Monday, September 28, 2015

[JScript] jQuery without IE

For those who looked, this is mod of plasticgrammer's post. Most of the comments are Google Translates attempts at the original programmer's Japanese.

The single biggest difference from the previous posting is that Internet Explorer is not called into to manage jQuery. Instead the htmlfile object is used.

jQuery expects a few global symbols (it is after all a browser library), so the beginning of the code declares them: document, window etc. Then the jQuery file is dragged across the internet and eval'd in the context of the script.

You'll notice that the jQuery version is quite ancient. This is another problem with this approach. I imagine that it's just a case of declaring some more public symbols. If anyone tries this, please let me know how recent you can go before things break. And if you succeed in using more recent jQuery libraries, please do let me know what modifications were required.
// To prepare, such as window or document to the global name space
(function (url) {
  if ("undefined" === typeof document)
    document = new ActiveXObject("htmlfile");
  document.write("<" + "html" + ">" + "<" + "/html>"); // this important
  if ("undefined" === typeof window)
    window = document.parentWindow;
  if ("undefined" === typeof alert)
    alert = function (s) {
      return window.alert(s);
    };
  if ("undefined" === typeof confirm)
    confirm = function (s) {
      return window.confirm(s)
    };
  if ("undefined" === typeof location)
    location = window.location;
  if ("undefined" === typeof navigator)
    navigator = window.navigator;
  if ("undefined" === typeof window.ActiveXObject)
    window.ActiveXObject = ActiveXObject;

  var XMLHttpRequest = new ActiveXObject("WinHttp.WinHttpRequest.5.1");
  var o = XMLHttpRequest.open("GET", url, false);
  var s = XMLHttpRequest.send();
  eval(XMLHttpRequest.ResponseText);
  return true;
})("http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.2.6/jquery.js");
Now a bit of demo code. Notice how we tell JScript what $ means. Possibly that could go in the earlier block of code as yet another global.
var $ = window.$;

// Operation example of a simple jQuery object
WScript.Echo($("<" + "div" + ">").attr("a", "fo").get(0).outerHTML);

// Course alert even I can use.
alert($("<" + "div" + ">").attr("a", "fo").get(0).outerHTML);
(Blogspot didn't like seeing div etc as markup, thus the odd syntax).

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

[JScript] Using jQuery in IE

IE is the browser we all love to hate. It's also scriptable and so inevitably ends up being considered for various tasks.

The following fragment demonstrates the first of two mechanisms I've found for instantiating jQuery in an IE session under script control.
var oIE;
  try {
    oIE = new ActiveXObject("InternetExplorer.Application");
  } catch (errIE) {
    WScript.Quit();
  }
  oIE.Visible = false;

  oIE.Navigate("http://www.example.com");
  while (oIE.Busy) {
    WScript.Sleep(100);
  }

  WScript.Sleep(1000); // could be less

  var DOM = oIE.Document;
  var scr = DOM.createElement('script');
  scr.src = "https://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.4.min.js";
  DOM.head.appendChild(scr);

  var $ = DOM.parentWindow.jQuery;
The above code is sliced out of a current project. We navigate to the target, create a script tag, point it at jquery's CDN, and append it to the document's head. Then we define a $ to point to oIE.Document.parentWindow.jQuery.

The same technique can be applied to any page, really. I have a bookmark in my browser that has a name of InjectjQuery and an address of
javascript:var script = document.createElement('script');script.src = "https://code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.4.min.js"; document.head.appendChild(script);

The second method for instantiating jQuery in IE can be found at plasticgrammer. I had difficulty with it, but got it working. It has some good things which I'll discuss in the next posting.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Sunday, September 27, 2015

[VB6] Installation in Windows 10

I'm running Windows 10 Home, 64bit. We have legacy code that needs to be modified and recompiled. Folk who find such discussions unpalatable should read no further.

I found help for this process in two places:Forty Pound Head's
Install VB6 on Windows 8 and CodeProject's How to install Visual Studio 6 on Windows 7 professional 64bit

(There's another blurb at
SoftwareOK that I'm hanging on to just in case I meet any unforseen gotchas.)

In my case, the creation of the zero length file, MSJAVA.DLL, had to be done in C:\Windows\System32 rather than C:\Windows. I had put it in the latter and ended up with, for a while, the looping install scenario described by fortypoundhead.

The recommendation
Ensure Data access components is deselected. If it's not deselected, setup will hang!

— fortypoundhead

was interesting because the Enterprise installer asserted that the data access tools are required. However, I went with the recommendation as the thought of a hanging setup didn't appeal.

I turned off SourceSafe, FoxPro and InterDev as well. I opted to have environment vars stored in VCVARS32.BAT rather than have them registered: I feared mayhem might occur given the pre-existing Visual Studio Community 2013 and Community 2015 installs.

The install was very speedy.

The installer insisted on a reboot at the end. But before I said yes to that, I set the relevant Compatibility Settings for VB6.EXE as per fortypoundhead, started VB6.EXE, wrote a quick button on a form app, compiled it to EXE and then ran it from outside VB6. No problems at all!

Now I will have to run the various updaters and install some helper apps. But so far it looks like we could get another 17 years out of VB6.


© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Saturday, September 26, 2015

[mLite] Arbitrary Precision Integers and Logarithms

Yeah yeah, there's something 'bout you baby I like

-- Status Quo, 1981.

It's a bit worrisome when I quote musicians from last century, but I do like mLite. Granted, I don't dream about it, but it's fun to figure out how to do things in a functional way.

In this case I was wanting to solve the RosettaCode challenge
Arbitrary-precision integers (included) which has one calculate 5^4^3^2, find out how many digits there are and then display the top 20 digits and bottom 20 digits. Bignums weren't a challenge, as they are supported natively in mLite. No, the biggest challenge was figuring out how many digits. 5^4^3^2 is an extremely large number, with 183231 digits and all of my first attempts did not complete even after running for a day.

mLite's creator,
Nils M. Holm, suggested I use logarithms. However, logarithms aren't built in to mLite yet, so I had to cook up my own logarithm library. So how do you calculate logarithms by hand? I dug around a bit and found an article on Quora entitled How can we calculate the logarithms by hand without using any calculator?. Harald Overbeek's description formed the basis for the mLite code below.
fun ntol (0, x) = if len x < 1 then [0] else x
       | (n, x) = ntol (n div 10, (n mod 10) :: x)
       | n      = ntol (n, [])
;
ntol converts a number to a list.
fun powers_of_10 9 = 1000000000
               | 8 = 100000000
               | 7 = 10000000
               | 6 = 1000000
               | 5 = 100000
               | 4 = 10000
               | 3 = 1000
               | 2 = 100
               | 1 = 10
               | 0 = 1
;
powers_of_10 is a precomputation of all the powers I knew I'd encounter during the calculation. This alone sped up the code a lot.
fun size (c, 0) = c
       | (c, n > 9999999999) = size (c + 10, trunc (n / 10000000000))
       | (c, n)              = size (c +  1, trunc (n / 10))
       | n                   = size (     0, trunc (n / 10))
;
size works out the number of digits by keeping track of how many calculations it takes to divide the number by 10 until the remainder is zero.
fun makeVisible L = map (fn x = if int x then chr (x + 48) else x) L
makeVisible turns an array of digits into a string, with handling for non-numeric elements
fun log10 (n, 0, x) = ston  implode  makeVisible ` rev x
        | (n, decimals, x) =
            let val n' = n^10;
              val size_n' = size n'
            in 
              log10 (n' / powers_of_10 size_n', decimals - 1, size_n' :: x)
   end
        | (n, decimals) =
            let
              val size_n = size n
            in
              log10 (n / 10^size_n, decimals, #"." :: rev (ntol size_n) @ [])
            end
;
Then log10 ties it all together. The second parameter specifies the number of digits precision. Below I've specified 6.

Being somewhat mathematically challenged, I still had to figure out how to use the library I had made to calculate the digits. Thankfully, there's a
mathematics community on StackExchange. They helped me out a lot. Now I could work out the number of digits in the number by rounding up the result of log10(5) * 4^9 (seeing as 3^2 is 9).

Thus I ended up with
val fourThreeTwo = 4^3^2;
val fiveFourThreeTwo = 5^fourThreeTwo;

val digitCount = trunc (log10(5,6) * fourThreeTwo + 0.5);
print "Count  = "; println digitCount;

val end20 = fiveFourThreeTwo mod (10^20);
print "End 20 = "; println end20;

val top20 = fiveFourThreeTwo div (10^(digitCount - 20)); 
print "Top 20 = "; println top20;
Which, after 1 hour and 9 minutes on an AMD A6 cpu, gave
>mlite -f 5p4p3p2.m
 Count = 183231
 End 20 = 92256259918212890625
 Top 20 = 62060698786608744707 
A nice change from my day job which centres around JavaScript, Peloton, HTML, PHP and the odd bit of T-SQL. Enjoy!

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Monday, September 21, 2015

[Sound] Using SOX to convert WAV to MP3

I was sent a rather large WAV file today: a delightful composition by Ivodne Galatea called 'Ingenious Pursuits'. She's also sent me the score so I can learn to play it myself.

At 91MB I thought I might have a go at converting the WAV to MP3. Enter
Sound eXchange which very comfortably converted the WAV using the following extremely simple command:
sox "Ingeniuous Pursuits automated.wav" Ingeniuous.mp3
SoX can do way more than this with sound files. The above barely scratches the surface of the amazing power of this tool.

Having said that, the Windows installer did not include a copy of the LAME (Lame Aint an MP3 Encoder) DLL (libmp3lame.dll). I had to go hunting for that and even when I found it I had to rename it, as every ZIP I downloaded called the dll lame_enc.dll (I found downloads at
spaghetticode.org and buanzo.org). After that everything worked fine.

SoX is great. Highly recommended. I don't know the author and no one paid me to write this.


© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Friday, September 18, 2015

[CMD] PUSHD to path in clipboard

I use WinClip to get things in and out of the clipboard when doing stuff on the command line. (I grew up on CP/M, MP/M II and VAX VMS, so command line is usually where it's at for me.)

Occasionally, I have a path in the clipboard that I want to use as the target for a CD (or, more often, a PUSHD). I just cooked up the following .CMD script using WinClip. It uses the /F qualifier on the FOR command to iterate through the stdout of winclip -p and PUSHD to what it finds.

So what happens, you may ask, if the clipboard contains more than one line? If the paths are fully qualified then you end up in the folder defined by the last line. Otherwise, you end up in the folder defined by the first line and you see a pile of error messages about not being able to find the subsequent folders.
@echo off
 :: PUSHCLIP.CMD
 for /f "delims==" %%f in ('winclip -p') do pushd %%f
Enjoy! If you want to amplify the script to better handle unforeseen inputs, go right ahead. Share the result here if you feel so inclined.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Thursday, September 17, 2015

[JavaScript] SQLServer Date to jsDateTime

I forgot to include in the last posting the reverse function that takes a SQLServer Epoch value and converts it to a JavaScript datetime number.
function SQLServerDateTojsDateTime(a) {
  return Math.ceil((a * 86400 - 2208988800) * 1000);
 }
An example of its use (from a jscli session):
> d = new Date()
 Thu Sep 17 12:03:58 UTC+0800 2015
 > d.valueOf()
 1442462638627
 > n = jsDateTimeToSQLServerDateTime(d)
 42262.169428553236
 > m = SQLServerDateTojsDateTime(n)
 1442462638627
 > new Date(m)
 Thu Sep 17 12:03:58 UTC+0800 2015
Enjoy!

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

[JavaScript] Converting JavaScript DateTime to SQLServer DateTime

I've had the need occasionally to convert JavaScript datetime to SQLServer datetime numeric Epoch value. The following two routines do the job. In both cases I'm assuming that UTC is being used as taking timezones into consideration is a bit more work.

First jsDateTimeToSQLServerDate which takes a JavaScript Date object and forms a SQLServer Epoch integer.

   function jsDateTimeToSQLServerDate(d) {

      var SQLServerEpoch = 2208988800;
      var dMilli = d.valueOf();
      var dSec = dMilli / 1000;
      var nEpoch = SQLServerEpoch + dSec;
      var nEpochDays = nEpoch / 86400;
      var nEpochDate = Math.ceil(nEpochDays);
      return nEpochDate;
    }
The second also takes a JavaScript Date object but this time includes the time returning an Epoch floating point number.
   function jsDateTimeToSQLServerDateTime(d) {
      var SQLServerEpoch = 2208988800;
      var dMilli = d.valueOf();
      var dSec = dMilli / 1000;
      var nEpoch = SQLServerEpoch + dSec;
      var nEpochDays = nEpoch / 86400;
      var nEpochDate = Math.ceil(nEpochDays);
      return nEpochDays;
    }
The Closure compiler abbreviates those routines signficantly, as below. You may want to use this code in preference as the above was done to demonstrate the relationships in the conversion process.
   function jsDateTimeToSQLServerDate(a) {
      return Math.ceil((2208988800 + a.valueOf() / 1E3) / 86400);
    }
    function jsDateTimeToSQLServerDateTime(a) {
      a = (2208988800 + a.valueOf() / 1E3) / 86400;
      Math.ceil(a);
      return a;
    }
    ;
An example invocation:
   var now = new Date();
    // now currently
    // Wed Sep 16 22:52:09 UTC+0800 2015
    jsDateTimeToSQLServerDate(now);
    // gives
    // 42262
    jsDateTimeToSQLServerDateTime(now);
    // gives
    // 42261.61955061343
I hope this helps. I may be back here myself next time I need this routine.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

[PHP] Spread camel case

My work has me doing Wordpress plugins from time to time. The following snippets comes from one of those projects. It's text a camel-case string and inserts spaces in front of capitals and numbers, turning the item into some more human-readable.
function spreadCamel($txt) 
 {
  $temp = substr($txt,0,1);
  for ($i = 1; $i < strlen($txt); $i++) {
   $c = substr($txt, $i, 1);
   if (ctype_upper($c) || ctype_digit($c)) {
    $temp = $temp . " ";
   }
   $temp = $temp . $c;
  }
  return $temp;
 } 
An example invocation:
echo spreadCamel("MyDogHasFleasAbout1Million");
the result of that being
My Dog Has Fleas About 1 Million
I hope that helps someone. There may be a better/faster/more efficient way of doing it. If there is, please post in the comments.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2015

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

[mLite] 99 bottles of beer

99 bottles of beer is often the first thing I try to do in a (new for me) programming language. Here is an mLite implementation (which can also be found now on RosettaCode.)
val NL = implode [#"newline"]

fun itone 1 = "it" 
        | n = "one"

fun plural (s, 0) = ("no " @ s @ "s") 
                    | (s, 1) = ("1 " @ s) 
                    | (s, n) = (ntos n @ " " @ s @ "s")

fun verse 0 = "no bottles of beer on the wall" @ NL @ 
              "no bottles of beer" @ NL @ 
              "go to the store and buy some more" @ NL @ 
              "99 bottles of beer on the wall" @ NL @ NL 
        | x = plural ("bottle",x) @ " of beer on the wall" @ NL @ 
              plural ("bottle",x) @ " of beer" @ NL @ 
              "take " @ (itone x) @ " down and pass it round" @ NL @ 
              plural ("bottle", (x-1)) @ " of beer on the wall" @ NL @ NL

fun bottles x = map (print o verse) (rev (0 :: iota (1, x)))

fun default (false, y) = y | (x, _) = x

;
bottles (ston (default (argv 0, "99")))
This code allows one to specify how many bottles on the command line (e.g.
mlite -f 99bob.m 4
), defaulting to the usual 99.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2014

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

[mLite] Learning an ML dialect

I've tried to get my head into functional languages for some time. This time I'm having a go at mLite, which the author, Nils M Holm, describes as "a lightweight (and slightly odd) inhabitant of the ML universe ... Much like ML, but with dynamic typingguards, and a Haskell-style apply operator."

I've created a presence on RosettaCode for mLite and solved the Ackermann function challenge.

© Bruce M. Axtens, 2014.

Saturday, March 08, 2014

[TCL] Love that Tool Command Language

TCL is just so cool and concise …
cd CSV
set target "snap-[clock format [clock add [clock seconds] -1 hours] -format %Y-%m-%d-%H -gmt 1]"
if {![file exists $target.rar]} then {
    set cmd [list c:/program\ files/winrar/rar.exe m -m5 -s ${target}.rar ${target}-utc.csv]
        exec -- {*}$cmd
}
That goes to the log (called CSV) folder and compresses the previous hour’s worth of log. I run that from a scheduler.

I really like the conciseness of Tcl: clock add [clock seconds] -1 hours, which subtracts an hour from the current time and clock format which takes that and renders it as GMT.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2014

Thursday, February 27, 2014

[VBScript] Boosting myself to HIGH process priority

The script gets its own name, then looks through the Win32_Processes for a match with CSCRIPT.EXE and a CommandLine containing that name. Any matches (should be only one, but could be more) are boosted to HIGH process priority.

This demonstrates WMI calls from both VBScript and JScript. Note the need to explicitly define an Enumerator in the JScript version.
Option Explicit

Dim sName
Dim sComputer
Dim oWMI
Dim cProcesses
Dim oProcess

Const HIGH = 256
sComputer = "."
Set oWMI = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & sComputer & "\root\cimv2")
sName = WScript.ScriptName

Set cProcesses = oWMI.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process Where Name = 'cscript.exe' And CommandLine LIKE '%" & sName & "%'")
For Each oProcess In cProcesses
  oProcess.SetPriority(HIGH) 
  WScript.Echo "Boosted myself"
Next
And in JScript
var HIGH = 256;
var sComputer = ".";
var sName = WScript.ScriptName;    

var query = GetObject("winmgmts:\\\\" + sComputer + "\\root\\cimv2")
    .ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_Process " + 
    "Where Name = 'cscript.exe' And CommandLine LIKE '%" + sName + "%'")

// Enumerate WMI objects
var cProcesses = new Enumerator(query);

for ( ; !cProcesses.atEnd(); cProcesses.moveNext()) { 
    var oProcess = cProcesses.item()
    oProcess.Priority = HIGH
    WScript.Echo( "Boosted myself")
}
© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2014

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

[VBScript] How can I display 64 bit double number using VBScript on 32 Bit OS?

"How can I display 64 bit double number using VBScript on 32 Bit OS?" That was the question on StackOverflow back at the end of 2012. And nobody had answered it. What a challenge!

I assumed a pure-VBScript solution was needed, and set about finding and implementing a Very Large Integer class with which I could then implement a Hex64 to integer function. A workable candidate function was found on Rosetta Code in the
Liberty BASIC solution to the Long Multiplication task.

The code for the class is as follows. It's pretty much the same as the original.

Option Explicit
Class VeryLongInteger
  'http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Long_Multiplication#Liberty_BASIC
  Public Function MULTIPLY(Str_A, Str_B)
    Dim signA, signB, sResult, Str_Shift, i, d, Str_T
    signA = 1
    If Left(Str_A,1) = "-" Then 
      Str_A = Mid(Str_A,2)
      signA = -1
    End If
    signB = 1
    If Left(Str_B,1) = "-" Then 
      Str_B = Mid(Str_B,2)
      signB = -1
    End If
    sResult = vbNullString
    Str_T = vbNullString
    Str_shift = vbNullString
    For i = Len(Str_A) To 1 Step -1
      d = CInt(Mid(Str_A,i,1))
      Str_T = MULTBYDIGIT(Str_B, d)
      sResult = ADD(sResult, Str_T & Str_shift)
      Str_shift = Str_shift & "0"
      'print d, Str_T, sResult 
    Next
    If signA * signB < 0 Then sResult = "-" + sResult
    'print sResult
    MULTIPLY = sResult
  End Function
  
  Private Function MULTBYDIGIT(Str_A, d)
    Dim sResult, carry, i, a, c
    'multiply Str_A by digit d
    sResult = vbNullString
    carry = 0
    For i = Len(Str_A) To 1 Step -1
      a = CInt(Mid(Str_A,i,1))
      c = a * d + carry
      carry = c \ 10
      c = c Mod 10
      'print a, c
      sResult = CStr(c) & sResult 
    Next
    If carry > 0 Then sResult = CStr(carry) & sResult
    'print sResult
    MULTBYDIGIT = sResult
  End Function
  
  Public Function ADD(Str_A, Str_B)
    Dim L, sResult, carry, i, a, b, c
    'add Str_A + Str_B, for now only positive
    l = MAX(Len(Str_A), Len(Str_B))
    Str_A=PAD(Str_A,l)
    Str_B=PAD(Str_B,l)
    sResult = vbNullString 'result
    carry = 0
    For i = l To 1 Step -1
      a = CInt(Mid(Str_A,i,1))
      b = CInt(Mid(Str_B,i,1))
      c = a + b + carry
      carry = Int(c/10)
      c = c Mod 10
      'print a, b, c
      sResult = CStr(c) & sResult
    Next
    If carry>0 Then sResult = CStr(carry) & sResult
    'print sResult
    ADD = sResult
  End Function
  
  Private Function Max(a,b)
    If a > b Then
      Max = a
    Else
      Max = b
    End If
  End Function
  
  Private Function pad(a,n)  'pad from right with 0 to length n
    Dim sResult
    sResult = a
    While Len(sResult) < n
      sResult = "0" & sResult
    Wend
    pad = sResult
  End Function
End Class
With that defined I have now all I need to implement a Hex64 function. This I did in two forms:

* A memoized version which precomputes all the relevant powers of 16

Function PrecomputedFromHex64(sHex)
  Dim VLI
  Set VLI = New VeryLongInteger
  
  Dim Sixteen(16)
  Sixteen(0) = "1"
  Sixteen(1) = "16"
  Sixteen(2) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(1),"16")
  Sixteen(3) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(2),"16")
  Sixteen(4) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(3),"16")
  Sixteen(5) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(4),"16")
  Sixteen(6) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(5),"16")
  Sixteen(7) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(6),"16")
  Sixteen(8) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(7),"16")
  Sixteen(9) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(8),"16")
  Sixteen(10) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(9),"16")
  Sixteen(11) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(10),"16")
  Sixteen(12) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(11),"16")
  Sixteen(13) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(12),"16")
  Sixteen(14) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(13),"16")
  Sixteen(15) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(14),"16")
  
  Dim theAnswer, i, theDigit, theMultiplier, thePower, aPower
  theAnswer = "0"
  aPower = 0
  For i = Len(sHex) To 1 Step -1
    theDigit = UCase(Mid(sHex,i,1))
    theMultiplier = InStr("0123456789ABCDEF",theDigit)-1
    thePower = Sixteen(aPower)
    thePower = VLI.MULTIPLY(CStr(theMultiplier),thePower)
    theAnswer = VLI.ADD(theAnswer,thePower )
    aPower = aPower + 1
  Next
  PrecomputedFromHex64 = theAnswer
End Function
* A non-memoized version which computes the relevant power when it is needed.
Function FromHex64(sHex)
  Dim VLI
  Set VLI = New VeryLongInteger       
  Dim theAnswer, i, theDigit, theMultiplier, thePower, aPower
  theAnswer = "0"
  thePower = "1"
  For i = Len(sHex) To 1 Step -1
    theDigit = UCase(Mid(sHex,i,1))
    theMultiplier = InStr("0123456789ABCDEF",theDigit)-1
    theAnswer = VLI.ADD(theAnswer,VLI.MULTIPLY(thePower,theMultiplier))
    thePower = VLI.MULTIPLY(thePower,"16")
  Next
  FromHex64 = theAnswer
End Function
The memoized version is slightly faster than the non-memoized, despite the overhead of the memoization. If the class/function pair were to be used a lot in a script, one might consider making both the VLI instantiation and the Sixteen() array global and precomputing the array at the beginning of the script rather than on each invocation.

A rough test of the code follows:

Const test = "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" '"41417724EBA8953E"
Dim t, I, S
t=Timer
For I = 1 To 100
  S = FromHex64(test)
Next
WScript.Echo "No memoization", Timer-t

t=Timer
For I = 1 To 100
  S = PrecomputedFromHex64(test)
Next
WScript.Echo "Memoized each time",Timer-t

Function GlobalMemoFromHex64(sHex)  
  Dim theAnswer, i, theDigit, theMultiplier, thePower, aPower
  theAnswer = "0"
  aPower = 0
  For i = Len(sHex) To 1 Step -1
    theDigit = UCase(Mid(sHex,i,1))
    theMultiplier = InStr("0123456789ABCDEF",theDigit)-1
    thePower = Sixteen(aPower)
    thePower = VLI.MULTIPLY(CStr(theMultiplier),thePower)
    theAnswer = VLI.ADD(theAnswer,thePower )
    aPower = aPower + 1
  Next
  GlobalMemoFromHex64 = theAnswer
End Function

Dim VLI
Set VLI = New VeryLongInteger

Dim Sixteen(16)
Sixteen(0) = "1"
Sixteen(1) = "16"
Sixteen(2) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(1),"16")
Sixteen(3) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(2),"16")
Sixteen(4) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(3),"16")
Sixteen(5) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(4),"16")
Sixteen(6) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(5),"16")
Sixteen(7) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(6),"16")
Sixteen(8) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(7),"16")
Sixteen(9) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(8),"16")
Sixteen(10) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(9),"16")
Sixteen(11) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(10),"16")
Sixteen(12) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(11),"16")
Sixteen(13) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(12),"16")
Sixteen(14) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(13),"16")
Sixteen(15) = VLI.MULTIPLY(Sixteen(14),"16")

t=Timer
For I = 1 To 100
  S = GlobalMemoFromHex64(test)
Next
WScript.Echo "Global memo",Timer-t
Running the above in VBSEdit a few times under varying conditions gave the following results:
No memoization 2.632813
Memoized each time 1.023438
Global memo 0.328125

No memoization 1.667969
Memoized each time 0.8867188
Global memo 0.2695313

No memoization 1.488281
Memoized each time 0.9335938
Global memo 0.3046875
The global precomputation of the memo array is fastest technique, but if you're only using the function once you'll get by with the non-memo version.

Further optimisations are possible. Compilation, of course, would make it even faster.

Enjoy!
© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2014

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

[Open Source] Github and Bitbucket

The blog's been very quiet lately. Too quiet. But I've been busy.

I got started on
Github, but the only thing I have there is a failed attempt at building a JSON library for the Euphoria programming language.

Most of the more recent stuff is happening on Bitbucket where I have various implementations (javascript v1 and javascript v2 (minimal), euphoria, vb6, php, and c#) of Steve Skiena's integer bignums library and a few other bits and bobs, namely:


All projects are in varying stages of completeness, and looking for users and improvers.


© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2013

Friday, June 21, 2013

[JScript.NET --> C#.NET] Goodbye JScript.NET; Hello C#.NET

I'd better make it official: I've given up on JScript.NET (and to a lesser extent, JScript Classic.) There's just not enough support for it in current tools and IDEs.

So for the past couple of months I've been converting all my server-side javascripts (predominantly in JScript Classic) to C#.

I've also had one of my periodic clean-outs. Am trying to limit myself to a smaller set of programming languages for work and for play. That, and try to catch up on some of the things I've promised to others, like how to do web-scripting in Lhogho.


© Bruce M. Axtens, 2013

Friday, September 21, 2012

[JScript] Another Config library


I've been doing a fair bit of JScript of late, and as I find working with Registry for runtime configuration a bit tiresome, I've cooked up a Config object. It's defined using the prototype approach to object definition. Config files are, in this case, ANSI or Unicode (UTF16LE) files, in the form
key=value
Creating an instance of the object involves passing in the name of the config file. I've hit upon the following technique for tying the config file to the script, using the FileSystemObject and the WScript object.
var oFSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject"),
    sHere = oFSO.GetParentFolderName(WScript.ScriptFullName),
    sConfig = oFSO.BuildPath(sHere, 
        oFSO.GetBaseName(WScript.ScriptName) + ".config");
That way one may always be sure that (for example) Melchizedek.js will have a Melchizedek.config next to it.

First, the main function

function Config(sFile) {
    this.kind = "";
    this.oFSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
    this.text = "";
    var resp = [];
    this.file = sFile;
    if (this.oFSO.FileExists(sFile)) {
        resp = function(oFSO, sFilename) {
            var forReading = 1;
            var asUnicode = -1;
            var asANSI = 0;
            var resp = [];
            if (oFSO.FileExists(sFilename)) {
                var handle = oFSO.OpenTextFile(sFilename, forReading, false,
                        asANSI);
                var BOM = handle.Read(2);
                handle.Close();
                if (BOM.charCodeAt(0) == 0xFF && BOM.charCodeAt(1) == 0xFE) {
                    handle = oFSO.OpenTextFile(sFilename, forReading, false,
                            asUnicode);
                    resp[0] = "unicode";
                } else {
                    handle = oFSO.OpenTextFile(sFilename, forReading, false,
                            asANSI);
                    resp[0] = "ansi";
                }
                resp[1] = handle.ReadAll();
                handle.Close();
                return resp;
            } else {
                return resp;
            }
        }(this.oFSO, sFile);
        this.kind = resp[0];
        this.text = resp[1];
        this.name = sFile;
        this.filefound = true;
    } else {
        this.filefound = false;
    }
    return this.filefound;
}
Note that the code, in an attempt to deal appropriately with config files being in ANSI or UTF-16LE format, reads the first two bytes of the config file. If the UTF16LE BOM is there, it reads the file as Unicode. Otherwise, it reads as ANSI.

A few other things are set so that the other methods will work, namely for exists, name and kind.

Config.prototype.name = function() {
        return this.name;
};

Config.prototype.exists = function() {
        return this.filefound;
};

Config.prototype.kind = function () {
        return this.kind;
};
Next come the main workhorses of the object: define, retrieve and save.
Config.prototype.retrieve = function(sName) {
        if (arguments.length > 1) {
                var sDefault = arguments[1];
        } else {
                sDefault = null;
        }

        var re = new RegExp("^" + sName + "=(.*?)$", "m");
        var arr = re.exec(this.text);
        if (arr === null) {
                return sDefault;
        } else {
                return RegExp.$1;
        }
};

Config.prototype.define = function(sName, sValue) {
        var sNew = sName + "=" + sValue;
        var re = new RegExp("^" + sName + "=(.*?)$", "m");
        var arr = re.exec(this.text);
        if (arr === null) {
                this.text = this.text + "\n" + sNew;
        } else {
                this.text = this.text.replace(re, sNew);
        }
};

Config.prototype.save = function() {
        var sFile = "";
        var handle = "";
        // allow for save to a different file
        if (arguments.length > 0) {
                sFile = arguments[0];
        } else {
                sFile = this.file;
        }
        if (this.kind === "ansi") {
                handle = this.oFSO.CreateTextFile(sFile, true, false);
        } else {
                handle = this.oFSO.CreateTextFile(sFile, true, true);                
        }
        handle.Write(this.text);
        handle.Close();
};
retrieve accepts two parameters: the key in the config store, and the default (in the event that the key is not found.) Rather than using a Scripting.Dictionary, the config data is stored as a string, and regular expressions are used to extract and update it.

define accepts two parameters: the key in the config file, and the value to be associated with it. If the key is not found in the stored keys and values, it is appended to it.

save accepts one optional parameter: the name of the file into which to write the stored string of keys and values. If no name is given, the filename given when Config() was first called is used.

The code may be used as follows:

var c = new Config("dog.cfg");
'the define() will either add or update the store to 
'    sound=bark
c.define("sound","bark");
'the save() will write the store to dog.cfg
c.save();

'Config reloads dog.cfg
var c = new Config("dog.cfg");
'if "sound" is a key in dog.cfg, the associated value will be displayed
'otherwise the default.
WScript.Echo(c.retrieve("sound","woof"));

'display the kind (ansi or unicode)
WScript.Echo(c.kind);
'... whether the file exists
WScript.Echo(c.exists());
'... and what its name is
WScript.Echo(c.name);
The result of running the above code (from within SciTE):
>cscript /nologo Config.js
 bark
 unicode
 -1
 dog.cfg
 >Exit code: 0
I have recently pushed this code through Google's Closure Compiler and the difference in code size is significant -- the result is about 50% smaller than the original. I expect it runs faster too, though I haven't bothered to check it out thoroughly.
function Config(a) {
  this.kind = "";
  this.oFSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
  this.text = "";
  var b = [];
  this.file = a;
  if(this.oFSO.FileExists(a)) {
    var b = this.oFSO, d = [];
    if(b.FileExists(a)) {
      var c = b.OpenTextFile(a, 1, !1, 0), e = c.Read(2);
      c.Close();
      255 == e.charCodeAt(0) && 254 == e.charCodeAt(1) ? (c = b.OpenTextFile(a, 1, !1, -1), d[0] = "unicode") : (c = b.OpenTextFile(a, 1, !1, 0), d[0] = "ansi");
      d[1] = c.ReadAll();
      c.Close()
    }
    b = d;
    this.kind = b[0];
    this.text = b[1];
    this.name = a;
    this.filefound = !0
  }else {
    this.filefound = !1
  }
  return this.filefound
}
Config.prototype.name = function() {
  return this.name
};
Config.prototype.exists = function() {
  return this.filefound
};
Config.prototype.kind = function() {
  return this.kind
};
Config.prototype.retrieve = function(a) {
  var b = 1 < arguments.length ? arguments[1] : null;
  return null === RegExp("^" + a + "=(.*?)$", "m").exec(this.text) ? b : RegExp.$1
};
Config.prototype.define = function(a, b) {
  var d = a + "=" + b, c = RegExp("^" + a + "=(.*?)$", "m");
  this.text = null === c.exec(this.text) ? this.text + "\n" + d : this.text.replace(c, d)
};
Config.prototype.save = function() {
  var a = "", a = "", a = 0 < arguments.length ? arguments[0] : this.file, a = "ansi" === this.kind ? this.oFSO.CreateTextFile(a, !0, !1) : this.oFSO.CreateTextFile(a, !0, !0);
  a.Write(this.text);
  a.Close()
};

Enjoy!
© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2012

Saturday, July 14, 2012

[JScript.NET] Finally weaned off Scripting.FileSystemObject

Finally removed all reference to Scripting.FileSystemObject. Now we're 99% there with respect to the dotNet-ification of the Access Compress And Repair script.

I say 99% percent because I'm still using ActiveXObject() to connect to the Access.Application object. Apparently, I should be using some other technique.

So here's the code of the application thus far.
import System.Environment;
import System.IO;

var sDatabaseName : String = argNamed("name");
var sDataFolder : String = argNamed("data");
var sTempFolder : String = argNamed("temp");
var sBackupFolder : String = argNamed("backup");

if (  sDatabaseName === "" ) {
 usage();
}

if (  sDataFolder === "" ) {
 usage();
}

if (  sTempFolder  === "" ) {
 usage();
}

if (  sBackupFolder === "" ) {
 usage();
}

var sDatabaseFile : String = System.IO.Path.Combine(sDataFolder, sDatabaseName);
var sBackupFile : String = System.IO.Path.Combine(sBackupFolder, sDatabaseName);
var sTempFile : String = System.IO.Path.Combine(sTempFolder, sDatabaseName);

try {
 File.Delete( sTempFile );
} catch ( e ) {
 //~ print( e.message + ': ' + sTempFile );
}

print("CompactRepair ",sDatabaseFile," to ",sTempFile);
var oACC = new ActiveXObject("Access.Application");
oACC.CompactRepair( sDatabaseFile, sTempFile, true );
var acQuitSaveNone = 2;
oACC.Quit(acQuitSaveNone);

// copy source to backup, overwriting
try {
 File.Delete( sBackupFile );
} catch( e ) {
 //~ print( e.message + ': ' + sBackupFile );
}
print("Moving ",sDatabaseFile," to ",sBackupFile);
File.Move( sDatabaseFile, sBackupFile );

// copy temp to source, overwriting
try {
 File.Delete( sDatabaseFile );
} catch( e ) {
 //~ print( e.message + ': ' + sDatabaseFile );
}
print("Moving ",sTempFile," to ",sDatabaseFile);
File.Move( sTempFile, sDatabaseFile );
System.Environment.Exit(4);

function argNamed( sname : String ) {
 var result : String = "";
 var aCmdline = System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs();
 var i : short = 1;
 for ( ; i < aCmdline.length; i++ ) {
  if (aCmdline[i].toLowerCase().slice(0, sname.length + 2) == ( "/" + sname.toLowerCase() + ":" )) {
   var inner : String = aCmdline[i].slice( sname.length + 2 ) 
   result = (inner.charAt(0) == '"' ? inner.slice(1,inner.length-1) : inner);
  }
 }
 return result;
}

function usage() {
 var aArgs = System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs(); 
 print( aArgs[0] );
 print( " /name: /data: /temp: /backup:");
 System.Environment.Exit(1);
}
Enjoy!

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2012

Friday, July 13, 2012

[JScript.NET] Parsing the commandline, working with MS Access

JScript.NET: A bit of a backwater these days. I'm told that Visual Studio 2005 was the last iteration of that IDE to have good support for it. Now one must jump through a couple of hoops to use VS2010 for JScript.NET debugging and otherwise one just has the commandline compiler, jsc. Interestingly, every iteration of the .NET framework has had a jsc compiler, so someone out there must still love it a little. In general, however, it's use is deprecated in favour of other .NET languages like IronPython, CS-Script and IronJS.

Still, I've been wanting to get something working in JScript.NET ...

A while back I wrote a tool in JScript to coordinate the Convert and Repair of Access databases. It works fine, albeit a little slowly being interpreted. It's short and, as it turned out, converted fairly easily once I began to get my head around the shift from Windows Scripting Host (WSH) to .NET.

In the original, I connected to the Scripting.FileSystemObject, using ActiveXObject(). I still do that in the JScript.NET version, simply because I haven't found out what the .NET equivalents are yet.
var oFSO = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
Next came parsing the command line. This is very easy in JScript and VBScript thanks to the WScript object's Arguments object, which even parses the command line into a dictionary, so that /name:<thing> is accessible as WScript.Arguments.Named("name") (as below):
var sDatabaseName = WScript.Arguments.Named("name");
var sDataFolder = WScript.Arguments.Named("data");
var sTempFolder = WScript.Arguments.Named("temp");
var sBackupFolder = WScript.Arguments.Named("backup");
However, .NET's System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs() is nowhere near as helpful, so I had to write something to parse the commandline that would at least come fairly close to the original in functionality.
function argNamed( sname : String ) {
 var result : String = "";
 var aCmdline = System.Environment.GetCommandLineArgs();
 var i : short = 1;
 for ( ; i < aCmdline.length; i++ ) {
  if (aCmdline[i].toLowerCase().slice(0, sname.length + 2) == ( "/" + sname.toLowerCase() + ":" )) {
   var inner : String = aCmdline[i].slice( sname.length + 2 ) 
   result = (inner.charAt(0) == '"' ? inner.slice(1,inner.length-1) : inner);
  }
 }
 return result;
}

var sDatabaseName : String = argNamed("name");
var sDataFolder : String = argNamed("data");
var sTempFolder : String = argNamed("temp");
var sBackupFolder : String = argNamed("backup");
Note that I'm using type annotations in the code to give the compiler a few hints about how to handle the intent of the code. Next, the handling the command line itself. Not a particularly good way of doing it in the original, but hey, it worked.
var bWorking = true;

if ( undefined === sDatabaseName ) {
        WScript.Echo( "Specify database name with /name:" );
        bWorking = false;
}

if ( undefined === sDataFolder ) {
        WScript.Echo( "Specify data path with /data:" );
        bWorking = false;
}

if ( undefined === sTempFolder ) {
        WScript.Echo( "Specify temp folder with /temp:" );
        bWorking = false;
}

if ( undefined === sBackupFolder ) {
        WScript.Echo( "Specify backup folder with /backup:" );
        bWorking = false;
}

if ( ! bWorking ) {
        WScript.Quit();
}
With WScript.Quit() unavailable, I had to find something that would work in JScript.NET. I tried return and break but the compiler complained. Finally, I stumbled over System.Environment.Exit();.
if (  sDatabaseName == "" ) {
        print( "Please specify database name on commandline with /name:" );
        System.Environment.Exit(1);
}

if ( sDataFolder == "" ) {
        print( "Please specify data path on commandline with /data:" );
        System.Environment.Exit(2);
}

if ( sTempFolder == "" ) {
        print( "Please specify temp folder on commandline with /temp:" );
        System.Environment.Exit(3);
}

if ( sBackupFolder == "" ) {
        print( "Please specify backup folder on commandline with /backup:" );
        System.Environment.Exit(4);
}
(Having a more sensible help text is next on the agenda.) Next I create the filenames that will be used later in the Access Compact and Repair process. These also appear in the JScript.NET version for the usual reasons (that is, I don't know yet how to do a BuildPath equivalent in .NET.)
var sDatabaseFile = oFSO.BuildPath(sDataFolder, sDatabaseName);
var sBackupFile = oFSO.BuildPath(sBackupFolder, sDatabaseName);
var sTempFile = oFSO.BuildPath(sTempFolder, sDatabaseName);
Next, assorted deletes, moves and the setup and execution of the CompactRepair Access.Application's CompactRepair() method.
try {
 oFSO.DeleteFile( sTempFile );
} catch ( e ) {
 //~ WScript.Echo( e.message + ': ' + sTempFile );
}

WScript.Echo("CompactRepair",sDatabaseFile,"to",sTempFile);
var oACC = new ActiveXObject('Access.Application');
oACC.CompactRepair( sDatabaseFile, sTempFile, true );
oACC.Quit();

try {
 oFSO.DeleteFile( sBackupFile );
} catch( e ) {
 //~ WScript.Echo( e.message + ': ' + sBackupFile );
}
WScript.Echo("Moving",sDatabaseFile,"to",sBackupFile);
oFSO.MoveFile( sDatabaseFile, sBackupFile );

// copy temp to source, overwriting
try {
 oFSO.DeleteFile( sDatabaseFile );
} catch( e ) {
 //~ WScript.Echo( e.message + ': ' + sDatabaseFile );
}
WScript.Echo("Moving",sTempFile,"to",sDatabaseFile);
oFSO.MoveFile( sTempFile, sDatabaseFile );

WScript.Quit();
The JScript.NET version is almost exactly the same:
try {
 oFSO.DeleteFile( sTempFile );
} catch ( e ) {
 //~ print( e.message + ': ' + sTempFile );
}

print("CompactRepair ",sDatabaseFile," to ",sTempFile);
var oACC = new ActiveXObject("Access.Application");
oACC.CompactRepair( sDatabaseFile, sTempFile, true );
oACC.Quit();

// copy source to backup, overwriting
try {
 oFSO.DeleteFile( sBackupFile );
} catch( e ) {
 //~ print( e.message + ': ' + sBackupFile );
}
print("Moving ",sDatabaseFile," to ",sBackupFile);
oFSO.MoveFile( sDatabaseFile, sBackupFile );

// copy temp to source, overwriting
try {
 oFSO.DeleteFile( sDatabaseFile );
} catch( e ) {
 //~ print( e.message + ': ' + sDatabaseFile );
}
print("Moving ",sTempFile," to ",sDatabaseFile);
oFSO.MoveFile( sTempFile, sDatabaseFile );
System.Environment.Exit(4);
Notice the change from WScript.Quit() to System.Environment.Exit(). Notice also the change from WScript.Echo() to print(). One weird thing about the latter is that the arguments in a WScript.Echo() are output separated by a space, but are not separated at all in a print(), thus the extra spaces in the quoted strings. Sample invocation:
acarNET.exe /name:database.mdb /data:c:\acartest\data /temp:c:\temp /backup:c:\acartest\backup 
Compiled, the JScript.NET version runs very quickly in comparison to the original JScript version. It almost makes me wish JScript.NET had a future. As it stands, I'm going to have to redo this in something else. Sigh. © Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2012

Thursday, July 05, 2012

[CGI] Mobile Browser Detection

A PearlTree with some links to information about detecting mobile phones via the UserAgent string. Also a ColdFusion example.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2012