How to define and use precompiled variable in delphi directives - delphi

I want to define a precompile string variable and use it in {$include} directive in delphi, for example:
{$define FILE_NAME "lockfile"}
{$include FILE_NAME'.txt.1'}
{$include FILE_NAME'.txt.2'}
...
For security reasons (this is part of our licensing system), we don't want to use normal strings and file reading functions. Is there any capability for this purpose in Delphi?

The $INCLUDE directive does not support indirection on the file name. So, the following code:
const
someconst = 'foo';
{$INCLUDE someconst}
leads to the following error:
F1026 File not found: 'someconst.pas'
If you must use an include file, you must apply the indirection by some other means. One way could be to use the fact that the compiler will search for the included file by looking on the search path. So, if you place each client specific include file in a different directory, then you can add the client specific directory to the search path as part of your build process.
FWIW, I find it hard to believe that this will make your program more immune to hacking. I think that a more likely outcome is that your program will be just as susceptible to hacking, but that it will become much more difficult and error prone for you to build and distribute the program.

You requirement may be better satisfied by the proper use of a VCS system. You need "branches" for every customer where customer-specific files contains customer-specific data. This will avoid to litter your code with complex directive to manage each customer - file names stays the same, just their content is different in each branch. Adding a new customer just requires to create a new branch and update files there.
Then you just need get each branch and compile it for each customer to get the final executable(s) with customer specific data built in.

Related

Consuming contents of declare_directory

I have rule A implemented with a macro that uses declare_directory to produce a set of files:
output = ctx.actions.declare_directory("selected")
Names of those files are not known in advance. The implementation returns the directory created by declare_directory with the following:
return DefaultInfo(
files = depset([output]),
)
Rule A is included in "srcs" attribute of rule B. Rule B is also implemented with a macro. Unfortunately the list of files passed to B implementation through "srcs" attribute only contains the "selected" directory created by rule A instead of files residing in that directory.
I know that Args class supports expansion of directories so I could pass names of all files in "selected" directory to a single action. What I need, however, is a separate action for every individual file for parallelism and caching. What is the best way to achieve that?
This is one of the intended use cases of directory outputs (called TreeArtifacts in the implementation), and it's implemented using ActionTemplate:
https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/blob/c2100ad420618bb53754508da806b5624209d9be/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/actions/ActionTemplate.java#L24-L57
However, this is not exposed to Starlark, and has only a couple usages currently, in the Android rules AndroidBinary.java and C++ rules CcCompilationHelper.java. The Android rules and C++ rules are going to be migrated over to Starlark, so this functionality might eventually be made available in Starlark, but I'm not sure of any concrete timelines. It would probably be good to file a feature request on Github.

Dart - Need explanation of library/part and import/export

Yes, I read dart import and part of directives in same file
I have this structure:
lib/
src/
one/
SomeClass.dart
one.dart
mylib.dart
main.dart
I'm trying to achieve this behavior:
All public and hidden variables are fully accessible inside library.
All public variables from library are accessible to main.dart.
There is a problem. For some weird reason I can't use any directive with 'part of'. So I can't use this in the one.dart:
part of mylib;
import 'SomeClass.dart';
//somecode
So I either need to move class definition from SomeClass.dart to one.dart (and that will make code less readable and mixed up) or I need to move 'import' in the mylib.dart.
library mylib;
import 'SomeClass.dart';
part ..
I don't like either of the options. In the second case I will need to parse all modules then and move import/exports. Which will definitely break something.
It may sound weird but the project will build from various modules automatically. And one/ is one of them.
This app design is bad, I know. But either I need to find a better way or just make all variables public and don't bother.
Default to defining one type per file, not using part, and importing only the files you need. This covers the majority of use cases.
Now, let's say you have two types that are commonly used together - for example, a Thing and a ThingException that gets thrown when Thing does bad things. Importing both of these files everywhere is tedious, so you have three options with their own tradeoffs:
Declare both types in the same file.
Declare each type in its own file, and have the 'primary' file export the other. So, thing.dart exports thing_exception.dart. Importing thing.dart gives the importing file access to both.
Declare each type in its own file, and have the other file be a 'part of' the primary file. So, thing_exception.dart declares that it is 'part of' thing.dart. Importing thing.dart gives the importing file access to both files.
For this simple type and its exception, your best bet is to use option 1. When the amount of code grows or the two types diverge in visibility, this option becomes less attractive. This puts options 2 and 3 are on the table.
When you have separate files, option 2 is often a better approach than options 3 because you maintain some flexibility - you could only import thing_exception.dart and not thing.dart. If you use option 3, you can't do this - you either import all of the parts or none of them. This is the error you are seeing when trying to do a part and import in the same file.
Option 3 becomes valuable when you the code is in the two files is highly dependent on one another and they need the ability to access private members of each other. This is less common.
When you have a bunch of files like this together, it becomes a 'library' in the more traditional sense. You declare a main library file (your my lib.dart file) that exports files:
export 'public.dart';
export 'other_public.dart';
The bin script imports the library as a whole, but it can't see anything that isn't explicitly exported from my_lib.dart.
import 'package:mylib/mylib.dart';
Here's an example of a smallish package that uses all three of these options together for a good reference.
I think you will have better luck using import, and export with show. (Use of part of is now discouraged.)
Answers to this question may help you: When to use part/part of versus import/export in Dart?
Also the Creating library packages documentation: https://www.dartlang.org/guides/libraries/create-library-packages

Getting FXAA to work

I am new to HLSL and in all of the tutorials I found there always seems to be a #include "Fxaa3_11.fxh" in each of them. I include this file and then it also makes a reference to another header file #include "Fxaa3_11.h" and as it goes I also include this file into my content pipeline and still gives me an error X1507: failed to open source file:... whichever way I go.
Is there any way to make a clean, single FXAA.fx file without enabling all this mess of external files?
If you want to compile your shader on the fly , you can use this function
Most important part when using includes is to provide a CompilerIncludeHandler ,include resolves are not automatically done for you (which is a good thing).
You override the open method, then read the include path from the parameters and return the content as a string.
If you just want to have if processed in content manager, Easiest way is probably just to copy paste the content of those header files in the main shader file (where the include is), and delete the include statement. Bit ugly but pretty simple.

Erlang: "extending" an existing module with new functions

I'm currently writing some functions that are related to lists that I could possibly be reused.
My question is:
Are there any conventions or best practices for organizing such functions?
To frame this question, I would ideally like to "extend" the existing lists module such that I'm calling my new function the following way: lists:my_funcion(). At the moment I have lists_extensions:my_function(). Is there anyway to do this?
I read about erlang packages and that they are essentially namespaces in Erlang. Is it possible to define a new namespace for Lists with new Lists functions?
Note that I'm not looking to fork and change the standard lists module, but to find a way to define new functions in a new module also called Lists, but avoid the consequent naming collisions by using some kind namespacing scheme.
Any advice or references would be appreciated.
Cheers.
To frame this question, I would ideally like to "extend" the existing lists module such that I'm calling my new function the following way: lists:my_funcion(). At the moment I have lists_extensions:my_function(). Is there anyway to do this?
No, so far as I know.
I read about erlang packages and that they are essentially namespaces in Erlang. Is it possible to define a new namespace for Lists with new Lists functions?
They are experimental and not generally used. You could have a module called lists in a different namespace, but you would have trouble calling functions from the standard module in this namespace.
I give you reasons why not to use lists:your_function() and instead use lists_extension:your_function():
Generally, the Erlang/OTP Design Guidelines state that each "Application" -- libraries are also an application -- contains modules. Now you can ask the system what application did introduce a specific module? This system would break when modules are fragmented.
However, I do understand why you would want a lists:your_function/N:
It's easier to use for the author of your_function, because he needs the your_function(...) a lot when working with []. When another Erlang programmer -- who knows the stdlb -- reads this code, he will not know what it does. This is confusing.
It looks more concise than lists_extension:your_function/N. That's a matter of taste.
I think this method would work on any distro:
You can make an application that automatically rewrites the core erlang modules of whichever distribution is running. Append your custom functions to the core modules and recompile them before compiling and running your own application that calls the custom functions. This doesn't require a custom distribution. Just some careful planning and use of the file tools and BIFs for compiling and loading.
* You want to make sure you don't append your functions every time. Once you rewrite the file, it will be permanent unless the user replaces the file later. Could use a check with module_info to confirm of your custom functions exist to decide if you need to run the extension writer.
Pseudo Example:
lists_funs() -> ["myFun() -> <<"things to do">>."].
extend_lists() ->
{ok, Io} = file:open(?LISTS_MODULE_PATH, [append]),
lists:foreach(fun(Fun) -> io:format(Io,"~s~n",[Fun]) end, lists_funs()),
file:close(Io),
c(?LISTS_MODULE_PATH).
* You may want to keep copies of the original modules to restore if the compiler fails that way you don't have to do anything heavy if you make a mistake in your list of functions and also use as source anytime you want to rewrite the module to extend it with more functions.
* You could use a list_extension module to keep all of the logic for your functions and just pass the functions to list in this function using funName(Args) -> lists_extension:funName(Args).
* You could also make an override system that searches for existing functions and rewrites them in a similar way but it is more complicated.
I'm sure there are plenty of ways to improve and optimize this method. I use something similar to update some of my own modules at runtime, so I don't see any reason it wouldn't work on core modules also.
i guess what you want to do is to have some of your functions accessible from the lists module. It is good that you would want to convert commonly used code into a library.
one way to do this is to test your functions well, and if their are fine, you copy the functions, paste them in the lists.erl module (WARNING: Ensure you do not overwrite existing functions, just paste at the end of the file). this file can be found in the path $ERLANG_INSTALLATION_FOLDER/lib/stdlib-{$VERSION}/src/lists.erl. Make sure that you add your functions among those exported in the lists module (in the -export([your_function/1,.....])), to make them accessible from other modules. Save the file.
Once you have done this, we need to recompile the lists module. You could use an EmakeFile. The contents of this file would be as follows:
{"src/*", [verbose,report,strict_record_tests,warn_obsolete_guard,{outdir, "ebin"}]}.
Copy that text into a file called EmakeFile. Put this file in the path: $ERLANG_INSTALLATION_FOLDER/lib/stdlib-{$VERSION}/EmakeFile.
Once this is done, go and open an erlang shell and let its pwd(), the current working directory be the path in which the EmakeFile is, i.e. $ERLANG_INSTALLATION_FOLDER/lib/stdlib-{$VERSION}/.
Call the function: make:all() in the shell and you will see that the module lists is recompiled. Close the shell.
Once you open a new erlang shell, and assuming you exported you functions in the lists module, they will be running the way you want, right in the lists module.
Erlang being open source allows us to add functionality, recompile and reload the libraries. This should do what you want, success.

Including client files for shared file

Okay, so I have 2 projects for a game. One is the server and one is the client. I keep the shared units into a shared folder that I use to include in my client/server project. There is a problem however: I have a shared file that needs a different file for client / server. Example: mySharedLib needs to print to the console, however the client/server console is different. What are my options? Thanks
In your shared file you could use define compiler directive
For example
{$IFDEF MYSERVER}
Writeln('Server'); // this code executes
{$ELSE}
Writeln('Client'); // this code does not execute
{$ENDIF}
Then in your server project define a MYSERVER define and in your client define a MYCLIENT one, then when the shared code seperates use an {$IFDEF) statement.
From the Delphi help on conditional definitions:
The conditional directives $IFDEF, $IFNDEF, $IF, $ELSEIF, $ELSE, $ENDIF, and $IFEND allow you to compile or suppress code based on the status of a conditional symbol. $IF and $ELSEIF allow you to base conditional compilation on declared Delphi identifiers. $IFOPT compiles or suppresses code depending on whether a specified compiler switch is enabled.
This will not however work if the shared code is in a DLL or any other sort of complied shared resource such as a package.
From the Delphi help on conditional definitions:
Conditional definitions are evaluated only when source code is recompiled. If you change a conditional symbol's status and then rebuild a project, source code in unchanged units may not be recompiled. Use Project|Build All Projects to ensure everything in your project reflects the current status of conditional symbols.
If they're different, they're not really a shared file anymore.

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