Why in this code, await is not blocking ui in flutter - multithreading

In the default example app whenever you create new fultter project I just added the following code.
initState() {
super.initState();
loop();
}
loop() async {
while (true) {
await Future.delayed(Duration(milliseconds: 10));
print("count now:$_counter");
}
}
Why is the app UI is not getting blocked? I am able to click + button and the counter increases smoothly. Even if I change the delay to 10 sec, the UI is resposive.
Is the loop() runnning in different thread?but I know dart is single thread. How is it possible?
Where the loop function is running?
Can I use this technique to run background task for example checking id my sqflite table rows are synced with cloud etc???

Await calls are non-blocking.
The way this works is, while Dart is single-threaded, some Dart code delegate their implementation to the Dart VM.
Things like file reads or HTTP requests are performed outside of Dart (either by the browser or in c++), in a different thread.
So while Dart is single-threaded, it is still able to perform multiple tasks simultaneously without locking the UI.

Related

How to show a page on install but not on update [duplicate]

I have a question about chrome extension install/update event. If I add the onInstalled event listener in a top level code in the background script, is there a time frame in which my event listener will catch that event?
I'm asking this, because my demos showed that if I have some logic that executes before I hook onInstalled listener, it looks like it will never be executed, like that event happens in the meantime.
Can someone explain to me with more details how this event works, in the context of other logic in the background script, or point me to some documentation, since I haven't been able to find anything useful.
Thanks!
Update #Noam Hacker : Due to a company policy I can't post any real code here, but I have some pseudo code that illustrates my problem :
/**
* setup in which I miss onInstalled event
*/
function firstLogicThatRunsOnBackgroundLoad() {
// perform some logic
// perform some asynchronous operations via generators and promises
// which can take a while
chrome.runtime.onInstalled.addListener(function (details) {
if (details.reason == "install") {
// this logic never gets executed
} else if(details.reason == "update") {
// perform some logic
}
});
}
/**
* setup in which I catch onInstalled event
*/
function firstLogicThatRunsOnBackgroundLoad() {
chrome.runtime.onInstalled.addListener(function (details) {
if (details.reason == "install") {
// this logic executes
} else if(details.reason == "update") {
// perform some logic
}
});
// perform some logic
// perform some asynchronous operations via generators and promises
// which can take a while
}
onInstalled listeners catch events in these situations:
when the extension is first installed, when the extension is updated to a new version, and when Chrome is updated to a new version.
Since this is all asynchronous it will happen in the background, and according the documentation, fires immediately at any of these situations. Review asynchronous programming for some clarity on this.
link to documentation
According to your question it seems like you want help executing code in the right order. This answer provides a helpful framework for your case (using the reason attribute).
chrome.runtime.onInstalled.addListener(function(details){
if(details.reason == "install"){
//call a function to handle a first install
}else if(details.reason == "update"){
//call a function to handle an update
}
});
I needed to figure this out too. While I didn't find anything authoritative, I did throw a couple of console.time() statements in my background script.
Code was something like this:
console.time('onInstall event');
console.time('first function');
chrome.runtime.onInstalled.addListener(details => {
console.timeEnd('onInstall event');
});
// 7 module imports
someSyncFunction() // console.timeEnd('first function') is called in the first line in this function
Then I just loaded/reloaded the extension (unpacked, in dev mode) a few times. onInstall seems to pretty reliably fire within the first 50ms, while the first function happens w/in the first ms. Here are the results:
(First function, onInstall event)
(.282ms, 47.2ms)
(.331ms, 45.3ms)
(.327ms, 49.1ms)
(.294ms, 45.9ms)
Given that the document says
“Listeners must be registered synchronously from the start of the page.”
and
“Do not register listeners asynchronously, as they will not be properly triggered.”
, it seems they guarantee every synchronously-attached listener not to miss any, no matter how long it takes to evaluate your code. And this would be done by Chrome firing events after evaluating your entire code.
My hypothesis is that onInstalled actually works like onInitialized. No test data, though.

How can I automate the creation and SFTP transfer of a snapshot in Acumatica?

I would like to create a nightly snapshot of certain tables in my SAAS-hosted Acumatica instance and SFTP the resulting XML file to a given location. (I've created a custom Export Mode option for just the tables of interest.)
I would like to do this process through an Acumatica Automation Schedule, a custom Action that I can call through the API, or an API call to existing Acumatica Actions, or some combination of the above.
However, it doesn't appear that these options are available to me:
Automation Scheduling doesn't support snapshot creation (https://feedback.acumatica.com/ideas/ACU-I-570)
I tried adding the Action to create a snapshot to the web service endpoint, but it doesn't appear that I can pass the parameters I would need to manage the pop-ups
Attempting to create a custom Acumatica button, I'm also to struggling to figure out how to raise and manage the pop-ups.
Once I have the snapshot created, I presume I will need to be able to download it locally in order to SFTP it to my desired location; I haven't gotten far enough to know if I invoke the download snapshot button through the API where the resulting file will go.
June,
When I get stuck with stuff that I am unable to trigger with ReST or other integration techniques I generally turn to Selenium as the path of least resistance. I do want to point out I always err on the side of using selenium as a last resort.
I generally like to use the PowerShell selenium module for stuff like this.
Once you have your script working you can wire it into a standard Windows Scheduler real easy.
It may not be the most elegant way to do it but it will certainly get the job done.
if your interested you can get started with this
https://github.com/adamdriscoll/selenium-powershell/blob/master/README.md
Once you get familiar with it you use the chrome inspection tool to dig into the elements that you need to target. the dialog boxes you are after are often found as iframes within the page.
I can share some of my scripts to help you get started if you want to try this route.
I hope this helps.
Robert
I ended up creating a simple console application since it was more in line with our other applications and I have more familiarity with C# than with PowerShell. Robert, your project was invaluable to figuring out how to reference the trickier elements.
I expect to set up scheduled tasks that will call my application with the method name of each step, with appropriate delays between each -- creating the snapshot takes about 25 minutes, for example. There are separate methods to create the snapshot, download the snapshot, delete the snapshot, and next I'm working on SFTPing the downloaded snapshot to its end destination. I put in sleeps to allow time for the website to catch up; there are Waits and WaitForExpectedCondition methods available but I didn't get into them in this quick and dirty version.
Here's the guts of my code. (I added WebDriver and ChromeDriver to the application via Nuget.)
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using OpenQA.Selenium;
using OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome;
using System.Threading;
namespace InfiniteExport
{
class Program
{
static string connectorInfo;
static void Main(string[] args)
{
string method = "";
if (args.Count() >= 1)
{
method = args[0].ToLower();
}
IWebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver();
try
{
switch (method)
{
case "createsnapshot":
Login(driver);
CreateSnapshot(driver);
break;
case "downloadsnapshot":
Login(driver);
DownloadSnapshot(driver);
break;
case "deletesnapshot":
Login(driver);
DeleteSnapshot(driver);
break;
default:
break;
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
throw e;
}
finally
{
driver.Quit();
}
}
static void Login(IWebDriver driver)
{
//This login actually results in a 404 error because there's no redirect embedded in it, but the login itself is successful and creates the session used by the next method navigation
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(InfiniteExport.Properties.Settings.Default.BaseAcumaticaURL + "/Frames/Login.aspx");
driver.FindElement(By.Id("form1")).Click();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("txtUser")).SendKeys(InfiniteExport.Properties.Settings.Default.AcumaticaUserName);
driver.FindElement(By.Id("txtPass")).SendKeys(InfiniteExport.Properties.Settings.Default.AcumaticaPassword);
driver.FindElement(By.Id("btnLogin")).Click();
driver.Manage().Window.Maximize();
Thread.Sleep(5000);
}
static void CreateSnapshot(IWebDriver driver)
{
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(#InfiniteExport.Properties.Settings.Default.BaseAcumaticaURL + "/Main?ScreenId=SM203520&_CompanyID=2");
Thread.Sleep(2000);
driver.SwitchTo().Frame("main");
//Click the #$##%*! unnamed create snapshot button
driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector(".toolsBtn[data-cmd=exportSnapshotCommand]")).Click();
Thread.Sleep(2000);
//Switch to the modal popup to start clicking items on it (this is the "Warning not in maintenance mode" popup)
driver.SwitchTo().ActiveElement();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("messageBox_0")).Click();
Thread.Sleep(2000);
//Switch to the modal popup with the export options
driver.SwitchTo().ActiveElement();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_frmExportSnapshot_edDescription")).SendKeys("InfiniteExport");
//Select the dropdown option for the InfiniteExport
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_frmExportSnapshot_edExportMode_text")).Click();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_frmExportSnapshot_edExportMode_text")).SendKeys("InfiniteExport");
Thread.Sleep(2000);
driver.FindElement(By.ClassName("ddSelection")).Click();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_frmExportSnapshot_chkPrepare")).Click();
//Select the dropdown option for XML
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_frmExportSnapshot_edPrepareMode")).Click();
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_frmExportSnapshot_edPrepareMode_text")).SendKeys("XML");
Thread.Sleep(2000);
driver.FindElement(By.ClassName("ddSelection")).Click();
Thread.Sleep(2000);
//Click the OK button to start the export
driver.FindElement(By.Id("ctl00_phF_pnlExportSnapshot_btnExportSnapshotOK")).Click();
//Wait long enough for the process to start, then quit and come back later to download
Thread.Sleep(10000);
}
static void DownloadSnapshot(IWebDriver driver)
{
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(#InfiniteExport.Properties.Settings.Default.BaseAcumaticaURL + "/Main?ScreenId=SM203520&_CompanyID=2");
Thread.Sleep(2000);
driver.SwitchTo().Frame("main");
//Unless this is made fancier, it will download the active grid row, which is the most recent snapshot created
driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector(".toolsBtn[data-cmd=downloadSnapshotCommand]")).Click();
Thread.Sleep(10000);
}
static void DeleteSnapshot(IWebDriver driver)
{
driver.Navigate().GoToUrl(#InfiniteExport.Properties.Settings.Default.BaseAcumaticaURL + "/Main?ScreenId=SM203520&_CompanyID=2");
Thread.Sleep(2000);
driver.SwitchTo().Frame("main");
//Unless this is made fancier, it will delete the active grid row, which is the most recent snapshot created
driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector(".toolsBtn[data-cmd=Delete]")).Click();
Thread.Sleep(2000);
driver.FindElement(By.CssSelector(".toolsBtn[data-cmd=saveCompanyCommand]")).Click();
Thread.Sleep(10000);
}
}
}

Persistent background page on demand or an event page that doesn't unload?

I want to build a extension that behaves like a timer. It should count down the seconds when activated, but should do nothing with inactive.
The chrome.alarms API is interesting, but does not have enough precision nor granularity. It only fires at most once per minute, and it may fire late. If I want something to execute more often than that, I can't use this API.
Then, the next natural solution is to use a background page and use setTimeout or setInterval in there. However, background pages are persistent, and they take up resources (e.g. memory) even when idle. So they are not ideal.
The best solution seems to be an event page to run the timer. However, the documentation says:
Once it has been loaded, the event page will stay running as long as it is active (for example, calling an extension API or issuing a network request).
[…]
Once the event page has been idle a short time (a few seconds), the runtime.onSuspend event is dispatched. The event page has a few more seconds to handle this event before it is forcibly unloaded.
[…]
If your extension uses window.setTimeout() or window.setInterval(), switch to using the alarms API instead. DOM-based timers won't be honored if the event page shuts down.
Unfortunately, having an active setInterval is not enough to consider an event page active. In fact, from my tests, an interval up to 10 seconds is short enough to keep the event page running, but anything greater than 10 or 15 seconds is too far apart and the event page will get unloaded. I've tested this on my crx-reload-tab project.
I believe what I want is a middle ground:
I want a background page that I can load and unload on demand. (Instead of one that keeps loaded all the time.)
I want an event page that stays persistent in memory for as long as I say; but otherwise could be unloaded. (Instead of one that gets unloaded automatically by the browser.)
Is it possible? How can I do it?
Background pages cannot be unloaded on demand, and Chrome decides Event page lifecycle for you (there is nothing you can do in onSuspend to prevent it).
If your concern is timers, you could try my solution from this answer, which basically splits a timer into shorter timers for a "sparse" busy-wait. That's enough to keep the event page loaded and is a viable solution if you don't need to do that frequently.
In general, there are some things that will keep an event page loaded:
If you're using message passing, be sure to close unused message ports. The event page will not shut down until all message ports are closed.
This can be exploited if you have any other context to keep an open Port to, for example a content script. See Long-lived connections docs for more details.
In practice, if you often or constantly need precise, sub-minute timers, an Event page is a bad solution. Your resource gains from using one might not justify it.
As mentioned in Xan's answer we can abuse messaging. There's nothing wrong about it either in case you want to temporarily prevent the event page from unloading. For example while displaying a progress meter using chrome.notifications API or any other activity based on setTimeout/setInterval that may exceed the default unload timeout which is 5-15 seconds.
Demo
It creates an iframe in the background page and the iframe connects to the background page. In addition to manifest.json and a background script you'll need to make two additional files bg-iframe.html and bg-iframe.js with the code specified below.
manifest.json excerpt:
"background": {
"scripts": ["bg.js"],
"persistent": false
}
bg.js:
function preventUnload() {
let iframe = document.querySelector('iframe');
if (!iframe) {
iframe = document.createElement('iframe');
document.body.appendChild(iframe).src = 'bg-iframe.html';
}
}
function allowUnload() {
let iframe = document.querySelector('iframe');
if (iframe) iframe.remove();
}
chrome.runtime.onConnect.addListener(() => {});
bg-iframe.html:
<script src="bg-iframe.js"></script>
bg-iframe.js:
chrome.runtime.connect();
Usage example in bg.js:
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener((message, sender, sendResponse) => {
if (message === 'start') doSomething();
});
function doSomething() {
preventUnload();
// do something asynchronous that's spread over time
// like for example consecutive setTimeout or setInterval calls
let ticks = 20;
const interval = setInterval(tick, 1000);
function tick() {
// do something
// ................
if (--ticks <= 0) done();
}
function done() {
clearInterval(interval);
allowUnload();
}
}
I use this function:
function _doNotSleep() {
if (isActive) {
setTimeout(() => {
fetch(chrome.runtime.getURL('manifest.json'));
_doNotSleep();
}, 2000);
}
}
But the problem with such approach is that Devtools network tab polluted with this http stub.

Titanium: Different execution contexts are not multi-threaded?

I am trying to use titanium execution contexts to produce parallel code execution between the main application context and others. I am using CreateWindow with a url property refers to a .js file inside "lib" folder. But by logging the execution on both iOS and Android devices it seems that different contexts are executed on the app main thread, no parallelism here.
My new context trigger inside my Alloy controller:
var win2 = Ti.UI.createWindow({
title: 'New Window',
url: 'thread.js',
backgroundColor:'#fff'
});
win2.open();
Ti.API.log('after open');
My thread.js contents:
Ti.API.log("this is the new context");
Ti.App.fireEvent("go" , {});
while(true)
{
Ti.API.log('second context');
}
This while loop apparently blocks the main context (my Alloy controller) waiting it to exit.
Any suggestions of how can I execute some code (mainly heavy sqlite db access) in background so that the UI be responsive? (Web workers are not a choice for me).
You could try to achieve the wanted behaviour with a setInterval() or setTimeout() method.
setInterval()[source]:
function myFunc() {
//your code
}
//set the interval
setInterval(myFunc,2000) //this will run the function for every 2 sec.
Another suggested method would be to fire a custom event when you need the background behavior since it is processed in its own thread. This is also suggested in the official documentation.
AFAIK, titanium is single threaded, because JavaScript is single threaded. You can get parallel execution with native modules, but you'll have to code that yourself for each platform.
Another option is to use web workers, but I consider that to be a hack.

Networking without blocking ui in Qt 4.7

I have a server to which multiple clients can connect to. The client is GUI while the server is command line. The client has several functions (such as connect and login) which, when sent to the server should receive a reply.
Basically I need to run the QTcpSocket functions waitForConnection and waitForReadyRead. However, I need to do this without blocking the UI.
What I thought of doing was the following:
Have a class (Client) implement QThread which does all the waiting. This is created in main.
Client::Client (...)
{
moveToThread (this); // Not too sure what this does
mClient = new QTcpSocket (this);
start();
}
void Client::run (void)
{
exec();
}
void Client::connectToServer (...)
{
mClient->connectToHost (hostname, port);
bool status = mClient->waitForConnected (TIMEOUT);
emit connected (status);
}
void Client::login (...)
{
... Similar to connectToServer ...
}
Then the GUI (for example, ConnectToServerDialog) I run this whenever I am ready to make a connection. I connect the "connected signal" from the thread to the dialog so when I am connected or connection timed out it will emit this signal.
QMetaObject::invokeMethod (mClient, "connectToServer", Qt::QueuedConnection,
Q_ARG (const QString &, hostname), Q_ARG (quint16, port));
I am getting an assert failure with this (Cannot send events to objects owned by a different thread.) Since I am fairly new to Qt I don't know if what I am doing is the correct thing.
Can somebody tell me if what I am doing is a good approach and if so why is my program crashing?
The best thing is never to call methods like waitForBlah() ... forcing the event loop to wait for an undetermined period introduces the possibility of the GUI freezing up during that time. Instead, connect your QTcpSocket's connected() signal to some slot that will update your GUI as appropriate, and let the event loop continue as usual. Do your on-connected stuff inside that slot.
I don't recommend start thread in constructor.
Initialize it like:
Client * client = new Client();
client->moveToThread(client);
client->start();
Or if you don't want to use such solution, add in constructor before start(); line this->moveToThread(this);
upd: sorry, i didn't saw at first time, that you have this string.

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