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• How to display a JSON error message?

  - by Tiny Giant Studios

  I'm currently developing a tumblr theme and have built a jQuery JSON thingamabob that uses the Tumblr API to do the following: The user would click on the "post type" link (e.g. Video Posts), at which stage jQuery would use JSON to grab all the posts that's related to that type and then dynamically display them in a designated area. Now everything works absolutely peachy, except that with Tumblr being Tumblr and their servers taking a knock every now and then, the Tumblr API thingy is sometimes offline. Now I can't foresee when this function will be down, which is why I want to display some generic error message if JSON (for whatever reason) was unable to load the post. You'll see I've already written some code to show an error message when jQuery can't find any posts related to that post type BUT it doesn't cover any server errors. Note: I sometimes get this error: Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 503 (Service Temporarily Unavailable) It is for this 503 Error message that I need to write some code, but I'm slightly clueless :) Here's the jQuery JSON code: $('ul.right li').find('a').click(function() { var postType = this.className; var count = 0; byCategory(postType); return false; function byCategory(postType, callback) { $.getJSON('{URL}/api/read/json?type=' + postType + '&callback=?', function(data) { var article = []; $.each(data.posts, function(i, item) { // i = index // item = data for a particular post switch(item.type) { case 'photo': article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="photo" style="padding-bottom:5px;">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/XSTldh6ds/photo_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a>' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}"><img src="' + item['photo-url-500'] + '"alt="image" /></a></div></div>'; count = 1; break; case 'video': article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="video" style="padding-bottom:5px;">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon">' + '<img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/nuSldhclv/video_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a>' + '<span style="margin: auto;">' + item['video-player'] + '</span>' + '</div></div>'; count = 1; break; case 'audio': if (use_IE == true) { article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="regular">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/R50ldh5uj/audio_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a>' + '<h3><a href="' + item.url + '">' + item['id3-artist'] +' - ' + item['id3-title'] + '</a></h3>' + '</div></div>'; } else { article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="regular">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/R50ldh5uj/audio_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a>' + '<h3><a href="' + item.url + '">' + item['id3-artist'] +' - ' + item['id3-title'] + '</a></h3><div class="player">' + item['audio-player'] + '</div>' + '</div></div>'; }; count = 1; break; case 'regular': article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="regular">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/dwxldhck1/regular_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a><h3><a href="' + item.url + '">' + item['regular-title'] + '</a></h3><div class="description_container">' + item['regular-body'] + '</div></div></div>'; count = 1; break; case 'quote': article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="quote">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/loEldhcpr/quote_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a><blockquote><h3><a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}">' + item['quote-text'] + '</a></h3></blockquote><cite>- ' + item['quote-source'] + '</cite></div></div>'; count = 1; break; case 'conversation': article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="chat">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/MVuldhcth/conversation_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a><h3><a href="' + item.url + '">' + item['conversation-title'] + '</a></h3></div></div>'; count = 1; break; case 'link': article[i] = '<div class="post_wrap"><div class="link">' + '<a href="' + item.url + '" title="{Title}" class="type_icon"><img src="http://static.tumblr.com/ewjv7ap/EQGldhc30/link_icon.png" alt="type_icon"/></a><h3><a href="' + item['link-url'] + '" target="_blank">' + item['link-text'] + '</a></h3></div></div>'; count = 1; break; default: alert('No Entries Found.'); }; }) // end each if (!(count == 0)) { $('#content_right') .hide('fast') .html('<div class="first_div"><span class="left_corner"></span><span class="right_corner"></span><h2>Displaying ' + postType + ' Posts Only</h2></div>' + article.join('')) .slideDown('fast') } else { $('#content_right') .hide('fast') .html('<div class="first_div"><span class="left_corner"></span><span class="right_corner"></span><h2>Hmmm, currently there are no ' + postType + ' posts to display</h2></div>') .slideDown('fast') } // end getJSON }); // end byCategory } }); If you'd like to see the demo in action, check out Elegantem but do note that everything might work absolutely fine for you (or not), depending on Tumblr's temperament.

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• What is the fastest cyclic synchronization in Java (ExecutorService vs. CyclicBarrier vs. X)?

  - by Alex Dunlop

  Which Java synchronization construct is likely to provide the best performance for a concurrent, iterative processing scenario with a fixed number of threads like the one outlined below? After experimenting on my own for a while (using ExecutorService and CyclicBarrier) and being somewhat surprised by the results, I would be grateful for some expert advice and maybe some new ideas. Existing questions here do not seem to focus primarily on performance, hence this new one. Thanks in advance! The core of the app is a simple iterative data processing algorithm, parallelized to the spread the computational load across 8 cores on a Mac Pro, running OS X 10.6 and Java 1.6.0_07. The data to be processed is split into 8 blocks and each block is fed to a Runnable to be executed by one of a fixed number of threads. Parallelizing the algorithm was fairly straightforward, and it functionally works as desired, but its performance is not yet what I think it could be. The app seems to spend a lot of time in system calls synchronizing, so after some profiling I wonder whether I selected the most appropriate synchronization mechanism(s). A key requirement of the algorithm is that it needs to proceed in stages, so the threads need to sync up at the end of each stage. The main thread prepares the work (very low overhead), passes it to the threads, lets them work on it, then proceeds when all threads are done, rearranges the work (again very low overhead) and repeats the cycle. The machine is dedicated to this task, Garbage Collection is minimized by using per-thread pools of pre-allocated items, and the number of threads can be fixed (no incoming requests or the like, just one thread per CPU core). V1 - ExecutorService My first implementation used an ExecutorService with 8 worker threads. The program creates 8 tasks holding the work and then lets them work on it, roughly like this: // create one thread per CPU executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool( 8 ); ... // now process data in cycles while( ...) { // package data into 8 work items ... // create one Callable task per work item ... // submit the Callables to the worker threads executorService.invokeAll( taskList ); } This works well functionally (it does what it should), and for very large work items indeed all 8 CPUs become highly loaded, as much as the processing algorithm would be expected to allow (some work items will finish faster than others, then idle). However, as the work items become smaller (and this is not really under the program's control), the user CPU load shrinks dramatically: blocksize | system | user | cycles/sec 256k 1.8% 85% 1.30 64k 2.5% 77% 5.6 16k 4% 64% 22.5 4096 8% 56% 86 1024 13% 38% 227 256 17% 19% 420 64 19% 17% 948 16 19% 13% 1626 Legend: - block size = size of the work item (= computational steps) - system = system load, as shown in OS X Activity Monitor (red bar) - user = user load, as shown in OS X Activity Monitor (green bar) - cycles/sec = iterations through the main while loop, more is better The primary area of concern here is the high percentage of time spent in the system, which appears to be driven by thread synchronization calls. As expected, for smaller work items, ExecutorService.invokeAll() will require relatively more effort to sync up the threads versus the amount of work being performed in each thread. But since ExecutorService is more generic than it would need to be for this use case (it can queue tasks for threads if there are more tasks than cores), I though maybe there would be a leaner synchronization construct. V2 - CyclicBarrier The next implementation used a CyclicBarrier to sync up the threads before receiving work and after completing it, roughly as follows: main() { // create the barrier barrier = new CyclicBarrier( 8 + 1 ); // create Runable for thread, tell it about the barrier Runnable task = new WorkerThreadRunnable( barrier ); // start the threads for( int i = 0; i < 8; i++ ) { // create one thread per core new Thread( task ).start(); } while( ... ) { // tell threads about the work ... // N threads + this will call await(), then system proceeds barrier.await(); // ... now worker threads work on the work... // wait for worker threads to finish barrier.await(); } } class WorkerThreadRunnable implements Runnable { CyclicBarrier barrier; WorkerThreadRunnable( CyclicBarrier barrier ) { this.barrier = barrier; } public void run() { while( true ) { // wait for work barrier.await(); // do the work ... // wait for everyone else to finish barrier.await(); } } } Again, this works well functionally (it does what it should), and for very large work items indeed all 8 CPUs become highly loaded, as before. However, as the work items become smaller, the load still shrinks dramatically: blocksize | system | user | cycles/sec 256k 1.9% 85% 1.30 64k 2.7% 78% 6.1 16k 5.5% 52% 25 4096 9% 29% 64 1024 11% 15% 117 256 12% 8% 169 64 12% 6.5% 285 16 12% 6% 377 For large work items, synchronization is negligible and the performance is identical to V1. But unexpectedly, the results of the (highly specialized) CyclicBarrier seem MUCH WORSE than those for the (generic) ExecutorService: throughput (cycles/sec) is only about 1/4th of V1. A preliminary conclusion would be that even though this seems to be the advertised ideal use case for CyclicBarrier, it performs much worse than the generic ExecutorService. V3 - Wait/Notify + CyclicBarrier It seemed worth a try to replace the first cyclic barrier await() with a simple wait/notify mechanism: main() { // create the barrier // create Runable for thread, tell it about the barrier // start the threads while( ... ) { // tell threads about the work // for each: workerThreadRunnable.setWorkItem( ... ); // ... now worker threads work on the work... // wait for worker threads to finish barrier.await(); } } class WorkerThreadRunnable implements Runnable { CyclicBarrier barrier; @NotNull volatile private Callable<Integer> workItem; WorkerThreadRunnable( CyclicBarrier barrier ) { this.barrier = barrier; this.workItem = NO_WORK; } final protected void setWorkItem( @NotNull final Callable<Integer> callable ) { synchronized( this ) { workItem = callable; notify(); } } public void run() { while( true ) { // wait for work while( true ) { synchronized( this ) { if( workItem != NO_WORK ) break; try { wait(); } catch( InterruptedException e ) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } // do the work ... // wait for everyone else to finish barrier.await(); } } } Again, this works well functionally (it does what it should). blocksize | system | user | cycles/sec 256k 1.9% 85% 1.30 64k 2.4% 80% 6.3 16k 4.6% 60% 30.1 4096 8.6% 41% 98.5 1024 12% 23% 202 256 14% 11.6% 299 64 14% 10.0% 518 16 14.8% 8.7% 679 The throughput for small work items is still much worse than that of the ExecutorService, but about 2x that of the CyclicBarrier. Eliminating one CyclicBarrier eliminates half of the gap. V4 - Busy wait instead of wait/notify Since this app is the primary one running on the system and the cores idle anyway if they're not busy with a work item, why not try a busy wait for work items in each thread, even if that spins the CPU needlessly. The worker thread code changes as follows: class WorkerThreadRunnable implements Runnable { // as before final protected void setWorkItem( @NotNull final Callable<Integer> callable ) { workItem = callable; } public void run() { while( true ) { // busy-wait for work while( true ) { if( workItem != NO_WORK ) break; } // do the work ... // wait for everyone else to finish barrier.await(); } } } Also works well functionally (it does what it should). blocksize | system | user | cycles/sec 256k 1.9% 85% 1.30 64k 2.2% 81% 6.3 16k 4.2% 62% 33 4096 7.5% 40% 107 1024 10.4% 23% 210 256 12.0% 12.0% 310 64 11.9% 10.2% 550 16 12.2% 8.6% 741 For small work items, this increases throughput by a further 10% over the CyclicBarrier + wait/notify variant, which is not insignificant. But it is still much lower-throughput than V1 with the ExecutorService. V5 - ? So what is the best synchronization mechanism for such a (presumably not uncommon) problem? I am weary of writing my own sync mechanism to completely replace ExecutorService (assuming that it is too generic and there has to be something that can still be taken out to make it more efficient). It is not my area of expertise and I'm concerned that I'd spend a lot of time debugging it (since I'm not even sure my wait/notify and busy wait variants are correct) for uncertain gain. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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• Why do I get "unsupported architecture" errors trying to install a Python library in OSX?

  - by Emma518

  I am trying to install a Python library in the Presto package, source http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~sransom/presto/ Using 'gmake fftfit' I get the following error: cd fftfit_src ; f2py-2.7 -c fftfit.pyf *.f running build running config_cc unifing config_cc, config, build_clib, build_ext, build commands --compiler options running config_fc unifing config_fc, config, build_clib, build_ext, build commands --fcompiler options running build_src build_src building extension "fftfit" sources creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7 f2py options: [] f2py: fftfit.pyf Reading fortran codes... Reading file 'fftfit.pyf' (format:free) Post-processing... Block: fftfit Block: cprof Block: fftfit Post-processing (stage 2)... Building modules... Building module "fftfit"... Constructing wrapper function "cprof"... c,amp,pha = cprof(y,[nmax,nh]) Constructing wrapper function "fftfit"... shift,eshift,snr,esnr,b,errb,ngood = fftfit(prof,s,phi,[nmax]) Wrote C/API module "fftfit" to file "/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64- 2.7/fftfitmodule.c" adding '/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7/fortranobject.c' to sources. adding '/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7' to include_dirs. copying /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/numpy-1.8.2-py2.7-macosx-10.9- intel.egg/numpy/f2py/src/fortranobject.c -> /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7 copying /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/numpy-1.8.2-py2.7-macosx-10.9-intel.egg/numpy/f2py/src/fortranobject.h -> /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7 build_src: building npy-pkg config files running build_ext customize UnixCCompiler customize UnixCCompiler using build_ext customize Gnu95FCompiler Found executable /usr/local/bin/gfortran customize Gnu95FCompiler customize Gnu95FCompiler using build_ext building 'fftfit' extension compiling C sources C compiler: /usr/bin/clang -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -arch ppc -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -O2 creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders/sx creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h00 00gp/T creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h00 00gp/T/tmp9MmLz8 creating /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h00 00gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7 compile options: '-I/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9- x86_64-2.7 -I/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/numpy-1.8.2-py2.7-macosx-10.9- intel.egg/numpy/core/include - I/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7 -c' clang: /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64- 2.7/fftfitmodule.c In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:19: In file included from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/clang/ 5.1/include/limits.h:38: In file included from /usr/include/limits.h:63: /usr/include/sys/cdefs.h:658:2: error: Unsupported architecture #error Unsupported architecture ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:19: In file included from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/clang/ 5.1/include/limits.h:38: In file included from /usr/include/limits.h:64: /usr/include/machine/limits.h:8:2: error: architecture not supported #error architecture not supported ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:67: In file included from /usr/include/_types.h:27: In file included from /usr/include/sys/_types.h:33: /usr/include/machine/_types.h:34:2: error: architecture not supported #error architecture not supported ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:67: In file included from /usr/include/_types.h:27: /usr/include/sys/_types.h:94:9: error: unknown type name '__int64_t' typedef __int64_t __darwin_blkcnt_t; /* total blocks */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:95:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_blksize_t; /* preferred block size */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:96:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_dev_t; /* dev_t */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:99:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_gid_t; /* [???] process and group IDs */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:100:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_id_t; /* [XSI] pid_t, uid_t, or gid_t*/ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:101:9: error: unknown type name '__uint64_t' typedef __uint64_t __darwin_ino64_t; /* [???] Used for 64 bit inodes */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:107:9: error: unknown type name '__darwin_natural_t' typedef __darwin_natural_t __darwin_mach_port_name_t; /* Used by mach */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:109:9: error: unknown type name '__uint16_t' typedef __uint16_t __darwin_mode_t; /* [???] Some file attributes */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:110:9: error: unknown type name '__int64_t' typedef __int64_t __darwin_off_t; /* [???] Used for file sizes */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:111:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_pid_t; /* [???] process and group IDs */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:131:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_sigset_t; /* [???] signal set */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:132:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_suseconds_t; /* [???] microseconds */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:133:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_uid_t; /* [???] user IDs */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:134:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_useconds_t; /* [???] microseconds */ ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:71: /usr/include/sys/_types/_va_list.h:31:9: error: unknown type name '__darwin_va_list'; did you mean '__builtin_va_list'? typedef __darwin_va_list va_list; ^ note: '__builtin_va_list' declared here In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:72: /usr/include/sys/_types/_size_t.h:30:9: error: unknown type name '__darwin_size_t'; did you mean '__darwin_ino_t'? typedef __darwin_size_t size_t; ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:103:26: note: '__darwin_ino_t' declared here typedef __darwin_ino64_t __darwin_ino_t; /* [???] Used for inodes */ ^ fatal error: too many errors emitted, stopping now [-ferror-limit=] 20 errors generated. In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:19: In file included from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/clang/5.1/include/limits.h:38: In file included from /usr/include/limits.h:63: /usr/include/sys/cdefs.h:658:2: error: Unsupported architecture #error Unsupported architecture ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:19: In file included from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/../lib/clang/ 5.1/include/limits.h:38: In file included from /usr/include/limits.h:64: /usr/include/machine/limits.h:8:2: error: architecture not supported #error architecture not supported ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:67: In file included from /usr/include/_types.h:27: In file included from /usr/include/sys/_types.h:33: /usr/include/machine/_types.h:34:2: error: architecture not supported #error architecture not supported ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:67: In file included from /usr/include/_types.h:27: /usr/include/sys/_types.h:94:9: error: unknown type name '__int64_t' typedef __int64_t __darwin_blkcnt_t; /* total blocks */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:95:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_blksize_t; /* preferred block size */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:96:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_dev_t; /* dev_t */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:99:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_gid_t; /* [???] process and group IDs */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:100:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_id_t; /* [XSI] pid_t, uid_t, or gid_t*/ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:101:9: error: unknown type name '__uint64_t' typedef __uint64_t __darwin_ino64_t; /* [???] Used for 64 bit inodes */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:107:9: error: unknown type name '__darwin_natural_t' typedef __darwin_natural_t __darwin_mach_port_name_t; /* Used by mach */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:109:9: error: unknown type name '__uint16_t' typedef __uint16_t __darwin_mode_t; /* [???] Some file attributes */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:110:9: error: unknown type name '__int64_t' typedef __int64_t __darwin_off_t; /* [???] Used for file sizes */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:111:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_pid_t; /* [???] process and group IDs */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:131:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_sigset_t; /* [???] signal set */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:132:9: error: unknown type name '__int32_t' typedef __int32_t __darwin_suseconds_t; /* [???] microseconds */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:133:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_uid_t; /* [???] user IDs */ ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:134:9: error: unknown type name '__uint32_t' typedef __uint32_t __darwin_useconds_t; /* [???] microseconds */ ^ In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:71: /usr/include/sys/_types/_va_list.h:31:9: error: unknown type name '__darwin_va_list'; did you mean '__builtin_va_list'? typedef __darwin_va_list va_list; ^ note: '__builtin_va_list' declared here In file included from /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c:16: In file included from /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7/Python.h:33: In file included from /usr/include/stdio.h:72: /usr/include/sys/_types/_size_t.h:30:9: error: unknown type name '__darwin_size_t'; did you mean '__darwin_ino_t'? typedef __darwin_size_t size_t; ^ /usr/include/sys/_types.h:103:26: note: '__darwin_ino_t' declared here typedef __darwin_ino64_t __darwin_ino_t; /* [???] Used for inodes */ ^ fatal error: too many errors emitted, stopping now [-ferror-limit=] 20 errors generated. error: Command "/usr/bin/clang -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -arch ppc -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -g -O2 -I/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx- 10.9-x86_64-2.7 -I/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/numpy-1.8.2-py2.7-macosx-10.9- intel.egg/numpy/core/include - I/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7 -c /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.c -o /var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h0000gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/var/folders/sx/j_l_qvys4bv00_38pfvy3m8h00 00gp/T/tmp9MmLz8/src.macosx-10.9-x86_64-2.7/fftfitmodule.o" failed with exit status 1 Makefile:5: recipe for target 'fftfit' failed gmake: *** [fftfit] Error 1 How can I solve this architecture problem?

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• BSOD Before Windows Will Loads - Graphics Related

  - by Brian

  Alright deep breath here: (Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit btw) Today I installed Star Craft 2 Beta. After trying to log in, it had some issues where it said my device stopped working (referring to my video device I have to imagine). After I force quit the game there were some random "hot" (various colors if i remember correctly) pixels on the screen. I decided to reboot and try again with similar results. I figured that maybe my display drivers could stand to be updated (I don't frequently update them as I don't often run into problems). I went out to nVidia's website and grabbed the latest drivers for Windows 7 64 bit GeForce 9 series. (I have SLi-ed 9800 GTs). Everything seemed to install fine and I performed the restart. This is when things went from bad (can't play SC2 beta ;) ) to worse (can't boot into windows!). Initially the very first splash screen - I think it's the bios splash screen - had lines of colored pixels covering it. It then displayed a screen that had lots of "(" on it. After that it showed the normal windows 7 splash screen as if it were going to load into Windows. Before getting much further, it BSODed on me. It was a 0x0000003B stop error. At nvlddmkm.sys. A little digging let verified that this was a problem with an nVidia graphics device, not a real shocker. Windows decided it would try to help me diagnose the problem, which it's only answer to was a System Restore, which did nothing to alleviate the problem. I was able to boot up fine in safe mode and was not able to roll back the driver, however I did uninstall the driver and reboot. I still had the graphical anomalies during the first two screens (same colored "."'s and weird "("'s), but there was NOT a stop error. Windows loaded up, found a default driver for the device and installed it and I restarted to let it load - and had yet another BSOD Stop error. Repeat driver uninstall, this time I reloaded the same version (I think it's possible that I was running a 32 bit version or a vista versus windows 7 version, but I don't have that information handy) of the nVidia driver from their website. Restart, same anomalies, same Stop Error. I am at a loss - At this point all I can think is that the firmware for the Video cards got fried or there's actual damage to the cards which I sincerely hope is not the case but the sooner I know the better. Any insight into what I might be able to do to troubleshoot/fix this problem would be most helpful. Attached below is a dump from DxDiag. Please let me know if there is more info that I could provide. ------------------ System Information ------------------ Time of this report: 3/18/2010, 23:22:48 Machine name: BRIAN-PC Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_rtm.090713-1255) Language: English (Regional Setting: English) System Manufacturer: Dell Inc System Model: XPS 630i BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q8200 @ 2.33GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.3GHz Memory: 8192MB RAM Available OS Memory: 8190MB RAM Page File: 1855MB used, 14521MB available Windows Dir: C:\Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 11 DX Setup Parameters: Not found User DPI Setting: Using System DPI System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled DxDiag Version: 6.01.7600.16385 32bit Unicode DxDiag Previously: Crashed in DirectShow (stage 1). Re-running DxDiag with "dontskip" command line parameter or choosing not to bypass information gathering when prompted might result in DxDiag successfully obtaining this information ------------ DxDiag Notes ------------ Display Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 2: No problems found. Sound Tab 3: No problems found. Input Tab: No problems found. -------------------- DirectX Debug Levels -------------------- Direct3D: 0/4 (retail) DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail) DirectInput: 0/5 (retail) DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail) DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail) DirectSound: 0/5 (retail) DirectShow: 0/6 (retail) --------------- Display Devices --------------- Card name: Manufacturer: Chip type: DAC type: Device Key: Enum\ Display Memory: n/a Dedicated Memory: n/a Shared Memory: n/a Current Mode: 1600 x 1200 (32 bit) (1Hz) Driver Name: Driver File Version: () Driver Version: DDI Version: unknown Driver Model: unknown Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: , 0 bytes WHQL Logo'd: n/a WHQL Date Stamp: n/a Device Identifier: {D7B70EE0-4340-11CF-B123-B03DAEC2CB35} Vendor ID: 0x0000 Device ID: 0x0000 SubSys ID: 0x00000000 Revision ID: 0x0000 Driver Strong Name: Unknown Rank Of Driver: Unknown Video Accel: Deinterlace Caps: n/a D3D9 Overlay: n/a DXVA-HD: n/a DDraw Status: Not Available D3D Status: Not Available AGP Status: Not Available ------------- Sound Devices ------------- Description: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio) Default Sound Playback: Yes Default Voice Playback: Yes Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0888&SUBSYS_10280249&REV_1001 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 100 Type: WDM Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5667 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: n/a Date and Size: 8/18/2008 04:05:28, 1485592 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Realtek Semiconductor Corp. HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0x0 Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No Description: Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio) Default Sound Playback: No Default Voice Playback: No Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0888&SUBSYS_10280249&REV_1001 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 100 Type: WDM Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5667 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: n/a Date and Size: 8/18/2008 04:05:28, 1485592 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Realtek Semiconductor Corp. HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0x0 Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No Description: Realtek HDMI Output (Realtek High Definition Audio) Default Sound Playback: No Default Voice Playback: No Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0888&SUBSYS_10280249&REV_1001 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 100 Type: WDM Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5667 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: n/a Date and Size: 8/18/2008 04:05:28, 1485592 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Realtek Semiconductor Corp. HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0x0 Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No --------------------- Sound Capture Devices --------------------- Description: Microphone (Realtek High Definition Audio) Default Sound Capture: Yes Default Voice Capture: Yes Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5667 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail Date and Size: 8/18/2008 04:05:28, 1485592 bytes Cap Flags: 0x0 Format Flags: 0x0 Description: Realtek Digital Input (Realtek High Definition Audio) Default Sound Capture: No Default Voice Capture: No Driver Name: RTKVHD64.sys Driver Version: 6.00.0001.5667 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail Date and Size: 8/18/2008 04:05:28, 1485592 bytes Cap Flags: 0x0 Format Flags: 0x0 ------------------- DirectInput Devices ------------------- Device Name: Mouse Attached: 1 Controller ID: n/a Vendor/Product ID: n/a FF Driver: n/a Device Name: Keyboard Attached: 1 Controller ID: n/a Vendor/Product ID: n/a FF Driver: n/a Device Name: ESA FW Update Attached: 1 Controller ID: 0x0 Vendor/Product ID: 0x0955, 0x000A FF Driver: n/a Poll w/ Interrupt: No ----------- USB Devices ----------- + USB Root Hub | Vendor/Product ID: 0x10DE, 0x026D | Matching Device ID: usb\root_hub | Service: usbhub | +-+ USB Input Device | | Vendor/Product ID: 0x0955, 0x000A | | Location: Port_#0002.Hub_#0001 | | Matching Device ID: generic_hid_device | | Service: HidUsb | | | +-+ HID-compliant device | | | Vendor/Product ID: 0x0955, 0x000A | | | Matching Device ID: hid_device | | +-+ USB Input Device | | Vendor/Product ID: 0x046D, 0xC01E | | Location: Port_#0003.Hub_#0001 | | Matching Device ID: generic_hid_device | | Service: HidUsb | | | +-+ HID-compliant mouse | | | Vendor/Product ID: 0x046D, 0xC01E | | | Matching Device ID: hid_device_system_mouse | | | Service: mouhid ---------------- Gameport Devices ---------------- ------------ PS/2 Devices ------------ + Standard PS/2 Keyboard | Matching Device ID: *pnp0303 | Service: i8042prt | + Terminal Server Keyboard Driver | Matching Device ID: root\rdp_kbd | Upper Filters: kbdclass | Service: TermDD | + Terminal Server Mouse Driver | Matching Device ID: root\rdp_mou | Upper Filters: mouclass | Service: TermDD ------------------------ Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives ------------------------ Drive: C: Free Space: 324.3 GB Total Space: 608.4 GB File System: NTFS Model: WDC WD64 00AAKS-75A7B SCSI Disk Device Drive: D: Free Space: 1.0 GB Total Space: 2.0 GB File System: NTFS Model: WDC WD64 00AAKS-75A7B SCSI Disk Device Drive: E: Model: TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-H653F SCSI CdRom Device Driver: c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, 6.01.7600.16385 (English), , 0 bytes -------------- System Devices -------------- Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B7&SUBSYS_000010DE&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&18 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03AF&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&0A Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard host CPU bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03A3&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A2\3&2411E6FE&1&00 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0267&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&78 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B6&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&10 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03AE&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&09 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0272&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&1&52 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0266&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&70 Driver: n/a Name: LSI 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_11C1&DEV_5811&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_70\4&14591D7E&0&2880 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B5&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&06 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03AD&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&08 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0270&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A2\3&2411E6FE&1&48 Driver: n/a Name: Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0265&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&68 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0605&SUBSYS_062D10DE&REV_A2\4&4BABE2A&0&0028 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B4&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&07 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03AC&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&01 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026F&SUBSYS_CB8410DE&REV_A2\3&2411E6FE&1&80 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA nForce PCI System Management Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0264&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&1&51 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0605&SUBSYS_062D10DE&REV_A2\4&10BD3C89&0&0018 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B3&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&0E Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03AB&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&04 Driver: n/a Name: Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026E&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&1&59 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard ISA bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0260&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&1&50 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03BC&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&11 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B2&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&0D Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03AA&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&02 Driver: n/a Name: Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026D&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&1&58 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03BA&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&12 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B1&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&0C Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03A9&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&03 Driver: n/a Name: High Definition Audio Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_026C&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A2\3&2411E6FE&1&81 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B8&SUBSYS_000010DE&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&28 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03B0&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A1\3&2411E6FE&1&0B Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard RAM Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_03A8&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A2\3&2411E6FE&1&05 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0269&SUBSYS_02491028&REV_A3\3&2411E6FE&1&A0 Driver: n/a --------------- EVR Power Information --------------- Current Setting: {5C67A112-A4C9-483F-B4A7-1D473BECAFDC} (Quality) Quality Flags: 2576 Enabled: Force throttling Allow half deinterlace Allow scaling Decode Power Usage: 100 Balanced Flags: 1424 Enabled: Force throttling Allow batching Force half deinterlace Force scaling Decode Power Usage: 50 PowerFlags: 1424 Enabled: Force throttling Allow batching Force half deinterlace Force scaling Decode Power Usage: 0

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• Can't seem to get C TCP Server-Client Communications Right

  - by Zeesponge

  Ok i need some serious help here. I have to make a TCP Server Client. When the Client connects to server using a three stage handshake. AFterwards... while the Client is running in the terminal, the user enters linux shell commands like xinput list, ls -1, ect... something that uses standard output. The server accepts the commands and uses system() (in a fork() in an infinite loop) to run the commands and the standard output is redirected to the client, where the client prints out each line. Afterward the server sends a completion signal of "\377\n". In which the client goes back to the command prompt asking for a new command and closes its connection and exit()'s when inputting "quit". I know that you have to dup2() both the STDOUT_FILENO and STDERR_FILENO to the clients file descriptor {dup2(client_FD, STDOUT_FILENO). Everything works accept when it comes for the client to retrieve system()'s stdout and printing it out... all i get is a blank line with a blinking cursor (client waiting on stdin). I tried all kinds of different routes with no avail... If anyone can help out i would greatly appreciate it TCP SERVER CODE include #include <sys/socket.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #include <netinet/in.h> #include <signal.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <errno.h> //Prototype void handle_client(int connect_fd); int main() { int server_sockfd, client_sockfd; socklen_t server_len, client_len; struct sockaddr_in server_address; struct sockaddr_in client_address; server_sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); server_address.sin_family = AF_INET; server_address.sin_addr.s_addr = htonl(INADDR_ANY); server_address.sin_port = htons(9734); server_len = sizeof(server_address); bind(server_sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&server_address, server_len); /* Create a connection queue, ignore child exit details and wait for clients. */ listen(server_sockfd, 10); signal(SIGCHLD, SIG_IGN); while(1) { printf("server waiting\n"); client_len = sizeof(client_address); client_sockfd = accept(server_sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&client_address, &client_len); if(fork() == 0) handle_client(client_sockfd); else close(client_sockfd); } } void handle_client(int connect_fd) { const char* remsh = "<remsh>\n"; const char* ready = "<ready>\n"; const char* ok = "<ok>\n"; const char* command = "<command>\n"; const char* complete = "<\377\n"; const char* shared_secret = "<shapoopi>\n"; static char server_msg[201]; static char client_msg[201]; static char commands[201]; int sys_return; //memset client_msg, server_msg, commands memset(&client_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); memset(&server_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); memset(&commands, 0, sizeof(commands)); //read remsh from client read(connect_fd, &client_msg, 200); //check remsh validity from client if(strcmp(client_msg, remsh) != 0) { errno++; perror("Error Establishing Handshake"); close(connect_fd); exit(1); } //memset client_msg memset(&client_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); //write remsh to client write(connect_fd, remsh, strlen(remsh)); //read shared_secret from client read(connect_fd, &client_msg, 200); //check shared_secret validity from client if(strcmp(client_msg, shared_secret) != 0) { errno++; perror("Invalid Security Passphrase"); write(connect_fd, "no", 2); close(connect_fd); exit(1); } //memset client_msg memset(&client_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); //write ok to client write(connect_fd, ok, strlen(ok)); // dup2 STDOUT_FILENO <= client fd, STDERR_FILENO <= client fd dup2(connect_fd, STDOUT_FILENO); dup2(connect_fd, STDERR_FILENO); //begin while... while read (client_msg) from server and >0 while(read(connect_fd, &client_msg, 200) > 0) { //check command validity from client if(strcmp(client_msg, command) != 0) { errno++; perror("Error, unable to retrieve data"); close(connect_fd); exit(1); } //memset client_msg memset(&client_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); //write ready to client write(connect_fd, ready, strlen(ready)); //read commands from client read(connect_fd, &commands, 200); //run commands using system( ) sys_return = system(commands); //check success of system( ) if(sys_return < 0) { perror("Invalid Commands"); errno++; } //memset commands memset(commands, 0, sizeof(commands)); //write complete to client write(connect_fd, complete, sizeof(complete)); } } TCP CLIENT CODE #include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/socket.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <string.h> #include <netinet/in.h> #include <arpa/inet.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <errno.h> #include "readline.c" int main(int argc, char *argv[]) { int sockfd; int len; struct sockaddr_in address; int result; const char* remsh = "<remsh>\n"; const char* ready = "<ready>\n"; const char* ok = "<ok>\n"; const char* command = "<command>\n"; const char* complete = "<\377\n"; const char* shared_secret = "<shapoopi>\n"; static char server_msg[201]; static char client_msg[201]; memset(&client_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); memset(&server_msg, 0, sizeof(server_msg)); /* Create a socket for the client. */ sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0); /* Name the socket, as agreed with the server. */ memset(&address, 0, sizeof(address)); address.sin_family = AF_INET; address.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(argv[1]); address.sin_port = htons(9734); len = sizeof(address); /* Now connect our socket to the server's socket. */ result = connect(sockfd, (struct sockaddr *)&address, len); if(result == -1) { perror("ACCESS DENIED"); exit(1); } //write remsh to server write(sockfd, remsh, strlen(remsh)); //read remsh from server read(sockfd, &server_msg, 200); //check remsh validity from server if(strcmp(server_msg, remsh) != 0) { errno++; perror("Error Establishing Initial Handshake"); close(sockfd); exit(1); } //memset server_msg memset(&server_msg, 0, sizeof(server_msg)); //write shared secret text to server write(sockfd, shared_secret, strlen(shared_secret)); //read ok from server read(sockfd, &server_msg, 200); //check ok velidity from server if(strcmp(server_msg, ok) != 0 ) { errno++; perror("Incorrect security phrase"); close(sockfd); exit(1); } //? dup2 STDIN_FILENO = server socket fd? //dup2(sockfd, STDIN_FILENO); //begin while(1)/////////////////////////////////////// while(1){ //memset both msg arrays memset(&client_msg, 0, sizeof(client_msg)); memset(&server_msg, 0, sizeof(server_msg)); //print Enter Command, scan input, fflush to stdout printf("<<Enter Command>> "); scanf("%s", client_msg); fflush(stdout); //check quit input, if true close and exit successfully if(strcmp(client_msg, "quit") == 0) { printf("Exiting\n"); close(sockfd); exit(EXIT_SUCCESS); } //write command to server write(sockfd, command, strlen(command)); //read ready from server read(sockfd, &server_msg, 200); //check ready validity from server if(strcmp(server_msg, ready) != 0) { errno++; perror("Failed Server Communications"); close(sockfd); exit(1); } //memset server_msg memset(&server_msg, 0, sizeof(server_msg)); //begin looping and retrieving from stdin, //break loop at EOF or complete while((read(sockfd, server_msg, 200) != 0) && (strcmp(server_msg, complete) != 0)) { //while((fgets(server_msg, 4096, stdin) != EOF) || (strcmp(server_msg, complete) == 0)) { printf("%s", server_msg); memset(&server_msg, 0, sizeof(server_msg)); } } }

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• SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• SQLAuthority News – TechEd India – April 12-14, 2010 Bangalore – An Unforgettable Experience – An Op

  - by pinaldave

  TechEd India was one of the largest Technology events in India led by Microsoft. This event was attended by more than 3,000 technology enthusiasts, making it one of the most well-organized events of the year. Though I attempted to attend almost all the technology events here, I have not seen any bigger or better event in Indian subcontinents other than this. There are 21 Technical Tracks at Tech·Ed India 2010 that span more than 745 learning opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this whole event as a speaker and a delegate, as well. TechEd India Speaker Badge and A Token of Lifetime Hotel Selection I presented three different sessions at TechEd India and was also a part of panel discussion. (The details of the sessions are given at the end of this blog post.) Due to extensive traveling, I stay away from my family occasionally. For this reason, I took my wife – Nupur and daughter Shaivi (8 months old) to the event along with me. We stayed at the same hotel where the event was organized so as to maximize my time bonding with my family and to have more time in networking with technology community, at the same time. The hotel Lalit Ashok is the largest and most luxurious venue one can find in Bangalore, located in the middle of the city. The cost of the hotel was a bit pricey, but looking at all the advantages, I had decided to ask for a booking there. Hotel Lalit Ashok Nupur Dave and Shaivi Dave Arrival Day – DAY 0 – April 11, 2010 I reached the event a day earlier, and that was one wise decision for I was able to relax a bit and go over my presentation for the next day’s course. I am a kind of person who likes to get everything ready ahead of time. I was also able to enjoy a pleasant evening with several Microsoft employees and my family friends. I even checked out the location where I would be doing presentations the next day. I was fortunate enough to meet Bijoy Singhal from Microsoft who helped me out with a few of the logistics issues that occured the day before. I was not aware of the fact that the very next day he was going to be “The Man” of the TechEd 2010 event. Vinod Kumar from Microsoft was really very kind as he talked to me regarding my subsequent session. He gave me some suggestions which were really helpful that I was able to incorporate them during my presentation. Finally, I was able to meet Abhishek Kant from Microsoft; his valuable suggestions and unlimited passion have inspired many people like me to work with the Community. Pradipta from Microsoft was also around, being extremely busy with logistics; however, in those busy times, he did find some good spare time to have a chat with me and the other Community leaders. I also met Harish Ranganathan and Sachin Rathi, both from Microsoft. It was so interesting to listen to both of them talking about SharePoint. I just have no words to express my overwhelmed spirit because of all these passionate young guys - Pradipta,Vinod, Bijoy, Harish, Sachin and Ahishek (of course!). Map of TechEd India 2010 Event Day 1 – April 12, 2010 From morning until night time, today was truly a very busy day for me. I had two presentations and one panel discussion for the day. Needless to say, I had a few meetings to attend as well. The day started with a keynote from S. Somaseger where he announced the launch of Visual Studio 2010. The keynote area was really eye-catching because of the very large, bigger-than- life uniform screen. This was truly one to show. The title music of the keynote was very interesting and it featured Bijoy Singhal as the model. It was interesting to talk to him afterwards, when we laughed at jokes together about his modeling assignment. TechEd India Keynote Opening Featuring Bijoy TechEd India 2010 Keynote – S. Somasegar Time: 11:15pm – 11:45pm Session 1: True Lies of SQL Server – SQL Myth Buster Following the excellent keynote, I had my very first session on the subject of SQL Server Myth Buster. At first, I was a bit nervous as right after the keynote, for this was my very first session and during my presentation I saw lots of Microsoft Product Team members. Well, it really went well and I had a really good discussion with attendees of the session. I felt that a well begin was half-done and my confidence was regained. Right after the session, I met a few of my Community friends and had meaningful discussions with them on many subjects. The abstract of the session is as follows: In this 30-minute demo session, I am going to briefly demonstrate few SQL Server Myths and their resolutions as I back them up with some demo. This demo presentation is a must-attend for all developers and administrators who would come to the event. This is going to be a very quick yet fun session. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Time: 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM Lunch with Somasegar After the session I went to see my daughter, and then I headed right away to the lunch with S. Somasegar – the keynote speaker and senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. I really thank to Abhishek who made it possible for us. Because of his efforts, all the MVPs had the opportunity to meet such a legendary person and had to talk with them on Microsoft Technology. Though Somasegar is currently holding such a high position in Microsoft, he is very polite and a real gentleman, and how I wish that everybody in industry is like him. Believe me, if you spread love and kindness, then that is what you will receive back. As soon as lunch time was over, I ran to the session hall as my second presentation was about to start. Time: 2:30pm – 3:30pm Session 2: Master Data Services in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Business Intelligence is a subject which was widely talked about at TechEd. Everybody was interested in this subject, and I did not excuse myself from this great concept as well. I consider myself fortunate as I was presenting on the subject of Master Data Services at TechEd. When I had initially learned this subject, I had a bit of confusion about the usage of this tool. Later on, I decided that I would tackle about how we all developers and DBAs are not able to understand something so simple such as this, and even worst, creating confusion about the technology. During system designing, it is very important to have a reference material or master lookup tables. Well, I talked about the same subject and presented the session keeping that as my center talk. The session went very well and I received lots of interesting questions. I got many compliments for talking about this subject on the real-life scenario. I really thank Rushabh Mehta (CEO, Solid Quality Mentors India) for his supportive suggestions that helped me prepare the slide deck, as well as the subject. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: SQL Server Master Data Services will ship with SQL Server 2008 R2 and will improve Microsoft’s platform appeal. This session provides an in-depth demonstration of MDS features and highlights important usage scenarios. Master Data Services enables consistent decision-making process by allowing you to create, manage and propagate changes from a single master view of your business entities. Also, MDS – Master Data-hub which is a vital component, helps ensure the consistency of reporting across systems and deliver faster and more accurate results across the enterprise. We will talk about establishing the basis for a centralized approach to defining, deploying, and managing master data in the enterprise. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The day was still not over for me. I had ran into several friends but we were not able keep our enthusiasm under control about all the rumors saying that SQL Server 2008 R2 was about to be launched tomorrow in the keynote. I then ran to my third and final technical event for the day- a panel discussion with the top technologies of India. Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm Panel Discussion: Harness the power of Web – SEO and Technical Blogging As I have delivered two technical sessions by this time, I was a bit tired but  not less enthusiastic when I had to talk about Blog and Technology. We discussed many different topics there. I told them that the most important aspect for any blog is its content. We discussed in depth the issues with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Another topic of discussion was how we technology bloggers can create awareness in the Community about what the right kind of blogging is and what morally and technically wrong acts are. A couple of questions were raised about what type of liberty a person can have in terms of writing blogs. Well, it was generically agreed that a blog is mainly a representation of our ideas and thoughts; it should not be governed by external entities. As long as one is writing what they really want to say, but not providing incorrect information or not practicing plagiarism, a blogger should be allowed to express himself. This panel discussion was supposed to be over in an hour, but the interest of the participants was remarkable and so it was extended for 30 minutes more. Finally, we decided to bring to a close the discussion and agreed that we will continue the topic next year. TechEd India Panel Discussion on Web, Technology and SEO Surprisingly, the day was just beginning after doing all of these. By this time, I have almost met all the MVP who arrived at the event, as well as many Microsoft employees. There were lots of Community folks present, too. I decided that I would go to meet several friends from the Community and continue to communicate with me on SQLAuthority.com. I also met Abhishek Baxi and had a good talk with him regarding Win Mobile and Twitter. He also took a very quick video of me wherein I spoke in my mother’s tongue, Gujarati. It was funny that I talked in Gujarati almost all the day, but when I was talking in the interview I could not find the right Gujarati words to speak. I think we all think in English when we think about Technology, so as to address universality. After meeting them, I headed towards the Speakers’ Dinner. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Speakers Dinner The Speakers’ dinner was indeed a wonderful opportunity for all the speakers to get together and relax. We talked so many different things, from XBOX to Hindi Movies, and from SQL to Samosas. I just could not express how much fun I had. After a long evening, when I returned tmy room and met Shaivi, I just felt instantly relaxed. Kids are really gifts from God. Today was a really long but exciting day. So many things happened in just one day: Visual Studio Lanch, lunch with Somasegar, 2 technical sessions, 1 panel discussion, community leaders meeting, speakers dinner and, last but not leas,t playing with my child! A perfect day! Day 2 – April 13, 2010 Today started with a bang with the excellent keynote by Kamal Hathi who launched SQL Server 2008 R2 in India and demonstrated the power of PowerPivot to all of us. 101 Million Rows in Excel brought lots of applause from the audience. Kamal Hathi Presenting Keynote at TechEd India 2010 The day was a bit easier one for me. I had no sessions today and no events planned. I had a few meetings planned for the second day of the event. I sat in the speaker’s lounge for half a day and met many people there. I attended nearly 9 different meetings today. The subjects of the meetings were very different. Here is a list of the topics of the Community-related meetings: SQL PASS and its involvement in India and subcontinents How to start community blogging Forums and developing aptitude towards technology Ahmedabad/Gandhinagar User Groups and their developments SharePoint and SQL Business Meeting – a client meeting Business Meeting – a potential performance tuning project Business Meeting – Solid Quality Mentors (SolidQ) And family friends Pinal Dave at TechEd India The day passed by so quickly during this meeting. In the evening, I headed to Partners Expo with friends and checked out few of the booths. I really wanted to talk about some of the products, but due to the freebies there was so much crowd that I finally decided to just take the contact details of the partner. I will now start sending them with my queries and, hopefully, I will have my questions answered. Nupur and Shaivi had also one meeting to attend; it was with our family friend Vijay Raj. Vijay is also a person who loves Technology and loves it more than anybody. I see him growing and learning every day, but still remaining as a ‘human’. I believe that if someone acquires as much knowledge as him, that person will become either a computer or cyborg. Here, Vijay is still a kind gentleman and is able to stay as our close family friend. Shaivi was really happy to play with Uncle Vijay. Pinal Dave and Vijay Raj Renuka Prasad, a Microsoft MVP, impressed me with his passion and knowledge of SQL. Every time he gives me credit for his success, I believe that he is very humble. He has way more certifications than me and has worked many more years with SQL compared to me. He is an excellent photographer as well. Most of the photos in this blog post have been taken by him. I told him if ever he wants to do a part time job, he can do the photography very well. Pinal Dave and Renuka Prasad I also met L Srividya from Microsoft, whom I was looking forward to meet. She is a bundle of knowledge that everyone would surely learn a lot from her. I was able to get a few minutes from her and well, I felt confident. She enlightened me with SQL Server BI concepts, domain management and SQL Server security and few other interesting details. I also had a wonderful time talking about SharePoint with fellow Solid Quality Mentor Joy Rathnayake. He is very passionate about SharePoint but when you talk .NET and SQL with him, he is still overwhelmingly knowledgeable. In fact, while talking to him, I figured out that the recent training he delivered was on SQL Server 2008 R2. I told him a joke that it hurts my ego as he is more popular now in SQL training and consulting than me. I am sure all of you agree that working with good people is a gift from God. I am fortunate enough to work with the best of the best Industry experts. It was a great pleasure to hang out with my Community friends – Ahswin Kini, HimaBindu Vejella, Vasudev G, Suprotim Agrawal, Dhananjay, Vikram Pendse, Mahesh Dhola, Mahesh Mitkari,  Manu Zacharia, Shobhan, Hardik Shah, Ashish Mohta, Manan, Subodh Sohani and Sanjay Shetty (of course!) .  (Please let me know if I have met you at the event and forgot your name to list here). Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Community Leaders Dinner After lots of meetings, I headed towards the Community Leaders dinner meeting and met almost all the folks I met in morning. The discussion was almost the same but the real good thing was that we were enjoying it. The food was really good. Nupur was invited in the event, but Shaivi could not come. When Nupur tried to enter the event, she was stopped as Shaivi did not have the pass to enter the dinner. Nupur expressed that Shaivi is only 8 months old and does not eat outside food as well and could not stay by herself at this age, but the door keeper did not agree and asked that without the entry details Shaivi could not go in, but Nupur could. Nupur called me on phone and asked me to help her out. By the time, I was outside; the organizer of the event reached to the door and happily approved Shaivi to join the party. Once in the party, Shaivi had lots of fun meeting so many people. Shaivi Dave and Abhishek Kant Dean Guida (Infragistics President and CEO) and Pinal Dave (SQLAuthority.com) Day 3 – April 14, 2010 Though, it was last day, I was very much excited today as I was about to present my very favorite session. Query Optimization and Performance Tuning is my domain expertise and I make my leaving by consulting and training the same. Today’s session was on the same subject and as an additional twist, another subject about Spatial Database was presented. I was always intrigued with Spatial Database and I have enjoyed learning about it; however, I have never thought about Spatial Indexing before it was decided that I will do this session. I really thank Solid Quality Mentor Dr. Greg Low for his assistance in helping me prepare the slide deck and also review the content. Furthermore, today was really what I call my ‘learning day’ . So far I had not attended any session in TechEd and I felt a bit down for that. Everybody spends their valuable time & money to learn something new and exciting in TechEd and I had not attended a single session at the moment thinking that it was already last day of the event. I did have a plan for the day and I attended two technical sessions before my session of spatial database. I attended 2 sessions of Vinod Kumar. Vinod is a natural storyteller and there was no doubt that his sessions would be jam-packed. People attended his sessions simply because Vinod is syhe speaker. He did not have a single time disappointed audience; he is truly a good speaker. He knows his stuff very well. I personally do not think that in India he can be compared to anyone for SQL. Time: 12:30pm-1:30pm SQL Server Query Optimization, Execution and Debugging Query Performance I really had a fun time attending this session. Vinod made this session very interactive. The entire audience really got into the presentation and started participating in the event. Vinod was presenting a small problem with Query Tuning, which any developer would have encountered and solved with their help in such a fashion that a developer feels he or she have already resolved it. In one question, I was the only one who was ready to answer and Vinod told me in a light tone that I am now allowed to answer it! The audience really found it very amusing. There was a huge crowd around Vinod after the session. Vinod – A master storyteller! Time: 3:45pm-4:45pm Data Recovery / consistency with CheckDB This session was much heavier than the earlier one, and I must say this is my most favorite session I EVER attended in India. In this TechEd I have only attended two sessions, but in my career, I have attended numerous technical sessions not only in India, but all over the world. This session had taken my breath away. One by one, Vinod took the different databases, and started to corrupt them in different ways. Each database has some unique ways to get corrupted. Once that was done, Vinod started to show the DBCC CEHCKDB and demonstrated how it can solve your problem. He finally fixed all the databases with this single tool. I do have a good knowledge of this subject, but let me honestly admit that I have learned a lot from this session. I enjoyed and cheered during this session along with other attendees. I had total satisfaction that, just like everyone, I took advantage of the event and learned something. I am now TECHnically EDucated. Pinal Dave and Vinod Kumar After two very interactive and informative SQL Sessions from Vinod Kumar, the next turn me presenting on Spatial Database and Indexing. I got once again nervous but Vinod told me to stay natural and do my presentation. Well, once I got a huge stage with a total of four projectors and a large crowd, I felt better. Time: 5:00pm-6:00pm Session 3: Developing with SQL Server Spatial and Deep Dive into Spatial Indexing Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 I kicked off this session with Michael J Swart‘s beautiful spatial image. This session was the last one for the day but, to my surprise, I had more than 200+ attendees. Slowly, the rain was starting outside and I was worried that the hall would not be full; despite this, there was not a single seat available in the first five minutes of the session. Thanks to all of you for attending my presentation. I had demonstrated the map of world (and India) and quickly explained what  Geographic and Geometry data types in Spatial Database are. This session had interesting story of Indexing and Comparison, as well as how different traditional indexes are from spatial indexing. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Due to the heavy rain during this event, the power went off for about 22 minutes (just an accident – nobodies fault). During these minutes, there were no audio, no video and no light. I continued to address the mass of 200+ people without any audio device and PowerPoint. I must thank the audience because not a single person left from the session. They all stayed in their place, some moved closure to listen to me properly. I noticed that the curiosity and eagerness to learn new things was at the peak even though it was the very last session of the TechEd. Everybody wanted get the maximum knowledge out of this whole event. I was touched by the support from audience. They listened and participated in my session even without any kinds of technology (no ppt, no mike, no AC, nothing). During these 22 minutes, I had completed my theory verbally. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 After a while, we got the projector back online and we continued with some exciting demos. Many thanks to Microsoft people who worked energetically in background to get the backup power for project up. I had a very interesting demo wherein I overlaid Bangalore and Hyderabad on the India Map and find their aerial distance between them. After finding the aerial distance, we browsed online and found that SQL Server estimates the exact aerial distance between these two cities, as compared to the factual distance. There was a huge applause from the crowd on the subject that SQL Server takes into the count of the curvature of the earth and finds the precise distances based on details. During the process of finding the distance, I demonstrated a few examples of the indexes where I expressed how one can use those indexes to find these distances and how they can improve the performance of similar query. I also demonstrated few examples wherein we were able to see in which data type the Index is most useful. We finished the demos with a few more internal stuff. Pinal Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 Despite all issues, I was mostly satisfied with my presentation. I think it was the best session I have ever presented at any conference. There was no help from Technology for a while, but I still got lots of appreciation at the end. When we ended the session, the applause from the audience was so loud that for a moment, the rain was not audible. I was truly moved by the dedication of the Technology enthusiasts. Pinal Dave After Presenting session at TechEd India 2010 The abstract of the session is as follows: The Microsoft SQL Server 2008 delivers new spatial data types that enable you to consume, use, and extend location-based data through spatial-enabled applications. Attend this session to learn how to use spatial functionality in next version of SQL Server to build and optimize spatial queries. This session outlines the new geography data type to store geodetic spatial data and perform operations on it, use the new geometry data type to store planar spatial data and perform operations on it, take advantage of new spatial indexes for high performance queries, use the new spatial results tab to quickly and easily view spatial query results directly from within Management Studio, extend spatial data capabilities by building or integrating location-enabled applications through support for spatial standards and specifications and much more. Time: 8:00 PM – onwards Dinner by Sponsors After the lively session during the day, there was another dinner party courtesy of one of the sponsors of TechEd. All the MVPs and several Community leaders were present at the dinner. I would like to express my gratitude to Abhishek Kant for organizing this wonderful event for us. It was a blast and really relaxing in all angles. We all stayed there for a long time and talked about our sweet and unforgettable memories of the event. Pinal Dave and Bijoy Singhal It was really one wonderful event. After writing this much, I say that I have no words to express about how much I enjoyed TechEd. However, it is true that I shared with you only 1% of the total activities I have done at the event. There were so many people I have met, yet were not mentioned here although I wanted to write their names here, too . Anyway, I have learned so many things and up until now, I am not able to get over all the fun I had in this event. Pinal Dave at TechEd India 2010 The Next Days – April 15, 2010 – till today I am still not able to get my mind out of the whole experience I had at TechEd India 2010. It was like a whole Microsoft Family working together to celebrate a happy occasion. TechEd India – Truly An Unforgettable Experience! Reference : Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, MVP, Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Author Visit, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology Tagged: TechEd, TechEdIn

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• Understanding Request Validation in ASP.NET MVC 3

  - by imran_ku07

       Introduction:             A fact that you must always remember "never ever trust user inputs". An application that trusts user inputs may be easily vulnerable to XSS, XSRF, SQL Injection, etc attacks. XSS and XSRF are very dangerous attacks. So to mitigate these attacks ASP.NET introduced request validation in ASP.NET 1.1. During request validation, ASP.NET will throw HttpRequestValidationException: 'A potentially dangerous XXX value was detected from the client', if he found, < followed by an exclamation(like <!) or < followed by the letters a through z(like <s) or & followed by a pound sign(like &#123) as a part of query string, posted form and cookie collection. In ASP.NET 4.0, request validation becomes extensible. This means that you can extend request validation. Also in ASP.NET 4.0, by default request validation is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. ASP.NET MVC 3 moves one step further by making request validation granular. This allows you to disable request validation for some properties of a model while maintaining request validation for all other cases. In this article I will show you the use of request validation in ASP.NET MVC 3. Then I will briefly explain the internal working of granular request validation.       Description:             First of all create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Then create a simple model class called MyModel,     public class MyModel { public string Prop1 { get; set; } public string Prop2 { get; set; } }             Then just update the index action method as follows,   public ActionResult Index(MyModel p) { return View(); }             Now just run this application. You will find that everything works just fine. Now just append this query string ?Prop1=<s to the url of this application, you will get the HttpRequestValidationException exception.           Now just decorate the Index action method with [ValidateInputAttribute(false)],   [ValidateInput(false)] public ActionResult Index(MyModel p) { return View(); }             Run this application again with same query string. You will find that your application run without any unhandled exception.           Up to now, there is nothing new in ASP.NET MVC 3 because ValidateInputAttribute was present in the previous versions of ASP.NET MVC. Any problem with this approach? Yes there is a problem with this approach. The problem is that now users can send html for both Prop1 and Prop2 properties and a lot of developers are not aware of it. This means that now everyone can send html with both parameters(e.g, ?Prop1=<s&Prop2=<s). So ValidateInput attribute does not gives you the guarantee that your application is safe to XSS or XSRF. This is the reason why ASP.NET MVC team introduced granular request validation in ASP.NET MVC 3. Let's see this feature.           Remove [ValidateInputAttribute(false)] on Index action and update MyModel class as follows,   public class MyModel { [AllowHtml] public string Prop1 { get; set; } public string Prop2 { get; set; } }             Note that AllowHtml attribute is only decorated on Prop1 property. Run this application again with ?Prop1=<s query string. You will find that your application run just fine. Run this application again with ?Prop1=<s&Prop2=<s query string, you will get HttpRequestValidationException exception. This shows that the granular request validation in ASP.NET MVC 3 only allows users to send html for properties decorated with AllowHtml attribute.            Sometimes you may need to access Request.QueryString or Request.Form directly. You may change your code as follows,   [ValidateInput(false)] public ActionResult Index() { var prop1 = Request.QueryString["Prop1"]; return View(); }             Run this application again, you will get the HttpRequestValidationException exception again even you have [ValidateInput(false)] on your Index action. The reason is that Request flags are still not set to unvalidate. I will explain this later. For making this work you need to use Unvalidated extension method,     public ActionResult Index() { var q = Request.Unvalidated().QueryString; var prop1 = q["Prop1"]; return View(); }             Unvalidated extension method is defined in System.Web.Helpers namespace . So you need to add using System.Web.Helpers; in this class file. Run this application again, your application run just fine.             There you have it. If you are not curious to know the internal working of granular request validation then you can skip next paragraphs completely. If you are interested then carry on reading.             Create a new ASP.NET MVC 2 application, then open global.asax.cs file and the following lines,     protected void Application_BeginRequest() { var q = Request.QueryString; }             Then make the Index action method as,    [ValidateInput(false)] public ActionResult Index(string id) { return View(); }             Please note that the Index action method contains a parameter and this action method is decorated with [ValidateInput(false)]. Run this application again, but now with ?id=<s query string, you will get HttpRequestValidationException exception at Application_BeginRequest method. Now just add the following entry in web.config,   <httpRuntime requestValidationMode="2.0"/>             Now run this application again. This time your application will run just fine. Now just see the following quote from ASP.NET 4 Breaking Changes,   In ASP.NET 4, by default, request validation is enabled for all requests, because it is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. As a result, request validation applies to requests for all ASP.NET resources, not just .aspx page requests. This includes requests such as Web service calls and custom HTTP handlers. Request validation is also active when custom HTTP modules are reading the contents of an HTTP request.             This clearly state that request validation is enabled before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request. For understanding what does enabled means here, we need to see HttpRequest.ValidateInput, HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form methods/properties in System.Web assembly. Here is the implementation of HttpRequest.ValidateInput, HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form methods/properties in System.Web assembly,     public NameValueCollection Form { get { if (this._form == null) { this._form = new HttpValueCollection(); if (this._wr != null) { this.FillInFormCollection(); } this._form.MakeReadOnly(); } if (this._flags[2]) { this._flags.Clear(2); this.ValidateNameValueCollection(this._form, RequestValidationSource.Form); } return this._form; } } public NameValueCollection QueryString { get { if (this._queryString == null) { this._queryString = new HttpValueCollection(); if (this._wr != null) { this.FillInQueryStringCollection(); } this._queryString.MakeReadOnly(); } if (this._flags[1]) { this._flags.Clear(1); this.ValidateNameValueCollection(this._queryString, RequestValidationSource.QueryString); } return this._queryString; } } public void ValidateInput() { if (!this._flags[0x8000]) { this._flags.Set(0x8000); this._flags.Set(1); this._flags.Set(2); this._flags.Set(4); this._flags.Set(0x40); this._flags.Set(0x80); this._flags.Set(0x100); this._flags.Set(0x200); this._flags.Set(8); } }             The above code indicates that HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form will only validate the querystring and form collection if certain flags are set. These flags are automatically set if you call HttpRequest.ValidateInput method. Now run the above application again(don't forget to append ?id=<s query string in the url) with the same settings(i.e, requestValidationMode="2.0" setting in web.config and Application_BeginRequest method in global.asax.cs), your application will run just fine. Now just update the Application_BeginRequest method as,   protected void Application_BeginRequest() { Request.ValidateInput(); var q = Request.QueryString; }             Note that I am calling Request.ValidateInput method prior to use Request.QueryString property. ValidateInput method will internally set certain flags(discussed above). These flags will then tells the Request.QueryString (and Request.Form) property that validate the query string(or form) when user call Request.QueryString(or Request.Form) property. So running this application again with ?id=<s query string will throw HttpRequestValidationException exception. Now I hope it is clear to you that what does requestValidationMode do. It just tells the ASP.NET that not invoke the Request.ValidateInput method internally before the BeginRequest phase of an HTTP request if requestValidationMode is set to a value less than 4.0 in web.config. Here is the implementation of HttpRequest.ValidateInputIfRequiredByConfig method which will prove this statement(Don't be confused with HttpRequest and Request. Request is the property of HttpRequest class),    internal void ValidateInputIfRequiredByConfig() { ............................................................... ............................................................... ............................................................... ............................................................... if (httpRuntime.RequestValidationMode >= VersionUtil.Framework40) { this.ValidateInput(); } }              Hopefully the above discussion will clear you how requestValidationMode works in ASP.NET 4. It is also interesting to note that both HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form only throws the exception when you access them first time. Any subsequent access to HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form will not throw any exception. Continuing with the above example, just update Application_BeginRequest method in global.asax.cs file as,   protected void Application_BeginRequest() { try { var q = Request.QueryString; var f = Request.Form; } catch//swallow this exception { } var q1 = Request.QueryString; var f1 = Request.Form; }             Without setting requestValidationMode to 2.0 and without decorating ValidateInput attribute on Index action, your application will work just fine because both HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form will clear their flags after reading HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form for the first time(see the implementation of HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form above).           Now let's see ASP.NET MVC 3 granular request validation internal working. First of all we need to see type of HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form properties. Both HttpRequest.QueryString and HttpRequest.Form properties are of type NameValueCollection which is inherited from the NameObjectCollectionBase class. NameObjectCollectionBase class contains _entriesArray, _entriesTable, NameObjectEntry.Key and NameObjectEntry.Value fields which granular request validation uses internally. In addition granular request validation also uses _queryString, _form and _flags fields, ValidateString method and the Indexer of HttpRequest class. Let's see when and how granular request validation uses these fields.           Create a new ASP.NET MVC 3 application. Then put a breakpoint at Application_BeginRequest method and another breakpoint at HomeController.Index method. Now just run this application. When the break point inside Application_BeginRequest method hits then add the following expression in quick watch window, System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString. You will see the following screen,                                              Now Press F5 so that the second breakpoint inside HomeController.Index method hits. When the second breakpoint hits then add the following expression in quick watch window again, System.Web.HttpContext.Current.Request.QueryString. You will see the following screen,                            First screen shows that _entriesTable field is of type System.Collections.Hashtable and _entriesArray field is of type System.Collections.ArrayList during the BeginRequest phase of the HTTP request. While the second screen shows that _entriesTable type is changed to Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicValidationHelper.LazilyValidatingHashtable and _entriesArray type is changed to Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicValidationHelper.LazilyValidatingArrayList during executing the Index action method. In addition to these members, ASP.NET MVC 3 also perform some operation on _flags, _form, _queryString and other members of HttpRuntime class internally. This shows that ASP.NET MVC 3 performing some operation on the members of HttpRequest class for making granular request validation possible.           Both LazilyValidatingArrayList and LazilyValidatingHashtable classes are defined in the Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly. You may wonder why their name starts with Lazily. The fact is that now with ASP.NET MVC 3, request validation will be performed lazily. In simple words, Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly is now taking the responsibility for request validation from System.Web assembly. See the below screens. The first screen depicting HttpRequestValidationException exception in ASP.NET MVC 2 application while the second screen showing HttpRequestValidationException exception in ASP.NET MVC 3 application.   In MVC 2:                 In MVC 3:                          The stack trace of the second screenshot shows that Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly (instead of System.Web assembly) is now performing request validation in ASP.NET MVC 3. Now you may ask: where Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly is performing some operation on the members of HttpRequest class. There are at least two places where the Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly performing some operation , Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicValidationHelper.GranularValidationReflectionUtil.GetInstance method and Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.DynamicValidationHelper.ValidationUtility.CollectionReplacer.ReplaceCollection method, Here is the implementation of these methods,   private static GranularValidationReflectionUtil GetInstance() { try { if (DynamicValidationShimReflectionUtil.Instance != null) { return null; } GranularValidationReflectionUtil util = new GranularValidationReflectionUtil(); Type containingType = typeof(NameObjectCollectionBase); string fieldName = "_entriesArray"; bool isStatic = false; Type fieldType = typeof(ArrayList); FieldInfo fieldInfo = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(containingType, fieldName, isStatic, fieldType); util._del_get_NameObjectCollectionBase_entriesArray = MakeFieldGetterFunc<NameObjectCollectionBase, ArrayList>(fieldInfo); util._del_set_NameObjectCollectionBase_entriesArray = MakeFieldSetterFunc<NameObjectCollectionBase, ArrayList>(fieldInfo); Type type6 = typeof(NameObjectCollectionBase); string str2 = "_entriesTable"; bool flag2 = false; Type type7 = typeof(Hashtable); FieldInfo info2 = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(type6, str2, flag2, type7); util._del_get_NameObjectCollectionBase_entriesTable = MakeFieldGetterFunc<NameObjectCollectionBase, Hashtable>(info2); util._del_set_NameObjectCollectionBase_entriesTable = MakeFieldSetterFunc<NameObjectCollectionBase, Hashtable>(info2); Type targetType = CommonAssemblies.System.GetType("System.Collections.Specialized.NameObjectCollectionBase+NameObjectEntry"); Type type8 = targetType; string str3 = "Key"; bool flag3 = false; Type type9 = typeof(string); FieldInfo info3 = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(type8, str3, flag3, type9); util._del_get_NameObjectEntry_Key = MakeFieldGetterFunc<string>(targetType, info3); Type type10 = targetType; string str4 = "Value"; bool flag4 = false; Type type11 = typeof(object); FieldInfo info4 = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(type10, str4, flag4, type11); util._del_get_NameObjectEntry_Value = MakeFieldGetterFunc<object>(targetType, info4); util._del_set_NameObjectEntry_Value = MakeFieldSetterFunc(targetType, info4); Type type12 = typeof(HttpRequest); string methodName = "ValidateString"; bool flag5 = false; Type[] argumentTypes = new Type[] { typeof(string), typeof(string), typeof(RequestValidationSource) }; Type returnType = typeof(void); MethodInfo methodInfo = CommonReflectionUtil.FindMethod(type12, methodName, flag5, argumentTypes, returnType); util._del_validateStringCallback = CommonReflectionUtil.MakeFastCreateDelegate<HttpRequest, ValidateStringCallback>(methodInfo); Type type = CommonAssemblies.SystemWeb.GetType("System.Web.HttpValueCollection"); util._del_HttpValueCollection_ctor = CommonReflectionUtil.MakeFastNewObject<Func<NameValueCollection>>(type); Type type14 = typeof(HttpRequest); string str6 = "_form"; bool flag6 = false; Type type15 = type; FieldInfo info6 = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(type14, str6, flag6, type15); util._del_get_HttpRequest_form = MakeFieldGetterFunc<HttpRequest, NameValueCollection>(info6); util._del_set_HttpRequest_form = MakeFieldSetterFunc(typeof(HttpRequest), info6); Type type16 = typeof(HttpRequest); string str7 = "_queryString"; bool flag7 = false; Type type17 = type; FieldInfo info7 = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(type16, str7, flag7, type17); util._del_get_HttpRequest_queryString = MakeFieldGetterFunc<HttpRequest, NameValueCollection>(info7); util._del_set_HttpRequest_queryString = MakeFieldSetterFunc(typeof(HttpRequest), info7); Type type3 = CommonAssemblies.SystemWeb.GetType("System.Web.Util.SimpleBitVector32"); Type type18 = typeof(HttpRequest); string str8 = "_flags"; bool flag8 = false; Type type19 = type3; FieldInfo flagsFieldInfo = CommonReflectionUtil.FindField(type18, str8, flag8, type19); Type type20 = type3; string str9 = "get_Item"; bool flag9 = false; Type[] typeArray4 = new Type[] { typeof(int) }; Type type21 = typeof(bool); MethodInfo itemGetter = CommonReflectionUtil.FindMethod(type20, str9, flag9, typeArray4, type21); Type type22 = type3; string str10 = "set_Item"; bool flag10 = false; Type[] typeArray6 = new Type[] { typeof(int), typeof(bool) }; Type type23 = typeof(void); MethodInfo itemSetter = CommonReflectionUtil.FindMethod(type22, str10, flag10, typeArray6, type23); MakeRequestValidationFlagsAccessors(flagsFieldInfo, itemGetter, itemSetter, out util._del_BitVector32_get_Item, out util._del_BitVector32_set_Item); return util; } catch { return null; } } private static void ReplaceCollection(HttpContext context, FieldAccessor<NameValueCollection> fieldAccessor, Func<NameValueCollection> propertyAccessor, Action<NameValueCollection> storeInUnvalidatedCollection, RequestValidationSource validationSource, ValidationSourceFlag validationSourceFlag) { NameValueCollection originalBackingCollection; ValidateStringCallback validateString; SimpleValidateStringCallback simpleValidateString; Func<NameValueCollection> getActualCollection; Action<NameValueCollection> makeCollectionLazy; HttpRequest request = context.Request; Func<bool> getValidationFlag = delegate { return _reflectionUtil.GetRequestValidationFlag(request, validationSourceFlag); }; Func<bool> func = delegate { return !getValidationFlag(); }; Action<bool> setValidationFlag = delegate (bool value) { _reflectionUtil.SetRequestValidationFlag(request, validationSourceFlag, value); }; if ((fieldAccessor.Value != null) && func()) { storeInUnvalidatedCollection(fieldAccessor.Value); } else { originalBackingCollection = fieldAccessor.Value; validateString = _reflectionUtil.MakeValidateStringCallback(context.Request); simpleValidateString = delegate (string value, string key) { if (((key == null) || !key.StartsWith("__", StringComparison.Ordinal)) && !string.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) { validateString(value, key, validationSource); } }; getActualCollection = delegate { fieldAccessor.Value = originalBackingCollection; bool flag = getValidationFlag(); setValidationFlag(false); NameValueCollection col = propertyAccessor(); setValidationFlag(flag); storeInUnvalidatedCollection(new NameValueCollection(col)); return col; }; makeCollectionLazy = delegate (NameValueCollection col) { simpleValidateString(col[null], null); LazilyValidatingArrayList array = new LazilyValidatingArrayList(_reflectionUtil.GetNameObjectCollectionEntriesArray(col), simpleValidateString); _reflectionUtil.SetNameObjectCollectionEntriesArray(col, array); LazilyValidatingHashtable table = new LazilyValidatingHashtable(_reflectionUtil.GetNameObjectCollectionEntriesTable(col), simpleValidateString); _reflectionUtil.SetNameObjectCollectionEntriesTable(col, table); }; Func<bool> hasValidationFired = func; Action disableValidation = delegate { setValidationFlag(false); }; Func<int> fillInActualFormContents = delegate { NameValueCollection values = getActualCollection(); makeCollectionLazy(values); return values.Count; }; DeferredCountArrayList list = new DeferredCountArrayList(hasValidationFired, disableValidation, fillInActualFormContents); NameValueCollection target = _reflectionUtil.NewHttpValueCollection(); _reflectionUtil.SetNameObjectCollectionEntriesArray(target, list); fieldAccessor.Value = target; } }             Hopefully the above code will help you to understand the internal working of granular request validation. It is also important to note that Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly invokes HttpRequest.ValidateInput method internally. For further understanding please see Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure assembly code. Finally you may ask: at which stage ASP NET MVC 3 will invoke these methods. You will find this answer by looking at the following method source,   Unvalidated extension method for HttpRequest class defined in System.Web.Helpers.Validation class. System.Web.Mvc.MvcHandler.ProcessRequestInit method. System.Web.Mvc.ControllerActionInvoker.ValidateRequest method. System.Web.WebPages.WebPageHttpHandler.ProcessRequestInternal method.       Summary:             ASP.NET helps in preventing XSS attack using a feature called request validation. In this article, I showed you how you can use granular request validation in ASP.NET MVC 3. I explain you the internal working of  granular request validation. Hope you will enjoy this article too.   SyntaxHighlighter.all()

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• Red Gate Coder interviews: Alex Davies

  - by Michael Williamson

  Alex Davies has been a software engineer at Red Gate since graduating from university, and is currently busy working on .NET Demon. We talked about tackling parallel programming with his actors framework, a scientific approach to debugging, and how JavaScript is going to affect the programming languages we use in years to come. So, if we start at the start, how did you get started in programming? When I was seven or eight, I was given a BBC Micro for Christmas. I had asked for a Game Boy, but my dad thought it would be better to give me a proper computer. For a year or so, I only played games on it, but then I found the user guide for writing programs in it. I gradually started doing more stuff on it and found it fun. I liked creating. As I went into senior school I continued to write stuff on there, trying to write games that weren’t very good. I got a real computer when I was fourteen and found ways to write BASIC on it. Visual Basic to start with, and then something more interesting than that. How did you learn to program? Was there someone helping you out? Absolutely not! I learnt out of a book, or by experimenting. I remember the first time I found a loop, I was like “Oh my God! I don’t have to write out the same line over and over and over again any more. It’s amazing!” When did you think this might be something that you actually wanted to do as a career? For a long time, I thought it wasn’t something that you would do as a career, because it was too much fun to be a career. I thought I’d do chemistry at university and some kind of career based on chemical engineering. And then I went to a careers fair at school when I was seventeen or eighteen, and it just didn’t interest me whatsoever. I thought “I could be a programmer, and there’s loads of money there, and I’m good at it, and it’s fun”, but also that I shouldn’t spoil my hobby. Now I don’t really program in my spare time any more, which is a bit of a shame, but I program all the rest of the time, so I can live with it. Do you think you learnt much about programming at university? Yes, definitely! I went into university knowing how to make computers do anything I wanted them to do. However, I didn’t have the language to talk about algorithms, so the algorithms course in my first year was massively important. Learning other language paradigms like functional programming was really good for breadth of understanding. Functional programming influences normal programming through design rather than actually using it all the time. I draw inspiration from it to write imperative programs which I think is actually becoming really fashionable now, but I’ve been doing it for ages. I did it first! There were also some courses on really odd programming languages, a bit of Prolog, a little bit of C. Having a little bit of each of those is something that I would have never done on my own, so it was important. And then there are knowledge-based courses which are about not programming itself but things that have been programmed like TCP. Those are really important for examples for how to approach things. Did you do any internships while you were at university? Yeah, I spent both of my summers at the same company. I thought I could code well before I went there. Looking back at the crap that I produced, it was only surpassed in its crappiness by all of the other code already in that company. I’m so much better at writing nice code now than I used to be back then. Was there just not a culture of looking after your code? There was, they just didn’t hire people for their abilities in that area. They hired people for raw IQ. The first indicator of it going wrong was that they didn’t have any computer scientists, which is a bit odd in a programming company. But even beyond that they didn’t have people who learnt architecture from anyone else. Most of them had started straight out of university, so never really had experience or mentors to learn from. There wasn’t the experience to draw from to teach each other. In the second half of my second internship, I was being given tasks like looking at new technologies and teaching people stuff. Interns shouldn’t be teaching people how to do their jobs! All interns are going to have little nuggets of things that you don’t know about, but they shouldn’t consistently be the ones who know the most. It’s not a good environment to learn. I was going to ask how you found working with people who were more experienced than you… When I reached Red Gate, I found some people who were more experienced programmers than me, and that was difficult. I’ve been coding since I was tiny. At university there were people who were cleverer than me, but there weren’t very many who were more experienced programmers than me. During my internship, I didn’t find anyone who I classed as being a noticeably more experienced programmer than me. So, it was a shock to the system to have valid criticisms rather than just formatting criticisms. However, Red Gate’s not so big on the actual code review, at least it wasn’t when I started. We did an entire product release and then somebody looked over all of the UI of that product which I’d written and say what they didn’t like. By that point, it was way too late and I’d disagree with them. Do you think the lack of code reviews was a bad thing? I think if there’s going to be any oversight of new people, then it should be continuous rather than chunky. For me I don’t mind too much, I could go out and get oversight if I wanted it, and in those situations I felt comfortable without it. If I was managing the new person, then maybe I’d be keener on oversight and then the right way to do it is continuously and in very, very small chunks. Have you had any significant projects you’ve worked on outside of a job? When I was a teenager I wrote all sorts of stuff. I used to write games, I derived how to do isomorphic projections myself once. I didn’t know what the word was so I couldn’t Google for it, so I worked it out myself. It was horrifically complicated. But it sort of tailed off when I started at university, and is now basically zero. If I do side-projects now, they tend to be work-related side projects like my actors framework, NAct, which I started in a down tools week. Could you explain a little more about NAct? It is a little C# framework for writing parallel code more easily. Parallel programming is difficult when you need to write to shared data. Sometimes parallel programming is easy because you don’t need to write to shared data. When you do need to access shared data, you could just have your threads pile in and do their work, but then you would screw up the data because the threads would trample on each other’s toes. You could lock, but locks are really dangerous if you’re using more than one of them. You get interactions like deadlocks, and that’s just nasty. Actors instead allows you to say this piece of data belongs to this thread of execution, and nobody else can read it. If you want to read it, then ask that thread of execution for a piece of it by sending a message, and it will send the data back by a message. And that avoids deadlocks as long as you follow some obvious rules about not making your actors sit around waiting for other actors to do something. There are lots of ways to write actors, NAct allows you to do it as if it was method calls on other objects, which means you get all the strong type-safety that C# programmers like. Do you think that this is suitable for the majority of parallel programming, or do you think it’s only suitable for specific cases? It’s suitable for most difficult parallel programming. If you’ve just got a hundred web requests which are all independent of each other, then I wouldn’t bother because it’s easier to just spin them up in separate threads and they can proceed independently of each other. But where you’ve got difficult parallel programming, where you’ve got multiple threads accessing multiple bits of data in multiple ways at different times, then actors is at least as good as all other ways, and is, I reckon, easier to think about. When you’re using actors, you presumably still have to write your code in a different way from you would otherwise using single-threaded code. You can’t use actors with any methods that have return types, because you’re not allowed to call into another actor and wait for it. If you want to get a piece of data out of another actor, then you’ve got to use tasks so that you can use “async” and “await” to await asynchronously for it. But other than that, you can still stick things in classes so it’s not too different really. Rather than having thousands of objects with mutable state, you can use component-orientated design, where there are only a few mutable classes which each have a small number of instances. Then there can be thousands of immutable objects. If you tend to do that anyway, then actors isn’t much of a jump. If I’ve already built my system without any parallelism, how hard is it to add actors to exploit all eight cores on my desktop? Usually pretty easy. If you can identify even one boundary where things look like messages and you have components where some objects live on one side and these other objects live on the other side, then you can have a granddaddy object on one side be an actor and it will parallelise as it goes across that boundary. Not too difficult. If we do get 1000-core desktop PCs, do you think actors will scale up? It’s hard. There are always in the order of twenty to fifty actors in my whole program because I tend to write each component as actors, and I tend to have one instance of each component. So this won’t scale to a thousand cores. What you can do is write data structures out of actors. I use dictionaries all over the place, and if you need a dictionary that is going to be accessed concurrently, then you could build one of those out of actors in no time. You can use queuing to marshal requests between different slices of the dictionary which are living on different threads. So it’s like a distributed hash table but all of the chunks of it are on the same machine. That means that each of these thousand processors has cached one small piece of the dictionary. I reckon it wouldn’t be too big a leap to start doing proper parallelism. Do you think it helps if actors get baked into the language, similarly to Erlang? Erlang is excellent in that it has thread-local garbage collection. C# doesn’t, so there’s a limit to how well C# actors can possibly scale because there’s a single garbage collected heap shared between all of them. When you do a global garbage collection, you’ve got to stop all of the actors, which is seriously expensive, whereas in Erlang garbage collections happen per-actor, so they’re insanely cheap. However, Erlang deviated from all the sensible language design that people have used recently and has just come up with crazy stuff. You can definitely retrofit thread-local garbage collection to .NET, and then it’s quite well-suited to support actors, even if it’s not baked into the language. Speaking of language design, do you have a favourite programming language? I’ll choose a language which I’ve never written before. I like the idea of Scala. It sounds like C#, only with some of the niggles gone. I enjoy writing static types. It means you don’t have to writing tests so much. When you say it doesn’t have some of the niggles? C# doesn’t allow the use of a property as a method group. It doesn’t have Scala case classes, or sum types, where you can do a switch statement and the compiler checks that you’ve checked all the cases, which is really useful in functional-style programming. Pattern-matching, in other words. That’s actually the major niggle. C# is pretty good, and I’m quite happy with C#. And what about going even further with the type system to remove the need for tests to something like Haskell? Or is that a step too far? I’m quite a pragmatist, I don’t think I could deal with trying to write big systems in languages with too few other users, especially when learning how to structure things. I just don’t know anyone who can teach me, and the Internet won’t teach me. That’s the main reason I wouldn’t use it. If I turned up at a company that writes big systems in Haskell, I would have no objection to that, but I wouldn’t instigate it. What about things in C#? For instance, there’s contracts in C#, so you can try to statically verify a bit more about your code. Do you think that’s useful, or just not worthwhile? I’ve not really tried it. My hunch is that it needs to be built into the language and be quite mathematical for it to work in real life, and that doesn’t seem to have ended up true for C# contracts. I don’t think anyone who’s tried them thinks they’re any good. I might be wrong. On a slightly different note, how do you like to debug code? I think I’m quite an odd debugger. I use guesswork extremely rarely, especially if something seems quite difficult to debug. I’ve been bitten spending hours and hours on guesswork and not being scientific about debugging in the past, so now I’m scientific to a fault. What I want is to see the bug happening in the debugger, to step through the bug happening. To watch the program going from a valid state to an invalid state. When there’s a bug and I can’t work out why it’s happening, I try to find some piece of evidence which places the bug in one section of the code. From that experiment, I binary chop on the possible causes of the bug. I suppose that means binary chopping on places in the code, or binary chopping on a stage through a processing cycle. Basically, I’m very stupid about how I debug. I won’t make any guesses, I won’t use any intuition, I will only identify the experiment that’s going to binary chop most effectively and repeat rather than trying to guess anything. I suppose it’s quite top-down. Is most of the time then spent in the debugger? Absolutely, if at all possible I will never debug using print statements or logs. I don’t really hold much stock in outputting logs. If there’s any bug which can be reproduced locally, I’d rather do it in the debugger than outputting logs. And with SmartAssembly error reporting, there’s not a lot that can’t be either observed in an error report and just fixed, or reproduced locally. And in those other situations, maybe I’ll use logs. But I hate using logs. You stare at the log, trying to guess what’s going on, and that’s exactly what I don’t like doing. You have to just look at it and see does this look right or wrong. We’ve covered how you get to grip with bugs. How do you get to grips with an entire codebase? I watch it in the debugger. I find little bugs and then try to fix them, and mostly do it by watching them in the debugger and gradually getting an understanding of how the code works using my process of binary chopping. I have to do a lot of reading and watching code to choose where my slicing-in-half experiment is going to be. The last time I did it was SmartAssembly. The old code was a complete mess, but at least it did things top to bottom. There wasn’t too much of some of the big abstractions where flow of control goes all over the place, into a base class and back again. Code’s really hard to understand when that happens. So I like to choose a little bug and try to fix it, and choose a bigger bug and try to fix it. Definitely learn by doing. I want to always have an aim so that I get a little achievement after every few hours of debugging. Once I’ve learnt the codebase I might be able to fix all the bugs in an hour, but I’d rather be using them as an aim while I’m learning the codebase. If I was a maintainer of a codebase, what should I do to make it as easy as possible for you to understand? Keep distinct concepts in different places. And name your stuff so that it’s obvious which concepts live there. You shouldn’t have some variable that gets set miles up the top of somewhere, and then is read miles down to choose some later behaviour. I’m talking from a very much SmartAssembly point of view because the old SmartAssembly codebase had tons and tons of these things, where it would read some property of the code and then deal with it later. Just thousands of variables in scope. Loads of things to think about. If you can keep concepts separate, then it aids me in my process of fixing bugs one at a time, because each bug is going to more or less be understandable in the one place where it is. And what about tests? Do you think they help at all? I’ve never had the opportunity to learn a codebase which has had tests, I don’t know what it’s like! What about when you’re actually developing? How useful do you find tests in finding bugs or regressions? Finding regressions, absolutely. Running bits of code that would be quite hard to run otherwise, definitely. It doesn’t happen very often that a test finds a bug in the first place. I don’t really buy nebulous promises like tests being a good way to think about the spec of the code. My thinking goes something like “This code works at the moment, great, ship it! Ah, there’s a way that this code doesn’t work. Okay, write a test, demonstrate that it doesn’t work, fix it, use the test to demonstrate that it’s now fixed, and keep the test for future regressions.” The most valuable tests are for bugs that have actually happened at some point, because bugs that have actually happened at some point, despite the fact that you think you’ve fixed them, are way more likely to appear again than new bugs are. Does that mean that when you write your code the first time, there are no tests? Often. The chance of there being a bug in a new feature is relatively unaffected by whether I’ve written a test for that new feature because I’m not good enough at writing tests to think of bugs that I would have written into the code. So not writing regression tests for all of your code hasn’t affected you too badly? There are different kinds of features. Some of them just always work, and are just not flaky, they just continue working whatever you throw at them. Maybe because the type-checker is particularly effective around them. Writing tests for those features which just tend to always work is a waste of time. And because it’s a waste of time I’ll tend to wait until a feature has demonstrated its flakiness by having bugs in it before I start trying to test it. You can get a feel for whether it’s going to be flaky code as you’re writing it. I try to write it to make it not flaky, but there are some things that are just inherently flaky. And very occasionally, I’ll think “this is going to be flaky” as I’m writing, and then maybe do a test, but not most of the time. How do you think your programming style has changed over time? I’ve got clearer about what the right way of doing things is. I used to flip-flop a lot between different ideas. Five years ago I came up with some really good ideas and some really terrible ideas. All of them seemed great when I thought of them, but they were quite diverse ideas, whereas now I have a smaller set of reliable ideas that are actually good for structuring code. So my code is probably more similar to itself than it used to be back in the day, when I was trying stuff out. I’ve got more disciplined about encapsulation, I think. There are operational things like I use actors more now than I used to, and that forces me to use immutability more than I used to. The first code that I wrote in Red Gate was the memory profiler UI, and that was an actor, I just didn’t know the name of it at the time. I don’t really use object-orientation. By object-orientation, I mean having n objects of the same type which are mutable. I want a constant number of objects that are mutable, and they should be different types. I stick stuff in dictionaries and then have one thing that owns the dictionary and puts stuff in and out of it. That’s definitely a pattern that I’ve seen recently. I think maybe I’m doing functional programming. Possibly. It’s plausible. If you had to summarise the essence of programming in a pithy sentence, how would you do it? Programming is the form of art that, without losing any of the beauty of architecture or fine art, allows you to produce things that people love and you make money from. So you think it’s an art rather than a science? It’s a little bit of engineering, a smidgeon of maths, but it’s not science. Like architecture, programming is on that boundary between art and engineering. If you want to do it really nicely, it’s mostly art. You can get away with doing architecture and programming entirely by having a good engineering mind, but you’re not going to produce anything nice. You’re not going to have joy doing it if you’re an engineering mind. Architects who are just engineering minds are not going to enjoy their job. I suppose engineering is the foundation on which you build the art. Exactly. How do you think programming is going to change over the next ten years? There will be an unfortunate shift towards dynamically-typed languages, because of JavaScript. JavaScript has an unfair advantage. JavaScript’s unfair advantage will cause more people to be exposed to dynamically-typed languages, which means other dynamically-typed languages crop up and the best features go into dynamically-typed languages. Then people conflate the good features with the fact that it’s dynamically-typed, and more investment goes into dynamically-typed languages. They end up better, so people use them. What about the idea of compiling other languages, possibly statically-typed, to JavaScript? It’s a reasonable idea. I would like to do it, but I don’t think enough people in the world are going to do it to make it pick up. The hordes of beginners are the lifeblood of a language community. They are what makes there be good tools and what makes there be vibrant community websites. And any particular thing which is the same as JavaScript only with extra stuff added to it, although it might be technically great, is not going to have the hordes of beginners. JavaScript is always to be quickest and easiest way for a beginner to start programming in the browser. And dynamically-typed languages are great for beginners. Compilers are pretty scary and beginners don’t write big code. And having your errors come up in the same place, whether they’re statically checkable errors or not, is quite nice for a beginner. If someone asked me to teach them some programming, I’d teach them JavaScript. If dynamically-typed languages are great for beginners, when do you think the benefits of static typing start to kick in? The value of having a statically typed program is in the tools that rely on the static types to produce a smooth IDE experience rather than actually telling me my compile errors. And only once you’re experienced enough a programmer that having a really smooth IDE experience makes a blind bit of difference, does static typing make a blind bit of difference. So it’s not really about size of codebase. If I go and write up a tiny program, I’m still going to get value out of writing it in C# using ReSharper because I’m experienced with C# and ReSharper enough to be able to write code five times faster if I have that help. Any other visions of the future? Nobody’s going to use actors. Because everyone’s going to be running on single-core VMs connected over network-ready protocols like JSON over HTTP. So, parallelism within one operating system is going to die. But until then, you should use actors. More Red Gater Coder interviews

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• Extending Oracle CEP with Predictive Analytics

  - by vikram.shukla(at)oracle.com

  Introduction: OCEP is often used as a business rules engine to execute a set of business logic rules via CQL statements, and take decisions based on the outcome of those rules. There are times where configuring rules manually is sufficient because an application needs to deal with only a small and well-defined set of static rules. However, in many situations customers don't want to pre-define such rules for two reasons. First, they are dealing with events with lots of columns and manually crafting such rules for each column or a set of columns and combinations thereof is almost impossible. Second, they are content with probabilistic outcomes and do not care about 100% precision. The former is the case when a user is dealing with data with high dimensionality, the latter when an application can live with "false" positives as they can be discarded after further inspection, say by a Human Task component in a Business Process Management software. The primary goal of this blog post is to show how this can be achieved by combining OCEP with Oracle Data Mining® and leveraging the latter's rich set of algorithms and functionality to do predictive analytics in real time on streaming events. The secondary goal of this post is also to show how OCEP can be extended to invoke any arbitrary external computation in an RDBMS from within CEP. The extensible facility is known as the JDBC cartridge. The rest of the post describes the steps required to achieve this: We use the dataset available at http://blogs.oracle.com/datamining/2010/01/fraud_and_anomaly_detection_made_simple.html to showcase the capabilities. We use it to show how transaction anomalies or fraud can be detected. Building the model: Follow the self-explanatory steps described at the above URL to build the model.  It is very simple - it uses built-in Oracle Data Mining PL/SQL packages to cleanse, normalize and build the model out of the dataset.  You can also use graphical Oracle Data Miner®  to build the models. To summarize, it involves: Specifying which algorithms to use. In this case we use Support Vector Machines as we're trying to find anomalies in highly dimensional dataset.Build model on the data in the table for the algorithms specified. For this example, the table was populated in the scott/tiger schema with appropriate privileges. Configuring the Data Source: This is the first step in building CEP application using such an integration.  Our datasource looks as follows in the server config file.  It is advisable that you use the Visualizer to add it to the running server dynamically, rather than manually edit the file.    <data-source>         <name>DataMining</name>         <data-source-params>             <jndi-names>                 <element>DataMining</element>             </jndi-names>             <global-transactions-protocol>OnePhaseCommit</global-transactions-protocol>         </data-source-params>         <connection-pool-params>             <credential-mapping-enabled></credential-mapping-enabled>             <test-table-name>SQL SELECT 1 from DUAL</test-table-name>             <initial-capacity>1</initial-capacity>             <max-capacity>15</max-capacity>             <capacity-increment>1</capacity-increment>         </connection-pool-params>         <driver-params>             <use-xa-data-source-interface>true</use-xa-data-source-interface>             <driver-name>oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver</driver-name>             <url>jdbc:oracle:thin:@localhost:1522:orcl</url>             <properties>                 <element>                     <value>scott</value>                     <name>user</name>                 </element>                 <element>                     <value>{Salted-3DES}AzFE5dDbO2g=</value>                     <name>password</name>                 </element>                                 <element>                     <name>com.bea.core.datasource.serviceName</name>                     <value>oracle11.2g</value>                 </element>                 <element>                     <name>com.bea.core.datasource.serviceVersion</name>                     <value>11.2.0</value>                 </element>                 <element>                     <name>com.bea.core.datasource.serviceObjectClass</name>                     <value>java.sql.Driver</value>                 </element>             </properties>         </driver-params>     </data-source>   Designing the EPN: The EPN is very simple in this example. We briefly describe each of the components. The adapter ("DataMiningAdapter") reads data from a .csv file and sends it to the CQL processor downstream. The event payload here is same as that of the table in the database (refer to the attached project or do a "desc table-name" from a SQL*PLUS prompt). While this is for convenience in this example, it need not be the case. One can still omit fields in the streaming events, and need not match all columns in the table on which the model was built. Better yet, it does not even need to have the same name as columns in the table, as long as you alias them in the USING clause of the mining function. (Caveat: they still need to draw values from a similar universe or domain, otherwise it constitutes incorrect usage of the model). There are two things in the CQL processor ("DataMiningProc") that make scoring possible on streaming events. 1.      User defined cartridge function Please refer to the OCEP CQL reference manual to find more details about how to define such functions. We include the function below in its entirety for illustration. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <jdbcctxconfig:config     xmlns:jdbcctxconfig="http://www.bea.com/ns/wlevs/config/application"     xmlns:jc="http://www.oracle.com/ns/ocep/config/jdbc">        <jc:jdbc-ctx>         <name>Oracle11gR2</name>         <data-source>DataMining</data-source>               <function name="prediction2">                                 <param name="CQLMONTH" type="char"/>                      <param name="WEEKOFMONTH" type="int"/>                      <param name="DAYOFWEEK" type="char" />                      <param name="MAKE" type="char" />                      <param name="ACCIDENTAREA"   type="char" />                      <param name="DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED"  type="char" />                      <param name="MONTHCLAIMED" type="char" />                      <param name="WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED" type="int" />                      <param name="SEX" type="char" />                      <param name="MARITALSTATUS"   type="char" />                      <param name="AGE" type="int" />                      <param name="FAULT" type="char" />                      <param name="POLICYTYPE"   type="char" />                      <param name="VEHICLECATEGORY"  type="char" />                      <param name="VEHICLEPRICE" type="char" />                      <param name="FRAUDFOUND" type="int" />                      <param name="POLICYNUMBER" type="int" />                      <param name="REPNUMBER" type="int" />                      <param name="DEDUCTIBLE"   type="int" />                      <param name="DRIVERRATING"  type="int" />                      <param name="DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT"   type="char" />                      <param name="DAYSPOLICYCLAIM" type="char" />                      <param name="PASTNUMOFCLAIMS" type="char" />                      <param name="AGEOFVEHICLES" type="char" />                      <param name="AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER" type="char" />                      <param name="POLICEREPORTFILED" type="char" />                      <param name="WITNESSPRESNT" type="char" />                      <param name="AGENTTYPE" type="char" />                      <param name="NUMOFSUPP" type="char" />                      <param name="ADDRCHGCLAIM"   type="char" />                      <param name="NUMOFCARS" type="char" />                      <param name="CQLYEAR" type="int" />                      <param name="BASEPOLICY" type="char" />                                     <return-component-type>char</return-component-type>                                                      <sql><![CDATA[             SELECT to_char(PREDICTION_PROBABILITY(CLAIMSMODEL, '0' USING *))               AS probability             FROM (SELECT  :CQLMONTH AS MONTH,                                            :WEEKOFMONTH AS WEEKOFMONTH,                          :DAYOFWEEK AS DAYOFWEEK,                           :MAKE AS MAKE,                           :ACCIDENTAREA AS ACCIDENTAREA,                           :DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED AS DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED,                           :MONTHCLAIMED AS MONTHCLAIMED,                           :WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED,                             :SEX AS SEX,                           :MARITALSTATUS AS MARITALSTATUS,                            :AGE AS AGE,                           :FAULT AS FAULT,                           :POLICYTYPE AS POLICYTYPE,                            :VEHICLECATEGORY AS VEHICLECATEGORY,                           :VEHICLEPRICE AS VEHICLEPRICE,                           :FRAUDFOUND AS FRAUDFOUND,                           :POLICYNUMBER AS POLICYNUMBER,                           :REPNUMBER AS REPNUMBER,                           :DEDUCTIBLE AS DEDUCTIBLE,                            :DRIVERRATING AS DRIVERRATING,                           :DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT AS DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT,                            :DAYSPOLICYCLAIM AS DAYSPOLICYCLAIM,                           :PASTNUMOFCLAIMS AS PASTNUMOFCLAIMS,                           :AGEOFVEHICLES AS AGEOFVEHICLES,                           :AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER AS AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER,                           :POLICEREPORTFILED AS POLICEREPORTFILED,                           :WITNESSPRESNT AS WITNESSPRESENT,                           :AGENTTYPE AS AGENTTYPE,                           :NUMOFSUPP AS NUMOFSUPP,                           :ADDRCHGCLAIM AS ADDRCHGCLAIM,                            :NUMOFCARS AS NUMOFCARS,                           :CQLYEAR AS YEAR,                           :BASEPOLICY AS BASEPOLICY                 FROM dual)                 ]]>         </sql>        </function>     </jc:jdbc-ctx> </jdbcctxconfig:config> 2.      Invoking the function for each event. Once this function is defined, you can invoke it from CQL as follows: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <wlevs:config xmlns:wlevs="http://www.bea.com/ns/wlevs/config/application">   <processor>     <name>DataMiningProc</name>     <rules>        <query id="q1"><![CDATA[                     ISTREAM(SELECT S.CQLMONTH,                                   S.WEEKOFMONTH,                                   S.DAYOFWEEK, S.MAKE,                                   :                                         S.BASEPOLICY,                                    C.F AS probability                                                 FROM                                 StreamDataChannel [NOW] AS S,                                 TABLE(prediction2@Oracle11gR2(S.CQLMONTH,                                      S.WEEKOFMONTH,                                      S.DAYOFWEEK,                                       S.MAKE, ...,                                      S.BASEPOLICY) AS F of char) AS C)                       ]]></query>                 </rules>               </processor>           </wlevs:config>   Finally, the last stage in the EPN prints out the probability of the event being an anomaly. One can also define a threshold in CQL to filter out events that are normal, i.e., below a certain mark as defined by the analyst or designer. Sample Runs: Now let's see how this behaves when events are streamed through CEP. We use only two events for brevity, one normal and other one not. This is one of the "normal" looking events and the probability of it being anomalous is less than 60%. Event is: eventType=DataMiningOutEvent object=q1  time=2904821976256 S.CQLMONTH=Dec, S.WEEKOFMONTH=5, S.DAYOFWEEK=Wednesday, S.MAKE=Honda, S.ACCIDENTAREA=Urban, S.DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED=Tuesday, S.MONTHCLAIMED=Jan, S.WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED=1, S.SEX=Female, S.MARITALSTATUS=Single, S.AGE=21, S.FAULT=Policy Holder, S.POLICYTYPE=Sport - Liability, S.VEHICLECATEGORY=Sport, S.VEHICLEPRICE=more than 69000, S.FRAUDFOUND=0, S.POLICYNUMBER=1, S.REPNUMBER=12, S.DEDUCTIBLE=300, S.DRIVERRATING=1, S.DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT=more than 30, S.DAYSPOLICYCLAIM=more than 30, S.PASTNUMOFCLAIMS=none, S.AGEOFVEHICLES=3 years, S.AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER=26 to 30, S.POLICEREPORTFILED=No, S.WITNESSPRESENT=No, S.AGENTTYPE=External, S.NUMOFSUPP=none, S.ADDRCHGCLAIM=1 year, S.NUMOFCARS=3 to 4, S.CQLYEAR=1994, S.BASEPOLICY=Liability, probability=.58931702982118561 isTotalOrderGuarantee=true\nAnamoly probability: .58931702982118561 However, the following event is scored as an anomaly with a very high probability of  89%. So there is likely to be something wrong with it. A close look reveals that the value of "deductible" field (10000) is not "normal". What exactly constitutes normal here?. If you run the query on the database to find ALL distinct values for the "deductible" field, it returns the following set: {300, 400, 500, 700} Event is: eventType=DataMiningOutEvent object=q1  time=2598483773496 S.CQLMONTH=Dec, S.WEEKOFMONTH=5, S.DAYOFWEEK=Wednesday, S.MAKE=Honda, S.ACCIDENTAREA=Urban, S.DAYOFWEEKCLAIMED=Tuesday, S.MONTHCLAIMED=Jan, S.WEEKOFMONTHCLAIMED=1, S.SEX=Female, S.MARITALSTATUS=Single, S.AGE=21, S.FAULT=Policy Holder, S.POLICYTYPE=Sport - Liability, S.VEHICLECATEGORY=Sport, S.VEHICLEPRICE=more than 69000, S.FRAUDFOUND=0, S.POLICYNUMBER=1, S.REPNUMBER=12, S.DEDUCTIBLE=10000, S.DRIVERRATING=1, S.DAYSPOLICYACCIDENT=more than 30, S.DAYSPOLICYCLAIM=more than 30, S.PASTNUMOFCLAIMS=none, S.AGEOFVEHICLES=3 years, S.AGEOFPOLICYHOLDER=26 to 30, S.POLICEREPORTFILED=No, S.WITNESSPRESENT=No, S.AGENTTYPE=External, S.NUMOFSUPP=none, S.ADDRCHGCLAIM=1 year, S.NUMOFCARS=3 to 4, S.CQLYEAR=1994, S.BASEPOLICY=Liability, probability=.89171554529576691 isTotalOrderGuarantee=true\nAnamoly probability: .89171554529576691 Conclusion: By way of this example, we show: real-time scoring of events as they flow through CEP leveraging Oracle Data Mining.how CEP applications can invoke complex arbitrary external computations (function shipping) in an RDBMS.

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• Using R to Analyze G1GC Log Files

  - by user12620111

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  Using R to Analyze G1GC Log Files   Using R to Analyze G1GC Log Files Introduction Working in Oracle Platform Integration gives an engineer opportunities to work on a wide array of technologies. My team’s goal is to make Oracle applications run best on the Solaris/SPARC platform. When looking for bottlenecks in a modern applications, one needs to be aware of not only how the CPUs and operating system are executing, but also network, storage, and in some cases, the Java Virtual Machine. I was recently presented with about 1.5 GB of Java Garbage First Garbage Collector log file data. If you’re not familiar with the subject, you might want to review Garbage First Garbage Collector Tuning by Monica Beckwith. The customer had been running Java HotSpot 1.6.0_31 to host a web application server. I was told that the Solaris/SPARC server was running a Java process launched using a commmand line that included the following flags: -d64 -Xms9g -Xmx9g -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=200 -XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=80 -XX:PermSize=256m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -XX:+PrintGC -XX:+PrintGCTimeStamps -XX:+PrintHeapAtGC -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal -XX:+DisableExplicitGC -XX:+UnlockExperimentalVMOptions -XX:ParallelGCThreads=8 Several sources on the internet indicate that if I were to print out the 1.5 GB of log files, it would require enough paper to fill the bed of a pick up truck. Of course, it would be fruitless to try to scan the log files by hand. Tools will be required to summarize the contents of the log files. Others have encountered large Java garbage collection log files. There are existing tools to analyze the log files: IBM’s GC toolkit The chewiebug GCViewer gchisto HPjmeter Instead of using one of the other tools listed, I decide to parse the log files with standard Unix tools, and analyze the data with R. Data Cleansing The log files arrived in two different formats. I guess that the difference is that one set of log files was generated using a more verbose option, maybe -XX:+PrintHeapAtGC, and the other set of log files was generated without that option. Format 1 In some of the log files, the log files with the less verbose format, a single trace, i.e. the report of a singe garbage collection event, looks like this: {Heap before GC invocations=12280 (full 61): garbage-first heap total 9437184K, used 7499918K [0xfffffffd00000000, 0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff40000000) region size 4096K, 1 young (4096K), 0 survivors (0K) compacting perm gen total 262144K, used 144077K [0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff50000000, 0xffffffff50000000) the space 262144K, 54% used [0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff48cb3758, 0xffffffff48cb3800, 0xffffffff50000000) No shared spaces configured. 2014-05-14T07:24:00.988-0700: 60586.353: [GC pause (young) 7324M->7320M(9216M), 0.1567265 secs] Heap after GC invocations=12281 (full 61): garbage-first heap total 9437184K, used 7496533K [0xfffffffd00000000, 0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff40000000) region size 4096K, 0 young (0K), 0 survivors (0K) compacting perm gen total 262144K, used 144077K [0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff50000000, 0xffffffff50000000) the space 262144K, 54% used [0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff48cb3758, 0xffffffff48cb3800, 0xffffffff50000000) No shared spaces configured. } A simple grep can be used to extract a summary: $ grep "\[ GC pause (young" g1gc.log 2014-05-13T13:24:35.091-0700: 3.109: [GC pause (young) 20M->5029K(9216M), 0.0146328 secs] 2014-05-13T13:24:35.440-0700: 3.459: [GC pause (young) 9125K->6077K(9216M), 0.0086723 secs] 2014-05-13T13:24:37.581-0700: 5.599: [GC pause (young) 25M->8470K(9216M), 0.0203820 secs] 2014-05-13T13:24:42.686-0700: 10.704: [GC pause (young) 44M->15M(9216M), 0.0288848 secs] 2014-05-13T13:24:48.941-0700: 16.958: [GC pause (young) 51M->20M(9216M), 0.0491244 secs] 2014-05-13T13:24:56.049-0700: 24.066: [GC pause (young) 92M->26M(9216M), 0.0525368 secs] 2014-05-13T13:25:34.368-0700: 62.383: [GC pause (young) 602M->68M(9216M), 0.1721173 secs] But that format wasn't easily read into R, so I needed to be a bit more tricky. I used the following Unix command to create a summary file that was easy for R to read. $ echo "SecondsSinceLaunch BeforeSize AfterSize TotalSize RealTime" $ grep "\[GC pause (young" g1gc.log | grep -v mark | sed -e 's/[A-SU-z\(\),]/ /g' -e 's/->/ /' -e 's/: / /g' | more SecondsSinceLaunch BeforeSize AfterSize TotalSize RealTime 2014-05-13T13:24:35.091-0700 3.109 20 5029 9216 0.0146328 2014-05-13T13:24:35.440-0700 3.459 9125 6077 9216 0.0086723 2014-05-13T13:24:37.581-0700 5.599 25 8470 9216 0.0203820 2014-05-13T13:24:42.686-0700 10.704 44 15 9216 0.0288848 2014-05-13T13:24:48.941-0700 16.958 51 20 9216 0.0491244 2014-05-13T13:24:56.049-0700 24.066 92 26 9216 0.0525368 2014-05-13T13:25:34.368-0700 62.383 602 68 9216 0.1721173 Format 2 In some of the log files, the log files with the more verbose format, a single trace, i.e. the report of a singe garbage collection event, was more complicated than Format 1. Here is a text file with an example of a single G1GC trace in the second format. As you can see, it is quite complicated. It is nice that there is so much information available, but the level of detail can be overwhelming. I wrote this awk script (download) to summarize each trace on a single line. #!/usr/bin/env awk -f BEGIN { printf("SecondsSinceLaunch IncrementalCount FullCount UserTime SysTime RealTime BeforeSize AfterSize TotalSize\n") } ###################### # Save count data from lines that are at the start of each G1GC trace. # Each trace starts out like this: # {Heap before GC invocations=14 (full 0): # garbage-first heap total 9437184K, used 325496K [0xfffffffd00000000, 0xffffffff40000000, 0xffffffff40000000) ###################### /{Heap.*full/{ gsub ( "\\)" , "" ); nf=split($0,a,"="); split(a[2],b," "); getline; if ( match($0, "first") ) { G1GC=1; IncrementalCount=b[1]; FullCount=substr( b[3], 1, length(b[3])-1 ); } else { G1GC=0; } } ###################### # Pull out time stamps that are in lines with this format: # 2014-05-12T14:02:06.025-0700: 94.312: [GC pause (young), 0.08870154 secs] ###################### /GC pause/ { DateTime=$1; SecondsSinceLaunch=substr($2, 1, length($2)-1); } ###################### # Heap sizes are in lines that look like this: # [ 4842M->4838M(9216M)] ###################### /\[ .*]$/ { gsub ( "\\[" , "" ); gsub ( "\ \]" , "" ); gsub ( "->" , " " ); gsub ( "\\( " , " " ); gsub ( "\ \)" , " " ); split($0,a," "); if ( split(a[1],b,"M") > 1 ) {BeforeSize=b[1]*1024;} if ( split(a[1],b,"K") > 1 ) {BeforeSize=b[1];} if ( split(a[2],b,"M") > 1 ) {AfterSize=b[1]*1024;} if ( split(a[2],b,"K") > 1 ) {AfterSize=b[1];} if ( split(a[3],b,"M") > 1 ) {TotalSize=b[1]*1024;} if ( split(a[3],b,"K") > 1 ) {TotalSize=b[1];} } ###################### # Emit an output line when you find input that looks like this: # [Times: user=1.41 sys=0.08, real=0.24 secs] ###################### /\[Times/ { if (G1GC==1) { gsub ( "," , "" ); split($2,a,"="); UserTime=a[2]; split($3,a,"="); SysTime=a[2]; split($4,a,"="); RealTime=a[2]; print DateTime,SecondsSinceLaunch,IncrementalCount,FullCount,UserTime,SysTime,RealTime,BeforeSize,AfterSize,TotalSize; G1GC=0; } } The resulting summary is about 25X smaller that the original file, but still difficult for a human to digest. SecondsSinceLaunch IncrementalCount FullCount UserTime SysTime RealTime BeforeSize AfterSize TotalSize ... 2014-05-12T18:36:34.669-0700: 3985.744 561 0 0.57 0.06 0.16 1724416 1720320 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:34.839-0700: 3985.914 562 0 0.51 0.06 0.19 1724416 1720320 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:35.069-0700: 3986.144 563 0 0.60 0.04 0.27 1724416 1721344 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:35.354-0700: 3986.429 564 0 0.33 0.04 0.09 1725440 1722368 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:35.545-0700: 3986.620 565 0 0.58 0.04 0.17 1726464 1722368 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:35.726-0700: 3986.801 566 0 0.43 0.05 0.12 1726464 1722368 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:35.856-0700: 3986.930 567 0 0.30 0.04 0.07 1726464 1723392 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:35.947-0700: 3987.023 568 0 0.61 0.04 0.26 1727488 1723392 9437184 2014-05-12T18:36:36.228-0700: 3987.302 569 0 0.46 0.04 0.16 1731584 1724416 9437184 Reading the Data into R Once the GC log data had been cleansed, either by processing the first format with the shell script, or by processing the second format with the awk script, it was easy to read the data into R. g1gc.df = read.csv("summary.txt", row.names = NULL, stringsAsFactors=FALSE,sep="") str(g1gc.df) ## 'data.frame': 8307 obs. of 10 variables: ## $ row.names : chr "2014-05-12T14:00:32.868-0700:" "2014-05-12T14:00:33.179-0700:" "2014-05-12T14:00:33.677-0700:" "2014-05-12T14:00:35.538-0700:" ... ## $ SecondsSinceLaunch: num 1.16 1.47 1.97 3.83 6.1 ... ## $ IncrementalCount : int 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ... ## $ FullCount : int 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ... ## $ UserTime : num 0.11 0.05 0.04 0.21 0.08 0.26 0.31 0.33 0.34 0.56 ... ## $ SysTime : num 0.04 0.01 0.01 0.05 0.01 0.06 0.07 0.06 0.07 0.09 ... ## $ RealTime : num 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.04 0.02 0.04 0.05 0.04 0.04 0.06 ... ## $ BeforeSize : int 8192 5496 5768 22528 24576 43008 34816 53248 55296 93184 ... ## $ AfterSize : int 1400 1672 2557 4907 7072 14336 16384 18432 19456 21504 ... ## $ TotalSize : int 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 9437184 ... head(g1gc.df) ## row.names SecondsSinceLaunch IncrementalCount ## 1 2014-05-12T14:00:32.868-0700: 1.161 0 ## 2 2014-05-12T14:00:33.179-0700: 1.472 1 ## 3 2014-05-12T14:00:33.677-0700: 1.969 2 ## 4 2014-05-12T14:00:35.538-0700: 3.830 3 ## 5 2014-05-12T14:00:37.811-0700: 6.103 4 ## 6 2014-05-12T14:00:41.428-0700: 9.720 5 ## FullCount UserTime SysTime RealTime BeforeSize AfterSize TotalSize ## 1 0 0.11 0.04 0.02 8192 1400 9437184 ## 2 0 0.05 0.01 0.02 5496 1672 9437184 ## 3 0 0.04 0.01 0.01 5768 2557 9437184 ## 4 0 0.21 0.05 0.04 22528 4907 9437184 ## 5 0 0.08 0.01 0.02 24576 7072 9437184 ## 6 0 0.26 0.06 0.04 43008 14336 9437184 Basic Statistics Once the data has been read into R, simple statistics are very easy to generate. All of the numbers from high school statistics are available via simple commands. For example, generate a summary of every column: summary(g1gc.df) ## row.names SecondsSinceLaunch IncrementalCount FullCount ## Length:8307 Min. : 1 Min. : 0 Min. : 0.0 ## Class :character 1st Qu.: 9977 1st Qu.:2048 1st Qu.: 0.0 ## Mode :character Median :12855 Median :4136 Median : 12.0 ## Mean :12527 Mean :4156 Mean : 31.6 ## 3rd Qu.:15758 3rd Qu.:6262 3rd Qu.: 61.0 ## Max. :55484 Max. :8391 Max. :113.0 ## UserTime SysTime RealTime BeforeSize ## Min. :0.040 Min. :0.0000 Min. : 0.0 Min. : 5476 ## 1st Qu.:0.470 1st Qu.:0.0300 1st Qu.: 0.1 1st Qu.:5137920 ## Median :0.620 Median :0.0300 Median : 0.1 Median :6574080 ## Mean :0.751 Mean :0.0355 Mean : 0.3 Mean :5841855 ## 3rd Qu.:0.920 3rd Qu.:0.0400 3rd Qu.: 0.2 3rd Qu.:7084032 ## Max. :3.370 Max. :1.5600 Max. :488.1 Max. :8696832 ## AfterSize TotalSize ## Min. : 1380 Min. :9437184 ## 1st Qu.:5002752 1st Qu.:9437184 ## Median :6559744 Median :9437184 ## Mean :5785454 Mean :9437184 ## 3rd Qu.:7054336 3rd Qu.:9437184 ## Max. :8482816 Max. :9437184 Q: What is the total amount of User CPU time spent in garbage collection? sum(g1gc.df$UserTime) ## [1] 6236 As you can see, less than two hours of CPU time was spent in garbage collection. Is that too much? To find the percentage of time spent in garbage collection, divide the number above by total_elapsed_time*CPU_count. In this case, there are a lot of CPU’s and it turns out the the overall amount of CPU time spent in garbage collection isn’t a problem when viewed in isolation. When calculating rates, i.e. events per unit time, you need to ask yourself if the rate is homogenous across the time period in the log file. Does the log file include spikes of high activity that should be separately analyzed? Averaging in data from nights and weekends with data from business hours may alias problems. If you have a reason to suspect that the garbage collection rates include peaks and valleys that need independent analysis, see the “Time Series” section, below. Q: How much garbage is collected on each pass? The amount of heap space that is recovered per GC pass is surprisingly low: At least one collection didn’t recover any data. (“Min.=0”) 25% of the passes recovered 3MB or less. (“1st Qu.=3072”) Half of the GC passes recovered 4MB or less. (“Median=4096”) The average amount recovered was 56MB. (“Mean=56390”) 75% of the passes recovered 36MB or less. (“3rd Qu.=36860”) At least one pass recovered 2GB. (“Max.=2121000”) g1gc.df$Delta = g1gc.df$BeforeSize - g1gc.df$AfterSize summary(g1gc.df$Delta) ## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. ## 0 3070 4100 56400 36900 2120000 Q: What is the maximum User CPU time for a single collection? The worst garbage collection (“Max.”) is many standard deviations away from the mean. The data appears to be right skewed. summary(g1gc.df$UserTime) ## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max. ## 0.040 0.470 0.620 0.751 0.920 3.370 sd(g1gc.df$UserTime) ## [1] 0.3966 Basic Graphics Once the data is in R, it is trivial to plot the data with formats including dot plots, line charts, bar charts (simple, stacked, grouped), pie charts, boxplots, scatter plots histograms, and kernel density plots. Histogram of User CPU Time per Collection I don't think that this graph requires any explanation. hist(g1gc.df$UserTime, main="User CPU Time per Collection", xlab="Seconds", ylab="Frequency") Box plot to identify outliers When the initial data is viewed with a box plot, you can see the one crazy outlier in the real time per GC. Save this data point for future analysis and drop the outlier so that it’s not throwing off our statistics. Now the box plot shows many outliers, which will be examined later, using times series analysis. Notice that the scale of the x-axis changes drastically once the crazy outlier is removed. par(mfrow=c(2,1)) boxplot(g1gc.df$UserTime,g1gc.df$SysTime,g1gc.df$RealTime, main="Box Plot of Time per GC\n(dominated by a crazy outlier)", names=c("usr","sys","elapsed"), xlab="Seconds per GC", ylab="Time (Seconds)", horizontal = TRUE, outcol="red") crazy.outlier.df=g1gc.df[g1gc.df$RealTime > 400,] g1gc.df=g1gc.df[g1gc.df$RealTime < 400,] boxplot(g1gc.df$UserTime,g1gc.df$SysTime,g1gc.df$RealTime, main="Box Plot of Time per GC\n(crazy outlier excluded)", names=c("usr","sys","elapsed"), xlab="Seconds per GC", ylab="Time (Seconds)", horizontal = TRUE, outcol="red") box(which = "outer", lty = "solid") Here is the crazy outlier for future analysis: crazy.outlier.df ## row.names SecondsSinceLaunch IncrementalCount ## 8233 2014-05-12T23:15:43.903-0700: 20741 8316 ## FullCount UserTime SysTime RealTime BeforeSize AfterSize TotalSize ## 8233 112 0.55 0.42 488.1 8381440 8235008 9437184 ## Delta ## 8233 146432 R Time Series Data To analyze the garbage collection as a time series, I’ll use Z’s Ordered Observations (zoo). “zoo is the creator for an S3 class of indexed totally ordered observations which includes irregular time series.” require(zoo) ## Loading required package: zoo ## ## Attaching package: 'zoo' ## ## The following objects are masked from 'package:base': ## ## as.Date, as.Date.numeric head(g1gc.df[,1]) ## [1] "2014-05-12T14:00:32.868-0700:" "2014-05-12T14:00:33.179-0700:" ## [3] "2014-05-12T14:00:33.677-0700:" "2014-05-12T14:00:35.538-0700:" ## [5] "2014-05-12T14:00:37.811-0700:" "2014-05-12T14:00:41.428-0700:" options("digits.secs"=3) times=as.POSIXct( g1gc.df[,1], format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%OS%z:") g1gc.z = zoo(g1gc.df[,-c(1)], order.by=times) head(g1gc.z) ## SecondsSinceLaunch IncrementalCount FullCount ## 2014-05-12 17:00:32.868 1.161 0 0 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:33.178 1.472 1 0 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:33.677 1.969 2 0 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:35.538 3.830 3 0 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:37.811 6.103 4 0 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:41.427 9.720 5 0 ## UserTime SysTime RealTime BeforeSize AfterSize ## 2014-05-12 17:00:32.868 0.11 0.04 0.02 8192 1400 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:33.178 0.05 0.01 0.02 5496 1672 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:33.677 0.04 0.01 0.01 5768 2557 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:35.538 0.21 0.05 0.04 22528 4907 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:37.811 0.08 0.01 0.02 24576 7072 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:41.427 0.26 0.06 0.04 43008 14336 ## TotalSize Delta ## 2014-05-12 17:00:32.868 9437184 6792 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:33.178 9437184 3824 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:33.677 9437184 3211 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:35.538 9437184 17621 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:37.811 9437184 17504 ## 2014-05-12 17:00:41.427 9437184 28672 Example of Two Benchmark Runs in One Log File The data in the following graph is from a different log file, not the one of primary interest to this article. I’m including this image because it is an example of idle periods followed by busy periods. It would be uninteresting to average the rate of garbage collection over the entire log file period. More interesting would be the rate of garbage collect in the two busy periods. Are they the same or different? Your production data may be similar, for example, bursts when employees return from lunch and idle times on weekend evenings, etc. Once the data is in an R Time Series, you can analyze isolated time windows. Clipping the Time Series data Flashing back to our test case… Viewing the data as a time series is interesting. You can see that the work intensive time period is between 9:00 PM and 3:00 AM. Lets clip the data to the interesting period:     par(mfrow=c(2,1)) plot(g1gc.z$UserTime, type="h", main="User Time per GC\nTime: Complete Log File", xlab="Time of Day", ylab="CPU Seconds per GC", col="#1b9e77") clipped.g1gc.z=window(g1gc.z, start=as.POSIXct("2014-05-12 21:00:00"), end=as.POSIXct("2014-05-13 03:00:00")) plot(clipped.g1gc.z$UserTime, type="h", main="User Time per GC\nTime: Limited to Benchmark Execution", xlab="Time of Day", ylab="CPU Seconds per GC", col="#1b9e77") box(which = "outer", lty = "solid") Cumulative Incremental and Full GC count Here is the cumulative incremental and full GC count. When the line is very steep, it indicates that the GCs are repeating very quickly. Notice that the scale on the Y axis is different for full vs. incremental. plot(clipped.g1gc.z[,c(2:3)], main="Cumulative Incremental and Full GC count", xlab="Time of Day", col="#1b9e77") GC Analysis of Benchmark Execution using Time Series data In the following series of 3 graphs: The “After Size” show the amount of heap space in use after each garbage collection. Many Java objects are still referenced, i.e. alive, during each garbage collection. This may indicate that the application has a memory leak, or may indicate that the application has a very large memory footprint. Typically, an application's memory footprint plateau's in the early stage of execution. One would expect this graph to have a flat top. The steep decline in the heap space may indicate that the application crashed after 2:00. The second graph shows that the outliers in real execution time, discussed above, occur near 2:00. when the Java heap seems to be quite full. The third graph shows that Full GCs are infrequent during the first few hours of execution. The rate of Full GC's, (the slope of the cummulative Full GC line), changes near midnight.   plot(clipped.g1gc.z[,c("AfterSize","RealTime","FullCount")], xlab="Time of Day", col=c("#1b9e77","red","#1b9e77")) GC Analysis of heap recovered Each GC trace includes the amount of heap space in use before and after the individual GC event. During garbage coolection, unreferenced objects are identified, the space holding the unreferenced objects is freed, and thus, the difference in before and after usage indicates how much space has been freed. The following box plot and bar chart both demonstrate the same point - the amount of heap space freed per garbage colloection is surprisingly low. par(mfrow=c(2,1)) boxplot(as.vector(clipped.g1gc.z$Delta), main="Amount of Heap Recovered per GC Pass", xlab="Size in KB", horizontal = TRUE, col="red") hist(as.vector(clipped.g1gc.z$Delta), main="Amount of Heap Recovered per GC Pass", xlab="Size in KB", breaks=100, col="red") box(which = "outer", lty = "solid") This graph is the most interesting. The dark blue area shows how much heap is occupied by referenced Java objects. This represents memory that holds live data. The red fringe at the top shows how much data was recovered after each garbage collection. barplot(clipped.g1gc.z[,c("AfterSize","Delta")], col=c("#7570b3","#e7298a"), xlab="Time of Day", border=NA) legend("topleft", c("Live Objects","Heap Recovered on GC"), fill=c("#7570b3","#e7298a")) box(which = "outer", lty = "solid") When I discuss the data in the log files with the customer, I will ask for an explaination for the large amount of referenced data resident in the Java heap. There are two are posibilities: There is a memory leak and the amount of space required to hold referenced objects will continue to grow, limited only by the maximum heap size. After the maximum heap size is reached, the JVM will throw an “Out of Memory” exception every time that the application tries to allocate a new object. If this is the case, the aplication needs to be debugged to identify why old objects are referenced when they are no longer needed. The application has a legitimate requirement to keep a large amount of data in memory. The customer may want to further increase the maximum heap size. Another possible solution would be to partition the application across multiple cluster nodes, where each node has responsibility for managing a unique subset of the data. Conclusion In conclusion, R is a very powerful tool for the analysis of Java garbage collection log files. The primary difficulty is data cleansing so that information can be read into an R data frame. Once the data has been read into R, a rich set of tools may be used for thorough evaluation.

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• DirectX works for 64-bit but not 32-bit

  - by dtbarne

  I'm trying to play a game (Civilization 5) which was previously working but no longer. I believe I've narrowed it down to a DirectX issue because I get an error running dxdiag.exe in 32 bit mode. My goal (at least I believe) is to get Direct3D Acceleration "Enabled" in dxdiag (as it is in 64 bit dxdiag). A very similar issue is here: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-gaming/direct3d-acceleration-is-not-available-in-windows/4c345e6e-dc68-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5?page=1 The proposed answer, which looks very promising, doesn't seem to work for me. Like other users in that thread, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Direct3D\Drivers does not have a SoftwareOnly key to change. I even tried manually adding it as a string and dword, to no avail. I have a NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M, and before you ask, yes I've tried updating (also uninstalling, reinstalling) my drivers. I've also tried doing the same with DirectX (and Civilization 5 for that matter). Been debugging for some 4+ hours now after a full day of work and I've run out of ideas. I'm hoping somebody knows the solution here! :) Here's what I see when I open dxdiag: DxDiag has detected that there mgiht have been a problem accessing Direct3D the last time this program was used. Would you like to bypass Direct3D this time? No - Crash Yes - Works, but in Display tab: DirectDraw Acceleration: Disabled Direct3D Acceleration: Not Available AGP Texture Acceleration: Not Available If I click "Run 64-bit DxDiag", all three are "Enabled". I should also note that I've tried the following steps as Microsoft suggests, but I'm not able to do so as the "Change Settings" button is disabled. Some programs run very slowly—or not at all—unless Microsoft DirectDraw or Direct3D hardware acceleration is turned on. To determine this, click the Display tab, and then under DirectX Features, check to see whether DirectDraw, Direct3D, and AGP Texture Acceleration appear as Enabled. If not, try turning on hardware acceleration. Click to open Screen Resolution. Click Advanced settings. Click the Troubleshoot tab, and then click Change settings. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Move the Hardware Acceleration slider to Full. Full dxdiag dump: ------------------ System Information ------------------ Time of this report: 11/8/2012, 23:13:24 Machine name: DTBARNE Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120830-0333) Language: English (Regional Setting: English) System Manufacturer: Dell Inc. System Model: Dell System XPS L502X BIOS: Default System BIOS Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2450M CPU @ 2.50GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.5GHz Memory: 8192MB RAM Available OS Memory: 8086MB RAM Page File: 2466MB used, 13704MB available Windows Dir: C:\Windows DirectX Version: DirectX 11 DX Setup Parameters: Not found User DPI Setting: Using System DPI System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent) DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode DxDiag Previously: Crashed in Direct3D (stage 2). Re-running DxDiag with "dontskip" command line parameter or choosing not to bypass information gathering when prompted might result in DxDiag successfully obtaining this information ------------ DxDiag Notes ------------ Display Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 1: No problems found. Sound Tab 2: No problems found. Input Tab: No problems found. -------------------- DirectX Debug Levels -------------------- Direct3D: 0/4 (retail) DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail) DirectInput: 0/5 (retail) DirectMusic: 0/5 (retail) DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail) DirectSound: 0/5 (retail) DirectShow: 0/6 (retail) --------------- Display Devices --------------- Card name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 Manufacturer: Chip type: DAC type: Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0126&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_09 Display Memory: Dedicated Memory: n/a Shared Memory: n/a Current Mode: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor Name: Generic PnP Monitor Monitor Model: Monitor Id: Native Mode: Output Type: Driver Name: Driver File Version: () Driver Version: DDI Version: Driver Model: WDDM 1.1 Driver Attributes: Final Retail Driver Date/Size: , 0 bytes WHQL Logo'd: n/a WHQL Date Stamp: n/a Device Identifier: Vendor ID: Device ID: SubSys ID: Revision ID: Driver Strong Name: oem11.inf:IntelGfx.NTamd64.6.0:iSNBM0:8.15.10.2696:pci\ven_8086&dev_0126&subsys_04b61028 Rank Of Driver: 00E60001 Video Accel: Deinterlace Caps: n/a D3D9 Overlay: DXVA-HD: DDraw Status: Disabled D3D Status: Not Available AGP Status: Not Available ------------- Sound Devices ------------- Description: Speakers (High Definition Audio Device) Default Sound Playback: Yes Default Voice Playback: Yes Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0665&SUBSYS_102804B6&REV_1000 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 65535 Type: WDM Driver Name: HdAudio.sys Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: Yes Date and Size: 11/20/2010 22:23:47, 350208 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Microsoft HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0xF1F Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (High Definition Audio Device) Default Sound Playback: No Default Voice Playback: No Hardware ID: HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0665&SUBSYS_102804B6&REV_1000 Manufacturer ID: 1 Product ID: 65535 Type: WDM Driver Name: HdAudio.sys Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail WHQL Logo'd: Yes Date and Size: 11/20/2010 22:23:47, 350208 bytes Other Files: Driver Provider: Microsoft HW Accel Level: Basic Cap Flags: 0xF1F Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 200000 Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 1, 0 Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0 HW Memory: 0 Voice Management: No EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No --------------------- Sound Capture Devices --------------------- Description: Microphone (High Definition Audio Device) Default Sound Capture: Yes Default Voice Capture: Yes Driver Name: HdAudio.sys Driver Version: 6.01.7601.17514 (English) Driver Attributes: Final Retail Date and Size: 11/20/2010 22:23:47, 350208 bytes Cap Flags: 0x1 Format Flags: 0xFFFFF ------------------- DirectInput Devices ------------------- Device Name: Mouse Attached: 1 Controller ID: n/a Vendor/Product ID: n/a FF Driver: n/a Device Name: Keyboard Attached: 1 Controller ID: n/a Vendor/Product ID: n/a FF Driver: n/a Poll w/ Interrupt: No ----------- USB Devices ----------- + USB Root Hub | Vendor/Product ID: 0x8086, 0x1C26 | Matching Device ID: usb\root_hub20 | Service: usbhub | +-+ Generic USB Hub | | Vendor/Product ID: 0x8087, 0x0024 | | Location: Port_#0001.Hub_#0002 | | Matching Device ID: usb\class_09 | | Service: usbhub ---------------- Gameport Devices ---------------- ------------ PS/2 Devices ------------ + Standard PS/2 Keyboard | Matching Device ID: *pnp0303 | Service: i8042prt | + Terminal Server Keyboard Driver | Matching Device ID: root\rdp_kbd | Upper Filters: kbdclass | Service: TermDD | + Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad | Matching Device ID: *dll04b6 | Upper Filters: SynTP | Service: i8042prt | + Terminal Server Mouse Driver | Matching Device ID: root\rdp_mou | Upper Filters: mouclass | Service: TermDD ------------------------ Disk & DVD/CD-ROM Drives ------------------------ Drive: C: Free Space: 26.2 GB Total Space: 122.0 GB File System: NTFS Model: M4-CT128M4SSD2 ATA Device Drive: D: Model: Optiarc DVDRWBD BC-5540H ATA Device Driver: c:\windows\system32\drivers\cdrom.sys, 6.01.7601.17514 (English), , 0 bytes -------------- System Devices -------------- Name: High Definition Audio Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C20&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&D8 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard host CPU bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0104&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_09\3&11583659&0&00 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C1A&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E5 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0101&SUBSYS_20108086&REV_09\3&11583659&0&08 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C18&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E4 Driver: n/a Name: Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6230 Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0091&SUBSYS_52218086&REV_34\4&2634DE8D&0&00E1 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard ISA bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C4B&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&F8 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C16&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E3 Driver: n/a Name: Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_10EC&DEV_8168&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_06\4&109EAB2F&0&00E5 Driver: n/a Name: Intel(R) Management Engine Interface Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C3A&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_04\3&11583659&0&B0 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C12&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E1 Driver: n/a Name: NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M Device ID: PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0DF5&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_A1\4&4DCA75F&0&0008 Driver: n/a Name: Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C2D&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&D0 Driver: n/a Name: PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C10&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_B5\3&11583659&0&E0 Driver: n/a Name: Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C26&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&E8 Driver: n/a Name: Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C03&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&FA Driver: n/a Name: SM Bus Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1C22&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&FB Driver: n/a Name: Intel(R) HD Graphics 3000 Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0126&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_09\3&11583659&0&10 Driver: n/a Name: Renesas Electronics USB 3.0 Host Controller Device ID: PCI\VEN_1033&DEV_0194&SUBSYS_04B61028&REV_04\4&3494AC3A&0&00E3 Driver: n/a ------------------ DirectShow Filters ------------------ DirectShow Filters: WMAudio Decoder DMO,0x00800800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,6.01.7601.17514 WMAPro over S/PDIF DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMADMOD.DLL,6.01.7601.17514 WMSpeech Decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMSPDMOD.DLL,6.01.7601.17514 MP3 Decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,mp3dmod.dll,6.01.7600.16385 Mpeg4s Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mp4sdecd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 WMV Screen decoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvsdecd.dll,6.01.7601.17514 WMVideo Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,wmvdecod.dll,6.01.7601.17514 Mpeg43 Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mp43decd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 Mpeg4 Decoder DMO,0x00800001,1,1,mpg4decd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 DV Muxer,0x00400000,0,0,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Color Space Converter,0x00400001,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 WM ASF Reader,0x00400000,0,0,qasf.dll,12.00.7601.17514 Screen Capture filter,0x00200000,0,1,wmpsrcwp.dll,12.00.7601.17514 AVI Splitter,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 VGA 16 Color Ditherer,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 SBE2MediaTypeProfile,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder,0x005fffff,2,4,msmpeg2vdec.dll,6.01.7140.0000 AC3 Parser Filter,0x00600000,1,1,mpg2splt.ax,6.06.7601.17528 StreamBufferSink,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 MJPEG Decompressor,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG-I Stream Splitter,0x00600000,1,2,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 SAMI (CC) Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 VBI Codec,0x00600000,1,4,VBICodec.ax,6.06.7601.17514 MPEG-2 Splitter,0x005fffff,1,0,mpg2splt.ax,6.06.7601.17528 Closed Captions Analysis Filter,0x00200000,2,5,cca.dll,6.06.7601.17514 SBE2FileScan,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Microsoft MPEG-2 Video Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 Internal Script Command Renderer,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG Audio Decoder,0x03680001,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 DV Splitter,0x00600000,1,2,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Video Mixing Renderer 9,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft MPEG-2 Encoder,0x00200000,2,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 ACM Wrapper,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Video Renderer,0x00800001,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG-2 Video Stream Analyzer,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Line 21 Decoder,0x00600000,1,1,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 Video Port Manager,0x00600000,2,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Video Renderer,0x00400000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 VPS Decoder,0x00200000,0,0,WSTPager.ax,6.06.7601.17514 WM ASF Writer,0x00400000,0,0,qasf.dll,12.00.7601.17514 VBI Surface Allocator,0x00600000,1,1,vbisurf.ax,6.01.7601.17514 File writer,0x00200000,1,0,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 iTV Data Sink,0x00600000,1,0,itvdata.dll,6.06.7601.17514 iTV Data Capture filter,0x00600000,1,1,itvdata.dll,6.06.7601.17514 DVD Navigator,0x00200000,0,3,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 Overlay Mixer2,0x00200000,1,1,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 AVI Draw,0x00600064,9,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 RDP DShow Redirection Filter,0xffffffff,1,0,DShowRdpFilter.dll, Microsoft MPEG-2 Audio Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msmpeg2enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 WST Pager,0x00200000,1,1,WSTPager.ax,6.06.7601.17514 MPEG-2 Demultiplexer,0x00600000,1,1,mpg2splt.ax,6.06.7601.17528 DV Video Decoder,0x00800000,1,1,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 SampleGrabber,0x00200000,1,1,qedit.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Null Renderer,0x00200000,1,0,qedit.dll,6.06.7601.17514 MPEG-2 Sections and Tables,0x005fffff,1,0,Mpeg2Data.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft AC3 Encoder,0x00200000,1,1,msac3enc.dll,6.01.7601.17514 StreamBufferSource,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Smart Tee,0x00200000,1,2,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Overlay Mixer,0x00200000,0,0,qdvd.dll,6.06.7601.17835 AVI Decompressor,0x00600000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 AVI/WAV File Source,0x00400000,0,2,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Wave Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MIDI Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Multi-file Parser,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 File stream renderer,0x00400000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft DTV-DVD Audio Decoder,0x005fffff,1,1,msmpeg2adec.dll,6.01.7140.0000 StreamBufferSink2,0x00200000,0,0,sbe.dll,6.06.7601.17528 AVI Mux,0x00200000,1,0,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Line 21 Decoder 2,0x00600002,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 File Source (Async.),0x00400000,0,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 File Source (URL),0x00400000,0,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Infinite Pin Tee Filter,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Enhanced Video Renderer,0x00200000,1,0,evr.dll,6.01.7601.17514 BDA MPEG2 Transport Information Filter,0x00200000,2,0,psisrndr.ax,6.06.7601.17669 MPEG Video Decoder,0x40000001,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 WDM Streaming Tee/Splitter Devices: Tee/Sink-to-Sink Converter,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Video Compressors: WMVideo8 Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvxencd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 WMVideo9 Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvencod.dll,6.01.7600.16385 MSScreen 9 encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,wmvsencd.dll,6.01.7600.16385 DV Video Encoder,0x00200000,0,0,qdv.dll,6.06.7601.17514 MJPEG Compressor,0x00200000,0,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Cinepak Codec by Radius,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Intel IYUV codec,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Intel IYUV codec,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft RLE,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft Video 1,0x00200000,1,1,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 Audio Compressors: WM Speech Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMSPDMOE.DLL,6.01.7600.16385 WMAudio Encoder DMO,0x00600800,1,1,WMADMOE.DLL,6.01.7600.16385 IMA ADPCM,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 PCM,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft ADPCM,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 GSM 6.10,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 CCITT A-Law,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 CCITT u-Law,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 MPEG Layer-3,0x00200000,1,1,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Audio Capture Sources: Microphone (High Definition Aud,0x00200000,0,0,qcap.dll,6.06.7601.17514 PBDA CP Filters: PBDA DTFilter,0x00600000,1,1,CPFilters.dll,6.06.7601.17528 PBDA ETFilter,0x00200000,0,0,CPFilters.dll,6.06.7601.17528 PBDA PTFilter,0x00200000,0,0,CPFilters.dll,6.06.7601.17528 Midi Renderers: Default MidiOut Device,0x00800000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth,0x00200000,1,0,quartz.dll,6.06.7601.17713 WDM Streaming Capture Devices: HD Audio Microphone 2,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Integrated Webcam,0x00200000,1,2,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 WDM Streaming Rendering Devices: HD Audio Headphone/Speakers,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 HD Audio SPDIF out,0x00200000,1,1,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 BDA Network Providers: Microsoft ATSC Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft DVBC Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft DVBS Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft DVBT Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSDvbNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Microsoft Network Provider,0x00200000,0,1,MSNP.ax,6.06.7601.17514 Video Capture Sources: Integrated Webcam,0x00200000,1,2,ksproxy.ax,6.01.7601.17514 Multi-Instance Capable VBI Codecs: VBI 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• Agile Development

  - by James Oloo Onyango

  Alot of literature has and is being written about agile developement and its surrounding philosophies. In my quest to find the best way to express the importance of agile methodologies, i have found Robert C. Martin's "A Satire Of Two Companies" to be both the most concise and thorough! Enjoy the read! Rufus Inc Project Kick Off Your name is Bob. The date is January 3, 2001, and your head still aches from the recent millennial revelry. You are sitting in a conference room with several managers and a group of your peers. You are a project team leader. Your boss is there, and he has brought along all of his team leaders. His boss called the meeting. "We have a new project to develop," says your boss's boss. Call him BB. The points in his hair are so long that they scrape the ceiling. Your boss's points are just starting to grow, but he eagerly awaits the day when he can leave Brylcream stains on the acoustic tiles. BB describes the essence of the new market they have identified and the product they want to develop to exploit this market. "We must have this new project up and working by fourth quarter October 1," BB demands. "Nothing is of higher priority, so we are cancelling your current project." The reaction in the room is stunned silence. Months of work are simply going to be thrown away. Slowly, a murmur of objection begins to circulate around the conference table.   His points give off an evil green glow as BB meets the eyes of everyone in the room. One by one, that insidious stare reduces each attendee to quivering lumps of protoplasm. It is clear that he will brook no discussion on this matter. Once silence has been restored, BB says, "We need to begin immediately. How long will it take you to do the analysis?" You raise your hand. Your boss tries to stop you, but his spitwad misses you and you are unaware of his efforts.   "Sir, we can't tell you how long the analysis will take until we have some requirements." "The requirements document won't be ready for 3 or 4 weeks," BB says, his points vibrating with frustration. "So, pretend that you have the requirements in front of you now. How long will you require for analysis?" No one breathes. Everyone looks around to see whether anyone has some idea. "If analysis goes beyond April 1, we have a problem. Can you finish the analysis by then?" Your boss visibly gathers his courage: "We'll find a way, sir!" His points grow 3 mm, and your headache increases by two Tylenol. "Good." BB smiles. "Now, how long will it take to do the design?" "Sir," you say. Your boss visibly pales. He is clearly worried that his 3 mms are at risk. "Without an analysis, it will not be possible to tell you how long design will take." BB's expression shifts beyond austere.   "PRETEND you have the analysis already!" he says, while fixing you with his vacant, beady little eyes. "How long will it take you to do the design?" Two Tylenol are not going to cut it. Your boss, in a desperate attempt to save his new growth, babbles: "Well, sir, with only six months left to complete the project, design had better take no longer than 3 months."   "I'm glad you agree, Smithers!" BB says, beaming. Your boss relaxes. He knows his points are secure. After a while, he starts lightly humming the Brylcream jingle. BB continues, "So, analysis will be complete by April 1, design will be complete by July 1, and that gives you 3 months to implement the project. This meeting is an example of how well our new consensus and empowerment policies are working. Now, get out there and start working. I'll expect to see TQM plans and QIT assignments on my desk by next week. Oh, and don't forget that your crossfunctional team meetings and reports will be needed for next month's quality audit." "Forget the Tylenol," you think to yourself as you return to your cubicle. "I need bourbon."   Visibly excited, your boss comes over to you and says, "Gosh, what a great meeting. I think we're really going to do some world shaking with this project." You nod in agreement, too disgusted to do anything else. "Oh," your boss continues, "I almost forgot." He hands you a 30-page document. "Remember that the SEI is coming to do an evaluation next week. This is the evaluation guide. You need to read through it, memorize it, and then shred it. It tells you how to answer any questions that the SEI auditors ask you. It also tells you what parts of the building you are allowed to take them to and what parts to avoid. We are determined to be a CMM level 3 organization by June!"   You and your peers start working on the analysis of the new project. This is difficult because you have no requirements. But from the 10-minute introduction given by BB on that fateful morning, you have some idea of what the product is supposed to do.   Corporate process demands that you begin by creating a use case document. You and your team begin enumerating use cases and drawing oval and stick diagrams. Philosophical debates break out among the team members. There is disagreement as to whether certain use cases should be connected with <<extends>> or <<includes>> relationships. Competing models are created, but nobody knows how to evaluate them. The debate continues, effectively paralyzing progress.   After a week, somebody finds the iceberg.com Web site, which recommends disposing entirely of <<extends>> and <<includes>> and replacing them with <<precedes>> and <<uses>>. The documents on this Web site, authored by Don Sengroiux, describes a method known as stalwart-analysis, which claims to be a step-by-step method for translating use cases into design diagrams. More competing use case models are created using this new scheme, but again, people can't agree on how to evaluate them. The thrashing continues. More and more, the use case meetings are driven by emotion rather than by reason. If it weren't for the fact that you don't have requirements, you'd be pretty upset by the lack of progress you are making. The requirements document arrives on February 15. And then again on February 20, 25, and every week thereafter. Each new version contradicts the previous one. Clearly, the marketing folks who are writing the requirements, empowered though they might be, are not finding consensus.   At the same time, several new competing use case templates have been proposed by the various team members. Each template presents its own particularly creative way of delaying progress. The debates rage on. On March 1, Prudence Putrigence, the process proctor, succeeds in integrating all the competing use case forms and templates into a single, all-encompassing form. Just the blank form is 15 pages long. She has managed to include every field that appeared on all the competing templates. She also presents a 159- page document describing how to fill out the use case form. All current use cases must be rewritten according to the new standard.   You marvel to yourself that it now requires 15 pages of fill-in-the-blank and essay questions to answer the question: What should the system do when the user presses Return? The corporate process (authored by L. E. Ott, famed author of "Holistic Analysis: A Progressive Dialectic for Software Engineers") insists that you discover all primary use cases, 87 percent of all secondary use cases, and 36.274 percent of all tertiary use cases before you can complete analysis and enter the design phase. You have no idea what a tertiary use case is. So in an attempt to meet this requirement, you try to get your use case document reviewed by the marketing department, which you hope will know what a tertiary use case is.   Unfortunately, the marketing folks are too busy with sales support to talk to you. Indeed, since the project started, you have not been able to get a single meeting with marketing, which has provided a never-ending stream of changing and contradictory requirements documents.   While one team has been spinning endlessly on the use case document, another team has been working out the domain model. Endless variations of UML documents are pouring out of this team. Every week, the model is reworked.   The team members can't decide whether to use <<interfaces>> or <<types>> in the model. A huge disagreement has been raging on the proper syntax and application of OCL. Others on the team just got back from a 5-day class on catabolism, and have been producing incredibly detailed and arcane diagrams that nobody else can fathom.   On March 27, with one week to go before analysis is to be complete, you have produced a sea of documents and diagrams but are no closer to a cogent analysis of the problem than you were on January 3. **** And then, a miracle happens.   **** On Saturday, April 1, you check your e-mail from home. You see a memo from your boss to BB. It states unequivocally that you are done with the analysis! You phone your boss and complain. "How could you have told BB that we were done with the analysis?" "Have you looked at a calendar lately?" he responds. "It's April 1!" The irony of that date does not escape you. "But we have so much more to think about. So much more to analyze! We haven't even decided whether to use <<extends>> or <<precedes>>!" "Where is your evidence that you are not done?" inquires your boss, impatiently. "Whaaa . . . ." But he cuts you off. "Analysis can go on forever; it has to be stopped at some point. And since this is the date it was scheduled to stop, it has been stopped. Now, on Monday, I want you to gather up all existing analysis materials and put them into a public folder. Release that folder to Prudence so that she can log it in the CM system by Monday afternoon. Then get busy and start designing."   As you hang up the phone, you begin to consider the benefits of keeping a bottle of bourbon in your bottom desk drawer. They threw a party to celebrate the on-time completion of the analysis phase. BB gave a colon-stirring speech on empowerment. And your boss, another 3 mm taller, congratulated his team on the incredible show of unity and teamwork. Finally, the CIO takes the stage to tell everyone that the SEI audit went very well and to thank everyone for studying and shredding the evaluation guides that were passed out. Level 3 now seems assured and will be awarded by June. (Scuttlebutt has it that managers at the level of BB and above are to receive significant bonuses once the SEI awards level 3.)   As the weeks flow by, you and your team work on the design of the system. Of course, you find that the analysis that the design is supposedly based on is flawedno, useless; no, worse than useless. But when you tell your boss that you need to go back and work some more on the analysis to shore up its weaker sections, he simply states, "The analysis phase is over. The only allowable activity is design. Now get back to it."   So, you and your team hack the design as best you can, unsure of whether the requirements have been properly analyzed. Of course, it really doesn't matter much, since the requirements document is still thrashing with weekly revisions, and the marketing department still refuses to meet with you.     The design is a nightmare. Your boss recently misread a book named The Finish Line in which the author, Mark DeThomaso, blithely suggested that design documents should be taken down to code-level detail. "If we are going to be working at that level of detail," you ask, "why don't we simply write the code instead?" "Because then you wouldn't be designing, of course. And the only allowable activity in the design phase is design!" "Besides," he continues, "we have just purchased a companywide license for Dandelion! This tool enables 'Round the Horn Engineering!' You are to transfer all design diagrams into this tool. It will automatically generate our code for us! It will also keep the design diagrams in sync with the code!" Your boss hands you a brightly colored shrinkwrapped box containing the Dandelion distribution. You accept it numbly and shuffle off to your cubicle. Twelve hours, eight crashes, one disk reformatting, and eight shots of 151 later, you finally have the tool installed on your server. You consider the week your team will lose while attending Dandelion training. Then you smile and think, "Any week I'm not here is a good week." Design diagram after design diagram is created by your team. Dandelion makes it very difficult to draw these diagrams. There are dozens and dozens of deeply nested dialog boxes with funny text fields and check boxes that must all be filled in correctly. And then there's the problem of moving classes between packages. At first, these diagram are driven from the use cases. But the requirements are changing so often that the use cases rapidly become meaningless. Debates rage about whether VISITOR or DECORATOR design patterns should be used. One developer refuses to use VISITOR in any form, claiming that it's not a properly object-oriented construct. Someone refuses to use multiple inheritance, since it is the spawn of the devil. Review meetings rapidly degenerate into debates about the meaning of object orientation, the definition of analysis versus design, or when to use aggregation versus association. Midway through the design cycle, the marketing folks announce that they have rethought the focus of the system. Their new requirements document is completely restructured. They have eliminated several major feature areas and replaced them with feature areas that they anticipate customer surveys will show to be more appropriate. You tell your boss that these changes mean that you need to reanalyze and redesign much of the system. But he says, "The analysis phase is system. But he says, "The analysis phase is over. The only allowable activity is design. Now get back to it."   You suggest that it might be better to create a simple prototype to show to the marketing folks and even some potential customers. But your boss says, "The analysis phase is over. The only allowable activity is design. Now get back to it." Hack, hack, hack, hack. You try to create some kind of a design document that might reflect the new requirements documents. However, the revolution of the requirements has not caused them to stop thrashing. Indeed, if anything, the wild oscillations of the requirements document have only increased in frequency and amplitude.   You slog your way through them.   On June 15, the Dandelion database gets corrupted. Apparently, the corruption has been progressive. Small errors in the DB accumulated over the months into bigger and bigger errors. Eventually, the CASE tool just stopped working. Of course, the slowly encroaching corruption is present on all the backups. Calls to the Dandelion technical support line go unanswered for several days. Finally, you receive a brief e-mail from Dandelion, informing you that this is a known problem and that the solution is to purchase the new version, which they promise will be ready some time next quarter, and then reenter all the diagrams by hand.   ****   Then, on July 1 another miracle happens! You are done with the design!   Rather than go to your boss and complain, you stock your middle desk drawer with some vodka.   **** They threw a party to celebrate the on-time completion of the design phase and their graduation to CMM level 3. This time, you find BB's speech so stirring that you have to use the restroom before it begins. New banners and plaques are all over your workplace. They show pictures of eagles and mountain climbers, and they talk about teamwork and empowerment. They read better after a few scotches. That reminds you that you need to clear out your file cabinet to make room for the brandy. You and your team begin to code. But you rapidly discover that the design is lacking in some significant areas. Actually, it's lacking any significance at all. You convene a design session in one of the conference rooms to try to work through some of the nastier problems. But your boss catches you at it and disbands the meeting, saying, "The design phase is over. The only allowable activity is coding. Now get back to it."   ****   The code generated by Dandelion is really hideous. It turns out that you and your team were using association and aggregation the wrong way, after all. All the generated code has to be edited to correct these flaws. Editing this code is extremely difficult because it has been instrumented with ugly comment blocks that have special syntax that Dandelion needs in order to keep the diagrams in sync with the code. If you accidentally alter one of these comments, the diagrams will be regenerated incorrectly. It turns out that "Round the Horn Engineering" requires an awful lot of effort. The more you try to keep the code compatible with Dandelion, the more errors Dandelion generates. In the end, you give up and decide to keep the diagrams up to date manually. A second later, you decide that there's no point in keeping the diagrams up to date at all. Besides, who has time?   Your boss hires a consultant to build tools to count the number of lines of code that are being produced. He puts a big thermometer graph on the wall with the number 1,000,000 on the top. Every day, he extends the red line to show how many lines have been added. Three days after the thermometer appears on the wall, your boss stops you in the hall. "That graph isn't growing quickly enough. We need to have a million lines done by October 1." "We aren't even sh-sh-sure that the proshect will require a m-million linezh," you blather. "We have to have a million lines done by October 1," your boss reiterates. His points have grown again, and the Grecian formula he uses on them creates an aura of authority and competence. "Are you sure your comment blocks are big enough?" Then, in a flash of managerial insight, he says, "I have it! I want you to institute a new policy among the engineers. No line of code is to be longer than 20 characters. Any such line must be split into two or more preferably more. All existing code needs to be reworked to this standard. That'll get our line count up!"   You decide not to tell him that this will require two unscheduled work months. You decide not to tell him anything at all. You decide that intravenous injections of pure ethanol are the only solution. You make the appropriate arrangements. Hack, hack, hack, and hack. You and your team madly code away. By August 1, your boss, frowning at the thermometer on the wall, institutes a mandatory 50-hour workweek.   Hack, hack, hack, and hack. By September 1st, the thermometer is at 1.2 million lines and your boss asks you to write a report describing why you exceeded the coding budget by 20 percent. He institutes mandatory Saturdays and demands that the project be brought back down to a million lines. You start a campaign of remerging lines. Hack, hack, hack, and hack. Tempers are flaring; people are quitting; QA is raining trouble reports down on you. Customers are demanding installation and user manuals; salespeople are demanding advance demonstrations for special customers; the requirements document is still thrashing, the marketing folks are complaining that the product isn't anything like they specified, and the liquor store won't accept your credit card anymore. Something has to give.    On September 15, BB calls a meeting. As he enters the room, his points are emitting clouds of steam. When he speaks, the bass overtones of his carefully manicured voice cause the pit of your stomach to roll over. "The QA manager has told me that this project has less than 50 percent of the required features implemented. He has also informed me that the system crashes all the time, yields wrong results, and is hideously slow. He has also complained that he cannot keep up with the continuous train of daily releases, each more buggy than the last!" He stops for a few seconds, visibly trying to compose himself. "The QA manager estimates that, at this rate of development, we won't be able to ship the product until December!" Actually, you think it's more like March, but you don't say anything. "December!" BB roars with such derision that people duck their heads as though he were pointing an assault rifle at them. "December is absolutely out of the question. Team leaders, I want new estimates on my desk in the morning. I am hereby mandating 65-hour work weeks until this project is complete. And it better be complete by November 1."   As he leaves the conference room, he is heard to mutter: "Empowermentbah!" * * * Your boss is bald; his points are mounted on BB's wall. The fluorescent lights reflecting off his pate momentarily dazzle you. "Do you have anything to drink?" he asks. Having just finished your last bottle of Boone's Farm, you pull a bottle of Thunderbird from your bookshelf and pour it into his coffee mug. "What's it going to take to get this project done? " he asks. "We need to freeze the requirements, analyze them, design them, and then implement them," you say callously. "By November 1?" your boss exclaims incredulously. "No way! Just get back to coding the damned thing." He storms out, scratching his vacant head.   A few days later, you find that your boss has been transferred to the corporate research division. Turnover has skyrocketed. Customers, informed at the last minute that their orders cannot be fulfilled on time, have begun to cancel their orders. Marketing is re-evaluating whether this product aligns with the overall goals of the company. Memos fly, heads roll, policies change, and things are, overall, pretty grim. Finally, by March, after far too many sixty-five hour weeks, a very shaky version of the software is ready. In the field, bug-discovery rates are high, and the technical support staff are at their wits' end, trying to cope with the complaints and demands of the irate customers. Nobody is happy.   In April, BB decides to buy his way out of the problem by licensing a product produced by Rupert Industries and redistributing it. The customers are mollified, the marketing folks are smug, and you are laid off.     Rupert Industries: Project Alpha   Your name is Robert. The date is January 3, 2001. The quiet hours spent with your family this holiday have left you refreshed and ready for work. You are sitting in a conference room with your team of professionals. The manager of the division called the meeting. "We have some ideas for a new project," says the division manager. Call him Russ. He is a high-strung British chap with more energy than a fusion reactor. He is ambitious and driven but understands the value of a team. Russ describes the essence of the new market opportunity the company has identified and introduces you to Jane, the marketing manager, who is responsible for defining the products that will address it. Addressing you, Jane says, "We'd like to start defining our first product offering as soon as possible. When can you and your team meet with me?" You reply, "We'll be done with the current iteration of our project this Friday. We can spare a few hours for you between now and then. After that, we'll take a few people from the team and dedicate them to you. We'll begin hiring their replacements and the new people for your team immediately." "Great," says Russ, "but I want you to understand that it is critical that we have something to exhibit at the trade show coming up this July. If we can't be there with something significant, we'll lose the opportunity."   "I understand," you reply. "I don't yet know what it is that you have in mind, but I'm sure we can have something by July. I just can't tell you what that something will be right now. In any case, you and Jane are going to have complete control over what we developers do, so you can rest assured that by July, you'll have the most important things that can be accomplished in that time ready to exhibit."   Russ nods in satisfaction. He knows how this works. Your team has always kept him advised and allowed him to steer their development. He has the utmost confidence that your team will work on the most important things first and will produce a high-quality product.   * * *   "So, Robert," says Jane at their first meeting, "How does your team feel about being split up?" "We'll miss working with each other," you answer, "but some of us were getting pretty tired of that last project and are looking forward to a change. So, what are you people cooking up?" Jane beams. "You know how much trouble our customers currently have . . ." And she spends a half hour or so describing the problem and possible solution. "OK, wait a second" you respond. "I need to be clear about this." And so you and Jane talk about how this system might work. Some of her ideas aren't fully formed. You suggest possible solutions. She likes some of them. You continue discussing.   During the discussion, as each new topic is addressed, Jane writes user story cards. Each card represents something that the new system has to do. The cards accumulate on the table and are spread out in front of you. Both you and Jane point at them, pick them up, and make notes on them as you discuss the stories. The cards are powerful mnemonic devices that you can use to represent complex ideas that are barely formed.   At the end of the meeting, you say, "OK, I've got a general idea of what you want. I'm going to talk to the team about it. I imagine they'll want to run some experiments with various database structures and presentation formats. Next time we meet, it'll be as a group, and we'll start identifying the most important features of the system."   A week later, your nascent team meets with Jane. They spread the existing user story cards out on the table and begin to get into some of the details of the system. The meeting is very dynamic. Jane presents the stories in the order of their importance. There is much discussion about each one. The developers are concerned about keeping the stories small enough to estimate and test. So they continually ask Jane to split one story into several smaller stories. Jane is concerned that each story have a clear business value and priority, so as she splits them, she makes sure that this stays true.   The stories accumulate on the table. Jane writes them, but the developers make notes on them as needed. Nobody tries to capture everything that is said; the cards are not meant to capture everything but are simply reminders of the conversation.   As the developers become more comfortable with the stories, they begin writing estimates on them. These estimates are crude and budgetary, but they give Jane an idea of what the story will cost.   At the end of the meeting, it is clear that many more stories could be discussed. It is also clear that the most important stories have been addressed and that they represent several months worth of work. Jane closes the meeting by taking the cards with her and promising to have a proposal for the first release in the morning.   * * *   The next morning, you reconvene the meeting. Jane chooses five cards and places them on the table. "According to your estimates, these cards represent about one perfect team-week's worth of work. The last iteration of the previous project managed to get one perfect team-week done in 3 real weeks. If we can get these five stories done in 3 weeks, we'll be able to demonstrate them to Russ. That will make him feel very comfortable about our progress." Jane is pushing it. The sheepish look on her face lets you know that she knows it too. You reply, "Jane, this is a new team, working on a new project. It's a bit presumptuous to expect that our velocity will be the same as the previous team's. However, I met with the team yesterday afternoon, and we all agreed that our initial velocity should, in fact, be set to one perfectweek for every 3 real-weeks. So you've lucked out on this one." "Just remember," you continue, "that the story estimates and the story velocity are very tentative at this point. We'll learn more when we plan the iteration and even more when we implement it."   Jane looks over her glasses at you as if to say "Who's the boss around here, anyway?" and then smiles and says, "Yeah, don't worry. I know the drill by now."Jane then puts 15 more cards on the table. She says, "If we can get all these cards done by the end of March, we can turn the system over to our beta test customers. And we'll get good feedback from them."   You reply, "OK, so we've got our first iteration defined, and we have the stories for the next three iterations after that. These four iterations will make our first release."   "So," says Jane, can you really do these five stories in the next 3 weeks?" "I don't know for sure, Jane," you reply. "Let's break them down into tasks and see what we get."   So Jane, you, and your team spend the next several hours taking each of the five stories that Jane chose for the first iteration and breaking them down into small tasks. The developers quickly realize that some of the tasks can be shared between stories and that other tasks have commonalities that can probably be taken advantage of. It is clear that potential designs are popping into the developers' heads. From time to time, they form little discussion knots and scribble UML diagrams on some cards.   Soon, the whiteboard is filled with the tasks that, once completed, will implement the five stories for this iteration. You start the sign-up process by saying, "OK, let's sign up for these tasks." "I'll take the initial database generation." Says Pete. "That's what I did on the last project, and this doesn't look very different. I estimate it at two of my perfect workdays." "OK, well, then, I'll take the login screen," says Joe. "Aw, darn," says Elaine, the junior member of the team, "I've never done a GUI, and kinda wanted to try that one."   "Ah, the impatience of youth," Joe says sagely, with a wink in your direction. "You can assist me with it, young Jedi." To Jane: "I think it'll take me about three of my perfect workdays."   One by one, the developers sign up for tasks and estimate them in terms of their own perfect workdays. Both you and Jane know that it is best to let the developers volunteer for tasks than to assign the tasks to them. You also know full well that you daren't challenge any of the developers' estimates. You know these people, and you trust them. You know that they are going to do the very best they can.   The developers know that they can't sign up for more perfect workdays than they finished in the last iteration they worked on. Once each developer has filled his or her schedule for the iteration, they stop signing up for tasks.   Eventually, all the developers have stopped signing up for tasks. But, of course, tasks are still left on the board.   "I was worried that that might happen," you say, "OK, there's only one thing to do, Jane. We've got too much to do in this iteration. What stories or tasks can we remove?" Jane sighs. She knows that this is the only option. Working overtime at the beginning of a project is insane, and projects where she's tried it have not fared well.   So Jane starts to remove the least-important functionality. "Well, we really don't need the login screen just yet. We can simply start the system in the logged-in state." "Rats!" cries Elaine. "I really wanted to do that." "Patience, grasshopper." says Joe. "Those who wait for the bees to leave the hive will not have lips too swollen to relish the honey." Elaine looks confused. Everyone looks confused. "So . . .," Jane continues, "I think we can also do away with . . ." And so, bit by bit, the list of tasks shrinks. Developers who lose a task sign up for one of the remaining ones.   The negotiation is not painless. Several times, Jane exhibits obvious frustration and impatience. Once, when tensions are especially high, Elaine volunteers, "I'll work extra hard to make up some of the missing time." You are about to correct her when, fortunately, Joe looks her in the eye and says, "When once you proceed down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."   In the end, an iteration acceptable to Jane is reached. It's not what Jane wanted. Indeed, it is significantly less. But it's something the team feels that can be achieved in the next 3 weeks.   And, after all, it still addresses the most important things that Jane wanted in the iteration. "So, Jane," you say when things had quieted down a bit, "when can we expect acceptance tests from you?" Jane sighs. This is the other side of the coin. For every story the development team implements,   Jane must supply a suite of acceptance tests that prove that it works. And the team needs these long before the end of the iteration, since they will certainly point out differences in the way Jane and the developers imagine the system's behaviour.   "I'll get you some example test scripts today," Jane promises. "I'll add to them every day after that. You'll have the entire suite by the middle of the iteration."   * * *   The iteration begins on Monday morning with a flurry of Class, Responsibilities, Collaborators sessions. By midmorning, all the developers have assembled into pairs and are rapidly coding away. "And now, my young apprentice," Joe says to Elaine, "you shall learn the mysteries of test-first design!"   "Wow, that sounds pretty rad," Elaine replies. "How do you do it?" Joe beams. It's clear that he has been anticipating this moment. "OK, what does the code do right now?" "Huh?" replied Elaine, "It doesn't do anything at all; there is no code."   "So, consider our task; can you think of something the code should do?" "Sure," Elaine said with youthful assurance, "First, it should connect to the database." "And thereupon, what must needs be required to connecteth the database?" "You sure talk weird," laughed Elaine. "I think we'd have to get the database object from some registry and call the Connect() method. "Ah, astute young wizard. Thou perceives correctly that we requireth an object within which we can cacheth the database object." "Is 'cacheth' really a word?" "It is when I say it! So, what test can we write that we know the database registry should pass?" Elaine sighs. She knows she'll just have to play along. "We should be able to create a database object and pass it to the registry in a Store() method. And then we should be able to pull it out of the registry with a Get() method and make sure it's the same object." "Oh, well said, my prepubescent sprite!" "Hay!" "So, now, let's write a test function that proves your case." "But shouldn't we write the database object and registry object first?" "Ah, you've much to learn, my young impatient one. Just write the test first." "But it won't even compile!" "Are you sure? What if it did?" "Uh . . ." "Just write the test, Elaine. Trust me." And so Joe, Elaine, and all the other developers began to code their tasks, one test case at a time. The room in which they worked was abuzz with the conversations between the pairs. The murmur was punctuated by an occasional high five when a pair managed to finish a task or a difficult test case.   As development proceeded, the developers changed partners once or twice a day. Each developer got to see what all the others were doing, and so knowledge of the code spread generally throughout the team.   Whenever a pair finished something significant whether a whole task or simply an important part of a task they integrated what they had with the rest of the system. Thus, the code base grew daily, and integration difficulties were minimized.   The developers communicated with Jane on a daily basis. They'd go to her whenever they had a question about the functionality of the system or the interpretation of an acceptance test case.   Jane, good as her word, supplied the team with a steady stream of acceptance test scripts. The team read these carefully and thereby gained a much better understanding of what Jane expected the system to do. By the beginning of the second week, there was enough functionality to demonstrate to Jane. She watched eagerly as the demonstration passed test case after test case. "This is really cool," Jane said as the demonstration finally ended. "But this doesn't seem like one-third of the tasks. Is your velocity slower than anticipated?"   You grimace. You'd been waiting for a good time to mention this to Jane but now she was forcing the issue. "Yes, unfortunately, we are going more slowly than we had expected. The new application server we are using is turning out to be a pain to configure. Also, it takes forever to reboot, and we have to reboot it whenever we make even the slightest change to its configuration."   Jane eyes you with suspicion. The stress of last Monday's negotiations had still not entirely dissipated. She says, "And what does this mean to our schedule? We can't slip it again, we just can't. Russ will have a fit! He'll haul us all into the woodshed and ream us some new ones."   You look Jane right in the eyes. There's no pleasant way to give someone news like this. So you just blurt out, "Look, if things keep going like they're going, we're not going to be done with everything by next Friday. Now it's possible that we'll figure out a way to go faster. But, frankly, I wouldn't depend on that. You should start thinking about one or two tasks that could be removed from the iteration without ruining the demonstration for Russ. Come hell or high water, we are going to give that demonstration on Friday, and I don't think you want us to choose which tasks to omit."   "Aw forchrisakes!" Jane barely manages to stifle yelling that last word as she stalks away, shaking her head. Not for the first time, you say to yourself, "Nobody ever promised me project management would be easy." You are pretty sure it won't be the last time, either.   Actually, things went a bit better than you had hoped. The team did, in fact, have to drop one task from the iteration, but Jane had chosen wisely, and the demonstration for Russ went without a hitch. Russ was not impressed with the progress, but neither was he dismayed. He simply said, "This is pretty good. But remember, we have to be able to demonstrate this system at the trade show in July, and at this rate, it doesn't look like you'll have all that much to show." Jane, whose attitude had improved dramatically with the completion of the iteration, responded to Russ by saying, "Russ, this team is working hard, and well. When July comes around, I am confident that we'll have something significant to demonstrate. It won't be everything, and some of it may be smoke and mirrors, but we'll have something."   Painful though the last iteration was, it had calibrated your velocity numbers. The next iteration went much better. Not because your team got more done than in the last iteration but simply because the team didn't have to remove any tasks or stories in the middle of the iteration.   By the start of the fourth iteration, a natural rhythm has been established. Jane, you, and the team know exactly what to expect from one another. The team is running hard, but the pace is sustainable. You are confident that the team can keep up this pace for a year or more.   The number of surprises in the schedule diminishes to near zero; however, the number of surprises in the requirements does not. Jane and Russ frequently look over the growing system and make recommendations or changes to the existing functionality. But all parties realize that these changes take time and must be scheduled. So the changes do not cause anyone's expectations to be violated. In March, there is a major demonstration of the system to the board of directors. The system is very limited and is not yet in a form good enough to take to the trade show, but progress is steady, and the board is reasonably impressed.   The second release goes even more smoothly than the first. By now, the team has figured out a way to automate Jane's acceptance test scripts. The team has also refactored the design of the system to the point that it is really easy to add new features and change old ones. The second release was done by the end of June and was taken to the trade show. It had less in it than Jane and Russ would have liked, but it did demonstrate the most important features of the system. Although customers at the trade show noticed that certain features were missing, they were very impressed overall. You, Russ, and Jane all returned from the trade show with smiles on your faces. You all felt as though this project was a winner.   Indeed, many months later, you are contacted by Rufus Inc. That company had been working on a system like this for its internal operations. Rufus has canceled the development of that system after a death-march project and is negotiating to license your technology for its environment.   Indeed, things are looking up!

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• Ubuntu and Windows 8 shared partition gets corrupted

  - by Bruno-P

  I have a dual boot (Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8) system. Both systems have access to an NTFS "DATA" partition which contains all my images, documents, music and some application data like Chrome and Thunderbird Profiles which used by both OS. Everything was working fine in my Dual boot Ubuntu/Windows 7, but after updating to Windows 8 I am having a lot of troubles. First, sometimes, I add some files from Ubuntu into my DATA partition but they don't show up in Windows. Sometimes, I can't even use the DATA partition from Windows. When I try to save a file it gives an error "The directory or file is corrupted or unreadable". I need to run checkdisk to fix it but after some time, same error appears. Before upgrading to Windows 8 I also installed a new hard drive and copied the old data using clonezilla (full disk clone). Here is the log of my last chkdisk: Chkdsk was executed in read/write mode. Checking file system on D: Volume dismounted. All opened handles to this volume are now invalid. Volume label is DATA. CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)... Deleted corrupt attribute list entry with type code 128 in file 67963. Unable to find child frs 0x12a3f with sequence number 0x15. The attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x1097b has allocated length of 0x560000 instead of 0x427000. Deleted corrupt attribute list entry with type code 128 in file 67963. Unable to locate attribute with instance tag 0x2 and segment reference 0x1e00000001097b. The expected attribute type is 0x80. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 67963. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x3 is cross linked starting at 0x2431b2 for possibly 0x20 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x3 in file 0x1791e is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 96542. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x4 is cross linked starting at 0x6bc7 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x4 in file 0x17e83 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 97923. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x4 is cross linked starting at 0x1f7cec for possibly 0x5 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x4 in file 0x17eaf is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 97967. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x441bd7f for possibly 0x9 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x32085 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 204933. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4457850 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x320be is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 204990. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4859249 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3726b is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225899. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x485d309 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3726c is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225900. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x48a47de for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37286 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225926. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x48ac80b for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37287 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225927. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x48ae7ef for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37288 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225928. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x48af7f8 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3728a is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225930. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x48c39b6 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37292 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 225938. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x495d37a for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x372d7 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226007. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4d0bd38 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x372dc is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226012. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4c2d9bc for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x372ed is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226029. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4a4c1c3 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37354 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226132. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4a8e639 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37376 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226166. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4a8f6eb for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37379 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226169. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4ae1aa8 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37391 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226193. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4b00d45 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x37396 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226198. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4b02d50 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3739c is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226204. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4b3407a for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x373a8 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226216. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4bd8a1b for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x373db is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226267. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4bd9a28 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x373dd is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226269. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4c2fb24 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x373f3 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226291. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cb67e9 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37424 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226340. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cba829 for possibly 0x2 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37425 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226341. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cbe868 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37427 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226343. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cbf878 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37428 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226344. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cc58d8 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3742a is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226346. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4ccc943 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3742b is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226347. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cd199b for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3742d is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226349. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cd29a8 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3742f is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226351. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cd39b8 for possibly 0x2 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37430 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226352. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cd49c8 for possibly 0x2 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37432 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226354. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cd9a16 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37435 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226357. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cdca46 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37436 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226358. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4ce0a78 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37437 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226359. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4ce6ad9 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3743a is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226362. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cebb28 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3743b is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226363. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4ceeb67 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3743d is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226365. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cf4bc6 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x3743e is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226366. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cfbc3a for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37440 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226368. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4cfcc48 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37442 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226370. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4d02ca9 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37443 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226371. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4d06ce8 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37444 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226372. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4d9a608 for possibly 0x2 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x37449 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226377. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4d844ab for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x3744b is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226379. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4d6c32b for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x3744c is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226380. Attribute record of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 is cross linked starting at 0x4d2af25 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0xa0 and instance tag 0x5 in file 0x3744e is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (160, $I30) from file record segment 226382. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4d0fd78 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 in file 0x37451 is already in use. Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 226385. Attribute record of type 0x80 and instance tag 0x2 is cross linked starting at 0x4d16ef8 for possibly 0x1 clusters. Some clusters occupied by attribute of type 0x8 Can anyone help? Thank you

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• Reading input from a text file, omits the first and adds a nonsense value to the end?

  - by Greenhouse Gases

  Hi there When I input locations from a txt file I am getting a peculiar error where it seems to miss off the first entry, yet add a garbage entry to the end of the link list (it is designed to take the name, latitude and longitude for each location you will notice). I imagine this to be an issue with where it starts collecting the inputs and where it stops but I cant find the error!! It reads the first line correctly but then skips to the next before adding it because during testing for the bug it had no record of the first location Lisbon though whilst stepping into the method call it was reading it. Very bizarre but hopefully someone knows the issue. Here is firstly my header file: #include <string> struct locationNode { char nodeCityName [35]; double nodeLati; double nodeLongi; locationNode* Next; void CorrectCase() // Correct upper and lower case letters of input { int MAX_SIZE = 35; int firstLetVal = this->nodeCityName[0], letVal; int n = 1; // variable for name index from second letter onwards if((this->nodeCityName[0] >90) && (this->nodeCityName[0] < 123)) // First letter is lower case { firstLetVal = firstLetVal - 32; // Capitalise first letter this->nodeCityName[0] = firstLetVal; } while(n <= MAX_SIZE - 1) { if((this->nodeCityName[n] >= 65) && (this->nodeCityName[n] <= 90)) { letVal = this->nodeCityName[n] + 32; this->nodeCityName[n] = letVal; } n++; } //cityNameInput = this->nodeCityName; } }; class Locations { private: int size; public: Locations(){ }; // constructor for the class locationNode* Head; //int Add(locationNode* Item); }; And here is the file containing main: // U08221.cpp : main project file. #include "stdafx.h" #include "Locations.h" #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <fstream> using namespace std; int n = 0,x, locationCount = 0, MAX_SIZE = 35; string cityNameInput; char targetCity[35]; bool acceptedInput = false, userInputReq = true, match = false, nodeExists = false;// note: addLocation(), set to true to enable user input as opposed to txt file locationNode *start_ptr = NULL; // pointer to first entry in the list locationNode *temp, *temp2; // Part is a pointer to a new locationNode we can assign changing value followed by a call to Add locationNode *seek, *bridge; void setElementsNull(char cityParam[]) { int y=0, count =0; while(cityParam[y] != NULL) { y++; } while(y < MAX_SIZE) { cityParam[y] = NULL; y++; } } void addLocation() { temp = new locationNode; // declare the space for a pointer item and assign a temporary pointer to it if(!userInputReq) // bool that determines whether user input is required in adding the node to the list { cout << endl << "Enter the name of the location: "; cin >> temp->nodeCityName; temp->CorrectCase(); setElementsNull(temp->nodeCityName); cout << endl << "Please enter the latitude value for this location: "; cin >> temp->nodeLati; cout << endl << "Please enter the longitude value for this location: "; cin >> temp->nodeLongi; cout << endl; } temp->Next = NULL; //set to NULL as when one is added it is currently the last in the list and so can not point to the next if(start_ptr == NULL){ // if list is currently empty, start_ptr will point to this node start_ptr = temp; } else { temp2 = start_ptr; // We know this is not NULL - list not empty! while (temp2->Next != NULL) { temp2 = temp2->Next; // Move to next link in chain until reach end of list } temp2->Next = temp; } ++locationCount; // increment counter for number of records in list if(!userInputReq){ cout << "Location sucessfully added to the database! There are " << locationCount << " location(s) stored" << endl; } } void populateList(){ ifstream inputFile; inputFile.open ("locations.txt", ios::in); userInputReq = true; temp = new locationNode; // declare the space for a pointer item and assign a temporary pointer to it do { inputFile.get(temp->nodeCityName, 35, ' '); setElementsNull(temp->nodeCityName); inputFile >> temp->nodeLati; inputFile >> temp->nodeLongi; setElementsNull(temp->nodeCityName); if(temp->nodeCityName[0] == 10) //remove linefeed from input { for(int i = 0; temp->nodeCityName[i] != NULL; i++) { temp->nodeCityName[i] = temp->nodeCityName[i + 1]; } } addLocation(); } while(!inputFile.eof()); userInputReq = false; cout << "Successful!" << endl << "List contains: " << locationCount << " entries" << endl; cout << endl; inputFile.close(); } bool nodeExistTest(char targetCity[]) // see if entry is present in the database { match = false; seek = start_ptr; int letters = 0, letters2 = 0, x = 0, y = 0; while(targetCity[y] != NULL) { letters2++; y++; } while(x <= locationCount) // locationCount is number of entries currently in list { y=0, letters = 0; while(seek->nodeCityName[y] != NULL) // count letters in the current name { letters++; y++; } if(letters == letters2) // same amount of letters in the name { y = 0; while(y <= letters) // compare each letter against one another { if(targetCity[y] == seek->nodeCityName[y]) { match = true; y++; } else { match = false; y = letters + 1; // no match, terminate comparison } } } if(match) { x = locationCount + 1; //found match so terminate loop } else{ if(seek->Next != NULL) { bridge = seek; seek = seek->Next; x++; } else { x = locationCount + 1; // end of list so terminate loop } } } return match; } void deleteRecord() // complete this { int junction = 0; locationNode *place; cout << "Enter the name of the city you wish to remove" << endl; cin >> targetCity; setElementsNull(targetCity); if(nodeExistTest(targetCity)) //if this node does exist { if(seek == start_ptr) // if it is the first in the list { junction = 1; } if(seek != start_ptr && seek->Next == NULL) // if it is last in the list { junction = 2; } switch(junction) // will alter list accordingly dependant on where the searched for link is { case 1: start_ptr = start_ptr->Next; delete seek; --locationCount; break; case 2: place = seek; seek = bridge; delete place; --locationCount; break; default: bridge->Next = seek->Next; delete seek; --locationCount; break; } } else { cout << targetCity << "That entry does not currently exist" << endl << endl << endl; } } void searchDatabase() { char choice; cout << "Enter search term..." << endl; cin >> targetCity; if(nodeExistTest(targetCity)) { cout << "Entry: " << endl << endl; } else { cout << "Sorry, that city is not currently present in the list." << endl << "Would you like to add this city now Y/N?" << endl; cin >> choice; /*while(choice != ('Y' || 'N')) { cout << "Please enter a valid choice..." << endl; cin >> choice; }*/ switch(choice) { case 'Y': addLocation(); break; case 'N': break; default : cout << "Invalid choice" << endl; break; } } } void printDatabase() { temp = start_ptr; // set temp to the start of the list do { if (temp == NULL) { cout << "You have reached the end of the database" << endl; } else { // Display details for what temp points to at that stage cout << "Location : " << temp->nodeCityName << endl; cout << "Latitude : " << temp->nodeLati << endl; cout << "Longitude : " << temp->nodeLongi << endl; cout << endl; // Move on to next locationNode if one exists temp = temp->Next; } } while (temp != NULL); } void nameValidation(string name) { n = 0; // start from first letter x = name.size(); while(!acceptedInput) { if((name[n] >= 65) && (name[n] <= 122)) // is in the range of letters { while(n <= x - 1) { while((name[n] >=91) && (name[n] <=97)) // ERROR!! { cout << "Please enter a valid city name" << endl; cin >> name; } n++; } } else { cout << "Please enter a valid city name" << endl; cin >> name; } if(n <= x - 1) { acceptedInput = true; } } cityNameInput = name; } int main(array<System::String ^> ^args) { //main contains test calls to functions at present cout << "Populating list..."; populateList(); printDatabase(); deleteRecord(); printDatabase(); cin >> cityNameInput; } The text file contains this (ignore the names, they are just for testing!!): Lisbon 45 47 Fattah 45 47 Darius 42 49 Peter 45 27 Sarah 85 97 Michelle 45 47 John 25 67 Colin 35 87 Shiron 40 57 George 34 45 Sean 22 33 The output omits Lisbon, but adds on a garbage entry with nonsense values. Any ideas why? Thank you in advance.

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• client problems - misaligned expectations & not following SDLC protocols

  - by louism

  hi guys, im having some serious problems with a client on a project - i could use some advice please the short version i have been working with this client now for almost 6 months without any problems (a classified website project in the range of 500 hours) over the last few days things have drastically deteriorated to the point where ive had to place the project on-hold whilst i work-out what to do (this has pissed the client off even more) to be simplistic, the root cause of the issue is this: the client doesnt read the specs i make for him, i code the feature, he than wants to change things, i tell him its not to the agreed spec and that that change will have to be postponed and possibly charged for, he gets upset and rants saying 'hes paid for the feature' and im not keeping to the agreement (<- misalignment of expectations) i think the root cause of the root cause is my clients failure to take my SDLC protocols seriously. i have a bug tracking system in place which he practically refuses to use (he still emails me bugs), he doesnt seem to care to much for the protocols i use for dealing with scope creep and change control the whole situation came to a head recently where he 'cracked it' (an aussie term for being fed-up). the more terms like 'postponed for post-launch implementation', 'costed feature addition', and 'not to agreed spec' i kept using, the worse it got finally, he began to bully me - basically insisting i shut-up and do the work im being paid for. i wrote a long-winded email explaining how wrong he was on all these different points, and explaining what all the SDLC protocols do to protect the success of the project. than i deleted that email and wrote a new one in the new email, i suggested as a solution i write up a list of grievances we both had. we than review the list and compromise on different points: he gets some things he wants, i get some things i want. sometimes youve got to give ground to get ground his response to this suggestion was flat-out refusal, and a restatement that i should just get on with the work ive been paid to do so there you have the very subjective short version. if you have the time and inclination, the long version may be a little less bias as it has the email communiques between me and my client the long version (with background) the long version works by me showing you the email communiques which lead to the situation coming to a head. so here it is, judge for yourself where the trouble started... 1. client asked me why something was missing from a feature i just uploaded, my response was to show him what was in the spec: it basically said the item he was looking for was never going to be included 2. [clients response...] Memo Louis, We are following your own title fields and keeping a consistent layout. Why the big fuss about not adding "Part". It simply replaces "model" and is consistent with your current title fields. 3. [my response...] hi [client], the 'part' field appeared to me as a redundancy / mistake. i requested clarification but never received any in a timely manner (about 2 weeks ago) the specification for this feature also indicated it wasnt going to be included: RE: "Why the big fuss about not adding "Part" " it may not appear so, but it would actually be a lot of work for me to now add a 'Part' field it could take me up to 15-20 minutes to properly explain why its such a big undertaking to do this, but i would prefer to use that time instead to work on completing your v1.1 features as a simplistic explanation - it connects to the change in paradigm from a 'generic classified ad' model to a 'specific attributes for specific categories' model basically, i am saying it is a big fuss, but i understand that it doesnt look that way - after all, it is just one ity-bitty field :) if you require a fuller explanation, please let me know and i will commit the time needed to write that out also, if you recall when we first started on the project, i said that with the effort/time required for features, you would likely not know off the top of your head. you may think something is really complex, but in reality its quite simple, you might think something is easy - but it could actually be a massive trauma to code (which is the case here with the 'Part' field). if you also recalled, i said the best course of action is to just ask, and i would let you know on a case-by-case basis 4. [email from me to client...] hi [client], the online catalogue page is now up live (see my email from a few days ago for information on how it works) note: the window of opportunity for input/revisions on what data the catalogue stores has now closed (as i have put the code up live now) RE: the UI/layout of the online catalogue page you may still do visual/ui tweaks to the page at the moment (this window for input/revisions will close in a couple of days time) 5. [email from client to me...] *(note: i had put up the feature & asked the client to review it, never heard back from them for a few days)* Memo Louis, Here you go again. CLOSED without a word of input from the customer. I don't think so. I will reply tomorrow regarding the content and functionality we require from this feature. 5. [from me to client...] hi [client]: RE: from my understanding, you are saying that the mini-sale yard control would change itself based on the fact someone was viewing for parts & accessories <- is that correct? this change is outside the scope of the v1.1 mini-spec and therefore will need to wait 'til post launch for costing/implementation 6. [email from client to me...] Memo Louis, Following your v1.1 mini-spec and all your time paid in full for the work selected. We need to make the situation clear. There will be no further items held for post-launch. Do not expect us to pay for any further items other than those we have agreed upon. You have undertaken to complete the Parts and accessories feature as follows. Obviously, as part of this process the "mini search" will be effected, and will require "adaption to make sense". 7. [email from me to client...] hi [client], RE: "There will be no further items held for post-launch. Do not expect us to pay for any further items other than those we have agreed upon." a few points to consider: 1) the specification for the 'parts & accessories' feature was as follows: (i.e. [what] "...we have agreed upon.") 2) you have received the 'parts & accessories' feature free of charge (you have paid $0 for it). ive spent two days coding that feature as a gesture of good will i would request that you please consider these two facts carefully and sincerely 8. [email from client to me...] Memo Louis, I don't see how you are giving us anything for free. From your original fee proposal you have deleted more than 30 hours of included features. Your title "shelved features". Further you have charged us twice by adding back into the site, at an addition cost, some of those "shelved features" features. See v1.1 mini-spec. Did include in your original fee proposal a change request budget but then charge without discussion items included in v1.1 mini-spec. Included a further Features test plan for a regression test, a fee of 10 hours that would not have been required if the "shelved features" were not left out of the agreed fee proposal. I have made every attempt to satisfy your your uneven business sense by offering you everything your heart desired, in the v1.1 mini-spec, to be left once again with your attitude of "its too hard, lets leave it for post launch". I am no longer accepting anything less than what we have contracted you to do. That is clearly defined in v1.1 mini-spec, and you are paid in advance for delivering those items as an acceptable function. a few notes about the above email... i had to cull features from the original spec because it didnt fit into the budget. i explained this to the client at the start of the project (he wanted more features than he had budget hours to do them all) nothing has been charged for twice, i didnt charge the client for culled features. im charging him to now do those culled features the draft version of the project schedule included a change request budget of 10 hours, but i had to remove that to meet the budget (the client may not have been aware of this to be fair to them) what the client refers to as my attitude of 'too hard/leave it for post-launch', i called a change request protocol and a method for keeping scope creep under control 9. [email from me to client...] hi [client], RE: "...all your grievances..." i had originally written out a long email response; it was fantastic, it had all these great points of how 'you were wrong' and 'i was right', you would of loved it (and by 'loved it', i mean it would of just infuriated you more) so, i decided to deleted it start over, for two reasons: 1) a long email is being disrespectful of your time (youre a busy businessman with things to do) 2) whos wrong or right gets us no closer to fixing the problems we are experiencing what i propose is this... i prepare a bullet point list of your grievances and my grievances (yes, im unhappy too about how things are going - and it has little to do with money) i submit this list to you for you to add to as necessary we then both take a good hard look at this list, and we decide which areas we are willing to give ground on as an example, the list may look something like this: "louis, you keep taking away features you said you would do" [your grievance 2] [your grievance 3] [your grievance ...] "[client], i feel you dont properly read the specs i prepare for you..." [my grievance 2] [my grievance 3] [my grievance ...] if you are willing to give this a try, let me know will it work? who knows. but if it doesnt, we can always go back to arguing some more :) obviously, this will only work if you are willing to give it a genuine try, and you can accept that you may have to 'give some ground to get some ground' what do you think? 10. [email from client to me ...] Memo Louis, Instead of wasting your time listing grievances, I would prefer you complete the items in v1.1 mini-spec, to a satisfactory conclusion. We almost had the website ready for launch until you brought the v1.1 mini-spec into the frame. Obviously I expected you could complete the v1.1 mini-spec in a two-week time frame as you indicated and give the site a more profession presentation. Most of the problems have been caused by you not following our instructions, but deciding to do what you feel like at the time. And then arguing with us how the missing information is not necessary. For instance "Parts and Accessories". Why on earth would you leave out the parts heading, when it ties-in with the fields you have already developed. It replaces "model" and is just as important in the context of information that appears in the "Details" panel. We are at a stage where the the v1.1 mini-spec needs to be completed without further time wasting and the site is complete (subject to all features working). We are on standby at this end to do just that. Let me know when you are back, working on the site and we will process and complete each v1.1 mini-spec, item by item, until the job is complete. 11. [last email from me to client...] hi [client], based on this reply, and your demonstrated unwillingness to compromise/give any ground on issues at hand, i have decided to place your project on-hold for the moment i will be considering further options on how to over-come our challenges over the next few days i will contact you by monday 17/may to discuss any new options i have come up with, and if i believe it is appropriate to restart work on your project at that point or not told you it was long... what do you think?

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• User Input That Involves A ' ' Causes A Substring Out Of Range Error

  - by Greenhouse Gases

  Hi Stackoverflow people. You have already helped me quite a bit but near the end of writing this program I have somewhat of a bug. You see in order to read in city names with a space in from a text file I use a '/' that is then replaced by the program for a ' ' (and when the serializer runs the opposite happens for next time the program is run). The problem is when a user inputs a name too add, search for, or delete that contains a space, for instance 'New York' I get a Debug Assertion Error with a substring out of range expression. I have a feeling it's to do with my correctCase function, or setElementsNull that looks at the string until it experiences a null element in the array, however ' ' is not null so I'm not sure how to fix this and I'm going a bit insane. Any help would be much appreciated. Here is my code: // U08221.cpp : main project file. #include "stdafx.h" #include <_iostream> #include <_string> #include <_fstream> #include <_cmath> using namespace std; class locationNode { public: string nodeCityName; double nodeLati; double nodeLongi; locationNode* Next; locationNode(string nameOf, double lat, double lon) { this->nodeCityName = nameOf; this->nodeLati = lat; this->nodeLongi = lon; this->Next = NULL; } locationNode() // NULL constructor { } void swapProps(locationNode *node2) { locationNode place; place.nodeCityName = this->nodeCityName; place.nodeLati = this->nodeLati; place.nodeLongi = this->nodeLongi; this->nodeCityName = node2->nodeCityName; this->nodeLati = node2->nodeLati; this->nodeLongi = node2->nodeLongi; node2->nodeCityName = place.nodeCityName; node2->nodeLati = place.nodeLati; node2->nodeLongi = place.nodeLongi; } void modify(string name) { this->nodeCityName = name; } void modify(double latlon, int mod) { switch(mod) { case 2: this->nodeLati = latlon; break; case 3: this->nodeLongi = latlon; break; } } void correctCase() // Correct upper and lower case letters of input { int MAX_SIZE = 35; int firstLetVal = this->nodeCityName[0], letVal; int n = 1; // variable for name index from second letter onwards if((this->nodeCityName[0] >90) && (this->nodeCityName[0] < 123)) // First letter is lower case { firstLetVal = firstLetVal - 32; // Capitalise first letter this->nodeCityName[0] = firstLetVal; } while(this->nodeCityName[n] != NULL) { if((this->nodeCityName[n] >= 65) && (this->nodeCityName[n] <= 90)) { if(this->nodeCityName[n - 1] != 32) { letVal = this->nodeCityName[n] + 32; this->nodeCityName[n] = letVal; } } n++; } } }; Here is the main part of the program: // U08221.cpp : main project file. #include "stdafx.h" #include "Locations2.h" #include <_iostream> #include <_string> #include <_fstream> #include <_cmath> using namespace std; #define pi 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288 #define radius 6371 #define gig 1073741824 //size of a gigabyte in bytes int n = 0,x, locationCount = 0, MAX_SIZE = 35 , g = 0, i = 0, modKey = 0, xx; string cityNameInput, alter; char targetCity[35], skipKey = ' '; double lat1, lon1, lat2, lon2, dist, dummy, modVal, result; bool acceptedInput = false, match = false, nodeExists = false;// note: addLocation(), set to true to enable user input as opposed to txt file locationNode *temp, *temp2, *example, *seek, *bridge, *start_ptr = NULL; class Menu { int junction; public: /* Convert decimal degrees to radians */ public: void setElementsNull(char cityParam[]) { int y=0; while(cityParam[y] != NULL) { y++; } while(y < MAX_SIZE) { cityParam[y] = NULL; y++; } } void correctCase(string name) // Correct upper and lower case letters of input { int MAX_SIZE = 35; int firstLetVal = name[0], letVal; int n = 1; // variable for name index from second letter onwards if((name[0] >90) && (name[0] < 123)) // First letter is lower case { firstLetVal = firstLetVal - 32; // Capitalise first letter name[0] = firstLetVal; } while(name[n] != NULL) { if((name[n] >= 65) && (name[n] <= 90)) { letVal = name[n] + 32; name[n] = letVal; } n++; } for(n = 0; targetCity[n] != NULL; n++) { targetCity[n] = name[n]; } } bool nodeExistTest(char targetCity[]) // see if entry is present in the database { match = false; seek = start_ptr; int letters = 0, letters2 = 0, x = 0, y = 0; while(targetCity[y] != NULL) { letters2++; y++; } while(x <= locationCount) // locationCount is number of entries currently in list { y=0, letters = 0; while(seek->nodeCityName[y] != NULL) // count letters in the current name { letters++; y++; } if(letters == letters2) // same amount of letters in the name { y = 0; while(y <= letters) // compare each letter against one another { if(targetCity[y] == seek->nodeCityName[y]) { match = true; y++; } else { match = false; y = letters + 1; // no match, terminate comparison } } } if(match) { x = locationCount + 1; //found match so terminate loop } else{ if(seek->Next != NULL) { bridge = seek; seek = seek->Next; x++; } else { x = locationCount + 1; // end of list so terminate loop } } } return match; } double deg2rad(double deg) { return (deg * pi / 180); } /* Convert radians to decimal degrees */ double rad2deg(double rad) { return (rad * 180 / pi); } /* Do the calculation */ double distance(double lat1, double lon1, double lat2, double lon2, double dist) { dist = sin(deg2rad(lat1)) * sin(deg2rad(lat2)) + cos(deg2rad(lat1)) * cos(deg2rad(lat2)) * cos(deg2rad(lon1 - lon2)); dist = acos(dist); dist = rad2deg(dist); dist = (radius * pi * dist) / 180; return dist; } void serialise() { // Serialize to format that can be written to text file fstream outfile; outfile.open("locations.txt",ios::out); temp = start_ptr; do { for(xx = 0; temp->nodeCityName[xx] != NULL; xx++) { if(temp->nodeCityName[xx] == 32) { temp->nodeCityName[xx] = 47; } } outfile << endl << temp->nodeCityName<< " "; outfile<<temp->nodeLati<< " "; outfile<<temp->nodeLongi; temp = temp->Next; }while(temp != NULL); outfile.close(); } void sortList() // do this { int changes = 1; locationNode *node1, *node2; while(changes > 0) // while changes are still being made to the list execute { node1 = start_ptr; node2 = node1->Next; changes = 0; do { xx = 1; if(node1->nodeCityName[0] > node2->nodeCityName[0]) //compare first letter of name with next in list { node1->swapProps(node2); // should come after the next in the list changes++; } else if(node1->nodeCityName[0] == node2->nodeCityName[0]) // if same first letter { while(node1->nodeCityName[xx] == node2->nodeCityName[xx]) // check next letter of name { if((node1->nodeCityName[xx + 1] != NULL) && (node2->nodeCityName[xx + 1] != NULL)) // check next letter until not the same { xx++; } else break; } if(node1->nodeCityName[xx] > node2->nodeCityName[xx]) { node1->swapProps(node2); // should come after the next in the list changes++; } } node1 = node2; node2 = node2->Next; // move to next pair in list } while(node2 != NULL); } } void initialise() { cout << "Populating List..."; ifstream inputFile; inputFile.open ("locations.txt", ios::in); char inputName[35] = " "; double inputLati = 0, inputLongi = 0; //temp = new locationNode(inputName, inputLati, inputLongi); do { inputFile.get(inputName, 35, ' '); inputFile >> inputLati; inputFile >> inputLongi; if(inputName[0] == 10 || 13) //remove linefeed from input { for(int i = 0; inputName[i] != NULL; i++) { inputName[i] = inputName[i + 1]; } } for(xx = 0; inputName[xx] != NULL; xx++) { if(inputName[xx] == 47) // if it is a '/' { inputName[xx] = 32; // replace it for a space } } temp = new locationNode(inputName, inputLati, inputLongi); if(start_ptr == NULL){ // if list is currently empty, start_ptr will point to this node start_ptr = temp; } else { temp2 = start_ptr; // We know this is not NULL - list not empty! while (temp2->Next != NULL) { temp2 = temp2->Next; // Move to next link in chain until reach end of list } temp2->Next = temp; } ++locationCount; // increment counter for number of records in list } while(!inputFile.eof()); cout << "Successful!" << endl << "List contains: " << locationCount << " entries" << endl; inputFile.close(); cout << endl << "*******************************************************************" << endl << "DISTANCE CALCULATOR v2.0\tAuthors: Darius Hodaei, Joe Clifton" << endl; } void menuInput() { char menuChoice = ' '; while(menuChoice != 'Q') { // Menu if(skipKey != 'X') // This is set by case 'S' below if a searched term does not exist but wants to be added { cout << endl << "*******************************************************************" << endl; cout << "Please enter a choice for the menu..." << endl << endl; cout << "(P) To print out the list" << endl << "(O) To order the list alphabetically" << endl << "(A) To add a location" << endl << "(D) To delete a record" << endl << "(C) To calculate distance between two points" << endl << "(S) To search for a location in the list" << endl << "(M) To check memory usage" << endl << "(U) To update a record" << endl << "(Q) To quit" << endl; cout << endl << "*******************************************************************" << endl; cin >> menuChoice; if(menuChoice >= 97) { menuChoice = menuChoice - 32; // Turn the lower case letter into an upper case letter } } skipKey = ' '; //Reset skipKey so that it does not skip the menu switch(menuChoice) { case 'P': temp = start_ptr; // set temp to the start of the list do { if (temp == NULL) { cout << "You have reached the end of the database" << endl; } else { // Display details for what temp points to at that stage cout << "Location : " << temp->nodeCityName << endl; cout << "Latitude : " << temp->nodeLati << endl; cout << "Longitude : " << temp->nodeLongi << endl; cout << endl; // Move on to next locationNode if one exists temp = temp->Next; } } while (temp != NULL); break; case 'O': { sortList(); // pass by reference??? cout << "List reordered alphabetically" << endl; } break; case 'A': char cityName[35]; double lati, longi; cout << endl << "Enter the name of the location: "; cin >> cityName; for(xx = 0; cityName[xx] != NULL; xx++) { if(cityName[xx] == 47) // if it is a '/' { cityName[xx] = 32; // replace it for a space } } if(!nodeExistTest(cityName)) { cout << endl << "Please enter the latitude value for this location: "; cin >> lati; cout << endl << "Please enter the longitude value for this location: "; cin >> longi; cout << endl; temp = new locationNode(cityName, lati, longi); temp->correctCase(); //start_ptr allignment if(start_ptr == NULL){ // if list is currently empty, start_ptr will point to this node start_ptr = temp; } else { temp2 = start_ptr; // We know this is not NULL - list not empty! while (temp2->Next != NULL) { temp2 = temp2->Next; // Move to next link in chain until reach end of list } temp2->Next = temp; } ++locationCount; // increment counter for number of records in list cout << "Location sucessfully added to the database! There are " << locationCount << " location(s) stored" << endl; } else { cout << "Node is already present in the list and so cannot be added again" << endl; } break; case 'D': { junction = 0; locationNode *place; cout << "Enter the name of the city you wish to remove" << endl; cin >> targetCity; setElementsNull(targetCity); correctCase(targetCity); for(xx = 0; targetCity[xx] != NULL; xx++) { if(targetCity[xx] == 47) { targetCity[xx] = 32; } } if(nodeExistTest(targetCity)) //if this node does exist { if(seek == start_ptr) // if it is the first in the list { junction = 1; } if(seek->Next == NULL) // if it is last in the list { junction = 2; } switch(junction) // will alter list accordingly dependant on where the searched for link is { case 1: start_ptr = start_ptr->Next; delete seek; --locationCount; break; case 2: place = seek; seek = bridge; seek->Next = NULL; delete place; --locationCount; break; default: bridge->Next = seek->Next; delete seek; --locationCount; break; } cout << endl << "Link deleted. There are now " << locationCount << " locations." << endl; } else { cout << "That entry does not currently exist" << endl << endl << endl; } } break; case 'C': { char city1[35], city2[35]; cout << "Enter the first city name" << endl; cin >> city1; setElementsNull(city1); correctCase(targetCity); if(nodeExistTest(city1)) { lat1 = seek->nodeLati; lon1 = seek->nodeLongi; cout << "Lati = " << seek->nodeLati << endl << "Longi = " << seek->nodeLongi << endl << endl; } cout << "Enter the second city name" << endl; cin >> city2; setElementsNull(city2); correctCase(targetCity); if(nodeExistTest(city2)) { lat2 = seek->nodeLati; lon2 = seek->nodeLongi; cout << "Lati = " << seek->nodeLati << endl << "Longi = " << seek->nodeLongi << endl << endl; } result = distance (lat1, lon1, lat2, lon2, dist); cout << "The distance between these two locations is " << result << " kilometres." << endl; } break; case 'S': { char choice; cout << "Enter search term..." << endl; cin >> targetCity; setElementsNull(targetCity); correctCase(targetCity); if(nodeExistTest(targetCity)) { cout << "Latitude: " << seek->nodeLati << endl << "Longitude: " << seek->nodeLongi << endl; } else { cout << "Sorry, that city is not currently present in the list." << endl << "Would you like to add this city now Y/N?" << endl; cin >> choice; /*while(choice != ('Y' || 'N')) { cout << "Please enter a valid choice..." << endl; cin >> choice; }*/ switch(choice) { case 'Y': skipKey = 'X'; menuChoice = 'A'; break; case 'N': break; default : cout << "Invalid choice" << endl; break; } } break; } case 'M': { cout << "Locations currently stored: " << locationCount << endl << "Memory used for this: " << (sizeof(start_ptr) * locationCount) << " bytes" << endl << endl << "You can store " << ((gig - (sizeof(start_ptr) * locationCount)) / sizeof(start_ptr)) << " more locations" << endl ; break; } case 'U': { cout << "Enter the name of the Location you would like to update: "; cin >> targetCity; setElementsNull(targetCity); correctCase(targetCity); if(nodeExistTest(targetCity)) { cout << "Select (1) to alter City Name, (2) to alter Longitude, (3) to alter Latitude" << endl; cin >> modKey; switch(modKey) { case 1: cout << "Enter the new name: "; cin >> alter; cout << endl; seek->modify(alter); break; case 2: cout << "Enter the new latitude: "; cin >> modVal; cout << endl; seek->modify(modVal, modKey); break; case 3: cout << "Enter the new longitude: "; cin >> modVal; cout << endl; seek->modify(modVal, modKey); break; default: break; } } else cout << "Location not found" << endl; break; } } } } }; int main(array<System::String ^> ^args) { Menu mm; //mm.initialise(); mm.menuInput(); mm.serialise(); }

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