Originally Posted by sepulchre

Thanks guys! I'm stuffing myself with my favorite: spice cake!

HA! Enjoy it... it's "good stuff", I agree & approve, 110%!



Me? It's "Disassembly/Trace" time man, because @ this point, based on our discussion above (DO see my reply by the by)?

Well, I * THINK * I can't do anymore for Delphi code optimization (& the Realtime CPU priority assignment I do @ form creation time can't REALLY be improved upon either (I am NOT going to attempt to disassemble OR rewrite Win32 API libs code either - THIS I have to 'watch it on' though... not good for single CPU rigs, thank goodness they are no longer "the norm")).

I need the trace/debug assembly code...

Why the Asm dump in disassembly??

Well - to help ME, do some "Inline Assembler" code, via the ASM directive Delphi has (C/C++ also do), for extra speed boosting...

APK

P.S.=> This is a "BUMMER" to do though, & takes me tons of time to get "absolutely right" too... lol, time to put on (editing) "THE THEME FROM MISSION IMPOSSIBLE" by U², because it may very well BE that (I have a hard time with doing this is why I state that)... apk

Hey, Happy Birthday Ken, the birthdays are ringing today around the forums

Vista Business, yeah, i like it, Vista in general that is, Home Basic on the machine as a main OS and Business inside VPC. Using it for my college study.

Thanks, Ian.

Btw, do you troubleshoot Users of XP?

@apk: sorry man, but I'm on no shape to contemplate code today! (too much, erm . . . cake!)

Well, I have the qualification and the knowledge, but still loking for the job to build up experience - so er....yes

Originally Posted by ianm

Well, I have the qualification and the knowledge, but still loking for the job to build up experience - so er....yes

To troubleshoot the USERS? Wow! Cool!

that's what those qualifications say down there in my sig anyways

Well, it says 'Troubleshooting XP' and 'Supporting Users' . . but do you troubleshoot Users as well?

Sorry, just having a little too much fun today.

Sepulchre...

Get ready to laugh...

I just thought of a CHEAP WAY to more speed: Console Mode (DOS commandline/tty type app) instead, of a GUI one.

(This is no "major project" that will have 1,000's of users, lol, doesn't have to be "dead solid perfect" either, just fast, for MY needs... (so, that said? I'll do a 'crude console' program - bet it nearly doubles in speed, just on not doing screen device context (Delphi TCanvas object) alone))



The update to the Label's captions for starttime/endtime, plus the status bar? COSTS... I'll be doing away w/ that CPU killer alone, plus the GUI overheads.

APK

P.S.=> Between THAT, & maybe if I get lucky a tracedebug ASM dump code set I can use for Inline ASM directive usage, especially for its loop engine/active ingredient portion? Yea... it'll work - I bet I can get it down from 2 minutes over 533,000++ entries, down to 1.3 minutes runtime on the same amount! apk

Sepulchre, I was correct...

By going console mode - I literally got a HUGE performance boost & gigantic orders of magnitude speed increase!

(W/ some variances - Especially if I cutoff tty console outputs (radical & ugly, & no indicator of progress thru the array of entries from the file... but speed was what I was after, after all, & I got that, bigtime, thru that same cutting down of 1,498,232 lines of non-normalized text data into a 533,000++ lines of text data in my custom HOSTS file))

Down from near 2 minute mark to ONLY 10 seconds, via this code:

================================================== ==

{COPYRIGHT APK - Alexander Peter Kowalski 06/01/2008 onwards}

program APKHostsFileRewriterConsoleModeApp;
//Have this down to 11 second runtimes in consolemode/DOS tty mode
//(w/ no screen outputs that is (It is slower with them @ around 30 seconds))... apk
//MUCH FASTER THAN GUI MODE MODEL WHICH TAKES JUST UNDER 2 MINUTES... apk

{$define nodebug}
{$STACKCHECKS OFF}
{$D-} //will prevent placing Debug info to your code.
{$L-} //will prevent placing local symbols to your code.
{$O+} //will optimize your code, remove unnecessary variables etc.
{$Q-} //removes code for Integer overflow-checking.
{$R-} //removes code for range checking of strings, arrays etc.
{$S-} //removes code for stack-checking. USE ONLY AFTER HEAVY TESTING !
{$Y-} //will prevent placing smybol information to your code
{$H-} //Forces ShortString usage (no heap usage) until password routine... apk

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
SysUtils, StrUtils, Windows;
//I eliminated the "uses" dependency on the Forms class object units by NOT using Application.Handle
//& instead stepping right down to the clean Win32 API code again for ProcessID + ProcessHandle
//To be able to set this application's parent thread to REALTIME CPU Usage & also its child
//thread (1 of 2) active to realtime when/if needed too... apk

{$H-}

var
Ch: ShortString;
F1:TextFile;
F2:TextFile;
Flags:TReplaceFlags;
Counter:Integer;
ThreadHandle: THandle;
ProcessID: DWORD;
ProcessHandle: THandle;

begin;
ProcessID:= GetCurrentProcessID;
ProcessHandle:= OpenProcess(PROCESS_SET_INFORMATION, false, ProcessID);
SetPriorityClass(ProcessHandle, REALTIME_PRIORITY_CLASS);
ThreadHandle:= GetCurrentThread;
SetThreadPriority(ThreadHandle, THREAD_PRIORITY_TIME_CRITICAL);
//---------------------------------------
//"ACTIVE INGREDIENT"/ENGINE HERE:
//---------------------------------------
try
Counter:=0;
AssignFile(F1, 'HOSTSFromFranceToInsert.txt');
Reset(F1);
AssignFile(F2, 'B:\HOSTS\NewNormalizedFinalMinusTrailingBlanksNEW EST.txt');
Rewrite(F2); //Blanks it out, so no need for FileUtils unit If FileExists stuff... apk
writeln(F2, Trim('Start Time = ' + Trim(TimeToStr(Now))));
while not Eof(F1) do
begin
Try
Counter:=Counter+1;
Readln(F1, Ch);
//writeln(IntToStr(Counter)); (GOOD FOR DEBUG, BUT, WRITES TO CONSOLE SCREEN slows execution to 40 seconds... apk}
//clrscr; {Nice for seeing it on same line updating, rather than row after row... apk}
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '127.0.0.1 ', '0.0.0.0 ', Flags); //vs. Spybot inserts of 127.0.0.1(TAB)URL{cr+lf}
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '127.0.0.1', '0.0.0.0', Flags);
Ch:= ReverseString(Ch); //StrRev C/C++ equivalent... apk
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, ' ', '', Flags);
Ch:= ReverseString(Ch);
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '0.0.0.0', '0.0.0.0 ', Flags);
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '0.0.0.0 ', '0.0.0.0 ', Flags);
//Still considering a FOR loop here 1-4 interations... apk
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '"', '', Flags);
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '"', '', Flags);
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '"', '', Flags);
Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, '"', '', Flags);
//This extra FINALLY costs me around 3-5 seconds too, but worth it for data commit integrity... apk
finally
Writeln(F2, Trim(Ch));
end;
//---------------------------------------
//USING EXCESSIVE TRIMS, THOUGH GOOD FOR CODE SECURITY & DATA INTRGRITY TO AN EXTENT, SLOWS RUNTIME
//Up to 24 second levels, via lines much like this one below as an example:
//Ch:= StringReplace(Trim(Ch), Trim('0.0.0.0'), '0.0.0.0 ', Flags);
//Ch:= StringReplace(Trim(Ch), Trim('127.0.0.1'), Trim('0.0.0.0'), Flags);
//Ch:= StringReplace(Ch, Trim('"'), '', Flags);
//---------------------------------------
end;
//writeln(F2, Trim('End Time = ' + Trim(TimeToStr(Now))));
writeln(F2, 'End Time = ' + TimeToStr(Now));
//writeln(F2, Trim('Records Processed = ' + Trim(IntToStr(Counter))));
writeln(F2, 'Records Processed = ' + IntToStr(Counter));
CloseFile(F2);
Flush(F2); //clear memory buffer for output file... apk
CloseFile(F1);
Flush(F1); //clear memory buffer for input file... apk
except //CUSTOM EXCEPTION ABEND/ERR HANDLER I CREATED... apk
begin
CloseFile(F2);
Flush(F2); //clear memory buffer for output file... apk
CloseFile(F1);
Flush(F1); //clear memory buffer for input file... apk
exit;
end;
end;
end.

================================================== ==

apk

I shot a couple of troubled XP users today.