I am currently in a stage where I would like to have my code modularized and following software-engineering techniques to make it reusable and understandable. In particular, I run my code either in my laptop and in an external server.
My goal is to have the main part of the code exactly the same in the laptop and the server, but different initialization parameters in the two case (in the server I will increase the # of iterations for instance and other variables). What is the common practice to do so, apart from clearly an if-else statement in the main?
I was thinking of an initialization file (like a JSON) in the laptop and the server, which is different and I just need to modify the values. Or a Matlab function which initializes the variables, but still, it would have an if-else statement.
Other suggestions? Keep in mind I might to want to extend the algorithmic part and introduce new parameters in the future.
Thanks
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I am working with a legacy scala codebase, and as is always the case modifying the code is quite difficult without touching different parts.
One of my new requirement in to make several decisions based on some input parameters. Problem is that these decisions are to be made at various points along the execution. So either I encapsulate all those parameters in a case class instance and pass it along. But it means I would have to modify multiple methods signatures, and I want to avoid this approach as much as possible.
Another approach can be to create a global object containing all those input parameters and accessible from different points in the execution. Is it a good approach in Scala?
No, using global mutable variables to pass “hidden” parameters is not a good idea, not in Scala and not in any other programming language. It makes the code hard to understand and modify, because a function's behaviour will now depend on which functions were invoked earlier. And it's extremely fragile, because you might forget setting one of those global parameters before invoking the function, which means that it will use whatever value was stored there before. This is the kind of thing that can appear to work for years, and then break when you modify a completely unrelated part of the program.
I can't stress this enough: do not use global mutable variables, period. The solution is to man up and change those method signatures. Depending on the details, dependency injection may or may not help in your particular case.
Let's say we have the following model:
Collector:
model Collector
Real collect_here;
annotation(defaultComponentPrefixes="inner");
end Collector;
and the following model potentially multiple times:
model Calculator
outer Collector collector;
Real calculatedVariable = 2*time;
equation
calculatedVariable = collector.collect_here;
end Calculator;
The code above works if calcModel is present only once in the system to be simulated. If the model exists more than once I get a singular system. This is demonstrated by the Example below. Changing the parameter works either gives a working or failing system.
model Example
parameter Boolean works = true;
inner Collector collector;
Calculator calculator1;
Calculator calculator2 if not works;
end Example;
Using an array inside the collector to pass multiple variables in it doesn't solve it.
Another possible way to solve this is possible by use of connectors, but I only made it work with one calcModel.
Using multiple instances of Calculator does brake the model, as the single variable calculatedVariable will have multiple equations trying to compute its value. Therefore Dymola complains that the system is structurally singular, in this case meaning that there are more equations than variables in the resulting system of equations.
To give a bit more of an insight: Actually checking Collector will fail, as since Modelica 3.0 every component has to be balanced (meaning it has to have as many unknowns as states), which is not the case for Collector as it does have one unknown but no equation. This strongly limits the possible applications for the inner/outer construct as basically every variable has to be computed where it is defined.
In the given example this is compensated in the overall system if exactly one Calculator is used. So this single combination will work. Although this works, it is something that should not be done - for the obvious reason of being very error-prone (and all sub-models should pass the check).
Your question on how to solve this issue actually misses a description of what the issue actually is. There are some cases in my mind that your approach could be useful for:
You want to plot multiple variables from a single point, which would be collector. For this purpose "variable selections" should be the most straight-forward way to go: see Dymola Manual Vol. 1, Section "4.3.11 Matching and variable selections" on how to apply them.
You want to carry out some mathematical operation on that variables. Then it could be useful to have a vectorized input of variable size. This enables an arbitrary number of connections to this input. For an example of this take a look at: Modelica.Blocks.Math.MultiSum
You want to route multiple signals between different models (which is unlikely judging from your description, but still): Then expandable connectors would be a good possibility. To get an impression of what that does take a look at Modelica.Blocks.Examples.BusUsage.
Hope this helps, otherwise please specify more clearly what you actually want to achieve with your code.
I prepared a demonstrative library for such scenario some days ago. You can access it at https://gist.github.com/beutlich/e630b2bf6cdf3efe96e5e9a637124fe1. If you read the documentation on Example2 you can see the link to an article from H. Elmqvis et. al., which is the clue to your problem. That is, you need a connector, and inherited connects from every Calculator to the one Collector.
I am currently working on the implementation of some C-Code in a Simulink model using the S-Function Builder block.
The code uses various timers and counters, which are defined as static variables to enable the access to the data in following simulation steps.
However, if I start the simulation MATLAB crashes without error message ('Fatal Exception'). To test I defined the variables without the 'static' statement. The Simulation works in this case, however with (logically) wrong results of the S-Function.
Has anybody else faced similar issues or knows how to declare static variables in Simulink?
P.S.
I know I could use Work Vectors, which I do not intend to do, since it would result in huge efforts in adopting the function to do so.
Furthermore I could simply build a feed-back loop in the model using a memory block. For approximately 100 variables this solution would also be pretty impractical.
Not a solution, but a possible workaround is to use the coder.ceval functionality. I have used this to wrap a C-function with similar (static variables used as counters) function. The coder.ceval call is then placed in an embedded matlab block. Possibly some definitions of the interfaces must also be made (structures / bus objects).
Check coder.ceval, coder.rref and coder.wref for the call structure.
It seems like it was a bug in Simulink or the MinGW Compiler. However I tore down the code, ending up with it crashing with the call of one specific variable. I renamed the variable, since I could not find any error in the syntax. Now everything works fine...
The variable name had various underscores and capital letters - in case anyone makes similar experiences.
I am writing my main manager script for my game. I seems like the script handles 10+ huge if..else..if..else statements. It looks messy and hard to manage. And in monodevelop I am not able to minimise particular parts of code like we can do in eclipse.
I am considering of creating individual script for each part and enable-access-disable it from a common script.
Please direct me to the better ways to do?
In the best case every method or class should have one responsibility, and only one.
Try to extract duplicate code into methods
Try to split up your classes, so that each class does only one thing
Advanced: organize your classes in layers (Model-View-Control) and only talk to other classes through interfaces
share some code structure. it is a good practice to encapsulate blocks of code that perform a particular task into functions that accept parameters,
eg ( myFunction(param1, param2, param3){} )
if you ever have to reuse the code block you merely call the function and have it return the necessary values.
This is a general design question not relating to any language. I'm a bit torn between going for minimum code or optimum organization.
I'll use my current project as an example. I have a bunch of tabs on a form that perform different functions. Lets say Tab 1 reads in a file with a specific layout, tab 2 exports a file to a specific location, etc. The problem I'm running into now is that I need these tabs to do something slightly different based on the contents of a variable. If it contains a 1 I may need to use Layout A and perform some extra concatenation, if it contains a 2 I may need to use Layout B and do no concatenation but add two integer fields, etc. There could be 10+ codes that I will be looking at.
Is it more preferable to create an individual path for each code early on, or attempt to create a single path that branches out only when absolutely required.
Creating an individual path for each code would allow my code to be extremely easy to follow at a glance, which in turn will help me out later on down the road when debugging or making changes. The downside to this is that I will increase the amount of code written by calling some of the same functions in multiple places (for example, steps 3, 5, and 9 for every single code may be exactly the same.
Creating a single path that would branch out only when required will be a bit messier and more difficult to follow at a glance, but I would create less code by placing conditionals only at steps that are unique.
I realize that this may be a case-by-case decision, but in general, if you were handed a previously built program to work on, which would you prefer?
Edit: I've drawn some simple images to help express it. Codes 1/2/3 are the variables and the lines under them represent the paths they would take. All of these steps need to be performed in a linear chronological fashion, so there would be a function to essentially just call other functions in the proper order.
Different Paths
Single Path
Creating a single path that would
branch out only when required will be
a bit messier and more difficult to
follow at a glance, but I would create
less code by placing conditionals only
at steps that are unique.
Im not buying this statement. There is a level of finesse when deciding when to write new functions. Functions should be as simple and reusable as possible (but no simpler). The correct answer is almost never 'one big file that does a lot of branching'.
Less LOC (lines of code) should not be the goal. Readability and maintainability should be the goal. When you create functions, the names should be self documenting. If you have a large block of code, it is good to do something like
function doSomethingComplicated() {
stepOne();
stepTwo();
// and so on
}
where the function names are self documenting. Not only will the code be more readable, you will make it easier to unit test each segment of the code in isolation.
For the case where you will have a lot of methods that call the same exact methods, you can use good OO design and design patterns to minimize the number of functions that do the same thing. This is in reference to your statement "The downside to this is that I will increase the amount of code written by calling some of the same functions in multiple places (for example, steps 3, 5, and 9 for every single code may be exactly the same."
The biggest danger in starting with one big block of code is that it will never actually get refactored into smaller units. Just start down the right path to begin with....
EDIT --
for your picture, I would create a base-class with all of the common methods that are used. The base class would be abstract, with an abstract method. Subclasses would implement the abstract method and use the common functions they need. Of course, replace 'abstract' with whatever your language of choice provides.
You should always err on the side of generalization, with the only exception being early prototyping (where throughput of generating working stuff is majorly impacted by designing correct abstractions/generalizations). having said that, you should NEVER leave that mess of non-generalized cloned branches past the early prototype stage, as it leads to messy hard to maintain code (if you are doing almost the same thing 3 different times, and need to change that thing, you're almost sure to forget to change 1 out of 3).
Again it's hard to specifically answer such an open ended question, but I believe you don't have to sacrifice one for the other.
OOP techniques solves this issue by allowing you to encapsulate the reusable portions of your code and generate child classes to handle object specific behaviors.
Personally I think you might (if possible by your API) create inherited forms, create them on fly on master form (with tabs), pass agruments and embed in tab container.
When to inherit form and when to decide to use arguments (code) to show/hide/add/remove functionality is up to you, yet master form should contain only decisions and argument passing and embeddable forms just plain functionality - this way you can separate organisation from implementation.