kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/22/2016 10:43 AM, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:
> Simon,
> 
> Using .mb_str() is valid.  Using static_cast is more c++ish.  Take a
> look at the "Conversion to C string" section of the wxString documentation:

http://docs.wxwidgets.org/3.0/classwx_string.html

I'm ok either way.

Sorry about the fat fingered send.

Wayne

> 
> 
> On 9/22/2016 10:42 AM, Simon Wells wrote:
>> Hey wayne,
>>
>> the commit broke my build...
>>
>> in kicad2step.cpp
>>
>> lines 61-81 have _( "BLAH BLAH") which errors out as not convertible
>> from wxstring to char *. I have patched it with .mb_str() and was
>> preparing a patch but i am not sure if this is the correct way, care
>> to comment before i send a patch?
>>
>> thanks
>>
>> Simon
>>
>> On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 2:18 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> On 9/21/2016 9:17 PM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>>>> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> On 9/21/2016 7:27 PM, Cirilo Bernardo wrote:
>>>>>> OK, I've updated the branch with the following changes:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. removed wxT() from kicad2step and dialogs. The remaining wxT()
>>>>>> instances are created by wxFormBuilder.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 2. refined the Export STEP GUI for cases in which the exporter
>>>>>> fails (returns an error or segfaults).
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the fixes.  I got everything merged on my computer at work so
>>>>> I'll just pick up where I left off tomorrow.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> No problem; thanks for testing the branch.
>>>
>>> I tested this and everything looked fine.  I did notice in your last
>>> commit that you used stderr.  I'm not sure that has any meaning on
>>> windows but it didn't seem to break anything.  I committed you kicad
>>> step export branch to the product repo.  Great job.  Thanks.
>>>
>>> I do have one comment.  The vrml exporter includes the silk screen and
>>> traces which results in a much more detailed board model.  It would be
>>> nice if step export had this as well.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It also just occurred to me that sometimes the OCE library may
>>>>>> cause a hang. I can work on a generic dialog to launch an
>>>>>> external app which connects to the apps stdout + stderr and
>>>>>> which has a CANCEL button to kill the process - any comments?
>>>>>> Should I put such a dialog into the "common" library?
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm wondering if you could make something abstract enough to work in all
>>>>> the places where we run external apps.  These dialogs always seem pretty
>>>>> task specific like the netlist and bom dialogs?  You could try I guess.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The best abstraction I can think of at the moment is to instantiate a dialog
>>>> which simply has a window showing the stderr + stdout of the running app
>>>> and a cancel button to kill the process if necessary. All other customizations
>>>> should be done in a parent window. I'll come up with something and apply it
>>>> to the BOM and netlist generation as well.
>>>
>>> Given that we've never had any issues with the bom and netlist external
>>> processes, it may not be worth the effort although I'm not opposed to
>>> the idea.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The fact that a process using OCE can hang brings up the
>>>>>> question of whether it is better to leave kicad2step as a
>>>>>> separate app or whether it is generally OK as a plugin and
>>>>>> the odd crash due to bugs in OCE and/or the STEP/IGES
>>>>>> models would be acceptable. We can stuff the plugin
>>>>>> invocations into their own thread and check for completion,
>>>>>> but unlike the case with a separate process, we cannot
>>>>>> guarantee there is no memory corruption or leakage.
>>>>>> Any thoughts?
>>>>>
>>>>> Ughh!  You're not making me feel any better about oce.  It would be nice
>>>>> to be able to kill a rouge process though.  Doesn't the oce library api
>>>>> provide some kind of error reporting capability?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> OCE does have an error reporting scheme but I've seen it hang
>>>> indefinitely while performing some operations such as shape healing
>>>> on defective STEP models. In other instances it eventually stops
>>>> after it has hogged the maximum memory that the system would
>>>> give it. In both cases it's not possible to get error information from
>>>> within OCE. Unfortunately such bad behavior is not unique to OCE; the
>>>> MCAD world in particular seems to be full of buggy libraries, but to
>>>> be fair the tasks involved are incredibly difficult and users no doubt
>>>> are always coming up with cases that the developers hadn't checked for.
>>>
>>> Are we the only project that pushes these libraries that hard?  We do
>>> seem to find our fair share of library issues.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Somewhat off-topic: grep shows me that the source code
>>>>>> and headers are full of wxT().  Since wxT() had been
>>>>>> deprecated years ago and KiCad is no longer compatible
>>>>>> with versions of wxWidgets which required wxT(), perhaps
>>>>>> we should ask devs to purge wxT() from the headers and
>>>>>> sources which they touch? I think that might also get devs
>>>>>> into the habit of not using wxT() - even I still use it without
>>>>>> realizing it - bad habits die hard. :)
>>>>>
>>>>> I caught myself using wxT() while writing the legacy schematic plugin
>>>>> several times.  It will take time to get used to it but we will get
>>>>> there.  If you happen to be working on a file, please feel free to
>>>>> remove them.  I don't think we need to do the mass purge just yet.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> OK; I might create some patches for the bits I'd worked on in the
>>>> past like VRML export and IDF export.
>>>
>>> For small change sets (<= 5 commits), please send me patch sets using
>>> format-patch or send-email.  It's easier than me having to add remotes
>>> and go through the whole pull rebase cycle.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Wayne
>>>
>>>>
>>>> - Cirilo
>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Cirilo
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Sep 22, 2016 at 3:04 AM, Wayne Stambaugh <stambaughw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>>>> Cirilo,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I just tested this since you fixed the windows extension issue.  The
>>>>>>> menu item is enabled but I always get an "Unable to create step file
>>>>>>> whenever there are spaces in the file name and/or path."  You didn't by
>>>>>>> chance forget to double quote the command line string did you?  If you
>>>>>>> don't, spaces in file and/or path names in command strings will fail.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Just a couple of quick comments nothing major.  wxT() macros are no
>>>>>>> longer required in wx3 so try to remember not to use it anymore since
>>>>>>> it's slated to be deprecated in the future.  It's also not necessary to
>>>>>>> convert path separators in strings when you are already using
>>>>>>> wxFileName.  You can use wxFileName::GetFullPath() which will return the
>>>>>>> native separators no matter what you feed it with.  You can also convert
>>>>>>> to the unix file separator for storage by using wxFileName::GetFullPath(
>>>>>>> wxPATH_UNIX ).  This removes the need for #ifdef WINDOWS/#endif to do
>>>>>>> the separator conversion.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Wayne
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 9/19/2016 3:53 AM, Nick Østergaard wrote:
>>>>>>>> Looks good, I will test it soon. But I noticed that it looks like you
>>>>>>>> did not use the copyright template copyright.h from the root of the source.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Den 19/09/2016 09.46 skrev "Cirilo Bernardo" <cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>> <mailto:cirilo.bernardo@xxxxxxxxx>>:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>     The kicad-step feature branch now implements a STEP Export. The menu
>>>>>>>>     item may need a new icon (I lazily reused the IDF icon). Any testing and
>>>>>>>>     comments would be appreciated. The kicad2step utility which performs
>>>>>>>>     the conversion is of course dependent on OCE and is only built when
>>>>>>>>     KICAD_USE_OCE is defined. The "Export STEP" menu item is disabled
>>>>>>>>     if the kicad2step executable is not found in the same directory as the
>>>>>>>>     pcbnew executable.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>     https://code.launchpad.net/~cirilo-bernardo/kicad/+git/kicad-oce/+ref/kicad-step
>>>>>>>>     <https://code.launchpad.net/~cirilo-bernardo/kicad/+git/kicad-oce/+ref/kicad-step>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>     - Cirilo
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
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