I need to set a global const at runtime. As far as I understand they are set at compile time, however I'm using a global const as a url string thats referenced throughout the app. Depending on a option selected before the user logs in, I need the url string to change. This will only happen at run time before a user has logged in (for testing purposes)
I know an alternative is to just use a global variable (not constant) but I feel like thats not the best practice.
Any help would be much appreciated
You can save the url in NSUserDefaults Class of Objective-C and can change the url once user logged in.
A constant in Objective-C has a very specific meaning - it's something known at compile time. If you need to set a value at runtime, you need a read-only property or a function returning the value.
If you decide to take a read-only property route, make a global singleton object, and put the desired property on it. Give the property read-only access, and use it throughout your program.
If you decide to use a global function, you can do it like this:
// This goes in the header
extern const char *urlString();
// This goes into the implementation file
static char *urlStringVal = NULL;
const char *urlString() {
return urlStringVal;
}
Any function in the same implementation file as urlString has writing access to urlStringVal, and can change it as needed.
Related
Let's say I have a type of object in my game called oCharacter. All characters must have names, so I want to provide one when I construct the object. I can do that by using the _variables argument of instance_create_layer:
instance_create_layer(0, 0, "Instances", oCharacter, { name: "George" });
I could even make sure that I don't forget to do this by making a "constructor" function for characters and only instantiating them using that:
function character_create(_x, _y, _name) {
return instance_create_layer(_x, _y, "Instances", oCharacter, { name: _name });
}
But this approach has two problems.
The first is that I or another developer might forget about this convention and instantiate a character directly using instance_create_layer, forgetting to pass a name and setting up a runtime error further down the road.
The second (related) issue is that Feather doesn't know about this convention, so my Feather window is full of error messages about references to instance variables that aren't declared in the Create event - but I don't see how I can declare these variables in the Create event, as I'm expecting their value to be provided by the creator.
Is there some way of doing this that addresses these issues?
The first problem is just about setting rules about the code conventions within your team, if your team does not know about these conventions you want them to follow, then you should tell it them in a meeting.
For the second problem: Maybe you could create an empty/nullable variable in the Create Event? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with Feather
Personally I would do two things for this.
Create development standards for the team and put them in something like a Word document, wiki page, onenote, whatever makes the most sense for your team.
I would use a function to create the instance of the object (like you're doing there), and have some simple validation checks inside of the create event itself that will cancel it's creation (something like a guard clause) and output a debug message with a reminder.
It's not the most elegant solution but that should do the trick (assuming you haven't found something else by now haha)
I am trying to log field writes with bytebuddy. After reading some earlier posts, I started using MemberSubstitution and got something going using the following code:
private static Method FIELD_INTERCEPTOR = // reflective reference to interceptFieldWrite
AsmVisitorWrapper VISITOR = MemberSubstitution.relaxed()
.field(ElementMatchers.any())
.onWrite()
.replaceWith(FIELD_INTERCEPTOR)
.on(ElementMatchers.isMethod());
..
public static void interceptFieldWrite(Object object,Object value) {
System.out.println("intercepted field write in object " + object + " , attempt to set value to " + value);
}
..
The part I am struggling with is how to pass a reference to the field for which the access is intercepted to interceptFieldWrite (as string or instance of Field). If possible I would of course like to avoid reflection completely. I don't actually want to completely substitute field access, but just want to add a method with some checks just before it takes place. Is there a feature in bytebuddy to do this, or do I have to use something more low-level than ASM to achieve this ?
Byte Buddy offers this but you will have to compose your own StackManipulations to do so. The mechanism in MemberSubstitution is called replaceWithChain. Here you specify Steps where each step can do what you intend:
invoke a method via MethodInvocation.
write a field via FieldAccessor.
You will have to load the arguments to the method call and the field access prior to using the above stack manipulations via the MethodVariableAccess where the targeted element's offsets are represented by offsets.
In your case, this would require to read the target instance via
MethodVaribaleAccess.of(parameters.get(0)).loadFrom(offsets.get(0));
MethodVaribaleAccess.of(parameters.get(1)).loadFrom(offsets.get(1));
and the to execute the method or field write in question. The targeted field will be passed as target, you can cast it to FieldDescription if you only ever intercept fields.
Make sure you only intercept non-static fields where the this instance will not be passed.
I want to control read access to an Itcl public variable. I can do this for write access using something such as:
package require Itcl
itcl::class base_model_lib {
public variable filename ""
}
itcl::configbody base_model_lib::filename {
puts "in filename write"
dict set d_model filename $filename
}
The configbody defines what happens when config is called: $obj configure -filename foo.txt. But how do I control what happens during the read? Imagine that I want to do more than just look up a value during the read.
I would like to stay using the standard Itcl pattern of using cget/configure to expose these to the user.
So that is my question. However, let me describe what I really want to do and you tell me if I should do something completely different :)
I like python classes. I like that I can create a variable and read/write to it from outside the instance. Later, when I want to get fancy, I'll create methods (using #property and #property.setter) to customize the read/write without the user seeing an API change. I'm trying to do the same thing here.
My sample code also suggests something else I want to do. Actually, the filename is stored internally in a dictionary. i don't want to expose that entire dictionary to the user, but I do want them to be able to change values inside that dict. So, really 'filename' is just a stub. I don't want a public variable called that. I instead want to use cget and configure to read and write a "thing", which I may chose to make a simple public variable or may wish to define a procedure for looking it up.
PS: I'm sure I could create a method which took either one or two arguments. If one, its a read and two its a write. I assumed that wasn't the way to go as I don't think you could use the cget/configure method.
All Itcl variables are mapped to Tcl variables in a namespace whose name is difficult to guess. This means that you can get a callback whenever you read a variable (it happens immediately before the variable is actually read) via Tcl's standard tracing mechanism; all you need to do is to create the trace in the constructor. This requires the use of itcl::scope and is best done with itcl::code $this so that we can make the callback be a private method:
package require Itcl
itcl::class base_model_lib {
public variable filename ""
constructor {} {
trace add variable [itcl::scope filename] read [itcl::code $this readcallback]
}
private method readcallback {args} { # You can ignore the arguments here
puts "about to read the -filename"
set filename "abc.[expr rand()]"
}
}
All itcl::configbody does is effectively the equivalent for variable write traces, which are a bit more common, though we'd usually prefer you to set the trace directly these days as that's a more general mechanism. Demonstrating after running the above script:
% base_model_lib foo
foo
% foo configure
about to read the -filename
{-filename {} abc.0.8870089169996832}
% foo configure -filename
about to read the -filename
-filename {} abc.0.9588680136757288
% foo cget -filename
about to read the -filename
abc.0.694705847974264
As you can see, we're controlling exactly what is read via the standard mechanism (in this case, some randomly varying gibberish, but you can do better than that).
I grew up in the days when passing around structures was bad mojo because they are often large, so pointers were always the way to go. Now that C++11 has quite good RVO (right value optimization), I'm wondering if code like the following will be efficient.
As you can see, my class has a bunch of vector structures (not pointers to them). The constructor accepts value structures and stores them away.
My -hope- is that the compiler will use move semantics so that there really is no copying of data going on; the constructor will (when possible) just assume ownership of the values passed in.
Does anyone know if this is true, and happens automagically, or do I need a move constructor with the && syntax and so on?
// ParticleVertex
//
// Class that represents the particle vertices
class ParticleVertex : public Vertex
{
public:
D3DXVECTOR4 _vertexPosition;
D3DXVECTOR2 _vertexTextureCoordinate;
D3DXVECTOR3 _vertexDirection;
D3DXVECTOR3 _vertexColorMultipler;
ParticleVertex(D3DXVECTOR4 vertexPosition,
D3DXVECTOR2 vertexTextureCoordinate,
D3DXVECTOR3 vertexDirection,
D3DXVECTOR3 vertexColorMultipler)
{
_vertexPosition = vertexPosition;
_vertexTextureCoordinate = vertexTextureCoordinate;
_vertexDirection = vertexDirection;
_vertexColorMultipler = vertexColorMultipler;
}
virtual const D3DVERTEXELEMENT9 * GetVertexDeclaration() const
{
return particleVertexDeclarations;
}
};
Yes, indeed you should trust the compiler to optimally "move" the structures:
Want Speed? Pass By Value
Guideline: Don’t copy your function arguments. Instead, pass them by value and let the compiler do the copying
In this case, you'd move the arguments into the constructor call:
ParticleVertex myPV(std::move(pos),
std::move(textureCoordinate),
std::move(direction),
std::move(colorMultipler));
In many contexts, the std::move will be implicit, e.g.
D3DXVECTOR4 getFooPosition() {
D3DXVECTOR4 result;
// bla
return result; // NRVO, std::move only required with MSVC
}
ParticleVertex myPV(getFooPosition(), // implicit rvalue-reference moved
RVO means Return Value Optimization not Right value optimization.
RVO is a optimization performed by the compiler when the return of a function is by value, and its clear that the code returns a temporary object created in the body, so the copy can be avoided. The function returns the created object directly.
What C++11 introduces is Move Semantics. Move semantics allows us to "move" the resource from a certain temporary to a target object.
But, move implies that the object wich the resource comes from, is in a unusable state after the move. This is not the case (I think) you want in your class, because the vertex data is used by the class, even if the user calls to this function or not.
So, use the common return by const reference to avoid copies.
On the other hand,, DirectX provides handles to the resources (Pointers), not the real resource. Pointers are basic types,its copying is cheap, so don't worry about performance. In your case, you are using 2d/3d vectors. Its copying is cheap too.
Personally, I think that returning a pointer to an internal resource is a very bad idea, always. I think that in this case the best aproach is to return by const reference.
I have a .h file that defines a few hundred constants. Let's assume this to be one of them:
#define KDSomeItem 1
I know that the Objective-C runtime API can be used to retrieve a list of instance variable names: like detailed in this question: How do I list all fields of an object in Objective-C?
I also know that the getter [object valueForKey:theName] can be used to access the ivars as found in an earlier question of mine: How to access a property/variable using a String holding its name
My question is can something simmilar be done with constants? That is can I:
a) get a list of all constants programmatically
b) access a constant if I have a string holding its name
e.g. if I had a String like this NSString * theName = #"KDSomeItem"; could I evaluate my constant using this string?
You would not be able to do this: unlike instance variables, #define-d constants do not leave a trace after the preprocessor is done with them. They leave no metadata behind - all instances of KDSomeItem in the body of your program will be replaced with 1 even before the Objective C compiler proper gets to analyze your code.
If you need the constant names to be available at run time, you would need to build all the necessary metadata yourself. In order to do that, you may want to look into "stringizing" operator of the preprocessor:
#define STR(X) #X
This macro can be applied to a preprocessor constant, and produce a C string literal with its name:
const char *nameOfKDSomeItem = STR(KDSomeItem); // same as "KDSomeItem"
Nope. Your constant is a preprocessor macro. It is textually substituted into your source code where you use it.