We recently noticed a new bug in the IDE where a dialog that hadn’t been updated for quite some time suddenly started misbehaving: it would appear at the wrong coordinates (0,0), and then jump to the proper ones.
At first glance this this looked like a classic case of creating the dialog in a visible state, and then moving it during the CREATE event, but checking the dialog properties in the Form Designer showed that the dialog’s Visible property was “Hidden”, so this wasn’t the source of the problem.
Stepping through the CREATE event in the debugger showed that the dialog was indeed created hidden, but then became visible during an RList() call that performed a SELECT statement, ergo RList() was allowing some queued event code to execute (probably from an internal call to the Yield() procedure) and that was changing the dialog’s VISIBLE property.
Checking the other events revealed that the SIZE event contained the following code:
Call Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", FALSE$ )
// Move some controls around
Call Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", TRUE$ )
The REDRAW property works by toggling an object’s WS_VISIBLE style bit – when set to FALSE$ the style bit is removed but the object is not redrawn. When set to TRUE$ the object is marked as visible and redrawn.
So, putting all this together: creating the dialog generated a queued SIZE event, which under normal circumstances would run after the CREATE event. However, the Yield() call in RList() executed the SIZE event before the dialog was ready to be shown, and the REDRAW operation made the dialog visible before the CREATE event had moved it to the correct position.
The fix for this was to ensure that the REDRAW property wasn’t set to TRUE$ if it’s original value wasn’t TRUE$, like so:
bRedraw = Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", FALSE$ )
// Move some controls around
If bRedraw Then
Call Set_Property( @Window, "REDRAW", TRUE$ )
End
Conclusion
Always protect calls to the REDRAW property by checking its state before you set it, and then only turn it back on again if it was set to TRUE$ originally.
Calling Yield() can cause events to run out of the normal sequence, and you should be aware of this when writing your application.
The next release of OpenInsight (version 10.1) includes a couple of updates to the FILEPREVIEW control as a result of using it extensively “out in the field”, and in this post we thought we’d look at these changes and why we made them in case you encounter the same issues yourself.
The Adobe problem
As mentioned in this previous post, the FILEPREVIEW control relies on third-party DLLs to provide “preview handlers” that OpenInsight uses to display the contents of files such as Word or PDF documents. However, what we found is that not all of these handlers are created equal and some can be quite problematic – in our case the Adobe PDF preview handler (supplied with the Adobe PDF Reader) proved to be one of these.
When the handler is loaded by OpenInsight one of the things that must be specified is the context in which it is created – this can be “in-process” (which means it runs in the same address space as OpenInsight) or “out-of-process” (which runs as a separate executable). This is done internally by a set of flags, and when you use the FILENAME property these flags are set to their default values which, until recently, had proved sufficient. However, extensive testing (by Martyn at RevSoft) found that the Adobe PDF preview handler had stopped working, and further investigation revealed that at some point recent versions of this had become sensitive to these context flags, so the first change we made was to provide a new SETFILENAME method, which allows you to set the flags yourself if need be:
(Equates for these flags can be found in the MSWIN_CLSCTX_EQUATES insert record)
If the returned value is 0 then the operation was successful, otherwise this is an error code reported from Windows and can be passed to the RTI_ErrorText stored procedure to get the details:
E.g.
// Load the PDF in an out-of-process context
$Insert MSWin_ClsCtx_Equates
RetVal = Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SETFILENAME", "C:\Temp\Test.PDF", "",
CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER$ )
If RetVal Then
// Problem...
ErrorText = RTI_ErrorText( "WIN", RetVal )
End
Even with this you may still find problems, as the above code was fine for me, but not for Martyn, even though the PDF preview handler worked fine in Windows Explorer itself for both of us! So, we could only conclude that Adobe made sure that the handler worked with the Windows Explorer, but they were less concerned about third party applications (Per-monitor DPI settings are also not supported by the preview handler which is disappointing as well).
The Foxit solution
After some more testing we decided to switch to the Foxit PDF reader which worked as expected, so we would recommend using this for PDF previewing in future if needed.
Removing the FILENAME property at design-time
One other change we made was to remove the FILENAME property from the Form Designer so that it could not be set at design-time due to the following reasons:
We had reports that once it had been set it was very difficult to select the control again in the Form Designer, because it basically takes over mouse handling!
Document previewing is deemed to more of a run-time operation than a design-time operation.
The FILENAME property is deprecated in favor of the SETFILENAME method because the latter provides a more complete API. The FILENAME property is still supported however, and will be going forwards.
Conclusion
So, for v10.1 we have provided a new SETFILENAME method to provide a better interface for file-previewing which gives more feedback and more control, and you should use this in preference to the FILENAME property.
We have also found the Adobe PDF preview handler to be somewhat temperamental in use so would recommend the Foxit preview handler instead if you have problems with the former (Note however, that other preview handlers we use regularly, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint have all worked well without any issues so far).
RList is the OpenInsight tool for queries and ad hoc reports. OpenInsight 10 implements an extended version of RList via the new RTI_RLISTX stored procedure which offers additional features for selecting and reporting data. However, you do not need to change existing programs to take advantage of this.
This post takes a look at some of the new RList capabilities, along with a full description of the API and some code examples.
OLIST/RUN_REPORT syntax support
LIST statements can use the same syntax as RUN_REPORT or OLIST if the output is going to the screen or printer.
With OLIST LIST statements you can use keywords like GRID and PDFFILE. When the target is TARGET_PRINTER$, RList calls OLIST_PRODUCE to render the output.
Stacked selects
RList accepts a stack of SELECT statements and optionally one output (LIST) statement. RList will execute SELECT statements until zero records are selected or a LIST statement is executed. This allows developers to break a complex query into a series of simpler SELECT statements. Each subsequent SELECT statement refines the active select list.
RList to BRW
The TARGET_BRWDESIGN$ option will create a BRW (Banded Report Writer) report from an RList statement and open it in the BRW Designer for the developer to refine it. RList will prompt for the report group name. The intent is to let you quickly rough out a report or even a set of master/detail reports using RList, then use the BRW Designer to refine the result.
RList to a variable
The TARGET_VARIABLE$ option will return the result of an RList statement into a variable. For example, you can get a list of keys without using loop/readnext, you can populate an edit table with a SELECT statement, and you can obtain CSV, XML or JSON data by calling RList. This is similar to the OpenInsight 9 SELECT_INTO stored procedure. The SELECT_INTO syntax is still supported and now calls RTI_RLISTX internally to implement the commands instead.
Cursor support
RList support allows you to specify a cursor number between 0 and 8, or -1 to use the next non-zero cursor. OpenInsight 9 offered cursor support but the RList interface did not. Cursors permit sub-queries that don’t corrupt the main select loop. Sub-queries can operate on other BFS’s too. For example OpenInsight calculated columns can query SQL tables.
Reduce, Select by, ReadNext, Swap.Cursor, Make.list, Save_Select, Activate_Save_Select all support cursors in OpenInsight 10.
Performance enhancements
RList implements many optimizations in selecting and reporting:
It will use indexes to refine an existing select, whereas previous versions only use indexes on a select without an active select list.
Caching can reduce server IO so RList can now cache rows as they are read if it knows that the same rows will be sorted or reported – previous versions always read the records to select, sort and report.
RESOLVE_SELECT, the program which finalizes a select, is improved. If you specify the number of rows, RESOLVE_SELECT exits when it reaches that number of rows rather than resolving all of the rows before applying the limit.
RList calls a new routine, RTI_CHAIN_SELECT, to pre-process selects which has some query optimization built in. For example, it will select on indexed fields before non-indexed, and hard fields before calculated. It performs sorts after the all selects are completed.
This parameter should contain one or more OpenList (SELECT/LIST) statements, separated by field marks. RList will process each statement sequentially until it exhausts the list of keys, selects zero rows, or executes a LIST statement. Note that in OpenInsight 10 RList accepts the same syntax as the classic OLIST or RUN_REPORT procedures as well as that used in TCL and any legacy OpenInsight 9 syntax.
Target parameter
Target is a code indicating the desired output format. OpenInsight supplies an insert which enumerates the options for target. See the RLIST_EQUATES insert record for more details.
Target
Value
Description
TARGET_PRINTER$
0
Sends the output of a LIST statement to the printer.
TARGET_CLIENT$
1
Sends the output of a LIST statement to the screen.
TARGET_VARIABLE$
2
Returns the output of a LIST statement to a variable.
TARGET_CALLBACK$
3
Triggers an RLIST_CALLBACK routine.
TARGET_SAVELIST$
4
Performs a SAVE_SELECT operation on the result of select statements.
TARGET_ACTIVELIST$
5
Activates a cursor with the result of select statements.
TARGET_LATENTLIST$
6
Creates a latent cursor for subsequent ReadNext processing.
TARGET_CHECKSYNTAX$
7
Checks the statements for valid syntax but does not execute them.
TARGET_CALLBACK_NOFMT$
8
Triggers an RLIST_CALLBACK routine but with no formatting or truncation applied to the returned values.
TARGET_BRWDESIGN$
9
Generate a Banded report, and open it in the designer.
TARGET_BRWRUN$
10
Generate a Banded report, and execute immediately.
TargetName parameter
This parameter is polymorphic. You supply different values for different combinations of target and SELECT or LIST statements:
Target
Select Statement
LIST statement
TARGET_PRINTER$
N/a
N/a
TARGET_CLIENT$
N/a
N/a
TARGET_VARIABLE$
RList will return the keys if the output format is “KEYS”. See the UserArg parameter.
RList will return the output into the variable. The format of the output depends on the UserArg parameter.
TARGET_CALLBACK$
N/a
The name of an “RList callback” procedure.
TARGET_SAVELIST$
The name of the list to save. The string you pass is the list name in the SYSLISTS table. If you pass a space delimited string, RLIST will write the list to a table other than SYSLISTS using the first word as the name of the table and the second as the id of the list.
N/a
TARGET_ACTIVELIST$
N/a
N/a
TARGET_LATENTLIST$
N/a
N/a
TARGET_CHECKSYSTAX$
N/a
N/a
TARGET_CALLBACK_NOFMT$
N/a
The name of an “RList callback” procedure. RList will not enforce column widths on the output. Used by SELECT_INTO in OpenInsight 9.
TARGET_BRWDESIGN$
N/a
The name of the report group and report to generate.
TARGET_BRWRUN$
N/a
N/a
UserArg parameter
Another polymorphic parameter whose format depends on the chosen Target parameter:
Target
Select Statement
LIST statement
TARGET_PRINTER$
N/a
UserArg<2> = cursor number
TARGET_CLIENT$
N/a
UserArg<2> = cursor number
TARGET_VARIABLE$
UserArg<1> = output format. “KEYS” is the only relevant format. UserArg<2> = cursor number
UserArg<1> = ResultFormat ( see below ) UserArg<2> = cursor number
TARGET_CALLBACK$
N/a
UserArg<2> = cursor number
TARGET_SAVELIST$
UserArg<2> = cursor number
N/a
TARGET_ACTIVELIST$
UserArg<2> = cursor number
N/a
TARGET_LATENTLIST$
N/a
TARGET_CHECKSYSTAX$
N/a
N/a
TARGET_CALLBACK_NOFMT$
N/a
UserArg<2> = cursor number
TARGET_BRWDESIGN$
N/a
The name of the report group and report to generate.
TARGET_BRWRUN$
N/a
N/a
ResultFormat
ResultFormat values are applicable when returning the result to a variable using the TARGET_VARIABLE$ Target.
ResultFormat
Description
ADO
Result is an OLE record-set containing VARCHAR values.
CSV
Result is a set of comma separated values, all values quoted, commas between columns, carriage-return/linefeed characters between rows.
EDT
Edit Table format. Row 1 is column headings, @vm between columns, @fm between rows. Useful for populating edit tables using RList statements
HTML
Result is an HTML table.
JSON
Result is a JSON array of row objects, each column is an object in the row, multi-values are arrays.
KEYS
Result is an @fm-delimited list of keys.
MV
Default format. Result is an array – @fm between columns, @rm between rows. Row 1 is the column headers.
TAB
Result is a set of tab-delimited column values, carriage-return/linefeed characters between rows.
TXT
Same as TAB (see above).
XML
Result is an XML collection of rows, each row is an XML collection of columns.
Cursor Number
Cursor numbers specified in the UserArg parameter should be one of the following values:
An integer between 0 and 8
Null to use for cursor 0 (the default)
-1 for next available, which chooses an inactive cursor from 1 to 8
DebugFlag parameter
N/a.
Code Examples
RList to PDF
RList To PDF
Stacked Queries
Sometimes it’s easier to execute a series of select statements rather than a single complex query. RList accepts a list of selects with an optional closing list statement. RList will execute until completed or no records are selected. If one of the conditions selects nothing then the list statement will not run.
Stacked queries
Query using a cursor
RList now supports cursors like REDUCE and SELECT BY. Indicate the cursor in field two of the UserArg parameter (in other words, UserArg<2>). Use this to execute sub queries. The sub query can return keys from a select or the output from a LIST statement.
Query using alternate cursor
Sub-query without corrupting the main select
Sub-query example
Sub query in calculated column
You can use sub-queries in calculated columns too. A cursor variable of -1 uses the next available cursor. This allows you to nest calculated columns which perform sub-selects. If you always use subqueries rather than direct calls to btree.extract then your logic will function with or without indexes. You can make indexing choices in the performance tuning stage of development rather than when designing the dictionaries.
Calculated column using sub-query
Return results to a variable
A new target type, TARGET_VARIABLE$ ( 2 ), will return the output to a variable. Pass a variable as the third parameter and an output format as the fourth. For SELECT statements, you must specify ‘KEYS’ as the output format. For LISTS statements you supply one of the formats listed above.
Select keys into a variable
Populating an edit table control
The “EDT” output format is convenient for loading data into edit table controls:
Populate an edit table control
Conclusion
RList for OpenInsight 10 offers new features as well as improved performance. Some of the features are available in previous versions but not via the RList interface. We tried to unify the disparate query capabilities (rlist, reduce, btree.extract, select_Into, olist ) under a single interface so you can focus on functionality and we can focus on performance.
One of the most popular “raw” Windows API functions that OpenInsight developers have used over the years is the ShellExecute function, which allows you to launch an application via its filename association, e.g. you can launch Word by using a document file name, or Excel using a spreadsheet filename and so on.
However, because it was never really made an “official” part of the product (it was normally passed on in forums), developers were left to create their own DLL Prototype definitions in order to use it – this gave rise to many variations over the years, many of which were not compatible with others. For example, some use LPCHAR as an argument type, some use LPSTR or LPASTR, whilst others use LPVOID with GetPointer(); some definitions use the “Wide” version of the function, some the “Ansi” version, and there are many different aliases, with or without the “A/W” suffix too. The list goes on.
For OpenInsight 10 we decided that we couldn’t move forward with this as we would run the risk of conflicting with established applications, so we moved all of the DLL Prototypes we used into a new namespace called “MSWIN_” and claimed it as our own. This left developers to bring forward their own DLL prototypes into version 10 as and when needed, and therefore we didn’t supply a “ShellExecute” function as such, though we did supply “MsWin_ShellExecute” instead (see below).
Another decision we took was to try and move away from the need for developers to use raw Windows API function calls as much as possible, as some of them can be complex and require knowledge of C/C++ programming, which is not necessarily a skill set that everyone has the time or desire to learn. Ergo, we moved a lot of functionality into the Presentation Server (PS) and created some Basic+ wrapper functions around others to shield developers from the sometimes gory internals.
(We also chose to use the “W” versions of functions rather than the “A” versions where possible, because these would translate better when in UTF8 mode and remove the need for an extra “A”->”W” conversion in Windows itself.)
So, coming back to ShellExecute, and in light of the above, we have three “official” and supported ways of calling it in OpenInsight 10 as detailed below:
The SYSTEM object SHELLEXEC method
The RTI_ShellExecuteEx stored procedure
The MSWin_ShellExecute DLL Prototype stored procedure
The SYSTEM object SHELLEXEC method
If your program is running in “Event Context”, (i.e. it is executing in response to an event originating from the PS) then you may use the SYSTEM SHELLEXEC method which invokes ShellExecuteW internally.
Name of a form to use as a parent for displaying UI messages.
Operation
No
Operation to be performed; “open”, “edit”, “print” etc.
File
Yes
File to perform the operation on.
Parameters
No
If File is an executable file this argument should specify the command line parameters to pass to it.
WorkingDir
No
The default working directory for the operation. If null the current working directory is used.
ShowCmd
No
Determines how an application is displayed when it is opened (as per the normal VISIBLE property).
The return value is the value returned by ShellExecuteW.
The RTI_ShellExecuteEx method
This stored procedure is a wrapper around the Windows API ShellExecuteExW function (which is used internally by ShellExecuteW itself), and may be used outside of event context – it can also return the handle to any new process it starts as a result of executing the document. As you can see it’s quite similar to the SHELLEXEC method:
Whilst you are free to use one of the methods outlined above, this may not be optimal if you are still sharing code between your existing version 9 application and your new version 10 one. In this case there are a couple of options you could use:
Define your preferred DLL prototype in v10.
Use a wrapper procedure and conditional compilation.
Defining your own prototype
This is probably the easiest option – you simply use the same prototype in v10 that you did in version 9, with the same alias (if any), and this way the code that uses it doesn’t need to be changed. The only downside to this if you’ve used any 32-bit specific data types instead of 32/64-bit safe types like HANDLE (this could happen if you have a really old prototype) – you must ensure that you use types that are 64-bit compliant.
Using conditional compilation
This is a technique we used when writing the initial parts of v10 in a v9 system so our stored procedures would run the correct code depending on the platform they were executing on (it was actually first used to share code between ARev and OI many years ago!).
The v10 Basic+ compiler defines a token called “REVENG64” which is not present in the v9 compiler – this means that you can check for this in your source code with “#ifdef/#ifndef” directives and write code for the different compiler versions.
For example, you could write your own wrapper procedure for ShellExecute that looks something like this:
Compile Function My_ShellExecute( hwnd, verb, file, params, dir, nShow )
#ifdef REVENG64
// V10 Compiler - use RTI function
Declare Function RTI_ShellExecuteEx
RetVal = RTI_ShellExecuteEx( hwnd, verb, file, params, dir, nShow, "" )
#endif
#ifndef REVENG64
// V9 Compiler - use existing "raw" prototype
Declare Function ShellExecute
RetVal = ShellExecute( hwnd, verb, file, params, dir, nShow )
#endif
Return RetVal
And then call My_ShellExecute from your own code.
So, there ends the Saga of ShellExecute … at least for now.
In a recent post we provided a preview of the OpenInsight IMAGE API documentation for the upcoming release of version 10.1. As that proved quite popular we thought we’d provide some more, this time dealing with the Common GUI API (i.e. the basic interface that virtually every GUI object supports) and the WINDOW object API – two core areas of OI GUI programming.
Methods, not Events
One thing you may notice as you look through these documents is the addition of many new methods, such as SHOWOPTIONS or QBFCLOSESESSION – this is an attempt to tidy up the API into a more logical and coherent format that is a better fit for an object-based interface.
As we went through the product in order to document it, it became very apparent that there were many instances where events were being used to mimic methods, such as sending a WRITE event to save the data in a form, or sending a CLICK event to simulate a button click and so on. In object-based terminology this sort of operation would be performed by a method, which is a directive that performs an action – the event is a notification in response to that action. So, for example, you would call a “write” method to save your data and the system would raise a “write” event so you could deal with it.
Of course, this distinction will probably not bother many developers – just API purists like myself, but this does have another advantage if you like to use Object Notation Syntax (I do) – you can now perform actions such as reading and writing form data by using the”->” notation, whereas before you would have to use the Send_Event stored procedure which essentially breaks the object-based paradigm.
So instead of:
Call Send_Event( @Window, "WRITE" )
you would use the form’s WRITEROW method instead:
@@Window->WriteRow( "" )
which is a more natural fit for this style of programming.
(It is also easier to explain to new OI programmers who are used to other object-based languages and environments where everything is properties, methods and events).
Methods, not Stored Procedures
This brings us finally onto the topic of Stored Procedures and the object API, where several of these also fulfill the role of methods. For example, take the venerable Msg stored procedure used to display a message box for a parent form – a different way of treating this would be to have a SHOWMESSAGE method for the parent form rather than using a “raw” Msg call. Likewise for starting a new form: instead of using the raw Start_Window procedure, the SYSTEM and WINDOW objects now support a STARTFORM method instead.
Of course, none of this changes your existing code, nor is it enforced, it’s just something you can use if and when you wish to. However, even if my API pedantry hasn’t persuaded you to change your coding style, some of the new methods are worth investigating as they provide a better opportunity for us to extend the product’s functionality further – take a look at the WINDOW READROW and WRITEROW methods for an example of this – they support new features that we couldn’t do with just sending events.
In any case, here are the links – hopefully some light reading for your weekend!
The next release of OpenInsight includes a new TABCONTROL property called ALLOWDRAGREORDER, which allows you to drag a tab to a new position within the control. It’s a simple boolean property, and when set to True tabs may be dragged and reordered with the mouse – an image of the tab is moved with the cursor, and a pair of arrows are displayed to mark the potential insertion point.
Here’s an example of a tab being dragged in the IDE:
Bonus trivia
The tabs may be scrolled while dragging by hovering outside either edge of the control.
This property is not supported for:
MultiLine tab controls
Vertically-aligned tab controls
The LISTBOX control also supports this property for reordering its items – see the “Order Tabs” dialog in the Form Designer for an example, or the list of types in the IDE’s “Open Entity” dialog.
Bitmap controls in OpenInsight 10 have a method called CAPTUREIMAGE, which allows you to “screenshot” the contents of another OI control or form into the Bitmap control’s IMAGE sub-object. As you can see, it has a very simple interface:
Where “CaptureID” is the fully qualified name of the control to screenshot.
E.g.
If we have a form called TEST_CAPTUREIMAGE, with a BITMAP control called BMP_SCREENSHOT, then we can screenshot the contents of the IDE into it like so:
The next release of OpenInsight sees a few updates to context menus and the ContextMenu Designer, so in this post we’ll take a brief look at these upcoming changes.
Moving the focus
One important aspect of standard Windows context menu behavior is that the focus is moved (if possible) to the control that the menu belongs to. Current versions of OpenInsight do not follow this pattern so the next release includes a fix for this, and this is something you should be aware of just in case it impacts your application (though to be honest, we’re not really expecting it to!).
Test-Run support
The Context-Menu Designer now supports the IDE “Test-Run” feature, so that you can see how your context menu will appear when you use it in your application.
When you test-run your context menu you will see a simple dialog box with an edit control (EDL_TEST) and and a static control (TXT_TEST) like so:
Right-clicking either of these controls displays your context menu:
Selecting an item displays it’s fully-qualified name, which has the standard format of:
The initial release of the ContextMenu Designer in v10.0.8 included check-boxes for two “common menu” options as shown in the screenshot below. Each of these options appends a set of standard menu items to your context menu, and both have been enhanced for the next release and include new artwork as well.
The “OI Menu” appends the following items:
Options – Display options for the current control.
Whilst the “Windows Menu” appends the following standard “Edit” items instead:
Undo
Cut
Copy
Paste
Delete
Select All
In both cases the default system CONTEXTMENU event (i.e. the event responsible for actually displaying the menu) synchronizes the items to the parent control by using the HELPFLAGS and EDITSTATEFLAGS properties respectively.
(The definition for these items can be found in the SYSPROG “OIMENU_” and “WINMENU_” ContextMenu entities respectively – you may adjust these if you wish, but be aware that they may be overwritten in future OpenInsight updates, so you should make copies in your own application).
The @MENUPARENT pseudo-control name
When using QuickEvents there are several pseudo-control names you can use, such as “@WINDOW”, “@FOCUS” and “@SELF”, that are resolved to a “real” control name at runtime.
However, in order to be able to reference the context menu’s parent control at runtime we’ve introduced a new pseudo-control name called “@MENUPARENT”. This resolves to the name of the control displaying the menu and should be used in place of “@FOCUS” because it is perfectly possible for controls that don’t accept the focus (like Static Text controls) to have a context menu, and @FOCUS would not resolve to the correct value. Note that @MENUPARENT can only be used with MENU QuickEvents for context menu items – it cannot be used with any other type or event.
Context menus are an essential part of modern user interface design and we encourage you to use them as much as possible in your own applications – hopefully you’ll find that the tools provided in OpenInsight 10 make this easy to achieve!
In the next release of OpenInsight we’ve added a new feature that allows you to quickly display runtime databinding information for the controls in your application – the aptly named SHOWDATABINDING method.
It’s a simple method that is supported by all controls, and can be invoked like so:
Call Exec_Method( CtrlEntID, "SHOWDATABINDING" )
If the control is bound to a database table then it displays a view-only dialog of data binding information for that control. The following example shows the information for a bound column in an EditTable control:
The Description, Validation, Heading and Formula attributes all have their own sub-dialog boxes to display their full details.
If the control is not databound a simple message is displayed to inform the user of the fact.
This method can easily be added to menu or contextmenu QuickEvents in your own applications if you wish to expose this information to your users, or just for your own diagnostic purposes.
Welcome to the final part of this mini series on the string comparison mechanics in OpenInsight. In the first two parts we reviewed how this task is currently handled in both ANSI and UTF8 modes, but this time we’ll take a look at a new capability introduced for the next release which is called the “Linguistic String Comparison Mode”.
As we’ve seen previously, there is certainly room for improvement when dealing with string comparisons and sorting in non-English languages, mainly due to the burden placed on the developer to maintain the sorting parameters, especially once the requirements extend beyond the basic ANSI character set. There is also no advantage taken of the capabilities of Windows itself, which provides a comprehensive National Language Support (NLS) API for testing strings for linguistic equality.
What is “linguistic equality”?
If you’re unfamiliar with the term “linguistic equality” it essentially means comparing strings according to the language rules of a specific locale thereby providing appropriate results for a user of that locale. For example, consider the following cases that illustrate how comparisons differ for the same characters in different locales:
Many locales equate the ae ligature (æ) with the letters ae. However, Icelandic (Iceland) considers it a separate letter and places it after Z in the sorting sequence.
The A Ring (Å) normally sorts with merely a diacritic difference from A. However, Swedish (Sweden) places the A Ring after Z in the sorting sequence.
In a standard OI system these sort of rules would need the developer to define the collation sequence records that represent them, which is simply duplicating effort when Windows itself is easily capable of handling this for us.
Using Linguistic Mode
In order to utilize this API without impacting current systems we have introduced a new “mode” into OpenInsight that allows you to determine exactly when you wish to enable linguistic support. This mode comprises three elements:
Mode ID – this is the mode itself, which can be one of the following values:
(0) Normal, non-linguistic mode.
(1) Linguistic mode.
Mode Flags – A set of bit-wise flags for use with the Linguistic mode.
Mode Locale – A locale identifier for use with the Linguistic mode (defaults to the current user’s locale).
It’s simply a case of setting the mode when you want it to apply to sorting and case-insensitive operations, and turning it off when you don’t. Just like with Extended Precision Mode you can set a default mode for your application and then adjust this at runtime as desired.
(Note that using the Linguistic mode is not affected by OpenInsight’s ANSI or UTF8 mode, as the string comparisons are processed “outside” in Windows itself.)
The following five functions are used to control the Linguistic Mode:
GetDefaultStrCmpMode – returns the default application mode settings.
SetDefaultStrCmpMode – sets the default application mode.
GetStrCmpMode – returns the current mode settings.
SetStrCmpMode – sets the current mode.
GetStrCmpStatus – returns the status of a string comparison operation.
Along with this set of equates:
RTI_STRCMPMODE_EQUATES
MSWIN_COMPARESTRING_EQUATES
Example:
$Insert RTI_StrCmpMode_Equates
$Insert MSWin_CompareString_Equates
// Set the mode to Linguistic, sorting digits as numbers, case-insensitive,
// and with linguistic casing, using the "en-UK" locale
SCFlags = BitOr( LINGUISTIC_IGNORECASE$, NORM_LINGUISTIC_CASING$ )
SCFlags = BitOr( SCFlags, SORT_DIGITSASNUMBERS$ )
Call SetStrCmpMode( STRCMPMODE_LINGUISTIC$, SCFlags, "en-UK" )
// Now do some sorting ...Call V119( "S", "", "A", "L", data, "" )
Full details on each of these functions can be found at the end of this post, but let’s take a look in more detail at the each of the mode settings:
Mode ID
This is an integer value that controls how string comparisons are made:
When set to “0” then the application will run in “normal” mode, which means that string comparisons will use the methods described in parts 1 and 2 of this series. The Mode Flags and Mode Locale settings are ignored.
When set to “1” the application uses the Windows CompareStringEx function for string comparisons instead. The Mode Flags and the Mode Locale settings will also be used with this.
Mode Flags
This setting is a integer comprising one or more optional bit-flags that are passed to the Windows CompareStringEx function when running in Linguistic Mode (It may be set to 0 to apply the default behavior). A full description of their use can be found in the Microsoft documentation for the CompareStringEx function, but briefly these are:
Flag
Description
LINGUISTIC_IGNORECASE$
Ignore case, as linguistically appropriate.
LINGUISTIC_IGNOREDIACRITIC$
Ignore nonspacing characters, as linguistically appropriate.
NORM_IGNORECASE$
Ignore case.
NORM_IGNOREKANATYPE$
Do not differentiate between hiragana and katakana characters.
NORM_IGNORENONSPACE$
Ignore nonspacing characters.
NORM_IGNORESYMBOLS$
Ignore symbols and punctuation.
NORM_IGNOREWIDTH$
Ignore the difference between half-width and full-width characters.
NORM_LINGUISTIC_CASING$
Use the default linguistic rules for casing, instead of file system rules.
SORT_DIGITSASNUMBERS$
Treat digits as numbers during sorting.
SORT_STRINGSORT$
Treat punctuation the same as symbols.
Mode Locale
This is can be the name of the locale to use (like “en-US”, “de-CH” etc.), or one of the following special values:
“0” or null – Use the current user locale (LOCALE_NAME_USER_DEFAULT).
“1” – Use the current OS locale (LOCALE_NAME_SYSTEM_DEFAULT).
“2” – Use an invariant locale that provides stable locale and calendar data (LOCALE_NAME_INVARIANT)
The Linguistic Mode and Basic+
The following Basic+ operators and functions are affected by the Linguistic Mode :
LT operator
LE operator
EQ operator
NE operator
GE operator
GT operator
_LTC operator
_LEC operator
_EQC operator
_NEC operator
_GEC operator
_GTC operator
IndexC function
V119 function
Locate By statement
LocateC statement
Note that when used with the case-insensitive operators and functions (such as _eqc, IndexC() etc.) the LINGUISTIC_IGNORECASE$ flag is always applied if the NORM_IGNORECASE$ has not been specified.
Performance considerations
Using the Linguistic Mode can impact performance for two reasons:
There is just more work to do – comparison of strings using more complex rules will always be slower that a simple comparison of ordinal byte values or code points.
The strings must be copied and transformed into UTF16 (wide) strings before passing to the Windows CompareStringEx function. While this is not a slow operation in and of itself it will add some overhead.
Because of this Linguistic Mode is not enabled by default – you are free choose when to apply it yourself.
String Comparison Mode functions
GetDefaultStrCmpMode function
This function returns an @fm-delimited dynamic array containing the current default string comparison mode settings for the application in the format:
This function sets the default string comparison mode for an application. The mode is set to these default values for each new request made to the engine (i.e each event or web-request). This is to protect against situations where an error condition could force the engine to abort processing before the mode could be reset, thereby leaving it in an unknown state.
This function takes three arguments:
Name
Description
Mode
Specifies the default mode to set: “0” for Normal mode, or “1” for Linguistic Mode.
Flags
Bitmask integer that specifies the default flags to use when in Linguistic Mode
Locale
Specifies the name of the default locale to use.
Example:
$Insert RTI_StrCmpMode_Equates
$Insert MSWin_CompareString_Equates
// Set the default mode to Linguistic, sorting digits as numbers, using the// user's locale
SCFlags = SORT_DIGITSASNUMBERS$Call SetDefaultStrCmpMode( STRCMPMODE_LINGUISTIC$, SCFlags, "" )
GetStrCmpMode function
This function returns an @fm-delimited dynamic array containing the current string comparison mode settings for the application in the format
This function sets the current string comparison mode for an application. Note that the mode is set to the default values for each new request made to the engine (i.e each event or web-request). This is to protect against situations where an error condition could force the engine to abort processing before the mode could be reset, thereby leaving it in an unknown state.
This function takes three arguments:
Name
Description
Mode
Specifies the mode to set: “0” for Normal mode, or “1” for Linguistic Mode.
Flags
Bitmask integer that specifies the flags to use when in Linguistic Mode
Locale
Specifies the name of the locale to use.
Example:
$Insert RTI_StrCmpMode_Equates
$Insert MSWin_CompareString_Equates
// Set the mode to Linguistic, sorting digits as numbers, case-insensitive,
// and with linguistic casing, using the "en-UK" locale
SCFlags = BitOr( LINGUISTIC_IGNORECASE$, NORM_LINGUISTIC_CASING$ )
SCFlags = BitOr( SCFlags, SORT_DIGITSASNUMBERS$ )
Call SetStrCmpMode( STRCMPMODE_LINGUISTIC$, SCFlags, "en-UK" )
// Now do some sorting ...Call V119( "S", "", "A", "L", data, "" )
GetStrCmpStatus function
While it is unlikely that the CompareStringEx function will raise any errors it is possible if incompatible flags or parameters are used. In this case Windows returns an error code which may be accessed in Basic+ via this function (See the CompareStringEx documentation for more details on error values).
Example:
$Insert RTI_StrCmpMode_Equates
$Insert MSWin_CompareString_Equates
// Set the mode to Linguistic, sorting digits as numbers, case-insensitive,
// and with linguistic casing, using the "en-UK" locale
SCFlags = BitOr( LINGUISTIC_IGNORECASE$, NORM_LINGUISTIC_CASING$ )
SCFlags = BitOr( SCFlags, SORT_DIGITSASNUMBERS$ )
Call SetStrCmpMode( STRCMPMODE_LINGUISTIC$, SCFlags, "en-UK" )
// Now do some sorting ...Call V119( "S", "", "A", "L", data, "" )
SCError = GetStrCmpStatus()
If SCError Then
ErrorText = RTI_ErrorText( "WIN", SCError )
End
Conclusion
This concludes this mini-series on OpenInsight string comparison processing. Hopefully you’ll find the new Linguistic Mode useful in your own applications, bearing in mind that some of the custom sorting options, such as “Treat Digits As Numbers”, can have a use in any application beyond simply dealing with non-English language sets.
Some of the more astute readers among you may have noticed that no mention of indexing has been made so far with respect to Linguistic Mode. This is because work is currently ongoing in this part of the system, and we’ll give you more details regarding this at a later date.
Further reading
More information on this subject may be found here:
Building OpenInsight 10 