I'm building an application which uses jointjs / rappid and I want to be able to avoid loops from occuring across multiple cells.
Jointjs already has some examples on how to avoid this in a single cell (connecting an "out" port to an "in" port of the same cell) but has nothing on how to detect and prevent loops from occuring further up in the chain.
To help understand, imagine each cell in the paper is a step to be completed. Each step should only ever be run once. If the last step has an "out" port that connects to the "in" port of the first cell, it will just loop forever. This is what I want to avoid.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I actually found a really easy way to do this for anyone else who wishes to achieve the same thing. Simply include the graphlib dependancy and use the following:
paper.on("link:connect", function(linkView) {
if(graphlib.alg.findCycles(graph.toGraphLib()).length > 0) {
linkView.model.remove();
// show some error message here
}
});
This line:
graphlib.alg.findCycles(graph.toGraphLib())
Returns an array that contains any loops, so by checking the length we can determine whether or not the paper contains any loops and if so, remove the link that the user is trying to create.
Note: This isn't completely full-proof because if the paper already contains a loop (before the user adds a link) then simply removing the link that the user is creating won't remove any loop that exists. For me this is fine because all of my papers will be created from scratch so as long as this logic is always in place, no loops can ever be created.
Solution through graphlib
Based on Adam's graphlib solution, instead of findCycles to test for loops, the graphlib docs suggests to use the isAcyclic function, which:
returns true if the graph has no cycles and returns false if it does. This algorithm returns as soon as it detects the first cycle.
Therefore this condition:
if(graphlib.alg.findCycles(graph.toGraphLib()).length > 0)
Can be shortened to:
if(!graphlib.alg.isAcyclic(graph))
JointJS functions solution
Look up the arrays of ancestors and successors of a newly connected element and intersect them:
// invoke inside an event which tests if a specific `connectedElement` is part of a loop
function isElementPartOfLoop (graph, connectedElement) {
var elemSuccessors = graph.getSuccessors(connectedElement, {deep: true});
var elemAncestors = connectedElement.getAncestors();
// *** OR *** graph.getPredecessors(connectedElement, {deep: true});
var commonElements = _.intersection(elemSuccessors, elemAncestors);
// if an element is repeated (non-empty intersection), then it's part of a loop
return !_.isEmpty(commonElements);
}
I haven't tested this, but the theory behind the test you are trying to accomplish should be similar.
This solution is not as efficient as using directly the graphlib functions.
Prevention
One way you could prevent the link from being added to the graph is by dealing with it in an event:
graph.on('add', _.bind(addCellOps, graph));
function addCellOps (cell, collection, opt) {
if (cell.isLink()){
// test link's target element: if it is part of a loop, remove the link
var linkTarget = cell.getTargetElement();
// `this` is the graph
if(target && isElementPartOfLoop(this, linkTarget)){
cell.remove();
}
}
// other operations ....
}
Related
In the Google Getting started with Node.js tutorial they perform the following operation
data = {...data};
in the code for sending data to Firestore.
You can see it on their Github, line 63.
As far as I can tell this doesn't do anything.
Is there a good reason for doing this?
Is it potentially future proofing, so that if you added your own data you'd be less likely to do something like data = {data, moreData}?
#Manu's answer details what the line of code is doing, but not why it's there.
I don't know exactly why the Google code example uses this approach, but I would guess at the following reason (and would do the same myself in this situation):
Because objects in JavaScript are passed by reference, it becomes necessary to rebuild the 'data' object from it's constituent parts to avoid the original data object being further modified by the ref.set(data) call on line 64 of the example code:
await ref.set(data);
For example, in MongoDB, when you pass an object into a write or update method, Mongo will actually modify the object to add extra properties such as the datetime it was insert into a collection or it's ID within the collection. I don't know for sure if Firestore does the same, but if it doesn't now, it's possible that it may in future. If it does, and if your original code that calls the update method from Google's example code goes on to further manipulate the data object that it originally passed, that object would now have extra properties on it that may cause unexpected problems. Therefore, it's prudent to rebuild the data object from the original object's properties to avoid contamination of the original object elsewhere in code.
I hope that makes sense - the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this must be the reason and it's actually a great learning point.
I include the full original function from Google's code here in case others come across this in future, since the code is subject to change (copied from https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/nodejs-getting-started/blob/master/bookshelf/books/firestore.js at the time of writing this answer):
// Creates a new book or updates an existing book with new data.
async function update(id, data) {
let ref;
if (id === null) {
ref = db.collection(collection).doc();
} else {
ref = db.collection(collection).doc(id);
}
data.id = ref.id;
data = {...data};
await ref.set(data);
return data;
}
It's making a shallow copy of data; let's say you have a third-party function that mutates the input:
const foo = input => {
input['changed'] = true;
}
And you need to call it, but don't want to get your object modified, so instead of:
data = {life: 42}
foo(data)
// > data
// { life: 42, changed: true }
You may use the Spread Syntax:
data = {life: 42}
foo({...data})
// > data
// { life: 42 }
Not sure if this is the particular case with Firestone but the thing is: spreading an object you get a shallow copy of that obj.
===
Related: Object copy using Spread operator actually shallow or deep?
Take a windowed virtual list with the capability of loading an arbitrary range of rows at any point in the list, such as in this following example.
The virtual list provides a callback that is called anytime the user scrolls to some rows that have not been fetched from the backend yet, and provides the start and stop indexes, so that, in an offset based pagination endpoint, I can fetch the required items without fetching any unnecessary data.
const loadMoreItems = (startIndex, stopIndex) => {
fetch(`/items?offset=${startIndex}&limit=${stopIndex - startIndex}`);
}
I'd like to replace my offset based pagination with a cursor based one, but I can't figure out how to reproduce the above logic with it.
The main issue is that I feel like I will need to download all the items before startIndex in order to receive the cursor needed to fetch the items between startIndex and stopIndex.
What's the correct way to approach this?
After some investigation I found what seems to be the way MongoDB approaches the problem:
https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/method/cursor.skip/#mongodb-method-cursor.skip
Obviously he same approach can be adopted by any other backend implementation.
They provide a skip method that allows to skip an arbitrary amount of items after the provided cursor.
This means my sample endpoint would look like the following:
/items?cursor=${cursor}&skip=${skip}&limit=${stopIndex - startIndex}
I then need to figure out the cursor and the skip values.
The following code could work to find the closest available cursor, given I store them together with the items:
// Limit our search only to items before startIndex
const fragment = items.slice(0, startIndex);
// Find the closest cursor index
const cursorIndex = fragment.length - 1 - fragment.reverse().findIndex(item => item.cursor != null);
// Get the cursor
const cursor = items[cursorIndex];
And of course, I also have a way to know the skip value:
const skip = items.length - 1 - cursorIndex;
What I am Doing
I am trying to create a Sudoku solver and generator in Vue. Right now, I have the solving algorithm set up, and just need to generate new problems. I am generating problems by creating a completed Sudoku problem (complete with no bugs), then I have to remove nodes so that there is still only 1 solution to the problem.
The Problem
When I try to access a node from the multi-dimensional array that represents the board, and change it to null (what I am using to display a blank node), the board does not update that value. I am changing it with the following code: newGrid[pos[0]][pos[1]] = null; (where pos[0] is the row, pos[1] is the column , and newGrid is grid we want to mutate). Note that the array is an array with 9 arrays inside, and each of those arrays has 9 numbers (or null) which represent the values for that position in the grid. To elaborate on the bug, if I put a console.log(newGrid), there are normal looking values, and no null.
What I Know and Have Tried
I know it has to do with this specific line, and the fact that I am setting the value equal to null because changing null to another value (i.e. newGrid[pos[0]][pos[1]] = 0;) works and changes the array. The reason I don't just use a value other than null is: null renders and nothing and other values (0) render as something (null nodes should be blank), null is simple to understand in this situation (the logic is node has null, node has nothing, node is blank), and null is already implemented throughout my codebase.
Additionally, if I use console.log(newGrid[pos[0]][pos[1]]), null (the correct output) is outputted, even though console.log(newGrid) shows a number there, not null. Also, oddly enough, this works for one specific node. In row 1 (indexing starts at 0), column 8, null is set. Even though the input (completed) grid is always different, this node is always set to null. Edit: this bug had to do with the input grid already having null here, so it actually doesn't let any nulls be set.
To summarize: I expect an array with a null in a few positions I update, but I get a number instead. Also, there are no errors when the Typescript compiles to Javascript or during runtime.
Code
Given that I am not exactly sure where the problem may be (i.e. maybe I create the array wrong) I am including the minimum code with a pastebin link to the whole file (this is the full code). To restate, the goal of this function is to remove nodes from the list (by replacing them with null) in order to create a Sudoku puzzle with one solution. The code on Stack Overflow only includes some of the whole file, and the pastebin link includes the rest.
//global.d.ts
type Nullable<T> = T | null;
type Grid = Array<Array<number | null>>;
import { Solver } from './Solve';
// Inside the function that does the main work
const rowLen: number = grid.length;
const colLen: number = grid[0].length;
let newGrid: Grid = grid; // Grid is a argument for this function
let fullNodes = GetFirstFull(grid, colLen, rowLen);
let fullNodesLen: number = fullNodes.length;
// Some stuff that figures out how many solutions there are (we only want 1) is excluded
if (solutions != 1) {
fullNodesLen++;
rounds--;
} else {
newGrid[pos[0]][pos[1]] = null;
}
Note that if anything seems confusing check out the pastebin or ask. Thank you so much for taking the time to look at my problem!
Also, it isn't just 0 that works, undefined also makes it set correctly. So, this problem seems to be something with the null keyword...
EDIT:
Given that no one has responded yet, I assume: my problem is a bit hard, there isn't enough information, my post isn't good quality, or not enough people have seen it. To control the problem of not enough information, I would like to include the function that calls this function (just to see if that might be related).
generate(context: ActionContext<State, any>) {
let emptyArray = new Array(9);
for (let i = 0; i < 9; ++i)
emptyArray[i] = [null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null];
const fullGrid = Solver(emptyArray);
const puzzle = fullGrid ? Remover(fullGrid, 6) : state.gridLayout;
context.commit('resetBoard', puzzle);
},
Note: If you aren't familiar with Vuex, what context.commit does is changes the state (except it is changing a global state rather than a component state). Given that this function isn't refactored or very easy to read code in the first place, if you have any questions, please ask.
To solve other potential problems: I have been working on this, I have tried a lot of console.log()ing, changing the reference (newGrid) to a deepcopy, moving stuff out of the if statements, verifying code execution, and changing the way the point on the newGrid is set (i.e. by using newgrid.map() with logic to return that point as null). If you have any questions or I can help at all, please ask.
I have a list of valid values that I am storing in a data store. This list is about 20 items long now and will likely grow to around 100, maybe more.
I feel there are a variety of reasons it makes sense to store this in a data store rather than just storing in code. I want to be able to maintain the list and its metadata and make it accessible to other services, so it seems like a micro-service data store.
But in code, we want to make sure only values from the list are passed, and they can typically be hardcoded. So we would like to create an enum that can be used in code to ensure that valid values are passed.
I have created a simple node.js that can generate a JS file with the enum right from the data store. This could be regenerated anytime the file changes or maybe on a schedule. But sharing the enum file with any node.js applications that use it would not be trivial.
Has anyone done anything like this? Any reason why this would be a bad approach? Any feedback is welcome.
Piggy-backing off of this answer, which describes a way of creating an "enum" in JavaScript: you can grab the list of constants from your server (via an HTTP call) and then generate the enum in code, without the need for creating and loading a JavaScript source file.
Given that you have loaded your enumConstants from the back-end (here I hard-coded them):
const enumConstants = [
'FIRST',
'SECOND',
'THIRD'
];
const temp = {};
for (const constant of enumConstants) {
temp[constant] = constant;
}
const PlaceEnum = Object.freeze(temp);
console.log(PlaceEnum.FIRST);
// Or, in one line
const PlaceEnum2 = Object.freeze(enumConstants.reduce((o, c) => { o[c] = c; return o; }, {}));
console.log(PlaceEnum2.FIRST);
It is not ideal for code analysis or when using a smart editor, because the object is not explicitly defined and the editor will complain, but it will work.
Another approach is just to use an array and look for its members.
const members = ['first', 'second', 'third'...]
// then test for the members
members.indexOf('first') // 0
members.indexOf('third') // 2
members.indexOf('zero') // -1
members.indexOf('your_variable_to_test') // does it exist in the "enum"?
Any value that is >=0 will be a member of the list. -1 will not be a member. This doesn't "lock" the object like freeze (above) but I find it suffices for most of my similar scenarios.
I am trying to execute parallel functions on a list of objects using the new C# 4.0 Parallel.ForEach function. This is a very long maintenance process. I would like to make it execute in the order of the list so that I can stop and continue execution at the previous point. How do I do this?
Here is an example. I have a list of objects: a1 to a100. This is the current order:
a1, a51, a2, a52, a3, a53...
I want this order:
a1, a2, a3, a4...
I am OK with some objects being run out of order, but as long as I can find a point in the list where I can say that all objects before this point were run. I read the parallel programming csharp whitepaper and didn't see anything about it. There isn't a setting for this in the ParallelOptions class.
Do something like this:
int current = 0;
object lockCurrent = new object();
Parallel.For(0, list.Count,
new ParallelOptions { MaxDegreeOfParallelism = MaxThreads },
(ii, loopState) => {
// So the way Parallel.For works is that it chunks the task list up with each thread getting a chunk to work on...
// e.g. [1-1,000], [1,001- 2,000], [2,001-3,000] etc...
// We have prioritized our job queue such that more important tasks come first. So we don't want the task list to be
// broken up, we want the task list to be run in roughly the same order we started with. So we ignore tha past in
// loop variable and just increment our own counter.
int thisCurrent = 0;
lock (lockCurrent) {
thisCurrent = current;
current++;
}
dothework(list[thisCurrent]);
});
You can see how when you break out of the parallel for loop you will know the last list item to be executed, assuming you let all threads finish prior to breaking. I'm not a big fan of PLINQ or LINQ. I honestly don't see how writing LINQ/PLINQ leads to maintainable source code or readability.... Parallel.For is a much better solution.
If you use Parallel.Break to terminate the loop then you are guarenteed that all indices below the returned value will have been executed. This is about as close as you can get. The example here uses For but ForEach has similar overloads.
int n = ...
var result = new double[n];
var loopResult = Parallel.For(0, n, (i, loopState) =>
{
if (/* break condition is true */)
{
loopState.Break();
return;
}
result[i] = DoWork(i);
});
if (!loopResult.IsCompleted &&
loopResult.LowestBreakIteration.HasValue)
{
Console.WriteLine("Loop encountered a break at {0}",
loopResult.LowestBreakIteration.Value);
}
In a ForEach loop, an iteration index is generated internally for each element in each partition. Execution takes place out of order but after break you know that all the iterations lower than LowestBreakIteration will have been completed.
Taken from "Parallel Programming with Microsoft .NET" http://parallelpatterns.codeplex.com/
Available on MSDN. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff963552.aspx. The section "Breaking out of loops early" covers this scenario.
See also: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd460721.aspx
For anyone else who comes across this question - if you're looping over an array or list (rather than an IEnumberable ), you can use the overload of Parallel.Foreach that gives the element index to maintain original order too.
string[] MyArray; // array of stuff to do parallel tasks on
string[] ProcessedArray = new string[MyArray.Length];
Parallel.ForEach(MyArray, (ArrayItem,loopstate,ArrayElementIndex) =>
{
string ProcessedArrayItem = TaskToDo(ArrayItem);
ProcessedArray[ArrayElementIndex] = ProcessedArrayItem;
});
As an alternate suggestion, you could record which object have been run and then filter the list when you resume exection to exclude the objects which have already run.
If this needs to be persistent across application restarts, you can store the ID's of the already executed objects (I assume here the objects have some unique identifier).
For anybody looking for a simple solution, I have posted 2 extension methods (one using PLINQ and one using Parallel.ForEach) as part of an answer to the following question:
Ordered PLINQ ForAll
Not sure if question was altered as my comment seems wrong.
Here improved, basically remind that parallel jobs run in out of your control order.
ea printing 10 numbers might result in 1,4,6,7,2,3,9,0.
If you like to stop your program and continue later.
Problems alike this usually endup in batching workloads.
And have some logging of what was done.
Say if you had to check 10.000 numbers for prime or so.
You could loop in batches of size 100, and have a prime log1, log2, log3
log1= 0..99
log2=100..199
Be sure to set some marker to know if a batch job was finished.
Its a general aprouch since the question isnt that exact either.