[Exercism] Projects

 Currently I'm working on tracks for the following languages:

Euphoria

SNOBOL4

Seed7

[Regex] Regular Expression to find unescaped double-quotes in JSON

So here we are again. Another couple of years have passed. Maybe this year I'll be more forthcoming with content. Maybe I can log what I do at the office here, though without all the WPAdmin passwords.

Today I had exported the entire WooCommerce inventory of a customer as JSON but found that there were embedded double-quotes that weren't properly escaped and so were messing up the tools I use for JSON traversal and extraction.

I used Notepad++ for most text editing (when I'm not using Visual Studio Code) and I cooked up this regular expression to help me find double quotes:

 [^:,]\s"\w+

That looks for a character that isn't a colon or comma, followed by a space followed by a double-quote followed by one or more word-building characters.  

[LinkedIn API] Accessing the LinkedIn API ... or not

Wow, "Saturday, July 20, 2019" was a while ago. Nevertheless, here we are again writing about code.

I'm trying, totally unsuccessfully at this point, to talk to the LinkedIn API. There's copious documentation but something isn't connecting up in my mind and I'm having an IJDGI (I just don't get it) moment.

I've followed the process listed at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/linkedin/shared/authentication/client-credentials-flow?context=linkedin/compliance/context insofar as I have created an app and had it verified.

At the moment I'm in Visual Studio Code (VSC) and using the RestClient tool to do two-legged OAuth:

POST /oauth/v2/accessToken HTTP/1.1

Host: www.linkedin.com

Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=xxxxxxxxxx&client_secret=zyxwvutsrqponm

(client_id and client_secret obfuscated)

The rather long-winded response I'm getting from that request ends with

{ "error": "access_denied", "error_description": "This application is not allowed to create application tokens" }

LATER

This project may well come under what LinkedIn calls an "Unapproved Use Case" as their site says,

Unapproved Use Cases

Additional use cases we do not permit:

No Social Feeds: Under our MDP Terms, none of the data provided via our 

Page Management APIs can be used in a social feed use case (e.g. to display 

a feed of LinkedIn company updates on the company’s website or intranet).

Hmm... 

I've also asked for help on Reddit, DEV and StackOverflow. I expect they'll tell me it's unapproved.

[JavaScript] Testing (and Timing) String Reversal Functions

So Sarah Chima wrote an article about reversing a string, done four different ways. A few folk wrote in with other solutions. I wrote in with some too.

Then it was suggested that we try to work out which really is the fastest. What follows is me trying.

So I need first of all to mention my working environment. It's call Lychen and it's a wrapping of the V8 JavaScript engine in a C# command line application with access to some C# objects, methods and properties. Lychen is «not supposed to be cutting-edge. Rather, it's on the spine of the blade, about as far from the cutting-edge as one can get without leaving the blade altogether.» (see the Wiki).

You might say to me, "Hey, what about node?" My response is usually along the lines of "I just can't get my head around the promises and the asynchrony. Maybe one day."

So here's the code.

const Console = CS.System.Console;

CS. exposes a large number of C# core and third party objects into the Lychen (V8) environment. Rather than keep typing CS.System.Console we create an abbreviation.

if (CSSettings.ContainsKey("/D")) {
  debugger;
}

On launch, CSSettings (a Dictionary) receives all the command line parameters. In this case, if it's /D we debug.

const times = CSSettings.ContainsKey("/TIMES") ? parseInt(CSSettings("/TIMES"), 10) : 1000;

Similarly, here we check for the presence of /TIMES and if it's, say, /TIMES:123 then times is set to 123. Otherwise times defaults to 1000. /TIMES exists because we want to be able to run each test many times.

The first test of any routine usually takes a bit longer than subsequent runs due to operating system caching. We'll take many measurements and then average them in the hope of getting a better idea of how long things really take.

var original;
if (CSSettings.ContainsKey("/RANDOM")) {
  original = Array(12500)
    .fill(0)
    .map(function () {
      return String.fromCharCode(Math.floor(Math.random() * 256));
    }).join("");
} else {
  original = Array(500).join("lewd did i live - evil i did dwel").substr(0, 12500);
}

If the command-line contains /RANDOM we generate a test string of 12500 random ASCII characters. Otherwise we fill an array with some text and then truncate it to 12500 characters. 12500 was chosen because larger numbers caused the recursive functions to fail impolitely.

var reversed = Sarah_ForOf(original);

We use one of the following reversal functions to reverse the original test string so that we can double check that the reversal actually WAA (Works As Advertised).

function TimeTest(name, fn, original) {
  var Stopwatch = new CS.System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch();
  Stopwatch.Start();
  var answer = fn(original);
  Stopwatch.Stop();
  var ts = Stopwatch.Elapsed;
  return {
    name: name,
    ticks: ts.Ticks,
    reversed: answer
  };
}

We use C#'s System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch to track the run time of the function being tested. The parameters are: the name of the function, the function's reference, and the string to be tested. The Ticks of the Elapsed result of the run are returned along with the name and the results of the reversal. More about Ticks at the end.

function EmptyFunction(string) {
  return string;
}

We want to account for the cost of actually making the call, so we will time how long it takes just to load run an empty function that returns a string.

Next come the contributed routines.

const Sarah_SplitReverseJoin = (string) => string.split("").reverse().join('');

const Nathanael_SplitReverseJoin = (string) => [...string].reverse().join('');

function Sarah_ForOf(string) {
  let reverseString = "";
  for (let character of string) {
    reverseString = character + reverseString;
  }
  return reverseString;
}

const Sarah_Reduce = (string) => string.split('').reduce((rev, char) => char + rev, '')

function Sarah_Recursive(string) {
  return string ? Sarah_Recursive(string.substring(1)) + string[0] : string;
}

function Theophanis_SplitFor(string) {
  let result = string.split('');
  for (let i = 0, j = string.length - 1; i < j; i++, j--) {
    result[i] = string[j];
    result[j] = string[i];
  }
  return result.join('');
}

function Theophanis_SplitFor_Bruced(string) {
  let result = string.split('');
  for (let i = 0, j = string.length - 1; i < j; i++, j--) {
    const string_i = string[i];
    const string_j = string[j];
    if (result[i] !== string_j) {
      result[i] = string_j;
    }
    if (result[j] !== string_i) {
      result[j] = string_i;
    }
  }

  return result.join('');
}

I thought that checking for the need to swap before actually swapping would be a good optimisation. I was wrong, especially with respect to random data

function Bruce_ArrayApplyMap(string) {
  return Array.apply(null, new Array(string.length).fill(0).map(function (_, i) {
      return string.charAt(string.length - 1 - i);
    })).join("");
}

function Bruce_MapSortMap(string) {
  return Array(string.length)
  .fill({})
  .map(function (item, index) {
    return {
      index: index,
      character: string.charAt(index)
    };
  }).sort(function (a, b) {
    return a.index > b.index ? -1 : (a.index === b.index ? 0 : 1);
  }).map(function (item) {
    return item.character;
  }).join("");
}

function Bruce_Recursive1(string) {
  return (string.length === 1)
   ? string
   : Bruce_Recursive1(string.substr(1)) + string.substr(0, 1);
}

function Bruce_Recursive2(string) {
  if (1 >= string.length)
    return string;
  return (
    string.substr(-1) +
    Bruce_Recursive2(string.substr(1, string.length - 2)) +
    string.substr(0, 1));
}

function Bruce_CharAt(string) {
  const result = Array(string.length);
  for (let i = string.length - 1, j = 0; i >= 0; i--, j++) {
    result[j] = string.charAt(i);
  }
  return result.join("");
}

function Bruce_CharAt2(string) {
    const result = Array(string.length).fill(1);
    result.map(function (item,index) {
        let rhs = string.length - 1 - index;
        result[index] = string.charAt(index);
    });
    return result.join("");
}

That's all the contributed functions.

const namesAndCodes = [{
    name: "Sarah_SplitReverseJoin",
    code: Sarah_SplitReverseJoin
  }, {
    name: "Sarah_ForOf",
    code: Sarah_ForOf
  }, {
    name: "Sarah_Reduce",
    code: Sarah_Reduce
  }, {
    name: "Sarah_Recursive",
    code: Sarah_Recursive
  }, {
    name: "Theophanis_SplitFor",
    code: Theophanis_SplitFor
  }, {
    name: "Theophanis_SplitFor_Bruced",
    code: Theophanis_SplitFor_Bruced
  }, {
    name: "Nathanael_SplitReverseJoin",
    code: Nathanael_SplitReverseJoin
  }, {
    name: "Bruce_ArrayApplyMap",
    code: Bruce_ArrayApplyMap
  }, {
    name: "Bruce_MapSortMap",
    code: Bruce_MapSortMap
  }, {
    name: "Bruce_Recursive1",
    code: Bruce_Recursive1
  }, {
    name: "Bruce_Recursive2",
    code: Bruce_Recursive2
  }, {
    name: "Bruce_CharAt",
    code: Bruce_CharAt
  }, {
    name: "Bruce_CharAt2",
    code: Bruce_CharAt2
  }
];

The names and functions to be tested.

var gathering = {};

for (let i = 0; i < times; i++) {
  namesAndCodes.forEach(function (item) {
    const eps = TimeTest("EmptyFunction", EmptyFunction, original).ticks;
    const result = TimeTest(item.name, item.code, original);
    if (!gathering[result.name]) {
      gathering[result.name] = [];
    }
    gathering[result.name].push(result.ticks - eps);
  });
}

Here we do the testing, looping from zero to whatever value times holds. We forEach through the namesAndCodes structure. We calculate the time it takes to run an empty function and then we subtract that from the ticks of the result of the test. gathering holds the result of each test in an array keyed to the name of the function.

const average = arr => arr.reduce((p, c) => p + c, 0) / arr.length;

Object.keys(gathering).map(function (item) {
  return [item, average(gathering[item])];
}).sort(function (a, b) {
  return a[1] > b[1] ? 1 : a[1] === b[1] ? 0 : -1;
}).forEach(function (item) {
  Console.WriteLine("{0,-28}{1} ticks", item[0], item[1]);
});
""

Report on the results: Convert the gathering object into array[,] of name and averge, sort on the second item so that fastest comes first, write the results to the console with the name left-justified in a 28 character field, followed by the ticks.
And the results?

>timer.ly  /TIMES:1000
Sarah_ForOf                 2141.86 ticks
Sarah_SplitReverseJoin      2444.758 ticks
Sarah_Reduce                2805.243 ticks
Bruce_CharAt                2842.139 ticks
Nathanael_SplitReverseJoin  3035.17 ticks
Theophanis_SplitFor         3142.142 ticks
Bruce_Recursive1            3319.84 ticks
Bruce_Recursive2            3451.674 ticks
Theophanis_SplitFor_Bruced  3616.858 ticks
Sarah_Recursive             4645.366 ticks
Bruce_ArrayApplyMap         5637.1 ticks
Bruce_MapSortMap            9754.566 ticks
Bruce_CharAt2               13721.967 ticks


>timer.ly  /TIMES:1000 /RANDOM
Sarah_ForOf                 1850.582 ticks
Sarah_SplitReverseJoin      2655.574 ticks
Theophanis_SplitFor         2815.478 ticks
Nathanael_SplitReverseJoin  2832.566 ticks
Bruce_CharAt                2842.439 ticks
Sarah_Reduce                2845.746 ticks
Bruce_Recursive2            3224.578 ticks
Bruce_Recursive1            3306.136 ticks
Theophanis_SplitFor_Bruced  3428.827 ticks
Sarah_Recursive             4258.6 ticks
Bruce_ArrayApplyMap         5421.202 ticks
Bruce_MapSortMap            9748.012 ticks
Bruce_CharAt2               13477.231 ticks

On my computer there are 10,000,000 ticks per second (using CS.System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.Frequency). According do the documentation "Each tick in the ElapsedTicks value represents the time interval equal to 1 second divided by the Frequency."

The bottom line? Sarah's ForOf and SplitReverseJoin are by far the fastest. Theophanis's SplitFor is also really good. That said, the differences are in microseconds or less.

NOTE: All suggestions on how to improve this testing regime gratefully received. Thanks in advance.

Please note: this blog post was originally published at Dev.to on 2019-07-20.

[Scraping] Do I really want to write a Google Keep tool?

After writing so many wrappers and so many scraping tools over the last few years, I'm now asking myself: "Do I really want to write tools for Google Keep?" There's been a few folk calling for a Google Keep API but nothing has materialized as yet (AFAICT.)

I do use Keep a lot as a general catchall for interesting web content. Mind you, I use Pocket as well. And PearlTrees. And Zim.

Fiddling with my Keep collection in Firefox Developer sees me trying to spot some structures that could be targeted in Selenium. One item of interest is via document.querySelectorAll(".RNfche"). At this point I don't know if the RNfche class is specific to my collection or to everyone's, but it's on every containing DIV. The number of results of the querySelectAll() increases as one scrolls down the page. Thus, to find every one of them one would have to script Selenium to scroll right down to the bottom of the collection before pulling up the list of RNfche-class elements.

Can I really be bothered?

Please note: this blog post was originally published at Dev.to on 2019-07-17.

[Google Apps Script] ScriptProperties Gotcha in Google Apps Script

For reasons of insanity I have wrapped the ScriptProperties of the PropertiesService in a object with get, set, forget and getKeys methods, viz:

function ScptProps() {
  this.scriptProperties = PropertiesService.getScriptProperties();
}

ScptProps.prototype.get = function (name) {
  return this.scriptProperties.getProperty(name);
};

ScptProps.prototype.set = function (name, value) {
  return this.scriptProperties.setProperty(name, value);
};

ScptProps.prototype.forget = function (name) {
  return this.scriptProperties.deleteProperty(name);
};

ScptProps.prototype.getKeys = function () {
  return this.scriptProperties.getKeys();
};

Using the REPL from my previous posting, I issued the following commands:

(new ScptProps).set('goose',58);
typeof (new ScptProps).get('goose');
(new ScptProps).forget('goose');

Goose is me and 58 my age for those interested.

And the gotcha? Well, I was a little taken aback recently, while debugging a number to number comparison issue, to discover that when I store a number I don't get one back. I get a string back and have to do a parseInt() on it to get its original value. The result of typeof (new ScptProps).get('goose'); is, you guessed it, string!

Please note: this blog posting was originally published in Dev.to on 2019-07-16

[Google Apps Script] REP and almost L in Google Apps Script

It's been quite a while since I blogged about computing (I usually blog about baking) but here goes.

Lately I've been climbing a steep learning curve, trying to get my head around Google Apps Script (GAS). Now a few spreadsheets later, I'm on a trajectory that should see me crash-land on Planet Add-On in a month or two.

REPL (read-evaluate-print-loop) has been a big thing for a long time with all manner of programming languages. So why not GAS? (Okay, it's more REP than REPL as the looping doesn't happen, but it's close.)

In my Code.gs I have the following (among other things)

function onOpen() { 
  var ui = SpreadsheetApp.getUi();
  ui.createMenu('Debugging')
  .addItem('REPL', 'REPL')
  .addToUi();  
}

This adds a custom menu to the menubar and populates it with one entry, namely 'REPL' which, when selected, runs a function called 'REPL'.

function REPL() {
  var code = Browser.inputBox('code');
  if (code !== 'cancel') {
    Browser.msgBox(eval(code));
  }
}

Also in there, for demonstration purposes, is a function that totals the ASCII values of the characters in the parameter string.

function TotalAscii(str) {
  return str.split("").reduce(function (result, item, index) {
    return result + item.charCodeAt(0)
  }, 0)
}

Visually there we are selecting the REPL option from the Debugging menu

 

entering something to be evaluated and getting a response.



I'd like at some stage to put together an HTML form with a TEXTAREA. Maybe after I crawl out of the crater.

Please note: This blog posting was first published at Dev.to on 2019-07-11

[tbas] Chinese Year of the ...

The author of tbas, Antonio Maschio, loves DATA and READ statements, and after putting together a Chinese Zodiac submission for RosettaCode, I can see why. And then there's TAB() which is also very helpful.

DATA "甲","乙","丙","丁","戊","己","庚","辛","壬","癸"
 DECLARE celestial$(10)
 MAT READ celestial$
 
 DATA "子","丑","寅","卯","辰","巳","午","未","申","酉","戌","亥"
 DECLARE terrestrial$(12)
 MAT READ terrestrial$
 
 DATA "Rat","Ox","Tiger","Rabbit","Dragon","Snake","Horse","Goat","Monkey","Rooster","Dog","Pig"
 DECLARE animals$(12)
 MAT READ animals$
 
        DATA "Wood","Fire","Earth","Metal","Water"
 DECLARE elements$(5)
 MAT READ elements$
 
 DATA "yang","yin"
 DECLARE aspects$(2)
 MAT READ aspects$
 
 DATA "jiă","yĭ","bĭng","dīng","wù","jĭ","gēng","xīn","rén","gŭi"
 DATA "zĭ","chŏu","yín","măo","chén","sì","wŭ","wèi","shēn","yŏu","xū","hài"
 DECLARE celestialpinyin$(UBOUND(celestial$(),1))
 DECLARE terrestrialpinyin$(UBOUND(terrestrial$(),1))
 MAT READ celestialpinyin$
 MAT READ terrestrialpinyin$
 
 DATA 1935,1938,1931,1961,1963,1991,1993,1996,2001
 DECLARE years(9)
 MAT READ years
 
 DECLARE _base = 4  
 DECLARE _year 
 DECLARE cycleyear 
 DECLARE stemnumber 
 DECLARE stemhan$    
 DECLARE stempinyin$ 
 DECLARE elementnumber 
 DECLARE element$       
 DECLARE branchnumber 
 DECLARE branchhan$    
 DECLARE branchpinyin$ 
 DECLARE animal$       
 DECLARE aspectnumber 
 DECLARE aspect$       
 DECLARE index 
 
 DECLARE i 
 DECLARE top = UBOUND(years(),1)
 FOR i = 1 TO top
  _year = years(i)
  cycleyear = _year - _base
  stemnumber = MOD(cycleyear, 10) 
  stemhan$    = celestial$(stemnumber + 1)
  stempinyin$ = celestialpinyin$(stemnumber + 1)
  elementnumber = div(stemnumber, 2) + 1
  element$       = elements$(elementnumber)
  branchnumber = MOD(cycleyear, 12)  
  branchhan$    = terrestrial$(branchnumber + 1)
  branchpinyin$ = terrestrialpinyin$(branchnumber + 1)
  animal$       = animals$(branchnumber + 1)
  aspectnumber = MOD(cycleyear, 2)
  aspect$       = aspects$(aspectnumber + 1)
  index = MOD(cycleyear, 60) + 1  
  PRINT _year; 
  PRINT TAB(5);stemhan$+branchhan$;
  PRINT TAB(12);stempinyin$;"-";branchpinyin$;
  PRINT TAB(25);element$;" ";animal$;" ("+aspect$+")";
  PRINT TAB(50);"year";index;"of the cycle"  
 NEXT

Running the program gives

$ tbas chinZod.bas
 1935 乙亥 yĭ-hài     Wood Pig (yin)           year 12 of the cycle
 1938 戊寅 wù-yín     Earth Tiger (yang)       year 15 of the cycle
 1931 辛未 xīn-wèi    Metal Goat (yin)         year 8 of the cycle
 1961 辛丑 xīn-chŏu   Metal Ox (yin)           year 38 of the cycle
 1963 癸卯 gŭi-măo    Water Rabbit (yin)       year 40 of the cycle
 1991 辛未 xīn-wèi    Metal Goat (yin)         year 8 of the cycle
 1993 癸酉 gŭi-yŏu    Water Rooster (yin)      year 10 of the cycle
 1996 丙子 bĭng-zĭ    Fire Rat (yang)          year 13 of the cycle
 2001 辛巳 xīn-sì     Metal Snake (yin)        year 18 of the cycle

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2018

[PHP] Include a data structure once

Today's job at work was to get some data into GravityForms, a forms tool for WordPress.

So one page has a postcode entry, and the next page has some hidden postcode-specific fields that are used to calculate values later in the form-set, in this case freight costs on goods delivered by TNT (no relation to the song by AC/DC).

The documentation for GravityForms suggests putting code into functions.php in the active theme. I'm a little wary of doing that given that changes there can work or not work in a rather catastrophic way.

Nevertheless, I ended up coding against the gform_field_input hook

add_filter('gform_field_input', 'update_hidden', 10, 5);
function update_hidden($input, $field, $value, $lead_id, $form_id)
{
}

So then the was the issue of how to include the postcode-to-charges array (PCA) (stored in an external php file) once rather than each time gform_field_input fired, which is once per control. With the PCA being just shy of a megabyte in length, I wasn't particularly interested in having it load repeatedly.

The PCA looks like this

<?php
return array(
 '0221' => array(
  'BasicChrg' => 9.982, 
  'KgChrg' => 0.5405, 
  'MinChrg' => 15.3755, 
  'RemotAreaChrg' => 0, 
  'ResidChrg' => 5, 
  '0to15Chrg' => 0, 
  '15to199Chrg' => 10, 
  '200to299Chrg' => 30, 
  '300to399Chrg' => 40, 
  '400to499Chrg' => 150, 
  '500to599Chrg' => 250, 
  '600plusChrg' => 300, 
  'FuelSurchrg' => 0.07)
  ...
);

StackOverflow did offer a suggestion on how to deal with this but I had no joy with it. So I went with using include_once. That, however, also had problems. According to the documentation, include_once returns a boolean true when it gets called the second time for the same file. So one must use a temporary variable to hold the result rather than committing it immediately to your PCA variable.

So the code I have ended up with is (some omitted for brevity's sake):

function update_hidden($input, $field, $value, $lead_id, $form_id)
{
 global $TNTFreightPrices, $PostCode;

 $path = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/wp-content/uploads/tntfreightprices/TNTFreightPrices.php';
 $tmp = include_once $path;
 if (gettype($tmp) == "array") {
  $TNTFreightPrices = $tmp;
  $PostCode = rgpost('input_52');
 }

 if ($form_id == 8) {
  $BasicChrg = $TNTFreightPrices[$PostCode]['BasicChrg'];
  
  ...

  $fid = $field['id'];
  
  if ($fid == 53) {
   $input = "<input id='input_8_53' class='gform_hidden' name='input_53' aria-invalid='false' value='$BasicChrg' type='hidden'>";
  }
  ...
 }
}

It remains to be seen whether I stay with $TNTFreightPrices and $PostCode in global space as that's a carryover from other experiments.

It was part fun and part hairloss but at least we're closer to a solution. Probably there are better ways. WooCommerce?

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens., 2018

[dotnet] core, standard and framework

Riiiiiight, now I get it ... maybe.

Check the original posting on StackOverflow for the full description.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2018

[JavaScript] String.prototype

Back in 2011, I started learning JavaScript. I'm still learning but haven't moved beyond ES3, largely because that's the dialect I'm using for most of my server-side scripting. In other words, Microsoft JScript (gasp, shock, horrors, gevalt etc.)

Most of the rest of what I do at the moment is using C#. A while back I went looking for a way to extend my C# programs with scripting and found ClearScript. I've been using it to great effect for the last 3 years in the vast majority of my work projects. I've even written a JScript-on-steroids which exposes large chunks of C# to JScript and permits the writing of some very powerful scripts.

In the next few postings I'll be discussing some of the interesting things I've discovered. For a lot of folk, it'll be old hat ... so old that mice are living in it. But, who knows, maybe someone will find a use for some of it, or be able to adapt it to newer dialects.

toProperCase()

String.prototype.toProperCase = function () {
  return this.replace(/\w\S*/g, function (txt) {
    return String(txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.substr(1).toLowerCase());
  });
};

I found this on StackOverflow. It attempts to proper-case (title-case) every word in a string. I don't use it often but it was an interesting find.

after()

String.prototype.after = function (a, including) {
  including = including || false;
  a = this.indexOf(a);
  return -1 === a ? String(this) : String(this.substr(a + (including ? 0 : 1)));
};

A staple, this gives whatever is after a substring in a string. The substring can be included or excluded for the result.

before()

String.prototype.before = function (a, including) {
  including = including || false;
  a = this.indexOf(a);
  return -1 === a ? String(this) : String(this.substr(0, a + (including ? 1 : 0)));
};

Another staple, this gives whatever is before a substring in a string. Again, the substring can be included or excluded for the result.

stripChars()

String.prototype.stripChars = function (chars, cnt) {
  var i,
  j;
  cnt = cnt || 0;
  var answer = this;
  for (i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
    var chr = chars.charAt(i);
    if (cnt === 0) {
      var pat = new RegExp(chr, "g");
      answer = answer.replace(pat, "");
    } else {
      for (j = 0; j < cnt; j++) {
        answer = answer.replace(chr, "");
      }
    }
  }
  return String(answer);
};

I don't use this often, but it has been useful. It removes each element of chars from the string. If cnt is undefined or zero, all are removed. If cnt is 1 or more, then that many are removed.

between()

String.prototype.between = function (begin, end, including) {
  including = including || false;
  var left = this.indexOf(begin);
  if (left < 0) {
    return String('');
  }
  left += begin.length;
  var right = typeof end === 'undefined' ? this.length : this.indexOf(end, left);
  if (right < 0) {
    return String('');
  }
  return including ? String(begin + this.substring(left, right) + end) : String(this.substring(left, right));
};

There are various ways of pulling SGML and other markups apart. This one, in various languages, has been in the toolkit for years. This variant permits excluding or including the delimiters. Apart from that, it isn't smart -- "drooling singing".between("droo","ing") gives l

endswith()

String.prototype.endswith = function (str) {
  return this.indexOf(str) !== -1 && this.indexOf(str) === this.length - str.length;
};

Returns true if the strings ends with contents of str otherwise false. Has helped with detecting filetypes in filenames.

toSqlString()

String.prototype.toSqlString = function () {
  return String("'" + String(this).replace(/'/g, "''") + "'");
};

This puts a single quote at the start and end of the string and doubles any embedded single quotes. I use this in combination with .questionMarkIs() to format SQL statements.

toArrayOfLines

String.prototype.toArrayOfLines = function () {
  return this.split(/\r\n|\r|\n/g);
};

Splitting a text file to lines is something I do a lot of. This is the functional variant of code I have in almost every script written over the last 7 years.

questionMarkIs

String.prototype.questionMarkIs = function (val) {
  return String(this.replace("?", val));
};

For a while I was doing all kinds of weird things to build SQL queries. Lately I've taken to simply putting question marks in and then replacing them with the value (with or without .toSqlString()).

That should do for now. Enjoy!

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2018

[configuration files] dhall

Okay, I know next to nothing about this at the moment but it does look interesting.

dhall is a programmable configuration language that is not Turing-complete. You can think of Dhall as: JSON + functions + types + imports

I can think of some places where this approach to config would be helpful and less dangerous that what I am currently doing.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2018

[tbas] tbas basic interpreter

In my ample (NOT!) spare time, I'm helping out with a programming language project called tbas. I saw it advertised on comp.lang.basic.misc in September 2017 (yep, usenet is still going strong.)

The author is one Antonio Maschio from Italy.

You can get source, documentation and a CygWin binary from the main site. There are some examples on RosettaCode.

To give you an idea of the flavour of the language, the following is a simple CAESAR cipher implementation.

    LET MSG$ = ""
    LET OFFS = 0
    LINE INPUT "Message"; MSG$
    INPUT "Offset"; OFFS
    DIM TARG(LEN(MSG$))
    CHANGE MSG$ TO TARG
    FOR I = 1 TO UDIM(TARG)
        TARG(I) = TARG(I) + OFFS
    NEXT
    CHANGE TARG TO MSG$
    PRINT MSG$

An example of running the above

    >tbas CAESAR.BAS

    Message ? My dog's got fleas

    Offset ? 1

    Nz!eph(t!hpu!gmfbt

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2018

[FreeDOS] The FAST and SOFA compilers

Two recent additions to the FreeDOS stable of development languages are FAST (Fast PC Compiler) and SOFA (Super Optimised Fast Assembler), inventions of one Peter Campbell of New Zealand. Peter developed FAST and SOFA in the mid 1980s and they were used as the main development languages for the Fastbase accounting system. In 2000, Peter rewrote the entire system in Tcl. All use and development of FAST and SOFA stopped at that point.

SOFA is an 8088 (and semi-80386) assembler. The syntax has some similarities to two other shareware assemblers, A86 and CHASM. SOFA can assemble its own source-code. Its features include quick assembly time (thousands of lines per second), conditional compilation and include files.

FAST was written in SOFA. The language syntax was influenced by Basic, Pascal, C and Assembler. The binaries produced are small and fast^[1].

Peter Campbell died in tragic circumstances at Easter 2007, leaving the Fastbase business to his brother, Russell Bell.

The adding of FAST and SOFA to FreeDOS took a little too long: I had heard of the language during the 1990s and had rediscovered it in the Vetusware abandonware collection. From there I found out about FastBase and made contact with Russell. This was 2009 and it was at that time that I suggested to Russell that SOFA/FAST could be re-released as Open Source software, thus preserving in some way Peter's legacy. Russell promptly gave permission and provided me with the sources. Embarassingly, it has taken me eight years to finalise the process.

SOFA and FAST will appear eventually on HOPL (The Online Historical Encyclopaedia of Programming Languages). In the meantime, postings regarding the languages can be found on HOPL's Facebook front-end at SOFA and FAST respectively.

[1] Already some FreeDOS utilities have been rewritten in FAST.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2017

[Browsers] Inconsistent HTML Entities

I fancy that this is old hat to most of you, but I had thought HTML entities cut and dried: An ampersand, a word and a semicolon (reminds me a little of dBase III, actually.) It seems, however, that certain browsers are still unsure as to what constitutes an HTML entity, and where it should end.

One of the languages I use for server-side management uses the ampersand + word + semicolon format to mark where variables may be interpolated into the output stream. So it was with some surprise when it was pointed out to me by a colleague that &currentValue; was being rendered as ¤tValue;.

Being the inquisitive sort, I went to dev.w3.org and downloaded all the HTML entity names. After a bit of fiddling about in jQuery, I had the list. After a bit more fiddling, this time in JScript, I ended up with an HTML file showing the entity name, the entity as rendered, and then what happens when you leave off the trailing semicolon and append some other text (in this case 'es'). This is where things get ... well ... unusual. Some HTML entites follow the standard. Others like ¤ and £ don't. You enter &poundage, expecting the browser to give &poundage only to have it give you £age. Weirdness abounds. Take · which actually renders as ¢erdotes!

So as to give you an idea of how it looks in your browser, I've put the file up in a jsfiddle . Let me know how you get on and whether your browser is as compliant is it makes out.

Enjoy!

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

[COBOL] Sum multiples of 3 and 5

Last night I posted the following code on RosettaCode as another solution to the Sum multiples of 3 and 5 challenge. (Mine is the third one down after all the more-mathematical solutions.)

My solution is as brute-force as it gets, using only adds and comparisons.

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. SUM35.

       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  THREE-COUNTER   USAGE BINARY-CHAR value 1.
           88 IS-THREE VALUE 3.
       01  FIVE-COUNTER    USAGE BINARY-CHAR value 1.
           88 IS-FIVE VALUE 5.
       01  SUMMER          USAGE BINARY-DOUBLE value zero. 
       01  I               USAGE BINARY-LONG.
       01  N               USAGE BINARY-LONG.

       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       10-MAIN-PROCEDURE.
           MOVE 1000000000 TO N.
           MOVE 1 TO I.
           PERFORM 20-INNER-LOOP WITH TEST AFTER UNTIL I >= N.
           DISPLAY SUMMER.
           STOP RUN.
       20-INNER-LOOP.
           IF IS-THREE OR IS-FIVE 
               ADD I TO SUMMER END-ADD
               IF IS-THREE
                   MOVE 1 TO THREE-COUNTER
               ELSE
                   ADD 1 TO THREE-COUNTER
               END-IF
               IF IS-FIVE
                   MOVE 1 TO FIVE-COUNTER
               ELSE    
                   ADD 1 TO FIVE-COUNTER
               END-IF
           ELSE
               ADD 1 TO FIVE-COUNTER END-ADD
               ADD 1 TO THREE-COUNTER END-ADD
           END-IF.
           ADD 1 TO I.
           EXIT.
       END PROGRAM SUM35.

The above code compiles on GnuCOBOL 2.0 and MicroFocus Visual COBOL 2.3. In the latter environment, I was able to get a run time of 7.3 seconds for the 1,000,000,000 iterations (AMD A6-5200 APU running at 2.00 GHz.)

I ended up in COBOL via the usual circuitous route through other programming languages after figuring out a solution using mLite. The next postings will demonstrate the mLite and perhaps others.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens., 2015

[GnuCOBOL 2.0] Beginning COM

In my ample (NOT!) spare time, I'm exploring making COM available to the Windows implementation of GnuCOBOL. You can do GnuCOBOL on Linux and Mac as well.

Many thanks to Brian Tiffin over on GnuCOBOL's Sourceforge Forum for cheering me on.

       IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
       PROGRAM-ID. OLE.
       DATA DIVISION.
       WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
       01  HRESULT     USAGE BINARY-LONG.
           88 S_OK     VALUE 0.
           88 S_FALSE  VALUE 1.
       01  NUL         USAGE BINARY-LONG VALUE 0.
       
       PROCEDURE DIVISION.
       MAIN-PROCEDURE.
        CALL STDCALL "OleInitialize"
            USING BY VALUE NUL
            RETURNING HRESULT.
            DISPLAY HRESULT.

        CALL STDCALL "OleUninitialize" USING
            BY REFERENCE OMITTED
            GIVING NULL.

            STOP RUN.
       END PROGRAM OLE.

The are some runtime settings (Windows 10 Home, 64bit) required to get that working, namely

set COB_PRE_LOAD=ole32
set COB_LIBRARY_PATH=C:\windows\syswow64

I should sometime create a Github project for this, in case others want to run with it.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

[CSNOBOL4] Decimal to Binary #2

Many thanks to Gordon Peterson who took my non-idiomatic code and improved it both in size and speed, viz

         DEFINE("BIN(N)")                            :(BIN_END)
BIN      BIN = (GT(N,1) BIN(N / 2), ) REMDR(N,2)     :(RETURN)
BIN_END

This is guru level stuff.

I'm also grateful to Fred Weigel who first responded to my posting in the Snobol Yahoo! Group and made some very useful suggestions. He points out that Gordon's solution is a prime candidate for DEXP, viz:

dexp('bin(n) = (gt(n, 1) bin(n / 2), ) remdr(n, 2)')

That's enough CSNOBOL4 for now, though if you do want to spend some time with it (Windows or Linux), I'd suggest using Rafal M. Sulejman's TkSLIDE.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

[CSNOBOL4] Decimal to Binary

Okay, I think this is the last of the solutions to Binary Digits. Thie one's in CSNOBOL4. Kudos to Phil Budne for maintaining and expanding this amazing programming language.

The code below, like all the ones before it, is recursive.

        DEFINE('BIN(N,STR)')              :(BIN_END)
BIN     EQ(N,0)                           :S(NZERO)
        BIN = BIN(N / 2, REMDR(N,2) STR)  :S(RETURN)
NZERO   BIN = EQ(SIZE(STR),0) '0'         :S(RETURN)
        BIN = STR                         :(RETURN)
BIN_END

        OUTPUT = BIN(0)
        OUTPUT = BIN(5)
        OUTPUT = BIN(50)
        OUTPUT = BIN(9000)
END

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

[Euphoria] Decimal to Binary

Having solved the Binary Digits task in mLite and FBSL, I thought I'd have a go in OpenEuphoria. Kudos to David Craig of Rapid Deployment Software for the original implementation and to the subsequent team of heroes for a very powerful Windows/Linux/Mac programming (interpreted and/or compiled) language.

The code below, expressed in v4.1.0 form, follows the FBSL fairly closely.

include std/math.e 
include std/convert.e

function Bin(integer n, sequence s = "")
  if n > 0 then
   return Bin(floor(n/2),(mod(n,2) + #30) & s)
  end if
  if length(s) = 0 then
   return to_integer("0")
  end if
  return to_integer(s)
end function

printf(1, "%d\n", Bin(0))
printf(1, "%d\n", Bin(5))
printf(1, "%d\n", Bin(50))
printf(1, "%d\n", Bin(9000))

There's already an Euphoria solution to the task. Some enterprising soul might want to check which of the two solutions is the faster.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015