dart js-interop FunctionProxy callback relationship to js.context - callback

I have a Dart js-interop callback that in turn takes a javascript callback as an argument. The dart callback implementation looks like this:
void callBackToDartCode(String query, js.FunctionProxy completionCallback) {
js.context.completionCallback = completionCallback;
doSomethingAscyn(query).then(
(result) {
// hand the query result back to the javascript code
js.context.completionCallback(js.map(result));
});
This works. The key to making this work is to save the FunctionProxy in the js.context so that it is available when it comes time to execute it in the async "then" method. This line of code is important:
js.context.completionCallback = completionCallback;
If that's not done then the completeCallback is not retained and hence cannot be called when the async operation completes.
I have not seen examples like this and I am not sure I have really done this properly.
It raises questions:
How do I disassociate "completeCallback" from js.context after I've called it? Does it remain associated with js.context forever?
It appears there will be conflicting use of the name "completionCallback" within js.context if multiple async operations are in progress at the same time. That strikes me as a common problem. Does js-interop have a way to deal with that or is it my job to manage that?

With js-interop all proxies are scoped to prevent memory leaks. This means that Proxy will lost its JS object reference at the end of its associated scope. If scoped((){}) function is not use explicitely a lazy scope is initialized the first time an interop operation is done and the scope is automatically closed at the end of the current event loop. If you want to make a Proxy to live longer than its associated scope, you have to retain it. This can be done with js.retain(proxy). Once your proxy is no longer needed, you can release it with js.release(proxy).
Thus your code should be :
void callBackToDartCode(String query, js.FunctionProxy completionCallback) {
js.retain(completionCallback);
doSomethingAscyn(query).then(
(result) {
// hand the query result back to the javascript code
completionCallback(js.map(result));
// completionCallback is no longer used
js.release(completionCallback);
});
}
About your question about disassociate "completeCallback" from js.context you could have done it with js.deleteProperty(js.context, "completeCallback")

Related

Forcing the MobX state to be changed through declared actions only in the Flutter framework

I'm experimenting with MobX state management solution in Flutter. I really like its conciseness and its simplicity but I'm a bit concerned in the drawbacks its way of mutating the state can introduce.
Theoretically , we can force the state to be mutated only using actions and this is great because we can have a history of the changes using the spy feature the package provides.
However, actions are automatically created by the framework if we do not use a specific one. For example, in the code below, I created a counter store class and I used it in the main function to assign a new value for the counter without using a predeclared action. The stric-mode has been previously set to "always".
abstract class _Counter with Store {
#observable
int value = 0;
#action
void increment() {
value++;
}
}
final counter = Counter(); // Instantiate the store
void main() {
mainContext.config = mainContext.config
.clone(isSpyEnabled: true, writePolicy: ReactiveWritePolicy.always);
mainContext.spy((event) {
print("event name : " + event.name);
print("event type : " + event.type);
});
Counter counter = Counter();
counter.value = 10;
}
I was expecting an error to raise saying that it is not possible to change the state outside of action but this does not happen because an ad hoc action is created , called value_set, automatically. I'm wondering ,then, which is the point of forcing to use actions if it is possible to avoid using them. I mean, if we directly change the state, an action is created automatically and seen by the spy functionality making all the process more robust and predictable but, what if I want the state to be changed only by actions I previously implemented? Is there a way of doing so? For example, in the counter code I just provided , is there a way of making the counter incrementalbe only by 1? Because, in the way Mobx works, I could write everywhere in the code something like
counter.value = 10
and this will work just fine without any problems. Forcing people to use preset actions could increase the predicatability a lot and facilitate the teamwork too I think.
I tried to make the value variable private but it still remains accessible from the outside , also if annotated with #readonly.
Hm, that looks weird for me too, because it does work differently in MobX JS (exactly like you describing), but it seems that Dart MobX changed behaviour for single field values and they are automatically wrapped in actions now, yes.
Maybe there should be a optional rule to turn strict checking on again, it would make sense. I suggest you to create and issue or discussion on Dart MobX Github.
More info there: https://github.com/mobxjs/mobx.dart/issues/206
At the end, I found out that the behaviour I was looking for was obtainable with the #readonly annotation. Marking a variable with #readonly annotation avoids automatically creating its setter and getter methods. Moreover it requires the annotated variable to be private, denying the variable to be set directly.
Note: By the way, the way the Dart language is implemented, it is necessary to locate the Counter in a separate file to provide the desired behaviour, otherwise its private fields would be accessible anyway.

Async Issue for DbContext used in constructor of objects created via DI

I wonder if someone can clarify when to await and when not to. Consider this code
public Task<List<User>> GetUsersForParent(int someParentId)
{
var qry = Context.Users.Where(u=>u.parent = someParentId)
.OrderBy(u=>u.Surname)
return FilterActive(qry);
}
//Actually in a generic base class, but not important (I don't think)
protected Task<List<T>> FilterActive(IQueryable<T> query) where T: BaseEntity
{
return query.Where( q=>q.Active == true ).ToListAsync();
}
Then it is used like this
var users = await DbHandler.GetUsersForParent(1);
So the calling method is awaited, but the others are not. Is this correct?
Should the method calling the ToListAsync() be awaited? (this I assume is now doing the work)
My reason for this is I am getting the DbContext is being used by a second thread dreaded exception. I am running out of places to look. My understanding is the methods are building up the whole task which is executed, but could this be messing with the dbContext?
Edit re DbContext error
Having narrowed down the potential locations for the issue, via Debug.Print and SQL Query profiling (just in case that helps anyone else) I can see one statement being profiled (the next in profile is logging the exception) and I can see two methods being run via the debug print.
One of these methods is a PermissionsManager which, when constructed, initialises itself and loads the user data. This is constructed when requested via the DI framework.
The other method is the single query on the OnGet() method for the page. It is running a single query to get an entity by ID, it is awaited correctly.
My working theory at the moment is that the Thread running the DI construction and another thread running the Page initialise are colliding.
When I made the PermissionManager just _person = new Person() // await db.users.get(userid) the issue goes away. I could replicate the issue 1 in 2 or 3 times of refresh, and with that commented I could not replicate, despite refreshing the page 30+ times.
So my real question with async / await is probably more about DI injection and is that construction running on a different thread? if so, any best practice to avoid?
So the calling method is awaited, but the others are not. Is this correct?
I generally recommend using the async and await keywords, and only return the tasks directly if the method is extremely simple.
My reason for this is I am getting the DbContext is being used by a second thread dreaded exception. I am running out of places to look. My understanding is the methods are building up the whole task which is executed, but could this be messing with the dbContext?
No. At least, the code you posted cannot cause that exception. Whether the async/await keywords are used, or whether the tasks are returned directly, the methods are asynchronous and they do not attempt to do more than one thing on the dbcontext at once.
It's possible that your problem is further up the stack. Task.WhenAll is a good thing to search for when tracking this down.
Should the method calling the ToListAsync() be awaited? (this I assume is now doing the work)
If you await the contents of either method you will be returning the result type, not Task of result type which means the execution cannot be deferred.
Your error will be coming up because you either have multiple threads interacting with the same instance of DbContext, awaited or no this would cause problems, that or you have some code calling the ToListAsync()-containing method, or another async DbContext operation without awaiting.
Writing an EF data access layer returning Task is fairly dangerous which can shoot you in the foot very easily.
Given your code structure I would recommend a couple small changes:
public async Task<List<User>> GetUsersForParent(int someParentId)
{
var qry = Context.Users.Where(u=>u.parent = someParentId)
.OrderBy(u=>u.Surname);
qry = FilterActive(qry);
return await qry.ToListAsync();
}
protected IQueryable<T> FilterActive(IQueryable<T> query) where T: BaseEntity
{
return query.Where( q=> q.Active == true );
}
Notably here I would avoid returning Task to reduce risks of improper use and potentially intermittent bugs. The base-class method for FilterActive can return IQueryable<T> to apply the filter without triggering the execution of the operation. This way FilterActive can be applied whether you want a List, a Count, or simply do an Exists check.
Overall I would recommend exploring patterns that return IQueryable<TEntity> rather than List<TEntity> etc. as the later results in either a lot of limitations for performance and flexibility, or requires a lot of boiler-plate code to handle things like:
Sorting,
Pagination,
Getting just a Count,
Performing an Exists check,
Configurable filtering,
Selectively eager loading related data, or
Projection to generate efficient queries
Doing this with methods that return List<TEntity> either results in very complex code to support some of the above considerations, has these operations applied post-execution leading to heavier queries than would otherwise be needed, or requires a lot of near-duplicate code to handle each scenario.
So the constructor thing was a red herring. It was a missing await after all, just not where expected and in code that was unchanged.
I tracked down the culprit. There was a method in the basePage which hooked into the Filter of MVC pages. It took the user and loaded their permissions, however, since this loading of user permissions was made async, this method did not get awaited (it didn't need it before as was synchronous). I moved it to one of the async events on the page life cycle and all seems happy now (with a suitable await!). So it was a missing await, but the moral of the story is any time you make a sync method async, check what the heck is actually using it!

How can I freeze Kotlin objects created in Swift?

I’m using Kotlin-Native with native-mt coroutine support and the Ktor library. I have several suspended functions that take in an object built using a builder pattern. I understand I need to call the suspended function on the main/ui thread. However, I can’t guarantee that the builder objects will be created on that thread. My understanding is they would need to be frozen before sending them to the main thread to be called with the suspended function. Is that correct?
For instance, this would fail because the query object hasn’t been frozen:
func loadData() {
DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async {
let query = CustomerQuery().emails(value: ["customer#gmail.com"])
self.fetchCustomersAndDoSomething(query: query)
}
}
func fetchCustomersAndDoSomething(query: CustomerQuery) {
DispatchQueue.main.async {
self.mylibrary.getCustomers(query: query) { response, err in
// do something with response
}
}
}
If that’s true, am I correct that I would need to add a method to every such object in order to ‘freeze’ it, since the freeze() Kotlin function from Freezing.kt doesn’t seem to be accessible from the Swift code importing my library? This is further complicated by the fact that freezing only applies to the iOS code, as the Android code doesn't need it.
Is there a simpler way to pass in Kotlin objects created by Swift to a suspended function, without requiring that those objects be created on the main thread?
In the Kotlin/Native world, whenever you are sharing objects between threads you have to make sure they are frozen (immutable), if you are not planning on making them #ThreadLocal. Android is an exception, since JVM is not that strict, and let's you share mutable objects between threads.
You have two options:
Either expose a freeze() function and use that
freeze() every incoming object in your shared code
Also if you don't freeze, probably you'll bump into IncorrectDereferenceException, which means you are trying to share mutable/non-frozen state
You don't freeze Swift classes. If CustomerQuery is a Kotlin class, you would need to freeze that.
However, you only need to call suspend functions on the main thread if you rely on the auto-generated Objc interface from the Kotlin compiler. We generally recommend not doing that because you can't control the lifecycle, but that's a whole different discussion.

Composing IObservables and cleaning up after registrations

I have some code in a class that takes FileSystemWatcher events and flattens them into an event in my domain:
(Please note, the *AsObservable methods are extensions from elsewhere in my project, they do what they say 🙂.)
watcher = new FileSystemWatcher(ConfigurationFilePath);
ChangeObservable = Observable
.Merge(
watcher.ChangedAsObservable().Select((args) =>
{
return new ConfigurationChangedArgs
{
Type = ConfigurationChangeType.Edited,
};
}),
watcher.DeletedAsObservable().Select((args) =>
{
return new ConfigurationChangedArgs
{
Type = ConfigurationChangeType.Deleted,
};
}),
watcher.RenamedAsObservable().Select((args) =>
{
return new ConfigurationChangedArgs
{
Type = ConfigurationChangeType.Renamed,
};
})
);
ChangeObservable.Subscribe((args) =>
{
Changed.Invoke(this, args);
});
Something that I'm trying to wrap my head around as I'm learning are best practices around naming, ownership and cleanup of the IObservable and IDisposable returned by code like this.
So, some specific questions:
Is it okay to leak IObservables from a class that creates them? For example, is the property I'm assigning this chain to okay to be public?
Does the property name ChangeObservable align with what most people would consider best practice when using the .net reactive extensions?
Do I need to call Dispose on any of my subscriptions to this chain, or is it safe enough to leave everything up to garbage collection when the containing class goes out of scope? Keep in mind, I'm observing events from watcher, so there's some shared lifecycle there.
Is it okay to take an observable and wire them into an event on my own class (Changed in the example above), or is the idea to stay out of the native .net event system and leak my IObservable?
Other tips and advice always appreciated! 😀
Is it okay to leak IObservables from a class that creates them? For
example, is the property I'm assigning this chain to okay to be
public?
Yes.
Does the property name ChangeObservable align with what most
people would consider best practice when using the .net reactive
extensions?
Subjective question. Maybe FileChanges? The fact that it's an observable is clear from the type.
Do I need to call Dispose on any of my subscriptions to
this chain, or is it safe enough to leave everything up to garbage
collection when the containing class goes out of scope?
The ChangeObservable.Subscribe at the end could live forever, preventing the object from being garbage collected if the event is subscribed to, though that could also be your intention. Operator subscriptions are generally fine. I can't see the code for your ChangedAsObservable like functions. If they don't include a Subscribe or an event subscription, they're probably fine as well.
Keep in mind,
I'm observing events from watcher, so there's some shared lifecycle
there.
Since FileWatcher implements IDisposable, you should probably use Observable.Using around it so you can combine the lifecycles.
Is it okay to take an observable and wire them into an event on
my own class (Changed in the example above), or is the idea to stay
out of the native .net event system and leak my IObservable?
I would prefer to stay in Rx. The problem with event subscriptions is that they generally live forever. You lose the ability to control subscription lifecycle. They're also feel so much more primitive. But again, that's a bit subjective.

Why is this Autofac mock's lifetime disposed in a simple MSpec test?

I've got a base class I'm using with MSpec which provides convenience methods around AutoMock:
public abstract class SubjectBuilderContext
{
static AutoMock _container;
protected static ISubjectBuilderConfigurationContext<T> BuildSubject<T>()
{
_container = AutoMock.GetLoose();
return new SubjectBuilderConfigurationContext<T>(_container);
}
protected static Mock<TDouble> GetMock<TDouble>()
where TDouble : class
{
return _container.Mock<TDouble>();
}
}
Occasionally, I'm seeing an exception happen when attempting to retrieve a Mock like so:
It should_store_the_receipt = () => GetMock<IFileService>().Verify(f => f.SaveFileAsync(Moq.It.IsAny<byte[]>(), Moq.It.IsAny<string>()), Times.Once());
Here's the exception:
System.ObjectDisposedExceptionInstances cannot be resolved and nested
lifetimes cannot be created from this LifetimeScope as it has already
been disposed.
I'm guessing it has something to do with the way MSpec runs the tests (via reflection) and that there's a period of time when nothing actively has references to any of the objects in the underlying lifetime scope being used by AutoMock which causes the lifetimescope to get disposed. What's going on here, and is there some simple way for me to keep it from happening?
The AutoMock lifetime scope from Autofac.Extras.Moq is disposed when the mock itself is disposed. If you're getting this, it means the AutoMock instance has been disposed or has otherwise lost scope and the GC has cleaned it up.
Given that, there are a few possibilities.
The first possibility is that you've got some potential threading challenges around async method calls. Looking at the method that's being mocked, I see you're verifying the call to a SaveFileAsync method. However, I don't see any async related code in there, and I'm not entirely sure when/how the tests running are calling it given the currently posted code, but if there is a situation where an async call causes the test to run on one thread while the AutoMock loses scope or otherwise gets killed on the other thread, I could see this happening.
The second possibility is the mix of static and instance items in the context. You are storing the AutoMock as a static, but it appears the context class in which it resides is a base class that is intended to supply instance-related values. If two tests run in parallel, for example, the first test will set the AutoMock to what it thinks it needs, then the second test will overwrite the AutoMock and the first will go out of scope, disposing the scope.
The third possibility is multiple calls to BuildSubject<T> in one test. The call to BuildSubject<T> initializes the AutoMock. If you call that multiple times in one test, despite changing the T type, you'll be stomping the AutoMock each time and the associated lifetime scope will be disposed.
The fourth possibility is a test ordering problem. If you only see it sometimes but not other times, it could be that certain tests inadvertently assume that some setup, like the call to BuildSubject<T>, has already been done; while other tests may not make that assumption and will call BuildSubject<T> themselves. Depending on the order the tests run, you may sometimes get lucky and not see the exception, but other times you may run into the problem where BuildSubject<T> gets called at just the wrong time and causes you pain.