Monthly Archives: February 2006

ArgumentNullException and ArgumentException

Does it strike anyone else as ironic that ArgumentException and ArgumentNullException have mismatched argument ordering? The parameter name is first for the null version, but second for the other one. Uggh… this makes it awkward to remember if you use both. ArgumentOutOfRangeException follows the example of ArgumentNullException.

I can see no obvious reason for the discrepancy. In all three cases, the constructors are exactly the same. In fact, MSDN explicitly says that the behavior is the same.

SM_SECURE

In the system metrics that you can retrieve with GetSystemMetrics, one of the available options is SM_SECURE.

The only explanation provided is “Nonzero if security is present; otherwise, 0.” What does that mean? On my computer, the value is 0. There are a few different ways security can be “present” in my mind–what specifically are they talking about here?

Google, MSN, MSDN yield no useful information.

A Debugging Exercise

A few weeks ago I had an interesting debugging problem. A program we develop had a memory leak in it that Visual Studio was catching when it ended. The trace text was something like this:

Detected memory leaks!
Dumping objects ->
{292300} normal block at 0x05590040, 2771928 bytes long.
Data: <> FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00
{292294} normal block at 0x05110040, 2613312 bytes long.
Data: <> FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00 FF FF FF 00

Visual Studio 2003 is often pretty good at telling you where a memory leak occured, giving you a source code file and line number of where the memory allocation originated. In the case above, I don’t have that. There are two relatively easy ways of solving this.

The first method is to examine the data that isn’t being freed. In this case, I have two large objects of about 2.5 MB each. That’s pretty big–there aren’t too many (if any) individual objects in the software that are that large. So it could be an array. The data begins with a repeated pattern {FF FF FF 00}. Definitely looks like an array of 4-byte segments. Applying a little knowledge of the application itself–it displays large bitmaps–and we realize that the memory comes from an array of RGB values.

Another way to investigate this is to set a breakpoint on the memory allocation that isn’t being freed. The number in braces {292300} is the memory allocation number in debug mode in Visual C++. In order for this technique to work, you must first ensure that the number is the same each time. In my case, the memory leak would happen if I just opened and closed the program (because an image is always being drawn) without doing anything else.

First, set a breakpoint at the beginning of the program (or any place definitely before the memory leak). Start the program and when it breaks, enter the following into the watch window:

{,,msvcr71d.dll}_crtBreakAlloc

And for the value enter 292300.

If you continue the execution, the program will break on the 292,300th memory allocation. It will stop in the memory allocator, and you can then look at your stack frame and see exactly where the memory allocation is taking place.

MSDN has a great article about this.

In my problem it was for a set of memory blocks being used as working space for resizing and smoothing bitmaps. They were allocated once during execution and thus did not really provide a long-term threat. This leads to a possible third solution:

Ignore. All memory is reclaimed once the program exits. Nobody would ever do that, though…. would they?

…of course not…

Dilbert and Unfit by the same artist

I haven’t seen this anywhere else on the web yet, but my suspicion is starting to grow. Even if it’s a nutty theory, I’m still going to put it forward. Has anyone else wondered if Mike Belkin and Scott Adams are the same person?

There is a relatively new comic out there called Unfit by author Mike Belkin. Recently, Dilbert’s Scott Adams hosted a contest for a new artist for Unfit on his blog.

Has it occured to anyone else that the type of humor portrayed in both comics is similar? I think there is even a strong similarity in the artwork (hence the reason for an artist contest?) and the lettering. Unfit is just slanted differently.

Does anyone else think this?

Credibility

One thing I cannot stand that is so prevalent in the computer industry is criticism by people of ideas, products, and technologies that they don’t understand. You see this a lot in the OS wars–especially of Windows, but Linux and Apple are not immune.

In very few cases do people have a well-reasoned and thought out explanation for their feelings. People who bash other ideas for their “religious” reasons are not intelligent–they are freaks who should not be trusted to make good decisions about technology.

Sure, there are horribly bad products out there, but those are mostly ignored and quickly die off. Religious wars start over successful products. A little study and research into the reasons for various design decisions would go a lot towards increasing the intelligence of most of these people.