What does the Source Control exclamation mark means in VS 2013? - visual-studio-2013

Can anyone tell me please what does mean that red exclamation mark in Source Control ?
Best regards !

First of all I'd recommend you to reconsider usage of using statement. If to speak particularly about db connections, and your code, then you first should close connection, and then dispose it. But using statement will close and dispose connection automatically ( during compile time it will be expanded with usage of appropriate IDisposable interface ).
Second as already mentioned, before disposing connection, you should close it.
And about your questions.
Q1. As usually connection string value is located in .config file ( app.config of web.config ), and read directly from section connection string, in order not to confuse other developers which will co-work with you or continue support of your project.
Q2.Exception type will catch all possible cases of exceptions. That is relatively fine, but if you want to be more accurate, you can apply other exceptions before Exception. For example you can also add OleDbException.
Q3. I recommend you to reconsider your decision WRT using statement, because .Net compiler knows when to call close method, and then dispose, and when to call just close method better ( except WCF services). So if you don't work with WCF I recommend you to use using statement.

Related

Straightforward memory management in gSOAP clients and servers (especially servers)

I'll admit that I sometimes skim through previous questions and think I'm encountering a lot of off-context fluff, so I'll try to make this concise.
If a server uses soap_new_T(soap) to allocate (including soap_new_ptrTo_T(soap) instead of soap_malloc whenever possible), it seems not only superfluous but counterproductive to use soap_end anywhere outside of soapC.cpp or soapcpp2.cpp.
On the other hand, which I have yet to attempt, is it sensible to use soap_new(soap) for any allocation preceding a SOAP request and use soap_end() or some other function/method upon return when calling from a C(++) client? Or even new()/delete() or (m/c)alloc()/free(), for that matter?
What purpose, other than the premature dumping of XML, is served by soap_end???
What I'm trying to accomplish is to place dynamic memory under the scope of gSOAP, so that it is automatically released once its utility completes. Experiments suggest that the proper use of soap_end occurs when needed, without my intervention. Am I missing something?

Beckhoff PLC using ENUM's in CASE OF question

When I use an enum in a switch statement in C#, I am used to add a debug break statement to the Default case to prevent adding items to the enum which are not covered by the switch. During debugging, the code will then break if it hits the Default case.
Now I am programming a beckhoff PLC and want to do the same in a CASE .. OF ELSE ...END CASE in STL. Is this possible and/or normal in PLC programming?
I don’t think you can. Also it wouldn’t be desirable to stop a PLC program and prevent it from executing machine relevant code.
Instead you could use the ADSLOGSTR function to log to the event logger. Or show a message box. This will work in both TC2 and TC3.
You can set breakpoints when you are in online-mode, but as pboedker pointed out as soon as the breakpoint is reached (unless you have a special configuration, but this is another subject) your ethercat master will timeout, your safety module will produce a com error and your drives will need a reset aswell.
If you don't have real hardware and an ethercat master attached in your project you can use breakpoints without any worries.
I personally take another approach.
I always build a separate Debug-Visualization in the plc together with a special Debug FunctionBlock which helps me to track bugs in the project.
In your case for example I would simply call a special method of the Debug-FunctionBlock with an errror code and a string when the program flow reaches the default-case.
The error code and the string would then be visualized in the Debug-Visualization.
Even if it's a little more effort than simply calling adslogstr I would rather implement a separate Debug-FunctionBlock for 3 reasons:
You need more logic than simply calling adslogstr anyway because if by any chance adslogstr is called cyclically, you end up spamming the event logger.
Reuse in other projects
You can expand the Debug-Visualization to a Test-Suite if needed, which can come in handy
You can find more info about the beckhoff visualization here:
https://infosys.beckhoff.com/english.php?content=../content/1033/tc3_plc_intro/3523377803.html&id=
Breakpoints are possible like Filippo said. You can prevent outputs from being reset during breakpoint by setting KeepOutputsOnBP (see this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/52158801/8140625).
You could also set error/warning/note message to your Visual Studio when that happens by using ADSLOGSTR(see this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/51700613/8140625). So add a ADSLOGSTR call to your CASE ELSE with appropriate message and you will see it in error list / TwinCAT console.
Edit: Somehow missed pboedkers answer, he already answered the ADSLOGSTR.
I like the solution of Filippo. Is could be easy to change the behavior of the debug function in the future without touching the code to much.
I was thinking to much in the C# solutions :)
Thank!

Can I mark some code as optional while debugging in Visual Studio 2012?

I'm not sure how to really put my question into words so let me try to explain it with an example:
Let's say my program runs into some weird behavior at a specific action. I already find some code which is the cause of this weird behavior. When disabling this sequence I don't run into this behavior. Unfortunately, I need this code because something else is not working then.
So, what I gonna do next is figuring out why something is going different when that code excerpt is active.
In order to better understand what's going on I sometimes want to run the whole action including the 'bad code' and sometimes without. Then I can compare the outcome, for example what happens in the UI or what my function returns.
The first approach which comes to my mind is to run my program with the code enabled, do whatever I want, then stop my program, comment out the code, recompile and run again. Um... that sounds dumb. Especially if I then again need to turn on that code to see another time the other behavior, and then again turn off, and on, and off and so on.
It's not an option for me to use breakpoints and influence the statement order or to modify values so that I run or not run into if-statements, for-loops etc. Two examples:
I debug a timing critical behavior and when I halt the program the timing changes significantly. Thus, the first breakpoint I can set must be at the end of the action. 1
I expect a tooltip or other window to appear which is 'suppressed' when focus is given to VS. Thus, I cannot use any breakpoints at all. Neither in the beginning nor at the end of the action.1
Is there any technique in Visual Studio 2012 which allows me to mark this code to be optional and I can decide whether or not I want to run this code sequence before I execute the action? I think of something like if(true|false) on a higher level.
I'm not looking for a solution where I need to re-run my program several times. In that case I could still doing the simple approach of simply commenting out the code with #if false.
1 Note that I, of course, may set a breakpoint when I need to look into a specific variable at a certain position (if I haven't written the value into output) but will turn off breakpoints again to run the whole action in one go.
In the Visual Studio debugger you can set a breakpoint right in front of your "code in question". When the code stops at that point, you can elect to let it continue or you can right-click on any other line and select Set Next Statement.
It's kind of a weird option, but I've come to appreciate it.
The only option I can think of is to add something to your UI that only appears when debugging, giving you the option to include/exclude the operations in question.
While you're at it, you might want to enable resetting the application to a "known state" from the UI as well.
I think of something like if(true|false) on a higher level.
Why "on a higher level"? Why not use exactly this?
You want a piece of code sometimes executed, sometimes not, and the switch should be changed at run time, not at compile time - this obviously leads to
if(condition)
{
// code in stake
}
The catch here is what kind of condition you will use - maybe a variable you set to true in the release version of your code, and to false sometimes in your debug version. Maybe the value is taken from a configuration file, maybe from an environment variable, maybe calculated by some kind of logic in your program, whatever and whenever you like.
EDIT: you could also introduce a boolean variable in your code for condition, initialize it to true by default and change its value using the debugger whenever you like.
Preprocessor Directives might be what you're after. They're bits of code for the compiler to execute, identifiable by starting with a # character (and stylistically, by default they don't follow the indent pattern of your code, instead always residing firmly at the left-hand edge of the editor):
#define INCLUDE_DODGY_CODE
public void MyMethodWithDodgyBits() {
#if INCLUDE_DODGY_CODE
myDodgyMethod();
#endif
myOkMethod();
}
In this case, if #define INCLUDE_DODGY_CODE was included, the myDodgyMethod() call will be compiled into your program. Otherwise, the call will be skipped by the compiler and will simply not exist in your binary.
There are a couple of options for debugging as you ask.
Visual Studio has a number of options to directly navigate through code. You can use the Set Next Statement feature to move directly to a particular statement. You can also directly edit values through the Immediate Window the QuickWatch and the tooltip that hovers over variables while debugging.
Visual Studio also has the ability to playback the execution history. Take a look at IntelliTrace to get started. It can be helpful when you have multiple areas of concern that are interacting and generating the error condition.
You can also wrap your sections of code within conditional blocks, and set the conditional variables as appropriate. That could be while you're debugging, or you could pass parameters in through a configuration file. Using conditional checks may be easier than manually stepping through code if there are a number of statements you wish to exclude.
It sometimes depends on the version of VS and the language, but you can happily edit the code (to comment it out, or wrap it in a big #ifdef 0) then press alt+F10 and the compiler will recompile, relink and continue execution as if you'd never fiddled with it.
But while that works beautifully in VC++ (since VS v6 IIRC), C# can have issues - I find (with VS2010) that I cannot edit and continue in this way with functions containing any lambda (mainly linq) statements, and 64-bit code never used to do this too. Still, its worth experimenting with as its really useful sometimes.
I have worked on applications that have optional code used for debugging alone that should not appear in the production environment. This segment of optional code was easiest for us to control using a config file since it didn't require a re-compile to change.
Such a fix might not be the end all be all for your end result, but it might help get through it until a fix is found. If you have multiple optional sections that need to be tested in combination this style of fix could require multiple keys in the config file, which could be a downside and a pain to keep track of.
Your question isn't exactly clear, which is possibly why there are so many answers which you think are invalid. You may want to consider rewording it if no one seems able to answer the question.
With the risk of giving another non-valid answer I'll add some input on how I've dealt with the issue in the past.
The easiest way is to place any optional code within
#if DEBUG
//Optional code here
#endif
That way, when you run in debug mode the code is implemented and when you run in release mode it's not. Switching between the two requires clicking one button.
I've also solved the same problem in a similar way with a simple flag:
bool runOptionalCode = false;
then
if (runOptionalCode)
{
//Place optional code here
}
Again, switching between modes requires changing one word, so is a simple task. You mention this in your question but discount it for reasons that are unclear. As I said, it requires very little effort to switch between the two.
If you need to make changes between the code while it's running the best way is to use a UI item or a keystroke which modifies the flag mentioned in the example above. Depending on your application though this could be more effort than it's worth. In the past I've found that when I have a key listener already implemented as part of the project, having a couple of key strokes decide whether to run my debug (optional) code works best. In an application without key listeners I'd rather stick with one of the previous methods.

How to properly use WSAAsyncSelect?

I've asked here a ton of questions about WSAAsyncSelect and NET.Few months ago I even spent 500 rep on a bounty and answered it myself(I made a wrapper).In the end I got used to the winsock in the framework.
Today I'm asking about unmanaged languages,the bad point is that I miss the framework way of doing things with sockets.I'm writing my project in Delphi,but I understand C-like languages so it'd be no problem and I'm not even asking for any code.I love natural things,so please don't suggest any components,pure code only. :)
People say it's good to create another hidden form and set the message loop there to properly use AsyncSelect.
Well,my question is simple:I placed the whole winsock functions i wrote to make my life easier inside that hidden form and also I set the WSaAsyncSelect with it's handle,the message loop is also there,but I've written child classes(many classes,huge code),the parent class is that hidden form.
Is WSAAsyncSelect thread-safe? Will this slow down things(what i've done with classes)?
Do I have to create threads outside the message loop?
Any other tips for using AsyncSelect properly will be greatfuly appreciated.
Edit: to avoid any misunderstanding,I'm asking directly about AsyncSelect().The project I work on requires 2 servers and 1 client,which I think,could be handled well with that call.
People say it's good to create another
hidden form and set the message loop
there to properly use AsyncSelect.
Are you coding to WinSock directly, or using the VCL's TClientSocket and TServerSocket components? If the latter, then they already handle WSAAsyncSelect() internally for you (yes, they do use their own hidden window).
Is WSAAsyncSelect thread-safe?
Yes.
Will this slow down things(what i've
done with classes)?
You have not actually explained what the classes are doing.
Do I have to create threads outside
the message loop?
No, but sockets can be used by multiple threads if desired. However, the socket messages will only be processed by whatever thread owns the window that was passed to WSAAsyncSelect().

Object must be locked to be used?

I was pondering language features and I was wondering if the following feature had been implemented in any languages.
A way of declaring that an object may only be accessed within a Mutex. SO for example in java you would only be able to access an object if it was in a synchrnoised block and in C# a Lock.
A compiler error would ensue if the object was used outside of a Mutex block.
Any thoughts?
UPDATE
I think some people have misunderstood the question, I'm not asking if you can lock objects, I'm asking if there is a mechanism to state at declaration of an object that it may only be accessed from within a lock/synchronised statement.
There are two ways to do that.
Your program either refuses to run a method unless the protecting mutex is locked by the calling thread (that's a runtime check); or it refuses to compile (that's a compile time check).
First way is what C# lock does.
Second method requires a compiler able to evaluate every execution path possible. It's hardly feasible.
In Java you can add the synchronized keyword to a method, but that is only syntactic sugar to wrapping the entire method body in a synchronized(this)-block (for non-static methods).
So for Java there is no language construct that enforces that behavior. You can try to .wait() on this with a zero timeout to ensure that the calling code has acquired the monitor, but that's just checking after-the-fact
In Objective-C, you can use the #property and #synthesize directives to let the compiler generate the code for accessors. By default they are protected by mutex.
Demanding locks on everything as you describe would create the potential for deadlocks, as one might be forced to take a lock sooner than one would otherwise.
That said, there are approaches similar to what you describe - Software Transactional Memory, in particular, avoids the deadlock issue by allowing rollbacks and retries.

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