The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for 2021

Download macOS 10.4 Mojave .dmg

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/24

Hopefully one of these works:

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Howto create C-Header for Delphi/Free Pascal/Lazarus DLL – data types – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/23

From a long time ago, but got a request for it a while ago is [WayBack/Archive.is] Howto create C-Header for Delphi/Free Pascal/Lazarus DLL – data types – Stack Overflow:

I have used the below construct to generate header files compatible with the C-mode compiler of Visual C++ 6 from Delphi 5 code when Delphi had the -JPH switch (see notes below).
Note that I have not used this since Delphi 5, but the switch has since then been expanded:
Somewhere along the line, the [WayBackJPHNE switch has been added to the dcc32 command-line compiler:
  -JPHNE = Generate C++ .obj file, .hpp file, in namespace, export all
It certainly does not handle all types, and you will need quite a bit of [Archive.isHPPEMIT and [Archive.isEXTERNALSYM directives.
It generates the .hpp files to import the DLL that was written in Delphi.
Notes from the Delphi 5 era:
{ Visual C++ 6 does not like nested structs/unions the way that BC++ can handle them.
  Visual C++ 6 requires the "typedef" to be present AND the typename AFTER the struct definition.
  You will see this when defining TConversationId, TReturnKey and other types that depend on nested structs/unions

  The trick is to perform these steps each and every time this unit changes:
    - Generate this unit once with all the EXTERNALSYM disabled.
      - Then the DCC32 -JPH will generate the basic structs for them.
    - Copy all the nested struct and union definitions to this file
    - Embed the definitions with (*$HPPEMIT '' *)
    - Append the typename at the end of the struct definition
    - Enable all the EXTERNALSYM again
    - Regenerate the HPP files by using DCC32 -JPH
  To make this process easier, we have introduced two new conditional defines:
    - BCB - disable EXTERNALSYM, disable HPPEMIT
    - VC6 - enable EXTERNALSYM, enable HPPEMIT

  A similar thing is with these constructions that VC6 does not like those either:
    - short strings (BCB defines them as "SmallString<##>" which VC6 does not like).
    - short integers (BCB defines them as "Shortint" so we have included an HPPEMIT for that)
}

{$ifdef win32}
  { important! Makes sure that the all enumerated types fit in exactly one byte each! }
  {$Z1}

  { force the C/C++ HPP header files to have the C/C++ compiler pack structure elements on byte boundaries }
  {$ifdef BCB}
    {$HPPEMIT '#pragma option push -a1' }
  {$endif BCB}
{$endif win32}

And the download (hopefully I have converted it to git by then):

The link to the converter is now [Archive.is] bitbucket.org/jeroenp/wiert.me/src/default/Native/… – Delphi Coder

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Delphi 5, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Chocolatey: forcing a certain package version and pinning it at that version

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/23

For my future self.

Due to an issue with choco-cleaner versions [WayBack] 0.0.6 and [WayBack] 0.0.7, I needed to ensure it was installed as version [WayBack] 0.0.5.2 and keep it that version.

Not sure if this is the canonical way, but this worked:

choco uninstall --yes choco-cleaner
choco install --yes choco-cleaner --version 0.0.5.2
choco pin add --name=choco-cleaner --version 0.0.5.2
choco pin list

This worked to revert:

choco pin remove --name=choco-cleaner
choco pin list
choco upgrade --yes choco-cleaner

Aftere this upgrade, choco-cleaner version 0.0.7.1 shows a nice error message when the environment variable %ChocolateyToolsLocation% fails to exist.

In that case calling RefreshEnv.cmd will create that environment variable.

Related:

–jeroen

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Posted in .NET, Chocolatey, CommandLine, Development, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Select-Object versus Write-Output: “The input object cannot be bound to any parameters for the command either because the command does not take pipeline input or the input and its properties do not match any o f the parameters that take pipeline input.”

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/23

I bumped in the error [WayBack] “The input object cannot be bound to any parameters for the command either because the command does not take pipeline input or the input and its properties do not match any of the parameters that take pipeline input.” when using [WayBack] Write-Output where [WayBack] Select-Object worked just fine.

This happened when playing around with detecting empty Chocolatey .nupkg package files.

$LibPath = Join-Path $env:ChocolateyInstall 'lib'
$NupkgFilter = '*.nupkg'

Get-ChildItem -Path $LibPath -Recurse -Filter $NupkgFilter | 
    Where-Object {($_.Length -eq 0) -and ($_.BaseName -eq "hg")} | 
        Sort-Object LastWriteTime | 
            Select-Object BaseName

<#
Get-ChildItem -Path $LibPath -Recurse -Filter $NupkgFilter | 
    Where-Object {($_.Length -eq 0) -and ($_.BaseName -eq "hg")} | 
        Sort-Object LastWriteTime | 
            Write-Output BaseName
## Write-Output : The input object cannot be bound to any parameters for the command either because the command does not take pipeline input or the input and its properties do not match any of the parameters that take pipeline input.
#>

Get-ChildItem -Path $LibPath -Recurse -Filter $NupkgFilter | 
    Where-Object {($_.Length -eq 0) -and ($_.BaseName -eq "hg")} | 
        Sort-Object LastWriteTime | 
            ForEach-Object { Write-Output $_.BaseName }

The output is also slightly different, hinting on the root cause:

BaseName
--------
hg      
hg

The above shows that Select-Object selects a list of BaseName properties (italic part), whereas Write-Output shows a single BaseName property content (bold part).

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, CommandLine, Development, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

GitHub – metasfresh/metasfresh: We do Open Source ERP – Fast, Flexible & Free Software to scale your Business.

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/22

For my link archive: [WayBack] GitHub – metasfresh/metasfresh: We do Open Source ERP – Fast, Flexible & Free Software to scale your Business.

It’s mainly written in JavaScript and Java with a PostgreSQL database and elasticsearch search.

There is plenty of [WayBack] metasfresh documentation (for users, administrators and developers), all with markdown source.

The developer documentation starts with a nice diagram of the [WayBack] metasfresh Architecture:

Markdown source of the architecture page: [WayBack] metasfresh-documentation/metasfresh_architecture.md at gh-pages · metasfresh/metasfresh-documentation · GitHub: Docs and Manuals for Devs, Users, Admins.

Via:

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Java, Java Platform, JavaScript/ECMAScript, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Twitter thread by thread by @0xdade; More unicode shit: zero width space and a zero width nonjoiner in filenames

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/22

[WayBack] Thread by @0xdade: Today I learned that you can put zero width spaces in file names on Linux. Have fun. I’m playing with this because punycode/IDN is fascinati…

Today I learned that you can put zero width spaces in file names on Linux. Have fun.

I’m playing with this because punycode/IDN is fascinating, and I wanted to know what happened when I started shoving unicode in the path portion of the url, which isn’t part of how browsers try to protect URLs, as far as I can tell

wiki.mozilla.org/IDN_Display_Al…

I think it’s more entertaining to have a file that is named *only* a zero width space, but I think using them throughout a filename is better to break tab completion and not stand out too much. A filename that is just blank looks strange in ls output.
Thank goodness adduser is looking out for our best interests.
Oooh this one is pretty subtle.
Just about pissed myself with this one.

Not related to the terminal fun, but related to zero width characters:

You can:
– Break url previews https://0xda​​​​​​.​de
– @​0xdade without tagging
– Make a word like system​d not searchable twitter.com/search?q=from%…

Okay but back to command line crap. I really like this one. Create a directory named .[ZWS]

One thing that is cool about using zero width spaces is that “ls” has a flag, “-b”, that is meant to escape non-graphic characters. Inserting a newline, for instance, would be escaped to \n. But the zero width space is technically a graphic character, so nothing happens.

Fun.

Have no fear, though. It’s not unbeatable. It’s only fun if the language and LC settings are set to support utf-8. If you set LC_ALL=C or whatever that isn’t utf-8, then it looks like this.

Putting a link to this tweet here so that I don’t lose it again in the future.

dade@0xdade

My god, it is beautiful. I mean except all the whitespace I can’t get rid of before the command lmao.

View image on Twitter
But on the other hand if you just have a search for the zws, then whatever you find is probably worth investigating. 
I guess I’ll start the hashtag before @QW5kcmV3 does for #irresponsibleutf8 🤭😏😂 

And these tweets:

[WayBack] Thread by @Plazmaz: @0xdade Was doing some real fucking around with urls recently: gist.github.com/Plazmaz/565a5c… (was gonna flesh it out more but didn’t find…:

mentions Was doing some real fucking around with urls recently:
mentions This one is my fave:
‘⁄’ (\u2044)
or
‘∕’ (\u2215)
Allow for this:
google.com⁄search⁄query⁄.example.com
google.com⁄search⁄query⁄@example.com 

[WayBack] url-screwiness.md · GitHub:

This is a list of methods for messing with urls. These are often useful for bypassing filters, SSRF, or creating convincing links that are difficult to differentiate from legitimate urls.

And a bit of documentation links:

–jeroen

 

Posted in *nix, .NET, C#, Development, NTFS, Power User, Python, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Code Layout and Formatting: Indentation · PowerShell Practice and Style

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/22

Since I switch a lot between languages, I tend to forget what indentation, spacing and termination to use.

So from the Indentation/Length/Spacing/Termination sections in [WayBack] Code Layout and Formatting · PowerShell Practice and Style:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, CommandLine, Development, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

“This does not compute”: Mac SE/30 repair

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/21

A while ago, This does not compute had a few nice videos on a Mac SE/30 and it’s repair, including the recap process of replacing the electrolytic capacitors (or condensators in some other languages), and cleaning the board (some wash it with hot water and soap, others with isopropyl-alcohol, often called rubbing alcohol).

Note the simasimac can have many causes: bad capacitors in main board are the most common, but it can also be bad memory.

White lithium grease can make the floppy work again (see also [WayBack] Lithium soap – Wikipedia and [WayBack] Grease (lubricant) – Wikipedia).

He also added some links to which I added some quotes and WayBack links:

Notes

Desolder can be tricky, especially for surface mount. This helps:

  • Add some fresh 60/40 solder to the joints with a solder gun (as modern solder is lead free, whereas past solder contained lead)
  • Carefully heat up the component and surrounding area with a heat-gun

Choosing capacitors:

Soldering: always add some fresh solder on the pads before soldering surface mount (SMD) capacitors.

–jeroen

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Posted in 68k, Apple, Classic Macintosh, Development, Hardware Development, History, Macintosh SE/30, Power User, Soldering | Leave a Comment »

Unix and NTFS file systems, hardlinks, inodes, files, directories, dot directories, bugs and implementation details

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/21

Lots of interesting tidbits on unix and NTFS file systems.

If you want to blow up your tooling, try creating a recursive hardlink…, which is likely one of the reasons that nx file systems do not support them.

Covered and related topics:

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Posted in *nix, Development, File-Systems, History, NTFS, Power User, Software Development, Windows, Windows Development | Leave a Comment »

The spookback localghost address to resolve 👻 

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/09/21

“Spooky dev environment hack: add 127.0.0.1 xn--9q8h to /etc/hosts and then all your dev servers can be accessed at http://👻 It’s localghost!”

Via:

–jeroen

Posted in Communications Development, Development, HTTP, Internet protocol suite, Power User, Software Development, TCP | Leave a Comment »