13 Things to keep in mind before using DLL in Delphi

Keep in mind the following tips when writing your DLL:

1. Make sure you use the proper calling convention (C or stdcall).

2. Know the correct order of the arguments passed to the function.

3. NEVER resize arrays or concatenate strings using the arguments passed directly to a function.

4. Remember, the parameters you pass are LabVIEW data. Changing array or string sizes may result in a crash by overwriting other data stored in LabVIEW memory. You MAY resize arrays or concatenate strings if you pass a LabVIEW Array Handle or LabVIEW String Handle and are using the Visual C++ compiler or Symantec compiler to compile your DLL.

5. When passing strings to a function, remember to select the correct type of string to pass . C or Pascal or LabVIEW string Handle.

6. Remember, Pascal strings are limited to 255 characters in length.

7. Remember, C strings are NULL terminated. If your DLL function returns numeric data in a binary string format (for example, via GPIB or the serial port), it may return NULL values as part of the data string. In such cases, passing arrays of short (8-bit) integers is most reliable.

8. If you are working with arrays or strings of data, ALWAYS pass a buffer or array that is large enough to hold any results placed in the buffer by the function unless you are passing them as LabVIEW handles, in which case you can resize them using CIN functions under Visual C++ or Symantec compiler.

9. Remember to list DLL functions in the EXPORTS section of the module definition file if you are using _stdcall.

10. Remember to list DLL functions that other applications call in the module definition file EXPORTS section or to include the _declspec (dllexport) keyword in the function declaration.

11. If you use a C++ compiler, remember to export functions with the extern .C.{} statement in your header file in order to prevent name mangling.

12. If you are writing your own DLL, you should not recompile a DLL while the DLL is loaded into memory by another application (for example, your VI). Before recompiling a DLL, make sure that all applications making use of the DLL are unloaded from memory. This ensures that the DLL itself is not loaded into memory. You may fail to rebuild correctly if you forget this and your compiler does not warn you.

13. Test your DLLs with another program to ensure that the function (and the DLL) behave correctly. Testing it with the debugger of your compiler or a simple C program in which you can call a function in a DLL will help you identify whether possible difficulties are inherent to the DLL or LabVIEW related.

Anatomy of document.ready function in jQuery

All jQuery methods come inside a document.ready() function. This is to prevent any jQuery code from running before the document is finished loading (is ready).

Here are some examples of actions that can fail if functions are run before the document is fully loaded:

1. Trying to hide an element that doesn't exist
2. Trying to get the size of an image that is not loaded

document.ready syntax:

<div id="divTest1"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
function DocumentReady()
{
        $("#divTest1").text("Hello, world!");   
}

$(document).ready(DocumentReady);
</script>

<div id="divTest2"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function()
{
        $("#divTest2").text("Hello, world!");   
});
</script>

But of course, this syntax wasn't even short enough for the jQuery team, so they decided to create a version (overload) of the jQuery constructor which takes a ready function as a parameter, to make it even shorter:

<div id="divTest3"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function()
{
        $("#divTest3").text("Hello, world!");   
});
</script>

In the last example, our anonymous function is passed directly to the jQuery constructor, which assigns it to the ready event. As you will see when you test the code, the event is fired as soon as the page is loaded, most of the time so fast that you won't even realize it.

Difference between body onload() function used in javascript and document.ready() function used in jQuery

Document.ready() function is different from body onload() function because of 2 reasons:

1. We can have more than one document.ready() function in a page where we can have only one onload function.

2. Document.ready() function is called as soon as DOM is loaded whereas body.onload() function is called when everything gets loaded on the page that includes DOM, images and all associated resources of the page.

How to abort an AJAX call using jQuery?

There may be situations where you need to cancel a running AJAX request before it ends. It's usually in cases where the user might perform an action, which sets of an AJAX request, several times within a short time period.

A good example of this is auto-complete functionality for a search box, where you might try to help the user by finding related search terms based on their current input, by making an AJAX request each time they press a key in the search field. In that case, it's very likely that the user types faster than your AJAX request can be performed and therefore you would want to abort any non-finished requests, before starting the next one.

Consider the following example:

<input type="button" name="btnDoRequest" value="Start" onclick="PerformSimpleCalculation();" />

<script type="text/javascript">

function PerformSimpleCalculation()
{
        $.get("/tests/calc.php", function(data, textStatus)
        {
                alert(data);
        });
}
</script>

It requests a PHP script which is doing a very complicated calculation (as you will see from the result), which means that it usually takes ~3 seconds to finish. Now, try the example and push the button several times after each other. The same "calculation" will be performed multiple times and the result will also be displayed multiple times (with a 3 second delay).

Fortunately, a call to the get() method and pretty much any other jQuery AJAX method, returns an object which, among others, contains an abort() method. We can save this reference and then call the abort() method on it if needed. Have a look at this slightly modified example:

<input type="button" name="btnDoRequest" value="Start" onclick="PerformAbortableCalculation();" />

<script type="text/javascript">

var calculationRequest = null;

function PerformAbortableCalculation()
{
        if(calculationRequest != null)
                calculationRequest.abort();
        calculationRequest = $.get("/tests/calc.php", function(data, textStatus)
        {
                alert(data);
        });
}
</script>

We start off by defining a common variable for containing the request reference. In the PerformAbortableCalculation() method, we assign the return value of the get() call to this variable, but before we do so, we check to see if it's null (the method hasn't been used yet) and if not, we call the abort() method on it. If you try this example and click several times, you will see that no matter how many times you click the button, it only executes the callback function once.