I'm using 3.9.7 cURL library to download files from the internet, so I created a dynamic bibioteca of viculo. dll written in C using VC + + 6.0 the problem is that when either I call my function from within my vb6 application window locks and unlocks only after you have downloaded the file how do I solve this problem?
The problem is that when you call the function from your DLL, it "blocks" your app's execution until it gets finished. Basically, execution goes from the piece of code that makes the function call, to the code inside of the function call, and then only comes back to the next line after the function call after the code inside of the function has finished running. In fact, that's how all function calls work. You can see this for yourself by single-stepping through your code in the VB 6 development environment.
You don't normally notice this because the code inside of a function being called doesn't take very long to execute before control is returned to the caller. But in this case, since the function you're calling from the DLL is doing a lot of processing, it takes a while to execute, so it "blocks" the execution of your application's code for quite a while.
This is a good general explanation for the reason why your application window appears to be frozen. A bit more technically, it's because the message pump that is responsible for processing user interaction with on-screen elements is not running (it's part of your code that has been temporarily suspended until the function that you called finishes processing). This is a bit more difficult for a VB programmer to appreciate, since none of this nitty-gritty stuff is exposed in the world of VB. It's all happening behind the scenes, just like it is in a C program, but you don't normally have to deal with any of it. Occasionally, though, the abstraction leaks, and the nitty-gritty rears its ugly head. This is one of those cases.
The correct solution to this general problem, as others have hinted at, is to run lengthy operations on a background thread. This leaves your main thread (right now, the only one you have, the one your application is running on) free to continue processing user input, while the other thread can process the data and return that processed data to the main thread when it is finished. Of course, computers can't actually do more than one thing at a time, but the magic of the operating system rapidly switching between one task and another means that you can simulate this. The mechanism for doing so involves threads.
The catch comes in the fact that the VB 6 environment does not have any type of support for creating multiple threads. You only get one thread, and that's the main thread that your application runs on. If you freeze execution of that one, even temporarily, your application freezes—as you've already found out.
However, if you're already writing a C++ DLL, there's no reason you can't create multiple threads in a VB 6 app. You just have to handle everything yourself as if you were using another lower-level language like C++. Run the C++ code on a background thread, and only return its results to the main thread when it is completely finished. In the mean time, your main thread is free.
This is still quite a bit of work, though, especially if you're inexperienced when it comes to Win32 programming and the issues surrounding multiple threads. It might be easier to find a different library that supports asynchronous function calls out-of-the-box. Antagony suggests using VB's AsyncRead method. That is probably a good option; as Karl Peterson says in the linked article, it keeps everything in pure VB 6 code, which can be a real time saver as well as a boon to future maintenance programmers. The only problem is that you'll still have to process the data somehow once you obtain it. And if that's slow, you're right back where you started from…
Check out this article, which demonstrates how to asynchronously transfer large files using a little-known method in user controls.
Related
I have an application that has multiple screens and a process that needs to get UI info from some and update others.
Tried many methods but the result always is always "not a Java FX thread". Without using some kind of thread the UI does not update Because of the multi screen nature of the app (not practical to change) I need to fundamentally change the application architecture which is why I am not posting any code - its all going to change.
What I cant work out is the best way to do this and as any changes are likely to require substantial work I am reluctant to try something that has little chance of success.
I know about Platform.runLater and tried adding that to the updates but that was complex and did not seem to be effective.
I do have the code on GitHub - its a personal leaning project that started in Scala 2 but if you have an interest in learning or pointing out my errors I can provide access.
Hope you have enjoyed a wonderful Christmas.
PS just make the repo public https://github.com/udsl/Processor6502
The problem is not that the Platform.runLater was not working its because the process is being called form a loop in a thread and without a yield the JavaFX thread never gets an opportunity to run. It just appeared to be failing – again I fall foul of an assumption.
The thread calls a method from within a loop which terminates on a condition set by the method.
The process is planned to emulate the execution of 6502 processor instructions in 2 modes run and run-slow, run-slow is run with a short delay after each instruction execution.
The updates are to the main screen the PC, status flags and register contents. The run (debug) screen gets the current instruction display updated and other items will be added. In the future.
The BRK instruction with a zero-byte following is captures and set the execution mode to single-step essentially being a break point though in the future it will be possible via the debug screen to set a breakpoint and for the execution of the breakpoint to restore the original contents. This is to enable the debugging of a future hardware item – time and finances permitting – it’s a hobby after all 😊
It terns out that the JavaFX thread issue only happens when a FX control is written to but not when read from. Placing all reads and writes in a Platform.runLater was too complex which is why I was originally searching for an alternative solution but now only needed it protect the writes is much less a hassle.
In the process loop calling Thread.’yield’() enables the code in the Platform.runLater blocks to be executed on the JavaFX thread so the UI updates without an exception.
The code in the Run method:
val thread = new Thread {
override def run =
while runMode == RunMode.Running || runMode == RunMode.RunningSlow do
executeIns
Thread.`yield`()
if runMode == RunMode.RunningSlow then
Thread.sleep(50) // slow the loop down a bit
}
thread.start
Note that because yield is a Scala reserved word needs to quote it!
I built a modular program consisting of several programs (exe), and in some cases these modules are also in DLL. There are about 6 modules.
All of these modules used functions of a Thread. This thread does not use visual components, what it does is basically analyze huge files (> 1GB).
To improve the efficiency and organization, extract all the code relating to this file analysis, which is used by each of the modules. This facilitates updating and find error.
The threads worked normally before, no code change, except as necessary to adapt them to the DLL project.
Now, when I run the procedures of Thread, everything functions normally except the synchronize () method, which freezes without making errors or lock the main program.
The synchronize () method is used because the threads are created entirely within the DLL. Therefore, the main program is called a procedure DLL, which creates and runs the thread, without any intervention by the main program.
For this procedure are passed several parameters, one of them is a type "pointer to procedure" ^procedure, who is using it as an event, fired by the thread through the synchronize () periodically, ensuring that during the performance, which lasted more than one hour in most sometimes, if track progress, see errors errors among others.
I searched on google but did not find information except someone saying that possibly the synchronize () method is waiting for the main process that is not responding for unknown reasons.
Note: The main program and the window does not lock or freeze; only the thread that does not call / run procedure provided to synchronize (); I confirmed it!
Added
Nota2: I want to avoid as much use PostMessage () or similar, because it forces me to include LCL, which makes the DLL file up from the current 300K to 2MB (in release mode). Apart from that there are reports that its operation is not good as expected.
That is because you have two complete instances of everything (RTL,LCL etc). One set in the DLL, one set in the EXE. Both code and data.
You are probably calling the synchronize of the DLL, which schedules it for the LCL loop in the DLL which does nothing, since all work is done in the EXE.
This will be very hard to fix, basically you need packages for this. Partially also because the thread involvement will further complicate it because of threadvariables (Thread local storage) that is set up potentially differently for DLL and EXE threads.
For this one needs packages which is only in its initial stages and solves this by having only one copy of everything. See the link for a deeper treatise.
Can someone explain to me what this error I'm seeing is?
Current thread must be set to single thread apartment (STA) mode before OLE calls can be made.
Specifically, I'm trying to open the SaveFileDialog/OpenFileDialog within C++/CLI on a form.
SaveFileDialog^ saveFileDialog1 = gcnew SaveFileDialog;
saveFileDialog1->ShowDialog();
if (saveFileDialog1->ShowDialog() == System::Windows::Forms::DialogResult::OK)
{
s = saveFileDialog1->OpenFile();
}
s->Close();
}
The error that is throwing is
An unhandled exception of type 'System.Threading.ThreadStateException' occurred in System.Windows.Forms.dll
Additional information: Current thread must be set to single thread apartment (STA) mode before OLE calls can be made. Ensure that your Main function has STAThreadAttribute marked on it. This exception is only raised if a debugger is attached to the process.
I'm not really familiar with what this error is saying. I know just a bit about threading, but I'm not sure how threading would be an issue here. I've seen some people reference things like STAThread without providing a clear explanation as to what it does, and Microsoft's documentation makes no mention of having this exception thrown when calling SaveFileDialog/OpenFileDialog, or how to handle it.
Thanks!
When you use OpenFileDialog then a lot of code gets loaded into your process. Not just the operating system component that implements the dialog but also shell extensions. Plugins that programmers write to add functionality to Windows Explorer. They work in that dialog as well. There are many, one you are surely familiar with is the extension that makes a .zip file look like a folder.
One thing Microsoft did when they designed the plug-in interface is to not force an extension to be thread-safe. Because that is very hard to do and often a major source of bugs. They made the promise that the thread that creates the plugin instance is also the thread on which any call to the plugin is made. Thus ensuring that the plugin is always used in a thread-safe manner.
That however requires a little help from you. You have to make a promise that your thread, the one that calls OpenFileDialog::Show(), observes the requirements of a single-threaded apartment. STA for short. You make the promise with the [STAThread] attribute on your program's Main() entrypoint. Or if it is a thread that you created yourself then by calling Thread::SetApartmentState() before you start it.
That's just a promise however, you also have to implement what you promised. Takes two things, you promise to never block the thread and you promise to pump a message loop. Application::Run() in a .NET program. The never-block promise ensures that you won't cause deadlock. And the message loop promise says that you implement a solution to the producer-consumer problem.
This should never be a problem, it is very unclear how this got fumbled in your project. Another implicit requirement for a dialog is that it must have an owner. Another window on which it can be on top of. If it doesn't have one then there are very high odds that the user never sees the dialog. Covered by another program's window, the user can only ever find it back by accident. When you create windows then you always also must call Application::Run() so the windows can respond to user input. Use the boilerplate code in a C++/CLI app so this is done correctly.
I need to make asynchronous HTTP call to my server in order to receive XML response.
After I get the response I will call a [previously specified] function if it is success or some other function if it's an error.
So what I thought about in the first place was coroutines. Unfortunately, after I make the http.get call I cannot yield, as it will wait for the whole thing to finish. I know I can use separate functions to read the response, however I have to wait at least for the first bytes of data in order for this function to be triggered which would allow me to yield. Anyway, for what I wan to do using coroutines doesn't look like the way to go.
Then I've tried calling a C function from lua, creating separate thread to get the XML and then call a function in Lua, however this doesn't work because of lua_state changing after a new thread is created. Before the thread is created I can see 3 parameters on the stack, and after creation of the new thread [I am passing lua_State as the argument] it has only one. Anyway, from what I understand lua_State will be closed once the original cfunction call is finished, so I won't be able to call back.
Since I'm just starting with lua and I'm even less familiar with lua to c bindings I can only hope I'm making some stupid mistakes and it will be easy to solve. For now however I'm stuck with no idea on how to progress further.
The story behind this issue:
I'm porting my game from Cocos2D objective C framework to Cocos2d-X C++ framework. I want to use Lua bindings as I think I will fail to port it to C++. Anyway I want to do it in Lua.
So I've got a scene where someone accesses a list of inventory they have in the game. If the response is immediate they will basically see a window opened with list of inventory. However, if it takes a tad bit longer to get the data [connection issues, sever overload... whatever] screen will fade out and some animation indicating data transfer will be shown on screen. At least this is how it works on the objc version of the game and I want the same thing.
Is there something I have missed during my research, is it possible to do it?
BTW I have seen Lua socket asynchronous calls and it doesn't help me because it still waits for the beginning of the transfer before it will start another one.
Something like Luvit ?
Luvit is an attempt to do something crazy by taking nodeJS's awesome
architecture and dependencies and seeing how it fits in the Lua
language.
This project is still under heavy development, but it's showing
promise. In initial benchmarking with a hello world server, this is
between 2 and 4 times faster than nodeJS.
I was able to do it using https://github.com/Neopallium/lua-llthreads
This seems to work fine on both iOS and Android platforms.
I've been learning some lua for game development. I heard about coroutines in other languages but really came up on them in lua. I just don't really understand how useful they are, I heard a lot of talk how it can be a way to do multi-threaded things but aren't they run in order? So what benefit would there be from normal functions that also run in order? I'm just not getting how different they are from functions except that they can pause and let another run for a second. Seems like the use case scenarios wouldn't be that huge to me.
Anyone care to shed some light as to why someone would benefit from them?
Especially insight from a game programming perspective would be nice^^
OK, think in terms of game development.
Let's say you're doing a cutscene or perhaps a tutorial. Either way, what you have are an ordered sequence of commands sent to some number of entities. An entity moves to a location, talks to a guy, then walks elsewhere. And so forth. Some commands cannot start until others have finished.
Now look back at how your game works. Every frame, it must process AI, collision tests, animation, rendering, and sound, among possibly other things. You can only think every frame. So how do you put this kind of code in, where you have to wait for some action to complete before doing the next one?
If you built a system in C++, what you would have is something that ran before the AI. It would have a sequence of commands to process. Some of those commands would be instantaneous, like "tell entity X to go here" or "spawn entity Y here." Others would have to wait, such as "tell entity Z to go here and don't process anymore commands until it has gone here." The command processor would have to be called every frame, and it would have to understand complex conditions like "entity is at location" and so forth.
In Lua, it would look like this:
local entityX = game:GetEntity("entityX");
entityX:GoToLocation(locX);
local entityY = game:SpawnEntity("entityY", locY);
local entityZ = game:GetEntity("entityZ");
entityZ:GoToLocation(locZ);
do
coroutine.yield();
until (entityZ:isAtLocation(locZ));
return;
On the C++ size, you would resume this script once per frame until it is done. Once it returns, you know that the cutscene is over, so you can return control to the user.
Look at how simple that Lua logic is. It does exactly what it says it does. It's clear, obvious, and therefore very difficult to get wrong.
The power of coroutines is in being able to partially accomplish some task, wait for a condition to become true, then move on to the next task.
Coroutines in a game:
Easy to use, Easy to screw up when used in many places.
Just be careful and not use it in many places.
Don't make your Entire AI code dependent on Coroutines.
Coroutines are good for making a quick fix when a state is introduced which did not exist before.
This is exactly what java does. Sleep() and Wait()
Both functions are the best ways to make it impossible to debug your game.
If I were you I would completely avoid any code which has to use a Wait() function like a Coroutine does.
OpenGL API is something you should take note of. It never uses a wait() function but instead uses a clean state machine which knows exactly what state what object is at.
If you use coroutines you end with up so many stateless pieces of code that it most surely will be overwhelming to debug.
Coroutines are good when you are making an application like Text Editor ..bank application .. server ..database etc (not a game).
Bad when you are making a game where anything can happen at any point of time, you need to have states.
So, in my view coroutines are a bad way of programming and a excuse to write small stateless code.
But that's just me.
It's more like a religion. Some people believe in coroutines, some don't. The usecase, the implementation and the environment all together will result into a benefit or not.
Don't trust benchmarks which try to proof that coroutines on a multicore cpu are faster than a loop in a single thread: it would be a shame if it were slower!
If this runs later on some hardware where all cores are always under load, it will turn out to be slower - ups...
So there is no benefit per se.
Sometimes it's convenient to use. But if you end up with tons of coroutines yielding and states that went out of scope you'll curse coroutines. But at least it isn't the coroutines framework, it's still you.
We use them on a project I am working on. The main benefit for us is that sometimes with asynchronous code, there are points where it is important that certain parts are run in order because of some dependencies. If you use coroutines, you can force one process to wait for another process to complete. They aren't the only way to do this, but they can be a lot simpler than some other methods.
I'm just not getting how different they are from functions except that
they can pause and let another run for a second.
That's a pretty important property. I worked on a game engine which used them for timing. For example, we had an engine that ran at 10 ticks a second, and you could WaitTicks(x) to wait x number of ticks, and in the user layer, you could run WaitFrames(x) to wait x frames.
Even professional native concurrency libraries use the same kind of yielding behaviour.
Lots of good examples for game developers. I'll give another in the application extension space. Consider the scenario where the application has an engine that can run a users routines in Lua while doing the core functionality in C. If the user needs to wait for the engine to get to a specific state (e.g. waiting for data to be received), you either have to:
multi-thread the C program to run Lua in a separate thread and add in locking and synchronization methods,
abend the Lua routine and retry from the beginning with a state passed to the function to skip anything, least you rerun some code that should only be run once, or
yield the Lua routine and resume it once the state has been reached in C
The third option is the easiest for me to implement, avoiding the need to handle multi-threading on multiple platforms. It also allows the user's code to run unmodified, appearing as if the function they called took a long time.