|
The best advice I ever received on commenting was this:
"If you can say it in code, do so. Otherwise, say it in a comment." - Dan Saks, secretary of the ANSI C++ Standard committee
In other words, you should write your code to be as readable as possible. The more readable your code is, the less commenting you should need to do to explain it.
There are all sorts of things you do to make your code readable:
- Have a naming convention. Define the convention so that you can look at a variable name and tell important things about the name without looking up its definition.
- Use descriptive names. Names like ClassX, ClassQ23, don't tell you anything about what they do. Names like BuyerClass, SellerClass, KernelWaitForCrash() tell you what they are about.
- Use a consistent style: Place braces, parentheses, etc. consistently.
- Code conservatively. For example, just because you can override the multiplication operator for two strings doesn't mean you should do so.
- If you work with other people, sit down at the start of a project and agree on how you're going to do these things.
Software Zen: delete this;
|
|
|
|
|
Okay. Thanks everyone.
After reading many responses, I will sum commenting techniques I believe are essential and has been or will adopt.
// I have began adopting this convention in all my projects after
// learning MFC via Jeff Prosise a year ago.
- Use descriptive function and variable names (Ranjan Banerji, Gary R. Wheeler, and alnite agree)
Example: MoveCityMapRight()
DeleteCityMapPointer()
PaintCityMapBottomSection()
defaultCityMap
newCityMap
cityMapTopSection
cityMapCenterPoint
- Write comments while coding (by Ranjan Banerji)
This is a very useful commenting technique. I will definitey adopt this technique in that I add concise
comments on algorithms and code I believe are essential as I type them. Key word is "concise."
// This technique is basic, but I bet more programmers choose to write general comments over this technique.
- Write comments on *why* you chose an algorithm (by Michael P Butler)
I agree with Butler on this commenting technique. A piece of code might contain 1000 lines with 500 lines of comments.
Nonetheless, they are meaningless unless the reader understand the fundamention of the algorithm and why it was used.
Write a whore analysis of the algorithm.
- Elegant design, good and clear code top priority list (by whoie)
This is software design and implementation wisdom!
Kuphryn
|
|
|
|
|
In our organisation we use http://www.doxygen.org/ style comments. The rule is that a code not documented with doxygen style is not accepted in production software.
It doesn't mean that each member/function must be documented, but all the key ones must be.
loic
|
|
|
|
|
I am having a problem that I can't seem to figure out. I wrote a COM server that does file i/o in c++. When I tested my code outside the COM server as a standalone app, it correctly performed all file i/o. However, when the same code is packaged inside a COM server, even though I specify an absolute path: C:\my_file.txt, in an fopen() call, it writes to a file that is in the same folder as the VB client executable.
It wouldn't be such a problem, except now I want to call the code in IIS4, and I have no idea where to put my files.
i've built this COM server. From within this COM Server, I called fopen to do read/write. I have two options:
(a) relative path: I expect the file to be in the same directory of the client if its a VB client. If the client is an ASP app and I am using IIS4, then it should be in the same folder as "inetinfo.exe"?? Is this understanding correct?
(b) absolute path: It doesn't matter whether the client is a VB client or an ASP application, it should be located in the directory specified: "C:\myfile.txt".
My code inside the COM server is:
FILE * pFile;
pFile = fopen ("C:\myfile.txt","wt"); //Or I can use relative path.
if (pFile!=NULL)
{
fputs ("fopen example",pFile);
fclose (pFile);
}
Note: There're two type of client:
(a) ASP application + IIS
(b) VB Client
Thanks!
norm
|
|
|
|
|
You need to use a double backslash, like "c:\\myfile.txt" otherwise your compiler don't see it as a \
- Anders
Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
|
|
|
|
|
Does anyone know how to enumerate the memory slots on the motherboard and determin the configuration of the memory installed?
I need to do this for a project I am working on and I can't find any documentation on this subject.
|
|
|
|
|
I don't think you can do this on newer systems like XP or even 98 for that matter, but I seem to recall this information is determined by the bios and stored inside the CMOS which can be accessed using crt inp() and outp() functions on port 78h I think...i'm not sure...
I could be totally off or relatively close, it's been a while since I glaced at low-level programming.
Cheers! 
"An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes in his or her field" - Niels Bohr
|
|
|
|
|
I need to find differences between two large chunks of memory where the differences themselves are fairly small.
I have downloaded GNU diff sources (Eugene Meyers?) and need to compare performance on my data with other diff-algorithms, like McIlroy-Hunt.
I have only basic knowleadge on the topic, so any webresources or book recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
/moliate
The corners of my eyes catch hasty, bloodless motion -
a mouse?
Well, certainly a peripheral of some kind.
Neil Gaiman - Cold Colours
|
|
|
|
|
This may be overkill for your needs, but check out:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/xdelta/[^]
Shog9
------
That why you have a dual processor system. One for system, one for the screen saver - Mark Nischalke on Win2k server administration
|
|
|
|
|
Looks very interesting. I've printed the article and will read it tonight.
Thanks a lot!
/moliate
|
|
|
|
|
nice discussion here[^]
The problem with a big chunk of memory is the pure size of the string.
Most diff-like programs use something other than a byte or character
as the basic string element. (e.g. a line of text is probably the most
common string element for the diff algorithm. hence the 'string' is
really only as long as the number of lines in the file.)
If you can give up the minimum # of byte changes in the two
memory blocks, you can get better performance by using some suitable
'chunk' definition to break up memory into the elements of the strings
to be passed for diff analysis.
I'm no expert on this but was implementing something similar just
recently where the diff was first calculated on our chunks, and only
if the changed regions were small, would a finer intra-chunk diff be
performed.
Be careful though, your chunk definition should have the property
that changes naturally fall within chunks, not across chunk boundaries.
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks.
My problem is mostly that the string cannot be divided into natural chunks, meaning that the insertion of a single byte could impose a lot of extra processing.
I'll look more closely at the PERL code for the LCS. It seems to have some memory improvements over full table LCS, which is very nice when working with strings of 100kb each.
Cheers
/moliate
The corners of my eyes catch hasty, bloodless motion -
a mouse?
Well, certainly a peripheral of some kind.
Neil Gaiman - Cold Colours
|
|
|
|
|
hiya i want to extract a dialog box i have made with Insert->Resource and use it in a completely different program or programs.
is there a way of doing this??
thanks
grahamoj.
|
|
|
|
|
You need to manually copy it's template from the .rc file and copy into the new ones. All items in it will have a name, they will have to be manually added with new values into the list of resource ID's, and the value at the bottom of the file for next available ID will also need to be incremented.
Christian
No offense, but I don't really want to encourage the creation of another VB developer. - Larry Antram 22 Oct 2002
Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002
Again, you can screw up a C/C++ program just as easily as a VB program. OK, maybe not as easily, but it's certainly doable. - Jamie Nordmeyer - 15-Nov-2002
|
|
|
|
|
thanks for that, but thats what i actually thought of already, but my problem is that the .rc file is completely empty.
i created the dialog from Insert->Resource ( and added what i wanted in it from the floating menu - e.g edit boxes etc.) but it didn't add any code to the .rc file. which as i say is completely blank. 
any ideas??
thanks grahamoj.
|
|
|
|
|
It's a mystery to me how this is possible, sorry. I dunno where else VC would store the dialog box.
Christian
No offense, but I don't really want to encourage the creation of another VB developer. - Larry Antram 22 Oct 2002
Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002
Again, you can screw up a C/C++ program just as easily as a VB program. OK, maybe not as easily, but it's certainly doable. - Jamie Nordmeyer - 15-Nov-2002
|
|
|
|
|
i thought i could extract like a icon or something..
does anyone else know how to extract the actual dialog form??
thanks
grahamoj.
|
|
|
|
|
I'm working on an application in which I need the user to be able to select a folder path on their computer without selecting a file. This path could then be used for outputting multiple files to the same user-specified location.
Does MSVC++ include a dialog class appropriate for selecting a folder?
|
|
|
|
|
Look up SHBrowseForFolder[^] on MSDN but I'm sure you'll find nicer implementations here on CP.
Regards,
Alvaro
Well done is better than well said. -- Benjamin Franklin
(I actually prefer medium-well.)
|
|
|
|
|
I see! Hmm... that should work.
Okay, so if I do it like this...
BROWSEINFO info;<br />
LPITEMIDLIST pList;<br />
char buffer[MAX_PATH];<br />
<br />
info.hwndOwner = GetSafeHwnd();<br />
info.pidlRoot = NULL;<br />
info.pszDisplayName = buffer;<br />
info.lpszTitle = "Select Output Folder";<br />
info.ulFlags = BIF_EDITBOX | BIF_VALIDATE | BIF_STATUSTEXT;<br />
info.lpfn = NULL;<br />
<br />
pList = SHBrowseForFolder(&info);<br />
if(pList == NULL) return;
How do I get the selected path out of the ITEMIDLIST and into a char * or CString?
|
|
|
|
|
char szPath[MAX_PATH];<br />
SHGetPathFromIDList(pList, szPath);
Regards,
Alvaro
Well done is better than well said. -- Benjamin Franklin
(I actually prefer medium-well.)
|
|
|
|
|
I think that might be the last piece of the puzzle I needed to complete my application. Thank you, Alvaro. I appreciate your help very much!
|
|
|
|
|
Howdy,
I'm working on a project that includes a windows client program. I did a prototype that was basically an MFC SDI application that hosted IE with CHtmlview. I displayed HTML pages with controls, and processed the POST results. I also had some functionality in the toolbar and menus.
It really worked well and I was happy with it. I demoed it to the PHB's and they liked it, but thought the "square" MFC window was "dull and boring".
They now want me to keep the same web browser based GUI, but instead of hosting IE in a "boring" MFC window, they want it inside of a sexy bitmap of arbitary shape.
They want something"theme-able" like Winamp, so that an artist can draw the GUI and I can add the fuctionality. One of them really likes the Roxio CD burner GUI as an example. They need this client to be fairly small, they don't want to do it in Macromedia Flash if we can do it C++.
I'm sure there is a C++ application framework out there that supports themes. Can any of ya'll post a pointer or a suggestion?
thanks
Jim
|
|
|
|
|
If you search for 'skinnable' on CP, there is an example, although not with windows of arbitrary shape. I've not used it so I dunno how good it is.
Christian
No offense, but I don't really want to encourage the creation of another VB developer. - Larry Antram 22 Oct 2002
Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002
Again, you can screw up a C/C++ program just as easily as a VB program. OK, maybe not as easily, but it's certainly doable. - Jamie Nordmeyer - 15-Nov-2002
|
|
|
|
|
Hello,
This maybe a vague question but I figure I'll ask it anyway.. I have a UI thread that gets spawned from my app.. when I close the app I see a memory leak and it points to this...
IMPLEMENT_DYNCREATE(CConnectThread, CWinThread) <--------
Why is that? I close the UI thread from with in it's self by issuing a AfxEndThread(0,TRUE);
Weird.. any ideas?
Rob
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
