, and while it’s not as full-featured as the Fujitsu, it might be a better choice for the very casual user. Price: $150 (Expensive) Gadgets Almost Anybody Will Love If you’re not sure that one of the more geeky presents is gonna work, here’s some gadgets that just about anybody is going to love, especially if they don’t have one already. Of course, some of these are a bit on the expensive side—but it’s a wish list, right? Amazon Kindle The Kindle weighs less than a paperback book, the screen is amazing and easy on the eyes, and get ready for the kicker: the battery lasts at least a month. We aren’t kidding, either—it really lasts that long. If you don’t feel like spending money for books, you can use it to read PDFs, and if you want to get really geeky, you can hack it for custom screensavers. Price: $139 iPod Touch or iPad You can’t go wrong with either of these presents—the iPod Touch can do almost everything the iPhone can do, including games, apps, and music, and it has the same Retina display as the iPhone, HD video recording, and a front-facing camera so you can use FaceTime. Price: $229+, depending on model. The iPad is a great tablet for playing games, browsing the web, or just using on your coffee table for guests. It’s well worth buying one—but if you’re buying for yourself, keep in mind that the iPad 2 is probably coming out in 3 months. Price: $500+ MacBook Air The MacBook Air comes in 11” or 13” versions, and it’s an amazing little machine. It’s lightweight, the battery lasts nearly forever, and it resumes from sleep almost instantly. Since it uses an SSD drive instead of a hard drive, you’re barely going to notice any speed problems for general use. So if you’ve got a lot of money to blow, this is a killer gift. Price: $999 and up. Stuck with No Idea for a Present? Gift Cards! Yeah, you’re not going to win any “thoughtful present” awards with these, but you might just give somebody what they really want—the new Angry Birds HD for their iPad, Cut the Rope, or anything else they want. ITunes Gift Card Amazon.com Gift Card Somebody in your circle getting a new iPod, iPhone, or iPad? You can get them an iTunes gift card, which they can use to buy music, games or apps. Yep, this way you can gift them a copy of Angry Birds if they don’t already have it. Or even Cut the Rope. No clue what to get somebody on your list? Amazon gift cards let them buy pretty much anything they want, from organic weirdberries to big screen TVs. Yeah, it’s not as thoughtful as getting them a nice present, but look at the bright side: maybe they’ll get you an Amazon gift card and it’ll balance out. That’s the highlights from our lists—got anything else to add? Share your geeky gift ideas in the comments. Latest Features How-To Geek ETC The How-To Geek Holiday Gift Guide (Geeky Stuff We Like) LCD? LED? Plasma? The How-To Geek Guide to HDTV Technology The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 8: Filters Improve Digital Photography by Calibrating Your Monitor Our Favorite Tech: What We’re Thankful For at How-To Geek The How-To Geek Guide to Learning Photoshop, Part 7: Design and Typography Happy Snow Bears Theme for Chrome and Iron [Holiday] Download Full Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun Game for Free Scorched Cometary Planet Wallpaper Quick Fix: Add the RSS Button Back to the Firefox Awesome Bar Dropbox Desktop Client 1.0.0 RC for Windows, Linux, and Mac Released Hang in There Scrat! – Ice Age Wallpaper

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Day 2 - Game Design Documentation

- by dapostolov

So yesterday I didn't cut any code for my game but I was able to do a tiny bit of research on the XNA Game Development Technology and the communities out there and do you know what? I feel I'm a bit closer to my goal. The bad news is today I didn't cut code either. However, not all is lost because I wanted to get my ideas on paper and today I just did that. Today, I began to jot down notes about the game and how I felt the visual elements would interact with each other. Unlike my workplace, my personal level of documentation is nothing more than a task list or a mind map of my ideas; it helps me streamline my solutions quiet effectively and circumvent the long process of articulating each thought to the n-th degree. I truly dislike documentation (because I have an extremely hard time articulating my thought and solutions); however, because I tend to do a really good job with documentation I tend to get stuck writing the buggers. But as a generalist remark: 'No Developer likes documentation.' For now let's stick with my basic notes and call this post a living document. Here are my notes, fresh, from after watching the new first episode of Merlin second season! Actually, a quick recommendation to anyone who is reading this (if anyone is): I truly recommend you envelope yourself in the medium or task you're trying to tackle. Be one with moment and feel it! For instance: Are you writing a fantasy script / game? What would the music of the genre sound like? For me the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack by Basil Poledouris is frackin awesome. There are many other good CD's out there, which I listen to (some who even use medival instruments, but Conan I keep returning to. It's a creative trigger for me. Ask yourself what would the imagery look like? Time to surf google for artist renditions of fantasy! What would the game feel like? Start playing some of your favorite games that inspire you, be wary though, have some self control and don't let it absorb your time. Anyhow, onto the documentation... Screens, Scenes, and Sprites. Oh My! (groan...) The first thing that came to mind were the screens, I thought the following would suffice: Menu Screen Character Customisation Screen Loading Screen? Battle Ground The Menu Screen Ok. So, the thought here is when the game loads a huge title is displayed: Wizard Wars. The player is prompted with 3 menu items: 1 Player Game, 2 Player Game, and Exit. Since I'm targetting the PC platform, as a non-networked game to start, I picture myself running my mouse over each menu option and the visual element of the menu item changes, along with a sound to indicate that I am over a curent menu item. And as I move my mouse away, it changes back, and possibly an exit mouse sound. Maybe on the screen somewhere is a brazier alit with a magical tome open right beside it, OR, maybe the tome is the menu! I hear the menu music as mellow, not obtrusive or piercing. On a menu item select, a confirmation sound bellows to indicate the players selection. The Esc key will always return me to the previous screens or desktop. The menu screen must feel...dark, like a really important ritual is about to happen and thus the music should build up. 1 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) 2 Player Game - > Customize Character(s) Exit - > Back to Windows Notes: So the first thing I pick up here are a couple things: First and foremost, my artistic abilities suck crap, so I may have to hire an artist (now that i've said that, lets get techy) graphical objects will be positioned within a scene on each screen / window. Menu items will be represented grapically, possibly animated, and have sound / animation effects triggered by user input or a time line. I have an animated scene involving a brazier or fire on a stick IF I was to move this game to the xbox, I'd have to track which menu item is currently selected (unless I do a mouse pointer type thing.) WindowObject has a scene A Scene has many GameObjects GameObject has a position graphic or animation MenuObject is a GameObject which has a mouse in, mouse out, and click event which either does something graphically (animation), does something with sound, or moves to another screen. Character Customisation Screen With either the 1 or 2 player option selected, both selections will come to this screen; a wizard requires a name, powers, and vestements of course! Player one will configure his character first and then player two. I considered a split screen for PC but to have two people fighting over a keyboard would probably suck. For XBox, a split screen could work; maybe when I get into the networking portion (phase 2 blog?) of this game I will remove the 2 player option for PC and provide only multiplayer and I will leave 2 player for xbox...hmm... Anyhow...I picture the creation process as follows: Name: (textbox / keyboard entry) - for xbox, this would have to be different. Robe Color: (color box, or something) Stats: Speed, Oomph, and Health. (as sliders) 1 as minimum and 10 as maximum. Ok, Back, and Cancel buttons / options. Each stat has a benefit which are listed below. The idea is the player decides if he wants his wizard to run fast, be a tank and ... hit with a purse.Regardless, the player will have a pool of 12 points to use. Ideally, A balanced wizard will have 5 in each attribute. Spells? The only spell of choice is a ball of fire which comes without question. The music and screen should still feel like a ritual. The Character Speed Basically, how fast your character moves and casts. Oomph (Best Monster Truck Voice): PURE POWAH!!! The damage output of your fireball. Health How much damage you can take. Notes: I realise the game dynamics may sound uninteresting at the moment; but I think after a couple releases, we could have some other grand ideas such as: saved profiles, gold to upgrade arsenal of spells, talents, etc...but for now...a vanilla fireball thrower mage will suffice for this experiment. OK. So... a MenuObject may need to be loosely coupled to allow future items such as networking? may be a button? a CharacterObject has a name speed oomph health and a funky robe color. cap on the three stats (1-10) an arsenal of 1 spell (possibly could expand this) The Loading Screen As is. The Battleground Screen For now, I'm keeping the screen as max resolution for the PC. The screen isn't going to move or even be a split screen. I'm not aiming high here because I want to see what level of change is involved when new features / concepts are added to game content. I'm interested to find out if we could apply techniques such as MVC or MVVM to this type of development or is it too tightly coupled? This reminds me when when my best friend and I were brainstorming our game idea (this is going back a while...1994, 6?) and he cringed at the thought of bringing business technology into games, especially when I suggested a database to store character information and COM / DCOM as the medium, but it seems I wasn't far off (reflecting); just like his implementation of a xml "config file" for dynamic direct-x menus back before .net in 1999...anyhow...i digress... The Battle One screen, two characters lobing balls of fire at each other...It doesn't get better than that. Every so often a scroll appears...and the fireballs bounce off walls, or the wizard has rapid fire, or even scrolls of healing! The scroll options are endless. Two bars at the top, each the color of the wizard (with their name beside the bar) indicate how much health they have. Possibly the appearance of the scrolls means the battle is taking too long? I'm thinking 1 player controls: up, down, left, right and space to fire the button. Or even possibly, mouse click and shift - mouse button to fire a spell in the direction they are facing. Two player controls: a, s, d, f and space AND arrows (up, down, left, right) and Del key or Crtl. The game ends when a player has 0 health and a dialog box appears asking for a rematch / reconfigure / exit. Health goes down when a fireball (friendly or not), connects with a wizard. When a wizard connects with a scroll, a countdown clock / icon appears near the health bar and the wizard begins to glow. For the most part, a wizard can have only scroll 1 effect on him at a time. Notes: Ok, there's alot to cover here. a CharacterObject is a GameObject it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has sounds (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, whistling, other?) it has animations (walking, running, casting, impact, dying, laughing, idle, other?) it has a lifespan (determined by health) it is alive or dead it has a position a ScrollObject is a GameObject it carries a transferance of points "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it carries a transferance of "other" it is stationary it has a sound on impact it has a stationary animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by game) it is alive or dead it has a position a WallObject is a GameObject it has a sound on fireball impact? it is a still image / stationary it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it is dead it has a position A FireBall is a GameObject it carries a transferance of poinst "damage" (or healing, bad scroll effect?) (determinde by caster) it travels at a set velocity it travels in a direction it has a sound it has a travel animation it has an impact animation / or transfers an impact animation it has a fade animation? it has a lifespan (determined by caster) it is alive or dead it has a position As I look at this, I can see some common attributes in each object that I can carry up to the GameObject. I think I'm going to end the documentation here, it's taken me a bit of time to type this all out, tomorrow. I'll load up my IDE and my paint studio to get some good old fashioned cowboy hacking going! D.

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