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

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Archive for the ‘Delphi’ Category

Interesting use of an IDE plugin: Copy a string from a “Watch” entry to the…

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/12/01

On the todo list:

Interesting use of an IDE plugin: Copy a string from a “Watch” entry to the clipboard without quotes. – Thomas Mueller (dummzeuch) – Google+

Source: delphi – Can I change the display format for strings in the watch list? – Stack Overflow:

Every now and then I use the watch window to display strings which contain sql statements.Now I select Copy Value from the context menu and get

'SELECT NAME FROM SAMPLE_TABLE WHERE FIRST_NAME = ''George'''#$D#$A

but want

SELECT NAME FROM SAMPLE_TABLE WHERE FIRST_NAME = 'George'

The answer by MartynA has an OTA plugin that could be integrated with something like GExperts.

–jeroen

via: Interesting use of an IDE plugin: Copy a string from a “Watch” entry to the clipboard…

Posted in Delphi, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 7, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Delphi XE8, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Ensure you know the state of an instance.

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/11/24

A while ago, I came across a class having (among other members) two methods named like this:

  • Start
  • Stop

Within one of the other members of the class, I had to (temporarily) Stop processing, then Start it again.

But I couldn’t, as neither Start, nor Stop would make a record of the state it left the instance in.

Always ensure you know the state of an instance.

So I added the state, and tests to ensure a Stop/Start change was indeed not breaking things.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, .NET 1.x, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, C#, C# 1.0, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, C# 6 (Roslyn), Delphi, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Delphi XE8, Development, Software Development | 1 Comment »

Stack Exchange – Android Apps on Google Play

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/11/18

I missed when the StackExchange App for Android was finally launched, but I totally agree with Paul Lammertsma:

Exceeds expectations This was a long time coming, but it didn’t disappoint. It’s a great aid for a regular on Stack Overflow like me!

–jeroen

via Stack Exchange – Android Apps on Google Play.

Posted in .NET, Delphi, Development, Pingback, Power User, Software Development, Stackoverflow | Leave a Comment »

Do not expose properties with writeable fields without a chance to react on the writes.

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/11/04

From a chat with a co-worker a while ago:

I’m not against properties. Just something against properties properties that are objects with writeable fields.

So even if you expose such a property as read-only, it can still get its writeable fields overwritten.

That is a pain when those are part of the state of the underlying object.

In other words: encapsulate your state changes.

Here we solved it by making

  • the type of the property immutable
  • the property writeable
  • react on state changes during the write

Proper encapsulation.

In this case it was a project mixing C# and Delphi, but you can easily apply the above to any language featuring classes and properties.

Another solution would have been to extend the type of the property so it can expose an event that fires during change. Much more convoluted.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, C#, C# 1.0, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, C# 6 (Roslyn), Delphi, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Delphi XE8, Development, Software Development | 2 Comments »

Please review your DFM files before you commit to version control

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/10/22

Recently I bumped into it again with one of the more current Delphi XE* versions and Delphi 2007: the IDE changing the DFM files without reason.

This time it was in a multi-team environment with many branches and DFM merge hell.

A few examples of properties and components getting changes:

Warren P suggests to review your DFM changes before committing to version control and I completely agree: it is the only way to ensure they are indeed unwanted changes.

There are some stop-gab things you could try, but these only partially help

–jeroen

via:

Posted in Delphi, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Delphi XE8, Development, QC, Software Development | 7 Comments »

On Epsilon, MachineEpsilon, and relative differences – via: I was wondering, that what is the closest value to the Zero floating point can have – G+

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/10/07

A long time ago, there was an interesting discussion here: I was wondering, that what is the closest value to the Zero floating point can have.

Recently I needed to do some calculations on series where getting close to zero could become a problem.

  • Math seems to have an Epsilon of 1E-12.
  • Sytem.Types has Epsilon of 1E-30 and Epsilon2 of 1E-40.
  • XE4+ FMX has IsEssentiallyZero and IsNotEssentiallyZero for Single values.

In practice it depends a lot on what you are doing. Sometimes absolute Epsilons are best, but at other times relative difference is much more applicable.

Then there is also a Machine Epsilon: a way to derive an Epsilon from a data type that works in all languages and platforms.

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, Algorithms, C, C#, C++, Delphi, Development, Floating point handling, Software Development | 1 Comment »

Get the path to the most recent msbuild.exe from the registry.

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/10/06

Get the path to the most recent msbuild.exe from the registry:


@echo off
:: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/328017/path-to-msbuild
:: http://www.csharp411.com/where-to-find-msbuild-exe/
:: http://timrayburn.net/blog/visual-studio-2013-and-msbuild/
:: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2013/07/24/msbuild-is-now-part-of-visual-studio.aspx
setlocal
:vswhereModernTry
:: https://github.com/Microsoft/vswhere/wiki/Find-MSBuild
:: Normal output example of `vswhere -legacy -latest -property installationPath` has no trailing back-slash:
:: `C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\`
for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%i in (`vswhere -latest -products * -requires Microsoft.Component.MSBuild -property installationPath`) do (
set InstallDir=%%i
)
:: without ENABLEEXTENSIONS, %InstallDir% is only available outside the above loop.
for %%v in (15.0, 14.0) do (
if exist "%InstallDir%\MSBuild\%%v\Bin\MSBuild.exe" (
set msBuildExe="%InstallDir%\MSBuild\%%v\Bin\MSBuild.exe"
goto :finish
)
)
:manualTry
:: order of the versions is important: get the most recent one
for %%v in (14.0, 12.0, 4.0, 3.5, 2.0) do (
for /f "usebackq tokens=2* delims= " %%c in (`reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSBuild\ToolsVersions\%%v" /v MSBuildToolsPath`) do (
set msBuildExe="%%dMSBuild.exe"
goto :finish
)
)
:vswhereLegacyTry
:: -legacy is not compatible with -products or -requires
:: note there is no Visual Studio 13.0 (just like there is no Office 13.0) likely because USA superstition.
:: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio#History
:: msbuild was introduced in Visual Studio 8.0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSBuild#History
:: Legacy output example of `vswhere -legacy -latest -property installationPath` has trailing back-slash:
:: `C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\`
for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%i in (`vswhere -legacy -latest -property installationPath`) do (
set InstallDir=%%i
)
:: without ENABLEEXTENSIONS, %InstallDir% is only available outside the above loop.
for %%v in (14.0, 12.0, 11.0, 10.0, 9.0, 8.0) do (
if exist "%InstallDir%MSBuild\%%v\Bin\MSBuild.exe" (
set msBuildExe="%InstallDir%MSBuild\%%v\Bin\MSBuild.exe"
goto :finish
)
)
:: nothing found
:finish
endlocal & if not [%msBuildExe%]==[] if exist %msBuildExe% ( echo %msBuildExe% )


for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%c in (`"%~dp0get-msbuildExe-path.bat"`) do (
call %%c %*
)

view raw

run-msbuild.bat

hosted with ❤ by GitHub

With help from:

Note

This needs adoption for Visual Studio 2017 (15.0) and up; see the comments at the above gist:

lextm commented on Mar 9, 2017  

Note that 15.0 (in VS2017) no longer registers itself at this registry key location, so this trick won’t simply work. vswhere is now recommended to locate MSBuild 15,

https://github.com/Microsoft/vswhere

n9 commented on May 17, 2017

Be sure to call vswhere -products * to get standalone installation of BuildTools. (See Microsoft/vswhere#61.)

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, C#, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, C# 6 (Roslyn), Delphi, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Delphi XE8, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Why Your Code Is So Hard to Understand – via CodeProject

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/09/29

Below are the captions, read the full article as it is very well written.

Why your code is hard to understand

  • Problem #1, Overly Complex Mental Models
  • Problem #2, Poor Translation of Semantic Models into Code
    • Class Structure and Names
    • Variable, Parameter and Method Names
    • Single Responsibility Principle (SRP)
    • Appropriate Comments
    • Problem #3, Not Enough Chunking
  • Problem #4, Obscured Usage
  • Problem #5, No Clear Path Between the Different Models
  • Problem #6, Inventing Algorithms

–jeroen

via: Why Your Code Is So Hard to Understand – CodeProject.

Posted in .NET, Delphi, Development, Software Development, Web Development | 5 Comments »

Unless you write an installer with the right manifest, don’t include Installer, Update, Upgrade, Setup, … in your EXE name

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/09/28

I’ve seen this question coming up a few times, and bumped into this at a client recently: the UAC dialog coming up when debugging a 32-bit executable.

This is caused (more details below) by Installer Detection Technology introduced in Windows Vista (with UAC) and tightened in more modern Windows versions.

The solution is to either:

  • not include Installer, Patch, Update, Upgrade, Setup, … in your EXE name
  • provide a correct manifest to your EXE (getting this right can be hard)
  • don’t use x86 as platform target

For software you don’t have source code for, you can alter the manifest with a requestedExecutionLevel elementFixing the way Vista Auto-detects Installers – Ben’s Writing.

A few links on Installer Detection Technology in Windows:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, .NET 1.x, .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, .NET 4.0, .NET 4.5, .NET CF, C#, C# 1.0, C# 2.0, C# 3.0, C# 4.0, C# 5.0, C# 6 (Roslyn), Delphi, Delphi 10 Seattle, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Delphi XE8, Development, RemObjects C#, Software Development | 1 Comment »

A while ago Allen Bauer commented on the working theory of Nullable in Delphi

Posted by jpluimers on 2015/09/25

I missed this last May, but revisiting some old G+ posts I saw Allen Bauer commenting:

Current working theory of Nullable<T>.

Nullable<T> = record
...
property Value: T read FValue; default;
...
end;

Using the default directive to “hoist” the operators of “T”. Currently the default directive only works for array properties by “hoisting” the ‘[]’ operator. Marking a non-array property with default will make the containing type behave as that type.

This, coupled with some intrinsic compiler knowledge of the Nullable<T> type will make Nullable<T> work without any addition of keywords or other standard functions or procedures.

Using the “default” directive on a non-array property will work for any type, except for having the null-propagation semantics.

When considering language features, I try and not only make it work for the intended purpose, but also broaden reach of any supporting feature. In the above scenario, even user-defined operators on “T” will be properly hoisted and used.

So hopefully, one day there will me more than Nullable<T> in Spring.pas which has been around for quite a while now..

–jeroen

Source: Delphi’s New Feature Desired: Nullable Types and Null Propagation Nullable…

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 5 Comments »