Can't I use "empty space" char as Target Path on Debugging? - c++

I'm trying to load a DLL I'm making with Visual Studio 2015 using a 3rd party software for debug it. In this case, I'm creating a VST instrument and load it with SaviHost, following this tutorial.
This is my current setup:
the Target Path is D:\Google Drive\Development\WDL-OL\IPlugExamples\DefaultProject\build-win\vst2\Win32\bin\DefaultProject.dll.
How you can see, there is "empty space" in the path, and I think this make problem with VS, since when I try to F5 it, I see this message:
Google.dll makes no sense. It seems cut the path and "fail" loading a different resource? How can I fix this trouble?
I'd like to not move my whole workspace...

You can use quotes to make sure that the path gets parsed as a single argument, as long as the program you're debugging uses the typical rules on windows for command line parsing.
E.g.
"$(TargetPath)" /example

Related

How to set up C++ Testmate in VS Code

Ok, n00b question. I have a cpp file. I can build and run it in the terminal. I can build and run it using clang++ in VSCode.
Then I add gtest to it. I can compile in the terminal with g++ -std=c++0x $FILENAME -lgtest -lgtest_main -pthread and then run, and the tests work.
I install the C++ TestMate extension in VSCode. Everything I see on the internet implies it should just work. But my test explorer is empty and I don't see any test indicators in the code window.
I've obviously missed something extremely basic. Please help!
Executables should be placed inside the out or build folder of your workspace. Or one can modify the testMate.cpp.test.executables config.
I'd say, never assume something will "just work".
You'll still have to read the manual and figure out what are the names of config properties. I won't provide exact examples, because even though I've only used this extension for a short time, its name, and therefore full properties path, has already changed, so any example might get obsolete quite fast.
The general idea is: this extension monitors some files/folders, when they change, it assumes those are executables created using either gtest or catch2. The extension tries to run them with standard (for those frameworks) flags to obtain a list of test suites and test cases. If it succeeds, it will parse the output and create a nice list in the side panel. Markers in the code are also dependent on the exactly same parsed output, so if you have one, you have the other as well.
From the above, you need 3 things to make this work:
Provide correct path (or a glob pattern) for finding all test executables (while ignoring all non-test executables) in the extension config. There are different ways to do this, depending on the complexity of your setup, they are all in the documentation though.
Do not modify the output of the test executable. For example, if you happen to print something to stdout/stderr before gtest implementation parses and processes its standard flags, extension will fail to parse the output of ./your_test_binary --gtest-list_tests.
If your test executable needs additional setup to run correctly (env vars, cwd), make sure, that you use the "advanced" configuration for the extension and you configure those properties accordingly.
To troubleshoot #2 and #3 you can turn on debug logging for the extension (again, in the VSCode's config json), this will cause an additional "Output" tab/category to be created, where you can see, which files were considered, which were run, what was the output, and what caused this exact file to be ignored.
This messed with me for a while, I did as Mate059 answered above and it didn't work.
Later on I found out that the reason it didn't work was because I was using a Linux terminal inside windows (enabled from the features section) and I previously had installed the G++ compiler using the linux terminal so the compiler was turning my code into a .out file, for some reason TestMate could not read .out files.
Once I compiled the C++ source file using the powershell terminal it created a .exe file which I then changed the path in the setting.json as Mate059 said and it showed up.
TL;DR
Mate059 gave a great answer, go into settings.json inside your .vscode folder and modify "testMate.cpp.test.executables": "filename.exe".
For me it also worked using the wildcard * instead of filename.exe but I do not suggest to do that as in that might mess up something with the .exe from the main cpp file and what not.

Running exe code from Matlab. The exact same instruction that works in cmd (dos) fails from Matlab

This is driving me crazy, I must admit. After finally being able to successfully compile two functions I need to process voice files, from C/C++ code that I downloaded from a trustworthy online repository (code that had been thoroughly tested in Linux), I am now struggling to launch those files from Matlab...
When I type the following command in cmd (dos)
Analysis b2.wav config_default
it works, no problem (see here Works).
Then, I build the exact same command into a string and feed it to the "system" Matlab function. Then the code crashes... (see here Fails) I've tried with full paths (c:\b2.wav, etc) but still does not work...
Any ideas as to why this might be happening?
Your image shows that the program Analysis stopped unexpectedly.
It might be a lot of reasons why, so let's go step by step:
1) Try executing Analysis from Terminal and passing wrong parameters (a file that doesn't exist, only one param (missing the config_defalut), no parameters at all, three parameters, etc...)
Can you make the program crash from terminal by passing wrong params?
2) Try creating the command first, checking that it's correct (\b is actually \b instead of a string modifier)
command_to_be_run = 'C:\Analysis C:\b2.wav C:\config_default'
disp(command_to_be_run) % is it showing exacly what you want?
system(command_to_be_run); % if so, run it.
3) Try creating a dummy executable dummy.exe in C that accepts two parameters and prints the received parameters (keep it super simple, just printing). Call it from Terminal. Does it work? Call it from Matlba. Does it Work?
With this 3 tests you can considerably narrow down where your error comes from.
By the way, is "config_default" a file or just a string that tells analysis how to behave? In some examples you treat it as a file, in others as a parameter without path.
Based on what's been tried so far and the outputs, here's my theory:
Premise: Analysis.exe came from code that's well tested in Linux. It works in Windows command line when run from the same directory where both it and the target file reside. But it stops working from Matlab console.
Assertion 1: Matlab console does not operate within the context of the directory where the binary is but rather within the Matlab directory. As such, Analysis.exe will try to find the target from the Matlab directory.
Validation for Assertion 1: Try putting the binary and the target wav in the Matlab directory. Then run system with the binary and target specified just by name (no path).
Assertion 2: If the file's full path is specified to address this issue, it still doesn't work. This may be because the code assumed a Linux file system where the delimiter is "/" rather than "\".
Validation for Assertion 2: Run with paths specified from the command line while in a diferent directory to see if it fails or not.
Possible Solution 1: Add the directory where both Analysis.exe and the target are into the Matlab path: (1) On the Home tab, in the Environment section, click Set Path. Add the path there. (2) addpath (folderName1,...,folderNameN) adds the specified folders to the top of the search path for the current MATLAB session. -> Then run the system command without the full paths.
Possible Solution 2: Add the directory where both Analysis.exe and the target are into the Windows environment path. Then run the system command without the full paths.
EDIT: Possible hackish solution - Create a batch file where: (1) you would cd to the directory where Analysis.exe and the target wav are; and (2) do a Matlab system call to the batch file.
EDIT 2: Possible experiment to validate assertion 2.

vs10 C++ $(MyLibrary) vs %(MyLibrary)

We are using an environment variable to specify a path to a library we use. Most of the time it points to the released version but sometimes to a development version.
Anyway, it works ok when I use $(MyLib)/path;%(AdditionalIncludeDirectories) for building the C++ application but I can not open the project resources. However, when I use %(MyLib)/path;%(AdditionalIncludeDirectories) it works.
Now, what is the difference?
I thought the correct way is to use $(EnvVar) but for the resource editor it doesn't seems to work. And if $(EnvVar) is the correct way then why does Visual Studio use %(AdditionalIncludeDirectories) and not $(AdditionalIncludeDirectories)
The error I get is: fatal error RC1015: cannot open include file 'afxres.h'.
You use %(item) to refer to an MSBuild metadata item. Using $(AdditionalIncludeDirectories) would not work well if you also had an environment variable by that name. So %(MyLib)/path ought to resolve to just /path.
You can put echo %(MyLib)/path in a prebuild event to verify this.
Which is probably enough to stop confusing rc.exe, the resource compiler. Which is a stone-cold-old SDK utility, going back all the way to Windows version 1.0. It is pretty temperamental, very picky about command line options and .rc script file text encoding. Do keep in mind that it dates from an era long before Windows started to support a forward slash as a path separator, everybody had to use a backslash back in 1986.
So use "$(MyLib)\path" instead, including the double quotes so you don't confuzzle it when MyLib contains embedded spaces. And do favor using a project property sheet instead so there are some odds that somebody can still figure out how to get the project built correctly 2+ years from now.

Windows Service failes to start with "Path '.' not found"

Disclaimer: the error message is translated from Swedish (and it's a pain to find the exact corresponding error message in English, Microsoft take note...)
The error message could also be "Path ' ' not found" or "Path not found". It's a bit unclear due to the Swedish message not enclosing the path in ' '.
This is similar to this question, but not exactly: New Windows Service installed, fails to start: "System error 2 ... system cannot find the file specified"
I have written the service myself. It is an exe written in unmanaged C++ and is using the following external code:
libntlm - loaded as dynamic library (libntlm-0.dll placed in same location as executable)
OpenSSL - loaded as static library
pugixml - compiled directly into code
The problem I'm having is that it doesn't start when Windows starts, but it does start if I manually start it!
I am stumped as to what could be wrong. The only thing I can think of is if perhaps the dll can't be found, but I don't know why it wouldn't. Something with the environment variables being different perhaps?
What I have tried:
Checked registry, path is correct
Path is to local disk
Changed to a number of different paths (no change)
Made sure there are no spaces in the path
Logging at start of program (nothing written to log, so it's not an internal path not found error)
Dll is in same path
Set to start with my own network account (no change)
Tried renaming exe to be the same as service name (no change)
Tried registering libntlm-0.dll with regsrv32 but that didn't work
Put libntlm-0.dll in System32 (no change)
For posterity it seems like the delayed start suggested by 51k seems to work. I don't know why that should make any difference, but as long as it works I'm happy.

WxWidgets - Unable to load images

I recently started working with WxWidgets (2.9.4) and was working through a tutorial I found, but it seems that I'm unable to load any images. I've already properly used the handler (for PNG) and the problem happens at run-time. Below is an image of the popup that is displayed when attempting to run the program.
Here is the code:
wxPNGHandler *handler = new wxPNGHandler;
wxImage::AddHandler(handler);
wxBitmap exit;
exit.LoadFile(wxT("exit.png"), wxBITMAP_TYPE_PNG);
wxToolBar *toolbar = CreateToolBar();
toolbar->AddTool(wxID_EXIT, exit, wxT("Exit"));
toolbar->Realize();
Connect(wxID_EXIT, wxEVT_COMMAND_TOOL_CLICKED, wxCommandEventHandler(mainWindow::exitProg));
Any help is appreciated.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that when I click Cancel, this happens:
I placed the exit.png file in the build directory (/Debug or /Release) as well as the source code directory, but it still has yet to see it.
What is your working directory?
If you are using visual studio and running using the interface ( F5 or ctrl-F5 or the little run button in the toolbar ) then your working directory is the folder containing the project file. So try copying your image file there.
Or open a command window, cd to one of your build directories, and run your app from the command line.
In general, to avoid this sort of problem, I alter the project properties so that the executable is NOT stored in one of the build folders, but in a new folder ( which I usually call 'bin' - my unix roots are showing! ) and also alter the debugging properties so that the working directory is the bin folder.
There are a couple of advantages to this technique:
Both the release and trhe debug version use the same folder, so you only need one copy of any extra file, like your image file.
It is easy to see the executable and extra files in the working directory without being distracted by all the .obj files that end up in the build folders
IMHO this is well worth the little extra trouble in maintaining non default project properties.
First of all, to avoid problems deep inside wxToolBar, always check the return code of LoadFile() or, alternatively, use wxBitmap::IsOk() to check that the bitmap was successfully loaded.
Second, while adding the handler explicitly as you did is perfectly fine, I'd recommend to just call wxInitAllImageHandlers() as it's simpler and has no real drawbacks unless you are looking to create the smallest program possible.
Finally, to address your real problem, the file clearly doesn't exist at the path you're loading it from. You can, of course, solve this by being careful not to change your working directly (or restore it after changing it) in your program and by placing the file in the correct place. But this is, as you discovered, error-prone, so a better idea is to always use full paths to your resources. To construct them, you will find wxStandardPaths useful, in particular its GetResourcesDir() method.