I have that function in the class:
private function fireItemCreated(data: ByteArray): void {
setTimeout(function(): void {
var event: ItemCreatedEvent = new ItemCreatedEvent(data);
dispatchEvent(event);
}, 1000);
}
This function called to dispatch item created event when image thumbnail created.
But it delays event on some time to prevent user interface freezes. And I'm guessing what could be happen if garbage collector executes after fireItemCreated function call but before timer event. Does the closure will be removed or it stays until it will be executed?
It can't happen.
If the function is called then setTimeout is called. The function-object passed to setTimeout creates a strong closure-binding with the linked execution context and all setTimeout callback functions are protected (strongly held) by the host engine (imagine there is an invisible var timeouts = [] you can't access). It wouldn't be fun if timers were magically swallowed up by the evil Grime Captain.
Good question and Happy coding.
The issue described can actually happen in some other languages and their implementations of Timers. See .NET's Threading.Timer Class and the notes.
Related
I see the accept() somewhat similar to a return, so I've been putting it a the end of my slots with no code afterwards. That is, the accept() "finishes" the execution of the dialog.
Nevertheless, I came across the need to close a dialog and open a new one from a slot in the first one. Therefore, what I thought was moving the accept() to the beginning of the slot and initializing the second dialog after it. Something like the following:
void FirstDialog:slotFirstDialog()
{
accept();
// Setup second dialog arguments
// ...
SecondDialog *sd = new SecondDialog();
sd->exec();
}
Is this use of accept() valid? Is it good practice?
I'd avoid it. Calling accept() can trigger a delayed deletion of FirstDialog (say, if it has the Qt::WA_DeleteOnClose flag set)1; in that case, it would be deleted in one of the first events dispatched by the nested event loop (sd->exec()), which would lead to go on executing code in a method of an instance that has been deleted. This is just a sample problem on the top of my head, I'm sure others can be found.
I'd probably just hide the dialog before calling exec() on the other, and call accept() after the end of the nested event loop.
void FirstDialog:slotFirstDialog()
{
// Setup second dialog arguments
// ...
SecondDialog *sd = new SecondDialog();
hide();
sd->exec();
accept();
// NB are we leaking sd?
}
By the way:
SecondDialog *sd = new SecondDialog();
sd->exec();
here you are allocating on the heap a dialog without a parent, so either you set the Qt::WA_DeleteOnClose or explicitly call this->deleteLater() inside its code, or you are leaking the dialog instance.
Notes:
and it is explicitly remarked in the documentation
As with QWidget::close(), done() deletes the dialog if the Qt::WA_DeleteOnClose flag is set.
QDialog::accept calls QDialog::done with a dialog code Accepted. Here is how QDialog::done looks like:
void QDialog::done(int r)
{
Q_D(QDialog);
setResult(r);
hide();
d->close_helper(QWidgetPrivate::CloseNoEvent);
d->resetModalitySetByOpen();
emit finished(r);
if (r == Accepted)
emit accepted();
else if (r == Rejected)
emit rejected();
}
which, according to the documentation:
Hides the modal dialog and sets the result code to Accepted.
With this in mind, I think this is not a question of a good practice, but of what your application logic requires.
I am showing activity indicator after clicking login button until redirecting the user to another page, to make them understand some progress is going on. But after clicking login button Activity Indicator is not shown immediately, it is shown after few seconds,
Why its so? To reduce that delay only I am putting activity indicator...
My Code:
async void loginButtonGesture_Tapped(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(() =>
{
loadingPanel.IsRunning = true;
loadingPanel.IsVisible = true;
});
}
Does the method have to be async void? It seems like this particular scheduling anything on the main thread shouldn't need to be async. Try that to see if it changes anything. Also you could try to set breakpoints on the Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread line, and the loadingPanel.IsRunning... line to see where the delay happens.
First of all, loginButtonGesture_Tapped() event handler is triggered by UI thread so you don't need to use Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(), it is already in UI thread. But since you used Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread() here, the reason for the delay is because on Android, your code inside of BeginInvokeOnMainThread() is added to MainLooper's message queue,(your code is not executed immediately) and is executed when the UI thread is scheduled to handle its messages.
The detailed answer can be found in Xamarin document:
For iOS:
IOSPlatformServices.BeginInvokeOnMainThread() Method simply calls NSRunLoop.Main.BeginInvokeOnMainThread
public void BeginInvokeOnMainThread(Action action)
{
NSRunLoop.Main.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(action.Invoke);
}
https://developer.xamarin.com/api/member/Foundation.NSObject.BeginInvokeOnMainThread/p/ObjCRuntime.Selector/Foundation.NSObject/
You use this method from a thread to invoke the code in the specified object that is exposed with the specified selector in the UI thread. This is required for most operations that affect UIKit or AppKit as neither one of those APIs is thread safe.
The code is executed when the main thread goes back to its main loop for processing events.
For Android:
Many People think on Xamarin.Android BeginInvokeOnMainThread() method use Activity.runOnUiThread(), BUT this is NOT the case, and there is a difference between using runOnUiThread() and Handler.Post():
public final void runOnUiThread(Runnable action) {
if (Thread.currentThread() != mUiThread) {
mHandler.post(action);//<-- post message delays action until UI thread is scheduled to handle messages
} else {
action.run();//<--action is executed immediately if current running thread is UI thread.
}
}
The actual implementation of Xamarin.Android BeginInvokeOnMainThread() method can be found in AndroidPlatformServices.cs class
public void BeginInvokeOnMainThread(Action action)
{
if (s_handler == null || s_handler.Looper != Looper.MainLooper)
{
s_handler = new Handler(Looper.MainLooper);
}
s_handler.Post(action);
}
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Handler.html#post(java.lang.Runnable)
As you can see, you action code is not executed immediately by Handler.Post(action). It is added to the Looper's message queue, and is handled when the UI thread's scheduled to handle its message.
We are evaluating Grid Gain 6.5.5 at the moment as a potential solution for distribution of compute jobs over a grid.
The problem we are facing at the moment is a lack of a suitable asynchronous notification mechanism that will notify the sender asynchronously upon job completion (or future completion).
The prototype architecture is relatively simple and the core issue is presented in the pseudo code below (the full code cannot be published due to an NDA). *** Important - the code represents only the "problem", the possible solution in question is described in the text at the bottom together with the question.
//will be used as an entry point to the grid for each client that will submit jobs to the grid
public class GridClient{
//client node for submission that will be reused
private static Grid gNode = GridGain.start("config xml file goes here");
//provides the functionality of submitting multiple jobs to the grid for calculation
public int sendJobs2Grid(GridJob[] jobs){
Collection<GridCallable<GridJobOutput>> calls = new ArrayList<>();
for (final GridJob job : jobs) {
calls.add(new GridCallable<GridJobOutput>() {
#Override public GridJobOutput call() throws Exception {
GridJobOutput result = job.process();
return result;
}
});
}
GridFuture<Collection<GridJobOutput>> fut = this.gNode.compute().call(calls);
fut.listenAsync(new GridInClosure<GridFuture<Collection<GridJobOutput>>>(){
#Override public void apply(GridFuture<Collection<GridJobOutput>> jobsOutputCollection) {
Collection<GridJobOutput> jobsOutput;
try {
jobsOutput = jobsOutputCollection.get();
for(GridJobOutput currResult: jobsOutput){
//do something with the current job output BUT CANNOT call jobFinished(GridJobOutput out) method
//of sendJobs2Grid class here
}
} catch (GridException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
});
return calls.size();
}
//This function should be invoked asynchronously when the GridFuture is
//will invoke some processing/aggregation of the result for each submitted job
public void jobFinished(GridJobOutput out) {}
}
}
//represents a job type that is to be submitted to the grid
public class GridJob{
public GridJobOutput process(){}
}
Description:
The idea is that a GridClient instance will be used to in order to submit a list/array of jobs to the grid, notify the sender how many jobs were submitted and when the jobs are finished (asynchronously) is will perform some processing of the results. For the results processing part the "GridClient.jobFinished(GridJobOutput out)" method should be invoked.
Now getting to question at hand, we are aware of the GridInClosure interface that can be used with "GridFuture.listenAsync(GridInClosure> lsnr)"
in order to register a future listener.
The problem (if my understanding is correct) is that it is a good and pretty straightforward solution in case the result of the future is to be "processed" by code that is within the scope of the given GridInClosure. In our case we need to use the "GridClient.jobFinished(GridJobOutput out)" which is out of the scope.
Due to the fact that GridInClosure has a single argument R and it has to be of the same type as of GridFuture result it seems impossible to use this approach in a straightforward manner.
If I got it right till now then in order to use "GridFuture.listenAsync(..)" aproach the following has to be done:
GridClient will have to implement an interface granting access to the "jobFinished(..)" method let's name it GridJobFinishedListener.
GridJob will have to be "wrapped" in new class in order to have an additional property of GridJobFinishedListener type.
GridJobOutput will have to be "wrapped" in new class in order to have an addtional property of GridJobFinishedListener type.
When the GridJob will be done in addition to the "standard" result GridJobOutput will contain the corresponding GridJobFinishedListener reference.
Given the above modifications now GridInClosure can be used now and in the apply(GridJobOutput) method it will be possible to call the GridClient.jobFinished(GridJobOutput out) method through the GridJobFinishedListener interface.
So if till now I got it all right it seems a bit clumsy work around so I hope I have missed something and there is a much better way to handle this relatively simple case of asynchronous call back.
Looking forward to any helpful feedback, thanks a lot in advance.
Your code looks correct and I don't see any problems in calling jobFinished method from the future listener closure. You declared it as an anonymous class which always has a reference to the external class (GridClient in your case), therefore you have access to all variables and methods of GridClient instance.
I found the following code snippet from this open source project Loading Spinner
public function Spinner() {
super();
addEventListener(FlexEvent.CREATION_COMPLETE, handleCreationComplete);
}
private function handleCreationComplete(e:FlexEvent):void {
removeEventListener(FlexEvent.CREATION_COMPLETE, handleCreationComplete);
if (autoPlay) {
play();
}
}
why the line of removeEventListener is needed? Do that mean a creationComplete event will be fired more than 1 time?
The only reason for removing the listener is this:
As long as an event listener is attached to an instance of a class, that listener can never be "garbage collected" until it is removed from the dispatcher, or until the dispatcher is also eligible for garbage collection. i.e. it will keep existing in memory as long as the application runs, even if you remove it from the stage and you explicitly set it to null.
That's why it's good practice to always clean up event listeners when they are no longer needed. You may avoid memory leaks.
When using glib to dispatch signals through emit, are all the "listeners"/handlers called back-to-back or is control relinquished to the event loop after each listener/handler?
The callbacks are all called back-to-back without relinquishing control to the main loop.
Actually, as far as I know, g_signal_emit() does not even return control until all handlers are called, so there is no opportunity for the main-loop to kick-in.
So to answer the question in the title of this post: no, glib signals are not asynchronous.
GLib signals can be handled synchronously or asynchronously. GObject signals are always synchronous, i.e. when you emit a signal it does not return until the signal is handled.
To have a signal asynchronously handled with GLib, (I am using vala for brevity - use the vala compiler to convert the code into plain C) you must define a signal Source, or use a predefined one, as for example IdleSource or TimeoutSource (when I/O is out of question). For example assume that you have a function
void my_func() {
stdout.puts("Hello world! (async)\n");
}
and you want to call it asynchronously (from the same thread!) from
void caller() {
// Here you want to insert the asynchronous call
// that will be invoked AFTER caller has returned.
// Body of caller follows:
stdout.puts("Hello world!\n");
}
Here is how you do it:
void caller() {
// Code for the asynchronous call:
var ev = new IdleSource();
ev.set_callback(() => {
my_func();
return Source.REMOVE; // Source.REMOVE = false
});
ev.attach(MainContext.default());
// Body of caller follows:
stdout.puts("Hello world!\n");
}
You will get the following output:
Hello world!
Hello world! (async)
The my_func() function will be executed when MainLoop is idle (i.e. it has no other signals to process). To trigger it after a specific time interval has elapsed use the TimeoutSource signal source. A MainLoop must be running, otherwise this will not work.
Documentation:
https://valadoc.org/glib-2.0/index.htm
https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/glib-The-Main-Event-Loop.html