I'm trying to call a member function of an external library which takes a function pointer as a parameter:
Timer::every(unsigned long period, void (*callback)(void));
But unfortunately the parameter I want to pass is a member function:
void MyClass::the_method_i_want_to_pass(void);
Since I'm programming for the ATMega under Arduino (AVR) there is just limited support of c++11. My first approach raises a type error:
void MyClass::the_method_i_want_to_pass() {...}
MyClass::MyClass() {
// constructor
Timer *timer = new Timer();
timer->every(500, [this](){this->the_method_i_want_to_pass();})
}
Compiler Output:
warning: warning: lambda expressions only available with -std=c++11 or -std=gnu++11 [enabled by default]
error: no matching function for call to ‘Timer::every(int, MyClass::MyClass()::__lambda0)’
Are there other/better solutions?
Concerning my current approach: (How) is it possible to pass a reference to a lambda when a function pointer is required?
How can I find out if Arduino/AVR supports these lambdas (see "warning")?
Your basic problem is your Timer library is poorky written: it should take void(*)(void*), void* at the least.
Without a pvoid or equivalent, you cannot pass any state other than the address in execution code to run the procedure at. As a method also rewuires a this pointer, you are out of luck.
Now, if your instance of MyClass is a singleton, you can get this from somewhere else.
Failing that, you need to make your own global state that lets you map from a particular callback to some state. If you have a limited number of MyClass and other consumers of Timer, you can have a few fixed functiins, and have them store their extra state globally.
This is all a hack. What follows is worse.
Write a dynamic library with some global state, and a void() interface. When you add a callback, duplicate that dynamic library, modify its global state at runtime, write it out as a differently named library, load it, and pass the pure callback function to your Timer class.
Or do the equvalent without a library by manually writing machine code and marking pages as execuable.
These are all poor solutions. Which leads me to a good one: find a better Timer. If they screwed up something that simple, the rest of the library is probably bad as well.
Related
Found some user attempts to invoke a member function pointer from a void pointer.
e.g.,
How to call a class member function from 2 void pointers
I would like to test it on my project, but the topics enclosed are too advanced for me and the questions usually hold partial code only.
Looking for a simple working example I could test upon.
Edit: I am trying to create a callback mechanism on my system.
so I can pass different types of callback functions without using wrapper functions or static member functions
I'm currently learning game development with c++ in Unreal Engine and I came across the function that takes a function pointer as an input:
InputHandle->BindAction("Grab",IE_Pressed, this, &UGrabber::Grab);
From basic C++ I know that in passing a function pointer as an attribute (UGrabber::Grab) - & is optional, however UEngine complains with the following error code if I omit the &:
error C3867: 'UGrabber::Grab': non-standard syntax; use '&' to create a pointer to member
Could someone explain why?
BindAction function declaration looks like this:
FInputActionBinding& BindAction( const FName ActionName, const EInputEvent KeyEvent, UserClass* Object, typename FInputActionHandlerSignature::TUObjectMethodDelegate< UserClass >::FMethodPtr Func )
The BindAction function makes use of a Dynamic Multicast Delegate.
They are one of Unreal's ways of having callback functions. In this case, they rely not just on calling a function, but calling a specific object's function. This is why you need to bass the third parameter (in this example, the parameter is this).
What it's saying is, when the input action is IE_Pressed, call the UGrabber function Grab on object this (this has to be a UGrabber instance of course). This is why it's a pointer to the method. It actually utilizes Unreal's reflection system to find the method on the object. So the this object needs to be UObject, otherwise you can't call a funciton on an object by name in C++.
For more info on this, search for "unreal delegates" and "unreal reflection" in your search engine of choice. Using them is quite easy, and it's not necessary to understand the reflection system to reliably use them. Just don't forget to bind and unbind at the appropriate times.
p.s. You can get quite in depth in this subject of callbacks you want. There are other delegate types that don't rely on reflection, for example non-dynamic delegates, that can bind to lambda functions, and or a more familiar if you're coming from a pure C++ background, where commonly a void* opaque is used, expected to be cast to the needed class pointer.
In my Qt application I wish to be able to add a tab to a non-static QTabWidget when the user presses a shortcut. Normally I would implement it like this:
File.addAction("Settings", openSettings, Qt::ALT + Qt::Key_S);
where File is a QTabWidget and openSettings is a static method. The only issue with that is that it only works for static methods, and the issue with that is that I can't access a non-static variable in a static method. As such I figured that since Qt asks for the function to be a static function I can instantiate a static std::function<> object as such:
static std::function<void(void)> openSettings_ = []() { openSettings; };
and call it as such
File.addAction("Settings", openSettings_, Qt::ALT + Qt::Key_S);
The issue with this is that it generates the error:
Error: invalid use of non-static member function 'void window::openSettings()'
My reasoning for this is that I am familiar with C and assumed that what Qt calls a functor is almost the same as a function pointer that pretty much is an object. As such, I assumed that if I were to instantiate a static object of type std::function that pointed to / executed a non-static function I would get around this issue, which is clearly not the case. How would I go about doing this, seeing as my current thought process is wrong?
First, the immediate error is raised because you're not actually calling the function. You must call it: openSettings();.
However, this won't work. openSettings is non-static member function. All such normal member functions take an implicit this pointer to the object on which they're being invoked. This means that one cannot directly invoke the openSettings function without an object on which to invoke it. But this is not captured by the lambda you've written, meaning there's no such object.
This can be fixed by capturing this in the lambda, such as auto openSettings_ = [this]() { this->openSettings(); };
But on the other hand, this function is acting like a slot. You should attach the signal you're interested in directly to the signal using the standard signal/slot syntax, rather than writing the separate functor. That would be something like this.
File.addAction("Settings", this, &(decltype(*this))::openSettings, Qt::ALT + Qt::Key_S);
(Note that I'm using decltype because I'm not sure what type *this is. You can substitute with the name of the class.)
Consider a library function
registerCallback(int event_type, void(*handler)())
which registers a handler for some kind of event. I want to register several handlers using this function but include a 'scope' to it. An example would be a wrapper function like
registerCallback2(int event_type, void* arg, void(*handler)(void*)
which enables the registration of handlers that receive an additional argument.
I tried to use lambda expressions, but have soon learned that a lambda expression that captures something cannot be converted to a function pointer, and neither can be a class method, so a Class wrapper seems not to work as well.
Do you have any idea how this can be solved in a thread-safe way (can be called simultaneous from several threads)? The example should work with GCC 4.7.2 and Linux.
I have made something similar using boost::function for enabling the callback. You could pass a shared weak pointer to your register and before calling it, verify if the pointer is still valid.
my call looks like this:
register_callback(EventManager::EVENT_IDENTIFIER, boost::bind(&MyClass::myCallback, this, _1))
EDIT:
Within this register_callback function (with is your registerCallback2) you can call registerCallback of the library, so that the scope can be handled.
I'm having a problem with function pointers and nothing I found on the net helped me to solve this problem.
I have a function from a C API which take a pointer of a void function :
extern int APIFunction(int, void (*func)(int));
I have a class with the function I would like to put when I call the API function.
class MyClass
{
public:
void myFunction(int status, otherAPi arguments...);
};
Then, I created a pointer to my member function and created a new instance of my class
typedef void (MyClass::*MyClassFunctionPointer)(int stat, otherAPi arguments...);
MyClassFunctionPointer fctPointer= &MyClass::myFunction;
LicenseSecurity instance;
I get an error when I try to call my APi function with the function pointer I created:
int stat = APIFunction(5, fctPointer ); // -> error 1
int stat = APIFunction(5, instance.*fctPointer ); // -> error 2
I got errors respectively in the first and second case:
E2034 Impossible to convert 'void (MyClass::*)(int, otherAPITypes...)' into 'void (*) (int, otherAPITypes...)'
E2342 Bad type correspondence in the parameter 'func' ('void (*)(int, otherAPITypes...)' desired, 'void(int, otherAPITypes...)' obtained)
I don't have access to the API function so I can't modify it. To summary the problem: how How to get a "simple" C function pointer to put in argument of a function from a member function of my class?
Thanks
Unfortunately, you can't. Sorry.
Ideally, your API would accept something like std::function that would allow you to wrap free functions or member functions. But if you can't modify the API, then you have no choice but to provide a free function.
You can't get a "simple" function pointer to a non-static member function because the function requires a this pointer when called. If you were to create a function pointer like that then when the function was called there would be no this pointer for it to reference.
With an ancient C API like that, you unfortunately don't have any way to do this.
What you have to do is make a static or non-member function to take the callback, and then figure out which instance of the object to call the member on. Some C APIs allow a user data to be passed to the callback, and in that case you use that to store the this pointer in question. If that's not an option you can use a global or singleton object and only allow a single such callback to be registered.
You can declare the callback as either a standalone function or as a static method of the class. The tricky part is accessing a class instance pointer inside the callback.
Ideally, a well-designed API allows you to specify a user-defined value to callbacks. That allows you to easily pass in a class instance and access it directly inside the callback. But it sounds like you are not working with such an API, so you need to use a workaround.
If you have only 1 class instance being used with the API at a time, you can store the instance pointer into a global variable, and have the callback use the global variable to access the instance.
But if you have multiple class instances being used at the same time, you are looking for a thunking solution, similar to the VCL's MakeObjectInstance() function, which allows TWndMethod-signatured class methods to be used as Win32 window procedure callbacks. Essentially, a block of executable memory is dynamically allocated, stub assembler code is written into the block, and the instance pointer and class method pointer are stored in the block as well. The block is then passed to the API as if it were a function pointer. When the API calls the "function", the stub code gets executed, which has to manipulate the call stack and CPU registers to call the stored class method pointer passing the stored instance pointer as its hidden this parameter, while preserving the semantics of other parameters, the call stack, function result, etc.
Nothing in C++ really accomplishes that kind of thunking natively. It is not difficult to implement manually, but it is not trivial either (have a look at the source code for MakeObjectInstance() in the VCL's Classes.pas source file). The hardest part is coming up with the necessary stub code that matches the semantics of your particular class method's signature.