text
stringlengths 454
608k
| url
stringlengths 17
896
| dump
stringlengths 9
15
⌀ | source
stringclasses 1
value | word_count
int64 101
114k
| flesch_reading_ease
float64 50
104
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Calculating the MIRR
I can follow the textbook example calculating MIRR until its final step. 9720 6000 = --------- (1 +MIRR)^3 MIRR = 17.66% Can you please show how to arrive at the 17.66%.
I can follow the textbook example calculating MIRR until its final step. 9720 6000 = --------- (1 +MIRR)^3 MIRR = 17.66% Can you please show how to arrive at the 17.66%.
Reynolds Company is evaluating its dividend policy. Selected data for the company are shown below. Capital budget $10,000,000 Desired capital structure 40% debt 60% equity Expected net income $7,000,000
Your company is evaluating new equipment that will cost $1,000,000. The equipment is in the MACRS 3-year class and will be sold after 3 years for $100,000. Use of the equipment will increase net working capital by 100,000. The equipment will save $450,000 per year in operating costs. The company's tax rate is 30 percent and
Quick Printing is considering the purchase of a new printing press. The total installed cost of the press would be $2.2 million. This outlay would be partially offset by the sale of an existing press. The old press which cost $1 million 10 years ago, has zero book value and can be currently sold for $1.5 million before taxes. As
See attached file. 1. The ultimate owner(s) of an ongoing corporation are the federal government. the debt holders. the equity holders. the executive staff of the corporation. 2. Which of the following is a valid criticism concerning the goal of firms to maximize profits?
Zero rates - 6 months= 4.0816% 12 months= 5.1957% 18 months= 5.5176% 24 months= 5.8937% What are the 6-month, 12-month, 18-month par yields for bonds that provide semi-annual coupon payments? Estimate the price and yield of a two-year bond providing a semi-annual cou
See attached File. Capital Budgeting Analysis I have attached a Unit 3 Professional Challenge- Blank Answer Template. The cells that need to be filled in are in the color gray. Virtually all of the cells should have formulas (or linked to other cells) in order to show the work and logic. You must use formulas for your calc
Cummings Products Company is considering two mutually exclusive investments. The projects' expected net cash flows are as follows: Expected Net Cash Flows Year Project A Project B 0 ($300) ($405) 1 (387) 134 2 (193) 134 3 (100) 134 4 600 134 5 600 134 6 850 134 7 (180) 0 a. Construct NPV profiles for Projects A a fr
X Company is considering the acquisition of a new processing line. The processor can be purchase for $3,750,000; it will have a 10 year useful life. It will cost $165,000 to ship and $85,250 to install the processor. A recently completed feasibility study that was performed at a cost of $65,000 indicated that the processor would Wi
Please assist me with the problems below. 3. The Cooper Electronics Company has developed the following schedule of potential investment projects that may be undertaken during the next six months: Project Cost (in Millions of Dollars) Expected Rate of Return A $ 3.0 20% B. 1.5 22 C 7.0 7 D 14
Please see the attachment. Robert recently inherited a stock portfolio from his uncle. Wishing to learn more about the companies in which he is now invested, Robert performs a ratio analysis on each one and decides to compare them on each other. Some of his ratios are listed below. Ratio Island Electric Utility B
Ms. Sweeney, th
1. Besides the rate of return, what additional factors should a firm consider in its capital expenditure decisions for its international subsidiaries and JVs? 2. Based on the current borrowing rates, why would (or wouldn't) a firm want to invest in international capital projects today? In today's economic environment, would
See the attachment. Gavin and Alex, baseball consultants, are in need of a microcomputer network for their staff. They have received three proposals, with related facts as follows: Proposal A Proposal B Proposal C Initial investment in equipment $90,000 $90,000 $90,000 Annual cash increa
3. The McCue Company has equal amounts of low-risk, average-risk, and high-risk projects. McCue estimates that its overall WACC is 12%. The CFO believes that this is the correct WACC for the company's average-risk projects, but that a lower rate should be used for lower risk projects and a higher rate for higher risk projects. T w
Project S has a cost of $10,000 and is expected to produce benefits (cash flows) of $3,000 per year for 5 years. Project L costs $25,000 and is expected to produce cash flows of $7,400 per year for 5 years. Calculate the two projects' NPV's, IRR's, MIRR's, and PI's, assuming a cost of capital of 12%. Which project wou
Examine and discuss the characteristics of NPV and the role that this method plays in capital investment decision making. In addition, discuss the advantages of using this method instead of the other evaluation methods: accounting rate of return (ARR), payback period (PP) and internal rate of return (IRR).
1. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? a. Because depreciation is not a cash expense, it plays no role in capital budgeting. b. Under current laws and regulations, corporations must use straight-line depreciation for all assets whose lives are 3 years or longer. c. Under MACRS depreciation, firms write off as
There are two ways to incorporate inflation into capital budgeting analysis. One way is to express cash flows in constant dollars (at the time of analysis) and adjust the discount rate by removing the inflation premium. Another way is to use the nominal discount rate while converting cash flows into current dollars (at the time
In capital budgeting analysis, a proposed project is typically evaluated based on cash flows. Since depreciation is non-cash expense, it is irrelevant in capital budgeting analysis. Is the statement true or false? Explain
Year Cash flow A Cash flow B 0 -$300,000 -$40,000 1 20,000 19,000 2 50,000 12,000 3 50,000 18,000 4 390,000 10,500 Use a discount rate of 15%. 1. If you apply the NVP cri
You are evaluating a capital budget analysis by one of the operating divisions that list the following cash flows in their analysis. Based on incremental cash flows, your evaluation finds some are not relevant. Discuss each of the five cash flows as to its relevancy and if it should be included in the analysis or excluded.
A Restaurant is analyzing a project that requires $180,000 of fixed assets. When the project ends those assets are expected to have an after-tax salvage value of $45,000. How is the $45,000 salvage value handled when computing the net present value of the project? a. reduction in the cash outflow at time zero b cash inflow
A%?
A company (Nugget) has to choose between mutally exclusive innovations for improving its computer system one is offered by AMD and the other by NRC. The after tax cost of capital is 12 percent. AMD's system costs $1 million and promises after-tax cash flows in personnel cost saving for four years: $400,000 at the end of Year 1 | https://brainmass.com/business/capital-budgeting/pg18 | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | refinedweb | 1,252 | 64.81 |
Archives
The Weekend
So many projects, so little time.
Speech SDK
John Lawrence writes about speech2blog:
Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation Framework
After previously being available for download only by MSDN Enterprise and Universal subscribers, the Microsoft Enterprise Instrumentation Framework is now available here.
Speech2Blog Plans.
Whidbey - Hosed.
Manually Compile your XAML into BAML
For those of you who are hardcore console compilers, here's how you can manually compile your BAML partial classes, using the Windows Application Compiler:
RSS Reader
Steve Tibbett has written some very cool code for MSH which reads RSS feeds and displays them at the command shell.
Whidbey Distributed Applications
While exploring Whidbey, sometimes the most interesting features have a “This feature is not available in the Visual Studio 'Whidbey' Alpha release” teaser accompanying them.
Directories for the DOS Inclined
I found a new surprise in Longhorn today; here's something that should be fixed:
Whidbey Gotchas.
my first spoken post
this is my first post from an application I am writing and to recognize speech and have it instantly show on your web log . it uses the speech API in longhorn. I will post an Alpha version as soon as I clean up the code , since it is so embarrassing right now. my initial results are pretty good and I can speak quite quickly without a great deal of corrections from the suggestions More information will come later.
Speech2Blog Alpha 1
As promised, here's my first release of Speech2Blog. It will take your speech, and post it to a .Text weblog. (Thanks Scott for clarification of the asmx address.) Since this is an Alpha release, here's the gotcha's:
Longhorn Sidebar RSS Howto
Well, after trying to compile and run the RSS Newsfeed sidebar from MSDN, it threw an exception on explorer. Notice the file “bullet.png” is not available on the web site, and just replacing it with another png file did not do the trick.
LH/VPC Speed boost?
In response to a post by G. Andrew Duthie, Drew Marsh tells of a possible speed tweak for the longhorn/virtual pc combo:
Longhorn Bug Reporting
Well, since the WindowsBeta site doesn't accept bug reports this iteration, Microsoft recommends either the Longhorn public newsgroups: (a great source of information, with many a Microsoft employee posting helpful advice) or the Report Client on the Longhorn DVD 1 (x:\ReportClient\Microsoft Beta Client 1.1.msi). The funny thing is, in order to install it, you need .NET framework 1.1 installed. I am surprised that they didn't compile it to work with 1.2 (2.0). Suffice it to say, though, that once you do have it installed, you get a very clean looking reporting tool, and now you don't have to worry about a time limit to finish the bug report (or should I say "Windows Issue Report"). Here's to helping make a better product!
Namespace Management
With all of the new classes in 2.0, I sometimes find myself guessing at the dll's in order to find out how to reference them in a project. Case in point: with the MONAD namespaces (System.Management) , I didn't realize that they were actually found in the “Program Files\Longhorn Command Shell Preview” folder. Another point (from 1.1), the System.ComponentModel.Design namespace is actually held in System.Design.dll. I was recommended to use Reflector to search for the classes, but what about classes that are not included in the framework?
New Keyword: yield
The new yield keyword lets you return a value from an enumerated method. You can use this wherever either you can't use a ref or out param, or when you can't use a return value.
Whidbey Avalon Projects
After installing Whidbey, and looking for some of those new Avalon projects under C# Projects, I realized that the Longhorn SDK actually installs additional project templates for Whidbey.
Longhorn Product Activation Info
Just thought I'd let everyone know that we can install this on multiple pc's if we want. Now I can have a virtual pc install, as well as a dedicated install. | http://weblogs.asp.net/jnadal/archive/2003/11 | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | refinedweb | 692 | 61.36 |
Data abstraction involves pulling out the features that are common across various classes or other composite types, and creating a generalization that can represent them all. This enables the code to operate on the abstraction without having to know anything about the specific implementation. Working with the abstraction decouples the calling code from the implementation details, facilitating maintenance and reuse.
a. Consider your smartphone as a system and use its calendar to set a calendar event with a reminder for your birthday. Write down each interaction between you and your smartphone as a scenario. Record all the interactions, including any feedback the smartphone gives to you.
b. Consider the scenario in part a of this question. Identify the actor(s) of the scenario. Next write the corresponding use case SetCalendarEvent. Include all cases, and include setting the actual day and time of your birthday. Provide both the diagram and the textual description of the use case.• Show less
Consider a traffic light system at a four-way crossroads (two roads intersecting at right angles) with a countdown timer, a crosswalk button, and a speaker that announces it’s ok or not ok to walk. This crossroad description is similar to the crossroad on 16th and Wisconsin Ave at Marquette. Assume the simplest algorithm for cycling through the lights (e.g. all traffic on one road is allowed to go through the crossroad, while the other traffic is stopped. You do not have to account for a left turn arrow light. Identify the states of this system and draw a state machine describing them. Remember that each individual traffic light has at least three states (green, yellow, and red).• Show less
Question:
$qcount=1;
while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($fetch1))
{
?>
<tr>
<td><?php echo $row['sub_title']."<br>";?></td>
<td><input type="radio" name="<?php echo $qcount;?>" value="1"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" name="<?php echo $qcount;?>" value="2"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" name="<?php echo $qcount;?>" value="3"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" name="<?php echo $qcount;?>" value="4"/></td>
<td><input type="radio" name="<?php echo $qcount;?>" value="5"/></td>
</tr>
<?php
$qcount+=1;
}
if(isset($_post['btnsubmit']))
{
for($i=0; $i<$qcount; $i++)
{
$result[i]=$_post[$qcount]; //error
$i+=1;
echo $result[i];
}
}
?>
how to get post to $result ??
You are required, but not limited, to turn in the following source files:
Assignment7
(The Assignment7 class extends JApplet- It is completed)
Rect.java
WhilePanel (It extends JPanel) -- to be completed.
You may add more classes or more methods as needed.
Swing/AWT
Some of the classes
needed:
JApplet, JButton, Container, JPanel, JSplitPane, JComboBox, Color, Font, Graphics, ActionListener, KeyListener, and MouseListener. You may use other classes too.
-Create an html file, say "hw7.html" with the
following content:
--------------------------------------------------------
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Assignment 7 Applet</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<applet code="Assignment7.class" width=550 height=250>
</applet>
</BODY>
</HTML>
------------------------------------------------------
-Compile your java program as usual.
-In a console, type:
appletviewer hw7.html
(instead of typing "java Assignment7").
-In the TextPad, choose Tool->Run Java Applet or
press Ctrl-3 (press control key and 3 at the same time).
-In the Eclipse
choose Run->Run as Applet.
Suggested Class Diagram:
Class Diagram (download the .ppt file of the figure):
Write a Java program that constructs an Applet.
Components for assignment 7: two buttons "Undo", ?Erase?, ?a JRadioButton , and ButtonGroup where a user can select a color to draw a rectangle on a panel.
(The size of the applet here is approximately 400 X 400).
A user can move a mouse into the drawing area and drag the mouse to draw a rectangle. The default color is black, so the first time, the rectangle will appear in the drawing area with black color.
A user can continue drawing more rectangles. Note that the rectangles remain on the panel.
A user can select another color from the radio Buttons located on the left corner. After selecting a color, a user can press somewhere in the drawing panel again, and draw another rectangle on the screen with the chosen color.
When a user pushes the "Undo" button, the last drawn rectangle will be erased from the drawing area. Thus if a user keeps pushing the "Undo" button, eventually all rectangles will be erased.
Rect class
The Rect class represents a rectangle to be drawn in the panel. It contains at least the following instance variable:
This class has the following constructor:
public Rect(int x1, int y1, int width, int height, Color color)
where the parameters x and y are (x,y) coordinate of where the rectangle is drawn, and color is the color of the rectangle.
This class also contains the method:
public void draw (Graphics page)
In this method the fillRect is called by passing the x, y coordinates, the width and the height.
CanvasPanel class (this is a private class inside WholePanel class)
The CanvasPanel class extends JPanel defined in javax.swing package. This is where rectangles are drawn. The Background of this panel is white. It must contain the following method.
public void paintComponent(Graphics page)
Using the parameter page you can draw rectangle with a selected color. This can be done by calling the draw method. Remember that this method need to call paintComponent method defined in its parent class.
WholePanel class
The WholePanel class organizes all components in the applet. It extends JPanel defined in javax.swing package. It contains at least the following instance variable:
This class should have a constructor:
public WholePanel()
This is where all components are arranged. Add as many instance variables as you need, and instantiate them in this constructor.? One way is to instantiate a CanvasPanel and canvas panel is where rectangles will be drawn, thus it will be listening to mouse.
ButtonListener class
The ButtonListener class implements ActionListener interface defined in java.awt.event package. It must implement the following method:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
In this method, based on the "Undo" button or ?Erase? the last drawn rectangle or all the rectangles should be erased. Note in case there is no rectangle drawn in the drawing panel, nothing will happen even when the "Undo" button is pushed. You should make sure that your program does not crash in this case. The ?Erase? button clears the list and repaint the canvas.
ColorListener class
The ColorListener class implements ActionListener interface defined in java.awt.event package. It must implement the following method:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event)
In this method, the color chosen by a user using JRadioButton is assigned as a color to be used to draw the rectangle.
PointListner class
The PointListener class implements MouseListener and MouseMotionListener interface. It must implement the following method:
public void mousePressed (MouseEvent event)
public void mouseReleased (MouseEvent event)???? ???
//? mouseReleased method takes the point where a mouse is released
//using the point and the pressed point to create a rectangle, add it to the ArrayList, and call paintComponent method.
public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent event) //mouseDragged method takes the point where a mouse is dragged,
//and call paintComponent nethod
Other methods from MouseListener can be left as blank.
Note that these listener classes and CanvasPanel class are defined as nested classes inside of the WholePanel class.
Download the following files and use them as a base
of your program:
Assignment7
WholePanel
Step 1: Create PointListener class that implements MouseListener to get the point that a mouse is pointing. Use the point where the mouse is pushed instead of the fixed point (200,200) so that a rectangle can appear in different locations.
Step 2: Create Rect class so that each rectangle at a certain location can be stored as an object. Then create an ArrayList and store each Rect object in it. Rewrite paintComponent method so that it goes through each object in the ArrayList and draw them one by one.
Step 3: Add the "Undo" button, and create ButtonListener class to implement actionPerformed method. Also CanvasPanel needs to be created and move all functionality described so far for the WholePanel toCanvasPanel. If the"Undo" button is pushed, delete the last element of the ArrayList and re-draw.
Step 4: Then, create ColorListener class to change selected colors. The next rectangle will be drawn with the newly selected color.
// Assignment #: 7 // Name: // StudentID: 000-00-0000 // Lecture: 1 // Class Time: // Description: The Assignment 7 creates a WholePanel that is // an extension of JPanel, add it to its content, and set // a size for the applet. import javax.swing.*; public class Assignment7 extends JApplet { public void init() { // create a WholePanel object and add it to the applet WholePanel wholePanel = new WholePanel(); getContentPane().add(wholePanel); //set applet size to 400 X 400 setSize (400, 400); } }
// Assignment #: 7 // Name: // StudentID: 000-00-0000 // Lecture: 1 // Class Time: // Description: The whole panel creates components for the whole panel // of this applet. It also contains CanvasPanel, ButtonListener, ColorListener, // and PointListner classes. import java.awt.*; import javax.swing.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.util.ArrayList; public class WholePanel extends JPanel { //instance variables private Color currentColor; private CanvasPanel canvas; private JPanel primary, buttonPanel, leftPanel; private JButton erase, undo; private ArrayList rectList, tempList; private JRadioButton[] colorRButtons; private Color[] colors; private int x1, y1, x2, y2, x3, y3; private boolean mouseDragged = false; //Constructor to instantiate components public WholePanel() { //default color to draw rectangles is black currentColor = Color.black; rectList = new ArrayList(); //create buttons //create radio buttons for 5 colors //black will be chosen by default colorRButtons = new JRadioButton[5]; colorRButtons[0] = new JRadioButton("black", true); //store 5 colors in an array //group radio buttons so that when one is selected, //others will be unselected. ButtonGroup group = new ButtonGroup(); for (int i=0; i<colorRButtons.length; i++) group.add(colorRButtons[i]); //add ColorListener to radio buttons ColorListener listener = new ColorListener(); for (int i=0; i<colorRButtons.length; i++) colorRButtons[i].addActionListener(listener); //primary panel contains all radiobuttons primary = new JPanel(new GridLayout(5,1)); for (int i=0; i<colorRButtons.length; i++) primary.add(colorRButtons[i]); //canvas panel is where rectangles will be drawn, thus //it will be listening to a mouse. canvas = new CanvasPanel(); canvas.setBackground(Color.white); canvas.addMouseListener(new PointListener()); canvas.addMouseMotionListener(new PointListener()); JSplitPane sp = new JSplitPane(JSplitPane.HORIZONTAL_SPLIT, leftPanel, canvas); setLayout(new BorderLayout()); add(sp); } //ButtonListener class that takes action depending on what button is //pushed private class ButtonListener implements ActionListener { public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent event) { } } // end of ButtonListener // listener class to set the color chosen by a user using // the radio buttons. private class ColorListener implements ActionListener { public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event) { if (event.getSource() == colorRButtons[0]) currentColor = colors[0]; else if (event.getSource() == colorRButtons[1]) currentColor = colors[1]; else if (event.getSource() == colorRButtons[2]) currentColor = colors[2]; else if (event.getSource() == colorRButtons[3]) currentColor = colors[3]; else if (event.getSource() == colorRButtons[4]) currentColor = colors[4]; } } //CanvasPanel is the panel where rectangles will be drawn private class CanvasPanel extends JPanel { //this method draws all rectangles specified by a user public void paintComponent(Graphics page) { super.paintComponent(page); //draw all rectangles for (int i=0; i < rectList.size(); i++) { ((Rect) rectList.get(i)).draw(page); } //draw an outline of the rectangle that is currently being drawn. if (mouseDragged == true) { page.setColor(currentColor); //Assume that a user will move a mouse only to left and down from //the first point that was pushed. page.drawRect(x1, y1, x3-x1, y3-y1); } } } //end of CanvasPanel class // listener class that listens to the mouse public class PointListener implements MouseListener, MouseMotionListener { //in case that a user presses using a mouse, //record the point where it was pressed. public void mousePressed (MouseEvent event) { //after "create" button is pushed. } //mouseReleased method takes the point where a mouse is released, //using the point and the pressed point to create a rectangle, //add it to the ArrayList "rectList", and call paintComponent method. public void mouseReleased (MouseEvent event) { } //mouseDragged method takes the point where a mouse is dragged //and call paintComponent nethod public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent event) { canvas.repaint(); } public void mouseClicked (MouseEvent event) {} public void mouseEntered (MouseEvent event) {} public void mouseExited (MouseEvent event) {} public void mouseMoved(MouseEvent event) {} } // end of PointListener } // end of Whole Panel Class• Show less
I've done part 1 and 2 and now I'm stuck on part 3. This pseudo code is going as advanced as while and if statements. Write a general set of instructions that will allow us to change any displayed value (from 0 to 9) to any desired value (from 0 to 9) in the least number of steps. For example, if the displayed value is 1 and the desired value is 0, we should move the thumbwheel down once, rather than move it up nine times. The only tricky part is figuring out the general condition that expresses whether it's best to move the thumbwheel up or down to reach the desired value. To make life easier, let's assume that we are allowed to use the conditions "it's best to go up" and/or "it's best to go down", in addition to the conditions mentioned in Question 1. Heres a Hint from my professor: Would we ever decide it's best to go up and later (in solving the same problem) decide it is now better to go down (or vice versa)?• Show less
Implement a class Student. For the purpose of this exercise, a student has a name and a total quiz score. Supply an appropriate constructor and methods getName( ), addQuiz(int score), getTotalScore( ), and getAverageScore ( ). To compute the latter, you also need to store the number of quizzes that the student took . Supply a studentTester class that tests all methods.• Show less
Details here:
here is bitmatrix.cpp - implementing bitmatrix.h
#include <fstream>
#include <sstream>
#include <cstdlib>
#include <cstdio>
#include <algorithm>
#include "bitmatrix.h"
Bitmatrix::Bitmatrix(int rows, int cols)
{
for (int i=0; i < rows; i++) {
for (int j=0; j < cols; j++) {
cout << "0 "; } }
if (!(rows <= 0 && cols <= 0)) {
cout << "0 ";
cerr << " " << endl; exit(1); }
}
int Bitmatrix::Rows()
{
return M.size();
}
int Bitmatrix::Cols()
{
return string.size();
}
void Bitmatrix::Set(int row, int col, char val)
{
}
char Bitmatrix::Val(int row, int col)
{
return -1;
}
void Bitmatrix::Print(int w)
{
int i, j;
for (i = 0; i < M.size(); i++) {
if (w > 0 && i != 0 && i%w == 0) printf("\n");
if (w <= 0) {
cout << M[i] << endl;
} else {
for (j = 0; j < M[i].size(); j++) {
if (j % w == 0 && j != 0) printf(" ");
printf("%c", M[i][j]);
}
cout << endl;
}
}
}
void Bitmatrix::Write(string fn)
{
}
void Bitmatrix::Swap_Rows(int r1, int r2)
{
}
void Bitmatrix::R1_Plus_Equals_R2(int r1, int r2)
{
}
Bitmatrix::Bitmatrix(string fn)
{
ifstream f;
int i, j;
string s, row;
f.open(fn.c_str());
if (f.fail()) { perror(fn.c_str()); M.resize(1); M[0].resize(1), M[0][0] = '0'; return; }
while (getline(f, s)) {
row.clear();
for (i = 0; i < s.size(); i++) {
if (s[i] == '0' || s[i] == '1') {
row.push_back(s[i]);
} else if (s[i] != ' ') {
fprintf(stderr, "Bad matrix file %s\n", fn.c_str());
M.resize(1); M[0].resize(1), M[0][0] = '0';
f.close();
return;
}
}
if (s.size() > 0 && M.size() > 0 && row.size() != M[0].size()) {
fprintf(stderr, "Bad matrix file %s\n", fn.c_str());
M.resize(1); M[0].resize(1), M[0][0] = '0';
f.close();
return;
}
if (s.size() > 0) M.push_back(row);
}
f.close();
}
void Bitmatrix::PGM(string fn, int pixels, int border)
{
}
Bitmatrix *Bitmatrix::Copy()
{
return NULL;
}
BM_Hash::BM_Hash(int size)
{
}
void BM_Hash::Store(string &key, Bitmatrix *bm)
{
}
Bitmatrix *BM_Hash::Recall(string &key)
{
return NULL;
}
HTVec BM_Hash::All()
{
HTVec rv;
return rv;
}
Bitmatrix *Sum(Bitmatrix *m1, Bitmatrix *m2)
{
return NULL;
}
Bitmatrix *Product(Bitmatrix *m1, Bitmatrix *m2)
{
return NULL;
}
Bitmatrix *Sub_Matrix(Bitmatrix *m, vector <int> &rows)
{
return NULL;
}
Bitmatrix *Inverse(Bitmatrix *m)
{
return NULL;
}• Show less
Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
50
50,30
50,30,25
...
Question 4
Question 11
Question 12
Question 13
Each case below gives, a recursive definition of a subset L of {a, b}*.
Give a simple nonrecursive... Show more
Each case below gives, a recursive definition of a subset L of {a, b}*.
Give a simple nonrecursive definition of L in each case.
€ = element
a. a € L; for any x € L, xa and xb are in L.
b. a € L; for any x € L, bx and xb are in L.
c: a € L; for any x € L, ax and xb are in L.
D: a € L; for any x € L, xb,xa and bx are in L.
and explain the answer in more detail that chegg does.• Show less
Join Chegg Study
Guided textbook solutions created by Chegg experts
Learn from step-by-step solutions for 2,500+ textbooks in Math, Science, Engineering, Business and more
24/7 Study Help
Answers in a pinch from experts and subject enthusiasts all semester long | http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/definitions/data-abstraction-3 | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | refinedweb | 2,803 | 56.86 |
XMPP Gets An IETF Working Group 101
An anonymous reader writes "The IETF has approved the formation of a Working Group to continue evolving the XMPP protocol." Interoperable instant messaging, who'd a thunk it. Our previous story has more information.
Finally some good news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Finally some good news (Score:5, Interesting)
What this is really directed at is getting IM clients to be able to interoperate. Initially this was going to be done in the protocol that AOL was drawing up, however they dropped development on that and have been somewhat antagonistic towards interoperating with other IM providers.
From a business perspective having half a dozen IM clients (yahoo, aol, icq, msn, jabber, etc.) on different desktops, that don't interoperate is a bit of a pain to support. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL would very much prefer that businesses would standardize on their own service, however if you have to work with outside vendors you have no gaurantee, that that vendor will use the same service, or that you will be able to interoperate with it.
You might be able to set up your own gateway using jabber, or a couple of other servers, however one of the ways that AOL uses to "protect their users" is to only allow so many users at a time connect from the same IP address. If more than that connect, they block the IP address. That might be OK if you are a mom and pop operation with only four or five people useing your connection, but fails rappidly when you look at it from the perspective of a large bank or multinational corporation.
From what I understand, this working group is attempting to lay out the protocols necessary to allow gateways between IM services to exist. Theory being that you could use your Yahoo IM client to talk to your cousin using an AIM client, who is talking to his buddy over in the MSN world. Asside from the same level of requirement to know what service the remote user is on.
At the moment, with variations on the theme such as jabber, you have to have an account on the remote system even if you are only establishing a connection to a jabber server.
Then again, I could be wrong. Perhaps this will only help wireless users.
-Rusty
Re:Finally some good news (Score:1)
Or to put it another way...imagine if instead of proprietary SMS protocols and proprietary IM protocols, you could make a standard IM protocol. And then you'd have an IM client on your desktop machine and an IM client on your cellular phone and so on, and no need to have people remember your pager address
In other words, in order to have a single contact method that moves everywhere with you as the wireless computing people seem to want, you need to have a single method of messaging that everything uses in order to make sure you really only
At least, that's how I read the bit about wireless.
Re:Finally some good news (Score:1)
2) Just because the IETF has a working group working to standardize/improve a protocol doesn't mean anyone will use it. I'll eat my hat if AIM/ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, etc, start using this protocol instead of their proprietary ones.
How'd the parent manage a +4 score?
Re:Finally some good news (Score:2, Insightful)
Your focus on wireless... are you implying that IM is the "killer app" for wireless? That may be true.
Re:OFFTOPIC (Score:2, Insightful)
I think most people find sites using The Freedom Engine, which is linked from the fproxy main page.
Open standards are a good thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open standards are a good thing... (Score:1)
Did that link work, at some point of time? It doesn't now, but using Microsoft to redirect to goatse.cx... Man, I just don't know what to think about it. Trolls have grown. They have grown very much.
Admirable, but ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Admirable, but ... (Score:1)
The onus will be to create new services around the IM medium...
Re:Admirable, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Because it's inevidable. I remember a time when companies were building proprietary networks systems for corporate use. I remember when AOL wouldn't let people send/receive e-mail from internet. What forced them to change was University use. Researchers don't care about ease of use. They see computers like a hammer, just a tool. They set up e-mail systems and web servers. I remeber compiling Linux onto a 383 long before many of you even knew what e-mail was. Instant Messaging is next.
My boss want to do IM, to keep in more direct touch with associates. He doesn't understand why noone sets up their own servers. So we set up our own right next to our e-mail system (so that e-mail and jabber ids are the same). This is one of the first of MANY coming jabber servers. After a point, every incoming freshman is going to not only get e-mail/web hosting but also a jabber id.
Re:Admirable, but ... (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously there are problems that will still need to be adressed, however that is what the working group is attempting to address.
As far as I am concerned, knowing that one of my buddies is online, and being able to send an IM to them, regardless of the service or client either of us are using would be a major step forward.
-Rusty
Re:Admirable, but ... (Score:2)
Re:Admirable, but ... (Score:2, Informative)
Only for end users (who this standardization effort isn't aimed at anyway, afaik). For programmers, feature P may exist in protocols X Y and Z, but they may have different requirements, so redundant code will have to be introduced to enable P across every protocol which supports it. Furthermore, users of protocol W might be screwed wrt P even though every other protocol supports it.
So AOL (for example) may be betting that it can keep its share of clients and keep selling AIM ad space.
Then again, some end users would like (for example) to have IM handles which match their email address, both of which have the same domain name as their web sites. Jabber solves this sort of namespace issue this by using a decentralized addressing scheme similar to that of email. Meanwhile, AIM users make a game of being the first to register distinctive screen names.
I fear for the weak willed (Score:2, Interesting)
What, Adam, what about pornography?
While pornography is a sin, there is something about the instant feedback of an IM session that quickly dissolves one sense of right. If you look at a pornographic picture of a threesome, Satan may tempt you, but you are able to quickly dismiss him and delete that filth. But if you talk about a threesome on an IM, soon enough someone will also talk to you about it, and the two, or three of you quickly degenerate into very sinful talk.
Similarly, if you look at an unclad woman, you may feel some loin-stirring, but most men can quickly turn away. But, if you start to IM with a woman, you soon start to feel an emotional involvement, and you may find temptation outide your strength.
From my counciling groups, I have found that 70% of affairs have started via "innocent" IM chats. Anything that eases IM chatting, including a universal client, makes it that much easier for people to be tempted into sin electronically, rather than focusing on the hard work of making a real world relationship work (yes, I know it's Slashdot, but some of readers will eventually be in a real relationshop, heed these words so that you can make it work).
In my parenting workgroups, I tell parents to get rid of chatting clients; AIM, jabber, Yahoo Instant Messenger, AOL. I tell the same things in my engagement workshops. While the children and couples protest at first, years later they thank me. You will to.
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2)
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:3, Funny)
i.e. a relationship that you pay for.
Sounds about right to me.
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:1)
My girlfriend stirred my loins last night - it was most excellent.
Thanks Adam. I do find it hard to believe that anyone will let you near children though, what with the restraining orders and all. See you next week at masturbators anonymous!
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2, Insightful)
I am also tired about being preached to about pornography. Yes, it can be abused, but then so does alcohol. Is alcohol a sin? It is all about moderation.
I would have modded you down, but thought a reply would better serve my opinion. It is just blantantly absurd to blame IM for affairs. <sarcasm> Men might as well shun off all contact with other women. In fact, why don't we not let women out at all? They are just there to tempt us. Better yet let us make them hide there bodies so no man would be temped.</sarcasm>
It is ideas like yours that give rise to fanatasism. Technology is not evil. People just must exorcise good judgement. Preach good judgement and soon there won't be as many affairs to worry about.
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:1)
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:1)
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:1)
have heard of nothing as addictive and will-sapping as Instant Messenger.
What about IRC?
Re:I fear for thee Adam (Score:2)
What, Adam, what about pornography?
Do you need to refer to yourself in the third person Adam? Is it because you've sinned ? Are you a sinner Adam? Control your evil self... control Adam control him... God's watching you Adam.
Uhh, yeah (Score:1)
Adam, why don't you just download the amazing NetAccountability [netaccountability.com]
software, so your friends and fellow church-goers can help you insure you never look at pornography again.
After all, every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten [boners.com].
Nah, real religious nutballs don't make you laugh. (Score:1)
Guess : "Adam Rightmann" (if that is his name and not an ironic nom de plume) is an ascerbic Brit with a penchant for poking fun at the Catlick Church.
Re:Nah, real religious nutballs don't make you lau (Score:2)
Yes and no. He probably is a Brit but the most likely target would be Southern US Protestants of the Pat 'Hatred' Robertson or Jerry 'Hatred' Falwell variety, the type who talk about the love of Christ etc. etc. but have hatred as their middle name.
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2)
There's a much, much easier solution. Removing a thing from your life, especially a communication medium, deprives others of help. It's better to reform the system, unless a system proves itself beyond help (IM clients, btw, have not.)
Instead of banishing the client, simply:
1: Ensure that the non-casual relationships of an IM are based on more than the IM. Have real names, real addresses, and real working phone numbers. Use voice chat if the rest are unavaliable--or better yet, video chat.
2: Use an IM client with a permanent log function. If a record of the transmissions exists, it's psychologically harder to fall prey to the "anonymous and unseen" concept that the internet offers so many.
Now, I don't know if you're a troll or just a catholic--so I'm going to take your words at face value.
Feel free to respond, either via journal, reply, or e-mail.
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2)
Hell, I know someone that cheated on her husband with a member of her bible study group. Better stop interacting at all, right? Let's all live in little boxes, read the bible, and reproduce in petri dishes (that way none of our seed is wasted - hey, it's the Catholic way, right?
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2)
Nope. Assuming that he's not a troll, he seems consistent in considering himself a "strong willed" person who can withstand things that lead to sin.
Pornography and the internet, in and of themselves, are not sin; they are condusive to sin. There's a distinct technical difference, and some Catholics do believe that the difference bewteen eternal damnation and lack thereof can be a technicality.
Still, it seems odd that someone would spend so much of their time where they're apparantly not wanted, and not leave realiable contact information. If he's trolling under a false persona, it's an extremly well done false persona.
(And, of course, if he's just "speaking the good word," he could still be considered trolling...
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:2)
I have done some work in the past with folk who have got into cult type organizations. First thing those organizations do is to tell their members to cut off all contact with the outside world. That is the same whether you are talking about religious cults or terrorist cults, of course some are both (Al Qaeda, Hammas).
As for folk who do 'counselling' I tend to find that such people are utter control freaks whose primary objective is not helping people, it is getting them hooked into some idiot set of beliefs.
Strange as it may seem there are many Christians such as myself who find such activities far more disturbing and dangerous than anything that happens between n consenting adults in bed.
Re:I fear for the weak willed (Score:1)
I urge people in relationships to stop talking to anybody else - even those of the same sex (just in case). People will hate be at first, but won't be able to complain since they can't talk to me.
AOL TW (Score:5, Funny)
As you can see in Patent#93993229, we invented the idea of instant message interopability. You don't believe us? Look at our next version of AIM and ICQ, they're combined! combined I tell you!
Great! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:2)
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Funny)
what XMPP really is (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, this new group will ensure that Jabber's existing protocol is secure and has good support for localization. But it has nothing to do with AIM/ICQ [businessweek.com], Yahoo Messanger, or anything like that. You can use XMPP today - it's called Jabber (and it's pretty cool).
I fell for the /. hype.... (Score:4, Informative)
What really makes me shake my head, though, is the client they provided. It's locked on the jabber.com server. What's up with that? They sell you a server, and then give you a client that you can only use with a server they didn't sell you?!
Re:I fell for the /. hype.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a look at the list of clients available under the client list [jabber.org] at jabber.org [jabber.org] or even some of the links under that.
Don't sell the comercial server short either. The evaluation copy may expire in a month, however it does support some features that are not in the open/free version of the server.
-Rusty
Re:I fell for the /. hype.... (Score:2)
Need to spend some more time poking around jabber.com, I guess; the additional features aren't obvious and I can't find a price tag anywhere. ("Contact us" -- via email -- is all over the site.)
Re:I fell for the /. hype.... (Score:1)
and yup, gotta call em for price.
Re:I fell for the /. hype.... (Score:1)
Wishful thinking. (Score:4, Insightful)
While the emergence of a standard will quickly generate open source implementations (I can easily see, say, licq supporting the standard within days of the first draft) there is no incentive for the big corporate players to support it, and indeed a great many reasons not to.
Their interrest lies not in interoperability, but making sure that their customers can only talk to their customers so that if you want to be able to IM your brother-in-law or somesuch you have to subscribe to their service (even if it's in a way just as "simple" as feeding them your email for generating spam).
This means that, in the long run, the mass market consumer will not be able to talk to the open source clients we geeks will be using.
Like I said, wishful thinking. If we're really lucky this is how things will happen, and we'll have an IM that isn't swamped with hundreds of thousands of inane twinks and lusers spamming us with request for pr0n or cybersex.
:-)
-- MG
Re:Wishful thinking. (Score:2)
Not enough (Score:3, Insightful)
In the end XMPP/Jabber will only work with itself. A marvel of interoperability.
And this suits me just fine. They can keep their IM-BS. The rest of us can use somthing else.
Re:Not enough (Score:1)
Well, right now you CAN use just about any ISP for IM services. AOL, MSN, and Yahoo all provide free client downloads. I know this isn't exactly what you meant, however. The companies, especially AOL, don't seem to enjoy 3rd party clients collecting to their networks, which is semi-understandable. (AOL seems to have quieted down about 3rd part clients of late, however). I can only speak from limited experience with the official AIM client, but it was loaded with quite a few ads, which probably explains why AOL doesn't want you to use another client. On the official AOL software, the AIM service offers some features that even the official AIM client doesn't have. Version 8.0 seems to have implemented some type of theming ability for emoticons, which some of my friends find absolutely amazing.
Re:Not enough (Score:2)
Disagree here slightly. AOL don't want interoperability. They are the gorilla in this space. Everyone else wants interoperability for the reason that AOL do not.
Passport began as a plot to dislodge AOL's monopoly hold in the IM space. If Microsoft can do that then AOL is simply another ISP, only with a crippleware browser designed for newbies.
So don't count out the possibiliy that you can get Microsoft and Yahoo to help dislodge AOL here. Yahoo is going to be a tough one because they don't really play in the IETF much. But Microsoft does.
More old news (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, those systems were limited to a hundred or so unix clones, plus VMS. But it would have worked just find on Windoze and the Mac, too, if they had bothered to pay attention to what was already developed and available for free.
It's really just another case of the commercial world laboriously reinventing the wheel, and loudly proclaiming that their shape wheel (square, hexagonal, etc.) are the best, while carefully ignoring the long existence of a round wheel.
(1) See any unix manual from the early 80's.
Re:More old news (Score:2)
For many people this would be sufficient. Some people would rather have some more features such as presence, or higher level formatting, or the ability to check their callander, or have an avatar send a page to their cell phone reminding you to pick up some eggs and milk as the refrigerator reports that you are low on both.
While I feel talk is fine for most of the systems I use, I don't think it will talk to my cell phone, or my pager. I suppose that both could be upgraded to support it, but why bother?
-Rusty
Re:More old news (Score:2)
I suspect that all this "presence" does is say whether the app is alive on my machine. If you sent me an IM and I've just walked out of the room, I sorta doubt the app can tell you that I'm not there to read your message. And even if I am, and choose to ignore it and not reply, you can you distinguish that from me not being there at all?
As for talk lacking such a capability, I point out the existence of the finger command. True, this is a different program than talk. But claiming that "talk doesn't have that capability" when it's merely split off into another command is a bit, well, I think it's called "FUD" in some circles.
Re:More old news (Score:2)
Presence is usally indicated by one of two things, often both available in clients for various IM services. Either the user establishes a presence, or presence is automatically calculated.
Most current IM clients, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ and many Jabber clients for sure, (I don't know about MSN, or some of the others out there) allow you to use a pull down list to indicate if you are available to chat, on the phone, away in a meeting, gone for the night, sleeping, napping, etc, including allowing you to set a custom away message such as "don't bother me I am an ignoramous who doesn't know that I can just exit this program."
Some allow you to be on line without advertizing that you are online by going into an invisable mode.
Many also provide an indication of whethere you are actively at your computer or not, by looking at the keyboard and mouse activity and noting that neither have been used in x min (x being user configurable in many cases) and degrading your presence to idle, or inactive as the case may be.
This may also apply specifically to your client application as well, so you could be considered idle because the IM client has not been active for 15 min, even if you have been busy writing your current novel.
If you want to say that finger on it's own has these features, I would probably disagree. Granted finger will tell you when the user was last logged on, but it has the disadvantage of having had a great big security hole in it that means that as of 1998 or earlier nearly every ISP and proactive system administrator has disabled remote finger.
Oh, Windows since at least windows 95, and I believe back into w4wg 3.1 has had an application like talk using the SMB protocol. Linux users can use the application LinPopUp to send popup messages to windows users, or other LinPopUp users. Windows NT users can access this facility via the NET SEND command. Novel users have a similar command available to them, and their popup message sending facility would let you know if the user was logged in.
All of this works wonderfully for users on their respective systems, however they rarely interoperate, and even more rarely do they interact with other message services such as e-mail, text paging or messaging, irc, the current IM clients, and so on.
XMPP is designed to provide a method of performing that interaction. If you wanted to build the tools that would interact with an XMPP enabled service, you could possibly use finger to find out presence information from one of your buddies IM clients, and use talk to send a text message to them.
I on the other hand would rather use a client that is designed to talk to one or more IM service providers, and works well with it. I would rather use a client with more features than sjabber, though there are situations where sjabber would be quite appropriate. (I do have a WYSE terminal I use for managing my linux servers. I think sjabber would be fine running in a gnuterm session.)
The other problem with talk is that if the user is behind a firewall, the firewall has to have a hole in it to allow talk, finger, and other services through to the user's workstation. That may be ok with you, I don't know if there are all that many others who are in agreement with you.
-Rusty
Re:More old news (Score:1)
By formatting, do you mean like bold, underlined, etc? Personally i find this annoying, and haven't found anyone that thinks otherwise.. heh, imagine html-formatted talk
The calander checker, well... you could send like control words or something..hmm..
I have a talk system setup as an answering machine, so if there is nobody there, it asks you to leave a message..
But like you said- why bother.
Actually I kinda like it - It involves you actively trying to talk to someone, which for me reduces the amount of idle chat (and allows me more time to idle-chat on
talk never worked properly (Score:1)
Really. Talk never worked that well. I believe that it also had byte order dependency problems.
-Dom
Like the early days of email (Score:5, Interesting)
Today there are a bunch of competing networks -- AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! and, to a lesser extent, Groove -- none of which interoperate at the protocol level. There is no infrastructure counterpart to SMTP, RFC-822, MIME etc.
XMPP, aka Jabber, is the IM counterpart to SMTP, conceptually -- it's a unified protocol that IM software needs to standardize on -- as well as technologically: it's an asynchronous, routed, queuing messaging protocol. XMPP leverages RFC-822 for addressing, MIME and HTML for content, and further refines the SMTP idea by adding an extensible syntax (XML with namespaces), presence, persistent connections, deferral metadata, named services, group chat, file transfer etc.
To say that XMPP exists for interoperability is like saying HTTP exists for interoperability. XMPP isn't really the glue that could tie proprietary IM networks together, although it certainly does that, too.
Not incidentally, to get started with Jabber, pick up the best Jabber client for Linux/Windows/MacOS X [sourceforge.net] and register with one of the free public Jabber servers [jabber.org]. The account setup takes about 10 seconds and is done through the program.
Re:Like the early days of email (Score:2)
SMTP is the IM counterpart to SMTP. See "SEND", "SOML" and "SAML". If someone bothered to implement these, we'd have had a standardised IM network years ago.
back-end interoperability (Score:5, Insightful)
What we really need is interoperability at the back-end--AOL IM servers need to talk to MSN IM and to IRC. Maybe standardized protocols would help with that a little (the AOL server could pretend to be a client for MSN), but I suspect lack of connectivity is more of a business thing.
Interoperability. (Score:3, Interesting)
And does this whole setup mean that I can run my own IM host? As in, I can be [email protected]? No external service necessary? I can IM [email protected] just like that, no centralized server necessary? Just like email?
Oh... oh my pants!
--grendel drago
Re:Interoperability. (Score:2)
So yes, AOL or someone else could set up a bunch of public Jabber gateway server stoday that accepted connections to aol.com. The main problem is the impedance mismatch between the AIM protocol and the Jabber protocol. Jabber supports offline deferred delivery of messages, for example; AIM does not.
Just another IETF standard for IM... (Score:5, Informative)
Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol (IMPP) [ietf.org]
SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) [ietf.org]
Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [ietf.org]
Common Presence and Instant Messaging (CPIM) (Still a draft) [ietf.org]
In addition to these guys, Wireless Village [wireless-village.org] is an IM standard created by Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia. It's getting very strong traction among wireless carriers who want to deploy IM on phones and other mobile devices. Of these different offerings, SIP isn't strictly an IM thing, but there are people trying to use it to set up IM sessions. Microsoft uses SIP in their Messenger offering (which is how they claim they are "standards-based").
CPIM is probably dead.
IMPP has some traction in the 3GPP wireless groups, but not really anywhere else (read "probably dead").
SIMPLE has tons of backers including IBM (Lotus) and is probably going to emerge as one of the dominant standards.
Jabber is just trying to stay afloat in all this standards chaos. This was a very good move for them since they actually have millions of deployed users. Jabber is the only IETF-related working group that can claim real-world deployment like this. None of the other standards have any subtantial deployed user base (if any users at all).
Probably what will happen is that as IM servers emerge, they will support a handful of these protocols, just like email servers currently support IMAP, POP, etc.
Notice that AOL, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo! are not pushing their protocols as standards anymore. They are plying the Mexican stand-off thing and probably will have to scramble to jump on one of these standards as things shake out.
Re:Just another IETF standard for IM... (Score:2)
The good things about standards is having lots (Score:2, Funny)
I see the IETF now has three WG doing IM standards
XMPP (The jabber stuff)
IMPP Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol
SIMPLE SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions
I notice most the people I know you AOL, MSN, and Yahoo.
IETF has SIMPLE working group too... (Score:2, Informative)
Meanwhile [internetnews.com]a group of users in finance industry are pushing [com.com] for exactly this sort of integrated solution. Called FIMA they "say it is non-partisan, and is open to any company that wishes to promote Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) IM standards and protocols within the financial services community. By endorsing IETF instant-messaging standards, FIMA wants to promote "interoperability and beneficial competition among instant-messaging vendors."
There is an air of enevitability about the integration of protocols - but it may not be based on Jabber.... but SIMPLE doesn't sound [news.com.au]all that hot... | https://developers.slashdot.org/story/02/11/01/1811252/xmpp-gets-an-ietf-working-group?sdsrc=prev | CC-MAIN-2016-50 | refinedweb | 5,112 | 71.85 |
A Developer’s Introduction to iOS 9
Every year at WWDC, Apple unveils a new version of iOS. Ever since the announcement of iOS 2, Cocoa Touch developers know it’s a time to study documentation, view sample code, and ready their code for the new APIs.
This year with iOS 9, Apple has added many useful features and refined existing ones. While it wasn’t a ground-breaking change like iOS 7, there is a lot of new functionality to learn.
In this article, I will discuss some of my favorite changes and additions in iOS 9.
UIKit
UIKit is used in every iOS application and drives user interfaces. With iOS 9, Apple has fundamentally changed the way developers should approach creating layouts with the new
UIStackView.
UIStackView
The new stack view is so important that Apple has recommended that you should begin building your user interface using stack views and only deviate when interfaces become too complex or highly customized. The stack view abstracts a lot of the work of creating constraints away from the developer. You insert items into the stack view, and UIKit assigns the proper constraints automatically at runtime.
There are several ways to work with the stack view within interface builder. You can select a horizontal or vertical stack view from the object library or use the dedicated button towards the bottom of Xcode:
Using these in code is easy. To take advantage of the stack view, you need to specify three key things:
- Which axis the stack view is on
- How it should arrange the subviews
- How those subviews should be distributed
One thing that may be initially confusing is how to remove a stack view from the view hierarchy. This is a two step process. You need to remove the subview from the stack view’s
arrangeSubviews property and also call
removeFromSuperview(_:) from the subview instance. The whole process might look like this:
//Init stack view let horizontalSV = UIStackView() horizontalSV.axis = .Horizontal horizontalSV.alignment = .Center horizontalSV.distribution = .Fill self.view.addSubview(horizontalSV) //Add a view let aView = UIView() //Add subviews horizontalSV.addArrangedSubview(aView) //Removing horizontalSV.removeArrangedSubview(aView) //Take out of view hierarchy aView.removeFromSuperview()
UIKit Dynamics
The always popular, and playful, UIKitDynamics API has a new behavior. In addition to now supporting nonrectangular collision bounds (i.e. paths), there is a new behavior class for new attachment types for
UIAttachmentBehavior.
The new behavior,
UIFieldBehavior, allows developers to model vector force fields. Apple has even provided a nice code sample to demonstrate how to use it here. It’s worth downloading to see the new behavior in action and view the code samples showing how to implement it.
UICollectionView Enhancements
Collection views have become the favored approach to showing lists of data in Cocoa Touch since introduced in iOS 6. They have distinct advantages over table views, but the biggest is being able to define a custom layout.
In iOS 9, they’ve grown even more powerful and intuitive. The new boolean property,
sectionHeadersPinToVisibleBounds, forces the flow layout to work much like a table view always has. Section headers will now stick to the top of the screen during scrolling.
They can also be easily reordered. If you are using a
UICollectionViewController, set
installsStandardGestureForInteractiveMoment to true. With one line, users now have the ability to order items however they wish within their user interface.
UIPickerView Enhancements
Developers all over the world have written hacks to size picker views correctly. Now picker view has native support for resizing and adaptivity. In the previous versions of iOS, both the date picker and picker view would enforce a default size even if you attempted to manipulate them. The default width of both controls is now 320 points. Previously, it would be the device width of the iPhone presented on.
Few have mentioned the recently added function
activateConstraints(_:) on
NSLayoutConstraint. This was added in iOS 8, and activates a set of constraints with one call.
The Contacts API
For too long developers have had to rely on an API built on C to use contact information in their apps. Finally, Apple has given us a full object oriented API via two new frameworks: Contacts and ContactsUI. These replace both the Address Book and Address Book UI frameworks.
Using the new API is much less painful than the old approach:
import Contacts //Create the contact with a name let contact = CNMutableContact() contact.givenName = "Jordan" contact.familyName = "Morgan" //Setup other info let homeEmail = CNLabeledValue(label:CNLabelHome, value:"[email protected]") let workEmail = CNLabeledValue(label:CNLabelWork, value:"[email protected]") contact.emailAddresses = [homeEmail, workEmail] //Address let homeAddress = CNMutablePostalAddress() homeAddress.street = "1 Somewhere Lane" homeAddress.city = "Springfield" homeAddress.state = "MO" homeAddress.postalCode = "65807" contact.postalAddresses = [CNLabeledValue(label:CNLabelHome, value:homeAddress)] let birthday = NSDateComponents() birthday.day = 6 birthday.month = 10 birthday.year = 1988 //You can leave the year off if you want contact.birthday = birthday //And just save it! let store = CNContactStore() let saveRequest = CNSaveRequest() saveRequest.addContact(contact, toContainerWithIdentifier:nil) store.executeSaveRequest(saveRequest)
Multitasking
For users, this will be one of the best forward facing enhancements, although its not available on all devices at present. The best part (or worst depending on one’s code base), is that an app might work almost out of the box with this feature. Take Twitter, for example:
This can be supported by using the iOS AutoLayout and Size Classes. If the code base already uses these extensively, then there’s not much to do.
Essentially, iOS will be manipulating Size Classes at runtime when the user drags their finger to setup multitasking. If the screen is split in two and each app takes up a half of the screen, they both might be of regular width and height. If one app takes up two thirds of the screen and the app developer’s only takes up a quarter (as in the picture above), it’ll be in compact width and regular height. It’s time to stop avoiding AutoLayout and Size Classes!
Search
Apple announced that they wanted iOS 9 to be more intelligent and respond to the way you use your device. Siri will now make better guesses as to what data a user is trying to access, what the user’s routine looks like and more. This will allow developers to deep link from Search in iOS 9.
Using the Search API, developers can let users supply relevant information to navigate directly to. In the picture below, the user searched for Maui and the popular traveling app, Kayak, brought up a flight from the user’s current location to Maui:
Though I couldn’t find the source to this quote, I’ve read that users spend a staggering 86% of their time in apps when using iOS. It’s important we make it as easy as possible for users to end up inside our own apps.
With search, you can achieve this by exposing information about your app with three primary APIs:
NSUserActivity: Previously viewed app content.
- Web Markup: App content which is also supported on the web.
CoreSpotlight: This will probably be the most common method, any part of an app can be exposed using this API.
CloudKit JS
Who would have thought that one of the biggest announcements at WWDC would involve javascript? CloudKit now boasts a rich javascript API, which is important because most “connected” apps typically require some sort of web presence. CloudKit JS provides a web interface to work in unison with the iOS app.
CloudKit JS will access the same containers as its iOS counterpart. This means all of the data can flow freely from the two devices. Apple has exposed the framework from its own CDN if developers don’t want to host it themselves:
<script src="">
From there, enable web services for the app’s container from the CloudKit Dashboard. The API is built using a RESTFUL architecture and data can be retrieve and POSTed via JSON. For example, the endpoint for modifying an existing record looks like this:
POST [path]/database/[version]/[container]/[environment]/[database]/records/modify
As CloudKit’s pricing is competitive, this may be the missing link that helps it compete with similar services like Parse.
App Thinning
This is a big win for developers. One of the worst things that can happen to us as developers is to miss out on sales because the user wasn’t connected to WIFI to download our app. Now, Apple is helping eliminate these types of problems using a concept they are calling “App Thinning”.
With App Thinning, users will only download parts of the binary that are relevant to the user. For instance, if the user has an iPhone 6+, the download won’t download the @1x or @2x images since they will not be used and only download the @3x images.
App Thinning has three main components:
- App Slicing: This is the process of only downloading what’s needed.
- On Demand Resources (ODR): Resources hosted by the App Store that can accessed after the user has downloaded the app. For instance, new levels in a game via in app purchase.
- Bitcode: Allows Apple to re-optimize the app’s binary in the future without having to submit a new version.
Perhaps the best part about App Thinning is that two of it’s components are practically done, App Slicing and Bitcode. I personally think it’s a fantastic idea, as developers have been doing this independently for a long time.
To use, tag resources in the app with keywords. Then these resources can be downloaded at a later time by using those tags. Even better, this can be debugged in Xcode. Using the new
NSBundleResourceRequest class, call
beginAccessingResourcesWithCompletionHandler(_:) to access the requested resources.
SFSafariViewController
This is long overdue. Viewing web content on the iPhone is an everyday process, and I’d go so far as to say that iOS practically pioneered mobile browsing. For a long time, developers were left with the
UIWebView. It could mostly get the job done, but it’s renowned for leaking memory, not having access to the nitro javascript engine, and having no access to the device’s keychain, cookies, etc.
Things were slightly better with the release of WebKit, which introduced the improved
WKWebView. This version provided access to the nitro javascript engine, responsive scrolling at 60 frames per second, built-in gestures, and more. Developers still had to create a custom user interface, had no access to AutoFill, reader mode, or browsing history.
SFSafariViewController makes browsing consistent for users. It also saves developers a lot of time, as they no longer need to create their own custom browsing experiences. It’s more convenient for users, as they will have their passwords pre-filled, not have to leave the app, have their browsing history available, and more.
The best part is that using them is incredibly simple:
import UIKit import SafariServices class ViewController: UIViewController, SFSafariViewControllerDelegate { override func viewDidAppear(animated: Bool) { super.viewDidAppear(animated) //Create the safari view controller let sfVC = SFSafariViewController(URL: NSURL(string:"")!, entersReaderIfAvailable: true) sfVC.delegate = self //Show the browser self.presentViewController(sfVC, animated: true, completion: nil) } //Delegate method for dismissing it func safariViewControllerDidFinish(controller: SFSafariViewController) { dismissViewControllerAnimated(true, completion: nil) } }
This will produce the following result (notice the Done button which takes users directly back to the app):
Conclusion
I’m excited about what iOS 9 is bringing to the table for both developers and users. Refinements to the user experience, such as multitasking and picture in picture, will engage existing users and attract new ones. For developers, we’ve been given tools to help meet these new expectations in our own apps with APIs such as the stack view. The public beta of iOS 9 is out and now is the time to start developing with it.
This is a list of some of my favorite APIs in iOS 9 and there are thousands more. Aside from APIs, Interface Builder has been greatly enhanced (it can now render blurs and transparency). I didn’t even mention SpriteKit, which has been improved with new frameworks. For an exhaustive list of all the changes in iOS 9, be sure to visit Apple’s documentation.
I’d be keen to hear your thoughts and feedback about iOS 9. | https://www.sitepoint.com/a-developers-introduction-to-ios-9/ | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | refinedweb | 2,044 | 55.34 |
Discovery Service
The Discovery Service allows you to obtain a list of venues available in a given geographical area.
The Discovery Service V2 enables discovery of venues..
For more informaton on private venues, see.
Examples
Example Request:
The previous example contains a few unexplained data points such as "level" - which appears to be different to the "level" described in the model structure. Logged here:-\->The previous example contains a few unexplained data points such as "level" - which appears to be different to the "level" described in the model structure. Logged here:-\-> ?app_id={YOUR_APP_ID} &app_code={YOUR_APP_CODE} &at=52.569352,13.240772,52.468448,13.521953
Example Request (with static callback): ?app_id={YOUR_APP_ID} &app_code={YOUR_APP_CODE} &at=52.569352,2013.240772,52.468448,2013.521953 &cbfn=JSON.venues
Example Response:
JSON.venues({ "hostname": "ip...", "type": "venues", "status": { "code": "OK", "reason": "DISCOVERY_SUCCESSFULL" }, "results": { "items": [{ "id": "DM_18568", "title": "LP12 Mall of Berlin", "address": { "countryCode": "DEU", "city": "Berlin", "postalCode": "10117", "street": "Leipziger Platz", "house": "12" }, "position": [52.510570099882194, 13.381399000013154], "distance": 926.2459256454601, "type": "urn:nlp-types:venue", "vicinity": "Leipziger Platz 12,10117,Berlin,DEU", "bbox": [[52.51132166967421, 13.378926268672588], [52.50981862285035, 13.383871805467322]], "minFloor": -4, "maxFloor": 2, "namespace": "public" }, { "id": "DM_16615", "title": "Pergamonmuseum", "address": { "countryCode": "DEU", "city": "Berlin", "postalCode": "10178", "street": "Bode straße", "house": "1" }, "position": [52.52092885006327, 13.396425399977867], "distance": 1043.833708066091, "type": "urn:nlp-types:venue", "vicinity": "Bode straße 1,10178,Berlin,DEU", "bbox": [[52.521680707244336, 13.39517699325204], [52.52017700802355, 13.39767395183927]], "minFloor": -1, "maxFloor": 0, "namespace": "public" .... Content Truncated ....
Response Attributes
As the number of venues returned in the Discovery Service response depends on the bounding box given, it's possible that the result may contain only a venue, few venues or a large number of venues. If the number of venues returned for the given bounding box is large i.e. 100, a cluster would be created. The cluster is identified by a position point (Lat,Lon) at the center, and the number of venues it contains. Thus, the results item may be of type Venue or Cluster.
Example Response:
{ "hostname": "ip-xx", "type": "venues", "status": { "code": "OK", "reason": "DISCOVERY_SUCCESSFULL" }, "paging": { "after": "1" }, "results": { "items": [...venue items...] } }
Each venue item in the collection is represented as follows:
{ "id": "DM_18568", "title": "LP12 Mall of Berlin", "address": { "countryCode": "DEU", "city": "Berlin", "postalCode": "10117", "street": "Leipziger Platz", "house": "12" }, "position": [ 13.381429987051547, 52.510570662621134 ], "distance": "0.013010295533498152", "type": "urn:nlp-types:venue", "vicinity": "Leipziger Platz 12,10117,Berlin,DEU", "size": 1, "level": "13", "bbox": [ [ 13.378871714287248, 52.51132800366525 ], [ 13.383988259815847, 52.50981332157702 ] ], "minFloor": -5, "maxFloor": 2, "namespace": "public" } | https://developer.here.com/documentation/venue-maps/topics/resource-type-discovery.html | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | refinedweb | 424 | 58.08 |
.
Quite recently, I was told by one of my fellow rabbits that they’re compiling their web site; moreover, that they’re doing this using the C preprocessor. My first reaction? ’You guys must be crazy!’ My second thought was ‘This is so crazy it might just work’, so I’ve taken a deeper look into it, and the more I looked the more I liked it (of course, it is not a silver bullet, but in some cases it can certainly save significant time and effort).
It was so interesting that I felt obliged (with the kind permission of the authors) to share it with the audience of Overload. This approach shall be most interesting for C- and C++-oriented readers, the preprocessor is a tool of the trade for most of them.
The task in hand
Once upon a time, there was a software development company, mostly specializing in C/C++ coding. And at some point they needed to create a web site. Nothing fancy, just your usual small company web site with predominantly static content and updates no more frequent than once a week. And we’re in 201x, the website needed to be ‘Web2.0-ish’ and (more importantly for our purposes) needed to be usable on PCs, Macs and on smartphones. This is where our story starts.
Desktop != mobile
Rather quickly it was realized that if you want to ensure a reasonable user experience both on desktops and mobiles, there is absolutely no way you can use the same HTML for both sites. After some deliberation they decided to use jQuery Tools for the desktop site and jQuery Mobile for the mobile one, but the exact choice is not important for the purposes of this article; what is important is that these days we tend to have to assume that the HTML will be different for the mobile and desktop versions. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of CSS, merely changing the CSS to switch from desktop to mobile is good enough only in textbook examples; it doesn’t mean that CSS shouldn’t be used – in fact, it was used very extensively in this case (in particular, both jQuery Tools and jQuery Mobile rely on CSS heavily), but CSS is not enough – there are way too many differences between desktop and mobile sites, from potentially different numbers of HTML pages, to very different navigation. And when you have two HTML codebases with essentially the same content, any update needs to be copied very carefully to two places, which as we all know, is not a good thing. In HTML it becomes even worse, as a missing
</div> can easily break the whole thing and figuring out what went wrong can be difficult even if source control is used. Also, in a static website there are lots of similar (usually navigational) fragments across all the pages, and maintaining them manually (style changes, if page is added, moved etc.) certainly means a lot of mundane, tedious and error-prone work.
The classical approach: PHP+MySQL
Usually these problems are addressed by using a server-side engine, like PHP/ASP/Perl/etc., with content essentially residing in a database and formatted into HTML on each request. This would certainly work in this case too, but it was argued that for a site with just a dozen predominantly static pages, having to study one more programming language, installing and maintaining the database (with backups etc. etc.) and dealing with the additional security issues, is not exactly desirable. As I was told, at that point the attitude was ‘yes, this is a solution but it is really bulky for such a simple task; is there a chance to find something simpler and more familiar?’
When there is a will, there is a way
Os e layth Frithyeer hyaones, on layth zayn yayn dahloil
If it’s sunny today, we’ll go and find dandelions
Eventually somebody had a thought: if we describe what we need in familiar terms, then the task can be stated as follows: we need to compile the web site from source texts into multiple HTML targets, one being for desktops, another for mobile devices. As soon as this was stated, things moved rather quickly and the solution came up pretty soon; due to background of the guys involved, the solution was based on the familiar C preprocessor and on sed.
C preprocessor for compiling web sites? You guys must be crazy!
According to the idea of compiling the web site from source texts into HTML, the source code was structured as follows:
- there are text files. These contain all the site’s textual content and are allowed to have only very limited HTML (usually restricted to stuff like
<b>,
<p>,
<h*>, occasional
<a>and so on); they are the same for both desktop and mobile versions.
- there are a few HTML template files (in this specific case they were given .c extensions – I was told to avoid some obscure problem with applying GCC to .html files). These are regular HTML files but with C preprocessor directives allowed, the most important being
#include. These template files are specific to the desktop/mobile version, and in particular it is easy to have different layouts which is important for dealing with jQuery Mobile. These HTML template files
#include *.txtfiles to include specific content.
The devil is in the details
‘Es lay elil?’ e laynt meth.
‘Are you an enemy?’ he said.
The basic file structure described above is enough to start developing in this model, but as usual figuring out more subtle details may take a while.
First of all, in practice 99.9% of the text content is the same for both sites, but the remaining 0.1% needs to be addressed. To deal with these cases, usual C-style macros like
DESKTOP_ONLY and
MOBILE_ONLY were used (with a parameter telling what to insert). There is a caveat though – with the C preprocessor one cannot use arbitrary strings as parameters unless they’re quoted, and when you use quoted strings the quotes themselves are inserted into the resulting HTML. To get around this the following solution (IMHO quite a dirty one, but it does work) was used:
- the macro is defined in the following manner:
#define DESKTOP_ONLY( x ) @@x@@
- the macro is used like
DESKTOP_ONLY( "<br"> ). Then after the preprocessor is run it becomes
@@"<br>"@@
- after running the preprocessor, the Unix-like
sedwith a rule like
s/@@"\([^"]*\)"@@/\1/gis run over the post-preprocessed code. This changes our
@@"<br>"@@into
<br>, which is exactly what is needed. Note that
@@has no special meaning (importantly not in the C preprocessor, nor in
sedand not in HTML); it is used merely as a temporary escape sequence which should not normally appear, but if your HTML does include it, you can always use another escape sequence.
Obviously this whole exercise only makes sense if
DESKTOP_ONLY is defined this way only when generating desktop HTML templates, and is defined as
#define DESKTOP_ONLY( x )
for mobile HTML templates. Also it should be mentioned that while this solution is indeed rather ‘dirty’, it doesn’t clutter the text files, and this is what really important.
Another similar example occurs if you need to concatenate strings (note that the usual C technique of putting 2 string literals next to each other is not recognized in HTML). So, for example, a macro to insert an image may look like
#define IMG( x ) <img src="images/"@*@x>
with an additional
sed rule being
s/"@*@"//g
Many other situations can be handled in a similar way.
Additional benefits
Now, as string stuff has been handled, the system is ready to go, and there are several additional (and familiar for C developers) features which can be utilized.
In many cases there will be repeated HTML parts on many HTML pages (headers, footers, navigation and so on), and with this approach this repeated stuff can be easily moved either into
#include
s or macros. I’ve seen it, and it is indeed a great improvement over repeating the same stuff over and over if editing HTML manually.
Another such feature is conditional compilation; as practice has shown it is particularly useful when dealing with navigation. One typical pattern I’ve seen was used to have the same navigation pattern for a set of the pages while using macros to disable links back to itself using the following technique:
- in HTML template file:
#define NO_HOME_LINK #include "navigation.inc"
- in navigation.inc:
... #ifndef NO_HOME_LINK <a href="/">Home</a> #else <b>Home</b> #endif ...
While the same thing can be achieved with Javascript, why not do it once instead of doing it on each and every client computer (not to mention that
#ifdef is a much more familiar for developers with a C or C++ background)?
Using
sed also provides its own benefits: for example, to reduce the size of the resulting file, the following
sed rule is useful:
/^$/d
If you don’t want to look for a preprocessor command-line switch which removes generated
#line statement, the following
sed rule will help:
/^#/d
And for an easy fix of problems with handling
' (which works everywhere, except for Internet Explorer) – the following
sed rule will help:
s/'/\'/g
Pros and cons
So, now we’ve described the system, the question is: what are advantages and disadvantages of this approach?
Compared to manual HTML programming
Pros:
- single content source in text files, easily editable (even by management)
- much easier maintenance due to better HTML code structuring (using
#includes / macros)
Cons:
- initial setup costs, although these seem low: the guys have told me it took 3 hours by one person from coming up with the idea to a working implementation
Compared to classical ‘PHP+MySQL’ stuff
Pros:
- no bulky installation (PHP or another engine, database with backups, etc.)
- no need to learn a new programming language (Javascript is bad enough on its own!)
Cons:
- works only for rather static sites, where updates are not more frequent than around once per day
Is it only for *nix?
If you liked the idea but are working with Windows, don’t worry – at least in theory the same approach should work too. If you’re using Microsoft Developer Studio, something like
cl /P /EP
should perform the preprocessing, and
sed for Windows can be found, eg [GnuWin]. You’ll still need to learn how to deal with a command line though ;).
Is the C preprocessor the best tool for the job?
While this example has been concentrating on the C preprocessor, it is not the only tool which can help. In fact, almost any kind of text processor can be used to compile web sites in a similar way to what has been described above (for example, m4 or some kind of standalone XSLT processor can be used), but which one is the best, especially for small projects, depends a lot on your previous experience, so for C-oriented audience the C preprocessor might indeed be just the ticket.
References
[LoganBerry2004] David ‘Loganberry’, Frithaes! – an Introduction to Colloquial Lapine!,
[GnuWin] | https://accu.org/index.php/journals/1926 | CC-MAIN-2019-47 | refinedweb | 1,853 | 54.86 |
A.
For now I am just focusing on the list collection, because it is the most simple one. To have an example to look at, I created a little project with a button called “myButton” and a textBox called “myTextBox”. First I add a class that I can work with:
Visual Studio nicely adds my class in a new page to my project:
using System; using System.Net; using System.Windows; using System.Windows.Controls; using System.Windows.Documents; using System.Windows.Ink; using System.Windows.Input; using System.Windows.Media; using System.Windows.Media.Animation; using System.Windows.Shapes; namespace Collections { public class Car { } }
I want to add two properties to my class:
public class Car { public string Make { get; set; } public string Model { get; set; } }
So, let’s go back to my MainPage.xaml.cs file and add three instances of the car class inside the click event handler:
private void myButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { Car car1 = new Car(); car1.Make = "Oldsmobile"; car1.Model = "Cutles Supreme"; Car car2 = new Car(); car2.Make = "Geo"; car2.Model = "Prizm"; Car car3 = new Car(); car3.Make = "Nissan"; car3.Model = "Altima"; }
Each instance has different properties.
Now I want to add each of these instances to a new collection, a list. Once I have them in the list I want to loop through each item in the list.
I am going to inspect the properties of each instance of a car class, adding it to a string that I then display in the textblock on the phone’s user interface:
List<Car> myList = new List<Car>(); myList.Add(car1); myList.Add(car2); myList.Add(car3); string myCars = ""; foreach (Car car in myList) { myCars += car.Make + "-" + car.Model + Environment.NewLine; } myTextBlock.Text = myCars;
First I created a new instance of a new collection, a list collection. This new List<Car>(), which is a Generic List, can only work with my Car class. The List Object has a number of methods for managing the objects that it holds a reference to. The “Add” method allows me to add a reference to the list. The “foreach” statement works with collections. It iterates through my list and for each car in that list it displays the Make and the Model:
To be continued…
Ash Mughal replied on Thu, 2011/12/22 - 1:16pm
How we can store these collections. If we have a collectons of collectons as we may have in normal programming languages.
Andrea Haubner replied on Tue, 2011/12/27 - 4:45pm
in response to:
Ash Mughal
you can store everything in IsolatedStorage. Have a look at this: | http://mobile.dzone.com/news/collections-objects-windows | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | refinedweb | 434 | 67.65 |
hey everyone this is my situation. i am taking a programing course that introduces you to a few languages. the first one is C
now im a java guy (not very good with it yet) im still learning but i understand the basic concepts so im not totally in the dark.
here is the task at hand:
The main purpose of this program is to use C library and system calls. The program maintains a sorted data structure (for example a binary search tree) of items with two fields. The first, "key" should hold a string representing the name for a value, and the second, "contents" should hold the string value of this item, as obtained from some sytem or library command. The running program allows queries of keys, as well as listing of all the pairs, The keys contain the following (hints on where to find these are in parentheses)
* progname - the name of the running program (argv)
* user - the login name of the user (getlogin)
* host - the name of the machine the program is running on (uname)
* uid - the users userid # (getuid)
* tty - the user's current terminal (ttyname)
* date - the current day and time (asctime)
* cwd - the current working directory (getcwd)
* term - the user's terminal type (getenv)
* nusers - the number of users on current machine (sys)
I have only been looking at the C language for only about a week now and i have to say i might be in a bit over my head. I have written some code and was wondering if I am on the right track for the above goal. i have spent hours and hours on this already so if this is just junk code then boo on me :(
also am running on MAC OSX and i believe i am writing code for unix so I'm not sure if that makes a difference. also i am using Aquamacs as my editor.
Well here goes
#include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #define _POSIX_SOURCE #include <unistd.h> #include <sys/types.h> #include <pwd.h> #undef _POSIX_SOURCE int main(int argc, char** argv) { int gethostname(char *name, int namelen); //host name main() { //geteuid uid_t getuid(void); struct passwd *p; uid_t uid; if ((p = getpwuid(uid = getuid())) == NULL) perror("getpwuid() error"); else { puts("getpwuid() returned the following info for your userid:"); printf(" pw_name : %s\n", p->pw_name); printf(" pw_uid : %d\n", (int) p->pw_uid); printf(" pw_gid : %d\n", (int) p->pw_gid); printf(" pw_dir : %s\n", p->pw_dir); printf(" pw_shell : %s\n", p->pw_shell); } } main() { //getlogin char *getlogin(void); char *user; if ((user = __getlogin1()) == NULL) perror("__getlogin1() error"); else printf("__getlogin1() returned %s\n", user); } char *ret, tty[40]; main() { //the user's current terminal if ((ret = ttyname(STDIN_FILENO)) == NULL) perror("ttyname() error"); else { strcpy(tty, ret); printf("The ttyname associated with my stdin is %s\n", tty); } } int main(void) { //day and time char *asctime(const struct tm * timeptr); struct tm *newtime; time_t ltime; /* Get the time in seconds */ time(<ime); /* Break it down & store it in the structure tm */ newtime = localtime(<ime); /* Print the local time as a string */ printf("The current date and time are %s", asctime(newtime)); } main() { char *getcwd(char *buffer, size_t size); char cwd[256]; if (chdir("/tmp") != 0) perror("chdir() error()"); else { if (getcwd(cwd, sizeof (cwd)) == NULL) perror("getcwd() error"); else printf("current working directory is: %s\n", cwd); } } int main(void){ //the user's terminal type (getenv) char *getenv(const char *varname); char *pathvar; pathvar = getenv("PATH"); printf("pathvar=%s",pathvar); } return 0; } // return (EXIT_SUCCESS); }
here is my out put the only one that seemes to work is my TTY function:
Compilation started at Sat Feb 12 13:58:12 gethostname() /bin/bash: -c: line 1: syntax error: unexpected end of file Compilation exited abnormally with code 2 at Sat Feb 12 13:58:12
.
. all of them have this error
.
TTY function:
Compilation started at Sat Feb 12 14:15:24 tty /dev/ttys000 Compilation finished at Sat Feb 12 14:15:25
so yea im not really sure what im doing but i think/hope im on the right track
any suggestions, comments, help would be awesome :)
Thanks guys and gals | https://www.daniweb.com/programming/software-development/threads/346633/useing-c-library-and-system-calls | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | refinedweb | 697 | 54.8 |
fputc, fputs, putc, putchar, puts − output of
characters and strings
#include <stdio.h>
int fputc(int c, FILE *stream);
int fputs(const char *s, FILE *stream);
int putc(int c, FILE *stream);
int putchar(int c);
int puts(const char *s);
int ungetc(int c, FILE *stream);.
fputc(), putc() and putchar() return
the character written as an unsigned char cast to an
int or EOF on error.
puts() and fputs() return a non - negative
number on success, or EOF on error.
ANSI - C, POSIX.1
It is not advisable to mix calls to output functions from
the stdio library with low - level calls to
write() for the file descriptor associated with the
same output stream; the results will be undefined and very
probably not what you want.
write(2), fopen(3), fwrite(3),
scanf(3), gets(3), fseek(3),
ferror(3) | https://alvinalexander.com/unix/man/man3/fputc.3.shtml | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | refinedweb | 141 | 78.59 |
- The Cart Class?s Needs
- Defining the Cart Class
- Making the Cart Iterable and Countable
- The Item Class
- Using the Code
- Conclusion
Making the Cart Iterable and Countable
A problem with the cart as written is there’s no way to get items from the cart, such as to show them in a form, list, or table. That code with the corresponding HTML shouldn’t be defined in the class as it would make the class less useful (or requires class edits to change the output). A better solution is to make the class iterable so a class object can be used in a foreach loop. This is accomplished by having the class implement the Iterable interface. While I’m at it, I’ll implement Countable, allowing code to invoke the count() method on shopping cart objects.
To do both of these things, start by changing the class definition:
class ShoppingCart implements Iterator, Countable {
Interfaces dictate what methods must be defined within a class. For Countable, that’s just a count() method:
public function count() { return count($this->items); }
That’s all there is to that! If you’re paying close attention, though, you’ll know that this method returns the number of unique items in the cart, not the total number of items (e.g., two of item A and one of item B counts as two items). If you’d like to change that representation, create a loop that adds up all the quantities, and have the method return that value instead.
The Iterator interface requires these methods:
- current(), which returns the current value in the list
- key(), which returns the current position in the list
- next(), which increments the position
- rewind(), which resets the position
- valid(), which returns a Boolean indicating if a value exists at the current position in the list
These methods make more sense when you envision how they’ll be used. If an iterable object is provided to a foreach loop, the rewind() method is first called to start the looping from the beginning of the list. Then the valid() method is called to see if a value exists at that initial position (normally 0). If so, then current() is called to get the current value (key() could also be called if the loop fetches the index as well).
With every subsequent iteration of the loop, the next() method is called to increment the position index. Then valid(), current(), and possibly key() are invoked again, assuming that valid() returns true. This process continues until valid() returns false.
Defining these methods is not too hard, save for two complications. First, the items array in the class does not use numeric indexes, and so you cannot use a numeric position value on it. Second, if an item is removed from the cart, this could create “holes” in the array. Thus, you can’t reliably just increment the position value from 0 to 1 to n to access every item. My solution to both of these problems is to create a second internal array that stores the indexes in use: the item IDs. This array will be numerically indexed and kept free of “holes.” Internally, the Iterator methods will make use of the new array, but the value of the current element will still come from the primary items array.
To pull that off, two attributes are added to the class:
protected $position = 0; protected $ids = array();
Then, within the addItem() method, when the item is added to the items array, the item’s ID is also added to the $ids array:
$this->ids[] = $id;
Now the class is separately tracking the product IDs from the items themselves.
Nothing needs to be added to the updateItem() method, but deleteItem() has more to do. First, after deleting the item from the items array, the ID value must be removed from $ids. This is a two-step process: find the corresponding index for that ID value, then unset that element:
$index = array_search($id, $this->ids); unset($this->ids[$index]);
This act may leave a hole in the array, which would cause problems during iterations, as already mentioned. The solution is to recreate the array using the array’s remaining values:
$this->ids = array_values($this->ids);
Now $ids is a hole-free array that can be incrementally iterated through without problem.
That’s it for the existing methods. The new iterator methods then use this new array or the $position attribute, accordingly:
public function key() { return $this->position; } public function next() { $this->position++; } public function rewind() { $this->position = 0; } public function valid() { return (isset($this->ids[$this->position])); }
The only method that uses the items array is current():
public function current() { $index = $this->ids[$this->position]; return $this->items[$index]; } // End of current() method.
The method first gets the current index (the item ID) using the position and the $ids array. Next, the method returns the value in $items indexed at that point. | http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1962481&seqNum=3 | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | refinedweb | 824 | 56.59 |
: August 30,192 Related Items Succeeded by: DeLand news Succeeded by: DeLand news and Volusia County record Full Text - -- .------ -- -- ,. .. .- ''' ._-_.._ _......-.._"-_....-.,.,,, .. . --------- ., V'r rn .. ,... .. ... ., ., .. ....., .. ,.,.. , '1"" 7 t -r """. "''''' H'"T"1'" -".""""''I/' ,,, ,- 'C" -,, ; e-''' n V >'CO" -" -;. ,:("'l'rT"-'V"1\\' ''''F"t9!"(' *1PW) \ !'"T' '." .jI' ', I<'1[ 'Y' i ''3J! i .lI rrli,. 1'I'I.M"\ , ' I ) " : .. '. : .' .ii"i! : : }. "f ' ,.. ' i c' ;" ' .. r ,, .'" o i\: \ ,' I II, -I ", r & I ;. I \! < i : t > I / 1 .' , .. _, .. ._.., ...-.t,_ ,.. "*'MI. "' ..,_:. ... .. ._ .___..y'h'l ,_Is' "" \ - S , . ,". .. .- .. ." . .,_.'.. .. .. ' '. ,, : ;, ,' ," if.UI'tI j ; ' 'I \- '/ & I p q ; ',',c)\ \ \'. U\\\\) \.! .; ',\ V ') .JII" II "\, ; ''i i v:1 i ii), ..I-.Ia t .,lJflhJ<.l \ .: UI"' \, :., ..I\\) , r ,,1 ,, ; \ ,, :;/ '. aj) : ,;!1ttt/l4.. : 'J'' -I'/llIlertflsU 'to ? " sdt ui :t1l''I ( ) ; I \ I., I.':> 'd.-.-. ,. j{ .Ij,II. !' '1.Iot. 1 .. ..... ,', &:; ( ( i < ) I : ;;, I : : < I \ ": \ J1" ) .; ; t, I1tHI 'r 'I' "' $ " rk1P )1otJJlus1A OU'f'(, : : :' : f I': j; j'>:,) : 1I : I ,. EJ"t" : J .D" .. .::fl ; ; r ' : >11 \ : \ 1 : d I ; I " 'u'/''. fi.i. N'vU. ' bacrlptlon, $1.00 per Tear. '. DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF DEMOCRACY BIGHT AND JUSTICE"". > .J "A- .: i:. rEEYATE4flrkJ'd.tr:; . S , I - lt.x vpLtJMIiXXI' ;y j .toff LAND' ,VQLTJSIA CO. FLA.. FRIDAY AUGUST" '30J 1907. ; ; "" h.Tr "" ,7V... : ,\ : ; : NUMBER' 4 6" .... -- .. ." -. ., "-' ._ I I .. ......... ' T 1 -fift Intitl-; ,1VSHE ,- 'a CONDITIONS I ON MARS. A REWARD OF FAITH. ( THE' ORANGE OUTLOOL. tfEATH TO THE,.WHITE. ..f.L.( : j <1 Daya and Year and Light and Heat en ,,,, t I, I KEEPS DEAUT1FUL"Thai \ j jI ', th.' R.d' Plan.t. The Story of a Church Twice Struoh Conservative Eslimates''lace the Well Known Commodity Is# Slad . The'dnys id Mars'are" of about' the 1 by Lightning. ; I ( Mytery'Soiv; a1.' 'I d Bume I length as 6urs->-24 hours,'89 minutes Jconglegatloll in, a hilly district In Crop as Half of Last; Year.' to Be the Remedy.. > ,,' ',i , the .... lilke I th .flowers';-that, bloom In the " 23 seconds. Mars makes ber Ohio'; says Youth's Companion, . At this season of the year there Is (From The 8". PeterabnrVjridepende, girl - orit ,around the sua, la ,a little more bought a small tract of land and ? nt) spring the young lust budding Into J always deal of to '! 'womanhood id an,inspiring light, and a great speculation as 'to'tbe1'whit > > < : 'tuu Good-bye fly"t than 680 days; therefore, the SOBHOIIH erected a church building upon[ it Ill. is beautiful if she it usually are almost twice as lone a. they are Then the question of, Insurance vume the outcome of the orange crop. Buyers' mat: IU Waterloo la 'common' house- fectly healthy'; : She stays pel''f'f 'for Infants and Children.The with us. The atmosphere of Mars Is up! Mr. Slpes, the wealthiest member, are abroad with their interested statenients -' hod) commodity.t>.Not 'even'does' the Juet so long saber health and . .- : rich In watery vapors. Oceans can bo who had contributed more than half of a good crop and all sorts of Fairbanks; soap, people. knot that its Ion remain goo4.' Let her an neryons. ' ' Kind You Have Always Bought has borne the slgna.tiire ''eeea and at the pole thick l Ice, which the money needed for the new structure plausible reasons for low prices: Others; washing powder I Is tie salvation. of tblt have backache, sleepless1' night, andhaw ,t melts i when summer comes.. The variations declared that he did not believeIn interested the other soon ,does lit take' for, wrinkles,! , perhaps equally on of Chas. II. Fletcher, and has heenjnado under his;) orange 'where the . I la temperature are extreme. !, ..Insurance. "This Is the Lord's : crop, t white; fly or orjaw's\ feet and dark circle) to appear personal supervision for 'over 80 years. Allow no oiuto Mars receive only half as -much solar building. He'll ,take care of It."" be side predict a small yield; and' betweenthe ?tier insects have Invaded the groves.' I in) the face?'" Her''cheeks were rosy deceive you In this. Counterfeits/'imltationa'antl' tw>, the ordinary grower, who does Gee Meara the of Si: oi tiiah began to Buffer,from,woman' I, teat as our globe does. The sun appears said. orange grower ,weaknesses and the , ..'J1IIIIt-a -ec-I'' are but Experiments, and. endanger'the' half 'as large, and the nights Ills view prevailed and there Was not keep fully up with the times on Petersburg, has .been'experlmeuting 'ring1 'pains' and 'drains constantly'brought'recur her , ,bealtlt of Children-Experience against Experiment. e 1 receive<< their light from two moons, no'' Insurance. In a few weeks the such matters Is sorely puzzled" to know along allZInpa, ;to rid, ,the peninsula quickly from the beautiful'age to the which are smaller than ou>s-Delmos building was struck by lightning/ and what to think'or do. thaj white -Today be (sreaiiytp: back premature middle age. It was not The KincLToii Have, AlW'B u tit: and Phobos. II almost totally consumed by Ore. An- Various and widely different estimates it 4,(inbt anything that has been, offeredas mtant for -women &0' suffer--It I is ' -SI '"AiA-;eiwEe! 1; : 'Sigux&f H)1 J sIn r The weight Is such that one of our other one was erected Mr. Slpes contributing have been, and are still being made, on yet and scores of his friends will due methods, to our ol living unnatural, and to, but the ,fact civilized thatso 1 kilograms would only weigh 870 the greater portion of the and feel thatit grams the present year's crop, we attest that the Gold Dust has many neglect those small ills which '. everything - there. A man Is only able to carry hIs fund as before. This time the demandwas Is our duty to our readers to sift these lead . else,faded to fraz la. 01.in,, ,, up .to larger one.- Nothing own weight on his back. Transportedto almost unanimous that it be Insured estimates and tnrnlch them, aa, far as 10 drags a woman down'as those constantly - Mara, he could carry three times as but Mr. Slpes again objectedon The solution, Is one pound of Gold 'recurring 'period. when she be done information that be can can relied - much, something like 223 kilos. In the same ground."If .Dust! to ten gallons of water. utters more and more from a ohronioooadition on. This we intend to do from It has killed the 'white that can be easily cured.: No taking; observations of Mara through It burn dowu ngnln brethren fly, the red 'the telescope one can see a distinct red he said, "I'll agree to rebuild It my time to time, as the season advances spider, sCale In fact every parasite and woman should take an alcoholic oom- Ue For O r3Y .., disk, marked with more or less brilliant self." It should be borne In mind that lat even the orange dog succumbs to the pound and\ the for food that is quickly will disturb compacted digestion.aOI1 fflIj I,( eenyuW r.usnv flS vo n On"S apota. Some of the spots which Again he carried his point. In less season's orange crop was a little lees solution. becomes hard and tough I.D'contact tire greenish are the oceans; other very than .a month the pew church was than 8,750.000 boxes and that the percentages The volution has. sufficient phosphateto with alcohol( !, rendering the food i in- $fed ones are the continentsgreater struck by lightning again, and although named In the various estimatesfor make It fertilizer. digestible. She must go to Nature for' extent than). the oceans, which Is thepposita strenuous efforts were mode this baaed these a a cure The native Indians; of' early -I--- professional (orbs. to tfie way the earth la dls- to save It. the loss wax almost total.. figures. season, are on It kills the,.bug ,and give* 'new and times were far from wrong when they . CHOICE PEACH L4L$ stronger growth to the tree. called a marvelously effective medicinal - In The most ''brilliant spots are "There must be same reason for The Florida\( Orange Growers' Company brethren" said Brother "I Besides all this, the solution I la poisonous plant "Squaw root"-what the W.PERIINS.ATTORNEY \\FORSALeOHEASYTERMS: Ice covered regions of the poles this Slpws. JAMES organized at Plant City recently\ physicians of our day galled CanlophylInm - the clouds are almost equally am going to find out what It Is." -on the contrary it Is not known as or Blue Cohosh. This and Black found It to be the consensus of opinion $10.00 to $100.00 PEK,ACRE bright. The atmosphere of Mars Is Thereupon he employed a force of a sanitary household commodity. Cohosh.!! Golden Seal, Lady' Slipper. and COUNSELOR-AT- BM. Peach Section In the Stat. more transparent than ours, and Its men to sink a shaft on the site of of a large number of tbe beet-Informed This Is not an advertisement for Gold and Unicorn root, are Import.naInfredlente LAW, sky Is Incomparably clear. the twice destroyed church. Withina men in the State on this subject, that Dust. The of a wonderfully success publication of this Itorywlllbe _: S. A. BAKER, ,Seville, Fla., The waters of Mars are mora divided few days a rich vein of ore was the crop would be about 69 per cent <>r in modern times, namely, DeLand ; Flortda. a surprise to the people who make and distributed In Inland seas Joinedby found, and the church property was very little over half of last year's Will Practice In State and Federal the washing powder It U given to the Having made a specialty the diseases w, c. CANNONS I which sometimes In sold for times the amount ; long arms, are many The American Fruit and Nut Journal, Courts S (t .j j of women in the early sixties Dr. Pierce - rid orange grower M a remedy'to themof curving, but oftnest almost rectilinear needed to buy land In another localityand of the best authorities in this "Sale"1 one soon found that a glycerio extract of STEWART & BLY, Liyery;, Feed and StaWes and which mark the brilliant surface build aga..i. country, says: "On the whole, the FlorIda \ the greatest curse/ they ever met np these roots with Hydraati or Goldea < with dark lines, just as the line of "I tell you, brethren." said Brother with-the white fly. Not alone is Florida Seal and Lady'. Slipper root, combined' will be decidedly lees Fine Fashionable Turnouts load divides the panes of glass In our Slpes. "it pays to trust tho Lord. lie'sa orange yield in its throes' -In California they are In Just the right proportions, made the ATTpRNEYS-AT-LA. Bus meets all trains at A. c. L>. Depot. church windows. All these dark lines great dual,, butter btiHluuna! mauiicer than half a crop. Other authorities cutting down whole orchards' to rid the very best tonic and cure for the distressing. - -. Harks mec't mornln! and afternoon. K I form-pattern' which Is relatively than anybody In this congregation.! estimate as high as 60 per cent, but complaints 'of ,women., Where Office In Bank Building. DELAND. (U. Ry. trains nt Orange City; and nltfht those who make the high estimate are state of the pest women Buffered from backache. weak- Branch office over Postomce.DAY'1'ONA: trains at UeLand Junction. U. S Mall symmetrical and which does not seem The Potter grove 'w... sprayed a couple ness, nervousness and lack of Bleep, It - both route Hacks meet boats at Hereslurd. I to have been made by chance. A plan OLD CARLSBAD. generally vague( and 'indefinite In their of Weeks ago' with the solution and was usually due to functional troablel| Cary D. Landis Bert Fish Gentle, horses and oarotul drivers. so regular must have been designed, statements, and judge from the crop in therefore this prescription directed at Mr. Potter ,aid It killed the white LANDIS & FISH Phone 3. DeLand Fla.! I II and for a long time the observers of In Ancient Time. th. Cure Was Somewhat limited areas rather than from a view flyby the cause cured 98 per cent. of inch Mars have been disposed to consider the million destroying\ them as the eases. That ill why Dr. Pierce ices Violent. of the entire Held or they are buyer. ATTORNEYS and COUNSELORS- I Insure with us.SJow I these lines as canals dug by the Inhabitants solution bit them, and when they struck put it np in a form easily to be pro Carlsbad interested in ' that fashionable resort In and of course depressing cured 'all over the United r States, I r< AT-LAW, of the planet for the needs of the leaves they fell to the ground. The Bohemia Is a very ancient euro place. prices. Aching from head to. foot-that. I Is [ Is the time. I their civilization.-Charles Torquet In blackened leaves-blackened by the Florida It has held a royal charter from Kaiser Our deliberate conclusion, based upon the condition that afflict some women DeLand ... Will Practice in ,State and Federal Spot cash for losses. I Metropolitan Magazine. Carl -IV. since 1401. History has It all present obtainable information, is white fly eggs-shed the larvae, and to- at stated periods-backache, dixslneis, \I Courts. .. ,.- ." .- that It was the mighty leap from rocky that the present crop will not exceed day every leaf U green as that of a rub and pain almost unbearable. An honest Special facilities for examining and U should. be protected..! : I RARE HALF DOLLARS.( heights to the depths below of a bunted the estimate of the Orange Growers'. ber. plant. can and afford a safe to remedy lose the which opportunity no woman of perfecting land titlesJ doer pursued by the hounds of Kaiser We could I give the names of many Company little over half of last year'lcrop. trying for the cure of these distressing L. McCHORY R you Insured ? ., I good ,Specimens of Those Dated 1-798 Carl IT. that led to the discoveryof or about a million and a half other prominent growers who met with complaint which weaken a woman' and. 1797 Are Valuable the Sprudcl spring and that the deer suet as good results. vitality Is Dr. Pierce' Favorite Frecrlption. - E very company reliable. j I The half dollar Is one of the most bunting emperor was the founder of boxes. With this yield any one can Let the throughout the state Dr. Pierce not only I assures ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. plentiful of all the series of United : the health resort to which be gave his estimate as well as we can what prices growers you that hi. *Favorite Prescription i* \\ hen ,does your-t policy expire ? '" States coins having been Issued \ name. will be.-Bartow Courier-Informant. try It. It 1 is cheap and simple and the honestly made but he let you know regularly , i Originally the CarUbiul, and the Independent would consider It a favorif just what it contain . DeLand Florida. i Js policy in force ? I .'each' year with but live exceptions -I cure would the results 'of the The bent of medical authorities recommend - your since the coinage of the denom. mode of life there a mode which remained Baird's Orange Estimate. they report and extol the virtues of the above S.l. 0. Wright, S. B. Wrlihl Jr. number ination orat began In 1794. These In fashion for at least two centuries test.. It will do Geo. Mears a whole lot Ingredients In "Favorite Prescription." sixteen. Y. Packer. Telephone N. Cincinnati Spel'lalln ) y/RianT & WRIGHT. exceptions were the year 1798, 1709, consisted, solely In the line of ( of good to know he has served his brother ta'rJ':: F.I a ElUngwond Medlca,( Bennett.; M.; D.. I ':"iO&y of Alexander & the bath This, however was so energetic Jnines A. Baird INSURANCE AOEXCY 1800/1808 and 1816. Seal HON I growers. legs, Chicago says of Golden t "It fff ATTORNEYSATLAW.NOTARIES. This la the reason why so few of that we children of the twentieth! Baird!, orange growers and shippers, of Is an Important remedy In disorder' of PUBLIC them ere ,.rare nowadays and that century are overcome by a feeling of Beresford, Flrt., was on the street dor- the womb In all catarrhal 1 conditlone.Of .* will I The U find at . us Primary System.We Lady'sShipper root he saysEzer: for admiration the doctors who ordered specimens of the early date are the week dropping in from the Office at Telegraph Office. many lag cise special influence upon nervous conditIons - Stetson and DeLand. to be had for little more than face such cures and still greater honor for nearby summer resort. agree with our esteemed con depending upon disorder of the DK..AND, FLORIDA.J I value In a condition that would Indicate the patients who could undergo, them! Mr. Baird says the outlook tor the 'orange temporary, the Ocala Evening Star female organs; relieves pain, etc Prof. John King In the AMEBIOAN Disp1zq.vomiT : ."- E. ALEXANDER they were' only a year or two for the bath treatment was so severe crop this season is not very flatter- that the arguments In favor ol the says of Buick Cohosh root! "This HODGKIN'SSh'bp I IW old, Instead of dating back' nearly 'a that It was" not Inaptly cnlled. thp"hnutfrp".er. Ing. His partner N. M. Alexander, advises primary system are stronger than U a very active., powerful and useful C ' or skin enter. It was remedy U Play a very ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. hundred years, as many do. that the yield for the whole state those against It, and we have used In diseases of l lathe have been Issued only about the year 1300: that Dr. Pay Important part women; ki i Altogether there er. the town physician of Elbogen will hardly total more th>n twothirdsof those arguments repeatedly. In theory painful conditions Incident to woman 33S: varieties of the half dollar and all Office In Brush Block. hood. In dysmenorrhea It I I. surpassed J!-. DeLand Florida. of the branch mint have struck coinsIn near by, ordered the Cnrlshnd water to last year's shipments. He recently It is excellent, but in practice it by no' other drug being of greatest be drunk a Quoting from the several of the Important closes the man out and confersIts utility In Irritative and congestive con- this of as cure. made a trip throuarb. poor in State and Federal denomination, except those .. Practice Will DeLAND .... FLA. .j action I ditions. Is of tho period and Dr. the rich The publications ruy.er's - blessings man. Courts Dahlonega, Qa., and Charlotte, N. C., sections and found that'there is on low, >but its effect' are permanent. Everything; in-WagonsBuggies,'Carts.- which were'authorized to strike only remarks: a decided shortage at nearly 'all the Star sas: 'For headache, whether congestive or QK. (*."A. DAVIS.PHYSICIANAND, i "I have said that this water must be "We do'not think that the poverty from neuralgia or dyunenorinea It I IB etc. in coin which manufactured and repaired my gold points, some of are greater than sURGEON/' Shop in very best workmanship'i I The' very rare half dollars are those drunk, and as hitherto It was not usually oth 'ra. It (is possible the movement of any worthy man is a bar to his becoming promptly. John curative.Dr. Lyle,.of Saugratnek' Conn., known. Only first-class men employed) I dated 1700 and 1707. Of those of 1700 employed for drinking, but only which about October 1 will not a candidate. Indeed, If be has Editor of the Department of Therapeutics - DELANO FLORIDA. and first-clmiM work turned I for bathing this will new to begins , have . out. I with'fif appear In Tuc EI.BCTIO BBVICW of UnIcorn - there two varieties virtues the Office at residence. Indiana avenue, ately added to my p'nnt a are i one mon,.." Tho quantity of the water total 3 million boxes for the whole sea all the other people require root (Helm..... IHutca), one of the Court House. .. teen stars on the obverse around the 'prescribed was In hnndsomu, proportionto son. Last In the neighborhood of it will be a powerful argumentin chief Ingredient of Dr. Plerce's Favorite Office Hours: Otol&2to4and7toS.M' .- ( ... ,." bust of! Liberty, the other with sixteen the "skin enter"-twenty, forty and 4 million boxes year were marketed. his favor if he !goes before them I Prescriptions "A remedy which Invariably - ( tars. Each of these two varieties acts as a uterine(womb) Invlg- VWAIZ.BAERECEE.M.D.PHYSICIANSIid \ ...., !.JJ ..1 has brought'over $100 when In up to sixty cups of n morning regularly Mr. Baird said: "I attribute the with his bare hands telling them he orator and always favors a condition ; ,,,1.-' condition. perfect ,-Town and Country, curtailment to the sharp cold winds. has not a dollar to influence a vote." which makes for normal activity ol the entire reproductive system, cannot fall .. ,!I'he 1707>'halt dollar I I. the next that we bad the first five days in April, How Is this man to pay his assessment to be ot great usefulness and of the SURGEON.. rarest, and a very fine specimen of A Cardboard Planet which stopped the sap from flowing of two hundred.and fifty dollars utmost Importance to" the. general. prao . ,"\'" \I, ,..' this coin has brought a* much as (120. One remarkable! achievement of Sir the trees. The long drought: we experienced into the hands of the state committee thInner"In Uelonlas of medicine.we have a medicament Office East New York Avenue :! : -7 on connectionwith FLORIDA. 4' f\\\\: The next rarest Is the 1838 half dollar William Herschel was In this year did not seem to before he can have his name placedon which more fully answers the above . DELAND ; '' . ... .struck at New Orleans with tbe.mint the planet Saturn. lie had arranged effect the trees which showed the finest the official ballot, providing he I.a Is purposes tlutn unu! other drug:;" with which .'t ,: : to erect his telescope at WIndsor I am In the treatment of 0 QR. A. S. MUNSON ap.); .,{ letter "0' under the bust. This coin castle to enable Queen Charlotte bloom'we' ever bad and there was certainly candidate for governor!? How Is he diseases peculiar to women It \Is seldom y '. .\ L' Is*,worth from $50: to $75. Another railroad fare' from Pennacola that a case. Is seen which does not and the ladles of the court to see the a pretty set but those lew sharp to pay ( rare half'' dollar was struct at the present some Indication for this remedial HOMEOPATHu.PHYSICIANj IA wonders of the ringed planet, but on days did the damage/ to Key West!? How Is he to pay his agent." <, / San Francisco mint In, 1860. This .. , for the observa "Many hart fare? How is he to the arranged grapefruit were evening groves .. sleeping car buy Office Second Door South of Fisher's -1 coin omits the motto of "In God We \ tlon'llI'eot banks of clouds covered the worse than the 'oranges. :However the his stamps in order to distribute ' \ postage . .*ati-Drup Store.: *"">'*' ; '- tf'if Trnst. which la borne by all the other To Hot Springs, Ark. J OrrrcIZoga.1Oto12a..m.: ; 3 to S \ ,. -V8 'lottos"of; ,' the year 'and, .la ;valued iky. However. he explained that that tangerine crop is likely to be good his literature? HoW' Is he to ' : Instrument On August 9th 10th and 11 the would not matter and after the , a andTtoSp.in.DeLand At '24.-Elder,] Monthly. "Last season there was nearly a million have llteiature printed Say what .. bad been directed the ronnj trip rate will be one fare pin carefully '.4 f-<.!-" Florida. '",""",. I'. ...et1. J I''I.I' _, _____ queen and her attendants looked boxes of grapefruit shipped. This you please, argue as ,you mayr In a fa.OOfrom' all polnte on< the Atlantic JOHN' ---0""'" ... 1'7'' fruit is becoming more popular'every the I is Coast Line to Hot Ark.. this D" REEVE] Do You Think through It and saw the great plane! ,- .. primary campaign: poor man Springs, tWD t" : CbLD and its marvelous rings quite distinctly year. eliminated. In a primary canvass we make the rate from Jacksonville$30.25. 2 TJRt; SETTER For yourself ? "The indications are the oranges this The return limit on these tickets will that it "takes to make ," herschel it seems bail expectedbad repeat money . ' be 29th. For f JYSICIAN, ANP TqONJ Can set Tires without.. 0.d .penTyour t'a'ka will be fair sized not small August Pullman reservations -- your. taking ) a young ,weather and during the day had season as as the mare go." We wish I it were otherwise write to Frank C. Boyluton, District Office In, store recently, occupied by wheels from vehicle. We take out' no | gulp down whatever food or ntedluHeredirouf I made a cardboard model of the Saturn- lout year, and show a good color.. Earlier /' But we cannot see how anyonecan Passenger Agent, Atlantic CoastLine . bolts, rub no paint or burn felloe Ins ma be your It In tbu than nsnal. close his eyes to this self evident Via.DOYOU'GETU . Dr. Mellettc. Residence 4OS West Ian system and erected at Jacksonville. , with hot tire. Come and It work . a see .. New York Ave.DeLand grounds a lamp at the back providingthe "We are bookIng orders now at an fact. -Ocala Banner. and you will never have your Tire set {n Intelligent thinking woman, ' Florida. hot airaio. "' tn need. orvenef 1 from weakness. ,pervommeee. necessary illumination. stulln. increased prioe over that mad. to ? --.. '., for'your patronage in pain and snuWna, then It means much to ster Gazette. onstouiHrs this time last year. I am . Letter to A. O. Botts. I 1'hankln/00 rue that tbereKj\ tine tried| ] and PfV TTT'Ht ' continuance in of the will be firm all a opinion prices V. H. VOORHIS ''I' , medk'In- loPotix1q Oormand. 't WITH A LAME BACK ? (the future, I remain H. Wasn't a season. DeLand. Fla. . rOIfIlI.IS, ror Ihe cure or .uman'. lila ' Dentist Your. to serve, v 'i> .5 That wary old fellow..DuilIe Macduff, Dear Sir We should like to set 1 : 4' 4' : ,(Cr I I. your ' > 11: + litSCOTT entIced Into friend' house the l HODC1KIN&.wry was a ndney ,Trouble Matt Ton Miserable. Senator Candidate Re- The makers of DII Pierces Favorite Freserlptlon. Mallory a boys and girls at wprk on this ..question . :P. O.Bl.ock; ...DeLand.FJa. tot the cure of weak nervous, run other-. night, and his bout managed to In arithmetic and casuistry.- " down.!over-worked. debilitated, p.tnoracke4.: win !CO shillings from him at "nap." Election/ ihre Almost'everybody who reads the newspapers Hours: 8.80 to 12 aud 1.80 to 4 knowing medicine .mad. remarkable.. A farmer i U fatting three hog In la lure. ,to know of the wonderful __ ,. -. woBMsn. this to b up YVhu I. more when the i . -- .y Med.ere _ the small pens; they, have equal roon> and ., made sot an .xp.rI. of Ingredients, every one*f which baa bullla had parted with hIs last shilling cures by Dr. , m nt,but with pro per cut U- stroaaoet poetlbU Indorsemknt of the leadlnf Senator Mallory baa Just written a straw; and care and are r"tln these li' Kilmer'*Swamp-Root, '!! HOWARD vattoii.tlier amure eueceee and )standard authorities of the several. ho rob,! full of wrath. letter to Dr Webb, of fit. Augustine, three iway first-hog, 60 certain1' "proporticin j II the greet ' ALFRED _*O the Mart. UMie have nolantlnc schools of practice are perfectly wllluur. and "\\:oQ't yon stay to supper?" pressed In which he says flat-footed that he is of, milk and. oooked cornmeal; I liJ tf&rff!) Lh and d 'llem.dy!"* . d L SuaveioaANDDRAPTSMANf: nor tin' fact are only' too glad to print a* they do, "hj. hjnt.., ."We: have a fine bit of hair a candidate for, re-election'' ,' to 'the. second bog, on tile same, half water; -ft It I is the great medW'S '' ./ ' , r' ."'q ) I 'r the formula or net ot Ingredient. of which wnltlkig.", ,, United Statee'senate. third bog. on the same,' half wader and r -1) eal triumph ol the oJo/ .- Specialty: I It U'' eompoeed vUpt n0Ue/l. on every "No. not I.. Dne ye think I eat CO The 1 ,following i* the letter)' sawdust. How long will it take how Iii llfi teenth century) dl.II ... ( -' Mapping a : tIotu...,, _. hillings' worth of ?"-London An "Pensacola, July 31. 1807.\ ., maoA| will they weigh how much will \, 1 covered after. year of c ant : ._ II & "Dr. DeWitt Webb 80 KIng St: St. oont, aa4'wha"U be the. \ ,; *> +,-, s they : pront on 4} 80IerUlia .ssaarch by MICHIOAV AVENUE, DELAND, FLA.VOLUSIAJ ,:] Thh formula o* Dr. I'lem.'I Favorite Pre- IWeL. I Auguitlne Fla.l''f "1 *iU\j the three! !? ,I", tii (II, ,- vg Dr. Kilmer, tha emIL &. ': IcOtlNTYABSTRACT er1iou$ will b.ai'tbI...tonlleal..amID.- S "Dear Sir: :Your.of. the ,28th. last. i And similar plgmentry.. .-. ' I a question la stat kidney and blaoV . :! 'S biggelt. .ureif. be.t ero.- I 1 I. Continuous Cooking. ., for U eontalBS hand. .medlcal'-experM I "CD kf ", no ? Is at am a candidate for - just V at SiLdoalerL v.mou.OrOSf 'I That aui*farmer 1* gems to paint three .der1. pactallan.and ( INVESTMENT and TITLE INSURANCE or continuous) * : "N w York Is n place ; - 5yets. *UO $5S4 Aa..a5 sboo$4L J.narcotlca; !banpfnl habit-tormina; re-election :to, the" senate and my I barns sam .I.e"i and .he say to three wondetfully successful /In ' promptly COMPANY.Bert drutJ ind teeni'''1c\r'I101iO It that Is eel cookl said the woman frpm the curing no I g. friend me a favor by ..':_(t .-. MwPRY a. 00.. bigI4i I reoommohd N,"' most advaneed. ; ", eet,1! 'Walk 'along any street at any that wp.l4o' on my authority whenever stating palnt..n. ; "wbat'l1. '. '1.1.1, take u. ..W.,"P41.. lama and back, kidney. bladder, tarts acid trou.. t' PbIos ' : Brlghfa DIsease which \ , LIthe ; Fish, Cary D. Landis. D.tmIt Mich. end .1njIj in'5lij.l acbere aad &OUwtiuemI -' Ii" '' wont Mini and"y6ttwilt'got a whiff of coffee there.Is. occasion, to do to. " President Sec y and Treas. : +,. __*, :lobael*'** practlce.iltthor1t1 : '' "An tba l'Jani"I: & 'Mratch s his head a few form of kidney trouble. . jei '.. .tjrpfoBttnejB4 ."..IrNfr. ..,ientejlkHintaL audi) [broiling ''meat' There 'doesn'tseeinj ) announcement to effect lays: "I'll do It for $6d.?.rl Dr* lImer 'Swamp. oot. .ie'not V-] Titlealnsured';;; "'' '" r time 'for'meals. with my authorisation( Lwaa made; by . U canii' -ncuraMHai toIieny'5et' cbmme.clalla.t ,,-,Second painter: "*7S" everything but If you haveklcVLney \ ''o' Abstract furnished and title. perfect-. .w,ww,1eoblo.B. 5. and Jorugn nre tlxacir4hO'mf forwoldfsmejnllelnt'1i.d.lnul. Judging,.by, the smell, breakfast Is a the before Leesburn th ; sprint, Third pitiIts.r$97,4a? '.', liver or bladder trouble It will. be found f jj... , that takes place $ adjournment.of. congress, just tM 1I8I'I\8d) yon neadl 11 ha been tested j .. \ ed. Maps, Plata and Blue Prints Sup- movable .feast any but many people must:have failed to "wilt thee eaQh .get a barn, to"paint or ' plied. i -' 41, > time 'between \0 o'clock,, and noon.- ,one gmt two, or one all three In so many'y ays. In hospital work,la private;f, : 11 'JIt"nl" .11'-..11.. .! J r ) see ttj j or the reference to It: bv other or nobody practice, the helpless too !,' ' Opposite Volusla County Bank.DELAND madtcm. row _!nUS'i'uubU' New ''York." and Vhfcfll make among poor to purphase - EJpsj. the ltoptei FLORIDA PATENTSgena any : paper because J have received many ady they on jobtThat' relief and haa proved.,tiioneaifuHa'' ,/ , brof eeetonabandonement Di'Pteswa.ysvr4t9 , .. f neb aa letter* from gentlemen In different 'I about how lowertimes. ' painting ' I Prescription Baenoelved. ,la the goes every ma. that a specIal arrangement has i , un- "Long1 Felt 'Watt*. part i of the state inquiring whether .| n. >' "qi' -- -MI, been made by which all reader of thl ,. it. r :ETATN.q ..IN8UEANCB ualiOe4 ecommendaftlaat-,nl each, of lie *paper : CITYREA model aketoa or photo ol Invention kvtro.r.I.w kne. .JogglosJ-Dd' ''you tliink'tbere will ever or not t will be a candidate,;. I .to lr"'lrollU I Who hav no<<< already, ttisd b&_ ' POP fr. book seve4a M>u$eb>Mai i.n.*''''**.. a ;; -" 1) 1, '! OFFICE or. $on patenta liM.>' e Cal nJajJoCaflf& fcl iahootm. of pcaeUoe./Iaeuch <( he'' an.v radical\ change' 'In' the style 'of 'I am happy to say that my health 1l.1l0n"rbe.dlmrt: ; la In knowing ample bottle *en| free by rnafl.alas a book i .::11 -.", "" I- .. _-........ -menM -.hatsTi I .\VurmeNotl! ''unlessaiuebvitytlttreiiU baa Improved very much of late 'and how 'mao)' K5JlLtO .bpy1. !The., ...,'_ a !lolling more about Swamp-Root and 'how'to{j I' 'j!,' I B. H. HAYWARD oonM4.rsIioP, ,, ft. bat thuS will cover I know of no reason why I should not. bt l rha'. I hndotfyqsbsy.kJdb.rovbl'5ldertte.bIsi ft, 1\ i. 111 4 ; lte :ti 5 *> back .of.the. head. at the proper time, be ready to do my BnyT th4"lea .,* i\ii.\:; pIn"i.vo.) : WhettrItlngni ntloo ; ; : t'l 'F tue: bald.apottou the; ) comers'In I the; I '-1 eiggtblagenerou&' .tfw'Iit - I "A beat ; , ajralnsttall i , J.lenl'.2 CIty Property la1t" eri GA-SNOW 4OIdEq approaching 'thi &i 'ii'f '" . a Spe moes 'olI .. No rnattot how mucbed'. buys;' he return in' ,,: 4"',;'".& for the Aetna, "The leadlo"lIreQ'. I6tb4afIU DO'JUM. > lhdbrb.matt.bi\ aM ; ? I ,,\\"cllkl.1.. 'I' frg-" i .i. con teat.With' many tbank. .. WhaA'a' Isfti'Ooate' nothing.' i ised j4Em.siMses& .td ", 'tttt''! /, I' r anne ooejapany of Ajuerlca'i',.,-e of the l.a4141 topical *&lboHtlbe\ ol tble boo\rr.. for the Interest'which' your I ttef. Or. few nre) companies now very popular_ In OPPOSITE US PATENT nmCEWASHINCTON.D.C. will V?mailed. fnt to any one, sendtaff ........ I''u '(lOt' 1\j''tr.\ > 'appear gooif ought 'man I manifest,, I am very truly *l:4"Voun' : ,;(-\' 'fHI) Yours' truly :.s i : "" ': Ban\ "f"Tlao,.__:_ i. ;. Mdreei ttk MesheS. tot *aiaeD A44rs. : to cab. hut to- be an both privatelyand '. 'F W EHrvOB & CoO "I'du' 11ft) eut sad JI , : No 8UO, Boulevard, DeLand Fla. .'.n B. V.'Vt.IOZUSIO.- ', ,**, K.- .T. "...' publicly.-Plato.. .;. ;.,"" .. '\' I "S. B. M41.t.oaY." W FUher" t.Ua oar' paint. ...............0' 't' ih ,. , .. .' 'iJ.s. " C "' ':"1 P: : .-,. C ............,.. ;. ;'.; w"9'\ \ j'I 'il' If'sI: ' 1 4 a ""iw.'lx'' : ) ':. ,,"" .' S. \ J _'v- -- .. .. .. .. '"i ,:' .... -"If.\-, ,) \J: t.S" ":t l5:; ;/Ijoif ---............ .. . ; : '." ..: r " ... 'T-- ,- '1 11I I\.r.I\! ), n"'i'.7.t''r' '' c,"" " 'q" (, ", ( ,' THE VOrUSJA COUNTY RECORD. I - "'- L. t VOLGSIA COUNTY RECORD. the money arising from the sale OVER $5,000,000 VALUATION ALL OVER THE COUNTY 'Orange City. , of these lands if in the spent - dredging of the Everglades, are Volusla Shows a Handsome Increase ITEMS OF INTEREST WAFTED TO I (Miss Ada agent G.of Massey The Record Is the at duly Orange. accredited Watts & 'Miller'Co.'' }! xa'. Entered: In the Postoffloe at DeLand. ;. Fhu,I violating the letter aud the spirit Over Assessment of 1006. THE RECORD OFFICE BY ITS City and will\ accept subscriptions and (Incorporated) ,. f : M seoond elan matter ads for the same. Any courtesies extended i of this law. We .)elieve this to be CORRESPONDENTS. . Tax Assessor Wilson has about completed Her will be duly appreciated.) f HARDWAREFDRNITUREDNDERTAKIN6See law and law. We believe good books for 1007 and -- -- , the tax II. E. PREVATT, Editor oprietor.t they , that the public lands' should be will be submitted to the County. Commissioners Pierson.Hiram Last Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Kolinan + f fHOUgE t used, and the Internal Improve- next week for approval. had their Infant daughter baptized in u* before you buy your : MR. ',JENNINGS GOVERNOR AND ment Fund should be used in the The;" books show an Increase in Ashley went to Bond'} mill the Congregational church FURNISHINGS. , t MR. JENNINGS LAWYER: building of good, hard surface property assessment of $308,601 over Friday to transact business Mrs J. T. MoPheron arrived &'urday . the assessment of 1006.ASSESSMENT. to visit her friends and I We note with interest and with roads. 'The Trustees are the creatures 1008 :Mrs. Hiram 'Ashley of this place relatives p. m. O. C. for a many week. WB CARRY AVERY ATTRACTIVE UNB ,OP. ; r 1! i k nevertheless. degree of amusement of the State, and should be Real' hiked ont to DeLand Monday. ... almost and what will SUITS. MATTI NOS. NATIONAL SPRINGS and RED CROSS..I f estate .... ..... ..$1,930,080 L A. of Grapes gone fI''. Sun's proposition, like unto the trustees of oth- Railroadsv.-- '... ... Tatnm turpentine operator , L'Engle's any ;; ? :r':" ; ; 1.000,718 Fruit lovers do now for a while. Fruit MATTRESSES 'J . .. ..... ... 6112.940Total. Burhervllln, was here Friday on bnsl 1 l Personal, . and W. S. Jennings' assumption er trust, who are always requiredto ," '. nese. has not been as plentiful this season asnaual. that he has thrown all the light account and' settle, and should .. .... .. .... .. ..$4,088.083 Our northern visitors, will return (feed' Goods and Rugs a Specialty White frost Is the Refrigerator\\ . necessary on the Internal improvement discharge their trust accordingto ASSESSMENT 1907 about Sept. first, if nothing, should Services at M. E., Church. Sunday Try a Dixie Mosquito Canopy. Non. better on the Market, , Fund. Mr. ,Jennings the will of the ;'creator. Real'estate.. ... .. ,....,... .$3,414.130 happen. school 10, preaching at 11 a. m. anil 7 p. \ . a the There is not a,, statute on .the Railroade .,\,., ,.... .;.....' 1,064.784 m. by pastor. Pravermeetlng Wednesday FUNERAL DIRECTORS, expresses it as his view what Personal. .... ............. .. .. 663,740 John Lester of MlllwlKevllle, Ga.. evening. , paramount duty of the Trustees books of Florida that provides was registered at the Nels Pierson Mr. J. A. Stlth and a graduate the the Internal Total .... ............$0,141,634 house Miss Alice Ryland entertained several In embalming, licensed by of Mr. for spending Saturday. . was, and this assumption two of her young friends Monday evening the State Board of Health, Is in Jennings is entirely satisfactoryto Inprovement Fund to drain the This hundred thousand dollar Increase J J. Hughes and wife went to Lake the occasion being her birthday anniversary charge of this department and for the is year almost entirely will give and careful Oluade, but we ..re'Dot sure Everglades.' Mr. Jennings should in real estate, in new homes gone up Helen Saturday, returning Monday. fifteen, we believe. attention! to prompt livery detail of this. - that the public will be satisfied certainly have explained in his throughout the county, and where orange Jim Is a prime worker. We understand were will be no ser- work. . with Mr. Jennings' view, which testimony i n throwing all the groves' became more productive LeRoy Morrison of Barbervllle, was vices at Congregational church for a Funeral Supplies faile'in contradistinction with the light upon the Internal Inprove,why. some increase in valuation is found on a lark here Saturday. Roy wears month; giving pastor and members a In this rest during a part of the hot weather. : Always in Stock. property. the badge of a mulligan guard right . law.. It will make good reading ment Fund why he signed an act We believe this is the first instance Letters from Mr. Charles Varney tell comparing;' Mr. Jennings, testi, of the Legislature turning every here the total assessment exceeded Charlie Swartengreen and Levey Mo- that he has accepted position in Providence -, mony with that language of the I dollar of the Internal Inprove- five million dollars for the county. early Clama and, matchless late gathering workers the, Harper working& U. I., "where" he will have chargeof -r.--: Supreme Court of the State of ment Fund into the hard surface Mr.Wilson's books are said to be complete Mlnshow > an automobile ran, and will probablynot corn crop. Cable Pianos Florida i in the case 0 f A.' B. road fund, and how by advice to and accurate in every respect, and return next winter. The Hobart M. Hawks "II. the Internal Fundhe are probably. the neatest gotten up tax Rev. T. J. Bell, of Kleslmmee filled Have you any wire grass. on your ' Improvement appellant vs. L. No thinks of making books in the State. the pulpit at Barberville and Emporla four one ever com feet Ten premises ? long cents Mitchell 'etal, Trustees of the turns it all back to the dredge Saturday and Sabbath. Brother Bell IB pound Is offered for straight wire a ", parsons between the Hobart M.Cable , \ grass Internal Improvement Fund of ing of the Everglades. Theseare Labor Day Celebration. held in high esteem here lades four feet long, till September Pianos and any ,other Piano. The Florida, to'be found in 84: Florida all pertinent .and important Labor Day Monday, September 2nd, Mrs. John Price and two pretty children 5th.. Deliver to Orange City Hotel. superiority of i the 'Hobart"M.'Cable at Chapter 405, the first head- questions. will be observed in DeLand by organIzed of Jacksonville, are welcome Rev. Joseph Antle returned from his Piano is so marked, that when one note : labor with the following program: (meats of the Price brothers families at trip to Indiana last Friday, where he speaks of Pianos It is simply the Hobart "The Trustees of the Internal The way licenses are being issued All organized labor to meet corner Priceville They came last Tuesday. has been engaged in revival services the :to';' 18 Rich Ave. and Pine street promptly at Ml: Cable. This PIano a delight; for saloons. at Jacksonville, Albert past month. He reports very successful t Improvement Fund of the Stateof 8 a. m., to form parade in following Bl bop. a dashing mulligan the skilled musician. The tone ii rich, it dosn't that Duval has guard of In meetings to the advancement of Florida created by the Act of appear order: Eldndge: was this balmy iod'a clear and harmonious. Don't think of any. intention of voting dry. Carpenters In front, brick and air Thursday. Albert is a sober tin- canse. -' masons ' Jan.. 6th 1855> (Chapter 610)) ' beatable worker, with polished manners. Mrs. Jeff Cook of DeLand was In O. cM ,, purchasing a Piano until you have known plasterers next in line, then the federation ; as the Internal Improve- It has been a year of great ca of labor following. Mrs. David Limbangh and two bright O. Wednesday calling on friends. She seen and heard the Hobart n. Cable ment Act the of the brought her little daughter Isabella out were agents lamities. The despatches now There will be speaking at the courthouse children of Jacksonville, were the admired Piano.J. . State with respect to said fund at 10 o'clock by the Hon. James. of her last to take the train for St. Augustine that Geo. Bernard guests parents week. announce where she will remain with her aunt, A. ERICKSON handles the Hobart M. Cable Pianos. dealing with property 0 f the Shaw has escaped from drowning. E.: Alexander and others Base ball at I Mrs. Llmbaagh is a charming wife and Mrs. Case and family, for some time State.:) 8:80 in the afternoon.& Carpenters vs. the I mother. - Miss Jeanie about three went By this language we must un. They are swearing in special Clerks. A dance at the Putnam Inn at Mrs. B. C. Combs and her stunning weeks ago. over nnder night the auspices of the Carpen- JOHN B. WELCH derstand that the Trustees are deputies at Harrisburg, Pa., now ters' Union and Clerk'Association little daughter Grace. of Deerfield arrived I The citizens meeting.held In Massey. , dealing with the property of the to keep the grafters from steal- Come and bring your friends and on this Dixie dimple Wednesday Hall Tuesday evening brought to lightsome State, and that they are the mere ing the evidenc that had been celebrate Labor Day with as. Everything Bradshaw.to ruralize awhile with papa and mama interesting points of law. some of ORANGE u.u.__.___0.CITY.... .....'__d FLA. agents created by the Legislaturefor collected gaiost"them. free. which have not been given much U any the conveniently handling of COMMITTEE: Those that prefer to keep cool just ttention. A committee was appointed FANCY AND STAPLE GROCERIESTOBACCO -._ r turn In Brown to compile the facts brought out in the ; to & Cades' and get Ice the trust fund for its benefit, Friends of the Hon. John N.'O. AND CIQAR8. Student Help. cold soda. It seems they ale doing a three meetings held by citizens to present I with power to add to or take from Stockton are appealing to him to Prof. A. L. L. Snhrle reports at this sure pop square honest business their to the council. This paper to be -DRY GOODS uu.u SHOES___._____HATS__ ... .,. .ETC._ ETC.-. them by acts of legislation. Theyare run' for Governor, and Mr. Stock:) ,office that. number of very--d ervlDIJ new ventures. presented to citizens meeting two weeks Best and Freshest Canned Goods constantly on hand and all first the creatures and.the servantsof ton' has the matter, he saysunder young men and women, having limited Bedford Jones of DeLeon Springs, from Tuesday evening to alter amend,. class Groceries tor your table. the State, and subject to the very serious consideration.It means and recognizing the superior advantages the champion hone trader of- the State, reject or adopt. Country Produce Bought First-class Meat Market In Connection. will of the Legislature;To assume of a coarse at Stetson, have scampered to this place Saturday with ---e Orders receive careful attention' 'and delivery prompt. You will find my pricesas that they have the authority to i is said that all the people written him from various points of the 21 real fine critters made one sale and Seville.Mr. low as the lowest Give me a call. ,. over in the tobacco growing sec- State and asked If he could not secure two swaps in less than an hour. ;, do as they may see fit and disregard form of honorable ----- tion of the state have to some employment Randel Wells, of Sisco, was in of the state on that money Mrs. Tarnqnist. the handsome wife of the laws for them by means of which they might town first of this) week. ' is the burn, and that automobiles are be enabled to attend the .Capt. Carl Turnquist of DeLand ao subject far beyond compre- being imported there by the car during 'he'oomlng year. The University Professorhas companled by her beautiful bonnie Messrs. R. L. Gowdy. J. B. Orrell)) and 11 KLICKER BRAS !I ordinary hension of of man common, daughter Evelyn, honored Pierson A. Smith made DeLand a visit first of : intelligence. load. been able to locate some of them _ !: the week it ds d t nn an re at t with their and will be glad if the friends of the vas presence We again turn to Chapter 1320, The peace Conference at the University will suggest to him by letter last week. Mr.: Alonzo Smith of Tnrbeville S. JVLercnant: lailors ,Acts of the Legislature of Floridaof vacancies. C., Is visiting his sisters Madames R. L. Hague has assumed such strenuous any Walter Bennett, a loyal mulligan . and J. B. Orre1LMr. 1862, and find the same copied that it looks ---- guard of DeLand, rounding up a ten Gowdy shape Four as though Resolutions by W. C. T. U. W. L. Howea, representing Mara Doors South from Fisher's Corqer ' into our General Statutes:) Section days vacation in Tampa,, Saville aDd some rude, warlike party might Whereas, It has pleased our Heavenly this place returned home TUesday. Bros., Jacksonville, was calling on our:. : 629), which law is now .in force have to in and Father to lake to Hlm ell our beloved' step separate the merchants first of the week. Suite for 3t G in the words following : sister Mrs. Jane H. Farr Walter Is a faithful student of all tactics morning, noon and Suits of shades and patterns delegates. Resolved, That in her we recognize pertaining to a good, honest reputatIon. Postmaster N. J. Prevatt la spendingthe night, new, "The Board of ,Trustees of the one who was ever ready to spend and be He is also a temperate and manly youth. week in DeLand with her brother Suits that fit you, too, Just Suits superbly lined all through Internal Improvement Fund are R. O. Dunn, Secretary:) to the spent for everv good word and work. and sister Mr. and Mrs. B. E. Prevatt. right, and through, News Is sometimes little in Resolved That in our Union her a scarce - required to report to the Legislature Stats Railroad Commission, has labors of love abounded and her woi ds this neck of the woods so the writer Miss Kate Deen is spending part of! Suits well made at prices right Suits that are a bargain true- r+ of the State Florida upon sold his Madison Recorder lie of faith and encouragement were a wishes to thank those that have helped the week with her father J M. Deen,, Waiting here. When you appear. the several matters committed to will be a candidate for a mem- source while we of strength miss her and in our good work cheer.here But we him gather items from time to time on near Bannell! at their turpentine farm. CONSULTATION FREE. their charge and such other mat ber of the Commission of whichhe realize that ehe has but removed to a their: strolls and we assure them that a County Commissioner W.H. McBride world of joy and tireless activities, and continuation of will be and merchant A. M. Flowers made same tare as may be deemed proper in is now Secretary.The i iI I we know that it is well. appreciated by the correspondent greatly Smith. Palatka a business visit Monday of this KLICKER BROTHERS, DeLand, Floirda ' connection therewith." Revolved That we extend to her sister week. Miss and her , Strong daughter If this is law why then have striking telegraphers now Mrs. Long onr deep sympathy in theiruDepeakabie In response to a call by B. B. Minsbew Monday 2nd of September is a legal not the Trustees made their report talk about prosecuting the telegraph bereavement. rejoicing that and others a special meeting of citizens, holiday, and the postofflce will observe companies for transmit- the Everlasting Arms are underneath. promoters of a town' improvement the usual holiday hours same as ou .I : to, the Legislature ;, or do By order of the Woman's Christian society, was held at Harper & Min Sundays.Mrs. . ting messages through the mail. Temperance Union, DeLand. Fla. Now is the time to order this law is . they mean to say that It would seem just as reasonableto MRS LUCY BROKAW, shew store last Monday night. Each G. A. Andrews, of Mt. Olive, not Valid? These are certainlythe MBS. J. LEE MCCRORY neighborhood was represented by one N. O., arrived last week to be with her . laws of the State of Florida, sue a man for eating with -Committee. ,,or more. The enthusiastic B B. Min son, W. H., who still remains quite Indisposed Simon Pure No.1 1for 1 and the Board 'of Trustees are false teeth. Death of Mrs. Watterman. shew was selected as general 'managerof at Mr and Mrs.A. M. Flowers. the business. to it in the discharge of Louisa O. Ba'ell wife Mr. J. A. Erlokson, of DeLand, Came subject!) Mr. Alfred St. Claire-Abrame of Isaac Watterman and be of your grove sure a large next Mrs. down of last week and delivered died Charlotte H. Cade has purchasedthe Friday crop laws August 20th, 1907, at 4 We ' their duty. regard the has sold his Tavares Herald to o'clock p. m., after protracted illness Gunter property' here,. formerly to Mrs. G. M. Prevatt a handsome upright winter. All the b !st groves use SIMON PURE t of Florida as of more force than ,Mr. :T. P. Games, who assumed at Glenwood. Mrs. Watterman was known as the cedar corner place, one of piano direct from Jacobs Bros.,; FERTILIZERS, and they show for themselves : : any views that might be expressed control last week. The Herald conscious of her condition, and departed the, most beautiful places la this shady New York. He bud his piano tuner; by Mr. Jennings, which seem will remain a strenuous democratic trusting In Jesus as her Saviour and n>K>k. The oozy little cottage U situated Prof. Myers, to see that the piano was "E. O. Painter Fertilizer Co.Jacksonville, Fla \ 2' ''to give some people so much j journal and The: Record the only hope of salvation. a'id fronts on quiet street It was once In perfect condition. It is a sweet toned . a satisfaction. She was a firm and decided character, the lovely summer home of Mrs. Gunter Instrument, and of the standard make. We might again turn to another journalistic welcomes Mr.work.Frequently Carnes. to active and will) be missed In' the communitywhere 's family :Mrs. Cade paid spot cash Card of Thinks. T. E. ARNOLD, Agent, DeLand, Fla.MALSBY'S . for the . 'a chapter in which Governor Jennings she has lived so long, and in the property.A. We wish to extend our sincere thank .. , Presbyterian church where she was a B. Prevatt of Seville, the popular, to the people of Seville for their kindness - figures in his official capacity you read of; someone member at Glenwood, Florida. reliable school commissioner( at they have shown ns, both through . which'will make' interesting who will stand for Congress was the illness and death of our dear mother., 1i 1'k Following the funeral services at the this place Monday inspecting the schoolhouse We will forever remember their kind MACHINERY' COMPANY h, reading, and is' in direct conflict against,Sparkman. The' candidate house Thursday.. morning Mr. Watter etc, and transacting business ness.' v- ,, ,'t ,with testimony;before the Inter that enters the field'against' man started North on the noon train v.Ith the trustees. The Hon. Prevatt Is __..,.'..-Her--..,Children. Long. Distance Phone 574; nal Improvement Fund. By Jhap- Sparkman will'be' beaten to a with the remaIn. for burial .at Ottawa, a comparatively new, member in this September Teachers' Examination.The 22 Ocean Street of 1903 which was frazzle Bob McNamee in Illinois. responsible position but he is a genialgentleman , ter 5245 Acts as was teachers' regular September examination - -- with faultless business Jacksonville' Florida t4 signed; by Governor Jennings, the last primary. Mr. Sparkman'a Figures from the Departmentof qualifications, and his J splendid judge will be held In DeLand, beginning *. the then .real acting governor. of services at Washington have been Commerce and Labor show a nient Is already. stamped with a thorough September third at nine o'clock i and Portable Boilers,and Saw; Stationary Mills, Wood Engines Working the State of Florida ,This law: too valuable ,to Florida and ...Uher' steady increase in the tide of knowledge to work for the better. a. m. i Machinery and Supplies. Complete .' As usual, the examination will be i has been into the General to displace him for went of the school system. line carried in stock. Liberal { copied people, an immigration that is flowing into held in the white and colored school 1 Terms. Wlte forcatalog. i' 'Statutes: the State of Florida, untried statesman. this 'country. There has been an Col. U. M. Bennett, attorney at law booses, respectively.. "' , Sections 869-S70-871.." This law With but et annual immigration of over, of DeLand. was in this place, Priceville Fraternally. yours,. State Agents for the Olds Oas and Gasolene1 Engines counties seven and Seville last A. O. Borra : tot week Investigating and , ;provides that all'lands'given 1OOOOOOfor'each'year, of the EM* in remaining Florida the suggestion settling some little squabbles) among Bnpt.PORcsHADES . ; 1, the State of, Florida the made that a. constitutional past three years, the high record tie'' people and arranging! some matter . ;. ''W .act,of congress of 1850,:known as. amendment be submitted to the being made in 1006 with 1.200,000 abont the Henry. Parrott divorce salt ? .. . is ,the;Swamp and Overflowed Act people prohibiting:the manufac- aliens. Bat the figures for July here with some other business on the .sE. I' :for Internal ''Improvements I be J just same line. Col. Bennett is an old Con- . ; past are 07,182, an increase ture sale of or i in b' Al1..! .,. : the, of the Internal liquors the federate patriot'. who ,readilj. seized a ARMOUR FERTILIZERS : ..,-J; 'i f ''eoldby; TJnsteesl State, would hardly be'worth the of 15 per cent over the figures forth musket and rushed to his country's 4 Inprovement; $ Fond, at candle. : .:And the prohibitionsentiment e same month of last year.. call In the war of the states. Now bis I , 6 such time. and underluch/ condi id' i:1 i- is growlnl', every There is this to be said;however, step is a' little'on the tie-up order'on Ii ; C. =:: ,f-tions; a* ,said trustees may/de'tor; until'' finally the traffic will year be, that there' were fewer deportations count of that distressing old rhenma- For ;:Fruit Vegetable. and fr.;; :mine. "All: ''proceeds shall be.:.by eliminated, 'not: only In :.Florid and the Immigration Bur- Hem bat his judgment .ls perfect and '. , . /.." .t them.Deposited ;with i ,,the State but in ever'State in the South, eau1'jetatea that this was not doe sound as a do 1ar. "" 'I ? Field Crops ; ( 'Treasurer';j. by him placed .to either by.local option or by .constitutional to more'' lax inspection, but that To those old veterans 0"'th18 section -I Ir" the of who served In the Indian wars of 1807 J ': -,1, tihe"oredit'of''the"ooanty? road standard immigrants was ,. ' provi.ionAppalach and 1808 and whose deeds ) mad Florida . fund for thfr purpose of constructing icola. TimesjThel -.,' actually higher., It is of course' to history glorious, now drawing'national Following: are Agents In Volusla County:', i ,' hard'surface VU- _' be regretted that so much M this . ,:roadrt.ta.be l government pensions for many years,, l'Z.. T. BIELBY, Dotard Florida Tided according;to the;<' assessed ,. thousands" of beautiful wat.roakt.bsde''treee''abont' immense" tide is congested in the please stand la lln and be counted and E'"'. r2 BARNEY, PATILLO A '" 1 r t) : DeLand have 'eltie."when and let us know bow much comrades'respect SMe.o arRb.tyy.i'tloeklatea. CO. ' +, valuation,thepropertreJzQhet :! big; there Is a. real DeLeon Spring Port Orange became msda f magnificent'growths' since the demand for and kind regards yen'. have ,Af PBBVATT.' ; J.' P. , different COl1ntie'. lrh1. ." 1mmigrantlabor in wuda raanvtwre. MACE ,' rains set In. They of summer are -one towards S. K.Smith for his labors and acrllleO. .law by the signatujte qOovern% tile.01<1". greatest attractions.. It make the Country( districts;,an espeJoially trroble ordering blanks" copying die .< BO8TROM.' W.:P. WILKINSON Lake' 'Helen" '.. " l or W.; 8. JenoingsU; 'It It wii no' the prettiest .shade tree grown' la the in the South. But it ft believed citrgM etc, and writing np at his own I Ormond' ,New Smyrna ">< .b...ltt.. time,,',it th m,i refleisfc: South j and' remains greed' sod luxuriant that the newly>> established 'LVpa.eii.31 correspondent and pld) g GBUBER-MOBIIM: HDW. CO. PUTNAM & FOWLER -" llkfrOftoiftI act of ( of>, 'Jen- the j.at foaDcL Som. hesetlreee. ;, bureau! of information ,for, immigrants { ;your claims before the pension harass We'are exclusive agents at DeLand A. T. PATILLO Daytona C 'Oak'Unr<, have", ,.en planted twenty Eve: j rot! these Porch -A. J>. ' years, 'in at Washington In the early nineties unj Shade Just the thing GUNTER . 'r.=k\ .tt.'.. Oitti. ... -.t., .., and they. an.*. now: ,Immense.,.,Tber jwe the Department; of Com til' yon "received your first payment. :for your.verandas during the' hot sum" I ,D,, F., WETHERELL Oteen Plere. .n ' !,-.. worth. 'many thoosands of dollars to"'7eowr.Jo merce' and Labor may, do 'some Now touch elbows to each other, all mar sun.' ,;;,Callat,; our" 'store. and Holly Bill d 8, GU WBON t tv . you Hawks .. ..... r to' this I 4 examine : ; ,* .1 Park. ' ., ., ?;<<9--:? ?. i thing; obyiate trouble, took good.to m.. -I fF ANR 0. f1 : : . !, + .;, '.,', '""y '11ftiI 1 w.'I lIt ..... . ". 1. T . ,, . . \\\l"' nn "v ..A .; Ht fv ;r '}"'''''' ,:", .,. /-J k di' Y -lit,V, ..\1 v' ,. )U\\ ..._""", __,',4. CC'vow a iii',.. ,... .. ,'!.t' I """IJ'! J" : rr-*, \ .. , ti'or If : ""... ... p';;, r' _ ,; .r;6 s : ""I"; :....' \. < k . V ..: .. \, '1.I ,.,.. ! 't'f'.: ,-.I', ,':::'..".<:.1..., ---1" '" ", ", "'" , "'''''1'f'..'.'"'''''''' '''r""h"ti.'''''''''';:'P''> .'J'' 1J.\. ,. .iT .''';'P'.;.r. '''''-:''' ,., T.' ,,' /)" ' . . ;" ." /. . ; ; : : ': I' .. --..' .' ,. '...).... . ' THE' V0I/DSIA/ 'COtmTY itECORD44v4T444. n '" .' ',"" ", ;.:. ",. ..,' ""''' ''''''' ''''' '' '!" "f'"I.; ------ ,rar.ararrra. _'_C ". __ ., ._ .. _u_", , . >- ' . + 44444 .M44v. .444'44444444l' ,. 444444444444444444. ++f44444. 44 444 ...4 ... t + 44'4 .. Meals at.41 Rich Ave., + + . ,. + + .. .. t C.lIa' 41 Rich Ave.. ,for meals \. : ,.. .....!I f. .......... .... r Miss IDea Barren is visiting her > of : ::: , : grandmother At Palatka. It has been fine weather. for saving) .,,' ., ,.',' .. ,,,' '.. ,. 'I ' CLEARANCE: ; SALE Next week only beginning Monday, hay this week. : "t. '" .. 89ots. :M. Davie Dr. and Mrs. P. W:'Bill of Orange ui: .ii .';Yl I City were in town Wednesday. 'f.l ' Summer CIotIffhgand Hats considerably The days are shorter.getting,' you observe Mrs.'O.; A.'Morse returned' the latter '. ':.:' : r part of the week from a visit to Palatka I , Judge McCrory went to Daytona on City Treasurer Grant Bly and familyare professional business Tuesday. ' spending several weeks on Day tona's ?; 1IIISSeSflfflefl.een !to : : # -- : Wanted-To> loan esoo,OD Improved # ?i" m ' beach. sensIIIIIIIN/II 1 s'the Time Address Loan:this office. I .,' ,I.""' . Now to Get Outfit i property. " i\\ .: ,an Cheap. : Hoe. James W.; Perkins went to Atlanta " The white sandstone brick Is being the .first of ,the week on legal i THE BARGAIN OF I < . ..'." '," .'......,." ,. put on the ground for the Gordon business. I .,.4..(fI:" ,I i 'SUITS THAT WERE'- garage. Mrs.Morris Dickinson and son Gordon THE SUMMER " Mrs. A. T. Rossitter of Sanford Is I ttjj II. ;went) to Daytona .Beach 'yesterday 1 ," visiting at tbe home of Mrs. Isabella for a month's stay.Mr. : .. I I. <" , : :: $ 8.00 Now $ o.,33 Coulter. J. F. Allen and .son Joseph returned -- -- I .!. :1 f. ',:; ; $10.00 Now $ 6.67 Prentice Curtis was up from Jackson- Monday: night from a trip to the I I ,, Straw _ V4 ,I ville the first of the week visiting agent Jamestown Exposition. Hats're-, I ; .,r',.', "' ', Lee Powe. I .., $12.50 Now $ 8.37. , t- Mrs Isabella Coulter, who baa been \ \ .. ... > tgi' ?', ' Watch the window at Dreka'e display ,11,111., :., Now 9.00 I'. quite 111 at her home on west New York duced to i' : r $13.50 $ ; : '.: for reduction in clothing, hats shirts, Ave., is much Improved. I. ...... '; '.,,; \ ."' r)il i?. $15.00 ,, ;. 'Now. ""I' .. $10.00 .,., eta Phone'77. 'I Postmaster Allen has been attending . Ihl { ; .. . . 'flI)11 "'1. . ; Miss* Annie Atkinson has returned I the Convention of postmasters In session 150 Cents I HATS THAT WERE .- from pleasant>> visit spent with friendsat at Gainesville this week. .' .. I Jacksonville ,. ,. i Judge late of Shaylor, judge . .," ,' Clerk Sam D. Jordan and " City family Now .47'Now the crminal of Duval $ 1.50 $ court county, was ' : at leave Wednesday next for a montb'letay at DeLand the first of the week on busi i" , .., ,:.......... $ ,.1.00 .5. .. '. $ .47 in the mountain nee,. ... ':' Mrs. J. H. Tatnm and children returned fecar Larson, who bar been in South FOUNTAIN'S S $ .75 Now $ .47 home the first of the' week froma Florida several months, is spending a ' { '. > ; ;Mu $ 3.50. Now t $ 1.49 stay in tbe mountains. vacation with the. father and brother .!,..," ,..'," .'" ..,..." '.....','.'," ..j: '- : flU'! Many Inquiries are already coming and sisters here. 't ( $ 3.00 ". 'Now $ 1.49 about houses, furnished and unfurnished The Acme Quick Lunch Restaurant at DeLand for the winter. Is doing a good business and Mr. and .11: -p, $ 2.50 Now $, 1.49 Mayor fly and family will be at Mrs. Charles Kurtz are striving to give . $ 2.00 Now $ 1.49 '. Daytona Beach the next two weeks every satisfaction to customers. occupying a nice cottage there. Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter were sum . PANAMA HATS THAT WERE Mr. Frank Hill bas brought his family moned to the former home in Kentucky over from Orange City and is at pres- the first of the week on account of the $10.00 Now $ 4.99 ent occupying the Moore house critical illness of Mr. C's. father. .+ + + + MM........ + + + + + + + + + + + + 4 + + + + Mrs. J. B. Conrad left Wednesday for Several of onr county people will go } 7.50 Now $ 4.99 5 Milwaukee Wis., as a delegate to the down the East Coast October $ \ on 1st to Mr. J. A. Allen leave soon on a Sheriff Jack Turner and family; are National Convention of the Eastern prepare for the winter tomato crop on month's vacation In New York on Daytona's beach. $ 6.50 Now $ 4.99 the lands of Dade prairie connty. Mrs. J. W. Weetlake Star.Attorney and Miss Ger- Mrs. M. E. Gould bas let the contract $ 5.00 Now $ 2.75 Pan Powell has returned Mr. H. W. Klicker returned Saturday trade were in town from Lake Helen for a cement block home on her Michigan monntains of North from a visit to the from yesterday. Daytona Beach his family Ave. lot. I where his mother is REDUCTION IN Carolina the summer passing who have passed several weeks at that Mrs Robert Fatten bag returned I Dr. Stanley: Padgett prescription STARTLING SHOES. beach resort returning with him home from a month's sojourn on Day- clerk at Walters' Pharmacy, baa return I ILADIES' Rupert Longstreet a bright youth The Record hopes that the planting of tona's beach. ed from his vacation. from Coronado Beach, was here this the palmetto tree will continue at De- Mr. T. E. Arnold returned the first I Mr. W. C. Watts returns today from week, and arranged to enter Stetson on BELTS SKIRTS.... opening day September 25th. Land until they are seen all over the of the week from a month's business a two months' stay at Georgetown Ky., city They are an ornament to stay at Richmond, Ky. with his daughter Mrs. Wilson any Silk and Leather Linen Pique Indian Head Mr E. W.Johnson express messenger yard. Mrs. A. H. Woodall and daughter on the DeLand branch, baa returned Prof. C. B. Rosa, of Stetson University Dark and Colored Wash from a trip to New York, Connection The little English sparrows are getting tember Margaret on will Daytona'g spend the beach.month of Sep returned from his vacation the Assorted Colors and the Jamestown Exposition very numerous at DeLand. They first of the week, and is back at the first Mr. E. I* Hon went to Mt. Eagle, business office at the University. Mr. S. B. Wilson returned from appeared at this place about two ipc. at 1-4 off North Carolina the first of the week, years ao. They are a nuisance In any Tenn., the latter part of the week for a There will be no preaching services abort stay with his family, spending tbe Mrs. Wilson and the children will remain town. at the Presbyterian church Sunday summer at that delightful summer re in the mountains for a month yet. Next Monday Is Labor Day. As it is sort. September 1st. The regular services ; holiday the bank will not for will probably be resumed Sunday, September There not be too new homesgo a open SUN can LAWNS:... PARASOLS many Yon should see Jim Erlckaon if ;yon 6th. business, and the toffioe will at DeLand for rent. They will po keep up expect to purchase a piano organ, talk.' Mrs. Maud Barren, since the .... 12 1-2c., 15c., 18c. and 20c. Plain White, Embroidered all be occupied, at least for eight at holiday 12 o'clock hours.for All the the day.stores will close lug machine or sewing machine. Heteeps raphers' strike came on, is temporarily teleg months of the and at a good year the best In the market, and yon discharging the duties as operator at ..now.. and Fancy Colored rental. The city's teams are kept busy haul can get either on tbe installment planIf the Western Union office at this place. The first of the fall months set in ing shell from the city's shell pit on yen desire. Mrs. Barron is teacher in tbe DeLand 8c.. Sunday. The present summer went by south Boulevard keeping our shell Services at St Barnabas church 14th High School. = = at 1-3 off rapidly with the DeLand people. They] streets in good repair. They should all: Sunday after Trinity. Sept 1st Holy Rev. J. W. B. Smith Pastor of the have all been kept busy and business be put in apple pie order for tbe winter Eucharist at '7 a. m.1 t Litany, Holy Eacharist Christian church, returns tomorrow bas been good from months' out West He 8e88on. with at 10 80 and a two trip sermon : a. m, G. A. DREKA & CO.PHONE Mr. A. V. S Smith a former DeLand A number of yards on the principal evening prayer at B p. m. There will will, and preach in at the his evening church the Sunday Union morning service -- boy now holding a responsible position streets of the city tire badly in need of be no Sunday school this Sunday. will be held at this church Mr. . In tbe law of the Florida Smith department attention. The owners should have The County Commissioners and preaching. 77 East Coast Railway, was" at DeLant pride in their town, and keep their School Board will hold their September . the latter part of the week premises presenting a more attractive sessions next Monday and Tuesday. SQUIRRELS WANTED. .t .+4st+4e + + +_ittttt++attttt + . . + . . + tt + + 444. ** + + + 44, 4-4-r- Mr. M. Davis writes from Hot appearance Mr.John Cranor the new Commissioner Will pay $3,00 for a pair of fox squirrels - Springs, Ark., where he is taking the Mr. and Mrs Frank Wright of St. for tbe DeLand district, is expected to or $:/.00 for a pair of gray squirrels laths, that the weather there is something meet with the Board nt this session male and female uninjured and in The hay mower is /going dally. all The DeLand merchants are getting in Augustine, are spending a vacation good condition. Young: ones will daThe SYNOPSIS. Mr. and Mrs. S. B. who have their fall stocks. LOCAL ; terrible, the thermometer Howedays Wright about DeLand. DeLand, visiting the parents Mr. and fox squirrel preferred. Deliver at going up to nearly 110 In the shade. occupied tbe Holbroo house north Mrs S. B. Wright. Frank: is train dispatcher this office. --- The people in the immediate vicinity DeLand fishermen will have plenty olsport for the\ Florida Erst Coast Railway boulevard for a year move into the ----------- of DeLand are harvesting iota of hay. Tilt: IMPORTANT NEWS ITEMS! OF at Coronado Beach through the DaGraw house, Indiana Ave., and Mr. For Sale-An attractive borne wkhln at St. Augustine. The Marsh Market. one-half mile of Stetson University You can make hay two months yet and THE PAST WEEK month of September hauling in the A. F, Dreka and family will occupy the of land, room, of the every man who baa stock should have bass from the surf. It Is the month they Mr. C. H. Curtis of the Blnffton home vacated by Mr. and Mrs. Wright. If you want the choicest cute of Meats nearlyvenues *- a Rood '7 cottage his own home harvested bay."Thelm., be and grove: on the St. Johns south of Vo- Messrs. CharleeCampbell and Francis eave your orders with us. The best of all iU furnishings, electric lighted Local' and gool.ty Item for tile People'. can caught dally, very large and Pork Roasts with ported stock now sells at $30.00 per ton ones too. nsia Landing was at the county seatthe rllller and Miss Erwina Oanlden ..DdMI88 Beef Mutton ; and I city water ample yard with beautiful and this $80.00 can be saved at home bya Pt>.r-Brl.f M.ntlon or Fact. .. first of the week. He will have a Eva Nahm went over to Daytona Chops, Sausages Hamburg Steak rubbery, plant house Rev. and Mrs B. B. Knapp returned fresh and salted Hams, Breakfast Bacon doves, poultry carriages and horse. half days's work. i Tbe Record would 8.*n bY our Reporter. Monday from their outing. They returned handsome crop of fruit to ship the com'' yesterday The young in an auto etc Courteous attention and prompt A charming residence., Good reasons like to see bol little hay shipped Into ing season, all from his shell hammock mobile. men played with delivery. earlier than they expected on DeLand team in the ball there -II he and game for selling this estate personal be madeat grove. Marsh Bros. . It"shonld county.. W. 8. Taylor Dentist Vplusia account of the illness of Mrs. yesterday afternoon. and will havea Knapp : a bargain, we property E. H.I home and this money kept in the Table board. 41 Rich Mr. Carl W. Morris, who baa been to Ave. new owner soon. Apply I who if she is able will go to the beach I county. visiting at the home of Mrs. H. S.3aker . his week for Huyward. a stay. Dr. Mellette'e Remedies at Allen's.Vernon left on Monday for Bnrnslde ..................M.... ....>>.. .ME**.*a _......a. j I Bays is on a vacation on the If you don't think a building boom is Ky., where he has extensive oil in- -I .i I coast, going on at DeLand just take a drive From there he will I lerests. return to from Embroidery. one-fourth off at Dreka's 'I'' about the city and listen to the sound of its home at Bradford Pa Mr. Morris is made the j I Phone '77. the; saw and hammer. New houses are baa friends his short won during many AND MAGAZINES I SOUVENIRS NEWSPAPERS A few watermelons are yet occasionally going up in nearly every. direction, and stay in DeLand. very choicest cuts I most all modern op-to date. brought into market. Attorney Cat.y D. Land, of the law of meat and cured Attorneys Wright & Wright have ; , About eight miles of the DeLand-Day firm of Landis & Fish this place has disposed of all the farm Implements of ,._.,.. tona road bas been hard surfaced. been engaged to delived lectures before to mild delicate '.' < --' the Seminole Manufacturing, abouta : a I Mr. Willie Minahew of Barberville he; law class of Stetson the coming car load. We understand that all the ., term: Mr. Landls Is a graduate of the flavor. It ., .'.. 'l' '. 0 (.ru" was visiting DeLand friends thU week. property of this company real and comes j ,. ()J,' ; u .. ; i t, J J, Mrs.\ M. Davis and Miss Marguerite personal, will be disposed of. law department of the University ofillchlgan. I ,\ ' returned Thursday from a month's stay Mrs. B. F, Chapman who has been and for several years. a professor Ito your table in , of law at Stetson.Notwithstanding . W.A. ALLEN & CO. on the beachThere pending the summer at the old home Bee r Nut J. ( I that a good portion vacuum glass jars . k- 'I"r ,0> 'r '1. 1'f'! are many beautiful lawns .it Logan Ohio returns home the first .. ' of the Armour fertilizer works at Jacksonville ) : about DeLand and they are becoming of the week. She will ne accompanied Beef arid'.Jewelers Sliced Druggists were burned from being struck free fromanykindof : more numerous every: ;year. by her niece Miss Ethel Roller who attended ' school,here several winters ago. by lightning, the manager wishes to inform - *(Next to the Postofflcce) Mr. M. G..Rowe, of the De- i i manager patrons over the State that he'IS DeLand, Florida Land Telephone Co.? is still up at Mariana Mrs. p A.' Flodin and her daughterMiss Oiling all orders promptly and without | preservative, ready of instant use. In- , Nellie left Monday for Tallulah installing' plant there for a delay for any brands they have on company. Falls, Ga., for a month's stay. They he market Your order will receive elude a jar in your order. ! In Jacksonville by the were joined ...-. ".. .. ,.Mr. W. U. Cannons and family, who prompt attention and filled as soon as " Mrs MoNelll. October let daughter have been In New York City for a couple It is received. A. H. WOODALLOur '.j .. ..-.. -- :. Miss Nellie goes to Chicago to resume . of weeks, are' expected home the her teaching i' Dr. Halley President of Stetson University ,/ I v'. ,,.,)' ,. __...*' S,"<'!, .0> first of the week. Major R. J. Bishop the naval stores will arrive at DeLand about line of Staple and Fancy Grocer lea la as complete " ,. ",,,,:.' -:'' "'''! ... .., .;?:.; .... :The chinch;bnlt.bu: apparently disappeared operator and daughters Mrs J J Bishop September 15th, ten days before tbe ':1 I .. "- the St. Augustine opening of the University for the fall it can be;> fresh and all high class standard brands.. .... '. '\.- from grass and Miss Mattie returned Wednesday a.1 FINE STATIONERY'', ;-- ," 4PURE DRUGS. ? lawns about the city In some of the from a two months' trip through the term. The Doctor has bad a busy; sum' Fresh vegetables. every, morning. .,l " J lawns they did serious damage.. the Jamestown mer vacation, if you will call it a vacation - .. .. '. .' :.' North visiting! ;Exposition * pro and M,,:V. H.Voorhls celebratedthe Washington Philadelphia, Atlantic > He baa .been. lecturing _almost " first anniversary of their marriage City New York Buffalo. and Niagara continually.", He has lectured in Pennsylvania PHONE 79 I. i ''> .-. ''II '-.., I.I|let evening entertaining many Mends Falls. Ma aaob'Q eUe, ,South aDd r i.e.Tr- ..... .at'card*..followed ,by delightful refresh'ments. In bis journey through life and a North Carolina Georgia,' Alabama,, ....... ..........-_..___..... ._.. ..... .rr Ohio I good and honorable one too, Peter Lot- Tennessee -Kentucky several ..I 'rr' *Mlsa JnauitaPrevatt, postmistress stSeville the 47th mile at 8 80 Western States and New York.Everything ,. . .ALLEMS' ,1 GOjt : quiet passed poet : : , J. P.' & ; has been visiting at DeLand tbe p.'m. last Tuesday, and that night he points to a.most; incceseul ' : ; ---. i 1 I i present week, guest of her.brother and was. given a big pleasant surprise by his year for the John B. Stetson University ,. t slater-in-law,Mr. and 'Mrs. B.. '' B. Pre- friends. Mrs.] L. anticipated the occasion The fall term.begins September .,...'. Leading .Furniture House"ot Voh&ta i County vYK and had delightful and abundant 20th and Mr. S. B. Wright ,Secretary .. ,. !' ., .', 'r.: ", ".. <..1 vatt.Contractor' 'Cairns':bas ,plans finished refreshments ready.: ; of the )Board of. Trustees,' and who iekei :;( l'"' ; t .'-- ...... .-. .tI tor]!a $9.000 two story brick building< for Bon., J. JII.J'Alexander haa'pnt" a his charge of' the correspondence department ' : '. MrfGr.T. Haynea.\ It+will be 00 by.80 in charge 'of his flue and the reservations of rooms NEloitlo"-Bookoaoe i 0 superintendent ' EaI i: : .; "DRO.P !N'4l,' .a..l.. 1I'/1t/ feet, two .t_'below.otll_ 'and .a farm and grove out at Winnemlssett, summer'Informs ns that the reervatlons > .nti Desk, mbhid., <.:; /1 suite of living rooms above and la'future will devote more of his for rooms at the. dormitories, IA f e.mdts. . and Newest. : for and.boys,' exceed oonIderably s much or as YOb", n '.. ;'1: girls r': see. our :)tr.fA;) CH.yaee.lef' Tuesday: for time to law;resuming an active'pray both book JIPIICO s wanted a'x. ,.t'It'Comprises d i Grand,Rapt..., 'M10b.,. to'.be gone six tice.,' He bas rented rooms over the the number for any previous Desk Unit with i .. *.. ; : -. Stylesin Parlonand;ft : ; ,",Ira or two months.- He prae/there to bank for offices, moving In from the St. corresponding date la the history of the few 01'many Book Units as. -. .w,, ,r ; ';, \ r :" ', ,.r.rIt . ; handle a number cropof the Michigan Elmo building next week nstltntion. There is 'a small army of :desired. Roomy, coven-,' t, I ktM,attractive. Cll and j _, : .Dfrnng-TRoom-fur n-- peach,which'M' BM' shipped for a number ,, workmen engaged up there,' now giving Of writ..for r/ltaloPUO f see Os w .. 4.. ... of ye.rs.' ,, a.._ ,- very building tt thorough renovation J. F. !-LENCO.\ <, ,"! 'a', Stetson's fa'nrew..De.er morepromising. and i r1'JPlt <* I ,)' O)4)7J: ; "'..rf3t Mr.bayer Ni iii. Alexander arrirod,b.r.the. .Sunday popular/ eve orange 'Y Vs offer for' next week only, The,high:j,standard of the .. I , : .. beginningMonday the One will be'' maintained, .11I14 l the' D81ANDD: i' school P'-Ao. qlog. for a week's sojourn; :.looking over .. r_ ,;,.. cut iv yli i( .d nn -t mat ofr \ i ij 1b4 e\ui|.'aitMUotr'hers<.> ,Like 'moa' Grand Bargain of the Season' Faculty! considerably;strengthened the j : for39ffcQ coming term. Lots of famlllde. too. are ,. .. Mr. Alexander, has. bought litfH Ladles. $2.00 Shirt WaUts bayeraj; , ' DeLand. Fla. ;( phone No.<2 J. f3f. ALLE .&i Q cc fcrjno fraltas ftj but-Citing> 44vel6pn I MEDa'vie. ; 01*\ .ocatlng at DiLand eo..aa.thel3'obi) .I.1A ..,.I .. :'1 ' .1..0i... j..j j .IO . .. ; .. r1 I enti....V91 achdIa'Advocate! ,- Can attend Stetson, 'I , ., .....-. --I ..... .... '''-0 -' '.. 0 ;:4'' 1 . .. .." .. .. .'.....-..''''.... ....... ...."- -.",--.----.-'- -"....'-..- -.-- ___-- nv.ra __._,_ ""W {""""-''V''fl-'W': '' ,. .:...;.. ... ; : : : : :.I."W. .. & .. \ ;:a .' 'i>' '. , : . 'I . THi : OLUSIAft. ; OOtf rw RWWU) I .. .- ". _._ u -- -- --- -- .- ----- ,I.-_. J -- -- - ti- 1IWl1: 1 T'Executor's-. -- - '"" . .. ., rORT:: ,HOUSEWIFE. HEALTH Notice. I I Admihistfa 6h' 'Nti. "- , THE TRAtN bElX: : ftOPE. INSURANCE: To whom it may concern: Notice U hereby a-IVsiTtnat; the usdar-. ,iii; mi i! GAST Indian Chutnea Sauce. Notice Is hereby given to all and signed ha been nrpolntcU'JldiiilBlBttaiwror \ I ! k Hew It and the Conductor's Supraman Take a pint of tlnogar. add to It hair' The man who Insure tile Ifs It BlnR'ular'tbt'. creditors; distributees, the-estate of Msloolm. K. ,Jiprrlson deceased . and all\ creditora'leg.te.wdI.trib.uteos -, Came to B. Established. a pound of brown migar Dud boll tlii'iu ''wise for hte ,fanilly. and all persons having claims or demands ,and all persons having claims or ' Although there does not seem to be till they become II thin slruu. 'lln-n. The man who Iniiire his beaKhI against the estate of O. O. demands against said estate will presentthem add one pound of tninnflnda. Blniincr Post deceased to preaent the same to the undenlvnad within the time 2 ' ;, anythlng'ln common between pugilist* gently for a few minutes and uhuu wU* both' ..for, his,,family I .and to the undersigned executor of said prescribed by Imfjor! theane will b* forever JE ' i : aod railroad rules, yet tho adoption ot colander. Tliui bltfaself estate within two years or the same barred $ < , cool strain through a iat ; .>. Dated this Jalyl >l tt.- , will be barred.. That the undersignedhas llIDWff the familiar bell that stretched rope Voii/ : of Hour apples jmolod Insure health by guard . \ add half a pound may" been appointed by the, Hon.. J. I-D. 11' MORRISON. ., V.t through every car of the modern train and cored and boll till qulto soft Inc 1C'' Itla''wort1i'.hUn&Attho"lnt Uarberrllle. Fie. . .',' Lee McCrory, Judge of the Uouuty wfts the result of a fistic encounter At When cool add n quarter pound of vui- ' attack of disease Judge's Ootrt' as executor of said estate Jamesiown 'E , I,r <.t the same time and )bf.tJlct; .iesuo of Uuame sins(stoned) and two\ ounces of garlic which I generally approach. and all such claims or demands Notic tAJ m' t:, t j ; slgql: ,: both well pounded, and nfterwmd two should be to Stewart& Bly DJ combat the supremacy of the conductor presented \ .. SEASON' TICIETS'-$3S.1O sold daily coach , through the LIVER and manl. In Circuit Court Seventh Juillclal C'lrntllt , I In railroad travel 'was ordalut6It punces: )'of saH.5f,(' ounces. of pundfiitdguigeV Innumerable his. attorneys DcLand Fla., or to the In and for Volusla County, 1 Plorlilit. sold each' Tuesday: limit 10 days, not good In parlor or It,was Philadelphia which guve both wo'budcsa of mustard and boo fest Itself In way undersigned. To Amos DulToy and all Other Persons Interested tICkt ? so UallyplS day ticket- 2o.90, gold aily. ounce of cayenne. Mix: all together/ naputUnto <) TAKI _-- WILLIAM A. BAQQATT. t dlY '.3JJ' - ' to the world. : 'eovert-il. jars which must bo Executor. You Are hereby notified that under and -o ) 2 IN 10 "Norfolk Flyers" No / No 89 I t, One of the oldest railroads! ,Jntlo, ," allowed to stuhd by the fire for twelve Seabreeze, Fla., July 8, 1007. by virtue of a Writ of Attachment, Issued Lv DeLand 3 flOp ,Lvk Norfolk 8 lOp 81aAr ) the BeTeiitb out of. tho Circuit Court of ) t' country! i Is the Philadelphia, Wilmington hours. Tbe longer this Is kept the butter Judicial Circuit Florida In anil.Cur V. Jackonnle'-7'30a030a loOp 'AI .acklonvle 2 20p ) I Is Baltimore known tht TtittsPI Notice of Final In suit therein Lv .; 7 SIp .; 2 TOp .1 30a and ,.now as It will become. DischargeNotice lUbla County a peiiclluK:! vle Sri( ) DcLand 6 Ar Norfolk .7.30a lIp OOp Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington / : herein JC. I. Hon Is Plaintiff, ariuVAmOaUuiluy ( .1 82p / Is hereby. given that six months Is Defendant, the following lot Orptcroui.of ( Pullman Buffet Bleeping Cars to .. R NorfoLk which was opened In 1837.. 'H'lio ''tOi, stnova Tan. : after dale.. namely on tbe 14th day ol > land. lying and being In thvOouatyoti . terminus In Philadelphia w.all.ae.BrOluJ kTh Jelly "V'llt-fce found very emcii- And save your health. December 1U07,1 will ai iniurdian of Kdna I Volusla and State! of Florida baa been C Write for Illustrated folders, containingm'apa; descriptive matter - and Prime streets-Prlrno street uow clout: for removing tan and. softeningthe Gusiiue, formerly Edna Bennett, presentmy attached and levied upon as the property hotel lists etc.t/l'or reservation tor Information. address any ' final to the Hon. J. Lee MoC'rory of the said Amos Duflay. to-wlt: ; i J account - ' 'W being known as ,Washington nveuuo- hands-.. !! j."Gum'tmgac.nth.j.\ County Judge of Volusla Lot 1., section 1, township II aoutb'rB1lI( 1(: Ticket Agent of tbt Atlantic Coast Und or and after crossing the Scbuylklll river '"' white. 120 grains: t tHE MODERN ,WOMAN. Fla., .as such guardian, and ask for count'l ,,29eue, and lot 3, sectIon 1. townIpalT < P DflV'V'UOTAM Wslrlctf M. l AV.nt Atl.ntl Coast Uns . .r at Gray's Ferry the route ran along tu! water fourteen ounces; glycerin anounce discharge 1 south,range 29 east, less a tract ItS o_,\lne, C fltAllR. UUI'bEaLUI'i, FLORIDAW. Delaware river on) what Is now the ; tluf benzoin two drams; Musi Ba a Stimulating Companion For. Dated June llth 11107. east Mid west by 'tt.75; chains north and JACKSONiLLE. . southwest of said lot 4 8. A. WOOD. south, in the corner - a X Chester line of the Beading ..follwar.i borax pow! i The first schedule con irUL'4 one pnvaenger extract. foa xlrams. : "It is rather difficult! being: a modern Aiiios Duffey and all other persona Interested N, Wilmington, N. 0 X I train, which :vent'to'Baltimore 'Macarnte tbe tragacanth In the wa- tvoinnu,'' ,remarked n matron tbe other Notice of Adoption of. Minor. are hereby required to appear plead or "I, a'f' '., one day and came back the next, which ter until perfectly soft and dissolve lay" "We, are expected to be clever, Notice Is hereby given that the undersigned demur Monday In In said October ault on A.or D before 1907. being the' ttrst the i .. ...I r was considered a remarkable feat In the borax Jn the glycerin. Mix the two active well Informed and Interested will on the 10th day of September.A. 7th day of said month otherwise- default . rapid travel. When,a train a day each solutions, add tbe tincture and strain ;In'| the world we live In If we fall J>.. 1007, apply to the Hon. Minor S. will entered ag.lnatlou. l > Jones Judge>r the Circuit Court of the 7th A . 11'1088. ' way was placed In service the neonle through.. muslin, in these things men consider us stupid Judicial, Circuit of Florida at his office at Attorneys for the Plalntld, It. L. Hon. of the two cities served'concluded that V'' i \* fru Ind II Indolent'and "no fun to talk tot Titusvllle, Florida, or wherever he may be, the acme of CODvenlencaJ.D transportation 'To'Treoe Pattsrns. But when a woman does possess the for an order authorizing the adoption of . p.. hud been re cbed." If :you want to trnco\ :U pattern on Juhlltles that make) her a stlirmlutlnffrompanlon heir Nellie at Rawlins law. a minor as my child and Notice,of Application for Tax Deed; Under John B. Stetson University Next' to tbe president of the rallroud, dark materllil Iny It on tho goods and for the up to duto man 1m- BYLVKSTEK BROWER. Section 8 of Chapter 4888 Lavta the most Important functionaries were with a rather largo pin prick all over bedlately\ croakers arise and call her Dated, Ibis 1st day August, A. D.. 1007. of Florida.Notloais . the engineer and cOII<1uctor. It was a the outlines of tbe pattern at Intervals tiew' wpman,' with a dlBparnglno; ac- ,. question whether or not the bend of of about half an Inch. Then, holding eAf"and: 'MgH' dolefully about the w.y Notice of Citation.In hereby given thatGeo WU'aJmor, AFFILIATED WITH THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICACO. ot Tax Certificate No. 41, dated _., the'Jlne was not considered a subsidiary It carefully In place, rub all over with ttalr grandmothera kept honse.fyet Uouuty: Court, Volusla County, Florida. the puroi Othday' aser of June DOS.! has Wed' said ------- '; officer In popular estimation to the chalk Take off the pattern and :you : with nil I''the''tendency there la Br.tbe County Judge of sulU County t oeititloate In my ollloe, and baa made appllon COLLEGE LIBERAL are).Identical with the University men who ran the train, but Robert will see the tracing outlined by the to I make Jokes about the modern ... S. B. WilSon baa applied to this tlon for tax deed to Issue In accordancewith of Chicago/ ., ., ARTB-Btanda. Fogg who pulled the throttle, and chalk spots. With a fine brush paint In Wotaian.or condemn her aa too studious Court for Letters of Administration with law. Said certificate embraces the OOLLE1)E Or LAWTOrkduates admitted without examination III Florida. the will annexed on the Estate of Hannah following described property situated In COLLKGK OF Mechanical, and Civil Knglneerlng. - .John; Wolf who collected fares, won lines between the spots with Chinese too athletic, too Independent, there (Ullllsi, deceased late of said County of VoluBla.county, l r deference of the public because of white and when dry It Is ready ,for.. Ia ho doubt that she Is fast mounting Volusla. 10 acres In swK o< ne) P r doed'Book COLLEGE FOtt'TEACHERS.-Five courses of study for Florida School thel? high,,and!. responsible dptjes\ / 4. ,working. ' 'the pedestal Which the other type 'of The eare.therefore,to cite and admonish J, page bIt section 11, twp its, range 2 e. Teachers. . all and . the kindral and creditors Fogg,'an Englishman, 'bad all the woman I ha mo long"'occupied alone, of said deceased singular, to be and appear before The said land being assessed at the Jute. PKEPABATOBY' ACADEMY. -For Chicago," Harvard, Yale, Princeton, ' Vassar. tenacIty' bp1nlou of hia race- Wolf Jacket For' Range BolI.r. or,| If not a pedestal, she Is taking a this Court. on ar before the 9th day of Sep of the Issuance of such certificate the Michigan Bum*ESS Banking, Shorthand. Typewriting, 0, on American' bad the Ingenuity' the One of the now kitchen conveniencesIs I position which' U oaths whole more tember. A. 1>. 1007, and die. objections, If certificate name of N.shall Began be redeemed aooordfaiR Unless; said... .'a Business, Law. VOLLE9&Bkkseplag. ' Yankee and, seeing the need of some an abestus Jacket for the range secure and more desirable There has any aforesaid.they have otherwise to the the granting same will letters be granted as law, tax deed will Issue thereon on the Ifclb SCHOOL; OF MECHANIC ARTS-Wood and Iron \orklnl end Manual method. by which, he ,could communicate boiler. ,This Jacket will koep the ''wa I always been a theory that the Ideal as prayed. day of September. A. I).. 1807. Training SCHOOL OF MlISId-Fiano Organ Voice Theory History of Music with the devised tho hotter lu winter. and In summer It : Witness mv oiOolal signature and eat , engineer ,' ter mother Is' the one who sticks to her Witness my name as Countv Judge of Teachers' Course. scheme of running a'cord through the will have a material aid In keeping own fireside and mends her children's the t'ounty aforesaid., this Oral day of August this the 23rd day AuKUnt SAM-L.D., A.JORDAN D. 1IW7.) SCHOOL OV PINE AUT8-Drawing and Pantnl. oil, watercolor, pastel. cars to tbe locomotive. As the engine the temperature of the kitchen at a itoc kings.* This theory still lingers 11W7.) Clerk Circuit Court Voluslu County. Fla. 'UTETdOM has 4 Colleires.O Technicals 48 in Faculty, !Heal J. LEE ( McCRORY : ) t_ was a wood burner,I Wolf fastened one more; tolerable point, and at the some ,,111 spite of,the fact that so many college County Jupge. solid gymnasium; courses,38olass, strong roemsseparatedorniitories teachers, modern equipment for, 10 both laboratories sexes-, 2 mwuOa.dining end of i the'cord to a log which was time the water will be kept'quite .hot girls and girls who have not Notice of Application for Tax Deed Under baU.wo and I on shops manual training and domestic science, auditorium,' placed on the engineer's seat and was when the fire Is low as It Is.of ten been to college, but are nevertheless Notice of Administration.In Section 8 of Chapter 4888 Laws *o *'I' pianos, olube llterory societies. star lecture pulled to the floor when tbe conductor maintained during tbe summer months. bright keen and well Informed of Florida. .our,4s.Utii.Oa&-.5ssociations. general (15.0UO volumes), special law are County Court Volusla County, FI rllla. library.enclosed athletic running track tennis courts baseball dUiOond. , desired to signal for a atop marrying and proving that a mother By the County Judge of said county. Notice Is hereby given that John Mora oe. football field park-like 1..ld. shell roads, cement waiks shrubbery and trees,< Fogs resented what he considered an purchaser. 01 Tax rertltloate: ) '/'No :878, dated , have hrlsUan11 all steam heat nay outside Interests and be a ) atmusphnra, open to Whereas L. B. 'Long has to this douomhltine. , upplled ., Interference with his rights on tile better mother because of them. Butt Court for letters: r'administration with I the the Oth day of June A.. !>., I9IJ baa Sled flleutrio lights, eieotrlo bolls. concerts, fraternities, re.eiLela'veupersiIetoJrsi'ns _ said certificate In office,and 'has made . my festivals. Atteadanoe now bllguat'n hlatorv ofUniversity. platform of the locomotive and on thefirst will annexed on the satiate of Mrs. A. L. ) IS merely a theory and does nobody application for tax -deed' to l 18IIn8 In accordance J 'Generous patron no spared. Btetsoh is lor Florida llrsc,' run out, from I Broad and Prime I I any; ".rm. Farr. deceased, lute of said oounty of Volusla. with' law. Said certiUuat. embraces last and all the time. ; money \ streets with the new device paid no "In.Prank: Stockton's 'Squirrel Inn' the following described propertyituated For informaton, catalogues, views, and fol"e. addressPRESIDENT These are, therefore, to cite and admonish In Yoluvia to-wfti buletins. Florida, ( heed to the displacement of the log county Florida. . here Is a scientific nllr egtrl,' When all and singular tbe kit dred and creditorsof ) HULLEV A, M.; Ph. D, DdLand . of lot 6 section 31 . Lot 7, sub township from the when the conductor de. seat It .IB hinted that her college studies said deceased to be and appear before 18 south, range SI east; 2 sore. __ -' sired to take on a passenger from a waS have kept her from tills Court on or\before; the llth day of Heptrmber . learning as . assessed the dabeof , The said land awing at A n and file It UW objections farm 'near Gray's Ferry but sped on any muah about babies as-a nuroegtrl ought thev have, t . over the bridge and did not deign to know HsInEllsha Anderson.Unlesssaid/ , to she oxclaJtnsi NOt knowabobt otherwise iho dame. will be granted aspraveth same ; bring bis engine to a stop until :BlueBell babies Why I know all about I certlfloate thai. be redeemed according to : station on the south side of the Witness my name as Count udare 01 the law tax deed. will Issue thereon, on tbe. - babtes; ,I have dissected oner county aloresald., this 8th day ASiguat. 19.7 10th day of September* A.| D. IttWJ; 'I Stalti-lDsliiiitions t S' I Efldcation' Schaylklll/ bad been reacbed. Then slgneture'ana Hi0her this) degree of education ,will Whu.1 (Seal) J. LEE MoGitOltY Witness my official seal be demanded to know of Wolf why be perhaps, be demanded of the 1 6-10 County Judge this the 9th day. of August, A. D 1907. 'Of had been, Jerking that log all about thalocomotive. BAM'L n.JORDAN. I ' mother, the world la a beginning see Clerk Circuit Court Volusia County w:1a.Ii . ., .. than the better Informed 'a mother Is, Notice. : University of the Stale of FloridaQalnesvllle Florida'. ''Female College Wolt hotly declared that be had signaled he (larger In her--...views, the broaderIn $ L . "I to stop but Fogg retorted that bee ,Interests the better mother will I In County Judge's Court, Volusla County Notice of Application for Tax Deed Under > : Fla. Tallahassee.' : be would stop when and ),where| be .hIt !be." Florida Section 8 of Chapter 48H8. Law pleased and that, too. without any reference .. I I In the matter of the Estate 01 W. JIl. Pul of Florida. ,. A l 1 igh-grade'lnstltutton for young A college for ,women, without amen,4fferingtLItararyScientific , ;. ,to or4errpni the conductor. Denmark Original of Thule ton, deceased. Not'co la hereby given that George 11: ) parallel in the South. embracing a .*,,', whom, Jill did not regard aa his superior .. Was Denmark the original Thule, the To Mm. Marlon Malone of Mt. Vernon Clark, purchaser of Tax Uertifloate So. 7. Erlglnetrlng-'Asrrltuttural and Pea.Colege of Liberal Arts, a School Texas, Mrs Luclnda Hopkins and Mrs. dated the 7th dav of August, At O.. 1005, School of Industrial . In management, of the train. The be- : ) .'' Teacber. a land of the ancients agofftea ourses world's end , Frank Word and Frank Word bar husband, City Tax Hale of the City; of" Dajtona' I l Arts a of Fine Arts including altercation grew very heated and Wolf :rond which lay only the Sluggish seat 01 Hogansville. Georgia, and all other persons baa tiled said certificate In my office andhas Strong faculty well-e quipped i piano pipe organ, violin,' , ;. Invited the engineer from the cab to fythens of Uansllla who was about Jntt rented t t made. application. for tax deed to--Issue laboratories, thorough instruction, voice culture, elocution and pbypil settle the matter! and :the challenge! HOW' JACKET IS FASTHNBD contemporary with Alexander the Whereas. H. W. Purse)!, as Administrator In accordance with law. Said certificate bqth tbecu-eliicaa.aM cal culture .' was quicklg:\ AcceptedV I The covering Is cut and '..haped'ready Greid i; Is believed by some to have has of died the bis estate petition or W.settingforththat M. Pu lien, deceased there property embraces. .. tbel 0 ioliowinge Daytona donerihed Volusla 'careful supervision. PI8G'1oal' ; .. A faculty of able specialists. in : Passengers and a group of men who for application. It Is made In two sec- rofePed to what we now know as Jut are debts due and owing by the estate of county, Florida,, to-wit- -lghIl one.- all departments. : had gathered at the station to see.the tlons, and tbe edges are supplied with land by this name; bat as there Is the said W. M. l'ul1en1 deceased., and that All north Uigbee Line lot one, block!! No tuition charges to Florida I I .T for REE. Charges train come 1ri ..formed a ring about thecombatanta.bnt nothing to show that Pytheas had the personal S''fa'me is Insufficient to pay thirty, Daytona. students. Other expenses very low< special hooks so that It can be laced In place. ; Pufien. Instruction In fine arts reduced the W. M : : the fight did not last mime, said Tbe said land assessed at the dateof Vlalfed Thule himself he was probably being For catalogue and other Information to minimum. New in The jacket consists of asbestos, In- died seized and possessed of the following a buildings long, as ,\Volf proved by, far the su I rather about It. Since be seems tbe l lance of such certificate In the address [ vague and of sulating felt and a canvas exterior I fit described property lying being In tbe name S. Coleman heirs. Uniesa said certificate \ course construction; Write for perior artist. with his fists and with to have represented It as a land of the county ol Volusla and Slate of Florida. , Uw ' Is Impossible for any heat to escape shall be redeemed according in el ANDREW''SLCDU; catalogue. A. A. MURPHREE, , a few blows made It almost towit:- \ Impossible mldilghfsun. others have IdentifiedIt 2nd tax deed will Issue thereon on President. President.Bopd . this. After It la fixed In for the engineer to see snulclently.to through plan a* Iceland or even Greenland, and All of lot two of block eight, according to day of Oct., A. D., 19,7' ' .4mltiedthat It may, be painted with gold or ,.1.' Besrdaley'smapof DeLeon Springs; also Witness oUlolal :Jslgnatare and seal - - .t complete hisrun..' but 'fogg the of the Irish. monks of tbe my . minium other colas Jhule lots four and seven of block elgbMocordiua ol A. D. 1907.)( I'I''I' " paint or given any ; : this the 30th day August 'I . he had,been fairly, beaten /and the ninth century A. D. was certainly Iceland to MoTiinmoin' map of DaiTeon Springs. _.. -- -- to harmonize with the surroundings. SAM'L D. JORDAN p supremacy of the conductor ,on a train ) 'But the Thule of Tacitus, which and praying III and by said petition that liemay Clerk Circuit Court Volusla County : - was settled'for all time. lay ijear the Orkney: Islands must have have tbe order ot the Court directing ,, Th. Worn Soap Bar.' him to take Into possession as Administrator , As the log signal\,was crude and ineffective When washing and the bar' of soap been) part of. the Sh.tlaDdII.-London of the estate. the real estate hereinbefore Notice of Application for Tax Deed Under - I ..;,Wolf ,devised the use of a Ohnolcle.; described as assets 01 the estate for the Section 8. Chapter 4888 Laws of bell on.the locomotive, and this method gets worn thin causing annoyanc by t payment of debts and sell the same lor said Florida / \ ornpy slipping down the back of the,washboard Ciffber' . was soon adopted by all.of the American Comparatively Luoky. purpose, together with the Incidental charges hold 81d.'ot .In hot of Notice> Is hereby given that Ernest A. ' I the flat ,It sale. Will ear'tbe railroads j 'I'b.IU''code of signals -' .' A young woman settlement worker I Osteen, purobaser tax certificate No. 8MB, quote you their yard depot water for a minute until It becomes Now therefore this Is to command was adopted, and these remain. tdb'to"enotSei .who Is well known, In Boston's social the said Mrs. Marlon Malnne Mrs Luoln.da you. dated the tUt;day of June,. JUO3. has Ued) at and yellow pine practIct1ytthii day.. The only 'qulteIort'I're clrcl< d observed that one of her pro- Hopkins. Mrs Frank Word and Frank said certificate in my office and has made t . .. change In the bell cord la that by: use whole orhalf" bar of soap and let It tegee bad a 'black eye, and, guess- Ward and all other persons Interested, to application with law.for tax Said.deed. certificate to Issue In embraces accordance 'L ber FIoff cellifi'g-1diig; cooL The two cement together , pieces of the air appear. on the eighteenth day of September, I \ from the brake system a lug> Ifs''' source, she wished to be sym- the; following' described. property situatedin . U. V07! olUce In the hnuseIn g A. at court . as one bar ready for use; my ) whistle has superseded the bell\ In the jBthetle ''and laid kindly' after speaking DeLand, Florida and show cause wby Volusla county Florida, to-win , ; locomotlvej 1 Philadelphia!\ ,Ledger. .Window 8hadss.If of the woman' eye: "Never mind the prayer of said. petition should not be All north ot railroad, block 1 and 2. Wat- ShIg1e.1LathsyEtc.?,. I Mr*. Hceverythlnrt will be all rightMind granted., If any you have. son's Enterprise. Clay's Ready WIt. I the window shades are all worn Tonr troubles might be worse." It Is further ordered tbat this citation be Tbe said land being assessed at the late AH Lumber, Building. and Fire Brick, Cement, etc., promptly delivered ,1 When lIeI>ry' Clay "was stumping and soiled at the bottom do not throwaway published In The VolusU County Record of the isduarce of such ourtlfloate in the anowbere in the city. "Be re It might be worse, answered , DeLandIn E. Williams. Unless said but cut off soiled part make another a weekly newspaper published at name of Mary I Kentucky re-electtyn; ,, at OliO of,bis the: om all' philosophically / '1 mightbe said county (or a period of tour successive certificate shall be redeemed aooordla to mass meetings'''an old hunter of wide hem' and put back, suck If 11 ce 'yoUrself, 'Miss, with no bus- weeb.I law lx deed will Issue thereon. on tile 4th I'' I' political Bald. "Well. shade Is not long enough to cut away day of October 1907. , 4 influence Harry, at all. -Boston Record. Witness my hand and official seal this ' I've always) Wed :tor you,' but Because ,open the hem at the bottom and take I I sixth day ol August A I U. 1007 Witness my' official. .Ignatu.r.and aea) : . shade from roller. nail the bottom of !Seal J. LEE MoCRORY this the 80111 day of A.ug,iA.tJ>.il' 07.'t' and Mills ' ', ,, of that vote (which h,\ named) I'm Foolish to Quit. (Judge: ) of the County Judge's Court,of I U. JORDAN: end Saw Planing ? Novelty Works -- hade make hem and gain' ag'I/ 7q14'( ..::.. : 1 I on roller new "Wiy( dot you buy it?" asked her Volusla County., Florida.' Clerk Circuit Court; Vulusia county na & , "Let me see your rifle" said Clay. put back stick. consented .. ,'., J T. OAtRNSPr ' t '. I lusband\ who bad to go r . ; It WIll hooded, to lUm. ,, shopping 'With her. "You say It la just --'-:'- ,. " . "11 she Wgood HfleT7 ? Prevent Hair .Falling.. "18hamroa .what I you want, and the price seems IS 'I' ? | SSE D '1l_ i'"Q"RI . j "Yes.1* the hair.with a *oaj mlxtnre .ILL"ITIWILLr COSTTOshowl R a ,. '. J> to be reasonable so why: waste time ROUGlkatelltng "Did"she vemis.: flrer e I .made by dissolving an oily soap JAbot ooklng' further?" I .' to wri!:! _.b" .aaiis .Dnvaa ''AND ' moot IOENT' ": liD. of 10) . . water-a tabtespoonfnl of shaved \. iii: :fIde .". " "Well yes( on ee. .atzoy : T1&ZS $Wl "Orl1alou George how foolish ( .4 ,' < you : lr::: ; Flooring, Stating, Sawing, Window ann ( "Why didn't:you/th'row'hef ; heap to a cup of wat..Add ten drop *; or dealer world. Mouldlnl. ; awayr talk! I I'm not half 'tired -out yet"3hlcaLO I Doorframes, Newel POt etc.. The old hunter thought a moment glycerin. If your hair la light :yon [ Becord-Heruld.. '\ BICYOLEew :o:,, 8he4.iDj for Groves PiDen., sNTCrates and' Box Material a specialty . 1 may In a half.teaspoonful 1 of _ ed. ce MM until fee > received bar ...... 1._ : and tben.9d. "lIari IT1 try ,TOO put powderedf 1 1 /Urmt yon ; : 'r < f(I.. borax.: Wash the hair1 well 'wfti t pee ..... ; and denribln erery kind of,101' Io-p de..i ct I | ontract j ,, i.again. \,' Couldn't. 1 latest m\d t.and teem of our trmarkable LOW : 'F'i ' , And Barry was elected. this solution and rinse In many water *,anl'we.doelet: newosTer made possible by selling from factory, I DELAND: .. .; r."Te me tho old old story sbs :r.rtc: << f I 'II" ; r ';:ii'iTranspar.nt Tfderwitb.no middlemen's profits. I .ald.'j j i I... ." ,,.o". eiovit'cess --II"IooIc".4; : ;_.. Hard on the Reporters. Past*. "I.ctn't" ho replied. "I have made allow 10>> Days V... Trtalfnd /Stake other liberal tennsvh1)cla.eq.s.a.e. i | I -- "I had a strange dream the other > .Ortqdl rtce-nntll aa-Ilne as flour; wet home tta*world will da.. will'Uam Verwuiuur sad gut ma.civs1s- a vow never to repent n mother-In- bloUfonaatlon by stodpWe wriUaf us a postal a 5. night" said the maJor..a ? ,1 t' \ J ilt with 'fOl4 wojet; iben.addV boiling law:} k'"rCll1cnll'o! Record-Herald. need a JVMw. <:fo Maf ia: every town anil. 'can offer aa"ocnoitaalt* : water and boll to nuke to suitable mea who I I I I till thick t "What was It} asked the young cooked aa as money young apply at one* - thing. ,. -- paste; when cool add a little alum or 'l'bet&netnctor 'engraves ' ,>. oil ,; dotes 'ifldldIt !' / his name $85OPUNGTIJRE.PROOlJ1RES0; NLXrowlfalls ; ? I .. "I wentitO'lteaven, and' as an 'old 'o to-1 pr v4DIt In the'|hand that receives the benefit.Ttencn' .-, HUCKLEBERRY* _ newspaper man was Interested: Jn their Keep-.la *j,!oooliplaceibut; doltt;dow' 'Proverb." > PPIII. [{ I if4 "I , ': Journal up there. It was a miserable I', ",, r..t. ".. rI "&It ., : : .8.110. pr. pair*' .ttao I , ,. thing not a well written story In It- ToJfffHMftfO. , .. tdAtl.A - .. Mod I told St. Peter so.". Qlyoerln Skin Lotion. w. 'Wllf Soll'i 1ACl'SYoll : ' Take one ounce of glycerin If ItagreesNflth m Sam I. 0'IJ'\\\1 - pure - "What did be r :/ , say H CASTORIIA" Polr\to\ ** a.ThI . tta'} } skin. Some "Ha swM;:--Ifs not our fault., 'We > peoplecannot (CAsH WITH oceaN Sass) . r never get any good reporters op here." ns. i1fce n. Add a quart of \.a bfaiI.tI 134 NO MORE TROUBLE FROM PUNCTURES. ' camphor water (not spirits of cam- ; ..,'" of In tire ,I 1 'r Result experience ,. c aPhuarrsL -Y JIft>' phor) and to.this 'add-a tablespoonfol ;llflJUftd You Haw Always Bought I making. l No 15 dng years. .from THORNS CA 1_, HucklgbenLook' ; L L'trvt "'! .. of borax.-- y ; ; cr r. J.. rrVvMMI" .*M : '. : TUS, PINS., NAILS.nTAGKS.GLAS igar BeeIII Bei-iou punctures,,like intentional kjUf* rat*,cai , ,, ; r Mr*.,.D* Hltt-Th Dobaoatlat laathay ; 'ToCiater 'p"'fy'Cistern Wr b. ,6I' ffP be nlcbnized like any other tire. .__ ea.je.e.ea.s ? ,- ,.', '' girl they' hop to keep. Mrs. D*, water that haa become Mstek n" ? "' !Tee\issdrsd. TIIt..u;a1r*sew J.'1iofaaI Cie4sssnty4fiv.ThouuM'ps ,, ..,. Good \ G' > Gooclanir f ' 'Wltt-Abaordl! Where Is . such , t- ) *' girl and oily mar1Mf1Jal'la.Uli powdered $ sold. yeAr. MI" Io:4IlIr :&IDOla. : 'e' to b* found t Mrs. tIe Ilitt--Sb. was I I ,' "" ". Jl..Ha. all aMa.MtHs. timlf* duy rldln,,!ft7 dur.bl sad Used bud. - borax . aad powtfered sAinA Four .'11".,W .ti4 2I" I'ay \ ? and need tell . bona to/them)yesterday.-.Harper's I wfin* iptclil qvulltr' of rubber which ner.. t>WDm .po a*matt wfcfcsi afax*ma OMII MMtv ,1t we 'you no more; ; esiuce.oE .u-. Stiigientehriftnft \ ,eo "VE". sal't f 'without allowliii tho sir to.wapc.TwVbM'BfandradVor' l lt ( from sail IIIII04 r"U :-.Weekly; to. '"" ; 1 r I (hut uurtmtss hsv.only besn bo . ,_ ,' MI'I'eIB ot w.-- t' =C1..ap D' < : I ,. r an Onht'nrv tiII4 the seactaro tbiaeU5d.Ift' No exile or danger can fright a brar I "-. 1813' ,..prepared fidc on the UI.4..TS.L"NI>!dte ecs.,_a.. eommOtil"f.lt-wli_ pgaosioh.ib3r RoylMye.-i ,, toCt iasd. 4s _. 1'1lh. patent'Saak.t ..__" ,...Dkb presest.aim an rees dung Le' ripany pirit-Dryden. _'Tt rTh.G.nti. ueoeeMd. Ml benreestUiAtlnfendtke, so ..' ._ o diet ion. The ikine 1a ...u..e g 'I Hlnttf : I tine Is $5 to per pair but for......rUaI.... ." .... s.pedal did Hdet 4 "-. I 'Widows-Do "yodf: know t .tl1Q ii ,I. if only ....per pa'jJj'.&11 dedres."If\peca'aSSffi r_ W.1lit1 ,D. ..-'- :b :' r.Y.1 Prevent I I ._ '.... .. .iMal ., M.th..I : U hem stjrleny *rei ed.r7r'T' '*' ,' daughter has) act*y e TTDOQ 'J'8'I1' 1"'Oe. 1.: W.wlh8".m. ,\T1 jS? .n k a.thoJII'kIi... ..... Get largodry boLl Mat.e . good \ tleman flattrad Has'HHtevt'rekllT ( 1 dJUJ U>si n4entitMe Uii i admtl vmenV" ( >)- | t 1A'bt1IAihiB1 rVUb W1XU W* wtl1 Res. : : coT.r of top b,,,putting.on hinge* and Widow-Certainly. ', OnI7"'toda-r.be ilated bru. bend ....mp..d. two JTIIaItV.I'1". ; .'S Ml-ei* dsrs7lrebrm nl!' td ed Dg.isisntf _ a4'ttL. INr wu.tnn to esr4 toessO T-' I. " a, ,!line i with' henry, ,carpet or tar papor.i > was sayingThat's: the sort of geSitl/ t OUBezpenM If for anjt TWO* Uwy "are "O 'MUfeat. _, .. IaI ..;'jl" .. t tI ( .4 i Tack paper. ,o that, there will b* no I w. >r4perlectly! Rltebleand momey _t to WI If .. .*> If _- I man London '' IhOUi4)kffl4)fl17) pa,.;:. ., !leaker,Bipr.or PrefghlAsrentor th. Editor of hIS '_ :r e poIr chance<< to,! moths to got Joi; lining flat Tatter,, ',.V ; ,'- u .%?; h... tines.wiwe.4sseth.rwatt'ridv-I.vs., : ; resterF -" --. - ..... .Pack away' winter'' clothing with r't' "F. J 1r4 F 1 erttua any lira TOO ha-ra e-rarnMci or seas at any price.s kaow that yes wtilbu... a-a' ' t'>,' of ,moth bull and newspapers.k ;j, ;' .':'A-t"Irr.PeI.IlL.. ./ .1. l .I./.,.. _..:1 '1. ei't I L ...dIr wh.t.-you. hsconthihiip wmnl a bicycle.-.you...,will.'. tee as't.your) emIer.j :We_,- suuss. ......:.: he !Record is Slijperbly ' .,'tcka or pieces of wood to ; ';*;:."Movlngr; InnulfedVaitMlgbbor' as a 1JtJ4.B7J12.RIiP' 'T" :::r.::. ..... .........'-t. ...' = I I '!' "" leUne.ntotfby: .... ... uoP.L] It< will "l1Ot' get, furniture Tan stopped In front! of JCerIsef ,jrlotketahrgta BBO i'cId Ihai iNP "If t.'r. o''..... "DBY_.. \. _, .' e iippeitl -to turn out a' Ls.uf'or attic, and houW. a: "No Indeed1 ispierl.e'eArrrend1'nte / A haAdo.dIIv au ws.sly O"07'QWMJft,1rJ7:! : .;:r-y' W Jr tIf,0II1: upto9,. :' .. ;3 no l | wtt.beOP\ ;:" to' b I ''''''''JIII'* d1; '''''' 'e uvSythsO= L JGL&GQ & yi3. \ " If :Ht ,MMnl to pack ear epUeotto ,of oaTaJr '' 'Yt'1'vtI . :t'.-. ..' : s.Islws. CYCLE .'. 'L.:1:: nI. u8.OI . .y 01. - : ; . ,>,, .... n J TIE) I . . "I . ,: ::. ,r- -w' .. ....... : - .', '-, -. ) :---0: : .. ;, . : r a' ;. vtN' -' ;!b I.\IJ> "'......" ..?:"."': '.:.'.1U..1' p" ., ';'" ...., ( .' .. ... T I' ._, ,i ". ,. ,"., ., C -- .. ".__.. .' ,.".'' '-':.'" ,. t-,-" ( -- ."" '"'' Contact Us | Permissions | Preferences | Technical Aspects | Statistics | Internal | Privacy Policy © 2004 - 2011 University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries.All rights reserved. Acceptable Use, Copyright, and Disclaimer Statement Powered by SobekCM | http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00087347/00192 | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | refinedweb | 19,667 | 77.53 |
Instead of logging print times, I store when it's ok for a message to be printed again. Should be slightly faster, because I don't always have to add or subtract (e.g.,
timestamp < log[message] + 10) but only do in the
true case. Also, it leads to a shorter/simpler longest line of code. Finally, C++ has 0 as default, so I can just use
ok[message].
C++
class Logger { public: map<string, int> ok; bool shouldPrintMessage(int timestamp, string message) { if (timestamp < ok[message]) return false; ok[message] = timestamp + 10; return true; } };
Python
class Logger(object): def __init__(self): self.ok = {} def shouldPrintMessage(self, timestamp, message): if timestamp < self.ok.get(message, 0): return False self.ok[message] = timestamp + 10 return True
Java
public class Logger { private Map<String, Integer> ok = new HashMap<>(); public boolean shouldPrintMessage(int timestamp, String message) { if (timestamp < ok.getOrDefault(message, 0)) return false; ok.put(message, timestamp + 10); return true; } }
I think this is the same with
if (map.containsKey(message) && (timestamp - map.get(message)) < 10) {
return false;
}
map.put(message, timestamp);
Both are O(1)
public class Logger { private Map<String, Integer> lookup = new HashMap<>(); public boolean shouldPrintMessage(int timestamp, String message) { if (lookup.containsKey(message) && (timestamp - lookup.get(message) < 10)) { return false; } lookup.put(message, timestamp); return true; } }
@StefanPochmann six six six
Neat solution, but i was wondering if the space gonna be an issue if we have many different Strings.
@dianhua1560 Eventually it might become a problem, yes. Depends on the circumstances. I guess I could throw out strings last printed more than ten seconds ago. Oh well... could be a follow-up question.
Although if there are too many different strings, there are some problem(as you have already mentioned), but your solution is soooooooooo awesome man!
@StefanPochmann What a perspective! \m/
said in Short C++/Java/Python, bit different:
getOrDefault
How is it possible to make the message the key? Since it accepts duplicates after 10 seconds and keys should be unique. The uniqueness is not identified here.
Can anyone help point out why this solution is wrong? I am really confused. Thanks!
if(map.containsKey(message)){ return timestamp - map.get(message) >= 10; } map.put(message, timestamp); return true;
Your solution is elegant! But for a Logger, probably it not that practical. Since your HashMap soon will blew up ....
Share my practical solution. Nothing fancy, just keep a window of 10 seconds..
public class Logger {
// Algo thinking Queue // time = O(N) class TimeMsg { int timestamp; String msg; public TimeMsg(int timestamp, String msg) { this.timestamp = timestamp; this.msg = msg; } } /** Initialize your data structure here. */ private static final int MAX_TIME_WINDOW = 10; Queue<TimeMsg> msgQueue; public Logger() { msgQueue = new LinkedList<>(); } /** Returns true if the message should be printed in the given timestamp, otherwise returns false. If this method returns false, the message will not be printed. The timestamp is in seconds granularity. */ public boolean shouldPrintMessage(int timestamp, String message) { while (!msgQueue.isEmpty() && timestamp - msgQueue.peek().timestamp >= MAX_TIME_WINDOW) { msgQueue.poll(); } Iterator<TimeMsg> iter = msgQueue.iterator(); while (iter.hasNext()) { TimeMsg tm = iter.next(); if (tm.msg.equals(message)) return false; } msgQueue.offer(new TimeMsg(timestamp, message)); return true; }
}
Looks like your connection to LeetCode Discuss was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect. | https://discuss.leetcode.com/topic/48359/short-c-java-python-bit-different | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | refinedweb | 543 | 61.93 |
I've recently installed Windows Live OneCare and generally have been very happy with it. I'm using the Family Safety option to help my kids access the Internet safely. But one thing that's been bugging me is the outbound firewall.
If your software is signed with a code signing cert issued by an authority that is trusted on the machine (e.g., Thawte, Verisign, etc.) you're good, because the firewall will automatically allow your software to access the Internet. But if you don't want to shell out the hundreds of $$$ it takes to get one of these certs, especially for homebrew software, you might try to do what I did and tell the OneCare firewall about your app. Under Advanced Settings, you can point at your EXE file and tell the firewall to allow it to make outbound connections. Sadly this doesn't seem to work very consistently. Here's a sample program that I could sometimes get this to work for, and sometimes not:
using System;using System.Net;
class FetchMicrosoftHomePage { static void Main() { byte[] data; try { data = new WebClient().DownloadData(""); Console.WriteLine("Microsoft's home page is {0} bytes long", data.Length); } catch (WebException x) { Console.WriteLine(x); } }}
I've spent about an hour trying to figure out why I can only sporadically get the firewall to recognize this program, and I'm done now. FWIW, when it's not recognized, the firewall outputs a log message like this (you need to turn on detailed logging to see this, BTW):
There's a lot of people who will argue that an outbound firewall is useless, especially for non-techies. And a lot of people will argue the opposite point. I'm not here to argue either of these points, but I can say that this type of behavior makes it pretty hard for even highly technical people to use.
Since I'm personally in the, "outbound firewalls aren't that useful" camp, I fixed the problem on my own machine by adding four rules that allow all outbound TCP and UDP connections to all ports (I figured I needed four, since each rule only allows one protocol and you have to pick between local subnet vs. Internet). Then I shut off the prompts for "blocking" programs and everything seems to be working fine. But I wonder how many software developers will be running into deployment problems in home environments where lots of users are running this firewall. | http://www.pluralsight.com/community/blogs/keith/archive/2008/01/10/49871.aspx | crawl-002 | refinedweb | 413 | 60.24 |
Timers a motor for a certain time duration.
In this tutorial I am going to show how we can make a timer which can be used for almost every electrical device. The device is very easy to use and the device itself does not consume any power after it shuts down the electrical application. Because of hardware simplicity it is extremely durable. The prototype here I am showing, was made more than 5 years ago and still it is working flawlessly.
How to operate: While designing the timer device my top priority was ease of use. The AC input is provided by standard AC plug. For output I used AC female socket and any electrical appliance can attached easily.
To start the timer the red button (high voltage push switch) has to be pressed and device will run for ‘Default Time’. This default time is hardcoded in the program. For my device I kept it as 2 hours and 30 minutes. The time left to go off will be displayed in hour and minute format on 7 Segment display array. Two small push buttons are used to increase or decrease the remaining time. These buttons can be pressed at any time and it will increase or decrease 1 minute for each button press. If user keep pressed the button then time will decrease or increase continuously.
After the time is over the buzzer will alarm for 10 more seconds. During this user can extend the time by just pressing increase push button. If user does not extend time the device will be disconnected from AC power supply automatically. I did not keep any force shutdown button as it can be done by switching off the input power supply.
Required components:
- Atmel 89S52 microcontroller
- 40 pin IC socket
- 11.0592Mhz crystal
- 10μF capacitor (2 pieces)
- 33pF capacitor (2 pieces)
- 8.2kΩ resistance
- 10kΩ SIP resistance
- Common Anode 7 Segment Display (3 piece)
- LED (2 piece)
- 222Ω resistance (26 pieces)
- Passive Buzzer
- Push Switch (3 piece)
- Push Switch – High Voltage (1 piece)
- 0.5Amp fuse and socket
- AC Socket with cable
- AC Female Socket
- Relay
- 0-12V Transformer (500mA)
- AC Plug and Female Socket
- 4007 diode (4 pieces)
- 7805 voltage regulator
- Veroboard
- Wire and Tools
- Plastic container
Circuit design: The heart of this project is 89S52, which is a microcontroller based on 8051 architecture. I chose this microcontroller because it is the cheapest microcontroller which has 32 I/O pin. These much I/O pins helped me to connect 7 segment displays directly to microcontroller without additional component. To keep circuit diagram clean I have separated the 7 segment display array in the circuit diagram. The port pin mapping has shown in the display section.
I have used electromechanical relay to handle 240v AC. This relay needs a driver which can provide higher current and I have used ULN2003 for this. To increase durability you can use semiconductor relay instead of electromechanical relay and for that you do not need ULN2003..
Be careful while making AC section. Any short circuit will damage the whole circuit at once and may cause physical injury. The fuse is used to protect from short circuit. The whole system encapsulated in a plastic container to avoid electrical shock.
Here is circuit diagram of my prototype.
Source code: The code is written in C language. To generate hex code we need a compiler. I have used SDCC for this. Please note that the generated hex will differ from compiler to compiler. So if you are using different compiler you might need to adjust the time delay. Additionally the delay is also dependent on crystal frequency. If you are using different from 11.0592 MHz as I used you must adjust the time delay.
I have modularized the code for better maintainability and re-usability. In this page I am attaching main code. Click here to get the whole source code from github.
#include <SNR8052_v2.h> #include <SNR7SDisp_v2.h> #define Sec_Dot_Down P1_0 #define Sec_Dot_UP P2_1 #define Alarm P3_4 #define AC P3_7 unsigned long timerTime = 10800000; //3 Hours as default time //unsigned long timerTime = 180000; //3 Min for test unsigned long maxTimerTime = 14400000; //Max time 4 Hiurs void attachInterrupt(char interruptNo); void updateDisplay(); void initiateShutdown(); void incrmentInterrupt(void) __interrupt 0; void decrementInterrupt(void) __interrupt 2; void setup(){ Alarm = 0; // Making alerm off attachInterrupt(0); attachInterrupt(1); timerTime = timerTime + 60000; } void loop(){ if((timerTime - millis())<60000){ initiateShutdown(); } updateDisplay(); Sec_Dot_Down = !Sec_Dot_Down; Sec_Dot_UP = !Sec_Dot_UP; delay(500); } void initiateShutdown(){ int i=0; updateDisplay(); for(i=0;i<10;i++){ // 10 times for 5 sec Disp1_Dot = !Disp1_Dot; Disp2_Dot = !Disp2_Dot; Disp3_Dot = !Disp3_Dot; Alarm = !Alarm; delay(500); } if((timerTime - millis())<60000){ AC = 0; } else { Disp1_Dot = 1; Disp2_Dot = 1; Disp3_Dot = 1; Alarm = 0; } } void updateDisplay(){ int remainMin = (timerTime - millis())/60000; char minLeft1 = (remainMin%60)%10; char minLeft2 = (remainMin%60)/10; char hourLeft = (remainMin/60); write7Segment(hourLeft,1); write7Segment(minLeft2,2); write7Segment(minLeft1,3); } void attachInterrupt(char interruptNo){ switch(interruptNo){ case 0 : { // External Interrupt 0 EA = 1; // Enabling global Interrupt EX0 = 1; // Enabling External Interrupt 0 break; } case 1 : { // External Interrupt 1 EA = 1; // Enabling global Interrupt EX1 = 1; // Enabling External Interrupt 1 break; } default : { break; } } } void incrmentInterrupt(void) __interrupt 0{ if((timerTime-millis()) > maxTimerTime){ timerTime = millis(); } timerTime = timerTime + 60000; updateDisplay(); delay(200); } void decrementInterrupt(void) __interrupt 2{ if((timerTime-millis()) < 60000){ timerTime = millis() + maxTimerTime; } timerTime = timerTime - 60000; updateDisplay(); delay(200); }
2 thoughts on “General Purpose Timer”
using multiplexing would have been better. The header files are unnecessary and Timer 1 should be used
Hi NewtonEinstien,
Thanks for your comment.
Multiplexing of 7 Segments is definitely more versatile approach. Here I used directly I/O pin because I had enough available pins and does not need any additional component.
The header files are for modular programming pattern. ‘SNR8052_v2.h’ I created to get Arduino like programming structure. So whenever I start a new project I simply copy this file and it brings speed in development. Similarly I created ‘SNR7SDisp_v2.h’ for re-usability.
In ‘SNR8052_v2.h’ I created millis() function similar to Arduino and I am leveraging this function. This can be considered as a demonstration of solution where we need multiple update function. Timer0 and Timer1 can be used for more precise task. | http://www.snrelectronicsblog.com/8051/general-purpose-timer/ | CC-MAIN-2019-18 | refinedweb | 1,035 | 55.13 |
So, we're going from a fileserver where all users had full access to all files (setup before I was hired ) to a new fileserver on our new AD domain. Now I'm going crazy not knowing the best-practice way to design the NTFS permissions!!!! UUUHHG!!! It is turning into a real monster and I gotta get it under control asap.
So can anyone tell me best practices or point me to a tutorial on this? We have around 200 users, 1 corporate office, ~20 remote sites all connected by WAN, each site with ~15 users.
-- I think for simplicity all users should point to same root share and permissions should control access. Is there any real reason to make, for example, the corp office users point to a "more secure" share and the less priveledged users to a different share???
-- We have owners, regional mgrs, regional sales mgrs, receptionists, etc. They all need certain level of access to different places in the folder hierarchy on the fileserver.
-- The company owners don't want certain users to even see certain folders on the server, etc.
-- Everyone refers to the "shared drive" by different drive letters.
-- Is it better to use a UNC path instead of drive letter? If so, can AD push out a shortcut to each desktop pointing to the fileserver?
-- What is the simplest way do provide users access?
-- We currently share the server with DFS (Distributed File Service). Would it be better to just make a regular share on the fileserver?
I'm going crazy with this! Please help asap!
16 Replies
Apr 18, 2012 at 11:31 UTC
Well, that's a lot to cover!
Grouping people can make a very big difference, and a big time saver. In AD, group users in to memberships of groups, like the Owners, in one group, and Regional Managers in another. That way when you apply permissions, you can do it for the group, and be done. Also in this way, you're not messing around with adding and removing people from folders later, just add/remove from the group they belong(ed) to.
"-- I think for simplicity all users should point to same root share and permissions should control access. Is there any real reason to make, for example, the corp office users point to a "more secure" share and the less priveledged users to a different share???"
This is what we do. Everyone points to the single shared drive, but based on permissions, they only see their folder and a shared Company folder, and maybe someone else's if they have a reason/permission. We have AD create the path, it's under the Profile tab.
Apr 18, 2012 at 11:32 UTC
Rule of least privilege - you only get what you need to do your job.
ABE - Access Based Enumeration, you only see what you have access to.
I switched from multiple shares and everyone having drives mapped willy-nilly to a single share using ABE which is mapped as the same letter for everyone.
Use groups to control access, add users to groups, don't add users to shares/folders.
Make someone own the data, if it's QA data then the QA manager owns it. He approves anyone that wants access, signed form. Once a year have them review and sign off on the people that currently have access.
Sorry, can't get more detailed right now.
Apr 18, 2012 at 11:37 UTC
DFS is the way to go.
You can you Group Policy to automatically map a single drive letter to your DFS-Namespace (or a different drive letter to each namespace).
You probably only need a single namespace though.
Apr 18, 2012 at 11:47 UTC
Merryworks is an IT service provider.
Grouping and a good audit of who really needs access to what. I would rearrange shares and provide documentation for all about where things are located now and explain it is a more secure way of storing the data.
Apr 18, 2012 at 11:50 UTC
Limey gives good advice as far as how to handle the permissions issues, and who sees what (ABE). Brian covers the DFS addition quickly, and you stated that you use it, but I'm not sure that you need it at this point.
DFS is for logically lumping together a group of folders and files that are physically stored in various places, but making it look to the user like they're all in one place (so they don't have to wander from server to server looking for that spreadsheet they can't remember the name of). Will it hurt to have DFS going? No. But it may be more work for you right now than you need to take on, considering the setup that you have at the moment.
If it were me, I would set up OUs and groups in AD (if you don't already have them set up), assign each of the groups security rights through a GPO and assign the groups permissions to the folders.
Apr 18, 2012 at 11:50 UTC
When i go into a company that is transitioning from all access to limited (usually for data consolidation) i recommend going over and restructuring the shared drive first. You'll notice that as a small company grew its overlapping users with overlapping job roles began to become more specialized and as such each role needs to share much less information than what they have access to.
After the reevaluation of the files id take the top level down approach. The top level folder is accessible by probably one or two people and can see everything below them. In that folder branches down with the structure of your employees. So the manager of a remote site will be in the middle of the folder stack and can see all folders below. The receptionist will likely be at the bottom and can only see their one folder or two.
If you notice that, lets say, 'sales' from one site needs to work with files from the other remote site. In this case make a separate folder structure by job function. So all Marketing has a top level folder that has each remote site in that top level marketing folder. For access to only marketing staff create a group in AD that is called marketing. If john doe is a marketer, when you create his account add him to marketing AD group and he will have access to that shared folder specific for them.
Also i like to add to each departments specific folder a 'public' one. If HR needs some info to be available to everyone they can throw it in there and with DFS its super easy to consolidate every departments into a grand 'public viewing' scheme. - Also sym links
Apr 18, 2012 at 12:14 UTC
For some reason it is putting more backslashes than I wanted.
http:/
Apr 18, 2012 at 1:39 UTC
@ tech1313
I thought it was \\\\servername\\netlogon ?
Apr 19, 2012 at 7:07 UTC
Rule of least privilege - you only get what you need to do your job.
ABE - Access Based Enumeration, you only see what you have access to....
Grouping and a good audit of who really needs access to what....
It is why groups are used. Ease long term pain by minimizing exceptions to groups. Document & diagram to aid the process, and the org chart is a good start. Business owners of the data are resources to consult to get the strategy in place.
It will not happen all at once.
Business need will determine what is critical in terms of time &/or sensitivity. Be mindful of those items. hoyesmanana (above) gives a good starting point before getting more granular.
If there is a security or proprietary concern, the implementation may need to happen prior to announcing it. (A bit uncomfortable, that.)
.
....
-- The company owners don't want certain users to even see certain folders on the server, etc.
...
Huge asset here.
Locking things down (security) brings a level of inconvenience, "delays", grumbling, and cultural resistance.
Company owners needs send a memo/announcement that this is happening, there will be a transition period, and all complaints can be fielded to The Boss (or Bosses). Executive backing is critical, and more so if it needs to be a rapid transition.
Apr 27, 2012 at 3:47 UTC
Ok, thanks to all for the helpful comments so far. Honestly, though, this NTFS stuff is just more and more a nightmare. Can anyone help me with the following scenario...
Say I have the following path...
\\\\server\\share\\hr
\\\\server\\share\\sites\\london\\hr
\\\\server\\share\\sites\\london\\hr\\new hire docs
\\\\server\\share\\sites\\seattle\\hr
\\\\server\\share\\sites\\seattle\\hr\\new hire docs
I put Susan in the HR group which has full control on all hr folders above. I don't want Susan to see or have access to any other folder or file under each site but I do want Susan to be able to browse or "drill down" to the hr folders. Note, I have Access Based Enumeration enabled on the share.
I also need users in the reception group to have access to the new hire docs folder but don't want them to see anything else? I do, however, again want this group to be able to browse down to their target folder and I was hoping the traverse folder permission would all this but It seems it allows them only to enter the full path to access their target object.
Is there a "best practice" way to do this? Do I have to break inheritance at the london level and at the hr level? Am I right to deny the reception group to the other folders under hr except for the new hire docs? Doesn't seem right to deny by default. Seems like that should be the exception.
I know I'm not even explaining this as best as I should but If you know how to help me you'll know what I'm talking about.
PLEASE - Can anyone point me to a good tutorial on this, or do you all just hire Microsoft engineers? All the Youtube vids I see on this seem to be at a very basic level and I need complex instruction.
Apr 27, 2012 at 8:24 UTC
What I do is this:
Pitch a fit!
No, seriously, when someone says I want Susan to have access only to this folder three levels down I tell them no. I tell them it can be done but it means me breaking the inheritance of the folder security so at some point in the future, when I'm rushed and asked to add John to the other folder I'm going to screw up and the permissions will get very pear shaped. And it will be a long manual process to get them back again.
And then it usually isn't a big deal, we move that folder out to a "Documents" folder that contains all the folders that have funky access. It's accessible at the top level to all domain users, and it's only one level deep so security is straightforward.
Apr 28, 2012 at 2:05 UTC
Really you should never, ever be using deny permissions.
They just screw up any kind of troubleshooting IMO.
What I try and do wherever possible is blanket "SYSTEM" and "Administrators" on everything, and also add an ACL to each share for a group that has "folder list" permissions but nothing more.
Then I add on the groups that would ordinarily expect to have access to the entire contents of that folder, and if I do have exceptions and need to give someone permission to one folder three levels deep I can create a group, add the group to the "folder list" group, and give the new group permissions just on the folder they need.
It means they'll be able to see folder names, but access based enumeration will mean they won't see files.
Of course I try not to do that because as Limey says, it's a total cluster**** :)
I'd also be interested to know if anyone knows of a neater way.
Apr 28, 2012 at 2:24 UTC
I can't believe I cannot find a good YouTube video or some type of tutorial that addresses this mess according to best practices. There's got to be a "right way" to do this.
May 2, 2012 at 11:07 UTC
I like where Limey and Tech1313 have been leading you.
More of a comment here...
Personally, I've struggled with Windows Permissions ever since leaving Novell's methodology. I can't even remember it anymore but for some reason Novell's approach just made sense to me and was not only easy to understand but easy to implement and adjust.
I'm not usually one to look kindly on corporate theft and espionage but I kinda wish Microsoft had stolen some of this intellectual property from Novell in this instance.
May 2, 2012 at 2:12 UTC
What I have told users and especially managers lately is to look at it as a functional setup.
If that folder three levels down under HR needs to be accessed by someone other than HR then it shouldn't be there. Pull it out and slap it elsewhere, in a folder that's used explicitly for f'ed up permissions. You don't get access to the HR folder structure unless you are HR. You don't get access to QA unless you are QA.
And when the QA manager says well they need access to this one folder you tell them I won't do that unless we give them access to everything under your structure. See how important it is then!
Of course everything comes at a cost, so instead of Engineering being able to look in QA at a piece of data they now have to either be emailed the data or it gets copied out to a shared temp folder from where it is deleted after 24 hours.
Bottom line: instead of killing yourself trying to come up with the perfect scheme, throw it back on the business unit owners. Ask them who should have access to their data, make them responsible for that, but make sure you explain the limitations of setting it up and maintaining it.
This discussion has been inactive for over a year.
You may get a better answer to your question by starting a new discussion. | https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/217325-fileserver-permissions-i-m-going-crazy-help | CC-MAIN-2017-26 | refinedweb | 2,450 | 69.92 |
#include <hallo.h> * Jonathan Wiltshire [Fri, May 29 2009, 12:09:37AM]: > --- ../apt-cacher-ng.old/debian/apt-cacher-ng.templates 2009-05-27 20:37:13.000000000 +0100 > +++ debian/apt-cacher-ng.templates 2009-05-28 22:48:07.000000000 +0100 > @@ -1,20 +1,18 @@ > Template: apt-cacher-ng/modifytargets > Type: boolean > Default: true > -_Description: Configure apt-cacher-ng to transparently reroute requests to different mirrors? > - Apt-cacher-ng can silently and transparently reroute user requests to > - different mirror(s). To simplify required configuration this setup can create > - or modify lists of target hosts. > +_Description: Transparently divert requests? > > The description was far too long. This brevity turns it into a much more > elegant question Maybe, but this... > + You can choose how this feature should behave in the next step. > > As it's a boolean, we just need a simple yes or no. Split the paragraph > to make it easier to read. ... > It doesn't make any sense asking the user whether to enable re-routing, > and then effective ask again in the next question. So, since there are ... tells me that the purpose of the question set is hard to understand because you didn't.. Unfortunatelly explaining all that in the preamble made the text look very bloated, therefore I tried to split it into two questions. > This obviously changes the maintainer script quite a lot. Eduard, > are you happy to make a change this big? For the purposes of this RFR, > I'll assume so, but please indicate your preference one way or the > other. I would change the debconf processing part as soon as it starts making more sense, I am not really happy with the current version. > --- ../apt-cacher-ng.old/debian/control 2009-05-27 20:37:13.000000000 +0100 > +++ debian/control 2009-05-28 22:31:21.000000000 +0100 > @@ -9,20 +9,20 @@ > Architecture: any > Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, adduser > Recommends: perl (>> 5.8), ed > -Description: Caching proxy for distribution of software packages > - Apt-Cacher NG is yet another implementation of a HTTP proxy for > - software packages, primarily targeted at Debian/Ubuntu packages but > - may also be used with others types. > +Description: caching proxy for distribution of software packages > > Lose the capital letter so that it's in is-a form. > > + Apt-Cacher NG is yet another implementation of an HTTP proxy for > > 'an' > > + software packages. It is primarily designed for .deb packages but > + may also be used with other package types. > > Break the sentence up a bit. Lots of other distributions besides us and > Ubuntu use the .deb package format. Grammar in the last line. I would change the last part to: It is primarily designed for Debian package files but may also be used with many other file types related to software package distribution.). > + It follows principles similar to many other solutions > + and serves the same purpose: a central machine presents the Ok. > + to download through it. Apt-Cacher NG keeps a copy of all useful data > + that passes through it and when a similar request is made, > + the cached copy of the data is delivered without fetching it from > + the repository all over again. Sounds good. > - Apt-Cacher NG is more than a simple rewrite of Apt-Cacher. It was redesigned > - from scratch and is written in C++ with main focus on maximizing throughput > + Apt-Cacher NG has been designed > + from scratch with a focus on maximizing throughput > with low requirements on system resources. > > With my user's hat on, I don't really care what language it's written in > or what it's history is. I just care that it's lean and won't hog all my > memory if I run it on a small box. Maybe, but it's oversimplified now. This paragraph was added for users that DO want to know the major difference between this package and apt-cacher. What about following: Apt-Cacher NG has been designed from scratch as replacement of apt-cacher but with focus on maximizing throughput with low requirements on system resources. Regards, Eduard. | https://lists.debian.org/debian-l10n-english/2009/05/msg00094.html | CC-MAIN-2017-17 | refinedweb | 675 | 66.23 |
Hi Curtis, Thanks for testing things out.
Advertising
Potentially we could de-instate the osg::State::dirtyTexCoordPointer() as there osg::VertexArrayState takes over this functionality, you can get the current VertexArrayState via state.getCurrentVertexArrayState(). I removed the functions like dirtyTexCoordPointer() to help make sure the rest of the OSG doesn't rely on deprecated methods. I wasn't expect it to be used widely by users. Is there code you had to modify open sourced? If so could you point me at it so I can work why it's being used and the way it's being used. This might help inform how to adapt things. For OSG-3.6 it would be ideal to smooth out glitches that end uses are seeing so any assistance on homing on what the issues are will really help in this. Robert. On 13 October 2016 at 16:46, Curtis Rubel <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Robert, > > I did some very basic testing of this for you yesterday. There is > no need to respond back to me with any possible fixes or anything, > I am just passing this along to you for your information right now. > We have no plans on updating our OSG version in the near future. > > I was able to successfully compile the release on OpenSuSE 13.2 64bit Linux. > > Next I recompiled our Opensource OpenIG application against this release and > everything compiled OK, with exception of one minor change to the source code > for a missing function: > > osg::State* state = renderInfo.getState(); > #if OSG_VERSION_LESS_OR_EQUAL(3,5,3) > state->dirtyTexCoordPointer(1); > #endif > > I used 3.5.3 above only because that is what I know for sure as I do not > have a copy of 3.5.4 to check against. > > After this change our OpenIG application runs with no segv's, however > there are a number of visual issues noted with the 3.5.6 master: > > 1. The one FBX model in the scene is not positioned properly anymore. > Although the shadow for it seems to still be in the correct location and > even shows the animation of that model, even though visually the > model itself is not in that location anymore. > 2.. There appears to be something going on with our terrain shaders too > as when I change the TOD to 10:00, the terrain all turns bright white > from its normal textures. In fact just moving around in the scene > also results in the terrain textures disappearing totally. > 3. Seems that our F+ lighting implementation will also need some > adjustments as it appears not to be rendering properly anymore. > > I know very little about how the shaders were implemented in > this application as most of this was done by our consultant, just passing > on some of the basic results as I seem them right now for you. > > All of this is working properly in the 3.5.3 version we have been using > so at some point between this and whats on the master branch now these > visual changes have shown up. > > Anyhow I know its just some very basic info, but I figured I would pass > it along for you in case this is not what you might have expected with > this latest release. > > We will be curious to see what if anything anyone else reports back to you. > > ... > > Thank you! > > Cheers, > Curtis > > ------------------ > Read this topic online here: > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > osg-users mailing list > [email protected] > _______________________________________________ osg-users mailing list [email protected] | https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg72902.html | CC-MAIN-2018-05 | refinedweb | 583 | 71.24 |
TDD in Mobile Development – Part 3
- Unit Testing of Platform-Specific Code in Mobile Development.
- Portable IoC (Portable.TinyIoC) for Mobile Development
- Cross-Platform Unit Testing – in progress.
This is the third post in my TDD for Mobile Development series..
In the Previous post I showed how to use NUnitLite to write unit/integration tests on Android and iOS. This post shows how you could write your unit tests with NUnit framework and running them from your IDE.
Problems with NUnitLite
NUnitLite does not have a test runner that could be used outside of the mobile OS. This holds true for both Android and iOS. That’s why every time we need to run the tests, we have to deploy into a real device or a simulator/emulator to run the tests.
Now this could be ok and necessary for some platform-specific logic. However, in most cases, we do not have to test the code on the exact platform. Take the example that we had in the previous post,
public int GetTotal(int first, int second) { return first + second; }
This code is just plain c# code that could be placed outside of the platform specific code and could be used on multiple platforms, and could then be tested conveniently using NUnit.
Portable Class Library (PCL)
This brings us to using PCL (Portable Class Libraries). The beauty of using PCLs is not only in sharing code across multiple platforms, but it also enables us to test our code using full frameworks like NUnit or Microsoft Test (although I would really stick with NUnit
).
Bear in mind that PCLs are evolving and everyday there are quite few packages for PCLs are coming up.
Some developers might argue that it is trouble-some to write your code in PCLs since it adds restrictions and only allows you to use a subset of .net that is supported on all configured platforms.
This could be true, but you could get around it by three ways:
1- Only support the platforms that you really need.
I normally use PCL profile 78 or 158. This gives me the two main platforms that I am working on Android and iOS, plus some later versions of Windows phone (8.1), and Silver light. You do not have to use a profiles that tries to support older versions, and you will have less limitations by following this approach.
2- Make use of Nuget Packages.
Installing Nuget packages is a great way of going PCL. Whenever I am trying to do something that is not supported in the .NET subset, I look up the Nuget store and most of the time I would find that somebody has already developed a package that I could just use directly. The other nice thing about Nuget packages, Nuget supports distributing multiple platforms libraries. This means that sometimes you get a package that could support Android, and iOS. In this case you would find two separate folders under /lib (inside the Nuget package) one folder for each platform (Android, iOS). In some other cases, Nuget could give you a portable library where you would get folders (under /lib) like portable-win81+net54+ etc. This means that the dlls inside this folder could be used and referenced from within this kind of profiles (Platforms). This is great news because you could just use the code without worrying about changing anything. Examples of such packages are:
a. SQLite.NET-PCL
b. PCLWebUtility
c. Microsoft.Bcl
d. Microsfot.Bcl.Build
e. Microsoft.Bcl.Async
e. Newtonsoft.Json
3. Abstract your platform specific logic and use a platform specific implementation.
Sometimes your logic has to have a platform specific version, let’s say you are doing something with animation, or cryptography where you need to use the platform specific libraries.
The best way to go about this is to have an abstraction that gets injected into the libraries/classes that depends on these (platform-specific) components. This means that your classes/libraries does not have any dependency on the platform specific code. It is only dependent on abstraction. During run-time, you could inject your platform specific implementation via any IoC container or even manually. I have a full post on IoC in Cross-platform here. Also it is worth looking at SQLite.NET-PCL implementation as it follows exactly this approach.
MVVM
MVVM is a great approach for developing software because it ensures that your business logic is not coupled into any presentation layer/component.
There is even MVVMCross which allows you to build apps in a cross-platform fashion. However, I do not prefer to go with MVVMCross because it adds much more complexity than I need and in case I need to develop and change something out of the framework, then I would need to invest a lot in learning and building workarounds. Therefore, what I do is just stick with my ViewModels.
This means I take advantage of the MVVM pattern by having my ViewModels holding all my business logic code and injecting these viewmodels into my controllers/presenters.
The viewModels could also have other services, factories, repositories injected into them (using IoC container or manually) and that way our code is all cross platform and very testable.
public class CalculatorViewModel : ViewModelBase { public int GetTotal(int first, int second) { return first + second; } } //iOS Controller public class CalculatorController : UIViewController { private readonly CalculatorViewModel _viewModel; public CalculatorController (CalculatorViewModel viewModel) { _viewModel = viewModel; } } //android Controller public class CalculatorController : Fragment { private readonly CalculatorViewModel _viewModel; public CalculatorController (CalculatorViewModel viewModel) { _viewModel = viewModel; } }
Writing Tests
As you can see from above, our logic is now sitting in the ViewModel and it is all testable regardless of the platform. This also make it easy for us to use any test farmework and test runners. This includes NUnit or Microsoft Test. It gets even better, we could even have our test libraries targetting .NET 4.0 or 4.5, which means we could use all the goodness of .NET in writing our tests. This includes using FakeItEasy and RhinoMock.
Running the Tests
Now that we have all this great setup, then we could look at running our tests. For using Microsoft Test, this comes out of the box so no need to install anything extra. If you prefer using NUnit like me, then you could either install the latest version of NUnit (this includes the adapter and the runner). However, there is even a better way, you could just install NUnit Adapter (with Runner) from the Nuget store. This will make the NUnit adapter and runner part of your solution and you would need to install the framework on all developers machines and your build server (as we will see in the Continuous Integration Server setup later).
To start writing your test, you could create a class library that targets .NET 4.0 or .NET 4.5, and install NUnit Adapter Nuget package, and start writing your tests like below:
Conclusions
In Conclusion, I have demoed in the last three posts (1, 2, and 3) how to have a mobile test-driven development. I hope this motivates you to start looking at improving your code quality and employ some of the tacktics we talked about here. If you have any comments and questions, I would love to hear them so get in touch.
TDD in Mobile Development – Part 3
{{ parent.title || parent.header.title}}
{{ parent.tldr }}
{{ parent.linkDescription }}{{ parent.urlSource.name }} | https://dzone.com/articles/mobile-test-driven-development | CC-MAIN-2017-30 | refinedweb | 1,236 | 61.56 |
Vector::size() in C++ STL
Sign up for FREE 1 month of Kindle and read all our books for free.
Get FREE domain for 1st year and build your brand new site
Vector::size() in C++ STL is used to get the size of a vector container that is the number of elements it has. We have compared it with empty() and capacity() functions as well which are related.
In short, it is called as follows:
int size = vector_name.size()
In c++ STL, there are two types of containers:
- Sequential Containers
- Container Adaptors
Vector is a sequential container that stores objects and data. vector can be seen as dynamic arrays, beacuse vectors are dynamic there is no constraint on the size of a vector.As an element is inserted or deleted vector has the capacity to resize itself accordingly.
size()
size function is used to return the number of elements in a given vector or in other words it returns the size of the vector.
Parameters passed
No parameters are passed in the size function.
Return Values
size() returns the integer value containing.
Syntax
vector_name.size()
Complexity
time complexity:
Big O(1)
Example
Here is an example of use of the size function.
#include<iostream> #include<vector> using namespace std; int main() { vector<int> vect; vect.push_back(10); vect.push_back(1); vect.push_back(3); vect.push_back(9); vect.push_back(18); vect.push_back(2); vect.push_back(14); cout<<vect.size(); return 0; }
Output:
7
Explanation of the code
The above code explains the working of the size() function. The push_back() function adds the elements to the vector one be one , 7 elements in total and the size() function is used to check the size of the vector that comes out to be 7 as shown in the output.
Comparison with other functions
size() vs capacity()
The capacity() is the memory space that a vector is using currently.Capacity may or may not be equal to the vector size. It is always equal to or greater than the size of the vector.
The main difference between the size() and capacity() is that the size is exaclty the number of elements in a given vector whereas the capacity is maximum number of elements a vector can have without the reallocation of the memory. When this limit is reached then the capacity is expanded automatically.
Example
#include <iostream> #include<vector> using namespace std; int main() { vector<int> vect; for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++) { vect.push_back(i); } cout << "The size of vector is " << vect.size(); cout << "\nThe maximum capacity is " << vect.capacity(); return 0; }
Output:
The size of vector is 5 The maximum capacity is 8
Explanation of the code
The above codes illustrates the working of size() and capacity() function. push_back() function is used to initilize the vector i.e. i is pushed onto the vector as the loop goes from 1 to 5 and terminates when i=6. so the elements in the vectors are 1,2,3,4,5. Then the size() function is used to print the size of the vector which comes out to be 5 and the capacity is 8 in this case.
size() vs empty()
empty() function is used to check whether the vector is empty or not.It does not give any information about size of the vector. It only returns bool value which is true if the vector is empty or false otherwise.
Return Values
- returns bool value
- true: if the vector is empty.
- false: if the vector is not empty.
Example 1
#include <iostream> #include <vector> using namespace std; int main() { vector<int> vect; if (vect.empty()) { cout << "True"<<endl; } else { cout << "False"<<endl; } return 0; cout<<"size of the vector is "<<vect.size(); }
Output:
True size of the vector is 0
Explanation of the code
The code above shows the difference between empty() and size() function.The vector vect does not contain any element i.e. the vector is empty. The empty() function in this case returns True because the vector does not contain any element, Whereas
the size() returns 0.
let's see what happens when the vector is not empty.
Here is another example that shows the results in that case:
Example 2
#include <iostream> #include <vector> using namespace std; int main() { vector<int> vect; vect.push_back(3); vect.push_back(4); vect.push_back(6); vect.push_back(9); if (vect.empty()) { cout << "True"<<endl; } else { cout << "False"<<endl; } return 0; cout<<"size of the vector is "<<vect.size(); }
Output:
False size of the vector is 4
Explanation of the code
So, in this example we have initilized the vector with 4 elements.so the vector contains 3,4,6,9. As it is clear that the vector is not empty the empty() function will return false, whereas the size() will return the size of the vector which will be 4 in this example.
Application of empty()
#include<iostream> #include<vector> using namespace std; int main() { vector<int> vect; int sum=0; for (int i = 1; i < 6; i++) { vect.push_back(i); } while(!vect.empty()) { sum += vect.back; vect.pop_back(); } cout<<sum; return 0; }
Explanation of the code
The above example illustrates the use of empty() function , the code sums the elements of the vector, it starts adding the elements from the last of the vector using the back() function. Each time an element is added to the sum that element is popped from the vector using the pop_back() function and it continues to do the sum until the vector is empty. Each time the condition is checked using empty() function, the function returns false until the vector is not empty. once the vector is empty the empty() function returns true and the condition becomes false.
QUESTIONS
If the vector container is empty what will size() and empty() returns?
With this article at OpenGenus, you must have a complete idea of Vector::size() in C++ STL to get the size of any vector and its comparison with other related functions. Enjoy. | https://iq.opengenus.org/vector-size-cpp-stl/ | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | refinedweb | 999 | 62.27 |
Hi Vatsa,Sorry for the delayed reply - the last week has been very busy ...On 3/1/07, Srivatsa Vaddagiri <[email protected]> wrote:> Paul,> Based on some of the feedback to container patches, I have> respun them to avoid the "container" structure abstraction and instead use> nsproxy structure in the kernel. User interface (which I felt was neat> in your patches) has been retained to be same.I'm not really sure that I see the value of having this be part ofnsproxy rather than the previous independent container (andcontainer_group) structure. As far as I can see, you're putting thecontainer subsystem state pointers and the various task namespacepointers into the same structure (nsproxy) but then they're remainingpretty much independent in terms of code.The impression that I'm getting (correct me if I'm wrong) is:- when you do a mkdir within an rcfs directory, the nsproxy associatedwith the parent is duplicated, and then each rcfs subsystem gets toset a subsystem-state pointer in that nsproxy- when you move a task into an rcfs container, you create a newnsproxy consisting of the task's old namespaces and its new subsystempointers. Then you look through the current list of nsproxy objects tosee if you find one that matches. If you do, you reuse it, else youcreate a new nsproxy and link it into the list- when you do sys_unshare() or a clone that creates new namespaces,then the task (or its child) will get a new nsproxy that has the rcfssubsystem state associated with the old nsproxy, and one or morenamespace pointers cloned to point to new namespaces. So this meansthat the nsproxy for the task is no longer the nsproxy associated withany directory in rcfs. (So the task will disappear from any "tasks"file in rcfs?)You seem to have lost some features, including fork/exit subsystem callbacks>>simple cpu_acct subsystem.Paul-To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" inthe body of a message to [email protected] majordomo info at read the FAQ at | http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/3/6/536 | CC-MAIN-2014-41 | refinedweb | 344 | 56.89 |
Swing.The main goal of this project is quite ambitious: create a Swing framework which allows to quickly create a simple Swing application
and which is also flexible and extensible for the big commercial applications. The key to success it to recognize the common patterns and the best practices that help to create a good Swing application and implement them in the Swing Application Framework. In this blog entry I want to describe the recent changes and give the reasons why it was done this way and bring up some issues to think over. Don't hesitate to share your opinion, we make it for you and your feedback is very important for us. The project is now in transition state and the API may be changed. The latest source files you can find in the Subversion reporsitory, zipped files are also available,
the previous stable version can be found here.
One frame application
The framework is to be friendly to beginners and creating an application with a single frame should be very easy.
Remember the time when you were writing your first Swing application - JFrame with a main component, toolBar, statusBar and menu what questions did you have?
- How to create a JFrame?
- How to place components properly to the frame?>
- How to show the frame?
Let me show you how it can done with the latest SAF:
By running this small example you'll see the frame with the menu, toolbar and the label as the main component. This frame will have the size sufficient to all its subcomponent and be shown at the center of the screen.By running this small example you'll see the frame with the menu, toolbar and the label as the main component. This frame will have the size sufficient to all its subcomponent and be shown at the center of the screen.
public class SingleFrameExample2 extends SingleFrameApplication {
@Override
protected Component createMainComponent() {
JLabel label = new JLabel("JLabel");
label.setFont(new Font("LucidaSans", Font.PLAIN, 32));
return label;
}
@Override
protected JMenuBar createJMenuBar() {
JMenuBar bar = new JMenuBar();
JMenu menu = new JMenu("JMenu");
menu.add(new JMenuItem("JMenuItem"));
menu.add(new JMenuItem("JMenuItem"));
bar.add(menu);
return bar;
}
@Override
protected JToolBar createJToolBar() {
JToolBar toolBar = new JToolBar();
toolBar.add(new JButton("JButton"));
return toolBar;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
launch(SingleFrameExample2.class, args);
}
}
Open issues
With the provided test case you can easily create one frame, but what about more realistic multi frame applications? The SingleFrameApplication creates the main frame and exits when the frame is closed. It may be not the case if there are more frames in your application, for example you may want your application to stay open until it has at least one frame visible. It is also important for the modern application to save the state of a frame (like its size and position) when it is closed and restore it when the application is started again.All that mean that we can't just create a frame or dialog and show it. We need a way to let the application set it up and add closing listeners or set the frame's bounds. The current SingleFrameApplication has the
public void configureWindow(Window root, Object key)
which should be called after you create any secondary window in your application. The first parameter is the window itself and the second one is the identifier of this window, which is used to save the window's state.This design is not very flexible, for example it is difficult to set which window should close the application
Proposed API
Introduce a new method in the Application class
public void registerWindow(Window w, WindowContext c)
and add a new WindowContext class which will keep the identifier, know how to configure this window and whether window's listener should close the application when this window is closed
saveState() and restoreState() methods are also candidates to the WindowContext class That's all for today, the next blogs will be about the View class and the Application singleton.saveState() and restoreState() methods are also candidates to the WindowContext class That's all for today, the next blogs will be about the View class and the Application singleton.
abstract public class WindowContext {
abstract public Object getIdentifier();
public void configure(Window w){
}
//Is it a good name for this method?
public boolean isClosingApplication() {
return false;
}
}
I am looking forward to your comments.
Thanks
alexp
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- alexfromsun's blog
- 7134 reads
how to add a editor pane
by percolator - 2009-09-04 16:27This code does not look like the code when you start a new desktop project. I have downloaded netbeans 6.7.1 and the desktop app runs but of coarse it does almost nothing. How about showing your code in context to the code generated by netbeans? Isn't that how most people will run swing application framework? How can I add some control to the application? I only know the simple apps in the swing tutorial and I am trying to understand this framework. thanks.
by josuatree - 2009-02-27 07:28Hello, after a new bug detected, here's a new setSessionState (i hope tht's the last !) :); // -------------------------- added JCS 27.2.2009 ---------------------- String clientPropertyKey = "WindowState.normalBounds"; ((JFrame) c).getRootPane().putClientProperty(clientPropertyKey, frameBounds); // -------------------------- added JCS 27.2.2009 ---------------------- } } } if (w instanceof Frame) { ((Frame) w).setExtendedState(windowState.getFrameState()); } } } }
by josuatree - 2009-02-26 09:25A better setSessionState (revisited this day after a bug) in SessionStorage :); } } } if (w instanceof Frame) { ((Frame) w).setExtendedState(windowState.getFrameState()); } } } }
by josuatree - 2009-02-25 17:44Hi I have modified methods "getSessionState" and "setSessionState" for a better support for two or more monitors and fullscreen modes. I give you the code here or i can send you "SessionStorage.java" : public Object getSessionState( Component c ) { checkComponent(c); int frameState = Frame.NORMAL; if (c instanceof Frame) { frameState = ((Frame) c).getExtendedState(); } GraphicsConfiguration gc = c.getGraphicsConfiguration(); Rectangle gcBounds = (gc == null) ? null : gc.getBounds(); Rectangle frameBounds = c.getBounds(); /* If this is a JFrame created by FrameView and it's been maximized, * retrieve the frame's normal (not maximized) bounds. More info: * see FrameStateListener#windowStateChanged in FrameView. */ if ((c instanceof JFrame) && (0 != (frameState & Frame.MAXIMIZED_BOTH))) { String clientPropertyKey = "WindowState.normalBounds"; Object r = ((JFrame) c).getRootPane().getClientProperty(clientPropertyKey); if (r instanceof Rectangle) { frameBounds = (Rectangle) r; } // -------------------------- modified JCS 25.2.2009 ---------------------- if (!gcBounds.contains(frameBounds.getLocation())) { Point loc = gcBounds.getLocation(); loc.x = (gcBounds.width - frameBounds.width) / 2 + gcBounds.x; loc.y = (gcBounds.height - frameBounds.height) / 2; frameBounds.setLocation(loc); } // -------------------------- modified JCS 25.2.2009 ---------------------- } return new WindowState(frameBounds, gcBounds, getScreenCount(), frameState); } ----------------------------------------------------------------- ADDED: private Rectangle computeVirtualGraphicsBounds() { Rectangle virtualBounds = new Rectangle(0, 0, 0, 0); GraphicsEnvironment ge = GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment(); GraphicsDevice[] gd = ge.getScreenDevices(); for (int i = 0; i < gd.length; i++) { GraphicsConfiguration gc = gd[i].getDefaultConfiguration(); debug("Screen " + (i + 1), gc.getBounds()); virtualBounds = virtualBounds.union(gc.getBounds()); } debug("Virt. screen", virtualBounds); return virtualBounds; } MODIFIED: public void setSessionState( Component c, Object state ) { checkComponent(c); if ((state != null) && !(state instanceof WindowState)) { throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid state"); } Window w = (Window) c; if (!w.isLocationByPlatform() && (state != null)) { WindowState windowState = (WindowState) state; Rectangle gcBounds0 = windowState.getGraphicsConfigurationBounds(); if (gcBounds0 != null && computeVirtualGraphicsBounds().contains( gcBounds0.getLocation())) { boolean resizable = true; if (w instanceof Frame) { resizable = ((Frame) w).isResizable(); } else if (w instanceof Dialog) { resizable = ((Dialog) w).isResizable(); } if (resizable) { Rectangle r = windowState.getBounds(); if (r.x < 0) { r.x = 0; } if (r.y < 0) { r.y = 0; } if (r.width < 1) { r.width = 640; } if (r.height < 1) { r.height = 480; } w.setBounds(r); } } if (w instanceof Frame) { ((Frame) w).setExtendedState(windowState.getFrameState()); } } } } --------------------------------- Bye
by josuatree - 2009-02-25 15:05I'm very interesting for this development. It's a good framework to start with my students. I wait for a long time to a new version (some bugs with 2 monitors). Thank's to continue this developpement. Is there a new version available and where. I use the 1.0.3. Bye.
by donohoe - 2009-01-09 15:00I hope this project continues. Having done a lot of swing and built my own framework for my DD Poker game, I know the value of this. I've started using it at a new job. I've posted some lessons learned here: -Doug
by yveszoundi - 2008-09-01 01:25My suggestions : * For the SingleFrameApplication class, it probably isn't necessary to a WindowContext object. "As the application has a single frame" so the name SingleFrameApplication, all the developer needs is to access the frame object to configure it without bothering with other abstractions to access properties and methods. * For application with multiple frames which would be some kind of MultiFrameApplication class, a WindowContext would be nice but only for registration to retrieve the window later. staticWindowContext.getContext(windowID).putProperty(key, value); staticWindowContext.getContext(windowID).doSomethingICouldDoWithoutTheFrameWork(); A windowContext wouldn't be useful at least to me really as : I would want to change many kind of properties => Can I access all properties through wrappers? I would want to call different methods => addWindowListener, addComponentListener, repaint, etc? To sum up, in a SingleFrameApplication, the frame window should be accessible and in a multi-frame application it would be better to let the user create the frames and deal with them manually. Some helpers static methods could easily create the menubar and toolbar through properties file or XML descriptors, using reflection. But if you offer that, people will ask why there isn't a XUL or WPF style framework included in appframework. Yves Zoundi, VFSJFileChooser : XPontus XML Editor :
by paulmfarrar - 2008-08-27 02:25Hi Alex, Glad to hear SAF is back up and running. I think it's a big and important project. Seems to me that many Swing developers have had to write their own frameworks to deal with exactly the sort of issues you're addressing in SAF, I know I have. I work with an application that has multiple frames and have had to devise my own structure for closing them. I have a hierarchical structure to the frames in my application. I think it's important to be able to register parent/child frame relationships so when a parent frame is closed, so are all it's children. This probably won't fit all applications so maybe it's an extension to the norm. Also, when persisting application state (windows, size) it's important to be able to associate other data with that state. In my application I reuse generic frames with different data models so I associate a the important data model information with the frame information when it's persisted. Finally on the persisting I think you should allow extensions so I can save my application context to a database, maybe using JPA. Good luck with SAF. Cheers, Paul.
by tbee - 2008-08-25 13:55You could also reverse the logic: instead of having a true false on instantiation, ask each window if it is ok the close the application when the framework intends to. This will also allow for a "save document" alike popup on each window.
by rgoodwin - 2008-08-24 23:50Hi Alex, registerWindow(...) sounds better. Not sure about WindowContext.isClosingApplication() though. Wouldn't want to be implementing boiler plate code unecessarily, e.g. for 30 or more window types. How many windows in a given application trigger a shutdown when they close? In our case there are at least 30 window types for various things including chooser dialogs etc, but only 1 is the main application window. We don't use S.A.F -- yet :) Have you also considered an 'opt in' approach, where only those few windows whose closure represents a shutdown hook need register this interest with the application? E.g. Application.registerShutdownHookContext(WindowContext wc); Not such a good method name, but you see what I mean :) Many thanks.
by rockhopper - 2008-08-21 08:11What's the name of the maven archetype for this? Or at least the artifactid and repo?
by dannyc - 2008-08-08 17:35Very excited to see this progressing. This and also with Beans Binding as well, there's going to be a lot to like in JDK 7 for Swing developers.
by bjenkins01 - 2008-08-07 09:08Thought I would pile on: great news that SAF hasn't been abandoned. Good luck in your endeavor.
by mrmorris - 2008-08-07 07:31Yeah nice to see the project is no longer derailed by JavaFX. Not sure I understand the need for isClosingApplication, the JSR-296 based applications I have working uses implements the ExitListener to the same vetoing effect: addExitListener( new ExitListener(){ public boolean canExit(EventObject arg0) { // Check if we have dirty data and prompt save dialog... } public void willExit(EventObject arg0) { // NOP } }); Also. What is the chance we'll get some sort of restart capability along the side of launch and end. This would be very handy to circumvent the singleton resource caching going on. For instance, it is not possible to change Locale in a JSR-296 app (Swing has no LocaleChangeEvent). I am thinking along the lines of starting in a new isolated ClassLoader instance: public void restart() { try { URLClassLoader parentClassLoader = (URLClassLoader)this.getClass().getClassLoader(); URLClassLoader classLoader = URLClassLoader.newInstance( parentClassLoader.getURLs(), parentClassLoader ); Class loadedClass = classLoader.loadClass( this.getClass().getName() ); Class[] argTypes = { String[].class}; Object[] args = { new String[]{""}}; Method method = loadedClass.getMethod("main", argTypes); method.invoke(null, args); } catch (Exception ex) { Logger.getLogger(this.getClass().getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex); } } Note: I have actually tried making this case with Hans before, to no effect though. Regards, Casper
by carcour - 2008-08-07 04:54Thank you Alexander. It's good to know that the project is still alive. The proposed API seems good to me. What about adding docking to the framework? This will make it a killer framework as no framework is complete without providing docking facilities.
by janschenkel - 2008-08-07 03:42Good to see the framework is being put back on the rails. As my first experience with OO programming was Think Pascal and the Think Class Library, I certainly appreciate a solid framework for creating applications - both document-based and single-frame style. Keep up the good work!
by luggypm - 2008-08-06 23:06Good work - it's great to know that usefull stuff like this isn't getting abandoned. @roboss - the Preferences registry problem isn't really an issue with this framework - it's an issue with the Preferences system itself. All somebody needs to do is write another implementation for use with windows ( file based perhaps ) ? I may tackle this job myself one day, as I'm getting a little tired of registry cruft myself. I may go completely oldschool and write a preferences implementation that uses .INI files. ;-)
by robross - 2008-08-06 17:42It was a nice example. Is the SAF using the Preferences API to save settings? I really do like the Preferences API, but I really do not like that it saves values to the registry on the Windows implementation. Unless you're planning on including some kind of uninstaller tool with the SAF that will clean up the registry when the application that saved values is no longer being used. Otherwise you'll just end up adding more cruft to the already crufty registry. I would really like a way to specify that the backing store should be an XML document stored in an appropriate, well-known location. (Even better, make this the default behavior in SAF, and let the user explicitly ask to save in the registry if that is what they really want. ) Often these locations are relative to the user's home directory. I know where to save these kinds of preferences on Windows (XP at least) and Mac OS X. I am also quite confident a standard location could be determined for other *nix-based platforms.
by fabriziogiudici - 2008-08-06 14:02Yep, good to know that the project is in good hands!
by kievgama - 2008-08-06 11:59Good to know this JSR is advancing! This feature for notifying (asking for permission as well) application closing is really interesting. It fits in cases where you have unsaved work in multiple windows, etc. Will this follow the same principle as in a PropertyVetoException ? You've mentioned a statusbar as an example in your post. Does this JSR concern widgets (like a JStatusBar) or it is only about application infrastructure? Good luck on the JSR
by phidias - 2008-08-06 10:30Hi Alex, I was wondering if you have any plans on implementing the createJMenuBar, createJToolBar methods to use the action names. Currently I do something like this in my version of createJMenuBar: String[] fileMenuActionKeys = { Keywords.NEW_SETTINGS, Keywords.OPEN_SETTINGS, Keywords.SAVE_SETTINGS, "---", Keywords.SAVE_IMAGE, "---", Keywords.PLOT, "---", Keywords.QUIT }; String[] viewMenuActionKeys = { Keywords.EDIT_SETTINGS, "---", "viewTabularData", "---", "edit-header-footer" }; String[] helpMenuActionKeys = { "about" }; menuBar.add(this.createMenu("File", fileMenuActionKeys)); menuBar.add(this.createMenu("View", viewMenuActionKeys)); menuBar.add(this.createMenu("Help", helpMenuActionKeys)); It would be nice to simply have properties that allow you to create menus, and toolbars like this: Application.menubar.File.name.en = File Application.menubar.File.Open = Open Application.menubar.File.Save = Save Application.toolbar. ... Open.Name.en = Open Open.ShortDescription.en = Open a File ... Regards, Mark
by davespamblock - 2008-09-19 10:31Hi Alex, Please add OSGi support to the framework - thank you!
by dingfelder - 2008-08-11 20:12Great to see you in charge of this development effort. I have been watching this JSR for a while, and have avoided getting involved up until now because it seems to be associated with netbeans (not sure if it is intentionally or not). It is my hope that at some point all references to a particular IDE could be removed... then I think it might get wider acceptance from folks like me who do not want to be tied to one IDE or the other. -- sorry for ranting, I will get back on track with my post now :) I am using a homegrown application class that does similar things with a few other features Like the Swing Application Framework, I have a toolbar, menu bar and status bar. I have also added 1. Integrated logging (log4j) 2. A properties file loading manager, 3. An integrated splash screen loader 4. I have also added a content area which contains a navigation tree on the left, and a panel area on the right where custom panels are drawn in a card panel, overlaid with a JXlayer. Selecting navigation links on the left tree then causes the corresponding panel on the right to be displayed. 5. I have added a thread manager that simplifies the processing of data threads which can change progress bars to indicate thread progress (completion % and status note updating etc) 6. My application class has a lot more stuff like serial communication classes and a database manager but that does not belong in a GUI framework. While mine is all working, I am eager to see if I can do better using the new Swing Application Framework as it becomes more stable. No sense re-inventing the wheel if this project can do it as well. Not sure if any of these ideas would be good for others but it is food for thought. In any case, congratulations Alex on this new role! | https://weblogs.java.net/node/240648/atom/feed | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | refinedweb | 3,206 | 57.37 |
Hi all.
On 12/05/2014 10:31 μμ, Barend Gehrels wrote:
hi,
We received a merge request from Samuel Debionne for support of variants for the distance algorithm. Thanks very much for this.
Menelaos, how can that be combined with your work for distance algorithm? Can it be merged, and which should go first?
It is orthogonal with respect to what I am doing on distances, as it simply adds one layer of dispatch between the free distance function and the actual dispatching in the boost::geometry::dispatch namespace.
With respect to which one goes first, I tried either way in my local repository and it ends up in a conflict. So it really does not matter. We just need to decide.
So far there are no tests for the proposed code, so I would prefer to have this before going for a merge.
My biggest concern is with respect to support for strategies. It is not at all obvious to me how this is to be done, given the fact that different geometry pairs are associated with different distance strategies.
Having said that, this is not an issue for the free distance function that does not take a strategy as argument, and variant support should be easy to implement (you first resolve variants, and then use the default distance strategy for the geometry pair we have).
My suggestion would be to start from this: support variants for distance(g1, g2) (no strategies), have tests for this variant support, and think more about how to do things with strategies.
Bruno, can you take a look at the contribution? (Others are of course welcome too).
This is the info:
Or view, comment on, or merge it at:
Commit Summary
- [distance] Add variant support
File Changes
- M include/boost/geometry/algorithms/distance.hpp (277)
Patch Links:
-
- | https://lists.boost.org/geometry/att-2923/attachment | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | refinedweb | 305 | 70.84 |
Model queries by SQL keyword
In the previous sections you
learned how to query single records, multiple records and related records with Django model methods. However, the matching process was done for
the most part on exact values. For example, a query for the
Store record with
id=1 translated into
the SQL
WHERE ID=1 or a query for all
Store records with
state="CA" translated
into the SQL
WHERE STATE="CA".
In reality, exact SQL matching patterns are far from most real world scenarios that require finer grained SQL queries. In the following sub-sections, you'll learn about the various Django model query options classified by SQL keywords, this way you can easily identify the required Django syntax using the better known SQL keywords as identifiers.
WHERE queries: Django field lookups
The SQL WHERE keyword is among
the most used keywords in relational database queries, because it's
used to delimit the amount of records in a query through a field
value. Up to this point, you've mostly used the SQL WHERE keyword
to create queries on exact values (e.g.
WHERE ID=1),
however, there are many other variations of the SQL WHERE
keyword.
In Django models, variations of
the SQL WHERE keyword are supported through field lookups, which
are keywords appended to field filters using
__ (two
underscores) (a.k.a. "follow notation").
Django queries rely on model field names to classify queries. For example, the SQL WHERE ID=1 statement in a Django query is written as ...(id=1), the SQL WHERE NAME="CA" statement in a Django query is written as ...(state="CA").In addition, Django models can also use the pk shortcut -- where pk="primary key" -- to perform queries against a model's primary key. By default, a Django model's id field is the primary key, so id field and pk shortcut queries are considered equivalent (e.g. Store.objects.get(id=1) Store.objects.get(pk=1))
A query with a pk lookup only has a different meaning than one with an id field, when a model defines a custom primary key model field.
=/EQUAL and !=/NOT EQUAL queries: exact, iexact
Equality or = queries is the
default WHERE behavior used in Django models. There are two syntax
variations for equality searches, one is a short-handed version and
the other uses the
exact field lookup, listing 8-33
shows both approaches.
Listing 8-33. Django equality = or EQUAL query
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Item # Get the Store object with id=1 Store.objects.get(id__exact=1) # Get the Store object with id=1 (Short-handed version) Store.objects.get(id=1) # Get the Drink objects with name="Mocha" Item.objects.filter(name__exact="Mocha") # Get the Drink objects with name="Mocha" (Short-handed version) Item.objects.filter(name="Mocha")
As you can see in listing 8-33,
you can either use the
exact field lookup to
explicitly qualify the query or use the short-handed syntax
<field>=<value>. Because exact WHERE
queries are the most common, Django implies
exact
searches by default.
Tip You can do case insensitive equality queries with the iexact field lookup (e.g. match 'IF','if','If' or 'iF'). See LIKE and ILIKE queries section for details.
Inequality or != searches also have two syntax variations presented in listing 8-34.
Listing 8-34. Django inequality != or NOT EQUAL query with exclude() and Q objects
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Item from django.db.models import Q # Get the Store records that don't have state 'CA' Store.objects.exclude(state='CA') # Get the Store records that don't have state 'CA', using Q Store.objects.filter(~Q(state="CA")) # Get the Item records and exclude items that have more than 100 calories Item.objects.exclude(calories__gt=100) # Get the Item records and exclude those with 100 or more calories, using Q Item.objects.filter(~Q(calories__gt=100))
As you can see in listing 8-34,
one syntax variation uses the
exclude() method to
exclude objects that match a given statement. Another alternative
is to use a Django
Q object to negate a query. In
listing 8-34 you can see the
Q object
Q(state="CA") that matches state values with
CA, but because the
Q object is preceded
with
~(tilde symbol) it's a negation pattern (i.e.
matches state values that aren't
CA).
Both the
exclude()
and
Q object syntax produce the same results.
Q objects are mostly used in more complex queries, but
in this case a negated
Q object works just like
exclude().
AND queries
To create SQL WHERE queries with
an AND statement you can add multiple statements to a query or use
Q objects, as illustrated in listing 8-35.
Listing 8-35. Django AND query
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from django.db.models import Q # Get the Store records that have state 'CA' AND city 'San Diego' Store.objects.filter(state='CA', city='San Diego') # Get the Store records that have state 'CA' AND city not 'San Diego' Store.objects.filter(Q(state='CA') & ~Q(city='San Diego'))
The first example in listing 8-35
adds multiple field values to the
filter() method to
produce a
WHERE <field_1> AND <field_2>
statement. The second example in listing 8-35 also uses the
filter() method, but uses two
Q objects
to produce a negation with the
AND statement (i.e.
WHERE <field_1> AND NOT <field2>) through
the
& operator.
Tip If you're looking for a broader AND query than the ones in listing 8-35, for example, get Store objects with state 'CA' AND those with state 'AZ', look at either OR queries or IN queries.
Tip If you're looking to combine two queries, for example query1 AND query 2, look at the Merge queries section later in this same chapter.
OR queries: Q() objects
To create SQL WHERE queries with
an OR statement you can use
Q objects, as illustrated
in listing 8-36.
Listing 8-36 Django OR query
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Item from django.db.models import Q # Get the Store records that have state 'CA' OR state='AZ' Store.objects.filter(Q(state='CA') | Q(state='AZ')) # Get the Item records with name "Mocha" or "Latte" Item.objects.filter(Q(name="Mocha") | Q(name='Latte'))
Both examples in listing 8-36
uses the | (pipe) operator between
Q objects to
produce a
WHERE <field1> OR <field2>
statement , similar to how the
& operator is used
for AND conditions.
IS and IS NOT queries: isnull
The SQL IS and IS NOT statements
are typically used with WHERE in queries involving NULL values. And
depending on the database brand, SQL IS and IS NOT can also be used
in boolean queries. To create SQL WHERE queries with an IS or IS
NOT statement you can use a Python
None data type with
an equivalency test or the
isnull field lookup, as
illustrated in listing 8-37.
Listing 8-37. Django IS and IS NOT queries
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Drink from django.db.models import Q # Get the Store records that have email NULL Store.objects.filter(email=None) # Get the Store records that have email NULL Store.objects.filter(email__isnull=True) # Get the Store records that have email NOT NULL Store.objects.filter(email__isnull=False)
The first example in listing 8-37
attempts a query on Python's
None value, in this case
None gets translated to SQL's NULL (i.e.
IS
NULL). The second and third examples in listing 8-37 use the
isnull field lookup, to create
IS NULL
and
IS NOT NULL queries, respectively.
IN queries: in
The SQL IN statement is used with
WHERE clauses to generate queries that match a list of values. To
create SQL WHERE queries with an IN statement you can use the
in field lookup, as illustrated in listing 8-38.
Listing 8-38 Django IN queries
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Drink # Get the Store records that have state 'CA' OR state='AZ' Store.objects.filter(state__in=['CA','AZ']) # Get the Item records with id 1,2 or 3 Item.objects.filter(id__in=[1,2,3])
As you can see in listing 8-38,
the Django
in field lookup can be used to create a
query for records that match a list values from any field (e.g.
integers, strings).
LIKE and ILIKE queries: contains, icontains, startswith, istartswith, endswith, iendswith
The SQL LIKE and ILIKE queries are used with WHERE clauses to match string patterns, with the former being case-sensitive and the latter case-insensitive. Django offers three field lookups to generate SQL LIKE queries, depending on the string pattern you wish to match. Listing 8-39 illustrates how to generate three different SQL LIKE queries with Django field lookups.
Listing 8-39. Django LIKE queries
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Item, Drink # Get the Store records that contain a 'C' anywhere in state (LIKE '%C%') Store.objects.filter(state__contains='C') # Get the Store records that start with 'San' in city (LIKE 'San%') Store.objects.filter(city__startswith='San') # Get the Item records that end with 'e' in name (LIKE '%e') Drink.objects.filter(item__name__endswith='e')
As you can see in listing 8-39,
the
% symbol represents an SQL wildcard and is placed
in different positions in the SQL LIKE pattern value depending on
the Django field lookup: to generate an SQL query with the
LIKE '%PATTERN%' you use the
contains
field lookup; to generate an SQL query with the
LIKE
'PATTERN%' you used the
startswith field
lookup; and to generate an SQL query with the
LIKE
'%PATTERN' you use the
endswith field
lookup.
Django also supports the SQL ILIKE queries, which functions as LIKE queries, but are case-insensitive. Listing 8-40 illustrates how to create ILIKE queries with Django field lookups.
Listing 8-40. Django ILIKE queries
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Item # Get the Store recoeds that contain 'a' in state anywhere case insensitive (ILIKE '%a%') Store.objects.filter(state__icontains='a') # Get the Store records that start with 'san' in city case insensitive (ILIKE 'san%') Store.objects.filter(city__istartswith='san') # Get the Item records that end with 'a' in name case insensitive (ILIKE '%A') Item.objects.filter(name__iendswith='A') # Get the Store records that have state 'ca' case insensitive (ILIKE 'ca') Store.objects.filter(state__iexact='ca')
The examples in listing 8-40 are
just like those in listing 8-39, the only different is Django's
field lookups are preceded with the letter
i to indicate a
case-insensitive ILIKE query.
It's worth mentioning the last
example in listing 8-40 is a case-insensitive version of =/EQUAL
and !=/NOT EQUAL queries. However, because
iexact uses
ILIKE under the hood it's mentioned again in this section.
REGEXP queries: regex, iregex
Sometimes the patterns supported
by SQL LIKE & ILIKE statements are too basic, in which case you
can use an SQL REGEXP statement to define a complex pattern as a
regular expression. Regular expressions are more powerful because
they can define fragmented patterns, for example: a pattern that
starts with sa followed by any letters, followed by a number; or a
conditional pattern, such as pattern that starts with Los or ends
in Angeles. Django supports the SQL REGEXP keyword through the
regex field lookup and also supports case-insensitive
regular expression queries through the
iregex field
lookup.
Although it would be beyond the
scope of our discussion to describe the many regular expression
syntax variations, a sample regular expression query to match
Store records with a
city that starts
with
Los or
San would be:
Store.objects.filter(city__regex=r'^(Los|San) +').
Note the recommended practice to
define patterns for
regex or
iregex field
lookups is to use Python raw string literals. A Python raw string
literal is a string preceded by
r that conveniently
expresses strings that would be modified by escape sequence
processing (e.g. the raw string
r'\n' is identical to
the standard string
'\\n'). This behavior is
particularly helpful with regular expressions that rely heavily on
escape characters. Appendix A describes the use of Python raw
strings in greater detail.
>/GREATER THAN and </LESS THAN queries: gt, gte, lt, lte
SQL WHERE statements associated
with numeric fields often use the mathematical operators >,
>=, < and <= to restrict queries to a certain number
ranges. Django models support the use of the mathematical operators
>, >=, < and <= through the
gt,
gte,
lt and
lte field
lookups, respectively. Listing 8-41 illustrates the use of these
field lookups in Django.
Listing 8-41. Django GREATER THAN and LESSER THAN queries
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item # Get Item records with stock > 5 Item.objects.filter(stock__gt=5) # Get Item records with stock > or equal 10 Item.objects.filter(stock__gte=10) # Get Item records with stock < 100 Item.objects.filter(stock__lt=100) # Get Item records with stock < or equal 50 Item.objects.filter(stock__lte=50)
Date and time queries: range, date, year, month, day, week, week_day, time, hour, minute, second
Although SQL WHERE queries for
date and time fields can be done with equality, greater than and
lesser than symbols, writing SQL date and time queries can be time
consuming due to their special characteristics. For example, to
create an SQL query to get all records with a 2018 year timestamp,
you need to create a query like
'WHERE date BETWEEN
'2018-01-01' AND '2018-12-31'. As you can see, syntax wise
these queries can become complex and error prone if you add the
need to deal with things like timezones, months and things like
leap years.
To simplify the creation of SQL WHERE queries with date and time values, Django offers various field lookups, which are illustrated in listing 8-42.
Listing 8-42. Django date and time queries with field lookups
from coffeehouse.online.models import Order from django.utils.timezone import utc import datetime # Define custom dates start_date = datetime.datetime(2017, 5, 10).replace(tzinfo=utc) end_date = datetime.datetime(2018, 5, 21).replace(tzinfo=utc) # Get Order recrods from custom dates, starting May 10 2017 to May 21 2018 Order.objects.filter(created__range=(start_date, end_date)) # Get Order records with exact start date orders_2018 = Order.objects.filter(created__date=start_date) # Get Order records with year 2018 Order.objects.filter(created__year=2018) # Get Order records with month January, values can be 1 through 12 (1=January, 12=December). Order.objects.filter(created__month=1) # Get Order records with day 1, where values can be 1 through 31. Order.objects.filter(created__day=1) # Get Order records from January 1 2018 Order.objects.filter(created__year=2018,create__month=1,created__day=1) # Get Order records that fall on week number 24 of the yr, where values can be 1 to 53. Order.objects.filter(created__week=24) # Get Order recrods that fall on Monday, where values can be 1 to 7 (1=Sunday, 7=Saturday). Order.objects.filter(created__week_day=2) # Get Order records made at 2:30pm using a time object Order.objects.filter(created__time=datetime.time(14, 30)) # Get Order records made at 10am, where values can be 0 to 23 (0=12am, 23=11pm). Order.objects.filter(date__hour=10) # Get Order records made at the top of the hour, where values are 0 to 59. Order.objects.filter(date__minute=0) # Get Order records made the 30 second mark of every minute, where values are 0 to 59. Order.objects.filter(date__second=30)
The first example in listing 8-42
uses the
range field lookup which takes two Python
datetime.datetime objects to define a date range for
the query. Although
range is the most flexible
approach to create date and time queries, there are other field
lookup alternatives that offer simpler syntax. The
date field lookup allows you to create query for an
exact date.
The
year,
month and
day field lookups allow you to
create queries that match records for a given year, month or day,
respectively. In addition, if you look at the middle of listing
8-42, you'll notice it's also possible to create a query with
multiple field lookups to match a combination of year, month and
day.
Finally, toward the bottom half
of listing 8-42 you can see the
week and
week_day field lookups can create a query for records
that match a given week of the year or day of the week,
respectively. In addition to the
time field lookup
designed to make a query based on a
datetime.time
object, as well as the
hour,
minute and
second field lookups designed to create queries for
records that match a given hour, minute or second,
respectively.
Tip To make a query that only extracts dates and times from a record (and not the full record), look at the DISTINCT section under the date and time sub-section.
Although Django provides an extensive list of field lookups to generate various SQL WHERE statements, this doesn't mean you will always find the necessary field lookup to generate a desired SQL WHERE statements. In such cases, you have the following alternatives:
- Create a custom lookup: Just like other Django custom constructs, you can create custom lookups with custom SQL WHERE statements[2].
- Use the extra() method: The Django model extra() method can also be used to create custom SQL WHERE statements[3].
- Use a sub-query: Sub-queries allow the creation of WHERE statements dependent on the results of other queries. A later section in this chapter addresses how to crate SQL sub-queries on Django models.
- Raw SQL query: You can create a raw(open-ended) SQL query with verbatim SQL WHERE statements. A later section in this chapter addresses how to execute raw SQL queries on Django models.
DISTINCT queries
The SQL DISTINCT keyword is used
to filter duplicate records and is supported in Django models
through the
distinct() method. By default, SQL
DISTINCT and the Django
distinct() method are applied
against the contents of entire records. This means that unless a
query limits its number of fields or a query spans multiple models,
the
distinct() method will never produce distinct
results. Listing 8-43 illustrates several queries that use the
distinct() method that better illustrate this
behavior.
Listing 8-43. Django DISTINCT queries with distinct()
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store # Get all Store records number Store.objects.all().count() 4 # Get all distinct Store record number Store.objects.distinct().count() 4 # Get distinct state Store record values Store.objects.values('state').distinct().count() 1 # ONLY for PostgreSQL, distinct() can accept model fields to create DISTINCT ON query Store.objects.distinct('state')
The first query in listing 8-43
gets the total count for all
Store records, where as
the second query gets the total count for distinct
Store records. Notice how even though the second query
uses the
distinct() method both counts are the same,
since there's at least one field value (e.g.
id)
across all records that's distinct.
The third query in listing 8-43
makes use of the
values() method to restrict the query
records to only the
state field. Once this is done,
the
distinct() method is applied to the query followed
by the
count() method, to get the total number of
distinct
state values. By applying a selective query
field method (e.g.
values() or
values_list()) prior to the distinct() method, the
logic performed by the distinct() method produces a logical
output.
The final example in listing 8-43
passes a model field to the
distinct() method to
produce an SQL DISTINCT ON query. This last
distinct()
method syntax is only supported for PostgreSQL databases which
understand the SQL DISTINCT ON statement.
Dates and times queries: dates() and datetimes()
In addition to the
distinct() method, Django also offer two special
methods designed to extract DISTINCT date and time values from
records. The
dates() and
datetimes()
methods generate a list of
datetime.date or
datetime.datetime objects (respectively) based on
model record values that match distinct dates or times.
The
dates() method
accepts three arguments, two required and one optional. The first
argument (required) is a date field on which to perform the
DISTINCT query, the second argument (required) is the date
component on which to perform the DISTINCT query, which can be
'year',
'month' or
'day'.
The third argument (optional) is the query order which defaults to
'ASC' for ascending, but can also be for
'DESC' descending.
The
datetimes()
method also accepts three arguments, two required and one optional.
The first argument (required) is a date time field on which to
perform the DISTINCT query, the second argument (required) is the
date time component on which to perform the DISTINCT query, which
can be
'year',
'month',
'day',
'hour', 'minute' or
'second'. The third argument (optional) is the query
order which defaults to
'ASC' for ascending, but can
also be for
'DESC' descending.
Listing 8-44 illustrates a series
of examples using the
dates() and
datetimes() methods.
Listing 8-44 Django DISTINCT date and time queries with dates and datetimes() methods.
from coffeehouse.online.models import Order # Get distinct years (as datetime.date) for Order objects Order.objects.dates('created','year') # Outputs: <QuerySet [datetime.date(2017, 1, 1),datetime.date(2018, 1, 1)]> # Get distinct months (as datetime.date) for Order objects Order.objects.dates('created','month') # Outputs: <QuerySet [datetime.date(2017, 3, 1),datetime.date(2017, 6, 1),datetime.date(2018, 2, 1)]> # Get distinct days (as datetime.datetime) for Order objects Order.objects.datetimes('created','day') # Outputs: <QuerySet [datetime.datetime(2017, 6, 17, 0, 0, tzinfo=<UTC>)...]> # Get distinct minutes (as datetime.datetime) for Order objects Order.objects.datetimes('created','minute') # Outputs: <QuerySet [datetime.datetime(2017, 6, 17, 3, 13, tzinfo=<UTC>)...]>
As you can see in listing 8-44,
the
dates() method produces a list of
datetime.date objects generated from a given date
component across all model records, where as the
datetimes() method produces a list of
datetime.datetime objects generated from a given date
time component across all model records. Note the examples in
listing 8-44 apply the
dates() and
datetimes() methods to all model records, but it's
valid to use these methods on any query (i.e.
filter()
or
exclude()).
Tip You can also use an aggregation query to count distinct values. See the Aggregation queries section for additional details on this process.
ORDER queries: order_by() and reverse()
SQL queries often use the ORDER
keyword to tell the database engine to sort query results based on
certain field or fields. This technique is helpful because it
avoids the additional overhead of sorting records outside the
database (i.e. in Python). Django models support the SQL ORDER
statement through the
order_by() method. The
order_by() method accepts model fields as input to
define the query order, a process that's illustrated in listing
8-45.
Listing 8-45. Django ORDER queries
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store # Get Store records and order by city (ORDER BY city) Store.objects.all().order_by('city') # Get Store recrods, order by name descending, email ascending (ORDER BY name DESC, email ASC) Store.objects.filter(city='San Diego').order_by('-name','email')
The first example in listing 8-45
defines a query for all
Store objects ordered by city.
By default,
order_by sets the order ascending (i.e.
'A' records first, 'Z' records last). The second example in listing
8-45 defines a
Store query but with multple fields, so
the query is first ordered by the first field and then with the
second. In addition, the second example illustrates the use of the
-- (minus) symbol to override the default ascending
order,
-name indicates to order records by
name but in descending order (i.e. 'Z' records first,
'A' records last).
Tip You can declare the ordering Meta option on a model to set its default query ordering behavior, instead of declaring the order_by() method. See the previous chapter's Query meta options section.
In addition to the
order_by() method, Django models also support the
reverse() method which inverts the results of a
QuerySet. The
reverse() method works just
like Python's standard
reverse() method that inverts
the order of a list, except it's designed to operate on Django
QuerySet data structures before the data is
materialized.
LIMIT queries
THE SQL LIMIT statement is used when you want to avoid reading an entire set of records in a query and instead limit the resulting records to a smaller set. The SQL LIMIT statement is helpful for cases when you purposely want to read query records gradually (e.g. large queries that are displayed on multiple pages, a.k.a. pagination) -- or you want to sample a query (e.g. get the first, last, latest or oldest record in a query).
Django models offers various mechanisms to generate LIMIT queries described in the next sections.
LIMIT and OFFSET queries: Python slice syntax
SQL LIMIT queries are often accompanied by the OFFSET statement, the last of which is used to extract records starting from a given point in the whole set of records. Django models support the creation of SQL queries with LIMIT and OFFSET statements using standard Python slice syntax (i.e. the same syntax used to split lists). Listing 8-46 illustrates how to generate LIMIT and OFFSET queries.
Listing 8-46. Django LIMIT and OFFSET queries with Python slice syntax
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from coffeehouse.items.models import Item # Get the first five (LIMIT=5) Store records that have state 'CA' Store.objects.filter(state='CA')[:5] # Get the second five (OFFSET=5,LIMIT=5) Item records (after the first 5) Item.objects.all()[5:10] # Get the first (LIMIT=1) Item object Item.objects.all()[0]
As you can see in listing 8-46,
the technique to generate LIMIT and OFFSET queries is through
Python's slice syntax applied directly to
QuerySet
data structures. In case you've never used Python's slice syntax,
the technique is straightforward: The syntax
QuersySet[start:end] gets items from
start to
end-1 of a
QuerySet, the syntax
QuerySet[start:]
gets items from
start through the rest of a
QuerySet and the syntax
QuerySet[:end]
gets items from the beginning of a
QuerySet through
end-1.
Pseudo LIMIT 1 order queries: first() and last()
Under certain circumstances, the
SQL LIMIT statement is used to get a single record that's the first
or last record in a set of records. Django models support the
first() and
last() methods which generate a LIMIT 1 query just as
if you created a query with the slice syntax
[0] --
describe in listing 8-46.
The
first() and
last() methods are typically preceded by the
order_by() model method, in order to guarantee an
expected record order and thus get the first or last record of said
records. If the
first() and
methods are applied without the
order_by() model
method, then the query is applied against the default ordering
mechanism -- by the
id field -- and thus
first() returns the record with the first
id value and
last() returns the record
with the last
id value.
For example, the query
Store.objects.filter(state='CA').first() gets the
first
Store record with
state='CA' with
the lowest
id (since order defaults to id), a query
that's equivalent to
Store.objects.filter(state='CA')[0]. The query
Item.objects.all().order_by('name').last() gets the
last Item record with the
name that comes last in the
alphabet (since order is specified by
name), a query
that's equivalent to
Item.objects.all().order_by('name').reverse()[0].
Pseudo LIMIT 1 date and time queries: latest() and earliest()
For SQL LIMIT queries associated
with dates or times, Django offers the
latest() and
earliest() methods to obtain the most recently or
first created model records (respectively) based on a date field.
Both the
latest() and
earliest() methods
accept a date field on which to perform a query and provide much
shorter syntax to deal with LIMIT queries related to dates or times
vs. the
first() and
last(). This is
because
latest() and
earliest() methods
automatically perform the
order_by() operation on the
field provided as an argument.
For example,
Order.objects.latest('created') gets the most recent
Order record based on the
created field,
where as
Order.objects.earliest('created') gets the
oldest
Order record based on the
created
field.
Tip Use the get_latest_by Meta option in a model to set a default field on which to execute the latest() and earliest() methods. See the previous chapter on model Meta options for additional details.
Merge queries
SQL queries often need to be
merged to produce different sets of results, such as combining the
records of multiple SQL queries or obtaining common records between
multiple SQL queries. Django supports various ways to merge SQL
queries, both as
QuerySet data structures, as well as
through SQL query statements like UNION, INTERSECT and EXCEPT.
QuerySet merger: pipe and itertools.chain
As you've learned throughout this
chapter, Django models most often use
QuerySet data
structures to represent SQL queries. Such
QuerySet
data structures often require to be merged, to present a larger set
of results and avoid having to perform new database queries.
Listing 8-47 illustrates the two syntax variations available to
merge
QuerySet data structures.
Listing 8-47. Combine two Django queries with | (pipe) and itertools.chain
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item, Drink from itertools import chain menu_sandwich_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Sandwiches') menu_salads_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Salads') drinks = Drink.objects.all() # A pipe applied to two QuerySets generates a larger QuerySet lunch_items = menu_sandwich_items | menu_salads_items # | can't be used to merge QuerySet's with different models
# ERROR menu_sandwich_items | drinks # itertools.chain generates a Python list and can merge different QuerySet model types lunch_items_with_drinks = list(chain(menu_sandwich_items, drinks))
The first option in listing 8-47
uses the | (pipe) operator to combine two
QuerySet
data structures. This technique produces yet another
QuerySet data structure, but has the caveat of only
working on
QuerySet's that use the same model (e.g.
Item).
The second option in listing 8-47
uses the Python
itertools package to merge two
QuerySet data structure with the
chain()
method. This technique produces a standard Python list -- with the
respective model objects -- and is the more flexible option because
it can combine
QuerySet data structures even if they
use different models (e.g.
Item and
Drink).
UNION queries: union()
The SQL UNION statement is used
to merge two or more queries directly in the database. Unlike the
previous merge query techniques -- illustrated in listing 8-47 --
which take place in Django/Python, UNION queries are done entirely
by the database engine. Django supports the SQL UNION statement
through the
union() method, as illustrated in listing
8-48.
Listing 8-48. Merge Django queries with union()
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item menu_breakfast_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Breakfast') menu_sandwich_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Sandwiches') menu_salads_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Salads') # All items merged with union() all_items = menu_breakfast_items.union(menu_sandwich_items,menu_salads_items) print(all_items.query) SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id" ... WHERE "items_menu"."name" = Breakfast UNION SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id" ... WHERE "items_menu"."name" = Sandwiches UNION SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id"... WHERE "items_menu"."name" = Salads
Listing 8-48 first declares three
standard SQL queries that produce
QuerySet data
structures. Next, notice how the
union() method is
linked to one of the queries and the remaining queries are passed
as arguments. Finally, listing 8-48 illustrates how the results of
the
union() method produce a query with multiple SQL
UNION statements that merge the individual queries.
In addition to the
union() method accepting different
QuerySet instances as arguments, the
union() method also accepts the optional keyword
all argument which is set to
False. By
default, the
union() method ignores duplicates values
across
QuerySet instances, however, you can set the
all argument to
True to tell Django to
merge duplicate records (e.g.
menu_breakfast_items.union(menu_sandwich_items,menu_salads_items,
all=True)).
INTERSECT queries: intersection()
The SQL INTERSECT statement is
used to obtain records that intersect (i.e. are present) across
multiple queries. Django supports the SQL INTERSECT statement
through the
intersection() method, as illustrated in
listing 8-49.
Listing 8-49. Intersect (Common) Django query records with intersection()
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item all_items = Item.objects.all() menu_breakfast_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Breakfast') # Intersected (common) records merged with intersect() intersection_items = all_items.intersection(menu_breakfast_items) print(intersection_items.query) SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id", "items_item"."name"... INTERSECT SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id", "items_item"."name"... WHERE "items_menu"."name" = Breakfast
Listing 8-49 first declares two
standard SQL queries that produce
QuerySet data
structures. Next, notice how the
intersection() method
is linked to one of the queries and the remaining query is passed
as an argument. Finally, listing 8-49 illustrates how the results
of the
intersection() method produce a query with an
SQL INTERSECTION statements to produce the common records across
queries.
The
intersection()
method only accept
QuerySet instances as arguments. In
addition, be careful when declaring more than two
QuerySet instances on an
intersection()
query, as only records that are present in all
QuerySet instances form part of the final query
result.
EXCEPT queries: difference()
The SQL EXCEPT statement is used
to obtain records that are present in a query, but missing in other
queries. Django supports the SQL EXCEPT statement through the
difference() method, as illustrated in listing
8-50.
Listing 8-50. Except Django query records with difference()
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item all_items = Item.objects.all() menu_breakfast_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Breakfast') menu_sandwich_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Sandwiches') menu_salads_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Salads') # Extract records in all_items, except those in: # menu_breakfast_items, menu_sandwich_items & menu_salads_items ex_items = all_items.difference(menu_breakfast_items, menu_sandwich_items, menu_salads_items) print(ex_items.query) SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id", "items_item"."name"...EXCEPT SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id", "items_item"."name"... EXCEPT SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id", "items_item"."name", ... EXCEPT SELECT "items_item"."id", "items_item"."menu_id", "items_item"."name" ... WHERE "items_menu"."name" = Salads
Listing 8-50 first declares four
standard SQL queries that produce
QuerySet data
structures. Next, notice how the
difference() method
is called on the
all_items query and the remaining
queries are passed as arguments to be excluded from the
all_items query. Finally, listing 8-50 illustrates how
the results of the
difference() method produce a query
with multiple SQL EXCEPT statements that exclude query records from
the parent query.
Aggregation queries
SQL queries sometimes need to produce values derived from the core fields contained in Django models (e.g. mathematical calculations such as counts, averages, maximum or minimum values from sets of records). Storing this type of aggregate information as individual Django model fields is redundant -- since it can be derived from core data -- and calculating this data outside the context of a database is also wasteful (e.g. reading all records and producing the aggregate results in Python).
SQL offers the necessary
statements for a database to solve this problem, through
aggregation functions. An aggregation function forms part
of an SQL query, which is executed by the database engine and
returned as a standalone result -- when used in conjunction with
the
aggregate() method -- or as an additional field
along with the resulting SQL response -- when used in conjunction
with the
annotate() method. Django supports
aggregation queries through a series of methods the include
count(),
aggregate() and
annotate(), as well as aggregation classes.
COUNT queries: count() method and Count() class
The SQL COUNT aggregation function is used in cases where you only need to get the number of records that match a certain criteria, rather than reading all records the make up a query. Queries that use SQL COUNT are also more efficient because it's the database engine that makes the calculation, instead of getting all the data and making the calculation in Python.
Django models supports the SQL
COUNT aggregation function through the
count() method
and the aggregate
Count class. Both variations are
illustrated in listing 8-51.
Listing 8-51. Django COUNT queries with aggregate(), annotate() and Count()
from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store from django.db.models import Count # Get the number of stores (COUNT(*)) stores_count = Store.objects.all().count() print(stores_count) 4 # Get the number of stores that have city 'San Diego' (COUNT(*)) stores_san_diego_count = Store.objects.filter(city='San Diego').count() # Get the number of emails, NULL values are not counted (COUNT(email)) emails_count = Store.objects.aggregate(Count('email')) print(emails_count) {'email__count': 4} # Get the number of emails, NULL values are not counted (COUNT(email) AS "coffeehouse_store_emails_count") emails_count_custom = Store.objects.aggregate(coffeehouse_store_emails_count=Count('email')) print(emails_count_custom) {'coffeehouse_store_emails_count': 4} # Get number of distinct Amenities in all Stores, NULL values not counted (COUNT(DISTINCT name)) different_amenities_count = Store.objects.aggregate(Count('amenities',distinct=True)) print(different_amenities_count) {'amenities__count': 5} # Get number of Amenities per Store with annotate stores_with_amenities_count = Store.objects.annotate(Count('amenities')) # Get amenities count in individual Store stores_With_amenities_count[0].amenities__count # Get number of Amenities per Store with annotate and custom name stores_amenities_count_custom = Store.objects.annotate(amenities_per_store=Count('amenities')) stores_amenities_count_custom[0].amenities_per_store
The first two examples in listing
8-51 append the
count() method as the last part of a
Django query to get a total count.
The third example in listing 8-51
uses the
aggregate() function and the aggregate
Count class to get the total count of
Store records. Notice how a
query with the
aggregate() method produces a
dictionary, where the key is the counted field -- in this case
__count to
indicate aggregate class, and the dictionary value is the resulting
count. The fourth example in listing 8-51 is very similar to the
third one, except it prefixes the aggregate
Count
class with a custom string to simulate the SQL AS keyword, so the
resulting dictionary value uses the custom string
coffeehouse_store_emails_count as the key result.
Note If no string is assigned to an aggregate class (e.g. Count) in a query, the resulting query output defaults to: <field>__<aggregate_class>.
The fifth example in listing 8-51
illustrates how the aggregate
Count class can accept
the optional
distinct=True argument to omit duplicate
values in the count. In this case, a count is made for all
amenities associated with
Store records,
but the count only reflects distinct
amenities
values.
Although the
aggregate() method produces aggregation results, it's
limited to only producing the aggregation result by itself, that
is, it requires additional queries to get the core data from where
the aggregation result was calculated. The
annotate()
method solves this problem, as show in listing 8-51.
The last two examples in listing
8-51 use the
annotate() method to add an additional
field to a query's records to hold an aggregate result. The second
to last example in listing 8-51 adds the
amenities__count field via the aggregate
Count() class to all
Store records. And
the last example in listing 8-51, assigns a custom string to the
aggregate
Count() class to create the custom
amenities_per_store field to hold the
amenities count for all
Store
records.
MAX, MIN, SUM, AVG, VARIANCE and STDDEV queries: Max(), Min(), Sum(), Avg(), Variance() and StdDev() classes
In addition to the SQL COUNT aggregation function, SQL queries also support other aggregation functions for mathematical operations that are best done in the database. These SQL aggregation functions include MAX to get a maximum value from a set of records, MIN to get a minimum value from a set of records, SUM to a sum of values from a set of records, AVG to get the average from a set of records, VARIANCE to get the statistical variance of values from a set of records and STDDEV to get the statistical deviation from a set of records.
Django models support all the
previous SQL aggregation functions through the use of aggregation
classes -- just like
Count() aggregation described in
listing 8-51. Therefore to make use of these additional SQL
aggregation functions, you use a Django model's
aggregate() or
annotate() methods in
conjunction with the relevant aggregation class, a processed that's
llustrated in listing 8-52.
Listing 8-52 Django MAX, MIN,SUM, AVG, VARIANCE and STDDEV queries with Max(), Min(), Sum(), Avg(), Variance() and StdDev() classes
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item from django.db.models import Avg, Max, Min from django.db.models import Sum from django.db.models import Variance, StdDev # Get the average, maximum and minimum number of stock for all Item records avg_max_min_stock = Item.objects.aggregate(Avg('stock'), Max('stock'), Min('stock')) print(avg_max_min_stock) {'stock__avg': 29.0, 'stock__max': 36, 'stock__min': 27} # Get the total stock for all Items item_all_stock = Item.objects.aggregate(all_stock=Sum('stock')) print(item_all_stock) {'all_stock': 261} # Get the variance and standard deviation for all Item records # NOTE: Variance & StdDev return the population variance & standard deviation, respectively. # But it's also possible to return sample variance & standard deviation, # using the sample=True argument item_statistics = Item.objects.aggregate(Variance('stock'), std_dev_stock= StdDev('stock')) {'std_dev_stock': 5.3748, 'stock__variance': 28.8888}
As you can see in the first
example in listing 8-52, it's possible to define multiple aggregate
classes to a single query as part of the
aggregate()
method, in this case the query gets the average, minimum and
maximum
stock values across all
Item
records.
The second example in listing
8-52 gets the sum of all
stock values across all Item
records by using the aggregate
Sum class. Notice how
it's possible in this second example to prefix the aggregate class
with a custom string to act as an SQL AS keyword, in order for the
query to output the results with a different value than the aggregate
class name. Finally, the last example in listing 8-52 calculates
the variance and standard deviation for all
stock
values across all Item records.
Tip If want to perform more complex aggregation queries, such as multi-field math operations (e.g. multiplication), see the F expressions sub-section.
Tip If want to perform more complex aggregation queries, see the section on Model queries with raw (open-ended) SQL.
Expression and function queries
SQL queries irrespective of their
many statements generally reference values provided by the calling
environment. For example, when you create a query to get all
Store records that have certain
state
value, Django/Python provides a value reference for the
state, similarly, if you create a query to get all
Item records that belong to a certain
Menu model, Django/Python provides a value reference
for the
Store.
For certain SQL queries though, it's necessary to use references that point toward data in the actual database. This is necessary because the results for certain SQL queries depend on the data present in the database, or because, manipulating the data outside the context of a database (i.e. Python) represents an additional effort that can easily be solved in SQL.
You already learned about this technique in the past section on Aggregation queries, where an SQL query can tell a database engine to calculate things like counts and averages, without the need to pull the data and do the operations outside the database (i.e. in Python). Aggregation queries rely on a special sub-set of expressions properly called aggregation expressions, but in this upcoming sections you'll learn how Django supports many other types of SQL expressions.
Another SQL technique designed in the same spirit of SQL expressions to favor the delegation of work to the database engine are: SQL functions. SQL functions are intended to allow a database to alter the results of query (e.g. concatenate two fields or transform a field to upper/lower case) and alleviate the need to do such tasks in the calling party environment (i.e. Django/Python). In the upcoming section you'll also learn about different SQL functions supported by Django models.
SQL expression queries: F expressions
Django F expressions are among the most common type of SQL expressions you'll use in Django models. At the start of this chapter you were exposed to the utility of F expressions when you learned how it's possible to update a record in a single step, and let the database engine perform the logic without the need pull the record out of the database.
Through an F expression, it's possible to reference a model field in a query and let the database perform an operation on the model field value without the need to pull the data from the database. In turn, this not only provides a more succinct query syntax -- a single update query, instead of two (one to read, one to update) -- it also avoids 'race conditions'[4].
Listing 8-53 illustrates various ways F expressions can be used on update queries.
Listing 8-53 Django F() expression update queries
from coffeehouse.items.models import Item from django.db.models import F # Get single item egg_biscuit = Item.objects.get(id=2) # Check stock egg_biscuit.stock 2 # Add 10 to stock value with F() expression egg_biscuit.stock = F('stock') + 10 # Trigger save() to apply F() expression egg_biscuit.save() # Check stock again egg_biscuit.stock <CombinedExpression: F(stock) + Value(10)> # Ups, need to re-read/refresh from DB egg_biscuit.refresh_from_db() # Check stock again egg_biscuit.stock 12 # Decrease stock value by 1 for Item records on the Breakfast menu breakfast_items = Item.objects.filter(menu__name='Breakfast') breakfast_items.update(stock=F('stock') -- 1) # Increase all Item records stock by 20 Item.objects.all().update(stock=F('stock') + 20)
The first example in listing 8-53
reads a single model record and applies an
F()
expression to the
stock field. Once the
F() expression is applied, it's necessary to call the
save() method on the record for the database to
trigger the update. Next, notice that in order for the model record
reference to reflect the results of the
F()
expression, you must re-read the record from the database -- in
this case with the
refresh_from_db() method -- given
the database is the only party aware of the result of the update
operation.
Next in listing 8-53, you can see
how it's also possible to perform a subtraction operation on an
F() expression, as well as apply an
F()
expression to all the records in a
QuerySet through
the
update() method.
In addition to updating records
without the need to extract data from the database,
F() expressions can also be used in database read
operations.
F() expressions are helpful for read
queries and aggregation queries where the results are best
determined by the database engine, as shown in listing 8-54.
Listing 8-54. Django F() expressions in read queries and aggregate queries
from django.db.models import F, ExpressionWrapper, FloatField from coffeehouse.items.models import Drink, Item calories_dbl_caffeine_drinks = Drink.objects.filter(item__calories__gt=F('caffeine')*2) items_with_assets = Item.objects.annotate( assets=ExpressionWrapper(F('stock')*F('price'), output_field=FloatField()))
Notice how the first query
example in listing 8-54 lacks any fixed values and is instead
composed of references that are checked by the database engine to
return records that match the condition. In this case, the query
obtains all
Drink records that have
calories greater than two times their
caffeine content, where it's the database engine -- via
the
F() expression -- tasked with determining which
Drink records comply with this rule.
The second example in listing
8-54 creates an aggregate query from two
F()
expressions. In this case, a new field called
assets
is calculated with the
annotate() method, by
multiplying the value of a record's
stock and
price fields via
F() expressions. Unlike
the aggregation queries examples in the previous section dedicated to aggregation queries, this
aggregation has two important differences and arguments:
ExpressionWrapper.- Because the aggregate query in listing 8-54 is composed of multiple model fields, it's necessary to delimit its scope by wrapping the aggregate query in the
ExpressionWrapperstatement.
output_field.-When an aggregate query is composed of multiple model fields and the data types differ, it's necessary to specify
output_fieldwith a model data type. In listing 8-54, because
stockis an
IntegerFieldmodel field and
priceis a
FloatFieldmodel field, the
output_fieldtells Django to generate the aggregated
assetsfield as a
FloatField, thus avoiding data type ambiguity.
SQL function queries: Func expressions & Django database functions
Func expressions are another expression sub-set supported by Django models, which have the same purpose as other SQL expressions: to use the database to execute operations, instead of fetching data and later performing the operation outside the database (i.e. in Python).
Func expressions are used in Django to trigger the execution of database functions. Unlike F expressions which are used to perform basic operations against model fields, Func expressions are used to execute more sophisticated functions supported by databases and run them against models fields.
Listing 8-55 illustrates an example of a Func expression that calls an SQL function, as well as a couple of Django database functions that simulate SQL functions.
Listing 8-55. Django Func() expressions for SQL functions and Django SQL functions
from django.db.models import F, Func, Value from django.db.models.functions import Upper, Concat from coffeehouse.stores.models import Store # SQL Upper function call via Func expression and F expression stores_w_upper_names = Store.objects.annotate(name_upper=Func(F('name'), function='Upper')) stores_w_upper_names[0].name_upper 'CORPORATE' stores_w_upper_names[0].name 'Corporate' # Equivalent SQL Upper function call directly with Django SQL Upper function stores_w_upper_names_function = Store.objects.annotate(name_upper=Upper('name')) stores_w_upper_names_function[0].name_upper 'CORPORATE' # SQL Concat function called directly with Django SQL Concat function stores_w_full_address = Store.objects.annotate(full_address= Concat('address',Value(' - '),'city',Value(' , '),'state')) stores_w_full_address[0].full_address '624 Broadway - San Diego , CA' stores_w_full_address[0].city 'San Diego'
The first example in listing 8-55
makes use of the
Func() expression to generate the
additional
name_upper field via
annotate(). The purpose of the additional
name_upper field is to get the name of all
Store records in an upper case format, a process that
fits perfectly with the SQL UPPER function. In the case of listing
8-55, the
Func() expression declares two arguments: an
F expression to specify the model field on which to
apply the function and the
function argument to
specify the SQL function to use. Once the query is created, you can
see in listing 8-55, each record has access to the additional
name_upper field with an upper case version of the
name field, as well as access to the other model
fields.
Although
Func()
expressions are the most flexible option to generate Django model
queries with SQL expressions,
Func() expressions can
be verbose for default scenarios. Django offers a quicker
alternative to generate SQL expressions via SQL functions that are
part of the
django.db.models.functions package.
The second query in listing 8-55
is equivalent to the first query, but notice this variation uses
the Django database
Upper() function as an argument of
the
annotate() method, similar to how Django aggregate
classes are declared in
annotate() statements.
The third example in listing 8-55
generates the additional
full_address field via
annotate() and makes use of the Django database
Concat() function. The purpose of the
Concat() function is to concatenate the values of
multiple model fields. In the case of listing 8-55, the
Concat() function concatenate the values of the
Store model's address, city and state. In order to
leave spaces between the concatenated field values, the
Concat() function uses the Django
Value()
expression to output verbatim separators and spaces. Once the query
is created, you can see in listing 8-55, each record has access to
the additional
full_address field with a concatenated
value of the
address, city and
state
fields, as well as access to the other model fields.
Django includes over a dozen
database functions in the
django.db.models.functions
package[5] for strings, dates and other data
types you can leverage as SQL functions in queries.
SQL sub-queries: Subquery expressions
SQL sub-queries are queries that are nested inside other standard CRUD queries or inclusively other sub-queries. Most SQL sub-queries are used under two scenarios. The first scenario occurs when you need to create SQL queries with related fields that span multiple tables, yet the underlying tables don't have an explicit relationship between one another.
This first SQL sub-query scenario
is common for queries involving multiple Django models with missing
relationship data types (i.e.
OneToOneField,
ForeignKey and
ManyToManyField). Listing
8-56 illustrates this SQL sub-query scenario solved through the use
of
Subquery expressions.
Listing 8-56. Django Subquery expression with SQL sub-query to get related model data
from django.db.models import OuterRef, Subquery class Order(models.Model): created = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True) class OrderItem(models.Model): item = models.IntegerField() amount = models.IntegerField() order = models.ForeignKey(Order) # Get Items in order number 1 order_items = OrderItem.objects.filter(order__id=1) # Get item order_items[0].item 1 # Get item name ? # OrderItem item field is IntegerField, lacks Item relationship # Create sub-query to get Item records with id item_subquery = Item.objects.filter(id=(OuterRef('id'))) # Annotate previous query with sub-query order_items_w_name = order_items.annotate(item_name=Subquery(item_subquery.values('name')[:1])) # Output SQL to verify print(order_items_w_name.query) SELECT `online_orderitem`.`id`, `online_orderitem`.`item`, `online_orderitem`.`amount`, `online_orderitem`.`order_id`, (SELECT U0.`name` FROM `items_item` U0 WHERE U0.`id` = (online_orderitem.`id`) LIMIT 1) AS `item_name` FROM `online_orderitem` WHERE `online_orderitem`.`order_id` = 1 # Access item and item_name order_items_w_name[0].item 1 order_items_w_name[0].item_name 'Whole-Grain Oatmeal'
The first lines in listing 8-56
show the
Order and
OrderItem models,
including a query that gets all the
OrderItem records
that belong to
Order number 1. Next, you can see that
although the
OrderItem model has an
item
field, its value is an integer. This presents a problem because it
isn't possible to obtain the
name and other properties
associated with an
item field integer value, or in
other words, the
OrderItem records are missing a
relationship to the Item model. This problem can be solved with a
sub-query.
Next in listing 8-56, the
Item.objects.filter(id=(OuterRef('id'))) sub-query is
declared to get all the
Item records by
id, which is the value the main
OrderItem
expects to map to
item values. The special
OuterRef syntax work like an
F expression
to be evaluated until the parent query is resolved, after all, the
Item records to get by
id are dependent
on the parent query (e.g. The sub-query should only
Item records by
id for only those items
in an
OrderItem record).
Once the sub-query is defined in
listing 8-56, it's linked via the
annotate() method
and the
Subquery() expression to the initial
OrderItem query. Next, you can see the SQL generated
by the query contains a sub-query referencing the
Item
model. Finally, listing 8-56 illustrates the output of the
additional
item_name field on the
OrderItem query that's generated via a sub-query.
The second scenario involving sub-queries is when an SQL query must generate a WHERE statement with values that are dependent on the results another SQL query. This scenario is illustrated in listing 8-57.
Listing 8-57. Django Subquery expression with SQL sub-query in WHERE statement
# See listing 8-56 for referenced model definitions from coffeehouse.online.models import Order from coffeehouse.items.models import Item from django.db.models import OuterRef, Subquery # Get Item records in lastest Order to replenish stock most_recent_items_on_order = Order.objects.latest('created').orderitem_set.all() # Get a list of Item records based on recent order using a sub-query items_to_replenish = Item.objects.filter(id__in=Subquery( most_recent_items_on_order.values('item'))) print(items_to_replenish.query) SELECT `items_item`.`id`, `items_item`.`menu_id`, `items_item`.`name`, `items_item`.`description`, `items_item`.`size`, `items_item`.`calories`, `items_item`.`price`, `items_item`.`stock` FROM `items_item` WHERE `items_item`.`id` IN (SELECT U0.`item` FROM `online_orderitem` U0 WHERE U0.`order_id` = 1)
The first step in listing 8-57
gets all
OrderItem records from the latest
Order record, with the purpose to detect which
Item stock to replenish. However, because
OrderItem records use a plain integer id to reference
Item records, it's necessary to create a sub-query
which gets all
Item records based on the
OrderItem integer reference.
Next in listing 8-57, a query is
made for Item records whose id is contained in a sub-query. In this
case, a
Subquery expression is used to point toward
the
most_recent_items_on_order query that only gets
the
item values (i.e. integer values) from the most
recent
Order record.
Finally, listing 8-57 illustrates how the generated query uses a WHERE statement that makes use of a sub-query.
The SQL JOIN keyword is used to produce queries from multiple database tables. Django supports JOIN queries for related models through the select_related() method, described earlier in the CRUD relationship records across Django models.
If you want to create a JOIN query between tables that don't have a Django model relationship, you can use a raw SQL query, described in the next section. ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ | https://www.webforefront.com/django/modelqueriesbysql.html | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | refinedweb | 9,521 | 54.52 |
The SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta for ADO.Net Entity Framework Beta 3 is available for download at Microsoft Download Center.
To install SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta Release for ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3
- Install ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3 from Microsoft Download Center. You must ensure that the pre-requisites specified on the download page are installed before installing ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3.
- In Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs. Uninstall SQL Server Compact 3.5 or SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta.
- Install SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta Release for the ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3 (SSCERuntime-ENU.msi) from the Microsoft Download Center. Note that administrator rights are required on a computer to install SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta Release for ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3.
To install ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools December 07 Community Technology Preview (CTP)
- Install the ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta 3 and SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Beta Release for the ADO.Net Entity Framework Beta 3 as specified above. Install ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools December 2007 CTP from the Microsoft Download Center. You must ensure that the pre-requisites specified on the download page are installed before installing ADO.NET Entity Framework Tools December 2007 CTP. The CTP installs on a Visual Studio 2008 installation.
- Copy the SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1 Design Tools Beta (SSCEVSTools-ENU.exe) to your computer by clicking on Save or Save this program to disk and after the download is complete install SSCEVSTools-ENU.exe by double-clicking it. Do not install the SSCEVSTools-ENU.exe by clicking on the Run. While running the SSCEVSTools-ENU.exe file, Microsoft.SqlServerCe.Client.dll is extracted to %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE folder. The SSCEVSTools-ENU.exe will create a backup of the existing DLL at the location %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE.#
using NorthwindModel;
C# ‘Blog Contact’ page on the top so that we can converse and dive into details.
Thanks,
Laxmi | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlservercompact/2008/02/21/download-available-for-sql-server-compact-3-5-sp1-beta-for-ado-net-entity-framework-beta-3/ | CC-MAIN-2016-36 | refinedweb | 354 | 55.2 |
I want to be able to let users connect with their reddit accounts in my game and I have been doing a bit of research. I came across this tutorial for reddit login with python and I noticed it was a bit like using the WWWform in Unity to send data.
The python tutorial also used JSON to read the information that was sent back, I think? I then found some info on JSON for Unity and found this MiniJSON script.
So basically I was wondering if this is all the stuff I need to use to login to reddit? Also for the MiniJSON script, when it says "using MiniJSON;" on line 5 does that mean it is using the MiniJSON.cs script that they linked at the bottom of their post?
Answer by Graham-Dunnett
·
Jul 25, 2013 at 01:51 PM
I've never logged into Reddit before, but, looking at the links in your question, yes, that looks to be all you need to log in through script. The using MiniJSON; does mean the code in the MiniJSON.cs script is used/needed.
using MiniJSON;
MiniJSON.cs
One word of advice. I'd strongly urge that you experiment logging into Reddit using a tool like Poster, before you try to do this from Unity. Poster is an add-in to Firefox that lets you make GET/POST/PUT/etc requests to a remote site, and shows the (often) xml response. Poking the Reddit REST API this way will teach you all you need to know about the API. Once you know what URLs to hit, what headers are needed, and what can go wrong, you'll be all set to do this from Unity. If you dive straight into Unity you'll not know if any problems are due to Unity, or how you're accessing Reddit.
Thanks for the advice, I found Poster for Chrome as well. This is one of those things that is difficult to know if it's working get an object inside a json JsonUtility
0
Answers
minijson pars
0
Answers
Cannot cast from source type to destination type Json
0
Answers
How to get keyvalue from MiniJSON unity
1
Answer
how to retrive an array from SQL database in Javascript?
1
Answer
EnterpriseSocial Q&A | https://answers.unity.com/questions/500324/how-do-i-use-wwwform-and-json-to-login-to-reddit.html | CC-MAIN-2021-17 | refinedweb | 384 | 78.18 |
I think you can use T.getEnvironmentVersion() here to get the MSVC version. Maybe make it conditional on isWindowsMSVCEnvironment(). If there is no version or it isn't an MSVC environment, just assume full C99 support is available (i.e. the UCRT is in use).
What's the correlation between MSVCRT major version and VS release year?
FWIW, LLVM seems to be aware only of major versions 18 and 19, according to test cases.
In this case, I think it's VS 2015 == VC 19.
FWIW, is64 isn't the exact right condition for this; these functions are available for ARM (32 bit) as well, it's only i386 which is the exception.
I see this if statement/block was moved, and it earlier used the condition if (T.getArch() == Triple::x86), which is correct even when taking arm/aarch64 into consideration.
It's true that ARM is also the case. However, there are some tidbits for IA64 in MSVCRT, so I don't think that excepting i386 is safe.
Right, IA64 probably isn't quite the same either - I normally only consider x86/x86_64/arm/arm64... This form certainly should be safe at least.
I think it's common for non-clang users to not have any version info in the triple. I think in these cases, we are better off setting isPartialC99 to true. For example, most of the llc tests will use version-less triples. I was mainly interested in leaving a way for users to access the old behavior by setting an old MSVC version in the triple. Sorry for the extra work, I tried to spell it out in the comments.
This changes behaviour for old MSVCRT versions as well - you're hiding many orthogonal issues under the same isPartialC99 variable.
The functions here, e.g. acosf, does exist even in very old MSVCRT versions, but only on x86_64, arm and arm64, not on i386. acosf does not exist as a function in libcmt.lib or msvcrt.lib (or libucrt.lib or ucrt.lib for modern versions) for i386, not even for the latest versions of MSVC.
After this change, acosf and the others in this if statement would become unavailable for x86_64 for MSVC versions prior to 19, even though we earlier allowed and used that function for any MSVCRT version, on x86_64.
So there's two orthogonal issues at play here:
OK, I think that I understand what you mean. Stand by.
Also, do you mean that that all C99 versions appeared in VC19?
For ucrt (VS2015 and newer), all of acosh, acoshf, acoshl are available in the crt DLL at least.
As far as I can tell, acoshf() and acoshl() are wrappers around acosh(). Likewise for other math functions. This is confirmed by the documentation at.
Can you quote which part there says they're wrappers? I would at least expect e.g. acoshf() to be distinct from acosh(). Since long double and double are equivalent, I don't doubt that acoshl() is a wrapper around acosh() though. But in practice, even if e.g. the headers would do such redirecting, the MSVCRT (both DLL and import library) still provides all three function names, both plain, with f and l suffix.
This is what the document says:
When you use C++, you can call overloads of *acosh* that take and return *float* or *long* double values. In a C program, *acosh* always takes and returns *double*..
This is what the document says:
> When you use C++, you can call overloads of *acosh* that take and return *float* or *long* double values. In a C program, *acosh* always takes and returns *double*.
> When you use C++, you can call overloads of *acosh* that take and return *float* or *long* double values. In a C program, *acosh* always takes and returns *double*.
This only says that while in C mode, you have the three distinct function names acosh, acoshf and acoshl, you can also use the plain unsuffixed function name acosh in C++ mode, as C++ allows overloads. This doesn't imply that the suffixed versions like acoshf are unavailable in C++ mode - they certainly are available as well..
I don't see why one would have to disassemble the DLL to figure out what calls what or what C++ overloads exist matter at all.
At this level, within LLVM, we are past the frontend languages and don't know or care about potential redirections within math.h, and language differences between C and C++ and others are irrelevant as we are on the object file level.
The only thing matters is "can we assume that a definition of a function named acoshf will exist elsewhere at link time". And the answer to that is yes. Whether the implementation of that function simply internally calls acosh or not is irrelevant for LLVM - that doesn't disqualify its use.
It's true that that statement is explicitly about function overloading in C++, but I suspected that there was more to it. Many math functions are defined as macros around the double version. Even then the symbol for other versions are defined in the library, but some just replicate the macro, wrapping around the double version with parameters and result conversion.
Now, I didn't do a thorough inventory of the libraries, just sampled a handful of functions. In the header file math.h it's more straightforward to figure out.
In the case of acosf, we find:
#if defined _M_X64 || defined _M_ARM || defined _M_ARM64
_Check_return_ _ACRTIMP float __cdecl acosf(_In_ float _X);
...
#else
_Check_return_ __inline float __CRTDECL acosf(_In_ float _X)
{
return (float)acos(_X);
}
...
#endif.
No, acosf is one of those that the i386 library does not provide - it's part of the block of architecture specific functions regardless of msvcrt version above.
But for the ones that are added by hasPartialC99 in your patch, let's look at e.g. cbrt - the suffixed forms cbrtf and cbrtl are also available. The documentation at say that the suffixed forms are available (the extra suffixless overloads only for C++), corecrt_math.h in the Win10 SDK contains this:
_Check_return_ _ACRTIMP float __cdecl cbrtf(_In_ float _X);
...
_Check_return_ _ACRTIMP long double __cdecl cbrtl(_In_ long double _X);
And the import library, even for i386, contains this:
$ llvm-nm ucrt/x86/ucrt.lib | grep cbrt
00000000 T __imp__cbrt
00000000 T _cbrt
00000000 T __imp__cbrtf
00000000 T _cbrtf
00000000 T __imp__cbrtl
00000000 T _cbrtl
Given this, there is no doubt or inconsistency, all three references (docs, headers and import libs) agree that these functions are available in all three forms, cbrt, cbrtf and cbrtl. (Even though headers don't matter for what actually is available for linking.) Whether they internally call each other or not is irrelevant.
The same goes for all the functions in the // Win32 does not fully support C99 math functions. if (!hasPartialC99) block in the latest revision of your patch.
Now I've bothered you more than enough though; keeping it like this should be ok in the sense that it shouldn't break anything and I don't mind if you commit it in this form, even though I feel it still is inconsistent/incomplete.
No, you haven't bothered me at all. I appreciate your input.
BTW, if you have a list of functions present in the i386 libraries and another in the, say, amd64 ones, as a proposal about what LLVM should know about the MSVC libraries, please do.
I guess the ultimate authority for what works linking wise, is the import lib and static crt lib files themselves. If you have access to them, llvm-nm on them gives a full list.
For a more readable reference, I'd recommend the mingw def files and wine spec files. They are based on dumping the list of exported functions from the DLLs, merged into one file for all architectures, with manual annotations about functions that only are available on specific architectures.
For the current CRT version that would be:
E.g. for the block of if (!hasPartialSP) above, for the acosf function, the mingw def file has got this:
F_NON_I386(acosf F_X86_ANY(DATA))
(You can ignore the F_X86_ANY(DATA) part, that's a mingw specific tweak not relevant to whether the function exists or not.)
Here this function is available for all architectues except i386. (mingw-w64 only supports i386, x86_64, arm, arm64, so it doesn't take any stance on e.g. IA64.)
Similarly the wine spec file shows this:
@ cdecl -arch=arm,x86_64,arm64 acosf(float) MSVCRT_acosf
That is, the function is explicitly available on these three architectures.
But then for the logbf case, things are actually different. The mingw def file contains this:
F_NON_I386(_logbf)
logbf
(These are symbols without the extra leading underscore which is prepended on cdecl functions on i386 though.)
The wine spec file:
@ cdecl -arch=arm,x86_64,arm64 _logbf(float) MSVCRT__logbf
@ stub logbf
This means that there's both a _logbf function (only on the three non-i386 arches) and a logbf function (on all arches). (The stub part only means that wine hasn't hooked it up to anything, probably because nobody has encountered a program using that function yet.)
If you want to look at what existed in older versions, pick e.g. msvcr100 or msvcr110, because msvcr120 actually already seems to have gotten most of the new functions that we're adding conditionally with hasPartialC99. For mingw-w64, those def files aren't merged into one common for all architectures, but are kept separately in the lib32 and lib64 directories next to lib-common.
I believe this one doesn't need the !hasPartialSP condition. logbf is available for all architectures in the version where we set hasPartialC99.
(Also, what does SP stand for in that variable name?)
Changing it into ìf (!hasPartialSP && !hasPartialC99) should be fine though, and conversely if (hasPartialSP || hasPartialC99) TLI.setAvailableWithName(LibFunc_logbf, "_logbf");` below.
logbf was available in amd64 even before C99 was supported.
SP stands for single precision, AKA, float. I could rename it to hasPartialFloat.
Yes, logbf was available for x86_64 before, but wih this change, it only becomes available for the modern CRT. That is, I suggest changing || in the condition to && here. But as the _logbf name only exists for x86_64/arm/aarch64, I would suggest this:
// Unavailable for i386 on older crt versions, available for i386 on modern crts and on all crt versions for other architectures.
if (!hasPartialSP && !hasPartialC99)
TLI.setUnavailable(LibFunc_logbf);
// On non-i386 versions, this function always exists, as _logbf.
// Modern crt versions also provide it under the name logbf, for all archs.
if (hasPartialSP)
TLI.setAvailableWithName(LibFunc_logbf, "_logbf");
I think that this gives me a plan of action: I'll commit this patch as is and commit another adding the remaining functions I find out after examining the information available in MinGW, keeping in mind that, to LLVM, MSVCRT and MinGW are different targets (specifically, MinGW using the GNU runtime). This way, should any problem arise later, it should be easy to narrow it down and fix it.
Thank you so very much.
Well, MSVC+MSVCRT and MinGW are different targets yes, but MinGW does try to describe the same actual DLLs from Microsoft.
A bit of backstory here: Traditionally, MinGW has linked to the old msvcrt.dll that is shipped with Windows (which is explicitly discouraged by Microsoft), in order to avoid relying on having to ship a CRT with the distributed apps. That DLL hasn't evolved much at all during the years and versions. In addition to this, MinGW does have listings of functions for the newer MSVC provided DLLs like msvcr100.dll, msvcr110.dll etc, but these aren't used by default. Recently though, mingw-w64 has gotten support for the new UCRT, and also support for setting this as the default version used.
So even if they're different targets in LLVM (and the MinGW target has to cope with the old discouraged and ancient msvcrt.dll), the MinGW def file for ucrtbase.dll and the other msvcr*.dll should be fairly accurate and corrent descriptions for what they contain even for a MSVC context. (There are a few MinGW specifics like having a few functions on their own added via a static library, but the def listings should be accurate despite this.) | https://reviews.llvm.org/differential/changeset/?ref=1350063 | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | refinedweb | 2,058 | 72.56 |
Lambda support in debugger expression evaluator (Haruka Matsumoto)
Author: Haruka Matsumoto
Abstract
My project is lambda support in the MonoDevelop debugger’s expression evaluator, used in the Immediate pad.
Code
All of my work is covered by a single pull request: here
Summary of the implementation
Fig 1. Processing flow chart
The debugger works using an interface called Soft Debugger Wire Protocol exposed by the Mono runtime. Using this protocol, the debugger controls debuggees and queries information of the debuggees like address of objects, type or methods. The debugger’s evaluator usually works as an interpreter, which evaluates every part of expressions immediately. However, lambda support can not be realized in this way. We don’t know when the debuggees invoke lambdas. The code of a lambda needs to stay invocable in the debuggees. This is how lambda expressions are different from other ones for the debugger’s evaluator.
There are 2 tasks to support lambdas:
- Task 1: Compile lambda expression using Roslyn API
- Task 2: Inject compiled assembly to runtime through the Soft Debugger Protocol
We firstly resolve references outside the lambda like local variables/properties (e.g.,
x in
a => a + x) in order to reproduce the current context of the debuggee. Then we compile something like the following code with assemblies currently loaded in the debuggee, and get a .dll.
public class Injected_ { public static [lambda-type] injected_method([local-variables-list]) { return [lambda-expression] } }
lambda-type in the example above is a type name for lambda (e.g.,
Func<int, int>),
local-variables-list is comma separated pairs of a type and variable name for local variables (e.g.,
int y, int z), and
lambda-expression is a lambda inputted by users. (e.g.,
x => x + y + z)
We send the compiled assembly to runtime, and invoke
Assembly.Load with it in runtime. By calling
injected_method through reflection APIs, the lambda value becomes accessible from the debugger.
Difficulties
Lambda types depends on debuggee’s context
Lambda type resolution is delayed in this project as it’s not decidable without how it is used.
When users input
(x => x + 5), it is undecidable which type is the most plausible out of following types.
System.Func<int, int>
System.Func<string, string>
System.Func<short, int>
- etc…
If your C# code has
Method1(x => x + 5) and Method1 is defined as
Method1(Func<int, int> f), the type of the lambda is determined to be
Func<int, int>. This means lambda types are determined by not only themselves but also the context. In other words, we have to delay type resolution for lambdas. Lambdas will be compiled and become a value after the type is determined.
Note: in the debugger, types for expressions are usually determined in depth-first order.
We treat the body of a lambda as a black box because of lambda parameters. Even if it’s possible to infer an unknown type of
x in
x => x == 5 for example, it wouldn’t be a debugger’s business. Also it couldn’t be realized in this project.
Fully Qualify Method names automatically
Users can omit a path to a method (e.g., namespace) when invoking methods inside the lambda. The path will be added automatically like the following cases.
- In the debugger, if the current instance of the class has an instance method, and an user inputs
(x => instanceMethod(x)), it will be evaluated as
(x => this.InstanceMethod(x))
- Similarly, a lambda expression
(x => StaticMethod(x))in static context of
ClassAwill become
(x => ClassA.StaticMethod(x))
It’s not supported invocation of static/instance overloaded methods in an instance context. This is because we have no information of types for expression inside the lambda.
(e.g., Assume that current context has
static Method2 (int x) and
instance Method2 (string x). If lambda expression is
(x => Method2 (x)), we can not resolve the overload until resolving parameters types.)
Supported Features
Lambdas satisfying the following three conditions are supported.
- Lambdas with cast or method invocation.
- Lambdas with cast
((Action<string>)(x => System.Console.WriteLine (x))
((Func<int>)(() => 50 * 100)).Invoke ()
- Lambdas with method invocation
lst.Find (x => x == "bar")
- Public type / local variables access
- Public
thisor
basereferences
Non-Supported Features
- Private type access
- Lambdas in some kinds of generic methods
- Invocation of generic methods like
Method3<T> (T x, Func<T> f)are supported because a generic type
Tcan be resolved by the type of first parameter
x.
- However, this doesn’t work:
Method4<T> (Func<T> f)We have to provide type arguments so far to invoke it.
- Side Effect
((Action<int>)(x => y = x)).Invoke(5), let y be one of local variables.
- Async Lambdas
- MonoDevelop’s expression evaluator doesn’t support
awaitkeyword.
Future Work
Merge
All of code is covered by a single pull request, which is still open. Hope it’ll be merged.
Private type access
Currently, only public type access is supported. A tentative plan is following.
- when compiling: Skip roslyn’s visibility check: source
- when invoking: Create a new command in the Soft Debugger Protocol to invoke lambda with skipping visibility: here?
Detailed error message
- When compiling lambdas fails, we have to show the most appropriate error message, which would be difficult.
- As for methods which have lambda parameters, we make sure which type is the most plausible for each lambdas by compiling them in order to resolve overloaded/overridden. Compilation failure for all of lambdas means:
- Lambda body has some invalid expressions and does not compile.
- There is no invalid expression inside lambda, but matched method doesnot exist.
- Both 1. and 2. It’s hard to tell which error of aboves only from compile error message.
Maybe we can get better error messages by compiling code like following.
class Test { static int RetF (Func<int, int> f) { return 0; } static int RetF (Func<int, string> f) { return 1; } static int Test () { return RetF (x => x == "hoge"); } } | https://www.mono-project.com/community/google-summer-of-code/reports/2017/lambda-support-in-debugger-expression-evaluator/ | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | refinedweb | 985 | 56.35 |
IRC log of ws-ra on 2009-09-15
Timestamps are in UTC.
19:29:14 [RRSAgent]
RRSAgent has joined #ws-ra
19:29:14 [RRSAgent]
logging to
19:29:16 [trackbot]
RRSAgent, make logs public
19:29:16 [Zakim]
Zakim has joined #ws-ra
19:29:18 [trackbot]
Zakim, this will be WSRA
19:29:18 [Zakim]
ok, trackbot, I see WS_WSRA()3:30PM already started
19:29:19 [trackbot]
Meeting: Web Services Resource Access Working Group Teleconference
19:29:19 [trackbot]
Date: 15 September 2009
19:29:22 [Zakim]
+??P6
19:29:35 [Zakim]
+[IBM]
19:29:50 [dug]
dug has joined #ws-ra
19:29:58 [Vikas]
Vikas has joined #ws-ra
19:30:03 [Ashok]
Ashok has joined #ws-ra
19:30:30 [Zakim]
+ +1.703.860.aabb
19:30:53 [Katy]
Katy has joined #ws-ra
19:30:58 [gpilz]
I'll drown myself tonight in sangria, made with slice-up fruit and cheap marsala
19:31:08 [Zakim]
+ +1.908.696.aacc
19:31:28 [Zakim]
+Tom_Rutt
19:31:38 [Zakim]
+[Microsoft]
19:31:59 [Zakim]
+Ashok_Malhotra
19:32:17 [li]
zakim, aacc is li
19:32:17 [Zakim]
+li; got it
19:32:21 [asir]
asir has joined #ws-ra
19:32:32 [Ram]
Ram has joined #ws-ra
19:33:12 [Zakim]
+Yves
19:34:23 [Bob]
scribenick Katy
19:34:25 [Yves]
Agenda:
19:34:29 [Tom_Rutt]
Tom_Rutt has joined #ws-ra
19:34:30 [Bob]
scribenick: Katy
19:34:57 [Sreed]
Sreed has joined #ws-ra
19:35:09 [Katy]
TOPIC: Approval of agenda, approved
19:35:28 [Katy]
TOPIC: Approval of minutes: no comments, approved
19:35:56 [Katy]
TOPIC: F2F in Husley logistics
19:36:09 [Katy]
Chair: Deadline tonight
19:36:30 [Katy]
TOPIC: F2F in November
19:36:58 [Katy]
Chair: considering schedule and deadline we would probably benefit for this.
19:37:00 [asir]
q+ to ask a question about Hursley F2F (when appropriate
19:37:18 [Katy]
... Follwo tech plenary start of November
19:37:49 [Katy]
... recommend registering by 31st Sept for early bird deadline. Also sign up quick for hotels
19:37:55 [Yves]
s/Follwo/Follow
19:37:58 [Bob]
ack asir
19:37:58 [Zakim]
asir, you wanted to ask a question about Hursley F2F (when appropriate
19:38:29 [Katy]
Asir: Do we have enough at the F2F to do business
19:38:52 [Katy]
Chair: Yes, 10 (with phone attendee) and possibly some who have not answered on ballot
19:39:39 [Katy]
TOPIC: Snapshot review of September 2nd docs
19:39:47 [dug]
q+
19:39:56 [dug]
19:40:06 [Bob]
ack dug
19:41:19 [Katy]
Doug: 2nd comment - talks about missing space can't locate the problem, sounds like it's the diffs tool
19:42:07 [Katy]
Doug: Phrase of 3rd comment.
19:42:09 [Katy]
Valid Infoset for this specification are the one serializable in XML 1.0, hence the use of XML 1.0.
19:42:38 [Katy]
Agreed should be 'is' rather than 'are'.
19:43:00 [Katy]
Chair: Have all issues that are incorporated in Sept 2nd review closable?
19:43:15 [Katy]
19:43:40 [asir]
q+ to ask a question
19:43:49 [Katy]
... Hearing no objection, we shall publish these as heartbeat Working draft
19:44:28 [Katy]
Asir: Publication in transfer specification has a dangling reference
19:45:03 [Katy]
... to fragment
19:45:45 [Bob]
ack asir
19:45:45 [Zakim]
asir, you wanted to ask a question
19:45:45 [Katy]
Chair: We haven't updated other references and prior snapshots have included references to other specs
19:46:21 [Katy]
Asir: There are 2 references (one in middle and one in end). One in middle refers to dialeect uri
19:46:40 [Katy]
Chair: Does anyone have any objection to us publishing with these links still there?
19:47:34 [Katy]
Yves: We can link to the editors' copy if we want. If the link is auto gen'd to be part of the multi doc publication then we may need to do something else
19:47:55 [Katy]
Asir: That's fine if we can fix with pub rules
19:48:09 [Katy]
Chair: No objections
19:48:30 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: Go ahead with heartbeat publications
19:49:08 [dug]
wait? fruitful??? I thought it was a boondoggle!
19:49:16 [asir]
q+
19:49:16 [Katy]
TOPIC: Action item review
19:49:30 [Bob]
ack asir
19:50:01 [Katy]
Chair: do we have agreement for folk to produce produce action items in time for F2F so F2F is fruitful
19:50:32 [Katy]
Asir: There is only one policy assertion action item open. Should we have more?
19:51:02 [Katy]
Chair: The intention was to base other policy issues on 6403 - that was going to be a template
19:51:22 [Katy]
Asir: Could Doug and I work on the others as well prior to the F2F?
19:51:37 [Katy]
Doug: Yes, so long as we get the template one in place
19:52:02 [Katy]
Chair: Perhaps we could look at 6403 during next week's meeting
19:52:20 [Zakim]
+Mark_Little
19:53:01 [Katy]
ACTION: Asir and Doug to aim to get 6403 proposal for next week's meet as template for other policy
19:53:01 [trackbot]
Created ACTION-101 - And Doug to aim to get 6403 proposal for next week's meet as template for other policy [on Asir Vedamuthu - due 2009-09-22].
19:53:44 [Katy]
Whoops - I forgot realise that would actually create another action - sorry Asir and Doug!
19:54:01 [asir]
That's fine - double reminder :-)
19:54:17 [Katy]
TOPIC: Initial draft of WS-Frag
19:56:08 [Katy]
Ram: I would like to consider dropping the WS-Frag spec and merging RT towards Frag?
19:56:37 [dug]
something == an apple pie
19:56:44 [dug]
with whip cream
19:56:48 [dug]
or ice cream
19:57:03 [Bob]
and cheese
19:57:39 [Katy]
Ram: Reference to fragment goes away and fragment dialect is replaced by something similar in RT spec
19:59:04 [Katy]
Doug: This is more of a structural decision rather than semantics. (i.e. should frag be part of RT)
19:59:59 [Katy]
Chair: This has been ongoing discussion since Raliegh F2F. It is likely that some of the RT spec may come under discussion (based on issues)
20:00:09 [Katy]
... we may be left with just Frag
20:00:48 [Katy]
Chair: ... We could simply say, is there anything in the RT spec that we need to keep if Frag was in place
20:01:02 [Katy]
Doug: I would like one more week for this decision
20:01:33 [Katy]
Chair: Next week is the deadline before RT issues are addressed
20:01:44 [Katy]
Ram: OK with me too
20:04:18 [Katy]
TOPIC: New issues
20:04:53 [Katy]
ACTION: Katy to create new proposal for 7553
20:04:53 [trackbot]
Created ACTION-102 - Create new proposal for 7553 [on Katy Warr - due 2009-09-22].
20:05:01 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: 7553 opened
20:06:01 [Ram]
q+
20:06:24 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: 7554 opened
20:06:52 [gpilz]
q+
20:07:09 [Bob]
ack ram
20:07:13 [Bob]
ack gp
20:08:42 [li]
q+
20:08:53 [Katy]
Gil: It should be clear to the unsubscriber, you should receive invalid subscription fault but during unsubscribe you should receive this unsubscribe fault
20:08:56 [Bob]
ack li
20:09:08 [Katy]
... in order to indicate that the subscription is still active
20:10:12 [Katy]
ACTION: Katy to create proposal for 7554 that considers 7553
20:10:13 [trackbot]
Created ACTION-103 - Create proposal for 7554 that considers 7553 [on Katy Warr - due 2009-09-22].
20:10:40 [Katy]
Issue 7586
20:11:36 [Katy]
Gil: It is overly complex to have xs:duration and xs:datetime for subscriptions
20:11:57 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: 7586 is opened
20:12:53 [Katy]
Chair: Is this predecessor to 7478
20:13:11 [Katy]
Gil: They are kindof separate. It has an existing proposal
20:14:07 [Katy]
Chair: Could you provide a link to that proposal in bugzilla for this issue?
20:14:12 [Katy]
Gil: yes will do
20:14:58 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: 7587 opened
20:15:15 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: 7588 opened
20:15:30 [Katy]
7589
20:16:41 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: 7589 opened
20:16:59 [asir]
q+
20:17:26 [Bob]
ack asir
20:17:51 [Katy]
ACTION: Gil to produce proposal for 7589
20:17:51 [trackbot]
Sorry, couldn't find user - Gil
20:18:02 [Katy]
ACTION: GIlbert to produce proposal for 7589
20:18:02 [trackbot]
Created ACTION-104 - Produce proposal for 7589 [on Gilbert Pilz - due 2009-09-22].
20:18:30 [Katy]
Asir: When do we stop new issues coming in
20:18:41 [dug]
q+
20:18:57 [Katy]
Chair: After Last call draft, if we make substantive changes, it drops back to last call
20:19:19 [Bob]
ack dug
20:19:24 [Katy]
... so I have no problem with new issues but substantive changes will drop us back
20:20:01 [Katy]
Doug: I agree that we need to close issues down but now is the time to step through the specs in detail and notice issues
20:20:15 [Katy]
... especially as we have spent more time on some specs than others
20:20:47 [Katy]
Chair: If you have any substantive issues against RT, open them now
20:20:59 [Katy]
... as don't know the frag direction
20:21:05 [Katy]
TOPIC: Issue 7426 IRI or URI
20:21:54 [Ram]
Revision to RFC 3987 that is in progress at IETF:.
20:22:03 [Katy]
Yves: Other specs support IRI, we should too. Or we should state that each time we use 'URI' we actually mean 'IRI'
20:22:16 [Bob]
q?
20:22:17 [Ram]
Just want to draw the attention of this WG to the work on the revision to RFC 3987.
20:22:25 [Katy]
Doug: This is basically a global replace?
20:22:28 [Ram]
q+
20:22:31 [Katy]
Yves: Yes
20:22:34 [Bob]
ack ram
20:22:57 [Katy]
Ram: Fine with Yves suggestion.
20:23:31 [Katy]
... but want to point out that there is a revision being worked upon (3987). This does not change the discussion
20:23:45 [Katy]
... I would just like to draw people's attention to this
20:24:13 [Katy]
Chair: Is there a subsection that we should be pointing to?
20:24:16 [Yves]
section 5
20:24:29 [Yves]
5.3.1. Simple String Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
20:24:49 [Katy]
... We need to be aware of code set and representation and that IRI is intended to support many languages
20:26:35 [Katy]
... but simple string comparison is key here. We are saying that the 5.3.1 comparison may cause a false negative comparison
20:27:03 [Katy]
... so a comparison would be a code point by code point comparison to check for equivalence
20:27:15 [Katy]
... Are folks still ok with this resolution?
20:27:59 [Katy]
Asir: Previous specs did not do a global replace. For example, namespace must stay as URI
20:28:09 [Katy]
... so we need to be careful
20:28:44 [Katy]
Yves: In 2003 namespaces were not IRI enabled so back then we needed to be careful about namespaces being URI rather than IRI
20:29:10 [Katy]
... but 2006 recommendation IRI-enables namespaces
20:29:36 [Katy]
Asir: but 2006 and 6 has other issues such as xml11
20:29:49 [Katy]
Chair: Need a bit more work on this
20:30:23 [gpilz]
q+
20:30:34 [Bob]
acl gp
20:30:39 [Bob]
ack gp
20:30:47 [Katy]
... Yves, Doug and Asir discuss on this on public mailing list to get a proposal ready for next week
20:30:52 [Zakim]
- +91.98.49.99.aaaa
20:31:15 [Katy]
Gil: I am concerned about the test effort for this
20:31:36 [Zakim]
+ +91.98.49.99.aadd
20:33:03 [Katy]
TOPIC: Issue 6568
20:33:59 [Katy]
Ram: I have sent a proposal to address the problems with the references in the group of proposals relating to references
20:34:05 [Ram]
Proposed resolution:
20:34:07 [Ram]
Proposed resolution:
20:34:14 [Bob]
and issues 6569, 6570, 6571, and 6572
20:35:32 [Katy]
Ram: I have gone through each of references and 1) make them point to the latest standards 2) decided whether the references are normative or not
20:36:48 [Katy]
Chair: Can we use the technique for citing referencs in xslt 2
20:37:09 [dug]
yves - i'm getting blocked again
20:37:39 [dug]
129.33.49.251
20:38:01 [Yves]
20:38:58 [dug]
any chance you could fix it (again) ?
20:39:29 [Yves]
done ;)
20:39:40 [asir]
here is an example
20:39:40 [asir]
[XML1]
20:39:40 .
20:40:44 [Katy]
Doug: Do we want to point to the lastest or the dated version
20:41:18 [Katy]
Chair: would prefer that we link to a dated version rather than one that may not be yet written
20:43:12 [Zakim]
-Mark_Little
20:45:29 [Katy]
RESOLUTION: Above issues 6568/69/70/71/72 accepted based on proposals from Ram. Dated version references and style guide here
for editors
20:45:29 [asir]
Bob said - s/Non-normative References/Informative References/g
20:46:19 [dug]
blocked again!
20:46:36 [Yves]
now on two machine!
20:49:19 [Katy]
TOPIC: 7486 Confusion regarding optional Put elements
20:49:44 [Katy]
RESOLTION: Proposal for 7486 accepted and 7486 is resolved
20:49:56 [Katy]
TOPIC: Issue-7478
20:50:06 [Bob]
20:52:13 [Ram]
q+
20:52:27 [Bob]
ack ram
20:53:56 [Katy]
Ram: Assmuption that the eventing spec has made is that the souce decides what to send to subscriber and subscriber must code defensively. Source may have some resource constraints meaning that it cannot always provide client subscriptions
20:55:09 [Bob]
q+
20:56:04 [dug]
q+
20:56:33 [Bob]
ack bob
20:56:35 [Katy]
... how should client deal with this? Send unsubscribe? Gil's proposal is one way to deal with this may be others.
20:57:40 [Katy]
Bob: Small server community tend not to have concept of timezones or persistence.
20:58:19 [dug]
earth-based?? LOL
20:58:22 [Katy]
... What should client do if it gets a notication but it has no idea why because it didn't persist previous state is another scenraio
20:59:43 [Bob]
ack bob_
20:59:48 [Bob]
ack dug
20:59:55 [gpilz]
q+
21:00:48 [Katy]
...restricted capabilities regarding time for small clients
21:01:31 [Katy]
Doug: Subscriber should have control as its the one asking for subscription. Should not be given a random period of time by which the subscription may live.
21:01:36 [Bob]
ack gpi
21:02:00 [li]
q+
21:02:20 [Bob]
ack li
21:03:09 [Katy]
Chair: Please add any issues with this proposal and others to mailing list.
21:03:15 [Zakim]
-Ashok_Malhotra
21:03:21 [Zakim]
- +1.703.860.aabb
21:03:22 [Zakim]
-[Microsoft]
21:03:26 [Zakim]
-Bob_Freund
21:03:27 [Zakim]
-gpilz
21:03:27 [Zakim]
-Yves
21:03:29 [Zakim]
- +91.98.49.99.aadd
21:03:32 [Zakim]
-[IBM]
21:03:36 [gpilz]
gpilz has left #ws-ra
21:03:53 [Bob]
rrsagent, generate minutes
21:03:53 [RRSAgent]
I have made the request to generate
Bob
21:04:03 [Zakim]
-??P6
21:04:05 [Zakim]
-li
21:09:05 [Zakim]
disconnecting the lone participant, Tom_Rutt, in WS_WSRA()3:30PM
21:09:07 [Zakim]
WS_WSRA()3:30PM has ended
21:09:09 [Zakim]
Attendees were +91.98.49.99.aaaa, gpilz, Bob_Freund, [IBM], +1.703.860.aabb, +1.908.696.aacc, Tom_Rutt, [Microsoft], Ashok_Malhotra, li, Yves, Mark_Little, +91.98.49.99.aadd
22:12:29 [Tom_Rutt]
Tom_Rutt has joined #ws-ra | http://www.w3.org/2009/09/15-ws-ra-irc | CC-MAIN-2014-49 | refinedweb | 2,738 | 71.58 |
24 April 2008 16:25 [Source: ICIS news]
LONDON (ICIS news)--Spolchemie’s bis-phenol A (BPA) plant at Usti Nad Labem in the Czech Republic will undergo routine maintenance from 19 July, said a company source on Thursday.
?xml:namespace>
The seller said the turnaround was scheduled to last until 3 August, although the precise dates could be subject to some slight alterations. Capacity details for the site were not disclosed.
Epoxy resin production at the site will be unaffected by the turnaround, said the source.
Stocks will be built in advance, added the source and it did not expect any impact on the merchant market, although it did not rule out the possibility of purchasing some additional stocks if required.
BPA market participants include Bayer, Hexion, Valspar, Air Products and Mitsui. The material is used as a feedstock in the production of epoxy resins, polycarbonate and poly | http://www.icis.com/Articles/2008/04/24/9118983/spolchemie-bpa-turnaround-set-for-july-august.html | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | refinedweb | 149 | 59.03 |
I just worked it out and I can't believe it! I'm so sorry guys haha.
Turns out the image was actually a bmp, it just had the file extension of png. WOOOOPS!
Thanks very much to everyone who...
I just worked it out and I can't believe it! I'm so sorry guys haha.
Turns out the image was actually a bmp, it just had the file extension of png. WOOOOPS!
Thanks very much to everyone who...
Project Folder:
>src
>>(default package) - //java files here//
>>images - //image here//
>jre
>images - //image here//
Thanks for the reply, but still a blank screen :(
Line is as follows: backgroundImage = new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("/images/splash_screen.png"));
My structure is as follows for...
Yup there is a red square, but the image is being located. I've tested for that already. Why should putting the image in my src folder make a difference?
Having said that there was one little...
File directory is fine.
I moved gameWindow.setVisible(true); to after the line gameWindow.add(splashScreen.getContent()); but it didn't make a difference.
Here's the output:
javax.swing.JPanel[,0,0,800x600,invalid,layout=java.awt.FlowLayout,alignmentX=0.0,alignmentY=0.0,border=,flags=9,maximumSize=,minimumSize=,preferredSize=]
Thanks for testing it! Here's my structure:
Project Folder:
>src >>default package
>jre
>splash_screen.png
Using setBounds and the panel is within bounds of the JFrame. Doesn't help, just a blank JFrame.
Hey, I was hoping someone could point out why my image may not be showing. Note I am using eclipse.
Window.java:
import javax.swing.*;
public class Window
{
private JFrame gameWindow; | http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com/search.php?s=049e2ffafd218217ad3f66f198dbcd34&searchid=204194 | CC-MAIN-2016-30 | refinedweb | 275 | 71.21 |
If work on older browsers. That means that you can take advantage of the design time tooling and safety of types (like code completion & navigation), while still leveraging the familiarity, community, and ubiquity of JavaScript.
But if you already know what TypeScript is and want to start using 2.7, go ahead and get it on NuGet or download it over npm:
npm install -g typescript
Visual Studio 2015 users (who have Update 3) can install TypeScript 2.7 from here, and Visual Studio 2017 users using version 15.2 or later will be able to get TypeScript by simply installing it from here. Sublime Text Plugin users can install the new version from Package Control.
TypeScript 2.7 will be available for Visual Studio Code very soon, but eager users can get it working pretty easily in the meantime.
We've got a lot in 2.7. While you can always take a look at the roadmap, we've put together a quick list for a bird's eye view of this release:
- Stricter class property checks
- Definite assignment assertions
- Easier ECMAScript module interoperability
unique symboltypes and const-named properties
- Cleaner output in
--watchmode
- Prettier
--prettyoutput
- Numeric Separators
- Fixed Length Tuples
inoperator narrowing and accurate
instanceof
- Smarter object literal inference
We've also put together a breaking changes section towards the end of this post which existing users should be aware of.
So without further ado, let's see what this release brings!
Stricter class property checks
TypeScript 2.7 introduces a new strictness flag named
--strictPropertyInitialization!
This flag makes sure that each instance property of a class gets set in the constructor body, or by a property initializer. In a sense, it brings some of the definite assignment checks from variables to instance properties in classes. For example:
class C { foo: number; bar = "hello"; baz: boolean; // ~~~ // Error! Property 'baz' has no initializer and is not assigned directly in the constructor. constructor() { this.foo = 42; } }
In the above,
baz never gets set, and TypeScript reports an error. If we truly meant for
baz to potentially be
undefined, we should have declared it with the type
boolean | undefined.
There are certain scenarios where properties might be initialized indirectly (perhaps by a helper method or dependency injection library). In those cases, you can convince the type system you know better by using the definite assignment assertions for your properties.
class C { foo!: number; // ^ // Notice this exclamation point! // This is the "definite assignment assertion" modifier.
As expressive as we try to make the type system, we understand there are certain times you might know better than TypeScript.
As we mentioned above, definite assignment assertions are a new syntax you can use to convince TypeScript that a property will definitely get assigned. But in addition to working on class properties, TypeScript 2.7 also allows you to use this feature on variable declarations!
let x!: number[]; initialize(); x.push(4); function initialize() { x = [0, 1, 2, 3]; }
If we hadn't added an exclamation point/bang (
!) after
x, TypeScript would have reported that
x was never initialized. This can be handy in deferred-initialization, or re-initialization scenarios.
Easier ECMAScript module interoperability
Before ECMAScript modules were standardized in ES2015, the JavaScript ecosystem had several different module formats that worked in different ways. Once the standard passed, the community was left with a question of how to best interoperate with existing "legacy" module formats.
TypeScript and Babel took different approaches, and even now, there really isn't a locked down standard. The short story is that if you've used Babel, Webpack, or React Native, and expected different import behaviors than you were used to, we have a new compiler option for you called
--esModuleInterop.
Babel and Webpack allow users to import these CommonJS modules as default imports, but also provide each property on the namespace import (unless the module was marked with an
__esModule flag).
import _, { pick } from "lodash"; _.pick(...); pick(...);
Because TypeScript's behavior differs, we added the
--allowSyntheticDefaultImports flag in TypeScript 1.8 to allow users to get this behavior for type-checking (but not emit).
In general, TypeScript's view of CommonJS (and AMD) modules is that namespace imports always correspond to the shape of a CommonJS module object, and that a
default import just corresponds to a member on that module named
default. Under this assumption, you can create a named import
import { range } from "lodash"; for (let i of range(10)) { // ... }
However, ES namespace imports aren't callable, so this approach doesn't always make sense.
import * as express from "express"; // Should be an error in any valid implementation. let app = express();
To give users the same runtime behavior as Babel or Webpack, TypeScript provides a new
--esModuleInterop flag when emitting to
legacy module formats.
Under the new
--esModuleInterop flag, these callable CommonJS modules must be imported as default imports like so:
import express from "express"; let app = express();
We strongly suggest that Node.js users leverage this flag with a module target of
commonjs for libraries like express, which export a callable/constructable module.
Webpack users may want to use this as well; however, your code should target
esnext modules with a
moduleResolution strategy of
node. Using
esnext modules with
--esModuleInterop really only has the effect of turning on
--allowSyntheticDefaultImports.
unique symbol types and const-named properties
TypeScript 2.7 understands ECMAScript symbols more deeply, allowing you to use them more flexibly.
One highly-demanded use-case is being able to declare well-typed properties with symbols. For an example, take the following:
const Foo = Symbol("Foo"); const Bar = Symbol("Bar"); let x = { [Foo]: 100, [Bar]: "hello", }; let a = x[Foo]; // has type 'number' let b = x[Bar]; // has type 'string'
As you can see, TypeScript can keep track of the fact that
x has properties declared using the symbols
Foo and
Bar since both
Foo and
Bar were declared as constants. TypeScript leverages this fact and gives both
Foo and
Bar a new kind of type:
unique symbols.
unique symbols are subtype of
symbol, and are produced only from calling
Symbol() or
Symbol.for(), or from explicit type annotations. They can only occur on
const declarations and
readonly static properties, and in order to reference an existing unique symbol type, you'll have to use the
typeof operator. Each reference to a
unique symbol implies a completely unique identity that's tied to a given declaration.
//.
const Foo = Symbol(); const Bar = Symbol(); // Error: can't compare two unique symbols. if (Foo === Bar) { // ... }
Other potential use-cases include using symbols for tagged unions.
// ./ShapeKind.ts export const Circle = Symbol("circle"); export const Square = Symbol("square"); // ./ShapeFun.ts import * as ShapeKind from "./ShapeKind"; interface Circle { kind: typeof ShapeKind.Circle; radius: number; } interface Square { kind: typeof ShapeKind.Square; sideLength: number; } function area(shape: Circle | Square) { if (shape.kind === ShapeKind.Circle) { // 'shape' has type 'Circle' return Math.PI * shape.radius ** 2; } // 'shape' has type 'Square' return shape.sideLength ** 2; }
Cleaner output in
--watch mode
TypeScript's
--watch mode now clears the screen after a re-compilation is requested. This can make it much easier to read messages from the current compilation. We'd like to thank both Philipp Kretzschmar and Joshua Goldberg for helping out on this feature!
Prettier
--pretty output
TypeScript's
--pretty flag can make error messages easier to read and manage. We have two main improvements in this functionality. First, thanks to a pull request from Joshua Goldberg
--pretty now uses colors for file names, diagnostic codes, and line numbers. Second, thanks to a separate pull request by Orta Therox, file names and positions are formatted in such a way that common terminals (including the one embedded in Visual Studio Code) can allow a Ctrl+Click, Cmd+Click, Alt+Click, etc. to jump to the appropriate location in your editor
Numeric Separators
TypeScript 2.7 introduces support for ECMAScript's numeric separators proposal. This feature allows users to place underscores (
_) in between digits to visually distinguish groups of digits (much like how commas and periods are often used to group numbers).
// Constants const COULOMB = 8.957_551_787e9; // N-m^2 / C^2 const PLANCK = 6.626_070_040e-34; // J-s const JENNY = 867_5309; // C-A-L^2
These separators are also useful for binary and hexadecimal numbers.
let bits = 0b0010_1010; let routine = 0xC0FFEE_F00D_BED; let martin = 0xF0_1E_
Note that, perhaps counterintuitively, numbers in JavaScript are not well-suited to represent credit card and telephone numbers. Strings will act as better representations in such cases.], and the "trailing"
string type is assignable to the union of element types from
[number, string]. However, after examining real world usage of tuples, we noticed that most situations in which this was permitted was typically undesirable.
Thanks to a pull request from Tycho Grouwstra, tuple types now encode their arity into the type of their respective
length property, and tuples of different arities are no longer assignable to each other.. If you need to resort to the original behavior in which tuples only enforce a minimum size, you can use a similar declaration that does not explicitly define a
length property, falling back to
number.
interface MinimumNumStrTuple extends Array<number | string> { 0: number; 1: string; }
in operator narrowing and accurate
instanceof
TypeScript 2.7 brings two new changes to type narrowing - the ability to get a more specific type for a value by running certain types of checks called "type guards".
First, the
instanceof operator is now leverages the inheritance chain instead of
relying on structural compatibility, more accurately reflecting whether how
instanceof may behave at runtime. This can help avoid certain complex issues when
instanceof narrows from structurally similar (but unrelated) types.
Second, thanks to GitHub user IdeaHunter, the
in operator now acts as a type guard, narrowing out types that don't explicitly declare properties of a given name.
interface A { a: number }; interface B { b: string }; function foo(x: A | B) { if ("a" in x) { return x.a; } return x.b; }
Smarter object literal inference
There are certain patterns in JavaScript where users will omit properties so that all uses of those properties are effectively
undefined.
let foo = someTest ? { value: 42 } : {};
TypeScript used seek the best common supertype between
{ value: number } and
{}, ending up with
{}. While being technically correct, this wasn't very useful.
Starting with version 2.7, TypeScript now "normalizes" each object literal's type to account for every property, inserting an optional property of type
undefined on each object type, and unioning them together.
From the above example, the new type of
foo would be
{ value: number } | { value?: undefined }. Combined with the ways TypeScript can narrow, this lets us write expressive code that TypeScript can still understand. As another example, take the following:
// Has type // | { a: boolean, aData: number, b?: undefined } // | { b: boolean, bData: string, a?: undefined } let bar = Math.random() < 0.5 ? { a: true, aData: 100 } : { b: true, bData: "hello" }; if (bar.b) { // TypeScript now knows that 'bar' has the type // // '{ b: boolean, bData: string, a?: undefined }' // // so it knows that 'bData' is available. bar.bData.toLowerCase() }
Here, TypeScript is able to narrow the type of
bar based on checking its
b property, allowing us to access the
bData property.
Breaking Changes
This release brings some minor breaking changes:
- Tuples now have fixed numeric
lengthproperties.
instanceofand
innow have slightly different narrowing behavior.
- Inferences from generic signatures now use base constraint types of type parameters instead of
any.
- The
setSelectionRangeAPI now only accepts
"forward" | "backward" | "none".
allowSyntheticDefaultImportsno longer synthesizes default imports from TypeScript implementation files (i.e.
.tsand
.tsx).
Additionally, as mentioned above, users with the
--strict setting on will automatically be opted in to
--strictPropertyInitialization which errors on properties which are not directly initialized on their declarations or in constructor bodies. While easy to opt out of by explicitly turning this check off, your code may be impacted.
You can get a detailed look from our list of breaking changes issues for TypeScript 2.7 on GitHub, or keep track of general breaking changes on our Breaking Changes wiki page.
What's next?
We always try to bring more joy to the TypeScript experience. We hope this release continues the tradition of making you more productive and expressive to bring that joy to the core experience.
Now that 2.7 is out, we've got some fantastic things in mind for TypeScript 2.8, including conditional types! While plans are still currently in flux, you can keep a close watch on our roadmap to get an idea of what's on the TypeScript horizon.
Let us know what you think of this release over on Twitter or in the comments below, and feel free to report issues and suggestions filing a GitHub issue.
Happy Hacking! | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/newtestblog/2018/01/12/blogpost_eyvha/ | CC-MAIN-2019-51 | refinedweb | 2,120 | 55.03 |
I have an issue trying to create a custom MyBasePage that will deal with some key behavior for all pages of the app.
For that, I have created a class "MyBasePage" that inherits from "ContentPage" in the namespace "MyProject.Pages.Generic".
And I try to create a new page "TempPage" in XAML. I have set the designer page inherits from "MyBasePage" class, and the issue is in the XAML using the "local"namespace.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <local:MyBasePage </local:MyBasePage>
The error is
Error executing task XamlG: Can't load types from xmlns clr-namespace:MyProject.Pages.Generic;assembly=MyProject
Do you have any idea of the issue?
Thanks
Looks like a bug in latest version on Xamarin stable channel. It works with the latest version on Beta channel.
Thanks Miha. Will check this monday with either the beta channel, or the previous stable version and let you know.
@LudovicThomas this should work as is, unrelated of the version of Xamarin Studio you're running. The behavior depend only on the Xamarin.Forms version.
Could you make sure you are using the latest stable nuget available (1.2.3) and report back ?
Also, does the same xmlns:local definition works in other parts of your app ? if not, it could be just that, and the error message could be spot on.
@StephaneDelcroix I'm pretty sure it was caused by the Xamarin stack somewhere, not Forms (or perhaps the combination of the two). I tried an existing project and got compilation time error. When I updated Xamarin stack to latest beta it started working again. Without changing Forms version that is. Of course, I could have made a mistake somewhere... The Forms version was pre 1.2.3.
@StephaneDelcroix Yes I'm using the latest stable version 1.2.3.
Finally, it's working back... After testing the "XAMLSamples" this morning, to test local XAML views (with local:ClockViewModel), I switch back to my test project, and everything was working smoothly.
Sometimes, a complet clean of the solution can be a good way to solve issues. I will remember that.
Thanks for your quick reply, and sorry for the bad report.
This is still is not fixed on on stable 1.2.3.6257 using osx Xamarin Studio.
To Replicate,
1. Create a new PCL app. (named it ErrorSpike)
2. Add a new Class Library (Portable) to the solution. (named it Shared)
3. Create a class in Shared (named CustomPage) and inherit this from Page.
4. Create a new ContentPage in the applications PCL project called MainPage.
5. Inherit this page from CustomPage in the code behind and update the Xaml as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<shared:CustomPage.Content>
</shared:CustomPage.Content>
2 Errors reported:
MainPage.xaml: Error: Error executing task XamlG: Can't load types from xmlns clr-namespace:Shared;assembly=Shared
/Users/Administrator/Projects/ErrorSpike/packages/Xamarin.Forms.1.2.3.6257/build/portable-win+net45+wp80+MonoAndroid10+MonoTouch10/Xamarin.Forms.targets: Error: Error executing task XamlG: Can't load types from xmlns clr-namespace:Shared;assembly=Shared (ErrorSpike)
Also get an error reported in xaml editor if I simply reference an other PCL class library.
/Users/Administrator/Projects/ErrorSpike/ErrorSpike/Views/MainPage.xaml(7,7): Error: The type or namespace name `Shared' could not be found. Are you missing an assembly reference? (ErrorSpike)
All I needed to do to replicate this was to create MainPage as a Normal ContentPage without deriving from a custom Page. Then add a reference to my shared class library. Add a using statement for Shared anywhere in the project. Then edit the MainPage.Xaml. Anything will do, just a label or something, doesn't matter. Build, Error reported in xaml in big Red error message. (Screenshot attached).
Anyone any idea's what's going on here as it is very very annoying. | https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/comment/86897 | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | refinedweb | 648 | 59.8 |
In this Python tutorial, we will learn how to implement colors using Python Tkinter. Let us understand in detail Python Tkinter colors with the points:
- Python Tkinter Colors
- Python Tkinter Colors RGB
- Python Tkinter Color Text
- Python Tkinter Color Button
- Python Tkinter Color Chooser
- Python Tkinter Color Label
- Python Tkinter Color Transparent
- Python Tkinter Color Window
Python Tkinter Colors
Colors play an important role in the UI/UX of the application. It adds a professional touch to the application and helps in engaging the user for a longer time.
- Every color has some thought behind it, selecting the right color for an application is an art & it takes time to master it.
- Red symbolizes an error, green means okay or done, yellow means something is incomplete, etc.
- Every color has two things and the developer/user can provide either of them:
- color name: ‘white smoke’, ‘red’, ‘floral white’, ‘blue’, etc
- color code: #F5F5F5, #FF0000, #FFFAF0, 0000FF, etc
Read: Python Tkinter Autocomplete
Python Tkinter Colors RGB
Python Tkinter does not support input of colors in RGB format but we can create a workaround that accepts inputs in a RGB format.
- In the below program, you can notice that we have created a function that accepts user input and it adds pound sign (#) as prefix and byte code as a suffix.
- Now while providing the background color we have used this function and provided the RGB values.
from tkinter import * def rgb_hack(rgb): return "#%02x%02x%02x" % rgb ws = Tk() ws.title('PythonGuides') ws.geometry('400x300') ws.config(bg=rgb_hack((255, 0, 122))) ws.mainloop()
Output:
In this output, you can see that window has a color passed in the code in a RGB format.
Read: Python Tkinter Mainloop with Examples
Python Tkinter Color Text
In this section, we will learn how to set the color of the Text in Python Tkinter.
- foreground or fg is the option that accepts the color input from the user and sets the font or text color.
- This option is common in almost all the widgets and can be applied on the text of any widget.
- In our example, we will be implementing color on the Text box widget. By default the Text color is blue but we will change it to Blue.
from tkinter import * ws = Tk() ws.title('PythonGuides') ws.config(bg='#D9D8D7') ws.geometry('400x300') tb = Text( ws, width=25, height=8, font=('Times', 20), wrap='word', fg='#4A7A8C' ) tb.pack(expand=True) ws.mainloop()
Output of Python Tkinter Color Text
In this output, we have changed the default color of the text from black to light blue.
Read: Python Tkinter Scrollbar
Python Tkinter Color Button
In this section, we will learn how to change the color of the Button and button text in Python Tkinter.
- Button widget in Python Tkinter has mainly three colors applied on it.
- Button Text Color
- Button background Color
- Button color when clicked
- Button text color can be changed by using keyword foreground or fg.
- Button background color can be changed by using keyword background or bg is used.
- Button color when clicked can be changed by using keyword activebackground and to change color of text use activeforeground.
- In our example, we have demonstrated button that changes color when pointer is hovered over it.
from tkinter import * ws = Tk() ws.titlSelect colorSelect colore('PythonGuides') ws.config(bg='#D9D8D7') ws.geometry('400x300') Button( ws, text='Download', font=('Times', 20), padx=10, pady=10, bg='#4a7abc', fg='yellow', activebackground='green', activeforeground='white' ).pack(expand=True) ws.mainloop()
Output:
In this output, a button has a background color as light-blue and yellow text. When the mouse is hovered-over it, the button changes to a green background and white foreground or text color.
Read: Python Tkinter Text Box Widget
Python Tkinter Color Chooser
In this section, we will learn to create a color chooser using python tkinter.
- Python Tkinter provides colorchooser module using which color toolbox can be displayed.
- Color chooser allows users to choose colors from the color tray.
- colorchooser returns the RGB code with hexadecimal color code in the tuple format.
- In our example, we will create an application that allows users to choose any color from the color tray, and then that color will be displayed on the label.
from tkinter import * from tkinter import colorchooser def pick_color(): color = colorchooser.askcolor(title ="Choose color") color_me.config(bg=color[1]) color_me.config(text=color) ws = Tk() ws.title('PythonGuides') ws.geometry('400x300') color_me = Label( ws, text='(217, 217, 217) #d9d9d9', font = ('Times', 20), relief = SOLID, padx=20, pady=20 ) color_me.pack(expand=True) button = Button( ws, text = "Choose Color", command = pick_color, padx=10, pady=10, font=('Times', 18), bg='#4a7a8c' ) button.pack() ws.mainloop()
Output:
In this output, you can see that when the user clicks on the choose color button then a color tray is pop-up. and the label changes color to the selected color.
This is how to use a color chooser in Python Tkinter.
Read: grid() method in Python Tkinter
Python Tkinter Color Label
In this section, we will learn how to change color of a Label widget in Python Tkinter.
- Label in Python Tkinter is a widget that is used to display text and images on the application.
- We can apply color on the Label widget and Label Text.
- To color the widget label, the background or bg keyword is used, and to change the text color of the label widget, the foreground or fg keyword is used.
- In this example, we have a colored label widget and label text.
from tkinter import * ws = Tk() ws.title('PythonGuides') ws.config(bg='#D9D8D7') ws.geometry('400x300') Label( ws, text='This text is displayed \n using Label Widget', font=('Times', 20), padx=10, pady=10, bg='#4a7abc', fg='yellow' ).pack(expand=True) ws.mainloop()
In this output, Label widget is painted with light blue and Label text with yellow
Read: Python Tkinter OptionMenu
Python Tkinter Color Transparent
In this section, we will learn how to set the color to transparent in Python Tkinter. In other words, removing all the colors from the background so that background things start appearing through the window.
- The first step in the process is to set the background color to the window using the config keyword.
- now provide the same background color in the wm_attributes()
- Here is the implementation of Python Tkinter Color Transparent.
from tkinter import * ws = Tk() ws.title('PythonGuides') ws.geometry('400x300') ws.config(bg='#4a7a8c') ws.wm_attributes('-transparentcolor','#4a7a8c') ws.mainloop()
Here is the output of Python Tkinter Color Transparent
In this output, the application is transparent and the color you are seeing is the background color of the desktop.
Python Tkinter Color Window
In this section, we will learn how to color the main window of Python Tkinter.
- In Python Tkinter, we can change the default settings of the widget by changing the configuration.
- To change the configuration we can use the keyword config or configure.
from tkinter import * ws = Tk() ws.title('PythonGuides') ws.geometry('400x300') ws.config(bg='#116562') ws.mainloop()
Output:
In this output, window color is changed displayed. Default color of Python Tkinter window is Light Gray, but we have changed it to see green.
You may like the following Python Tkinter tutorials:
- Python NumPy zeros + Examples
- Check if NumPy Array is Empty in Python
- Python NumPy Random
- Registration form in Python using Tkinter
- Extract text from PDF Python
- BMI Calculator Using Python Tkinter
- Python Tkinter Image
- Create a Snake Game in Python Tkinter
In this tutorial, we have learned how to use color in Python Tkinter. Also, we have covered these topics.
- Python Tkinter Colors
- Python Tkinter Colors Example
- Python Tkinter Colors RGB
- Python Tkinter Color Text
- Python Tkinter Color Button
- Python Tkinter Color Chooser
- Python Tkinter Color Label
- Python Tkinter Color Transparent
- Python Tkinter Color Window
Entrepreneur, Founder, Author, Blogger, Trainer, and more. Check out my profile. | https://pythonguides.com/python-tkinter-colors/ | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | refinedweb | 1,318 | 52.9 |
Well, I've been building SCM/Build infrastructures for people for 12 years
now, let me put it to you this way:
If your project is largely Java based, ant is hard to beat, despite its many
faults
*simply because of the javac task* that alone makes it appropriate to
replace
make with Ant *for Java based projects*.
As for "free and unsupported" I'd agree with the "free" part, I'd argue the
unsupported,
if ant is unsupported, then so is the *only* make worth considering: GNUmake
since
it is the only make that runs on *every* platform you might consider *and*
it has the
power to enable a decent, maintainable build system with the majority of the
work
in template makefiles that are included by all other makefiles.
As for performance ant vs. make, it is quite true that a poorly written ant
file will
outperfom the average make-based build (of a java project) 10x or better. I
will say that
I have make-based builds of 100KLOC+ projects that take < 3 seconds to
determine
nothing needs to be done, ant cannot do that. The trick is to *not* fall
into the common
trap of writing recursive makefiles, which not only throw performance out
the window
due to process setup/teardown overhead in the OS, but also force an
artificial dependency
management scheme.
Finally, if your project is *not* Java based, or at least 90% java based,
Ant is the wrong
hammer. Look into cons if you want a truly innovative make replacement for
traditional
projects: http:// <> you
won't be sorry -- I keep wishing that the
Ant development community would take a page out of cons' book, it would
truly be
a great tool to combine some of the ideas of ant with the ideas of cons...
One of these days, when I'm not working 12+ hour days on a contract, I'll
take the time
out and create my own make replacement based on cons but borrowing liberally
from
the ideas in ant...
-Peter
---
Peter A. Vogel
Manager, Configuration Management
Arsin Corporation, Professional Services <>
-----Original Message-----
From: Lance Hankins [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 10.
*).
Any ammunition will be greatly appreciated :)
Thanks,
Lance Hankins
Focus Technologies LLC <>
Phone : 972-396-2064<?xml:namespace prefix = o
Cell : 214-616-7064
"To only a fraction of the human race does God give the privilege of earning
one's bread doing what one would have gladly pursued for free, for passion."
- Fred Brooks | http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/ant-dev/200106.mbox/%[email protected]%3E | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | refinedweb | 421 | 50.91 |
I've been experimenting with HauntedJS recently, a framework for creating Web Components. It allows you to write web components with functions and hooks that are very similar looking to React components. It's similar to other web component frameworks, like Polymer or Stencil, which make the process of creating web components much more streamlined.
But unlike Polymer and Stencil, Haunted doesn't support constructable stylesheets out of the box. This means that styling in HauntedJS is handled in
<style> that are nested inside the web component's shadow DOM scope. This works, but web components are now adopting constructable stylesheets as the default for styling, and usually polyfill the feature before even falling back to that option.
So after some tinkering around, I was able to get constructable stylesheets integrated into the Haunted component architecture. And I was able to do it all inside of a hook — making it a single-line, plug and play feature.
In this article I break down what constructable stylesheets are, how Haunted works, and how I integrated the two.
It's a new way to use create resuable styles when using the shadow DOM. It uses a pre-existing browser API,
CSSStyleSheet, and stores the stylesheet in the
adoptedStyleSheets property.
//]
You can check if the browser supports this feature (or it's polyfill, ShadyCSS) by using this function:
/** * Whether the current browser supports `adoptedStyleSheets`. */ export const supportsAdoptingStyleSheets = window.ShadowRoot && (window.ShadyCSS === undefined || window.ShadyCSS.nativeShadow) && 'adoptedStyleSheets' in Document.prototype && 'replace' in CSSStyleSheet.prototype
Haunted doesn't support constructable stylesheets out of the box, but it is fairly simple to add the functionality to your components using their hooks paradigm.
By default, you style components by adding a
<style> block somewhere inside your component, and that styles your component isolated inside the shadow DOM. It works, but your CSS is duplicated across the application and visible inside the shadow DOM.
function Counter() { const [count, setCount] = useState(0) return html` <button type="button" @click=${() => setCount(count + 1)}> Increment </button> <styles> button { color: red; } </styles> ` }
In LitElement, you create a property for your
styles that's an array of
css() blocks.
The
css function is a helper that takes CSS you write inside literal tags and puts it inside the
CSSStyleSheet instance. This provides a helper class to access the underlying CSS string (
this.cssText), and allows you to combine CSS by merging instances of the class:
const baseStyles = css` spooky-button { background-color: var(--spky-colors-primary); color: var(--spky-colors-text-inverted); } ` const hoverStyles = css` spooky-button:hover { background-color: var(--spky-colors-secondary); } ` // The css helper takes the two classes // and merges them into a single class const buttonStyles = css` ${baseStyles} ${hoverStyles} `
The
styles you provide are used inside an
adoptStyles method that applies the stylesheet to the shadow DOM's
adoptedStyleSheets property (enabling constructable stylesheets). This
adoptStyles method is in the LitElement base class that each web component is extended from.
If the user's browser doesn't support this, they check if a polyfill is available (via ShadyCSS) and use that API to apply the stylesheet. And if all else fails, they just throw the stylesheet into a
<style> block at the end/bottom of the shadow DOM (using
this.renderRoot, which is basically
I took that function, removed the Typescript (because my project didn't support it), and swapped any instance of
this.renderRoot for
this.shadowRoot. The property
renderRoot is created by the LitElement class just in case the user wants to render the shadow DOM in a different root node — or it defaults to the shadow root.
/** *), this.localName ) } else if (supportsAdoptingStyleSheets) { this.shadowRoot.adoptedStyleSheets = styles.map((s) => s instanceof CSSStyleSheet ? s : s.styleSheet ) } else { styles.forEach((s) => { const style = document.createElement('style') style.textContent = s.cssText this.shadowRoot.appendChild(style) }) } }
But how would this run? In LitElement, since it's a class-based component, we can tap into the
initialize() method that runs when the component mounts. But Haunted doesn't have any "lifecycles" or methods like that because it's components are just...functions.
However, Haunted does have hooks!
useLayoutEffect(() => { adoptStyles() }, [styles])
We do this classic hook that you may see in React applications:
useLayoutEffect. This hook runs before the component is rendered to the DOM. It's often used for animation, but we can use it to ensure our styles are applied before the DOM is in place.
And what's great about this functionality, since it's a hook, we pull this functionality out into it's own file and use it in any component:
import { useLayoutEffect } from 'haunted' import { supportsAdoptingStyleSheets } from 'lit-element' export function useConstructableStylesheets(el, styles) { /** * = (el) => {), el.localName ) } else if (supportsAdoptingStyleSheets) { el.shadowRoot.adoptedStyleSheets = styles.map((s) => s instanceof CSSStyleSheet ? s : s.styleSheet ) } else { styles.forEach((s) => { const style = document.createElement('style') style.textContent = s.cssText el.shadowRoot.appendChild(style) }) } } useLayoutEffect(() => { adoptStyles(el) }, [styles]) }
And this how how we'd use the hook in a Haunted component:
import { html } from 'lit-html' import { css, unsafeCSS } from 'lit-element' import { component } from 'haunted' import { useConstructableStylesheets } from 'spooky-ui-hooks' export function Button({ type, color }) { const styles = [ css` button { color: ${color ? unsafeCSS(color) : 'red'}; } `, ] useConstructableStylesheets(this, styles) return html` <button type=${type ? type : 'button'}> <slot></slot> </button> ` } Button.observedAttributes = ['type', 'color'] customElements.define('spooky-button', component(Button))
It makes stylesheets more efficient by leveraging a modern browser API that is built for it.
LitElement has this functionality, but because the way their components are composed, they don't re-mount the CSS styles at any point, so you're not able to use your component properties or attributes inside the CSS. It's easy to use props inside styles using Haunted, but you can't leverage constructable stylesheets, so it feels less efficient.
Right now the hook that I designed and LitElement both apply the stylesheet to the component's shadow DOM. This means that we didn't solve the issue of duplicate stylesheets, we just removed the visibility of stylesheets from the DOM. If you inspect each web component that uses constructable stylesheets, you'll notice that it's
shadowRoot will have the stylesheet inside the
adoptedStylesheets property.
Instead, it'd be much better to apply the stylesheet to the document root. This way the styles can be unified. But it doesn't work that easy!
const sheet = new CSSStyleSheet() sheet.replaceSync('a { color: red; }') // Combine existing sheets with our new one: document.adoptedStyleSheets = [...document.adoptedStyleSheets, sheet]
The stylesheet stored in the document root exists as a stylesheet. Meaning when you add to it, there's no way update the chunk you added.
What you end up needing is some sort of "Styled Components"-style abstraction that does the job unifying all the styles across all components. This way there's something that has the authority and oversight to manage stylesheets between components. It's hard to say how it'd work.
Almosts makes you wonder why you don't just use Styled Components functionality instead. Rather than using Constructable Stylesheets and storing everything in one property, you generate as many
<style> tags as you need and append them to the DOM, then apply a unique class name to the component. This would be much easier to manage, hot-swap, and scale.
I've seen people mention web components in the Styled Components repo issues before, but it was shot down due to "lack of interest". But I could really see the utility of extracting their core algorithm and integrate it with a web component lifecycle.
3.4K+ developers have started their personal blogs on Hashnode in the last one month.
Write in Markdown · Publish articles on custom domain · Gain readership on day zero · Automatic GitHub backup and more | https://hashnode.com/post/adding-constructable-stylesheets-to-hauntedjs-ckbsc651h0260lgs15g6vmxts | CC-MAIN-2021-04 | refinedweb | 1,288 | 55.03 |
This page is a snapshot from the LWG issues list, see the Library Active Issues List for more information and the meaning of C++17 status.
Section: 26.4.7 [complex.value.ops] Status: C++17 Submitter: Marshall Clow Opened: 2014-10-22 Last modified: 2017-07-30
Priority: 0
View all other issues in [complex.value.ops].
View all issues with C++17 status.
Discussion:
Different implementations give different answers for the following code:
#include <iostream> #include <complex> int main () { std::cout << std::polar(-1.0, -1.0) << '\n'; return 0; }
One implementation prints:
(nan, nan)
Another:
(-0.243068, 0.243068)
Which is correct? Or neither?In this list, Howard Hinnant wrote:
I've read this over several times. I've consulted C++11, C11, and IEC 10967-3. [snip]I'm finding:
-
The magnitude of a complex number == abs(c) == hypot(c.real(), c.imag()) and is always non-negative (by all three of the above standards).
-
Therefore no complex number exists for which abs(c) < 0.
-
Therefore when the first argument to std::polar (which is called rho) is negative, no complex number can be formed which meets the post-conidtion that abs(c) == rho.
One could argue that this is already covered in 26.4 [complex.numbers]/3, but I think it's worth making explicit.
[2015-02, Cologne]
Discussion on whether theta should also be constrained.
TK: infinite theta doesn't make sense, whereas infinite rho does (theta is on a compact domain, rho is on a non-compact domain).
AM: We already have a narrow contract, so I don't mind adding further requirements. Any objections to requiring that theta be finite?
Some more discussion, but general consensus. Agreement that if someone finds the restrictions problematic, they should write a proper paper to address how std::polar should behave. For now, we allow infinite rho (but not NaN and not negative), and require finite theta.
Proposed resolution:
This wording is relative to N4296.
Change 26.4.7 [complex.value.ops] around p9 as indicated
template<class T> complex<T> polar(const T& rho, const T& theta = 0);
-9- Returns: The complex value corresponding to a complex number whose magnitude is rho and whose phase angle is theta.-9- Returns: The complex value corresponding to a complex number whose magnitude is rho and whose phase angle is theta. | https://cplusplus.github.io/LWG/issue2459 | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | refinedweb | 393 | 57.06 |
goto
The goto statement transfers the program control directly to a labeled statement. It takes one of the following forms:
where:
- identifier
- A label.
- constant-expression
- A switch-case label.
Remarks
In the first form, the identifier indicates a label located in the current body, the same lexical scope, or an enclosing scope of the goto statement.
A common use of goto is to transfer control to a specific switch-case label or the default label in a switch statement.
The goto statement is also useful to get out of deeply nested loops.
A warning message may be issued if the label has never been referenced in the program. For more information on labels, see 3.3 Declarations.
Example
For an example of using goto to transfer control to a specific switch-case label, see the switch example.
Example
The following example demonstrates using goto to break out from nested loops.
// statements_goto.cs // Nested search loops using System; public class GotoTest1 { public static void Main() { int x = 200, y = 4; int count = 0; string[,] myArray = new string[x,y]; // Initialize the array: for (int i = 0; i < x; i++) for (int j = 0; j < y; j++) myArray[i,j] = (++count).ToString(); // Read input: Console.Write("Enter the number to search for: "); // Input a string: string myNumber = Console.ReadLine(); // Search: for (int i = 0; i < x; i++) for (int j = 0; j < y; j++) if (myArray[i,j].Equals(myNumber)) goto Found; Console.WriteLine("The number {0} was not found.", myNumber); goto Finish; Found: Console.WriteLine("The number {0} is found.", myNumber); Finish: Console.WriteLine("End of search."); } }
Input
Sample Output
Example
// statements_goto2.cs // CS0159 expected // Labels outside the scope using System; class UnreachableCode { public static void Main() { int x = 55; Console.WriteLine("x = {0}", x); if (x == 55) { x = 135; goto A; // Error } x = x + 1; for (int i=1; i<=5; i++) { A: Console.WriteLine(i); } Console.WriteLine("x = {0}", x); } }
In the preceding example, the goto statement is referencing a label
A outside its scope. The compiler will issue the error message:
A warning message may also be issued because the label has never been referenced.
If you move the label
A to the beginning of the for loop, the program would compile and run normally, that is:
See Also
C# Keywords | Compare to C++ | Jump Statements | C. Grammar | https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/13940fs2(VS.71).aspx | CC-MAIN-2015-35 | refinedweb | 391 | 57.47 |
So far I have managed to find the particular solution to this equation for any given mass and drag coefficient. I have not however found a way to plot the solution or even evaluate the solution for a specific point. I really want to find a way to plot the solution.
from sympy import *
m = float(raw_input('Mass:\n> '))
g = 9.8
k = float(raw_input('Drag Coefficient:\n> '))
f = Function('f')
f1 = g * m
t = Symbol('t')
v = Function('v')
equation = dsolve(f1 - k * v(t) - m * Derivative(v(t)), 0)
C1 = Symbol('C1')
C1_ic = solve(equation.rhs.subs({t:0}),C1)[0]
equation = equation.subs({C1:C1_ic})
Import these libraries (seaborn just makes the plots pretty).
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt import seaborn as sns import numpy as np
Then tack this onto the end. This will plot time, t, against velocity, v(t).
# make a numpy-ready function from the sympy results func = lambdify(t, equation.rhs,'numpy') xvals = np.arange(0,10,.1) yvals = func(xvals) # make figure fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,1,subplot_kw=dict(aspect='equal')) ax.plot(xvals, yvals) ax.set_xlabel('t') ax.set_ylabel('v(t)') plt.show()
I get a plot like this for a mass of 2 and a drag coefficient of 2. | https://codedump.io/share/TMI6Tvqt1lx3/1/plotting-sympy-result-to-particular-solution-of-differential-equation | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | refinedweb | 212 | 59.7 |
Create an rqt_bag PluginDescription: Create a custom visualization for rqt_bag
Keywords: rqt_bag bag data rqt
Tutorial Level: INTERMEDIATE
Contents
Let's say you have bags of data and you want to be able to visualize them. rqt_bag gives you the ability to scroll through the recorded messages and visualize the raw message values. However, often may want something more visual, or to do some post-processing on the raw message. For that, you can write an rqt_bag plugin, using the proof-of-concept Python plugin system. That way you can go from a simple visualization of the messages...
to something like this:
Package Setup
We're going to create a package called rqt_bag_diagnostics_demo. Insert the following into your package.xml.
1 <depend>diagnostic_msgs</depend> 2 <depend>rqt_bag</depend> 3 <export> 4 <rqt_bag plugin="${prefix}/plugins.xml"/> 5 </export>
Since we'll be making a python library, we'll need the standard Python setup. In your CMake
catkin_python_setup()
In setup.py
from distutils.core import setup from catkin_pkg.python_setup import generate_distutils_setup package_info = generate_distutils_setup( packages=['rqt_bag_diagnostics_demo'], package_dir={'': 'src'} ) setup(**package_info)
Finally, we're going to define the plugin in an xml file called plugins.xml (as referenced in the package.xml)
1 <library path="src"> 2 <class name="DiagnosticBagPlugin" 3 5 <description> 6 </description> 7 </class> 8 </library>
The name is the name of the class we'll create. The type is the way we would import the class in Python, i.e. package_name.name_of_file.class_name
Defining the Plugin
As with all Python libraries, we'll make sure a (blank) src/package_name/__init__.py file exists. As referenced in the plugins.xml, all the code that follows will be in src/rqt_bag_diagnostics_demo/the_plugin.py.
First, the core Plugin class.
1 from rqt_bag.plugins.plugin import Plugin 2 from python_qt_binding.QtCore import Qt 3 from diagnostic_msgs.msg import DiagnosticStatus 4 5 6 def get_color(diagnostic): 7 if diagnostic.level == DiagnosticStatus.OK: 8 return Qt.green 9 elif diagnostic.level == DiagnosticStatus.WARN: 10 return Qt.yellow 11 else: # ERROR or STALE 12 return Qt.red 13 14 15 class DiagnosticBagPlugin(Plugin): 16 def __init__(self): 17 pass 18 19 def get_view_class(self): 20 return None 21 22 def get_renderer_class(self): 23 return None 24 25 def get_message_types(self): 26 return ['diagnostic_msgs/DiagnosticStatus']
Here we have some basic imports, and helper function that we'll use later, and a class that defines the three parts of an rqt_bag plugin.
view_class - a.k.a. TopicMessageView - A separate panel that can be used for viewing individual messages.
renderer_class - a.k.a. TimelineView - A tool for drawing onto the timeline view of the bag data.
message_types - An array of strings that define what message types this plugin can be used for. You can return ['*'] for it to apply to all messages.
Since we return None for the first two methods, this plugin won't do anything. We'll tackle each of these separately.
TopicMessageView
Version 1
We're going to create a class that extends the TopicMessageView class.
Here we define two things. The name string defines what we'll see in the menu of rqt_bag. The message_viewed method defines what to do when the message is selected. So here, we'll just print the message to terminal for now.
We need to hook this class we've created into the plugin infrastructure, and for that, we return the class object itself in the get_view_class method.
To see this in action, open up the provided bag file, and right click on the diagnostic track. It will give you three options under the "View": Raw, Plot and our "Awesome Diagnostic." Clicking this should open a panel and you can scroll through the messages and watch them print.
Version 2
TopicMessageView is itself an extension of a QObject. There's lots of things you could do with this using all the might and power of Qt. This is not a python Qt tutorial sadly. So we're going to just add a simple QWidget and draw on it.
1 class DiagnosticPanel(TopicMessageView): 2 name = 'Awesome Diagnostic' 3 4 def __init__(self, timeline, parent, topic): 5 super(DiagnosticPanel, self).__init__(timeline, parent, topic) 6 self.widget = QWidget() 7 parent.layout().addWidget(self.widget) 8 self.msg = None 9 self.widget.paintEvent = self.paintEvent 10 11 def message_viewed(self, bag, msg_details): 12 super(DiagnosticPanel, self).message_viewed(bag, msg_details) 13 _, self.msg, _ = msg_details 14 self.widget.update() 15 16 def paintEvent(self, event): 17 self.qp = QPainter() 18 self.qp.begin(self.widget) 19 20 rect = event.rect() 21 22 if self.msg is None: 23 self.qp.fillRect(0, 0, rect.width(), rect.height(), Qt.white) 24 else: 25 color = get_color(self.msg) 26 self.qp.setBrush(QBrush(color)) 27 self.qp.drawEllipse(0, 0, rect.width(), rect.height())
In the constructor, we create a QWidget and override its paintEvent method. Now when we get a message with message_viewed, we save it, and update the widget, which will in turn call our paintEvent. Before a message is selected, we'll just paint a white rectangle. Otherwise, we'll draw a circle, using our handy helper method to relate the color to what level the diagnostic is at.
TimelineRenderer
Version 1
To draw on the timeline, we extend the TimelineRenderer class.
1 class DiagnosticTimeline(TimelineRenderer): 2 def __init__(self, timeline, height=80): 3 TimelineRenderer.__init__(self, timeline, msg_combine_px=height) 4 5 def draw_timeline_segment(self, painter, topic, start, end, x, y, width, height): 6 painter.setBrush(QBrush(Qt.blue)) 7 painter.drawRect(x, y, width, height)
You can customize how tall the message's portion of the timeline is with the msg_combine_px parameter. The key method to override is the draw_timeline_segment method which gives you potions of the timeline to draw. For now we'll just draw blue rectangles on each segment.
Just like the message view, you also have to edit the plugin to return your class.
To view this, you have to enable "Thumbnails" (a misleading name) in the rqt_bag gui.
Version 2
Okay, now we actually want to customize how the messages are drawn in the timeline based on the messages themselves. For that, there's a wonky bunch of magical incantations you need to read the messages out of the bag files.
1 def draw_timeline_segment(self, painter, topic, start, end, x, y, width, height): 2 bag_timeline = self.timeline.scene() 3 for bag, entry in bag_timeline.get_entries_with_bags([topic], rospy.Time(start), rospy.Time(end)): 4 topic, msg, t = bag_timeline.read_message(bag, entry.position) 5 color = get_color(msg) 6 painter.setBrush(QBrush(color)) 7 painter.setPen(QPen(color, 5)) 8 9 p_x = self.timeline.map_stamp_to_x(t.to_sec()) 10 painter.drawLine(p_x, y, p_x, y+height)
Using the topic, start and end parameters of the method, we can get the bag entries that correspond with this segment of the timeline. We can then get the actual message and use it to draw. Here we are drawing a line based on the level of the diagnostic message. We can automatically figure out where to draw the message horizontally using the map_stamp_to_x method.
The alternative to this weird way of accessing the messages is to Timeline Cache like the ImageTimelineViewer does, but figuring that out is left as an exercise to the reader. | http://wiki.ros.org/rqt_bag/Tutorials/Create%20an%20rqt_bag%20plugin | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | refinedweb | 1,210 | 60.11 |
Tax
Have a Tax Question? Ask a Tax Expert
Hello, my name isXXXXX & I'll be helping you today. My goal is to give you a complete & accurate answer that you can understand.
Well, unfortunately, you are encountering the one negative aspect of using a Life Estate as a Medicaid and estate planning tool.
First of all, when the Life Estate was created and the transfer was made to Rita, Aimee & Christina as Tenants in Common, subject to the Life Estate, two separate interests were created in the property. At that time, a gift tax return was required to be filed which would have valued the two interests according to IRS tables based upon the life expectancies of Alfred & Alice Lopes.
There would have been no gift tax due at that time but a return would have been required to be filed.
Do you know if this was done?
Creating the Life Estate doesn't remove the property from the taxable estates of the donors, but it does serve to avoid probate when either or both of the donors die.
So, presuming for the moment that Mr. & Mrs Lopes owned the property equally either jointly or as Tenants by the Entirety, when Mrs. Lopes died, her 50% interest in the property would have been "stepped up" to 50% of the Fair Market Value of the property, as it would have been included in her taxable estate, even though no estate tax would have been due on her estate.
Stephen,
Unfortunately, the benefit of the personal residence exclusion upon the sale of the property is not available to the surviving life tenant in the property.
Stephen, I don't have a copy of Alfred's 2006 tax return but I don't believe anything was done related to a gift tax.return
As I'm sure you know, all parties involved, including Mr. Lopes will have to sign off on the sale of the property, with Mr. Lopes relinquishing his life estate in the property as well as the residual interests (the tenants in common) also relinquishing their respective interests in the property in order for the property to be sold.
What does this mean in plain english as far as tax consequences? Also, if we deed it back to Alfred does this solve some problems? The closing is scheduled for Nov. 20th. Is their enough time to do something if this is to our benefit? Alfred and the rest of the family get along great, no issues so we will jointly do what is in our best interest.
Basically, there will be a tax basis adjustment necessary, in order to arrive at the correct income tax basis of the property. At the time of that the life estate were created, although gift tax returns would have been required, and they would have been based upon the fair market value of the property at the time the life estate's were created, there would have been no corresponding adjustment to the income tax basis of the property, the standard situation with lifetime gifts.
Deeding it back to Mr. Lopes won't help anything even if it were deemed to be valid income tax wise as in order to qualify for the personal residence exclusion, he would have had to both OWNED & Occupied the property for 2 out of the last 5 years ending on the date of sale. Since the life estate's were created in 2006, the ownership criteria can't be met.
You will need to determine the fair market value of the property when Mrs. Lopes died and that should result in a "step-up" in tax basis of the property equal to 50% of that value, some of which will belong on Mr. Lopes income tax return (which will probably mean zero capital gains taxes on that piece) and the rest split amount the tenants in common.
What is the tax basis in our situation? How can I find out if Alfred and Alice did something back in 2006 when their property was deeded to our family? I would think the tax implications are different for us versus our daughters as we are retired. This past year I paid no federal taxes because of what we made. Next year with my wife collecting half of my social security $1100.00 starting in Nov. and me having to take $8000 required minimum IRA withdrawal my taxes will increase. I am concerned about the implication of the sale of the house on top of this.
As far as the other 50% is concerned (Mr. Lopes half which is also split between him and the tenants in common) would be based upon 50% of the original acquisition cost plus any improvements to the property through the date of the creation of the life estate which would again be split between him and the tenants in common.
As far as the actual numbers are concerned, I recommend that you have a local CPA do the necessary allocation for you, presuming no gift tax returns were filed at the time the residual interests were created, in order to come up with the correct splits in the tax basis between Mr. Lopes and the 3 tenants in common.
However, the botXXXXX XXXXXne is that 1/2 of the tax basis will be based upon 1/2 of the original cost of the property + any improvements through the date of the creation of the life estates & the other 1/2 will be based upon 50% of the fair market value of the property at the time of Mrs. Lopes' date of death.
It is unlikely that you will have much if anything in the way of capital gains taxes to pay if the sale of the property is going to take place on November 20th. The reason being is that to the extent that you are in the 15% or lower tax bracket, the capital gains rate is zero.
Clearly Mr. Lopes' rate will be zero, so that leaves the two daughters whom I presume are not in the 15% or lower tax brackets, but probably much higher?
The five grandchildren have nothing to do with it.
How should I determine the fair market value of the property when Alice died? Also, since Alfred is living with us I might claim him as my dependent versus having me file for him. By the way he has been diagnosed with Alzheimers
Basically, you would need to obtain an appraisal of the property at that time, which can be done now of course; however, given the relative low amount of value and tax that you are talking about, one method that I have used in similar situations when obtaining an appraisal or even a written opinion of value is not easily done (for one reason or another), is to determine the current assessed value for purposes of the real estate tax and figure out what percentage of value that is to your GROSS sales price, and then apply that ratio to the real estate tax assessment as of the date of death (in your case in 9/2006); the real estate assessment back in 2006 would be readily available from the local Board of Assessors or even the Tax Collector in Ludlow.
How old is Mr. Lopes?
When is your birthday & do you have to make the $8,000. withdrawal in 2013 or 2014?
One of the documents I need to give to the lawyer covering the sale of his house is a certificate for no information reporting (1099-s) form. There are 6 questions on this form for Rita, Aimee and Christina to answer. The first question I believed you answered says " I owned and used the residence as my principal residence for periods aggregating 2 years or more during the 5 year period ending on the date of the sale or exchange of the residence". All three need to answer false. The rest all all true except question 6 which I don't' understand. It states "If my basis in the residence is determined by reference to the basis in the hands of a person who acquired the residence in an exchange to which section 1031 of the IRS code appled the exchange to which section 1031 applied occurred more than 5 years prior to the date I sold or exchanged residence" Is this true or false?
I'm going to leave you a link to an excellent article on Life Estate's that explains some of this in greater detail as well as other aspects of how the rules on Life Estate's are applied.
Just a minute re your question
Alfred is 89 and I am 70, birthday 2/2/43 . I already made the withdrawal. Is it possible to get a copy of this discussion?
You will need to receive Form 1099s on the transaction.
Recheck your wording on the last question number 6
There was no 1031 exchange involved ever on the property.
The questions starts with "If" - so there's no 1031 so there's no "IF about it"
Besides, once you answer #1 as False, the rest of the questions don't matter.
Has Mr. Lopes already relinquished his Life Estate & the attorney plans on recording it at the closing?
Given this discussion so far where do you see me so far as far as the sale of Alfred's house. With our gross income for 2013 being about $50,000 before the sale of Alfred's home what can I expect if Rita and I receive about $40,000 from the sale of his house as far as a tax implication. This statement is on the form the 4 of them have to sign. There is a reference Pursuant to IRS Rev Proc 2007-12. There is a N/A for question 6. I guess I should check this.
Ok, re #6, that's what I meant when I said T or F didn't fit; ie no 1031 involved
Great, so answer false for all 4 of them solves this question. how about my tax question and the question about a copy of this dialog?
Does the 50K include your social security?
yes it does
As far as a copy goes, you just need to highlight the conversation and then depending upon your browser hit "Control P" to print it; or once we are done & you provide my rating, the question goes into a Question/Answer format & you can come back anytime you want & access it.
So you'll have around 26K of S.S. & your wife will have a little over 2K so about 28K plus 8K retirement distribution; that's 36K what's the rest consist of?
Do you itemize or use the standard deduction?
I have a $20k pension plus $20k social security. This year I have $8k dist. and Rita starts collecting her SS. $2k for nov. and dec. for $50K plus some interest. We don't itemize.
OK, give me a minute
Let's say the house was worth 100K in Sept 2006; so that's 50K say plus 10K 1/2 of org cost + impvs = 60K/3 = 20K so 40K - 20K = 20K LTG
So, as far as SS is concerned; rough #s 20K pen + 8K dis = 28K + 20k LTG + 1/2 SS =11K
Can you net this out for me. If we proceed with the sale as is , each of us getting around $40,000 how will the $40k affect our 2013 tax situation? At tax time what do we need to concern ourselves with as far as documents and forms for the IRS. I guess the town of Ludlow can tell me what the house was worth in Sept. 2006.
I'm working on it, unfortunately it isn't that simple
59 - 20 = 39 minus standard over 65, + exemptions = 25k + - =- 14K
Federal tax will approx $1,500 - $2,000. no tax on capital gain as you are in the 10% - 15% tax bracket
It appears the paid in full consideration of $1.00 on the warranty deed has no affect on anything related to the sale/tax of Alfred's home. Is that correct
No. Nominal consideration for family transfer purposes.
You will file a Schedule D and it's subschedule with your 1040 for 2013
You don't file any additional documentation with your return.
We are almost done. Please explain the 59-20 =39 minus standard over 65 line item
However, it would be smart to have a CPA prepare your return this year if you aren't familiar with these type transactions.
minus the 20 in the estimate LTG that's isn't taxed along with your ordinary income
How about my daughters. What will they need at tax time and what will they be exposed to?
It is taxed separately, except in your case the tax is zero based upon the tax bracket you are in.
I have no idea about your daughters as I don't know what their income is.
I can't figure that out with doing pro-forma tax returns for them; that's beyond the scope of what we can do here;
Their incomes are much higher but I am interested in the forms they need to be concerned with.
Same forms you would use depending upon their situations they may need Alternate Minimum Tax, etc. Are they married?
I'll leave you my contact information in case you want to reach me here again. by the site as an additional tool to rate our performance;Please remember to rate my response; it is the only way we get credit for our work.
Thanks for all your support. I believe you answered all the questions I currently have | http://www.justanswer.com/tax/83sjs-name-isxxxxx-70-rita-66-live.html | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | refinedweb | 2,298 | 67.79 |
I am making a Seabattle game where the Ships are hidden in a panel with a label array. This label array needs to have more or less rows and columns depending on the chosen difficulty level.
So I made a new class "Gameboard" where the Panel and the label array is defined.
The problem is that I cant figure out how to bind the panel I make in this class to the Form..
namespace SO_S2_Programmeren_Groep08 {
class GameBoard{
Panel pnlSlagveld;
private Label[,] lblArray;
private int row;
private int column;
public Label[,] LblArray {
get {
return lblArray;
}
set {
lblArray = value;
}
}
public int Row {
get { return row; }
set { row = value; }
}
public int Column {
get { return column; }
set { column = value; }
}
public GameBoard(int row, int column) {
this.row = row;
this.column = column;
CreateLableArray(row, column);
}
public GameBoard() {
this.row = 7;
this.column = 9;
CreateLableArray(row, column);
}
private void CreateLableArray(int ingrow, int ingcolumn) {
pnlBattleField = new System.Windows.Forms.Panel();
lblArray = new Label[ingrow, ingcolumn];
int xpos = 0;
int ypos = 0;
for (int row = 0; row < ingrow; row++) {
for (int column = 0; column < ingcolumn; column++) {
lblArray[row, column] = new Label();
lblArray[row, column].Left = xpos;
lblArray[row, column].Top = ypos;
lblArray[row, column].Width = 50;
lblArray[row, column].Height = 50;
lblArray[row, column].Tag = (char)('A' + column) + (row + 1).ToString();
lblArray[row, column].Click += lblArray_Click;
lblArray[row, column].BackColor = Color.Aqua;
lblArray[row, column].BorderStyle = BorderStyle.FixedSingle;
pnlBattlefield.Controls.Add(lblArray[row, column]);
xpos += lblArray[row, column].Width;
}
ypos += lblArray[row, 0].Width;
xpos = 0;
}
}/*CreateLableArray*/
private void lblArray_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
MessageBox.Show("Clicked on Label " + ((Label)sender).Tag.ToString());
}
}
}
If you'd like to see more classes please ask!
Thanks!
You could do one of these:
Make 'GameBoard' a form, and then add the panel to that form. If you wanted to do this I would suggest creating a windows forms project (if you haven't already) and adding this code to the code for the main form (or a new form that you add) so that you have the designer components and all of the visual studio features of a form.
Make it a usercontrol and add that usercontrol to a form. If you wanted to do this, I would add a new user control to the project and add this code to that usercontrol, again, so you get visual studio support.
Create a
new Form() inside of your gameboard and add it to that. (That's contrary to standard form practices in winforms, and you won't get as much IDE help, so I wouldn't suggest this for a new programmer). | http://www.dlxedu.com/askdetail/3/9c6ba8f2660fc715f198907dd0560bd2.html | CC-MAIN-2018-51 | refinedweb | 431 | 58.18 |
Deep Learning 2: Part 1 Lesson 6
My personal notes from fast.ai course. These notes will continue to be updated and improved as I continue to review the course to “really” understand it. ・ 13 ・ 14
Lesson 6
Table of contents: Deep Learning ultimately is about finding a minimum that generalizes well -- with bonus points for…ruder.io
Review from last week [2:15]
We took a deep dive to collaborative filtering last week, and we ended up re-creating
EmbeddingDotBias class (
column_data.py) in fast.ai library. Let’s visualize what the embeddings look like [notebook].
Inside of a learner
learn, you can get a PyTorch model itself by calling
learn.model .
@property looks like a regular function, but requires no parenthesis when you call it.
@property
def model(self): return self.models.model
learn.models is an instance of
CollabFilterModel which is a thin wrapper of PyTorch model that allows us to use “layer groups” which is not a concept available in PyTorch and fast.ai uses it to apply different learning rates to different sets of layers (layer group).
PyTorch model prints out the layers nicely including layer name which is what we called them in the code.
m=learn.model; m
EmbeddingDotBias (
(u): Embedding(671, 50)
(i): Embedding(9066, 50)
(ub): Embedding(671, 1)
(ib): Embedding(9066, 1)
)
m.ib refers to an embedding layer for an item bias — movie bias, in our case. What is nice about PyTorch models and layers is that we can call them as if they are functions. So if you want to get a prediction, you call
m(...) and pass in variables.
Layers require variables not tensors because it needs to keep track of the derivatives — that is the reason for
V(...) to convert tensor to variable. PyTorch 0.4 will get rid of variables and we will be able to use tensors directly.
movie_bias = to_np(m.ib(V(topMovieIdx)))
The
to_np function will take a variable or a tensor (regardless of being on the CPU or GPU) and returns a numpy array. Jeremy’s approach [12:03] is to use numpy for everything except when he explicitly needs something to run on the GPU or he needs its derivatives — in which case he uses PyTorch. Numpy has been around longer than PyTorch and works well with other libraries such as OpenCV, Pandas, etc.
A question regarding CPU vs. GPU in production. The suggested approach is to do inference on CPU as it is more scalable and you do not need to put things in batches. You can move a model onto the CPU by typing
m.cpu(), similarly a variable by typing
V(topMovieIndex).cpu() (from CPU to GPU would be
m.cuda()).If your server does not have GPU, it will run inference on CPU automatically. For loading a saved model that was trained on GPU, take a look at this line of code in
torch_imports.py:
def load_model(m, p): m.load_state_dict(torch.load(p, map_location=lambda storage, loc: storage))
Now that we have movie bias for top 3000 movies, and let’s take a look at ratings:
movie_ratings = [(b[0], movie_names[i]) for i,b in zip(topMovies,movie_bias)]
zip will allow you to iterate through multiple lists at the same time.
Worst movies
About sorting key — Python has
itemgetter function but plain
lambda is just one more character.
sorted(movie_ratings, key=lambda o: o[0])[:15]
[(-0.96070349, 'Battlefield Earth (2000)'),
(-0.76858485, 'Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997)'),
(-0.73675376, 'Wild Wild West (1999)'),
(-0.73655486, 'Anaconda (1997)'),
...]
sorted(movie_ratings, key=itemgetter(0))[:15]
Best movies
sorted(movie_ratings, key=lambda o: o[0], reverse=True)[:15]
[(1.3070084, 'Shawshank Redemption, The (1994)'),
(1.1196285, 'Godfather, The (1972)'),
(1.0844109, 'Usual Suspects, The (1995)'),
(0.96578616, "Schindler's List (1993)"),
...]
Embedding interpretation [18:42]
Each movie has 50 embeddings and it is hard to visualize 50 dimensional space, so we will turn it into a three dimensional space. We can compress dimensions using several techniques: Principal Component Analysis (PCA) (Rachel’s Computational Linear Algebra class covers this in detail — which is almost identical to Singular Value Decomposition (SVD))
movie_emb = to_np(m.i(V(topMovieIdx)))
movie_emb.shape
(3000, 50)
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
pca = PCA(n_components=3)
movie_pca = pca.fit(movie_emb.T).components_
movie_pca.shape
(3, 3000)
We will take a look at the first dimension “easy watching vs. serious” (we do not know what it represents but can certainly speculate by looking at them):
fac0 = movie_pca[0]
movie_comp = [(f, movie_names[i]) for f,i in zip(fac0, topMovies)]
sorted(movie_comp, key=itemgetter(0), reverse=True)[:10]
sorted(movie_comp, key=itemgetter(0), reverse=True)[:10]
[(0.06748189, 'Independence Day (a.k.a. ID4) (1996)'),
(0.061572548, 'Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987)'),
(0.061050549, 'Waterworld (1995)'),
(0.057877172, 'Rocky V (1990)'),
...
]
sorted(movie_comp, key=itemgetter(0))[:10]
[(-0.078433245, 'Godfather: Part II, The (1974)'),
(-0.072180331, 'Fargo (1996)'),
(-0.071351372, 'Pulp Fiction (1994)'),
(-0.068537779, 'Goodfellas (1990)'),
...
]
The second dimension “dialog driven vs. CGI”
fac1 = movie_pca[1]
movie_comp = [(f, movie_names[i]) for f,i in zip(fac1, topMovies)]
sorted(movie_comp, key=itemgetter(0), reverse=True)[:10]
[(0.058975246, 'Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)'),
(0.055992026, '2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)'),
(0.054682467, 'Tank Girl (1995)'),
(0.054429606, 'Purple Rose of Cairo, The (1985)'),
...]
sorted(movie_comp, key=itemgetter(0))[:10]
[(-0.1064609, 'Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003)'),
(-0.090635143, 'Aladdin (1992)'),
(-0.089208141, 'Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)'),
(-0.088854566, 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)'),
...]
Plot
idxs = np.random.choice(len(topMovies), 50, replace=False)
X = fac0[idxs]
Y = fac1[idxs]
plt.figure(figsize=(15,15))
plt.scatter(X, Y)
for i, x, y in zip(topMovies[idxs], X, Y):
plt.text(x,y,movie_names[i], color=np.random.rand(3)*0.7, fontsize=11)
plt.show()
What actually happens when you say
learn.fit ?
Entity Embeddings of Categorical Variables [24:42]
The second paper to talk about categorical embeddings. FIG. 1. caption should sound familiar as they talk about how entity embedding layers are equivalent to one-hot encoding followed by a matrix multiplication.
.
They also plotted the embeddings of states in Germany which interestingly (“whackingly enough” as Jeremy would call it) resembled an actual map.
They also plotted the distances of stores in physical space and embedding space — which showed a beautiful and clear correlation.
There also seems to be correlation between days of the week, or months of the year. Visualizing embeddings can be interesting as it shows you what you expected see or what you didn’t.
A question about Skip-Gram to generate embeddings [31:31]
Skip-Gram is specific to NLP. A good way to turn an unlabeled problem into a labeled problem is to “invent” labels. Word2Vec’s approach was to take a sentence of 11 words, delete the middle word, and replace it with a random word. Then they gave a label 1 to the original sentence; 0 to the fake one, and built a machine learning model to find the fake sentences. As a result, they now have embeddings they can use for other purposes. If you do this as a single matrix multiplier (shallow model) rather than deep neural net, you can train this very quickly — the disadvantage is that it is a less predictive model, but the advantages are that you can train on a very large dataset and more importantly, the resulting embeddings have linear characteristics which allow us to add, subtract, or draw nicely. In NLP, we should move past Word2Vec and Glove (i.e. linear based methods) because these embeddings are less predictive. The state of the art language model uses deep RNN.
To learn any kind of feature space, you either need labeled data or you need to invent a fake task [35:45]
- Is one fake task better than another? Not well studied yet.
- Intuitively, we want a task which helps a machine to learn the kinds of relationships that you care about.
- In computer vision, a type of fake task people use is to apply unreal and unreasonable data augmentations.
- If you can’t come up with great fake tasks, just use crappy one — it is often surprising how little you need.
- Autoencoder [38:10] — it recently won an insurance claim competition. Take a single policy, run it through neural net, and have it reconstruct itself (make sure that intermediate layers have less activations than the input variable). Basically, it is a task whose input = output which works surprisingly well as a fake task.
In computer vision, you can train on cats and dogs and use it for CT scans. Maybe it might work for language/NLP! (future research)
Rossmann [41:04]
- A way to use test set properly was added to the notebook.
- For more detailed explanations, see Machine Learning course.
apply_cats(joined_test, joined)is used to make sure that the test set and the training set have the same categorical codes.
- Keep track of
mapperwhich contains the mean and standard deviation of each continuous column, and apply the same
mapperto the test set.
- Do not rely on Kaggle public board — rely on your own thoughtfully created validation set.
Going over a good Kernel for Rossmann
- Sunday effect on sales
There is a jump on sales before and after the store closing. 3rd place winner deleted closed store rows before they started any analysis.
Don’t touch your data unless you, first of all, analyze to see what you are doing is okay — no assumptions.
Vim tricks [49:12]
:tag ColumnarModelDatawill take you to the class definition
ctrl + ]will take you to a definition of what’s under the cursor
ctrl + tto go back
*to find the usage of what’s under the cursor
- You can switch between tabs with
:tabnand
:tabp, With
:tabe <filepath>you can add a new tab; and with a regular
:qor
:wqyou close a tab. If you map
:tabnand
:tabpto your F7/F8 keys you can easily switch between files.
Inside of ColumnarModelData [51:01]
Slowly but surely, what used to be just “magic” start to look familiar. As you can see,
get_learner returns
Learner which is fast.ai concept that wraps data and PyTorch model:
Inside of
MixedInputModel you see how it is creating
Embedding which we now know more about.
nn.ModuleList is used to register a list of layers. We will talk about
BatchNorm next week, but rest, we have seen before.
Similarly, we now understand what’s going on in the
forward function.
- call embedding layer with ith categorical variable and concatenate them all together
- put that through dropout
- go through each one of our linear layers, call it, apply relu and dropout
- then final linear layer has a size of 1
- if
y_rangeis passed in, apply sigmoid and fit the output within a range (which we learned last week)
Stochastic Gradient Descent — SGD [59:56]
To make sure we are totally comfortable with SGD, we will use it to learn
y = ax + b . If we can solve something with 2 parameters, we can use the same technique to solve 100 million parameters.
# Here we generate some fake data
def lin(a,b,x): return a*x+b
def gen_fake_data(n, a, b):
x = s = np.random.uniform(0,1,n)
y = lin(a,b,x) + 0.1 * np.random.normal(0,3,n)
return x, y
x, y = gen_fake_data(50, 3., 8.)
plt.scatter(x,y, s=8); plt.xlabel("x"); plt.ylabel("y");
To get started, we need a loss function. This is a regression problem since the output is continuous output, and the most common loss function is the mean squared error (MSE).
Regression — the target output is a real number or a whole vector of real numbers
Classification — the target output is a class label
def mse(y_hat, y): return ((y_hat - y) ** 2).mean()
def mse_loss(a, b, x, y): return mse(lin(a,b,x), y)
y_hat— predictions
We will make 10,000 more fake data and turn them into PyTorch variables because Jeremy doesn’t like taking derivatives and PyTorch can do that for him:
x, y = gen_fake_data(10000, 3., 8.)
x,y = V(x),V(y)
Then create random weight for
a and
b , they are the variables we want to learn, so set
requires_grad=True .
a = V(np.random.randn(1), requires_grad=True)
b = V(np.random.randn(1), requires_grad=True)
Then set the learning rate and do 10,000 epoch of full gradient descent (not SGD as each epoch will look at all of the data):
learning_rate = 1e-3
for t in range(10000):
# Forward pass: compute predicted y using operations on Variables
loss = mse_loss(a,b,x,y)
if t % 1000 == 0: print(loss.data[0])
# Computes the gradient of loss with respect to all Variables with requires_grad=True.
# After this call a.grad and b.grad will be Variables holding the gradient
# of the loss with respect to a and b respectively
loss.backward()
# Update a and b using gradient descent; a.data and b.data are Tensors,
# a.grad and b.grad are Variables and a.grad.data and b.grad.data are Tensors
a.data -= learning_rate * a.grad.data
b.data -= learning_rate * b.grad.data
# Zero the gradients
a.grad.data.zero_()
b.grad.data.zero_()
- calculate the loss (remember,
aand
bare set to random initially)
- from time to time (every 1000 epochs), print out the loss
loss.backward()will calculate gradients for all variables with
requires_grad=Trueand fill in
.gradproperty
- update
ato whatever it was minus LR *
grad(
.dataaccesses a tensor inside of a variable)
- when there are multiple loss functions or many output layers contributing to the gradient, PyTorch will add them together. So you need to tell when to set gradients back to zero (
zero_()in the
_means that the variable is changed in-place).
- The last 4 lines of code is what is wrapped in
optim.SGD.stepfunction
Let’s do this with just Numpy (without PyTorch) [1:07:01]
We actually have to do calculus, but everything else should look similar:
x, y = gen_fake_data(50, 3., 8.)
a_guess,b_guess = -1., 1.
mse_loss(y, a_guess, b_guess, x)
lr=0.01
def upd():
global a_guess, b_guess
y_pred = lin(a_guess, b_guess, x)
dydb = 2 * (y_pred - y)
dyda = x*dydb
a_guess -= lr*dyda.mean()
b_guess -= lr*dydb.mean()
Just for fun, you can use
matplotlib.animation.FuncAnimation to animate:
Tip: Fast.ai AMI did not come with
ffmpeg . So if you see
KeyError: 'ffmpeg'
- Run
print(animation.writers.list())and print out a list of available MovieWriters
- If
ffmpegis among it. Otherwise install it.
Recurrent Neural Network — RNN [1:09:16]
Let’s learn how to write philosophy like Nietzsche. This is similar to a language model we learned in lesson 4, but this time, we will do it one character at a time. RNN is no different from what we have already learned.
Some examples:
Basic NN with single hidden layer
All shapes are activations (an activation is a number that has been calculated by a relu, matrix product, etc.). An arrow is a layer operation (possibly more than one). Check out Machine Learning course lesson 9–11 for creating this from scratch.
Image CNN with single dense hidden layer
We will cover how to flatten a layer next week more, but the main method is called “adaptive max pooling” — where we average across the height and the width and turn it into a vector.
batch_sizedimension and activation function (e.g. relu, softmax) are not shown here
Predicting char 3 using chars 1 & 2 [1:18:04]
We are going to implement this one for NLP.
- Input can be one-hot-encoded character (length of vector = # of unique characters) or a single integer and pretend it is one-hot-encoded by using an embedding layer.
- The difference from the CNN one is that then char 2 inputs gets added.
Let’s implement this without torchtext or fast.ai library so we can see.
setwill return all unique characters.
text = open(f'{PATH}nietzsche.txt').read()
print(text[:400])
'PREFACE\n\n\nSUPPOSING that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground\nfor suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been\ndogmatists, have failed to understand women--that the terrible\nseriousness and clumsy importunity with which they have usually paid\ntheir addresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemly methods for\nwinning a woman? Certainly she has never allowed herself '
chars = sorted(list(set(text)))
vocab_size = len(chars)+1
print('total chars:', vocab_size)
total chars: 85
- Always good to put a null or an empty character for padding.
chars.insert(0, "\0")
Mapping of every character to a unique ID, and a unique ID to a character
char_indices = dict((c, i) for i, c in enumerate(chars))
indices_char = dict((i, c) for i, c in enumerate(chars))
Now we can represent the text with its ID’s:
idx = [char_indices[c] for c in text]
idx[:10]
[40, 42, 29, 30, 25, 27, 29, 1, 1, 1]
Question: Character based model vs. word based model [1:22:30]
- Generally, you want to combine character level model and word level model (e.g. for translation).
- Character level model is useful when a vocabulary contains unusual words — which word level model will just treat as “unknown”. When you see a word you have not seen before, you can use a character level model.
- There is also something in between that is called Byte Pair Encoding (BPE) which looks at n-gram of characters.
Create inputs [1:23:48]
cs = 3
c1_dat = [idx[i] for i in range(0, len(idx)-cs, cs)]
c2_dat = [idx[i+1] for i in range(0, len(idx)-cs, cs)]
c3_dat = [idx[i+2] for i in range(0, len(idx)-cs, cs)]
c4_dat = [idx[i+3] for i in range(0, len(idx)-cs, cs)]
Note that
c1_dat[n+1] == c4_dat[n] since we are skipping by 3 (the third argument of
range)
x1 = np.stack(c1_dat)
x2 = np.stack(c2_dat)
x3 = np.stack(c3_dat)
y = np.stack(c4_dat)
x’s are our inputs,
y is our target value.
Build a model [1:26:08]
n_hidden = 256
n_fac = 42
n_hiddein— “# activations” in the diagram.
n_fac— the size of the embedding matrix.
Here is the updated version of the previous diagram. Notice that now arrows are colored. All the arrows with the same color will use the same weight matrix. The idea here is that a character would not have different meaning (semantically or conceptually) depending on whether it is the first, the second, or the third item in a sequence, so treat them the same.
class Char3Model(nn.Module):, c1, c2, c3):
in1 = F.relu(self.l_in(self.e(c1)))
in2 = F.relu(self.l_in(self.e(c2)))
in3 = F.relu(self.l_in(self.e(c3)))
h = V(torch.zeros(in1.size()).cuda())
h = F.tanh(self.l_hidden(h+in1))
h = F.tanh(self.l_hidden(h+in2))
h = F.tanh(self.l_hidden(h+in3))
return F.log_softmax(self.l_out(h))
- [1:29:58] It is important that this
l_hiddenuses a square weight matrix whose size matches the output of
l_in. Then
hand
in2will be the same shape allowing us to sum them together as you see in
self.l_hidden(h+in2)
V(torch.zeros(in1.size()).cuda())is only there to make the three lines identical to make it easier to put in a for loop later.
md = ColumnarModelData.from_arrays('.', [-1], np.stack([x1,x2,x3], axis=1), y, bs=512)
We will reuse
ColumnarModelData[1:32:20]. If we stack
x1 ,
x2, and
x3, we will get
c1,
c2,
c3 in the
forward method.
ColumnarModelData.from_arrays will come in handy when you want to train a model in raw-er approach, what you put in
[x1, x2, x3] , you will get back in
def forward(self, c1, c2, c3)
m = Char3Model(vocab_size, n_fac).cuda()
- We create a standard PyTorch model (not
Learner)
- Because it is a standard PyTorch model, don’t forget
.cuda
it = iter(md.trn_dl)
*xs,yt = next(it)
t = m(*V(xs)
iterto grab an iterator
nextreturns a mini-batch
- “Variabize” the
xstensor, and put it through the model — which will give us 512x85 tensor containing prediction (batch size * unique character)
opt = optim.Adam(m.parameters(), 1e-2)
- Create a standard PyTorch optimizer — for which you need to pass in a list of things to optimize, which is returned by
m.parameters()
fit(m, md, 1, opt, F.nll_loss)
set_lrs(opt, 0.001)
fit(m, md, 1, opt, F.nll_loss)
- We do not find a learning rate finder and SGDR because we are not using
Learner, so we would need to manually do learning rate annealing (set LR a little bit lower)
Testing a model [1:35:58]
def get_next(inp):
idxs = T(np.array([char_indices[c] for c in inp]))
p = m(*VV(idxs))
i = np.argmax(to_np(p))
return chars[i]
This function takes three characters and return what the model predict as the fourth. Note:
np.argmax returns index of the maximum values.
get_next('y. ')
'T'
get_next('ppl')
'e'
get_next(' th')
'e'
get_next('and')
' '
Let’s create our first RNN [1:37:45]
We can simplify the previous diagram as below:
Let’s implement this. This time, we will use the first 8 characters to predict the 9th. Here is how we create inputs and output just like the last time:
cs = 8
c_in_dat = [[idx[i+j] for i in range(cs)] for j in range(len(idx)-cs)]
c_out_dat = [idx[j+cs] for j in range(len(idx)-cs)]
xs = np.stack(c_in_dat, axis=0)
y = np.stack(c_out_dat)
xs[:cs,:cs]]])
y[:cs]
array([ 1, 1, 43, 45, 40, 40, 39, 43])
Notice that they are overlaps (i.e. 0–7 to predict 8, 1–8 to predict 9).
val_idx = get_cv_idxs(len(idx)-cs-1)
md = ColumnarModelData.from_arrays('.', val_idx, xs, y, bs=512)
Create the model [1:43:03]
class CharLoopModel(nn.Module):
# This is an RNN! = F.relu(self.l_in(self.e(c)))
h = F.tanh(self.l_hidden(h+inp))
return F.log_softmax(self.l_out(h), dim=-1)
Most of the code is the same as before. You will notice that there is one
for loop in
forward function.
Hyperbolic Tangent (Tanh) [1:43:43]
It is a sigmoid that is offset. It is common to use hyperbolic tanh in the hidden state to hidden state transition because it stops it from flying off too high or too low. For other purposes, relu is more common.
This now is a quite deep network as it uses 8 characters instead of 2. And as networks get deeper, they become harder to train.
m = CharLoopModel(vocab_size, n_fac).cuda()
opt = optim.Adam(m.parameters(), 1e-2)
fit(m, md, 1, opt, F.nll_loss)
set_lrs(opt, 0.001)
fit(m, md, 1, opt, F.nll_loss)
Adding vs. Contatenating
We now will try something else for
self.l_hidden(h+inp)[1:46:04]. The reason is that the input state and the hidden state are qualitatively different. Input is the encoding of a character, and h is an encoding of series of characters. So adding them together, we might lose information. Let’s concatenate them instead. Don’t forget to change the input to match the shape (
n_fac+n_hidden instead of
n_fac).
class CharLoopConcatModel(nn.Module):
def __init__(self, vocab_size, n_fac):
super().__init__()
self.e = nn.Embedding(vocab_size, n_fac)
self.l_in = nn.Linear(n_fac+n_hidden, = torch.cat((h, self.e(c)), 1)
inp = F.relu(self.l_in(inp))
h = F.tanh(self.l_hidden(inp))
return F.log_softmax(self.l_out(h), dim=-1)
This gives some improvement.
RNN with PyTorch [1:48:47]
PyTorch will write the
for loop automatically for us and also the linear input layer.
class Char[-1]), dim=-1)
- For reasons that will become apparent later on,
self.rnnwill return not only the output but also the hidden state.
- The minor difference in PyTorch is that
self.rnnwill append a new hidden state to a tensor instead of replacing (in other words, it will give back all ellipses in the diagram) . We only want the final one so we do
outp[-1]
m = CharRnn(vocab_size, n_fac).cuda()
opt = optim.Adam(m.parameters(), 1e-3)
ht = V(torch.zeros(1, 512,n_hidden))
outp, hn = m.rnn(t, ht)
outp.size(), hn.size()
(torch.Size([8, 512, 256]), torch.Size([1, 512, 256]))
In PyTorch version, a hidden state is rank 3 tensor
h = V(torch.zeros(1, bs, n_hidden)) (in our version, it was rank 2 tensor) [1:51:58]. We will learn more about this later, but it turns out you can have a second RNN that goes backwards. The idea is that it is going to be better at finding relationships that go backwards — it is called “bi-directional RNN”. Also you can have an RNN feeds to an RNN which is called “multi layer RNN”. For these RNN’s, you will need the additional axis in the tensor to keep track of additional layers of hidden state. For now, we will just have 1 there, and get back 1.
Test the model
def get_next(inp):
idxs = T(np.array([char_indices[c] for c in inp]))
p = m(*VV(idxs))
i = np.argmax(to_np(p))
return chars[i]
def get_next_n(inp, n):
res = inp
for i in range(n):
c = get_next(inp)
res += c
inp = inp[1:]+c
return res
get_next_n('for thos', 40)
'for those the same the same the same the same th'
This time, we loop
n times calling
get_next each time, and each time we will replace our input by removing the first character and adding the character we just predicted.
For an interesting homework, try writing your own
nn.RNN “
JeremysRNN” without looking at PyTorch source code.
Multi-output [1:55:31]
From the last diagram, we can simplify even further by treating char 1 the same as char 2 to n-1. You notice the triangle (the output) also moved inside of the loop, in other words, we create a prediction after each character.
One of the reasons we may want to do this is the redundancies we had seen before:]])
We can make it more efficient by taking non-overlapping sets of character this time. Because we are doing multi-output, for an input char 0 to 7, the output would be the predictions for char 1 to 8.
xs[:cs,:cs]
array([[40,]])
ys[:cs,:cs]
array([, 68]])
This will not make our model any more accurate, but we can train it more efficiently.)
Notice that we are no longer doing
outp[-1] since we want to keep all of them. But everything else is identical. One complexity[2:00:37] is that we want to use the negative log-likelihood loss function as before, but it expects two rank 2 tensors (two mini-batches of vectors). But here, we have rank 3 tensor:
- 8 characters (time steps)
- 84 probabilities
- for 512 minibatch
Let’s write a custom loss function [2:02:10]:
def nll_loss_seq(inp, targ):
sl,bs,nh = inp.size()
targ = targ.transpose(0,1).contiguous().view(-1)
return F.nll_loss(inp.view(-1,nh), targ)
F.nll_lossis the PyTorch loss function.
- Flatten our inputs and targets.
- Transpose the first two axes because PyTorch expects 1. sequence length (how many time steps), 2. batch size, 3. hidden state itself.
yt.size()is 512 by 8, whereas
sl, bsis 8 by 512.
- PyTorch does not generally actually shuffle the memory order when you do things like ‘transpose’, but instead it keeps some internal metadata to treat it as if it is transposed. When you transpose a matrix, PyTorch just updates the metadata . If you ever see an error that says “this tensor is not continuous” , add
.contiguous()after it and error goes away.
.viewis same as
np.reshape.
-1indicates as long as it needs to be.
fit(m, md, 4, opt, null_loss_seq)
Remember that
fit(...) is the lowest level fast.ai abstraction that implements the training loop. So all the arguments are standard PyTorch things except for
md which is our model data object which wraps up the test set, the training set, and the validation set.
Question [2:06:04]: Now that we put a triangle inside of the loop, do we need a bigger sequence size?
- If we have a short sequence like 8, the first character has nothing to go on. It starts with an empty hidden state of zeros.
- We will learn how to avoid that problem next week.
- The basic idea is “why should we reset the hidden state to zeros every time?” (see code below). If we can line up these mini-batches somehow so that the next mini-batch joins up correctly representingthe next letter in Nietsche’s works, then we can move
h = V(torch.zeros(1, bs, n_hidden))to the constructor.)
Gradient Explosion [2:08:21]
self.rnn(inp, h) is a loop applying the same matrix multiply again and again. If that matrix multiply tends to increase the activations each time, we are effectively doing that to the power of 8 — we call this a gradient explosion. We want to make sure the initial
l_hidden will not cause our activations on average to increase or decrease.
A nice matrix that does exactly that is called identity matrix:
We can overwrite the randomly initialized hidden-hidden weight with an identity matrix:
m.rnn.weight_hh_l0.data.copy_(torch.eye(n_hidden))
This was introduced by Geoffrey Hinton et. al. in 2015 (A Simple Way to Initialize Recurrent Networks of Rectified Linear Units) — after RNN has been around for decades. It works very well, and you can use higher learning rate since it is well behaved. | https://medium.com/@hiromi_suenaga/deep-learning-2-part-1-lesson-6-de70d626976c | CC-MAIN-2019-22 | refinedweb | 4,986 | 66.44 |
Energenie create a range of remote control power socket products. These include plugin socket adapters that are great for controlling lamps, pumps and any other mains powered devices. To add some intelligence they sell a hub but of more interest to me is the Pi-mote.
This is a £10 add-on board for the Raspberry Pi that allows you to use the GPIO pins to control the sockets. Once setup it is really easy to get your own code to switch the sockets on and off. It’s compatible with all models of the Pi and I use a few around the house to control lamps and one in the garden as part of my paddling pool pump control system.
You can buy the sockets separately but you’ll get the best value if you buy a set of sockets with a bundled Pi-mote. I managed to get a set of two sockets and one Pi-mote for £20 but this set is only £22 from the official Energenie shop.
Buying Energenie Devices
Energenie products are available from a number of sources so you may need to shop around to get the best price. You can get better value for money by buying a set of sockets and the Pi-mote at the same time.
Pairing Sockets to Pi-mote
In order to use the sockets each one must be paired to the Pi-mote and given an ID number in the range 1-4. The Official User Manual contains more technical information but below is the process I used to pair my sockets with a Pi-mote.
- Create a fresh Raspbian SD card
- Plug the Pi-mote onto the GPIO header
- Power up the Pi
- Download my pairing script using :
wget
- Plug in first socket into a mains socket
- If the LED is on press the button to turn the socket off
- Hold down the button for 5 seconds then release when LED starts flashing. The LED on the socket should be flashing once per second
- Run the pair script with the appropriate socket number (1,2,3 or 4)
python3 energenie_pair.py 1
The ID you give the socket will be used to control this socket in your Python scripts. You can only have IDs 1,2,3 and 4 but you use the IDs on multiple sockets.
If you feed the script “5” :
python3 energenie_pair.py 5
it will run a test and activate each of the fours IDs in sequence. This allows you to check that your sockets are activated with the ID you were expecting.
Tip : If you are planning on using lots of sockets then you might want to label them for easier reference later on.
Erase Socket Settings
If you want to erase the paired information in a socket you can do the following :
- Ensure socket is off and red LED is off
- Hold button until LED starts flashing
- Continue to hold button until LED starts flashing faster
- Release button
The socket will return to learning mode and you can either run the pairing script, turn the socket off or unplug it completely.
Energenie Socket Codes
For reference here are the codes that are used to control the four potential sockets. When using the Energenie or gpioZero methods detailed below you don’t really need to worry about this level of detail but it’s here for reference.
There are three easy ways to control the sockets.
Method 1 – RPi.GPIO
Using RPi.GPIO requires a bit more Python than the other two methods as you have to configure the GPIO pins manually before sending codes to the Pi-mote. The GPIO pins can be configured at the start of your script using :
import time import RPi.GPIO as GPIO # Set the GPIO numbering scheme GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM) # Select the GPIO pins used for # the encoder D0-D3 data inputs GPIO.setup(17,GPIO.OUT,initial=0) GPIO.setup(22,GPIO.OUT,initial=0) GPIO.setup(23,GPIO.OUT,initial=0) GPIO.setup(27,GPIO.OUT,initial=0) # Select the GPIO pin to enable/disable the modulator # Default to disabled GPIO.setup(25, GPIO.OUT,initial=0) # Select the signal used to select ASK/FSK # Default to ASK GPIO.setup(24, GPIO.OUT,initial=0)
and a code can be sent to the Pi-mote using :
# Socket 1 ON D3=True D2=True D1=True D0=True # Set D0-D3 GPIO.output (27, D3) GPIO.output (23, D2) GPIO.output (22, D1) GPIO.output (17, D0) # Let it settle, encoder requires this time.sleep(0.1) # Enable the modulator GPIO.output (25, True) # Keep enabled for a period time.sleep(0.25) # Disable the modulator GPIO.output (25, False)
In the example above Socket 1 is set to ON by setting all four Pi-mote inputs to True. If you wanted to turn ID 3 OFF you would set
- D3=True
- D2=False
- D1=True
- D0=False
The reference table can be used to determine the values of D0-3 required to control the other socket IDs.
Method 2 – Energenie Library
In order to simplify things Ben Nuttal Amy Mather and Gordon Hollingworth created a Python library to deal with the detail shown in Method 1. It needs to be installed :
sudo apt-get install python-pip python3-pip sudo pip install energenie sudo pip3 install energenie
This installs the library for both Python 2 and Python 3.
Turning sockets on and off becomes as easy as :
import energenie as e import time # Turn all sockets on and off e.switch_on() time.sleep(2) e.switch_off() time.sleep(2) # Turn socket ID 1 on and off e.switch_on(1) time.sleep(2) e.switch_off(1)
This library helps keep your own scripts nice and simple as you only need one line of code to change the state of a socket without needing to configure GPIO pins or worry about the Pi-mote control.
Method 3 – GPIO Zero
The next method you can use is the GPIO Zero package. This includes built in methods for controlling all sorts of Pi addons and accessories including the Energenie Pi-mote. It’s installed by default on the latest version of Raspbian but if you need to install manually you can find the install instructions here.
import time from gpiozero import Energenie # Turn socket ID 1 on and off skt1 = Energenie(1) skt1.on() time.sleep(2) skt1.off()
This is similar in complexity to using the Energenie library in Method 2 but may be a better choice if you can make use of GPIO Zero for other bits of hardware in your project such as LEDs or buzzers. Read more about it on the Official GPIO Zero Documentation page.
Pi-mote Range
The range of the Pi-mote can be increased by soldering a 135mm piece of copper wire to the point marked ANT1 on the PCB. I haven’t tested the range yet but I will update this paragraph if I do in the future.
Final Thoughts
I’ve used all three of these methods and it will be personal preference as to which one is the best choice for you. If you are in any doubt then give GPIO Zero a try as it can also be used to quickly control lots of other hardware as listed in the “API – Boards and Accessories” list.
Once you can control your sockets with Python you can now add all sorts of functionality. Possible applications include :
- Controlling Christmas lights
- Controlling Halloween lights
- Controlling house lights while you are away
- Pool pump scheduling
Light, motion and temperature sensors can be used to create “smart” projects that rival anything you can buy from a store. | http://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2017/08/controlling-energenie-power-sockets-with-the-pi-mote-addon/ | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | refinedweb | 1,289 | 68.2 |
iTween Visual Editor
Current version: 0.6.1, released October 24, 2012
Get the editor from the Unity Asset Store.
If you’re interested in the source code, the repository lives here.
Please send bug reports and suggestions to david (at) koontzfamily (dot) org
The iTween Visual Editor is an open source project released under the MIT license. If you find it helpful and want to contribute to its future development, please consider making a donation.
The iTween Visual Editor is a Unity 3, editor component that allows you to set up almost any iTween tween visually vs requiring code. So you can replace this
iTween.MoveTo(gameObject,{"x":10,"time":4,"looptype":"loop"});
with a nice Unity inspector view such as the image to the right (click to enlarge). This is accomplished by adding an iTweenEvent component to the GameObject you wish to tween. You can have your tweens run automatically, after a delay, or when triggered via the Play method on the iTweenEvent component. You can also have multiple iTweenEvent components on your GameObject and get them via the iTweenEvent.GetEvent method which looks up an event by name (version 0.3 and later). For an example of this, please look at this example project which demonstrates using a script to start a particular tween on another object.
Starting with version 0.5 a copy of iTween and the iTween Path Editor are included in the unitypackage. If you have your own copy or wish to use a different version, you can uncheck iTween.cs, iTweenPath.cs and iTweenPathEditor.cs during the package import.
The visual editor will only compile under Unity 3 and later. If you are using 2.6 and wish to use the editor it is possible to get it running under 2.6, you will have to remove the usage of Linq methods. I have no intention of supporting 2.6 so unless you’re going to pay me to do it, don’t bother writing and asking when it will be done.
Known Issues: None!
Version 0.1 video (only slightly outdated)
I’m new in Unity!! this tool is really perfect for me to get start. Thanks in advance, man!
Only one comment?! WTF guys this tool is awesome!!!
Many thanks and congrats to you dkoontz ^^=b
GFX47: Most of the comments are on the original annoucement thread here:
Hi,
First thank you so much for adding a visual editor to iTween. Been playing around putting tween effects on objects. Wanted to know is it possible to use the visual editor for OnGUI functions? For instance scale a gui window with bouncy effect. Can’t seem to get it to work.
Thanks very much
-Hakimo
Well the visual editor works just about everywhere that iTween itself works. Can you provide an example of what you’re trying to do via plain iTween code and then I can tell you if the visual editor supports that.
Not sure if it’s the right way but I just made an empty game object. Added a javascript that uses OnGUI:
//start code
function OnGUI () {
// Make a background box
GUI.Box (Rect (300,10,300,90), “My Menu”);
//First Button
if (GUI.Button (Rect (310,40,280,20), “First Button”)) {
print(“Do something”);
}
}
//Code ends
Then I attached the iTween event and wanted to scale the GUI. There’s no errors but nothing happens…
Thanks very much.
-Hakimo
To do what you’re wanting you’d need the ValueTo function of iTween. Unfortunately that requires custom code so there’s no current way to replicate that sort of functionality from the visual editor.
I’ve been thinking about learning scripting for a while, as an artist, I can get a lot done in unity without scripting, but you still need some of it to get by. I just discovered itween the other day… And this today. My jaw is still on the floor – I can setup a lot of prototyping now with just these two things, and get a lot of playtesting without writing a single line of code! Absolutely amazing!
Glad to be of help, let me know if there’s stuff you have problem with.
Not so much as a problem, but more of a question. I’ve been toying with this, to see if I can get what I want out of it. Its clear I’ll still need to get some scripting done to get what I need – but I’m curious, do the Oncomplete (and etc boxes) accept any input currently?
I also notice when trying to do multiple events, it tends to complete the last one first – I was trying to complete a simple elevator with a loop, adding a delay, and actually no matter what I did, it would do the MoveFrom first – even if I set it to a long delay.
Would it be useful in future versions, to have multiple tweens setup in a single script, so you can loop back on the events? Just so that you could make better use of the From functions?
This has been pretty neat to use tho, I can see how setting up these scripts fast through this, and then triggering it externally, would get the desired result fairly quickly tho. Some sort of ability to chain these together, without having to write a script would be neat, but I also see that might be beyond the current idea of how this is.
Still peeling my jaw off the floor tho :D
So, I was doing more tweaking for what I specificly wanted, and I realized that if I just use the ping pong loop, it works just fine.
I notice there is a bug specificly in setting the time however.
If I set the time to 6, it should do the animation over 6 seconds, instead it is doing it extremely fast. If I set it to something like .5 it should be doing the animation in .5 of a second, instead its doing it extremely slow. I’m pretty sure this is the opposite of what is supposed to be happening here!
larantholos, I just tried both the things you’re having problems with (setting a delay for the 2nd event and changing the time) and they both worked fine in my test scene. Could you post a screenshot of all your settings or list them out somewhere? My guess is things are just misconfigured.
MoveFrom seems like a strange event to be happening after another event as it moves your object to the specified location at the beginning of the tween, not sure how you would use that for an elevator.
As for the oncomplete events, they accept a string for their parameter, so you could have a script that interprets that parameter as the next event to trigger and have a very easy system for chaining events that way instead of having to work out the delays.
THIS IS AWESOME! seriously, rockstar stuff here :)
Thanks very much. I thought it should be custom code. Trouble is, I’m finding it hard to use iTween using code. I can move objects etc but I can’t animated gui buttons. I’m finding it hard understanding on how to use the hashtables arguments. Hope you can help.
Cheers.
-Hakimo
For iTween help you should really head over to the Unity forums. Bob, the author of iTween can help you out there, or check out the iTween home page which has a variety of documentation.. I’m sure between the two of those you can figure it out.
Hi, thanks for following up. Actually, I suspect I got the time, and speed mixed up. I just confirmed that >.< Thats what I get for messing with things at 4am :)
As for the oncomplete – a full hash string, or just the relevant part of the arguement as it would normally appear in the hash string?
Thanks again!
-Larvantholos
The oncompleteparam is just a string param to your oncomplete function. It has nothing to do with the iTween hash.
I added the script then imported the package…right off I got this error…
Assets/iTweenEditor/Editor/iTweenEventDataEditor.cs(261,48): error CS0433: The imported type `iTween’ is defined multiple times
?
Thanks…
-harley
You have 2 copies of iTween in your project. If you downloaded it separately then you either need to delete that version or the one that comes with the visual editor.
Yes that was the problem…works good now. Thanks!
I’m curious… Is it possible to have a MoveTo function (created in iTween Visual Editor) move along a path created in iTween Visual Path Editor? I know you can have a MoveTo function traverse a path of multiple points by manually entering the path points in iTween Visual Editor, but thought it would be really great to just have the MoveTo function use a path I created in Visual Path Editor… Is this possible?
It will automatically grab the path, if its attached to your game object. If you drag the path edit plugin onto the object itself, then add the visual iTween event, you can select the path, and the path button, and it will find it.
Actually the path option now finds all paths in the scene not just the ones on the local game object.
Is that in the .2 update? If not, it does not. Instead I get an error. I’ll replicate the error in a few, as I’m at work, and not at home, I’ll also make sure I have to current version so I can say for sure. However, testing at home it only found the path when I placed it on the object itself.
This is the error – Made sure I had the current version. Its all greek to me :D
I am making the paths by dragging the path plugin onto the object (in this instance a cube) and naming the path, going to select it, throws this error. I do not however get this, if I drag the path onto the object (another cube in this case) that is running the Tween through the visual editor.
IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
iTweenEventDataEditor.OnInspectorGUI () (at Assets/iTweenEditor/Editor/iTweenEventDataEditor.cs:257)
UnityEditor.InspectorWindow.OnGUI () (at E:/BuildAgent/work/71ca6fec1b41cc30/Editor/Mono/Inspector/InspectorWindow.cs:364)
System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture)
So I got the idea to download the one from the asset store – and it seems to not have this issue, and finds all the paths as it should. Seems then, your package here is broken :) solution – download from the asset store.
The current version is 0.5.2 which I submitted to the Asset Store over the weekend. The path support wasn’t added until 0.5.1 so 0.2 definitely won’t work (as well as being very out of date).
Note that, this seemed to work fine with 5.1 but not with 5.2 :) I ment I was using 5.2 :P
I’m confuse.
Can you help me on how to make a simple moveto and oncomplete destroy?
Thanks and by the way great tool.
Set up a moveto as normal, in the oncomplete field type in the name of a function, something like DeleteMe. Create a script that contains a function named the same thing that you put in the oncomplete field, in my example here that’s DeleteMe. Inside that script put “Destroy(gameObject)”. Attach that script to your object that has the tween and you’re all set.
Thanks for the answer. So dumb of me.. =D
Guys… as one of the examples written above, I’m a digital artist too and I’m just starting with Unity and this whole thing and scripting its still VERY, VERY, VERY complicated for me… and this tool saved my day. Being used with timeline animations in Flash and Aftereffects, the whole tweening thing makes a lot of sense for me, and your tool just makes it SO EASY that I want to jump on my chair of hapiness…
Seriouslly SUPER COOL STUFF. Keep it up.
And one question, if I do want a cube to move to a position and get back to the old position and move again, like in an infinite loop? Any hints. Thanks! And greetings from Brazil.
Diego Ribeiro
Woohooo!!! Just found how to do loops!!! looptype = loop
Your tool is A M A Z I N G!
Hey, thanks very much. This really is a good plugin for unity. Is simpler than i thought and it really simply the itweening process with ur itween event.. Just love it. Is there any way to use this in compliance with the itween path plugin. If so how? Thanks.
The path editor is already included along with iTween and yes it works fine with the visual editor.?
Sorry, wrong product. I get the iTweenPath editor and iTween Visual Editor mixed up.
i can’t load Asset Store, been reinstalling Unity whole week, getting on my nerves. Using win 7 64 bit and Kaspersky Pure. What ever i do, nothing works. Came up with some kharma url error, says it’s loading then screen just goes white.
With that in mind i just want to ask for download mirror, would you please mind uploading it? Thanks
Hi i’m having an issue with unity bugging” Unknown Identifier: iTweenEvent’.
I’m attempting to use your example callscript “StartiTween”.
My previous project was actually based on this very script and they all somehow broke.. has anyone else been having this issue.
All scripts are located in their proper order and folders and the itween editor works just fine in all other areas.
can you help?
Thanks
Problem Solved thanks again.
Hi
I have the editor from the store. I have moved the scripts around so that the reference errors go away. I get the Menu entry, although it comes and goes. I add an event to my MainCamera and I get nothing in the Inspector for MainCamera that looks anything like the example. The word Position isnt there at all????? I get:
Script iTweenEvent
Tween Name
Play Automatically checked
Delay 0
Type MoveTo
Show Icon in Inspector checked
Keys
Indexes
Metadatas
Ints
Floats
Bools
Strings
Vector 3s
Colors
Spaces
Ease Types
Loop Types
Game Objects
Transforms
Audio Clips
Audio Sources
Vector 3Arrays
Transform Arrays
Paths
And that is it.
I know I am doing something stupid, but I am at a loss, I looked through the scripts and the word Position only displays as a comment in one file.
What am I doing wrong??
Thanks
Hi
After much pain, I found a version in the package format, I dropped the contents into my project and there they where.
Thanks for some nice scripting. Hope unity fixes the menu instability thing, but dropping the event on the object isnt a painful workaround so it isnt a bother. It will make more aggressive plugins hard to create though.
Don
Yeah I have no idea why the menu item just up and disappears sometimes, I too find it very annoying.
I am having issues with this for some reason as well… I put the full iTweenEditor folder in the Editor folder. Then i copied the iTween and other 2 scripts into the Plugins folder. Then i copied the icon into the icon folder. But i get a bunch of these errors and before i got the errors it would not give them but would do nothing and then the menu item disappeared.
Any ideas?
OK so i did some guessing and got it all fixed… Here is what i did for anyone else that has my same problems..
I deleted everything then started over… I moved the whole iTweenEditor folder to the Editor folder, Then i moved the Gizmo to the Gizmo folder, Then i moved the iTween and iTweenEvent and iTweenPath and the Helper Classes folder to the Plugins folder…
And that fixed all my problems.. Works great now. Thanks!!!
Q
I’m having a problem with the installation of it. Once it’s installed, I make sure that I have the latest copies of Itween, ITweenPath and ITweenPathEditor. I get no errors, everything that was using ITween are still working but the visual editor is NOT appearing in the components menu why? And more importantly, how to make it work?
Thanks and super cool tool… at least in the video :-P
Never mind after 15 minutes or so it appeared…. duhhhhh
Yeah I don’t know why that Unity bug happens. If you don’t have the component menu item you can always just drag an iTweenEvent script onto your object and you’ll see the editor appear. Kind of clunky but it works.
I cant figure out how to do the Oncomplete events with the visual editor? I tried a few different variations but nothing seems to work. I have found a few examples on how to do it with code but nothing with the visual editor? Can anyone help me or point me somewhere?
great job, man… I have a question, how dangerous is it to update iTween.cs for the latest version?
I don’t know of any issues with updating, if you did run into something you could always just revert your iTween version back to the bundled one.
Ok so if i leave the On Complete Target blank then it will run iTweens on the same object fine but i can not get a different iTween from a different object to work even if i drag the object onto the Target variable…
And why does the OnComplete iTween action fire right away and not when the iTween is done.. This messed me up as it was actually doing something but not until i put a delay on the second one did i actually see it doing something as they were cancelling them selves out.
And how can a run a Method directly? I am using EZ Gui and would like to fire an iTween action right from a button but i dont know how to pass the proper method to the button. Right now i use a script in between the two to run the iTween.
Ok i take it back… the running a second iTween from OnComplete that is on the same object is not working… the reason it was firing right away was because i was calling it from my other script.
So my question still is… why cant i get the OnComplete to work from the visual editor?
I’m testing this now and updating the bundled example scene to show off how to do this.
I’ve just submitted a new package to the asset store, it should be up whenever they approve it. That new package has an example directory with a scene that includes an object using a callback on the same GameObject and a callback on another GameObject so hopefully that will demonstrate how to use them. Let me know if it’s still unclear.
Awesome thanks!
David,
I sent you a message… i can not get anything you sent me to work.. not sure if i messed it up on my end or not? was it a different version?
it is really perfect for me!many thanks, man
Dear sir
This is a good tool for me.But I can not catch the iTweenEvent time.
I want to change the path length and time get change.
So please tell me the way to solve the problem
Very thanks…
I don’t really understand this question.
Install from the asset store. Immediately get this warning. Assets/Editor/iTweenEventDataEditor.cs(308,82): warning CS0618: `UnityEditor.EditorGUILayout.ObjectField(UnityEngine.Object, System.Type, params UnityEngine.GUILayoutOption[])’ is obsolete: `Check the docs for the usage of the new parameter ‘allowSceneObjects’.’
Will not show up in the Component drop down.
Cannot get to work
Using Unity 3.4 pro
That warning appears on many components authored before Unity 3.4, it can be safely ignored. If the iTween item is not showing up in the menu, (it seems to disappear and reappear at random), then you can just drag the iTweenEvent script onto whatever object you want to attach it to. The editor will still show up.
I’m using Unity 3.5 beta with iTweenPath & iTween & while target Flash I get some undefined when they try the compile (Java 7 Update 2):
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTween_Defaults.as(9): col: 9 Error: The static attribute may be used only on definitions inside a class.
(Error: 1 Filename: StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTween_Defaults.as Line: 9)
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTween_CRSpline.as(16): col: 13 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method CLIArray_Copy_CLIArray_CLIArray_Int32 through a reference with static type Class.
(Error: 1 Filename: StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTween_CRSpline.as Line: 16)
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTweenEvent.as(99): col: 37 Error: Access of undefined property Enumerable.
(Error: 1 Filename: StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTweenEvent.as Line: 99)
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTweenEvent.as(15): col: 20 Error: Definition System.Linq:Enumerable could not be found.
(Error: 1 Filename: StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTweenEvent.as Line: 15)
Error building Player: Exception: Compiling SWF Failed:
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTween_Defaults.as(9): col: 9 Error: The static attribute may be used only on definitions inside a class.
public static class iTween_Defaults extends CLIObject {
^
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTween_CRSpline.as(16): col: 13 Error: Call to a possibly undefined method CLIArray_Copy_CLIArray_CLIArray_Int32 through a reference with static type Class.
CLIArray.CLIArray_Copy_CLIArray_CLIArray_Int32($pts, this.CRSpline$pts$, $pts.Length);
^
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTweenEvent.as(99): col: 37 Error: Access of undefined property Enumerable.
var $iTweenEvent: iTweenEvent = Enumerable.Enumerable_FirstOrDefault$1$1_IEnumerable$1_Func$2($components, (function($tween: iTweenEvent): Boolean {
^
StagingArea\Data\ConvertedDotNetCode\global\iTweenEvent.as(15): col: 20 Error: Definition System.Linq:Enumerable could not be found.
import System.Linq.Enumerable;
^
(Filename: Line: -1)
- starting compile Library/ScriptAssemblies/Assembly-CSharp.dll, for buildtarget 18
*** Cancelled ‘Build.Player.FlashSupport’ in 32 seconds
- Finished compile Library/ScriptAssemblies/Assembly-CSharp.dll
- starting compile Library/ScriptAssemblies/Assembly-CSharp-Editor.dll, for buildtarget 18
Sorry about that I was looking for another problem & found that iTween has been updated for Flash
Hello, I had fixed the warning about “ObjectField”, and it already be tested in unity 3.4.2.
I use version check and reflection to avoid warning. You can look it at.
Hi there,
I’d like to be able to script positions and other parameters apart from having an initial iTweenEvent component on my GameObject. How can I access and update these parameters via iTweenEvent?
The iTweenEvent just starts an iTween playing. I’m not sure what parameters you’re talking about that aren’t exposed via the iTweenEvent.
hey , I’m using the iTween visual editor and what ever object i have the script on just sinks into the ground, someone please help
Hi, could I check if the ValueTo() tween is going to be made available in the Visual Editor?
ValueTo was not included because there’s no way to use ValueTo without writing code to apply the value to whatever it is you’re tweening. As as result, doing iTween.ValueTo directly is almost certainly easier that using a visual editor. If you have a really compelling use case for ValueTo to be part of the visual editor I’d be happy to hear it though.
Hi, I found a bit of a problem at EventParamMappings.cs:663, that “ShakePosition” has no “space” parameter and has “islocal” parameter. Thank you for cool tool!
Hi, the tools is great to me. However, I got a problem that I add the itween event to a prefab, the name assigned will be disappear(reset to nothing) when I reopen the preoject. How can I solve it? Thanks!
Hi when i set to prefab he say that’s !
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
iTween.CallBack (System.String callbackType) (at Assets/Plugins/iTween.cs:7040)
iTween.TweenStart () (at Assets/Plugins/iTween.cs:4594)
iTween+c__Iterator2.MoveNext () (at Assets/Plugins/iTween.cs:6555)
NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
iTween.LateUpdate () (at Assets/Plugins/iTween.cs:6598)
he get trick vs this plz ? is can be usefull thank’s !:)
Thanks for your contribution! Sincerely!
Just thought I would say thanks. Visual Actions works flawlessly with iTweens, thanks to this Visual Editor. Watch the video for yourself:
Kind regards,
Sajid Farooq
3ks a lot for your work on this visual tool.It’s so easy to use!!
There’s a little disappointment that real-time value changes cannot display in the ‘Game View’ realtimely. How about this suggestion? I look for your reply. | https://dkoontz.wordpress.com/itween-visual-editor/ | CC-MAIN-2014-15 | refinedweb | 4,151 | 66.13 |
Hi Ron,
You'll need to show us the full traceback as there is not enough
information to determine the problem. There may be a typo in your code,
or is just in the email? Do you really have:
<%=loadMonth(req, =strDate)%>
^
???
Also you might want to put your python code in a block rather than
enclosing each statement in "<%= %>". Doing this will make your code
(and tracebacks) easier to read. ie
<%
from mod_python import apache, psp
from loadCalendar import loadMonth, strDate
loadPan()
loadMonth(req, strDate)
%>
Jim
ron banks wrote:
> Have been doing fine with mod_python and in the process of learning it.
> I can see the wisdom of utilizing templates.
> Here's where I establish my newbie status. Can someone tell me what I am
> doing wrong, how I should be doing it,
> or why I am not getting this. Be gentle, I set up my first web site
> using psp only recently and I have no experience
> with templates. Newbie status established. I have a function that builds
> the html to create a calendar that I will later
> populate with scheduling records. I'm just trying to get a calendar that
> the user can navigate back and forth by month
> so I will have a couple of buttons that will javascript a string with a
> date, "2007,7,11" using ajax to set a session variable.
> Then I want to run the same calendar function that will pick up this
> session variable and build a calendar based on the
> new date. I trying to figure out how to do this with templates. Here's
> an example:
>
> -------------------------Month.psp-------------------------
> <%
> from mod_python import apache, psp
> from loadCalendar import setStrDate
> %>
> <%=setStrDate(req)%>
>
> ----------------loadCalendar/setStrDate----------------
> def setStrDate(req):
> if not hasattr(req, 'session'):
> session = initSession(req)
> else:
> session = Session.Session(req)
> strDate = getSessionVariable(session, 'currDate')
> req. tmpl = psp.PSP(req, filename='Month.tmpl')
> tmpl.run(vars = {'strDate': strDate})
> return ""
>
> ------------------------Month.tmpl-------------------------
> <%
> from mod_python import apache, psp
> from loadCalendar import loadMonth, strDate
> %>
>
> <%=loadPan()%>
> <%=loadMonth(req, =strDate)%>
>
> ----------------Traceback from psp.py-------------------
> File "/var/www/html/TaskMaster/Month.tmpl", line 21
>
>
> req.write("""
>
>
> """,0); req.write(str(loadPan()),0); req.write("""
> """,0); req.write(str(loadMonth(req, =strDate)),0); req.write("""
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mod_python mailing list
> Mod_python at modpython.org
> | http://modpython.org/pipermail/mod_python/2007-July/023995.html | CC-MAIN-2018-34 | refinedweb | 374 | 58.58 |
Originally posted by Graham Walsh: Hi, I've got the 1.4 book (darn, I should have got the 1.5!). Where can I find errata for the 1.4 book? thanks much GrahamO
Originally posted by Kristian Perkins: with the for each loop, you don't have direct access to the array references, you only have a copy of the references in the array so you cannot change the original Object references inside the array. the previous code is equivalent to this:
for (int i = 0; i < myDogs.length; i++) {
Dog d = myDogs[i]; // which is null
d = new Dog(); // assigns reference d to a new instance of
// Dog object, but reference myDogs[i] is
// still null.
// end of this iteration, reference d out of scope
// and the Dog object created is eligible for GC.
}
The for each loop can't change the reference of the array elements, where as the old style for loop listed here can (because you have direct access to manipulate each reference in turn through myDogs[i] = new Dog()). Hope that helps. Kristian
public class Horse extends Animal { private Halter myHalter;//it should be private Halter myHalter = new Halter(); public void tie(LeadRope rope) { myHalter.tie(rope); // Delegate tie behavior to the // Halter object } } public class Halter { public void tie(LeadRope aRope) { // Do the actual tie work here } } | http://www.coderanch.com/t/253088/java-programmer-SCJP/certification/JavaRanch-Exclusive-temporary-errata | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | refinedweb | 224 | 60.65 |
Adopting Cocoapods in your iOS app
Today we will be adopting Cocoapods — a popular dependency manager for Objective-C and Swift into our own project.
IntroductionIntroduction
Cocoapods is a tool to make your development faster by reducing the amount of time spent managing external code (third-party frameworks) in your own projects.
Cocoapods gets its name from the thousands of available “Pods” which link to popular third-party projects. In our tutorial, we will be integrating one called SwiftyJSON, which makes it quick and easy to parse JSON inside your Swift app.
How can we get SwiftyJSON from Github into our own project? We could simply add the source files for SwiftyJSON into the Xcode project, although we would then have to manually manage updates and integration each time. Not fun or a particularly good use of our time.
A better, more efficient way is to use Cocoapods to automatically add SwiftyJSON to the project with a single command. Cocoapods isn’t just great for adding third-party code, but also managing it. We can revert to an older version of a project if something isn’t working in the latest build or try a beta version if we’re feeling adventurous.
Let’s jump right in.
Installing CocoapodsInstalling Cocoapods
Cocoapods is built with Ruby, which luckily for us, has been included with Mac OS X for some time now. Installation is done via command line using the Terminal app.
To get started, open Terminal by navigating to the Applications folder in Finder or use the Spotlight tool to search for it.
Once open, you can issue a single command to start installation:
sudo gem install cocoapods
Note: You use the sudo command this one time to install the gem, but it isn’t needed afterwards.
Press enter and the Cocoapods gem will download and be installed on your machine.
Creating a PodfileCreating a Podfile
Now the Cocoapods gem is installed on our machine, we can add the Podfile — a text-based file which lists which third-party projects you wish to use inside your Xcode project. This file also holds the settings and preferences for these projects.
Let’s open Terminal again and use the cd command to navigate to your Xcode project directory.
cd /Users/Ryan/Documents/MyProject/MyProject/
The command above shows the specific project path to the Xcode project on my machine, be sure to change it to your own.
Once we are inside our project directory, we issue the following command to create our Podfile (you will only need to do this step once, per project).
pod init
If you take a look inside your project directory using the Finder app, you will notice that a new file called Podfile has appeared.
Modifying the PodfileModifying the Podfile
Go right click on the Podfile and open it with either Xcode or a programming-oriented text editor. Here are a few options if you can't decide the best text editor for you.
Tip: Don’t edit your Podfile with the TextEdit app, as the formatting will cause issues.
With our Podfile open, you can see that we have a target called "MyProject." The Pods that you wish to install inside your app will go in this area.
Tip: If you have multiple targets inside your app like a Watch app, tvOS app, etc, you can specify your different targets in the Podfile. This ensures that a framework you need for your iOS target doesn’t get added to your other targets unnecessarily.
Let’s add our first Pod, SwiftyJSON. If you navigate to the SwiftyJSON Github page, you can see that the Pod name is simply "SwiftyJSON." It’s important to always get the Pod name from the project’s Github or webpage, as the pod name doesn’t always match the project name.
Now our Podfile looks like this:
Downloading LibrariesDownloading Libraries
Your Podfile is now ready to go. We’ve included the library that we want inside the correct target and now we simply need to have Cocoapods download the required files and integrate them into our Xcode project.
Before we run the Cocoapods tool be sure to close all instances of Xcode.
With the Terminal app open and inside your project directory (where your Podfile resides), type the following command:
pod update
Note: This can take a bit of time depending on the size of the requested libraries.
Cocoapods will now check the repository and install the latest version of SwiftyJSON into your project.
Once that process is complete, open the Finder app and you will now see a new file with the extension of
.xcworkspace. This is the project file you will now need to use when opening your project. Don’t use the old
.xcodeproj file anymore (it doesn’t include your Cocoapods).
Opening the new project workspaceOpening the new project workspace
Double-click the new
.xcworkspace file to open your project. In the Project Navigator (left side of Xcode) you will notice that you have two separate projects. Your original project and one called “Pods."
Everything is now installed and ready to go. The Pods project is managed automatically by Cocoapods, you don’t need to modify anything inside it with the exception of your Podfile when changes are needed.
You will now be able to use the specified third-party library (in our case: SwiftyJSON) inside your project by simply using the import command at the top of your .swift file(s).
import SwiftyJSON
Updating CocoapodsUpdating Cocoapods
When you want to update your project’s dependencies, simply open Terminal, navigate to the Xcode project directory that contains your Podfile and issue the following command:
pod update
Cocoapods will check for updated versions of your Pods, install them and integrate them into your project automatically.
Customizing your PodsCustomizing your Pods
In our previous example, we installed SwiftyJSON, which at the time of writing was in version 3.1.1. If we wanted to stay on this version until manually changed we could make the following change to our Podfile:
pod ‘SwiftyJSON’, ‘3.1.1’
Updating your Podfile at this point would only download the 3.1.1 version, even if a newer update was available.
If you wish to revert back to a previous version, you can simply specify the version you want and run the pod update command again.
Final thoughtsFinal thoughts
I hope you’ve learned a bit about Cocoapods and how it can be a powerful tool in your developer toolkit. Spending the time to learn about Cocoapods will reward you with more time coding the things that you love and less time worrying about those mind-numbing tasks like managing framework dependencies.. | https://www.codementor.io/codementorteam/adopting-cocoapods-ios-app-wf7vnwnm3 | CC-MAIN-2018-13 | refinedweb | 1,116 | 68.91 |
MadComponents3D – part2: Grid Scrolling
MicroSoft have just officially launched their Windows 8 Operating System, which has prompted me to write my second tutorial about MadComponents3D effects.
Stage3D enabled Grid Scrolling was inspired by the MicroSoft experience. It allows a Flash or AIR developer to incorporate the effect within their own application or web site. MadComponents is a popular, free, and open-source UI framework.
This may not look quite like the Windows demos – but it is based on MadComponents layouts, so the look is very customisable. I threw together some quick demos based on graph layouts – but I’d love to be able to showcase something that incorporates the icons and colours that MicroSoft use.
Is anyone up to building a Windows-8 look-alike demo for Flash or AIR ?
While the current demos don’t quite look the part, the behaviour is very cool – especially on tablet devices. You can swipe the grid-based layout to slide it left and right. Click on any tile, and you can configure it to return to an editable UI page – or even flip around to access an editable modal form – then dismiss the form, and the tile will flip back into formation. You can define live-update regions which automatically transition between alternate appearances.
Note that just like the rest of MadComponents, Grid Scrolling will intelligently adapt itself to the screen size and pixel density of your device.
There are some demos on the Google code site. These two examples show the GridScrolling classes used in conjunction with PageFlipping classes – for a demo that allows the user several ways to flip between pages.
This demo shows how to do flip around pop-up forms and live-update.
[ Ok, I realise that every time I provide links to downloadable source code - somebody is going to ask me why I don't provide a Flash live demo . People have been asking me lately about a Tour d'MadComponents app to show-off the extensive features and capabilities in MadComponents / ExtendedMadness and MadComponents3D beta. The reason I don't do this is that I don't have time. MadComponents is not supported by Adobe, despite the large community using it. All we have is our community. This will only continue to work if we all put in a bit of effort. So if anyone wants to build some live online demos, or Tour d'MadComponents mobile apps -then we'd all be really grateful! ]
Setting-Up MadComponents3D:
You’ll need to download or SVN checkout all the source files here. Include them in your own program, and include the relevant libraries.
import com.danielfreeman.madcomponents.*;
import com.danielfreeman.extendedMadness.*;
import com.danielfreeman.stage3Dacceleration.*;
You must ensure that you’re using an up-to-date version of Flash or AIR, and you may need to set a compiler option such as swfversion=17 (What swf version is the new AIR3.5? – anyone know)?
Also, within your app.xml file, make sure that you’ve enabled Stage3D, like this -
<aspectRatio>portrait</aspectRatio>
<fullScreen>false</fullScreen>
<autoOrients>false</autoOrients>
<renderMode>direct</renderMode>
<depthAndStencil>true</depthAndStencil>
This all goes in just before the </initialWindow> tag.
It’s best to test to see you can run the samples first – then modify, or write your own app.
Write your own app – using this effect:
1. The first thing you do is request a Stage3D context.
addEventListener(Stage3DAcceleration.CONTEXT_COMPLETE, contextComplete);
Stage3DAcceleration.startStage3D(this);
2. Within contextComplete(), initialise Grid Scrolling.
_tiledUI = new GridScrollingE();
_tiledUI.defineGrid(GRID); // Note optional second parameter for the number of tiles across per page.
Here, the constant GRID is a two-dimensional Vector of XML layouts. (Vector.<Vector.<XML>>). This two-dimension map of layout tiles, corresponds with their arrangement within the grid. The layouts are standard MadComponents Layouts, enabling you to customise the appearance, colour, images, and text within each tile.
For example:-
protected static const GRID:Vector.<Vector.<XML>> = Vector.<Vector.<XML>>([
Vector.<XML>([LAYOUT0, null, LAYOUT1, LAYOUT2, LAYOUT4, LAYOUT5]), Vector.<XML>([null , null, LAYOUT6, LAYOUT7, LAYOUT8, LAYOUT9]), Vector.<XML>([LAYOUT10, LAYOUT11, LAYOUT12, LAYOUT13, LAYOUT14, LAYOUT15]),
]);
Notice that LAYOUT0 is surrounded by nulls. This is because we’re going to make this tile twice as large, using a tile attribute:-
protected static const LAYOUT0:XML = <vertical tile=”2×2″ … etc…
3. Activate the effect:
_tiledUI.start();
4. Listen for grid clicks:
addEventListener(GridScrolling.CLICKED, gridClicked);
Within your gridClicked handler, you can _tiledUI.arrayIndex. This is an index of which tile was clicked.
GridScrolling.s Class Reference:
Having described defineGrid, and Start, here are some more public APIs, of the GridScrolling class.
public function setCellSize(width:Number, height:Number):void
Before you call defineGrid, you can specify a tile size. The default is 256 x 256 pixels.
public function set backgroundColour(value:uint):void
Set a background colour
public function stop():void
Deactivate the grid UI
GridScrollingE.s Class Reference:
GridScrollingE extends GridScrolling, and adds live-tiles, and flip-around pop-up menu capabilities. See this example to see flip-around forms in action.
public function addSwapFlipTexture(row:int, column:int, layout:XML):void
The tile at position (row, column) is a live-tile. You specify a new MadComponents layout, and the tile will switch between the original, and the new appearance.
public function pageTexture(page:IContainerUI, backgroundColour:uint = 0x000000):uint
For flip-around tiles, define the texture of the interactive form on its flip-side. This returns a page index.
public function flipAround(row:uint, column:uint, pageIndex:uint = 0, reverse:Boolean = false):void
Flip the tile around at position (row, column). We supply a page index ( from pageTexture) for the flip-around texture.
public function flipAroundClicked(pageIndex:uint = 0, reverse:Boolean = false):void
This method does the same, except instead of supplying a (row, column) position – it will flip the last tile clicked.
public function flipBack():void
Unflip the last flip, and restore the tile into the grid formation.
A Bit Of Technical Explanation:
This is an insight as to how these classes work – you don’t need to understand this bit to use them.
Both AGAL shaders are unconventional. The advantage of a not building this effect on top of Starling – is that I can use custom shaders, and also 3D geometry.
(See GridScrollingE.as)
The vertex shader applies two alternative transformation matrices to each vertex. The first is the transformation to the start animation position. The second is the transformation to the end animation position. So we just interpolate between these two transformed points to accomplish the animated movement.
The fragment shader implements a custom UV animation algorithm that allows one tile texture to slide up in front of another tile texture. This is how I accomplish the live tile update effect.
Each tile is a separate texture. MadComponents3D uses separate textures a lot – in preference to tessellating many textures within large sprite sheets. The purpose of this is to allow for updates, without incurring the overhead of uploading an entire texture – when only a portion of it has changed. Better to split it into those portions.
But, there is a small overhead when rendering, as we have to redefine our texture register in the loop, something like this:-
for (var j:int = 0; j < _count; j++) {
_context3D.setTextureAt(0, _tiledTexture[j]); //fs0
_context3D.drawTriangles(_indexBuffer, 6 * j, 2);
}
_context3D.present();
Air 3.5 is SWF version 18, you can see a table of versions at | http://madskool.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/madcomponents3d-part2-grid-scrolling/ | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | refinedweb | 1,232 | 56.96 |
sinh, sinhf, sinhl − hyperbolic sine function
#include <math.h>
double
sinh(double x);
float sinhf(float x);
long double sinhl(long double x);
Link with −lm.
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
sinhf(), sinhl():
_BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE ||
_XOPEN_SOURCE >= 600 || _ISOC99_SOURCE ||
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200112L;
or cc -std=c99
The sinh() function returns the hyperbolic sine of x, which is defined mathematically as:
sinh(x) = (exp(x) − exp(−x)) / 2
On success, these functions return the hyperbolic sine of x.
If x is a NaN, a NaN is returned.
If x is +0 (−0), +0 (−0) is returned.
If x is positive infinity (negative infinity), positive infinity (negative.
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7)..53 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at−pages/. | http://man.linuxtool.net/centos7/u2/man/3_sinhf.html | CC-MAIN-2019-09 | refinedweb | 142 | 56.96 |
I have created a class for some functionality I am using across multiple projects. The class consists of two files, a .cpp file and its corresponding .h file.
I wish to call Blynk.virtualWrite() from one of the functions in the class.
The compiler complains that ‘Blynk’ was not declared in this scope.
If I add #include <BlynkSimpleEsp8266.h> to the module, the compiler complains: multiple definition of `Blynk’
I cannot find a way to include access to Blynk from the class file.
To demonstrate the problem I have a zip file showing the problem in a minimalist project, but I am prevented from uploading zip files so I present all three files in code below, and anyone wanting to see the problem can copy and paste them into files.
It uses the sample class used to show people how to create a class library from:
@JRobert attempted to describe the problem last year, first opening a thread talking about multiple modules, it was then renamed to be about IDE tabs.
and s/he also opened an issue on GitHub (Issue #312) which was also closed.
It was closed as it was demonstrated that the Blynk library #include did not have to be included in code in multiple tabs in the Arduino IDE - which is not the same thing at all.
Yes, a library does appear in its own tab, but not all tabs are the same. Libraries appear in tabs but not all tabs are libraries.
Here are the three demo files:
Morse.ino
#include "Morse.h" #include <BlynkSimpleEsp8266.h> Morse morse(13); // place a widget that can take an input on V1 such as Numeric Input // set the range to allow input > 20 // set the value to something other than 10 each time you run void setup() { Blynk.begin("xx", "xx", "xx"); Blynk.virtualWrite(V1,10); // works fine } void loop() { Blynk.run(); morse.dot(); }
Morse.cpp
/* Morse.cpp - Library for flashing Morse code. Created by David A. Mellis, November 2, 2007. Released into the public domain. */ #include "Morse.h" //#include <BlynkSimpleEsp8266.h> // will result in multiple definition of `Blynk' Morse::Morse(int pin) { pinMode(pin, OUTPUT); _pin = pin; } void Morse::dot() { digitalWrite(_pin, HIGH); delay(250); digitalWrite(_pin, LOW); delay(250); // Blynk.virtualWrite(V1,20); // will result in 'Blynk' was not declared in this scope } void Morse::dash() { digitalWrite(_pin, HIGH); delay(1000); digitalWrite(_pin, LOW); delay(250); }
Morse.h
/*
So who can tell me how to call Blynk from a cpp class library? | https://community.blynk.cc/t/cant-call-blynk-from-a-class-file/32187 | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | refinedweb | 416 | 74.59 |
importing twilio in sikuliX
I want to use automatic message sender like twilio at middle of my code.
To install twilio there is a pip command "pip install twilio" in python.
But I want to use this in Sikulix.
I have also use site.txt where python2.7 package directory is written.
after adding site.txt in appdata, I can import twilio.
But when I import like this:
from twilio.rest import Client
it shows some error like this:
[error] script [ Documents ] stopped with error in line 1
[error] Error caused by: Traceback (most recent call last):
.......
.......
.............
But I can use "from twilio.rest import Client" in python without any problem.
So, I am badly in need of a help. Please help me and take thanks in advance.
Question information
- Language:
- English Edit question
- Status:
- Solved
- For:
- Sikuli Edit question
- Assignee:
- No assignee Edit question
- Solved by:
- Depta Paul
- Solved:
- 2018-01-16
- Last query:
- 2018-01-16
- Last reply:
- 2018-01-16
@TestMechanic
Thanks for the possible solutions.
Python Modules written in Python language only (no dependencies to native libraries / C-based stuff) and compatible with language level 2.7 should work with Jython/SikuliX.
If you have such a package, then you can do things like shown here
http://
to avoid the duplicating of the Python modules in your .sikuli script folders.
Thank you very much @TestMechanic and @Raiman.
There is also a possible solution. I have convert my whole project into JAVA and everything is working like a charm.
By the way.. Once again thank you.
You should be aware that Sikuli uses jython not python
I would suggest 2 possible approaches:
1. Write a simple command line python tool that uses twilio in the way you need and then to drive it via Sikuli system commands
2. You may try to use twilio lib directly
/pypi.python. org/pypi/ twilio and unpack it in some temp folder
- open Sikuli IDE and create empty sikuli script twilio_test.sikuli - a .py file will appear inside this directory .
- on the top line type 'import twilio'
- download tgz file form https:/
- from within twilio-6.10.0 folder copy twilio folder inside twilio_test.sikuli folder so you will end up with structure like this
twilio_test.sikuli
twilio_test.py
twilio
Now twilio_test.sikuli script will compile ok from within SikuliIDE. But you need to go and test if this will work for you | https://answers.launchpad.net/sikuli/+question/663046 | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | refinedweb | 402 | 77.43 |
On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:37 AM, Junio C Hamano <[email protected]> wrote: > > * This is not even compile tested, so it needs testing and > benchmarking, as I do not even know how costly the calls to > open/close are when we do not have to call iconv() itself.
Advertising
Ok, so it's easily compile-tested: just add + COMPAT_OBJS += compat/precompose_utf8.o + BASIC_CFLAGS += -DPRECOMPOSE_UNICODE to the makefile for Linux too. Actually testing how well it *works* is hard, since I don't really have a mac (well, I do, but it no longer has OS X on it ;), and the whole "utf-8-mac" thing does not make sense. HOWEVER. I actually tested it with the conversion being from Latin1 to UTF-8 instead, and it does interesting things, and kind of works. I say "kind of", because for the case of the filesystem being in Latin1, we actually have to convert things back to the filesystem character set when doing "open()" and "lstat()", and this patch obviously doesn't do that, because OS X does the conversion back to NFD on its own. But ACK on the patch. If I had more time, I'd actually be interested to do the generic case of namespace conversion, and we could make this a generic git feature - it's something I wanted to do long ago. However, right now I'm in the merge window and will go on a vacation to Finland after that, so I probably won't get around to it. I do have one suggestion: please rename the "has_utf8()" function to "has_nonascii()" too. Why? Because that's what the function actually does. It has nothing to do with testing for UTF-8 (the utf-8 rules are more complex than just "high bit set"), and *if* I ever get around to doing a more generic character set conversion for the filenames, the decision really would be about non-ASCII, not about non-UTF8. Linus -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at | https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg05358.html | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | refinedweb | 355 | 66.07 |
(In this post I’ll be talking about exogenous, vexing, boneheaded and fatal exceptions. See this post for a definition of those terms.)
If your process experiences an unhandled exception then clearly something bad and unanticipated has happened. If its a fatal exception then you’re already in no position to save the process; it is going down. You might as well leave it unhandled, or just log it and rethrow it. If it had been anticipated because it’s a vexing or exogenous exception then there would be a handler in place for it. An unhandled vexing/exogenous exception is a bug, but probably one which does not actually indicate a logic problem in the program’s algorithms, it’s just an oversight.
But if you have an unhandled boneheaded exception then that is evidence that your program has a very serious bug indeed, a bug so bad that its operation cannot continue. The boneheaded exception should never have been thrown in the first place; you never handle them, you make for darn sure they cannot possibly happen. If a boneheaded exception is thrown then you have no idea whatsoever what locks were released early, what internal state is now corrupt or inconsistent, and so on. You can’t do anything with confidence, and often the best thing to do in that case is to aggressively shut down the process before things get any worse.
We cannot easily tell the difference between bugs which are missing handlers for vexing/exogenous exceptions, and which are bugs that have caused a program crash because something is broken in the implementation. The safest thing to do is to assume that every unhandled exception is either a fatal exception or an unhandled boneheaded exception. In both cases, the right thing to do is to take down the process immediately.
This philosophy underlies the implementation of unhandled exceptions in the CLR. Way back in the CLR v1.0 days the policy was that an unhandled exception on the “main” thread took down the process aggressively, but an unhandled exception on a “worker” thread simply killed the thread and left the main thread running. (And an exception on the finalizer thread was ignored and finalizers kept running.) This turned out to be a poor choice; the scenario it leads to is that a server assigns a buggy subsystem to do some work on a bunch of worker threads; all the worker threads go down silently, and the user is stuck with a server that is sitting there waiting patiently for results that will never come because all the threads that produce results have disappeared. It is very difficult for the user to diagnose such a problem; a server that is working furiously on a hard problem and a server that is doing nothing because all its workers are dead look pretty much the same from the outside. The policy was therefore changed in CLR v2.0 such that an unhandled exception on a worker thread also takes down the process by default. You want to be noisy about your failures, not silent.
I am of the philosophical school that says that sudden, catastrophic failure of a software device is, of course, unfortunate, but in many cases it is preferable that the software call attention to the problem so that it can be fixed, rather than trying to muddle along in a bad state, possibly introducing a security hole or corrupting user data along the way. Software that terminates itself upon encountering unexpected exceptions is software that is less vulnerable to attackers taking advantage of its flaws. As Ripley said, when things go wrong you should take off and nuke the entire site from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure. But does this awesome philosophy serve the async scenario well?
Last time I mentioned two interesting scenarios: (1) what happens if a task-returning async method does a WhenAll or WhenAny on multiple tasks, several of which throw exceptions? and (2) what if a void-returning async method awaits a task which completes abnormally? What happens to that exception?
Let’s consider the first case first.
WhenAll collects all the exceptions from its completed sub-tasks and stuffs them into an aggregating exception. When all its sub-tasks complete, it completes its task abnormally with the aggregated exception. A slightly bizarre fact, however, is that by default, the EndAwait only re-throws the first of those exceptions; it does not re-throw the entire aggregating exception. The more common scenario is for any try-catch surrounding an “await” to be catching some set of specific exceptions; making you always write code that goes and unpacks the aggregating exception seems onerous. This may seem slightly odd; for more details on why this is a reasonable idea see Jon Skeet’s recent posts on the topic.
The WhenAny case is similar. Suppose the first sub-task completes, either normally or abnormally. That completes the WhenAny task, either normally or abnormally. Suppose one of the additional sub-tasks completes abnormally; what happens to its exception? The WhenAny is done: it has already completed and called its continuation, which is now scheduled to run on some work queue if it hasn’t already.
In both the WhenAll and WhenAny cases we have a situation where there could be an exception that goes “unobserved” by the creator of the WhenAll or WhenAny task. That is to say, in both these cases there could be an exception that is thrown, automatically caught, cached and never thrown again which in the equivalent synchronous code would have brought down the process.
This seems potentially bad. Should an unobserved exception from a task that was asynchronously awaited take down the process, as the equivalent synchronous code would have?
Suppose we decide that yes, an unobserved exception should take down the process. When does that happen? That is, when do we definitively know that the exception actually was not re-thrown? We only know that if the task object is finalized without its result ever being observed. After all, a “living” task object that has completed abnormally could have its continuation executed at any time in the future; it cannot know when that continuation is going to be scheduled. There could be any number of queued-up tasks on this thread that get to run between the time this task completed abnormally and its result is requested. As long as the task object is alive then its exception could be observed.
OK, so, great, if a task is finalized, and it completed abnormally then we… what? Throw the exception on the finalizer thread? Sure! That will take down the process, right? In CLR v2.0 and above, unhandled exceptions on any thread take down the process. But let’s take a step back. Remind me, why do we want an unobserved exception to take down the process? The philosophical reason is: we cannot tell whether this was a boneheaded exception that indicates a potentially horrible, security-impacting situation that needs to be dealt with by immediate termination, or simply the result of a missing handler for an unanticipated exogenous exception. The safe thing to do is to say that it was a boneheaded exception with a security impact and immediately take the process down. Which is precisely what we are not doing! We are waiting for the task to be collected by the garbage collector and then trying to take the process down in the finalizer thread. But in the gap between the exception being recorded in the task and the finalizer observing the exception, we’ve potentially kept right on running dozens more tasks, any of which could be using the inconsistent state caused by the boneheaded exception.
Furthermore, we anticipate that”. In these realistic cases it seems much more plausible to say that if for some reason a task completes abnormally and no one bothers to observe its result, it’s because some asynchronous unit of work was abandoned; any of its sub-tasks that ran into problems connecting to web servers (or whatever) can safely be ignored.
In short, an unobserved exception from a finalized task is one that no one cares about, is probably harmless, and if it was harmful, then we’ve already delayed taking action too long to prevent more harm. Either way, we might as well just ignore it.
This does illustrate that asynchronous programming introduces a new flavour of security vulnerability. If there is a security vulnerability caused by a bug that would normally take down the process, and if that code is rewritten to be asynchronous, and if the buggy task is abandoned without observation of its exception, then the bug might not result in an aggressive destruction of the now-vulnerable process. And even if the exception is eventually observed, there might be a window in time between when the bug introduces the vulnerability and the exception is observed. That window might be large enough for an attacker to succeed. That sounds like a tortuous chain of things that have to go wrong – because it is – but attackers will take whatever they can get. They are crafty, they have all the time in the world, and they only have to succeed once.
I never did say what happens to a void-returning method that awaits a task; you can think of this as a “fire and forget” sort of method. Perhaps a void-returning button-click event handler awaits fetching some data asynchronously and then updating the user interface; there’s no “caller” of the event handler that cares to hold on to a task, and will never observe its result. So what happens if the data-fetching task completes abnormally?
In that case, when the void-returning method (which registered itself as a continuation, remember) starts up again, it checks to see if the task completed abnormally. If it did, then it immediately re-throws the exception to its caller, which is, of course, probably some message loop. I believe the plan of action here is to be consistent with the behaviour described above; in that scenario the message loop will discard the exception, assuming that the fire-and-forget asynchronous method failed in some benign way.
Having been an advocate of the “nuke from orbit” philosophy of unhandled exceptions for many years, emotionally this does not sit well with me, but I’m unable to marshal a convincing argument against this strategy for dealing with exceptions in task-based asynchrony. Readers: What do you think? What is in your opinion the right thing to do in scenarios where exceptions of tasks go unobserved?
And on that somewhat ominous note, I’m going to take a break from talking about the new Task Asynchrony Pattern for now. Please download the CTP, keep sending us your feedback and questions, and start thinking about what sorts of things that will work well or work poorly with this new feature. Next time: we’ll pick up with more fabulous adventures after American Thanksgiving; I’m cooking turkey for 19 this year, which should be quite the adventure in of itself.
Hi Eric,
this might be a good time to get back to an old feature request: Make compiler-generated types serializable! This would have been useful for C# 2.0 iterators, and now even more so for async methods. The idea is that, if you can serialize the closure object, you can code some long-running stuff in a procedural or OO fashion, store it away, and then resume it later. Useful for workflow programming, or (in my case) CPS web programming (resume on next request, with support for state servers), like so:
async Task ShowMyPages()
{
await ShowPage ("Page1.aspx");
if (await ConfirmAction())
await ShowPage ("Page2.aspx");
}
Wouldn't that be cool? Here's the new feature proposal for async:
connect.microsoft.com/…/tasks-returned-by-async-methods-should-be-serializable-async-ctp
I realize that this is quite a stunt to do, and you can never fully support it for any case (like, mixing this with real asynchronous code, using non-serializable local variables etc.) But it could work under defined constraints, and it would be way cool (and useful too).
I'm concerned this will become another place where one can forget that an exception might be thrown. I'm OK with not killing the process, but (for instance) I'd like to log it so I can see what's happening. Currently I'll add a handler to the AppDomain (in a WinForms/Console app) or the Application_Error event in ASP.NET where I log exceptions. Will this still work or is there another place to put this kind of code now?
Maybe it's actually time to start classifying exceptions?
So you actually know that the exception is the result of some method interface violation (like ArgumentException, also think of code contracts) or pure bug (like NullReferenceException) or fatal system exception (like OutOfMemoryException) as opposed to just some failed operation not caused by a bug in the program.
In that case you actually could kill the process by default if it's a bug, and ignore by default if it's not a bug.
I vote to nuke 'em from space (I wish Ripley was in charge for mining operations on Pandora in Avatar). While you will not prevent security vulnerability at least you will know that there was a problem (and thus a potential security vulnerability). Otherwise you may never find out about the issue. What is more you will filter out some attacks that cannot fit in the window of time where your system is in incosistent state and has not yet crashed.
How would you handle cases where one of the many tasks being awaited on is lets say updating a database or has invoked
(or just about to invoke) a service to do a transfer between accounts?
If you bring down the process you are now clueless as to what tasks succeeded or failed.?
While you can argue that "fail fast" is the right thing to do, it's pretty hard to imagine when "fail eventually" is the right policy. Thus, you are correct that failed tasks shouldn't randomly cause your process to fail at times unrelated to when the original failure happened.
That said, you should definitely make it possible to catch these unhandled exceptions. Otherwise there will be no way to log the errors.
Seems to me that you could use some extra syntax here. Some kind of "async catch" or something? Something that'd let you plug into the WhenAny or WhenAll and asynchronously catch the aggregated exceptions as they happen and react to them. I'm not sure exactly how that would work, though, or how to detect an uncaught exception.
When you were discussing CPS you talked about having two continuations, one for normal completion, one for errors. Seems to me like an aggregating task, like WhenAny and WhenAll, really wants to be able to call the error continuation repeatedly with different errors. But I don't know if there's a sane way to express that in the Task object. I wonder if there's a way to detect "uncaught exception" eagerly by telling the Task object when it's created exactly what catch blocks are around at the time? Then if an exception is thrown that is unhandled, it could fail aggressively rather than waiting to find out it's unhandled later.
Thanks for posting this in detail! I've had my concerns about how async was dealing with exceptions.
It seems to me that true fail-fast (not fail-eventually) would be doable by adding a flag to CreationOptions. This leaves the question of whether fail-fast is the desirable choice.
To me, either way is acceptable, but I'll insist on good documentation and I'll request end-user overrides. e.g., the fail-fast approach would work as long as there was an easy way to say "mark this particular task as ignore-exceptions" (possibly using yet another CreationOptions flag). Although I do lean towards the opposite approach: ignore exceptions by default and have a task-specific continuation handle error conditions.
One final observation: Task.WaitAny suffers from the same problem. For consistency, could you make Task.WaitAny work like WhenAny/WhenAll in vNext? It is a breaking change, but I would think it's worth it.
I agree that, if it is not deemed fatal, then there should be a means, on a per app domain basis, to get at the silent exceptions and either log them, or do your own Environment.Exit if you feel like it.
Those implementing a more secure environment can then up their aggressiveness to something not quite Ripley-esque but certainly Vasquez levels of Gung-Ho ("Let's Roooock").
The question of which thread you are on when this callback happens is interesting, though you could argue convincingly that for the intended use you should never care, only whether or not multiple such callbacks can happen at one.
"If it did, then it immediately re-throws the exception to its caller, which is, of course, probably some message loop."
Well, that depends on the context. It's possible this is executing on a thread-pool thread to start with. It's *unlikely* that you'd fire-and-forget an async method on the thread pool, but it's possible. At that point it'll bring down your process in a Ripleyesque fashion:
using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
class Test
{
static void Main()
{
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(ignored => AsyncMethod());
Console.WriteLine("Sleeping…");
Thread.Sleep(5000);
}
static async void AsyncMethod()
{
Console.WriteLine("In async method");
await TaskEx.Run(() => { throw new Exception(); });
}
}
Interestingly, while coming up with this example I *thought* I saw it not actually fail, once. (It completed normally after 5 seconds.) I don't know how that happened though, and I'm going to blame user error until I can reproduce it…
What would happen if you would disallow void returning async methods altogether? Users could still call an async method without actually assigning the returned Task to a variable, but they would do this at their own risk.
Leon: One inconvenience there would be that you couldn't use async methods as event handlers.
I'm of the mindset that I want immediate feedback in exceptional circumstances. Don't continue to work, break. Let normal exception handling rules apply so that I can *choose* to continue working, but don't let that be the default behavior. Give me a chance to fix the bug or add handling where possible.
Unhandled exceptions should at least go to AppDomain.UnhandledException.
To handle the exception, I think it is more of a problem the current catch statement, which does not deal with async/tasks. Some possible improvement can be:
try
{
await something;
}
catch (InvalidDataException ex) // for each exception in AggregateException, go through the catch list in the normal way.
{
…
}
catch (IOException ex)
{
…
}
aggregate (Exception[] unhandledAndRethrownExceptions) // for all remaining exceptions and rethrown exceptions
{
// analysis all remaining exceptions
// can do some logging
// can throw a new exception
}
finally
{
}
Just some wild thinking…
Hello Eric,
There are two "elephant in the living-room", and the problem you presented is a facet of these elephants. I would like to hear what you think about the following subjects:
1. In distributed systems we want each component to fail-fast, because it is for the common good of the distributed "being". As another component takes its place, there is no harm in killing a single component. In that respect the component (before it pushes the self destruct button) needs to be sure that the Exception originated from itself and not propagated from another component, otherwise the fail-fast would be counter productive, and cause the opposite effect.
2.What does code contracts for .NET say about the degenerated case where no code contracts were defined, but an exception is thrown anyway. Are all Exceptions then considered fatal ? How does code contracts relate to the async keyword?
Regards,
Itai
Tasks aren't that different from threadpooled work items in an abstract sense. .NET moved toward fail-fast; please don't give that up, you'll make asynchronous programming more of a minefield than it is already!
There's a relevant distinction between Tasks here, namely into those that don't have side-effects, and those that do. If you're not sharing mutable state, then it's certainly irrelevant that a task failed: it's fine to ignore even boneheaded exceptions since the task simply has no effect.
If you are sharing mutable state (or possibly doing so indirectly via a Task you start), then the exception means that something is broken and wrong – and in that case, indefinitely delayed failure is probably still better than no failure at all. It's not as bad as you make it out to be: it may seem very un-fail-fast since it's not "fast" but it *is* fast in the sense that it will be noticable this run of the process eventually (unless some other error happens first). Such an exception will contain a real stack-trace and will be reasonably debuggable despite the non-deterministic timing, though obviously much harder than synchronous code.
I think that void-returning async methods failing (or an awaited subtask failing) should nuke the process. Throwing an exception in an event-handler is not OK; and since the method returns void you can be almost certain that anything it calls (asynchronously or not) is in some way aiming to assist it in mutating state; ignoring a failure here means making debugging *very* hard and leaving the process in a partially mutated state. Not Good.
For a non-void returning async method, I suppose you're bound by what .NET 4 offers: that is, silently ignore errors. I don't that's good either; there should be a task creation option, and preferably the default should be "fail-as-soon-as-possible": if a Task is finalized or disposed and hasn't been explicitly marked "ignore exceptions" then any exceptions terminating it should be fatal.
So, I'd consider it ideal if all tasks had fail-ASAP on by default, but realize this is a compatibility problem. Certainly void-returning async should not swallow exceptions silently. You could add an app.config setting controlling the default and have C# 5 projects terminate-on-unobserved-task-failure by default to avoid compatibility issues.
I'm with AnthonyP: I'd like void returning async methods to fail if there's an unhandled exception which gets to the toplevel. Otherwise this starts looking just like the "silent" death of background thread in .NET 1.0.
Plus, if I want to swallow all exceptions, I can manually add a toplevel try { … } catch. But if such a handler is provided (implicitly) by the framework, I can get rid of it.
"we anticipate that most async tasks that throw exceptions in realistic code will in fact be throwing exogenous exceptions [snip] rather than boneheaded exceptions"
Perhaps most, yes, but what happens when it is a boneheaded exception? How does this affect our debugging experience?
"the message loop will discard the exception, assuming that the fire-and-forget asynchronous method failed in some benign way"
I understand the perspective that if nobody's listening for a benign exception, then it doesn't really matter; however, the biggest issue with passivity is that this assumption could be wrong in critical situations. I believe it's these critical minority situations to which the benign majority should yield.
We could easily opt-in to ignore benign exceptions. But now, it seems like we must opt-in to being notified about critical exceptions, which are, well, exceptional. How can we opt-in to being notified about something we don't know about?
This also seems to defeat one of the primary reasons for using exceptions as opposed to return codes.
Eamon – the definition of shared state is important.
If the corrupt state is in memory and is only implicit (members of waiting tasks) then the smart thing is to kill the tasks that are related (anscestors, or brothers) to the corrupt task. You can actually halt these tasks and dump their data to a "hospital", and only then kill them. Later dev-ops can analyze the business data waiting in the "hospital".
If the corrupt shared state is in a remote storage (database or nosql) then a restart would not do any good, infact it could cause a collective suicide of a distributed cluster encountering the same corrupt shared state. Instead you need to reset the state in the database, and send the corrupt data to a "hospital" component that will later be analyzed by the dev-ops.
If the corrupt state is in shared memory (usually means it is a local cache of persisted data), then the right thing is to clear the cache, and lazily reload the persosted data.
There is a fourth option, and that is that the shared memory is the primary source of data. Usually that means you are using an In-Memory-Data-Grid which has its own tools to handling corrupt state (out of scope of this comment, I think).
To conclude, in many cases, it's the state that we want to restart (which might be achieved by restarting the process, but that depends on your distributed architecture).
Itai
As earlier posters pointed out, the core issue is whether the failed task was updating state shared with other tasks.
I suggest that the issue is the exception-handling behavior of the synchronization construct used to protect the shared state (most commonly a C# lock statement) rather than the exception-handling behavior of the task.
The problem is that a lock statement releases the lock when its body terminates, even if it terminates due to an exception. As soon as this happens, another thread can acquire the lock and see the inconsistent state. One way to address this would be to mark a lock as "Broken" when it is released due to an exception. When a thread attempts to acquire a lock that is Broken, an exception is thrown.
You might be interested in the work I did on Failboxes <…/failboxes). It attempts to address this problem, as well as the problem of running finally blocks in unsafe states, the problem of zombie servers, and the problem of safe cancellation (i.e. Thread.Abort done right). I'd be interested in any comments you have on this.
The problem with the "fail eventually" scenario is that it doesn't seem easy to protect your app against benign errors that you don't care about. Consider this snippet from a hypothetical web browser:
try {
var ipAddr = PeformDnsLookupAsync(url);
if (await CheckBlacklistAsync(url))
string data = await FetchDataAsync(await ipAddr, url);
else
DisplayError();
}
catch (TimeoutException e) { DisplayError(); }
catch (SocketException e) { DisplayError(); }
As it is now, the system will start a DNS lookup, start a blacklist lookup, and if the blacklist lookup succeeds it will await the result of the DNS lookup, eventually fetching the URL. So what happens when the blacklist lookup fails or throws an exception? An error is displayed to the user and we no longer care about the results of the DNS lookup. Obviously we don't want the web browser to crash if the DNS lookup throws an exception after the blacklist lookup has already returned failure or thrown an exception.
I suggest those advocating "fail eventually" semantics rewrite my simple example to have the same semantics in their intended system.
@Gabe
bool errorDisplayed = false;
void DisplayError() {
if (errorDisplayed) return;
errorDisplayed = true;
…
}
This presupposes semantics that would allow the same catch clause to be entered more than once in the case of an async method. That'd be a slightly odd change to the semantics of the current "catch" clause, so my suggestion would be to rename it to "async catch" in that case.
You'd have to define the semantics carefully, especially with regard to what happens to any code that's *after* the catch/finally clause. And I'm sure I haven't thought it through quite right, but it kind of seems like you would want the *first* time through the async catch to then continue running the code that comes after, and subsequent times through to simply run the catch and then stop.
And it does seem like there ought to be some way to behind-the-scenes annotate the Task object to indicate whether exceptions thrown by it will be handled or not. That way, if not, the failure can be immediate rather than "eventual"?
"In short, an unobserved exception from a finalized task is one that no one cares about, is probably harmless, and if it was harmful, then we've already delayed taking action too long to prevent more harm."
This statement is the crux of the entire argument, and it is deeply flawed. Hopefully in describing its flaws we can come up with the "convincing argument" you are looking for.
First, the idea that "an unobserved exception from a finalized task is one that no one cares about" and "is probably harmless" is based on a very flimsy assumption: '". This is pure assumption and is offered with no facts or supporting data, or even a convincing thought experiment. I don't see why you have any more reason to believe that an exception from an async task isn't "boneheaded" than you have to believe the same about an exception from non-async code. In fact, wasn't that the whole point of the change that was made to the 2.0 CLR that you just described? It seems like you are making exactly the same mistake all over again.
Second, even if we accept the idea that exceptions thrown from async tasks are somehow not important enough to bring down the process, why doesn't the same logic apply to the first exception that is thrown? Why isn't that exception simply stored in the task with the other exceptions, for the user to observe or not as they choose? You are elevating the first exception that gets thrown to a special status that you have no reason to believe it deserves (or more accurately demoting the other exceptions to a status you have no reason to believe they deserve).
Third, the idea that "we've already delayed taking action too long to prevent more harm" is erroneous. To see why, all you have to do is look again at the first exception. It triggers the continuation, which will throw the exception on the original thread, and it will bring the process down if there is no handler ready to catch it. BUT, it doesn't bring the process down UNTIL the continuation is called. And there is no way of knowing when that will be; the message pump may process any number of messages between the time the exception occurs and the time it is rethrown on the original thread.
So both in the case of the first exception AND all subsequent exceptions, an indeterminate amount of time has passed, and an indeterminate amount of code has been executed. So why should one case cause a process failure and the other case be silently ignored? In my opinion, it shouldn't be ignored: "fail fast" is still the right philosophy in this case, for all the same reasons that it is in (nearly) every other case.
I agree that an exception from a background thread that won't be handled should take down the application, preferrably as soon as possible. I use the words "won't be" and "should" deliberately.
I disagree with the opinion from referenced post "Vexing Exceptions" that "vexing exceptions" should be avoided. I prefer code to throw in an expected failure scenario for two reasons:
1) The try catch block is a clean and natural mechanism for dealing with exceptional flows.
2) If a developer forgets that (for example) a bank transaction might not complete if the debited account has insufficient funds, I would prefer the code attempting the transaction fail with a traceable exception and possibly take down the application if it's not expected that this operation might fail.
(Of course, as is true of all design philosophies, there are cases where I would recommend a different approach)
If I dispatch a task to do some work, I would prefer not to write try blocks and check result flags each and every time. I would like the exception to be dealt with as through the await keyword wasn't used. If I am using the await keyword from a background thread with no exception handler, I would like it to kill the application. It would be nice if it happened immediately, but I can imagine reasons why this would be messy to implement.
If you are writing code that modifies state from a background thread, even if that code can never throw, you're going to have to write that code carefully. If you are making multiple state changes that have to be made together, you will already be using locking mechanisms, and if your code can fail you should already be dealing with cases where one change succeeds and a later change fails. This is an annoying problem, I agree, but I don't think it's fair to expect the asynch / await syntax to deal with it
If the choice is between killing an app if a task ever fails, or throwing an exception in the continuation (even if it's delayed), then my vote is for the second..
Ignoring the exceptions is maybe good as a default, but for diagnostic purpose there absolutely must be a way to log them through a custom handler! As a bonus you could then use that handler to shutdown the application if you don't like the default of ignoring it.
I disklike AggregatedException approach. In a fork/join scenario, should one task encounter an exception it's been my experience that all of the tasks encounter the same exception. So having an aggregate of all of the exceptions isn't helpful. True, I can think of situations where different tasks *could* get different exceptions, but I have yet to encounter that. I would prefer for WaitAll to throw the first exception is receives and the rest of tasks are concidered (and are) cancled.
In a non fork/join scenario, should the programmer not continue the task, they don't deserve to know that something went wrong.
But to resolve Eric's concerns I think the only thing to do would be to have the compiler encforce that all tasks either are joined, or are continued. This of course would make some proof of concept programming annoying, but I feel it is a solution to the problem.
I'd like the default behavior to be fail fast.
I'd like to be able to change that to log & continue with a few lines of code, by calling a utility function.
In almost all realistic coding scenarios, however, I'd always implement a global error handler and enforce a policy appropriate to the application. The main reason I care about the default behavior is it's the most effective way to get the attention of rookie developers.
Guys, this may be stupid, but I propose that you cooperate with CLR team to bake support for these situations deeper into the runtime – like preemptive scheduling of exception handlers, whatever… This would make a super powerful product.
How about letting the developer decide? If the exception goes unhandled because the result is void or no-longer-needed, then raise a thread or application level event. That way, the developer can pay attention to these if needed.
Very cool but I think it would be even more powerful to have two constructs:
y = await f(x); // asynchronously call f, but execute following statements only when f completed
y = async f(x); // asynchronously call f, but execute following statements which don't depend on y immediately
Using several "async" calls, you could make parallel processing.
Also, what about asynchronous "foreach" loops? It might be nice to have a new AsyncEnumerator having a async bool MoveNext(); | https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ericlippert/2010/11/23/asynchrony-in-c-5-part-eight-more-exceptions/ | CC-MAIN-2016-22 | refinedweb | 6,081 | 59.03 |
THE SQL Server Blog Spot on the Web
In SQL Server 2005 Microsoft introduced user-schema separation and since then I have seen the use of schemas increase; whereas before I would typically see databases where all objects were in the [dbo] schema I now see databases that have multiple schemas, a database I saw recently had 31 (thirty one) of them.
I can’t help but wonder whether this is a good thing or not – clearly 31 is an extreme case but I question whether multiple schemas create more problems than they solve? I have been involved in many discussions that go something like this:….”
You get the idea!!! The more schemas that exist in your database then the more chance that their supposed usages will overlap.
I’m left wondering whether the use of schemas is actually necessary. I don’t really see them as an aid to security because I generally believe that principles should be assigned permissions on objects as-needed on a case-by-case basis (and I have a stock SQL query that deciphers them all for me) so why bother using them at all? I can envisage a use where a database is used to house objects pertaining to many different business functions (which, in itself, is an ambiguous term) and in that circumstance perhaps a schema per business function would be appropriate; hence of late I have been loosely following this edict:
If some objects in a database could be moved en masse to another database without the need to remove any foreign key constraints then those objects could legitimately exist in a dedicated schema.
If some objects in a database could be moved en masse to another database without the need to remove any foreign key constraints then those objects could legitimately exist in a dedicated schema.
I am interested to know what other people’s thoughts are on this. If you would like to share then please do so in the comments.
@Jamiet
If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here
RSS
Your last paragraph nails it. Oracle has had schemas since the '80's, so I look to how Oracle people use them as guidance. In the Oracle world a schema more closely maps to a SQL Server database. An instance and a database are the same thing (other than when using the advanced HADR stuff). So, it's common to backup/restore at the schema level, not the database/instance level. You can restore a backed up schema to a new schema then create a new login using the new schema as the default. By merely logging out/in you can connect to say, prod and test, without a new connection string. Even so, this is rarely done for new dev work. In the old days we often saw one big Oracle instance/db with a bunch of smaller, self-contained schemas mapping to individual applications with separate security, which is what you describe.
I would not make blanket statements. In my current system I have thousands of objects, but just a few distinct sets of permissions, so schemas really simplify the management of my permissions a lot - only a few objects don't fit the common patterns.
In some other cases there are almost as many distinct sets of permissions as the objects themselves, so there is little point in having schemas...
Well...one premise of a schema is that, if you assign privs at the schema level, then DROP-CREATE == ALTER. You can't assign privs at an object level if the object doesn't exist yet. You can with schemas because the priv applies to future objects in the schema as well as current objects.
And I'm not even going into schema owner == object owner. Everything being owned by DBO is a little like everything in file system being owned by administrator.
And, Dave, AFAIK Oracle has never had real schemas. Quote, from the Oracle BOL (10g, maybe it changed in 11?) "Note: This statement does not actually create a schema. Oracle Database automatically creates a schema when you create a user (see CREATE USER). This statement lets you populate your schema with tables and views and grant privileges on those objects without having to issue multiple SQL statements in multiple transactions."
Just like SQL Server pre-2005.
Cheers,
Bob
Bob,
Agreed about [dbo]. Even if I were only using one schema it wouldn't be [dbo].
I never really considered the advantage that schemas bring where they allow you to grant privs to non-existent objects. Of course - that could also be considered to be a disadvantage - do you want privs getting assigned automatically? Perhaps, tho perhaps not. Its a good point that you make anyway. That actually reminds me of a debate a few months ago between Brent Ozar & Buck Woody -
Thanks for the clarification on Oracle. I know your other half is an Oracle DBA so you write with some authority here :)
JT
Schemas are really nice when you have multiple applications writing code at the same database, from permissions management to a nice separation of application code. The pain of having to deal with multiple roles and users makes it worthwhile. The developers write code to their schema and the permissions are done. Using schemas for tables is a bit more problematic, but has its purposes when you want to "hide" tables from users effectively. (a table that houses sensitive data can be put in another schema that no person with Select on DBO could see, for example)
It really is a big "it depends".
Bob, I don't understand your comment regarding Oracle and schemas working like pre-SQL 2005. I didn't think CREATE SCHEMA was valid SQL in SQL Server 2000. Regardless, the CREATE SCHEMA syntax is more or less identical from Oracle to SQL to the ANSI standard. Oracle's limitation is that CREATE SCHEMA doesn't actually create the schema as you mentioned, it merely assigns the attributes. I'm not sure how Oracle never supported real schemas if the definition of a schema is a named collection of objects. Following that logically then a database is really not much different than a schema anyway, which is how Oracle and MySQL handle it. In fact CREATE SCHEMA is a synonym for CREATE DATABASE in MySQL.
Another chief difficulty is getting consistency and buy in from the designers/architects. I worked on a project that split off user created tables from the primary file group to a set if user created file groups. People either didn't know or care to determine what file group a table should be in. Now, unless the DBA rides herd, new tables often get created in the default file group because the file group was not explicitly identified.
Hi Dave,
Actually there was a CREATE SCHEMA statement in SQL Server 2000 (I had to look it up once and was surprised, see). But it didn't create a schema either, schemas were really == user (like they are in Oracle, if they haven't changed since the BOL I cited; it was an Oracle DBA/Dev myself once and had to look it up to ensure it hadn't changed).
It's not really about the syntax as such as it is about the fact that schemas are not necessarily tied to users in SQL 2005 and above. That means that you could create a role (say payroll) assign a schema to the role and move users in and out of the role with impunity. One of the problems that schema solves AFAIK, is that database objects aren't tied to individual users, so objects don't have to move ownership when the users move or leave. And also, if you architect your schemas correctly, you can use them, for the most part, as a privilege boundary, as I mentioned above. Oracle folks do often use users/schemas that do not correspond to a real user, as we did in SQL Server.
I think schemas in Oracle are more like databases in SQL Server/DB2/Sybase. And databases (at least in SQL Server) still have a single (login) owner in SQL Server. So unless you use Windows Group logins (which has its own set of issues) the problem moves up a level. And databases have additional issues when moving them between instances (collation, etc) in database products that support multiple user databases.
We have a number of self contained mini-promo websites and the majority of them need a table to store user registration info. Most of the time this is called "users". All these websites were desgined without any schema in mind, so what we do rather than create a separate database for each is to have a single promo database and then create a schema for each site and a user with the default schema set to match.
I always deliberately design & use schemas since they do so many (read 3) wonderful things:
- Group objects in alphabetical lists and UIs (e.g. Visual Studio)
- Provide namespaces making related objects easier to move
- Grouped permissions
Your rule of thumb sounds great to decide the size & content of the schemas...
/Kristian
I take each db as it comes.
Where I do uses schemas is in my data warehouse build to help me identify what tables are part of the configuration/run procedure i.e. an ssis parameter table and those that are actual data tables
I do however keep it to a minimum!
My primary work involves
1) loading data from multiple data sources into a staging database
2) conforming and cleansing the data in the staging database
3) delivering the data to multiple destinations
because of this I have fould schemas to be very usefull in my staging database. This feature allows me to separate my tables according to their source and function. Mind you, I do not use schemas necessarily to separate business functions but to separate data source tables, staging tables, and delivery tables.
It has been most helpful. | http://sqlblog.com/blogs/jamie_thomson/archive/2010/12/27/thoughts-on-schemas-and-schema-proliferation.aspx | CC-MAIN-2015-11 | refinedweb | 1,691 | 59.03 |
Important: Please read the Qt Code of Conduct -
How to declare enums in Python and expose to QML?
In C++ one can simply declare an enum as following:
enum class MyEnum{One, Two, Three}
Then using the
Q_ENUMmacro and registering the object using
qRegisterTypeone is able to use the enums in QML. How can I do this in PySide2. I am aware that Python possesses enum capabilities (
from enum import Enum) but how can I expose these to QML? I have tried to import the
Q_ENUMmacro from
PySide2.QtCorebut that didn't work.
- galewinston last edited by
An enumeration is a set of symbolic names bound to unique, constant values . Within an enumeration, the values can be compared by identity, and the enumeration itself can be iterated over. In Python 3.4 (PEP 435) , you can make Enum the base class.
from enum import Enum class Directions(Enum): East, West,North,South = range(4) print(Directions.North.value)
@galewinston
Yes, but that does not address the OP's problem of exposing to QML; the vagaries of Python are not at issue.
@daljit97
Bad news, I'm afraid, I think:, August 2019:
At the moment, there is no equivalent, because PySide2 does not implement Q_ENUMS: see bug PYSIDE-957. In addition to this, the implementation of Property also has problems: see bug PYSIDE-900. A fully working QML enum example for PyQt5 is given here - but of course you cannot test it with PySide2.
So it works from PyQt5 but not from PySide2, and remains unresolved in the latter.
So instead of using old school Enums use a Dictionary as that is basically how it is handled behind the scenes aka
Directions = {}
Directions ['East'] = 1
print(Directions['East'])
--or--
Directions [1] = 'East'
print(Directions[1])
depending on which value you are wanting to be what you get back then you just pass the dictionary | https://forum.qt.io/topic/106307/how-to-declare-enums-in-python-and-expose-to-qml | CC-MAIN-2021-31 | refinedweb | 313 | 62.38 |
Agenda
See also: IRC log
SW: Propose to approve 4 October minutes
DC: OK
<DanC> +1 approve
RESOLUTION: Minutes of 4 October as distributed
DO: Regrets
RL: Regrets
NW: I can scribe
... Regrets for 25 Oct and 1 Nov
<Stuart>
DO: Tantek Celik and Ian Hickson have agreed to be on the panel
DO: TimBL has agreed to be on the
panel, I'd like one more TAG member
... Three issues that are asking for discussion: microformats -- are or are not URI-based extensibility?
DO: another topic was the
question of how namespaces should be added to XHTML
... and deprecating attributes which are in the way of extensibility
... Ian Hickson will pbly mostly say we aren't going to get there
... I have begun to think maybe there's something to this -- easy-to-author and URI-based extensibility are pretty much in conflict
SW: Around the table to see what people feel like
DO: My preference would be to ask DC, with his HTML WG hat on
DC: OK, I'll do it
<DanC> trackbot-ng, ACTION-46 is done
SW: Norm, state of Action-46?
<Norm> Closed
NW: No further comments
SW: Lots of threads on www-tag,
on httpRange-14 and httpRedirections-57
... One on alternatives to 'resource', converging on 'thing'
... Are people disposed to make this change?
HST: No -- compare
'referent'
... but I didn't read the thread
DC: But there's a previous
understanding of the word, so it's not a good choice
... you can allocate resources, or deallocate them, they can be accessed. . .
HST: OK, I see
DC: In a tutorial context, maybe
we don't need a name at all -- perhaps the editor of the Cool
URIs spec. could try to avoid a name altogether
... failing which 'thing' has some good properties
... Who has the ball? Us or the editor?
SW: Don't know
DC: I'd like to have a clear
expectation of how the process is going forward -- we make
comments and get quick turnaround, or the editor has gone away
for a few weeks and will be back for a draft, or . . .
... What I'd like is two or three weeks of low-latency interaction with the editor(s) -- if not this two-or-three, some other is fine
<scribe> ACTION: Stuart to contact editors of Cool URIs to determine when/how to carry our interaction forward. . . [recorded in]
<trackbot-ng> Created ACTION-64 - to contact editors of Cool URIs to determine when/how to carry our interaction forward. . . [on Stuart Williams - due 2007-10-18].
SW: Rhys, where are we wrt HTTP Resources and Endpoints?
RL: I've been letting this rest for a bit -- I didn't feel I had much support for trying to pin down what was in common between all 200s and at least 303s. . .
HST: You convinced me!
DC: 'resource' vs. 'thing' is
editorial, but there's a technical distinction between 'denote'
and 'identify' which Pat Hayes is trying to make
... Anybody get that?
<DanC> (I'm clear on 'access' vs 'identify', but not 'identify' vs name/denote)
SW: My understanding of Pat's point is that there are two senses in which we use the word 'identify' wrt URIs -- one meaning 'access' -- the URI as a way of getting at something, vs. when a URI appears in a piece of text we're using it like a name, w/o any interest in accessing, or any implication that it can be accessed
DC: I don't hear anyone using 'identify' in the 'access' sense
[scribe missed SW's reply]
SW: The intention of the web
arch. is that URIs denote, and sometimes are a means of
access
... another point is that a name can refer to many different things, which is at odds
DC: I still don't hear how
identify isn't a synonym of denote
... and then there's the 'rigid designator' idea
SW: That's what he's offering . . .
HST: 'rigid designator' for me turns out to be an unsatisfiable concept -- we don't have any in practice
DC: But 'Paris' works, and so do URIs
HST: Agreed, they just don't satisfy the literal interpretation of 'rigid designator' as something which always and everywhere denotes the same thing
DC: What about this thing in the new Schema 1.1 draft -- described as a URI for the Schema language, but there's a document at the end of it. . .
HST: I think this is accidental, not the result of a carefully thought through analysis
DC: I would like to suggest they add a #language -- would that work for all of us?
HST: I think I prefer not --
perhaps we should use this as a good concrete case to work
through as an example of what we want the cool URIs doc't to
say
... I would prefer 303
SW, NW:similar
... We'll put this one up on a whiteboard at the November f2f
HST: Schema group are not focussed on this right now
SW:
... Which URI should be persistent when redirects are used?
<DanC> Misha tells the story behind "which should be persistent"
DC: IPTC are making up URIs for
the Mona Lisa
... Again, this is the audience we hope will read Cool URIs. . . --- what should they do?
HST: Did the thread converge?
DC: No -- I suggested a # solution, we want back and forth on that vs. 303, no resolution. . .
<DanC> "The IPTC is likely to approve the NewsML-G2 specification at our meeting in Prague in mid-October."
HST: Sounds like we've missed
their cutoff. . .
... Until we have a document, threads will fail to converge and that's to be expected
SW: Yes, and I have an action to move that document along
<raman> need to drop off in 3 minutes ...
<DanC> (stuart and I are using the due dates as "next time you want this to be discussed in a tag meeting")
HST: I produced the revision
based on the informal presentation at the f2f
... One outstanding question I'd like advice on -- is 'natureKey' a DatatypeProperty or an ObjectProperty ?
DC: Not sure. . .
DC: I guess the name natureKey suggests string rather than thing
SW: I feel like the 'purpose' relation runs the wrong way
SW: Consider the first diagram
<DanC> the blank node is a nature:Object
DC: Look rather at the instances -- schemaValidation, normativeReference
DC: schemaValidation isn't an instance of Purpose
SW: Yes it is
HST: Please check the ontology, DanC
<DanC> (subproperty)
SW: Take this to email
<scribe> ACTION: Norm or Henry to fix the first two diagrams [recorded in]
<scribe> ACTION: Henry to look at the name of the Purpose property class to see if we can't do better [recorded in]
<DanC> (I'm not optimistic about improving on "purpose"; I suggest an ed note to say "these words are a little awkward due to the awkwardness of 3-ary relations in RDF. life goes on.")
<Stuart> Henry may find SWBPD writing on N-ary relations useful:
SW: I picked up another problem -- 'identify' gets used a lot
DC: Also, this document isn't done until the first ednotes is addressed
HST: Wrt SW's point, until WebArch changes I don't see the issue
SW: Talk about this now?
DC: So minutes suggests the next
step is a report
... any progress towards a f2f meeting?
RL: Report is out:
DC: Ah -- report bucks next steps squarely into lap of W3C. . .where will the resource come from ?
SW: Anything on the plenary
agenda about this?
... Lightening talk?
HST: That's a good idea, if they're not full
DC: People there from Dojo and the other big library builders, right?
RL: Besides DoJo, other library builders are Prototype, Scriptaculous, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft
DC: IBM contribute, or have their own?
RL: I don't know if what they've
got is packaged as a library
... IBM's secure mashup approach (SMASH) was discussed
DC: RL, are you tracking this stuff personally?
RL: Yes, I chair the Mobile
taskforce at Open AJAX Alliance -- think of that as rather like
an XG
... We're doing a whitepaper giving an intro to what Mobile AJAX is
<DanC> local access
RL: and an API/library to give local access to for example device capabilities
DC: Logistics of the taskforce?
RL: All email and telcons -- f2f is only plenary, for whole Alliance, so next one in the spring some time
DC: Any of the AJAX library guys going to be at the tech plenary
RL: Not sure how many are even
W3C members -- see for the
OpenAJAX membership
... I did ask the question at the plenary whether they thought WebArch was OK from their perspective
... perhaps half had read it, and they were pretty much OK with what they found there
... This was particularly in the area of state for URIs
HST: The whole client-side
persistence thing is mushrooming fast
... perhaps we should look at this at some point
RL: Indeed the mobile ajax taskforce is looking at that as well
DC: I hope we can just trust them
to get it right
... so we can leave it be for a while
HST: I agree we can leave it, but for a different reason
<DanC> (IETF/W3C telcon seems to be 2 weeks from 9 Oct, so it can wait a week)
HST: We've already tacitly agreed to ignore the architectural impact of the fact that most web pages today are constructed on the client by Javascript anyway
DC: We haven't ignored it, we wrote the Least Power finding
HST: Which people are ignoring
DC: No they're not, Christian Heilmann wrote a book about Unobtrusive Javascript, and it's having a big impact
<DanC> See also behavioral separation by Jeremy Keith
HST: Gee, not from what I see coming at my browser
DC: Yes, well, Sturgeon's Law applies ("Ninety percent of everything is crap") | http://www.w3.org/2007/10/11-tagmem-minutes | crawl-002 | refinedweb | 1,654 | 66.27 |
.
Two posts ago, I discussed the Interlocked Add(), Increment(), and Decrement() methods (here) for adding and subtracting values in a thread-safe, lightweight manner. Then, last post I talked about the Interlocked Read() and Exchange() methods (here) for safely and efficiently reading and setting 32 or 64 bit values (or references).
This week, we’ll round out the discussion by talking about the Interlocked CompareExchange() method and how it can be put to use to exchange a value if the current value is what you expected it to be.
Many of the uses of Interlocked that we’ve explored so far have centered around either reading, setting, or adding values. But what happens if you want to do something more complex such as setting a value based on the previous value in some manner?
Perhaps you were creating an application that reads a current balance, applies a deposit, and then saves the new modified balance, where of course you’d want that to happen atomically. If you read the balance, then go to save the new balance and between that time the previous balance has already changed, you’ll have an issue!
Think about it, if we read the current balance as $400, and we are applying a new deposit of $50.75, but meanwhile someone else deposits $200 and sets the total to $600, but then we write a total of $450.75 we’ve lost $200!
Now, certainly for int and long values we can use Interlocked.Add() to handles these cases, and it works well for that. But what if we want to work with doubles, for example?
Let’s say we wanted to add the numbers from 0 to 99,999 in parallel. We could do this by spawning several parallel tasks to continuously add to a total:
1: double total = 0;
2:
3: Parallel.For(0, 10000, next =>
4: {
5: total += next;
6: });
Were this run on one thread using a standard for loop, we’d expect an answer of 4,999,950,000 (the sum of all numbers from 0 to 99,999).
But when we run this in parallel as written above, we’ll likely get something far off. The result of one of my runs, for example, was 1,281,880,740. That is way off! If this were banking software we’d be in big trouble with our clients.
So what happened? The += operator is not atomic, it will read in the current value, add the result, then store it back into the total. At any point in all of this another thread could read a “dirty” current total and accidentally “skip” our add.
So, to clean this up, we could use a lock to guarantee concurrency:
1: double total = 0.0;
2: object locker = new object();
3:
4: Parallel.For(0, count, next =>
5: {
6: lock (locker)
7: {
8: total += next;
9: }
10: });
Which will give us the correct result of 4,999,950,000. One thing to note is that locking can be heavy, especially if the operation being locked over is trivial, or the life of the lock is a high percentage of the work being performed concurrently. In the case above, the lock consumes pretty much all of the time of each parallel task – and the task being locked on is relatively trivial.
Now, let me put in a disclaimer here before we go further:
For most uses, lock is more than sufficient for your needs, and is often the simplest solution!
For most uses, lock is more than sufficient for your needs, and is often the simplest solution!
So, if lock is sufficient for most needs, why would we ever consider another solution? The problem with locking is that it can suspend execution of your thread while it waits for the signal that the lock is free. Moreover, if the operation being locked over is trivial, the lock can add a very high level of overhead. This is why things like Interlocked.Increment() perform so well, instead of locking just to perform an increment, we perform the increment with an atomic, lockless method.
As with all things performance related, it’s important to profile before jumping to the conclusion that you should optimize everything in your path. If your profiling shows that locking is causing a high level of waiting in your application, then it’s time to consider lighter alternatives such as Interlocked.
So let’s look at how we could use CompareExchange() to solve our problem above. The general syntax of CompareExchange() is:
Actually, CompareExchange() is not one method, but a family of overloaded methods that can take int, long, float, double, pointers, or references. It cannot take other value types (that is, can’t CompareExchange() two DateTime instances directly). Also keep in mind that the version that takes any reference type (the generic overload) only checks for reference equality, it does not call any overridden Equals().
So how does this help us? Well, we can grab the current total, and exchange the new value if total hasn’t changed. This would look like this:
1: // grab the snapshot
2: double current = total;
4: // if the total hasn’t changed since I grabbed the snapshot, then
5: // set it to the new total
6: Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + next, current);
So what the code above says is: if the amount in total (1st arg) is the same as the amount in current (3rd arg), then set total to current + next (2nd arg). This check and exchange pair is atomic (and thus thread-safe).
This works if total is the same as our snapshot in current, but the problem, is what happens if they aren’t the same? Well, we know that in either case we will get the previous value of total (before the exchange), back as a result. Thus, we can test this against our snapshot to see if it was the value we expected:
1: // if the value returned is != current, then our snapshot must be out of date
2: // which means we didn't (and shouldn't) apply current + next
3: if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + next, current) != current)
4: {
5: // ooops, total was not equal to our snapshot in current, what should we do???
6: }
So what do we do if we fail? That’s up to you and the problem you are trying to solve. It’s possible you would decide to abort the whole transaction, or perhaps do a lightweight spin and try again. Let’s try that:
1: double current = total;
3: // make first attempt...
4: if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + i, current) != current)
5: {
6: // if we fail, go into a spin wait, spin, and try again until succeed
7: var spinner = new SpinWait();
8:
9: do
10: {
11: spinner.SpinOnce();
12: current = total;
13: }
14: while (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref total, current + i, current) != current);
15: }
16:
This is not trivial code, but it illustrates a possible use of CompareExchange(). What we are doing is first checking to see if we succeed on the first try, and if so great! If not, we create a SpinWait and then repeat the process of SpinOnce(), grab a fresh snapshot, and repeat until CompareExchnage() succeeds. You may wonder why not a simple do-while here, and the reason it’s more efficient to only create the SpinWait until we absolutely know we need one, for optimal efficiency.
Though not as simple (or maintainable) as a simple lock, this will perform better in many situations. Comparing an unlocked (and wrong) version, a version using lock, and the Interlocked of the code, we get the following average times for multiple iterations of adding the sum of 100,000 numbers:
1: Unlocked money average time: 2.1 ms
2: Locked money average time: 5.1 ms
3: Interlocked money average time: 3 ms
So the Interlocked.CompareExchange(), while heavier to code, came in lighter than the lock, offering a good compromise of safety and performance when we need to reduce contention.
So that was one simple use of CompareExchange() in the context of adding double values -- which meant we couldn’t have used the simpler Interlocked.Add() -- but it has other uses as well.
If you think about it, this really works anytime you want to create something new based on a current value without using a full lock. For example, you could use it to create a simple lazy instantiation implementation. In this case, we want to set the lazy instance only if the previous value was null:
1: public static class Lazy<T> where T : class, new()
2: {
3: private static T _instance;
4:
5: public static T Instance
6: {
7: get
8: {
9: // if current is null, we need to create new instance
10: if (_instance == null)
11: {
12: // attempt create, it will only set if previous was null
13: Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _instance, new T(), (T)null);
14: }
15:
16: return _instance;
17: }
18: }
19: }
So, if _instance == null, this will create a new T() and attempt to exchange it with _instance. If _instance is not null, then it does nothing and we discard the new T() we created.
This is a way to create lazy instances of a type where we are more concerned about locking overhead than creating an accidental duplicate which is not used. In fact, the BCL implementation of Lazy<T> offers a similar thread-safety choice for Publication thread safety, where it will not guarantee only one instance was created, but it will guarantee that all readers get the same instance.
Another possible use would be in concurrent collections. Let’s say, for example, that you are creating your own brand new super stack that uses a linked list paradigm and is “lock free”. We could use Interlocked.CompareExchange() to be able to do a lockless Push() which could be more efficient in multi-threaded applications where several threads are pushing and popping on the stack concurrently.
Yes, there are already concurrent collections in the BCL (in .NET 4.0 as part of the TPL), but it’s a fun exercise! So let’s assume we have a node like this:
1: public sealed class Node<T>
3: // the data for this node
4: public T Data { get; set; }
5:
6: // the link to the next instance
7: internal Node<T> Next { get; set; }
8: }
Then, perhaps, our stack’s Push() operation might look something like:
1: public sealed class SuperStack<T>
3: private volatile T _head;
5: public void Push(T value)
7: var newNode = new Node<int> { Data = value, Next = _head };
9: if (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _head, newNode, newNode.Next) != newNode.Next)
10: {
11: var spinner = new SpinWait();
12:
13: do
14: {
15: spinner.SpinOnce();
16: newNode.Next = _head;
17: }
18: while (Interlocked.CompareExchange(ref _head, newNode, newNode.Next) != newNode.Next);
19: }
20: }
21:
22: // ...
23: }
Notice a similar paradigm here as with adding our doubles before. What we are doing is creating the new Node with the data to push, and with a Next value being the original node referenced by _head. This will create our stack behavior (LIFO – Last In, First Out). Now, we have to set _head to now refer to the newNode, but we must first make sure it hasn’t changed!
So we check to see if _head has the same value we saved in our snapshot as newNode.Next, and if so, we set _head to newNode. This is all done atomically, and the result is _head’s original value, as long as the original value was what we assumed it was with newNode.Next, then we are good and we set it without a lock! If not, we SpinWait and try again.
Once again, this is much lighter than locking in highly parallelized code with lots of contention. If I compare the method above with a similar class using lock, I get the following results for pushing 100,000 items:
1: Locked SuperStack average time: 6 ms
2: Interlocked SuperStack average time: 4.5 ms
So, once again, we can get more efficient than a lock, though there is the cost of added code complexity. Fortunately for you, most of the concurrent collection you’d ever need are already created for you in the System.Collections.Concurrent (here) namespace – for more information, see my Little Wonders – The Concurent Collections Part 1 (here), Part 2 (here), and Part 3 (here).
We’ve seen before how the Interlocked class can be used to safely and efficiently add, increment, decrement, read, and exchange values in a multi-threaded environment. In addition to these, Interlocked CompareExchange() can be used to perform more complex logic without the need of a lock when lock contention is a concern.
The added efficiency, though, comes at the cost of more complex code. As such, the standard lock is often sufficient for most thread-safety needs. But if profiling indicates you spend a lot of time waiting for locks, or if you just need a lock for something simple such as an increment, decrement, read, exchange, etc., then consider using the Interlocked class’s methods to reduce wait.
Print | posted on Thursday, September 6, 2012 7:14 PM |
Filed Under [
My Blog
C#
Software
.NET
Little Wonders
] | http://geekswithblogs.net/BlackRabbitCoder/archive/2012/09/06/c.net-little-wonders-interlocked-compareexchange.aspx | CC-MAIN-2015-48 | refinedweb | 2,217 | 69.52 |
Hi folks,
I am trying to develop a plugin for sublime text 2. I want to use the onProjectLoad event (I think now it is the on_project_load event)
But I cant get it. The documentation I have found is out of date?
Here one of my tries:
[code]import sublime, sublime_pluginfrom pprint import pprint
class CreateCompassProjectCommand(sublime_plugin.WindowCommand): def run(self): print dir(self)
def on_project_load(window):
print "hi"
print window.project().fileName()[/code]
What I have to do? Sorry, if it is obvious, but I cant find it!
I don't see any way to catch an event when a project is loaded in the docs:sublimetext.com/docs/2/api_reference.htmlor for ST3:sublimetext.com/docs/3/api_reference.html
(It looks like you were looking at the docs for ST1.)
Me too, but I found it on this page:
sublimetext.com/docs/api-reference
is this for ST1? So there is no possibility for checking the onProjectLoad event? So I have to use one which will be fired more often.
Thanks
I would also be interested if there was a way a plugin can detect that a project is/has being loaded?
Related: github.com/SublimeText/Issues/issues/7
Is there any possibility this can be added to ST2? It would be very useful for developing plugins which help users manage their projects within ST2. I was hoping to use this for a plugin I created which mounts to remote servers with the intent that when you open a project it will attempt to mount to the remote server based on pre-defined settings. | https://forum.sublimetext.com/t/def-on-project-load/9740/3 | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | refinedweb | 266 | 66.84 |
Using the STATE Design Pattern in Java
- Modeling States
- Refactoring to STATE
- Making States Constant
- Summary
The state of an object is a combination of the current values of its attributes. When you call a set- method, you typically change an object's state, and an object can change its own state as its methods execute.
In some cases, an object's state can be a prominent aspect of its behavior, such as when modeling transactions and machines. Logic that depends on the object's state may spread through many of the class's methods. To counter this spread, you can move state-specific behavior into a group of classes, with each class representing a different state. This lets you avoid having deep or complex if statements, relying instead on polymorphism to execute the right implementation of an operation. The intent of the STATE pattern is to distribute state-specific logic across classes that represent an object's state.
Modeling States
When you model an object whose state is important, you may find that you have a variable that tracks how the object should behave, depending on its state. This variable may appear in complex, cascading if statements that focus on how to react to the events that an object can experience. One problem with this approach to modeling state is that if statements can become complex. Another problem is that when you adjust how you model the state, you often have to adjust if statements in several methods. The STATE pattern offers a cleaner, simpler approach, using a distributed operation.
Consider the Oozinoz software that models the state of a carousel door. A carousel is a large, smart rack that accepts material through a doorway and stores the material according to a bar code ID on the material. The door operates with a single button. If the door is closed, clicking the button makes the door start opening. If you click again before the door opens fully, the door will begin closing. If you let the door open all the way, it will automatically begin closing after a 2-second timeout. You can prevent this by clicking again when the door is open. Figure 22.1 shows the states and transitions of the carousel's door.
Figure 22.1 A
carousel door provides one-touch control with a single button that changes the door's state
Challenge 22.1
Suppose that you open the door and place a material bin in the doorway. Is there a way to make the door begin closing without waiting for it to time out?
A solution appears on page 415.
The diagram in Figure 22.1 is a UML state machine. Such diagrams can be much more informative than a corresponding textual description.
You can supply a Door_1 object that the carousel software will update with state changes in the carousel. (The underscore in the class name is a hint that we will soon refactor this class.) Figure 22.2 shows the Door_1 class.
Figure 22.2 The Door_1 class models a carousel door, relying on state change events sent by the carousel machine
The Door_1 class subclasses Observable so that clients, such as a GUI, can observe a door. The class definition declares its superclass and establishes the states that a door can enter:
package com.oozinoz.carousel; public class Door_1 extends Observable { public static final int CLOSED = -1; public static final int OPENING = -2; public static final int OPEN = -3; public static final int CLOSING = -4; public static final int STAYOPEN = -5; private int state = CLOSED; //... }
Not surprisingly, a textual description of the state of a door depends on the door's state:
public String status() { switch (state) { case OPENING : return "Opening"; case OPEN : return "Open"; case CLOSING : return "Closing"; case STAYOPEN : return "StayOpen"; default : return "Closed"; } }
When a user clicks the carousel's one-touch button, the carousel generates a call to a Door object's click() method. The Door_1 code for a state transition mimics the information in Figure 22.1:
public void click() { if (state == CLOSED) { setState(OPENING); } else if (state == OPENING || state == STAYOPEN) { setState(CLOSING); } else if (state == OPEN) { setState(STAYOPEN); } else if (state == CLOSING) { setState(OPENING); } }
The setState() method of the Door_1 class notifies observers of the door's change:
private void setState(int state) { this.state = state; setChanged(); notifyObservers(); }
Challenge 22.2
Write the code for the complete() and timeout() methods of the Door_1 class.
A solution appears on page 415. | http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=28677&seqNum=3 | CC-MAIN-2018-22 | refinedweb | 746 | 61.36 |
Canadian mining firm Angkor Gold has agreed to an all-shares buyback of the net smelter return (NSR) interests on a mine in Ratannakiri province that it sold to Indian mining firm Mesco Gold (Cambodia) Ltd for $1.2 million in 2013, the company said in a release yesterday.
Angkor Gold sold an aggregate 2.5 percent NSR interest on the mine to investors the following year, raising $875,000 for operations, and with an option to buy back the interests once Mesco received licensing and moved closer to production. It has now agreed with these investors to buy back this portion of its NSR interest in the mine for an amount equal to 130 percent of their original purchase price, payable in common shares. | https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/angkor-gold-agrees-buyback-mine-nsr | CC-MAIN-2022-27 | refinedweb | 125 | 63.83 |
INeedIt - Addressing text size issues
This past Saturday I wrote about my experience creating a Flex Mobile application called INeedIt. Based on the Google Places API, it was a simple application that found businesses of a certain type around your location. One of the issues I ran into was with text size. Consider what the simulator showed:
This looked perfect to me. But when run in my device, the text ended up being a lot smaller. Here's a shot I took with my web cam. Not perfect, but it should give you an idea of how much smaller it ended up:
I wasn't quite sure what to do. I knew Flex 4.5 had support for handling DPI changes - but nothing I tried seemed to work right. Finally I gave up and tried just adding fontSize to the list. Here is the entire layout for first page:
<s:List
Obviously there's more in the file, but in terms of UI, that's pretty much it. So as I said, I added fontSize in and that worked, but only for one page. I then turned to Adobe evangelist Holly Schinsky. Her suggestion was simple - CSS. I keep forgetting you can use CSS in Flex. In fact, she pointed out two simple CSS items to cover the entire application. Here is INeedIt.mxml - my root file for the application.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:ViewNavigatorApplication xmlns:fx=""
xmlns:
<fx:Declarations>
<!-- Place non-visual elements (e.g., services, value objects) here -->
</fx:Declarations>
<fx:Style>
@namespace s "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark";
global {
fontSize: 36pt;
}
s|ActionBar #titleDisplay
{
fontSize: 36pt;
}
</fx:Style>
</s:ViewNavigatorApplication>
The first declaration, global, applies to everything within the app - but not the title bar. I'm taking a guess here but I'd bet it also doesn't apply to menus. (More on how to use menus later.) To cover the title bar (really the ActionBar), I simply specify the second one. Note the use of the namespacing there. That's required for it to work. The numbers I picked were pretty arbitrary. I started big (100) and went down until it seemed "comfortable" for my big fat fingers. Check out the difference:
Again - not the best camera shot, but you can definitely tell a difference. Want to see all the code. I've now put it up on GitHub:. Feel free to download and modify the code to your liking. I've also included the APK as an attachment to this entry. In theory you can download and install right from your mobile browser. (As always, even if your phone company thinks your an idiot and can't be trusted to install applications, don't forget you can easily work around that by using the Android SDK.)
Ok - so what's next? I want to add menu support and see if I can fix the map. I bet I can also add in driving directions pretty easily. | https://www.raymondcamden.com/2011/05/17/INeedIt-Addressing-text-size-issues | CC-MAIN-2019-30 | refinedweb | 497 | 76.42 |
Scheduling Serverless
Posted on
Scheduling events has long been an essential part of automation; many tasks need to run at specific times or intervals. You could be checking StackOverflow for new questions every 20 minutes or compiling a report that is emailed every other Friday at 4:00 pm. Today, many of these tasks can be efficiently accomplished in the cloud. While each cloud has its flavor of scheduled functions, this post steps you through an example using AWS CloudWatch with the help of Pulumi.
Taking out the trash
Let’s assume we have an S3 Bucket similar to the Recycle Bin on your desktop. It contains discarded items that we might not be ready to delete yet, but because we are paying for storage, we want to empty this bucket every Friday at 6:00 pm EST.
import * as aws from "@pulumi/aws"; import { ObjectIdentifier } from "aws-sdk/clients/s3"; // Create an AWS resource (S3 Bucket) const trashBucket = new aws.s3.Bucket("trash");
We’re now ready to create our Lambda function and schedule it. Pulumi simplifies creating Lambda functions by allowing us to provide a handler function to an event such as
cloudwatch.onSchedule. To learn more, check out our Lambdas as Lambdas post. Let’s create a
cloudwatch.EventRuleEventHandler async function that will get all the items from the trash bucket and delete them.
// A handler function that will list objects in the bucket and bulk delete them const emptyTrash: aws.cloudwatch.EventRuleEventHandler = async ( event: aws.cloudwatch.EventRuleEvent ) => { const s3Client = new aws.sdk.S3(); //creates interface to service const bucket = trashBucket.id.get(); const { Contents = [] } = await s3Client //get list of objects in bucket .listObjects({ Bucket: bucket }) .promise(); const objects: ObjectIdentifier[] = Contents.map(object => { return { Key: object.Key! }; }); await s3Client //delete objects .deleteObjects({ Bucket: bucket, Delete: { Objects: objects, Quiet: false } }) .promise() .catch(error => console.log(error)); console.log( `Deleted ${Contents.length} item${ Contents.length === 1 ? "" : "s" } from ${bucket}.` ); };
Now that we have our handler function, we can create a CloudWatch event that fires based on the specified schedule, which is every Friday at 6:00 pm EST. We’ll need to represent that as a Schedule Expression. CloudWatch events support cron and rate expressions. If we wanted our function to run on a set interval (i.e., every 20 minutes), we would choose a rate expression. Since we want fine-grained schedule control, we’ll be using a cron expression. You can learn more at the Schedule Expressions documentation. Because time for cron jobs uses UTC, we’ll need to schedule our event to fire on Friday at 11:00 pm UTC.
// Schedule the function to run every Friday at 11:00pm UTC (6:00pm EST) // More info on Schedule Expressions at // const emptyTrashSchedule: aws.cloudwatch.EventRuleEventSubscription = aws.cloudwatch.onSchedule( "emptyTrash", "cron(0 23 ? * FRI *)", emptyTrash // Export the name of the bucket export const bucketName = trashBucket.id; );
Now, run
pulumi up to deploy your new scheduled function.
$ pulumi up Previewing update (dev): … Updating (dev): Type Name Status pulumi:pulumi:Stack aws-ts-scheduled-function-dev + └─ aws:cloudwatch:EventRuleEventSubscription emptyTrash created + ├─ aws:cloudwatch:EventRule emptyTrash created + ├─ aws:iam:Role emptyTrash created + ├─ aws:iam:RolePolicyAttachment emptyTrash-32be53a2 created + ├─ aws:lambda:Function emptyTrash created + ├─ aws:lambda:Permission emptyTrash created + └─ aws:cloudwatch:EventTarget emptyTrash created Outputs: bucketName: "trash-1cde441" Resources: + 7 created 2 unchanged Duration: 14s
Test it out by adding some items to your bucket and see if they’re deleted. You can use
pulumi logs to view the
console.log from the handler function. If you can’t wait until Friday, experiment with changing the cron expression and rerun
pulumi up. You can find the full code in our GitHub repository.
Want to know more?
This simple example demonstrates what you can do with serverless functions, such as AWS Lambda, without having to set up your infrastructure. Check out more serverless examples in the Pulumi Examples to see what you can build. | https://www.pulumi.com/blog/scheduling-serverless/ | CC-MAIN-2022-21 | refinedweb | 652 | 58.38 |
I'm currently making changes to the admin/index.html template and I need to reference the url in my application using the name space 'hello' in a href tag for a link, but I'm having trouble doing at the admin level. The name of my application is clean and the url pattern in urls.py file is below.
urls.py
from django.conf.urls import url, include
from . import views
urlpatterns = [
url(r'^HelloWorld/$', views.hello, name='hello'),
]
<div>
<h3>Hello World</h3>
<a href="">Test</a>
</div>
You can simply use:
<div> <h3>Hello World</h3> <a href="{% url 'hello' %}">Test</a> </div>
Django provides the ability to "reverse" URLs (i.e. provided the name of the URL, and arguments if necessary, the actual URL is generated) in order to avoid such hardcoding.You can read more about URL reversing in the official docs here. | https://codedump.io/share/42piJiNDN79e/1/how-to-reference-django-application-url-in-admin-index-template | CC-MAIN-2017-34 | refinedweb | 148 | 58.58 |
So I've worked on my first big program in a DOS Screen, it's where you input a command and it'll return the function defined with it (duh) It's not working for some reason though.
Code for main.cpp
ofstream new_account(naming_interger".dat"); is where it mainly fails to compile, I am using Dev-C++ 4.9.9.2.ofstream new_account(naming_interger".dat"); is where it mainly fails to compile, I am using Dev-C++ 4.9.9.2.Code:#include <fstream> #include <stdlib.h> #include <iostream> using namespace std; //Storing code: "int args, char *argv[]" int main() { int input; float moneyvar; char naming_interger; float new_money; float math; int input2; cout<< "Welcome to the Payback Bank!\nType new to create an account.\nType get to see a file.\nType change to add or subtract money owed.\nType clear to clear all owed money from an account."; cin>> input; cin.ignore(); switch ( input ) { case 'NEW': cout<< "Who owes you money? Please type the name:\n"; cin>> naming_interger; ofstream new_account(naming_interger".dat"); cout<< "The person who owes you money is "<< naming_interger<< "\nHow much are you owed?"; cin>> new_money; cin.ignore(); cout<< "Writing money to file..."; new_account << new_money; cout<< "Done! The process was successful!\n"; cout<< "The person "<< naming_interger<< " owes you "<< new_money<< "\n"; new_account.close(); system("PAUSE"); return 0; break; case 'GET': cout<< "Who's account would you like to view?\n"; cin>> naming_interger; cin.ignore(); ifstream read_account(naming_interger".dat"); if (read_account.fail()) { cout<< "There was an error, perhaps the file doesn't exist?\n"; system("PAUSE"); } cout<< naming_interger<< " owes you "<< read_account<< "\n"; read_account.close; system("PAUSE"); break; case 'CHANGE': cout<< "Who's account are you changing?"; cin>> naming_interger; cin.ignore(); ifstream change_account(naming_interger".dat"); change_account>> moneyvar; if (read_account.fail()) { cout<< "There was an error, perhaps the file doesn't exist?\n"<<; system("PAUSE"); } cout<< "You loaded "<< naming_interger<< "'s account.\nHe/She owes you"<< moneyvar<< "\nHow much do you want to add? (HINT: Place a - to subtract)\n"; cin>> math; cin.ignore(); cout<< "Adding money to account, please wait...\n"; moneyvar = moneyvar + math; ofstream update_account(naming_interger".dat"); moneyvar>> update_account; update_account.close; cout<< "The account update was succesful!\n"; system("PAUSE"); break; case 'CLEAR': cout<< "Who paid back your money?\n"; cin>> naming_interger; cin.ignore(); ifstream clear_account(naming_interger".dat"); clear_account>> moneyvar; { cout<< "There was an error, perhaps the file doesn't exist?\n"<<; system("PAUSE"); } cout<< "You loaded "<< naming_interger<< "'s account.\n"; cout<< "Clear this account's data? (y/n)This does NOT erase the account.\n"; cin>>input2; if (input == y) { cout<< "Erasing owed money data."; moneyvar = 0; ofstream clearing_account(naming_interger".dat"); clearing_account.close cout<< "The account's owed money was cleared successfully!\n"; system("PAUSE"); } else { return 0; } break; default: { cout<< "Failure to read command.\n"; system("PAUSE"); break; } } } }
My guess is that you can't store a variable into a file's name, but I want to, can I get some help here?
What this program's plot is is it loads and saved accounts on how much money somone owes you. | http://cboard.cprogramming.com/cplusplus-programming/107080-help-money-owed-bank.html | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | refinedweb | 504 | 63.15 |
Django, Background Processes, and Keeping Users in the Loop
When you have out-of-band processing in a web app, how do you let users know that the status of a task has changed? Depending on your front-end client, there are a few different approaches you might take.
In my last post, I talked about how a modern web app needs background
worker processes. One way or another, you’ll have some things you need
to do that are slower than you can do in a request/response cycle, and
so you’ll want to handle them out of band. Have the API return a simple
202 ACCEPTED and move on with your life, right?
Well, sometimes you want to tell users about the state of those background processes. You might want to say “it’s done!”, or “it’s failed!”, or even just to acknowledge that it’s taking a long time, but still going. And just saying “they can refresh the page” isn’t always enough. (Though, sometimes it is!)
I’m going to talk about different ways you can do this.
First I’ll talk about how I would do it using Celery. But
django-channels provides some cool new options for handling background
processes, so I’ll cover that too.
CeleryCopy permalink to “Celery”
Imagine we have a long-running background process, something that can take up to a minute under normal circumstances, maybe more under exceptional load. We make a Celery task to handle it, and now we want to let the user know what state it’s in.
The most simple (or simplistic) approach can be to use the database to store state. You can do this with Celery’s database result backend, or a custom task state model that you periodically update. Imagine something like this:
@app.task
def my_task(some_arg):
# some unique identifier, that you can recover outside the task:
task_id = get_task_id_based_on_arg(some_arg)
state, _ = TaskState.objects.get_or_create(task_id=task_id)
total = len(some_arg)
for i, elem in enumerate(some_arg):
process_elem(elem)
# Every 100 elements, update the percentage processed:
if i % 100 == 0:
state.percent_done = (i / float(total)) * 100
state.save()
Then in your views, you can retrieve the appropriate TaskState and show how much has been processed. Sometimes that’s a good approach, but usually I think that’s pretty clunky. It can thrash the database, leave records lying around if things die halfway through, and still doesn’t give you a smooth experience; your user has to refresh to see updates.
As an aside, it might be tempting to do something like this with the
Django messages framework. However, adding and retrieving messages
requires the
request object. Even the pickle serializer can fail to
serialize the request object. I would strongly recommend saving yourself
the time and trouble, and using anything but messages for this.
So what if you want real-time updates? What if that page refresh is bumming you out?
A nice option is something like Pusher. They provide a service that you can push to from inside your app (in the request/response cycle, or in a background task) using a nice Python library, and some JS to get your users talking to their realtime websocket-y servers, to get those updates. Their JS library even includes sensible fallbacks for when websockets aren’t available. The one caution is that their prices take a curve that can be a bit steep for some situations; if developer time is cheaper than ongoing service costs, then it might be worth rolling your own websocket solution. Which brings us to our next section.
Django-ChannelsCopy permalink to “Django-Channels”
If you are using the newer Django Channels package for background tasks, this has the added benefit of making it possible for you to make and manage your own websockets connections.
For fuller explanation of Channels itself, see the channels docs or Jacob Kaplan-Moss’s excellent blog post on the subject. I’ll give a brief overview here, though.
I find it helps to think of Channels as a generalization of Django’s
view system. Instead of a
urls.py with a
urlpatterns attribute, you
have a
routing.py with a
channel_routing attribute. Instead of
mapping paths to views, it maps channel types to consumers. Channel
types can include well-known ones like websocket events, or ad-hoc ones
like custom background tasks.
(All your views and URLs can still be there in your project, untouched, too. This isn’t instead of all that, it’s in addition.)
Because Channels operate outside the usual request/response cycle,
sending a reply on a channel is a little harder. It can’t operate simply
through a function’s
return. Instead, you have to
.send on Channels,
or more flexibly, Groups. (A Group just allows you to send to multiple
consumers at once, if necessary.)
So, for our purposes, your
channel_routing should have, at a minimum,
these values:
channel_routing = [
route("websocket.connect", websocket_connect),
route("websocket.receive", websocket_receive),
route("websocket.disconnect", websocket_disconnect),
route("my-background-task", my_background_task),
]
The first three are consumers for handling basic websocket operations. The last one is whatever long-running task you want to run in the background.
You can then call the background task in a view:
Channel('my-background-task').send(some_arguments)
Be sure that there’s some stable way to identify the
Group that you
need to send to. It might be as simple as passing in the username of the
logged-in user who kicked off the task, or it might be based on a
process UUID that’s in the view’s path, or something else. Whatever it
is, when the user’s browser makes a websocket connection on page load,
you’ll want to add that reply channel to the
Group:
def websocket_connect(message):
# Accept connection
message.reply_channel.send({"accept": True})
Group(get_group_id_from(message)).add(message.reply_channel)
On the front-end, you should have something like this:
socket = new WebSocket("ws://" + window.location.host);
socket.onmessage = show_some_toast_for(message);
// Call onopen directly if socket is already open
if (socket.readyState == WebSocket.OPEN) socket.onopen();
And now you can push messages to users yourself:
def my_background_task(message):
# ...
Group(get_group_id_from(message)).send({
"text": some_status_update,
})
# ...
And the front-end JavaScript will receive it over the websocket. Display it in a toast or other style of your choosing, and you’re good to go!
Have you tried out Channels yet? Do you have better ideas for what to do with websockets? Let us know via Twitter or through our handy contact form.
(Header image from Tekniska Museet.) | https://www.oddbird.net/2017/04/17/async-notifications/ | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | refinedweb | 1,098 | 65.83 |
newbie - log4net deletes my config file!
2005-11-01 20:47:38 GMT
I'm a .net and log4net newbie working thru the tutorial at
First example, logging to console with no config file, works fine. 2nd example, using a small config file, I see two problems.
The main problem is that my config file is deleted from the system when I run the project. Here is the complete code of the project:
using System;
using log4net;
namespace log4netConsoleTest
{
public class MainTestClass
{
private static ILog logger = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof (MainTestClass));
// constructor:
static MainTestClass ()
{
log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
logger.Debug("Here is a debug log.");
logger.Error("... and a non-fatal error.");
logger.Fatal("... and a fatal error.");
}
}
}
When I look into the file directory where the exe file lives, I see that file "log4netConsoleTest.exe.config' exists. When I run the project and stop at the 'LogManager.GetLogger' line, and then look again into the file directory, the config file is gone! If I restore the file into the directory at that time, then the logging works as expected.
if I don't restore the file, log4net write this to the console:
" />"
I think that is also a problem. It apparently can't find the file (cause it doesn't exist), but instead of saying 'file not found', it says it can't find certain chars inside the file. I'd like the error message to include the fully qualified name of where it looked for the file.
All help appreciated,
Erik Brooks
-----------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT NOTIFICATION
-----------------------------------------------
The contents of this e-mail and its attachments are confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, please notify IDX immediately (by return e-mail to either the sender or security <at> idx.com), destroy all copies of this message along with any attachments and do not disclose, copy and/or distribute the contents. The views expressed in this message are those of the author and not necessarily those of IDX. In the absence of a prior written agreement with you authorizing commitments of IDX via e-mail, the above message shall not bind IDX, unless from a duly authorized officer of the company in a context indicating an intention to bind the company.
This e-mail and its attachments are protected by copyright and other laws. (c) IDX Systems Corporation 2005. All rights reserved. IDX is a registered trademark of IDX Investment Corporation. | http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.comp.log.log4net.user/month=20051101 | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | refinedweb | 413 | 57.16 |
HI..
i had started a thread before about the same code...not sure if i was suppose to keep going in the same one or create a new thread..i am sorry if i did anything wrong mods...
my program should just ask the user to enter words..
"The program must simply ask the user to type in a text since a text is a list of words separated by spaces"
here is my code..please let me know..what i am doing wrong..and what can i do to fix my program..
thanks..
import java.util.Scanner; public class Words { public static void main(String[] args) { Scanner input = new Scanner(System.in); System.out.print("Type in a text: "); String text = input.nextString(); } } | https://www.daniweb.com/programming/software-development/threads/343730/program-that-just-asks-the-user-to-enter-words | CC-MAIN-2021-25 | refinedweb | 124 | 77.23 |
13, 2008 12:32 PM.
In the spirit of the Framework Design Guidelines, Microsoft has released guidelines for building frameworks based on LINQ. The LINQ Framework Design Guidelines covers topics such as API design and behavior. Unlike the coding guidelines found in many companies, these don't cover trivialities such as naming patterns and formatting, except where they touch a libraries public API.
Most of the original Framework Design Guidelines eventually found their way into FxCOP, the code analysis tool used both within Microsoft and without for ensuring consistency.
After the introduction, the document covers Extension Methods and the generic delegates Func, Action, and Expression. Amongst the standard warnings about overusing extension methods when normal methods would do, there is a not about namespace collisions. When two libraries expose extension methods on the same type, method name collisions may occur. If this occurs, only one of the two libraries may be imported and the other will have to be referenced using its full name.
In the section on extending LINQ, there is a helpful note about naming generic types. Generic types named T always refer to items, while types named S refer to collections of said items. While this is not enforced, it should at least make it easier to read the built-in methods.
On the performance side, there is a note saying that implementing ICollection
Now back to Keith Farmer and avoiding subclassing:
, and arguably Graph, and arguably Graph need not have any knowledge about IsNetworkRouter.need not have any knowledge about IsNetworkRouter.
In that case, something like Traverse(GraphLink
) would be a great method method on Graph) would be a great method method on Graph , but something like FindLeastWorkRoute(Node, Node), which depends on implementation details of the particular subtype of GraphLink (ie, it has an associated Work metric) would best be an extension method in my mind.,).
Does this make sense in the context of .NET programming? And does it abide by the design principals from Microsoft? Or for that matter, how much to those guidelines matter?
Usage Landscape: Enterprise Open Source Data Integration
Effective Management of Static Analysis Vulnerabilities and Defects
Ensuring Code Quality in Multi-threaded Applications
NEW: ANTS Memory Profiler 5 now out!
Give-away eBook – Confessions of an IT Manager
Please don't interpret my comments as meaning subclasses shouldn't exist. Just consider them as an experiment in not making gratuitous subclasses. IE, how can I make simpler APIs, which contain only those methods and types that I care about? IMHO, the guidelines do matter, inasmuch as they *are* guidelines that everybody can point to, with a variety of experienced people contributing to them. But they are still just guidelines -- of course you're free to do what makes the most sense in your own work. (And, of course, nothing I say represents my employer, nor even those who came up with the FDGs. I think I've been in the same room before, but that's it.)
My apologizes sir. I didn't mean to mis-represent you, but rather use your ideas to continue the ongoing debate on whether or subclasses are overused and what the alternatives are.
No worries.. Just don't want people to think my thoughts are more than they really are or something silly like | http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/03/LINQ-Guidelines | crawl-002 | refinedweb | 550 | 61.26 |
Watch Now This tutorial has a related video course created by the Real Python team. Watch it together with the written tutorial to deepen your understanding: Documenting Python Code: A Complete Guide
Welcome to your complete guide to documenting Python code. Whether you’re documenting a small script or a large project, whether you’re a beginner or
Feel free to read through this tutorial from beginning to end or jump to a section you’re interested in. It was designed to work both ways.
Why Documenting Your Code Is So Important
Hopefully, if you’re reading this tutorial, you already know the importance of documenting your code. But if not, then let me quote something Guido mentioned to me at a recent PyCon:
“Code is more often read than written.”
— Guido van Rossum
When you write code, you write it for two primary audiences: your users and your developers (including yourself). Both audiences are equally important. If you’re like me, you’ve probably opened up old codebases and wondered to yourself, “What in the world was I thinking?” If you’re having a problem reading your own code, imagine what your users or other developers are experiencing when they’re trying to use or contribute to your code.
Conversely, I’m sure you’ve run into a situation where you wanted to do something in Python and found what looks like a great library that can get the job done. However, when you start using the library, you look for examples, write-ups, or even official documentation on how to do something specific and can’t immediately find the solution.
After searching, you come to realize that the documentation is lacking or even worse, missing entirely. This is a frustrating feeling that deters you from using the library, no matter how great or efficient the code is. Daniele Procida summarized this situation best:
“It doesn’t matter how good your software is, because if the documentation is not good enough, people will not use it.“
In this guide, you’ll learn from the ground up how to properly document your Python code from the smallest of scripts to the largest of Python projects to help prevent your users from ever feeling too frustrated to use or contribute to your project.
Commenting vs Documenting Code
Before we can go into how to document your Python code, we need to distinguish documenting from commenting.
In general, commenting is describing your code to/for developers. The intended main audience is the maintainers and developers of the Python code. In conjunction with well-written code, comments help to guide the reader to better understand your code and its purpose and design:
“Code tells you how; Comments tell you why.”
— Jeff Atwood (aka Coding Horror)
Documenting code is describing its use and functionality to your users. While it may be helpful in the development process, the main intended audience is the users. The following section describes how and when to comment your code.
Basics of Commenting Code
#) and should be brief statements no longer than a few sentences. Here’s a simple example:
def hello_world(): # A simple comment preceding a simple print statement print("Hello World")
According to PEP 8, comments should have a maximum length of 72 characters. This is true even if your project changes the max line length to be greater than the recommended 80 characters. If a comment is going to be greater than the comment char limit, using multiple lines for the comment is appropriate:
def hello_long_world(): # A very long statement that just goes on and on and on and on and # never ends until after it's reached the 80 char limit print("Hellooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo World")
Commenting your code serves multiple purposes, including:
Planning and Reviewing: When you are developing new portions of your code, it may be appropriate to first use comments as a way of planning or outlining that section of code. Remember to remove these comments once the actual coding has been implemented and reviewed/tested:
# First step # Second step # Third step
Code Description: Comments can be used to explain the intent of specific sections of code:
# Attempt a connection based on previous settings. If unsuccessful, # prompt user for new settings.
Algorithmic Description: When algorithms are used, especially complicated ones, it can be useful to explain how the algorithm works or how it’s implemented within your code. It may also be appropriate to describe why a specific algorithm was selected over another.
# Using quick sort for performance gains
Tagging: The use of tagging can be used to label specific sections of code where known issues or areas of improvement are located. Some examples are:
BUG,
FIXME, and
TODO.
# TODO: Add condition for when val is None
Comments to your code should be kept brief and focused. Avoid using long comments when possible. Additionally, you should use the following four essential rules as suggested by Jeff Atwood:
Keep comments as close to the code being described as possible. Comments that aren’t near their describing code are frustrating to the reader and easily missed when updates are made.
Don’t use complex formatting (such as tables or ASCII figures). Complex formatting leads to distracting content and can be difficult to maintain over time.
Don’t include redundant information. Assume the reader of the code has a basic understanding of programming principles and language syntax.
Design your code to comment itself. The easiest way to understand code is by reading it. When you design your code using clear, easy-to-understand concepts, the reader will be able to quickly conceptualize your intent.
Remember that comments are designed for the reader, including yourself, to help guide them in understanding the purpose and design of the software.
Commenting Code via Type Hinting (Python 3.5+)
Type hinting was added to Python 3.5 and is an additional form to help the readers of your code. In fact, it takes Jeff’s fourth suggestion from above to the next level. It allows the developer to design and explain portions of their code without commenting. Here’s a quick example:
def hello_name(name: str) -> str: return(f"Hello {name}")
From examining the type hinting, you can immediately tell that the function expects the input
name to be of a type
str, or string. You can also tell that the expected output of the function will be of a type
str, or string, as well. While type hinting helps reduce comments, take into consideration that doing so may also make extra work when you are creating or updating your project documentation.
You can learn more about type hinting and type checking from this video created by Dan Bader.
Documenting Your Python Code Base Using Docstrings
Now that we’ve learned about commenting, let’s take a deep dive into documenting a Python code base. In this section, you’ll learn about docstrings and how to use them for documentation. This section is further divided into the following sub-sections:
- Docstrings Background: A background on how docstrings work internally within Python
- Docstring Types: The various docstring “types” (function, class, class method, module, package, and script)
- Docstring Formats: The different docstring “formats” (Google, NumPy/SciPy, reStructuredText, and Epytext)
Docstrings Background
Documenting your Python code is all centered on docstrings. These are built-in strings that, when configured correctly, can help your users and yourself with your project’s documentation. Along with docstrings, Python also has the built-in function
help() that prints out the objects docstring to the console. Here’s a quick example:
>>> help(str) Help on class str in module builtins: class str'. # Truncated for readability
How is this output generated? Since everything in Python is an object, you can examine the directory of the object using the
dir() command. Let’s do that and see what find:
>>> dir(str) ['__add__', ..., '__doc__', ..., 'zfill'] # Truncated for readability
Within that directory output, there’s an interesting property,
__doc__. If you examine that property, you’ll discover this:
>>> print(str._'.
Voilà! You’ve found where docstrings are stored within the object. This means that you can directly manipulate that property. However, there are restrictions for builtins:
>>> str.__doc__ = "I'm a little string doc! Short and stout; here is my input and print me for my out" Traceback (most recent call last): File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module> TypeError: can't set attributes of built-in/extension type 'str'
Any other custom object can be manipulated:
def say_hello(name): print(f"Hello {name}, is it me you're looking for?") say_hello.>> help(say_hello) Help on function say_hello in module __main__: say_hello(name) A simple function that says hello... Richie style
Python has one more feature that simplifies docstring creation. Instead of directly manipulating the
__doc__ property, the strategic placement of the string literal directly below the object will automatically set the
__doc__ value. Here’s what happens with the same example as above:
def say_hello(name): """A simple function that says hello... Richie style""" print(f"Hello {name}, is it me you're looking for?")
>>> help(say_hello) Help on function say_hello in module __main__: say_hello(name) A simple function that says hello... Richie style
There you go! Now you understand the background of docstrings. Now it’s time to learn about the different types of docstrings and what information they should contain.
Docstring Types
Docstring conventions are described within PEP 257. Their purpose is to provide your users with a brief overview of the object. They should be kept concise enough to be easy to maintain but still be elaborate enough for new users to understand their purpose and how to use the documented object.
In all cases, the docstrings should use the triple-double quote (
""") string format. This should be done whether the docstring is multi-lined or not. At a bare minimum, a docstring should be a quick summary of whatever is it you’re describing and should be contained within a single line:
"""This is a quick summary line used as a description of the object."""
Multi-lined docstrings are used to further elaborate on the object beyond the summary. All multi-lined docstrings have the following parts:
- A one-line summary line
- A blank line proceeding the summary
- Any further elaboration for the docstring
- Another blank.
All docstrings should have the same max character length as comments (72 characters). Docstrings can be further broken up into three major categories:
- Class Docstrings: Class and class methods
- Package and Module Docstrings: Package, modules, and functions
- Script Docstrings: Script and functions
Class Docstrings
Class Docstrings are created for the class itself, as well as any class methods. The docstrings are placed immediately following the class or class method indented by one level:
class SimpleClass: """Class docstrings go here.""" def say_hello(self, name: str): """Class method docstrings go here.""" print(f'Hello {name}')
Class docstrings should contain the following information:
- A brief summary of its purpose and behavior
- Any public methods, along with a brief description
- Any class properties (attributes)
- Anything related to the interface for subclassers, if the class is intended to be subclassed
The class constructor parameters should be documented within the
__init__ class method docstring. Individual methods should be documented using their individual docstrings.
Let’s take a simple example of a data class that represents an Animal. This class will contain a few class properties, instance properties, a
__init__, and a single instance method:
class Animal: """ A class used to represent an Animal ... Attributes ---------- says_str : str a formatted string to print out what the animal says name : str the name of the animal sound : str the sound that the animal makes num_legs : int the number of legs the animal has (default 4) Methods ------- says(sound=None) Prints the animals name and what sound it makes """ says_str = "A {name} says {sound}" def __init__(self, name, sound, num_legs=4): """ Parameters ---------- name : str The name of the animal sound : str The sound the animal makes num_legs : int, optional The number of legs the animal (default is 4) """ self.name = name self.sound = sound self.num_legs = num_legs def says(self, sound=None): """Prints what the animals name is and what sound it makes. If the argument `sound` isn't passed in, the default Animal sound is used. Parameters ---------- sound : str, optional The sound the animal makes (default is None) Raises ------ NotImplementedError If no sound is set for the animal or passed in as a parameter. """ if self.sound is None and sound is None: raise NotImplementedError("Silent Animals are not supported!") out_sound = self.sound if sound is None else sound print(self.says_str.format(name=self.name, sound=out_sound))
Package and Module Docstrings
Package docstrings should be placed at the top of the package’s
__init__.py file. This docstring should list the modules and sub-packages that are exported by the package.
Module docstrings are similar to class docstrings. Instead of classes and class methods being documented, it’s now the module and any functions found within. Module docstrings are placed at the top of the file even before any imports. Module docstrings should include the following:
- A brief description of the module and its purpose
- A list of any classes, exception, functions, and any other objects exported by the module
The docstring for a module function should include the same items as a class method:
- A brief description of what the function is and what it’s used for
- Any arguments (both required and optional) that are passed including keyword arguments
- Label any arguments that are considered optional
- Any side effects that occur when executing the function
- Any exceptions that are raised
- Any restrictions on when the function can be called
Script Docstrings
Scripts are considered to be single file executables run from the console. Docstrings for scripts are placed at the top of the file and should be documented well enough for users to be able to have a sufficient understanding of how to use the script. It should be usable for its “usage” message, when the user incorrectly passes in a parameter or uses the
-h option.
If you use
argparse, then you can omit parameter-specific documentation, assuming it’s correctly been documented within the
help parameter of the
argparser.parser.add_argument function. It is recommended to use the
__doc__ for the
description parameter within
argparse.ArgumentParser’s constructor. Check out our tutorial on Command-Line Parsing Libraries for more details on how to use
argparse and other common command line parsers.
Finally, any custom or third-party imports should be listed within the docstrings to allow users to know which packages may be required for running the script. Here’s an example of a script that is used to simply print out the column headers of a spreadsheet:
"""Spreadsheet Column Printer This script allows the user to print to the console all columns in the spreadsheet. It is assumed that the first row of the spreadsheet is the location of the columns. This tool accepts comma separated value files (.csv) as well as excel (.xls, .xlsx) files. This script requires that `pandas` be installed within the Python environment you are running this script in. This file can also be imported as a module and contains the following functions: * get_spreadsheet_cols - returns the column headers of the file * main - the main function of the script """ import argparse import pandas as pd def get_spreadsheet_cols(file_loc, print_cols=False): """Gets and prints the spreadsheet's header columns Parameters ---------- file_loc : str The file location of the spreadsheet print_cols : bool, optional A flag used to print the columns to the console (default is False) Returns ------- list a list of strings used that are the header columns """ file_data = pd.read_excel(file_loc) col_headers = list(file_data.columns.values) if print_cols: print("\n".join(col_headers)) return col_headers def main(): parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=__doc__) parser.add_argument( 'input_file', type=str, help="The spreadsheet file to pring the columns of" ) args = parser.parse_args() get_spreadsheet_cols(args.input_file, print_cols=True) if __name__ == "__main__": main()
Docstring Formats
You may have noticed that, throughout the examples given in this tutorial, there has been specific formatting with common elements:
Arguments,
Returns, and
Attributes. There are specific docstrings formats that can be used to help docstring parsers and users have a familiar and known format. The formatting used within the examples in this tutorial are NumPy/SciPy-style docstrings. Some of the most common formats are the following:
The selection of the docstring format is up to you, but you should stick with the same format throughout your document/project. The following are examples of each type to give you an idea of how each documentation format looks.
Google Docstrings Example
"""Gets and prints the spreadsheet's header columns Args: file_loc (str): The file location of the spreadsheet print_cols (bool): A flag used to print the columns to the console (default is False) Returns: list: a list of strings representing the header columns """
reStructuredText Example
"""Gets and prints the spreadsheet's header columns :param file_loc: The file location of the spreadsheet :type file_loc: str :param print_cols: A flag used to print the columns to the console (default is False) :type print_cols: bool :returns: a list of strings representing the header columns :rtype: list """
NumPy/SciPy Docstrings Example
"""Gets and prints the spreadsheet's header columns Parameters ---------- file_loc : str The file location of the spreadsheet print_cols : bool, optional A flag used to print the columns to the console (default is False) Returns ------- list a list of strings representing the header columns """
Epytext Example
"""Gets and prints the spreadsheet's header columns @type file_loc: str @param file_loc: The file location of the spreadsheet @type print_cols: bool @param print_cols: A flag used to print the columns to the console (default is False) @rtype: list @returns: a list of strings representing the header columns """
Documenting Your Python Projects
Python projects come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and purposes. The way you document your project should suit your specific situation. Keep in mind who the users of your project are going to be and adapt to their needs. Depending on the project type, certain aspects of documentation are recommended. The general layout of the project and its documentation should be as follows:
project_root/ │ ├── project/ # Project source code ├── docs/ ├── README ├── HOW_TO_CONTRIBUTE ├── CODE_OF_CONDUCT ├── examples.py
Projects can be generally subdivided into three major types: Private, Shared, and Public/Open Source.
Private Projects
Private projects are projects intended for personal use only and generally aren’t shared with other users or developers. Documentation can be pretty light on these types of projects. There are some recommended parts to add as needed:
- Readme: A brief summary of the project and its purpose. Include any special requirements for installation or operating the project.
examples.py: A Python script file that gives simple examples of how to use the project.
Remember, even though private projects are intended for you personally, you are also considered a user. Think about anything that may be confusing to you down the road and make sure to capture those in either comments, docstrings, or the readme.
Public and Open Source Projects
Public and Open Source projects are projects that are intended to be shared with a large group of users and can involve large development teams. These projects should place as high of a priority on project documentation as the actual development of the project itself. Some of the recommended parts to add to the project are the following:
Readme: A brief summary of the project and its purpose. Include any special requirements for installing or operating the projects. Additionally, add any major changes since the previous version. Finally, add links to further documentation, bug reporting, and any other important information for the project. Dan Bader has put together a great tutorial on what all should be included in your readme.
How to Contribute: This should include how new contributors to the project can help. This includes developing new features, fixing known issues, adding documentation, adding new tests, or reporting issues.
Code of Conduct: Defines how other contributors should treat each other when developing or using your software. This also states what will happen if this code is broken. If you’re using Github, a Code of Conduct template can be generated with recommended wording. For Open Source projects especially, consider adding this.
License: A plaintext file that describes the license your project is using. For Open Source projects especially, consider adding this.
docs: A folder that contains further documentation. The next section describes more fully what should be included and how to organize the contents of this folder.
The Four Main Sections of the
docs Folder
Daniele Procida gave a wonderful PyCon 2017 talk and subsequent blog post about documenting Python projects. He mentions that all projects should have the following four major sections to help you focus your work:
- Tutorials: Lessons that take the reader by the hand through a series of steps to complete a project (or meaningful exercise). Geared towards the user’s learning.
- How-To Guides: Guides that take the reader through the steps required to solve a common problem (problem-oriented recipes).
- References: Explanations that clarify and illuminate a particular topic. Geared towards understanding.
- Explanations: Technical descriptions of the machinery and how to operate it (key classes, functions, APIs, and so forth). Think Encyclopedia article.
The following table shows how all of these sections relates to each other as well as their overall purpose:
In the end, you want to make sure that your users have access to the answers to any questions they may have. By organizing your project in this manner, you’ll be able to answer those questions easily and in a format they’ll be able to navigate quickly.
Documentation Tools and Resources
Documenting your code, especially large projects, can be daunting. Thankfully there are some tools out and references to get you started:
Along with these tools, there are some additional tutorials, videos, and articles that can be useful when you are documenting your project:
- Carol Willing - Practical Sphinx - PyCon 2018
- Daniele Procida - Documentation-driven development - Lessons from the Django Project - PyCon 2016
- Eric Holscher - Documenting your project with Sphinx & Read the Docs - PyCon 2016
- Titus Brown, Luiz Irber - Creating, building, testing, and documenting a Python project: a hands-on HOWTO - PyCon 2016
- reStructuredText Official Documentation
- Sphinx’s reStructuredText Primer
Sometimes, the best way to learn is to mimic others. Here are some great examples of projects that use documentation well:
Where Do I Start?
The documentation of projects have a simple progression:
- No Documentation
- Some Documentation
- Complete Documentation
- Good Documentation
- Great Documentation
If you’re at a loss about where to go next with your documentation, look at where your project is now in relation to the progression above. Do you have any documentation? If not, then start there. If you have some documentation but are missing some of the key project files, get started by adding those.
In the end, don’t get discouraged or overwhelmed by the amount of work required for documenting code. Once you get started documenting your code, it becomes easier to keep going. Feel free to comment if you have questions or reach out to the Real Python Team on social media, and we’ll help.
Watch Now This tutorial has a related video course created by the Real Python team. Watch it together with the written tutorial to deepen your understanding: Documenting Python Code: A Complete Guide | https://realpython.com/documenting-python-code/ | CC-MAIN-2022-05 | refinedweb | 3,905 | 50.57 |
Rendering points with WebGL
In the previous step, we rendered point features with the normal vector layer. This layer uses the 2D canvas context for rendering. With this layer, you can render tens of thousands of points – as long as you are careful about writing efficient styling code. For rendering larger numbers of points, or to do more efficient dynamic styling, WebGL is a good solution. OpenLayers has a growing set of utilities for rendering with WebGL. WebGL rendering is currently limited to points, and that is what we'll do in this exercise.
First, we'll import the constructor of the WebGL-enabled points layer. This layer is an easy-to-use entry point for leveraging the advantages of the WebGL technology.
import WebGLPointsLayer from 'ol/layer/WebGLPoints';
This is a replacement for the
VectorLayer import, which you can now remove.
Replace the
const meteorites... assignment with an instance of your
WebGLPointsLayer using the same vector source as before.
const meteorites = new WebGLPointsLayer({ source: source, style: { symbol: { symbolType: 'circle', size: 14, color: 'rgb(255, 0, 0)', opacity: 0.5, }, }, });
Tada! Meteorite impact locations rendered with WebGL.
You can see that we specified a
style parameter when creating the layer, and that this style allowed us to specify the appearance of the points (red, semi-transparent circles).
Changing the style of a WebGL layer is quite different from the rest of the library. Instead of using the
Fill,
Stroke and
Image classes like other vector layers, we simply have to provide an object with the style parameters. The supported properties for this object are pretty straightforward:
opacity,
color,
size,
offset,
src (for images) and
symbolType (which can be
circle,
square,
triangle or
image).
WebGL layers use a completely different rendering system, and the style object is actually transformed dynamically into fragment and vertex shaders.
By navigating in the map you might already notice a performance improvement from the previous step where we were using a standard Canvas 2D layer.
Now, I think we can all agree on the fact that this map isn't great to look at: that is probably because each and every point has the same styling.
Let's begin by sizing our circles depending on the mass of the meteorite. To achieve this, we're replacing the
size of the style with the following expression:
size: [ '+', ['*', ['clamp', ['*', ['get', 'mass'], 1 / 20000], 0, 1], 18], 8, ],
This expression results in a minimum size of 8 pixels, which can grow by 18 pixels depending on the mass of the meteorite,
The
WebGLPointsLayer class supports this kind of expression for the numerical attributes of its style (size, opacity, color components, etc.).
An expression is composed of operators that are expressed as arrays like so:
['get', 'mass']
['clamp', value, 0, 1]
['*', value, 18]
['+', value, 8]
The first operator,
get, will read the feature's attribute by its name. The other operators, here showcased
clamp,
* and
+, allow manipulating the output of another operator. In the previous example we used these to transform the meteorites mass values into a final size comprised between 8 and 26.
Looking better and better!
| https://openlayers.org/workshop/en/webgl/points.html | CC-MAIN-2021-43 | refinedweb | 518 | 51.78 |
Upgrading stuff to from Windows Phone 7 to “Mango” is sometimes like cleaning your desk drawer before going on a holiday – you stumble upon stuff you forgot it was even there. For the ‘game engine’ I made for Catch’em Birds I created a few very handy extension methods for calculating speed and distance, which I would like to share with the rest of the community:
using System; #if WINDOWS_PHONE using System.Windows; #else using System.Drawing; using System.Windows; #endif namespace Wp7nl.Utilities { public static class PointExtensions { /// <summary> /// Distances from point 1 to point 2 /// </summary> /// <param name="p1">The first point.</param> /// <param name="p2">The second point.</param> /// <returns></returns> public static double DistanceFrom(this Point p1, Point p2) { var dX = p2.X - p1.X; var dY = p2.Y - p1.Y; return Math.Sqrt(dX * dX + dY * dY); } /// <summary> /// Calculates the speed in pixels per second /// </summary> /// <param name="p1">The first point.</param> /// <param name="p2">The second point.</param> /// <param name="duration">The duration</param> /// <returns>Speed in pixels per second</returns> public static double CalculateSpeed(this Point p1, Point p2, Duration duration) { return p1.DistanceFrom(p2) / duration.TimeSpan.TotalSeconds; } /// <summary> /// Calculates the duration given a distance and a speed. /// </summary> /// <param name="p1">The first point.</param> /// <param name="p2">The second point.</param> /// <param name="speed">The speed in pixels per second.</param> /// <returns>Time it takes to get from p1 to p2</returns> public static Duration CalculateDuration(this Point p1, Point p2, double speed) { return new Duration(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(p1.DistanceFrom(p2) / speed)); } } }
I will discuss these in a not quite logical order:
- The first method is of course good ole' Pythagoras caught in an extension method, basically there as a helper method for the other two.
- The third method is the one I used most: given that my object needs to move from p1 to p2 with a given speed in pixels per second, what’s the Duration I need to apply to my Storyboard?
- The second one is the inverse – given the fact that on object was moving from p1 to p2 in duration “duration”, calculate its speed in pixels per second.
As you can see at the #if on top it also work on System.Drawing.Points under full .NET 4.0. Maybe these methods are useful there as well, I put that only there to facilitate some unit tests.
All these methods are part of the wp7nl CodePlex library – or at least the will so at the upcoming Mango release.
Update: thanks to Rene Schulte for pointing out to me that my original DistanceFrom method using Math.Pow is very slow compared to simple multiplications. Rene is a Silverlight MVP from Dresden, Germany and has some very nice Point extension methods on his blog “Kodierer” as well - in English, don’t worry ;-) | http://dotnetbyexample.blogspot.com/2011/07/speed-and-distance-calculation.html | CC-MAIN-2019-04 | refinedweb | 474 | 64.81 |
import "google.golang.org/grpc/benchmark/stats"
Package stats tracks the statistics associated with benchmark runs.
type BenchResults struct { // RunMode is the workload mode for this benchmark run. This could be unary, // stream or unconstrained. RunMode string // Features represents the configured feature options for this run. Features Features // SharedFeatures represents the features which were shared across all // benchmark runs during one execution. It is a slice indexed by // 'FeaturesIndex' and a value of true indicates that the associated // feature is shared across all runs. []bool // Data contains the statistical data of interest from the benchmark run. Data RunData }
BenchResults records features and results of a benchmark run. A collection of these structs is usually serialized and written to a file after a benchmark execution, and could later be read for pretty-printing or comparison with other benchmark results.
FeatureIndex is an enum for features that usually differ across individual benchmark runs in a single execution. These are usually configured by the user through command line flags.
const ( EnableTraceIndex FeatureIndex = iota ReadLatenciesIndex ReadKbpsIndex ReadMTUIndex MaxConcurrentCallsIndex ReqSizeBytesIndex RespSizeBytesIndex CompModesIndex EnableChannelzIndex EnablePreloaderIndex // MaxFeatureIndex is a place holder to indicate the total number of feature // indices we have. Any new feature indices should be added above this. MaxFeatureIndex )
FeatureIndex enum values corresponding to individually settable features.
type Features struct { // Network mode used for this benchmark run. Could be one of Local, LAN, WAN // or Longhaul. NetworkMode string // UseBufCon indicates whether an in-memory connection was used for this // benchmark run instead of system network I/O. UseBufConn bool // EnableKeepalive indicates if keepalives were enabled on the connections // used in this benchmark run. EnableKeepalive bool // BenchTime indicates the duration of the benchmark run. BenchTime time.Duration // EnableTrace indicates if tracing was enabled. EnableTrace bool // Latency is the simulated one-way network latency used. Latency time.Duration // Kbps is the simulated network throughput used. Kbps int // MTU is the simulated network MTU used. MTU int // MaxConcurrentCalls is the number of concurrent RPCs made during this // benchmark run. MaxConcurrentCalls int // ReqSizeBytes is the request size in bytes used in this benchmark run. ReqSizeBytes int // RespSizeBytes is the response size in bytes used in this benchmark run. RespSizeBytes int // ModeCompressor represents the compressor mode used. ModeCompressor string // EnableChannelz indicates if channelz was turned on. EnableChannelz bool // EnablePreloader indicates if preloading was turned on. EnablePreloader bool }
Features represent configured options for a specific benchmark run. This is usually constructed from command line arguments passed by the caller. See benchmark/benchmain/main.go for defined command line flags. This is also part of the BenchResults struct which is serialized and written to a file.
PrintableName returns a one line name which includes the features specified by 'wantFeatures' which is a bitmask of wanted features, indexed by FeaturesIndex.
SharedFeatures returns the shared features as a pretty printable string. 'wantFeatures' is a bitmask of wanted features, indexed by FeaturesIndex.
String returns all the feature values as a string.
type Histogram struct { // Count is the total number of values added to the histogram. Count int64 // Sum is the sum of all the values added to the histogram. Sum int64 // SumOfSquares is the sum of squares of all values. SumOfSquares int64 // Min is the minimum of all the values added to the histogram. Min int64 // Max is the maximum of all the values added to the histogram. Max int64 // Buckets contains all the buckets of the histogram. Buckets []HistogramBucket // contains filtered or unexported fields }
Histogram accumulates values in the form of a histogram with exponentially increased bucket sizes.
func NewHistogram(opts HistogramOptions) *Histogram
NewHistogram returns a pointer to a new Histogram object that was created with the provided options.
Add adds a value to the histogram.
Clear resets all the content of histogram.
Merge takes another histogram h2, and merges its content into h. The two histograms must be created by equivalent HistogramOptions.
func (h *Histogram) Opts() HistogramOptions
Opts returns a copy of the options used to create the Histogram.
Print writes textual output of the histogram values.
PrintWithUnit writes textual output of the histogram values . Data in histogram is divided by a Unit before print.
String returns the textual output of the histogram values as string.
type HistogramBucket struct { // LowBound is the lower bound of the bucket. LowBound float64 // Count is the number of values in the bucket. Count int64 }
HistogramBucket represents one histogram bucket.
type HistogramOptions struct { // NumBuckets is the number of buckets. NumBuckets int // GrowthFactor is the growth factor of the buckets. A value of 0.1 // indicates that bucket N+1 will be 10% larger than bucket N. GrowthFactor float64 // BaseBucketSize is the size of the first bucket. BaseBucketSize float64 // MinValue is the lower bound of the first bucket. MinValue int64 }
HistogramOptions contains the parameters that define the histogram's buckets. The first bucket of the created histogram (with index 0) contains [min, min+n) where n = BaseBucketSize, min = MinValue. Bucket i (i>=1) contains [min + n * m^(i-1), min + n * m^i), where m = 1+GrowthFactor. The type of the values is int64.
type RunData struct { // TotalOps is the number of operations executed during this benchmark run. // Only makes sense for unary and streaming workloads. TotalOps uint64 // SendOps is the number of send operations executed during this benchmark // run. Only makes sense for unconstrained workloads. SendOps uint64 // RecvOps is the number of receive operations executed during this benchmark // run. Only makes sense for unconstrained workloads. RecvOps uint64 // AllocedBytes is the average memory allocation in bytes per operation. AllocedBytes float64 // Allocs is the average number of memory allocations per operation. Allocs float64 // ReqT is the average request throughput associated with this run. ReqT float64 // RespT is the average response throughput associated with this run. RespT float64 // Fiftieth is the 50th percentile latency. Fiftieth time.Duration // Ninetieth is the 90th percentile latency. Ninetieth time.Duration // Ninetyninth is the 99th percentile latency. NinetyNinth time.Duration // Average is the average latency. Average time.Duration }
RunData contains statistical data of interest from a benchmark run.
Stats is a helper for gathering statistics about individual benchmark runs.
NewStats creates a new Stats instance. If numBuckets is not positive, the default value (16) will be used.
AddDuration adds an elapsed duration per operation to the stats. This is used by unary and stream modes where request and response stats are equal.
EndRun is to be invoked to indicate the end of the ongoing benchmark run. It computes a bunch of stats and dumps them to stdout.
EndUnconstrainedRun is similar to EndRun, but is to be used for unconstrained workloads.
func (s *Stats) GetResults() []BenchResults
GetResults returns the results from all benchmark runs.
StartRun is to be invoked to indicate the start of a new benchmark run.
Package stats imports 11 packages (graph) and is imported by 60 packages. Updated 2019-08-22. Refresh now. Tools for package owners. | https://godoc.org/google.golang.org/grpc/benchmark/stats | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | refinedweb | 1,133 | 51.14 |
Created on 2009-01-14.15:30:48 by billiejoex, last changed 2009-04-03.16:49:50 by amak.
By running pyftpdlib [1] test suite on Jython 2.5b1 I get this exception
from select().
I can't understand the reason since it happens randomly.
back (most recent call last):
File "C:\jython2.5b0\Lib\threading.py", line 247, in _Thread__bootstrap
self.run()
File "test_ftpd.py", line 2003, in run
self.server.serve_forever(timeout=self.__timeout, count=1,
File "C:\jython2.5b0\bin\ftpserver.py", line 3126, in serve_forever
poll_fun(timeout, map)
File "C:\jython2.5b0\Lib\asyncore.py", line 108, in poll
r, w, e = select.select(r, w, e, timeout)
File "C:\jython2.5b0\Lib\select.py", line 171, in native_select
pobj = poll()
File "C:\jython2.5b0\Lib\select.py", line 63, in __init__
self.selector = java.nio.channels.Selector.open()
IOException: java.io.IOException: Unable to establish loopback connection
[1]
I downloaded pyftpdlib and tried to run the test suite.
It fails completely because pyftpdlib uses the cpython specific "buffer"
builtin, which is not available on jython.
The test suite then proceeds to hang, not sure why.
More on this later; I'm working on asyncore at the moment, and that
should be resolved before addressing this.
Have you contacted the pyftpdlib authors? Are they interested in having
their code run on jython?
See here for a good description of the buffer interface and its
problems, written by Guido himself.
I'm the pyftpdlib author and even if it's not high priority I'd like to
see pyftpdlib work on Jython too.
pyftpdlib on Jython fails for many reasons.
By monkey patching such issues I managed to run the test suite despite a
lots of tests still keep failing.
Here's a list of some reasons why pyftpdlib test suite does not work on
Jython:
- Missing IPv6 support ( ) solved by
disabling the test
- asyncore.dispatcher._map attribute on Jython is deleted for no reason
( ) solved by monkey patching asyncore.py
- socket.getservbyport not implemented ( ), solved by disabling the test
- missing buffer() function, solved by putting this piece of code
straight into ftpserver.py
try:
buffer
except NameError:
# hack for Jython which does not implement buffer()
def buffer(obj, start=None, stop=None):
if not hasattr(obj, "__getitem__"):
raise TypeError
if start == None:
start = 0
if stop == None:
stop = len(obj)
return obj[start:stop]
Despite all these modifications I still get the following exception
(amongst others):
IOException: java.io.IOException: Unable to establish loopback connection
In case you want to try I attach the modified ftpserver.py and
test_ftpd.py scripts I modified to make them partially work with Jython,
and also the traceback message I get from the failing tests.
Note that I also get this error which is quite strange:
====================================================================== found this:
I have checked in a new version of asyncore at r6013.
Please, can you try your code again with the new version?
About this error:
====================================================================== notice that you're using the cpython "buffer" construct. Because
buffer is not available on jython, you're using a simple replacement,
shown above.
And now you're getting an "Out of memory" error. When you get this
error, how big is the content of data variable, i.e. what is len(data)?
> Please, can you try your code again with the new version?
Using 2.5 asyncore.py looks fine but I still get that select() related
error, which seems not related with asyncore itself.
> And now you're getting an "Out of memory" error. When you get this
> error, how big is the content of data variable, i.e. what is
> len(data)?
>>> data = ('abcde12345' + os.linesep) * 100000
>>> len(data)
1200000
If I execute:
>>> expected = data.replace(os.linesep, '\r\n')
...from the Jython prompt instead of from the test suite I don't get any
exception.
Let's stay focussed on the select() issues in this bug; please consider
the out of memory error a separate issue.
In relation to the select bug, please can you provide the following?
1. What operating systems ad versions does it happen on?
2. What JVMs and versions does it happen on?
3. Are you running a firewall?
Windows XP Prof SP3, Java JRE 1.6.0_11, no firewall.
Please can you upload new versions of ftpserver.py and test_ftpd.py
which work with the new asyncore module?
I'll check it on windows and see if I can make any sense out of the bug,
which seems to happen in many different circumstances.
In attachment.
Any developments on this bug?
I will close the bug if there is no more activity on it.
I don't think that closing the report is a good idea when the problem is
still there.
Aside from asyncore/pyftpdlib it seems a problem related to select()
itself so any other application relying on it will most likely not work.
It looks like this is the same bug as
Reported by Irmen de Jong.
All activity on this bug will continue on 1291, because Irmen has
isolated the bug with a small piece of code, thus making it far easier
reproduce and address.
I am fairly sure that this bug is a duplicate of bug 1291.
I intend to close this bug as a duplicate, but will give the reporter a
final chance to disagree.
It seems to be the same bug.
Please go on and close this one.
Thanks.
Closing this bug as a duplicate of 1291, by agreement with the reporter. | http://bugs.jython.org/issue1238 | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | refinedweb | 922 | 76.62 |
Feedback
Getting Started
Discussions
Site operation discussions
Recent Posts
(new topic)
Departments
Courses
Research Papers
Design Docs
Quotations
Genealogical Diagrams
Archives
If we had voting on things (a la reddit, slashdot, hacker news, etc.) I think we'd all be better off. There are technological things which won't outright fix everything, but should greatly help I should think.
But we'd need somebody who can actually set that stuff up.
The software already exists, you can create a LtU2 subreddit for instance. The issue with that is moving the community though.
Population and content change with voting because voting induces conformism ... which is basically a lobotomy if you value contributions a couple standard deviations or more away from herd consensus (metaphor: think cows or sheep). You would get a forum easily managed by any cabal simulating grass-root feedback, and subject all to politics of dumb masses.
You can start new discussions if you don't like what appears in existing ones. Probably we can get folks to honor simple requests to avoid certain topics by request at the top.
yeah, makes sense.
So what would be a reasonable request to put on our topics? I mean, I can say I would like persons X, Y, and Z to refrain from posting, but that is sort of obnoxious and doesn't prevent others from being similarly trollish. Might anybody suggest some good word smithing? "Please refrain from posts attempting to connect this to Actors, Direct Logic, Inconsistency Robustness. Please post those thoughts elsewhere on a new top level post instead." ? oy veh.
Forbidding specific people from posting could not work because it's antagonistic and personal. A middle ground between conformism and chaos can work, between too many rules and too few rules. You can ask folks to honor specific requests, with an informal, individual, contractual quality. Ask nicely, be brief, and expect reasonable behavior. Appeal to a sense of honor. It's a very minimal code of conduct. Non-coercive civility all around isn't much to ask of people.
Old school journalism convention puts editorial remarks inside square brackets. You might make a first or last line of a new topic be one line inside square brackets to enumerate requests. If you can get words "please" and "honor" inside, that would likely help. Ideally, the community would already have notation conventions about what goes at the front, as a label explaining what appears in square brackets. [RULES: ] has an obnoxious and didactic look, while [NOTE: ] is neutral, while [N.B. ] and [nota bene ] appeal to polite scholarly tradition. You could reply to your own first post with a short expansion on your polite request to stay on topic in your discussion. While it would be funny, avoid vulgar language like "if I hear about xyz one more time I will blow my bleeping brains out", because it's disruptive. You might try "[NB please honor my request to omit side discussion about topics swamping the adjacent discussions in this form: logic, foundations, Actors, etc.]"
Why bother? We could just open a subreddit with less overhead and more support. The real issue is community and Jules said.
I had in mind either a refinement of this LtU site at this domain, or a new LtU2 site at a new domain that would be budded off by LtUers and thus be seeded with the same accounts, etc. moved over. (It has happened before, there's an old archived LtU somewhere?)
There's a couple of major issues with the site as it stands, viz:
- squeezing of posts the more they reach the right hand side due to indentation
- having >200 posts per topic destroys functionality
One should be a relatively trivial CSS fix, and the other could be mitigated by a configuration level fix setting the default posts per page to, for example, 655360[1] rather than 200.
Upvoting, polls and all that jazz are "gamification" things that arguably increase interaction level, but at the cost of significantly trivialising that interaction. Not needed or desired here, IMO.
[1] Because 640K should be enough for anyone, right?
+1
Incidentally, something else I've noticed is that it's easy for me (and seemingly for the people I'm talking to) to forget the earlier context of a long-running thread. Even if I try, it's especially difficult to find the parent of a comment if there's a massive sibling subthread in between. Maybe a little "Go to parent" link would help, at least a bit.
If we had more users, upvoting would be a nice crowd sourcing tool. Right now, I can look at recent posts at a glance and see everything.
Put this way: is there a desire to grow LtU to a bigger active (non-lurking) community? If so, we might want to rethink the software, but only because we've outgrown what we have.
But that isn't a problem we have.
I don't think a whole new site is needed, but a better user interface which could import the existing discussions would be great. I don't like voting for reasons already mentioned, but I think the following would be good:
- better conversation threading, so that sub-threads can be read more like a conversation, and sub-threads you are not interested in can be ignored.
- better handling of long threads so that search works properly
- better tracking of responses to you own posts, including optional email notification (and digest option).
I think the problem people have with the current threads is that the side-conversations effectively censor the conversation by making the original thread topic difficult to follow and cause the topic "signal" to get lost in the "noise".
I think it could all be fixed so that everyone is happy, and without discouraging conversation and exploration of controversial ideas, and without voting turning it into a popularity contest.
I'm *not* (yet) proposing Discourse —but its solution to the problem is really elegant, because it allows indeed to reply as a new thread, and/or encourages that when appropriate.
In fact, Discourse really looks like a cool forum, and I'll soon get experience running it. However, transitioning to Discourse would be a major change (as they document), also because their design incorporates some ideas on how to run a forum.
The "Discourse Way" is gamification of everything, and telling people that the way they've been communicating hereforth has been totally wrong.
If you want an object lesson as to how the Discourse team fail to work with existing communities, you only need to look at how the rollout to the Daily WTF forums went - hint : it involved a significant proportion of the community leaving.
As a (somewhat biased) ex-member of TDWTF, my opinion of Discourse is that, if you'll forgive the turn of phrase, it's a shit sandwich, short on the bread. You really don't want to know my opinion of Mr Atwood.
Would it be possible for you to explain what the problems are with Discourse? Or link to someone who has? You've conveyed your strong dislike for it, but other than that, I've learned nothing from this post.
Obviously, this take is from someone who spends far more time lurking here than contributing anything worthwhile; weight that opinion as you wish.
The visual design ethic of Discourse is very much "modern web", acres of white space, great big honking targets for fat fingers and little "this just updated" badges flashing up all over the place. Ironically enough, given its "everything is a mobile" approach, last time I checked, the masses of client-side javascript it requires meant that it failed to actually render on any of the mobile devices I have available. That said, I'm not on the bleeding edge. Visually, I can appreciate that it's not the technicolor flashing vomit many forums degrade to, but thats hardly a problem here, and even without the animated gif signatures it still manages to be less information-dense than most forums.
During the rollout to TDWTF, the way the actual UI interactions happen were changing on a daily basis. That's probably calmed down now, but there was no apparent method to the madness beyond "that's what Jeff's decided he wants". Even without UI churn, there's a lot of popup panels and notifications and this and that and the other that *demand* to be clicked. You haven't read this, you're reading this, here's a badge you've been awarded for reading 3 posts, click this to make the annoying flashing thing go away, no, I was joking, click *this* instead…
It's horrible to use. A forum system designed by someone who doesn't use forum systems. "Civilised Discourse™" as imagined by someone whose idea of civilised discourse is to reply to criticism with "meme" gifs and tell people they are "doing it wrong".
The "infinite scrolling" conceit breaks normal web navigation; by necessity browser controls (for example, search in page) are overridden, but the implementation clashes with the underlying mechanism, and it all feels like a horrible hack. Plus, for searching, it usually fails to find what you're looking for.
And then there's the gamification. "like" this. "flag" that". "badge" the other. Not optional, but fundamentally ingrained into the design. In your face. All the time.
Discourse is trying to solve problems that Jeff Atwood perceives in existing software that he, by has own admission, doesn't use, and plainly fails to understand. IMO he fails to make any improvement to the majority of them, and adds new ones in the place of the things he does manage to improve, all the while maintaining that Discourse is "quite literally" the second coming, and that anyone who disagrees is obviously doing it wrong. That there are still posts like this on the TDWTF forums, months after the rollout to an audience who had previously been suffering probably the worst forum software ever written, who were into gamification, and who even took the effort to find, and notify to the Discourse team, literally hundreds of bugs in a matter of a few weeks, should start raising red flags.
But what makes it, at least for me, a really bad fit for this forum, is that it doesn't do any better at fixing the issues we have here than any other forum software would. Indeed, it would, IMO, make things significantly worse.
which is generally considered bad form, but...
I just realised that discourse not only breaks the browser's scrollbar (which represents only the portion of posts the browser has dynamically injected into the DOM, rather than the number of posts in a discussion), but also it breaks the behaviour of page up and down.
No, really.
Hitting the page down key pages down more than a page at a time.
Really. Go to (for example), scroll up or down using the arrow keys until a biggish post crosses the bottom or top of your browser window, then page up and down.
Too much gamification does sound obnoxious and I thought everyone knows in 2015 that modal dialogs are terrible. Do others have this same experience with it?
I think many of the problems people complain about would be solved by allowing conversational replies that are collapsed by default and only notify followers.
I'm not certain that should be the default, LtU is generally low enough volume to be able to take in what's "new" at a glance via the "recent comments" (modulo the 200 comments/page issue), but it would certainly help to resolve the issue Keean points out above to be able to collapse subthreads.
I might have a look at making a userscript to do this if I have time at work today.
If we do change platform, I'd like Markdown formatting rather than HTML. I suspect the current setup is fine only if you avoid formatting — but that decreases readability — or if you're fine with spending time with writing HTML by hand — and I was fine with that, but only until Markdown came along.
I am taking a break from LtU because I am deeply unsatisfied with the (non-silent) community consensus in this thread.
What the community considers as appropriate discourse is my only major issue with LtU as it stands. In particular, I suspect most of the perceived technical defects are actually not very important (in particular I don't care whether extremely-long thread become hard to access, because they are quite often not worth reading outside the very small group that took the tangent resulting in this mass thread).
The only personal change I would personally be curious about is the availability of moderation tools (and I think subreddits would help in this regard), but that opens another can of worms: having the option to moderate can be nice, but having to decide when and how to moderate also has its costs.
(Also reddit does not support mathjax, and that would be a regression.)
(On the other hand, I think the perceived-as-dated webdesign may scare off new users, thinking that the site is somehow defunct -- I know I have a hard time giving credibility to the c2.com wiki just because of the dated design.)
That said, I think I would still support a subreddit experiment. Someone suggested that I could start one recently, and I decided not to because I was worried it could hurt LtU.
I missed that discussion first time around so I've just sat and read through the two threads for a first time. My impression was that the general consensus was that Marco had been a bit rude, and that people in general should attempt to be more polite to each other when discussing papers on LtU. Certainly, my impression of the first thread was that Josh was quite rude to an author of the paper and could have taken the time to formulate his complaints in some kind of constructive way. There were many different posters who explained to Marco why his comments were generally perceived as rude, but I did not see anyone who agreed with his position. Would that not make the general consensus that people should take the time to be polite to one another?
Moderation is a double-edged sword. If you look at slashdot over the years then moderation has never really solved the problem of trolling or people generally laying into one another with a gusto that they would not in real life. There has been quite a lot written about the effects of reddit voting on group-think, it does seem to produce a related but distinct set of problems to those on slashdot. Personally I like technical solutions to play with, but as a user I remain unconvinced that it is a real solution.
The point is that nobody cared about the issue enough to ask marco to stop. I'm willing to believe that most people don't agree with the behaviour I found problematic, but it is also apparent that there was no effective effort to change things -- the insulting behavior continued long after and there was further provocation in other (unrelated) threads.
Thinking of the formulation again, "consensus" is probably not the right word. I was (and still am) asking for something stronger than opinions/agreement: guarantees that there will be no insulting behaviour on the threads discussing the references I contribute to the website. I doesn't matter much if a majority of people individually believe that such behaviour should be avoided, if they are unable or unwilling to discourage it when it actually happens.
If I was moderator of a LtU-like subreddit, I would just remove posts that do not meet (subjective) reasonable standards of civil discourse -- I have been moderator of internet communities before. This works very well for some subreddits, for example [r/AskHistorians]() that is content-rich, fascinating, and [actively moderated]() (any long thread in this subreddit has a couple removed comments).
There has been quite a lot written about the effects of reddit voting on group-think
In my experience with technical subreddits, this kind of effects is hardly perceivable as long as the subreddit is small enough. I'm not sure LtU would reach the threshold for such mass effect to be perceivable. r/haskell is on the edge (they have to put occasional reminder to downvote only when the form is incorrect or the content irrelevant, not when one disagree with what is written), but has been kept on the "small" side by an excellent discussion culture.
Start a subreddit. I don't think it will have much of an effect on LtU. If it's successful it could even have a positive influence.
The point is that nobody cared about the issue enough to ask marco to stop.
I don't think it's a case of not caring, so much as you wanting a change in roles among LtU readers since the old moderators aren't around.
I'm wary of quick technological "fixes", but Discourse does look like it would address a lot of desired features:
- modern design that adapts to mobile devices
- focus on facilitating civilized discourse from the very beginnings of the project (e.g., flagging trolling and badges for positive behaviour)
- ability to split off a reply into a separate but related topic
- Markdown editing (with Mathjax support via a plugin)
I hadn't seen your post when I wrote mine elsewhere — sorry. As I said, I agree, but it bakes in a different take on how to run a community, so (as documented) it would take time to find consensus.
I agree Discourse seems pretty nice, but where would a Discourse instance be hosted? I wouldn't mind helping to pay the $99 bill for a one-time install in the cloud (which supposedly lessens the maintenance burden), but it looks like official hosted instances do not support plugin installation, and I think LtU would need a MathJax plugin. Would people agree to host and maintain a Discourse instance for LtU on their personal servers instead?
I'd chip in, too, but is this really going to make things better? It seems like a waste of time and money to upgrade to Discourse if we're just going to get more of what we've been having lately. Your posts were great, but I don't know if you can carry the site by yourself. Have you privately spoken with anyone who thinks they would join / return with a better moderation system? (Or does anyone want to delurk and confirm that they're in this camp?)
I think revamping the technology in a user-visible way could help attract newcomers (that might be turned away by the old look). If there is enough momentum to do it, I would support a migration for this reason only -- but doing a proper migration, which is necessary given the trove that the existing content is, would require some work.
I'm sysadmin on some machines, and I might be able to offer hosting there. Can't make promises though.
But IIUC, with their Digital Ocean cloud install you have complete freedom (that's different from their hosted plans). The one-time 99$ fee () save you 30min/one hour of simple sysadmin work — I volunteer for it, if needed (). I've followed the guide yesterday, and installing on Digital Ocean or on your server follows the same steps. I've just added MathJax support *right now*.
The remaining cost is the 10€/month for Digital Ocean, which shouldn't be a problem (I'd be happy to chip in for that, too). They might make the hosting more robust.
a site for discussing Gödel and another for discussing type theory and you can scrap LTU because no one here seems to care about programming languages.
[Edit] make a site for discussing Hewitt and another for type theory...
Gah!
... says the person that basically stalled a discussion of JIT techniques for Scheme by uninformed bullying on the GC implementation.
I'd prefer that programming languages be useful than be mere tech demos and student projects. Because making them useful isn't that hard. So sue me.
"For Java, hundreds of man years were invested into the various collectors that are part of the Hotspot virtual machine." —
though it should take a lot less time to recreate a set of capabilities the nth time than it took to forge a new solution the first time. Or maybe existing systems could be adapted.
I actually tried to create a gc with an unusual and expansive set of requirements and ... oh my God the design was hard, and a lot less than I wished was actually possible on my target.
I have a "student" project called dcc in reference to the number 700 in the titles of papers by Landin, Douence, and apparently others. This is one of the many sites I have enjoyed obtaining reference information from.
I have observed that any discussion site can descend to the level of its most obnoxious posts without diligent correction. This site seems better than many, in that people repent and reform themselves.
I do hope that the next generation of technical platform for this site stays friendly to low-tech visitors and does not put mobile users in an m.LtU jail.
Although I haven't posted anything with interesting math notation, it's obvious that accomodating such is a minimum requirement for this site.
It was a thread about your paper where I was talking about Racket instead.
It hadn't really sunk in with me that this is just an academic site and a low traffic one at that.
So the only real work here is papers. The only purpose is discussing papers.
It may be frustrating for the public that software written in academia is not meant to be useful, but the fact is that your work is writing papers, getting degrees or teaching classes.
It's a waste of time to you to make any software that is usable outside your classrooms or does more than demonstrate for a paper.
If I talk to you as if you're engineers, I miss the point. For working engineers or hobby engineers writing useful software is the only point.
It offends me, when people who write software that can't be used and documentation that's useless primp and pose as superior and don't deen to help (or fix problems for) lowly users who thought they could use software. And I do keep running into that attitude on the Racket project, but that's what the incentives of your work creates. From their point of view they're doing their jobs. From the point of view of people used to non-academic engineers, they may be doing a really bad job. But the academics treat the public as if they were bothersome, ignorant students - or perhaps mere pests and inferior to the most ignorant students. That creates an odd, hostile dynamic of attitudes.
So you come here to discuss your papers and you should be allowed to do that.
My interest is in trying out and creating usable programming languages. That's not the purpose of this site.
From the very first section, "Purpose", of the LtU policies page (emph. mine):.
My father is a professor of drama. He would have preferred to spend his time outside the classroom putting on productions and teaching students that way. But after a change of department heads, he was required instead to publish papers of "research".
He was aware that there is no such thing as useful research in drama, but he wrote a few papers anyway that of course were published in journals that no one reads.
Perhaps what's vital to programming languages can't be captured in research and even less so in theory.
I'm also reminded of linguistics departments becoming enamored of Chomsky. Maybe what would have been useful for students would be to treat language as a humanity, a human thing, meaning as art. But schools tried to force language into a theory of mathematics.
One could say that computer translation was an application of chomsky, but that's probably not true. In reality programmers probably just throw every possible random tool at the problem, and eventually come up with something useful. Theory didn't drive it, theory was rationalization that gave a gloss to random attempts.
[Edit] if "theory" means creating new programming paradigms, creating languages like Curry or any other new thing, then it seems useful and interesting. If "theory" means proofs about type systems then it seems useless. If you can point to hardware or software that has advanced or even is being tested to see if it will be better one day then I'm interested. Otherwise no.
Without getting into the specifics of the garbage collection issues you've been having with Racket (which I haven't experienced working very small projects), I think the general situation of devs not having time to resolve issues that don't affect them personally is a common theme with free software. I think that's probably a better explanation of the situation than "too much theory."
Also, I wonder if it's occurred to you that the subset of theoreticians who you acknowledge are doing practical work are themselves looking to the work of even more abstract theoreticians whose work you would dismiss as not useful?
Here's an interesting interview with Martin Odersky about the origins of Scala. It has a nice discussion of the academic origins of Scala, as well as of Java Generics, and a brief mention of how a little understanding of type theory might have prevented the Java array implementation from being broken. All of which essentially serves as an example of exactly what Matt mentioned.
is he saying that casting array-of-string to array-of-object is unsound when array is actually array of pointers to objects anyway? I don't see why that can't work.
It can work. But it means that you can't catch certain classes of errors at compile-time, only at run-time (and, consequently, that you need to add a bunch of run-time checks). You can find a succinct explanation of the problem here.
Equivalent to this (which won't compile in C++)
// Example program
#include <stdio.h >
// Example program
#include <stdio.h >
class A {
public:
virtual void print() { printf("Oh no, I'm an A"); }
};
class B : public A
{
public:
virtual void print() { printf("I'm an B"); }
};
//C++ is smart enough to not allow the automatic cast unless
//the pointer is a const
void problem(A * &a)
{
a= new A();
}
int main(void)
{
B *b = new B();
problem(b);
b->print();
return 0;
}
It's fine if you're interested in usable languages now instead of research — those are two different things, as you said two posts ago in this thread. Now you're saying that research is pointless. Some time ago, you said that Racket is cool. Please, try to make up your mind. If current Racket developers would work on GC, they couldn't work on those parts you find cool, or on new ones. If they'd done that earlier, they wouldn't have made Racket, just a more practical Scheme. Where should they set the bar?
As usual with free software, if it becomes worthwhile other people can add the missing pieces, though that's not always easy. But that's not research anymore — you just want the software, and nobody wants to read a paper about this extra work.
People are conflicted in real life, it is not always easy to be straight positive or negative about something. I really don't see why so many people have problems with that.
The narrow research focus of the PL community doesn't suit everyone, there is plenty of research on PL to do that the community isn't very interested in, but happens anyways.
You're right, I also liked to remind some friends that being conflicted is normal. Being conflicted in a public debate does make it harder to reply, but I shouldn't take this as a debate.
The narrow research focus of the PL community doesn't suit everyone, there is plenty of research on PL to do that the community isn't very interested in, but happens anyways.
I'm happy with more research being there, I just defend theoretical research being also there — though I know there's some unbalance in general and on LtU.
I owe you a clarification. You seem to believe that my criticism comes from a disagreement on which kind of content LtU should focus on, or on the importance of academia for programming language development. It does not. My point is that you were extremely rude in this thread. And that such behaviour reduces the motivation to post more of the content you say you would like to see.
I believe you were rude *and* wrong (at least the few facts that you gave to support your peremptory, obnoxious statements seemed less than convincing; there are zillions reasons why an UI thread could freeze, and you seem deeply uninformed about the state of Racket's runtime system), but the one problem I pointed out that I think is the most important is that you were very rude -- to one of the authors of the programming system being discussed, as an aggravating factor.
I am not trying to negate your perception of programming language research or the Racket community -- I even sometimes recognize tidbits that I find convincing/interesting in the pool of your rambling comments. The point is that the way you express it is aggressive, irritating, and discourages people from engaging in potentially interesting discussions.
To be fair, it was a bit of a rhetoric effect for me to claim that you "stalled" the whole thread; it seems that people were not terribly interested in having discussions about it in the first place (but people may have been interested in the reference none the less). Your obnoxious behaviour did not, in principle, prevent other people from starting other threads of discussions that could have turned out to be more informative. That said, one should not neglect the chilling effect that one lousy sub-discussion can have on people thinking of engaging in a thread -- I at least tend to avoid those.
Hence my dry remark. You complain that there is not enough discussion about programming languages. But on this time I tried, based on feedback from people discussing here on LtU, to post a reference that is more about implementation than theory, the discussion went downhill because of you.
Maybe you should instead try to post references to work on programming languages that you think are useful and relevant -- demonstrate what you mean by positive examples. | http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5190 | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | refinedweb | 5,202 | 59.13 |
Icewind Dale II
FAQ/Walkthrough by Kaos_Reynes
Version: 1.01 | Updated: 2013-12-25 | | | | Icewind Dale II | | | o======================================================================o Version 1.01 Written by: Lee Kadel Email: [email protected] If you want to email me about this guide, make sure you put "IWD II", "IWD2", "ICEWIND DALE 2", or somethig similarly descriptive in the subject, or I will delete it... period... end of discussion... Oh, and do NOT include attachments - I will not accept ANY emails that contain attachments unless I have specifically requested it. I have no affiliation with Atari, Bioware, Black Isle, Interplay, Wizards of the Coast, or any other parties involved with this game. This is a not-for-profit, fan-made guide. If you wish to post, mirror, or quote this guide, feel free to do so; I simply ask that you keep these first two paragraphs intact (Written by, etc), and properly cite this document as a resource. Oh, and to keep in line with my own admonitions, many sections of this guide were copied from the Icewind Dale I guide, written by Haeravon. For that matter, the organizational structure and many other things are taken from the aforementioned IWD I guide. If it works, why try to reinvent it? WARNING: I TEND TO USE A FAIR AMOUNT OF COLORFUL LANGUAGE IN THIS FAQ. If you are the type of person who is offended by what some people refer to as profanity, then... well... you may not want to proceed. There are other guides out there, even if they are largely incomplete and much more difficult to follow. Do as your conscience dictates, but don't come complaining to me if you use this guide and find that it upsets your overly sensitive nature. You have been warned... This FAQ was written in Notepad, and is best viewed in a simple text editor. The default text is Lucida Console at size 10 font, but any fixed-width font will work, if not with the intended aesthetics intact. Note that this is a document. ~HaeravonFAQS~ Your author is a contributor and huge fan of Haeravon FAQs, in addition to other gaming sites. While this guide may be posted in other places, always check the Haeravon FAQ website at () first for access to up-to-date information about this guide, and game- related info on many other games. This is the best site on the interweb for discussing all kinds of gaming topics, and you would be well served by joining the site. Note: you must be a registered user to post in the online forums. Table of Contents o======================================================================o >>>GAMEPLAY INFORMATION<<< I. Introduction {INT001} 1. Using this FAQ {INT002} 2. Items {INT003} 3. Traps {INT004} 4. Quests/Rewards {INT005} 5. Modifications {INT006} II. Character Creation {DND001} 1. Party Composition {DND002} 2. Gender {DND003} 3. Race {DND004} 3.1 Basic Attribute {DND005} Modifications by Race 4. Class {DND006} 4.1 Dual- and Multi-Classing {DND007} and the Lack Thereof 4.2 Barbarian {DND008} 4.3 Bard {DND009} 4.4 Cleric {DND010} 4.5 Druid {DND011} 4.6 Fighter {DND012} 4.7 Monk {DND013} 4.8 Paladin {DND014} 4.9 Ranger {DND015} 4.10 Rogue {DND016} 4.11 Sorcerer {DND017} 4.12 Wizard {DND018} 5. Alignment {DND019} 6. Abilities {DND020} 6.1 Strength {DND021} 6.2 Dexterity {DND022} 6.3 Constitution {DND023} 6.4 Intelligence {DND024} 6.5 Wisdom {DND025} 6.6 Charisma {DND026} 7. Hit Points {DND027} 8. Armor Class {DND028} 9. Saving Throws {DND029} 10. Skills {DND030} 11. Feats {DND031} III. My Party {PTY001} 1. K'aos Reynes (Paladin) {PTY002} 2. Ghrax (Ranger) {PTY003} 3. Ilana (Cleric) {PTY004} 4. Xanth (Sorcerer) {PTY005} 5. Quala Thurmbrecker (Rogue) {PTY006} 6. Fhornal (Druid) {PTY007} 7. Pre-built Parties {PTY008} IV. Alternate Party Strategies 1. The 4 Character Party {APTY01} 2. The Build-As-You-Go Party {APTY02} >>>MAIN WALKTHROUGH<<< V. Prologue 1. Arrival in Targos {WLK001} 2. Northern Targos {WLK002} 3. Targos Palisade {WLK003} VI. Chapter 1 1. Shaengarne Ford {WLK004} 2. Orc Encampment {WLK005} 3. Shaengarne Bridge {WLK006} 4. The Horde Fortress {WLK007} 5. The Fortress Cave {WLK008} 6. Kruntur's Abode {WLK009} 7. The FOrtress {WLK010} VII. Chapter 2 1. Crashed Airship {WLK011} 2. The Glacier {WLK012} 3, The Ice Temple {WLK013} 4. Ice Temple Basement {WLK014} Party Stats - End Ch. 2 (STATS1} VIII. Chapter 3 1. The Wandering Village {WLK015} 2. The Cold Marshes {WLK016} 3. The River Caves {WLK017} IX. Chapter 4 1. The Black Raven Monastery {WLK018} 2. The Underdark {WLK019} 3. Z'hinda Citadel {WLK020} Party Stats - End Ch. 4 (STATS2} X. Chapter 5 1. Kuldahar {WLK021} 2. Yuan-Ti Jungle {WLK022} 3. Dragon's Eye Level I {WLK023} 4. Dragon's Eye Level II {WLK024} 5. Dragon's Eye Level III {WLK025} 6. Dragon's Eye Exit {WLK026} 7. Fields of Slaughter {WLK027} XI. Chapter 6 1. The Severed Hand Lower Levels {WLK028} 2. The Severed Hand Upper Levels {WLK029} 3. The Severed Hand Wizard's Tower {WLK030} 4. The Severed Hand Cleric's Tower {WLK031} 5. The Severed Hand Officer's Tower {WLK032} 6. The Severed Hand War Tower {WLK033} 7. The Final Battle {WLK034} >>>APPENDICES<<< XII. Version Updates {VER001} XIII. Thanks {TNX001} o======================================================================o | | | Introduction {INT001} | | | o======================================================================o Okay, so here we are in Icewind Dale II. In an effort to keep some consistency with the previous guide, I have borrowed (with permission) the organizational and style choices (and yes, even some of the actual text). This is my first attempt at writing an FAQ/guide, so cut me some slack, alright? For anyone who has played IWD I, well, this is nothing like that at all. This game uses a different ruleset - the AD&D 3rd Edition rules - and therefore plays entirely differently than the first game. If you had a power party that you were hoping to import - forget it. It's just not gonna happen here. I know; I was disappointed too. These first sections of the guide will cover some of the basic things you will need to know in order to get started. How to read/use the FAQ, how to create characters, tips on parties (no, not that kind), etc. It is by no means a complete treatise on everything there is to learn or know about the game - for that, I strongly suggest you read the AD&D rule books, or read the official game manual, or both. What is included here is just enough to get you started. You are under no obligation to follow my strategy exactly; I am simply writing down what I did, when, and why (sometimes). My way is not the only way to play and/or win the game. Experiment, do things I may not have thought of, go off on your own path if you wish. There is no right or wrong way to play this game (well, technically I guess there is). Most of all, have fun! After all, if you're not going to have fun, why do it? Using this FAQ {INT002} o======================================================================o Below I will list some of the quirks, organizational methods, and various other tidbits that will help you navigate this guide. For starters, during the main FAQ I'll break up the various chapters and sections these rules during the FAQ.... mostly due to being scatter-brained and working on the FAQ in shifts over the course of time. This organizational scheme is mostly for consistency and ease-of-use; in other words, it's main purpose is to make life easier for me, and if it helps you as well... bonus! Items {INT003} o======================================================================o I'll list items found in containers - bookshelves, chests, environmental bodies, etc - in the ***ITEMS*** section; I'll also list the (x=, y=) coordinates where the container is found (you can check the coordinates at the current cursor position by pressing 'x'). The container could be quite large, but I try to find areas in the 10s or at least the 100s if possible. For example, I won't give you (x=1996, y=217) when I could give the coordinates (x=2000, y=200). Some items in containers may be variable; between patches items certainly change, but also different playthroughs can yield different results in the same container. Gold is always variable, so I'll just list the gold I found, this should give a general idea of what amount of gold you'll find, if not the exact amount. Also, enemies may drop different items in different play throughs. I'll record what I found, but you shouldn't be surprised if you find something different. This FAQ will attempt to discover and document these random item drops, if they exist; random items are noted by (~x), where x denotes on which playthrough the item was found. In the case of magical items, many have in-line descriptions, noted with a (*x). Traps {INT004} o======================================================================o I list the location of traps in a section similar to the items section. Except it's wisely called ***TRAPS***. I didn't bother recording what sort of trap it was, I intend to disarm traps I come across, and frankly, it's just too much of a bother determining the sort of trap. If you think you can figure out how to use traps to cause collateral damage, that's fine with me, I'll point as many out to you as I found. Depending on your party, and various other factors, you may or may not be able to discover these traps - just know that they are there, and act accordingly. Quests/Rewards {INT005} o======================================================================o When you get a quest reward, I'll note this under the ***REWARD*** section. Some of these are story-related and therefore obligatory. Others are optional. Either way, the experience gained from completing quests tends to be well worth the bother. So long as you follow the Sequence of Events, you shouldn't miss any of the quest rewards. Whether you choose to actually complete a quest in a rewarding fashion is another story, and out of my control. Modifications {INT006} o======================================================================o I am normally not a purest, and will apply almost all available mods to the game. In the interest of FAQ writing though, I restrained myself and only applied a few simple mods that will not change the game-play, but simply help out with inventory management. These are listed below: * Bottomless Bags of Holding * Bottomless Gem Bags * Bottomless Spell Cases * Bottomless Potion Cases As their names suggest, these mods remove the restrictions on how much crap each item can hold. In the basic game, there is a limit on how much stuff you can put in Bags of Holding, etc; by adding these mods, I can carry an unlimited amount in each. I normally install the auto-identify mod, to save time and more than a few spells. For this run-thru, however, I skipped it. There are a few other mods I would normally install as well, but felt that it was best to play the game as the writers intended, at least for the most part. Mods will change things - usually for the better - but can also introduce bugs and inconsistencies in the game. Mod at your own risk. o======================================================================o | | | 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons Mechanics | | | o======================================================================o Character Creation {DND001} o======================================================================o Below are some simple suggestions for creating characters in Icewind Dale II. Even if you're a veteran of 3rd Edition AD&D, you should familiarize yourself with this section, as not everything made its way from the books into this game... and this section will tell you how to make a playable, if not a super-awesome, power-gamey party (which is impossible in this game). Party Composition {DND002} o======================================================================o You need a Thief, you need a Cleric, you need a Fighter, and you need a Mage. You can be 'hardcore' and play with less than six characters, but it is not recommended. This version of the game does not allow dual or multi-class characters at the start, so choose your party makeup wisely. Feel free to make up whatever party you are comfortable with, provided you have at least one of each main type. I will describe the party I created after the next sections... Gender {DND003} o======================================================================o Gender in no way affects the game - the biggest draw for having a mixed gender party is that there are only so many portraits to go around. Unless, of course, you import your own. Get your hands on some Icewind Dale II portraits - some of them are rather nice. Also, they fit with the other generic portraits better than those created for other games, or generic, 'these will work in all games' portrait packs. Race {DND004} o======================================================================o Different Races gain different default attribute modifiers, so it is important to allow for this when creating a party. For example, you can spend one or two fewer points in Constitution if you're building a Dwarf, as they get an automatic +2 modifier to their Constitution; however, they also get a -2 modifier to Charisma, so are less suited to being the party leader. Further, some Races are not able to perform in certain Classes - these restrictions are listed in the game's character creation screens, and will eventually be added to the guide. In other words - pay attention to the details in the game screens! In this game, there are seven base Races, and many have several sub- races from which to choose; overall, there are a total of fourteen races. While the attribute modifiers for sub-races are generally the same, each does have its own unique features. As the purpose of this guide is to get thru the game, and not to teach the rules of the 3rd Edition AD&D rules, the current FAQ does not go into this level of detail about each race/sub-race. Complain if you want; submit the missing detail if you dare (I will include it in a future version, and give full credit). Basic Attribute Modifications by Race {DND005} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Each of these races/sub-races has other modifiers in addition to those listed below - these stats are the modifiers for basic attributes only (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma). Again, if you want to know the intimate details of the differences between races, read the damn screen. Human (plain): No modifiers Aasimar: +2 Wisdom, +2 Charisma Tiefling: +2 Intelligence, +2 Dexterity, -2 Charisma Shield Dwarf: +2 Constitution, -2 Charisma Gold Dwarf: +2 Constitution, -2 Dexterity Gray Dwarf: +2 Constitution, -4 Charisma Moon Elf: +2 Dexterity, -2 Constitution Drow Elf: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution Wild Elf: +2 Dexterity, -2 Intelligence Rock Gnome: +2 Constitution, -2 Strength Deep Gnome: +2 Dexterity, +2 Wisdom, -2 Strength, -4 Charisma All Halflings: +2 Dexterity, -2 Strength Class {DND006} o======================================================================o Nothing determines more about your character than their class, their profession, their job, their role. While I don't suggest too much diversity in the class department, I will at least cover all the possible classes here... albeit jokingly and mockingly. As with Race, each class may have sub-classes associated with it. And, also as with Race, I am not going to go into detail for the sub-classes in this version of the guide. Finally, as with everything else relating to this guide - deal with it and read the game screens, or submit the missing detail. Either way, shut up about it... Dual- and Multi-Classing {DND007} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> You cannot start the game as anything other than a single class (yes, even exotic races are restricted to a single class). This sucks, but it's the way the game is written, so deal with it... You will have the option to select from other classes as you level-up, and it is possible to create some very powerful multi-class characters as you progress, so plan accordingly. Another thing to note - races and classes also have a 'favored class'. If you dual to a non-favored class, you will suffer a major penalty to experience progression; as much as 20%. This will leave the character lagging WAY behind the rest of the party as you level up. o==========================o |Barbarian | {DND008} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d12 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Barbarians are strong, tough combatants, having the ability to go into a berserker rage to gain extra Strength and Constitution at the expense of Armor Class and some saving throws; they may do this once per day for every four levels of experience (1x/day at Level 1, 2x/day at Level 5, etc). Other special abilities are gained as the Barbarian gains levels; the details are in the character creation screens. o==========================o |Bard | {DND009} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d6 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> No matter what the game authors try to do with Bards, they still end up being a suck-fest. While they gain special abilities every two levels (1, 3, 5, etc), these abilities are basically useless in a combat-based game environment. They have little combat ability, and they gain spells at a slower rate than any other class. I have never had a Bard character in any game I have ever played, and likely never will. o==========================o |Cleric | {DND010} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d8 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> The Cleric is a spell caster who is more melee-capable, with mostly defensive, healing, and status-affecting spells. They might not have the sheer versatility of a Mage, but they've got a number of great spells. You'll need healing, disease and poison curing, and the extra spell-power is nice. Clerics also gain the ability to 'Turn Undead'. Essentially this ability pits the Cleric's level against an undead creature's Hit Dice, and the better the Cleric compares, the more likely they'll be able to turn (or even outright destroy) undead. This is a passive ability, so if you were... say... under the effects of an Invisibility spell, you could walk right into a horde of undead and obliterate them without anyone ever being the wiser. In IWD II, there are nine sub-classes of Cleric, based on their chosen god and/or temple. Each of these sub-classes grants some special ability of some kind - details can be found in the game screens. Note: Clerics may be restricted from certain spells, depending upon their alignments. See the game screens for more information. o==========================o |Druid | {DND011} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d8 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Druids are a lot like Clerics, but instead of worshiping gods they are typically animists and get their power from nature itself. How does that matter? It doesn't really. Their spells are more nature-focused, and honestly... well, in most respects they're worthy of contempt when it comes to divine spells. They gain access to the mighty Heal spell, as well as the potent 5th-level spell Insect Plague... however, one must keep in mind that unlike the Baldur's Gate 2 Insect Plague, the Icewind Dale version is not party friendly, and is a static, area-of-effect spell that harms all creatures within the swarm. All in all, a Druid is just not as good as a Cleric. At least in IWD II Druids can be more than just True Neutral, being able to choose any Neutral-combination alignment (NG, NE, LN, CN, or N). This really only matters when you find items that can only be worn by a particular alignment (usually Good). Personally I like Druids, if for nothing else than their unique spells, although Clerics are far more versatile, can wear heavier armor, and can use a wider variety of weapons. o==========================o |Fighter | {DND012} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d10 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Making your own Fighter is the easy choice for the first game, and frankly having a Fighter with 18 Strength, 18 Dexterity, and 18 Constitution will allow you to muscle through just about anything - too bad you can't do that in this game. Nevertheless, Fighters are the staple of RPG games, and no party can afford to be without at least one. You should ALWAYS max out the Strength attribute of your Fighters, and split the other points between Constitution (60%) and Dexterity (40%). o==========================o |Monk | {DND013} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d8 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> What can you say about the Monk? Well, here's something ... They are second only to Bards in how much they suck. They really only have one claim to fame - they are bare-fisted fighters and can stun an opponent by punching them. Woohoo... They eventually gain some fairly useful special feats, but it takes a long time for these to come to fruition (Level 7 or so...), and they are extremely susceptible to combat damage early on due to their inability to wear armor without losing what few abilities they do have. There are three sub-classes of Monk, each worse than the one before. o==========================o |Paladin | {DND014} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d10 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Originally a Fighter sub-class, Paladins are now their own separate class. Why, you ask? Who knows... Paladins are specialty religious warriors, and their three sub-classes reflect their beliefs (by being bound to the church of their particular deity). Note that this is not exactly alignment-specific, but rather ties to the focus of their god. Paladins do have the ability to cast divine spells; these spells are somewhat restricted by sub-class, and reflect their deity's area of specialization (pain/suffering, defender of the weak, or elimination of evil magic). I will have a Paladin as the leader of my sample party. o==========================o |Ranger | {DND015} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d10 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Another class that used to be a Fighter sub-class, Rangers are also now afforded their own separate class. While they do not have sub-classes, they are similar to Paladins in that they gain the ability to cast some spells (Druid spells, mostly). They are more restricted in their armor and weapon selection, but their extra feats to start out mostly make up for this. I will also have a Ranger in my party. o==========================o |Rogue | {DND016} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d6 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> The Thieves of old, their name-change hasn't had any effect on what they can do or how they fit into a party. In other words, you MUST have one of these, or you will be screwed. In previous games, you could create a dual- or multi-class Rogue (the Mage/Thief was a fairly powerful party member), which added a great deal of variety and functionality to this class, but as it stands in IWD II, you have to start as a plain Rogue. Oh well, we can dual-class later when the need arises... The Rogue isn't as combat savvy as the Cleric, and they don't have spells. What's the draw then? Their thieving abilities. These allow them to pick pockets, find and disarm traps, open locked objects, and hide from enemies. Of these skills, two are essential (finding and removing traps), so a Rogue is required in any party. As for combat, they can only wear the lightest armors, but they do have access to a variety of weapons. Most importantly, as they gain levels they get the ability to backstab. If they are hidden and attack an enemy, they do extra damage; this extra damage increases with the Rogue's level. o==========================o |Sorcerer | {DND017} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d4 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Similar to Wizards, these are the magic-spewing staples of every role playing game party. The main difference? They do not memorize spells in the same way as Wizards, and can cast more spells per level (and cast them faster as well). Sorcerers do not have to prepare spells ahead of time, but rather have an inate ability to learn and use magic. The down side? They gain fewer spells per level than Wizards, otherwise they are pretty much the same. Oh, and they use Charisma, not Intelligence, as their primary attribute. I don't know why... o==========================o |Wizard | {DND018} o==========================o Hit points per Level: d4 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Wizards learn spells by studying magic written on scrolls, and must take time to scribe these spells into their spellbooks. While they can learn spells faster, they take longer to cast than do Sorcerers. In addition to the 'normal' Wizard, there are eight specializations that Wizards may optionally select from, each tied to a particular school of magic. These specializations restrict the spells that a particular specialist Wizard can learn/cast, and essentially nerf them into a less useful character. Alignment {DND019} o======================================================================o Some equipment cannot be used by some alignments, and if you're a Cleric, your alignment may limit what spells you can cast. Also, a few dialogue options differ depending on your alignment (which I try to note as much as possible throughout the guide). There is, however, a clear consensus in terms of power - make a party full of good-aligned characters. Evil Clerics cannot cast Heal-a huge prohibition. Good Clerics lose out on Harm and Destruction, nice spells, but not essential like Heal. Neutral Clerics cannot cast some of the higher level alignment-based spells (but they can cast all the lower-level spells from either alignment). In general, playing a good-aligned party will make your life easier. The party I use in my playthrough will, in general, be good-aligned - mixing Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Note that alignment choices may affect which gods/temples your Clerics and other deity-specific classes may choose from. Abilities {DND020} o======================================================================o You do not roll your attributes in this game; rather, you get a base score and a number of points to distribute as you see fit. This, my friends, is the most F'd up way to create characters that the designers of the game ever came up with. Gone are the 18/90+ Strengths with Constitution and Dexterity to match; gone are the uber-powerful parties where everyone has super attributes in multiple ability areas. No... now we're just normal people with somewhat elevated abilities in one or two areas. "But, it's more realistic this way", you say? Drop dead... We want to be gods! Gods, I tell you! Ahem... Okay, enough ranting. You will have a total of 76 points to spread around - a base of 10 in each attribute to start (plus or minus Racial modifiers), and 16 to add to the various scores. As you level up you will have opportunities to add points to your abilities as well, so it pays to set a score at one less than is needed for the next bonus. Strength {DND021} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> If you're a Fighter, you must have a high Strength score - period. As the designers have seen fit to do away with exceptional strength (the old 18/xx scoring system), 18 is the best you can do, unless you get some racial modifier or magical enhancement. The table below shows the effect of Strength scoring on weight limits (how much crap you can carry), as well as your ability to force locks and doors, and melee attacks (collectively, Combat Adjustments): o=======o=======o=======o | Score |Combat | Weight| | |Adjust.| Limit | o=======o=======o=======o | 1 | -5 | 16 | | 2-3 | -4 | 40 | | 4-5 | -3 | 240 | | 6-7 | -2 | 480 | | 8-9 | -1 | 800 | | 10-11 | 0 | 1120 | | 12-13 | +1 | 1240 | | 14-15 | +2 | 1920 | | 16-17 | +3 | 2560 | | 18-19 | +4 | 3440 | | 20-21 | +5 | 4560 | | 22-23 | +6 | 6000 | | 24-25 | +7 | 8000 | | 26-27 | +8 | 10400 | | 28-29 | +9 | 14000 | | 30 | +10 | 16000 | o=======o=======o=======o Dexterity {DND022} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This affects your Armor Class, and your adjustment for missile weapons and Reflex Saving Throws. Every character should try get at least a 14 Dexterity for the armor class modifier, although this is usually not possible. o=======o========o | |Missile,| | | Armor, | | Note: Your Dexterity will also affect your Thieving abilities... if you are a Rogue, of course. Wouldn't that make them Roguing abilities? Constitution {DND023} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This gives you Hit Points. Hit points are good. They tell you how much damage you can sustain before dying. Dying is bad - you should do all that you can to avoid this. Constitution also effects your Fortitude Saving Throws. o=======o=========o | |Hit Point| | Intelligence {DND024} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> In addition to being the required stat for Wizards (but not Sorcerers), this also affects your Skill points. If you're creating a Wizard, make this an 18; if not, you still cannot simply ignore this attribute. You should never lower this below 10, unless you are willing to give up skills, and there is absolutely no choice. Note that there is a quest in Chapter 3 that requires an Intelligence score of at least 16, so if you don't have a Wizard (Sorcerers don't count), you will need to hand out a higher score to someone or lose out on the quest. Wisdom {DND025} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> The same as Intelligence is for Wizards, Wisdom is for Clerics, Druids, Rangers, and Paladins. And, as with Wizards, this score will effect things beyond just spell abilities. However, for some classes it is a totally useless stat, so lowering it a lot is an option. Charisma {DND026} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Charisma affects NPC reactions to you and determines shop prices; for Bards and Sorcerers it also affects your spell abilities, so it's a dump stat for everybody except else. Bards and Sorcereres should get no less than a 16 in it. A high Charisma score is also important for the party leader (the character who will talk to NPCs throughout the game), as it will affect how they react to you and the price you will pay in stores. o=======o========o========o========o================o | | Spell | | |Bonus Spells per | | | and | Price | Max | Spell Level | | Score | Skill |Modifier| Spell |1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9| | |Modifier| | Level |1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9| o=======o========o========o========o================o | 1 | -5 | +15% | - |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 2-3 | -4 | +12% | - |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 4-5 | -3 | +9% | - |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 6-7 | -2 | +6% | - |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 8-9 | -1 | +3% | - |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 10 | 0 | - | - |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 11 | 0 | - | 1st |0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 12 | +1 | -3% | 2nd |1/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 13 | +1 | -3% | 3rd |1/0/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 14 | +2 | -6% | 4th |1/1/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 15 | +2 | -6% | 5th |1/1/0/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 16 | +3 | -9% | 6th |1/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 17 | +3 | -9% | 7th |1/1/1/0/0/0/0/0/0| | 18 | +4 | -12% | 8th |1/1/1/1/0/0/0/0/0| | 19 | +4 | -12% | 9th |1/1/1/1/0/0/0/0/0| | 20-21 | +5 | -15% | 9th |2/1/1/1/1/0/0/0/0| | 22-23 | +6 | -18% | 9th |2/2/1/1/1/1/0/0/0| | 24-25 | +7 | -21% | 9th |2/2/2/1/1/1/1/0/0| | 26-27 | +8 | -24% | 9th |2/2/2/2/1/1/1/1/0| | 28-29 | +9 | -27% | 9th |3/2/2/2/2/1/1/1/1| | 30 | +10 | -30% | 9th |3/3/2/2/2/2/1/1/1| o=======o========o========o=======o=================o Hit Points {DND027} o======================================================================o You run out of Hit Points, and you die - it's that simple. Hit points are important. As your characters progress and gain levels, they also gain hit points. In combat, pay attention to how many hit points your characters have left, and don't hesitate to pull them back out of the fray to heal if necessary. Armor Class {DND028} o======================================================================o Unlike in the "real" AD&D worlds, this game sees fit to do the exact opposite of what every gamer knows to be the right way to calculate armor class. In this game, higher is better; a higher armor class makes it harder to hit you in combat. Armor raises your armor class (AC), as do many magical items. In general, you want to take as much advantage of these AC modifying items as you possibly can. Keep in mind that some items may not stack with others (that is, you can use one or the other, but not both, on the same character at the same time). I will attempt to note instances of this in the guide as I find items. Saving Throws {DND029} o======================================================================o This is another area where they just couldn't leave well enough alone. No longer do you save versus Spells, etc; now you have Fortitude, Reflex, and Will Saves. I hate the 3rd Edition rules... Paraphrased from the manual: Fortitude: These saves measure your ability to withstand physical punishmnent, as well as poison, paralysis, and death magic. Reflex: These saves test your ability to dodge massive attacks, or area effect spells like Fireball, etc. Will: This is your resistence to mind-effecting magic. Skills {DND030} o======================================================================o Alchemy: the ability to combine ingredients to make potions, etc. This is important for a couple of quests, and one character will need a high Alchemy skill or you'll miss out on a couple of things in the game. I usually give this skill to my Sorcerer/Wizard. This skill is based on Intelligence, and can only be used by someone who is trained in it. Animal Empathy: only available to Druids and Rangers, this skill allows the character to quiet guard dogs, or delay attacks by hostile animals. I generally don't bother with this unless I have an extra point to hand out and nowhere else to put it. Bluff: a high Bluff skill is essential at many points in the game, and at least one character should build this throughout the course of their 'life'. This skill is based on Charisma, and should definitely be one of the skills for the party leader, as well as anyone who will regularly talk to NPC's. Concentration: this skill is a must-have for all spellcasters; it allows them to cast spells in the midst of combat with less chance of failure due to enemy attacks. It's a total waste for non-spellcasters, but for Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Wizards, and to a lesser extent Paladins and Rangers, it is absolutely essential. Diplomacy: another essential skill for the party leader, and others who will converse with NPC's. There are a couple places in the game where this will have a huge impact on the direction of the game, and how much experience you will get out of particular encounter. Disable Device: if your Rogue cannot disable traps, you're screwed; it's as simple as that. Therefore, this is an essential skill for your Rogue character, and a throwaway for everyone else. Continue to build this skill throughout the game, as the traps get more difficult as you get further along. Hide: I'm torn on this skill. On the one hand, it allows you to become temporarily invisible, and in combination with Move Silently can enable you to sneak past groups of enemies, or get into position to Backstab. On the other hand, this is only useful once or twice during the game, and except for one case it's kind of a waste. That one case, however, is the difference in several thousand experience points, so I usually end up giving several points to my Rogue. Intimidate: after much trial and error, I discovered that having both a high Diplomacy and a high Intimidate score on the same character can be a bad thing - they tend to cancel each other out at some point. However, it is important to have a character with a high Intimidate score for a couple of encounters, so pick a secondary character and bump this up a little bit. Knowledge (Arcana): while it won't eliminate the need to have the spell Identify memorized, it will make it less needed as the skill increases. With a high K(A) skill, you can identify some magical items that you find along the way without using up memorized spells. This container, you lose out on the contents within; if you can't open a locked door, well, you're fucked. Your Rogue should build this skill throughout the game. Pick Pocket: here's another one I'm kind of torn on. While there are a lot of fairly nice items that can be gained thru thievery, you will end up taking points away from other skills to build this one. I usually build this on my Rogue for the first couple of levels, then ignore it in favor of other, more useful skills. Search: okay, this one should be easy to figure out - if you can't find that trap, then you can't disarm it, right? But it's more than that... Secret Doors, hidden items, all kinds of things rely on having a high Search skill. Your Rogue should be building this at every opportunity. Spellcraft: if you're a Wizard, you must build this in order to learn new spells. A higher skill decreases the chance of failure when you want to scribe a new spell into your spellbook. For non-spellcasters, this is a throw-away skill. Use Magic Device: some characters cannot use some items - scrolls and wands are not meant for non-spellcasters, for example. This skill will allow them to use those forbidden items, or makes the item more powerful for those who may use it. Wilderness Lore: at the beginning of each new area, you can use this skill to find out things that may lie ahead - monsters that inhabit the area, things like that. Since you have this guide, this is a totally useless skill, and I almost never build it unless it's simply to use up spare points. Feats {DND031} o======================================================================o Aegis of Rime: grants a permanent 5 cold resistance, and a 20% increase in cold damage. The cold resistance is nice for several areas, but there are other ways to achieve the same effect. And, since I tend to use fire based spells and attacks, the bonuses are a waste. Ambidexterity: if you plan to have a character use two weapons, you MUST have this feat. This, combined with Two-Weapon Fighting, can create a melee powerhouse. Aqua Mortis: simiar to the Aegis of Rime feat, this one applies to Acid. Again, nice, but not essential. Armor Proficiency: now here is a feat that is a must-have for almost everyone. Fighters, Clerics, and anyone who will anythig more than a Robe or Leather Armor, you absolutely have to have e points in this feat or you will suffer penalties to Armor Checks, Rogue abilities, and other skills. Armored Arcana: If you want to cast spells while wearing armor, you have to have this feat. Armor, shields, and other items may interfere with your spell-casting ability; this feat reduces the penalty by 5% for each level you put into it. If you're not a spellcaster, you can ignore this entirely. Arterial Strike: only usable by Rogues, it allows them to deal more damage on a sneak attack by sacrificing damage done from the main attack. So, for example, if you sneak attack an enemy, you can do slightly less immediate damage, but cause a bleeding wound that will inflict more damage over time. If you're into backstabbing, this is a very nice feat to have. Blind-Fight: this feat reduces or eliminates the bonus that hidden or invisible foes get when attacking you. It can be useful in several situations, but I generally ignore this in favor of more offensive focused feats. Bullheaded: available only to Humans and Dwarves, this feat grants a bonus +1 to Will Saves, and a +2 to Intimidate checks. Nice to have for a fighter-type; almost usless for others. Cleave: this feat is cool - if you deal enough damage in a round to kill your opponent, you get an automatic second attack against another enemy within range. This applies to melee only, and you cannot move to use the extra attack, but it can make a big difference in some melee combat situations. Taking two points in this feat allows to to use it unlimited time per combat round. Combat Casting: this gives a +4 bonus to Concentration checks when you try to cast spells while sustaining damage. This is a must-have for all spellcasters. Courteous Magocracy: grants a +2 bonus to all Diplomacy and Spellcraft checks. A good thing for party leaders who are also spellcasters. Crippling Strike: you will get this option as a 10th level Rogue, but unless you use Sneak Attack often it's kind of a waste. On a successful sneak attack, this feat causes 1 point of temporary Strength damage to your opponent (lowers their Strength by 1). Dash: you move 15% faster than normal - big deal. Deflect Arrows: a +1 bonus vs missile fire. Nice, but not great. Dirty Fighting: on a critical hit, this feat has a 50% chance to cause Blindness or 50% chance to Slow the opponent for five rounds. While it will not effect Undead, Golems, or Elementals, it can totally ruin a more normal creature's day. The do get a Fortitude check to negate the effect, but it's still a nice feat. Discipline: another nice feat, this grants +1 to Will Saves, and +2 to Contentration checks. Dodge: a +1 dodge bonus to armor class Envenom Weapon: basically, allows the character to create a temporary poisoned weapon. A hit from an envenomed weapon forces a Fortitude check on the opponent; failure causes a 1d6 loss of Constitution. This check happens twice - for two consecutive rounds - with a potential total of 2d6 ability scoree loss. It is only available to Rogues, and they must have an Alchemy skill of 8 or more. Exotic Weapon, Bastard Sword: allows you to use Bastard Swords as a one-handed weapon with no penalties. A second rank grants a +1 attack, and a third rank adds +2 to damage. There are a few nice bastard swords to be found during the game, and if you plan to use them this is a must have feat. Expertise: this is the first of a couple of confusing feats. In melee, you can subtract your base attack bonus and add it to your armor class as a dodge bonus (up to +5); this lasts only until your next action. I suppose this could be useful if you are planning to attack and then run the hell away (as in a retreat situation), but really it just seems silly to me. Extra Rage: allows a Barbarian to use their rage ability an extra time each day. May be taken 3 times (therefor granting 3 extra rages/day). Extra Wild Shape: this grants a 3+ level Druid the ability to shape change an extra time (up to 3) per day. Extra Smiting: a level 2 or greater Paladin can use Smite Evil up to three extra times per day. Extra Turning: yes, this does exactly what you'd expect. Clerics and Paladins can use their Turn Undead ability up to 3 extra times per day. Fiendslayer: if you decide to play a Paladin up thru 8th level, you will get the option to choose this feat. It grants a +2 bonus to hit and to damage vs Chimerii, Demons, Dragons, and Half-Dragons. I've never had a Paladin advance this far (I always dual-class fairly early), but there are some places later in the game where this could be a huge advantage. Forester: grants a +2 bonus to Wilderness Lore Checks. Whoopee... Great Fortitude: make your Fortitude saves at +2. Could be handy Hamstring: a Rogue can give up 2d6 points of sneak attack damage in favor of slowing their target by 50% for 10 rounds. Blah... Heretic's Bane: you must be able to cast Divine spells to get this (so Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, or Druid), and have a base attack bonus of +4 or greater (so Strength of 18 or more); this grants you a +1 to hit and to damage vs opponents who are Clerics or Druids. Heroic Inspiration: if (when) your hit points drop below 50%, you get an automatic +1 bonus to hit, to damamge, and to all saving throws. This is only available to Barbarians, Bards, and Paladins. Improved Critical: you must have a base attack bonus of +8 to get this; it grants an increase of 1 to weapon range. Improved Evasion: Rogue level 10+, it allows only half damage when you fail a saving throw vs damage causing spells or effects (fireballs, breath weapons, etc). Improved Initiative: weapon speed and casting times are reduced by one. (I have read in other guides and documents that this is broken in the game, but I cannot say this from personal experience.) Improved Turning: upon a successful undead turning, the character may turn an additional 2 hit dice of undead. Iron Will: a +2 bonus to Will saves Lightning Reflexes: a +2 bonus to Reflex saves Lingering Song: the effects of a Bard's song last for an extra 2 rounds Luck of Heroes: a +1 luck bonus to all saving throws Martial Weapon, <xxx>: all Martial Weapon feats are the same, except for which weapon it applies to. If you want to use a weapon, you must have some proficiency in it or suffer a -4 attack penalty. A single rank will allow you to use the weapon with no penalty, a second rank grants a +1 to hit, and a third rank adds a +2 to damage. Maximized Attacks: if you have at least 4 points in Concentration and Weapon Specialization (2 ranks) in at least two weapons, you can choose this feat. It's only usable one time per day, but it allows you to deal out maximum damage on all successful hits for 10 seconds. Awesome for fighter-types; useless for others. Mercantile Background: Humans, Deep Gnomes, or Grey Dwarves get a 5% discount on purchases and a 5% mark-up on sales at stores. I have never used this. Power Attack: another confusing feat, it allows you to subtract a number from your attack roll and add it to damage for a round (melee only). I guess this could come in handy against a dangerous opponent that has reached the 'Almost Dead' status, but really it seems kind of pointless to me. Precise Shot: this is nice for your ranged weapon characters; it will reduce the penalty for ranged attacks in close quarters from -8 to -4. Rapid Shot: characters using ranged weapons can make one extra attack per round, although the attacks suffer a penlaty of -2 to hit. Resist Poison: Gray Dwarves and Half-Orcs get a +4 bonus to Fortitude saves vs poison. They only get the opportunity to take this feat as a new character (1st level). Scion of Storms: electrical resistance of 5, plus 20% bonus to all electrical damage done. Shield Proficiency: Duh... You are able to use a shield. If you plan to use a shield, you should take this. Simple Weapon, <xxx>: same as Martial Weapon specializations, this is for a different set of weapon types. Almost everyone is proficient with simple weapons to start out. Slippery Mind: Rogue level 10+, this allows you an extra saving throw in the next round if affected by Charm, Command, or similar spells. Snake Blood: for humans only, you get a +2 bonus to Fortitude saves vs poison, and a +1 bonus to all Reflex saving throws. Only available to new characters (level 1). Spell Focus, <xxx>: the same for all four spell types, it grants a +2 bonus to the saving throw difficulty for spells from the chosen class. This essentially amounts to a -2 penalty to your opponent. Selecting a second rank grants a +4 (-4). Spell Penetration: a +2 bonus to magic resistance checks; a second rank gives you a +4 bonus. This is very nice to have later in the game. Spirit of Flame: guess what this does - go ahead, guess... Yep, you got it - fire resistance of 5, 20% increase to fire damage inflicted. Of all the elemental-based feats, this one is actually useful (at least for me, as I use fire-based attacks a LOT). Strong Back: 50% increase to weight limit. Everyone should have this. Stunning Attack: you must have DEX and WIS scores of 13+ and a base attack bonus of +8 or more to get this feat, and it only usable with unarmed atacks. When used, your opponent must make a Fortitude saving throw using a stupid formula or be stunned for one round. If stunned, they lose their Dexterity bonus, and you get a +2 bonus to your attack roll(s) while they are stunned. Only Monks could really make any real use of this feat, as most other characters will have weapons and not be attacking unarmed. Subvocal Casting: allows spellcasters to ignore Silence spells Toughness: grants you an additional 3 hit points permanently, for each rank you take. Two-Weapon Fighting: this allows a 2 point reduction to the penalty for fighting with two weapons. Combined with Ambidexterity, this can really turn a fighter-type into a melee machine (at the expense of the armor class bonus for a shield, of course). Weapon Finesse: if you have a high DEX and low STR, and normally use small blades (daggers, short swords, etc), you can choose to use your Dexterity bonus instead of your Strength bonus for an attack modifier. Wild Shape <xxx>: allows a Druid of the requisite level to assume the named shape. I have nver taken this, as these are useless compared to the regular wild shapes that Druids get anyway. o======================================================================o | | | My Party {PTY001} | | | o======================================================================o Based on some situations that will come up during play, there are a few things to keep in mind when creating your party. You will require at least one character with a Constitution of 16 or higher; one with an Intelligence of 16 or higher; another with a Charisma of 16+; one with skill points in Alchemy; you will need either a Dwarf or a Halfling for one area; and things like that. This party went thru at least eight revisions (including having to play thru the game as many times) to discover all these various requirements, and the party make-up below reflects that. Again, you can make whatever party you feel good about; this is simply what I did, based on experience. o======================================================================o K'aos Reynes Lawful Good Aasimar, Male, Paladin of Mystra {PTY002} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Armor Class: 10 Hit Points: 10 Strength: 16 (+3) Dexterity: 11 Constitution: 11 Intelligence: 16 (+3) Wisdom: 10 Charisma: 16 (+3) Skills Bluff: 5 (2) Concentration: 2 Diplomacy: 5 (2) Intimidate: 5 (2) Knowledge (Arcana) 4 (1) Search: 3 Spellcraft 4 (1) Feats- Armor Proficiency: 3 K'aos will be my party leader and main melee fighter, so I needed to give him higher Strength and Charisma. He will only be a Paladin for a few levels, so a high Wisdom score was not essential; however, being a Paladin of Mystra, I will dual him to Wizard after a couple levels, hence the higher Intelligence score. I would have liked to bump STR, INT, and WIS to 18, but I wasn't willing to lower his other scores enough to do that. DEX gives him a slight AC bonus, and CON gives him better hit points; both are important for fighter-types, and will get bumped up early His Skill selections are initially focused in communication areas, and he took the Strong Back feat so he can carry more crap. o======================================================================o Ghrax Neutral Good Aasimar, Male, Ranger {PTY003} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Armor Class: 13 Hit Points: 13 Strength: 18 (+4) Dexterity: 17 (+3) Constitution: 17 (+3) Intelligence: 3 (-4) Wisdom: 20 (+5) Charisma: 5 (-3) Skills- Concentration: 5 (2) Hide: 3 (0) Move Silently: 3 (0) Wilderness Lore: 7 (2) Feats- Armor Proficiency: 2 As a Ranger, he will end up being the 'tough guy' in the party - hence his increased Strength; Dexterity and Constitution will help with Armor Class and Hit points respectively. Because he will eventually gain Druid spells he also got maxed out in Wisdom. I do not plan to dual class him, so his future abilities will go to DEX, CON, and STR, in that order. Skills went into Concentration, and Wilderness Lore; I also gave him the Strong Back feat so that he can carry 50% more crap. His initial choice of a favored enemy went to Goblins; Orcs will come next. o======================================================================o Ilana Chaotic Good Drow, Female, Cleric (Battleguard of Tempus) {PTY004} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Gotta have a Cleric in the party, so here she is. She got max points in Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom, and I gave her a few extra points to Constitution because she will be a front-liner. She can't really make use of the available Skills except for Concentration, so lowering her Intelligence won't hurt anything. Skill points go into Concentration and Spellcraft, and she gets the Strong Back feat so she can help share the load of all the loot we're gonna acquire. o======================================================================o Xanth Chaotic Good Drow, Male, Sorcerer {PTY005} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Armor Class: 13 Hit Points: 7 Strength: 13 (+1) Dexterity: 15 (+3) Constitution: 16 (+3) Intelligence: 12 (+1) Wisdom: 3 (-4) Charisma: 20 (+5) Skills- Alchemy: 4 Bluff: 4 (0) Concentration: 4 (2) Diplomacy: 4 (0) Hide: 2 (0) Intimidate: 4 (0) Knowledge (Arcana): 1 Move Silently: 2 (0) Search: 2 (0) Spellcraft: 1 Feats- Armor Proficiency: 1 Martial Weapon, Bow: 1 Martial Weapon, Large Sword: 1 Simple Weapon, Crossbow: 1 Simple Weapon, Mace: 1 Simple Weapon, Missile: 1 Simple Weapon, Quarterstaff: 1 Simple Weapon, Small Blade: 1 Now this is a Mage... or, more accurately, a Sorcerer. While he doesn't have a lot of spell power yet (only knowing two spells), I plan on him becoming a powerhouse as he progresses. Adding the maximum available points to Charisma means that he is as powerful a Mage as I can build, while still allowing me to add points to Dexterity and Constitution to prevent him from being a target in combat. He gets skill points in Alchemy for a specific quest in Chapter 4, and the rest in Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft. I put his feat point into Armor Proficiency, and will add Armored Arcana to help reduce the casting penalty that comes with wearing armor. After getting him the Combat Casting feat at the first opportunity, I will continue to add Armored Arcana as he progresses, adding Spell Penetration once he maxes out in that. For Spells, he chooses Magic Missile and Identify. o======================================================================o Quala Thurmbrecker Chaotic Good Strongheart Halfling, Female, Rogue {PTY006} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Armor Class: 15 Hit Points: 6 Strength: 10 Dexterity: 20 (+5) Constitution: 10 Intelligence: 15 (+2) Wisdom: 3 (-4) Charisma: 18 (+4) Skills- Bluff: 4 (0) Concentration: 2 Diplomacy: 4 (0) Disable Device: 6 (4) Hide: 5 (0) Intimidate: 4 (0) Knowledge (Arcana) 3 (1) Move Silently: 9 (0) Open Lock: 9 (4) Pick Pocket 9 (4) Search: 6 (4) Spellcraft: 3 (1) Feats- Armor Proficiency: 2 Martial Weapon, Bow: 1 Simple Weapon, Crossbow: 1 Simple Weapon, Mace: 1 Simple Weapon, Missile: 1 Simple Weapon, Quarterstaff: 1 Simple Weapon, Small Blade: 1 Strong Back I plan to dual Quala to a Sorceress later on, so I raised her score in Charisma (otherwise this would be totally useless). As a Rogue, she requires maximum Dexterity. The extra INT points will give her extra Skill points to allocate, so it's worth using them here. Wisdom is totally useless for her, so I lowered it completely to get the important stats up to the level she needs. For skills, everything went first into thieving areas: Disable Device, Open Lock, Pick Pocket, and Search; the leftover points go into Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft (for when she duals to Sorceress). In feats, I gave her Strong Back as well. o======================================================================o Fhornal Neutral Good Aasimar, Male, Druid {PTY007} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Now I know what you're going to say (well, I don't really, but it sounds impressive) - Druids are useless. I disagree... They get the healing abilities of Clerics, and a whole range of offensive spells that simply aren't available in other classes. Another Aasimar, I take advantage of the extra Wisdom to max him out for spell power, and since he'll be another ranged weapon character (add the Simple Weapon, Crossbow feat) I give him some extra points in Dexterity. Several extra points to Constitution will help keep him healthy. Because he will never have to talk to anyone, and will remain a pure class, he doesn't need Charisma. Pre-built Parties {PTY008} o======================================================================o The game comes equipped with a few pre-built parties to choose from, and if you're so inclined, feel free to select one to save some time. Each of these parties has its strengths and weaknesses, and a brief summary and recommendation of each is included below. Lady's Lament Party <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This party is led by a Human Bard, accompanied by a Half-Orc Fighter, a Half-Orc Barbarian, a Human Cleric (Painbearer of Ilmater), a Drow Sorcerer, and a Lightfoot Halfling Rogue. Their ability scores are all pretty much average, although the Fighter has a Strength of 20 and the Rogue has a Dexterity of 20. Not much to recommend here - as soon as I saw the Bard, I moved on. Sisters of the Blood <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This is an all female party, led by a Drow-Elf Cleric (Silverstar of Selunel). She has with her a couple of strong fighters (one of which is a Barbarian with a 20 Strength). Their primary spell-caster, however, is a Gnome Illusionist, and although she has an 18 Intelligence I simply cannot stand Gnomes or Illusionists, so this one is right out for me. The Winter Rose <----------------------------------------------------------------------> My god - these parties just keep getting worse and worse. This one has an Aasimar Paladin of Helm with a 16 Strength and 18 Charisma in the lead, but the rest of the group just blows. A Gnome Rogue (strike 1), a Half-Elf Druid, a Tiefling Monk (strike 2), a Moon Elf Bard (Strike 3), and a Lightfoot Halfling Wizard round out this piece of crap. Did anyone notice that they only have one real fighter? Skip this motley crew... Annals of Halgren <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This party is better, but only slightly. Their leader is a Dwarf Fighter with an 18 Strength, and the Cleave and Power Attack skills, so that isn't bad. The Human Ranger also sports an 18 Strength, but has Feats in Bows and Large Swords; now that's just stupid. If you want to give him both melee and missile capabilities, lower his Strength to 16 and raise his Dexterity a couple more points. A Dwarf Cleric, Tiefling Monk, Human Sorcerer, and Half-Elf Rogue round out the group. None of them has any real exceptional abilities, skills, or feats, so you can safely skip this party as well. The Hands of Fury <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This is the requisite evil party, and arguably the best of the pre-made parties from which to choose. Led by a Human Cleric (Stormlord of Talos) and backed by a decent array of fighter-types and spellcasters, they might actually be worth playing. They do have their drawbacks though; for a Cleric to only have a Wisdom score of 14 seems a little weak to me, and their Rogue only has a Dexterity of 10(!). Really? Still, they do have a fairly balanced class make-up with three fighters, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Druid. In the end, I believe that creating your own custom party is the best way to play this game, but do as you will. o======================================================================o | | | Alternate Party Strategies | | | o======================================================================o The 4 Character Party {APTY01} o======================================================================o It is possible to play, and win, the game with a party of less than the maximum of 6 characters. There are some advantages to this, in that the party members will gain levels faster, and therefore become far more powerful far quicker. This strategy is not recommended until/unless you have played the game to the end several times - including at least once at the hardest difficulty setting. It is a whole new level of challenge to attempt this, and will change your strategy and tactics quite a lot. For one thing, I kept all the characters single-classed thru the entire game; for another, their abilities, skills, and feats were handed out with more focus on their sole role in the party. My 4 character party is made up as follows: o======================================================================o K'aos Reynes Chaotic Neutral Aasimar, Male, Cleric (Battleguard of Tempus) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Armor Class: 10 Hit Points: 10 Strength: 16 (+3) Dexterity: 12 (+1) Constitution: 12 (+1) Intelligence: 12 (+1) Wisdom: 18 (+4) Charisma: 10 (+0) Skills- Bluff: 1 Concentration: 5 (4) Diplomacy: 2 Hide: 1 (0) Move Silently: 1 (0) Search: 1 (0) Wilderness Lore: 4 (0) Feats- Armor Proficiency: 3 Martial Weapon, Axe: 2 Shield Proficiency Simple Weapon, Crossbow: 1 Simple Weapon, Mace: 1 Simple Weapon, Missile: 1 Simple Weapon, Quarterstaff: 1 Simple Weapon, Small Blade: 1 Strong Back The Build-As-You-Go Party {APTY02} o======================================================================o This strategy takes the 'best of both worlds' approach - starting out with a short-handed party and building it up to the max of 6 characters thru the first several sections. This allows the starting characters to advance more quickly, at the expense of later characters lagging behind for the remainder of the game. This strategy can be done several ways; I started with a single character for WLK001, then added another at the start of WLK002, two more at the start of WLK003, and the last two just before leaving for Shaengarne Ford (WLK004). This made the first three sections quite interesting, and it took a few tries to figure out the best way to build the party. The characters were pretty much the same build as I had made for other plays, but were created and added at the later times. With the exception of Quala, I also kept a single-classed party when using this strategy (Quala dualed to Sorceress after hitting level 3 as a Rogue, then alternated for the rest of the game). Added at Start (WLK001) Added at WLK002 Added at WLK003 o======================================================================o Ilana Chaotic Good Drow, Female, Cleric (Battleguard of Tempus) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Added at WLK003 Added at WLK004 o======================================================================o Fhornal Neutral Good Aasimar, Male, Druid <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Added at WLK004 o======================================================================o K'aos Reynes Chaotic Neutral Half-Orc, Male, Fighter <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Armor Class: 12 Hit Points: 10 Strength: 20 (+5) Dexterity: 18 (+4) Constitution: 18 (+4) Intelligence: 10 (+0) Wisdom: 7 (-2) Charisma: 5 (-5) Skills- Concentration: 4 (0) Hide: 4 (0) Intimidate: 0 (4) Move Silently: 4 (0) Feats- Armor Proficiency: 3 Martial Weapon, Axe: 1 Martial Weapon, Bow: 1 Martial Weapon, Flail: 1 Martial Weapon, Great Sword: 2 Martial Weapon, Hammer: 1 Martial Weapon, Large Sword: 2 Martial Weapon, Polearm: 1 Shield Proficiency Simple Weapon, Crossbow: 1 Simple Weapon, Mace: 1 Simple Weapon, Missile: 1 Simple Weapon, Quarterstaff: 1 Simple Weapon, Small Blade: 1 Strong Back o======================================================================o | Prologue | o======================================================================o | | | Arrival in Targos | | | o======================================================================o 1. The Arrival 2. Two Hands a-Laying 3. Looting the Corpses 4. More Free Gear 5. Aah! Goblins! 6. Fruit of the Vine 7. The Cat-Lady of Targos 8. More Goblins 9. A Lesson in Traps 10. Salty Dogs 11. Jorun the Shit... err... Shipbuilder 12. And Still More Free Crap 13. Barrel Hunting 14. Healing Reig 15. Lockpicking for Fun and Profit 16. Goblins and Dead Cats 17. Goblin Caves 18. Clearing the Docks 19. Obtaining the Wolf Charm 20. Returning the Feline Corpse Targos Docks (AR1000) {WLK001} o======================================================================o 1) Your adventure begins with your arrival at the docks. Hedron Kerdos will mouth off a bit about you being defenders of some kind, and give you a chance to change your mind. You can ask him about the state of things, and where to find a few places and people in town, but his information is sketchy at best. Thank him - there's no reason for us to be rude - and exit the ship onto the pier. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Head west, and at the end of the pier you will be accosted by Reig Redwaters, who thinks he's a guard of some kind. He'll tell you about Goblins, and mention that there are weapons scattered about if you want to search the dead bodies. He'll also give you a short sword, because he "can't use it". Accept the gift and ask for his armor, which he'll also hand over. Next, ask for Brohn's equipment, which he'll give you as well. Finally, ask about his arm (which is why he couldn't use his sword any more). If you have a Paladin in your party, offer to help heal his arm, then use your 'Lay On Hands' feat to partially heal his wounds. You can also talk to Honest Jon, who will give you a dagger. ***REWARD*** (For aiding Reig) EXP 300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Before we go off Goblin hunting, let's better equip ourselves, shall we? You should have managed to get a Short Sword, two suits of leather armor, two daggers, a helmet, and a handaxe; just north of Reig is another Short Sword (don't worry, there's a lot more coming). Spread these items around the party - I give a leather armor, the helmet, and a Short Sword to K'aos (my Paladin, and party leader); leather armor and the other Short Sword to Ghrax (my Ranger); the Hand Axe to Ilana (my Cleric); a dagger as a secondary weapon for Xanth; and the other dagger to Quala (my Rogue). Dole out the weapons in whatever way makes sense for you and your party. ***ITEMS*** (x=1650, y=620) Short Sword <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Head south down the shore and around the boat launch to find more gear laying on the ground by the next pier, and continue equipping the party. For me, this means giving a helmet to Ghrax, the armor to Ilana, a spear to Fhornal, and the short bow and arrows to Quala. ***ITEMS*** (x=810, y=1300) Spear (x=1360, y=1550) Helmet (x=1320, y=1620) Spear (x=1420, y=1650) Leather Armor (x=1360, y=1770) Short Bow (x=1460, y=1800) Arrows x13 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Head out onto this next pier to find two Goblins (K'aos kills them by himself), and more gear. Don't forget to grab the minor crap the Goblins drop, which should include a shield and a few gold (K'aos gets the shield). ***ITEMS*** (x=2210, y=1440) Club, 6 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Continue heading south to the next pier and talk to Crandall at (x=1710, y=1860). Ask him about the whereabouts of Magdar Shenlen to find out that he's the Harbor Master, and is probably hiding in a warehouse to the north. You can also ask about the Goblins, but it's really not worth the effort. Further south, then east, you'll find a trio of Goblins around a boarded up lighthouse; the boat tied up at the small pier has some loot. ***ITEMS*** (x=2880, y=2030) Dagger, Bottle of Wine <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) We're as far south as we can go, and to the east is water, so head west along the bottom of the map to reach a house at (x=790, y=2220). Inside, kill three Goblins and then talk to Firtha Kerdos, the cat-lady of Targos (x=500, y=200). She'll admit to being the mother of Hedron (although she doesn't seem too happy about it), and reveal that she's blind. If you press her about it, she'll bitch about the Goblins and tell you to come back after the Goblins have all been eliminated. Grab the loot in her house and exit. The Goblins drop a couple of Shields - these go to K'aos and Ghrax to improve their AC by one. ***ITEMS*** (x=90, y=380) 5 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) When you leave, you'll be attacked by two Goblins from the north; kill them, and continue west to find a Battle Axe on the ground at (x=370, y=2110). Except that, unlike the old battle axe we just spoke with, this one can be used in combat by Ilana. Head northwest to the first house. ***ITEMS*** (x=370, y=2110) Battle Axe <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Enter the house at (x=300, y=1680) which is, thankfully, empty. If you're injured this is a good place to rest, but let's have a look around first. Our first trap of the game can he found at (x=370, y=180); disarm it and then loot freely to get some better equipment. The Studded Leather goes to K'aos and the Leather Armor he was wearing gets handed down the line (Xanth is the last to get armor). The Crossbow and Bolts go to Fhornal; Crossbows will be his primary weapon for the remainder of the game. ***TRAPS*** (x=370, y=180) ***ITEMS*** (x=370, y=180) Studded Leather Armor, Helmet, War Hammer, Heavy Crossbow, Bolts x20 (x=240, y=100) Potion of Evil Protection (x=430, y=220) War Hammer, Leather Armor The Salty Dog Tavern (AR1003) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) There's only one more building in this southern part of the map, so let's visit there and get it over with. Enter the large building at (x=900, y=1800) to find "The Salty Dog Tavern". Gohar, the bartender, (x=350, y=190) will tell you, basically, to piss off - Goblins are running amok in the town, but this fat shithead won't believe you. And you won't even get the option to ask for a drink! How is he ever going to stay in business with an attitude like that? Next, go and talk to Guthesulfe Henghelm (x=530, y=360), who is little better than Gohar, although at least you can trade stuff with him. NOTE: arrows, bolts, etc, all have weight, so don't try to stock up too much or you won't have the capacity to carry loot. When it's all said and done, my party is equipped as follows: K'aos: studded leather armor, helmet, long sword, small shield Ghrax: studded leather armor, helmet, short sword, small shield Ilana: leather armor, helmet, greataxe Xanth: leather armor, sling, buckler, quarterstaff, bullets x200 Quala: leather armor, helmet, short bow, short sword, buckler, arrows x218 Fhornal: hide armor, helmet, heavy crossbow, warhammer, small shield, bolts x219 All this, and I still have 110 gold left over. Once you've bought and sold what you want, talk to Guthewulfe again and ask about his silver charm. He will spout some crap about how he won it from some relative, and hint that you can challenge him for it... later. Finally, talk to Black Geoffrey (x=720, y=380) to get some info on a couple of his band of 'adventurers', but he and his friends don't seem inclined to come and help with the Goblins either. Pussies... Now that we've scored some reasonable gear, and questioned the local drunkards, let's return to killing Goblins, shall we? Exit the tavern and head back west, then north. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) North of the previous house there's more crap laying around the dead bodies - might as well grab it. There are also some barrels to search. Talk to Jorun Tamewater (x=640, y=1460) to find out about some caves in the cliffs; this is apparently where the Goblins came from. Continue north up the path and destroy another Goblin, then grab even more weapons, etc, lying around. ***ITEMS*** (x=380, y=1250) War Hammer (x=520, y=1410) Handaxe (x=540, y=1530) Short Sword (x=680, y=1500) Small Shield (x=490, y=950) Hand Axe (x=500, y=1010) Small Shield <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Enter the house at (x=850, y=900) to find another couple of Goblins in need of a good killing; when they're dead, this place is safe for looting. Grab the crap and go... To the northwest you'll find a set of log steps, which we'll simply ignore for the time being. Head east past the ruined house, unlock the door at (x=970, y=500), and enter the large building. ***ITEMS*** (x=470, y=250) Dagger, Fire Agate Gem, 12 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Immediately upon entering, you'll be accosted by Magdar Shenlen, the Harbor Master. Ask him about a healing potion for Reig, and he'll tell you to search the warehouse. He leaves, and a few Goblins show up asking to be killed - oblige, and start searching. Apparently it's okay to use a 'smash and grab' technique in here, so feel free to attack the barrels and other containers that are indicated by the yellow circles. I send Quala ahead to check for traps (there aren't any) and unlock things; K'aps and Ilana follow behind to smash the place up and grab the loot. Make sure to grab the two healing potions in the container at (x=1180, y=420). Once you've cleared the place out, make like a tree and leave. ***ITEMS*** (x=930, y=990) War Hammer (x=970, y=1000) Arrows x20, 11 Gold (x=970, y=780) Light Crossbow, Bolts x24 (x=1170, y=510) Small Shield (x=1180, y=420) Potion of Healing x2 (x=930, y=470) Short Bow (x=790, y=330) Iron Rations x3 (x=810, y=270) Bottle of Wine, Lynx Eye Gem, 9 Gold (x=420, y=290) Battle Axe (x=440, y=210) Leather Armor, Spear (x=340, y=350) Iron Rations x3 (x=560, y=630) Arrows x7 (x=420, y=600) Spear, Bolts x7 (x=240, y=630) Mace (x=220, y=560) Leather Armor, Small Shield, Battle Axe <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Before we move on, let's help out Reig. Head slightly southeast to find him at (x=1440, y=900) and give him one of the healing potions we found. Once he's whole again, head north to the next pier. ***REWARD*** (For bringing a healing potion to Reig) EXP 400 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) There's still more crap gear laying around, so we might as well grab it. Once you've cleaned the area up a bit, head out onto the pier and talk to Brogan (x=2050, y=560). Talk him into letting you clear out the warehouse for some experience, then unlock the door (x=2400, y=500) and enter the warehouse (I don't know why Brogan was so sure you'd need a key to get in here - Quala simply picked the lock). ***ITEMS*** (x=1430, y=510) Hand Axe (x=1660, y=350) Throwing Axe (x=1730, y=370) Helmet (x=1830, y=350) Leather Armor (x=1840, y=250) Throwing Axe ***REWARD*** (For convincing Brogan to let you clear out the warehouse) EXP 300 Warehouse (AR1002) o======================================================================o 16) You'll be greeted by a pack of Goblins, but this is really no more difficult than anything else we've encountered. Kill them and loot. In the northwest section of the building you'll find a trap door in the floor, just begging us to enter. Well okay then, why not? NOTE: the dead cat in the barrel at (x=790, y=400) just seems questy somehow, so let's hang onto it for a bit... ***ITEMS*** (x=1050, y=640) Short Sword (x=1120, y=360) Great Axe (x=790, y=400) Dead Cat (x=500, y=500) Bullets x16 (x=300, y=350) Leather Armor, Small Shield, Long Sword (x=550, y=250) Broken Weapon Caves (AR1007) o======================================================================o 17) Down here we'll find many more of our Goblin friends waiting to be relieved of life, and more barrels to smash open, so let's get to it. Kill the Goblin greeting party and go north, then turn west. Ignore the southern passage for now and continue west to a fork where a couple more Goblins await. Continue northwest with one character and invite a few more Goblins from the west to come out and play. Watch for a flanking maneuver from the southwest passage, but really this is not a big fight. Further west you'll finally run into a larger group of Goblins in a cavern that are poised to make life rough; I draw them back to the party and deal with them 1-2 at a time. When they've been taught the simple lesson that it's not a good idea to attack armed adventurers in cave tunnels, you can go about the task of smashing open the barrels in the cavern. Southeast from the large cavern, follow the southern-most tunnel and kill the last of the Goblins in this area, then smash and loot the barrels they were guarding. Head north, then U-turn south and exit back up to the warehouse. Note: I have yet to find anyone who will buy broken gear, so you can safely ignore the broken armor, shields, and weapons. ***REWARD*** (For clearing the Targos Docks of Goblins) EXP 1350 ***ITEMS*** (x=1240, y=400) Hand Axe (x=690, y=440) Hand Axe (x=580, y=470) Scroll:Minor Mirror Image (x=490, y=570) Hand Axe (x=460, y=570) Hand Axe (x=490, y=640) Short Sword (x=1880, y=860) Broken Weapon (x=2040, y=790) Short Sword o======================================================================o 18) Exit the warehouse and talk to Brogan again for some experience. He will tell you where to find Lord Ulbrec in the northern part of town, but we're not quite ready to head there yet; instead, head back to the pier where we first arrived. Tell Reig you've wiped out the Goblins in and around the docks area, then go onto the ship. Talk to Hedron again and tell him about clearing out the Goblins as well. Mention that you saved his mother and you'll get some more experience. Tell him what a bitch she was, and he'll also give you some monetary compensation if you talk to him with someone other than a Paladin. ***REWARD*** (For clearing the Goblins from the caves) EXP 400 (For telling Hedron his mother is safe) EXP 300 Gold 173 Lynx Eye Gem <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Alright, the party is starting to get rather weighted down with loot so let's return to the Salty Dog Tavern and talk to Guthesulfe Henghelm again. Sell off your excess crap and then talk to him one more time with a character possessing a Constitution of 16 or more and challenge him to a drinking contest to win the Wolf Charm (*1). If you did as I did and put points into Pick Pockets for your Rogue, you can pickpocket Guthesulfe for some gold (amount varies), and a Flask of Braehg (*2) Now, what about this dead cat? If memory serves, that fat old bitch in the house to the south had a shitload of cats - could it be that we are supposed to take the feline corpse to her? Let's go there and find out. ***REWARD*** (For winning the Wolf Charm from Guthesulfe) EXP 300 *1 The Wolf Charm is a simple magic item that allows the holder to summon a Wolf three times. Big f'ing deal... But the experience is definitely worth doing this. *2 An interesting concoction. this potion will slow poison and grant a +2 bonus to Strength for 3 hours. However, it will also make the drinker sick as hell, and if their Constitution is low enough, it it will actually kill them. We will need one of these later, so you should either steal this or buy it now to save some time later. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) Sure enough, this was her poor, dear Loki - too bad she isn't quite saddened enough to grant you any experience for bringing him back. She even gives you shit about carrying around a corpse - what a hag... At any rate, you can now run thru all her dialogue options to get a bunch of backstory and some minor useful intel. Now that the docks have been cleared and the few quests completed, it's time to head to the northern section of the city. Leave the house and exit the area in the northwest corner by the log steps (x=170, y=50). If you're hurt, you can rest in one of the houses before you head up to the next section. o======================================================================o | | | Northern Targos | | | o======================================================================o 1. Dumpster Diving 2. Lord Ulbrec's House 3. The Lady Elytharra 4. Raggedy Phaen 5. Bragging Rights 6. The Temple 7. Waking Valine Geldencross 8. Good Deeds Are NOT Their Own Reward 9. Whispering Goblins 10. Haunted Hotel 11. The Crying Ghost 12. The Nasty Bartender 13. Cheating Cahl-Hyred 14. Releasing the Spirit 15. Looting the Inn 16. The Tear Stained Bottle 17. The Galloway Trade Depot Northern Targos City (AR1100) {WLK002} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 1) Upon arriving, the very first thing you want to do is... LOOT! The barrel to your southeast has a battle axe in it. This part of the city has more of a normal city 'look and feel' than did the docks, what with its burned out hovels and seedy bars. Now we have been told by several people to find Ulbrec Dinnsmore, and we will do that, but we'll do it in our own time, eh? First, let's see what we can find stashed around town. Roam freely thru the streets searching barrels and crates, and grab whatever you find. Doing this first has the added advantage of showing us the layout of this part of the city, for ease in moving around later. ***ITEMS*** (x=400, y=1530) Battle Axe (x=2720, y=1850) Spear, Large Shield (x=2160, y=1160) Dagger, 6 Gold (x=1550, y=280) Spear, Arrows x21 (x=1400, y=580) Battle Axe, Large Shield (x=720, y=660) Arrows x17 (x=740, y=350) Potion of Cat's Grace, Lynx Eye Gem, 23 Gold Ulbrec's House (AR1101) o======================================================================o 2) Okay, now that we're done dumpster diving, let's go see this Ulbrec fellow. Head over to the large building in the southeast corner of the map, and enter the door at (x=2300, y=1400). You'll find Ulbrec behind the rather large desk at (x=500, y=430); talk to him and tell him that the Goblin threat at the docks has been eliminated. He will tell you about some scouts he sent out, and a few other things, but the most important bit of information is to report to Shawford Crale, the commander of the Targos Guard, who can be found in the Palisade. Yeah, yeah - we'll get there... But first, let's find out what kind of loot you have stashed away in this oppulent house of yours... NOTE: you can pickpocket Ulbrec for a Gold Ring, as much as 51 Gold, and a Ring of Protection +1; this is a 'save and reload' heavy process unless you put a lot of points into pickpocket skills, but it's worth the effort. The ring goes to K'aos... ***ITEMS*** (x=230, y=400) 3 Gold (x=400, y=170) Dagger, Sunstone Gem, 9 Gold (x=800, y=280) Book-Heart of Winter (x=800, y=460) Book-Legends of Icewind Dale (x=700, y=430) Scroll:Protection from Evil (x=650, y=550) Book-Travelor's Guide to Icewind Dale <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) In the large room to the east you will find Elytharra, the lady of the house. Talk to her and have her identify the charred scroll you found earlier (yes, even if you had identified it yourself) to find out that there was magic involved in the appearance of the Goblins. Talk to her again and ask about her 'troubles' to get a quest involving the diviner Valine Geldencross. Finally, ask about her being a Mage, and she will open her wares to you - she has a huge collection of scrolls, so if you have a Wizard (not a Sorcerer) in your party, this is a great place to start building your spellbook. If you are a Sorcerer, some of these can still come in handy, but must be cast from the scroll, using it up in the process. She also has a large variety of very nice magical items; of course, if your party is in the same shape as mine, you can't afford any of these at this point anyway, but keep her in mind for when you have some cash to spend. NOTE: you can pickpocket Elytharra for a Scroll:Mage Armor, a Masterwork Dagger (+1 to attack), a Sunstone Gem, and a Gold Ring. Phaen's House (AR1106) o======================================================================o 4) When you're done drooling over all the magic items you can't possibly afford, exit Ulrec's home and proceed north to the first house; enter at (x=2280, y=970). Phaen will initiate dialogue with you, and if you press him, he'll admit to being a traitor and letting the Goblins into the city. For this, he must die... He will summon five Goblin Sappers, but he is the real threat, so stay on him hard until he falls. Once he's dead, the Goblins are easy. Phaen drops a quarterstaff, a Scroll of Magic Missile, Phaen's Robe of Rags (*1), and 38 gold; the Goblins drop some minor gold. Note: this is the first time in the game that I suffered any damage; up to this point, I had taken zero damage in any encounter. I sincerely hope you were as lucky. ***ITEMS*** (x=600, y=170) Book-The Ten-Towns: Easthaven (x=450, y=200) Sunstone Gem, 41 Gold ***REWARD*** (For exposing Phaen as a traitor) EXP 300 *1 This robe affords a +2 Deflection Bonus, and some Cold Resistence. Not great, but not bad either for this stage of the game. It can replace Leather Armor on a Mage; I put this on Xanth. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Well, we've dealt with the traitor, so let's go back to Elytharra and brag a bit about what we've accomplished. She will act surprised and give you a nice reward, at least for this point in the game (this is another time when a non-Paladin should do the talking). This is where K'aos gained enough points to level up - I elect to go with a level in Wizard, so he can start building his spellbook and using spells. He puts skill points into Concentration and Diplomacy, and takes the Armored Arcana feat. I buy a Sleep scroll from Lady Elytharra and write it into his spellbook right away; he adds a Magic Missile and Sleep for his available spells. Remember to rest in order to actually memorize spells. ***REWARD*** (For telling Elytharra about Phaen) EXP 400 Gold 250 Gold Necklace, Waterstar Gem The Temple (AR1103) o======================================================================o 6) Since she's been so very nice to us, let's see about doing the other thing she had asked - help out Valine Geldencross, the Diviner who is resting at the Temple. Exit the house and head to the large tent-like building at (x=1250, y=550). Enter and talk to Valine (x=370, y=230); tell him that Lady Elytharra sent you and he'll mumble something about 'Braehg'. Pickpocket him for 7 Gold, a Tchazar Gem, an Andar Gem, and Valin's Scroll. This parchment tells you a bit of his story, and that you can get a flask of Braehg from that lazy bastard Guthewulfe at the Salty Dog Tavern down by the docks. Well alrighty then... Before we go back to the Docks District, let's see what else is here. In a locked cabinet you'll find a few nice trickets. Next, talk to Garradun Tanner (x=370, y=430) and accept a quest to deliver a note to Captain Mariner of the Neverwinter relief forces. You can talk to Denham Fisher at (x=530, y=180) to get some advice on how to fight various creatures, or buy some healing; he also has some Divine Scrolls and other Clerical magic items for sale. I hold off for now, until I've built up a bit of cash. If you hand over Garradun Tanner's letter to him, you'll get some experience. Return to Garradun and expose him for a bit more experience. Oh... and you get to kill him for still more. Ragni Bellows (x=600, y=230) also has Clerical crap for sale, along with healing, but no advice. Nobody else has anything interesting to say, so let's head for the dive that is The Salty Dog Tavern. This is where the rest of the party gains a level; I do so as follows: Ghrax adds a level in Ranger, adding skill points in Concentration Ilana goes up as a Cleric, also taking a Concentration point. She adds Sanctuary as her new spell. Xanth will keep adding Sorcerer, taking Concentration and Alchemy as skill enhancements Quala goes Rogue, adding one point each in her thieving skills, plus two in Use Magic Device Fhornal adds a Druid level, adding skill points in Concentration and Spellcraft. He adds a Cure Light Wounds and an Entangle to his spell selections. ***REWARD*** (for revealing Garradun Tanner's plans to Denham Fisher) EXP 300 (for confronting Garradun and exposing him as a doppleganger) EXP 300 ***ITEMS*** (x=330, y=100) Book-Book of the Deserving (*1), Scroll:Cure Moderate Wounds, 23 Gold *1 This tome allows a Cleric of Tempus to cast Bless 1x/day. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) If you didn't get the Flask of Braehg before, return to the Docks District and enter the tavern (x=900, y=1800). Guthewulfe hasn't moved from his spot at (x=530, y=360), but try as you might, there is no dialogue option that allows you to ask about Braehg. You can either buy this item from him, or pickpocket him to obtain the Flask of Braehg. Pickpocketing also yields a small cache of gold. Either way, return to the temple. Give the Braehg to Valin, who will sputter and cough a bit, but in the end returns to his normal, healthy self. If you ask him about a reward, he'll hand you a bit and then tell you to talk to Lady Elytharra. Why we don't ask for our cash up front is a mystery - all this running around is getting tiresome... But, as we need the cash, I guess we'll go back and ask Elytharra to pay us for our good deeds. Oh, and we now have a Potion of Braehg at our disposal (*1). ***REWARD*** (For bringing the Braehg to Valin) EXP 300 Gold 181 *1 This potion cures poison and grants a +2 Strength bonus for 3 hours, although it's liable to make you sick in the process. I'll give this to the character with the highest Constitution, as I suspect that will lessen the side-effects somewhat. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Return to Ulbrec's house and talk to Lady Elytharra one more time. Tell her that you have revived Valin for an experience reward; press her about settling debts and receive an Iol Gem, a Jade Ring, and 250 Gold. I guess the running around isn't as much of a pain in the ass as we had previously thought... ***REWARD*** (For reporting to Lady Elytharra about Valin) EXP 300 Gold 250 Iol Gem, Jade Ring <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Damn! Except for this note to Captain Mariner, whom we cannot find, we're out of quests. Let's do something about that, shall we? Head over to the house at (x=420, y=940) and go inside. Ask the sole inhabitant of this building, Koluhm Bonecutter, about speaking to the spirit that haunts the Inn. Once you've exhausted all the dialogue options, loot and leave. ***ITEMS*** (x=500, y=160) Flaming Oil, 22 Gold (x=100, y=360) Iol Gem, 55 Gold The Weeping Widow (AR1104) o======================================================================o 10) The Weeping Widow is in the southwest corner of the map, at about (x=800, y=1650). Enter the inn at night (or enter and rest until it's night), and then talk to the proprietor, Cahl-Hyred. From him you should receive an unidentified bottle, aptly named Cahl-Hyred's Bottle, and the Weeping Widow Key. Identify the bottle (Lady Elytharra can do this for you if you don't have an Identify spell) and talk to him again for some experience. Press him for monetary compensation and he'll grudgingly cough up 150 Gold. Head upstairs at (x=350, y=420). ***REWARD*** (For identifying the Ghost-Touched Bottle) EXP 400 Gold 150 Note: Cahl-Hyred can be pickpocketed for a Dagger, a Horn Coral Gem, and a Short Sword. The Weeping Widow Upstairs (AR1104) o======================================================================o 11) Enter the middle room to the north to find Veira, the Weeping Widow spirit. There really isn't much interaction, but it does update your Journal, so something must have happened. Go back downstairs and talk to that fat innkeeper again, and ask him about Donovan, the spirit's lost husband. He's clueless, but suggests you talk to Gohar, the irratable bartender at the Salty Dog. Apparently we're not done with that place yet, so head there now... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Gohar will tell you a tale about a wrecked skiff that washed up on shore, and give you a piece of it. He's still as nasty as ever, but at least he's willing to deal with you, since you exterminated the Goblins and all... prick... Once you have the Ship's Prow in your possession, leave and head back to the northern section of the city. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) We now have an enchanted bottle and a chunk of wood off of an old wrecked ship. I think we need more information on what in the hell is going on around here. Let's try that ghost-whisperer Koluhm and see if he can shed any light on this. Return to the house at (x=420 y=940) and go in. Tell him what you found out about the bottle for an experience reward, then return to the Inn. ***REWARD*** (For exposing Koluhm's attempt to cheat Cahl-Hyred) EXP 450 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Wait until night again, and then talk to Veira one more time. Give her the piece of Donovan's ship that you got from Gohar, and release her spirit into death's realm. She will give you a cryptic message about a Chimera, and just before she vanishes you can ask her to shed a tear into the bottle for some more experience, after which she will depart. ***REWARD*** (For releasing Veira's spirit) EXP 400 (For obtaining Veira's ghostly tear) EXP 400 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Now that that's settled, let's see what kind of crap we can find laying around this inn. Search the rooms upstairs first for some minor treasure, then go back downstairs and repeat. Talk to Cahl-Hyred one last time and tell him that you released Veira's spirit for yet another experience reward, and some gold and a couple gems if you ask. ***ITEMS*** Upstairs (AR1105) (x=800, y=540) Andar Gem, 13 Gold (x=200, y=200) Masterwork Dagger, 11 Gold Downstairs (AR1104) (x=260, y=200) Iron Rations x3, Lamp Oil x2 ***REWARD*** (For telling Cahl-Hyred about releasing Veira's spirit) EXP 600 Gold 50 Garnet Gem, Aquamarine Gem <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) We now have this blasted, tear-stained bottle in our possession; I wonder if the nice mage-lady at Ulrec's would want it? Let's go talk to her and find out... As it turns out, she does want the bottle, and will offer you 500 Gold for it; hold out for more and get 700. We've managed to pick up a fair amount of sellable items, so let's see if we can find someplace to lighten our load a bit. We know that Lady Elytharra will buy some of it, but I think we can do better. There is still one place we haven't visited yet, so let's go there now. Leave Ulrec's house and head to the Gallaway Trade Depot (x=1550, y=1750). Trade Depot (AR1102) o======================================================================o 17) Jemeliah (x=600, y=550) and Loman (x=360, y=270) have nothing to say of any use, except to tell you to talk to Deirdre. Well fine then, we can take a hint. You'll find Deirdre Gallaway at (x=680, y=400), and she is more than willing to sell you some very nice items indeed. Sell off the excess gems, etc, that you've accumulated and then peruse her wares. At this point you should know what you need; get whatever suits your fancy and drool over the things you simply can't afford (there's a lot of it). Personally, I tended toward more, less expensive items instead of going for the more powerful stuff; this allows me to strengthen the party a bit more evenly. I upgraded both K'aos and Ghrax to Masterwork Longswords with Large Shields; K'aos gets Studded Leather, Ghrax gets Splint Mail. Ilana gets Chainmail +1, but keeps her Greataxe. Quala also gets Studded Leather Armor, and upgrades her secondary weapon to a Masterwork Shortsword (still with a Buckler). Fhornal gets Splint Mail, and keeps his Warhammer as a secondary weapon; he does move up to a Large Shield. Make sure to get (or keep) a Warhammer for a specific mini-quest in the next section; then, once you've completed all your purchases and are equipped as you desire, head for the Palisade at (x=1600, y=200). Now you might be wondering why I didn't grab some magical weapons at this point - well, it's simple really... I really don't need that much power yet, and the money is better spent on armor and other protections until I can build up more cash. Besides, there are far better weapons coming up for free. On previous plays, I did get the magic greatsword 'Wandering Sky' for K'aos, but after several times thru the game I find that it's better to keep him with a Longsword and Shield. o======================================================================o | | | Targos Palisade | | | o======================================================================o 1. Drunkards and Idiots 2. A Barrel of Smug 3. Can I Borrow Your Hammer? 4. Training the Troops 5. Blessing the Troops 6. Shawford Crale 7. Fixing the Crane 8. More Arrows Please 9. Return of the Whispering Goblin 10. Threatening the Mercenaries 11. Attack on the Palisade Palisade Grounds (AR1200) {WLK003) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 1) Our visit starts with some scouting. This will be our modus operendii for most new, non-hostile areas - search around to get a feel for the layout, and grab as much free shit as we can. Start be searching the weapon rack at (x=2800, y=2650), then head east along the southern edge of the map. We'll move counter-clockwise thru this area; first around the outside edges, then into the middle. Around back of the first building you'll meet Niles, who is far more interested in getting drunk than fighting off Goblins. Refuse him his request for booze, threaten to turn him in, and force him to return to his post for some experience. Head north a little ways to find Tabard Mooncalf (x=3290, y=1660), a soldier guarding a rack of weapons. You'll need a character with skill points in Bluffing to be able to talk him into moving away so that you can get to the rack. A bit further north you'll find three soldiers standing around a fire; talk to Anson (x=3230, y=1440) to hear a story about their 'work' since coming to Targos - it seems most of it involves running errands around town. If you ask him about clearing out the rats in the warehouse with the dead cat in your possession, you'll find out that he's the one who put it there. I *KNEW* there was a reason I held onto this thing. Gee, I wonder if that crazy cat-lady would be interested in knowing how her pussy ended up dead, stuck in a barrel in the warehouse? Let's remember that for the next time we're down by the docks... ***ITEMS*** (x=2800, y=2650) Battle Axe (x=3350, y=1850) Spear (x=3320, y=1650) Talbard's Shield (*1) ***REWARD*** (For maintaining discipline) EXP 600 (For tricking Tabard) EXP 450 *1 A fairly nice shield, it offers +2 Shield Bonus, +1 Armor Bonus vs Missiles, and a -2 Armor Check Penalty. It replaces the Large Shield on K'aos. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) At (3200, y=970) you'll find Gable, who is engaged in a friendly wager with his partner Kadance to see who can shoot the 'smug-looking barrel' at (x=3180, y=600). Well okay then, let's see if we can get in on this action... Ask him if you can try, and bet him at least twenty gold. Attack the barrel with a ranged weapon and destroy it, then go back to Gable for your winnings... except that he doesn't have that much. Welcher. Alright then, let's have your bow instead - at least it will sell for something. Continue counter-clockwise around the edge of the Palisade to find some more weapons you can grab. ***ITEMS*** (x=2200, y=500) Spear (x=1200, y=1320) Throwing Axe x2 (x=820, y=1220) Halbard (x=640, y=1470) Flaming Oil (x=600, y=1600) Bullet x32 (x=840, y=1860) Flaming Oil (x=1100, y=2440) Bolt x25 (x=1020, y=2460) Heavy Crossbow <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Talk to Caulder in the southwest section of the Palisade, and insist on helping him. You really have to be a pain in his backside, but he'll eventually capitulate and allow you to find a hammer for him (which will net you some experience). If you have a hammer (a war hammer will do), let him borrow it - he will go apeshit hammering in the loose nails on his catapult, and you'll get a bit more experience. Return east to where you entered this area, then north toward the center of the map. ***REWARD*** (For convincing Caulder he needs your help) EXP 450 (For helping Caulder repair the catapult) EXP 450 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) You'll find a bunch of trainees around a barrel at (x=2290, y=2190). Talk to the Weapon Instructor at (x=2390, y=2130) and offer to show them how to split the keg. Do so, and then continue to 'train' them in how to use a spear for a little experience. There are a few weapons in the racks just north of the trainees. ***ITEMS*** (x=2070, y=2000) Flail (x=2380, y=1970) Light Crossbow, Bolts x12 ***REWARD*** (For training the recruits) EXP 450 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Take a Cleric and talk to the Drill Sergeant at (x=1400, y=2000); offer to bless the recruits for some more experience. Talk to Menon at (x=1920, y=1510) to learn about the 'tooth circle' - the enclosure in the center of the area. Finally, talk to the other Drill Sergeant at (x=2830, y=1700) with a Mage and "inspire the troops" for still more experience. ***REWARD*** (For blessing the recruits) EXP 450 (For inspiring the recruits) EXP 450 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) You can talk to Swift Thomas at (x=2580, y=2480), but he's pretty much a useless character for now. However, since he has an actual name, he might be someone we want to remember for later, so let's make a mental note of his location. Enter the building at (x=2700, y=2500) to find Shawford Crale and Nolan the Healer. Since just about everyone we've met in this god-forsaken shithole has told us to talk to him, let's see what Shawford has to say. Your first 'assignment' is to assist Olap Tamewater with repairing the Palisade walls - doesn't sound too difficult, so let's seek him out. You can talk to Nolan if you require healing first - which is nice because he will heal the entire party for free - but other than that all he's good for is some basic info on which spells are useful in Goblin fights, and I think we already know that. Note: Shawford Crale has a Dagger and a Potion of Healing for your pickpocketing pleasure; Nolan has nothing. ***ITEMS*** (x=230, y=350) Potion of Healing, Flaming Oil x3 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Exit the barracks and head north to find Olap at (x=2560, y=520). Talk to him to be told that you need to find Lumbar to get some lumber. Now that's just silly - next thing you know, we'll be visiting Wepaon to get weapons, and Glod to gather some gold. But who am I to question the writers of the game, and their naming conventions? Anyway... Exit the Palisade area back to the city, and head south to find Lumbar at about (x=1220, y=1650), who will inform you that the crane is broken. Well, doesn't that just figure... Alright then, let's go give Olap the bad news. Return to the Palisade and report back to Olap. Bitch about being treated like an errand boy and he'll suggest talking to Swift Thomas about the fastest way to get around town. Do so, and Thomas will take you to the Docks area without having to screw around with all that walking. This is nice - it's almost like teleporting between areas. Jorun is still where we left him at (x=640, y=1460); he will give you a Wooden Crane Wheel with which to fix the crane. Return to the city area and head over to the crane; replace the Wooden Crane Wheel by placing it into the container at (x=1000, y=1850), and inform Lumbar that his crane is fixed. Head back into the Palisade and tell Olap; note that the palisade wall is now fixed. That was really fast - apparently this Olap fellow really is a decent engineer. Finally, return to Shawford Crale for some experience and your next assignment. ***REWARD*** (For fixing the crane) EXP 600 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Exit the barracks and head west to find Isherwood at (x=650, y=2100). He requests 300 arrows, which apparently can be gotten from Deirdre at the Gallaway Trade Depot. Well damn - here we go again, back to the city. You can have Swift Thomas lead you there, or just walk; it really doesn't make much difference this time. Deirdre will bitch about having to supply the guards without getting paid, so you need to convince her that things would be far worse if she holds out. If your Charisma is high enough (16+), she will see the benefit of helping the townspeople, and agree to send the arrows to the Palisade. You could sell off the piddling amount of crap you found, but it's not really worth enough to buy anything useful yet, so I just leave and return to Isherwood to tell him that he's getting his arrows. He'll thank you, and give you two flasks of Flaming Oil for your trouble. Return to Shawford for more experience, and yet another assignment. ***REWARD*** (For striking a deal with Deirdre) EXP 600 (For obtaining arrows for Isherwood) EXP 600 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) This time, we need to talk to Koluhm and find out what intel he has managed to get from a captured Goblin. Alrighty then, let's go do that. If you remember, Koluhm was in a house in the main city, so I guess we have to go back there again. Onward... In case you don't remember, the house is at (x=420, y=940). Talk to Koluhm with a Drow or Dwarf character and offer to translate the message for him for the biggest experience reward yet. If you don't have a Dwarf or a Drow in your party, you can still get some experience by having Koluhm inscribe the words and send them back to Shawford Crale to be translated later. Head back once more to Shawford to report what you learned. If you could translate the words yourself, you will get more experience here as well. ***REWARD*** (For translating the Goblin's rantings) EXP 900 OR (for asking Koluhm to send the Goblin's words to the Palisade) EXP 450 (For going beyond the call of duty) EXP 900 OR (for carrying out Shawford Crale's orders) EXP 450 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) This time, we are sent to convince the Iron Collar Mercenaries to get off their lazy asses and join the fight. If memory serves, these were the idiots in the Salty Dog Tavern, so I ask Swift Thomas to take me to the Docks area quickly. But before I go into the tavern to talk to the mercenaries, I seem to remember there was one more thing we need to do regarding this dead cat we've been carrying around; let's go and talk to Firtha Kerdos again. Tell her the story of how her cat came to be dead and get some minor experience. Now we can go to the tavern and see about these asshole mercenaries. There are two ways to accomplish your goal here: accuse them of being in league with Phaen, or threaten to have their contract revoked. Either way, you'll need a character with a relatively high Bluff score. Succeed and get an experience reward, and head back to the Palisade. ***REWARD*** (For solving the mystery of Fat Ol' Loki) EXP 300 (For convincing the mercenaries to report to the Palisade) EXP 600 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Return to Shawford Crale one final time. He will be pleasantly surprised, but be interrupted by the sound of an attack on the Palisade. Exit the barracks to join the fray. To the northwest you will find a bunch of Goblins to slaughter, who will be joined by a monster named Vgholan and his wolf/dog (aptly named Vgholan's Hound). Once this first threat is removed, you will be treated to a mini-cutscene where a Wizard will appear to the northeast along with a bunch of Goblins, Goblin Elite, Goblin Archers, and a special Goblin named Ghotrag. Kill them, and once again you'll get to witness the arrival of the enemy Mage and his minions; I guess this is the game's way of telling you where to go next, because I honestly don't see any other reason for going thru all this nonsense with mini-movies and shit. Continue killing minor bosses, Goblins, and other assorted enemies until there isn't anything left. Note: some of the enemy leaders are mages, so pay them some special attention lest you get caught by a spell; this can put a severe cramp in your killing style, and often leads to the death of a character. When the battle is over return to Shawford Crale, who will tell you to talk to Lord Ulbrec to be personally congratulated (if you press him, he will hand over 1000 Gold as well). This just reeks of experience reward, so let's do that, shall we? But first, retrace your steps thru the Palisade area and loot all the dead bodies for a ton of shit to sell. Return to the city and visit Lord Ulbrec, who will indeed thank you and give you some crappy experience (we get 900 for translating a shitty Goblin message, but only 500 for actually killing the buggers? What a cheat...). This will be your final opportunity to sell and buy anything for a while, so I suggest visiting Deirdre before moving on. I still don't have enough money to buy anything, but I don't want to be carrying all this crap around with me, so I rid my inventory of everything I don't need. Quala gains another level at this point, so I dual her to Sorceress, putting skill points into Concentration, taking Armored Arcana as a feat, and getting Magic Missile and Sleep for spells. Our next goal is to help retake the Shaengarne Bridge, so return to the Palisade area and head out thru the northern gate (which is now open); rest, then exit the area in the northwest corner of the map. ***REWARD*** (For exceeding Shawford Crale's expectations) EXP 900 (for driving the Goblins from Targos) EXP 900 (For turning back the Goblin attack) EXP 500 ***ITEMS*** (Dropped by enemies, so no exact location) Ring of the Warrior: Attack Bonus +1 Houndstooth Collar: Immunity to Panic/Fear, Cast Beast Claw 1x/day Whispering Staff: d6+1 Damage, +1 to Attack, +1 to Move Silently, and 1% chance to Silence an opponent. It is, however, a one-handed weapon, so it actually is a fairly nice find (a one-handed staff, really?) Tower Shield of Charm Shield Bonus +3, +1 vs Missile Weapons, Protection +1: Immunity to Charm spells o======================================================================o | Chapter 1 | o======================================================================o | | | Shaengarne Ford | | | o======================================================================o ` 1. Barrelacade 2. Exploding Barrels 3. Springing Dereth 4. Rescuing Sabrina 5. The Safe Return 6. Ambush! 7. Killing the Log Pile 8. Torak's Retreat This entire area is filled with Orcs of varying types, including Orc Shamen. As long as you focus on the spell-casters, they really aren't all that hard. What makes this area a pain in the ass are the Kegs of Blasting - barrels that explode into fireballs. While it is possible to use these against your enemies, more often than not they will appear next to you in the middle of combat and you will have little or no time to escape them. If you spot one, run like hell out of its range. Shaengarne Ford (AR2000) {WLK004) o======================================================================o 1) Upon arrival at Shaengarne Ford, you will immediately be accosted by an Orc leader named Torak. He's an idiot, and a pussy - he runs away immediately after threatening you - and you have no choice but to kill his Broken Tusk Clan. Orcs are slightly more powerful than the Goblins we're used to, but this really shouldn't be all that tough of a fight. There is an Orc Shaman who can make life difficult, so hit him first. The Orcs can't get to you past the barracade of barrels, and you can't get to them either, so you will need to equip as many missile weapons as possible. I choose to throw a couple flasks of Flaming Oil at them, which removes the threat quite nicely; a Sleep spell will also make things easier on you. The Shaman will summon a wolf (or a Spider) next to the party, but it dies with only a couple of hits. More Orc Archers, and we can clear the barricade and proceed north. ***ITEMS*** (x=1320, y=2100) Potion of Extra Healing, Agni Mani Necklace <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Head northeast from this first encounter to meet Torak again. You will see a grouping of barrels at about (x=1850, y=1450) - do NOT get too close to them, as one is a Keg of Blasting, which will explode into a fireball. Instead, retreat a bit and try to draw the Orcs back to the party for a dose of death. Watch out for another Orc Shaman, and the Orc Firestarters, who - as near as I can tell - shoot Arrows of Fire. This battle is a bit more difficult, as the archers can make things interesting, but it's still not a big deal. You can chop up the barrels to open your way northwest if you want, but it's not really necessary. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Once you are past this next barrelacade, you will be approached by a Druid named Dereth Springsong, who will thank you for saving him. He will then ask you to clear out the rest of the Orcs (like we weren't going to do that anyway) before he'll open the way to the next area. He will, however, heal you (for a price). Search out and kill any more Orcs you can find, then talk to Dereth again for more experience. He will open a passage in the southwestern corner of the map that will lead you to Shaengarne Bridge. Loot the firepit and the lean-to, then attack the pile of logs at about (x=1840, y=930). Head down to the new path in the southwest. K'aos, Ghrax, and Fhornal each gain a level here, deployed as follows: K'aos: adds a Wizard level, takes Bluff and Intimidate skills, and another level of Armored Arcana for his feat. He adds a second Magic Missile to his spells. Ghrax: another Ranger level, Concentration, Armor Proficiency Fhornal: stays a Druid, adds points to Concentration and Spellcraft, and adds another Armor Proficiency level. New spells are Barkskin and Delay Poison. ***REWARD*** (For rescuing Dereth Springsong) EXP 750 (For removing the Orcs from Dereth Springsong's home) EXP 500 (For finding the path to Shaengarne Ford) EXP 500 ***ITEMS*** (x=1950, y=1030) Potion of Extra Healing (x=1960, y=1080) Potion of Extra Healing <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) As he was so kind to open a path for us, it seems we should go that way. The path will head west, then turn north, and finally east, with a few Orc Archers along the way. Continue east, then north again a short ways until you find a passage heading northwest, with a barrel blocking the way and another Orc party beyond. Since we need to go this way, it seems prudent to kill the Orcs - I draw them down to the barrel (which is a Keg of Blasting) and then blow it up in their faces. Yes, I used their own tactic against them, and after all, why not...? Again, the Shaman is the real threat here, so send some missiles his way to keep him honest while your melee characters take on the few Orc fighters that are left. Once they're all dead, head up the path. More Orcs, and another Orc Shaman await where the path turns due west, so kill them too. Continue west, then north until you are approached by Sabrina Fairwynd. She will ask about Dereth, then proceed to give you experience rewards just for talking to her. A new passage will open in the eastern portion of the map, and she will vanish. ***REWARD*** (For rescuing Sabrina Fairwynd) EXP 500 (For learning about the Orc ambush) EXP 375 (For offering to escort Sabrina home) EXP 375 <---------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Return to Dereth at his cabin to make sure that Sabrina made it back safely (x=2680, y=1620), and be rewarded for your thoughtfulness. This area is simply full of experience for very little effort, although we've had to fight a bit for it. The Scimitar goes to Fhornal; Sabrina has a few nice scrolls for sale too. Ilana and Xanth each gain levels here - both stay single-classed. Ilana takes Concentration and Combat Casting for her new skill and her new feat. She adds Draw Upon Holy Might for her Domain spell, and adds two Cure Moderate Wounds for her Cleric spells. Xanth puts a point each in Alchemy and Concentration, and takes a point in Armored Arcana to help offset casting penalties from his Buckler. He also adds Sleep to his spells (he had Identify before, so only had Magic Missile for offense). ***REWARD*** (for checking on Sabrina's safe return) EXP 375 Scimitar +1 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Head north of Dereth's cabin until you get to the newly opened path at around (x=2800, y=1050). Proceed carefully east to provoke the very ambush that Sabrina spoke of, and kill everything in sight. Head north up the path, which turns northwest and then west, to encounter an Orcish party. Dispatch them and loot around the camp to find a Dagger +1, then shoot across the ravine to destroy the Kegs of Blasting. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Return all the way back around to the western fork that led to Sabrina, but this time keep going north. As you approach, that asshole Torak will taunt you some more, but you can pretty much ignore him for the moment. I really want to kill this guy, but it seems this pile of logs is blocking our way. Okay then, we learned how to deal with log piles back when we first met Dereth, so I guess we apply our knowledge here. Attack the log at (x=1650, y=850) and destroy it to gain passage north. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Proceed very carefully north with one character to incite a group of Orcs to start shooting at you. Once again, missile weapons and spells are the best way to deal with these foes, so keep your non-magical melee characters well back out the the way. Kill them, and Torak will appear again with another bunch of Orcs reqesting death. Oblige, and a bridge will appear to the east; cross the bridge, and then exit the area in the northeast corner. o======================================================================o | | | Orc Encampment {WLK005) | | | o======================================================================o 1. Emma Moonblade 2. A Message From Torak 3. Opening the Gate 4. Freeing the Villagers 5. Arte's Store 6. Killing Torak, FINALLY 7. I Hate Slime 8. Vrek the Troll 9. Obtaining the Moonblade Orc Encampment (AR2101) {WLK005) o======================================================================o 1) These pricks... Torak and about ten of his friends await to try and kill you. Before the battle can begin, however, Emma Moonblade will appear and promptly get her sword (named Moonblade - how convenient) stolen. Help her kill the Orc ambush party, then talk to her to obtain a quest to retrieve her sword. She mentions a Troll, so that should be fair warning about what we will probably encounter here. If you have the need, talk to her again to get some healing, or she will watch over you while you rest safely - awfully nice of her, wasn't it? Note on Trolls: they require fire or acid to kill and stay killed. They can be tough opponents, and the fact that they keep coming back to life just makes them suck all the more. ***ITEMS*** (x=480, y=1600) Potion of Extra Healing <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Head east along the southern edge of the map until a woman named Kaitlin Silvertongue moves to meet you around (x=2250, y=1800). She is a messenger from Torak, and will give you a warning about approaching his camp. Well screw that! We'll not only approach, but we'll enter the camp, destroy him, and all his little dogs too! As it turns out, she is simply one of the villagers that Torak has captive, and she asks you to sneak into the camp, unlock the gate, and then slay the orcs. As long as there's Orc-slaying as part of this quest, then count us in! She will also tell you that one of the other villagers may have hidden a potion in his burned out home, and about why the Orcs are here - stealing lumber to build a dam and destroy Targos City. This Torak is pissing me off more and more... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Go north a short way to the ruins of the house and grab the Potion of Invisibility in the container at (x=2200, y=1500). Select which of your characters will perform the dangerous task of sneaking into the camp, and move everyone else up outside of the gate at (x=2000, y=1150). For me, it was Quala who did the sneaking (being a Rogue and all), so she quaffs the potion and walks past the guards to the northeast at (x=2780, y=1200), then heads west inside their compound to turn the wheel and open the gate from the inside (x=2190, y=1100). As soon as the gate opens, all hell breaks loose and we have to kill the rest of the Orcs. Since Quala is still invisible, she can simply return back thru the opening in the barricade and rejoin the party for the slaughter at the now open gate. An Entangle spell from Fhornal and a Sleep spell from Xanth pretty well ends this fight, as my archers simply shoot down the now immobilized Orcs. ***ITEMS*** (x=2200, y=1500) Potion of Invisibility, Sunstone Gem <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Thru the gate and to the west you'll find the villagers guarded by a couple of Orc Firestarters. Kill them (the Orcs, not the villagers; that would just be stupid), then loot the barrel at (x=560, y=1170) to get a magic weapon. Grab some more loot and return to Kaitlin with the good news. ***ITEMS*** (x=770, y=920) Potion of Extra Healing (x=560, y=1170) Mace - Clenched Fist (*1) ***REWARD*** (for freeing the villagers) EXP 750 *1 This is a Mace +1, with the added ability to create 1 Gold/day. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Talk to Arte at (x=2660, y=1700) and he will offer to sell you some very nice items. I usually pick up the Sure Striking Short Sword +1 (*1) for Quala (so she has a melee option if it's needed), and some bolts and bullets. Make sure to grab a Flaming Oil if you don't have one; you'll need it when we finally encounter this Troll fellow. I also grab a Gem Bag and a Potion Case to make inventory management easier. *1 This short sword offers a d6+1 Damage and a +1 Attack Bonus, but is treated as a +5 weapon for determining what it can hit. Not bad... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Move one character up until Torak engages you in conversation. It becomes immediately obvious that he's in no mood to chit-chat, once he finds out that you've freed the villagers and all. Oh well, his loss... I move back and draw the Orcs back to me instead of rushing in to attack but you can do this encounter any way you feel good about. Torak is a bit more sturdy than your typical Orc, but he dies just like they all do eventually. Make sure to loot his carcass for the Highland Gate Key, a Battle Axe +1, and a suit of Leather Armor +1. Return to Kaitlin and let her know that Torak is dead, get directions to Shaengarne Ford, and be told the way to the dam. Quala gains another level here, and I bump her up to a 2nd level as a Sorceress. She gets a point added to Dexterity, and takes her skill points in Concentration and Open Locks. ***REWARD*** (for slaying Torak) EXP 750 (for knowing the way to Shaengarne Ford) EXP 375 (for knowing the way to the dam) EXP 375 ***ITEMS*** (x=2540, y=870) Tchazar Gem, Flaming Oil x2, Potion of Extra Healing (x=2800, y=750) Dagger - Final Word (*1) *1 This dagger is a throwable dagger with a +1 enchantment, which also has a 10% chance to Silence a struck opponent. Could come in handy when you run into Mages in combat. It can be used as either a melee or a missile weapon. Slime Cave (AR2002) o======================================================================o 7) Head north thru the camp, kill a few more Orcs, and grab some loot on your way up to the cave at (x=2650, y=260). Enter the cave and waste the Slime that is ahead of you, then head north; a couple more Slimes, and you find yourself at a fork in the tunnel where a few Slime Zombies will attack. They take a bit to put down, but at least they don't poison you. Head up the northern passage first and kill another Slime, then grab the loot at (x=1220, y=970). Return to the fork and go east into a cavern filled with another Slime and a couple Carrion Crawlers. Kill them and head up the passage to the northeast. Double back to the west and pick up the armor at (x=1560, y=1000), then take the northern-most passage to the east and grab the 'Lopsided Axe'(*2) at about (x=3070, y=950). ***ITEMS*** (x=1220, y=970) Iol Gem, Dagger, 7 Gold (x=1560, y=1000) Leather Armor of Movement(*1) (x=1530, y=2020) Jasper Gem (x=3070, y=950) Haft Over Head(*2) *1 Leather Armor, AC +2, Max Dex +6, Armor Check Penalty -0, Spell Fail 10%, immune to Hold Person spell. I will sell this. *2 This axe, named Haft Over Head, is a +1 returning throwing axe. But, instead of doing slashing damage like a normal throwing axe, it always hits haft first, causing bludgeoning damage. It is still a magic returning axe however, and that has to count for something. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Down the southeastern passage you'll find a couple of Orc guards who, for whatever reason, don't attack. Okay then, let's see what you have to say; talk to either of them and they will tell you to find Vrek, who is apparently waiting for you. Continue south to encounter Vrek Vileclaw, Troll extraordinaire. He will make some comments about how you can't hurt him, and that he stole the only thing that could, and finally he hints at some power that the Moonblade has ("Moon healer sword"). He finishes by telling you his plan (for which you get some experience), then finally attacks. This can be a rather difficult battle at this stage of the game, but it is winnable - remember to hit Vrek with a Flaming Oil or something to finish him off. Once everything is dead, loot the crate and leave the Slime Cave. Combat Strategy: I keep my missile-equipped characters back in the narrow opening just before the two guards, and send Ghrax down to start the encounter. When everything goes hostile (and I do mean everything), run like hell back to the party and kill the guards as fast as you can; with any luck at all, you can dispatch them before the rest of the enemy party gets to you. A couple of Sleep spells and you can focus on Vrek, then kill off the rest of his minions. ***ITEMS*** (x=2200, y=2150) Moonblade of Selune (*1) ***REWARD*** (for discovering Vrek's plan) EXP 375 *1 The Moonblade is a +2 large sword, d8+2 damage, +2 attack, considered a +4 weapon, does double damage to undead creatures. K'aos will use this for some time. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Head south out of the compound and then head west to where you left Emma Moonblade. Talk to her with a character who has a high Charisma, and say that no reward is necessary - for that you get a bigger reward. Weird... If you accept her initial offer of a reward, you'll get less experience and not get to keep the sword, so it behooves you to play nice. Once you've gotten all the experience you can, and have sold and/or bought anything else you want from Arte, head north thru the gate again and exit thru the gate at (x=780 y=520); you may have to fight a Highland Cat just outside the gate, but he's not hard to kill. Follow the yellow brick... err... winding path and exit the area to the northwest at (x=770, y=70). ***REWARD*** (for recovering Emma Moonblade's sword and accepting the reward) EXP 750 OR (for recovering Emma Moonblade's sword and declining the reward) EXP 1050 The Moonblade of Selune o======================================================================o | | | Shaengarne Bridge | | | o======================================================================o 1. The Highlands 2. Harpies and Were-things 3. Dam Malarites 4. Bridges and Ice Shelves 5. Broken Bridges 6. Magical Wood Planks 7. Welcoming Party 8. Xuki's Bridge of Ogres 9. Campsite 10. Home Again Shaengarne Pass (AR2100) {WLK006} o======================================================================o 1) The first thing you see when you arrive is a Highland Snake. Let's see... Highland Gate Key, a Highland Cat, and a Highland Snake - could it be these are the Highlands? Nah - that's silly. Anyway... Kill the snake and head north up the eastern edge of the map to find a Verbeeg standing in front of a shack. Kill him, get the Bane Immunity Ring(*1) off his corpse, and loot the corner of the shack at (x=1910, y=410), then return to where the path forks west. Note: a few times I did not get the Bane Immunity Ring here, so don't be surprised if you don't either. ***ITEMS*** will be blocked to the west, so head north up the western passage where you will be attacked by a couple Harpies. Just as you make the turn to head south again, you will be engaged by one Gaernat Sharptooth, the leader of a group of Wererats. He and his minions will be joined by a few Orc Archers, an Orc Shaman and a Spider (a spider, really? Whatever...). As always, pay the Shaman some special attention early to avoid getting into trouble, and kill the whole group. Go to the south, then west to encounter another group of Wererats, Orcs, and yes, another Orc Shaman. When they're all dead, loot the area. Once again, it's time to level-up a few characters: K'aos adds a Wizard level and bumps his Intelligence to 17. He puts his skill points into Concentration, Diplomacy, and Spellcraft. He gets second level spells here, and takes Web and Bull's Strength. Ghrax goes to Ranger level 4 and takes his Constitution to 18; he adds his skill point to Concentration. Now is when he first gets spells, and he takes Entangle and Sunscorch x2. Fhornal continues his progression as a Druid and grabs a Dexterity point (up to 16). He adds a point each to Concentration and Spellcraft, saving teh extra point for next time. He adds Sunscorch and Beast Claw to his spell selections. ***ITEMS*** (x=850, y=490) Tchazar Gem, 13 Gold (~3) - Longbow +1 (x=200, y=680) Tiger Cowrie Necklace, Potion of Extra Healing, 14 Gold (~3) - Zircon Gem, Extra Healing, 20 Gold The Dam (AR2101) o======================================================================o 3) Now I know that the organization standard for this guide dictates that we start a new section when we transition areas, but as there were only two steps in the previous one, and not many more in this one, it just seemed ridiculous to do that. So after resting to memorize spells, we exit to the west at (x=10, y=570) and find ourselves... ...confronted by several Malarites and their pet Arctic Boars. Can we move from one area to another without being immediately attacked upon arrival? Please? No? Well alright then... Malarites are spellcasters, so make sure to hit them hard; the Boars can do some pretty mean damage but the Malarites are the real danger here. Kill them, and then take out the support pillar at (x=2460, y=560). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Head southwest across the wooden bridge and continue moving south, where eventually you will be attacked again - more Malarites and a Mad Cat this time. If this happens the way it did for me, you will find your party on a small ice shelf between two bridges, which is/was a Good Thing (tm) because the western bridge serves as a natural bottleneck, allowing only 1-2 enemies to get to you at a time. The Cat will race across to attack, and dies rather easily; I then focus missile fire on the Malarites until they decide to come at me. When they're gone, loot the containers in their camp. ***ITEMS*** (x=1450, y=1300) Oil of Fiery Burning, Lamp Oil x2, 32 Gold (x=1450, y=1300) Andar Gem, Flaming Oil x6, Potion of Extra Healing, Thy-Dunag Blade (*1) *1 This short sword sports a d6+1 Damage and a +2 Attack Bonus. Since Quala has a better sword already, I plan to sell this. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Another bridge to the southwest, then turn north to get an in-game message about rebuilding a destroyed bridge. Well if that isn't a clue, I don't know what is. Before we go about doing any bridge building, however, there's another Malarite party to the east that must be taught a lesson in manners. Cross the bridge to the north they were guarding and dispatch another group. Attack and destroy the support beam at (x=1220, y=370) - you'll have to do this with missile weapons - then grab the wooden planks from (x=150, y=650), thus destroying the dam. ***REWARD*** (for destroying the dam) EXP 750 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Return to the broken bridge and place the wooden planks in the empty space where the bridge used to be, and Voila! The bridge is repaired. Now from the looks of it, the planks you were carrying and the tree trunks that now span the broken bridge opening are two different things entirely, but who am I to question the awesome powers of the writers of the game... Suffice it to say that you can now cross, and exit the area (x=50, y=1150). Ilana moves up to level 4 here and adds a point of Wisdom. She takes a point in Consstitution for her skill boost, and grabs Doom and Silence as her new spells. Xanth and Quala are extremely close to new levels as well (10 and 16 points, respectively), but try as I might I could not get anything to attack me when resting here. The next steps are somewhat time-sensitive, so if you want the max experience out of this, you can't dilly-dally around. Go in and kill everything as quickly as you possibly can, following the steps exactly as they are laid out. The Bridge (AR2102) o======================================================================o 7) Enjoy a cutscene (you did enjoy that, didn't you? If not, reload and do it again. No... not really...) then start the biggest fight of the game so far. Orcs, an Orc Shaman, and a Bugbear await you, and together they can be trouble; an Entangle spell will make them less troublesome. Slightly north are more enemies of all the kinds we've met so far, save Goblins. This fight really isn't all that hard, just remember to move injured characters back out of combat and heal before re-engaging. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Ignore the camp to the west and head straight for the bridge (due north); do not pass go, do not collect loot... When you reach the Shaengarne Bridge, there's a Mage named Xuki (x=2130, y=570) waiting on it to make your life miserable, along with a couple of Ogres. Xuki will chat with you, attempting to distract you from stopping the destruction of the bridge. If possible, lead with a character with a high Wisdom score (16+) so you can see thru the ruse and save the bridge. It's a major pain to accomplish this, but you want to kill the two Ogres at (x=2230, y=500) and (x=2400, y=750) before they can destroy the bridge. As much as it pains me to say this, you may have to lose a character and have them resurrected to get this done. Kill everything, and loot Xuki's body for a Bag of Holding, Witherbranch Boots (*1), and 29 Gold. ***REWARD*** (for not being distracted) EXP 525 (for preventing the destruction of the Shaengarne Bridge) EXP 1575 OR (for allowing yourself to be distracted) EXP 700 ***ITEMS*** (x=2110, y=530) Potion of Extra Healing, Footman's Folly (*2) *1 These magical boots make the wearer immune to Entangle spells. I put these on K'aos. *2 A small shield that grants a +2 Shield Bonus. +1 vs Missiles <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Now head west toward the opposite edge of the map. You will find several more enemies to smite and a few containers to loot. Exit to the west at (x=40, y=1030) and return to the Targos Palisade. Since we're going back to where it's safe, I wait to level up back in Targos, after getting the experience from Crawford and Ulbrec. Targos Palisade (AR1200) o======================================================================o 10) Head back to talk to Shawford Crale for your first reward; make sure to speak to him with a character possessing a high charisma to get the maximum amount (4000 Gold). Leave his house and exit south to Targos City, then report to Ulbrec for your next reward. He will also tell you about your next mission - attack the Goblin's fortress. Rest, sell/buy supplies and weapons, and get ready to move on to the next sequence. When you're fully prepared, exit to The Horde Fortress via the northwest corner of the Targos Palisade area. ***REWARD*** (for retaking the Shaengarne Bridge) EXP 1575 OR (for attempting to save the bridge) EXP 525 Leveling: Xanth will remain a single class, and moves up to level 4; he takes his ability point in Charisma. He naturally takes a skill point in Alchemy, as well as one in Concentration. For a second level spell, he chooses Web. Quala will add a Sorcerer level here, spending her skill points in Search and Spellcraft. She adds Ray of Enfeeblement for her new spell. o======================================================================o | | | The Horde Fortress | | | o======================================================================o 1. Meeting Ennelia 2. Northward Ho! 3. Little Drummer Boy 4. Trugnuk's Entanglement 5. Orc Scout Jamboree 6. The Southern Bridge 7. Full Circle Worg Riders will spawn constantly in this area, and they are a major pain in the ass. They have a habit of appearing right in the middle of the party, so try to keep everyone together in a group if possible. On the other hand, this area is a great place to grind for experience... Horde Fortress Grounds (AR3000) {WLK007) o======================================================================o 1) When you arrive you'll be met by Ennelia, who is just brimming with information about the area, the fighting, and the fortress itself. Of real importance is her admonition to destroy the War Drums, part of the fortress alarm system. She also tells you of Braston, her partner who was captured by the denizons of the fortress, and is likely being held captive. Finally, she will mention that she is injured, so offer her a Potion of Extra Healing for some experience. Head north up the path. ***REWARD*** (for healing Ennelia) EXP 525 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) You will run into several Goblins and Half-Goblins who need some death, but I really only mention them because... well... there were here. They pose no real threat, although one of them drops a few Masterwork Arrows. You'll find a bridge to the east, but I think we should clear out the western side of the area first. Continue north and northwest, finishing off any Goblins or other enemies you find. When you get to the northern bridge, there will be a Winter Wolf; make sure to grab his pelt, as it sells for a fair bit (especially in bulk). In the abandoned camp, search the tents for some loot. Goblin Worg Riders will continue to spawn here, so finish your business, disarm the traps on the bridge, and head across it to the east. ***TRAPS*** (x=850, y=750) (x=990, y=700) ***ITEMS*** (x=400, y=800) Antidote, Lamp Oil x3, (~1) Vampiric Flail(*1), 5 Gold (~2) Lawful Hammer (*2) (~3) Scimitar of Entanglement(*3) (~4) Halberd +1 (x=460, y=610) Scroll:Cure Light Wounds x2, Darts +2 x30, Potion of Extra Healing x2, (~1) Masterwork Bolts x40 (~2) Stun Bullets x30 (*4) (~3) Bullets +2 x30 (~4) Bullets of Corrsive Burst x20 (*5) *1 This weapon has no attack or damage bonuses, but does have a 50% chance to drain 1d4 hit points from the target and temporarily add them to the wielder's hit point total. *2 No attack bonus on this bad boy, but it has a 33% chance to deal an extra 2d6 damage to Chaotic creatures. *3 Normal weapon, but can cast Entangle 1x/day *4 +1 sling bullets that have a 25% chance to stun the target for half a combat round. Not long really, but long enough to get in an extra hit every now and then. *5 1d4 damage, +1d6 acid damage, +10% chance 1d10 extra acid damage. These things kick ass on Trolls <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) On the eastern side of the bridge will be an Orc Shaman and a couple of Goblin Archer Elites. Kill the Shaman, and destroy the War Drum (x=1300, y=800) right away, then deal with the archers on the tower. That's one War Drum alarm down - two to go. Continue east on the path, where you'll encounter several Goblin Worg Riders, an Ogre, and a Hardened Ice Troll. I place my archers up on the now abandonded tower and draw the enemies back to within their range - this makes life much easier for me, and much harder for them. Bear in mind that Worg Riders can spawn anywhere, including on the tower, so be prepared; I found myself switching between missile and melee weapons fairly often. Once this group has been dispatched, continue east. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) DO NOT follow the short path north to the compound gate; instead go east and southeast to take out a couple more Orc Archers on a platform at (x=2750, y=700). You will eventually encounter an Orc Shaman named Trugnuk - I found him at around (x=2000, y=770), although his exact position will vary. I have encountered him here, in the camp to the east (next step), across the bridge to the south (Step 6), and at various points between these places. No matter where or when you encounter him, his tactics will be the same; he will start by casting Entangle, so rushing him is not advised as you will get caught in his spell effect and most likely have to reload. Reloading sucks - it means someone in the party died, and dying is a Bad Thing (tm). Also, more Worg Riders will spawn, and they (as we already know) can make things... umm... interesting. Continue east, ignoring the bridge to the south; give it a wide berth so as not to initiate combat with the creatures there. NOTE: Once Trugnuk dies, no matter where you find him, make sure to grab the Warren Key off of him, along with the other goodies (which includes a Holy Might Potion). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Kill the archer guards on the tower, then head around the north side of it to completely avoid the southern bridge and the enemies which lie beyond. Once you're in position, attack the inhabitants of this second guard camp from the north. When the camp has been rendered safe and the War Drum destroyed, loot the tents as before. Combat Strategy: I place the party up in the enclosed space at around (x=3400, y=370), then send one character down toward the camp to start the encounter. Entangle and Web the camp, and this is an easy fight. Three party members are able to level up here, but what with all the Worg Riders and other enemies about there will be no chance to rest, and since I won't really gain any benefit (except the additional hit points), there's no need to do it yet. I will add levels at the end of the section, before moving to the next area. ***ITEMS*** (x=3360, y=740) Potion of Healing x2, Bolts x20, Merry Shorthorn (*1) (x=3500, y=740) Bullets x20, Scroll:Cure Light Wounds, Scroll:Doom, Scroll:Armor of Faith (x=3570, y=850) Bluestone Necklace, Antidote, Potion of Extra Healing (x=3530, y=1090) Potion of Healing x2, Antidote, Sunstone Gem, Tchazar Gem, Scroll:Entangle (~1) Leather Armor of Fortitude (*2) Lesser Chameleon Ring (*3) (~2) Light Crossbow +1 Ring of the Wise (*4) (~3) Bane Immunity Ring (~4) Ring of Protection +1 *1 A Bardish item, this horn casts Bless on the character 1x/day *2 Armor Bonus +2, Max Dex Bonus +6, Hit Points +5 *3 +1 to Hide Skill *4 +1 to Wisdom <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Now for that bridge to the south. Since there's a tower that we can use, I elect to do so and place my missile-equipped characters up there. I keep my fighters at the base of the tower facing the bridge, then send one character forward to incite the enemies on the other side. As they did in the last couple of battles, Worg Riders will suddenly appear in the middle of the party, including on the tower - so be ready to swap out ranged weapons for melee when the need arises (and it will). I eventually ended up with the entire party on the tower, although I did not actually plan to do that - maybe next time I'll just move them all up there and start the battle that way. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Now that the bridge has been cleared, we can cross it and head to the south. A couple of leftover archers on the tower, and we can head southwest to the final camp. This plays out just like the other two: a Shaman, some archers, and those damn Worg Riders. Kill everything, and smash the drum; there's no camp this time, so no fresh loot. Boo... Head south around the rock outcropping and turn north again to find a couple more Goblins, and a wooden gate. Open the gate, and kill Gark and his Ogre friend beyond. Everyone is able to level except Xanth, who is 78 points away; I rest a time or two to allow some enemies to show up, and then level-up the whole party, as follows: K'aos adds another Wizard level, and takes Bluff and Intimidate for skills. He adds Larloch's Minor Drain and Aganazzar's Scorcher for his new spells. Ghrax will stay a Ranger for his entire career, and goes to level 5. His skill point goes into Concentration, and he chooses Orcs as his new Favored Enemy. Ilana moves to to level 5 as well, and adds a Concentration point. She takes Prayer as her new Domain spell, and adds Remove Curse and Remove Disease as Cleric spells. Why not more offensive spells, you ask? It's easy - healthy characters fight better, and her job is to keep the party healthy. Xanth also levels to fifth, and takes Alchemy and Concentration for his new skills (we will need a very high alchemy score for a specific quest later). He adds Larloch's Minor Drain and Aganazzar's Scorcher to his spell selection. Quala adds a Rogue level and puts her points into Roguing skills (all four skills are now at 7). Armored Arcana is important for her here, so that's where her feat point goes. Fhornal will likewise stay single classed, and adds a Druid level here. He takes Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft for skills. At this level he also gains third level spells, and selects to add Cure Moderate Wounds and Neutralize Poison. With newfound strengths and abilities, and now fully rested, enter the cave at (x=3750, y=2350). ***TRAPS*** (x=2420, y=1030) (x=1780, y=2150) (x=1690, y=2150) o======================================================================o | | | The Fortress Cave | | | o======================================================================o 1. To Sneak, or Not to Sneak? 2. I Recommend Sneaking 3. Pondmuk's Hunger 4. More Sneaking 5. Spiders for Pondmuk 6. The Secret Word is... 7. Open Doors and Bottlenecks 8. Choices, Choices... 9. Quick Exit and Return 10. Nothing to See Here... 11. Mopping Up the Remnants 12. Let My People Go! 13. Yquog's Request Cave complexes are usually quite large, and will tend to wind around in a convoluted series of tunnels and switchbacks. Enemies may be around any corner, and missile weapons are of limited use - I strongly suggest equipping all characters with melee weapons. If the situation should arise where missile weapons are called for, I'll try to let you know in advance so you can make the switch before engaging. That being said, you need to play the game they way you feel is right; I'm simply telling you what I did, when, and why. Cave (AR3001) {WLK008) o======================================================================o 1) Now, based on some research using Infinity Explorer, there is some experience to be had by not killing the Goblins in the next few steps. There are three 'camps' which make up these next steps (this Step, Step 2, and Step 4), and if you can manage to sneak past them and not get caught you'll get rewarded for it when you exit this area. This first group is all but impossible to get past without getting caught, and you'll have to make it past them twice - once heading in and again heading back. Here's what I did: I sent Ghrax down, using his Stealth skill to become invisible, and simply walked thru the first camp (it took several tries to actually accomplish this). Rather than risk having the party separated, I then sent him alone to meet Pondmuk and complete that quest (steps 3-5), and then returned to the party the same way (again taking several tries). If you take this route, skip to step 3 and proceed from there; you can come back and destroy the camps in step 11. The rest of this section assumes you snuck past all three camps... If you would rather kill the first camp (much easier), do so as outlined below: Spell buff, and head south from the entrance to find a rather large group of various Goblins, including a Worg (with no rider) and a Shaman. This is a tough fight, although casting a Web and/or Sleep spell at around (x=3200, y=1750) makes it much less so... The Shaman should receive special attention until he goes down, as should the Worg. The Web/Sleep spell combination will pretty much win this fight all by itself. Once everything is finally dead, you can loot the tents for some nice items. On one of my runs thru this sequence, one of the Goblin Archers dropped some Arrows of Flame +1(*1). ***ITEMS*** (x=3500, y=1840) Bolts x40, Lamp Oil x3 (x=3500, y=1950) 107 Gold (x=3000, y=1630) Darts x20, Masterwork Bolts x40 (x=2760, y=1700) Bullets x20, Masterwork Bolts x30 (x=2500, y=1760) Bolts x40 (x=2830, y=2130) Bullets x17, Sparkling Bolts +1 x40 (*2) (x=3180, y=2180) Darts x15, Bolts +1 x20 (x=3450, y=2180) Scroll:Skull Trap, Scroll:Vampiric Touch, Scroll:Fireball, Arrows +2 x20 *1 +1 attack bonus, 1d6 damage, plus 1d6 fire damage *2 +1 attack bonus, 1d8+1 missile damage, plus 1d6 electrical damage //Note by Valdo I had my group setting up in the passage towards the camp, and went in with my paladin to lure most of the melee fighters back into the tunnel. Once they came into range, I had my ranged characters suprise them with a couple of Flaming oils, which took out most of their melee fighters. After that it was a matter of cleaning up the archers and the Shaman. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Well that was a nice treasure trove indeed; let's hope the rest are as generous. The only way to go from here is west, so let's go that way. Now if you're attempting the sneaking route for the experience, this camp is much easier to get past. Stay to the north and hug the cavern wall and you should be fine (skip to Step 3 and head straight for Pondmuk). In the cavern to the south is a group of Orcs, including a Shaman, a Witch Doctor (think Mage), and a Greater Zorgar, whatever in the hell that is. This fight is a bit easier, and the comparitively crappy loot is testament to that. I guess that first cavern was a gift... You'll find several dead dogs lying about, but it doesn't appear you can do anything to help them. Back north to the fork and head west to find a path to the north and a cavern to the west. ***ITEMS*** (x=2170, y=2410) (~1)Leather Armor +2, Masterwork Bolts x40, (~2)Returning Frost Dart (*1), (~3)Ring of Lesser Risistance (*2) *1 If you like Darts (I don't), this one is fairly nice. 1d4 damage, plus a 25% chance to do an additional 1d6 cold damage, and it comes back to you after you throw it. *2 Spell Resistance 1/- <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Go up the northern passage and turn east to find Pondmuk, who insists that you shouldn't kill him, and that he's good. Well, since he didn't attack right away, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Talk to him; he promises to tell us "the password" if we do something for him, and passwords are good things to know. Agree to bring him some spiders to eat, head back out of his little cavern and head to the west. Again, sneaking is recommended... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) You can also sneak past this next group fairly easily - I sent two fighter-types alone to complete the next step and gather the "food" for Pondmuk. If you choose to go for the loot, and therefore kill the Goblins in this camp, follow this step; otherwise, skip to Step 5. In here is a Goblin Worg Rider Captain, which makes him sound quite a bit more dangerous that just a simple Goblin Worg Rider (which we all know are a pain in the ass). In reality, he just has more hit points than his counterparts, but that does make him harder to kill. He is joined by two more plain Goblin Worg Riders, several Goblin Archers, and assorted other asshole Goblins (yes, there's a Shaman here too). ***ITEMS*** (x=1000, y=2030) Scroll:Dispel Magic, Scroll:Melf's Minute Meteors, Agni Mani Necklace, Gold Ring, Lamp Oil x2 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) North out of the cavern you'll find a door at (x=1000, y=1300), and on the other side are the Spiders that Pondmuk wants to east. Well okay then - let's get the little shit some dinner. Kill the Spiders and grab their Wooly Spider Bodies from them. Grab all the Spider Bodies you can find (there should be five) and return to Pondmuk. Don't give him the largest spider first; instead, give him some other spiders to get the password (Chimera) and some experience, then give him the spider queen body for some more experience. If you rest here, per the dialogue option, you WILL be attacked be four Worg Riders, including another Captain, and Pondmuk will go hostile. What an ungrateful prick... ***ITEMS*** (x=500, y=550) Broken Shield, Broken Armor (~4) Leather Armor of Lesser Spell Resistance (*1) (x=350, y=300) Broken Weapon, Broken Armor, (~1) Small Shield of Fortitude (*2) (~2) Gauntlets of Weapon Skill (*3) (~4) Axe of Displacement (*4) ***REWARD*** (for giving Pondmuk several spiders to eat) EXP 1050 (for giving Pondmuk the Spider Queen's body) EXP 1575 *1 AC +2, Max Dex +6, 2/- Spell Resistance, Spell Fail 10% *2 This is a +1 Shield that adds 5 hit points to the bearer's total *3 Attack Bonus +1 *4 Normal Battle Axe, can cast Blur 1x/day <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Sneak back to where we entered (x=2930, y=950), head northwest, and use the password that we got from Pondmuk. The door will open and even though the Door Guard is hostile, he simply wanders away. That does not mean, however, that this is going to be easy. If possible, you should hit him with a Sleep or Web spell to prevent him from escaping and warning his friends, but the timing of this can be quite tricky. Either way you'll have to fight the battle in the next step, but the foes will not come at you all at once if you can prevent the guard from warning them. ***REWARD*** (for using the password) EXP 525 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) I recommend using the door as a bottleneck to draw the various critters back to you for killing - send a single character ahead to get them to chase you, then slaughter them when they get caught in the doorway (unless, like me, you're really unlucky and end up with a Worg Rider manifesting right in the middle of the party. This only happened once, the other two times it went as I had planned). This is a hellish fight - Worg Riders, a Hardened Fire Troll, and an Orog Chieftan all show up at once. If you don't trap them in the door, or the Worg Riders show up on your side of the doorway, you're going to pretty much be screwed. Magic wins the day here - spells and weapons. Make sure to equip magical missiles on your ranged characters, and have your spell- casters go nuts with everything they've got. Anything less than an all-out assault will result in the death of a character. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Now that everything blocking our progress has passed away, proceed thru the door. There are three ways we can go here - east, northwest, and west. I suggest doing things in that order (east first, then the passage northwest, then finally the western tunnel. Why did I repeat the directions I had just listed? Because I could... why else?). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Take the eastern passage, which turns north into a large cavern leading to the exit. There is a trap here right in front of the arch, but unless you've put ALL your points into finding traps you'll never see it. Just go ahead and spring it - get it over with. Someone will take a few minor point of damage, but nothing that will cause any problems going forward. I suggest exiting at (x=3300, y=100) to grab the experience from sneaking (if you did so), and then returning here immediately - we're not ready to deal with the next area yet. Now that we have the experience, we can go back and kill the denizons of the other camps and grab the loot. Eventually... ***REWARD*** (for sneaking further into the warrens without alerting any camps) EXP 1575 OR (for sneaking further into the warrens and only alerting one camp) EXP 1050 OR (for sneaking further into the warrens and alerting all three camps) EXP 525 ***TRAPS*** (x=3300, y=140) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Well, that was exciting, wasn't it? Return to the previous fork and head north, then northwest up the tunnel to find a Troll. He's really kind of a pussy after all the other baddies we've killed, but as he's in our way I guess we'll have to kill him too. Remember to use fire or acid to fully destroy him and proceed northwest. The passage turns west and ends at another door. No password this time though, as the door will open easily (not even locked). This passage eventually ends up back in the spider cave... Why did we bother with either of the last two tunnels? Because I'm a completionist for one thing, and I wanted to make sure nothing was going to come at us from behind for another. If you skipped the previous two steps nobody will know, and I won't be offended. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) If you still have creatures to kill and loot to grab, now is the time to do so. As long as you've already been awarded the experience by exiting and returning to this area, you can return to the camps you snuck past before and destroy them (Steps 1, 2, and 4). Oh, and kill that little fucker Pondmuk too... More leveling up here: K'aos adds a Paladin level, because the skills he needs are only an option with that selection. He takes Concentration, Diplomacy, and Spellcraft for skills, and adds Combat Casting for his feat. Ghrax moves up to level 6 and adds a point to Concentration; he also takes Combat Casting for his feat. Fhornal also becomes 6th level, adding points to Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana); Combat Casting is also his choice for a feat. He adds another Barkskin and a Contagion to his spells. When you're done killing, looting, and pillaging, head back to the fork by where the exit is and explore that final passage to the west. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Kill the little drummer boy at (x=2100, y=700) and destroy his drum; make sure to grab the Door Guard's Key from his corpse before moving on. The passage turns to the south, and standing right in the middle of the next chamber is Vunarg. Ignore him - he will let you walk right past. Or, you can talk him into leaving and leading his people back to their homes if you have high enough Bluff and Diplomacy skills. Any wrong selection in the dialogue process will turn him (and his friends) hostile; just don't say anything obviously rude to him and you should be fine. If you get the dialog option starting with "A better question is..." then stick with option 2 thru the rest of the conversation, you will succeed in talking them into leaving without a fight. ***REWARD*** (for talking Vunarg into leading his people home) EXP 700 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Proceed east into a chamber - if you didn't send Vunarg home, there will be several Goblins around a fire. Ignore them, or kill them, and keep heading east until you reach Yquog. Lead with your highest Charisma character, as Yquog will initiate dialogue with the first person to enter this next chamber, and anything less than 16 Charisma will get you killed. Play nice in the conversation and get a quest to retrieve a message from some Goblin named Kruntur. Since Yquog is a demon, and obviously much stronger than we are at this point, I highly suggest taking him up on his questy offer. He will tell you a password (Xvim) to get you past Kruntur's guards, and mention something about having created the half-goblins that are running around, but in the end it's the quest that is interesting. Exit in the northeast corner of the map, where we ducked in and out for the experience before (x=3300, y=100). o======================================================================o | | | Kruntur's Abode | | | o======================================================================o 1. Opening Salvo 2. The Underground Zoo 3. Stuck in the Door 4. Killing the Zoo Animals 5. Cow Pen 6. Xvim I say! 7. In the Enemy Camp 8. Kruntur's Counter-Offer 9. Return to Fighting 10. Bugbear Trainers 11. Return to Yquog 12. The Tradeoff 13. Let the Demon Live Fortress Cave (AR3002) {WLK009} o======================================================================o 1) The standard greeting party made up of three Orc Archers, an Orc Shaman, an Orc Witch Doctor, and three Orogs await you when you enter this next cave. Kill them and loot the lean-to's for some rather nice items. Caution - just like the last area, Worg Riders will spawn here constantly, so unless you feel like grinding for some experience, you should keep moving. There are two ways out of this cavern - west, and northeast. I think we'll stick to tradition and go northeast, clearing the level counter-clockwise. A couple more Orogs, Orcs, and Trolls will attack, but they die rather easily. ***ITEMS*** (x=2680, y=2370) Scroll:Glyph of Warding, Scroll:Silence, Scroll:Cure Moderate Wounds, Bolts x20, Silver Necklace, 14 Gold (x=2870, y=2270) Scroll:Summon Monster III, Scroll:Dire Charm, Bullets +1 x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) The path turns west almost immediately, so I guess that's where we're going. A little ways ahead you'll find a guard by a War Drum; kill him and destroy the drum. Behind the cage are two Otyughs and several Fire Beetles, including a Fire Beetle Queen. They can't get to you, so there is nothing to fear (yet). There is also a door to the north. So... what to do? I vote to shoot down the critters thru the barrier, kind of like fish in a barrel - although these are not fish, and they're not in a barrel... oh well, you get the idea. Once you have killed as many of them as you can get to without opening the cage, proceed north thru the door into the next tunnel. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) The door opens, and there's three Ogres, including one Chieftan, standing right on the other side. Well, fine... we didn't really expect to get thru this without a real fight, did we? Bottleneck them at the door and take them down, then proceed into the room carefully. Now I don't know if I just got lucky or what, but after the first Ogre was dead, the other two got stuck on each other and couldn't get into the doorway; this allowed me to shoot down the Ogre Chieftan unmolested, and then only have to deal with the remaining Ogre by himself. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Now that we don't have to worry about being attacked from behind, enter the pen and destroy everything that is left alive. Hey! What's this? A container of loot? Well, we absolutely MUST see what's in there... ***ITEMS*** (x=1460, y=2000) Bluestone Necklace, 587 Gold, Leather Armor +1, Longbow-Sophia's Flight (*1) *1 A Longbow with +1 damage, +2 attack, and 1.5x range of a normal bow. Give this to a character with the Rapid Shot Feat and you've got an archer, indeed... Exit the pen thru the northern door (x=1600, y=1750) into an east-west passage parallel to the one we just left. Son of a bitch... Okay then, go east to keep in line with our previous goal of moving around counter-clockwise. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) What's this? A War Drum with nobody around to beat it? As unlikely as this seems, that's what it is. Destroy it and head east, then north to another fenced-in pen; this one with cows. Cows? In a cave? As the cows are not hostile (although I suspect I'd be hostile if I were a cow that had been dragged down into a cave complex), let's leave them be and head west. Guarding the cows, slightly to the west, is an Orc who is quickly joined by several friends. I let them come to me by the entrance to the pen, and cut them down. Among the loot dropped by these enemies, make certain you grab the Iron Wardstone from Gumph, who was apparently the leader of this bunch. He didn't seem to be any tougher then the rest but since he had a name... well... I don't know. You can attack and kill the cows and other assorted animals here if you are so inclined, but they are worth exactly zero experience and it will serve no purpose at all except to prove what a 'big stwong man' you are. I just leave them alone and continue west. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Further west is a trail of dead animals - these were obviously not brought down here as pets. Just a bit further and... some little idiot dressed all in red asks you for a password. Let's see... that asshole Yquog gave us a password we were supposed to remember, and as it happens to be one of the dialogue choices, then let's try it, shall we? "Xvim", I say, and sure enough we're allowed to pass. Since we have a choice of directions, let's continue north and see if we can't finish off this eastern half of the map. The passage turns east past a set of steps (which we'll ignore for the time being) and then dead-ends. Well, that was freakin' pointless - although we did discover a staircase. Quala levels up here to 4th level Rogue, adding points in the usual skills (Concentration, Disable Device, Open Locks x2, and Search). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Return to where we were asked for the password, and proceed west past Ilquog and the various Fire Trolls. I don't know about you, but I have a bad feeling about this - walking past potential enemies and leaving them alive behind us just doesn't seem like a good idea somehow. But then again, since the password did let us pass unmolested, why should we think that anything could go wrong? The path splits north-south, and it seems there's a container to loot, so I guess we should do that, eh? Disarm the trap, unlock the chest, and grab the goodies within. ***TRAPS*** (x=1280, y=300) ***ITEMS*** (x=1280, y=300) Elixir of Health x2, Jasper Gem, Gem Bag, Bullets +2 x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) At (x=730, y=1000) is the critter named Kruntur. Since there is still nothing hostile, and since he is the one we need to find, talk to him... Mention Yquog's missing message and you'll be offered a trade - the message for a set of Bracers. It seems nobody around here can hang onto their shit for any length of time without it being stolen, or otherwise mis-appropriated. Well okay then - there appear to be too many things to fight all at once down here, so we'll go along with this nonsense for now. Agree to get his Bracers and continue west down the passage. Don't try to grab the loot in the lean-to behind Kruntur or you'll get subjected to a bigger fight than you want, at least for now. Besides, it seems somehow better to finish off the quest before we go pissing off the locals, and I'm sure it will still be here when we get back from our trip. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) You'll be challenged by Tequog as the path turns east again, but he treats you like honored guests since you know the password and all. But where the path turns south, you'll run into another party of Orcs and Goblins, replete with Orc Shaman, Orc Witch Doctor, and all the normal trimmings. So much for the password... As usual, pay special attention to the spellcasters first and you should be fine. Once the fight is over search the bodies for the Black Wardstone among the various coins and gems they have. You can also search the tables for some additional loot. ***ITEMS*** (x=600, y=2100) Scroll:Lance of Disruption, Scroll:Flame Arrow, Scroll:Halt Undead (x=600, y=2240) Scroll:Cure Light Wounds, Scroll:Beast Claw, Scroll:Circle of Bones, Bullets x40, Bolts x40, Darts x40 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Further southeast is a Bugbear who appears to be training a group of Goblin and Half-Goblin Hordlings. Of course there's a Goblin Sorcerer here as well, and after all, why not? There are a couple of crates with goodies, and then all that's left is to return to the entrance. ***ITEMS*** (x=1150, y=2700) Potion of Extra Healing, Masterwork Bolts x40 (x=1250, y=2750) Potion of Healing x2, Bullets x40 (x=1600, y=2750) Darts +1 x20, 34 Gold (x=1800, y=2700) Masterwork Bolts x40, Bullets +1 x20 (x=1250, y=2750) Bullets x40, Darts x40, Impact Arrows +1 x20(*1), Bolts +1 x40 (x=2200, y=2700) Bolts x40, Bullets x40 *1 These are +1 arrows that deal an extra 1d6 crushing damage <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Exit the area and return to Yquog; play nice and he'll hand over Tamjan's Bracers (*1), then return to the area you just left and head back to talk to Kruntur again. *1 Tamjan's Bracers offer a +1 deflection bonus - much better to just hand them over to Kruntur, because these are basically shit. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Return to Kruntur by the most expedient route and give him Tamjam's Bracers; he will reciprocate by giving you the message for Yquog. Ask about the contents of the message and get even more experience. Now you can decide for yourself if you want to fight Kruntur and his crew, or if you want to return to Yquog first - I elect to finish all the questy shit, so I leave and head back to the previous area. ***REWARD*** (for returning the Bracers to Kruntur and leaving Yquog alive) EXP 3150 Message to Yquog, (~1) Leather Armor +2 (~2) Studded Leather of the Shield(*1) (~3) Tower Shield +1 (~4) Buckler of Denial(*2) (~8) Studded Leather Armor +1 (for vaguely finding out about the demonic connection between the horde and the "masters") EXP 1400 *1 Standard Leather Armor +1, and can cast Shield 2x/day *2 AC+1, Immune to the spell Circle of Death <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) The 13th step, and going to talk to a demon - this just has bad mojo written all over it. But we have a job to do, so let's get it over with. What?!? He didn't attack? Well any time I can get some free experience, I'm all for it. Time to head back thru the second set of caves and go up those stairs. You know the ones - north of Ilquog the password keeper, at (AR3002, x=2400, y=260). ***REWARD*** (for returning Yquog's message and not killing Kruntur) EXP 1400 (~1) Mace +2 (~2) Scimitar of the Defender +1(*1) (~4) Mace of Goblind Slaying +1(*2) *1 This is basically a +1 large sword that adds a +1 Deflection Bonus *2 Attack +1, Damage +1, Attack +2 vs Goblins, Damage 2d6+2 vs Goblins. Too bad there won't be very many Goblins left to fight... NOTE: There is a reason to leave Yquog alive, trust me. And while that little shit Kruntur does have a magical Warhammer of some kind sitting on his table, the fact that Yquog seemed pleased that he wasn't dead leads me to believe we should leave him that way. If I'm wrong, sue me; I'll fix it in a future playthrough... o======================================================================o | | | The Horde Fortress | | | o======================================================================o 1. Battle for the Courtyard 2. The 'Old Orc' 3. Eavesdropping on Sherincal and Guthma 4. Clowns to the Left of Us 5. Guthma's to the Right 6. Jailbreak 7. What's for Dinner? 8. Doctors and Priests 9. Easy Street 10. Freeing Braston 11. Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig Fortress Exterior (AR3100) {WLK010) o======================================================================o 1) You arrive in the exterior section of the fortress, and are set upon by two Verbeeg, an Orog Commander, a Goblin Shaman, and a couple Goblin Archers. Thankfully we have a clean save at the base of the stairs so we can restart this and be ready. If you didn't save first - shame on you. Of course you still have the auto-save to... well... save you, but how can you go into an area called 'The Fortress' and not have saved first? Anyway, kill everything that is alive out here, and kill it a lot. Make sure to go all the way around the battlements and grab every piece of loot that isn't nailed down (or hasn't been shot at you); there are a few nice arrows and bolts on some of the corpses. Ilana and Xanth level up before entering the Fortress: Ilana becomes a 6th level Cleric, adding a point to Concentration for her skill and Spell Penetration for her feat. She adds another Cure Moderate Wounds and a Cure Serious Wounds. Xanth also moves up to level 6, and bumps up both Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft, so we can identify things more easily without magic. He takes another level of Armor Proficiency so he can start wearing heavier armor. For his new spell, he adds Fireball. ***ITEMS*** (x=1820, y=1240) Scroll:Cure Light Wounds, Scroll:Remove Fear, Scroll:Remove Disease, Scroll:Unholy Blight, Potion of Extra Healing, Elixir of Health (x=1450, y=1120) Bolts +1 x35, Bolts x40, Potion of Healing x3 (x=1380, y=1100) Scroll:Lightening Bolt, Scroll:Hold Person, Bullets x23, Arrows +2 x20 (x=1210, y=1030) Darts x15, Darts +1 x18, Bolts x40, Bullets x40 Potion of Extra Healing x3 (x=1820, y=1240) Bolts x35, Bullets x30 (x=600, y=1280) Arrows +1 x20 Fortress Interior (AR3101) o======================================================================o 2) Go thru the large doors at (x=800, y=1100) to enter the main part of the Fortress. There are two Bugbears that need to be dealt with, and then an 'Old Orc' will appear. This guy takes some punishment before he finally falls, but he will die eventually. Make sure to grab the Key from him before moving on. Open the large door at (x=530, y=1130), and spell-buff before proceeding. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Enjoy the semi-interactive mini-movie of a "discussion" between Sherincal and Guthma. Why they bothered to make you click all that much for something you never really get to participate in is beyond me. I guess they wanted to give you a good opportunity to hear... err... read, the dialogue, or something. I move about halfway up this first hallway segment, and then cast a Web in the opening to the northwest, partly into the room. You'll see why in a second. Presently, a rather large number of various enemies will try to make you something less than alive - turn the tables and do them the favor instead. With any kind of luck at all, they will all get caught in the Webs and you can take them out with missile fire; if any get thru, you have your fighters to teach them a lesson in combat tactics. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Further up the hallway you'll draw the attention of more of the inhabitants of this Fortress - more Witch Doctors, Orog Chieftans, etc; you know the drill. Kill them and then loot the western room. Each compartment has a locked table (how do you lock a table?) with crap on it - grab it all. You should also be able to get into the northwestern- most room with its four containers. ***TRAPS*** (x=450, y=700) ***ITEMS*** (x=360, y=800) Scroll:Icelance, Antidote (x=450, y=700) Potion of Freedom, Potion of Absorption, Bolts x10 (x=550, y=600) 45 Gold (x=550, y=600) Zircon Gem, Ziose Gem, Scroll:Silence, (x=630, y=490) Scroll:Cure Moderate Wounds, Scroll:Beast Claw (x=800, y=570) Potion of Healing, Potion of Hill Ginat Strength (x=770, y=300) Waterstar Gem (x=840, y=220) 106 Gold (x=950, y=200) Keen Arrows x20(*1) (x=1020, y=200) Potion of Heroism, Potion of Invulnerability *1 Standard arrow fair, with an 'increased chance to score a critical hit' on the target, whatever in the hell that means. 1% chance? 5%? 20%? Who knows, just that it's better than no chance... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Since we know that there are no more Orogs in the southeastern-most room, let's check it out next. Empty... well shit... Okay then, let's try the room just north of it. Uh oh - not empty. Guthma is in here, along with a few minions. He will initiate dialogue and threaten you; your options are rather limited. And yes, as always, there's a Witch Doctor and a Sorcerer in here too. Did you really expect any less? This fight didn't require any special tactics, just some perseverence and an ability to move people back and heal. Loot the carcasses for some nice magical items, although not really nice enough to mention here in any detail. Head southeast down the center hallway. Combat Strategy: if you have Fireball, as I do, you can move your Mage up into position, initiate the dialog, and then Web the room so that Guthma and his buddies are trapped. Light up the room with all the fire you can muster. I did this and never took even a single point of damage; nobody made it out of the room. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Open the door at (x=1450, y=1250) to get another opportunity for mayhem - this is the Jailkeeper's room, and he's none too happy to see you. I bottleneck him in his doorway and slay him. Ignore the jail cells for now and let's finish clearing out this shit-hole, eh? Go northeast up the hallway and into the first room to the east where you can loot a bookshelf and a table for some goodies. ***ITEMS*** (x=1980, y=1000) Potion of Extra healing x3, Darts +2 x20 (x=2150, y=1070) Elixir of Health <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) All the way at the northeastern end of this hallway is an open room and a door. Disarm the trap in front of the doorway and loot the room. In the room directly across (x=1950, y=930) you'll find two Ogre Cooks, apparently making stew or something. As usual, they are not happy to be interrupted and you'll have to put them down. ***ITEMS*** (x=1500, y=750) Darts x20, Bullets +1 x30 (x=1660, y=750) Masterwork Bolts x20, Bolts +1 x15 (x=1730, y=800) Bullets of Corrosive Burst x20 (*1) (x=2100, y=800) Potion of Healing x2 (x=2400, y=900) Potion of Healing x2, Potion of Agility *1 These rather nice bullets do 1d4 regular damage plus 1d6 acid damage, and have a 10% chance to do an additional 1d10 acid damage. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Backtrack to find the door at (x=1150, y=530) and loot the trapped dresser at (x=1100, y=400). Down the hallway to the southeast is an open doorway, and in this room are an Orc Witch Doctor and an Orc Shaman. For their impudence, they must die. Loot the table at (x=1400, y=550). ***TRAPS*** (x=1100, y=400) ***ITEMS*** (x=1100, y=400) Bullets of Disruption +1 x20 (*1) (x=1400, y=550) Oil of Fiery Burning, Potion of Invulnerability *1 Undead and outsiders must make a Fortitude Save or be destroyed. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) There are a couple of doors here - one at (x=1750, y=550) and another at (x=1650, y=650). Behind the first one is a Goblin Sorcerer guarding a trapped container, and behind the second is an Orc High Shaman. Again, there's no strategy to these fights - the enemies are singular and pose no real threat. Just watch out for the traps on the containers - they suck a lot. ***TRAPS*** (x=1850, y=550) (x=1800, y=680) ***ITEMS*** (x=1850, y=550) Scroll:Haste, Scroll:Slow, Scroll:Invisibility Sphere (x=1800, y=680) Scroll:Non-Detection, Scroll:Ghost Armor <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Alright, let's go check out those jail cells we passed up earlier. Open the cell door at (x=1500, y=1450) to find Braston. Insist on getting him out of here and he'll follow you like a puppy dog. Exit the fortress back to the courtyard, and then straight thru the main entrance doors at (x=850, y=1600) and (x=700, y=1800) to get back to AR3000. Take Braston to Ennelia in the far southwestern corner for some experience. She'll run up to him like something out of a chick-flick and then thank you. The two of them will depart, probably to get a room somewhere. ***REWARD*** EXP 2100 (~1) Jasper Gem, Skydrop Gem, Potion of Healing x5, Agni Mani Necklace, (~2) Light Crossbow +2 (~4) Sling +2 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Exit this area and return to Targos Palisade. Head down to the building where Shawford Crale resides and talk to him for a very nice payday of 6000 Gold. No experience from him though, so I guess we need to talk to Lord Ulrec again. Head down to Targos City and Ulbrec's place and talk to him for the rest of your well-deserved reward, and yet another quest. This time you need to find Oswald, who will take you to meet up with the forces from Neverwinter. I have well over 35000 gold after selling off all the garbage I don't need or want, and I visit Lady Elytharra and buy Bracers of Defense +2 for Xanth, the Chameleon Ring of Dexterity for Quala, an Amulet of Protection +1 for Fhornal, and a Ring of Protection +1 for Ilana. After all this, I will have 15k left. Leveling Up: K'aos levels up in Wizard, adding Bluff and Diplomacy for skills, and his third and final Armored Arcana for a feat. He gets 3rd level spells here as well, and chooses Fireball and Haste. Ghrax moves up to level 7 and adds another point to his Concentration. Fhronal also goes to 7th level, taking Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana); he chooses another Sunscorch, and Flamestrike x2 for his new spells (Flamestrike is AWESOME!). This marks the end of Chapter 1; as soon as you talk to Oswald, the next Chapter will start, appropriately called Chapter 2. ***REWARD*** (for breaking the strength of the Goblin horde and saving Targos) EXP 2100 o======================================================================o | Chapter 2 | o======================================================================o | | | Crashed Airship | | | o======================================================================o 1. Os the Great and Wonderful 2. Flying Coach 3. Armoring Up 4. Local Inhabitants 5. Spiders and Wood Piles 6. Let's Get Stoned 7. The Death of Yurst 8. Choices, Choices 9. Werewolf? Therewolf! 10. Killing the Aurilites 11. Free Loot 12. Illium 13. Left Below Oswald's Airship {WLK011} o======================================================================o 1) You will find Oswald at (x=2050, y=660), standing next to a rather large boat-like object. Talk to him to get some background story on his airship, and to find out that he makes and sells magical potions. Buy whatever you think you need; I grab as many high-level healing potions as I can carry. You can pickpocket Oswald for a few gold and a couple of potions, but it takes forever and really isn't worth the effort. Do so if you wish... Talk to him again and tell him that Lord Ulbrec wanted him to take you to the Western Pass. You will not be coming back here, and he will warn you of that, so make damn sure you've done everything there is to do here first. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Enjoy an in-flight movie, and then Oswald will land... more like crashing really, since you get knocked unconscious. You will awaken inside the airship, with potions scattered about and a Boring Beetle trying to bore you to death. Use a character with a high Intimidate skill and keep yelling at Oswald to wake him up from his trance. This will take a bit, but eventually Oswald will wake up, and after some time will ask you to get a few items so that he can repair his ship. Agree to get his materials for him, grab the loose potions laying around, then loot the table and bookcases for more good stuff; make sure you grab Oswald's Spellbook from the table at (x=220, y=230). ***REWARD*** (for waking Oswald from his trance) EXP 1900 ***TRAPS*** (x=390, y=100) ***ITEMS*** (x=280, y=390) Oil of Fiery Burning (x=170, y=300) Potion of Explosions (x=220, y=230) Oswald's Spellbook (x=300, y=200) Scroll:Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Scroll:Emotion-Hope, Scroll:Spider Spawn, Scroll:Mordenkainen's Force Missiles (x=350, y=250) Potion of Firebreath (x=420, y=270) Star Diopside Gem, Waterstar Gem, Zircon Gem, Dart +2 x20 (x=450, y=160) Thrym Extract (**) (x=390, y=100) Potion of Absorption (x=530, y=180) Diamond(**), Stunning Arrows +1 x20, Bolts +2 x20 ** DO NOT SELL THESE ITEMS BACK TO OSWALD - you'll need them as part of the repair process for the airship. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Grab the shell from the Boring Beetle and talk to Oswald again to have him make you some very nice armor. Depending on how much time and money you have, you can select from the following options: Lightweight Plate Mail AC Bonus +6 1 day 600 Gold Field Plate Armor AC Bonus +7 2 days 1200 Gold Full Plate Armor AC Bonus +8 3 days 1800 Gold This armor is 1/4 the weight of normal armor, so it really is worth the effort to get as much of it as you can. Remember though, armor will screw up some characters' ability to cast spells or use their skills, so only equip those who can use it effectively. For my party, I will get the Full Plate Armor for Ghrax, Ilana, and Fhornal; they will not suffer any casting penalties from wearing heavy armor, so they are the perfect candidates. The Chainmail +1 that Ghrax was wearing goes to K'aos, even though it has a 30% spell failure penalty, the AC bonus is enough to offset this (in my opinion). You cannot rest here yet, so you'll have to go adventuring and pick up your armor later. Exit out of the northeast section of the ship at (x=500, y=120). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Outside, you'll be attacked by more Boring Beetles - these things die so easily, it's easy to see why they're called 'boring'. There's a pile of wood at (x=1190, y=2290); this is part of what Oswald needs to repair the ship, so disable the trap and grab it. Boring Beetles will continue to spawn to your northwest, but at only 375XP each this isn't really a great place to grind unless you have a lot of time on your hands, or have a character who is very close to gaining a level. Destroy their nest at (x=450, y=1850) to make them stop, and loot it for a shit-ton of potions and other cool items. Make sure to grab the beetle shells if you want more armor. Return to the airship to find that you can now rest in here safely; I do so several times to get all the new armor I want. If you try to rest outside, you will be attacked by some Tundra Yetis, who are worth 300XP but are slightly harder to kill. Oswald can fashion clothing out of the Yeti Pelts, each item takes a half-day and a 'few hundred gold'. All this is really good for is cold resistence, and in my opinion is not worth the investment. However, Yeti pelts are worth a fair amount of gold in bulk. You may also find some Fomorian Giants for your death-dealing pleasure. If you hang around here long enough, you'll find a couple of Beodaewn Followers, who will tell you that you should seek out Beodaewn; if you ask why they're here they will mention Birith Mal, and then get all weird about it. After a bit they will turn into Werewolves and you'll have to put them down. This obviously does not bode well for Beodaewn's future when we finally meet him. ***REWARD*** (for recovering the equipment that was stolen from Oswald's ship by the Boring Beetles) EXP 1425 ***TRAPS*** (x=1190, y=2290) ***ITEMS*** (x=450, y=1850) Ziose Gem, Iron Rations x5, Potion of Invisibility, Potion of Hill Ginat Strength x3, Potion of Luck, Potion of Minor Elemental Barrier, Delay Poison Potion, Darts +2 x20, Shock Darts x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Now fully equipped and newly armored, it's time to actually start exploring this place. There's another pile of wood at (x=760, y=1750), and it's also right on top of a large trapped area, so be sure to remove the trap before you go grabbing the wood pile. Head east from the airship along the southern edge of the map. And since we've seen one area trap so far, I think it's safe to assume we'll see more; have a Rogue check ahead of you as you move along. Around the center of the bottom of the map you will encounter Frost Spiders, who will appear from all sides. These guys are a pain in the ass - I suggest equipping all melee for this battle, as these guys will close on the party and render missile weapons useless. Grab their silk, which is another ingredient Oswald needs. From where you killed the spiders, head north. ***TRAPS*** (x=760, y=1750) (x=1600, y=2400) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) You'll come upon Captain Yurst, who asks you to kill the giants that are attacking him from the southeast (you should see the boulders flying at you). Return south, then head east to encounter the giants. There is a Goublika (or is that his name?), who looks a lot like a Verbeeg but is a bit stronger. He's joined by a few Fomorian Giants, and this battle can be tough if you're not careful. As long as you pay attention to your character's health and pull them back to heal if needed, you'll be fine. Return to Yurst and tell him the giants are dead for some experience. Offer him a Potion of Extra Healing for more experience. However, this still does not heal his wounds completely, so tell him you'll return. Head northwest, kill a few Yetis, and loot the locked crate at about (x=930, y=1030). Here you'll find, among many nice items, a Periapt of Wound Closure. Sounds like just the thing Captain Yurst needs, so grab it and head back there. ***TRAPS*** (x=1290, y=1240) ***REWARD*** (for preventing Captain Yurst from being stoned to death) EXP 4275 (for giving a healing potion to Captain Yurst) EXP 525 ***ITEMS*** (x=930, y=1030) Periapt of Wound Closure(*1), Book:Tending Ivy, Antidote, Healing Potion, Potion of Extra Healing, Elven Healing Wine(*2), Iron Rations x5, Philter of Purfication(*3), 56 Gold *1 Increased regeneration rate and prevent blood loss from weapons that cause the 'Wounding' effect. Not sure what the regen rate is, but it appears to be pretty fast *2 Heals 2d8 hit points *3 Removes Disease <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Talk to Yurst again and give him the Periapt we found for some more experience; now you can talk to him to get some information. Eventually he dies, despite all you've done to try and save him; loot his corpse for some more treasures, including the Periapt of Wound Closure. This goes on K'aos in my party, but you can place it on whichever character will benefit the most. Since Quala can level up now, I return to the airship and bump her up as a Sorceress (she is now R4/S4). She gets a point added to Dexterity (up to 23), which will serve her well in her new class/level. She adds her skill points to Concentration and Disable Device; Web is her new spell choice. ***REWARD*** (for stopping Captain Yurst's bleeding with the Periapt) EXP 1900 ***ITEMS*** (x=1940, y=1920) Broken Armor, Broken Weapon(**), Broken Shield, Broken Miscellaneous, Potion of Extra Healing x2, Periapt of Wound Closure, Scroll:Fire Shield-Red, Scroll:Protection from Cold, 102 Gold ** This will give you another ingredient to repair the airship. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Travel east again along the southern border and then turn north, where you'll run into a rather large cat-like being named Odea Winterthaw. This scene can play out three entirely different ways; I suspect it depends on who Odea decides to talk to, although there could be other factors. Scenario 1: If you are offered the opportunity to speak with Illium Ar'Ghrenoir and accept, you will be whisked away to the north central section of the map. You will be allowed to ask a series of questions, after which the demon Sherincal shows up and kills Odea, then damages you. Scenario 2: If you are offered the opportunity to speak with Illium and decline, you may ask Odea a few questions, but she is not very forthcoming. She threatens you, but nobody goes hostile so (at least for the present) it's an empty threat. Scenario 3: If you are not offered the option to speak with Illium, things will play out the same as in Scenario 2, but with no intel. I recommend talking to Illium, letting Odea be killed, then regrouping in the north-central portion of the map. In truth, I have not played out all three options, so I don't know what the eventual result of each might be - my decision is based on knowing that we need to head for the northwestern corner of the map to continue this section, and this is closer to that area. If you play out a different scenario and something deviates from this guide in a significant way, please feel free to send me a synopsis of your actions and results, and I will include it in a future revision (with full credit). ***TRAPS*** (x=1670, y=860) (x=2120, y=1860) (x=3050, y=1850) (x=3040, y=1280) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) No matter which way you played the previous step, head toward the northwestern corner of the map to find Beodaewn (x=560, y=670). If you didn't hang around the airship and encounter them before, he will be accompanied by his Followers; either way, equip everyone with melee weapons and surround him before engaging in conversation. Again, it depends on who you use to talk to him, but you will get several options from which to choose. You can buy/sell shit here, but his prices are just awful (too low for me to sell him anything, and too high to buy). In the end, the option you want is, "Die, cultist!", at which point you get the opportunity to make that happen, and they will all eventually turn into Werewolves. Get on him fast and hard - his followers are much easier to kill than he is, so make sure you deal with him first, then mop up the rest. Beodaewn will drop a scroll of Resurrection when he dies. ***TRAPS*** (x=1040, y=600) (x=320, y=1340) (x=500, y=600) ***REWARD*** (for exposing Beodaewn's deception) EXP 1900 ***ITEMS*** (x=500, y=600) Bloodstone Gem, Moonstone Gem, Shandon Gem, Arrows +1 x40, Keen Arrows x40, 745 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) South from his camp is another trapped pile of wood - grab it and go back to the Aurilite village (where you met Odea and Illium). You can stop and drop off the repair materials at the airship if you choose. I approach the village from the south, and keep to the eastern-most path, heading north as far as I can go. Our goal here is to wipe out the entire village, and this is a hellish fight, so I suggest resting and making sure you have all the spells prepared that you will want/need. Talk to the Aurilite Ranger at (x=3030, y=720) twice to initiate combat, and kill everything that comes at you. This eliminates about half the opponents and makes the next fight much easier. As always, Web/Entangle is your friend. ***TRAPS*** (x=3000, y=1320) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Head back south and then turn northwest up the gully. Eventually you will encounter Illium, who is understandably pissed off at you; the problem is, you cannot get to him to engage him in 'normal' combat. Ignore him for the time being, disable the trap (x=2460, y=840) to take down the shimmering archway, and head east; you'll probably have to take out another Ranger firing at you from the north. Keep going east until you find a cave entrance at (x=3450, y=520) and enter it. This will take you to the northern area of the map. Kill the Ranger Commander who is waiting for you, but don't try going after Illium just yet. Instead, head east to entice a couple of wolves to come down from a raised area. There is a Glyph of Warding at about (x=2970, y=230), but you can't really do much about it. Up on the raised area are ten (yes ten) lootable spots containing a very nice payday indeed. Loot, and head back west to finally deal with Illium on the bridge. ***TRAPS*** (x=2970, y=230) (x=2460, y=840) ***ITEMS*** (x=3100, y=220) Potion of Clear Purpose(*1), 102 Gold (x=3090, y=170) Darts +2 x20, 55 Gold (x=3150, y=170) Scroll:Stoneskin, 51 Gold (x=3110, y=110) Star Diopside Gem, 37 Gold (x=3160, y=270) 42 Gold (x=3230, y=260) 41 Gold (x=3270, y=210) Bullets of Corrosive Burst(*2) x20, 84 Gold (x=3200, y=170) 53 Gold (x=3250, y=130) Diamond(**), 59 Gold (x=3190, y=80) Jasper Gem, Bolts x40, Masterwork Bolts x40, Bolts +2 x40, Bolts +1 x40 *1 This potion permanently raises your Wisdom by 1, but at the cost of 2 points of Constitution. Not a good trade-off in my opinion, unless you have a serious need for Wisdom and too much Constitution. I doubt you are in this position, so this is pretty much useless, but I would be willing to bet it sells for a fair bit. *2 These are nice... 1d4 damage, plus 1d6 acid damage, plus 10% chance for another 1d10 acid damage. That's a potential 20 points of damage from a single sling bullet - not bad. ** The other diamond you need for Oswald to repair his ship <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) To actually get to Illium you have to go west past him, then south and east again. He will make this journey difficult, so be ready for some spells to be thrown at you. There are a couple more of his Ranger buddies here as well, although they die rather easily. You can only get one character at a time into position to attack Illium in melee, and it's easy to get yourself into a position where you end up blocking your own movement, so while my ranged characters have at him from a distance, I send only one character at a time in to physically engage him. When that character is hurt, I withdraw and send in the next person and heal the first one. Keep this up until Illium falls, then loot him for the Belledonna plants, among other things. You can also (finally) loot Odea's remains for the nice items she dropped. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) You should now have all the items Oswald needs to repair the ship; return to him and place the items on the table where the spellbook was. Then talk to Oswald again and get some experience. He'll tell you that even with the items, the spell takes a long time to work, so we might as well continue on foot for now. Ilana and Xanth are both able to level up here: Ilana is now a 7th level Cleric, with a Concentration of 8. She adds Recitation as her Domain Spell; another Remove Fear, plus Cure Critical Wounds and Defensive Harmony round out her spell choices. Xanth goes up to 7th level Sorcerer, and adds Alchemy and Concentration for his skills. He grabs Ray of Enfeeblement, Horror, and Dispel Magic to his spellbook. Of course we rest again to memorize, then move on... Exit the airship and return to the cave entrance, but exit the area at (x=3500, y=560) instead of entering the cave. ***REWARD*** (for finding the components for Oswald's mending spell) EXP 4275 o======================================================================o | | | The Glacier | | | o======================================================================o 1. The Master of Locks 2. Great Big Beetles and Tiny Notes 3. The Everlast Arrow 4. Beating Off the Crystal Golem 5. Pits and Rock Piles 6. Talking to the Spider 7. Bitched Outt by Lord Rengar 8. Mounting Zack Boosenburry 9. The Cult of the Dragon Necromancers 10. Tight Squeeze 11. Outside the Ice Temple The Glacier (AR4100) {WLK012} o======================================================================o 1) Witness a dialogue between Ougamya of Uthgardi and Phuzalon, and it seems our reputation has preceeded us; they even know our names. This, of course, means they're not going to like us being here, and we'll most likely have to kill them. Immediately after their talk, you'll get to see the Master of Locks kill a guard, then come to meet you. The dialogue options in this scene are limited, so just play along. He'll mention Nathaniel, who is apparently being held captive in an Ice Temple somewhere, then the first two idiots will spot you and attack. See...? I told you we'd have to kill them, it just turns out to be much sooner than I thought. They're joined by a couple of Aurilite Postulants and a few more Barbarian Warriors, and the game is afoot... You need to pay some special attention to the Postulants, as they are spellcasters and can be troublesome, but all in all this isn't a rough battle. One of the Aurilites drops a cloak, Nature's Vengeance(*1), which goes to Fhornal (who is the only one who can actually use it) *1 This cloak has a 10% chance to inflict the spell Bane on the attacker if the wearer is hit in combat. Not great, but better than nothing. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Proceed north up the western edge of the map, where you may have to deal with a Remorhaz - a large (!) beetle-like thing which can dish out some major damage. They like to pick on a single character if possible, so if you meet one, kill it as quickly as you can or else someone will very probably end up dead. Where the path splits to the east you will find a note laying on the ground, and another note and some gold just to the north of that. This second note mentions Crystal Golems, and hints at a way to destroy them. Continue north, then turn east... umm... where the path does. ***ITEMS*** (x=170, y=1420) Zack Boosenburry's Note (x=150, y=1150) Oria's Note, 58 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Continue east past the door until you come to a small shrine with a lootable container. Disarm the trap, and grab the loot. You'll see Doom Guards roaming around, but since they don't attack, you can ignore them. ***TRAPS*** (x=1830, y=650) ***ITEMS*** (x=1830, y=650) Antidote, Everlast Arrow(*1) *1 The Everlast Arrow is a plain returning arrow. No bonuses to attack or damage, it just comes back to you. I suppose it can replace the large stash of regular arrows in your quiver, thus saving you the weight of carrying them all around with you, but really it's just a shitty arrow... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) The path turns south here, and as that is the only way to go, well, go that way. At (x=1750, y=1050) there will be a Crystal Golem, and he's hostile. How can I tell that, you ask? It's easy - see that red circle that indicates his position? That's your first clue. The fact that he comes at you and tries to kill you is another good clue. Use whichever clue makes the most sense; in either case, kill it. Crystal Golems are immune to slashing and piercing damage, so if you don't have a lot of bludgeoning weapons this could be difficult. Crystal Golems are worth 4200 experience points, which is more than we gained on all but one of our quests so far, so they're definitely worth the fight. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Further south are two Aurilites standing in front of a pit with a Remorhaz in it. Kill them, and eventually the Remorhaz will make its way around to you from the north; kill it too. Knock down the middle pile of rocks at (x=1670, y=1540), then return from whence you came (that's north, in case you forgot). Keep on backtracking until you come to the passage eastward (x=540, y=2060). Loot the small shrine at (x=1180, y=1930), then proceed into the chamber to the east where the Remorhaz was. Grab the Aurilite Holy Symbol at (x=1540, y=1740), after which the Doom Guards will attack and all the doors will unlock. Doom Guards are pussies, so don't put a whole lot of thought into the next several encounters; just whack them and move on. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Now you can enter the various rooms and loot the various shrine pots. Proceed to clear out the areas we've already discovered, but don't head east to where the Master of Locks came from... yet. Note that you will sustain some minor damage when you open the doors, so while this holy symbol thing will allow you to pass, it will not protect you from the magic that is guarding each one. Thru the door at (x=550, y=1250) you will find a non-hostile Spider; talk to it for no apparent reason, then loot the container. Across the hall to the south is another door and another container - loot it too. Finally, head back to the beginning of the level and go eastward. ***REWARD*** (for finding a way to open the doors) EXP 2100 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Go thru the northern door first (x=800, y=2100) and proceed east to find an Aurilite Postulant who requires some death. I fry him with three Sunscorches and a Magic Missile, just because I can - you can kill him however you wish. Just east of him is another Remorhaz and a couple of Postulants; this Remorhaz, however, will not chase you so you'll have to do this fight the old-fashioned way. Spell buff with whatever you have, move into sight range and cast disabling spells, then kill everything. As soon as the Queen Remorhaz dies, the barricade behind her will fall and you will be bitched at by one Lord Rengar. This guy is a dick, and as I am fairly beat up from dealing with the Remorhaz, I retreat back down the hallway to the west out of range so I can drink some healing potions and prepare. When I'm ready, I return and smite him. He will use a Snowball Storm to very good effect, and possibly a Fireball as well, so be prepared. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) There are several ways to proceed from where Lord Rengar died; east, north, and northwest. I elect to finish off the southern portion of the map first, so east it is... I ignore the Cult of the Dragon Necromancers for now and continue where the path turns south. At the point where it turns southwest, there are a few Snow Trolls just begging to be killed; oblige and loot the shrine (x=2820, y=2210). Continue west, kill the next Remorhaz, and save Zack Boosenburry for some experience. Continue to talk to him and inform him that you found his spider for some more experience. Finally, he will sell you some scrolls, and in spite of his protestations that his supplies are limited, he has a lot of very nice shit for sale, including a Ring of Protection +2. I unload most of the crap I've picked up along the way, which gives me a nice stash of cash. Thru the door behind Zack is another Postulant and another shrine. Do what you do best and then head back east. Four characters are leveling up here, and while resting to memorize new spells is dangerous, it's worth the effort. K'aos adds a Wizard level, and takes his ability bonus in Intelligence. Concentration, Diplomacy, and Intimidate skills get a bump each, and he adds Horror and Slow to his spellbook. Ghrax hits 8th level as a Ranger, and adds a point of Dexterity; he adds a point to Concentration. Unfortunately, he doesn't get any spells. Quala needs another Rogue level so she can bump up here roguing skills, and she does so without hesitation. Disable Device, Open Locks, and Search are now each at 10; she also adds a bump to Concentration. She adds a point to Armored Arcana to make spell casting more effective (I could also make an argument for Spell Penetration here, but went with better casting odds instead). Fhornal's extra ability point was tough to decide; he really doesn't gain anything from it yet, so it's a matter of deciding where I want to put the next one. There are some battles ahead where having a higher Strength score would be helpful, but since it will take 2 points to actually gain any new bonus, I talk myself out of it and go with adding to his Wisdom score instead. Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana) each get an increase, and he adds Remove Disease and Dispel Magic to his spell capabilities. ***REWARD*** (for rescuing Zack Boosenburry) EXP 3150 (for finding Zack's mount) EXP 4725 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) The door to the north at (x=3060, y=1590) can only be opened by a 'nearby mechanism', and I have to assume this can be found with those Dragon Necromancer fellows, so let's visit them next. Before you talk to them, disarm the trap and loot the chest, and grab the wood pile. They are apparently not concerned that you are stealing from them, so this is essentially free crap. I position the party as much in the north end of their chamber as I can, spell buff to the max, and then talk to them. You will be asked if you wish to join, and if you say no then nothing will happen. As this is a disappointing outcome, let's agree, shall we? This will turn them hostile, and they will be joined by a Crystal Golem from the previously locked doorway, and one of several summoned creatures as well. (I saw a Shadow, a Zombie Lord, and some other kind of nasty thing in my several attempts to win this fight). Note that you can also turn the crank on their firepit, which has the same result. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Up the eastern hallway is a door. If you have a Halfling or a Dwarf in your party, you can squeeze thru the door and kick it open from the inside; once this is done, the party can enter. This door leads to the White Abishai Den in the Ice Temple (AR4101). As long as you are not wounded, you can gain some intel here; if anyone in the party is hurt, however, you are in for a massive fight. While it is winnable, it's not recommended - we really want to do the quest for these guys. I suggest healing fully, then enter, do the dialog options, and leave. You can then go back and talk to Zack Boosenburry for some experience. NOTE: You can also wait to return to Zack until after you've finished the first level of the Ice Temple (AR4101, Step 6); this will net you a higher experience reward, but does involve some extra running around. It's definitely worth it though, and you cannot get both rewards, so I recommend waiting and getting the max. In other words, there's no reason you cannot just skip this step entirely. ***REWARD*** (for finding out some information about the Ice Temple) EXP 1575 OR (for finding out a large amount of information about the Ice Temple) EXP 3150 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Since there's still a path we haven't explored yet, and we haven't yet run into Sherincal, let's go back and check out that last hallway. Spell buff to the absolute max, and head back past the Necromancer's lair, north up the passage, and there she is... the demon Sherincal herself. You will have the opportunity to chat for a bit before engaging, and once the fight starts, she will remove herself to the platform above. If you stay back out of her range, you can eliminate her minions without drawing her attacks. The only way to actually reach her is to throw spells, or with missile weapons. If you try to climb the staircases, you will simply end up back at the bottom again, and will have suffered damage from her attacks in that time, so just don't bother. I Fireball her to death from the courtyard, with a Sunscorch or two thrown in just for good measure. Once everything is good and dead, you can reset the stairs by attacking the switches on the corners of the upper platform (an arrow or two should do it). Rest, prepare, and finally exit thru the doors at (x=2680, y=670). Among other things, Sherincal drops Winged Blight(*1), a very nice two- handed sword. *1 Great Sword, Attack +1, Damage 2d6 +1, +2 extra attack and damage versus Humans (+3 and 2d6 +3, respectively) o======================================================================o | | | The Ice Temple | | | o======================================================================o 1. Ice Golem - Yawn... 2. No Time to Lose 3. Rescuing Nathaniel 4. Releasing the Prisoners 5. Sneak Attacked from Behind 6. Dealing with Lysara 7. The Twisty, Turny Thingy 8. Back to Normal 9. Free Loot, the Best Kind 10. Clockwise 11. Doorstop 12. Aurilite Killing Spree 13. Clearing the Outer Ring 14. Easy Money 15. Distractions 16. Talking Art 17. Her Royal Bitchiness, High Priestess Cathin 18. What's Behind Door Number One? 19. More Free Loot 20. A Gaggle of Ice Trolls 21. Schizophrenic Paranoia 22. Basement Dwelling This section is time-sensitive; if you're going to rescue Nathaniel, you really can't screw around. The steps below will ignore many doors and other passages in favor of a more direct route to the prison cells. Once Nathaniel has been rescued, we'll have plenty of time to go around and explore, kill things, etc... The Ice Temple (AR4101) {WLK013} o======================================================================o 1) Just ahead of you is an Ice Golem Champion, accompanied by two Aurilite Postulants. This is a pretty basic fight - I send my melee fighters to take on the Golem and my missile-equipped characters fire on the Postulants. Once they're all dead, ignore the loot they drop and continue on - we'll come back for it after we rescue Nathaniel. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Ignore the doors and rooms to the west and east, and head straight thru the doorway ahead of you. Here you will encounter a couple more Aurilite assholes. Not really much of a challenge so far in this place... The door to the northwest (x=730, y=1980) opens into a room with three Barbarian Warriors, who are pussies, and two Polar Bears, who are not. Two of the containers in here contain some loot. ***ITEMS*** (x=400, y=1730) Necklace (x=470, y=1760) Darts +1 x20, Darts of WOunding x20, Arrows of Lesser Dispelling x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Ignore the secret door to the northwest and continue thru the doorway at (x=600, y=1800). Nathaniel will speak to you and give you some intel on how this place works: the priestesses Lysara, Cathin, and Orla; the Neverwinter forces are dead, and no more are coming; the Temple is under an anti-magic shell which prevents most magic from working; and a clue about how to disable it. Finally, he'll ask you to free him, which as it turns out is a piece of cake - pick the lock on the cell door. ***REWARD*** (for freeing Nathaniel from his cell) EXP 2100 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Pick the lock on the cell door at (x=790, y=1420) and free the rest of the prisoners for a buttload more experience. If we had gone thru the rest of the Temple first, and waited to do this at a later stage, some/most/all of the prisoners would be dead and we would have missed out on all these nice juicy rewards. Aren't you glad you have a guide to show you the way? Loot the table at (x=1200, y=1500) and grab the Note from the Master of Locks. Time to level up Ilana and Xanth again: Ilana becomes an 8th level Cleric, adding her ability point to Wisdom and her skill point to Concentration. She adds a Cure Light Wounds, Dispel Magic, and anotehr Defensive harmony to her spells. Xanth moves up to 8th level Sorcerer and adds a point to Charisma. He takes Alchemy and Knowledge (Aracana) for skills, and grabs Stoneskin as his new spell. ***REWARD*** (for freeing the prisoners) EXP 1575 (x5) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Now if you remember, Nathaniel mentioned something about how the prisoners were being taken away to the northeast; this leads me to believe that we should go that way. After all, if there are guards, or priests, or whatever up that way, we don't want them coming back here and finding all their prisoners gone. Methinks that would piss them off more than a bit. So instead, let's just go kill them, shall we? At the northeastern end of the hallway where the prison cells are located is a room with Barbarian Warriors and Winter Wolves. This room has lootable containers, but before we can examine them an attack will come from a seemingly inaccessible room to the southeast. It's only a couple Aurilite spellcasters and a Winter Wolf, but it's annoying. There's an open doorway at (x=990, y=1000), and if our experience so far has taught is anything, it's that open doorways equal enemies. So let's be careful going in here... ***ITEMS*** (x=1200, y=1100) Waterstar Gem, Bullets <> x20 (x=730, y=900) Aurilite Holy Symbol, Aurilite Ice Axe (x=600, y=900) Chrysoberyl Gem, Arrows +2 x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Approach with one character, draw out the Ice Golem Champion and his friends, and engage in battle, At some point during this fight you may be engaged in dialogue by High Priestess Lysara; if not, then you will be when you enter the room where the Ice Golem came from. For the sake of continuity, and because this is where it happened to me, I will cover her encounter here. If you get her to allow you to ask some questions, there's experience rewards ahead. When she falls, she will drop another Key, an Aurilite Ice Axe, a suit of Leather Armor +2, and 1192 Gold. Once again I can level a couple characters: K'aos goes up to 7th Level Wizard, and adds Bluff, Concentration, and Diplomacy. He adds a notch to Martial Weapon, Large Sword for his feat. He also gets new spells here, and chooses to add another Magic Missile, as well as Mordenkainen's Force Missiles and Stoneskin. Ghrax stays single classed and moves up to 9th level Ranger, taking Concentration for his skill, and also takes a bump in Martial Weapon, Large Sword for his feat. ***REWARD*** (for learning that the Aurilites created the glacier) EXP 1425 (for learning that the Aurilites caused the airship to crash) EXP 1425 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Lysara's room has several interesting things in it. First, and most importantly, there is a device right in the middle that can be manipulated - by standing in particular spots and turning the device in a particular way, you can cause things to happen in the Temple. Each combination requires you to stand, then turn, then stand again, then turn again. The best way to describe how this thing works is... a table! o============o==================o===========================o | Where to | Direction | | | Stand | to Turn | Result | o============o==================o===========================o | Right | North | Opens the door to the | | Left | North (turn 360) | White Abishai Den | o------------o------------------o---------------------------o | Right | East | Disables the | | Left | West | Anti-Magic Shield | o------------o------------------o---------------------------o | Left | Southwest | Opens the door to the | | Right | Northwest |Study Room (x=2070, y=1380)| o------------o------------------o---------------------------o If you went in thru the small door from outside earlier, you do not need to do the first sequence; if not, then heal fully before entering the White Abishai Den. These guys can smell blood, and will attack if you are in any way wounded. Xhaan, the lead Abishai, will talk at you and give you a quest to "stop the voices" (schizophrenic much?). Agree, and you will be left alone. Next, disable the anti-magic shell; finally, do the last combination to unlock a door that we will want to go thru later. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Now that we've freed the last of the Neverwinter forces, removed the anti-magic shell, unlocked some mysterious door, gained a quest, and amassed some experience along the way, we can return to our normal process of room clearing and enemy elimination. Head back to where we entered and begin. The room to the west can be accessed thru either of two doors, at (x=370, y=2500) and (x=580, y=2280). In this large room are two Winter Wolves guarding two loot containers. Tiny amount of work for a tiny amount of treasure... ***ITEMS*** (x=100, y=2130) Star Sapphire, Keen Arrows x40 (x=200, y=2040) Emerald, Arrows +2 x40 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) To the east there is a door at (x=900, y=2400), which leads to... an empty room. Well shit... Kind of makes the last room look good by comparison. But wait... what's this? A secret door (x=1000, y=2620)! Anyone who has played these games before should know that secret doors usually lead to important things, so let's prepare and see what lies beyond. No monsters - good so far... Three treasure containers - also a good sign... And no traps - what else could we ask for? This basically amounts to free shit. ***ITEMS*** (x=770, y=2800) Rogue Stone, Everlast Arrow (x=920, y=2800) Shandon Gem, Impact Arrows +1 x40, Scroll-Emotion:Rage (x=1060, y=2800) Diamond, Bolts +1 x40, Bolts +2 x40 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) We'll approach this systematically from here on out, moving in a clockwise direction around the perimeter and then clearing the center of the map. Head back to the room just before the prison, open the secret door at (x=250, y=1750), and head up the hallway to the next door. Beyond this door are two Winter Wolves, an Aurilite Frostouch, and an Aurilite Stormsister. They die much easier than they should for our level and this point in the game, but who am I to argue... Ahead, the hallway turns east across the top of the map and ends at another door to the southeast. A Winter Wolf, a pair of Stormsisters, and another room is cleared. Next will be the open doorway to the northeast. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) There's another Ice Golem Champion here, along with two Aurilite Frostouches and a couple of Aurilite Postulants. This fight is a little more difficult, as the spellcasters will use Hold spells on the party. A Held character is a sitting duck for the Golem, and will very likely end up a Held corpse if you're not careful. I cast Web just past the doorway and catch a Postulant in it, thus blocking the entrance into this room and keeping the Golem at bay. I can then use missile fire on the other Aurilites (leaving the webbed one as a doorstop) and thin the herd a bit before having to engage the Ice Golem. Thru this doorway, the passage continues southeast, then turns south - basically because we're out of map space and there's nowhere else for it to go... Fhornal levels up to 9th level Druid here, taking Concentration and Animal Empathy x2 for skills. He takes a point in Martial Weapon, Hammer for his feat (so he has a decent bludgeoning weapon skill for those pesky Ice Golems). His available spells now include Flame Blade, Cure Critical Wounds, and the all important Insect Plague. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Another door (x=3560, y=1000), another group of asshole Aurilite spellcasters, a Fireball and some missiles, and we can proceed. Continue south to another door (x=3560, y=1500), this time with Winter Wolves and more Aurilites beyond it. I'm sensing a recurring theme here, but as the Aurilite is trying to fire spells at me I don't really have time to think about it. The hallway turns southwest, and it appears we may finish the loop back to our starting point. ...until, of course, it turns northwest and ends at a secret door. Looking at the map, this door leads to some uncharted territory; let's explore, shall we? <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) There's an Aurilite Frostouch in the room to the southwest, and since we spot him before anything else, it's safe to assume we'll kill him first too. Besides, since we're attempting to clear the outer areas of this level before venturing into the center, it just makes sense. Anyway... kill him, along with the Polar Bear and the Barbarian Warrior that join him, and head southwest into the room where he was. The door to the northwest (x=1560, y=2350) takes us back to our starting point (finally!), but there's still this pesky room to the southeast. Enter and destroy a few Barbarian Warriors and an Aurilite Stormbrother. Has anyone noticed that we haven't found any containers to loot in quite a while? Well, you won't find any here either. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) We've cleared the perimeter and are in fairly decent shape (or, if not, we've rested and are whole again). There are now several paths we can choose from. Since we went clockwise to get here, let's turn it around and go counter-clockwise around the inner area - if nothing else to prevent making ourselves dizzy. Backtrack to the room with the last secret door (now not so secret) and head northeast. Thru the dorway to the east at (x=2560, y=1800) are a few more Aurilites and another Barbarian Warrior, along with a Winter Wolf. No real challenge any more, but since they're here we might as well kill them. Other than what all these enemies have dropped, there still hasn't been any real treasure since the first room. Granted, these guys drop all sorts of good magical missile-type items, along with a few potions, but still... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Back out into the main hallway thru the doorway at (x=2740, y=1600), and we find yet another Ice Golem Champion. This guy is alone though, and falls rather quickly to an all melee attack. The next room, thru the doorway at (x=2920, y=1170), has some containers to loot. Well it's about damn time! There are a couple of Winter Wolves in here, but they are simply distractions at this point. Quala moves up a level in Sorcerer, and puts her skill points into Concentration and Disable Device. She takes Larloch's Minor Drain and Aganazzar's Scorcher for spells. ***TRAPS*** (x=3190, y=740) ***ITEMS*** (x=2930, y=1000) Arrows x40 (x=3120, y=800) Silver Necklace, Bolts x40, 52 Gold (x=3190, y=740) Scroll-Confusion (x=3270, y=780) Fire Agate Gem (x=3290, y=860) Ring, Masterwork Bolts x40 (x=3300, y=880) 84 Gold (x=3300, y=1100) Arrows x40 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Well that was disappointing - the damn Aurilites dropped better shit than we found here. Exit back out and open the trapped door to the southeast at (x=2980, y=1320). In this stairwell is a talking painting; by selecting various responses, the stairs will in turn lead you to various places. These stairs are useless to us at the moment, but remember where they are - I suspect it will make moving around the temple a bit easier at some point in our travels. The table below will cover the things I tried, but I cannot guarantee that it is a complete listing of all the options that you may encounter. If you find dialogue/destination combinations that I have not listed here, please submit for credit. o===============o=======================o | Dialogue | Stair | | Option | Destination | o===============o=======================o | Andora? |Andora Village (AR4000)| o---------------o-----------------------o | From the Sea | White Abishai Den | | of Moving Ice | AR4101 (x=1500,y=500) | o---------------o-----------------------o | Death to | Basement | | Kuldahar | AR4102 | o---------------o-----------------------o | | Door to Altar Room | | Lysan | AR4102 (x=900, y=950) | o---------------o-----------------------o | Auril | | | Shower Me | Game Room | | with Strength |AR4102 (x=2180, y=2500)| o---------------o-----------------------o | | Bedroom | | Bedroom |AR4102 (x=1300, y=1400)| o---------------o-----------------------o | In Auril's | Vault Room | | Name(*) |AR4102 (x=1500, y=1000)| o---------------o-----------------------o | Hmmm... | | | Interesting | Random | o---------------o-----------------------o * This option is apparently only available after defeating Oria ***TRAPS*** (x=2980, y=1320) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) As our counter-clockwise path has ended, we'll have to backtrack a bit and start again. Go all the way back southwest to the last room and head northwest thru the door back into the hallway (x=1560, y=2350). Thru the doorway at (x=1360, y=2120) is a church-like room with several enemies in it. No big deal - kill them and enter the room. You will meet High Priestess Cathin (x=1450, y=1650), who will bitch you out for killing her Clerics and then start attacking with spells. Watch out for this hussy - she can be quite brutal. A Web and a Fireball will make your life easier (and longer), after which you can simply chop her to bits. She drops an Angel Skin Ring, a Chrysoberyl Gem, a couple of magical Battle Axes, 45 Gold, and a Temple Key. Keep the Key handy, as you will need it before long. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) In the northeast corner of the room is another doorway leading to a hallway with three doors. In the interest of expediency, we'll explore these in order from south to north. Door number one is located at about (x=2070, y=1380); this is the door that we unlocked with the combination earlier. The study room beyond is occupied by an Aurilite, but he ends up dead fairly quickly. Now we can loot the room. ***ITEMS*** (x=2020, y=1250) Scroll-Inflict Serious Wounds, Scroll-Cloud of Pestilence, Scroll-Poison, Scroll-Greater Restoration (x=1870, y=1200) Scroll-Cure Serious Wounds, Scroll-Freedom of Movement, Scroll-Neutralize Poison, Scroll-Dominate Person, Scroll-Protection from Lightning <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Head to door number two (x=2230, y=1200), unlock it, and enter an empty room with a lootable desk and bookcase. ***ITEMS*** (x=1940, y=1100) Book-History of the Sisters of Light and Darkness, 91 Gold (x=1870, y=1050) Book-History of the Dead Three, Book-History of the Drow, Book-Secret Societies, Book-The Folly of Fury, Book-History of the North I <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) Skip the third door for the moment - I take one character and approach the doorway at (x=2600, y=1050), leaving the rest of the party in the hall/room. There is a large group Ice Trolls in here (10 or so), which sucks a lot. Draw one (or more) of the Ice Trolls back to you in the hall, kill it/them, and repeat until the room is empty. A Web spell in the doorway does wonders; if you can time it right, you'll create a doorstop and be able to kill the trolls easily with missile fire (fire or acid to fully kill them, remember?). There's a staircase here, which we will be using in a few minutes, but there's still that third door... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 21) The third door opens onto a room with a few Aurilite Postulants in it, but they are not hostile (?!?) and simply walk past you and leave. This result leaves me with a very bad feeling, but as nothing bad has actually happened yet it could just be schizophrenic paranoia. We'll find out soon enough... Inside is a Genie named Ondabo (x=2090, y=910), but he is likewise not hostile. He will talk to you, and depending on the dialogue options you choose you can fight him. He is very hard to kill, not because of his massive hit points or anything, but because he continually goes invisible and drops spells on you which do some very massive damage. Once he finally dies, you'll get a Ruby Ring, a Waterstar Gem, a Scimitar of the Defender +1(*1), and 49 Gold. 1* Not really as good as it sounds, it's simply a +1 large sword with an additional +1 deflection bonus. It does, however, replace the plain Scimitar +1 that Fhornal has been carrying, even though he rarely uses it. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 22) Speak to Nathaniel again and tell him what Priestess Lysara said for some experience, then head for that stairwell where we killed all those Ice Trolls, and exit to the basement. ***REWARD*** (for discovering the reason the ice keeps reforming) EXP 1575 o======================================================================o | | | Ice Temple Basement | | | o======================================================================o 1. Because it Works, That's Why... 2. Go Ahead, I'll Wait 3. Occupied Room 4. Unoccupied Room 5. Seven Years Bad Luck 6. Shadow Fighting 7. Game Within a Game 8. Pausing the Game 9. Inner Sanctum Fighting 10. Waking Nickademus 11. Clearing the Inner Rooms 12. It's All Done With Mirrors 13. The Art of Lysan 14. Naming the Spirit 15. In Auril's Name 16. Returning Nathaniel's Crap 17. Making the Voices Stop 18. The Dragon Necromancer's Library 19. Picking Up Dead Bodies 20. Release the Hounds! 21. More Gaming 22. Ingrath Mariner's Note 23. Zack's Information 24. Stranded! Ice Temple Basement (AR4102) {WLK014} o======================================================================o 1) As it is the only way to go, go southwest. There's an Aurilite Frostouch in front of the first doorway, so I guess this level is going to be like the upper one. Thru the door, in the NW-SE hallway, are more baddies - Barbarian Warriors, Polar Bears, various Aurilites, you get the idea. I lure enemies back to my semi-fortified position in the entry hallway and bottleneck them at the doorway because... well... it's a good tactic, and it works. Kill everything. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Head northwest up the hallway, but be wary of attacks from behind. Ignore all the doors and side passages for now, let's just move around and clear out the hallway, moving counter-clockwise. And begin... I'll wait for you here, back by the entrance hallway... Dum-de-dum-dum... Back now? Took you long enough - I was starting to get worried. Now let's do the route again, but this time explore all the rooms on the outside rim of the hallway. I'll even go with you... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) The first door is at (x=1960, y=670), beyond which is a Crystal Golem. If you remember, these things are a pain in the ass, and require bludgeoning weapons to kill. But we're a bit stronger now, so maybe it will be slightly less painful. When he's dead and you've looted the cabinet, continue up the hallway to the next door. ***TRAPS*** (x=1960, y=670) ***ITEMS*** (x=2400, y=300) High Priestess Lysara's Journal, Andar Gem, Sparking Arrows x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) The next door is at (x=1450, y=450), and the room is unguarded. Nice... There are two containers to loot, one of which contains a very large collection of totally crap weapons. They'll sell nice though... ***TRAPS*** (x=1450, y=450) ***ITEMS*** (x=1250, y=200) Scroll-Frost Fingers, Scroll-Ice Blade, Bolts +1 x40, Bolts +2 x40, Stunning Arrows +1 x40, Keen Arrows x40 (x=1700, y=400) Halberd, Masterwork Halberd, Spear, Masterwork Spear, Flail, Masterwork Flail, Mace, Masterwork Mace, Morningstar, Masterwork Morningstar <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Now we have to travel all the way around to the southern side of the level; the next door is at (x=1000, y=1730). There is an Aurilite Stormsister in here, but by now she is just fodder. There's nothing in this room, but there is another door at (x=760, y=1780) that leads to a room off this one. The northern wall of this new room is lined with Talisman Henchmen trapped behind a crystal mirror. The southwestern door at (x=380, y=1780) can't be opened, so I guess we're stuck. Break the glass at (x=100, y=1550) and grab the loot; DO NOT BREAK THE GLASS AT (x=190, y=1450). Return to the main hallway and continue southeast. ***ITEMS*** (x=100, y=1550) Waterstar Gem, Darts +2 x20, Stunning Arrows +1 x40 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Head down to the next door (x=1570, y=1990), but don't enter the room yet. Let the Shadows come to you in the doorway a few at a time, and kill them. Kill them a lot... There are about a dozen of them in here, and although they are pretty easy to kill, I still suggest going slow. Once they're all dead, open the secret doorway (x=1080, y=1920) to the previous room (this needs to be open for a specific challenge coming up later); otherwise there's literally nothing here. Onward... The next doorway enters into a hallway to the southwest, where there is again nothing except another doorway to the east, which is trapped. You can either take on the Aurilites in the next room thru here, or go around to the main hallway again and use the door at (x=2340, y=2330); it's your choice. ***TRAPS*** (x=1770, y=2470) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) READ THIS ENTIRE STEP CAREFULLY BEFORE STARTING!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the middle of this room you will find an Ice Golem Champion standing on a nine-squared grid, and around the perimeter are a series of levers. This looks like some kind of game - so how to play...? This is going to be difficult to explain, so pay close attention. The levers around the northern sides of the room are all Rank Selectors, and the three in the southwest corner set the Mode; the bottom-most lever is the on-off switch. To win a round, you simply need to get three squares in a row, kind of like tic-tac-toe. But only kind of... First, pick a character to play - this should be a strong fighter with a lot of hit points. If you still have the Periapt of Wound Closure (you do still have this, don't you?) equip it on that character, along with the best armor and weapons you have. While the first several Ranks/Levels are fairly easy, they do get harder as you progress thru the game. The idea here is that you select a Rank, then activate the game and select a square. An enemy of some kind will appear in the center square and that single character will have to defeat it to win the chosen square; the rest of the party is teleported to a room to the northwest and cannot get out, or come to assist. You will have sixty seconds to win each battle; the Ice Golem is the 'judge', and he will let you know if your time is getting short. Get three squares in a row and you win the Level; win five Levels and you win the Rank. Win all nine Ranks and you win the Game. Confused yet? Wait, it gets worse... As the Levels progress, you will need to get more than three squares to win. Granted, you still only need three in a row, but you need to capture four, five, or more to actually win. Yeah, see? It gets WAY more confusing as we get into it... There are ten Ranks (1-10), and five Levels (1-5). We start with Rank 1, Level 1, where we need to simply connect three squares. R1L2 requires four squares, R1L3 requires five, etc. Remember, do not connect three in a row until it will win you the required total number of squares. Maybe a table will help make this clearer: o======o=======o=========o | Rank | Level | Squares | o======o=======o=========o | 1 | 1 | 3 | o------o-------o---------o | 1 | 2 | 4 | o------o-------o---------o | 1 | 3 | 5 | o------o-------o---------o | 1 | 4 | 6 | o------o-------o---------o | 1 | 5 | 7 | o------o-------o---------o | 2 | 1 | 3 | o------o-------o---------o | 2 | 2 | 4 | o------o-------o---------o | 2 | 3 | 5 | o------o-------o---------o | 2 | 4 | 6 | o------o-------o---------o | 2 | 5 | 7 | o------o-------o---------o This table would be four pages long if I tried to draw out the entire thing, but this should give you the idea. Okay, now how to get the required number of squares before completing a row. Let's assign numbers to the squares so we have a reference. The square at the top (x=2140, y=2480) will be #1, the one to the right of that will be #2, the right corner is #3, middle left is #4, etc. To get three, four, or five squares is easy (provided you don't lose any squares), but six and seven can be tricky; if you lose any squares, you're screwed. So, go for the squares in the following order: Level 1: 1,2,3 Level 2: 1,2,4,(3 or 7) Level 3: 1,2,4,5,any Level 4: 1,2,4,6,8,(3,5, or 7) Level 5: 1,2,4,6,8,9,any Do the math - this is a LOT of fighting. There are 25 opponents in each Rank, and ten total Ranks, for a grand total of 250 opponents to beat, assuming you don't lose any. You will be rewarded after each Level, and again after each Rank; the Rank rewards are what you're really going after. You WILL reload many times during this process, but most of the party should end up gaining a level, plus all the goodies you get along the way, so it's worth the effort to go as far as you can. There are several opponents who are simply unbeatable in the sixty second time limit - Apocolyptic Boneguards, most Giants, Greater Elementals, and there are several enemies, including a Greater Feyr, that will actually teleport to where the rest of the party is located and attack them. If you get any of these, just reload - don't even bother trying to defeat them, at least in the lower Ranks. You will have to rest many times during the game. Do so as needed, it appears to be safe. Oh, and one more thing... Make damn sure to save in between every battle, otherwise you'll have to restart entire Levels, or worse yet, Ranks. Don't say I didn't warn you. Finally, if you're really intent on winning the entire game, I suggest you get as far thru it as you can, then plan on coming back when you hit another level or so. Set both Mode levers to off (to the left) and the first Rank lever to on, then activate the game. When you complete a Rank, set the next rank lever and repeat. Now go play, and wake me up when you're done; I'm going to grab a bite to eat and a nap... ***REWARDS*** R1: Dragon's Belt (+3 to Reflex Saves) R2: Potion of Holy Transference (+2 WIS, -1 DEX, permanent) R3: Abishai Hide Armor (AC +3, Max Dex +4, Damage Reduction 5/+1) R4: Arrows of Piercing x20, Boots of Grounding R5: Moonbar Gem, Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst(*1), 1079 Gold R6: Club of Disruption(*2), Bullets +5 x20 R7: Ice Spear +4(*3) R8: Composite Longbow of Empowerment(*4) R9: Wand of the Dead(*5) R10: Brilliant Short Sword +5(*6), Bracers of Icelandic Pearl(*7) *1 Returning Axe +5 (1d6 + 1d6 Electrical + 10% 1d10 Electrical) *2 Enchantment +5, 1d6+3 Damage, +3 Attack, Undead and Outsiders must Save vs Fortitude or be destroyed. This becomes Ghrax's primary weapon *3 1d8+4, +4 Attack Bonus, cast Icelance 1x/day *4 Attack +1, Damage +2, random +4 ability score bonus for 5 rounds if wielder is struck in melee combat (only 1 bonus active at a time) *5 Cast Animate Dead *6 Attack +5. Damage 1d6+5, all attacks ignore the target's armor and shield bonuses. This is a nice sword indeed! *7 Armor Bonus +4, Dex -2, cast Horrid Wilting, Cone of Cold, and Lesser Planar Binding: Water Elemental, each 1x/day. I actually have no use for these in my party. Ilana and Xanth level up after Rank 1 is complete, and do so: Ilana hits level 9 as a Cleric and takes Concentration, also maxing out her Spell Penetration skills. She takes Chaotic Commands for a Domain spell (we'll need this before long), and adds Bull's Strength and Flame Strike x2 to her Cleric list. She also takes the Potion of Holy Transference, as she can afford to lose the Dexterity point and the extra two Wisdom points will serve her well. Xanth moves up to level 9 as a Sorcerer, and takes the usual skill enhancements: Alchemy and Concentration. He grabs a second point in Armored Arcana for his feat, and adds Bull's Strength, Lance of Disruption, and Mordenkainen's Force Missiles to his spell selections. Then, after Rank 8 Level 1, a few others: K'aos adds another Wizard level; he takes Concentration, Diplomacy, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft for skills. His spellbook gets an additional Fireball, along with another Mordenkainen's Force Missile. Ghrax bumps up to level 10, adds a point to Concentration, and takes Lizard Men as his new Favored Enemy. Sleep and Protection from Fire are his new spells. Fhornal likewise moves up to 10th level, adding Concentration and Spellcraft x2. New Spells include another Flame Strike (that's three now at his disposal) and a Cure Critical Wounds. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) If your game went anything like mine you got thru Rank 7, thanks to the Club of Disruption, and got part way thru Rank 8 - just far enough to level up a few more party members. After that, it just got to be too much for a single character to manage. For now, that is... I decided to give up the game after R8L1 (remembering where I left off), and move on, vowing to return later and win this thing. So, no matter where you are in the game, let's continue... Head back out to the main hallway and continue southeast, then northeast to the next room. The stairs at (x=3600, y=2100) leads back up to the talking picture stairwell, so we can ignore them for now. The next room we can actually explore is located back in the northern hallway, at (x=3140, y=1200). Inside you will find the normal assortment of Aurilite assholes for your killing pleasure, but nothing to loot. Aaaaaarrrgghhh... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) The next door is at (x=2750, y=1020), and it is trapped. Here you will find Lysara's sister, Oria. She will spout the usual nonsense, and threaten to break her staff. Go ahead and let her do it, then run like hell back to the Game Room. Flip the switch at (x=1760, y=2600) to set the system to Inner Sanctum Mode, then active it (x=1640, y=2700); this transports you to the same plane as Oria, and you can fight her (she is invincible until/unless you do this). Kill her, then loot her body for a nice payday. She will drop a Scroll of Cloudkill, a Scroll of Ice Storm, a couple of potions, a Traveler's Robe, a Wand of Magic Missiles, and 75 Gold. Afterwards, activate the switch again to return to the 'normal world', and return to Oria's room and loot the cabinet at (x=3180, y=650). ***TRAPS*** (x=2750, y=1020) ***ITEMS*** (x=2750, y=1020) Scroll-Emotion:Fear, Scroll-Ice Dagger, Lynx Eye Gem, Emerald, Dead Cat (really?), Skull (questy, no?), Darts +2 x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Okay - outer ring of rooms completed; time to go for the rooms on the inner section of the map. Let's start with that large room right in the middle (x=2340, y=1140). There are most likely some leftover Aurilite spellcasters in here, so kill them. We can't do anything with the large machine in the middle of the room quite yet, so ignore it for now. Oh, and don't worry about that open doorway to the east - we'll get to that soon enough... There are two doors off of this room - the one at (x=1600, y=1570) can be opened, while the other (x=2500, y=1330) cannot. Makes it a rather easy choice then, doesn't it? Here you will find Nickademus; loot the cabinet BEFORE you talk to Nickademus. Keep talking to him - eventually he will awake from his slumber and you can actually converse. Agree to do him a favor at some future point, and he will tell you all sorts of interesting things. For starters, ask him to share his wisdom with you for a nice experience reward. Most importantly, however, he'll give you some information about the prism device in the previous room; it seems that it can be used to open some of the locked doors in this level. I think we may want to try that out once we've finished our exploring. ***REWARD*** (for being enlightened by Nickademus' wonderful tales) EXP 5175 ***ITEMS*** (x=1070, y=1280) Rogue Stone, Scroll:Summon Monster IV, Iron Rations x5 Returning Frost Dart <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Return north to the main hallway and head northwest (we'll do the inner ring counter-clockwise like we did the outer). The next room is at (x=1800, y=900), but it cannot be opened so continue northwest, and then southwest around the bend. Past the secret door at (x=640, y=850) is a room with a lootable cabinet (x=900, y=1170). ***ITEMS*** (x=900, y=1170) Waterstar Gem, Stunning Arrows +1 x20, Keen Arrows x20, Bullets +2 x20, 933 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Head for the room with the Crystal Warriors, and move the party all the way up at the end of the room near the mirror. DO NOT BREAK THE MIRROR - it will release all the warriors, and we're saving that battle for later. Send one character to the room with the Prism Machine; send another character to the Coffin Room, open the secret door, and stand next to the mirror at (x=800, y=2410). Activate the prism device at (x=2020, y=1190) to rotate the prism until it faces southwest toward the doorway (the game will tell you it's south), then flip the switch at (x=2070, y=1130) to fire the mechanism. A bolt of lightning will shoot out and bounce off the mirrors and open the door in the crystal mirror room. Send the party to the newly opened room and enter. Kill the Ice Golem Champion inside and loot for some mediocre items, along with a lot of totally useless ones. The death of the Golem allows Quala to move up another level, and she adds a Sorcerer (up to 6th level now). Skill points go into magic slots for a change - Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft. She fianlly gets Fireball as well... ***ITEMS*** (x=410, y=1890) Scroll-Minor Globe of Invulnerability (x=320, y=2110) Helmet (x=290, y=2150) Cursed Scroll of Clumsiness, Bloodstone Gem (x=250, y=2170) Ring of Clumsiness (x=200, y=2210) Scroll-Fire Shield (Blue), Antidote (x=160, y=2190) Nathaniel's Bag of Holding, Onyx Ring (x=120, y=2070) Potion of Invulnerability (x=130, y=1940) Cursed Scroll of Weakness (x=160, y=1780) Cursed Scroll of Foolishness (x=250, y=1820) Gauntlets of Fumbling <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Head over to the stairs in the southeast cornet of the map and go up; the painting will 'speak' to you. Choose 'Lysan' and then head back down the stairs to arrive in a room northwest of the prism room. Step on the shadow figure on the floor in front of the door at (x=970, y=870), but only barely and only once. Open the secret door at (x=640, y=860), and send one character to stand next to the mirror at (x=440, y=770). Send another up to the northwest corner of the map to stand next to the mirror at (x=900, y=270), and another character next to the mirror at (x=2490, y=950). Click to rotate this mirror, then send yet another character into the prism room to manipulate the prism 'gun'. Turn it until it faces north, then fire it to send a jolt around the building which will open the shadow door and allow you to enter the next room. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) The altar in this room will speak to you - choose the dialogue option with the spirit's name in it (Aeij-Kllenzr't); the door will close and a cyclone-like entity will appear and move around the room. You can't fight it, so just avoid it until it disappears. You will be attacked by a few Aurilites, Barbarian Warriors, and other assorted creatures back in the entry room; when everything is dead, head back up the magic stairs. Note: You may also have to select a second dialog option with 'Surrender Now" in it to actually get the experience. It depends on who is speaking to the altar. ***REWARD*** (for convincing Aeij-Kllenzr't to leave the altar) EXP 4275 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) This time, choose the painting's dialogue option "In Auril's name, from winter's veil..." to be transported to Oria's vault room, where you will find yet another Ice Golem Champion. All but one of the chests in here are trapped, as is the door out. ***TRAPS*** (x=1370, y=980) (x=1490, y=860) (x=1570, y=830) (x=1640, y=860) (x=1890, y=1000) ***ITEMS*** (x=1290, y=1060) Bolts x40, Diamond, Arrows +1 x40, Nathaniel's Ring of the Ram (x=1370, y=980) Masterwork Bolts x40, Arrows +2 x60, 2239 Gold (x=1490, y=860) Iol Gem, Angel Skin Ring, Bolts +1 x40, Keen Arrows x40, 1942 Gold (x=1570, y=830) Bloodstone Gem, Shandon Gem, Bolts +2 x40 Stunning Arrows +1 x40, 1973 Gold (x=1640, y=860) Skydrop Gem, Arrows x40, Everlast Arrow, 1720 Gold (x=1890, y=1000) Scroll-Animate Dead, Shandon Gem, Impact Arrows +1 x40 Masterwork Arrows x40, 1240 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) We now have two things belonging to Nathaniel, so it's probably a good idea to return them to him. Head back upstairs and return to where Nathaniel awaits (x=470, y=1530); return his gear to get some experience. Keep talking and keep getting experience rewards - this is fun! Last, but not least, return the Ring of the Ram that we found for yet another reward. ***REWARD*** (for returning Nathaniel's equipment) EXP 3150 (for defeating the high priestesses and the Caged Fury) EXP 4725 (for returning the Ring of the Ram) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) Now, go talk to Xhaan in the White Abishai room and tell him (it?) that you have banished the spirit that was tormenting them for your final reward (make sure to be 100% healed first). That makes a total of 13325 experience for that last excursion, or just over 2200 points per character; not too shabby... (for freeing Xhaan and the White Abishai) EXP 3150 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) There are still a couple areas in the basement we haven't explored, so head back down there and go to the prism room again. Aim the prism gun to the northeast and fire at the door to open it. There is a Cult of the Dragon Necromancer in here, along with a couple of Soarsmen; kill them all and loot the bookcases. ***ITEMS*** (x=2700, y=1300) Scroll-Protection from Lightning, Scroll-Cure Critical Wounds (x=2800, y=1350) Cursed Scroll of Petrification, Scroll-Raise Dead (x=2970, y=1400) Cursed Scroll of Ailment, Scroll-Slay Living (x=3140, y=1500) Scroll-Protection from Poison, Scroll-Champion's Strength (x=3270, y=1550) Cursed Scroll of Stupidity, Scroll-Insect Plague <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Next is the room just to the south of the library we just cleaned out. There is a large trapped area in front of the doorway, so don't approach too quickly or too close. Disarm the trap, kill the Cult Necromancer in the alcove to the west, loot the desk, and grab the two dead bodies on the floor (they fit nicely into a Bag of Holding). ***TRAPS*** (x=2420, y=1600) ***ITEMS*** (x=2220, y=1850) Scroll-Vitriolic Sphere (x=2640, y=1700) Male Body (x=2870, y=1990) Female Body <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) There are only a few things left to do down here: we still owe Nickademus a favor, we have a bunch of warriors trapped behind an extra- dimensional glass wall, and there's another rank or two we may be able to clear in that battle game. Not to mention that we're carrying around two dead bodies (Hey! I said not to mention that!). Nick doesn't seem to be inclined to call in any favors yet, so let's see about freeing those warriors behind the glass wall. Now we have been warned that they will be hostile when they're released, so I position the party in the room to the east and send one character in to break the glass (x=200, y=1450) and release the hounds... err... warriors. Run back and bottleneck them at the doorway, and kill them as they come at you. There are several spellcasters in their ranks who will cast some pretty disabling spells, so I suggest a Fireball, Silence, or other area of effect spell into the middle of the room to give them second thoughts. They drop several nice items, including a Ring of Regeneration. Note that the Fireball trick will fry some potential loot, so if you're going after magical gear, you may want to kill them the old fashioned way. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 21) Having gained a level and a Ring of Regeneration, I go back and tackle more Ranks in the battle game - this is a personal choice, and you can choose to do so, or not, as you see fit. Otherwise, this level is complete, and you can exit the temple. We will be coming back here at a later point, so it's not like the opportunity to win the game is over. Nevertheless, I managed to complete Rank 8 before moving on. Head back up and out thru the main entrance. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 22) When you leave the Ice Temple, you will be teleported to a new location, and be approached by one Ingrath Mariner. A few dialogue options later, if you still have it, you can give him the letter from Garradun for some quick experience. He and his crew will turn into Dopplegangers and you will have to kill them - no great effort required and certainly no great loss. ***REWARD*** (for delivering the letters to their recipients) EXP 525 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 23) Return to Zack Boosenburry (x=2180, y=2490) and tell him all about the exceptional amount of information you learned about the temple for a nice reward. ***REWARD*** (for retrieving an exceptional amount of information about the temple) EXP 4725 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 24) Exit this area in the southwest corner and return to where you left Oswald and the crashed airship. You will find that the little bastard has abandoned you, although he does leave a note and a Potion of Greater Resistance. Well damn - now what? The only way forward appears to be backwards; return to where you met Ingrath and exit the map to the north, where Chapter 3 begins. o======================================================================o | Party Stats - End Chapter 2 | | {STATS1} | o======================================================================o K'aos Reynes - Paladin of Mystra Class Level P2/W8 Experience 62769 (66000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 52 Strength 16 (+3) Dexterity 12 (+1) Constitution 11 (+0) Intelligence 18 (+4) Wisdom 10 (+0) Charima 16 (+3) Primary Weapon Moonblade of Selune, Footman's Folly Second Weapon Mountains of Selune Chainmail +1, Helmet, Houndstooth Collar, Dragon's Belt, Periapt of Wound Closure, Ring of Protection +2, Bag of Holding, Chameleon Ring of Dexterity, Witherbranch Boots, Scroll Case <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Ghrax - Ranger Class Level R10 Experience 62634 (66000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 140 Strength 18 (+4) Dexterity 18 (+4) Constitution 18 (+4) Intelligence 3 (-4) Wisdom 20 (+5) Charima 5 (-3) Primary Weapon Club of Disruption, Talbard's Shield Second Weapon Flaming Star +1 1/4 Weight Full Plate Mail, Helmet, Aurilite Holy Symbol, Boots of Avoidance, Ring of Regeneration, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Ilana - Battleguard of Tempus Class Level C9 Experience 65600 (66000) Armor Class 20 Hit Points 99 Strength 18 (+4) Dexterity 17 (+3) Constitution 16 (+3) Intelligence 5 (-3) Wisdom 22 (+6) Charima 5 (-3) Primary Weapon The Executioner's Wife Second Weapon Clenched Fist, Flank of the Virgin Third Weapon Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst 1/4 Weight Full Plate Mail, Helmet, Aurilite Holy Symbol, Ring of Protection +1, Potion Case, misc scrolls <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Xanth - Sorcerer Class Level S9 Experience 65326 (66000) Armor Class 18 Hit Points 63 Strength 13 (+1) Dexterity 16 (+3) Constitution 16 (+3) Intelligence 12 (+1) Wisdom 3 (-4) Charima 22 (+6) Primary Weapon The Left Hand of Darkness, Buckler Second Weapon Ice Spear +4 Third Weapon Whispering Staff, Buckler Phaen's Robe of Rags, Helmet, Bracers of Defense +2, Boots of Grounding, Wand of Magic Missiles <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Quala Thurmbrecker - Rogue/Sorceress Class Level R5/S6 Experience 60215 (66000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 54 Strength 10 (+0) Dexterity 23 (+6) Constitution 10 (+0) Intelligence 15 (+2) Wisdom 3 (-4) Charima 18 (+4) Primary Weapon Sophias Flight Second Weapon Sure Striking Short Sword +1, Small Shield of Invisibility +1 Third Weapon Flail of the Defender +1 Leather Armor +2, Helmet, Chameleon Ring of Dexterity, Ring of Protection +1, Chromatic Orb Wand <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Fhornal - Druid Class Level D10 Experience 62197 (66000) Armor Class 20 Hit Points 100 Strength 14 (+2) Dexterity 16 (+3) Constitution 14 (+2) Intelligence 12 (+1) Wisdom 21 (+5) Charima 5 (-3) Primary Weapon Hagnen's Folly Second Weapon Scimitar of the Defender +1, Large Shield Third Weapon Warhammer +2, Buckler 1/4 Weight Full Plate Armor, Nature's Vengeance, Helmet <----------------------------------------------------------------------> This party has (so far) proven to be well up to the tasks set before them. By now everyone has some level of spell-casting ability. K'aos will continue to focus solely on leveling up as a Wizard. All ability points from this point forward will go into Intelligence; skills will go into magical areas (Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft); feats will focus on magic areas (Spell Penetration, etc). Ghrax will remain a lone Ranger, throwing ability points into Strength; skills and feats will end up going into weapons areas. He will add Driders as a Favored Enemy at next opportunity. Ilana is - and always will be - my single-classed Cleric, with ability points going only to Wisdom (after one more to DEX). Concentration will be the only skill she will advance, and feats will be balanced between magic and weapons. Xanth will stay single-classed as a Sorcerer and keep adding to his Charisma score; skills and feats will be magic-focused. Quala will only gain one more level as a Rogue, and then move up only as a Sorceress. I will give her one more point in Dexterity, after which all ability points go to Charisma. Skill points will go only into her roguing skills, and feats will increase her ability to wear armor and cast spells, as well as other magic areas. As for Fhornal, he will remain a Druid; ability points go to Wisdom. Skills and feats will be primarily magic focused. o======================================================================o | Chapter 3 | o======================================================================o | | | The Wandering Village | | | o======================================================================o 1. Brogrob the Moron 2. What's in a Name? 3. Nym 4. Suoma the Elder 5. Missing Children 6. Trolls, Graves, and Barbarians, Oh My... 7. Choices, Choices 8. Ring of the Warrior 9. The Fell Wood Entrance 10. Ectoplasmic Signpost 11. The Fell Wood I 12. The Fell Wood II 13. The Fell Wood III & IV 14. Dryad's Grove 15. Returning to Limha 16. Justification and Death 17. Cleaning up Inventory 18. One Horn a' Drinking 19. Deeper Into the Fell 20. Sordinsin's Horn 21. Barrow Looting 22. Appeasing the Spirit 23. Dumb Spirit 24. Back Into the Wood Yet Again 25. Moving On 26. Lazy Writers 27. Ghost Lights 28. What the...? 29. Setting the Spirit to Rest 30. The Remains of the Fell Wood The Wandering Village (AR5000) {WLK015} o======================================================================o 1) Follow the path northeast to be met by Thvara Baelm and her guards, which include three Barbarian Warriors led by one Brogrob, who is a moron. Seriously. It really doesn't matter what you say, you're going to have to kill them. You can talk Brogrob into leaving for some minor experience (See...? I told you he was a moron), but the rest of the enemy party stays and fights. They drop a couple nice items, including a Wand of Fear. Grab Thvara's Journal while you're at it, and continue north from the fork. ***REWARD*** (for talkig Brogrob into leaving before the fight) EXP 337 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) You won't have to go far before you're attacked by several Dire Wolves, including a couple of gay ones (they attack from the rear). I suggest equipping all melee weapons, as they will close on the party quickly and render missiles totally ineffective. The path turns east, where there is a barricade wall. You will be approached by a hunter (or is that his name?) who tells you that the village Elder, Suoma, wishes to speak with you. Well, alrighty then - let's go see what she wants. Ilana gains a Cleric level, and adds a point to Concentration; she adds Silence, Cure Critical Wounds, and Champion's Strength spells to her available spell selection. She also chugs the Potion of Clear Purpose and bumps her Wisdom up to 23 (at the expense of 2 points of CON). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Before we do that, however, talk to Nym (x=2130, y=680) but do not sell anything to him - his prices are just too low. There really isn't much worth spending my hard earned gold on, but if you didn't get the 1/4 Weight Full Plate Mail from Oswald, he has a couple nice suits of armor, along with Bracers of Defense +3 and a Ring of Protection +1. If you have a Wizard in your party, there are some nice spell scrolls available as well... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Ignore everyone else for now and head northwest to find Suoma the Elder at (x=1850, y=420). Talk to her for some miscellaneous info, and buy some spells scrolls if you need them (She will also buy scrolls, potions and gems). Why it was so important to talk to her is still a mystery, as she really has little to say, but whatever - we did as we were bid. Let's see if anyone else in this timy shithole village has anything useful to say, or sell... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Venla the Healer (x=2420, y=870) will relate a story about several children that have gone missing. Agree to help find them, and pick up some healing if you need it (I grabbed several potions, as my stash is getting low). When you're through, exit the village to the southeast (x=2700, y=1420) and proceed to The Fell Wood. Limha's Camp (AR5001) o======================================================================o 6) Since east is the only way to go, let's go that way. When the path turns north you will run into a few Snow Trolls, so make sure you have fire or acid handy. There is a grave to the northwest, but there is nothing of interest other than it's mere existence, so head east. You will come to a tent (x=2400, y=630), which you should enter. You may be stopped by a group of Barbarian Warriors before you can actually enter the tent; if so, you have the option of lying to them about their comrades, or telling tham that you killed them all. This, of course, pisses them off and you'll have to kill them as well. What a shame... One of them will drop the Bastard Sword Wroth(*1), otherwise it's just gold and a Healing Potion or two. *1 CURSED. 1d10+1 Damage, +1 Attack, 25% chance of Blood Rage on the character wielding it if/when they are wounded. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Inside the tent is Limha and her 'child' Agog. If your party has a Paladin in it (and really, why wouldn't you?), you can expose Limha right away; if not, you will have to go questing to find her out. I'll lay out both paths in the next several steps, but first let's assume you do have a Paladin in your party. Have him/her initiate the dialogue with Limha, and she will spout the usual nonsense about how she's taking the children in return for protecting the village from barbarians to the north. It all leads to having to put her down though, so choose whatever dialogue options you wish and get ready for a fight (skip to Step 15). Personally, I would rather get the experience from going the long way, so I initiate dialogue with Xanth and then follow the steps below. Xanth levels up before proceeding - to level 10 - and does the usual Alchemy plus Concentration gig. He gets a 5th level spell at this point and selects Shroud of Flame (an awesome spell). ***ITEMS*** (x=510, y=340) Skull, Antidote <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) If you do not have a Paladin, or do not wish to take the short route thru this quest, then talk to Limha with a different party member. This is entirely uninformative, although you can buy some spells from her if you so desire. I do purchase the Ring of the Warrior (*1) from her though, and put it on K'aos. Exit the tent and proceed east to the next area. (*1) Attack Bonus +1 A Note about the Fell Wood <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) There are traps everywhere here; I did my best to find and record them all, but don't be surprised if you find some that I missed. You will normally be surrounded by them when you enter a new area, and if there are enemies present you will have no opportunity to disable them. For the most part they are not dangerous, so tripping them is not a big deal. Nevertheless, do not be surprised when you arrive somewhere and have things happen for which you have no explanation. Now you do... The Fell Wood Ghost (AR5010) o======================================================================o 10) You will immediately be warned by a spirit named Hunter's Ghost to leave the woods. Well F U ghost - we didn't come this far just to be turned around by some ectoplasmic signpost. He does, however, offer one bit of useful advice: west always leads home. Good to know... Head to the northwest of the tiny map and exit at (x=200, y=300). The Fell Wood I (AR5024) o======================================================================o 11) A Winter Wolf and a Greater Winter Wolf will be here to greet you, and several more will appear seemingly out of nowhere to join them. For their insolence, they must die. Cross the clearing and exit the area at (x=900, y=430). ***TRAPS*** (x=240, y=360) (x=480, y=300) (x=770, y=440) (x=800, y=460) The Fell Wood II (AR5017) o======================================================================o 12) Here, it is a Restless Dead that attempts to block your progress. Well we won't have any of that either. Kill it and grab the three Elixirs of Health from the trapped tree trunk and exit to the north (x=500, y=240). ***TRAPS*** (x=500, y=300) (x=520, y=380) (x=750, y=360) ***ITEMS*** (x=520, y=380) Elixir of Health x3 The Fell Wood III and IV (AR5018 and 5019) o======================================================================o 13) Nothing to see here folks; just move along. Exit to the east at (x=850, y=250), then exit the next area at (x=850, y=250) as well. ***TRAPS*** AR5018 (x=560, y=400) AR5019 (x=500, y=300) The Dryad Grove (AR5016) o======================================================================o 14) Give some permanent rest to a couple of Restless Dead, then talk to Carynara the Dryad. She will tell you that she has seen Limha taking children into her home, and that she is probably eating them. Well, that bitch! Carynara will heal you for a price if you're in need, otherwise just leave and head back to confront Limha (x=340, y=500). ***TRAPS*** (x=500, y=400) ***REWARD*** (for finding your way deeper into the Fell Wood) EXP 1575 Limha's Camp (AR5001) o======================================================================o 15) You will end up back at Limha's encampment, which is convenient to say the least. Enter the tent and confront her, at which point you will have to kill her. This now plays out exactly as if you had spoken to her with a Paladin in the first place. You did gain three nice potions by doing it the hard way, and some experience for making the trip, along with the enemies you got to kill, so in my mind this is the far better route to take. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Oh, right, the fight... After some inane dialogue where Limha tries to justify her child-stealing as reward for protecting the village, she will flee and leave you to kill Agog. He dies rather quickly for such a big fellow, but drops nothing. Exit the tent to find Limha with several Snow Trolls and an Umber Hulk. She is the real threat here, so focus on her; when she goes down, you can mop up the rest. Note that she will attempt to run away to the west, so you will likely have to chase her and deal with the Trolls, etc, at the same time. Limha drops her Scroll Case, five Potions of Extra Healing, and 52 Gold; K'aos empties the scroll case and writes all the new spells into his own spellbook. You can then exit the area at x=0, y=1300 and return to the Wandering Village. Talk to Venla and tell her the good news that the children are safe. Report back to Suoma as well, and then get ready to start your next quest, which involves talking to Tahvo the Huntmaster. ***REWARD*** (for defeating Limha and saving the children) EXP 2100 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) You will find Tahvo at (x=2350, y=500), but before you get into a discussion about his quest, take the opportunity to sell off all the weapons you've accumulated. He will buy it all from you, and has a few nice items for sale. It's well worth the cost to have him identify things, except for those crappy Aurilian Ice Axes - just sell them as-is for the 1 Gold he offers (they're only worth 2-5 Gold after being identified). Sell, buy, and generally make ready for the next quest; I traded in The Executioner's Wife for Widow-Through for Ilana, and picked up the Bracers of Archery for Quala, as well as restocking my depleted missile inventory (plain bullets and bolts). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) When you're ready, talk to him again and tell him that Suoma sent you. You will be able to get some useful information about several new areas. Once you've pumped him for all that he'll tell you, leave him and head south of the village to talk to a fellow by the name of Sordinsin the Tusked (x=900, y=1600) to find that he has lost his drinking horn. This isn't exactly a situation where you are given a quest, so much as a hint as to what you should do next. Leave him and exit back to the Fell Wood. Pass all the way thru back to the Dryad's Grove (review the previous section if necessary to find your way), then exit the Grove to the northwest at (x=190, y=370) to reach the next map. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Frost Spiders will continuously appear here, and in large numbers they can be nasty. Since there is apparently a never-ending supply of them I suggest exiting as quickly as you can (x=200, y=350), which is conveniently located right where you entered. Kill the Restless Dead which inhabit the next area and exit at (x=600, y=250). The next area looks identical to the last one, except for the lack of Restless Dead. Exit in the southeast corner at (x=850, y=900). Another map just like the last two, and empty like the last one. Go northwest and exit at (x=240, y=320) to find yourself in yet another area that looks the same. Exit to the southeast at (x=850, y=900). ***TRAPS*** AR5020 (x=240, y=450) (x=660, y=370) (x=800, y=500) AR5026 (x=570, y=400) (x=600, y=370) AR5027 (x=500, y=460) (x=600, y=550) (x=650, y=720) AR5028 (x=460, y=660) AR5029 (x=700, y=800) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) Finally - something new and different. When you arrive you will get an experience reward for finding your way here, however you will have little time to enjoy it as you are immediately attacked by a couple of Restless Dead. Put them down from a distance if at all possible, because there are several traps nearby. Disarm them if you can, and loot the body at (x=570, y=490) for the Drinking Horn, a Dagger-Sulo's Hook(*1), and 105 Gold. Exit at (x=320, y=650) and head back to the village. ***TRAPS*** (x=510, y=460) (x=450, y=530) (x=550, y=600) ***REWARD*** (for finding your way deeper into the Fell Wood) EXP 2100 *1 What a piece of trash. This dagger has no Damage bonus, a -2 Attack, and a +3 Deflection bonus. I wouldn't pick my teeth with this thing. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 21) Return to Sordinsin and give him his Drinking Horn back for... well, nothing. Bastard. However, after getting his horn back he disappears, so maybe we can loot his barrow now. ***ITEMS*** (x=800, y=1500) Chainmail Armor, Wight's Blade(*1), Ziose Gem, 99 Gold *1 Large Sword +1 with a 66% chance to cast Bane on the target. Woopee. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 22) Head back to the village and talk to Tahvo again; tell him that you have appeased the spirit for some experience. Talk to Suoma again to get your next assignment; go and talk to Kurttu at (x=1890, y=670) to actually get the next quest. At this point Ilana moves up another level, to 10th level Cleric. She seleects Concentration for her skill, and adds Holy Power and another Flame Strike to her arsenal. Xanth also levels up, taking the usual Alchemy, Concentration, and Spellcraft. Now that he can get a 5th level spell, he chooses to add Chaos, another awesome spell. Trying to rest in the village will get you some experience, due to the Dire Wolves that constantly spawn. Not enough to gain levels for anyone but every little bit helps, right...? ***REWARD*** (for ridding the village of the Barrow Wight) EXP 2100 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 23) Talk to Kurttu (x=1900, y=670) - you can go thru all the dialogue options, but really this is just a way to get you to go and talk to someone else. In this case, the someone else is really two someones: Carita (x=2400, y=570) and Leevi (x=2430, y=580). Carita is kind of a bitch, and totally unhelpful; Leevi is only slightly better. As both of our previous excursions here took us into the Fell Woods, and since we were told that's where we can find Kyosti's Spirit, we should head back in there now. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 24) Head directly to the Standing Stones, where we found and looted the dead body in the previous section. The exit locations from each area are listed in order below, starting from the village: (x=2730, y=1410) East (x=3000, y=1050) East (x=180, y=300) Northwest (x=900, y=450) Southeast (x=490, y=220) North (x=830, y=250) Northeast (x=830, y=250) Northeast (x=200, y=360) Northwest (x=180, y=350) Northwest (x=620, y=230) Northeast (x=850, y=900) Southeast (x=250, y=310) Northwest (x=850, y=900) Southeast Kill anything that gets in your way, or ignore it and just move from area to area, as you desire. Upon reaching Area 5011 (the Standing Stones), I realized that several characters can level up: K'aos gains another Wizard level (to 9th), and takes Concentration, Intimidate, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft for skills. He adds another Web, along with Shroud of Flame, to his spellbook. Ghrax goes to 11th level and adds a point to Concentration. Too bad he doesn't get any feats, or new spells yet. Fhornal likewise moves up to level 11, and puts his points into the usual: Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana). He adds another Sunscorch, Protection from Fire, and Healing Circle to his repertoire. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 25) Now that we're back here, let's leave. You seriously didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you? We still have several more areas to go thru before we get to our destination. Exit the eastern side of the map at (x=850, y=550) and kill some Restless Dead in the next area. The exit from here is to the southeast at (x=700, y=570). This area looks the same as the last one, with the obvious exception that there are no enemies here to kill. Exit at (x=670, y=220) to find another identical area, again uninhabited. Well fine - exit this one too (x=260, y=230). ***TRAPS*** AR5012 (x=250, y=400) AR5013 (x=450, y=330) AR5014 (x=600, y=360) (x=700, y=450) (x=250, y=360) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 26) This area is different, in more ways than one. First, it's a frozen river with three log bridges; second, there are Restless Dead that require some smiting. The exit is right behind you (x=300, y=200), and it leads to another river section, again with the three log bridges. I can think of only two reasons why a lot of these areas look the same: the writers wanted to confuse you, or they were too lazy to actually create new backgrounds. Not that it really matters - it is what it is. Exit this area at (x=850, y=270) to find yet another identical area. Aaaarrgghh... ***TRAPS*** AR5021 (x=340, y=350) (x=400, y=570) (x=750, y=400) AR5022 (x=340, y=450) (x=700, y=460) AR5023 (x=350, y=600) (x=400, y=350) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 27) Spell buff like you mean it, and then exit this area in the south- east corner at (x=850, y=700). This leads to another area that is... wait for it... different. I guess doing more than three areas in a row using the same background was too much even for them. Well thank the stars - that was starting to get just a bit ridiculous. You do get some experience for finding your way here, however. This area is inhabited by a Will o'Wisp, a Witch Light, and a Death's Candle. These things are a major pain in the ass, as they will continually go invisible and move around to attack from behind, and they have a shit-ton of hit points. Kill them to complete part of the quest, loot the tree, and exit to the west at (x=250, y=600). ***TRAPS*** AR5030 (x=400, y=500) (x=650, y=420) (x=800, y=350) ***REWARD*** (for finding your way deeper into the Fell Wood) EXP 3150 (for extinguishing the ghost-lights of the Fell Wood) EXP 375 (Will o'Wisp) EXP 500 (Witch Light) EXP 750 (Death's Candle) ***ITEMS*** (x=570, y=580) Scroll:Hold Person, Large Shield of Luck +1(*1), Dart +3 x22, 240 Gold *1 Shield Bonus +3, Saving Throw Bonues +1, Armor Check Penalty -1, <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 28) What the...? How did we...? Aaarrgghh... Re-enter the woods and talk to Hunter's Ghost in the entrance area to the Fell Wood to find out where Kyosti's Spirit is located, and get some experience. Exit where you entered, back to the area with the tent. ***REWARD*** (for giving peace to the Restless Dead of Fell Wood) EXP 1575 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 29) Now... Remember that grave on the western side of this map? Yes...? Good... Head there, kill some Dire Wolves on the way, and talk to the spirit that appears (x=630, y=570). The dialogue options aren't very diverse, and there's really only one way to complete this, so go with it and be happy that you don't have to fight him. He will depart, and give you the Fell Wood Remains, along with his spear(*1) Exit the area to the southwest and head back to the village. Talk to Kurttu first, and then Suoma next to finish this quest and get some more experience. Again, the dialogue options are pretty straight forward - if you mess this up you really shouldn't try to play computer RPG games... ***REWARD*** (for solving the mystery of Kyosti's disappearance) EXP 2100 (for fulfilling the last of Suoma's quests) EXP 3150 *1 Kyosti's Spear, Attack +1, Damage 1d8 plus 1d6 plus 10% 1d10 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 30) As soon as you try to hand over the remains of the Fell Wood dead to Suoma you will be treated to a cut-scene wherein two demons, Isair and Madae, will appear and converse briefly before killing the village guards and turning them into Possessed Corpses. Well, shit... I was hoping to be able to rest a bit before having to fight again, but I guess that just isn't meant to be. I run back north and get the party set up in a better position for fighting, including chugging a couple of healing potions. This is a fairly straight forward fight, and I used no special tactics to kill the enemy party. Once they're all dead, you will find yourself just inside the entrance to the village, and Venla the Healer will bid you farewell. Farewell, indeed, but we're not quite done here... Talk to Tahvo the Huntmaster again and buy three Hemp Ropes (and anything else you think you want), and then talk to Suoma one final time. Now you can actually give her the Fell Wood Remains for some experience. Rest, and head back into the forest yet again. Quala levels up to 6th level Rogue (her final Rogue Level) and adds a point to Intelligence (for the additional skill points). This gives her seven skill points to spread around; she takes Concentration, Disable Device, Open Lock x2, and Search x2. and She adds Combat casting for her new feat. From here on out she will advance solely as a Sorceress. ***REWARD*** (for returning the remains of the Fell Wood to Suoma) EXP 1575 o======================================================================o | | | The Cold Marshes | | | o======================================================================o 1. Treant 2. Freeing the Fell Wood 3. Out of the Wood 4. Religious Trolls 5. Moving On... 6. The Black Raven Tribe 7. The Gate of Stone 8. Abominable Snowman 9. Wyverns 10. Ingrath Mariner, Maybe... 11. Our First Dragon 12. Doppelgangers The Cold Marshes (AR5004) {WLK016} o======================================================================o 1) Head directly thru the first area and enter the woods. This time, instead of Hunter's Ghost, there is a Treant in the first clearing. You were probably attacked by Treantlings at various points while traveling thru here before, but they would just show up, injure you, and then disappear. Now you actually get to fight/kill one. Oh boy! I usually light up the clearing with as much fire as I can muster (which is quite a lot, now that I think about it), and kill the treant in onw round; you can do whatever makes you feel good. Exit to the southeast (x=750, y=700). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Slay several more Treants in this area to complete this mini-quest and get some experience. Again, I light up the entire area with fire, although this time it takes two rounds to actually kill off all three enemies. As soon as the last one dies, you'll see a bit of automated action wherein all the remaining Treants get fried, and then you'll get your reward. Rest if you need to, then exit in the northeast corner (x=520, y=250). ***REWARD*** (for slaying the Treants and freeing the Fell Wood from their warping) EXP 2100 //Note by Valdo There seems to a rare case (which happened in my playthrough) where the game freezes after you killed the last Treant, and the small cut scene won't start playing. This seems to have something to do with the games resolution, I fixed it by putting my resolution back to 800x600 and re-entering the area. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Use caution as you move around thru this area - there are Web traps, and Frost Spiders and Ettercaps that love to go after Webbed characters. Disarming the traps won't prevent the enemies from attacking, but it will make it a damn sight easier to kill them. Continue to the east and slightly northeast along the southern edge of the map to the clearing at around (x=1100, y=1350). ***TRAPS*** (x=180, y=1460) (x=330, y=1750) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Here you will be attacked by a group of Frost Spiders. These eight- legged shitheads will come at you from all sides, so take extra caution not to get surrounded. Straight melee is the best option for dealing with them, as they will close on the party quickly and render missile weapons useless. Continue east along the bottom of the map past a log barricade to find a couple of Snow Trolls, who are accompanied by a Snow Troll Shaman. Only in an AD&D world could you find religious Trolls... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Behind the barricade to the south are two more Troll Shamans whose god seems to have abandoned them, because they die without much of a fight. Loot the hole in the ground that they were apparently guarding for some minor treasures, then continue east along the... shore? ***ITEMS*** (x=1890, y=1780) Angel Skin Ring, Half-plate Armor, Moonstone Gem, Tiger Cowrie Shell Necklace, 205 Gold Note: the loot here is quite variable <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Where the path turns north you will find a group of Barbarians led by one Hadbruki, who will talk to you. According to him, they are the Black Raven Tribe, which I guess means something to them. He puffs himself up and tries to sound threatening, but really he's just scared. It really makes no difference what you do here, because this ends in a fight. I suggest a Fireball or Chaos spell (if you have one) to soften them up, but in the end it really isn't necessary. They drop normal Barbarian crap - gold and gems mostly - but Hadbruki has a rather nice Mace on him(*1). *1 Azure Rod: +1 Attack, 1d4+2 Damage +1d6 to Evil creatures, and gives a +5 bonus Hit Points when equipped. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Behind where you encountered Hadbruki, to the north, is a large group of boulders that you can manipulate. This is a fairly simple 'move the open space' puzzle with way too many open spaces. When you click on a boulder, it will move in the only direction it can, thereby allowing you to move farther into the puzzle. Use a single character and click on the boulders in the following order to open a passage: (x=3280, y=1060) Left (x=3300, y=1000) Right (x=3190, y=1050) Right (x=3220, y=1000) Right (x=3240, y=950) Left (x=3280, y=1060) Left (x=3300, y=1000) Left (x=3330, y=950) Left (x=3330, y=900) Right NOTE: the first time you move any boulder, you will be attacked from the south by a small group of Barbarian Warriors, usually accompanied by a Barbarian Shaman. So move the first one, fight, move another one, fight, move the third set, fight, etc. ***REWARD*** (for opening the Gate-Of-Stone) EXP 2100 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Head thru the now open puzzle/barrier, and turn west. It may not look like you can get thru, but trust me, you can. Continue west past the dead bodies to find an Abominable Snowman. This guy takes a lot of work to put down, and he appears to be immune to all but the very best of weapons, so I simply had Quala Web him and then Xanth hit him with a couple of Aganazzar's Scorchers. That did the trick, and nobody got hurt in any way (except the Snowman, of course). Loot him for his pelt, and a Bow:Flamekiller(*1). Behind him is a hidden hole in the snow with a bit of loot. Note: you may get attacked by the critters in the next step while trying to move west for this one. If so, do that step first, then come back and finish off this one. ***ITEMS*** (x=770, y=670) Wandering Hunter's Armor(*2), Masterwork Battleaxe, Spear, Masterwork Longbow, Sparkling Bullets +1 x20, 474 Gold *1 This is a +1 bow which grants 1/- cold resistance. Crap... *2 Hide Armor, AC +4, Max Dex +4, Armor Check Penalty -2, 2/- cold resistance. This is also crap... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Return from whence you came and head north, the only way left to go. You will almost immediately be attacked by six Wyverns - two from the north, and four from the south. This can get ugly quickly if you're not careful, and again, melee is the way to go, as they will close on the party and make missile weapons useless. Continue north to the next area. The Cave Entrance (AR5005) o======================================================================o 10) If you didn't kill him before (WLK014, Step 22), you will be met by Ingrath Mariner, who will congratulate you on making it this far. When you mention proceeding thru the cave, he will tell you that it is inhabited by a White Dragon. Well, isn't that just freakin' wonderful... He apparently isn't too bright, as your suggestion to develop a plan to tackle the dragon goes unheeded - he's all for just storming in and killing it without so much as a thought to how. He will continue to goad you ("Go on then... into the cave!"), which implies that he isn't going with you. What a pussy... Of course if you did kill him before, then he won't be here to warn you, and you'll get taken totally by surprise... Wait... but I just told you... never mind... Either way, spell buff like you mean it and head to the east slowly with a single character. Cold-resistence buffs are very helpful here, as are anything that can reduce damage (stoneskin, barkskin, etc). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) As you approach the cave (x=1100, y=530), you will get an automated scene and be attacked by two White Wyrms - one from the northwest and one from the southwest - and the White Dragon himself out of the cave. Run like hell back to the party and hopefully the dragon won't follow; this should allow you to take on the White Wyrms first, and the Dragon separately. If this doesn't work, and the Dragon does follow, you should still have time to kill the Wyrms before having to actually fight the Dragon. The White Wyrms die surprisingly fast; the Dragon, on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. His breath weapon will Slow you, and he hits for some pretty substantial damage, so get on him fast and hard. Using fire-based spells is recommended, and you can keep some of the party out of the way and hit him with missiles, but in the end it's melee that will win this fight. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) As soon as the Dragon is dead, Ingrath and his cohorts will return and reveal themselves to be Doppelgangers, whom you will also have to put down. You have no chance whatsoever to save, heal, or anything else before this happens, and can turn a great win into a major loss very easily. Unfortunately, they appear right in front and in the midst of the party, so Fireballs and similar spells are not very useful. They are not very strong, and will die quickly, but they will go immediately after the weakest, most wounded characters, so be ready. When all is once again peaceful, enter the cave... o======================================================================o | | | The River Caves | | | o======================================================================o 1. More White Wyrms 2. Hook Horrors 3. Making a Safe Room 4. Room Clearing 5. Fire Beetles 6. Hook Horror Ambush 7. Dead Ends and New Paths 8. Shambler and Jelly Sandwich 9. Duergar Temple 10. Barud Barzam the Headless Chicken 11. Obtaining Doom Bolter 12. Turning the Spectre 13. Beastlord Caves (AR5100) {WLK017} o======================================================================o 1) Another couple of White Wyrms and another White Dragon await as soon as you arrive - allow them to come to you to be slain. There are several piles of loot laying around, most of which is totally useless but there are also a couple of caches of nice things. Rest, heal, whatever, then exit down the large hole at (x=1060, y=400). Note: if you didn't buy rope from Tahvo in the village, you'll need to go back there and get some. It's the only way to exit down the hole. ***ITEMS*** (x=550, y=630) Broken Weapon, Broken Shield (x=680, y=640) Broken Shield, Helmet, Skull (x=790, y=670) Broken Armor, Broken Weapon (x=870, y=590) Broken Weapon, Broken Miscellaneous, Studded Leather Armor +2 (x=730, y=330) Angel Skin Ring, Flamedance Ring, Horn Coral Gem, Star Diopside Gem, Shandon Gem, Wyrm's Maw(*1) (~1)Potion:Protection from Petrification, 595 Gold (~2)Mace of Bludgeoning +2(*2) (~4)Potion:Delay POison *1 No AC bonus, but this helmet allows the wearer to use White Wyrm's Breath 1x/day for 6d4 damage. Nice... *2 1d8+2 damage, +2 attack, +1 extra damage/round for 10 rounds The River Caves (AR5101) o======================================================================o 2) There are Hook Horrors and Duergar down here in the caves; the latter are easy to kill, the former are a bit harder. As you move north from the entrance you will find the first of these - unfortunately, several of his friends will show up behind you as well. From what I could tell there are nine of them altogether, although there may have been one or two more come in during the battle. Regardless of their numbers, being surrounded by a swarm of Hook Horrors is not a lot of fun. I suggest keeping the party back by the entrance and sending a single character ahead to initiate the encounter - if you keep the party as far back as possible, the Hook Horrors won't be able to show up or get behind you, and this fight will go a bit easier. Notice that you can't exit back the way you came, so it's fairly easy to get into a safe position. A Web or two up into the passage at about (x=700, y=1900) will stop half of the enemy group while you deal with the ones that show up right in the middle of the party, and if you're lucky it will hold until the closer ones are all dead, after which you can fireball the webbed group to death. Oh... and you'll want to equip all melee weapons for this fight... Head north, ignore the 'door' at (x=850, y=1560), and proceed east to where the tunnel splits. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Open the door to the north (x=1500, y=1300) and kill the two Hook Horrors in the room beyond. Grab the loot at (x=1530, y=1150), and move the entire party in here. We will be using this room as a safe spot in which to fight the next several encounters. Send one character across the tunnel and open the door at (x=1740, y=1380), which will unleash a rather large group of Hook Horrors from all directions. Run back into the safe room and wait for them to come to you. They will simply line up in the doorway and allow you to kill them one at a time. When they're all dead, you can go across and loot the room. Repeat the process for the next northern door at (x=2000, y=1220) - go ahead, I'll wait... ***ITEMS*** (x=1530, y=1150) Garnet Gem, Chrysoberyl Gem (x=1680, y=1480) Bloodstone Gem, Chrysoberyl Gem x2 (x=2190, y=1110) Sphene Gem <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Move the party into this next northern room (the one you just cleared out), and send one character east down the tunnel to incite yet another large group of Hook Horrors. Don't bother with the southern room yet, as that will trigger a fight we don't want until this next batch of Hook Horrors is gone. Kill all the Hook Horrors as you did before, heal up if necessary, and then open that southern door (x=2300, y=1350). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) This room contains Fire Beetles, and these little buggers are fast. Individually they are nothing - it only takes 1-2 hits to kill one - but in a swarm of somewhere around 50 they are a bitch. They will come from everywhere, but you can still bottleneck them in the doorway to your safe room and fight them 1-2 at a time. They will keep coming for some time, so just be patient and kill them as they show up; eventually they will stop, and you can proceed... What pisses me off about them is they aren't worth any experience - none, at all. They're as annoying as shit, and you have to kill a ton of them, but you get absolutely nothing for it. How about 5xp each, huh? Or even 1xp? At least that would make up for the time you waste having to kill them. Oh well... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) In the cavern to the east there are two more doors to explore. In the southern one you will find a dead body with some loot. However, as you approach you will unleash hell upon yourself, in the form of about a dozen Hook Horrors. So... pick whichever room you like as a safe room (I use the fire beetle room, since there's a lot of room to maneuver) and proceed as before. This time can be tricky however, as the character can easily get trapped and not be able to get back to safety. (A Haste spell makes this a lot easier to accomplish.) If all goes well, this plays out the same as the previous encounters; the Hook Horrors get bottlenecked in the doorway and die one at a time. If not, then you end up with one character trapped outside the room and they won't last long in that position. Ilana could level up here, but since Xanth is only a couple hundred XP away from a new level as well, I elect to wait and do them both at the same time, after the next couple of steps. ***ITEMS*** (x=3160, y=1550) 95 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) The passage beyond the door to the northeast is blocked, and we need some mining tools to get past, so let's head back down to the split and go south. There is an exit here (x=1760, y=1720) which will take you in to the southern sections of the cave complex. It will also put you in touch with some Ice Trolls, and you will have almost no room to use fire without damaging the party. Nevertheless, they die quite easily. To the southwest is a cavern with a trapped loot pile. ***TRAPS*** (x=1000, y=2100) ***ITEMS*** (x=1000, y=2100) Chainmail Armor, Masterwork Warhammer, Helmet, Shield, Star Diopside Gem, Zircon Gem, Sparking Arrows +1 x20, 211 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) East of here is another cavern with a Shambler and a slew of Ochre Jellies. A Fireball or two will take care of most of them in a single casting, leaving only the Shambler and maybe a Jelly or two to actually fight. Watch out for the Shambler - he will Entangle a character and focus his attention on them; even the Witherbranch Boots cannot prevent this effect. I suggest magicing everything to death - Magic Missiles, Fireballs, Flame Strikes, etc... The Shambler will drop a a dagger, Lamia's Tongue(*1), which I equip on Xanth. Proceed east to the end of this passage to find a dead body with a a key on it. Grab it and return to the main section of the cave, to the north. I level up Ilana and Xanth before leaving this southern cavern: Ilana goes to 11th level and adds a Concentration point. She gets a new Domain spell here, and chooses Spiritual Wrath; she adds a second Doom, as well as Halt Undead, Dolorous Decay, and Heal. Xanth also goes to 11 (anyone get the reference here?), and adds another point each to Alchemy and Concentration. He also gets some new spells, and chooses Blur, Lightning Bolt, Emotion:Hope, and Lower Resistance. ***ITEMS*** (x=3170, y=1980) Duergar Key *1 Returning Dagger, 1d4 Piercing + 1d6 Slashing Damage <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Now that we have the Duergar Key, we can enter the Duergar temple. Open the large rock/door (x=820, y=1570) to open the passage west, and Follow the wooden walkway west. Turn north to arrive at a large, ornate doorway (x=310, y=1150). Open the door and approach with anyone other than a Paladin - that will end in a fight and cost you a nice experience reward later on. You will be stopped and spoken to by Daragab the Slave-Master; do NOT bitch him out for being a slaver, that will piss him off. Continue into the temple (x=750, y=770) but don't loot the place. This will turn everyone and everythng hostile and, like before, prevent you from getting some nice experience. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Go and find the Duergar named Barud Barzam; I found him at about (x=1120, y=860), but he runs around like a damn chicken with his head cut off so you could find him pretty much anywhere. He will offer you a reward for killing all the monsters in the caves (which we've already done), so tell him they're all dead and get your reward right away. Next, he'll ask you to kill a bunch of Monks. Agree to help him, but don't leave yet. Loot the room to the north (x=750, y=580) for a few nice items, but make damn sure to grab the Mining Tools. DO NOT attempt to loot the rest of the place; you'll get caught and blah, blah, blah... If you do get caught, you might just want to reload and try it again. ***REWARD*** (for clearing the River Caves) EXP 1725 ***ITEMS*** (x=860, y=520) Masterwork Bolts x80, Bullets x40, Stun Bullets +1 x20 (x=750, y=400) Mining Tools (x=670, y=320) Masterwork Warhammer (x=800, y=290) Ziose Gem, Shandon Gem, 566 Gold (x=870, y=360) Elixir of Health <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Go and talk to Dragu Ironbreaker (x=1450, y=450) with a character possessing an Intelligence of 17+ and talk him out of his new prototype crossbow, the Doom Bolter; this replaces Hagnen's Folly on Fhornal. Yes, I know - it's one less bonus point to damage, but I'd much rather have the 2 attacks per round. ***REWARD*** (for helping Dragu design the Doom Bolter) EXP 1725 Doom Bolter(*1) *1 Attack +3, Damage +2, 2 attacks/round <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Take a Cleric down the hallway southeast from Dragu, then northeast to a door. Open the door (x=2250, y=570) and enter the room. Talk to the Spectre that appears, and when he turns hostile... well... turn him (using your Turn Undead ability) for some experience. Note: if you destroy the spectre instead of turning him, you won't get the experience reward. You only want to make him non-hostile, not destroy him. Once turned, you can speak with him again and convince him that he's dead, after which he'll vanish and you'll get the experience. ***REWARD*** (for releasing the Spectre from his anguish) EXP 3000 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) You can try to loot the rest of the place, but you WILL get caught and have to fight everyone and everything in here. I suggest you just forget about it for now and head for the blocked passage in the far northeast corner of the map. Use the Mining Tools (attack the rock pile) to open the way, and exit the area at (x=3480, y=650) River Caves Exit (AR5102) o======================================================================o 14) Go east from the entrance and kill some Umber Hulks that will pop out of the wall at you (x=980, y=1200). Continue east and do it again (x=1600, y=1050). The path doubles back on itself and heads west, until you are subjected to a mini-cut-scene and get to talk to The Beastlord Harshom. He is completely full of himself and goes on and on and on and on about what a great guy he is, and how powerful he is, and how you're going to die, and all that rubbish. Now bear in mind (pun intended) that he has a couple of Mages with him, and he's a spellcaster himself, so his threats are no laughing matter. As is my custom, I start things off with a big 'ol Fireball, in this case accompanied by as much magic as I can muster. I managed to kill both backup Mages and severely wound the archers in the very first round of action. A second round of spells will leave you with almost nothing left alive but a couple of bears, and against a well-armed party like mine they don't stand a chance. The archers all drop Arrows of Piercing and some gold, the Mages have Gems and Gold, and Harshom himself drops a few healing potions, some Gold, Bracers of Defense +2, a Shield Ring, and the Raven Gate Key. The Raven Gate Key will allow us to proceed thru the door and exit the map, which ends this Chapter. o======================================================================o | Chapter 4 | o======================================================================o | | | The Black Raven Monastery | | | o======================================================================o 1. Suicide Leap 2. Yeti Trap 3. Bribery 4. Bered the Librarian 5. NN for the Win 6. Dolon's Letters 7. Behind Door #3 8. Sersa's Training 9. Dolon the Dick 10. Permission to Become an Associate 11. Morohem, Master of Chambers 12. Chamber of Stone 13. Chamber of Shadows 14. Chamber of Sorcery 15. Chamber of Clockwork 16. Chamber of Sand 17. Chamber of Silk 18. Chamber of Battle 19. Chamber of Immolation 20. Associate of the Black Raven Monastery 21. Killing the Monks 22. Killing the Duergar 23. Valas' Tomb 24. Avoiding Golems Well... in Chapter 3 we managed to save the children of a village from a witch, found and returned a drinking horn to a Barrow Wight, gave rest to a wandering ghost, removed the threat of Restless Dead in the forest, destroyed a bunch of Treants, fought barbarian hordes, and cleared out a cave complex, among other things. It was a busy chapter, but by no means the end of our mission. We now find ourselves outside the Black Raven Monastery, and the beginning of Chapter 4. This surely won't be as bad as the last chapter... or will it? Black Raven Monastery, Exterior (AR5200) {WLK018) o======================================================================o 1) Our path is obvious - cross the two bridges and enter the 'building' in the southeast corner of the map. But, of course, nothing is as easy as it seems. The first bridge is trapped, but this time you want to go ahead and trip it. Send one character onto the bridge and allow them to fall to their "death"; they will be returned to you, and you can heal them to get them back virtually unharmed. We now have a bridge with a huge hole in it... I keep the party on the western side of the bridge, send one character across to incite the White Wyrms on the other side, and then run back across. The Wyrms cannot cross the bridge due to the hole you created, and you can kill them with missile fire. See why we didn't want to disable the trap? When the Wyrms are dead, head across to the plateau. There is a Wyrm nest here with some loot in it; of course there is another White Wyrm guarding it, and taking the egg from the nest will totally piss him (her?) off and you'll have to kill it. Keep the items from the nest handy - you will need them later. ***TRAPS*** (x=430, y=1140) ***ITEMS*** (x=670, y=990) White Wyrm Egg, Ruby Ring <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) The second bridge isn't trapped, but there are several Yetis on the other side. Draw them back across the bridge 1-2 at a time if you can, to make killing them easier. Once they're all dead, cross the large pile of Yeti carcasses that you've created and then enter the cave opening at (x=2700, y=1400). You will arrive on the plateau above, with access to a large door (x=2800, y=750). I guess this is the entrance... Note: Yeti Skins are worth a fair amount in bulk, so grabbing them off the dead bodies is a good idea. Black Raven Monastery, Interior (AR5201) o======================================================================o 3) You will be met by Salisam Harbash, who seems friendly enough. He is mostly unhelpful though, and tells you simply to speak with someone named Aruma Blane, although he is a bit unsure if she will help you. So we have our first task - find someone else. It seems we just can't catch a break... Lockpick the door at (x=1630, y=970) and talk to Ven. Refuse to help him, then accept his bribe and let him go. Loot the room and head up the hallway to the northwest. ***REWARD*** (for accepting Ven's bribe) Nonin's Ring ***ITEMS*** (x=1520, y=1060) Potion of Healing x3, Potion of Extra Healing (x=1480, y=1100) Bullets x80 (x=1380, y=1040) Bolts x80, Arrows x40 (x=1350, y=980) Lamp Oil x9 (x=1470, y=950) Ryomaru's Harmless Staff(*1), Darts +3 x20 *1 An otherwise normal staff, this thing has a multitude of special effects, all based on chance. I guess if you're a gambler, this could be a nice item, but for me it's just too dangerous. I'm sure it will sell quite well though... 15% poison target + 1% poison wielder 5% +1d4 Piercing Damage on target 5% +1d8 Bludgeoning Damage on target + 1% 1d6 Damage to wielder 10% +1d6 Piercing Damage on target + 1% 1d4 Damage to Wielder 5% stun target 10% +1d6 Bludgeoning Damage on target 5% +1d4 Acid Damage + 1% 1d4 Acid Damage to wielder 1% cast Slay Living on target <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) The room to the north is a library, and inside is Bered, apparently the librarian. He is a wealth of knowledge (as he should be, being a librarian and all...) and will tell you how to become associates of the Monastery, which will allow you to use the passage to the Underdark which, oddly enough, is where we're headed. He sells a variety of books and spells, and will buy your unneeded scrolls. In particular, the tome titled "How to be an Adventurer" is nice - if you have the 102,000 gold it takes to purchase, you can gain 10,000 experience points for one character (equip the book in an item slot and then 'use' it). For me, this allows K'aos to gain a level. Loot the bookcases and move on. K'aos becomes a 10th level Wizard and adds a point to Intelligence. He gets 5 skill points to spread around this time, and as usual he takes Concentration, plus Diplomacy, and Knowledge (Arcana) x2. He also gets two feat points, and chooses Spell Penetration x2. Finally, he gets to add some spells and goes with another Stoneskin, and Chaos. ***ITEMS*** (x=1390, y=590) Book:Philosophy of Kara-Tur (x=1430, y=560) Book:Valas-the Black raven (x=1660, y=590) Book:On Non-Violence <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Across the hall from the library is a large dining room; all the way at the northwestern end you will find Nonin. That name sounds familiar, like maybe we have his ring or something. Talk to him, and when you try to end the conversation he'll mention having lost his father's ring. Well isn't that convenient - we just happen to have it on us. Have him identify it with the letters 'NN' and get some experience and loot. He will also sell you some potions, and buy stuff from you. Loot the bookcase in the corner for some Elven Healing Wine. Ghrax gains a level, going up to 12th level Ranger. He adds an ability point to Strength, a skill point to Concentration, and a feat point to Spell Penetration. His spell selections are also enhanced with 3rd level spells, and he takes Cure Moderate Wounds and Storm Shell. ***REWARD*** (for returning Nonin's Ring) EXP 3900 Potion of Extra Healing x3 ***ITEMS*** (x=830, y=500) Elven Healing Wine <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Go back into the dining room and head southwest thru the door at (x=1040, y=930), then thru another one at (x=1050, y=1100) to reach a bedroom with a few containers you can loot. Hang on to Dolon's Letters, as we will need them soon. ***ITEMS*** (x=770, y=1050) Dolon's Letters, Waterstar Gem, Jade Ring, 81 Gold (x=890, y=1040) Book:Secret Societies (x=1090, y=1150) Book:History of the North I <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) The next room is behind door #3... umm... door (x=820, y=880). This room appears to be a bunkhouse, and has a couple of chests that can be lockpicked and looted. In the corner of the room (x=780, y=830) is a monk named Sersa; ask her to train somewhere else and she'll tell you a sob story about how Svaltid, the trainer, is refusing to train her. Offer to speak with this Svaltid fellow and head back out to the main hallway again. ***ITEMS*** (x=390, y=890) Silver Necklace (x=350, y=640) Book:Valas-The Black Raven <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) We're running out of rooms, so we must be getting close to finding Aruma. But let's see if we can't get some training for this Sersa character - she seems like a nice enough person, after all. And really, why shouldn't she be trained like the rest of the monks? You'll find the trainer, Svaltid Hanarsen, at (x=920, y=480); talk to him with a character with a high Bluff skill to convince him to train Sersa. Return to Sersa and give her the good news; for this you will get some nice, juicy experience, and will be allowed to rest for free. ***REWARD*** (for convincing Svaltid to train Sersa) EXP 2925 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Alright... enough screwing around helping out monk wanna-be's and stealing from a religious order - let's get on with our quest. Head to the only place we haven't looked yet, thru the door at (x=1220, y=1130). In here you will find Aruma Blane talking with Dolon Daemba; ignore him and talk to Aruma. Tell Aruma you wish to use the underground passage, and be denied; ask about becoming a monk, and be denied again; show her the letters you found in Dolon's chambers and she changes her tune completely. She forgives Dolon for being a dick, turns the control of the Monastery over to Salisam, and leaves. Loot her room and return to Salisam back where we first entered. ***ITEMS*** (x=1120, y=1400) Frost Bullets +1 x20 (x=1150, y=1200) Book:History of Durpar and Var the Golden (x=1340, y=1130) Bracers of Defense +2 (x=1490, y=1220) The Hammer of Lucern(*1) *1 Despite its name, this is a Halberd. 1d10+1 Damage, +1 Attack, undead and outsiders must make a Fortitude save or be destroyed <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Salisam is far more accommodating this time, and offers to let you face the Eight Chambers - the test that will allow you to become a Monk of their order, and use the passage to the Underdark. Well it's about damn time! You will also get some experience for removing Aruma from power - nice... Head down the stairs at (x=1300, y=580) to reach the next level of the Monastery. This reward was just enough to allow Fhornal to gain a level: He becomes a 12th level Druid, and bumps his Wisdom up to 22. He takes Animal Empathy, Concentration, and Spellcraft for skills, and adds a point in Simple Weapon: Crossbow. For spells, he adds Beast Claw, Ice Storm, Healing Circle, and Sol's Searing Orb. ***REWARD*** (for removing Aruma from power) EXP 2925 Black Raven Monastery, Lower Level (AR5202) o======================================================================o 11) Here you will find Morohem, Master of Chambers (x=580, y=640). He will explain the process to you, which requires you to take the tests unarmed and unequipped. He is, however, nice enough to store your gear for you in a container at (x=880, y=830), so at least there's that. Now that you are all but naked, talk to him again to be transported to the first chamber. I have Ghrax do the first several chambers, because he has the most hit points, the highest strength, and some healing ability. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) The trick here is to pull the levers in the correct order. But what is the correct order, you ask? Well, you could use trial and error, but that is really just a waste of time, not to mention stupid, when you have a guide like this to tell you what to do. Pull the levers in the following order, from left to right: 1, 5, 3, 2, 4, and kill some monks in between each. There is a cache of weapons at (x=530, y=840) that will make life a bit easier, nevertheless this does get pretty nasty by the time you get to the fourth level, and you will be hard pressed to win this. It can be done however, so just keep reloading until you complete all the battles. There is no strategy here whatsoever - just pull the levers and fight. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Stone) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) You can rest safely in between each Chamber, which is a good thing, because you will get pretty beat up going thru the tests. Next comes the Chamber of Shadows, which contains six portals, four of which you need to enter in the correct order. Numbering the portals from left to right, top to bottom, you need to enter the portals in order, as follows: 1, 3, 4, 6 (Top, Right, Left, Bottom). Complete the tests of this chamber to get another experience reward. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Shadows) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) The Chamber of Sorcery is next, and it can be tricky, so pay close attention. There are Blue and Green tiles on the floor; the Blue tiles grant Protection from Electricity, and the Green ones will spawn monks. Jump onto the raised Blue tile as soon as it appears to avoid some major damage, and defeat the monks to complete the test. This 'safe' platform will change throughout the process, so be ready to move each time the monks disappear and reappear. Focus on one monk at a time, ignoring the other one, until you kill him, and then deal with the second one. With any luck at all, you'll have some time to heal yourself in between. If you want weapons, they are at (x=1450, y=1500). Quala goes up to 7th level Sorceress at this point, and adds Search and Disable Device skills. She adds Protection from Evil, Bull's Strength, and Lance of Disruption to her known spells. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Sorcery) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Three down, five to go... The Chamber of Clockwork has a weapon cache at (x=1660, y=1320); grab them if you want them. All you need to do here is kill the monks before time runs out. As soon as you enter, pause and inspect the room - you will see three 'panels' at various points. Focus on any single Monk until you see the flash on the wall at one of the panels, then run over and pull the lever that is exposed. Repeat this process with the next monk and the next lever, and then finally the third Monk to win the challenge. I know it sounds confusing but after you get in the chamber for the second time (you very likely will not succeed the first time), you'll know what to look for and how to accomplish the goal. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Clockwork) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Halfway thru, and surprisingly the first chamber was the hardest, at least for me. I suspect things will get more difficult as we progress though. We'll see... Speak to Morohem again to start the next Chamber, which is the Chamber of Sand. In here are several buttons on the walls; pressing them will release an Aganazzar's Scorcher. Fry the monks using the fire beams to wound them, then defeat them to pass the test. I know it sounds easy, but it's not. Line up your targets carefully before activating the beams. I focused on one monk at a time, but you can do this however best suits you and the situation as it plays out. Weapons are at (x=2470, y=960) but they're mostly useless. Well, good luck... ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Sand) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) Now for the Chamber of Silk. You will have to defeat a couple dozen Poisonweb Spiders here, so having a Neutralize Poison spell or ability will be essential. Again, you can grab a weapon (x=2100, y=750) to make life easier, and you can fry them with Sunscorch or other fire- based spells. A Cleric or Druid with Insect Plague and Flame Strike can have a fairly easy time of this, as will a Mage/Sorcerer with several Fireballs. In the end, this really isn't all that bad, although it seems like it will never end. There are a shit-ton of the buggers here that you need to kill, but in the end they will all die and you'll win. I send Fhornal in for this one - three Flame Strikes and it's all over. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Silk) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) The Chamber of Battle is the seventh challenge you need to defeat, and it's actually easier than the the Chamber of Silk. An Iron Monk will appear - lure him onto the blue platform, and kick his ass. Then, when he falls, run over to the switch on the wall at (x=1730, y=1130) and activate it. This will open the door to the northwest; enter this new room and knock out a new Monk on one of the platforms, and the other Monk on the other platform (he will wake up and rejoin the fight), and then activate the other switch at (x=1430, y=950) to win the contest. Both Monks must be unconscious on the blue platforms when you pull the second switch. I switch back to Ghrax for this one... ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Battle) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) This final chamber spouts fire constantly - freaking wonderful. You need to defeat two Brass Monks in here, and not get toasted in the process. You can tell where the fire will hit by the circles that show up on the floor, so it is possible to avoid it. The Monks hit for 10+ damage per hit; add the fire damage from the Flame Strikes and you're in for an extremely hard time. A character who can cast some form of fire protection will be able to resist much of the Monks' additional fire damage and some of the Flame Strike damage, but that will only help so much. There is a cache of weapons in the container at (x=880, y=300), but you need to be fast to get there before the Monks get to you. I sent Fhornal in to fight this battle. The instant he arrived in the chamber, I paused and cast Protection from Fire, and as soon as that was in place he took Dire Bear form. I moved him as far into the southern corner of the room as I could get him (this helped avoid the Flame Strikes), and he simply clawed both Monks to death. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Chamber of Immolation) EXP 2300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) Head back upstairs and talk to Salisam again for another reward. You are now an Associate of the Black Raven Monestary, and have access to the entrance to the gate to Valas' Tomb on the third level. Many people who would not speak with you before will now offer bits of information, but it is mostly useless. Now you have a choice - you can do as the Duergar wished and kill the Monks, or forget that little questy thing and continue. Personally, I choose to go ahead and kill the Monks - if you wish to let them live, skip to Step 23. K'aos gains another level, and moves up to Wizard 11. Concentration is a given here, as are Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft; the other two points bump his Bluff skill up. He gets a new spell, and chooses to add another Fireball. ***REWARD*** (for mastering the Eight Chambers and becoming an Associate of the Black Raven Monestary) EXP 3900 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 21) So - you decided to kill the monks too, eh? Well here's how I did it: I moved the party into the first room to the southwest, off the entry chamber; archers along the back wall and fighters at the doorway. Once I'm in position, I send K'aos in and attack a monk (it doesn't matter which one) to get the fight started, then run back into position in the 'safe room'. The entire place goes freakin' balistic, but all I have to do is stand in the doorway and let them all come to me. I did cast a few spells into the entry chamber to screw with them, but there was really no need other than to give me something to laugh at. I had to venture out a couple times to incite the next group, but it really was just a matter of lining them up in the doorway and mowing them down. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 22) Once everything and everyone is dead - don't forget about ol' Morohem downstairs - exit the Monastery and head back to the Duergar Temple via the River Caves Exit. Talk to Barud Barzam again and tell him you've completed his little murder spree for some experience and a nice bunch of loot. You can now, of course, kill all the Duergar as well, if you're so inclined. This is a much tougher fight, even if the tactics are the same (pick an enclosed room, set up in and across from the doorway, and get everyone to come to you for some death). For one thing, Duergar are a whole lot tougher than the monks were; for another, there are more of them. If you don't kill them now though, you will have to fight them later, in the tomb, where they will show up in back of your position and have you totally surrounded. I suggest that you kill them now... I hole up in the storeroom where we found the mining tools and start the battle. A Web into the hallway will slow the enemies up a bit and allow you to take them out with missile fire, hacking up the few that get thru with my melee characters. Once everyone is dead, search the bodies and make sure to grab Hell Bolter(*1), along with a very nice cache of other magical weapons. I give this awesome crossbow to the only one in my party who can actually make use of it - Fhornal. ***REWARD*** (for slaughtering all the monks) EXP 2300 Armor of Warding(*2), Hammer of Darkness(*3), Heavy Crossbow +3(*4), Garnet Gem x4, 298 Gold *1 Attack +3, Damage +2, 3 attacks/round *2 AC Bonus +7, Max Dex +0, Armor Check Penalty -6, Spell Fail 40% *3 1d8 Damage, plus a 50% chance to blind the target. So what...? *4 In spite of its name, this is a +5 to hit and +5 damage weapon (either that, or the description is wrong and it's really +3/+3) Valas' Tomb (AR5203) o======================================================================o 23) Return to the lower level of the monastery and exit down the stairs at (x=750, y=860) to reach the gate to Valas' Tomb. Open the gate ahead of you, and ignore the four Iron Golems in here; they are all but impossible to kill at our meager level (Level 11-12 is meager? Yeah, in this game it is). So unless you are really itching for a fight that you probably can't win, the best strategy is to head for the exit (x=1400, y=50). If you really, really, want to fight these Iron Golem bad-boys, rob the tomb and let them chase you to the entrance, running back up the stairs to heal in between combat sessions. You're insane for doing this, but hey - it's your game and who am I to tell you how to play it? I recommend a different strategy: make your way unmolested toward the exit to find another door. Go past the Golii and up the narrow path at about (x=1750, y=1050); the path is marked by lights on either side. Thru the door you will meet a large group of Duergar that you will have to kill - the only problem with them is their numbers; there are quite a lot of them. Once they're all dead, grab various magical gear that they drop (as well as their other gear), rest up, and prepare to rob the tomb we ignored earlier. Note: if you left the Duergar alive in the temple, they will show up behind you on the narrow path and REALLY make things difficult. Killing them earlier is a much better solution. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 24) Now, send a sneaking Rogue back to the tomb (x=570, y=1100) and grab the loot, running back to the exit and leaving the area as quickly as possible once you have it. There... see...? That was a whole lot easier than having to fight four Iron Golems, and except for the experience you didn't (and probably couldn't) get, you end up with the same result. ***ITEMS*** (x=570, y=1100) Skull, Aquamarine Gem, Bracers of Defense +4, Scroll-Beast Claw, Shackles of Roa(*1) *1 Wielded as a flail, these lengths of chain grant a +1 Attack Bonus, 1d8+1 Damage, and have a 33% chance to give a +2 Strength Bonus to the wielder if/when struck by a melee opponent (non-cumulative). The Strength Bonus lasts for the duration of the combat. o======================================================================o | | | The Underdark | | | o======================================================================o 1. Meeting Malavon Despana 2. Shopping for Strength 3. Exploring and Looting 4. Merchant Caravan 5. Dude... Mushrooms! 6. Sorn 7. Hostile Mushrooms 8. Ambushed by Assassins 9. Completionism 10. Entering the Drider Cave 11. Convincing Ginafae Despane 12. Cocoon Wars 13. Clearing OUt More Driders 14. Imphraili the Alchemist 15. Alchemy for Fun and Profit 16. Oinchack'olp's Blue Stone 17. The Heart of the Matter 18. Returning the Stone? 19. Rewards Galore 20. Caravan No More 21. Citadel Entrance Drow City (AR5300) {WLK019} o======================================================================o 1) When you arrive, Malavon Despana will speak to you; he is friendly, and it's in your best interest to accept his hospitality. He will take you into the camp and introduce you to several people before leaving you to your own devices. Question him about the tale of his demise and record it in your journal - there's no experience for it, but if the game offered the chance to do it there must be a reason... You will be offered the opportunity to take on a quest for him to clear out some Driders in a cave not far away; accept, and then you can look thru his wares; he has several potions, scrolls, etc. but the only thing I found worth buying was the Ring of Freedom of Movement (I put this on Ilana). It is safe here, as long as you don't try to steal from the inhabitants, and there are a couple of stores where you can sell and buy spells, potions, etc. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Next, talk to Viizra Arabani (x=580, y=850) if you need healing or healing-type spells. She really doesn't have much else, however the Scrolls of Healing are worth the gold. When you're done with her, talk to Kadresh Olonrae at (x=890, y=840); here you can get some strength potions (Fire Giant x2 and Hill Giant x3), as well as a ring that will increase your Strength and COnstitution by 1 (Ring of Hearty Strength). I put this ring on Ghrax, replacing the Ring of Protection +1. When you've completed your purchases, exit the encampment thru the gate to the south (x=930, y=1100). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) As is our normal process, let's check out this place in a counter- clockwise direction. Head west and loot the 'spot' in the ground at (x=90, y=1750). Of course it can't be just that easy; when you approach, you will be attacked by two Sword Spiders, but by now they are cheese. ***ITEMS*** (x=90, y=1750) Arrows of Dispelling x32 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) To the south is a small merchant caravan; Heggr Splitsteel has the best prices of any merchant in this area (x=450, y=2210), and also the best selection. I sell all my excess crap off to Heggr first, then hit Wode and Myrvek for what I need from them, and finally end up back at Heggr's shoppe. Overall, there are some extremely nice items to be had here, and I take full advantage of the 200k+ gold I managed to acquire. I equip everyone with +3 weapons - Ghrax keeps the Club of Disruption, Quala keeps Sophia's Flight, and Fhornal keeps Hell Bolter, otherwise the party all has new primary weapons and several have new secondary weapons as well. I also grab the couple of strength potions that are available. Complete all the transactions you need to... well... complete, but DO NOT try to rob them or loot their camp. This is a fight we will do later, after we have finished the other quests. I promise... East and then south from the merchant camp you will run into a few more Sword Spiders if you're so inclined, otherwise head back north and then turn east and follow the edge of the map. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Continue following the southern edges of the map and it winds past some blue and green mushrooms, and finally head south again. There is another 'spot' at (x=1810, y=2430), this time spawning two Shadow Drakes when you approach it. They also die quite easily, and you can then grab the loot in the 'spot'. North from there, at (x=2440, y=1710), you will find a Mind Flayer named Oinchack'olp; talk to him and accept his quest to find his lost blue stone. Apparently the Driders stole it from him, and he will be grateful for its return. Well okay then, we now have two reasons to visit the Drider caves. ***ITEMS*** (x=1810, y=2430) Iol Gem, Moonstone Gem, 345 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) The path now turns back north along the eastern map-edge, and when you cross the spot at around (x=3070, y=2190) you will be attached by a few more Sword Spiders - two from in front, and two from behind. As you move further north, you will eventually be confronted by Sorn, the first of a group of Driders we will need to kill. At this point though, we can simply talk our way out of a fight and gain some intel in the process. Do not mention that you are here to destroy the Drider-creating artifact and you should be okay. As with the merchant caravan, we will be dealing with these creatures soon enough. The Drider cave is to the east, but let's just skip that until we've finished exploring the rest of this cave. Continue north... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Ignore the doors to the north (x=3000, y=500) and (x=3200, y=500), you can't open them anyway, and loop back around to the west along the northern edge of the map. I know - we're ignoring a lot of stuff here, but we will come back and do it all in due course. North again to approach a spot in the lake at (x=1900, y=590), and be attacked by several Myconids - three Blue and one Red. Fire of any kind will dethreatenize them somewhat, but really you can just chop them up in melee. And yes, dethreatenize is a word; even if I did just make it up. ***ITEMS*** (x=1900, y=590) Andar Gem, 147 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Head northwest along the wall north of the camp until you are met by a group of Drow Assassins, led by a Drow Priestess. She has a couple of Drow Deathsingers with her, and they can be a pain, so focus a lot of attention on them. After being taken totally by surprise the first time I did this encounter, I decided to approach it differently the second time around. Leave the party back by where the wall turns and send one character in to initiate the battle, then blast the entire area with Chaos, Fireball, and other area effect spells. Whatever is left is much easier to deal with after they've been scorched, confused, webbed, and generally dethreatenized (see, I told you it was a word). The Drow Assassins will target your spellcasters, particularly mages, and they can deal a lot of damage if they get into the midst of the party, so watch out for them. Once they are all dead, loot the bodies for a shit-ton of healing potions and a lot of gold, as well as a very nice drop by the Priestess. In addition to some gold, she drops a Cloak of Displacement(*1), a Flail +3, Chainmail +2, and a Shield-Buckler of Denial(*2) *1 The Cloak of Displacement grants a +4 bonus vs missile weapons, and a +2 bonus to both Fortitude and Reflex saving throws. While it's not as good as its 2nd Edition Rules counterpart, it's still a very nice find. *2 This shield gives the normal +1 Shield Bonus, but also grants the wearer immunity to the spell Circle of Death. Not great, but a damn sight better than a normal buckler. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Now if you followed the guide exactly as I laid it out, you may see a small patch of map still unexplored, in the center of the eastern half of the map. Go there now to find... nothing. But, being the total completionists that we are, it was mandatory that we do that. You are a completionist, aren't you? Well, you are now... So, what to do next? Disarm the trap and exit the area at (x=3800, y=1030) to enter the Drider Caves. ***TRAPS*** (x=3600, y=1000) Drider caves (AR5301) o======================================================================o 10) Head east, where you will be attacked by several Driders: Drider Priestesses, Drider Wizards, and generally crappy Drider enemies. These guys are really easy to kill, and no special tactics are required. The spell-casting Driders start out with spell buffs on themselves, and the only offensive spell they got off was a Web, so they really aren't much of a threat. Continue east to the next chamber, which branches northeast and south. Let's go south first, and then southwest to get to another entrance to these caves. NOTE: there are web traps everywhere here, so proceed with caution. ***TRAPS*** (x=740, y=1300) (x=1150, y=1480) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) More Driders await, and a couple more may appear from behind you, so be prepared. This whole area is essentially a large kill-zone; if you simply destroy everything you encounter you'll be fine. Backtrack to the first split and continue north to be attacked by several more Driders, including some from behind. When they're all dead, head into the chamber to the north to find Ginafae Despane (x=970, y=700). Yes, she's a Drider too, but we don't want to kill her; instead, talk her into leaving the caves and returning to her brother Malavon, back in the village. There is a large trap across the narrow passage to the north, but as this path doesn't really go anywhere, and you don't get experience for disarming traps, you can safely ignore this path. ***TRAPS*** (x=1150, y=1150) (x=1530, y=800) (x=1750, y=1140) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Take the next path north and disarm another trap at (x=2030, y=900); kill the Drider up here, along with the one that will come at you from behind. Continue in a generally clockwise direction to the next chamber which contains several Viciscamera cocoons. Viciscamera Drider Wizards and Priestesses will spawn here - kill everything. Attack the cocoons to release more Viciscamera Driders; kill them too. This fight is a bit more difficult, simply because of the sheer numbers of enemies; there are about a dozen of the bastards that will spawn, and they include several Wizards and Priestesses. I kept the party back in the narrow entrance to this area and sent one character forward to initiate the fight - a couple Walls of Flame, Insect Plagues, and various other spells kept most of the Driders at a distance, and the few that did get thru were easy in melee. I managed to only initiate one Drider at a time by moving up near a cocoon, waiting until it broke open, and then running back to the party in the passage - if you can pull this off, it makes the battle much easier. Having to deal with only 1-2 Driders is far better than having to fight all 10-12 of them at once. Destroy all the cocoons and their inhabitants, but do NOT attack the Viciscamera Heart (x=3640, y=980). Our goal here was simply to render this place safe to enter later, when we will be taking on (and killing) the Heart. ***TRAPS*** (x=1450, y=1130) (x=1750, y=1130) (x=1840, y=1460) (x=2030, y=900) (x=2800, y=1200) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Head south down the passage from the cocoon chamber (x=2300, y=1700) and U-turn northeast - kill a Drider in this alcove. Continue south from here, and hug the eastern wall to avoid another encounter that we will do later. You'll find a Drider Priestess in a small alcove at about (x=2350, y=2250); she will be joined by a Drider Wizard from the west and a Drider Fighter from the north. Southeast from this encounter is another large group of various Driders, who also need to be dealt some death. Oblige, and continue southeast. This battle is nasty, as there are a lot of the bastards, and you will have to fight them all at once. Plus, several more will come from the west, just to keep things interesting. Continue clearing the southeastern section of the map until there's nothing left to clear. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Head west toward the center of the map, where You will find several Enhanced Flesh Golems in the next cavern, along with Imphraili Asserbai, an alchemist who is trying to create even stronger Driders. We need to kill him - do so in much the same fashion as the Driders in the previous cavern. After a somewhat friendly conversation, I position my missile weapon equipped characters in the rear and my melee fighters in front in the western passage that leads into his chamber, and then attack him. Literally everything in here goes hostile, and it can be a bitch to deal with them all - Cloudkill and other area effect spells work wonders. There will be one Enhanced Flesh Golem left alive when all else has been dealt with - we have a use for him, so let him live. Imphraili drops a fair amount of magical gear, so make sure to loot his body when the fight is over. He drops a Dagger +2, a Robe of Absorption, a Scroll of Stoneskin, a Ring of Regeneration, a Ring of Protection +2, and 182 Gold. Also search the tables in Imphraili's lab for still more items, most of which we'll be using to create even better items. ***ITEMS*** (x=1480, y=1730) Imphraili's Transformation Notes (x=1500, y=1780) A Treatise upon Flesh Golems (x=1530, y=1730) Progress Journal: Viciscamera (x=1600, y=1680) Vial of Silvery Fluid, Vial of Spores x3 (x=1630, y=1800) Wand of Enfeeblement, Wand of Bull's Strength <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Once you have all the items, click on the table at (x=1630, y=1730) to be prompted to create some magical items from the several mundane items that you've found. You'll need several ranks in the Alchemy skill to accomplish this. Make damn sure to create the Conversion Poison, as this is how we kill the Viciscamera Heart. You can also create a potion called Sanguis Anima, which has two potential uses. You can either give it to the remaining Flesh Golem and animate him with an electrical blast to have him serve the person who animated him, or drink it to gain 5 hit points. I chose the hit points, but do what you think is best. Create everything you want/need, and exit to the west. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Backtrack west and then turn south to kill some Myconids in the southern section of the map; by now they should not be a threat. Search the shroom at (x=1170, y=2600) and retrieve the Incandescant Blue Ioun Stone(*1) - this is the item that Oinchack'olp the Mind Flayer wants. *1 This item is rather nice; it grants the wearer +2 to Wisdom. I think we'll end up keeping this, although we will get the experience for returning it first. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) Now there's only one thing left to do - destroy that Drider spawning Viciscamera Heart. Return to the cocoon chamber and toss the Conversion Poison into the open 'mouth' of the Heart to destroy it. Once it's dead we can return to Malavon Despana in the Drow city for our reward. Head there now... Of course nothing could be that easy, could it? As soon as you exit back to the main cavern, you will have to deal with Sorn, Nadal, and some Drider friends of theirs. I suggest exiting via the northernmost spot, as this puts you into a slightly better position. So once you're out, just kill them; kill them a lot. ***REWARD*** (for killing the Viciscamera Heart) EXP 150 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) Before we return to the city, let's revisit our Mind Flayer buddy, Oinchack'olp and give him his blue stone. You have the option to try and keep the stone, and I recommend doing this - you still get the same experience, plus you get to keep the Pale Blue Ioun Stone(*1); loot the body afterwards to also get the Mercykiller's Belt(*2). The Stone goes to Ilana; the Belt goes to Ghrax. Ilana moves up to level 12 and adds a Wisdom point, a Concentration point, and a point in Improved Turning. She adds another Dispel Magic, a Restoration, Iron Skins and anotehr Heal to her spells. Xanth likewise moves to level 12, ups his Strength to 14, and takes Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana) for skills. He adds a final point into Armored Arcana, and takes Improved Haste for his new spell. The Pale Blue Ioun Stone give Fhornal an extra spell: he adds another Flame Strike. ***REWARD*** (for returning Oinchack'olp's stone) EXP 3900 OR (for refusing to return Oinchack'olp's stone) EXP 3900 *1 Grants the wearer +2 Wisdom while equipped *2 Grants the wearer +2 Strength while equipped <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Return to the city and talk to Malavon - tell him your tale and get your rewards. Ilana and Xanth each gain a level here: Rest to heal and memorize spells, then proceed... ***REWARD*** (for reporting the destruction of the Viciscamera Heart) EXP 5850 (for returning Ginafae) EXP 3900 House of Despana Insignia(*1), House of Despana Piwafwi(*2) *1 This small amulet allows the wearer to cast several spells: Blur, Melf's Acid Arrow, and Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, each 1x/day. It's not much, but it's not bad either. *2 A cloak, it grants 2/- fire resistance and +2 to Hide skill. Again, not great, but not bad. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) As promised, we can now head south and get the rest of the loot from the Dwarven caravan. I suggest selling/buying everything you want first, then destroy them and loot the tents. Also make sure to grab the miriad gear they drop - there's a ton of it, and it's pretty nice. ***ITEMS*** Wode: Throwing Axe, Iol Gem x4, Battleaxe +2, Ring of Knowing(*1), Amulet of Protection +1, Leather Armor +2 Myrvek: Water Opal x2, Diamond, Andar Gem x5, Tchazar Gem x4, Scroll:Lower Resistance, Scroll:Lightning Bolt, Knave's Robe, Ring of Fire Resistance, Acid Tipped Darts x10, Quarterstaff +2 Valas: Potion of Extra Healing x3, Bolt +2 x20, Spear +3, Light Crossbow +2 Heggr: Bloodstone Gem x2, Sparking Bullets +1 x10, Sling +1, Scroll:Cure Serious Wounds, Small Shield +1, Warhammer +3 (x=500, y=2550) Flamedance Ring, Onyx Ring, Gold Necklace, Bluestone Necklace (x=320, y=2350) Andar Gem x4, Skydrop Gem x2, Lynx Eye Gem x13, Start Diopside Gem (x=280, y=2330) Wand of Cure Moderate Wounds, Wand of Bull's Strength, Wand of Alicorn Lance (x=200, y=2300) Potion:Protection from Evil, Potion:Minor Mirror Image (x=160, y=2180) 408 Gold (x=200, y=2160) Light Crossbow +2, Arrow +1 x20, Bolt +1 x20 (x=230, y=2130) Buckler x2, Buckler +1 Chainmail +1, Leather Armor +2, Studded Leather Armor +1 (x=260, y=2120) Longsword x3, Masterwork Morningstar, Short Sword +1, Morningstar +1 *1 +1 to Knowledge (Arcana) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 21) To the north, there is now a group of critters, led by a Mind Flayer named Beelthot. Where did he come from, you ask? No idea, but since he's standing in front of those doors we couldn't open earlier, I suspect he came from there. Since we want to get thru those doors now, I guess we're going to have to kill him, along with his not-so-little friends. There are a couple of mages in behind them as well, just to make this fight interesting. To begin, Web the two Mages at (x=2870, y=700) and (x=3230, y=700). For whatever reason, they will allow this and nothing goes hostile - yet. I keep the party well back from the 'front line' of Thralls, and cast a Fireball on Beelthot, just to get his attention. It does the trick, and now I have a fight on my hands. I follow that up with a massive spell attack on the Thralls. As soon as that is done, there comes an attack from behind by a shit-load of minor pains in the ass which, by their sheer numbers, makes them a major pain in the ass. I move into the northern Drider Cave entrance area draw everything back to me, then kill them 1-2 at a time. Once the small-fry are dead, I can regroup and go for the all out frontal assault. You may now exit the area thru either of the two doors. I prefer the one on the right (x=3200, y=500) because you enter the next area in a slightly better position. Not all that much better, mind you, because you're still being attacked by a buttload of enemies, but at least you have an exit route from here, where in the other one it's not so easy. o======================================================================o | | | Z'hinda Citadel | | | o======================================================================o 1. Entering the citadel 2. Lightning Generators and Farting Golii 3. Mind Flayers 4. Looting Bedrooms 5. Fighting Around Corners 6. More Lightning Generators 7. Another Farting Golem 8. Completing the OUter Ring 9. Armory 10. Removing the Fart Generators 11. Braintrails 12. Emptying the Citadel 13. Out of the Frying Pan... 14. Oswald's Retarded Niece Z'hinda Citadel (AR5302) {WLK020} o======================================================================o 1) You enter the next area to be confronted by Abdoshanheth, a Mind Flayer, along with four Minotaurs and two Flesh Golems. You will get to read a non-interactive conversation between Abdoshanheth and some off-screen entity, and then they will go hostile. A couple archers will show up from the northwest, but they're not a huge threat. I Fireball the Mind Flayer and Web the area, out of range of the party. Once they're immobilized I can hack the closesst Minotaur to death while Magic Missiling the Mind Flayer to death. This is not a hard fight by any stretch, and it should be over with in a flash (get it? Fireball... Flash...? I kill me). Grab the Corrosive Bolts +1 that the archers drop and head the only way you can go - east... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) This place is built in a maze-like fashion, with passages switching back and forth, and lots of corners for enemies to hide around. This first passage turns north and then splits, and to the east is a Lightning Generator which will deal some unhealthy damage. Destroy it before proceeding. There are Mind Golems wandering about thru here; everywhere they go they leave a cloud of Mind Fog, which will effect characters. They aren't hostile, and will just ignore you, but the Mind Fog will make affected party members somewhat less than effective in combat, so it's best to wait a bit after one passes by. I think we'll stick with our standard counter-clockwise exploration routine, so ignore the passages north and west, and continue east. We'll clear out the outer ring first, then move inward. Head down into the first area to the southeast, ignore the couple of Thralls that reside here, and loot their quarters. Oh, and the Lightning Generator has a Diamond for the taking. ***ITEMS*** (x=2680, y=2130) Diamond (x=3150, y=3440) Iron Rations x20 (x=3330, y=2260) Iron Rations x5 (x=3440, y=2120) Iron Rations x5 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Continue northeast up the curving passage, where you'll run into Galoombethshe - another Mind Flayer - and get to read another mindless conversation with several off-screen entities. This whole citadel appears to be inhabited by Mind Flayers, so I suspect we will want to try and take them on individually and not in a group. Mind Flayers will totally fuck with your head, and in any fight should be the primary targets. There is an Elder Brain somewhere in here as well, and it's probably going to be our ultimate goal, but for now it's not a threat. Kill the Mind Flayers (a couple more will show up after you attack Galoombethshe) and take the gold they drop, then continue around the outer ring. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) This next room, which makes up the eastern edge of the citadel, has several beds in it and a couple lootable containers, one of which is empty; the other has some loot. In several plays thru here, I have found that even which container holds loot is variable, and what you find is seemingly random. Listed below is what I found on the latest run... ***ITEMS*** (x=3700, y=1550) Studded Leather +2 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Since our outer circle has ended, I guess we go back and continue on the next inner one. Head north up the passage parallel to the bunk room to find another Lightning Generator at (x=2880, y=1000). We can mostly avoid it by heading quickly up the northeastern passage (the eastern one is a dead end). This passage doubles back in itself, heading southwest and then northwest again. In this next room is another Mind Flayer, named Morhizulosh. He threatens the party, as they always do before they die, and goes hostile. His position - around the corner almost 270 degrees - makes this a tough battle to start, because he will almost certainly get off some spells before we can get to him. Get to him we must, though... I move Xanth into the corner of the hallway/room and send a Fireball in to say hello, then wait as several Thralls engage me back in the hallway. Well that's convenient - let me kill the easy enemies first, then take on the Mind Flayer alone. There are two doors in this room and, like the entrance doors to this citadel, they are locked and warded. Well, shit (or whale shit, depending on your accent). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) So, what to do next...? I suppose we have to go back and take out that last Lightning Generator (LG), then see what's up that hallway. But, before we do that, let's draw some baddies back to us and kill them, so that we can take out the LG unmolested. Move one character forward to the southwest - and of course as soon as I do that, a Mind Golem walks by and farts on him with his Mind Fog gas. Methinks those big assholes must die, but not yet. So, now that the Thralls are dead we can return to disabling that Lightning Generator. Again, there is a Diamond inside. ***ITEMS*** (x=2880, y=1000) Diamond <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Another Mind Golem walks by and farts, and then it's safe to proceed up the next hallway. There's a major intersection up here, with passages going off north, south, and west. Since we're trying to get the outer ring cleared first, let's go north. Our path turns west again, doglegs south and west, and then opens into another room. If experience has taught us anything, it's that rooms=enemies, so we will approach with a bit of caution. This bunkroom has a couple of Thralls in it, but they aren't hostile so I decide to loot first. It appears someone has tried to stash their valuables under the mattress, so I grab it, and then destroy the Thralls. ***ITEMS*** (x=1600, y=550) Angel Skin Ring, 98 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Looking at the map, we can see that we're roughly three-quarters of the way around from where we entered, so it makes sense to complete the circle. There's a passage southwest out of the bunkroom, and that's the way we'll go. Turn north at the large opening, and keep heading northward until the passage turns southwest. You'll probably run into another farting Golem along the way, but you can ignore him. Head to the southwest around the outer ring again, and continue the loop. You can ignore the minor side passage to the northwest - it's a dead end. Another major intersection, and another choice. I'm certain by now you know what we're going to do, but for the sake of continuity I'll tell you anyway: continue along the outer-most passage. Another Lightning Generator, another farting Golem, and we can proceed southward, all the while staying on the outer-most ring. ***ITEMS*** (x=680, y=1000) Diamond <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) This next room appears to be used to manufacture weapons, and the Thralls aren't hostile, so loot then kill. Another Mind Golem comes in and stinks the place up, but as usual I ignore him for now. One of the Thralls (probably the Wizard) drops 10 Darts +2. Another LG at (x=1280, y=2070), another Farting Golem (FG) to ignore, a slight jog to the east, and we've completed the outer circle. ***ITEMS*** (x=580, y=1530) Masterwork Greataxe (x=800, y=1530) Greataxe +1 (x=900, y=1530) Masterwork Spear (x=980, y=1600) Bullets of Disruption +1 x10, Arrows of Flame +1 x10, Sparking Arrows +1 x10, Potion:Minor Elemental Barrier (x=390, y=1830) Masterwork Battleaxe <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Now we could head right toward the center of the map and take on what is undoubtedly the Elder Brain that was talking earlier, but I suspect we should remove the Golems first. We don't want to get into a fight with a real enemy and suddenly have all these Golems showing up and farting on us right in the middle of it all. There's nothing more annoying than having a brain fart right in the middle of combat, and that's exactly what these guys do. So... I set up in the intersection by where we came in (approximately x=2500, y=2400) and simply wait for the stinky bastards to come to me. They are a bitch to kill, but they will go down eventually - luckily there's only one at a time to fight. Move a character around the outer ring to find more Golems and draw them back to where the party awaits. Because they move around so much it will be hard to tell if you got them all, but take out as many as you can before moving into the center section of the map. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Once you've removed, or at least reduced, the Golem threat, head north toward the center of the map. There are many ways to get there, but I used the passage just to the north and slightly west of where I created the Golem pile. No matter which way you go, you will end up having to go thru more maze-like passages to get there. The Elder Brain room is easy to spot, what with the brain entrails (braintrails?) all over the place. It will bitch at you for killing all its friends and then go hostile. I approached with only a single character (K'aos) and then ran back to the party to deal with the Thralls that attack; then heal up and go after the Brain. After all the Golems, I expected this thing to put up more of a fight, but no - it died after only a couple of rounds. Kind of disappointing, really... When it dies, you get a very nice experience reward for it, and find out that the psychic force that was sealing the exit doors has been broken. It's not listed as a reward below, because it didn't present that way in the game, but it is what it is... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Now if you want, you can go thru the rest of the citadel and kill everything that's left alive, but there's no real need. There are a couple of Lightning Generators that are probably worth taking out, and I list their locations below; otherwise (if you're so inclined) I'll meet you by the exit... Back now...? Good. Heal up a bit, spell buff as desired, and leave by the lefthand door (x=2900, y=400). Ghrax and Fhornal level up here before exiting: Ghrax goes to 13th level and adds a Concentration point. He does not get any new spells - too bad... Fhornal moves up to 13th level as well, and he adds Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana). He adds Barkskin, Flame Strike, and Fire Storm to his spell repertoire. ***ITEMS*** (x=1120, y=1240) Diamond (x=2530, y=1510) Diamond Underdark Exit (AR5303) o======================================================================o 13) You will get to watch a couple Wizards (one is a Diviner) show their surprise that you've managed to get this far, and then have to fight for your life. Three Earth Elementals, a half-dozen Harpies, and of course the Wizards. This can get ugly fast, as everything except the Wizard will close on you and you'll be surrounded. I could find no way around this, so here's what I did... I converted Fhornal to melee (with the Scimitar +3) and focused as much straight up fighting as I could on the Earth Elementals; meanwhile I had Xanth and Quala cast damage dealing spells at the Wizards (a couple Fireballs will make them think twice about doing this again). Mirabel, one of the wizards, drops Mirabel's Pendant(*1), an Adventurer's Robe, Staff of the Defender +1(*2), Bracers of Defense +3, and 130 Gold. Majrash, the other Wizard, leaves behind the Cloak of Mystra(*3), Ice Pick +1(*4), Bracers of Defense +4, a Ring of Acid Resistance, and 150 Gold. *1 This pendant offers a +3 to Knowledge (Arcana) *2 A +1 staff with an extra +1 deflection bonus *3 Damage reduction 5/+1, but only usable by Wizards (not Sorcerers) *4 A small blade, +1 attack, 1d4+1 damage plus 50% 1d6 cold damage <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) While all this carnage was going on, Oswald was just standing around watching, along with his niece, Maralie. Talk to him (x=1000, y=650) to watch an interesting conversation with Maralie, who is obviously mildly retarded. You can get some interesting information from Oswald about Kuldahar, the Ten Towns, and several other things, but really the point of this is to get on the ship and end the chapter. Buy as many Potions of Lesser Restoration as you can reasonably afford (there are critters in the next chapter who will level-drain you), then leave for Kuldahar. o======================================================================o | Party Stats - End Chapter 4 | | {STATS2} | o======================================================================o K'aos Reynes - Paladin of Mystra Class Level P2/W11 Experience 103494 (105000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 64 Strength 16 (+3) Dexterity 12 (+1) Constitution 11 (+0) Intelligence 19 (+4) Wisdom 10 (+0) Charima 16 (+3) Primary Weapon Longsword +3, Large Shield of Luck +1 Second Weapon Mace +3, Tabard's Shield Studded Leather Armor +2, Cloak of Mystra, Helmet, Witherbranch Boots, Periapt of Wound Closure, Ring of Protection +2, Chameleon Ring of Dexterity, Bag of Holding, Scroll Case <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Ghrax - Ranger Class Level R13 Experience 93207 (105000) Armor Class 23 Hit Points 182 Strength 21 (+5) Dexterity 18 (+4) Constitution 19 (+4) Intelligence 3 (-4) Wisdom 20 (+5) Charima 5 (-3) Primary Weapon Club of Disruption, Tower Shield +1 Second Weapon Bastard Sword +3, Shield of Fortitude 1/4 Weight Full Plate Mail, Cloak of Displacement, Helmet, Amulet of Protection +1. Mercykiller's Belt, Ring of Regeneration, Ring of Hearty Strength, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill, Boots of Avoidance <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Ilana - Battleguard of Tempus Class Level C12 Experience 96158 (105000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 120 Strength 18 (+4) Dexterity 17 (+3) Constitution 14 (+2) Intelligence 5 (-3) Wisdom 26 (+8) Charima 5 (-3) Primary Weapon Greataxe +3 Second Weapon Flail +3, Flank of the Virgin 1/4 Weight Full Plate Mail, Helmet, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill, Amulet of Protection +1, Ring of Regeneration, Ring of Protection +2, Incandescent Blue Ioun Stone, Potion Case <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Xanth - Sorcerer Class Level S12 Experience 95338 (105000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 84 Strength 14 (+2) Dexterity 16 (+3) Constitution 16 (+3) Intelligence 12 (+1) Wisdom 3 (-4) Charima 22 (+6) Primary Weapon Sling +3, Buckler +1 Second Weapon Ice Spear +4 Phaen's Robe of Rags, Wyrm's Maw, Bracers of Defense +4, Shield Ring, Ring of Knowing, Mirabel's Pendant, Boots of Grounding <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Quala Thurmbrecker - Rogue/Sorceress Class Level R6/S7 Experience 90719 (91000) Armor Class 21 Hit Points 64 Strength 10 (+0) Dexterity 23 (+6) Constitution 10 (+0) Intelligence 16 (+3) Wisdom 3 (-4) Charima 18 (+4) Primary Weapon Sophia's Flight Second Weapon Short Sword +3, Small Shield of Invisibility +1 Third Weapon Warhammer +2, Footman's Folly Leather Armor +2, House of Despana Piwafwi, Helmet, House of Despana Insignia, Chameleon Ring of Dexterity, Ring of Protection +1, Bracers of Archery <----------------------------------------------------------------------> Fhornal - Druid Class Level D13 Experience 92596 (105000) Armor Class 20 Hit Points 130 Strength 14 (+2) Dexterity 16 (+3) Constitution 14 (+2) Intelligence 12 (+1) Wisdom 22 (+6) Charima 5 (-3) Primary Weapon Hell Bolter Second Weapon Scimitar +3, Large Shield +1 Third Weapon Warhammer +3, Small Shield +1 1/4 Weight Field Plate Armor, Nature's Vengeance, Helmet, Ring of Protection +1, Ring of the Warrior <----------------------------------------------------------------------> The party is now a powerful force, and doesn't even need to spell-buff any more for large-scale battles. Xanth and Fhornal, in particular, are extremely valuable in major combat situations, being able to cast some of the most frightening fire-based spell assaults ever seen. K'aos will continue to level up only as a Wizard. All ability points go into Intelligence; skills go into magical areas (Concentration, Knowledge (Arcana), and Spellcraft); feats focus on magic areas as well (Spell Penetration, etc). Ghrax continues as a Ranger, throwing ability points into Strength; both skills and feats will end up going into weapons areas. His next Favored Enemy will be Yuan-Ti, as they are the next most populous group we will encounter. Ilana will always be a Cleric, with ability points going only to Wisdom. Concentration will be the only skill she will advance, and feats will continue to be balanced between magic and weapons. Xanth is hell-bent on becoming the most powerful Sorcerer he can be, and will keep adding to his Charisma score; skills and feats will naturally be magic-focused. Quala will now move up only as a Sorceress; all ability points go to Charisma. I will most likely bump up her thief skills one more time, after which all skill and feat points go to Concentration and other magical areas. Fhornal will obviously remain a Druid. I will keep bumping his Wisdom up. Skills and feats, as always, will be magic-focused. o======================================================================o | Chapter 5 | o======================================================================o | | | Kuldahar | | | o======================================================================o 1. Giant Asshat 2. De-inhabiting the Inhabited Areas 3. Deading the Undead 4. Watchtower 5. Graveyard 6. Yak, Yak, Yak... 7. Jermsy's Reward 8. Mother Egenia 9. Reminiscing 10. Conlan's SHoppe 11. Yuan-Ti Cheese 12. Orrick's Tower 13. Relieving Conlan 14. Miscellaneous Looting 15. Iselore's Quest 16. Clearing the Village 17. Healing Gerbash 18. Returning Nathaniel's Key 19. Strange Apparition 20. Portal Thingy Kuldahar Pass (AR6000) {WLK021} o======================================================================o 1) The flight this time is much smoother, and you land safely. Oswald will answer some questions and then depart quickly, since there's some giant asshat named Hiepherus threatening you with a huge mace. Select the dialog option with "Your threats hold no weight with me", then follow the dialog path to some experience. Next, choose the option with "Did you think we were the only reinforcements?" to trick him into retreating for some more experience. Note that this sequence depends largely on who is being spoken to, and how high their Bluff skill is. If you don't get the dialog options, you won't get the experience; you could reload and keep trying, or just accept that you aren't going to get the experience and move on... Either way, Hiepherus will mouth off for a bit, then disappear and leave you to fight a group of 9-10 Wights. This is not a hard fight really, and no special strategy is involved, so I'll leave you to it. Keep in mind, however, that Wights will level drain characters when they hit, so keep those potions handy. Quala could level up here, but I choose to wait until we're somewhere safe before doing so. ***REWARD*** (for tricking Hiepherus into revealing his plans) EXP 1200 (for tricking Hiepherus into retreating) EXP 1200 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) As is our normal process for inhabited areas, we'll explore first. Go east along the southern edge of the map, and kill a few more Wights, Wraiths, and other assorted undead along the way, until you reach the eastern edge. None of these enemies will drop anything, so our trip around the perimeter will not be delayed by having to stop and pick up treasure (Boo...). In the southeast corner of the map you will run into another group of undead just north of a group of buildings who need some killing. If you search the bodies, you may find a couple of nice items: a Cloak of Displacement and Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise. I only found these on two of my six playthroughs, but it is possible to get them. Luck of the draw, I guess... Once the southern edge is cleared, turn north up along the western side of the river. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) When you get as far north as you can go (not very far, really), head west and follow the wooden walkway. It will turn south and you will end up in front of the door to a tower (x=1750, y=850). A large group of various undead will show up from the west - kill them a lot. Before we enter the tower, let's finish clearing out the various undead that are milling about. Continue west and kill everything until there's nothing left to kill, then enter the tower. Watchtower (AR6008) o======================================================================o 4) Inside, you will find Jermsy and Nathaniel (yes, the same Nathaniel we rescued in the Ice Temple). The dialog options go on seemingly forever, but you do get a chance to ask a lot of questions about a lot of things, so gather all the information you can. In particular, make sure to agree to track down and kill that asshole Orog priest that we ran into when we arrived. Talk to Nathaniel as well, and ask him about some healing to gain access to his store. He has some EXTREMELY nice items for sale, and I highly recommend picking up a few things. In particular, get the Every God Ring(*1) and the Wand of the Heavens(*2). Both K'aos and Quala level up now (it's safe to rest here): K'aos moves up to 12th level Wizard and takes Concentration, Bluff, Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft skills. He adds another Shroud of Flame, and has two 6th level spell slots open, but no spells in his book to memorize - we'll have to do something about that... Quala advances as a Sorceress, but takes her skill points in Search and Open Locks (there are some hellish traps coming up). She grabs Mordenkainen's Force Missiles for her new spell. Heading up the stairs takes you to the roof of the tower, where there is... nothing, except the great view. When you're done chatting with Jermsy and Nathaniel, and you've rested, exit the tower and head north to the large gate. Exit this area... *1 The ring grants a +5 to Wisdom - just what every Cleric, Druid, or Paladin needs (Rangers too, although it doesn't help as much). I give this to Ilana, which bumps her Wisdom up to 29 and gives her a couple extra spells. *2 This wand, while not as good as its counterpart in the BG series, will cause a 9d6 Flamestrike on the selected target. Fun stuff... This goes to Ilana. Kuldahar Graveyard (AR6002) o======================================================================o 5) Since the name of this area is the Kuldahar Graveyard, I suspect we will have to fight more undead. Luckily, we aren't attacked immediately upon arrival (for a change), so that bodes well for our future. There are Wights and Wraiths to the east - kill them and continue to move counter-clockwise around the map. Webs and Fire-based spells will do wonders here - I never had to engage anything in melee, and only took two points of damage from a Black Archer (which was effectively negated by a Ring of Regeneration). Notice that all the graves are open; obviously this is where all the undead came from. Clear out this area, spell buff as desired (Negative Energy Protection is a must), and exit to the north at (x=1600, y=250). Kuldahar Graveyard Cave (AR6003) o======================================================================o 6) Hiepherus is here with several Orog friends and some undead, and since he's so full of himself, he decides to talk for a bit before attacking. Don't these stupid minor bosses ever watch movies? The bad guy always takes the time to tell the hero everything there is to know about him, his plans, his children, something that happened to a cousin on his mother's side... just attack already! Anyway, it doesn't matter which dialog option you choose, a fight eventually ensues. Now this one is kind of tricky, as there are four Wraiths behind and to the left of you when you enter, and Hiepherus and friends are in front and to the right. I equip everyone with melee weapons and go after the Wraiths first with everyone except Xanth and Quala; Xanth Webs Hiepherus and his buddies, while Quala Fireballs them. After that, it's pretty much a straight melee encounter because you will be swarmed fairly quickly. The Orogs all drop gold except for Hiepherus; loot the bodies and the container, and return to Jermsy in the tower. ***ITEMS*** Hiepherus: A suit of Half-Plate Armor; a Scroll:Circle of Blades; a Scroll:Holy Power; a Note:Visions of Hiepherus; Potions of Extra Healing x5; Tower Shield +1, +4 vs Missiles; Poisoned Blood Flail +2(*1); Amulet of Protection +1 (x=750, y=350) Angel Skin Ring, Scroll:Undead Ward, Scroll:Restoration *1 Attack +2, damage 1d8+2, target suffers 2 points damage per second for 6 seconds, or 1 point damage per round for 10 rounds (select) Watchtower (AR6008) o======================================================================o 7) Talk to Jermsy and tell him that you've cleared The Pass for some experience and a few nice items, None of the items are good enough to actually use, at least not in my party, but it's the thought that counts right? Heal and/or rest if you need to and exit the tower. ***REWARD*** (for slaying the priest of Bane and his troops) EXP 2400 Pearl Necklace, Farmer's Cloak(*1), Eye of the Hunter(*2), 174 Gold *1 Deflection Bonus +3 *2 Basically a Bow +2 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Head west at night to the abandoned building to find Mother Egenia's Spirit; talk to her... it... whatever... and ask about Isair and Madae, then have her tell you your future for a small experience reward. You will also get a new quest here, to find her kids Isair and Madae, or at least find out what happened to them. Exit this area to the east at (x=3800, y=1080), using the northern bridge then along the northern side of the river. ***REWARD*** (for finding out your future) EXP 1600 (for learning Isair and Madae's weaknesses) EXP 1600 Kuldahar Village (AR6001) o======================================================================o 9) This area should look familiar to anyone who played IWD I, but we won't have time to reminisce since there are a group of Yuan-Ti here threatening us immediately upon arrival. Once nice thing about this is that the large tree roots prevent them from getting to us more than one at a time, and they're fairly easy to kill, so this is really a no- brainer fight. They all drop gold, and the archers drop Arrows +2 as well. The building in front of you (x=1000, y=1800) used to be a shop; let's go in and see what's changed... Conlan's Shoppe (AR6004) o======================================================================o 10) Conlan has some awesome shit for sale. I manage to equip everyone with at least one +4 weapon, although in doing so I end up almost broke. I'm sure this will come back to haunt me later as we find other merchants in town, but oh well. Greed being what it is, I spend all I can here, and the entire party is as ready as they can be for the next series of battles. In particular, besides weapons, I pick up the Boots of Speed for Ghrax. Exit Conlan's Shoppe and head north up the wooden walkway. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) You won't get far before you run into more Yuan-Ti, but with our new weapons they are cheese. Destroy them, and the archers to the east, then proceed up the northwestern path to the tower (x=350, y=800). Now if you remember, there used to be a Wizard that lived here; let's hope we find someone similar living here now... Orrick's Tower (AR6009) o======================================================================o 12) You'll find Sheemish here, and he is friendly, so we have that going for us. He will give you a little more information on where to find some of the people we're looking for, and sell you some nice scrolls if you want/need them, but really there's nothing much here. Exit the tower and head back down to Conlan's Shoppe. ***ITEMS*** (x=200, y=260) Book-Legends of Icewind Dale Conlan's Shoppe (AR6004) o======================================================================o 13) Tell Conlan that you found Sheemish and that he's safe to get some experience, then leave the shoppe and cross the bridge to the south. ***REWARD*** (for telling Conlan that Sheemish is safe) EXP 1200 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Head into the next house at (x=1380, y=2170) and proceed to loot the place. Downstairs is a bookcase (x=250, y=150) with a few items, and upstairs is a chest with a few more. Loot and leave... Downstairs (AR6005) (x=250, y=150) Scroll:Circle of Blades, Scroll:Insect Plague, Potion:See Invisibility, Potion:Remove Curse Upstairs (AR6006) (x=270, y=250) Scroll:Restoration, Scroll:Inflict Critical Wounds, Book:Severed Ties, Severed Hand <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) You'll find Iselore to the east of the house, standing out in the open at about (x=1800, y=2370). Speak to him and go thru all the dialog options, making sure to get the entire story of Isair and Madae. He will heal you for a price, if you're in need (you shouldn't be). once you have all the intel he is willing to share, he will give you a quest to slay 'the Guardian' and seal a portal of some kind. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Head due north from Iselore, over the bridge and up the path which tends slightly westward. You will find some more Yuan-Ti up here who are asking to be killed. Here is the portal (x=1400, y=600) that Iselore wants us to close, but I think we should clear the rest of the village before we go thru it. Go east and kill some more Yuan-Ti near a house in the northeast corner of the map, then head south and continue clearing the map and killing Yuan-Ti until there's nothing left. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) There's one house left to explore at (x=2930, y=850), so let's go in and see what's there. Wonder of wonders - it's Gerbash, the last of the characters we were trying to find here. He'll semi-threaten you, but it's an empty threat, and you can talk to him for some minor intel. He will give you the Watchtower Key, which you need to return to Jermsy and Nathaniel, so it looks like we'll be heading back there again when we're done here. However, we are defninitely not done here yet. Offer to Lay Hands on Gerbash for some experience, then loot and leave. ***REWARD*** (for healing Gerbash) EXP 1200 ***ITEMS*** (x=150, y=460) Moonbar Gem, 9 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) Head back to Kuldahar Pass, and return to Mother Egenia's spirit. Tell her what you learned from Iselore, and she will depart; go talk to Jermsy and Nathaniel in the watchtower. Inform them that Mother Egenia's spirit has been laid to rest for some experience, then return the key to get annother. When you scored all the rewards you can from here, return once again to Kuldahar... ***REWARD*** (for laying Mother Egenia's Spirit to rest) EXP 1600 (for retrieving the watchtower key) EXP 1200 (for telling Nathaniel about Mother Egenia's Spirit) EXP 1200 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Now you would think that we're about out of questy things except for going thru that shimmering portal thingy (yes, it's a thingy - what else would you call it?), but you would be wrong... Return to Orrick's tower and talk to Sheemish again - get him to say the magic words and a 'strange apparition' will appear on the western side of the room. Since it's not hostile, I suppose we should talk to it. As it turns out, this thingy (yes, this is also a thingy) has some nice stuff to sell you. Of course, if you did like I did and bought all that shit from Conlan, then you have no money. Tell the apparition that you can set it free, and he'll relinquish his cache of supplies to Sheemish and reward you. Now you can come back here when you have money to get the things you could not get now. I verified this, and Sheemish now has two separate stores, which are accessed via different dialog options. Neato... Note: I have had this not play out before, although I can't understand why. For some reason, the dialog option did not present to summon the 'strange apparition', and I couldn't get the experience or the extra available store. Maybe it's a timing thing, or maybe there's some kind of ability/skill combination that I didn't have; I honestly don't know. ***REWARD*** (for freeing the elemental servant) EXP 1200 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) Okay, I think we've pretty much exhausted all our options here, so head for that portal thingy again; go thru it to start the next section. o======================================================================o | | | The Yuan-Ti Jungle | | | o======================================================================o 1. Unusual Entrance 2. Unbelievers 3. Pureblood Sorcerers 4. Katchmat 5. Stealing the Steles 6. Donning Robes 7. Learning the Challenges 8. Looting and Intel Gathering 9. Vault Combination I and the Fifth Riddle 10. Smashing Walls 11. More Looting 12. And Still More... 13. The Room of Fire 14. This Looting is Getting Old... 15. Vault Combination II 16. The Acid Room 17. Desicated Hearts and the Final Stele 18. The Vault Room 19. Ojaiha the High Priest 20. Clearing the Temple 21. The Guardian Dragon 22. Battle for Kuldahar Yuan-Ti Jungle (AR6050) {WLK022} o======================================================================o 1) We enter in the northeast corner of the map, which is unusual, as we normally start in the southwest. I don't think it means anything, and now I'm not even sure why I mention it... Just ahead, to the southwest, is a signpost/statue/marker of some sort, and a rather large group of Yuan-Ti, led by a Yuan-Ti Priest. These guys are not like the last few groups of Yuan-Ti we encountered - no... These guys will use massive spell power to make life difficult for you. I suggest Web, Entangle, Slow, and/or other area effect spells to hinder them, then a Fireball or ten to thin the herd. Since counter-clockwise is our normal route thru new areas, I see no reason to deviate from that strategy here. Head west along the northern edge of the map. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Continue past the 'large stone monument' (which looks more like a temple to me, but who am I to judge?) to another signpost, and turn south to find another structure and a group of Initiates. They appear to be unaware of our approach, caught in rapt attention to Sashkta, the Yuan-Yi who is teaching them. You'll get to listen to... err... read him berate the initiates for not knowing their lessons, and then finally detect your presence. Of course, since you are 'unbelievers', they think they must kill you. Big mistake lizard-boy... I use the same tactic here as I did the last group, and they die just as easily. The Yuan-Ti Priest teacher drops normal Yuan-Ti stuff, and the Initiates all drop Initiate Robes(*1). ***ITEMS*** (x=630, y=800) Religious Stele *1 Disguises the wearer, provided all the wearer's companions are similarly cloaked. This just has 'quest' written all over it, so hang on to these robes. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Further south is the temple, but we'll come back to that. Turn east, south, then east again along the southern edge of the map, and run into a Pureblood Sorcerer at (x=1060, y=1550), along with several Yuan-Ti. A couple rounds of Magic Missiles from my three Sorcerers and the enemy Sorcerer is toast; the Yuan-Ti are no threat. Another Pureblood Sorcerer just south of the first one (who also dies far too easily), and we're ready to proceed eastward. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) In the southeast corner of the map, at around (x=2220, y=1700), you will meet up with Katchmat and his group of Mezro Warriors. They will impart some info about the area, the snakes, and the temple, then leave you be. Complete the loop northward to where we entered. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Our next goal is the temple in the southwest corner, and since there is still one patch of map left unexplored (right in the center), I head southwest thru the middle of the map to get there. Loot the pillars and the trapped statue (I couldn't even detect the trap, but trust me, it's there). and then head for the temple... ***TRAPS*** (x=1340, y=990) ***ITEMS*** (x=1260, y=1020) Religious Stele (x=1430, y=950) Religious Stele (x=1960, y=960) Religious Stele (x=1340, y=990) Emerald x2, 178 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) You will notice (at least I did), that there are five pillar bases on the temple platform which can be manipulated. We have four Steles, and I suspect that's where these go. But since we're still one short, I guess we'll need to go into the temple to find the last one. Now is when those robes will come in handy - have everyone put one on (you'll have to replace your armor). If you have a pure Paladin in the party, they will refuse, so equip everyone you can and enter the temple down the stairs at (x=350, y=1660). I didn't have this problem, as K'aos is dual-classed into a Wizard, and he didn't give me any shit about wearing the robe. If you cannot get your pure Paladin to put on a robe, you'll kind of be screwed. Entering the temple without a disguise means that you will get discovered, and will not be able to complete the quests. You can fight your way thru, but you will not be able to get some of the intel, and therefore not be able to do some of the steps and get the loot. If that is the case, you can try leaving your un-disguised Paladin back by the entrance area and moving around thru the temple with just the party members who are wearing robes - that might work (I haven't tried it, because I haven't had to). Yuan-Ti Temple (AR6051) o======================================================================o 7) Most of the rooms here are empty, and there are very few inhabitants at home, so the traps are really the only thing to watch out for. Now I know that we normally explore counter-clockwise, but in this case it's just too difficult to try and give directions. This temple is nothing more than a huge maze of hallways, but disguised as we are there is nothing to fear from the creatures that live here. So, since we can move about freely, I intend to take a slightly different approach to this area. Instead of exploring and searching systematically, we will go directly after the things of interest and accomplish the tasks that we need to complete without going thru the entire place. It took me many times going thru here to get this all right, and I am fairly sure I found all the experience and loot that is available. Along the way, you will be challenged by guards, who will ask you some questions. Provide the right answers and you will be allowed to proceed. But what are the right answers, you ask? Even though we were given the answers by the teacher outside, I suspect you didn't pay attention any more than his initiates did, so how about a table to help you out: o-----------------------o-----------------------o | Question | Answer | o-----------------------o-----------------------o | Who keeps the ancient | His faithful | | venom of Sseth potent?| followers | o-----------------------o-----------------------o | Who approaches | The growing | | at dusk? | darkness | o-----------------------o-----------------------o | Where does Sseth | In his cradle | | embrace unbelievers? | of scales | o-----------------------o-----------------------o | What drowns Selune's | The obscuring moon | | gleaming on a | of our faith | | cloudless night? | | o-----------------------o-----------------------o | What is the black | Night, fed by the | | flower of the world? | dead of day | o-----------------------o-----------------------o This will get you safely past the guards and allow you to move freely and unmolested throughout the entire temple complex. So, now that you have memorized all that, we can continue. Ready...? Go... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) We start in front of the entrance at about (x=1850, y=1600); roughly in the center of the complex. There are a couple of rooms with large floor traps - one with fire and one with acid - so proceed with caution as you move from room to room. There are also traps in the hallways but if you stick to the sides and avoid the wooden centers you should be fine. Note that I was unable to detect many/most of these, and I have been putting almost all of Quala's points into Searching and Disarming Traps. You will also notice that the screen goes black every so often; this happens at the start and end of the Yuan-Ti rituals - it will be important later, so try to pay attention to whether they are in their ritual or not. SAVE OFTEN! Okay... so where to first? Leave the party back at the entrance and send one character northeast thru the door at (x=3420, y=950) to find a Priest (if the ritual is not in session); I send Xanth. Ask the priest about Jeszrael to get some info we'll need later, and then ask about the Viper's Fangs, the Coiled Cabal, and the Heartless Dead. Finally, ask about the ring of stones around the altar to find out about the Guardian, but be careful not to choose the dialog options that mentions the crossroads and/or saving Kuldahar. North of this room, thru the door at (x=3230, y=630) is an empty room with a lootable container. Return to the entrance... ***ITEMS*** (x=3540, y=300) Scroll:Chain Lightning <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Let's try the kitchen next, which is southeast of your starting point. Make sure to go thru the doorway at (x=2950, y=1500), but don't touch any of the stone blocks in here (yet). DO NOT GO THRU THE ROOM WITH THE SUNKEN CENTER AREA. Exit south out of this room and proceed generally south to the kitchen. The doorway to the kitchen is at about (x=2250, y=2300). Don't flip the switch at (x=2960, y=2230) yet; we're saving that for later. In here are a few people... err... critters, worth talking to. First, talk to the Initiate at (x=1940, y=2580) to get the answer to the 5th challenge riddle (the flower one). You'll want this if you are ever challenged with that question (you can also answer with "Excuse Me?", and then apologize; as long as you have a high Bluff score you should be okay). Next, talk to the Cook (x=2250, y=2600) and ask about the pattern of stones in the northern chamber. You must have gone thru the room with the stones to get this dialog option; this is the first of two clues we need to open the vault. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Return to your starting point and head northwest with the entire party. There is a major trap in this first hallway (x=1550, y=1250), but I was unable to detect it (and hence disarm it). It's a very nasty trap, where the sides of the hall slam together and smash you - it does massive damage, but it's the only way to get into and out of this section of the temple. Devious... An Improved Haste on the party will lessen the damage somewhat. Continue northwest until you come to a chamber with a Priest in it (x=550, y=330) and ask about the Vault and the room with the stones in it to get some more information. You can also get a bit more information about the Guardian, but as always, be careful not to mention Kuldahar. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Our next destination is the Priest at (x=450, y=800), or more accurately the table in the room that he's in. You can talk to him, using the same safety criteria as before, but there's no new intel. Loot and leave. Note: I got a Composite Longbow +4 here on one of my plays thru this area, but only once. Drops are set when you enter the area, so you would have to replay the entire temple several times if you wished to item fish for this weapon; it just might be worth it. On another run, I got a Tower Shield +1, +4 vs Missiles. ***ITEMS*** (x=450, y=700) Potion:Ghost Armor, Scroll:Snakebite, 214 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Head south down the hallway along the western edge of the map. You'll find yet another Priest in a room at (x=820, y=900), but he has the same dialog options as the last one; nothing new. Further down the hall, after being challenged by another guard, is a room with a table to loot. We will need this protection scroll soon... ***ITEMS*** (x=1170, y=1000) Scroll:Prayer, Scroll:Protection from Fire, 234 Gold Shandon Gem <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Across the hall, to the south, is a room with a nasty trap - DO NOT go down to the center of the room. Note the location of the switch in here (x=800, y=1600), cast Protection from Fire on your Rogue, and send them down to disable the trap by clicking on the lever/switch. You will probably need to do this a couple times to get the message that the trap has been disabled and will not trigger any more. Once you've disabled the fire trap it's safe to proceed thru the room. Head thru the open doorway in the southeast corner of this room (x=800, y=1870). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) In the southeast corner of this room is a table for looting; do that before talking to anyone. As with the fire protection scroll we just used, we will need the Protection from Acid scroll in a little bit. ***ITEMS*** (x=780, y=2560) Scroll:Vitriolic Sphere, Scroll:Protection from Acid, Studded Necklace with Zios Gems, Poisonfang(*1), Vampiric Short Sword(*2) *1 A small blade with Attack +2, Damage 1d4+2 plus 50% chance of doing an additional 2 hit points of damage per round for 6 rounds. Note that this weapon can be used in melee or thrown - it returns. *2 A simple sword with no attack bonus, 1d6 damage, but it drains 1d4 hit points from the target and temporarily adds them to the wielder. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Next, head into the room to the west of this one. There are several Viper's Fang Assassins in here; we specifically want to talk to the guy at (x=430, y=1900). As always, Bluff + Diplomacy = Experience, so make sure to use the appropriate character. Say that his job 'sounds like a noble position to hold' and then ask to hear about his exploits and he will slip up and give you the second part of the combination to the vault. DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE ELSE HERE (unless you want to die and/or miss out on some more experience). Return to where we entered (yes, this means going back thru the wall trap). ***REWARD*** (for tricking the Viper's Fang Assassin) EXP 1200 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Now for that second trap room. It is the first room southeast off the entrance area, and is handled the same way as the fire pit room, except this one is acid. Use the Protection from Acid scroll on your Rogue and disable the trap by clicking on the lever at (x=2680, y=1750). Head back the the entrance and heal up as much as possible. Now, if you look at the map you will see that there are three rooms in the eastern half that we haven't explored yet (the room to in the south central portion of the map is a waste of time). This is where the timing of the ritual ceremony becomes important. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) Wait until the ritual concludes so that the worship room is empty (except for the couple of guards) and make your Rogue invisible. Send him/her to grab the Desicated Hearts from the statue in the ritual room at (x=2500, y=700) and get the hell out before you get caught. Go back thru the acid pit room, and move into position blocking the doorway into the room to the east. You'll see the Heartless Dead wandering around in their pit; once you throw the lever (x=2970, y=2230) they will come after you, trying to get their hearts back. Kill them (they're easy), and then grab the final Stele at (x=3700, y=2150). We now have the last component we need to summon the Guardian. But we're not quite done here yet... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) We really don't want to get into a fight yet, so let's see if we can't grab some more loot. We were told the combination to the vault room, so head north to the room with the stones (x=3330, y=1700). We need to press the stones in the correct order to open the vault, but since we have the combination, it should be easy, right? Press the stones in the following order: 1st: (x=3550, y=1640) 2nd: (x=3160, y=1420) 3rd: (x=3230, y=1510) 4th: (x=3280, y=1460) 5th: (x=3550, y=1570) 6th: (x=3100, y=1500) This will open the door at (x=3430, y=1530), which leads to the treasure chamber. Inside are several Histachii - bottleneck them in the doorway and kill them. For whatever reason, nobody else seems to give a shit that you're robbing the vault, so the only enemies you'll need to deal with are these guys. Once they're all dead (not a big deal really), enter the vault and loot. Again, the loot in here can be quite variable. ***ITEMS*** (x=3190, y=1280) Scroll:Summon Monster IV (x=3230, y=1300) Scimitar +3, Scroll:Armor of Faith (x=3330, y=1210) Milton Sixtoe's Armor of Absolute Self(*1) (x=3400, y=1240) Bastard Sword +2:Black Adder(*2) (x=3500, y=1290) Ring of Protection +2, Scimitar +4, Potion:Shield (x=3610, y=1340) Scroll:Power Word Stun, Scroll:Summon Monster VII, Scroll:Finger of Death, Scroll:Mordenkainen's Sword (x=3700, y=1370) Tower Shield +1, +4 vs Missiles, Wand of Lightning *1 Armor Bonus +4, Max Dex Bonus +5, Spell Fail 15%, Immune to Charm *2 Attack +2, Damage 1d10+2, +2 damage per second for 6 seconds <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Okay, we've pretty much exhausted all the options down here, save one. Head to the north-central room, thru the door at (x=2560, y=460) and close the door behind you. We will be fighting a huge battle now, and we do not want enemies coming in from behind. Heal fully, spell buff, and wait for the ritual to conclude (if necessary), then talk to Ojaiha the High Priest (x=2990, y=370). Ask about Jeszrael and reveal that the Legion of the Chimera is not to be trusted. Follow the non- threatening dialog path and try to convince Ojaiha not to join with the Legion for some experience. He'll refuse, and unfortunately now you'll have to kill him. ...and we were getting along so well too. He starts out by summoning a bunch of helpers; I start out putting my armor back on and then Webbing them in place. DO NOT PUT YOUR ARMOR ON UNTIL AFTER TALKING TO HIM AND GETTING THE EXPERIENCE!!! I keep my melee fighters back to deal with the Vipers that will get thru, and my ranged weapon characters fire +2 missiles at Ojaiha and his minions. Webs, Fireballs, a Fire Storm, and a Flame Strike and this fight is over almost before it starts. Of course I'll be old and grey before all the spell effects expire, but I can wait... Pick the locks and loot the chests for some nice items, loot the dead bodies for some more, and then heal up again and get ready for the next series of fights. On one of my times thru here, one of the enemy archers dropped a nice bow - at least nice for selling, as we have better bows to fight with - this was the Shortbow of Life +2(*2); another time I got a Ring of Invisibility. ***REWARD*** (for attempting to resolve the Yuan-Ti threat to Kuldahar) EXP 2400 ***ITEMS*** (x=2790, y=250) Scroll:Emotion-Despair, Scroll:Resurrection, Aquamarine Gem, Tower Shield +1, +4 vs Missiles (x=2950, y=250) Star Diopside Gem, Thunder Clap(*1) (x=3030, y=340) Aquamarine Gem, 897 Gold *1 For Monks only, these Bracers allow one extra attack per round *2 This is a +2 Shortbow that grants +10 Hit Points when equipped <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) As you can imagine, the entire temple is now hostile - after all, we killed their leader. This is exactly why we closed the door to this room behind us when we came in, but now we will use it to bottleneck the rest of our opponents. Unfortunately, we cannot rest here, so we'll have to heal up the best we can and deal with the rest of the fighting slightly wounded and with depleted spell-power. C'est la Vie... I place my missile-equipped characters back by the first chest - across from the doorway - and get my fighters ready right by the door. Open the door and kill everything that dares to cross the threshhold. I send Ghrax (with the Boots of Speed) into the ritual chamber to draw the next batch of enemies into our trap; they get caught in the trap and die from missile fire. All we care about now is getting the fu... hell out of here. Make your way to the exit and... exit. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 21) Now that we're back on the surface, we can rest again. I very much recommend doing so before we take on the Guardian, because he's going to be a major pain in the ass and we will want to be at our best for the fight. The party takes up positions at the base of the steps to the platform (archers behind, fighters in front), then I wait until night so that Xanth isn't day-blinded. Spell-buff, then place the Steles in the spots around the temple entrance area and get ready for the Guardian to show up. Place the last Stele close to the stairs so you can escape the platform. You will get to enjoy (?) watching a sequence of magical explosions and electrical discharges, then be confronted by a rather large Dragon. This is the Guardian, and he's pissed. Add to his massive hit points the fact that he teleports all over the place, and you've got a nasty fight on your hands. SAVE BEFORE YOU START THIS FIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would offer a strategy for this fight, but there really isn't anything you can do to make it any easier. This guy is a major badass, and the only thing that works is to keep on him fast and hard, pulling wounded characters out of combat to heal if/when necessary. Resist Fear is one thing you will definitely want to have on, as is Remove Fear (the first as a spell buff, the second as a cure). Protection from Acid is handy, but it only covers one character so it's of limited use. Get on him and stay on him as hard as you can; I used all melee weapons, but if you have any +5 missiles it certainly can't hurt. ***REWARD*** (for summoning the Guardian) EXP 2400 Kuldahar Village (AR6001) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 22) Once the Guardian is dead, head IMMEDIATELY for the portal and exit the area - it only stays open for a short while, and if you don't make it thru in time you'll be screwed and have to do the dragon fight all over again. Trust me, 20 times is enough... You'll arrive (fully healed!) just in time to witness an encounter between Iselore and Madae, which ends in a long but easy to win fight. Enemies keep coming from the west, the south, the north, all over the place. Web everything, everywhere around you; then fire-fuck the entire enemy force. When they're all finally dead, talk to Iselore again for your reward and the directions to Dragon's Eye, our next destination. Before we go, however, we really should loot all these corpses and sell off all the shit we've collected. Head back to Conlan's Smithy (x=1020, y=1830) and sell/buy anything you want or need. Do the same at Orrick's tower, if you have the desire. Basically, shop to your heart's content, then exit this area to the east and head for Dragon's Eye. ***REWARD*** (for stopping the Chultan Yuan-Ti threat to Kuldahar) EXP 2400 o======================================================================o | | | Dragon's Eye Level I | | | o======================================================================o 1. Trap Turner-Offer 2. Lizardmen and Yuan-Ti 3. Rope Bridge 4. Live and Learn 5. Wyvern Nest 6. Crossing the Bridge 7. Friend or Foe? 8. Ungrateful Bastards 9. Nheero's Request 10. Breeding Stock 11. High Commander Grishum 12. Statue Exit It took me a half dozen times thru Dragon's Eye to finally get the whole sequence worked out. There is a lot of back and forth, up and down, go here and return there kind of traveling involved, so the next three sections will retrace steps back into previously cleared areas quite frequently. Dragon's Eye (AR6100) {WLK023} o======================================================================o 1) Frost Salamanders - about a half dozen of them all in a row. Don't chase them up the bridge, because the whole thing is trapped. There's an interesting trick to these traps though - you can find/disable them one at a time if you wish, but why do that when there's an on/off switch at (x=910, y=690)? Find the first trap, work your way carefully around to the right of it, and click the spot where the cursor changes. Voila! No more traps. The map will still show the traps, but they are no longer armed. A few more Salamanders further up the bridge (I let them come to me) and we're able to enter the cave. Except for this bitch named High Sorceress Izbelah standing right in the entrance. She starts out with a Stinking Cloud, then proceeds to spell buff herself. She is indeed a rather high level mage, as her spell selection reveals. I can only get to her with one character at a time, and she's immune to most missile damage, so I send Ghrax with the Boots of Speed (you did buy these, didn't you?) up ahead to start the attack, followed by K'aos and Ilana. She drops a Fire Agate Gem and a Scroll:Suffocate, although I'm not certain she actually died; I saw the shimmering graphic indicating a Gate, or some other teleportation portal, and there was no experience reward. Let's assume she pussied out and ran away... Enter the cave at (x=500, y=200). Dragon's Eye Level 1 (AR6101) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) A group of Yuan-Ti Pureblood Warriors and Lizard Men are here to greet you when you arrive. Did you expect anything less? No? Good... There are a few enemies here that will cast Fear, and that can suck a lot, but other than that they are quite easy to dispatch. If you want to play this safe, there's a small cavern just to the north of where you enter that can be used as a very nice defensive position - the small opening only allows enemies to get to you one at a time. Send the party member with Boots of Speed out to find and draw enemies back to you, and kill them in the opening. Or, you can do as I did and just move thru the tunnels and kill everything you come across - your call. When you're looting bodies, etc, make sure to find and keep all of the Fire Agate Gems, Wyvern Stingers, and Rope that you come across. I'm not going to tell you why (because I'm not into spoilers), just trust me in this, okay...? Good... Let's proceed... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) We entered in roughly the northwest corner of the map, and the path goes north, east, and south. Hhmmm... Since counter-clockwise has worked so well for us in the past, let's change it up and go around the area clockwise this time. Take the path north and then follow it east when it turns that way, across the top of the map. It eventually turns south again, and then west back to where we started. Before it gets there, however, there is a large opening with some crude stairs to the south (x=1550, y=1000) leading to a bridge. If you press the <ALT> key, you'll discover that you can take the rope from the bridge support, but not before having to kill a group of Yuan-Ti Pureblood Thieves on the other side. They have a tendency to use Hide fairly often, and quite well, so watch out for them. Disable the traps on the bridge, grab the rope, and head back to the entrance. I take refuge in the cul-de-sac to the north of the entrance so that I can level-up Ilana and Xanth, and hopefully rest safely. In case I am attacked while resting, I'm in a good defensive position. It's a good thing too, because I had to try 4 times before I could actually rest. Ilana does the usual - adds a Cleric level and takes Concentration. For spells, she adds Summon Monster VII for her Domain spell, and takes Hold Person, Cure Critical Wounds, Destruction, and Greater Shield or Lathander for her Cleric spells. Xanth adds a Sorcerer level and adds the usual points to Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana). He adds Confusion, Feeblemind, and Disintegrate to his known spells. ***TRAPS*** (x=1770, y=1160) (x=1780, y=1180) (x=1830, y=1210) (x=1860, y=1240) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) So much for the northwestern corner of the map, and so much for going thru here clockwise. I should have known better; counter-clockwise has worked for us all this time, and there was really no reason to do things any differently this time. Oh well - live and learn... The southern passage leads to an area where the path splits and twists around a bunch of rock pillars, making it easy to get ambushed. Proceed carefully, following the left-most path. There are some Histachii down here who require some killing, and a trap at the entrance to their lair, but other than that it's an easy trip. Kill the Histachii and loot the chests (all are trapped). Note: the traps and locks on the chests are almost impossible to disarm and unlock unless you have been putting all skill points into Search, Disarm Traps, and Pick Locks, so don't be surprised if you can't do it. The loot descriptions below are a result of some research using Infinity Explorer and various configurations of Rogues during several runs thru the game. Really the only things here that are of any use at this point are the shields, so you won't miss out on much. ***TRAPS*** (x=600, y=2180) (x=480, y=2180) (x=700, y=2290) (x=760, y=2350) ***ITEMS*** (x=480, y=2180) Potion:Firebreath, Potion:Sanctuary, Bolt +2 x5, Arrows of Dispelling x20,Bullets of Corrosive Burst x40, Bracers of Defense +3, Throwing Daggers +2 x10, Greatsword of Flame +1(*1) (x=700, y=2290) Hemp Rope, 1/4 Weight Field Plate Armor, Helmet, Arrows +2 x20, Warhammer +2, Icy Bastard Sword +1(*2) Tower Shield of Charm Protection(*3) (x=760, y=2350) Iron Arbalest(*4), Bolt +2 x40, Arrow of Biting x20, Reflective Short Sword +1(*5), Studded Leather Armor of Horror(*6), Small Shield of Increased Fortitude(*7) *1 Attack +1, Damage 2d6+1, plus 50% chance 1d6 fire damage *2 Attack +1, damage 1d10+1, plus 1d6 cold damage *3 Shield Bonus +3, +1 vs Missiles, Immune to Charm spells *4 Crossbow, Attack +6, Damage +6, only usable by Rogues. Quala gets this, and hands Sophia's Flight to Xanth (who discards his sling). *5 Short Sword +1 that can cast Minor Mirror Image 1/day. Big f'ing deal *6 Armor Bonus +3, Max Dex Bonus +5, immune to Horror spell *7 Shield Bonus +1, +1 vs Missiles, +10 Hit POints when equipped <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Since this path ends in the southwest corner of the map, I guess we have to try something else. Parallel to the Histachii camp is a path that leds to a small river. You can get get around on the left side, and to the east will find a Wyvern nest with a buttload of gems, scolls, and other assorted goodies. kill any Wyverns that are lurking around, and loot the nest - don't forget to grab the Wyvern stingers... Head back north a short way, and then cross the river to the east at around (x=1500, y=2060). There are stairs down (more of a hole in the cave floor, really), but we aren't even close to ready to go down yet; there's still half a map to explore! Remember where this is though, as we will be returning here later for a specific quest. ***ITEMS*** (x=2050, y=2500) Fire Agate Gem, Star Diopside Gem, Horn Coral Gem, Aquamarine Gem, Antidote x6, Scroll:Acid Storm, Scroll:Remove Disease, Bullets +4 x20, Arrows +4 x40, 817 Gold <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Head back once again to the entrance and then east to the bridge where we got the first length of Hemp Rope. It's time to see what's on the other side. Since we were attacked last time we were here, I think it's safe to assume there are enemies on the other side. I start out by throwing a Fireball across, if nothing else just to wake people up (or put them permanently to sleep). Disable the traps on the bridge (if you didn't do it before), then head across. There are more Thieves and a Lizard Man Shaman - pay him some special attention lest he make life difficult - and then basically kill everything and continue southeast. ***TRAPS*** (x=1820, y=1200) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) More Thieves, more death, and the path is once again clear. Let's avoid the swinging blade gate at (x=2450, y=1370) for now and continue southeast to another bridge. This is quite convenient, because there are enemies on the other side, but they can only get across one or two at a time. Too bad for them... Before we cross, however, there's a door to the south (x=2800, y=2000) that's just begging to be opened (listen carefully - can you hear it? Please open me...). When you attempt to open it, you will find that you can't, and you will hear a voice from the other side asking if you're friend or foe. Answer 'friend', and you'll be given a clue how to open the door. Cross the bridge into the torture chamber, disable the trap and turn the handle on the rack at (x=2910, y=1470) to unlock the door. If you can't detect the trap, cast Resist Fear before turning the handle and you'll be fine. Several Lizard Men will show up, but they're nothing to worry about at this point. ***REWARD*** (for opening the prison gate) EXP 1200 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Head back down to the now open door to find more people to kill. Some of their nametags say that they're prisoners, but they don't seem too happy to be freed. Ungrateful bastards... Just kill everything that's hostile. You'll find one 'prisoner' who is in fact a fairly high-level mage, and he's a bitch to put down. Hit him with Feeblemind a time or two though, and he's just a man... He drops a Ring of Regeneration, among other things. There's also an invisible Troll that will follow you around and attack for a fair amount of damage - if you have a Detect invisibility or similar spell handy, it will make this jackass a bit easier to deal with. Otherwise the only way to find him is by moving the cursor around until it changes to the attack (sword) icon, then hitting him with area effect spells (you can't attack directly because, well, there's nothing to attack). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) From left to right across the bottom of the prison area, there are three chambers. First, talk to Nheero Fhutma (x=2610, y=2700) - this is only possible after all the enemies are dead - to get a new quest. You are asked to find his friend Mandal Graye, who was researching the 'Histachii Transformation', whatever in the hell that is. Nevertheless, that's what he was doing, and he hasn't been seen since Nheero was captured. Next, talk to the other prisoner in here, and ask if he's able to fight; tell him about the armory and he'll run off to find a weapon. Or maybe he just ran off - who knows? In the next section over, talk to the prisoner and tell him to go to the armory as well. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) In the eastern section, the prisoner has a new dialog option; it seems he was being used as breeding stock. Again, ask if he can fight; but this time he'll complain about a lack of rest. Let him rest (he'll drop and sleep right there on the ground), and when he wakes up he'll heal you... a nice thank you indeed. I wish everyone in this shithole was that grateful. So we have a new quest, and there's still one whole map section left to explore; how about we do that, shall we? <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Ah yes, the swinging blades - how to get past them? Well, there's probably a switch somewhere that controls these things, but I'm willing to bet it's on the other side. So I guess we run thru them and take the hits (or follow the alternate strategy, below). Do so, and kill the enemies that are waiting for you on the other side. Heal up a bit, then approach the stairs to the north slowly and carefully; up above in the next chamber there is a rather large fight waiting. If you send one character slowly up to the foot of the steps, you can draw a few of the enemies back to you in the hallway one at a time, but let's face it - eventually we'll need to deal with the room full of baddies. A couple Fireballs at the base of the statue dethreatenizes them quite nicely (See? There's that word again. And you thought I made it up...). Kill everything in here - there's no real need for a well thought out strategy, or special tactics, or... well... anything really. Just go nuts. High Commander Grishum, the leader of this bunch of misfits, will talk to you briefly, but I only mention it because it happened. There is very little new intel, and overall he's just puffing himself up in front of his troops. He drops a rather nice axe and a decent bow though (items *1 & 2). Sure enough, off to the left side of the cavern, behind the pillar of stone is the switch (x=2310, y=610) that turns off the blades. Alternate strategy: give a Potion of Invisibility (or some means of becoming invisible) to one character and send them ahead thru the blades. Drink the potion (or invoke whatever invisbility magic), and sneak around to turn the switch, then move back into the passage and bring the rest of the party up. *1 Cloudkiss: this returning axe sports an attack bonus +3, damage 1d6+3, and if thrown does electrical damage to all objects in its path (although it doesn't say how much). In melee it's just a +3 axe *2 Shortbow of Life +2: attack +2, damage +2, +10 HP when equipped <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Now by checking around, it soon becomes apparent that the braziers in this room are meant to hold something, or somethings. We've been collecting Fire Agate Gems and Wyvern Stingers; I'm betting that one or the other goes into these things. Since they are braziers, and we know that braziers are meant to hold fire, let's make the assumption that the gems go in them, and not the stingers. Place one gem in each brazier (the fifth one is southeast of the alter, kind of out of the way), and the statue opens up, revealing an entrance to somewhere. Now what? We have a big hole in the cave that leads somewhere and now this, that also leads somewhere. Do they lead to the same somewhere? Well, I checked, and they do - they lead to two different points in the same new area (Dragon's Eye Level 2, AR6102). There is a reason to NOT go down the hole yet though, so exit thru the statue and don't look back. Ghrax and Fhornal are able to go up a level here, and both do so before proceeding: Ghrax goes to level 14 and adds a point to Concentration (and saves a point). He grabs an additional Sunscorch for a spell. Fhornal also moves up to 14th level, and takes Concentration and Spellcraft x2 for skills. He adds another Sol's Searing Orb, and Heal for spells. o======================================================================o | | | Dragon's Eye Level II | | | o======================================================================o 1. Rolling Stones 2. The Corpse of Mandal Graye 3. Spiders and Ettercaps 4. Obtaining Mandal's Sword 5. The Spirit of Mandal Graye 6. Yuan-Ti Spellcasters 7. Scrambled Eggs 8. Oasis 9. Glabrezu 10. Looting the Library 11. Free Healing 12. Obtaining the Modified Mandrake Root 13. The Ol' Switcheroo 14. Creating the Sabotaged Histachii Brew 15. Creating Wyvern Poison 16. Serendipity! Dragon's Eye Level 2 (AR6102) {WLK024} o======================================================================o 1) There are half-blood Yuan-Ti spellcasters and Feyr's down here; the latter are so easy to kill that one has to wonder why they are even considered a threat, the former are... well... the same as they are everywhere else we've encountered them. Neither will drop anything, so we can just kill them and move on. Make the entrance safe and head east as far as you can go, ignoring the opening to the south. You may have to kill some spiders from there, but there's no need to actually go there yet. The path will turn south at the eastern edge of the map. There's a trap down here where a large boulder will roll down the passage from the northeast corner of the map and crush you (basically hit you for some damage and knock you unconscious for a few rounds). It is advised to keep the party back out of the way and trip the trap with your hardiest character to keep damage to a minimum (unless you can find and disarm the trap - I could not). If you have the Boots of Speed you may be able to outrun it and take refuge in the alcove at the end of the tunnel. At the end of this passage you will find the remains of Mandal Graye, whom we were tasked to locate for Nheero. Loot the chest down here for a nice cache of stuff. ***REWARDS*** (for finding the remains of Mandal Graye) EXP 1600 ***TRAPS*** (x=3550, y=500) ***ITEMS*** (x=3630, y=1330) Hemp Rope, Aquamarine Gem, Chrysoberyl Gem, Angel Skin Ring, Potion:Firebreath, 1613 Gold, Potion:Extra Healing x5, Zuvembie(*1), Bullet +4 x20, Bolt +4 x20, Arrows of Biting x40, Owain's Lullabye(*2) *1 Studded Leather Armor +6, Max Dex Bonus +5, CURSED:Charisma -2, wearer under the effects of Death Ward. Even with the Charisma hit, I elect to replace K'aos armor with this. *2 A Bardish instrument, it can cast Cone of Cold. Big F'n deal... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Let's go back up and tell Nheero that we found his buddy. It seems the appropriate thing to do, since he was so nice to us and all. Upon hearing the news, he asks if you would be willing to complete 'the mission'. Agree, and he'll mention two things - Mandrake Root, and the Sword of Myrloch Vale, Mandal's weapon. He then asks if we could find the sword and return it to Mandal's corpse. Well alrighty then... Since I have become totally addicted to this experience reward thing, I guess this is the right path to follow. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Return to the second level and head east again, but this time go south into the opening. Kill the spiders in here (there are a shit-ton of them), and anything else you may come across (I found Ettercaps, and a miscellaneous assortment of Yuan-Ti) and continue making your way to the south. There are some steps on the western side of this chamber and a loot-pile. To the southwest of this chamber is another set of steps, and in this cavern is the exit to the next level (x=2900, y=2080). You may run into a couple of enemies down here, but nothing that should be a problem. Disable the traps along the way and head down to Level 3. Quala gains a level before heading down, going to 9th level Sorceress but adding points to her roguing skills (Search and Disable Device). She also gets a new Feat, and adds another point to Crossbows (so she can use Iron Arbalest better). New spells too - she adds Invisibility, Haste, and Stoneskin. ***TRAPS*** (x=2950, y=780) (x=2860, y=930) (x=2850, y=1300) (x=3000, y=2300) ***ITEMS*** (x=2660, y=1000) Potion:Firebreath, 932 Gold (x=2970, y=1190) Holdfast Arrows x20, Arrows of Biting x20, Bolt +4 x20 (x=3270, y=1440) Potion:Master Thievery x2, Antidote x2, Wand:Web Dragon's Eye Level 3 (AR6103) o======================================================================o 4) Once again we will abandon our normal exploration methodology and go straight for the goal. Don't worry, we'll come back later and go thru all the various places and get all the various treasure, etc, but for now we have a job to do. Our target is southwest of the entrance, so go south to the first little circular chamber and use it as a 'safe spot'. There are Armored Skeletons down here, and they can take a bit of doing to put down, as they have a fair number of hit points; there are also Yuan-Ti Champions - they aren't as bad, but are still dangerous enough to be worth mentioning. Send a character forward - to the south - and draw enemies back to you; no point in running blindly into an ambush. Now for the fun part - west of this chamber is our goal, along with an Iron Golem. These guys are bad news, and it might take a couple reloads to get this to end the way you want. Save, then send a character to the west and entice the Golem back to you. He will start out with a cloud of Poisonous Gas (think Cloudkill) which will make things difficult, but you should be able to attack anyway. You might have a character or two succumb to the gas, which will render them unconscious, but they'll get up eventually and rejoin the fight. When he's dead, go into the next circular room (where the Golem came from), kill anything that's left alive here, grab the sword on the floor at (x=2390, y=1590), and head back to the exit. The blade doors into the chamber will do some damage, but the Boots of Speed plus some lucky timing will get you thru it. Go back up to Level 2. ***ITEMS*** (x=2390, y=1590) Dragon's Eye Level 2 (AR6102) o======================================================================o 5) The trap here appears to have been reset, but I just endured it and headed back north toward the Level 1 entrance/exit area. But, instead of exiting, head east, where you'll be met by Mandal's Spirit. He will take you on a tour of his adventures, bouncing the party around all over various places in Dragon's Eye, finally ending up by where his corpse was found. Of course the asshole doesn't actually give you any reward for setting him free - you get no experience, no coin, nothing except the satisfaction of a job well done. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Before we can return to Nheero though, we still have to find that Modified Mandrake Root he was so keen to get back. Remember, he wanted us to do two things - return the sword, and retrieve his root. Now this could take a while, but since you have a guide to tell you where to go and what to do, it will be easy. But there are a couple other things we need to do first - head back to the entrance and then west, continuing past the entrance. There are more Yuan-Ti spellcasters waiting for us where the path turns south, but they're easy at this point. Kill them, but don't go rushing down the western edge of the map just yet. Move carefully south until you find a set of steps heading up to the west. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Up the stairs are a few Histachii, and there's an asshole Yuan-Ti Priestess who may fire spells at you from a bridge to the south. You can either dispatch her now, or proceed up the stairs and let her chase you. Either way, she needs to die. The stair risers are trapped, so be careful as you move up the steps into the next chamber. Toward the back of the chamber is a cache of eggs, one of which has a Star Sapphire in it - nice. ***TRAPS*** (x=1100, y=750) (x=1140, y=750) (x=980, y=740) (x=950, y=680) ***ITEMS*** (x=320, y=250) Star Sapphire <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Continue south from this chamber and cross the bridge, which is also trapped. You will come to an area with palm trees growing (really?) and find our old friend Nathaniel standing in front of a tent. What the hell is he doing down here, you ask? I don't know, but it seems suspicious to me. He does know who we are, as he addresses us by name, but somehow I still don't like it. He does have stuff for sale, and will buy your excess items from you, but I notice that the items he has for sale are not the same as what he had in Kuldahar. If you talk to him with a Druid, you will 'sense evil in him' and he will mention the 'path of righteousness', which is antithetical to the 'path of cyclical balance' that all Druids follow. Talking to him with a Paladin or Cleric will also reveal some inconsistencies in his speech. IMPOSTER! Confront him and he will go hostile; kill him and he will be less so... He summons a shitload of Ferocious Jaguars and other assorted enemies, but ignore them until he's dead, then mop them up. K'aos levels up to 13th level Wizard, adding points to Concentration, Bluff, and Intimidate, and taking a feat point in Improved Critical. For spells he adds Confusion, and Finger of Death. Finger of Death is a great spell - there's nothing more fun than giving someone the finger and watching them die. ***TRAPS*** (x=1080, y=1050) (x=1230, y=980) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Continue south - this next chamber contains a raised platform and several enemies; I enter with one character and draw them back thru the narrow passage to deal with them one or two at a time. You will notice (or at least you should) that there are two levers in here - one at (x=590, y=1780), and another at (x=660, y=2450). Sometimes when I got here, the lever to the north was broken (laying on its side), other times it was not. If you mess with it however, it will break, so the steps play out the same way no matter what you find. After messing with them several times, I finally discovered what they are for, but if the northern one is broken then you'll have to skip the rest of this step and do it later, after it's repaired. If the northern lever is intact, rest until it's night then place the party in the circle on the raised platform. Have a Cleric manipulate the northern lever - the party will get Protection from Evil cast on them (at least one of them will), and a Glabrezu will appear in the circle at the base of the platform. Kill it, along with anything else that might show up. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Proceed southeast out of this chamber, and into the next one. This next 'room' appears to be a library/laboratory, and pretty much every container (tables, bookcases, etc) is lootable. So let's get to it, shall we? Oh... after we kill the Yuan-Ti Half-Breed Sorceress and the Histachii that are in here. ***ITEMS*** (x=1300, y=2600) Book:History of Sembia, Scroll:Protection from Acid, Scroll:Creeping Doom (x=1370, y=2500) Book: History of Tethyr, Scroll:Protection from Cold, Scroll:Fire Storm (x=1450, y=2500) Book: History of the Bell in the Depths, Scroll:Sunbeam Scroll:Protection from Electricity (x=1540, y=2450) Book:History of the Chosen of Mystra, Scroll:Resurrection, Scroll:Protection from Fire (x=1630, y=2400) Book: History of the Dead Three, Scroll:Symbol of Pain, Scroll:Protection from Magic (x=1670, y=2540) Book: History of the Moonsea, Scroll:Destruction, Scroll:Protection from Poison (x=1730, y=2630) Book: History of the Sisters of Light and Darkness, Scroll:Blasphemy, Scroll:Protection from Petrification (x=1860, y=2500) Antidote x4, Flask of Braehg x2 (x=2020, y=2440) Mandrake Root (x=2180, y=2400) Scroll:Seven Eyes, Scroll:Elemental Barrier, D'hey-jazerrion's Notes(*1) (x=2170, y=2500) Shandon Gem, Potion:Mastery Thievery x2, Potion:Elixir of Health x2, Bullet +4 x40, Dart +4 x20, Potion:Storm Giant Strength x2, Cat-tail(*2), Potion:Protection from Evil x2, Potion:Spirit Essence x2 *1 Read this note carefully - it details how to use the alchemy lab and the various ingredients to create some items we will need in order to get some experience later. Of particular importance is the fact that you need someone with an Alchemy Skill of 15+ to do some of these things, although it hints that D'hey-jazerrion may do it for you. He will also repair the levers, which must be done before you can complete the alchemical experiments. *2 A Sling +1 with a name - whoopee... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) We're still missing one ingredient (the Modified Mandrake Root), so go back up to Level 1 and head for the hole in the cavern floor at (x=1800, y=2000). There's a prisoner here who will cast Cure Moderate Wounds on the party members (this is automatic - weird?); talk to him and send him down to talk to Nathaniel. Prepare for battle, and exit down the hole... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) AAAAAAHHHHHHH - WYVERN!!! Okay, it's not really that bad - he has a lot of hit points, but he's not all that hard to kill. Grab the Modified Mandrake Root from his corpse, as well as the loot from the rock at (x=1960, y=1660), and head back up. ***ITEMS*** (x=1960, y=1660) Horn Coral Gem, Angel Skin Ring, Potion:Healing x5, Dart of Stunning x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Now we can return to Nheero and complete his mission, or so we think. He will then ask you to find the laboratory and pull the ol' switcheroo with the two Mandrake Roots (replace the real one with the modified one). He also gives you a clue as to how to accomplish the mission - "convince" the alchemist D'hey-jazerrion to perform the procedure for you (this is the same thing the note said). Return thru the statue yet again to Level 2. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Head for the lab, and place the Modified Mandrake Root on the table at (x=2020, y=2440), then talk to D'hey-jazerrion with the character possessing the highest Intimidate skill to "convince" him to complete the process. You can also do it yourself if you have a charaacter with the requisite 15+ Alchemy skill - the process involves placing the modified root on the table, and manipulating the southern lever in the room to the north. Either way will achieve the same result: flashing green lights, and an eventual in-game message stating that the weaker version of the Histachii Brew has been created. Grab the Modified Root and replace it with the normal one to maintain the deception; also make sure to grab the Sabotaged Histachii Brew that we just created. I also make an extra one, just in case we end up needing to disguise ourselves as Histachii at some point (hint, hint...) ***REWARD*** (for completing the mission to create the Sabotaged Histachii Brew) EXP 3600 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Before we return to Nheero, there's something else we can do with the alchemy table; we can create several flasks of Wyvern Poison that we will need later. Might as well do it now, since we're here. Place four Wyvern Stingers on the table at (x=1860, y=2500) and pull the southern lever in the room to the north - you should have at least eight stingers, so you can make at least eight flasks (one stinger makes one flask of poison). <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Okay - we've completed the mission, and we can return to Nheevo one more time to give him the Sabotaged Brew. Head back to the prison cells on Level 1 again. Nheero is overjoyed ("Serendipity!") and heads off to do his experiment, telling you to meet him in the "western chamber" in a couple of hours. Fine - we'll do that... Head back to the chamber on level 2 where we found the Star Sapphire (approx. x=600, y=480) and rest a time or two until Nheero shows up and will allow you to talk to him. You can ask him about the Feyr's, and he will mention something about a study. Since we've cleared the first two levels, I guess we'll probably find the study dowstairs. Head for the exit to Level 3. o======================================================================o | | | Dragon's Eye Level III | | | o======================================================================o 1. Once More Into the Feyr 2. Boulder Trap 3. Aaahhhh...! Monstrous Snakes! 4. Snake Room 5. Puddles of Goo 6. More of the Same 7. Another Library 8. Turned Back by Sseth's Eye 9. Quenching the Efreeti 10. Thorasskus - Are You My Mommy? 11. Escaping to the Treasure Room 12. Finishing Off Thorasskus 13. Meeting Nheero in the Library 14. Welcoming Party 15. Obtaining the Holy Avenger Sword 16. Imposter No More Dragon's Eye Level 3 (AR6103) {WLK025} o======================================================================o 1) So here we go again - once more into the Feyr... err... fray... This time we'll be a bit more systematic in our visit to this level; while we do still have a couple specific things to accomplish, they are not time sensitive. To the north are some Armored Skeletons, Yuan-Ti, and a couple Histachii. Kill them and loot the table, then place a Wyvern Poison in the fountain at (x=2900, y=200). Head back down to the entrance. ***ITEMS*** (x=2800, y=300) Male Body, Female Body, Child's Body, Aquamarine Gem, Skull x3, Arrow +4 x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) This time head due west from the entrance with one character wearing the Boots of Speed. Move carefully to the next passage, where there is an opening to the north. DO NOT just go running in here though, as there is a trap that will totally fuck with you. Instead, move that character slowly up toward the small opening and try to draw out the enemies that lie in wait in the chamber. If you're unlucky enough to get trapped in here by the giant rock, you can 'kill' it to free yourself, but you will likely have to fight Armored Skeletons while doing so. Once this room is clear and the giant rock is no longer a threat, this room will end up becoming our 'safe spot' for the next several battles. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) We will continue to use our speedy character to find and draw foes back to the party, at least for now. Send him/her south down the tunnel and repeat until it's clear; do the same for the parallel passage to the west. You will find a rather large group of Monstrous Snakes in the southern part of this western tunnel, and they are pretty fast, hence using the character with Boots of Speed. I can draw them all back to the party and bottleneck them in the small opening 1-2 at a time. Eventually, you'll manage to make this part of the map safe for travel, and be able to proceed. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Make your way down to the snake room (approximately x=1670, y=1330) and set up 'camp' for the next set of encounters. The doors in here are unopenable (yes, it's a word - stop asking), so we'll ignore them for now and proceed west thru the opening at about (x=1300, y=1430). Same strategy as before - one character, Boots of Speed, draw enemies back, kill them. This is a small round chamber that is perfect to use as our next 'safe spot'. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) A u-turn to the south and east (which eventually turns west) will find more Yuan-Ti to lead back to their doom. Further west down this passage is a slime cave - once triggered, they will show up everywhere. These bastards are immune to almost everything except fire; a couple of Fire Storms will reduce them to puddles of goo. When the slime room is clear, move the party there and trip the switch that opens the large metal door (x=750, y=1480). Not only will the door to the north open up, but you will now have a new path to the west as well. Let's do that first, okay? <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Same strategy as always - run ahead and draw enemies back until the coast is clear. Thru the southern doorway (x=600, y=1840) and around to find a rather nicely furnished room with a lootable desk and a fountain. Grab the shit from the desk and pour a Wyvern Poison into the fountain. Okay, before we move into the northwestern corner of the map, let's clear out everything else first. There are several areas we can't get to yet, but don't worry about them. Make sure the place is clear, then head back to the passage north, up the western edge of the map. ***ITEMS*** (x=260. y=2400) Garnet Gem, Potion:Firebreath, Spirit Essence x5, Potion:Vocalize, Potion:Remove Curse, 730 Gold, Potion:Vampiric Touch <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) A library with five bookcases and another fountain await, guarded by Histachii. No biggie - kill the Histachii and loot; remember to put a Wyvern Poison in the fountain. ***ITEMS*** (x=300. y=380) Book:Philosophy of Kara-Tur, Scroll:Identify, Scroll:Inflict Light Wounds (x=340. y=280) Book:The Folly of Fury, Scroll:Blur, Scroll:Find Traps (x=400. y=240) Scroll:Haste, Scroll:Protection from Fire, Scroll:Banisment (x=700. y=250) Book:Engineering Manual, Scroll:Stoneskin, Scroll:Neutralize Poison (x=760. y=350) Book:Yago's Book of Curses, Scroll:Raise Dead, Scroll:Summon Shadow <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) East from the library, then south, then in a room to the west is an Iron Golem. I draw it back into the library (allowing it to fart that poisonous gas in the hallway before he gets to the party), and kill it. There are a couple more chambers in here with miscellaneous enemies as well - destroy them all. Now, to the southeast you will run into the back side of the doors into the snake room, but when you try to enter the large chamber you will be forced to retreat by Sseth's Eye, which guards the passage north from here (x=1730, y=550). Load up and drink the Sabotaged Brew we made up earlier; it will turn you temporarily into a Histachii and allow you to pass thru the arch under Sseth's Eye. Kill the couple of real Histachii in here and manipulate the 'shelf' at (x=1920, y=140) to open the drawbridge all the way to the south. You will have to rest for at least four hours to allow the potion to wear off and return to 'normal', whatever that is... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Head back down to the bottom of the map and cross the bridge at (x=1600, y=1750) to find a room full of Efreeti to kill. The best way to deal with them is just like we have been doing all along - set up your archers behind and your fighters at the northern end of the bridge, then send one character across to get the Efreeti to come after you. They can only get to you one or two at a time across the bridge, making them quite easy to manage. Protection from Fire, along with Cold-based spells, can be helpful here as well - Ice Storm is good for quenching their bloodthirsty desires. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) When they're all dead, head down into the lavish room across the bridge. Here you will meet Thorasskus, who claims that he and his mama were caught by the snake people and brought here. Talk to him a few more times and eventually he'll tire of his deception and transform into his real self and attack. He will summon a whole shit-load of Monstrous Snakes, but you can ignore them and focus on him until he dies, then mop up the snakes. It's possible for Thorasskus to escape; if that does happen, don't sweat it - we'll catch up with him later. Loot the table at (x=2100, y=2150) for a ton of various potions. Combat Strategy: load up all melee weapons and surround Thorasskus so he cannot escape, then pound the crap out of him. Ignore everything else until he's dead, then mop up. It's still possible for him to escape, but it's less likely this way. ***ITEMS*** (x=2100, y=2150) Potions: Braehg, Extra Healing x5, Healing x5, Elven Healing Wine x5, Elixir of Health x5, Antidote x10, Histachii Brew x5, Spirit Essence x5, Unenchanted Histachii Brew x5, Mummy's Tea x5, Philter of Purification x5 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Well this sucks - the drawbridge is up and we're stuck in the room, or so it would appear. Appearances, however, are deceiving, and there is a way out. Head for the southeast corner of the room and look for the exit (x=2000, y=2400); this will take you into the treasure room. There is a lot of stuff here to loot, so be quick about it less that little bastard Thorasskus should get away. As always when we find fountains, place a Wyvern Poison in it (x=3060, y=2140). ***ITEMS*** (x=2820, y=2350) Scroll:Vipergout, Scroll:Stone to Flesh, Scroll:Protection from Magic, Scroll:Protection from Poison (x=2740, y=2280) Star Diopside Gem, Hemp Rope, 1131 Gold (x=2770, y=2150) Horn Coral Gem, Angel Skin Ring, Flamedance Ring, Red Fang's Tomb(*1), 3150 Gold (x=2980, y=2110) Ring of Invisibility, Arrow +4 x20, Holdfast Arrow x20, Arrow of Biting x20, Dart of Stunning x20 (x=3100, y=2270) Shandon Gem, Horn Coral Gem, POtion:Firebreath, 511 Gold (x=3060, y=2350) Medallion of the Lost Followers(*2) *1 Tower Shield +3, +1 vs Missiles, can cast Agannazar's Scorcher 1/day *2 Not an item to be used, it is the 'key' to gaining the Holy Avenger, a sword that we will be going after soon. KEEP THIS HANDY <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) The door on the western side of the room is now unlocked and we can exit the room. Head straight for the snake room and finish off that butthole Thorasskus. In addition to the massive melee power we have, I load up my best missiles, including Arrows of Dispelling, which makes fairly short work of him. Loot his corpse for several nice items. ***ITEMS*** Thorasskus Quarterstaff, Bracers of Defense +4, Ring of Freedom of Movement, Ring of Protection +3 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Return one final time to Nheero in the lab on Level 2 and ask him what he knows about Thorasskus. He'll ask if there's a study down on the next level - tell him so and he'll ask you to meet him there. Aaarrggh - back down we go. Rest, and talk to him one final time, then make for the exit back up and out of Dragon's Eye. We're going back to Kuldahar now, to get that awesome Holy Avenger sword. Kuldahar Village (AR6001) o======================================================================o 14) When you move west into the village, you will find all the major NPC characters lined up, as if waiting for you. How nice - a welcoming party! Talk to them all if you wish, but make damn sure to talk to Nathaniel at the very least. Mention that you thought he was down in Dragon's Eye. His answer pretty much proves that it was an imposter we saw down there, and I guess we'll have to go back and kill him/it. But first, there's this matter of a Holy Avenger sword... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Exit Kuldahar to the west and head for Kuldahar Pass. Go straight up to the entrance to the graveyard (x=1530, y=260) and enter. There's a grave at (x=1330, y=850) you need to examine; several flashes of light and a group of enemies will appear. This is a tough fight if you're not prepared, so here's what I do... Spell-buff like you really, truly mean it (Improved Haste is almost mandatory for this fight). No matter where you set up, you will be moved into a position right by the grave, and you start out surrounded. When they appear, grab the sword from the ground (x=1300, y=830) and equip it on your Paladin (if you have one), then run like hell for the entrance. Not that we're leaving, mind you, but I want a slightly better position from which to take them on. They are all undead, and a couple blasts of turning from within an area protected by Undead Ward renders them almost completely impotent. Sunbeam, Disintegrate, and other high-level magic will take out a few, and the Club of Disruption (you do still have this don't you?) can finish off at least one. Stay on them hard with all the magic you can muster; only engage in melee if they get too close. This is an awful nasty fight, no matter how you approach it, but it is winnable. You get some nice experience for killing them, not to mention that they are worth 2100XP each in their own right (Hey! I said not to mention that!). That's 18450 total just for the main combatants, plus the few hundred apiece for thier various summons. Not bad at all... Ilana and Xanth level up after this fight - I return to the watchtower to do so, since it's safe to rest there. Ilana moves up to level 14 and adds another point to Concentration. She adds another Heal and another Greater Shield of Lathander to her spells. Xanth likewise goes to 14, but skips Concentration in favor of one each in Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft. He gets a 7th level spell here, and takes Mordenkainen's Sword. ***REWARD*** (for sending the Lost Followers to their second death), EXP 5850 ***ITEMS*** (x=1300, y=830) Holy Avenger, Attack +5, Damage 1d8+5 plus 2d6 vs Evil, can cast Dispel Magic (unlimited), +15 Spell Resistence when equipped. This goes to K'aos, and will become his primary weapon for the rest of the game. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) With our new weapon in hand, we are now ready to return to Dragon's Eye and deal with the Nathaniel imposter (if we didn't before). Stop on the way and buy some stuff from the various people in the village if you desire; I'm heading straight there. If you killed "Nathaniel" earlier, then head straight for Level 3 and the Dragon's Eye Exit (AR6103, x=3000, y=1330). Otherwise, if you still need to deal with the imposter, head back down to Level 2 and over to the west to find the fake Nathaniel. This time you'll have the dialog option to tell him that you saw the real Nathaniel in Kuldahar, and to demand he reveal himself. He summons his 'pets' (Ferocious Jaguars and Panthers), then transforms into a Rakshasa Maharajah. This is really an easy fight, despite the number of Jaguars that show up. 'Nathaniel' drops a few things, but nothing exceptional, although the Ring of Magic Missiles is kind of nice. Exit thru the door on Level 3 to the next area... o======================================================================o | | | Dragon's Eye Exit | | | o======================================================================o 1. The Usual 2. Engineering a Bridge 3. The Death of Inquisitor Venomin 4. Meeting Ambassador Jasper 5. First Trip to the Fields of Slaughter 6. Behold Zil-t'yor 7. Back in Time 8. Heading Again to the Fields of Slaughter 9. Lord Pyros and Sorceress Izbelah 10. King Lothar's Citadel 11. Caught Eavesdropping 12. The Trial of High Sorceress Izbelah 13. Preventing an Infinite Time Loop 14. Ice Temple Basement - What the...? Dragon's Eye Exit (AR6104) {WLK026} o======================================================================o 1) As usual we have a greeting party, and as usual they are hostile. A Cornugon and three Wight Lemur Slaves will try to stop us from moving forward, but in reality they don't even manage to slow us down. They aren't even considerate enough to drop any loot. There's a place to the east with Webs - not a trap, just a webbed place. To the west is a fireball; same thing - not a trap, just a fireball. However, west ends up at a dead end, so go east... Note: in subsequent plays, these areas contained other impedements to travel - Spike Stones, various poison gasses, etc. You may not get the same things I did, but in all cases you just need to wait a bit and they will end, allowing you to proceed. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) The path turns south, then west along the bottom of the map, until it comes to a broken bridge (x=1550, y=2550). Now we have in our possession an Engineering Manual and several pieces of Hemp Rope; I have to assume they're useful here. Repair the bridge by putting all four pieces of Hemp Rope (you'll see it partially repair with each rope you place). Once the bridge is repaired, you can cross. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Further west, you will be met by Inquisitor Venomin, who goes on about how he killed Lord Pyros, and how Thorasskus will be mad at him, and some other nonsense. He will then walk away and get fried... Cool. Continue west, then north; there will be a slight jog to the east, and you'll finally reach Archon, the Undead Boatman, at (x=760, y=1400). Talk to him, and select an audience with Lord Pyros as your destination. You will of course be told that Lord Pyros is dead (that last asshat killed him, remember?), so select Lord Pyros' domain as your second choice. You will be informed that it costs 300 gold per person for the trip, but if you have a high enough Bluff skill you can say that you paid twice that already, and get across for free. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Kill a critter (I saw a Remorhaz and a Greater Werewolf here on two separate plays), then head north. Talk to Ambassador Jasper - I found him at (x=1950, y=1630), but he moves around - and follow the only dialog options that are presented. It appears we need to go to the Fields of Slaughter. There is a chest at (x=2270, y=1830), but we have no way to get out there to it, so I guess it will stay unmolested for now. Go back down and talk to Archon again, but don't head for the Fields of Slaughter quite yet; instead, go to Jasper's Embassy. Note that you may have to pay this time, and for future trips as well. Archon will buy stuff from you, so this shouldn't be a show-stopper, but it can get expensive after a while. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) I had to kill three Greater Boneguards here, you might get some other enemies. Whatever shows up, kill it/them, and loot the bookcase at (x=2500, y=2000). Now talk to Archon again and head for the Fields of Slaughter exit. ***ITEMS*** (x=2500, y=2000) Scroll:Suffocate, Fire Agate Gem x5, Spirit Essence x2, Hold Person Wand <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Here you will be met by Zil-t'yor, a Beholder. I seriously wish I had the Shield of Balduran right now, but as this is Icewind Dale, and not Baldur's Gate, I guess I'll have to make do... Beholders are nasty things, and very hard to fight, what with their eye stalks shooting spells at you. But this fight only gets worse - there are also about a half-dozen Hell Hounds to deal with. Okay - here's the plan: First, spell-buff before starting this fight. Then, after the dialog is thru, have your Clerics/Druids cast as many group defensive spells as possible, while your mages Fireball the fuck out of Zil-t'yor. With any luck at all, you will get off this round of attacks before you get attacked in return. The fighters take on the Hell Hounds while the magic-cannons fire away at Zil-t'yor (you can't get to him in melee). On my second try at this battle, a single Disintegrate spell took out Zil-t'yor, and then it was a simple matter of killing the rest of the baddies. I had Flamewalkers, Trolls, Fire Mephits, Efreeti, and of course the Hell Hounds. A whole lot of fighting, but in the end not all that bad. When everything here is good and dead, exit at (x=1920, y=600) to find yourself... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) ...right back where you started. What the...? Head all the way around again and have Archon take you to Jasper's Embassy. Jasper will be there, but there is little new intel from him. So, this time have Archon take you to Lord Pyros' domain (again?). Except this time it's different; you get to watch a cutscene of Inquisitor Venomin actually killing Lord Pyros. Apparently time works backwards here, so maybe we will have a chance to prevent some things from happening? Return to Jasper's Embassy and talk to him again and watch another cutscene - this time having to do with some of the destruction of the building. You'll eventually be attacked by some Frost Salamanders and Lizardmen, but they're cheese by now. You can ignore the Flamewalkers - they are not hostile - and head north and then back south into the Amphitheater. From here you will get to kill some critters from across the lava. Once all is quiet, have Archon take you to the Upper Levels. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Kill the Lava Mephits and the other enemies (some are across the lava), then head south to find Inquisitor Venomin going thru his lament again. But this time you can try to talk him out of killing himself; to no avail, but hey - at least we tried, right? Further east along this inner path and you can watch the bridge being destroyed, and possibly have another critter or two to kill. Just make sure not to start any fights with non-hostiles and you'll be fine. Continue all the way around the inner path and kill everything that attacks you. Head back once more to the Fields of Slaughter Exit. This time isn't so bad - no Beholder to deal with, and just a few 'normal' enemies. As before, kill everything hostile and exit to start the sequence over again. Notice that the Hell Hounds are not hostile, nor are the Trolls... Ghrax and Fhornal gain levels before exiting: Ghrax becomes a 15th level Ranger and adds a point to Concentration, as well as a second point in Spell Penetration. He gets a new favored Enemy here, and selects Giants. He also gets a couple of 4th level spells, and takes Cure Serious Wounds and Flame Strike. Fhornal likewise moves up to level 15, and adds points to Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana). For his feat, he also takes Spell Penetration. Wall of Fire and Finger of Death become his new spells. We cannot rest down here, but the extra hit points and abilities will still serve us well, even if we can't use the new spells yet. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) This time you can get to the inner ring directly (x=3400, y=1500), and the blockade of stones to the west isn't there yet. So you can take whatever path you like to get to Archon; have him take you to Lord Pyros' domain. Speak to him (yes, he's still alive in this sequence) and offer him an Antidote for free, just because he might 'need it someday'; he will give you a random item of some kind in return (I got a Returning Bullet of Fire +1 on one run). Move north up the path until you can't go any farther, and the path will reconstruct itself. Once that's done, Inquisitor Venomin will run past you and report to Lord Pyros (I think we all know where this is headed). Continue going north and High Sorceress Izbelah will implore you from her cage to let her out. It doesn't really matter what you say, she's not going anywhere. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Have Archon take you to King Lothar's Citadel. Talk to Lothar and be informed that High Sorceress Izbelah is being held for casting a Temporal Stasis spell that is causing the breakdown of the kingdom and the building and... well.. pretty much everything. He will also tell you that she cast this spell at the Embassy, two days ago. I think our goal should now pretty much be clear - prevent the bitch from casting her spell and fucking everything up. Head for the Amphitheater - we're gonna see a play! <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Talk to one of the Flamewalkers (any one will do) and ask about the play - you will get to witness some more of the story, and are one step closer to being able to prevent this tragedy. You can also ask about the trial, to be told pretty much the same things we've already learned. This backwards time thing is confusing... Head back to Lothar's Citadel one more time. More cutscenes, more backstory, etc... Except this time you are caught 'eavesdropping', and everything here goes hostile. Ugh, now we'll have to kill him. Well, that's okay - I suspect we'll be back yesterday and he'll be fine. This isn't anywhere near as bad as you might think, and while I suffered some damage, it wasn't a big deal. Head back to the Fields of Slaughter Exit and... exit. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Back around to Archon, but this time have him take you to the Lava Mephit Lair. However, instead of going there, you get to witness the trial of High Sorceress Izbelah. Kill any Mephits that might be hanging around, and then pick the lock on the chest (x=2280, y=1840). ***ITEMS*** (x=2280, y=1840) Flamedance Ring x5, Angel Skin Ring x3, Potion:Firebreath, Horn Coral Gem x2, Aquamarine Gem, Shandon Gem, Garnet Gem, Dykhast Longsword(*1), Heavy Crossbow +4, Gauntlets of Weapons Expertise(*2), Bullets +4 x20, Arrows of Piercing x20, Composite Longbow of Dodging(*3), Arrows +4 x60, Holdfast Arrows x20, Arrows of Biting x20, Dart +4 x20, Dart of Stunning x20, 5932 Gold *1 Attack +2, Damage 1d8+4, 1% chance to blind target *2 Attack +1, Damage +2 *3 Attack +2, Damage +2, Dex +1, 2/- Missile Resistance <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Exit at the Fields of Slaughter Exit one more time, but make damn sure to save before you actually exit (just in case you need to replay this next sequence). Our goal now will be to prevent High Sorceress Izbelah from casting her spell, and it means we have to be quick. Head straight for Archon, and ignore everything else unless it physically attacks you (there are a couple of stray Mephits in your way). Have him take you to the Embassy, where you will have to kill High Sorceress Izbelah before she can cast the Temporal Stasis spell. Naturally, it couldn't be that easy though, could it. Your way will be blocked by a Remorhaz, along with some other crappier enemies. If you don't stop her, you will lose the game, with a message that you are caught in a time loop forever (you get the option to Quit or Load). See why I told you to save? Now here's a nice little bug that will work in your favor: the character with Boots of Speed will get to Archon first - once he requests the trip to the Embassy, the party will be taken there regardless of where they all are at the time. That saves a little time... She drops a Scroll:Suffocation, Fire Agate Gem x5, Spirit Essence x2, a Scimitar +4, and a Wand of Hold Person. Grab the loot and head for the exit at... you guessed it... the Fields of Slaughter Exit. Ice Temple Basement (AR4103) o======================================================================o 14) What the...? This game has more surprises than a millionaire kid's birthday party. We're back at the Ice Temple, watching Nickademus get into it with a nasty, evil looking demon. The bastard teleports you to the spot right in front of him too. What an ass... At least we arrive fully healed, which is good, because this Gelugon thing is kind of a badass. So this is the favor that he wanted - show up and kill things for him when he gets his dumb ass in trouble. Well, fine then... Follow him southeast down the hallway, killing everything in your path except the one thing we would really like to kill - him, for doing this to us. I mean it's not all that hard really, once that first thing is dead, but there are a shit-ton of various enemies here. Pretty much every container in the place has been restocked, mostly with Potions of Extra Healing, but it's still worth searching everything before you leave. Clear out the whole level, then exit up the stairs at (x=3600, y=2100). Note: I tried playing a few more ranks of the game here, but it is no longer playable. Poop... Before I return from whence I came, I level up Quala: She moves up to 10th level Sorceress, and adds a Charisma point. She takes her skill points in Search and Open Locks, and grabs Shroud of Flame for her new spell. o======================================================================o | | | Fields of Slaughter | | | o======================================================================o 1. Saablic Tan 2. Bluffing Blahg'mah 3. Acquiring Assistance 4. Sanctification Plans 5. Bitched at by a Lich 6. Ding Dong the Lich is Dead... 7. Freedom for the Elves 8. Elven Holy Waterfall 9. Big Enemy Group Equals Big Magic 10. Just to Piss Me Off Fields of Slaughter (AR6200) {WLK027} o======================================================================o 1) Well this is new... We arrive in the southwest corner of a new map. Since our only open path is northeast, I suggest we go that way. You will almost immediately be confronted by a mage named Saablic Tan, and he's pissed about your reign of terror on the Legion of the Chimera. Well, too bad asshole - it's time for you to die. He, of course, is a pussy, and leaves his minions to die for... err... I mean... fight for him. There's a Red Wizard here, and a Neo-Orog Priest, otherwise it's just melee. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Head north to encounter Blahg'mah, another butthole that thinks he's better than us. If you lead with a high-Charisma, high-Diplomacy character, he will take you to his leader, Kratuuk. Talk to Kratuuk and ask him a few questions, after which you'll be given a quest to destroy a Lich. Cool. He will give you the Orc Encampment Bone Key, which will open a couple places for us. Don't loot yet - we want to get our experience first for killing the Lich. We'll kill these guys later, and loot as much as we want... If you don't get the option to be taken to see Kratuuk, then you will have no choice but to fight. It's not all that difficult really - a web or two and a rain of fire will pretty much win this. The rest of the sequence will still play out pretty much the same, although you get to free the prisoners (and get the experience), and loot the camp right away. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) The gate is to the east at (x=1500, y=700) - open it, but don't go thru it yet. There are a fair number of enemies on the other side, and as always we prefer to deal with them a few at a time. I Web the area just on the other side of the gate, then follow with a Fireball or two. Once they're dethreatenized, you can kill them easily. Now I kind of have to surmise that we need to go southeast, since that's the only way open to us. You'll find a group of Elven Dread Warriors here, battling some Orc Dread Warriors. Only kill the hostiles; we need to talk to one of the friendlies. This means no Fireballs or other area effect spells that will turn everything against us. No big deal, these guys are quite easy to take down in melee. Find the Orc named Gorg, and tell him that Kratuuk sent you to destroy the Lich. If you didn't get the option to bluff Kratuuk earlier, you won't get the option to enlist the aid of the Orc party here. Experience lost... K'aos level up here, before the Lich fight. He goes to a 14th level Wizard and adds a point to his Intelligence; this gives him 6 points to spend on skills. He takes Concentration, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Knowledge (Arcana). He also adds some spells - another Magic Missile, Cloudkill, Globe of Invulnerability, and Mordenkainen's Sword. ***REWARD*** (for securing the help of the Dread Orc scout group) EXP 2600 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Now, where's that Lich? Well, the path turns southwest, so it's a fair bet he's down there. Heal up, spell buff, and generally get ready for the fight to come. If possible, include your new helpers in your spell buffs. As you start to move down the path, you will be auto-moved down to where M'darfein is (that's him... the lich... M'darfein). He will boast for a bit about how great he is, and an Elven Cleric named Saralon D'frayn will reveal his plan to sanctify the Fields of Slaughter using Holy Water. We even get some experience for finding this out, not that we really had any choice in the matter. I love free experience... ***REWARD*** (for discovering the Elven Cleric's plan to use Holy Water to sanctify the Fields of Slaughter) EXP 1950 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Can we kill this damn Lich now? Please? I mean I love the free experience and all (see my previous comment), but we have work to do. He will finally notice your presence and bitch at you for coming to destroy his home. Your home, you, and anything associated with you! Now, for the fight... He's going to disappear after only a round, so get in your first shots fast and hard - you want to do as much damage to him as possible in the very first round of combat. I wouldn't even bother trying to Turn Undead as he is simply way too high-level for that. Rushing him is just stupid and will get you killed. However, he's not gone - only invisible. Hit him as hard as you can in round two with more heavy spells and if you're very lucky he'll die; if not, then you could be in trouble. I used as many Disintegrate and other (hopefully) one-shot spells as I could, with a couple of Sunscorches thrown in for good measure. Loot all the bodies, but make sure to grab the vial of Elven Holy Water from the Elven Cleric. There's a lot of good stuff here; I'll try to document it as best I can. Note that the position will vary depending on where the character died. There is more than what is listed here, but this is what I could attribute; the rest consists of arrows, armor, and other assorted items. ***TRAPS*** (x=2270, y=2190) ***ITEMS*** M'darfein - Scroll:Disintegrate, Scroll:Acid Fog, Scroll Case Gorg - Backblighter(*1) Body - Viol of the Hollow Men(*2) Saralon D'frayn - Vial of Elven Holy Water, Boots of Speed, Chainmail +1, Warhammer +2, Large Shield (x=2270, y=2190) Scroll:Deplayed Blast Fireball, Bottle of Wine x2, Skull, Delnar's Delight(*3) (x=1660, y=2090) Star Diopside gem, Potion:Extra Healing x3, 174 Gold, Dart +5 x20, Philter of Purification x2 *1 Great Axe, Attack +2, Damage 1d10+2, 50% Fear, 50% Slow *2 A Bardic instrument, it can summon 1d4 Shadows 1/day *3 Quarterstaff, Attack +2, Damage 1d8+2, can cast Protection from Normal Missiles 2/day <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) If you managed to get in good with him earlier, return to Kratuuk and tell him that the Lich is gone. You'll get an experience reward, and then the ungrateful bastard will turn on you. Figures, doesn't it? Of course we were going to kill him anyway, so it's not like it really changes anything; it's the principle of the thing. Do something nice for someone and they turn all assy on you. Anyway... Get on Krayuuk early and hard - he is a priest, after all, and will make your life difficult if you give him the chance. His minions are tough fighters, but they're only fighters. I keep the party back by the gate and web/Entangle the whole area, then fire-fuck them all to death. Not that this fight is all that difficult, it's just fun to watch. ***REWARD*** (for killing the Lich for Kratuuk) EXP 3900 ***TRAPS*** (x=500, y=380) ***ITEMS*** Kratuuk - Horn Coral Gem, Scroll:Greater Shadow Conjuration, 220 Gold, Staff of Greater Spell Resist +5(*1), Black Goat Girdle(*2) (x=1200, y=350) Potion:Extra Healing x3, Potion:Hill Giant Strength, Scroll:Summon Efreeti, Bullet +5 x20, 55 Gold (x=500, y=380) Scroll:Control Undead, Corrosive Club +2(*3), Stunning Arrows +1 x20, Geloise(*4) (x=670, y=700) Mummy's Tea x2, Potion:Ghoul Touch, Bullet +5 x20, 230 Gold (x=800, y=900) Antidote, Potion:Extra Healing x2, Scroll:Hold Monster, Potion:Cat's Grace, Potion:Shocking Grasp *1 Quarterstaff, Attack +5, Damage 1d6 +5, +2 poison/round for 6 rounds, 3/- Magic Resistance *2 Regenerate 1 hit point every 3 rounds *3 Attack +2, Damage 1d6+2, plus 1d6 acid damage *4 This is simply a +3 Crossbow with a name <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Next, if you didn't do it before, we'll free those Elves that were imprisoned. Open the big gate at (x=1200, y=1200) and talk to Tsol Silverblade, the leader of this crew. For simply doing this, you get a reward. Coolsies... ***REWARD*** (for freeing the imprisoned Elves) EXP 2600 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Now there was something about this Elven Holy Water and a waterfall; I suppose we should see to that while we're here. As there is really no place left to go on this side of the map, return to where we killed the Lich and head east. The path will wind back around to the north, where you will find some less than dead things that need to be made more dead. Place the Elven Holy Water into the Waterfall at (x=3340, y=1600) and get yet another experience reward. The exit is to the north, but there is a large group of hostiles that is blocking your way. Make then less hostile (by killing them), and exit at (x=3800, y=1100) to the next (and final) area in Chapter 5. ***REWARD*** (for purifying the waterfall and the Fields of Slaughter) EXP 3900 Party Healed Fields of Slaughter Exit (AR6201) o======================================================================o 9) A huge fight is awaiting you here - Saablic Tan, Wanmok (big, ugly bastard), a Slayer Knight of Xvim, a Red Neo Orog, a Neo Orog Priest, an Elite Half Goblin, a Red Wizard, and who the hell knows what else. Webs, Fire Storms - I totally spell-fuck them all to death, only having to actually fight one in melee. Big group of enemies = big magic, that's what I always say (well, not always, but it sounds impressive). To the north is their camp with more loot; grab everything, and then go east. ***ITEMS*** (x=460, y=790) Flamedance Ring, Studded Necklace with Zios Gems (x=590, y=780) Gem Bag, Arrow+5 x20, Throwing Hammer of Thunder +2(*1) (x=690, y=730) Tiger Cowrie Shell Necklace, Angel Skin Ring, Potion:Shocking Grasp *1 Attack +2, Damage 1d4+2, plus 1d6 electrical damage, returning <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Up here are two Half-Dragons; I honestly think the writers only put them in here to piss me off. There's also a dead body at (x=1430, y=830) with a few nice things on it. Exit via the eastern edge of the map. So ends Chapter 5... ***ITEMS*** (x=1430, y=830) Potion:Extra Healing x2, Potion: Frost Giant Strength, Flail of Veranon(*1) *1 Attack +3, Damage 1d8+3, plus 1d6 fire damage, plus 10% 1d10 fire o======================================================================o | Chapter 6 | o======================================================================o | | | The Severed Hand Lower Levels | | | o======================================================================o 1. As Luck Would Have It 2. Greeting the Greeting Party 3. Jerre Stoh and the Immortal Demon 4. Ysha's Plans 5. Obtaining a Delegate Pass 6. Starving Slaves 7. Immortality Confirmed 8. Elemental Troubles 9. Moving On... 10. Library, Complete With Librarian 11. Vylu and Her Elemental Friends 12. Alterations 13. Test Subjects 14. Wizard's Tower Quest 15. My Precious 16. Delivering the Plans The Severed Hand (AR6300) {WLK028} o======================================================================o 1) You need two things to avoid a fight and get the max experience at the entrance: a very high Bluff Skill (15+) and a lot of luck. The skill is obvious; the luck comes in when determining which character will be chosen to answer. If it's the high skill character, you're good; if not, well... you'll still get some experience, but not the maximum. Oh, and you'll have to fight two Chimeras and several guards. If you are lucky, the dialog option of "I am a delegate from the east." will be option #1; if not, it will be #2. Either way, select that option and follow with whatever you're presented. You will most likely have to fight, and it's really a bad one. Chimerii are nasty, fire-spewing beasts, and your starting position puts you in range of their attacks. Ignore the guards and focus on the Chimera; first one, then the other. I draw my archers back a bit, while sending my fighters in to take on the one on the left; as soon as he's dead, I move away to the right and heal a bit before taking on the second one. There's an Apocoplytic Boneguard here as well, and he's arguably worse than the Chimerii, so he should get some 'extra attention'. Luckily, he doesn't get into range to attack for several rounds. Of course, you can always kill them even if you manage to bluff your way past, and this is an easier fight to win. Bluff the Guard Commander, move up to a spot in front of the western doorway, and take the fight to them. You're in a much better tactical position, and this fight is much easier when you can spell-buff first. Two Webs, a Firestorm, and a big ol' Fireball will turn much of the opposition to ash, and the Chimerii are the last to come into battle. They can't get to you (they won't fit), and you can rain fire down on them from a position of safety. The Boneguard is really the only thing here that takes some work, as he's immune to most things, but with everything else dead you can chop him up in melee. ***REWARD*** (for bluffing your way past the guards) EXP 1500 OR (for discovering that there is a Minister of Affairs) EXP 750 ***ITEMS*** (x=500, y=300) Spear-Impaler(*1) *1 Attack +2, Damage 1d8+2, plus 1 damage/round for 10 rounds, plus drains 1d4 hit points from target and adds to wielder (temporary) The Severed Hand Level 1 (AR6301) o======================================================================o 2) There are two entrances to the tower: one at (x=300, y=250) and the other at (x=750, y=100). Both enter in exactly the same spot, so it doesn't matter which one you choose. And, no matter what happened to you outside, you will have to fight in here. There is a Glabrezu Guard to your right and a bunch of lesser guards to your left - not a good spot to be in. Ignore the Glabrezu; he respawns, and is worth exactly zero experience. He will, in turn, ignore you provided you don't attack him. Fireball, Sleep, or some other area effect spell will make this a pretty easy fight. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) The inner ring of the tower is empty (now that we've killed all the guards), so I guess we'll have to start exploring the rooms on the outer ring. Head first thru the open archway to the southwest at about (x=1000, y=1650) and talk to Jerre Stoh. Ask him about the Glabrezu (the Imortal Demon) for some experience; you can also get some interesting intel on the state of things here - slaves, guards, etc. ***REWARD*** (for learning about the Immortal Demon) EXP 750 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Working our way north from here, the next room is occupied by a woman named Ysha. She is also a slave, and is upset that she screwed up the construction plans. Suggest that she alter them somehow, and she'll ask you to do it. Accept this quest and get the plans - this will be worth some experience later. Head north thru the archway into the next room. The only things in here are a worker hammering on the wall, and a pot with some loot. Grab it (the loot, not the worker) and continue north. ***ITEMS*** (x=350, y=900) Scroll:Cure Critical Wounds, Scroll:Neutralize Poison, Stunning Arrows +1 x20, Rage of Chaos(*1) *1 CURSED Bastard Sword, Attack +3, Damage 1d10+3 plus 2d6 to Lawful, wielder may go berserk <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Continue northeast into the next room, where you will find a door (x=1060, y=550). Open it and enter; talk to Xavier Torsend inside to get some intel, a much needed (i.e. required) item, and some very nice experience for doing mostly nothing. There's only one way to screw this up, so don't mention the slaves until last. You can go thru the other options in any order you wish, but once you go the route of making him understand that the workers are slaves he'll leave. Get all four of the rewards, then loot the cupboards. ***REWARD*** (for obtaining a Delegate Pass) EXP 750 (for learning the names of the people responsible for the war) EXP 750 (for learning about the imprisoned envoy) EXP 750 (for making Xavier Torsend resign) EXP 750 ***ITEMS*** (x=1180, y=440) Scroll:Fiery Cloud, Force Bullet x20(*1), Death's Bane(*2) (x=1400, y=420) Book:Hippogriff Riders of the Hand, Scroll:Summon Monster VIII *1 Damage 1d4+2, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere (Reflex Save negates) *2 Attack -4 (yes, minus 4), Damage 0 (yes, zero), heals 1d4/hit <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) Well, that was fun. We just got 3750 experience points, and we didn't do dick for it. Plus we have a quest - alter the building plans. And we now have a Delegate Pass which will get us thru this place without having to kill everything. Not a bad start, not bad at all... So, now what? Since we're almost halfway around the perimeter of this first level, how about we complete it? Go back to the inner ring thru the archway to the south and continue to the east. The next room, thru either of the doors at (x=1670, y=830) or (x=1900, y=900), has a group of workers in it. There is one you should speak to - Vashti Zerran - at (x=2230, y-790) to hear that the slaves are not getting enough food. Accept the quest to speak with the cook, and exit back to the inner hallway. Continuing clockwise, the next room has a table to loot, but nothing else. The next, and final room on the outer ring has workers, but nothing else. Go back out to the entrance. ***ITEMS*** (x=2600, y=1150) Spiritcaller(*1) *1 Axe, Attack +2, Damage 1d8+2, cast Inflict Critical Wounds 3/day, cast Shadow Conjuration 1/day <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Talk to the Glabrezu (x=1300, y=1500) with a non-Aasimar, non-Elf character and ask about the Severed Hand. You'll get some useless info and pretty much be dismissed. Talk to him again, however, and you can ask him about his task of keeping the workers enslaved, after which you can confirm from him that he is immortal. Make damn sure not to use an Aasimar to talk to the demon, or you'll end up having to fight him, for nothing. Return to the previous room and go up the stairs to the next level (x=1650, y=2000). ***REWARD*** (for confirming the Demon's immortality) EXP 750 The Severed Hand Level 2 (AR6302) o======================================================================o 8) There are more workers up here, led by one Roga Thulc, the Assistant Slave Master. Experience has taught us that we need to talk to people with names, so get to it. He will go on at some length about how they used Elementals to clear a lot of the debris, but that's also when "the trouble began". He then tells you about Vylu, who began hearing voices and then disappeared. She returned later and claimed she was a Genasi (the offspring of Human and Elemental). Then shit began disappearing and showing up in the elemental's room, but he's scared to tell anyone about it because he doesn't want Vylu to get hurt. He'll ask you to help him; accept to be given yet another quest. You can also get a shit-ton of information about the building, including the function of each of the floors and the kinds of people who live here. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Well, since we know that the kitchen is on the fourth floor (and we can assume the cook as well), that quest is for later. We have no idea where this Kav Lathram is to alter the building plans, so that quest is out too. Roga mentioned that Vylu was down in the library, so I guess we'll go and try to find her and see if we can't help this guy out. Go clockwise to the next room and grab the loot in the urn. Return to the inner hall and continue north (clockwise). ***ITEMS*** (x=840, y=1800) Stunning Arrows +1 x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) The next door (x=840, y=1600) opens into a reading room, and is occupied by Cedrin Zil, the librarian. He's useless, simply telling you to look around the library, Well we were going to do that anyway, so why did we need you to... never mind. North thru the arched doorway (x=630, y=1550) is the library; not much of one either - the bookshelves each only have one book, except for one which also contains a scroll. ***ITEMS*** x=170, y=1350) Book:The Last Alliance II-The Dwarves x=380, y=1200) Book:The Last Alliance VI-The Fall x=550, y=1200) Book:The Last Alliance I-The Elves x=420, y=1270) Book:Diary of Zaem Astyr, Scroll:Horrid Wilting x=580, y=1270) Book:The Last Alliance IV-The Dwarf Alliance x=580, y=1450) Book:The Last Alliance V-Echoes of the Fall x=470, y=1500) Book:The Last Alliance III-The Darkest Hour <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) North again from the library you will find the Elemental Room, where Vylu Prehv (x=480, y=980) is hanging out with her two Earth Elemental friends. She's obviously insane, and there's really not much that we can do for her - at least not at the moment. I guess we should go and tell Roga that his ex-girlfriend is a looney; head back to where we entered. Tell Roga that you found Vylu, and about her condition, and he will give you yet another quest - to find a priest on the fourth floor who might be able to help her. So apparently we've been converted from mighty adventurers into errand boys. Whatever... As our travels will take us there eventually anyway, we'll see what we can do. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Before we even think about any of that, we need to finish exploring this floor. Return north to where we left off and go thru the door at (x=1100, y=700). Well wha'd'ya know... in this room is Kav Lathram, the other guy we were supposed to find. This is the guy who can alter the building plans, and he seems perfectly willing to do so. The screen will fade while he does this (apparently he can only work in the dark?), and you will receive the altered building plans. Loot the barrel for a couple things we'll need soon, along with a very nice scroll, and exit the room. ***ITEMS*** (x=940, y=440) Virluent Agent, Scroll:Power Word-Kill, Stunning Bullets +1 x20, Ring of Nourishment <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) Well, that's one quest item obtained, but I'm not inclined to go back down to the first floor to complete it until we've finished our exploration of this level. To the east, at (x=1630, y=580), is Fynne and his apprentice Tasha. As you approach, you will be attacked by a Demonic Construct, who is pretty easy to kill. Make sure to grab his Tainted Demon's Blood, then talk to Fynne. You will be mostly ignored, while Fynne and Tasha talk about some kind of 'test, and make reference to you being 'test subjects', but you'll never actually get to talk to them directly. You do, however, get some minor experience for the encounter. They will then depart to spend some time at Flynne's cabin at the coast (there's an 'old pervert' joke in here somewhere, but I'm really not in the mood). Loot the bookcase, the table, and the cabinet for a few goodies. ***REWARD*** (for being unwitting pawns in a test) EXP 750 ***ITEMS*** (x=1330, y=350) Master's Robe(*1), Scroll:Meteor Swarm (x=1590, y=380) Scroll:Mind Blank, Scroll:Gate, Book:Diary of Garuk Katah (x=1780, y=460) Scroll:Stone to Flesh *1 This simple robe grants a +2 to Intellegence and +3 to Charisma. An awesome item indeed, if you're a Wizard or a Sorcerer. And it goes into the armor slot, meaning you can wear a Cloak of Displacement at the same time. Score! <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Continuing clockwise, you will next find Ruinlord Garuk Katah (x=2080, y=690), the asshole who's diary we found in the previous room. He will share some minor intel, but really nothing worth noting in detail. Continue thru his room back into the hallway, and head into the next room. In here is Vese Nejj, who is only partially visible. Why, you ask? Who knows... It doesn't seem to have any bearing on the next sequence, or anything else for that matter. Oh well, back to the story... He will refuse to answer your questions unless you agree to do something for him, and become a member of their order. We've been down this road before and came out okay, so why not? Just be careful not to piss him off and you will be asked to solve the puzzle that grants access to the Wizard's Tower. Well that sounds promising, so agree. Note that failure in the puzzle will kill you, but we've faced a thousand deaths so far and we're still here; I honestly don't think this will be that big of a deal - do you? There's no loot here, so continue clockwise around the inner hallway. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) The next door is at (x=2370, y=1600), and opens into a room with a woman by the name of Dracein. She is understandably upset by your sudden intrusion, and threatens to sic Precious on you. Precious is her pet Chimera, and we all the problem they can be, so maybe it's best to leave that for now. Render someone invisible, and then loot the bed and the northern table - DO NOT try to loot the middle table. First, it's empty; second, you'll get caught and have to fight Precious. We will be doing that later, so there's no need to go thru that pain now. Leave here and complete the loop back to where we entered the level. ***ITEMS*** (x=2800, y=1200) Scroll:Mass Dominate, Scroll:Summon Fiend, Potion:Freedom, Potion:Extra Healing, Robe of Enfusing (x=2990, y=1400) Chimandrae's Slippers(*1) *1 Dexterity +5. These go on Quala, which boosts her Dexterity to 27 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) Well, we now have a few items that should complete some of the first floor quests, so let's go back down and do that. Exit down the stairs at (x=1500, y=2030) and return to Ysha (x=420, y=1490) with the Altered Building Plans. Now I was hoping that this Ring of Nourishment would help out Vashti with her food shortage problem, but apparently not. It seems we need to visit the cook after all, who we know is on Level 4. So hang on to the ring and head back up the staris to Level 2, then proceed to the stairs at (x=1400, y=1350) which lead to Level 3. ***REWARD*** (for delivering the Altered Building Plans) EXP 1000 o======================================================================o | | | The Severed Hand Upper Levels | | | o======================================================================o 1. Impressing the Gelugon 2. Bonding Agent... James Bonding Agent 3. Nothing 4. Clearing Rooms 5. Clearing Traps 6. Slayer Knights of Xvim 7. Slayer of Slayer Knights of Xvim 8. The Kitchen, the Cook, and Demon's Blood 9. The Single Woman 10. Hatemaster Drothan 11. Riki 12. Completing Quests 13. Completing More Quests 14. Creating the Lethal Virulent Poison 15. Gathering More Intel 16. Poisoning the Guards for Riki 17. Excercise 18. Confronting Cedrin 19. More Experience Fun 20. Onward to the First Tower! The Severed Hand Level 3 (AR6303) {WLK029} o======================================================================o 1) This first step is another case of free experience. Head southeast across the bridge and talk to Yxbudur'zmutkimdu, the Gelugon Baatezu who is standing at (x=530, y=1430). Impress him with your knowledge of who he is, what he is, and where he is from; it's easy, just go with the 'Yes, you're a gelugon' option and you win. You can ignore the Lemures who are wandering around (again, we'll be killing everything in here at a later date). It is possible for him to not give you the dialog option for the free experience, and for you to have to fight. This option sucks, but if you don't get the chance, well... so be it... ***REWARD*** (for impressing the Gelugon) EXP 1500 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Since moving clockwise has been working so well for us in here, let's continue with that - head thru the door at (x=300, y=1150). This small anteroom has a lootable bookcase (x=410, y=760) that holds something we are definitely going to need later. There is no exit from here, so retrace your steps back to the stairs where we entered the level. ***ITEMS*** (x=410, y=760) Bonding Agent <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Head north around the inner ring to the next bridge, which has a door (x=1230, y=830). This opens into a large room with two Glabrezu Guards; they are not hostile, although talking to them gives you the impression that they could be. This room takes up the entire northern quadrant of the floor, but there is nothing here of any interest. So I guess we return to the inner ring and continue clockwise. Remember this room, as this is where the Final Battle will take place. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) Across the next bridge (x=1900, y=1100) are several hostiles. Well, they started it, so I guess we get to end it. This is not a huge fight by any stretch of the imagination, but to err on the side of caution, I start with a pre-emptive strike consisting of a Web, a Cloudkill, a Fireball, and two Fire Storms into the room. There's a couple Slayer Knights of Xvim in their party, and they can hit for some heavy damage, so take them out quickly. There is a fountain/pool in this room, but we do not yet have the item we need to complete this quest. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) In the southeast corner of this room is a door (x=2580, y=1500). Open it, but do not go thru until you disable the trap in the doorway. There is also a large floor trap across the main section of the room; you can disarm it for safety sake, but there's really no need as we are going directly across to the next door (x=2440, y=1700). This one is not trapped, and we can move thru this next room and into a small hall. The bridge to the north takes us back to the inner ring, but there are two doors here. Looking at the map, these are the last two rooms on this level, so let's get to it. ***TRAPS*** (x=2580, y=1500) (x=2300, y=1500) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 6) The first room, thru the door at (x=1650, y=1800) is occupied by two Slayer Knights of Xvim, and the doorway is trapped so let them come to you. This appears to be a bedchamber, or some kind of living quarters. There is a lootable container in the northeast corner of the room, but nothing else of interest. ***TRAPS*** (x=1650, y=1800) ***ITEMS*** (x=1860, y=1830) Ilmater Holy Symbol <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) The final door (x=1120, y=1760) is in a fairly awkward location, and this makes my uneasy. No traps up the small hallway, so that's a good start. The doorway is trapped, and there are two Slayer Knights to deal with, otherwise it's the same as the last room. There's a bookcase to loot for a couple of quite nice spell scrolls and another holy symbol. The stairs up to the fourth floor are at (x=1350, y=1600)... ***TRAPS*** (x=1100, y=1800) ***ITEMS*** (x=800, y=1800) Scroll:Iron Body, Scroll:Black Blade of Disaster, Iyachtu Xvim Holy Symbol The Severed Hand Level 4 (AR6304) o======================================================================o 8) We have several things to do up here, most of which involve finding and talking to people. I guess we should keep with the clockwise path that we've been following; head thru the doorway to the northwest at (x=890, y=960). This is the kitchen, and Miram is the cook we need to speak with about getting more food for the slaves. As it turns out, she only has limited supplies, and refuses to send more food. Although I do understand her dilemma, I'm not really in a position to do much about it, and killing her would be even worse (no cook = no food), so I guess we'll have to give Kav Lathram the bad news. Later... In the meantime, loot the room for a vial of Demon's Blood (in the kitchen? Really? I'm not so sure I'd want to eat here). ***ITEMS*** (x=320, y=900) Demon's Blood <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) The next open archway leads to one of the towers, and we're not even close to doing those yet, so pass it by and head for the open doorway at (x=1470, y=700). There is a single woman in here named Jaebrilla (well, I suppose she could be married; I meant that she's the only one here). She isn't very talkative, and mentions that someone close to her recently died, so I guess we can understand that she would rather just be left alone. Loot the urn in the northwest corner of the room and move on. ***ITEMS*** (x=1120, y=300) Scroll:Summon Monster IX, Scroll:Executioner's Eyes, The Black Hands of Shelgoth(*1) *1 This helmet places the wearer under the effect of a Death Ward spell while equipped, and can cast Inflict Moderate Wounds 1/day. This is a great improvement over any plain helmet. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Skip the next tower entrance and head for the next open doorway at (x=2030, y=970). In this room is a rather large man... err... thing... umm... creature, called Hatemaster Drothan. Now with a name like that you'd expect him to be rude and, well, hateful. He isn't though; as a matter of fact, he's kind of sad. Tell him that you found the diary of Garuk for some experience, then ask about the Globe of Essence for some more. Finally, ask about destroying the Globe. After all that, he just disappears... You know, I kind of feel sorry for him, what with the evil sounding name and all - he's really a rather nice guy when you come down to it. But I digress... There is another guy in here with another evil sounding name: Ruinlord Eradru. Despite his name, he too is a fairly nice fellow. And, being a priest, he will heal you (for a price). Go thru the question options in order to update your journal, and finally to gain a Potion of Mental Clarity to help out Vylu, that crazy demon woman on the first floor. After you're done talking to him, exit back to the ring hallway and continue clockwise. ***REWARD*** (for discovering the holy symbol is required to enter the Priest's chamber in the tower) EXP 750 (for discovering the secret of the demon's immortality) EXP 750 (for discovering the priest who can tell you how to destroy the Globe) EXP 750 (for finding a cure for Vylu) EXP 1000 ***ITEMS*** (x=2200, y=600) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) We are now going to reverse our path - the next two rooms contain creatures who want to kill us, and we have several quests to complete. Reverse your track and head back counter-clockwise around the inner ring until you find Riki (x=1170, y=760). If you talk to her with a Drow character, be careful; she is a Drow Matriarch, and doesn't take kindly to being spoken to as an equal by male Drow. Nevertheless, she will buy and sell some very nice items, and a Drow character may get slightly better prices. In particular, I pick up the Arc of Gold(*1) for Quala, along with a bunch of various +5 missiles and a couple of cloaks. *1 This bow has Attack +6, Damage +6... a nice bow indeed. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) Now we can finish off some of the miscellaneous quests we've been assigned as we've gone thru here. Head all the way back down to the first floor and we'll work our way back up. Start with the poor slave mistress Vashti Zerran (x=2230, y=790); tell her that the cook refused to help, and she will ask you to hide and try to spot the thief. You will be treated to a mini-cutscene where you indeed see the thief in action. As soon as the cutscene ends, head for the next room south of this one and talk to Zaem, the food thief (x=2600, y=1250). As long as you don't threaten to kill him, you'll finally get to a dialog option to give him the Ring of Nourishment - do so, and get some experience. Then head back and talk to Vashti again and tell her that the food supply is safe for another reward. ***REWARD*** (for giving the Ring of Nourishment to Zaem) EXP 1000 (for securing the food supply peacefully) EXP 1500 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) The first floor is now complete, so head back upstairs and let's go find that wacky woman Vylu Prehv (x=480, y=980). Give her the Potion of Mental Clarity, then return to the second floor entry room and let Roga know that she is okay. Ilana and Xanth level up for proceeding. Ilana hits 15th level, adds a Concentration point and takes the Improved Initiative feat. She adds Summon Monster VIII to her Domain spells, and Dispel Magic, Flame Strike, Iron Skins x2 (after dropping a couple of undead Wards), Fire Storm, and Mass Heal to her Claric spells. She is seriously a powerful force at this point. And speaking of powerful forces, Xanth hits 15th level as well. Two more points in Concentration, along with a Spell Penetration round out his skill and feat selections. For new spells, he takes Cloudkill, Acid Storm, and Finger of Death. ***REWARD*** (for curing Vylu Prehv of her mental illness) EXP 1000 (for informing Roga of Vylu's recovery) EXP 1500 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Almost done with this floor now too. Head over to where Dracein and her pet Chimera are waiting (x=2500, y=1700), and talk to her with a high Charisma character; ask if you can use her potion lab to mix a potion. She will agree, provided you have the Delegate Pass, and you can now access the table at (x=2700, y=1350) to create the Lethal Virulent Poison. Place the Demon's Blood (the plain one, not the tainted one), the Bonding Agent, and the Virulent Agent on the table, and they will automatically change into the desired potion. Cool... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Head back to the library reading room and talk to Cedrin Zil again. Show him the diary you found and he will give you a long story about a creature on the loose, and Zaem's experiments, and some other intel. He also mentions Jaebrilla, so I guess we'll need to talk to her once more. But first, head back over and talk to Kav Lathram (x=1100, y=500) once more. This time, you can ask him about Zaem and his experiment. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 16) So we now have a couple more quests, or missions, or tasks, or whatever in the hell you want to call them - they involve talking to still more people (or to the same people again). We killed Saablic Tan on our way to the Severed Hand, so talking to him is rather out of the question; I guess we should find Jaebrilla and see what we can find out. Head back up two levels to the fourth floor and go into the kitchen. Yes, I know... we were going to talk to Jaebrilla, but trust me, this is the next thing to do. Place the Lethal Virulent Poison in the food sacks at (x=870, y=750) and watch a cutscene as all the guards eat the poisoned food and die. Oh... and get some experience. Return to Riki (x=1170, y=760) and tell her the news of your success for another nice reward. Of course nothing is actually free, and she will ask you to do yet another task for her - you must speak with the imprisoned Priest of Ilmater in the War Tower to find out about the purification ritual in order to sever the ties between Isair and Madae, and their deity. ***REwARD*** (for eliminating the guards by poisoning their food) EXP 1500 (for removing the threat of the guard barracks) EXP 1500 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 17) Now we can go find Jaebrilla again. She knows little more than the previous people we've talked to about Zaem's work, however we do get a clue that we need to talk to that librarian again; apparently he knows more than he was willing to share. Now this is starting to piss me off; we've run up and down these stairs several times now, and even though we're in good physical shape, it's getting tiring. Oh well, one does as one must for experience rewards - head back down to the second floor. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 18) Head into the reading room across from the stairwell and confront Cedrin. Threaten him with your circumstantial evidence, then ask him why he did it. At this point you pretty much have what you need to get his scrawny ass kicked out of the enclave, but he seems to think that Vese will not listen to you. Let's go talk to him and find out, huh? ***REWARD*** (for solving the mystery of Zaem Astyr's death) EXP 1500 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 19) Vese is at (x=2710, y=930); tell him about Cedrin and watch as he Gates over to the library and kills the traitor. No experience for this, but I expect Jaebrilla will be grateful. First though, head back to the library and loot Cedrin's corpse for a couple nice items. Nice, that is, for a less powerful party - I can't make use of any of these things. I'm sure they'll sell well though... First, go and talk one final time to Kav Lathram to tell him about the traitor Cedrin, for which you'll get some experience. Then it's back to the fourth floor and talk once again to Jaebrilla to let her know that the man responsible for Zaem's death has been found and dealt with. She is grateful, and you get some more experience. This is fun! ***REWARD*** (for putting Kav Lathram's mind at rest) EXP 750 (for putting Jaebrilla's mind at rest) EXP 750 ***ITEMS*** Cedrin Zil - Bracers of Defense +4, Dagger +5, Shield Amulet, Cloak of Protection +2 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 20) We are as done as we can be with the quests, at least until we can get into the towers and talk to some more people. Our next goal is in the Wizard's Tower, and will begin a new section. Exit the fourth floor directly to the west at (x=400, y=1170). o======================================================================o | | | The Wizard's Tower | | | o======================================================================o 1. Rough Times 2. Solving the Puzzle 3. Non-Hostiles 4. Bedchamber Looting 5. Weenagoo 6. More Quest Items 7. Larrel's Bones 8. Vese the Welcher 9. Orrick (the Wizard, not the Vacuum) The Wizard's Tower (AR6400) {WLK030} o======================================================================o 1) It appears that this area has been subject to some rough times, what with being in flying pieces and all. There are five shimmering portals hanging in the air in front of you - clicking on them in the correct order will teleport you into the tower proper; this is the puzzle that Vese Nejj wanted us to solve. Clicking on any portal out of order will get you severely injured, so let's not do that, shall we? Thru some painful trial and error (and a lot of reloading), you can pretty easily figure out the the first correct portal is the one at the top - let's call that #1. Moving clockwise, skip one then click on the next one; as you click, a beam of fire will connect #1 portal to #2. Repeat this pattern by again skipping one and clicking on the next one; another beam of fire will appear. Repeat with the 'skip one then click' pattern to form a 5-pointed star of fire beams, ending where you started with portal #1. You will be teleported to the first level of the tower. Another way to think about this: number the portals clockwise, starting at the top, then click on them in the order 1,3,5,2,4,1. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) Now that we know the correct sequence, let's go back and report to Vese Nejj and get our reward - it will be easy enough to return here and continue on with more experience. Click on the single blue portal to be returned to the floating platform, then exit back to the main area at (x=270, y=780). Vese is on the second floor at (x=2710, y=930), waiting for you. Tell him the solution, after which he will require another task before actually granting you the membership he promised. What an asshole - I hate people that bait-and-switch you with promises of great things and then keep adding conditions to get them. Oh well, I guess we'll do his bidding for now, but he's going to pay for this. Return to the fourth floor, enter the tower, go thru the portals again, and pick up where we left off - on the first floor of the Wizards Tower. ***REWARD*** (for giving the puzzle solution to Vese Nejj) EXP 1000 The Wizard's Tower 1st Floor (AR6401) o======================================================================o 3) There is only one way to go from this room - thru the door to the north at (x=540, y=650). The Iron Golem in here ignores you, which is a Good Thing(tm), because Iron Golems are a pain to kill. Who wants to bet that he won't ignore you forever? Anyone willing to take that bet? No? Good - you're learning... Thru the door to the west (x=460, y=530) you will find a Gnoll, who is apparently one of Orrick's Apprentices... err... Apprentii. Whatever... He can't talk, but you can still get him to tell you where Orrick is by asking the right questions. He also remains non-hostile, so we will leave him be for now. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) The next door (x=560, y=450) opens into a small bedchamber with two lootable containers. ***ITEMS*** (x=590, y=230) Headknocker(*1) (x=590, y=310) Orrick the Grey's Spellbook *1 Club, Attack +3, Damage 1d6+3, 33% chance for 1d6 additional damage, 20% chance the target will become Confused (as the spell) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Continuing clockwise, the door to the next room is at (x=720, y=450). This room is empty, and as such was a waste of time. Continue thru the next door (x=800, y=550) to find three Apprentii, one with a name! Talk to Weenagoo to get some useless intel on Orrick's location (athough we do get a message that our Journal was updated, so that has to count for something, right?). One more door (x=730, y=650), one more Iron Golem to ignore, and a set of steps. Head upstairs... The Wizard's Tower 2nd Floor (AR6402) o======================================================================o 6) Ignore the Iron Golem and talk to Daku (x=430, y=650); as usual, he is decidedly unhelpful, but he doesn't mind if we "look around" so let's loot the containers in here before we proceed. Two of them are empty, but the other three have some items - one of which we need to complete Vese's quest. We now have two of the items we need for Vese, and I strongly suspect we'll find the third one up in Orrick's workroom on the next floor. So onward we go - up the stairs at (x=680, y=700). ***ITEMS*** (x=570, y=430) The Unstrung Harp(*1) (x=200, y=240) Tome of Ilmater (x=800, y=230) Orrick's Book of the Mythal *1 A Bards toy, this instrument can cast Heal 1/day, requires a minimum Wisdom of 13 to use. The Wizard's Tower 3rd Floor (AR6403) o======================================================================o 7) Since we're stealing his shit, it is best NOT to talk to Orrick yet. Instead, just grab Larrel's Bones and head back to Vese with the items he wanted. We'll come back here after that's done... ***ITEMS*** (x=780, y=350) Larrel's Bones <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Give the three items to Vese, and he will attempt to stiff you on his promise of membership in the enclave. What a dick! He will, however, offer you a tatoo, which amounts to a free Feat. You can choose from three Feats, and select who will receive it. Choose as you will; the choices are listed below. Great Fortitude: Grants a +2 bonus to Fortitude Saves Iron Will: Grants a +2 bonus to Will Saves Lightning Reflexes: Grants a +2 bonus to Reflex Saves ***REWARD*** (for returning the items to Vese) EXP 1000 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) Return to Orrick's chamber on the third floor of the Wizard's Tower. This time, talk to Orrick for several experience rewards. The easiest way thru this is to stick with dialog option #1 until you get the choice to say "I may have tipped the scales in their favor". Choosing that will net you the first reward. Continue thru all of the dialog combinations to get the max available. There is one more, but we can't obtain it yet so once you have these, exit back to level 4. We will be going into another tower next (x=2550, y=1180) ***REWARDS*** (for confessing your deeds to Orrick) EXP 750 (for finding out about the Radiant Pool) EXP 750 (for learning of the collapse of the Severed Hand) EXP 750 o======================================================================o | | | The Cleric's Tower | | | o======================================================================o 1. Yquog's Return 2. Ruinlords, Hatemasters, and Slaves... Oh My! 3. A Partridge in a Pear Tree The Cleric's Tower Entry (AR6500) {WLK031} o======================================================================o 1) If you left Yquog alive way back in Chapter 1 (WLK009), you will find him here. He hasn't gotten any stronger, but we have, so this should be a bit easier now. Oddly enough though, he doesn't go hostile right away, and you can offer him several dead things (a dead cat, a dead male body, and a dead female body) for some experience. Of course he goes nuts on you immediately afterwards, and this fight is anything but simple. He has four minions who will join the fight, but he is the threat here so you can easily ignore them until he's dead. He drops nothing of any real value (no magical weapons - only some gems and gold), and there's nothing to loot, so rest/heal if you need to and head up the stairs at (x=300, y=850). You will probably have to go back downstairs to rest, as you will be attacked by Fallen Bladesingers if you try to rest here. On the other hand, this is an awesome place to grind for experience if you are so inclined. ***REWARD*** (for flustering Yquog with your collection of dead things) EXP 1000 The Cleric's Tower 1st Floor (AR6501) o======================================================================o 2) Upon entering, you will witness the destruction of an innocent slave and then have to fight again. This time it's three Ruinlords and three Hatemasters. Three Webs, two Flame Strikes, and a Fire Storm in the very first round, followed by more fire-fucking in the second will almost win this by itself. The Hatemasters each drop a Staff of Corrosion and the Ruinlords drop Hammers of Bludgeoning +2, in addition to some gold and other minor loot. Make damn sure to grab the Iyachtu Xvim Holy Symbols from the bodies - we will need six of these altogether (one for each party member) to enter the portal at (x=600, y=750). Since we don't have that many yet, head up the stairs instead (x=350, y=900). Ghrax moves up to level 16 and gets a point in Strength (up to 20 now). He takes Concentration (as usual), and adds a Sleep spell. Fhornal is less than 1000 points away, and will be leveling up soon. ***ITEMS*** (x=580, y=580) The Cleric's Tower 2nd Floor (AR6502) o======================================================================o 3) For the first time in a long time, we are going to initiate a fight. We need to get the Xvim Holy Symbols from these idiots, and the only way to do that is kill them. Note that there are a lot of them here, so I start out with three Webs, two Flame Strikes, one Fire Storm (and a partridge in a pear tree...) to give me an immediate advantage. Now that they are immobilized, I can fire-fuck them again in the second round, then mop up the stragglers. There are two containers here for your looting pleasure - both are trapped and locked. The third floor opens to a landing with a door that we can't get thru, so there is nothing more we can do here. Head back down to the 4th level and proceed to the next tower. ***TRAPS*** (x=620, y=400) (x=680, y=420) ***ITEMS*** (x=620, y=400) Elixir of Health, Scroll:Gate x2, Returning Poison Tipped Dart (x=680, y=420) Garnet Gem, Aquamarine Gem x2, 673 Gold o======================================================================o | | | The Officer's Tower | | | o======================================================================o 1. Can My Friends Come Out and Play? 2. Boneguards Ignored 3. Circular Looting 4. Ring Around the... Um... Something 5. Bisbe's Garden The Officer's Tower Entry (AR6600) {WLK032} o======================================================================o 1) Exit the main area to the south at (x=1460, y=1930) and kill the two Chimera that await you in the entrance room. The door at (x=640, y=750) opens into a room with a number of enemies in it. Leave the party back in this first entrance hall and invite this new batch of "friends" to come out and play. Except, of course, we don't want them getting too close, so I cast a couple of Webs in the doorway to hold them in place. Follow this up with fire-based attacks, which will remove all the threats except for the Red Half-Dragon, who dies quite handily in melee. ***ITEMS*** (x=640, y=500) Book:History of the Dales and the Elven Court, Potion:Vocalize, Stunning Bolts +1 x25, 142 Gold The Officer's Tower 1st Floor (AR6601) o======================================================================o 2) Up the stairs (x=800, y=1000) are two Greater Boneguards, who will leave you alone if you do the same. I send a character in to loot the table in the room and then leave - no need for bloodshed here. Head up to the next level (x=850, y=1000). ***ITEMS*** (x=150, y=500) Cloak of Protection +2, Robe of Enfusing The Officer's Tower 2nd Floor (AR6602) o======================================================================o 3) This level is layed out entirely different than the previous ones. Proceed clockwise around the hallway to the first room and loot the containers within. The next room has a single lootable container - grab what's in there too. Continuing around the ring, the next room can also be looted. ***ITEMS*** (x=420, y=630) Force Bullet x30 (x=560, y=640) Scroll:Resurrection, Male Body (x=510, y=470) Scroll:Summon Efreeti, Elven Healing Wine (x=580, y=320) Potion:Ghoul Touch <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) The room to the east has a trapped barrel with a buttload of gold, like we really need money any more. Finally, the last room can also be looted to complete the circle. Head up to the next floor (x=500, y=850). ***TRAPS*** (x=810, y=530) ***ITEMS*** (x=810, y=530) 1420 Gold (x=880, y=610) Potion:Magic Dispelling x3, Skull The Officer's Tower 3rd Floor (AR6603) o======================================================================o 5) We enter into a lush garden-like area, with a little idiot named Bisbe running around. You can avoid a fight, and you probably should; killing him is just way too easy, and therefore beneath us. Loot the cache at (x=600, y=350) and head all the way back down. ***ITEMS*** (x=600, y=350) Male Body, Full Plate Mail +1, Arrows of Piercing x20, Bullets +5 x20, Composite Longbow of Empowerment(*1) *1 Attack +1, Damage +2, grants a random +4 bonus to an ability score for 5 rounds each time the wielder is struck in melee (only one at a time). Interesting, but not overly useful. o======================================================================o | | | The War Tower | | | o======================================================================o 1. Elite Entrance 2. I Am a Rock 3. Ormis Dohor's Antidote 4. The Blessed Ilmater Sanctification Ritual 5. Freeing Puddy 6. You're Fired! 7. Returning From Whence We Came 8. The Tears of Suffering 9. Performing the Sanctification Ritual 10. Purifying the Radiant Pool 11. Destroying the Globe of Essence 12. Reporting to Toral Sorn 13. Freeing the Slaves 14. Onward Thru the Portal 15. Securing Ormis's Aid 16. Clearing Out the Leftovers 17. Killing Captain Pudu 18. Yawn - Another Fight 19. Intercepting the Envoy The War Tower Prison (AR6700) {WLK033} o======================================================================o 1) The entrance to the war tower is in the hallway northeast from the main area, fourth floor, at (x=2000, y=500), and for the first time in a long time, we'll need to fight. Several Elite enemies are here, which include Half-Goblins, and Neo-Orogs. This is not a hard fight by any stretch, and there are several ways to approach it; almost any of them will result in a win. Personally, I cast two Webs and kill them with missile fire, engaging in melee only if/when one of them gets loose. ***ITEMS*** (x=520, y=580) War Tower Prison Key, Dead Cat, Book:History of the North <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 2) There is a Greater Feyr at (x=440, y=500), but he isn't hostile, so I leave him alone for now. To the northwest, north, and northeast are three cages, and I suspect having the key will allow us to open them. Start with the cell to the northwest (x=400, y=450); as soon as you open the door the Greater Feyr will go hostile and you'll have to kill it. Again, not a big deal... Talking to Carl is useless - for whatever reason, he thinks he's a rock. Try it - you'll see... Talk to Puddy Talltale and convince him that you're not an illusion, and that you freed him, and you'll get a nice reward. Fhornal gains his next level here, and adds a point of Wisdom; he takes Concentration and Knowledge (Arcana) for skills. He adds a Protection from Fire, another Fire Storm, and a second Finger of Death to his spell selections. ***REWARD*** (for freeing Puddy Talltale) EXP 3300 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) The next cell (x=600, y=360) has three Monks who have nothing to say, and a Lemure named Ormis Dohor, who does. He will tell you that he was transformed into his current state, and that there is an antidote. Agree to bring it to him, and move on to the third prison cell. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 4) In this final cell is Toral Sorn, a Cleric of Ilmater. He will refuse healing if you offer, and give you a quest to perform the Blessed Ilmater Sanctification Ritual. He gives you a rather detailed list of ingredients and instructions, and if you didn't have this guide you'd be hard pressed to remember them all. However, as you do have a guide, it will be a much easier task. So... we now have three quests to complete: get Puddy safe passage out, get the antidote for Ormis, and perform the Sanctification Ritual for Toral Sorn. Doesn't sound too difficult... <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 5) Head back to the Wizard's Tower (west from level 4) and let's see if Orrick can help get Puddy safely out of here. As it turns out, he can, and you get some experience for it. Return to Puddy to give him the news. Why so much experience for so little work? Who knows... Who cares, for that matter? Puddy leaves to meet up with Orrick, and Carl is still a rock. There's nothing we can do for him, and the rest of the quests require gathering items, etc, so head upstairs (x=350, y=750). ***REWARD*** (for finding a way to send Puddy home) EXP 750 (for finding safe passage for Puddy) EXP 4950 The War Tower 1st Floor (AR6701) o======================================================================o 6) The Lemures here seem to be content to ignore you, so let's talk to the one person here who is somewhat normal. Harcourt Rustblade is at (x=300, y=380), and if you talk to him with a character possessing a high Bluff skill you can get some minor intel. In the end, however, he goes hostile and you'll have to put him down, along with his Lemure friends. I found that fire-fucking them from the start has a detrimental effect on the Lemures - killing them all outright - and damages the two 'real' enemies badly, making this a pretty simple fight. Harcourt drops Viper's Fang +2(*1) and a Dead Cat, and Pustule the Sick drops Pustule's Flail(*2); between them you will also find a few other minor items, including some gold. Loot the torture rack and the iron maiden for a couple things we need. ***ITEMS*** (x=250, y=300) Bonds of the Faithful, Sphene Gem (x=400, y=200) Male Body, Female Body, Potion:Magic Dispelling, Robe of Enfusing *1 Dagger, Attack +2, Damage 1d4+2, plus 2 points of damage per second for 6 seconds *2 CURSED Flail, Attack +3, Damage 1d8+3, plus 2 points of damage per second for 6 seconds, 15% chance to cause Contagion on target. The curse causes the wielder to lose 5 points of Charisma. This sucks. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 7) Head up to the next level at (x=250, y=560), and kill everthing. By now you should know that a couple of Webs and a lot of fire equals an easy win, so get to it... The weapon racks contain some crappy weapons (Masterwork grade at best), however the table at (x=640, y=250) has a few nice missiles. Grab it all and head back down to the main area and go all the way down to the very first level of the Severed Hand complex. ***ITEMS*** (x=640, y=250) Sparking Bolts +1 x40, Arrows of Piercing x40, Corrosive Bullets +1, x20, Keen Flaming Burst Darts x20 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 8) Find Jerre Stoh again - he should be wandering around in the room southwest of the main entrance - and ask for the Tears of Suffering. He will gladly hand over this item to you, and give you some experience just for asking. We now have all the items we need to perform the Sanctification Ritual. Why didn't we get this earlier? Because we didn't know that we needed it until we had completed some of the other tasks. Go back to the Cleric's Tower (fourth floor, x=2550, y=1170). Quala levels up before heading for the Cleric's Tower; she moves to to a level 11 Sorceress, and adds 4 points to Concentration (Roguing skills are useless now). She adds Protection from Arrows, Protection from Fire, Emotion:Hope, and Lower Resistance to her spell selections. ***REWARD*** (for finding the Tears of Suffering) EXP 750 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 9) READ THIS ENTIRE STEP CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!!! There are five statues in this room (this is where we killed Yquog), and the cursor will change to the talking mode when you hover over them. We want to 'talk' to the statue second from the left (x=350, y=400). Place the items on the pedestal (the dialog option), then begin to read the words of the Sanctification Ritual (dialog option again). You will be interrupted by another of the statues - Iyachtu Xvim - who offers you an alliance. If you swear allegiance to him, he will prevent Isair and Madae from summoning their demons in the final fight. He wants you to slay ten slaves to prove your loyalty, and doing so will gain you some experience (and the benefit of not having to fight the demons in the final fight), but you will not be able to complete the ritual. Now it may seem like a good idea to remove the demons from the final fight, and you may do so if you wish, but I choose to complete the ritual. The rest of this guide assumes you did the same. When you refuse to ally with Iyachtu Xvim, he will appear in the middle of the room at (x=650, y=700), and a half-dozen summoned enemies will show up along the southern wall. This can be a bitch of a fight, but a little forethought and planning can make it a bit easier. There are three ways to approach this: Strategy 1: Place your ranged weapon characters at the base of the central statue, and your fighters in a line in front. When Iyachtu Xvim appears, cast a couple of Webs past him toward the south to tie up his minions and focus your efforts on him. Use your melee fighters and as much magical missile fire on him as possible until he dies, then mop up his helpers. Strategy 2: Switch to all melee weapons and arrange the party in a ring around where he will appear. Ignore the summoned creatures and quickly hack Iyachtu Xvim to death, then deal with the helpers. This is a bit more dangerous, as his summoned creatures will get to you pretty fast, and if you don't take him down right away they can make things rough. Strategy 3: Spread the party out around the perimeter of the room; when Iyachtu Xvim appears, hit him with a massive pre-emptive spell assault (he is susceptible to cold-based spells), making sure to catch his whole group in the effects. Attack 2:1 on him and the two Cornugons. This is even more dangerous than the first two options, but it can work. In all cases, Protection from Fire, from the Elements, and other strong protection spells will be very helpful. Iyachtu Xvim will use Sunfire, Meteor Swarm, and other high-level spells to cause some massive damage, and he himself is immune. Once he's dead, and all is calm again, click on the Ilmater statue once more to finish the ritual. The Iyachtu Xvim statue will be destroyed, and you will receive the Holy Water of Corelon Larethian, which we need to complete another quest. Iyachtu Xvim drops a Potion:Aid, a Short Sword of Flurry(*1), a Scroll:Executioners Eyes, a Mage Killer Throwing Axe(*2), the Scimitar of Souls +3(*3), and 2320 Gold. ***REWARD*** (for placing the components for the Ritual) EXP 4950 (for killing ten innocents) EXP 2475 OR (for completing the Sanctification Ritual) EXP 7425 *1 Attack +3, Damage 1d6+3, +1 attack per round *2 Returning throwing axe with a 25% chance to Dispel Magic on target *3 Attack +3, Damage 1d6+3, Dispel Magic on target (save vs Will), Energy Drain on target (save vs Fortitude) <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 10) Head back down to level 3 and go to the room with the Radiant Pool (x=2500, y=1000). Pour the Holy Water into the pool; you will see a flash, and then nothing except the message that the pool now seems calm. Head back up to level four and talk to Riki (x=1160, y=750). She is pleased, and now wants you to do another task for her - intercept the envoy from the Cabal of Dragonkin and prevent them from allying with Isair and Madae. It seems we need to get to the Aerie at the top of the War Tower. ***REWARD*** (for learning about the envoy from the Cabal of Dragonkin) EXP 750 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 11) Before we do that, let's destroy the Globe of Essence, now that the magic that protects it has been removed (the Radiant Pool). Head to level 2 and attack the Globe (x=2150, y=600). This will piss off the guards, and can be an ugly fight, but it's winnable. I suggest killing the guards first, because the Globe can't actually fight and they can. Stay back in the hallway and start with a couple of Webs into the room; this makes life difficult for the enemy party, and easier for you. Then follow with Fireballs, Fire Storms, Flame Strikes, Acid Storms, etc, to thin the herd, and let whatever is left over come to you (if they can). When they are all dead, grab the shit they drop and attack the Globe. You'll know when it's been destroyed by the little puff of smoke it emits, and the experience reward you get. Oh, and you will pick up a couple of nice swords - Greatsword of the Soulless +5(*1) ***REWARD*** (for destroying the Globe of Essence) EXP 1500 *1 Attack +4, Damage 2d6+5, drains 2d4 hit points from target and adds to the wielder (temporary). A very nice sword indeed! K'aos equips this for the final fight. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 12) By now you should have at least six Iyachtu Xvim Holy Symbols, and we can proceed into an area that was previously unavailable to us. Return to the fourth floor and head into the War Tower to tell Toral Sorn that the Radiant Pool has been purified and the Globe has been destroyed. We can now go down and free the slaves. ***REWARD*** (for purifying the Radiant Pool) EXP 750 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 13) This running up and down the stairs is getting old, but I guess we have no choice. Max experience and all, eh? Go all the way back down to the first floor, where the previously immortal Glabrezu Guard is now mortal, and man is he pissed off. Kill him (it's really rather easy) and go find Jerre Stoh again (he's wandering around in the room to the southwest). Tell him that the Globe is destroyed and that he and the slaves are free to go, and get some experience. K'aos grabs a new level here, up to a 15th level Wizard. He adds five points to Concentration and one to Knowledge (Arcana), and takes an extra point in Martial Weapon, Great Sword so he can use his new sword with greater skill. He adds another Shroud of Flame, and takes Horrid Wilting as his new 8th level spell. ***REWARD*** (for freeing the slaves) EXP 1500 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 14) Head back up to the fourth floor and enter the Cleric's Tower once more (x=2550, y=1170). From the entrance level where we destroyed the demon Iyachtu Xvim, head up the stairs to the 1st Floor of the tower (x=300, y=870). Equip the Iyachtu Xvim Holy Symbols (one on each party member), spell buff like you mean it, and head thru the portal in the middle of the room (x=600, y=750). There's not much strategy to this fight - you start out in a central chamber and are attacked from all sides, so just go nuts and hope for the best. If you can, try to run into one of the empty rooms; this will give you a slight advantage. Tyrannar Brutai Mar, the High Cleric, will drop several nice items, listed below. Make sure to grab the Monk's Antidote, loot the rooms, and exit at (x=380, y=880). ***TRAPS*** (x=740, y=340) ***ITEMS*** Tyrannar Brutai Mar (location varies) Mithral Field Plate Armor +2(*1), Tyrannar's Band(*2), Brutal Impact(*3) Brilliant Flail of Wounding(*4), Monk's Antidote(*5), 327 gold. (x=550, y=200) Elixir of Health, Potion:Minor Elemental Barrier, Potion:Extra Healing x2, Potion Case, Book:History of the Drow, Book:History of the Drow II (x=740, y=340) Antidote, Potion:Extra healing x2, Every God Ring, 185 Gold (x=900, y=320) Scroll:Resurrection, Elven Healing Wine x2, Spell Case, Scroll:Dire Charm, Tymora's Loop(*6) (x=900, y=500) Book:History of the Last March of the Giants, 120 Gold, Scroll:Creeping Doom, Longsword of Speed +1(*7), Aquamarine Gem (x=900, y=500) Scroll:Stone to Flesh, Scroll:Restoration, Gem Bag, Scroll:Otiluke's Resiliant Sphere, Aquamarine Gem, Scroll:Protection from Cold, Iol Gem, Bluestone Necklace (x=730, y=800) Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst *1 AC +10, Max Dex +2, Armor Check -4, Spell Failure 30% *2 Wisdom +2, Charisma +2 *3 War Hammer, Attack +3, Damage 1d8+3, increased chance of critical hit 33% chance 2d6 acid damage plus 10% chance extra 2d10 acid damage *4 No attack bonus, damage 1d8, ignore all enemy armor and shield bonus 1 additional point damage per round for 10 rounds, treat as +5 weapon *5 This is the antidote we need for the Lemure transformed guy in the War Tower prison. *6 Ring, grants +3 Luck. Whoop-de-do *7 Attack +1, Damage 1d8+1, 1 extra attack per round <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 15) Head back for the War Tower and the prison cells; give the antidote to Ormis, then head over to the Officer's Tower to intercept the envoy (fourth floor; x=1460, y=1930). ***REWARD*** (for giving Ormis the antidote and securing his aid in battle) EXP 1500 The Officer's Tower Level 1 (AR6601) o======================================================================o 16) Continue up the staircases until you come to the level with the two Greater Boneguards. Kill them, and destroy the rest of the inhabitants on this level. A couple Web spells just thru the doorway into the room will make things a bit easier, as will a Fire Storm. Kill everything and head up to the next floor, then up again to the top of the tower. The Officer's Tower Level 3 (AR6603) o======================================================================o 17) You will arrive in time to interrupt a conversation between Captain Pudu and some big ugly bastard named Vyxein. We need to make both of them shut the hell up, and the best way to do that is to kill them. A single Improved Haste spell won this fight all by itself - no big deal. Grab Captain Pudu's Key, along with the other crap he drops (does it really matter any more?) and head for the War Tower. ***ITEMS*** Captain Pudu (location varies) Half-plate Armor, Captain Pudu's Key, Pudu's Blight(*1), Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise, 104 Gold *1 Halberd, Attack +3, Damage 1d10+3, 25% chance to stun target, 50% chance 2d6 fire damage plus 10% chance 2d10 extra fire damage The War Tower 2nd Floor (AR6702) o======================================================================o 18) Head up the stairs until you come to the area with all the baddies still alive. This fight was so easy I'm not even going to bother with documenting it in any detail - Webs, Fire Storm, done. When they're dead, spell buff and head up the next set of stairs at (x=300, y=600). The War Tower Aerie (AR6703) o======================================================================o 19) This is it - the top of the tower, where the envoy is supposed to show up and where the final battle begins. In case you missed it at the end of the last step - SPELL BUFF! Throw on everything you possibly can that will still allow you to fight and cast spells. This is a big fight, and is still only the prelude to the actual final battle. When you arrive on the top of the tower, you will be confronted by a Red Half-Dragon by the name of Malakora. T'rsosl Malign, the real envoy, rats you out as imposters, and the fight in on. Here's your situation: There are four Half-Dragons to the north, and T'rsosl Malign with his henchmen to the south, blocking the stairs. Yep, that's right... you're surrounded with no means of escape. It also means that you can't use area effect spells, unless you're willing to suffer the damage as well. This fight takes a lot of micro-management; round-by-round is highly recommended. The Half-Dragons breathe fire, so jump on them right away; they're fairly easy to kill, and if you get a little luck on your side, you can get rid of at least three of them before you're too severely damaged. Then run off to the northeast edge of the platform and try to get a Web off to slow down the others. A Mass Heal, a couple of Fireballs and a Fire Storm will dethreatenize them a bit, and you can proceed to spell- fuck them to death. There are a fair amount of nice drops here, but none that are really of any use to us, so I'm not going to bother. Anyone who feels the need to document and submit this info, please do so (for full credit, of course). Now that we have prevented the joining of forces, we are ready to take on Isair and Madae, the ultimate goal of this whole endeavor. Rest, spell buff to the max again, and head down the stairs... o======================================================================o | | | The Final Battle | | | o======================================================================o 1. Well, Isn't That Special 2. Confronting Isair and Madae 3. Defeating Isair and Madae The Final Fight Begins {WLK034} <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 1) At the landing on the next level you will be met by Buvai de'Naly, who congratulates you on your success thus far, and informs you that Isair and Madae have 'put aside time in their busy schedule to grant you an audience'. Well isn't that special... Although, I suppose trying to take over the world is hard work, and requires a lot of attention, so I guess we should be honored. No matter what you say, you will be teleported to their location, and the FINAL FIGHT begins. The Severed Hand Level 3 (AR6303) o======================================================================o 2) But just like almost every arch-villain in the movies, they want to talk first. Why do they always want to do that? I mean really - you know they're going to try and kill you, and talking just gives us time to think about what we're going to do to them, so why bother? Jeezuz... Anyway... The dialog options are pointless, so choose as you will. They will end up arguing with each other about some nonsensical bullshit and then the fight finally begins. They will summon a bunch of helpers, and overall there are about a dozen enemies to fight. As with a lot of the battles in this later part of the game, there are multiple strategies: Strategy 1: Ignore Isair and Madae and kill Buvai de'Naly first (he's off to the east in the next segment of the room). Continue to ignore the two main enemies and kill everything else here, then go full force against Isair and Madae. Once one of them gets severely Hurt, they will retreat to the Radiant Pool room. Heal, re-buff, and head over there. Strategy 2: Focus on either Isair or Madae until they get to Hurt status, at which point they will run away to the fountain room (the ex-Radiant Pool). Buvai de'Naly will back away from the main fight and constantly summon new foes; kill him next. Clear the room of all that remains, heal up a bit, re-buff, and head for the Radiant Pool room. <----------------------------------------------------------------------> 3) Fewer enemies here - a Slayer Knight of Xvim, and the two assholes. They will summon some crappy Beetles and other minor distractions, but they are the main targets. Go after whichever one is Hurt first and kill him (or is it a her?). At some point, when your target reaches Badly Wounded status, Orrick the Grey will show up. Isair and Madae will disappear into limbo, and you will be told to get the hell out or suffer the same fate. Well, you don't need to tell me twice - we're the hell outa here! Ignore everything and run like the wind for the stairs; once you reach them, the game will end and you will have won! WOOHOO! ***REwARD*** (for defeating Isair and Madae and the Legion of the Chimera) EXP 7425 o======================================================================o | | | Version Updates {VER001} | | | o======================================================================o Version 1.01 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> * Added a few missed loot piles and experience rewards * Added section step titles * Broke up Dragon's Eye (WLK023) into three sections * Made a few minor changes to the party makeup * Fixed some spelling errors and other minor issues * Added detailed combat strategy notes to several steps * Added inline party leveling detail and loot disbursement * Added Skill and Feat descriptions and recommendations Version 1.00 <----------------------------------------------------------------------> * Original FAQ document o======================================================================o | | | Thanks {TNX001} | | | o======================================================================o *o* First and foremost, I must thank Haeravon for his encouragement and guidance while I wrote this guide. His dedication to the craft of FAQ writing is truly inspiring, and this guide owes its very existence to that dedication. While we have collaborated on several guides before, having our roles reversed for this one was truly a great experience. Thank you sir. *o* To Valdo, who play-tested the guide during its creation. You sir are also an extremely valuable asset to this work, and I am glad to call you 'friend'. *o* To Naranek Angmar (aka Duncan Clay) and Nailz, authors of two other guides I used during the development of the first version of this guide. I did not copy their material, nor did I follow their guides exactly as written, but it was a great help to be able to double-check my assumptions and strategic goals. *o* Last, but by no means least, my wife, who put up with endless hours of my absence during the course of this work. I love you. *** END OF FILE *** | http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/552350-icewind-dale-ii/faqs/68029 | CC-MAIN-2015-14 | refinedweb | 95,741 | 77.16 |
Sidekiq
Threads? In Ruby?
Threading in Ruby is something of a sore subject. On the one hand, threads in Ruby are super-easy to work with. If you want to execute something in a thread, you just create a new Thread object, handing it a block containing the code you want to execute:
Thread.new do STDERR.puts "Hello!" # runs in a new thread end
The problem is that people who come from languages like Java often are surprised to hear that although Ruby threads are full-fledged system threads, they also have a global interpreter lock (GIL), which prevents more than one thread from executing at a time. This means that if you spawn 20 threads, you will indeed have 20 threads, but the GIL acts as a big mutex, ensuing that no more than one thread is executing simultaneously. Thread execution typically switches for I/O, and given that nearly every program uses I/O on a regular basis, this almost ensures that each thread will be given a chance to execute.
I should note that Ruby isn't the only language with these issues. Python also has a GIL, and Guido van Rossum, Python's creator, has indicated that although he certainly wants Python to support threading, he personally prefers the ease and security of processes. Because processes don't share state, they are less prone to difficult-to-debug problems, without sacrificing too much in execution speed.
Sidekiq is threaded, but it uses a different model for threads than most Rubyists are used to. It uses Celluloid, an "actor-based" threading system that packages the threads inside objects, avoiding most or all of the issues associated with threads. Moreover, Celluloid expects to run in JRuby or Rubinius, two alternative Ruby implementations, which have true threading and lack the GIL. Celluloid-based applications, such as Sidekiq, will work just fine under the standard Ruby interpreter, known as the MRI, but you won't enjoy all of the speed or threading benefits.
Using Sidekiq
Now, let's see how this overview of a delayed job can be implemented in Sidekiq. First and foremost, you'll need to install the Redis NoSQL store. Redis is available from a variety of sources; I was able to install it on my Ubuntu-based machine with:
apt-get install redis # check this
Once Redis is installed, you'll want to install the "sidekiq" gem. Again, it'll give you the best functionality if you run it under JRuby or Rubinius, but you can run it under the standard Ruby interpreter as well. Just realize that the threads will give you non-optimal performance. You can install the gem with:
sudo gem install sidekiq -V
If you're running the Ruby Version Manager (RVM), as I do, you don't want to install the gem as root. Instead, you should just type:
gem install sidekiq -V
(I always like to use the
-V flag, so I can see the details of
the gem as it is installed.)
You can use Sidekiq in any Ruby application. However, most of my work is in Rails, and I imagine you're going to want to use it in Rails, Sinatra or a similar Web application. Thus, let's create a simple Rails application so you can try it:
rails new appointments
Within the new "appointments" directory, you'll then create an "appointment" resource with scaffolding—a combination of model, controller and view that can get you going quickly:
rails g scaffold appointment name:text ↪meeting_at:timestamp notes:text
Once that is done, you have to run the migration, creating the appropriate "appointments" table in your database. In this case, because you didn't specify a database, you'll use SQLite, which is good enough for this toy example.
Now you can fire up your application (
rails s) and go to
/appointments. From that URL, you can create, view, edit and delete
appointments. However, the point is not to create appointments, but rather
delay the execution of something having to do with them. Let's do
something extremely simple, such as sending e-mail:
rails g mailer notifications
Inside app/mailers/notifications.rb, add the following method:
def appointment_info(person, appointment) @person = person @appointment = appointment mail(to:person.email, subject:"Appointment update") end end
And, inside app/views/notifications/appointment_info.html.erb, write the following:
<p>Hello! You have an appointment with <%= @person %> at <%= @appointment.meeting_at %>.</p>
Finally, let's tie it all together, sending your notification, from within your AppointmentWorker class. There's no rule for where the file defining such a class needs to be put, but it seems increasingly standard to have it in app/workers, in part because files under app are all loaded when Rails starts up:
class AppointmentWorker include Sidekiq::Worker def perform(appointment) Notifications.deliver_appointment_info(appointment) end end
Notice several things here. First, the class doesn't inherit from anything special. Sidekiq doesn't use inheritance, but rather has you include a module—a class without instances, in Ruby—whose methods then are available to instances of your class. This is how the perform_async method is defined on you class. Through a little bit of magic, importing a module can define both class and instance methods.
Now all you have to do is change your controller, such that after you create a report, you also send a notification:
AppointmentWorker.perform_async(@appointment)
Notice that you're not passing the ID of the appointment, but the appointment object itself! Sidekiq uses Ruby's built-in serialization facility to store nearly any sort of object, not just numeric IDs. The object and method call are stored in Redis, until they are retrieved by a Sidekiq process.
Indeed, that's the final part of Sidekiq that you need to get in place: the back-end process that will look through the delayed jobs, running each one in turn as it gets to them. Fortunately, running that is as easy as:
bundle exec sidekiq
Yup, that's all you need to do. True, there are some options you can set, but generally speaking, this starts up a Sidekiq server that looks at the current queue (as stored in Redis), grabs a job off the queue and processes it. You can configure Sidekiq to run with a timeout or with a specified number of retries, and you even can say how many concurrent workers (that is, threads) you want to be working simultaneously.
Remember that although these are indeed threads, Sidekiq (via Celluloid) ensures that they don't have any state in common. Of course, you need to be sure that your worker methods are thread-safe, such that even if a worker gets through 90% of its job and is then halted, it'll be able to restart without any penalties or errors. Thus, your processes must be transactional, just as you would expect from a database query.
There are other ways to schedule Sidekiq jobs, besides defining methods within a module, as in the above example. If there's an existing method that you want to run as a background process, just insert the "delay" method before the actual method call. That is:
my_object.delay.do_something_big
If you are using Rails and the built-in ActiveSupport module for easy time descriptions, you even can do something like this:
my_object.delay_for(5.days).do_something_big
Conclusion
Sidekiq has become quite popular in the Ruby community since it was released, in no small part because of its high performance, easy installation and ease of use. It also works with commercial hosting services, such as Heroku, assuming that you first install a Redis instance.
Working with delayed jobs changes your perspective of the Web somewhat—you realize that not everything needs to take place immediately. Rather, you can delay certain jobs, putting them in the background, allowing your Web server to respond to users faster than otherwise would be the case. And, when speed is such a crucial element of Web application success, prudent use of Sidekiq likely will make a big difference.
Resources
The Sidekiq home page is at. Although Sidekiq.org does point to a commercial version, the basic version is still free and open source, with the source code available on GitHub at, including a Wiki containing a great deal of useful information.
Mike Perham, the author of Sidekiq, describes the actor-based model in a blog post:.
Finally, given that Sidekiq uses Redis, you likely will want to read more about this high-performance NoSQL database,:-... | http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/sidekiq?page=0,1&quicktabs_1=1 | CC-MAIN-2017-13 | refinedweb | 1,422 | 58.72 |
scan-and-scroll doesn't work from Docker with a ElasticSearch cluster placed outside
Currently I use Docker with an ElasticSearch cluster, which is placed outside the container.
From my docker I manage to create a mapping (so my ip it’s good), and I manage to launch simple request in python language.
def getBodyOfRoot(self, id): res = self.es.get(index=self.ES_Index, doc_type=self.ES_Type, id=id) return res['_source']
this example works well in my host AND in Docker.
But when I launch my scan-and-scroll from Docker, I don’t get a response, but from my native OS, I get a response.
If you have already met this problem, how did you manage to solve it ?
Thanks in advance.
One Solution collect form web for “scan-and-scroll doesn't work from Docker with a ElasticSearch cluster placed outside”
Try to issue the scan and scroll from your Docker container using cURL:
curl -XGET -d ' { "query": { "match" : { "title" : "elasticsearch" } } } ' | http://dockerdaily.com/scan-and-scroll-doesnt-work-from-docker-with-a-elasticsearch-cluster-placed-outside/ | CC-MAIN-2018-26 | refinedweb | 164 | 61.67 |
Are you sure?
This action might not be possible to undo. Are you sure you want to continue?
The Open Your Bible Commentary was written to encourage daily Bible study. Each reading is short, but the content is rich with careful explanation, devotional warmth, and practical relevance. Its four great strengths are that it is accessible, digestible, dependable, and practical. The Open Your Bible Commentary is in two books, each containing nearly 1,000 daily readings.
What sets this commentary apart from others are the pastor-teachers who wrote it. The list of authors is like a Who’s Who of evangelical scholarship, including F.F. Bruce, Leon Morris, William L. Lane, and others.
PAGE BY PAGE
Do you want to grow closer to God and stronger in your Christian faith?
There’s no better way to make that happen than frequent and regular reading of God’s Word.
The Open Your Bible Commentary was written to encourage your daily Bible reading. Each reading is short, but don’t let the brevity fool you! The content is rich with careful explanation, devotional warmth, and practical relevance to your life.. The list is like a Who’s Who of evangelical scholarship.. It will help you to
Discover the content of the Bible
Understand the truths of the Bible
Apply the message of the Bible
The complete Open Your Bible Commentary is in two books, each containing nearly 1,000 daily readings.
Old Testament
Print edition, ISBN 978-1-909680-02-9
Ebook edition, ISBN 978-1-909680-22-7
New Testament
Print edition, ISBN 978-1-909680-03-6
Ebook edition, ISBN 978-1-909680-23-4
Or you can get smaller sections as ebooks
The Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy)
David F. Payne and Derek Kidner
ISBN 978-1-909680-24-1
$3.99
The Historical Books (Joshua to Esther)
H.L. Ellison, I. Howard Marshall, and J. Stafford Wright
ISBN 978-1-909680-25-8
$3.99
The Wisdom Books (Job to Song of Solomon)
J. Stafford Wright, H.L. Ellison, and Arthur E. Cundall
ISBN 978-1-909680-26-5
$3.99
The Major Prophets (Isaiah to Daniel )
Arthur E. Cundall and J. Stafford Wright
ISBN 978-1-909680-27-2
$3.99
The Minor Prophets (Hosea to Malachi)
John B. Taylor
ISBN 978-1-909680-28-9
$1.99
Matthew, F.F. Bruce
ISBN 978-1-909680-29-6
$1.99
Mark, I. Howard Marshall
ISBN 978-1-909680-30-2
$1.99
Luke, E. M. Blaiklock
ISBN 978-1-909680-31-9
$1.99
John, Robin E. Nixon
ISBN 978-1-909680-32-6
$1.99
Acts, Ralph P. Martin
ISBN 978-1-909680-33-3
$1.99
Romans, E. M. Blaiklock
ISBN 978-1-909680-34-0
$1.99
1 & 2 Corinthians, Ralph P. Martin
ISBN 978-1-909680-35-7
$1.99
The Shorter Letters of Paul (Galatians to Philemon), Ralph P. Martin, William L. Lane, and Leon Morris
ISBN 978-1-909680-36-4
$1.99
Hebrews to Revelation, Leon Morris and H. L. Ellison
ISBN 978-1-909680-37-1
$1.99
As a Bible teacher and college principal, I am regularly asked for advice about which is the best resource for reading and understanding the Bible. Many of us may be familiar with the Gospels, and perhaps Paul’s epistles. But we may become a little more vague when trying to work out what Leviticus or Zephaniah has to do with either Jesus or being a twenty-first-century Christian. Well, here you will find help and guidance from trusted scholars on how to hear and correctly handle the very words of God. The Open Your Bible Commentary has four great strengths:
Accessible. These studies address the average, thoughtful Christian without assuming a great deal of background information, yet they are never superficial. After all, the Lord Jesus commanded his apostles to feed his lambs and sheep and not his giraffes! In other words, this book is an excellent teaching tool.
Digestible. No study section is overly long. The assumption is that we can read through a section or two a day without getting indigestion. However, the
little and often approach means we can systematically work our way through a whole book over a number of days or weeks. One writer who worked on a commentary on Isaiah for some thirty years said he felt like a very small mouse trying to digest a very large and extremely succulent cheese. Well, here you can enjoy every mouthful of every Bible book!
Dependable. A team of internationally renowned theologians, Bible scholars and experienced pastor-teachers has written these studies. You are in safe hands as you read their contributions.
Practical. Sometimes, preachers are in danger of being too general in applying Scripture. The result is that the hearers can feel perpetually guilty to pray more, read more, give more and witness more than they do. One of the benefits of these studies is the diversity and subtlety of the applications suggested. Sometimes, things are clearly spelt out; other times, one is left to ponder for oneself.
What shall I do, Lord? (Acts 22:10) is always a fitting response when I meet the Risen Lord.
As a very young Christian, I was first introduced to this amazing series through a recommendation from a pastor who simply said that the money he had paid for the study guide on Psalms was the best he had ever spent! How right he was! Come and enjoy!
Dr Steve Brady
Moorlands College
Christchurch, UK
What sets this daily commentary apart from others is the pastor-teachers who wrote it. The list is like a Who’s Who of evangelical scholarship:
E. M. Blaiklock, chair of Department of Classics at Auckland University, Greek scholar, and Christian apologist
F. F. Bruce,
dean of evangelical scholars, head of Department of Biblical History and Literature at the University of Sheffield and Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism at University of Manchester
H. L. Ellison, Bible expositor and tutor at London Bible College, Spurgeon’s Theological College, Cambridge University, and Moorland College.
William L. Lane, American theologian and professor of biblical studies at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Western Kentucky University, and dean of the School of Religion at Seattle Pacific University. He served on the translation teams of the New American Standard Bible and the New International Version.
I. Howard Marshall, professor emeritus of New Testament Exegesis, University of Aberdeen, former chair of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians. His wife was president of Evangelical Seminary in Hong Kong.
Ralph P. Martin, taught at London Bible College, University of Sheffield, Azusa Pacific University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. He is known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the New Testament.
Leon Morris, perhaps Australia’s most prolific biblical author, warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge, principal of Ridley College, Melbourne, Australia, and visiting professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Illinois.
Robin E. Nixon, principal of St John’s College, Nottingham.
With introductory articles by
Harold H. Rowdon, teacher at London Bible College and historian
Donald Guthrie, lecturer at London Bible College, and New Testament scholar. He wrote numerous books including New Testament Introduction and New Testament Theology.
Pieter Lalleman, tutor and Academic Dean at Spurgeon’s College
Introduction
Authors
Reviser’s Introduction
Abbreviations
The World of the New Testament
The Teaching of the Gospels
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts
The Teaching Of The Letters & Revelation
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation
Thank You, Scripture Union
More ebooks to help you
These studies are a sensitively edited version of Bible Study books originally published by Scripture Union. The intention of that series was to encourage the daily study of the Bible at greater depth than was possible with Bible Study notes. This allowed fuller discussion of introductory, textual and background material, whilst still aiming at devotional warmth, sound exegesis and relevance to daily life.
The authors of the original studies were given a liberty of approach within the general scope of the series. This provides for a certain variation which it is hoped will prove stimulating rather than disconcerting. All authors are united within the circle of conservative evangelical scholarship.
This text may be used with the New International Version (NIV), the English Standard Version (ESV), or indeed with any version of the Bible.
The principal aim of these studies is to stimulate daily Bible study as an aid to personal devotion and application to life in the firm belief that
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV).
Martin H. Manser
Bible versions referred to in this book
ESV – English Standard Version
GNT – Good News Translation
JBP – J.B. Phillips New Testament in Modern English
KJV – King James Version (Authorized) 1611
NASB – New American Standard Bible
NCV – New Century Version
NEB – New English Bible
NIRV – New International Reader’s Version
NIV – New International Version
NJB – New Jerusalem Bible
NKJV – New King James Version
NLT – New Living Translation
NRSV – New Revised Standard Version
RSV – Revised Standard Version
RV – Revised Version (1885)
TM – The Message
Standard Abbreviations
c. – (circa) about
eg – for example
f. – verse following
ff. – verses following
Gk. – Greek
Heb. – Hebrew
ie – that is
LXX – Septuagint (Greek Version of the O.T.)
p. – page
pp. – pages
HAROLD H. ROWDON
The World of the New Testament was not the geographical world, but the Roman world, an enormous area stretching from Spain all the way around the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa. Its supreme ruler was the emperor. Technically he was no more than first citizen, but his power was supreme. He was commander-in-chief of the armed forces, his instructions acquired the force of law and he possessed powers which gave him the right of legal veto and jurisdiction to hear appeals.
The Roman empire consisted of some forty provinces which fell into two categories. Those which were situated in frontier or unsettled areas were under the authority of the emperor. They were governed by senatorial legates with the title of pro-praetor, or by nobles who were known as prefects or procurators. All were directly responsible to the emperor. More settled provinces were ruled by proconsuls appointed by, and responsible to, the Roman senate. This was an old established institution going back to Rome’s republican days which still retained some power under the empire.
The Roman world was plentifully supplied with cities. Many of them had been founded in the days of the Greek empire. They served as centers of government and administration, contained lavish provision for recreation and social communication, light industry and trade, and provided a kind of focus for the surrounding countryside. In some ways they were rather like English market towns. They contained many voluntary associations, or guilds, which brought together people with common interests in matters of business or social life. The banquets held by such associations, like the general civic festivals, contained religious overtones and created problems of conscience for Christians. Citizenship of a notable city was a source of special pride. The holding of municipal office might carry with it Roman citizenship. This was also given in recognition of outstanding services to the empire, and might be purchased.
Some cities which were formed by settlements of Roman citizens, often discharged soldiers, were known as coloniae. Others, which had been free cities before they were incorporated into the Roman empire, were allowed to retain their independent status, and were termed municipiae.
Radiating from the city of Rome was a superb system of roads which was better than anything before or since till the eighteenth century. Built for military purposes, they were maintained at the public expense and provided a unique system of communications – even if the motive power was only horsepower! Travel by sea was also relatively easy, because the Mediterranean had been almost entirely cleared of pirates. Navigational aids were few, however, and it was necessary to sail very close to the coast. Travel by sea was hazardous in bad weather and impossible in winter.
Judea had been incorporated into the Roman empire during the first century BC. Herod, son of Antipater, an Idumean who had been appointed procurator by Julius Caesar, ingratiated himself with Rome and was given the title of King of Judea. He tried to secure Jewish support by marrying Mariamne, heiress of the Jewish priestly house, and by rebuilding the temple on a magnificent scale. But he also built a temple to Augustus in Samaria and founded the city of Caesarea in honor of Caesar. He created a new nobility of royal officials, and there emerged among the Jews a party of Herodians.
On Herod’s death in 4 BC, the three of his sons who had survived the murderous intrigues of his reign succeeded to his domain. Philip ruled the area northeast of Galilee. Herod Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee, with Perea, east of the river Jordan. He built Tiberias in honor of the Roman emperor of that name, but lived as a practicing Jew and even showed some regard for John the Baptist. Antipas was married to the daughter of Aretas, king of Nabatea, but this did not deter him from forming a liaison with Herodias, who was daughter of one of his half-brothers and wife of another. On the death of the emperor Tiberius, Antipas petitioned Caligula, his successor, for the title of king. Instead, he was banished on the ground of treasonable charges that had been brought against him by his nephew, Herod Agrippa I, who was rewarded by being given the territory ruled by Antipas.
Judea and Samaria, the greater part of Herod the Great’s kingdom, went to his son Archelaus. He proved a thoroughly incompetent and unpopular ruler who managed to clear himself from one set of charges by a personal visit to Rome, but was eventually deposed in AD 6.
After that date, Judea was placed under the control of a succession of Roman procurators responsible to the emperor, except the years AD 41–44 when almost all the territory once ruled by Herod the Great was entrusted to Herod Agrippa I. He made a bid for Jewish support by persecuting the Christians, until his sudden death, recorded in Acts 12. The procurators, of whom Pontius Pilate was one (AD 26–36), resided in Caesarea, but in times of potential unrest, such as the Jewish feasts, made their headquarters in Jerusalem. They commanded a standing army of 3,000 men who were recruited from the non-Jewish sector of the population. One cohort was stationed in Jerusalem in the castle of Antonia which had been built by Herod and overlooked the temple. The procurator was responsible for taxation as well as law and order, but in general the Jews were self-governing.
Judaism was not confined to Palestine. Far from it: from the time of the Old Testament exiles, the Jews had become widely dispersed in the ancient world. In the first century AD there were probably more Jews outside Palestine than within it. In some cities they constituted a sizable proportion of the population. The Jews of the dispersion practiced their religion, though in a modified form. Synagogue worship, with its prayers to Jehovah, Scripture reading and exposition, and lofty moral teaching, attracted numerous Gentiles. Those who did not become Jewish proselytes – and they were many – often proved receptive to the Christian message.
The ancient world was exceedingly religious. As a topic of conversation, religion was an excellent starter! It pervaded every aspect of life, political, social and family as well as personal. It was like cement which did almost as much to bind together a heterogeneous empire as the military power of Rome.
State religion was polytheistic, and often purely formal. It was concerned with retaining the favor of the gods by showing them due honor. Since first-century religion was essentially syncretistic, it was not difficult to equate the traditional gods of Rome – Jupiter, Mars, Minerva and the rest – with Zeus and the other gods of Greece. The worship of the state gods was essentially civic, and all loyal citizens were expected to be present at festivals in honor of the gods.
The first century saw the development of another form of state religion, even more sinister from the Christian point of view. The emperor came to be regarded as a kind of incarnation of the spirit of the imperial dynasty, and the savior and lord of Rome. Highly successful emperors, like Augustus and Vespasian, came to be included in the number of those who should be worshiped as divine. From the end of the first century, emperors came to expect divine honors during their lifetime, if only as a token of loyalty to the Roman empire.
There were innumerable forms of private religion. Diana of the Ephesians enjoyed a wide vogue. Asclepius, god of healing, was almost a universal favorite. Lares and Penates, symbolic of hearth and home, called forth the religious devotion of many families. Religious practices merged into the magical. In the countryside, religion was almost animistic. Shrines were set up wherever there was some manifestation of life or power, such as a spring of water, a range of mountain peaks or a grove of ancient trees. To such shrines offerings of milk, cheese, grain or flowers were brought.
The first century saw the introduction into the Roman empire of new religions from the east, particularly the mystery religions with their sacred myths and their promise of
rebirth for eternity. Their initiation ceremonies included purifications, robings and sacramental meals. They bear superficial resemblances to Christianity, but their main importance is as witnesses to something approaching a spiritual vacuum.
As a rule, Rome allowed individuals freedom to practice private religion unhindered, provided it was not antagonistic to the official cult, politically subversive or grossly immoral. It was taken for granted that the devotee would continue to observe the state religion.
Despite their rigid monotheism, the Jews had contrived to secure toleration. Theirs was a national religion, they were of great commercial importance to the empire, and they had influence in high places. Christianity at first shared in the toleration granted to Judaism, but with its increasingly obvious separation from that faith, it was compelled to be independent. It came to be regarded by those who had no intimate knowledge of its adherents as undesirable on political, religious, social and even moral grounds!
If Latin was the universal language of government and law within the Roman empire, common Greek was the lingua franca, at any rate in the towns. It was used in commerce and general social communication. Many examples of correspondence in Greek have come to light and show that it was widely used.
Greek philosophical thought had passed its peak, but in the first century the figure of the traveling philosopher was a familiar one. He might be a charlatan, offering cheap entertainment with his subtle pedantry. On the other hand, he might give careful instruction in one of the schools of Greek thought. Epicureanism extolled the pursuit of happiness. Cynicism despised external trappings of any kind and easily led to contempt for authority and morality as well as religion. Stoicism offered a kind of pantheistic materialism which identified the divine principle with reason, and urged people to live a life in accordance with the dictates of reason. The old philosophy of Platonism, later to enjoy a revival in the form of Neo-Platonism, taught that ultimate reality belonged not to the material but to the spiritual world. Some Christian thinkers were to regard it as having prepared the human mind for the Christian revelation.
DONALD GUTHRIE AND PIETER LALLEMAN
Because the New Testament is a collection of books, written at different times to different people and with different purposes, it does not present the reader with a systematic account of what Christians believe. Together with the Old Testament it is, nevertheless, the only source of Christian doctrine. The unity and coherence of the New Testament can easily be brought to light, and it is the task of theology to investigate its various strands to discover how that unity exists in the midst of diversity. There are two main ways in which such a task can be approached. The first may be called the analytical method which analyzes the emphases of the various groups of books, and the second is the thematic method which classifies the main teaching into categories. In a brief treatment it is clearly impossible to do justice to the former method, but the latter offers the opportunity to present a concise survey of the contents.
Any arrangement of theological ideas must start with God. The most important initial question on this theme is in how far the Old Testament revelation of God differs from that in the New Testament. Much is undoubtedly the same, for the New Testament stresses the love and mercy of God in a similar way to the Old Testament. Moreover, the character of God as righteousness is carried over into New Testament thought. The person of God is basic to a right understanding of the mission of Jesus. He himself taught that God is holy (John 17:11) and cares for his creation (Matthew 6:25-33).
The most distinctive aspect of the New Testament view of God is his fatherhood. Although this idea is not wholly absent from the Old Testament, it is viewed within the covenant relationship. God was seen as Father to his people Israel. He called them collectively
my son (Hosea 11:1). But Jesus took the idea much further into the realm of personal relationships. God the Father shows providential care for all humanity, but has a special regard for his children (see Matthew 6:32f.). Throughout his life, Jesus shows the importance to him of the Father’s will, so providing a pattern for his followers. However, he drew a distinction between his own filial relationship to God and that of his followers (John 20:17).
Although Jesus serves as a pattern, his own relationship was unique by reason of his person and of his perfect fulfilment of the Father’s will (see Matthew 11:27). The teaching on the personal aspects of fatherhood was addressed by Jesus to his disciples, not to non-believers. And the fatherhood of God constantly recurs throughout the epistles. It comes in the opening greeting to every one of Paul’s letters and there is no New Testament book (except 3 John) in which the title
Father is not used of God.
Another core idea is the belief that God is king, which is particularly brought out in the teaching of Jesus about the kingdom of God. Here again there is strong influence from the Old Testament idea that God is the true king of Israel, but the distinctive feature of the New Testament is that members of the kingdom of God are those who have committed themselves by faith to Jesus Christ.
The nature of Jesus Christ is the key question in the New Testament. Jesus’ view of himself is best seen in the titles which he used of himself, and of these the most important is
Son of Man. On many occasions Jesus used this title, and without doubt meant himself. Sometimes it is used when he could have said
I (as in Matthew 16:13; see Mark 8:27), sometimes when he was making important statements about his death (as Matthew 20:18), and sometimes when he was thinking of events relating to his second coming (as Matthew 19:28). But what did he mean by the term and why did he choose to use it? Not to draw attention to his humanity, as was often thought in the past. The title is derived from Daniel 7:13-14 and marks Jesus out as Israel’s king and special representative. It is also in some way linked to the Servant spoken of by Isaiah. Jesus will have preferred it to
Messiah because of the militaristic ideas associated with the latter title. It is doubtful whether the people who listened to Jesus understood fully his reason for using it.
Although Jesus hardly ever called himself
Messiah (Matthew 26:63-68), he undoubtedly regarded himself as the fulfilment of all the noble messianic hopes of the past. The first Christians acknowledged this and the New Testament reflects the strong belief of the early community that many of the Old Testament predictions, including many that the Jews treated as messianic, pointed to Jesus Christ. The fact that throughout the New Testament the title
Christ (the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah) is used by others when speaking of Jesus, testifies to this strong conviction. His mission was not, however, to deliver Israel from the domination of their enemies as the Jews currently believed, but to save people from their sins. The messianic hope had become spiritual and universal.
On many occasions Jesus spoke of himself as Son, while the title Son of God is frequently used of him in the New Testament. As well as being perfect man, he claimed to be equal with God (John 10:30; 14:8-11). The apostle Paul speaks of him as the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), in whom the fullness of God lives (Colossians 1:19; Ephesians 1:23), who thought equality with God a prize not to be insisted on for it already belonged to him (Philippians 2:6). The New Testament becomes intelligible only when Jesus is regarded as both human and divine. Luke in particular stresses Jesus’ humanity by reporting on his praying (5:16; 6:12; 11:1). Jesus is also seen as a king in the line of David (Luke 3:22) and his entrance into Jerusalem is royal (Luke 19:29-40). He is called the Savior (Luke 2:11, cf. 19:9-10) who brings God’s
salvation (Luke 1:71,77; 19:9). The title
Lord (Luke 7:13; 10:1), easily overlooked, sets him over against the Roman emperors who also claimed lordship.
There is a close link between who Jesus is and what he came to do; this is highlighted by his name, for Jesus, as Matthew points out, means
Savior (Matthew 1:21). But the aspect of salvation with which Jesus was concerned was not primarily national but spiritual. The fact that he performed countless and various miracles was meant to point his audiences to his real person and to God as the One who had sent him. His ministry had to do with sins, and only by joining the kingdom of God would Israel be restored.
This exalted view of Jesus is at the basis of all New Testament theology. The Christian church was not founded on a mere man, but on the risen Christ. The confession of the resurrection is a key element in almost every book (eg John 20:24-29; 1 Corinthians 15; 1 Peter 1:3; Revelation 1:17-18). Special attention will now be given to the mission of Jesus to bring out his significance.
What Jesus did for humanity may be gathered into the New Testament doctrine of salvation. This, broadly speaking, comprises the doctrine of the atonement and its application. What the New Testament teaches about the atonement is too many-sided to be stated concisely but some general idea may be given. Jesus himself made many significant statements which after his death were seen to reflect his own understanding of the meaning of the cross. He saw the cross as the main purpose of his mission. For him it was no accident. In his first specific mention of his coming sufferings he made it clear that he must suffer death (Matthew 16:21), which shows that he regarded the passion as a divine necessity. This at once disposes of any theories of the atonement which regard the death of Christ as accidental or unforeseen. Closely linked with this are statements which bring out the voluntary nature of his death, of which the most notable is John 10:18, where Jesus the Shepherd says that he will lay down his life for the sheep.
The announcement of John the Baptist that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) is of great importance because it shows that Jesus had come as a sacrifice, and because it is directly related to humanity’s universal sin. This sacrificial idea is developed in the New Testament letters. Another figure of speech which was used by Jesus in describing his mission and which was further developed by the apostles was that of the ransoming of a slave (see Mark 10:45). The central idea is of the deliverance of the slave from a life of bondage to a life of freedom, a vivid illustration of the liberating power of the gospel. In order to bring out the effect of his passion, Jesus also used the picture of a seed of corn which has to be buried in order to become productive. It was left to the apostles once again to bring out the full significance of the illustration. The existence of the Christian church itself was a witness to the basic necessity of Christ’s death. He himself had become the only foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11).
The motive behind the passion, in the mind of Jesus, was love (see John 3:16; 15:13): an aspect of the mission of Jesus which has always fired Christian imagination. This is backed up by the considerable emphasis in the Gospels on the compassion of Jesus, seen most vividly in the healing miracles. In the letters also the love behind the giving of Jesus is brought out (see Romans 5:8; 8:34-39; 2 Corinthians 5:14).
It is noticeable that the testimony of his enemies unwittingly contributed to an understanding of his death, as when Caiaphas declared that it was more fitting for one to die for the people than for the whole people to perish (John 11:50ff.). This substitutionary view of the atonement is developed in various ways in the apostolic understanding of the event. Caiaphas was nearer the truth than he knew. (Compare the testimony of the centurion in Luke 23:47 and that of Pilate in John 18:37-38.) The main focus of Jesus’ thought about the application of his work is found in the Last Supper (Matthew 26:17-30 and parallels) where the words of institution show that the passion is to be central in the continual memory of the Christian community. The bread was broken and the wine poured out, to bring out the sacrificial significance. The coming passion was
for the remission of sins (Matthew 26:28). Moreover, it was viewed by Jesus himself as the inauguration of the new covenant.
Yet Jesus’ life on earth was more than a prelude to his death, it has a value of its own. He shared in the joys (John 2:1-11) and sorrows (John 11, esp. verse 35) of the people around him. He showed particular love to children (Luke 18:15-17) and he was an excellent story teller (eg Matthew 13). His ministry is supported by the activity of the Holy Spirit (eg Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1,14), which then figures as an important subject in the farewell discourses in John’s Gospel (John 14–17). Jesus made it clear that the disciples were to be dependent on the Spirit for knowledge of the truth, for guidance, for convicting the world of sin and for leading people to faith (see John 14:15f.,25f.; 15:26; 16:7f.). The risen Christ breathed on the disciples and exhorted them to receive the Spirit (John 20:22). It was on the Day of Pentecost that the Spirit descended in power on the waiting disciples (Acts 2) and the record of the development of the church in the book of Acts is a record of the special activity of the Holy Spirit (esp. 4:31-33; 5:32; 13:1-3).
The New Testament idea of the church is twofold. Local groups of believers form Christian communities in specific places and the totality of these local groups comprises the universal church. On two occasions Jesus spoke of his church, once in the universal sense (Matthew 16:18) and once in a local sense (Matthew 18:17). The book of Acts gives insight into the formation and operation of many Christian communities such as in Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus and Rome. During the life of Jesus and later in these churches women played important roles, almost beyond what was acceptable in the culture of the time. Women supported Jesus (Luke 8:1-3) and were among his close followers (Luke 10:38-42). Women were the first witnesses to the resurrection (Luke 24:1-11), they were in the first group of believers (Acts 1:14) and received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17-18).
A belief in the return of the Lord Jesus and the final consummation of all things is integral to New Testament teaching. The second coming of Christ is basic to the various books, although more apparent in some. Jesus himself predicted his return (see Matthew 24:30-31,42-44; John 14:3). He gave special teaching regarding the end of the present age (see Matthew chapters 24 and 25; Mark 13; Luke 21), while many of the kingdom parables are related to the end-time (eg the
harvest theme in Mark 13:26-31).
INTRODUCTION
F.F. BRUCE
The Earliest External Evidence
The Gospel according to Matthew, like the three other Gospels, is anonymous. The names attached to the Gospels have been so attached since the first half of the second century at the latest, but none of them appears in the body of the work.
Our earliest evidence for the association of Matthew with Gospel-making is a fragment from a lost work of Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (cf. Colossians 4:13) about AD 130. Papias, who lovingly collected and recorded what remained of oral tradition handed down by those who had seen and heard the Lord in person, wrote in five volumes an Exegesis of the Dominical Oracles which is not known to be extant. His work was quoted by various Christian writers of the following generations and centuries. Among these Eusebius, in the third book of his Ecclesiastical History, ascribes to Papias the statement that "Matthew compiled the oracles (logia) in the Hebrew speech, and everyone interpreted them as best he could." Statements by writers later than Papias which name Matthew as the author of the first Gospel appear to be based on what Papias said. But Papias did not say that Matthew wrote the first Gospel, which is a Greek work, but that he compiled the logia in the Hebrew speech. It is likely that, when Papias spoke of Matthew as compiling the logia, he used the word in the sense which it had in the title of his work. When he composed his Exegesis of the Dominical Oracles, the
oracles (logia) with which he was concerned were the sayings of our Lord, which Papias was so anxious to collect (at one or two removes) from those who had heard them. If the laws of Moses and the utterances of the prophets were recognized as divine oracles (cf. Acts 7:38; Romans 3:2), the sayings of Jesus, the anointed Lord to whom Moses and the prophets bore witness, were all the more worthy of such recognition.
A Primitive Sayings Collection
Now there is one important element in the Gospel of Matthew which has been discerned as just the sort of composition of which Papias speaks—a digest of the sayings of Jesus, conceived after the fashion of those prophetical books of the Old Testament which present the prophet’s oracles in a minimum of narrative framework, introduced with an account of the prophet’s call but not including any account of his death. Such a
book of the prophet Jesus appears to have circulated at an early date in the church, more particularly among Hellenists and Gentile Christians, before any of our present Gospels existed. It underlies the Gospel of Luke as well as the Gospel of Matthew, being the source of what are conventionally labelled the
Q sections in these two Gospels, and has been envisaged as having its contents arranged under four main headings:
Jesus and John the Baptist
Jesus and his disciples
Jesus and his opponents
Jesus and the future
Matthew and the Gospel
Who then was the
Matthew who is said to have compiled
the oracles? Papias was certainly understood by Eusebius (and probably by Irenaeus a century and a half earlier) to have meant Matthew the apostle, and this was a sound interpretation of his words. What Papias was interested in was apostolic testimony, and he gladly recorded anything that came his way on this subject.
Our tentative conclusion is that it was Matthew the apostle who composed the earlier work,
the book of the prophet Jesus, and that his name was later attached to our present Gospel, in which that earlier work was incorporated. Happily, our understanding of the Gospel and the interpretation of its contents are independent of such uncertainties as these.
Sources of the Gospel
In addition to
the book of the prophet Jesus, the evangelist has drawn upon a parallel compilation of sayings of Jesus, circulating not in the area of the Gentile mission but in the stricter Jewish Christian communities of Judea. The narrative framework in which the teaching is set reproduces the substance of Mark’s record, often telescoped and abbreviated, but sometimes amplified by the inclusion of non-Markan incidents (especially featuring Peter), and rearranged in part (Matthew 7:28–13:58, parallel to Mark 1:21–6:13) to conform with the distinctive design of the Gospel of Matthew. This narrative extends from the preaching of John the Baptist (3:1ff.) to the passion and resurrection of Jesus (chapters 26–28); as in the other Gospels so in Matthew the passion and resurrection account is the goal to which everything that precedes leads on. The nativity account in chapters 1 and 2 is peculiar to Matthew and quite independent of Luke’s, with which nevertheless it agrees in theology (Jesus’ virginal conception by the power of the Holy Spirit), geography (he was born in Bethlehem of Judah although he was later brought up in Nazareth) and chronology (his birth took place in the reign of Herod).
It is all too easy, when considering the sources of information on which one of the evangelists might have drawn in the composition of his work, to overlook his personal contribution. Matthew was a man of no mean literary ability, and over and above that he possessed in an outstanding degree the spiritual gift appropriate for his particular ministry.
We must not think of the evangelists as literary hacks producing Gospels by stringing other people’s work together; they were genuine composers, with gifts as authentic as those of the poet or the musician or the artist, and a good deal more important (T.W. Manson, Ethics and the Gospel, 1960, p.46).
Leading Themes of the Gospel
Matthew gives us five discourses;
In threes and sevens he groups his sources.
He writes to show what O.T. meant,
With an ecclesiastic bent.
These four lines do not constitute elevated poetry, but their memorization has proved useful to many examinees who have welcomed the opportunity to expand the basic facts which they summarize when invited to describe the main features of the Gospel of Matthew. The
five discourses in which the teaching of Jesus is arranged according to affinity of subject-matter (5:1–7:27; 10:5-42; 13:1-52; 18:1-35; 24:1–25:46), dominate the structure of the Gospel. Matthew’s tendency to group his material in threes and sevens—from whatsoever sources it may have been derived—is illustrated by the seven parables of the kingdom in chapter 13 and the three in chapter 25. His writing
to show what O.T. meant has special reference to the
formula quotations from the Old Testament, appearing throughout his work from 1:22f. to 27:9f. As for his
ecclesiastic bent, not only is he the only one of the evangelists who so much as mentions the word
church (cf. 16:18; 18:17) but he shows an interest in the life, growth and witness of the Christian fellowship.
Character and Purpose of the Gospel
In the first three chapters of the Gospel Jesus is introduced as King of the Jews, heir to David’s throne, acclaimed as such by Gentiles and anointed by God. The charge inscribed over his head on the cross,
This is Jesus the King of the Jews (27:37), is thus shown in advance to be no false claim but a well-attested fact. Yet in the body of the Gospel the rôle in which Jesus is chiefly presented is that of Teacher. It is his teaching that constitutes the most prominent feature of this Gospel. Indeed, the Gospel has been envisaged as the
manual of discipline of a distinct Christian school (cf. K. Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew, 1968), and one can well understand how useful it would have been as a handbook for catechists. It quickly became the most popular of the Gospels: once the four records began to circulate as a collection, the Gospel of Matthew invariably occupied the first place, whatever might be the order of the other three. Its position at the head of the New Testament books in their canonical order has a fitness of its own because of the way in which its opening section dovetails into the Old Testament narrative.
Its original setting appears to have been a Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian community: we may think of some Hellenistic milieu in Syria which preserved the ideals of those Hellenists who first, in the dispersion that followed Stephen’s martyrdom, brought the Christian message to Gentiles. The Gentile mission, entrusted to the eleven apostles, is the note on which this Gospel concludes. It is anticipated earlier in the inclusion of Gentile women in the genealogy of chapter 1, in the epiphany narrative of chapter 2, and in the healings of the centurion’s servant (8:5-13) and the Canaanite girl (15:21-28).
The evangelist himself has his portrait painted in the
scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven whom Jesus compares to
a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old (13:52). He was a man of generous mind and comprehensive outlook, including in his record and weaving into a unity material cherished by Christian groups of varying viewpoint: the stricter Jewish Christians and the more liberal Gentile Christians, with the many intermediate gradations, might all find something congenial here.
Date
The date of the completed Gospel of Matthew is probably to be fixed quite soon after the destruction of the temple and city of Jerusalem (ad 70). Echoes of the catastrophe and its aftermath can be discerned here and there; moreover, the new situation thus created was an opportunity for Christian consolidation and advance, and to this the Gospel of Matthew made its powerful contribution.
Outline
Prologue: Nativity narrative: 1:1–2:23
1:1-17
Genealogy of Jesus
1:18–2:23
Birth and Infancy
The beginning of the ministry: 3:1–4:25
3:1-17
Preaching of John and baptism of Jesus
4:1-11
Temptation in the wilderness
4:12-25
The first disciples and early ministry in Galilee
First discourse (Sermon on the Mount): Law of the Kingdom: 5:1–7:29
Further ministry in Galilee: 8:1–10:4
Second discourse: Extension of the Kingdom: 10:5-42
Opposition and rejection: 11:1–12:50
Third discourse: Parables of the Kingdom: 13:1-52
Ministry beyond Israel: Suffering and glory foreshadowed: 13:53–17:27
Fourth discourse: Fellowship of the Kingdom: 18:1-35
The way to the cross: 19:1–23:39
19:1–20:34
The road to Jerusalem
21:1–23:39
Jerusalem’s visitation
Fifth discourse: Consummation of the Kingdom: 24:1–25:46
24:1-51
The Olivet prophecy
25:1-46
Three parables of the Advent
Epilogue: Passion and triumph of Jesus: 26:1–28:20
26:1-35
The Last Supper
26:36-56
Agony and arrest in the Garden
26:57–27:26
Before Caiaphas and Pilate
27:27-66
Execution and burial
28:1-20
Christ risen, directing and ever-present
THE LINE OF SUCCESSION
God overruled Jesus’ family tree to fulfill his promises.
The opening phrase binds the Gospel narrative which follows securely to the Old Testament; as Genesis 5:1 introduces
the book of the generations of Adam, the Evangelist does the same for the second Adam. He is, however, not concerned to present him as the second Adam (contrast Luke 3:38) so much as the son of Abraham (and so fulfiller of the divine promises regarding Abraham’s offspring; cf. Genesis 22:18) and, more particularly, as the heir to David’s throne. The line from David to Joseph probably marks the legal succession rather than biological descent (in some instances
father may be used in a formal sense); in Luke 3:23-31 the line from David to Joseph coincides with Matthew’s in Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, but otherwise deviates from it completely.
The genealogy from Abraham to Zerubbabel can be constructed from Old Testament records; the sources for the links between Zerubbabel and Joseph have not survived. But it was no exceptional thing in those days for a family to preserve its genealogical registers for many generations. The schematic arrangement of the genealogy in three groups of 14 (1:17) depends on the omission of certain names eg three between Joram and Uzziah (1:8: cf. 1 Chronicles 3:11f.) and one (Jehoiakim) between Josiah and Jechoniah (1:11; cf. 1 Chronicles 3:15f.). The four women mentioned in the genealogy—Tamar the Canaanite (1:3), Rahab of Jericho (1:5; her marriage to Salmon is not elsewhere recorded), Ruth the Moabite (1:5) and Bathsheba, widow of Uriah the Hittite (1:6)—are all Gentiles: it is thus indicated that the blessing brought by the Son of David is not restricted to one race only (cf. 4:15; 8:5-13; 15:22-28; 28:19).
Notes The variant reading in 1:16 which a footnote in earlier editions of the RSV reproduced on the authority of
other ancient authorities is actually found in one manuscript of the Old Syriac Gospels, and nowhere else; the footnote is omitted in editions from 1962 onwards. 1:17: It may be no more than a coincidence that 14 is the numerical value of the three letters making up the name
David in Hebrew.
THE NATIVITY
Jesus is described as
Immanuel:
God with us.
Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus is completely independent of Luke’s; where Luke tells the story from Mary’s viewpoint, Matthew tells it from Joseph’s, but both evangelists agree in affirming that it was by the power of the Holy Spirit that Jesus was conceived. The law as it affected a betrothed woman in Mary’s condition is laid down in Deuteronomy 22:20f.,23f.; Joseph’s decision not to expose her to the serious consequences of public repudiation marks him out as a man of decent feeling. Here it is he who receives an angelic annunciation and is told to call the child Jesus. The name (the Greek form of Joshua or Jeshua) means
Yahweh is salvation; hence its appropriateness,
for he will save his people from their sins (1:21).
1:22f. present the first of several Old Testament quotations in this Gospel which are preceded by an introductory formula which, with minor variations in wording, indicates that an event took place to fulfill a certain oracle. This quotation, from Isaiah 7:14, comes from Isaiah’s address to King Ahaz—when Judah was threatened with invasion from Syria and Israel. Isaiah in the name of God bade Ahaz keep calm, and invited him to name any sign that he might choose to confirm that the threat would vanish; Ahaz, who had already invited the intervention of the Assyrian king, pretended to be too pious to put God to the test by asking for a sign. Isaiah, discerning the truth behind the king’s affected piety and foreseeing the disastrous consequences of his overtures to Assyria, gave him the sign of a royal child soon to be born who would not be able to distinguish right from wrong before the two kings Ahaz feared were laid low, but who would grow up to a devastated heritage because of Ahaz’s fatal policy. The language of Isaiah’s oracle is that of an archaic annunciation form (attested in a text from Ugarit c. 1400 BC and perhaps echoed in Micah 5:3). Matthew recognizes its definitive realization in the birth of Jesus, the virgin’s son (according to the Greek version of the Old Testament which is quoted here) and Emmanuel,
God with us, in the fullest sense (cf. 28:20).
THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI
Are we openhearted in wanting everyone to hear the good news of Jesus?
If Jesus was the fulfillment of the hope of Israel, he was also the answer to Gentile aspirations. The
wise men from the East were Gentiles, whose journey the early Church saw foretold in Isaiah 60:3:
nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Hence the festival of their visit on January 6, which is more ancient than Christmas, is called the Epiphany (manifestation) of Christ to the Gentiles; hence, too, their traditional description as
kings of Orient—
three kings probably because of the three gifts they presented (2:11). But in fact they were magi—a term originally denoting a Median priestly caste but in this context referring to students of the stars. The orbits and conjunctions of planets could be calculated in advance by this time, and one explanation of the star whose rising they saw identifies it with the conjunction of the planets Jupiter (the star of the world ruler) and Saturn (the star of Palestine) in the constellation Pisces (the sign of the last days) in the summer and autumn of 7 BC. Whether this be so or not, their quest brought them (naturally) to Herod’s palace, where it caused great alarm. Herod’s reign (37–4 BC) was approaching its end, and with each succeeding year he grew more morbidly suspicious. A new king of the Jews was a threat to his throne and dynasty, and must be eliminated immediately. Ascertaining from the chief priests and scribes (interpreters of the sacred law) that, according to Micah 5:2, Bethlehem (David’s birthplace) was to be the birthplace of the Messiah (great David’s greater Son), he sent the strangers there to pay homage to the infant King. The reappearance of the star convinced them that they were on the right road; how it led them to the precise house can only be surmised—did they see its reflection in the well of the courtyard?
It is easy, with Origen and others, to read special significance into their respective gifts,
gold and frankincense and myrrh (2:11), fitting donations to One who was both
King and God and Sacrifice—but the evangelist leaves us to carry out such exercises ourselves. He contents himself with the statement that the magi, in response to a divine warning,
departed to their own country by another way (2:12), thus denying Herod the information which would have enabled him also to pay homage to the new King, as he said (2:8)—or to take what alternative action he thought appropriate.
Note The mention of
two years in 2:16,
according to the time which he (Herod) had ascertained from the wise men, suggests that they arrived in Bethlehem a considerable time after the birth of Jesus; we may infer that their first sight of the star coincided with his birth, and that their journey was not a short one.
DESCENT INTO EGYPT
This Jesus is as tragically fresh as today’s headlines. Before he’s old enough to walk, he’s running from an assassination attempt.
The massacre of the innocents, though unrecorded elsewhere (apart from a possible allusion in a contemporary Jewish apocalypse, which compares Herod’s conduct to Pharaoh’s plot against the Hebrew infants), is completely consistent with Herod’s character in his closing years. The holy family’s flight into Egypt was remembered in some Jewish circles; rabbinical tradition preserves a distorted reminiscence of Jesus’ sojourn there. Herod died in March, 4 BC; his kingdom was divided between three of his sons, of whom Archelaus became ethnarch of Judea. Archelaus inherited his father’s vices without his qualities of statesmanship (and his misrule led to his deposition in AD 6); Joseph was well advised, on returning from Egypt, to settle in Galilee, where another of Herod’s sons, Herod Antipas (cf. 14:1ff.), ruled as tetrarch.
This passage is marked by three Old Testament quotations with introductory formula (cf. 1:22f.). The first (2:15), from Hosea 11:1, refers to God’s calling Israel, his firstborn son (cf. Exodus 4:22), out of Egypt at the time of the exodus. Its application here to Jesus reflects the evangelist’s intention of portraying him as recapitulating in his personal experience the experience of his people, and being afflicted in all their affliction (cf. Isaiah 63:9). The second (2:17f.), from Jeremiah 31:15, pictures the matriarch Rachel sitting by the frontier town of Ramah (near which was her tomb, according to 1 Samuel 10:2), weeping for her children as they were driven off into captivity. Now Rachel, here perhaps symbolizing bereaved motherhood of all ages, weeps disconsolately again as more of her children fall victims to a new tyranny (Matthew may have in mind the alternative location of her tomb near Bethlehem; cf. Genesis 35:19). The third quotation (2:23) presents a problem: no such text occurs in any edition of the Old Testament known to us. The least improbable explanation sees an allusion here to Isaiah 11:1, where the Hebrew word translated
branch (in reference to the coming ruler of David’s line) has the same root consonants as
Nazarene. All these oracles are said to have been spoken by the Lord through various prophets; they are but his spokesmen (which is the essential meaning of
prophets).
THE MINISTRY OF JOHN
Repentance isn’t just being sorry about our sins—it’s being sorry enough to stop … and turn our whole lives to God.
Wherever John the Baptist is mentioned in the New Testament he appears as making preparation for the ministry of Jesus. His distinctive theme was the urgent need of repentance, because of the near advent of the Coming One.
The kingdom of heaven is a phrase peculiar to this Gospel in the New Testament; elsewhere, and occasionally even in this Gospel, the synonymous expression
the kingdom of God is used. It refers more particularly to the universal and everlasting kingdom which, according to Daniel 2:44; 7:14,18,22,27, the God of heaven was about to establish on the ruins of successive pagan empires. On John’s lips the expression implies the day of judgment (cf. Daniel 7:9ff.); the judgment is the fiery baptism to be administered by the Coming One (3:11f.); hence the call to repent in time.
It may be that baptism was already established as one of the elements in the initiation of a convert from paganism into the commonwealth of Israel; if so, John warns his hearers that if they are to join the end-time people of God ready to greet the Coming One on his arrival they must first take the outside place, as no better than pagans, and enter the elect community by the baptism of repentance. Descent from Abraham was of no avail (3:9); here John anticipates Paul (Romans 9:7). Those then who confessed their sins were baptized in the Jordan.
John shows himself to stand in the prophetic succession (which had been in abeyance for generations) not only by his Elijah-like dress (3:4; cf. 2 Kings 1:8) and the convicting power of his preaching but also by the vigor with which he denounces the contemporary religious establishment (3:7). Worldly Sadducees and observant Pharisees are alike compared to serpents hastening away from the path of advancing flames.
Notes 3:1:
In those days: a vague term; thirty years and more have elapsed since the end of chapter 2.
the wilderness of Judea: the territory west of the lower Jordan and the Dead Sea; here the community of Qumran and other ascetics had their headquarters at this time. 3:3:
The voice of one crying …: this quotation from Isaiah 40:3 originally referred to the glad announcement of liberation for exiles in Babylon. The Qumran community used it as a prophecy of their settlement in the wilderness of Judea. In the New Testament the whole of Isaiah 40–66 is treated as a prophecy of the gospel age. 3:11:
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit: Matthew presents the following ministry of Jesus as in some degree fulfilling this prophecy. 3:12:
His winnowing fork is in his hand: separation is an essential part of judgment (cf. 13:30-41f.).
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS
Jesus’ baptism says,
I am here as one of you, and in your place. I’m here to keep God’s Law for you. I’m here to take your sins and their punishment on myself.
John’s deprecating answer to Jesus’ request for baptism at his hands (3:14) was natural enough: this was a baptism of repentance and here was One who had no sins to confess: better that John should be baptized by him. This is merely John’s assessment of Jesus’ personal character: thus far he had no inkling that Jesus was the Coming One for whom he was preparing the way. But Jesus’ reply to John’s remonstrance makes clear his purpose in seeking baptism:
Let it be so for the present; we do well to conform in this way with all that God requires (3:15, NEB).
These words in a general way express Jesus’ constant resolve to do his Father’s will. Further, they indicate his recognition that John’s ministry was a work of God and his desire to be publicly identified with it. He could not hold aloof from the righteous remnant of Israel which was taking shape in response to that ministry. But more: they declare in a special way his dedication to accomplish the purpose of God in his own ministry, now on the point of inauguration. If his ministry was to be launched by an act of self-identification with sinners, that would mark its course and pre-eminently its climax.
John submitted, and baptized him. Then came the divine response to his unreserved self-dedication—the opened heavens, the descent of the Spirit and the Father’s voice.
Here, in the baptism of Jesus, is a moment of divine revelation. The descent of the Spirit points to him as the One who is to baptize with the Holy Spirit: the Spirit must be received before being imparted to others. Of the Messiah of David’s line the prophet had said,
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him (Isaiah 11:2); in introducing his chosen Servant God had said,
I have put my Spirit upon him (Isaiah 42:1). Nor does this exhaust the reference of this narrative to God’s introduction of his Servant: if the proclamation
This is my Son marks Jesus out as the Messiah addressed in the oracle of Psalm 2:7,
Thou art my Son, the following words,
my Beloved, on whom my favor rests (3:17, NEB), equally mark him out as the obedient Servant of the Lord.
The King is anointed, but the circumstances of his anointing show that his royal power and empire must be won by following the Servant’s path of teaching and healing, humility and self-sacrifice (cf. 8:17; 12:18-21; 20:28).
Consider how Jesus’ words to John in 3:15 might serve as an example for us.
TEMPTATION IN THE WILDERNESS
How can the way Jesus responded to temptations help us to deal with ours?
The temptation must be understood in the light of the baptism: the repeated
If you are the Son of God (4:3,6) harks back to
This is my beloved Son (3:17).
God has called you his Son, it is implied;
make him show that he means what he says; put him to the test. The Spirit that descended on Jesus at his baptism leads him into the wilderness to be tempted; this is part of his appointed probation. Here too, the Messiah recapitulates the history of the messianic people. God’s purpose in leading Israel
these forty years in the wilderness was
that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not (Deuteronomy 8:2). That Jesus recognized this correspondence is indicated by his rebuffing the temptation three times from the context of Deuteronomy which includes these words.
You are the Son of God, says the tempter; "very well, you have unlimited power at your disposal; use it for your own | https://www.scribd.com/book/236812792/The-Open-Your-Bible-New-Testament-Commentary-Page-by-Page | CC-MAIN-2019-26 | refinedweb | 10,400 | 58.52 |
checking for null- how paranoid are you?
How paranoid is everyone in checking for null?
For instance:
I have a program in which :
Any way null could be submitted as a member during object construction is checked for by a sentinel.
Contractually, consumers are obligated not to change the value of any object they get from the library (a requirement that makes sense in the given context which I won't go into).
Unmodifiable Collections are used throughout, but access to the individual objects is still possible, so contract ignoring developers could set an object to null- there's not way to stop them (and deep copies to objects accessible to consumers is not applicable, again you're spared the details)..
All entrance of nulls into the program from external libraries is checked- trouble can only come from consumers not following "the rules"
So given the above, how paranoid are you in checking for null? Any null found would necessarily result in an IllegalStateException and an end to the program.
Opinions solicited.
IllegalStateException and IllegalArgumentException are not significantly different from a NullPointerException. They are all direct extensions of RuntimeException, and will (most of the time) be caught by the same exception handlers. My preference, for performance reasons, has been this:
1. If a null won't cause any failures, then don't bother checking.
2. If a null would cause an immediate NPE, then don't bother checking - let it throw the NPE.
3. If a null would cause an NPE much later in your code, then check and throw an IAE.
For example, this helper function will throw a NPE immediately if you give a null input. Just let that happen:
[code]
public static double getMaximum(double[] array) {
double result = -Double.MAX_VALUE;
for (double value : array)
if (value > result)
result = value;
return result;
}
[/code]
However, this helper class should check the argument in its constructor as the NPE would occur only when you (at some later stage) call the getMaximum() method:
[code]
public class DoubleArrayHelper {
private double[] array;
public DoubleArrayHelper(double[] array) {
if (array == null)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("array must not be null");
this.array = array;
}
public double getMaximum() {
double result = -Double.MAX_VALUE;
for (double value : array)
if (value > result)
result = value;
return result;
}
}
[/code]
Just as an update, I check every parameter that ought not to be null, and also I enforce boundaries on numerical parameters if I can ascertain what they ought (not) to be as I am coding. This is really very helpful, basically because for the reason you numbered 3- bust bad things as early as possible.
I do also recommend the numerical parameter checks. For instance, coordinates Swing hands you (MouseEvent.getPoint()) can be negative. I never knew this, despite years playing on the Swing. I found out when I disallowed negative values and my code threw. Of course, the rest of my code only made sense if the values were non-negative, so i saved myself some serious debugging time and learned something. The thing is, that's ONE place where I was iffy about needing to check- after all, Swing is not going to hand be bum values, right?
Well, Swing didn't hand me bum values, but it did hand me something I *assumed* would be bum values.
So there you go! | https://www.java.net/node/676428 | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | refinedweb | 551 | 52.09 |
Like a lot of newer languages, ActionScript 3 is different from Java when it comes to properties, dynamic behavior, and some very convenient aspects of functional programming. In this second half of his Java developer's guide to ActionScript 3, Chet Haase uses side-by-side code samples to demonstrate the differences in syntax and behavior. He also talks about capabilities and usage patterns that could come as a surprise, if you're viewing ActionScript through Java-tinted glasses. Level: Intermediate
I hope you got a chance to read the first half of this article, which introduced the topic of ActionScript 3 from a Java developer's perspective. In that article I gave an overview of ActionScript 3 and how it fits into the Flash platform and Flex development, and then looked at some of the differences in syntax and class structure between the two languages. If you're new to Flex development or ActionScript, Part 1 is good background for what you'll learn here. If you didn't get a chance to read it yet, you might want to do so now.
Go ahead, I'll wait.
Okay, ready? Then let's get started.
In this installment, I'll introduce some of the areas where we begin to see a striking, and more conceptual, difference between programming in Java versus ActionScript 3 (AS3, from now on) namely:
- Properties: Some of the more interesting differences between Java and AS3 involve how properties are declared and used.
- Dynamic behavior: Scripting languages are known for their dynamic behavior, or the ability to change classes, functions, and structures on the fly. AS3 is no stranger to this feature, and I'll show you how it fits into the language.
- Functions: Java calls them methods, ActionScript calls them functions, but they're functionally equivalent. Still, there are some important differences to be discovered.
A proper tease on properties
How properties are declared and used is one of the biggest differences between Java and ActionScript. In this section, you'll see how properties differ between the two languages at the API level, and how that changes the way they are declared and used.
Fields versus properties
Java has fields in classes, which can be public and directly settable/gettable:
public class JavaProps { public int blah; } JavaProps props = new JavaProps(); props.blah = 5;
Good Java coding practice uses optional JavaBeans conventions for getting and setting fields, which are then declared as private:
public class JavaProps { public int blah; private int foo; public void setFoo(int value) { foo = value; } public int getFoo() { return foo; } } JavaProps props = new JavaProps(); props.blah = 5; props.setFoo(5);
AS3 has properties as a first-class citizen of the language. In particular, there are
get and
set keywords that define special getters/setters for properties. For example, you could have either
public class AS3Props { public var foo:int; }
or
public class AS3Props { private var _foo:int; public function set foo(value:int):void { _foo = value; } public function get foo():int { return _foo; } }
In either case, callers would access the property using standard "field" access:
AS3Props props = new AS3Props(); props.foo = 5; trace("foo = " + foo); // outputs '5'
This equivalence in AS3 between fields and get/set functions has some interesting and profound implications, especially for developers writing APIs. (That explains my particular interest in this subject, by the way: I work on the Flex SDK team developing the Flex APIs.) For example, changes between the two representations have no impact on the public API since the calling mechanism for both is the same. As a result, you can evolve your API over time between the two options without causing problems for your users.
Let's see how this works in an example. | http://www.javaworld.com/article/2078004/scripting-jvm-languages/actionscript-for-java-developers--part-2.html | CC-MAIN-2015-06 | refinedweb | 620 | 57.91 |
Windows Services is a powerful programming tool that the Windows OS give us to run programs without the need for a human user logged in to the system.
Due the Windows Service nature, Visual Studio cannot directly launch a service and debug it. Also, you cannot attach a service to debug the service constructor or to debug the Start event. That is because you cannot attach a process that does not exist!
Start
There exists different solutions: one of these is explained in an excellent article by Lee Humphries. But, what about attaching the debugger at the program point where we want to begin to debug? Well, it is possible in .NET 2.0, you only need to use the Debugger class from System.Diagnostic namespace.
Debugger
System.Diagnostic
Debugger class in System.Diagnostic has an important method for our purposes: Debugger.Launch().
Debugger.Launch()
When Debugger.Launch() is executed, it watches if the actual process is attached to any debugger; if it is not, it opens the debugger attachment windows and prompt us to select the appropriate debugger to use with the program. Then, you only need to locate the call to Launch() where you want to begin controlling the service.
Launch()
See the following code an example to init a debugger in the OnStart event of a Windows Service:
OnStart
protected override void OnStart(string[] args)
{
iTest = 1;
#if (DEBUG)
Debugger.Launch(); //<-- Simple form to debug a web services
#endif
timer1.Enabled = true;
}
When the framework executes the Debugger.Launch method and prompts you to select the debugger, select the VS instance that shows the service code and continue to run the service under the control of the debugger.
Debugger.Launch
You need to surround the instruction with a #if #endif clause because the method Debugger.Launch() also executes in Release mode (that should not happen, but .NET 2.0 has a bug in the Debugger.Launch() method).
#if #endif
The code is a simple Windows Service that uses a timer to increment an integer value with an interval of 5 seconds. The service writes the value of the integer variable in the output windows. Take a look at the the Launch() method in the code.
If you have another system to install/uninstall the service, skip the following description:
To create an entry to install the example Windows Service, click Tool -> External Tool -> Add, and enter:
To create an entry to uninstall the example Windows Service, click Tool -> External Tool -> Add, and enter:
Using the System.Debugger.Launch() method is a simple solution to resolve the problem of debugging Windows Services. I suppose that a lot of you are using this technique, but I have not found much information about this (I have not done much research).
System.Debugger.Launch()
This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)
General News Suggestion Question Bug Answer Joke Rant Admin
Man throws away trove of Bitcoin worth $7.5 million | http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/19914/How-to-debug-a-Windows-Service-and-not-die-in-the?msg=4063736 | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | refinedweb | 501 | 53.41 |
.
An avid cyclist, runner and photographer, Erik Wilde was educated in Berlin and Zurich and has spent the last several years teaching at UC Berkeley in California. He’s active on several W3C and IETF committees, is a frequent reviewer for peer-reviewed papers and was part of the group that founded the WS-REST track at the annual WWW events.
He has contributed to a number of Internet standards including RFC6906 ("The Profile Link Relation Type") which was the main topic of our discussion. In early April, 2015 Erik agreed to sit down with us to talk about Profiles, Description, Documentation, Discovery, his Sedola project and the future of Web-level metadata for APIs.
InfoQ: You are listed as the sole editor on RFC6906 - "The ‘Profile’ Link Relation Type" - which was published in 2013. What was the motivation behind creating this RFC? Who is the target audience?
Erik: Profiles were meant as something that would mirror the use of the HTML4 profile attribute, but make it visible in the Web’s uniform interface, because you could identify them in HTTP link headers, or in media type parameters (if the media allowed such a parameter to be used). The main motivation at the time was the use of Atom feeds, where you can say that these are a very generic media type to expose collections, but that sometimes it may be interesting to be able to say that a feed has some additional capabilities, such as carrying content according to podcast conventions, or allowing write access according to RFC5023, the Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub).
InfoQ: The RFC says that Profiles "allow clients to learn about additional semantics (constraints, conventions, extensions) that are associated with the resource representation"- Why is this needed? Doesn’t the media type definition cover all that already?
Erik: Media types may have extensibility and/or openness but there is no unified way to represent specific ways in which these capabilities are used. Profiles allow you to do this. They also allow those profile identifiers to be used outside of representations, either in HTTP link headers or in media type parameters. So the idea is to make the specific ways in which media types are used better visible at the Web level.
InfoQ: You were also working on a set of standardized profiles for Atom. There, it looks like you are designing URIs that communicate capabilities. In other words, these profiles don’t point to documents, but are actually "identifiers" of a set of agreed functionality. Is that how you see profiles working in general?
Erik: Yes. The RFC clearly says that a profile URI is an identifier and must be treated as such. Specifically, it is not a link. To my mind, it is very important to always clearly distinguish between identifiers that signify meaning by value and links that signify meaning by reference. Profile URIs are identifiers.
InfoQ: From your point of view then, how should Profiles be used? Mostly as a design-time aid (e.g. humans check for returned profile strings and write their code accordingly)? Or do you see them more as a runtime aid (e.g. humans write code that will be able to recognize and react to profile strings if and when they show up in a response)?
Erik: Our idea at the time was definitely at runtime. Profiles allow clients and servers to be explicit about extensions. For example, if there were two ways in which metadata is embedded in a web page (let’s say something like vCard and Dublin Core, which have some overlaps), then - based on profiles - a client could explicitly ask for the vCard variant and, if the server understood that request, the server could send vCard instead of DC. In this particular scenario, you can look at it as HTTP content negotiation in a way that’s not based on media types, but on variations of how to use that media type.
InfoQ: So the profile identifiers give us information about features, right? So can you combine one or more profiles in a response?
Erik: Yes you can, but they all have to be listed explicitly, because profiles are not composable. For example, if you wanted to create a profile Z that was a combination of profiles X and Y, that relationship would not be represented in the profile URIs of X, Y, or Z in any way. If you wanted to represent that your resource conformed to all those profiles (X, Y, and Z), you would have to list all three URIs explicitly. If you just listed profile Z’s URI, consumers only supporting X or Y would have no way to tell that Z implies X and Y.
Profiles are simply a flat identifier space and any structure or relationship that the profiles may have (such as profiles X and Y being implied by profile Z, etc.) can be documented in the definition of the profile, but will not be represented in the identifier.
There was a bit back and forth about this when the RFC was developed as a public draft. Some people preferred the profile identifier to be hierarchical so that it would be possible to represent the structure & relation of profiles in some way. But in the end, simplicity won. So profile URIs now serve as simple signals. All the RFC says is that whatever a Profile is, it is not allowed to change the media type’s semantics, i.e. if I do not understand a Profile, I should still be able to do useful things with a representation. For example, if a feed’s profile indicates that it supports RFC5023, then a client not supporting RFC 5023 will simply not care, but nothing breaks.
InfoQ: I often make the distinction between Description (e.g. Blueprint, Swagger, RAML, etc.), Discovery (e.g. APIs.json, etc), and Profiling (ALPS, etc.) of APIs for the Web. Does that track with your thinking or are there other ways to look at this space?
Erik: Well, another difference I am often making is between “Description” and “Documentation”, and "Definition" actually is another interesting and relevant term to throw into this mix. It seems that the term “Description” is increasingly used to exclusively refer to formal descriptions such as in RDF. Personally, I think that is an overly simplified view of the world but that’s why the recent languages I have been playing around with explicitly say “Documentation” and not “Description”. I guess "Definition" then could be a more general term encompassing both descriptions (if something is formally defined) and documentations (if the definition is less formal and mostly in prose). But that’s a separate discussion to have, I guess.
InfoQ: So you think "Documentation" should be added to the list of formats and specifications for Web APIs?
Erik: From my point of view, “Documentation” (or “Description”, if you include formal ways) is what APIs essentially are built on. That has to be made available somewhere, and to me, the exact way in which APIs are documented or described should be left up to the developers, because there is no single best way to do it. It highly depends on the choice of representation format, for example. XML APIs often use sophisticated XSDs that document/describe the API models. JSON often has just human-readable documentation. RDF often has OWL models backing the API. I don’t think there is only single way to do it.
InfoQ: But if these descriptions are left to developers on a case-by-case basis, we can’t have a shared standard, right?
Erik: Not across those different ecosystems, that’s correct. It seems it’s the ultimate dream of many computer people to create the one true model language to end all others. It happens all the time. I’ve personally worked with ASN.1, UML, XML, and now RDF, and every time instead of seeing this as a DSL, there are people who say "That’s it! We’ve finally found The One!" I’ve seen this too often to subscribe to this worldview anymore, so I don’t think that there can be one standard that works well for everybody and will be shared by everybody. There simply is more than just one hammer.
InfoQ: So we should just stop trying to unify things then?
Erik: I do think is that there should be one way to create an inventory of the concepts that matter for the uniform interface. And this is where Sedola comes in. You can look at it like IANA’s registries. What’s tremendously helpful on the web today is that, if I see a new HTTP header, I can look it up in IANA’s registry. They do not make any rules about how it should be described; they simply say that it must have a name following the naming rules, and that there must be a document defining it. And then they link to that document. And that is also where the other two terms you were mentioning ("Description" and "Discovery") come into play. “Discovery” is undefined in the Profile RFC but it is helpful to have the Profile URI pointing to documentation that people can read. Now, how the profile itself is defined and documented entirely depends on the media type you are profiling and how you are doing it. It probably will look very different for HTML profiles, Atom profiles, JSON profiles, or Activity Stream profiles. Activity Streams is something I have started to think about recently because it may become the “JSON feed format”.
InfoQ: So, tell us about Sedola. This is a "Description" (or "Documentation") format, right?. Is this related to your Profiles work?
Erik: Sedola is not directly related to profiles. It’s the Service Documentation Language, and its idea is to provide an inventory of Web-level concepts that a service is exposing. So if, for example, a service uses three media types, ten link relation types, and thirteen HTTP header fields, Sedola’s job would be to publish that inventory and link to additional documentation so that somebody looking for information in context would be able to find it. In theory, it would be possible to add profile URIs to Sedola as well so that a service would be able to expose an inventory of the profiles it is using. I haven’t done that yet, though. So far all I have been playing around with are media types, HTTP header fields, and link relation types. But that’s how profiles would fit into what Sedola is doing.
InfoQ: In January 2015, Darrel Miller published a blog post on the use of Hypermedia in APIs and mentioned the use of Profiles with generic media types (like HTML, etc.). Do you think this idea is a growing trend that has a future for widely-used Web APIs? Or is this mostly an academic/technical discussion that doesn’t affect the typical Web API developer?
Erik: That’s a good question. I think generic media types (such as HTML, XML, JSON, or RDF) could benefit from some mechanism of exposing this kind of information. And in some languages, mechanisms like this are built into the language itself. For example, in XML there’s the idea of using namespaces and/or linking to an XSD that provides schema information for the XML. And maybe with the RDF Data Shapes work going on right now, this idea may gain momentum. It seems to me that the mindset is fairly different in web-level settings than in corporate environments. One reason why XML was (and is) successful and useful is that it has schema support, a solid validation model, a robust ecosystem of libraries and tools, and thus allows to test pre- and post-conditions. RDF has noticed that now and is working on Data Shapes. But the most recent work I’ve seen on that is a bit disappointing because it doesn’t seem to cover openness and extensibility. But that may still change. The working group still has to publish a first public working draft. For corporate settings, I think that a reliable way of communicating expectations and having a way to test them is something that’s often necessary and something that architecture people are looking for. That’s why, as complicated as it may sometimes be, the idea of defining XML schemas, using them for pre- and post-conditions and for validation, is a very helpful concept.
InfoQ: Markus Lanthaler authored RFC7284 - "The Profile URI Registry" back in June of 2014. That RFC seems to follow similar lines of your Atom Profile work. Were you involved in RFC7284?
Erik: Markus and I chatted about this when he was starting this work. But it’s all his work because I mostly thought that having URI as identifiers for profiles was good enough and that there was no need for a centralized registry for those URIs. The current state of that registry may be an indication that maybe I was right about that. But it may also catch on and start getting used.
InfoQ: Is the registration of known URIs a next logical step for the use of Profiles?
Erik: To me, if people care about making their profiles self-documenting and known, they will make the URIs dereferencable and discoverable and then search engines will take care of the rest. And for specific ecosystems (let’s say a singlecompany’s usage of profiles) something like Sedola may be more useful because it allows decentralized documentation. That way a company can essentially have its own Sedola-driven registry instead of having to deal with IANA procedures.
InfoQ: What do you think the future of Profiles looks like? What problems will we be able to solve that we can’t solve now? How would you like to see people using Profiles?
Erik:That’s a hard question, and a good one. Profiles are a high-level concept and can be used in different ways. To me, profiles are already used all over the web only, in most cases, it’s neither called this way nor exposed explicitly. The idea of the Profile RFC was simply to allow people to expose profiles in a simple and standardized way, if they want to.
When the JSON RFC was updated recently I tried to add a profile media type parameter to the media type registration but it did not make it. I think that would have been a good starting point for people to start seeing profiles in use on the web. But the question was "is anybody using this now?" and that wasn’t the case. So the parameter didn’t make it into the RFC.For me, the biggest potential is in environments where people want to be more specific about how exactly they are using/extending/constraining some existing media type. Profiles could be one way to do that independent of the media type. This also allows people to easily and simply expose their use of profiles on the web surface of their services.
InfoQ: Thanks for sitting down to talk about Profiles. Anything else you’d like to add?
Erik: I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to have this chat. Maybe it’s a good starting point to get a bit more momentum around this idea. If people think it’s not necessary to expose profile usage, then I guess we’re done at this point. But if people like the idea, but are missing certain bits and pieces that they also would like to use, then maybe there’s some follow-up work to do that will allow people to use profiles in a way that they find useful. I’d love to get some feedback from your readers and see if there’s an opportunity here to improve the way in which web services work, and how they expose their service surface.
About the Interviewee
Erik Wilde has worked on Web technologies and architecture throughout his professional career. He studied computer science at the Technical University of Berlin and got his Ph.D. from ETH Zürich. Since then, has been working on topics regarding structured data, service architectures, application protocols, and hypermedia systems. After getting his degree, he worked in Zürich as researcher and consultant. He joined UC Berkeley’s School of Information in 2006. After that, he joined EMC’s Content Management Division as member of the Architecture Team. Since Summer 2014, he works at Siemens' Web of Things research group in Berkeley, figuring out ways how to design robust, open, and extensible service architectures that work across Siemens' extensive product and service portfolio. As part of his professional activities outside of his specific job duties, Erik is part of numerous program committees of conferences and workshops. He also participates in standardization activities in various W3C and IETF working groups. | https://www.infoq.com/articles/erik-wilde-web-profiles/?itm_source=articles_about_apis-description-discovery-profiles&itm_medium=link&itm_campaign=apis-description-discovery-profiles | CC-MAIN-2019-43 | refinedweb | 2,824 | 61.97 |
About
I'm George Rypysc (Rip-ISH), a longtime Mozilla fan.
I don't check in here that often so contact me at
georgethree+devmo AT gmail DOT com
(note-to-self: I came across this web, DOM, etc reference - Google DocType).
Old / obsolete stuff:
Most of my contributions here have focused on the DOM (document, form, event) and the Browser Feature Detection document.
Quick Ref (obsolete MediaWiki syntax - pre-DekiWiki days...)
- How to list all
Image:s,
Templates or other namespaces:
- Go to the wiki's "Special pages", select Prefix index, choose the namespace from the drop down, hit 'Go'
[[wikimo:]]= wiki.mozilla.org
- See QuickStart (tables, etc): wikimo:User:George3
- Delete == put in [[Category:Junk]] (see here)
- MDC:Custom Templates - e.g.,
, etc.DC bots, graphs, etc:
- irc://irc.mozilla.org/devmo channel Not listed on irc.mozilla.org
- wikimo:User:Dria/On Tagging
TODO
0. Get feedback on revised properties section of DOM:document and copy over to actual article if others think it's an improvement.
- awk script to do some of wiki-list to wiki-table conversion:
gawk -F: '{print "\"|-|<code>" substr($1,3) ":" $2 "</code>||" substr($3,2) "||\","}' domTemp.txt > dom1
1. (maybe - if work more w/XML) Update XML in Mozilla
2. Enhancement: Browser Feature Detection and related docs (orig. on DevEdge ):
- +new browser releases (and correlate to rendering engine vers.), +Safari(WebKit == WebCore + JavaScriptCore)
- Compare to advice at
wikilink property names
- Get .js code uploaded so it will run (like )
- alphabetize props/methods (in js code too) or keep as is? The current order seems to follow the order given in the W3C specs.
- Caveat of this detection method?: Does CSS2 "playDuring" really work in NS7 or 9? - 0 bugs found for "playDuring" search.
- Background:
- Different methods to detect feature support in browsers:
- Examine user agent string
navigator.productor
.userAgentor ?- Browser Detection and Cross Browser Support
- Direct feature detection:
if (typeof document.getElementById != 'undefined') or (?)if (document.all)...
- as seen at Browser Feature Detection
document.implementation.hasFeature("Core","2.0"), Node.isSupported(feature, version), etc - see
- as seen at DOM Support Detection - W3C
- see caveat at
- Fine grained detection is hazardous/prone to write too specifically for certain browsers? (en.wikipedia article discusses this)
- Or a way to work around less full implementations until they catch up?
- When finalized, let User:Mathieu Deaudelin and User:CitizenK's TODO know about change in status from started to completed
- DOM Test Suite - W3C/NIST
- O'Reilly book: Ch5 on browser feature detection
- Is this doc even useful to people/used by people?:
3. Migration: DOM Sample Code (<title> = "Samples using DOM 1, DOM 2, CSS and JS")
- Get uploaded to ? -
- Under mozilla.org/docs/dom/reference/ "DOM Reference and Links"
- Links from devmo/MDC page: DHTML Demonstrations Using DOM/Style
- Listed on Migration list: MDC:Existing_Content#Samples
4. 1. Update DOM Levels (I couldn't find any other doc which tracks level of DOM/HTML5 support)
- the bugs mentioned in the doc probably need updating - e.g. Never mentioned for DOM3/DOM L3 see bug 212218
- doc lists five modules to DOM3, but six given at
- DOM Level 3's "XPath module" != XML's "XPath v1.0"? (
document.implementation.hasFeature("XPath","3.0") == true, not "1.0")
- +DOM Level 0 for historical completeness (but focus on how Gecko "supports"), Definition of "DOM0" = "Although the W3C never produced a specification for DOM 0, it was nonetheless a partially documented model and was included in the specification of HTML 4.", also
- Newer DOM-expanding specs?: WHATWG HTML5, Forms2, etc
- Refs: DOM owners, Old? DOM roadmap, mozilla.dev.tech.dom, src: mozilla/dom/public/idl
5. Consistency, completeness (remove red-links): DOM document, navigator, and window.
6. Misc:
- see Talk:xptcall_FAQ#docs_on_lxr
- see Orig.Doc footer and if no feedback, for consistency and to orphan a redundant template, finish migrating: these which use
Original Document Information
8. Completeness: Interfaces, HTML:Element
Migrations
- xulplanet.com: MimeTypeArray
- both XUL and DOM - via templates? - mozilla.dev.mdc
- DevEdge mirror
- DevEdge:Priority Content
- HTML Guide
Off-Site References
- W3C's Window Object 1.0 - draft 2006, window.navigator won't be part of spec.
- Spring Into Technical Writing... | https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/User:George3 | CC-MAIN-2015-22 | refinedweb | 697 | 50.12 |
C++ comments are hints that a programmer can add to make their code easier to read and understand. They are completely ignored by C++ compilers.
There are two ways to add comments to code:
// - Single Line Comments
/* */ -Multi-line Comments
Single Line Comments
In C++, any line that starts with
// is a comment. For example,
// declaring a variable int a; // initializing the variable 'a' with the value 2 a = 2;
Here, we have used two single-line comments:
// declaring a variable
// initializing the variable 'a' with the value 2
We can also use single line comment like this:
int a; // declaring a variable
Multi-line comments
In C++, any line between
/* and
*/ is also a comment. For example,
/* declaring a variable to store salary to employees */ int salary = 2000;
This syntax can be used to write both single-line and multi-line comments.
Using Comments for Debugging
Comments can also be used to disable code to prevent it from being executed. For example,
#include <iostream> using namespace std; int main() { cout << "some code"; cout << ''error code; cout << "some other code"; return 0; }
If we get an error while running the program, instead of removing the error-prone code, we can use comments to disable it from being executed; this can be a valuable debugging tool.
#include <iostream> using namespace std; int main() { cout << "some code"; // cout << ''error code; cout << "some other code"; return 0; }
Pro Tip: Remember the shortcut for using comments; it can be really helpful. For most code editors, it's
Ctrl + / for Windows and
Cmd + / for Mac.
Why use Comments?
If we write comments on our code, it will be easier for us to understand the code in the future. Also, it will be easier for your fellow developers to understand the code.
Note: Comments shouldn't be the substitute for a way to explain poorly written code in English. We should always write well-structured and self-explanatory code. And, then use comments.
As a general rule of thumb, use comments to explain Why you did something rather than How you did something, and you are good. | https://cdn.programiz.com/cpp-programming/comments | CC-MAIN-2020-40 | refinedweb | 351 | 58.32 |
All opinions expressed here constitute my (Jeremy D. Miller's) personal opinion, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of any other organization or person, including (but not limited to) my fellow employees, my employer, its clients or their agents.
My team uses FitNesse extensively to create automated acceptance tests for our systems. Recently we've added Selenium RC running from within FitNesse to our toolbox. There's a lot of buzz lately over the creation of Domain Specific Languages (DSL), driven in no small part to create a syntax for the application code that is readable by the business partners and testers. We accomplish the same goal (or at least try to) by using FitNesse fixtures to effectively create a DSL for our applications that our tester can use to specify and verify the expected behavior of the system. FitNesse is both the "language" parser and a reporting framework that can already be plugged into NAnt and CC.Net, so there's no real need to create custom interpreters. Take that you Ruby cool kids with your "missing_method" metaprogramming magic!
Most of my last week and a half has been spent building the "Mother of all Automated Tests." The system under test was basically a new messaging workflow between our company and a partner company for something that we call a "Bundle." All told, the entire Bundle pipeline includes:
The communication pipeline is fairly complex, there isn't a user interface for much of it, the web service messages are non-trivial, and the validation rules are extensive. Creating a FitNesse grammar for us and our tester to simulate the communication has been a lifesaver. Using our DSL we can quickly throw a lot of different scenarios at the system in a repeatable manner.
FIT (and FitNesse) has always had the ability to express tests as declarative tables. It works great when you can stay within the lines of x number of inputs leads to y outputs, but it breaks down for more complex scenarios like, well, basically anything in an enterprise application. It's also a mess to maintain state between fixture tables because all you have are static members. All of that changed because now we have the DoFixture. I think I've said before in this blog that I didn't particularly care much for FIT style testing until we got the DoFixture from Rick Mugridge's FitLibrary extension.
The DoFixture allows us to create custom textual languages to express tests. In other words, jagged tables. I'll leave it for a later post, but the DoFixture allows us to nest other fixture tables to do declarative assertions. Think of the DoFixture as an interpreter that enables us to quickly create grammars without getting bogged down by writing our own parsing and reporting functionality. Here's an example straight out of our tests on the Bundle workflow.
public class CreateBundleScreenFixture : DoFixture
{
public void CreateBundleFromToAsAWithInvoiceTotalWithAttachment(
string senderId,
string receiverId,
string communicationType,
decimal invoiceTotal,
string fileName)
{
// call into your application's service layer with the inputs above
}
}
That's the Fixture code, it's nothing special, just a method. Let's move onto the representation in a FitNesse table. In FitNesse's particular version of Wiki markup, "!" is a directive to start a new table. New table cells are started just by delimiting the contents with a "|" character. Just to avoid some unpleasantness, always remember to close each line with a pipe bar and no trailing spaces. I'm going to make all of the FitNesse sample in Wiki text because that's what you'll be editing (and the blog engine will screw up the table formatting).
!|CreateBundleScreenFixture|
| Create Bundle From | Sender1 | To | Receiver1 |
as a | Fax | With Invoice Total | 1018.23 |
With Attachment | Invoice1.pdf |
The DoFixture parses this command by treating the table row as an array of cells. Starting with the first cell, DoFixture iterates through every other cell, concatenates the text together, and removes all of the white space. The DoFixture uses this concatenated string as the method name, which is located through reflection (lots and lots of reflection). Back to the other cells that got skipped over, DoFixture assumes that these cells are the arguments to the method in order. The DoFixture is able to determine the type of the argument from the method signature and coerce the types. In this case the DoFixture automatically converts the string "1018.23" into a decimal type before pushing it into the invoiceTotal argument of the CreateBundleFromToAsAWithInvoiceTotalWithAttachment() method. FitNesse itself in .Net handles all of the normal primitive types, including DateTime values. In an annoying oversight, the .Net version misses enumeration types. If anybody is interested, I can show some code to plug into FitNesse to modify the way FitNesse parses and handles any particular type.
So that's how you create an action in a DoFixture. FitNesse will of course fail the test if the action blows up with an exception, but you also need to make assertions about the outcome of the action. The simplest thing to do is create a method that returns a Boolean. The DoFixture will automatically treat any method with a Boolean return value as an assertion. Without any arguments, that might look like:
public bool TheBundleWasCreatedSuccessfully()
return _lastBundleSucceeded;
!|CreateBundleScreenFixture|
| Create Bundle From | Sender1 | To |
Receiver1 | as a | Fax | With Invoice Total |
1018.23 | With Attachment | Invoice1.pdf |
| The Bundle Was Created Successfully |
Fancier assertions can be made by using the Check keyword. Let's add some grammars to test the Status of the newly created Bundle object.
public void AliasTheLastBundleAs(string bundleName)
// store the Id of the last Bundle created in the FitNesse fixture
// as bundleName
public string TheBundleStatusOfIs(string bundleName)
// look up the Status field from the Bundle aliased
// as [bundleName] and return
!|CreateBundleScreenFixture|
| Create Bundle From | Sender1 | To | Receiver1 |
as a | Fax | With Invoice Total | 1018.23 |
With Attachment | Invoice1.pdf |
| The Bundle Was Created Successfully |
| Alias the Last Bundle As | TestBundle1 |
| Check | The Bundle Status of | TestBundle1 | Is | New |
By starting the test row with "Check," I've directed DoFixture to assert that the value of the TheBundleStatusOfIs("TestBundle1") method is the value in the last cell. When the test is executed, FitNesse will color the last cell green if it succeeds, or red with an NUnit-like "expected blah, actual blah" text description. One of the best advantages to FitNesse testing is the visceral red/green output. It's usually pretty easy to spot the test failures (diagnosing the cause, is alas, as difficult as always).
More complex assertions usually call for a nested Fixture table. I'll demonstrate a couple examples in later sections. If you can't already guess, I love the DoFixture.
At some point FitNesse and Selenium have to know some environment settings. You can accomplish this through the normal configuration techniques, but I've started to put a lot of this type of information in the FitNesse tests themselves. FitNesse allows for a "SetUp" test page that will be included inside each test page in a test suite. I used a little DoFixture that looks something like this:
public class MySystemEnvironmentFixture : DoFixture
// Yes, I do realize that I'm using a public static field
// It's okay -- in this context anyway
public static string ApplicationRoot = "";
public static string WebServer = "";
public static string BrowserName = "*firefox";
private static DefaultSelenium _selenium;
public void TheWebServerIs(string webServer)
WebServer = webServer;
public void TheApplicationIsRootedAt(string root)
ApplicationRoot = root;
public void TheBrowserIs(string browserName)
BrowserName = browserName;
Inside the SetUp page I have a table like this:
!|MySystemEnvironmentFixture|
| The Web Server Is | |
| The Application Is Rooted At | |
| The Browser Is | *iexplore |
In one place, I can quickly shift the FitNesse fixtures from pointing from a local installation on my workstation, to the development servers, or finally to the testing servers. If you'll notice the third line, I can also switch the browser engine that Selenium is using (IE, Firefox, Opera, etc.). That's awfully important in the age of AJAX/Web 2.0 tricks with multiple browsers.
Finally, let's pull Selenium into the mix to drive the web pages. While you can use Selenium with its own FIT-like driver, or though NUnit, I like running Selenium from within FitNesse for acceptance tests. I like this approach because we get a unified reporting and execution infrastructure for both UI and Service Layer tests. Plus, and this cannot be underestimated, I can use regular FitNesse fixtures to setup and verify application state before and after the Selenium execution in a single self-contained test.
We're using the .Net driver for Selenium RC. I wrote a brief introduction to using Selenium RC from .Net that explains the basic mechanisms.
The first thing to do is create a new Selenium session and make it accessible to all of the Fixture's in a test. I'm working on an assumption that we will normally write a separate FitNesse fixture for each non-trivial screen, and share the Selenium driver object in a static member somewhere in memory. I'm going to start by adding some infrastructure to the MySystemEnvironmentFixture just to provide access to a DefaultSelenium object.
// Create a new Selenium session
private static void resetSelenium()
// Use the ApplicationRoot and BrowserName fields
_selenium = new DefaultSelenium("localhost", 4444, BrowserName, ApplicationRoot);
_selenium.Start();
// Provide access to the currently executing Selenium session
// to other screen fixtures
public static DefaultSelenium SeleniumDriver
get
{
if (_selenium == null)
{
resetSelenium();
}
return _selenium;
}
// Start a Selenium session, probably call this
// in SetUp
public void StartApplication()
resetSelenium();
// Shut down the Selenium session and free the
// resources. Either do this in TearDown or at
// the end of every, single test.
public void CloseApplication()
if (_selenium != null)
_selenium.Stop();
Since every call to "Start Application" will spawn a new browser instance, you should definitely remember to call "Close Application" at the end of each test or in the TearDown. Unless you don't mind out of memory exceptions on your build server;)
!| MySystemEnvironmentFixture |
| Start Application |
| Close Application |
Now, let's create a little fixture to for a screen. In our Bundle workflow user interface we have a screen that displays all of the data about a single Bundle and has buttons to perform common actions on a Bundle like "Reject" or "Approve."
public class BundleDetailsFixture
// Elements on the screen
private const string STATUS_LABEL = "xpath=//*[@testid='status']";
private const string APPROVE_BUTTON = "xpath=//*[@testid='status']";
private const string REJECT_BUTTON = "xpath=//*[@testid='status']";
private const string URL = "BundleDetails.aspx";
DefaultSelenium _selenium;
public BundleDetailsFixture()
// Go grab the current Selenium session object
_selenium = MySystemEnvironmentFixture.SeleniumDriver;
public void OpenTheBrowserToBundle(string bundleName)
// Find the Id for the Bundle aliased as [bundleName]
long bundleId = 0;
string url = string.Format("{0}{1}?Id={2}", MySystemEnvironmentFixture.ApplicationRoot, URL, bundleId);
_selenium.Open(url);
public string TheBundleStatusIs()
return _selenium.GetText(STATUS_LABEL);
public bool TheApproveButtonIsEnabled()
return _selenium.IsEditable(APPROVE_BUTTON);
public bool TheRejectButtonIsEnabled()
return _selenium.IsEditable(REJECT_BUTTON);
// Click the Reject button, and then click Cancel
// on the confirmation popup box
public void ClickTheRejectButtonAndCancel()
_selenium.ChooseCancelOnNextConfirmation();
_selenium.Click(REJECT_BUTTON);
public void ClickTheApproveButton()
_selenium.Click(APPROVE_BUTTON);
The simplest case is to call the service layer first to create a Bundle. Next we'll look at the Bundle Details screen to confirm the status of the Bundle, then approve the Bundle and check the status again.
!|CreateBundleScreenFixture|
| Create Bundle From | Sender1 | To | Receiver1 |
as a | Fax | With Invoice Total | 1018.23 |
With Attachment | Invoice1.pdf |
| The Bundle Was Created Successfully |
| Alias the Last Bundle As | TestBundle1 |
Now, call into the screen. I'm assuming that the Selenium session was created in the FitNesse SetUp
By the way, you can quite happily mix prose with your testing tables
!| BundleDetailsFixture |
| Open the Browser to Bundle | TestBundle1 |
| Check | The Bundle Status Is | New |
| The Approve Button Is Enabled |
| Click the Approve Button |
| Check | The Bundle Status Is | Approved |
That's pretty simple stuff. Just about everything you need to check or manipulate on a web page is accessible from the DefaultSelenium object. If it's not, you can send over your own Javascript to be evaluated in the browser. I haven't bumped into anything that required that technique yet. Selenium itself will largely take care of page transitions and postbacks for you. If need be, you can direct Selenium to wait for a page transition with a timeout, or poll for a certain condition if you're doing heavy AJAX work.
One of the other advantages for wrapping Selenium within FitNesse is to abstract away the page structure from the test writer. The test writer, who may or may not have knowledge to the application's internals, can focus on the English language definition of the test and defer the xpath or id location of elements to the developers. Because ASP.Net likes to munge up element id's of nested controls, we've adopted a convention of using an arbitrary "testid" attribute on an element to be the Selenium key for testing. We can find an element with a testid anywhere on the page by using a locator like "xpath=//*[@testid='the test id']."
The FitNesse wrapper gets really handy when you want to perform multiple steps in a single sentence, like repeatedly filling in a form in the same steps but with different input. Here's a cool example I haven't needed yet, but might soon. With most testing frameworks you have to setup an expectation for what to do when the next popup box shows up before you define the step that creates spawns the popup button. That's potentially confusing, and it certainly makes your testing harder to understand. With the DoFixture we can write a better grammar for that case:
!| BundleDetailsFixture |
| Open the Browser to Bundle | TestBundle1 |
| Check | The Bundle Status Is | New |
| Click the Reject Button and Cancel |
| Check | The Bundle Status Is | New |
I wrote this in a hurry and probably missed quite a few details. If you have any questions, or better yet, suggestions, feel free to leave a comment and I'll get to it quickly for once.
It's just not that hard. The hardest part of the giant end-to-end test was really the deployment scripts. All I've shown here is the mechanics of simple cases. In the next installment, I'll talk about the pattern I use to load data in FitNesse tests, and using nested Fixture's within a DoFixture to do more complex data entry and assertions. I'll also try to get a post in on lessons learned and best practices, but I'm going to wait until the big end-to-end testing infrastructure is completely verified;)
[Advertisement].K
Hi Jeremy, I am trying to introduce fitnesse and Selenium IDE to my current web test project. Issue is I have only used Fitnesse and Selenium once, very sparingly and not quite there yet!! Now I have to install the various software and find a way to add my tests in. I have already written manual tests for these and tried testing using visual studio, but that would not allow for validation on the pages..as it was built with flash technology. Where do istart? the instructions around the various products are a bit too technical and I am looking for a simple approach. Wondering what Fixtures to use, how to link the browsers to Fit and where to enter the data to be validated. Can i get a step by step guide? f this would help,...pretend I am stupid and totally ignorant to technology!! Kindly point me to the right direction!!! Many thanks
Pingback from hi jeremy
Hello,
How can I know in my test class, that it is currently the last line in the fitnesse table aktiv (by testing...)?
or the count of the rows and the currently activ row?
thanks
Jayyusi
Noooo, don't write scripts in FitNesse. It will be a maintenance headache. See: for an alternative way of writing the | http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2006/07/15/147400.aspx | crawl-002 | refinedweb | 2,656 | 53.71 |
Python: Add query parameters to a URL
I was recently trying to automate adding a query parameter to a bunch of URLS and came across a neat approach a long way down this StackOverflow answer, that uses the PreparedRequest class from the requests library.
Let’s first get the class imported:
from requests.models import PreparedRequest req = PreparedRequest()
And now let’s use use this class to add a query parameter to a URL. We can do this with the following code:
url = "" params = {'ref':"mark-blog"} req.prepare_url(url, params)
And then we need to access the
url attribute to see our new URL:
>>> req.url ''
Neat! We can also use this approach to add parameters to URLs that already have existing ones. For example, we could update this YouTube URL:
url = "" params = {'ref':"mark-blog"} req.prepare_url(url, params)
And let’s see what the updated URL looks like:
>>> req.url ''
I’m sure I’ll be using this code snippet in future!
About the author
Mark Needham is a Developer Relations Engineer for Neo4j, the world's leading graph database. | https://markhneedham.com/blog/2019/01/11/python-add-query-parameters-url/ | CC-MAIN-2019-13 | refinedweb | 183 | 71.55 |
Hey! This article references a pre-release version of Ember.js. Now that Ember.js has reached a 1.0 API the code samples below are no longer correct and the expressed opinions may no longer be accurate. Just keep that in mind when reading this. I hope to have time to dig in to Ember.js again in the near future, and will write an updated article if/when that happens!
It’s been a little less than a year since I dove heard-first in to Backbone. It seems there’s been a tremendous amount of movement on the JS-MV* front in that time, and one of the up and coming contenders for the web’s favorite JS framework is EmberJS (formerly known as AmberJS – formerly known as SprouteCore 2). There’s also quite a bit of debate going on between the Ember and Backbone communities – in particular, between the two project leaders: Yehuda Katz (EmberJS) and Jeremy Ashkenas (Backbone). So, not being one to rest on my current proficiencies, I decided to jump in to EmberJS and see what the brujahahahahalol was all about.
These are my first impressions and initial comparisons between Ember and Backbone. Note that I don’t claim to be an expert on Ember at this point, and what I’m offering here is probably going to be proven wrong to a large degree, as I continue to learn it.
A Project: EmberCloneMail
The only way I can learn something is by doing it. Rather than start with the ubiquitous “Todo” example app, though, I wanted to jump in to something a little more substantial, where I can really see some opinions flowing. So I picked my BBCloneMail project and decided to rebuild it with Ember.
Thus, EmberCloneMail was born.
This project is perfect for me to start with because the original – BBCloneMail – contains pretty much all of my opinions on Backbone, wrapped up in one little demo application. Sure there are things that I need to add to it, still, but it’s a fairly sizable app and shows off a lot of what I like to do with Backbone.
EmberCloneMail, then, should be built from the JavaScript-ground up, using the same back-end, same HTML and CSS and producing the same functionality.
You can find what little code there is for it on Github:
And you can see what little there is to see on Heroku:
Philosophy: Rails vs Sinatra
If I remember right, Jeremy said that this comparison is incorrect. I don’t remember exactly why off-hand, but I can’t help but make this comparison anyways. This really does feel like the correct analogy.
Ember has a more opinionated, framework, “The Ember Way” approach to it. Yes, there is flexibility in it. Yes, you can do some of the same things in multiple ways. But Rails shares this same approach. It provides “The Rails Way” out of the box (which is why it’s called Rails, right?)
Backbone is more like Sinatra in that it’s a foundation to build from. It offers a convenient set of abstractions and tools that you can call in to when you need them to do something. Otherwise, it largely leaves things up to you. The result of this is that you end up writing a lot more “boilerplate” code for a Backbone project than an Ember project. I agree with that. But, like Sinatra, the community for Backbone steps up to fill in the boilerplate with different opinions on how to structure an app, provide relational modeling, validation, and more.
Neither of these philosophies is right or wrong. They are simply different approaches to solving similar (or the same) problems. Which of the two frameworks you would work best with, largely depends on your preferred philosophy and approach. Do you like being guided down the path? Or do you like to forge your own path because you know exactly what you need and nothing else? I suspect that there’s some of both in all of us. I tend to use Sinatra more often for my smaller projects because I don’t see a need for all of Rails, most of the time. But I’m never opposed to using Rails if I see the need for everything it offers, either.
A Real MVC Framework
Ember easily fits within the philosophy and definition of “framework” and “MVC”. In fact, it looks like it’s closer to the old-school SmallTalk-80 MVC (at least, as I understand it based on some articles) than any other MV* framework that I’ve used.
Backbone can be used so that it fits within the MV* family, of course. It certainly provides good structure and lets you work in that manner. But we already know that Backbone is not a framework, and is not MVC.
HTML Templates: Handlebars vs (Pick Something)
Backbone doesn’t know anything about generating HTML, templating engines or anything along those lines. It leaves decision entirely up to the developer by having a no-op “render” method on it’s view that it expects you to implement when you need to.
Ember, on the other-hand, comes with Handlebars out of the box. Ember is very much tied to Handlebars, in fact. You can specify a Handlebars template directly in your page and with a few Ember helpers, start your application from that template instead of from JavaScript code.
Now the documentation for Ember says that you can replace Handlebars with any template system you want. It shows you how to override the render method to do this, but it also gives you all kinds of warnings about what Ember won’t do for you if you deviate from the Handlebars path. This is akin to Rails saying you can use any template language you want. You better find a template language that has Rails integration built in, or you’re going to end up writing a lot of code to do this, yourself.
Handlebars: Yes, Please
I like Handlebars. I really do. I’ve been a fan of the “no code in views” approach for a long time. Handlebars provides pretty much a perfect approach to this, from what I’ve seen so far. It combines a “no-code” approach with an ability to register helpers. These helpers give you access to more advanced functionality when you need them, but prevent you from writing a bunch of logic and code in your views, directly.
Up til now, I’ve been primarily using jQuery Templates or UnderscoreJS templates for Backbone’s rendering needs. I’m fairly certain that I’m going to switch to using Handlebars for Backbone now that I’ve seen it in action. I’m going to at least give it a try and see if it gives me a better approach within Backbone.
Controllers: Could Be Nice
I could live with or without controllers in Ember, regarding response to user input. You can do everything you want through the use of Views, the same way that you would do it in Backbone. This basically turns the “view” object in to a “presenter”, as I’ve noted before.
Controllers also seem to be used for more than just view responses, though, and may fit the Rails controller idea. For example, the “Contacts” sample app uses an “ArrayController” to store the list of contacts. Views then iterate over the controller’s models and code can be called on the controller to do various things.
It’s nice to have the option of using a controller. There are times when it seems to make more sense to use a controller to respond to use input, than to use a view.
A Boat Load Of Namespacing
Nick Gauthier points out in his comparison of Pomodoro projects built in Backbone and Ember, that Ember wants you to do a ton of namespacing and “global” vars for databinding and other things. In the comments, he and I discuss that briefly and he says he doesn’t like having to hang object instances off of namespaces. I understand his hesitations, as I’ve felt the same way. But if you’ve ever looked at my BBCloneMail project, you’ll have noticed that I do this a lot. It’s more of a limitation of JavaScript than anything else, that forced me down that path. Frankly, I was surprised and a little happy to see that a team as smart as the Ember team had run into this and solved it the same way I did. :)
Less Boilerplate Code
This is one point that gets talked about a lot by the Ember team, but I’m not sure I agree with it yet. There is certainly less boilerplate code in certain aspects of Ember: wiring views and controllers together, rendering views with templates, binding from models in to views. Honestly, these are the places that people are usually talking about with the mention of boilerplate code in Backbone. I think there’s room for interpretation of this through the rest of ember, though – at least right now with the lack of documentation and good sample apps to show otherwise.
Things That Confuse Me
There are a number of things that still confuse me about Ember. I think this is largely due to the lack of documentation.
Lack Of Documentation
Where are the docs and sample apps that do more than just show the most simple of Todo apps? A contacts app is no different than a todo app. It’s just a few extra fields with a slightly different layout. I want to see larger applications that show me how to …
Manage Data Persistence
This is missing entirely from Ember, at the moment. There’s a “data” project as an add-on that looks like it’s attempting to re-create ActiveModel/ActiveRecord in JavaScript. I’m not sure how I feel about this project. I should give it a try at least. But I’m very surprised to not see a simple option built in to Ember. I mean, it’s all of 50 lines of code in Backbone.
Workflow
How do I manage workflow in an Ember app? With Backbone, it’s easy: write the workflow myself. But is there something built in to Ember? Am I supposed to use the state manager? Or am I supposed to just have controllers that show the next view? That seems like a terrible idea – mixing the high level work flow in to the detail of implementation just leads to brittle code and big problems.
I’m very likely just missing something here… but it’s hard to know when there’s NO DOCUMENTATION around any of this, and NO SAMPLE APPS that show anything of any significance.
Single-Page Apps: Routing
My BBCloneMail project is a single-page app that makes use of routes to manage which page your browser thinks it’s on. I expected this to be supported out of the box with Ember and was surprised to find that it’s not there. There’s another add-on for it to bring routing in to the picture, but the add on still says “SprouteCore 2″ all over the place. That makes me think its not very well supported or kept up to date. After all, it’s been a month or two or more since SC2 was renamed to Amber and then Ember.
Application Initialization
Ember has an Application object that every app should instantiate. It’s used for a number of things, including the top level namespace of your app. I like this. It fits perfectly with how I use Backbone.Marionette’s Application object.
But I don’t see a good way to follow-through with this object and initialize my application after the page loads.
So far, I’ve found that I can instantiate an Ember view through a Handlebars template directly in the page, or I can use JavaScript code to instantiate a view and place it in to the page – but where am I supposed to do that? Where does this code go? There’s no obvious place, form what I can see, on how to initialize a large application to a particular state.
File Size
Ember is 37K minified and gzipped !!!! O_O !!!! Ok, sticker-shock is over. That’s rather large in comparison to Backbone, but no worse than jQuery. I guess all of the functionality they provide needs that much code? Or perhaps the ways they’ve architected this leads to an abundance of boilerplate code that they simply include in the project for you? The jury is still out on this, for me.
Code Organization, Documentation
The largest of the problems that I’ve outlined is the lack of good documentation and sample apps. I think Backbone largely suffers this same problem, looking at raw backbone. But the community around Backbone has stepped up and offered a variety of sample apps to show different ideas. I hope the Ember community does the same, but as of yet, I was unable to find good samples in my google searches.
Backbone has the added advantage of it’s total size and simplicity in source code. There’s a single file and it’s annotated very well. If you don’t know how something works, it doesn’t take much effort to read the code and find out. I do this on a very regular basis. Ember, on the other hand, is separated in to a very large number of files that are concatenated and minified during a build process. The code is well organized and well commented, but it can be a daunting task to even find what you’re looking for, let alone understand it. There are simply too many additional things that you have to look at, which is difficult when the files are so spread apart and the over-alll codebase is so large.
Over-All Impression: Big Potential
My overall impression of Ember is that there’s big potential here. I’m excited to see this grow and plan on continuing to learn, blog and use it when I think it’s appropriate. I see it as a Rails vs Sinatra choice, still. Which one makes the most sense in which scenarios? Hopefully I’ll find out by using both, more.
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress. | http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2012/02/21/emberjs-initial-impressions-compared-to-backbone/ | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | refinedweb | 2,412 | 71.34 |
Invalidating Orphaned Sessions using Vroom Web Framework
Those who've been using the Vroom Web Framework for some time should be familiar with the areas that Vroom focuces on. Things that are not so simple or time consuming are just a piece of cake, doable with in few minutes. (Interview with author of framework here.)
Orphaned Session: Let's say I log on to Yahoo Mail and do not do anything for some time, my session is considered inactive and expires after the specified timeout by the Yahoo mail application. What if I log on and find that there is no new mail and instead of logging out, I simply go to a different url or close the browser. What happend to my session? It can be considered as inactive but the thing is that it's no longer in use and will be invalidated after the session timeout occurs. I consider these type of sessions to be orphaned.
With Vroom Web Framework, the following is just fine to take care of orphaned sessions, no matter at which stage you closed the browser or opened a different URL.
Define a java class called "com.myco.myapp.bean.SessionBean" and add the following code:
public class SessionBean {
Integer tracker = 0;
public void onLoad() {
synchronized(tracker) {
tracker++;
}
}
public void onUnload(HttpServletRequest req) {
synchronized(tracker) {
tracker--;
}
try {
Thread.sleep(10000);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
// Log exception...
} finally {
if(tracker == 0) {
req.getSession().invalidate();
}
}
}
}
In this class, we've defined one variable named "tracker" and two methods "onLoad" and "onUnload". onLoad method increases the tracker value by 1 and onUnload decreases it by 1 and sleeps for 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, if the tracker value remains 0, the session is treated as orphaned and invalidated.
The next step is to bind these methods with every html, jsp, do, faces page depending on your framework. Define the following rule in vroom-config.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<vroom-config>
<webpage uri="/|(/|[a-zA-Z0-9]|-|_)*.(jsp|html|do|faces)">
<object name="document" bean-
<event type="onload" method="onLoad"/>
<event type="onunload" method="onUnload"/>
</object>
</webpage>
</vroom-config>
In the rule, just note that we've bound the onload and onunload events of document object with SessionBean's onLoad and onUnload methods.
Let's say we've page1.jsp, page2.jsp and page3.jsp in our application. When the user opens page1.jsp, the value of tracker becomes 1 because onLoad method gets called. Now the user opens page2.jsp on a different tab, the value of tracker becomes 2 because tabs in browsers usually share a single session. If user loads page3.jsp in tab which was displaying page1.jsp, onUnload method gets called because page1.jsp is going to unload so the tracker value becomes 1 and the thread sleeps for 10 seconds. Meanwhile page3.jsp is loaded and tracker again becomes 2. When the thread wakes up the value of tracker remains 2 so session remains valid. Now user closes the browser and onUnload method gets called for both page2.jsp and page3.jsp. The tracker value becomes 0. After 10 seconds when the thread wakes up, the value of tracker remains 0 so the session is invalidated.
This helps web application not to have orphaned sessions at all and to make the application more efficient and resource optimized.
The nice thing is that even if you don't want to use all of the features Vroom Web Framework provides, you can still get benefit of the features you like by adding support of Vroom Web Framework to your existing applications without any changes in your application architecture.
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.) | http://java.dzone.com/tips/invalidating-orphaned-sessions | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | refinedweb | 632 | 65.22 |
$159.20.
Premium members get this course for $23.20.
Premium members get this course for $7.20.
#include "ar.h"
and then they are in the application's include directory, whose name is often given as a -I parameter on the compiler's command line.
PS: programmingLanguages/C
(Incidentally - where are the two files? In same diectory?)
Sorry about the wrong forum, which one should I goto?
The #include section looks like this:
/* System include files */
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
/* AR System include files */
#include <ar.h>
#include <arextern.h>
#include <arstruct.h>
#include <arfree.h>
Are they supposed to be case sensative?
The files are in the /include dir Ive tried putting them into the same directory... do you think it could be lcc-win32?
Many thanks
Smurff | https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20327282/cant-compile-undefined-reference-to-apicall01.html | CC-MAIN-2018-09 | refinedweb | 135 | 72.73 |
The code is
this.getClass().getResource(filename);and the main part i am confused about is: this.getClass()
It is used in this context:
public class PlayMusic extends Applet { String filename = "woah.wav"; Sequence song; private URL getURL(String filename){ URL url = null; try{ url = this.getClass().getResource(filename); } catch(Exception e){ System.out.println("Exception : " + e); } return url; }
Well if someone could explain the use and what this.getClass() does (and why it's needed) i would be greatful, i like to know what and why i am using code, and so far i can't find anything on the tinterweb to explain it.
Thanks
-fedexer- | http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/68085-thisgetclass-can-someone-explain/ | CC-MAIN-2016-07 | refinedweb | 107 | 58.38 |
- Control DTMF tones
- Cell_id nokia n95
- SIP sigcomp
- Create MMS in inbox, feature not supported?
- Create Alarm for Unread SMS?
- Display an Image within SMS app
- Bluetooth: getting remote device port parameters
- RConnectionMonitor ::GetPckgAttribute ,Status = -5?
- Connection Monitor API, Who knows how to use?
- RHostResolver woes
- SDK s603rdFP1 and Bluetooth
- Ethernet Connection for S60 3rd Ed FP2 on Vista Problem
- [moved] Why In header collection RHTTPResponse for field Set-Cookie is Cookie only?
- help urgent.....Showing a message on receiving an sms
- Read() not able to get data and RecvOneOrMore() some time gets some time not!!
- Bluetooth system error
- A table of Country/MCC/international dialing
- Http Connection via Proxy Server
- distinguishing a MNVO.
- RSocket::Connect() crashed!
- uri8 and IssueHTTPPostL
- Blutooth for 3rd edition
- Handset reboot when getting Wlan RSSI (KSignalStrength)
- Problem with Bluetooth programm
- Can SIP / WiFi calls be "Observed" like CPhoneObserver objects?
- need Etelsat.h!
- create email with attachment
- bluetooth application to detect same type of phones.
- Bluetooth devices information
- problem in sending a file using bluetoth
- Get email source code
- HTTP request via proxy server
- the max length of data sent through RComm
- Number Dialog on Phone Application
- Bluetooth discovery :help!!!!!!!!!!!
- what's the messagetype in UIQ3.0?
- How can i use microphone and receiver in s60 3rd
- Dialing status
- help needed on BPP profile in bluetooth
- Unicode data over sockets
- S60 2nd SyncEx error
- InConsistency in Uploading video files
- delete email from service
- Symbian C++ connect to a web server
- Audio Proxy Server's buffer
- Get Notification Change
- MTM Implementation - Visible accounts
- Bluetooth dilemma!!!
- Connect Bluetooth device
- Bluetooth Documentation!!!
- Question: There is no "Reply" option after creating SMS in Inbox
- Synchronous TCP connection to server
- Rfcomm or Obex??
- API for FTD library?
- Can CTelephony get last phone number and own phonenumber?
- Networking via Bluetooth...
- SQL server and Symbian
- Ping need help!!!
- Why I can't pass the digest authentication?
- AT Command?
- AddressBook example problems
- Can't create CSD IAP
- Cell-Ids different network provider
- nokia email client setup via code
- Navigate a PC Using Bluetooth connection
- Is it possible to switch on bluetooth without notification
- Packet loss with UDP / RTP Connection
- Question with SMS receiver
- Bluetooth SDP & HIDDescriptorList
- Sync
- Catch USSD in 3rd ed
- Using WLAN tags
- simple RConnection question
- How to use conn namespace
- setsockopt SO_REUSEADDR
- Help on getting gsm network parameters
- Capturing a video call & send data to server
- print text data on printer[urgent]
- listening tcp connections
- Bluetooth Printing
- Bluetooth HCI API
- How to receive a file from PC to Mobile phone using socket
- Socket connections and active objects
- URGENT: Java ME VM runs out of RSocketServ message slots
- why it's give me undefined reference to `TUriParser8' in S60 2nd Edition FP3???
- why it's give me undefined reference to `TUriParser8' in S60 2nd Edition FP3???
- New message notification and alert
- HTTP Digest implementation in HTTP stack
- How to create our own ContactsDataBase?
- SIP crashing in 2 VoIP Calls
- Detecting Socket disconnection?
- Finding the best available IAP id
- need help at command
- xml through rfcomm
- Help! how to get last outgoing number
- how to monitor the call
- Nokia SIP stack bug (SUBSCRIBE -> 100 Trying)?
- Distinguish between SMS
- Http protocal bugs on nokia 7610
- Pls help:N95 WiFi state machine..
- RF Parameters collection in CDMA phones
- Cone 36 problem
- HTTP on n70
- How to move sms from inbox to other folder programatically
- 6600 outbox problem
- ETel Server - 1??????
- CellId == NULL
- Direct SMS/[Sent] folder msg title
- Bluetooth messaging to PC
- Messaging Api's..
- 32Feet.Net and S60 SDK Compatibility
- WSDL/SOAP framework for Symbian 8.x ?
- How to Send and Receive SMS
- Which lib need include when i use CMsvSession::OpenSyncL(*iObserver)?
- NAT
- Available WLAN without CWlanMgmtClient
- Change WLAN minim scan internal in central reposity from 15 sec to e.g. 0sec
- Smil format MMS
- trouble retrieving webpage
- can i set the center of MMS?
- undefined reference for CSmsMessage class in Symbian 6
- undefined reference for CSmsMessage class in Symbian 6
- Any working examples of CContentHandlerBase for Wap Push?
- Sms porting problem
- How to get WLAN EAP settings of the device?
- Catch sms coming from no default port
- esock_client 14 panic
- failed to send mms
- using GSM-Transport devices
- SMS Utilities fire on FromAddress
- emulator and real device
- Creating WLAN IAP on N95
- to retrieve area code..plss help
- iError values in TMsvEntry
- RHTTPSession with bluetooth or usb
- a networking question
- How to get Location String in S60 3rd Edition FP1?
- what i can pass CancelAsyncRequest method??
- Search number in sms content
- Messaging, Call monitoring
- Retrieve the BT Device Address of BT Server
- Turn Bluetooth Off
- Connect to BT server using Connect()
- problem in mms
- Any one able to get CCDWLANServiceExtRecord worked
- Data Traffic Monitoring
- missing smsu.lib & smsu.dso
- MMS with user granted capabilities?
- Info needed on messaging client
- header file related to KMsvDraftEntryId??//
- kern exec3 on CmmsClientMtm->SwitchCurrentEntryL() in sending mms........tried a lot
- SMS attachment type
- How to move mouse with camera motion & bluetooth?
- Finding out internet sessions
- Http Filter Plug in?
- Help,About http filter plugin
- PANIC MSGS 214
- Socket Programming on Emulator
- incoming emails notification ?!
- RComm speed
- S60 FP1: How to get notified of headset connection
- The same question for the 3rd time
- Http Connection and dialing a call not working on phone
- Display an html page
- How to read email attchments?
- SMS handling and sockets
- Bluetooth Photo Display
- GPRS data log access
- USB KSendUi defined
- TCP Connection problem
- RTP streaming
- Error in SilentSMS
- RWSPCOConn::EAbort_ind_t
- RHostResolver Problem
- outgoing sms Interception
- Can Nokia connectivity Framwork work with S60 3rd FP2 SDK?
- How to change device's SMSC
- 3G or GPRS
- UDP receive question
- How to list all "Access Point Groups" and later use one as normal IAP?
- Http Connection API console app
- How to create a blocking function?
- Active RSocket::Accept() NOT WORKING
- KErrSSLAlertIllegalParameter using RConnection
- how to get the sms port destination
- Add WLAN AP
- How to set automatic email retrieval parameters?
- TCP Listening Socket WLAN
- Wap 9201 port connection
- Internet Tel. Settings of the device.
- WinSock IAP doesn't show on "select IAP" dialog
- About the roam status
- Message alert...
- Can we do like this..
- How to find and copy files in InBox?
- Selecting IAP on N82
- VOIP Developing on N93.
- How to disabled the sound notification for incoming message ?
- How to change the MTM setting dialog
- Is there any method for reading the entire record data at a time?
- Socket Server timeout?
- RecvOneOrMore/Recv does NOT call RunL
- APS recorder and player settings
- file transfer over HTTP
- emulator
- Sending SMS via other networks than GSM
- send SMS from a 3rd edition device
- Unable to read inbox in S60 3rd edition
- Problem in dialog while connecting to a bluetooth GPS device
- sim card read/write on s60 3rd edition
- How to hide that your app is sending the SMS
- Need one HTTP client example
- Bluetooth
- NOKIA Experts pay attention! Why Sms is in the draft box ,it should be send out.
- How to get datagrams on GSM Um interface?
- How to sending the SMS with chinese character?
- Received SMS Structure
- sending data in one block over HTTP 1.0
- Sms sent on specific port
- Send string data from symbian to .net
- SMS Push to S60 phones
- Modem serial communication on Nokia E50 (S60)
- Behavior when multiple apps register to get incoming call notification?
- Symbian c++ message to J2ME
- nifman
- Switching between GSM & UMTS
- why the obex authentication can not work?
- BT Message
- any possiblity???
- Installing AODV routing protocol on E65
- get mms via socket
- Running WLAN Info Sample Program
- use of a fixed cellular network
- GSM data call
- TSY files in S60 3.0 MR SDK
- Unable to connect to server with tcp socket
- Error in Creating an WLAN access point
- Workaround for browser control api problems on N95 8gb and N82
- Commdb writeprotection problem on N81
- WlanMgmtClient::GetAvailableIaps() Information
- Call Barring application for Symbian OS 9.1, S60 3rd edition PLS HELP
- S60 3Ed Fp1 RTP transmit issue
- How to Set the CA certificate for WLAN AP with EAP-PEAP type.
- Strange issue with TSoInetInterfaceInfo
- CHttpEngine and POST method
- Browser Control On E90 Device
- SMS via Socket using CSmsSubmit
- Digital pen file transfer problem
- VoIP Audio Services API
- Error: -36 from GET API when using mobile phone as modem | http://developer.nokia.com/community/discussion/archive/index.php/f-26-p-20.html | CC-MAIN-2014-35 | refinedweb | 1,374 | 52.39 |
Uhm, having a program that can talk to 0.6 and 0.7 servers at the same time
is not the hard problem, it took way less than five minutes to copy in both
generated clients in the same project and rename the C# namespaces. Two apps
and write to disk inbetween? Maven? That's crazy talk. :-D
What I was the most interested in is the fastest way to retrieve all rows
through thrift. get_range_slices or get_multi_slices? And how can I be
certain that I get all rows and the latest version of each row?
Say that I do get_range_slices, with some start token, a limit of 1000 and
consistency level ALL, what will actually happen? Will I get the first 1000
rows from that token as they appear on the server I was talking to, or will
the server fetch in additional rows that it doesn't have, but that fit the
query?
If I do repeated calls to get_range_slices, and set the start_token to the
last token of the previous slice, will I actually get all rows?
/Henrik
On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 09:07, Stephen Connolly <
[email protected]> wrote:
> maven-shade-plugin could help with having two versions of thrift at the
> same time... but you'd need to build some stuff with maven, and some people
> don't like that idea
>
> - Stephen
>
> ---
> Sent from my Android phone, so random spelling mistakes, random nonsense
> words and other nonsense are a direct result of using swype to type on the
> screen
> On 6 May 2011 01:11, "aaron morton" <[email protected]> wrote:
> | http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/cassandra-user/201105.mbox/%[email protected]%3E | CC-MAIN-2015-32 | refinedweb | 270 | 78.48 |
Now that you have a set of followers, wouldn't it be nice to know a little more about them? In this blog post, I provide some Python scripts that can help you to get to know your followers better. By having this information, you could cater your tweets to their interests.
First, not all followers are created equal. Some of your followers might be following thousands of people, and so your tweets are likely to go unnoticed, lost in the mix of tweets from other people. As an aside, you may be asking how I keep up with the tweets of hundreds of followers. The examples below might give you some hints as to the software I have written to keep up on the statuses of those that I follow.
Personally, I feel that my most important followers are those that have engaged in conversations with me. (Numerically speaking, I give those followers a high "weight" value.) Send me a "custom" Direct Message or better yet, a meaningful @amyiris reply, and I know you are engaged in the discussion. ReTweets also win points in the weighting system! (Here's your chance to increase your value to me!...)
If you like this post, please ReTweet It.
Let's call the remaining followers "silent" followers - they've never engaged directly with me, or said @amyiris in a public Tweet. Even those followers are not created equally. For sake of argument, I'll assume that someone following me who has 1000 followers is "more valuable" than someone who only has 1 follower. So it may be important to know who those people are, perhaps to aim Tweets at them to try to engage them, and move them out of the "silent" group.
So I decided to write a Python Script to allow me to get to know my followers. First I wanted to find out how many followers each one had. Using the Python Twitter library (with only a slight modification to handle pagination of my followers - since I have more than 100), I came up with the following script:!
import csv, math6.csv','a')
csvout=csv.writer(csvfile,dialect='excel')
for f in myfollower:
csvout.writerow([f.screen_name,
f.followers_count,
f.status,
])
csvfile.close()
Anyway, this gave me a very cool CSV file, that has a row for each follower. Each row contains my follower's screen_name (Column A), how many followers he or she has (Column B), and their current status (Column C). Here's what it looked like in Excel:
Opening that file in Excel, I could manipulate it to get some stats:
My top follower has 39,060 followers of their own.
I have five followers with zero people following them, and five more that only have one.
My average follower has 386 followers of his or her own, which is significantly skewed thanks to a few big ones. The 50th percentile (median) follower has 156 followers of his or her own.
My "reach" is currently about 2000 people. That is, if I tweet something, 2000 people get it. But there are 769,000 people that are one step removed (including duplicates). That is, if I send out a tweet, and in the unlikely event that all 2000 people that I reach ReTweet it, then the ReTweet would be received 769,000 times (some people receiving it multiple times). Interesting, but not necessarily something to celebrate. This is all experimentation.
Once it's in Excel, you can sort and analyze it. Here's my "long tail" graph, showing how many followers each of my followers has. 32 of my followers have more than 2000 of their own followers, but I cut the graph off there, so that it's a little more meaningful:
Now I have access to some really cool information about my followers. For instance, I've captured their most recent tweets. So I can see what's on everyone's mind, at this precise moment.
You've seen those "tag clouds" (here's a sample, from Wikipedia; credit: Markus Angermeier, so you know what I am referring to):
Imagine if I could get a snapshot of what my followers are talking about or thinking about at this very moment.
I modified my program to parse the statuses of my followers, and to provide a short list of the top 25 words that my followers are Tweeting. Here were the results of my first attempt:
Top 25 words in my Followers Statuses, and the frequency with which they appear:
652 the
611 to
522 a
427 I
325 for
308 of
303 and
291 in
257 is
219 on
(etc.)
Obviously this isn't very helpful. What I'd really like to do is compare the frequency of words to a standard word frequency table. Then I could see if a word stands out from expected conversation.
One way to do this would be to maintain common tweeted words. Another might be to start with a frequency table downloaded from the internet.
The strategy I took was to create a frequency table by grabbing the 1000 most common words from the Public Timeline. And then compare the frequency of words in my followers' statuses against the frequency table from the public timeline. Not a perfect solution, but something that can be done rather quickly with the Python Twitter interface.
You can examine the code below. I chose to normalize words, making them lower case (so the words "I" and "i" get counted together), removing contractions (so "can't" and "cant" are counted together), and changing all other punctuation and special characters to spaces. Then I ranked words relative how much more frequently they appear in my followers' statuses as opposed to the public timeline. If a word appears in my followers' statuses but never appeared in the public timeline, I arbitrarily pretend that it appeared .5 times on the public timeline (to avoid a divide by zero condition).
The results? Here are some of the interesting keywords, and how much more frequently they appeared in my followers' statuses as opposed to the public timeline (at the moment that I ran the program).
night 4.2x
morning 3.3x
google 2.8x
tomorrow 2.5x
thinking 2.5x
project 2.5x
wow 2.4x
code 2.4x
follow 2.4x
media 2.3x
tweet 2.0x
working 1.9x
facebook 1.9x
twurl 1.7x
sorry 1.7x
software 1.7x
mac 1.7x
iphone 1.7x
rt 1.6x
website 1.6x
twitter 1.6x
python 1.6x
html 1.6x
try 1.5x
reason 1.5x
design 1.5x
awesome 1.4x
firefox 1.3x
feed 1.3x
ruby 1.2x
programming 1.1x
presentation 1.1x
And words that my followers spoke about far less than the public timeline: dragon, headache, stay, god, gym, accountable, aesthetically, reasons, 4corners.
I believe that you could compile a very good profile of your followers, using these methods over time. This small sample tells me something that I suspected. My followers appear to be more likely than the average Twitter user to be interested in Python, Ruby, programming and code projects. They seem to work in the software industry, more so than the average Twitter user. You might also guess that they are apologetic that their code isn't awesome, that they don't think or talk about the gym, god, or being accountable!
The word 4corners on the public timeline is an example of a "hot" topic. Since my followers' tweets may be several hours or even days old, hot topics will not appear with the same frequencies as the public timeline. Apparently at the time of my program execution, there was a link circulating about a fire at the 4corners, and that's how that got picked up as one of the 1000 most frequently used words on the public timeline. This brings up another great way to use this data - informing your followers of hot topics that appear with abnormal frequency on the public timeline.
Here's how my code ended up:
import csv, math, threading, time13.csv','a')
csvout=csv.writer(csvfile,dialect='excel')
tagcloud={}
pubcloud={}
def getpublicwords():
statuses=api.GetPublicTimeline()
for s in statuses:
for word in normalize(s.text).split():
pubcloud[word]=pubcloud.get(word,0)+1
def normalize(text):
utext=unicode(text).lower()
utext=utext.replace("'","") # remove contractions
rtext=""
for c in utext:
if ("a" <= c <="z") or ("0" <= c <= "9"):
rtext += c
else:
rtext += " "
return rtext
for f in myfollower:
if f.status:
fstatus = repr(f.status.text)[2:-1]
else:
fstatus=""
csvout.writerow([f.screen_name,
f.followers_count,
fstatus,
])
for word in normalize(fstatus).split():
tagcloud[word]=tagcloud.get(word,0)+1
csvfile.close()
while len(pubcloud)<1000:
getpublicwords()
time.sleep(61.0)
for word,count in tagcloud.items():
tagcloud[word]=count/float(pubcloud.get(word,.5))
print "Top 25 words in my Followers Statuses:"
for count, word in sorted([(v,k)
for k,v in tagcloud.items()],
reverse=True)[:25]:
print count, word
Imagine how much more interesting you can be, if you talk about things that interest your followers!
If you like this post, please ReTweet It.
10 comments:
I think you have the makings of a pretty cool web service here, if you wanted to. Maybe host it on Google App Engine, since you're already doing it in python. :)
Seeing (near) real time tag clouds of what your followers are talking about would be great. Maybe could even cluster them and produce tag clouds for each cluster. Assuming that any decent following consists of a fairly diverse group of people, being able to split them into related groups would be very handy.
Amy, like the scripts, but your hacked version of twitter.py is falling far behind how about you coordinate w/ the project and get your changes merged in?
Liked Jason's comment about making it a service.
Thanks, John. I'm sure I started with an old version of Python-Twitter, but when I searched for a newer version, I came up empty.
Guess I need to look harder!
I'm happy to have my changes incorporated into the original, but don't want to pretend to be as sharp as the original author, or claim ownership.
I'm just experimenting and tossing it out to the community! Hope it's of value to someone.
Jason, great idea. I bet there are some budding entrepreneurs out there that will see your message, and have it created by morning!
FYI, second script has barfed with the following. Don't have more time to debug it, sorry
IMPORTED TWITTER
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "stdin", line 56, in
module
File "stdin", line 23, in getpublicwords
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'split'
ps. I had to remove angle brackets from around stdin and module to get blogger to accept this
Amy, this link will get you to the SVN repository
John, thanks for all the comments and the links.
Regarding the script failing, it appears to be failing to retrieve the Public Timeline.
I guess I should have mentioned, you may need to substitute your user name and password into the file. That's the change that I made prior to publishing the script (I took my password out).
Retrieval of the public timeline may require authentication by Twitter (I didn't think so, but it's possible).
Otherwise, for some reason, you appear to be retrieving a public timeline with no status messages. Could be a problem with my software, it wouldn't surprise me. Or it could be that the Twitter API is busy (?)
But this worked this morning!
Hope it works for you!
Thanks for the hint, Amy. I had put in my own creds. I've tried it again and it's been running for a *long* time, I'll let it keep consuming cycles and see what happens
BTW, for anyone out there who already has an older version of twitter.py installed, you can change the name of Amy's file to twitterAmy.py, and import twitterAmy as twitterapi in the followers.py example. To make this work you additionally need to change the import statement in the twitterAmy.py file to be import twitterAmy and at line 1491 or something like that, you need to change the reference to twitter to twitterAmy and you are off to the races.
John,
Blogger really messed up my indentation - every time I edit the post, it seems to change the indentation.
You may want to check out the pastie ( ) to make sure that indentation doesn't mess you up.
The other thing to consider is to toss a print statement in there, right before the "csvout" call. Print all those things that are being sent to the csv file. That will give you a sense of progress.
Also, it takes a while to get 1000 words off the public timeline. You can only retrieve every 60 seconds (Twitter caches it, so that's why I have the 61 second delay in there). And to get 1000 unique words, I think it takes about 10 separate calls, times 20 messages. So around 10 minutes in that loop alone.
If it's taking more than 20 minutes, and it has a lot of activity (as opposed to wait time), then you probably have a bug (sorry).
Unless you have a lot of followers. Like I said< I ran it with 2000 followers in about 12 minutes at 7 AM.
Keep me posted, and thanks for trying the software!
Amy, thanks for your help, The version on Pastie.org worked, so you were correct about the indentation. Not sure what the output means yet, so more digging ;-)
For some reason it runs in a never ending loop, each time fetching the same 100 followers (i have more than 100).
It's not an indentation thing. | http://blog.amyiris.com/2009/02/get-to-know-your-followers-on-twitter.html | CC-MAIN-2013-48 | refinedweb | 2,321 | 74.79 |
Timeline
05/27/10:
- 03:36 Changeset [62256] by
- Use forward slashes in path parameters to xsltproc. This should hopefully …
- 02:39 Changeset [62255] by
- add test for internal domain deduction utilities
- 01:53 Changeset [62254] by
- python_extensions - removed const_aware::registry, replaced with …
- 01:25 Ticket #3700 (boost::archive should support basic_strings with different allocators) reopened by
- Hi, The problem here is that we have our string object defined as: …
- 01:16 Ticket #4264 (boost multi_index hashed_unique erase takes linear time) created by
- Hi, We are using a multi_index with several hashed_unique indices. We …
05/26/10:
- 22:08 Changeset [62253] by
- added minkowski sum tutorial
- 21:37 Ticket #4263 (Inconsistency between boost::trim_copy_if and trim_copy?) closed by
- wontfix
- 21:35 Ticket #4262 (Inconsistency between boost::algorithm::trim_copy_if and trim_copy?) closed by
- wontfix
- 21:31 Ticket #4263 (Inconsistency between boost::trim_copy_if and trim_copy?) created by
- Is there any reason why boost::trim_copy_if supports an overloaded version …
- 21:10 Ticket #2762 (impossible to build boost 1.38 for iphone) closed by
- fixed: (In [62252]) Add detection of LITTLE/BIG_ENDIAN for GCC versions that …
- 21:10 Changeset [62252] by
- Add detection of LITTLE/BIG_ENDIAN for GCC versions that define them. …
- 20:56 Ticket #4262 (Inconsistency between boost::algorithm::trim_copy_if and trim_copy?) created by
- Is there any reason why boost::algorithm::trim_copy_if supports an …
- 19:34 Changeset [62251] by
- Fix version check, as g++ 4.1 still has the PCH bug. Refs #4172.
- 19:05 Changeset [62250] by
- Time Series Library deemed orphaned.
- 19:05 Changeset [62249] by
- Bring the boost.jam module up to date
- 18:18 Changeset [62248] by
- Resolve the ambiguity between the zero argument make_shared and the …
- 18:06 Changeset [62247] by
- Handle cygwin vs. windows paths for doxygen
- 17:49 Changeset [62246] by
- DWORD is unsigned long, not unsigned int. Refs #4217.
- 17:43 Changeset [62245] by
- Applied patch for Sun C++. Refs #4199.
- 17:34 Ticket #4108 (C2139 error in VS2010) closed by
- fixed: (In [62244]) Merge [61344] to release. Fixes #4108.
- 17:34 Changeset [62244] by
- Merge [61344] to release. Fixes #4108.
- 17:25 Changeset [62243] by
- Merge [61574], [61575], [61579] to release.
- 17:24 Changeset [62242] by
- Review Wizard report for may 2010 released.
- 17:03 Ticket #4261 (bug? with boost::find_format_all, boost::regex_finder and custom regex ...) created by
- I have a code that has been working for almost 4 years (since boost 1.33) …
- 16:30 Changeset [62241] by
- Fixed test compilation with C++0x aware compilers. The bind and ref calls …
- 15:50 BoostDocs/GettingStarted edited by
- Add instructions for Windows command prompt with Cygwin tools (diff)
- 14:43 Ticket #4260 (core dump restoring simple archive on 64-bit Solaris) created by
- When restoring a simple archive with 4 integers, I get a core dump when …
- 14:22 Changeset [62240] by
- Import the out-xml rules to the global module so they can be found by …
- 12:58 Ticket #4259 (Reference leak in boost::python::function::add_to_namespace()) created by
- In libs/python/src/object/function.cpp, there is an obvious reference …
- 12:48 Changeset [62239] by
- Fixed boost::process::detail::file_handle::win32_dup()
- 12:18 Changeset [62238] by
- Fix stupid bug, that broke using xsltproc ;
- 11:54 Changeset [62237] by
- done class matrix
- 10:40 Ticket #4015 ([PATCH] boost/program_options gcc warning cleanup) closed by
- fixed: (In [62236]) Fix -Wshadow warnings. Closes #4015. Patch from Tatu Kilappa.
- 10:40 Changeset [62236] by
- Fix -Wshadow warnings. Closes #4015. Patch from Tatu Kilappa.
- 09:55 Ticket #3190 (Boost doesn't build on solaris when compiled with libCstd - focus on ...) closed by
- wontfix: Unfortunately, it does not seem like I'll have the time to minimize the …
- 09:51 Ticket #4069 (Minor mistakes in documentation) closed by
- fixed: (In [62235]) Fix types. Closes #4069.
- 09:51 Changeset [62235] by
- Fix types. Closes #4069.
- 09:49 Ticket #3931 (Build boost libraries under HP-UX with GNU C/C++) closed by
- wontfix: I am not planning to do anything further. It's compiler problem.
- 09:47 Ticket #4138 (Typos in the program_options' docs) closed by
- fixed: (In [62234]) Correct typos. Closes #4138.
- 09:47 Changeset [62234] by
- Correct typos. Closes #4138.
- 08:34 Changeset [62233] by
- python_extensions - fixed typo in const_aware test
- 08:26 Changeset [62232] by
- python_extensions - disabled Python no-arg construction for …
- 07:47 Changeset [62231] by
- Add some missing includes for the parameter library
- 07:20 Changeset [62230] by
- license and as_mpl_map
- 06:48 Changeset [62229] by
- Added missing inline
- 06:15 Ticket #4258 (Linking with boost thread does not work on mingw/gcc 4.5) created by
- Errors: …
- 04:07 Changeset [62228] by
- Windows CE does not support returning from functions inside the …
- 03:39 Changeset [62227] by
- Add some missing files
- 03:36 Changeset [62226] by
- Checked in the correct Windows CE fix.
- 03:27 Changeset [62225] by
- - Windows CE does not have the _controlfp_s function
- 00:42 Changeset [62224] by
- brainstorming iterfaces
- 00:39 Changeset [62223] by
- python extensions - removed support for def_visitor in …
- 00:38 Ticket #3994 (Duplicate error codes on broadcom 2.4 mips chipset) closed by
- fixed: (In [62222]) Fix #3994, error values on some Broadcom chips
- 00:38 Changeset [62222] by
- Fix #3994, error values on some Broadcom chips
- 00:31 Changeset [62221] by
- Try to adjust the paths in boostbook_catalog.xml to be correct, whether …
05/25/10:
- 23:47 Ticket #3962 (filesystem operations.cpp calls std::malloc but does not include <cstdlib>) closed by
- fixed: (In [62220]) Fix #3962
- 23:47 Changeset [62220] by
- Fix #3962
- 23:33 Ticket #3910 (Boost.Filesystem operations_test failure with vacpp on AIX) closed by
- fixed: (In [62219]) Fix #3910
- 23:33 Changeset [62219] by
- Fix #3910
- 23:18 Ticket #3867 ([filesystem] filesystem::exists() improperly throws on windows when path ...) closed by
- fixed: (In [62218]) Fix #3867, both for ERROR_NOT_READY and ERROR_INVALID_DRIVE. …
- 23:18 Changeset [62218] by
- Fix #3867, both for ERROR_NOT_READY and ERROR_INVALID_DRIVE. These happen …
- 21:33 Changeset [62217] by
- fixed const correctness of interface
- 21:15 Changeset [62216] by
- Look for docbook in /opt/local/share since that's the default installation …
- 20:58 Changeset [62215] by
- fixed gcc error when -fno-rtti set
- 20:40 Changeset [62214] by
- Use the same syntax highlighting that QuickBook? generates for the …
- 18:44 Changeset [62213] by
- Libraries added to 1.43.
- 18:43 Changeset [62212] by
- Always use forward slashes in arguments to xsltproc. The windows xsltproc …
- 18:40 Changeset [62211] by
- working on different interface ideas for both compile time runtime and a …
- 18:28 Changeset [62210] by
- Better autoconfiguration for BoostBook?
- 18:11 Changeset [62209] by
- Added Locale library. Results for Move pending.
- 17:22 Changeset [62208] by
- #if 0ed non-portable locker template code
- 17:19 Changeset [62207] by
- fixed Simple initializer.
- 17:18 Changeset [62206] by
- removed consistency_checking_string call (no longer exists).
- 17:18 Changeset [62205] by
- added init for thread bound objects.
- 17:11 Changeset [62204] by
- removed matching else from if (!already ...)
- 16:16 Ticket #4257 (Improving invalid signature detection in binary iarchive) created by
- Binary iarchive is supposed to throw invalid_signature archive_exception …
- 16:15 Changeset [62203] by
- Use new symbol visibility macros
- 15:53 Changeset [62202] by
- Decoupled arg_list and maybe. This removes a few dependencies on other …
- 14:51 Changeset [62201] by
- Update to use hidden visibility where possible.
- 14:45 Changeset [62200] by
- Change to use new symbol visibility macros.
- 14:38 Changeset [62199] by
- Add symbol visibility support to Intel and Sun compilers.
- 14:22 Ticket #4223 (boost::python exception translator causes ambiguous call errors with ...) closed by
- fixed: (In [62198]) Explicitly qualify bind with boost::. Fixes #4223.
- 14:22 Changeset [62198] by
- Explicitly qualify bind with boost::. Fixes #4223.
- 12:45 Changeset [62197] by
- Merge PropertyTree? to release branch. I'm not sure if this worked …
- 11:57 Changeset [62196] by
- Minor adaption of PTree tutorial to reality.
- 11:54 Ticket #4245 (encode_char_entities does not handle empty string properly (affects ...) closed by
- fixed: (In [62195]) Make encode_char_entities safe against empty strings, because …
- 11:54 Changeset [62195] by
- Make encode_char_entities safe against empty strings, because Graph uses …
- 11:23 Changeset [62194] by
- Fix unconditional use of non-standard glibc specific functions.
- 11:03 Ticket #4256 (boost::make_shared() may issue stack overflow while constructing large ...) created by
- By default stack size for windows executable is 1Mb. The program below …
- 09:49 Ticket #4255 (Documentation: No overflow-checking in accumulators, no precision ...) created by
- As discussed …
- 08:50 Changeset [62193] by
- boost.python extensions - partial rewrite of const_aware, using proxy …
- 06:59 Changeset [62192] by
- Minor changes
- 05:52 Changeset [62191] by
- Half of work done; Need to solve a nasty bug.
- 04:48 Changeset [62190] by
- added tests for embedded and buffered delete.
- 04:38 Changeset [62189] by
- added testBuffered
- 04:17 Changeset [62188] by
- fixed .dsw
- 04:16 Changeset [62187] by
- fixed is_only_reading and other functions.
- 04:05 Changeset [62186] by
- fixed is_only_reading and associated functions.
- 04:00 Changeset [62185] by
- added testBufferedDelete.cpp
- 02:55 Changeset [62184] by
- Spirit: fixed #4253: Error with lex::_val, added test
- 02:54 Ticket #4253 (Error with lex::_val) closed by
- fixed: (In [62183]) Spirit: fixed #4253: Error with lex::_val
- 02:54 Changeset [62183] by
- Spirit: fixed #4253: Error with lex::_val
- 00:18 Ticket #4254 (error_code.clear() documents incorrect new category type) created by
- The documentation for error_code.clear() says postcondition: value() …
- 00:12 Ticket #4253 (Error with lex::_val) created by
- lex::_val matches the whole input string instead of token attribute only …
05/24/10:
- 22:43 Changeset [62182] by
- Spirit: fixed a problem with lex::_val
- 21:19 Changeset [62181] by
- Removed order/closure elements because of dispatch cleanup (it is now as …
- 20:52 Changeset [62180] by
- Added ever_circling_range_iterator (range version) Small adaptions to …
- 19:52 Ticket #4252 (Typoo in boost::asio tutorial) created by
- At: …
- 19:26 Ticket #4237 (Boost filesystem dynamic failure on darwin) closed by
- fixed: (In [62179]) Apply fix #4237 uniformly to all shared builds, in the hope …
- 19:26 Changeset [62179] by
- Apply fix #4237 uniformly to all shared builds, in the hope that this same …
- 18:40 Changeset [62178] by
- fixed inspect errors
- 18:17 Ticket #4251 (Interprocess failed to communicate in OS X 10.5.8 Leopard under 64 bit ...) created by
- This issue only exists explicitly for OSX leopard 64 bits application …
- 18:08 Changeset [62177] by
- html redirect
- 17:43 Ticket #4250 (Interprocess tmp folder permission denied problem) created by
- shmData = new shared_memory_object ( create_only, …
- 17:40 Changeset [62176] by
- Fixed log ambiguity in VC++ 10
- 17:03 Changeset [62175] by
- Moved order/closure outside dispatches, not necessary there / more …
- 17:03 Changeset [62174] by
- fix for diode misinformation and clarification of layout
- 14:01 Changeset [62173] by
- Jamfile update Fixed perimeter for non-closed rings
- 13:54 Changeset [62172] by
- Corrected closure for area Added closure for centroid Modified/fixed …
- 11:31 Changeset [62171] by
- Fixed syntax in equal / closing_iterator (will be iterator_facade)
- 09:07 Changeset [62170] by
- Added closed / closure Updated jamfiles
- 05:55 Ticket #4249 (pin_to_zero should be inlined) created by
- boost::detail::pin_to_zero in boost\thread\win32\thread_data.hpp should be …
Note: See TracTimeline for information about the timeline view. | https://svn.boost.org/trac/boost/timeline?from=2010-05-26T15%3A34%3A16-04%3A00&precision=second | CC-MAIN-2017-09 | refinedweb | 1,863 | 51.07 |
JasperReports - Desparate Help Required!
Marcus Hathaway
Ranch Hand
Joined: Jun 07, 2005
Posts: 89
posted
Sep 27, 2005 11:20:00
0
Hi,
This has been bugging me all day, can anybody offer me some advice how to get started with JasperReports or iReport. Specifically, i need help on setting it up after downloading. When using iReport, it connects with the database fine and creates its report. However, when it comes to compile time it fails. I'm thinking this will have something to do with placing such and such jar file here and setting this variable like this etc. However, after a day searching the net and even buying the online book i just not having any joy.
For example i've tried to create the simple report as detailed here:
web page
I've placed both the
java
file and jrxml file into the directory C:\Report. When compling the java file i get errors like....cannot find symbol class etc. I've tried all day experimenting with placing various jar files in this Report folder and other things.
I don't really understand the classpath and varible setting bigger picture...this is why i assume this is giving the grief. Any help would be greatly appreciated!! confused:
Michael Ernest
High Plains Drifter
Sheriff
Joined: Oct 25, 2000
Posts: 7292
I like...
posted
Sep 27, 2005 12:25:00
0
I'm moving this to Other Java API, since the problem seems to be product-specific.
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
- Robert Bresson
Marcus Hathaway
Ranch Hand
Joined: Jun 07, 2005
Posts: 89
posted
Sep 27, 2005 15:40:00
0
I've had a mini breakthrough in that i'm now able to create the jrxml file using iReport. If i complie in iReport i get to see the report i have designed and the sql query results just fine in a
pdf
file. I now want to be able to get generate such a pdf direct from my own java program.
Therefore would/should the following code work?!
public class CustomerReport { public static void main(String[] args) { JasperReport jasperReport; JasperPrint jasperPrint; try { jasperReport = JasperCompileManager.compileReport( "account_customer.jrxml"); jasperPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport( jasperReport, new HashMap(), new JREmptyDataSource()); JasperExportManager.exportReportToPdfFile( jasperPrint, "simple_report.pdf"); } catch (JRException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } }
As i mentioned in my original post i'm convinced some of my problems arise from my lack of importing the correct jasperreports package. Should i have these import statements?
import java.io.File;;
I would say yes.....however, even if i include these import statements i still get similar error messages. I've put the jasperreports jar file in the same folder that the java source code and jrxml files are located. Is this wrong? If so where should it go?
Some of my complier errors include things like:
package net.sf.jasperreports.engine does not exist
cannot find symbol class JasperReport
etc etc
Any help, ideas or comments would be most welcome. Thank you
Joel McNary
Bartender
Joined: Aug 20, 2001
Posts: 1824
I like...
posted
Sep 28, 2005 07:51:00
0
Sounds like you CLASSPATH does not include the jasperreports.jar file. Make sure that jasperreports.jar and itext.jar and commons-logging.jar are in your classpath... I think that these are the minimum jars needed to export a Jasper report to a PDF.
Piscis Babelis est parvus, flavus, et hiridicus, et est probabiliter insolitissima raritas in toto mundo.
Marcus Hathaway
Ranch Hand
Joined: Jun 07, 2005
Posts: 89
posted
Sep 28, 2005 12:29:00
0
Hi Joel,
Thanks for replying, i have studies some of your previous posts on here regaring jasperreports....
Ok, please excuse my complete novice question.....but when we refer to putting something in the classpath does this literally mean in the same folder/place as the java source code? Or does this mean i make an amendment in the environmental variables classpath that points to wherever the jar file in question is? I'm slightly confused on this seemingly simple point!
Thanks for your reply
Marcus Hathaway
Ranch Hand
Joined: Jun 07, 2005
Posts: 89
posted
Sep 29, 2005 05:17:00
0
I think i'm getting closer but this is still driving me crazy!!!
Is my thinking and stages below correct?
Ok, i've created a sucessful report in iReport. Its brilliant, it connects to database, gets my data and looks fab. When i complie in iReport a pdf file loads itself up and i'm in heaven.
I now want to be able to load such a pdf file from my own java application. I now need to use stuff from JasperReports. However, i don't need to create the report design because iReport has done that for me. The iReport created document is in C:\Report and called test.jrxml.
I create the following java program:
import java.sql.*; import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.Map; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRException; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.xml.JRXmlLoader; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperCompileManager; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperFillManager; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperExportManager; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperPrint; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperReport; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.design.JasperDesign; import net.sf.jasperreports.view.JasperViewer; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperManager; import net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperPrintManager; public class Jasper { public static void main(String [] args) { try { //Complie Jasper Report XML file JasperDesign jasperDesign = JasperManager.loadXmlDesign("C:/Report/test.jrxml"); JasperReport jasperReport = JasperManager.compileReport(jasperDesign); // Run-time report parameters Map parameters = new HashMap(); parameters.put("title", "A user-customized title"); //Establish connection with database DatabaseSource.init("Database.Properties"); Connection con = DatabaseSource.getConnection(); //Create JasperPrint using fillReport() method JasperPrint jasperPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport(jasperReport, parameters, con); //Create pdf file of Report JasperExportManager.exportReportToPdfFile(jasperPrint,"report.pdf"); } catch (Exception e) { System.out.println(e); } } }
I go to complie this code and everything is great. It compiles fine. I think i've cracked it.
I now go to execute the code but get the following error:
Exception in thread "main"
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError
: org/apache/commons/digester/Digester at net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JasperManager.loadXmlDesign(JasperManager.java:971) at Jasper.main(Jasper.java:23)
I search the internet for two days and try out various things to do with my classpath relating to the commons-digester-1.7.jar file. This file is located in C:\Program Files\Java\JasperReports\lib. Additionanlly, in my environmental variables i have added it to the path.
Can anybody give a suggestion as to what to try next and stop me going mad?
Thank you for any advice
Arthur Pham
Greenhorn
Joined: Oct 04, 2005
Posts: 2
posted
Oct 06, 2005 20:39:00
0
Hey,
My advice for you is using the file.jasper when you load the report. Go to your iReport folder you will file yourfile.jasper then load it as the following:
JasperReport jasperReport;
JasperPrint jasperPrint;
try {
jasperReport = JasperCompileManager.compileReport(
fileName);
jasperPrint = JasperFillManager.fillReport(
jasperReport, new
HashMap
(), new JREmptyDataSource());
JasperExportManager.exportReportToPdfFile(
jasperPrint, destFileNamePdf);
} catch (JRException e) {
error("Error occured here " + e.toString());
}
However, I am still getting problem with my upper code.when I run this it shows me the error is:
net.sf.jasperreports.engine.JRException: Invalid byte 1 of 1-byte UTF-8 sequence
And I am finding the answer for this.
Could any one in this forum help!
Thanks in advance!
Best regards,
Arthur.
Arthur Pham
Greenhorn
Joined: Oct 04, 2005
Posts: 2
posted
Oct 28, 2005 23:32:00
0
I did it successfully.
Using the same code but I use Odesign to design to compile the report. But I am still using iReport to design. The step would be:
iReport to design.
Then take the report.jrxml copy it to Odesign and compile it.
It would be ok
Ah, one thing, you have to use the JasperReport of Odesign version to load the report because you must have the same version of JasperReport to compile and to load it.
Good luck.
Arthur.
muhammad fahim
Ranch Hand
Joined: Dec 17, 2006
Posts: 45
posted
Jun 13, 2007 05:24:00
0
Hi master sir I flow your guidance but when I give complied file name that give me error on that line
See my code
Connection conn = null ;
try {
javax.naming.Context ctx = new
javax.naming.InitialContext
() ;
DataSource ds = (DataSource)ctx.lookup(" java:comp/env/jdbc/Travel" ) ;
conn = ds.getConnection() ;
} catch (Exception ex) {
error(" Error counting rows: " + ex.getMessage() );
}
JasperReport jasperReport;
JasperPrint jasperPrint;
jasperReport = JasperCompileManager.compileReport("c:/fahimjasper/fahim.jasper");
sir what wrong with this code
jasperReport = JasperCompileManager.compileReport("c:/fahimjasper/fahim.jasper");
sir this line give me error
sir please give idea how I create pdf give all remaining step after this error line
thank�s
amir
Rodricks george
Ranch Hand
Joined: Sep 10, 2006
Posts: 97
posted
Jun 25, 2007 07:27:00
0
Hi Try this,
String
FileName = "C:/jasperoutput/employees_report_1.jasper";
String outFileName = "c:/jasperoutput/EmployeeSalary.pdf";
HashMap
hm = new
HashMap
();
try {
//--------------------------PDF-----------------------
JasperPrint print = JasperFillManager.fillReport(FileName, hm,
conn);
JRExporter exporter = new net.sf.jasperreports.engine.export.JRPdfExporter();
exporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.OUTPUT_FILE_NAME,
outFileName);
exporter.setParameter(JRExporterParameter.JASPER_PRINT, print);
exporter.exportReport();
System.out.println("Created file: " + outFileName);
-Rodricks
I agree. Here's the link:
subject: JasperReports - Desparate Help Required!
Similar Threads
JasperReports and databases
calling jasper reports from java
need to offset a date by intervals of 1 year
Problem with jasper report -loading stream
difference between JasperReports, iReport, iText and JFreeChart
All times are in JavaRanch time: GMT-6 in summer, GMT-7 in winter
JForum
|
Paul Wheaton | http://www.coderanch.com/t/273032/java/java/JasperReports-Desparate-Required | CC-MAIN-2015-40 | refinedweb | 1,601 | 51.75 |
Duplicate way of filtering the milestone_id from IssuableBaseServices
We have 2 ways of cleaning up the
milestone_id from params passed into subclasses of the
IssuableBaseService:
IssuableBaseService#ensure_milestone_available calls
Issuable#milestone_available? to check if the selected milestone is part of the project directly or belongs to one of the namespaces in the tree of the project. If it is not, it sets the param to
nil.
In
IssuableBaseService#filter_params we call
IssuableBaseService#filter_milestone that does the same thing but with a slightly different approach causing 1 query.
The
ensure_milestone_available path is more performant in case of a project milestone, as it's just comparing ids. But its less performant in case of a group milestone because it's loading all of the ancestors & the milestone.
The
filter_params method is used more often, so I think we should replace the existing calls to
ensure_milestone_available with that and perhaps optimize it so it handles the case for project-milestones int he same way. | https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/64659 | CC-MAIN-2019-35 | refinedweb | 160 | 57.71 |
I think most software companies have a set of rules for writing and formatting code. This is often referred to as a “style guide”. This tells the programmers on staff how to make code that will fit together in a coherent system. For example, in C++ this code:
… and this code…
…are basically the exact same code. (Assuming I didn’t botch the conversion.) They will do the same thing in the same way and will have the same bugs. (They might produce very slightly different executable code, but only because on line 3 of the second example, I assign a value to var3 before declaring var4. Other than this discrepancy, the resulting program should be identical. I think.) The second is written in a very compact style that was popular among traditional C programmers fifteen years ago. The first is more modern and is more common among younger C++ focused coders. Both of them have drawbacks and shortcomings.
The thing is, the cost of code isn’t in writing it. It’s in debugging, maintaining, updating, and re-using it. Contrary to popular belief, we coders are not super-geniuses that spend all day solving equations in our massive pulsating distended brains. More often than not, we’re regular people with a very peculiar idea of fun. In fact, I’ve found that it’s the really smart programmers who understand just how limited their mental faculties are and will make allowances for their own limitations. It’s the dum-dums (or more often, just the inexperienced) who assume they will always remember everything in perfect detail later.
It’s pretty common to write code and then forget what it does or how it works. So when you’re writing code you should always be thinking of the other programmer. The dumb programmer. The programmer who doesn’t understand this code and has no idea what’s going on. The odds are very good that this other programmer is going to be a future version of you. That other programmer is going to want to look at this code and understand it as quickly as possible. This will happen many times, every time the code is revisited or even read. (Sometimes the coder will be looking for something else, but will get turned around and find themselves at your code. The sooner they realize this isn’t what they need, the sooner they can move on.)
If it takes five minutes to untangle your code, then it will cost five minutes every time someone needs to look at it. If you can reduce that re-learning time to one minute, then the other programmer (who still might be you!) will be able to work five times faster. Multiply this effect across the entire codebase and you suddenly realize that you have a lot of power over that other programmer. You can make their life easy or you can torment them with obscurity and confusion. (The awesome thing is that if the other programmer is you, then they get what they deserve either way.)
Back when I was paid to write software, our company had a coding practices guide. We were a small company, so the system was largely informal and only covered the basics. The original guide was devised by one guy, who basically wrote most of the original software himself. When the rest of us joined him on the coding team, his own personal style became the company style by default. The guide remained after he departed. His successor didn’t see any reason to change it because consistency is more important than personal preference and nobody wanted to re-write or re-format all that old code. When the job fell to me, I retained the style for the same reason. After several years I got comfortable with it and it influenced the style I use in my personal projects. If you’ve ever downloaded the source to any of the projects I’ve done over the years, you’ve probably noticed bits of anachronistic C formatting in my code. This is why.
In a larger company these guides are more likely created by a group of people, and the question of what is “best” is probably shaped by what sort of software you make. If your software is some sort of complex mathematical system (perhaps a simulation) then your team might be served with a really sparse style with lots of empty space so it’s easy to follow the flow of all those densely packed variables. Meanwhile, if you’re writing something with lots of branching, looping code broken into small methods (like code that drives a GUI interface) then a really wide style will make even simple code overflow onto many excess pages. Your coders will end up spending all day looking at whitespace and smacking the Page Down key.
I bring all this up because the Doom 3 source code has been released to the public and someone asked about this analysis of the source. In the process of reading that, I stumbled on the internal coding conventions of id Software, (which are publicly available as an Office document) and got to read about how they write code in the house of Carmack.
I’m going to follow up with another post where I talk about these standards and, what I think about them, and what makes these fussy little details so important.
In Defense of Crunch
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
Quakecon 2012 Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
This is Why We Can’t Have Short Criticism
Here's how this site grew from short essays to novel-length quasi-analytical retrospectives.
Artless in Alderaan
People were so worried about the boring gameplay of The Old Republic they overlooked just how boring and amateur the art is.
Control
A wild game filled with wild ideas that features fun puzzles and mind-blowing environments. It has a great atmosphere, and one REALLY annoying flaw with its gameplay.
157 thoughts on “Coding Style Part 1”
If it takes five minutes to untangle your code, then it will cost five minutes every time someone needs to look at it.
When I was just starting in my career a senior developer I really respected explained this point by saying: “I’m going to write this code once; I’m going to have to read it a hundred times.”
So when you're writing code you should always be thinking of the other programmer…. The odds are very good that this other programmer is going to be a future version of you.
I explicitly use this concept in my workflow. Before I commit anything to source control I ask myself how ‘future me’ is going to feel about coming back in to that code, and then cleaning it up if necessary. And sometimes I curse ‘past me’ for not being careful enough with that criteria.
“I'm going to write this code once; I'm going to have to read it a hundred times.”
This is explicitly the design philosophy behind Python (expressed by its creator as “code is read more often than it is written”), which is why it’s such a joy to work with: it’s expressive without being inscrutable.
Doesn’t “expressive” imply non-inscrutability?
Anyway, there’s something about whitespace, even when it’s made visible, that I can’t quite handle so even the tiny pieces of code I’ve done in Python felt harder to read than they should have been. So there’s a bit of Your Mileage May Vary with Python’s readability, even if it’s just weirdos like me.
I thought that the Python philosophy was “there should be only one (obvious) way of doing it”, what you’re saying is a lot better.
Expressive does not imply scrutable (it’s a word now!). See, for example, Perl, where people pride themselves on being able to write an entire program in a single line. Or APL, which is like Perl but replace line with character.
I check words like “expressive” online, but Oxford Online Dictionary unfortunately only has the common meaning* and I didn’t remember it’s also a programming term.
I didn’t use “scrutable” because the spell-checker didn’t like it, so I figured I would be safer just using what is essentially a double-negative.
* Which is “effectively conveying thought or feeling”.
Scrutable has been a word since 1590ish, so don’t worry about using it.
It’s a British English word, which is probably why the spellchecker hates it.
Mind you, this spellchecker also hates the word ‘spellchecker’ which I think tells us all we need to know about how useful it is.
I have the spell-checker turned on British, but it has been missing some words before.
Yeah, here by “expressive” I roughly mean “how much you can do in a single line of code” This is often the *opposite* of readable–think the kinds of difficult-to-understand things you can do with pointer arithmetic in C, or any Perl program ever. Python tries to be expressive in a way that still makes it clear exactly what’s going on; most of the time it succeeds.
You know, it’s quite possible to write Perl that is legible :)
Ah, forgot it has a different meaning in programming.
The python philosophy is a lot of things, and both of those ideas are part of it. PEP 20, the Zen of Python, is a good summary (and readily accessible in any interactive python session by running `import this`).
That’s…. not really true. Python takes discipline on the part of the coder to be readable- otherwise, it can get full of lists containing things and variables of indeterminate type that pop out of nowhere.
Let’s just say that you have a very different opinion of “joy” than I do… *mumbling about significant whitespace being arbitrary, hidebound convention thrown off by even COBOL and RPG programmers a decade ago*
Closely related to that thought is this one:
“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.” ““ Brian W. Kernighan
If you’re not familiar with Kernighan, take a look at – he’s the K in K&R C, and a founding father of Unix, too. He knows what he’s talking about.
Yeah, my preferred style is ultra compact with loads of magic numbers. I do remember (usually) what the numbers mean if I ever review my code, even if they seem to drive everyone else insane.
Don’t do that. Code that everyone else hates gets you fired, because it’s the programmer equivalent of “That guy is very difficult to work with.”
Alternatively, Code that no one else can deal with is good job insurance. ;p
People will still hate you, but at least you will get paid for it!
I hope you aren’t serious.
At any rate, if they’re smart, you’ll get fired and they’ll pay someone to write it properly. It will cost them more in the short run, but it will save them money in the long run and serve as an example for all other coders that want to go rogue.
You seem to be assuming that management can actually divine the function of the code without help. This is rarely the case.
I agree with the sentiment that it’s a shitty way to go about coding, but it would be foolish to believe that such things don’t occur; crazy things get justified for perceived job security. Byzantine code also feeds into the BOFH ego trip that some programmers have.
Yeah I know. They tolerate me because I comment the crap out of the code, so it isn’t at all incomprehensible. I’ll admit my “style” makes it look ugly as sin though. ;)
So long as the end user never sees your code, ugly-but-practical trumps pretty-but-useless.
that’s the attitude of a lot of programmers, I think, especially game programmers who have a tendency of wearing a lot of hats (or they USED to back when even the biggest games had relatively small teams)
That’s part of why the Doom 3 code is so exceptional I think…
Writing is re-writing.
Game design is playtesting.
Painting is re-drawing
Coding is debugging
Like many disciplines, iteration is king, unless you can get it working *perfectly* on your first try. If you are, then you’re probably not challenging yourself enough and bored out of your mind.
You should at very least strip your magic numbers off into separate variables. This has the advantage of letting you change every instance of that magic number at once, while making your code much friendlier to other people and pretty much eliminating the points when you yourself don’t remember.
I’m currently reviewing the game engine I’ve been building for a couple of years now, and I’m pretty happy with most of my old formatting. The stuff I’m not happy about is currently getting torn out and rewritten.
You are my nemesis. We have a special token at my work for people like you.
Noooooo! Nooooooooooooooo! Hungarian should only encode semantic types. That you have a zero-terminated string is clear from the type, but is it a username, a resource identifier, a blarghinator, a fundibulum or a skvorzer?
Good use:
int xCellSize;
int yCellSize;
This really makes a difference when you write “yHeight – xMaxDistance” by accident, and it’s really clear that this calculation is probably wrong.
CString usName; //unsafe means it can contain unsafe chars such as ‘\’
CString sName; //The same string, just safe for DB-use
CString csName; // crypto-version
This prevents you from writing “SELECT * FROM table WHERE name = ?” with the usName as parameter, resulting in people entering “‘asd’ OR TRUE; DROP *;” and destroying your database.
And generally speaking: Your variable names are some of the most important bits of information about your code. If at all possible, use descriptive names, and don’t repeat just what the type information already tells you. “Geometry* pGeometry” is really not a useful name when you are writing a software with many geometries in it, and totally redundant with its type on top of that! Name it for its use, such as “fileContents” or “previewObject”, or whatever it is you are doing. It is really annoying that people write names like “int iValue”, which not only tells you nothing about the use of this variable, but also pretends to be informative, when in reality I already know it’s an int because it says it’s an int!
As for short variable names: If you only need your variable for five lines, you can go with “i”. If you need it for ten lines or more, choose a proper name (“height”). If you need it for the whole class, it should be at least two or three words strung together (“HeightOfBiggestBuilding”).
usName is for unsafe name? And not, say, username? And the sName could mean surname.
Just because you think usName/sName are obvious doesn’t really mean that they are. If you truly want crystal-clear variable names, force them to be crystal clear atthe expese of length. unsafeName / safeName. Basically.. like you yourself showed with “fileContents”
It is crystal-clear for those in on the convention. As for username, it does not seem to me to be the kind of information you’d put in a prefix bur rather in the variable name proper, i.e. “usUsername” or “sUsername” in the case of marking safety wit ha prefix.
If it’s made explicit in the style guide for the project then you don’t have to make it explicit in the code,
BUT it pays to be aware of the fact you’re doing that, because you may someday work on a project with it’s own style guide.
I’m not saying usName is the best variable name ever (especially because “name” is so unclear to begin with). But when you have fifty variables read from a webform in front of you, and some of them are safe and some are unsafe, this makes a lot of sense. I would not use these shorthands in generic code (for the reasons you describe).
My point is: If you really want to use hungarian notation, use it correctly! I’m technically required to write crap like “uiIndex” (because it’s an unsigned integer), but that is completely wrong for more than one reason:
1. Using an unsigned when you could use an int results in problems such as any subtraction becoming a potential error.
2. Unsigned are harder to convert to and from floats. That may sound irrelevant, but when you want to access single bits in floats (for comparison, for example), converting them to and from int is actually really easy.
3. uiIndex tells me nothing that “i” (as an acceptable shorthand for any indexing int) would not have told me, but it clutters my screen with useless data.
Just found this gem in the code in front of me:
if(rCI.pT1L) rCI.pT1L->SetAdjacency(rCI.dwT1LEdgeVA, rCI.pT1R);
Guess what that means? The hungarian “r” and “p” only make this even harder to read, but don’t give me meaningful information. I suppose this code does something with adjacencies and edges, and therefore polygons. I still believe that our code has very high standards in regards to style, but there is still so much needless complexity.
I don’t … understand camel case. I really don’t. I’ve been reading English all my life, and I’m used to spaces between words. Variable names can’t have spaces (in most languages), fine, but that’s what ‘_’ is for – it provides the same visual spacing as the space bar so the words read more naturally.
I also am not a big fan of Hungarian for the same reason X2-Eliah mentions. I’m going understand the difference between “unsafe_name” and “safe_name” a lot faster than “usName” and “sName”. I also sometimes put the ‘type’ at the end because, as a long time reader of English, I’m used to the form “adjective adjective noun.”
So, yes, I end up with long identifiers, but I can read them very quickly, and it turns out I can type them very quickly because my editor has a completion function. So, sure, I end up using a loop variable like “current_model_id” instead of “i”, but darned if my future self doesn’t love me for that later.
Were I to see “confirm_no_image_dialog = confirm_no_image_accept_callback” in my code, I’m pretty sure I’d spot the bug just as fast (the dialog uses callbacks, it doesn’t equal them). I dunno, maybe it is slower to read my code – and I’m sure I invite a comment like “why use == instead of is_equals then?” and the answer is vague and hand-wavy, though I’m sure I’d have more bugs caught at compile time instead of run time if I DID have to write
“set animal to cat” and “is animal equal to cat?” out like that (as opposed to them being “animal = cat” and “animal == cat” and dang that missing = is sometimes really hard to spot). I think my ideal world language would be able to translate between those views with a button click.
Agreed on camelCase, I find it EXTREMELY ugly. I usually use lowercase_with_underscores for variables and TitleCase for classes, which is the usual style in Python-land, but I tend to carry it with me to other languages because I find it’s the most readable.
Well I find underscore separation even more ugly. Ha! Your move.
well, for me at least it’s way faster to type a capital letter than a _ between words. Blame my terrible touch typing on the second half of the number row…
As for objectively instead of personally.. *shrug* I can read camel case just fine.
The reason I hate underscores is BECAUSE it looks like whitespace, which is confusing when reading code quickly. Reading a line such as “Type variable_name = value”, I don’t want to see white space in the middle of the variable name. I want to see it as one chunk, variableName.
Of course, I suspect if I had used underscores when I first learned to code, I would be agreeing with you. It’s tough to differentiate between “this is better” and “this is how I always did it”.
Ahhhh, I’m so used to editors with syntax highlighting that I don’t need whitespace to differentiate token breaks, but I can see why that would be useful in monochrome. Thanks, at least now I understand the case for camelCase.
I can adapt to either system, but I prefer no underscores for this reason.
When I write my own guide for a project, I use a system I learned from one of my first CS profs, which allows no more than one underscore per name, to delineate variable type data from unique variable identifiers.
IE: privateString_characterName is preferred; characterName is acceptable; and Character_Name is an abomination.
–but once again that’s just when it’s me deciding the rules of the game. As Shamus wisely points out, consistency is more important than personal preference.
Everyone on a project has to be on the same page as to what is implied and what must be explicit.
This.
If your DBA is allowing you to send straight dynamic SQL like this for any important table, they deserve the job of restoring the backup & explaining where yesterday’s sales orders went. IMAO, of course.
The warts on the variable name suggest you want it to be an unsafe/safe string, but nothing’s stopping them from getting mixed up somewhere along the line.
I’d use typedefs and let the “escape unsafe characters” function do the conversion from UnsafeStringType to SafeStringType.
As in this?
I don’t think the compiler is required (or even allowed?) to block that. Indeed, GCC 4.6.1 thinks the above is just dandy. I think you need to go as far as creating new classes:
That works, although you actually need to provide wrappers for all of the constructors; otherwise you lose access to them. That said, I like this strategy; I’m generally in favor of moving error detection into the compiler whenever possible.
All of this kind of thing is going to be HIGHLY environment-dependent. The Casing Police will have a lot of fun as soon as they start dealing with a mix of languages that may or may not have token case-sensitivity mixed with an OS that doesn’t have name sensitivity at all, combined with writing to a database system that can be configured to behave either way, inconsistently between scopes, such as the connection specifying insensitive, but with tables that are, but the comparison functions being so or not depending on the defined attributes of the column, which, oh by the way, are user-supplied tables so you can’t assume ANYTHING about them.
Correction: Hungarian should only be taken out behind the barn and shot.
Describe what is wrong with the Hungarian notation please, and how it’s a fundamental problem, not just people abusing it due to lack of understanding.
You can probably safely assume that when someone is angry at Hungarian, they’re angry at Systems Hungarian, which is a war crime. And unfortunately Systems Hungarian is the one that’s widespread.
Systems Hungarian is a tool, like all others. People don’t understand the tool and misuse it, but is that really the reason to condemn it and destroy it? Wouldn’t it be better to try and instill a culture of respect and understanding of the tool?
Some tools are so awful, some completely free of utility that they should be destroyed so people don’t injure themselves on them. Systems Hungarian was created by accident, spread by fluke, and only persisted out of habit and bureaucracy. It’s useless and irritating. Teaching people to respect and understand it is like teaching people to respect and understand bloodletting to release bad humours as a medicine. What’s better is pointing people at better tools, in this case Apps Hungarian.
Can’t really comment on this specific topic as I haven’t done coding in well over a year and I’ve never used Hungarian notation, but:
“Some tools are so awful, some completely free of utility that they should be destroyed so people don't injure themselves on them.”
This is true. It’s not even all that important if it’s an inherent problem in the tool or just people using it wrong, if it causes enough trouble it is safe to consider it a “bad tool” and discourage people from using it.
I find Systems Hungarian useful in weakly typed languages, where you cannot rely on the compiler/interpreter to pick up on accidental type conversions, and variables are not declared anywhere as being of a specific type.
Fair enough; I was coming at the discussion from a C/C++ (and I suppose Java/C#) direction, where you have reasonably strong typing.
Reasonably strong typing… in C? Where you can put an alpha in a variable and then perform addition on it? (for just one example among many)
Or has C finally joined the modern world since I ran screaming from its useless stupidity a few years ago?
But yes, Systems Hungarian is EXTREMELY useful in weakly type languages.
I am not fond of Hungarian Notation, but when used to denote semantic types, it at least has a space where it may not require purging with fire. If all you do is to encode the same type as your variable declaration, you’re making more work for yourself.
Ah, I saw that tweet. I figured this was brought on by that post.. Looking forward to part 2.
I’m excited to have incited this reaction. :3
I am likewise excited to see the reaction itself. :p
I’m a fan of the approach “Always code as if the person who ends up maintaining your code is a violent psychopath who knows where you live.”
Yes! Or a passive-aggressive sociopath who has direct influence over your career progression. Which may actually be true.
Related: Always design your game as if the players will be playing it with the controller cord wrapped around your neck.
Because, to be honest, if someone ends up asking the devop to fix something in your absence, that will actually be the case.
Well, I’m most likely to be maintaining the code, and I know where I live…
And if the code sucks, well, you’re 3 for 3, eh? heh.
Can’t you use comment expressions to label what tricky parts of your code does? I know when I was doing my two coding classes in college, me and a couple other students would keep two copies of the code. One was bare, and the other used comments to label stuff.
. . . I know, it’s amateur level stuff but if you’re the only one who has to keep score (“this is a hobby” as opposed to “this is work”) then I don’t know if it should matter.
We absolutely comment our code, which we might not have to do so much if we were better about documentation, but there’s nothing like having a little line just above a block of code that says, “This section applies an OTA filter and outputs an array of peaks per frequency range at each time slice.” That way, if that’s not the part of the code you’re looking for, you can skip it entirely without having to translate anything.
Another good practice is to Cut/Paste this same comment next to the function declaration, if you’re using a language that requires headers.
That way if someone just needs quick summary of the function because they came across it in a different function, and not the long version, they can find this in a hurry. Just be sure to update them both whenever a function undergoes a major overhaul.
If you functions are too complex for that to be feasible, consider taking Alan’s advice further down this thread. This will save a lot of time updating comments if you change your method of doing things, and is also handy for benchmarking the practical impact of an alternative technique.
I.E. if you are doing a certain thing one way and it works, but you have an idea on how it could be done better, make a new function that does things the new way, and call it instead. Make a comment on the original function, noting the date of the last time it was part of the “active” program, and what kind of performance issues it was phased out for.
You should always comment your code (and for Raptor Jesus’ sake, don’t ever have two valid copies of the same piece of code!), but the idea is that you don’t need to comment something that is obvious already. It saves text, which saves brain-processing for important bits. Comment the Why and the How, but never the What.
Really bad:
// Increase the index
index = index + 1;
Really good:
// The name field is stored behind the street field
index = index +1;
Better:
name = &fields[NAME_FIELD];
Using comments to explain tricky bits of code is probably a good idea. Having said that, you shouldn’t rely on comments to explain your entire code base. If you choose good variable/class/function names, and your project is well designed, a lot of the code should be self-explanatory. On the other hand, if your code is a complete mess, then comments probably aren’t going to make it that much easier to follow.
Generally speaking, if your code needs comments to be understood, you might want to redesign your code. There are exceptions, but far fewer than most people think. A particularly useful trick is too move the tricky section of code into its own function whose name describes what it does.
Also of importance:
a comment is essentially another copy of your code, albeit in another language (usually your native natural tongue)… which means the same caveat that applies to cut-and-paste programming applies: you’re very likely to end up with the two copies of the code being out of sync after future changes.
At that time, it’s possible, even LIKELY, that the comment will actively frustrate attempts to understand the code rather than help it.
So the rules of commenting are:
*) explain WHY but try to make HOW obvious by good use of variable and function names, thus forcing the “how” part to be up-to-date with the latest changes
*) if you change commented code, then you update the comment under penalty of pain. If you can’t be arsed to update the comment, it’s better to delete it entirely than let it be wrong.
That said, I generally have “section heading” comments in my code: “parse the inputs” “validate the inputs” “load old db records” “update and save the records” “print the new form”. Those should probably be in functions, but when writing a page to handle a 5 input form, functions can be overkill (and require passing basically Every Variable In The Script to them, which is nearly as impenetrable as global variables).
I’m going to try and remember the “a comment is another copy of your code”; that’s a good turn of phrase.
You know, this is a good point–when I said, earlier, that we always comment our code, I’m thinking of when we work in scripting languages (specifically, MATLAB). Our C# code typically doesn’t have embedded comments. I do a fair amount of commenting in my Python code, but that’s partly because I’m still learning it so my thought processes aren’t always easy to follow. I’m still doing a lot of things in a non-Python way and that makes the code progression a little obfuscated. Once I’m better at it, I should be able to leave out all but the biggest section headers.
My approach to commenting code is to comment at a “higher level” than individual lines of code, that is, sections of code that have a coherent purpose. For example, say I have a function that takes a string, parses it into some kind of data structure, uses the data structure in some equation and returns the result; each of those steps will be several lines of code, and I’ll usually comment each section with the basics of what’s going on so that someone reading the code can get a sense for what each of those steps are without having to understand each line of code.
You may also be thinking that what I outlined above should really be three separate functions; you might be right! Sometimes doing something like that is one-off, and simple enough that it doesn’t need to be split into separate functions, but you’ll end up discovering LATER that you’re doing one of those steps over and over again; commenting code this way also means it’s easy to go back, find that block, and cut+paste it into its own function for easy reuse.
Another way I (and most programmers) “comment” their code is to document higher-level constructs like functions, classes and modules. It’s usually called “documentation” rather than “commenting” but it serves the same purpose.
If you have tricky bits in need of a comment for explanation, you are probably doing something wrong (I know I do that a lot. getting a tool to compute your cyclic complexity helps a lot as long as you follow its rules).
split the function into subfunctions, rethink the way you do what the function is doing and try to find a neater, cleaner, better way etc.
yes, it’s only a hobby (for you, at least). but it helps a lot in the long run. it’s the difference between keeping your tool kit organized so you can find the stuff you need fast or throwing it into a heap and having to search for ages to find a hammer.
imagine writing a convoluted cronjob and having to rework it a year later. when I started I had to rewrite it all, cause I had no clue what the first one actually did and even my comments didn’t help…
Funnily enough, the Kotaku article praises Carmack for judicious use of comments…while the article he references praises Doom 3’s code for being almost 30% comments
30% *is* judicious.
And sometimes, the code is tricky because you have to work around some proprietary third-party library where access to the source code isn’t possible (beacuse your company doesn’t want to pay for it) and said library has … quirks. And comments are perfect for documenting that.
true, but then I’d rather have a “vodoo-box” (put in a, b, c, get d) than 20 inline-comments in 40 lines of code and the box itself is excessively commented.
with such a box I may not know how it does stuff, but I know what it does, which increases reusability and the chance that someone better/smarter/more versed in such vodoo can improve the box without touching (and possibly breaking) everything around it
I see comments as a last resort.
Rather than write
// This iterates over objects in a list and moves them 20 metres to the right
for (int i = 0; i < m_numObjects; i++)
{
float oldXpos = m_objects[i].getXPosition();
float newXPos = oldXPos + 20.0f;
m_objects[i].setXPosition(newXPos);
}
You should write
MoveObjectsToTheRight(20.0f);
And have your MoveObjectsToTheRight function contain just that loop.
Breaking complex code into smaller functions with good function names will make it far more readable than comments (as well as being more maintainable).
Comments should be used when you have to do something non-obvious because of special demands on your system. They should generally explain why you did something, not what you did.
There’s one major problem with relying on commenting – comments lie. You make a comment that means something very clear and useful, and then tomorrow you change the code to fix a bug and forget the comment, and in a month when you look at the code again you skim through the comments and have the completely wrong idea of what the code does.
I think comments explaining *why* you do something that’s unclear are great, because they add context to the code. Comments that explain *what* the code is doing are usually a bad sign.
Again, not a coder/programmer here. I’m an amateur writer, who happens do do a lot of work around tabletop RPGs :P As such “commenting the code” is something I do a lot.
A lot, a lot, a lot. (And roughly 50% of that is in the margins of the notes I take during a game I run of what gets ad-libbed.)
The replies all on this thread have told me quite a bit, and honestly? I now know I will *never* be able to program :) My brain does not function in the proper method to do it well enough to be paid for it. And if you’re not getting paid for something, it’s not helpful to you, and it’s not fun, why are you doing it?
I used to write in the second style ten years ago, when I was a student who never had to work on anything more complex than a class assignment or small personal project. I did not at all get why some people seemed so stressed out over things like variable names, spacing, comments, etc. If the code works, who cares what it looks like?
Then, I finished school and got a job, and it didn’t take long for those things to click. That first style became king, and any coworkers who continued to use the second style might as well have been the devil himself to me. When you’re working 40+ hours a week, with dozens of other developers, rolling on and off projects along the way, the value of a consistent and clear style to your code feels almost immeasurable.
It may take a teensy bit longer to write it that way, but you’re going to make up for that by the very first time you have to revisit that code and are able to skip out on the 5, 20, 60 minutes you’d have to spend stepping through it to figure out exactly what in the world is going on.
I saw that article about the Doom 3 source code on reddit. I was immediately curious about what you thought about it. I’m glad that you decided to comment on it. I’m curious what you have to say about Carmack’s C++ style. It seems good to me, but I’m a Java guy, so my understanding of C++ coding practices is pretty limited.
I’m 90% sure the typical response to “I’m a Java guy” is ‘you shouldn’t be a one-language guy, you should be a programmer’.
Programming is largely similar no matter what language it’s in, at least at the same rough level – the language is just the specifics. If it’s well-written and documented I would THINK you should have a fair chance of telling what each part is doing even if you don’t know the language at all.
That said, I’m basically a ‘java guy’, and I didn’t even bother to LOOK at the code, so… yeah, perhaps I’m being a bit hypocritical here.
There are no different programming languages. They all are dialects.
You should try programming in Prolog sometime.
Well, they all reduce to a Turing machine or lambda calculus, but that doesn’t mean they’re all the same. Good procedural code, good OOP code, good functional code, and good Prolog are all very different, and some languages let you mix and match paradigms to taste, which is a different experience as well. It’s definitely worth at least trying a few of those different styles.
I’d say we have four major languages, and then a ton of dialects and variants:
1. Imperative languages, like C or FORTRAN
2. object-oriented languages, like C++ or Java. These have replaced the first category pretty much completely.
3. functional languages, like Haskell or Prolog
4. structured query languages, like SQL or XQuery
Of course, we have hybrids, such as Scala (omg Scala is awesome!) which offers all that 2 and 3 do. You need to learn one language per category (though you can skip 1 if you know a 2). But going from SQL to XQuery to XSLT is easy, and going from C++ to Java to C# is all but trivial.
close, so close :)
1. Imperative languages, like C or FORTRAN
2. object-oriented languages, like C++ or Java. These have replaced the first category pretty much completely (except in embedded apps or driver development)
3. functional languages, like Haskell or Lisp
4. structured query languages, like SQL or XQuery
5. logic programming languages, like Prolog (you don’t define or use functions in Prolog, you make a database of assertions, then make queries and it figures out the assertions it needs to resolve your query. It’s… weird, but if you’ve used a makefile, you’ve experienced something close to it)
Wikipedia lists #s 1-3 and 5 as the “four main programming paradigms” (here ), but also has a list of about a billion paradigms on the same page. Also, #s 1-4 are the ones actually used in Real World App Writing, so those are the ones to learn (though I’m surprised we don’t see more of #5 in game AIs)
When I said, “I’m a Java guy,” I didn’t mean to imply that I only know one language. I say I’m a Java guy because that’s the language I’m the most familiar with and it’s the language I spend the most time working in. I do know other programming languages (I’m learning Clojure at the moment) but I don’t get the chance to work with them as much as I’d like.
Anyway, the conventions for writing clean code can vary quite a bit from one language to the next, even if the languages themselves are pretty similar. So I’m curious what the Doom 3 code base looks like from the perspective of an experienced C++ developer instead of, you know, a Java guy.
Both examples are awful, but probably necessarily so as 1) they’re illustrating fairly extreme ends of the spectrum, 2) highly contrived for the sake of example (iFirstVariable is no more useful than var1) and 3) mingling not-necessarily related style decisions. Readability lies somewhere between, with the ideal location varying from person to person. Anyone promoting a single style as optimal for everyone is an arrogant jackass who shouldn’t be creating style guidelines.
(Also: Shamus, there is an stray { on line 14 of the second example. It’s lacking a closing } that would have been on line 15.5. )
“…consistency is more important than personal preference…” is a really important point. Conform to the nearby source code and you solve most of your style problems.
“The Exceptional Beauty of Doom 3's Source Code” irritated me because a lot of it boils down to “This is the style I like, therefore it’s beautiful.” Arguing that somehow
if beautiful where
isn’t is silly.
I’m sympathetic to cutting down on useless comments, but “Comments are bad unless they’re totally necessary and they’re rarely necessary.” is overkill. They’re a good place to note assumptions the implementation makes, to make promises and give warnings about what you’ll get out, to note performance characteristics, to direct readers to the research paper the algorithm is based on, and generally answer questions more quickly than reading the implementation.
[…]
Arguing that somehow
if(velocity.getLength() > 1.0)
if beautiful where
if(velocity.length() > 1.0)
isn't is silly.
[…]
Whie I agree with the rest of what you said, this is false. From the () we know that the code calls functions/methods, which should always describe what they DO in their name. getLength() tells me it gets me the length. length() tells me it… lengths?
Does it set or get the length? In this case you can infer what it does by context, but that's not a given for the whole of the code.
If you omitted the (), thus directly accessing an attribute, the velocity.length would be fine, since attribute names should always describe what they ARE or contain.
I agree with the first guy; the distinction is fairly immaterial. Might just be that the example is very contrived, but the best solution to this problem is actually something like C#’s properties, which aren’t available in C++. Within C++, I think it’s pretty subjective, and making an exception to the general rule for mutators and accessors is probably OK, just as long as it’s handled consistently.
if your language has implicit get/set methods on attributes (C#), then foo.length is Objectively Right.
I agree 99% on the “function names should always be verbs” rule, though a case can be made for, “foo.length() is get, and foo.length(x) is set,” in languages which lack implicit get/set methods.
I’m actually not a fan of velocity.length(1), because you are taking an action and the meaning isn’t entirely clear. The context is a vector, and the length is almost certainly a calculated value (sqrt(x*x+y*y+z*z)). Willing to the vector to be a new length could mean scaling it, setting it to [length,0,0], or maybe something else. In practice, it probably means scaling the vector. So I’d go with
velocity.scale_to(1); // Modifies in place
new_velocity = velocity.scaled_to(1); // Returns new
I do not know what the common arguments for or against but just on instinct using the same method name with different parameters to do wildly different things seems like something I’d want to avoid.
But that’s not what the example is. The () designates a function call, which should have some sort of action word associated. You’re correct, if the language allows you to access it as a static property, foo.length is fine. But if you need to call a function, use foo.getLength().
Technically you should not need to know how that call returns the value you ask for. It might be a function call, it might even be recursive, it might be a variable in memory, it might ask the database on the server, or it might be a cached variable in memory that was calculated by a function call.
What I’m saying: The caller of “length” should not need to know these specifics. For him, “velocity.length” is enough.
The key is my mind, and why my preference is for velocity.length() is how something reads.
A more general rule is: if something is more property-like, it should look more like a noun. If it’s more active, it should look more like a verb. In light of that, I actually don’t like velocity.length(1) to mean “scale to a length of 1”; we’re actually changing the vector by scaling it and the verb disappeared. I’d probably go with something like velocity.scale_to(1).
Of course, your mileage may vary, which gets to my core complaint about the article; there is an implication that the author’s preferences are objectively correct, when in fact it tells us more about how he thinks than about what is objectively beautiful.
Here in Java-land we have ‘objects’, which are obviously nouns, each of which has ‘methods’, which are obviously verbs. ‘variables’ are nouns of a certain type – you know, numbers, strings, whatever.
Actually, I thought that was how OOP in general worked? Having not worked on another language yet it’s a little hard to know the differences… >.>
Yes that’s how it should work, here the question is over a method called either Length or GetLength, which just returns a length.
Do you think in terms of doing an action when saying if (velocity.GetLength() > 2), or in terms of a noun when saying (if velocity.length() > 2)?
I don’t think there’s much difference, generally I’ll say GetWhatever, but most of my container classes just go with a Count() function.
The argument for the method length() isn’t really based on “I think methods should be nouns,” it’s based on “grrrrarrrgh this language doesn’t have proper properties, so I’m going to write a .length() that ACTS JUST LIKE a property” which is why .length(1) is inarguably “set the length to 1” not not some scaling function or whatever, so when you read .length(1) you’re reading “if this language had proper property systems, this would say .length = 1”
(by “proper properties” I mean that .length = 1 can be changed to do something more complex if length is a derived property – obviously if you just “public” an “int length”, you can do .length = 1 in almost any language, but if length is a derived rather than explicit property, there might not be an attribute to make public)
OOP is a way of modeling. While naming your types using nouns and your methods using verbs is a good practice, it’s a convention and not a requirement.
Java certainly doesn’t adhere to this convention with unwavering devotion. See String.length() … (Which I point out merely to say that reasonable people can have differing opinions on such things, as they apparently did in the early days of Java!)
Allow me to present std::vector::empty(). Whoever came up with that deserves to be slapped with a large fish.
I slapped myself with a large fish when I read it.
If you are going to demonstrate Hungarian (even a style people don’t like) — then shouldn’t line 7:
float iFourthVariable ;
…actually be…
float fFourthVariable ;
…or somesuch (haven’t worked with floats at work enough to recall the correct notation, but it certainly ISN’T “i”)
I dunno. I think there’s something very apropos about a demonstration of Hungarian notation indicating physical types, and having the type of the variable and the type in the variable name be wrong in at least one case. Very close to the sort of Hungarian one is likely to find in ‘real’ code.
Yep. I don’t know why anyone uses type-based Hungarian. If I get information-based Hungarian wrong, (xPosition vs yPosition), bad things happen. If I mess up on types, the compiler comes in and slaps me upside the head, I fix it, and the only thing wasted is the 30 seconds I spent compiling and fixing the bug. No subtle bugs, no nothing. All it does is make the code harder to write AND read.
Oh, the why is actually pretty easy. They picked it up from Microsoft a decade or two ago (possibly at some level of remove). Joel Spolsky wrote a good article about “Systems Hungarian” vs. “App Hungarian” a number of years ago.
In practice, it’s just easier to say “Don’t do that!” than try to explain why bad Hungarian notation is worse than none at all, and why what the developer in question probably thinks is good Hungarian is almost certainly not.
Specifically, a lot of us picked it up from Charles Petzold. His book on the Windows API was the standard text on the subject for many years.
I still have that book.
I was one of the people who learned it from Petzold’s book (as Wedge notes) and was forced into it by a Windows shop. I rejected it as soon as I could. The Spolsky article “(Making Wrong Code Look Wrong” convinced me that good Hungarian notation, App Hungarian notation, could be a useful tool, but I’ll admit I don’t actually use it.
As we are talking about C++ relying on the compiler for type-checking is not too bad; however in weakly typed languages relying on the compiler/interpreter for type checking can land you in just as much trouble.
I think this is a great example of why Hungarian is bad. (Yes, Joel Spolsky explained that apps hungarian is fluffy and rainbows, but I was never forced to use that.) It’s really just a comment, and it’s a comment on something particularly inane. It’s like writing this:
int foo; // integer
float bar; // floating point
And as everyone knows, when the comments and the code say different things, both are broken:
float foo; // integer
float iValue; // String
Now we’re getting somewhere!
As a young programmer who just started his first job (so the younger than young programmer), I’d like to comment on the first one.
1) Don’t use #define. Preprocessor replacement is bad, and you should feel bad. Make it a const int instead, so the compiler can grab it and not the Preprocessor.
2) It’s camelCase(), not PascalCase() for function and variable names. PascalCase is for Class names and class names only.
2b) Though I have seen lower_case(), usually as a sign that this is C-based code, not C++-based code.
2c) As long as you’re not that idiot who did Pascal_Case() for his entire library, and you’re consistent, I’m happy and can work with it. If you are that idiot, I can work with it, but I will be casting horrible curses on you the entire time because my fingers don’t work that way.
3) Type-based Hungarian is bad. No one uses it (except when forced to by evil senior programmers and their coding standards).
3b) Everyone uses semantics-based Hungarian, but they couldn’t tell you what semantics-based Hungarian is.
4) You are allowed to define variables when they are declared.
5) This is C++. We have std::string. Char *’s are bad, and error-prone. Let’s use the STL for what it was intended for.
5b) If you really need to do significant work with Char *’s (where the odds of me screwing up the code (and the extra benefit of std::string doing in 2 lines what I would need to write in 20) are greater than the cost of the 2 extra copies), copy it over to a string, do the work on the string, and then copy it back.
5c) Minor work can be done in Char*’s, but ONLY for interop with old C libraries (or super-extreme optimization). If you’re writing new code, just use std::string.
6) Const is definitely your buddy. Agreed on that. Const to the extent that the compiler will let you, because it will keep you from making errors.
7) Brackets are odd, and usually depend on what I’m doing. You should ALWAYS use brackets around if’s, fors, and whiles to prevent errors, but using 3 lines for 1 line of actual code is pointless.
if (condition) {
[TAB]single line of code
}else{
[TAB]single line of code
}
if(condition)
{
[HUGE GIANT BLOCK OF CODE HERE]
}
else
{…
/Also, you can tell how close I am to the due date by the extent that I follow these. If I’m going to be working in this code for 2 months, let’s make it nice and pretty. If I have 3 hours left, let’s make it work.
I’ve heard people say that preprocessor #defines are “bad”, but I’ve never seen anyone make a compelling case as to why. And I’ve NEVER heard anything that would make me willing to define application-wide variables, even if they are const.
1) A #define is easy to spot in code. That ALL_UPPERCASE name is an eye-grabber and makes it clear that we’re NOT dealing with a variable.
2) #defines can be type-less, which I realize some people see as a drawback. Still, if I’ve got FOOTSTEPS_PER_MILE I can use it with ints or floats without casting and the compiler converts to the proper type.
3) I use #defines all the time, and never have trouble with them. They’re not a source of bugs or confusion.
I really don’t get the advantage of const, aside from the aforementioned type-casting.
ALL_CAPS is just style; works just fine for const global variables. For simple constant literals, I’m not seeing cases where “const int FOOTSTEPS_PER_MILE=5200;” would do the wrong thing compared to “#define FOOTSTEPS_PER_MILE 5200”.
Why #define is bad:
– Your debugger can actually tell you what the value is as opposed to unhelpfully complaining it doesn’t know that symbol. (Some IDEs will Do The Right Thing, so maybe moot for you)
– Your compiler is unlikely to be able to name the macro it’s angry about in error messages; you’ll see complaints about things not actually present on the line in question. (I think some compilers are starting to Do The Right Thing, but it’s more cutting edge.)
– Things fail far less cryptically if you accidentally reuse a name; the compiler will tell you in as many words that it’s multiple defined.
– Writing macros that behave like functions are work correctly in all cases is extremely hard. If you get it wrong, the failures will likely be cryptic. The big two are being called in a implicit block and multiple evaluation of an argument with side effects
Why you can pry #define from my cold, dead hands:
– Everything you care about is in one place, the header file, not declared in a header file and defined in a non-header file.
– The compiler can better optimize; it can’t see the actual value in another source file and insert it directly.
– There are things you can do with #define (string pasting, clever tricks with __FILE__ and __LINE__) that go from brief and easy to use to long and cumbersome.
As for const, it’s a promise (admittedly, one you can break) that you won’t monkey around with something you’ve been handed. This makes it easier to identify code that may have side effects. If I give you “mystrtok(const char*);” you know I won’t be changing the string you pass in. It’s particularly useful if you’re writing in a more functional way, as espoused by John Carmack.
On your third point, GCC’s preprocessor will complain if you try to redefine something. I find it hard to believe that there’s a preprocessor that won’t complain about
#define foo 7
#define foo 8
I do like const, but C and C++ are horribly broken languages for letting you cast it away. Horribly broken.
Fair enough. The problem still exists for clobbering a function, type, or variable name with a macro. Or, in the case I actually ran into…
Back in the late 90s I was working on the AD&D Core Rules CD-ROM Volume 2. For reasons that baffle me now (and baffled me then) there was something like
I think I can blame the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) for this, but it’s been a long time. Whatever the reason, it was widely used throughout the code. This went well for a while, until someone was unifying some constant strings and added something that made perfect sense in the context of software for Dungeons & Dragons:
All of a sudden about half of the project refuses to compile, with errors that I think were something like “String not expected here.” And you’d go look at the code and it would innocently say
There is no string there, why is it angry? And INT worked just fine in other files (one that didn’t include the header with the #define), and had been working for months at that point. Debugging that was an angry few hours.
One can limit the danger with style requiring that macros be ALL_CAPS, but it’s better to move problems to a level where the compiler can help you if a human makes a mistake
“I think I can blame the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) for this”
I think this is older, probably to the first transition from 8bit to 16bit processors, though perhaps older still. The basic point of “INT for int” is that you can swap headers to compile the same code on a machine that disagrees with the bit size (or endianness) you designed for. I could be way wrong, though. I just know in *n*x things, there are lot of pseudo-types like INT32 and INT64.
Hey I bought that CD! I still have it. Only thing I remember about it now is that made me realize the encumbrance system was nuts. I had a 16 STR character that was encumbered because he was wearing clothing. Not armor, just clothes.
Random nostalgia moment is over.
That’s a great example of how coding styles matter. Using all caps for things that are not macros is very bad juju. Of course, my first instinct on seeing that error for the line
INT counter;
would be to M-. (etags) the INT, then check the preprocessor output because INT must be a macro, and what else could be wrong with that line?
Modern C (C99) has stdint.h to solve that problem, but I’ve seen many approaches for codebases that couldn’t use modern compilers.
For what it’s worth, I do agree that even C’s weak type system should be used whenever possible. I just strongly object to the notion that one should never use macros. Static inline functions and code generation can only get you so far.
That’s a much more useful argument than I’ve read in the past, thanks.
And yes, over-use of #define macros is a wonderful way to blend obscure puzzle-solving with cryptography and sadism.
Outside of the debugger related issues, my main argument against using #define’s for constants are because if someone uses them in a header, anyone using something named the same could potentially conflict.
Having
class
{
static const int NUM_OBJECTS = 4;
Object m_objects[NUM_OBJECTS];
};
Has all your nice scoping so that if you include another header with another class with NUM_OBJECTS = 8, you don’t run into issues.
As far as using them in the .cpp, it’s just to maintain consistency with the header.
On a nearly unrelated note: It’s amazing that I can hear John Carmack’s voice as soon as I start reading his prose. His writing style is so close to his speaking style that the two map almost seamlessly. Un-affected may be the word I’m looking for.
#define’s:
Never doesn’t always mean never. It just means that unless you have a fantastic reason for using it, don’t.
The fundamental problem with #define’s is that the code that you pass into the compiler is not the same as what the compiler gets as input, because the preprocessor does find-replace magic.
For trivial stuff, #define VARIABLE value is fine, and the typeless is an advantage. (Though unless you need the typeless for something, there’s no fundamental difference between that and const int VARIABLE = value; which preserves the obviousness in code scanning).
For non-trivial stuff, you’ll eventually hit a point where the macro causes a bug that the function doesn’t. (See Alan’s SQUARE(get_next_int()) example down below). You can work around it with some simple non-compiler enforced code style, but I write the majority of my code at 3 AM, and won’t always remember. And than I’ll have a non-trivial bug
Const:
1) Your compiler LOVES const. Loves it, loves it, loves it. Properly-consted code will always be equal to or faster than non-consted code on that same compiler because of all the crazy tricks you can play knowing that this value will always be this value and never, ever change (Or that something going into foo() will be the exact same state coming out of foo()). And no, I don’t know what they are, I just remember my friends in the compiler course laughing about it.
2) The compiler will catch lots and lots of bugs with const.
const int n = 3;
[BIG BLOCK OF CODE]
n += 2; //This is a bug.
will cause a compiler error. “int n = 3; //THIS SHOULD BE CONST” won’t. Naming conventions (“n => constN”) won’t (though they’ll make it easier to find). Having the compiler catch as many bugs as possible is a positive event.
Especially since if(x = y){ [code] } is valid C++. Every C++ coder has made that typo at one point or another. And it’s nearly impossible to find. But if x was const, the compiler would scream, you’d fix it to if (x == y) and you’d never have the bug at all.
3) If you’re writing an underlying library, you had better be properly consting, so that the people above you can properly const their code. You can’t half-const. It won’t compile without significant work (and lots of const casts, which is my guess as to why const cast exists).
Edit: And the whole promise thing that Alan said, which makes it easier for other people to use your code. Forgot that one. Thanks Alan.
/I also vaguely remember having fun times with non-const class getter definitions and the STL, since the STL very quietly consts a bunch of stuff of stuff without telling you. But don’t quote me on that at all.
//I also remember having even more fun with C++98 and double-consting in the STL (const T where T= const int becomes const const int, which is a complier error). But that’s been fixed in C++11.
On the subject of compilers loving const:
a.c:
const int foo = 7;
a.h:
extern int foo;
b.c:
#include “a.h”
…
blargle = foo * 2; // This is the special line.
Your compiler does not know how to optimize out that multiplication. Had a.h used #define FOO 7, no code at all would be generated for the special line. It would just substitute the number 14 the next time blargle was used. Instead it has to make your poor users read from memory and multiply by 2 every single time they run the program. They might even need to do it again if the special line is duplicated or the function it’s in is called repeatedly.
My compiler did! I had it return blargle from main, and all it gave me was:
B8 OE // mov eax
C3 // ret
No moving from variables or multiplying or anything. Just a straight up “return 14”. So apparently, compilers really do like consts. Or at least VS2010, anyway.
That’s nutty, but probably because your compiler has link-time optimizations turned on. For situations where you can do that, it’s great. But for people who have to use object files generated by other people, it’s not. And many compilers (like older versions of GCC and several really wonky ones that I have to use on embedded systems where saving a few bytes of memory actually matters) don’t support that feature. Instead, you get from this code:
to this:
BTW, if (x = y) … is something that most modern compilers are capable of catching. For some reason, with MSVC you have to use /W4 (report all warnings) to get the warning, but you should compile with that anyway.
I believe gcc will report it without any extra switches, too.
Aside: Shamus, it’d be nice if you slapped a tag on the “confirm you are not a spammer” text so that we could click on that instead of having to hit the checkbox itself.
Maybe I’ve had a different coder’s upbringing than you, but my preference is always to assign a constant as a public/private class variable.
One of the big advantages is scoping- SomeClass.SOME_VARIABLE has a very clearly defined scope. Other classes can use SOME_VARIABLE without it cluttering their global namespace. Subclasses will inherit it. Subclasses can override it. SomeOtherClass.SOME_VARIABLE will not cause any conflicts. If I decide to put three classes into one source file, I don’t have to worry about which #define is for who and if they conflict.
In other words, #define has the scope of the source file it’s in. SomeClass.SOME_VARIABLE has the scope of SomeClass, which is more meaningful from an architectural standpoint.
Other advantages:
-It’s immediately apparent what SomeClass.SOME_VARIABLE is- even if I’m not familiar with the coding style, I know where I should go to find it.
-Your IDE’s autocomplete will point it out for you. If you’re using a class you haven’t used in a long time, just looking at the list of options after SomeClass. in the autocomplete is a good way to remember what’s what.
Yes, #defines do allow for some optimizations that constants don’t, but even embedded systems nowadays are powerful to the point where it isn’t going to matter. There are much more important ways to optimize your code, and the less time you have to spend debugging and trying to re-figure out your code the more time you have to optimize what’s important.
It’s true that a lot of C++ code is CamelCase and that underscore_separated is more common in C code. I find it a bit strange, given that everything that C++ gives you out of the box, including notably the STL, uses underscore_separated. Personally, I blame Java.
About #defines vs. const int. In C (NOT C++), a “const int foo = 42;” will reserve memory to store the 42 (and at least using GCC) will place it in a read-only section; “#define FOO 42” will replace instances of FOO with 42, meaning FOO is treated as a literal, not a read from memory.
“const” in a function declaration like “int foo(const int bar)” informs the programmer that bar isn’t modified, and may help with some optimizations.
These days, I use enum instead of #define for numeric values (still with upper case names). The compiler is aware of them, and most debuggers will have access to that information as well (at least, the compilers I’ve used—mostly under Unix).
I’m pretty sure the first one won’t execute since the first line is commented out.
#define IMPORTANT_NUMBER 10
Or, is that a global variable definition? Hash mark is comment in Python, but in C++ it’s the double slash?
Curse you divergent code conventions!
Very interested in your thoughts on the ID style et all.
Also, I like to think of that last screenshot as a visualization of bad coding practice and byzantine code catching up with the developer.
That’s a preprocessor defintion. Think of it as a giant find-replace.
#define X 10 means “Before you hand this off to the compiler, head over and replace all instances of X with 10. In text. As a string.”
Now that’s not a problem. The problem is when you do things like
#define Square(X) X*X
and Square(x + x) gets replaced with “x + x*x + x”, making the answer X^2 + 2X
Which is why you NEVER EVER use Preprocessor definitions
#define { }
#define } {
#define true false
// Funny and evil to leave behind in some obscure piece of code
#define TRUE 2
// More amusing and evil version, because it is correctly following the standard, but 99% of all implementations use TRUE = 1 instead. You should never rely on TRUE = 1, but a lot of code implicitly does, because it’s easy to miss.
#define true (math.random() > 0.01)
// Exceptionally evil. Works correctly in 99% of all cases.
No, that’s why you shouldn’t ever use badly written preprocessor definitions/macros.
#define square(x) (x)*(x)
is a perfectly valid method of implementing a square method without the overhead of making an actual function call.
it also avoids the square(a+a) = a + a*a + a problem, by making it (a+a)*(a+a), as it should be.
In fact, it should really be
#define square(x) ((x)*(x))
to avoid any ambiguity at all.
As a matter of fact, many of the “functions” defined in core system libraries are actually implemented as macros to avoid unnecessary overhead. It may not matter for something that gets called ten times in a program, but when your square() (or abs() or whatever) method gets called in a ten billion iteration for loop the micro- and milli-seconds add up and the performance difference can be striking.
(I realize that some of the optimization flags available on most modern compilers can recognize these situations and inline the code for you. Unfortunately these optimization flags frequently make complex code much more difficult to debug, and may even change the functionality of your program in unanticipated ways…. I know, because I’ve run into situations where that is the case)
It gets worse, because what if what you pass into your macro definition has side effects. To take a simple example:
That turns into
Which on the first call returns 1*2=2 instead of the expected 1*1=1.
There are a variety of techniques to get it right, but they’re really non-obvious, easy to screw up, and when you screw up the failures will frequently be extremely cryptic. Non-trivial macros are dangerous tools. But, they’re tools you sometimes really, really want and I miss them when they’re not available. (I’m fond of various techniques involving __FILE__ and __LINE__ to aid in log messages.)
Put square (x) in a header file, and write “inline” in front of it. Trust the compiler. Or rather, trust those guys who implemented your compiler. They do nothing except working on making it more reliable and faster. I’m pretty sure they are better at optimising than all of us.
Never ever is a terrible rule. I use preprocessor defines all the time in C code. The important thing is to make sure the preprocessor has its very own namespace. Anything in ALL_CAPS is by convention something the preprocessor will replace. Anything that isn’t is not. If the preprocessor is given something that’s not, it’s a horrible bug and someone will probably get a beating. The solution to your problem with Square(X), by the way, is to always put arguments in parentheses. This is (an important) part of our coding standard:
#define SQUARE(x) ((x)*(x))
That will yield correct results as long as evaluating x doesn’t have side effects (or, in some cases, take lots of time). And as a bonus, you don’t have to write a different implementation for each type x could ever have (int, float, long, short, char, double, don’t even get me started on all the types in stdint.h…). So it’s important to make sure SQUARE is in all caps so that users know that x may be re-evaluated.
But then I write in C. If this were C++, you could use templates to solve that problem but you’d be forced to write C++ which is pretty torturous.
Yep. C is why Preprocessor exists. It’s C’s templating.
and the templated version isn’t too terrible (And will be inlined by even the most idiotic compiler).
template [typename T]
T square(T val){
[TAB] return T * T;
}
or even
template [T val]
struct Square{
[TAB] enum {value = val * val}
}
and then use Square(N)::value. (though N must be known at compile time)
McGrath’s Kotaku article is amusing to me because so much of what he focuses on are not so much on how Carmack wrote beautiful code, but on the ways that C++ is ugly as hell, and how id managed that ugliness.
That is the core of most style guides. C++ has lots of fodder.
We recently went through an update of our coding standards where I work because the person who wrote the original left and the engineering department tripled in size and we’re starting a new project with lots of new code. I was gratified to find that most people didn’t care about most of the silly things like Function() vs. Function () vs. function().
I used to be crazy about putting the opening { on its own line, but then I learned to write Go and love the bomb. Hungarian is still the devil though. I don’t care what Joel Spolsky says.
In reading this set of comments, I’ve realized that I’m pretty sure the only REAL reason I put { on the opening line is so that I can easily match it up with the end bracket. That’s helpful on medium-long blocks, yes, but in short blocks it wastes a TON of space.
Of course I don’t have much experience, but that’s a style-dilemma I’ve run into myself…
I think it is overestimated how much time will be spent investigating old code to make small change, the change will take 15 minutes to implement and test. The investigation on the other hand occupies a day. Code should always focus on easy to understand or if difficult, document. I have spent about half my career on supporting code, only getting to write one new program a year. I can tell you that clever is sometimes needed due to unique problem, but most of the time adding additional steps hurts nothing. This is the opinion of someone who spent a majority of 20 year career in a support role, so much wasted time in investigation.
As always Shamus, I enjoy your programming articles and insights.
I like the guy’s choice of brace style, but, hey, it’s what I use. (And more-or-less what I have always used.) Placing the brace on the same line as the keyword, declaration, etc to which the block belongs makes it clear the block isn’t a standalone thing. And elses should be cuddled for the same reason: an else exists only as part of an if block, not as a thing of its own. (I notice nobody sane ever intentionally drops a newline and an extra level of indent between the else and the if in an else-if statement in most anything C-derived.)
But, I loathe his predilection for tabs (a space is a space the world around, but a tab’s who-the-heck-knows, depending on your editor, the other guy’s personal preferences, the font employed …), and I expect the way I format complex if expressions would drive him up a wall.
I also suspect that a few of his preferences are predicated on the assumption that his current project only needs to build against the interface of the version of his engine that he’s got right there, and that known of it will really be maintained over, say, the next decade.
I don’t use it myself, because I like spaces, but I don’t have a problem with tabs for indentation and spaces for alignment. Fonts should be fixed-width so it should work out well.
“But, I loathe his predilection for tabs”
M-x untabify
:)
++
Yeah forcing everyone to use the same tabs is mean.
If you want to align everything the way he does, you use tabs to indent, then spaces to align things, that way everyone keeps their tab preference while still getting your nice vertical alignment.
Of course, I don’t actually think the vertical alignment helps, it just makes it take longer for me to check the type of things.
I gave up on programming years ago (my degree is actually in programming) and all I can do these days is clean up other people’s sloppy code, and not even always then, so while the post body itself is wholly comprehensible to me, the comment section is a bunch of gobbledy-gook I cannot process.
Thus, my only comment is this:
NERDS!
It isn’t just programming. Any set of notes or instructions is like this.
Earlier today I had to update a project with a new Census Dataset (if I could find the guy who decided the Bureau needed 3 different ID codes rather than just sticking to Federal Information Processing System, I’d chew him out good). Anyway, it was new data, but I’d done 30 some years of prior data last year. So I pulled out the old datasets and the notes for variable selection et cetera. Following my old instructions I came out with not quite the same results.
While I’m mostly going to blame the Bureau for chaning data standards between 2002 and 2007, I also had some difficulty interpreting my notes. It turns out “E+F+H+L+M+N” is not a clear enough note (I had to refer to another document which explained all those variables).
I haven’t done anywhere enough textual programming to be able to even catch a glimpse of what all these comments are talking about…
“My, uh, variables are camelCase and my filenames use underscores!”
However, from the angle of Visual Programming:
Whenever I start out to do something, I usually just drop nodes in the lose manner of a top-down structure (those nodes have their inputs on top, outputs on bottom) as long as I can follow what I’m doing. But whenever one functionality is implemented or a problem – no matter how small – is solved, I take some time to clean up and arrange everything neatly into (visual) blocks or clusters of ThisDoesThat.
This topic in vvvv, illustrated:
Nice, I get it
Work in progress?
Spaghetti!!
That first one is horrible. It’s harder to read and more verbose, without actually providing any more information.
Also, “float iFourthVariable;”?
float iFourthVariable;?
Those stupid prefixes are bad enough when you get them right.
In the article above you link this page:
which is trying to refer to this text file:
which doesn’t exist.
I’m leaving a comment here because the page that is broken has comments turned off.
Amazing issues here. I’m very satisfied to peer your article.
Thank you so much and I’m looking ahead to contact you. Will you kindly drop me> | https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=18368&replytocom=324300 | CC-MAIN-2022-40 | refinedweb | 13,974 | 69.72 |
view raw
I was running a quick little test to display the currently selected value of a spinner by printing the value to a TextInput.
When the spinner is clicked it opens the drop down like it should when I click on the Display All option it sets it as active like it should (meaning it's the currently selected value) and the drop down closes but it doesn't seem to register correctly because it won't enter the function until I open the drop down and click on that value again.
Any suggestions as to how fix this?
from kivy.uix.spinner import Spinner
from kivy.uix.widget import Widget
import kivy.event
from kivy.uix.textinput import TextInput
from kivy.app import App
from kivy.core.window import Window
import kivy
def Display_All(s):
displayWindow.text = s
return None
def Pick(event):
val = fileMenu.text
if val == 'Display All':
Display_All(val)
Root = Widget(size = (890, 505))
displayWindow = TextInput(pos = (250, 30), size = (620, 470))
fileMenu = Spinner(text = 'File',
values = ('File', 'Display All', 'Print', 'Search Specific'),
size = (120, 44), pos = (0, 460))
fileMenu.bind(on_press = Pick)
Root.add_widget(displayWindow)
Root.add_widget(fileMenu)
class ExampleApp(App):
def build(self):
return Root
Window.size = (890, 505)
if __name__ == '__main__':
ExampleApp().run()
The behaviour is completely expected:
on_press triggers at the time of clicking, not when the
text property changes. Therefore, you should change
Pick to something like:
def Pick(sender, val): if val == 'Display All': Display_All(val)
(note that
val will already contain the
text value, so no need to retrieve it explicitly). And bind
Pick to the event with
fileMenu.bind(text = Pick) | https://codedump.io/share/tQ2iR8lBcO96/1/issue-with-a-kivy-spinner-not-updating-text-value-right-away | CC-MAIN-2017-22 | refinedweb | 274 | 57.16 |
This function is used to change the name of file. Its prototype may be written as given below.
int rename(const char* Old_name, const char * New_name);
After the operation of this function, the file is no longer accessible with the old name. It becomes accessible with the new name only.
Illustrates rename () functions
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
void main()
{
FILE* fptr; // declaration of filepointer
fptr = fopen("Student_file","w"); /*opens a filefor writing*/
clrscr();
if(fptr ==NULL) /* check if not opened*/
{
printf("File could not be opened");
exit(1);
}
else
printf("File Student file is open for writing.\n");
rename ("Student_file", "Teacher_file"); /* rename the file*/
fptr = fopen("Teacher_file", "a"); /*open with new name*/
if(fptr ==NULL) /* check for failure */
printf("File with name Teacher file not accessible.\n");
printf ("The file is now accessible with 'name Teacher _file.\n") ;
rename ("Teacher_file", "Myfile");
/*The above code Changes file name to Myfile.*/
if(fptr== NULL)
printf( "The file not accessible.");
fptr = fopen ("Myfile", "a"); //open Myfile for appending
if(fptr ==NULL)
{
printf("Myfile is not accessible");
exit (1);
}
else
printf("The file with name Myfile is open for appending.\n");
fclose(fptr);
} //close file stream | http://ecomputernotes.com/what-is-c/file-handling/function-rename | CC-MAIN-2020-05 | refinedweb | 194 | 57.98 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.