How do I pass data from a thread using wxThreadEvent? - c++

I have a GUI and a worker thread, and I want to send data from the worker to the GUI. I'm using QueueEvent and wxThreadEvents to preserve model-view separation. I'm getting a baadf00d error somehow.
const int EvtID = 42;
MyFrame::MyFrame()
{
...
// this seems to work correctly,
// but I'm including it in case it is part of the problem
Bind(wxEVT_THREAD, (wxObjectEventFunction)&MyFrame::OutputData, this, EvtID);
...
}
MyFrame::OutputData(wxThreadEvent* event)
{
// should get data from MyThread,
// but outputs 0xBA, 0xAD, 0xF0, 0x0D in successive calls
output << event->GetInt();
}
MyThread::CreateOutputWithLocal()
{
wxThreadEvent event(wxEVT_THREAD, EvtID);
event.SetInt(getData());
//pFrame is a wxEvtHandler*
pFrame->QueueEvent(event.Clone());
}
MyThread::CreateOutputWithPointer()
{
wxThreadEvent* event = new wxThreadEvent(wxEVT_THREAD, EvtID);
event->SetInt(getData());
//pFrame is a wxEvtHandler*
pFrame->QueueEvent(event); // QueueEvent() takes control of the pointer and deletes it
}
Using wxThreadEvent's SetPayload() and GetPayload() or its SetExtraLong() and GetExtraLong() doesn't seem to make any difference. What do I need to get this to work?

Set/GetPayload should do the trick. May be you are doing it wrongly. Your code will be of more help. But here is a stripped example showing the usage of the Two methods.
Connect(wxID_ANY, wxEVT_COMMAND_DATA_SENT, wxThreadEventHandler(GMainFrame::OnAddText), NULL, this);//connect event to a method
void* MyThread::Entry(){
wxThreadEvent e(wxEVT_COMMAND_DATA_SENT);//declared and implemented somewhere
wxString text("I am sent!");
e.SetPayload(wxString::Format("%s", text.c_str()));
theParent->GetEventHandler()->AddPendingEvent(e);
return NULL;
}
void GMainFrame::OnAddText(wxThreadEvent& event) {
wxString t = event.GetPayload<wxString>();
wxMessageBox(t);
}
A stripped version from a sample I wrote long ago when playing around wxThreadEvent

In your case I would just store the pay load in a thread safe queue that would belong to the frame.
Before you queue the event, queue the data in the thread safe queue. In the OutputData function, flush the queue and read the data that is in it.
I'm using this strategy to pass boost::function < void () > to the UI, so it's very scallable, because I can trigger almost anything from the engine thread.

Related

Updating QChart from QLineSeries in a running while loop

I want to make my QChart dynamically update whenever a point is added to the QLineSeries object attached to it, but it seems that this update only occurs after the while loop I am running has finished. I am using said while loop in interface.cpp that calls a function updatePlot() which adds the data point to the line series, but this only updates the chart after the while loop has completely finished. Pseudo code of what is happening here:
qtwindow.cpp
// Constructor that initializes the series which will be passed into the interface
AlgoWindow::AlgoWindow( ..., TradingInterface* interface, ... ) {
...
QLineSeries* series = new QLineSeries();
QLineSeries* benchmark = new QLineSeries();
QChart* chart = new QChart();
chart->addSeries(series);
chart->addSeries(benchmark);
// Also creates custom axes which are attached to each series
...
}
// Slot connected to a button signal
void AlgoWindow::buttonClicked() {
// Runs the backtest
interface->runbacktest(..., series, benchmark, ...);
}
interface.cpp
void TradingInterface::runbacktest(..., QtCharts::QLineSeries* algoplot, QtCharts::QLineSeries* benchplot) {
// Runs a huge while loop that continuously checks for events
while (continue_backtest) {
if (!eventsqueue.isEmpty()) {
// Handle each event for the bar
} else {
// All events have been handled for the day, so plot
updatePlot(algoplot, benchplot);
}
}
}
void TradingInterface::updatePlot(QtCharts::QLineSeries *algoseries,
QtCharts::QLineSeries *benchseries) {
// Get the date and the information to put in each point
long date = portfolio.bars->latestDates.back();
double equitycurve = portfolio.all_holdings.rbegin().operator*().second["equitycurve"];
double benchcurve = benchmarkportfolio.all_holdings.rbegin().operator*.second["equitycurve"];
// Append the new points to their respective QLineSeries
algoseries->append(date * 1000, equitycurve*100);
benchseries->append(date * 1000, benchcurve*100);
}
This gives me no errors and the while loop completes, but the lines are only plotted after runbacktest() exits. It then plots all the data correctly, but all at once.
What I need to happen is for the QChart to update every time the lines are added, which my guess was to use some form of custom signal-slot listener but I have no clue how to go about that. If the graph will not update until after the function completes, is it even possible within the QChart framework?
Also, I have already tried QChart::update() and QChartView::repaint(). Both produced the same results as without.
EDIT: I tried setting up a new thread that emits a signal back to the main thread whenever the data is completed but it seems to have changed nothing. The QChart still does not update until after all the data has been inputted. I added a couple lines to help debug and it seems like the function which emits the signal runs consistently just fine, but the slot function which receives the signal only runs after the thread has finished. Not only that, but slowing the signals down with a sleep does not make it plot slowly (like I thought), as the QChart still refuses to update until after the final update to addData().
Either remove your while loop and perform the work one step at a time with a timer.
Or run your runbacktest function in another thread and send a signal to update the QChart in the UI's thread when the data is ready.
Either way you need to give control back to the event loop so that the chart can be repainted.
The Qt idiom for running an operation “continuously” is to use a zero-duration “timer”. It’s not a timer really, but Qt calls it one.
You can do the operation in chunks that take approximately a millisecond. For this, invert the control flow. Qt doesn't provide too much syntactic sugar for it, but it's easy to remedy.
Convert this code, which maintains a loop:
for (int i = 0; i < 1000; ++i) {
doSomething(i);
}
into this lambda, which is invoked by the event loop:
m_tasks.addTask([this](i = 0) mutable {
doSomething(i);
++i;
return i < 1000;
});
assuming:
class Controller : public QObject {
Tasks m_tasks;
...
};
where the Tasks class maintains a list of tasks to be executed by the event loop:
class Tasks : public QObject {
Q_OBJECT
QBasicTimer timer;
std::list<std::function<bool()>> tasks;
protected:
void timerEvent(QTimerEvent *ev) override {
if (ev->timerId() != timer.timerId())
return;
for (auto it = tasks.begin(); it != tasks.end(); ) {
bool keep = (*it)();
if (!keep)
it = tasks.erase(it);
else
++it;
}
if (tasks.empty())
timer.stop();
}
public:
using QObject :: QObject;
template <typename F> void addTask(F &&fun) {
tasks.emplace_back(std::forward(fun));
if (!timer.isActive())
timer.start(0, this);
}
};

tbb concurrent_bounded_queue multiple threads access

I have the following code:
tbb::concurrent_bounded_queue<Image> camera_queue_;
camera_queue_.set_capacity(1);
struct Image
{
int hour_;
int minute_;
int second_;
int msec_;
QImage image_;
Image(){hour_ = -1; minute_ = -1; second_ = -1; msec_ = -1; image_ = QImage();}
Image& operator=(Image const& copy)
{
this->hour_ = copy.hour_;
this->minute_ = copy.minute_;
this->second_ = copy.second_;
this->msec_ = copy.msec_;
this->image_ = copy.image_;
return *this;
}
};
In a Qt Thread :
ThreadA:
tbb::concurrent_bounded_queue<Image> image_queue_;
image_queue_.set_capacity(1);
Image cur_image_;
void Worker::process() {
while(1)
{
if(quit_)
break;
{
camera_queue_.pop(cur_image_);
image_queue_.push(cur_image_);
}
emit imageReady();
}
emit finished();
}
Image Worker::getCurrentImage()
{
Image tmp_image;
image_queue_.pop(tmp_image);
return tmp_image;
}
In Another Thread:
ThreadB:
Producer::Producer(){
work_ = new Worker();
work_->moveToThread(workerThread_);
QObject::connect(workerThread_, &QThread::finished, work_, &QObject::deleteLater);
QObject::connect(this, &Producer::operate, work_, &Worker::process);
QObject::connect(work_, &Worker::imageReady, this, &Producer::displayImage);
QObject::connect(this, &Producer::stopDecode, work_, &Worker::stop);
workerThread_->start();
emit operate();
}
void Producer::process() {
while(1)
{
if(quit_)
break;
{
camera_queue_.push(GetImage());
}
}
}
void Producer::displayImage()
{
Image tmp = std::move(work_->getCurrentImage());
widget_->showImage(tmp.image_);
}
However, In main thread, I have a function that enables user to click a button to get current image:
bool Producer::SaveImage()
{
Image img = std::move(work_->getCurrentImage());
std::string fileName = std::to_string(img.hour_) + "-" + std::to_string(img.minute_) + "-" + std::to_string(img.second_) + "-" + std::to_string(img.msec_/1000) + ".jpg";
std::string outFileName = folder + "/" + fileName;
return img.image_.save(QString::fromStdString(outFileName));
}
The problem is:
When user does not click the button to invoke Producer::SaveImage(), the Image Decoding and Showing runs smoothly. But when user invoke Producer::SaveImage(), the whole program will get stuck (Caton phenomenon ?). The GUI response becomes not that smooth. The more user invokes SaveImage, the slower the GUI response becomes.
Can anyone help to explain why ? Is there a way to solve that ?
Why do you want to use concurrent queue? It looks like there is a syncronization mechanism in place and you rely mostly on it instead of using concurrent_queue for synchronisation and communication as it is supposed for.
The issue is that when you set capacity = 1, both operations of concurrent_bounded_queue will block until there is enough space of items in the queue. E.g. if the queue contains an item already, the push operation will block. And since you control your threads with another notification mechanism, you might catch a deadlock.
In particular, try to swap the operations like below:
camera_queue_.pop(cur_image_);
emit imageReady();
image_queue_.push(cur_image_);
This should prepare the thread which receives images (if I understand this correctly) and it will block on its image_queue_.pop() method, then this thread will put new image and unblocks the recipient. There might be other issues similar to this, so, please rethink all of your synchronization.

File system watcher for Mac OS X

Currently, we use QFileSystemWatcher, belonging to Qt. Due to the limited support in Mac OS X, it can only notify us two events: directory changed, or file changed.
However, the latter event (file changed) is triggered multiple times when its size is slightly larger and the writing to disk takes slightly longer time.
Our workaround is to set up a timer to check the file in 1 second. If more signals about the file come before timer expires, we reset the timer.
Is there a way to get the notification when the file is written to the disk (finished writing)? There is no need to limit to Qt, any library could do.
We are aware of the kqueue monitoring method, but that's too low level and we don't want to do that for each file, as we are monitoring a large portion of the file system..
I have the same problem in a project and finally I decide to implement a native watcher. It's pretty easy:
In the .h:
class OSXWatcher : public Watcher
{
public:
OSXWatcher(const QString& strDirectory);
virtual ~OSXWatcher();
virtual bool Start();
virtual bool Stop();
private:
/**
* Callback function of the OS X FSEvent API.
*/
static void fileSystemEventCallback(ConstFSEventStreamRef streamRef, void *clientCallBackInfo, size_t numEvents, void *eventPaths, const FSEventStreamEventFlags eventFlags[], const FSEventStreamEventId eventIds[]);
FSEventStreamRef stream;
};
The .cpp:
bool OSXWatcher::Start()
{
CFStringRef pathToWatchCF = CFStringCreateWithCString(NULL, this->dirToWatch.toUtf8().constData(), kCFStringEncodingUTF8);
CFArrayRef pathsToWatch = CFArrayCreate(NULL, (const void **)&pathToWatchCF, 1, NULL);
FSEventStreamContext context;
context.version = 0;
context.info = this;
context.retain = NULL;
context.release = NULL;
context.copyDescription = NULL;
stream = FSEventStreamCreate(NULL, &OSXWatcher::fileSystemEventCallback, &context, pathsToWatch, kFSEventStreamEventIdSinceNow, 3.0, kFSEventStreamCreateFlagFileEvents);
FSEventStreamScheduleWithRunLoop(stream, CFRunLoopGetCurrent(), kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);
FSEventStreamStart(stream);
CFRelease(pathToWatchCF);
// Read the folder content to protect any unprotected or pending file
ReadFolderContent();
}
bool OSXWatcher::Stop()
{
FSEventStreamStop(stream);
FSEventStreamInvalidate(stream);
FSEventStreamRelease(stream);
}
void OSXWatcher::fileSystemEventCallback(ConstFSEventStreamRef /*streamRef*/, void *clientCallBackInfo, size_t numEvents, void *eventPaths, const FSEventStreamEventFlags eventFlags[], const FSEventStreamEventId eventIds[])
{
char **paths = (char **)eventPaths;
for (size_t i=0; i<numEvents; i++) {
// When a file is created we receive first a kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemCreated and second a (kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemCreated & kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemModified)
// when the file is finally copied. Catch this second event.
if (eventFlags[i] & kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemCreated
&& eventFlags[i] & kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemModified
&& !(eventFlags[i] & kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemIsDir)
&& !(eventFlags[i] & kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemIsSymlink)
&& !(eventFlags[i] & kFSEventStreamEventFlagItemFinderInfoMod)) {
OSXWatcher *watcher = (OSXWatcher *)clientCallBackInfo;
if (watcher->FileValidator(paths[i]))
emit watcher->yourSignalHere();
}
}
}
I have the same problem but with folder. When you copy many files to the folder too many singals are emitted but I need only one. So I have the following solution:
void folderChanged(const QString& folder)
{
m_pTimerForChanges->start();
}
folderChanged is a slot for directoryChanged() signal. And timer has another connection for timeout, so when time is out then processing should be done. Timer has 1s interval. Idea behind it is that folder should not be updated more frequent than interval I have and if it sends signals more frequently than I need then I don't need to process them immediately. Rather I restart timer every time the signal is emmited and with all of it I have the only one processing of changes. I think you can apply the same approach.
Another approach which may work for you also is to check file modification date in your processing and if its current modification date is within some epsilon(small interval) with your last modification date then you have repeating signal and should not react on it. Store this modification date and proceed.

fill database table in wxListCtrl using wxThread- i can fill but system is going to hang

Firstly i make a program for showing table in wxListCtrl, it worked but for limited amount of data..
it shows a problem like:-
when i execute the program . frame do the visible after some time... but it works
then i turns to use wxThread now everthing is going fine, now when i execute the program frame immediately visible because i write Sleep(1000), so it add a line in wxListCtrl one by one , but it is giving unexpected result depend upon how many rows are in database..
my code is:-
# include "thread.h"
# include "login.h"
# include "sql.h"
# include <mysql.h>
class List_Ctrl_Data;
MyThread :: MyThread(login* login_obj)
{
this->temp = login_obj;
}
void *MyThread :: Entry()
{
int i=1,j,k=0 ;
while(i!=100)
{
long index=this->temp->data_list_control->InsertItem(i,wxT("amit"));
for(j=1;j<3;j++)
{
this->temp->data_list_control->SetItem(index,j,wxT("pathak"));
}
k++;
if(k==1)
{
k=10;
this->Sleep(1000);
}
i++;
}
}
here data_list_control is the object of wxListCtrl , with the help of thread i m filling value inside the wxListCtrl.
some people advised me that here u r knocking frame control( wxListCtrl) again and again from thread entry ,
thats why frame getting hanged you should use wxPost or AddPendingRequest for this, i dont think that it would work,
i tried to explain you my prob, still u feel to ask anything , u r welcome.. if you will help me, it would be a lot for me
The problems you are seeing are likely due to the fact that you are calling methods on a GUI control from a secondary thread rather than the main thread. This should never be done. You need to add the items from the main thread.
I'm guessing one of the reasons you have attempted to do this from a secondary thread is because it takes too long to add large number of items, and it's hanging your user interface. The correct approach is either to use a virtual list control (as noted in the "duplicate" question #Erik mentioned), or to periodically call wxYield (or wxSafeYield) while adding items so that UI events are processed.
********************************SOLUTION IS HERE******************
i used the code in thread like[ it get a row from database and pass to event]
void *MyThread :: Entry()
{
List_Ctrl_Data obj1 ;
MYSQL_RES *database_table_data;
database_table_data=obj1.getdata();
MYSQL_ROW row;
while((row=mysql_fetch_row(database_table_data))!=NULL)
{
wxCommandEvent event( wxEVT_COMMAND_TEXT_UPDATED, 100000 );
void *row_data;
row_data=(void *)row;
event.SetClientData(row_data);
temp->GetEventHandler()->AddPendingEvent( event );
this->Sleep(1000);
}
}
and for handling this we create a event table and a function to handle this value-
void onNumberUpdate(wxCommandEvent& evt);
private:
DECLARE_EVENT_TABLE()
in header file and in cpp file we write
void login::onNumberUpdate(wxCommandEvent& evt)
{
int i=0,j;
void* hold_row;
hold_row=(void *)evt.GetClientData();
MYSQL_ROW row;
row=(MYSQL_ROW)hold_row;
//while(row!=NULL)
//{
//wxPuts(wxT("kjhjkh"));
const char* chars1 = row[0];
wxString mystring1(chars1, wxConvUTF8);
long index=data_list_control->InsertItem(this->counter,mystring1);
this->counter++;
for(j=1;j<3;j++)
{
const char* chars2=row[j];
wxString mystring2(chars2,wxConvUTF8);
data_list_control->SetItem(index,j,mystring2);
}
//}
}
BEGIN_EVENT_TABLE(login, wxFrame)
EVT_COMMAND (100000, wxEVT_COMMAND_TEXT_UPDATED, login::onNumberUpdate)
END_EVENT_TABLE()
and finally i got the solution of my problem//////
www.rohitworld.site90.net OR ROHITAMITPATHAK#GMAIL.COM

Mac event tap just delays discarded events

I'm trying to write some code that discards all keyboard and mouse events when enabled on Mac OSX 10.6. My code runs as the root user. The approach I'm taking is to create an event tap that discards all events passed to it (while enabled). The event tap callback function looks like this:
CGEventRef MyTapCallback(CGEventTapProxy proxy,
CGEventType type,
CGEventRef event,
void *refcon)
{
return CKeyLocker::isEnabled() ? NULL : event;
}
And the code I'm using to enable and disable the event tap looks like this:
void CKeyLocker::enable(bool bEnable)
{
if (bEnable == m_bEnabled)
return;
if (bEnable)
{
// which events are we interested in?
CGEventMask evMask = kCGEventMaskForAllEvents;
CFMachPortRef mp = CGEventTapCreate(kCGHIDEventTap,
kCGHeadInsertEventTap,
kCGEventTapOptionDefault,
evMask,
MyTapCallback,
NULL);
if (mp)
{
qDebug() << "Tap created and active. mp =" << mp;
m_enabledTap = mp;
m_bEnabled = true;
}
}
else
{
CGEventTapEnable(m_enabledTap, false);
CFRelease(m_enabledTap);
m_enabledTap =0;
m_bEnabled = false;
qDebug() << "Tap destroyed and inactive";
}
}
This approach works very well while the event tap is active - I can hammer on the keyboard and mouse as much as I want and no events make it through the system. However, when the tap is disabled all the keys I pushed while the tap was active appear in the current window. It's like the event tap is just delaying the events, rather than destroying them, which is odd, since the Mac documentation clearly states:
If the event tap is an active filter, your callback function should return one of the following:
The (possibly modified) event that is passed in. This event is passed back to the event system.
A newly-constructed event. After the new event has been passed back to the event system, the new event will be released along with the original event.
NULL if the event passed in is to be deleted.
I'm returning NULL, but the event doesn't seem to be deleted. Any ideas?
The linked comment does not have an answer from what I see, so I'll dump some info from what I've seen when poking around with this stuff.
First, I have much better luck with CGEventTapCreateForPSN. It's as if the system gives you some leeway for restricting your tap. However, from this example it looks like this is not sufficient.
Next up - and this /may/ be all you need... In your call back, you probably want (and may need) to check for the following events:
switch (type)
{
case kCGEventTapDisabledByTimeout:
case kCGEventTapDisabledByUserInput:
{
CFMachPortRef *pTap = (CFMachPortRef*)refcon;
CGEventTapEnable( *pTap, true );
return NULL;
}
default:
break;
}
Regardless of what the various documentation does or doesn't say, it's been my observation that the OS feels like it's 'probing' for bad callbacks; basically disabling event tap callbacks that are universally eating events. If you re-register in these cases the OS seems to be ok with it, as if saying: OK, you seem to know what you're doing, but I'll probably poke you again in a bit to make sure.
It's really strange, we use event taps for the same purpose (input blocking in a given scenario) and works perfectly 10.4 - 10.8.2. excpet one thing, it should not block or receive events from a password dialog (which is not a big surprise)
What I can see now is different compared to you sample is:
we use kCGTailAppendEventTap instead of kCGHeadInsertEventTap (this should not matter)
we do some event logging in the installed callback
we have some user event data in some self injected events, that filtered out, but apart from this we simply return NULL to drop an unwanted event (like you do), I can confirm, not all events are ignorable!
we turn on/off the event tap this way:
bool SetInputFilter(bool bOn)
{
bool result = false;
CFRunLoopRef runLoopRef = CFRunLoopGetMain();
if (bOn) {
// Create an event tap.
CGEventMask eventMask = kCGEventMaskForAllEvents;
if ((m_eventTapInput = CGEventTapCreate(kCGHIDEventTap,
kCGTailAppendEventTap,
kCGEventTapOptionDefault,
eventMask, CGInputEventCallback, this)) == NULL) {
Log(L"Failed to create event tap");
return result;
}
// Create a run loop source.
m_runLoopEventTapSource = CFMachPortCreateRunLoopSource(kCFAllocatorDefault, m_eventTapInput, 0);
CFRelease(m_eventTapInput); // CFMachPortCreateRunLoopSource retains m_eventTapInput
if (m_runLoopEventTapSource == NULL) {
Log(L"Failed to create run loop source for event tap");
return result;
}
// Add to the current run loop.
CFRunLoopAddSource(runLoopRef, m_runLoopEventTapSource, kCFRunLoopCommonModes);//kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);
CFRelease(m_runLoopEventTapSource); // CFRunLoopAddSource retains m_runLoopEventTapSource
result = true;
}
else {
// Disable the event tap.
if (m_eventTapInput)
CGEventTapEnable(m_eventTapInput, false);
// Remove our run loop source from the current run loop.
if (runLoopRef && m_runLoopEventTapSource) {
CFRunLoopRemoveSource(runLoopRef, m_runLoopEventTapSource, kCFRunLoopCommonModes);//kCFRunLoopDefaultMode);
m_runLoopEventTapSource = NULL; // removing m_runLoopEventTapSource releases last reference of m_runLoopEventTapSource too
m_eventTapInput = NULL; // removing m_runLoopEventTapSource releases last reference of m_eventTapInput too
}
}
return result;
}
I can verify that returning NULL does effectively delete some events, but i have also seen times when it does not, exactly how it decides what deletions to permit is unclear but it looks like mass deletions seem to be prevented e.g.: when you delete more than 100 events or so in a row.