New _ArrayDisplay Beta code - comments and suggestions welcomed

[Melba23]

boththose,

 

_ArrayDisplay that allows progression without user interaction

[...]

how about a 'Dont Block' parameter

That would require all sorts of Global variables and Adlib calls for the UDF to know what controls it was supposed to delete and when it was time to end - and that is just not going to happen.

M23

Edited November 24, 2013 by Melba23
Typo

[Melba23]

Iczer,

I have worked on your requests and this is the result:

- different title lengths --> different $iMinWidth. Not implemented - I am not adding all the API calls (either via the WinAPI #include file or via DllCall) to the function. I repeat that the main use I see for this function is debugging - the title is meant to be a quick reminder of the contents, not "War and Peace".

- $iMax_ColWidth gets applied only in case of GUI size gets greater than @DesktopWidth. Excellent suggestion and I think I have it working.

- if GUI size still greater than @DesktopWidth, horizontal scrollbar appear. I have adjusted the code to allow for the possibility of a vertical scrollbar appearing - I now only get a horizontal scrollbar if really needed. Try changing the array dimensions to [15][5] and see what you get.

I have added the revised code to the first post - please check it out and see if it meets with your approval.

M23

[iamtheky]

But a timeout is feasible, if support is garnered?  Or is that out as well?

[Melba23]

boththose,

A timeout would easy to implement - if I were to be persuaded that there was a real need. But that is going to be pretty difficult seeing that (for the umpteenth time) my view that the function is essentially for debugging - and so in my experience is used to test whether the script should in fact progress at all!

M23

[czardas]

During long processes I often go and make coffee or get on with something else. I would be annoyed if my results timed out while I was away from the computer for 5 minutes, and if I had to start all over again.

Edited November 25, 2013 by czardas

[iamtheky]

you should certainly keep your logging, my thought was simply as an alternative to existing notification methods.  rather than a cluttered tooltip, console, or toast with hand selected info i could just pop the whole damn array for a period of time.

[czardas]

The more functionality you add, the higher the overhead. A debugging tool should have minimum overhead (as a matter of course). I like it plain and simple. The one thing I think the original _ArrayDisplay lacks is range limit options. Other than that it was just a bit buggy but quite useable. Range options would be fantastic for debugging large arrays. Far quicker with far less overhead and extremely useful.

Edited November 25, 2013 by czardas

[Melba23]

czardas,

 

Range options would be fantastic for debugging large arrays

I will look into it today - at first glance it does not seem too difficult to implement.

And any eventual timeout I added would be an option, not a default, so your coffee making could remain unhurried.

M23

[czardas]

It shouldn't be too difficult to implement. Being able to look at a small section of a 1,000,000 element array would be more useful than looking at the whole array in many situations. You might want to have start and stop parameters in 2 dimensions. Maybe pass an array with four values to reduce it to a single parameter - more complicated for beginners though. It's your call. I'm sure you can come up with something easy to understand and useful at the same time - you normally do.

Imagine you wanted to scan an array such as $aArray[1000][1000], 20 columns at a time in a For loop with Step 20. Does this give you any ideas? Even just using 2 parameters would be cool enough though. If it's adding too much complication, then keep it simple or leave it out. I was just thinking others might also find it useful besides myself.

Edited November 25, 2013 by czardas

[DatMCEyeBall]

Edit: 1311231202 - New beta code - see post #3

Edit: 1311241345 - New beta code - see post #33

Edit: 1311241940 - New beta code - see post #42

You should link the posts for easier reading, no one wants to go through a couple of pages to get there.

>#3

>#33

>#42

[guinness]

There are no errors from the tests I conducted on my system. I will leave it to others to shape this function as they see fit, as I see some use it in production code.

[jchd]

I don't see a timeout feature as important. Either there is a human there in which case hitting Escape or closing the window is not overly painful, or there is noone in which case there is no point displaying anything.

About introducing range parameters, I don't like it that much either. My reasonning is that if one uses the function for debugging or for user's information/validation of a really large array (say 1 million rows), then yes there must be some kind of range limiting. But in my book this limit doesn't belong to the function.

If in your code you can provide range limiting parameters, then you can as easily clone a small part of the array where the issue lie and display just that with the function as it is now. The advantage here is that you can as well fill your problem array with non-contiguous rows, something which would be cumbersome in practice to pass as parameters.

Edited November 25, 2013 by jchd

[iamtheky]

Either there is a human there in which case hitting Escape or closing the window is not overly painful, or there is noone in which case there is no point displaying anything.

 

 

Or the person (people) in front of the screen is not in front of a console,  as my current projects willl be on a wall in a SOC.  Many interrogative activities return arrays, and throwing up actionable data (to which they act on their own systems) to an audience is routine as the SIEM is watched.

[jchd]

I would say this is a specific case which has to be handled by custom code which requires cooperation between the core application and the function. This is not something in the realm of a standard UDF AFAICT.

Else we're going to end up making this function work like a departure flight display panel!

[czardas]

About introducing range parameters, I don't like it that much either. My reasonning is that if one uses the function for debugging or for user's information/validation of a really large array (say 1 million rows), then yes there must be some kind of range limiting. But in my book this limit doesn't belong to the function.

 

If in your code you can provide range limiting parameters, then you can as easily clone a small part of the array where the issue lie and display just that with the function as it is now. The advantage here is that you can as well fill your problem array with non-contiguous rows, something which would be cumbersome in practice to pass as parameters.

 

It was merely a suggestion. I hate waiting for listviews to populate with information to simply check everything seems to be in order. The only way to handle so much data is to loop through it and generally making one or two changes to each element. If I have ten loops and something seems broken, I throw in _ArrayDisplay after each loop to track down the issue. It's a simple one line coding solution. I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but a special large array _ArrayDisplay with such features could be coded by myself anyway. Like I said, it's the only thing I miss.

Edit

Of course if nobody else want's such a feature, then fair enough.I would put it at the top of my priority list personally (even in place of existing features). I do however appreciate that the parameter list is overpopulated already and this is more than enough reason to exclude range features.

Edited November 25, 2013 by czardas

[iamtheky]

Non-Interaction can now be resolved as the beta version responds to _Timer_SetTimer (in the example, if you add it right after GUI creation you will see it does not work for the first call, but all subsequent ones until the error about not passing an array).  I concede that it is a hella custom concern, thanks for forcing me to explore the beta a tad more.

Edited November 25, 2013 by boththose

[Melba23]

DatMCEyeBall,

When I want your advice on posting I will ask for it - until then.....

boththose,

Glad you found a solution - I will drop any thought of a timeout.

czardas,

 

I have added the "display range" code as  I can imagine it being useful and (importantly) it was not difficult to do.  The old $iItemLimit parameter has been replaced by $sArrayRange - this sets the required rows and columns as follows:

"3:7|5:9" shows rows 3 to 7 and columns 5 to 9 - both zero-based of course
 
Omitting the "|" or setting the parameter to "" or Default shows the entire array
 
Omitting a row/column range or using just a single digit without the ":" shows all of the rows/columns - e.g. "2-5|" will show all columns of rows 2-5.  Use "n:n" to display a single row/column

 

New code (with a bugfix for the column sizing) in the first post - let me know what you think.

 

M23

[czardas]

Well I'm grateful for you taking the time to try my suggestion. I like it very much. Of course if people prefer not to have this option, then maybe I was wrong. I will definately use it if you keep it the way it is.

Quite often I just want to make sure information looks right, and the old _ArrayDisplay isn't always up to the task. I think it stops displaying information after so many rows. With this implementation, that particular problem is solved. Not that I totally disagree with what jchd said earlier though.

Thanks again.

Edited November 25, 2013 by czardas

[AZJIO]

end of the array
It can be seen that the array was truncated

[65526]|6552600.736737729981542|6552610.295807199319825
[~]|~|~
[91468]|6552700.730853760614991|6552710.955506943864748

-------------------

Heading with statistics

Local $iDimension = UBound($avArray, 0)
    If $sTitle = Default Then
        If $iDimension = 1 Then
            $sTitle = 'Array[' & UBound($avArray) & ']: ListView Display'
        Else
            $sTitle = 'Array[' & UBound($avArray) & '][' & UBound($avArray, 2) & ']: ListView Display'
        EndIf
    EndIf

Edited November 26, 2013 by AZJIO

[czardas]

end of the array

It can be seen that the array was truncated

 

Truncated instead of being displayed! I guess that's it. I don't find truncated information so helpful, but at the same time I also understand that windows controls have display limitations.