LUA, something like pointer to variable - pointers

I have function who send data via UART- they need one byte for data and address to store in target device. I cannot call this function direct, so I have function who place this data to queue. Now I want to check that data are write by uart correct so I think that the best way is read it direct after send and use pointer to variable instead variable. Problem is that LUA not suport pointer like in C because here everything is a pointer (if I understand good). So, how to give function in LUA "pointer" and read/write variable by thier address in memory?

Tables are Lua's reference type (apart from userdata, which can not be used well from pure Lua - you need a C part to make use of it). You can trivially implement "pointers" using tables {value = ...}:
local function work_with_pointer(pointer)
pointer.value = 42
end
local pointer = {value = 33}
work_with_pointer(pointer)
print(pointer.value) -- 42
That said, this is not very idiomatic Lua in its current state - ideally you'd return the changed value instead - but for a more complex "pointer" (table) it might be; in this case, simply using an upvalue would suffice as well:
local value = 33
local function work_with_upvalue()
value = 42
end
work_with_upvalue()
print(value) -- 42
this has the limitation that it requires the function to be in the lexical scope of the variable however.

Related

Does Kotlin have pointers?

Does Kotlin have pointers?
If yes,
How to increment a Pointer?
How to decrement a Pointer?
How to do Pointer Comparisons?
It has references, and it doesn't support pointer arithmetic (so you can't increment or decrement).
Note that the only thing that "having pointers" allows you is the ability to create a pointer and to dereference it.
The closest thing to a "pointer comparison" is referential equality, which is performed with the === operator.
There is no pointers in Kotlin for low-level processing as C.
However, it's possible emulate pointers in high-level programming.
For low-level programming it is necessary using special system APIs to simulate arrays in memories, that exists in Windows, Linux, etc. Read about memory mapped files here and here. Java has library to read and write directly in memory.
Single types (numeric, string and boolean) are values, however, other types are references (high level pointers) in Kotlin, that one can compare, assign, etc.
If one needs increment or decrement pointers, just encapsulate the desired data package into a array
For simulate pointers to simple values it just wrap the value in a class:
data class pStr ( // Pointer to a String
var s:String=""
)
fun main() {
var st=pStr("banana")
var tt=st
tt.s = "melon"
println(st.s) // display "melon"
var s:String = "banana"
var t:String = s
t.s = "melon"
println(s.s) // display "banana"
}
I found this question while googling over some interesting code I found and thought that I would contribute my own proverbial "two cents". So Kotlin does have an operator which might be confused as a pointer, based on syntax, the spread operator. The spread operator is often used to pass an array as a vararg parameter.
For example, one might see something like the following line of code which looks suspiciously like the use of a pointer:
val process = ProcessBuilder(*args.toTypedArray()).start()
This line isn't calling the toTypedArray() method on a pointer to the args array, as you might expect if you come from a C/C++ background like me. Rather, this code is actually just calling the toTypedArray() method on the args array (as one would expect) and then passing the elements of the array as an arbitrary number of varargs arguments. Without the spread operator (i.e. *), a single argument would be passed, which would be the typed args array, itself.
That's the key difference: the spread operator enables the developer to pass the elements of the array as a list of varargs as opposed to passing a pointer to the array, itself, as a single argument.
I hope that helps.

Extending a Variable's Lifetime

To be fair, I cannot be entirely sure the title correctly describes the problem I am having, as it merely mirrors my current understanding of Ada as it is.
The Problem
I have a function:
function Make_Option (Title : String) return Access_Option is
O : aliased Option := (
Title_Len => Title'Length,
Title => Title);
begin -- Make_Option
return O'Unrestricted_Access;
end Make_Option;
This function is supposed to create a new menu option for the user, that may in turn be inserted into a menu (one that you might see in a terminal-based environment). You are all probably sighing, as quite evidently, the O variable would be deallocated at the end of this function (from my current understanding). As such, using the Unrestricted_Access here is just plain stupidity, but it mirrors the result of what it is I am trying to accomplish (as this code indeed does compile successfully).
The Access_Option is defined as following:
type Access_Option is access all Option;
The idea is that with an access to the option, which in turn is a discriminated record, is that we can store it within an array-like structure (as the object itself varies in size).
Beyond doubt, it would be nice if we could instead use the Access attribute for this, as the compiler would then make sure the lifetime is long enough of the O variable we are referencing, but as the lifetime as a matter of fact only exists til the end of the Make_Option function, we are presented with the following:
non-local pointer cannot point to local object
What I am then asking, is: how would I go about having a function to create Access_Options for me? Is such a thing even possible, or am I doing it all wrong? To clarify, what I am trying to do is create a neat way for filling an array with references to discriminated records, that I can then dereference and use.
Thought Process
I personally have not tried too many things, more than think about solutions that may be plausible for the problem. And, frankly, rather than going crazy of working makeshift solutions, it would be nice to have a solution that works for large-scale applications too, without messing up the code base to bad.
Would you perhaps have some sort of object queue to handle it? Does Ada even deallocate resources automatically in the first place? Gah. I am confused.
Would it, in fact, be possible to somehow place the O variable outside of the scope for deallocation to then manually deallocate it later?
Given the example you show above a much simpler approach is to simply make an array of Unbounded_String:
with Ada.Strings.Unbounded; use Ada.Strings.Unbounded;
with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_Io;
procedure Str_Arrays is
type Arr is array(1..10) of Unbounded_String;
A : Arr;
begin
for S of A loop
S := To_Unbounded_String("Hello World!");
end loop;
for S of A loop
Put_Line(To_String(S));
end loop;
end Str_arrays;
Don't try that.
There are two alternative options:
1) Use Ada.Containers.Indefinite_Vectors instead of a plain array.
2) Give your record discriminant a default value. Then you can store it in a plain array.
You seem to be reinventing the bounded string. Alternatives include
Using an instantiation of Ada.Strings.Bounded.Generic_Bounded_Length
Using Ada.Strings.Unbounded
Using an indefinite container (Ada.Containers.Indefinite_*) to hold type String

Pointers sent to function

I have following code in main():
msgs, err := ch.Consume(
q.Name, // queue
//..
)
cache := ttlru.New(100, ttlru.WithTTL(5 * time.Minute)) //Cache type
//log.Println(reflect.TypeOf(msgs)) 'chan amqp.Delivery'
go func() {
//here I use `cache` and `msgs` as closures. And it works fine.
}
I decided to create separate function for instead of anonymous.
I declared it as func hitCache(cache *ttlru.Cache, msgs *chan amqp.Delivery) {
I get compile exception:
./go_server.go:61: cannot use cache (type ttlru.Cache) as type *ttlru.Cache in argument to hitCache:
*ttlru.Cache is pointer to interface, not interface
./go_server.go:61: cannot use msgs (type <-chan amqp.Delivery) as type *chan amqp.Delivery in argument to hitCache
Question: How should I pass msg and cache into the new function?
Well, if the receiving variable or a function parameter expects a value
of type *T — that is, "a pointer to T",
and you have a variable of type T, to get a pointer to it,
you have to get the address of that variable.
That's because "a pointer" is a value holding an address.
The address-taking operator in Go is &, so you need something like
hitCache(&cache, &msgs)
But note that some types have so-called "reference semantics".
That is, values of them keep references to some "hidden" data structure.
That means when you copy such values, you're copying references which all reference the same data structure.
In Go, the built-in types maps, slices and channels have reference semantics,
and hence you almost never need to pass around pointers to the values of such types (well, sometimes it can be useful but not now).
Interfaces can be thought of to have reference semantics, too (let's not for now digress into discussing this) because each value of any interface type contains two pointers.
So, in your case it's better to merely not declare the formal parameters of your function as pointers — declare them as "plain" types and be done with it.
All in all, you should definitely complete some basic resource on Go which explains these basic matters in more detail and more extensively.
You're using pointers in the function signature but not passing pointers - which is fine; as noted in the comments, there is no reason to use pointers for interface or channel values. Just change the function signature to:
hitCache(cache ttlru.Cache, msgs chan amqp.Delivery)
And it should work fine.
Pointers to interfaces are nearly never used. You may simplify things and use interfaces of pass by value.

cgo pointer value changed

I made bindings to a C api (bullet physics engine) using cgo, some functions make use of data pointers. The idea is that I can attach a pointer to an object and retrieve it later when the physics engine invokes a callback. My problem is that when i get the value back, it change and I didn't do it. It seems that no source code is explicitelly changing the value.
CollisionObject: source, header,
The go codes that interracts with that class
heres how i send the values, the reconversion to *int and int is fine, the correct numbers are printed:
num := x*amounty*amountz + y*amountz + z + 1
ptr := unsafe.Pointer(&num)
fmt.Printf("created %v %v\n", ptr, *(*int)(ptr))
rb := sphere.RigidBody(ptr, 1)
But when I get it back from a raytest the value changed:
ptr := hit.GetUserPointer()
log.Printf("we got back: %v %v", ptr, *(*int)(ptr))
the pointer value itself didnt change, i can look up and see that there was a pointer pointing to this location, but the value its pointing at is different.
Now i'm wondering if maybe go didn't clean the value (garbage collected) since it wouldn't be used anymore and replaced this memory location with something else.
example output (with junk values removed):
created: 0xc2080006e0 40
2014/11/07 17:10:01 we got back: 0xc2080006e0 4921947622888946315
ANY pointer (hehe) is appreciated :)
Go's garbage collector doesn't know about the pointers held by C or C++ code, so there is nothing to keep the num variable alive.
You can work around this by storing a second copy of the pointer in a Go variable. One way is to use a global variable with a type like map[*C.some_c_type]*int or similar, and store &num there too. Remember to protect the map with a mutex so things behave correctly when you have concurrent access.
In order not to leak, you will need to manually delete &num from the map when the underlying C code is no longer holding a reference to it. If the C library provides the ability to set a destroy notify function when storing the user pointer, this will be easy: just export a Go function to C and use it as the notify function. If it doesn't, but the Go binding knows when the the pointer will be finished with (e.g. if the RigidBody variable is always freed via the Go API, you can do the clean up there.

Ada Actual for this must be a variable in out mode

I am making a program in Ada for Data Structures and Algorithms class.
My current problem is the error 'actual for "this" must be a variable'
I did some looking around and I read about it being because of in out mode, but I'm not entirely grasping why it's happening to me I guess.
The Examples I seen made sense but I guess since it's my coding I'm just not seeing it?
Procedure AddUnmarked(g:Grid; this:Linked_List_Coord.List_Type; c:Cell) is
cNorth : Cell := getCell(g, North(c));
cEast : Cell := getCell(g, East(c));
cSouth : Cell := getCell(g, South(c));
cWest : Cell := getCell(g, West(c));
Begin
if CellExists(g, cNorth) and not cNorth.IsMarked then
Linked_List_Coord.Append(this, cNorth.Coords);
elsif CellExists(g, cEast) and not cEast.IsMarked then
Linked_List_Coord.Append(this, cEast.Coords);
elsif CellExists(g, cSouth) and not cSouth.IsMarked then
Linked_List_Coord.Append(this, cSouth.Coords);
elsif CellExists(g, cWest) and not cWest.IsMarked then
Linked_List_Coord.Append(this, cWest.Coords);
end if;
End AddUnmarked;
before "this" is passed to the function it is a Linked_List of my self defined type Coord (2 integers). It is initialized and has had a Coordinate pair added to it before the list is passed to the function above in my code.
What it means is that the list cannot be modified unless you are passing it as a modifiable parameter, that is, in out.
To elaborate, think of LIST_TYPE as being a handle to a tagged-type object; in order to ensure that LIST_TYPE is valid you need to pass it in via an in parameter (or create/manipulate a local object), but to pass out your results you need an out parameter.
So, in order to do your operations on an already-existing object {and get the results back} you need in out.
In Ada, subroutine parameters all have a usage mode associated with them. The available modes are in, out, and in out*. If you don't specify a mode, (like you didn't in your code), then it defaults to in only.
The modes specify what you can do with that parameter on the inside of the subprogram. If you want to read a value passed in from outside the routine, it must have in on it. If you want to write to the parameter (and/or possibly have it read outside the routine), then it must have out on it.
Since none of your parameters have out on them, you cannot write to any of them.
(* - There's another possible mode: access, but that's an advanced topic).

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