...while on the train back from FrOSCon.
still the same old problem: we need a better hash function
for generating our Entry-IDs. The default hash function from Boost performs
poor on strings with common prefix and trailing number.
We use a hackish workaround, which is sufficient to avoid collisions
among the first 10000 numbers.
not entirely sure about the design, but lets try this approach:
they can be "cloned" and likewise move-assigned, but we do not
allow the regular assignment, because this would enable to use
references like pointers (what we deliberately do not want)
especially setting (changing) attributes turned out to be tricky,
since in case of a GenNode this would mean to re-bind the hash ID;
we can not possibly do that properly without knowing the type of the payload,
and by design this payload type is opaque (erased).
As resort, I changed the semantics of the assign operation:
now it rather builds a new payload element, with a given initialiser.
In case of the strings, this ends up being the same operation,
while in case of GenNode, this is now something entirely different:
we can now build a new GenNode "in place" of the old one, and both
will have the same symbolic ID (attribute key). Incidentally,
our Variant implementation will reject such a re-building operatinon
when this means to change the (opaque) payload type.
in addition, I created a new API function on the Mutator,
allowing to move-in a complete attribute object. Actually this
new function became the working implementation. This way, it is
still possible to emplace a new attribute efficiently (consider
this to be a whole object graph!). But only, if the key (ID)
embedded in the attribute object is already what is the intended
key for this attribute. This way, we elegantly circumvent the
problem of having to re-bind a hash ID without knowing the type seed
initially, the intention was to inject the type as a magic attribute.
But this turned out to make the implementation brittle, asymmetric
and either quite demanding, or inefficient.
The only sane approach would be to introduce a third collection,
the metadata attributes. Then it would be possible to handle these
automatically, but expose them through the iterator.
In the end I decided against it, just the type attribute
allone does not justify that effort. So now the type is an
special magic field and kept apart from any object data.
this solves the problem how to deal with value access
- for the simple default (string) implementation,
we use a 'key = val' syntax and thus have to split strings,
which means we need to return contents by value
- for the actual relevant use case we have GenNode entries,
which may recursively hold further Records. For dealing
with diff messages over this data struture, its a good
idea to allow for const& value access (otherwise we'd
end up copying large subtrees for trivial operaions)
OMG, what was all this about?
OK... this cant possibly work this way.
At least we need to trim after splitting the attributes.
But this is not enough, we want the value, which implies
to make the type flexible (since we cant return a const& to
a substring extracted on-the-fly)
this was an half hearted attempt to satisfy CLang,
but GCC as keen as a razor insists on these inherited
functions not being accessible --
seems like the time is over, when GCC used to be forgiving
and CLang briliantly precise...
So the conclusion of this "round trip" is: whenever GCC
also starts whining about shadowed overloaded virtual functions,
we'll just switch to "-Wno-overloaded-virtual" and be done with
that pointless discussion.
Since C++11, we have the Java style override specifier,
which does a way better job at spotting signature mismatches
Note: not fixing all relevant warnings.
Especially, the "-Woverloaded-virtual" of Clang defeats the whole purpose
of generated generic interfaces. For example, our Variant type is instantiated
with a list of types the variant can hold. Through metaprogramming, this
instantiation generates also an embedded Visitor interface, which has
virtual 'handle(TY)' functions for all the types in question
The client now may implement, or even partially implement this Visitor,
to retrieve specific data out of given Variant instance with unknown conent.
To complain that some other virtual overload is now shaddowed is besides the point,
so we might consider to disable this warning altogether
https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=56402
The lambda definition captures the this pointer,
but the ctor of the lamda does not initialise this capture.
In our case, we're lucky, as we don't use the "this" pointer;
otherwise, we'd get a crash a runtime.
Fixed since GCC-4.7.3 --> it's *really* time to upgrade to Debian/Jessie
the object VTable is typically emitted when the compiler
encounters the first non-static non-inline function of
the class or a derived class.
Sometimes this happens within the wrong library and so
the compiler needs a nudge to emit those infrastructure functions.
But in most cases this works out of the box and need no further
magic incanctations, which might have a downside.
Especially because also a non-inline dtor does incur a call overhead,
whereas an inline dtor can be trivially elided.
after sleeping a night over this, it seems obvios
that we do not want to start the build proces "implicitly",
starting from a Record<GenNode>. Rather, we always want
the user to plant a dedicated Mutator object, which then
can remain noncopyable and is passed by reference through
the whole builder chain. Movin innards of *this object*
are moved away a the end of the chain does not pose much risk.
especially I've now decided how to handle const-ness:
We're open to all forms of const-ness, the actual usage decides.
const GenNode will only expose a const& to the data values
still TODO is the object builder notation for diff::Record
forwarding equality to the embedded EntryID
Basically, two GenNodes are equal when they have the same "identity"
Ironically, this is the usual twist with database entities
on a second thought, this "workaround" does not look so bad,
due to the C++11 feature to request the default implementation explicitly.
Maybe we'll never need a generic solution for these cases
I decided to allow for an 'unbound' reference to allow
default construction of elements involving record references.
I am aware of the implications, but I place the focus
on the value nature of GenNode elements; the RecordRef
was introduced only as a means to cary out diff comparisons
and similar computations.
basically this is the well known problem #587
Just it became more pressing with the Upgrade to Jessie and Boost 1.55
So I've pulled off the well known "Knuth trick" to spread the
input data more evenly within the hash domain.
And voilà: now we're able to use 100000 number suffixes without collision
- move the santitise operation up into EntryID's ctor
- turn the recast() operation into a real in-place cast
these changes should be transparent to the existing usages
of EntryID (within the asset framework), but allow for use
as attribute name holder in GenNode, since we're now able
to feed existing name/ID values directly into the ctor
of BareEntryID, without any spurious santitise operation.
using the struct-scheme.hpp and the requirements for
EntryID as a guideline. The goal is to move EntryID
over into the support lib, which means we need to get rid
of all direct proc::asset dependencies. Thus, these generic
ID functions shall form a baseline implementation, while
asset::Struct may provide the previously used implementation
through specialisation -- so the behaviour of EntryID will
not change for the structural assets, but we'll get a more
sane and readable default implementation for all other types.
before engaging into the implementation of lib::Record,
I prefer to conduct a round of planning, to get a clearer
view about the requirements we'll meet when extending
our existing list diff to tree structures
Initially, I considered to build an index table like
collection of ordered attributes. But since our actual
use case is Record<GenNode>, this was ruled out in favour
of just a vector<GenNode>, where the keys are embedded
right within the nameID-Field of GenNode.
A decisive factor was the observation, that this design
is basically forced to encode the attribute keys somehow
into the attribute values, because otherwise the whole
collection like initialisation and iteration would break
down. Thus, a fully generic implementation is not possible,
and a pseudo generic implementation just for the purpose of
writing unit tests would be overkill.
Basically this decision means that Record requires an
explicit specialisation to implement the attribute-key
binding for each value type to use.
Ouch!
Why does C++ lack the most basic everyday stuff?
It needn't be performant. It needn't support some fancy
higher order container. Just join the f***ing strings.
use Bosst?? -- OMG!! pulls in half the metra programming library
and tries to work on any concievable range like object. Just
somehow our Lumiera Forward Iterators aren't "range-like" enough
for boost's taste.
Thus let's code up that fucking for-loop ourselves, once and forever.
This is kind of the logic consequence, since we consider our
functional iterator concept still superior and will continue
to rely on it.
For some time now, I've considered to build a generic bridge
function, to use enable_if and metaprogramming to figure out
if some type is a "Lumiera Forward Iterator" automatically.
But since our concept is to some degree a contract regarding
semantics, which never can be captured by any kind of introspection,
such a bridge implementation would be rather heuristic and
bears the danger to trigger on types actually not intended
as iterator at all. So I consider such a solution as dangerous
and we'll settle with just supplying the necessary bridge
functions as free functions injected for ADL on a case by case base
this was spotted by a new GCC warning -Wunused-function
and I must admit, GCC is right here: an externally not visible
function in an anonymous namespace is not what I'd expect to be
picked up by ADL. It is rather weird that the metaprogramming
trait worked at all.
Note that the function is intentionally declared only, never defined.
We want a linker error in case boost::hash ever attempts to
use this 'deliberately ill-definded' catch-all.
Cockoo hashing is a thrilling algorithm.
We investigated it during the time or our first draft
towards a confirugation system in 2008. This usage turned
up some problems -- not sure if based on the implementation
or the algorithm itself; at that time, we just switched
to the probabilistic splay tree. The whole configuration
system effort stalled afterwards; so the cuckoo implementation
remained in tree as a zombie.
This switches the Lumiera UI from GTK-2 to GTK-3
Unfortunately, this move breaks two crucial features, which have been
disabled for now: the display of video and our custom timeline widget.
Since both of these require some reworking, which in fact has already
started, we prefer to do the library and framework switch right away.
