Can anyone share what are some common Delphi examples of a function that takes a number
and returns a number that is not so obvious?
For example :
function GetNumber(const aSeed: Integer): Integer;
begin
Result := ((aSeed+5) * aSeed) + 15;
end;
So let's say the user knows that sending aSeed = 21 gives 561
and aSeed = 2, gives 29
and so on...
is there a function that makes it hard to reverse engineer the code,
even if one can generate a large number sets of Seed/Result ?
(hard : I do not mean impossible, just need to be non-trivial)
Preferably a function that does not allow in function result exceeding the
Integer result as well.
In any case, if you are not sure whether it's hard/impossible to reverse,
do feel free to share what you have.
some other requirements:
the same input always results in the same output; cannot have Random output
the same output regardless of platform: windows/android/mac/ios
won't result in some extraordinary big number (fit in Integer)
Using a hash is a very good way to achieve what you want. Here is an example that takes an integer, converts it to a string, appends it to a salt, computes the MD5 and returns the integer corresponding to the first 4 bytes:
uses
System.Hash;
function GetHash(const s: string): TBytes;
var
MD5: THashMD5;
begin
MD5 := THashMD5.Create;
MD5.Update(TEncoding.UTF8.GetBytes(s));
Result := MD5.HashAsBytes;
end;
function GetNumber(Input: Integer): Integer;
var
Hash: TBytes;
p: ^Integer;
begin
Hash := GetHash('secret' + IntToStr(Input));
P := #Hash[0];
Result := Abs(P^);
end;
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
ShowMessage(IntToStr(GetNumber(1))); // 996659739
ShowMessage(IntToStr(GetNumber(2))); // 939216101
ShowMessage(IntToStr(GetNumber(3))); // 175456750
end;
I was trying to use same printing procedure for two types of arrays(1st arry length was 10, 2nd array length was 15).
I could not find any solution over internet. Did any one have any solution for this problem.
this is the Two arrays
program pp1;
const
m=10;
n=15;
type
matrix1=array[1..m] of integer;
matrix2=array[1..n] of integer;
var
m1:matrix1;
m2:matrix2;
this is the method which it tried. in method 'x' mens the length of the array.
procedure writeMatrix(var data: array of integer ;x:integer);
var
j:integer;
begin
for j:=1 to x do
begin
write(data[j]:3);
end;
end;
my main method
begin
writeMatrix(m1,10);
writeMatrix(m2,10);
end.
How can i use the same this writeMatrix method to print both of the arrays.. Is there any stranded way to do it.
As I said in my comment before, your implementation is fine, but you have to put something in your matrix before printing it, or you will get a bunch of zeroes in the screen (in the best).
Try this:
program pp1;
const
m=10;
n=15;
type
matrix1=array[1..m] of integer;
matrix2=array[1..n] of integer;
var
m1:matrix1;
m2:matrix2;
procedure fillMatrix(var data:array of integer; x:integer);
var
j:integer;
begin
for j:= 1 to x do begin
data[j]:=j;
end;
end;
procedure writeMatrix(var data: array of integer; x:integer);
var
j:integer;
begin
for j:=1 to x do
begin
write(data[j]:3);
end;
end;
begin
fillMatrix(m1,10);
fillMatrix(m2,10);
writeMatrix(m1,10);
writeMatrix(m2,10);
readln;
readln;
end.
Hint: consider avoid using global variables, m1 and m2 in this case should be declared in the main program.
How can i use the same this writeMatrix method to print both of the arrays.. Is there any stranded way to do it.
Yes, there is a standard way to this. It is called conformant-array parameters. It is standardized in (level 1) of the ISO standard 7185 (Standard “Unextended” Pascal). It looks like this:
procedure print(protected matrix: array[
columnMinimum..columnMaximum: integer;
rowMinimum..rowMaximum: integer
] of integer);
const
totalWidth = 6;
var
x: type of columnMinimum;
y: type of rowMinimum;
begin
for y := rowMinimum to rowMaximum do
begin
for x := columnMinimum to columnMaximum do
begin
write(matrix[x, y]:totalWidth);
end;
writeLn;
end;
end;
It’s as if there were additional const values, but they are dynamic depending on the passed matrix. This code furthermore uses type inquiries (type of …) and the protected modifier, both defined in ISO 10206 (Extended Pascal) which builds on top of ISO 7185. In EP you could and would also consider schemata to pass such data as parameters.
My setting:
OS: Windows 7 SP1 (32 bits)
Ram: 4 Go
Processor: Intel Pentium D 3.00 GHz
Delphi XE
My simple test:
I performed a test running the following program:
program TestAssign;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
uses
SysUtils,
Diagnostics;
type
TTestClazz = class
private
FIntProp: Integer;
FStringProp: string;
protected
procedure SetIntProp(const Value: Integer);
procedure SetStringProp(const Value: string);
public
property IntProp: Integer read FIntProp write SetIntProp;
property StringProp: string read FStringProp write SetStringProp;
end;
{ TTestClazz }
procedure TTestClazz.SetIntProp(const Value: Integer);
begin
if FIntProp <> Value then
FIntProp := Value;
end;
procedure TTestClazz.SetStringProp(const Value: string);
begin
if FStringProp <> Value then
FStringProp := Value;
end;
var
i, j: Integer;
stopw1, stopw2 : TStopwatch;
TestObj: TTestClazz;
begin
ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown := True;
//
try
TestObj := TTestClazz.Create;
//
try
j := 10000;
while j <= 100000 do
begin
///
/// assignement
///
stopw1 := TStopwatch.StartNew;
for i := 0 to j do
begin
TestObj.FIntProp := 666;
TestObj.FStringProp := 'Hello';
end;
stopw1.Stop;
///
/// property assignement using Setter
///
stopw2 := TStopwatch.StartNew;
for i := 0 to j do
begin
TestObj.IntProp := 666;
TestObj.StringProp := 'Hello';
end;
stopw2.Stop;
///
/// Log results
///
Writeln(Format('Ellapsed time for %6.d loops: %5.d %5.d', [j, stopw1.ElapsedMilliseconds, stopw2.ElapsedMilliseconds]));
//
Inc(j, 5000);
end;
//
Writeln('');
Write('Press Return to Quit...');
Readln;
finally
TestObj.Free
end
except
on E: Exception do
Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
end;
end.
My (provisionnal) conclusion:
It seems that:
It's worth using Setter with property under some condition
The overhead of calling a method and performing a conditional test take less time than an assignement.
My question:
Are those findings valid under any other diffrent setting or just localized ones (exception)?
I would make the following observations:
The decision as to whether or not to use a setter should be based on factors like code maintenance, correctness, readability rather than performance.
Your benchmark is wholly unreasonable since the if statements evaluate to False every time. Real world code that sets properties would be likely to modify the properties a reasonable proportion of the time that the setter runs.
I would expect that for many real world examples, the setter would run faster without the equality test. If that test were to evaluate to True every time then clearly the code would be quicker without it.
The integer setter is practically free and in fact the setter is slower than the direct field access.
The time is spent in the string property. Here there is some real performance benefit due to the optimisation of the if test which avoids string assignment code if possible.
The setters would be faster if you inlined them, but not by a significant amount.
My belief is that any real world code would never be able to detect any of these performance differences. In reality the bottleneck will be obtaining the values passed to the setters rather than time spent in the setters.
The main situation where such if protection is valuable is where the property modification is expensive. For example, perhaps it involves sending a Windows message, or hitting a database. For a property backed by a field you can probably take it or leave it.
In the chatter in the comments Premature Optimization wonders why the comparison if FStringProp <> Value is quicker than the assignment FStringProp := Value. I investigated a little further and it wasn't quite as I had originally thought.
It turns out that if FStringProp <> Value is dominated by a call to System._UStrEqual. The two strings passed are not in fact the same reference and so each character has to be compared. However, this code is highly optimised and crucially there are only 5 characters to compare.
The call to FStringProp := Value goes to System._UStrAsg and since Value is a literal with negative reference count, a brand new string has to be made. The Pascal version of the code looks like this:
procedure _UStrAsg(var Dest: UnicodeString; const Source: UnicodeString); // globals (need copy)
var
S, D: Pointer;
P: PStrRec;
Len: LongInt;
begin
S := Pointer(Source);
if S <> nil then
begin
if __StringRefCnt(Source) < 0 then // make copy of string literal
begin
Len := __StringLength(Source);
S := _NewUnicodeString(Len);
Move(Pointer(Source)^, S^, Len * SizeOf(WideChar));
end else
begin
P := PStrRec(PByte(S) - SizeOf(StrRec));
InterlockedIncrement(P.refCnt);
end;
end;
D := Pointer(Dest);
Pointer(Dest) := S;
_UStrClr(D);
end;
The key part of this is the call to _NewUnicodeString which of course calls GetMem. I am not at all surprised that heap allocation is significantly slower than comparison of 5 characters.
Put 'Hello' const into a variable and use it for setting then do a test again
I was trying to speed up a certain routine in an application, and my profiler, AQTime, identified one method in particular as a bottleneck. The method has been with us for years, and is part of a "misc"-unit:
function cwLeftPad(aString:string; aCharCount:integer; aChar:char): string;
var
i,vLength:integer;
begin
Result := aString;
vLength := Length(aString);
for I := (vLength + 1) to aCharCount do
Result := aChar + Result;
end;
In the part of the program that I'm optimizing at the moment the method was called ~35k times, and it took a stunning 56% of the execution time!
It's easy to see that it's a horrible way to left-pad a string, so I replaced it with
function cwLeftPad(const aString:string; aCharCount:integer; aChar:char): string;
begin
Result := StringOfChar(aChar, aCharCount-length(aString))+aString;
end;
which gave a significant boost. Total running time went from 10,2 sec to 5,4 sec. Awesome! But, cwLeftPad still accounts for about 13% of the total running time. Is there an easy way to optimize this method further?
Your new function involves three strings, the input, the result from StringOfChar, and the function result. One of them gets destroyed when your function returns. You could do it in two, with nothing getting destroyed or re-allocated.
Allocate a string of the total required length.
Fill the first portion of it with your padding character.
Fill the rest of it with the input string.
Here's an example:
function cwLeftPad(const aString: AnsiString; aCharCount: Integer; aChar: AnsiChar): AnsiString;
var
PadCount: Integer;
begin
PadCount := ACharCount - Length(AString);
if PadCount > 0 then begin
SetLength(Result, ACharCount);
FillChar(Result[1], PadCount, AChar);
Move(AString[1], Result[PadCount + 1], Length(AString));
end else
Result := AString;
end;
I don't know whether Delphi 2009 and later provide a double-byte Char-based equivalent of FillChar, and if they do, I don't know what it's called, so I have changed the signature of the function to explicitly use AnsiString. If you need WideString or UnicodeString, you'll have to find the FillChar replacement that handles two-byte characters. (FillChar has a confusing name as of Delphi 2009 since it doesn't handle full-sized Char values.)
Another thing to consider is whether you really need to call that function so often in the first place. The fastest code is the code that never runs.
Another thought - if this is Delphi 2009 or 2010, disable "String format checking" in Project, Options, Delphi Compiler, Compiling, Code Generation.
StringOfChar is very fast and I doubt you can improve this code a lot. Still, try this one, maybe it's faster:
function cwLeftPad(aString:string; aCharCount:integer; aChar:char): string;
var
i,vLength:integer;
origSize: integer;
begin
Result := aString;
origSize := Length(Result);
if aCharCount <= origSize then
Exit;
SetLength(Result, aCharCount);
Move(Result[1], Result[aCharCount-origSize+1], origSize * SizeOf(char));
for i := 1 to aCharCount - origSize do
Result[i] := aChar;
end;
EDIT: I did some testing and my function is slower than your improved cwLeftPad. But I found something else - there's no way your CPU needs 5 seconds to execute 35k cwLeftPad functions except if you're running on PC XT or formatting gigabyte strings.
I tested with this simple code
for i := 1 to 35000 do begin
a := 'abcd1234';
b := cwLeftPad(a, 73, '.');
end;
and I got 255 milliseconds for your original cwLeftPad, 8 milliseconds for your improved cwLeftPad and 16 milliseconds for my version.
You call StringOfChar every time now. Of course this method checks if it has something to do and jumps out if length is small enough, but maybe the call to StringOfChar is time consuming, because internally it does another call before jumping out.
So my first idea would be to jump out by myself if there is nothing to do:
function cwLeftPad(const aString: string; aCharCount: Integer; aChar: Char;): string;
var
l_restLength: Integer;
begin
Result := aString;
l_restLength := aCharCount - Length(aString);
if (l_restLength < 1) then
exit;
Result := StringOfChar(aChar, l_restLength) + aString;
end;
You can speed up this routine even more by using lookup array.
Of course it depends on your requirements. If you don't mind wasting some memory...
I guess that the function is called 35 k times but it has not 35000 different padding lengths and many different chars.
So if you know (or you are able to estimate in some quick way) the range of paddings and the padding chars you could build an two-dimensional array which include those parameters.
For the sake of simplicity I assume that you have 10 different padding lengths and you are padding with one character - '.', so in example it will be one-dimensional array.
You implement it like this:
type
TPaddingArray = array of String;
var
PaddingArray: TPaddingArray;
TestString: String;
function cwLeftPad4(const aString:string; const aCharCount:integer; const aChar:char; var anArray: TPaddingArray ): string;
begin
Result := anArray[aCharCount-length(aString)] + aString;
end;
begin
//fill up the array
SetLength(StrArray, 10);
PaddingArray[0] := '';
PaddingArray[1] := '.';
PaddingArray[2] := '..';
PaddingArray[3] := '...';
PaddingArray[4] := '....';
PaddingArray[5] := '.....';
PaddingArray[6] := '......';
PaddingArray[7] := '.......';
PaddingArray[8] := '........';
PaddingArray[9] := '.........';
//and you call it..
TestString := cwLeftPad4('Some string', 20, '.', PaddingArray);
end;
Here are benchmark results:
Time1 - oryginal cwLeftPad : 27,0043604142394 ms.
Time2 - your modyfication cwLeftPad : 9,25971967336897 ms.
Time3 - Rob Kennedy's version : 7,64538131122457 ms.
Time4 - cwLeftPad4 : 6,6417059620664 ms.
Updated benchmarks:
Time1 - oryginal cwLeftPad : 26,8360194218451 ms.
Time2 - your modyfication cwLeftPad : 9,69653117046119 ms.
Time3 - Rob Kennedy's version : 7,71149259179622 ms.
Time4 - cwLeftPad4 : 6,58248533610693 ms.
Time5 - JosephStyons's version : 8,76641780969192 ms.
The question is: is it worth the hassle?;-)
It's possible that it may be quicker to use StringOfChar to allocate an entirely new string the length of string and padding and then use move to copy the existing text over the back of it.
My thinking is that you create two new strings above (one with FillChar and one with the plus). This requires two memory allocates and constructions of the string pseudo-object. This will be slow. It may be quicker to waste a few CPU cycles doing some redundant filling to avoid the extra memory operations.
It may be even quicker if you allocated the memory space then did a FillChar and a Move, but the extra fn call may slow that down.
These things are often trial-and-error!
You can get dramatically better performance if you pre-allocate the string.
function cwLeftPadMine
{$IFDEF VER210} //delphi 2010
(aString: ansistring; aCharCount: integer; aChar: ansichar): ansistring;
{$ELSE}
(aString: string; aCharCount: integer; aChar: char): string;
{$ENDIF}
var
i,n,padCount: integer;
begin
padCount := aCharCount - Length(aString);
if padCount > 0 then begin
//go ahead and set Result to what it's final length will be
SetLength(Result,aCharCount);
//pre-fill with our pad character
FillChar(Result[1],aCharCount,aChar);
//begin after the padding should stop, and restore the original to the end
n := 1;
for i := padCount+1 to aCharCount do begin
Result[i] := aString[n];
end;
end
else begin
Result := aString;
end;
end;
And here is a template that is useful for doing comparisons:
procedure TForm1.btnPadTestClick(Sender: TObject);
const
c_EvalCount = 5000; //how many times will we run the test?
c_PadHowMany = 1000; //how many characters will we pad
c_PadChar = 'x'; //what is our pad character?
var
startTime, endTime, freq: Int64;
i: integer;
secondsTaken: double;
padIt: string;
begin
//store the input locally
padIt := edtPadInput.Text;
//display the results on the screen for reference
//(but we aren't testing performance, yet)
edtPadOutput.Text := cwLeftPad(padIt,c_PadHowMany,c_PadChar);
//get the frequency interval of the OS timer
QueryPerformanceFrequency(freq);
//get the time before our test begins
QueryPerformanceCounter(startTime);
//repeat the test as many times as we like
for i := 0 to c_EvalCount - 1 do begin
cwLeftPad(padIt,c_PadHowMany,c_PadChar);
end;
//get the time after the tests are done
QueryPerformanceCounter(endTime);
//translate internal time to # of seconds and display evals / second
secondsTaken := (endTime - startTime) / freq;
if secondsTaken > 0 then begin
ShowMessage('Eval/sec = ' + FormatFloat('#,###,###,###,##0',
(c_EvalCount/secondsTaken)));
end
else begin
ShowMessage('No time has passed');
end;
end;
Using that benchmark template, I get the following results:
The original: 5,000 / second
Your first revision: 2.4 million / second
My version: 3.9 million / second
Rob Kennedy's version: 3.9 million / second
This is my solution. I use StringOfChar instead of FillChar because it can handle unicode strings/characters:
function PadLeft(const Str: string; Ch: Char; Count: Integer): string;
begin
if Length(Str) < Count then
begin
Result := StringOfChar(Ch, Count);
Move(Str[1], Result[Count - Length(Str) + 1], Length(Str) * SizeOf(Char));
end
else Result := Str;
end;
function PadRight(const Str: string; Ch: Char; Count: Integer): string;
begin
if Length(Str) < Count then
begin
Result := StringOfChar(Ch, Count);
Move(Str[1], Result[1], Length(Str) * SizeOf(Char));
end
else Result := Str;
end;
It's a bit faster if you store the length of the original string in a variable:
function PadLeft(const Str: string; Ch: Char; Count: Integer): string;
var
Len: Integer;
begin
Len := Length(Str);
if Len < Count then
begin
Result := StringOfChar(Ch, Count);
Move(Str[1], Result[Count - Len + 1], Len * SizeOf(Char));
end
else Result := Str;
end;
function PadRight(const Str: string; Ch: Char; Count: Integer): string;
var
Len: Integer;
begin
Len := Length(Str);
if Len < Count then
begin
Result := StringOfChar(Ch, Count);
Move(Str[1], Result[1], Len * SizeOf(Char));
end
else Result := Str;
end;
I want to develop a setup package for conditionally upgrading an existing package. I want to check the existing software version against to-be-installed version. In order to do that, I have to compare the version strings.
How can I convert the string value to a numerical value in a Inno setup script?
RegQueryStringValue(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, 'Software\Blah blah', 'Version', version)
version = 'V1.R2.12';
numVersion := ??string_to_numerical_value??(version);
This is a little more tricky, as you would want to handle versions like 'V1.R2.12' and 'V0.R15.42' correctly - with the simple conversion in the other answer you would get 1212 and 1542, which would not compare the way you would expect.
You need to decide how big each part of the version number can be, and multiply the parts by that value to get a correct end number. Something like this:
[Code]
function string_to_numerical_value(AString: string; AMaxVersion: LongWord): LongWord;
var
InsidePart: boolean;
NewPart: LongWord;
CharIndex: integer;
c: char;
begin
Result := 0;
InsidePart := FALSE;
// this assumes decimal version numbers !!!
for CharIndex := 1 to Length(AString) do begin
c := AString[CharIndex];
if (c >= '0') and (c <= '9') then begin
// new digit found
if not InsidePart then begin
Result := Result * AMaxVersion + NewPart;
NewPart := 0;
InsidePart := TRUE;
end;
NewPart := NewPart * 10 + Ord(c) - Ord('0');
end else
InsidePart := FALSE;
end;
// if last char was a digit the last part hasn't been added yet
if InsidePart then
Result := Result * AMaxVersion + NewPart;
end;
You can test this with the following code:
function InitializeSetup(): Boolean;
begin
if string_to_numerical_value('V1.R2.12', 1) < string_to_numerical_value('V0.R15.42', 1) then
MsgBox('Version ''V1.R2.12'' is not as recent as version ''V0.R15.42'' (false)', mbConfirmation, MB_OK);
if string_to_numerical_value('V1.R2.12', 100) > string_to_numerical_value('V0.R15.42', 100) then
MsgBox('Version ''V1.R2.12'' is more recent than version ''V0.R15.42'' (true)', mbConfirmation, MB_OK);
Result := FALSE;
end;
Whether you pass 10, 100 or 1000 for AMaxVersion depends on the number and range of your version number parts. Note that you must not overflow the LongWord result variable, which has a maximum value of 2^32 - 1.
I haven't tried that (and my Pascal knowledge is a bit rusty), but something like the following should work:
function NumericVersion(s: String): Integer;
var
i: Integer;
s1: String;
begin
s1 := '';
for i := 0 to Length(s)-1 do
if (s[i] >= '0') and (s[i] <= '9') then
s1 := s1 + s[i];
Result := StrToIntDef(s1, 0);
end;
Please not that you'll have to play with the start and end value for i as I'm not sure whether it is zero-based or not (s[0] may contain the length of the string if it is a "Pascal String").
I've implemented two version strings (actually one string and one dword value) in the registry to overcome complexity.
displayversion="v1.r1.0"
version="10100" (=1*10^4 + 1*10^2 + 0*10^0)
That's simple. Though not an answer to this question, however one might think the other way around when faced with complexity, which could be avoided in a simpler way.