The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

  • My badges

    Mastodon

  • Twitter Updates

  • My Flickr Stream

    20140508-Delphi-2007--Project-Options--Cannot-Edit-Application-Title-HelpFile-Icon-Theming20140430-Fiddler-Filter-Actions-Button-Run-Filterset-now20140424-VMware-Fusion-6.0.3.-no-reclaimable
    More Photos

  • Pages

  • All categories

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,862 other subscribers

Archive for the ‘Conferences’ Category

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »

Installing Windows software with Chocolatey: a few notes

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/28

I will limit myself to software that needs Administrative elevation in order to be installed. This is the default use-case for Chocolatey. It is way way easier than installing software all by hand, but there are a few things you need to know, hence these notes.

Administrative elevation

Since the default use case is installing software that requires Administrative elevation during install, Chocolatey needs to run with Administrative privileges in order to perform these installs.

If you were hoping for a way around this (for instance by having a client/service architecture), then just stop here.

Even though such a structure could technically be created, getting it stable and working it correctly with a truckload of software to be installed (much of which not available as packages during Chocolatey development in the first place) is a task too big.

Think of the size of the Windows Installer team at Microsoft to get installers working in the first place, the extra effort needed by Chocolatey volunteers to get the installers working from the console, then another much more complex layer of getting them running from inside a service and communicating everything back and forth to a non-elevated command prompt would be a nightmare.

I won’t even mention the security steps involved to ensure the non-elevated command prompt has enough rights to send installation instructions to the elevated service.

So the first step is to have an elevated command prompt for Chocolatey.

Being elevated, and Chocolatey needing to download installers requires a local temporary place for them.

By default, that place is %Temp%\chocolatey of the administrative user that elevated the Chocolatey command prompt.

This directory can grow quite big, so dir, so – since there is no choco cleanup yet [WayBack] you need to either:

Install Chocolatey itself

Either the direct one below, or the more secure one (so you can inspect the intermediate [WayBack] install.ps1) at [WayBack] Installation using PowerShell from cmd.exe:

@echo off
SET DIR=%~dp0%
::download install.ps1
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "((new-object net.webclient).DownloadFile('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1','%DIR%install.ps1'))"
::run installer
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& '%DIR%install.ps1' %*"

If you want to get rid of it, use [WayBack] Uninstallation.

Besides the one above and below, there are many more [WayBack] Installation: more install options

Output of direct install as Administrator (disclaimers apply):

C:\WINDOWS\system32>powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "[System.Net.WebRequest]::DefaultWebProxy.Credentials = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH="%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"
Getting latest version of the Chocolatey package for download.
Getting Chocolatey from https://chocolatey.org/api/v2/package/chocolatey/0.10.11.
Downloading 7-Zip commandline tool prior to extraction.
Extracting C:\Users\JEROEN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocInstall\chocolatey.zip to C:\Users\JEROEN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocInstall...
Installing chocolatey on this machine
Creating ChocolateyInstall as an environment variable (targeting 'Machine')
  Setting ChocolateyInstall to 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey'
WARNING: It's very likely you will need to close and reopen your shell
  before you can use choco.
Restricting write permissions to Administrators
We are setting up the Chocolatey package repository.
The packages themselves go to 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib'
  (i.e. C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\yourPackageName).
A shim file for the command line goes to 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin'
  and points to an executable in 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\yourPackageName'.

Creating Chocolatey folders if they do not already exist.

WARNING: You can safely ignore errors related to missing log files when
  upgrading from a version of Chocolatey less than 0.9.9.
  'Batch file could not be found' is also safe to ignore.
  'The system cannot find the file specified' - also safe.
chocolatey.nupkg file not installed in lib.
 Attempting to locate it from bootstrapper.
PATH environment variable does not have C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin in it. Adding...
WARNING: Not setting tab completion: Profile file does not exist at 'C:\Users\jeroenAdministrator\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1'.
Chocolatey (choco.exe) is now ready.
You can call choco from anywhere, command line or powershell by typing choco.
Run choco /? for a list of functions.
You may need to shut down and restart powershell and/or consoles
 first prior to using choco.
Ensuring chocolatey commands are on the path
Ensuring chocolatey.nupkg is in the lib folder

Installing packages

Compressing

If you run out of SSD or VM disk space, you can try compress using compact /c /s *.* in these directories:

  • C:\ProgramData\Package Cache
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages
  • C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\ClickToRun\ProductReleases

Further reading

–jeroen

PS: always watch the output and logs!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Chocolatey, CommandLine, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Spring4D Mock – Delphi Unit Testing : Writing a simple spy for the CUT – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/28

Reminder to self: write a longer article on Delphi mocking as Spring4D mocking is much better than Delphi Mocks, especially because of code-completion reasons.

Spring4D has a Mock record that can return a Mock<T> on which you can verify using methods like Received.

See:

I got some code that I need to dig up from an old project with many more Spring4D Mock examples.

Note that:

For now, these are a start [WayBack] Delphi Unit Testing : Writing a simple spy for the CUT – Stack Overflow:

Sounds like a use case for a mock (I am using the term mock here because most frameworks refer to their various kinds of test doubles as mock)

In the following example I am using DUnit but it should not make any difference for DUnitX. I am also using the mocking feature from Spring4D 1.2 (I did not check if Delphi Mocks supports this)

unit MyClass;

interface

type
  TMyClass = class
  private
    fCounter: Integer;
  protected
    procedure MyProcedure; virtual;
  public
    property Counter: Integer read fCounter;
  end;

implementation

procedure TMyClass.MyProcedure;
begin
  Inc(fCounter);
end;

end.

program Tests;

uses
  TestFramework,
  TestInsight.DUnit,
  Spring.Mocking,
  MyClass in 'MyClass.pas';

type
  TMyClass = class(MyClass.TMyClass)
  public
    // just to make it accessible for the test
    procedure MyProcedure; override;
  end;

  TMyTest = class(TTestCase)
  published
    procedure Test1;
  end;

procedure TMyClass.MyProcedure;
begin
  inherited;
end;

procedure TMyTest.Test1;
var
  // the mock is getting auto initialized on its first use
  // and defaults to TMockBehavior.Dynamic which means it lets all calls happen
  m: Mock<TMyClass>;
  o: TMyClass;
begin
  // set this to true to actually call the "real" method
  m.CallBase := True;
  // do something with o
  o := m;
  o.MyProcedure;

  // check if the expected call actually did happen
  m.Received(Times.Once).MyProcedure;

  // to prove that it actually did call the "real" method
  CheckEquals(1, o.Counter);
end;

begin
  RegisterTest(TMyTest.Suite);
  RunRegisteredTests();
end.

Keep in mind though that this only works for virtual methods.

  • In case you need to test a method from a base class which cannot be affected by the $RTTI directive, you can use a little trick and redefine it in subclass in public section as override; abstract; this will cause the RTTI to be generated. – Honza RFeb 5 ’16 at 8:02

–jeroen

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development, Spring4D | Leave a Comment »

Automated testing Windows applications using Katalon and WinAppDriver

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/21

[WayBack] Top 45 Best Automation Testing Tools Ultimate List • Test Automation Made Easy: Tools, Tips & Training Awesomeness A few notes, partially related to Enable your device for development – UWP app developer | Microsoft Docs.

One research project I had a while ago, was to see how it was possible to use a generic testing tool like Katalon Studio (that can test many platforms), for testing Windows applications.

Katalon uses a Selenium interface that normally is used for web applications through the [WayBack] WebDriver protocol (formerly [WayBack] JsonWireProtocol) that continues to be updated: [WayBack] draft upcoming WebDriver protocol, which is more generic than just web applications:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in .NET, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development, Windows Development, WinForms, WPF | Leave a Comment »

Object Pool versus Object Cache

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/20

I think an:

  • Object Pool is meant to set a maximum on the number of pooled objects because they are expensive in resource usage.
  • Object Cache is meant to store objects (but not cap it) that are expensive to create, but do not per se are expensive in resource usage.

For future reading:

–jeroen

 

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Event | Leave a Comment »

Enable your device for development – UWP app developer | Microsoft Docs

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/20

From [WayBack] Enable your device for development – UWP app developer | Microsoft Docs:

Run these as administrator on the command prompt to:

Enable Sideloading

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock" /t REG_DWORD /f /v "AllowAllTrustedApps" /d "1"

Enable Developer Mode

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModelUnlock" /t REG_DWORD /f /v "AllowDevelopmentWithoutDevLicense" /d "1"

Needed for WinAppDriver to test applications from Selenium or Katalon

When you run WinAppDriver without it, you get this:

C:\Users>"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Application Driver\WinAppDriver.exe"
Failed to initialize: 0x80004005
Despite WinAppDriver running fine as non-administrative user, the reason was given that it requires administrative privileges: [WayBack] Why does WinAppDriver.exe require developer mode? · Issue #165 · Microsoft/WinAppDriver · GitHub.

SetCapabilities name parameters and values

Various searches for what to pass as parameters to SetCapabilities failed, but the list is right at the README, but without any mention SetCapabilities, so search engines miss it with for instance “SetCapabilities” “WinAppDriver” – Google Search that only returned these links:

Supported Capabilities

Below are the capabilities that can be used to create Windows Application Driver session.

Capabilities Descriptions Example
app Application identifier or executable full path Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d8bbwe!MicrosoftEdge
appArguments Application launch arguments https://github.com/Microsoft/WinAppDriver
appTopLevelWindow Existing application top level window to attach to 0xB822E2
appWorkingDir Application working directory (Classic apps only) C:\Temp
platformName Target platform name Windows
platformVersion Target platform version 1.0

–jeroen

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, Katalon, Software Development, Testing | Leave a Comment »

Reverse engineering Delphi and Turbo Pascal unit interfaces (and maybe DCP files too)

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/07

Boy, I wish there was both an Embarcadero sanctioned grammar (see Delphi code completion fail with anonymous methods – Stack Overflow) and a DCU parser.

This might work for DCP files as well, since the PKX0 signature at the start of DCP files is in [WayBack] DCU32INT/DCP.pas at master · rfrezino/DCU32INT · GitHub.

Being able to dump DCP files makes it way easier to create documenting a matrix of all DCP files and units, to their interdependencies and containments become clear (including any unit scopes).

Right now that is only documented from the unit to the package on the page of the unit (see for instance [WayBack] System.SysUtils – RAD Studio API Documentation), not the other way around. This is a pain to select which packages you need in your project when building with packages.

The list at [WayBack] Unit List – RAD Studio API Documentation (which actually is an “Alphabetical list of unit scopes, along with miscellaneous units that have no unit scope.” is only partially helpful, especially as for instance the System unit page at [WayBack] System – RAD Studio API Documentation is 90% about the System unit scope, has the System unit itself about a 3rd down and does not mention it lives in the rtl.dcp package.

The list at [WayBack] Deciding Which Runtime Packages to Use – RAD Studio is even worse than the unit list, as it misses many useful packages (like dsnap)

For my link archive:

Johan wanted to create a compiler symbol table from the binary DCU files (unlike DelphiAST which does it from the Pascal source files).

From the pre-Delphi era, I found back some info from my own archive:

In the Turbo Pascal days, you had TW1UNA and TPUUNA by William L. Peavy, which I think led to INTRFC from Duncan Murdoch (or maybe vice versa) which got updated to Turbo/Borland Pascal 7 format by Milan Dadok (see [Wayback/Archive] http://sources.ru/pascal/hacker/intrfc70.htm). Since the basic format of DCU files is very similar to that, my guess is that DCU32INT built on that.

Later I found [Wayback/Archive] The Programmer’s Corner » TPU60C.ZIP » Pascal Source Code also by William L. Peavy and Wayback/Archive] Duncan Murdoch’s Programs .

Edit 20220621:

  • moved the www8.pair.com links to murdoch-sutherland.com
  • added more Wayback and Archive links

–jeroen

Posted in Borland Pascal, Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, History, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Leave a Comment »

Naming: avoid abbreviations and acronyms in identifiers

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/07

I see lots of code using abbreviations. Please avoid those, just like many development stacks urge you to do so.

Two important reasons:

  1. avoid confusion
  2. make it easier to read code (you read code far more often than you write code)

This is not limited to the software development field; for similar reasons, the medical field also limits the use of abbreviations and acronyms:

Read the rest of this entry »

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

From Delphi 1: Type Compatibility and Identity

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/09/30

A feature overlooked by many Delphi programmer was already introduced in Delphi 1 which is more or less the same as in the Delphi 2007 documentation at [WayBack] Type Compatibility and Identity.

There is a distinction between these explained in the above link:

type
  TMyInteger1 = Integer;
  TMyInteger2 = type Integer;

Where TMyInteger1 is an alias for Integer, TMyInteger2 introduces a new type which is distinct from Integer and TMyInteger. That way the compiler can set them apart, and even generates separate RTTI (Run-Time TypeInformation) for them.

Probably the most used distinct types are these:

TDateTime = type Double;
...
TDate = type TDateTime;
TTime = type TDateTime;
TFontName = type string

These are unlike TColor which is defined as “just” a subrange of Integer, but because it is a subtype, also gets a distinct type:

TColor = -$7FFFFFFF-1..$7FFFFFFF;

Type identity is important because Delphi 1 introduced these mechanisms:

  • the streaming instances and their properties
  • editing instances and properties in the object inspector
  • two way binding of designer (form/datamodule/frame/…) and the underlying Pascal source

Without them, very basic Delphi features would not work.

In addition, a lot of other RTTI based code now enables features like object relational mapping, binding to JSON/XML and many others.

What I did not know is that the Pascal and Delphi type systems have been heavily influenced by ADA. Luckily Lutz Donnerhacke pointed me to ADA [WayBack] Types and Subtypes.

Example

I made an example Distinct type types in Delphi · GitHub showing the differences on RTTI level in these properties:

property IntegerProperty: Integer read FIntegerField write FIntegerField;
property ColorProperty: TColor read FColorField write FColorField;
property DoubleProperty: Double read FDoubleField write FDoubleField;
property DateTimeProperty: TDateTime read FDateTimeField write FDateTimeField;
property DateProperty: TDate read FDateField write FDateField;
property TimeProperty: TTime read FTimeField write FTimeField;
property StringProperty: string read FStringField write FStringField;
property FontNameProperty: TFontName read FFontNameField write FFontNameField;

The generated table (see also the source below using [Archive.is] TRttiContext added in Delphi 2010) indeed shows distinct types on the RTTI level:

Name Type.Name Type.QualifiedName Type.TypeKind
IntegerProperty Integer System.Integer tkInteger
ColorProperty TColor System.UITypes.TColor tkInteger
DoubleProperty Double System.Double tkFloat
DateTimeProperty TDateTime System.TDateTime tkFloat
DateProperty TDate System.TDate tkFloat
TimeProperty TTime System.TTime tkFloat
StringProperty string System.string tkUString
FontNameProperty TFontName System.UITypes.TFontName tkUString

This post was inspired by an interesting discussion on [WayBack] What’s the technical term for the following construct: type intx = type integer; type inty = integer; What term would you use to describe the differen… – Johan Bontes – Google+

Documentation:

RTTI dump inspired by [WayBack] delphi – How can I distinguish TDateTime properties from Double properties with RTTI? – Stack Overflow.

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development | 2 Comments »

A series of Medium posts introducing functional programming in manageable bits and pieces

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/09/30

I have summarised the main topics of each part in this table of contents, and indicated at the time of writing which parts I did not get yet:

  1. [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 1) – Charles Scalfani – Medium
    • pure functions (only operate on input parameters: without side effects)
    • immutability (no variables! loops through recursion)
  2. [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 2) – Charles Scalfani – Medium
    • refactoring leads to the need of higher-order functions
    • higher-order functions: passing a function as a parameter, or returning functions as a result
    • closure: when a returned function has access to the captured parameter(s) of the function creating the returned function
  3. [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 3) – Charles Scalfani – Medium
    • functional decomposition (I still need to wrap my head around this)
    • point-free notation (same)
    • both lead to currying (which I also need to wrap my head around)
  4. [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 4) – Charles Scalfani – Medium
    • currying: when you want to combine functions having different parameter counts
    • refactoring based on currying (I still need to wrap my head around this)
    • map/filter/reduce functional building blocks (I still need to wrap my head around this)
  5. [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 5) – Charles Scalfani – Medium
    • referential transparency (I still need to wrap my head around this)
    • execution order: in a pure functional language the compiler can determine the order when functions are completely independent
    • type annotation: I do not yet get why you would do without this
  6. [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 6) – Charles Scalfani – Medium
    • Functional JavaScript and ELM: two functional languages, of which Ramba can help make better JavaScript code

Via: [WayBack] So You Want to be a Functional Programmer (Part 1) Link to part 2 in the article. https://medium.com/@cscalfani/so-you-want-to-be-a-functional-programm… – Lars Fosdal – Google+

–jeroen

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, Functional Programming, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Delphi XE6 .. 10.1 Berlin truncating non-VCL-control texts to 256 characters when styled

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/09/23

As of Delphi XE6, the VCL also styles non-VCL controls, but this truncates the texts to 256 characters, for instance in non-balloon hints. This is fixed in Delphi 10.2 Berlin, by making the buffer dynamic and switching obtaining those texts from using GetWindowText to sending a WM_GETTEXT message.

A fix for Delphi XE6..10.1 Berlin is at gitlab.com/wiert.me/public/delphi/DelphiVclStylesAndHintText, with many thanks to Stefan Glienke who based the patch on the ones used in Spring4D. I think they are similar to the ones in [Archive.is] VCL Fix Pack 1.4 | Andy’s Blog and Tools.

The Old New Thing explains the difference between GetWindowText and WM_GETTEXT in [WayBack] The secret life of GetWindowText – The Old New Thing. TL;DR:

GetWindowText strikes a compromise.

  • If you are trying to GetWindowText() from a window in your own process, then GetWindowText() will send the WM_GETTEXT message.
  • If you are trying to GetWindowText() from a window in another process, then GetWindowText() will use the string from the “special place” and not send a message.

So for your own process, it does not matter as GetWindowText uses WM_GETTEXT.

–jeroen

Related:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development, The Old New Thing, Windows Development | Leave a Comment »

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »