I'm trying to create a simple gesture recognizer for a D3D application. The gesture recognizer works by storing each point received into a boost::circular_buffer of capacity 3 and then counting the number of similar FrameID's in the buffer, like so:
UINT Trackball::CalculateGestureSize(Windows::UI::Input::PointerPoint ^ pPoint)
{
// shift the circular buffer queue one if it's full (common case)
if (m_pointQueue.full())
{
m_pointQueue.pop_back();
}
// then store our point
m_pointQueue.push_front(*pPoint);
// now we need to see how many of the points in the
// circular buffer match the frame Id
UINT gestureLength = 0;
for (UINT i = 0; i < MAX_GESTURE_SIZE; i += 1)
{
if (m_pointQueue[i].FrameId == pPoint->FrameId)
{
gestureLength += 1;
}
}
assert(gestureLength != 0);
return gestureLength;
}
However, the compiler is unable to figure out how to instantiate this type:
// a queue of size 3 that helps determine what kind of gesture we're working with
boost::circular_buffer<Windows::UI::Input::PointerPoint> m_pointQueue;
because & and * cannot be used on WinRT objects:
boost/concept_check.hpp(195): error C3699: '&' : cannot use this indirection on type 'const Windows::UI::Input::PointerPoint' compiler replacing '&' with '^' to continue parsing
The compiler's error list then grows long very quickly due to the cascading effects of that error.
Right now, my solution is copy the necessary information for a PointerPoint into a struct and use that as the boost::circular_buffer's typename, like so:
// So WinRT objects (like Windows::UI::Input::PointerPoint) can't
// be used in STL-like containers (like boost::circular_buffer)
// because * and & operators cannot be used on them, so I'm copying
// the necessary info into this struct and using that instead
typedef struct
{
UINT FrameId;
Windows::Foundation::Point Position;
} LocalPoint;
// a queue of size 3 that helps determine what kind of gesture we're working with
boost::circular_buffer<LocalPoint> m_pointQueue;
This definitely works, but I was wondering if there's a better solution out there.
Thanks for reading and for trying to help.
If you want to put a reference type in an STL collection, you need to use the ^ form. So you'd use: boost::circular_buffer<PointerPoint^> instead of boost::circular_buffer<PointerPoint>. A Windows::Foundation::Point is a value type so it can be used in a collection directly.
I think I accidentally found a working solution by using that Windows::Foundation::Point object in my LocalPoint struct. Just wrap the WinRT object with a struct and then the operators will work just fine, but it'll add a bit of syntactic noise.
However I'm still listening for a better solution, but I'll leave this here till then.
Related
I have 3 structs : Student, Citizen, Employee. I want user to be able to choose what struct they want to work with (std::vector of structs, actually). Since there's no way to define type at runtime, I created all 3 vectors, but will use only one of them (depending on the user's choice), others will stay empty:
std::vector<Student> container_student;
std::vector<Citizen> container_citizen;
std::vector<Employee> container_employee;
auto containers = make_tuple(container_student, container_citizen, container_employee);
std::cout << "Enter:\n0 to operate \"Student\" struct\n1 to operate \"Citizen\" struct\n2 to operate \"Employee\" struct\n";
std::cin >> container_type;
auto container = std::get<container_type>(containers);
But I get No matching function for call to 'get', even though container_type is an int and containers is a tuple.
Edit: understandable, auto can't make magic and I still try to make container's type to depend on runtime. But even if I try to use std::get<container_type>(containers) (probably define would help) instead of container in functions etc., I get the same error, which is not understandable.
Unfortunately, what you're proposing isn't possible in C++. The C++ typing and template system works at compile-time, where information read in from the user isn't available. As a result, anything passed into a template's angle braces needs to be determinable at compile-time. In your case, the number the user enters, indicating which option they want to select, is only knowable at runtime.
There are some routes you could take to achieve the same result, though. For example, one option would be to do something like this:
if (container_type == 0) {
auto container = std::get<0>(containers);
/* ... */
} else if (container_type == 1) {
auto container = std::get<1>(containers);
/* ... */
} /* etc */
Here, all the template angle braces are worked out at compile-time. (Then again, if this is what you're going to be doing, you wouldn't need the tuple at all. ^_^)
Another option would be to use templates, like this:
template <typename T> void doSomething(std::vector<T>& container) {
/* Put your code here */
}
/* Then, back in main... */
if (container_type == 0) {
doSomething(container_student);
} else if (container_type == 1) {
doSomething(container_citizen);
} /* etc */
This still requires you to insert some code to map from integer types to the functions you want to call, but it leaves you the freedom to have a container variable (the one in doSomething) that you can treat generically at that point.
It's basically the Fundamental Theorem of Software Engineering in action - all problems can be solved by adding another layer of indirection. :-)
Hope this helps!
Sorry for the atrocious title.
The scenario is that I have a configuration system in my program, that needs to able to hold values of all types. These values (configurants) need to be held in a homogenous container.
For example: (this is pseudo-code, I'm not sure how this would actually look)
configurant i(64);
configurant b(true);
configurant f(128.f);
configurant custom(Color(255, 255, 255));
vector<configurant> confs;
confs.emplace_back(i);
confs.emplace_back(b);
confs.emplace_back(f);
confs.emplace_back(custom);
// some form of accessing the vector with proper configurant type here:
// casting?
Like I said, I don't know how this system would look in practice. I know that a statement like
auto color = confs.at(3).rgb();
is generally not possible in C++, but is there something I could do with templated metaprogramming to try and get as close as possible to this solution?
(perhaps the configurants could be mapped with their type? but this would not be a compile time operation)
I'm looking to create a system that is storable homogeneously, immediately accessible (not stored on the heap) and that evaluates the validity of operations at compile time.
Open to any suggestions.
And before the comments come in, I've experimented with std::any/std::any_cast, std::variant, the visitor pattern, and other things of that nature. I'm not looking to use any of those systems.
EDIT To avoid confusion, there are N configurants: it is not a statically sized group of configurants. More configurants would be added by the user of this interface.
EDIT 2 Additional example of desired usage
class foo {
configurant enabled;
configurant bar;
public:
foo() {
this->enabled = configurant(true);
this->bar = configurant(5);
}
void body() {
if(this->enabled) {
std::cout << (this->bar < 100) << "\n";
}
}
// It also needs to be kept in mind that these configurant classes
// cannot be templated (directly, at least), since they need to be stored in
// a homogeneous container.
};
Because of this requirement
"that evaluates the validity of operations at compile time.",
this means that your example
auto color = confs.at(3).rgb();
will only work with the index 3 known at compile time
(why not 2 or 4?).
This index is not very relevant/useful in this situation.
May be should you simply consider a structure providing
the required data with a proper name instead of a
compile-time index?
struct Confs
{
configurant<int> i;
configurant<bool> b;
configurant<float> f;
configurant<Color> custom;
};
...
Confs confs{64, true, 128.f, Color(255, 255, 255)};
auto color = confs.custom.rgb();
Something like this could rely on a compile-time index
but I don't really see the benefit over a named member.
auto confs=std::make_tuple(64, true, 128.0f, Color{255, 255, 255});
auto color = std::get<3>(confs).rgb();
I have looked into this, but it's not what I wanted: Convert string to variable name or variable type
I have code that reads an ini file, stores data in a QHash table, and checks the values of the hash key, (see below) if a value is "1" it's added to World.
Code Examples:
World theWorld;
AgentMove AgentMovement(&theWorld);
if(rules.value("AgentMovement") == "1")
theWorld.addRule(&AgentMovement);
INI file:
AgentMovement=1
What I want to do is, dynamically read from the INI file and set a reference to a hard coded variable.
for(int j = 0; j < ck.size(); j++)
if(rules.value(ck[j]) == "1")
theWorld.addRule("&" + ck[j]);
^
= &AgentMovement
How would you make a string into a reference as noted above?
This is a common theme in programming: A value which can only be one of a set (could be an enum, one of a finite set of ints, or a set of possible string values, or even a number of buttons in a GUI) is used as a criteria to perform some kind of action. The simplistic approach is to use a switch (for atomic types) or an if/else chain for complex types. That is what you are currently doing, and there is nothing wrong with it as such:
if(rules.value(ck[j]) == "1") theWorld.addRule(&AgentMovement);
else if(rules.value(ck[j]) == "2") theWorld.addRule(&AgentEat);
else if(rules.value(ck[j]) == "3") theWorld.addRule(&AgentSleep);
// etc.
else error("internal error: weird rules value %s\n", rules.value(ck[j]));
The main advantages of this pattern are in my experience that it is crystal clear: anybody, including you in a year, understands immediately what's going on and can see immediately which criteria leads to which action. It is also trivial to debug which can be a surprising advantage: You can break at a specific action, and only at that action.
The main disadvantage is maintainability. If the same criteria (enum or whatever) is used to switch between different things in various places, all these places have to be maintained, for example when a new enum value is added. An action may come with a sound, an icon, a state change, a log message, and so on. If these do not happen at the same time (in the same switch), you'll end up switching multiple times over the action enum (or if/then/else over the string values). In that case it's better to bundle all information connected to an action in a data structure and put the structures in a map/hash table with the actions as keys. All the switches collapse to single calls. The compile-time initialization of such a map could look like this:
struct ActionDataT { Rule rule; Icon icon; Sound sound; };
map<string, AcionDataT> actionMap
= {
{"1", {AgentMovement, moveIcon, moveSound} }
{"2", {AgentEat, eatIcon, eatSound } } ,
//
};
The usage would be like
for(int j = 0; j < ck.size(); j++)
theWorld.addRule(actionMap[rules.value(ck[j])].rule);
And elsewhere, for example:
if(actionFinished(action)) removeIcon(actionMap[action].icon);
This is fairly elegant. It demonstrates two principles of software design: 1. "All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection" (David Wheeler), and 2. There is often a choice between more data or more code. The simplistic approach is code-oriented, the map approach is data oriented.
The data-centrist approach is indispensable if switches occur in more than one situation, because coding them out each time would be a maintenance nightmare.
Note that with the data-centrist approach none of the places where an action is used has to be touched when a new action is added. This is essential. The mechanism resembles (in principle and implementation, actually) the call of a virtual member function. The calling code doesn't know and isn't really interested in what is actually done. Responsibility is transferred to the object. The calling code may perform actions later in the life cycle of a program which didn't exist when it was written. By contrast, compare it to a program with many explicit switches where every single use must be examined when an action is added.
The indirection involved in the data-centrist approach is its disadvantage though, and the only problem which cannot be solved by another level of indirection, as Wheeler remarked. The code becomes more abstract and hence less obvious and harder to debug.
You have to provide the mapping from the names to the object by yourself. I would wrap it into a class, something like this:
template <typename T>
struct ObjectMap {
void addObject(std::string name,T* obj){
m[name] = obj;
}
T& getRef(std::string name) const {
auto x = m.find(name);
if (x != m.end() ) { return *(x->second);}
else { return dummy; }
}
private:
std::map<std::string,T*> m;
T dummy;
}
The problem with this approach is that you have to decide what to do if an object is requested that is actually not in the map. A reference always has to reference something (in contrast to a pointer that can be 0). I decided to return the reference to a dummy object. However, you might want to consider to use pointers instead of references. Another option might be to throw an error in case the object is not in the map.
I'm trying to create an interface between physical components (Arduinos) and flight simulator in order to control and display simulator events from self-built parts. I have started learning C++ in school, but have never been quite keen on it.
Yet the library I use to communicate with my flight simulator is written in C++ (it's called SimConnect) and so is the SDK of my payware airplane. Therefore I figured it's probably easier to get back into it than creating wrappers or such for another programming language.
Every time I receive new data from the simulator, I pass it into the function ProcessNGXData:
PMDG_NGX_Data* previousData;
bool alreadyProcessed = false;
void ProcessNGXData(PMDG_NGX_Data *data)
{
if (!alreadyProcessed || data->LTS_TaxiSw != previousData->LTS_TaxiSw) {
if (data->LTS_TaxiSw)
printf("Taxi Lights: [ON]\n");
else
printf("Taxi Lights: [OFF]\n");
}
if (!alreadyProcessed) {
alreadyProcessed = true;
}
previousData = data;
}
In other programming languages, this would probably work fine, hence I tried to implement it like this. However, C++ pointers are a slight bit more complicated to me.
The condition data->LTS_TaxiSw != previousData->LTS_TaxiSw never evaluates to true. From my understanding, that is because both data and previousData are pointers to exactly the same structure and thus can never be different.
With my little knowledge and not much understanding of those pointers, how would I do this? Is there a way to copy the structure, so they can differ?
Thanks in advance.
Declare previousData like this:
PMDG_NGX_Data previousData;
(without the asterisk). Now, when you want to 'save' the structure, do this:
previousData = *data;
(right hand side has an asterisk). Note that this assumes that PMDG_NGX_Data is copy-able and a fixed size. If it's an interface or an abstract class, then this won't be possible. Perhaps the API gives you a "Clone" or "Copy" method you can call.
If PMDG_NGX_Data is not too big to copy every ProcessNGXData you can try this:
PMDG_NGX_Data previousData;
bool alreadyProcessed = false;
void ProcessNGXData(PMDG_NGX_Data *data)
{
if (!alreadyProcessed || data->LTS_TaxiSw != previousData.LTS_TaxiSw) {
if (data->LTS_TaxiSw)
printf("Taxi Lights: [ON]\n");
else
printf("Taxi Lights: [OFF]\n");
}
if (!alreadyProcessed) {
alreadyProcessed = true;
}
previousData = *data;
}
If it is too big, you can create a struct that will hold only the fields you need to compare and will be initialized by PMDG_NGX_Data and initialize that struct every ProcessNGXData.
I'm building a simple generic engine for my true start in the making of games, and I am trying to be somehow organized and decent in the making of my engine, meaning I don't want it to be something I throw to the side once I make what I'm planning to.
I add objects to be displayed, drawObjects, and these can either move, not move, and have an animation, or not have one.
In case they DO have an animation, I want to initialize a single animationSet, and this animationSet will have xxx animationComp inside of it. As I'm trying to be neat and have worked abit on "optimizations" towards memory and cpu usage (such as sharing already-loaded image pointers, and whatever came across my mind), I wanted to not ask for possibly unused memory in arrays.
So I had animationSetS* animationSet = NULL; initially, planning to do a animationSet = animationSetS[spacesINEED]; after, only on the objects that needed animation that I added, being those that aren't animations a NULL and therefore not using memory (correct?).
And then this question popped up! (title)
struct animationComp {
SDL_Rect* clip;
int clipsize;
};
struct animationSetS {
animationComp* animation;
int currentFrame;
int currentAnimation;
int animationNumber;
};
struct drawObject { // Um objecto.
char* name;
SDL_Surface* surface;
bool draw = true;
float xPos;
float yPos;
bool willMove = false; // 0 - Won't move, 10 - Moves alot, TO IMPLEMENT
bool isSprite = false;
animationSetS* animationSet;
};
I dabble alot in my questions, sorry for that. For any clarifications reply here, I'll reply within 10 minutes for the next... 1 hour perhaps? Or more.
Thanks!
Setting the pointer to NULL means that you'll be able to add ASSERT(ptr != NULL); and KNOW that your pointer does not accidentally contain some rubbish value from whatever happens to be in the memory it was using.
So, if for some reason, you end up using the object before it's been properly set up, you can detect it.
It also helps if you sometimes don't use a field, you can still call delete stuff; [assuming it's allocated in the first place].
Note that leaving a variable uninitialized means that it can have ANY value within it's valid range [and for some types, outside the valid range - e.g. pointers and floating point values can be "values that are not allowed by the processor"]. This means that it's impossible to "tell" within the code if it has been initialized or not - but things will go horribly wrong if you don't initialize things!
If this should be really implemented in C++ (as you write), why don't you use the C++ Standard Library? Like
struct animationSetS {
std::vector< std::shared_ptr<animationComp> > animation;
// ...
}