The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

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Archive for the ‘Software Development’ Category

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delphi – How to make a combo box with fulltext search autocomplete support? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/12

Interesting solutions based on the TLama first answer at [WayBack] delphi – How to make a combo box with fulltext search autocomplete support? – Stack Overflow

Via: [WayBack] Nice solution by TLama – Thomas Mueller (dummzeuch) – Google+

–jeroen

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

Schema Central: XML vocabularies with all their XSD schema’s in a nice browsable overview including references, explanations and examples

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/11

Schema Central, by [WayBack] Datypic, Inc. (Priscilla Walmsley) is to golden that I quote the whole index page below.

The index refers to XML vocabularies. Each vocabulary page links the corresponding XSD pages. Each XSD page lists documentation, elements, etc. Each element page then documents the element, shows where it is referenced from.

Welcome to Schema Central, an interactive tool to traverse and search XML schemas. Please choose your XML vocabulary of interest to get started. Don’t see the XML vocabulary you use? Ask us to add it.

Core XML Technologies

Presentation-Oriented Standards

Office/Narrative Document Standards

Business Document Standards

NIEM-related Standards

Miscellaneous

Web Services Technologies

Security-Related Technologies

Site developed and hosted by Datypic, Inc.

Please report errors or comments about this site to contrib@functx.com

[WayBack]

If I ever need a long term XML/XSD/XSLT/XQuery hire, this is the “about” information I need:

Datypic provides consulting services and training, specializing in XML, content management and SOA/Web Services architecture and development. We are experts in XML-related technologies such as XML Schema, XSLT and XQuery, and have extensive experience with software development and implementation.

We participate in consulting projects ranging from one day to many months, anywhere in the world. We can arrange to work remotely or at your site, whichever you prefer.

For more information, please read about our services or our company, or contact us as pwalmsley@datypic.com.

Recent news from Priscilla Walmsley

  • I recently updated my book XQuery to match the final XQuery 3.1 recommendation. You can read more about it or order it from O’Reilly or Amazon.
  • I recently taught a course at the XML Summer School on Refactoring XSLT. Slides are available as a PDF.
  • More information about my recent books and articles is available on this site.

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Software Development, XML, XML/XSD, XPath, XSD, XSLT | Leave a Comment »

Delphi 10 Seattle and up try “recover” unchanged files in the `$(BDS)` tree

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/11

Every now – after some period of inactivity – I get an error like this when not having changed the file at all:

---------------------------
Error
---------------------------
Cannot create file "C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\Studio\18.0\Source\DUnit\src\__recovery\GUITestRunner.pas". Het systeem kan het opgegeven pad niet vinden.
---------------------------
OK Details >> 
---------------------------

This has been present since ever since Delphi 10 Seattle introduced the “recovery” feature on unchanged files in a read-only directory tree like for instance $(BDS).

It assumes the __recovery subdirectory has been created (which it cannot, but never raised an error about), then barfs when it cannot find the directory.

This is a classic example of “nice idea, bad execution, not caught by thinking through all the test cases”.

I think one of the roles played, is that cursor movements are part of the undo/redo stack. My suspicion is that this raises a “changed” flag, where in fact the file is unmodified.

Het systeem kan het opgegeven pad niet vinden. is the Dutch version of ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND error code 0x03 English The system cannot find the path specified.

Related:

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

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

A refefernce to 6502 by “Remember that in a stack trace, the addresses are return addresses, not call addresses – The Old New Thing”

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/11

On x86/x64/ARM/…:

It’s where the function is going to return to, not where it came from.

And:

Bonus chatter: This reminds me of a quirk of the 6502 processor: When it pushed the return address onto the stack, it actually pushed the return address minus one. This is an artifact of the way the 6502 is implemented, but it results in the nice feature that the stack trace gives you the line number of the call instruction.

Of course, this is all hypothetical, because 6502 debuggers didn’t have fancy features like stack traces or line numbers.

Source: [WayBack] Remember that in a stack trace, the addresses are return addresses, not call addresses – The Old New Thing

Which resulted in these comments at [WayBack] CC +mos6502 – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+:

  • mos6502: And don’t forget the crucial difference in PC on 6502 between RTS and RTI!
  • Jeroen Wiert Pluimers: +mos6502 I totally forgot about that one. Thanks for reminding me
    <<Note that unlike RTS, the return address on the stack is the actual address rather than the address-1.>>

References:

[WayBack] 6502.org: Tutorials and Aids – RTI

RTI retrieves the Processor Status Word (flags) and the Program Counter from the stack in that order (interrupts push the PC first and then the PSW).

Note that unlike RTS, the return address on the stack is the actual address rather than the address-1.

[WayBack] 6502.org: Tutorials and Aids – RTS

RTS pulls the top two bytes off the stack (low byte first) and transfers program control to that address+1. It is used, as expected, to exit a subroutine invoked via JSR which pushed the address-1.

RTS is frequently used to implement a jump table where addresses-1 are pushed onto the stack and accessed via RTS eg. to access the second of four routines.

–jeroen

Posted in 6502, 6502 Assembly, Assembly Language, Development, History, Software Development, The Old New Thing, Windows Development, x64, x86 | Leave a Comment »

Spelling with element symbols from the Periodic table

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/11

The [WayBack] Periodic table – Wikipedia contains many symbols.

Combing them allows you to spell word. Not all words, but many of them can be spelled.

So I was glad finding the below article that started with the same fascination I had in chemistry class.

[WayBack] Spelling with Elemental Symbols

It has a great explanation of the algorithm, references to computer science literature and a nice Python implementation.

via: [WayBack] One of the best programming articles I’ve read in a while – This is why I Code – Google+

–jeroen

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Posted in Algorithms, Development, Fun, LifeHacker, Power User, Python, science, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Delphi XE6 and up regression: “‘9999-12-31 23:59:59,1000’ is not a valid date and time” when passing a SOAP message with 9999-11-31T23:59:59.9999999; QC144171

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/06

A valid SOAP message with <urn:timeStamp>9999-11-31T23:59:59.9999999</urn:timeStamp> in a xs:dateTime field return '9999-12-31 23:59:59,1000' is not a valid date and time from a Delphi application with this SOAP response:

<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
  <SOAP-ENV:Body>
    <SOAP-ENV:Fault>
      <faultcode>SOAP-ENV:Server</faultcode>
      <faultstring>'9999-12-31 23:59:59,1000' is not a valid date and time</faultstring>
      <faultactor/>
    </SOAP-ENV:Fault>
  </SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

The reason is this exception:

exception class EConvertError with message ''9999-12-31 23:59:59,1000' is not a valid date and time'.

This is from a .NET based test case passing in timeStamp = DateTime.MaxValuewhich is handled perfectly fine by other SOAP web services tested.

I know about different resolutions of time stamps, but would never expect the 999.9999 milliseconds to be rounded up to 1000 as it is always safer to truncated away from an upper limit.

A test using Soap UI [WayBack] with this parameter finally worked (max 3 digits second fraction):

<urn:timeStamp>9999-12-31T23:59:59.999</urn:timeStamp>

The true origin of problem is in this method in the Soap.XSBuiltIns unit which has been unchanged since at least Delphi 7:

function TXSBaseTime.GetMilliSecond: Word;
begin
  Result := Round(FractionalSeconds*1000);
end;

The problem exposed itself because as of Delphi XE6 the core of function TXSBaseCustomDateTime.GetAsDateTime piece was changed from

Result := EncodeDateTime(Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second, 0);

to

Result := EncodeDateTime(Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second, Millisecond);

A combination of lack of test cases and understanding XML specifications failed to reveal this bug.

The standards specify (among others):

  • '.' s+ (if present) represents the fractional seconds;
    The above is not limiting the amount of digits, not talking about milliseconds either.
  • All ·minimally conforming· processors ·must· support year values with a minimum of 4 digits (i.e., YYYY) and a minimum fractional second precision of milliseconds or three decimal digits (i.e. s.sss). However, ·minimally conforming· processors ·may· set an application-defined limit on the maximum number of digits they are prepared to support in these two cases, in which case that application-defined maximum number ·must· be clearly documented.
    Delphi not only limits the fractional second precission, it changes the limit over time and does not document the limit. Three strikes…
  • s -- represents a digit used in the time element "second". The two digits in a ss format can have values from 0 to 60. In the formats described in this specification the whole number of seconds ·may· be followed by decimal seconds to an arbitrary level of precision. This is represented in the picture by "ss.sss". A value of 60 or more is allowed only in the case of leap seconds.
    Given buggy the fractional second handling through milliseconds, the leap second handling is ripe for a test case as well.
    Strictly speaking, a value of 60 or more is not sensible unless the month and day could represent March 31, June 30, September 30, or December 31 in UTC. Because the leap second is added or subtracted as the last second of the day in UTC time, the long (or short) minute could occur at other times in local time. In cases where the leap second is used with an inappropriate month and day it, and any fractional seconds, should considered as added or subtracted from the following minute.

The reproduction is quite simple:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, C#, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, SOAP/WebServices, Software Development, XML, XML/XSD | Leave a Comment »

playing with IOT

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/06

Interesting stuff:

Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3. Track and control all devices at home and automate control. Installation in less than a minute.

Source: Home Assistant

Via:

CounterDesk
@Dysan • 18 mei 2017 09:47

Ik doe dus een hoop met home-assistant (https://home-assistant.io/) en wat custom Python scripts/apis wat allemaal op een oude laptop met ubuntu draait (10w verbruik).

De Horizon Box specifiek gaat via Harmony Hub, kan via de standaard integratie of via eigen brouwsels. Lifx en Nest heeft standaard integratie met Google Home. Al heb ik voor Lifx zelf het een-en-ander geschreven in Python om bijvoorbeeld scenes op te slaan en op te roepen met voice commando’s, dat kan weer niet standaard. NS API gaat ook via die Python API en wat er terug gezegd wordt (in het Nederlands) gaat via home-assistant.

Het voordeel van zelf zoiets bouwen is dat ik alles makkelijkers aan elkaar kan knopen dan bijvoorbeeld via IFTTT en Stringify o.i.d.. Zo kan ik bijvoorbeeld “Hey Google, sexy time” roepen en dan veranderd mijn verlichting langzaam naar iets romantischers (denk rood/oranje/roze), speelt er een zwoel lounge muziekje op mijn Sonos van een samba share, gaat de tempratuur wat omhoog en gaat mijn tv aan naar het chromecast kanaal en speelt er van die zelfde samba share een mp4 met een haardvuurtje.

Vet cheesy, I know, ik moet er de eerste vrouw nog mee verrassen :P maar het was ook vooral als demo van wat ik allemaal kan aansturen, bedoeld als grapje voor vrienden etc.

Google voegt een notificatiefunctie toe aan zijn Home-speaker. Als gebruikers een belangrijk bericht krijgen, zullen de ledjes op de speaker de aandacht gaan trekken van de gebruiker. De speaker gaat vooralsnog niet uit zichzelf spreken.

Source: Home-speaker van Google krijgt notificatiefunctie – Beeld en geluid – Nieuws – Tweakers

–jeroen

Posted in Development, IoT Internet of Things, Network-and-equipment, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Delphi – Defer defines the “postpone procedure” pattern to execute code at the end of a method

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/06

Last year, I stumbled upon [WayBack] Defer defines the “postpone procedure” pattern, this postpone should schedule a “procedure: TProc” to run it after the end of the caller method… – Cesar Romero – Google+ that points to this repository:

https://github.com/cesarliws/foundation-4-delphi

Some people like this usage of the RAII pattern, but I do like it even though I do not use it very often. The implementation better than my TAnonymousMethodMemento in Delphi: a memento that executes any code at end of method for various reasons:

Now the documentation could use more English (some of it is in Portuguese).

–jeroen

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

Some search links on Delphi and C# WSDL imports I need to investigate further

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/05

Sometimes, the Delphi WSDL importer imports fine, but the generated code does not accept test cases sent by other tools.

Below are some links for messages and comment fragments that I want to investigate further.

I have included the .NET message, because my experience is that searching on those gives more accurate results for something that could be broken in more than one environment.

Based on those:

Some on-line tools prefer the WSDL to be in one document, but a lot of WSDL documents use import and or include features, so here are some links on that too:

Bruneau Babet correctly informed me that – though Delphi SOAP clients support both document literal and RPC encoded – Delphi SOAP servers cannot support document literal, as they can only support RPC encoded. Through that I found

  • [WayBack] Apache CXF — WSDLValidator
    • Check the WSDL document for XML well-formedness.
    • Validate the WSDL document against its XML schema.
    • Validate the WSDL document using some of the semantic rules defined in the WSDL specification.
    • Validate the WSDL document against custom validation rules, such as those defined by the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) organization (i.e. WS-I Basic Profile rules).
    • Validate the WSDL against strange exceptions, incorrectly generated code and general bad WSDL issues.

Back on those days, the big plan was to move everything Delphi to the .NET platform which supports both document literal and RPC encoded.

All in all, document literal has been on the radar with the Delphi R&D team since at least 2009, and nothing has been done.

References:

I looks like a wsdl message request part entries need to be named parameters for some tooling to correctly infer document/literal in a wrapped way. Some links for further research on this:

When you are surely running SOAP over HTTP, you can use this small class to raise exceptions which automatically get translated into SOAP Faults having the right return code using a trick I bumped into a few years ago from [WayBack] web services – Accessing the original TWebRequest object in a Delphi SOAP Server – Stack Overflow:

unit SoapFaultWithHttpCodeExceptionUnit;

interface

uses
  System.SysUtils;

type
  ESoapFaultWithHttpCodeException = class(Exception)
  strict private
    FHttpStatusCode: Integer;
  public
    constructor Create(const AHttpStatusCode: Integer);
    property HttpStatusCode: Integer read FHttpStatusCode;
  end;

implementation

uses
  Winapi.WinHTTP,
  Soap.WebBrokerSOAP,
  Web.HTTPApp,
  IdCustomHTTPServer;

constructor ESoapFaultWithHttpCodeException.Create(const AHttpStatusCode: Integer);
var
  IdHTTPResponseInfo: TIdHTTPResponseInfo;
  ReasonString: string;
  WebDispatcher: IWebDispatcherAccess;
begin
  IdHTTPResponseInfo := TIdHTTPResponseInfo.Create(nil, nil, nil);
  try
    FHttpStatusCode := AHttpStatusCode;
    IdHTTPResponseInfo.ResponseNo := AHttpStatusCode;
    ReasonString := Format('%d: %s', [AHttpStatusCode, IdHTTPResponseInfo.ResponseText]);
    inherited Create(ReasonString);

    // https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10405227/accessing-the-original-twebrequest-object-in-a-delphi-soap-server
    if Supports(GetSOAPWebModule, IWebDispatcherAccess, WebDispatcher) then
    begin
      WebDispatcher.Response.StatusCode := HTTP_STATUS_SERVER_ERROR;
      WebDispatcher.Response.ReasonString := ReasonString;
    end

  finally
    IdHTTPResponseInfo.Free;
  end;
end;

end.

—jeroen

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Posted in .NET, C#, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, SOAP/WebServices, Software Development, XML/XSD | Leave a Comment »

C#/JSON deep verify if object instances are equivalent

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/09/05

Some notes to verify object equivalence:

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, C#, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

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