I've been developing for some time. And these beasts appear from time to time in MFC, wxWidgets code, and yet I can't find any info on what they do exactly.
As I understand, they appeared before dynamic_cast was integrated into core C++. And the purpose, is to allow for object creation on the fly, and runtime dynamic casts.
But this is where all the information I found, ends.
I've run into some sample code that uses DECLARE_DYNAMIC_CLASS and IMPLEMENT_DYNAMIC_CLASS within a DLL, and that is used for exported classes. And this structure confuses me.
Why is it done this way? Is that a plugin based approach, where you call LoadLibrary and then call the CreateDynamicClass to get a pointer which can be casted to the needed type?
Does the DECLARE/IMPLEMENT_DYNAMIC work over DLL boundaries? Since even class is not so safe to DLLEXPORT, and here we have a custom RTTI table in addition to existing problems.
Is it possible to derive my class from a DYNAMIC_CLASS from another DLL, how would it work?
Can anyone please explain me what these things are for, or where I can find more than a two sentences on a topic?
This stuff appends addional type information to your class, which allows to RTTI in runtime-independent manner, possibility of having factories to create your classes and many other things. You can find similar approach at COM, QMetaObject, etc
Have you looked at the definitions of DECLARE/IMPLEMENT_DYNAMIC?
In the MS world, all uppercase usually denotes a macro, so you can just look up the definition and try to work out what it's doing from there. If you're in Visual Studio, there's a key you can hit to jump to the definition - see what it says, and look that up and try to work from there.
Related
About the last year I did Java(Android)-programming, and did C# the Year before that. About a month now I'm learning C++, and since I got over friends, inheritance and stuff, I got a few questions, since I haven't been working with it up until now:
Is there a way for a class to define friends later on, because they need to exchange information or something. e.g. is there a way to define a 'random' friend later on? what do you need for that? The function's name or the address of the class?
Or is there generally a way to change the code from the program itself, so that it won't be necessary to recompile? e.g. creating new functions, classes or so?
I'd be very happy about any answer about that.
What you want to do is not possible with C++. If you need that sort of dynamically changing the program, you are better advised using a more dynamic higher-level language like Lisp.
friends can only be added to a class by modifying its source code. This is a feature, not a bug.
There are two ways to extend functionality like that.
Use dynamically loaded modules with the extended functionality. These modules supply a specific interface, and can be compiled separately from the main program.
Add support for scripting - allow users to add write scripts, and run them from inside your program.
The first solution is easier, depending on how much control you want to give those scripts.
I was wondering if it is possible to change the logic of an application at runtime? Meybe we could replace the implementation of an abstract class with another implementation? Or maybe we could replace a shared library at runtime...
update: Suppose that I've got two implementations of function foo(x, y) and can use any of them based on strategy pattern. Now I want to know if it's possible to add a third implementation of foo(x, y) without restarting the application.
You can use a plugin (a library that you will load at runtime) that expose a new foo function.
I remember we implemented something similar at school, a calculator in which we could add new operations at runtime, without having to restart the program. See dlsym and dlopen.
Addenda
Be very careful when dlclose-ing a plugin that it is not still used in some active call stack frame. On Linux you can call many thousands of times dlopen (so you could accept not dlclose-ing plugins, with some address space leak).
Exactly, as you said "replace the implementation of an abstract class with another implementation" if by it you mean, you can use runtime polymorphism and change the instances of concrete classes with instances of another set of concrete classes.
More specifically, there is a well-known pattern called Strategy pattern exactly for this purpose. Have a look at the wiki page, as it explains this very nicely, even with a code example along with diagram.
C++ mechanism of virtual functions does not allow you to change the implementation at run-time.
However, you can implement whatever implementation change at runtime with function pointers.
Here is an article on self-modifying code that I read recently: http://mainisusuallyafunction.blogspot.com/2011/11/self-modifying-code-for-debug-tracing.html
I'm pretty sure this problem isn't new, and pretty sure it's hard to solve. Hopefully I'm wrong about the latter.
I'm trying to use the Loki::Singleton from Modern C++ Design in a program of mine.
However, I can't seem to get it to work across DLLs. I think I know why this is happening: the templated code gets instantiated in every source module, so instead of there being one global variable, each module has its own.
Obviously, this makes the Singleton very much non-single.
Is there any way to get around this behavior?
I see in the Loki source directory that they have a specific SingletonDLL directory under test, looks like they use an exported, explicitly instantiated template (which would work). Hopefully that contains the code you want.
Note this is not going to address the question. An explicitly instantiated and exported singleton should do the trick...
-Rick
Check out #pragma data_seg here basically, you need to declare an instance of the singleton in a shared section of your code. By default statics are scoped to the dll.
It may get tricky with templates, but this is the path to success here that doesn't involve passing / copying static data around.
You are probably correct that each DLL has its own instance of the singleton. I'm not that familiar with the Loki implementation and the source code isn't a lot of fun to figure out.
Possible solutions are:
Not using singletons. This is actually my usual preference because you can avoid whole classes of issues by changing your design to not need them. For a long rant on why Singletons may be harmful see this Yegge post. I'm not THAT vehemently against them but 95% of the time Singletons cause many more problems than they solve (if they actually solve any)
Copying static members across DLL boundaries. I've also done this as a hack, where the DLL gets a pointer from an application or another DLL, and resets its own copy of the static class member to the pointer passed from outside. It's evil, it's dirty, you can't clean up after it, but it does work.
Is it possible to implement monkey patching in C++?
Or any other similar approach to that?
Thanks.
Not portably so, and due to the dangers for larger projects you better have good reason.
The Preprocessor is probably the best candidate, due to it's ignorance of the language itself. It can be used to rename attributes, methods and other symbol names - but the replacement is global at least for a single #include or sequence of code.
I've used that before to beat "library diamonds" into submission - Library A and B both importing an OS library S, but in different ways so that some symbols of S would be identically named but different. (namespaces were out of the question, for they'd have much more far-reaching consequences).
Similary, you can replace symbol names with compatible-but-superior classes.
e.g. in VC, #import generates an import library that uses _bstr_t as type adapter. In one project I've successfully replaced these _bstr_t uses with a compatible-enough class that interoperated better with other code, just be #define'ing _bstr_t as my replacement class for the #import.
Patching the Virtual Method Table - either replacing the entire VMT or individual methods - is somethign else I've come across. It requires good understanding of how your compiler implements VMTs. I wouldn't do that in a real life project, because it depends on compiler internals, and you don't get any warning when thigns have changed. It's a fun exercise to learn about the implementation details of C++, though. One application would be switching at runtime from an initializer/loader stub to a full - or even data-dependent - implementation.
Generating code on the fly is common in certain scenarios, such as forwarding/filtering COM Interface calls or mapping OS Window Handles to library objects. I'm not sure if this is still "monkey-patching", as it isn't really toying with the language itself.
To add to other answers, consider that any function exposed through a shared object or DLL (depending on platform) can be overridden at run-time. Linux provides the LD_PRELOAD environment variable, which can specify a shared object to load after all others, which can be used to override arbitrary function definitions. It's actually about the best way to provide a "mock object" for unit-testing purposes, since it is not really invasive. However, unlike other forms of monkey-patching, be aware that a change like this is global. You can't specify one particular call to be different, without impacting other calls.
Considering the "guerilla third-party library use" aspect of monkey-patching, C++ offers a number of facilities:
const_cast lets you work around zealous const declarations.
#define private public prior to header inclusion lets you access private members.
subclassing and use Parent::protected_field lets you access protected members.
you can redefine a number of things at link time.
If the third party content you're working around is provided already compiled, though, most of the things feasible in dynamic languages isn't as easy, and often isn't possible at all.
I suppose it depends what you want to do. If you've already linked your program, you're gonna have a hard time replacing anything (short of actually changing the instructions in memory, which might be a stretch as well). However, before this happens, there are options. If you have a dynamically linked program, you can alter the way the linker operates (e.g. LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable) and have it link something else than the intended library.
Have a look at valgrind for example, which replaces (among alot of other magic stuff it's dealing with) the standard memory allocation mechanisms.
As monkey patching refers to dynamically changing code, I can't imagine how this could be implemented in C++...
Is there a way to identify unused attributes/methods in Visual C++ 2008 Professional? If it's not possible by default, recommendations of 3rd-party tools are also much appreciated.
Thanks,
Florian
Edit: nDepend only works for .NET assemblies. I'm looking for something that can be used with native C++ applications.
Try PC-Lint. It's pretty good at finding redundant code.
I haven't tried version 9 yet. Version 8 does take some time to configure.
Try the online interactive demo.
I have not personally used their productivity tools (I use their windows control suit), but it looks like DevExpress has a C++ refactor'er called Refactor! for C++. I didn't immediately spot the features that you are looking for, but maybe they have it?
Coverage Validator can show unused C++ code (but not attributes). It does it dynamically so you have to 'exersize' the app to get the results:
http://successfulsoftware.net/2008/03/10/coverage-validator/
The tricky bit is that many functions in C++ have to exist, even if they are not called.
Boost especially will cause this, but even the regular STL code can do this. And your code has to play along. You might define a copy ctor because std::vector formally requires it. But if you don't instantiate any std::vector member that actually does copy a T, your copy ctor will remain unused.
Even if they don't have to, they often exist for safety. For example, declaring a private copy constructor can prevent an object from unintended copying. Without the private declaration, the compiler would define a public, memberwise copy ctor for you. Now, is this "unused" and do you want to be warned about them?
PC-Lint is very powerful, but hard to lean. Of course that pretty well describes C and C++ doesn't it?
Another tool I think is excellent is Whole Tomato's Visual Assist X which integrates right into the IDE.
There are some big gotchas in C++ when searching for unreferenced code: templates, callbacks, and message handlers may be critical to your project but are never directly called. For example the handler for a thread is not called directly, but is a parameter when you create a new thread. The "On_buttonpress" type messages in MFC or WTL projects will also show up as un-called methods.
Once you find them you can configure PC-Lint to ignore these, but the first time through its a lot of work.
nDepend will do it, along with cleaning your house and taking the dog for a walk. There's a nagware version available for free.
The following code query language statement will get you a list of unused methods
WARN IF Count > 0 IN SELECT TOP 10 METHODS WHERE MethodCa == 0 AND
!IsPublic AND !IsEntryPoint AND !IsExplicitInterfaceImpl AND
!IsClassConstructor AND !IsFinalizer