[Visual BASIC 6] BOOST (v3)

BOOST got another look-in recently. I had been using it exclusively to do "realtime" and "kill". This particular time I tried to do an "abovenormal" -- instead it did a "kill".

In the process of finding and fixing that bug, I replaced the Collection mechanism with the augmented Collection supplied by the "Class Builder" add-in.

The source code is essentially the same as before but with a few changes. First the SysVars and Var classes. (The comments are predominantly those supplied by the add-in.)

First, SysVars.cls:

'local variable to hold collection Private mCol As Collection Public Function Add(key As String, Optional sKey As String) As Var Dim objNewMember As Var 'create a new object Set objNewMember = New Var 'set the properties passed into the method objNewMember.Value = key objNewMember.key = sKey If Len(sKey) = 0 Then mCol.Add objNewMember Else mCol.Add objNewMember, sKey End If 'return the object created Set Define = objNewMember Set objNewMember = Nothing End Function Public Property Get Item(vntIndexKey As Variant) As Var 'used when referencing an element in the collection 'vntIndexKey contains either the Index or Key to the collection, 'this is why it is declared as a Variant 'Syntax: Set foo = x.Item(xyz) or Set foo = x.Item(5) Set Item = mCol(vntIndexKey) End Property Public Function Exists(vntIndexKey As Variant) As Boolean Dim V As Var On Error Resume Next Set V = mCol(vntIndexKey) Exists = (Err.Number = 0) End Function Public Function Count() As Long 'used when retrieving the number of elements in the 'collection. Syntax: Debug.Print x.Count Count = mCol.Count End Function Public Sub Remove(vntIndexKey As Variant) 'used when removing an element from the collection 'vntIndexKey contains either the Index or Key, which is why 'it is declared as a Variant 'Syntax: x.Remove(xyz) mCol.Remove vntIndexKey End Sub Public Sub Modify(sValue As String, sKey As String) Dim V As Var 'Set V = New Var Set V = mCol.Item(sKey) V.Value = sValue 'mCol.Remove sKey 'Add sValue, sKey End Sub Public Property Get NewEnum() As IUnknown 'this property allows you to enumerate 'this collection with the For...Each syntax Set NewEnum = mCol.[_NewEnum] End Property Private Sub Class_Initialize() 'creates the collection when this class is created Set mCol = New Collection End Sub Private Sub Class_Terminate() 'destroys collection when this class is terminated Set mCol = Nothing End Sub

Next, Vars.cls (it's tiny but it could hold so much more):

Public key As Variant Public Value As Variant

Now the main module. The first thing that is different here, is that nLevel is now a Long. Integer doesn't handle the ABOVENORMAL_PRIORITY value without complaint.

Next change is removing the reference to Collection, changing it to SysVars and setting up the values.

The benefit of using SysVars and that approach to the Collection object is that we now have an .Exists method, so we now have a tidier way of setting nLevel and trapping invalid settings thereof.

Sub Main() Dim sLevel As String Dim nLevel As Long Dim sProcess As String Dim sCommand As String Dim nInstances As Integer Dim cPrio As New SysVars cPrio.Add KILL_PROCESS, "kill" cPrio.Add LOW_PRIORITY, "low" cPrio.Add BELOWNORMAL_PRIORITY, "belownormal" cPrio.Add NORMAL_PRIORITY, "normal" cPrio.Add ABOVENORMAL_PRIORITY, "abovenormal" cPrio.Add HIGH_PRIORITY, "high" cPrio.Add REALTIME_PRIORITY, "realtime" cPrio.Add KILL_PROCESS, "0" cPrio.Add LOW_PRIORITY, "1" cPrio.Add BELOWNORMAL_PRIORITY, "2" cPrio.Add NORMAL_PRIORITY, "3" cPrio.Add ABOVENORMAL_PRIORITY, "4" cPrio.Add HIGH_PRIORITY, "5" cPrio.Add REALTIME_PRIORITY, "6" Dim aArgs As Variant If Command() = "" Then Syntax End End If aArgs = GetCommandLine(2) sProcess = aArgs(0) sLevel = aArgs(1) If sProcess = "" Or sLevel = "" Then Syntax End End If If cPrio.Exists(sLevel) Then nLevel = Val(cPrio.Item(sLevel).Value) Else ConsoleWrite "Invalid selection of runlevel." & vbNewLine Syntax End End If If nLevel = 0 Then nInstances = KillProcess(sProcess) If nInstances = 0 Then ConsoleWrite "No instances of " & sProcess & " found to kill" & vbNewLine Else ConsoleWrite nInstances & " " & IIf(nInstances > 1, "instances", "instance") & " of " & sProcess & " killed." & vbNewLine End If Else ConsoleWrite sProcess & IIf(SetPriority(sProcess, nLevel), _ " boosted", " NOT boosted") & _ " to priority " & sLevel & " (" & nLevel & ")." & vbNewLine End If End Sub

All the other routines are as before.

I haven't gotten around to extending this tool to do stuff to remote computers. It's not hard; killing a process on another machine means another value for sComputer in KillProcess, and, of course, the relevant privilege level.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2008