Demo demo=new Demo();
Here demo is a reference variable. Are reference variables equal to object references... ?
If no then please explain the concept of object reference.
Demo represents the type of the object.
demo represents the object reference, you will be able to refer to new Demo() object and calling its methods (for example).
new Demo() represents the object itself which is situated in heap memory.
In case of java language,
When you write the statement
Demo obj = new Demo();
It means that You are declaring a variable named obj and it is of type Demo.
by writing
obj = new Demo();
You are creating a new object in the heap memory and the reference variable "obj" will refer to it so that when you want to access the object created just now, you can access it through reference variable "obj".
so when you want to call some method on Demo object, you can call it using
obj.someMethod();
A reference to an object is a way to denote that object. The address of an object, for example, is one kind of reference (probably the simplest kind). Other kinds of references can exist, too, and they are written and read using some more complicated logic. It could theoretically be a double pointer, a pseudo-address, or something else - as long as it contains enough information that (if interpreted in a specified way) can be used to denote a specific object, .
A reference variable is a variable whose value is a reference to an object. So, for example, a reference variable could be a variable whose value is the address of an object, or (as I described above) something different, but equivalent.
For comparison, the other common type of variable (called primitive type in Java, value type in C# and other names in other contexts) is the kind variable whose value is an actual object (instead of a reference).
Related
I am writing a VBA application, and for a specific function, I am using only late-binding, as most of the users of the application won't have the reference installed (and won't use this specific function).
The object I am using behaves like:
class PISDK{
PIServer GetServer(string hostName)
}
The GetServer method returns a PIServer object, but a more specific interface exists, implementing PIServer:
interface IGetPoints2 : PIServer{}
I would like to downcast the PIServer object to a IGetPoints2 object.
Without doing anything, I get a PIServer object:
Dim PiSdk As Object
Dim PiServer As Object
Set PiSdk = CreateObject("PISDK.PISDK")
Set PiServer = PiSdk.GetServer("foo")
Looking at PiServer in the debugger confirms that.
Using a strongly typed variable should work, but I do not want to reference any of the types used here.
How can I downcast this object using late-binding only?
Please read this:
As you are not adding a reference to the PI SDK Type Library, I
believe you cannot use "rtInterpolated" as the second parameter of
the ArcValue method; instead, you can use the corresponding number
(which is 3 for "rtInterpolated" in the RetrievalTypeConstants
enumeration).
VBA with late binding is tricky with optional
parameters, as we cannot omit them when calling a method. Instead,
you need to use either Nothing (in case the optional parameter is
an object) or "" (in case the optional parameter is a string) as
"parameter placeholders" (by the way, the same happens in
VBScript, a scripting language for scripts contained in files with
.vbs extension that run independently from any application).
able to put some functional sample code together, which is more
complete and will hopefully help you.
In Win CE 6.0, class TankObject is defined in a static library, C++ compiler is VS2008; target is ARM4 (/QRarch4).
An instance of class TankObject is constructed by a call of the form
*TankObject myTankObject = new TankObject(parm1, parm2 ...);
Last attribute declared in TankObject definition is an object pointer, and when an assignment is made to same, memory corruption of another dynamically allocated object occurs.
Step into constructor reveals that operator new is called with a size of 0x500. sizeof(TankObject) reveals two different values, depending on the context:
In instantiating context (the application), sizeof(TankObject) and sizeof(*myTankObject) is 0x500.
In context of the object itself (the constructor, or object methods), sizeof(TankObject) and sizeof(*this) is 0x508. The address of last declared attribute is 0x500, relative to object.
The call to new requests and receives 0x500 bytes. The object itself expects and uses 0x508 bytes, which can cause assignments to last attribute to step on other dynamically allocated objects.
Work around is to declare another unused attribute at the end of the object definition, to pad the request to new.
Both contexts include the same .h file, to debug I changed include statement to an explicit path name. I also went through compiler switches, made them identical. So I am puzzled, if any one can shed light, I'm glad, I would like to know a proper solution.
I need to implement a domain specific language. I have a panel and some shapes on it.
'panel' name = ID '(' title = STRING',' bgcolor = Color',' width = INT',' height = INT ')''{'((rects += Rect)| (ellipse += Ellipse)|(arcs += Arc)|)*'}'
and each shape has a unique rule with some other features. for example:
RoundRect:
'roundrectangle' name = ID '{'
(fill ?= 'filled' (fillpattern?='fillpattern' fillpaint=Paint)?)?
(stroke?='stroke' str=Stroke)?
'paint' paint=Paint
'coordination' x=INT ',' y=INT
'dimention' height=INT ',' width=INT
'arc' archeight=INT ',' arcwidth=INT
'}'
as it obvious in this DSL, I used some references. But I don't know this rules is correct or I should use cross-reference in those?
This rule works fine and I receive the correct output that I expected. But I know when a feature is not of the basic type (string, integer, and so on), it is
actually a reference (an instance of EReference),this is a containment reference, although for non-containment references, the referenced object is stored somewhere else,
for example, in another object of the same resource or even in a different resource.
And point is that a cross-reference is implemented as a non-containment reference.
I need to know when I should use cross-reference and when use containment reference?
As far as I know the difference is as following:
A containment-reference is if you want to reference to the content of a rule so it's just lazy for redefining the rule's content everytime you use the containment-reference.
A cross-reference behaves a bit different: If you use a cross-reference the parser need the user having typed in content of the rule the cross-reference refers to beforeallowing him to refer to that already typed in content.
An example would be a real programming language: A Method call would be a cross-reference as the method of this name should already be declared somewhere in the code because otherwise it doesn't exist. In contrary the normal code would be implemented as a containment-reference as it can be used (for example) within a class, a field or a method and the code you are typing in just needs to fullfill the existance of a few keywords and structures but these are only defined in the parser itself and needn't be defined by the user himself before beeing able to use them.
I hope I have illustrated it well enough so you now know about the difference and the meaning of these reference types.
Greeting Krzmbrzl
Your grammar describes the AST of your language. Therefore, a meta model is derived from your grammar. To describe references between your AST elements you can use containmend references and cross references. A containment reference is used if you want to describe a parent-child relation where the child object is "created" / declared during the parent object is created. A cross reference is used if the parent object points to a child object which is created / declared in an other parent object. To "draw a picture": A containment reference is a top -> bottom reference and a cross reference is a left -> right reference.
For example assume you have a field (private int field = 42;) or method (public void foo() {...}) declaration of a Java class. This declaration is modeled with a containment reference, because a Java class contains field and method declarations. On the other you have a statement field++; within the method body of foo(). There you use the former declared field foo and it is modeled as a cross reference.
In general I would say: Any declaration is modeled as a containment reference and any usage of an already declared whatever is modeled as a cross reference.
I am making a simple debugger window in ActionScript for myself where I can add and remove variables I want to track. I was to be able to add variables to the list by just doing something like
DebuggerMonitor.trackVar(variable).
My question is, is there any way I can turn "variable" itself (the name, not the value) into a String to be added into a text field?
Depending on how "intelligent" your debugger should be, you could just pass the name along:
DebuggerMonitor.trackVar( variable, "variable" );
since obviously, when used in a context like this, the name should be known at the time you are writing the program.
You can also do some reflection magic to get instance variable names, but it won't work for temp variables (their names are dropped at compilation time):
public function getVariableName( instance:*, match:* ):String {
var typeDescription:XML = describeType( instance );
var variables:XMLList = typeDescription..variable;
var accessors:XMLList = typeDescription..accessor;
for each(var variable:XML in variables)
if(matchesXMLName( instance, variable, match ))
return variable.#name;
for each(var accessor:XML in accessors)
if(matchesXMLName( instance, accessor, match ))
return accessor.#name;
return "No name found.";
}
private function matchesXMLName( instance:*, xml:XML, match:* ):Boolean {
return match == instance[xml.#name.toString()];
}
var varName:String = getVariableName ( myObject, variable );
Using reflections like this will also be quite costly, if used often - you will have to think of a way to cache the type descriptions.
I recommend you check out the as3commons reflections package - there is a lot of useful functionality in there...
Short answer - No :(
You can access the type name but not individual instance names, as these are lost at run-time.
There is a confusion caused by the keyword 'var' because it is used to create several types of bindings.
Lexical bindings (the keyword 'var' was used inside a function).
Dynamic bindings (the keyword 'var' was used to declare a class' field).
Lexical bindings are interpreted by the compiler at compile time as addresses of the registers of the registers space occupied by the function. The names given to lexical bindings perish at this time and it is not possible to restore them at runtime - therefore you can't get the "name" of the variable.
Dynamic bindings are a kind of "public API" of the objects that declare them, they may be accessed from the code that was not compiled together with the code that created them, this is why, for the purpose of reflection the names of these bindings are stored in compiled code. However, ActionScript has no way of referencing LHS values, so you cannot, even if you know the name of the variable and the object declaring it, pass it to another function. But you can look it up in the debugger or by calling describeType on the object declaring the variable. Note that describeType will not show information on private variables even if you are calling it from the scope of the object in question.
Consider the following code Snippet
Form form2 = new Form();
test(form2);
form2.Show();
public void test(Form f)
{
f = null;
}
Since f also holds "another" reference to Form2, setting f to null should set Form2 to null as well, which it doesn't. Need a good explanation to understand this.
The reference set to null is the local copy of the form2 reference. As the reference is passed by value, meaning making an exact copy and passing the copy, the original remains untouched.
The value passed here can be seen as a memory address (which is not exactly the case vith VMs but it is a helpful and adequate metaphor).
In the test method, you set a variable holding a copy of this address to null. This has no further consequences whatsoever.
The case is very different if you use the address stored in the variable to access and change the actual Object the address refers to. You are changing the real thing here, so all changes remain after your local variable runs out of scope.
To take one more step back :
You can see the variable as a slip of paper with an address of a friend (your object).
If you burn the paper (setting the variable to null), your friend is not affected.
If you use the paper to visit the address and give your friend a present or slap him in the face (calling a method on the object behind the variable), he is definitely affected and you have to live with the consequences
(I'm assuming this is Java.)
Method parameters are always passed by value. That means their contents are always copied to a new variable. In this case the contents of the variable f, which contains a reference to an object, are copied to a new variable. When that new variable's contents are replaced with null, the contents of the original variable are unaffected -- they still point to the original object.