In my Lazarus project, I use variables of
TPortableNetworkGraphic type, which is inherited from TRasterImage. Until now, I have released them with the Free method, but I have noticed that for these types also a FreeImage method exists.
What is the difference between these two? Which one should I use, or should they be called both?
If we investigate the methods we find the following:
Method Free originates from TObject. Calling it destroys your class instance.
Method FreeImage comes from TRasterImage and is equal to SetHandle(0) method from the same class. The latter technically deals mainly with FSharedImagevariable (TSharedRasterImage class instance) and its Handle property. In other words after calling FreeImage the instance of TPortableNetworkGraphic class instance will be still "alive".
Related
In object-oriented languages like C++ you don't have to call the base constructor. I don't understand why I need to do it in a psuedo object-oriented language like javascript. My base constructor has virtual elements that need to be setup before I call it. Constructors worked fine in ES5, why ruin them with this restriction. This error is garbage, it should be removed.
In C++ the compiler creates code to call the base constructor for you before your derived class constructor is called. Your C++ derived class definition can specify which base constructor to call and what to pass it (if there is a choice).
That's how the C++ specification is written. See short explanation here.
Javascript ES6 classes do not work the exact same way. You have to insert a place in your code where the base constructor is called with super(...) and you can specify or compute the parameters to pass to the base constructor.
In both C++ and Javascript, you can't access your own instance methods or properties before the base constructor has been called.
FYI, Java is even more restrictive than Javascript. You must put a call to super() or this() as the first statement of your constructor. Javascript at least lets you put logic that doesn't use this before calling the constructor.
In your Javascript, you can't stop this error without rewriting your code to work a different way. It's not an error you can disable.
There are valid OOP reasons (whether you agree with them or not) to not allow references to an object until all base classes have been fully initialized. Or, you can go back to the pre-ES6 way of initializing objects where there are no controls on how you do things and you can do whatever you want.
If you show us your code and explain what you're trying to do, we can likely suggest a different design that solves your problem and does not have this issue.
What does the free method do in TProcess. It's used in several examples I found on the net but there's nothing in the reference about it? So far I used it and everything works fine. Can I continue to use it or should I use a different method?
It is the Free method defined in TObject, at the very root of the class hierarchy. This method does the same thing in every single class, there is nothing special with TProcess in this regard.
It is documented:
Free will check the Self pointer and calls Destroy if it is different from Nil. This is a safer method than calling Destroy directly.
When you refactor a method using Resharper 8 and the method arguments do not depend on instance variables of the class, a static method is constructed. However, an instance method could also have been created.
Is a static method created for performance reasons?
TIA.
That's right. Here’s what the MSDN documentation has to say about it:
Members that do not access instance data or call instance methods can
be marked as static (Shared in Visual Basic). After you mark the
methods as static, the compiler will emit nonvirtual call sites to
these members. Emitting nonvirtual call sites will prevent a check at
runtime for each call that makes sure that the current object pointer
is non-null. This can achieve a measurable performance gain for
performance-sensitive code. In some cases, the failure to access the
current object instance represents a correctness issue.
Source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms245046.aspx
I am trying to get my head wrapped around "key-value coding".
Apple's docs say:
This document describes the NSKeyValueCoding informal protocol, which
defines a mechanism allowing applications to access the properties of
an object indirectly by name (or key), rather than directly through
invocation of an accessor method or as instance variables.
Few thing are confusing me
Accessor methods are automatically generated for properties, and provide several benefits like memory management, custom validations, etc. When we access a property without the accessor methods as the Apple doc says, does that mean we are losing the benefits of accessor methods?
If KVC is so good and it reduces code, why should I use accessor methods, or why are accessor methods still around?
I have never seen in any tutorial or books, or code on GitHub using KVC. Why is it not adopted that widely?
No, it just means that you aren't explicitly calling the accessor in your code. The accessor is called for you by the KVC implementation.
KVC doesn't necessarily reduce code, rather it allows a different way of interacting. It allows more runtime flexibility and it can allow the use of key paths. You shouldn't look at it as a full replacement, just as an alternative which is appropriate in some cases.
It is used widely, you need to look for calls to valueForKey:, setValue:forKey: (the methods of the protocol - there are many more than just these couple).
I am using FxCop to look for improvements on our application. One of the rules we are often breaking is "Mark members as static" which is marked as a performance rule.
Certainly we have a lot of class methods that do not action on any of the class members, which could be marked as static, but is there really a performance gain to this?
My understanding is that static will be intantiated once at execution time. If the method is never invoked that it would have been a waste. If the method is invoked multiple times than there might be a small benefit.
With variables there are obvious implications as to whether or not they are marked static, and it is critical to the operation of your application how they are defined. For methods though I don't believe there is any functional affect on whether or not they are marked static if they do not reference any instance variables or methods.
Am I missing the point here? Is the standard to mark all of these methods as static?
Performance becomes better because static method doesn't have hidden "this" pointer.
Every instance (non-static) method has hidden "this" pointer, which is passed to the method to access instance members. If no non-static members are used, "this" pointer remains unused. Passing additional parameter on the stack or in CPU register takes a time which can be saved by declaring such method as static.
"My understanding is that static will be instantiated once at execution time."
Both static and non-static methods exist only once in the program code. Only non-staic data members are duplicated, when there are different class instances. Non-static class method works with specific instance using class reference (hidden parameter). Code itself is never duplicated.
As you said, when a method is marked as static, it is instantiated once, the first time it is used. Whenever subsequent calls are made, the runtime environment doesn't need to validate it, because it is guaranteed to exist. Here is the Microsoft doc for it: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms245046%28v=vs.80%29.aspx
Here's some more guidance: Method can be made static, but should it?