Overriding sleep method in Tank battle program - overriding

So my class is having a tank battle on Tuesday, and we were each designing logic for a tank. Our teacher designed out API and everything we'll need, and we simply must use what he gave us, however, he encouraged us to "cheat".
There is a sleep method that causes the tank to pause after doing many actions, and I was wondering how I might go about overriding this so it skips or nullifies the sleep.
void sleep(int ns) {
try {
Thread.currentThread().yield();
Thread.currentThread().sleep(ns*100);
Thread.currentThread().yield();
} catch(InterruptedException ie) {
;
}
}
Also, I was considering finding a way that my tank could not die when struck, but I had little success with that as well, there are two methods which affect this aspect of the game, which are checkDead() and kill(): (assuming dead is a boolean with value false)
void checkDead() {
if(dead) throw new Error("Tank "+id+" is Dead");
}
final void kill() {
synchronized(g) {
if(dead)
return;
log("kill()");
dead = true;
logState();
if(g.board[pos.x][pos.y]==this)
g.board[pos.x][pos.y] = null;
}
}
See, I attempted overriding them both with and without the #override, but I'm not sure why it won't hide the superclass's methods. Can anyone give me tips for any one or all of these issues?

Notice the final definition in the method? Assuming you're using Java, you'll find that that is a method that can't be overriden or extended. See Java documentation or Wikipedia for details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_(Java). Show the API that your professor created, and it might explain how damage, death, and states are changed. I'm assuming he has a service-based architecture in terms of recording (and reporting) state changes...
I'm not going to give you suggestions on how to Kobayashi Maru the exercise - it's your philosophy that defines your tactics.
But if I may make one suggestion, consider reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War, especially when attempting to game your opponents or the system.

Related

How to access a script after object has spawned?

In unity multiplayer the player prefab spawns after the scene loads, what is the best way to declare scripts that are needed and avoid the NullReferenceException error?
I'm not that familiar with multiplayer myself, but I believe this could be done through GameObject.Find("") and GetComponent.
I also stumbled across FindObjectOfType. I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for, but it doesn't hurt to post it. Good luck.
Instead of letting a script look for when the prefabs have spawned why not letting the prefabs tell the script it has spawned?
It's really hard to give any kind of example when the use-case is not specified.
Really basic example (and since you're going to use it for networking you might have to redo this a lot so you don't trust the client too much):
class ScriptA : Monobehaviour () {
List<GameObject> prefabs;
public void AddPrefab (GameObject Prefab) {
prefabs.Add (Prefab)
}
}
class Prefab : Monobehaviour () {
void Start () {
FindObjectOfType(ScriptA).AddPrefab(gameObject);
}
}
It's not the best example but the point is, you might need to rethink the architecture

Is there a thread-safety issue in this ObjectBuilder code?

I suspect a problem with an old version of the ObjectBuilder which once was part of the WCSF Extension project and meanwhile moved into Unity. I am not sure whether I am on the right way or not so I hope someone out there has more competent thread-safety skills to explain whether this could be an issue or not.
I use this (outdated) ObjectBuilder implementation in an ASP.Net WCSF web app and rarely I can see in the logs that the ObjectBuilder is complaining that a particular property of a class cannot be injected for some reason, the problem is always that this property should never been injected at all. Property and class are changing constantly. I traced the code down to a method where a dictionary is used to hold the information whether a property is handled by the ObjectBuilder or not.
My question basically comes down to: Is there a thread-safety issue in the following code which could cause the ObjectBuilder to get inconsistent data from its dictionary?
The class which holds this code (ReflectionStrategy.cs) is created as Singleton, so all requests to my web application use this class to create its view/page objects. Its dictionary is a private field, only used in this method and declared like that:
private Dictionary<int, bool> _memberRequiresProcessingCache = new Dictionary<int, bool>();
private bool InnerMemberRequiresProcessing(IReflectionMemberInfo<TMemberInfo> member)
{
bool requires;
lock (_readLockerMrp)
{
if (!_memberRequiresProcessingCache.TryGetValue(member.MemberInfo.GetHashCode(), out requires))
{
lock (_writeLockerMrp)
{
if (!_memberRequiresProcessingCache.TryGetValue(member.MemberInfo.GetHashCode(), out requires))
{
requires = MemberRequiresProcessing(member);
_memberRequiresProcessingCache.Add(member.MemberInfo.GetHashCode(), requires);
}
}
}
}
return requires;
}
This code above is not the latest version you can find on Codeplex but I still want to know whether it might be the cause of my ObjectBuilder exceptions. While we speak I work on an update to get this old code replaced by the latest version. This is the latest implementation, unfortunately I cannot find any information why it has been changed. Might be for a bug, might be for performance...
private bool InnerMemberRequiresProcessing(IReflectionMemberInfo<TMemberInfo> member)
{
bool requires;
if (!_memberRequiresProcessingCache.TryGetValue(member.MemberInfo, out requires))
{
lock (_writeLockerMrp)
{
if (!_memberRequiresProcessingCache.TryGetValue(member.MemberInfo, out requires))
{
Dictionary<TMemberInfo, bool> tempMemberRequiresProcessingCache =
new Dictionary<TMemberInfo, bool>(_memberRequiresProcessingCache);
requires = MemberRequiresProcessing(member);
tempMemberRequiresProcessingCache.Add(member.MemberInfo, requires);
_memberRequiresProcessingCache = tempMemberRequiresProcessingCache;
}
}
}
return requires;
}
The use of the hash code looks problematic if you run a very large number of classes / members, as can happen with the singleton approach you mentioned.
The double lock was totally odd in the old one (Only one thread goes into the whole section in all cases). Note that locking as the first thing certainly hurts performance. It is a trade of, notice that instead they create a copy to avoid modifying the list as it is being read.

suppress events for Flex objects

[Edit]
The main question here loosely translates as 'is Flex multi-threaded'? I have since found out that it is not, so I won't have data mysteriously changing half way through an operation. The code below worked, but made things awkward and confusing. I eventually fixed the problem with an architecture change, eliminating the need to suppress events. As the first commenter suggested.
Infinite loops were eliminated by changing the way events were listened to and performing certain actions explicitly rather than via events.
Collating events was made easier using a command pattern.
Basically, do not use the code below if you come across this page!
[/Edit]
I'm building some Flex applications using a simple, lightweight MVC pattern. Models extend or encapsulate a dispatcher and fire events when updated. I'm stuck with Flex 3.5.
In some situations, I'll want to suppress these events to avoid infinite loops or help collate multiple actions into a single event.
My first stab at a solution that doesn't litter the models with unnecessary and confusing code is this:
private var _suppressEvents:Boolean = false;
public function suppressEvents(callback:Function):void
{
// In case of error, ensure the suppression is turned off, then re-throw
var err:Error = null;
_suppressEvents = true;
try
{
callback();
}
catch(e:Error)
{
err = e;
}
_suppressEvents = false;
if (err)
{
throw (err);
}
}
public function dispatch(type:String, data:*):void
{
// Suppress if called from a suppress callback.
if (!_suppressEvents)
{
_dispatcher.dispatchEvent(new DataEvent(type, data));
}
}
Obviously I call 'suppressEvents' with a function containing the model code I wish to run.
My questions:
1: Is there a chance I could accidentally lose events using this technique?
2: Do I need to think about any other error edge cases when it comes to ensuring I don't accidentally end up in a suppressed state after a call?
3: Is there a cleaner way I'm missing?
Thanks!

minimum interval for System.Threading.Timer

I need to check memory continuously for a change to notify, and I use System.Threading.Timer to achieve it. I want the notification ASAP, so I need to tun callback method quite often, and I don't want cpu to use 100% to do this.
Can anybody tell me how should I set the interval of this timer? (I think it would be good to set it minimum as possible as)
Thanks
OK, so there is a very basic strategy for how you can be immediately notified of a modification to the dictionary without incurring any necessary CPU cycles and it involves using Monitor.Wait and Monitor.Pulse/Monitor.PulseAll.
On a very basic level, you have something like this:
public Dictionary<long, CometMessage> Messages = new Dictionary<long, CometMessage>();
public void ModifyDictionary(int key, CometMessage value)
{
Messages[key] = value;
Monitor.PulseAll(Messages);
}
public void CheckChanges()
{
while(true)
{
Monitor.Wait(Messages);
// The dictionary has changed!
// TODO: Do some work!
}
}
Now, this is very rudimentary and you could get all sorts of synchronization issues (read/write), so you should look into Marc Gravell's implementation of a blocking queue and apply the same logic to your dictionary (essentially making a blocking dictionary).
Furthermore, the above example will only let you know when the dictionary is modified, but it will not inform you of WHICH element was modified. It's probably better if you take the basics from above and design your system so you know which element was last modified by perhaps storing the key (e.g. last key) and just checking the value associated with it.

ASP.NET and ThreadStatic as part of TransactionScope's implementation

I was wondering how TransactionScope class works to keep the transaction between different method calls (without the need to pass it as a parameter) and I came to this doubt. I've got two considerations about this question:
1
Looking into TransactionScope's implementation through Telerik JustDecompile, I've found that the current transaction is stored in a ThreadStatic member of the System.Transactions.ContextData class (code below).
internal class ContextData
{
internal TransactionScope CurrentScope;
internal Transaction CurrentTransaction;
internal DefaultComContextState DefaultComContextState;
[ThreadStatic]
private static ContextData staticData;
internal WeakReference WeakDefaultComContext;
internal static ContextData CurrentData
{
get
{
ContextData contextDatum = ContextData.staticData;
if (contextDatum == null)
{
contextDatum = new ContextData();
ContextData.staticData = contextDatum;
}
return contextDatum;
}
}
public ContextData()
{
}
}
The CurrentData property is called by TransactionScope's PushScope() method, and the last one is used by most of the TransactionScope constructors.
private void PushScope()
{
if (!this.interopModeSpecified)
{
this.interopOption = Transaction.InteropMode(this.savedCurrentScope);
}
this.SetCurrent(this.expectedCurrent);
this.threadContextData.CurrentScope = this;
}
public TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption scopeOption)
{
// ...
this.PushScope();
// ...
}
Ok, I guess I've found how they do that.
2
I've read about how bad is to use ThreadStatic members to store objects within ASP.NET (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ATaleOfTwoTechniquesTheThreadStaticAttributeAndSystemWebHttpContextCurrentItems.aspx) due the ASP.NET thread switching that might occur, so this data can be lost among the worker threads.
So, it looks like TransactionScope should not work with ASP.NET, right? But as far I have used it on my web applications, I don't remember any problem that I've run into about transaction data being lost.
My question here is "what's the TransactionScope's trick to deal with ASP.NET's thread switching?".
Did I make a superficial analysis on how TransactionScope stores its transaction objects? Or TransactionScope class wasn't made to work with ASP.NET, and I can be considered a lucky guy that never had any pain about it?
Could anyone who knows the "very deep buried secrets" of .NET explain that for me?
Thanks
I believe ASP.NET thread switching happens only in specific situations (involving asych IO operations) and early in the request life cycle. Typically, once the control is passed to the actual http handler (for example, Page), thread does not get switched. I believe that in most of situation, transaction scope will get initialized only after that (after page_init/load) and should not be an issue.
Here are few links that might interest you:
http://piers7.blogspot.com/2005/11/threadstatic-callcontext-and_02.html
http://piers7.blogspot.com/2005/12/log4net-context-problems-with-aspnet.html

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