BorlandTalk.com Borland discussion newsgroups   Archives   FAQ   Search   Memberlist   Usergroups   Register   Profile   Log in to check your private messages   Log in  What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid?          BorlandTalk.com Forum Index -> C++ Builder (Non-Technical) View previous topic :: View next topic   Author Message Randall Parker Guest Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2003 11:02 pm    Post subject: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? I'm coding away furiously to make some existing BCB apps more capable and using BCB v6 sp4. The apps are growing in the number of lines of code and in complexity. I'm using STL containers more in place of some older simpler template libs. I'm adding more methods, classes, forms, dialogs, controls on forms, et cetera. What I'm wondering is what sorts of coding styles make one more likely to hit against bugs in the compiler and linker. Anyone have useful tips on what to avoid doing when possible in order to avoid hitting problems? Does anyone have an idea of approximately how big a BCB app has to get before hitting problems? Number of classes? Number of forms? Number of VCL controls or STL containers? Is STL dangerous in general or are there specific ways of using it that put you more at risk? I'm already doing one weird incantation: I can avoid certain kinds of internal errors on starting up BCB by first compiling a single unit. If I immediately try to do a make I get internal errors about half the time and it takes me to some source code lines that were generated by Borland (will make note of the lines next time I hit this problem). If I compile a single unit first then I don't hit that problem. No idea why. Back to top Rodolfo Frino Guest Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2003 11:26 am    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? Quote: Is STL dangerous in general or are there specific ways of using it that put you more at risk? Nothing is dangerous if you use it properly. :-) "Ok, I understand what virtual reality is, but, can someone explain to me what is reality?" (Unknown android) Rodolfo Back to top Andrue Cope Guest Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 8:33 am    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? Randall Parker wrote: Quote: I'm already doing one weird incantation: I can avoid certain kinds of internal errors on starting up BCB by first compiling a single unit. Here's another:When reopening a project wait a few seconds before closing down any edit buffers. When closing down lots of edit buffers don't close them all down in one long run. Close them two or three at a time and give the IDE a break in between. -- Andrue Cope [Bicester, UK] Back to top Marcelo R. Lopez, Jr. Guest Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 3:54 pm    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? "Rodolfo Frino" <rodolfowrvxg527u7qfrino (AT) yahoo (DOT) com.jki> wrote Quote: Is STL dangerous in general or are there specific ways of using it that put you more at risk? Nothing is dangerous if you use it properly. :-) Yeah, tell this to North Korea, and substitute the phrase "Weapons Grade Plutonium" instead of STL. C'mon, get real. Back to top Andrue Cope Guest Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 4:24 pm    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? Rodrigo Gómez wrote: Quote: List index out of bounds anyone? That and an AV in COREIDE.DLL or whatever it's called :( -- Andrue Cope [Bicester, UK] Back to top Rodolfo Frino Guest Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 10:23 pm    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? We are talking about *software*, not about weapons. If you don't use the STL properly you could get into trouble, such as undefined behaviour, program crash, wrong results, etc. But that is applicable to almost all programming languages to certain degree (without using the STL, or those that do not have the STL) Of course if you hit a bug your program could crash or give you wrong results or unwanted behaviour, but these are special cases. In general if you know how to use the STL, you the risk is either very small or zero compare to the benefits it will bring you. Rodolfo "Marcelo R. Lopez, Jr." <mlopez (AT) voicerite (DOT) com> wrote Quote: "Rodolfo Frino" <rodolfowrvxg527u7qfrino (AT) yahoo (DOT) com.jki> wrote in message news:3f9baf58$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com... Is STL dangerous in general or are there specific ways of using it that put you more at risk? Nothing is dangerous if you use it properly. :-) Yeah, tell this to North Korea, and substitute the phrase "Weapons Grade Plutonium" instead of STL. C'mon, get real. Back to top AlisdairM Guest Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 2:15 am    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? Randall Parker <STOPtechiepundit (AT) EVILfuturePOXpunditSPAM (DOT) com> wrote in news:3f99ae98$1 (AT) newsgroups (DOT) borland.com: Quote: What I'm wondering is what sorts of coding styles make one more likely to hit against bugs in the compiler and linker. Anyone have useful tips on what to avoid doing when possible in order to avoid hitting problems? Limit your use of borland extensions to the minimum. Eg __property can introduce odd problems if your class does not derive from TObject, __finally is not clear in all circumstances. Ideally, avoid extensions entirely unless they become necessary. 'Necessary' usually means you are already deriving from a VCL class (typically TForm) in which case embrace them wholeheartedly, as they work very well in concert. In all cases avoid using OnCreate/OnDestroy events, as these occur at strange times in the object lifetime. Quote: Does anyone have an idea of approximately how big a BCB app has to get before hitting problems? Number of classes? Number of forms? Number of VCL controls or STL containers? Application size is not a great problem for us any more. Up until BCB6 SP2 there was a problem when the debugger file (.tds) grew bigger than 32Mb. We use over 100 forms in our large apps, and .tds files approaching 50Mb. We have over 1,000,000 lines of code, but have broken that into many .lib projects. Quote: Is STL dangerous in general or are there specific ways of using it that put you more at risk? STL is your friend. Once you understand and use it well your code will be much clearer to read. STL is also the debuggers foe :¬ ( It can be quite hard to inspect the state of the program when all your data is stored in STL containers. I believe this pays for itself with the simplified code though. Quote: I'm already doing one weird incantation: I can avoid certain kinds of internal errors on starting up BCB by first compiling a single unit. We still occasionally hit wierd linker errors. When this happens we close BCB, delete all precompiled headers, linker files and .obj files. Then restart BCB. This usually fixes our problems. Failing that, check all libraries used to build the .EXE project use identical project options. Not required but helpful. NEVER enable inline functions as an optimisation. Been bitten by too many code generator bugs. Build everything as monolithic .EXEs without any DLL dependencies (beyond Windows itself) Never enable packages/dynamic RTL. Although these can be used, there are fewer problems to master if you simply avoid them. If you make any changes to project files outside the IDE (such as synchronizing with your CVS) you will not see these changes until you restart BCB. AlisdairM Back to top Chris Uzdavinis (TeamB) Guest Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 2:54 pm    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? AlisdairM <no (AT) more (DOT) swen.please> writes: Quote: Is STL dangerous in general or are there specific ways of using it that put you more at risk? STL is your friend. Once you understand and use it well your code will be much clearer to read. STL is also the debuggers foe :¬ ( It can be quite hard to inspect the state of the program when all your data is stored in STL containers. I believe this pays for itself with the simplified code though. ....Unless you can write a debugger "inspector" plug-in for the various containers in the STL. If the debugger worked with such a plug-in and the vendor supplied inspectors for the "stock" stl, then wouldn't that be nice? Whenever you look at a vector, for example, your inspector would be used and could show the vector in a reasonable representation. Maybe this will be possible someday... :) -- Chris (TeamB); Back to top Andrue Cope Guest Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 3:25 pm    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? Chris Uzdavinis (TeamB) wrote: Quote: Whenever you look at a vector, for example, your inspector would be used and could show the vector in a reasonable representation. Maybe this will be possible someday... Oink, oink. Flap flap :) -- Andrue Cope [Bicester, UK] Back to top Hendrik Schober Guest Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2003 4:29 pm    Post subject: Re: What kinds of BCB limitations to avoid? Chris Uzdavinis (TeamB) <chris (AT) uzdavinis (DOT) com> wrote: Quote: [...] Maybe this will be possible someday... You can customize VCto do this up to a certain point. Schobi -- [email]SpamTrap (AT) gmx (DOT) de[/email] is never read I'm Schobi at suespammers org "And why should I know better by now/When I'm old enough not to?" 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