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Archive for October, 2009

XP embedded – .NET Framework 3.0

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/27

The “out of the box” .NET 3.0 component in Windows XP Embedded drags way too many required components (like the System Restore Core) into your image.

So most people build their own .NET 3.0 component.

If you get errors like this when you make your own, then you didn’t get your dependencies right.

These are the dependencies for the .NET 3.0 framework:

.NET Framework 2.0
ASP.NET 2.0

These are the error messages you get when you forget the ASP.NET 2.0 dependency:

ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE 1603 Fatal error during installation

Of course I always get all my dependencies right
(yeah right, not this time)

–jeroen

Posted in Development, XP-embedded | Leave a Comment »

Delphi – for … in on enumerated data types

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/27

I like enumerated type a lot.
The allow you to perfectly describe what the members of such a type actually mean, much more readable than a bunch of integer constants!

Given an enumerated type like TTraphicLightColors

type
  TTraphicLightColors = (Red, Orange, Green);

I always wondered why - since the for ... in statement was added to the structured statements part of the Delphi language – it is not possible to use a for … in statement like the this:

</span>
<pre>var
  TraphicLightColor: TTraphicLightColors;
begin
  try
    for TraphicLightColor in TraphicLightColor do
      ShowValueAsTraphicLightColor(Ord(Value));
    // [DCC Error] EnumerationEnumeratorDemoProcedures.dpr(63): E2430 for-in statement cannot operate on collection type 'TTraphicLightColors'
end;

Somehow, for … in expects a collection type.
A request for the for … in do on enumerated types compiler feature is in QC, but it is closed with reason “Won’t do”.

Back in Delphi 2007, I tried working around this by writing a type implementing the GetEnumerator pattern myself, but got Internal Errors when compiling anything but the most basic sample.

Until today, where I found how I could get that most basic sample to work!
It is an example on how you could implement this: it is research, so you decide if you find the result practical enough to use yourself.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 15 Comments »

Delphi operator overloading: table of operators, names, and some notes on usage and ‘glitches’

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/19

Operator overloading is a very nice feature of the Delphi language.
However. the Delphi documentation on Operator overloading is not completely right.

Below is my table of what I found out so far, and some notes.

It is part of my “Nullable types in Delphi” session that I gave on some conferences.
The downloads for that session contain more detailed information.

This is just an abstract to get you going and a try to answer this operator overloading question on Stackoverflow.
Download the full presentation to get more in depth information.

Let me know if you need more information.

Notes

Operator overloading

Add your own “behaviour” to operators

Win32: Works only for records, not classes!
An operator and the operand(s)
are being implemented worden by a “class operator”;
this is a kind of class method with name and argumen(s)

Example:

Multiplication X : = A * B;
Operator: *
Name: Multiply
Operands: 2 -> two parameters

type
  TMyRecord = record
    class operator Multiply(A, B: TMyRecord): TMyRecord;
  end;

Documentation is not correct!

http://docs.embarcadero.com/products/rad_studio/delphiAndcpp2009/HelpUpdate2/EN/html/devcommon/operatoroverloads_xml.html
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/Operator_Overloading_(Delphi)
Win32 only records; .NET classes and records
BitwiseNot does not exist (use LogicalNot)
At least 1 operand must be of the same type as your record data type
Result type may be anything

Watch the result type of comparison operators!

Tips:

Some operators should be overloaded pair-wise
= and <>
shl and shr
< and >=
> and <=
dec and inc
+ and -
/ and *
div and mod
Prefer Explicit over Implicit operators
- Beware of the built-in type coercion (implicit operators)
- e.g
  - Byte to Integer;
  - Integer to Double;
  - Variants from/to anything!

Table of operators

operator	#	usage	name	cagetory	*
and	2	R := A and B;	BitwiseAnd	bit
not	1	R := not A;	//BitwiseNot	bit	glitch: does not exist!
or	2	R := A or B;	BitwiseOr	bit
xor	2	R := A xor B;	BitwiseXor	bit
() cast	1	R := TValue(A);	Explicit	conversion
:=	1	R := A;	Implicit	conversion
operator	#	usage	name	category	*
round	1	R := Round(A);	Round	function
trunc	1	R := Trunc(A);	Trunc	function
and	2	R := A and B;	LogicalAnd	logical
not	1	R := not A;	LogicalNot	logical
or	2	R := A or B;	LogicalOr	logical
xor	2	R := A xor B;	LogicalXor	logical
operator	#	usage	name	category	*
+	2	R := A + B;	Add	binary
/	2	R := A / B;	Divide	binary
div	2	R := A div B;	IntDivide	binary
mod	2	R := A mod B;	Modulus	binary
*	2	R := A * B;	Multiply	binary
-	2	R := A – B;	Subtract	binary
operator	#	usage	name	category	*
shl	2	R := A shl B;	LeftShift	binary	name is confusing
shr	2	R := A shr B;	RightShift	binary	name is confusing
-	1	R := -A;	Negative	binary
+	1	R := +A;	Positive	binary
dec	1	Dec(A);	Dec	self
inc	1	Inc(A);	Inc	self
operator	#	usage	name	category	*
=	2	R := A = B;	Equal	comparison
>	2	R := A > B;	GreaterThan	comparison
>=	2	R := A >= B;	GreaterThanOrEqual	comparison
<	2	R := A < B;	LessThan	comparison
<=	2	R := A <= B;	LessThanOrEqual	comparison
<>	2	R := A <> B;	NotEqual	comparison

–jeroen

Posted in Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Delphi – list of posts about hidden registry entries

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/15

There are quite a few registry tricks that you can perform to influence the Delphi IDE.

If you have any registry settings to share, please let me know by posting a comment below, or filling out the contact form.

This summary will be enhanced over time:

20091015 – Chris Bensen – Delphi Tips and Tricks – Additional Files
20090509 – René Rikkers - Delphi 2009 broken after installing Update 2
20080912 - Matthias Eissing - C++ Builder 2007 und der Remote Debugger
20071017 – Chris Bensen – Delphi and C++ Builder IDE Memory Usage Tip
20070928 - Sergio Cardoso - Are you nuts?
20070920 - David Clegg - Maximizing your RAD Studio 2007 experience
20070509 - Fredrik Haglund - How do I get my application with Paradox tables to work on Windows Vista?
20070313 – Chris Hesik – Source has been modified. Rebuild?
20061019 - Steve Trefethen - IE7 is now available get your BDS reg file here
20060110 – Mark Edington – Delphi Startup Times and the Kitchen Sink
20051219 - Adam Markowitz - Displaying macros in Code Completion (C++Builder2006)
20051209 – Adam Markowitz – Hidden feature, anyone?! (Delphi2006)
20051208 - Chris Hesik - BDS 2006 Debugger and .NET 2.0 compatibility
20040929 – Corbin Dunn – Delphi 8 Tips, Tricks and Speed Improvements
20040923 - Allen Bauer - Newsgroups leakage…
20041228 – Daniel Polistchuck – Delphi 2005 and Janeva 6.5
20040313 - Allen Bauer - Revenge of the Automated IDE Incident reporting
20040217 – Allen Bauer – Delphi 7 packages for using the Delphi 8 Win32 compiler
20031029 – Allen Bauer – Editor pair highlighting

Have fun with them!

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 2 Comments »

Delphi – finding the VERxxx define for a particular Delphi version

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/15

Finding the correct VERxxx conditional define for a particular Delphi version is asked by a lot of people.

Even the first link in the above search, does not contain the full list!
But: JCL comes to the rescue

The JCL file JEDI.INC usually (read: like 99.999% of the time) is up to that with that information soon.
Currently, it contains all the defines starting with Delphi 1, up to Delphi 2010.

You can always browse the to JEDI.INC with this link to the sourceforge trunk.

In fact that file contains a lot more useful defines.
Actually, having the JCL and/or JVCL at hand is a very good practice: it is filled with high quality code that solves a lot of everyday problems.

Note:

VER190 (by some people attributed to the wrong Delphi version) is only used by Delphi 2007 for .NET (Delphi 2007 for Win32 used VER185 by itself and shares VER180 with Delphi 2006 for Win32).

The number 13 (in between Delphi 2009 aka Delphi 12, and Delphi 2010 aka Delphi 14) was never used as a Delphi version number
Since Delphi is mainly developed in the USA, and since a lot people there have Triskaidekaphobia, they showed mercy to those and skipped Delphi 13.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 6 Comments »

Delphi – hardcore debugging the intialization of your app, dlls and packages

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/15

Recently we got involved with a client having a large and complex application that (historically) consists of

A main .EXE that loads
Many DLLs
Underlying BPLs

One of the biggest problems is debugging the startup sequence.
Somehow, when the Delphi IDE loads DLLs in the initialization sequences of units, it looses its ability symbol tables.

This article describes a few tips on how to debug those, especially where to put breakpoints.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Debugging, Delphi, Development, Software Development | 3 Comments »

Te Waka o Delphi · Absolute for Beginners

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/15

Jolyon Smith just published a great article about using the absolute keyword in Delphi.

When used with care (just like the with or goto keywords), absolute can make your code much easier to maintain.

Ancient history – found back one of my earliest email messages dated in februari 1989!

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/12

I found back one of my earliest mail messages: it is dated back in februari 1989.

Wow – ain’t search engines nice!

Today, messages like those seem totally irrelevant.

But back then, getting in touch with other people through email could be a real challenge.

The internet was forming (out of UUNET, DECnet, BITNET, Usenet, EARN, ARPANET and others), and not everything was completely interconnected yet, let alone connected on-line 24/7.
For instance, newsgroups were limited to the usenet portion of the internet, and not available on the bitnet portion.

So, mail and mailing lists were the prevalent means of communication: LISTSERV was the first program facilitating mailing lists.

Routing mail could be a challenge as well.
There was not yet such a widespread thing as SMTP or POP3 as it is today.
So mail got relayed (in fact open mail relays were the standard configuration), and often you had to provide the routing instructions in your mail as well.

Hence the complicated mail addresses used in the message linked above.

Back then, on the for sending mail on the on the VAX/VMS I was working on, gMail (note the spelling) was a very good mail program that would magically do most of the routing for you.

BITNIC used to be a repository to download information and programs.

UUENCODE one of the early encoding schemes to send binaries over email (and still one of Microsoft’s email programs barfs when you put ‘begin 664′ at the beginning of a line).

BITNET Relay was one of the earliest chat programs (much like IRC now), and HEARN the mean node in The Netherlands.

History is fun!

–jeroen

Posted in About, History, Personal | 6 Comments »

C# / .NET – setting or clearing the Password Never Expires flag for a user

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/11

Recently, I had to change the “Password Never Expires” flag for some users on Windows systems.

In the past, there used to be a netuser tool available from WindowsITPro where you could use the pwnexp flag to set or clear that flag.
That tool seems to be vanished, so I was searching for alternatives.

Most alternatives I found depend on some kind of scripting, or the use of the WMIC WMI command line interface: that was “out” because this particular setup is running on Windows XP Embedded, which is trimmed down very much.
The only C# example I found was on CodeProject, but it does

not take into account the existing flags correctly,
have hard coded literals without any references where they are from,
use bit flag arithmetic without letting the C# compiler do its magic with enums,
use a call to the deprecated InvokeGet method,
use the Invoke(“Put”, … way of calling that so many people use (which actually should have been an – also deprecated – InvokeSet method),
use COM Interop

Hence the solution below:
C#, with the proper ADS_USER_FLAG_ENUM enum from the MSDN documentation and no COM Interop, it also moves all literals to constants.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, C#, C# 2.0, CommandLine, Development, Software Development, XP-embedded | Leave a Comment »

Vista SP2 update: error E_FAIL(0×80004005) caused by SYSHIPER 0x80071a91- solved!

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/08

It took me almost 2 days to find out the cause of this one:

When performing a Service Pack 2 update on Vista (in this case a machine that was upgraded from Vista Home to Vista Ultimate), I would always get this very descriptive error message:

E_FAIL (0×80004005)

This is the relevant portion of the CBS.LOG file (%SystemRoot%\Logs\CBS\CBS.log):

2009-10-08 12:50:16, Info CSI 000008d2 Begin executing advanced installer phase 38 (0x00000026) index 1500 (0x000005dc) (sequence 1539) Old component: (null) New component: Microsoft-Windows-VistaServicePack-SysHiper-SP1, Version = 6.0.6002.18005, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (0), Culture neutral, VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral Install mode: install Installer ID: {81a34a10-4256-436a-89d6-794b97ca407c} Installer name: [15]"Generic Command" 2009-10-08 12:50:16, Info CSI 000008d3 Performing 1 operations; 1 are not lock/unlock and follow: LockComponentPath (10): flags: 0 comp: {l:16 b:95113b1f0548ca013e07000004058805} pathid: {l:16 b:95113b1f0548ca013f07000004058805} path: [l:206{103}]"\SystemRoot\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-syshiper_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.18005_none_77fb27ec5025e18b" pid: 504 starttime: 128994722438561151 (0x01ca480440d9bd7f) 2009-10-08 12:50:16, Info CSI 000008d4 Calling generic command executable (sequence 53 (0x00000035)): [115]"C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-syshiper_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.18005_none_77fb27ec5025e18b\syshiper.exe" CmdLine: [211]""C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-syshiper_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.18005_none_77fb27ec5025e18b\syshiper.exe" /install:VistaSP1-KB936330~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.0.0.18000 /hide /permanent /ignorenotexist" 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008d5 Done with generic command 53 (0x00000035); CreateProcess returned 0, CPAW returned S_OK Process exit code 0 resulted in success? TRUE Process output: [l:358 [358]"SYSHIPER: Initialized with following command parameters: /install:VistaSP1-KB936330~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.0.0.18000 /hide /permanent /ignorenotexist SYSHIPER: Failed with error hr: 0x80070002 SYSHIPER: Failed to open registry key for read SYSHIPER: CBS key does not exist and ignoring operation for VistaSP1-KB936330~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.0.0.18000 "] 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008d6 Performing 1 operations; 1 are not lock/unlock and follow: LockComponentPath (10): flags: 0 comp: {l:16 b:951c4e1f0548ca014007000004058805} pathid: {l:16 b:951c4e1f0548ca014107000004058805} path: [l:206{103}]"\SystemRoot\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-syshiper_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.18005_none_77fb27ec5025e18b" pid: 504 starttime: 128994722438561151 (0x01ca480440d9bd7f) 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008d7 Calling generic command executable (sequence 54 (0x00000036)): [115]"C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-syshiper_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.18005_none_77fb27ec5025e18b\syshiper.exe" CmdLine: [211]""C:\Windows\WinSxS\x86_microsoft-windows-syshiper_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6002.18005_none_77fb27ec5025e18b\syshiper.exe" /install:VistaSP1-KB936330~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.0.1.18000 /hide /permanent /ignorenotexist" 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008d8 Performing 1 operations; 1 are not lock/unlock and follow: LockComponentPath (10): flags: 0 comp: {l:16 b:951c4e1f0548ca014207000004058805} pathid: {l:16 b:951c4e1f0548ca014307000004058805} path: [l:234{117}]"\SystemRoot\WinSxS\x86_microsoft.windows.s..ation.badcomponents_31bf3856ad364e35_6.0.6001.18000_none_3891bf6bc31ec194" pid: 504 starttime: 128994722438561151 (0x01ca480440d9bd7f) 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008d9 Creating NT transaction (seq 1), objectname [6]"(null)" 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008da Created NT transaction (seq 1) result 0x00000000, handle @0x6b20 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008db@2009/10/8:10:50:17.182 CSI perf trace: CSIPERF:TXCOMMIT;5 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Error CSI 000008dc (F) Done with generic command 54 (0x00000036); CreateProcess returned 0, CPAW returned S_OK Process exit code 6801 (0x00001a91) resulted in success? FALSE Process output: [l:287 [287]"SYSHIPER: Initialized with following command parameters: /install:VistaSP1-KB936330~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~6.0.1.18000 /hide /permanent /ignorenotexist SYSHIPER: Failed with error hr: 0x80071a91 SYSHIPER: Failed to open registry key for write SYSHIPER: Failed to backup registry key "][gle=0x80004005] 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Info CSI 000008dd@2009/10/8:10:50:17.182 CSI Advanced installer perf trace: CSIPERF:AIDONE;{81a34a10-4256-436a-89d6-794b97ca407c};Microsoft-Windows-VistaServicePack-SysHiper-SP1, Version = 6.0.6002.18005, pA = PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (0), Culture neutral, VersionScope = 1 nonSxS, PublicKeyToken = {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}, Type neutral, TypeName neutral, PublicKey neutral;240239 2009-10-08 12:50:17, Error CSI 000008de (F) Failed execution of queue item Installer: Generic Command ({81a34a10-4256-436a-89d6-794b97ca407c}) with HRESULT HRESULT_FROM_WIN32(14109). Failure will not be ignored: A rollback will be initiated after all the operations in the installer queue are completed; installer is reliable (2)[gle=0x80004005] 2009-10-08 12:51:08, Info CSI 000008df End executing advanced installer (sequence 1539) Completion status: HRESULT_FROM_WIN32(ERROR_ADVANCED_INSTALLER_FAILED)

Since the install and rollback of SP2 takes a very long time, it took me almost 2 days to find out the cause:

All normal solutions for issues with 0×80004005, 0×80070002 or 0x80071a91 failed.
I finally found the solution in a thread on vistax64.com.

This registry key was missing:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SysHiper

After adding that key in RegEdit, SP2 installed fine (and much faster too).

Many thanks user veldthui!

Back to normal work!

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Vista | 11 Comments »

UI design – required combobox field that only has ‘Other’ as a valid selection…

Posted by jpluimers on 2009/10/01

Sometimes I wonder what people were thinking when they developed a particular part of their user interface.

Look at thecombobox on the right (it is part of an ASPX page, but could have been in any kind of technology):

“Job Role” is required
“Select One” is an invalid choice
“Other” is the only valid choice left

I’d love to know what they are going to do with all this “Other” information…

–jeroen

Posted in Development | Leave a Comment »

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Archive for October, 2009

XP embedded – .NET Framework 3.0

Delphi – for … in on enumerated data types

Delphi operator overloading: table of operators, names, and some notes on usage and ‘glitches’

Notes

Operator overloading

Add your own “behaviour” to operators

Documentation is not correct!

Watch the result type of comparison operators!

Table of operators

Delphi – list of posts about hidden registry entries

Delphi – finding the VERxxx define for a particular Delphi version

Delphi – hardcore debugging the intialization of your app, dlls and packages

Te Waka o Delphi · Absolute for Beginners

Ancient history – found back one of my earliest email messages dated in februari 1989!

C# / .NET – setting or clearing the Password Never Expires flag for a user

Vista SP2 update: error E_FAIL(0×80004005) caused by SYSHIPER 0x80071a91- solved!

UI design – required combobox field that only has ‘Other’ as a valid selection…

Follow “The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of Wiert stuff”

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Notes

Operator overloading

Add your own “behaviour” to operators

Documentation is not correct!

Watch the result type of comparison operators!

Table of operators

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