C/C++ Allegro program wont run - c++

wont load my picture
my default error message which is"error loading picture.bmp" pops up every time and wont run
#include "allegro.h"
int main(void)
{
char*filename="picture.bmp";
BITMAP*image;
int ret;
allegro_init();
install_keyboard();
set_color_depth(32);
ret=set_gfx_mode(GFX_AUTODETECT_WINDOWED,640,480,0,0);
if(ret!=0)
{
allegro_message(allegro_error);
return 1;
}
image=load_bitmap(filename,NULL);
if(!image)
{
allegro_message("error loading %s",filename);
return 1;
}
blit(image,screen,0,0,0,0,SCREEN_W,SCREEN_H);
destroy_bitmap(image);
textprintf_ex(screen,font,0,0,1,-1,"%dx%d",SCREEN_W,SCREEN_H);
while(!keypressed());
allegro_exit();
return 0;
}
END_OF_MAIN()

You're going to need to provide some more information...
What platform are you using? (MS Visual C++? Linux? Mac?...)
Which version of Allegro? (I'm guessing 4.x)
Assuming your question is, "How do I get my Allegro program to display my bitmap as intended," try to
Make sure the resulting executable file and picture.bmp are in the same directory. My guess is you are using some type of Microsoft IDE on Windows and you are trying to run the program from within the IDE (like via the debug menu or pressing F5) The resulting executable is put in a special output directory. It can't find your picture.bmp file.
Alternatively, you can try providing the full path to your picture.bmp file. You should only use this method to see if this is indeed the problem, though.

I believe your program might not be able to locate the bitmap image you are attempting to load. Try inserting the exact path to your bitmap in your code.
For example:
char*filename="C:\My Documents\Pictures\picture.bmp";

Related

Running the command line dot program from a Qt application generates no output, what is wrong?

I have an app that generates a dependencies.dot file which I then want to convert to an SVG image.
When I do that from a simple application like so:
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
{
system("dot -Tsvg ../BUILD/dependencies.dot > ../BUILD/dependencies.svg");
return 0;
}
It works great. The SVG image is present and working.
When I instead run it from my Qt application, the SVG file is created (by the shell), but it remains empty.
Any idea what could prevent dot from outputting data to its stdout?
Just in case, I also tried a cat to send the input through stdin instead of a filename:
system("cat ../BUILD/dependencies.dot | dot -Tsvg > ../BUILD/dependencies.svg");
And that didn't make any differences.
Also using the full path (/usr/bin/dot) did not help either.
Another test, I tried to use popen() and the first fread() immediately returns 0 (i.e. the mark of EOF).
It may not be Qt, but something is interacting with dot's ability to do anything. Any pointers on why that is would be wonderful.
Maybe an important note? I start my app. from a console, so stdin, stdout and stderr should all work as expected. I actually can see debug logs appearing there and other apps seem to work just as expected (i.e. My Qt app. can successfully run make, for example).
Here is an example of the resulting SVG (when I don't run it from within my Qt app):
For reference, the source code can be found on github. This is part of the snapbuilder. A tool that I use to run a build on launchpad. It's still incomplete, but it's getting there.
https://github.com/m2osw/snapcpp/tree/master/snapbuilder
The specific function to look for: project::generate_svg().
I still have no clue what side effect Qt has on system() that the dot command would fail. However, if using my own fork() + execve(), then it works.
I wanted a new process class for my environment, so I implemented that. This newer version is using FIFOs or directly opening closing files that it passes to the process.
...
// write the script in `std::stringstream dot` then:
//
std::string script(dot.str());
g_dot_process = std::make_shared<cppprocess::process>("dependencies");
g_dot_process->set_command("/usr/bin/dot");
g_dot_process->add_argument("-Tsvg");
g_dot_process->add_input(cppprocess::buffer_t(script.data(),
script.data() + script.length()));
g_dot_process->set_capture_output();
g_dot_process->set_output_capture_done(output_captured);
g_dot_process->start(); // TODO: check return value for errors
...
// and in output_captured()
//
void snap_builder::svg_ready(std::string const & svg)
{
std::string const svg_filename(...);
{
std::ofstream out;
out.open(svg_filename);
if(!out.is_open())
{
std::cerr << "error: \n";
return;
}
out.write(svg.c_str(), svg.size());
}
dependency_tree->load(QString::fromUtf8(svg_filename.c_str()));
}
Now the dot file is generated and displayed as expected.
This is rather strange since most everything else I've done with a simple system() call works as expected. There must be something about stdin or stdout that makes dot not do its work.

Trying to display a text through CMD with C++ and I am presented with a error [duplicate]

This is a probably an embarasing question as no doubt the answer is blindingly obvious.
I've used Visual Studio for years, but this is the first time I've done any 'Console Application' development.
When I run my application the console window pops up, the program output appears and then the window closes as the application exits.
Is there a way to either keep it open until I have checked the output, or view the results after the window has closed?
If you run without debugging (Ctrl+F5) then by default it prompts your to press return to close the window. If you want to use the debugger, you should put a breakpoint on the last line.
Right click on your project
Properties > Configuration Properties > Linker > System
Select Console (/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE) in SubSystem option or you can just type Console in the text field!
Now try it...it should work
Starting from Visual Studio 2017 (15.9.4) there is an option:
Tools->Options->Debugging->Automatically close the console
The corresponding fragment from the Visual Studio documentation:
Automatically close the console when debugging stops:
Tells Visual Studio to close the console at the end of a debugging session.
Here is a way for C/C++:
#include <stdlib.h>
#ifdef _WIN32
#define WINPAUSE system("pause")
#endif
Put this at the top of your program, and IF it is on a Windows system (#ifdef _WIN32), then it will create a macro called WINPAUSE. Whenever you want your program to pause, call WINPAUSE; and it will pause the program, using the DOS command. For other systems like Unix/Linux, the console should not quit on program exit anyway.
Goto Debug Menu->Press StartWithoutDebugging
If you're using .NET, put Console.ReadLine() before the end of the program.
It will wait for <ENTER>.
try to call getchar() right before main() returns.
(/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE) did not worked for my vs2013 (I already had it).
"run without debugging" is not an options, since I do not want to switch between debugging and seeing output.
I ended with
int main() {
...
#if _DEBUG
LOG_INFO("end, press key to close");
getchar();
#endif // _DEBUG
return 0;
}
Solution used in qtcreator pre 2.6. Now while qt is growing, vs is going other way. As I remember, in vs2008 we did not need such tricks.
just put as your last line of code:
system("pause");
Here's a solution that (1) doesn't require any code changes or breakpoints, and (2) pauses after program termination so that you can see everything that was printed. It will pause after either F5 or Ctrl+F5. The major downside is that on VS2013 Express (as tested), it doesn't load symbols, so debugging is very restricted.
Create a batch file. I called mine runthenpause.bat, with the following contents:
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
pause
The first line will run whatever command you provide and up to eight arguments. The second line will... pause.
Open the project properties | Configuration properties | Debugging.
Change "Command Arguments" to $(TargetPath) (or whatever is in "Command").
Change "Command" to the full path to runthenpause.bat.
Hit OK.
Now, when you run, runthenpause.bat will launch your application, and after your application has terminated, will pause for you to see the console output.
I will post an update if I figure out how to get the symbols loaded. I tried /Z7 per this but without success.
add “| pause” in command arguments box under debugging section at project properties.
You could run your executable from a command prompt. This way you could see all the output. Or, you could do something like this:
int a = 0;
scanf("%d",&a);
return YOUR_MAIN_CODE;
and this way the window would not close until you enter data for the a variable.
Just press CNTRL + F5 to open it in an external command line window (Visual Studio does not have control over it).
If this doesn't work then add the following to the end of your code:
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit...");
Console.ReadKey();
This wait for you to press a key to close the terminal window once the code has reached the end.
If you want to do this in multiple places, put the above code in a method (e.g. private void Pause()) and call Pause() whenever a program reaches a possible end.
A somewhat better solution:
atexit([] { system("PAUSE"); });
at the beginning of your program.
Pros:
can use std::exit()
can have multiple returns from main
you can run your program under the debugger
IDE independent (+ OS independent if you use the cin.sync(); cin.ignore(); trick instead of system("pause");)
Cons:
have to modify code
won't pause on std::terminate()
will still happen in your program outside of the IDE/debugger session; you can prevent this under Windows using:
extern "C" int __stdcall IsDebuggerPresent(void);
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
if (IsDebuggerPresent())
atexit([] {system("PAUSE"); });
...
}
Either use:
cin.get();
or
system("pause");
Make sure to make either of them at the end of main() function and before the return statement.
You can also use this option
#include <conio.h>
/* run this program using the console pauser or add your own getch, system("pause") or input loop */
int main() {
.
.
.
getch();
return 0;
}
In my case, i experienced this when i created an Empty C++ project on VS 2017 community edition. You will need to set the Subsystem to "Console (/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE)" under Configuration Properties.
Go to "View" then select "Property Manager"
Right click on the project/solution and select "Property". This opens a Test property page
Navigate to the linker then select "System"
Click on "SubSystem" and a drop down appears
Choose "Console (/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE)"
Apply and save
The next time you run your code with "CTRL +F5", you should see the output.
Sometimes a simple hack that doesnt alter your setup or code can be:
Set a breakpoint with F9, then execute Debug with F5.
Since running it from VS attaches the VS debugger, you can check for an attached debugger:
if (Debugger.IsAttached)
{
Console.WriteLine("Debugger is attached. Press any key to exit.");
Console.ReadKey();
}
I guess the only caveat is that it'll still pause if you attach any other debugger, but that may even be a wanted behavior.
Use Console.ReadLine() at the end of the program. This will keep the window open until you press the Enter key. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.console.readline for details.
Visual Studio 2015, with imports. Because I hate
when code examples don't give the needed imports.
#include <iostream>;
int main()
{
getchar();
return 0;
}
Currently there is no way to do this with apps running in WSL2. However there are two work-arounds:
The debug window retains the contents of the WSL shell window that closed.
The window remains open if your application returns a non-zero return code, so you could return non-zero in debug builds for example.
It should be added that things have changed since then. On Windows 11 (probably 10, I can't check any more) the new Terminal app that now houses the various console, PowerShell and other sessions has its own settings regarding closing. Look for it in Settings > Defaults > Advanced > Profile termination behavior.
If it's set to close when a program exits with zero, then it will close, even if VS is told otherwise.
Go to Setting>Debug>Un-check close on end.

ImageMagick - Eclipse

I am writing a small program using ImageMagick in Eclipse IDE.
My program compiles and runs fine but every call of display() (method which saws an image in a pop up window) has no effect. Through command line the same calls work fine so I assume that something is going wrong with Eclipse. I appreciate any help in advance.
The Magick::Image::display method is expecting DISPLAY variable to be defined in the run-time environment. In Eclipse, under run/debug configuration, you should be able to set the environment value to whatever your X11 window manager's hostname. You can discover this value by echo-ing it out in command line.
#!/bin/sh
echo $DISPLAY
For your application, it may be wise to add error handling, or a user configuration option.
#include <cstdlib>
// ...
const char * env_display = getenv("DISPLAY");
if ( env_display == NULL ) {
// Error, or attempt to recover
}
You can also set the X11's hostname within the image object with Magick::Image::x11Display.

How do I guard against failure of cvLoad?

I am writing a program that uses OpenCV and involves intrinsic and distortion parameters. These parameters are loaded from .xml files saved on disc. I use the following commands in my opening declarations to load the files:
CvMat *intrinsic = (CvMat*)cvLoad("Intrinsics.xml");
CvMat *distortion = (CvMat*)cvLoad("Distortion.xml");
This works fine as long as the files are in the program's working directory. When they are not, the program crashes without any indication of the nature of the error. I have made the mistake of not having the xml files located correctly multiple times before, and I would like to make this easier to troubleshoot in the future.
I would like to create a guard against the files failing to load. Perhaps if they are not present my program could display an error message and exit gracefully. I saw the method suggested here, and it should work for me, but I was wondering if there was a cleaner way to do it without including another header.
For example, the OpenCV function cvQueryFrame returns 0 if it does not return a frame. I use the code
frame = cvQueryFrame(capture);
if(!frame)
{
printf("ERROR: Could not get frame from webcam.");
exit(-1);
}
to exit the program if cvQueryFrame fails to return a frame. I would like to do something similar with my matrix loading commands. Is this possible, and if so, how should I do it?
I checked the OpenCV documentation and could not find a description of cvLoad's behaviour when it cannot find the file specified so I am not sure how to proceed.
I am writing this project in C++ and running it on Windows 7.
It works. Go ahead and try it yourself:
CvMat *distortion = (CvMat*)cvLoad("Distortion.xml");
if (!distortion)
{
printf("!!! cvLoad failed");
exit(-1);
}

How to output to the console in C++/Windows

When using iostream in C++ on Linux, it displays the program output in the terminal, but in Windows, it just saves the output to a stdout.txt file. How can I, in Windows, make the output appear in the console?
Since you mentioned stdout.txt I google'd it to see what exactly would create a stdout.txt; normally, even with a Windows app, console output goes to the allocated console, or nowhere if one is not allocated.
So, assuming you are using SDL (which is the only thing that brought up stdout.txt), you should follow the advice here. Either freopen stdout and stderr with "CON", or do the other linker/compile workarounds there.
In case the link gets broken again, here is exactly what was referenced from libSDL:
How do I avoid creating stdout.txt and stderr.txt?
"I believe inside the Visual C++ project that comes with SDL there is a SDL_nostdio target > you can build which does what you want(TM)."
"If you define "NO_STDIO_REDIRECT" and recompile SDL, I think it will fix the problem." > > (Answer courtesy of Bill Kendrick)
For debugging in Visual Studio you can print to the debug console:
OutputDebugStringW(L"My output string.");
If you have a none-console Windows application, you can create a console with the AllocConsole function. Once created, you can write to it using the normal std::cout methods.
If you're using Visual Studio you need to modify the project property:
Configuration Properties -> Linker -> System -> SubSystem.
This should be set to: Console (/SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE)
Also you should change your WinMain to be this signature:
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
//...
return 0;
}
The AllocConsole Windows API function will create a console window for your application.
If you're using Visual Studio, it should work just fine!
Here's a code example:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int main (int) {
cout << "This will print to the console!" << endl;
}
Make sure you chose a Win32 console application when creating a new project. Still you can redirect the output of your project to a file by using the console switch (>>). This will actually redirect the console pipe away from the stdout to your file. (for example, myprog.exe >> myfile.txt).
I wish I'm not mistaken!
Whether to use subsystem:console or subsystem:windows kind of depends on whether how you want to start your application:
If you use subsystem:console, then you get all of the stdout written to the terminal. The trouble is that if you start the application from the Start Menu/Desktop, you (by default) get a console appearing as well as the application window (which can look pretty ugly).
If you use subsystem:windows, you won't get stdout/stderr even if you run the application from a DOS window, Cygwin, or other terminal.
If you want the middle way which is to output to the terminal IF the application was started in a terminal, then follow the link that Luke provided in his solution (http://dslweb.nwnexus.com/~ast/dload/guicon.htm)
For reference, I ran into this problem with an application that I want to run in either normal Windows mode or batch mode (that is, as part of a script) depending on command-line switches. The whole differentiation between console and Windows applications is a bit bizarre to Unix folks!
First off, what compiler or dev environment are you using? If Visual Studio, you need to make a console application project to get console output.
Second,
std::cout << "Hello World" << std::endl;
should work in any C++ console application.
Your application must be compiled as a Windows console application.
There is a good solution
if (AllocConsole() == 0)
{
// Handle error here. Use ::GetLastError() to get the error.
}
// Redirect CRT standard input, output and error handles to the console window.
FILE * pNewStdout = nullptr;
FILE * pNewStderr = nullptr;
FILE * pNewStdin = nullptr;
::freopen_s(&pNewStdout, "CONOUT$", "w", stdout);
::freopen_s(&pNewStderr, "CONOUT$", "w", stderr);
::freopen_s(&pNewStdin, "CONIN$", "r", stdin);
// Clear the error state for all of the C++ standard streams. Attempting to accessing the streams before they refer
// to a valid target causes the stream to enter an error state. Clearing the error state will fix this problem,
// which seems to occur in newer version of Visual Studio even when the console has not been read from or written
// to yet.
std::cout.clear();
std::cerr.clear();
std::cin.clear();
std::wcout.clear();
std::wcerr.clear();
std::wcin.clear();
I assume you're using some version of Visual Studio? In windows, std::cout << "something"; should write something to a console window IF your program is setup in the project settings as a console program.
If using MinGW, add an option, -Wl,subsystem,console or -mconsole.
You don't necessarily need to make any changes to your code (nor to change the SUBSYSTEM type). If you wish, you also could simply pipe stdout and stderr to a console application (a Windows version of cat works well).