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• 24 Hours of PASS – first reflections

  - by Rob Farley

  A few days after the end of 24HOP, I find myself reflecting on it. I’m still waiting on most of the information. I want to be able to discover things like where the countries represented on each of the sessions, and things like that. So far, I have the feedback scores and the numbers of attendees. The data was provided in a PDF, so while I wait for it to appear in a more flexible format, I’ve pushed the 24 attendee numbers into Excel. This chart shows the numbers by time. Remember that we started at midnight GMT, which was 10:30am in my part of the world and 8pm in New York. It’s probably no surprise that numbers drooped a bit at the start, stayed comparatively low, and then grew as the larger populations of the English-speaking world woke up. I remember last time 24HOP ran for 24 hours straight, there were quite a few sessions with less than 100 attendees. None this time though. We got close, but even when it was 4am in New York, 8am in London and 7pm in Sydney (which would have to be the worst slot for attracting people), we still had over 100 people tuning in. As expected numbers grew as the UK woke up, and even more so as the US did, with numbers peaking at 755 for the “3pm in New York” session on SQL Server Data Tools. Kendra Little almost reached those numbers too, and certainly contributed the biggest ‘spike’ on the chart with her session five hours earlier. Of all the sessions, Kendra had the highest proportion of ‘Excellent’s for the “Overall Evaluation of the session” question, and those of you who saw her probably won’t be surprised by that. Kendra had one of the best ranked sessions from the 24HOP event this time last year (narrowly missing out on being top 3), and she has produced a lot of good video content since then. The reports indicate that there were nearly 8.5 thousand attendees across the 24 sessions, averaging over 350 at each one. I’m looking forward to seeing how many different people that was, although I do know that Wil Sisney managed to attend every single one (if you did too, please let me know). Wil even moderated one of the sessions, which made his feat even greater. Thanks Wil. I also want to send massive thanks to Dave Dustin. Dave probably would have attended all of the sessions, if it weren’t for a power outage that forced him to take a break. He was also a moderator, and it was during this session that he earned special praise. Part way into the session he was moderating, the speaker lost connectivity and couldn’t get back for about fifteen minutes. That’s an incredibly long time when you’re in a live presentation. There were over 200 people tuned in at the time, and I’m sure Dave was as stressed as I was to have a speaker disappear. I started chasing down a phone number for the speaker, while Dave spoke to the audience. And he did brilliantly. He started answering questions, and kept doing that until the speaker came back. Bear in mind that Dave hadn’t expected to give a presentation on that topic (or any other), and was simply drawing on his SQL expertise to get him through. Also consider that this was between midnight at 1am in Dave’s part of the world (Auckland, NZ). I would’ve been expecting just to welcome people, monitor questions, probably read some out, and in general, help make things run smoothly. He went far beyond the call of duty, and if I had a medal to give him, he’d definitely be getting one. On the whole, I think this 24HOP was a success. We tried a different platform, and I think for the most part it was a popular move. We didn’t ask the question “Was this better than LiveMeeting?”, but we did get a number of people telling us that they thought the platform was very good. Some people have told me I get a chance to put my feet up now that this is over. As I’m also co-ordinating a tour of SQLSaturday events across the Australia/New Zealand region, I don’t quite get to take that much of a break (plus, there’s the little thing of squeezing in seven SQL 2012 exams over the next 2.5 weeks). But I am pleased to be reflecting on this event rather than anticipating it. There were a number of factors that could have gone badly, but on the whole I’m pleased about how it went. A massive thanks to everyone involved. If you’re reading this and thinking you wish you could’ve tuned in more, don’t worry – they were all recorded and you’ll be able to watch them on demand very soon. But as well as that, PASS has a stream of content produced by the Virtual Chapters, so you can keep learning from the comfort of your desk all year round. More info on them at sqlpass.org, of course.

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• A*, Tile costs and heuristic; How to approach

  - by Kevin Toet

  I'm doing exercises in tile games and AI to improve my programming. I've written a highly unoptimised pathfinder that does the trick and a simple tile class. The first problem i ran into was that the heuristic was rounded to int's which resulted in very straight paths. Resorting a Euclidian Heuristic seemed to fixed it as opposed to use the Manhattan approach. The 2nd problem I ran into was when i tried added tile costs. I was hoping to use the value's of the flags that i set on the tiles but the value's were too small to make the pathfinder consider them a huge obstacle so i increased their value's but that breaks the flags a certain way and no paths were found anymore. So my questions, before posting the code, are: What am I doing wrong that the Manhatten heuristic isnt working? What ways can I store the tile costs? I was hoping to (ab)use the enum flags for this The path finder isnt considering the chance that no path is available, how do i check this? Any code optimisations are welcome as I'd love to improve my coding. public static List<Tile> FindPath( Tile startTile, Tile endTile, Tile[,] map ) { return FindPath( startTile, endTile, map, TileFlags.WALKABLE ); } public static List<Tile> FindPath( Tile startTile, Tile endTile, Tile[,] map, TileFlags acceptedFlags ) { List<Tile> open = new List<Tile>(); List<Tile> closed = new List<Tile>(); open.Add( startTile ); Tile tileToCheck; do { tileToCheck = open[0]; closed.Add( tileToCheck ); open.Remove( tileToCheck ); for( int i = 0; i < tileToCheck.neighbors.Count; i++ ) { Tile tile = tileToCheck.neighbors[ i ]; //has the node been processed if( !closed.Contains( tile ) && ( tile.flags & acceptedFlags ) != 0 ) { //Not in the open list? if( !open.Contains( tile ) ) { //Set G int G = 10; G += tileToCheck.G; //Set Parent tile.parentX = tileToCheck.x; tile.parentY = tileToCheck.y; tile.G = G; //tile.H = Math.Abs(endTile.x - tile.x ) + Math.Abs( endTile.y - tile.y ) * 10; //TODO omg wtf and other incredible stories tile.H = Vector2.Distance( new Vector2( tile.x, tile.y ), new Vector2(endTile.x, endTile.y) ); tile.Cost = tile.G + tile.H + (int)tile.flags; //Calculate H; Manhattan style open.Add( tile ); } //Update the cost if it is else { int G = 10;//cost of going to non-diagonal tiles G += map[ tile.parentX, tile.parentY ].G; //If this path is shorter (G cost is lower) then change //the parent cell, G cost and F cost. if ( G < tile.G ) //if G cost is less, { tile.parentX = tileToCheck.x; //change the square's parent tile.parentY = tileToCheck.y; tile.G = G;//change the G cost tile.Cost = tile.G + tile.H + (int)tile.flags; // add terrain cost } } } } //Sort costs open = open.OrderBy( o => o.Cost).ToList(); } while( tileToCheck != endTile ); closed.Reverse(); List<Tile> validRoute = new List<Tile>(); Tile currentTile = closed[ 0 ]; validRoute.Add( currentTile ); do { //Look up the parent of the current cell. currentTile = map[ currentTile.parentX, currentTile.parentY ]; currentTile.renderer.material.color = Color.green; //Add tile to list validRoute.Add( currentTile ); } while ( currentTile != startTile ); validRoute.Reverse(); return validRoute; } And my Tile class: [Flags] public enum TileFlags: int { NONE = 0, DIRT = 1, STONE = 2, WATER = 4, BUILDING = 8, //handy WALKABLE = DIRT | STONE | NONE, endofenum } public class Tile : MonoBehaviour { //Tile Properties public int x, y; public TileFlags flags = TileFlags.DIRT; public Transform cachedTransform; //A* properties public int parentX, parentY; public int G; public float Cost; public float H; public List<Tile> neighbors = new List<Tile>(); void Awake() { cachedTransform = transform; } }

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• What Counts for a DBA: Humility

  - by drsql

  In football (the American sort, naturally,) there are a select group of players who really hope to never have their names called during the game. They are members of the offensive line, and their job is to protect other players so they can deliver the ball to the goal to score points. When you do hear their name called, it is usually because they made a mistake and the player that they were supposed to protect ended up flat on his back admiring the clouds in the sky instead of advancing towards the goal to scoring point. Even on the rare occasion their name is called for a good reason, it is usually because they were making up for a teammate who had made a mistake and they covered up for them. The role of offensive lineman is a very good analogy for the role of the admin DBA. As a DBA, you are called on to be barely visible and rarely heard, protecting the company data assets tenaciously, even though the enemies to our craft surround us on all sides:. Developers: Cries of ‘foul!’ often ensue when the DBA says that they want data integrity to be stringently enforced and that documentation is needed so they can support systems, mostly because every error occurrence in the enterprise will be initially blamed on the database and fall to the DBA to troubleshoot. Insisting too loudly may bring those cries of ‘foul’ that somewhat remind you of when your 2 year old daughter didn't want to go to bed. The result of this petulance is that the next "enemy" gets involved. Managers: The concerns that motivate DBAs to argue will not excite the kind of manager who gets his technical knowledge from a glossy magazine filled with buzzwords, charts, and pretty pictures. However, the other programmers in the organization will tickle the buzzword void with a stream of new-sounding ideas and technologies constantly, along with warnings that if we did care about data integrity and document things, the budget would explode! In contrast, the arguments for integrity of data and supportability tend to be about as exciting as watching grass grow, and far too many manager types seem to prefer to smoke it than watch it. Packaged Applications: The DBA is rarely given a chance to review a new application that is being demonstrated for the enterprise, and rarer still is the DBA that gets a veto of an application because the database it uses has clearly been created by an architect that won't read a data modeling book because he is already married. More often than not this leads to hours of work for the DBA trying to performance-tune a database with a menagerie of rules that must be followed to stay within the  application support agreement, such as no changing indexes on a third party schema even though there are 10 billion rows instead of the 10 thousand when the system was last optimized. Hardware Failures: Physical disks, networking devices, memory, and backup devices all come with a measure known as ‘mean time before failure’ and it is never listed in centuries or eons. More like years, and the term ‘mean’ indicates that half of the devices are expected to fail before that, which by my calendar means any hour of any day that it wants to fail it will. But the DBA sucks it up and does the task at hand with a humility that makes them nearly invisible to all but the most observant person in the organization. The best DBAs I know are so proactive in their relentless pursuit of perfection that they detect many of the bugs (which they seldom caused) in the system well before they become a problem. In the end the DBA gets noticed for one of same two reasons as the offensive lineman. You make a mistake, like dropping a critical production database that had never been backed up; or when a system crashes for any reason whatsoever and they are on the spot with troubleshooting and system restoration plans that have been well thought out, tested, and tested again. Not because there is any glory in it, but because it is what they do.   Note: The characteristics of the professions referred to in this blog are meant to be overstated stereotypes for humorous effect, and even some DBAs aren't quite this perfect. If you are reading this far and haven’t hand written a 10 page flaming comment about how you are a _______ and you aren’t like this, that is awesome. Not every situation applies to everyone, but if you have never worked with a bad packaged app, a magazine trained manager, programmers that aren’t team players, or hardware that occasionally failed, relax and go have a unicorn sandwich before you wake up.

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• OBIA on Teradata - Part 1 Loader and Monitoring

  - by Mohan Ramanuja

  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The out-of-the-box (OOB) OBIA Informatica mappings come with TPump loader.   TPUMP  FASTLOAD TPump does not lock the table. FastLoad applies exclusive lock on the table. The table that TPump is loading can have data. The table that FastLoad is loading needs to be empty. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} TPump is not efficient with lookups. FastLoad is more efficient in the absence of lookups. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} The out-of the box Informatica mappings come with TPump loader. There is chance for bottleneck in writer thread The out-of the box tables in Teradata supplied with OBAW features all Dimension and Fact tables using ROW_WID as the key for primary index. Also, all staging tables use integration_id as the key for primary index. This reduces skewing of data across Teradata AMPs.You can use an SQL statement similar to the following to determine if data for a given table is distributed evenly across all AMP vprocs. The SQL statement displays the AMP with the most used through the AMP with the least-used space, investigating data distribution in the Message table in database RST.SELECT vproc,CurrentPermFROM DBC.TableSizeWHERE Databasename = ‘PRJ_CRM_STGC’AND Tablename = ‘w_party_per_d’ORDER BY 2 descIf you suspect distribution problems (skewing) among AMPS, the following is a sample of what you might enter for a three-column PI:SELECT HASHAMP (HASHBUCKET (HASHROW (col_x, col_y, col_z))), count (*)FROM hash15GROUP BY 1ORDER BY 2 desc; ETL Error Monitoring Error Table – These are tables that start with ET. Location and name can be specified in Informatica session as well as the loader connection.Loader Log – Loader log is available in the Informatica server under the session log folder. These give feedback on the loader parameters such as Packing Factor to use. These however need to be monitored in the production environment. The recommendations made in one environment may not be used in another environment.Log Table – These are tables that start with TL. These are sparse on information.Bad File – This is the Informatica file generated in case there is data quality issues

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• Understanding the 'High Performance' meaning in Extreme Transaction Processing

  - by kyap

  Despite my previous blogs entries on SOA/BPM and Identity Management, the domain where I'm the most passionated is definitely the Extreme Transaction Processing, commonly called XTP.I came across XTP back to 2007 while I was still FMW Product Manager in EMEA. At that time Oracle acquired a company called Tangosol, which owned an unique product called Coherence that we renamed to Oracle Coherence. Beside this innovative renaming of the product, to be honest, I didn't know much about it, except being a "distributed in-memory cache for Extreme Transaction Processing"... not very helpful still.In general when people doesn't fully understand a technology or a concept, they tend to find some shortcuts, either correct or not, to justify their lack-of understanding... and of course I was part of this category of individuals. And the shortcut was "Oracle Coherence Cache helps to improve Performance". Excellent marketing slogan... but not very meaningful still. By chance I was able to get away quickly from that group in July 2007* at Thames Valley Park (UK), after I attended one of the most interesting workshops, in my 10 years career in Oracle, delivered by Brian Oliver. The biggest mistake I made was to assume that performance improvement with Coherence was related to the response time. Which can be considered as legitimus at that time, because after-all caches help to reduce latency on cached data access, hence reduce the response-time. But like all caches, you need to define caching and expiration policies, thinking about the cache-missed strategy, and most of the time you have to re-write partially your application in order to work with the cache. At a result, the expected benefit vanishes... so, not very useful then?The key mistake I made was my perception or obsession on how performance improvement should be driven, but I strongly believe this is still a common problem to most of the developers. In fact we all know the that the performance of a system is generally presented by the Capacity (or Throughput), with the 2 important dimensions Speed (response-time) and Volume (load) :Capacity (TPS) = Volume (T) / Speed (S)To increase the Capacity, we can either reduce the Speed(in terms of response-time), or to increase the Volume. However we tend to only focus on reducing the Speed dimension, perhaps it is more concrete and tangible to measure, and nicer to present to our management because there's a direct impact onto the end-users experience. On the other hand, we assume the Volume can be addressed by the underlying hardware or software stack, so if we need more capacity (scale out), we just add more hardware or software. Unfortunately, the reality proves that IT is never as ideal as we assume...The challenge with Speed improvement approach is that it is generally difficult and costly to make things already fast... faster. And by adding Coherence will not necessarily help either. Even though we manage to do so, the Capacity can not increase forever because... the Speed can be influenced by the Volume. For all system, we always have a performance illustration as follow: In all traditional system, the increase of Volume (Transaction) will also increase the Speed (Response-Time) as some point. The reason is simple: most of the time the Application logics were not designed to scale. As an example, if you have a while-loop in your application, it is natural to conceive that parsing 200 entries will require double execution-time compared to 100 entries. If you need to "Speed-up" the execution, you can only upgrade your hardware (scale-up) with faster CPU and/or network to reduce network latency. It is technically limited and economically inefficient. And this is exactly where XTP and Coherence kick in. The primary objective of XTP is about designing applications which can scale-out for increasing the Volume, by applying coding techniques to keep the execution-time as constant as possible, independently of the number of runtime data being manipulated. It is actually not just about having an application running as fast as possible, but about having a much more predictable system, with constant response-time and linearly scale, so we can easily increase throughput by adding more hardwares in parallel. It is in general combined with the Low Latency Programming model, where we tried to optimize the network usage as much as possible, either from the programmatic angle (less network-hoops to complete a task), and/or from a hardware angle (faster network equipments). In this picture, Oracle Coherence can be considered as software-level XTP enabler, via the Distributed-Cache because it can guarantee: - Constant Data Objects access time, independently from the number of Objects and the Coherence Cluster size - Data Objects Distribution by Affinity for in-memory data grouping - In-place Data Processing for parallel executionTo summarize, Oracle Coherence is indeed useful to improve your application performance, just not in the way we commonly think. It's not about the Speed itself, but about the overall Capacity with Extreme Load while keeping consistant Speed. In the future I will keep adding new blog entries around this topic, with some sample codes experiences sharing that I capture in the last few years. In the meanwhile if you want to know more how Oracle Coherence, I strongly suggest you to start with checking how our worldwide customers are using Oracle Coherence first, then you can start playing with the product through our tutorial.Have Fun !

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• Developing Schema Compare for Oracle (Part 4): Script Configuration

  - by Simon Cooper

  If you've had a chance to play around with the Schema Compare for Oracle beta, you may have come across this screen in the synchronization wizard: This screen is one of the few screens that, along with the project configuration form, doesn't come from SQL Compare. This screen was designed to solve a couple of issues that, although aren't specific to Oracle, are much more of a problem than on SQL Server: Datatype conversions and NOT NULL columns. 1. Datatype conversions SQL Server is generally quite forgiving when it comes to datatype conversions using ALTER TABLE. For example, you can convert from a VARCHAR to INT using ALTER TABLE as long as all the character values are parsable as integers. Oracle, on the other hand, only allows ALTER TABLE conversions that don't change the internal data format. Essentially, every change that requires an actual datatype conversion has to be done using a rebuild with a conversion function. That's OK, as we can simply hard-code the various conversion functions for the valid datatype conversions and insert those into the rebuild SELECT list. However, as there always is with Oracle, there's a catch. Have a look at the NUMTODSINTERVAL function. As well as specifying the value (or column) to convert, you have to specify an interval_unit, which tells oracle how to interpret the input number. We can't hardcode a default for this parameter, as it is entirely dependent on the user's data context! So, in order to convert NUMBER to INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND/INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH, we need to have feedback from the user as to what to put in this parameter while we're generating the sync script - this requires a new step in the engine action/script generation to insert these values into the script, as well as new UI to allow the user to specify these values in a sensible fashion. In implementing the engine and UI infrastructure to allow this it made much more sense to implement it for any rebuild datatype conversion, not just NUMBER to INTERVALs. For conversions which we can do, we pre-fill the 'value' box with the appropriate function from the documentation. The user can also type in arbitary SQL expressions, which allows the user to specify optional format parameters for the relevant conversion functions, or indeed call their own functions to convert between values that don't have a built-in conversion defined. As the value gets inserted as-is into the rebuild SELECT list, any expression that is valid in that context can be specified as the conversion value. 2. NOT NULL columns Another problem that is solved by the new step in the sync wizard is adding a NOT NULL column to a table. If the table contains data (as most database tables do), you can't just add a NOT NULL column, as Oracle doesn't know what value to put in the new column for existing rows - the DDL statement will fail. There are actually 3 separate scenarios for this problem that have separate solutions within the engine: Adding a NOT NULL column to a table without a rebuild Here, the workaround is to add a column default with an appropriate value to the column you're adding: ALTER TABLE tbl1 ADD newcol NUMBER DEFAULT <value> NOT NULL; Note, however, there is something to bear in mind about this solution; once specified on a column, a default cannot be removed. To 'remove' a default from a column you change it to have a default of NULL, hence there's code in the engine to treat a NULL default the same as no default at all. Adding a NOT NULL column to a table, where a separate change forced a table rebuild Fortunately, in this case, a column default is not required - we can simply insert the default value into the rebuild SELECT clause. Changing an existing NULL to a NOT NULL column To implement this, we run an UPDATE command before the ALTER TABLE to change all the NULLs in the column to the required default value. For all three, we need some way of allowing the user to specify a default value to use instead of NULL; as this is essentially the same problem as datatype conversion (inserting values into the sync script), we can re-use the UI and engine implementation of datatype conversion values. We also provide the option to alter the new column to allow NULLs, or to ignore the problem completely. Note that there is the same (long-running) problem in SQL Compare, but it is much more of an issue in Oracle as you cannot easily roll back executed DDL statements if the script fails at some point during execution. Furthermore, the engine of SQL Compare is far less conducive to inserting user-supplied values into the generated script. As we're writing the Schema Compare engine from scratch, we used what we learnt from the SQL Compare engine and designed it to be far more modular, which makes inserting procedures like this much easier.

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• Cloud Computing Forces Better Design Practices

  - by Herve Roggero

  Is cloud computing simply different than on premise development, or is cloud computing actually forcing you to create better applications than you normally would? In other words, is cloud computing merely imposing different design principles, or forcing better design principles?  A little while back I got into a discussion with a developer in which I was arguing that cloud computing, and specifically Windows Azure in his case, was forcing developers to adopt better design principles. His opinion was that cloud computing was not yielding better systems; just different systems. In this blog, I will argue that cloud computing does force developers to use better design practices, and hence better applications. So the first thing to define, of course, is the word “better”, in the context of application development. Looking at a few definitions online, better means “superior quality”. As it relates to this discussion then, I stipulate that cloud computing can yield higher quality applications in terms of scalability, everything else being equal. Before going further I need to also outline the difference between performance and scalability. Performance and scalability are two related concepts, but they don’t mean the same thing. Scalability is the measure of system performance given various loads. So when developers design for performance, they usually give higher priority to a given load and tend to optimize for the given load. When developers design for scalability, the actual performance at a given load is not as important; the ability to ensure reasonable performance regardless of the load becomes the objective. This can lead to very different design choices. For example, if your objective is to obtains the fastest response time possible for a service you are building, you may choose the implement a TCP connection that never closes until the client chooses to close the connection (in other words, a tightly coupled service from a connectivity standpoint), and on which a connection session is established for faster processing on the next request (like SQL Server or other database systems for example). If you objective is to scale, you may implement a service that answers to requests without keeping session state, so that server resources are released as quickly as possible, like a REST service for example. This alternate design would likely have a slower response time than the TCP service for any given load, but would continue to function at very large loads because of its inherently loosely coupled design. An example of a REST service is the NO-SQL implementation in the Microsoft cloud called Azure Tables. Now, back to cloud computing… Cloud computing is designed to help you scale your applications, specifically when you use Platform as a Service (PaaS) offerings. However it’s not automatic. You can design a tightly-coupled TCP service as discussed above, and as you can imagine, it probably won’t scale even if you place the service in the cloud because it isn’t using a connection pattern that will allow it to scale [note: I am not implying that all TCP systems do not scale; I am just illustrating the scalability concepts with an imaginary TCP service that isn’t designed to scale for the purpose of this discussion]. The other service, using REST, will have a better chance to scale because, by design, it minimizes resource consumption for individual requests and doesn’t tie a client connection to a specific endpoint (which means you can easily deploy this service to hundreds of machines without much trouble, as long as your pockets are deep enough). The TCP and REST services discussed above are both valid designs; the TCP service is faster and the REST service scales better. So is it fair to say that one service is fundamentally better than the other? No; not unless you need to scale. And if you don’t need to scale, then you don’t need the cloud in the first place. However, it is interesting to note that if you do need to scale, then a loosely coupled system becomes a better design because it can almost always scale better than a tightly-coupled system. And because most applications grow overtime, with an increasing user base, new functional requirements, increased data and so forth, most applications eventually do need to scale. So in my humble opinion, I conclude that a loosely coupled system is not just different than a tightly coupled system; it is a better design, because it will stand the test of time. And in my book, if a system stands the test of time better than another, it is of superior quality. Because cloud computing demands loosely coupled systems so that its underlying service architecture can be leveraged, developers ultimately have no choice but to design loosely coupled systems for the cloud. And because loosely coupled systems are better… … the cloud forces better design practices. My 2 cents.

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• Coherence Data Guarantees for Data Reads - Basic Terminology

  - by jpurdy

  When integrating Coherence into applications, each application has its own set of requirements with respect to data integrity guarantees. Developers often describe these requirements using expressions like "avoiding dirty reads" or "making sure that updates are transactional", but we often find that even in a small group of people, there may be a wide range of opinions as to what these terms mean. This may simply be due to a lack of familiarity, but given that Coherence sits at an intersection of several (mostly) unrelated fields, it may be a matter of conflicting vocabularies (e.g. "consistency" is similar but different in transaction processing versus multi-threaded programming). Since almost all data read consistency issues are related to the concept of concurrency, it is helpful to start with a definition of that, or rather what it means for two operations to be concurrent. Rather than implying that they occur "at the same time", concurrency is a slightly weaker statement -- it simply means that it can't be proven that one event precedes (or follows) the other. As an example, in a Coherence application, if two client members mutate two different cache entries sitting on two different cache servers at roughly the same time, it is likely that one update will precede the other by a significant amount of time (say 0.1ms). However, since there is no guarantee that all four members have their clocks perfectly synchronized, and there is no way to precisely measure the time it takes to send a given message between any two members (that have differing clocks), we consider these to be concurrent operations since we can not (easily) prove otherwise. So this leads to a question that we hear quite frequently: "Are the contents of the near cache always synchronized with the underlying distributed cache?". It's easy to see that if an update on a cache server results in a message being sent to each near cache, and then that near cache being updated that there is a window where the contents are different. However, this is irrelevant, since even if the application reads directly from the distributed cache, another thread update the cache before the read is returned to the application. Even if no other member modifies a cache entry prior to the local near cache entry being updated (and subsequently read), the purpose of reading a cache entry is to do something with the result, usually either displaying for consumption by a human, or by updating the entry based on the current state of the entry. In the former case, it's clear that if the data is updated faster than a human can perceive, then there is no problem (and in many cases this can be relaxed even further). For the latter case, the application must assume that the value might potentially be updated before it has a chance to update it. This almost aways the case with read-only caches, and the solution is the traditional optimistic transaction pattern, which requires the application to explicitly state what assumptions it made about the old value of the cache entry. If the application doesn't want to bother stating those assumptions, it is free to lock the cache entry prior to reading it, ensuring that no other threads will mutate the entry, a pessimistic approach. The optimistic approach relies on what is sometimes called a "fuzzy read". In other words, the application assumes that the read should be correct, but it also acknowledges that it might not be. (I use the qualifier "sometimes" because in some writings, "fuzzy read" indicates the situation where the application actually sees an original value and then later sees an updated value within the same transaction -- however, both definitions are roughly equivalent from an application design perspective). If the read is not correct it is called a "stale read". Going back to the definition of concurrency, it may seem difficult to precisely define a stale read, but the practical way of detecting a stale read is that is will cause the encompassing transaction to roll back if it tries to update that value. The pessimistic approach relies on a "coherent read", a guarantee that the value returned is not only the same as the primary copy of that value, but also that it will remain that way. In most cases this can be used interchangeably with "repeatable read" (though that term has additional implications when used in the context of a database system). In none of cases above is it possible for the application to perform a "dirty read". A dirty read occurs when the application reads a piece of data that was never committed. In practice the only way this can occur is with multi-phase updates such as transactions, where a value may be temporarily update but then withdrawn when a transaction is rolled back. If another thread sees that value prior to the rollback, it is a dirty read. If an application uses optimistic transactions, dirty reads will merely result in a lack of forward progress (this is actually one of the main risks of dirty reads -- they can be chained and potentially cause cascading rollbacks). The concepts of dirty reads, fuzzy reads, stale reads and coherent reads are able to describe the vast majority of requirements that we see in the field. However, the important thing is to define the terms used to define requirements. A quick web search for each of the terms in this article will show multiple meanings, so I've selected what are generally the most common variations, but it never hurts to state each definition explicitly if they are critical to the success of a project (many applications have sufficiently loose requirements that precise terminology can be avoided).

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• Is it feasible and useful to auto-generate some code of unit tests?

  - by skiwi

  Earlier today I have come up with an idea, based upon a particular real use case, which I would want to have checked for feasability and usefulness. This question will feature a fair chunk of Java code, but can be applied to all languages running inside a VM, and maybe even outside. While there is real code, it uses nothing language-specific, so please read it mostly as pseudo code. The idea Make unit testing less cumbersome by adding in some ways to autogenerate code based on human interaction with the codebase. I understand this goes against the principle of TDD, but I don't think anyone ever proved that doing TDD is better over first creating code and then immediatly therafter the tests. This may even be adapted to be fit into TDD, but that is not my current goal. To show how it is intended to be used, I'll copy one of my classes here, for which I need to make unit tests. public class PutMonsterOnFieldAction implements PlayerAction { private final int handCardIndex; private final int fieldMonsterIndex; public PutMonsterOnFieldAction(final int handCardIndex, final int fieldMonsterIndex) { this.handCardIndex = Arguments.requirePositiveOrZero(handCardIndex, "handCardIndex"); this.fieldMonsterIndex = Arguments.requirePositiveOrZero(fieldMonsterIndex, "fieldCardIndex"); } @Override public boolean isActionAllowed(final Player player) { Objects.requireNonNull(player, "player"); Hand hand = player.getHand(); Field field = player.getField(); if (handCardIndex >= hand.getCapacity()) { return false; } if (fieldMonsterIndex >= field.getMonsterCapacity()) { return false; } if (field.hasMonster(fieldMonsterIndex)) { return false; } if (!(hand.get(handCardIndex) instanceof MonsterCard)) { return false; } return true; } @Override public void performAction(final Player player) { Objects.requireNonNull(player); if (!isActionAllowed(player)) { throw new PlayerActionNotAllowedException(); } Hand hand = player.getHand(); Field field = player.getField(); field.setMonster(fieldMonsterIndex, (MonsterCard)hand.play(handCardIndex)); } } We can observe the need for the following tests: Constructor test with valid input Constructor test with invalid inputs isActionAllowed test with valid input isActionAllowed test with invalid inputs performAction test with valid input performAction test with invalid inputs My idea mainly focuses on the isActionAllowed test with invalid inputs. Writing these tests is not fun, you need to ensure a number of conditions and you check whether it really returns false, this can be extended to performAction, where an exception needs to be thrown in that case. The goal of my idea is to generate those tests, by indicating (through GUI of IDE hopefully) that you want to generate tests based on a specific branch. The implementation by example User clicks on "Generate code for branch if (handCardIndex >= hand.getCapacity())". Now the tool needs to find a case where that holds. (I haven't added the relevant code as that may clutter the post ultimately) To invalidate the branch, the tool needs to find a handCardIndex and hand.getCapacity() such that the condition >= holds. It needs to construct a Player with a Hand that has a capacity of at least 1. It notices that the capacity private int of Hand needs to be at least 1. It searches for ways to set it to 1. Fortunately it finds a constructor that takes the capacity as an argument. It uses 1 for this. Some more work needs to be done to succesfully construct a Player instance, involving the creation of objects that have constraints that can be seen by inspecting the source code. It has found the hand with the least capacity possible and is able to construct it. Now to invalidate the test it will need to set handCardIndex = 1. It constructs the test and asserts it to be false (the returned value of the branch) What does the tool need to work? In order to function properly, it will need the ability to scan through all source code (including JDK code) to figure out all constraints. Optionally this could be done through the javadoc, but that is not always used to indicate all constraints. It could also do some trial and error, but it pretty much stops if you cannot attach source code to compiled classes. Then it needs some basic knowledge of what the primitive types are, including arrays. And it needs to be able to construct some form of "modification trees". The tool knows that it needs to change a certain variable to a different value in order to get the correct testcase. Hence it will need to list all possible ways to change it, without using reflection obviously. What this tool will not replace is the need to create tailored unit tests that tests all kinds of conditions when a certain method actually works. It is purely to be used to test methods when they invalidate constraints. My questions: Is creating such a tool feasible? Would it ever work, or are there some obvious problems? Would such a tool be useful? Is it even useful to automatically generate these testcases at all? Could it be extended to do even more useful things? Does, by chance, such a project already exist and would I be reinventing the wheel? If not proven useful, but still possible to make such thing, I will still consider it for fun. If it's considered useful, then I might make an open source project for it depending on the time. For people searching more background information about the used Player and Hand classes in my example, please refer to this repository. At the time of writing the PutMonsterOnFieldAction has not been uploaded to the repo yet, but this will be done once I'm done with the unit tests.

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• Using XA Transactions in Coherence-based Applications

  - by jpurdy

  While the costs of XA transactions are well known (e.g. increased data contention, higher latency, significant disk I/O for logging, availability challenges, etc.), in many cases they are the most attractive option for coordinating logical transactions across multiple resources. There are a few common approaches when integrating Coherence into applications via the use of an application server's transaction manager: Use of Coherence as a read-only cache, applying transactions to the underlying database (or any system of record) instead of the cache. Use of TransactionMap interface via the included resource adapter. Use of the new ACID transaction framework, introduced in Coherence 3.6.   Each of these may have significant drawbacks for certain workloads. Using Coherence as a read-only cache is the simplest option. In this approach, the application is responsible for managing both the database and the cache (either within the business logic or via application server hooks). This approach also tends to provide limited benefit for many workloads, particularly those workloads that either have queries (given the complexity of maintaining a fully cached data set in Coherence) or are not read-heavy (where the cost of managing the cache may outweigh the benefits of reading from it). All updates are made synchronously to the database, leaving it as both a source of latency as well as a potential bottleneck. This approach also prevents addressing "hot data" problems (when certain objects are updated by many concurrent transactions) since most database servers offer no facilities for explicitly controlling concurrent updates. Finally, this option tends to be a better fit for key-based access (rather than filter-based access such as queries) since this makes it easier to aggressively invalidate cache entries without worrying about when they will be reloaded. The advantage of this approach is that it allows strong data consistency as long as optimistic concurrency control is used to ensure that database updates are applied correctly regardless of whether the cache contains stale (or even dirty) data. Another benefit of this approach is that it avoids the limitations of Coherence's write-through caching implementation. TransactionMap is generally used when Coherence acts as system of record. TransactionMap is not generally compatible with write-through caching, so it will usually be either used to manage a standalone cache or when the cache is backed by a database via write-behind caching. TransactionMap has some restrictions that may limit its utility, the most significant being: The lock-based concurrency model is relatively inefficient and may introduce significant latency and contention. As an example, in a typical configuration, a transaction that updates 20 cache entries will require roughly 40ms just for lock management (assuming all locks are granted immediately, and excluding validation and writing which will require a similar amount of time). This may be partially mitigated by denormalizing (e.g. combining a parent object and its set of child objects into a single cache entry), at the cost of increasing false contention (e.g. transactions will conflict even when updating different child objects). If the client (application server JVM) fails during the commit phase, locks will be released immediately, and the transaction may be partially committed. In practice, this is usually not as bad as it may sound since the commit phase is usually very short (all locks having been previously acquired). Note that this vulnerability does not exist when a single NamedCache is used and all updates are confined to a single partition (generally implying the use of partition affinity). The unconventional TransactionMap API is cumbersome but manageable. Only a few methods are transactional, primarily get(), put() and remove(). The ACID transactions framework (accessed via the Connection class) provides atomicity guarantees by implementing the NamedCache interface, maintaining its own cache data and transaction logs inside a set of private partitioned caches. This feature may be used as either a local transactional resource or as logging XA resource. However, a lack of database integration precludes the use of this functionality for most applications. A side effect of this is that this feature has not seen significant adoption, meaning that any use of this is subject to the usual headaches associated with being an early adopter (greater chance of bugs and greater risk of hitting an unoptimized code path). As a result, for the moment, we generally recommend against using this feature. In summary, it is possible to use Coherence in XA-oriented applications, and several customers are doing this successfully, but it is not a core usage model for the product, so care should be taken before committing to this path. For most applications, the most robust solution is normally to use Coherence as a read-only cache of the underlying data resources, even if this prevents taking advantage of certain product features.

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• Who could ask for more with LESS CSS? (Part 1 of 3&ndash;Features)

  - by ToStringTheory

  It wasn’t very long ago that I first began to get into CSS precompilers such as SASS (Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets) and LESS (The Dynamic Stylesheet Language) and I had been hooked on the idea since.  When I finally had a new project come up, I leapt at the opportunity to try out one of these languages. Introduction To be honest, I was hesitant at first to add either framework as I didn’t really know much more than what I had read on their homepages, and I didn’t like the idea of adding too much complexity to a project - I couldn’t guarantee I would be the only person to support it in the future. Thankfully, both of these languages just add things into CSS.  You don’t HAVE to know LESS or SASS to do anything, you can still do your old school CSS, and your output will be the same.  However, when you want to start doing more advanced things such as variables, mixins, and color functions, the functionality is all there for you to utilize. From what I had read, SASS has a few more features than LESS, which is why I initially tried to figure out how to incorporate it into a MVC 4 project. However, through my research, I couldn’t find a way to accomplish this without including some bit of the Ruby on Rails framework on the computer running it, and I hated the fact that I had to do that.  Besides SASS, there is little chance of me getting into the RoR framework, at least in the next couple years.  So in the end, I settled with using LESS. Features So, what can LESS (or SASS) do for you?  There are several reasons I have come to love it in the past few weeks. 1 – Constants Using LESS, you can finally declare a constant and use its value across an entire CSS file. The case that most people would be familiar with is colors.  Wanting to declare one or two color variables that comprise the theme of the site, and not have to retype out their specific hex code each time, but rather a variable name.  What’s great about this is that if you end up having to change it, you only have to change it in one place.  An important thing to note is that you aren’t limited to creating constants just for colors, but for strings and measurements as well. 2 – Inheritance This is a cool feature in my mind for simplicity and organization.  Both LESS and SASS allow you to place selectors within other selectors, and when it is compiled, the languages will break the rules out as necessary and keep the inheritance chain you created in the selectors. Example LESS Code: #header {   h1 {     font-size: 26px;     font-weight: bold;   }   p {     font-size: 12px;     a     {       text-decoration: none;       &:hover {         border-width: 1px       }     }   } } Example Compiled CSS: #header h1 {   font-size: 26px;   font-weight: bold; } #header p {   font-size: 12px; } #header p a {   text-decoration: none; } #header p a:hover {   border-width: 1px; } 3 - Mixins Mixins are where languages like this really shine.  The ability to mixin other definitions setup a parametric mixin.  There is really a lot of content in this area, so I would suggest looking at http://lesscss.org for more information.  One of the things I would suggest if you do begin to use LESS is to also grab the mixins.less file from the Twitter Bootstrap project.  This file already has a bunch of predefined mixins for things like border-radius with all of the browser specific prefixes.  This alone is of great use! 4 – Color Functions This is the last thing I wanted to point out as my final post in this series will be utilizing these functions in a more drawn out manner.  Both LESS and SASS provide functions for getting information from a color (R,G,B,H,S,L).  Using these, it is easy to define a primary color, and then darken or lighten it a little for your needs.  Example: Example LESS Code: @base-color: #111; @red:        #842210; #footer {   color: (@base-color + #003300);   border-left:  2px;   border-right: 2px;   border-color: desaturate(@red, 10%); } Example Compiled CSS: #footer {    color: #114411;    border-left:  2px;    border-right: 2px;    border-color: #7d2717; } I have found that these can be very useful and powerful when constructing a site theme. Conclusion I came across LESS and SASS when looking for the best way to implement some type of CSS variables for colors, because I hated having to do a Find and Replace in all of the files using the colors, and in some instances, you couldn’t just find/replace because of the color choices interfering with other colors (color to replace of #000, yet come colors existed like #0002bc).  So in many cases I would end up having to do a Find and manually check each one. In my next post, I am going to cover how I’ve come to set up these items and the structure for the items in the project, as well as the conventions that I have come to start using.  In the final post in the series, I will cover a neat little side project I built in LESS dealing with colors!

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• Deadlock Analysis in NetBeans 8

  - by Geertjan

  Lock contention profiling is very important in multi-core environments. Lock contention occurs when a thread tries to acquire a lock while another thread is holding it, forcing it to wait. Lock contentions result in deadlocks. Multi-core environments have even more threads to deal with, causing an increased likelihood of lock contentions. In NetBeans 8, the NetBeans Profiler has new support for displaying detailed information about lock contention, i.e., the relationship between the threads that are locked. After all, whenever there's a deadlock, in any aspect of interaction, e.g., a political deadlock, it helps to be able to point to the responsible party or, at least, the order in which events happened resulting in the deadlock. As an example, let's take the handy Deadlock sample code from the Java Tutorial and look at the tools in NetBeans IDE for identifying and analyzing the code. The description of the deadlock is nice: Alphonse and Gaston are friends, and great believers in courtesy. A strict rule of courtesy is that when you bow to a friend, you must remain bowed until your friend has a chance to return the bow. Unfortunately, this rule does not account for the possibility that two friends might bow to each other at the same time. To help identify who bowed first or, at least, the order in which bowing took place, right-click the file and choose "Profile File". In the Profile Task Manager, make the choices below: When you have clicked Run, the Threads window shows the two threads are blocked, i.e., the red "Monitor" lines tell you that the related threads are blocked while trying to enter a synchronized method or block: But which thread is holding the lock? Which one is blocked by the other? The above visualization does not answer these questions. New in NetBeans 8 is that you can analyze the deadlock in the new Lock Contention window to determine which of the threads is responsible for the lock: Here is the code that simulates the lock, very slightly tweaked at the end, where I use "setName" on the threads, so that it's even easier to analyze the threads in the relevant NetBeans tools. Also, I converted the anonymous inner Runnables to lambda expressions. package org.demo; public class Deadlock { static class Friend { private final String name; public Friend(String name) { this.name = name; } public String getName() { return this.name; } public synchronized void bow(Friend bower) { System.out.format("%s: %s" + " has bowed to me!%n", this.name, bower.getName()); bower.bowBack(this); } public synchronized void bowBack(Friend bower) { System.out.format("%s: %s" + " has bowed back to me!%n", this.name, bower.getName()); } } public static void main(String[] args) { final Friend alphonse = new Friend("Alphonse"); final Friend gaston = new Friend("Gaston"); Thread t1 = new Thread(() -> { alphonse.bow(gaston); }); t1.setName("Alphonse bows to Gaston"); t1.start(); Thread t2 = new Thread(() -> { gaston.bow(alphonse); }); t2.setName("Gaston bows to Alphonse"); t2.start(); } } In the above code, it's extremely likely that both threads will block when they attempt to invoke bowBack. Neither block will ever end, because each thread is waiting for the other to exit bow. Note: As you can see, it really helps to use "Thread.setName", everywhere, wherever you're creating a Thread in your code, since the tools in the IDE become a lot more meaningful when you've defined the name of the thread because otherwise the Profiler will be forced to use thread names like "thread-5" and "thread-6", i.e., based on the order of the threads, which is kind of meaningless. (Normally, except in a simple demo scenario like the above, you're not starting the threads in the same class, so you have no idea at all what "thread-5" and "thread-6" mean because you don't know the order in which the threads were started.) Slightly more compact: Thread t1 = new Thread(() -> { alphonse.bow(gaston); },"Alphonse bows to Gaston"); t1.start(); Thread t2 = new Thread(() -> { gaston.bow(alphonse); },"Gaston bows to Alphonse"); t2.start();

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• QR Code encoding and decoding using zxing

  - by helixed

  Okay, so I'm going to take the off chance that someone here has used zxing before. I'm developing a Java application, and one of the things it needs to do is encode a byte array of data into a QR Code and then decode it at a later time. Here's an example of what my encoder looks like: byte[] b = {0x48, 0x45, 0x4C, 0x4C, 0x4F}; //convert the byte array into a UTF-8 string String data; try { data = new String(b, "UTF8"); } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) { //the program shouldn't be able to get here return; } //get a byte matrix for the data ByteMatrix matrix; com.google.zxing.Writer writer = new QRCodeWriter(); try { matrix = writer.encode(data, com.google.zxing.BarcodeFormat.QR_CODE, width, height); } catch (com.google.zxing.WriterException e) { //exit the method return; } //generate an image from the byte matrix int width = matrix.getWidth(); int height = matrix.getHeight(); byte[][] array = matrix.getArray(); //create buffered image to draw to BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(width, height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB); //iterate through the matrix and draw the pixels to the image for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) { for (int x = 0; x < width; x++) { int grayValue = array[y][x] & 0xff; image.setRGB(x, y, (grayValue == 0 ? 0 : 0xFFFFFF)); } } //write the image to the output stream ImageIO.write(image, "png", outputStream); The beginning byte array in this code is just used to test it. The actual byte data will be varied. Here's what my decoder looks like: //get the data from the input stream BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(inputStream); //convert the image to a binary bitmap source LuminanceSource source = new BufferedImageLuminanceSource(image); BinaryBitmap bitmap = new BinaryBitmap(new HybridBinarizer(source)); //decode the barcode QRCodeReader reader = new QRCodeReader(); Result result; try { result = reader.decode(bitmap, hints); } catch (ReaderException e) { //the data is improperly formatted throw new MCCDatabaseMismatchException(); } byte[] b = result.getRawBytes(); System.out.println(ByteHelper.convertUnsignedBytesToHexString(result.getText().getBytes("UTF8"))); System.out.println(ByteHelper.convertUnsignedBytesToHexString(b)); convertUnsignedBytesToHexString(byte) is a method which converts an array of bytes in a string of hexadecimal characters. When I try to run these two blocks of code together, this is the output: 48454c4c4f 202b0b78cc00ec11ec11ec11ec11ec11ec11ec Clearly the text is being encoded, but the actual bytes of data are completely off. Any help would be appreciated here. Thanks, helixed

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• jQuery AutoComplete select firing after change?

  - by Zarigani

  I'm using the jQuery UI AutoComplete control (just updated to jQuery UI 1.8.1). Whenever the user leaves the text box, I want to set the contents of the text box to a known-good value and set a hidden ID field for the value that was selected. Additionally, I want the page to post back when the contents of the text box are changed. Currently, I am implementing this by having the autocomplete select event set the hidden id and then a change event on the text box which sets the textbox value and, if necessary, causes a post back. If the user just uses the keyboard, this works perfectly. You can type, use the up and down arrows to select a value and then tab to exit. The select event fires, the id is set and then the change event fires and the page posts back. If the user starts typing and then uses the mouse to pick from the autocomplete options though, the change event fires (as focus shifts to the autocomplete menu?) and the page posts back before the select event has a chance to set the ID. Is there a way to get the change event to not fire until after the select event, even when a mouse is used? $(function() { var txtAutoComp_cache = {}; var txtAutoComp_current = { label: $('#txtAutoComp').val(), id: $('#hiddenAutoComp_ID').val() }; $('#txtAutoComp').change(function() { if (this.value == '') { txtAutoComp_current = null; } if (txtAutoComp_current) { this.value = txtAutoComp_current.label ? txtAutoComp_current.label : txtAutoComp_current; $('#hiddenAutoComp_ID').val(txtAutoComp_current.id ? txtAutoComp_current.id : txtAutoComp_current); } else { this.value = ''; $('#hiddenAutoComp_ID').val(''); } // Postback goes here }); $('#txtAutoComp').autocomplete({ source: function(request, response) { var jsonReq = '{ "prefixText": "' + request.term.replace('\\', '\\\\').replace('"', '\\"') + '", "count": 0 }'; if (txtAutoComp_cache.req == jsonReq && txtAutoComp_cache.content) { response(txtAutoComp_cache.content); return; } $.ajax({ url: 'ajaxLookup.asmx/CatLookup', contentType: 'application/json; charset=utf-8', dataType: 'json', data: jsonReq, type: 'POST', success: function(data) { txtAutoComp_cache.req = jsonReq; txtAutoComp_cache.content = data.d; response(data.d); if (data.d && data.d[0]) { txtAutoComp_current = data.d[0]; } } }); }, select: function(event, ui) { if (ui.item) { txtAutoComp_current = ui.item; } $('#hiddenAutoComp_ID').val(ui.item ? ui.item.id : ''); } }); });

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• Stop lazy loading or skip loading a property in NHibernate? Proxy cannot be serialized through WCF

  - by HelloSam

  Consider I have a parent, child relationship class and mapping. I am using NHibernate to read the object from the database, and intended to use WCF to send the object across the wire. Goal For reading the parent object, I want to selectively, at different execution path, decide when I would want to load the child object. Because I don't want to read more than what I needed. Those partially loaded object must be able to sent through WCF. When I mean I don't load it, neither side will access such property. Problem When such partially loaded object is being sent through WCF, as those property is marked as [DataContract], it cannot be serialized as the property is lazy load proxy instead of real known type. What I want to archive, or solution that I can think of lazy=false or lazy=true doesn't work. Former will eagerly fetch all the relationships, latter will create a proxy. But I want nothing instead - a null would be the best. I don't need lazy load. I hope to get a null for those references that I don't want to fetch. A null, but not just a proxy. This will makes WCF happy, and waste less time to have a lazy-load proxy constructed. Like could I have a null proxy factory? -OR- Or making WCF ignoring those property that's a proxy instead of real. I tried the IDataContractSurrogate solution, but only parent is passed to GetObjectToSerialize, I never observe an proxy being passed through GetObjectToSerialize, leaving no chance to un-proxy it. Edit After reading the comments, more surfing on the Internet... It seems to me that DTO would shift major part of the computation to the server side. But for the project I am working on, 50% of time the client is "smarter" than the server and the server is more like a data store with validation and verification. Though I agree the server is not exactly dumb - I have to decide when to fetch the extra references already, and DTO will make this very explicit. Maybe I should just take the pain. I didn't know http://automapper.codeplex.com/ before, this motivates me a little more to take the pain. On the other hand, I found http://trentacular.com/2009/08/how-to-use-nhibernate-lazy-initializing-proxies-with-web-services-or-wcf/, which seems to be working with IDataContractSurrogate.GetObjectToSerialize.

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• Debugging Messaging Exception

  - by rizza

  We have a batch program that incorporates JavaMail 1.2 that sends emails. In our development environment, we haven't got the chance to encounter the above mentioned exception. But in the client's environment, they had experienced this a lot of times with the following error trace: javax.mail.MessagingException: 550 Requested action not taken: NUL characters are not allowed. at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.issueCommand (SMTPTransport.java: 879) at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.finishData (SMTPTransport.java: 820) at com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport.sendMessage (SMTPTransport.java: 322) ... I'm not sure if this is connected to my problem, http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4697158. But trying JavaMail 1.4.2, I see that the content transfer encoding of the email is still 7bit, so I'm not sure if using JavaMail 1.4.2 could solve the problem. Please take note that I could only do testing in our development environment that hasn't been able to replicate this. With the above exception, how would i know if this is from the sender or the receiver side? What debugging steps could you suggest? EDIT: Here is a DEBUG of the actual sending (masked some information): DEBUG: not loading system providers in &lt;java.home&gt;</a>/lib DEBUG: not loading optional custom providers file: /META-INF/javamail.providers DEBUG: successfully loaded default providers DEBUG: Tables of loaded providers DEBUG: Providers Listed By Class Name: {com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport=javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imap,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,pop3,com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store,Sun Microsystems, Inc]} DEBUG: Providers Listed By Protocol: {imap=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,imap,com.sun.mail.imap.IMAPStore,Sun Microsystems, Inc], pop3=javax.mail.Provider[STORE,pop3,com.sun.mail.pop3.POP3Store,Sun Microsystems, Inc], smtp=javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc]} DEBUG: not loading optional address map file: /META-INF/javamail.address.map DEBUG: getProvider() returning javax.mail.Provider[TRANSPORT,smtp,com.sun.mail.smtp.SMTPTransport,Sun Microsystems, Inc] DEBUG SMTP: useEhlo true, useAuth false DEBUG: SMTPTransport trying to connect to host "nnn.nnn.n.nnn", port nn DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 220 xxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx SMTP; Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:18:57 +0800 DEBUG: SMTPTransport connected to host "nnn.nnn.n.nnn", port: nn DEBUG SMTP SENT: EHLO xxxxxxxxx DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250 xxxx.xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx Hello DEBUG SMTP: use8bit false DEBUG SMTP SENT: MAIL FROM:<a href="newmsg.cgi?mbx=Main&[email protected]">&lt;[email protected]&gt;</a> DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250 <a href="newmsg.cgi?mbx=Main&[email protected]">&lt;[email protected]&gt;</a>... Sender ok DEBUG SMTP SENT: RCPT TO:&lt;[email protected]&gt; DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 250 &lt;[email protected]&gt;... Recipient ok Verified Addresses &nbsp;&nbsp;[email protected] DEBUG SMTP SENT: DATA DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 354 Enter mail, end with "." on a line by itself DEBUG SMTP SENT: . DEBUG SMTP RCVD: 550 Requested action not taken: NUL characters are not allowed.

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• Detecting 'stealth' web-crawlers

  - by Jacco

  What options are there to detect web-crawlers that do not want to be detected? (I know that listing detection techniques will allow the smart stealth-crawler programmer to make a better spider, but I do not think that we will ever be able to block smart stealth-crawlers anyway, only the ones that make mistakes.) I'm not talking about the nice crawlers such as googlebot and Yahoo! Slurp. I consider a bot nice if it: identifies itself as a bot in the user agent string reads robots.txt (and obeys it) I'm talking about the bad crawlers, hiding behind common user agents, using my bandwidth and never giving me anything in return. There are some trapdoors that can be constructed updated list (thanks Chris, gs): Adding a directory only listed (marked as disallow) in the robots.txt, Adding invisible links (possibly marked as rel="nofollow"?), style="display: none;" on link or parent container placed underneath another element with higher z-index detect who doesn't understand CaPiTaLiSaTioN, detect who tries to post replies but always fail the Captcha. detect GET requests to POST-only resources detect interval between requests detect order of pages requested detect who (consistently) requests https resources over http detect who does not request image file (this in combination with a list of user-agents of known image capable browsers works surprisingly nice) Some traps would be triggered by both 'good' and 'bad' bots. you could combine those with a whitelist: It trigger a trap It request robots.txt? It doest not trigger another trap because it obeyed robots.txt One other important thing here is: Please consider blind people using a screen readers: give people a way to contact you, or solve a (non-image) Captcha to continue browsing. What methods are there to automatically detect the web crawlers trying to mask themselves as normal human visitors. Update The question is not: How do I catch every crawler. The question is: How can I maximize the chance of detecting a crawler. Some spiders are really good, and actually parse and understand html, xhtml, css javascript, VB script etc... I have no illusions: I won't be able to beat them. You would however be surprised how stupid some crawlers are. With the best example of stupidity (in my opinion) being: cast all URLs to lower case before requesting them. And then there is a whole bunch of crawlers that are just 'not good enough' to avoid the various trapdoors.

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• RuntimeBinderException with dynamic in C# 4.0

  - by Terence Lewis

  I have an interface: public abstract class Authorizer<T> where T : RequiresAuthorization { public AuthorizationStatus Authorize(T record) { // Perform authorization specific stuff // and then hand off to an abstract method to handle T-specific stuff // that should happen when authorization is successful } } Then, I have a bunch of different classes which all implement RequiresAuthorization, and correspondingly, an Authorizer<T> for each of them (each business object in my domain requires different logic to execute once the record has been authorized). I'm also using a UnityContainer, in which I register various Authorizer<T>'s. I then have some code as follows to find the right record out of the database and authorize it: void Authorize(RequiresAuthorization item) { var dbItem = ChildContainer.Resolve<IAuthorizationRepository>() .RetrieveRequiresAuthorizationById(item.Id); var authorizerType = type.GetType(String.Format("Foo.Authorizer`1[[{0}]], Foo", dbItem.GetType().AssemblyQualifiedName)); dynamic authorizer = ChildContainer.Resolve(type) as dynamic; authorizer.Authorize(dbItem); } Basically, I'm using the Id on the object to retrieve it out of the database. In the background NHibernate takes care of figuring out what type of RequiresAuthorization it is. I then want to find the right Authorizer for it (I don't know at compile time what implementation of Authorizer<T> I need, so I've got a little bit of reflection to get the fully qualified type). To accomplish this, I use the non-generic overload of UnityContainer's Resolve method to look up the correct authorizer from configuration. Finally, I want to call Authorize on the authorizer, passing through the object I've gotten back from NHibernate. Now, for the problem: In Beta2 of VS2010 the above code works perfectly. On RC and RTM, as soon as I make the Authorize() call, I get a RuntimeBinderException saying "The best overloaded method match for 'Foo.Authorizer<Bar>.Authorize(Bar)' has some invalid arguments". When I inspect the authorizer in the debugger, it's the correct type. When I call GetType().GetMethods() on it, I can see the Authorize method which takes a Bar. If I do GetType() on dbItem it is a Bar. Because this worked in Beta2 and not in RC, I assumed it was a regression (it seems like it should work) and I delayed sorting it out until after I'd had a chance to test it on the RTM version of C# 4.0. Now I've done that and the problem still persists. Does anybody have any suggestions to make this work? Thanks Terence

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• Using 32bit COM object from C# or VBS on Vista 64bit and getting error 80004005

  - by alexandroid

  I need some mind reading here, since I am trying to do what I do not completely understand. There is a 32-bit application (electronic trading application called CQG) which provides a COM API for external access. I have sample programs and scripts which access this API from Excel, .NET (C++, VB and C#) and shell VBScript. I have these .NET applications as source code and as compiled executables (32-bit, compiled on Windows XP). Now I have Windows Vista Home 64-bit which makes my head to spin. Excel examples work just fine (in Excel 2003). Compiled .NET sample executables work as well. But when I am trying to run .NET C# sample converted to and compiled by Visual Studio C# Expression, or run the VBScript script, I am getting error 80004005 when trying to create an object. Initially the .NET application also gave me 80040154 but then I figured how to make it produce 32-bit code and not 64-bit, so now the errors in C# and VBScript applications are the same. That's all the progress I got for now. And yes, I tried running 32-bit versions of cscript.exe/WScript from SysWOW64 folder on my VBS, but still the result is the same (80004005). How to solve this problem? I am almost ready to believe it is practically impossible, but the fact that Excel VBA works and .NET executables compiled on Windows XP run just fine just makes me angry. There should be a way to beat this thing (some secret which probably only Windows Vista developers know)! I will appreciate any help! PS: I believe code samples do not make much sense here, but this is the line of VBScript which fails: Set CEL = WScript.CreateObject("CQG.CQGCEL.4.0", "CEL_") And this is C#: CQGCEL CEL = new CQGCEL(); Update: Forgot to say UAC is off, of course. And I am working from account with administrator priviledges. I also tried watching which registry keys are read using Process Monitor but everything looks OK for GUIDs of this object. I could not recognize some other GUIDs so I am not sure whether they were critical or not. Is there a chance that this COM object uses Internet Explorer and gets the wrong one (like Internet Explorer 7 instead of Internet Explorer 6 engine or something)?

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• How much abstraction is too much?

  - by Daniel Bingham

  In an Object Oriented Program: How much abstraction is too much? How much is just right? I have always been a nuts and bolts kind of guy. I understood the concept behind high levels of encapsulation and abstraction, but always felt instinctively that adding too much would just confuse the program. I always tried to shoot for an amount of abstraction that left no empty classes or layers. And where in doubt, instead of adding a new layer to the hierarchy, I would try and fit something into the existing layers. However, recently I've been encountering more highly abstracted systems. Systems where everything that could require a representation later in the hierarchy gets one up front. This leads to a lot of empty layers, which at first seems like bad design. However, on second thought I've come to realize that leaving those empty layers gives you more places to hook into in the future with out much refactoring. It leaves you greater ability to add new functionality on top of the old with out doing nearly as much work to adjust the old. The two risks of this seem to be that you could get the layers you need wrong. In this case one would wind up still needing to do substantial refactoring to extend the code and would still have a ton of never used layers. But depending on how much time you spend coming up with the initial abstractions, the chance of screwing it up, and the time that could be saved later if you get it right - it may still be worth it to try. The other risk I can think of is the risk of over doing it and never needing all the extra layers. But is that really so bad? Are extra class layers really so expensive that it is much of a loss if they are never used? The biggest expense and loss here would be time that is lost up front coming up with the layers. But much of that time still might be saved later when one can work with the abstracted code rather than more low level code. So when is it too much? At what point do the empty layers and extra "might need" abstractions become overkill? How little is too little? Where's the sweet spot? Are there any dependable rules of thumb you've found in the course of your career that help you judge the amount of abstraction needed?

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• Jruby Gems-in-a-jar issue

  - by antonio

  Hi all, I am trying to write some code in ruby (using jruby) to be compiled to java bytecode with jrubyc and deployed to a remote machine where it will be run on the JVM (no ruby available there). Everything works fine as long as I am happy to stick with the standard jruby library. As explained on the jruby website, I simply copy the jruby-complete.jar library to the remote machine and include it in the classpath at runtime. I fire my compiled script and it works: cool! The problems start when I need some other libraries (typically rubygems) to run my script. I am aware of cool stuff like rawr, -which I successfully tested- to put together all you need in a single package. However that is not the solution I am looking for: I will have many small scripts to run independently and I don't want each of them to grow to at least 10 MB just because I insanely include the jruby-complete.jar in each of them. What I would like is to compile a .jar for each of the libraries that I will need to use, put all of them in a common folder on the remote machine and include them at runtime in the classpath when I run my compiled jruby scripts on the JVM. This said, I tried to follow the instructions here: http://blog.nicksieger.com/articles/2009/01/10/jruby-1-1-6-gems-in-a-jar I tried exactly the example shown there, with the "chronic" gem. Going step by step: Install the gem locally: java -jar jruby-complete-1.1.6.jar -S gem install -i ./chronic chronic --no-rdoc --no-ri Package it into a jar: jar cf chronic.jar -C chronic . Write a two lines test script, saving it as testt.rb: require 'chronic' Chronic.parse('tomorrow') Compile with: jrubyc testt.rb Run the resulting java class testt.class with the following (having both jruby-complete.jar and chronic.jar in the same folder as the java class): java -cp .:/jruby-complete.jar:./chronic.jar testt I get the following error: Exception in thread "main" file:/Users/ave2/NetBeansProjects/jrubywatir/lib/jruby-complete.jar!/METAINF/jruby.home/lib/ruby/site_ruby/shared/builtin/core_ext/symbol.rb:1:in `const_missing': uninitialized constant Chronic (NameError) from testt.rb:2 ...internal jruby stack elided... from Module.const_missing(testt.rb:2) from (unknown).(unknown)(:1) I really don't understand what I am doing wrong, and I am totally stuck on this. I am a noob in Ruby, much more used to Python: don't miss a chance to convert an infidel! :-) Thanks.

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• Add objects to association in OnPreInsert, OnPreUpdate

  - by Dmitriy Nagirnyak

  Hi, I have an event listener (for Audit Logs) which needs to append audit log entries to the association of the object: public Company : IAuditable { // Other stuff removed for bravety IAuditLog IAuditable.CreateEntry() { var entry = new CompanyAudit(); this.auditLogs.Add(entry); return entry; } public virtual IEnumerable<CompanyAudit> AuditLogs { get { return this.auditLogs } } } The AuditLogs collection is mapped with cascading: public class CompanyMap : ClassMap<Company> { public CompanyMap() { // Id and others removed fro bravety HasMany(x => x.AuditLogs).AsSet() .LazyLoad() .Access.ReadOnlyPropertyThroughCamelCaseField() .Cascade.All(); } } And the listener just asks the auditable object to create log entries so it can update them: internal class AuditEventListener : IPreInsertEventListener, IPreUpdateEventListener { public bool OnPreUpdate(PreUpdateEvent ev) { var audit = ev.Entity as IAuditable; if (audit == null) return false; Log(audit); return false; } public bool OnPreInsert(PreInsertEvent ev) { var audit = ev.Entity as IAuditable; if (audit == null) return false; Log(audit); return false; } private static void LogProperty(IAuditable auditable) { var entry = auditable.CreateAuditEntry(); entry.CreatedAt = DateTime.Now; entry.Who = GetCurrentUser(); // Might potentially execute a query. // Also other information is set for entry here } } The problem with it though is that it throws TransientObjectException when commiting the transaction: NHibernate.TransientObjectException : object references an unsaved transient instance - save the transient instance before flushing. Type: CompanyAudit, Entity: CompanyAudit at NHibernate.Engine.ForeignKeys.GetEntityIdentifierIfNotUnsaved(String entityName, Object entity, ISessionImplementor session) at NHibernate.Type.EntityType.GetIdentifier(Object value, ISessionImplementor session) at NHibernate.Type.ManyToOneType.NullSafeSet(IDbCommand st, Object value, Int32 index, Boolean[] settable, ISessionImplementor session) at NHibernate.Persister.Collection.AbstractCollectionPersister.WriteElement(IDbCommand st, Object elt, Int32 i, ISessionImplementor session) at NHibernate.Persister.Collection.AbstractCollectionPersister.PerformInsert(Object ownerId, IPersistentCollection collection, IExpectation expectation, Object entry, Int32 index, Boolean useBatch, Boolean callable, ISessionImplementor session) at NHibernate.Persister.Collection.AbstractCollectionPersister.Recreate(IPersistentCollection collection, Object id, ISessionImplementor session) at NHibernate.Action.CollectionRecreateAction.Execute() at NHibernate.Engine.ActionQueue.Execute(IExecutable executable) at NHibernate.Engine.ActionQueue.ExecuteActions(IList list) at NHibernate.Engine.ActionQueue.ExecuteActions() at NHibernate.Event.Default.AbstractFlushingEventListener.PerformExecutions(IEventSource session) at NHibernate.Event.Default.DefaultFlushEventListener.OnFlush(FlushEvent event) at NHibernate.Impl.SessionImpl.Flush() at NHibernate.Transaction.AdoTransaction.Commit() As the cascading is set to All I expected NH to handle this. I also tried to modify the collection using state but pretty much the same happens. So the question is what is the last chance to modify object's associations before it gets saved? Thanks, Dmitriy.

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• Reproduce PIPE functionality in IronPython

  - by Muppet Geoff

  Hi, I am hoping some genious out there can help me out with this... I am using sox to merge and resample a group of WAV files, and pipe the output directly to the input of NeroAACEnc for encoding to AAC format. I originally ran the process in a script, which included: sox.exe d:\audio\1.wav d:\audio\2.wav d:\audio\3.wav -c 1 -r 22050 -t wav - | neroAacEnc.exe -q 0.5 -if - -of test.m4a This worked as expected. The '-' in the comand line translates as 'Pipe/redirect input/output (stdin/stdout)' - So Sox pipes to stdout, and NeroAACEnc reads from stdin, the | joins them together. I then migrated the whole solution to Python, and the equivalent command became: from subprocess import call, Popen, PIPE runwav = Popen(['sox.exe', 'd:\audio\1.wav', 'd:\audio\2.wav', 'd:\audio\3.wav', '-c', '1', '-r', '22050', '-t', 'wav', '-'], shell=False, stdout=PIPE) runm4b = call(['neroAacEnc.exe', '-q', '0.5', '-if', '-', '-of', 'test.m4a'], shell=False, stdin=runwav.stdout) This also worked like a charm, exactly as expected. Slightly more convoluted, but hey :) Well now I have to move it to IronPython, and the Subprocess module isn't available (the partial implementation that is, doesn't have Popen/PIPE support - plus it seems silly to add a custom library when there is probably a native alternative). I should mention here, that I opted for IronPython over C#, because I am comfortable with Python now - however, there is a chance of moving it again later to C# native, and I am using IronPython to ease myself into it :) I have no C# or .net experience. So far I have the following equivalent, that sets up the 2 processes: from System.Diagnostics import Process wav = Process() wav.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = False wav.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = True wav.StartInfo.FileName = 'sox.exe' wav.StartInfo.Arguments = 'd:\audio\1.wav d:\audio\2.wav d:\audio\3.wav -c 1 -r 22050 -t wav -' wav.Start() m4b = Process() m4b.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = False m4b.StartInfo.RedirectStandardInput = True m4b.StartInfo.FileName = 'neroAacEnc.exe' m4b.StartInfo.Arguments = '-q 0.5 -if - -of test.m4a' m4b.Start() I know that these 2 processes start (I can see Nero and Sox in the task manager) but what I can't figure out (for the life of me) is how to string the two output/input streams together, as with the previous two solutions. I have searched and searched, so I thought I'd ask! If anyone knows either: How to join the two streams with the same net result as the Python and Commandline versions; or A better way to acheive what I am trying to do. I would be extremely grateful! Many thanks in advance, Geoff P.S. A code sample based off the above would be awesome :) or a specific code example of a similar process that I can easily translate... this has broked my brayne.

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• how to organise my abstraction?

  - by DaveM

  I have a problem that I can't decide how to best handle, so I'm asking for advice. Please bear with me if my question isn't clear, it is possiblybecause I'm not sure exacly how to solve! I have a set of function that I have in a class. These function are a set of lowest commonality. To be able to run this I need to generate certain info. But this info can arrive with my class from one of 2 routes. I'll try to summarise my situation.... Lets say that I have a class as follows. public class onHoliday(){ private Object modeOfTravel; private Object location; public onHoliday(Object vehicle, Location GPScoords) { private boolean haveFun(){//function to have fun, needs 4 people }//end haveFun() } } Lets imagine I can get to my holiday either by car or by bike. my haveFun() function is dependant my type of vehicle. But only loosely. I have another function that determines my vehicle type, and extracts the required values. for example if I send a car I may get 4 people in one go, but if I send I bike I need at least 2 to get the required 4 I have currently 2 options: Overload my constructor, so as I can send either 2 bikes or a single car into it, then I can call one of 2 intermediate functions (to get the names of my 4 people for instance) before I haveFun() - this is what I am currently doing. split the 2 constructors into 2 separate classes, and repeat my haveFun() in a third class, that becomes an object of my 2 other classes. my problem with this is that my intermediate functions are all but a few lines of code, and I don't want to have them in a separate file! (I allways put classes in separate files!) Please note, my haveFun() isn't something that I'm going to need outside of these 2 classes, or even being onHoliday (ie. there is no chance of me doing some haveFun() over a weekend or of an evening!). I have though about putting haveFun() into an interface, but it seems a bit worthless having an interface with only a single method! Even then I would have to have the method in both of the classes -one for bike and another for car! I have thought about having my onHoliday class accepting any object type, but then I don't want someone accidentally sending in a boat to my onHoliday class (imagine I can't swim, so its not about to happen). It may be important to note that my onHoliday class is package private, and final. It in fact is only accessed via other 'private methods' in other classes, and has only private methods itself. Thanks in advance. David

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• Parallel.For System.OutOfMemoryException

  - by Martin Neal

  We have a fairly simple program that's used for creating backups. I'm attempting to parallelize it but am getting an OutofMemoryException within an AggregateExcption. Some of the source folders are quite large, and the program doesn't crash for about 40 minutes after it starts. I don't know where to start looking so the below code is a near exact dump of all code the code sans directory structure and Exception logging code. Any advise as to where to start looking? using System; using System.Diagnostics; using System.IO; using System.Threading.Tasks; namespace SelfBackup { class Program { static readonly string[] saSrc = { "\\src\\dir1\\", //... "\\src\\dirN\\", //this folder is over 6 GB }; static readonly string[] saDest = { "\\dest\\dir1\\", //... "\\dest\\dirN\\", }; static void Main(string[] args) { Parallel.For(0, saDest.Length, i => { try { if (Directory.Exists(sDest)) { //Delete directory first so old stuff gets cleaned up Directory.Delete(sDest, true); } //recursive function clsCopyDirectory.copyDirectory(saSrc[i], sDest); } catch (Exception e) { //standard error logging CL.EmailError(); } }); } } /////////////////////////////////////// using System.IO; using System.Threading.Tasks; namespace SelfBackup { static class clsCopyDirectory { static public void copyDirectory(string Src, string Dst) { Directory.CreateDirectory(Dst); /* Copy all the files in the folder If and when .NET 4.0 is installed, change Directory.GetFiles to Directory.Enumerate files for slightly better performance.*/ Parallel.ForEach<string>(Directory.GetFiles(Src), file => { /* An exception thrown here may be arbitrarily deep into this recursive function there's also a good chance that if one copy fails here, so too will other files in the same directory, so we don't want to spam out hundreds of error e-mails but we don't want to abort all together. Instead, the best solution is probably to throw back up to the original caller of copy directory an move on to the next Src/Dst pair by not catching any possible exception here.*/ File.Copy(file, //src Path.Combine(Dst, Path.GetFileName(file)), //dest true);//bool overwrite }); //Call this function again for every directory in the folder. Parallel.ForEach(Directory.GetDirectories(Src), dir => { copyDirectory(dir, Path.Combine(Dst, Path.GetFileName(dir))); }); } }

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