Vb.net form controls gets slower on clearing [duplicate] - vb.net

I am trying to remove all the controls that are contained in my winform panel but they simply do not want to get removed - some of them are removed and some of them not. I have tried 2 approaches already and nothing:
foreach
foreach (Control controlEntry in this.contentsPanel.Controls)
{
this.contentsPanel.Controls.Remove(controlEntry);
}
for
for (int i = 0; i < this.contentsPanel.Controls.Count; i++)
{
this.contentsPanel.Controls.RemoveAt(i);
}
Why is this happening ?

You have to watch out for code like this, removing controls from their container like this produces an unrecoverable resource leak. Controls.Remove/At(), or the Controls.Clear() method as suggested by other posters, removes the control from the collection and re-hosts it to the "parking window". An otherwise invisible window where the native window can find a hospitable home without having to be destroyed. Ready to be re-hosted on another parent.
Which is the trap, you typically don't move it to another parent. The control will continue to survive on the parking window, consuming native Windows resources. The garbage collector cannot recover these resources. Eventually your program will crash when Windows refuses to provide more windows to your process. The exception message will say "Error creating handle".
Instead, you must dispose the control. Which also automatically removes the control from its parent. The proper code is:
while (contentsPanel.Controls.Count > 0) contentsPanel.Controls[0].Dispose();
Or iterate backwards if you find this a bit too bizarre looking.

Each time you remove control from collection, the collection changes. When you remove 1st element of Controls, 2nd element becomes 1st, so when you proceed to delete 2nd control, you are in fact removing 3rd element from original collection (skipping 2nd element).
If you want to remove all controls contained in collection, use this.contentsPanel.Controls.Clear(). If you want to remove controls by their indices in ControlCollection, first select controls to remove to separate list or array and then remove them.

If you want to remove them all then just do
this.contentsPanel.Controls.Clear()

The foreach will fail because you are changing the collection, which breaks the iterator.
The for fails because you are only removing every other item; consider: i=0, you remove the zeroth item. Now the item that was item 1 is item 0 - so when you remove item 1 (next loop iteration) you have jumped one.
Short version: use Clear():
contentsPanel.Controls.Clear();
Longer version: iterate backwards:
for(int i=contentsPanel.Controls.Count-1; i>=0;i--) {
contentsPanel.Controls.RemoveAt(i);
}
The first (Clear) is simpler.

Related

Godot - Input.is_action_just_pressed() runs twice

So I have my Q and E set to control a Camera that is fixed in 8 directions. The problem is when I call Input.is_action_just_pressed() it sets true two times, so it does its content twice.
This is what it does with the counter:
0 0 0 0 1 1 2 2 2 2
How can I fix thix?
if Input.is_action_just_pressed("camera_right", true):
if cardinal_count < cardinal_index.size() - 1:
cardinal_count += 1
else:
cardinal_count = 0
emit_signal("cardinal_count_changed", cardinal_count)
On _process or _physics_process
Your code should work correctly - without reporting twice - if it is running in _process or _physics_process.
This is because is_action_just_pressed will return if the action was pressed in the current frame. By default that means graphics frame, but the method actually detect if it is being called in the physics frame or graphic frame, as you can see in its source code. And by design you only get one call of _process per graphics frame, and one call of _physics_process per physics frame.
On _input
However, if you are running the code in _input, remember you will get a call of _input for every input event. And there can be multiple in a single frame. Thus, there can be multiple calls of _input where is_action_just_pressed. That is because they are in the same frame (graphics frame, which is the default).
Now, let us look at the proposed solution (from comments):
if event is InputEventKey:
if Input.is_action_just_pressed("camera_right", true) and not event.is_echo():
# whatever
pass
It is testing if the "camera_right" action was pressed in the current graphics frame. But it could be a different input event that one being currently processed (event).
Thus, you can fool this code. Press the key configured to "camera_right" and something else at the same time (or fast enough to be in the same frame), and the execution will enter there twice. Which is what we are trying to avoid.
To avoid it correctly, you need to check that the current event is the action you are interested in. Which you can do with event.is_action("camera_right"). Now, you have a choice. You can do this:
if event.is_action("camera_right") and event.is_pressed() and not event.is_echo():
# whatever
pass
Which is what I would suggest. It checks that it is the correct action, that it is a press (not a release) event, and it is not an echo (which are form keyboard repetition).
Or you could do this:
if event.is_action("camera_right") and Input.is_action_just_pressed("camera_right", true) and not event.is_echo():
# whatever
pass
Which I'm not suggesting because: first, it is longer; and second, is_action_just_pressed is really not meant to be used in _input. Since is_action_just_pressed is tied to the concept of a frame. The design of is_action_just_pressed is intended to work with _process or _physics_process, NOT _input.
So, apparently theres a built in method for echo detection:
is_echo()
Im closing this.
I've encountered the same issue and in my case it was down to the fact that my scene (the one containing the Input.is_action_just_pressed check) was placed in the scene tree, and was also autoloaded, which meant that the input was picked up from both locations and executed twice.
I took it out as an autoload and Input.is_action_just_pressed is now triggered once per input.

How to preserve attachment content between render passes

I have multiple "renderers" which should draw to the same attachment (swap chain image to be precise). I don't know the number of such renderers beforehand so I can't use subpasses. This is how I wanted to implement it:
VkCommandBuffer cb{...}; // get current "main" command buffer
for(auto r : renderers)
{
VkRenderPassBeginInfo renderPassBeginInfo{get_render_pass_begin_info(...)};
vkCmdBeginRenderPass(cb, &renderPassBeginInfo, VK_SUBPASS_CONTENTS_SECONDARY_COMMAND_BUFFERS);
array<VkCommandBuffer, 2> buffs{r->getCommandBuffers()}; // renderer build two secondary command buffers...
vkCmdExecuteCommands(cb, 1, buffs[0]); // first should be used in a render pass
vkCmdEndRenderPass(cb);
vkCmdExecuteCommands(cb, 1, buffs[1]); // second should be used ooutside of a render pass
}
The problem here is that each new call to vkCmdBeginRenderPass clears the target. This happens because the attachment was created with loadOp = VK_ATTACHMENT_LOAD_OP_CLEAR because I need to clear it (but only once).
The solution in my case would be to move vkCmdBeginRenderPass and vkCmdEndRenderPass outside of the loop, but in this case, I need to "collect" all secondary command buffers that can't be used inside a render pass and execute them later.
But since the concept of render passes doesn't go into my head I wonder if there may be a way to keep the attachment's data between render passes?
You could stop clearing the attachments on load. Just manually clear them, either before the render pass begins or at the start of the first subpass.
That being said, render passes are not cheap, and this is really not the way to use them. The correct solution is to restructure your rendering code so that you only need a single render pass.

storage automatically get cleared in codename one

Hi I am writing an arraylist in storage using
private void addItemToRecentListStorage1(Hashtable h){
Storage s1 = Storage.getInstance();
ArrayList<Hashtable> a = (ArrayList<Hashtable>)s1.readObject("RecentItems");
...
...
a.add(0,h);//adding on top
s1.writeObject("RecentItems", a);
}
If I inspect s1 immediately after adding 1st element, it shows me appropriately in storage hierarchy.
But at a time of adding 2nd element(HashTable) it clear the 1st stored hashtable values, though it shows as a blank element.
Means, I am getting 1 element(HashTable) in arraylist by readObject() but that hashtable's all 4 elements are wiped out. This was working earlier but now its wiping out HashTable data from arraylist.
So eachtime I am getting number of element incremented by 1 when I add element. But all previous hashtables' values are cleared.
Same thing is happening in emulator as well as device.
Check out if you have an exception in the console that might have been triggered by serialization failing for some of the objects within the array.

VB.NET, best practice for sorting concurrent results of threadpooling?

In short, I'm trying to "sort" incoming results of using threadpooling as they finish. I have a functional solution, but there's no way in the world it's the best way to do it (it's prone to huge pauses). So here I am! I'll try to hit the bullet points of what's going on/what needs to happen and then post my current solution.
The intent of the code is to get information about files in a directory, and then write that to a text file.
I have a list (Counter.ListOfFiles) that is a list of the file paths sorted in a particular way. This is the guide that dictates the order I need to write to the text file.
I'm using a threadpool to collect the information about each file, create a stringbuilder with all of the text ready to write to the text file. I then call a procedure(SyncUpdate, inlcluded below), send the stringbuilder(strBld) from that thread along with the name of the path of the file that particular thread just wrote to the stringbuilder about(Xref).
The procedure includes a synclock to hold all the other threads until it finds a thread passing the correct information. That "correct" information being when the xref passed by the thread matches the first item in my list (FirstListItem). When that happens, I write to the text file, delete the first item in the list and do it again with the next thread.
The way I'm using the monitor is probably not great, in fact I have little doubt I'm using it in an offensively wanton manner. Basically while the xref (from the thread) <> the first item in my list, I'm doing a pulseall for the monitor. I originally was using monitor.wait, but it would eventually just give up trying to sort through the list, even when using a pulse elsewhere. I may have just been coding something awkwardly. Either way, I don't think it's going to change anything.
Basically the problem comes down to the fact that the monitor will pulse through all of the items it has in the queue, when there's a good chance the item I am looking for probably got passed to it somewhere earlier in the queue or whatever and it's now going to sort through all of the items again before looping back around to find a criteria that matches. The result of this is that my code will hit one of these and take a huge amount of time to complete.
I'm open to believing I'm just using the wrong tool for the job, or just not using tool I have correctly. I would strongly prefer some sort of threaded solution (unsurprisingly, it's much faster!). I've been messing around a bit with the Parallel Task functionality today, and a lot of the stuff looks promising, but I have even less experience with that vs. threadpool, and you can see how I'm abusing that! Maybe something with queue? You get the idea. I am directionless. Anything someone could suggest would be much appreciated. Thanks! Let me know if you need any additional information.
Private Sub SyncUpdateResource(strBld As Object, Xref As String)
SyncLock (CType(strBld, StringBuilder))
Dim FirstListitem As String = counter.ListOfFiles.First
Do While Xref <> FirstListitem
FirstListitem = Counter.ListOfFiles.First
'This makes the code much faster for reasons I can only guess at.
Thread.Sleep(5)
Monitor.PulseAll(CType(strBld, StringBuilder))
Loop
Dim strVol As String = Form1.Volname
Dim strLFPPath As String = Form1.txtPathDir
My.Computer.FileSystem.WriteAllText(strLFPPath & "\" & strVol & ".txt", strBld.ToString, True)
Counter.ListOfFiles.Remove(Xref)
End SyncLock
End Sub
This is a pretty typical multiple producer, single consumer application. The only wrinkle is that you have to order the results before they're written to the output. That's not difficult to do. So let's let that requirement slide for a moment.
The easiest way in .NET to implement a producer/consumer relationship is with BlockingCollection, which is a thread-safe FIFO queue. Basically, you do this:
In your case, the producer threads get items, do whatever processing they need to, and then put the item onto the queue. There's no need for any explicit synchronization--the BlockingCollection class implementation does that for you.
Your consumer pulls things from the queue and outputs them. You can see a really simple example of this in my article Simple Multithreading, Part 2. (Scroll down to the third example if you're just interested in the code.) That example just uses one producer and one consumer, but you can have N producers if you want.
Your requirements have a little wrinkle in that the consumer can't just write items to the file as it gets them. It has to make sure that it's writing them in the proper order. As I said, that's not too difficult to do.
What you want is a priority queue of some sort onto which you can place an item if it comes in out of order. Your priority queue can be a sorted list or even just a sequential list if the number of items you expect to get out of order isn't very large. That is, if you typically have only a half dozen items at a time that could be out of order, then a sequential list could work just fine.
I'd use a heap because it performs well. The .NET Framework doesn't supply a heap, but I have a simple one that works well for jobs like this. See A Generic BinaryHeap Class.
So here's how I'd write the consumer (the code is in pseudo-C#, but you can probably convert it easily enough).
The assumption here is that you have a BlockingCollection called sharedQueue that contains the items. The producers put items on that queue. Consumers do this:
var heap = new BinaryHeap<ItemType>();
foreach (var item in sharedQueue.GetConsumingEnumerable())
{
if (item.SequenceKey == expectedSequenceKey)
{
// output this item
// then check the heap to see if other items need to be output
expectedSequenceKey = expectedSequenceKey + 1;
while (heap.Count > 0 && heap.Peek().SequenceKey == expectedSequenceKey)
{
var heapItem = heap.RemoveRoot();
// output heapItem
expectedSequenceKey = expectedSequenceKey + 1;
}
}
else
{
// item is out of order
// put it on the heap
heap.Insert(item);
}
}
// if the heap contains items after everything is processed,
// then some error occurred.
One glaring problem with this approach as written is that the heap could grow without bound if one of your consumers crashes or goes into an infinite loop. But then, your other approach probably would suffer from that as well. If you think that's an issue, you'll have to add some way to skip an item that you think won't ever be forthcoming. Or kill the program. Or something.
If you don't have a binary heap or don't want to use one, you can do the same thing with a SortedList<ItemType>. SortedList will be faster than List, but slower than BinaryHeap if the number of items in the list is even moderately large (a couple dozen). Fewer than that and it's probably a wash.
I know that's a lot of info. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

What is the best way to read input from keyboard using SDL?

I'm running an update() method n times per second to "update" the keyboard input from the user so I can read it later in the logic part of the program. So I find two ways of implementing this in the SDL Docs and I'm not sure which one should I use.
1; Loop for all events using SDL_PollEvent searching for key down/up events and saving the key states in a map so I can check for each key state in the logic of the program.
Note: Alternatively, I can also use SDL_PeepEvents instead of SDL_PollEvent to take only the event types that matter; so, it would not "thrown away" the events on the queue.
std::map<int, bool> keyboard; // Saves the state(true=pressed; false=released) of each SDL_Key.
void update()
{
SDL_Event event;
while(SDL_PollEvent(&event))
{
switch(event.type)
{
case SDL_KEYDOWN:
keyboard[event.key.keysym.sym] = false;
break;
case SDL_KEYUP:
keyboard[event.key.keysym.sym] = true;
break;
}
}
}
2; Taking a snapshot from the keyboard each frame so I can read it easily.
Uint8* keyboard;
void update()
{
SDL_PumpEvents();
keyboard = SDL_GetKeyState(NULL);
}
With any of above implementations I can read keyboard just like this:
if (key_map[SDLK_Return]) printf("Return has been pressed.");
Also, is there another way to do so?
I prefer to do a variation of 1, where I fill three arrays, indicating not only the current state, but also which keys just went down and which keys just went up. This allows me to easily check for those events in code (without comparing to the previous snapshot), but, most importantly, it won't miss events that last less than a frame. For example, if your game is running at 10 fps due to a slow machine, the user might press and release an important key between two calls of your update routine, and then your system will never register it. This is extremely frustrating.
SDL also sends key events when the key is held down, which allow you to have multiple key down events for each key up. I find this particularly useful when implementing keyboard scrolling through a list of items, e.g. a keyboard-controlled menu.
You should use solution 2.
Why? As SDL_GetKeyState() docs point out, before using it you are expected to call SDL_PumpEvents() to update the state array.
When you are calling SDL_PollEvent(), it implicitly calls SDL_PumpEvents(). So, it basically updates the array for SDL_GetKeyState() anyway. By parsing these events manually, you just create a second array (well, actually a much slower map) holding the same information which SDL already collected for you.
So, I would dare say that first solution means doing the same thing twice. And if you ever decide to support things such as repeated keystrokes (SDL_EnableKeyRepeat()), you'll be reimplementing even a larger part of SDL.
I realize this question is quite old, but my answer could benefit someone. Personally, I use two arrays with SDL_GetKeyState. I store one array holding the current frame's keyboard state, and one array holding that last frame's keyboard state. (With some memcpy commands, it's really easy to update them.) Along with those two arrays, I have a map that converts strings like "A" to the SDL scancode values, but that is optional.
Then, when you need to check if something is released or pressed, you can combine the two arrays to check. (I made this a function.) For example, if you know that the key is pressed this frame, but wasn't pressed last frame, it was clearly just pressed this frame. if (currentFrame["A"] == true && lastFrame["A"] == false) {/*just pressed*/}
You would then do the opposite for the released. I find that method super easy to implement and use.