Category: Languages

The programming directory

Multiplication

Whilst I was understanding the bits structure of binary values I did come across the page from here about how to do multiplication with binary values and thought that I might as well do it in c++ to understand abit more about the process.

The main part from that page above is

Rules of Binary Multiplication

  • 0 x 0 = 0
  • 0 x 1 = 0
  • 1 x 0 = 0
  • 1 x 1 = 1, and no carry or borrow bits

For example,

00101001

Call a function

Lets just say that you are writing a template program and you want to add into a array of function calls, which you can add to as well on-the-fly. Within PHP you can use a function called call_user_func which allows you to call a function using a stringed parameter in the first parameter and the next parameter(s) (if you wish to pass more than one parameter) is next. Hopefully the below will demonstrate better.

<?php
  function test($var)
  {
    echo "test : " . $var;
  }
 
  function example($var)
  {
    echo "example : " . $var;
  }
 
  $funarr = array(array("test", "codingfriends"), array("example", "was here"));
 
  foreach ($funarr as $funarr_call)
  {
    call_user_func($funarr_call[0], $funarr_call[1]);
    echo "<br/>";
  }
?>

and the output would be

test : codingfriends
example : was here

Conditions – true or false

When you want to do a test against true or false with a integer value. Basically 0 is false and anything else is true, as demonstrated below.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <iostream>
 
using namespace std;
 
int main()
{
  for (int i = -10; i < 10; i++)
  {
      if (i) 
	  cout << "true " << i << endl;
      else
	  cout << "false " << i << endl;
  }
}

and the output of this is, the true/false values is after the if statement.

true -10
true -9
true -8
true -7
true -6
true -5
true -4
true -3
true -2
true -1
false 0
true 1
true 2
true 3
true 4
true 5
true 6
true 7
true 8
true 9

SugarCRM hook – what are they

SugarCRM is a very nice and open source CRM (Customer relationship management) system. And with being open source means that you are able to alter the internals of it and also are able to write modules for it easier than closed source applications because you can follow the direction of things if you are for example debugging etc.

The hooks part of the sugarCRM setup allows to place your own code into the base code at set parts of execution e.g. after retrieve of data, or post processing of data updates.

Here is a link to the sugarcrm site of hooks definitions. Basically there is 3 main types, with subhooks attached to those types.

  • Application hooks
    • after_ui_frame – Fired after the frame has been invoked and before the footer has been invoked
    • after_ui_footer – Fired after the footer has been invoked
    • server_round_trip – Fired at the end of every SugarCRM page
  • Module hooks
    • before_delete – Fired before a record is deleted
    • after_delete – Fired after a record is deleted
    • before_restore – Fired before a record is undeleted
    • after_restore – Fired after a record is undeleted
    • after_retrieve – Fired after a record has been retrieved from the database. This hook does not fire when you create a new record.
    • before_save – Fired before a record is saved.
    • after_save – Fired after a record is saved.
    • process_record – Fired immediately prior to the database query resulting in a record being made current. This gives developers an opportunity to examine and tailor the underlying queries. This is also a perfect place to set values in a record

SugarCRM add a new menu item

SugarCRM is a very nice and open source CRM (Customer relationship management) system. Being open source means that you are more than welcome to add/alter your own modules to it. I am going to do some modules which add in some basic information and how-to’s. This how to is how to add to a left menu item and in this case a account main menu left menu item.

Also going to be doing a module for it, so that you can upload to different SugarCRM’s that you may have, e.g. development version and live version.

The module consists of the main manifest.php file which holds all of the main details, module name author, description etc and also the install definitions.

Here is a basic manifest.php file that has the main details and install definitions for adding a menu item to the Accounts module.

<?php
$manifest = array(
  'acceptable_sugar_flavors' => array(
          0 => 'CE',
          1 => 'PRO',
          2 => 'ENT',
          3 => 'DEV'
        ),
    'acceptable_sugar_versions' => array (
        'regex_matches' => array (
            0 => "5\.*\.*.*"
        ),
    ),
 
    'name'              => 'Accounts insert left menu addition',
    'description'       => 'This module inserts a left menu addition',
    'author'            => 'Ian Porter',
    'published_date'    => '2009/06/01',
    'version'           => '0.1',
    'type'              => 'module',
    'icon'              => '',
    'is_uninstallable'   => 1,
    'silent' => true,
);
 
$installdefs = array (
  'id' => 'AccountsLeftMenu',
    'vardefs'=> array( ),
  'custom_fields' =>  array (  ),
  'copy' =>
  array ( ),
'menu'=> array(
array('from'=> '<basepath>/Menu.php',
'to_module'=> 'Accounts', ),
),
       'beans'=> array (
                 ),
  'language' => 
  array (
  ),
);
?>

As you can see from the above code, the acceptable sugar flavors means any of the version types of sugar, development, pro etc.. and the acceptable sugar versions means which version of sugar e.g. version 4.1.2 or 5.etc. the name etc speaks for itself really.

The installdefs are what happens with the files and such when the module is installed, id is the name of the module, the one that we are focusing in on is menu, this will insert the code below into the a set menu module (this case the Accounts menu structure).

Here is the Menu.php file

<?php
if(!defined('sugarEntry') || !sugarEntry) die('Not A Valid Entry Point'); 
 
/* licence and you stuff */
 
global $mod_strings, $app_strings, $sugar_config, $current_user;
 
/* you need to create the DetailViewPersonal.php file to communicate with */
 
if(ACLController::checkAccess('Accounts', 'edit', true)) {
    $module_menu[]=Array("index.php?module=Accounts&action=DetailViewPersonal&return_module=Accounts&return_action=DetailView&record=".$current_user->id, "Personal View",  'Accounts');
}
?>

The ACLController will check the access level of the user for editable, ACL(Access Control Level), and if so place a new menu below called “Personal View”, the action in the module_menu array is what is called and thus you will need to have a DetialViewPersonal.php in the modules/Accounts directory, but this was just a how to, of how to insert a menu item and not the underlying code.

There is more to come!.

Constant casting

Constant casting is when you are for example calling a external library function that does not understand the const (constant) type and so you will need to take it off because the program will do something funny otherwise, crash. etc..

Here is a example code of a const_cast

#include <iostream>
 
using namespace std;
 
int exampleextenalfuction(int value)
{
	// you can alter the value if you want to, since it is not longer a constant value
	return value  + value;
}
 
int main()
{
	const int constvalue = 2;
 
	cout << constvalue << endl;
 
	cout << "Calling a external function that does not use constant types" << endl;
 
	cout << exampleextenalfuction(const_cast<int&>(constvalue)) << endl;
}

Static casting

Static casting is when you want to convert one type into another, static casting is used allot of the time without even knowing. For example

int value = 2;
float t = float(value);

the float(value) is a static casting of converting one value into another. Below is a full code example

#include <iostream>
 
using namespace std;
int main()
{
	int i = 3;
	// the float(<value)> is basically a static cast from a interger value into a float
	cout << float(i) << endl;
	cout << static_cast<float>(i) << endl;
}

It is very small since static_cast’ing is very basic in nature, but the only problem is that you have to check to make sure that there is a error e.g not NULL.