VC++ 2015 – Lazy generators

If you have ever used iterators in C# or Visual Basic, then this is essentially the same thing. You would need to enable the new experimental /await compiler option, same as in the previous blog entry.

std::experimental::generator<int> evens(size_t count)
{
  using namespace std::chrono;

  for (size_t i = 1; i <= count; i++)
  {
    yield i * 2;
    std::cout << "yielding..." << std::endl;
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(1s);
  }
}

Calling this method would be fairly straightforward.

void main_yield()
{
  for (auto ev : evens(7))
  {
    std::cout << ev << std::endl;
  }
}

And here’s the expected output.

I added the console output to demonstrate the laziness of the generator.

Advertisement

VC++ 2015 – Using resumable functions

Visual C++ 2015 has a new compiler option called /await that can be used to write and call resumable functions. Do note that this is an experimental feature and even the associated headers are in an experimental sub-directory. There is no UI option to turn this compiler option in VS 2015, so you would need to manually add it via the Additional Options box under the C/C++ property page.

To compile the samples in this blog entry, you would need the following includes.

#include <thread>
#include <future>
#include <iostream>
#include <experimental\resumable>
#include <experimental\generator>

Here’s a simple example async method that sums two numbers. To demonstrate the async-nature of the call, I’ve added a sleep of 2 seconds to slow down the operation.

std::future<int> sum_async(int x, int y)
{
  using namespace std::chrono;

  return std::async([x, y] 
  {
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(2s);
    return x + y; 
  });
}

The async function will execute the function asynchronously, typically in a separate thread, and return a future that will hold the result of the call when it’s completed. Now, here’s how this method can be called.

std::future<void> call_sum_async(int x, int y)
{
  std::cout << "** async func - before call" << std::endl;
  auto sum = await sum_async(x, y);
  std::cout << "** async func - after call" << std::endl;
}

The await keyword calls that method asynchronously and waits until the method executes to completion. And then control goes to the next line of code. At least in the version of VC++ 2015 I tested this on, if you use await, the return type needs to be a future.

Now, here’s a calling method that invokes this caller method.

void main_async()
{
  std::cout << "<< main func - before call" << std::endl;
  auto result = call_sum_async(7, 9);
  std::cout << "<< main func - after call" << std::endl;

  {
    using namespace std::chrono;
    std::cout << "<< main func - before sleep" << std::endl;
    std::this_thread::sleep_for(3s);
    std::cout << "<< main func - after sleep" << std::endl;
  }

  result.get();
  std::cout << "<< main func - after get" << std::endl;
}

To show that the async method actually does execute asynchronously, I added a sleep block in the calling method. Here’s what the output looks like.

Notice how the calling method continues to execute. And then once the async method has completed it returns control back to the main thread. The await keyword just makes it so easy to do this. You write your code just as you would write synchronous code, and all the async-ness is hidden from you. Well not really hidden, but handled for you smoothly.

Oh by the way, I am back to blogging after a bit of a hiatus. Expect to see me post far more frequently going forward.

VS14 CTP – Implement Pure Virtuals

This refactoring option implements stub-functions for all pure virtuals in one or all base classes. Here’s an example.

class Person
{
public:

  virtual std::string GetName() = 0;
  virtual void SetName(std::string) = 0;
};

class DbEntity
{
public:
  virtual int GetId() = 0;
  virtual void SetId(int) = 0;
};

class Employee : Person, DbEntity
{
public:
  Employee();
};

If you right click on a specific base class, you’ll get an option to just implement pure virtuals for that class. If you right click on the derived class name, you’ll get the option to implement all pure virtuals for all base types.

This is what you’ll end up with (in the header).

class Employee : Person, DbEntity
{
public:
  Employee();
  // Inherited via Person

  virtual std::string GetName() override;

  virtual void SetName(std::string) override;

  // Inherited via DbEntity

  virtual int GetId() override;

  virtual void SetId(int) override;

};

Corresponding definitions (empty ones) will be generated in the cpp file.

VS14 CTP – Move Definition Location

The CTP adds a refactoring option to move a function definition from header to cpp, or vice-versa. Just right-click on the definition, choose Refactor/Move Definition Location and that’s it.

// h file
class Employee
{
public:
  Employee();

  int Foo(int x, int y);
};

// cpp file
Employee::Employee()
{
}

int Employee::Foo(int x, int y)
{
  return 0;
}

Now your code looks like this.

class Employee
{
public:
  Employee();

  int Foo(int x, int y)
  {
    return 0;
  }
};

You can do the reverse too. There seems to be a bug in this CTP though – when you move from the h to the cpp, it does not prefix the class-name, so you get this.

int Foo(int x, int y)
{
  return 0;
}

I would assume that this would be fixed in the RTM.

Seemingly a minor feature, but it is convenient and once you get used to it, you’ll start to miss it when you don’t have it (when using an older version or a different IDE).

VS14 CTP – Create Declaration / Definition

The CTP 2 has a mostly stable implementation of the “Create Declaration / Definition” refactoring tool for your C++ projects. It lets you auto generate the definition or declaration of a member function. Example, if you have a class called Employee, declared in Employee.h and defined in Employee.cpp, you can type in a function declaration into the .h file and have the body auto-generated for you in the cpp file.

You’ll get an empty definition.

int Employee::Foo(int x, int y, double d)
{
    return 0;
}

You can do the reverse too. Say you want to add an overload without the double paramater. Just copy paste this definition, remove the double paramater and then use the refactoring option.

That’ll generate this for you.

int Foo(int x, int y);

Quite useful. That said, I wish it would do something like this. If I have code as follows.

Employee e;
e.Bar();

If you right click Bar() and choose this refactoring option, you’ll get a message that says – “The selected text does not contain any function signatures.”

Now that would have been handy. C# has had that for at least 2 iterations now.

VS14 CTP – User-defined literals

User-defined literals is a C++ 11 feature that’s been implemented in the VS 14 CTP. Some of the standard headers have already been updated to define user defined literals. Example, <string> has an s-suffix for string literals. So you can do the following now, and both lines of code are identical.

auto s1 = "hello"s;
auto s2 = string("hello");

The definition in <string> (as of the CTP) looks like this:

inline string operator "" s(const char *_Str, size_t _Len)
  { // construct literal from [_Str, _Str + _Len)
  return (string(_Str, _Len));
  }

Here’s a common example used to demonstrate how you’d use user defined literals in your code. Consider the following Weight class.

struct Weight
{
  WeightUnitType Unit;

  double Value;

  double Lb;

  Weight(WeightUnitType unitType, double value)
  {
    Value = value;
    Unit = unitType;

    if (Unit == WeightUnitType::Lb)
    {
      Lb = value;
    }
    else
    {
      Lb = 2.2 * value;
    }
  }
};

Now here’s how you’d define _kg and _lb literal operators for this class.

Weight operator "" _kg(long double value)
{ 
  return (Weight(WeightUnitType::Kg, static_cast<double>(value)));
}

Weight operator "" _lb(long double value)
{
  return (Weight(WeightUnitType::Lb, static_cast<double>(value)));
}

And here’s how you’d use them in your code.

auto w1 = 10.0_kg;
auto w2 = 22.0_lb;

cout << (w1.Lb == w2.Lb) << endl; // outputs 1 (true)

Be aware that your literals will need to have a _ as the start of the suffix. Else, you’ll just get an error:

literal suffix identifiers that do not start 
with an underscore are reserved

I would assume that <string> does not need an underscore as it’s permitted as a special case.

VS14 CTP – Inheriting constructors

Inheriting constructors is a C++ 11 feature implemented in this CTP. It extends the using declaration to allow a derived class to indicate that it needs to inherit the base class constructors. Here’s a basic example.

struct Base
{
  Base(int){}
};

struct Derived : Base
{
  using Base::Base;
};

void Foo()
{
  Derived d1(10); // uses inherited Derived(int)
  Derived d2; // fails to compile, as Base has no default ctor
}

You’ll get this error message (as of this CTP).

error C2280: 'Derived::Derived(void)': attempting to 
reference a deleted function

Had Base had a default constructor or if the existing int constructor had a default parameter value, it’d have compiled fine.

struct Base
{
  Base(int = 1, int = 2){}
  Base(string){}
};

struct Derived : Base
{
  using Base::Base;
};

void Foo()
{
  Derived d1;
  Derived d2(10);
  Derived d3(10,10);
  string s;
  Derived d4(s);
}

All of those instantiations compile file. You can specify multiple using declarations if you have multiple base classes.

struct Base1
{
  Base1(int){}
};

struct Base2
{
  Base2(int, int){}
};

struct Derived : Base1, Base2
{
  using Base1::Base1;
  using Base2::Base2;
};

void Foo()
{
  Derived d1(1), d2(1, 1);
}

With multiple base classes, you need to make sure there aren’t any constructor clashes. Example:

struct Base1
{
  Base1(){}
  Base1(int){}
};

struct Base2
{
  Base2(){}
  Base2(int){}
  Base2(int, int){}
};

struct Derived : Base1, Base2
{
  using Base1::Base1;
  using Base2::Base2;
};

void Foo()
{
  Derived d1(1), d2(1, 1);
}

This won’t compile.

error C3882: 'Base2::Base2': constructor has already 
been inherited from 'Base1'

The fix is to explicitly declare that constructor in Derived.

struct Derived : Base1, Base2
{
  using Base1::Base1;
  using Base2::Base2;

  Derived(int){}
};

Inheriting constructors work with templates too.

template<class T> struct Derived : T
{
  using T::T;
};

struct Base1
{
  Base1(int){}
};

struct Base2
{
  Base2(int, int){}
};

void Foo()
{
  Derived<Base1> d1(10);
  Derived<Base2> d2(10, 11);
}

This feature will save you from the time and effort required with typing explicit derived constructors by having the compiler generate those for you (making it less error prone as well).

VS14 CTP – Extended sizeof

The Visual Studio 14 CTP is now available as a VM on Azure. The C++ compiler in the CTP has several enhancements for C++ 11 and C++ 14 features. C++ 11 proposes a feature to extend sizeof to apply to non-static data members without needing a temporary object. The CTP implements that feature.

Consider the following struct.

struct S
{
  int data;
  char data2;
};

Now with Visual Studio 2013, the following code will not compile.

cout << sizeof(S::data) << endl;

You’ll get this error message.

Error 1 error C2070: 'unknown': illegal sizeof operand

You’ll need to do this instead.

S s;
cout << sizeof(s.data) << endl;
cout << sizeof(s.data2) << endl;

Compare this to the following code supported in the CTP.

cout << sizeof(S::data) << endl;
cout << sizeof(S::data2) << endl;

It’s a simple feature but it will help you write cleaner code.

Azure queues – updating messages

The default invisibility timeout of 30 seconds may not suffice on occasions. For those situations, you can change the timeout so that you get more time to do something with your message prior to deleting it.

void DeQueueMessagesWithTimeOut(std::chrono::seconds timeout)
{
  auto storage_account = cloud_storage_account::parse(
      U("UseDevelopmentStorage=true"));
  auto queue_client = storage_account.create_cloud_queue_client();
  auto queue = queue_client.get_queue_reference(
      U("sample"));
  bool created = queue.create_if_not_exists();

  queue.download_attributes();
  int count = queue.approximate_message_count();
  ucout << U("Approx count = ") << count << endl;

  queue_request_options options;
  operation_context op_context;
  auto messages = queue.get_messages(
      count, timeout, options, op_context);
  for (auto message : messages)
  {
    // process the message here
    queue.delete_message(message);
    ucout << message.content_as_string() << endl;
  }

  queue.download_attributes();
  count = queue.approximate_message_count();
  ucout << U("Approx count = ") << count << endl;
}

You can also update an existing message. The code snippet below shows how that can be done.

void UpdateQueueMessage()
{
  auto storage_account = cloud_storage_account::parse(
      U("UseDevelopmentStorage=true"));
  auto queue_client = storage_account.create_cloud_queue_client();
  auto queue = queue_client.get_queue_reference(
      U("sample"));
  bool created = queue.create_if_not_exists(); 

  auto message = queue.get_message();
  message.set_content(U("Updated content"));
  queue.update_message(
      message, std::chrono::seconds(0), true);
}

One thing to be aware of is that the position of the message in the queue is lost. The updated content goes back to the back of the queue. This shouldn’t matter though for most practical scenarios as the order of items in the queue is not expected to be depended on by consumers. This might be a little different to how you used queues in your programming classes, where it was a guaranteed FIFO structure. But remember, those queues did not allow in-place edits either.

Using Azure queues from C++

Azure queues are used to store a large number of items (referred to as messages). Each message can go up to 64 Kb. A typical use for queues is intra-app communication, for example your website might add messages to the queue for a background service to process later on. The C++ Azure storage SDK maintains its consistent API when it comes to queues as well (so if you know how to use blobs and tables, you are good). Here’s a code snippet that shows how to insert messages into a queue.

void InsertQueueMessages()
{
  auto storage_account = cloud_storage_account::parse(
      U("UseDevelopmentStorage=true"));
  auto queue_client = storage_account
      .create_cloud_queue_client();
  auto queue = queue_client.get_queue_reference(
      U("sample"));
  bool created = queue.create_if_not_exists();

  queue.add_message(cloud_queue_message(
      U("queue message 01")));
  queue.add_message(cloud_queue_message(
      U("queue message 02")));
  queue.add_message(cloud_queue_message(
      U("queue message 03")));
}

Like any decent queue, you can either peek or dequeue a message. Here’s an example snippet that shows how to peek into a queue.

void PeekQueueMessage()
{
  auto storage_account = cloud_storage_account::parse(
      U("UseDevelopmentStorage=true"));
  auto queue_client = storage_account
      .create_cloud_queue_client();
  auto queue = queue_client.get_queue_reference(
      U("sample"));
  bool created = queue.create_if_not_exists();

  queue.download_attributes();
  int count = queue.approximate_message_count();
  ucout << U("Approx count = ") << count << endl;

  // Peek the next 2 messages (assumes at least 2 present)
  auto messages = queue.peek_messages(2);
  for (auto message : messages)
  {
    ucout << message.content_as_string() << endl;
  }
}

The count method has ‘approximate‘ in the name because the count returned is not refreshed until the next call to download_attributes.

Here’s a code snippet that shows how to dequeue items from a queue.

void DeQueueMessages()
{
  auto storage_account = cloud_storage_account::parse(
      U("UseDevelopmentStorage=true"));
  auto queue_client = storage_account
      .create_cloud_queue_client();
  auto queue = queue_client.get_queue_reference(
      U("sample"));
  bool created = queue.create_if_not_exists();

  queue.download_attributes();
  int count = queue.approximate_message_count();
  ucout << U("Approx count = ") << count << endl;

  for (size_t i = 0; i < count; i++)
  {
    auto message = queue.get_message();
    queue.delete_message(message);
    ucout << message.content_as_string() << endl;
  }

  queue.download_attributes();
  count = queue.approximate_message_count();
  ucout << U("Approx count = ") << count << endl;
}

Notice how I call delete_message after calling get_message. This is because get_message only hides the item from other callers for a default time out (30 seconds) after which the message is back. This allows you to rollback changes in case something goes wrong. So you’d get a message, process it, and when you are done processing it, you can call delete_message. This assumes you do your processing in under 30 seconds. If you want to increase (or decrease) that time out, you can do that too. I’ll cover that in the next blog entry along with showing how to update a message in the queue.